An open letter to Zooey Deschanel.
Hey Z!
What’s up? Long time no talk, right? Hope everything’s going well out in your world. Looks like you’ve had a busy year, huh? Wound up on the cover of Paste and everything. Pretty cool. Hey, I meant to tell you, I really liked that dress. You know, that dress you wore one time? And that other dress you wore that other time. It doesn’t matter what time, really. I just like all your dresses. All your clothes, actually. When are you going to design your own clothing line? Why do only ugly celebrities that dress ugly get to have their own lines? Is it some ploy to get them to dress better? Or dress at all? Like, hey, Britney Spears, sign off on these pants that this unnamed but now very rich person just made, we’re gonna tell everyone you designed them, now you have to wear them all the time, WHOOPS GOTCHA! Zooey, If you designed some clothes I would totally wear them. But only if you sold them at Target. And then I’d still probably wait til they were on clearance. Can you make this happen? Thought so! You’re the best.
Anyway, so, I loved that album you made with M. Ward. It’s actually my favorite album of the year. And everyone at work just thought it was great. We liked it so much, it wasn’t a hard choice to put you and Matt (M.? Em-dubs? OMG, please tell me he lets you call him Em-dubs!) on the cover. I remember when we got the watermarked copy from your record label in the office. Someone picked it out of the stack of incoming CDs that the interns were filing and said, “Hey, that Zooey Deschanel She & Him thing album is here,” or something like that. I think it was Steve that said that. He also thought it was the best album of the year. Anyway, assuming it was Steve, Steve listened to the album and then I saw it on his desk and I took it from him and then Austin saw that I had it and he took it from me and Kate took it from someone at some point and eventually pretty much everyone was listening to it that afternoon and it was great. We all loved it from the start. It was like opening a Whitman’s sampler of delicious musical chocolates, only not a single one had that pink fluffy crap inside, or that weird gooey “sugar” stuff that kinda looks like… well, nevermind. Point being, we loved it then and we loved it all through the year and we love it now. This doesn’t always happen. Sometimes a bunch of us in the office get excited about something for about three days and then everyone forgets about it. But not you, Zooey. Also, there was just this basic sense of relief that at least one indie darling actress released a halfway listenable album this year. Don’t tell Scarlett, but “Tinkerbell on cough syrup vibe”? I think we all know that’s just French for “oh whoops I can’t actually sing but I’m making this album anyway.”
Anyway, so, it was kind of weird when people started saying all those things. Did I tell you about this? I guess not. See, what happened was, a bunch of people totally did not agree that your album was the best album of the year. Some people liked it but just didn’t think it was all that great, which is fine. But then a lot of people were saying that obviously we only put you on the cover because you’re pretty. Okay, that’s not exactly what they said. If they were being nice, they said it’s because we wanted to score a date with you. If they were being less nice, they said it’s because we wanted to, well, just score with you. How weird, right? Most of the guys on our editorial staff are taken anyway, but if one of them wants to ask a girl out, he can do it his own damn self, we’re not gonna put her on the cover. And also, Em-dubs over there? No one has accused us of putting him on the cover because we want to score a date and/or with him. I mean, really. If they’re gonna go there, they might as well fully consider all the options. And let me just say, when I saw you guys at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta a few months ago, I found myself a just little bit weak in the knees every time a certain Mr. Dubs opened his mouth to sing. Even though he was for some reason still wearing his sunglasses up on top of his head, inside, on stage, at 10 PM. So yeah. Put those ulterior motives in your pipe and smoke it, Internet.
Anyway, so, there’s something else I’ve been meaning to ask you about. The Happening. Now, sorry if this comes across as a little bitchy, I totally don’t mean it that way, but WHAT? How much did they pay you for that? What made you think it was even a good idea? I mean, I get the kinda campy old-school horror movie vibe thing it might have been trying to go for, but hold on, let’s back up: Had you not seen any other M. Night Shyamalan movies? Were you, like, maybe one of the first people to see The Sixth Sense, before everyone knew Bruce Willis was dead, so you were impressed by that, and then I guess Unbreakable was okay, but then somehow you missed Signs, which involved Earth being invaded by aliens whose secret weakness is water, which somehow wasn’t an issue for most of the movie even though much of our planet’s atmosphere is made of water? And The Village, which involved a commune trying to control its children by parading around at night in giant evil vole suits so they wouldn’t stray too far from the settlement even though the real danger wasn’t giant evil voles, it was the fact that they were living in modern times as a means to escape the pain of something that happened in the 1970s that no one was really clear about because they were just so blindsided by the fact that OMG this movie got made? And Lady in the Water, which involved something called a scrunt? A scrunt! This man’s genius knows no bounds. Just kidding. It does. He’s horrible. I mean, when you didn’t have to fight Bryce Dallas Howard for this role, did that not tip you off that it was going to be a monstrous, self-indulgent, non-sensical, scientifically impossible, poorly-scripted, over-dramatic, cavernous suck-fest? Or did you only realize that once you got on-set, when it was too late to back out? Is that why your character Alma is such a wide-eyed, blank-faced, icy, vapid thing that keeps doing totally stupid shit like REMAINING OUTSIDE when it’s clear that being outside is killing people (the trees OMG!) and also continuing to remain married to Mark Wahlberg’s character even though he is clearly in some kind of arrested development involving the scientific method? Did the cast all band together and say, “Hey, let’s passive-aggressively wreck what’s left of this awful movie by being really bad at what we’re being paid a lot of money to do!” Is that it? Anyway. Alma should have left totally left Mark Wahlberg for that guy she “had tiramisu” with, and YOU should have left THE SET after reading that line in the script. Seriously. And I say this all as a friend.
Anyway, so, is or is not Mark Wahlberg playing himself in the movie? Because, see– okay, this is kind of funny– my boyfriend and I saw the movie after seeing that Andy Samberg sketch on SNL with the goat and the donkey and everything, so that’s all we could think of during the movie. We kept saying stuff like, “Hey tree, how ya doin’? I like ya toxins. I’m Mark Wahlberg,” and “Hey little kid, how ya doin’? Say hello to ya motha. Oh wait, she’s dead.” We still say it to each other all the time and it’s sooo funny. Sometimes we even leave each other voicemails in that voice, like, “Hey, how ya doin’? Ya not answerin’ ya phone. Say hello to ya motha. Call me back!” Ahahahaha! It’s so funny. Or maybe you had to be there. Oh wait, you WERE there! You were in that movie! Seriously, WHY?
Anyway, so, that Jim Carrey Yes Man movie– is that going to be any good? I really hope so. After Eternal Sunshine, I really hoped he was turning things around, but it just hasn’t happened. And didn’t he already make this movie once before, anyway? Liar Liar, right? Starring that kid from Home Alone 3 as his adorable foil? Are you reprising the role? I saw the preview. You ride a scooter or a motorbike or something. Cool! I want a scooter. I bet you have a scooter in real life, right? I bet your scooter is almost completely awesome, just like you. I bet your scooter wears adorable clothes all the time and that its hair always looks great and it sings real nice and writes beguiling little pop songs that I like to listen to and mostly stars in great movies and TV shows. Mostly. It’s just generally a fantastic scooter except that one part of it that starred in The Happening, which is the one part holding it back from complete scooter awesomeness. Okay, okay, sorry. That’s the last crack I’ll take. I know you’ve gotta have your reasons. It’s none of my business. And I know you really want to keep going with this music thing, and it doesn’t pay too well, and you gotta scrape together some change for Volume Two somehow. Speaking of which, so excited about that. Can’t wait to hear it. Maybe we’ll put you on the cover again next year… You’ll know why. Wink wink.
Well, anyway, I guess I’ve rambled on long enough. Write back when you get the chance. Man, it’s so fun having a pen pal! I feel like I’m ten again.
-Rachael