Given that the National Board of Reviewers ranked "Closer" as the third best movie of 2004 (behind "The Aviator" and "Finding Neverland"), I'm still stunned at how patently ridiculous it was. As one friend said afterward, "I'm in the mood for something relatively painless--like a full-body chemical peel."<br /><br />If you're expecting a movie that faithfully portrays relationships between men and women (at least those folks who live off Broadway and outside of Hollywood), you won't find it represented in a single frame of this movie. For 100 minutes--going on six hours--my friends and I waited for a recognizable human presence to grace the screen. Instead, here's what we learned from the alien life forms responsible for "Closer":<br /><br />1) Julia Roberts has one acting pose: stare off-camera and look pensive.<br /><br />2) Clive Owens has two acting emotions: fresh-shaved and unshaven.<br /><br />3) Jude Law decided to reprise his role as the robot in "A.I." in every movie he's appeared in this year.<br /><br />4) Natalie Portman has never been in a strip club. (Her 'pole-dancing' maneuvers--apparently inspired by her turn in "Mars Attacks!"--provided the movie with the most unintentionally campy scene since 'Showgirls.')<br /><br />5) The screenwriter has never been in a relationship. (And if he has, he simply wasn't paying attention.)<br /><br />6) When straight couples tell each other they've been cheating, they act excruciatingly polite for several minutes (except Julia Roberts, who stares off-camera and looks pensive). Then the cheated-upon will ask the cheating spouse how the sex was and insist on hearing the explicit details. This is the part of the discussion that finally gets a response, ranging on the emotional spectrum from the kissing and hugging one usually experiences during such fondly remembered heart-to-heart talks to exquisitely scripted battles of screaming wits.<br /><br />7) Internet sex chats are astonishingly tedious on film, but are useful budget savers for the director who wants to make a 100-minute movie seem like six hours.<br /><br />8) American women who live in England are willing to have sex to get whatever they want--even to get their ex-spouses to sign their divorce papers. (You have to see this scene to believe it has actually been committed to film.)<br /><br />9) Audience-goers laugh at clichés. The more movies the cliché has been used in; the harder they'll laugh. (Then again, given how many people left the theater, maybe they were laughing at the movie itself.)<br /><br />10) The new Hollywood formula requires a "surprise" twist at the ending, even when it's not a surprise.<br /><br />I haven't seen so many people walk out of a movie in years--and this was on the East Side of New York, which has a high tolerance for the inertness and amateurishness one often sees in "art" films. At the end, there was mostly booing and catcalls from the survivors, accompanied (oddly enough) by a scattering of applause--from those, I would imagine, who were probably relieved that the rolling credits didn't show the outtakes.<br /><br />Every once in a while, I'll see a low-budget independent "gay film" that is so lifeless that I am embarrassed for "my people." It's nice to know that there are equally unwatchable "straight movies" about relationships (although with Hollywood budgets, celebrity casts, and big-name directors).