On cinema

About ten minutes into Angie, Geena Davis (below) is glimpsed outside a cinema with her boyfriend and her best chum, poised to see Cliffhanger. It is possible that the girls choose to watch Sly Stallone wearing stretch lyrca - they are of Italian extraction and absolutely no taste whatsoever - but it's doubtful. Obviously, the guy picked the pic; he wanted a flick about nothing (save empty action). Angie, however, is a film about something (choices) - which sums up the essential difference between boy movies and women's pictures.

It's not that boy movies haven't been trying. Lord, have they been trying. Male weepies like The Doctor, My Life and Ghost show the male of the species coming to grips with his emotions, though in The Doctor the threat of terminal cancer is required to kick-start the process. In My Life it is terminal cancer and in Ghost Patrick Swayze actually has to be stabbed to death before he can mutter 'I love you' to Demi Moore - who says Hollywood doesn't trade in realism?

Male weepies steal shamelessly from the woman's picture, only male weepies expect to be applauded for tackling the very things (passion, children, discovering who you are) that the woman's picture is critically despised for. This is not to say that Angie doesn't have its faults; you could live without the idea that Davis must learn to be selfless. But, cinematically speaking, this sentiment is no more cliched than the belief that a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Well, so have women - it's just that what they do is a tad more compelling than watching Sly Stallone blow off someone's head in slow-motion. . . again.