You might be surprised to find that I-one who spends so much of his precious time going over decorum and the proper standards of behavior in order to be able to instruct my fellow man in the ways of the world-have time to take in a film or two every so often. When I do make a night of the cinema, I am often delighted, terrified, moved and entertained by the fanciful images before me. But there are times, oh there are times, when the unreality of it all gets too much for one Arbiter to take. The trite love stories, the hokey humor about defecation, the fact that John Travolta fluctuates in weight like Anna Nicole Smith off Trim Spa-none of these compares to that most irritating of all movie mishaps: the “just fresh from the salon, but just woken up” scene.
I think we all know what I am talking about, here. We have all seen it: the handsomely coifed and chiseled leading man, and his done-up-to-the-nines hussy of a one night stand, wake up in the early morning hours looking oh-so-fab. Well pish posh, I say. Who has ever seen such a thing? The clothes? Not wrinkled. The hair? Not mussed. The make up? Not nearly worn away. It’s enough that the image of these individuals in their waking hours has the power to make me feel inferior (and that’s some feat), but for them to be able to dash any hopes of self esteem after just having woken up, well that is just plain unforgivable.
These people are actors and yet they can’t seem to reenact something we all go through everyday. Where are the circles under the eyes from having stayed up all night after not being able to fall asleep when Mr. Gravel Gargler snores like a freakin’ steam roller? Where are the bruises on the legs when Little Ms. Lightsleeper has kicked you while playing out a kung fu fantasy in her dreams? Where is the morning breath before the requisite make out to remind us of the pleasure of the preceding evening? I don’t know about you, but I am grabbing for my morning after pill and a Tic Tac, not the hobo-ish fool next to me who is looking for some nookie before nine.
Let’s inject your Hollywood world with something a bit more genuine, people. It takes a lot for me to give up a Saturday night of reading US Weekly and failing miserably at torching crÅ me brul‚e to make it out to the theater. The least you can do is make my ten dollars worth it. Just promise me you’ll sleep on it.