That last part should be the title of a novel or something. :3
1) Watched Revolutionary Road with the family last night. I think I liked it just a little more than Gran Torino... the former is more polished, I suppose. It has an interesting overall theme (of the emptiness, yet also the allure of the idyllic, fifties middle-class American life), and one that is executed very well mainly due to the excellent acting of the entire cast. Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, especially, have some very memorable on-screen arguments. (The climactic argument even contains a symbolically-significant scene in which Winslet runs from her house into the woods. That's how you can tell this movie was based off of a novel, haha.)
Not sure if I would ever re-watch this, however; the experience of watching it was downright painful, not because the film is bad, but because the tone of the film is SO heavy and hopeless. Even the happy scenes in the middle chunk of the movie are obviously ill-fated. Though it's definitely worth watching the first time through, if you can handle this sort of thing.
2) I've been thinking about the characters of Skip Beat! very often ever since I finished the anime, particularly of the two male leads, Tsuruga Ren and Fuwa Sho. Ren is clearly the better (and FAR more mature) person of the two--he's still a bit of a jerk, but in a way that is much much MUCH more endearing than Sho's asshole-ery. I was rather enamored with Ren throughout the second half of the series. He's just so... guarded and difficult to win over, but very charming, sweet, and supportive once he does open up. On the other hand, Sho is charismatic in his own way, but it's very superficial charisma. He's egotistical, manipulative, and genuinely uncaring of others unless it's fueled by lust or selfishness; he's like a little boy with very, very sharp claws.
So then why is it that Sho is the one who I think about a lot more often? Even though I do have a habit of liking asshole characters (e.g. Griffith), Sho hit all the wrong buttons with me. I hated Sho after the first episode and he definitely hadn't redeemed himself by the point where the anime left off. Yet Sho as a character excites me more than any other in Skip Beat! As strange as this will sound, Sho's biggest redeeming quality for me is the fact that he has no redeeming qualities. It's rare that a shoujo mangaka doesn't cop out and give the readers a reason to start sympathizing with the good-looking, charismatic jerk of a love interest.
Of course, he does still have the potential to change for the better and start genuinely caring for Kyoko, but I find it interesting and refreshing that this possibility is up in the air rather than something already pre-determined. (Since jerk love interests in shoujo anime are almost always Obviously Destined to Reform Their Ways Due to the Power of Love right from the very beginning--see Hana Yori Dango. Fuwa Sho, on the other hand, has maybe a 50/50 chance b/c he's just THAT MUCH of an irredeemable bastard.) If he does eventually mature (and I mean character development on a mind-blowing, world-shifting scale), I think I could grow to seriously fangirl this guy. In the meantime, while I don't by any means like the guy, I guess I find the idea of him very interesting.
Either that or I'm a masochist. Or maybe I just like Miyano Mamoru's voice too much for my own good? x_x
