Only You

Only You
By Peter John Gardner

My stance on romantic comedies is the same as my stance on mayonnaise. It serves a purpose in the world, many people are fans, nothing against it, but it's just not my cup of tea. That being said, I went into this movie pretending that Robert Downey Jr's character was really Tony Stark and the events in this movie are what happens before Iron Man. It made the whole experience a little easier to bare.

Only You is your basic, sugary sweet romantic comedy that defies logic in order to get the two leads together. The story goes like this. When she was a little girl, Faith (Marisa Tomei) learned from a Ouija board that the man she would marry would be named Damon Bradley. Flash forward to her adulthood, Faith is about to marry another man. While she is getting fitted for her dress, Faith receives a phone call from one of her fiancee's friends informing her that he will be unable to attend the wedding because he's in Europe. His name? Damon Bradley.

So like any woman with good sense, Faith pretty much drops her wedding plans and trots off to Europe to track down Damon Bradley. It doesn't matter how much in love she is with ohwhatshisname that she's about to marry. The Ouija board guy is for real, and they're soul mates!

While chasing some stranger like a madwoman, Faith accidentally bumps into Peter played by Robert Downey Jr. Peter finds out who Faith is looking for, and introduces himself as Damon Bradley. Immediately, Faith's attitude toward Peter changes and they have a romantic night together. Well it's romantic until Peter drops the ball by telling her that he's not really Damon Bradley.

Right here, I was thinking that the message of the movie is that all guys with the name Peter must pretend to be somebody else in order to get laid.

Faith continues her search for Damon because no matter how perfect her night with Peter was, he's not her soul mate. Peter starts tagging along in her quest for Damon in a really creepy way that most women would think that it's time for a restraining order, but the movie needs him there, so he's there. The movie shows that Peter might really be her soul mate because of all the little things they have in common and what a great guy Peter really is. Eventually Faith meets Damon at a posh hotel in Italy thanks to a tip from Peter. When Damon pushes things forward a little too fast, Peter intervenes and proceeds to fight Damon. Of course we find out Damon is a fake, and Peter set up the whole thing to win Faith over. She was not amused.

Later in the movie, we find out that the name Damon Bradley was faked by one of Faith's friends on the Ouija board through an excruciating subplot involving Faith's sister-in-law. At the end, we're at an airport when Peter and Faith hear the name "Damon Bradley" being called for on one of the PAs. The two rush to see him. In the middle of the awkward conversation between Faith and Damon, Peter excuses himself to his flight. Damon realizes that Peter really loves Faith and vice versa, so he convinces Faith that Peter is really the one for her. Cue Faith running to catch up to Peter's plane where she's swept off her feet and they live happily ever after. Romantic comedy concluded.

I thought about writing something exploring whether the notion of soulmates is real or we just tell ourselves that when we meet someone that we're compatible with, but I can't overlook this atrocity to guys with the name Peter. Faith and Peter had a great night together, and she dumps him as soon as she finds out that his name is not the same as one she got from a Ouija board 20 some odd years ago. Yeah, he lied at first saying he was Damon, but that's of little importance. He just needed an "in", or else a beautiful woman like Faith would never give him the time of day.

Even after she warms up to Peter, she still doesn't want to pursue anything romantic with him. This is the story of the life of most Peters. He's a great guy, generous, funny, but a little quirky (this is Robert Downey Jr), yet Faith continues to pursue someone that may or may not exist. It's not until she meets the real Damon, who turns out to be rather average looking, that she decides she wants something with Peter. If I were Peter, my first question would be, "What changed your mind?" Does it matter? It shouldn't, but it does. This movie is really about how it's bad luck in the field of romance to have the name Peter.

Natural Born Killers

Natural Born Killers
By Peter John Gardner

"It's just murder. All God's creatures do it. You look in the forests and you see species killing other species, our species killing all species including the forests, and we just call it industry, not murder." - Mickey Knox

In 1991, a young writer was having trouble finding funding for the production of one of his scripts entitled Natural Born Killers. Producing the film would be too expensive for the up-and-comer, so he sold the script for $10,000 and used that money to fund his directorial debut. That debut became "Reservoir Dogs" and that writer was a young Quentin Tarantino.

Long story short, the producers that bought the script partnered with Oliver Stone and reworked the film from Tarantino's original vision. The film shifted its focus from the celebrity gossip reporter Wayne Gale to the killers themselves, Mickey and Mallory. Instead of the film's narrative being about the exploitation of violence in the media, the film also became a loose character study of the killers themselves.

Natural Born Killers was criticized upon its release for "glorifying violence", but the film doesn't do that. While it tries to figure out what make Mickey and Mallory tick, it never goes out of its way to portray them as sympathetic characters nor does it ever imply that what they're doing is "cool". Even by 90s standards, the film isn't really that violent to begin with. Sure, lots of people get shot, but it's not a movie padded with gore.

The film can be divided in half. The first half is the Mickey and Mallory Show. We follow Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in their roles as Mickey and Mallory Knox as they gush over each other and kill anyone that rubs them the wrong way. Inevitably, they get caught and the second half of the film chronicles their time in prison and subsequent escape. Also onboard is Tom Sizemore as a sleazy detective tracking the killers, Tommy Lee Jones as a batshit insane prison warden, and Robert Downey Jr. as a celebrity gossip reporter hoping that his post-Superbowl interview with Mickey Knox will be the defining moment in his journalistic career.

Basically, the film is an exploration of the media's obsession with violence, fresh off the very public trials of OJ Simpson and the Menendez Brothers. Are we making anti-heroes out of these people just by giving them coverage 24/7 in the news? It was a hot topic at the time, but 15 years later, it seems somewhat irrelevant. Since then, many people have stopped watching the news just because they are tired of hearing "bad news" or the most common excuse, "It depresses me". With the exception of the Beltway Sniper a few years back, killers don't really get top bill in the news anymore. But that's just cable tv. In 2009, news has other ways of getting around.

Think about it. Even though the press was locked out of Iran after their fraudulent election earlier this year, Iranians took to social networking sites to let the world know what was going on in their country. People were finding out about Iranians being beaten in the streets through Twitter while CNN was covering a "Jon & Kate Plus 8" story. Even if the media didn't give coverage to attention craving madmen, they'd still find a way to make their voices heard. Imagine a serial killer that leaves a trail of murdered bodies and then posts a confession on Youtube about it. Or after every murder, the killer lets his followers on Twitter know about it before the police.

One other thing that made me think while watching this movie. Rodney Dangerfield plays Mallory's physically and sexually abusive father in this movie. Now imagine having Rodney Dangerfield as your dad. Forget his character in the movie. It's basically Rodney with a few incest jokes thrown in. Imagine being raised by a guy that makes his living on the fact that his insecurities prevent him from feeling any respect from his peers, so he constantly complains about it. Imagine being a toddler and seeing Rodney's bug eyes staring at you in your crib. That's the stuff nightmares and killers are made of.