Just another WordPress.com site

Reitman, 2011

Let me set the scene.  It’s unseasonably warm out, a high point in an otherwise hellacious winter.  Friday evening, I’ve just gotten off an extra shift that I took at work, and I’m feeling pretty awesome about how I’m going to get an extra $50 or so the next week, and some of my friends are really feeling the need to go out and watch a movie.  I’m all for it! What better way to celebrate the end of a long week?  I have a good group of movie friends, we have the actual process of going to watch a movie down.  There’s no awkward trying to figure out what car who’s riding in, there’s no awkward question of who sits next to whom at the theater, there’s absolutely no stress to the whole situation.

Pictured: stress-free friendship

The actual people involved are somewhat interchangeable, and that night it just so happened that a lot of people had gone home for the weekend, or had other plans, so the group was as follows:

1. First, there’s Monica.  Monica was my roommate freshman year, and we have a lot in common, including, generally, a shared opinion of movies, good or bad.  Also, if something does get awkward, she’s the most likely to commiserate with me.  Plus, she’s the only friend I have who thinks Strangers with Candy is funny.
2. Then there’s Alex.  Alex and I share a bathroom in our apartment, where we like to talk, while we’re getting ready, about how much we hate our hair or want some particular item of clothing that’s trendy right now.  We also generally have similar tastes in clothes, art, movies, whatevs.
3. Me.  I sit there.
4. Last, there’s Mike.  He’s funny and nice, I guess, but more importantly, he always gets an icee.  I mentioned that there’s no drama about who sits next to whom.  That was a bit of a lie.  I have to sit next to Mike, because icees are expensive, but delicious.

FIVE DOLLARS!!?!?!?!?!

So we’re going to watch a movie, and now the only question is what movie we should watch.  I wanted to watch I am Number Four (Caruso, 2011), not because it looked at all decent, but because it was filmed in my hometown, and a lot of the people I went to high school with were extras.  Mike wanted to watch something I don’t remember because we obviously weren’t going to listen to him, and Alex and Monica wanted to watch No Strings Attached.  What can I say, majority rule.

The poorly-written, unoriginal sting of democracy

Before I go on, you should know that I have what I feel is an undeserved reputation for hating all things rom-com.  In fact, I sort of have a reputation for hating all things girly or silly (which is totally undeserved.  I’m blonde and spent the first 18 years of my life juggling my time between ballet class and musical practice, for god’s sake).  My friends will talk about reality tv shows that I actually really enjoy with a strange assumption that I won’t want to watch them too, and every time someone suggests watching a chick flick there’s an awkward moment in which my mind races as I try to nonchalantly communicate that despite my reputation I am totally interested in this plan.  We all have our social cross to bear, and this is mine.  It could be a lot worse.

Think of me as the kid in the blue shirt who wants to raise his hand, but doesn't want it to be a big deal

So I agreed, not only because of my never-ending desire to stomp this stigma once and for all, but also because Natalie Portman was in it.  A month or two, or three, or however many, before this, three of us had gone on a two-hour road trip to St. Louis to watch Black Swan (Aranofsky, 2010) together before we went our separate ways for Christmas break, and I loved it, and especially Natalie Portman.  That heinous bitch.

You think it's funny to toy with people's expectations like this?!

Natalie.  Sure, you had a rocky leap to stardom, with the new Star Wars trilogy, but I thought you were on the right track now!  You’re beautiful, and talented, but I’ve learned my lesson, never go to one of your movies without checking the rotten tomatoes rating

I should have listened.

Yes, the trailer looked like something my beagle could have directed, and the pandora ads will go down as one of the most annoying ad campaigns in film history (and that’s some stiff competition), but I thought hey, this woman will soon have an Academy Award (or possibly already did; I’m having a tough time remembering exactly when I watched this), plus Kevin Klein’s in it!  How bad can it possibly be?  Well, at the risk of forever cementing my loathed reputation, it lost me in about ten minutes.  it had every bad rom-com stereotype in the book, and I didn’t see any chemistry between the leads to make it watchable.  Seriously, least believable on-screen affair I’ve ever seen.

Her face really says it all

Oh, yeah, Ashton.

High point in Ashton Kutcher's career trajectory

I love Ashton Kutcher in the same sense that I love Matt LeBlanc.  They’re really good at playing oversexed men with limited mental capacities on sit-coms that I have no shame in admitting I loved.  If I had to pick one, it would be Ashton, because he’s cute in a fraternity, paint by numbers, boring as hell kind of way, and because he’s decades closer to my age.

Still, I respect a man who can play dumb (and I hope to god it’s an act, because it is convincing, but not endearing), and movies like this were made for men like him.

In fact, I’m going to come out and say it.  If this movie had been Ashton opposite Kate Hudson, Reese Witherspoon, any Kardashian (up to and including Bruce Jenner), or even Zooey Deschanel, I probably would have loved it.

I'd pick Kourtney. She's the cutest, and it would have made for a great episode when Scott got drunk and jealously punched Ashton Kutcher

Yes, Natalie, I hate to say it, but YOU were the problem with this movie.  The script sucked, the plot was about as boring as Ashton’s face, the direction was nothing to write home about, and, despite having an awesome background cast, even the parts that weren’t funny (when you weren’t talking) weren’t enough to save it. However, I do think it could have been saved if they had just gotten an actress who could successfully stand there and look pretty, then realistically look frazzled and emotional when it got to that point in the movie.

She's got an Oscar too, but she can still manage it.

This movie called for a certain type of actress.  One who could convincingly be in a movie that was just cute.  I’m not saying a bad actress, I love Reese and Zooey; I have to say, they are more multi-faceted than our beautiful swan queen.  Natalie, stick with Aranofsky, Fincher, and Anderson. Stay away from Appatow for your own good.  Accept your limitations.

I'd say they're pretty fair limitations, wouldn't you?

So the movie was a complete bust.  Within fifteen minutes, I went from staring, amazed and disgusted at the screen to desperately trying to fall asleep just to get away from the cliches and the horrible, horrible acting, Mike spent an ungodly 108 minutes wondering what he had done to deserve this punishment, I’m not sure what Monica thought of it, and Alex maintains to this day that it wasn’t great art, but she could have enjoyed it if I had been less judgmental of it.

I don't believe her

Next month Friends with Benefits (Gluck, 2011) comes out, and I intend to watch it.  I know what you’re thinking, it’s the exact same plot.  THE EXACT SAME PLOT.  Well, yeah, but I have a feeling that this second movie did it right.  Take an unbelievably boring plot, and throw in a teen heart throb and MILA KUNIS.  Yes, she is also a great swan, but she can handle a rom-com, I’m sure of it…or not.

This feels completely natural to me