This Recording

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BALLISTIC: BANS VS. LAMBERT

by Lauren Bans and Molly Lambert

He's Just Not That Into You
dir. Ken Kwapis

"I actually suffered one of those exact rotten guys only maybe two weeks ago. It was just like a scene in the movie. I was at a bar. A fellow who'd texted me promised follow-up texts. I sent follow-ups when I didn't get anything from him. And I made the excuse to myself that my phone must've been blocked. That I didn't hear it. That it had SIM card issues. I told my mother. She said, 'Call him.' People at the bar said to me, 'You're acting out from the movie. He's just not that into you.' So I reluctantly decided the hell with him." - Ginnifer Goodwin

Bans: So according to that opening montage our moms and female friends are the ones inadvertently responsible for brainwashing us into believing we're too amazing for the doods who break up with us. I never even thought of it that way. What stoopid betches. I'm going to disown my Mom.

Lambert: I was not bored for the retardedly long 2 hours and 15 minutes running time. I wasn't mad initially, but then the more I thought about it postmortem, the madder I got.

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Lambert: I feel like this movie was the girl version of Sin City in some ways. Really simplistic and totally sexist but occasionally satisfying.

Bans: Love Actually is just as sexist, only more insidiously!

Lambert: definitely but it coated the misogyny with Xmas fluff.

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Lambert: This movie was at least sort of "Woody Allen" themed so I expected serious discussions between white people in nice apartments and title cards and on those counts I was duly satisfied.

Bans: Very Woody Allen-esque! I think the Woody Allen Gaze is perhaps more dangerous than the regular "male" gaze, for it's coated in the kind of intellectualism that makes it seem okay to boink your 17 year old stepdaughter.

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the WAG (Woody Allen Gaze), demonstrated

Bans: That said, I love him and I may have internalized WAG. My major sexual fantasy is walking into a room to see ScarJo on a table naked, covered in Lox, reading Tolstoy.

Lambert: speaking of sultry Jewesses, did you hear Ryan Gosling might be dating Natalie Portman? Fucking sad day in McGoslingville.

Bans: No!!!!!!! RACHEL AND RYAN FOREVER!!!! I thought Rachel Getting Married was the footage of their wedding mashed up with The Notebook, no?

Lambert: Unexpectedly charmed by Justin Long!

Bans: I was also unexpectedly charmed by Justin Long. So much so that I bought 4 Macbooks as soon as I got home. Though he's terrible as the narrative voice of the "He's Just Not That Into You" philosophy, his storyline is more like "He Doesn't Even Know How Into You He Is."

Lambert: Justin Long was so charming that he kind of transcended the material. In fact, so was Ginnifer Goodwin, and their scenes together seemed really adorable even though in retrospect he was written as a tremendous douchebag who changes at the very last second (just as we are warned multiple times is the exception, and not the rule, in dating.)

Bans: I actually found Ginnifer decidedly uncharming, besides for her haircut and wardrobe. She kind of made me feel uncomfortable being a woman.

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Lambert: I love Jennifer Aniston. I don't even care that she always has to play opposite dogs.

Bans: I love Jennifer Aniston too. She has her sanity. Should I cut my hair like Ginnifer's?

Lambert: don't cut your hair like Ginny's. remember that she has a Mormon haircut.

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Bans: Drew Barrymore's lisp gets worse with each rejection. I liked how the script accommodated her impediment by having Kevin Connolly tell her at the end, "Your face doesn't match your voice. In a good way." Thank god that girl has a face!

Lambert: I was hoping she'd be like "I hope your dick doesn't match your height." Perhaps I ask too much.

Bans: HAHAHA. That movie is called "He's Just So Way, Way Up Into You."

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Bans: I also liked how the subtle undertone of the Kevin Connolly/ ScarJo plot was "Dood, she's too hot for you." That was the only unsexist thing in the movie. Enough with Apaturdian doods thinking they deserve chicks way out of their league.

Lambert: yeah I appreciated that it showed the issue from both sides. A guy stringing a girl along for sex = a woman stringing a dude along for cuddles and pep talks. Kevin Connolly was a chump, just like his character on Entourage. But who wouldn't get chumped by ScarJ and her incredibly prominent boobs.

Bans: Totes, and poor ScarJo had to pay for her soulless slut ways at the end-- what was she in the last montage, a depressed lounge singer on qualudes? Plus the movie wouldn't even run a clip of her actually singing. That's got to sting. I am so surprised she could not work at least one Tom Waits cover into the script. She needs a new agent.

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Bans: But on that: I am scared for when ScarJo starts aging. She needs to go to college.

Lambert: all of ScarJo's talk about how she has to show her boobs off while she's young makes me think she's worried about aging the way of Brigitte Bardot. Then again Scarlett has Jewish genes, which might fortify her beauty.

Bans: MySpace as the "hook up" website? Hello, what is this, 2001?

Lambert: I think this movie was on the shelf for a while, hence MySpace as the hookup website.

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Bans: I am annoyed they didn't confront emo-caddery at all. Basically all menfolk keep in contact nowadays, the more insidious dating types are the ones who write/txt/wax emo poetic but have no follow-through. I think it's a recession thing - words are super cheap. That's why I date T.I. who says I can call whenever I like.

Lambert: ugh yes people who have online/text game but no real life presence are the worst. that's why I think this movie was interesting, because it did bring up some of those issues. essentially it was a big budget Hollywood mumblecore.

Bans: That was Drew Barrymore's entire purpose in the movie. She totally got cast as the "new technology dater", and communicated with men over all these weird mediums like MySpace, txt msg, Blackberry, Email. That is why she had so many gay friends in the movie. She was, like, way more advanced than the other characters. Also, are real estate ad sale companies notoriously gay or did she work for the paper itself?

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Lambert: how awk do you think it is between Justin Long and Drew Barrymore on the press tour? how embarrassing is it when you get your cute new younger bf a job and then the relationship implodes and you still have to promote the film?

Bans: I'm sure they slept together during production, if only to ease the tension.

Lambert: The same thing happened with Cam Diaz and Justin Timberlake with Shrek 3. Note to Charlie's Cougars: if you emasculate your boyfriend by using your Hollywood A-List status to get him a job, he will dump u. Let him book his own Alpha Dogs, k?

Bans: From what I can tell from my glossy reading, Drew seems to be the kind of girl who likes to be friend-exes. Mostly because I imagine if someone dislikes her it's a refutation of her entire being.

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Lambert: none of the character's motivations made sense, like Bradley Cooper and Ben Affleck wouldn't be BFF if Brad is really such a dick and Ben's really such a good guy.

Bans: why did they show the preview for the movie All About Steve in which Sandra Bullock stalks Bradley Cooper after their 1st date until he starts to fall in love with her? mixed msgs much? I am so confused.

Lambert: Bradley Cooper does not have "an ass that makes me want to dry hump." He has hair that makes me think about getting highlights. And a body that makes me consider pilates.

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Bans: Bradley Cooper does have a fantastic body, which actually makes him a little weird for rom-coms. I feel like usually rom coms are reserved for the face actors, action movies for the body actors. Bradley Cooper has an asshole face. Not that it's not cute, he just looks like an asshole. Ryan Reynolds really paved the way for hot-bodied asshole types in the leading man romcom genre, because Bradley Cooper is ALL over the place now.

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Lambert: I loved Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck. We all know he has a thing for Jennifers. It was so ridiculous that this movie took place in Baltimore. I loved the Domino Sugar neon sign in their window.

Bans: They had really good chemistry. I wish one of them wouldn't have been white.

Lambert: I was waiting for actors from The Wire and there were none, but Luis Guzmán played the construction foreman and Kris Kristofferson played Jennifer Aniston's dad.

Bans: Where were all the people from The Wire? Everyone knows when you film a Baltimore movie you cast Wire actors. Hello, Step Up 1 & Step Up 2 are basically The Wire, with some dancing thrown in.

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Lambert: Jennifer Connelly seemed out of place, but what better contrast to Scarlett's alternate brand of voluptuary beauty? Like, could they be more different? Aside from being beautiful high-paid Hollywood actresses married to B-List actors.

Bans: I was really touched when Jennifer Connelly broke the mirror and grew a spine. I made some tears.

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Lambert: I kept comparing it to Adaptation, in that it spends the first two thirds of the movie sort of setting up these rules for itself, and then the last act breaking all of them. But joylessly!

Bans: Basically I left the theater gleefully gurgling, "IZ CAN HAS BOOYFWIEND????" and sucking my thumb.

Lambert: the underlying message of this movie was?

Bans: It's always a good idea to have a boat, as a back up.

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