I mean, who buys this stuff?

When my middle school 'girlfriend' (not really, I was too much of a wuss) moved away after eighth grade, she sent me a letter (ah, the past) after arriving in San Francisco. I don't remember much of its contents, but there was a bit in there that I will never, ever forget.

She was such a sweet girl and toward the middle, she said something to the effect of, I was missing you so much, but then I heard our song and it made me feel it was going to be okay.

Aw...but, uh, we had a song? *adjust reading glasses* And it's...Faith? By George Michael? *removes glasses, bites tip*

I mean, that's sweet and all...but...who the Hell likes George Michael that much?

Apparently, Emma Thompson does, a lot, and after what I imagine was a merlot-fueled bender for the ages, cooked up the idea for Last Christmas. Allegedly based on the music of one half of Wham!, upon further review, it seems more like one half of one song from one half of Wham! was the real foundation for this...but hey, who's counting?

Unseating Zooey Deschanel as the sexiest holiday retail employee ever is Emilia Clarke, here playing Kate/Katarina, the lone employee at a year-round Christmas shop. The job basically sucks, even if it's just about guaranteed that a painfully mysterious man will drop in to jingle your bells.

For her boss, Santa (if only I was joking), this international man of mystery turns out to be Mr. Bean's stoic accountant, Boy. And for Kate, it's this chipper fellow in really tight tan pants, Tom. Tom and Boy? Welp, it's been fun. *politely jumps off cliff*

Kate is your typical movie wreck. A person you'd loathe in real life, but adore in a goofball comedy: she's basically homeless, has a dead-end job she's constantly on the verge of losing, can't really land a guy (*furiously punches self in sad face/stiff crotch*), and is currently/mostly estranged from her fractured, immigrant family. Good thing it's all presented with quirky hilarity, so much so it's borderline enviable. But if I can be frank, what the bloody f--k is this? It's not that I expect her to be trafficking meth in her hollowed-out uterus to make rent, but the way these problems are handled is a bit, well...much.


But we're all savvy, right? Everything about Kate only bumps the glittery Holiday-Movie Tomfoolery Meter to 'moderately acceptable' (as opposed to something on the Hallmark Channel, that inevitably sends the meter into such fits the dial flies off and kills an onlooker). If you somehow stumbled into the theater expecting a heavy dose of reality with your large popcorn and M&Ms, feel free to bicycle your Grinchy ass in front of the nearest passenger bus.

I've never wanted to be a charmingly homeless Brit until this exact moment.
(alright, fine, there was that one time in college...)

But if you're down for just saying f--k it, and watching the cute people do cute things, well, have I got a movie for you! Thompson and director Paul Feig take every holiday rom-com ever, juice them, and then proceed to strain the results through the sweaty underwear of M. Night Shyamalan.

That probably doesn't make sense...but it will. Alright, fine. It might. 

(That was your warning, f--kers, as the Yays and Boos, like a Trump family Christmas stocking, will be quite spoiler-filled)

Audience: Awwwwww
Everyone in that park that day: Should we call the police, then?

Yaaaaaaaaay!

• Even if I'd like to, let's not beat around the bush. Clarke is adorable/sexy as Hell and I would watch her do anything. Including calling the police because a weird man won't stop sweating in front of her.
• Is it weird that I kind of love Henry Golding? Pretty sure I do.
• I'm just gonna get the shit out of me eye. Same.
• Misguided teen love or not, I was still pretty excited when Faith started playing, even if it wasn't the far-superior Limp Bizkit version. (kidding!)
• Tom, you cheeky monkey! The old, can I touch your heart surgery scar move? I haven't done that since high school!
• I don't know what this says about me, but I'm really curious as to how lesbian pudding tastes.
• Okay, Emma Thompson's small roll in this...was pretty f--king funny. (she sounded just like my wife's Albanian grandmother, Olga)
• So if they had actually had sex that night...would it really have just been Clarke furiously masturbating on the floor of Tom's apartment? Because I have no problem with that scenario...
• And finally, and this should be a Boo, but the guy next to me spoke soooo much during this movie, one could only assume his lady friend was blind. Honestly, it was as if your grandfather recorded his first DVD commentary. And at the end of the film, he kind of lowers his voice (at last) and says to the woman, Did I fall asleep? I wanted to lean over and say, NO, SIR. NO, YOU DID NOT. (no lie, he had zero internal monologue and for this movie, to have someone explain the most obvious things was kind of amazing)

My wife and I, if we were from different countries.
And exercised.

Boooooooooo!

• Wait. Did girls just show each other their boobs? I knew it! - twelve-year-old m.brown, finally vindicated.
• Michelle Yeoh playing a stuffy lady who seems to hate everyone but actually isn't that terrible? Since when?
• Of all the things you're asking me to believe in, the fact that this Christmas store didn't go out of business thirty years ago just might be the most preposterous.
• Why would that dude leave his precious thing on a couch? Isn't that where bumbling alcoholics sit in the morning?
• Did I miss the memo? When has it been acceptable to refer to a muffin as simply muff?
• I will nail you to my dick. I wrote this down, but I'm not sure why. Was it dialogue? Did the guy next to me whisper it to his wife? Can I not read my own handwriting and this is super embarrassing?
• I really, really, REALLY want to see this again, because I'm pretty sure there's no way this holds up, Sixth Sense style. I imagine it will fail hysterically.
• Maybe you Brits are just a bunch of bah-humbug jerk-offs, but who doesn't throw all their money at Kate singing in the street? Good God, man, I almost threw my wallet at the screen (but it would have interrupted the conversation of the man next to me...and that's rude).
• This Boy guy irritated me, for whatever reason. Like, he probably should have been wearing a sign that said PLEASE IMAGINE COLIN FIRTH.
• And finally, what's with all the Look Up talk in regard to Tom? Seems a bit rude, right? Were those words he always said, before he got smashed by a bus? Cause that's a bit of a coincidence, no? Or, is that just his mantra now? Like, you're wasting your life, look up, it's a pretty day (or there's [literally!]) a sign you've never seen before. Either way, I'm furious. I'm pretty sure that the park bench in his honor had the words Look Up on it, and that feels like a dick move. It's like putting STAY WARM on a homeless guy's grave, for f--k's sake.

My middle school girlfriend, who shall remain nameless, ended up going to college in Connecticut, right down the road from where I was going to college. I think, at one point, I bumped into her on the street and it was like, Holy shit! What are you doing here? This was before I had met my wife, and I was just an idiot sophomore or something (but they would end up interning together, which is weird). We eventually hung out together...once...at a Yale/Harvard game. If I had been thinking clearly, I would have reminded her of our middle school love song. The one by George Michael. You know...


I Want Your Sex.

Pretty sure that was it.