Someday, My prince will come...

After last entry I decided to take a break from culture and to curl up in a blanket to see my next guilty pleasure. As ashamed as I am to admit it, I have a notorious soft spot for wrong side of the tracks-romance-through-dance movies. Save the Last Dance? Check. Step Up? Check. Dirty Dancing (1+2)? Check and check. Another Cinderella Story? The jury is still out on it.

Don't get me wrong. I think the story is cute and that the idea of an aging pop-star as the wicked stepmother is pure genius. I actually like the cheesy High School Musical-esque music (maybe it could be because Drew Seeley's voice was meshed with Zac Efron's for the role of Troy in the first one?).  For me the main foible the film is the upcoming Disney talent, Selena Gomez. Now, Selena has a decent voice and I wish I could dance like her, but all I could think throughout this film was that she looked like an eight year old. Yeah maybe in all actuality she is only two years younger then me, but actuality doesn't change the age she appears. What should have been a new favorite guilty pleasure scene at the school Valentine's dance where the two zero in on each other makes me feel weird to watch, simply because she is doing all of these great salsa moves with a guy who looks like he could be 15 years older than her. It makes me want to tell her to put that highly extended leg away. The film makers keep trying to "sex her up" at every turn, whether it be with the dance moves or with the copious amounts of skinny jeans. This fails at making her look older.

And about him appearing to be so much older than her. The premise is that superstar Joey Parker is coming back to school for senior year, though he looks to be about 23, which could be believed if he wasn't attending high school. Also, Andrew Seeley is billed as Drew Seeley for the film in an attempt to make the actor himself seem younger. By the way, he real age is that of Selena Gomez's, plus ten years.

This saddens me, because it is a film with so much guilty pleasure potential. The supporting cast is fantastic, the characters are well written and choreography is good. I could see myself obsessing over Andrew Seeley for a little while, which is the intent of his casting and always a high point for me. Despite all of these things, I don't think that I'll ever be able to get past the fact that to me, Selena Gomez is 8. And to watch it on a guilty pleasure level would make me feel like a pedophile. Which often doesn't make for a happy movie watching experience.

Is the obsession of older men- younger women taking over the tween movieverse?

Commentary on the French

French women in the media are notorious rule breakers. They would sit and drink in bars decades before their tight-laced English counterparts would dream of doing the same. Despite this, men have continuously been chasing after them, lured by their vivacity and saunter.

There are two women of who I am thinking in particular. One of them is Amelie, a recent netflix import of mine. This delightful heroine, played by french favorite Audrey Tautou, is the worst kind of female stereotype... She is a meddler. In a motive to get her father out of the house, she steals his garden gnome and sends him on a trip around the world, with her father getting Polaroid updates on the gnome's location. She finds a way into the apartment of the grocer who lives downstairs, the one who is always yelling at his help for being slow, and does unnoticeable things that upset his routine. Even worse, she plays matchmaker to unwilling participants and falls in love with someone who she has only seen once. You really can't get more annoying female than that. Yet she is all the more endearing for all of her actions and walks away from it all unscathed and all the better for it, in addition to actual having helped in all of her meddling. How can I get that talent? 

I am also very happy that this film was made in France, rather then have the story told by American filmmakers. Because of its romantic nature, studios would have pressed this "autosap" button that is used on all romantic comedies. Amelie would have been Amelia (or more likely Mia), played by someone leggy that can pull off on-screen klutziness. The man that she falls for would have been a long forgotten childhood friend, whom neither of them realizes the reality of until they finally lock eyes at the end, instead of him being a stranger. He would also be a very successful, yet misanthropic and womanizing, writer. No, this french version is much better. In it Amelie does not apologize for who she is, like her American counterpart would. She just bounces along.

The other French creation is an Egyptian courtesan by the name of Thais, from the Massanet opera of the same name. (Though opera is an unusual form of media to analyze now, in the 18th century going to the theatre or the opera house was the original movie night.) When she is introduced in the first act, this woman is self-assured in her beauty and sexuality, which is not common of female heroines now. She knows that she exerts a large control and hold over men and uses it to her every possible advantage. Yet as her mirror aria says (Dis-moi Que Je Suis Belle- Tell Me That I am Beautiful), she knows that her beauty is fleeting, and she wants more. These are the themes are what keep Cosmo in business.

It is for this want of more that she is drawn to Athaneal, a monk whom after a vision is compelled to save her from herself and to get she to a nunnery. She is attracted to Athaneal's conviction and determination, and goes willingly and happily. It is only after he leaves her to the sisters that he realizes that he loves her. It ends with her death and his realization that all of his religious convictions were for nothing if he never had what he truly loved in life, which was her. 

What I find most interesting is the difference between these two women. Amelie, who by all means modest and shy, pining away for a man she has never met. Then by contrast is Thais, a modern woman who takes her life into her own hands, yet was written 200 years earlier. Just some food for thought. Any opinions?