Love Story

I have been in bed resting trying to regain my voice--especially for the upcoming debate on Wednesday. And the TV is in my face and how much of Prince Nayif can you watch? Tributes after tributes to the man who oversaw repression, oppression, and torture in the Kingdom of Horrors. But I watched the 1970 movie, Love Story. I watched for nostalgic reasons. I watched it at age 10; my mother liked Ryan O'Neal, I remember, and she took us to all his movies. I remember how proud I felt when I saw the name of Ali MacGraw. I remember thinking: a famous and beautiful Hollowyood actress is named after `Ali bin Abi Talib and is a proud Mulism. But when you watch it now, it is so annoying. It is so classist and so snobbish and full of Harvard self-referential remarks and names. Only a vapid human like Al Gore would like such a movie, I thought. And why do they make fun of Mexican and Indian movies for their melodramatic genre? I mean, is there a more cheesy and melodramatic movie than that? And this association with Harvard and the Ivy League and intelligence is so annoying. I mean, Al Gore and George W. Bush went to Harvard and Martin Peretz has taught there. Enough said. And how original is the story: about a love story breaking the class barrier? And this was a hit? And the musical score is cute, but that's about it. And I hate in those movies how much they want to show us rich people brooding. OK, I know that my throat hurts and I am in a foul mood, but that movie won awards.