Never has Emma Thompson’s judgemental glare been so painful to me.

Yes, it’s Her Alibi. The movie with a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. FIFTEEN PERCENT.

Sure, the majority of it is a stinkfest, but there is not a day that goes by without at least one line from this movie being directly relevant to my own life.

(From a scene where a reluctant Phil goes to a book launch for his British writer-nemesis.)

Nemesis: so what are you working on these days? I love that character of yours, that Peter…Swine?
Phil: Swift.
Nemesis: Of course!…he’s so populist.

Plot: Mystery writer Phil Blackwood has writer’s block. His career is threatened until he runs across the beautiful Nina, who’s accused of murder. Because she’s hot he becomes her alibi, and as his career heats up with his fictionalized account of Nina’s mystery, his life is threatened. Repeatedly. Once he gets an arrow in the ass. This is not Oscar Wilde, what can I say.

Does it suck?: It was 1989. Of course it sucks. Like, “the house blows up and five minutes later not only is it fully rebuilt but the computer still has the novel draft on it” sucks.

AND YET: every time I watch it, I laugh. Not the arrow-in-the-ass part, or the “America is much nicer than Romania!” bullshit that pervades the movie for no good reason. The (only) funny parts of this movie are the mocking-writing bits, such as when his novel excerpts are VOed over the actual situation.

If these moments have never happened to you, then YOU SHOULD WORK HARDER.

Scene: At a lawn party, Phil’s nephew gets stuck on top of a barn. Nina nimbly climbs up a rope, swings onto the roof, walks the ridgepole to the kid, guides him to safety via some jungle-gyming, and swings back into the barn. Phil stands and watches, baffled.

From-memory (probalby not exact) excerpt of VO: “Bracing himself against the punishing Alpine winds, Swift edged along the roof towards the terrified child…the desperate screams of the assembled women rose like prayers from far below.”

Seriously, someone just loved mocking the crap out of writers. List of novel titles as seen in the opening credits:

Guns I’ve Loved (cover image: a tree on a hill)
Death of a Critic (cover image: a desk and typewriter)
Death Came Formal (cover image: woman in a red dress)
Looks Like Curtains (cover image: Sam Spade at the opera)
The Dying Position (cover image: cheerleader standing atop a football helmet)
Bullets Never Forget (cover image: zoo elephant)
Computer Virus (cover image: Atari with ASCII naked-woman)
The Dying Habit (cover image: stained-glass nun window)
One Down and Two Dying (cover image: crossword with a dagger in it)
Sayonara, Cyanide (cover image: geisha standing atop a skull)

It also contains the line, “Nah, the woods will be full of Romanian virgins swapping recipes.” Which, COME ON.

In fact, random Friday challenge: write the back-cover copy for any of those books! You know you want to.