film: the ugly truth

Sigh. I love my best friend; she truly is the best foul weather friend you can have. She has my back all the way, but she like romantic comedies. Now, I do too. I admit I actually own a dvd copy of Return to Me (yes, the film about the heart transplant; it's the old people kvetching about the various merits of Dean Martin versus Sinatra that does it for me). But, I like romantic comedies to be less paint by numbers. (See the old people in Return to Me.) But my best friend will go see anything as long as it has a big enough star and her office will talk about it the next week. This is how I got stuck seeing He's Just Not that in to You (somewhere in there is a touching indie film about Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston's characters), and how I also got stuck seeing The Ugly Truth.

Chris Orr of the New Republic pretty much covers all the bases here, but I think he gives the film too little time. I say that because I think he's right about how much more sexist this film is than Knocked Up, a film I still found sexist (really, did Leslie Mann's character have to be a shrill harridan), but also funny. I think this kind of vilification of career women as both inept and stupid, for lack of a better term, for looking for more in a mate is part of a growing trend of romantic comedies aimed at both genders. Katherine Heigl's Abby is a horrific, narcisstic control freak. It's Bridget Jones on acid with a successful career thrown in. Abby's success as a producer--an astute ability to read situations as well as what an audience wants--does not translate into her personal life in any other way except for her being a micromanaging control freak. In other words, because she's successful professional, she can't be successful in a relationship. Apparently, what makes Abby good at her job--an eye for detail--makes her horrible for relationships, which just makes no sense at all. It's like she's too different characters. I'm sure there's a lot of humor to be found in the oftentimes conflicting messages women receive about where to place their priorities; this movie just doesn't provide any of that humor.

At least we've stopped the pummeling of male leads in romantic comedies, a trend that irked me to no end. Why on earth do producers think people want to see a male romantic lead utterly berated, demoralized, and emasculated? I'm looking at you Ben Stiller. I didn't mind the stereotyping of Mike as a boorish male quite so much, in part because we get a little information about why he's so boorish--a string of bad relationships--and we see him as a decent father figure to his nephew. It's faint praise to be sure, and despite the depth Gerard Butler milks out of the character (helped by Craig Ferguson), Mike is almost as flat as Abby. But with no explanation for Abby's split character, it's impossible for Katherine Heigel to do anything with the role except stand there and read lines while in great clothes. The end exchange is the only place the movie can go because there is absolutely no character development, meaning that there is no reason for these two people to wind up together. "I have no goddamn idea" is the only thing the film can offer. Where's a copy of Bringing Up Baby, Roman Holiday, or even Return to Me when you need it?

film: tron and the life cycle

I'd just totally had a fan girl moment when I saw the above picture of the Tron life cycle on Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood. I forget how much I liked that movie as a kid, which is a little strange, because I totally resisted watching it until my brother made me. And then I feel for Jeff Bridges's gravelly voice and irascible Flynn. I even liked the fact that Flynn didn't get the girl in the end or even really save the day, one of the few moments of the 80s anti-hero that worked for me. (The fact that Chuck Bartowski has a Tron poster helped to make that character for me; well, Zachary Levi doesn't hurt, but I do notice set dressing.)

Apparently, they're making a sequel. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. Probably less worried than if someone told me they were making a sequel to the Last Starfighter, one of my all time favorite cheesy scifi films from the 80s. Oh crap, there's another movie night for J and me to add to the Ghostbuster double feature Sat. and the British gangster film triple feature of Layer Cake, Rocknrolla, and In Bruges.

language:soda, coke, or pop

Living in Texas means you refer to your soft drink of choice as a coke, even if you're drinking Dr Pepper or any other kind of soft drink. And while I knew calling soft drinks pop tended to be a Midwestern idiom, I didn't fully realize how regional the different things you call sugary carbonated beverages happened to be. Here's the map:


http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html


I think this works from country to country too, judging by the fact that they call Spirte lemonade in the Australian primetime soap, McLeod's Daughters. I've learned more slang from that show.

blog: hello kitty tasers

The last thing I really need is another blog to read (nevermind the contradiction in writing one), but thanks to Chris Orr at the New Republic, I've discovered Topless Robot. I read the funniest take down of the plot of the new Transformers film, but I was hooked because of the post on the Hello Kitty Taser.

I'm not a violent person, and I would normally not even consider owning a taser....but I kind of want one now.

england: witches apply

In the annals of strange newsreports via the BBC, Wookey Hole in Somerset is hiring a witch. Yep, a witch. Someone to live in a cave and do witchy things. For 50,000 per year. I'm so in the wrong profession.

tele: Mrs Slocombe

Mollie Sugden, the incomparable actress who plays Mrs. Slocombe on Are You Being Served? has passed away. BBC obituary is here.

Are You Being Served? was one of my favorite British comedies as a child. My father loved television, and he loved British sit coms. We would watch all the British comedies on PBS on Sunday nights. Mrs. Slocombe's poufy, wildly dyed hair and old fashioned manners made me laugh. She was always spot on absurd and just the little bit irrevently joyful.

film: the hangover

A cross between a Quentin Tarantino film circa 4 Rooms and a Judd Apatow bromance comedy with the stoner jokes excised, the Hangover wasn't actually as bad as I thought a comedy about a bachelor party gone awry in Las Vegas could have been. No where near as funny as Forgetting Sarah Marshall (that could have something to do with my affection for Jason Segel and the abusrd brillance of the Dracula puppet musical), but it had a certain charm. I liked the fact that although the movie was about a bachelor party (and as the closing credits explicitly shows, strippers and sex were involved), the film itself nearly eschews all mention of marriage being a killer of masculinity. There's one bit of dialogue with Bradely Cooper's character discussing how marriage will kill the groom slowly, but it's played for laughs not for seriousness. (Plus, I have a hard time buying Cooper as a complete reprobate; the first two seasons of Alias pretty much have cemented him as a good guy in my head.) The film never reinforces this motif; in fact, his character seems like a happily married man and father at the end. Ed Helm's character shouldn't marry his obnoxious, controlling girlfriend, but the film doesn't make this a point about marriage in general, just about the girlfirend. I both liked and disliked the fact that Doug (Justin Bartha) ended up stuck on the roof for a day and a half. Smartly (and here the Tarantino comparison comes in) nothing that was shown in the scene of the hotel room, except for the chicken, goes unexplained. This narrative tightness and closure gives the film momentum. The fact that the film spend most of its time tracing the night of debauchery versus actually showing it helps here. There is a lightness to the film that it would lose; the closing credit coda actually reinforces that. The story of the aftermath is much better than the story of how they got there.