The Last Kiss opens on Friday. If you've watched TV at all over the past two weeks, or opened a magazine, or been out walking around with your eyes open (the posters are everywhere––Zach Braff's "feeling" face is the first thing I see when I get out of the subway), you're only too aware of this fact.
If you're a reader of this column, you're probably also too aware of my thoughts on Zach Braff (and his unbearable, self-deprecating, emotional feelingness), as well as The Last Kiss (and it's unbearable emotional Zach-Braff-ity). (More on that here). Basically, I am not looking forward to it.
Which is precisely why Keith has challenged me to see the movie when it opens this Friday, and report back to you, my intrepid readers, on the various ways that Braff annoys me in the film. Never one to back down from a challenge, especially one that involves me coming in really late to the office on a Friday because I'm "at the movies," I have accepted.
How many times will Braff stare pensively? Which indie bands will his character casually mention in passing? Will he get hurt, not emotionally (because that's obviously going to happen every 15 minutes) but physically and (hopefully) permanently? Will it be possible to glean which lines of dialog Braff "tweaked a little bit"? Can I make it through the entire movie without rolling my eyes so many times that they get stuck, and I am forced to have to show my irritation through physical means of a different kind––perhaps a series of foot stomps or extended exasperated sighs? All these questions and more will be answered this Friday!
But, in an effort to steel myself against the incredible force of Braff's earnestness, I'm going to subject myself (and all of you. Sorry.) to one peice of Zach-Braff-ity every day this week. Think of it as a kind of vaccination: consuming a little bit of the disease every day will make me practically immune to it by Friday.
Today's Bit O' Braff (again, sorry): The introductory video blog for his website. [youtube:WGrH-5vxjpk]
Points where my irritation peaked:
—First glimpse of the glasses.
—"What's the site gonna be about? I don't know. I don't want it to be, like, just a site about me…" (Just, you know, about the things I like, and listen to, and get paid to do.)
—Those really loud chirping birds.
—"I didn't say 'Blow me' I said "Below me,' thank you very much." Classic Braff.
—In case you missed it, he's wearing a "Challah at yo' boy" T-shirt. Of course, you couldn't have missed it, because he took great pains to point it out.
—Pulling that toy boat out at the end.