The Notebook 2...Son of Spiral-Bound

OK. So I’m a little less steamed now. Allow me to continue to explain why I give The Notebook two thumbs way down. But, first, let me start by chastising Jay some more:

Jay, my friend. Don’t ever tell my wife that a chick-flick is a “pretty good movie for a chick-flick” again. You see, when you do that you provide Andrea with a heapin’ helpin’ of ammunition for the next six months.

Andrea: What do you want to do tonight?
Dan: [Suggestively] What do YOU think I want to do tonight?
Andrea: [Moderately disgusted] Don’t be gross…Get off me. No, I was thinking that we could rent a movie.
Dan: Sounds great.
Andrea: How’s about we rent that Notebook movie?
Dan: No.
Andrea: [Whinily, yes, it’s a word, look it up] Why not?
Dan: What have I ever done to suggest to you that I would possibly want to subject myself to that movie?
Andrea: Jay liked it.
Dan: Jay is a woman.
Andrea: No he’s not.
Dan: She also liked Ice Castles.
Andrea: Well I’m getting it and you are going to watch it.
Dan: [Prophetically] Fine, but I guarantee that it will be lame!

Now, I am often accused of being a pessimist, someone who expects the worst out of every situation. I usually find that I prefer being correct all the time to being optimistic all the time, and I wouldn’t be so pessimistic, if I wasn’t always so RIGHT! Anyway, there are many things that I am not pessimistic about. The fact that Jesus will return. The fact that life will someday go on down South after the hurricane as it has before. That I will one day own a home. That Andrea and I will live happily ever after. These are things I am optimistically sure of…but when presented with a movie that smells lame, looks lame and has the tagline: “Behind every great love, there is a great story”, I know that I will be watching a major-league suck-fest.

First, it took me approximately 15 seconds to figure out exactly where the movie was going. (In fairness, this is about 3 times longer than it took for me to figure out in Return to Me that David Duchovny’s wife would die and give her heart to his next love…remember that Christian Slater movie with the baboon heart?) It was pretty obvious that James Garner was reading their love’s story to his senile wife, suffering from dementia (no joke here, I honestly feel sorry for people in this situation). This part of the plot is like a very non-funny 50 First Dates.

Second, I wish the writer could have come up with an original story. If you are looking for a hackneyed rehashing of the ‘classic’ rich chick falls for a poor dude during a summer love (I liked this story better when it was called Dirty Dancing) then this is your movie. Sign up for this next on Netflix if you enjoy stories about a rich girl’s struggle to decide between her true love who is poor and her fiancé who comes from her socioeconomic group (I remember when this story was called Titanic). The whole point of this movie is just to watch a stupid girl come slowly to the realization that she doesn’t know what the crap she wants and would rather destroy all her relationships than make one work and the other fail. I don’t really want to watch some other couple’s story like that.

I guess that’s what this really comes down to. I don’t need to see that. I’ve waited for a story. I’ve waited for a great love. Now I have one. Andrea is beautiful and perfect. We have a “great love”. And we now have a good story…not a “great story”, you’re not going to be able to rent that story through the mail and keep it as long as you want with no late fees. But, I like our story. If you have a train wreck of a love story like the people in the movie, that means you probably screwed up somewhere. You waited way too long, you were indecisive, you made a poor decision. That introduced more drama than is normally associated with real-life love stories. Thank heavens that those of you with “great loves” have a story that ended happily, like mine. I just don’t really want to watch such a bumpy, unnecessarily dramatic story for two hours.

Dan: Well, I guess that’s the end. Yep, here come the credits. So, what did you think?
Andrea: Eh. It was OK, I guess.
Jay: That's my line!