I can do anything I want to, baby. I ain't lost.

Pretty Woman (re-watch) — 3/5

Not a great movie, or really a complete one, but it's easy to see why it was a hit and why Julia Roberts became a star. She's got a "smile that lights up the room." There's a scene with a piece of jewelry about halfway through the movie that feels like improv, causing her to laugh, and if you hadn't fallen in love with her before then, this would have been where the final snare was tripped. She has an inherent quality and, in the movie, she's also playing into what I will define as a then-new type of idealized partner for men: the easy woman. Easy because sex, yes, certainly, but more largely easy in the simplicity of interactions between man and woman. Easy sex, easy conversation, easygoing, adaptable, fits in even when she doesn't belong, gently funny, casually beautiful, unfussy, coming and going at behest of the person paying her money. I think women looked at Julia Roberts and said 'I want to be her' (smile, laugh, lack of anxiety) and I think men looked at her character and said 'I want my partner to be her' (the woman who isn't difficult). She's essentially a less redneck (but still kind of redneck) version of Dolly Parton coupled with this shitty post-'Wall Street' 80s feeling of "I want it all," money and now the woman who will work around my needs. On the other hand, I was always curious to understand why Richard Gere never became a bigger star, and oh, oops, it's easy to see why, no need to have stayed curious. He's handsome, and not much more. He might have made a good Patrick Bateman, though I think he would have played it without irony. But they both fit each other's characters in being morally amoral people. And so what's really interesting about the movie is that she, as a character, isn't someone who regrets her prostitute life. Sure, she doesn't want to be made to feel like a prostitute and, like anyone, wants a happy fairytale ending for herself, but she shows no shame in doing what she does. Can you imagine what John Wayne would have said about this movie? This movie feels like one of those markers in time where you can draw a straight line through Breakfast at Tiffany's "...is she a call girl?" to the more explicit but via art film aesthetics of Midnight Cowboy to the lighthearted mass media representation in this movie, on upwards to Margo's Got Money Trouble and the open-ended "I'm going to show my vagina to men on the internet and we're going to be cool about it." You open the door, and you will find it just leads to another set of doors, in an unending war of escalation. We are about ten to fifteen years away from hardcore penetration in a Best Picture nominee, mark my words. But anyway, the movie. Uhh it tries to invent a villain at the finale in order to figure out how to end a movie that was largely lacking plot and so it ends up feeling rushed and incomplete. But it's an interesting one, mainly because of the overall sense of acceptance in which the character is handled. Hector Elizondo in particular stands out as someone who has this stiff kindness to him, both quick to judge and quick to adjust, perhaps a feeling of lower class solidarity within that; looking out for each other as they become what they need to become in order to navigate upwards.