Wednesday, November 7, 2012

"One should be the leading lady in one's own life!"

Reprinted from patchesofheaven.blogspot.com
 
I came across a quote attributed to Kirk Douglas yesterday, and it got me thinking:

"Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny.
If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down"

While just a tad negative really, in some ways I think Kirk is dead on. I can't even tell you the amount of times that my (granted, overly dramatic) mind has thought "this is like something straight out of a movie".... and yes, I'm fairly certain it would be a B grade movie.

I mean, there was the time I half fell down a man hole at 11 o'clock at night in a torrential rainstorm in a dodgy part of town (horror movie, obviously... if my sister hadn't been laughing so hard on the other end of the mobile phone). There was the time just after September 11th when they shut down an entire terminal in the LAX airport and I was held (literally, by-the-shoulders held) by two armed army guys because they thought they'd found every type of explosive they test for in my suitcase (action movie? ... ).

There was the time I fell madly in love only to have my heart broken, but then when you flash forward to the last scene with a 'five years later' title, you'd find I'm doing just fine. That one would be your coming of age story. There was the night a bat flew into our house and a friend and I spent about 2 hours cowering behind doors and randomly waving our arms around before it finally flew out again, all on it's own (nature documentary?)

There were the college years and all those hilarious (if you have a teenage sense of humour) antics. There was the crazy family experiences that have settled into treasured family folklore (make way for the kooky ensemble cast). There are the many many times I've gotten lost only to find the page of the map I needed was missing, or the iphone had run out of battery (travel program / black comedy?).

The list could go on, and I suspect you've got your very own list of moments in your life when you've seriously started looking for the camera crew you know must be hiding around here somewhere!

And in the end, I suspect Kirk's kind of right. In reality each of these experiences would probably only make B grade movies. The script hasn't always been spot on, and we don't always come up with the best dialogue. The story arcs are often a little unbalanced - too much time spent in the exposition I would think. Colin Firth has yet to make an appearance in a single scene. My trips to the grocery store almost never happen against a Paris backdrop. Full orchestral musical scores would definitely add a little something something. The explosions are never big enough....

But I do think there's something that redeems this little life-movie of mine....

My acting tends to be superb.

xo tammy