Booze Revooze: A Drinker’s Skewed View of EAT PRAY LOVE

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From the juiced-box and the soundtrack: Sly and the Family Stone – Thank You (Fallettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)

Guess what and you won’t believe me anyway. Julia Roberts came to Yeaman to promote Eat Pray Love and i went to the premiere and sat in the front row. You know how i’m always thinking about you guys? Well, i got as low as i could when i took the following shot so i could try to get something up her skirt but it didn’t work out. This is the best i could do.

If you really care all that much, there are a couple arty shots of the premiere all the way at the bottom of this post.

Ramblings: Eat Drink Crap

Final Proof: 2 Shots

You know how you get drunk with a bridesmaid at a second cousin’s wedding? She’s buzzed on white wine and champagne with strawberries in it and her fancy dress looks tight in all the right places but a little askew as she slips down her seat, sips her drink and tells you all about her spiritual quest and about how she’s trying to find herself in Thai cooking lessons, meditation and psychotherapy but the longer she babbles on the more you realize her “spiritual” quest is really a manhunt for true love and you get a little sad when you understand she needs to find a man to find herself. Eat Pray Love is that deluded bridesmaid making you melancholy.

Sure, i knew before i went that i wasn’t going to like this movie and it didn’t disappoint, but at least now i got reasons why. Another big shocker is that i didn’t read the book. i actually know some people who can read and they even read this book. They told me that Elizabeth Gilbert, the chicklette who wrote the chick lit, traveled all over the world to get over her depression and learn some crap about herself. Like in Italy she learned how to eat, in India she learned how to pray and in Bali she learned how to love.

i feel bad for Liz (played very bubblyily by Julia Roberts) because the book sounds kinda cool but the movie was she goes to Italy to get over her actor boyfriend (David Piccolo, played by James Franco), she goes to India to get over her ex-husband (Stephen, portrayed by a Billy Crudup who was way more inspired in Almost Famous than he was here), and she goes to Bali to meet a new guy (Javier Bardem, who i do not want to sleep with).

Chick flicks bug me because a woman is reduced to the relationship she wants, is in, or is leaving. Is the fairer sex truly that two-dimensional and simplistic?

Honestly, to think that a woman is not complete if she doesn’t have a guy sounds old-fashioned like from the Neanderthal times or the 1950’s. Is the survival of the species instinct still so deeply ingrained that we believe a woman alone is only half a person? Look, sure i love being in a couple and there are some definite advantages to living with the person you love and sharing your life experiences with that special someone, but to say that i cannot know myself unless i’m dipping my wick regular is taking things a step too far.

Before i cut this shorter, i would be amiss (and i don’t want to be even a little miss) if i didn’t pour a beer and make a toast to Richard Jenkins. Jenkins plays a guy called “Richard from Texas” and does a great job. i’ll tell you why i like Jenkins. He’s not just a good actor, he’s a very good actor (he carries The Visitor with all the grace of a drunken waiter pirouetting around tables balancing a tray laden with champagne flutes) but he’s an acting whore because he’ll star in any old trash movie (like, for example, uhm, i dunno, EAT PRAY LOVE?)  just so long as he can get paid. This is one way to show how much you love something.

Swear to god, the best part of this movie was going to the premier with Miss Demeanor. The rest was just like diet pie: saccharine, bland and gave me the runs.

Buzz Kills (Watch Out for Spoilers)

Sex: 1 ½ Shot

i’m not gonna lie even though (especially because) it’d be so easy to lie to your booze sodden asses. Nope, here’s the truth, i like Julia Roberts. i think Julia Roberts (42) is a good actress and i suspect she’s pro’lly even a pretty cool person considering all the shit she’s pro’lly gotta walk through in heels every day in her life. One of the reasons i didn’t put my foot down and drag my heels about going to this premiere was because Julia was in the movie and in the movie theater. Don’t get me wrong, she’s no Keira Knightley or Mélanie Laurent, but hell she always makes each character she portrays seem human and isn’t that the job of an actor?

There were a few lightly tantalizing scenes in the film, like Julia braless in a nightgown, sitting in a bathtub (completely covered by extra-white soapy water), and sporting a cleavage wedding dress in her flashbacks. None of it was as hot as this, babes.

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i’ma have some more Julia shots down below in my drawers. Just keep on scrollin’.

Playing Sofi, Liz’s Swedish friend in Italy, we got Tuva Novotny (30)  who has the coolest name ever. i wanna hang out with her just so i can say things like, “Yo, Tuva, can you get me another beer?” Or “Hey, Tuva, wow, that top looks really great on you and no, i don’t think you need to wear a bra with it—it’s not that see through.” Tuva Novotny. You know how i know she’s Swedish? Because she’s this hot.

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Here’s a shot of Tuva in the Bar None because there isn’t enough of her on the Net to fill up my drawers:

Silken Butterflies

There were a couple very attractive Silken Butterflies (and if you don’t know what that means, just click on the link above).

The first one i noticed i’d referred to in my notes as “cute Italian girl @ table”. This turned out to be Elena Arvigo, who plays a girl named Maria and who really is Italian.

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There’ll be some Elena in my drawers below, don’t you worry.

The other Silken Butterfly fitted onto my note sheet by name, “Armenia”. Color me lucky because the actress who portrayed Armenia turned out to be someone as hot as Cuban-American Arlene Tur.

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i stuck a couple shots of her down there in my drawers.

For those of you more into Cocks Crowing than Chicks Flicking, here’s some James Franco (32) for you.

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James Franco after the Bar None

You know how Miss Demeanor and me are intellectuals, right? So we were walking to the premiere in our fancy ass clothes and talking smart like usual. It goes something like this:

Miss Demeanor: You gotta like this movie because it’s got Javier Bardem in it. He’s one of the 5 guys you’d do right?

Al K Hall: [All comfortable with my sexuality and shit] Nah…too swarthy for my taste. The 5 guys are, lemme think…

Miss Demeanor: Johnny Depp.

Al K Hall: Sure, 1) Johnny Depp, 2) Robert Downey Jr and 3) Mickey Rourke, even like he looks today.

Miss Demeanor: Ugh, I’m not even sure I’d do him.

Al K Hall: And of course Brad Pitt ’cause i always want to hate him for being so good looking but he’s also so fucking talented.

Miss Demeanor: And #5?

Al K Hall: Michelle Rodriguez, of course.

So even if i won’t sleep with him, here’s Javier (41):

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Drink: 1½ Shots

• Wine at a party at the beginning
• Beer in a bar at the after-party of some play
• Wine at post divorce dinner
• Lots of wine in Italy
• A wine toast to sex in Rome
• Richard (Richard Jenkins) in India is at the Assram [sick] because he’s a boozer who drove home drunk and almost hit his kid who was waiting for him in the driveway
• Liz’s (Julia Roberts) guru in Indonesia tells her she has to learn to smile with her liver
• Liz drinks white wine while reading at Felipe’s place in Bali
• Liz drinks tequila shots at a beach party in Bali
• The next day Felipe (Javier Bardem) brings her a hangover cure in a plastic bag with a straw that was made by a local medicine woman—and they don’t even tell us what’s in it

Slurred Speeches

At the beginning party one of the guests is talking to Liz’s (Julia Roberts) soon to be ex, Stephen (Billy Crudup).

So, you’re a baker now. Wanna get baked?

Liz’s boyfriend, David Piccolo (James Franco) is whining like a little girl about something someone said to him at some dinner and Julia comforts him by saying,

He had 5 Heinekens. He was bombed.

Yeah, i know, too bad Dave wasn’t friends with me. Five Heinies is what i drink just to take a pee in the morning.

My favorite reference was when Liz was having a meal with her Italian teacher and they took a break from their lessons when Liz said, “Let me teach you a word.” Then she held up the carafe of wine she was holding and said, “Therapist”.

Rock & Roll: ½ Shot

i had a really hard time with this. Jesus, there are two Eddie Vedder songs in this and i’m big into all that is Vedder. Unfortunately, both his tunes are symptomatic of what i don’t like about Eat Pray Love, namely there’s nothing even remotely resembling anything rock and roll. Yes, i know it’s a chick flick but i bet if Drew Barrymore was attached to this movie somehow she’d find a way to infuse this grandma’s teabag with a little rock. Don’t believe me? ‘Cause i know you don’t. You just think i’m drunk and saying whatever i want but you’re wrong. Proof is right here.

From the juiced-box and the soundtrack: Eddie Vedder – Better Days

And that’s the rock one. The other one, “The Long Road”, is even slower.

1. Flight Attendant – Josh Rouse
2. Last Tango In Paris (Suite Pt. 2) – Gato Barbieri
3. Thank You (Fallettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin) – Sly & The Family Stone
4. Der Hölle Rache Kocht In Meinem Herzen from “Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute)”
5. Heart of Gold – Neil Young
6. Kaliyugavaradana – U. Srinivas
7. The Long Road – Eddie Vedder, with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
8. Harvest Moon – Neil Young
9. Samba Da Bençáo – Bebél Gilberto
10. Wave – João Gilberto
11. Got To Give It Up (Part 1) – Marvin Gaye
12. ‘S Wonderful – João Gilberto
13. Better Days – Eddie Vedder
14. Attraversiamo – Dario Marianelli

Boring Technical Crap

Written by:

Elizabeth Gilbert – (book)

Ryan Murphy and Jennifer Salt – (screenplay)

Directed by: Ryan Murphy

Starring

Julia Roberts – Liz Gilbert

Tuva Novotny – Sofi

Elena Arvigo – Maria

Arlene Tur – Armenia

Richard Jenkins – Richard from Texas

James Franco – David Piccolo

Billy Crudup – Stephen

Javier Bardem – Felipe

Bottom Line

Read the book instead.

Al K Hall’s Drawers

Julia Roberts (42)

Julia Roberts after the Bar None

Julia Roberts in the Bar None

Elena Arvigo

Elena Arvigo in the Bar None

Arlene Tur

To thank you for making it all the way down this far, here are a couple more shots i sagged at the pre-screening.

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