When Harry Met Godzilla - How Hollywood Genres Hold the Key to Your Personality (And Everybody Else's Too!) by Garry Leonard

Whether it's the cute guy or girl at Starbucks returning your glances, or you're trying to tune-up a marriage, this book offers a way to begin a conversation ("what are your favourite movies?" Easy!) that will give you instant clues as to compatibility and likely goals and principles of a longtime partner or a new flirtation. Have ytou ever had an argument that just doesn[t seem to be about what it's about? chances are your "genre narratives" are clashing. You're saying "tomatoe" and she's saying "tomahto". Both of you are hearing statements as threats, even if you intend them as neutral declarations of your point of view on a given topic. Understanding your preference for one Hollywood genre over another can shed light on commonly unexplored—yet vitally important—aspects of your personality personality. By identifying with characters who are like us and by empathizing with characters who are completely different from us, we gain insight into ourselves and into the way we interact with others. We also see what happens when characters make important choices: some knock them off balance, and others help them regain balance. At the heart of nearly every Hollywood hit ever made – be it a Romance, Melodrama, Film Noir, Horror, Western, or Science Fiction movie – is a quest for balance Typically, the narrative begins when the lead character is knocked off balance by a chance encounter with a person or event that challenges the status quo. Depending on the genre, this might be an encounter with a soul mate, a financial crisis, a femme fatale, a monster, an enemy, or an alien/machine. The protagonist then spends the rest of the movie either regaining his/her balance and finding a clear resolution (offering us a solution)or going into lock-down in some destructive pattern that virtually guarantees death (offering us a cautionary tale).