Movie Moment: This Means War

When I saw the trailer for This Means War last February, I knew that it was more of a rent than a see-in-the-theater.  So when rental time rolled around last weekend (and I had seen pretty much everything else), I knew that it was time to give it a try.

More romantic suspense than romantic comedy, This Means War is about uptight, type A product tester Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), a woman who is shanghaied into the wild world of online dating by her married, saltier best bud, Trish (Chelsea Handler).  Like most women faced with this predicament, Lauren is less then thrilled, worrying that she'll get chopped up in a million pieces by one of her would-be suitors.  Naturally, she ends up attracting not one but two CIA assassins (who are, of course, perfectly nice guys despite their violent profession).

She meets Tuck, (Tom Hardy -- not to be confused with that guy who wrote Tess of the d'Urbervilles), a divorced father whose British reserve is seasoned by his badass tattoos, through the online dating site and FDR (a name with a trunk-load of baggage if every there was one [Chris Pine]) in a video store (because a guy like him is too cool for online dating, but not, apparently, for the world's last Blockbuster).  FDR is the cocky playboy to Tuck's self-deprecating gentleman.  Which, of course, meant that I disliked him from "go," a prejudice that was hard to shake even after he inevitably revealed his sensitive side.

It isn't long before Tuck and FDR discover that they've fallen for the same girl.  FDR offers to back down, not wanting to give Tuck unfair competition.  Tuck, put off by his pal's patronizing ways, takes offense, an argument crops up, and before you can say, "Fire!" the boys are battling it out for the babe.  Which would be an offensively old-school scenario if said babe wasn't smarter than both blokes put together.  Not that Lauren doesn't have her doubts about dating two guys at once.  She's a nice girl, after all, despite being a professional hardass with a candy-colored office that would make Barbie drool.  But Trish dismisses Lauren's doubts, insisting that Gloria Steinem didn't sit in prison just so Lauren could "be a little bitch."   Lauren soldiers on just as Tuck and FDR plot a war of their own, taking full advantage of all the surveillance amenities in their government-appointed arsenal.  At one point both slink in and out of Lauren's house to plant bugs and suss out her likes and dislikes, completely undetected by the object of their affection as she busts out music video-worthy dance moves to Montell Jordan's "This is How We Do It."  It's one of those scenes that's so bad it's funny and probably the only place the movie ever encroaches on true rom com territory.

The rest of the plot is pretty predictable - the bf called it in about five minutes - and not truly satisfying, as I was hoping the end would swing in another direction.  Also, the plot was a little too explosion heavy for my admittedly girly tastes.  I think the cloak-and-dagger-slash-bromance stuff was mixed in with the love story to make it more guy-friendly, especially for Valentine's Day weekend, which was when the movie debuted.  But everyone was neatly paired up just in time for the credits, which was enough to keep me happy.

Book Report: Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me

Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me is an odd book.  But I knew that going in. That's because it wasn't written by Handler herself, but is rather a collection of anecdotes penned by her nearest and dearest.  Each sap expresses outrage at being the victim of one of Chelsea's pranks, then backpedals by insisting that such treatment only proves the mettle of her love.  Each storyteller is also quick to add that the vacations and cash that Chelsea lavishes as consolation prizes aren't bad either.  So, reading Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me was like reading the outpourings of in-crowd kids simultaneously denouncing and revering their queen bee.  Which was entertaining in a fly-on-the-wall Mean Girls sort of way.  But mostly it made me glad I wasn't one of them.

Back when I posted about Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), I listed some of Kaling's alternate book titles, one of which was, "So, You've Just Finished Chelsea Handler's Book, Now What?"  Now that I've read both of them, back to back, I can in good conscience say that Kaling penned the far funnier memoir.  Now, I realize this isn't completely fair because Handler didn't write this book pe se (and I did so enjoy Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea).  Even so, I prefer Kaling's style.  Her benign but trenchant humor makes Handler come off as a menace.  A generous menace mind you, but a menace nonetheless.

Apples and oranges, people.  Apples and oranges.   

Season's Readings

Here is the "ton of excellent books" that I got for Christmas and made mention of in yesterday's (admittedly catty) book report post.  The collection spans the gamut from mainstream to obscure, including bestsellers such as Nicholas Sparks's latest, The Best of Me (a gift from the bf, who never fails to deliver the newest Sparks saga each December), and token titles like the Mardi Gras murder mystery Frill Kill.  I like to think of it as my new mini library, the perfect companion for a week's staycation.

Movie Moment: (Diagnosing) Love and Other Drugs

When I first saw the trailers for Love & Other Drugs, I thought, oh, another romance to put on my must-see list. Identifying a new flick as a romance or a comedy prevents me from being disappointed. But it doesn't leave a lot of room for surprises, either.

Then I saw Chelsea Handler interview Anne Hathaway about Love & Other Drugs and found out that Anne's character has stage one Parkinson's disease. That threw me (although in retrospect I should've realized she had an illness, given the movie's title). I thought, this could go one of two ways. It can be one of those movies about a guy in love with a sick girl. Or, it can be really good.

Let's just say I was surprised.

Anne Hathaway shines as Maggie, an unflinchingly honest artist who challenges Pfizer drug salesman Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal), a playboy and chronic failure, at every step in their relationship, beginning at their first meeting in a Pittsburgh hospital exam room. (He catches a glimpse of her breast; she beats him over the head with her handbag, then snaps a Polaroid of him for an art project.) But they meet for coffee anyway, during the course of which Maggie erupts into a speech about why she, the woman, is supposed to reject Jamie's advances, all the while indicating that she does want to sleep with him via nonverbal cues. A little flummoxed but ultimately relieved, Jamie suggests that they just get on with it, which they do in the first of many unabashedly realistic sex scenes.

They talk. They fight. They have more sex. Before either of them knows what's happening, they fall in love.

We aren't always reminded of Maggie's condition. But sometimes (unrealistically timed with critical plot points, as one critic put it) we see her fingers trembling. I disagree with that critic, though. I think the trembling is selectively shown to signal that Maggie's spirit isn't bound by her Parkinson's. To me, the post powerful scene in the movie takes place when Jamie comes home during one of Maggie's particularly bad episodes. Maggie pours herself a generous drink and tells him about her terrible day, how the pharmacy was closed, even how she almost went home with a guy from the clinic. She doesn't look like herself either, a point she cuttingly mentions to Jamie in an attempt to scare him off. She's screaming, raging, utterly transformed from the charmingly awkward Anne we got to know in The Princess Diaries. Jamie leaves, only to return moments later after hearing her melt into hysterics over a dropped bottle. What makes this scene so heartbreaking is that we are as unprepared for it as Maggie and Jamie are, having been swept up along with them by their budding relationship.

Jamie lands Pfizer's coveted Viagra account, launching his career into the stratosphere. He takes Maggie to a pharmaceutical convention in Chicago, where someone notices her tremors and tells her about a Parkinson's convention across the street, where she can find out "what's really going on." She goes, connects with people who are going through everything she is, and texts Jamie to join her. He does, only to be waylaid by a man whose wife is a stage four sufferer. He unburdens himself about having to dress her and clean up her shit and tells Jamie to find himself a healthy girl. Then, as if stricken by his own honesty, he apologizes and walks away. You can tell that Jamie is troubled . . . and that he doesn't want to be. So, instead of distancing himself from Maggie and the inevitable crumbling of their relationship (as we suspect he is tempted to), he goes into overdrive trying to help her, dragging her to hospitals all over the country in search of better treatments. Maggie eventually snaps, declaring that he gets credit for his good guy act, but that it's over because she'd rather live her life then spend it hunting for a nonexistent cure.

They break up.

Jamie's career is better than ever. He beds industry bimbos and gets a promotion that requires him to move to Chicago. Then he runs into Maggie, who's on a date. And he realizes that everything in his life is wrong.

Fast forward to him speeding alongside her senior citizen-filled Canada-bound bus. So what if it's reminiscent of those cliched eleventh-hour airport movie scenes; everything comes into focus when he sticks his head out the window and calls out to her. The bus pulls over. She says she doesn't want to need him more than he needs her, but he says it's okay. Then we see them back in her loft in Pittsburgh and learn that Jamie's dropped out of the pharma rat race to return to medical school. Some may say it's a schmaltzy ending (such as the raucously laughing women sitting behind me who cackled, "'We're laughing and she's [yours truly] crying; what must she think of us?"), but I think it was perfect. Maggie didn't die and she didn't get better, and that's what made it realistic. Jamie's commitment to her proved that he wasn't a failure when it really counted, and that's what gave it its heart.

Well done.

Book Report: Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler

A few weeks ago I was wandering through one of those Atlantic bookstores when I stumbled upon Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. I don't usually go for celebrity memoirs (I read novels almost exclusively) but always enjoyed Chelsea's column in Cosmopolitan and decided to give it a try. For the most part, it turned out to be just the sort of irreverent, light fare for which I'd been searching, with the exception of a chapter entitled "Prison Break" in which Chelsea describes the night she spent in a women's penitentiary. (She got picked up for drunk driving at twenty-one and was then discovered to be on some wanted list for using her older sister's driver's license to get into bars. Chilling stuff.)

For me, one of the highlights (naturally) was when Chelsea reveals herself to be a Golden Girls fan on page 34:

"About an hour later the phone rang right in the middle of a brand-new episode of The Golden Girls.  My favorite character was Bea Arthur (Dorothy). I've always felt we had similar senses of humor, although I imaged myself having a better body when I hit seventy, not to mention highlights."

On the whole, the book is fun, raunchy, and sometimes a little disturbing. But it was a good ride, and I'll probably end up reading the two others she has out. For now I've dipped back into my chick lit comfort zone with some Sophie Kinsella. Well, to be more accurate some Madeline Wickham (that was Sophie's pen name before she hit it big with the Shopaholic series). More on that once I finish.