from drip to dreamboat

It's funny how you think one thing about a guy and then with a shift in the light everything looks different. Bill Pullman has had an entire career of being the handsome drip who never gets the girl. Drip drip drip. And then he gets paired with Sandra Bullock in "While You Were Sleeping" and the light shifts. Suddenly, he's handsome, approachable, and appealing. Bill Pullman, reflected in the eyes of Sandra Bullock, is a dreamboat. And the look of longing that passes across his face at the sight of Bullock could just wring your heart. The drip was dried.

Jimmy Fallon has never held much of an appeal for me. Lame-o schmucky funny guy. But there was a hint of more. When he did the Weekend Update with Tina Fey there was a hint of something more. My attention was mostly on Ms. Fey but there was no denying her great rapport with a cute and playful Jimmy Fallon. The two of them were in cahoots up there and having a blast. There's potential in a guy who so clearly enjoys the company of a smart funny woman.

I just watched "Fever Pitch" a romantic comedy starring Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon, and the Boston Red Sox. The light has shifted. Fallon reflected in the eyes of Barrymore is dreamy and delightful and funny. Barrymore and Fallon have a great connection onscreen. He's funny as opposed to over the top or weak. In this movie he gets it just right.


*swoon*

Barrymore seems to shed a very appealing light on funny men. She did it for Adam Sandler, twice. The "Wedding Singer" was too treacly for me but "50 First Dates" allowed Sandler to express comic rage and frustration while showing love and devotion above and beyond reason - funny and very romantic. Barrymore radiates a sunnyness and quirkiness that is entirely disarming, as the song goes, like she'd be so easy to love. An edgy comic can soften up in her presence without reproach. And the audience buys into the idea that this girl totally gets and loves the idiosyncracies of a wacky guy.

JDA who was a major player in his time, told me that cute is much more approachable than gorgeous. Cute can get you pretty far. Same with funny. Funny can get you pretty far.

In most situations a little bit of funny (like anchovy paste) goes very far. When Jimmy Fallon turns the funny dial back from 11 to about a 5 - he's so entirely jumpable.