Film Review: He's Just Not That Into You

The recent romantic comedy, He's Just Not That Into You, was an unexpected burst of truth on contemporary dating in an age of Facebook, email writing, and text message disasters. Gigi (played by the adorable Ginnifer Goodwin) waits at the phone every night for her crush to call her. She fails to see the difference between a. men who are flirting with her at a bar because they are drunk, b. men who want to date her, and c. men who never want to see her again.

The manager at Gigi's local bar lets her in on some heterosexual man insight: "If a guy is into a girl, then he will make it happen, so if he hasn't called her or asked her on another date, he's just not that into her." Women often give bad advice to other women: for example, if a girl is desperately in love with a guy for a period of many years, then her female friend might say to her, "He's definitely gay, and that's why he's dating that incredibly masculine girl." Alternatively, she might say, "Men are like pears -- they have to ripen in a brown paper bag before they are ready to commit to the one they really love. He just needs another 2-12 years to really ripen!"

Gigi ends up converting the wanker-commitment-phobic-barman to a prince who is ready for a real relationship. Moral of the story: miracles can happen in fictitious versions of Baltimore that are populated by incredibly attractive people.

The Showcases

I had a true Bavarian Christmas with my endlessly entertaining German cousins. They are my third cousins, so technically they are considered "kissing cousins," which is an expression that either denotes "distant cousins familiar enough to kiss" or "cousins that are distant enough in relation that it is not the end of the world to kiss them." Either way, the expression is gauche, and probably not the best holiday dinner-table conversation.

After we celebrated Christmas with a roast goose at an old-school Bavarian golf, polo, and hot-air-ballooning club, my cousins and I continued to the bar where many of the German guests had brought their dogs with them during after-dinner drinks. One older man and his wife, who seemed Russian in temperament, had two Chihauhaus in tow (very 'Paris Hilton' and un-German of them). When the couple exited the lounge, my cousin asked, "What kind of dog is that?" and the portly man responded, "A very expensive kind." When we commented on the tiny dog's pink diamond-encrusted collar, the owner responded, "Yes, the collar was more expensive than the dog."

I guess on Christmas some people have kissing cousins to keep them company, and some people have their blonde wives and very small dogs.

Maple Syrup Meltdown

As a way of recovering from the inevitable traumas of the holiday season, Parisian women flock to the hammams, where they can sweat out the toxins of too much wine, too many cigarettes, and too many family dynamics. I had a splendid time sweating away inside the bathhouse of the Moroccan hammam at the Mosque de Paris. It was liberating to be in a room full of semi-nude women who were bonding with their friends while rubbing each other down with special black soap that exfoliates the body.

Dizzy from the hot steam in my face, I went on to the gommage process, which involved a small Russian woman scrubbing me from head-to-toe with a bristly glove. After a massage, more awkward sweating, showering, and public nudity, I was revived -- adrift in understanding dreams and transported to a land far more exotic than grey wintry Paris.

Pimp of the Week: Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant is apparently quite the "Renaissance man," as he is proficient at both golf and tennis, buys paintings, is reasonably literate, and even dabbled with novel writing. Since Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a new romantic comedy premiered last week, USA Today did a little interview about the wonders that make up Hugh Grant. His "rakish" persona has charmed me ever since I saw him acting like a complete wanker in Bridget Jones's Diary. He cozies into, and perhaps even invented, the 'emotionally unavailable men' roles.

In the USA Today interview, Grant, admitted to the dangers of vanity: "I stopped Googling myself. Life improves exponentially. I think the same thing applies to reviews." He also confessed to his penchant for showering girls with expensive accessories and shopping at Chanel. But I think it is mostly because he loves the way the salesgirls make him feel about himself.

"of indeterminate age"

While searching for a decent apple at the corner epicerie near my apartment one frostbitten Sunday night, the two overly solicitous shopkeepers asked me, "What are you looking for, young lady?" I told them I was looking for a good apple, but I was having a hard time in my search, since most of the fruit was shriveled and over-ripe.

The flirtatious men tried to sell me their bad apples, and then when I refused, they said, "Take a banana! Why don't you want a banana?" I found the symbolism too laughable to permit me any more time wasted on the sidewalk with these lurking fruit sellers. And then one of the guys exclaimed, "If you buy my banana, you have to sleep with me tonight!" It was an interesting sales technique that I would never suggest repeating if you are working on commission.

Coquelicot Boulangerie in Montmartre

In my Parisian boulangerie-hopping, I recently went to Coquelicot in Montmartre for a delicious and cozy brunch. It was the first snow this year, so my sister's croque monsieur was a perfect plate of French comfort food, made with ultra-crusty rustic bread, a hint of succulent Béchamel sauce inside, and a covering of earthy gruyere cheese. It was a Parisian's version of the morning-after eggs Benedict in Manhattan. And with our steaming bowls of café au lait, my sister and I could not have asked for more.

Coquelicot is not only my favorite purveyor of neighborhood baguettes but it is also a homey atmosphere where you can escape from the sometimes-brutal unfriendliness prevalent in the more elegant (but less authentic) neighborhoods of Paris.

Pearls In Wine

My dear Franco-American friend was forced to attend a priggish British boarding school at the young age of eleven. When he took the admissions test, he realized that even though he spoke perfect English, he couldn't read or write it. Though he quickly got over the language barrier, boarding school presented many other menacing surprises: there was the typical hazing rituals by the older boys -- the most notable was called "bogwashing," and you can imagine how that turned out.

One afternoon my friend was in a fanciful mood of understanding dreams and enjoying the sunlight when a strange man approached him, accompanying him on his walk by the river. Eventually the fellow propositioned my friend to "crawl through a hole and go into a place where men went cottaging." My friend kindly declined the offer. He survived his prep school years and is well-equipped for the next time someone tries to stick his head in a toilet or to take him down the rabbit hole, so to speak. No matter how effete, boarding school seems to be a decent preparation for the real world.

"goaty look"

When New Yorkers come to Paris, two worlds collide, but the Manhattan dynamic always seems to overpower the effeminate Frenchie ways. I recently went for a night out at Le Montana, an iconic 1960s club in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The New Yorkers in the crowd insisted on taking vodka and tequila shots, which was a very un-French choice. Expensive champagne would have been more contextually appropriate, but once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker, I guess.

The evening devolved into a chaotic game, and before I knew it I put my men expert skills to the test and decided to vacate the premises. Dancing on tabletops and doing jump splits is one thing in the "dirty sexy money" atmosphere of New York City, but it is quite another thing in the semi-pretentious pseudo-refined city of Paris.

"of no education"

The Fellini exhibition at the Jeu de Paume in Paris gave me a glimpse into the sexy film sirens who ignited the Italian director's alleged womanizing personality. But in reality Fellini remained devoted to his wife, distinguishing him from many of the wankers I encounter in everyday life. Fellini even considered his classic "Casanova" character to be incapable of truly loving women, since Casanova was obsessed by a fantasy idea of the female sex. Fellini was a bit of a "men expert," obsessed by the pretty things in the world: the circus, breasts, asses, movie stars, parties, Dionysian Ecstasy, excessively large hats, etc.

In Fellini's 1965 film, Juliet of the Spirits, the pimp of cinema puts his feminist ways to the test by illustrating the complicated dreams and psychic energy surrounding a frustrated Italian housewife, Juliet. She lives a terribly traditional New England existence devoted to her philandering husband, and enters into the surreal world of her hypersexual champagne-drinking prostitute neighbor. Juliet finds herself climbing into orgy-laced tree houses and being propositioned by a young Adonis. She struggles through a chaotic game of understanding dreams and being haunted by emotionally unavailable men.

But once her husband elopes with a perky young model, Juliet realizes that her life will be better off without him and that she is finally liberated. Juliet of the Spirits is like a revolutionary lush decadent surreal version of Under the Tuscan Sun.

"A Dead Adder"

When two people decide to take the next step in their relationship and move in together, disaster inevitably ensues ... It can become a chaotic game of emotionally unavailable men, secretive women, and at the end of the day, it's all about money sense and logistical convenience.

Gauche Things To Do To Your Lover-Roommate:

1. Moving in with them merely because their apartment is more conveniently located to your place of work.

2. Shouting at them before 9am -- especially if it is in order to take their laptop from them and use it as an ironing board.

3. Insulting the way that they use kitchenware. (e.g. if they are cooking pasta for the two of you, avoid saying things like, "Do you intentionally put the stove up that hot? It scorches the pan!")

4. Snoring so loudly that it prevents your lover from getting a good night's sleep, and then reprimanding them for escaping from the bed in the middle of the night to sleep on the couch.

5. Insulting them for wearing "too many clothes" in the apartment, and expecting them to be always in the nude. Then accusing them of being "A Puritan." (This is a common problem in Franco-American relationships.)

6. Using your lover's apartment as a laundromat and office, because your own slum apartment is cold, drafty, under construction, and without a washing machine.

Credit Card Security Code

My dear friend from boarding school is stranded in Manhattan working in a soul-sucking PR job. She has been doing some 'email writing' on the topic of emotionally unavailable men. The latest guy in her life is a hunky magazine publishing tycoon and an extraordinary lover. As he is a bit older, he already has a kid and is 'in the process of divorce.'

The romance began as most New York City romances do -- with a series of ambiguous text message exchanges. But before she knew it, my friend was falling in love with him and his adorable son too. The three of them spent a cozy weekend in the Hamptons, but she quickly realized that he was using her as a babysitter. He even asked her to take his son out for a walk, so that he could sleep in late one morning.

In typical Wanker of the Week form, he disappeared from her life as soon as she started displaying her affection toward him. Since the Hamptons weekend, she has not received so much as a courtesy text. He has even hoarded her favorite scarf and book at his house and seems to be too caught up in massaging his own ego and avoiding intimacy to use girls for anything but sex and babysitting.

Bride Kidnappings

The shopping experience at the Nespresso boutique in Paris, or in any city across the world, is comparable to a mind-numbingly mass-market-high-design Apple Store extravaganza (except that you can't reserve online with a 'Genius Bar' at the Nespresso store). It's partly a chaotic game of waiting in the excessively long lines, and partly an espresso-themed high museum of art.

I just find it absurd that all these Europeans insist upon making their daily coffee in these excessively well-designed little machines that only function with these nipple-like metallic capsules in all the colors of the rainbow. It's very wasteful, and it epitomizes a fundamental flaw of many French people: they are obsessed with having everything (especially if it's food-related) 'just their way' and custom-made for them if possible. But at the same time they are hyper-critical of the 'wasteful, consumeristic, fat, un-eco-conscious Americans.'

So at the end of the day they are hypocrites drinking espresso and throwing tin capsules into the Seine River, while hoping to compensate for their political obscurity, by drinking coffee in their antique apartments out of extremely overpriced and mass-produced espresso machines, just like every other idiot-bourgeois Tom, Dick, and Harry in Hong Kong, Hawaii, or New Hampshire.

Francis Bacon Paintings

Pierrot Le Fou is a garishly sumptuous New Wave French film featuring the studly Jean-Paul Belmondo, as Pierrot, and the angel-faced Anna Karina, as Marianne. Pierrot begins in the throngs of a boring bourgeois party and quickly skips out on his wealthy Italian wife to sleep with the gamine babysitter, Marianne. But her apartment is a crime scene of smuggled weapons and ambiguously bloodied Algerian gangsters.

So Pierrot and Marianne make a chaotic game of road-tripping it to the French Riviera, to escape the terrorists and live as outlaws in the pleasure of their youthful good looks. But life on the beach soon turns to ennui: after Pierrot made the mimbo-wanker move of dropping his real life for fantastic escapedes with princess in flight Marianne, he becomes just another one of those emotionally unavailable men and takes to reading philosophy books and writing diary entries. Not even the vivid pop art colors and Mediterranean journey to nowhere can save this tragic couple.

Shecky’s Girls Night Out

This week a scandalous event took place at Drouot, the famous Parisian auction house: the police discovered that a commissaire-priseur (the coveted and pimp position of auctioneer/master of ceremonies) and a gaggle of sneaky auction-assistant-mignons orchestrated the theft of a massive amount of precious objects. A Gustave Courbet painting worth 1.3 million dollars was recovered, along with expensive watches, drawings, and other antiquated loot.

Drouot is a veritable high museum of art, but at the end of the day it is a business. And even if there's artistic prowess and Parisian propriety involved, when things turn sour, it's just another chaotic game of "dirty sexy money."