apropos of anything

On Sunday after Aamir’s birthday lunch wrapped up and all the parents went home, desserts in pockets, we sat around watching movies and playing Words With Friends (sometimes with each other, in the same room, where an actual Scrabble board would have been perfectly functional, but an addiction is an addiction). It was one of those afternoons where we all knew we should probably be doing something else, but nobody wanted to get up off the couch except to get another cupcake or brownie.

I requested a light movie, either a comedy or something where lots of things blew up, so we started with Date Night starring Tina Fey and Steve Carrell because TINA FEY and STEVE CARRELL, how do you go wrong with that combination? She can see Russia from her house! He’s like Mr. Miyagi and Yoda, rolled into one!

Yeah.

It started out okay with some snappy lines and good basic groundwork for a future plot… but then that plot arrived, full of canyon-sized holes and ridiculous contrivances. At one point Sher, sitting next to me, texted me to say, “This movie sucks” and I texted him back to confirm it had indeed lost me at the Police Station of Characters Doing Stupid Things to Move the Plot Along. That’s about when we gave up all pretense and started nitpicking the movie as it progressed. I’m not sure how this one ended up on any top 10 lists for 2010. The cast all around (Fey, Carrell, Wahlberg, Franco, etc.) were good, but the script just didn’t give them much to work with.

We were only supposed to watch the one movie, but we needed a palate cleanser after Date Night. I suggested Despicable Me because IT’S SO FLUFFY I’M GONNA DIE!! but Date Night had soured the room on comedies. After some discussion we settled on The Town, the Ben Affleck-directed thriller I’ve been wanting to see ever since it hit theaters in September.

There’s a scene where Blake Lively goes to see Ben Affleck in a hotel room, and in the course of the conversation his next job comes up, and all I could think about was DID BLAKE LIVELY SHUT THE DOOR ALL THE WAY? They hadn’t shown her doing it, so I couldn’t focus on the scene because why would you have a conversation like that with the door even a little bit open where somebody could walk by and hear you, maybe the FBI who you know is lurking around somewhere? When the camera panned around a few minutes later, sure enough, the door was not closed. I still can’t figure out if that’s because Blake Lively’s character isn’t smart enough to realize that doors should be shut when discussing armed robbery (but I think she is) or because Ben Affleck the director and his production staff do not have my level of OCD where it mattered to them.

But it matters to ME. Sher could not stop laughing at my consternation over something so tiny and (to be perfectly honest) ridiculous, but little things like that completely take me out of the movie so that I realize I’m watching a movie, and I hate it when that happens.

That one moment aside, this movie I understand being on top 10 lists for 2010. It was excellent, well-acted, and completely engrossing. It didn’t get into my head the way Atonement did, but I liked it very much and thought the ending might just have been perfect.