Have You Met Miss Jones?

B.J.'s Diary. It really is one of the best movies around; not for anything that Siskel or Roeper or anyone looking for a thoughtful movie might consider valuable, but for its acknowledgement that not much has changed since Jane Austen first sketched out the screenplay. Dysfunctional families collide, bad romantic decisions are made for the sake of mind blowing sex, the things we write bite us in the ass--and the carrot of hope is dangled that, despite it all, you may end up with Colin Firth, the most obnoxiously hot man alive.

Obnoxious doesn't usually go with hot, you're thinking. You're right--perhaps I should explain. It's that he has an attainable hotness, tempered by many character flaws that make him seem realistic. Women love Colin for the same reason men love Rachael Ray: she's no Giada di Laurentiis, but how many men actually get a Giada? But Rachael--she's normal; girl-next-door cute, attainable. Giada would take half an hour and look like the front of Vogue, but Rachael would take 5 minutes, be ready to go bowling, like all of your friends, and might have a problem swearing that you don't find out about until you're living together, at which point it tickles you because it's so unexpected.

Right...having read that, I suppose that, in all honesty, Colin really is more like Giada...although give him half an hour and he'd be in a Savile Row suit, sipping The Macallan 25 and pondering an economically plausible world peace. But he'd also be the kind of person that you have to knock off his high horse every once in a while, just so he could view the world from his back. Mmm. Anyway. Yes. Colin Firth, man o' my dreams, obnoxious in that his physical appearance isn't that of an Orlando Bloom or (dare I say it?) a Brad Pitt, but that his fame, still undeniable smouldering sex appeal, wicked accent and serious relationship with some lovely Italian woman make him completely unattainable. Oh, btw--yes. He lives in Italy. Yes, he can speak Italian. Yes, hotness points are attached to the ability to speak one or more Romance languages that are not French.

Song of the Moment: Heaven Help--Angie Stone