Alice In Showbizland

10 of Cinema’s Greatest Romantic Heroines

2008-07-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

#10 the Lover

Set in Vietnam, this romantic coming of age story about a young girl and a wealthy Chinese businessman will surely tug at your heartstrings. Lonely, isolated and desperate a young French girl finds herself alone in the world amid domestic violence and crumbling fortunes. She meets a wealthy businessman who falls for her immediately. Precocious for her age she thought it wise to keep her real feelings to herself and deals with her lover with an icy façade. Too often the film is bogged down by too much melodrama but it picks up in the very end when the young girl alone in the ship bound for France realizes her sorrow at not having loved completely and feels her immense loss. This movie is an autobiography of writer Margaret Duras.

#9 Pretty In Pink

Our list won’t be complete without mentioning one of the romantic teenybopper films from the eighties. This movie is about teenage love and social cliques in high school. Andie Walsh is a poor but talented girl from the wrong side of the tracks and her romantic interest is Blane one of the rich kids in her high school. After a brief meeting with Blane in a record store where she work she is smitten with him. The catch is Andie Walsh and her best friend Duckie are regularly harassed by Blane’s friends the other rich kids labeling them as weirdoes. But Blane also has eyes for Andie and the rest of the movie revolves around the conflicts they encounter from coming from different worlds.

#8 Spiderman

In the pages of comic books the relationship of Mary Jane Watson and Spiderman has always been romantic. With the deft handling of the Spiderman franchise this romance further bloomed in cinema. Mary Jane Watson is your typical girl next door with ambitions of making it on her own. She had a string of romances but she has always had a thing for her next door neighbor Peter Parker. Peter Parker, likewise, had been smitten with her since the beginning. The Spiderman franchise although it revolves around superheroes fighting off villains remains to have one theme, that love helps conquer great odds. This film also features the most romantic kiss in a movie of all time. Mary Jane Watson and Spiderman’s upside down kiss.

#7 Bridget Jones’s Diary

Feisty, smart and funny is what describes Bridget Jones. This well loved heroine that burst into the scene on the new millennium easily made Renee Zellwegger an instant star. After being dumped by her boss, Daniel Cleaver, for a sexier woman Bridget Jones fights back by being the best she could be: by being herself. Undaunted by her ill luck Bridget Jones managed to pick up her career and her love life from the shambles it had come from finding true romance with barrister Mark Darcy. Just when things are going smoothly her ex flame Daniel Cleaver wants her back. Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver fight it out with Bridget ending up nursing a passed out Daniel Cleaver. However, Bridget doesn’t want to be with him because of all his lies and past deceits. She ends up with Mark Darcy. This film is not just about romance it’s also about how one woman strived to be herself despite not being always accepted and loved for who she is and find that romance and success is possible for her.

#6 Pretty Woman

What happens in your fantasy after the knight on the white horse rescues you? "She rescues him right back"
This is a famous line from the phenomenal movie that broke world records and soared Julia Roberts to fame. Who wouldn’t love this story? It’s a classic with a twist. Vivian ward is a prostitute with a heart of Gold accidentally turns up the interest of millionaire Edward Lewis after asking her for directions. They spend the night together and many nights thereafter exploring deep emotional issues with each other they would otherwise not disclose with others. Soon Lewis and Ward form an unusual bond together. However the reality of Vivian’s profession rears its ugly head as Edward confesses to one of his associates that she is a hooker. Feeling hurt and betrayed she leaves Edward. Edward predictably woos back Vivian with music and flowers and they live happily ever after.

#5 Cinderella

The story of Cinderella is probably one of the most reworked stories that give people a good feeling of poetic justice. Beautiful, charming and well mannered despite hardships Cinderella is an enduring tale that is best loved by both children and adults. The 1950’s animation released by Disney is one of the most classical adaptations of the movie and stays true to the plot of an impoverished young woman maltreated by her jealous relatives. Of course Cinderella gets her prince in the end and they live happily ever after.

#4 Titanic

With a lyrical background music and a plot that would never fail to catch audience’s emotions, Titanic grossed a lot of money when it was released at the beginning of the new millennium mainly because of its charismatic heroes. Rose and Jack are the main characters in the story and they lead us to the world of rich people in 19th century America. Amid all the glamour and wealth is the underlying hypocrisy of high society that Rose wants to desperately get out of. Jack “saves” her and teaches her in the brief time they’ve been together to love her life. The story ends in tragedy with Jack’s death but learning her lesson Rose moved on with her life and cherished the life that Jack sacrificed to give her.

#3 Sabrina

This film was made in the 1950’s when actors and actresses had natural grace and glamour. This quality translated well into film especially in the film Sabrina about a young ugly duckling girl transforming into glorious womanhood. Sabrina Fairchild is the daughter of the rich Larrabees family chauffeur who was sent to Paris to study culinary arts. Armed with a newfound grace and sophistication Sabrina aims to fulfill into fruition her lifelong desire for the once unreachable David Larrabee. Because David is already engaged to marry, Linus, the older workaholic brother, directed Sabrina’s affection towards him and they ended up falling in love instead. The movie ends with both of them sailing off to Paris.

#2 Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet directed by Franco Zefferelli won critical acclaim and best cinematography and costume design at the Oscars. It is regarded by most as still the best adaptation of the Shakespearean play. Romeo and Juliet explore the young love between the scions of two warring families and their eventual tragic death.

#1 Gone With the Wind

“As God is my witness I’ll never go hungry again!”
The greatest romantic heroine of all time would be Margaret Mitchell’s heroine in her Pulitzer Prize Winning novel Gone with the Wind. The movie opens with a radiant and flirty Scarlett O’ Hara courted by many young men but we see the eventual tragedy as her love remains to be unfulfilled by her real crush Ashley Wilkes. But Scarlett O’ Hara is more than just a spoiled little rich girl as we see her mettle being tested in the time of war and famine in the South thus leading to one of the most quotable lines above. Gone with the Wind is a movie that boasts of great dialogue and great acting. It told the unforgettable tale of one woman’s struggle to live and survive war and heartbreak, definitely a classic.

The Joker: Hero Slayer, Hero Maker

2008-07-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you have seen the greatest comic book hero movie of all time, it gets displaced soon enough which makes you pause and say, “I thought I’ve seen it all….”The recent Batman tale elicits such a reaction it is so philosophically rich thanks to….the character of the joker. The recent Batman movie is something that as never been done before. This movie is unapologetically dark and gritty; it’s cinematography consistently sticking to dark gray tones throughout. If you are expecting a conventional hero movie where all the protagonists get away unscathed prepare to be disappointed it won’t happen so here. This time our heroes are battered, bruised and nearly broken if not dead thanks to….the joker (again). This is a psychologically heavy film and it’s borrowing from silence of the lambs is so obvious but it is still worth the watch, because the same elements in silence is reproduced and applied to our iconic heroes batman and joker resulting in a huge success. Here, the joker evilly lets it all out, much to the disquiet of batman and all the good law abiding citizens of Gotham. Throughout the film one would be compelled to ask more than once if the joker is really truly the bad guy or is the bad guy the hypocrisy that resides within civilized people in times when well things are civilized. One would even be compelled to ask if the bad guy is actually Batman. This is how cannily the joker will manipulate you in the film. However, that would be the conventional train of thought this film wants to lead you into so watching this film requires higher thinking and the ability to glimpse into the inner workings of the sinister mind of the joker.

The cast are all veterans in portraying complicated characters, Christian Bale (American Psycho), Maggie Glynehaal (The Secretary) and Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain) and they all gave a memorable performance. The best performance in the film goes to Heath Ledger as the Joker hands down totally eclipsing our dark knight. The reason for this is his flamboyantly evil character and his auspiciously philosophically rich dialogue he can sink his teeth into at nearly every minute of his appearance. Truly the most memorable lines in the film are uttered by those characters other than batman. Batman is so eclipsed they should have renamed the film “The Joker”. But really the main point of the film is to make the Joker as some sort of catalyst for events to take in their toll while Batman and the other good guys are in the sidelines reacting to his machinations according to their true nature and so the reason for the Joker’s centrality. This film successfully brings our heroes closer to humanity than ever before as we see them break under pressure. This film offers a great exploration of good and evil, and the types of evil people are capable of. But its richest contribution to the comic world is solving the enigma of the relationship between Batman and Joker, because the joker is no conventional crime lord here. To the joker there is a higher power than wealth or gold and to those who see only that shame on you to the joker there is a higher power and that is very simple: to play god among men, testing them over and over again, while men like Batman really have no choice but to triumph in the end.

How Technology made the Greatest Celebrity

2008-07-19T03:55:00.001-07:00

The greatest celebrity to hit this generation is neither tall or statuesque, fair nor tanned skinned blond nor brunette. She or He doesn’t have a distinctive physical quality that makes him or her of star quality. The greatest celebrity of this generation can be conventionally beautiful or conventionally plain, the greatest celebrity to hit this generation is you. Yes folks and technology made it possible. With the emergence of social networking sites such as friendster and facebook people have the chance more than ever and share their lives in a grand scale: the rest of the world through the internet. This has been further entrenched in people’s sociological sphere with the rise of blogging. Soon enough people are making personal blogs which serves as a daily account of their lives wherein they feature their photos and other activities in real life. Call it self-love on a grand scale. To the world’s surprise this type of journals had an intense following and canny e-commerce giants such as Google took note and offered bloggers ad sense: a revenue making tool. This further upped the value of blogs as something of an asset and time spent on maintaining one an investment that makes revenue in real cash. Lately we have seen the rise of microblogging services such as friend feed and twitter. Friend feed and Twitter follow the blow by blow account of one’s daily itinerary making one feel that hey I am becoming more and more of a celebrity or so this is how it feels to be like a celebrity. Soon enough some people incorporate these microblogs in their social networking. But as with celebrity hood in movie and film celebrityhood over the internet has the same price: the importance of being beloved. Being an introvert is not an option in this generation anymore. One has to have the maximal value of friends and acquaintances to add in their e-mail and social networking applications. Of course the friendship or the acquaintanceship should be deep enough to prod the other person to leave a meaningful message in one’s social networking site, thus increasing one’s celebrity value over the internet. A precursory look at WebPages like friendster and facebook shows that it is a veritable fan page where people leave their testimonials and graphic art offerings for their friends. People make shrines for themselves over the internet making it as pleasing to the eye as possible and they showcase their life celebrity style. This is a new form of vanity and self love: if you love yourself you have to gain as much following over the internet as possible. This generation values friendship and connection more than ever and advances in technology have made it possible. Digital cameras make sharing visual data faster than ever before. Internet celebrityhood is divided into two those who actually have a life to exhibit and those who merely watch and satisfy their voyeuristic tendency. This is an age where exhibitionists and stalkers thrive to living with each other in the cyber world each feeding off each other hating each but in the end can’t live without each other because they have to validate each other. This kind of set up is not so different from the real world of celebrityhood after all, only that it involves ordinary people like you and me.

Beauty Pageants: Not just a question of Beauty

2008-07-16T17:01:00.000-07:00

The recent Miss universe has just been concluded with Miss Venezuela coming out on top. Sadly the Philippines’ bet didn’t even come up to the semifinalist list despite her claim that she would bring home the title. Miss Venezuela has an odd story to tell the audience apparently she was kidnapped a year ago thus high stress situations such as the pageant doesn’t boggle the least. She is a tough chick. As usual, we Filipinos have much ado come beauty queen season. We simply love beauty pageants! Nearly every barangay throughout the country would have a beauty pageant held every fiesta to coronate the town’s best looking girl. Have we ever asked to wonder why this is so? Why we have such a passion for beauty pageants? Perhaps it’s due to the fact that we are a very religious country. Beauty contests are simply romantic. We love to see the triumph of beauty and virtue in one package. Merely beauty leaves a sour taste in the mouth but beauty with virtue and all things beautiful is what we are after. That is why we have the question and answer portion. The triumph of beauty is the triumph of God and all that is good. Thus, the Filipino is tuned in to the boob tube every beauty queen season we want through some vicarious thrill for others to achieve in a microcosmic level what our reality doesn’t afford us: the triumph of beauty.

The origin of beauty pageants dates back to Greek mythology when Paris the young lovelorn man had to choose Venus in the beauty pageant of goddesses to receive Helen: the most beautiful woman in the world. Subsequently, European nations have conducted their own beauty queen tilt type activities.

“Choosing symbolic kings and queens for May Day and other festivities is an ancient custom in Europe in which beautiful young women symbolize their nation's virtues and other abstract ideas” (wikipedia)

Today the Miss Universe pageant winner; Miss Venezuela, Dayana Mendoza is likewise she has shown that she doesn’t have just beauty but poise, and intelligence as well. Ms. Mendoza is 22 years-old and her career ambition is to become an Interior Designer. She also enjoys photography and is interested in advertising. Apparently she doesn’t have merely beauty going on for her. I used to tell my mother that in Miss Universe pageant all the girls are winners already and all of them are beautiful. Who are we to judge who is more beautiful as long legged equally beautiful women sashay down the catwalk? Instead, the girls have to have something else to offer and that something they have to offer is carefully observed during the selections in the entire tilt. It could be anything that elusive x factor, an interesting experience or story to tell that can wow the audience educational background or some such. So far in our country that hungers to see our own local bets triumph over the world we’ve only seen a very small percentage of them make it.

Iron man: How Technology can save the World

2008-07-14T01:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Reader,

My favorite movie is Iron Man and it begins with a story of a man who has everything. Tony Stark is a gifted mechanics genius who has made billions of money by manufacturing high end weaponry. From the start he is self- assured and has no moral dilemma about his work believing it to be the right way to end the war in the middle east and believes in the adage “might makes right”. But fate comes full circle when the weapons he uses falls into the hands of renegade terrorists who uses the weapons against him while he was on a mission in the Middle East to showcase his latest collection of sophisticated weaponry to the US military. There he experienced war firsthand at the hands of his captors after he was kidnapped, tortured and kept in subhuman conditions while recuperating from shrapnel lodged forever in his heart which served as a testament of his misplaced philosophy. While in captivity he was pressured to create one of his deadliest weapons for the benefit of the terrorists. Putting his faith on the belief of his captors’ ignorance, Tony Stark began his most ambitious project to date: the iron man suit.

Seamlessly tying up the story to real world events was a brilliant device. It adds real pathos to the storyline that audiences can’t help but relate to since these events are happening in their own backyard. It brings the concept and fantasy of an Iron Man much closer to home. Unlike other superhero movies, Iron man’s nemeses are homegrown stemming from greed, unequal distribution of resources clash of religious beliefs, technological disparity of rich and poor nations which eventually led to terrorism. What is also unique about the movie is it explores technology’s ability to save the world in the hands of a morally upright hero. Iron Man is after all a technological product, not a mutant like Spiderman, and not an alien like superman. Tony Stark is a man among men and he uses his moral outrage to create a suit of armor to defend the most helpless citizens of war torn nations. As Iron Man he can specifically target perpetrators of war crimes lessening innocent human casualties. However a twist of events shows that “terrorism” isn’t confined to a geographic location or a group of people as his long time business partner has turned out to be in conspiracy with the terrorists that abducted him. A clash of ideologies ensues between Tony Stark as Iron Man and his former business partner as Iron Monger. The antihero’s name itself suggests man’s abuse of nature and the benefits of technology to achieve personal fortune and power.

Robert Downey Jr’s acting was dead on. He captured Iron Man’s youthful wit and devil may care attitude in his performance. He was dashing as the suave billionaire genius, Tony Stark. Unlike other superheroes who are burdened by secret identities and the predictable angst stemming from the responsibility of having to save the world, Iron Man is unapologetic and lets it all hang out, much to the audience’s glee. It is only poetic justice that he reaps the accolades for his heroic feats.

Yours Truly,
Alice