What is love?

Ten bonus points for anyone who, upon reading the title of this post, imMEdiately responded by singing, “Baby don’t hurt me / Don’t hurt me / No more.” Five more bonus points if you actually sang OUT LOUD, and 5 more if you visualized the dance floor in the episode of My So-Called Life in which this Haddaway song was playing. (Twenty-five-point deduction if, instead, you visualized those annoying-as-hell A Night at the Roxbury goofballs ... unless, of course, you are picturing them from the original SNL episode in which they appeared, in which case there is only a 5-point deduction.)

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This whole topic came about because I went to see Closer yesterday evening. Not that I would classify this film as a “love story” ... or was it? I cannot make up my mind; cannot even decide if I liked it. OK, so it had plenty of eye candy and a whole lotta potential to be a good movie, but ... nah, it really wasn’t.

Bottom-line: Not enough character development, especially in the Jude Law and Julia Roberts characters. I understand the physical attraction — I mean, let’s be brutally honest here: Who wouldn’t want to fuck either one of them? (OK, OK, so maybe I like both of them a little too much!) But still: I GET IT! I also understand the concept of love at first sight. I have even felt love before first sight: Yes, on at least one occasion (who’s counting?), I have fallen for someone before we ever actually met ... and on at least one occasion, when we did meet, I was (almost) overwhelmingly attracted to the person. So, it happens.

In this movie, however, Law’s character, Dan, falls for Roberts’ character, Anna, and for the life of me, I cannot see what made her more appealing to him than Natalie Portman’s character, Alice ... because, in this movie, Alice is way, way more interesting than Anna ... just as Clive Owens’ character, Larry, kicks Dan’s ass (onscreen and in terms of multi-dimensionality).

(Clive could become one of my favorites. He reminds me, somehow, of Dylan McDermott. Except for Dylan’s habit of basically never changing expression while completely over-acting. Which can’t be easy, but certainly is irritating.)

Toss in a rather implausible plot device involving a chatroom conversation, as well as not enough onscreen “action,” and I have to toss this into my “Don’t Bother (At Least Not ’Til It Comes out on Video)” category.

Of course, I haven’t had too long to think about it, really. I could become completely smitten with Natalie Portman the more I think about her performances in this and “Garden State” and decide, hey, it really wasn’t half-bad. After all, the ending was pretty cool.

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In answer to the question du jour, “What is love?”: Damn, I’m not sure I could even begin to put that answer into words!

But it does provide some food for thought. And leaves an open door for the topic to be revisited.

And speaking of food ...

It’s a good feeling when you’re driving around town, trying to think of something, anything, that sounds good for lunch, and suddenly, you remember that you have leftover Italian food in the fridge. And, OK, so it’s from Fazoli’s (apparently, the Classic Sampler includes enough food for 2 people ... or at least 2 meals), but still: Mighty damn tasty.

(Turns out my cat, too, likes fettucine alfredo. Who knew?)

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