Magic Mike (or the other Channing Tatum post we had to have) (AM)

Saturday before last Pickle sent me a message asking what she should watch on TV that night. Our boyfriends were out of town together and I guess she thought that she and I would both be home watching TV that night. She was right. And she was right to ask me too, because I'd already looked up the TV guide to see what was on for Baby that night and then done a sweep of what was on for me. I answered her instantly: Magic Mike! That's what I'd be watching if it wasn't on at 9:45.  (As if I'm staying up that late to watch a movie.)

Turns out Pickle didn't even know what Magic Mike was. Even more surprising was I managed to stay up not just till 9:45, but even till midnight when the movie finished. Even when Newbie got out of be at 11:30 and wanted to be settled, I made him lie on the couch with me and watch the end of Magic Mike.

I was obviously pretty interested in watching Magic Mike. Partly because I'm always interested to explore my feelings for Channing Tatum but mainly because people liked that movie so I thought it may be just what I was after, not challenging and highly enjoyable. And I pretty much got exactly that. Steven Soderbergh directed it, after all and that guy obviously knows what he's doing. Despite Oceans Twelve and Thirteen. Magic Mike is shot really well, and very considerately. The days are full of  this warm saturated light and the nights are dark and seedy.

Apart from the well-craftedness, I just fucking love watching people dance, even if there is a weird uncomfortable sexual flavour too it. And Channing Tatum can really dance. And even the choreographed team stripper dances with weird unattractive strippers doing a bunch of pelvic thrusts were great to watch. If there's one thing I love more than watching a person dance it's watching a bunch of people dancing in unison. This isn't really a post about Channing Tatum, but while we are (barely) on the topic of him, I may as well tell you that since I first explored my feelings for him in late 2014 after seeing 22 Jump Street I've had more exposure to him, in the form of 21 Jump Street and Magic Mike, and while I'm not saying he is a hunk, I can now confirm that I think he is a reasonably charismatic actor who I am happy enough to watch in crappy movies.

Let me make no mistake about this movie, it followed a highly predictable story arc and was not in the least bit challenging, but the quite weird thing about Magic Mike though is that I actually thought about it for a few days afterwards. I don't know if it's because I haven't watched a whole movie in a really long time or if it was CT's dance moves but it kept coming back to me and then I realised maybe it was to do with the ending. Now, if you haven't seen it I should warn you I'm literally going to tell you what happened in the end. Channing Tatum gets the girl. But only once he gives up stripping to pursue his dream of making extremely ugly furniture. Now sure, Hollywood has a whole history of making men settle down for the right woman, but not like this. Usually the man makes a little compromise, but usually he's also made some uptight woman loosen up a little and then they can meet in the middle. It's the loose women of Hollywood cinema that have to die or give up there scandalous ways/partying lifestyle/murderous intentions/aversion to children so they can live happily ever after. Maybe that's what kept me thinking about Magic Mike, this turning on the head the domesticising of the man.

Who knows? I guess I just found the whole experience quite heartening. Imagine a world with Hollywood movies that were at once mindlessly entertaining but weren't completely shit and did an interesting thing or two. That's what Magic Mike hinted at. Oh joy.

And then K told me she watched the Point Break remake and her retelling of it killed every hope I had for Hollywood.