Dear Katherine Heigl: You Owe Me $1
I don’t know what I was thinking. I was at the supermarket, and I thought: maybe I’ll go check and see what movies are available at the Red Box. How I enjoy those machines.
I decided, perhaps in a momentary lapse of good judgment, to rent The Ugly Truth. I know, I know, all of the reviews were horrible, but sometimes you need a good chick movie to balance out a bad day. It was a movie, and there was a chick in it, but it was nowhere near good. How I wish there were a subtitle: The Ugly Truth- Is that this Movie is Fucking Terrible.
Wasn’t it Katherine Heigl who complained about Knocked Up? Though, to be fair, she just called it a “little sexist,” and I’m certain she was right. But if 98% of the movie was amazing, as she said, and only 2% was sexist, then she’s doing a hell of a lot better because I’d say The Ugly Truth was 100% stupid and sexist.
Oh, how I hated this movie. Let me count the ways:
Chemistry.
There was none. In fact, if this was really chemistry, then Gerard Butler and Miss K are two compounds that, when combined, create a sizzling, steaming, sulfurous mixture with an odor that makes you want to burn your clothes.
Plot.
Again, there was none. But let me humor you and try to find one. She’s another neurotic character that can’t balance work and relationships because you have to have one or the other. I don’t know who said women were excellent multi-taskers, or that you could have everything (hello, feminism), but clearly working on a television show like Miss K’s character and trying to get laid are mutually exclusive.
Thus, when she goes out on a date, she treats it like a television show. If there is a lull, producer K has a print-out of talking points to keep the conversation going. Because she’s very organized and efficient. She’s a producer. But she needs to get laid, dammit! She’ll be sooo much less neurotic. Remember the days when women were taken to the doctor for treatments for hysteria? These consisted of doctors stimulating your lady parts until you orgasm and poof! Hysteria gone. Well, same principle.
So, she’s working at some television show and one night she watches Gerard Butler on a cable-access show (The Ugly Truth) and he’s so misogynistic and that’s just, like, you know, not cool, so she calls in and they banter. Hepburn and Tracy all over again! NOT.
The next day, there’s Gerard Butler. Because if there’s anything we know about films, it’s that timing is everything. Fresh from the zingers they’ve thrown at each other like sopping spit balls, they encounter each other at a staff meeting and Voila! Gerard is hired at the show, and Miss K is just, you know, so bummed out about it. But ratings are important, so it’s clear they work well together and Miss K is a genius producer. What’d she do?
Well, let’s just say Gerard’s show involves women Jello wrestling and she suggests that he lick the Jello off her finger. Wow! What a producer. And what does Gerard say to these two nubile ladies? “I can still taste you.”
Spare me.
Dumb Sexual Innuendo
Is it enough for women that Gerard’s character says things like, “He just wants to stick his dick in your ass” or “When was the last time you flicked your bean?” I mean, coming from Rush Limbaugh it would be juvenile and disgusting, but Gerard was in 300. And career women are all so sexually repressed (she doesn’t even masturbate!) that when he says it, you just melt.
Vibrating Panties
Yeah, I said it. In another of a series of misguided attempts at humor, Miss K. “accidentally” wears a pair of vibrating panties. It’s for her bean, if you will. And during an unexpected dinner with network brass, OF COURSE she loses the remote control to said panties, and hilarity ensues. Or not. Apparently, vibrating panties will give you a blood-curdling orgasm.
Super-Stupid Ending
Because, you know, obviously these two are made for each other. He’s crass, she’s got class, how could it ever work? Once Gerard’s character leaves the show and goes to another one, what are they to do? So, as happens in many chick flicks, Miss K has to make some speech and bring her personal life out into the open, on-air, etc. etc. etc. Wow, and guess what? Gerard’s character actually sees her on-air and rushes to interrupt her (they are obviously at the same place, duh) and they spar and the audience weeps like it’s the ending of Precious. No, not really.
They are on a hot-air balloon, surrounded by the majesty of California, and gosh darn it if they can’t stop sparring. Well, they can, in time for Gerard to confess he loves her. And they kiss. And the blue-screen balloon background shifts and wow it’s the end!
I hope those two crazy kids can make it work.
