Groan.

I really didn't want to write this; I've been putting it off for days. But I suppose if I'm going to join the "legitimate" media writers out there, I'm going to have to be honest and maybe unkind when something is really bad. I haven't ever had a problem bashing films before because 1. clearly no producer or director gives a good goddamn about what I think and 2. films are *productions,* group efforts, not the accomplishment (or in this case failing) of one single person---like the cast and crew of Vanilla Sky: they ALL had a hand in its badness.

Writing is different. I know this because I write and I know writers. Even if we know we've written something that honestly is not great, we live with our own judgements every day; judgements coming from other people are difficult. Here it is:

The Language of Fear, 1995 by Del James.

I really wanted to like this. A little background: "Without You," one of the short stories included in this collection was the inspiration behind Guns and Roses' epic video, November Rain. You'll probably remember the scrawling credit of James's name, I did, and searched high and low for the title when I was in high school. Couldn't find it anywhere. Then, back on Valentine's Day when I put the video on here, I looked it up on Amazon and there it was. Maybe I built it up too much because I was such a huge fan of the video and song, or maybe I'm just getting really intolerant and bitchy (and bitter and jealous!) when it comes to what gets published, but this collection was really difficult to read.

It's not the subject matter, which is dark. If anything all the porn, heroin, and general violence kept me reading just because they were interesting topics. And I've never been much of a format purist, but the lack of structure together with some really choppy writing had me cringing. A lot. I think the thing that bothered me the most was this constant referring to the main character (after introduction, exposition, pages and pages into the story) in this third person kind of way: "the drunkard," "the musician," "the junkie," etc., this after we already know the characters' names and the fact that they are these things. It was . . . cheesy. In some stories there was a really serious divide between whose point of view the story was told from and in "Adult Nature Material" there was a completely superfluous sex dream that really added nothing to what actually happened in the story but took up about half of the pages dedicated to it. Also, there wasn't much done in the way of alignment with any of the characters, many of them were just rude, selfish dicks with no redeeming qualities. There has to be *something* that makes us care about them, right? Otherwise, why bother?

The writing was mottled with way too many adjectives and adverbs and this really caused the narratives to suffer. I don't doubt that the author has first hand experience with much of what he's written about---I think these stories would have really been killer had he not let all the language get in the way. The author has really interesting things to say and obviously a lot of heart and honesty, but just tell us the story. Or maybe look into getting a bitchier editor. (Ugh. I already feel awful. Sorry).

Not. Even. Close. BUD.

Also: Grown Ups, 2010, directed by Dennis Dugan.

"After their high school basketball coach passes away, five good friends and former teammates reunite for a Fourth of July holiday weekend." (IMDB).

This was the opposite of funny. And honestly the worst thing I've seen in months. Who . . . why . . . HOW did this ever get made? I have to give the actors credit, their laughing all seemed to be genuine, which is baffling as nothing that happens is even remotely funny. It's not completely uninteresting though, it was kind of neat (and disgusting) trying to figure out whose children were the worst behaved . . . for maybe seven minutes. I shut it off. And squeezed it hard when I put it in the mailbox the next morning. And I'm not sorry. Boo.

8mm

I'm just going to go ahead and be blunt; I couldn't stomach this. I saw it in the theater when it came out in 1999 and was probably weirded out a little back then, but this time I wasn't weirded out as much as I was bored and annoyed. So I turned it off after about forty minutes and watched The Hangover instead, which while not exactly edgey is still a fine, fine film.

This was directed by Joel Schumacher. And while I give the guy credit for directing a boat load of good crappy films (I'll even argue that St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys are great films, no crap involved) I think he missed the mark with this, big time.

1. If you are going to try to convince me that this private detective is plunging deeper and deeper into this dark world of pornography, and this film is supposed to be all dark and the dark subject matter and the darkness and everything, then you'd do well to adjust the dialogues to not be so fricking RIDICULOUS! Something cannot be dark when it's so silly that it makes me shudder and laugh. The phone conversations, no matter who they were between, were the cheesiest, lamest things in America. I can't even believe Nic Cage agreed to do them. I've heard better exchanges on Saved by the Bell.

2. I have a hard time believing that any new father (of a baby girl) would be tromping off getting more and more involved in this stuff, especially when it becomes clear that his own life and safety are on the line. Yeah it's horrible that this disgusting thing happened to the runaway girl and all, but jeez, man, just get the hell out and find a new gig.

3. So the steel tycoon's wife wants verification that the film is fake so her husband's reputation won't suffer? He had a snuff film in his locked safe, one where a girl is murdered by stabbing, or simulated as such. If this is what it takes for your ancient old man to get his rocks off, I don't think real or fake is going to matter much either way, you were married to a sick freak. End of story. (or as we say around here, old people #!@%ing is gross)

I had no sympathy for anyone. I squeezed the disk as if to do it harm when I set it out in the mailbox this morning. Boo.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

I've been trying to catch up on my list, really I have, but seriously, the elements have been against me. I started watching Wait Until Dark, which I liked, but it seemed to be the world's longest film, and it took me almost three nights to finish it.

Then, once I broadened my Netflix to get three disks at a time instead of one and changed the charges to go on Matt's card instead of mine, low and behold, you don't need a streaming disk for the Playstation anymore and can do your instant downloads directly. Great! While I started on the instant download list, the exact same lineup just happened to show up in the mailbox.

So next was The Entity. And yes, it's fricking creepy. But too long to finish in one sitting, and now, unfortunately, the Playstation "cannot connect, please try again" for most of the day, so I have a feeling that one's out, too. I have no idea how it ends.

Send back disks, get new ones. Blink arrives. I didn't end up watching past the first ten minutes as the opening was seriously so ridiculous I couldn't, and I mean COULD NOT stomach it. Number one, bad fake violin-playing. Don't do that. Number two, Aidan Quinn's bad dancing was so bad it made me embarrassed for him for the rest of his life. Don't do that, either. Ugh.

So after this, I was stuck because it was the last disk that hadn't already been watched (I will watch Notes on a Scandal, just not this month, so that had to get sent back too.) I ordered Single White Female on demand. OMFG, bad idea. What is it with 90s films, were there ever any good ones? This piece of shit made Basic Instinct look like The (Goddamned) Godfather. I shut that off after about nineteen minutes.

Not faring well.

Thank God and Baby Jesus it's high time for the King films.

Fourth Film I've Walked Out on/Shut Off. . .

ALL ABOUT STEVE, directed by Phil Traill.

I made it eleven minutes. And couldn't do it, not one minute more. I told Matt to put "Eat, Live, Queef" South Park back on instead.

The others, in case you're interested were:
1. Pearl Harbor
2. The Last Samurai
3. Mortal Thoughts.

The first two were legitimate walk-outs and this one and #3 were shut-offs. Ugh.
I can't even think about it anymore, it's too uncomfortable.

Epicenter and Walter White.

There are a couple of reasons to watch Epicenter.
1. The surprisingly graphic sex scene with the Russian chick
2. Jeff Fahey.

Or if you are a writer with poor self esteem or little to no initiative, you could watch this and be immediately reassured that no matter how horrible your accomplishments may seem or how much self confidence you are lacking, anything you write will be better than this, so I suppose that's a positive too.

Also, Breaking Bad, Walter White, "STAY OUT OF MY TURF?"
Un. Fricking. Believable.
I heart Walter White.

Quite Possibly the Worst Film Ever Made.

I know this is an easy target, but honestly, if any of you out there want to take a stab at making it through this entire film, I submit that you'll be undertaking a brutal task. . . I turned it off about halfway, seriously unable to go on. It would be tempting to say that Bruce Willis is a kiss of death for any non-action 80s film (MORTAL THOUGHTS, much?) but to say that would be to miss the forest for the trees, if you get me.

There was one good thing in this train wreck, a very small one thing: KIM CATTRALL. She was actually spot-on as Sherman's wife.



My list of issues?

1. Tom Hanks being cast in this, at all. Gray status of teeth not appealing. He is not sexual at all.
2. Melanie Griffith, anytime, anywhere.
3. Bruce Willis, as Peter Fallow. This guy was written as a Brit, took pride in his Brit-ness, and most of his POVs from the book dealt completely with this Brit disdainfully parading around American unpleasantness.
4. During the first half, nothing was really said about Kramer's financial situation, which seemed to be a big deal driving his actions throughout the story.
5. Whole movie told from Willis's disgusting Fallow's POV was awful. Definitely the wrong move. Who thought that up? Gross.
6. Sherman's constant "hemorrhaging money" wasn't brought up at all. Again, a big deal driving the narrative that was ignored.
7. The fact that a decent director (Brian DePalma) did this just makes me sad. Screenplay was shit. Either write it yourself or don't do it.
8. Also, did someone just allow Melanie Griffith to AD LIB her entire role? She was like tin foil on fillings, more than usual, even.

Wow. In thinking of past films that have earned this "status," I can really only think of two others, neither of which I've seen all the way through.

Pearl Harbor and, surprise, Mortal Thoughts.
I mean, there's a way to do something cheesy and have it be good, like Clerks, or Dallas. It's like the minute you lose your sense of humor about what you're doing, you just completely tank it.

Gross.

ZZZzzzzzzzzz. . . .

Goodness. My eyesight must really be going. I had to enlarge this screen like three times in order not to squint.

Anywho, 24 was a real bore tonight. I'm considering abandoning ship already just from this most recent ridiculously UNINTERESTING badness. I so SO long for the days of President David Palmer, his double-crossing wife, TONY ALMEIDA, and Jack working for CTU. I get that he's just this free agent of the system, a loose cannon not affiliated with any certain agency, but somehow this makes him LESS of a bad ass, if you ask me. At least when he had to answer to someone his rebelious nature and tendency toward unorthodox methods DROVE THE SHOW! Now it doesn't matter if he "goes dark," as he is already dark, always; no one cares! How disappointing. I have a right mind to get the second season (year of the blond Warner girls, Kate being the platypus (eventual) love interest) on netflix and start ENJOYING my Mondays again.

Yes. And speaking of Platypuses, Matt and I figured out that Dana Walsh, the highly distracted analyst with the white trash ex-boyfriend, looks very much like one. We started answering for her whenever she had any dialogue.

1. "Well, I'll help you with that in a moment, Chloe, first I have to go polish my beak."

2. "Yes, Arlo, I'll be right back! (I just have to go and bury my eggs in the mud)."

3. "I can't be on the phone anymore, Kevin, I have an appointment for a pedicure (for my webbed feet)."

I don't think she's ugly. She's actually very pretty, but she has a certain, LOOK to her, and the show is so boring it's forcing me into this.

Who Moved My Cheese?

This is probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever read, right up there with Men Are From Mars. . . .
They brought it out in video form about four years ago when I was working at Northwest Airlines, and
I felt the same way about it then.

This is what I see the author saying when pitching this to an agent:
This book is for all the executives of the companies who are going to need to be outsourcing and laying off in the up-and-coming bad economy months, and they can just give this book to the people they're going to can. It's written in really childish language and it has a great moral dilemma to it that these peons will appreciate and this will make them forget all about being laid off. What this book does is throw it back in their court: it's not the businesses that are at fault by laying people off and eliminating jobs, it's the PEOPLE's faults. They need to learn to not have expectations; we need to try to explain to them that having expectations makes them lesser humans. They need to realize that everything negative that happens to them is actually deserved by some weakness within themselves. Just insert the pink slip INSIDE the book and leave it in the employees' mailboxes.

SUPER STUPES.

The good with the bad.

Here are my thoughts on what I've been watching over the last week:

1. THE SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS MOVIE= yes.
2. LOST SEASON 2: LIVE TOGETHER, DIE ALONE= yes. DESMOND, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE= yes.
3. VANILLA SKY= so bad I have no words, other than I only endured about 30 minutes before stomping out of the room and going to bed EXTREMELY foul-mooded. GROSS.