The Last Kiss

Going into this week I had every intention of seeing Brian DePalma's "The Black Dahlia." As late as yesterday morning, I still had my mind set on that plan.

So what happened? I started reading the reactions of people who had already seen it, which I love to do. And almost everything I read, from fans rather than critics, said this was just a stinker, and I didn't think I could take that.

So I punted on making the decision myself and did something I should do more often; I called my neighbor and asked her if she wanted to go see a movie Sunday afternoon. On the other end of the line there was a long a pause (never the reaction you're looking for), and then she said "yes, but I get to choose the movie.

Ha. I decided not to reveal that that was just what I wanted, and just let her decide. It came down to "I don't wanna see any football movie with a professional wrestler in it" and "I want to see that Zach Braff movie." "The Black Dahlia" never even entered the conversation, which was fine with me.

I kind of wanted to see "that Zach Braff movie" too, so that was that. I like Zach Braff. "Garden State" was great and "Scrubs" is even better (note to TV programmers: the packaging of two back-to-back "Scrubs" episodes, when it is on at all, is brilliant; keep it up.)

I know he annoys a lot of people. At times he can look so smug that you just want to smack him, and at others he just looks chronically constipated. But I find him funny, and that's enough for me.

In "The Last Kiss" he plays a character much less likable than he was in "Garden State" or "Scrubs." Basically, he's a heel, but not the cartoon heel you find in most movies. He's just a dude who, when told by his girlfriend of three years (Jacinda Barrett) that she is pregnant, makes the worst possible decision. Well, actually, several of them, and I'm not giving much away by saying it doesn't go smoothly.

It's definitely not a romantic comedy, but as a story about two people trying to make a difficult relationship work, it worked for me. I actually wanted them to work it out, whereas in this summer's other romantic downer, "The Breakup," I just wanted to kill the two leads and put them out of their (and my) misery.

Barrett is very good as the other half of this couple in crisis. About 15 minutes into the movie, my companion elbowed me in the gut fairly hard and whispered "that's the chick from "The Real World." It took me a while to place her, but she was indeed the wannabe actress Jacinda, I believe from the London series. Well, she's a pretty good one in this flick, and I expect big things from her in the future.

Rachel Bilson from "The OC" is the requisite other woman, who hits on Braff at a wedding and leads him, very willingly, astray. She's suitably seductive, and I liked her very much in the scene at his office where she finds out exactly what she's gotten herself into.

As we were walking out of the movie, I asked my friend what she thought. Her first response: "What an asshole." Staying quiet to make sure she wasn't talking about me, I waited until she followed that with "I liked the movie quite a bit, but if Braff keeps this up he's gonna turn into Woody Allen, and that would just be gross."

Well put. So we both liked the movie, and agreed that Braff does well playing the heel. He's no Woody Allen, in either the good or bad sense, but I like him, and this flick, nonetheless.