february 15, 2019

So unfortunately the VHS selection at my local thrift stores has dwindled down to like 14 copies of Austin Powers...and this unhappy horse shit. A while back we talked about how I was allowed to watch Blue Velvet when I was 10 years-old but forbidden from watching Pretty Woman until my 40th birthday. Since I was one of, like, 6 people who didn’t see Pretty Woman when it came out I was only passingly aware that there was a not-a-sequel that came out in 1999 called Runaway Bride. Richard Gere and Julia Roberts’ chemistry was so intense in that first flick it literally oozed out of people’s television sets (gross...and not good for the TV). The moviegoing public DEMANDED a reunion (their words...not mine). It took nearly a decade but eventually they came up with this honkin’ shitburger and people were all too happy to chow FACE! Runaway Bride made $300 million worldwide...which is like $100 trillion in 2019 dough. What’s wrong with this movie you ask? Literally everything. This time Dickie Gere plays a popular USA Today columnist (kind of an oxymoron, no?) who writes a feature called “On the Fly”...which means that he doesn’t plan his column in advance. He just runs around NYC muttering “I gotta think of an idea!” to himself. Even though the only people who read USA Today are Marriott guests from 1994 Gere is supposedly super famous. At the top of the flick he’s sprinting around the city in a fit of intense writer’s block. Luckily he stops into a bar where some chode with a fake British accent tells him that, down in Smalltown Movietown Maryland USA , there’s a woman who has left not one....not TWO....but THREEEE grooms standing at the altar. Kensington McPoppycock offers to tell him the entire story but Gere is all “facts schmacts” and then goes ahead and pulls a completely inaccurate story about the runaway bride out of his ass (it was crowded up there...in his ass...what with the gerbil and all. Look...I didn’t start the rumor!!). It is literally fake news and people are way pissed. Gere loses his job...as he goddamn well should. Luckily his pal and Pretty Woman holdover Hector Elizondo suggests he might redeem himself by heading down to Maryland and getting the REAL story of the runaway bride. Why he did not just do this to begin with we do not know. The action moves to small town Maryland...where every small town movie cliche that ever existed is alive and thriving. It’s also whiter than the crowd at a Kenny G concert. Remember when I brought up the fact that the only person of color in Pretty Woman was the limo driver who appears in the last 10 minutes of the film? Here they went full tilt whiteout. There’s nary a sassy black friend or wacky Asian neighbor within a million mile radius. Even all of the extras are white! Director Gary Marshall wasn’t exactly known for his diversity. But hey! Remember when he was determined to make a completely unwatchable all-star comedy about every holiday that ever existed? Until the grim reaper mercifully intervened. Nice work, Reap! ANYWAY...Ricky Gere gets to MD and finds Julia Roberts...who is a mechanic or some shit. She’s also super pissed this dude wrote a phony story about her that people are reading in Marriotts all over the country. So he apologizes and heads back to NYC to write a retraction. JUST KIDDING! He stays in town and starts stalking the ever-loving shit out of her!! He actually says “I’m not leaving till I find out why you’re such a man eater!” (cue Hall & Oates tune...seriously). The townspeople will have none of this and call the police and Gere is arrested for stalking. Just kidding AGAIN!! He quickly becomes the toast of the whole goddamn friggin’ town! He’s palling around with JR’s dad (same dad from Sixteen Candles BTW. She get-a married!)...he starts playing for the town softball team. He’s delivering babies and shit. He even bro’s down with JR’s current fiance, Chris Meloni...better known to you hipper readers as Gene the Chef from Wet Hot American Summer. Now you’ll excuse me while I go fondle my sweaters. And look...it’s about 45 minutes into the movie...and I’m wondering if there’s anyone on god’s green earth that doesn’t already know that Gere and Roberts are gonna end up together?? So whyyyy make us suffer for another hour and change?? So eventually these two dingdongs start palling around...even though he’s a total creeper asshole jerk. She explains how she ran out on her first 3 fiancees (but she kept the fuckin’ rings?? That’s douche!). They go shopping for a wedding dress and the old lady running the joint doesn’t want to sell her a nice one because she knows homegirl is just gonna return it. Gere flips out and threatens to write a fleet of 1-star Yelp reviews. Eventually JR’s all white pal Joan Cusack sees her flirting it up with Gere and warns her to not be such a flirt. Flirting is the problem. Got it. Hey...remember when Julia Roberts was supposed to marry Kiefer Sutherland but she dumped him three days before the wedding because Hard Copy ran a video of the two of them getting shitfaced at someone’s janky lake house party? I do. Anyway...there’s a pre-wedding luau and Julia Roberts shows up wearing a bra and sparks fly or whatever. The next day there’s a wedding rehearsal and someone has the brilliant idea to have Gere stand in for Chris Meloni and when they get to the kissin’ part JR and RG start kissin’ for real. Meloni punches Rich Gere in the face but JR is completely unapologetic. She’s like...that’s how I roll, yo. Now Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are gonna get married and there’s a montage of them doing really PG-rated things like taking walks and playing cards. Shit man...after 2 hours you’d think they’d throw in a little ballin’ to keep us entertained. I guess the suspense (so far in this film there has been literally none) is over whether Julia Roberts will run away from her wedding a FOURTH time. Wedding day rolls around and every media outlet in the entire world is covering this shit. I even saw an Al-Jazeera truck in the parking lot. The townspeople are psyched...even Chris Meloni...who is content to hang tight with his jar of dick creme. I don’t know if you can spoil a movie that is inherently spoiled...but she friggin’ runs away again. There’s a sadness montage and Gere goes back to NYC but now Julia Roberts goes stalkerpants and shows up on his balcony. I think this is supposed to be an homage to the end of Pretty Woman...but I kept hoping one of them would just throw the other off the balcony. It didn’t really matter to me which one. Gere mansplains a ton of stuff to JR about the meaning of life and she’s like “That’s what I’ve been missing! A man to ‘splain life to me! Let’s get married.” And they do. The end.