500 of My Favourite Things

It's funny how different people see the same things. For one, something can be completely fantastic. For another, that same thing can be a horrible piece of shit. I guess that's what makes people so interesting.... if everyone always agreed on things, life would be boring. At the same time.... how can someone possibly dislike something I value so highly?

One girl on my fb friends has posted a couple of times now on how much she disliked 500 Days of Summer, which is actually one of my favourite movies. It's funny cause her and I seem to have a lot of other similar tastes (not that I know her all that well, but still...) and I just find the whole ordeal quite curious. What about the movie could be so offensive as to cause such an angry reaction towards it?

Because I don't have an answer to my own question, let me just talk about why I do like it.

1. I love the Smiths: This trailer pretty much had me at "Hello," or in this case, "The Smiths." As I've mentioned before, The Smiths are one of my favourite bands, and the song at the beginning of the trailer happens to be one of my favourite Smiths songs. So the first time I saw this trailer, I knew from the very beginning that I'd love the movie.

2. Thank you for Regina: It's the reason I became a big Regina Spektor fan too! "Us" and "Hero" are both wonderful songs and fit the movie quite perfectly. All the music does, actually, which is always a plus.

3. It's about a break-up: You find this out in the trailer, so there's no spoiler there. As the narrator-guy says "This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know up-front, this is not a love story." I love my chick-flicks, but I love that this is not one of them.

4. Genre, what genre? I have no idea what sort of genre it is. It's not a chick-flick. It's not a comedy. It's not a drama. It's not really an art film. It's all of them, and none of them simultaneously. It's wonderful and doesn't fit into a box. Love.

5. Zooey Deschanel: 'Nuff said.

6. Costumes: I absolutely love the way that the characters are dressed in this film (well Tom and Summer, at least)!

7. Linearity is Overrated: This scenes in this film are not shown in chronological order. It jumps back and forth a lot. It juxtaposes between lovey-dovey past and shitty present. It's just brilliantly done.

8. It's real: I doubt it's an actual true story, but at the same time, it's the true story of any past relationship. The more you look at it from afar, the more you understand things that may not have worked out, and the more you appreciate the parts of it that were good and happy. It's not one of those magical movies where everything turns out in the favour of the hero. There isn't a bad guy. It's just normal people living normal lives, for better or for worse.

Maybe it's that last part that rubs people the wrong way. When you go see a film, you want to see something that is predictable, that you can anticipate the ending, and that doesn't cause any sort of inner conflict. But this isn't one of those movies. It hits home in a big way for anyone who's ever been in a failed relationship, and I guess a lot of people aren't ready to deal with that sort of thing when sitting down for 2 hours to be entertained.

This is just the way I see it. But then again, what do I know about tastes and normalcy? All I eat is bland, tasteless food... and others would prefer a world of tastes and textures... My tastes and textures just come in a different variety, I guess ^^