7/13/2005
craaaash
well today; got a facial, spent wasteful hours on the internet, ate, read the newest macleans and now i feel convicted to make a new layout :) joy.since i have nothing really important to say besides i think i'm getting used to my new hair that i got yesterday (yay!) i'll leave you guys with an article i read from macleans about the movie 'wedding crashers' that i found funny :)
"What a freakish summer at the movies. We've watched Batman learn his chops from ninja warriors in the Himalayas. We've seen Brad and Angelina wage marital war onscreen while their "secret" love makes headlines. And we've heard Tom Cruise profess his belief in extraterrestrials while branding psychiatry a hoax. But among all the weird mutations, here's a happy event: the marriage of the buddy movie and the chick flick.
The picture that ties the knot is Wedding Crashers. This romantic comedy has a plot that's as torqued as any of the summer's special-effects blockbusters. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play John and Jeremy, lifelong friends who work together as divorce mediators in Washington. Their springtime hobby is to crash weddings so they can seduce women at their most vulnerable. They concoct elaborate backstories and play their sensitivity as a con, using eye drops to produce tears for the ceremony. But they meet their match when they pose as brothers at a lavish wedding hosted by a blue-blooded patriarch, the U.S. treasury secretary (Christopher Walken). John breaks the rules of the game by falling in love -- with the patriarch's daughter, Claire (Rachel McAdams) -- while Jeremy gets saddled with her clingy, oversexed sister (Isla Fisher).
We've seen the formula countless times. Romance drives a wedge between two footloose buddies, who then break up, make up and grow up, as love conquers all. But what makes Wedding Crashers unusual -- aside from a star-making performance by McAdams, who has the most radiant smile since Audrey Hepburn -- is how Wilson and Vaughn reinvent the masculine mystique. They've come up with a new hybrid: the sensitive sleazeball.
Their characters are skirt-chasing liars who will do anything to score, but they're full of sweetness and wit, which is why their con works so well. They're like an old vaudeville duo, adapting their act to whatever "town" they're playing. Jewish, Irish, Italian, Hindu -- they crash weddings with equal-opportunity gusto, always making themselves the hit of the party. They do magic tricks for the kids, dance with the old ladies, and seduce babes with fake war stories of a tragic past and lines like, "You know when they say we only use 10 per cent of our brains? I think we only use 10 per cent of our hearts."
There's a scene where Wilson's character chats up a beautiful woman who tells him she was touched to see tears in his eyes at the ceremony. "You weren't supposed to see that," he says. "Now you'll think I'm a big pussy." Talk about devious: a guy fakes tears to impress a girl and then acts sheepish so she'll think he's masculine enough to be ashamed of showing emotional weakness. Being a guy has never been so complicated.
Even though John and Jeremy are self-serving frauds, they remain oddly likeable. We admire their talent, and the dedication they put into pretending they care. They know how to talk to women. At least they act like perfect guys. And their faux sensitivity, with its ironic self-awareness, looks pretty good next to the cold-blooded machismo of the movie's villain -- Claire's Ivy League, football-mad pit bull of a boyfriend.
The pickup artists in Wedding Crashers are tender predators. With his blond shag and wistful gaze, Wilson's like a frisky, adorable sheepdog. Vaughn, who towers over him at six foot five, is an overgrown puppy let loose on the buffet table. What makes them appealing, to men and women, is the way they care about each other. The real romance in this movie is between the two guys. At key points in the script, each says, "I love you." Not many hetero men go through life with that sort of close male friendship. But most feel they should, because male bonding is what being a real guy is supposed to be about, as much as finding Ms. Right. Wilson's Peter Pan wins the girl without losing the guy -- and still doesn't have to grow up. He gets to have his wedding cake and eat it too.
"What a freakish summer at the movies. We've watched Batman learn his chops from ninja warriors in the Himalayas. We've seen Brad and Angelina wage marital war onscreen while their "secret" love makes headlines. And we've heard Tom Cruise profess his belief in extraterrestrials while branding psychiatry a hoax. But among all the weird mutations, here's a happy event: the marriage of the buddy movie and the chick flick.
The picture that ties the knot is Wedding Crashers. This romantic comedy has a plot that's as torqued as any of the summer's special-effects blockbusters. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play John and Jeremy, lifelong friends who work together as divorce mediators in Washington. Their springtime hobby is to crash weddings so they can seduce women at their most vulnerable. They concoct elaborate backstories and play their sensitivity as a con, using eye drops to produce tears for the ceremony. But they meet their match when they pose as brothers at a lavish wedding hosted by a blue-blooded patriarch, the U.S. treasury secretary (Christopher Walken). John breaks the rules of the game by falling in love -- with the patriarch's daughter, Claire (Rachel McAdams) -- while Jeremy gets saddled with her clingy, oversexed sister (Isla Fisher).
We've seen the formula countless times. Romance drives a wedge between two footloose buddies, who then break up, make up and grow up, as love conquers all. But what makes Wedding Crashers unusual -- aside from a star-making performance by McAdams, who has the most radiant smile since Audrey Hepburn -- is how Wilson and Vaughn reinvent the masculine mystique. They've come up with a new hybrid: the sensitive sleazeball.
Their characters are skirt-chasing liars who will do anything to score, but they're full of sweetness and wit, which is why their con works so well. They're like an old vaudeville duo, adapting their act to whatever "town" they're playing. Jewish, Irish, Italian, Hindu -- they crash weddings with equal-opportunity gusto, always making themselves the hit of the party. They do magic tricks for the kids, dance with the old ladies, and seduce babes with fake war stories of a tragic past and lines like, "You know when they say we only use 10 per cent of our brains? I think we only use 10 per cent of our hearts."
There's a scene where Wilson's character chats up a beautiful woman who tells him she was touched to see tears in his eyes at the ceremony. "You weren't supposed to see that," he says. "Now you'll think I'm a big pussy." Talk about devious: a guy fakes tears to impress a girl and then acts sheepish so she'll think he's masculine enough to be ashamed of showing emotional weakness. Being a guy has never been so complicated.
Even though John and Jeremy are self-serving frauds, they remain oddly likeable. We admire their talent, and the dedication they put into pretending they care. They know how to talk to women. At least they act like perfect guys. And their faux sensitivity, with its ironic self-awareness, looks pretty good next to the cold-blooded machismo of the movie's villain -- Claire's Ivy League, football-mad pit bull of a boyfriend.
The pickup artists in Wedding Crashers are tender predators. With his blond shag and wistful gaze, Wilson's like a frisky, adorable sheepdog. Vaughn, who towers over him at six foot five, is an overgrown puppy let loose on the buffet table. What makes them appealing, to men and women, is the way they care about each other. The real romance in this movie is between the two guys. At key points in the script, each says, "I love you." Not many hetero men go through life with that sort of close male friendship. But most feel they should, because male bonding is what being a real guy is supposed to be about, as much as finding Ms. Right. Wilson's Peter Pan wins the girl without losing the guy -- and still doesn't have to grow up. He gets to have his wedding cake and eat it too."
- BRIAN D. JOHNSON, macleans july 13, 2005
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