On Sunday I curled up on the couch and watched a movie in the afternoon. The movie I chose was Tintin. I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to it but it was pleasant background sound and kept me going as I footled away at other things.
As I listened and footled and watched the movie I realised something I had never realised about action movies – I almost completely blank out the action. As I was watching Tintin I would listen to the dialogue but as soon as some fighting started I would think ‘right, nothing is happening now, I’ll tune in again later.’
There is a lot of ‘nothing’ in Tintin (if action is nothing). There is the ‘nothing’ on the boat, the ‘nothing’ on the plane, the ‘nothing’ in the desert, the ‘nothing’ in the town and the ‘nothing’ on the cranes in the dock. It was the last one with the cranes that really drew my attention to my lack of attention. I looked up, saw the two protagonists sword fighting with the big cranes (the type that move containers on the docks – not the birds): ‘Oh look, cranes, hmmm, I wonder if anything will actually happen? I don’t want to miss anything.’ I looked back down.
I love action movies like True Lies where the action is accompanied by witty dialogue (or anything with Bruce Willis). But nothing like Terminator or the Transformers movies where the action is all there is and the character development is non-existent. (I haven’t actually watched those by the way, I am open to the idea that I might be making mildly libellous statements.)
DH watches action movies for the action. His movies go something like ‘Nothing, nothing, action, action, nothing, action, nothing’ where mine go ‘Dialogue, dialogue, nothing, nothing, dialogue, nothing, dialogue’.
So DH doesn’t watch chick flicks because for him they are basically white noise until the scene at the end where they are running to get away or towards each other or something. Then it’s, ‘Ah, running! Something is happening!’ Whereas I love movies where the person grows and matures and gets through things. Movies like 28 Days which is basically Sandra Bullock in drug rehab. She talks, thinks, works through her issues, there’s a very moving scene where she talks to her sister and then the bit at the end with the horse. It’s a good movie. For me.
And DH loves, well, I don’t know, I don’t watch his movies. I walk in on them and someone is screaming at someone else and there’s stuff happening and dramatic music and yeah, well, I’m sure you get the picture.
And that is how we managed to watch two different movies at the same time on the same screen. The movie was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. We watched it straight through (years ago) all three hours (or was it four?) of it and both found it incredible. We turned to each other at the end like ‘Wow! That was amazing!’ and then I wiped the tears away and said, ‘That was the most beautiful and tragic love story I’ve ever seen!’ and he said, ‘Huh? What? There was a love story?’ He saw the martial arts, and I saw the romance.
I love my man, it’s always good to get a different perspective on things. I’d love to know from you, what do you watch? What do you miss? Anyone with me on this action thing?