Today was one of those lazy Saturdays when I just flat out didn't feel like waking up. So, simply put, I stayed in bed until about three in the afternoon. There's a weird sort of guilt that comes with staying in bed so late in the day: I don't know if it's just me that feels this way, but if I bite the bullet and drag myself out of bed by eight or so in the morning, I feel like I'm doing something right. But waking up and then going back to sleep throughout the day makes me feel like...I'm not doing something.
Anyway.
Over the past few days, I've come to love the folks over at Hulu. For those of you who don't know what Hulu is, it's a video hosting site that is completely free to join, and you can watch movies and television shows in High Definition (as well as full screen!). The best part is: it's completely legal. Companies show brief (and I mean max 30 seconds) commercials throughout the program that you watch, and in exchange for their advertising, they pay for the movies to be put online. After my friend introduced me to their wonderful site, I've watched a few movies that I want to talk about briefly so I don't forget what I thought about them.
1. "The Girl Next Door" (R)
Wow. What can I say about this movie. Seeing the trailer, I'll admit that I was barely intrigued (and I mean barely) by what seemed to be a predictable storyline and a relatively low quality film. However, it came as a great surprise when my friend (who's opinion I greatly respect in movies) told me "That movie changed my life." Naturally, I won't go so far as to say that the film will change your life, but I will say that if you decide to watch it, it probably won't be what you're expecting. The story is pretty straightforward: Matthew Kidman (Emile Hirsch), the hero of the film, is a senior in high school with sky-high grades, an acceptance letter to Georgetown University, and not a penny to put towards it. He also lacks friends (save his two best amigos, Klitz and Eli), any sense of confidence (except the guts to raise 25,000 dollars to bring an Asian dweeb-genius out of Cambodia), and perhaps most importantly, a girlfriend. Along comes the stunning girl next door, Danielle (Elisha Cuthbert), entering the film wearing a perfect red outfit that perfectly outlines the curves of her perfect body (imagine that, right?). Things go haywire when Danielle catches Matthew spying on her through her window, and it's soon after this point in the film that the movie begins to veer away from the expected.
As usual, I'll refrain from ruining the whole movie for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it was soon after this point in the movie that I minimized the film and IM'd my friend the Guru and asked him "Is it just me, or is there a really sad undertone to this movie?" The best way I can describe the film is to ask a pretty straightforward rhetorical question: You know how in every single movie about a guy falling in love with a prostitute, the climax of the story is where the hooker decides that she wants to be a regular person, and chooses love over sex? In this movie, I guess you could call it a climax, but it comes about midway through the film rather than towards the end. (Naturally, this rules out the other cardinal rule of the Moulin Rouge genre: neither character dies at the end, which means you can abandon your tissue box.) This unorthodox approach to the classic story results in the hero being only a part of the bigger picture, in which director Paul Greenfield chronicles the journey of not only of Matthew, not only of the boys, but also the journey of Danielle. It's a feel-good movie if I ever saw one, a movie where even the traditionally neglected female character proves by movie's end that she too is a beautiful person worth caring about. Think Risky Business meets Ratatouille, throw in a soundtrack as perfect as the one for Garden State, and you've got The Girl Next Door. My final jurisdiction? A 9/10. Am I overrating it? Probably. But in the words of Eli, as Klitz complains about the awkwardness of watching a porno together, "Dude, learn to like it."
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