this is not a love story

(636)

(500) Days of Summer was the #9 film it's opening weekend. I saw it with my wife at Arclight Hollywood, I'm pretty sure. The #2 movie that weekend was a movie I would only see later (but also in the theater)--and I would not watch it every day, but Lawrence Dai would, and his blog would become part of the inspiration for this one. That movie was Julie & Julia. Also in theaters that weekend (that I would see in the theater at some point or another) was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Hangover, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Hurt Locker, Up, Star Trek, Bruno, Terminator: Salvation, Moon, Food, Inc. (actually, i might not have watched that one until DVD), The Cove, Monsters Vs. Aliens, Land of the Lost, Away We Go, X-Men Origins: Wolverine... I suppose it was a busy year for movies. But, not really. That's just my life occasionally. You should see my movie lists for, like, December and January when I'm playing catch up on Oscar hopefuls.

Most of those movies above, I saw by myself. When we got together, my wife was barely into movies, and while I had a decade or so to change that, she was never as into them as I was, as I am. She'll still see the interesting arthouse movies these days. As will I. But, obviously, we don't see them together. Our 500 days are long gone. Movie just got to Day 303 and Thomas barely manages to walk into work, his hair and his clothes a mess. I've been there.

More than once.

I remember when I broke up with my first girlfriend, I had several months of absolutely not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to go to work. But, I went. I managed. For a while. Then, I made sure I had a bit of money in the bank, I quit my job and I just took a break. Let life try to reset. Mission Impossible II and Gladiator were in theaters at the time, as were U-571 and Erin Brockovich and Return to Me. My new girlfriend would drag me out of a California for a while. I would only see two movies in the theater from that fall to the next spring. The fall movie was Unbreakable--not anywhere as good as The Sixth Sense but better than so much that Shymalan has done since. The movie the next spring was Valentine, a not so great horror film.

That fall, the first movie I would see would my then future and now past wife was Monsters, Inc.. Riding in Cars with Boys, From Hell, Serendipity, The Others, Life as a House--those were top 20 movies that same November weekend that I had seen in the theater.

Day 314, Thomas sits alone in the movie theater. Reminds me of when I lived alone for a while after my wife and I separated the second time. I used to go to a theater in a neighborhood that was more Chinese- than English-speaking. It was a multiplex but I tended to feel quite alone there. At the time, it was actually rather comforting, not the depressing scene with Thomas on Day 314.

Day 402, on the train, like old times, they don't know any better. Been there too. It's easy to do, slip back into old rhythms, forget for a moment why you're not together anymore. The train reminds me of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I think, aside from at Disneyland or Travel Town, the only train I was ever on with any girlfriend was with my then future and now past wife. She had come to California twice already. We'd spend a handful of days together. Now I was in Pittsburgh. We went to see the movie A Walk to Remember.

Day 408, the dual screen of Expectations and Reality. Probably the saddest bit of the film. Other moments are more overtly sad, overtly tragic, but the subtle differences, those little details you wish are real but just aren't quite there--those are the painful ones. When life is nothing like the expectation, that's disappointing, but hey, there's no hope on the edge of that disappointment.

The worst thing in Pandora's Box.

Hope.

When life gets close to what you want, and you can't quite push it toward what you want. That hurts more. Finally get up the nerve to ask that girl out out, and she's not single anymore, for example. Been there.

Anyway. Apparently, neither of my daughters like this movie. I rather do.

And, I'll be writing more about it the next two days. Because, if there's nothing else I love (aside from, you know, those daughters, and my son, and I suppose some other family members), I love movies.