What Do Harry Potter and Hallmark Have in Common?

Yesterday, I finally watched a movie.  I said "screw you" to the world, to my obligations, and to sleep (in other words, "screw you" to myself), and I sat in front of a Hallmark Channel movie called 12 Men of Christmas for an hour and a half.

I'm pretty sure I've written about this before, though maybe not on this blog, but I love the Hallmark Channel.  In fact, if I could only pick two channels to watch all day long, they would be the Hallmark Channel and ESPN.  Now that I no longer have cable, I've been going through withdrawal from both.  Because somehow I am both an incredibly stereotypical and also incredibly atypical female.  I believe in high school I learned that this was called an oxymoron.  Or was it a paradox?  Whichever it is, I am the poster girl for an SAT word with at least one r and x in it.

I am well aware that these are terrible movies.  They are horribly predictable.  Give me anything from the Hallmark Channel, and I can tell you the romantic storyline within five minutes of watching.  Better yet, I don't need to watch it at all.  Girl and boy don't get along.  Something happens.  Girl and boy can't resist each other anymore.  This one was no different.  I'm almost positive that it was supposed to be a spin-off of Pride and Prejudice.  There's even a part where he shows up randomly to announce that he's in love with her and that it sickens him, and there's also a skeevy guy that she almost falls for who ran off with his best friend.  Then things work out and they live happily ever after.  Like Bridget Jones' Diary, but with significantly worse acting and visual effects.

I really hope you weren't planning on watching this movie.  So many spoilers.

When it comes to poorly-written and -produced romantic movies--girls, back me up--we don't watch because we want to be surprised.  We watch because falling in love is already a shaky, uncertain, and sometimes elusive path in real life, and when we watch a movie, we want to know from the opening shot that the woman will end up happy.  Yes, this probably ruins real love for us and makes us idealize relationships too much, but it's a nice departure from reality.  Maybe I shouldn't speak for the rest of womankind.  I like the predictable storyline.  I need to escape from reality sometimes.

Beyond the comforting repetition of a common plot line, I also like the view.  Romantic movies are always full of unrealistically attractive men.  Take last night's movie, for example.  The main character moves to a small town in Montana that has less than 20,000 residents, and almost every man she meets looks like a model.  There was a scene with the Search and Rescue Squad with more attractive single men in it than I've seen in real life in the last month.  Even the guy who was supposed to be geeky and plain was more attractive than most real men.  In the same vein, all the other women were pretty plain.  My roommate and I both agreed that we might have to consider moving to Montana.

Tonight, I'm watching another movie.  Something called "Thin Ice." It's got a few Academy Award winners, and was shown at Sundance.  It'll probably be good.  But romantic movies are like drugs and Pringles.  Once you start, you just can't stop.

Turns out it's a Lifetime Channel movie.  Same diff.