#and melodramatic romantic period dramedy with fun costumes and contrived storylines

[loptrcoptr]

Storytime, kids!

So uh. I’ve become a caricature of myself. 

I’m not great at movie names. I have trouble remembering, for the most part, all the directors/producers/writers involved in a film, and usually I can only manage to remember one of the bunch. Only one. idk what it is about the major execs, I don’t have room for many in my brain or something.

I realized this when rewatching Return of The Jedi last year, one of my fave Wars with Stars, and noticing that Lawrence Kasdan co-wrote the film. I was shocked that I hadn’t noticed this before because Kasdan directed and wrote my all-time favorite Western, Silverado. And lo, he wrote for Raiders of the Lost Ark, and for The Empire Strikes Back, and my all time favorite Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. Realizing this blew my mind, y’all. Now, I don’t like everything he’s done (and Idk if I can ever watch Raiders again after that Marian age issue reveal) but obviously... I have a certain type of taste and, apparently, it’s predictable to the -nth degree.

^^ (me @ myself)^^

Fast-forward to this week. On my birthday (Thursday) I wasn’t tired when I went to bed, so I watched this movie, Stage Beauty, which I had never seen before. It’s a romantic period drama with a screenplay by a man named Jeffrey Hatcher. And for some reason, mid-screening, the accurséd hyperfixation-fairy screamed THIS IS MY FUCKING JAM in my ear, and now I’m obsessed with it? Shit happens. I watched the movie two nights in a row, watched a shitty recording of a shitty community theater production of the original play, ordered the original play so I can read it (not that I don’t have the whole damn thing memorized at this point).... you get the picture. Jeffrey Hatcher adapted the screenplay from his own play, Compleat Female Stage Beauty, and neither movie nor play is without its flaws, so... I just can’t quite grasp what exactly the fuck I like so much about it. 

Well, tonight was my night to choose a movie for my family (my parents, we are still trapped in a house together, ain’t pandemic life fun) to watch, so I picked a few options and my dad grumpily said the only one that he’d watch was Casanova. Now, Casanova is one of my favorite movies. It hasn’t held up quite as well as I’d have thought it would, but it’s still a lot of fun and has a perfect soundtrack. Stage Beauty and Casnova have a lot in common, thematically, so I’ve been feeling some Casanova nostalgia over the last few days as a result of my shiny new Stage beauty hyperfixation. I know the names of every actor in Casanova, and I know Lasse Hallström directed it. You can see where this is going, right?

The opening credits are rolling, I’m thinking “ah, it’ll be nice to see Casanova since I’m on such a quirky-romantic-period-drama kick, apparently”. And here come the writing credits, and guess who wrote Casanova? Guess? Mr. Jeffrey Hatcher.

I think the sound that left me was kind of like a dying mouse, muffled by the stupid hand I clasped over my stupid mouth right after I muttered “oh no”. And my dad’s like “What? What is it?” and my dumbass just says “nothing, nothing. I know this writer. And... I am embarrassed.”

I’m trying to watch this movie while my whole brain is... crashing around in my skull having about seven tacky identity crises at once. I’m just?? A caricature of myself? goddamn, it used to be like yeah. Yeah, I joke that my personality is the color orange, some norse mythology, a few fuzzy animals and someone yelling “star wars” down a distant hallway, but APPARENTLY that was too kind. Apparently my personality is binary. Apparently, my tastes are so predictable that even when my brain is not consciously aware that something might be Right In My Stupid Wheelhouse, my heart can still pinpoint that it is... on a frighteningly consistent level.

So now I’m just a caricature of myself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯