In Bruges: It's like a Dream

It's like a dream. Good luck cutting the tourists out of your pictures.

The film, In Bruges, featured two primary characters with differing opinions of the city. 

Colin Ferrell just wanted to be back in Dublin while Ralph Fiennes reminisced about how magical the city was. Like a dream! 

I read somewhere these characters were based on the writer's first and second days in the city. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. 

How can it not be charming? There is a dog that has spent most of its life in this window.

Window dog is Windog.

The first day you spend in Bruges, you can walk around and see all the tourist stuff. Everything is charming. You can probably find a nice charming tour to take you around the city, and give you a rosy view. I enjoyed the Can You Handle It!? tour, which points out film locatoins and has a roster of snarky cynical sailor-cursing guides that will show you around the nice charming city.

The city is undeniably beautiful, and features unnecessary quantities of decoration everywhere all the time.

IT'S LIKE A DREAM.

And everywhere you look you can see quaint old stonework. And canals, of course, that make the place reminiscent of Amsterdam, minus the heavy drug use.

A FEUDAL DREAM!

There is a central square which you should not, and, in fact, cannot miss, because it is the center of everything ever. Between the cute buildings and carriages, there is nothing to remind you that you are in the modern era.

Except for photobombing tour buses.

There is a very tall, very impressive bell-tower in the square. It's very hard to miss, and you may remember from the film, In Bruges. If you haven't seen the movie, I said nothing. Nothing!

Yeah. THAT belltower.

It's worth a climb, you can see a top view of the quaint city. There are cathedrals and stuff.

Cathedrals. And stuff.

The city makes a beautiful place to walk around for a day. The risk is strong, for any city that size, that if you stay much longer than a day you are going to get restless fast. If you're there on a Sunday, you will find stores closed at unexpected times, and a choice of maybe two restaurants.

There is a lot to like about a day in Bruges. And if you are coming from Amsterdam, especially, the city will feel like a dream. Hopefully with better dream sequences than that movie within a movie.

Hom Com vs Som Com: Hit Man Rom Coms always win

Let me pose here with a gun while I watch
you run around  and jump on cars.

I made the mistake of watching Knight and Day today, and I was crushingly disappointed.

Don't get me wrong here, I really enjoyed it. I have a deep and abiding love of stupid action movies, stupid thrillers, and romantic comedies*. This was all of those steamrolled into one, and had I just gone into the film expecting a standard thriller-rom-com (which can abrev all the way down to 'tom com') this would have been a success. And really for a Tom-com, Cruise really does know what he's doing. A little crazy never hurt anyone.

I would have fully enjoyed the fine film if no one had told me anything about it. And told me wrong. I don't remember who I have to blame, but I am vexed. There I was ranting about the superiority of romantic comedies about assassins, and how sad it is that so few movies that fit this genre actually get made--and someone recommended Knight and Day. Fiend! So I was all excited, because it's surprisingly hard to find anything in the genre of hit-man rom com (super abbrev: hom com).

Consequently, to this villain's pernicious lies, I spend the first 45 minutes of this film all kinds of pleased, assuming that Cruise is a hit man, and he's gaining Diaz's trust for a larger and more difficult hit. This made his acting really good. The fake friendliness, the flirtation, the extreme sketchiness.

But as I watched further, it became clear; this guy is just a super-secret agent. And that's fine, for some people. There is nothing wrong with a spy rom com, or spom com. Except that I am pretty sure I've never seen truth-serum used as anything but a lame plot device.

The movie flirts with not trusting the main character, but doesn't flirt hard, and we know they're all talk and no daggers. Can I judge the movie for not having a truly psychopathic lead while still criticizing the relationship models in Twilight?

Yes. Yes I can.

To review, these are all of the Hit Man Rom Coms that I have found:

Killers - woof
The Baker/Assassin in Love - had Jaime in it.
Wild Target - had Ron Weasley in it
GPB - you gotta love the 80s.
War Inc. does this count at all?
Mr & Mrs Smith - hom/som com - still haven't gotten through it sober
This Means War - (barely counts) Captain Kirk. awful plot.