Movie Date

I am not single. I'm not married. I'm a straight lady with a boyfriend, and we've been together for six and a half years. I add the "and a half" so you understand the general maturity level involved in this relationship.

I complain to my boyfriend, let's call him Ramon because it sounds kind of hot, and duh, The Ramones, that we only go to movie theaters to see sci-fi action movies. Most of the time I want to see these movies, but sometimes I'd really rather not. On the rather not scale, I'm way ahead (Prometheus, Elysium), and only have to admit I was wrong about Pacific Rim, which turned out to be really fun. I tell him I want to go see an independent film, a grown-up movie. Not the movie Grown-ups. Just...no.

However, it seems like almost every independent film made about people around our age-characters I want to relate to-is about them cheating on each other and/or breaking up. They're the artistic couple in their late twenties (early thirties), who have been together so long, but they haven't gotten married yet for some  neurotic or whimsical reason. I'm sure there's one being filmed on a Brooklyn sidewalk right now.

And as the "action" happens onscreen, Ramon and I either get more and more uncomfortable watching people with lives so similar to ours, who are invariably too physically attractive to actually live those lives in the real world, giving into temptation and betraying each other, or we just get angry. If you are or about to start cheating on the person you've been in a relationship with for several years, and you wonder if you should break up, the answer is yes. Very obviously yes. If I have to explain why, then you should break up right now. Pack a bag, leave Becky a note, and go. Unless you can get them to agree to some kind of hot open relationship situation, which...what? Ramon says no.

I wanted the great summer compromise film to be The Grandmaster. It's a stylistic martial arts film so it's a genre we can both appreciate, and it's Chinese, not American, thank-fucking-god, so it's guaranteed Zack fucking Snyder is not involved. I cannot overstate how important that is to me for a film right now. NO...ZACK...SNYDER...INVOLVEMENT...ALLOWED...

And it's directed by Wong Kar Wai. That'll get the independent film boner back up. And it stars Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang, my favorite Chinese actors. Yes, I have favorite Chinese actors, and I've seen lots of their movies, and I'm a fantastically well rounded person. However, The Grandmaster, isn't playing within a 30 minute drive for the next few weeks.

And now of course, The Ramones.