I've been having a terrible week.
My landlord keeps yelling at me to wear slippers
because he says I "stomp" like a "loud and sad person"
My dog had been very distant lately
and this morning, a woman passed me on the street
looked me right in the eye, and did the sign of the cross.
Do I have Satan on my face?
Of course not!
Satan's on every face.
I'm not seeing Satan.
Toasty toast
So anyway, I've been watching a lot of rom-coms
to counteract it, 'cos I need that, 'cos Daniel
deserves that.
Oooo. Yeah, man! I also love watching villians wreak havoc
on everyone when I'm sad.
Oh, no, mine are the ones where... love blossoms
out of comedic situations. Yours is a... what are you talking about?
I think Michael misheard you, or his brain is broken.
Sometimes it's hard to tell. Michael! He said "rom-coms".
Like, "will they, won't they?", all the smoochy-smoochy...
Yeah, I know, I heard! Rom coms. Short for "trauma accomplices"
where two horrible monsters do mean hurtful things
at, on or to one another and those around them
until they've earned their ticket to Bonetown USA.
Population Peen-hundred.
I love Bonetown. I have an annual pass there.
You do it once a year?
No. I pay once a year. I do it as many times as I want.
You pay for sex?
No! I was... adding to the hilarity-
Soren knows what I'm talking about!
Most rom-com couples are actually horrible villians.
Not my rom-coms.
Take My Best Friend's Wedding.
Successful food critic, Julia Roberts, has had all the time
in the world to tell her best friend that she wants
to marry him. Then decides that, now, when he's actually
getting married to just go ahead and ruin his wedding
to a perfectly decent stranger.
Yeah, it's the plot of the movie. Also the title of the movie.
Meanwhile, our main guy- I mean, who cares what his
name is, what's he even been in since-
Dermot Mulroney. He was in About Schmidt, The Grey, Insidious 3, The Family Stone-
The point is, Deer-mit Mulrooney is a sexist, emotionally
manipulative, leathery man! Who doesn't want his
fiancee, who is very, very young, to finish college.
Julia knows this and she uses it against poor fiancee
Cameron Diaz. In addition to bringing out this guy's inner
control freak, Julia tries to hurt and humiliate Cameron's
character every opportunity. Making her do karaoke
when she knows she doesn't want to do it, forging work
emails to cause drama between Cameron and Dermot What's-his-name...
Dermot Mulroney! He dated Rachel in Friends for a little bit
Oh! You think I would remember that leathery face.
Also, you just said his name.
Listing villainous acts here! Trying to make him jealous
by making her friend be her fake boyfriend,
and eventually she just makes out with leather-face.
Meanwhile, Dermatology-
Hah!
- is weirdly possessive of Julia, walking in on her naked,
commenting on how good she looks. "You look really good,
with that clothes on"- AND he's always almost kissing
Julia while he's engaged to Cameron. Not to mention
that everyone's flying out for this expensive destination
wedding and Cameron has done nothing but love
them both.
Also, you notice how many times they make her
unnecessarily pratfall in that movie? Was that the only
thing Julia Roberts can do?
When I unnecessarily pratfall, it is always at the exact right-
Oh! You dick, you stole my unneccesary pratfall.
Hold on! But, but, Julia doesn't get with whatever-his-
name.
Dermot Mulroney. He is an actor who's doing just fine
in Hollywood
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dimwit Mulch Money.
Anyway, can we even call it a rom-com if they don't
end up together, I mean, she is supposed to be the
villian.
Yeah, but I'd say based on America's reaction of
propelling it to number two at the box office, raking in
$299.3 million in 1997, when that was a fairly big deal,
yeah, I think that does make it a rom-com. Not to mention,
that a rom-com just has to present a "will they, won't they" scenario.
In this case, they "won't-ed".
But I think Katie's larger point was that this is one bad
example in a genre that is about comedy and finding
companionship among-
Yeah, and if we really wanna talk about villains in rom-coms
then the people in How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days
are like SUPER villains!
What? Katie, no! Katie!
Oh come on! I mean, the whole plot of the movie is that
the two of them make a bet to destroy a person.
"I could start by dating a man and then drive him away."
"You think you can make a woman fall in love with you by then?"
"Ten days. You're on."
For work! 'Cos apparently, that's how you get ahead in business in
Rom-Com World.
Oh, no, it's actually how you get ahead in the real world
too. I've tried it. Uh, see every week Jack threatens to fire
me and then I bet him five dollars that he won't.
And then that sucker takes the bet every single time I
give him five dollars. I never get fired.
Oh, that's so smart!
Or, you just give him five dollars every week for
doing nothing.
Also, that's not how bets work.
No, it's- Oh...
That's besides the point. Anyway, in How to Lose a Guy
in 10 Days, they plan to manipulate a stranger.
In her case, by breaking up with him and in his case
by falling in love, for their stupid jobs. I mean, she
literally says, "I'm gonna make you wish you were dead."
And then she proceeds to make him miserable. I mean,
imagine being a stranger who starts dating a woman who
like, tortures you and you don't know why. She invades
his personal space, she throws these emotionally
abusive temper tantrums, she humiliates him in front of
his friends, she destroys property, she makes him
question his sanity. "She drove me half-insane for a
goddamn magazine!" She even asked one of her friends
to pretend to be a therapist. I mean, that has to be
breaking some law.
Yeah, that is breaking a law. That is practicing medicine
illegally.
Well, maybe she was just "practising"!
Practicing medicine.
Get it? Practise makes perfect. Although, in this case,
practice makes a malpractice case.
Yeah. It should be called How to Gaslight a Guy for 10
Days. I mean, that's not kooky fun, that's evil.
Meanwhile, he's not even in love with her, he's just
so focused on winning the blood diamonds account-
yeah, that's right, he works in advertising and is
trying to advertise for blood diamonds.
"We say a diamond is forever."
-that he will do anything, which includes pulling his poor
sweet family into his fraudulent love life. Meanwhile,
he doesn't even love this woman, so his plan is just to
emotionally manipulate her until he gets his work prize
and then what? Dump her? I mean, they are both SUPER
villains just trying to outsmart each other.
That's two bad examples of-
Child's play! You want to talk about real couple villains,
let's talk about America's Sweethearts.
I love that movie!
Well, then, you love actual MONSTERS because John
Cusack and Julia Roberts in that movie are actual
monsters. John Cusack is a megastar who tries to kill
his wife.
Hey, okay, yes, he does that. But if you watch the movie
you know he does it for a very good reason.
Bring it home, Katie!
She, she takes him to her crumbled duck.
Which... is like edible cheating.
Katie, damn it, you let me down. You let me, and the whole
cast of America's Sweethearts down.
Even Billy Crystal?
Who?
You know Dermot Mulroney but you don't know who
Billy Crystal is?
I don't want to talk about how much Billy Crystal
probably hates Katie, which is... so much, or how
broken Dan's brain is, which is... doing just fine, you're great, buddy.
I want to talk about how America's Sweethearts should
be renamed America's Psychopaths.
All the footage we see of John Cusack, he is over-
protective, untrusting and just violent towards Catherine
Zeta Jones.
He does not trust her because she cheated on him!
Or maybe she cheated on him because she was in an
abusive relationship. He stalks around her bungalow
even after they're separated, spying on her and creeping
around. He constantly fantasizes about killing her even
though he still wants to be with her. Meanwhile,
Julia Roberts is pining after her sister's husband, even
so much that she kisses him and then ends up sleeping
with him while they're still married. Even more
meanwhile, Julia is not being honest with her sister,
she's enabling her sister's bad behaviour. She could tell
Catherine Zeta Jones that she is being self-
destructive, but no, she doesn't do that because she is
suckling at the teat of her sister's success.
Ha ha, teat.
Anyway, Julia Roberts is just using her sister until she
can hop on the John Cusack Money Train.
Meanwhile, her sister is literally being slut-shamed
by the entire media.
"Sorry, I can't get over what happened with you and
Eddie. I am so sick over it, I can't sleep at night. How
can you?" She needs a strong, supportive family during
that time but everywhere she turns, she has no one she
can rely on. Not even her own sister.
No, no...
Oh my God, you're right.
No...
John Cusack is always a terrible person in rom-coms.
In Serendipity, both he and Kate Beckinsale are engaged
to different people but they keep chasing each other
around because Kate was trying to be a kooky
Manic Pixie Dream Girl and didn't just give him her
number when they first met. And then he uses the
present that his fiancee gave him to ruin their wedding
and find Kate.
In Say Anything, he's a straight-up stalker with boundary issues-
Okay, so John Cusack's bad for rom-coms. But, last
night, I watched You've Got Mail, alone, starring
America's actual favourite sweethearts, Tom Hanks and
Meg Ryan. It's correspondence that blossoms into love.
I mean, technically, he, uh, runs her bookstore into the
ground and then emotionally manipulates her when he
finds out that she's the mysterious lady he's been
chatting with. But she's emailing him and... open and
kind and... the relationship she's distancing herself from
that relationship emotionally, making herself unavailable
to her spouse... and she says it! She says it, she says
it, she knows it- "Is it infidelity if you're involved with
someone on email?" Okay. Bad example.
Okay. Uh, Never Been Kissed!
Yeah, she's 25 and she goes on a date with a 17-year-old
also she manipulates children to get her story in the
paper. Oh, and she's into a teacher who wants to bone
his student.
10 Things I Hate About You!
Oh, she has serious anger issues and he is being paid
to date her!
There's Something About Mary! Wait, no-
Too late! Everyone is stalking her and Ben Stiller has a
perfectly good opportunity to keep her from putting
fresh jism in her hair and he does not.
Yeah, and she just takes the hair gel from his ear?
Who does that? And how does she not recognise
what jism is?!
Personally, I would be concerned about pursuing
someone who can't identify jism by touch, temperatures,
sight, or smell.
Me too.
OK, we ruined all of them, all right? And also, we said
"jism" out loud in a public place three times, four
times now. So everything's ruined, everything is terrible,
and I have no way of fixing my bad day now or ever.
Wait, now, look at it that way, all the psychopaths have
coupled off!
Oh yeah. All the Awful's are with each other, instead
of tormenting us.
It's just like watching two sick people making out, it's
not... it's not very fun, it's kind of gross, but at least you
know that they're only swapping germs with one
another, they're not infecting other people.
Yeah, guess so.
You guys saw that, right?
Maybe it was a meet-cute?
No, you think it was like a "holy terror" cross or like a personal-
No, it was her, it was a personal-
But if it's a meet-cute, I should go after her?
I wouldn't usually pursue someone who thinks you might
be the devil.
Hi, everyone. We had a lot of fun today, but
we'd like to talk to you seriously about Dermot
Mulroney. He's... passable. He's cast as handsome
often which is why we thought it was okay to call him
leather face over and over again.
It's not like- We're not saying like, I did a bunch of Paul
Giamatti jokes here, not like Giamatti's *makes noise*
and we're making fun of his goblin face.
We would also like to take a minute to talk about Paul
Giamatti. Paul Giamatti is passably... a handsome
gentleman. He's not awful, he's not- He's no Steve
"Bush-emi", he's not like the Alien monster *makes noise*
All right, hi, we've had a lot of fun here today and now
we'd like to talk to you seriously about Steve "Buss-emi",
um, that's actually how you pronounce his stupid,
garbage goblin name...