"I Love You, Man" is So Uncool -- A Review and a Rant

The flashbacks came in waves as I sat in the theater Friday afternoon -- in a row populated only by me, my tub of lightly buttered popcorn and a pack of Sour Patch Kids --  watching the new "bromance" comedy I Love You, Man.

During one scene of awkward card playing and projectile vomiting, for example, my mind turned back to when I was a corporate hack in my early 30s. A bunch of balding, paunchy VPs in their 50s decided to have a poker party. For whatever reason, they invited me along.

In two hours, we played 37 variations of poker, all but four of which I had actually heard of before and only two of which I understood how to play. During that time, every sentence my tablemates spoke from their cliched cigar-clenched-in-their-teeth lips featured a string of George Carlin's Seven Dirty Words.

"Give me two, you cocksucker asshole shit-for-brains," one would say.

"Fuck you, motherfucker cunt!" the dealer would respond.

"Don't get your tit in an uproar, pisshead motherfucker shit!" the player would answer. 

And so on and so on.

This amused them throughout the night. I found it funny for about five minutes because most of these guys normally never swore around the office as we worked for a Fortune 500 company in Baptist Land. Besides, their lips were usually in a tight pucker upon the ass of whomever they reported to during work hours. (I also blame my indifference on three years of work on the night copy desk with a woman who yelled "FUCK ME!" at the top of her lungs every time she found a comma out of place.)

For the rest of the evening, I was just burying my head in my cards and my brain cells in malted beverage, wondering how I ended up among not just a group of assholes but a group of poseur assholes while I tried to run out the clock before confirming what a fraud I was at poker and other reindeer games.

This remembrance is among the many joyously painful reasons why I dug I Love You, Man. After all, I live it every day in real time so I've learned to either laugh or resort to taking a bullet to the brainpan. (As I've never touched, let alone fired, a gun before, odds are I would miss myself and accidentally wing a rare bird passing outside my window, drawing jail time and the ire of PETA wackos everywhere.)

Everyone else, though, will also find something to enjoy in this movie about real estate agent Peter (Paul Rudd), who realizes that he doesn't have any true male friends for side of the wedding party. To solve this, he begins a series of "man dates" in a quest to find a best bud. (I just let my brother-in-law and wife's best gay male friend round out my groomsmen.) For example:

• Women will coo over the adorably dorky Peter/Rudd. They will also profess how they wish their boyfriends/husbands were as sweet and nice as he because who doesn't love having a puppy to play with once it has been neutered and housebroken.

• Straight, manly men will dig the occasional crude humor and periodic sex talk. They will also secretly wish they had a best friend like Sydney Fife (Jason Segel of the similarly toned movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall) who could give a toast at a party that would make Rashida Jones agree to give them more head.

• Gay men will enjoy that they are treated mostly with respect, which is not something you would expect when Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg is your onscreen rep.

• Canadians will love the reverence shown to Rush, even if Geddy Lee now looks like an anorexic Ben Franklin with a Grecian Formula monkey on his back.

As for me -- a married straight man with nary a close friend of the male persuasion, I both laughed and squirmed at the familiarity. I've never been on a "man date" but every day -- as an at-home father and a chromosome-challenged blogger in a niche dominated by women who celebrate and market their anatomical goodies without shame or guilt -- I feel the isolation this film addresses.

Where are my people? I ask.

Where are my brothers, my wingmen, my comrades?

Where are the people whom I should feel most at home with simply because we share a penis?

Wow.

That was an unfortunate turn of phrase.

Which brings me to my final point.

Who is the cocksucker I sue for putting my shit on the motherfucking screen without my goddamn permission?