Last night we had a few friends around for a Madmen themed cocktail party. Though I was sad to see the ladies not entering into the spirit of things when they called the police when I sexually harassed them. The invite made it very clear what this was. We dressed up in sixties-ish clothing and drank Old Fashioneds and Martinis and predictably I didn't feel very well this morning. How Don Draper managed to do all this every day, even at work, I do not know. But it was fun to try and live his life for an evening.
It was back to mundane reality today, having to deal with Liono who has seemingly un-toilet trained herself. She's been leaving little solid and liquid presents for us all over the house. I don't know if she thinks of them as Easter gifts, but I am not best pleased with them and hope that Jesus will send her to Hell for her blasphemy. Luckily she's waited until I love her to act in this anti-social way so all I can do is help clean it all up and try and figure out how we stop her doing this. The cats had been housed in our bathroom for the party and Liono's first action on being released from the room was to jump on our bed and urinate on it. She was a feline uriny ninja as she'd carried out her dirty protest before we'd even had a chance to realise what she was doing. We've had lots of advice about how to deal with this, but it's hard to know is she's ill, unsettled or just annoyed with us for some reason. She did occasionally wee in cardboard boxes before, which was annoying, but now she's going for soft furnishings and our cream sofa. Why did I take on this responsibility for another living thing? I blame my wife. I was much happier when I was alone and crying in my basement with no one to care for and no one to care for me. The only wee and poo I had to deal with then was my own - and I still slightly resented that.
We had a quiet day apart from that, trying to recuperate. We watched
"Five Year Engagement which boasted an impressive cast, but which didn't quite catch fire. And went on for so long that I thought it might be playing out in real time. Though to be honest if they'd gone the whole hog and made the film five years long I would have respected them for it and made the commitment to watch the whole thing.
I liked it more than I thought I would, but then I thought I would despise it, mainly because I have some deep-seated and inexplicable problem with Jason Segal. He seems like a nice enough man but I hate him and want to punch him in the face and I don't really know why. His face is a bit smug and I find his acting a little bit fake, but that's true of a lot of actors who I don't mind at all. I think the thing about him, which is odd, is that when I watch him acting I feel the same as I do when I watch myself acting. I am over-critical and embarrassed and hate having to see it. That's understandable when I am watching myself (partly due to self-consciousness and partly because I am pretty rubbish), but why would I get that with someone else? I actually feel more embarrassed by Segal than I do by myself. I want to scream at him, "You're doing too much with your face," or "You're overplaying that line," or "You're not anywhere as adorable as you think you are." There are actors that you can't take your eyes off because they are so brilliant, but then there are ones that you watch ever second of during a film because you can't believe they're getting away with it.
I feel bad about saying it, because I don't think he really deserves it particularly and I know that there are people out there who have a similar brain-retch when I come on to their screens. Maybe it's because of that. Maybe I identify with him because I see myself in him. Maybe I am jealous because I recognise another chancer who has managed to get much luckier than me. I have similarly been surrounded by fantastic comedians and actors in shows I've done and felt that at any second I will be found out and thrown out of the studio (though for me that pretty much happened). In this film Segal is up against supporting players who are pretty hard to compete with - Alison Brie and Chris Pratt both make you want to watch every nuance because they are so good - so it's hard. But it makes me think that Segal's dad owns all the films he is in and has put his son in them because he can (I've checked wikipedia and his dad doesn't own films - it isn't even Stephen Segal).
I hope Jason doesn't google himself and see this - I think it's unlikely we'll ever work together and this will come back to haunt me - because unlike the people who seek me out to tell me how much I rub them up the wrong way I am a) not going to go out of my way to let him know how I feel and b) fully understand that it's something in myself that is making me have this reaction. In a sense it's a compliment to Segal that he's got any kind of reaction at all. He's a successful actor in movies that no one is forced to watch and yet he's created this reaction in me, which is more profound and affecting than should possibly be the case given the relatively lightweight nature of his work. He's almost the definition of inoffensive, so why do I react in this way? I would have to reach into myself to find out what's going on with this. But I fear doing so for what I might find. At least I know that this is my issue and maybe one day I will understand it. I have made the first step towards acknowledging who is really to blame here. I wonder if the other haters will get that far.
There were some nice moments in the film, though its adherence to the formulas of romantic comedy made it rather too predictable and the characters choices were so stupid that it was hard to sympathise with them or want them to inevitably work it out and Emily Blunt did seem to steal her entire performance style off Dawn from the Office and I wanted to hit Jason Segal in the face with a frying pan. But apart from that it was quite good.
