The Time Travelers Wife Has A Lot Of Free Time

Every man I know who sports both a penis AND a vagina twixt his thighs says I should totally read The Time Travelers Wife and have a good cry into my matching brassier and panties. Do they really expect me to see a “sci-fi” movie that seems to have more in common with The Notebook than Blade Runner? Ah, but they weren’t suggesting I see the movie. They were suggesting I explore the source material, which is apparently a very different time traveling animal. Even those fans of the book seem to have the same misgivings as I do about the movie.

hijinks-ensue-godspeed-you-fancy-bastard-book-300x300Knowing myself as well as I do, I realized I will certainly never read the book so I did the next best/worst thing and read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. I’m sorry, vengeful Internet! I just had to know what was up with this quantum leaper and his spouse. No spoilers, but it’s actually a very cool story with a wonderfully tragic ending. Maybe that was a spoiler. If you don’t like tragedy, make sure to see the movie because they changed the ending after focus groups said it was too much of a downer. Movies, after all, aren’t supposed to make you feel sad, or uncomfortable, or angry or be anything but an escape from our mundane lives into mundane fantasy. I guess that’s why I’m having such a hard time selling my screen play about the plight of African AIDS babies getting sold to warlords to work in diamond mines. It’s called “Look Who’s Talking and Has AIDS: Baby Blood Diamond.” All the babies would be voiced by Wayans’s.

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22 Comments

  1. The Time Traveller's Wife sounds interesting from what friends who have read it told me, but the only real romance novel I have ever read was called "Train Man" by Hitori Nakano, which was about a Japanese nerd who finds love. So far it is the only romance novel marketed at men that has been successful, EVER, because the target male audience is a more romantic breed of man from all the anime romance shows they watch.

    Anyway, I disagree that movies shouldn't provoke uncomfortable emotions, for example I cried at the end of Midnight Cowboy when I watched it for the first time because I didn't know what was going to happen… *sniff* RIZZO! *sob*

    I'd probably watch this time travel romance movie if I had a girlfriend to watch it with, but I'm so very, very lonely.

  2. I actually read The Time Travelers Wife….on the recommendation of my girlfriend. Yeah there romantic parts to it but really its more of a scifi tragedy than anything because this guy spends so much time traveling through time against his will that him and his wife find it impossible to have a normal life or relationship. I'm a hard scifi reader and found the book to be very good and an interesting take on time travel. The book is really good science fiction with a dysfunctional relationship thrown in there. Also dealt interestingly and realistically with the idea of time travel paradox.

  3. The worst sci-fi flick I've ever seen aimed at the chick flick audience with an attempt to attract guys was "My Super Ex-Girlfriend". Horrible, horrible movie, not because of bad acting or set pieces but because of the way the writers treated the characters. Terrible.

    So I'm not particularly interested in seeing this film, no. I reckon it's probably another ill advised attempt to attract two disparate types of audiences.

  4. I read the book about two years ago and loved it. Had misgivings about it the movie from the getgo but reading Joel's thing about changing the ending seals it. My money's going to District 9 this weekend.

  5. It's movie's like this that make me glad my girlfriend isn't a chickflick kind of gal (and prefers something along the lines of an afternoon watching "Alien" or a similar film). I'm sure several of our geek brethren are getting dragged into this film under the guise of "something we can enjoy together"/"well, it's science fiction, too!" and a vague promise of sexual gratification afterward.

  6. I started the book, a while back, but…dunno, found it a bit dull. I'm going to give it another go soon, cos I paid for it, but if they're making the movie a chick flick then I'll pass.

    Surely hobo bones can go on the compost heap, no? Maybe near the bottom so they've got longer to degrade. Or if you have a wood fired boiler…..

  7. I read the book and it had an interesting premise I suppose but it didn't really deal with anything science fiction-y. It's mostly a romance, with a dash and sprinkling of sci fi. It's ok I suppose but I didn't find it especially moving. Both characters got a little annoying at times and are pretty unrelatable (for more than the obvious reason of time-traveling). There was also the creepy factor for me: since the guy time travels (involuntarily) he meets his wife when she's just a child, so she knows him since she's 5 and is basically in love with him her whole life. I dunno, I suppose that's romantic but to me that was a little on the creepy side of things. I watch a lot of Law and Order SVU though.

  8. OMGWTF?!! Joel, did your wife drag you to this movie yet or did Josh warn you about it? If you need me, I'll be @ District 9

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