VO & PI's - Discussion - Bachelorette 8

Shelby wrote:

shannonmac wrote:No need for a lesson for me.

I was merely making an observation that any of the men that were her fav's could fit the storyline.

got carried away in my explaination. will removed your quote. did not mean any lecture or whatever lesson.

HowSoonIsNow wrote:Yes, shannonmac is correct in his/her interpretation of my post.
And also Yes, to just about everything shelby said.

Rereading my post, I realize I should have made this on thing clearer - my theory of how this season ends (and how it maps to the ending of Kiss Me Goodbye) is based on the fact that both RS & LM were confident earlier this season that Arie was F3 and only recently modified their spoilers to say that Arie was F2. Either they were fed bad spoilers earlier this season, just to generate new enthusiasm with updated spoilers midseason, or something really went down in "them thar woods". So just like James Caan already said goodbye but then reappeared briefly to save Jeff Bridges life and then left again, so too might Arie have been F3 but brought back to be F2 to save Jef's finale and then leave again.

Thanks to all for reading my 2 long posts here!

Shelby wrote:

HowSoonIsNow wrote:Yes, shannonmac is correct in his/her interpretation of my post.
And also Yes, to just about everything shelby said.

Rereading my post, I realize I should have made this on thing clearer - my theory of how this season ends (and how it maps to the ending of Kiss Me Goodbye) is based on the fact that both RS & LM were confident earlier this season that Arie was F3 and only recently modified their spoilers to say that Arie was F2. Either they were fed bad spoilers earlier this season, just to generate new enthusiasm with updated spoilers midseason, or something really went down in "them thar woods". So just like James Caan already said goodbye but then reappeared briefly to save Jeff Bridges life and then left again, so too might Arie have been F3 but brought back to be F2 to save Jef's finale and then leave again.

Thanks to all for reading my 2 long posts here!

ditto with mine :whistle:

HowSoonIsNow wrote:

tootyboots wrote:

shannonmac wrote:

HowSoonIsNow wrote:

Wow, JBF, from all of your movie talk (Ghost, Titanic, Sleepless, etc), I just had an epiphany about what movie this season of Bachette might really be based on. And given MFleiss's age (just looked it up online, he's born in '64), this movie might well be part of his oeuvre of film-knowledge. In the late 70s was a Brazilian blockbuster called "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands" - it starred Sonia Braga and was considered the movie that introduced her to US/Europe, since the movie was a big art-house hit here. Then in the early 80s, Hollywood put out its remake of this movie, called "Kiss Me Goodbye", starring Sally Fields, James Caan, and a young Jeff Bridges. (Haha, just the title of the movie lets you know where I'm going with this!) I was a big fan of this movie, even renting it on brand new VHS technology (woo hoo!) the minute it got released to the brand-new Blockbuster store down the street. It was a sleeper word-of-mouth hit, pre-dates Ghost by ~10 years, but is more an emotional melancholic romantic comedy, rather than the somber funeral dirge that Ghost was.

The similarities between this movie and this season could not be more pronounced. Since I can't remember the character names, I'll use the actors' names in this comparison. The plot goes like this: before the movie begins, Sally was married to James, a famous, charismatic-with-an-edge, people-person, well-liked broadway producer/director/whatever, she was crazy about him and idealized/worshipped him and their marriage, but unfortunately he accidentally died by falling down the stairs of their home while they are entertaining guests. The movie begins 3-5 years after his death, and Sally is close to marrying Jeff (with 2 Fs), an introverted, introspective scholarly type (maybe a professor?), calm & well-liked but very unassuming and understated (perhaps underestimated? LOL). He adores Sally and is very supportive of her through her grief, but somehow Sally is getting cold feet and remembering how exciting James was. All of a sudden, James returns to her as the Ghost of James. This ghost charms her, she falls for him, and they essentially embark on an emotional love affair (unlike in the movie Ghost, they never have physical contact, let alone consummate the affair). She's very happy in this delusional romantic state, even the little arguments they get into don't bother her, as they communicate well through them (sound like Arie-Em?). But she's worried that TIME's running out - how long can she have ghost James in her life? and her wedding is around the corner! But Sally's friends are worried if she'll ever free herself from the grasp of the idealized ghost. So one of Sally's friends steps forward (Cassie L, anyone?) to tell her that she had once had a brief affair with James at the start of Sally-James marriage. This, along with Sally's mom reminding her of how difficult James could be, only thinking about himself (ala Kalon baggage comment) - maybe Em's mom will talk next week about warning flags she's sensing from Arie? Remains to be seen. Well, this all gets Sally to realize that James was, after all, just a mere mortal, and everything with them wasn't perfect. Thus, as she let's the pedestal crumble, she's able to let the ghost go as well. When Sally confronts James, he says he had come to heal her, help her get past him, and now that she's ready, he says "kiss me goodbye", and the ghost James walks away from Sally's life forever. The last remnant of grasp on Emily's psyche is gone, freeing her to move on into her future with Jeff.

This season of The Bachelorette, the remake of Kiss Me Goodbye, starring:
Emily as Sally Fields
RickY as pre-death James Caan
Arie as the Ghost of James Caan
1F-Jef as 2F-Jeff Bridges

Other plot points of interest: the movie starts with Sally & Jeff moving into the home that Sally & James had shared (Em lives in a Hendricks home, and this season of Bachelorette starts with her at this home instead of the mansion in LA they usually use). I think there was a kid in the picture, a son ~11 years old, but don't quote me on that.

Anyways, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it! ;)

Holy Cow- You are definitely on to something!! This is exactly the story playing out in front of us.

Very interesting comparison. Emily's story seems to be following this so closely.

Holy Cow is right! And I just realized something from what I just wrote above... in "Ghost", Whoopie Goldberg allows Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze a night of physical passion. In "Kiss Me Goodbye", the ghost of James Caan is never physically realized, so no night of passion, no consummation of the affair. And Fleiss follows in lockstep with the latter movie - NO FANTASY SUITE INVITATION FOR YOU, ARIE! Do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

I tried to find Kiss Me Goodbye on YT, but all I found was this fan-vid with some awesome Gypsy Kings music set as the background (saw GK in concert about 5 yrs ago - love them!). [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

The video reminded me of another major "coincidence" between this movie and this season. According to JBF and some others posters here, this season has borrowed a theme from another movie, "Hitch", in which Will Smith coaches other men on how to woo women or handle relationships with them (I never saw Hitch, so I'm just going by the wiki on this). In a way, this is similar to Cyrano de Bergerac. Anyways, in "Kiss Me Goodbye", Sally can see and hear the James ghost, no one else can see or hear James, but everyone sees Sally interacting with the ghost, so they either believe the ghost is there, or they pretend to believe it just to humor Sally (hoping it's just a part of her mourning process - the Denial stage in the 5 Stages of Grief). 2-F Jeff is awkward in romance, likes to discuss matters of the heart intellectually (like our 1F) but is not exactly romeo otherwise. So James coaches 2FJeff via Sally! For example, James tells Sally to tell Jeff to kiss her, or James tells Sally to say to Jeff things like "this would be a good time to do [fill in romantic gesture here]". So Sally tells Jeff those things, right in front of James, and Jeff either does them right there or soon thereafter. And each time Jeff earns brownie points from Sally, James gives him a wink and a smile, which Jeff does not see, but Sally and us the viewing audience do (just like Arie gives 1FJef a wink/smile everytime 1F gets a rose - Emily and we the viewing audience see this, not sure if Jef does).

Finally, one more interesting plot point that this fanvid reminded me of. At the end of the movie, after James has already said goodbye & disappeared, Sally & Jeff are going through last-minute wedding preps, and the house is buzzing with relatives and activities. Suddenly, Jeff falls down that same flight of stairs (the ones that James died on) and is rendered unconscious. Sally fears the worst, "oh no, just like James!". And we the audience fear the worst as well, that Jeff is dead. Then after a pregnant pause, Jeff wakes up, gets up, with a pep in his step, smiles at everyone as if nothing just happened, and all is well. Sally looks up to the top of the stairs, and wouldn't you know it - there's James, smiling down at her with a wink. Sally grins back knowingly, shakes her head. Fade to black. The implication is that perhaps James saved Jeff's life, or even brought him back to life after a second or two of being dead (he is supernatural, after all) for Sally's sake.

So - does this correlate to our season at all? Did Arie do anything purposefully to help Jef get to F1, either during the season or at the Finale, or even at the ATFR? Remains to be seen, or perhaps we'll never know.

One possibility - this is just an educated guess. As much as we like both Jef & Sean, it's a foregone conclusion that a Jef-Sean finale would be an utter snoozefest that no one would watch (save for their respective fans), with a huge drop-off in ratings. If you watch American Idol, you know that the Season 10 finals of 2 country-singing teens (scotty & lauren) was watched by NO ONE except the fans of those 2 kids - the ratings dipped drastically from top-3 night to finals night, and then rose again for the finale night (when the announce the AI winner). Fleiss doesn't want that to happen to his show. So when Emily says "no soup/rose for you" to Arie at F3, Fleiss realizes his dilemma and asks Arie back to take the F2 slot and sends Sean packing. So, maybe it's not Jef himself that Arie saves but Jef's Finale. Jef's Finale was dead-in-the-water, but Arie revives it just by showing up - supernatural!

Fleiss is happy - his ratings are saved. Jef & Emily are happy - many more will watch their finale, the "culmination" of their "journey", and just like Sally & Jeff, the bachelorette equivalent of "wedding preps" are saved. Jef has a pep in his step, as if nothing happened; Arie grins down on Fleiss and Emily; Emily smiles back at Arie, shakes her head knowingly. Fade to black.

P.S. I've never tweeted a celebrity before. I'm tempted to tweet Fleiss to ask him if he full-bore plagiarized this film. If he did, at least he learned his lesson from last season - if you're gonna plagiarize, don't rip from a recent popular film like Sex & the City! You gotta dig back further into film-dom if you wanna get away with this LOL.

Avg-Joe wrote:
Creative. Interesting posts.
...
Great posting! Woah! I was inspired. Is it obvious?