How I Met My Deep, Wallowing Sadness

SPOILER ALERT: 

This post is going to talk a lot about How I Met Your Mother and it's ending, so if you don't know how it ends, I would advise not reading it. That's especially if you're actively watching it on Netflix, like I did for two straight months.

If you don't care, please read on. I'm basically going to talk about how this show RUINED MY LIFE. I think you might understand if you just hear me out here. 

If you've never seen the show or never heard of it, it's a tale of Ted Mosby, portrayed by Josh Radnor, telling the story of how he met his children's mother through a series of flashbacks. The series pilot starts off with him sitting down his kids and asking them if they ever heard the story of how he met their mother. But, the flashbacks, however, start with him meeting a woman, Robin Scherbatsky portrayed by Cobie Smulders, who he finds amazing, that he goes on a date with, but is ultimately not the mother of his children. He deliberately tells them that that's how he met their Aunt Robin. But, she still plays one of the most important parts in the entire show. I would've never guessed why. You know, especially seeing how she just held Ted by a string for almost the ENTIRE SERIES.

Her not being the mother was very predictable. Why give away the whole point of the show in the first episode? But, it plagued me, there was a reason why she started the story. There was a reason for almost everything in this show. The continuity was practically spotless and if our narrator told us we'd get back to something, we most definitely would. It was just a matter of time. So, of course there had to be a specific reason for Ted to meet Robin in the first episode, why he started off a story about his wife with her. Are you piecing things together yet? I certainly didn't. 

 

So I could give you a run down of the entire series, how I grew so attached to all of the characters, no matter their little quirks, and how I was so attached to Ted finding "the one" he was going to spend the rest of his life and have a family with. But I won't. I'll just let you know that when I say attached, I mean I feel like this show was MY CHILD, and it just grew up and tore me apart. By season nine, I was on the edge of my seat to find out who the mother was. And, you do, she's this tiny, pretty woman who is basically the female version of Ted, named Tracy (referred to commonly among fans as "The Mother") The idea of her and Ted together to me was the cutest thing in the world, they worked so well. However, we did not see much of her, just a few flashbacks, most of which she was meeting other members of Ted's gang and not actually Ted. I wanted so desperately to see the two of them together more. But I didn't.

Instead, the final episode revealed that the Mother has actually passed away a few years prior to Ted telling this story to his kids. And, that the reason for the entire story was to warm them up to the idea of him and Robin (what no way!!!) finally becoming a perma-couple. The kids are okay with it, and so he and Robin ultimately end up together. This ties everything together, and I should feel closure over it, but I CAN'T. I'm pretty late to the party, but this show flawlessly and deeply hurt me. 

Everything Wrong With...

Almost all movies strive to have perfect continuity throughout, but in theory some continuity errors are bound to happen. Some may happen because the scene was shot on two different days or some can just happen because we are humans and we aren't always perfect. There are just hundreds of reasons why. Youtuber CinemaSins states "No movie is without sin. We exist mostly just to remind you of that." CinemaSins is popular on Youtube with 1,585,174 subscribers and 188,989,171 views on all his videos combined. CinemaSins has combed through multiple movies looking for these continuity errors which people may or may not pick up when they are just watching the movie for for themselves. After he calculates how many errors are in the movies he creates a video showing all the errors and explain why they are continuity errors. I found it truly fascinating how he is able pick up all of these errors. One of my favorite videos he has posted was Everything Wrong With Back to the Future in 8 Minutes or Less.

There are 55 errors, or sins as CinemaSins calls them, in this movie, which is pretty high compared to other movies he has gone through. I have seen this movie at least thirty times throughout my life time and have not picked up a single one of these errors. There were sins from the appearance of Doc in his Delorean to the nerd level  of George McFly.  Ater watching this video I have to watch the movie over again to see for mine own eyes these errors. I have watched many more of CinemaSins videos and I will definitely not see those movies like I used to. I definitely recommend watching other videos that have been posted by CinemaSins you never know what you will find.

The Longest Two and a Half Hours of My Life.

Okay. Maybe not the longest. But it was pretty close. I saw Amber's post on Lincoln and thought I would respond with what I thought of the movie. Over the semester there's been a lot of things that Amber has posted and talked about in class that I completely agree with, and we seem to share a lot of the same tastes in some things. I think it's safe to say this movie was not one of them.

When I went to this movie I went in with high expectations. I went with a pretty large group of people on Thanksgiving night, and my group came out split in half. Half were on Amber's side, and the other half found it mildly painful.

I have to admit, the story was solid and the actors did a good job. Daniel Day-Lewis was a fantastic Lewis. While I'm getting somewhat tired of seeing Sally Field as the same crying mother over and over again, I'll even give an a-okay to her performance. My problem with the movie stemmed from other aspects of the film.

In class, we spent a lot of time talking about how camera movement should help tell the story. You want reasons for everything that's in frame and every movement you make. However, during the long stretches of dialogue the camera would slowly pan and move up and down the table. I found this movement more distracting than anything else. Not only that, but it made the five+ minute stretches of dialogue feel even longer. I felt that if you are confident in your dialogue you shouldn't need to lean on painfully slow pans to add some interest to the piece.

Another aspect that I found distracting throughout the whole thing, which kept me from paying attention to the story, was the continuity...or lack thereof. Throughout the entire film, the piece is battling with constant smoke filling every room. Between cigars, furnaces, lamp, etc...the stuff is everywhere. However, there were a few different part in the film where the smoke would completely disappear in an instant. In one shot a character is faced head on and he takes a puff of the cigar, and a giant plume comes out. The next shot, where less than a second has past, looks at his back towards Lincoln across the room...no smoke to be found. In another scene a we find Lincoln's son outside by a flag that's blowing in the breeze. The next shot, also where less than a second has past, we see the same flag this time looking out of a window, and it's completely still. While these things don't seem that significant in the long-run, when you have a movie that is very dialogue heavy with very long scenes, little things like that can be very distracting. My brother's girlfriend who's never taken a film class in her life also mentioned these things, so I know I can't be the only one.

I would still recommend seeing this movie. I didn't absolutely despise it, and David Strathairn's role as Seward is enough to keep the movie afloat. I do think it did a good job at giving a bit of insight to a president that many people think is one of the best presidents to have ever led America, without really knowing much about him. I just think there were some...or many things that could have been better.