In Contention

Tag: 13 Going on 30

  • Cheap thrills

    I was tickled by — and completely related to — this piece by Cinematical’s Elisabeth Rappe in which she expounds the joys of embarrassing bargain-bin DVDs.

    You know, the movies you know you shouldn’t own (and in some cases, don’t even like that much) but can’t resist picking up when you’re in the store and spy a mark-down sale sticker slapped on the cover. The ones you bury at the back of your bookshelf lest your cineaste friends see that you actually spent money on “13 Going on 30.” (Yeah, I did … and a well-spent pound it was too. Anyway, “Legally Blonde” needed company.)

    Here’s Rappe on her latest red-faced purchase:

    This week’s guilty grab was Australia, a film I was very disappointed in, and planned never to see again unless I stumbled on it while flipping through cable channels. But there it was on half.com, “watched once, brand new” for $5.00 … It’s really the perfect movie for knitting to, because I can just concentrate on turning my sock heel, and look at the pretty cinematography.

    My DVD shelf is chock full of such films. Kate and Leopold, The Long Kiss Goodnight (worth far more than whatever I paid), my entire Mel Gibson collection, Marie Antoinette, The Wedding Singer, and so on. The list is long and not very illustrious (Vanishing Point remake, anyone?), but at least I can say I didn’t go out of my way for most of them.

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  • Oh, Jennifer

    Jennifer Garner in Ghosts of Girlfriends PastI have a horrible confession to make: I am probably going to see “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past” at some point this weekend. As if that wasn’t mortifying enough to admit in public, I’ll go further: I am doing so voluntarily.

    This time, no friend or manipulative relative is dragging me into the theatre as a helpless victim of counter-programming. On the contrary, I’m desperately seeking an ally to spare me the humiliation of sidling up to the ticket booth and mumbling “One for ‘Ghosts of Girlfriends Past,’ please.”

    I have no takers yet, and I understand why -– the film looks fucking dreadful, after all. The trailer cheerfully kills a little portion of my soul every time I see it. And every time a London bus emblazoned with the film’s hideous poster art and godawful title passes my living room window (which is to say about every quarter-hour), I have to resist the urge to hurl a rock at Matthew McConaughey’s bronzed, charisma-vacuumed mug. So why am I punishing myself in this manner?

    Two words: Jennifer. Garner.

    We all have a list of actors who we really know we shouldn’t love, who do terribly little to earn our devotion with an ever-more-dodgy resume — but who, like a really toxic ex, somehow manage to lure us back for their latest effort, however unpromising. And, nestled somewhere between latter-day Jude Law and another Jennifer with TV roots, Jennifer Garner is one of mine.

    Garner has, for me, that indescribable movie-star ‘it’ quality that keeps her empathetic and interesting even when the film around her is going down in flames. I’ve never not liked Garner in a film. (OK, “Elektra” came close.) But I rarely like anything she appears in.

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