Blue Valentine. (Although Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are so talented, and improvise some great moments. So you can almost overlook all of that). The movie takes place in two times about ten years apart. How it starts is a little familiar.

Dean (Gosling) is a slightly older, simple, lower middle-class guy who doesn't care about anything other than being with Cindy (Williams). She is a motivated high school student who wants to be a doctor. When problems arise - in the form of her dbag boyfriend knocking her up-she turns to Gosling for help. He agrees to marry her and even raise the other guy's kid. Like Lloyd Dobler, he has no ambitions other than being with his girl, and like Lloyd he is a genuinely good man.

"I don't know, sir. I can't figure it all out tonight. I just want to hang out with your daughter."

"Um, ditto."

So What Happens Next?

Where Say Anything implies a happily ever after ending (barring an unforeseen plane crash), Blue Valentine flashes forward ten years. Dean is a devoted father. He also remains faithful and sexually interested in his wife. He does, however, chainsmoke, drink a bit too much, and has no other aspirations in life. He works as a house painter out of necessity, but is otherwise at home with the woman and daughter he loves.

And guess what? It's just not enough. Cindy grows to resent him. She hates her life. And even though he was exactly what she needed at the desperate moment at 18, she is not what she wants or needs ten years later. He is exactly the man he promises to be and it does not matter, because that is not the only factor in a successful marriage.

Some might say I'm being too hard on Cindy. I have three replies to that:

1) I'd love to be "hard on" Cindy. Michelle Williams. Mrowr! Zing! (Okay, we got that out of the way;

2) The semi-retarded screenplay is even harder on Cindy. Dean's tattoo? The giving tree. Yeah, the giving tree. The book about that tree that gives and gives and gives and the boy who takes and takes and takes until the tree is reduced to nothing. Most overt and functionally retarded symbolism ever.

How many blue collar Italian guys from New York do you know sporting this tattoo?

3) I'm not really criticizing Cindy. It was inevitable. She should have never married Dean in the first place. Being a solid guy was the only thing she really liked about him and it just wasn't enough. She made a mistake, but she was scared and 18.

Kind of like Diane Court. Kind of exactly like Diane Court, just with a baby on the way. 1980s favorite sweethearts Lloyd and Diane don't stand a chance. Thanks

Blue Valentine !

National Treasure. He's a guy who loves history, and adventure, and is motivated by treasure. And much like little Mikey Walsh, he got the bug from his dad. Both characters use antiquated maps to find treasure underground.

But the similarities don't end there. Mikey Walsh has asthma. Benjamin Gates has some sort of disorder that makes him speak in an unnatural breathy manner, like he's trying to shout, exhale, and whisper at the same time. It also helps that Cage's character is so simplistic and emotionally one-dimensional that there's hardly anything besides the ability to shave separating him from an earnest, intelligent 12 year old boy.

There is, however, one revealing difference. While the Goonies' treasure hunt is pretty far-fetched, Gates's are impossible, both historically (the first movie gets the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence wrong) and logically (the first movie is about a treasure map that is hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence). When viewed as a latter-day Mikey, Gates actually makes more sense. He's a crazy person.

After experiencing the unlikely payoff of One Eyed Willie's gold, Mikey has retreated to the only place that he could possibly replicate that success: An imaginary world of his own design, where, to quote Gates in

National Treasure 2: Book Of Secrets, "The past is filled with incredible mysteries. The clues to solving them are all around, hidden in plain sight." The National Treasure films all take place inside Gates' head, like the first half of Beautiful Mind if that movie never acknowledged that John Nash was hallucinating his top secret government missions. Gates is what happens to Mikey if he never grew up: A real treasure hunter in the same way your local crazy homeless guy is a real astronaut-wizard.

So What Happens Next?

Y'know, you could kind of say this about any James Spader performance, but the next stop? Pedophilia. You can see Steff living his rejection over and over again. He wanted 16-year-old Molly Ringwald (who looked 12 at the time) but he just couldn't have her. This rich privileged lad who could have everything could never have her. And as the years flew by and his mullet faded from fashion, he obsessed on it until he only thought of little girls like Molly. Seducing, luring, and ultimately exorcizing his demons - just like Kevin Bacon, the pedophile trying to start a new life in The Woodsman. One important distinction though. Kevin Bacon's character seems kind of full of remorse and is consequently less creepy than Spader's character in Pretty in Pink. Maybe I just wrote this so I could say James Spader is actually creepier than a pedo. Yes.

Out of character: James Spader is creepier than a pedo.

So What Happens Next?

Well, maybe I'm projecting, but what happens next is, ET goes home, says hi to all his buds, and then starts planning his revenge on that planet of complete assholes who messed with him when he was just minding his own business. Over the next 30 years ET explores the science of DNA technology to create the bad ass he could never be. He sends us, the Cloverfield monster.

And just like in E.T., the more you look at the Cloverfield monster the more ridiculous it appears.

What? You don't think he could? This is a guy who can call deep space with a Speak n' Spell. He can do whatever he wants. How about a little goddamn respect?

And sure

E.T. took place in Cali, and Cloverfield falls from the sky in New York, but that just makes sense. Its like when the bully makes you watch him kick the crap out of someone else first. The little Cloverfield spider babies (clovettes?) are parasitically impregnating all of the east coast and they'll gather more and more steam until it wipes out all of California.

But what about Eliot you say? Eliot was nice. ET wouldn't hurt Eliot. Maybe not. But last I checked Eliot doesn't get killed in Cloverfield. He's not even in it. I mean, I think he's not in it. With all that shaky-cam shit I threw up and stopped watching in the middle.

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