Friday, September 14, 2007

You've got cranky pants

You know what's a really bad movie? You've Got Mail. I know you're thinking, "My god, of course it is!" But I didn't know just how bad it was until this week.

Netfluxxx has this new deal in which you can watch certain movies for free, right there on your pooter. They offer lots of cool documentaries and a bunch of rom-coms that most people have seen already, except me. I'm trying to write a R-C, so I figured I should check out some of the "classics." Also, when I was in New York, I went to the desert place, Café Lalo, where the main characters meet -- they have 28 different kinds of cheesecake. How did I not know about this place?

Oh yeah, back to the film. Let me count the ways that this movie stinks.

First, there's the super-annoying AOL tie-in right there in the title. And you've got to listen to that nails-on-chalkboard dial-up log-on buzzing sound over and over throughout, and listen to them wax rhapsodic about it. Then there's Meg Ryan, who by this point in her career is one walking caricature of her rom-com self, with more (facial) tics than a retriever in the deep woods. And Tom Hanks is at his least likeable -- I mean, are you really supposed to root for her to fall for a guy whose big bookstore chain ran her tiny shop out of business after 47 years? Oh, he brings her flowers and allowed her the time to write a crappy children's novel. Wow, what a turn around. And another thing: Both Tom and Meg find true love by kinda cheating on their spouses. Okay, so emailing isn't cheating, but it sure ain't being too honest. And the film tries to make their transgressions not a big deal by having the least animositied break-up ever between Meg and the always-awful Greg Kinnear (will someone please put this guy out of my misery?). "Hey, I'm not in love with you either! Ha ha, man, that's a relief." If only real life were like that. One more thing: what other movie can you say wastes the talents of Dave Chappelle, Steve Zahn, AND Parker Posey? That's a lot of wasting. Bleh.

3 comments:

ruzxs said...

i saw 'you got mail' recently too, i thought it was cute. :)

Anonymous said...

that's some top-shelf, high-quality cranky there. nice work!

Dan said...

hey, thanks. but i am cranky no longer, thanks to your utter fantastic wedding yesterday. if there's ever pics online, i want to see them. my camera battery was dead so i didn't take any photos.

um, this comment is addressed to wendy, not ruzxs. don't worry, megan.