Flick Reports: LOVE ACTUALLY

Love, actually, is retarded. That's what I learned for over two enjoyable but deeply shaming hours in this film. Not that any director worth his/her salt would ever aim for this, but if the goal was to please Colin, then this movie pulls off an impressive FAIL in that category.

The British dramedy is quickly becoming a new genre of fascination for me. I think it's the combination of the emotional arc of the story combined with the nostalgia those accents call to mind - it's a pretty powerful cocktail. On A Clear Day, Three and Out, Ghost Town, Billy Elliott, The Castle, The Full Monty... all must sees.

But this one... I mean, what the foxtrot is going on? It is terrible. It only skates by on the fact that all the stories combined become something powerful. But on their own, they are terrible in almost every way:

A man (Colin Firth, MR DARCY) catches his wife in bed with his brother, so he goes to France and immediately falls in love with his Portuguese maid, who speaks no English. He sits there chubbily, middling about on his keyboard and acting like a complete weirdo. And she falls in love with him too, on exactly the same terms that cause him to fall for her. Love actually F'ed you over, and whoops, now it's going to do it again.

A 7-year-old boy falls in love with a girl in his class, and his father encourages him to pursue it, even though he's not ready for the emotional risk of this, and the fact that he wants to kiss at 7 is the only true reference to his mother's recent death, or the fact that he is now a total orphan, living with a man who is not his blood. Love, actually, is too sad (see also: creepy) for me to watch right now.

Then the boy's stepdad (Liam Neeson, TAKEN) bumps into a woman who looks exactly like his dream girl, and immediately makes an ass of himself by getting her name wrong. But she glows right through this display, telling him she'll make sure they see each other again. Amazing how two people as attractive as they are can both be single, available, and emotionally-healthy enough to fall in love at first sight. Love, actually, seems to be confusing emotional depth with middle-aged hotness.

A man makes a seriously romantic move on his best friend's new wife. They kiss, and then that's the end. He can go on now being the best friend, and spending many many years in the company of an unavailable woman with whom there is now the promise of desire, passion, and sex. Love, actually, is waiting to steal your woman.

A 35 year-old Prime Minister tells America to go screw itself because a weird President George Bush/Bill Clinton hybrid instantly begins pawing at the tea-and-coffee girl the PM had his eye on. So, a national rift is created because Hugh got cockblocked. Also, why did he have the courage to stand up to him in the press conference room but not behind closed doors? That seems like a real bitch move. Also, yes, Britain has Harry Potter so we should reexamine our national relationship. Good point, PrimeTime Minister. Love, actually, creates needless prejudice and ethnocentrism.

Two young adorable actors meet cute as (high-budget porn?) standins while pretending to have sex, yet are shy about exploring a relationship. When they go on a date, they kiss at the door because they are so innocent (it's the system that made them dryhump naked in front of a film crew, of course) and she says All I want for Christmas is you and then closes the door in his face. Love, actually, is a horrible cliche-spewing tease.

A british guy goes to America to F American women, because his accent will be sexy there. This is not something a person with a personality would do. So of course he goes to a bar and immediately beds four sisters (ew?) at the same time. Naturally. He doesn't even have a nice accent! And they all have southern accents? What? Because in America, there are no British people. We have never heard an accent so melodious as yours and now we will F you silly. Because we are idiots. And whores. Desperate idiot whores. Love, actually, has nothing to do with Budweiser commercials. Which in my opinion are commercials and not true events. Love, actually, is an F'ing liar.

Also, none of these are stories. They are beginnings with endings. There's no middle, and thus far less satisfaction at the payoff. Every scene is about taking the shortest possible route to the emotional payoff, so it doesn't pay off. Scenes lack that powerful resonance because you haven't lived with these characters long enough. You don't know what it cost them to make this leap into the unknown. You don't know all that they could lose. Love, actually, is a lazy screenwriter.

Look, these ideas are all fine. Well... But none of them would work on their own. Because they are all in service to this artificial points Richard Curtis is making: that Christmas is a time to say what you really mean. Which in every single case results in unmitigated happiness for the characters.

The movie has a problem with truth. Fair enough. That's what happens when pop music becomes the inspiration for pop films - crap films. It's never a good idea to treat a song lyric as though it was the Rosetta Stone, the point of great understanding, because you never know when it's going to fall apart for you. Although I'm guessing Richard Curtis knew early on that it had already fallen apart. I'm sorry, but this seems like an incredible cynical movie about love.

Love, actually is bullshit. Enjoy your new yacht Richard. Please don't make movies about any of our other holidays. Except Valentine's Day. Even you couldn't make that jagged little pill taste any worse, believe me.

Look, the movie is sweet and fluffy and adorable. I had fun. But once it was over, I started to get sicker and sicker. Like I'd ate something rotten. It sits inside you funny. And gradually, it hurts more and more.

This movie is cute, but also putrefying. How can it be both? How can it be about love, but not have a shred of reality in it, despite the great actors? There is one moment of acting in the whole thing, and that is when Emma Thompson discovers her husband Alan Rickman is having an affair. And I ask you, since the entire movie is this really glossy, simplistic, sugary take on love - what was that subplot doing in there? Just as a way to killing any and all loveboners that have sprung up? Let's ruin the mood, like really ruin it, like put a grenade inside the mood and blow it apart. Because that is certainly what Christmas is all about.

So anyway, MEETCUTE ACTUALLY... is all around in this film. Not love. Not the real thing. Just a trendy, photogenic, commercialized version of love. And I'm not singing along.

So much for Journalistic Integrity

I gotta share this with you, because I'm a reporter.

I remember when my friend Ian Kelley, a skier, was quoted out of context by the local tv news to make it seem like he thought snowboarders were dangerous - because that was the article's angle. They led him to say something he wouldn't have said on his own, and then they only used that comment.

Well this one is even worse.

The squares at the news station couldn't take a joke, and I guarantee you the girl they quoted was pissed to find out she was presented as arguing that this hilarious prank is a safety issue. I can just picture them saying, offcamera, "Ok, so clearly you don't care at all because let's face it, this is a non-issue. But is there any reason at all you can think of why this would be a problem? I mean don't worry, we know you don't care and we won't just use this one comment since that would be dishonest. And don't worry, there's no way we're going to then use your comment as proof of our ridiculous argument and talk about you like you are a total moron who learned a valuable lesson from a funny sign about Nazi Zombies. We would never do that, because we are the press and we write the truth."

I can make fun of journalists because I is one. I'm licensed to do so.


P.S. Nazi Zombies should be a new sitcom on ABC. Sure, sure, they're the two scariest things combined into one and they strike terror into the hearts of absolutely no one because they don't exist, but I want to know what hijinks they get into when they're hanging around the house with family...

This baby has the laugh of an evil mastermind...

Dry Times

So last night I attended a party. A Christmas extravaganza. I got there pretty promptly at 8, so I was in the first five. Which means I experienced a situation which is historically uncomfortable for me: a large and almost empty room, initial smalltalk with complete strangers, feeling a tad underdressed… sort of overexposed and underprepared. So I made a stiff Whiskey and Soda.

Which, I will say, is honestly the only kind of drinking I might do that personally worries me. When it’s not for love of the alcohol, when it’s not in celebration of life, and friendship, and good music, but rather to help me just to exist in the world around me. This seems like coping rather than partying.

And so, as I tasted the harsh bite of the Whiskey in my glass, realizing it was too strong for a first drink early on in a long night, I decided to change the direction I was heading. My next drink was water, with ice, and a lemon (how deceptive). And the next, and the next.

And you know what? The party went very differently for me than it would have if I had drunk myself into a comfortably-inebriated state. As the night went on, and more and more people arrived, I chatted with friends and strangers about all sorts of things. A girl who had moved here from Georgia clued me in (in a whisper, and with some reluctance) on the inner-workings of racial-classification in the South. It’s a different world, for certain. And one that causes her confusion when it is called racist, because it’s what she was raised in and it’s intended to illuminate subtleties within race, not simply to divide and dismiss. I realized this was the same for me, when I went to Scotland. I was careful to observe the customs of its people, not to force my views on who I met. There to learn, to co-exist, not to be right. She was a good traveler, just as I had been.

When a woman lurched into our conversation announcing “she was a vodka girl,” and stumbled once more as a supporting argument, we began to chat about our high-school music days: Nirvana, Candlebox, Pearl Jam, the Black Crowes, Smashing Pumpkins. Truly, this is one of my favorite conversation topics. And I enjoyed talking with her, although I noticed a kind of uncomfortableness on my part, because I couldn’t predict what she would do next. That’s the thing with being wasted – you have no self-awareness. Even though you lose the ability to function the way you normally would, you do whatever the hell occurs to you anyway. Results may vary. She made me a Manhattan, before promptly serving all of it to the floor instead of to me. She apologized, laughing, trying to clean it up. I felt a little bit of pity.

It’s funny, if we both had been drunk, we could have been giant morons together and that would have been fun. But instead, I felt her intoxication creating a great distance between us. She wasn’t really there. I was.

We chatted about reality TV for awhile. (For someone who opened with “No, I don’t watch it,” she had a comprehensive, working knowledge of Laguna Beach, the Hills, Top Chef, and others.) I began to ponder aloud the complexity of a reality show in which they are pretending it isn’t scripted and so are we, and I could see I was losing her. Fair enough, I wouldn’t have been that interested either if I was drunk. We laughed, and ended when she hurled herself out onto the dance floor.

I spoke to another friend about an unrequited affection he held for one of the girls at the party. I was interested to see him open up. I was interested to see how I could help. It seemed like a project more than a quick-fix, but I was glad I was prescient enough to give him real advice and not scattered, reckless philosophies that wouldn’t help him at all. I was glad I was able to really listen.

I chatted with a guy who works for a Concert Security company. They hire security to fill bookings at construction sites, weddings, parties, concerts, and beyond. It’s a possibilities-are-endless kind of job, and a very interesting discussion. We also chatted about standup comedy.

And on and on. The reality is, I’m writing all this down because I remember it all. I’m writing it down to remind myself that parties are great. A party is a chance to mix and mingle and find out interesting stories and find the humanity underneath the face of each intimidating stranger. It’s not a place where you have to be a certain way or you have to drink to fit in. A party is not about you. It’s about the collective, and within the collective, you can reside quite comfortably without drinking.

I walked a friend home afterwards, and we talked about something huge, something monumentally-painful, that had happened in her life. It connected with a conflict a few of the members of my church community are currently attempting to navigate, and how it had triggered her own prior pain. Because I wasn’t drinking, I was able to hear her story, to share how powerful and hard and amazing it was… to honor it's proper gravity and immensity. And I was also able to perform the rather delicate procedure of pointing out to her that although she had described the two situations as “related,” in fact they were only similar. Because she wasn’t drinking, she recognized the point I made to be true, and we both gained something from that chat we never would have.

All in all, I had a great night. An important night, even. And no amount of booze could have brought me the pleasure I received from a roomful of good people, and a simple series of ice-waters and warm, honest conversations.

Is!.. IS!.. IS!!!..

The Most Wonderful 3 minutes of my Life. Today.

Remember Election Night? Remember? Well aren't you glad these little shortstacks can't vote yet? If they were tall enough and this was about something that actually mattered, this group would easily annihilate several city blocks with their pretween rage.

The best line comes at the very end from the miniature Pete Rose who BET FIFTY DOLLARS on this crap parade????!!!!!

I have a theory...

What is the internet anyway? How does it all work? Just by opening our browser, we can connect to tens of millions of computers and whatever content they choose to make available. Fair enough. But the more we devote to experiencing things online, the more sources we open ourselves up to. For example, people can be internet famous without their closest friends knowing about it until they discover it on the internet themselves. So how physically close they are to the person becomes irrelevant. In fact, there is no such thing as close and far online. With a basic understanding of the internet, you can download a program designed by a Germany company off a mirror in Taiwan and saved onto your computer's hard drive in a matter of seconds. You can traverse the computers of the world with a few clicks.

So if that's the case, then the location of the source can exist in the realm of the infinite. You can access material uploaded from almost anywhere without ever discovering its location. So is it possible that some of the content uploaded is not in fact real, but the product achieved by an alien intelligence firm researching us anthropologically? In other words, the content isn't real, but designed to be accepted by us as real.

For example, there's no way this actually happened. Clearly this was uploaded by aliens. Acted out by aliens, in Body Snatcher-style earth-suits. I dare you not to watch this whole thing.

Also I defy you to explain to me how whatever happens at 2:58 and then again at 3:04 is in any way the work of a human.