schwammy
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 83
- Location
- Los Angeles
Did anyone see "The Notebook?"
[crickets chirping.]
Didn't think so. My wife dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the theatre, explaining that "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" would not be a sufficiently romantic "Date Movie" for our eighth wedding anniversary. Midway through the film, she turned to me and apologized for the utter lack of fedoras. She was right -- there wasn't a single one! This in a film set in the 1940s!
I won't say I didn't enjoy it. Sam Shepard and Rachel McAdams both looked like they belong in that time period. And then there's Ryan Gosling; the "leading man," with his shoulder-length hair, full beard, and perpetually untucked shirt, looking like he just scored a backstage pass to a Pearl Jam concert.
And the guy who played Rachel McAdams' father had the biggest, cheesiest handlebar mustache this side of... oh. never mind. Sorry, Michaelson.
Anyway, I enjoy picking out anachronisms in period movies, and I think I found three in "The Notebook."
1. Rachel McAdams drives a 40s car with a decidedly modern-looking lace-up vinyl steering wheel cover. This was so glaringly obvious, I thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe they did have those in 1946. But I doubt it.
2. Ryan Gosling, while a fine actor, again looked like a walking anachronism.
3. After some passionate necking, Rachel McAdams whispers those lovely words into Ryan Gosling's ear, "Make love to me." Except that back then, those words didn't mean what they mean to us today. 'Making love' was a general term for wooing or courting. It didn't mean sex.
This is bourne out by the fact that in "It's A Wonderful Life," Donna Reed jokes -- to her mother -- that Jimmy Stewart is 'making violent love to me!' This in a film made in 1946 (at the height of the Hayes code), within a scene set in 1928! Surely the term has changed over the years.
And then there's the Cole Porter song "Mind If I Make Love To You," sung by Frank Sinatra in the 1956 film "High Society." Again, the Hayes code, which prohibited even married characters from sleeping in double beds - would never have allowed something so suggestive. Unless the meaning has changed.
Okay, I'm done.
[crickets chirping.]
Didn't think so. My wife dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the theatre, explaining that "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" would not be a sufficiently romantic "Date Movie" for our eighth wedding anniversary. Midway through the film, she turned to me and apologized for the utter lack of fedoras. She was right -- there wasn't a single one! This in a film set in the 1940s!
I won't say I didn't enjoy it. Sam Shepard and Rachel McAdams both looked like they belong in that time period. And then there's Ryan Gosling; the "leading man," with his shoulder-length hair, full beard, and perpetually untucked shirt, looking like he just scored a backstage pass to a Pearl Jam concert.
And the guy who played Rachel McAdams' father had the biggest, cheesiest handlebar mustache this side of... oh. never mind. Sorry, Michaelson.
Anyway, I enjoy picking out anachronisms in period movies, and I think I found three in "The Notebook."
1. Rachel McAdams drives a 40s car with a decidedly modern-looking lace-up vinyl steering wheel cover. This was so glaringly obvious, I thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe they did have those in 1946. But I doubt it.
2. Ryan Gosling, while a fine actor, again looked like a walking anachronism.
3. After some passionate necking, Rachel McAdams whispers those lovely words into Ryan Gosling's ear, "Make love to me." Except that back then, those words didn't mean what they mean to us today. 'Making love' was a general term for wooing or courting. It didn't mean sex.
This is bourne out by the fact that in "It's A Wonderful Life," Donna Reed jokes -- to her mother -- that Jimmy Stewart is 'making violent love to me!' This in a film made in 1946 (at the height of the Hayes code), within a scene set in 1928! Surely the term has changed over the years.
And then there's the Cole Porter song "Mind If I Make Love To You," sung by Frank Sinatra in the 1956 film "High Society." Again, the Hayes code, which prohibited even married characters from sleeping in double beds - would never have allowed something so suggestive. Unless the meaning has changed.
Okay, I'm done.