"So, I recently watched this movie. This movie: It was entitled (500) Days of Summer. You guys, it was FOR A PROJECT! I would not watch this movie just for the hell of it! I am doing something on like romantic myths and like love stories and junk! So clearly, I HAD TO DO IT. It was not even really a choice.Anyway, one of my theses is that the romance has traditionally been the province of the “women’s picture,” but in the last few years (from High Fidelity on, let us say — or, if we wanted to stretch ourselves, we could say since Before Sunrise) there have been an increasing number of romances centered almost entirely on the inner lives of dudes. Often within, like, the VERY MINDS of the dudes: Eternal Sunshine takes place literally within a guy’s brain for the most part, High Fidelity has a dude talking extensively into the camera, and I suppose we would regard Annie Hall as the pervy, monologue-and-dream-sequence-prone grandfather of this entire genre. And (500) Days of Summer fits squarely within this genre, as well.
FINDING OF NOTE: All of the dudes in these movies have similar haircuts?
OTHER FINDING: These dude-traps-a-girlfriend-IN-HIS-BRAIN movies tend to be my favorites of the genre. Like: I seriously hate a lot of “womens’ pictures,” especially the recent variety. I could watch Eternal Sunshine on a loop in some sort of Clockwork Orange device without getting bored, as could I similarly do with certain (though not all) scenes of Annie Hall. The one where Woody Alvy follows Diane Keaton Annie into her brain and passes harsh judgment on dudes she has dated in the past — “oh, yeah, real heavy, eaten to death by squirrels” — I could watch a lot. I would I am not sure how to feel about this. Kind of sexist, perhaps?
Let me assure you, however, that these feelings do not appertain to (500) Days of Summer.
(500) Days of Summer is, to be brief, the story of Joseph Gordon-Levitt meeting, kissing, sleeping with, and continuing to sleep with Zooey Deschanel, whilst Zooey Deschanel tells Joseph Gordon-Levitt continuously that he is Not Her Boyfriend. Then she says the sex has to cease, and she seems not to feel too bad about that, and he is like, “BUT I AM YOUR BOYFRIEND!!!???” And she is like, no you’re not. And then he is sad.
(See, his sad face. God it's adorable.)
We are encouraged to infer, from this series of events, that Zooey Deschanel is LITERALLY A MONSTER.
She is referred to, at certain points, as a “lesbian” (I don’t think those are bad), a “dude” (I don’t think those are bad), a “whore” and a “bitch” (pretty much determined, by cultural consensus, to be bad), and by several other unflattering epithets. Joseph Gordon-Levitt relates this story, in flashbackian mode, mostly to a little girl. Which I guess is meant to be cute. But wait till you hear what he says about you, young lady, if you ever grow up and have casual sex with a whiner!...
Read the rest of this gem here:
Yup. That movie stinks.
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