By Kim Hollis & David Mumpower

May 12, 2003

While the title will alternate from review to review, the main theme of She Said/He Said will remain constant to frequent readers of this column. It's that while Kim and I might be girl/boy, our opinions will so frequently mirror each other that you will most often consider this column to be We Said/The Rest of Society Said. Don't worry, that's a perfectly valid thought that in no way offends us. Since you don't have to live with it 24/7 as we do, you'll adapt kind of like getting into a hot tub and move on with your life while we're left with the fallout of severe psychological trauma. Just love us for suffering for our art and keep the big picture in mind.

To drive this point home, all you need to do is look at Kim's and my Calvin ballots for 2002 to see how often we align on movies. You'll note that a full half of our top ten lists for Best Picture are the same (though her shocking oversight of The Bourne Identity has been dutifully noted) and that six of our Worst Picture picks are the same. Since I was responsible for bringing Birthday Girl into the house and then dragging Kim to Star Trek: Nemesis, I can assure you that those were some long, cold nights spent in the doghouse. While we don't always line up in our opinions regarding movies, you can see from Kim's and my YMDB pages that our favorite films of all-time line up as closely as may be reasonably expected. The stats fluctuate from day to day but as I type this, I am ranked her number one match while she is ranked my number two. Long story short, we generally like the same movies and movie genres.

What specific genres would those be? Obviously, classic films are a passion we both share. While she loves Humphrey Bogart (a lot) more than me, most of our Classic Hollywood tastes are similar. We are both huge marks for Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant and Jack Lemmon. We like our action to fall toward the Terminator, Matrix or Die Hard side of the table but if it winds up being John Woo, Jackie Chan or Donnie Yen style, that's good too.

One area where we don't match up completely is animation, which long-time readers of BOP know is a passion of Kim's to the point where she does a weekly column on the subject. I'm generally non-plussed by the genre, but that doesn't mean I'm blind to the genius of The Iron Giant. I just don't love most of these films the way she does, and that is particularly the case with anime. She's a zealot while I'm a happy bystander.

The other place we generally are mis-aligned is the musical. I find them laborious and trite while she will stick a soundtrack in her car cd player and be set for a road trip. To anywhere in North America. Other than that, you will find most of our disagreements fall in the category of degree, though there is the occasional glitch where she simply fails to realize just how lousy most Colin Firth movies are. We are good-natured about these spats and frankly feel somewhat relieved when they occur. There's nothing freakier than working on the same piece at 5:30 in the morning only to realize you've just typed in the same sentence.

Despite all of our similarities when it comes to film though, the fact remains that she has a distinctly feminine viewpoint when it comes to movies (thus the musicals obsession) while I am as red-blooded an American male as the deep south can produce. There's a reason I'm so obsessed with Bound, Wild Things and even Femme Fatale and while I'd like to act like it's the direction, anyone who has seen Femme Fatale would know I am lying. When push comes to shove, she's a girl, I'm a boy, and we are always going to see movies from different perspectives. It's this inherent difference that we hope will prove to be a fun read for those of you who frequent the site.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, She Said/He Said will have a new film reviewed every day this week. We've looked at Down with Love, and now will switch gears totally for 28 Days Later.

Read what She Said about Down with Love.
Read what He Said about Down with Love.
Read what She Said about 28 Days Later.
Read what He Said about 28 Days Later.

View other columns by David Mumpower