Allow me to vent...

CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT???

Ahh, much better. That felt good.

Seriously though, I must have seen the trailer 3 times, and the commercial ad nauseum, and still, I'm unable to decipher what this film is about and why I should feel compelled to fork over $10 to see it. Are the producers merely banking on the pull of quasi-femme Orlando Bloom's rising star and the curriculum vitae of Cameron Crowe to get people in the seats?

Maybe that's it... maybe that's why I'm not being drawn in to the vortex that is Elizabethtown... I find Orlando Bloom to effeminate to find attractive (it's gotta be the whole Legolas thing...) and Cameron Crowe lost my respect with Vanilla Sky (2-plus hours of near-complete viewing torture, during which I developed a hideous distaste for Penelope Cruz -- who was supposed to be a sympathtic character! -- my already wearing thin tolerance for Tom Cruise was sufficiently eroded, and I came to realize that a great soundtrack does not a film make.)

Still, this doesn't answer my question: Just what is this film about? I'm no rocket scientist, but I don't think you need a Nobel Prize to understand plot in modern cinema (and that's really placing this movie in a category alongside competition it could clearly never hold a candle to). So, then, why... why am I stumped? Are the people in Hollywood really this uninterested in marketing a film properly? Are they relying on star power? Are they simply phoning it in? I think so.

It wasn't until I caught this week's episode of E!'s THE SOUP that I realized I wasn't as out of touch as I thought I was becoming... They summed up my thoughts quite nicely, and gave me back the movie-buff title I thought I'd lost there for a minute...

But to answer that question... Here's what the producers say Elizabethtown is about:

Hopelessly depressed, Drew decides to end his life when he gets a phone call. His father has died, and Drew has to go back to his family's small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown to make sure his father's dying wishes are fulfilled. On his trip home, Drew meets a flight attendant, Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst), with whom he falls in love, and it seems as if Drew's life may be back on track.

And I'm still not interested enough to see it. --Joan.