This just in!

There's a new blog in town, folks. She's young, she's literate, she's... Angela. It's just a baby, but I have it on good authority that this blog will grow up to be quite an amazing kid, bypassing the terrible two's completely and heading straight for glowy-eyed, gap-in-the-front-teeth adorable kindergartener status.

That turned into a weird metaphor. Regardless, I beseech you now to remember how it was when your own blog was but a babe, and send your encouraging vibes and comments over Angela's way.

Sleepless in Seattle has been churning around in my head all day. Mostly because it was the sum total of my morning input, but also because it's just not like all the rest of the movies. Hollywood tends to be very in-your-face about its love-story exports:

Hey! You! Yeah, you over there, rip your lips from your boyfriend's face and pay attention, because this here is a LOVE STORY! See? There's two Pretty People who are going to fall in looooove, because that's what Pretty People do! And we'll throw in some painfully obvious flirting, a bunch of casual sex, a troubled voiceover for conflict's sake, and a coupla gratuitous boob shots for the gentlemen. Now, wasn't that fun? At the end we'll tack on a moral so you can walk away with that satisfied feeling of having done Something Upstanding with your free time!

Now, Sleepless in Seattle is all kinds of cheesy, and has the pace of a French film noir on barbituates. Additionally it sports Pretty People, a jazzy-love-song-infested soundtrack and plenty of smarmy kismet-talk, and even an unsubtle (ok, the freaking plot hinges on it) allusion to classic Cary Grant. But at least they lay off the sex. In fact, the closest these two star-crossed-lovers-thrown-together-by -a-twist-of-fate-and-the-scheming-8-year-old-Jonah ever get to humpin' and pumpin' is in the very last scene, where they hold hands. In the presence of said youngster. Accompanied by a very cavalier "Shall we?" and a depreciating moue of an "It's nice to meet you." No fanfare, except the entire plot buildup heaving a satisfied yet dainty sigh.

Romance, not sex. Hollywood ca. 1993, I applaud you.