Love Movies!

by Katie Bruggeman

There are lots of ways that people fall in love, or lust, or are simply looking for a distraction from the slings and arrows of human existence.  I’ve heard of some people falling in love at first sight, usually when they’re drunk at a party.  For others, it takes years and years of being worn down to thinking that no one else will ever love them back, so they register on Nerve.com and meet some boring man, and they settle down with that mediocre, sweatpants-wearing idiot and sit there watching TV shows like ‘Deal or No Deal’ every night.  

None of this has anything to do with my boyfriend Andy, who is awesome.  And he is explosive in bed and makes all of my wildest sexual dreams come true, so all you other girls better just back up off him. Skanks.  

Here are some Romantic Comedy reviews!

Pretty Woman

Pretty Woman is arguably the most popular Rom-Com about prostitution.  So, at least it has that going for it.

Julia Roberts stars as a smelly hooker in a bad wig that lives in the bowels of urban Los Angeles.  Her roommate is a drug addict, and the landlord threatens to evict them if they don’t give him a bunch of back rent.  Julia Roberts and the base-head roommate freak out for a while and do cocaine with Puerto Ricans at a shady night club.  Then a john cruises up, offers Julia Roberts a lot of money to have intercourse with him for a week, and she’s led into a life of big money and corporate power.

Sounds gritty, doesn’t it?  From the plot description, you’d think that Martin Scorcese wrote this script in the late 70’s.  Well, think again.  The legendarily sterile Julia Roberts manages to suck every bit of sexiness or intrigue out of this would-be exciting tale, and we’re left with a contrived, boring waste of time that’s ready for broadcast on TBS’s lifeless Saturday afternoon double feature.

The only bright spot in this pile of shit is Jason Alexander, acting his ass off as a money-hungry Jewish rapist.  Which was actually pretty good casting, if you think about it.

A personal anecdote about this film:  for a while during college, I worked as a cashier at Super America, a convenience store chain that’s popular in the Midwest.  My particular store happened to be next door to Lee Lenore’s Massage Parlor, ie, a nasty, cut-rate whorehouse.

We had a movie rental operation at Super America, and the working girls would always come in to buy condoms, browse the Lean Cuisine dinners, and, on occasion, rent Pretty Woman on VHS.  I just wanted to say to those broken-down women, “Honey, Richard Gere ain’t ever gonna show up here in a limousine.  This is St. Paul, MN.  You’ll be up in that brothel again tonight, giving out handjobs, and you’ll do it tomorrow night, and the night after that.”

But I never said that to them, because that would be rude. It would hurt their feelings and dash their dreams.  “He’ll give me champagne and strawberries!” “He won’t give me herpes!”
You’re livin’ in a dream world, sister.

The moral of the story:  Julia Roberts makes women complacent, especially prostitutes.  She should be ashamed of herself.  

Meg Ryan Movies

Meg Ryan is just the cutest little 40-year-old woman I’ve ever seen!  Look at her short, sassy haircut and scrunched up nose!  Look at her delightful grin!  Her huge, damp eyes!  She’s like a baby deer! She’s obviously never had any STD’s, abortions, or problems with shoplifting!  She’s a pretty little insignificant bore, and her movies are only tolerable if you have a soul-deadening hangover, or if you’re so dazed from painkillers that you can’t focus your eyes or process any decisive thoughts whatsoever!

Meg Ryan is the female equivalent of Michael Jackson. She needs to grow up and face reality.  She’s surpassed her title of ‘The Queen of Mediocrity’ and is now a forgotten, perverse side-show attraction, like the freaks out at Coney Island.  But she is far less interesting.  

Pretty in Pink

John Hughes is a total genius, and I credit him for helping me get out of junior high without shootin’ up the school, Columbine-style.  See, Molly Ringwald isn’t the prettiest girl, or the richest. She’s not on the cheerleading squad.  But Molly Ringwald has some shit working for her:  pretty red hair, pizzazz, and awesome thrift store clothes (including a Joy Division t-shirt).  She works at a record store and listens to depressing music and is dealing with a really dysfunctional situation at home.  Her best friend is Annie Potts (the poor man’s Susan Sarandon) and the whole atmosphere was super cool to any girl that read Sassy Magazine or watched ‘120 Minutes’ at the awkward age of 15, yearning to get out of that stupid town with those stupid people who curled their bangs and listened to Garth Brooks.  

Plot-wise there is a totally implausible romance that happens between her and Rich Kid Blaine.  We all wanted Molly to end up with little Duckie.  But you know what?  She doesn’t, and it’s fine.  It’s a movie.  So don’t keep watching it every night the summer before tenth grade, living vicariously through this totally fictional story while sewing Morissey patches onto your jean jacket.

If you think you’re sick of this movie, watch it again.  It never fails to makes me feel a little better about how life can be so strange, and so cruel, and so magnificent.  

Barfly

Barfly could be a documentary about 75% of my ex-boyfriends.  I am not kidding.

Dirty Dancing

OH MY GOD I JUST FOUND THE MOST MASSIVE DISGUSTING INSECT IN MY SHOWER!!!!  Which reminds me of how much I hate this movie.

Jennifer Grey’s terribly disfigured nose is the feeble leading performer in this dancing juggernaut. It co-stars the Ultimate Walking Punchline, Patrick Swayze.  Most girls I know love this movie, which is fine.  I’m not going to argue about it.  We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.  But I just have to say this:  it is the height of cinematic laziness.

Patrick Swayze is not even remotely attractive, and the only time I actually could tolerate his performance is when he played a pedophile in Donny Darko.  Jennifer Grey is the human equivalent to a body-warm can of Diet Pepsi, completely insignificant, laying in the bottom of a garbage can.

So, they dance, they crawl around on logs, and there’s a mild political subtext that bores me to tears… This movie blows goats.

Eight thumbs down!

Basic Instinct

Sharon Stone is a greasy old drunken broad that probably smells like Nair, stale crotch and generic cigarettes.  Named ‘one of the sexiest movies ever made’ by a bunch of rats I talked to in the subway, this hilarious tale of romance and shame takes place in a suburb outside of Baltimore.  Ms. Stone and Michael Douglas, in one of the many roles in which he plays an emasculated victim, have a tawdry affair in some shack on a mountain, and then she kills some people for sport.  They make a run for it, and then find out that she’s pregnant with his or someone else’s baby, and they ride on a boxcar to Tiajuana.  She gets a job in a peep show, stripping for a bunch of randy bean-eating wetbacks.  Sometimes they make her have sex with cows and pigs.  Hey, that’s life in Mexico!  

Hijinks ensue, until she gives birth to a werewolf baby.  They need to keep the supernatural beast-child a secret, and go deep into the Yucatan, subsisting on nothing but branches and the blood of the poor.  An impressive chase scene happens on donkeys and the werewolf child lopes off into the forest, never to be seen again.    
 
I’ve always loved Sharon Stone, because she makes her many mental illnesses work for her, to a certain degree.  Fuck, yeah.

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Visit Katie's blog, Dancing at Gunpoint, here: www.gstringsfororphans.blogspot.com

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