White Wedding

Finding a good wedding dress is probably the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced in my life. That includes having worked a 6-hour shift on Boxing Day in Yorkdale Mall. That also includes being the only person in a classroom (BEFORE I even became a registered ECE) who knew the Heimlich manoeuver when a child was choking while about a dozen other children were running around like mad.

Yep. It's more frustrating than that.

But I'm going to be honest, here. I'm cheap as fuck. Paying over $500 makes me cringe because that doesn't include alterations, veil, shoes, hair and all that other annoying crap. Sure, there are quite a lot of dresses out there that go for under $500, but NONE of them are a size 0. 

Sure, most ladies complain about not being able to fit into a size 6 when they're really a size 8. Oh no. Not me.

In fact, a couple weeks ago I went to David's Bridal.

"And what are you looking for?" Asked the lady at the counter.

"A dress," I responded, confused with the question, but figuring that it was standard procedure.

"What kind of dress?"

Are you shitting me? What kind of dress? WHAT OTHER KIND OF FUCKING DRESS WOULD I POSSIBLY BE LOOKING FOR?

But then I noticed the sign for Prom dresses. 

Of course. She must've thought I was one of those high school girls looking for a super fancy Prom dress. I couldn't really blame her. Though I'm 24, most people peg me for 19. I always get carded at bars and at the LCBO.

So I explained to her that I was looking for a wedding dress, that I already knew the style I had in mind; she gave me the catalogue and some stickies to mark which ones I liked and told me that a consultant would be with me shortly.

I'd tell the whole story, but it'd take too long and it's just about as frustrating as the other time I went wedding dress shopping. 

My point is that it's irritating as fuck. Everything is too big, everything is too expensive, dresses nowadays are either bead-crazy crumpled up grandma curtains or short dresses that cover about as much as a towel.

I'm seriously considering getting my dress made for me, but Lord knows how much that's going to cost.

Maybe I could just wear a toga.

Melancholia

The first 10 minutes were vaguely reminiscent of Malick's The Tree of Life in that it decided to go in an artistic, Discovery Channel direction whilst an orchestra played in the background: 

Shots of the actors in these portrait-like positions and moving in slow motion heavily foreshadowed the plot that was to unwind, while never losing sight of the fact that, amidst all that was to come, another planet was about to collide with Earth and destroy every living being on it -petty problems and all.

Obviously, that's what the film focuses on. Petty, first-world people problems; namely the problems of spoiled Justine who can't seem to decide if she's pretending to be happy to appease others and herself or pretending to be sad so that people can coddle her and treat her like the centre of attention.

You'd have to be blind to miss that metaphor, seeing as her "depression" is what threatens to ruin everything she doesn't really seem to hold dear in her life -and the name of the mini-planet about to hit Earth is called Melancholia (who woulda thunk?).

Though, when it comes to end-of-the-world by way of planet collision movies, there's usually someone or something that saves Earth as the plot bounces from hero, to family, to president, to hero and so on and so forth.

That doesn't happen in this movie, which is all it seems to hinge on.

Unfortunately, that one scrap of "saving grace" is about as helpful as Justine's mothers' wedding speech: a breath of fresh, albeit bitter, air.

If you like deciphering and analyzing characters, motifs, themes and pointing out the symbolism of this and that, you might like it (though I'm very much that sort of person -and I didn't enjoy it). It's the sort of movie that you can talk about and feel every bit as miserable and sophisticated as the wedding party.

The only part I really enjoyed was when the wedding planner swore not to set eyes on Justine because she ruined the wedding. That's pretty much how I felt about this film.

To the director, I suggest you remove the whole planet collision bit. It's clear that all you want is to focus on Justine. Then again, if you were to remove it, you would have no choice but to rename the film "White People Problems" -but I guess you didn't want it to be that obvious.