Genevieve Valentine!
11 Jan
The winner of the Stargate: Universe drawing (via random.org) is: Sabrena! Contact me at marjoriemliu@gowebway.com and we’ll get the first season to you (or your dad).
Now, on to the good, juicy, stuff! We have a guest blogger today: Genevieve Valentine, an amazing writer of short stories (and a funny, lovely, human being), whose latest full-length novel, Mechanique, has been described by io9 as “a steampunk/post-apocalyptic/magical-realist/paranormal adventure…one of those rare books that will transform your understanding of genre.”
She’s giving away two copies of Mechanique, and two copies of Geek Wisdom (for those who just like to chew a little pop culture). The drawing is open to anyone in the US and Canada. Just leave your name in the comments to enter!
Onward to Genevieve’s guest post! And this, one of my favorite topics, ever.
***
Ten Movie Non-Couples I’ll Never Get Over
So, I am a complete movie nerd. I love good movies; I often love bad movies even more. (I have spent more money on the Catherine Cookson collection than is probably wise.) I also have a long list of “comfort movies” that I pull out as often as I can.
One thing I love in a comfort movie is a happy ending. But I’ve noticed that there’s actually a much more disproportionate number of Non-Couples in my collection – that painful, often-unspoken, not-quite-consummated relationship that leaves you trying to bang their Barbie dolls together for eternity. It makes no difference if they’re star-crossed main characters or background players with three lines. If I see it, I love it. (You know the drill: every time Chow Yun-Fat declares his love for Michelle Yeoh in the final moments of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you weep quietly and reach out as if you can compress your TV enough to force their faces together before he just dies like a quitter.)
(Above: two people whose faces will never be smashed together, EVER.)
Marjorie, who understands these feelings (because of the tower of An Affair to Remember DVDs she has hidden in a linen closet just in case it ever goes out of print), was kind enough to invite me to explain myself!
So, in no particular order, let’s run down a (very spoilery!) list of ten almost-ran lovers who make me tear my hair out, every time.
[CUT]
Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth
I have always loved Particular Subtext between a badass woman and the one dude awesome enough to keep up with her. In Elizabeth, frequent stage partners Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush bring a sense of two old souls to the roles of the Virgin Queen and her spymaster, Francis Walsingham. This scene sealed the deal for me, though; after delivering the bombshell that being a virginal icon is her most viable option, he reaches for her hand, a shockingly warm gesture for these two. But she’s pulled back her hand (intentionally or not, there’s no knowing), and in the next scene, she becomes the Virgin Queen, and all my hopes are dashed forever.
Margaret Hall and Alek Spera, The Deep End
She’s a Navy wife and mom who’s trying to hold down a three-generation household and deal with her teen son’s rebellion, which includes an affair with a sleazy club owner who trips to death on their property. Margaret covers up the crime, and almost gets away with it, except that Alek shows up with some incriminating footage and a demand from his boss for some hush money. He’s surprised by her candor, and impressed by her handling of her impossible situation, and before you know it he’s giving her father-in-law CPR for reasons he doesn’t understand. (It’s love, Alek! Loooove.) My favorite part of this beauty-tames-the-beast tale is that she’s awesome throughout, and he’s the guy who has to try to be worthy while knowing he doesn’t have a shot. My least favorite part is the incredibly cruel scene where they almost kiss, TWICE. How could you do that to me, movie?
Tereza and Sabina, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Tereza the innocent and Sabina the bohemian are the polar opposites of Daniel Day Lewis’s love life in this adaptation of Milan Kundera’s novel. However, this isn’t just another pair of jealous ladies fighting over the same unworthy hero; when Tereza and Sabina meet for a little awkward conversation, the sexual tension is so thick that pretty soon Tereza’s taking naked pictures of Sabina. The two of them maintain a sensual interest about one another with Daniel Day Lewis stuck in the middle, and only Sabina fleeing the country prevents them from ditching that jerk and starting an amazing art studio together, which is really what they should have done.
Jenette Vasquez and Drake, Aliens
(Above: the couple that sneaks ammo together stays together!)
Aliens is just teeming with potential relationships that never panned out: Ripley and Hicks, Ripley and the Alien Queen, Hudson and an airlock. But the one I loved best was the partnership of Jenette Vasquez (the best ever), and Drake (the guy who knew she was the best ever). Though they’re usually in the background, Vasquez and Drake are inseparable, from their pull-ups to their raid on the alien colony, and her biggest trauma isn’t facing down the acidic bugs, but having to leave Drake behind. I’d believe you if you told me they were just background best friends, but you can’t stop a girl from dreaming.
Switch and Apoc, Matrix
(Above: since they weren’t in many shots just the two of them, you get a picture that looks like the morning after they spend the night at your house and everybody’s eating oatmeal.)
Speaking of background characters who were suspiciously married, these two have about three lines each in the entire movie, and neither one of them even makes it to the end credits. However, they work as a single unit when they’re taking point in the Matrix, sit next to each other at meals, look at one another for first reactions to new information, and die in one another’s arms. Many a canon relationship has been built on less!
Vincent Freeman and Jerome Morrow and Irene Cassini, Gattaca
(Above: The new DVD cover, in case you didn’t know THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT GENETICS, I guess.)
It’s no question that the first romance in Gattaca was between the two Jeromes – while the “invalid” Vincent gets prepped to pass for Jerome in public, they hang around Jerome’s house and banter like it’s a Noel Coward play. But then comes Irene, who’s smart, and so cool under pressure that when she realizes her boyfriend is actually impersonating a stranger, she lies to the cops that of course this is her boyfriend – and lays one on him to prove it. Jerome is impressed, Vincent smitten, and Irene intrigued. And while Vincent has the only possible reason to leave a threesome like that behind (space travel is hard to give up), I still can’t watch the last four minutes of the movie. Or sometimes the last half-hour. Sometimes you just want to stop when things are still okay!
(The period-piece equivalent of this is Wings of the Dove, where you can make a science of pinpointing the exact moment those crazy kids could have sat down and had one decent conversation and spent the rest of the movie raising the eyebrows of every concierge in Venice. But because it’s Henry James, no one is allowed to have a decent conversation, ever.)
Alice Munroe and Uncas, The Last of the Mohicans
(Above: if you play the soundtrack backwards, you can hear my heart breaking.)
I feel like this is one of the classic lost causes where it’s definitely canon…because the most heartbreaking and tragic scene in the entire movie is about them. Yay? But what a scene: Uncas comes to the rescue of Alice Munro, who’s been serving as a slightly-macabre foil to her hardier older sister for much of the movie (he’s already manfully saved her from walking right off a ledge into a waterfall). He falls in battle, and in an insant, Alice turns into a complete badass, delivering some of the best acting ever as she gives her would-be captors the best slow-mo brush-off ever, and dives off the cliff after Uncas. It’s so romantic! I hate it.
Emily Hu and Hook Waters, Push
These background characters (sense a theme?) had hardly any dialogue, and exchanged a max of two lines with each other in the entire thing. However, their characters were more interesting than our white-bread hero (one of them is a mutant-tracking Sniff, the other a con man who can make anything look like anything else…for a little while), and their casual familiarity within the underworld hinted at some much cooler backstory than the pittance that was presented. Ming Na and Cliff Curtis need to team up in an unofficial Push sequel about a heist and make out, stat.
Jean-Luc Picard and Lily, Star Trek: First Contact
(Above: Picard has no idea how to talk to girls.)
So, let’s get this straight: you go back in time, meet a pivotal ambassador in human/Vulcan relations who is finally smart enough to be wary of randoms from space who make weird promises and beam her places, get caught on the ship with her that’s the Federation-class equivalent of running out of gas on a dark road near Necking Bay, save her from danger, get dressed up in gorgeous noir wear and take her dancing in the holodeck, get effectively called on your shit by her at a crucial moment, and you can’t ask her out for a cup of coffee after she makes first contact? Really, Picard? Really?
Elinor Dashwood and Colonel Brandon, Sense and Sensibility
A pairing so close to being canon that Mrs. Jennings and Edward Ferrars both bought it. It doesn’t help matters to begin with that Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson work together something like every six months, often playing marrieds or exes, which makes you want to ship them on principle, but this is probably the most frustrating case of it. They spend their scenes together in sympathetic, honest conversation (partially because the objects of their affection have ditched them), confide in each other, discuss business, arouse the suspicions of everyone around them, and bond during Marianne’s illness. Then, in the last reel, they shuffle off to their plot-mandated significant others, leaving a trail of broken hearts in their wake, one of which is definitely mine.
I could go on (and on), but I think my nerdly proclivities are pretty clear by now, and whenever someone asks me what I thought of these films, “They should have made out!” is probably the first thing out of my mouth, followed by whatever substantive discussion I can manage while silently pining for my favorites.
How about you? What are the cinematic almost-rans you love the most?
**
Genevieve Valentine’s fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Subterranean, and others, and the anthologies Running with the Pack, Way of the Wizard, Teeth, After, and more. Her first novel, Mechanique, is nominated for RT’s Fantasy of the Year.
Her nonfiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Fantasy, Weird Tales, and Tor.com, and she co-authored Geek Wisdom, a book of pop-culture philosophy out from Quirk Books. Her appetite for bad movies in insatiable, a tragedy she tracks on her blog, genevievevalentine.com.
A pyrokinetic and former car thief, Eddie cannot refuse an assignment to cross the continent in order to rescue an extraordinary woman in peril…even though he fears losing control of the destructive power of flame at his fingertips.
The last of her shape-shifting kind, Lyssa hides in the abandoned tunnels beneath Manhattan. Like Eddie, fire is her weapon, her destiny…and her curse. For beneath Lyssa’s extraordinary beauty are dangerous secrets…and even darker, nearly irresistible urges... (November 2011)
When the bond Maxine Kiss shares with Zee and the boys-the demons tattooed on her skin-is deliberately severed, the hunter is left vulnerable and unprotected. For the first time in ten thousand years, the boys have a taste of freedom-without Maxine’s guiding influence.
As they grow more violent and unpredictable, Maxine starts to fear the little demons will lose their minds without their attachment to her. But reuniting won’t be easy, as a great temptation waits for her little demons : a chance to return to their lives….and unleash hell on earth. (December 2011)
awesome list! my favorite non-couple definitely has to be maggie cheung and tony leung from in the mood for love. so much yearning and nothing every happens! gah!
Ok so i haven’t seen all of these but i always prefer to see the couple that never quite reaches it to the happy ever after finish line. The most recent example of this is in the last ever Spooks episode Harry clutching Ruth in his arms as she dies, having earlier pledged to give up his work and go wherever she wants to be with her.
Maybe what would’ve been a great end to the relationship, (well not great for the characters), the season 3 finale of Castle him finally telling Kate he loves her after she’s just been shot by and lies bleeding to death. Although I’m guessing she survives and they’ll be other obstacles in the way and they may make it but it could turn out to have a bittersweet end.
Also finally what about the young lovers from Crouching Tiger i remember her throwing herself off a bridge rather than live happy ever after with him.
Definitely last now on a star trek theme Picard & Crusher sure they got it together in books, but they’re not cannon so officially they last had an encounter and then went their separate ways after Attached in ST: TNG Season 7
Oh, man. Elinor Dashwood and Colonel Brandon are one of those couples who I would never ship in the book, but who I desperately want to make out in the adaptation.
I’ve got one other not-couple like that, where I don’t see it at all in the book but absolutely see it in the adaptation. Because I am a sick, twisted woman, it’s Susan Sto Helit and Jonathan Teatime from Hogfather. (Ok, I know that romance is absolutely not the point of the story at all, and that Susan and Teatime taking a couple of minutes to make out would really throw a wrench in the plot, but I swear they come thisclose to doing it anyway.)
I never really thought of Elinor Dashwood and Colonel Brandon being an almost couple but now that Genevieve pointed it out, it makes sense. Every other movie (even the Harry Potter films) they seem to be working each other.
And there’s a special place in my heart for Jean-Luc Picard. I need to re-watch First Contact.
I need to watch 5 of the movies on this list. I keep hearing that Gattaca is a great film.
I hope you do a post like this in the future Marjorie. These types of posts are so much fun.
great list: Crouching Tiger, Matrix, Uncas-Alice, Lily “Blow up the damn ship Jean-Luc”-Piccard- wholeheartedly agree with all of them!
good list
Uncas and Alice…my heart aches even now. I also happen to think that the kiss between Hawkeye and Cora is one of the best screen kisses of all time. I’m racking my brain but every couple I come up with just seems very fan fiction-y.
After seeing the latest Sherlock Holmes movie in theaters, I’m shipping Holmes/Watson HARD…. So many good lines! I like this one the best: ‘Watson, lay down with me.’ (me thinking: Are you going to have it now?)
I love the Wings of the Dove three-way ship!
I’m so glad I’m not the only one who shipped Emily Hu and Hook Waters in Push.
Sara
I agree with everything! And as someone who has never read Sense and Sensibility (I know, I know), I was honestly surprised Elinor and Col. Brandon did not end up together.
Mechanique sounds very interesting and right up my alley.
My favorite couple who never were but should have been is Draco and Hermione in Harry Potter. His character could have been so much more and the two of them ending up together would have very interesting.
Great list. Thank you for bringing up Uncas and Alice; no one ever seems to believe me when I talk about their almost-romance when I watch ‘Last of the Mohicans’. Also Elinor and Brandon– Austen should have just hooked them up because even in the book they were the better couple.
Dorothy and the Scarecrow. Yes, really.
I’m so glad you included Alice Munro & Uncas. I thought Jodhi May should have gotten an Oscar for that performance. She went from drab to beautiful with just a look. Incredible. I really wish, thought, that Duncan would have at least gotten one kiss from Cora before the end. Sure, he was a pompous ass, but anyone who’s willing take your place at the stake deserves some consideration.
Great post! And Mechanique is definitely on my TBR list so would love to win a copy!
I totally want to comment on your choices but out of this entire list the only two I’ve seen are Matrix and Gattaca. >_> Maybe I’ll use this for my movie recommendations for the next month.
So very entertaining. Yes, that’s exactly what happens every time I watch CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON.
I have to agree with Sabrena above — Holmes and Watson!
All of these (that I’ve seen) are so very true! Especially Uncas and Alice. Aaargh.
One of the classic missed couples is of course Hugh Grant and Kristen Scott Thomas’s characters from Four Weddings and a Funeral. I MEAN. What was he THINKING? Also, I have always shipped Janeway and Chakotay from Voyager and I always will. Dammit.
Excellent list.
Carolyn
Definitely Harry and Hermione. Those two have such great on screen chemistry that I almost expected the films to deviate from the books in this aspect. I certainly wish it did.
Great list. “They should have made out” should totally be a battle cry of sorts.
I definitely agree about Elinor and Colonel Brandon and I love your explanation for Picard.
Also, count me in for the draw! Mechanique especially has been on to-read list for a while.
Drake and Vasquez…oh, how I love those two! It was so painful when they died.
I must watch Last of the Mohicans again. Jodhi May breaks my heart in that movie.
Good list!
The doctor and rose
First, I have to second Electric Landlady’s Four Weddings and a Funeral – who in their right mind would chose Andy McDowell over Kristen Scott Thomas? Crazy!
Second, I was SHOCKED in A Knight’s Tale when William ends up with rich bitch Jocelyn. That’s not how how stories work! The hero is initially smitten with the rich bitch but then comes to realize that the smart and kind girl that was always by his side was his true love. You never end up with the rich bitch! That movie just makes me so mad.
Picard and Lily? Really? I just don’t see it. (No disrespect intended.) I am of the Picard/Crusher school though, so…
Alice and Uncas breaks my heart every stinking time!