(This paragraph is not what this entry is about. Please keep reading. I cannot bring myself to write a paper on an object that sums up what I've learned about Dutch culture. Not even just to get it done, to get the grade, and knowing I will never see this professor again can I relate Dutch people to Spa blauw water bottles. I think I will just not do this assignment. And hope for some massive bonus points on my exam this afternoon. This is really ridiculous of me - I should just do it - but I won't. All right. Decided. I love screwing myself over.)

(If anyone doesn't want Something's Gotta Give spoiled for them, don't read this; you can pick it up again after the *** break.)

Just back from watching Something's Gotta Give, and I am absolutely seething in its badness. It is not only that it is a bad movie, technically speaking, though that it certainly is. Not one single original plot element, barely a witty line of dialogue, and the acting is at times painfully bad, particularly on the part of Mr. Nicholson, who apart from a few tired trademarks slouches through the entire film. But for all that I was willing to forgive it and conclude "it's worth renting," right up until the very, very end.

Of the two likely endings, they chose the wrong one. I suppose it was really the only possible ending, Hollywood, romantic comedies and the cast being what they are. But if you automatically discount the possibility that she might realize she's just fine and perfectly complete all by herself, at least you hope she'll choose a man who appreciates her for her, isn't afraid of emotions or real human interaction, &c, not to mention how nice it would be to show an enduring older woman/younger man pairing. This is really saying something considering my aversion to Keanu Reeves, but I was very genuinely rooting for his character.

All right, first of all, the movie makes the assumption that a successful, creative woman who has many loving relationships but no man in her life is obviously lonely. Not only that, but she's an uptight control freak who needs a man to "set her free." (The turtleneck sex scene? Painful.) I don't doubt that such a person might indeed be lonely, and might even be desirous of a relationship with a man, but to put up with that impenitent lecher, to still care after six months, to find his having apologized to the "generation" of women he fucked over charming, and to take him back when a devoted young man just gave her I-wonder-what in a small box, is frankly demeaning.

I get that her solitude, his pedophilia, and her daughter's emotional armor are all different ways people run from love. And I don't think he is beyond redemption, or doesn't deserve to be loved. I just think he blew it with her, and by the end of the movie still didn't get it. Two minutes from the end he still says something like "look who's a girl now" when he starts to cry, still not believing that is a perfectly healthy emotional response to thinking he's lost "the first woman he ever loved." And no, you cannot turn that character into a loving husband and grandfather when in the very last shot he's still just squeezing her ass. Ew. No.

Anyway I could even have lived with it if in the intervening six months she'd been alone and really not getting over him. But she spent six months falling in love with Keanu, and I don't believe her character does love halfway. If he weren't so perfect, and she didn't look so genuinely happy, then I could deal with it more easily. But he loved her faithfully, and Jack lost his chance. Too late, and even still far too little. You can argue about "feelings" and "soulmates" and "you can't help who you love" but I say that's crap. He did nothing to earn her love, bottom line. And if you're half as sensible as she is presumed to be, I think you make a choice between "feelings" and what is good for you. I don't think that's just running away from love, whether Keanu's there or not.

But I am giving this movie far too much of my time and anger. It really is just all around a disappointingly bad film.

On the other hand, I adore Diane Keaton. And god knows if I were at home I would give her the Emma Thompson/Katharine Hepburn treatment and devour her entire filmography in a month. She really is brilliant, and all things considered does make the movie worth renting. At least if there's a sale going on or something.

(PS, also - what a waste of Frances McDormand's talents. You almost forget she's even in the movie: which, on second thought, might be just as well.)

The truth is - and I shouldn't merely brush this aside, though it gives me no anxiety - it's not just that I think Diane Keaton is brilliant. I very naturally think she is also beautiful, sexy, attractive &c. I think and speak so easily about how sexy I find men like Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant. For each of them there is always an Emma Thompson, Katharine Hepburn, Allison Janney, but I keep that to myself.

It is not the same attraction, though: with the men, it is a more physical, sexual reaction, although still those are not quite the words I'm looking for because sex does so little for me, but still it's the easiest distinction I can make. With women, it is more of an organic thing, more personal, maybe - a psychological connection. I know I have always identified more closely with women; when I was younger this scared me and made me suspect myself of lesbianism. Now I don't think it's so strange that a young girl should identify with women she wishes to emulate, but the feeling persists. And I think if I have a more overt, physical attraction to men, I have a more profound, passionate, cerebral attraction to women.

You know all my theories about sex and gender and how little I believe this defines personal identity; I have been calling myself "theoretically bisexual" for some time. But for all this, it seems clear to me that, generally, I do have different feelings toward men and women. I cannot see myself feeling sexually attracted to women, but I do think all the deeper manifestations of love - what I'm really after anyway - would come to me more easily with a woman.

I'm sure I could dig deep and find some root cause of these feelings: I suspect, as with most of my psychological/ interpersonal anomalies, I could trace it back to my mother's third husband. It's sick to think I might on any level associate all males with that fucked-up person, but it's quite possible. I love men, I have many male friends, and I think of them as wonderful individuals. But truthfully, it takes much more for me to feel safe and comfortable with intimacy with men. And the truth is, if I am only capable of feeling physical/ sexual attraction to men, I am capable of that only at a distance. Presented with the possibility of physical intimacy in reality, I literally shut down.

It may also have a bit to do with my inveterate egotism: I identify with women, put myself in their place, and to think of loving them is really no more than loving myself, or a self I'd like to see. No, I've never ever connected strongly with any man in real life, literature or celebrity; I have a long, long history of these women. Truthfully, I am really only interested in women. And I believe, as with most everything I feel or do, this may only be as a means of better understanding myself.

Which are just interesting conclusions to come to, but for all practical purposes change nothing. I am just endlessly searching for love and knowledge, and anyone and anything that can aid in that process will always be welcome in my life.