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January 01, 2005
Coming to a theater near you.
"You've Got Mail" was on TNT yet again last night. I didn't spend New Year's Eve watching Hollywood kitsch, but there was a TV on, and there it was. I glanced at a few seconds before shaking my head in disgust and stalking from the room.
Anyone else tired of these earnest romantic comedies between Meg and Tom? They haven't made one in a few years, for which I'm grateful. Something tells me that even the two of them are sick of themselves. Sadly, they've inspired a whole insipid subgenre. The original, "The Shop Around the Corner," is a sweet little movie; light, unpretentious. The remake is entirely insipid.
I'm not interested in another matchup between these two unless there are several explicit sex scenes. "3-Hole Punch," starring America's favorite couple. She's an English teacher with an insatiable need for anal sex, and he's a Romanian immigrant studying for his citizenship exam who's only too happy to earn some extra credit. Perhaps they meet during his midnight shift at Kinko's.
(Cue "wa-chicka-wa" guitar riff.)
I can just see them on the talk-show circuit, doing the typical schmaltzy promotional appearances:
INT. LARRY KING SHOW SET - NIGHT
LARRY, looking slightly uncomfortable, sits across his desk from TOM HANKS and MEG RYAN. Tom and Meg are laughing at a joke.
TOM HANKS
Well, Larry -- I'm turning 49 this year, and I was ready for something new. Meg came to me with the script, I read it with my wife Rita, and she pointed out that there was no contrived romance, no cutesy melodrama over a silly misunderstanding -- just several set pieces of raunchy, hardcore ass pounding. I'm a total assman, so the hardest part for me was working with the dialogue coach on the accent. I had to work hard not to screw that up.
MEG RYAN
So to speak!
(Good-natured laughter fills the studio, Larry looks around awkwardly. Meg wipes her eyes.)
We had so much fun making this movie -- so many practical jokes on the set. One time, Tom had craft services replace all of our lube with --
LARRY KING
Uh, hold that thought -- Scottsdale, Arizona, you're on the air...
Posted by Your Protagonist at January 1, 2005 11:31 AM