meganbmoore | You, Sir and Madame, are not romantic

"Love means never having to say you're sorry"? What IS that? If anything love means having to say you're sorry more than usual. And Sleepless in Seattle has always seemed like a creepy premise to me.

This is why I generally hate American chick flicks.

Sleepless in Seattle I've never seen or been interested in. And I completely agree about that line. I'm sure it's supposed to be read as "love means knowing you'll be forgiven" but it comes across more as "love means you can get away with whatever you want, and if they object, they don't love you."

I have issues with most chick flicks myself...or US media in general where romance is centric.

Ugh. I don't think I've ever seen a Meg Ryan movie that didn't make me want to hit people, starting with whoever forced me to watch a Meg Ryan movie and ending with the entire cast and crew, with Meg herself for the grand finale.

"City of Angels" would probably be the least painful of the lot that I've suffered through -- not that it didn't suck mightily for the most part, but it had two great redeeming features: (1) Andre Braugher and (2) Meg's character dies horribly.

Oddly, I like Meg Ryan well enough, I just don't like her movies.

Never made myself watch City of Angels. I remember my brother loving it, though.

COA is an American remake of the classic "Wings of Desire"; there aren't a lot of plot similarities beyond some of the basic conceits about angels. WOD is a lovely, slow mood piece, COA is...another fairly basic Meg Ryan chick flick, only the love story is tarted up here with supernatural elements.

Hm. I've never actually seen any of them. And after reading this, I never will.

I think 'Real Genius' qualified as more of a romance.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of US RomComs I truly, genuinely like. All I'm really thinking of is How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days(because they were equals and it was equal "doing to" and need for forgiveness) and 10 Things I Hate About You.

Hmm. I take it you're sticking with ones that actually qualify as RomComs and don't get you weird looks when you tell people offline you think it's romantic. Do animated movies count? TV shows? Online comics?

Stardust, Enchanted and Princess Bride!

Yes, I am sticking to things people not-the-two-of-us regenerally consider to be RomComs.

This means we can't really apply swords and explosions and quests and shapechangers and such to it.

'Tis such a hard lot to be us.

'Tis true. At least I've progressed to the point that I no longer name Hannibal as my favourite romance novel. New favourite has a werewolf hero. Which, oddly, is deemed mainstream these days. Or at least it can be found in the 'Romance' section.

I still like swords and explosions and shapechangers in my romance. They make everything better.

bows and arrows are also good. And assassins. And demon possessions. meet!cute's involving headbutting and taking out of muggers and such are also a plus.

I'm not so fixated on the explosions myself, but shapechangers are A-OK and swords and/or martial arts are nearly essential. Basically, my idea of a good romance involves less talking-about-feelings and more killing-lots-of-other-people.

(My top romances include things like The Bride With White Hair and Masseur Ichi Enters Again. The ex favored tripe like Forget Paris and As Good As It Gets. I should've known we'd never work...)

fairest1 and I agree with you on the love story being more about killing other people than being mushy. I always get sad when the rare post-canon fic I find is all mush when the story had them bickering and/or fighting and such the whole way through, and they just aren't mush people. I agree about the crucialness of swords and martial arts. They just make everything better. It's why I tend to gravitate towards period and wuxia doramas.

And YAY! Another who dislikes As Good As It Gets. Naturally, another one my brother loves. Oddly, a similiar concept worked very well for me in a Japanese drama.

Uhm...shoot...I just remembered there was a book or something I stumbled across recently that involved wolves that I was going to mention to you.

Not Jane Lindskold(though I'm reading the second of that series now and keep thinking of you both) but I can't remember what it was now.

Oh, god, my hatred for AGAIG knows no bounds. He was all starry-eyed it's so wonderful, so romantic, it's one of my favorite movies, so I gamely sat through it and had to fight not to spork out my eyeballs and throw things at the screen to make the hurting stop. So romance means you can be a horribly offensive, unpleasant, self-absorbed jerk and...you'll wind up with an attractive woman half your age who puts up with all your crap? Oh yeah, baby, sign me up for THAT program...

The concept maybe could have worked for me, with different actors and more chemistry and a diferent script that made the character transformations seem more believable, but as it was done it just Did Not Click.

So how is the second Lindskold so far?

I think the problem with AGAIG is that it tried to be a romance without being romantic. it seemed to want to show them as "destined" while portraying the relationship as perfect and meant to be, but platonic. All I could think was that they were going to end up driving each other crazy forever and neither one would really be happy. There was also the undertone that she should be happy that she can settle on him(not choose him, but settle on him) and should just accept him the way he was. Which would be ok, except that it didn't work both ways. She had to change and accept him, but he didn't have to do the same. There's just no way I can convince myself she'll be happy with him.

What you say about the concept is why Kekkon Dekinai Otoko(the japanese drama-which I'm actually not trying to sell you on, it's just pertinent) worked for me. Throughout the drama, you realize that while he's extremely difficult and totally unaware of the feelings of others in many ways, in all the ways that count he's actually a kind and generous man, who, despite his total lack of social skills and finesse and demanding ways, really does mean well and want to help people. The theme is still people having to accept an obsessive compulsive man, but here, it's them invading his life for various reasons and realizing that he's no where near as bad as he seems, and actually something of a sweetie.

In the final romantic conflict, he and his love interest decide to get married, then he ruins it by saying they can't until he designs and builds the perfect house(he's an architect) She sensibly points out that they have years, but he says he has to begin married life in a house he can live in for the rest of his life. He obsesses nonstop about creating the house, and when he eventually designs it, he rushes to propose again. When he does, she realizes that yes, he was an ass and made their entire relationship depend on when he could build the house, but also that he did that because he wanted it to be perfect for her, and that he really was trying his hardest to change for her and be what she wanted. It wasn't about changing the person you love or forcing them to accept you, but about learning to accept the person you love.

The Lindskold started out kinda weak. Most of the focus the first 200 pages or so had Firekeeper and Blind Seer backburnered. While I like the characters and story in the human court, what makes them interesting is Firekeeper and Blind Seer's perspective of them. Around the 200 mark, though, it gets much better as Firekeeper is called back to her homeland and the narrative started switching between her and the royal animals, and the human court, and now that Firekeeper is back with her human friends, it's back to being fairly centric on her(I think Derian is being too prominent, but I accept that there's a good story basis for it...it'sd just that it's a feminist wild girl fantasy...the human stable bow shouldn't be as prominent as her.)

There was a very sweet and romantic moment where Blind Seer told her he was sad that he didn't get to see her in her glorious beauty(I forget his exact wording, but some version of "glory" was involved) at the wedding.

There was also the undertone that she should be happy that she can settle on him(not choose him, but settle on him) and should just accept him the way he was.

Ugh, yes yes yes. So you're an attractive single mom in your mid-30s, maybe a little frazzled from the stresses of your life but not a blatantly horrible personality or anything...and you're supposed to settle for an unattracive, unpleasant man old enough to be your father because, well, he's kind of rich and marginally less obnoxious than he used to be? That really, really strained my suspension of disbelief. She could do better; hell, staying single might be better than putting up with him; but she's young and attractive and pleasant enough that he really doesn't seem to be settling. I could have agreed with a message about "settling" if it was dealing with characters who have ridiculously idealized, impossible notions learning to accept that real people are flawed, and learning to settle on someone real who does not live up to their perfect fantasies, but nonetheless has worthwhile qualities, but here it felt more like "settle on something that's really not all that great, because the script says so."

The drama sounds much more palatable: a basically decent guy who's just kind of thoughtless and socially/emotionally inept is a far cry from Melvin, who seemed to me more like a genuinely unpleasant man whose character progress in the film doesn't manage to go much beyond "slightly less obnoxious than before".

The thing about AGAIG is that it tries to show her as the lucky one and him as the one who's settling...when it's the other way around. He gets everything he wants and we're supposed to be happy for her because...well, he has money, so hey, her life will be easier. Plus(they justify), you can't change a man like that anyway. They tried to pass it off as it just being the OCD that made him like that, but honestly, it's like you pointed out: he seems to just be unpleasant in general.

In the drama, he's also OCD...well, more like borderline OCD...not nearly as extreme as most fictional cases. It makes him almost impossible to live with and difficult the bear. They do a good job of showing that she honestly is probably the only person who could ever stand to live with him because he's so difficult, but it never comes across as her having to settle for him or give up who he is. She's still the one who has to accept more and be willing to bend more, but it's because he just can't change, even if he tries, rather than being unpleasant and obnoxious. The point is that he does try. And it's also very much that she chooses to accept him, flaws and all, not just that she can't do better, like in the movie.

Granted, an 11(I think...they range from 10-12) episode series has a lot more time to develop the character and relationship and to show his good side, but you could see the improvement right away. I admit to being very, very biased, though, as the male lead, Abe Hiroshi, is my favorite drama actor.

Yes, how exactly is he the one settling in that -- she's not a childless 17-year-old 36DD nymphomaniac? Cry me a river. And her life didn't seem like it was getting easier -- she'd just traded financial stress of dealing with a sickly child for constant headaches of dealing with an annoying adult. And I really had trouble buying the idea that all of his racist, sexist, homophobic nastiness was caused by his OCD.

The lack of chemistry didn't help any, either. As a platonic romance, she seemed to click better with the gay artist neighbor, who actually seemed likeable.

Bleah. I didn't even like the DOG in that waste of celluloid.

Bias is understandable -- Abe Hiroshi is about eleventy-squillion times cuter than Nicholson.

Yeah, I thought she clicked with the neighbor a lot better, too.

Abe Hiroshi is also a ton more charming and charismatic than Nicholson. Nicholson seems to largely get by by saying cranky and unpleasant and saying that it means charisma...Abe Hiroshi is more sheer presence with awkward charm underneath.

A completely different topic, but I'm reminded of this from another convo: Have you read George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books? One of the core families, the Starks, have six children, all of whom have a pet wolf from the same litter. When the father found them, he saw there were 5 normal wolves, and one white runt. He had 5 children with his wife and one illegitimate son, and there were 4 male wolfs and 2 female, just like his children. He decided that the wolves had been sent to him by the old gods for his children. As the series continues, he seems to be more and more correct. The illegitimate son and his wolf now live in a land of ice, and are often mistaken for a warrior and ghost, and are almost indisinguishable from each other. One child is crippled, and the wolf serves as his legs. One wolf is killed, and that child has been lost and adrift ever since, with no mooring...except a man referred to as "The Hound." Another child was separated from her wolf, which has supposedly become wild and savage. The more the rumors about the giant, mad wolf spread, the more we see her become more and more savage and ruthless.

(Now watch you already be reading the series, or not like it and then me quietly head for a corner.)

Though, it wasn't the book I was trying to remember last night...

ETA: BTW, what have you seen Abe Hiroshi in?

Have you read George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books?

Nope...that came out after increasing genre-crankiness had left me drifting away from modern epic fantasy. I've had a few folks rec it to me, but these were mostly the same people who also raved uncritically about stuff I loathed like Eddings and Brooks, so that was...not a big selling point. But I did flip through an anthology that included "The Hedge Knight" a few years ago and the prose didn't cause me pain, so that's a very good sign. Perhaps this is something else to add to the BookMooch list.

And now I'm really curious about the one you still can't remember. Was it the Sarah Monette/Elizabeth Bear wolves-and-Vikings thing?

what have you seen Abe Hiroshi in?

Um...don't laugh...Godzilla 2000. I have a not-too-secret weakness for kaiju.

Eddings I have fond teen memories of, but...they should remain fond teen memories. They're among the things I know I can't touch now if I want to still think well of them, if you know what I mean. Brooks...was my high fantasy intro. It's like I can't make myself stop, no matter how much I want to. I kinda want him to do something to piss me off so I can escape.

GRRM is a whole other thing, though. It's the only one of the huge, epic, bestselling, everyone praises high fantasy epics that I really like. I'd actually be curious about your reactions to it. Most people seem to be all about the plotters and betrayors and schemers, whereas I find the Starks(the wolf family) the most interesting. Even though it causes them more harm than good, and often seems foolish, they try to cling to a strict moral code and humanity that their world has no place for, and try(not always successfully) to keep from being crushed by it.

I have a feeling the book was something I saw at the bookstore the other day that sounded like something you'd like and I'd planned to ask if you'd read it, but forgot to write it down.

I am curious about the Bear/Monette books, now though.

As far as Godzilla 2000...I now believe you should watch his Taitei no Ken, which is pure, anachronistic, samurai shonen crack as a live action movie.

They're among the things I know I can't touch now if I want to still think well of them, if you know what I mean.

Totally. There is a ton of once-beloved YA genre fluff that I'm just as fearful to pick up again, now that I'm very critical and jaded; I'd rather just leave them as vague, happy memories.

All the recs for stuff like Brooks and Eddings wouldn't have bugged me so much if they hadn't been so uncritical. If those friends had been more like "well, the prose is a little clunky and the plot is a bit derivative, but I really like these characters" I would have had more realistic expectations when I picked them up. But it was more in the vein of gushy "oh, it's the coolest thing since Tolkien!" and...no, just not even close. I got burned a few times like that following their recs, since we *did* have a bunch of favorite books in common and some of their recs (mostly SF) did click with me, but I eventually figured out that in epic fantasy in particular, our tastes just Did Not Synch very well. I'm really just insanely hypercritical and anything that whiffs even slightly of being too derivative or genre-cliched, or some prose styles that I could forgive in other genres, put me right out of the groove in high fantasy. Maybe back when I was reading fantasy more voraciously I could have enjoyed those, but not anymore.

I have a feeling the book was something I saw at the bookstore the other day that sounded like something you'd like and I'd planned to ask if you'd read it, but forgot to write it down.

Was it F/SF? If it was, and something published in the last 15-20 years or so, the answer is "probably not". If it was something more on the horror/paranormal side of the fence, odds are slightly better.

I am curious about the Bear/Monette books, now though.

It's a one-shot, A Companion To Wolves, published late last year. I haven't read it yet, but it sounds like it's very, very much my sort of thing. Here's a bit from

matociquala's journal in 2005 when they were first cooking it up:

_{It's like the sex and mud and beard lice in A Companion to Wolves. No sex, no beard lice, no book. Because part of what that book is about is an argument with the tendency, in certain tendrils of the fantasy genre, to kind of sweep anything vaguely unpleasant under the rug. The Inciting Incident, of course, was the infamous semi-elided dragon-mediated rapes and less-infamous extremely-elided institutional homosexuality in the early Pern novels. But then the book takes on a life of its own, and the worldbuilding does too, and if you pull out that one thread (i.e., isn't a bit icky that dragonriders are making off with teenaged boys, some of whom are going to wind up bonding to green dragons, and we all know what those green dragons are like, and wouldn't it be interesting to tackle those social issues head-on rather than eliding them) then the whole structure of the book collapses. And you essentially have a fuzzy wish fulfillment fantasy about a boy and his wolf fighting trolls and obtaining an understanding of the world, and the world really doesn't need another one of those.

And yet, I know perfectly well that if that book goes to press, there's going to be a faction of readers who are like "oo, icky, the sex totally ruins this nice YA novel!" (nevermind the beheadings: beheadings, okay to many people's perception of YA) (no, it's not a YA novel, put down the axe--but some people think any book with a teenaged protagonist must be YA) and there are going to be readers who are like "there's all this sex, and it's not erotic at all, what's with that?" and then, Goddess willing, there will be a faction of readers who are like "Whoa! Genderfuck! And an honest appraisal of the difficulties in living your life while dealing with a physical response to the biological rhythms of another species! And negotiation and compromise and people making sacrifices to defend their families! And the psychic cost of war! And dude, pitched battles in Lovecraftian troll-tunnels, and beheadings, and beard lice, and GIANT PSYCHIC DIRE WOLVES! How cool is that?!"

And it's that last guy I'm aiming for. Dead between his eyes. Because there are books for the other two already, and they don't need my book.}

Well of course it was F/SF...

That book may have actually been it, come to think of it. I'd say "I have to go back and find out" but I already left there with a bag and a half of books this week anyway...

Terry Brooks clicked with me almost solely for a character: Wren Ohmsford. While all her male cousins were scampering around and angsting over romance and everything else and getting locked in jail and such, Wren was literally fighting her way through hell on earth, becoming queen, then fighting her way right back through that same hell with the entire elven race literally in her hand, so she could come back and save their butts.

Sadly, while some of his female characters were decent enough and the males were ok enough for your standard "coming of age fantasy heroes" Wren was the only one I ever cared about...and the one of that Shannara series he cared the least about. Everyone else got detailed post series lives...Wren got "she became queen...she's regarded as the best ruler ever...but I won't tell you squat about her." I was ready to give up on Brooks altogether, and then he brought in Grianne, who went from the handmaiden of the world's greatest evil to the most powerful force of good the world had ever known, and didn't waste her life beating herself up for her youth. She's so powerful that it essentially took an army of magic users to send her to hell, and the second she got there, she started tearing the place up to get out(sadly, I fear that in the end, she will be rescued by her nephew, the typical Ohmsford hero, instead of saving herself.)

GRRM is...well, I'm largely attached to it for the characters, and the moral message/life of the world, but it also does an extremely good job of making "huge and epic" actually feel huge and epic, instead of tust a thick book. He's the only one to ever cross the 750 page line without me wanting to tell him to shut up and get on with it.

Ah, I know you read at least a few paranormals so I didn't want to presume.

Here's the cover art for ACTW, does that look familiar?

GRRM is...well, I'm largely attached to it for the characters, and the moral message/life of the world, but it also does an extremely good job of making "huge and epic" actually feel huge and epic, instead of tust a thick book.

That is another excellent selling point in its favor. I have no problem with loooooong books when the length is necessary to tell the story properly, but I hate hate hate books that just seem to be full of unnecessary padding to the point where a proper editor would have to trade the red pencil for a chainsaw.

Hmm...nope, wasn't it.

The GRRM books are, for lack of a better way to explain it, several epic fantasy storylines playing out all at once in one huge landscape...you have the unwanted son struggling through corrupt court, the illegitimate young man struggling to find his place and becoming a leader, the boy leading a rebellion after the murder of his father, the "villainous" man finding redemption, the noble girl forced into the wild after being separated from her family and birthright and growing up on the streets, determined to have her revenge, the exiled princess returning to reclaim her birthright, and the girly-prissy girl who has to grow up and nevigate an enemy court. All these plotlines (and others) can be the core plot of any epic fantasy, but they're all taking place in one world, at one time, over the same kigdom.

ACTW may have a couple of strikes against it for your tastes -- there are apparently no major female characters (well, at least no HUMAN females), and in keeping with that whole unflinching look at the green dragonrider problem, there's a lot of rather gritty gay sex. But that whole idea of deconstructing the psychic-animal-buddy trope that's so often a totally idealized fuzzy cliche sounds soooo up my alley.

And samurai crack sounds like fun. I still need to watch Damo and a bunch of other things, but before I start scavenging for downloads and rentals I need to poke more closely at some of the local cable channels and see which of the dramas they're running are subtitled (the listings are remarkably unhelpful so the only way to find out for sure is to tune in). I get a couple of Asian networks, primarily Korean-focused given the area demographics but there's one that runs a handful of Japanese series; I just noticed last night that this station's running the old TV version of Zatoichi so I'm going to be going on a major old-school Katsu-binge soon.

On the record for dramas: Avoid Goong like the plague. It's immensely popular, but if it didn't give you hives, I'd go into shock.

It depends on the explosion, I think. There's a difference between James Bond and Girl Genius.

Killing lots of other people can really develop a relationship; for a fighter who doesn't trust easily to be able to open themselves up to their partner enough to know they'll watch thier back, and to care enough to watch theirs in return, means more than a date with ice cream and talks of a house with a white picket fence or whatever.

"Yeah, I'm trying to think of US RomComs I truly, genuinely like."

On a similar note (same hemisphere, different note), have you managed to track down "To the Manor Born" yet? Even I found it watchable in a snarky British character comedy sort of way, and you know what I normally think of romance stories...

... come to think of it, that probably isn't much of a recommendation after all...

Nope, haven't tracked it down yet.

(should have been "same hemisphere, different continent", but for some reason LJ won't let me fix the comment)

(can't edit comments after someone replies)

(ah, so it's all your fault. I should have known...)

I've only ever seen "4 Weddings" and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" off that list. The others always sort of repulsed me. Heh. I actually like both those films, though I do agree Andie McDowell was severely miscast.

I haven't seen 4 Weddings. I liked Big Fat Greek Wedding, but had problems with the fact that the hero didn't seem to be much more than a step in her journey to self-awareness. While I approve of the show being more about her taking control of her life than anything else, I couldn't help but think any male character would have served his purpose just as well.

....I agree with all of those. They suck. Ugh. I hate movies like that.

All of the teeniebopper love flicks need to be added to that pile (except 10 Things...).

Yup. 10 Things is the sole exception.

You, Sir and Madame, are not romantic

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