Midnight in Paris, J'taime

In spite of my love of movies, celebrities, fashion and E! anchors interacting awkwardly with famous people, I do not, in fact, love awards shows.  I find they usually go on too long and they are one event for which I am okay just looking up the score later.  No, it's not clear why award shows fall into this category and Presidential debates do not. But so it goes.


However, having watched almost all of the movies represented at the Oscars this year, I was eager to see who the winners and losers were, and, of course, discuss them with people.  Turns out one of my classmates has pretty much exact opposite taste in movies than me.  He loved Hugo; I thought it was pretentious.  He hated The Artist; I thought it was brilliant.  And on we went.  One that I was particularly surprised by was his strong dislike for Midnight in Paris.  He said he found it cheesy, misogynistic and pedantic.  I granted him the misogynistic piece - I'm beginning to think Woody Allen used up all of his ability to write an interesting female character in one go with that Annie Hall lady - but the rest?!  No no no. 


Maybe you had to have been a very particular kind of literature nerd to enjoy that movie - as in, you don't just love reading, you were in fact the kid who would read a book before bed and then could not stop thinking about how much you wish lived in that book.  You have thought to yourself, "I'm almost positive Jane Austen didn't marry because she created Mr. Darcy and then there was just nowhere to go from there."  (Hypothetically.  Someone could have thought that.  I would imagine.)


Because, yes, I was that particular kind of book geek, and I felt that Woody Allen must be one, too.  Because the way he imagined diving into those worlds, it was so picture perfect the way all of us book geeks have imagined our heavens looking.


I grew up reading Enid Blyton.  In particular, she wrote all these books about girls at boarding school, taking them from Form 1 to Form 6.  It was like pre-Harry Potter, minus the magic, with a lot more field hockey.  And tinned sardines.  Anyway, when I finished reading the Malory Towers series, I remember crying myself to sleep - it was as if, in finishing the series and realizing there were no more to be read, it only then became official that I would not, in fact, be going from Meiners Oaks Elementary straight to Malory Towers in Cornwall.  And up to that point, that was more or less the plan.  Even though I hated being away from my parents, field hockey, and most definitely tinned sardines.


Somehow I feel like Woody had some of those nights, too.  So I think I'm in good company.