Nicki Minaj Is The Only Good Part Of 'This Is 40'

BY LIZ

I saw This Is 40 the day before my birthday and mostly hated it. I watch movies for lots of reasons, like for hot drama and romance and sexiness and magic, for tragedies and adventures both great and tiny. I don't watch movies to see a couple of lame assholes bitching at each other about boring shit I don't give a fuck about, and I'm genuinely confused as to why Judd Apatow would expect me to. There were some things in This Is 40 that I appreciated, like Paul Rudd eating cupcakes out of the trash, but for the most part I did not love Pete and Debbie, especially Debbie. Debbie talks like a self-help book; she says things like "We're going to choose joy," but then she's even more of a killjoy than Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up. Before the first minute of the movie's even up she's already thrown a temper tantrum about her husband experimentally taking a Viagra and it's like "Whoa, honey, it's all right, calm down." EVERYBODY PLEASE JUST CALM THE FUCK DOWN.

Also I thought it was kind of a drag that the one female character who seems to live free and have fun turns out to be a sex worker. Really, the only woman I semi-related to in This Is 40 was Lena Dunham, who has quirky hair and knows about music and is good at her job. So I guess that was an interesting surprise: I'd never related to Lena Dunham before.

There were a few moments in the movie I enjoyed, apart from the cupcake trash. My favorite part was when Paul Rudd is eating cheeseburgers in the car and singing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" with his mouth full - partly because I love cheeseburgers and "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," but mostly because I love movie scenes where good-looking men talk with their mouth full (see also the part in Moneyball when Brad Pitt eats a Twinkie in two bites and then says something to Jonah Hill, plus the part in Blow when Johnny Depp says "Layaway!" while chewing a piece of steak). 

My second and third favorite parts were when you can hear "I Will Dare" by the Replacements and "Little Guitars" by Van Halen in the background at Paul Rudd's office, because hearing those songs reminded me that there is beauty and hotness in the world.

And my fourth favorite part was the scene when the fam's all hanging out in either Sadie or Charlotte's bedroom and Paul Rudd tries to get them to like Alice In Chains (which is so dumb 'cause WHY WOULD YOU EVER WANT YOUR BABIES TO LOVE ALICE IN CHAINS; that shit is dark), and then the girls put on "Roman's Revenge" by Nicki Minaj and make scary faces when Nicki growls like a lion/dungeon dragon. It's girls having fun and it's funny and they're cute and I love them all, just for that moment. Since watching that scene I've listened to "Roman's Revenge" about a zillion times, and on new year's eve day I found this really cool spot up in Laurel Canyon where you can see all the way to the ocean and listened to "Roman's Revenge" and drank a kombucha and ate an apple and a Turkish delight and felt very peaceful and stoked about 2013. It's a really great song for feeling unstoppable and seeing the whole world in pink.



My fifth favorite part of This Is 40 was when it was over and my brother and sister and I went to dinner at Wild Willy's and I got a burger called The Showdown, which had chipotle mayo and grilled onions and cheddar cheese, plus sweet potato fries and a lime rickey and a pickle from the big pickle barrel. It was snowing out and we sat by the window, with a really pretty view of snow falling on the train tracks. My cheeseburger and lime rickey and everything were so good; it was so nice to be back in the real world again.