Dear John

My back is searing with the most uncomfortable heat from my body, un-cooled after a rush 10 laps swimming I managed to have this afternoon (in a warm outdoor pool even after the sun had set) and as other consequences are following, I am now dead tired yet cannot sleep; begging for the old unreliable air con to do some miracle chilling the rising temperature of the room (it is said that the temp has risen 4 degrees since the end of monsoon) and be honest for once when it says it is condensing the hot weather of summer to a16 degrees Celcius. Okay, enough weather talk as I am having this mild headache I usually have after drinking beer too fast or since it is Sunday night, I am trying to anticipate the inner anxiety attacks and panic uprisings as mundane Monday is approaching (actually it is both) and writing in attempt to get total annihilation of self into deep short slumber (which doesn’t really work).

Dear John which seemed like a good idea a couple of hours ago as a Sunday night movie to close the week, but it turned out making me more strung up than the beer and all the seafood and saccharine snacks I junked in for dinner and totally cancelled off any exercise I made in the pool earlier. I could blame it on Channing Tatum’s puzzling forgettable hunky face (as in, you could pass his as any of those Abercrombie alpha male models) and remarkable torso which was in contrary mesmerizing and made it harder for me to sleep it off. Or I could say I was annoyed by the love story twist of a Amanda Seyfried’s dull saint-like Savannah of marrying a dying man either to just reemphasize you are a Mother Theresa but not as unearthly as a nun therefore you can marry to save someone’s life or putting a selfish ending toward the dreadful letter corresponding and waiting for your lover finishing his tour of duty with US army in the middle of the seemed infinite War on Terror. It is just too much of Nicholas Sparks’ forte Hollywood keeps on buying and selling, I am on the verge of accusing director Lasse Hallestorm (not to mention how he directed the cover version of Hachiko) suicidal since he intended to bring something new on the plate and change the system by joining it first and successfully failed. It is a love story, of course it has to be teary, melodramatic and there’s always someone dying to set the lovebirds apart. Yet that is the challenge most of filmmakers have to deal (or decide not to deal) by putting great beautiful actors as the anchors or lots of schmaltzy romantic scenes to make it work. So in order to enjoy this kind of entertainment I had limited my expectation and droned and muffled myself to the charted area of soap opera romance with beautiful people chasing each other across beautiful shore, fancy beach houses, comfy horse stables (mostly for later love scene), acres of acres of greens, and this time lonely war sites.

By this time, you are already familiar to use your Emo remote control to amplify your sympathy when the cues of the formulaic storyline firing. For example, Channing’s John after being ditched through a letter without explanation, finally meets and confronts Savannah with why-oh-why sad and angry irresistible puppy look, you press hard on corresponding-to-your-last-time-being-dumped button or simply having an unabashed vicarious button when anything exciting comes along and you can press cooing button to add extra dramatic effect. But then again the couples may not have the strongest chemistry to display on screen other than what they have in common of pure significant perfected beauty and the every body-knows bland storyline is flat-lining and you end up pressing all kind of buttons to jolt some pulses over the hallmark scenes only to died down with victorious death of the dying man and any obstacles comes between them cleared away and they live happily ever after, which left you with the OFF button you often regret not to press it so much earlier so you can have a good rest and not unexpectedly ranting about it past midnight.