Nebulous Fabulosity

Once more, with feeling!

2010-11-03T00:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my re-vamped blog. Well, not so much re-vamped as, I messed around with fonts and coloring while I should have been working on Patron Saint, which I intend to submit to a festival here in Portland later this month.

Speaking of, that's why I'm attempting to re-energize this blog and make it something productive. I'll probably do some more movie reviews -- you know, because I have such a huge following and all that jazz -- and will also be using it to post excerpts of what I'm working on, partly to get some feedback, mainly just to overshare. It's what we all do on the net these days, right?

And, if any agent-type person or curious theatrical producer stumbles upon my goofy site, gets past the fact that I sat through all of "Glitter" and documented it, too, and is intrigued by what I post from my plays -- please contact me, or pass it on to someone who might be interested. I left New York at rather an inopportune time, career-wise, though I remain convinced that moving to Portland was the best decision in the long run.

Here's the opening monologue from the previously mentioned play, Patron Saint, that I've been working on for a few years now, taken an inappropriate hiatus from, and am now picking back up again. As per usual, it's a darkly comedic drama that will likely run 90 minutes without intermission, give or take. Two females and one male, all in their late teens. Some "strong language" because, well, if you're reading this, you've probably met me. Here's the tagline Joanne helped me come up with about two years ago, just before the first reading:

"1998. Outside Seattle. Grunge is dead. Disney is gay. The kids are armed."

Fall, 1998. SYDNEY, 16, sits cross-legged, smoking.

SYDNEY

They’re saying she’s a martyr. Which is so not fair. To the real ones, I mean. “Holy Warriors.” Saints. You have to be crucified, or burned at the stake, or buried alive, or—you get the idea. You have to know what you're getting into. Nobody would even know who this girl was if she’d stayed home sick that day. You can't be a martyr by accident.

The papers say the shooting started at ten o’clock, exactly. Everyone started screaming and running, looking for places to hide, doors to lock behind them. By 10:28, thirteen people were dead. One of the boys went into a classroom, and the girl was under a desk. He asked her if she was a Christian. She said yes.

I mean, that’s what everybody’s saying.

I just think that if I were Joan of Arc, I’d be so offended. Joan of Arc led an army in revolt on her summer vacation. This girl is completely boring except for getting shot in the face. I know that sounds super-harsh, but she was just like all the rest of the girls who have long straight hair and go to youth group and not much else. She’s boring. She listened to, like, Creed. That’s a fact. They found the CD in her car.

And I don’t think anybody should die for that stuff. At all. But the real martyrs should get some respect. They saw it coming. They could have changed their minds. They didn’t. And then they were the decorative lighting at Emperor Nero’s garden parties. You have to be special if you know that’s coming and you don’t change your mind. All this girl did was go to school and answer a question. Split second. Pain over. How can you be a martyr if you’re not even special?

The Bachelor: Old Tesatment Persia (pt. 1)

2008-04-27T19:23:00.000-07:00

The Book of Esther: because sometimes, you're tired of Netflix.

In verses 1 - 3 of chapter one, King Xerxes, ruler of Persia, is in charge of lots of things. He throws a house party.

In verse 4, he shows off by partying for 180 days! King Xerxes is like Oprah.

In verse 5, he gives week-long encore.

In verse 6-8, both the decor and refreshments are crunk.

In verse 9, Queen Vashti, wife of Xerxes, gives a party for the ladies. Her party only gets one verse and Xerxes' has had eight already. Vashti's party is significantly less crunk.

In verse 10, the king is "In high spirits from the wine." (Stupid drunk.)

In verse 11, the king commands seven royal eunuchs to "bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles." (Commands seven guys without penises to go get the queen and make her either belly dance or prance around naked in front of an assembly hall of drunk men who've been binge eating and banging concubines all week. It depends on the translation and interpretation and I may have googled this.)

In verse 12, Vashti has had it and is TELLING YOU SHE IS NOT GOING. Oh, no, no no way...

In verses 13 -15, Xerxes asks some other guys what he should to about his wife's insubordination. They tell him to smack his bitch up. Only not really. But kind of.

In verses 16 - 18, someone named Memucan says that Vashti has done the entire country a disservice. That's right. Ladies, you need to seriously think about who you're disservicing when you refuse to give in to your drunk husband's frat boy whims.

Memucan says Vashti needs to get hers, and publicly, or else there will "be no end of disrespect and discord," because ordering your wife to go all Girls Gone Wild in front of your party guests is respectful. I might not be on my way to making an I Heart Xerxes shirt.

In verses 19 - 20, the great plan is for Xerxes to divorce Vashti and either banish or behead her, depending on what you're reading. Xerxes makes people go to everybody's house, in the whole entire kingdom, and read this proclamation in whatever that house's first language is. He is going to kind of a lot of trouble to assert his masculinity. He is doing this because it is very important to LEARN THEM WOMENFOLK A LESSON.

Next time: the most dramatic rose ceremony ever and King Xerxes totally doesn't have syphilis!

"A Cinderella Story"

2008-04-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

I only saw this in the theatre because I was staying with Katt and we took her cousin. I swear.

Fairy-tale lettering for the title. Zoom in on a castle. Snow is falling. I bet this is a snow-globe. Yep. We see a small happy girl who looks nothing like Hilary Duff. Standard Cinderella beginning. Jennifer Coolidge is the Evil Stepmother. Yay, Jennifer Coolidge.

Non-Hilary's father is reading her a bedtime story. I've actually written, "Princes go to Princeton" in my notes. Don't worry. All will be revealed. Earthquake. Non-Hilary's father goes to, I don't know, stop the earthquake? Non-Hilary screams "No." He does anyway. Dies. Snow globe falls and shatters in slow motion.

Flash forward. Awesome Jennifer and her two daughters take over and force Not Hilary into the attic as some faux Goo Goo Dolls song plays. In my notes I've scribbled "Who's house looks like that?" But since this is a Hilary Duff movie, I'm not sure what kind of onslaught of realism I'd prepared myself for, or why.

Eight years later and Not Hilary has morphed into the familiar personage who simpers at us from every magazine cover these days. Awesome Jennifer has redecorated the house. Lots of flamingoes. Nicely done. Over an intercom, she barks at Hilary to get breakfast ready. Her daughters are in the pool doing some kind of synchronized swimming. Awesome says, "Droughts are for poor people." Heh. Hilary runs and we listen to the first of several of her dreadful songs featured on the soundtrack.

I should mention that her dad owned this restaurant and it was great and laid-back or something, but now it has been redecorated and re-named Fiona's (for that is the name of Awesome.) Hilary dejectedly cleans the dishes. This Token Person of Alternative Ethninticity is supposed to be her Fairy Godmother, and she instructs Hilary to go to school. She swings by to pick up her weird little friend, who inspired me to write METHOD ACTOR in my notes. Just like that, too.

I just saw a random Goth kid for, like, a minute. Anyway. The Popular Kids take Hilary's parking spot. Hilary's friend is now this weird mix of ghetto and Harry Potter. Chad Michael Murray gets out of the Popular Car in slow motion. A) Hell if I'm spelling out his entire name, every time. B) Can we declare a slow-motion day, sometime?

People are mean to Hilary because she works at a diner. At what high school are people that horrible to you because you work? I mean, maybe it's different in Los Angeles, but while I've seen a lot of ridiculous prejudices on the part of adolescents, having a job was never a cause for disdain from peers. That's what headgear is for.

A Star Wars freak is in love with Hilary. She gets a text message and we find out that shes been texting some guy for a while and they have a connection. She explains what LOL means and I wonder if I would actually be more miserable if I emptied my soft drink onto my head. Hilary and Mystery Guy go to computers and IM each other. And it's totally The Chad, by the way, so deal with my Amazing Plot Revelations. Oh, whiny baby wants to be a writer but his daddy won't let him. They met in a Princeton chatroom. Prince, Princeton. The Chad sends Hilary some quotes that cause her to have a literature-gasm, and they agree to meet at The Dance. There's always a Dance.

Awesome calls Hilary to tell her to pick up the dry cleaning and some salmon. We find out that The Chad's father has this life plan for him and blah blah blah. I liked The Chad better in "Freaky Friday" when he had long hair and the good sense to hit on Jamie Lee Curtis. Oh, man. Jamie Lee.

Awesome tells Hilary that she isn't very pretty or smart. In the context of the movie we're supposed to disagree. Rhodes Scholar wants to go to The Dance and Awesome has a problem with it. At the diner, Hilary is waiting on a table full of her snotty peers. We get the clip from the trailers about water being low-cal. Some kid says peeps. The Chad breaks up with his obnoxious girlfriend. Everyone leaves and The Chad kind of lingers behind and he and Hilary make googly eyes at each other.

She's not supposed to go to the dance because Awesome said not to, but then the Token Person of Alternative Ethninticity is all "You're going" and her weird little method actor friend is dressed as Zorro and I don't know. They try to go and find her a costume but they're all horrible. Then Token Person Of is all "Oh, put on this wedding dress that's just lying around". She does.

At The Dance, that sort of Goth kid from before--a girl with purple hair--is the emcee. Teenage Party Craziness. Break it down. The stepsisters--they must not have been very important in this movie if I didn't even bother to note what they've been doing so far--are dressed as Siamese Cats. The Chad is dressed as Prince Charming.

Hilary comes down the stairs in The Wedding Dress that Ate Orange County and everyone stares like the half-mask she's wearing so thoroughly hides the fact that it's Lizzie McGuire. That's some rack, there, Hilary. The Chad is wearing the Puffy Shirt from Seinfeld.

There's some dumb secondary plot business where Hilary's friend fends off some guys that are bothering The Chad's Obnoxious Ex and she decides to love him for two seconds. The Chad and Hilary go to this gazebo. They dance to music from this quartet that's practicing on the lawn. Okay. Then that one song by Edwin McLame starts playing, and I swear the chorus has something about love supersize or love suicide and I have seen pictures of the dude and he shouldn't be singing love songs because he's greasy. He and Meatloaf are the same person. I know that's mean. But google him.

Stupid banter. "Maybe you were looking but you weren't really seeing." The Chad goes to make out with Hilary or take off her mask or whatever, but then her pager goes off so she runs and gets her friend, who's been making out with the Obnoxious Girlfriend, and she has to get back to the diner, so they run away and Hilary leaves her cell phone in place of a glass slipper. K

Awesome Jennifer picks up her lame daughters, who's adventures I've once again neglected to document, and there's some thing where they see Hilary but then they don't see her, and she HAS to beat evil family back to the diner, so her friend drives 38 in a 35 zone or something and the movie is all "Oh, you animal." She somehow beats her family back to the diner but then this really large sign falls on her friend's car.

Then, at school, there are signs saying "Have you seen Cinderella?" all over the place. People walk past each other in slow motion. Again with the slow motion, I'm telling you guys, this could really take off. Maybe we could incorporate it into some kind of fundraiser?

Hilary hits her head on a locker. Her friend goes to the pool to tell Obnoxious Girlfriend who she made out with at the dance. She's horrified and tells him off and splashes him.The Chad's friends organize some sort of contest to figure out who the mystery girl is.

At Hilary's house, Awesome Jennifer takes the congratulations letter from Princeton that just arrived and replaces it with one saying that Hilary didn't get accepted. Hilary's stepsisters get her to leave her room. They mess around on her computer and figure out that she and The Chad have been talking to each other. Oh, and not that I mentioned it before but obviously Hilary now knows who her online dreamboat is but she's afraid he won't like her if he figures out who it is. Which he hasn't yet. Because he's stupid.

The Chad finds out that he also got accepted to Princeton. His dad isn't thrilled. The stepsisters go to the car wash where The Chad works and try to convince him that they are Cinderella. He doesn't buy it. The Chad comes into the diner and bonds with Hilary until Awesome Jen interrupts. The Chad, instead of saying he needs to leave, says he has to bounce. How NorCal of him.

The stepsisters go to the cheerleaders and reveal the identity of Cinderella. Apparently everyone calls Hilary "Diner Girl", the innovation of which just about knocks me on my ass. There's some pep rally where they make fun of Hilary and the Evil Girlfriend seems really upset and confused that The Chad doesn't want her back after this. Hilary runs home and Awesome Jen gives her the fake rejection letter and offers her a cookie. I love Jennifer Coolidge.

Hilary runs upstairs and goes through her keepsake box. She finds the fairy tale book her father used to read to her, and throws it aside and cries. Then there's this montage of both Hilary and The Chad walking around looking mopey. At the diner, something falls off the wall and Hilary gets inspired and says NO to Awesome Jen, and then quits, inspiring everyone else to quit as well and all the customers to leave. Hilary moves in with her Token friend but is still mopey over the lost love of The Chad.

Cut to The Big Game. Hilary marches into the boys' locker room and tells The Chad what's business. Her little method Harry Potter friend looks absolutely adorable and very nicely tries to comfort her. The Chads' father tells him not to screw up The Big Game. Slow motion football sequences. Then it's raining and it's down to the last goal or kick or whatever and everyone is staring at The Chad and then he sees Hilary stand up to leave, and then he chases her through the bleachers and someone in the theatre actually applauds.

Then everyone goes crazy like in the final third of "Titanic." I don't know, it's that specific kind of crazy, which is weird since to my knowledge none of these people are about to drown. Whatever.

Then, Hilary is packing up all of her stuff and finds a will inside of her fairy tale book. then She finds out she got into Princeton after all and then takes back the diner and puts Token in charge of it.

"Believe," says someone, but I don't bother to note who. The Harry Potter friend ends up dating the Goth/punk girl and in the end, The Chad and Hilary go off to Princeton together as some other Hilary song plays over the end credits. Death.

"Swimfan" : Happy Birthday, Carey!

2008-04-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

So I come in late. We haven't missed much. Erika Christensen is the new girl in school, getting swimming big shot Jesse Bradford to open her locker. She lends him one of her hairpins and tells him to keep it because he never knows when he might need it.

Sparkling dialogue:
"What's the letter for, Ben Cronin?"
"Swimming, Madison Bell."
"Are you good?"
"Pretty good."

Yeah. So he leaves and she stares after him freakishly. He goes to the hospital where he works and talks to some old man I don't care about, then visits his boring girlfriend at the restaurant where she's a waitress. Boring Girlfriend starts making out with Jesse Bradford and talking about not going to the college she'd originally planned on, so that they can move in together when he gets onto some swim team or another. Jesse Bradford looks pained.

The next day, in the locker room, all the guys are talking about Erika Christensen, who I'm going to call Glenn Close Lite because this movie is supposed to be "Fatal Attraction" for teenagers, because movie executives believe that teenagers are so stupid that they need dumbed-down versions of things in order to understand and enjoy them. Kind of like how "Dangerous Liaisons" was beyond my grasp when I was sixteen. Except not. And except that I kind of like "Cruel Intentions. "

One of the more annoying lines from the preview--something about hearing that southern accent when she's moaning the name of (Insert Random Asshole) is featured here, and it's kind of awesome because she doesn't have an accent. Even slightly. In any part of the film. Jesse Bradford talks about how her family is in Europe, or something, and she's staying with her grandmother and cousin, that "lame Christopher Dante." The guys jump into the water (shirtlessly) and it's all homoerotic and all the lighting in this movie, just so you know, is blue. Blue pool, blue locker room, blue hallways. It's like they're trying to get something across to us. Couldn't tell you what.

Jesse Bradford drives home from school blaring a Rocking Song and almost runs Glenn Close Lite over because he's busy leering at a girl who reminds him of her. I will say that Erika Christensen is working a nifty beige trench coat here. He insists on giving her a ride home and they stare at each other as he drops her off at her big generically creepy mansion. More sparkling dialogue:

"How's that for service?"
"You're a handy guy to have around, Ben Cronin."
"Yeah. Handy all over the place."

So then Jesse Bradford goes to his house and realizes that Glenn Close Lite left this notebook from Claire's or something, in his car, so he takes it inside, and looks at it, and sees that it's filled with sheet music--because people actually compose music in Claire's notebooks--and hears the music in his head and sees that his initials are written in there. I think it's supposed to be freaky but he just looks like he wants to have sex.

Jesse Bradford calls Glenn Close Lite to tell her he's coming over to give back her lame notebook from Claire's. He changes his clothes and goes over there and Lame Christopher Dante comes to the door and mutters "You don't have to be nice to me" and Glenn Close Lite's disembodied voice says "Christopher, why didn't you tell me I had a visitor?"

And there's just something about her dress, and her hair, and her facial expression that reminds me of that little girl in "The Bad Seed," which would be effective because, you know, psycho killers, except that was a good movie and this isn't. Erika Christensen is doing the Catherine O'Hara's "Less is More" acting, and there are bizarre camera angles, and then she says "I guess I haven't eaten all day," and it's subtle.

He takes her out to eat and she asks him why a nice boy like him knows how to break into strange girls' lockers. He tells her about how he used to partake of drugs, and stealing! Oh man. He says that six months at juvy turned him into a champion swimmer and she looks at him with Eyes of Crazy as he talks about how he escapes his body when he swims. The Eyes of Crazy widen as Glenn Close Lite says--direct quote--

"Yeah, when I play music sometimesI just float up above my body--up above the music where no one can touch me--hurt me--I just--can escape."

Jesse Bradford asks Glenn Close Lite if she wants to escape--um, duh--and she replies "Sometimes, but not right now." He tells her that he has a girlfriend, and that it's serious. So serious that he's going on pseudo-dates? Glenn Close Lite tells him that it's alright, she has a great guy back in New York. Jesse Bradford tells her that he should take her home, and she replies that she probably should, but she's not ready to say good night. He asks what she wants to do and she smiles at him stalkerishly and apparently she wants to watch him swim, because we cut to the Blue Pool where she leers at him, then joins him in the water in this red bra that apparently she was sporting under her white dress, like it wouldn't have been visible from outer space. We're treated to this whole scene that is sexually charged (in theory). Glenn Close Lite tells him that she can't swim and he tows her around the pool by her arms. It might be awesome if she were wearing water wings, but she isn't.

There's some new age-y music that's playing, and Glenn Close Lite pushes Jesse Bradford up against the side of the pool and says "It's okay, I want you to," and so they start going at it and Glenn Close Lite is all "Tell me you love me" and Jesse Bradford is all "What?" and she tells him that he doesn't have to mean it, he just has to say it.

After that happens--and can I just say that's gross, especially if the maintenance staff at that particular pool has the same attitude that I did when I worked at the Y, like, we were supposed to put certain stuff in the pool every hour or so to balance out all the kids who thought we didn't know they were frequently taking a whiz except that I was just really into reading "In Style" and sometimes I just forgot, okay? Uh. So Jesse Bradford drops Glenn Close Lite off and he says "So" and she says "So" and I tell the furniture in my room that I've sneezed more compelling material.

She asks him not to tell anyone about this, asks if they're "still friends," climbs up the steps and stares after him with her Eyes of Crazy. Jesse Bradford's phone rings and he answers it to hear his boring girlfriend say "You are so busted!" Turns out she thought he was going to swing by the restaurant, and he lies about having visited one of his friends. She says, "I left you something," (giggle) "It's in your locker," (giggle) "I hope you like it, I love you, bye," (giggle) and I kind of want her to die, and also, I once dropped out of a play largely because another character referred to mine as "Miss Giggle-Giggle." I hate that word. It's right up there with "panty."

The next day Jesse Bradford finds a mushy card in his locker and some flowers stuck in the handle, assuming that both of them are from Boring Girlfriend. Then he finds his Boring Girlfriend, who sees the flowers and screeches "Are those for me?!" Kill her. At swim practice, Jesse Bradford has flashbacks to yesterday, when he had sex, and his coach yells at him for losing his game.

Insert Party Scene. Boring Girlfriend drags Jesse Bradford into a room, screeching "Meet Madison!" and Glenn Close Lite's Eyes of Crazy bulge as she arranges her face into a smile and says that "Amy just can't stop talking about her perfect boyfriend. Even when I beg her to stop!" And maybe it's just the movie lulling me into a stupor, but I'm starting to like Erika Christensen's "Manic" face. It's funny. Then Glenn Close Lite follows Jesse Bradford into the bathroom. It's a blue bathroom. Just so you know. He splashes water on her face his face and she writhes against the door and says "Is it hot in here, or is it just me?" I swear I didn't make that up. Then there's this fake tension where she tells Jesse Bradford that she thinks she left her panties in the car, except that Boring Girlfriend is on her way to the car, and whatever. I don't know. Jesse Bradford stares at the panties for a while.

Then Jesse Bradford is at his computer. "Swimfan85" pops up. That is some archaic instant messaging, there. Her messages become threatening, sort of. In the blue hallway of his blue high school, Jesse Bradford hides from her, but then he stares at her, and she catches him, and he's not exactly stealth. Jesse Bradford proceeds to swim really badly. Then he goes to his house and Glenn Close Lite is standing in the living room with his mother, who she brought flowers to, happily bubbling about how it's so great to finally meet his mom.

Pregnant pause, and then Jesse Bradford delivers my favorite line of the entire movie:

"I think you're misunderstanding our relationship in a very fundamental way."

She tells him that they're friends, and friends see each other and are happy when other friends stop by with flowers. He says she's coming on too strong, and she fires back that he didn't think she was coming on too strong in the pool. Oh, snap.

He tells her that it was all a mistake, and then it gets awesome because her eyes go blank and there's this music that is trying to be creepy, and then she gets belligerent, and then there's more dead-eyed staring, and then she's at her house laying on a couch and looking crazy, and Jesse Bradford notices some of his keys are missing but doesn't do anything about it.

At school., Jesse Bradford checks his e-mail and has a bunch of naked pictures from "Swimfan85." Rock. Boring Girlfriend runs up and surprises him and he has trouble turning off the computer. Intense swimming montage. (?)

Glenn Close Lite comes to swim practice and struts around in a pleather skirt and Lucite heels. She makes out with some guy and stares at Jesse Bradford freakishly. Boring Girlfriend tells Jesse Bradford that he's afraid of the future.

Glenn Close Lite corners Jesse Bradford. She tells him not to be jealous, because she pretends her boyfriend is Jesse Bradford! He bellows that he's trying to drop her, and Glenn Close Lite calmly states that he doesn't mean that. She gets another psycho expression and there's weird stabbing music and more strange camera angles even though all that's happening are shots of her face.

Jesse Bradford goes to the hospital. We're treated to an ominous shot of some pills on a tray. He's mean to the old man from before. He sluggishly walks down the hall, and then gets in trouble because someone switched the old man's pills and he's getting blamed. He can't work at the hospital anymore, so he runs up the stairs as angry rock music plays. He finds Glenn Close Lite in the school library, grabs her face, and starts yelling at her. Libraries are good places to yell at stalkers. I always thought so. Jesse Bradford leaves as Glenn Close Lite stares after him and rubs her neck. Blue.

Jesse Bradford goes to Boring Girlfriends' work and tells her that they need to talk. They plan to skip first period the next day and go for a drive. Glenn Close Lite watches all of this sullenly. The next day at school--in the blue hallway--Boring Girlfriend runs up to Jesse Bradford and slaps him. He chases her out the front doors of the school. Really lame music. Jesse Bradford sits on a bench and nastily eats an apple. That's the only way I can think of to describe it. Both Glenn Close Lite and Lame Christopher Dante watch this, she from a window, he from the next table. Jesse Bradford is really angry at that apple!

Cut to Jesse Bradford peeing in a cup. Okay. Cut to a swim meet. Jesse Bradford's mom is there. This movie has a lot of establishing shots of people no one cares about. Glenn Close Lite is also at the swim meet, with her Eyes of Crazy. Then Jesse Bradford gets disqualified because of the traces of whatever in his urine that of course weren't actually there but Glenn Close Lite is stealth, even if she isn't subtle. Jesse Bradford starts trying to get up in other people's grills for no reason.

At home, Jesse Bradford's mom accuses him of Drugs and says he needs to figure out how to get his life back. He decides the first step is to go find his Boring Former Girlfriend at her dinner. It's time for my second favorite line of the movie -- "It's all Madison's fault!" And I can't believe I'm bothering to defend any part of this mess, but if you don't want to deal with what crazy girls are going to do to you after you have sex with them in pools, don't go around having sex with crazy girls in pools to begin with.

Boring Girlfriend tells Jesse Bradford that he should go. Cut to Glenn Close Lite making out with her boyfriend in a car. His car? Some car. She has to screech "BEN" a few times before he pushes her away and looks disgusted. Nice acting here. Good old "Smell the Fart" method. He gets out of the car and storms off. Glenn Close Lite flings herself halfway out the car window, caterwauling.

"JOSH. GET BACK HERE. COME HERE. JOSH. BEN."

Awesome.

Cut to Jesse Bradford cleaning out his locker. Cut to an ominous shot of a baseball bat. Cut to Jesse Bradford licking his goggles. This fucking movie. Jesse Bradford goes for a dip and runs into the bloody body of the guy who Glenn Close Lite was making out with and yelling with and apparently pretending he was a Nerf ball. Dude. What if there was a movie where people got killed with Nerf bats? Wouldn't that just be the most? I don't know if sustaining head injuries could be the cause of death. Maybe they'd have to be suffocated. I can work on it.

At the funeral, Glenn Close Lite is lurking in the background and dressed like she's in a community production of "Steel Magnolias," like with a hat with an actual veil. She's a little bit strange.

Then there's this intercutting back and forth so we can see what's going on with Jesse Bradford and Glenn Close Lite. Jesse Bradford gets interrogated by the cops. Glenn Close Lite is still working those Eyes of Crazy. Jesse Bradford gets told not to leave town. Glenn Close Lite sits in a parlor, or some crap, playing the cello for some old ladies. Jesse Bradford puts on a leather jacket and breaks into her house. He sorts through her closet and finds medication that presumably she does not take. We keep cutting back to her playing the cello. Her and her bug eyes. Finally, Jesse Bradford finds the Ben Box. It contains his goggles, pictures of him that she's photo shopped herself into, newspaper articles. Downstairs, Glenn Close Lite's eyes bug out farther--which I didn't think possible--like she knows he's in the house. Her cousin--Lame Christopher Dante, remember--appears in the door and politely inquires about Jesse Bradford's breaking and entering.

"If she found you in here, she'd kill you."

"No kidding."

Jesse Bradford hides on the balcony--oh, come on--while Glenn Close Lite comes upstairs and bitches out her cousin for no reason. Jesse Bradford goes to his car and chills in front of the house looking at a box he stole, containing artifacts of Glenn Close Lite's former boyfriend, one "Jake Donnelley." Lame Christopher Dante appears in the window and makes Jesse Bradford drive to what is supposed to be New York but is not New York. Jesse Bradford goes into some hospital-esque living area to find a comatose Jake Donnelly.

Cut to Boring Girlfriend riding her bike as Glenn Close Lite follows inJesse Bradford's car. I guess they took Lame Christopher Dante's ride to New York. Okay. Back at the hospital-esque living area, Jesse Bradford replays Glenn Close Lite saying "Don't worry about me, I've got someone waiting for me in New York." Some woman comes in and mutters "Why you kids don't wear your seatbelts, I don't know. His girlfriend did. Walked away without a scratch."

Glenn Close Lite runs Boring Girlfriend over, and Jesse Bradford talks to his mother on the phone. The police think he did it! Glenn Close Lite is coming! Jesse Bradford looks around the room angrily and grabs the jacket of Comatose Jake Donnelly.

Cut to: interior generic hospital, night. Glenn Close Lite, having obtained a white doctor's coat, walks around glowering. Like no one else notices there's a sullen teenager without authorization wandering around, brandishing a scalpel for any fool to see. The elevator breaks and makes strange noises. Glenn Close Lite stands in the hallway staring at it. A voice comes over the intercom saying "Paging Jake Donnelly." The Eyes of Crazy bulge. Glenn Close Lite catches sight of someone wearing Coma Boy's jacket and chases him to a parking garage or something. It turns out to be Lame Christopher Dante, who she tries to stab with the scalpel that she was in no way trying to hide. Jesse Bradford appears and tries to take the scalpel away.

"Don't be mad! I did it for us!"

Jesse Bradford acts like he's going to stab her, but she tells him he doesn't have the balls.

Lame Christopher Dante appears with a video camera. The police enter the scene and take her away. The car pauses at a rail road track, where she manages to get out of her handcuffs and stare at the officers with her crazy buggy eyes. One of the officers becomes disconcerted and spills his drink. So for anyone who isn't sure, the implication is that this dim bulb is capable of hijacking a police car.

Boring Girlfriend is staying at Jesse Bradford's house, becausethat makes sense. They make googly eyes at each other and he says a lot of mushy stupid crap to her and she doesn't seem mad about the banging crazy girls in swimming pools, at all. Probably just her meds.

Doorbell. No one there! Jesse Bradford stares out the front door at the empty police car parked across the street, and ponders the scene dumbly before getting clubbed on the back of the head. When he wakes up, he finds his mother unconscious in the kitchen. Boring Girlfriend is gone, so instead of seeing what he can do for his mother, he gets into his truck and drives around crazily. He gets a text from Glenn Close Lite reading "Feel like a dip?" Because she's an idiot. So he goes to the pool to find Glenn Close Lite, who has tied Boring Girlfriend to a chair and is threatening to dump her in the pool. She sees Jesse Bradford enter and bellows "She doesn't love you like I do!"

And it's not Bad Movie Heaven, like any of the dream sequences in "Grease 2," but for a few minutes it's close, as Glenn Close Lite pushes Boring Girlfriend into the pool. Jesse Bradford dives in to save her and Glenn Close Lite picks up a pool cleaner and starts hitting the water with it, trying to clock Jesse Bradford whenever he comes up for air. Tension, tension

What could Jesse Bradford have in his pocket? Could it be the hairpin from the beginning of the movie? It is! He never washes his pants, ever! Jesse Bradford uses the hairpin to set Boring Girlfriend free. Glenn Close Lite falls in the pool and starts splashing around. Jesse Bradford revives Boring Girlfriend as Glenn Close Lite drowns, and I think we're supposed to feel empathy for someone here, but since the only person I'm feeling sorry for at this point is myself, so somehow I probably escaped being in the target demographic for this movie.

Epilogue. Swim meet. Jesse Bradford watches. Jesse Bradford walks, ponderously. Jesse Bradford gets in his car. Boring Girlfriend is there, I suppose having had nothing better to do. Jesse Bradford kisses her hand. The end.

"Down to You"

2008-04-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

We open with Freddie Prinze Jr. in a coffee shop, leering at a nearby couple and speaking directly into a camera. Fred reminisces about Cool Drive. I don't know. Yuck. It's a flashback movie. Cut to Freddie and his friends talking about how one of them, who looks like Ben Affleck only even more ghetto, is in a porno. No, Hothouse is not a euphemism for sex. I say so. They bet some guy he can bone this freshman girl. It turns out to be Julia Stiles. Fred goes to talk to her and they bond over Pasty Cline, Billie Holliday, and Joni Mitchell.

Julia says Friction. She's thinking about sex, you can tell. Freddie makes fun of her name. They are white dancers. Some guy--crap, it's Kutcher--gives her a shot. Ashton is wearing some weird outfit. Hes supposed to look like Jim Morrison. "From the Doors," supplies a character helpfully. As opposed to Jim Morrison from The Carpenters. I love that duet he did with John Lennon from The Beegees.

Freddie tells Julia that his father runs a cooking show. Freddie wants to be a chef, apparently. Julia's Lack of Acting Abilities invite Freddie to come over and listen to music. She hugs him and leaves.

Then, Selma Blair--yes! Secret Society all the way--comes in and hits on Freddie, because the plot requires her too. She's a porn star named Cyrus. Then she sits down with Jim Morrison. You know, of the music group Wham! Freddie walks around later, holding a porn video. He tries to hide it as Julia comes running up to him, mounts him, and says, "You're the cutest one in New York." Then, we see her talking to the camera. She says she got an Incredible Rush when she hugged him. As did I. It was my dinner, resurfacing. She wanted to be free, she says, but had to throw away all the rules. What?

City, daylight. Freddie and Ghetto Affleck walk in the park, see old people making out, and decide they don't need love. Heh. Freddie goes to see Julia. She has a single room. Jazz hands for the single rooms! She has a lot of cake in her room. And no, that's not a euphemism for anything. "Cake is my world, she says." Freddie admires Julia's art. Naturally, she wants to be an artist, but they discover that originally they both wanted to be singer-songwriters. Like everyone else in the world. Get in line. Now, she just paints herself into album covers.

"So can I psychoanalyze you?" she asks, completely out of nowhere. Right, this is just like college. Also, her room is a penthouse. Freddie talks about food and gets all intense. Then there's this sequence where they have flashbacks to childhood only, like, they're suddenly in each other's flashbacks. Don't call her Doctor.

They have Indian food and voice over action tells us that they loved it. "His passion for food was adorable," says Julia. AAAACK horrible teeth. I wonder what on earth she's doing with her massive paychecks that there's nothing left over for even a retainer. I have bad teeth, but I also have a lot of student loans.

They have their first kiss. She says: "That kiss belongs in a box so I can show my grandkids someday." They make out. He goes into the bathroom and sniffs her shampoo. This actually comes into play later.

Julia goes to his house and they very logically decide that if youve been together for two and a half weeks, you need a song. Then, they're in the rec room at the campus. Julia macks on Freddie and lip syncs to some random soul song. Everyone stares and Freddie is embarrassed. Only after Julia's been White-Girl-Shuffling for a good three and a half minutes, does she notice that everyone is watching. Voice Over tells us that maybe Freddie just needed to loosen up.

Julia paints Freddie dressed as a pirate, which disturbs me, not that I know why. Then she's in the audience of his father's cooking show. His dad is all obsessed with this eggplant. He makes Freddie grope the eggplant.

On his birthday, Freddie goes to an art gallery and finds a note with a bunch of lame instructions. When the lights come on, Freddie sees Julia in front of him and gets very excited about her Bohemian Grandma outfit. I don't know, maybe it's a fetish. Ew! I just grossed myself out. She shows him a bunch of pictures and bares her soul. She talks about art and how it makes her feel alive. In my movies, people will only conceal their souls and talk about how art makes them feel dead.

Freddie, for what it's worth, stares at Julia's neck and says it makes him feel alive. I just threw up in my mouth. What's awesome is that while I was watching this with Simone, she was cutting material to make a sort of death shroud for a character in the play that was being performed at our undergrad (...I wrote it...) and she looked at the screen and pointed excitedly at Julia's outfit and said "That's what the death shroud needs to look like!"

Freddie says it's the best birthday that hes ever had. Freddie is on drugs. Then theyre upstairs...on...the roof...dancing to music in their heads. Then Freddie says, "I'm falling in love with you," even worse than Luke Wilson or, like, Nic Cage could say it. " I love you" is the cue to go have sex.

And. The dialogue. Because.

Fred: What about foreplay?
Julia: We've had foreplay for three months. Relax.
Fred: Oh, oh, oh, WOW... It will never be that fast again, I promise.

Then there's voice over talking about how Freddie more than made up for it later. Freddie talks about how when she wanted It, yes, It, in the morning, she'd do the cutest thing. Which, rather than balancing a sausage on the end of her nose, turns out to be just scratching his stomach. Right, adorable. And they don't kiss in the morning, because morning breath is a killer. And toothpaste is off limits until noon. Idiots.

Then we find out that she's going to France over the summer, but he seems to think they'll be able to handle a three-month separation just fine. They hang out with Ghetto Affleck, who says that love is a hoax, provoked by chemical reactions. Freddie waxes retarded about his grand ideas on love, and Ghetto Affleck says, " Prove this love. You speak of it's power, you must show us." They're sitting around having drinks and sushi. In the background, some chick is sitting there with her mouth just hanging open, but she has no lines. Awesome.

Ghetto Affleck makes Freddie drink two liquids and decide which one represents love and which one represents illusion. One is good and the other is bitter, so Freddie chooses the one that tastes good and Ghetto Affleck says he lost. Why do I think he'd have said that no matter which one Freddie picked? And also, why does he get to make the rules? Anyway, because Freddie lost the bet, he has to be an extra in Ghetto Affleck's next porno.

Julia and Fred fight about something and act stupid. Freddie is at the movie shoot, but then this song starts playing and he runs down the street while tearing off his clothes, climbs into Julia's window, and starts humping her. She doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

Then, Freddie is back in the caf, giving it to us straight. He has to run some errands, so he throws a paper airplane, which in an awesome (not) shot, turns into Julia's plane, landing. He welcomes her back into the apartment. The non-porno roommate is working out, and has a mullet. (!) Julia and Freddie eat the Cake of Symbolism, and then start a stupid argument about kissing with their eyes open.

Cut to Julia talking directly to the camera in her office or something. She tells us how she freaks out about being married. In a flashback, she smokes weed with her roommate. No reason.

Cut to Freddie's father telling him that they need to do a father-son cooking show, "Cooks," like "Cops," where they storm people's houses and make them dinner. Theres actually footage showing this, and I have to say it's kind of hilarious, especially the guy in black running around yelling "Bread! Bread! Bread!"

Freddie is in his apartment watching Secret Society in a porno. His roommate is doing some kind of karate. None of this has any point. Freddie takes everyone out to the country for a picnic. Secret Society hits on him. They get drunk, climb into Freddie's car, and crash it.

Freddie walks around with Ghetto Affleck and talks about how great it's going with Julia. He starts talking about the tingles. I dont want to hear about your tingles, Freddie. He and Julia go to bed. She's too tired to have sex and is annoyed that people outside the window are being loud. Freddie turns on the television and hallucinates that he, Julia, and Secret Society are on one of those Mexican soap operas. Freddie hallucinates that Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel are making fun of him. He doesnt feel particularly masculine. I wonder why.

Julia, in turn, hallucinates that she and Freddie have a baby and she has to walk around with it and take care of it while Freddie wears a pom-pom hat and plays checkers.

The next morning, Freddie finds Julia crouched in the bathtub, as you do. She has a pregnancy scare, then turns out not to be pregnant. They go to some party with porn stars as that Vitamin C song plays. In my notes I've written, "Nipple piercing exclamation point." It's more meaningful that way. Some stupid crap happens. Jim Morrison of Wilson Phillips makes another appearance. Secret Society sluttily tells Freddie to make her pancakes. What? Freddie and Julia get in a pointless fight and call each other some names. She storms out and Freddie punches this stuffed gorilla that his roommate has been making out with. The next day they break up because Julia had random sex with Asston Kutcher.

Then Freddie has a frying pan. He talks about how Julia moved away to San Francisco. His porn friend won't give him any advice, so he drinks Julia's shampoo. Okay, so maybe a few things happen in between, but they aren't important. Like, we learn that Freddie has named a spider named Owen and then the camera lingers on Freddies crotch for no reason, but that's pretty much it. And he's depressed, so he drinks Julia's shampoo.

He almost dies and wakes up in the hospital, so his family has this welcome home party for him. Is it just me or would that be a little overwhelming for someone who just tried to commit suicide? It's stupid and his porn friend says many stupid things and then suddenly, like magic--lame ass magic from the ninety-nine cent store--Julia is there. They go for a walk and I love that she came back to him because she heard he tried to kill himself by drinking her hair care products. Paranoid android that I am, I'd probably run screaming in the opposite direction, but that could be why I'm barren and unmarried at the ripe old age of 23. Point Loma Naz U, you've failed. Failed!

She tells him that he's her vice, which is so thoroughly awesome and healthy and what not. And then she gives him a book. Which has the fucking picture from the cover of this movie on it. And then she scratches his stomach and I take one of Simone's needles and gouge my eyes out. In the end, they move in together in S.F. and dance around to Al Green music looking as white as they possibly can.

"Titanic"

2008-04-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

Opening. Sepia-toned footage of people on a boat, waving. Water. Foreshadowing?

Now there are some guys in a submarine, namely Bill Paxton. He's is on a mission to steal things from the most famous underwater mass grave of all time. Bill Paxton is so random in this movie. He says all his lines like that guy who sings the "Lullaby" song. We never see him breathe. He must wait until the camera isn't on him. Maybe it's his way of being method.

Bill Paxton describes their mission in a monotone wheeze. One of his sidekicks might be Michael Moore.

They're looking for a certain piece of jewelry, but instead they find naked pictures of Kate Winslet. No one is excited. Bill Paxton goes to his room and sulks. After careful consideration, he decides that naked pictures are a terrible thing to waste, even if they really look nothing whatsoever like Kate Winslet. He notices that the girl in the picture is wearing the very piece of cheap costume jewelry he's been coveting. He talks about it on the news, where he informs the viewing public that "The Titanic is the Mount Everest of shipwrecks."

Cut to a living room, where Gloria Stuart is sculpting something and watching TV. She's over one hundred years old, but doesn't really look it. On the television screen, we see Bill Paxton talking about how stealing things from places where lots of people died isn't disrespectful in the slightest. He flashes the picture and tells America that it would be a shame old waterlogged naked pictures remained under water for all eternity. Gloria Stuart mutters a profanity. Me, too.

Old Rose—I'm assuming everyone has seen this movie and knows exactly who is who and why they're doing what they're doing and is only reading this to see if I can work some of my trademark random references to eighties pop culture in—and her granddaughter arrive on the boat. Old Rose has brought her goldfish. Bill Paxton makes sex eyes at the Old Rose's granddaughter, who I think is named Susie.He goes to see how Old Rose is doing and says "CanIgetyouanythingisthereanythingyoulike?" Not only does he not ever inhale, he just doesn't pause.

Is Old Rose "Ready to go Back to Titanic?" Why, yes. Yes, she is.

"Titanic was called the ship of dreams...and it was. It really was."

Flashback to 1914. We pan past all the many, many peasants on their way to death. Oh, there's poor little doomed Cora. Hi, Cora. Cut to obnoxious rich people getting out of their car. Kate Winslet, wearing an enormous hat, gets out first. From the picture that looks nothing like her, we know that this is Rose at age seventeen. Kate Winslet is so cool, you guys...just maybe not in this movie.

Rose sniffs. She says the Titanic doesn't look that much bigger than the Mauritania. Someone needs an attitude adjustment. Maybe she'll get one. Maybe that retarded kid from "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" is the one to give it to her.

Role call! Sullen Rose! Billy Zane of the Platypus Lips! Frances Fisher of...I don't know, really. She's the mother of some of Eastwood's kids. I don't really have a problem with her. Scary Platypus Man pouts at Rose and says, "God himSELF could not SINK this SHIP." We can tell he has a stick up his ass. Man, if only that kid from "Gilbert Grape" were here to straighten things out.

Cut to a pub. Yes! It's him! It's really him! Burger Barn all the way! Leo and his friend who I'm just going to call Febreeze because it doesn't sound any stupider than his completely stupid "Italian" name that James Cameron assigned him, win tickets for the maiden voyage of R.M.S. Titanic. "I'm going home!" screams Leo. Are you ever.

On board, we apparently need subtitles to tell us that a Swedish guy asks Leo "Where's Sven?" Kate Winslet stares blankly at several Picassos and says they're "Like being in a dream or something." Or something, indeed.

The last major character to enter is Molly Brown. Rose's mom calls her "new money." History calls her "unsinkable." It's Kathy Bates. She is pretty awesome.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto stand on the front of the boat, orgasm over the existence of dolphins, and declare themselves Kings of the World. Meanwhile, the rich people are having lunch. One of them is Victor Garber. Go, Spy Daddy! Kate Winslet lights up a smoke and gets bent out of shape when Scary Platypus Man yanks it out of her mouth.

Some guy talks about how great it is that the Titanic is so large. Rose makes a penis envy comment. She gets upset and goes outside. She multi tasks by sulking and at the same time making sex eyes at Leo, who looks like he's twelve.

At dinner that night, Rose sits there being all mopey and not fun, before rocketing out of her seat and running to the back of the boat. Yeah, we get some blah blah voice over about how people are controlling her life, but she's done nothing so far except whine and wear clashing colors, so I'm not offering up a lot of sympathy.

Kate Winslet's tatoo on her back is completely visible. She climbs over the railing very carefully. When you're about to commit suicide, you want to make sure you don't fall or anything. Leo appears so that they can flirt. That's a really good idea, hitting on people who are seriously considering ending their own lives. Maybe after I'm done writing this I'll go see if any hot guys are feeling overcome by that sense of desperation, out at the Coronado Bridge.

Leo tells Kate that "really cold water—like right down there" isn't going to feel very good. He says it like a pre-school teacher, which is kind of awesome. He talks her out of jumping, so naturally she nearly falls in. He saves her. People hear her scream and come running. They think he's a sexual predator. Rose clears his name and he gets invited to dinner with them. How is that a reward?

Oh, and Scary Platypus Man says "Rose is displeased...what to dooo?" It's the single oddest pronunciation I've ever heard. .

Later, Scary Platypus Man goes to Rose's room and propositions her with the crappy costume jewelry that he got at a kiosk in the Kings Mall. Rose, to her credit, looks like she's about to puke. I don't blame her. It's hideous. He's dressed like a hick for no reason. Kate Winslet stares blankly. That happens a lot, in case anyone wasn't sure.

The next day, Rose goes to find Jack so that she can thank him for not telling everyone she's a basket case. One or two bonus points for her sudden use of the word "inertia."

Cut to Rose's mother and her friends having tea and talking about how the purpose of "university" is to find a husband. Whoa. And this would have taken place a while before Point Loma Nazarene University (my alma mater) even existed!

Kate and Leo look into each other's eyes. The music swells. They watch the sun set, talk about puking, and proceed to hock loogies. Young love.

Kathy Bates helps Sk8ter Boi dress for dinner. "You shine up like a new penny," she tells him.

At dinner that night, Kate Winslet wears an awesome dress. Leo's passing himself off as a gentleman easily enough, but Rose's mother tells everyone that he's just a poor boy, from a poor family, but is unwilling to spare him his life and his monstrosity. He enchants everyone by blathering with his mouth full. See, even though he's in fancy clothes, he's still Leo from the Block.

And just how slick is he? I'll tell you. When he's leaving he slips her this note that says, "Make it count," telling her to meet him by the clock. Because that's how things are done in the seventh grade, after all. He takes Kate downstairs to the raging kegger, already in progress. Those steerage parties are legend. It's like "Riverdance" with beer.

Leo dances with Poor Doomed Cora, as Kate sits there nursing a beer and looking like a total dweeb. Actually, she looks like me, my first night in London, but we won't go there. Some drunk guy spills beer on her, but she just laughs it off. She's having the time of her life. "Riverdance" is the new "Dirty Dancing." Leo dances with her and tells her to "Go with it. Don't think."

Rose busts out and impromptu jig. I love those. I think my audiences do, too. Kate and Leo spin around, accompanied by "Moulin Rouge" style camera work. She breaks up an arm wrestling match to drink another beer. She's had kind of a lot for a supposed lightweight, hasn't she? I guess her big hangover scene was deleted from the final cut. Probably the only thing that was deleted. Three hours, James Cameron. Kate stands on her toes. People who aren't me pretend to care. The henchman of Scary Platypus Man spies on her.

The next morning, she gets yelled at by Scary Platypus Man, and then her mother. Her mom even cries about having to possibly become a seamstress. Oh, god! Not a seamstress!

Leo tries to get into church to see Kate. It doesn't work. Zoom in on Kate as she sings the words "For those in peril on the SEA."

See what they just did there?

Kate's party gets a tour of the boat. She pulls her demure little Nail File of Foreshadowing out of her handbag and yawns that there don't seem to be enough lifeboats. Everyone else is all "Sure, but who needs them?" Leo pulls her aside and with that, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the Awesome (sic) Speech.

"Rose, you're no picnic...you're a spoiled brat, even. But under that ou're the most amazing girl—woman-- that I've ever known. If you don't break free you're gonna die. Not yet because you're strong, but sooner or later that fire that I love about you—That fire's going to burn out. She interrupts him to tell him that it isn't up to him to save her. He regards her sadly and says, "Only you can do that." And I bet she was thinking that only she could prevent forest fires.

Kate says that she's marrying Scary Platypus Man and that she loves Scary Platypus Man and then tells him to stick that in his pipe and smoke it. Then she goes inside and watches some people drink tea and freaks out. I don't know. The upshot is that she goes to the front of the boat to make out with Leo as The Song plays, and I totally cried during this part the first three times I saw it in theatres. Sometimes I hate myself.

Cut back to the Fun Bunch, in present day. Bill Paxton monotones, "So we're up to the night of the sinking." And not even on the second tape yet. Dammit. "Six hours to go," prompts Bill. Does anyone else think this is James Cameron's way of telling us to get comfortable?

Back in the Den of Hot Loving, Kate and Leo stare at paintings and act like they aren't totally about to go at it. They talk about Monet's "use of color." As opposed to the many other things a painter might use, SHUT UP JAMES CAMERON. Leo nervously asks if they can expect Cal back any time soon. Heh. I guess this means he takes his time and does everything right. Knocks her out with one shot for the rest of the night. I miss En Vogue.

Kate shows Jack her obnoxious necklace and informs him that she wants him to draw her "Wearing this. Wearing...only this." Bow-chicka-chicka.

Jack looks stricken. Like you do at twelve years old. Kate flings her hair around like a Garnier Nutrisse commercial. Leo sketches Miss Subtlety in the nude. The music of Drawing People Naked swells.

Scary Platypus Man is annoyed when he can't find Kate. He proves that his mind is a steel trap when he snits, "It's a ship. There are only so many places she could be." Well, yeah, it's a boat, but...it's a really, really big boat. I mean, that's kind of the point. Symbolic stirring of...tea? Again, I don't know. Crap editing, because there's a lemon in the tea and then there suddenly isn't.

In the Den of Hot Loving, which is actually a misleading name since no actual Hot Loving has taken place quite yet, everyone is fully clothed. No telling how long that will last with this group. Scary Platypus Man's henchman starts chasing Kate and Leo around. The kids run crazily all over the boat, getting in the way of people trying to do important things—like see that the boat keeps moving—and in general causing mayhem. Also, did the hand gesture fondly known as The Finger exist back then? And would a "classy" dame like her really utilize it? Whatever. So anyway, they run into this room with a bunch of stuff in it.

Car sex, naturally. That's always the answer to any problem, even if you're on the Titanic, which is going to hit an iceberg and sink in a few hours. Just have car sex. Flunking science? Car sex. Wanted by the FBI? Car sex. Artistically blocked so that all you can manage to write are crap movie reviews? Car sex. You're welcome!

So anyway, Kate really pulls him in there. She takes her car sex very seriously, as you do. I don't get what he's acting all nervous about. He's supposed to be this artistic man-slut with his portfolio of one-legged prostitutes or whatever. They fog up the window and there's the close up of the hand and move it along already. "I'm getting off with you," says Kate in a spectacularly poorly timed edit. She's talking about the boat, but...yeah, anyway.

They get out of the sex car and stand on the deck of the boat, making out. Two officers who are supposed to be looking out for...I don't know... icebergs...stand there watching Kate and Leo instead.

The boat hits the iceberg and water starts spilling in all over the place. People don't really notice, though, until the water in their glasses starts doing that "Jurassic Park" thing. The boat is flooding. Leo helpfully says, "This is bad." Somehow Kate's ugly costume jewelry necklace gets planted in Leo's pocket. Poor Victor Garber realizes that not only is he still stuck in this terrible movie, but also that there aren't enough life boats and that at least half the people on the ship are going to drown. End of tape one!

Scary Platypus Man finds Kate, drags her into a room, and delivers a strong backhand. It's because she was stupid enough to take her Naked Picture and put it in Scary Platypus Man's safe.

Victor Garber is still sad because he's still in this movie and the boat is still sinking.

Scary Platypus Man, Rose, and their entourage go to the upper deck. Leo gets chained to a pole in a room very far below deck. He looks mildly concerned. Only women and children in the lifeboats, for now. Third class peeps—no love. Sucks to be them. Oh, there's that Irish woman and her adorable doomed children. Really, James Cameron. Below deck, Leo gets punched and realizes he's trapped.

On the upper deck, Scary Platypus Man is all menopausal or something, which prompts Kate Winslet to bust out the "acting" big guns as she calls him an unimaginable bastard and hocks a loogie in his face. It's kind of awesome the way everyone is yelling at her. It's like "Get off the shed" only "Get in the boat!" Anyway, she refuses and runs away to go find Leo. She sort of Takes Care of Business when she gets instructions from Victor Garber and yells at the man working the elevator. She wades through corridors—oh, yeah, the boat is flooding, just so everyone knows—and finds him pretty quickly, all things considered. They make out for a while and realize that they key to his handcuffs is nowhere to be found. She goes to look for it and he yells, "I'll just wait here..." It's kind of great, much as it pains me to admit that.

It also kind of hurts me to admit that Kate is a bit of a superhero as she runs around frantically, I daresay helter-skelter, punches some guy, breaks glass, grabs an ax, and wades through icy water with it. She totally wouldn't be able to break Leo's handcuffs without, y'know, killing him, but this movie doesn't have time to be realistic, as it's only three hours long.

Upstairs, the ship is still sinking. I mean, it's sinking downstairs as well, but you know what I mean. The third class minions are still more or less trapped and on the verge of starting a riot. Scary Platypus Man and his henchman steal things. General mayhem. Kate and Leo are running around being a seemingly efficient team yet not really accomplishing much of anything.

By the lifeboats, some guy yells and brandishes a gun.

Scary Platypus Man: "It's starting to fall apart." No shit. Kate and Leo find their way to the upper deck and are spotted by the henchman, who tattles to his master. Scary Platypus Man finds them and convinces Kate that he's made a deal for himself and Leo to get into a boat later. Seriously, how dumb is she? She gets into the boat in slow motion—oh, good lord—and the boat is lowered in slow motion, and she and Leo stare at each other in slow motion, and I'm fooling no one because I used to full on bawl during this part, too. Kate hurtles herself out of the lifeboat and back onto the sinking ship. She and Leo run towards each other, which is sort of a task considering that they're at least three decks apart, and meet in a partially flooded room where they kiss as she cries and he screams "I love you! You're so stupid! You're so stupid Rose! I love you!" They're both queens and I'm sick of them.

Scary Platypus Man watches hormonally. His henchman tries to pull him away but then he takes the gun and runs through the ship in slow motion, because that's what this three-hour long suck-fest needs, more slow motion, and starts shooting at Leo and Kate, Matrix-style. You really do have to love this movie in a sick and inappropriate way, just because it's the height of comedy, tragedy, porn, not to mention subtlety, and just when you think the multi-tasking must come to an end, it's an action movie to boot. The upshot is that they escape from Scary Platypus Man by running back into the bowels of the sinking ship.

Billy Zane rocks his line delivery of "I hope you enjoy your TIME togETHer," then starts laughing psychotically. His henchman doesn't get "what on EARTH" could be funny. "I put the diamond...in the coat," he chuckles demonically. "AND I PUT THE COAT ON HER!"

Kate and Leo run into some kid standing in a doorway screaming. They try to save him, but his father comes along, picks him up, and runs the wrong way so that he and the kid drown in this huge wave that comes around the corner. That was necessary to the plot. Kate and Leo get pushed along by the rapids. Her dress is entirely scandalous by this time. Then, it's so obvious that we're seeing Kate Winslet's stunt double. How do I know? Kate Winslet is a lot of things. Asian is not one of them.

The big wave pushes them up against some locked gate. Some guy on the other side tries to help them get out, but he drops the keys and swims away. Leo opens his eyes in salt water. Ow. They manage to unlock that gate, but have to keep climbing upward, because by this time they're really, really far down. On deck, Scary Platypus's deal falls through. Heh. Some guy shoots one of the unnamed Irish who've provided the fine soundtrack—nice way to thank the people of Ireland, tool—and then shoots himself. Scary Platypus Man grabs a child and pretends she's his daughter to get himself into a boat.

Kate and Leo run into Victor Garber, who says, "I'm sorry I couldn't build you a stronger ship, young Rose." That still makes me teary, and I don't care who knows it. Rock on, Victor Garber!

The captain—who's had a few scenes here and there, I just didn't mention them because he wasn't doing anything interesting, like having sex or saying "What to doo," locks himself in that room with the boat steering thing. Sorry, I don't know my nautical terminology but I'm sure you know the scene I'm referring to. The band members, who've been playing on the top deck, disband. Then, the lead guy starts playing a very sad song, and one by one the other members of the band come back to join him. The music continues as we see a montage of Victor Garber alone in the rapidly flooding dining room, turning the clock to twelve; of the Captain, alone as the water rises; of an old couple that you'll only recognize as Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus if you used to be obsessed with Titanic and read all the historical accounts; and those poor doomed adorable Irish children being told a story by their mother. And it's effective, all of it. The music ends, and the lead guy says,"Gentleman, it's been a privilege playing with you." The water crashes into the room where the captain is, and thus ends the well-done, moving portion of this movie.

Crazy mayhem music plays as people run around trying not to drown. The lights flicker, half the boat sticks up into the air, and—wait for it, wait for it—there he is! Propeller Man! Leo's friend from before is doing okay until this tower falls on him.

Kate and Leo end up clinging to the back of the boat, which is at a complete ninety degree angle to the surface of the water. "This is where we first met!" she exclaims. Not really the time or place, I don't think. Leo gives her instructions about what to do when the ship sinks, and is it just me who thinks she'll have an easier time swimming to the surface if she isn't trying to hold onto his hand? I get that they want to use the buddy system, but...well, whatever. When the ship finally goes down, they inevitably get separated, but find each other at the surface, where he helps her climb onto a piece of floating wreckage. And there's totally room for both of them, but, alas, not for them and lazy writing. So he hangs out in the water next to her and freezes, but not before spitting out such linguistic gems as "You must do me this honor...(sic) promise me you're not going to die here, now...blah blah...something about making lots of babies..."

Leo's nose hairs are completely frozen and prominent and it's funny. Kate realizes that he's not alive, and pries his cold, dead fingers off of her hand and shoves him down into the water while saying "I'll never let go." Kate hangs out for a while on her piece of wreckage and sings for a while.

We see all kinds of bodies floating in the water. One of them looks just like Uncle Fester.

Then, we're back to Old Rose, yammering about how there was nothing to do but "Wait to die...wait to live. Wait for an absolution...that would never come." Much like the end of this movie.

So you all know about how Kathy Bates wanted the lifeboats to go back earlier but they couldn't because everyone would have swarmed the boats. By the time the boats do go back, they find a few people still alive, one of them being Kate Winslet, who pulls a whistle out of a dead guy's mouth and blows it until she's rescued. The next morning, on the boat that eventually picked all of them up—that would be the Carpathia, and I totally knew that before the movie even came out—Scary Platypus Man, who made it out more or less unscathed, walks around looking for Kate. He doesn't find her because she doesn't exactly want to be found. Not by him, not by her mother. I get that her mother is a stereotypical matronly bitch, but really. Letting your mother think you died when in fact you did not. Bad form, Kate. All she's guilty of is not wanting to be a seamstress.

Voice over tells us that Scary Platypus Man shot himself later on. Raise your hand if you care.

Finally on American soil, Kate looks through the rain at the Statue of Liberty, tells some guy her name is Rose Dawson—GET IT!? —And discovers that the tacky piece of costume jewelry is still in her pocket!

Blah blah Bill Paxton talks about how he "never got it." Old Rose, who looks and acts nothing like Young Rose, I can forgive the appearance but not the fact that these characters are polar opposites—goes outside barefoot, which is really great, I thought they were in the arctic or something? Anyway, she still has the "diamond." She throws it in the water and makes a dumb noise, goes back inside, and dies. It's more than I accomplished today. Then we travel back through the boat, which becomes un-decrepit right before our eyes, and into a room where the ghosts of those who died on Titanic are standing around applauding us as we journey to the top of the grand staircase, where Leonardo DiCaprio is waiting to make out with us. In case you haven't figured out, we, the viewing audience, have all become Kate Winslet. Because that's what we wanted all along. James Cameron says so. What? Good night.

Brokeback Transylvania: "Lestat" on Broadway!

2008-04-26T22:35:00.000-07:00

The show opens with Lestat standing center stage, played by an actor wearing a Michael Bolton wig. He has blood on his face. He monologues that he just killed some wolves. The monologue is followed by a song about how he just killed some wolves. After the song, he goes into his house, where his mother asks him if he killed some wolves. He replies in the affirmative.

Lestat's father enters, agitated about the wolf-killing. Fake-ass punch, and then the father says "Of my three sons who lived to manhood, you are the one I regret." Bonus for the lesser-known usage of the word "manhood," I guess.

Creepy Mommy (oh, you'll soon see why) tells Lestat that he should go, probably, but he keeps going back to the wolf-killing. I'm sensing a developing theme. Lestat finally leaves, and Creepy Mommy sings about her "Beautiful Boy." I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, like, I might not think it was beautiful if my son wore a bleachy-looking K-Mart weave, but whatever.

Scene Change! Paris! Whores! Silouhettes of people spanking each other! Lestat finds his Family Reject Cousin, Nicholas. Nicholas takes Lestat to his bedroom, but not like that. Not YET. Lestat starts hearing a voice, loudly whispering "LeSTAT." The audience hears it, too, as evidenced by the rampant giggles. Lestat decides to go for a walk in the woods, at night. Some guy comes out of nowhere and bites his neck. Like, we have not seen this dude before and suddenly, he's all up in Lestat's business, the Undead Way. They writhe together in, um, "agony." He forces Lestat to drink his blood. There's a projection behind them that looks like an "Eye of Sauron" screensaver.

The Guy from Nowhere tells Lestat that he saw him kill those wolves and it was so kick ass that he had to make him a vampire! He tells Lestat that nothing on earth can cill him, except fire and daylight. Suddenly, flames roar up from a place on the stage that, I swear to Xenu, has been glowtaped. On Broadway. (We had really good seats.) The fire is really compact, like the yule log they show on TV at Christmas. The Guy from Nowhere shrieks "Live forever, beautiful wolf-killer!" before hurtling himself into the flames.

Lestat sings a big song about how he's a vampire now. He sings about how the Thirst is Strong. There's no difference between Right and Wrong. There's some "Exorcist"-type music. Stone columns slide around the stage, like some kind of pseudo-henge. Lestat runs around the pseudo-henge, yelling at God. He goes back to Nicky's house and stares at him in bed. He sings that there's a light around Nicky. No shit. It's a spotlight. He wants to make Nicky a vampire with a "Savage Kiss" because "Desire drives me to take him now" and they'll be "Victorious Princes of the Moon." The woman next to me can't stop giggling. This song sounds kind of like "A Whole New World," except that it's about wanting to bite your cousin's neck. And, some other stuff.

Creepy Mommy comes to Paris, wanting to see Lestat one more time before she dies. I guess she notices his fangs, or something, because she freaks out for a second and then decides it's cool. He says "I died and yet I live!" Like Jesus!

Creepy Mommy says "Make me as you are. I want to feel the power of everlasting life inside." That's just wrong. They grope each other weirdly. She sings about wanting "Sweet Release." From her son. Lestat, to his credit, is apprenehsive about taking the relationship to that level. She keeps sticking her neck out, literally. "Tear the hands of clocks that tick away our final hours!" This turns into a big duet, like "All I Ask of You," but with bloodsucking. And your mom.

Lestat finally gives in. The "Eye of Sauron" screensaver makes another appearance. She gets really excited and cuts off her hair. They run around crazily as the pseudo-henge returns. Creepy Mommy throws back her head, howls, and attacks some guy who walks by. I actually applaud, don't ask me why. She rolls him offstage. Exorcist music. Lestat screams "Gabrielle!" I guess calling her "Mother" at this point would be too strange. Creepy Mommy comes back dressd in the man's clothes. She wants to to light it up. She's out of control.

Lestat and Creepy Mommy go into a church. There's a scary Jesus hanging from the rafters. A monk approaches them. It turns out to be Vampire Armand. He is a badass. I can just tell. He's been a vampire for 300 years, and explains to Lestat and Creepy Mommy that they aren't exactly following vampire protocol. He takes them to this place under a sewer that he's set up for vampires to live in. Armand tells Lestat and Creepy Mommy, "You will abandon your old ways and join us for eternity!" He is definitely a badass.

Lestat tells everybody that they don't have to listen Armand and can pretty much do whatever they want, as long as they stay out of the daylight. And avoid bonfires. Armand snivels "Beware this smoothe-tounged libertine!" as Lestat tells one of the mopey vampire chicks that she "Would be beautiful if someone held (her) under a waterfall for several hours." Everybody suddenly decides to go start a Vampire Theatre.

Armand leaves the stage for, like, five seconds, then returns with Cousin Nicky, who tells Lestat that he wants what Lestat has to offer. Gross. Lestat makes Nicky a vampire. "Eye of Sauron." This is getting redundant.

Then, Vampire theatre. "Morality Play." They stage this...thing...telling about the first vampire. It's like Cirque Du Soleil, except with some bastardized Lion King staging, by way of Greek Tragedy, only it wants to be sort of like the Bible, too, and people are doing things with sheets, and suspended from the rafters, in sheets, and barking things like "He will be ever searching for his lost innocence!" and the narrator is like that Matrix dude who says "Hello, Neo," and I am so confused, and it's amazing.

Armand (yes!) comes to see them after the show and snits that The Ancient One would not be pleased to hear his name spoken. The Ancient One is some guy called Marius. Armand brags about being his muse. Lestat tells Armand where he can get off, and says that he and Creepy Mommy are taking Nicky (who just sits off to the side, anemically playing his violin, these days) to find Marius. Apparently Nicky was "Too pure for the dark gift." And then some.

Armand and Lestat have this "Cruel Intentions"-style sexual tension. Armand tries to kiss Lestat, but he says "I'd rather go into the FIRE!" That's telling him.

Pseudo-henge. Exorcist music. Tra-la. A sign tells us: "Ten Years on the Devil's Road." They've been looking for Marius for that long. Creepy Mommy is bored. She tells Lestat that she's jumping ship, but is totally going to miss him. To drive the point home, she sings this song called "The Crimson Kiss," which...barf...

The thundering refrain goes "And of all the things about you that I'm going to miss/it's the bond we formed together though this crimson kiss." I want to take a shower. Creepy Mommy finishes her song. She moves in close to Lestat. Closer. Closer. I am about to scream "Don't do it! Don't make out with your son!" when she does it. She actually does it. She pulls away and says "I love you, my son," and I say " Yeah you do," a lot louder than intended. Creepy Mommy leaves, and Nicky starts saying "Release me, release me," all "ET Phone Home"-style. Lestat sings that he feels bad about how he ruined Nicky's life with the vampire incest.

Smoke rises from the stage, like, ten minutes before the end of the song, so we know what's coming. Finally, the Yule Log makes another appeaance. Lestat howls "The fire will set you free!" Nicky jumps into it. Lestat throws the ashes around and mopes. The sky opens up, and there are red spotlights, and this Freeman-esque (as in Morgan) type guy emerges from the ceiling. Lestat looks up and screams "MARIUS?!" Marius: "COME!" And...scene.

Act Deux opens with Lestat and Marius, hanging out at...the Santa Monica pier? I have no idea. Marius is fishing off the end of the pier and talking kind of like Rafiki. Lestat summarizes Act One with his whining, and Marius says "I could set you ablaze with the power of my mind." I think maybe I will try that sometime. It turns out Lestat is simply lacking direction. This is like "The Graduate," for goth people. Marius tells Lestat that he needs to suffer loss and "embrace all that life has to offer." He tells Lestat to watch out for Armand. Seriously. Lestat decides to go to America to suffer the loss.

Welcome to New Orleans. Or, "New Orleans." Racial stereotypes frolick about as Not Brad Pitt (Louis) wanders morbidly. "World" doesn't ryhme with "creole." I guess not everybody knows that. After the obnoxious dance number, Lestat bonds with Not Brad in a tavern, where Not Brad reveals that he's depressed because his wife killed herself and their baby. Lestat turns him into a vampire. Blah blah blah "Eye of Sauron."

Sometime later. Not Brad feels bad about killing people. Lestat doesn't. Not Brad wishes he knew how to quit Lestat. Oh, sigh.

Lestat wanders into some house and finds a small abandoned girl named Claudia. Everyone in the audience perks up. Claudia asks Lestat if he's an angel and he responds with an affirmative (he should not, I think, do that) and he makes her a vampire, only instead of the freaky music that played every other time this happened, it's all peaceful, and there is a screensaver projection of some doves, and shit. Lestat brings Claudia back to the house and tells Not Brad that she's "Our daughter! I did this for us!" Audience giggles.

Not Brad flips out, runs outside, and drinks a guy's blood. Eye of Sauron. Are we there yet?

In the next scene, Lestat and Not Brad each bring Claudia a doll. They get mad at her when they find the body of her tutor hidden under a sheet. They yell at her for killing all the help. Lestat stomps around like a total queen and screams "I give her everything her black heart desires!" Claudia pulls the head off a doll and throws it. She sings a song called "I Want More" which is about how much she enjoys blood, and is possibly the most fantastic three minutes of musical theatre I've ever experienced. She sells it. She bites a pillow. She beats up Lestat and Not Brad with it. She rips it to shreds. She kicks. She flails. She holds this really long note. The audience goes insane.

30 years later. Claudia is angry that she's trapped in the body of a little girl. She tells Lestat that she wants to go to Europe. He's like, "Yeah, no." Not Brad takes Claudia to a ball, where she sulks outside. A very attractive young woman comes outside and tries to be nice to her. Claudia turns to the young woman and adorably says "I like your perfume." The young woman sticks her neck out. Claudia leans in and opens her mouth. Not Brad runs accross the stage bellowing "Claudia!" Hilarity ensues.

Later, Claudia acts like she's going to make up with Lestat. She reveals the attractive young woman from before, passed out on the sofa. She tells Lestat that she might have had a bunch of absynthe. Lestat tries to suck her blood, but it turns out she's poisoned. The Eye of Sauron is GREEN now. Claudia tries to slit Lestat's throat, but Not Brad is all "You can't kill vampires like that, genius." Not Brad and Claudia set the house on fire and run out. Lestat rolls around moaning "I will not die this way!" It was more awesome, in the movie, with the alligators. Obvious, but awesome.

Lestat washes up on part of a boat and snivels "I plunged into your damn stream!" I think this is a deleted scene from a Christopher Guest movie. He's wearing this coat. From Burlington Coat Factory. In Fresno. He sings a song about...something. I don't know. At this point, both my drinks have worn off and I am kind of ready to go home.

Lestat goes back to Paris, where Armand is in charge of Cirque du Bloodsucker, now. Lestat is all "I don't feel well, so like, uh, your blood, maybe if I..." and Armand stands behind him all commandeering and smirks "Ask for it!"

Sub...text...

Armand reveals that Claudia and Not Brad are there. It all comes out that they tried to kill Lestat. Somehow, only Claudia gets blamed. There's this Disney-Villian sounding song that consists of goth people running around screaming "No greater crime than to kill your kind!" They tie Claudia to a chair in a room where the sunlight is starting to come in. Steam rises from the floor. Trapdoor opens. This is horribly staged. Nonethtless, somebody in the audience applauds. No, it isn't me. Bye, Claudia.

Up on the roof. Not Brad yells at Lestat. Anti-climactic argument. Not Brad is a whiny bitch, I'm not sure what Lestat is all broken up about. Armand comes back on--awesome--and is all "Yeah, baby." He tells Lestat he's been waiting for forever to bring him down, or something. He kisses Lestat, who sits there like a bump on a log. Hey, I've done that!

Lestat says "Farewell, my sad child," to Armand, which is something Marius said, not that I understand why anyone cares. Lestat tells Armand that Maybe He's Just Not That Into You, or something and Armand screams "Lies! All Lies!" and pushes Lestat off the roof. Blackout. Don't I just wish this were the end.

Lights up on Lestat rolling around on the stage and moaning "So? God? It has come to this?" What's he expecting God to say? I mean, really. Lestat keeps going. "I'm evil. And I'm sorry. I am so sorry."

Marius appears and says "Get up. I would get up." Uh, okay. Next, Creepy Mommy returns! From...Middle Earth?Maybe the costume designer for this has also worked with Peter Jackson, I really have no idea. There's a yucky "Crimson Kiss" repreiese. (And just so you know, the souvenir kiosk in the lobby was selling black tank tops embroidered with "The Crimson Kiss" in red lettering. Any takers?) The three of them look off into the distance. The dawn is coming!

Lestat decides he's going to Not Die, I guess. Marius stands behind him and opens up a vein. Lestat drinks. They get hoisted up into the air and Lestat does Big Arms as Creepy Mommy stands below them and smiles blissfully while an offstage choir makes "Aaa-aaaa-aaaah" vocalizations like in a Busby Berkly musical. Blackout for about ten seconds. Then, Lestat comes running out onstage in jeans and this red shirt which is precariously unbuttoned. The Michael Bolton hair streams freely about his face.

He announces: "I am the vampire Lestat and I will live forever!"

Finito.

"Deep Blue Sea" : Yeah. Yeah, I am the man.

2008-04-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

I come in a few minutes late. Little dispute with the Fruitopia machine in the hallway. The one that currently contains no actual Fruitopia. And I'd like to take this moment to dedicate this re-cap to Diana, in memory of the summer camp incident where a boy lost a finger during one of the water games, and the more superstitious among us believed that the finger was down there somewhere, actively searching for the rest of the hand. We longed for a video camera so that we could make our own feature film, to be entitled Shallow Green Pond. Ah, Camp Sugar Pine. Crazy days, heady nights.

So we open with shots of couples making out on the deck of a boat inter-cut with stolen footage from—I don't know, maybe the Jaws sequel where the shark follows the guy's wife to Hawaii? Eventually, bottles of wine start rolling around on the boat and the couples notice that something is wrong. Specifically, that something very large is crashing into the boat from beneath. We see a teddy bear sitting on top of a stereo. One of the bottles of wine spills into the ocean, staining the water red. Like blood. BLOOD! Everyone's real scared now. And that's before the teddy bear sinks into the water in slow motion.

Now everyone's screaming, and something crashes up through the bottom and makes a large hole in the boat. One of the guys rears back and biffs his girlfriend on the head, causing her to fall into the water, which is hilarious. Then, inexplicably, everyone's in the water and the sharks are up close and personal. But then we see a wide shot and the sharks are about half a mile away and we see their fins. Then the sharks are right there again, ready to take a nice big bite out of the more annoying bikini clad girl. As the title flashes up onscreen, a guy pulls up on a boat and harpoons both of the sharks, reining them in like they're freaking Shetland ponies or something.

I would totally watch a movie about evil Shetland ponies.

Establishing shot of a city. We're treated to a headline of a newspaper, reading "Test Sharks Escape." Some random British woman walks into an office containing an old white man and Samuel L. Jackson. She explains to them that she still needs funding for her project because sharks hold the key to curing Alzheimer's.Samuel L. Jackson is kind of mad at her because she let the sharks out. At this point I try to start singing "Who Let the Sharks Out" because I'm just that cool, but I have to stop when I get to the part where one would normally bark. Because I don't know what sound a shark would make, but I'm pretty sure it isn't barking.

Samuel L. Jackson goes with the British Girl Scientist, to their weird little floating Alcatraz, as Sam dubs it. Some blond guy in a muscle shirt walks out on the deck of floating Alcatraz, where another guy has a shark in a hammock, which he lowers into the water. Someone who is not Meg Ryan pretends to be Meg Ryan. Stock footage of sharks. Mr. Bicep takes off his shirt and jumps into the water, where a shark starts swimming purposefully towards him. The music gets really suspenseful even though no one on deck is concerned. Mr. Bicep jumps on the shark's back and rides it to safety. I don't know. He pulls a Louisiana license plate out of its mouth. He shirtlessly chats with British Girl Scientist. Samuel L. Jackson says "That. Was. In-credible." Samuel L. Jackson and Imitation Meg skip the "normals" and go look at the test sharks.

Does anyone else think we need some more ominous under water shots? Because the director does. The girl in "the tower" looks at the weather screen and says something about a nasty little squall thirty miles out. I almost turn off the television when she shrugs and says, "We'll be fine." But I keep on trucking. For you. And only you.

Mr. Bicep is literally pissing into the wind, as you do.

Meg Lite takes Samuel L. Jackson on a tour so that the audience knows where everything is on the boat. British Girl Scientist looks outside her window and sees a bunch of fish get scared and swim away. She pokes a shark cadaver in the head says "You wait all your life for a single moment and then it's tomorrow."

Samuel L. Jackson and Mr. Bicep talk about how they're running tests on the sharks the next day and it's important. Mr. Bicep says "You're the man, right?" Samuel L. Jackson says "Yeah. Yeah, I am the man." Dude, will someone reading this please ask me if I'm the man so I can answer like that? It would make my week.

We see LL Cool J in the kitchen with a parrot that he seems really attached to. We get that he's a cook and also that he's religious because he quotes the Bible out of contest rather frequently. Like, he and the screenwriters don't know it's out of context but I do because mandatory chapel is good for something.

It's feeding time, so the big sharks eat some smaller sharks. The CGI sharks are really bad.

British Girl Scientist goes upstairs where everyone's throwing a birthday party for her. She and Mr. Bicep make googly eyes at each other and chat about random crap. LL Cool J says "white folks." What is he, straight off of Tara? Shut up, screenwriters.

After a commercial break, the weather starts to look really bad. Would you look at that! They're going to be caught in the middle of a storm! With virtually no crew! They shut everything down and go down to the lowest level, except for the girl in the tower. Samuel L. Jackson gazes at things in amazement. Someone pokes a monitor and says, "Elvis has left the building." They're speaking of Mr. Bicep, who is very much Looking for Trouble by swimming around in the shark caverns and getting them all riled up. It's fine until the sharks appear to be synchronizing their movements, and start swimming backwards, which is impossible. Everyone is all, "That just happened."

The sharks attack the cameras, or eat them, or something. A really large shark almost eats Mr. Bicep but he tranquilizes it and pulls it, by himself—yeah—up to the observation deck. Random Guy says, "Did someone order the fish?" Majestic music as the shark and Mr. Bicep are hauled out of the water. It's a very big shark.

SAMUEL L JACKSON: What in God's creation...
RANDOM SCIENTIST: Not His. Ours.

I know someone who's going to be smote down in fairly short order. Or, fangoriosly devoured!

They put a weird brain hat--I don't know, that's what it is--on the shark, which causes it to rear up suddenly, which is rather a surprise because it's supposed to be asleep. They try again, successfully, and then bust out a silver pointy thing. They take some kind of liquid out of the shark and get really excited. It looks like molasses. They say lots of Big Science Words. They take some of the shark brain molasses and put it in a thing and start screaming, as apparently they have just discovered the cure for Alzheimer's.

They all stand around, just sort of shooting the breeze, not really worrying about the shark. In the funniest slow motion sequence I've ever seen, the shark wakes up and eats one of the Random Scientist's arms, and Not Meg Ryan—oh, I guess she's his wife—screams "Nooooooooooooo." Mr. Bicep busts out a gun and tries to shoot the shark, causing British Girl Scientist to scream "Nooooooooooo." She hurtles herself through the air and presses a magic button that lets the shark out. Mr. Bicep falls down and screams "Nooooooooo."

Then, the storm is raging and the copiously bleeding scientist is being taken to the surface. They've called a helicopter for help, but like I said the storm is raging and they can't even see the helicopter. A crewmember stands just off camera and throws a bucket of water at Mr. Bicep. They finally put the scientist on a stretcher and attach it to the helicopter via some rope. Unfortunately, the helicopter flies back over the ocean before the guy has actually been lifted up into the helicopter, so that the rope can get stuck and the scientist can fall under the water. Something has taken hold of him and is pulling the helicopter along. I wonder what. Everyone else speaks broken, frantic Spanish for no reason. Things start catching on fire.

THE SHARK THROWS THE HELICOPTER.

It is amazing.

We see LL Cool J drinking in the kitchen. Never drink alone, LL!

Everyone goes back down and sees a shark swimming towards the window holding the scientist, still on a stretcher, in its mouth. The shark throws the scientist at the glass. Yes, you read it correctly. The window starts cracking and everyone runs to the other side of the room in slow motion. This movie really overdoes the slow motion. It's not even good slow motion. It's sort of like when you see Les Miserables and the actors have to do their own slow motion, getting shot and falling off the barricades and bridges and into sewers and what have you, and sometimes it works better than others.

There are about five of them locked in some room that they got into just in time. Everyone is upset. LL wanders around the kitchen with a bottle of booze. The people in the room notice that they are trapped. LL Cool J notices that the structure is flooding. The other people have broken out of their room and into another room. Something is banging against a wall. The room starts flooding and they lock themselves in another room. Dude, that just happened. As in, since the last commercial break.

On the surface, we see sharks swimming. I think we've established that the problem here is sharks.

LL's bird flies away. He goes looking for it. Samuel L. Jackson is irritated that the sharks are so intelligent. Everyone blames the British Girl Scientistt, because she is the one who did all the experimentations and made the mutant genius sharks. Why? Because mutant genius sharks and their molasses shark brain serum can cure disease. Everyone yells at the British Girl Scientist. The Importance of Being Meg cries. The British Girl Scientist says she's mizzundastood. Mr. Bicep says, "Gosh darn." It might have been edited for the television broadcast.

Ten minutes later, they ponder that maybe the sharks want to eat them.

LL cool J is still looking for the bird. A playboy magazine floats towards him, followed by a shark. LL Cool J swims into the kitchen and waits by the door with a frying pan. Heh.

Everyone else walks into a room. They figure out that they're going to have a little trouble getting to the top. LL Cool J is still in the kitchen and now has an ax. He climbs onto a really big meat rack. An ominous under water shot tells us that something wicked this way comes. The parrot pops out of nowhere and scares LL, and he almost looses his footing. The parrot hovers over the water. LL reaches out and nearly gets his arm taken off by the shark, which eats the bird. LL and the giant meat rack tip over in slow motion. The shark swims towards him, but not in slow motion. LL climbs into the oven to save himself, which proves to be a bad idea when the shark turns the oven on. Fortunately, LL has that ax. You really never know when an ax will come in handy, because you never know when a shark is going to chase you into an oven, and then turn the oven on. LL hacks his way out the top of the oven and jumps over the shark—oh, rock, he literally jumped the shark!—before busting out a lighter, which he throws at the shark, causing it to explode. "You ate my bird," says LL vindictively, before swimming away.

Everyone else is still putting on wetsuits and killing time. LL Cool J just got chased into an oven by a shark, which he single handedly killed, and everyone else has accomplished nothing. Mr. Bicep bitches about the water being fast or something.

Samuel L. Jackson says, "You think water is fast—You should see ice. It's got a mind. It's like it killed the world once and developed a murderous streak." What? He tells a story about how he went on a hiking expedition and resorted to cannibalism. And...the ice was cold. Or something. I think he's trying to drive the point home that they should quit arguing and start working together, but we never really find out because a shark suddenly leaps out of the water and grabs him before disappearing again. Some guy sits there going "It ate him. It just...ate him."

Now they're trying to open another door and someone says "Moment of truth... again." Word. There wasn't water before but now the water is pouring in and so they have to try to slam the door shut and climb up these ladders. Tense (not) underwater happenings ensue. Now they're trying to climb up the elevator shaft. The bottom is flooding, the top is blocked, and mysterious fireballs appear at random intervals. It's like in the first Super Mario game, when you get to the castle at the end of the fourth level and fire things are coming towards you and then it turns out to be just Bowser spitting fire, but it's not really Bowser because when you finally beat him the toad thing pops out and says "Sorry, but the princess is in another castle."

They climb up the sides of the elevator shaft as a shark bangs a hole in the side and starts swimming around in the bottom. Then the ladder everyone is on falls over, causing Desperately Seeking Meg to fall into the water. She screams, "I don't want to die" two or eleven times before she's suddenly pulled under. Moment of silence for I Can't Believe It's Not Meg. Then LL Cool J breaks down a door and emerges at the top, throwing a rope down to them. They're sixty feet from the surface, in case anyone cares. They talk about how they have to go do some thing or some other thing.

LL Cool J waxes philosophical about the theory of relativity, and of hot women. Some guy puts on a wetsuit and asks LL to zip him up in a girly voice. Ominous underwater shot of a door with a big lock. I guess the shark is going to unlock the door or something? A shark swims past a guy who doesn't notice. Mr. Bicep swims around and finds himself confronted by the body of that guy who died earlier. He swims back to the guy who just ignored the shark. They scream.

LL cool J records a message for if he doesn't survive. He launches into a recipe for the perfect omelet in the middle of it. Mr. Bicep and his sidekick go back and open a door underwater. Triumphant music plays until the shark from before comes back and eats the guy who ignored him. I guess that's what you get. So now the only people left are the British Girl Scientist, LL Cool J, and Mr. Bicep.

The shark lunges for Mr. Bicep and somehow misses him. Genius sharks, you say? He goes back into the elevator shaft and LL Cool J is there. This is enthralling. We see the Bridiot's legs and feet, which are wearing these random slippers as she wanders through half-flooded rooms. I never thought I'd say this, but I wish I were watching Titanic.

Point of View shot from across the room. It's probably not a shark or anything, like; these people have no concept of watching their backs. The British Girl Scientist opens a cabinet and looks for something, and then turns around and gets scared when she sees a shark right there, but it turns out to be that thing from earlier that she enjoys stabbing in the head. I guess in some situations you have to create your own fun. Then, of course, there's a real shark, and when I say "real" I mean, "larger shark shaped inflatable mass of polyurethane than the one we just saw." She is so about to be devoured by a pool floaty. At least I hope so. She climbs onto a floating table, falls off, and climbs onto a floating dresser. She drops the thing she got out of the cabinet—some kind of data, I think—and almost gets her hand chomped off when she reaches out to get it. Eventually she defeats the shark by feeding it an electrical cord and taking her wetsuit off.

They reunite and start swimming to the top, but only after LL Cool J talks about the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Sharks. They reach the top, and a shark swims towards them. Weird instruments are floating in the water. A shark eats one and spits it out before dying. Another shark grabs LL Cool J and pulls him across the water, but only until he begins stabbing it with his crucifix, which irritates the shark so much that it lets go. The British Girl Scientist pulls LL Cool J out of the water and strokes his big, beautiful bald head until he opens his eyes and says the shark is the devil.

They decide that the sharks have been manipulating them. British Girl Scientist and Mr. Bicep make eyes at each other and establish that they should probably kill the last shark. They make sticks of dynamite to feed it.

LL Cool J stares blissfully at the sky as Mr. Bicep doggie paddles around aimlessly. The British Girl Scientist says "I known how to get her...bait. She may be the smartest animal in the world but she's still just an animal...come to mama." She jumps in—slow motion, of course—the CGI shark reacts, and Mr. Bicep screams, both concerned and blinded by the sunlight reflecting off LL's dome. The shark stops and stares at the British Girl Scientist for a while. There's a lot of thrashing around and something happens. Since British Girl Scientist isn't in any more scenes, I assume she's been eaten. LL Cool J busts out a harpoon. Meanwhile, Mr. Bicep has climbed atop a shark and is riding it around. LL Cool J accidentally shoots Mr. Bicep instead of the shark. Somehow the shark looses Mr. Bicep, swims away, and explodes. Mr. Bicep surfaces as LL Cool J beams radiantly and says, "Bring me some sushi."

"The Postman" : Apocalyptic, but not in the way you're thinking.

2008-04-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

Scraggly Kevin Costner. Yay. Annoying voice over exposits that there was a War. A Really Big War. And now everything's gone, like at the end of "Planet of the Apes," except that chances are no one in this movie is going to fall down screaming "You damn dirty apes!" Especially not Charlton Heston, because he's not in this. Tom Petty is, though. And…a random lion. Kevin wanders. Gratuitously. He comes to an abandoned gas station and becomes irate when his mule takes a drink of what the mule presumes to be water. He lectures the mule.

They find a town and we see him telling his mule not to be nervous. "All you gotta do is stand there. I'm the one with all the lines." Were they supposed to film that? *Cough.* Oh, I see. He's constructed a stage and is "acting" out Macbeth for a crowd of "delighted" children. Delighted like when you open a birthday package that contains socks and you try to look pumped anyway because she's your great aunt and she can't be expected to know that what you really wanted was an Army of Darkness mouse pad. Anyway, the Kevmeister is playing all the parts. Except Birnam Wood. He lets the donkey be Birnam Wood. Good call. An onlooker who is not Cuba Gooding Jr. observes this.

Some guy tells Kevin that the children have never seen Shakespeare before. "Still haven't," replies Modesty Incarnate. Word. Some guy named Larry decides he hates Kevin, and starts yelling. Larry and I are dating now. Here come some Bad Guys. The one who seems to be in charge barks that he wasn't aware they had time to be watching plays. Then he orders all the men between fifteen and fifty to come along and sing a song and join the jamboree. In this case "The Jamboree" is his personal army. Kevin tries to escape. Heh. Draft dodger! He gets punched out and his mule gets taken captive.

The main bad guy's name is Bethlehem. Yeah, any time you can't think up a name for a villain, just open the Bible. Something will come to you.

Movie: Lame panoramic shots of desert wasteland. Witty Repartee. Kevin has mouthed off to General Symbolism by way of spouting off a quote from Shakespeare, thus drawing Bethlehem—who I'm going to call B-Rock from now on because I want to—into a battle of "wits," which consists of more Shakespearean quotes being hurtled back and forth, not to mention Kev being granted the nickname "Shakespeare." And what, at the height of this frenzy, does Kevin toss out to silence his opponent?

"To be or not to be. That is the question."

I've never even heard that one. Did he major in Obscurity?

Kev mouths off some more and B-Rock beats him up for not wanting to be in the army and saying he's not a fighter. Cut to shots of hard military labor, and the sprawling yet desolate majesty of Ten Minutes ago.

People are watching "The Sound of Music." B-Rock kills a guy. He makes people get the number 8 branded on the skin. People say "Clan" a lot.

Some guys go into the woods and kill themselves except one of them is maybe still alive, and Kevin is supposed to check it out, but then he's on this bridge, and it breaks, and he falls in the water, and he is moving SO SLOWLY, and forty people with guns are trying to kill him but they keep missing him, for some reason, and then Kevin gets out of the water and is attacked by Giovanni Ribisi--yay! Giovanni Ribisi is in this movie--wait. Now he's not. Kevin kills him. He kills everyone who tries to attack him except for this One Guy. This happens so that Kevin can run into the woods and the One Guy can be fangoriously devoured by a...lion. Where did the lion come from? Oh, right. The opening credits. This is all very Chekhovian.

Night. Rain. Kevin climbs a cliff. Kevin falls down a lot. Kevin is cold and miserable. Kevin breaks into a car and finds a really, um, realistic looking skeleton in the front seat. And during the filming of this movie, the Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion only had 98 happy haunts! Shut up, prop department. Kevin finds a lighter and is so cold that after he lights it up, he sits there and orgasms about the lighter for ten straight minutes. I hate this movie. Just so you know, I'm watching it in the lounge, and every five minutes, someone else comes in and gives me a really weird look when they figure out what I'm watching.

Kevin figures out that the skeleton was once a postal worker. He takes the clothes off of the skeleton and changes into them, after which he buries the corpse, saying "Thanks for being there for me."

Kevin goes to a town and babbles about how he's a postal worker until some guy says "What the hell are you talking about?" As would I. He says that he's in charge of rebuilding the postal service and therefore the world. Huh? Shut up, Kevin.

PITIFUL OLD BLIND WOMEN: You're a godsend. A Savior.
KEVMEISTER: Oh, no. I'm just the Postman.

So once they've established that he's God, or something, the inhabitants of this town hook him up with the first of many, many inexplicable J.Crew sweaters and give him a place to stay. As he's taking a bath, some kid walks in and Kev snits that he thought he was getting dinner. Bitch. Some Kid is actually called Ford Lincoln Mercury and I think I actually have a migraine. Product Placed Vehicles takes our hero to a town meeting where lots of annoyingly eager people ask lots of questions. Kevin craps that there's a new president and that his name is, in fact, Richard Starkey. No, you didn't! What did Ringo ever do to you? Outside, people play guitars and dance in the streets. Like, literally. I hate this movie.

Olivia Williams come onscreen and starts dancing with Kevin. She wastes no time in inquiring about his health, and by that I mean she asks him if he has the syph. When he responds in the negative, she fires back with "So as far as you know, you have good semen." Kev breaks away, embarrassed and confused. Apparently Olivia's husband—who, hi there, where have they been keeping him for the past hour—like, can't, so she wants Kevin to help her out with having a kid and stuff. The husband is cool with it.

The Pitiful Blind Woman comes back. "I have a feeling about you," says P.B.W . to the Postman. So do I. This movie is making me car sick. Some dumb violin music plays as Kevin goes into the abandoned post office. Product Placed Car Names follows him in there, and I should tell you that while he may be ethnic, he is certainly not a token. Shut up, Central Casting Agency. "I'd die to get a letter from you," says Product Placed. Huh?

Kevin goes to wherever he's staying at and Olivia walks in wearing a blanket and the guys sitting in back of me are too pleased. Oh, dear. And then she drops trou—I should say blanket—and Kevin gazes at her mildly as though he's just smelled a fart. Then she gets into bed and he bones her. Just like that. Yes, it's that bad. They go at it for about ten cringe-inducing minutes, and because her agent is evil, Olivia gets to sit there and show us her breasts for about another five, and then she just climbs on top of Kevin again only this time he falls asleep in the middle of it. Burn.

The next morning, Olivia has disappeared and as Kevinator begins to leave, the townspeople surround him and give him a horse, and he gives them a "direct quote" from President Richard Starkey (watch yourself, Kevin) that is something along the lines of people needing to believe that it's going to keep getting better. I can't decide if that's a reference to "It's getting Better All the Time" but Ringo didn't even sing that one, so shut up, Kevin. And how stupid are you? And all the people around you, that the name Richard Starkey doesn't even ring a bell? Shut up, ensemble cast, especially the little girl who just broke into a chorus of "America the Beautiful," which is a perfect song to sing as Kevin rides away in slow motion. Hero shot. Hate this movie.

Olivia and husband hug. They're really happy that Olivia banged Kevin. That's a marriage for you. Ah, the Sunshine Bunch returns, riding down from the hills in a furious fury of…fury. B-Rock is mad that the American flag is flying. He makes Olivia's husband set it on fire and then throw it through the window of the post office—because everyone just ratted Kevin out—and then he says that Olivia is fine and he wants to sleep with her and it's the husband's duty to let him do that if he feels like it. Olivia's husband has a problem with it, so B-Rock kills him. This somehow becomes Olivia's fault and B-Rock ties her to a wagon and makes her run along with it which sucks because the horses pulling the wagon are running really fast. And they go off in search of The Postman, who is now in Oregon, lying up a storm and probably donating some more sperm, for all we know. Not that we want to. Product Placed Vehicles gets all militant and patriotic. Whatever.

In Oregon, the Sunshine Bunch arrives at the place where Kevin is, thus frightening the townspeople, and Kevin goes out and tries to negotiate with B-Rock who, because the plot requires him not to, does not recognize Kevin. He's still had enough, though, and gives orders to start attacking the town and killing people. They're about to kill Kevin when Olivia appears out of nowhere—like that lion from the credits!—and shoots people with a gun that she obtained from: you fill in the blank, because I don't fucking know. Kevin gets on a horse and Olivia jumps into the horse with him, and they ride off into the CGI-majesty to the strains of music you hear when you're in line waiting to go on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

They escape to the woods, pursued by one last soldier, whom Olivia bludgeons to death with a rock because Kevin is "wounded" and lying on the ground whining like a little girl with a skinned knee. Then it starts snowing. Olivia finds an abandoned cabin of the variety that generally litters scenic woodland areas in times like these, and Kevin somehow finds another J-Crew turtleneck. I am not kidding.

Olivia, while changing his clothes—because he's a big, stupid oaf who won't lift a finger for himself—comes across the figure 8 branded on his skin and gets upset. Next, Kevin wakes up and whines about the fact that all he has is water. The only reason he has this water is because Olivia shoveled a bunch of snow in and melted it over the fire, and I bet she purified it for him, too. She's cranky and he snits that she could have worse company. Actually, Kevin, I don't think that's scientifically possible. So shut your pie hole. Shut your pie hole infinity.

Olivia informs Kevin that her husband was murdered. He says he's sorry and she's all "Sorry? You're sorry?!" and busts a cap by attacking him with a knife, but then the light at the end of the tunnel fades, because she doesn't kill him after all. Instead, she goes outside and rustles up grub in a strenuous manner while he suddenly grows perfectly groomed facial hair and plays tic-tac-toe with himself. Then she goes to the river so that she can fall in, so that he can save her and they can beam at each other. He feeds her soup and they look at the moon and talk about microwaves and he says "Your face looks pretty."

The next day the cabin catches on fire. It catches on fire on purpose, because of Olivia. She says she set the cabin on fire so he'd get off his ass and use the legs God gave him to go far, far away from her. No joke. Hee. As they're wandering aimlessly in the woods—totally not caring that they could have started a major fire and in light of recent events this makes them suck that much more—a fresh faced young girl dressed in a postal uniform rides up to them and blah blah blee blee blah haven't they ever heard of The Postman? I should tell you that this character's name is Ponytail. Think it can't get worse? She's played by one of Costner's daughters, Annie.

Help me.

She takes him back to Pineville or Pineview or Pleasantville or something, where Product Placed is now in charge of the postal service and he's having an assembly so he can read the latest letter from "The Postman" passing on the wisdom of that wise old sage, President Starkey. Anyway, he forged the letter, but it has this "PS" and no one knows what "PS" means, especially not Product Placed, who forged the freaking letter, so why did he tack on a "PS" if he didn't even know what it meant? That's like taking an exam you know none of the information for and then inventing bonus questions for yourself that you don't know the answer to. Product Placed asks if anyone knows what "PS" means and the Kevinator raises his hand and people recognize him in slow motion—have you ever recognized anyone in slow motion? It seems to be highly invigorating—and people start crying. I don't know. Maybe they feel my pain.

In downtown wherever, there's this big new mail factory and somewhere, off screen, a closet full of new J. Crew sweaters, just for Special K. I don't know where else he's getting them. He tries to convince Olivia to move in with him, all "Look-a me, look-a my sexy body" and she's all "no" and I'm all "word." Then some idiot mail carriers accidentally deliver some of their propaganda to B-Rock—come on, you didn't think he was really dead, did you?

Cut to an "adorable child"—crap, it's another one of his kids—holding a letter and rushing to the road to hand Our Hero a letter as he rides past, but unfortunately he rides past just a little too fast and we see the kid staring after him, about to burst into tears. In what Kev-o must have fantasized about being an "Oscar Clip," he somehow senses that there's a problem, turns around, and sees the kid standing there. He contemplates his options long enough for every single female, ever, to take a bathroom break.

Seven hours later, he goes and gets the letter from the kid. In slow motion. Fucking A.

Cut to: party time in a rustic town. Again. This is their entertainment? Man. The apocalypse is going to suck. During this next scene, keep in mind that "Ponytail" is played by Kevin's daughter. Just because I was disturbed enough when I didn't know that. She stands there making moony eyes at him and is about to go ask him to dance when Olivia appears and starts dancing with him instead, and so Kevin's Daughter walks away, crestfallen. I threw up in my mouth right there.

Some more postal workers get killed by the Sunshine Bunch and B-Rock stands there looking at all of the bodies and whining that none of them are Kevin. I'm with you, bro.

Daylight. Elvis, Oregon. Um, okay. Some guys are going to get some other guys. Spies. Breaking glass. Injured horses. Blair Witch camera action. One of the bad guys escapes and swims down the river really slowly and doesn't get shot even though forty guys with guns are trying to get him. Why does this all seem familiar? I feel like it was in the beginning of a movie, a long, long, time ago, but I can't quite recall, being as how I am now suffering from memory loss, and I can barely understand what's happening, even with my hearing aid turned up full blast. Young folk are crowding around me, wrapping blankets around my shoulders and serving me glasses of Ensure, saying things like "Give it up, Nana! You've suffered so much already!"

Blah blah, Nobility Incarnate won't let Ponytail (...) go on her route because he thinks it's too dangerous for her. At Sunshineland, a wagon containing the bodies of the dead postal workers crashes into stuff and starts a fire. B-Rock sees that the bodies are accompanied by a note.

"Postage due."

The bad guys kill some more people, and it turns out that Product Placed thought up that little stunt by himself. Kevin yells a lot until his real life daughter appears and delivers what is is probably the worst line-delivery in the whole movie which is, you know. Of note:

"What. Ford did. Was wrong. But it doesn't change anything. For any of us. Does it."

Kevin, having had enough—finally—forges a letter to himself from "President Starkey." Don't get me started, trickster. He says the president wants the postal service disbanded and everyone should go back to what they were doing before. Wow, that's a lot of really bad "About to Burst into Tears" faces. Product Placed tells Kevin, "I don't think the president wrote that letter." You don't know the half of it, pal.

Where are they getting the sweaters?
Oh, yeah, there was this subplot # 5 million that I forgot to tell you about, earlier. This kid joined the postal service and Kevin thought he looked familiar but ignored it and went to pick out another J. Crew sweater, and now it turns out the kid is a traitor for B-Rock's side and whee! Fun times. Tumult ensues as B-Rock attacks. Kevin, pansy that he is, books it with Olivia as B-Rock says "I won!" and kills Not Cuba from the beginning—remember him? Neither do I. He keeps Product Placed as a bargaining tool. Heavy emphasis on "tool."

The Kevinator and Olivia come to a place called Bridge City where they mayor is…Tom Petty! Kevin blathers something to the effect of "aren't you famous" and Tom Petty is all "I've heard about you, man. YOU'RE famous." And it's stupid and makes me want to die. But "Mary Jane's Last Dance" is still a great song. Some of the bad guys come and try to find them, but Tom Petty is on top of it. Yeah, he is. He's Tom Petty! Apparently Tom Petty has a thing which is like a box attached to a bunch of wires strung up over this canyon and river—even he doesn't know. It exists fully so that Kevin Costner can fly through the air and we can check out all his majesty. No, not like that.

Before Kevin can take a magical journey through the air, everyone gets sad because some kid has never even heard of The Postman. I WISH I'd never heard of The Postman. Olivia says "You have a gift, postman…you've given us back our hope…you give out hope like it was candy in your pocket."

Finally K-Man gets on The Thing and flies through the wilderness for ten minutes and treats us to not only a close up of the unbearably smug smile of someone who thinks they just bagged an Oscar, but equally smug voice-over action. Did I mention this movie has a nine percent positive rating on www.rottentomatoes.com?Showgirls is rated higher than this movie. Crossroads is rated higher than this movie. Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows is rated higher than this movie. All the movies that Freddie Prinze Jr. has ever made, except for—well, four—are rated higher than this movie.

Now we're at Sunshine Camp where a large army of mostly women and children is approaching. B-Rock thinks "Cool. I like killing people" but isn't he in for a surprise, when—duh duh duh—it's The Postman! He's there too! The traitor from earlier suddenly goes to Kevin's side and people cheer. Okay. B-Rock has his men bring out Product Placed and Kevin goes to surrender, just like that. Only no, he actually wants to challenge B-Rock for leadership of "The Clan" because you're allowed to do that and Kevin is still a member of "The Clan," remember? Neither did I. It has something to do with the number 8 being branded on his arm. I don't know. Nobody knows.

Kevin rips off his sleeve—not the shirt, just the sleeve—to display his eight as he screams the quote about letting loose the dogs of war. B-Rock says "Shakespeare?" and I say "Somebody kill me please?" They fight for an hour or so. Kevin is about to die but then he doesn't and B-Rock gets shot and everyone thinks he's dead but then he isn't and Product Placed finally shuts him up for good.

Next we see Olivia and child in bed. She reads a letter from Pa, who is actually standing in the doorway wearing an abso-freaking-fabulous J. Crew sweater and looking like a dunce in his suspenders. Happy domesticity. It's over! Oh. No it isn't. The annoying voice over from the beginning returns as we learn that we're observing Rose, Oregon in 2043, looking like regular old America again. His daughter--in the movie, not in life, and she clarifies this by screeching "MY FATHER" at the camera, just to make sure you really understood—is giving a speech in front of what cannot possibly, when uncovered, be a big, gratuitous, bronze statue of The Postman.

Oh, wait.

How to put it into words…we'll start with the ones on the statue, which reads:

The Postman
He delivered a message
Of hope to a new generation

The camera pans to show that the little boy with the letter from that one especially painful scene has been made a part of the statue. Cut to a man in the crowd, treating us to one more terrible "About to Burst into Tears" face as he tremulously whispers "That was me."

Fade to black. Do you hurt?

"A Walk in the Clouds" : Crush the grapes, already.

2008-04-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Previews. Did you know "Loch Ness" was the most magical movie of 1996? Neither did I. Next previews: "Dunstan Checks In." I will buy you dinner if you have seen that movie.

Credits. What are we in for? Grapes. "Ethnic" music. Grapes. Debra Messing? Grapes. This soundtrack sucks. Grapes. That one guy in "Hannibal" who's guts splattered all over the place. Ew. Grapes. And of course, Keanu Reeves. And grapes.

Shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Crap, not again. Didn't I do this last time? Stock footage in black and white. This means it happened a long time ago. We're talking WWII, which in Keanu Reeves time is about Eleventy-Billion years ago. (™ SNL. I miss Celebrity Jeopardy.) An anchor drops to the strains of the Not Star Wars soundtrack. And then suddenly it's all in color. Whee! All the soldiers get off the boat—because The War is over—and are happy to see their wives and girlfriends. We're treated to an aerial shot of all the women and their umbrellas, most of which are black, except for one covered with vibrant polka dots. It's distracting and doesn't even belong to an actual character, just a nameless extra. Shut up, prop department.

Anyway, it's evident that no one has come to meet poor, drenched Keanu Reeves. Everyone else goes home and we see an aerial view—yeah, knock that off already—of Keanu standing alone in the middle of a painted map of the United States. Finally he goes to his apartment where Debra Messing is walking around in her underwear practicing diction. We find out that Keanu wrote every week and Debra never even opened the letters because it depressed her. She figured that if she was still getting them that meant he was alive. Whatever. I'm saving my actual hate for later. With all that Flap Like a Butterfly Jazz. I guess this movie was made before she was funny. Not that they're giving her much to work with. I, personally, think that having sex relations with Keanu Reeves might be funny but what do I know? We find out that his job is going door to door selling chocolates. That sucks. She wants him to get right back on that but he wants something better in life. Whatever. They mack. Another shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The next morning he gets up early to go sell chocolates. He gets on a bus where he meets one of my favorite token characters ever, Ethnic Girl ™. She speaks in embarrassingly broken English! She bats her ridiculous eyelashes! She vomits all over Keanu Reeves! Ethnic Girl™ rocks.

Okay…I skipped ahead…I was just really excited about the vomiting part…first, Ethnic Girl ™ is having trouble fitting her suitcase in the overhead compartment. First Keanu "helps" her and then the bus lurches so that K-Man can fall over and land precariously on top of her. Then she barfs on him, and I totally forgive her for that stupid "helpless female" act. He goes into the bathroom and tries to clean himself off. Doesn't work. Heh. He goes back to his seat and gazes at the sleeping face of the suddenly fifty-year-old Ethnic Girl ™.

Woo! Time for a flashback! We see fuzzy, black and white memories of The War. Weird music box instrumentals. Simone pauses to explain to me that this is to inform us that Keanu is a Tormented Soul. It takes a while to sink in, what with the subtlety of the whole sequence.

He wakes up from his poorly edited montage and sees that Ethnic Girl ™ is gone. Happy Ethnic Music ™ plays. He gets off the train and runs like a girl. Specifically, me. He Girl-Runs to a bus, where the bus driver is the same bus driver that you see in every single movie where a bus driver appears for several moments and is never seen or heard from again. Actually, I looked her up on the Internet Movie Database. For kicks that I'm certainly not getting from the movie. Her name is Mary Pat Gleason, and career highlights include the Party Mother in "Easy Money," the Woman at Bar in "Pastime," and Francesca DePesto in "Cliché" all of which sound awesome to me, the role of Francesca DePesto being perhaps the Most Awesome of all. Anyway, I'm totally starting a Mary Pat Gleason fan club now. Any joiners?

Right. The movie. So Ethnic Girl ™ is on the bus. Keanu makes a great show of not sitting in the empty seat next to her. Instead he sits across the aisle. Not that I'd sit down next to someone who'd recently barfed on me—unless we were friends or something, in which case you let it slide and hope that it doesn't happen again—but then he proceeds to start chatting with her. She's been to The University. *Jazz Hands.* Just so we know what a smarty she is, she holds up the volume of Shakespeare she's reading.

I zone out until Simone wakes me up to point out that the two of them are "from different worlds." Sharp as a razor, she is. Some Bad Guys try to mess with Victoria—for that is her name—and Keanu tries to Open Up a Can but it doesn't really work. They all get thrown off the bus—Keanu and the Bad Guys, that is—and Victoria gazes wistfully from the back of the bus. What? Why? Then Keanu is walking in the woods for no reason and Victoria is just there. . They haven't been "properly introduced" and the thing about barfing on other people is that if you don't know them sort of well before this happens, chances are they're going to keep their distance. But what do I know? I don't know why I wrote "Forest Fire" in my notes. Wishful thinking? But all that happens is that we get the sob story about the evil professor who got Victoria knocked up. And to keep the party going, Keanu is going to lecture us about life. You know. Because He was in The War.

Just as I'm starting to get seriously worried about the lack of a Dominating Father Figure in this movie, Victoria starts crying about what her father is going to do when she shows up at home, unmarried and pregnant. I'm guessing it's no different then what most parents would do if this happened to their daughters, which is get upset and wonder what they did wrong. I mean, mine would probably be like "Heh, who knew?" but only because I'm an enigma.

They hatch a Brilliant Plan which is for Keanu to go home with Victoria, pretend to be her husband, and then leave. Wait a minute, that's not a Brilliant Plan. That's a Stupid and Pointless Plan. But again, what do I know? I don't know why she feels the need to walk backwards. Up a hill. In heels. Oh, right, because staring at Keanu Reeves is more important than trying to make sure you don't trip and possibly injure your unborn child. Well, it could happen. It could happen "Crossroads" style. And I could laugh.

What next? Well, I wrote "Napa. Clouds. Blech. Chocolate Rings. I'd like some chocolate right now. Don't shoot. He didn't..."

"He" in this case is the Dominating Father Figure and the chocolate rings are these pieces of foil that Keanu took off the chocolate and tried to pass off as real rings. I'm going to point out how lame that is, not because I need to but because I can't help it. Anything would be better than that. Saying you couldn't afford them. Or even that you lost them. Foil rings from chocolate? And also, how angry am I that we saw a loaded gun but it didn't go off?

D.F.F. is angry even though Victoria appears to have a husband. An Understanding Grandfather lurks in the background. Understandingly. I think he dies, but I'm not sure. And how much does it say about this movie that I've seen it twice and I can't remember what happens, except of course for the Butterflies.

Oh, those kooky, ethnic stereotypes. Aren't they so quaint? Not sure what prompted me to write that but I bet it was classic. Like, they were having an impromptu fiesta in the kitchen or something. Complete with a piñata. I made a piñata once. Well, me and my third grade class. It was this giant red, white and green egg, for Cinco de Mayo. Everyone's mom was a cheapskate so there was nothing inside but dum-dum pops, but at least we missed two consecutive days of P.E. because first we had to paper mache and then we had to put the colored tissue paper on the outside. It's a fond memory.

People look around a lot at this movie. Almost like they're looking for an exit. Anyway, everyone goes in the house and it turns into a real fiesta when they figure out that Keanu sells chocolates for a living. Understanding Grandfather is especially stoked. He yells "Rock On," only in Ethnic. I think he might be stoned.

A bunch of women stand around in the kitchen, imitating Natalie Wood's "Maria" accent and talking about wisdom—wisdom in this case being "The heart wants what the heart wants." Well, that clarifies a lot. They have a big, fancy dinner, served by a plethora of servants. They seem quite well off. Oh, isn't Keanu cute being confused by the many utensils.

I've been saving it for something special, but I think how is the time to assign my award for "Scene with the Least Continuity." Here we go. First, D.F.F. hates white people. Then he randomly asks them how they met and we're naturally treated to "humorous confusion." Then Stoner Gramps pours a lot of salt on his food. Then Victoria learned from college that Illinois is maybe sort of in the middle of the country. D.F.F. has a problem with Keanu not knowing his lineage. "No past…" he grouses. "No present…" Feel free to yell the last part. Simone and I and several random people watching with us did. "No future!"

Random shots of the kitchen staff. And, a sob story from Keanu. "When I was a kid I used to climb up to the roof of the orphanage and wish on ever star I could see." Victoria turns in slow motion so that her hair does that swishy thing. It's all very Dickensian.

Shot of a sunset over Napa. How do I feel about that? Let's consult my notes. "Nice soundstage." Someone says something about Victoria's dowry and Keanu perks right up. Ew, not like that! At least not yet.

Gratuitous shot of a bed. Ethnic Mom ™ is hanging out, explaining to the Happy Couple that they need a nice big bed with "Room to maneuver." Gross, Ethnic Mom ™! Next, my notes say "She points out symbolic slash of picture," and you know it's bad when I stop making sure I'll be able to remember what I was talking about later on. In the Parental Bedroom of Quaint Ethninticity, the Ethnic Mom ™ tells D.F.F. "She was not stolen any more than you stole me." And I think it should be either "He did not steal her any more than you stole me," or "She was not stolen any more than I was," but at this point I don't care. About anything. Not even the Butterflies, though they're certainly coming. Ethnic Mom ™ says "If we have no confidence in her, how can we have confidence in ourselves?" I'm too tired to go into it, but shut up, Ethnic Mom ™.

More incoherent notes. Here is what I wrote to say that Victoria sleeps in the bed and Keanu sleeps on the floor. "They blah blah blah we're not married blah blah she's upset blah blah she's full clothed. Can and would." And yes I actually wrote the blah blah's into my notes.

D.F.F. comes in and Keanu jumps in the bed really fast. D.F.F. doesn't come in for any reason. He's just there. Gross. He sees that some of the covers are sort of sliding off the bed onto the floor and somehow immediately deduces that something is up. And by "something is up" he means "My daughter's supposed husband was sleeping on the floor," rather than the more logical, "I guess that when I entered unannounced, I interrupted some 'maneuvering.' I need to leave now."

Keanu sleeps in the bed the rest of the night, "just in case." I understand that he means just in case Pop comes back in for any more surprised visit, but, like, if your father keeps coming in to make sure your husband is sleeping in your bed—I don't even know. This family is weird. They non-kiss. Another shot of the awesome soundstage. And another poorly edited montage flashback from Keanu. This time a teddy bear starts bleeding and Keanu screams "Victoria." Seriously, what?

Oh, no! "Frost!" Victoria sounds really upset. It's like if your plants got the plague except that it's not really very much like that because one has to do with temperature and the other is an infection and I'm really just procrastinating because now that I've arrived that the Butterfly scene, I don't really have the words to do it justice. Or the energy. We'll just turn back to my notes.

"Put on wings. Stand in orchard. She says 'Flap like a butterfly.' Says it a lot. Shut up. Reeves in wife-beater. Sad. Close up of breasts. Says "up and down." Says it a lot. Lush Eth. music. People being butterflies. And. More wife-beater. Still sad. How is this helping the grapes? She's all up on him. Breast close up. Porn. Breast close up. Stop that. Pa? Movie is a sex pervert."

The next morning, they say goodbye. Fake tears all around. Well, not really all around since it's just the two of them but whatever. He ends up getting apprehended by Stoner Gramps, who says "Nada," to prove that the scriptwriter knows Spanish. Stoner Gramps notices that the ring in Keanu's box of chocolates—dude, I really wish I were watching "Forrest Gump" right now. I know that by several definitions that movie very much has a place on the website, but…no. Just, no. You tell me you don't get misty when Forrest hugs Jenny at the Washington Monument. Oh, what? Fine. Back in the sucky movie that I paid about six American dollars to rent because the exchange rate in England is Satan, Stoner Gramps notices that the chocolate rings and his granddaughter's supposed wedding ring are pretty much the same. He doesn't really do anything about it. That would not fly in my family. Not that I'd…even…I don't know where to start. But if I got knocked up and brought Keanu Reeves home with a chocolate wedding ring and tried that "tossing hair in slow motion" crap—well—I'm just saying there would be trouble. Stoner Gramps is way too into the chocolate and also, it appears to be the same box as before. Every time he opens it, it's full again. The Continuity Fairy? AWOL.

Then D.F.F. comes out and is all "I knew you were going to try this," so Keanu stays just to prove him wrong. Except that he's going to prove him right later on anyway, so what's the point—forget I asked. I know there's no point. It's just more wishful thinking. All the ethnic people in this movie are named Pedro. All of them. Even some of the girls. And, I know there are exceptions but as Simone succinctly put it, "Did the scriptwriters seriously think 'California. They have Mexican people there. Some of them must be rich. Even if we're setting this in the forties.' "

At "The Festival"—because all those wealthy Mexican families who lived in Northern California after World War II did nothing but party—we meet some more people named Pedro and D.F.F. develops a sense of humor. Actually he's kind of been funny this whole time but I don't like giving too much credit in a situation like this. One of his sons, Pedro 9.0 or something, pulls up in a hot rod and declares with a decidedly American accent that his name is now "Pete." D.F.F. is all "I don't pay for the college education of Pete. I pay for Pedro." It's funnier then it sounds, because he totally gets told. D.F.F. and I can maybe be drinking buddies sometime.

D.F.F. and Lov-ah get into a race, trying to pick the most grapes and drop the fewest of them. Woah. They're breaking it down Matrix-style over those grapes. Keanu ends up letting him win. No one cares. D.F.F. thinks Keanu is going to get blood on the grapes, which is random and sort of gross. Stoner Gramps says to Keanu, "I have faith in you but your fly is open.".

Happy Grape Crushing Music. I bet on the soundtrack it's called "Fiesta de Los Grapes" or something. Let's go check! It's actually called "Crush the Grapes." How original. I want to buy the soundtrack to see if it's just instrumental or if it actually has the people yelling "Crush the grapes! Crush the grapes!" about fifty million times. Now, isn't it just killing you to know what's happening onscreen? I bet you'd never have figured that we're in for some grape-crushing action. Naughty grape-crushing action. How better to describe it then just go back to my notes, a happy place where complete sentences are for the birds.

"Soy…crush the grCONCH SHELL! Family ritual CLAPPING! Lots of thigh. Slo-mo. Porn. Yay grapes. Is sort of like Wild Water Adventures for them." (I actually did note that their level of excitement was equal to if not greater than mine at the event of our family excursions to the local water park when I was young. And okay, nowadays as well. Back to the notes.) "More thigh. Porn. Dirty nasty porn. Skirts, way up there. Woah. Slo-mo hair toss! Not sanitary! His feet are gross. Ew. Hate this."

So, basically, they start macking while a cast of thousands yells "Crush the grapes! Crush the grapes!" and then they run into the bedroom, where, flinging grape juice left and right, they collapse passionately onto the WHITE SHEETS! Everyone in the lounge screams in horror. Then he pulls away. I must have found the following speech enthralling in some way, because I wrote it down:

"I want you more than anything, Victoria. You can't imagine how I want you." (I'd rather not.) "But I'm not free, and I won't hurt you that way." Okay, fine, whatever, just hurry and get off the bed with your nasty grape-ness. Victoria is really mad that he won't have sex with her. Time passes, but obviously not very much because when the stupid montage comes to an end, it's only later that night.

We see D.F.F. and "Pete" arguing about change. And…yeah. Keanu tries to butt in and D.F.F. says to stay out of it, because "something is wrong." Um, we know. D.F.F starts yelling about Victoria and how that's none of Keanu's business either, and he's all "She is my business!" Not quite, but moving right along to the part of my notes that say "Granny rocks. Sharp pain." Your guess is as good as mine. D.F.F. is all "What the hell are you talking about?" and viewers all over the globe scream "Word!" "Can't you see she's alive?" sobs Keanu.

Keanu runs through the orchard for no reason at all and Stoner Gramps, who's managed to get drunk as well, stops him by saying "Talking between men and woman never resolves anything." He takes Keanu back to the house where they chug wine.

Later that night, Keanu is still drinking. And singing. Is he going to do that in every single movie? And forget "Loch Ness," I think this was the most magical movie of 1996. Someone has the bright idea of placing the intoxicated Keanu outside the bedroom window of Victoria and having him sing until she turns her light on. First of all, this is stupid. Second of all, nothing says "I deserve forgiveness" like getting drunk and singing quite loudly and poorly indeed. Unless it's Jimmy Fallon. Then it's okay.

D.F.F. is really happy, telling his wife "He seems to love her." He just doesn't seem to be married to her. The Drunken Serenade isn't working so well, so Keanu turns and runs through the orchard. Victoria turns her light on. Keanu is still running. Cut to The Festival, the next day, where Keanu is very much present. What? I thought he ran away. D.F.F surprises the "happy couple" by telling them he's arranged for a real marriage ceremony later that night. Victoria is cool, telling Keanu that she'll handle it. They kiss and he gives her his war medal to give to the baby. Huh?

"SOUNDSTAGE!!!" Who cares if my notes don't make sense? I like them. Anyway, Keanu hitches a ride with a truck driver who asks what he's been doing out there. "Walking in the clouds," simpers Keanu. M'kay. For anyone who's curious, the Truck Driver is played by Ivory Ocean, which is…not a good name. No matter how you look at it. Other roles include Brainard in "Over my Dead Body" and Reverend Hamson in "Leprechaun in the Hood," though "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" fans may remember him as Robert E. I, for one, do not. I just remember I thought Joe Lando was something else. Also, one time I watched it at my best friend's house with her family and there was a sex scene interspersed with shots of people planting a tree. No joke. There are pictures of Joe Lando on www.imdb.com, though he doesn't have the Sully hotness going on anymore. Now he looks kind of like Peter Jennings. It was all about the hair. He was totally the Fabio of family viewing.

Erm…anyway. Back at the vineyard, Victoria looks wistful and D.F.F. just looks. At things. Gratuitous shot of a vineyard. Hey, you know what I'm in the mood for right now? A flashback. It's been a while since we had one of those really subtle flashbacks. I could so go for a flashback right now. If only there was some way—yes! Awesome! The people who made this movie are inside my head! They know what I want and they're delivering! Flashback, coming right up!

This time we see Victoria with a random kid. Wait, that's not a flashback. Unless she, too was in The War. Whatever. Another shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. See, he's realized that he left something in San Francisco. His wife. Except not, because he walks into the apartment and Debra—hi, Debra—is banging away happily with some random guy. They pause for all of ten seconds, long enough for Keanu to squeal "You want a divorce? Fine! Sure! Okay!" before scribbling his name on a sheet of paper and running back out the door. Debra and the random guy yell "Are you alright?" after him before returning to their regularly scheduled programming.

Keanu hitchhikes back to the vineyard as the Happy Ethnic Music ™ plays and we see a montage of time passing—I'm getting really tired of seeing these montages where you think it's a month or something and then it turns out to be a few hours later—and D.F.F. apprehends him in the forest with a gun. Finally. He yells at Keanu for a while before Keanu starts spouting off some crap about how "She's like the air to me!"

Anyway, Keanu yells really loudly until everyone else wakes up and comes outside. D.F.F. accidentally kicks over a lantern and the entire vineyard is in flames in a matter of minutes. That sucks. Pedro 9.0 ("Pete") catches on fire and Keanu jumps through a wall of flames—shirtless—to save him. I don't know. I guess they stand there all night watching, because suddenly it's the next morning and Lov-ah heads off purposefully into the distance to go take care of some business. Oh, I forgot to mention earlier when Stoner Gramps showed Lov-ah the first vine that they ever planted or something. It was dumb. Point is, Keanu comes back with a branch of said vine and they examine it and decide it's not completely dead and get really excited. I guess it makes up for the fact that the rest of the vineyard is gone or something? Whatever. He and D.F.F. are ally buddy-buddy, and everyone cheers when Keanu slaps that tacky foil ring back on Victoria's finger and makes out with her for several minutes. Stoner Gramps is still—well, stoned, and the soot on Keanu's face looks like a soul patch. The shot of the charred soundstage fades into a shot of a lush, green soundstage, and the movie finally comes to an end.

"Sweet November" : Can't you see she's DYING?!

2008-04-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

There's no Opening Credits Timewaster here. We start right in with track 11 on the Classic Movie Sound Effects CD: Sex. And the camera pans to show us—no, no Gilmore Mommy! What is Lauren Graham doing? And with Keanu Reeves, a.k.a. *Expletive Deleted*? First five seconds and I'm already in fetal position, which makes it that much harder to scribble notes. Not a good sign. *Expletive Deleted* puts on his clothes and goes to work where he's told he has to renew his drivers license. His partner is Fish from "Ally McBeal."

He goes to the DMV and some stuff happens. I'm really not sure. I'm watching it with Simone and both of us just realized that the hair on our arms was more interesting. Oh, fine. He goes to the DMV and Charlize Theron, a.k.a. Sarah Deever, walks in and radiates Quirky Charm, meaning that if you cut her open she'd bleed chai tea and if you could listen to her brainwaves you'd pick up a continual broadcast of the "Felicity" soundtrack. Because no one does quirky like the soundtrack coordinators of WB. Or the people who designed Ms. Theron's wardrobe. How do we know? Because if we fail to be enchanted with the onslaught of individuality before us, we're going to be strangled by the Brightly Colored Scarf of Eccentricity! Don't say I didn't warn you. So Charlize comes in and spills her groceries all over the floor and sticks a candy bar under her armpit. Well, she does. I'll have to try that next time I'm feeling especially Quirkified.

*Expletive Deleted* stares at her and says something. We rewound three times and cranked the volume way up but all we could make out was "Roxette." I don't know. Maybe he likes it when women suddenly burst into a chorus of "Crash! Boom! Bang!" Since talking during the test will results in the talker's test getting torn up, *Expletive Deleted* must ask Charlize to help him cheat and she must get kicked out, and when informed that she can't re-take the test for thirty days, she mustscream "30 days! That's a month!" "Sweet November," folks: gratuitous, nauseating, yet downright educational, just when you least expect it. Charlize leaves, upset at the recent chain of events, while *Expletive Deleted* keeps taking his test and doesn't care at all.

DON'T YOU KNOW SHE'S DYING?!

Sorry, Simone and I are just really excited, and have a tendency to jump the gun. The one that's going off in act three!

Anyway, when *Expletive Deleted* comes out of the DMV, Charlize is sitting on the front of his car. Heh. She's a hood rat! She says that because he got her kicked out, he owes her a ride. This is true but the plot requires him to remain in Asshole Mode for a good half hour, so he so he goes back to his apartment and exercises in front of his fifty TV screens. I didn't make that up. He's so lame. A bell goes off and he saunters over to his microwave to remove a steaming phallus. It's a hot dog, actually, but he's way too into it if you know what I mean and I think you do. The front desk tells him he has a visitor. It's probably not Charlize. Except that it is. He's not happy to see her. I'm not happy to see him. Ever.

Charlize is still bothering him about a ride and starts embarrassing him by inviting passers-by to join their threesome. Something about a fudge-filled hot tub. How Charmingly Quirky of her.

Finally Charlize manages to bum a ride, and directs *Expletive Deleted* into an abandoned alley where she puts on a wig, steals his keys, and disappears into a warehouse. A stray cat wanders by. Eventually Charlize comes out, having rescued three puppies from what was apparently a testing lab. They were going to do something cruel and horrible to them, like lock them in a room where this movie was playing on a continual loop.

Next, *Expletive Deleted* pumps gas. Oh, how do describe that shot. Maybe…phallic? They argue about no one knows what.He drops her off at her apartment and she invites him in, winning him over by telling him that if he comes up for coffee, she won't bug him for rides anymore. I've written in my notes that this is where he says "woah" a million times, but I can't quite remember why. Does it matter? And has Charlize never seen her apartment before? Because most people don't gaze upon their abode with wide-eyed confusion when entering it, unless it's been robbed. Which, in this case, it has not. I'm still laughing every time she says "Nelson."

Charlize offers to "help" *Expletive Deleted.* He's an ass. She invites him to live there for a month. He says he's going to call the cops. "But I'm dying!" she shrieks pitifully. Oh, sorry. That was Simone and I again, waiting in vain for this movie to get to the point already.

Next scene. Picture of flaming, this time skewered, phallus. Because that never fails to be funny. Wacka wacka wacka. *Expletive Deleted* is trying to sell a new hot dog campaign, or whore himself, or something.

Shimmering Dialogue Sample: "Man is an animal. A savage. What does he want? A hot dog!" I pause the movie to contemplate this, unfortunately filling the screen with an image of Fish looking strangely turned on. After hurriedly hitting play again, I am unfortunaly subjected to *Expletive Deleted* revealing many, many phallic pictures of Hot Dogs and bellowing "Hot dog! Hot dog! Hot dog!" in with increasingly disturbing ecstasy. Oddly enough, the advertising people are not happy.

"You don't like it?!" screams *Expletive Deleted.* "No," says the man in charge. Hee. *Expletive Deleted* gets upset and Throws Down with the Hizzy. He whines that he's the best thing the agency has, which is really sad for the agency. After informing his boss that he's "Two cleos ahead of the game"—excuse me, what?—he gets fired or at least told to take an extended break. Hee again. Wish his agent would be so blunt. He goes back to his strange television-filled apartment where Gilmore Mommy is leaving. Good for her.

*Expletive Deleted* receives a large box on his doorsteps. One with airholes. Crap, Charlize sent him one of her puppies. Normally I like puppies and all, but—yeah. "What's in the box?" he wonders. Because he actually is that stupid. After a "yip" from the box helps him inch closer to a plausible conclusion, he opens the box and sees that the dog is wearing a hat that says "November" and carrying a key to Charlize's apartment in its mouth. What's that I smell around the corner? One steaming pile of hijinxs!

He storms into her apartment, angry. Remember his angst the way you remember the Alamo. I mean…never mind. He tells her the news of the day and she's all "Great, now you can move in with me." She literally starts ripping his clothes off. He justifiably asks her why she's frantically disrobing him and she seductively whispers "Because you smell like puppy pee."

She leaves the bathroom and he stares at his scrawny shirtless self in the mirror and says "Just for the night." If I had a dime, people. In her kitchen, Charlize stares lovingly at her calendar, which is open to the month of November. Because she's going to die! Scrawny comes in. Well, he is. Then he starts macking on Charlize, whom I thought he hated. She's fine with it. Even though he still supposedly hates her. Not quite as much as he does when she tells him to slow down, though. He runs into the street—who knows, maybe he's just trying to break off the set and they kept the cameras rolling—and she follows him, screeching "Nelson! Nelson!" Yep. Still funny. "I have no words to describe how positively wacked you are." Oh, he looses points because he didn't say wiggedy-wack. I guess she's just regular-type.

Charlize blathers about how sweet it all is and how she's just trying to help him. Sorry, Charlize. I like you—and your Brightly Colored Scarf of Eccentricity—very much indeed, but shut up. She's still screeching desperately at him as he shakes his head and looks around furtively. I really think he's trying to get away from it all. She has this gross "Jack, I'm flying!" moment as he announces that he'll stay for no reason other than Idiot Plot Development. No sooner do they re-enter the apartment then he starts drooling all over her and doing—things—sorry—vision getting fuzzy—blinded by the whiteness of his skin--

"Nelson?" Heh. Still good for a chuckle. "Do you want to be my November?" Barf . Fade to black. The next morning, we're treated to a close-up of a cat licking his foot, followed by a close-up of his face. Well, he likes that way too much. But that's a different movie that will probably turn me suicidal. *Expletive Deleted* gets out of bed and complains that her television doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work, Ye of Little Quirkiness! It's been hollowed out to make a planter! Of Quirkiness! I just got a headache! Of the especially Quirky variety! He gets annoyed about the Planter Television of—you know—and even more annoyed when Charlize comes in, throws him some 1994 grunge-wear, and says that she gave his business clothes away. Yeah, guess what? I'd be really annoyed too, because I bet that suit was expensive.

Charlize jumps several guns—the ones that Simone and I are praying will go off sometime soon—and asks when she gets to meet his parents. I am so rooting for him to say "You won't. You're going to die first" but because he's an idiot and can't tell that she has Cancer Eyes—you know what I mean—he just gets mad.

"They're dead," he says. Oh, do I smell pathos? Or just some weird kind of organic coffee? At this point, Jason Patrick, having grown a Scottish accent or quit ignoring it or something comes in and says "You must be November." I have written in my notes that *Expletive Deleted* says some stuff that doesn't make sense—and I'm so wasting time, because that sentence describes the entire movie—and storms out. Charlize makes a random Jack Kerouac reference. Charlize and *Expletive Deleted* see a homeless man wearing the Expensive Business Suit. *Expletive Deleted* is angry. So am I. At the world.

They come across some kid that Charlize is friends with. *Expletive Deleted* yells at him for no reason and then yells at Charlize, explaining why he can't be November. I don't know whether that sounds stupider out loud or on paper. "I don't have a month!" he screams. "Neither do I!" Go, Charlize. "I'M DYING!"

Okay…fine…that wasn't really her…that was Simone and I…again…get on with it…

He snits that this whole scheme of hers is just an excuse to get laid, which is pretty funny because it really is. She storms off. He follows. Dude, if you hate her then just leave. But no, he has to agree to stay for a day just so we can be treated to a montage of them running on the beach with lots of fluffy white dogs. The scene goes on for a year, too, with her frolicking in the surf like One Living Life to the Fullest and him looking at her with the smile of One Who's Icy Heart is Melting. Anyway, frolicking and smiling continue, and during all of this, the Golden Gate Bridge is in the background. Did you know that wherever you go in San Francisco, the Golden Gate is always directly behind you? It's just omnipresent like that.

Now Charlize is acting like a human pretzel. *Expletive Deleted* smiles really creepily, like he just figured out the potential of her flexibility. They walk. They eat. It's phallic. No surprise. They go back to the house and she blindfolds him and then "hides" on the bed. Shades of "The Crying Game." But not.

It's time for him to leave and so she tells him everything that he's going to do when he gets home and talks about how much he'll miss her and this is really (not) cleverly interspersed with him actually doing everything she says. Anyway, he misses her and goes back to her. Who knew? The next day they run into the kid from before. His name is Abner. Well, that sucks. Naturally, presence of a child onscreen evidently indicates that it's time for a dominatrix joke. Why, this is a veritable yuk-fest! Some kids make fun of Abner and *Expletive Deleted* who hated him about five minutes ago, decides to turn all Father Figure on us, but not in that George Michael sort of way.

They're having a boat race. Some guy keeps saying "Let's do dis!" Let's not and say we did. Ooh, suspense. All the mean kids' boats are winning until *Expletive Deleted* pays some guy to use his remote control U-boat—okay, I admit it, remote controlled U-boats rule and that's my new nonexistent band name—to make sure Abner wins.

Afterwards, *Expletive Deleted,* the kid, Charlize, and her Brightly Colored Scarf of Eccentricity tool around San Francisco and wax pathetic at each other. We learn that his secret dream is to sing. Oh, hell no. She smiles deathily—you know what I mean—and says she'd like to hear him sing. Notice that we don't get to vote. Everyone goes to get ice cream. Fish—remember him?—walks in and the kid leaves for no reason. Charlize drops really strong hints that she's going to die. Then Charlize and *Expletive Deleted* go to Casa De—um, I don't know how to say *Expletive Deleted* in Spanish and I'm too lazy to look it up—and demonstrate the full potential of the "smell the fart" method of acting. They slow dance to music that exists only in their minds. Yeah. That's always real fun.

I have no idea what comes next because I'm tired and my notes just say "Lurve. Frolick. Dirty Shakespeare (?) Why is he flashing people? Park. Bath. Charlize should fail to style his hair in a Mohawk." Now I remember. Scottish Pride—remember him?—comes in and starts talking about coffee. He's kind of hot. It's the accent. He eyes *Expletive Deleted* and says his pecs are "edible." How Lecterific of him. And, no, they're not. *Expletive Deleted* has a problem with—well, everything. He's a whiny bitch and I don't understand why she doesn't kick him to the curb, plan or not. Also, Scottish Pride's real name is Chaz Cherry. Oh, dear.

They get ready for dinner and *Expletive Deleted*—again demonstrating that everything he says is poetry—says "I don't want to waste my night with Chaz Cherry. I wanna get naked with Sarah Deever." She says "Thank you, Nelson Moss." Calling people by both names is cool.

Television footage of a rocket launching. I was thinking it had been a while since anything phallic had happened. Anyway, all the guys stare in fascination and Charlize pops pills. Ooh! Pills! For sick people! Someone calls on the phone and we find out it's Charlize's sister whom she doesn't get along with, and don't ask me why she's calling Scottish Pride's apartment. *Expletive Deleted* talks about himself in the third person. He sucks. Charlize keeps arguing with her sister, hangs up, goes upstairs, takes more pills, and cries. He goes to her and still totally wants to have sex. I don't call him *Expletive Deleted* because it's easy to type out. Finally he says "You're not feeling well, are you?"

And the Death sets in.

The next day Charlize styles her hair with a vacuum--no, literally--and gets cranky when he has to go to a meeting and I'm not even going to describe the meeting, because it's stupid, just like everything else in this movie and every person involved with it. The upshot is that *Expletive Deleted* declines the Great Offer and goes running back to Charlize, presumably for some mid-afternoon nookie. Charlize, meanwhile, is walking down the street while that Enya song plays. Yes. That one. *Expletive Deleted* pulls up in a cab, with flowers. I care. Back at the apartment, Charlize sadly prepares to give the dog away to a new owner.

*EXPLETIVE DELETED*: Come on. You know you love this little monster.
CHARLIZE: Soon I'll have another little monster…I'll love him, too.

See what they just did there?

She's making food and *Expletive Deleted* somehow fails to notice that she's completely haggard. He takes the dog outside to his new owner and Abner—oh, great—wanders onscreen and asks "Why can't she just keep one for a change?" Then Abner wants *Expletive Deleted* to adopt him but settles for having him come to "Father-Son Day" at school. Because Keanu Reeves oozes paternal instinct and is a universal symbol of hope to all the fatherless children of the world.

Then *Expletive Deleted* has a "feeling" and runs back to the apartment where Charlize is experiencing Sharp Pains and rolling around on the floor. About time. She says she's just upset about the dog—oh, good one—which works until she locks herself in the bathroom and he breaks in and busts open her pill cabinet. And she's in bad shape now. How can we tell? She's not wearing any lipstick!

Next time we see her, she's in the hospital, sadly minus the Brightly Colored Scarf of Eccentricity, but plus the classic Oxygen Tube of Death. This is where *Expletive Deleted* puts two and two together—I just bet the idiot comes up with five, too—and we get this really unnecessary exposition about Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma and how it's a bad, bad thing. SHUT UP! I know what that is and that you don't want it! Everyone in the world knows that! I'm actually mad now, thinking about what watching this movie is like for people who've actually had (or have) cancer.

Now it's time for a chat with Scottish Pride, who tells *Expletive Deleted* that Charlize didn't want to go through treatments that would just make her weak because "She loves life." Um, we know. We saw her with the poodles and her Scarf. When he goes back in to see her, she's removed the Oxygen Tube of Death. But she's still not wearing lipstick. You make the prognosis. "Do something for me," she says. Is she going to ask him to sing? "Sing…sing for me…sing, my angel of music!"

I'm really cool. In case anyone was unsure about that.

Fortunately, she just wants out of the hospital, so we're spared the singing for a bit longer but don't think that's the end of it. Anyway, *Expletive Deleted* just walks out the front of the hospital holding her—yeah, I'm so sure—and is promptly kicked out once he gets back to the apartment. Heh. Cut to "Father-Son Day" where Abner is telling the class that "Nelson makes [him] feel smart." You and me both, kid.

Afterwards, *Expletive Deleted* walks through the city—meaning, past the Golden Gate—while that Enya song plays. Again. I guess they don't get that a soundtrack needs to have, like, more than one song on it. He gazes wistfully at the outside of the apartment and has a sex montage which he kindly shares with us via the magic of film.

Thanksgiving. Charlize and Scottish Pride are making dinner for several of the more annoying minor characters we've been introduced to so far. She's wearing a headscarf. The Headscarf of Death. And she thought she beat out death when she yanked out the Oxygen Tube, hehe. Mayhem ensues when *Expletive Deleted* bursts through the window in a Santa hat.

I start inventing bad words.

First, everyone's all "Um…it's not Christmas yet," then *Expletive Deleted* looks at Charlize and simpers "She shouldn't have to wait." Everyone else leaves to go have Chinese Food—right, they're going to ignore Thanksgiving dinner and go have Chinese Food so that *Expletive Deleted* can shove phallic food items in Charlize's face in privacy. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

"For you, my sweet Sarah, I bring you the twelve gifts of Christmas." And because you just can't live without it, here's the complete list:

1. A salami.
2. A clown wig. And he pronounces "coiffure" wrong.
3. A whip. For her to whip people into shape. Yes, he actually says that.
4. Perfume. She makes a strange noise which somehow prompts him to say "This is only the beginning." Oh, say it isn't so!
5. A magazine. About transvestites.
6. Bubbles. Okay. Bubbles are cool. But they don't make up for all that other shit.
7. Bus tokens. How…economical?
8. A mix CD of "Music to Swoon By." Fifty bucks says it's just that Enya song, fifteen times. What's he smoking?
9. Dance classes. Eh. Okay.
10. A miniature dishwasher. No, seriously. What is he smoking?
11. He brings that dog back.
12. Oh, no, no, no, close your eyes and cover your ears because number twelve is him, wearing a horrible white dinner jacket and singing a positively dog-vomit version of "Unforgettable." Make it stop! He gets a lot of forced applause and I don't think it's nice to make a very sick person go out just so you can show off. When they get back, her apartment—someone kill me, please—is covered with flowers and dozens of calendars open to "November." No, I really mean it. I want to die. This movie has actually destroyed my will to live.

"Every month is November, Sarah. And I love you every day." You guys give up, or are you thirsty for more? "This is our month. It never has to end." Yeah, I can keep it coming. "I live for one thing. To love you. To make you happy. To live firmly and joyously in the moment. " (But not "vigorously," I guess. She doesn't have the energy for that) "November is our month."

Pause. Go find a screwdriver with which to gouge your eyes out, because they're about to have sex. Again. And she's really, really not enjoying it. Dude, take a hint! The next morning he wakes up and she's getting dressed and going somewhere. She tells him she's kicking him out again. You know, because that worked last time. She goes outside and he chases her and it cracks me up that a supposedly ailing female has no trouble outrunning the star of "The Matrix." They get to some place—by some water—I don't know—and she launches into the whole "You have to let me go" speech.

She blindfolds him for what we hope and pray is the last time, using none other than the Brightly Colored Scarf of Eccentricity. "I love you, Nelson Moss." "I love you, Sarah Deever." "Remember me," she says, and finally— finally—moves away. He stumbles after her, blindfolded, for a while, and when he uncovers his eyes, he sees that she's disappeared. Well, what, did she jump off a ledge? Or maybe just go back to her apartment? The one that he knows the location of quite well and will probably run straight back to because it didn't stop him before? Aaaagh. Anyway, he wraps the scarf around him in a way that reminds me of Ebenezer Scrooge and walks around San Francisco to the strains of—you guessed it—That Enya Song. That &^%$£* Enya Song.

The movie is over.

I'm in pain.

And the song playing during the end credits is about wrapping oneself in cellophane.

"Spice World"

2008-04-19T21:53:00.000-07:00

Vibrant lettering on the plastic case assures me that: "This DVD is packed with Girl Power!" I don't doubt it.

I can't really do justice to the credits, but picture a lava lamp. Now picture a lava lamp with every color in the Roy G. Biv spectrum, and then some. Oh, and imagine that the blobs inside the lamp are shaped like the Spice Girls. And then imagine that they're in your head, singing some song that wasn't really a big hit and therefore was kind of a dumb way to open a movie. Or just go smoke something. I bet the end results are about the same. Cut to a shot that introduces all of them singing at a concert: Posh Spice, who looks like Barbara Hershey in "Beaches"; Sporty Spice, who—I'm going to stand by this—really can sing, sort of; Baby and Scary Spice, who's names are really quite explanatory; and Ginger Spice, who is fifty-seven years old. Maybe they could call her Old Spice. Hee. I just made myself titter. Then I catch sight of Alan Cumming in the crowd and begin to howl with joy.

They finish the concert. They look like they're made of plastic. They accuse their manager of not loving them. This gives us the first Awesomely Ridiculous (or Ridiculously Awesome) quote of the film:

"Oh, yes I do. I love you like a wildebeest loves five lionesses chewing at his legs."

We see Alan again—procreate with me, Alan—telling a camera that he'll be spending five days with the Spice Girls, who are now molesting Elton John as he makes his astoundingly brief and yet much-hyped cameo appearance.

The girls sign autographs while screaming "Girl Power!" at the top of their lungs—the people who packaged the DVD weren't kidding—and inspire me to ponder whether or not the population of England has a problem with the fact that their flag seems to have found a permanent home on Senior Spice's knickers. The girls get on their bus, which looks like the inside of Austin Power's private plane and is the size of an airport hangar once you get inside. Posh has trouble deciding what to wear, and I have to quote this entire segment. I just have to.

Posh: I never know what to wear.
Sporty: Must be really hard for you, trying to decide whether to wear the little Gucci dress, the little Gucci dress, or the little Gucci dress.
Posh: Exactly.
Baby: I know—why don't you wear the little Gucci dress?

Once again. Awesomely Ridiculous and Ridiculously Awesome. I think my head is going to explode. And that's before the completely spontaneous pillow fight!

In the next scene, some middle-aged executives decide that there ought to be a Spice Girls movie about five girls who call themselves the Spice Girls—why do I get the feeling that if I think about this too deeply, I'll give myself a headache?

Then some guy who was in a lot of James Bond movies walks around, shakes a martini, pets his cat, and spouts off cryptic sayings that are possibly humorous to a person who is either British and/or a James Bond fanatic. Being neither, I hold the "skip forward" button down, and stop this abruptly when I see that Scary is, for no apparent reason, wearing an oversized snow suit. She and the rest of the girls are recording some weird version of "Say You'll Be There" and looking about as hard core as Seth Green in "Can't Hardly Wait." Or me, for that matter. Ever. Up on the balcony, Alan sports a nifty fake British accent and a silly orange parka as he tells his camera crew that he wants to take the audience on a journey through the Spice Girls' "deepest subcultures."

Some pregnant girl wanders into the recording studio and the girls helpfully swarm around her, but only after Scary has removed the top half of her snowsuit to reveal the world's fugliest bikini top. We're treated to disturbing dream sequence in which every Spice Girl is knocked up and Scary is wearing my friend Ashby's outfit that she bought in Kenya. Back in real life, the girls sit on stools and pick up microphones. Instead of breaking into song, they sit there for what seems like an hour, talking and laughing with each other, not to mention making subtle and meaningful facial expressions. We can't hear a thing they're saying, either, because the soundtrack editors have decide to drown them out with the kind of wistful instrumental generally used in a scene where we'd see Tiny Tim Cratchit's abandoned crutch by the fireplace, in the cold, dark morning of Christmas Yet to Come. After several moments of this non-pathos, they finally sing the same song they were singing five minutes ago, not to mention it's a song that had been out for a good two years before this movie was made, so why are they re-recording it now?

Next we see some newspaper guy who's really upset that the Spice Girls are on the cover of every single magazine. Try flashing forward to 2003, bro. You won't have that problem. He says he doesn't care if the Spice Girls find the cure for déjà vu. Some other guy says "huh?" So the first guy repeats what he just said. This is neither Awesomely Ridiculous nor Ridiculously Awesome. It just kind of blows. The upshot of the scene is that the first guy decides to break up the Spice Girls so that he can have something interesting to publish. He yells this at the top of his lungs, and lightening flashes, and thunder rolls, and rain begins pouring down right there, in the middle of the office, and I know you think I'm making this up but I can assure you, I'm not.

Back on the bus. Posh stares at herself in the mirror. Sporty lifts weights. Baby sits on her swing in the corner and sucks a lollipop. Scary plays chess with Centrum Silver Spice. I'm not really paying attention to their blatherings, but it's kind of funny when Scary grips the fishtank—just your standard bus-board aquarium—glares at the fish, and goes "A-a-ah." Retirement Home Spice is wearing a placemat.

Now there's a montage where they sing some song about meeting some guys, or getting ready to look so good, or perhaps both. Posh dresses up like Jackie O. The rest of them dress up like Charlie's Angels, Janis Joplin, and someone with very bad, ugly hair. It's either Diana Ross or Howard Stern.

The baddies hire this bald guy to take picture of the Spice Girls, who are en route to the publicity party. Alan has trouble getting in. Hi, Alan! I still love you, Alan! Prego reappears and gets Alan into the party, but not before he sings a really geeky version of "Two Become One." Marry me, Alan! I know you're gay. Do it anyway and then just come over to my apartment a lot and quote things for me. Inside the party, the creepy bald guy sneaks up on the girls by rising out of the buffet table wearing a fruit hat—I don't know—and someone asks Decrepit Spice if she likes boys. She responds with "Is the Pope catholic?" and somehow, someway, this gets turned into a huge controversy where the Spice Girls are accused of questioning the Pope's spirituality.

The girls fly to Milan to attend a rehearsal for a television sow. They perform a number in which they mutter "Come on, come on" over and over, demonstrate choreography that they probably stole from Xuxa, and act appalled when they realize that their background dancers are clad only in small white shorts and navy hats. They declare that this is just too tacky, and Baby Spice tells one of the guys there's no room in her bed because she has too many stuffed animals. That night they perform the number the exact same way, Fox Kids Club choreography and all, but Up With People have managed to change into pink and purple suits that reveal their butt cheeks. Fireworks go off in slow motion. Back in England, the girls make their bus driver pull over so that they can go pee in the woods.

The girls magically find themselves in a clearing, where they encounter stolen footage from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Some creatures from Weta Workshops get off the ship, grope Scary Spice, and mourn the fact that they couldn't get tickets to the big Spice Concert at Royal Albert Hall. Former James Bond calls up, tells the girls they don't get any time off, and finally says something that makes it clear to me that he's actually their boss.

Cut to that night, where the girls are staying in an old house that is possibly haunted. Creepy music and a close up of the toilet. The weird guy comes out of the toilet. Then...nothing.

The executives still think there needs to be a Spice Girls movie. The new plot is—I'm not kidding—"Air Force One" meets "E.T." meets "Outbreak" meets…"Spice World." Cut to Alan—hi, Alan—interviewing some little girls who've won a day on board the Spice Bus. To their credit, the girls look about as thrilled as I would look if someone told me I'd won a day in the presence of White Oprah. The girls and their two mournful looking charges manage to break away from the bus. They get on a boat and cruise around the River Thames lip-syncing to "My Boy Lollipop." Wednesday and Pugsly continue to curb their enthusiasm. Somehow the boat tips over really far and the little girls fall out and everyone else begins to scream. Sporty and Posh dive in to save the long-suffering youths, who actually appear to be enjoying themselves for the first time. Needless to say, this ends up on the news.

At a rehearsal, their manager yells at them and they all run off shrieking, and the manager stands in the middle of the stage and bellows—it's a very loud scene—"I think I may have just started the break-up of the Spice Girls! A-a-aaaa-a-argh!" and for no reason huge panel of light just flares on behind him, like the finale of "Chicago." Former James Bond calls the manager and chews him out. Since I should probably toss one of his ridiculous quotes in, we'll go with this one: "The headless chicken can only know where he has been. He cannot see where he is going. Do not be that chicken."

The creeps who hate the Spice Girls are very, very excited to hear that the show may have to be cancelled—excited as in, "Hallelujah" starts playing in the background. Oh, get a grip.

"A very long time ago" flashes across the screen and we see supposedly young Spice Girls forcing this restaurant owner—not to mention their pregnant friend, who of course isn't pregnant yet because this is a flashback—to watch them dance around and lip-sync to a heinous recording of the song "Wannabe." They can't even lip-sync to their own number one hit. Posh Spice is dressed like Jessica Wakefield. Scary Spice is dressed like a Jordache Jeans model. Sporty Spice looks like DJ Jazzy Jeff, Baby Spice looks like Natalie from "The Facts of Life," and Medicare Spice looks like herself, only weirder. Back in the world of Spice Present, they all meet in the middle of the night to—actually, I have no idea, but it leads to the single most ass-kicking dream sequence in the entire movie and perhaps the world. They appear before a judge who sentences them to—I'll just transcribe the whole thing. It's that awesome.

"You have been found guilty of releasing a single that is by no means as kicking as your previous record. Nor does it have such a wicked, dirty, phat bass line. You are sentenced to having your next record enter the charts at number one hundred and seventy nine before dropping straight out the following week. Furthermore, you are sentenced to twenty years of having to appear on cheesy chat shows in Taiwan, talking about how you used to be famous. And may God have mercy on your lip gloss." (Bangs gavel.) "Call in Hau-tie and the Blowfish!"

After I collect myself and un-pause the movie, the girls decide that what their very pregnant friend needs is a night of carousing on the town. Yep, nothing like drunken revelry to induce labor. They drag her to dance club where they proceed to ditch her so that they can resume being obnoxious show-offs. Why do I have a feeling that Knocked Up—who is guzzling a beer—is about to spew forth a human life from her loins, right as her dippy "friends" are making yet another pathetic attempt to successfully lip-sync to their own song?

I won't detail the entire suspenseful bus ride to the hospital, just the part where Fermented Spice leans down and shrieks into what she thinks is her friend's uterus, "Stay up there! We're not ready for you yet!"
In the lobby, an earnest looking woman approaches the girls and informs them that her son is unconscious, so would they please try speaking to him? They do as bid, and hover by his bed while debating whether or not they ought to remove their tops.

The boy's eyes fly open as his parents beam sentimentally.

The next day, the girls refuse to go to their rehearsal because Great with Child is still…great with child. Mayhem breaks out at the theatre as Alan tries to get a close up of the beads of sweat on the Spice Manager's brow. The show starts in five minutes and the girls are still at the hospital. Finally things start happening, and the girls crowd around their friend to witness the miracle of life. If only the movie ended with a single, lingering shot, of all five Spice Girls yelling "Push!" Alas, it doesn't end there.

Posh Spice: Is it a boy or girl?
Baby Spice: It's a beet root!
Scary Spice: It's a girl!
Menopause Spice: Now that is Girl Power!

The girls make their way out of the maternity ward and run smack into the creepy bald guy. They chase him and sort of beat him to the ground—well, mostly they kick—and we cut to a shot of one of the executive guys explaining to the Spice Manager why this would make a great movie. In the fantasy/reality or whatever, the girls get on the bus, and apparently the driver has disappeared because Posh takes the wheel and navigates the bus through downtown London, "Speed" style. Craziness (not) ensues as the weird guy continues to narrate why everything we're seeing would make a fab movie. I guess it's kind of cool that they're standing on top of the bus screaming for no reason. I would. If I had nothing better to do. And I were really, really drunk.

There's a car full of nuns—huh—and the executive is about to spontaneously combust as he describes a scene wherein Posh must navigate the Spice Bus over a bridge that is lifting to let a boat pass. You really have to watch it to get the whole Awesomely Ridiculous/Ridiculously Awesome effect.

Executive One: And there it goes! A five-ton London bus sailing through the air at seventy mph!
Executive Two: It's incredible!
Manager Spice: It's expensive!
(Footage of a plastic bus being pulled through the air by a string over a toy bridge.)
Executive One: Not necessarily.

Loath as I am to admit it, that's pretty funny.

"And that," the first executive shrikes orgasmically, "is when the discover the BOMB!" Baby screams. The rest of them scream. All the guys talking about the fantasy sequence scream. This movie is winning me over.

Not that any of the following makes sense, but one of the guys grabs another by the neck and beats him up because it's all too suspenseful. We see the girls pull up by the curb and scamper up the steps to Royal Albert Hall as the "Rocky" theme plays. The girls get held up by a cop for disturbing the pigeons, while Alan—hi, Alan! —stands in the middle of the dressing room video taping virtually nothing.

"It's the very essence of documentary…silence. Silence. Absolutely marvelous."

Manager Spice is about to go onstage and hang himself—no, really—when the girls suddenly appear. They step onstage in Vegas outfits to sing their Pepsi commercial song. We see shots of every single person who had a part in this movie—and many who did not—dancing very poorly indeed. Fade to black.

False alarm. There's silly scripted bantering as the end credits roll, and if you think I'm going to sit here commenting on it when I ought to be rushing to get this stupid thing by midnight—you know me pretty well. Nice one. As it turns out, sitting through the end credits is worth it because:

I find out that Meat Loaf was in this movie.
I hear a random guy telling another random guy, "As an artist, a good kicking could be the highest acclaim you'll ever get!"
I get to hear Alan, finally speaking in his completely wonderful Scottish accent, complaining about trying to sound British and having to stick his chest out. Because it can't be said enough: Alan! I am hopelessly devoted to you! I love you more than all the other guys on Broadway who wear too much eyeliner! I'll have your kids and let you raise them with your boyfriend!

That last part almost makes up for the amazingly lame sequence where the girls "pretend" to notice the camera that has been trained on them, approach it, and start chatting conspiratorially with people like me who are pathetic enough to sit here and watch it. Then, as is right and fitting, the Spice Bus blows up.

"Alex and Emma": Shut up, Luke.

2008-04-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

So the credits are pretty cool.

Then the movie actually starts.

Two burly "ethnic" men, whom I think I've seen at the Shell station on Blackstone in Fresno, burst into Luke Wilson's apartment and dangle him out of a window. Apparently Luke Wilson borrowed some money so he could gamble, hasn't paid it back, and these guys are giving him thirty days to do it before they send him to the big casino in the sky. Also, he's a writer, and to get the money to pay them back he has to finish a manuscript, but the Fresno guys have destroyed his computer. Tight spot! Who ya gonna call? Kate Hudson!

In the next scene Luke Wilson gets Kate Hudson, the stenographer, to come to his house by telling her that it's a law firm named after some dead presidents. She shows up at his rat hole apartment, realizes that there's something very wrong with him, and tries to leave. It's a lot like what happened when she showed up for lunch with her agent, realized there was something very wrong with this script, and tried to leave. Alas. Twice thwarted. Onscreen, Luke babbles about how people are going to kill him if he doesn't finish his book—shut up, Luke—and for some reason passes out.

Unfortunately, Luke wakes up and starts talking again. To be specific, he starts talking about Little League. No, there is not a reason. I'm about to scream "Shut up!" but Kate beats me to it. Good girl. He tries to stop her from going and she bellows "Unhand me!" Heh. When he informs her he's a "brilliant novelist," she informs him that it's like how she invented the concept of nuclear energy. Then he follows her down the stairs and says, "I know my veracity is being called into question but barking up your body is the furthest thing from my mind."

Kate leaves him but then comes back to get her scarf, which is good because not losing scarves is important. She catches sight of one of his previous books on the table, which is cleverly...yeah...titled "Love Means Always Having to Say You're Sorry." Based on this, she decides to stay and type what he dictates to her. The colors on the screen keep changing from bluish tint to yellowish tint but I think that's because this is the dollar movies and not because the movie is so bad that my mind is starting to play tricks on me.

Then he talks about why writing is important to him and I get what he's saying, but the way he says it makes me ashamed of my own aspirations. Also, I've never told anyone that art is my mistress. Art is his mistress?

Luke says "I'm laughing but I'm not laughing." It's like how I'm enjoying myself but I'm not enjoying myself. Shut up, Luke.

He dictates more of the story, which we see acted out on screen. It's about some guy on a train who sits down next to some other guy on a train and the second guy tells the first guy that he's going to marry some chick because she's hot but she doesn't have money and the first guy who is played by Luke looks like he's been hung out to dry. Story Luke, gets off the train and meets the girl he was talking about with the guy, who's name is Paulina and who is French and not a very good actress. We can tell that Story Luke is taken with her because the soundtrack editors have helpfully piped in Guitars of Blossoming Romance. To save time, Story Luke thinks Paulina is hot and wants to marry her but money is important to her so will she marry Poor Luke or Rich Other Guy From Train and will he Make Money and does Anyone Care?

Now Story Kate makes an entrance as this French maid named Ylve. Yeah, I don't know. All you need to know is that Real Life Kate Hudson—as in, the actress herself—sounds like she's having an absolute blast with her horrendously fake accent. Then Story Luke is on the beach with Story Paulina looking like a complete pansy in this old fashioned swimsuit. In a voice over, we hear Craptastic Author Luke talking about how the monetary differences between the two shouldn't matter, as America is a place where "Everyone can love everyone." Except that the way he says it makes me think about an orgy and I giggle, because I'm five.

Then for no reason, Author Luke decides that Ylve the French maid needs to become Elsa the German maid, and as though that weren't enough—ho, ho—he makes a spectacularly unfunny Hitler joke.

Author Luke continues to narrate his dreadful story—and speaking of dreadful, Story Luke has his hair completely slicked down like Crispin Glover in "Willard." Story Luke goes to a casino and bets some money so that he can wind up with Story Paulina—and if you think that my referring to her as "Story Paulina" means that a Real Life Paulina is going to pop up any decade now, you're absolutely right. If that statement just wrecked the suspense for you, then I don't think we're allowed to be friends anymore. Anyway, Story Luke bets some money. I don't really understand what happens next.

Casino Man: You lost.
Story Luke: I lost?
Casino Man: You lost.
Story Luke: I lost?
Author Luke: He lost.

Apparently, though, Real Kate likes it because she stares at Real Luke as—you guessed it—the Guitars of Blossoming Romance make a subtle re-entrance. She goes downstairs and watches him take off his shirt in the window, before she trips and falls into a puddle, wrecking everything she typed that day. The next day she goes back and reads Author Luke the re-cap that she wrote to make up for destroying the material. It goes something like "Some guys were on a train and then they weren't and he fell in love with her and went to a casino and lost his money because he's stupid." She's better at this than I am!

After that gets squared away, Author Luke starts dictating "romantic" passages to Kate. He spouts phrases like "tumbled furiously into bed" with about as much enthusiasm as the average person uses when reading a shopping list. Less, probably, especially if you have a Costco membership. I bet he doesn't. They have some pizza and Author Luke stares at Stenographer Kate as she plays with the pepperonis--not a metaphor--and says, "Who are you?"

Remind me to ask someone that next time they're in the middle of eating pizza. It's also a good time to ask the person if he or she happens to be single. In this case Stenographer Kate says no, she met her boyfriend about a year ago at a hockey game.

"Oh," says Author Luke. "So it's one of those hockey romances."

Hockey Romance? What on earth is a hockey romance? Shut up, Luke.

Author Luke goes back to talking about sex—yippy skippy—only this time we actually get to see the scene unfold.

Then, of course, he gets writer's block. Am I the only one who thinks the Muses are trying to tell him something? So he and Kate walk around and eat salad (the official food of HOT people) and beam at each other while Norah Jones sings in the back ground, which is even worse than the Guitars of Blossoming Romance. I mean I liked Norah and her song about not knowing why probably the first three hundred times I heard it, but then--yeah.

Luke says goodnight to Kate after their day of salad and subliminal romantic background music. He tells her that he loves her, but not like that, but she knows what he means, so yeah, and he'll see her tomorrow. Kate looks really confused, not because her character doesn't understand, but because she as a person is questioning how, less than three years ago, she was nominated for an Academy Award, and now she's just standing on a fake-looking soundstage listening to Luke Wilson babble. Shut up, Luke.

In the story, Paulina's grandmother who was rich and who supposedly died shows up and is not dead and starts talking about how she's not going to die—you know, I bet she's about to die—and bingo! She keels over. Author Luke voice-overs that the rich grandmother has "gone the way of all Chanel." I'm not kidding; I really don't get that one. Ooh, this scene gets the award for the Most Random Use of the word Scurvy. Also, the other guy that wants to marry Paulina is named John Shaw. What kind of name is John Shaw? I'll tell you what. It's a non-name. If there weren't a million other reasons why Real Luke has no business being an author, that would about do it. Yay for creativity! And yay for Author Luke's voice over that, "It was at this point that he pondered that maybe he should stop pondering."

Oh, yeah—at some point, Elsa the German has become Anna the American, still played by Kate and still very cute, and Story Luke loves her as well as Paulina, so it's this really unpredictable romantic triangle except for the part where it isn't.

In real life, Luke and Kate drink some product placed water, and four stupid things in a row happen. First, Luke says, "I'm just spitballing" but then makes it obvious that he wants to make out with Kate Hudson. Second, Kate Hudson starts talking about the book and about how "All this time [Story Luke and Story Kate] have been so close to discovering that they truly blah blah blah let us whap you over the head with the frying pan of FORESHADOWING!" Third, people start belching for no reason. I start thinking I'm watching a Farelly Bros. movie. I start wishing I were watching a Farelly Bros. movie. Lastly, Luke—doesn't matter which one—talks about how the heart is an "ethereal web of complex emotions, undeniable in blah blah my teacher is making me write a story where I use all my vocabulary words so I'm going to use them all in the same sentence!"

Imaginary Luke goes to a ballroom and does a dance that brings to mind "Elaine at the J. Peterman Party." Then he borrows money from the Fresno Guys—woah, didn't know they were in this story—so that he can gamble and have money to marry Paulina. Then in the next scene, the real Fresno guys come over and growl at Kate and break Luke's television and tell him he has a day left. I'm really starting to like the Fresno guys.

Luke and Kate decide to get two hours of sleep and—no one but the frying pan of foreshadowing saw this one coming—climb into his bed together. We know something important is going to happen because our old friends, the Guitars of Blossoming Romance have suddenly been replaced with the Gentle Piano of Imminent Romantic Discovery. It's not like they have their work cut out for them, either. The two stooges are already sleeping in the same bed. Kate reveals that she doesn't really have a boyfriend. Luke hurtles himself on top of her and tells her not to deny herself real happiness.

Boys: this is a really good idea. You should try it. You probably won't get pepper-sprayed.

Luke and Kate finally get down to business. I'm not very excited about it. Neither, apparently, is actor Luke Wilson. Heh.

The next morning, we see her wearing his shirt—it's a very subtle touch—and they finish their Epic Epistle of Smarm, which concludes with both woman refusing to have anything to do with Story Luke and him being miserable and lonely. Literary Prozac. Luke walks Kate to the door. "I, uh…" he says to her. "I, uh, you too," she says, and walks away. Oh, dear. My favorite thing about that line was that somebody thought it deserved placement IN THE TRAILER.

When Kate walks outside she sees a woman whom she thinks looks just like Paulina! Aaaa! Then, of course, she just blows it off and leaves. Luke walks outside and sees Paulina at a café across the street. He sits down and talks to her for nine hours. I'm not kidding. It's morning when he sits down there, and the next shot of them is at night. Paulina talks about how she should have gone with Luke all those years ago and how she was only thinking of her children when she married the heinous rich guy, and my favorite part is when she says, "That's my problem. I never think of my own happiness." Oh, sorry about that, Mother Theresa.

Kate, who has typed out his manuscript in record time, comes to find him, sees him at the café, and somehow knows this is Paulina. Which confuses me because I thought that all of the imaginary sequences in the movie were in Luke's head, and if so, how does she know what his fantasy girl really looked like? Doesn't matter. She runs away and Luke looks like he wants to slap his forehead and say "D'oh!" but can't muster the energy. So he takes the manuscript to his publisher who apparently keeps his office open all night and the publisher tells him it's terrific.

Luke calls Kate a bunch of times and she won't pick up. No, that's not the end. Don't we wish. Remember in the beginning when Luke got Kate to come to his apartment because she thought it was a law firm that was named after a bunch of dead presidents? No? Well, it doesn't really matter because the movie itself reminds you of this with trademark sledgehammer subtlety. Kate goes to another firm for a new job which has a sign on it that names all the presidents that were supposedly in the other imaginary firm. I'm not going to list them for you. Get over it. Luke comes in. Kate looks crestfallen and wants to leave, but Luke won't let her until he's made her type up some new dumb-ass ending where Story Luke realizes that Story Kate was his one true love and vows to spend the rest of his life searching for her. The way he phrases this reminds me of that Police song, but they don't play the Police song. They play the Norah Jones song, again, as Luke tells Kate that "[Story Luke] should end up with [Story Kate.]" Smooth. The movie finally ends as Kate and Luke make out with the camera spinning around them like some kind of Blair Witch RomCom.

"Crossroads": after that, the deluge.

2008-04-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

As the movie opens, we see several young girls putting things in a box and burying it. They want to stay friends! Forever! Older Britney Voice Over informs us that it didn't quite work out that way.

Oh, sick. We're maybe a minute and a half in, and already Britney is whoring around in her underwear.

At school, she saunters along the hallway looking like a cartoon version of herself, and everyone she bumps into screams that she's perfect and virginal. Because this was years before K-Fed. Her two former friends shall henceforth be known as: Token Ethnic and Troubled Young Woman.

At a party that night, the Troubled Young Woman reminds Britney and Token Ethnic about the pact made years earlier, to dig up their time capsule at midnight after graduation. Token Ethnic and her friends jump around on the dance floor showcasing the kind of acting found on instructional videotapes titled "What NOT to Do." Upstairs, Britney is preparing to give it up to her lab partner. She emerges from the bathroom in—you guessed it—her underwear. Ultimately, Britney backs out and her lab partner looks positively suicidal.

The Three Musketeers show up to unearth the time capsule after all. Each of them buried something that represents a wish. Token Ethnic buried a wedding Barbie, which represents her wish to get married. Britney buried a locket belonging to her mother, whom she has yet to ever meet. Troubled Young Woman buried a small globe on a key chain. Her wish was "The World."

Troubled Young Woman has a brilliant plan to take a road trip to California and audition to become a recording star. Oh, and she's pregnant, which means that the previous statement is funny. The upshot of the next ten minutes is that the girls end up going on a road trip after all, with a Hot Guy who is a registered trademark of Mattel Toys, Inc. Britney sports a bucket hat that Blossom would keel over dead before wearing. Nevertheless, Hot Guy ™ makes it blatantly obvious that he wants to do her. In the car, they all sing along to an N'Sync song.

At a roadside diner, Hot Guy ™, ever slick, reaches his arm around Britney in a subtle manner. They stay in a gross motel room and Britney and Hot Guy ™ stay up late staring at each other.

The girls are shown in the bathroom the next morning for the sole purpose of showcasing Britney in a towel. Lighthearted pondering as to whether or not Hot Guy ™ is a murderer follows. Troubled Young Woman answers Britney's increasingly frantic inquiries about the International Man of Mystery's past with "Well…he used to hang out with some of the guys at the trailer park."

The soundtrack screams "Here is something you could not understand, how I could just kill a man," again and again and again and again.

The girls proceed to act blatantly obvious in their suspicion. Troubled Young Woman's baby kicks. Britney, having stolen her shirt from Alice in Wonderland, calls her father, who yells at her for, you know, disappearing without notice. I think you need some dialogue:

Hot Guy ™: Hey. (Unnecessary pause.) What are you writing there?
Britney: (Wait for it...) Stuff.
Part of the car explodes.

"Crossroads" is this year's "Memento." If you don't focus, you have to start all over again.

The girls send Hot Guy ™ off to fetch a tow truck. Britney says "bitch" and "damn." This was really shocking at the time, because it was 2002, before all the head-shaving, paparazzi-attacking, crotch-displaying craziness. It's kind of sad to see how cute she could be back when she was hygenic. The girls inform each other of their mutual hatred, yet when Britney moves towards the phone, intending to call her father to rescue her, suddenly the other two don't want her to leave.

Every single person in this movie is bi-polar.

Uh-oh. How will they make money to pay for the car repair? It can't possibly involve a karaoke contest! Oh, wait. First, Troubled Young Woman tries to sing but can't, and naturally Britney has a Supergirl moment and saves the day. Or, she destroys a classic 80's rock song. Joan Jett would cut this bitch so fast. During the course of the song, Hot Guy ™ foams at the mouth and Britney stands really, really close to a pole. She's practically foaming at the mouth, too, but it's not because of any attraction to Hot Guy ™. It's because the strain of resisting the urge to pole dance is causing her physical pain.

Britney bellows that she loves Rock N' Roll for the millionth time. Somehow I'm not convinced.

Her Virginal Sweetness cannot believe the reaction she gets from the crowd. The four stooges flee with all the money they made. Who knew? It's a small fortune. More than enough to cover the cost of the car, way more than enough to stay in a swanky hotel with a mini-bar. Hot Guy ™ disappears into the night to brood, and the girls commence to boozing. The girls sit around re-hashing the horrors of childhood. Token Ethnic shares self-image problems, Britney reminds us that her mother is AWOL, and Troubled Young Woman says that her baby is actually the result of a rape. This might actually be tragic if the camera wasn't focused on Britney's face the whole time.

The next day, as the girls get gas, Hot Guy ™ falls asleep, and the task falls to Princess Purity to retrieve his keys, which are naturally in his pants. I thought I hated this movie as much as was humanly possible, but then they started singing along with "Man! I feel like a woman." It's like I've surpassed a personal goal. Hot Guy ™ wakes up, sees that his car is being driven by—well, Britney Spears—and gets angry. He convinces her to pull over by yelling and thumping the back of her seat in a violent manner. After she pulls over, he jumps out of the vehicle and proceeds to grunt, stomp his feet, and throw rocks off into the distance. Schizophrenic much, Hot Guy ™? When confronted, it is revealed that he's simply agitated after spending several days surrounded by girls. "And I'm a guy," he tells Britney, emphatically and repeatedly. "A guy. A guy."

Through subtle (not) interrogation, it is revealed that Hot Guy ™ did indeed serve time in prison, but not for murder—for removing his sister from the clutches of an evil stepfather. Vomit.

That night, after standing in the middle of nowhere yelling, completely unaware that there is no kind of echoing whatsoever, they camp out in the desert. Again, Hot Guy ™ asks Britney what she's writing. Unfortunately, we're not rescued by exploding car parts this time. Britney placidly reads the lyrics to "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman." This song makes me ashamed of my femininity. Troubled Young Woman screams that she's been bitten by a snake. Or a mosquito. As we all know, snakes and mosquitoes are very similar in appearance and the kind of wound they inflict upon human flesh.

In Tucson, Britney drops in on her mother without so much as a warning phone call. I't s Kim Catrall, slumming. Hi, Kim! Kim has no interest whatsoever in bonding with Teen Idol, and she shows up at her friend's hotel room later, drenched and forlorn. Apparently her mother told her she never wanted her and that she was a mistake.

Again. This is way before K-Fed!

To comfort Britney, Hot Guy ™ plays her the music he wrote to accompany her crap-tastic poem. As though this weren't horrible enough on it's own, he makes her sing, after which they kiss. In the car, every last one of them, including Hot Guy ™ sings along with "If It Makes You Happy."

It does not. It does not make me happy.

In Los Angeles, Troubled Young Woman and Token Ethnic go sightseeing, and Hot Guy ™ and Britney do a really bad job of pretending they aren't staying behind for the sole purpose of burning her V-Flag. Classy touch, undressing right in front of the window like that. Token Ethnic and Troubled Young Woman pay a surprise visit to the former's fiancee's house, to find that not only has he been screwing around, but he's the one who raped Troubled Young Woman, who gets frantic, falls down the stairs, and looses the baby.

The Overbearing Father shows up and nearly convinces Britney to throw all her selfish plans to the wind. Hot Guy ™ gets annoyed, and Britney's friends try to convince her to stay in California and audition to become a pawn in the grand sadistic game that is the entertainment industry. At the last minute, Britney hops out of the car, makes out with her boyfriend, and wows the music people with the previously mentioned Ode to her Lady Business. Hot Guy ™ is happy, Dad is happy, the friends are happy, and most importantly, Britney is happy.

But Kristin isn't.

"A Walk to Remember" : It's Cancer-ific!

2008-04-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

The movie opens with a black screen, as a Rockin' Song plays. This is to convince guys who've been forced to watch this by their girlfriends that this movie isn't going to turn them gay. We meet a group of reckless young hooligans who demonstrate their coolness by asking every three seconds if anyone has a beer. They're gathered by a body of water, waiting for a nervous youngster to dive in and prove his masculinity.

"I feel this huge rush of adrenaline. It's like I'm there," mutters my sister. She's facedown on the floor. She isn't even looking at the screen.

The guy ends up breaking some bones, or something. The ringleader of these shenanigans, who I'll call Teen Angst, grunts and bares his teeth as another Rockin' Song plays while he tries to escape the police car that is now chasing him. Good one. We're introduced to the mother of Teen Angst, who is the mermaid from "Splash," minus the tail, plus a hideous brunette wig. We also meet the town pastor, whom we can tell right off the bat is a fun loving kind of guy. His daughter is Mandy Moore, who is singing angelically in the choir, blissfully unaware that Teen Angst is about to turn things upside down. At least as much as he can in a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book.

At school the following Monday, yet another Rockin' Song plays. We see Teen Angst and his friends ragging on Mandy for no apparent reason. It comes back to him, since his boozing behavior gets found out and part of his punishment is that he has to participate in the spring play.

Teen Angst goes to the auditions for the spring play, where we're introduced to the drama kids, who are completely unlike an real drama kids, anywhere, ever, for the following reasons:

No black, whatsoever. They're a nightmarish rhapsody in pastel.
No eyeliner on anyone of either gender.
Teen Angst doesn't look justifiably perturbed. Drama Kids are supposed to scare people. That's their job. These dorks look like they're about to roll out a welcome cart covered with pastries and perhaps a few mini-quiches.

I will say that Shane West's deliver of the line "If this is love...pour me another glass?" is pretty nearly worth the price of rental. Mandy nicely gives Teen Angst a ride home, and he thanks her by insisting upon controlling the radio. Oh, the tension.

Teen Angst then realizes that the line memorization thing isn't going so well and asks Mandy for help. He goes to her house after school, and after standing on her porch for maybe two seconds, he asks her if she's going to make him stand out there all afternoon. We establish the fact that her father is none too keen on Teen Angst.

Cut to Teen Angst driving, listening to a Rockin' Song, and in general being intense. He sees Mandy hanging out in the cemetery and feels the need to investigate. The next day, he acts like a douche to her in front of his friends, then shows up at her house to run lines. It's totally like the episode of "The Wonder Years" where Kevin tries to be "Secret Friends" with Margaret Fharqhar!.

Musical montage of Teen Angst rehearsing in different outfits. All his different sweaters demonstrate the Passage of Time. "There's something about you!" screams the Rockin' Soundtrack. Foreshadowing?

Night of the show. Mandy comes onstage in a slinky dress with her hair and make-up done, and Teen Angst is so blown away that he forgets his lines. Because he's never seen her in costume before? Like at a dress rehearsal or anything like that? Another nice touch is the drama teacher frantically whispering things at him from offstage. Mandy sings in a voice that no one more than three feet away would be able to hear. Also, every time she sings the word "pray"—which is many, many times—she makes a praying gesture with her hands. which is good, because I was in danger of becoming confused. At the end of the song, Teen Angst randomly decides to kiss her, and everyone is concerned.

Just so everyone is clear, wearing make-up and singing Switchfoot songs is a surefire way to get Angsty Teenage Boys to mack on you!

From this point on, Teen Angst is consoled by the fact that Mandy is Secretly, if not Outwardly Hot—and after all, being Secretly Hot is better than not being hot at all. He decides to start talking to her in public, and she responds by loudly slurping her orange juice. She runs outside and he follows her and basically screams, "I'm too sexy for (fill in the blank.)" Or he doesn't, but he's still obnoxious. She takes off in the middle of the day. His friends give him trouble.

The next scene is pivotal, because it's where Teen Angst pulls a Power Ranger move and morphs into Teen Sensitivity. He brings her a...sweater, and her dad flips out because a guy bringing a girl a...sweater is a blatant sign that he's just trying to get into her pants. The popular kids do some more flipping out and decide it's necessary to manufacture centerfold pictures with Mandy's face on them and paste them up all over school. Mandy is upset until Teen Sensitivity shows up and calms her down by referring to her as baby. Okay. Then he asks her out, her dad says no, Teen Sensitivity keeps on until he gets his way. Because he's still sort of Angsty, see.

On the date, Mandy wears The Sweater. I have to say it's not really a cute sweater, either. It's not like a fitted Gap cardigan. It's like this pastel number that my mom probably got from JC Penny in the early to mid nineties. Teen Sensitivity drives her off in the middle of nowhere so that she can stand on a border with one foot in one state and one foot in another stage because she's always wanted to do that—or something. I don't know. It's all very sweet. I could really use a Rockin' Song right now.

Back in the car, Mandy bares her shoulder so that Teen Sensitivity can apply a temporary tattoo, and they beam meaningfully at each other as he caresses her skin. They get out of the carI think you need some dialogue.

Teen Sensitivity:I might kiss you.
Mandy: I might be bad at it.

Teen Sensitivity moves in for the kill and Mandy, to her credit, looks like she's about to puke. Afterwards she stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights as he blurts "I love you." Because they've known each other for a month and a half, or something. Mandy's father sees them kissing and behaves as though he's discovered footage of her on the latest "Girls Gone Wild" tape.

Teen Sensitivity names a star after her. Yep. A star. Mandy decides it's a good time to break it to him that she has leukemia and isn't going to get better. He responds by yelling at her. All hail the return of Teen Angst!

Teen Jeckyll/Hyde goes to his estranged father, who happens to be a doctor, and tells him to fix Mandy. When his father tries to explain that he knows nothing about her case, he gets back into the car and grinds his teeth. Oh, and Teen Sensitivity is back in the game. He loves her and is going to stay until the bitter end. Why? Because he's Teen Sensitivity!

He makes his mom—the one from "Splash"—teach him how to dance. One by one, all his friends come to him and apologize for their wretched behavior. Mandy collapses and has to be taken to the hospital, Teen Sensitivity never leaves her side, and her father finally realizes this is something more than puppyish devotion.

Also, Teen Sensitivity's father pays for private home care for Mandy. Teen Sensitivity tracks him down and bawls in that masculine way that only someone who possesses true teen sensitivity can. He also builds her this giant telescope and proposes and you know what? I'm done. I'm just done. He marries her, she dies, it's theoretically sad, it makes me want to watch 'Saved.' I have no use for this doe-eyed, limp-haired, wimpy Mandy Moore. Girl can throw a Bible. You know? She was pegged as the underdog, coming out of the gate, behind Britney, Christina, and even Jessica Simpson. But who's healthy and free of substance abuse now? Rock on, Mandy.

"Glitter"

2008-04-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Back in the day when people still rented videos and I was just kicking off this project, I took myself on down to Hollywood Video of Hanford and rented this, "Crossroads," and "A Walk to Remember" all at once. I cannot duplicate the look the hourly-wage clerk gave me.

We open with someone named Lillian Frank singing in a nightclub. Cut to a shot of a forlorn looking little girl with big hair sitting at the bar. In the middle of the song, Lillian stops and forces the girl—daughter, name: Billie—to come up onstage and sing with her. After the show her mother takes her to her WHITE father's house. It is very important for us to notice that her father is WHITE and her mother is NOT WHITE. WHITE vs. NOT WHITE. Pay attention.

Ma's careless smoking burns the house--a house--some house--down, and Child Protective Services come to remove young Billie from her mother's clutches. Billie stares out the window of the departing cab in slow motion. I didn't know it was possible to stare in slow motion, but evidently it is. Naturally she's holding a cat.

Ten years later, it's 1983. Billie is shaking it like a polaroid picture at a club. Some "Industry" people ask Billie and her entourage if they want to be backup dancers. Billie "Seize the Day" Frank gives them a firm no. Her buddies convince her to change her mind, and we see them singing backup for some girl who can't sing, really. Forshadowing.

Enter The Man. We know he's cool because he's wearing a muscle shirt and energetically pumping his arms into the air. He's a DJ at some club. The crappy singer is writhing around onstage, lip-syncing to Billie's vocals. Something is rotten in the hiz-ouse. The Man goes backstage to compliment Talentless Hack on her singing.

The Man: I had no idea you could blow like that.
Miss Milli Vanilli: I had no idea you were so interested in how I could blow.
Me: Vomit.

Miss Milli tells the Peasants to get out of her personal space. Always quick to retaliate, Billie saunters out of the room singing at the top of her lungs. The Man follows her and declares, "That was you singing up there." Gratuitous flirting ensues, and he reveals that his name is Dice. Yes! Now I finally know what to call my firstborn! Dice, who is unaware that he's Caucasian, drags Billie onto the dance floor and, in a pivotal—translation, slow motion—scene, points to her meaningfully, swaggers over to her, and shoves the microphone in her face. Everyone is impressed and Dice convinces Billie that he wants to be her new producer.

Slow motion fireworks for no reason.

Dice—I just can't get enough of that name—buys Billie and her friends from the custody of the evil manager. If we didn't already know that Dice is cool, we do now because he's wearing sunglasses indoors, at night. Don't mess with the man in shades. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Dice gives Billie's demo to some people he deems important enough. She goes to a swanky looking office and lots of people leer at her chest before signing her to their label. In the next scene, she's getting ready for a date that is not a date, with Dice. Because it's not a date, he doesn't actually come to her door. He has a long-stemmed red rose, but he doesn't feel the need to give it to her anywhere near her apartment. He parks across the street, leans against his car, drools when she walks towards him, and then gives her the rose.

At dinner, we're treated to the mandatory Awkward Escargot Consumption scene, which prompts Dice to inform Billie that she's fun to hang out with. She also asks him if it's a date, and he retorts that if it was she'd know about it. After dinner, he convinces her to come up to his apartment, where she insults his baby pictures and he seduces her by playing the xylophone.

Cut to Billie in the recording studio, looking as bored, like me. She has either a silver Band-Aid or an oddly placed body paint design on her shoulder. "Sing this like you would sing this," Dice supplies helpfully.

Next, Billie and Dice are making out in a cab. Just so you know, she has a side ponytail. Billie's song comes on the radio and Dice, who definitely seems like a low-key kind of guy, not only leans over and turns the radio up full blast in his cab, but proceeds to leap out of the vehicle, fling open the doors of other cars, and turn up their radios as loud as they can go. He then returns to Billie, whom he picks up and spins around in—you guessed it— slow motion.

Random shot of glitter falling through the air—oh, turns out it's not random. It's part of a dumb-ass video that she's supposed to be filming. The director of the video has a problem with the debris falling through the air, and shouts what will surely become the mantra for many up and coming performers—"The glitter cannot overpower the artist."

Billie's friends get fired, and she's supposed to prance around in a bikini, with body-builders groping her. Dice has a problem with it and drags her off the set. To make up for her friends getting fired, she buys them all weird fake gold outfits.

Next, Billie covers Dice's eyes and leads him into his apartment—side ponytail again—where she surprises him with a new keyboard and they decide to move in together. Cue obligatory "Artist Composing" scene. She's barely even pretending to play that Casio Keyboard.

Then, there's trouble because Billie needs to pick up the pace and release an album before she isn't famous anymore. Dice practices with his band and the freaky managers want Billie to sing at a big award show. At the rehearsal for this, Billie makes friends with Halle Berry's husband. I don't know what his character's name actually is in this movie and I don't really care. On the big night, Billie wears a muppet hide, and Dice sees fit to wear his shirt completely unbuttoned. Billie also has another stupid silver stripe, this time on her other shoulder. I swear, that thing moves around in every scene. It's like the king's mole in "Robin Hood: Men in Tights." Halle Berry's husband hits on Billie, causing Dice to pull Billie aside and demonstrate possessive behavior. Billie gathers her friends, who have shown up wearing tacky and inappropriate clothing, and everyone sits in the car and sulks until they start fighting over nothing in particular. Later Dice takes his shirt off altogether to apologize to Billie. I might not describe him as "ripped."

That night Billie, who apparently thinks it's a good idea to go wandering around scary neighborhoods at night, encounters an older woman with a strong singing voice. They stare at each other melodramatically and then…just leave.

Next we see Billie in her apartment…alone. Da-dum-dum. Her unstable manager from before appears mysteriously and threatens Billie, informing her that Dice still hasn't paid him the money he owes. Billie looks scared. So would I, except that the guy looks like he's eleven. Nevertheless, Billie, hyperventilating profusely, tells Dice what happened. Dice tries to beat up the unstable manager and gets arrested, which Billie is really excited to hear about. We find out that the guy's full name is Julian Dice Black. We care.

Now the silver thing is on Billie's left collarbone. She and Dice fight. She picks up a cat—the same cat from the beginning? —before running out the door. She goes to stay with her old friends. The ones from five minutes ago.

Next time she goes to the recording studio, Halle Berry's husband is waiting for her. Billie and Halle Berry's husband listen to the song that it took them thirty seconds to record. It's nothing I'd ever buy. But then, the first thing I said when I saw this movie trailer was that it was something I'd never see. Billie emerges into the dusky New York evening and dons her sunglasses.

Side ponytail again. Like a character in an eighties teen movie...or...me...in high school...Billie calls Dice's answering machine and listens to it without leaving a message. Dice knows it's her but doesn't pick up. Billie starts to sing an "original" "song." On the other side of the city, Dice begins to play an "original" "song." Do I even need to explain it to you? Somehow, some way, it's the same song!

At a rehearsal, Billie can't hear her music and thus feels the need to storm out of the building. She goes straight back to Dice's apartment, gets presumably greasy fingerprints all over a photograph of the two of them, and plays the music that happens to be spread on top of the piano. She does this with no noticeable difficulty, as it is the same song she just finished signing. She kisses it, leaving a big, obnoxious lip print, and then autographs it before setting it back down and leaving it for him to find. Because that's not tacky. She's getting her mouth herpes on his photographs.

After a "touching" scene in which Dice stares at his music for five hours and then goes to find Billie, the militant eleven-year-old former manager appears from the shadows and shoots Dice. Being as how Billie lives a hard knock life, she has to give a sold out concert at Madison Square Garden moments after finding this out. Now the weird silver thing is on her back. She lectures her audience on the importance of valuing those around you. Somewhere, a big purple dinosaur gets inspiration for a children's television show.

After the show, Billie finds a rose and a letter from Dice, telling her that he loves her and that her mother is alive, sober, and living in a small town in Maryland. The next morning Billie, still wearing her hoochie mama glitter dress, encounters her teary-eyed mother, who doesn't look a day over thirty. Both of them do that really annoying crying/laughing/showing lots of teeth thing, and the camera pans to a group of trees and then the movie is over.

"Showgirls": It's like "Fame" with STDs!

2008-04-19T20:24:00.000-07:00

Because I know you're going to ask: it was on VH1's "Movies that Rock" (sic) during a summer in Hanford when I apparently had nothing else going on. The review that started it all, folks.

In the edited for TV version, we open with Jessie Spano hitching a ride to Vegas and pulling a knife on the guy giving her a ride. Later, he repays her by taking her stuff. When she realizes this, naturally she stands in the middle of a bustling intersection, screaming. Jessie Spano tries to beat up a nice girl who is not—I repeat, not a lesbian. The nice girl invites Jessie Spano to live with her. One day, the roommate eats all the chips, much to Jessie Spano's chagrin, and one of those uber-girly tickle-fights ensues. Nice Roommate, who does a backstage thing at some…thing…convinces Jessie Spano to come and watch, because apparently there's a dancer who's quite a thing in and of herself.

J.S. does as bid, appears backstage wearing a dress that's really classy, if you're a cheap whore, and stands watching an elaborate strip show that's very exciting, if you're a cheap whore. Apparently the famous Slut du Jour is something else. Jessie's inexplicably nice roommate drags her back to Slut du Jour's dressing room, where all of them demonstrate various levels of obnoxious behavior. Since this is on television, there are many moments where characters become agitated and the words they say just don't match up with their mouths. It's like watching the dubbed "Godzilla" movies. Only with, you know, significantly more PORN.

Some guy offers to teach her how to dance better. Jessie passes up the opportunity, starts what has to be the wimpiest fight in movie history, and gets thrown in jail.

Random singing of "The Farmer in the Dell."

Now Jessie is onstage, dancing. Some guys and the freaky chick from before proposition Jessie, and she looks genuinely offended. Because she's a classy stripper at a classy strip club in a classy section of Vegas.

Jessie goes shopping and buys an ugly dress. Back at the trashy strip club, some creepy guy who was leering at her earlier invites her to come and audition for his "show." She's excited, because she hasn't had nearly enough opportunities to degrade herself up to this point. Ooh, Slut du Jour is watching the auditions. Creepy guy gives her some ice cubes and a helpful suggestion as to what she can do with them. Once again, she's offended. She runs backstage, followed by Slut du Jour, known from here on out as SDJ, who stares lustfully at her and offers her a Kleenex.

Yep.

The guy who offered to give her dance lessons before tries to convince her not to be a hoochie mama. Judging from the title of the movie, I am sure his plaintive urging will not go unheeded. Not Fred Astaire takes her back to his place and gives her dance lessons. Suddenly and without warning, Jessie stands up and says "You can have me when you love me," and he replies, in a way that is articulate only not, that she's running away from herself.

Apparently the people at the audition were really impressed by her delusional and immature behavior, so they call her and tell her she's hired. She goes to tell Not Fred Astaire that she got hired. He's depressed because she won't be able to do his dance, and she's depressed because he's shtupping some random girl. She goes to her new job. The first thing she does is mispronounce "Versace." Ten points. Random woman tells a heartfelt story about hooking up with a guy after chipping a tooth on a Quaalude. Jessie and the rest of the girls practice the routine and get torn apart by the choreographers.

Jessie goes to the empty theatre where SDJ is apparently waiting for her. They talk about how they hate each other, then go out to lunch, where they bond over the fact that they both used to enjoy eating dog food. No, I'm serious.

Jessie puts on a subtle outfit and signs autographs at a boat convention. She gets propositioned, and once again manages to get extremely worked up. I have to give her credit. Each of the fifty million times this occurs, it's like she never saw it coming. And now for another Really Bad Dance Number, during which some white girl with ugly conrows throws marbles onto the floor and causes SDJ'S understudy to break her leg. Of course, this is in no way significant. Jessie sleeps with one over her skeezy managers, who tells her to audition to be SDJ'S new understudy. For the record, Nomi is wearing the shortest, tightest, and ugliest dress in the history of the world. It's from, like Factory 2-U. The one by the now-defunct Wal-Mart in Hanford, California.

Now we're treated to another disgusting and gratuitous audition scene. Jessie gets the part because she slept with the previously mentioned skeezy manager. Everyone and their dog has a problem with this. Jessie and SDJ are suddenly lesbians and very flirty, but then they're suddenly not, when SDJ insults Jessie's manicure.

Ah-hah, creepy music is playing. Jessie finds out she doesn't get to be the understudy after all because SDJ pitched a fit. Jessie, to say the least, is irate, and pushes SDJ down the stairs. For no reason, Funky Cornrows sticks up for her. As the ambulance drives away, Jessie smiles like she's in a Stephen King movie, and I giggle profusely. Hm. Wonder if Jessie will be able to step in and save the day?

Jessie does a smashing job whoring herself and gets crowned queen of the world. The nice roommate accuses Jessie of pushing SDJ down the stairs. Everyone in this movie is so repulsive that the more of them end up with head injuries, the better. I don't care how or when it comes about. At a party that celebrates this sort of debauchery, some famous guy who looks like Sully from "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman"—oh, sick, I think it might actually be him—shows up and propositions Jessie, who, in a moment completely out of reach of her typical character, isn't repulsed. Then the famous guy is seen pimping it with Jessie's friend, who's a really big fan, but gets raped by the famous guy and two of his friends. Mild concern passes over Jessie's face upon learning this. At the hospital, she's annoyed that she isn't allowed to call the police, and still more annoyed that His Skeeziness knows all about her past, which includes random acts of violence and prostitution. I certainly didn't see this coming from several hundred miles away. He pays her a backhanded compliment and she spits in his face. Close up of Jessie's…manicure.

"Showtime," she mutters. She gets all skanked out, goes to the famous pervert's apartment, and beats the crap out of him. Like with her heels. Youtube it. Next, she goes to visit SDJ in the hospital. SDJ is apparently cool with the fact that Jessie almost killed her. "How do you think I got my first gig?" she asks, smiling, as soft music plays in the background. Oh, now they think they're in a Hallmark special? SDJ says it doesn't matter because she wanted a break anyway. This movie sucks all kinds of things that shouldn't be near anyone's mouth.

Jessie is seen hitchhiking out of the city. A truck pulls over—wow! It's the guy from the beginning who stole her stuff! She pulls a knife! The truck swerves! A stupid song plays as the camera zooms in on an ugly billboard with Jessie's picture on it. Whee! That was fun.

"From Justin to Kelly"

2008-01-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

Backstory, if you need it: a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, "American Idol" wasn't all that bad. It was a televised reality singing competition that existed to keep the Fox network going during the summer months when there were no new episodes of scripted programming. There wasn't a great big budget, and most people watched it because they had nothing better to do.

Then, of course, I developed a weird crush on Clay Aiken, who has since morphed into a gay leprechaun, we were all subjected to Daughtry pretending to be a real band, and Sanjaya...fuck it. At the very least, subsequent contestants of the show were able to learn from the respective first season winner and runner up, Kelly Clarkson and Justin Guarini, about what happens when you sign a contract without really thinking it through: this movie.

Open in a bar. Kelly is singing. It's loud. She has an audience of one, some stupid-looking guy who tells her she's "on fire." Kelly--and see, that's why it's clever, her name is Kelly in the movie and in life--tells her fan that she's not interested. Her fan fires back with "I'm just like Hurricane Luke. One day, I'm going to blow you over." 'Cause his name is Luke, see.

A couple of girls slut their way into the bar. Their names are Kaya and Alexa. They, Kelly's "best friends" somehow don't have a way to get to Miami for spring break, so they force her to go because they need her car, telling her that if she doesn't comply, they'll kill her. Apparently, her "best friends" were going on a Spring Break trip without her until they needed her. Also, people still go to Miami for spring break.

Opening credits. Kelly sings "Vacation." Things contained in the opening sequence are: random billboards, towels, lifesaving devices, and a sky-writer.

Dammit. There he is. Justin. His hair is big. You knew that already. He has some friends with him. They call themselves "The Pennsylvania Posse." In addition to Justin, we have a guy who is supposed to be Hott but isn't, really, and a token dweeb who is all hung up about meeting some girl from the internet. They have a business that consists of organizing parties and having whipped cream bikini contests. Supposedly Hott says he's hooked up with over four hundred women. He says he's "Genetically incapable of developing relationships with girls."

Suddenly, all the extras are present and accounted for, on the beach. Justin asks if everyone is ready to party. I, for one, am not. He says "come on" a lot. Kelly arrives. She and Justin make sex eyes at each other. Gross. I don't know what this song is called, but Kelly totally sang it at the concert of hers that I went to because she was headlining with Clay Aiken and SHUT UP, already. You probably have an Ace of Bace cassette tape or something. God.

(2008 retrospective note: I still have the t-shirt, a pea-green number that has a silouhette of Mr. Aiken before he started rocking the sex-offender hair on the front, and a list of dates and locations for the "Independant Tour" on the back. I'd been wearing it to the gym, but as of January 2008, it was taken from me by a well-meaning member of my immediate family. I may never see it again.)

The song continues. Pelvic thrusts. Some variation on The Chicken Dance. Random stock footage of skateboarders. Fierce oversized pastel beach balls. I don't know.

Supposedly Hott surveys the beach and says "This is the game reserve. We are the stags." Justin tries to beat-box. It doesn't work out so well. Supposedly Hott drops trou. Nobody's sure why. For this, he gets a ticket from a female police officer. The boys go to their hotel, where they're not allowed to have guests, or alchohol, in their rooms. So they're staying where, The Quaker Hotel? They have those in Miami?

Meanwhile, Kelly and Co. are in their hotel room, unpacking and scoring negative points for misuse of the words "pragmatic" and "clench."

Back at the Quaker Hotel, Justin talks about how "that girl at the beach was pretty hot." He exposits that he has three days to find her. It's like Mission: Impossible, with giant pastel beach balls. And Justin's Hair. It's better than Mission: Impossible!

Cut to a party. Random breakdancing. In a multitude of, oh, about three dozen people, Justin and Kelly are unable to locate each other. They sing an Imaginary Head Song, which should tell you something about this movie if you haven't figured it out already. The awesome part is that all these extras are totally singing along to the song that is supposed to exist only in Justin and Kelly's minds.

Next, Justin is handing out bracelets...because...there's some party going on where you can't get in unless you have a bracelet from Justin Guarini. Sounds major. Kaya and Alexa hit Justin up for bracelets. Alexa steals them and in turn gets them all stolen. Justin gets chased into the girl's bathroom. Kelly is there. I'm pretty confused. Justin and Kelly have that kind of bonding that only happens when you're trapped inside a restroom, I guess. Maybe I'll try that sometimes. Except that I'd, you know, pretty much be bonding with chicks. I hate this movie. Kelly writes her phone number on a piece of tissue paper, in lipstick, and then shoves Justin out the window. He lands in a puddle and looses the phone number.

Kaya, who is the nicer of the two friends, is played by the lovely Anika Noni Rose, who went on to receive a Tony nomination for Caroline, or Change and then appear in the movie version of Dreamgirls. That's turning lemons into lemonade, girl. Rock on. Kaya meets some waiter named Carlos. Sex eyes. Mmmmm.

Justin finds Alexa and tries to obtain Kelly's number. For reasons never truly explained, Alexa gives him her number instead. So when Justin sends a text message and gets shot down, he thinks Kelly hates him. This is pretty much the point of the entire movie, right here.

Kaya gives Carlos her number, but he's apprehensive because he's all working class and from the wrong side of the tracks or some other stupidity. Still, they make a date. Kaya says "hell hell hell" to convince Carlos that she's bad or something. He takes her to this mambo club and she miraculously knows what to do. Justin tries to text message Kelly again. Kelly still has a crush on him. Alexa is a bad friend.

Alexa finds out that Justin runs a whipped-cream bikini contest, and for some reason tries to force Kelly into participating. Let it be stated that Alexa is, at this time, wearing sheer Princess Jasmine style pants. Kelly yells and storms off, after spraying Justin with whipped cream. He seem to enjoy it, but then feels sorry for himself. The dorky friend is supposed to meet his internet girlfriend but misses her because some guys convince him to play volleyball instead. It's even more boring to watch than it is to read, I promise.

Justin stalks Kelly and follows her to a hamburger stand, where he manages to spill soda on her. Naturally, she agrees to go on a date with him. Now it's time for the Never-ending Boat Ride...woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh...

Kelly and Justin are both wearing stupid white outfits. Kelly has chosen to compliment hers with a hat that she stole from my mom. My mother is for some reason petrified of catching any rays on any trip, and thus brings a Monster Hat whenever we go on trips. It's hideous. And yet here it sits, perched on Kelly's head. Also, right now I am totally convinced that Justin is half-demon.

Kelly stares out front and sings while Justin continues to look posessed.Now and then he chimes in. The song consists of them saying "Baby" a lot and singing about how they're in each other's arms. But they're not in each other's arms. They're standing on complte opposite sides of the boat. They aren't even looking at each other! Well, Kelly isn't looking at Justin. Justin is looking at Kelly. Murderously. Her career has unfolded a lot better than his, hasn't it?

Back at some restaurant or other, Carlos gets fired because Kaya mouths off to his boss. He calls her self-centered and storms off.

Five hours later, Justin and Kelly stand awkwardly in front of her front gate. They have the most amazing non-chemistry.

Alexa walks into a party and gets red punch spilled all over her. Purpose unknown.

Oh, goody. Another production number. This time, it rips off "Summer Nights." The girls dance by the pool. The guys dance in a bar.Then, they're on the beach. Lots of people are riding Sea-do watercrafts.

Kaya and Kelly make fun of Alexa for being a party girl. She pouts unconvincingly and says there's more to her than that. Yeah, like she's a crappy friend. Shut up, Alexa.

Pretending to be Kelly, Alexa texts Justin and tells him to meet her at some nightclub. At said nightclub, Alexa sits there looking evil, while two guys rise up from beneath her with scary porn faces. I don't know how else to describe it, really. She runs around on top of the bar like she thinks she's Liesl from "The Sound of Music," if Liesl happened to look just like an D-list porn star. She writhes around on top of different guys. It's gross. It turns out to be a dream sequence. Justin walks in and is disappointed that Kelly isn't there.

Kelly, meanwhile, is hanging around at the dock because I guess they had another date. She's sporting a hideous peasant blouse and assy hair. Some beefy guy breaks into the dork's hotel room and starts pounding on him because he thinks the dork stole his girlfriend and then they have, like, homosexual tension. This subplot is so stupid I'm not even going to cover it.

Alexa tells Justin that Kelly has a boyfriend back at home. Justin leaves angrily. Alexa calls "Hurricane Luke" and tells him to get down there because Kelly misses him. More of the stupid homoerotic subplot in the movie that is targeted at girls who still think boys have cooties.

The next day, at the pool—what else? Another freaking production number. Kelly is sporting spiky hair and a skirt made out of neckties. No lie. Everyone dances like robots on crack. Justin gets pushed into the pool. Random shots of a waterslide. "Hurricane Luke" shows up and kisses Kelly. Justin is perturbed. To make a long story short, Justin and Luke decide to duel for Kelly on hovercrafts. Yes, you read that correctly. Alexa stands around looking like this actress in a television movie I once saw called "The Mary Kay Letourneau Story: All-American Girl." It was a pretty memorable movie.

Back to the hovercraft fight. Apparently the goal is to throw the most balls into the other person's basket. Luke somehow gets thrown off his hovercraft and injured. What must be an hour or so later, Justin rides up onto the beach, disembarks from the hovercraft, and looks like a complete idiot. He walks really strangely in that wetsuit. I'm not saying I wouldn't, but, you know.

Kelly finds out that Alexa called Luke and forgives her anyway because the plot requires her to be stupid. Oh, and Kaya was mad that Carlos the Waiter called her selfish. She goes to see him at his new job. She is a pain in the ass. He tells her to get lost.

Justin is all despondent because apparently now Kelly hates him. I promise I'm not skipping major plot points; this movie seriously has no continuity, at any point. Alexa "comforts" him by attempting to make out with him. Naturally, Kelly ambles by.

Back at the girl's hotel, that guy comes to apologize to Kaya and see if she wants to go dancing. Luckily for her, she's just lounging around in stilettos and a cocktail dress. I totally do that. They go on a date that involves eating dinner over a pool with a plexiglass cover.

The dork, who still hasn't met his internet girlfriend, walks into a club and asks a group of girls if any of them is his internet soul mate. They become irate and lock him in a closet. Why won't this movie freaking end? Oh, and the girl from the internet, who is this movie's definition of a hottie, shows up and can't find him. It's like "Sleepless in Seattle," only I hate it and want it to die.

I have written in my notes that Justin chases Kelly out of a club. Alright, then. Ooh, now I remember. And I'm so glad I wrote down this awesome bit of dialogue: "You're the one playing games with me, Kelly. You know what? Game over." You know what, Justin? Screw yourself.

Now, of course, Kelly is free to find out what a terrible friend Alexa is. How does she find this out? Alexa's phone beeps, Kelly somehow picks it up before Alexa and refuses to give it to her, and then proceeds to scroll down and read every message from Justin that she never got. Because Alexa is just that stupid. She actually saved them, presumably to show them to her children and grandchildren. I hate this movie so much. Alexa cries and gives some feeble excuse about how she feels unpopular or like a skank or a bad actress. Actually, she only says two of those things. Guess which. Kelly—who, I might add, is garbed in a heinous getup consisting of a purple leotard and a Goth ballet skirt—wanders among strangely and mysteriously lit palm trees. She sings the entire horrible song—once again, a song she included in her live performance—while giving this off-putting, wall-eyed stare.

Then, Justin appears. Alexa brought him over. I bet that was an awkward little stroll. Alexa says that they're meant for each other, basically because she decided to quit being a crappy friend. Well, that would do it. She leaves, and Justin and Kelly exposit for the brain-dead members of the audience—and that's all of us, by this time—that here they are, together, at the same time, and they don't hate each other. They kiss, and because of the Vacuum of Non-Chemistry, I'm half expecting a scene like in "X-Men," where Anna Paquin kisses that guy and he starts imploding or whatever. The kiss is honestly that bad.

The next day, everyone goes to the airport, by way of the beach, where they stop to have a little pre-flight production number. That's the way, uh-huh, uh-huh, I like it, uh-huh, uh-huh.

Except I don't.

Looks like staight-to-video, sounds like straight-to-video, smells like straight-to-video--but strangely enough, not straight to video.

Sweet dreams.

"Grease 2": Make your stamen go berserk.

2008-01-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Opening sequence. Formation Dancing. Back to School at Rydell High. All of these people are in their mid to late 30's. Did they have that much spandex in the 50's? Head. Hit. Keyboard. And we're just getting started.

Well, Stockard Channing is gone. I don't know anyone who doesn't kind of love Stockard Channing. That would be a difficult name to work if you were a dude. The new head of the Pink Ladies is a somewhat fetal Michelle Pfeiffer. Let it be known that while I have nothing against Michelle Pfeiffer, there's also nothing she's done, save one instance, that endears her to me. That one instance is in this movie. Can you guess what it is?

Hey, look. The new head of the T-Birds is driving up, with requisite greasy hair and a cig. Who is he? Not John Travolta, that's for damn sure. It's fucking Adrian Zmed. I hate this movie so much.

Pink Ladies...T-Birds...back, back to scho-ool...zzzz...Wait! Who's this tall, foreign drink of water just getting off the bus? Why, it's a very young Rex Manning, a.k.a. Maxwell Caulfield, in the role of Michael Carrington! What a charming accent. Is it British? Why, yes! Because, you see, he's Sandy's cousin! Except that Sandy was Australian--what? That's kind of like being British? Close enough? 'Kay.

An original cast member! It's Frenchy! Hi, Frenchy--oh. And she's gone again, after expositing that sometimes, Australian people do in fact have British cousins. Hot British cousins.

(2008 retrospective look: I studied in England for a semester, in fact I was there when I reviewed this film. Did I meet anyone who resembled a young Maxwell Caulfield? What do you think? )

And now, cut to the front of Hard Core High where Michelle is…well, she appears to be rapping about the glory of the Pink. I'll let her tell you about it.

The pink ladies pledge
To be cool
To act cool
And to look cool
'Till death do us part—
Think! Pink!

Back! Back to school! End of song. Original cast member sighting #2: Eve Arden makes announcements. The Poor Man's T-Birds give Mikey a hard time. Mikey stares at Michelle. Everyone else does things that are neither entertaining nor clever, despite what their parents and the director probably told them. Agh. Now there are these twin girls that are obviously the New Patty Simcox, but there are two of them. Eek.

Elsewhere, Mikey continues to be smitten. Frenchy--hi, Frenchy!--explains to him that he'd have to be a T-Bird to get next to Michelle, even though all he really wants to do is Hold her Hand.

Motorcycles invade the track. They belong to Bad Guys, but since, as I type this, I've seen the whole movie and I can assure you that absolutely nothing important concerning the Bad Guys happens, we're going to skip it. Except for the part where lots of people say they're going to "fold" that night. Because it's funny.

(2008 retrospective: I still have no idea what that means.)

Mikey keeps staring at Michelle with Hungry Eyes. One look at her and he can't disguise.

The T-Birds, Pink Ladies, and others go bowling so that they can have another Production Number. I always head for the bowling alley when I'm in the mood for one of those. K.C. Bowl, guys. In the bad part of Hanford.

Singing: "We're gonna sc-o-o-o-re toni-ight!" I wonder if that has more than one meaning. You know. A meaning that refers to something Other than Bowling. Hmmm.

Aww. Cute little Mikey is in the parking lot, practicing things to say so that the T-Birds will let them bowl with him, so that through osmosis he'll become one of them and therefore get to Hold Michelle's Hand and maybe one day, even pin her. Like in the "Bye Bye Birdie" sense, perv.

Inside, Non-Travolta, who's Michelle's sort-of-boyfriend, yells at Michelle because she's annoyed at him for making out with this other girl in front of her. He's also annoyed that she won't make out with him right then. This happens so that she can say "I'm an independent woman. I kiss who I want, when I want. If I feel like it I'll kiss the next guy who walks in the door." I wonder who's going to walk through the door? Probably not Mikey-CRAP! It is Mikey! Michelle starts macking on him. The T-Birds are pissed, the Pink Ladies are awed, Michelle is bored and takes off to go get food, and The Brit stares after her with those Hungry Eyes.

Then, everyone takes off and poor Mikey doesn't get to play, in either sense of the word. No one is left but this twelve year old who hangs around and wants to be part of the Pink Ladies one day and is really thrilled now there's someone else besides her at this pity party. They end up being all buddy-buddy. The girl is really fucking annoying. And that's coming from a three-time Day Camp Counselor. Not necessarily a good three-time Day Camp Counselor. I had a habit of sending my least favorite charges to other counselor's groups to "help." This is probably part of why I wasn't a four-time Day Camp Counselor.

At a rehearsal for The Talent Show—because there has to be one of those, right?—the Simcox Twins, who need to return to their day job at the Overlook Hotel, have convinced Little Mikey to be the accompanist, and he stares wistfully at Michelle as the Pink Ladies practice their musical interlude. Aww. He's cute wearing his sweater and asking her what was up with the bowling alley incident. What does she say? Turn up the volume, because she wants—that's right—a "Cool Rider."

This is maybe the greatest song in the world. Michelle is running around tossing her hair, and singing. And mounting props. This song is dirty. But that's okay. It's "Cool Rider!" No ordinary boy, no ordinary boy is gonna do. She wants a rider…that's cool. Don't we all. I love this song.

Mikey just wants Michelle, though. Now, because he is British, he is obviously also Brilliant, so he starts a business where he writes papers for idiots and they pay him, so that he can save up and get a motorcycle of his own. Thus becoming—wait for it—The Cool Rider! But can he do it? I don't know. I just don't know. I do know he looks hot wearing glasses. Sorry.

I'm also sorry about the following song lyrics. Really. It was all I could do to stop myself from including them in their entirety. But because I didn't want to actually kill anyone, I decided to just treat you to the highlights of Mr. Stuart's science class, singing "Reproduction." They start out by talking about flowers, only not:

Now you see just how the stamen gets its lusty dust onto the stigma
And why this frenzied chlorophyllous orgy starts in spring is no enigma

And the chorus:

Reproduction, reproduction!
Put your pollen tube to work
Reproduction, reproduction!
Make my stamen go berserk

There are the inevitable questions:

Girl: Mr. Stuart, is it true that guys like you, you know, mature and all,
Carry some protection with them for sexual occasions?

Johnny: What's the big deal? Can't a girl just do that thing in a book
Where she adds up the days of her, uh, what do you call it, mentalstration?
Oh, that's really neat!

All: Yeah, and what will the guy say when the numbers don't add up right, huh?
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Reproduction, reproduction!
Hope he's proud of what he's done.
Reproduction, reproduction!
He was only pokin' fun.

At this point I actually black out because...god. Anyway. Where's Mikey? Oh. Buying a junky motorcycle to fix. While wearing an, um, motorcycle-fixing outfit. As an instrumental version of "Cool Rider" plays, as though imbedded in his brain. There you go. He tests the bike out in the park and falls off of it. Frenchy—hi, Frenchy—gets to walk past the camera, concerned. Bye, Frenchy. Mikey gets up, and is now slightly disheveled. That's what I'm talking about.

Everyone goes to Talent Show rehearsal. Some random guys sing "Sandman." Not one by Metallica. The Pink Ladies practice their song. Mikey drools. He's wearing sunglasses indoors now, too. Hee! It won't be long before he's wearing his Sunglasses at Night. Michelle is sulking about something. This is boring. How about some footage of Mikey, I don't know, spray painting something in a Spray Painting Outfit. And looking hot. Oh, right on.

The Bad Guys are back. Remember them? Eh, no one really cares. But soft, what light over yonder construction heap breaks—who's that mysterious rider? Who's that guy? Well, to help you out:

He came out of the darkness in the middle of the night
Blazin' like a mother with a fist of dy-no-mite

Any guesses? Still no?

He wears a pair of goggles like a man from outer space
It really doesn't matter that I haven't seen his face

Come on, guys!

Who's that guy, where did he come from?
Who's that guy, where can I get one?
I never knew that anyone could be so cool, wo-o-oah,
Who's that guy, the one on the cycle?
(What would they say if they knew it was Michael?)

In the midst of the excitement, Michelle wants a smoke, but unfortunately doesn't have a light. But then suddenly...she does. You really ought to see it, it's beautiful. This hand holding a lighter slowly enters the frame, and she slowly looks up to see... him. The One that She Wants. Sorry, wrong movie. It's the Cool Rider. Eye contact! Orgasm face! Who's that guy! Trouble Brewing in Background! And he Evel Knievel's his way out of there.

In the next scene, Mikey is hot in his blue shirt. Michelle, I am sorry to say, is not so hot in whatever the hell Butterick pattern smock thing that she stitched together in Home Ec. And her lipstick? I mean, Michelle Pfeiffer is an attractive girl. It takes a lot to make her look bad. And a lot is what's going on here. Still, Mikey continues to make Beatles Song eyes at her, but because he's wistful it's more "If I Fell" this time. Only he's already fallen but you know what I mean.

Now a random T-Bird is taking a random a random Pink Lady to see his "Bomb Shelter." Oh, come now. They're called street smarts. Not that I'm steeped in them, or anything, but if some guy ever said he wanted to show me his "Bomb Shelter"...I'm just saying. He's arranged with his little friends that they'll stand outside the bomb shelter making...bomb noises? I don't think that sounds like a bomb at all—because I audited a class on Authentic Bomb Noises—but we can't really expect the random Pink Lady to know that. I mean, she's the one who agreed to see the "Bomb Shelter" in the first place. Basically he tells her that the world is ending, and since they're going to die anyway...the song is called "Do It For Our Country." At the end of the song she rushes out because she thought he was talking about joining the army. Plot development in the past few minutes? MIA.

Cut to: a gas station. Apparently, Michelle works at a gas station. Okay. But wait--who is that waiting stealthily behind her? Is it—it is! Cool Rider! Just hanging out on his motorcycle. Shirtless under his jacket. Not that I'm going to file a complaint, but...I mean is that--doesn't that defeat the purpose of--never mind.

Cue "Cool Rider: Instrumental." Driving, driving, laughing, driving, ah, young love, sunset make-out scene. And he's still wearing his helmet and goggles. Dude, I get that it's necessary for the plot, but I would think that making out with someone wearing a helmet and goggles would be...Thinking about it hurts my brain. Let's have some dialogue:

MICHELLE: Ooh. I can't stop shivering.
MIKEY: Then hold on.
MICHELLE: That's what's making me shiver.
MIKEY: I'm the one who can't stop shivering now.

They go back to the gas station and he's about to tell her the truth, but then the T-Birds drive up and create trouble. They yell at her for no one knows what and Cool Rider takes off, saying he'll see her at the talent show. She's all "The Talent Show? How could he know about the Talent Show?" and what, it's some top secret thing that only the people who are in it know about? They didn't put up fliers to advertise in the town or anything? Also, is she really as dumb as a brick that she absolutely cannot figure it out? That much of his face isn't covered, I promise. Shut up, screenwriters.

Anyway, he's gone again, she yells at the T-Birds for ruining it, some other people yell at some other other people for some more stuff, no one cares, and the T-Birds sing "Phallic." Or, I'm sorry, "Prowlin'." Favorite line: "I like a girl who's really smart, as long as she's really stacked."

Next, Mikey is still hot but right now I'm not digging his hair. Dippity-Don't. Michelle snits about getting a bad grade on her "Hamlet" paper, but I'm sure it was total crap and I'm not going to feel sorry for her. Mikey offers to tutor her, and she accepts. They go for burgers and she sits there telling him how hot the mystery guy is. She's such an idiot. They talk about the mystery guy, then themselves, then the mystery guy, then themselves, then ketchup, and the meaning of "weird," and Hamlet. But not necessarily in that order. She goes off on how intelligent he is because he knows the word incestuous. Um, I know the word incestuous. I also know the word "volcanicity." In fact, I'm filled with it, according to the blurb on the back of my Volvic drinking water. It was the only water available. I don't know that I'm a fan, simply because of the word "Volvic." What does it make you think about?

Cut to the cafeteria, the next day, where Mikey is attired in a fetching sweater/collared shirt combo. Just so everyone knows. I thought you'd appreciate it. He's so pretty. He crashes into Michelle in line and then sings a song about "charades" in his head. Like, we hear it but his mouth isn't moving, and not just because of bad dubbing. It's an Imaginary Head Song. And it needs to stop. Because it sucks. I mean, I'm all for a good Imaginary Head Song, because we all have them—and by "we all," I mean "me"—but anyway, it's over.

Cut to the big night, where Michelle is all dolled up and waiting outside the school. He drives up to get her but he's being chased so he paws her face and says he'll come back for her. Chase scene. Suspense. Pee break. Trust me, you won't miss a thing. Oh, except for when Mikey drives his motorcycle off a cliff and everyone makes amateurish "sad clown" faces. Don't fret. Amazing things are coming.

Backstage at the Talent Show, Michelle cries. So would I, if my hair looked like that. Ah, it's time for a "Girl for All Seasons." Yes, it's a rollicking good time. First we have spring. I hate this song. Next comes summer. I hate this song. Shot of hectic backstage action! Quick changes! Woo-hoo, quick changes! Next we have autumn. I hate this song. Winter! I hate this song, but you know what? It's no longer a problem, because Michelle, in her great big tinsel Christmas tree dress, is going to mince down the stairs with this Plath-tastic expression on her face and just bust out with a whole different song. Right in the middle of everything, she is going to begin belting out some Abba-reject soundng love ballad called, in fact, "(Love Will) Turn Back the Hands of Time." Yay, parentheses! How do I even describe this?

Vision! It's like a dream sequence but not! She's dancing around on a soundstage which is under the siege of an out of control fog machine! She's wearing a toga! Who's that in the distance? It's Cool Rider! In a shiny gold motorcycle jumpsuit! They frolic! They ride around and giggle as the light reflecting off the sequins on his costume blinds us and her toga wraps a cocoon around them both! Dialogue!

MIKEY: Please don't cry.
MICHELLE: Oh, it all seems so unfair. Just when I found you I lost you!
MIKEY: That doesn't matter now. The only thing that matters is the time we had together. MICHELLE: But, I don't even know your name!
MIKEY: The only thing you have to know is that I love you. And you're the only one who can keep our love alive! So baby, don't forget me!
MICHELLE: I promise!

And he drives off into the distance—home stretch—and she twirls, twirls, twirls, twirls—and she's back onstage at Rydell High, big black mascara-tinged tears cascading down her cheeks—take it home, Michelle!

Love will (What?)
Love will (One more time!)
Love will (Sing it)
Turn back the hands of time!

She collapses onto the stage amid thunderous applause, not caring that she's probably smashing several of the shiny red Christmas ornaments dangling from her dress. My, that was festive.

Michelle and Non-Travolta get crowned king and queen of whatever, and next time we see them they're in party attire at the Rock-a-hula Luau. All the girls are wearing glittery grass skirts and bikinis, except for Michelle, who is wearing a glittery grass shirt and a gray t-shirt, which goes nicely with the baseball bat she's carrying around for no reason. She and Non-Travolta have to go sit on the Pool of Enchantment, and she looks like she wants to die. I understand that feeling.

The bad guys appear. They do some stuff. Michelle and Non-Travolta start freaking out because their raft is in the middle of the pool and they can't seem to get it to move, like, suck it up, jump off the raft, and climb out of the pool. I'm assuming you can swim. Good lord. But then—who's that guy? Slo mo! He's on top of a thing! He's on top of another thing! He's on a motorcycle! He's driving the motorcycle into the pool! No one knows why! Tell me—who's that guy?

It's Michael! He's the Cool Rider! He's not really dead! Orgasm faces all around! Non-Travolta has a change of heart (of the "last two minutes of the movie" variety) and makes Mikey a T-Bird. Which makes a ton of sense since he's graduating and it's not as if we've seen the other T-Birds hanging around. You follow? Anyway, everyone's happy. Michelle is thirty. Mikey is hot. They make out. Everyone sings. Like you do. The end.

"The Phantom of the Opera": Acid Reflux?

2008-01-17T22:58:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: yes, it used to be my favorite musical. I used to like wearing stirrup pants, too. We all make choices.

We open with the title in scrawly letters over a burning candle. Very "Masterpiece Theatre." We see these old versions of Raoul "Romantic Hero" de Chagny , and Madame "Still a Terrible Supporting Role" Giry, who we'll be meeting in younger incarnations shortly. It's nineteen-hudred-and-something, and the Paris Opera is auctioning off random crap. During this, Old Romantic Hero and Old Madame Giry stare at each other weirdly. Now, these sequences with the old folks are in black and white, just so that when the auctioneer says "Illumination, Gentlemen!" and sets the chandelier blazing, the theatre can suddenly roar into Vibrant Technicolor. The overture takes us back quite a few years and treats us to a shot of the Useless White Horse. Foreshadowing!

Outside, in a courthard, Romantic Hero's younger, supposedly virile self roars past the camera driving some horses. Those horses are automatic. Systematic. Hydromatic. You know where I'm going with this.

Onstage: rehearsal for some kind of gala. Minnie Driver, as the diva Carlotta, is PMSing. There is a midget onstage. The new managers of the opera barge in and interrupt rehearsal, Greased Lightening in tow. This causes one Emmy Rossum, as Christine, to spazz to her little friend, Meg.

Meg: Christine, he's so handsome.
Kristin: He might be if he weren't an assy weave. From K-Mart. In Lemoore.
Christine: Blah blah childhood sweethearts.
Kristin: ...but you look like you're twelve years old right now.

Some pointless crap happens. Madame Giry is the only French person in this entire movie. Which is set in France. Minnie Driver gets persuaded to lip-synch "Think of Me." I'd like to point out that while we're supposed to think she's terrible, whoever is providing the vocals hits the high notes just fine. The movie remembers that it is called "The Phantom of the Opera," and sends someone to go wake him up. He responds by making a scrim fall down. Minnie Driver makes a grand exit.

The midget (?) is concerned.

Something falls from the sky. It's an envelope! With something from Hot Topic holding it closed! Do what the Phantom says or he'll...knock over some more scenery. Maybe. He's having kind of an off-day.

Emmy steps to the front of the stage and starts singing "Think of Me." It's fine, I guess. Those aren't the real notes, but it's not like I can sing either version. During the song, the scene shifts to the gala night. Greased Lightening recognizes his "childhood sweetheart"--how old was she, five?--and is pretty excited.

After the show, Christine goes to some sort of chapel...in the opera house...to hide from the thunderous applause. Meg finds her. Christine describes how her father died and promised her that he would send her the Angel of Music. Props to Rossum for her line delivery here. Very "brainwashed cult member." *Cough*Scientology*Cough*

Greased Lightening finds finds Christine in her dressing room, where she's fawning over a rose that the Phantom left for her. Patrick Wilson is really very nice-looking, even though whoever designed that wig clearly has some kind of follicular jihad on him. Blah blah blah "childhood sweethearts." No, we know. Greased Lightening leaves for no reason.

All the lights go out in the opera and Stalky McStalkerson locks Christine's dressing room door, in plain view of Madame Giry. Dude. She said Christine was "like a daughter." She is totally pimping her "like a daughter" out!

"Insolent Boy!" roars Gerard Butler, Scottishly. He might not be my favorite Phantom but he has his moments. The Phantom encourages Christine to step through the mirror. She takes a wide-eyed look at him and doesn't need tons of encouragement, if you know what I mean and I think you do. Title Song Time!

Things to know:
* The secret hallway has arms sticking out of the walls.
* The Phantom looks really tired, like the tour guide my family had when we went to Versailles and my sister kept touching things.
* The Useless White Horse makes an appearance, so that Christine can have a subterranean pony ride. Which is, strangely, not a euphanism for anything.
* Gerard's singing is...oh, I don't know. I don't want to give him too much grief. It's not like all the notes are bad. Just...some.
* Gerard himself is really, really attractive. Perhaps you're wondering if that isn't actually counter-productive to telling the story of the hideously deformed Phantom. The answer is yes. Yes it is. He is very pretty. You kind of have to accept it and move on.

Back to the song. The most awesome part is when Gerard bellows "IT'S ME THEY HEAR!" No shit. You're going to eleven and you...probably shouldn't.

The Phantom's lair is like if Anne Rice redesigned the interior of "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disneyland. Oh, Emmy, stop exposing your thighs. You don't have to do that to get boys to like you!

The Phantom kind of forgets about Christine and walks around pointing at things for a while. When he finally helps Christine out of the boat, she takes his hand and jumps up like Courtney Cox in the "Dancing in the Dark" video. Time for "The Music of the Night," otherwise known as the male figure skating anthem of the 80's. Just so you know, the Phantom's voice is supposed to be so glorious that Christine is carried away on a little orgasmic cloud of melodious amazement. What happens is that Gerard roars the notes, and Emmy closes her eyes and opens her mouth like she just took a bong hit.

"Let your fantasies unwind," screams Gerard at one point. Emmy stares at his crotch and looks elated. I didn't make that up.

For the big finale, the Phantom takes Christine over to this wax dummy he made of her. It is wearing a wedding dress. She passes out. Then, and only then, does the Phantom realize that this might have been overkill. When Christine wakes up, she notices that her tights are gone. Actually, she doesn't notice that. I do. Way to swing it, continuity police.

Emmy walks around in a daze, singing about remembering "swirling mist upon a vast, glassy lake." She also remembers "a boat" and "a man." Um, good memory? Because you're not currently staring at all of those things? The Phantom is sitting at the organ, the front of his shirt precariously undone. I don't know if he generally tries to arrange himself like the cover of a trashy romance novel, or if it's just for her benefit. Or, perhaps, MY benefit!

Christine comes up behind him and paws the non-masked, ridiculously attractive side of his face. He enjoys it until she rips off his mask. He flings her onto the ground and yells. Gerard is really upset, yo. When he gets mad, he gets even more Scottish. He's like the McHulk.

Cut to the manager's office. The Phantom has been passing people notes in class. Everyone thinks everything is everyone else's fault. Patrick Wilson is the only one without a weird accent but he makes up for it with THE HAIR. The Phantom wants Christine to sing in some weirdo opera, but no one thinks he means business, probably since all he's done so far is make a sheet fall down. The upshot of ten minutes of non-action is that Carlotta will be singing the lead and Christine will be the silent part.

At the performance that night, the midget is back.

Gerard switches Carlotta's throat spray with something else. He is STANDING IN PLAIN VIEW OF THE ENTIRE WORLD. He gets away with it because he's hot, I swear. I bet he just walks around in broad daylight, most of the time, and all that happens is that theatre personel stare dazedly after him murmuring "I'd hit that."

Carlotta starts making croaking noises. The Phantom strangles a stagehand because he's bored. The body falls onto the stage. The midget is concerned.

Christine decides to frolic on the roof of the opera, in the snow. So Christine and Raoul go up to the roof and sing "All I Ask Of You." It is what it is, which is a song you play at your wedding if you don't have very much imagination. Emmy Rossum looks particularly nice here, except that it's snowing and her arms are bare. She and Raoul do some kissing, some getting engaged, some twirling, and just a bit more singing, before they go back inside so that The Phantom can emerge from his secret hiding place, which is: behind a statue. Onward, Captain Obvious. He runs to a different statue, jumps on it, and pumps his fist in the air as though inwardly rocking to Journey's Greatest Hits. I hear that, Gerard. Don't stop believing!

New Year's Eve at the Paris Opera. People dance and sing. In the midst of these revels, The Phantom appears in a check-me-out-red ensemble. Sighs of approval are edited out. He approaches Christine, causing Raoul to run away like Brave Sir Robin. The Phantom and Christine stare at each other. Everybody in this movie mouth-breathes.

Raoul comes back into the room with a sword he found in the prop room. The Phantom yanks Christine's chain off her neck. Great hiding place. The Phantom disappears through some kind of trap door with flames, and Raoul jumps in after. Raoul finds himself in a chamber of mirrors, with these creepy funhouse-style images of the Phantom spinning around him. It's straight out of Leroux, but it's ruined when Madame Giry just strolls in and pulls Raoul out of there. It's supposed to be a gateway to a torture chamber, and he escapes like it's Super Mario Bros. Two.

Madame Giry takes us on this flashback where The Phantom is a little tyke, getting beat up and exploited at a traveling fair. Then he kills a guy, and Madame Giry helps him escape and hide in the opera. And...that's all the back-story we're getting.

Back at the opera in eighteen-hundred-whatever, Christine has this vase filled with roses, some alive, some dead. How Tori Amos of her. It's six in the morning and Christine is suddenly filled with the desire to go yelling around a cemetery. If I had a dime. Raoul is uselessly sleeping outside her room. The Phantom takes the place of the driver of the carriage, not that Christine realizes it right then. She says "To my father's grave," in a way that makes me think this is not an unusual occurrence. You know. "To the Batcave!"

Raoul wakes up and rushes after her. Christine arrives at the cemetery and takes the scenic route so she'll have time to sing a song. The Phantom hangs out inside Christine's father's mausoleum and sings to her. Christine gets the "cult member" look again. Raoul appears and instigates the Dumbest Sword Fight Ever with The Phantom. Not to keep making reference to the book, but The Phantom is supposed to be an excellent swordsman. Here, he's like some kind of Rent-A-Phantom. He doesn't even care. Raoul is about to stab The Phantom when Emmy reads "No, Raoul, not like this--" off of a cue card. Everybody stands around for a minute and then leaves. There are moments when I'd swear this movie was directed by Ed Wood.

Cut to people walking around the opera in an intense way. Raoul has this "brilliant" plan: if Christine sings in the Phantom's opera, he'll go to hear her, and they'll be ready for him and catch him. The Phantom, of course, overhears the "plan," and we see him getting things ready, like Macaulay Culkin in "Home Alone." This is his opera. He has to defend it. He gets ready, which involves changing into The Puffy Shirt. Ahh!

It's time for "The Point of No Return," which is all about how when you're a good girl and you're engaged a good guy, sometimes you still want to kind of get to second base with that other guy even though he has a mild facial deformity, and you want to get to second base with him in front of the entire world, and you want to do it under the pretense of blocking, and you get so hot and bothered that your voice does weird things and you don't even notice that your costume is falling off of your body and you forget to worry that your fiance might not want you anymore after he sees you shamelessly macking on the Weird Hot Deformed Guy Who Lives in the Basement.

The Phantom has killed some guy Carlotta was supposedly in love with. Then he comes purposefully out of this tent towards Christine, and she stares at him thinking that she knows they're supposed to be setting a trap but, well, she can hardly resist when he goes of and does that "Zorro" impression. Nor can anyone. The Phantom flings his cape around a lot. Christine looks dazed, like she isn't used to being propositioned by attractive Scottish men. The Phantom and Christine walk up the Stairs of Sensuality. Okay, we get it.

Then, The Phantom very gently starts singing this reprise of "All I Ask Of You," and Christine can't handle it and it's all sad and beautiful and really, really great acting on Mr. Butler's part, here, and then Christine rips off his mask and wig in front of everyone, revealing--yes--The Sunburn of Death! And he just stares at her, horrified, like he can't believe what a Mean Girl she turned out to be.

The Phantom takes Christine back to his subterranian bachelor pad and makes her change into the wedding dress previously modeled by the wax figure. I need to tell you that what passes for "Hideous Deformity" in this movie looks suspiciously like something I created in this beginning-level make-up class I took my freshman year of college. They needed to enlist the help of whoever designed Gary Oldman's make-up in "Hannibal," because that? Was vile.

Raoul shows up and promptly gets tied to The Phantom's garage door. I don't know. The Phantom splashes around in the water and bitches and does Big Arms for a while. Nobody's really that worked up about it.

"I did it all for you," whines Raoul. I've always thought that was a particularly silly line. I mean, the first thing he does when he gets there is get tied to some cheap-looking scaffolding. He's such a wuss about the whole thing. He doesn't even spit.

Christine's choice is that she can either spend her life with The Phantom and let Raoul go free, or she can go free and Raoul will die. "Don't throw your life away," begs Raoul, sounding like everyone who ever told me it was pointless to major in theatre. Ivy League, bitches.

Christine has a "change of heart," which she uses as an excuse to go make out with The Phantom. He cries and decides to let her go. Raoul and Christine run off and Mr. Butler, out of NOWHERE, suddenly develops a Spanish accent as he yells "Go now and leave me!"

Christine comes back and gives him the ring he kept trying to force on her. Which was actually...the one that Raoul gave her before? Whatever. We see shots of people holding torches and making their way down to the lair. I guess they all suddenly know exactly where it is.

Christine gets in the boat with Raoul. They don't even wait until they're out of earshot of the Phantom to reprise "All I Ask of You." Because they're Mean Girls. Both of them! As the mob gets closer, The Phantom starts breaking all his mirrors. For someone who had image problems, he surrounded himself with a lot of reflective surfaces. The Phantom steps through one of the broken mirrors so he can go farther underground. Yeah. Leave room for a horrible sequel.

The last shot is of Old Raoul staring at Christine's grave. There's a red rose with an engagement ring on the stem, which is supposedly the ring that Christine gave back to The Phantom after he gave it to her, but--no, I really think that's the same ring that Raoul gave her before--I guess he's glad to have it back, at least--

Whatever.

The end.

Go see "Sweeney Todd" instead.

Kentucky Fried Britney: The Matt Lauer Interview

2008-01-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

(Disclaimer: when I originally reviewed this, It's Britney, Bitch, was only on the first leg of her downward spiral. It was a more innocent time, back when we simply laughed at what we thought was stupidity, before we realized that actual mental illness was probably a component. Yet I'm posting it anyway, because I'm a bad person, and because I will always enjoy making fun of K-Fed.

That said, I truly do hope she gets better.)

I know she's actually from Louisiana, but it doesn't have the same ring. We begin with Matt Lauer giving a brief overview of the rise and fall of one Britney Spears, as a large screen in the background shows us clips of the video for "Oops! I Did it Again." I take sick satisfaction in pondering that chances are she will never wear that vinyl cat suit again. NEVER. Meow.

(2008 retrospective view: Girl, I'm just short of praying that you find a way to work your cat suits and slutty school-girl outfits again. Sure I hated on you before. I was jealous. I can't listen to "Stronger," "Toxic," "Overprotected," or any of the hits from the good old days on the ellptical machine, because I get too depressed. Your bad life decisions are affecting the affectivness of my workouts. Get it together for the good of mankind!)

Matt says something about Britney's trajectory from "Famous to Infamous." I think he's enjoying this. Cut to the interview room, where Matt and Britney face each other.

Mammaries. Oh, good god, they're large. Ginormous. She's got Huge Tracts of Land, everyone. But not showcased in any remotely flattering way. It hurts to look at those things. From behind the Huge Tracts comes the sound of someone saying that "Safety and respect are two things that are trying to be taken away from me right now."

We're treated to the first of many, many montages meant to illustrate how Innocent Britney morphed into Get Tested Poster Girl Britney. Britney incorrectly supplies air quotes while telling us that she thinks 90% of the people in the world would agree that the press has one a little "far" with her lately. Random air quotes. Get on board with this trend now.

Matt and Britney walk around Britney's back yard. Matt voice-overs about the gum "firmly planted" in [Britney's] mouth for the duration of the interview. Britney says, in between snaps of Bubbalicous, "I don't allow people to change me." Because Kevin didn't help skankify her or anything. It was a personal choice.

Who picked out her outfit? She looks like a spokesperson for those kind of discount centers that you find in strip malls, next to a surplus supermarket. Says Britney of the papparazi, "They just come out of nowhere." Like Flying Monkeys!

Close up on Brit in the interview room. Oh, man. They couldn't have used a soft-focus lens? Something? She looks awful, more so as she talks about her break-up with Justin Timberlake. She actually says it was the "beginning of the end." Word. She says that when she broke up with Justin, she turned into somebody the press liked to pick on. She name-drops Jessica Simpson for no reason.

Matt asks about the quickie marriage to Jason Alexander of Not Seinfeld fame. Britney says of the marriage, "That was just silly." She says she has no regrets. Seriously? Maybe she's been listening to the 'Rent' soundtrack or something.

Stock footage of Kevin looking like a sex offender. Matt asks if it bothered Britney that K-Fed left Shar Jackson to be with her. Here is some wisdom for y'all : "I don't blame him. They weren't technically together when he came to me anyways...they were apart. That happened with Julia Roberts, too." Qua?

Matt asks if, now that Britney has been pregnant and is indeed pregnant again, she ever thinks about how Shar must have felt.

Britney: mumble mumble happy together mumble.
Matt Lauer : How's your marriage?
Britney Spears: Awesome.
Matt Lauer: "Awesome."
Kristin: I might have a crush on you and your snarkness, Matt Lauer, male mattern baldness notwithstanding...

We're treated to a clip of Britney and Kevin's skeevy, icky TV show, and Britney saying "It's a good balance, its like we're friends...and we have good sex." Instert your own vomit joke. Or just vomit. You know? That's just rancid.

Matt shows Britney some of the current negative magazine covers, prompting Britney to say, "You know what, I need to come up with my own magazine." Oh, god, Britney, please do. I will buy every single issue.

Matt gets Britney to say that Kevin still lives with her. Britney says it's good that Kevin is there because right now she's "An emotional wreck, but not in a bad way. I'll be laughing and then I'll just start crying." That's totally how I'd describe mental stability.

(Ahhhh! The foreshadowing!)

Now for my favorite part of the whole thing:

Matt: What is it you love about Kevin? What is it you see in him?
Britney: He's simple. (Pause) He's SO simple. He cares so much and his heart, (audible unecessary comma) is awesome.

Next, We're treated to a clip of a genuine K-Fed interview. "I have feelings, and hurt, and happy, sad, fight, cry." No grammatical skills, but who needs them when you've got Britney Spears for a meal ticket?

Back in the interview room, Britney starts to cry as she insists her marriage isn't over: "There's no end in sight." It's kind of tragic, and Faustian.

Matt talks about how what people once considered to be Britney's southern charm has now turned more redneck. Britney says that's because people don't like to see other people happy. She says something inane about Goldie Hawn. Cut to the backyard, where we're treated to a full view of Britney's hideous, tramp-ass denim skirt. She talks about how her maid slacks off and then calls Matt Lauer "honey", twice in the same sentence. Matt asks her how far along she is with this second pregnancy and she doesn't know.

(I...yeah. People can act like this new behavior is a novelty all they want, but there's proof enough that she's been batshit crazy for at least several years now.)

Matt: Talk about motherhood.
Brithey: (as though for confirmation) Motherhood.
Matt: Yes.

Britney refuses, saying she wants to keep her baby out of it. Um, okay. Then, after break, "Motherhood's amazing." Was that so hard?

Britney discusses the non-car seat incident. Matt Lauer says "Take me through what happened", like it's really hard for him to understand. It's hard for a lot of us to understand, Matt. She talks about how she did the same thing with her dad, and follows up with "We're country." No, really?

Matt says some things regarding the safety of the incident and Britney looks blank, grunts "uh-huh," a few times, and makes a puppy face. After a pause, she says "That's America." Another puppy face, and then: "I've definitely wept with, you know, the world."

Then, Matt leads discussion about her kid falling out of the chair, and Britney says the doctors were crappy and unprofessional, though she won't point out specific examples of this. She says that when the Child Protective Services showed up, they didn't know why they were there and neither did she. Matt helpfully supplies something about doing their job, and Britney pretends not to hear. She rambles about how as a human you need privacy and respect, and I'm too distracted by her Wal-Mart earrings to either agree or disagree.

Britney Spears : I have to believe that I'm here for a reason.
Matt Lauer : What's that reason?
Britney Spears: I don't know.

Britney says she will find a way to give her son as much of a normal life as possible. We see a clip of some music video she did when she was pregnant with him, which shows Britney meandering about in a slip fondling her stomach and warbling lines like "you see it all in your baby." It's...I don't know. Like an Amy Grant video? Except saying that is more of an insult to Amy Grant and I've got nothing against her?

Back to Britney: Blah blah she wants to do more music someday. Blah blah had a lot of fun with her guest spot on "Will and Grace." Says Britney, "I just love funny people. Funny people are great." End topic.

Matt asks if Britney is still friends with Madonna. Britney pauses and says "She's a smart lady and I respect her." Britney rolls her eyes as she says she's sure "Kaballah has codes to the world and all that." Heh.

MattLauer tries to close with a positive spin on everything and maybe class it up a little, but Britney can't be stopped, and says the reason everything is happening to her is because she "Won't take any BS."

Thus ends the one-hour coronation of Britney Spears as the official successor to Anna Nicole Smith.

(And I need you to know that I WROTE THAT IN 2006. And then, come early 2007, Anna Nicole Smith tragically died as a result of her life being completely messed up, and then today I read about how the AP already has an obituary ready for Britney, and while they do in fact have such a practice in place for a whole slough of famous people--it's just so depressing. Peace be with you, Britney.

And please start wearing pants.)

The 2006 Stupid Summer Movie Round-Up

2008-01-17T22:00:00.000-08:00

Part the First: "Jon Tucker Must Die."

Brittany Snow : I have low self-esteem because boys don't like me and they won't until the end of the first act when Ashanti and her beefy man arms show me how to pose!

Ashanti: I don't have beefy man arms.

Ashanti's Beefy Man Arms: What?

Sophia Bush: I deserve to be famous apart from being married to Chad Michael Murray for a minute and a half.

Blond Girl who Isn't Brittany Snow:...

Guy from Desperate Housewives: I also deserve to be famous!

All the Girls in the Movie: We are in love with Jon Tucker!

All the Girls in the Movie, ten seconds later : Jon Tucker is a man-slut!

Brittany Snow: I am especially cute when I wrinkle my nose like a bunny.

Guy from Desperate Housewives: I'm whipped!

Brother of Guy from Desperate Housewives: I look like a serial killer.

Brittany Snow: I feel an attraction to the brother of the guy from Desperate Housewives, either in spite or because of the fact that he looks like a serial killer.

Ashanti's Beefy Man Arms : No, really, what?

Blah blah moral something or other : It's wrong to trick people into, um, something, whatever, wait, is Jenny McCarthy actually delivering life advice?

Jenny McCarthy: I'm still hot.

Script : I guess.

Party Scene complete with Dousing Hot Girls with Punch: I need to be in this movie.

Brittany Snow: I mislead you, uncharismatic guy from Desperate Housewives. I'm sorry.

Guy from Desperate Housewives: I have had a change of heart. I'm still going to be a man-slut...but I'm going to be completely honest about it!

All the Girls in the Movie: Okay!

The End.

Part the Second: "The Lake House"

Keanue Reeves and Sandra Bullock's respective Agents: It is a really, really good idea to get these two back together on screen.

Movie Executives: Word.

KR and SB's respective Agents: ...in A SAPPY ROMANTIC NON COMEDY! IT'S LIKE "FREQUENCY!" WITH A MAGIC MAILBOX! AND WITHOUT THE GUY WHO PLAYED JESUS!

People in Charge of Marketing: ...for real?

Sandra Bullock: I have a magic mailbox! I am living two years apart from Keanue Reeves!

Keanue Reeves: I shall plant you a tree.

Sandra Bullock: I got it! Thank you!

Keanue Reeves: I know kung-fu.

Sandra Bullock: Uh-oh. You're going to die, in the future.

Keanue Reeves: But I know kung-fu.

Sandra Bullock: You're still going to die.

Keanue Reeves: Woah.

Sandra Bullock: Maybe if I pray to the Magic Mailbox.

Magic Mailbox: Even I think I'm stupid.

A Field: I wish some fading celebrities would run toward each other through my amber waves of grain.

Sandra Bullock: Hist! I hear footsteps aproaching!

Keanue Reeves: Woah.

Keanue Reeves and Sandra Bullock run toward each other for ten minutes and then make out.

The End.

Part the Third: "The Devil Wears Prada"

Anne Hathaway: (using "Teen Girl Squad" voice) I look so good!

Meryl Streep stares coldly and awesomely.

Anne Hathaway: You're mean! I was in Brokeback!

Meryl Streep continues to stare. Brrr.

Anne Hathaway: Waaaaaah!

Adrian Grenier: Clearly, my career has improved drastically since my initial star turn in "Drive Me Crazy" opposite Melissa Joan Hart.

Britney Spears: Remember how hot I was in that video, y'all?

K to the Fed: C'mere and give me some sweet fire cheeto kisses, babe.

Sean Preston: Shhh. Mommy's crying.

People Reading This: Weren't you talking about "The Devil Wears Prada?"

Kristin: I guess.

Meryl: I'm awesome.

Everybody in the World: Yes.

Anne Hathaway: No, she's a meanie, and furthermore I am running around Paris in cute shoes and THROWING MY CELL PHONE IN THE FOUNTAIN RIGHT NOW!

Everybody: Shh. Meryl is talking.

Anne Hathaway: No, but--me. Because I was in Brokeback, remember? And everyone else's accent was way worse than mine and my hair is lustrous on all occasions and everyone else got Oscar nominations and not me and I WANT TO BE RELEVANT AND--

Kristin: Fuck it. This movie was crap. I still have no idea what Meryl Streep's character did that was supposedly so evil.

But the outfits were, indeed, worthy of coveting.

The End.