The last two movies I've watched: Ocean's 12 and Sideways. My husband and I had equal and opposite reactions to both of them, and I am wondering if there is a larger pattern.
We watched Sideways on a plane. My husband had already seen it, and I'd read plenty of reviews of it that gushed over what a great movie it was while simultaneously making me suspect that I wouldn't like it based on the reasons they cited for its goodness. He warned me that I wouldn't like one of the characters in the movie (let's just say I have a negative history with cheating in a relationship that makes me not want to watch it played out onscreen) but that it was good overall.
We watched Ocean's 12 on our TV at home. Neither of us had seen it before. Similarly, I'd read plenty of reviews of it but they were all very lukewarm, talking about how it fell flat on its face compared to the greatness of Ocean's 11, was a tepid sequel, etc etc. So I had low expectations going in.
Now, for sideways: I hated it. Many bad movies these days suffer from lack of real character development... but just because there is character development in a movie does not mean it's a good movie. I rarely enjoy a movie unless I identify with, sympathize with or otherwise like at least one of the major characters (if not for Jar Jar, I would have hated The Phantom Menace! yuck yuck). I did sympathize with Giamatti's character, but just didn't find the story engaging. I didn't understand many of his motivations for the decisions he made, I didn't see what benefit he was getting from his relationship with The Cheater, I thought the relationships in the story moved unrealistically fast for the "one week" timeframe in which the movie was set. Oh yeah - and I didn't like The Cheater, but I have enjoyed other movies with unlikable characters (Election is the closest example I can think of right now).
My husband and just about every reviewer, however, loved it. I can't figure out why. What is so good about that movie? Ugh.
Now for Ocean's 12. As the credits rolled, I said aloud "Well that was surprisingly good!" to which my husband responded with something like an "eh". I loved the overall plot, how the relationships with various women played a role in some of the characters' decisions, the introduction of the Night Fox, the one liners and twists. My only complaint was that it felt like the director was trying too hard with the camera angles ("oh look, let's rotate the airplane landing 90 degrees for absolutely no reason at all and now we're innovative") but that's pretty typical of Soderbergh and didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the movie.
Now my question is: Are our reactions reactions to these movies simply split along gender lines and stereotypes? Did men like Sideways because the cheater still gets his girl even though he does bad things and the sadsack also gets a hottie? Do women like Ocean's 12 because Brad takes the group to Amsterdam so he can spy on his long-lost love, and there's a powerful female character who does something other than look good on camera and shows the men a thing or two?
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