Life As We Know It - Film #14

So...apparently, the key to blogging success is to somehow incorporate the words "blue lagoon," "awakening," "pregnant," "sex scene" and "sand" into any blog post from here on out.

See what I did there?

I'll get more creative about that.

Maybe not palm frond and rustic tree branch creative, but definitely less overt.

In other news...today sort of sucked. By which I mean I learned exactly what noise a dragged muffler makes two small children in the backseat of your car make. 

Like a fisher cat on a rollercoaster. That's broken.

Anyways, I wasn't in the mood to be cheered. I was in the mood to feel condescended and pandered to by a female protagonist who wants us to think she's strong and independent but who really just needs a man to love her.

That's right, I worshiped at the altar of Katherine Heigl. 

In case you missed it, Katherine Heigl has one character. That character is:

1. always female

2. always a little too pretty to be the girl next door (but she tries hard to be anyways)

3. entitled, but in a down-to-earth, relatable sort of way. if you're in a high-powered, wealthy lifestyle.

4. part-bitch, part-emotional wreck

5. kind of an insufferable know-it-all

6. a bad drunk

Heigl is at her most convincing when she taps into her character's OCD. She is less convincing as a baker and homemaker.

I'm pretty sure her idea of "baker" was "Martha Stewart" here.

Pre-prison, more uptight Martha Stewart.

Then, there's Josh Duhamel, aka Fergie's husband. 

He looks like the love-child of Bill Hader and Timothy Olyphant.

Only with faker looking hair.

He is the yin to her yang, the acid to her base, the oil to her vinegar...

the penis to her vagina.

and what a penis he is.

First, I'm pretty sure he has an undiagnosed sex-disorder in this film. Second, he says wonderful things like "Hey, baby, at your age, you're not single, you're 'complicated!'"

It's almost like the filmmakers were unaware of the age and gender demographics of their target audience...

I mean, I don't know many under 25 year olds who clamor for the new Katherine Heigl flick.

You know?

The plot from here is pretty much the plot of Baby Boom, except they don't buy a money pit and learn to make organic applesauce (Heigl's character already knows how to do that!), and, instead of falling in love with the cute doctor, she ends up realizing her loins burn for the philandering television sports director guy. 

And Heigl is no Diane Keaton, although she certainly is trying!

Don't get me wrong, it had some cute moments here and there, but overall it was sort of a mixed bag over cliched whining as the two leads figure out how to change a poopy diaper and fall in love at the same time.

Duhamel's shit-eating grin is the best part of this scene which involves Heigl's uptight lady protag getting feces on her too-well-kempt to really "not be sleeping" face.

I did love Melissa McCarthy as one of the neighbors. And whoever the lady playing the caseworker was. She's got a gift.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie flounders hopelessly around the forced chemistry of its two leads. By the very end, I was sort of rooting for the hot doctor.

But even he gives up on Heigl in the end.

Not my favorite film to date and certainly no Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, but not a bad way to pass an afternoon if the earlier part of the day was spending listening to the dulcet tones of 150 dollars worth of automobile grinding along the 99 degree highway.

Plus the baby was wicked cute.