My Dad at the Multiplex

OK, time for a new feature around here, which I think promises endless entertainment. My dad has always been a junkie for the movies. Not quite as dedicated to their consumption as others I could name, but devoted to seeing his fair share. And while he's one of the smartest people I know, he admits that he doesn't hold the movies to very high standards. He claims to have an incredible ability to suspend disbelief, and having been his son for 32 years, I can back up that claim. He can acknowledge that something is not of the highest quality while thoroughly enjoying himself as he watches it. This accounts for the legendary and entirely characteristic verbal review he once gave me of The Bodyguard, the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston vehicle. He said it was "basically awful, but worth seeing." That line lived in infamy among my junior-year college roommates.

So, having heard many equally hilarious and somehow spot-on reviews in the years since -- left on various answering machines or delivered in person, but always best when they're spoken, as Dad's a very good writer and once he starts penning things they become more fleshed out and lose a bit in terse, koan-like humor what they gain in protracted insight -- I figured it was time to share. Here are two brief snippets from his reviews today of Jet Li's Fearless and The Last Kiss starring Zach Braff.

On Fearless:

He goes around beating the crap out of people. He’s a fighter. He’s not, like, a businessman who can fight. He’s just a fighter.

On The Last Kiss:

Give it a shot. It’s like a lighter version of Closer. Well, it’s like a Mary Poppins version of Closer, but there’s a lot of heavy, bad things going on, in a way. I don't like (Braff) that much either, but he's not terrible. You’ve got to stretch a little to picture some hot chick being all over him, but...

I didn't have the heart to tell him that, thanks to the indefensible taste of many women in my age range, it's not that much of a stretch. Ugh.