Lars and the Real Girl

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The second the credits started rolling after a recent showing of the film Lars and the Real Girl, my friend turned to me and said, “That was the most boring film I’ve ever seen in my life. I fell asleep, like, five times.”

Boring? I disagree. The film creeps along at a slow pace, but can you tell the story of an extremely sensitive, emotionally wrecked young man whose platonic relationship with a blow-up doll helps him get over the death of his mother and social anxieties at a fast pace? You could, but it probably would have to star Will Ferrell and be directed by Judd Apatow.

This film, starring Ryan Gosling and directed by newcomer Craig Gillespie, is an earnest, sincere, and often sappy tale of a small Midwest town transformed by one man’s real “relationship” with a fake person. It is hokey (the older, wiser women of the town sitting in a knitting circle wearing sweaters and offering casseroles and their undying support when Gosling’s character is depressed), and it is, at times, a tear-jerker (lots of close-ups of a misty-eyed, red-faced Gosling as he comes to terms with his inner self), but it’s also funny (Gosling getting into “arguments” with his doll).

The movie feels like an art-house film for the family: It’s quirky and character-driven, but it’s also, in the end, a feel-good flick about good people doing good things for each other. Boring? Maybe. Depends who you ask, or what mood you’re in when you see it. Cheesy? A little. Worth watching if you’re into small-budget films with mostly unknown actors forming friendships with a plastic woman purchased on the Internet? Yup.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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