As Hiroshi would say: Movie Time!

I’ve just seen what is arguably the worst movie of all time. I refer of course to the pathetic and annoying self-help book gone ensemble movie He’s Just Not That Into You. Some idiot brought together a bunch of actors and actresses who can and should be doing better to make this schizophrenic waste of time in which you never spend enough time with any of the characters to remember any of their names. I just hope these people were ACTING and not just being themselves.

I realize the movie has been out for a long time in the States and was met with scathing reviews but it still made HUGE amounts of money and continues to do so in the top ranks of video rentals. I don’t get it. Why make a movie based on a self-help book? That’s like starting a religion based on a sci-fi book (a crazy notion, eh scientologists?).

But if I am to take this as a social commentary about the world (or at least American society today), then I would say that people are obsessed with lying, to themselves and others. He’s just not that into you? Why not? Because you are a raving obsessive lunatic or because you are a control freak or because you are obsessed with marriage (because ALL single women are in a quest to get married). The characters in this movie never get to the WHY factor. The title explanation only puts the blame on the opposite person without addressing any of the jilted person’s deficiencies.

I take issue with the self-help factor as well. I’ve not read the book so I can’t really comment on that but I don’t get how a book can help at all. Or are ALL relationships so alike and the patterns so ingrained that any relationship can be self-analyzed with the assistance of a single book? Isn’t that what your friends (and in some cases your shrink) are for? In this movie, clearly not. These so-called “friends” boldly lie to the people that they supposedly care about. If Jennifer Connelly had a dime for every time she told Ginnifer Goodwin that he was gonna call . . . .

HE’S NOT GOING TO CALL. And it’s because you literally wait by the phone all day and leave obsessive messages on his voicemail and stalk him. If this were my friend, I’d have to put the verbal bitch-slap down on her. GG’s character is one of these women “in love with love.” I have real friends who are like this too and it’s a species I don’t understand. How can you project your own sense of loneliness or lacking or whatever it is onto some dude you’ve only met for a few hours? Or does it make me even more dead inside because I don’t believe in love at first sight? Aren’t the guys in these scenarios (as seen in the movie) usually kind of jerks anyway? And frankly, the guys should be more honest as well. If you’re not going to call, don’t say you will. If you don’t want to be friends, don’t say you do. And if you don’t care, don’t act like you do. Is a little honesty too much to ask for?

Apparently it is. And frankly, people don’t want honesty. Maybe it’s because I am a piss poor liar that I don’t bother, or perhaps its that I’m not smart enough to keep the lies straight in my own head. I ask for honesty and I often don’t get it. Why the hell not? Are you sparing my feelings? What for? But I’ve discovered that most of the time, people don’t want the friend who is honest, they want the friend who makes them feel better, even if this sugary feel good treat hides a dark evil center of deception. I’ve had moments with friends where I say, “why didn't you tell me before?” and I get some lame ass excuse but at the end of the day, they didn’t want honesty, they wanted comfort. And I’m not against comforting a friend who needs it, comfort is ok, but shouldn’t it be based on complete lies like “he’s totally gonna call . . . “

The only person I had respect for in the movie was Ben Affleck (played by Ben Affleck) because here was a dude who said he loved Jennifer Aniston (played by Jennifer Aniston) but didn’t want to marry her. She’s marriage obsessed because, hey what woman isn’t? and wants to split up. They do, he moves into the boat, and she compares him to her crap B-I-Ls and goes crawling back. Of course he welcomes her with open arms. He had my respect until the fucking END when he caves and proposes and of course they get married and live happily ever after. He proposes because THAT’S WHAT SHE WANTS. People can say that I’m infantile and don’t believe in compromise, but I do, I totally believe in compromise but this is not compromise. This is caving in. And it feeds into the idea that all women want to get married because it is the one thing that will ultimately make us happy. News flash: not all of us do. I find I am LESS inclined to get married in my 30s than I was in my 20s. I don’t think I’m reaching desperation as I get older.

The woman who doesn’t want to get married in the movie is ScarJo, a sexy bouncing mass of hair and tits. But she strings along a mousy little fellow (who I’ve never seen before and therefore doesn’t get a name in this entry) because he’s there and desperately in love with her. He’s the back up plan because the smarmy Bradley Cooper won’t leave his wife to be with her and she can’t stand being alone. She probably does want to get married but not to mighty mouse and turns down his offer to marry and settle in a gay neighborhood. Boo fucking hoo. Scarjo is simply reprising a less interesting version of the same character she played in VickyChristinaBarcelona, and girls like that are never single for long. The only thing I was impressed with was that ScarJo stayed in the fucking closet of Bradley Cooper’s office while he was enjoying some afternoon delight with his wife who comes in to surprise him. I’d have walked out of that closet half naked and stabbed him with my heel before leaving.

Ah, Bradley Cooper. The worst offender in this two hour trip through hell. What a horrible decision to put a failing marriage into the category of He’s Just Not That Into You. What a fucking slap to all women of cheating husbands. Essentially he’s cheating because He’s Just Not That Into You. THEN DON’T MARRY ME ASSHOLE. And here I was thinking that men cheated because they weren’t getting blow jobs from their wives any more. In the movie, they get married because she gave him an ultimatum after college and she’s been trying to get preggers thinking a baby will fix their decaying marriage. Jennifer Connelly tries to sell her marriage (the whole “look-how-happy-we-are” scenario) as the real deal to her friends who don’t give a shit about her situation because she’s already married. Even after he admits to cheating, she’s still desperate to make it work because the only thing worse than a single woman is a divorced woman. She forgives him for putting his dick into another woman but flips out and folds all his clothes and leaves a note saying she wants a divorce (very passive-aggressive – you go girl!) after she finds out he’s been smoking behind her back. What?! If a had a cheating husband that for some reason I wouldn’t divorce, I’d get him 8 cartons of Marlboro reds and tell him to smoke up.

The entire viewing experience was tremendously painful. So why watch? you ask. Like a high speed chase or the octomom circus, this movie (for better or worse) is a sign on the times. And now I can prepare myself for relationship Armageddon. I’ll be in my underground bunker.