...Other People's Fantasies
What do you do when all of Southern California is being pounded by storms and a newborn baby has prevented you from seeing any grown-up movies for the past 4 ½ months? Rent DVDs of course.
I finally got around to seeing "Garden State". I liked it. A solid *** out of **** in my book. Interesting characters, good acting, funny and often moving.
But I had one major problem.
For those who don’t know, Zack Braff, of "Scrubs” fame, not only stars in the film, but also wrote and directed it as well. Now, maybe as a guy I’m not the best judge of other guys’ looks, but I think I can say with some certainty that while Braff is a pleasant enough looking fellow, he is not in the Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Colin Farrell, Orlando Bloom mold of a person who is famous primarily because of how good-looking he is.
There is a scene early on in “Garden State” where Braff is among a group of people at a party who get high on ecstasy and decide to play a friendly game of spin the bottle. A montage of the game is shown, with the men and women (or women and women depending on where the bottle lands) giving each other quick, friendly pecks on the lips. This is until a young, sexy, luscious nymphet spins and lands on the Braff character. She then proceeds to get up, straddle Braff’s lap, and heavily make out with him, tongue and all.
It should be noted here that her character did not know the Braff character prior to the party, nor did they speak to each other before playing the game, so there is no possibility she could be attracted to him for reasons other than purely physical ones. And while I guess you could blame the ecstasy, as I mentioned, all the other kisses given during the game were friendly ones, not deep throat expeditions like this.
It just completely took me out of the movie. Admittedly, I’ve been accused on more than one occasion of being somewhat of a drag to watch movies with as I’m one of those people who has a very difficult time “suspending disbelief” and feel compelled to mention out loud all the stupid parts of a movie where reality is betrayed. I guess I just don’t like having my intelligence insulted. But I know I’m not being weird about this, because even Natalie Portman, the film's co-star, calls Braff on this during the commentary track of the DVD.
I mean, I think all of us guys, whether we admit it or not, fantasize about having women who are far out of our league throw themselves at us. Heck, I’m happily married to a wonderful, beautiful woman, but there is still a small part of me that likes to think that the reason Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt broke up is because Jennifer could no longer live in that sham of a marriage knowing that her heart rightfully belongs to the guy in the right hand corner of this page. But at least I don’t charge you a $3.99 rental fee to read about that shit.
I finally got around to seeing "Garden State". I liked it. A solid *** out of **** in my book. Interesting characters, good acting, funny and often moving.
But I had one major problem.
For those who don’t know, Zack Braff, of "Scrubs” fame, not only stars in the film, but also wrote and directed it as well. Now, maybe as a guy I’m not the best judge of other guys’ looks, but I think I can say with some certainty that while Braff is a pleasant enough looking fellow, he is not in the Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, Colin Farrell, Orlando Bloom mold of a person who is famous primarily because of how good-looking he is.
There is a scene early on in “Garden State” where Braff is among a group of people at a party who get high on ecstasy and decide to play a friendly game of spin the bottle. A montage of the game is shown, with the men and women (or women and women depending on where the bottle lands) giving each other quick, friendly pecks on the lips. This is until a young, sexy, luscious nymphet spins and lands on the Braff character. She then proceeds to get up, straddle Braff’s lap, and heavily make out with him, tongue and all.
It should be noted here that her character did not know the Braff character prior to the party, nor did they speak to each other before playing the game, so there is no possibility she could be attracted to him for reasons other than purely physical ones. And while I guess you could blame the ecstasy, as I mentioned, all the other kisses given during the game were friendly ones, not deep throat expeditions like this.
It just completely took me out of the movie. Admittedly, I’ve been accused on more than one occasion of being somewhat of a drag to watch movies with as I’m one of those people who has a very difficult time “suspending disbelief” and feel compelled to mention out loud all the stupid parts of a movie where reality is betrayed. I guess I just don’t like having my intelligence insulted. But I know I’m not being weird about this, because even Natalie Portman, the film's co-star, calls Braff on this during the commentary track of the DVD.
I mean, I think all of us guys, whether we admit it or not, fantasize about having women who are far out of our league throw themselves at us. Heck, I’m happily married to a wonderful, beautiful woman, but there is still a small part of me that likes to think that the reason Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt broke up is because Jennifer could no longer live in that sham of a marriage knowing that her heart rightfully belongs to the guy in the right hand corner of this page. But at least I don’t charge you a $3.99 rental fee to read about that shit.
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