Overheard on an L.A. cellphone about this time last year:
“Robyn? Sorry luv, but looks like we’ll have to reschedule that ski trip. I’ll be working in March.”
“But you promised the children. Really, Mel, the twins will be cross as a frog in a sock.”
“I know, but I can’t go playing the bludger when we still need another $20 million to put down on that little island we’ve been talking about.”
“Hawaii?”
“Too right. Anyway, it’s about this advertising executive who’s ‘the least politically correct guy in the universe.’ Then he puts on panty hose, gets an electric shock, and suddenly he can hear what any female is thinking.”
“It’s a sci-fi film, then?”
“No, it’s a comedy. This guy is boorish, sexist, hopelessly transparent, but still charms a different sheila every night. And when he’s privy to all those secret thoughts, women want him even more.”
“Like I said, it’s a sci-fi film, then?”
“I prefer to think of it as autobiographical.”
“Don’t go big-note yourself, luv. Wasn’t that an old ‘Twilight Zone’ episode? I remember it was pretty funny – for thirty minutes. And despite what you like to think, you’re not all that hilarious without a gun in your hand. Or a spear.”
“Whinge, whinge, whinge. Always throwing a wobbly. Anyway, this guy’s boss hires a woman – Helen Hunt, and you know her blood’s worth bottling when it comes to comedy – to help get big new accounts for women’s products, since he’s basically an old-fashioned 80s T&A man. But he steals all her ideas since he can hear her think them as soon as she does. They still fall in love, though.”
“So you get to go pashing on a funny blonde – like that really worked with Goldie Hawn in Bird on a Wire, about which, may I remind you, Leonard Maltin said, ‘Star power is all this lame action-comedy has going for it.’ Tell me, does this Helen person show you her Mappa Tassie?”
“No, actually, first I get to go pashing on Marisa Tomei. She plays a waitress who’s all dill for this guy, and when they climb in the sack, suddenly he’s cunning as a gunny rat because he knows just what she wants him to do and when. Then he gives her the flick after brekkie, beams in on Helen, and reduces her to a quivering stack of estrogen.”
“And what are we supposed to tell the kids when they come home from school crying because somebody saw their daddy perving two other women?”
“Well, to be deadset, he gets to perve a whole bunch of women, he just doesn’t give them all a root. Plus he has to deal with his 15-year-old daughter thinking about doing the naughty with some randy lair who isn’t worth a zack.”
“Mel, why are we talking like this? You haven’t used the word ‘bludger’ since you were a schoolboy in Sidney.”
“Yeah, I know. But now that Russell Crowe has swiped my spot as America’s favorite Australian sex symbol, I’d better get the shtick working again, or I could wind up back in Oz doing Vegemite commercials.” C-