Garry Marshall’s “Valentine’s Day” dominated the box-office this weekend with a three-day gross of $52.4 million — and of course it did. You release a movie called “Valentine’s Day” on Valentine’s Day weekend, you’re going to come out on top, even if the movie is horrible.
(Rad’s exasperated take on it is representative of the general critical reaction.)
Bottom line? People like romantic comedies, especially in the middle of February, and Garry Marshall will keep making simplistic, pandering movies until they take his viewfinder from his cold, dead hands.
And then there’s the other tragic story that broke this weekend: Kevin Smith was ejected from a Southwest Airlines flight over the weekend for being, as he puts it, “too fat to fly”. He has responded to this insult with characteristic grace and wit, marshalling his 1.6 million Twitter followers to … I dunno, overload Southwest’s e-mail server or something.
Anyway, the story’s hit the AP wire now, so maybe this will turn into a teachable moment. We can always hope.
I hope by teachable moment you mean that people should give the overweight and obese (and I do fall in this category) a break instead of directing a stream of simplistic advice and moralistic vitriol like the comments I read last night regarding this story. You’d think the obese were the moral equivalent of puppy-killers from what I read. I’m about to go on my first vacation involving plane travel in 30 years. Thank (ceiling cat, flying spagetti monster, whatever) that my husband will be sitting next to me. I’d hate to, y’know, disgust anyone.
@ Chris — well, it’s an American story about obesity, so of course there’s going to be simplistic vitriol in the comments.
I’m genuinely hoping this leads to an exploration of the cattle-car nature of air travel, and the ridiculousness of Smith’s treatment. I’ve flown enough in recent years to see that U.S. carriers have been corrupted by the same post-9/11 arrogance that fuels the TSA; they’re not used to being challenged, and they react ridiculously when someone refuses to respect their authoritah. I’m hoping Smith can start that conversation.
I used to think that any Presidential candidate who declares he’ll shut down the TSA and fix Homeland Security would be embraced by the public … but then I remembered that a lot of Americans only fly at Thanksgiving, and they think this shit is normal now.