The Missed Kiss, and Other Movie Mysteries

First off, let me apologize for completely skipping last week’s entry. It was my last week of work before I head back to Philadelphia for—oh lord—my senior year of college, and things were very crazy-busy. I think I owe my biggest apology to my friend Cherie who was studying for her DAT (the MCAT for wannabe dentists) all last week and was hoping to use my blog as a method of procrastination. Yeah, I dropped the ball there.

I also started to experience some blogger self-doubt—questioning whether anything I had to write was really worthy of being read. This is supposed to be an online community of bloggers writing about their specific roles in the film industry. Thing is, I’m obviously not a member of the industry. Not yet, and perhaps not ever. So I wonder what those of you who come to my blog are hoping to read. What perspective do you want to gain from a cinema studies student writing her thesis and looking for a job? Definitely don’t hesitate to suggest topics or ask questions or start conversations—this way, I feel like what I’m writing has some relevance.

On with the blogging: One of the many, many reasons why I value movies as important cultural resources is that they reflect our lives and how we live them. I firmly believe that children today learn how to behave in part from what they see onscreen. That said, movies aren’t always honest about what they show us. Decades of codes and conventions and cues that help us read what we see have settled into comfortable clichés that no longer hold any real meaning.

I’m watching Enchanted as I write—a delightful movie with a gorgeously sunny chanteuse in Amy Adams. I go crazy for that Oscar-nominated final ballroom song, although it is completely ruined when Patrick Dempsey starts singing (I’m not a McDreamy person). This film made me think of what has become, for me, one of the great puzzles of making movies: the Missed Kiss.

You all know what the Missed Kiss entails. Preceded by solemn conversation that decomposes into silly, empty sentences as the two parties involved realize that a liplock is imminent. They lean in toward each other, slowly, hesitantly, lashes fluttering downward, hearts racing……

And then someone wimps out. They were both right on track for a solid smooch (a feat indeed, when their eyes are closed and they’re moving that slowly). Then, one or both pulls away, usually for some lame reason—generally an internal struggle that helps to drive the rest of the plot. They turn from each other, bracing themselves for one of two inevitabilities: majorly awkward silence or embarrassing filler phrases.

I’ll stake my first-year salary (assuming I actually land a salary somewhere!) that the Missed Kiss just doesn’t happen in real life. Maybe it used to, when courting rituals were more defined and a stronger sense of propriety was instilled in the youth. I’ve never heard of anyone actually playing out a Missed Kiss, unless they were doing what they thought they were supposed to do, as based on the experiences movies show us.

There are many, many strange and different kinds of kissing that happen in real life. There’s the wonderful-for-you-two, annoying-as-hell-for-everyone-else kind of PDA you really only see in the streets of France. There are real kisses that happen between real people who don’t try to wring the drama from every minute they’re alive, kisses that actually contain traces of 1930s Hollywood romance. And then there are drunk kisses, which is really the most common kind at college. Mistake kisses, can’t-believe-I-did-that kisses, dare kisses, impulse kisses, but no Missed Kisses—the general rationale being kiss first, ask questions later. Sorry, but I think the only Missed Kiss in the movies that actually makes sense is from the genius Superbad: Jonah Hill’s Seth tries to find his crush’s lips, but falls drunkenly into her face, giving her a black eye. Now that one I’ve actually seen happen, at many a campus frat party.

The Missed Kiss has become in recent years one of the most overused groan-inducing plot devices—right up there with the I’m Not Gay (Not That There’s Anything Wrong With That) Speech and the Tom Hanks Accent. It indicates, in my opinion, a laziness on behalf of the artist responsible. The Missed Kiss should have been retired after the MTV Movie Awards did a Dawson’s Creek parody of a slow kiss between Dawson and Joey that takes the length of a room and the entirety of that mind-numbing theme song to complete. Once Samuel L. Jackson interrupted the imminent kiss by bursting in through the window and smashing the radio playing the ubiquitous tune, the Missed Kiss was done.

Or so we thought. Filmmakers have continued to resort to this and other tired tricks, maybe to give the actors a break from, you know, acting. They are stand-ins—rather than finding creative, expressive ways to get the point across, old favorites are called up as automatic replacements for genuine emoting. Everyone can recognize the Missed Kiss, so no further effort need be made to convey the characters’ internal struggles and external obstacles. Something stands in the way of true love—comedy, and this something is overcome; tragedy, and it will remain a mile-high roadblock. Yes, the Missed Kiss really says all this, but it is now just a pale echo left behind after decades of use.

There are few movies that show unique individuals relating to each other in something other than movie language. And I think there’s a part of today’s audience that’s getting fed up. Maybe this is why documentaries are becoming more and more popular. We crave something more substantial than cliché. We want something real to chew on.

Thanks for reading!

Sara

“Another idiotic blogger”, or, When I cannot tolerate criticism

I’m pretty fired up this week and have had trouble channeling that energy into a coherent and cohesive entry, which is why I’m late in posting my blog. For the record, this thing is supposed to go up weekly, on Wednesdays, JUST in case there are some loyal followers out there. Anyone who knows me will agree that this is a dangerous opportunity I have been granted—the power to immortalize my thoughts by launching them into cyberspace, where they will sail forever on an unbroken trajectory. I’ve seen Spiderman and I know that with great power comes great responsibility, so I’m trying to check my ego and understand that this license to post does NOT mean I can be irresponsible about my blog content. For instance, I doubt the general public will appreciate it if I confide that the blinking Word cursor has suddenly and inexplicably shrunk to half its normal size. I’m having computer problems today… But that’s not why you come to Film Industry Bloggers.

Bloggers are widely criticized for their inflated sense of self-importance. Why, why WHY should we, do we give a fuck about whatever the hell is going on in YOUR life? Who are you to write anything, to THINK about anything? What credits YOU to have this opinion?

To be fair, many bloggers do suffer from this extended bout of ego. Having a forum for your ideas gives you authority, albeit a questionable, come-from-nowhere authority that is so true to the spirit of the Internet. You are suddenly legitimized. I blog, therefore I am.

That being said, who are we to tell someone that their thoughts are invalid? What grants any of US the authority to lampoon thinking beings for doing what Descartes pointed out was critical to existence itself?

These ideas are especially relevant to me this week, for several reasons involving (in no particular order): Alan Rickman, American Film Criticism, and Tucker Max. Actually, that was in alphabetical order.

I’ll start at the end. If you’re not familiar with Tucker Max, I’ll sum it up for you in a nutshell: he is an asshole. I’m not being mean—I know this because Tucker tells me: “My name is Tucker Max, and I am an asshole.” Anyway, to avoid stealing any of her thunder, I’ll just say that The Script Reader (who generally has a kick-ass blog) wrote a fantastic one last week about the in-production Tucker Max movie. She gave it—what she read of it—a miserable review, which makes sense because she sounds smart. Not elitist smart—and actually, let me break here to point out that I hate hate HATE it when intelligent people with opinions are criticized for being elitist and pretentious. Fuck, they’re offering their thoughts up to the slaughter and the public gleefully tries to knock them off their so-called “pedestals” to bring them down to the level of everyone else. It’s a sad state of affairs when thinking people aren’t allowed to do even that and self-glorifying idiots get off by trying to take them down.. Look, I appreciate She’s the Man—a decidedly stupid movie that is nevertheless one of my favorites—much more than probably Amanda Bynes herself. I loved the first and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I was raised on Animal House (thanks, Dad). I laugh louder at wildly obscene viral videos than most of my friends. I also adore Orson Welles and I can write intelligently about Abbas Kiarostami. Does that square with your self-proclaimed populist views—a shallow rationalization for being an online bully?

So while I’ll defend to the death Tucker Max’s right to say what he will, my opinion (and people: it’s just my opinion!) is that he’s poisonous. The Script Reader expressed her opinion and got slammed for it by the Tucker Max Morons, most of whom haven’t read the script and are therefore not totally qualified to disagree with her take. The thing that disturbed me most was that many of them read like this comment, submitted by “Dee”:

“Another idiotic blogger using a blog to proclaim that she/he is devoid of talent. Being overly critical of someone else’s work in a blog is like a finger painter blasting an artist. Blogs are just perfect as the showcases of the socially maladjusted who probably can’t get anyone to converse with them in person. After reading this trash I can’t wait to see the movie.”

Like a finger painter blasting an artist……who says a cat may not look at a king? And why, Dee, is your criticism justified where The Script Reader’s is not? If bloggers are the socially maladjusted of the world, then who are the parasites who glom onto the blogs and chew away at it? I would watch your finger-pointing, Dee and everyone else whose self-righteous berating made me want to throw my laptop across the room.

Film critics all over the country are losing their jobs for exactly this reason: the general public doesn’t seem to appreciate that one person is permitted to share his or her opinion. Granted, that subjective view is legitimized somewhat when it has the backing of an establish periodical, but it still remains highly subjective, and I would argue that there are few film critics who truly believe themselves to be the World’s Foremost Authority on anything, much less film. They love film and they love talking about film; take what they say with a grain of salt and move on. Maybe you’re still miffed that the critics didn’t like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest when omigod that movie was awesome! Authority figures only have as much power as you give them and instead of whining and crying about the New York Times critic being too elitist and out of touch, you could be thinking your own thoughts.

One of the wonderful and, as mentioned, dangerous things about the Internet is the way it empowers and legitimizes people, no matter how unqualified, illiterate, or bat-shit berserk they may be. So the perceived hierarchical criticism of film—the people’s art—is giving way to a more democratic web-based system. Not everyone can write for Slate, but everyone can be a blogger!

I’m actually excited about this. I think anything that gets people to think harder about movies and make the effort to form their own viewpoint is vital. I just wish that Internet writers would take a second to proofread before they post. I honestly fear that someday we’re all going to talk Newspeak, like in 1984 (if you haven’t read the book, this is a good link to click). And after saying that, I know I’m going to get killed if I made even one tiny spelling mistake in this post. Because there are those of you lying in wait, ready to pounce on anyone who dares to have an original thought.

I didn’t get to Alan Rickman, did I? I’ll write about him later. For now I’ll close this entry, because I think I’ve done enough to showcase my social maladjustment. It’s time to resume my search for someone with whom I can converse.

 

Your blogger-in-arms,

Sara

 

P.S. Sometimes, I link words or phrases to sites that are relevant and help explain what’s going on in my ramblings. I’ve been finding that there are blue underlined words appearing in my blog entries without my consent. This site is trying an Amazon.com sponsoring thing and so, Amazon is making its own recommendations on my time. They are not nearly as relevant as the links I put up, although sometimes more entertaining because they make less sense. Anyway, just wanted to make you aware.