One of the first things my ex-con friend did after getting out of the joint was pick up a membership to 24 Hour Fitness, because staying buff and getting buffer is his life now. Problem is, they gave him a free 7-day pass to foist onto someone else and it looks like I am someone else. Fuck. Simply put, I don't do the exercise thing. I have a perfectly good routine where I remain sedentary and hatefully stuff my fat fuckin' face with Triple Combos from Wendy's, washed down with a large container of caffeinated sugar water. I did once have a brief dalliance with weightlifting, which appears to have resulted in the right side of my gut now being slightly larger than the left. That's either the Big C, a pre-Discovery Channel tumor ("It's not a too-mah!") or a fuckin' hernia, and since I don't have health insurance, your guess is as good as mine and what's life without a little mystery?
Enough about that, let's talk about The Adorable Amy Adams' new film, Leap Year. Some people have been commenting online that Amy Adams is gonna fuck it up for herself by doing crap movies like this one, but personally I think her Quality-to-Shit ratio is still pretty good. To me, only Night at the Museum: Battle at the Smithsonian and this one were the only flicks flaunting red flags; I'd never consider watching these goddamn things if it weren't for the lovely Ms. Adams being in them. She was on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the other night, looking as adorable as usual, which was a surprise to me because nothing fucks up a cute girl like pregnancy. Yet such is the power of The Amy that I found her just as Awww-inducing as she was pre-mistake. Maybe it's because as I looked at her with that burden in her belly, I couldn't help but flash back to her role in Junebug, the flick that made me fall in love with her for the second time (Catch Me If You Can was the first).
Okay, so Amy Adams plays this chick who furnishes empty apartments to look so fucking good people will want to rent them. If that's a real job, then holy shit, because it fuckin' sounds like one of those painfully cute fake occupations that screenwriters like coming up with for these kinds of fuckin' movies. She's been going out with some douche for 4 years and after her friend who resembles a cracked-out version of Reese Witherspoon tells her that she saw him leaving an expensive jewelry store, it looks like she's finally getting hitched. Except she's not, he only bought her earrings. Beautiful and expensive earrings, but what does that matter to a woman with a predetermined destiny in mind? Ain't that a bitch. For all the good it did, he might as well have fuckin' bought this chick some shower curtain rings from Del Griffith.
Anyway, the boyfriend jets off to Dublin for whatever-the-fuck reason and then John Lithgow shows up, and rather than dress up in women's clothes or kidnap her baby or strangle her with a watch garrote, he instead tells her about how it's some kind of tradition in Ireland that women are allowed to propose marriage on Leap Day. Because we wouldn't have a movie otherwise, she hops on a plane and heads over to the land of leprechauns and potatoes and gets mixed up with one of these slightly rugged country types who she pays to drive her to Dublin and wackiness ensues.
You know, I just wasted your time and mine with that last paragraph because it's all in the trailer, I should've just posted that instead. This is a front-runner for the 2010 Award for Best Example of Trailer as Cliff Notes; last year's winner was the trailer for Brothers. Nearly all the beats the characters go through and the major plot points are given to you in the trailer. That's another reason I wouldn't want to see this if it was starring say, Kate Hudson, but because The Adorable Amy Adams is in it, here I go marching to the ticket kiosk like a dumbass sliding my gift card in and pressing the button marked "Child". Having said that, it could've been a hell of a lot fucking worse for a cookie-cutter, by-the-numbers romantic comedy -- a lot fucking worse, like the trailers for the romantic comedies they were showing before this one; Valentine's Day (aka Ka-Ching, Money in the Bank!) and When In Rome starring Kristen Bell, who I dig but not nearly as much as Ms. Adams so it's DVD for that shit.
But yeah, it wasn't that bad, believe it or not. It started a bit tough, but somewhere near the end of the first act it began to win me over a tad. Or maybe the first act wasn't that bad to begin with and I was still suffering from the noxious trailers that preceded it. Whatever the case, I started digging it more once Adams and that fuckin' murdering asshole Adrian Veidt hit the road to Dublin. Part of the fun is that both characters are slightly douchebaggy people trying to pass themselves off as hot shit, just like the rest of us. Yup, that's right, I'm speaking for you too. Unlike most movies of its ilk, Leap Year recognizes this and doesn't have any problem taking these motherfuckers down a few pegs every once in a while. At least that's how I see it, and if I'm wrong, then this movie is all the more worse for it.
It was actually kind of fun to watch The Adorable Amy Adams spar off with Adrian Veidt, they had a nice chemistry going on that didn't induce feelings in me to make loud retching noises in the theater -- not that I would, I'm not that kind of asshole. You know where this movie is going, but the leads are so charming in spite of their characters, that it makes this bullshit so much easier to sit through. Dare I say it, Amy Adams and that sneaky fuckin' Veidt manage to elevate this to the level of Watchable. For a while it plays like Planes, Trains and Automobiles except it's NOOOOOO-WHERE near as good and it wouldn't be nearly as fucked up if Adrian Veidt woke up with his other hand between Ms. Adams' two pillows. There is little-to-no cringe factor which is pretty fucking good for this kind of movie, at least until the ending which you don't even have to see to already know not just what will happen but how it'll be shot, edited, and scored.
I really don't have much to say about this movie because that's the kind of movie it is. It's completely innocuous froth, nothing really special here aside from the beautiful scenery and the Adorable Amy Adams, the latter of which is the only reason I'm even bothering to write about this. There were other more deserving flicks I didn't write about in the past 12 months. Shit, I didn't even blog about The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans and that shit had me geeking out to THE BREAK OF DAWN! And that movie had iguanas! Iguanas are awesome! Motherfuckin' Iguana-Cam! Yet I didn't blog about that fuckin' movie but here I am rambling about *this* fuckin' movie because I guess I have to be consistent with the Amy Adams love here on this terrible excuse for a blog. It's all good though, because I dig this chick, she's a swell gal.
Anyway, Leap Year hits the right notes for its type while never taking a chance to surprise you at all. You've seen this movie before and if you have a girlfriend or wife, you'll probably see this type of movie a hundred times more. Overall, I thought it was a pleasant time-killer, more of a testament to the ability of the leads elevating the material than anything else. Of course, I was probably watching this through Amy Adams-colored glasses, so fuck what I just said and just plunk down the ducats for Avatar instead.
All right, I'm off to bed to prepare for the first of my seven days of pain and embarrassment, or at least more pain and embarrassment than usual. Yup, I finally gave in and in a matter of hours I will be making an ass of myself at the gym because I don't want to be a dick to my friend. So if you're working out at a 24 Hour Fitness and notice a fat ugly loser cry and shit himself after two reps of lifting 20 lb. weights, that's probably me and there will most likely be paramedics and oxygen masks involved and all that I ask is that you do not camera-phone that shit and send it to YouTube. Please, have a heart for once.
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