Monday, December 01, 2003

An open letter to the Teasdalian pepperpot who sat behind me at Bad Santa this weekend:

    Dear Pepperpot,

    Thank you for your running commentary throughout Saturday's showing of Bad Santa. Had you not been sitting behind me, I would not (to take just one instance) have known that actress Lauren Graham appears in a TV series called Gilmore Girls, nor known that you thought she was "so cute." In fact, you were even kind enough to repeat your observation of her cuteness no less than four times during the film. This knowledge affected my moviegoing experience in ways which I am sure you cannot even imagine.

    I do have a few questions, however. Throughout the film, you made frequent exclamations about how shocking you found some of the events and behaviors depicted. Given that the movie is a black comedy about an alcoholic, sexaholic department store Santa Claus planning the latest in a series of Christmas Eve heists, I must ask, which part of the title "Bad Santa" did you not understand? Did you not expect that the film would address the less savory side of the life of an alcoholic department store Santa? Were you thinking he would be a wacky drunk, in the Nick and Nora Charles tradition? Did the advertisements for the film featuring Billy Bob Thornton, as the titular bad Santa, vomiting, cursing, passing out, stealing things, and so on not communicate this aspect of the film to you? Or did you simply assume that all of those scenes were staged expressly for the film's advertising, like that ad for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels fifteen years ago?

    Clearly, you possess remarkable and unique cognitive capacities. Please contact me regarding medical research for which I believe you would be well suited.

    Very truly, etc.

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