Movie Droughts and the Passing of a Giant

We've all experienced it. We decide to spend a day hanging out with a friend (or friends), and what better way to do that than to go see a movie? Huge drinks, horrible popcorn, and darkness are what help build the bonds of friendship, right? You get your heart set on it, and you even go so far as to check movie times. Then you make the horrible discovery. There is absolutely nothing out that you want to see. The few passable options have already been seen by someone in your motley crew.



The current selection of major releases.


I bet you can guess what happened to me on Monday. A friend and I are having a girls' day. Through the haze of a carb induced stupor, we think, "Hey, we could go see a girly movie." What is our only option, you might ask? That's right, Magic Mike, a film to which there will be no review in this esteemed blog because I refuse to see movies that I know are going to be crap. I don't care how much man candy is in the film, if it doesn't have at least the promise of good plot, I am not going to see it. Musing a bit more on this subject, I realize that there haven't really been any major rom-coms released this year. Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, looks good, but it's only showing at the artsy theater here in Knoxville. It looks good, but probably raises questions, and does a lot of that "communicating ideas" thing that they teach you about in intro level Cinema Studies courses. A fun girly day kind of movie, it is not (quoth Yoda).



See! He agrees with me. Just look at that face.


Further into my musin's and ramblin's, it struck me that there will be a dirth of really good rom-coms for the forseeable future. These are the kinds of movies that make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but that you also want to buy when they come out on DVD. They are thoughtful without being too thoughtful, and they aren't Nicholas Sparks adaptations. Why this drought of rom-com-y goodness (so many hyphens)? Nora Ephron's passing.

I know it isn't exactly current news, but I'm going to talk about her anyway. Nora Ephron did for the romatic comedy what Francis Ford Coppola did for the gangster movie. Sleepless in Seattle is probably the most famous romantic comedy she did, but she also wrote When Harry Met Sally. The films that she had a hand in have high watchability. She was also one of the few really influential women in Hollywood. In an industry that is overwhelmingly dominated by men (at least behind the camera), she reached some of the most powerful positions in a film that you can have: producer and director. Women aren't uncommon in the positions of writer and editor, but women actually directing or producing films is unusual. Her filmography isn't extensive. Her films are popular and fun, even if they aren't particularly spectacular from a film studies perspective. Nora Ephron, and women like her, have broken the trail for the next generation.



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"I'll have what she's having." - Estelle Reiner in When Harry Met Sally