Photo by Simon Howden
Hi everyone! Sorry for the unexpected hiatus...I've been hard at work getting my other blog into shape at www.shawndrarussell.com. It's related to all the fun, heartwarming, and sometimes heartbreaking stuff I write about in my novels. If you are a lover of women's fiction, I hope you will go check out the site so you can get a sense of what my novels are about.Anyway, back to business as usual. This weekend my husband and I did a much-needed three-movies-in-a-row marathon. Our lives have been pretty chaotic due to our total life upheaval, so some "us time" was just what the doctor ordered, and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris was a romantic thinker that had us BOTH considering moving to Paris (but if we don't do that, we figure Savannah's streets at night (not in the rain, though) are pretty darn awesome too.
Owen Wilson plays the lovable bozo who is in a relationship with a high-strung, controlling, and bitchy fiancee played by Rachel McAdams (had to be a fun role for her!). But the show stealers were the actors that played the literary and artistic heroes of the past: Heminway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso...
It was a ball seeing these greats as just regular people struggling through their days, fighting to get noticed by editors (I can relate!), and getting their hearts broken. And the commentary that many of us wish we could go back and live in a perceived "golden era" when really, whatever era you are living in isn't going to feel all that golden. History often highlights the best of each era, leaving us sometimes longing to travel back in time.
Wilson actually gets this wish, and of course falls in love with a young lady from the roaring 1920s. He loves everything about this era, and of course thinks that only if he could have lived back then, he would have been truly happy, walking the streets of Paris for inspiration. But isn't that what we all say? I'll be happy when...
I have more money
I have a better job
I live in _______
I get married
I have kids
I...
The message? Be happy now. We can only live in the moment we are in, so longing for the past or daydreaming about the future isn't going to make us any better off. Always a wonderful lesson to be reminded of, even if the acting lacked emotional depth and came up much more lighthearted than heart wrenching like I would preferred (I never once felt like crying! Humph!).
But this movie did get me thinking about all the great time travel books just waiting to be written.
If you could meet anyone from history, who would it be and why? Share in the comments!
