Pass the Popcorn: Movies from where I Sit

We watched an oldie but goodie last night:  "Roxanne", Steve Martin's retake on Cyrano de Bergerac.  Martin plays Charlie, a fire chief in Oregon with a huge nose.  Daryl Hannah plays a grad student in town for the summer and searching the stars for a comet she found.  Shelley Duvall is Charlie's best bud, who owns most of the town and runs a cafe.  Damon Wayans, Fred Willard and Michael C Pollard are some of the hilarious characters who are volunteer firefighters.  These firefighters make the Marx Brothers look solemn, even the Three Stodges.  There are plenty of laughs and it's a delightful film overall.  However, the gender divide rears it's ugly head every time we see it.

My husband thinks it's fine that Hannah can't act and Martin ends up with her in the end.  Why not?  Every man to his fantasy, and Hannah is gorgeous to look at.  He admits it's a stretch that she plays a astrophysicist, but it don't bother him nohow. 

I see that on Planet Earth Martin should end up with Duvall, who has humor, sensitivity and is rich and pretty damn cute.  They have more in common, and they are both going to stay in this small town, Nelson, until the day they die.  It's paradise.  I can't buy the dream, and even with great effort cannot imagine the life Hannah and Martin would lead.  Also, like all women, I identify with Duvall not Hannah.  I'm not six feet tall with blond hair, blue eyes, pouty lips and a bod that is a man's ideal.  I'm not Duvall either, but she seems real and authentic in her role.  Believable, I think its called.

Now the thing is this, they put Duvall's character in the movie for a reason, since it's not part of "Cyrano", any version of it, so why?  Because they know us gals are going to have Hannah leaving at the end of the summer and then Martin will wake up and discover the true Cinderella.  They are fobbing us off, while pleasing every man who has viewed this film.  It's a cheat.  What really happens is he gets to sleep with her a few times, then she leaves.  She's not going to give up her career for him, I mean, he isn't John Jr.  Get real.

So when we watch together, we are in our own separate little worlds, his an absurdist dream and mine, of course, honed with the pragmatic edge of the real world.  Yes, men are from Mars and women from Venus.  I rest my case.