Tag Archives: romance

May 05 2015
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Movie Reviews

Movie Review – The Age of Adaline (2015)

It’s an eternal romance that makes you think about the fragility of life and love.

Bookshelf Q. Battler here to review the crap out of The Age of Adaline.

Warning:  spoilers to come.

The incomparable Blake Lively, star of stage, screen and many of Bookshelf Q. Battler’s fantasies stars as Adaline Bowman.  Born at the turn of the Twentieth Century, she experiences a freak accident that leaves her ageless.  No matter how many years pass, she continues to remain young and beautiful.

TRAILER – Age of Adaline – Lionsgate

When Adaline hits her forties, people begin asking questions about how she’s managed to remain so youthful and so her life of solitude begins.  Afraid to reveal her secret, she packs up and moves to a new place every ten years, taking on a new identity every time she does so.

Tragically, she refuses to look for love as she figures it will be too heartbreaking when she grows old while a significant other remains young.

Continue reading →

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Feb 17 2015
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Books

Romantic Quotes – Dangerous Liaisons

“Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty. But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty. As I got to know you, I began to realise that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn in by it. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. And it was only when I began to feel actual, physical pain every time you left the room that it finally dawned on me: I was in love, for the first time in my life. I knew it was hopeless, but that didn’t matter to me. And it’s not that I want to have you. All I want is to deserve you. Tell me what to do. Show me how to behave. I’ll do anything you say.”

– Choderlos De Laclos, Dangerous Liaisons

The year was 1988 and to be honest, it seemed like a dumb movie.  But it was based on a classic novel, and starred a young Michelle Pfeiffer. It went on to positive critical acclaim – even though it mainly featured French aristocrats in fancy outfits babbling on incessantly forever.

The plot?  A widow and her lover make a bet that the lover can seduce a woman who is pure of heart.  To the lover’s dismay, he actually falls in love with the woman.

People sometimes put physical looks on too high a pedestal, don’t they?  I mean sure, none of us wants to marry a CHUD monster (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller – scary film, look it up), but on the other hand, beautiful doesn’t always = nice and or kind.  Shouldn’t we try to get past looks and see what’s in a person’s soul?

I mean, looks are great, but they don’t last forever, and long after they fade, you still have to live with the person, so hopefully they’ll have a decent personality too.

All I’m saying is don’t miss out a good but ordinary looking person to go for someone who may look great, but doesn’t act so great.

I have no idea if my advice is helpful though.  I’m about as romantic as a CHUD.

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Feb 16 2015
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Uncategorized

Romantic Quotes – The Notebook

“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.”

– Nicolas Sparks, The Notebook

I already commented on poor Nicolas Sparks’ divorce so I won’t go into it again.  For those 3.5 regular readers who are paying attention – no, I never was able to confirm whether or not Michael Crichton actually made a real, live dinosaur.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t, but I just don’t have any hard evidence one way or the other.  I didn’t see him make a dinosaur.  But I didn’t NOT see him make a dinosaur either.

But anyway – going along with the theme from yesterday (the quote from Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables) – here is another man opining that love is the best experience of life.

Is it?

I will say this – the year was 2004 and the Bookshelf Battler was in a movie theater packed to the gills with women pulling out tissues and sniffing up a storm.  No joke.  No exaggeration.  Sparks’ sappiness made a theater full of women ball their eyes out, and I suppose that’s why he makes the big bucks.  That’s real talent.

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Feb 15 2015
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Poetry, Romance

Romantic Quotes – Les Miserables

Valentine’s Day may be over, but let’s extend it a few more days and talk about romantic literary quotes.  Here’s one:

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”

– Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

Here, Hugo is basically saying that finding love is the best experience of life, and if you’ve ever loved someone, then stop worrying about all of the other things you want to accomplish, because you’ve already achieved the best thing that life has to offer.

Is love the best thing life has to offer?

Personally, I’ve found and lost love, and I argue that fro yo with gummy bears is a more enjoyable life experience.

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Feb 14 2015
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Poetry

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 – “My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Behold!  I will now present what I argue is the greatest love poem ever written:

Sonnet 130: My Mistress’ Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Was Shakespeare being serious here?  Was he being satiric?  Both?

I think we have an early example of parody here.

Every love poem compares a woman’s eyes to the sun, her breath to perfume, her cheeks to roses, etc.  Here, Shakespeare is saying, “You know what?  I have a regular, normal, average woman.  She’s nothing special.  But I love her anyway.”

And that’s a great thing!  Most people are normal, average, and ordinary.  You don’t need to over hype people to love them.  Just love your special someone for who they are.

Now then – and listen carefully, dudes.  Keep in mind I am not recommending that you take your ladies out tonight and tell them, “Baby, your breathe reeks, your breasts are grey (dun being an old word for grey), you’re no goddess, and music sounds better than you do!”

And in fact, as a disclaimer to all the crooked lawyers out there reading this – the Bookshelf Battler takes no responsibility for anything that happens to a man who recites Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 to his lady love.

Because while most people won’t get it, it really is a sweet poem.  Why?

Because anyone can love a person with breathe like perfume and whose voice is like music, but true love comes in loving the normal, the average, the ordinary, and even the below average.  And as hot as your woman may be, no one really has breathe like perfume, walks like a goddess, etc.

You may think there are a handful of women like that in the world, but I’d imagine even Brad Pitt is like, at least once in awhile, “Damn Angelina’s breath stanks!!!”

So this Valentine’s Day, grab hold of your very average and ordinary loved ones, knowing that to you they are above average and extraordinary, and make them feel that way.

But seriously.  Don’t tell her that her eyes are nothing like the sun.

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Feb 13 2015
20 Comments
Book Based Movies

Fifty Shades of Blech

I try my best not to make fun of the work of others on this blog.  And let’s

50 Shades of Grey - 20 Percent of Off

50 Shades of Grey – 20 Percent of Off

face it, make fun of Fifty Shades of Grey all you want, but the author, publisher, and now movie studio behind it are raking in the dough.

I just can’t help but scratch my head though as I try to make sense out of why today’s modern, empowered woman would be into this thing.  But that’s a slippery slope I don’t want to get onto, lest I be accused of trying to tell women what to do.

Here’s the hypothetical Hollywood pitch meeting as it plays out in my head:

HOLLYWOOD SUIT 1 :  OK.  We’ve got this great movie idea.

This mousy woman goes to interview a man, but discovers he has a secret room where he tortures women!

HOLLYWOOD SUIT 2:  Oh my God!  Sounds terrifying!  So what, I guess we brand it as a horror flick and release it on Halloween?

SUIT 1:  What?  No!  Sorry, I forgot to mention the guy is handsome and rich.

SUIT 2:  Handsome and rich?!  Well, why didn’t you say so?  Sounds like a surefire Valentine’s Day blockbuster to me!!!

Admittedly, I’ve never seen the book nor read the film.  If you have, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the main theme basically, “If you’re handsome and rich, it’s ok to abuse women?”

Eh, what the hell do I know?  I’m just a humble book blogger.  Y’all have fun at the movie.  I’ll be at home lamenting the decline of Western civilization as we know it.

In conclusion, let me be clear.  I’m not telling women what they should or shouldn’t like.  I am saying that Susan B. Anthony is rolling in her grave.

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Feb 13 2015
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Poetry

The Greatest Love Poem Ever Written

Tomorrow, in honor of Valentine’s Day, I will share with you the greatest love poem ever written.

Before then, does anyone want to venture a guess as to what it is?

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Feb 12 2015
5 Comments
Classics

Romance Advice from William Shakespeare – Part Four

Shakespeare was an intense dude.  Most people were intense way back when.  They put on twenty pounds of clothes just to go out to eat and they used twenty words to say things where one would have done just fine.

The Bard’s words are beautiful, but they aren’t as easily understood by today’s modern English speakers.

So first, study Shake’s immortal love sonnet below, and after that, I will translate.

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?  (Sonnet 18)

BY: William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

OK.  And now for the translation.  Are you sitting down?  Good.  For I will now translate this masterpiece of old English into modern language:

Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?  (Sonnet 18)

BY:  William Shakespeare

TRANSLATED BY:  Bookshelf Q. Battler

Damn baby, you be fine!

And there you have it.  The Bard’s words brought forth into modern times.  ‘Tis a beautiful thing.

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Feb 11 2015
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Romance

Romance Advice From William Shakespeare – Part 3

Do you believe in love at first sight?

That’s not a trick question.  I’m not going to ask you if I need to walk by again.

Do people instantly connect and have metaphysical fireworks explode in their hearts, or does it take time for love to grow?

Personally, I feel like the older one gets, the harder it is to feel those instant fireworks.  But what do I know?

Shakespeare believed in love at first sight.  And since this is a series about how to get chicks using the bard’s most romantic passages – well, if you meet someone and feel that instant connection, maybe you can recite this to said individual:

No sooner met but they looked;
No sooner looked but they loved;
No sooner loved but they sighed;
No sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason;
No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy;
And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage…

– William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Love at first sight or love that grows with time?  Is one better than the other?

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Feb 10 2015
2 Comments
Romance

Romance Advice From William Shakespeare – Part 2

Dudes, you have no idea how lucky you are all to have me.  I’m here.  I’m taking time out of my busy schedule to inform you, the reading masses, how to use the writings of the most influential author of the English language, to score points with the ladies.

Bardin’ ‘Aint Easy

OK.  Look at me.  LOOK AT ME.  Take one night out of your life and woo your woman.  All to often men underestimate the power of woo.

What is woo?  It’s not easy to explain.  It’s the effort you put in to make your woman feel special and loved.  Frankly, if you have to ask, some other dude has probably wooed your woman away by now anyway.

Don’t half-ass it like you do everything else.  Your woman is not some rug that you can just sweep dirt under and then pretend like you actually cleaned the floor.  Look at your woman and pitch ridiculous amounts of woo.  Take all of your wooing skills and just send them straight into your woman’s general direction.

Shakespeare’s Henry VI dealt with all of the political power power plays and general nastiness that led to the War of the Roses.  What was that war about?   I don’t know.  One side had some roses.  The other side wanted roses.  So they fought over the roses.  What do I look like?  A history scholar?  We’re not here to talk about roses (although you should order your lady some in advance because they’ll be sold out by Valentine’s Day by dudes who thought of this stuff before you did).

We’re here to talk about this quote:

“She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is woman, and therefore to be won”

– William Shakespeare, Henry VI

Take a knee, dudes.  Listen – want a translation of what Bill just said?  Here you go – you can’t phone this shit in.  Your woman is beautiful and so you have to earn that right to be around all that beauty.  Get her flowers.  Sing to her.  Read her poems and shit.  Or if she’s not into all that, then do chores and crap without her complaining about it or acting like a martyr because you had to wash a dish.  Make your woman happy!

Happy Wife = Happy Life.  Woo.  Learn how to Woo.

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