Me: Sooo... I was thinking of renting The Lake House.
Wife: You? Why?
Me: I'm intrigued by the science-fictiony, time-travel twist.
Wife: But it's a total chick flick. I don't even want to see it.
Me: Um.
Wife: Seriously?
Me: Well, I was thinking it would be an interesting way to frame a discussion...
Wife: No.
Me: ...about the possibility and theory...
Wife: No.
Me: ...of time travel.
Wife: No.
Me: Plus I'm curious if the story is internally consistent with their time travel framework. And it's already in the Netflix queue.
Wife: And Sandra Bullock is in it. And you're a dork.
Me: Granted.

Comments

1. baby daddy on 2007-03-15 16:06:12 wrote: When it does show up in your mailbox, and when you do put it into the DVD player, and when you do watch it, you’ll be absolutely surprised at how nonchalantly the major characters in the film handle the idea of an intra-dimensional relationship. Sandra Bullock: Huh! My boyfriend communicates from the past through a mailbox. Weird. I totaly love him! Neo: Odd. I sent a letter to someone from the future. And she sent one back. She better be hot. Both: This isn’t strange at all. We’ll treat it as absolutely normal behavior. We’ll make nothing of it and focus on our love. It’s a quirky one.

2. JayMonster on 2007-03-16 08:41:05 wrote: In the immortal words of Stephen Colbert - You’ve just been nailed. :)

3. Thomas on 2007-03-18 20:15:29 wrote: I can’t talk with my girlfriend about time travel, either. Though, this is more because she once say “A Brief History of Time, the movie,” directed by Errol Morris (the same guy that did the opening of the Oscars this year) and, as a result, thinks she knows something about temporal causality. As for the movie, who would want to live in an entirely glass house? You’d have to have a relationship with someone in a different dimension because you certainly couldn’t do anything normal. The neighbors would see.

4. Nichole on 2007-03-19 10:41:55 wrote: Hiya! Found your link from Flickr’s Funny Baby group. I personally refuse to watch the Lake House, as it will destroy all my love for a novel that is rumored to be made into a movie soon - The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Read it please! You would love it, that is, if you enjoy time travel. At least in Niffenegger’s tale the couple sees eachother on more than one ocassion. ;)

5. John on 2007-03-19 14:17:12 wrote: That’s on my reading list, actually. I’ll have to move it to the top now.

6. L.A. Daddy on 2007-03-19 16:21:01 wrote: Dude, that’s pretty bad. I write Romantic Comedies and even I won’t see the darn thing. Sandra. Ding! Keanu. Three strikes. You’re out.

7. s’mee on 2007-03-20 13:20:00 wrote: I want to watch it, but with Steven Hawkings as my date. Now that would be entertaining!

8. Matthew on 2007-03-20 21:53:16 wrote: Wait, Sandra Bullock is in it? Excuse me while I go and log into netflix.

9. Craig on 2007-03-25 04:58:43 wrote: Try the original 1st… The English title is called “Il Mare”. There is no one you know in it to distract you from the story.

10. fyngyrz on 2007-07-16 10:06:59 wrote: The lake house… just watched it last night. Just trolling the older entries on your blog today, so pretty late in the game with this comment, but… This is an awful time travel / time related film. It creates a huge paradox, and there isn’t even the faintest effort detectable to try and resolve, explain or even hand off the problem. As a chick flick, it’s ok, Bullock is comely and whats-his-name is handsome and plays the usual optimized man 2.0 type of guy you find in a chick flick, but as a time travel movie… 0 out of ten. Straight time travel (where the “other” time is in your exact same universe) is hard to do even reasonably well because of the various paradox issues, but I just can’t swallow a complete lack of rationale for something that begs, no, screams, for explanation. I’ll stop ranting now. Say, you want to read (sorry, no film) a great time related book? “Thrice in Time” by James P. Hogan. Hard science fiction, so you’ll be facing actual ideas and rationales, plus a reasonable and clever take on how and why cross-time events, communication and so forth might work. Actually, if you read that, then go watch The Lake House. You’ll see why I’m so down on it.