(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

It's really, really sad when you find yourself checking your DVD clock every ten minutes or so to figure out how long it's been since you last saw zombies. Flight of the Living Dead did eventually deliver zombies, but, sheesh, I swear that Night of the Living Dead had more zombies and faster and it was made with less than half the budget (even without adjusting for inflation) and had fewer people in it to begin with. Outtakes were great, though.

And, FINALLY, I got to see Day Watch. Can I just say (as I've said before) that I love Anton? He's absolutely the biggest fuck-up of all time, and yet? Sweetly endearing in his credulous ineptitude. I'm gonna have to watch Night Watch and then Day Watch again to be sure I appreciate all the continuities (we did pretty well among the crowd that happened to be watching of reconstructing the plot by consensus from the last film). I'd love to see more of this, but I'm afraid. ecmyers said they're filming the next one in English. Why? I mean maybe I just don't know that the entire cast is actually bilingual and proud of it, but it seems to me that you shouldn't mess with the language through which they most comfortably express themselves. Hell, bad accents can take power out of a performance; adopting another language could do god-knows-what.

Plus, Anton sounds even more pathetic with his schlubby muttering in Russian than he would do in English, and his sclubbiness is why we love him!

*

On a completely unrelated note: Rejected public proposals. Like the announcers, I've always wondered what would happen if someone actually said "no" when the grand "romantic" gesture was made. Rumor has it that this particular one was staged. If so, this one is probably fake, too. Regardless, you'll note that the crowd turns on the woman doing the rejecting pretty quick and that's the real mob reaction to her defying the narrative. Obviously, if he proposes in public, you're obligated to accept. How embarrassing for you to get that wrong.

Except? Ugh. I can't think that anyone who does this and really gets rejected would be anything but an idiot. Because there are two major reasons I could see this going wrong for that person. Either the woman never wants to marry him and he didn't know it but plowed along thinking the public proposal would force her into it; or she very likely would marry him but somehow their comfortable intimacy has not led him to realize that this is exactly the wrong way to do it. Either way, dumb move on the dude's part. I can't think of anything less romantic than thousands of strangers watching me for my every reaction and making judgments on whether it's grateful/happy/etc enough to match his grand gesture (by grand, I mean in size only, not in terms of tactfulness or true thoughtfulness). I break out into hives thinking of a traditional wedding where I would then be required to accept that I fit into some minister/justice-of-the-peace's statements about how joyous and blessed I feel to be with so-and-so. And there I'd only be doing so in front of people I know and who have, presumably, entered into friendships/are part of family such that I am allowed to do the same to them at some point. Being mushy in front of people period: DO NOT WANT.

Comments

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've often wondered what would happen if a public proposal was rejected. When I've thought about it, I admit, I mostly consider the guy proposing (since it's about as big a humiliation as one can get), but I certainly wouldn't blame a woman for rejecting. And no, not terribly romantic, either.

Marriage proposals often seems tricky to me, since you want to be 99% sure they'll be accepted, but there's no way to be sure without asking "do you want to get married?" which would be considered a proposal, but a terribly prosaic one, so you'd have to phrase the question in a really weird way and ... yuck. I'm sure I'd fuck it up one way or another.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm just weird that way, but I've had it come up naturally in conversation in several relationships.

Also, a proposal is a ritual, not really a formal offer/acceptance any more (if it ever was). They couple should already know the answer. The ritual involves a ring, one knee, and the exact phrase "Will you marry me?". After that, you can [magically] refer to yourselves as being engaged. It's kinda like the priest saying magic words at the wedding ceremony, really.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

So if she rejects it's like she made her save? Is it Fort, Reflex or Will? (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

The object would be to get her to intentionally fail the save. That's what I've been trying to say this whole time!