Oct 27, 2010

Maximum Overdrive

When I was  a kid, a horribly cheesy movie was made about machines coming to life and killing people. The movie is full of tractor trailers running over folks, kitchen appliances attacking unwary housewives/waitresses, pop machines shooting people in the head with bazooka soda cans blastinglike a potato gun, rampaging steam rollers squishing soccer coaches... It's probably one of the goofiest movies ever, and I have absolutely no idea why I love it and watch it every year. I think it is something to do with the same reaction I have to bulldogs: so ugly they're cute. The movie is so bad it's awesome.

I don't remember if it ever scared me, it might have mildly done when I was little, but I feel positively macabre admitting now that I pretty much laugh through the whole thing. It's on TV every October, but this is the first year I'm watching it from a storytelling POV. So, although I've probably seen it twenty times, I only just realized that it has possibly the lamest, UNhot kissing ever filmed.

I don't really know why there is a 'love story' nested in this crazy, truck-stop bazooka-firing madness. It does nothing for the story arc, so why am I surprised about how utterly cold that kissing was?  And what is there to learn from this horrible lovescene/kissing? 

It is easy to identify hot/romantic kisses when we see them, but it is less easy to put our fingers on what makes these scenes moving.  But this scene makes it really easy to identify what makes the emotion believeable by identifying what is missing. Closed lips, fast pecks with more time between kisses than actual lips-touching time. (Less helpful but still funny: heroine has a Eww look on her face that makes me think Emilio may have had some serious monkeybutt breath.)

Can you think of any movies/television/books-even which highlight What Not To Do when trying to write the sexyfun?

2 comments:

  1. he he the upside down kiss in spider man, that kiss won awards but did nothing for me. I think pple were just impressed with the logistics of kissing upside down than the romance to it.

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  2. Emotional scenes - whatever their manifestation - ultimately work because the characters and their emotions are authentic. If the kiss is stuck in there just to please audiences - and otherwise doesn't work with the story - it's always gonna be lame.

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