|
|
***
I was starting to convince myself
that Friday had not turned out to be such a great day after all as I
drowsily banged
my shins against the low table in my room once again, eliciting a tidal
wave of
maledictions worthy of an alcoholic sailor with tourette's. I had
got little
sleep the previous evening after a drunken night of confused passion
with my
girlfriend’s teddy, and being rudely woken up by the
infernal
heat of my boiler-room-cum-alcove wasn't particularly kosher either. Yawning and tired beyond exhaustion,
I was about
to take my third well-deserved afternoon nap when I suddenly heard the
mellow
growling of the doorbell (his name is Ralph, a vicious Schnauzer with a
taste
for human eyes). I looked outside the window dreading to see who it
was.
Two silhouettes stood outside. One
of them jumped up and down like a small child desperate for the bog
while the
other lay down on the pavement. All
of a sudden the bouncing stopped and one of the black figures began to
take a
wee on my fence. I sighed. It was none other than Juanjo and Yugo, old
acquaintances
of mine from my days at the rehab clinic, who insist on
latching on
to me despite my obvious lack of interest and numerous restraint
orders. Before
I could bar the door and run away in a panicked frenzy, they managed to
unlock
the gate and waltz into my house like two unemployed third-rate gay
salsa
teachers, grinning widely as they did so, which could only fill me with
even
more horribly alliterated feelings of fretful worry.
-“No, really, it’s a good surprise”,
said Juanjo charmingly. He happens to be a med student and therefore
has the
uncanny ability to make people believe he is right just because he
thinks he
is. I was instantly convinced by his paternal tone of voice. Before I
knew it,
I was unlocking the door. As soon as I stepped outside Yugo pounced on
me and
punched me in the throat.
-“Surprise!”
-“I...fucking...hate...you” I exclaimed,
gasping for air.
-“No time for petty squabbling, we need to make haste. Here’s another surprise”, said Juanjo shuffling three pieces of
cardboard in
front of my face.
-“What is this?” I asked
suspiciously and still a bit numbed by the pain.
-“Free cinema tickets. But the film
is starting in 10 minutes so we have to run! Yugo, stop humping that
tree!”,
he said before slapping me in the face for no reason. He took off abruptly.
As I rushed behind
my
completely-straight-yet-suspiciously-metrosexual friends, I started wondering
about what kind of hellspawn piece of nightmare I was going to be subjected this time (I still remember when they forced me to watch Titanic with them - I had to console them for three hours after the film ended explaining that Leonardo DiCaprio was just an actor and that he had not died in real life).
A long pause ensued. Then I biffed Yugo in the ear.
Much like lardy cholesterol blubber clogging the arteries of
your
average KFC-scoffing American, sappy sentimental comedies have always
had a
place in the hearts of the general public as the fresh, intelligent and
accurate depictions of real life Lucifer intended them to be. However
cynical
the viewer, it is hard to look completely askance on a genre spawning
cinematographic
legends such as the 1985 arthouse classic “Pretty Woman”, where a lonely
transvestite
hooker played by a young and somewhat feminine-looking Richard Gere
falls in
love with a smart and attractive billionaire with a winning smile and a
killer
appetite for blood. As he proclaims his undying love to Gere by
cooking pieces
of his brain and feeding them to little children as airplane food, we
are torn
between dual feelings of joy and anguish provoked by the playful
light-heartedness
of the comedy and the tear-jerking pathos of the scene.
Surely enough,
“Something’s Gotta
Give” is a story about love. Geriatric, quasi-necrophile love.
Throughout this
neverending film -19 hours and 34 minutes according to my trusty Indian
stopwatch- we are treated several times to both painful semi-nude and
completely nude shots (oh the horror!) of the main characters’
festering rotten
corpses in scandalising acts of dubious moral content (such as
“existing”). The
plot revolves around Harry, a rich music producer (Jack Nicholson) who
is
seeking revenge for the death of his wife and son at the hands of the
Russian
mafia (played by teen bopper sensation Justin Timberlake). In his quest
for
vengeance and good old Sao Paulo-slum-like civil justice, Harry comes
across
Erica (Diane Keaton), a retired stripper with a heart of gold. By
needlessly
flashing her sagging breasts at every opportunity she gets, Erica
slowly lures Harry
into a hilarious spiral of witty puns, lovable characters and
unbridled
gore-soaked violence. Keanu Reeves makes a cameo appearance as Harry’s
long-lost nephew, but dies at the hand of the Chinese mafia soon after
the
first three hours. I would tell you what happens later, but Yugo
insisted on
poking me in the eyes repeatedly, thus temporarily blinding me for half
of the
film. By the time I recovered my eyesight I had realised two things:
first,
that the soundtrack was appalling, and second, that I’d missed out on
half of
the plot so nothing made sense anymore.
With that in mind, I shut my eyes and dreamt about pummeling my friends
into new and
interesting shades of purple for the rest of the movie.