So I just forced myself to sit through a 2005 movie called "The Mostly Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green." I hate to say anything bad about a movie that features Richard Diehle sneaking into the Republican National Committee in drag queen-meets-construction worker pastiche in order to sabotage George W. Bush's reelection, but...
The film opens with a title card saying that the titular Green is "unlucky in love," yet by the eleven minute mark he is dating a professional baseball player and being relentlessly pursued by a 19-year-old twink while accepting sage advice from four different types of RomCom wisdom dispensers: a caring ex, a black lesbian, Diehle's nurturing cross-dresser, and his salty mother (hearing Meredith Baxter say "You don't want to end up some troll living in a basement paying for rough trade!" is one of the film's high points).
By the twenty-one minute mark, he's rejected the twink three times (a demonstration of repeated self-control no actual gay or bi man could manage more than twice, and one that most straight guys would have a little trouble with) and been suitably rewarded: the baseball player has asked Ethan to move in with him, which we've been reminded every two minutes is what his character wants most in life.
(At 21:36, Ethan Green gets the terms 'pitcher' and 'catcher' mixed up, despite the fact that he is gay and dating a professional baseball player!)
By thirty three minutes, he's dumped the baseball player, mourned for like 90 seconds, and repeatedly boned the twink alone and in and with the assistance of a total stranger. Because just because your character wants nothing more than monogamy is no reason you and your teenage fuck buddy can’t cruise hook up sites looking for a three-way, especially not if there’s a flimsy excuse for Merdith Baxter to be on the other end of the web cam!
At minute thirty nine, in a truly M. Night worthy twist, Ethan realizes that the caring ex was his true love all along. But there's still another fifty minutes of screen time. Where are the filmmakers going to go now? I have no idea, but that's where I decided that wherever this crazy journey takes us, I wasn't in the drivers seat and had no obligation to be sober, so let’s make a stop at my fridge and swipe my roommate's five dollar bottle of Bigfoot Sauvignon Blanc.
Whoops, the caring ex is marrying the chairman of the local Log Cabin Republicans. Meredith Baxter observes that "even gay republicans deserve to be happy" and then tells her son to go back to fucking 19-year-olds. God I wish she were my mother.
Oh, my god, forty nine minutes in and the 19-year-old is turning down a sex party to sleep with an attractive-but-not-cool-and-very-neurotic 27-year-old! They’re in L.A., the party was probably hosted by Joel Schumaker and Dustin Lance Black, like this one. The coolest 19-year-old on the planet will take you with him to the sex party, but no one passes.
Fifty three minutes. The twink, the gay republican and the two exes are all having dinner. Everyone at the table wants it to turn into a four-way, or at least swingers night, but that's not going to happen and the fact that it won't is going to derail both relationships. I had this exact same thing happen over breakfast at a diner on the lower east 40s once.
The 19-year-old said the exact right thing to defuse the situation and put everything back on course. God, if only I'd been that bright back in Manhattan in 2005. 2006? Whatever; then the gay republican tried to do good but sabotaged everything due to his ignorance of the situation. It was totally unintentional, but that was the best critique of the Bush administration's actions in Iraq I've ever seen on film.
The 19-year-old dumped Ethan so he could have sex with younger, more attractive men. This has happened to me twice since I came to Japan (the guys even work in the same office in the same building) so now I'm on familiar ground. Maybe it's the wine talking (three full glasses between minute thirty nine and fifty eight) but this is almost realistic enough that I might even care about the characters a little.
So this whole thing has descended from an attempt to craft a five-paragraph concise and honest review into a lengthy stream-of-conciousness live-blogging type of thing. Ugh. I think Kerouac and William S. Burroughs are totally overrated for doing this type of writing, and maybe the wine was a mistake.
On the other hand, it's minute sixty one and the twink is back, and fighting with the professional baseball player over Ethan's affections, so my only regret is not having two bottles of Sauvignon.
An hour five. The gay republican is in the living room, the twink is in the bathroom and the sensitive ex is hiding in a closet with the professional baseballer. I'm chugging the rest of glass six, god damn it.
An hour seven. There's a whole subplot about the black lesbian hooking up with a terminally depressed real estate agent that I'm not going to get into because I just respect you too much. The only questions left are a) when is Meredith Baxter going to show up and b) will there be a gratuitous shot of the 19-year-olds ass, or will we have to be satisfied with the lovingly photographed nipples we've seen every ten minutes since his character was introduced?
Ten Seconds Later: I don't know about (a) but the answer to (b) is no, just more nipples. The gay republican got a superb one liner in there and he better do something stupid soon or the movie will end with said gay republican being the only character I respect and I will never forgive whoever wrote this trash for doing that to me.
Five Seconds Later: Despite having just found his fiance in the middle of a three way with a professional baseball player and a 19-year-old and storming out in an understandable huff, the gay republican was still a perfect gentleman to Richard Diehle in a dress. Fuck.
A minute ten. Gratuitous lesbians. Oh, my god, the slightly less butch lesbian has the most atrocious faux German accent in the history of cinema (and this includes "Inglorious Basterds"). I should also mention that the outcome of the farce scene was that a) Meredith Baxter never showed, another reason to hate whoever wrote this, and b) everyone except Meredith Baxter hates Ethan Green at this point, which is just as well since it gives the audience a place to connect with the characters, though not much of one since everyone except the gosh dang Log Cabin Republican is even more of a doochebag than Ethan Green, King of the Doochebags (some day I will make a movie entitled "Ethan Green, King of the Doochebags").
At this point said gay republican has just had a line that reminds us that he is the only person in the movie who believes that the person who owns a home can choose freely if they will have a garden in the back yard or not. These people are unlikeable twerps AND basically fascists.
Also, it looks from that slider at the bottom of my screen that there are twenty more minutes left. Lets go for glass number eight.
A minute twelve. Through the second-worst use of flashback ever (the worst having come somewhere back in act one) we now know that to redeem himself as a person, Ethan Green must break up a wedding in which one partner is a gay republican (who professes his admiration for that epitome of the worst of the GOP, Abraham Lincoln) because even being the most sane, honest and healthy character in a film is not enough to make a gay republican an actual human being worthy of even a modicum of respect or decency. Boy, the Bush years were brutal, know what I'm saying?
A minute thirteen. Oh, thank goodness. The gay republican just performed a "Bavarian love yodel," which means I can go back to hating every character in this movie! I'll check in when the damn thing's over and let you know if that's changed.
The end. An hour twenty-four. Whoever wrote this thing is the worst person ever to live besides rapists and Nazis. Good night.
The last spoken line is a shout-out to when James Kirk cheated on the Kobyashi Maru test. No just God would allow a Star Trek joke to sully this cinematic atrocity. So I guess the moral of the story is it's still okay to hate everyone, including Meredith Baxter and God.