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The OC & Just Like Heaven f/ Mark Ruffalo (I hate that guy)
10/06/05
by Tardio

So, OC is now on a one-month hiatus to make room for the MLB playoffs. I have to say that McG, Josh Schwartz, and crew might need to take this one-month break to settle down and re-think the direction of the show. The last two episodes have been like scoring with an old girlfriend – decent work, but nothing to write home about. Going into a one-month hiatus, the OC had to come up stronger than what it's given us the last two weeks.. Like I said, there were some good signs – Seth and Summer with some good interplay, Kirsten Cohen possibly falling off the wagon – but we needed a cliffhanger to take us into the break – something like Seth sailing off into the open seas in a rickety kayak, Marissa capping someone, or Caleb Nichol keeling over – not the sappy montage we got on Thursday. Because the OC is kind of treading water right now, I want to take the bulk of this column and review "Just Like Heaven," the new Reese Witherspoon movie. Before that, though, I will address one aspect of the OC that has caught my fancy…

This frightens me.

Jeri Ryan and her scummy boyfriend are planning some sort of scheme to defraud Kirsten Cohen out of some Newport Group cash. (Wow, didn't see that coming at all.) This plotline is miserable…almost painful to watch. C'mon Kirsten, how dumb can you be? This crazy boozehound invites you to dinner and asks you for a two million dollars to "invest" before you even open your napkin, and you're not a little suspicious? "Sure, Boozehound, I'll give you a couple million to sink into a half-way house for alcoholic MILFs, no problem." Give me a break. This storyline has to end. And, to top it off, they had to resurrect Jeri Ryan to play this role. Was Darryl Hannah not available? What about Angela Lansbury? I mean let's get some new blood in there. (How old is Jeri Ryan anyway? I have absolutely no clue. She obviously looks hot, but when you get a closer look at her face, she looks like she could be 100 years old. Best I could say for sure is that she's somewhere between 19 and 52, give or take a couple years.)

GMILF?

Alright, enough with the OC, on to "Just Like Heaven," or, more aptly put, "Just Like I Thought It Would Be But Even Worse." Here's a plot synopsis, straight from IMDB:

Elizabeth Martinson is a doctor with a life of work, devoid of joy. But when an accident renders her into a spirit, Elizabeth may be forced to live something she has avoided: downtime. However, with her no longer occupying her apartment, it's been given to David Abbott, a good guy but a lonely architect which has caught the ire of Elizabeth who haunts him as a bitter spirit. She's not willing to give up her place to David, and he's not going to back down from his new home. But as these two continually fight, they might just be attracted to each other.

Just from reading that synopsis, you can already tell the movie is going to absolutely suck. But, I had no idea it could suck as bad as it did.

Here are the three main problems:

1. Reese Witherspoon as a doctor? That would be a negative, ghostrider. She's about as believable as a doctor as Jessie Spano trying to play a stripper. The actress just doesn't fit the part. First, have you ever seen a doctor that hot? No. (Coincidentally, I have also never seen a lawyer, accountant, banker, or grocery store clerk that hot, either. I have seen a few pharmaceutical saleswomen that hot. I think they're growing these smoking, 25-year-old pharmaceutical saleswomen on trees somewhere out west.) In one of the opening scenes, Witherspoon is prancing around the ER diagnosing subdural hematomas. Might as well have Pamela Anderson performing brain surgery or Tara Reid piloting the space shuttle. GMAFB (For those of you not into acronyms, that's short for Give Me a Fu**ing Break. And, to answer your next question, yes, I did just made it up.)

2. Reese Witherspoon plays the spirit of her body that comes back to haunt Ruffalo. However, this movie has some ridiculous crap going on. Okay, so one minute Dr. Reese the spirit can't feel anything. She just goes right through tables and walls and stuff. She tries to slap Ruffalo but her hand passes right through his head because she's a spirit. Okay, that's cool. But, then, the next minute, Dr. Reese Ghosterspoon is magically able to sit on top of the same table that she passed straight through 45 seconds ago. And, even though she couldn't touch Ruffalo or the phone in Ruffalo's room, she is able 3 minutes later to grab a drink out of his hand and splash it all over some hot babe at a bar. GMAFB.

3. Mark Ruffalo. To think that this guy makes money as an actor makes me visibly nauseous. He better suited to playing roles like "Police Officer #4" or "Man on Street" than the lead actor in a studio movie. He couldn't carry the lead in a 7th grade production of Annie. If he made more than 500 bucks for this movie, the casting director should be drawn and quartered. It's guys like Ruffalo that get in my craw. The guy is obviously talentless and average attractiveness and he's making millions in Hollywood hanging with Leo and Tobey at bars with only one name, and I'm not. Life is not fair. I never thought I'd say this, but I wish I could be Ruffalo for just one day.

Those are my main three gripes with this awful movie. It was one of those movies where everyone in the theater (and, by everyone, I mean me, the chick I was with, and six other losers) laughed at the parts that were supposed to be dramatic. I can't believe I wasted eight bones on this joke and Ruffalo is laughing all the way to the bank.

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