Movie Review "Stranger Than Fiction"

First, let me start this inaugural post by stating that I am aware that movie titles should be italicized, or failing that, underlined, instead of the quotes I did above. I don't quite know yet how to work all the doodads and the hoo-has, so get your britches out of a bunch, grammar nazis. In the immortal words of Oprah, "I did better when I knew better", so if one of you fancy techno-types want to teach me how to make my titles grammatically correct, I will be a better blogger. Until then, take my ignorance as kindness. I don't know what that means. ON TO THE FIRST MOVIE REVIEW OF MY VERY IMPORTANT BLOG:

"Stranger Than Fiction" (sic...see above) was a fer piece more decent than I was expecting, considering all of the middling-to-negative reviews, the shitty box office, and the fact that Will Ferrell has willingly become a monkey-for-hire in some of the more shitastic comedies to be released in the last few years. It has one of those cutsey, unbelievable premises that normally make my skin crawl, but since this unbelievable premise was right in my slipshoot--the writing of books--it didn't bother me. In other words, I bought the movie's conceit, that Will Ferrell's character was himself a character in a book penned by Emma Thompson, and he didn't want her to kill him off because his life was finally perking up, what with the sex with Maggie Gyllenhaal's funky baker character and all. I liked all the literary "in-jokes", mainly delivered by Dustin Hoffman, which presumed that the audience could read. Very kind of them to presume that, thought I. And that Maggie Gyllenhaal...I used to think she was the ug's, but I'm starting to get her appeal. Her appeal is...I'm not supermodel, or even conventional movie star hot, but if I was the girlfriend of one of your friends, between my baby blues and my muscular yet feminine biceps, you'd be wanting to bone me. I like that...the movies acknowledging that even somewhat attractive folks get laid too, as opposed to the normal message of: "Sex is for the hotties only--you chubbos or thin-haired assholes better get used to masturbating." Because let's face it, the best a real life Will Ferrell is going to do is a real life Maggie Gyllenhaal, like, she'd be at the TOP of his game, so I'm glad the movie didn't insult the audience by casting, say, Jessica Biel or Eva Mendes as the love interest, when in real lilfe she'd be like, "Don't fucking touch me, you hairy man!" Anyway, all this is a very roundabout way of saying that I now think I officially love Maggie Gyllenhaal, like I'm going to rush right out and rent "Sherrybaby" kind of love. And no, I'm not kidding. Suffice it to say, she was very believable and charming in her role.

Not as believable, or charming, was one MIss Emma Thompson, although I fault the writing more than her, but I do fault her a little bit. Her character was far-fetched, and one-note. The "writer" as "neurotic chain smoker". NOW THAT'S something I've never seen before! And as badly written as the character was, I have to say that I think Emma made it worse with her over-acting. Like, the whole movie's supposed to be unbelievable, so let's not exacerbate the issue by totally doing up every struggling writer cliche that ever existed.

Bottom line...charming movie. Maggie's great. Quirky enough that you'll forgive its weaknesses. I rate it a "You did your thing, dog" and I will use another post real soon to explain my rating system so you can come to my site again and again and learn and learn.