Sport: Sex-alympics

Rio has a sultry reputation, so perhaps it will come as no surprise to anyone with a lust for life that this year’s Olympics appears to be a good place to get some.

But the numbers are truly impressive.

This year, Olympic officials distributed 450,000 condoms to athletes, which is enough for 84 sex acts per competitor, which would be more nookie than any year since they began doling out protection at the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul.

As Slate reported, these numbers have been on the rise, with summer Olympians taking the lion’s share.

A little extracurricular activity is probably inevitable: competing at this level is stressful, and asESPN noted, many of the athletes are locked away from parents and the media and free to blow off steam as they see fit. And seeing as they are all quite fit and young and trapped in a setting conducive to one-night-stands, sex would seem to be a good release.

Indeed, contrary to what the first Olympians thought, sex has been proven to be a powerful antidote for anxiety, which can hinder performance. And according to a new study by Frontiers in Physiology it won’t deplete athletic abilities.

Let the games begin.

Theatre:Like a Good Lover, "He Said, She Said" Builds steam as it goes along

Oftentimes, specially in the Jamaican context, that which seems the easiest reach is hardest to grasp; the "obvious" topics, like sex and the contradictions between the sexes, are often played so cheaply as to do a disservice to the issue

Happily for this writer, and the rest of the audience, the new Elllis International revue "He Said, She Said" has a strong grasp to enable its broad reach.

Against a minimalist backdrop, the opening number "Too Much Sex" unfolded and ended with not too much promise for a great evening. Set to the tune of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons'  "Sherry" it had the  workmanlike feel of an awkward tryst, a necessary preliminary endured before one " gets down to business".

But like any good lover, the players and the script certainly gathered steam, becoming collectively more self-assured as the session wore on.

It hit its first stride in a skit we'll call "Come When I Come Back". Its " the morning after" and a young woman raises the issue of her man's apparent lack of stamina (though he does get her to claim that she enjoyed it), which leads to protests, reasoning, and perhaps a little of the unexpected. When, out of frustration, the hapless man blurts out "Yu too hard!!" The woman delivers what must be the comeback of the night:"Well at least ONE of us is!"

There's  no shortage of big laughs but the play delivers its first of two "money shots" (yes, we're using term) just before the interval. Inside a Golden Age Home two elderly women take their turn (the men having previously taken the stage) at shredding myths about sex in old age and poking fun at both men and the type of Bible-toting, holier than thou church ladies that "seem" uninterested in ribaldry. Its the best constructed skit of the night (you have to listen right up to the punch line).

The second comes at the end, with a dual set-up, indicative of the title. On one side, a guy is holding forth to his 'bredren' about his devastating sexual performance on a particular girl, while on the other side, said girl is destroying boasts while dishing to her girlfriends. Its not by any means an original construct, but its the execution that counts, and the protagonists, Tesfa Edwards and Kathy Grant, make it count through spot-on timing and impassioned deliveries.

Several of the skits in the second half attempt to examine the fractious issue of how men relate to men. The best of these is "2Guys at the Gym",  in which two longtime friends compare notes on personal preferences and wonder how is it that their respective spouses don't understand them as well as they understand each other. Its an issue and a perspective that don't often make their way onto the Jamaican stage, but should.

Every revue depends on music, and the producers' selections, whether accompanying or between skits, are certainly commendable. In addition to the previously mentioned, there are adaptations of the Ffolkes Brothers classic "Oh Carolina" (3 guesses as to which part of the female anatomy that's used in conjunction with), and Peter Tosh's enduring cover of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode".

And then, there is "I'll Vento". Working in the vein of DJ Buccaneer's "Skettel Concerto" the operatic number ("Soave al Il Vento" from Mozart's Cosi Fan Tuute)) is used in service of arguably the night's most hilarious solo skit, complete with the obligatory ghetto malapropisms and dropped consonants.

Which brings us to the final important aspect of the play. The limited and often ruthlessly efficient sexual vocabulary of many contemporary Jamaican men ( amplified in the male-dominated dancehall field) is countered and indeed supplemented by more open discourse, whether its the young man proudly declaring that his masculinity is not compromised by buying "a six-pack of Stayfree maxis with wings" for his girl, the bored and lusty housewife longing for the attention of the hunky gardener next door, or the aforementioned bromance at the gym. That the work has much more on its mind than "gettin' some" and playing for cheap laughs is impressively evident.

But fear not, of laughs there are plenty, and there's also more than enough sexual situations and references to go around. He Said She Said may at times come off rude, but it definitely also knows how to mind its manners.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

Poetry: Echosightings Vol II, MINEFIELD CARTWHEELS

Between Sex
Drugs and
gettin' too old
The slander
is dropping by the 
planeload
Pockmarking the
Field of mind robbing
This Peace of 
mine
But only for a moment
I spin the anger they try to
Foment
into reckless abandon
Unwavering passion
Relentlessly
seeking to fashion a
greater reality
From this fertile
Field of mind
Even if only to 
Restrain me
from giving them a
Piece of mine

A winning night at the Alibi, Part II

Keyboard wiz O'zoune leading the Pon Fyah band during their stint at the Alibi jazz lounge in New Kingston's Gore Centre on Wednesday night. The weekly set was preceded by an amiable and ambitious triple book launch by author Jennifer Grahame, whose tomes, "Jacks Hill Road"  Sex and Scrambled Eggs" and "The Bedhead" garnered good support, some of whom stayed for the ample musical treats and great Alibi fare

Book review: The erotic memoir returns, from the East

A touchstone of the 1970s "Me Decade"(and in fact a holdover from the 1920s/1930s heyday of Henry Miller, Anais Nin et al), the erotic memoir  essentially disappeared from popular consciousness and discourse from the early 80s onward.

Who better than a Jamaican to revive the genre and with a near unexpected twist?

Stefhen Bryan initially escapes his mother's repressive parental style, or so he thinks, when he lands,at age 15, at his father's place in New York City. When it becomes clear however, that his father is totally uninterested in nay kind of relationship with him, he begins a westward odyssey that takes him first to Denver Colorado, and eventually to California. the substance of Bryan's parental relationships are detailed in the one-man play "Doodu Boy", which forms an important corollary to this book.

After gaining his first degree, and with brief detours in the UK as well as back in his native Jamaica, Bryan - financially down and dogged by his own familial obligations, accepts, in 2001, an offer to teach English in Japan, where he is suddenly able to fulfill his long-held predilection for Oriental women - an appetite first stoked in Jamaica, where the girls of Chinese and mixed ancestry offered a picture of  financial substance relative tothe grinding poverty of his own formative years.

Thus given free rein, Bryan indulges in a sexual spree that would likely defeat many men and may well have made Miller himself proud. Wives, students, professionals (including the co-ordinator of his teaching course) all make up what he describes as a "revolving army of sexual partners, all Japanese. 

The memoir describes Bryan's carnal adventures through a cultural lens that touches on interracial relationships, promiscuity, patriarchy and abortion. Included is sex research that one reviewer asserts "would make Kinsey proud." 

This ethnic exclusivity does impart to the author some insights as to a national psyche of the Japanese woman (aided by Bryan's own extensive bouts of therapy), but for the reader, it largely comes off as a little black book opened for public viewing; one sexual conquest essentially following another, with much the same descriptives used. Bryan's dynamism (coupled with a distinctly amoral persona) is palpable, but the prose itself is never spectacular enough to transcend the subject matter. 


 The author's outsider-insider observations of mores and relationships in Japan are fascinating. They are also the kind of blunt talk you won't get elsewhere. Black Passenger, Yellow Cabs is a ride you may take willingly - but perhaps only once.

Performing Arts: The Journey of "Doodu-san" from Pit to Peace

At no age or stage in life would most human beings contemplate or envisage the consequences of falling chest deep into a pit latrine (think faeces, toilet paper and giant cockroaches and rats).

Little wonder then that Stefhen (no longer Stephen, he remade himself even a his father worked on a "replacement" ) Bryan has a certain skew on life: he lived through just such a nightmarish ordeal while still in what we refer to as "short pants,"

That rude entry into life's potential for adversity became the opener and theme for his excellent and mostly compelling one-man show, "Doodu Boy" (doodu of course being slang for feces) which had a special one-night only preview performance at New Kingston's Theatre Place.

In that well-executed piece we meet young Steve, the typically curious, hyper-imaginative young Jamaican kid mired in poverty and at the mercy of an overbearing, Scripture-quoting mother with a more than free hand when it comes to dishing out beatings to her son.

The situation is of course so dire that Steve has violent fantasies of killing his mother and moving to "'Merica" to live with his absentee Dad. that latter dream eventually comes true at age 15, but the underside of Steve's American Dream and "life in Paradise" comes up all too quickly as he discovers that his father, a mercurial, materialistic yet somehow successful engineer, was even more disdainful of him than his mother.

Faced with this greatest rejection, Bryan heads west, first to family in Denver Colorado and then on to California, where a latent predilection for Oriental women is given  free rein and expression - much of which ends up in his book "Black Passenger, Yellow Cabs" (check back in a couple days for our review of the book).

When an attempt to visit his father for a reconciliation goes awry - his father calls the cops and reveals that he has in fact, fathered another son - to whom he has also given the name "Stephen" - the crushed Bryan responds to a call to teach English....in Japan.

There, he furthers his own education in Oriental delights, but also learns the language and  - as is often the way of such things - falls in love. Even this is an occasion for Jamaican-style bawdiness, as the love of his life is revealed to him as the first girl with whom sex is - for a lengthy initial period anyway -impossible, owing to what he describes as her "monster hymen."

In the wake of losing his mother to cancer (after an intervening heart to heart of sorts while on a home spell), Steve, with his new wife, attempts one last bid to reconcile with his Dad. The latter proves taciturn to the end, but two strokes, and the travails of loneliness (the younger "Steve" has since grown and moved out) have softened him to the point where even an awkward conversation is possible.

Bryan's stage presence and visual communication skills are highly evolved and his total lack of self-consciousness while sharing details which might floor lesser mortals make the play a very engaging experience, one which even Jmaaicans, accustomed tothe ensemble presentation, will be held rapt by

Get Lucky: All's Fair in Love and Crime

Thieves who steal from thieves. Love and romance - of a fashion - amongst the gritty London underworld. Car chases, boat chases, beat-ups, close calls and shodowns in abandoned lots. They're familiar calling cards but in this plucky, if somewhat demanding little thriller, they don't lose much for all their familiarity.

Lucky is a small time criminal and he's happy just getting by until he agrees to look after some counterfeit money for a friend who is in a bit of trouble with the law Two months go by without a word from him so Lucky burns the 'funny money' to avoid problems for himself. The resulting fire means a trip to the emergency room where he meets Bridget and his charm has her agreeing to go out with him. Their date goes well until the end when two hoods bundle him into the back of their car. It appea

rs that they had bought the 'funny money' from Lucky's friend and they want it back - all £150,000 or Lucky will end up like his friend. Lucky needs to score big so he teams up with an old mate who is planning a big casino heist with a couple of other gangsters who's day job is collecting protection money for 'Mr Big'. The are looking to earn a bit of money 'on the side'. The heist goes almost according to plan but with one small problem - there's minimal cash and the rest is in bonds. It all starts to go wrong immediately. A prostitute who they have hired steals the bonds and the getaway car is stolen. Worse is yet to come. The two gangsters have not done their homework and they've actually just robbed 'Mr Big's casino. Their only chance to avoid their boss's severe retribution is to get the stuff back.

Director Sacha Bennett works the script (by the accomplished TJ Ramini and Walter Taylaur) with appreciable gusto, and whilst the acting is decidedly uneven, diminutive lead Luke Treadway as Lucky and a several of the "bit players" stand out in their respective spaces in the plot.

If you're not that used to the dialogue, this film may take a second screening to get used to but, its worth it if you like fast-paced action, spiced with a little sex (including a humourous incident involving a prostitute and one of the robbers).

In other words, its the perfect candidate for Testosterone Theatre. Sit back and dig in.

Small Screen, Big Stories Pt II: From Boardwalk to (South) Beach via Renaissance Rome

Impossible as the above route may sound, it summarizes the continuing overachievement of cable TV as the new home of cinematic splendor, especially in the city-specific period crime drama. firstly, we anxiously await the coming of the fourth instalment in the Prohibition-era classic, Boardwalk Empire, with no less than Martin Scorcese and Mark Wahlberg as exec producers. Season 3 was the darkest, most layered yet, with several story lines unspooling and gathering narrative steam. Even more, the addition of the incomparable

Geoffrey Wright, as Harlem kingpin Dr Narcisse, is further

inducement, as if any were needed. Then, with elements of Boardwalk, Mad Men and the Godfather II comes the STARZ channel's  Magic City, set in late 50s Miami, with Fidel Castro still just a pesky but growing revolutionary and Cuba a model for Miami's vices.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan, of the TV series Grey's Anatomy and the Watchmen movie fame, stars as the owner of the Miramar Playa, a club where anything goes, and all manner of persons come for the booze, the girls and the drugs. All those things, of course, bring violence and intrigue.

In between those, the group billed as "The Original Crime Family" continues its machinations in 16th Century Rome. The peerless Jeremy Irons is well settled and still unsettling, as Pope Alexander VI, forging alliances, bringing down powers and fomenting war, mayhem and passion. Incidentally, the notes to the series say that the dynasty originated in Spain.

These three are just a sampling of the great original series on cable, but they feature here because of their subject matter and general format. Pick a period and a city, stock up on the refreshments and sit back to your cinema-quality narrative experience on the small screen.

One rough Chop: The Grind (2009)

If the first fifteen minutes of a film are the film in microrcosm, then you might just be able to spare yourself excessive torture in the case of this free-wheeling but ultimately tedious thriller, set in the moral wasteland that is suburban Southern California.

In he opener, a man (C Thomas Howell) has had his hand run through a kitchen sink disposal; another man has been stabbed to death by a young woman with whom he has just had sex, and  the previous man - who also doubles as a kind of infrequent narrator - has had himself set up in the Internet reality soft-porn business (hotgirlzoncamera.com), courtesy of a teenage apprentice and his black associate, both of whom have various degrees from the proverbial school of hard knocks.

The rest of the film maintains this lurid trajectory, even as the "protagonist" struggles to get enough returns from the business to make good on his outstanding obligations to the men who tried to grind his hand up. Those guys are led by a fearsome figure, none other than Danny Trejo - who following this release would go on to such glorious roles as "Machete". Another well-known Hollywood miscreant, Tom Sizemore, rounds out the rogues' gallery.

Of all the tarnished stars, Howell appears to have come closest to getting his act together. He appears to have clawed his way out of the child-star abyss that he fell into after the classic, "E.T." and has roles in several big-budget action features, including the forthcoming summer blockbuster, "The Amazing Spider-Man".

In the meantime though, bills have to be paid, so there'll be modern-day B-movies like this one, with its soft-core girl-on-girl scenes, views of seedy Cali, and hardcore violence. it adds credits all around and provides minimal employment threaded by the thrill of near illegality, not unlike the venture undertaken in this story.


tom Sizemore

C Thomas Howell

Danny trejo

Small Screen, Huge Stories: Boardwalk Empire & The Pillars of the Earth

Time was, not that long ago, when the uncompromising dedication to narrative was left to (some) feature films, while television - read network television - followed the path of least offense.

The purveyors of cable TV had a different idea though, and certainly over the last decade, cable channels have surpassed both  their network cousins and much of the feature film world in showing compelling programmes in both comedy and drama. Showtime has "Homeland" AMC has "Mad Men", STARZ has "Spartacus" and Ken Follet's "The Pillars of the Earth" and HBO has, among many others, "Boardwalk Empire".
Prohibition was likely intended as a political solution to a social problem, but its hard to argue with the contention that is created far worse problems than it ever solved. By shifting the supply side form legal to illegal sources without addressing the demand, it aided the growth of mobsterism and corruption, with the attendant ills. Such is the premise of this series, which has gone through two very popular and highly acclaimed seasons. The setting is Atlantic City(which provides the "Boardwalk" of the title), 1920, and the focus is primarily on one Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, nominally city treasurer, but de facto the Big Kahuna; nothing goes down - or up - in the town precincts without him knowing, and collecting on it. from his suite in the Ritz-Carlton he presides over bootlegging, prostitution and a host of illegal and legitimate buisnesses, aided and abetted by his brother Eli, the sheriff, and the city aldermen, his confederates.
But uneasy sits the head that wears the crown, and it will take all the skill and wit he has to manipulate and fend off enemies from without and within.

Medieval England may seem a long thematic jump form Prohibition-era America, but the elements are quite consistent: power, intrigue, lust, violence mistrust - and the desire to build something greater than what has previously been. Ken Follet's blockbuster novel gets the period treatment from Scott brothers, Ridley and Tony, who serve as executive producers, overseeing a cast and crew drawn mostly from Britain, but spanning the Continent. A humble master builder has dreams of building a great cathedral, but to do it, he must outwit some powerful forces with their own outsize agendas.

On the whole, the Boardwalk story is more compelling to watch, but Pillars should hardly be dismissed out of hand. For one, its more restrained. The in-your-face style of "Boardwalk", with its blood-spattered killings, frontal nudity and soft-porn sex scenes can become tiresome with repeated viewings, even though the writing overall redeems each episode. Another important difference is that the 'Pillars" series has a lone director for all the instalments, as opposed to the "revolving door" employed by "Boardwalk" creators Terence Winter, Martin Scorcese and Mark Wahlberg. Not saying there are any obvious aesthetic gaps, but it does jar a little bit.
Such nitpicking aside, both shows make excellent viewing, whether seen as a marathon, or at your leisure. They represent two ways of exploring the issue of man's enduring quest for power and personal aggrandizeement, a fascination that hardly ebbs, and for which cable TV is the ideal medium.

More Heat, A Little Less Light: The Girl Who Played With Fire(Swedish version)

The Girl Who Played With Fire, the middle book in Stieg Larsson's best-selling trilogy, is my favourite of the lot. Moving on from the whodunit of the first book, this story offers an excellent study into the inner workings of central character Lisbeth Salander, the "Girl" of the title, and how her actions and her very individualized sense of morality and fair play affect all the other players.

The Swedish film adaptation shows that when you tinker with a good thing, you get results that are not quite so good. Both the director and the writers from the first film have been replaced here, with immediately visible consequences. First, this film is both raunchier and bloodier than the previous instalment, not that "Dragon Tattoo  was in any squeamish, but the violence and the sexual depictions in this film have just that little lurid edge to them which detracts from the overall feel.

More importantly, by eliminating the opening quarter of the book, in which we follow Lisbeth through various physical changes, travels (including to the Caribbean), and other developments, those coming to the movie with the benefit of the book feel cheated. One understands that time and budget certainly won't allow for every section to be included, but this portion was, in my humble judgement, essential, especially in light of what comes after (you'll have to wait for the next review.

Nevertheless, this sequel is fast-paced and entertaining, and features a raft of compelling new characters, some referenced in the first part, some not. We're introduced to Alexander Zalachenko, Soviet defector to Sweden, Lisbeth's father, and a veeery bad guy. Her half- brother (hitherto unknown) Ronald Niederman is an ice-cold blonde giant with a congenital defect that makes him all but impervious to pain. We also meet Miriam Wu, half-Chinese kickboxer and Lisbeth's sex-buddy, and Paolo Roberto, something of a sporting legend in Sweden, given that he plays himself.

Mikael Blomqvist, now a celebrity journalist, still has his magazine, Millennium, his "happily married" girlfriend and co-owner Erika and the faithful staff. This time around, its a sex and prostitution ring involving illegal immigrants that provides the subplot and which ultimately reunites him with Salander. There are of course, the superlative shots of both urban and rural Sweden and the other little touches that made the first one enjoyable.

Girl Who Played With Fire could almost be said to be the movie trilogy's "Hollywood outing". Its standard thriller far, but in the hands of the Swedes, even standard offerings have a little spice.

Movie Flashback: Everything You Aways Wanted To Know About Sex*

What's YOUR Deviance?

In today's "everything's out there" pervasively sexual, media-driven social landscape, it's hard to imagine things like cross-dressing, homosexuality and even public coitus to be shocking.

Flahback to 1972, when psychologist David Ruben released his now classic treatise "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex(But Were Afraid To Ask)". The Swinging 60s had ended, and the national angst of Watergate, Vietnam, Kent State and other developments was playing out. Flower Power was fading and the "Me Generation" was kicking in.

Who better to reimagine the book as a comedy than the quietly self-absorbed "Noo Yawk" existentialist, Woody Allen. In his hands, the then groundbreaking sexology manual ( noted for it's conversational style in stark contrast to the earlier Kinsey Report), becomes a not-so-groundbreaking but still highly enjoyable series of vignettes that feature, among other things, a 60-year old married, cross-dressing man, an entire sequence in which Italian is the only language spoken - with no subtitles, and a sex scientist gone clearly mad ( a jab at Kinsey?).

The highlight though, is the final sequence which, with the moon landing already three years past, and the US Space program me booming, chooses to remigine a man's body (in particular his sexual response), as one giant Mission Control. Allen, playing one of the innumerable millions of sperm awaiting "launch" wonders such things as "is this a homosexual encounter?" and "what if he's only jerking off?; I don't wanna hit the roof"

You won't, but if you have even a smidgen of a sense ofhumour not subject to the ravages of the the "reality TV era", then you just might hit the floor.

Dominic Cooper "doubles"Up

Full disclosure: we haven't yet seen The Devil's Double in entirety, but we hav seen it in sufficient measure (diverse clips, excerpts, interviews) to offer the following:

This is a breakout role for lead actor Dominic Cooper, who essentially plays two cahacters and three personas, namely former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's misanthropic, sex- crazed son Uday, Latif Wahia, the army lieutenant who is "co-opted" into being body-double, or fiday ( translates as "bullet catcher" ) for Uday, and of course, he plays Wahia playing Uday.

This compelling real-life conundrum -the film's based on Wahia's memoirs - becomes an equally compelling, if gleefully over-the-top entertainment in the hands of the experienced yet mercurial Lee (Once Were Warriors); the audience sees the full scope of Uday's "take anything, kill anyone" ethos, and the inner moral conflict that Wahia faces in doing the bidding of such a reprehensible individual.

Of course, there's enough sex, violence and intrigue to satisfy the escapist in all of us, bit this is primarily a story about obsession, and it's limits.

As Uday says to his new fiday, "I will never let you go."

Flashback

No "Wonderful Life" or 'Miracle on 34th Street" for this movie blogger. 


Last night, I re-watched  one of my all-time faves: True Romance.

Directed by Tony Scott (Top Gun) and written by Quentin Tarantino (who of course, went on to deliver Pulp Fiction), this movie features a ton of actors who went on to stardom in either feature films or cable and network TV - Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, an early Brad Pitt, Christopher Walken, Dennis Hopper, Bronson Pinchot, James Gandolfini, Michael Beach, Tom Sizemore, Michael Penn and Gary Oldman as a pimp. 


Drugs, violence and eternal devotion after a one-night stand - not to mention a slammin' soundtrack. Perfect!


A merry Christmas to all followers and supporters of Mike@the movies, wherever in the world you may be. Be safe, be happy and - more than presents -try to give yourself.

Let's Get It On...And On...and On: Love and Other Drugs Trailer 2010 HD

Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a golden boy who can sell igloos to Eskimos - mostly by charming the pants off willing females. He gets into the pharmaceutical game and is an on-the-rise young sales genius. Through one of his doctor clients, he meets - more specifically gets a peek at - Maggie (Anne Hathaway), a free spirit who has early-onset Parkinson's. They enter into a no holds barred relationship on the initially mutual assumption that no commitment is or will be required.

That assumption, of course, doesn't hold and its is Jamie in fact who first blurts out the "L" word. This happens after several sessions of copious sex.

 Later her health does become a factor, and also his commitment to the sales game. But in the meanwhile they have a rip roaring great time physically with each other, which we see in detail. There is much nudity involving buttocks and breasts, but it is strangely non-stimulating (possibly an intended reaction on the part of the director). It really seems just short of gratuitous.

For the two leads, much has changed in their career trajectories since they were paired, as husband and wife, in Brokeback Mountain. Both have enjoyed mainstream success to a reasonable extent while still taking on edgier fare. The chemistry is undeniably there between them, but the fact is, the audience cares more for them during the presumed "no-commitment" phase even if the true depth of feeling is patently obvious on both sides.

Gyllenhall is more endearing as the scheming cad than the caring suitor (Its  especially fun to watch him manipulate the doctor's all-too-willing receptionist)  and Hathway's pithy rejection-come on has far more charm and sensuality than the numerous nude afterglow scenes. Oliver Platt is largely filler, but Josh Gad, as Jamie's younger brother, convincingly grabs our attention. lascivious, materialistic and yet cowardly, he's a great slacker. Maybe it should have been his character that got caught up with Hathway's. We might have seen some more sparks.

As it is "Love and Other Drugs" is a movie that's enjoyable for about half an hour and thereafter, only in very brief spurts.