SBIM (So Blue It's Monday), Watch a Crappy Movie >> New in Town

We all have the same experience every Monday: It's the first working day of the week, you're feeling super blue. You sit in the office for 10 or so hours and yet you have not picked up the pace just yet. Nothing significant was achieved in a whole day's work. When you finally dragged your tired body home and after having a good shower and dinner, you just wanted to lie on your sofa (or bed), watch a crappy movie to make your day seemed a little less crappy. Somehow, you ended up enjoying the supposedly crappy movie a lot.

There are lots of reasons why you would hate a good movie, or love a bad one. The definition of good / bad itself is subjected to personal taste. You can love a film just because of the soundtrack, an actor you like, a beautiful landscape or even simply because there's a cute dog in it. Similarly, you can hate a movie for its cast, its story, or simply because of a hideous costume the actor wears. When you hate a movie, everything is not right with it, down to the tiny little things like the poster. That's what happened to New in Town, a 2009 rom-com starring Renee Zellweger, herself not so much a universally beloved actress. In fact, she was having a few bad years after winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and suffered the consequences of overexposure. I remembered reading some articles that teased the movie after it flopped at the box office as "as it turns out, no one wants to see Renee Zellweger playing Reese Witherspoon".

New in Town was not well-received by both critics and moviegoers when it came out. Many had dismissed it as a rom-com, and not even a very good one. But I love the film from the start. I have no resentment for chick flick; I don't hate Renee Zellweger as much as others did; and above all, this movie features two of my soft spots for a film: small town and winter snow.

The movie tells the story of a high-powered consultant in love with her upscale Miami lifestyle. She is sent to New Ulm, Minnesota, to oversee the restructuring of a blue-collar manufacturing plant. After enduring a frosty reception from the locals, icy roads and freezing weather, she warms up to the small town's charm, and eventually finds herself being accepted by the community. When she is ordered to close down the plant and put the entire community out of work, she's forced to reconsider her goals and priorities, and finds a way to save the town. After tasting her secretary's secret recipe of tapioca pudding, she decides to adapt a former yogurt production line to produce this special recipe of tapioca.

Simple story told in the course of 90 minutes. But from the first moment Renee's character steps into Minnesota I'm intrigued. It's not like I have a death wish to live in an extremely cold weather, it's just here in Malaysia we don't get to feel the snow. It's all new to me too. And while we are living in a metropolitan and see nothing but skyscrapers, the perspective of a small town full of love and friendship has somehow reminded me of my own hometown, a warm feeling we have long lost living in a big city. In a way, I'm like Renee's character, I think it will take me a while to get acquitted to a different life than the one I have already so used to in a big city.

This movie is best watched in a cold raining night, lying in your bed under your sheet, with a cup of hot chocolate. It's a movie that needs you to empty your mind and slow down your pace to enjoy. Like a good country song that sings about hills and rivers and open roads, you can't fully absorb its essence if you have loads on your mind. I empty my mind, and I am among the 37% who like the film.