Hey! I just wanted to say thanks for giving me a truly memorable Saturday night. I mean, of course an evening where your date can't stop crying is a treat (especially when you can see an assuredly sexless end in sight), but when her sobs are interrupted by spooky, mantra-like whispers of, "Just like mom and dad, just like mom and dad," well, it's a no-brainer that this is a movie stub worth taping next to tonight's journal entry.
I guess you could say that I deserve some of the blame for not knowing what a 120-minute romantic buzzkill lay waiting for me in your big screen rape of hope, but I thought I'd be "reckless" and just buy tickets to a movie without reading all about it first. My bad, but I think it's fair to say that your marketing is a little bait and switch. The Blue Valentine poster shows a couple of crazy kids tangled in a loving embrace, and the trailer features a pixieish blond doing a soft shoe while serenaded by a bearded hipster playing... wait for it, wait for it... a ukulele. Now I get it -- irony! I think Darfur orphans reading Bukowski to a soundtrack by Elliott Smith would have hit a bit closer to the mark, but what do I know, I'm just a guy with a wasted reservation at Sushi Samba.
You know, I really liked Lisa. She was smart, funny, and she did Pilates three times a week. And you know the kind of body a woman gets when she does Pilates, right? Well I don't! I watched my third date/third base chances head straight for the exits as Lisa stopped holding my hand so she could text her therapist for an emergency appointment. At 18 minutes into the movie. I fear she hasn't bounced back, as her only response to yesterday's "How R U?" text was, "Love is a myth" followed by eleven crying smiley faces. Yeah, eleven. Think about that on your way to the Independent Spirit Awards.
Since the critical success of this film has been so overwhelming, here are some suggestions for future projects. How about a movie called, "John's Crippling Doubt Keeps Him From Finishing His Screenplay," or a Pixar flick titled, "There Is No Santa Claus, Daddy's Gay and You're Adopted!" Oh wait, those titles might actually give people some idea of what they're in for. Hmmm. I know -- what if you call your next movie, "Happily Ever After," but the film is really about a 36-year-old single woman who spends two hours eating Chewy Chips Ahoy! while Googling "Freeze Your Eggs" and clicking refresh on her empty Match.com inbox? I can already see the lines forming at Sundance, but hey, I'm no indie film whiz, just a guy who spent $58 on cabs because he thought a trembling HR Manager popping Klonopin like Mentos might raise an eyebrow or two on the F train.
So really, thanks again. In order to be emotionally hijacked into so vast a confidence rattling doomscape, I usually have to wait until Thanksgiving dinner with my family.
Can't wait for the sequel!
John