69

Today is my birthday. Taking a moment of your time to reflect on all the positive effects I've had on your life wouldn't be inappropriate.

In other news, two days ago both my hard drive and my cell phone gave out. This may sound melodramatic, but I've been depressed as hell over it. With two strokes, it's like a significant portion of my existence has been annihilated. And every time I make a step forward, there seems to be a setback of similar strength to keep me in check. Assuming I get out of the funk I'm in, perhaps I'll have a valuable lesson about the role that technology plays in my life, and how easily it can be destroyed.

Hopefully, I won't be in such a bad mood twelve hours from now, because I swore I wouldn't drink anymore if I was feeling down. I woke up to a lot of birthday greetings on Facebook, which cheered me up a bit. If there is any day to stop feeling down, my birthday is probably it.

68 - The Perfect Man

If I ever find myself wondering why I used to carry a misogynistic streak a hundred miles wide and a thousand miles long, I'll only need to sit down and watch The Perfect Man. The women in this film behave in the most absolutely despicable, selfish ways imaginable, not once making a wise choice or one not entirely driven by selfishness. It’s s a bad sign when all I can think about during a movie is that I just barely need two hands to count the number of girls my age that have shown me even vague kindness.

Heather Locklear and Hilary Duff play Jean and Holly Hamilton, mother-daughter psychopaths who alter the world around them in a way similar to how an F5 tornado alters a trailer park. Both share the ability to not be able to see more than 15 seconds into the future, as well as the ability not to let the feelings and emotions of other human beings influence their decisions.

The story centers on Holly’s harebrained scheme to invent a secret admirer for her mother in order to keep her from moving. This might be considered cruel if Jean didn’t have the nasty habit of breaking up with men and then moving her two daughters to seemingly random spots around the country.

For those who enjoy cruelty, don’t fret. For a film that would be considered light-hearted family fare, the snarling viciousness that inhabits nearly every scene would be more at home in one of those vile torture flicks that so many young people sell their souls to.

Consider the treatment of Lenny (Mike O’Malley), an actual admirer of Jean. He may be a big dork, sure, but he’s also goodhearted and well intentioned. Nonetheless, Holly rolls her eyes and begs her mother to ignore him, sneering that Jean could do much better, as if a toxic cunt like Jean should have something to fear from someone she could easily manipulate.

In another rotten moment, Holly storms into a wedding and pleads with the groom not to get married, because he would get along so much better with her mother, who he has of course never met. Afterwards, Holly receives a stern but polite scolding, as if causing the groom to get punched out by the bride at the alter warrants the same punishment as coming home ten minutes after curfew.

Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t blame Holly for being selfish. Not only does her mother set a terrible example, but she is played by Hilary Duff, who specializes in films where all of the nice supporting characters turn their lives completely upside down to accommodate her every wish, even as she remains blissfully unaware that people besides her may have problems. Egocentrics, sociopaths, and psychopaths unite.

But James, you may ask, what did you expect from a Hilary Duff movie? Good writing, creative filmmaking, great characters, serious thoughts about the world we live in? No, but I didn’t expect something that so fiercely and perhaps deliberately stands opposed to those things, either. I can only thank God that it bombed at the box office, because my soul couldn’t handle the blow of both this and Wedding Crashers being successful despite issues such as morals and taste getting smashed into atoms for horrifically stupid audience.

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