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Those magic butterfly transformations

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We all know part of the Hollywood beast is to show off beautiful women, and one thing that a lot of movies do is "transform" their leading ladies from being allegedly "plain" to being these beautiful, Cinderella-esque belles of the ball. You can see this in a number of Anne Hatheway movies, the Kate Hudson flick "How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days" or pretty much any movie aimed at 14 year olds or shallow romantic comedies that hinge on advertising designer wear.

The thing is these "transformations" lately don't have any real impact because the woman in question already looks cute from the get go. In the movies of Anne Hatheway there's really no difference between Anne in her "plain" mode and Anne in her "beautiful" mode; she looks cute throughout the whole film no matter what the wardrobe. Another example would be Sandra Bullock's "Miss Congeniality", where she portrays an FBI agent percieved as an undesirable waif just because her hair is frumpy and she's unabashadely tomboyish in attitude, then she gets a barely there makeover and suddenly she's a beauty.

If you'd like to see this transformation thing done right, rent Terry Gilliam's "Brazil".
I'd like a qui-gon jinn please with an Obi-Wan to go.

Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/greencapt/hansolovsindy.jpg
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If they set a movie like that in a sci-fi setting, they could really get creative.

4

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I think the transformation effect only really works when you use an unknown actress. Then you're seeing her for the first time and it can be stunning even if she normally is cute and is "uglied up" for the pre-transformation portion of the movie.

But, then again, even this tends to be ruined by movie trailers.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
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Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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I fail to see where "How to lose a guy in 10 days" did this. Did you even see this movie. If anything it was more of an emotional change for Hudson and McConaughey's characters than a physical change. Their was not one character in that movie that had a make over.

I think "Not another teen movie" addressed this (as well as a bunch of other cookie cutter type plot points) extremely well. When they talk about who they are picking for the bet they have comments like, but she has paint on her jeans and glasses, while refereing to the conjoined (at the head) twins as being too easy to transform.

I think they did a better job making Hatheway look unpretty than they did with Bullock. But either way, these movies always use someone that is beautiful to begin with, so they have to 'uglify' them by putting their hair in an unflattering style, and using makeup to do the opposite of what the makeup usually is used for.

Besides, these movies are more about (or are supposed to be, as this is the message they try to get across) the inner beauty of the person. At least thats how I always figured it, i mean it is a 'Cinderella' story, and is that not what Cinderella was all about?

-Darth Simon
Why Anakin really turned to the dark side:
"Anakin, You're father I am" - Yoda
"No. No. That's not true! That's impossible!" - Anakin

0100111001101001011011100110101001100001

*touchy people disclaimer*
some or all of the above comments are partially exaggerated to convey a point, none of the comments are meant as personal attacks on anyone mentioned or reference in the above post
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Okay, thank you. I was thinking that, too, but forgot to type it as I was typing the rest of my message. How To Lose was not a transformation movie.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com
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"How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" - sorry. My bad. I'll try not to make that mistake in the future.

I like "unflattering", messed up hair. For me it makes the gals more desirable.
I'd like a qui-gon jinn please with an Obi-Wan to go.

Red heads ROCK. Blondes do not rock. Nuff said.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v72/greencapt/hansolovsindy.jpg
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Yeah, I thought Rachel Leigh Cook's 'nerdy' character in She's All That was better than what she looked like after the transformation.
40,000 million notches away
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But that wasn't a transformation movie in the classical sense. He just had his "inner beauty" blinders on. Everybody else in the world saw them for their physical exterior. He only saw the inner beauty on them. So, they really don't undergo a transformation.

And How to Lose still wasn't even a "trashy hair" sort of movie, HSVIJ. She worked for a beauty magazine and was on top of all things fashion wise. She dressed the part and was made up to look the part because she was supposed to be desirable from the get go (I, however, don't really understand what the world sees in Kate Hudson, but that's just me). She never looked even remotely bad in the movie. She started acting up the role of annoying, but her look never changed.
"You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia'."
--Vizzini (Wallace Shawn), The Princess Bride
-------------------------
Kevin A
Webmaster/Primary Cynic
kapgar.typepad.com
kapgar.com