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Friday, December 14, 2007

My Christmas List: Top 5 Movie Crushes

Who among us has not emerged from a revelatory movie-going experience having not just fallen in love with the movie itself but with a particular character from the movie? Now I'm not talking about falling in love with the actress. I'm not talking about having on a crush on, say, Sienna Miller smoking a cigarette while pouring a glass of scotch in "Interview" (heavenly God). No, I mean falling in love with the character. The actress, of course, has something to do with it because the character looks like that actress but it's the person the actress creates. You leave the theater and you wish you could bump into that person on the street and talk to them (or, in my case, run away in fright). The first time I recall getting that feeling was with Sloane Peterson of "Ferris Buller's Day Off". And since then these are the five most memorable occurrences.

1.) Celine, "Before Sunrise/Before Sunset". Is this because I yearn to meet a neurotic, passionate French woman who looks like Julie Delpy on the train and spend the rest of the day with her discussing the most intimate mysteries of life before parting ways and then having her haunt my memories for the rest of my life? Of course, it is.

2.) Sara, "Serendipity". I think most men would tuck tail and run if a woman (played here by Kate Beckinsale) they liked took them to a hotel lobby and instructed they get on separate elevators and a choose a floor to get off on and that if they chose the same floor then they would be meant to be together. I am not among these men.

3.) Clementine, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Jim Carrey's Joel is at a party and has secluded himself off to the side and away from everybody with a plate of food. Kate Winslet's Clementine comes over to him and says, "I saw you over here all by yourself and thought, Thank God, someone who doesn't know how to interact at one of these things, either." And if you don't know why that's a complete and total turn-on to me, well, then you don't know me.

4.) Ann, "State and Main". Is this because I'm a wannabe' screenwriter and I yearn to meet a woman (portrayed by Rebecca Pidgeon) who's clearly not cut out for the small town she lives in, though she still loves it there, and doesn't want kids ("never saw the point of 'em") who assists me in breaking a rancid case of writer's block on my latest script while simultaneously causing me to swoon? Of course, it is.

5.) Lindsey, "Fever Pitch". Perhaps to truly understand my love of Drew Barrymore's character (or to understand the film itself) you have to possess an undying, borderline insane love of a particular sports team. Luckily, I do. And if you do as well all that needs to be done when watching this movie is insert your own sports team in place of the Boston Red Sox. So when she's at the game with Jimmy Fallon and wearing the Red Sox tee shirt and drinking the beer and kisses his cheek, I simply imagine she's wearing a Nebraska Football tee shirt. And when she sits down with all the Red Sox books and wonders who Carl Yastrzemski is, I simply imagine she's wondering who Tommie Frazier is. (Her: "Explain to me again about Tommie Frazier and the 1995 Orange Bowl." Me: "Can we make out?")

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