Feminism, Michelle Pfeiffer, and the Tragedy of Falling In Love At The Movies

Why do we go to the movies?

Aside from entertainment, or to learn something about the human condition, or because the neighbourhood Classic Bowl was closed due to a tragic gutter ball accident, I mean.

Speaking for myself, I know I go to the movies to fall in love.

It's like the safest one-night stand you can ever have, except instead of a physical connection (and risk), falling in love with someone in a film approaches the spiritual (and its accordant risk). I can vividly recall my cinematic loves, like the girl on Gordon Street, or the girl with a white parasol, glorious technicolour beauties with 5.1 surround voices, stuck in two dimensions and shared with strangers in the dark.

Rachel Weisz in THE MUMMY. Audrey Tautou in AMELIE. Eva Marie Saint in NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Leslie Bibb in SEX AND DEATH 101. Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG. Rachael Leigh Cook in ... well, pretty much anything, but definitely SHE'S ALL THAT.

And Michelle Pfeiffer in BATMAN RETURNS.

Oh, Michelle Pfeiffer. Did you have any idea what you were doing when you stepped into Catwoman's knee-high boots? Did you set out to inflame desire and break hearts?

You played the demure secretary-turned sex kitten with such relish, such joy, that it's impossible to not fall in love with this performance. You play Selina Kyle as the epitome of confused female empowerment, an even-more perfect study in duality than the film's protagonist: both reveling in and scared by your power, alternately abused and loved by men, a product of society and trashing it at the same time. These are powerful forces, maybe too powerful for some viewers.

I would have been six in 1992, when BATMAN RETURNS came out. I didn't even know what the words were for what was happening to me. I wanted to save Catwoman; I wanted to make Selina Kyle smile. I wanted to hug Selina Kyle; I wanted to do ... something... to Catwoman. Only by looking back, can I name my pain: heartache. I'm no developmental psychologist, but I'd guess that six years old is too young for a boy to fall in love and have his heart broken. And Michelle Pfeiffer did it all in just 126 minutes, one chilly night in, of all places for a star-crossed romance, sleepy small-town Mississauga (a town so sleepy, we had a town mascot named 'Mister Sauga'. Now that's a tired PR staff).

That's the great tragedy of falling in love with film characters, of course - the credits are coming, and then it's all over. We'll be free to watch the film again, but it'll just be revisiting a memory. You only fall in love once, right? And like the hopeless romantics on a missed connections message board, we're doomed to relive those moments again and again.

But like those poor devils who exchange brief-but-meaningful glances from opposing subway cars, we eventually realize that there's always a new train coming (films are now trains, who are, of course, girls, in this horribly overwrought metaphor). We might only fall in love once, but if the string of names I listed above are any indication, we might not. We inevitably recognize that there are plenty of fish in the sea. Get it? Sea? 'C'? Catwoman!

Perhaps there are plenty of fish, but we can never forget the first time we were caught. Thank you, Ms. Pfieffer, for giving me another reason to go to the movies. If you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO.

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS is no SHE'S ALL THAT

Do you remember the incredible cinematic year that was 1999? That was the year we got FIGHT CLUB, THE MATRIX, AMERICAN BEAUTY, BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS, THE INSIDER, and the list goes on and on. It was the kind of year that still lives in legend, even if the Oscar for Best Picture went to the Ben Affleck-featuring SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Were you reveling in these celluloid discoveries in 1999? Or were you more like the thirteen-year-old me, embroiled in a hormone-fueled scam to separate me from my $4.75 in a little game I call the SHE'S ALL THAT con?

When I was thirteen, all I wanted to do was go to the theatre and stare at Rachael Leigh Cook for two hours. On that level, I was sure SHE'S ALL THAT would deliver (although there was, of course, going to be the regrettable Freddie Prinze Jr. tradeoff). But I had steeled myself mentally for this, and I was willing to accept that devilish bargain. And all of this would have been fine, if I didn't have to take my brother. Instead, I had to pretend that I couldn't find anything else at the theatre, that SHE'S ALL THAT was our only option, and that, "Hey, at least we'll hear that awesome Sixpence None the Richer song."

When JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS came out, I didn't even have that convenient Sixpence None the Richer excuse (which, as I have sadly found out, IS reusable). So I never got to see Rachael Leigh Cook bring Riverdale's finest musical act (fuck you, Archies) to the screen.

But now I'm 24, and I can watch anything I want. So when I find a $4 used copy of JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS in a garage sale, I buy it. And I am mildly amused by Alan Cumming and Parker Posey going all-out over-the-top insane. I am mildly surprised by the film's anti-corporate message (such as there is). And I fall in love all over again with Rachael Leigh Cook, who fixes a truck (Megan Fox-styles, without the whoreishness), plays a mean guitar (sorta, as long as I don't look at her fingers), and does the whole girl-power thing proud (if we can still call it that).

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch that three episode arc that Ms. Cook did in season two of Dawson's Creek.