10 Things I Hate About You
This is one of those “I’ve been meaning to watch it for ages” movies. Part of my reluctance was that it’s based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, which isn’t my favourite Shakespeare play, but fellow LoveCat Rachel Bailey told me it was fab, so I decided to give it a whirl. I’m glad I did!
I love, love, love that they made the heroine vulnerable, and gave her good reason for her cranky, refusing-to-conform attitude. That made the movie for me. Kat was strong and gutsy and her learning-to-trust-again character arc was perfect. I also love that they made her little sister kick-ass too (especially when I thought she was going to be a wuss). Go them!
But the one thing I really, really wanted from the movie? I wanted the hero to have a really good reason for agreeing to a money bribe to get Kat to date him. I wanted him to want/need something so badly that he’d agree to the deception…and then have to sacrifice that want/need to win Kat back.
Strictly Ballroom
I saw this movie when it first came out—BACK IN 1993!!! I still loved the story premise of a character fighting society’s expectations and doing all he can to prove himself. I loved his passion and I loved that he had talent to back that passion up.
So I had no issue with Scott. I thought him a fully rounded character. I loved Fran’s awkwardness, sympathised with her lack of confidence and self-esteem, but I wanted to know more about her. I wanted more background. What gave her the chutzpah to ask the hero to dance with her? And I want that answer to be more than she’s in love with him and wanting him to notice her (though that can certainly be an element). Maybe wanting to live up to the memory of her mother…and wanting her father to be proud of her?
For both of the above movies, I filled in those blanks for myself. ;-)
Australia
I loved the big sweep and broad canvas of this story. I enjoyed the fact that this gave the relationship between the hero and heroine a chance to go through several different mutations—dislike to friendship to becoming lovers. Actually, what I really loved is that they were lovers for a long time…and then broke up. It took them a while to work out what was really important. Once they did, though, they fought for it tooth and nail.
There was one thing I could’ve done without, though, and that was the cute-meet between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman’s characters. The horror of seeing your undergarments flung about the street? Really? Yawn. Also, why on earth did the hero have to use her suitcases as weapons anyway? Another yawn. That just did nothing for me. In fact, the writers had to work hard to overcome my dislike of that episode. Luckily they were up to the job. ;-)
Case Histories
This series is based on the Jackson Brodie books by Kate Atkinson (who I love…and true love lasts a lifetime). I’ve wanted to watch it for an age. The great delight of this series is that the private investigator Jackson Brodie is such a complicated character. For a start, he can be seriously bad-ass. This is a guy who knows how to protect himself—ex army, ex police—but he’s an utter marshmallow beneath all that when it comes to vulnerable women. He doesn’t even need to like said women—often he actively resists getting sucked into their troubles—which doesn’t work of course and he ends out doing all he can to help them feel safe. The thing is, though, making someone feel safe and sticking to the law can be two very different things, which means our hero sometimes crosses certain ethical lines. This stuff made me think. Hard.
Not all of Jackson’s cases end happily, though, and I’ve found myself absently rewriting a couple of the storylines in my mind to give the people who deserve it their happy ever after.
So…while I’ve loved my mini film festival, I’ve also enjoyed rewriting the scripts to suit myself here and there too. Do you ever do that? And have you been watching any good films lately?
Amazon
Harlequin
