Monday, July 12, 2010

Why "The Notebook" sucks

Just watched The Notebook last Saturday. I'd heard a lot from people that it's really good, they all cried watching it and whatnot, so since it was on TV I decided to watch it and see what the fuss was all about.

Guess what.

It sucks. Balls.

It was ridiculously unrealistic; honestly, who in their right mind waits 7 freaking years for someone? And when you're young and stupid, you don't know what that silly thing called love is; relationships don't last very long and moreover, aren't deep at that age, even more so when there's a huge distance between the two.

In reality, if two people were to have a summer romance, then part ways after that, and not have any contact whatsoever with each other over 7 years, surely they would have moved on, if not forgotten about them?

The two lovebirds claimed that "what [we] had was real."

Yeah, real my ass. Like the two of them, at that age, would know what real love is. Like love at first sight even exists in the first place. Consumed by passion and nothing more, that was really all they had.

If the movie was being realistic, then when Allie went back to Seabrook to visit Noah, she would've just found out that even though it really wasn't over at that time, and he really did write to her, except her mother kept the letters from her, she's moved on and is about to get married to someone else. At the most, they would've remained good friends, knowing that they once shared something.

But that wouldn't make for the soppy, formulaic, romantic movie that's bound to rake in millions and bring girls to the cinema in droves and have them leave in tears, now would it?

Hollywood blatantly exploits the emotional powerhouses of the female demographic, sacrificing quality for monetary gain. And that's why I like indie/arthouse movies better than a lot of mainstream commercial movies. Sure, I don't mind the occasional mindless shoot-'em-up action movie (as long as there's a comprehensible plot and awesome effects :P), I enjoy some thrillers, sci-fi, fantasy, even the occasional drama, and I adore the 'not-exactly-old' classics that I grew up with watching over and over again countless times...........but romance? I reckon that's the one genre Hollywood does badly. There are of course, a few exceptions, such as Casablanca, but really, Hollywood still has a long way to go in perfecting the art of the genre.

Hey, let's not forget that The Notebook was based on a novel, by that ever-popular romance writer Nicholas Sparks, author of fellow weepies Dear John, A Walk to Remember, Nights in Rodanthe, etc, etc. But check this out (click on it for a larger view):


Seems the writing world has a long way to go too. Don't say I didn't tell you so. :)

Credit for the picture goes to Cracked.com. :)