Thursday, February 16, 2012

Things I Learned From Movie X: The Ugly Truth


To commemorate Valentine's Day, I decided to use this edition of Things I Learned From Movie X to write about one of the most rancid, repugnant and wretched "romantic" "comedies" of recent years, The Ugly Truth, whose title is at least half-right considering that the film itself is a very ugly thing indeed. A weird mixture of traditional rom-com and crass, misogynist tract, it finds Katherine Heigl at her most icy and removed and Gerard Butler at his most boorish. Needless to say, sparks do not fly.

I wrote this column after listing to the audiobook of Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great pretty solidly for about a week, and I think that has had a definite impact in shaping the rhythm and tone of the piece. I'm not saying that I ripped Hitchens off, but I definitely feel that the column would have been very different had I not been immersed in his work so completely in the lead up to writing it.

Incidentally, God Is Not Great is a phenomenal book, full of wit and insight. It really made me realise just how wonderfully articulate and passionate a man Hitchens was, and made me wish that I had investigated his writing sooner. A great man, sadly missed.

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