Three weeks before we got married, Daniel took me to see Pride and Prejudice. It's always been one of my favorite books and it was his idea to take me to the movie despite loud mocking from my father that he would have to "turn in his dude card" for going to the ultimate chick flick. I thought it was sweet of him--there he was, standing up to relentless mocking of his manhood just because he wanted me to be happy. We are so in love, ahh. Of course, he was mighty bored the entire time. I didn't feel too bad for him though--I went to quite a few movies I could not care less about because it was a date myself. That's what being engaged is about--faking that you think M Night Shamalyan (whatever) is awesome.
I didn't expect Daniel's willingness to go to chick flicks to last for too long after our wedding, but I did not realize that "I do" was actually shorthand for "I do not have to see a movie you pick out in perpetuity of forever as of this exact moment." I thought, at least occasionally, I would be able to guilt him into taking me to a date movie. It's been nearly three years, and no, I haven't been able to. Not even one time. I really wanted to get married to Daniel, and its been great, but part of me wonders if I should have had a longer engagement so I could get in a few more movie choices before my days of picking were unequivocally over. It's especially frustrating these days because I don't have any friends to attend chick flicks with, so I have to wait until girl movies come out on DVD and watch them alone like a loser. I should have done a better job of going out with other girls, but I've stunk at that since birth, so what are you gonna do?
Since our marriage we've only been to the theater to see action movies. Period. We've only rented action movies, with the exception of Dan in Real Life, which I watched first to make sure it wasn't too girly before he would watch it with me. The trouble with action movies is, that even the good ones, are extremely similar. Since our wedding, we've seen The Bourne Ultimatum, I Am Legend, Transformers (Oh, heavens, the number of times I've seen Transformers!), Red Eye, Flightplan, The Forgotten, Flight of the Phoenix, Live Free or Die Hard, and the list goes on. We've seen Batman Begins (and the Dark Knight,) Superman Returns, Spiderman 3, and even Cinderella Man. Yes, Cinderella Man is awesome, and does have human interest, but it's a boxing movie, so it covers both sports and violence and I'm still listing it as a man movie. Friday night, it was Iron Man, which Daniel had seen in the theaters at least twice, so he sat there the entire time watching me take in the awesomeness of it all. I think he was hurt that I didn't like it. I probably would have liked it, I've liked quite a few of them (especially Live Free or Die Hard), and loved a few (who doesn't love the DaVinci Code, seriously) but I think my action/comic book movie quota was just full. Sometimes I do want to see them too, but lately, I'm burned out. Been there, seen that. Maybe if I got a wee bit of a break from them for say 1 date night, I'd see it Iron Man again and give it the love it truly deserves. Maybe I'd see it through refreshed eyes and fall in love with blowing up terrorists. Or maybe I just don't like Robert Downey Jr, and I'll feel the same way the second time around.
When I'm not in the mood for them, action movies do one of three things to me: 1) scare me 2) gross me out or 3) bore me to tears. Special shout-out to Will Smith for hitting the trifecta with I Am Legend. That was a stinker and a half.
Daniel doesn't purposely leave out every genre except action flicks, he just hates wasting money on movies that don't look wicked awesome and the only movies that look wicked awesome to him happen to fall into that category. This weekend he told me he wants to see Eagle Eye, and "hey, isn't The Hulk coming out on DVD soon? OOOh, it has Tony Stark in it too, we've got to rent that!"
I'll agree that Eagle Eye looks good, but it's a moot point. I am on strike from action movies until I get to see a movie with some freakin' human interest in it! I am happy to go to Eagle Eye and suffer through The Hulk, but not until I've seen Ghost Town or Flash of Genius first. We are going to see a movie with no explosions in it together, just once, before we go back to another action film. It doesn't have to be a romantic comedy, a lot of those stink, but no one is getting their head chopped off by a helicopter blade, or driving down stairs in a small car for our next date night. If you don't take me up on Ghost Town, you'll be sitting through The Secret Life of Bees. I'm not bluffing here, we'll have a Queen Latifah marathon if need be. To really up the ante, guess who will be sitting through a midnight showing of Twilight if you don't change your macho ways and toss me a bone once in a while? That's right, I'm throwing down the ultimate gauntlet.
These are my conditions, don't make me pull out the vampire romance on you. I'll do it.
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