Monday, January 21, 2008

Chick Flicks & Guy Picks

So, I was channel-surfing over at Castle Anthrax last night, and The Devil Wears Prada was on. So naturally, I settled in to watch it.

"Naturally?!?" you enquire incredulously?

Well, yeah. For one, it's got Meryl Streep in it, and she's generally good in anything, as she was here. Two, as a putative 'chick flick', it's certain to (and does) have literally scores of eye-candy-grade distaff cast members in just about every shot. But most importantly, it's simply an extremely well-written story, with interesting characters and a solid plot.

Apparently it's based on a novel by a woman named Lauren Weisberger, converted to screenplay by Aline Brosh McKenna. Perhaps they should share their Nobel Peace Prize for Fomenting Good Relations Between the Sexes by Creating Movies that Both Can Enjoy.

Scene-It knows what I'm talking about; they released a Guys vs. Girls Edition called, well, I chose it for the name of this post. Simply put, a movie that will interest a guy will not interest a woman, in most cases. You get those precious and rare exceptions, women who laugh at the Three Stooges, or recite Monty Python lines, or watch Vin Diesel movies because they like the action, but they're rare.

And generally speaking, guys that like chick flicks aren't really worth much at all to the other side, except maye as shopping buddies. But I've seen two movies now in recent memory, Devil Wears Prada and 10 Ways to Lose Your Man (or whatever the title was, it had Matt McCona-who-can-spell-it-ahey and that cute blonde in it, and yeah, the tab with IMDB is still open, and no, I'm not gonna go look). And both were easily enjoyable by men and women alike.

If this keeps up, going to the movies as a couple might come back into style. Which, once again, leaves me on the outside looking in, steaming up the glass and creeping out the paying customers.