Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant

In order to remedy this grave oversight, dear reader, “Chip” established Thursday evenings as our Mandatory Employee Film Night. Unfortunately, however, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have the distinct impression that our Mandatory Employee Film Night will last about as long as Yuri Andropov.

And, quite frankly, it’s all “Chip’s” fault. For “Chip” had the inscrutably bad instincts to choose Love, Actually as the first in this Crack Young Staff Film Series.

We know what you are thinking, dear reader: Love, Actually? What kind of slack-jawed, inbred chucklehead picks that wretched cinematic disaster? Apparently, the answer to that question is “Chip.”

Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are not in any way involved in the film industry. Except for Ted: He spent three weeks as a gaffer, before he learned what a gaffer was.

All the same, dear reader, we think we can assert without fear of reprisals that Love, Actually was one of the most unbearably dismal examples of the chick-flick romantic comedy genre. And that, one scarcely need mention, is among the most dismal of all filmic genres.

What, you may be asking yourself, makes Love, Actually, in the precious words of Mark Steyn, “Crap, Actually”? For starters, the producers of this pernicious film had the uproariously ill-judged idea that Hugh Grant would make a smashing Prime Minister of Britain.

Hugh Grant as Prime Minister? Oh, come on: Charles Kennedy would make a better Prime Minister, for crying out loud. And Mr. Kennedy, apparently, can’t stop drinking and sweating long enough to make a decent speech. The guy’s like Dean Martin and Richard Nixon all wrapped into a porky Conan O’Brien costume.

And this, dear reader, brings us ever so gently to the topic of today’s post: Hugh Grant. Mr. Grant, for those of you blessed enough to be unfamiliar with his oeuvre, is the United Kingdom’s answer to Kevin Costner. He’s a slightly less talented version of Adrian Zmed.

In short, he’s a floppy-haired twit who makes Ally Sheedy seem like Sir Laurence Olivier.

What precisely makes Mr. Grant rankle? Other than the fact that he shacked up with Elizabeth Hurley? It’s hard to pin down, actually.

For starters, though, we’d say that his sub-par acting should bother darn near anyone. Mr. Grant seems incapable of forcing more than two distinct emotions on his ineluctably nonplussed grill: “Slightly nervous English twit,” and “very nervous English twit.” This, naturally, makes a one-trick pony appear as if he can do at least two tricks.

Accordingly, this déclassé Limey Richard Gere stutters and twitches throughout a cavalcade of deleterious flicks. How many bad movies has this feculent dipstick made with women of the Sandra Bullock/Andie MacDowell ilk? Are they going for some kind of record?

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” would blithely announce that Hugh Grant is the most noxious actor in all of Hollywood if it weren’t for the two most offensive words in the English language.

We refer, of course, to Ben Affleck.

Well, and Tim Robbins. And Susan Sarandon. And Samuel L. Jackson. And Richard Dreyfus. And Tom Cruise.

Wow: Hollywood is sure chalk-a-block with twits isn’t it?