Getting Warmer

 

Girl meets pale, dead boy; A Love Story. Sound familiar? Well that’s because the bones (and rotting flesh) of Warm Bodies is all too similar to that of the Twilight franchise but thankfully all other likenesses , apart from the female lead bearing an uncanny resemblance to a certain Ms. Stewart, end there. Warm Bodies is a surprisingly witty, quirky, original take on the zombie AND rom-com franchises. Of course there will be die hard zombie fans clutching their copies of Day of the Dead, breaking out into a disgust driven rant over this film but Warm Bodies knows what it is and doesn’t take itself as seriously as some movie buffs might.

Set in a world where an apocalyptic illness has spread, causing people to turn into the walking dead, Warm Bodies tells through the clever and well executed tool of voiceover, a young zombie’s perspective on the whole matter. When he meets the (living) girl of his dreams, he soon realises that maybe he might have a chance at being human again through the process of learning to love. It all sounds quite sappy and cliché, not to mention our leads are called R and Julie, but the film’s charm and self-awareness means that it can just about get away with it. This is also in part to great casting, intelligent dialogue and a well-paced plot line. With a great parallel and commentary on how teenage love is about mumblings and awkwardness, Warm Bodies is a great piece of light entertainment. Maybe even in a few years a cult favourite.

This movie won’t be for everyone though. The sheer ridiculousness of Warm Bodies makes it humorous to this Film Fryer Upper, watching a zombie comfort a girl in hysterics with a Bob Dylan record was an original and oddly funny idea to me. But many people will hate everything this film is about, the clash of genres, the muddled up ideas. If you are going to watch it, I’ll give you one piece of advice, don’t take it too seriously. I don’t think anyone else is.

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My Bloody Valentine

Valentines Day eh? A celebration that began when some dude got imprisoned for marrying soldiers who were forbidden to marry, many many moons ago.  Saint Valentine would probably be rolling in his grave if he saw all the cheap stuffed toys, romantic dine in for two’s, not to mention the over priced chocolate boxes.

As you can probably guess I’m not a fan of “commercial love day”. To me any grand gesture of undying, unfaltering love proclaimed on Feburary 14^th just means that much less. Give me a rainy Wednesday somewhere in November, or maybe even a crisp January morning. Being romantic then means that you thought about it, not that society told you to do it.  But anyways rant aside, one of my favourite pasttimes on “Love Day” is to watch some anti love films. You know the kind, ones that make you weep, ones that make you glad you didn’t follow the traditional root, ones that make you happy you sleep with only your cat every night, ones that make you thank your stars that you didn’t go on THAT second date. You know the way they say it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, well in these movies that is just a plain old lie.

Valentine’s Day, it’s not me, it’s you.

Blue Valentine:

Oh look its Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in a movie about relationships. Oh and look he is being all cutesy and playing the ukulele. Major sigh. Oh but wait, they both have a drinking problem, and they also appear to be dying slowly from the inside out. Oh and they seem to hate each other more and more by the second.

Perfect film to make you glad you don’t have someone to argue with

Edward Scissorhands:

An outsider falls in love with the small town, all American, Norman Rockwell, beauty queen. On the surface Edward Scissorhands seems like a great romantic fantasy movie but really if you scratch beneath the surface with its sharp blades, it’s just the tale of a girl who took too long to realise her emotions, which leads to the death of a teenage boy, the isolation of the lead and the unrequited love of everyone involved. As an old woman, she tells her story of this man, who changed her life but ultimately ruined his.

Real romantic, eh?

Eden Lake:

A loved up couple go on a romantic camping trip with the intention, unbeknown to the woman, of getting engaged. Just lovely. But wait what are those youths doing? Why are they hanging around this isolated part of the country? Cut to an hour and a half of the super happy couple getting tortured by some angry thugs and it makes you thankful that you turned down that opportunity for a romantic getaway.

Brokeback Mountain:

Ah Love. It can be found in the most unlikely places. Maybe even on a mountainside with your fellow worker in a tent. But really the people and lives ruined by Ennis and Jacks love for one another was sheer devastation. They had an undying love alright but it tore them apart each and every day of their adult lives because they couldn’t be together. Makes you wonder, maybe sitting at home on a Friday night and watching Tallafornia ain’t all that bad.


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