Monday, November 26, 2012

I Love Love

I hate Moulin Rouge.  In theory I should love it because I love musicals and shiny things, but I most definitely do NOT love Moulin Rouge.

It`s not the casting.  I think Nicole Kidman is lovely and a very gifted actress.  And I love Ewan McGregor too.  But when I say I love Ewan McGregor, I mean specifically when he`s a junkie or murderer or general badass misbehaver.  He was also pretty awesome in Big Fish.  However, I do not enjoy him when he`s a lovestruck sap surrounded by a bunch of hearts and singing about love with some girl named Satine.

By now it may be apparent that I do not enjoy movie love.  Never have.  I find scripted romances contrived and boring, and I simply do not want any part of them.  It`s okay if people happen to be in love in movies, like Butch and Fabienne in Pulp Fiction.  But as far as I`m concerned cinematic love must never overshadow witty banter about hamburgers and shooting people in the face.

A few years ago I was on my way to Winnipeg with a van full of dancers for a big Championship.  It was a pretty long trip, and we all took turns selecting the music.  I cannot even count the number of times I heard the enthusiastic words "Let`s listen to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack again!!!", but I kind of felt like stabbing myself in the eye a little bit somewhere around Kingston (ie 2 or 3 hours in).  And I have one of those eye things where the idea of anything even touching my eye makes me freak out and I can`t think about anything else for days.  But I could grin and bear my contempt and it was all fine because I knew that every six hours or so I would be allowed to put on some depressing emo shit for 48 minutes and everyone else would know my suffering.  Take that world!

So I quietly sat through the Moulin Rouge soundtrack as it took its 87th course, and maybe even sang along a little just so nobody was onto me.  But then someone said to me specifically "Don`t you just love Moulin Rouge?"  

At that point I basically exploded.

"NOOOOOO!  I HATE MOULIN ROUGE AND I HATE THIS STUPID SOUNDTRACK!  I`M SO SICK OF STUPID NICOLE KIDMAN AND STUPID EWAN MCGREGOR SINGING ABOUT STUPID LOVE AND BEING ALL LIKE `I LOVE LOVE CUZ LOVIN` LOVE IS LIKE LOVE..."

This tirade continued for quite some time because you find that you have a lot of pent up frustration when you`ve just listened to an overproduced cover of Roxanne twice an hour every single hour for the past three days.  Apparently my misery was hilarious because they all started laughing hysterically, and "I love love cuz lovin`love is like love" became something of a theme song.  The music rotation also became more diverse after that, and a 4 times per day Moulin Rouge policy may have been invoked.

The following year we went to Nova Scotia and collectively penned a love ballad for a penguin wedding and performed a matrimonial ceremony for our McDonalds Happy Meal toys. Yes, some of us were in our twenties.

No comments:

Post a Comment