He's Just Not That Into You (2009)

Into you.

I was about to tear my shirt off and go apeshit in the theatre, for a number of reasons. First, that's my one goal in life. Second, just the AMOUNT of single, dateless young women just packed into that one room on Valentines day, all tittering and gasping and talking and loudly going "awww" during the whole movie. These Valentines Day Victims, women who are conditioned to feel like failures for not having someone to shoot cum at them on Feb 14th, form aggregate groups that all head off to the latest romantic comedy with armfuls of chocolate snacks and refuse to move their purses off an empty fucking chair to give two seats to an actual fucking couple out of spite. So we sit in the way-ass-front row and the Jennifer Aniston is GETTING HUGE and Drew Barrymore is about to fucking eat me to fill her giant squirrel cheeks.

For the first half-hour or so, it seems as if the movie is lecturing women on the "watch-out" signs for men who don't really care about them. The first one, "He isn't calling you," is obvious, OK. Women need to know not to wait forever for a phone call that will never come. Cool.

The second warning sign, aimed directly at happy couples: "He's not marrying you." HOLY BACK THE FUCK UP, BATMAN. WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT IS THIS. YOU ARE INJECTING PURE POISONOUS THOUGHTS INTO A ROOMFUL OF FUCKING WOMENS' TINY MINDS AND AND AND YEARGGHGHHHHH

So I'm standing there with my shirt off and I'm holding a theatre chair with a frumpy dateless teenage girl in it over my head, ready to throw it through Matthew Maconnaghey's teeth when the movie's all "Stop, calm down, hold up there, son. That's not what I'm about. This isn't some evil plot to make mens' lives miserable. I'm more than just a lame date movie." So I listen to the voices and keep watching.

Turns out the movie is based on a book written by a guy AND a girl, so instead of being an estrogen-fest, it focuses on the actual thoughts processes of the male characters. That's good, because the women in the movie are all fucking insane.

So, I chained him in my basement next to a phone. Do you think he'll call me?

Female Characters:

-A psycho stalker girl who scares every man away with her obsessive behavior.

-A forty-something chick who's been with her boyfriend for SEVEN YEARS and still thinks he's going to ditch her solely because he doesn't believe in marriage.

-A chick who forced her college boyfriend to marry her after they graduated, nags him constantly and refuses to have sex (so of course he cheats on her.)

-The hot slut who he cheats on her with (and calls him a horrible person for doing so.)

-Drew Barrymore.

All aboard the doucheboat, toot toot! Captain Affleck reporting for duty.

Interestingly, the male characters, to me, all seem like pretty decent guys. Their only problems are the women in their lives (and in Kris Kristofferson's case, clogged arteries). That's how the movie finally gets you, it appeals to your gender and forces you to take sides. You can root for your side and watch the other side fuck up. Any woman who watches this film will say the same thing, only they'll say the women are all likeable and the guys are all total dicks. It's just like real life!

Not everyone ends up coupled and happy at the movie's end, which keeps the saccharine levels low enough to tolerate. Really, the movie is much more of a commentary on how fucked up human relationships are then it is a romantic comedy, so I ended up kinda liking it. Also, there's an ultra-realistic sequence where someone deletes their MySpace account. It's just like deleting your MySpace in real life! I pumped my fist into the air like I was at a KISS concert. YEAH!

Also, for some reason this movie is set in Baltimore. Baltimore? I would have thought New York or possibly Seattle, judging by the characters and their apartments. It's white as a fucking snowstorm in this movie, and everyone's successful. Everything I previously knew about Baltimore I learned from The Wire, and there were significantly less smack dealings, murders and black people than I would have expected.

My rating: B+ (watchable...surprisingly)
Girl rating: A- (not everyone got hitched, boo hoo)
Ballz rating: fake and gay. more gay than fake.