Hello, Movie Lovers,

Let's talk about movies. Specifically, let's talk about movies I watch over and over again. They fall into two categories: movies I own on DVD and movies that are playing on HBO. Subcategories include excellent movies that deserve to be viewed repeatedly, movies that are essentially awful but perversely fascinating, and movies that aren't great but kind of grow on you (well, kind of grow on me, at any rate). I'll just pick them randomly from my bookshelves or from whatever current line-up HBO has, and then we'll chat about them, shall we?

My first choice has got to be "Love Actually." Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie and you don't want to know about certain plot developments before you do see it. This is a big, fat Spoiler Alert.

I first saw "Love Actually" in the theatre with two of my girlfriends. We all had a great time watching it together (we talk a lot during screenings so we go to the movies on off hours when the theatres are almost always empty, but if you're unlucky enough to see three women braying in a huddle the next time you go to the movies, don't sit near us unless you enjoy running commentary). It's got a great cast and includes some great performances. And it's a sweet and romantic movie, perfect to watch around Christmas, that happy season being the timeframe of the movie itself. I also watched "Love Actually" in the theatre with my husband, Tom. He liked it fine, and I enjoyed seeing it again. Then, about a year or two later, HBO started showing it. Whenever I scrolled through the channels and saw that it was on, I would watch it. Often enough that one night, when Tom walked into the living room from the bedroom and saw that "Love Actually" was on again, he said, "For God's sake, you're not watching that again, are you?"

Yes, I was watching it again. Because into what life does the sight of Hugh Grant not bring at least a little cheer? I admit that for awhile he was chapping me something fierce. He was way too cute (in the very best and very worst sense of the phrase) in "Four Weddings and a Funeral," but apart from a quite fascinating turn in Roman Polanski's mesmerizingly bizarre 1992 film "Bitter Moon," he kept doing the same damn schtick over and over again until -- say it with me -- you wanted to smack him. Well, I guess with age has come some form of wisdom, because now I find Hugh adorable no matter what he does, just like I did in the beginning. Some might call my return to Gagaland over Hugh regression. Fuck 'em, right, Hughie?

But, come on, are we supposed to believe that the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, handsome and smart and affably charming Hugh Grant, doesn't have a girlfriend? That he's avaialable to fall in love, very quickly, ridiculously quickly, wonderfully quickly, with Natalie, who does some kind of work at 10 Downing Street, but I'm not sure what, other than bring tea and biscuits to Hugh so he can fall in love with her? And they keep referring to how fat Natalie is. She's not at all fat. She's not even very large. J'accuse! This movie is to be at least partially blamed for the rise in anorexia among young women in the U.S. and England. Still, I don't even care, because it's adorable that they start making out at the local (local for Natalie's "dodgy" neighborhood, so let's love Hugh even more for falling in love with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks) school Christmas pageant.

Yeah, right, as if the Prime Minister of England would EVER diss the President of the United States like that. Won't happen. EVER. And Hugh does it not because of some deeply held political and moral beliefs or any sense of national pride, but rather because Bubba/Dubya, I'm sorry, Billy Bob (at first I typed "Billy Bod," so I think that should be his nickname in the press from now on) hit on Natalie, that Horn Dog. Fuck you, United States, get your hands off my woman! But I don't care, because it's a really delicious moment, even if the U.S. is a greater country by far than the U.K. ever was or ever will be, so kindly don't forget that Mr. Writer/Director Richard Curtis.

I am only slightly kidding with that last feisty statement.

Do we really even need the story of the two stand-ins for the porno flick who fall in love? No, we do not. Don't argue with me on this one. It's just an excuse for giggling at hands on titties, etc. I defy anyone to prove me wrong.

Bill Nighy's character couldn't be more adorable, and he couldn't be more adorable playing him. I get teary every time he comes from Elton John's party where there were a large number of half-naked girls with their mouths open (yeah, girls, right) to celebrate Christmas with his fat manager, a.k.a. "The Fucking Love of [His] Life." Fabulous.

Colin Firth asks this Portugese woman to marry him FAR too quickly. I'm reminded of a woman I used to work with in New York who married a French man after knowing him for only a few weeks, despite the fact that he didn't speak more than a few words of English and she spoke almost no French. When I made some sympathetic comment to the effect of "Are you out of your fucking mind?," she assured me, "When you're in love, you don't need words." Sister, when you're in love is when you need words -- carefully, carefully chosen words -- most of all.

And Colin should have beaten the crap out of his brother when he found out that he was sleeping with his girlfriend. His brother should have still been in a coma by the time Christmas rolled around. What a putz. Both of them. The brother for sleeping with his brother's girlfriend, and Colin for not beating the crap out of him.

I turn the channel whenever that story with Laura Linney comes on, because it makes me crazy. She has got the most annoying ring on her cell phone in the world, and that's quite a statement, isn't it. She finally gets in bed with a gorgeous guy on whom she's had a huge crush for years, and she interrupts their romp to answer the phone because her mentally disturbed brother is calling and she's all he's got in the world because their parents are dead. I don't care. Either shut off your damn phone or answer it once and shout, "Listen, you SPAZOID, I'm fucking over here, so don't BOTHER me!"

Love that story about the geeky loser who has a terrible haircut and goes to Wisconsin (WISCONSIN in WINTER, can you believe how fabulous that is?) and meets four, count 'em four gorgeous women who immediately fuck him and who ends up coming back to England with Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards in tow.

Emma Thompson broke my heart when she cried to "Both Sides Now" because her husband gave a gold necklace to his secretary instead of to her. Rowan Atkinson was annoying in the store while Alan Rickman was buying said necklace, but he redeemed himself when he reappeared briefly toward the end of the movie to make it possible for Liam Neeson's stepson to sneak through security at the airport so he could say goodbye to the Love of his Life (no "Fucking" in this moniker). Myself, I always cry to "Puff, The Magic Dragon" and that Linda Ronstadt song about how "I've done everything I can, to try to make you mine, and I think it's going to (actually, I think the exact lyric is "gonna") hurt me for a long, long time." Heike Makatsch, by the way, who plays the whorish secretary who makes shameless plays for her married boss, the slut, was born in Germany, so let's all give her a big round of applause for that perfectly clipped British accent.

Liam Neeson is widowed. His stepson is adorable and they get along great. This segment of the movie is of course a cartoon, but, again, who cares? Liam meets Claudia Schiffer. Liam's stepson does not have a problem with the prospect of his very recently deceased mom being replaced by a supermodel. Fine with me. Liam deserves Claudia, and I'm glad his adorable stepson is keeping his pie hole shut about this.

I'm forgetting or ignoring a lot of what makes this movie so swell. Oh, yeah, I love the way the little kids ask the Prime Minister to sing Christmas carols when he's looking for Natalie in the aforesaid "dodgy" part of town, and Hugh obliges and signals for his bodyguard to join in and it turns out Hugh's bodyguard has a fabulous operatic singing voice. A delightful surprise for Hugh, and for you 'n me. This is just a swell, swell, movie, despite any of my grousing about this and that being wrong, which is downright Scrooge- and Grinch-like of me. I should be ashamed of myself. Bravo, Cast and Crew! Rule, Britannia! Stop saying Natalie's fat, and we'll get along just fine. Actually love you all.

“This is Spinal Tap.” No, it’s not; it’s HEAVEN!

I am such a Christopher Guest Groupie. You will be seeing a lot of his name in my entries here. I’ve read that he’s rather standoffish in person. He wouldn’t have that option with me. If I ever met him, I would do the same thing I would do if I ever met Barack Obama, which is to say I would embarrass myself something fierce. I would blather “Ohhhhhhh, Mr. Guest/President, I LOVE you! Ohhhhhhh! I LOVE you SO much!”

This claim of self-confident abandon in the presence of fame is all bravado on my part, because I also adore Michael McKean, and my husband and I recently saw him at a Neil Finn concert and my husband wanted to go over and tell him what fans we are and I panicked and ran off to the bathroom whining, “Leave him alone! Don’t interrupt his evening!” I don’t think my husband will ever forgive me for this.

When I met my husband, I owned a VHS copy of “This is Spinal Tap” that I had recorded off the t.v. years before (great, now the FBI will be breaking down my door; I’m such a blabbermouth). Tom had a DVD copy he bought. That, and the fact that my cat Faith loved him immediately, was what clued me in to what a great catch Tom is. Something there is that loves a man who owns a DVD copy of “This is Spinal Tap.”

I've spoken to one or two people who said they just didn't get this movie and that they don't much like it. Any disagreement about the merits of "This is Spinal Tap" does not raise an issue of "different strokes for different folks" or "to each his own" or "one man's meat is another man's poison" or any other "live and let live" claptrap. It raises an issue of mental health. Anyone who doesn't like "This is Spinal Tap" is insane.

Let me get my one quarrel with this perfect movie out of the way immediately so we can forge ahead and pretend it never happened. Where is Eugene Levy? What was he doing when this film was being shot that was so important he couldn’t join in? Maybe he hadn’t yet met Christopher Guest and begun their collaboration, but I feel an excuse like that is just mincing words. I’m sure there’s a valid explanation, but I am curious. So if anyone knows, please advise. An e-mail on this subject from either Eugene Levy or Christopher Guest would really brighten my day; thanks, Gentlemen.

In writing an homage to “This is Spinal Tap,” I’m sure I’m not the only person who would be tempted to just type the entire script word-for-word. There are so many absolutely perfect and hilarious moments, I really don’t know where to begin gushing. Did you notice that the mime waiter being supervised by Billy Crystal is Dana Carvey? Billy tells Dana not to talk back (which Dana is doing using his hands and without speaking, being a mime 'n stuff) because “Mime is money.” Brilliant! Who writes this stuff? Or, who improvises it? Either way, it’s priceless.

The characters, the characters, the characters. Their names. Nigel Tufnel. David St. Hubbins. Ed Begley Jr. in a cameo as one of the deceased former drummers of the band, is John “Stumpy” Pepys, or, as Nigel fondly recalls, “The Peeper!” Patrick MacNee, a.k.a. John Steed of “The Avengers,” is Sir Denis Eton-Hogg, head of the band’s record company and founder of Hoggwood, a “summer camp for pale young boys.” And Fran Drescher is “Bobbi Flekman, the hostess with the mostess.” Sublime.

Paul Benedict, though we don’t discover his name in the movie but a trip to imdb.com reveals, is Tucker “Smitty” Brown, the clerk at the hotel who informs the band’s manager that their reservation has been screwed up and instead of getting seven rooms, they’ve been reserved one room on the seventh floor. The manager, Ian Faith, named after my girl cat Faith, complains to another employee about the mix up and, referring to Paul Benedict’s character says, “…and this twisted old fruit…,” to which Paul Benedict responds, archly and with wounded dignity, “I’m just as God made me.” A paean to understanding and, we can only hope, a righteous rebuke that Ian will one day come to acknowledge and absorb.

Rob Reiner’s character is named Marty DiBergi. There’s something about that name that cracks me up, though I’m at a loss to articulate what exactly it is.

The lines, the lines, the lines. Bobbi Flekman marvels at the cover of the band’s latest album, “Smell the Glove” and chastises the boys about it. Stores won’t sell it because it shows a naked, greased woman on all fours wearing a dog collar, with a man’s arm holding a glove thrust in her face for her to smell. Ian, the manager, comments, “You should have seen what they wanted her to smell. It wasn’t a glove, let me tell you.” When Bobbi demands, “You don’t think that’s sexist?,” Nigel responds, “What’s wrong with being sexy?”

Marti DiBergi comments to the boys that their album “Shark Sandwich” garnered a two-word review, “Shit Sandwich.” “Shit,” is, I think, a funny word in general, and it does not disappoint in this context.

David’s girlfriend takes over as manager of the group when Ian quits. Nigel hates her, so he quits too. She gets the remaining band members a gig at an amusement park. They head for the theatre. She sees the marquee, and so do we. “Oh, no,” she wails, and so do we. “If I’ve told them once, I’ve told them a thousand times. First ‘Spinal Tap,’ then ‘Puppet Show.’”

The situations, the situations, the situations. The band wants to recreate its Stonehenge set because their song about Stonehenge used to be a huge hit for them. So they give Anjelica Huston a paper napkin with the design sketched on it so she can build a set piece of the massive British treasure. Except the sketch indicates inches instead of feet, so she creates scenery that wouldn’t come up to my knees and I’m quite short.

The band gets lost in the tunnels underneath the theatre on the way to a performance. The food in the green room is wrong. Some of the olives have pimentos inside, others are empty. “Look in here,” Nigel complains, thrusting an olive in Ian’s face. “There’s no one home.” Harry Shearer gets stuck inside a pod during a performance and has to be freed with a torch. Fred Willard (a.k.a. god – okay, okay with a lower case “g”) leads them to a gig at an Air Force base for the Friday night social and the performance is ruined when broadcasts from the flight tower interrupt the songs over the P.A. system.

Things get worse before they get better, but they do get better and that’s what matters because we love these musicians and we want them to tour Japan and we want Nigel and David to be friends again and we want David’s stupid girlfriend to be fired as manager. Oh, yeah, I could have lived without the cold sore that migrates from band member to band member, but I’m more than a little squeamish, so others may have found this hilarious. I’m just saying.

The songs are absolutely brilliant. “Big Bottom.” What more can be said? We even get to see vintage black and white footage of bands the two founding members were in before Spinal Tap. One of their songs, performed on the British 1960s television hit “Pop, Look, and Listen” has lyrics which include “Quit wasting my time; You know what I want; You know what I need; Or maybe you don’t; Do I have to come right flat out and tell you everything?; Give me some money.” Tom and I often walk around the house singing this. It’s not because we’re freakish or obsessive or lacking cash; the melody happens to be quite hummable, thank you very much.

This movie can be watched again and again. It should and must be. Watching this movie repeatedly is the opposite of that oft-quoted, much-floated definition of insanity, i.e., that insanity constitutes doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. In the case of “This is Spinal Tap,” we expect and receive the same result over and over again – knee-slapping, gut-aching comedy – and that’s just fine with us and it should be fine with Tom Cruise and The National Institute of Mental Health as well. Really, watching “This is Spinal Tap” vivifies (forgive the play on words based on the upcoming name) the essence of keyboard player Viv Savage’s response when he’s asked by Marti DiBergi what his life’s philosophy is. “Have a good time all the time. That’s my philosophy, Marti.”

Hey, who just came along? Oh, it’s you, Polly!

I keep wanting to call this movie “There’s Something About Polly,” though the Farrelly Brothers, to my knowledge, had nothing to do with making it.

This is a movie that insinuated itself into my heart via HBO. I don’t remember which moment caught my attention or when I decided to watch the whole thing, but it has grown on me to the extent that I’m now on the lookout for it when I’m switching channels and if it’s listed I perk up and I hope that my timing is right and I’ll be joining the show-already-in-progress when one of my favorite moments is playing. The odds are with me, because I’m accumulating a lot of favorite moments in this little gem.

The budget for this film was probably huge, given the star power of the two leads, but it has the feeling of a small and sweet movie. Count me in as a big fan, and feel free to use any of my quotes on the DVD cover.

And none of this should be the case, because the premise of “Along Came Polly” is hardly gasp-inspiring. Fussy, risk-adverse man – he’s so risk-adverse, he works in insurance and assesses risk for a living, get it? – meets sloppy free-spirited woman – she’s so free-spirited, she travels around the world a lot and has problems with commitment (I think this bit about having problems with commitment is an actual quote from the movie, and God love Jennifer Aniston as Polly for mouthing a cliché like that with a straight face), get it? – just after his wife cheats on him with a French scuba instructor on their honeymoon. Risk-adverse man and free-spirited woman are so different they drive each other crazy, but still they find a way to fall in love, get it? Nobody’s ever come up with that idea before. It’s as if the Odd Couple started dating. I don’t need to spend nine bucks to know I’ve already seen this story. But, see, I didn’t have to spend nine bucks to watch “Along Came Polly.” Not even once, and I’ve watched it a lot now. How did we all live before cable t.v.?

For my money, this movie delivers big bang for the buck (at least nine dollars worth, maybe more). Ben Stiller marries Debra Messing. Debra’s character is as much of a self-involved pill as Grace is on “Will and Grace.” I can’t watch “Will and Grace” anymore because, though the jokes are quite funny, everything the characters say reads like a script. Yeah, I know it is a script that they’re reading, but it’s simply too well-written a script. Most people don’t speak in complete sentences. Most people, gay or not, can’t pull arcane references to Cole Porter and Katie Couric out of thin air in the heat of any given moment. But that’s what the characters on “Will and Grace” do, so I had to stop watching it because it was annoying the bejeezus out of me.

Okay, back to Debra Messing’s character, Lisa, in “Along Came Polly.” Lisa, like Grace, doesn’t take responsibility for her actions. I hate that in a person. Which is why I love when Lisa gets taken down a whole bunch of pegs at the end of this movie. We’ll get back to that later.

Alec Baldwin is delightful in this movie. He plays Ben Stiller’s boss. Ben Stiller’s character is named Reuben Feffer. I haven’t done an exhaustive study, but I suspect there’s a clause in each of Ben Stiller’s contracts that requires his character have a funny name. Gaylord Focker is a juvenile choice for a name, but it’s good for a laugh. I would have spelled “Feffer” differently. “Pfeffer,” would have been my choice. That means “pepper” in German, which would have gotten a huge laugh in the theatres, I’m sure. Nicknames also figure prominently in this movie. The French scuba instructor keeps calling Reuben “Leuben” (strictly speaking, that’s not a nickname, it’s a misunderstanding, but who’s speaking strictly here?). Polly’s friend Javier, the Salsa Dancer, calls Reuben “Ruby Tuesday.” It’s all much cuter and more endearing than you’d expect, trust me.

Okay, back to Alec Baldwin. He plays his character, Stan Indursky, with a deep voice and a New York accent. Stan’s signature phrase is “Good things.” Which I guess means “I wish you good things” or “Good things should only happen to you, and to me while we’re on the subject.” It’s really cute and I love Alec Baldwin for being so cute and for being an articulate liberal Democrat and for speaking out in favor of animal rights. So at Reuben’s wedding to Lisa, Stan gives the toast and says he would insure their future (he’s an insurance broker, get it?) and closes with “Good things.” Then, when Reuben comes back from his honeymoon, having been cheated on by his new bride, Stan offers his sympathy, telling Reuben he knew Lisa was a whore (pronounced “hoo-er”) the moment he met her. Reuben protests that it’s more complicated than that, and Stan says, “Don’t defend her. She’s a dime store hooker and she always will be.” “Dime store hooker” is a very funny phrase, and Alec delivers it perfectly.

You know a boy wrote this script because there are a few wince-inducing references to defecation. What is it with boys and laughing at farting and shitting? I’m not contradicting myself. I know I wrote in an earlier post that “shit” is, in and of itself, a funny word. It is. Shitting, however, is, in and of itself or otherwise, not a funny thing to do. One of the salient aspects of Ben Stiller’s character is that he has I.B.S. What is that, you ask, and so did Polly. It’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome. So Reuben shouldn’t eat anything other than bland food, but of course Polly is so free-spirited, she has to eat at ethnic restaurants with really spicy food. On their first date, they eat at a restaurant where you don’t get utensils, you just eat with your hands, which only adds to Reuben’s distress, and how predictable is that? He likes to eat with a fork, she uses her hands at dinner. How will they ever overcome these obstacles and fall in love? Watch and find out. So they go back to Polly’s place and Reuben has a wicked attack of I.B.S. and ends up in Polly’s bathroom without any toilet paper. I won’t go into any additional details.

Then there’s the part where Reuben’s good friend Sandy tells him they have to leave a party because there’s an emergency because Sandy just “sharted.” I won’t go into any additional details. Use your imagination. Or don’t. I would advise against it.

Now, having said that, I don’t blame Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays Sandy. Though he couldn’t have protested at the first read-through of the script? “Guys, I am not going to say the word ‘sharted.’ I was in ‘Boogie Nights,’ okay? I have standards.” It’s okay, Philip Seymour, because you are adorable and brilliant in this movie. His character, Sandy, is an actor who was in one movie and then hasn’t done anything much since. He is known for playing the bagpipes in “Crocodile Tears.” Adorable. Now he’s playing Judas in a community theatre production of “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Brilliant. In fact, at one point you see his headshot on the bulletin board at the community theatre, and it’s one of those headshots that is divided into quarters and has four pictures, one of which is of Sandy as Hamlet, complete with cheesy crown and cheesy skull. Adorable and brilliant.

Okay, so it’s the end of the movie, and Reuben has alienated Polly and she’s moving out of New York and he invites his wife to see Sandy’s show because Lisa has come back from the island and she says she made a terrible mistake leaving Reuben for a French scuba instructor and won’t he please take her back. But Lisa’s not very repentant. So I was thrilled when he tells her he’s not going to take her back, and she says “What are you talking about? Why?” and he says “Why? Because you screwed a scuba instructor on our honeymoon. What kind of heartless bitch would do that to someone she loves?” Yes! Take that, Lisa! Score one for the good guys!

So Reuben has to run and find Polly and convince her to take him back (don’t worry, everything works out okay – this is a comedy, not “A Star Is Born”). While he’s doing this, his good friend Sandy steps in and attends a meeting wherein it will be determined if a certain high risk businessman will be given insurance. Apparently Reuben’s professional future rides on this guy getting insurance. And Sandy saves the day with his brilliant performance as a risk assessor! Bravo, Sandy! Score another one for the good guys!

I’m not happy that this film keeps trying to get a laugh out of Polly’s blind ferret smacking into things because he can’t see. Polly! Keep an eye on your ferret! He’s blind, for fuck’s sake.

Michele Lee and Bob Dishy are adorable as Reuben’s parents. Bryan Brown is adorable as the uninsurable businessman Leland Van Lew. Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston are adorable as the leads. One of the best things about this movie is you get to see Hank Azaria’s and Ben Stiller’s naked buttocks. Who knew they both have such cute tushes? For my money, learning that is a bargain at any price. Here’s my nine bucks. Is that real butter on the popcorn?