It's Funny How Life Has Its Own Sets Of Checks And Balances
Dear self,
Be more interesting. Your sad, sorry journal is suffering because your life sucks. Stop watching MTV reality shows and go put yourself in some danger for the sake of an engrossing read.
Love,
your id.
'05 Movies: The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Between bouts of sucking, I managed to get myself to the movies a couple times, to varying reward. But let's leave the bad for later.
I'd never experienced doubled-over laughing in the theatre until The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And I mean that literally. From start to finish I was laughing. It was really pathetic, actually. I felt like I was about thirteen years old. But you have to love a movie that achieves comedy without gross-out tactics (TIRED) or people falling over a lot. I honest to God love this movie. Love it. Steve Carell is brilliant. That guy that played Phoebe's husband on Friends is brilliant. The fat friend is brilliant. The black guy is BRILLIANT. The single-mom girlfriend seemed like she was cribbing a little too much from Lorelai Gilmore's notes on how to be a sexy mom without taking time to read the part about low-cut shirts and, you know, actually being attractive, but she doesn't detract from the pure, unadulterated greatness of this film. Definitely worth the $57.43 it costs to go to the movies.
Grade: A
'05 Movies: Prime
From one of the best films I've seen to one of the worst. It's sad that there's so much more to say about terrible movies than about good ones. One of the downsides of being a boyfriend is that you've got to sit through abysmal films like this.
I have a policy where I don't give F grades. Honest to goodness, I've never seen an F-worthy movie. Ever. But Prime comes damn close to making me rethink my grading system. It rivals Hitch for worst movie I've ever seen. This year. Or last year, for that matter. But you can pretty much tell you're in for a shitstorm from the premise: slutty and vaguely pathetic divorcée (Uma) starts dating whiny, boring, weak-chinned Jewish boy (unfamous bad actor) who is fourteen years her junior, all the while never knowing her therapist (Meryl Streep) is actually his mom. Insert awkward moments while ho tells her shrink about her boyfriend's genitalia. It's a retread of the girlfriend vs. family story that's been done nine million times elsewhere, not to mention more competently. Monster In Law at least had the good sense to star J.Lo's big ass (and a comparatively attractive cast), feature a mildly amusing script, and have a budget of over, say... $900. I usually tend not to find a film's soundtrack mentionable unless it's exceptionally well done, but let this be an exception. Prime's had no songs with words, and it's the kind of movie where you need the angsty top 40 Adult Contemporary Pop/Rock hits spinning while the estranged characters walk the streets of New York. Closer caved in and used Damien Rice. Ah, but that film clearly had enough money behind it to feature four big names AND license some songs. My bad.
One thing I hate more than anything is when a film is marketed as one genre and then turns out to be something else completely, or an imbalanced hybrid (see: Wedding Crashers). Misconceptions I labored under before seeing Prime: 1) it was going to be a comedy; 2) there would be some sort of overarching message like "It's what's inside that counts!" or "Parents just don't understand!"; 3) there would be any sort of chemistry between the main characters; 4) it wouldn't make me wish I was watching The Miracle Of Life. I usually like Uma Thurman but Jesus, I imagine they backed an armored truck up to her house and just started shoveling the cash onto her front lawn. I don't see any other way she'd have been a part of this embarrassment.
The script sees to it that you legitimately cannot like any one character in this film. They're all terrible. And on top of it all, it drags on for almost two hours with its nonsense paint-by-numbers story. At one point I actually realized in horror that Uma and her schmuck were still dating so we hadn't quite finished the second act yet. Sure enough, twenty minutes later she decided they "need to see other people." I should go to Vegas with this shit because I'm some kind of goddamn psychic.
Deplorable. Its case probably wasn't helped by the fact that I really wanted to see Saw II instead. But still. My girlfriend didn't even like it, and she liked The Notebook, which had even less of a plot than this. That's got to tell you something. Barely dodges the lowest rating possible because they showed a trailer of the new Rachel McAdams movie before it. Now SHE's someone I'll suffer through a poor script for (see: the aforementioned The Notebook).
Grade: D
Be more interesting. Your sad, sorry journal is suffering because your life sucks. Stop watching MTV reality shows and go put yourself in some danger for the sake of an engrossing read.
Love,
your id.
'05 Movies: The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Between bouts of sucking, I managed to get myself to the movies a couple times, to varying reward. But let's leave the bad for later.
I'd never experienced doubled-over laughing in the theatre until The 40-Year-Old Virgin. And I mean that literally. From start to finish I was laughing. It was really pathetic, actually. I felt like I was about thirteen years old. But you have to love a movie that achieves comedy without gross-out tactics (TIRED) or people falling over a lot. I honest to God love this movie. Love it. Steve Carell is brilliant. That guy that played Phoebe's husband on Friends is brilliant. The fat friend is brilliant. The black guy is BRILLIANT. The single-mom girlfriend seemed like she was cribbing a little too much from Lorelai Gilmore's notes on how to be a sexy mom without taking time to read the part about low-cut shirts and, you know, actually being attractive, but she doesn't detract from the pure, unadulterated greatness of this film. Definitely worth the $57.43 it costs to go to the movies.
Grade: A
'05 Movies: Prime
From one of the best films I've seen to one of the worst. It's sad that there's so much more to say about terrible movies than about good ones. One of the downsides of being a boyfriend is that you've got to sit through abysmal films like this.
I have a policy where I don't give F grades. Honest to goodness, I've never seen an F-worthy movie. Ever. But Prime comes damn close to making me rethink my grading system. It rivals Hitch for worst movie I've ever seen. This year. Or last year, for that matter. But you can pretty much tell you're in for a shitstorm from the premise: slutty and vaguely pathetic divorcée (Uma) starts dating whiny, boring, weak-chinned Jewish boy (unfamous bad actor) who is fourteen years her junior, all the while never knowing her therapist (Meryl Streep) is actually his mom. Insert awkward moments while ho tells her shrink about her boyfriend's genitalia. It's a retread of the girlfriend vs. family story that's been done nine million times elsewhere, not to mention more competently. Monster In Law at least had the good sense to star J.Lo's big ass (and a comparatively attractive cast), feature a mildly amusing script, and have a budget of over, say... $900. I usually tend not to find a film's soundtrack mentionable unless it's exceptionally well done, but let this be an exception. Prime's had no songs with words, and it's the kind of movie where you need the angsty top 40 Adult Contemporary Pop/Rock hits spinning while the estranged characters walk the streets of New York. Closer caved in and used Damien Rice. Ah, but that film clearly had enough money behind it to feature four big names AND license some songs. My bad.
One thing I hate more than anything is when a film is marketed as one genre and then turns out to be something else completely, or an imbalanced hybrid (see: Wedding Crashers). Misconceptions I labored under before seeing Prime: 1) it was going to be a comedy; 2) there would be some sort of overarching message like "It's what's inside that counts!" or "Parents just don't understand!"; 3) there would be any sort of chemistry between the main characters; 4) it wouldn't make me wish I was watching The Miracle Of Life. I usually like Uma Thurman but Jesus, I imagine they backed an armored truck up to her house and just started shoveling the cash onto her front lawn. I don't see any other way she'd have been a part of this embarrassment.
The script sees to it that you legitimately cannot like any one character in this film. They're all terrible. And on top of it all, it drags on for almost two hours with its nonsense paint-by-numbers story. At one point I actually realized in horror that Uma and her schmuck were still dating so we hadn't quite finished the second act yet. Sure enough, twenty minutes later she decided they "need to see other people." I should go to Vegas with this shit because I'm some kind of goddamn psychic.
Deplorable. Its case probably wasn't helped by the fact that I really wanted to see Saw II instead. But still. My girlfriend didn't even like it, and she liked The Notebook, which had even less of a plot than this. That's got to tell you something. Barely dodges the lowest rating possible because they showed a trailer of the new Rachel McAdams movie before it. Now SHE's someone I'll suffer through a poor script for (see: the aforementioned The Notebook).
Grade: D