Movies I Haven't Seen: Big Miracle

There comes a time in every man's life when he's got to take a stand, to rebuke the popular opinion and yell and scream until there's nothing left in your voice except for gravel and blood, and then dammit you scream some more!  So now I'm doing that.  I'm sick and tired and I don't want to take it anymore!  What the hell am I talking about?  Well I'll tell you what I'm talking about!  I'm talking about hypocritical conservationists!  And those fools are the subject of this week's movie that you shouldn't spend money on but probably will because who am I kidding, your girlfriend is dragging you to it as we speak and soaking your shoulder with her sobs.

Moby Dick's Shakespeare in the Pond was a critical and commercial failure.

You know what really gets my blowhole in a uproar? Hippies. Not just hippies, but the hippies who have absolutely no idea what they're fighting for. There are some activists out there who get it. That guy in front of that tank in Tiananmen? He gets it. Jacques Cousteau? After he stopped dynamiting fish, he got it. Most of the ones I've encountered though don't know the difference between the abundant asshole Canada Goose and an endangered Hawaiian Goose, presumably still a bunch of assholes though far fewer in number.

Weird Al Yankovic.  Killed by kamikaze gander attack.

Along the same lines, there are those in Hollywood and let's face it, everywhere else, who obviously have nothing better to do than tell us what Mother Nature needs and when she is hurting, like some sort of tree whisperers. Apparently only they are the chosen who can speak with the goodly creatures of the earth, to tell us if they need us to step in and assist their tiny brained brethren with our more evolved, soul having bodies (Ha, I put evolved and soul in the same sentence! I feel like both Charles Darwin and Kirk Cameron just rolled in their graves), or if we just need to stand back and let nature take its course. Sometimes it's, "Don't kill bald eagles, they're endangered and a symbol of our country!"  And other times, "That bald eagle is going to eat my pet Chihuahua that shouldn't live in this cold of climate anyway!  Get a sweater for my dog and kill that bird!"  It's this alarming puzzle of confusion which leads us straight into the "true life" plot of Big Miracle.

Big Miracle tells the hair raising story of three trapped whales and their apparently Cold War ending struggle for survival. In the northernmost frozen wastes of asshole filled Alaska, the town of Barrow sits near the very top of the world. It is here that an intrepid and bored reporter noticed a big ol' hole in the ice with three whales popping up and down in it. Somehow Drew Barrymore, who just happens to be his ex-girlfriend (based on a true story), finds out. She determines in her drug addled hippie brain that those whales don't wanna be there and need freedom from their icy prison. What, is it illegal for animals to commit suicide too?

"Could you kindly point me to the nearest beach?  I've grown tired of living."

So the world, that's right, the entire Cold War stricken world of uncaring, warmongering people, decides it's their duty to save these three whales that we're not supposed to interfere with in the first place.  And I'm sure Jim Halpert and Drew Barrymore will fall back in love while watching these whales hump backs.  Gag.  Seriously what bet did half of these people lose to have to be a part of this movie?*  Actually, I kinda think they just told Barrymore that it was really happening and she ran up there to be a part of it.

How self righteous do you have to be to think that Mother Nature needs your help, especially when you were the one that broke her in the first place?  I understand that when you take down a tree, you should plant a few more.  And you probably shouldn't hunt an animal to extinction in twenty-seven years like the Steller's Sea Cow.  But everyone yells about leaving Mother Nature alone until your motherly instinct kicks in and makes you think every cute thing that doesn't have the human levels of intelligence to speak needs you.

Without your help, this dog will be forced to wear off-brand tuxedos.

Here are some facts which hopefully turn off the water works surrounding this tearjerker.  This particular species of gray whale is of least concern on the conservation status. The whales got themselves that far inland under the ice, humans had nothing to do with it.  The reason they remain trapped was because the ice sheet keeps freezing farther into the ocean, which is exactly what it is supposed to do being cold and almost winter.  So in the eighties people bitched about the ice freezing too fast and now we're complaining that the ice is melting too fast.  It's mind boggling how quickly their concerns change when it gives them something to do.  Stop eating mushrooms and drinking your own urine to save precious water, you're all batshit insane in my humble opinion.

As much as it pisses hippies off, we are now part of the planetary ecosystem, whether you admit it or not. I believe very strongly that once the Industrial Revolution began and we started pouring coal smoke into the air, and worse since, we started a little ecosystem changing of our own. We're responsible for some of it, but it's not like the world was just peachy and constant before we came along either.  First it was fiery and violent.  Then there was a lot of swamps and dinosaurs.  And then...

The whole world used to look like this... and that was before aerosol spray cans.

I feel like I didn't talk much about the movie, but why should I?  It looks like a manipulative load of sap, based on a true story, which in Hollywood terms means add a pointless romance to it and every girl will knock over their mailboxes in their rush to make it to the theater.  And we all know how it ends... cause I read it on the back of the book.  No, I won't tell you what happens to the whales, but the situation eases tensions between the Soviet Union and The United States o' 'merica and leads to the end of the Cold War.  Yes, that's right, the effort to save these three whales basically takes credit for defeating Communism.  Just makes you feel warm inside and forget those years of negotiations, the suffering of millions of humans, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, and the constantly bickering heads of state who finally decided to turn to peace and tear down that wall.

"I am Mik-whale Gorbachev.  Pleased to meet you Scuba Gear Ronald Reagan with real diving action!"

Nope.  It was obviously three (Spoiler alert!) soon to be dead whales.

Oh and I'm sorry Kristen Bell!  I'm still bitter about Party Down getting canceled and have nothing else to do, that's all.  I'll see your next movie, I swear.


*Joke courtesy of Shannon O'Connor.

Relationshits... I'm Clever...

I'm gonna start this off with a disclaimer: I'm probably the last person you should take relationship advice from. Now here's my relationship advice based on absolutely nothing but over-casual observance bordering on stalking and a love life striped straight out of the pages of a romance novel... a poorly written PG rated version where Fabio looks a little bit like John Cusack.  And yes, I just made fun of myself.  It's a strange concept, humility, I know.  Try it sometime.  I feel like I'm diving into a completely separate blog so let's leave that on the back burner and run head first into a brick wall of terrible couplings where one person holds all the cards and the other can't wait to bet their lives on a pair of deuces.


The Cloners

The bad news starts off innocent enough.  Rolling with a new crew, your significant other's crew, you tend to get interested in the things they're interested in.  Liking things is harmless.  I myself like a good many things.   A few of those things I stumbled on myself but most of them were recommendations from other people.  My best friend, when I was five, introduced me to a certain fat Italian plumber and my physical fitness has lacked ever since.

This is how I play Wii Marathon Runner.  Nice try, Nintendo.

People... sorry the word people used there is offensive to real people, I meant hipsters... who say they 'discovered' a band before it was popular, are full of shit.  People who get mad because they read Game of Thrones before the show aired, have a stick up their shit, which is also full.  No one is truly ever the first one to discover anything.  But once coupling has taken place and you start liking the exact same thing you knew nothing about a week before, guess who's full of shit now?  When one person seems to slowly, or more disappointing, rapidly, take on the likes and dislikes of the other person... well you're gonna lose your individuality right quick.

They forgot to step in front of the train...

There's no problem with being turned on to new things, but becoming a chameleon to try to blend in with someone or a group of someones who should really just appreciate you for your terrible choices in entertainment is only leading you down that road where you're becoming 'their girlfriend/boyfriend' instead of 'insert before-relationship-name here.'  It's okay for two separate people to be together and have different tastes.  Really.  I don't make my lady friend watch Judge Dredd and Face/Off, two of the greatest action flicks of the 90s, or watch me play Zelda for three hours straight.  In turn, she doesn't make me watch Glee or... sing Glee? We get along fine.

It's not good to have absolutely nothing in common, though, otherwise you're just sitting there talking about what kind of bands are good... and stuff, boring the hell out of the floor boards.  Takes a lot to make wood board.  That's hilarious.  I wrote that at 6 AM.


The Changerators

This is the technically the opposite of that last thing I rambled about.  "She/He will change, I know it."  "She'll stop drinking," or "He'll stop illegal dog fighting, for me, because he doesn't make that much money doing it."

"He promised he'd stop rapping, too.  He lied on both counts, but oh well."

At the core of a person, the very gooey, innermost meatiness of the bone bag, no one changes for another person.  The real changes come when they realize that something they're doing is making them unhappy.  Being forced to change by someone who has no control over your life is like trying to get me out of bed before noon.  Impossible.  Putting a nice polo and khakis on a punk rocker will change him into a slightly unhappier punk rocker.  You can show him off to your parents now, from a distance.  But he changed a little, he now hates you for trying to change his life.  You've just now shown someone that who they are is not good enough for you.  If he tried to get you to pierce your fleshy face bits, you would probably say no, since you've got a high horse and you're planted on it.

That's a stupid example, but it's a snowballing idea.  Suggest a little thing like, maybe not having that seventeenth beer because it's ninety-three seconds until closing time, and the next time you're asking him not to hang out with the people that he drinks with.  And soon, you're two lonely losers sitting on a couch watching TV every night, one content with the changes they've forced on someone, and the other who secretly wonders how slippery the front step could get in the winter.

That's what you get for making me wear argyle...

There are at least six billion people on this planet.  If you can't find one who fits into your stringent set of guidelines for a partner and have to change the first guy you stumble drunkenly into, maybe you need to take a little look in the mirror because you might be some sort National Socialist.


The Sacrificers

Relationships are full of sacrificing.  Most of the time they're little things like not playing thirty-seven hours of video games a day so you can take your lady to a fine dining establishment or not hanging up those terrible doily curtains your grandma gave you because your boyfriend doesn't want to live in a Thomas Kinkade painting.  And those are acceptable sacrifices because as much as you'd like to think otherwise, relationships aren't just about you.  But then there are the people you see who literally give up everything to be in the same breathing space of the person they're with... which they are quickly shoved out of because they're in the other's actual breathing space.

It's simple science.  His musk is her oxygen.

The first thing to go is free time.  When you spend every minute with a person, outside of a job, you start to lose your identity as a separate human being.  I love my alone time and before you say, "I have alone time, gawd!" I don't mean when your significant other happens to be busy and you've got no one else because who would try anymore?  Real alone time is telling that other person, "I'm going to be with me tonight.  See you later."  It's fair, everyone needs it, unless of course you don't care that someone refers to you as 'so and so's girlfriend/boyfriend' in conversation because nobody remembers your name anymore.  And why should they?  The only time they see you is when the sun is out and you're playing their shadow.

And they wouldn't leave Neverland for you, you can bet on that.

Your friends take a back seat, and you'll act like you care as long as it doesn't interfere with your busy schedule of sleep/work/clinging.  Then your family starts to get left behind and soon every single person but you thinks everything you're doing is pretty much the opposite of what is good.  And apparently in Crazyland, population you, you're the only sane one and you've finally become...


The Delusionists

Of all my made up words, that one sounds the coolest, like you've become some kind of magician that makes everyone feel like they're the only people who know the truth.  But being delusional is the opposite of cool, and I feel like this is the meat of this whole relationship issue.  Lying to yourself and having other people go along with it because they just do, because who the hell wants to deal with your thirty day long cycles anymore?  You ask other unstable people for advice because if you asked a competent human being, they'd tell you things you don't want to hear, if they weren't terrified you'd stab them with a lemon zester.

Anyone who owns one of these shouldn't be your friend anyway.

And once your best friends start humoring you, you've hit rock bottom.  Here's a lemon shaving of advice: The one person that either refuses to give you an opinion or has the opposite views as everyone else is probably the person you should listen to.  It's downright hard to tell someone the cold hard truth straight to their face.  When it comes to telling someone they can do better significant other wise, it's about as comfortable as putting down a guinea pig.  That's why people post their lives on Facebook, so that every little insignificant complaint post gets the attention they're not getting from whoever they're complaining about.  And generally, all of the 'friends' who comment with a "Stay positive, you're the best!" comment are merely telling you what you want to hear.  It should red flag your brain when you've written one nice post about one nice thing they did, nestled somewhere amongst thirty shitty ones.

But he paid for dinner before he followed her to the bathroom...

Here's a test: Grab your most delicious vodka, possibly a nice Cake, and get on your Facebook wall.  Now, take a drink for every "You can do it, girl!' comment on your "My life sucks this hour," posts.  You're drinking because those people, while being affirmative and nice, have no goddamn clue about your life, yet they're giving you false hope in spite of their ignorance.  And take one for every "Oh my God, you guys are so cute.......lol...." on that fourteenth annoying couple picture you took today while he was trying to watch the big game or that one nice post about him out of thirty.  Double shot if the compliment about him is from him.  Are you in the hospital yet?  Cause you ought to be.

This is where your friends on Facebook end up when you lie to them. 

But this is a positive thing.  Stay there, go through detox, go through rehab, and when you get out and take a taxi home because let's face it, he's still too hung over, look directly at your terrible boyfriend (I was gonna say /girlfriend but it's obvious that only girls do this Facebook delusion game) and how many women he's hit on while you were drinking water and praying to the Goddess for a month.  Good, hopefully you're not delusional anymore.  And if you're still stupid and have talked yourself back into his not-so-loving embrace because you feel like there's no other choice and well... deep breath... you've been dating a while and you've put a lot of commitment into it and you don't want to start that dating process over again and you'll just end up getting back together anyway and your best friends and family who have known you forever just don't know what they're talking about and if they do you won't listen anyway and you have to marry someone 'cause everyone gets married and it'll only be miserable until you have a kid and then you can hope the kid loves you more than he... wow, I just depressed myself.  If any of those words have come out of your mouth before, find a nice solid desk, preferably oak, and bash your head into it.  Good, now you know how I feel when I hear delusional word vomit like that.

The feeling transcends all races and species, even the mighty Vulcan.  On a second gander, that's Bones... point still stands.

And drop every Facebook friend that coddles you, they're just making themselves feel important, like someone who prays for natural disaster victims and acts like they're in the Red Cross.  I'm not saying all of your friends are like that, just the ones on Facebook.  And in churches.

Maybe I've become a little over the top in my old age.  Obviously the dream of a Prince Charming coming to take you away to a shiny palace with hundreds of animal servants is stupid and impossible and won't happen in the middle of the suburbs.  But there are good people out there and they do make good couples.  It's just infuriating when 99% of Facebook is filled with people in terrible relationships, complaining about them, and no one is doing anything to stop it.  There is someone or someones out there for everyone, I truly believe that.  You just can't expect to find them the first time you look.  And if you don't, don't just settle down with the last person you meet on the way out of the bar at 2 AM.  And if you did that 'cause you're kinda dumb, you obviously aren't obligated to ever stay with someone that doesn't make you truly happy.  Ever.

(I tried to find a picture of like, a crazy person handcuffing someone else to something, you know, like you might have to stay with them if they handcuff you to the radiator or something.  Don't ever Google Image search anything with the word handcuffs in it.  If you don't believe anything I've said in this article, please believe this.)

My next blog will be about how everyone is so goddamn cynical and serious these days.   Wonder where I got the idea for that...

Destroying Things People Love: The Walking Dead

Since I feel like writing about and making fun of an Adam Sandler movie is just like shooting a whale in a barrel, I've decided to start a brand new column, something you've all been asking for for weeks and weeks and like the generous samaritan I am, I'm going to give it to you.  Welcome to my new, most likely never happen again column, Destroying Things People Love.  It's pretty self-explanatory.  Since my opinion is the only one that I care about, I'm gonna throw it around at things that I can't seem to stand but everyone else seems to bend down and lick the boots of.  If there's one thing I've learned from having a blog, it's that one person's blog can change the world.  So, best case scenario, the thing I write about that I hate will be gone by next Tuesday.

I'd head for the Adult Swim building.  You know there's nerd survivors in there.

I have to admit that I've never read the comic series that The Walking Dead is based off of and I probably won't, because I also have to admit that I have never been a fan of zombies.  Literally every other movie monster, except for maybe Pete the Dragon, is scarier and more dangerous than zombies.  Hell, even Robert Pattinson killed something in the Twilights, and he's coif-ily challenged.  Zombies are slow, brainless, and really only partly dangerous when there's at least thirty of them coming at you at once.  And no, I'm not talking about those really fast, scary zombies from England; that's just cheating.  Sadly, that's not the last time I'll refer to 28 Days Later.  One prepared human against one zombie is like an elephant with the hammer of Thor fighting a kitten.  Then Shaun of the Dead came along and did something so right it hurt: they made the idea of a zombie apocalypse a ridiculous joke while still convincing us that the characters were in real danger.  After Shaun of the Dead, I haven't been able to take anything zombie related seriously.

Which brings us to The Walking Dead, AMC's quote unquote EPIC zombie show.  I guess the word epic kind of fits since we're supposed to believe that the whole world has been overrun by zombies, even though they only show up at the worst, most inopportune times.  Other times, the characters literally have to go and hunt for them.  Look at that poster up there, there's not even any damn zombies on it and it's a zombie show.  Don't get me wrong, I honestly didn't go into this show thinking I was gonna hate every dirty, yellowish-brown second of it.  A serious horror show on the second best network on television, created by the guy who brought us the best Stephen King flicks?  How could it miss?  Oh yeah, the part where they decided to make it so serious it has a tighter butthole than Bill O'Reilly.

"I haven't crapped since Obama got into office.  I won't give him the satisfaction."

Shall we start at the beginning?  I guess if you're not caught up and really for some reason want to be, you shouldn't read some of this.  The hour and a half long pilot, directed by Shawshanker Frank Darabont himself, is a pretty solid piece of TV.  Sets up the world nicely: there's a cop with a serious See-You-En-Tee of a wife, adorable son who looks up to him, and a best pal best friend who would have his back whenever, living an idyllic existence.  Until he gets shot.  He wakes up some time later in a hospital and realizes the zombie apocalypse has already happened.  I swear I've seen this before.... somewhere.  Oh well, I'm sure I'll think of it later, in a few days... twenty-eight perhaps.  It's a nitpicky thing, I suppose, 'cause how do you cheaply and effectively show zombies taking over the entire country?  But really?  It had to be a guy waking up from a coma in a hospital?  Anyway, the cop makes his way home, gets schooled in the story so far, and treks down the road to Atlanta to find help.  He finds others, he finds his family and his friend, realizes there's little hope and they band together to survive.

The first real problem I have with this show, besides the super-duper, pissed off Grandpa seriousness of the tone, are the mind-numbingly awful characters.  When the show was just Officer Rick trudging through a desolate Georgia wasteland, much like our own Georgia of today, it was like a gritty, lonely western.  Once you start piling in the supporting cast of terrible cliches of humanity, like a Dexter episode vomited all over it, we start running into problems.  Let's point out a few winners.  We've got the overbearingly racist hillbilly hanging out with the oddly named token black guy.  The innocent and unspoiled Asian kid who's good at getting in and out of places.  The wise old man who takes the damaged young woman under his wing as his substitute daughter.  The abused, meek wife who has to take care of her lowborn daughter.  The only character with a hint of depth to him is Daryl.  He had a shaky start as the clone of his racist brother but he's really growing into a character that's both badass and for some reason really gives a shit about people.  Hopefully they have a good reason for his actions later.

Actually, that works for me.  Hire this man!
source: http://inappropriatedixon.tumblr.com/post/12469255418

And then there's the "leads" if you can call them that in an ensemble.  Lori, Rick's wife, has to be the supreme biggest bitch in the known universe.  To survive something so terrible as the end of the world and then continue to stick to the "I'm a strong woman who doesn't take no guff, even when I admit that I'm constantly dead wrong" mindset, especially while hiding the affair with Shane, the best friend of her not-so-zombie husband; that takes a special kind of beotch.  There can be likable evil characters, Tony Soprano is the only example I would ever need, but this woman is not likable in any sense of the word.  And she admitted it in the show!  She changes her mind back and forth constantly when it comes to her husband, calling him a saint one second and yelling at him the next.  And why not tell him about the affair?  It's the end of the world.  You thought he was dead like most of the population, it's not that far fetched to assume that.  Add a sensitive man like Shane, whose poker face is about as effective as a zombie's brain, and you're just asking for the secret bomb to drop at the worst time.  And Rick himself is a wooden man with a one track mind: find his family and survive.  Anything else happens, at least we're alive.  His decisions literally keep me firmly and lazily sunken into the meat of the couch.  If he has to make a choice, it'll be the safest, most boring decision you can think of, complicated only by the assholes that he has decided to surround himself with.

Which leads to the writing of the show itself; my biggest beef.  Every week, we are subjected to these people mostly doing one thing: surviving.  "Well, that's what they're trying to do, survive, duh!"  Yeah, I know, that's what we would do in real life, try to survive and stay as safe as possible.  But this isn't real life, this is a fictional zombie television show.  I know that everyone involved is trying really hard to make it a human drama but when I know that there's an apocalypse happening right over those trees, I don't want to hear you say, "This show isn't even about the zombies."  Guh, it's freakin' named after them!  You have an hour, entertain me.  Don't depress me constantly with people who are ready to just give up hope, can't find what they need, fail at the one task they had to do that day, or just plain mope for a good solid forty minutes.

This house is so nice, let's just sit here for all of season 2 and say we're doomed.

There's nothing wrong with teasing us with the idea that these people are doomed, we've already assumed they are, but to keep our viewership, you have to offer us a little redemption.  I didn't stick with LOST because I thought they'd never get off the island, I watched because I was sure they would.  I watched Dead for thirty minutes last week as they found the one zombie featured in that episode (the episode of a zombie TV show remember) stuck in a well they were going to drink from, and risked lives trying to haul him out whole so that he didn't contaminate the well more... only to rip him in half and ruin the well anyway.  Why am I watching if everything they try to do fails? I wouldn't drink from a well with a dead rotting corpse in it even a year after it was outta there; why did they think they could?  I understand that it's a continuing story and it's probably very grand in scope, but unless this is an educational how-to for surviving the big one, I don't need to see these idiots try to fix something that's unfixable.  I feel like you give a show an hour of television time, the desire to fill as many hours of it as they can gets inside the writer's head.

Hence, the hunt for Sophia.  How long do they plan to drag out this search for a little girl who's been missing how many days during the apocalypse?  A completely avoidable mishap, by the way, if the cop would have just killed the two lonely zombies trailing them.  He didn't need to run away without her in the first place, he didn't need to lead the zombies away to kill them, and he didn't even need a weapon more sophisticated than the rock he picked up and killed both with effortlessly.  He caught up to the girl before the zombies did, without acting as quickly as he could, because everyone just sat there and watched her run away.  This show is called The Walking Dead... cause the dead walk... slowly.  Amble is the word I like to use.  Rick could have left them in the dust with the little girl in tow.  Hell, she outran them, too; why hide now?  Do the zombies smell blood or don't they?  In one stupid episode, they covered themselves in guts to hide their scent, but the girl can hide five feet away from them in another?  In one episode, a scientist tells them the zombies' brains are just motor skills and taste for blood, but later, a zombie wanders onto an open RV with no provocation or enticement.  The show can't even keep it's own science straight.

This would take them four episodes to avoid, after sacrificing the rest of the season 2 guest stars.

In conclusion, finally, I guess the show isn't all bad.  The zombies look okay, although some of them look like rotting drywall and the fat one in the well looked like the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man's slightly handicapped little brother.  Some of the cliffhangers are pretty good, but if you constantly rely on those, you're gonna end up LOST.  See what I did there?  And like I said, the more they flesh out Daryl, the more interested I'll be.  I wish I would have seen all of these before I met Norman Reedus briefly at Comic Con on my way to Sean Patrick Flanery.  I would have told him he was the only well written character on the show.  But despite those few things, all the praise this show gets is very confusing to me.  I know there's no other show to compare it to in the zombie genre, but as a horror show, it falls flat on it's face.  American Horror Story captured and still holds my attention week in and week out, and I thought that show wouldn't have enough stories to keep it going.  And it doesn't have any padding in it.  And it's scary.  You know what's not scary?  Stopping looking for someone for five screen minutes to autopsy a zombie because you found bits of flesh in it's mouth.  Way to go Gil Grissom from CSI, how many of those walking meat bags do you think have skin under their nails and flesh in their teeth?  I would say most of them.

Her teeth and nails are immaculate.  Move on to the next one!

Like I said before, I didn't go into this show wanting to hate it and I'm going to keep watching it to see if it gets better this season.  The last year of my life has been immersing myself in all things zombie.  I figured it was about time.  So I was just as surprised that this show pissed me off as most people are.  But I can't just like something because it's insanely dramatic and gory and cool.  The reason I've moved from liking movies more to liking story based television more is that you get more story out a seasonal television show.  This show might be attempting a big story, they just seem to be taking their sweet time to get to it and by the time they actually figure out what they're doing, the terrible humans will have already killed each other off.  All the zombies really have to do is wait them out.  And when the main character; the moral, sensible, righteous one, stops to pick up his cop hat in the middle of zombie infested Atlanta with the dead at his heels, it doesn't seem like the zombies have to wait too long.  You are not Indiana Jones.  Your hat isn't a part of who you are.  Go team Z!  I'm rooting for you, fellas.

P.S. Spoiler alert... who gives a shit if the baby is Shane or Rick's?  What are they gonna do, go on Maury and get a paternity test?  Maury Povich is a dead rotting corpse somewhere.  If you tell Rick it's his, he'll believe you because you've got him whipped and he's a guy so he doesn't understand things like your oven timer and baby-baking.  Tell him you're stressed and it came out early.  And honestly, if your biggest concern is that somebody will notice if that baby you're going to have during the end of the world is going to have Shane's Jew nose or Rick's non-Jew nose... you don't deserve to live anymore you stupid bit--

On closer inspection, he might have already turned.

Movies I Haven't Seen: Abduction

I tried to write a blog last week for the Sarah Jessica Parker, Academy Award vehicle I Don't Know How She Does It and I couldn't get through it.  Even making fun of that movie was boring the absolute hell out of me, and I will make fun of anyone and everything, usually with girlish delight.  So, as a saving grace to my sanity, I stopped writing it and will allow it to crash and burn and have a slow and painful death at the box office like so many other SJP vehicles and, coincidentally, vehicles driven by other people who happen to see Sarah Jessica Parker's face.  So now, finally, I'm back to doing what I love... ruining shitty movies that I haven't even seen for everyone who wants to see them.  I swear I'll shake the dust off eventually.

He's following his career down that hill... skyscraper?  That ruins the joke...

Okay, I can't help but continue making fun of that poster.  I've seen the movie trailer and in reality, and I use that term loosely, he's sliding down the a decorative glass siding in some kind of outdoor mall and it's at about a thirty-five degree angle.  But with the poster, people are gonna think that Spider-Man lost his powers mid-dive... and for some reason his costume.  Is this Inception?  Is he dreaming and he can just bend the buildings at a whim and perform some killer grind sans skateboard?  You'd think he'd soften those windows so the glass doesn't shatter under his diamond sole shoes connected to his tree trunk of a body.  Or does this film take place in a futuristic city where people live in crooked buildings because the future is going to be a lot less rigid in it's building code restrictions?  Irregardless, yes irregardless, everything about that well made piece of advertising tells me this is going to be the first Oscar worthy film of the early awards season.

My blatant lies in that last sentence made Jesus kill this litter of kittens.  Sorry, Jesus.

As if you needed to be explained the plot after seeing that Don Draper quality creation, Abduction stars Kid's Choice Award Winner and MTV Movie Award Nominee Taylor Lautner as a young hunk with an ideal life and parents who are suspiciously training him to be James Bond Jr. right under his nose in front of his face.  His nosy girlfriend just happens to find his photo on a missing children website (girlies always be doing background checks) and these bad dudes break into his house and murderize his parents... or are they his parents?  No.  He bolts and gets picked up by Ellen Ripley in a Sarah Connor-like "come with me if you want to live" moment and he's whisked away into a world of espionage, chased by the people who want to protect him and the people who want to kill him, sounding nothing like the Bourne films or any other movie where a kid is chased by a shadowy organization.  And literally no one gets abducted in any of the trailers.

Seriously, let's go through the list: misleading title, terrible poster, cliched as hell plot, what exactly do they think audiences are going to go to this movie fo...

A young Tommy Wiseau?  Or Cher...

...oh.  Yeah.  That little kid.  From that one really popular movie, what was it called?  Oh yeah, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl.  That's the one.  Ha, I just looked at the cast of that and the girl who played Lavagirl was named Taylor too.  Must have been confusing on set.  "Taylor!  No, the girl Taylor!  Seriously, why do you both keep looking?"  Obviously, we all know what he's from.  Some of you are panting furiously at the thought of it.  I myself feel a little part of my eternal soul die every time I type the name Taylor Lautner.  And before the haters stop reading now and say, "You haven't seen it, it's really good!" let me stop you right there.  I watched New Moon.  Don't ask me how or why, but I did.  I regret every second of it.  I know he's not that old but I have seen better acting in a school play, and I'm talking about me in the production of Peter Rabbit I did in first grade.  If he said, "Not if I find you first," to me like he does in the trailer, I would chuckle uncontrollably.  But I digress, it's not about acting, is it ladies?  It's about him in a tight shirt.  I'm sure he'll take it off sometime.  It might get wet a time or two.  Maybe ripped a little bit...  Is that what it takes to sell tickets to movies?  Is that what this world has come to?

Third highest grossing movie of all time, Oscar, and he wore a shirt through the whole thing.

Okay, I feel better, about most of the highest grossing movies of all time being serious films and the fact that I finally got to stop searching for pictures of him.  So, baby-voice Lautner aside, this movie is chock full of really good actors who apparently got really bored for half a year.  Ripley, Dr. Octopus, Lucius Malfoy, the cheerleader mom from A History of Violence... they must all be really hungry.  We should set up a foundation for starving, award nominated actors so they don't have to bottom feed to scrape by.  Poor bastards.  Apparently they really will act for food.

Exhibit B: Morgan Freeman acting for food.  Harry Connick Jr. not applicable, he's never acted.

It was even directed by John Singleton, the guy who directed Boyz n the Hood.  To be unfair though, he also directed 2 Fast 2 Furious, proving that he's attracted to directing projects with chiseled men who forgot to go to acting school.  So apparently you can direct for food, too.

On to the spoiling.  This was a tough one because of it's unique plot.  I seriously gotta tone down the sarcasm.  Nope, still going.  Obviously Sigourney Weaver is gonna bite the bullet, being the mentor of the picture.  Mentors never live long enough to see their students succeed.  Alfred Molina acts like the good guy government man but he's probably just as shady as everyone else.  The title is the only thing that confuses the hell out of me... wait!  Abduction!  Missing children website!  The title that seemed so very stupid before is actually the twist of the movie.  Was he abducted as a young boy and put into this spy foster family so he could become a trained killer.  What in the hell is the point of that?  Did they know from birth that he would be a robot, both as a killer and an actor?  Why would you kidnap, deceive, and then lose track of this clearly closeted teen when he needs a true family the most?

This movie just became a very depressing drama.  There could be some terribly touching scenes.  He could have found his real parents and discovered they were Communist spies.  After that horrible revelation, he could have realized that he took advantage of the time spent with the people who raised him.  His girlfriend could be an enemy agent who set him up on this quest in the first place, and he has to put his true high school feelings aside and kill her for the greater good.  Sigourney Weaver and Alfred Molina could be his real parents, fighting over their missing son on a national scale of intrigue.  All of that would have been a brilliant mix of drama and action, with a young, nubile actor ready to give it his all and stretch his acting chops to the limit.

PICTURE OF TAYLOR LAUTNER'S ACTING CHOPS NOT FOUND.

So at the end of the day we'll probably be left with a clear cut, by the numbers, person-discovering their-real-identity-and-running-a-whole-bunch thriller.  And by we, I mean anyone stupid enough to consider this a thriller.  He'll find out who he is, maybe become an agent himself or disappear to the uninhabited corners of the world to live out his days looking over his shoulder with his one and only true love - the first girl he met in high school.  Maybe we should all take a cue from this acting aficionado and run away to a far off land where they don't have movie screens that cater to ten year old girls and boys who only like a handsome hunk with feelings and is also an ass-kicker, respectively. Or I can just deal with it, watch The Dark Knight again, and remember that I was ten once too and that formula worked just fine for a certain group of heroes.

Although, the robot on that show could act circles around Edward and Jacob... I mean, whatever those character's names are...

6 Social Situations In Which You're Being An Asshole (And Don't Know It)

It was a long summer.  The well of terrible movies I don't want to see coming out in theaters ran dry as we stumbled hazily into the summer film season.  So many explosions... so little time to see them all.  So, in lieu of writing a new Movies I Haven't Seen column, I thought I'd try something a li'l different.  But don't worry, fall is here and with it, the worst movie months since February.  I'll be back on the horse, soon.

Since I'm so obsessed with Cracked.com and their style of writing the funnies, I decided to write an article in the vein of their world famous lists.

Over the years, I've done ponderous research, both in the lab and out in the field, on the human race.  And what I've discovered may astound you: 98.7% of the human beings on the planet... are assholes.  Shocking, I know.  Oh, calm down, you already knew that.  For some of you, this will be a checklist.  And if you didn't know that, well, maybe you should read some of these very carefully, step back and take a good hard look at yourself.  But if you could do that without me telling you to, well then you probably wouldn't be such an asshole....


Rock 'n Roll Concerts -

Rock has a rowdy reputation.  Some of its greatest heroes are drunks, druggies, criminals and all around assholes.  So are a lot of the fans, coincidently.  The reason we partly allow the rock stars to be such pricks is that they entertain us with their music and silly antics.  Fans don't have that luxury.  I don't know what hidden musical talents the sweaty pig jumping up and down and bumping into me has, and I really don't care.  It's okay to have a good time, but I feel like after the thirtieth time you bump into another solid human being and they glare at you, you'd at least wonder why they aren't bumping back.  And if you happen to be seven feet tall, make sure you find the best spot in the crowd, right in front of the average sized people.  You need to see the band better than we shorties do anyway.

No, but enjoy your scoliosis and the cruel ravages of gravity, Frankenstein.

Got there late?  That's okay, just push and shove your way in front of the people who got there on time.  And don't forget to sing as loud as possible in my ear... every... single... word... because I paid Tickemaster a 50% enema fee to hear your sloppy, off-key crooning.  Singing isn't so bad... but then there's the chatters, the ones who talk about the music they're listening to while they're listening to it.  Or just chat about their mundane lives.  I'm all for having fun, singing along, jumping around... but the second I come into contact with an inexplicably drenched, nine foot tall, tone deaf drunk, I turn into a square and wanna go tell his mommy what he's done.  If it's an all-ages show, I could probably find your mommy there, so don't push me.  Too bad your mom is probably an asshole, too, hanging out in the back by the bar, boring the hell out of someone who doesn't care how good music used to be when you were on shrooms.  And since alcohol never helps these kinds of situations, you know that all of these people just get worse after they booze up.  You'd think charging twenty bucks for seven ounces of beer would deter most people from getting drunker than the Founding Fathers on July 4th, but obviously I've underestimated the deep pockets of assholes.

These ICPs are all CPAs in their other life.

Sporting Events -

If there's something people have stronger opinions about than music, it's sports.  People kill people over sports in most countries that aren't this one.  Coincidently, soccer is popular in most countries that aren't this one.  But don't worry, Americans make up for not being genocidal football fans in plenty of other ways.  Take Chicago for instance.  If you even mention the word socks around a Chicago Cubs fan, they will immediately tell you how stupid you are, how much your team sucks, and how great a century-and-still-going-strong losing streak is.  And that's if you just say something like, "Man, these socks on my feet sure are warm."

As warm as a current century win...

There is no excuse in any true sports fan's mind for someone to have a different opinion, which sometimes makes being at an actual sporting event similar to having to sit through an opera in a volcano.  That sounds excessive, but for any kid who has had to play sports while their parents watched, they'd probably rather take the lav-opera.  I don't quite remember many of my little league playing days, thanks to extensive hypnotherapy, but I think they all went something like this.  Little Timmy gets up to the plate.  Little Timmy strikes out.  Little Timmy's parents verbally abuse the umpire for doing his job.  Little Timmy sits in the dugout crying, for once not being made fun of by his friends because their parents are doing the exact same thing.  Little Timmy's father, who works at the bank and volunteers at the children's hospital, shanks the umpire on the way to the parking lot.

"Daddy bet your college fund on this game!" says Ray Winstone?

The difference between those games and professional games is negligible, but once again, alcohol has something to do with it.  At those kid's games, you had to sneak it in and be discreet.  Little Timmy's Dad's handle end of his shank, for instance, could be hollowed out as a crude flask.  But at professional games, it flows like water from a leaking toilet that I still didn't fix cause I'm busy, okay?  And mixing alcohol with team pride is a powder keg that more often than not goes off.  When fans of two opposing teams start drinking and sitting in close proximity to each other, no amount of children or nuns on a field day can deter them from assaulting each other with amounts of profanity not heard since the days of The Sopranos.  And at the end of the day, one of those teams is gonna lose... and heaven help the poor fans of the winning visiting team who have to get out of that stadium... and that city... alive. 

Bars/Parties -

Once again, alcoholism causes asshol-ism.  No, I can't blame it on booze.  Alcohol makes me more truthful, so following that example, someone who becomes an asshole when drunk is probably just hiding it when they're sober.  Being in a whole group of people that are drunk was fun, for a bit, in college.  Now, it's a nightmare, especially when you're attempting to be responsible and have fun at the same time.  The number one thing to avoid are the people sitting alone.  They're like black holes.  If you get to close to one, there is no escaping the gravitational pull of loneliness.  They think you're there to listen to them talk, even if you came with fourteen other people who got lucky enough not to get sucked into oblivion.  And when you pull yourself away, you're the asshole because you can't take four hours out of your busy night to hear about their divorce.  They have literally been making happy people feel guilty for a long, long time...

"Oh, go talk to your precious Jedi friend.  I bet he's got a whole face."

And then, there are the drunks.  Oh so many.  Where there's smoke, there's fire, and where there's alcohol, there are people that think it makes them funny.  There's a tiny sliver of time where that's true and a mathematical formula involving how tipsy you are, how tipsy they are, and the position of the planets that can calculate it.  Past that, being drunk is a crapshoot.  Some people talk too much, some not enough, some too loud, some too close to your face, some like to hit, some like to hit on every female in sight, some like to meet strangers awkwardly, some like to cry in a bathtub, and some just like to run around in circles until they vomit all over the place and then say they're too drunk to clean it up... as they go back for more.  And being responsible about everything just means that you're not having any fun and you're ruining their fun ruining your fun because you have to babysit.  But you don't have to babysit, they'll be just fine... in that ditch the next morning.  And what's worse is the next night, they'll either have forgotten about it or they'll just say, "Sorry, I was drunk.  Duh."  It's good that we have this circular logic in place so that no matter how obliterated someone gets, their behavior can be excused by the thing that got them to that point in the first place.  But at least they were having fun, right?  That makes up for everything.

It's not a disease if I literally can not have fun without drinking.  Right?  

The Internet - 

I was hesitant to include this one as a social situation, but in this high tech day and age, the internet is about as social as most people get.  Walking around in a colorful fantasy world dressed in chain mail and l33t speaking to each other is some people's only means of socializing.  The first time I played a game online and had to listen to the ignorant garbage coming out of a twelve year old's mouth when they trash talked was jarring.

Don't even think about spawn killing these little psychopaths.  They eat kittens and spit fear.

I'd heard trash talking before, during games of sport for instance, but that has real world consequences.  If you trash talk a pitcher, he can bean you with the ball... possibly in the balls, completing a horribly ironic circle.  The real difference for online gaming and many other online activities is the anonymity.  I don't know who that miserable little child is, and I never will, so he can pretty much call my mother whatever the hell he wants while he's pwning me.  The same goes for the people who troll the internet discussion boards and rant about how every movie that's coming out is horse shit and every supermodel/actress is ugly.  Who the hell are you?  Why do you think that we care about your standards for women?  And by standards, I mean, hating every woman you can't have... which is damn near all of them if I'm allowed to assume.  And I am allowed, cause I'm on the internet.

Disgusting.  My clearly not made-up, out-of-town girlfriend is hotter.

And it only gets worse when you realize that if you ran into this person in person, this cynical, depressing excuse for a human being that has such confidence hiding behind their username, odds are they would say the exact opposite if confronted about it.  And once you actually saw them in person, you'd know they were lying about having high standards, because I mean... they probably look like they bathe in butter.  And yes, I'm stereotyping.  Once again, it's the internet.


Driving -

I'm gonna put this out there with absolutely no sarcasm: I'm a great driver... and you're not.  Granted, that's how everyone feels, but I'm right.  If you want to witness humanity at it's worst, watch how other people that aren't you drive.  That nice old man who works at the grocery store?  He's the guy who ran that red light.  Little Timmy's mom from down the street, whose husband went to jail for attended umpicide, who pays you to mow her lawn?  She's the one who does her make-up in the car, endangering lives and perpetuating a stereotype.  These are people you know and enjoy their company, but once again, anonymity destroys the societal foundations we worked so hard to create.  You could be a saint face to face, but once you get in that car, the windshield is your mask, keeping your super villain secret identity safe.

Can't ticket the anonymous crime fighter who weaves between lanes... and I bet that registration name is phony.  Bruce Wayne?  Yeah, right.

With that mask on, you feel perfectly fine racing an entire line of cars in a lane you know perfectly well is going to end so that you can sit in the same gridlock tens cars ahead of everyone else, you sack of horseshit.  There's a special section of Hell reserved for those people with a bunch of bumpy, poorly lubricated poles.   And sometimes, worse than the people that excessively break the law, are the people who don't quite come close to following it.  These are the people who go 35 in a 45.  That's actually less safe, since everyone around you is doing 45.  You're in the way.  Also, these are the people who stop where there is no stop sign to be nice and let you go first.  When you have the right of way, take it, and stop wasting my time trying to be nice when in reality, you're accomplishing quite the opposite.  The day that the general public finally understands the proper way to tackle a four-way stop, that'll be the day that Jesus fella comes home.  Except that he's already given them his blessing on driving like idiots...

"Thou shalt not tailgate my chosen car children..."

Movie Theaters -

This is it.  The place of death, spoken about in hushed whispers when planning on having a good time and knowing that it's futile to think you will.  Because for every decent human soul who ventures to the multiplex for an enjoyable night of film, there are a dozen ingrates, confused infants, unsupervised teens, and all around buttholes hellbent on ruining everyone else's good time.

"After I talk during this movie I don't understand, I'll come slaughter puppies with you, girlfriend!"

First of all, and I know this is common sense so you won't understand it, but why pay upwards of twelve dollars to completely ignore the movie you're in?  You could ignore it for free somewhere else, like at home being beaten by your boyfriend.  Second, a baby?  If you can't get someone to watch your kid for two hours, wait.  The movie will be around once your child turns eighteen and leaves home.  It's not our fault you got pregnant, don't make us deal with your regrets in a quiet public setting.  Thirdly, I understand that movies are fun for teens.  They get to escape from their parents and their really hard lives for two hours and sit in the dark.  But, if you want to do that, don't go to a movie that requires you to pay attention.  If you're bored enough where you start talking and texting your little moron friends, you obviously need to do something more your speed, like try to finish a Twilight novel or huff paint.

Although with some movies, huffing paint might actually help.

And Zeus forbid you shush any of these people or complain, because you'd be annoying them.  And they won't stand for someone being annoying to them.  They don't want anyone to ruin their time ruining your time.  And if you do want to get up to tell someone who cares, now you're gonna miss a part of the movie that you so desperately wanted to see.  And all they'll do is shush them, too.  It's a double-edged shit sword, and as usual, the asshole wins.  The time has come to have a bouncer in each theater.  I hate paying extra for a 3D movie, but for the peace of mind that if someone takes out their ringing phone and answers it to tell the person on the other end, and everyone in the theater, that they're in a movie, and that person will be forcibly ejected by someone that looks like The Rock?  I'd gladly pay the inflated price.  And they get to have the movie ruined for them on their way out the door, as a punishment, by the annoyed, hulking man who's seen it several times.

"They find Nemo.  Now take your smart mouth toddler and get the hell out."

There needs to start being some real world consequences for being an uncaring prick, and I think we need to start in the movie theaters, where assholes seem to nest like a hive of xenomorphs.  Instead of just kicking them out, kick them out, ban them, and then separate them from their families and friends for a few months, making them watch the same movie they got kicked out of over and over again until they finally learn to shut their dirty mouths and pay attention to something other than themselves for once.  Oh, did I say real world consequences?  'Cause I meant Medieval real world consequences.

And that goes for the crying babies, too.

Veloci-raptured? Oh, I Get It Now!

As everyone with a TV/Computer/Phone/Ears probably already knows, the 21st of May in the year of our Lord 2011 is the beginning of the end for mankind.  Those of you who "know" (but not Biblically, ironically enough) Jesus Horatio Christ, will disappear from this mortal realm, leaving only your clothes and pets behind... unless your pets also believe and they in turn will be taken to Doggie Heaven and possibly Kitty Heaven, or as they like to call it, A Pile of Warm Laundry.

The Christ pose is a coincidence... or is it?

Don't worry about your sinful pets, I'm sure someone will remember to feed them for you.  There should be someone around because, sadly, not all of us will be making the journey to that happy, fuzzy place with you.  The May 21st deadline isn't for those doubting Thomas's among us.  It's for those who have officially completed the "Accepting Christ Checklist."  Did you remember to put money in the collection plate every week so that your church can reupholster the kneeling benches?  Did you remember to throw your Marilyn Manson albums into the bonfire, sending toxic plastic smoke into the atmosphere?  Did you remember to help that homosexual couple by telling them they will burn in hellfire for all eternity for being in love with each other?  Did you remember to pray for the victims of every natural disaster and then pat yourself on the back for helping out like you were the spiritual Red Cross?  You did?  Well, good journeys then!  You are truly the best person you could be and I thank you for making the rest of us look like shit.

That's his, "My shit smells better than yours, smile."  And it does.

The moderate Christians may be in trouble though, for there are those that truly haven't reached the pinnacle of self-appreciation that comes with being a true Child of Christ.  Some of them are actually good people, understanding of views opposite of their own, accepting of other true religions of the world, and following the actual words of the man who was Jesus.  You're slacking!  Go out and convert that Jew couple next door!  Try to run over that abortion doctor with your car on the way home from work!  Time is running out, folks!

And there was so much time.  Time that should have been spent groveling on our hands and knees to that big space man in the sky.  And what did we do instead?  Well, there was a great period of time, The Dark Ages, where good Godly people came together to smite all of their heaten enemies: witches, Muslims, and the French.  All was well in the world for about five hundred years until the snooty Renaissance came along and made us start using our brains to move ahead unimportant shit like science and art and understanding.  Then man started getting these crazy ideas in their heads like, "Hey, can we fly?"  So we made planes which only led to us thinking, "Hey, can we go to space?"  Which we did.  But for what?  What's on the moon that's gonna help us be better people?  Obviously not a stepping stone to the bigger universe around us.  We don't need to figure out the human genome.  We're all special just the way God made us, especially the people with debilitating genetic diseases.  We don't need to understand how to make renewable energy.  We'll be dead by the time we run out of fossil fuels, thank God!  And what of jetpacks and hoverboards, I ask you?  What a colossal waste of manpower and nothing to show for it.

But these are out in abundance....

And what about our personal ambitions and dreams?  Why exactly did the average person go to college?  For the betterment of their education and for better standing in the job market?  Pshaw!  Waste of time!  All of these relationships with these random people who move in and out of our lives don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world when you know that it's all gonna disappear within our lifetime.  Cultivating long standing and fruitful relationships with people we know and care about seems a little useless now that they're going to be a pile of clothes we can steal and make into scarecrows.

Bye, Dad!  I'm taking your car.

So as the clock ticks down and down towards the extremely precise time of 6 P.M. wherever the hell you are in the world, go ahead and take one of these last minutes to look back at your life.  How many hours did you waste having fun with friends?  How many years did you waste learning to play the piano and making beautiful music for all to hear?  How long did you sit and ponder the majesty of nature and the utterly awe-inspiring vastness of our universe?  And those babies you're all in a rush to make because yours will be special?  Hope they learned how to talk and pray cause they might be hanging out with me and the pets for five months if they haven't made their peace yet.  Babies can't ask for forgiveness cause they didn't do nothin' wrong and they're stubborn as hell.

In conclusion, hope you lived your life to the fullest... by waiting for it to end quickly.

But, I guess if you're reading this, you're still here, cause I'm not gonna post it until 6:01.  Whoops.

Bring it on, you sons of bitches!

Movies I Haven't Seen: Something Borrowed

Well, welcome back all you loyal readers... reader... whoever.  You're here, that either means you kinda like me or you Googled some famous person's name that I make fun of in this post.  It's been a while, good to see you all!  There was a long chunk of time there where there weren't any movies that I wanted to ruin for anyone and some I actually wanted to see... or it was just too easy.  Last week should have been my first week back on the job but I was busy writing other things.  So, I've got a real treat for you this week, if a treat is something that's long and you have to read.  I'll be reviewing two movies this week!  Yay, double feature!  No, don't go!  Okay, go get a drink first... I'll get one too.  Good?  Aight.

I really hope that's not a walk of shame...

What's sure to become a classic among teens thirteen to sixteen years of age, until they learn how to drive and of course, drive themselves to their own proms and a night of utter disappointment after this movie gets their hopes up, I give you Disney's Prom.  That's not to be confused with Disney's Tron, of course.  I can just see it, in two months when this movie is on video and some poor sap is trying to tell his girlfriend on the phone what video he wants from the video store, if they still exist, "No, I said Disney's Tron!  Not Prom!  Damn you, AT&T!"  There will be countless, unnecessary deaths, just more blood on Disney's hands.  That Space Mountain ride is more dangerous then they let on.

Let's just dive right into this one, shall we?  Cover your ears, here comes the spoilers: in this film, a bunch of high school kids and probably some old guy who has a crush on a high school girl... will go to prom and, in general, have a good time.  Phew, I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but this job ain't exactly easy.  Since I've said literally all there is to say about Disney's Prom, and might have said too much, on to the next flick!

It's like someone threw up on a Mondrian painting... the throw-up being the people's faces.

If I'm ever married, after Hell freezes over and the sun turns red and engulfs the solar system, and if I make a movie for women like the movies aimed towards women that I've watched, I would hope that my wife would have the intelligence and self-respect to punch me square in paunch.  I've seen all sorts of movies about murderers, thieves, psychos, and politicians, and I think that all of those terrible people handle human relationships better than anyone in a romantic comedy.  I'm sorry, women, but the female characters in romantic comedies do, and are, the exact opposite of everything you all say you will never ever do and never will be, and yet you pay money to enjoy them.  And it's not like Jackass where I pay money to watch them do scary, stupid things I would never try but always wanted to see someone try and get hurt doing.  It's more like, "I would never betray my best friend by stealing their boyfriend!  But that movie, Something Borrowed, where that girl was in love with her bestest bestie's fiance?  That was so romantic!"  No!  It isn't!

Something Borrowed is probably one of the most clever titles I've heard for a romantic comedy... and yes I know it's a book, but shush, it's probably clever for the book too.  The title describes exactly what I assume the plot is; something borrowed from here, something borrowed from there.  To my understanding, the complicated tale of love and betrayal goes a li'l something, like this.  Rachel, a young woman in law school, meets Dex, also in law school, and they hit is off, obviously.  Before she can get up the nerve (she's gonna be a lawyer and she can't get up the nerve?) to tell him how she feels because, in this fantasy, it's the men who act like they're aloof, her BFF Darcy swoops right in and snatches him from her.  Rachel says nothing and six years later, Dex and Darcy are engaged and Rachel's got a bad case of the regrets.  And to make matters worse, it looks like Darcy and Dex end up having a last minute roll in the hay.  So now, Rachel's gotta hold in the secret that she loves her best friend's fiance while trying to not be mad that Darcy stole him from her in the first place.  Oh, and that she slept with him, but it was an accident!  It definitely wasn't an accident.  Whoops.

Pictured: Accident

How are these people friends?  How do people even have friends in romantic comedies?  Darcy looks like a total bitch.  She'd have to be, to be great friends with Rachel, be able to tell that she likes Dex because good friends know those things, and then have the gall to demand that he ask her out.  That works on guys, by the way, happens all the time; we're puppets.  And then the friendship lasts for six more years until they get engaged, and Rachel is still just sitting there kicking herself all that time?  That's an awesome friendship, one that continues on lies and suppressed feelings.  If anyone reading this right now thinks that last line sounds awfully familiar, you should probably reevaluate some of your decisions, cause that's not friendship.

To be happy in a romantic comedy, someone has to be hurt, and it's not always the people who deserve it, and when it is, it's still not right.  Even if Rachel and Dex end up together, Darcy is now hurt and has to live with the fact that she was engaged to a big fat lie.  Nobody in this movie looks happy, at all.  Dude isn't happy that he's marrying Darcy, cause he cheats.  Darcy, who is a treasure trove of great advice like, 'You're too old to be picky," and "If people fell in love based on their similarities...," also isn't sure she wants to marry the guy.  Not because she grows a heart and realizes she emotionally murdered her best friend, no, it's because she isn't sure if she even cares, like, whatevs?  A woman wrote this character?  Rachel is obviously miserable and is such a great friend that she is prepared to be miserable for her entire life while still being friends with these two people.  Killing yourself with regret is not being a great friend.  I have literally depressed myself explaining all of this, and some girl somewhere is gonna say that this movie is cute and funny.  'Romantic' and 'comedy' are pretty much the last words I would use to describe what this piece of trash looks like.  This situation in real life would be considered 'drama' and lives would probably be ruined because of it.  Or not, because humans just keep everything inside until it destroys us.

"I just have to put up with this for fifty more years... then I'll be dead."

And now, on to the poor saps who signed up to be these terrible human beings.  Kate Hudson I can see, she makes awful choices.  Actually, she already did a movie sorta like this, just gender-reversed; My Best Friend's Girl, starring comedy geniuses Jason Biggs and Dane Cook.  She seems drawn to characters that are terrible people, maybe so she can try to make them seem cute.  Doesn't work.  I'll always remember you from Almost Famous though, and I'll go, wow, her career went straight down the shitter.  Goldie Hawn must be furious.  Oh wait, she did the same thing.  I'm not sure if Ginnifer Goodwin is Rachel Leigh Cook, or if it's the other way around.  Scary that her character's name is Rachel in this, too.  I know nothing of her career but it looks like she's on Big Love so she's trying, I guess. This was probably just a paycheck and another slap in the face to Rachel Leigh Cook.  Where is she, by the way?  She used to be all that.  Little humor there... or not.

Colin Egglesfield... haha, really?    Sounds like a British airport.  He seems handsome and interchangeable enough.  Good choice, casting director, you picked another faceless hunk out of the crowd.  Glad to see you're earning your pay.  And John Krasinski, get back to The Office!  You're not branching out in this genre if I have anything to say about it.  Do a thriller!  Don't be Jim, or gay Jim, as you seem to be in this movie.  I heard him say in an interview he wanted to do this because there hasn't been a movie about people in their thirties trying to figure out their lives in a long while.  No Strings Attached, The Dilemma, Just Go With It, and Hall Pass, are the only ones... that came out since the start of 2011.  You were even in one a while ago called Away We Go.

"I shoulda left before before Steve Carell... and four years ago..."

I guess I did my spoiler predicting a little bit in that rambling paragraph I wrote about how shitty romantic comedies should make everyone feel.  I honestly can't imagine that this ends with Rachel and Dex apart, they're so goddamned star-crossed, but then that means that the BFF friendship is over.  It probably never should have existed in the first place, what with Kate Hudson's character being such a bitch and with Rachel Leigh Cook's clone content being the dumpy tag along.  Great character and relationship development.  Original.  My hope is that it ends with Darcy and Dex married, and to keep her friendship with Rachel alive, she allows her to 'borrow' Dex every other Thursday.  Get it?  Something Borrowed?  Now, that's a well written and realistic relationship if I do say so myself.  I'm hoping they wait until the wedding to have all of this come crashing down because, if you're gonna ruin a life, you might as well do it in front of all of your family and friends.  It makes it easier in the future since nobody has to tell the story of how all of their friendships fell apart, because everyone was invited to the shit storm... and they served cocktail weenies!

Oh, and I'm sorry again, women, if I sounded at all chauvinistic in this article.  I've met a couple of you and you seem like together people with competent and functioning brains.  That's why it really confuses me why women allow Hollywood to force feed them the idea that all they need to become a stronger, more independent woman is to give up their dreams and become some strong-willed man's property.  And without a man, a woman's life is apparently unbearable.  These are the things I learn from romantic comedies.  But who am I kidding, they're not forcing anything on you, you all willingly shell out ten bucks to see this same old horse shit time and time again.  I can't blame Hollywood.  If I could take a poop every day and someone willingly pays to look at it, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

This way, I wouldn't even have to stand up to show it off.  This got weird quick.