The Blueprint

Hype. it's great up to a certain point and then it becomes a bad.

The reason is because very few things ever live up to the hype. As a super super pop culture geek, I'm pretty up to date and have a pretty solid gauge on the hype-ness of most things--movies, music, sports, etc.

Once something is universally loved and praised, it reaches monster-hype status (hypebeast?), and once something has reached monster hype status, 99.9% of the time it disappoints. Think them Matrix sequels, Obama as President, Slumdog Millionaire, Jessica-Alba-in-Sin-City, Jay Z's comeback album Kingdom Come, White Castle Burgers, Stephen Chow's CJ7, etc.

Through no fault of their own, they got overhyped, overrated and fell short of monstrous expectations.

I can say that only four things IN THE PAST DECADE have lived up to the monster hype:

1: Jordan's comeback in 96

2: Lebron James's jump to the NBA

3: iPhone 3G

4: The Dark Knight

(Alright so Jordan's comeback is over a decade ago but fuck it I make up my own rules as I go along)

So anyway, I would like to say 500 Days of Summer have officially reached monster hype status. At least with me. It's at a point now it can't live up to the hype, because if it does it'd have to be one of the greatest films of the year.

Here's what led to the hype: First there's festival buzz, the same kind that Juno and Little Miss Sunshine got. It has very good rating on Rottentomatoes (88%), then it became the first movie to sell out in Summer IFF. In fact it may be the only movie to sell out in the Summer IFF.

Later, a former AFP intern--whom I met in HK this summer--tells me how amazing the movie is and I should watch it.

Other friends from US tell me the same. And these are all knowledgeable film people (one's a USC film student and the other's a York University film student. Not that those school things matter cause I went to no school of film and I can whup both of them in film debates), cause you know, us elitist film snobs stick together. Really, my roommate said he liked Transformers 2 and I was like, disgusted with him for the rest of the night.

And then tonight...

My first girlfriend, my first love, the first person I truly had a connection with and could talk to (I'm quite anti-social with most people), randomly messaged me out of the blue a few days ago and said

(screename altered for privacy reasons)

lilfoot91 (12:21:54 AM):benny!

lilfoot91 (12:21:58 AM):im so glad u signed on

lilfoot91 (12:22:00 AM):u HAVE TO see

lilfoot91 (12:22:04 AM):500 Days of Summer

lilfoot91 (12:22:05 AM):if u haven't already

lilfoot91 (12:22:08 AM):that movie is YOU

This is totally out of the blue. We don't talk that often. She doesn't know this blog exist so she couldn't have known that I've been writing about the film and that I've been waiting for it.

So yeah, 500 Days of Summer is the most hyped and anticipated movie for me since The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight lived up to the impossible hype, can 500 Days of Summer?