2003-12-16

Thanks for all the kind words, you lot. I’m touched…actually touched, in a place deep down inside me that is sincere and non-ironic. Not a place that gets a lot of sunlight or traffic, as you can imagine. It’s kind of like the bomb shelter of my soul: dark, firmly sealed, and filled with sundry canned goods. (Campbell’s Chicken Soup for the Soul, mostly.)

To continue in the spirit of genuineness, I am going to make a confession. Bless me, Interweb, for I have sinned! My movie collection…is impure.

I don’t know if I want to continue with this – I won’t be able to make fun of anyone ever again.

But, in the spirit of fairness, I suppose it’s only right that I open the door for everyone else to mock the hell out of me for a change. Here goes. I own – and by “own” I mean, “deliberately purchased, and have frequently watched and enjoyed” (none of this “someone left it at my house or something, I dunno, fuck off” nonsense) – both Bridget Jones’s Diary and About a Boy. And…oh man…Practical Magic. Argh! Don’t look at me!

In my own defense, it’s not that I think these are good movies in any critical sense (well, About a Boy is fairly OK, actually). They’re like junk food – crap, but soothing crap. Inoffensive, palate-pleasing crap. And sometimes, after I’ve been vigorously expanding my mind with political theory or James Joyce or something equally painful, I need to shrink my mind right back down again. It’s a question of cranial storage space. If I didn’t atrophy my brain by occasionally applying puréed Hollywood goo, I’d walk around with gray matter oozing out my ears, and that, my friend, is how you get yourself attacked by zombies.

Zombie defense: that is why I paid ten dollars to see Love, Actually in the theatre. Definitely. It’s cheaper than carrying around a shotgun, anyway, and almost as much fun.