Chapter One, We Didn’t Really Get Along. Chapter Two, I Think I Fell in Love with You.
Matt and I watched The Notebook last night. Look, it was a moment of weakness. Nicholas Sparks has NEVER impressed me, and by that I mean I think he’s a horrible writer. (I tried A Walk to Remember—the book—and honestly just could not make it through. I only watched the movie for Shane West.) But I heard that James Garner and Gena Rowlands were good in it, and Rachel McAdams is just so darn cute. And I love the South, the 1940s, and love stories, and love stories set in the South in the 1940s. So, we rented it. (Plus it was free, now that we’re Blockbuster Rewards members.)
It was actually okay. The Rachel McAdams–Ryan Gosling story wouldn’t have been enough on its own, but I thought the addition of the old couple made the whole thing sort of poignant.
Worst line of the movie:
“It was easy for Allie to fall in love with Lon. . . . He was fabulously wealthy.”
Best line of the movie:
“Then Fate stepped in and dealt him a sweet card.”
I suppose those two might be interchangeable, depending on your penchant for irony—they’re both pretty awful! Mostly I just really like the phrase “sweet card.” I really do.
I’ll tell you what this reminds me of, is a creative writing class I took at BYU, in which I was mercilessly mocked for actually writing the sentence “Her hair was still a splendid auburn and her green eyes still glowed sometimes.” Oh, but I learned quickly. Ah Youth! That ended up being a good story despite the difficulties along the way, BTW.
That was a great class. And I actually learned a lot about writing, not that you can tell from this blog. But I’ll tell you one thing, and that is that of all the many, many (much too many) words that make it into my prose, the words “splendid” and “fabulously” are not among them. And they never will be. Unless I’m quoting Mr. Banks from Mary Poppins (“Splendid, splendid”).
Does that make me a snob?
Then again, unlike Nicky Sparks, I haven’t sold zillions of books or had my stories made into movies.
I’m really probably not using “sweet card” often enough. That or I need Fate to step in and deal me one.
Music: Every Day I Write the Book – Elvis Costello
7 comments:
it took me three tries to get more than fifteen minutes into that movie. By the time I actually watched it though- it magically turned into a tie for my all time favorite movie. Wierd, huh? Yeah. The old couple was just nice to think about. Indeed.
You know, I think it really is a cute movie. There's some really stilted dialogue, and I thought the ending was a little overdone (IMO, they should have just had them die together without announcement, leaving out the line "Do you think our love could carry us away together?"), but the whole idea of loving someone that much is nice. And everybody can identify with it, I think.
Hey Mr. Marbles, I just looked at your profile picture and was surprised and pleased to see my old buddy Claire. She and I went to Vienna together like 3 years ago. Tell her Eliza said hi.
Would it be a good idea for me to take creative writing? I've been thinking about it, because I want to take a screenwriting class later on as well.
I took two really good writing classes at BYU--one was Writing about the Humanities with Dr. Jacobs and the other was Advanced Creative Writing with Dr. Thayer. Writing classes certainly can't hurt.
I took a creative writing class from Doug Thayer eons ago - he doesn't especially remember me - my creative writing efforts are entirely forgettable - but I know he remembers Phoebe and Harry. I usually like his writing - but his last book was a big disappointment to me - it was cliche Mormon fiction.
Any and all writing classes help - in any and all parts of your life.
And I have a hard time with Nicholas Sparks - and I read him in the Good Housekeeping condensed version! He is too cliche for me.
I am sure that your criticism of gool ol' Nick is shocking people right now. I know so many people that just gush about his books, yet I still have not read a single word. Hmmmm...DO I not value my friends opinions or am I a snob?
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