Mar 18, 2020
We commandeer a grocery store because LOVE'S COMPLICATED (2016) for: Tony "Jody" LaRussa ... THEME ... Mustard on the intro ... Let's get unprofessional ... Confirming the Worsening Hallmark Hypothesis ... A cromulent rom-com that got made for Hallmark ... Tie Domi jersey ... Unavoidably Canadian ... Surreality is its own authenticity ... The David Lynch-Errol Morris Continuum ... Precious Chong ... BREAK ... Cast rundown ... Stevedore actors ... The Expositional Challenge: Success! ... A B-plot Dream Team of conflict-resolution patients ... Invasive/intimate concluding therapy confrontation ... Completely demented therapy ... Therapy gift certificates ... Torturing grocery store workers ... Breaking down harassment game tape ... Robert McNamara's Rules of Retail War ... A hostile clothing return ... NSC-68 ... Timberlake's boutique denim ... Cartoonishly evil manager ... BREAK ... Spot the Angel: Goose egg! ... Journalismism: Intense Leno vibes ... Steven Seagal is Taliban ... Shock jock literary review ... WEEI's Event Horizon ... Hallmark shock-jocks: Uncompromisingly centrist ... Confusing Corbin Bernsen and Joe Theismann ... Emotional dad-poisoning ... BREAK ... Eat Your Heart Out: Fancy restaurant, the same order; cohabitate already; McLovin; Crepe Suzette; it's such a spectacle; wincingly alcoholic wine; everything hard to pronounce ... The Hallmark Expanded Universe: A stable of neurotic Hallmark-heroine memoirists vs. Meddling publishers from Episode 25, So Fuck You Edith Wharton and Episode 57, Wetwork for the American Pageant ... Paris Harris and a legitimate book blurb ... Overdetermined: "Things are just as they should be" and maximum cringe vs. Insufficiently overdetermined therapy ... Pitching changes with Jody Bellarussa ... Underexplored metatextual call-in radio conversation ... Jody, can you turn your radio down? ... BREAK ... Crossover: The Color of Night vs. Pig Vomit ... Sybian on the radio ... The Hallmark Bechdel and Voight-Kampff Tests: Yes, No ... Rating: 4 ... The Leftovers: "Trudeau" ... A cop mom from Dare Me ... A reasonably logical useless ex ... Cinco, an orchid and powerful Hallmark sexual tension ... The Merry Madness Christmas Bracket ... Eerie ballerina ... Merry Christmas! • MUSIC: "Fuck You If You Don't Like Christmas," from Crudbump, by Drew Fairweather • "Sailing," by Christopher Cross • "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" • All other music by Chris Collingwood of Look Park and Fountains of Wayne, except: "Orchestral Sports Theme" by Chris Collingwood and Rick Murnane