Score Some Gore

I just watched a movie called, “Zombieland” that was a gorefest, and yet it didn’t bother me. Knowing it was just a fake spoof or something made me not care that zombies were biting into people’s faces and yanking off their arms to eat like Henry the VIIIth gnawing a turkey leg.

The lead characters, two guys and two sisters, one of whom was 12, survived by blasting the zombies in the face with shotguns – twice – and running over them – and backing back over them – with cars, and smashing their heads in with baseball bats. Anything that would have had me pressing the off button on a regular show.

The blood and guts looked real, the shooting looked real, but I continued watching without blinking an eye. However, I have to turn my head if there’s the least little finger prick on a “real” show. I can’t stand to watch people hurt themselves or being hurt.

One exception is “America’s Funniest Videos.” Those skateboarders who ride down handrails and lose their balance – the boys who end up crashing down spread-eagled on the metal bar – I cringe, but I laugh. Same with the guys on bikes going up homemade jumps that collapse, the guys on sleds, the guys on stage that are either drunk or lose their balance. All that stuff is so funny, even though you know some of those guys are getting pretty bruised.

This Zombieland wasn’t much of a movie – I don’t think it’s going to get an Oscar. But it had a few entertaining moments. Woody Harrelson was in it, and my favorite line of his was when he was rallying the gang to be brave: “It’s time to nut up.” Half the gang was female.

I can’t remember much more than that. It reminded me of “Shaun of the Dead,” except that movie was way funnier and not nearly as gory. There were some old drive-in movies we teenagers used to go to that were gorefests, but they took themselves seriously. None were memorable at all because the acting was so awful and they were so poorly done. One thing I vaguely recall was a guy smacking another with a rubber hose. It struck us as hilarious. What screenwriting genius came up with that?

I’m not a fan of blood and guts, and I can’t stand war movies, but give me a good old gory spoof to pass the time, especially if it has a laugh. My favorite horror spoof is “Bubba Ho Tep.” Rent it if you can find it. You won’t regret it.

Movie Madness

I just saw a great movie, The Blind Side, with my mother-in-law and her friend Ruthie. Isn’t Ruthie a cool name? When my son was little, he called her, “Root-a-toot-a-toot-toot-tootie.” The little darling.

When the movie started, Marlene, my mother-in-law, made a few comments out loud but then quieted down as we got into it. This is in sharp contrast to my friends Pam and Gina. If you go to a movie with either of them, they talk out loud all the way through, or at least until someone in the audience turns around and gawks at them or says, SHHHH! really loud.

But they are nothing compared to my friend Elfriede, the German bombshell. She’s an older lady who talks non-stop, not to me but to the movie itself. Imagine being alone at home watching a TV show and someone is hiding with a knife behind the door, and you’re telling the actress, “Don’t go in there, don’t go in there, turn around.” This is what Elfriede does throughout a movie. “Don’t believe a word he says,” she’ll tell the actress. “He’s got a girl on the side. You can do better than him.” She doesn’t whisper these comments, she leans forward toward the screen so the actress will be sure to hear her and says them OUT LOUD.

We once went to a film festival documentary about monks in Germany who only spoke one Sunday a month for a couple of hours. The camera is following different monks around doing their routines, and no one says a word. There isn’t music in the background. It’s total silence, and in the theater you could hear a feather drop. Then Elfriede says, “I wonder if you miss women,” and “Aren’t you going to talk to that cow while you’re milking it?”

What’s amazing is my friends don’t think anyone else can hear them. Pam once got very indignant when she was shushed, as if the person shushing her was the one being rude.

I don’t know what’s worse, my friends talking all through the movie and people shooshing us right and left, or teenagers in the row in front of me texting with their bright cell phones.

Nonetheless, and in conclusion, The Blind Side was a really great movie that I highly recommend. And Tim McGraw, if you ever get tired of Faith Hill, give me a jingle – but only if your personality is exactly like the guy you played in the movie. He was sweet and had a nice sense of humor and let his wife get away with anything, which I guess in clinical terms would be called “supportive.” My mother-in-law and Rootie-Toot-Tootie are also interested in connecting with you, as we discussed at length over dinner after the matinee.

And so thus ends today’s post, and here’s a disclaimer. It goes without saying that certain portions of these posts are fiction. My girlfriends’ behaviors are greatly exaggerated so in case any of them ever read this – you know I’m just kidding. I LOVE going to the movies with you guys, and it’s not just because I’d have to go alone which I don’t want to do. I think your comments are FUN! And the shushing is pretty amusing too! I’m just trying to write something funny – digging deep, making stuff up. Honest.

A Movie to Kill Time

I just watched the most asinine movie called, “The International.” I don’t know what the critics had to say about it, but here’s my review.

We were renting this in the comfort of our own home, thank goodness, and so we saved $150 between the three of us when you add up the price of the movie tickets, popcorn, sodas, Milk Duds, and Jujube’s)

It started out and you knew SOMEBODY was going to get offed because of the music and the tension, but we didn’t really know which of the two characters it would be. And the method was fairly ingenious. It was looking like a good choice as the plot started to gear up and everyone seemed suspicious.

Then the other guy from the opening scene gets killed, and the good guys (Clive Owen and Naomi Watts) begin an “international” manhunt that leads to more plot twists and suspects, one after the other. My daughter asked, “When is this movie ever going to be over? It’s been on forever.”

This is not a good sign. An exciting movie, full of intelligent plot twists and suspense, will yank you in so that you don’t come up for air long enough to even think about the time.

Not this egregious curse of a movie. Everyone who could take us out of our misery by ending it gets killed off. In one magnificently stupid scene, the bad guys (a mean, selfish bank) decide they need to kill their hired assassin because the good guys are on to him. A bad guy meets him at the Guggenheim to set him up. He gets shot, and Clive Owen, who’s been tailing him, runs over after the shooting to try and get a couple of names out of the assassin before he croaks. The guy’s on the floor, looking like he’s dying, and says, “Help me out of this thing, I’m suffocating.” Turns out he’s got on a bulletproof vest so he doesn’t get a scratch from all the bullets fired at him.

We all breathed a sigh of relief because finally, FINALLY, one informer is left standing who can squeal and the movie will be over. The second Clive Owen gets his vest off, big surprise, someone starts shooting – BEFORE he talks, of course. They shoot the crap out of the Guggenheim, with new bad guys appearing like cockroaches in the night. And you won’t believe it. Mr. “Get This Thing Off of Me” is hit by 40,000 bullets to the chest after two hours of shooting during which one of the good guys is hit in the neck and spews a geyser full of gory clots into the air like Old Faithful. “Oooo, that’s gross!” my daughter said, and it was, but in the stupidest way.

With this informant dead, my daughter and I discussed whether to commit slow suicide by continuing to watch the movie, or walk away without knowing the ending. My husband had done the smart thing by falling asleep in the Lazy Boy.

Finally, Clive convinces a brand new informant to end the movie, and it looks like it might just work until that one gets killed, too. “Will this movie never end?” wailed my daughter, which woke up my husband.

The movie did end, ridiculously, when the script brought in a hit man out of the blue hired by the sons of one of the informants killed early in the movie. No real justice is served. Clive Owens doesn’t get to see the bank’s activities brought to light – this final bad guy could have been persuaded to talk if he hadn’t just been killed. The final scene is of Clive standing on a rooftop looking bewildered, probably because he’s thinking that if he’d hired the hit man a couple of hours earlier, he could have taken out ALL the bad guys and avoided a lot of useless film time for nothing.

In a desperate attempt to bring closure to this monstrosity, newspaper clips are shown during the credits about how the bank ends up getting huge profits, how its behind the scenes dirty dealings are causing weapons to proliferate in Third World countries (which is what the plot is based on), and how Naomi Watts is appointed to lead a new investigation, which she spent the whole movie doing, to no avail, so you know the bank will continue with business as usual.

So thanks Hollywood, again, for stealing what seemed like nine hours of my life to watch a movie with no intelligent plot that didn’t even have the basic decency to satisfy the suffering audience at the end. However, my husband thought it was good, but considering that he slept through most of it, I don’t know if I’d count that as a recommendation. My Final Grade: F - See it at your own risk, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Men Who Stare at Stinkers

I wanted to go to a movie, and let me first say that just about every one out lately sucks. There have been a couple of good ones, but I’m going to ignore them because they’re not as fun to write about.

I went to Fandango to check out what was on and the reviews. What’s amazing to me is that the reviews are all over the place. One movie fan says, “This is the funniest movie ever,” and the next one says, “don’t waste your money, wait for the DVD.”

I could understand if these reviews were in the middle, like “it’s not a great movie but it’s a lot better than cleaning the toilet.” Then you know that it’s nothing to get excited about but something good enough to pass for entertainment. But when the reviews are so far to the left and right, who can you believe?

I also get confused about the professional critics at the LA Times, Variety, and USA Today. For instance, I read the LA Times’ review of “The Men Who Stare at Goats.” I read the whole review and can’t tell if it’s a movie worth seeing or not. The only thing clear is that they like George Clooney. Well, so do I, and he’s almost enough of a draw that I’d go see anything he’s in, except that I don’t quite trust him anymore. He was in “Burn After Reading,” a movie I thought was beyond stupid.

Which leads me to my main complaint about some movies. They try so hard to do something new and different, and if it’s really really different, the critics will praise it just because it’s not the same drivel they see all the time. They’ll give the movie a good review even if the director thinks a plot is something in a cemetery, even if the story is remarkably unbelievable, and even if the characters act bizarre just for the sake of acting bizarre. In other words, in my and the rest of the sane world’s opinion, the movie stinks, but the critics love it.

Sometimes the reviews are obviously slanted to favor a movie. Maybe the critic is getting a kickback. You see this a lot on DVD’s. There will be some glowing remark like, “the best movie of the year” and then the reviewer will be in microscopic letters under it, and it will be someone like, “The North Dakota Plains Mostly Monthly Observer.” My favorite, though, are those movies released at the first of the year and someone reviews them, saying, “One of the top 10 movies of 2009.” There have only been 4 movies released so far, and this one is so bad it can’t even make the top 5 list.

Well, enough griping about movies. We’re going to see “Couples Retreat” which promises, according to the fan reviews, to be both a “laugh out loud comedy” and a “complete waste of time.” But it sounds better than “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” because of these telling reviews by fans: “this movie suct really bad,” “This movie was beyond horrible!” “This movie would be declared cruel and unusual punishment if shown to Guantanamo inmates,” “a stinker of gigantic prortions,” “Pointless yawner and time waster,” “I want my money back.” See? These kind of reviews I can trust. Sorry George. You may be pretty, but I’ll stick with watching you again in “Brother, Where Art Thou?” Now that was a fine movie, and you were brilliant every time you said, “My hair!” Can’t you please get Hollywood to wise up and give us a good, quirky, entertaining story to spend our hard earned money on? We’re counting on you. And quit taking parts in these lousy movies, it’s not fair to us women who have to give up the eye candy because we don’t want to be pistol whipped by a lousy plot.

Inspiration on Eight Legs

I’ve done this blog for seven straight days (hold your applause until the end, please) and I find that, on this eighth day, I’ve run out of subject matter. I’m looking around my desk desperately for inspiration, but all I see is a mess. Then I remember my ideas notebook, surely I’ll find something in there. And I do.

It’s a big, black, hairy spider on the page where the book falls open. He starts sprinting toward my hand. I run from the room, heart pounding, and fling open the patio door. Then I dash back, grab the notebook and run with it outside, keeping an eye on the spider who is hiding between the pages but with one knucklely leg sticking out like some Alfred Hitchcock movie where you know the guy’s on the other side of the door and he’s about to jump out and start stabbing and stabbing and stabbing with blood washing down the shower drain and, yeah, that spider’s leg gave me the same creepy feeling. I put the notebook outside just in the nick of time. He didn’t come out but he certainly could have and he will eventually, you can count on that, but there goes my inspiration.

Everybody thinks it’s nuts that I don’t kill bugs. I practice a strict catch and release program in this house, and heaven help my kids if I catch them squishing one. Whenever they see an insect, they come screaming, “Mom, there’s a giant spider in my bathroom.” I drop everything because if you don’t act quickly, the spider will hide somewhere and show up in your bed that night. It never fails.

I take a spatula and glass, put the glass over the spider, whose size has been exaggerated, and ease the spatula up under him. Then I carry the whole thing outside and turn it loose. Most bugs shake their little fists at me when this happens, because they’d much rather stay in the warm cozy house than have to fend for themselves in the cold cruel world. I can sometimes hear them calling me a B-otch. You’d think they be grateful.

I don’t kill insects outside, either. Our flower beds are crawling with slugs and snails. Late at night I go out with the flashlight and look for their shiny reflections, then pluck them off with a rubber glove and put them in a Mason jar and take them down the street to the vacant lot. By the end of summer there is a virtual carpet of slugs down there. I saw a cat get swallowed up in slugs like quicksand. Not really, but it would make a good horror movie. M. Night Shyamalan would have to do it since Hitchcock has gone to that great suspense flick in the sky. The slugs would get into some mysterious half buried jar of glowing chemical from Mars and grow super big and start prowling the streets for victims, catching dogs and cats and raccoons in their giant slimy tracks like flypaper. But finally their unquenchable hunger drives them to lay in wait outside a party where a voluptuous drunk blond with a really low cut red mini dress staggers out and catches one of her 4 inch heels in a slug track and starts trying to pull it out and just when she’s about to break free, a giant slug the size of a porpoise slides out of the shadows and knocks her down, muffling her screams as it covers her in slime and starts to chew off her ear with an eerie crunching noise you can hear above the party sounds in the background. A blockbuster! Now you can applaud.