Originally I had hoped to finish out the month by selecting another movie I had no hope of liking, because really what chance would it stand of ruining me after everything else I've been through over the last 30 days? So I found two that were particularly awful -- Crossroads and Kate & Leopold -- but was unable to watch either due to some unexpected technical difficulties. I can't imagine why the unseen hand of fate would bother stepping in this late in the game to try and rescue me from the end note to this symphony of pain. Although I suppose it's possible that the vaginazation process has simply rendered me incapable of operating home electronics. After I finish this post I'm going to try to open some pickle jars and play Halo 3 so I can see just how far away from the essence of manhood I've slipped.

After failing to scrape a particularly stinky one off the bottom of film history, I poured over our DVD collection in hopes of finding a previously unseen chick flick worthy of the final day. Then I got tired of looking and settled on In Her Shoes, a sister/sister dramedy starring Cameron Diaz and the mom from The Sixth Sense. Compared to a Britney Spears or Meg Ryan movie, watching 90 minutes of a half-naked Cameron Diaz feeling sorry for herself was a walk in the park.

The premise wasn't really anything I could sink my teeth into, because even though my brother and I are close like the sisters in this film, we've managed to not turn into a couple of insecure crazies in spite of our collective Mommy issues. I will say that the performance from Diaz caught me off guard; her portrayal of a functionally illiterate alcoholic whore was shockingly dead-on, almost as if she had been preparing for it her entire life.

While this film didn't hit all the marks of your average chick flick, the signs were still there. Women fought over men, broke through long-held misconceptions, altered the course of their cliched, misdirected lives. 4 pink tacos; minus one due to a lack of random singing/dancing and the obligatory gay friend comic relief.




Looking back at the beginning of this month long chick flick challenge, I recall thinking that by the end of it I'd not only have some great insights to offer regarding the mass appeal of the genre, but have made great strides in understanding the female dynamic with cinema. Which is total bullshit. I did learn many things, but nothing of real value. No labored rhetoric could better sum up this month than these two words: never again. Never again will I watch a movie about niche female sports. Never again will I watch a movie about a guy or a girl that dates someone under false pretense and then falls in love with them for real only to have the truth exposed at the most inopportune of times. Never again will I watch a movie with Jennifer Lopez in it.

I do hope that on some level, others were able to enjoy what I put myself through. Hopefully not as much as my "normal" posting, because that's what I'll be back with starting on Wednesday. The next two days will be a much needed break from blogging, a break that I'll use to run up into the forest, wrap my naked self in a cocoon of mud and animal detritus, then engage in mortal combat with whatever creatures are foolish enough to cross my path. Squirrels and birds most likely, but as it is with both chick flicks and the game of survival, a victory is a victory no matter how small.