Bride Wars

Having just watched the trailer Bride Wars, and despite it featuring two reasonably, but not extraordinarily attractive women, my wenis just went officially soft, if such a thing is possible. And it’s not because the two stars, Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson, are playing a pair of uggos, bridge trolls or graduate students. No, that wouldn’t be a problem, as it would be so easy to look away and let the repression begin. But because these two aren’t playing obvious mental defectives, genetic miscreants or legally recognized disabled… persons, you may actually get sucked into the trailer for Bride Wars. And Jesus Fuck are you in for it. I say this because this movie is about the worst and most annoying type of woman I can think of—the one with wedding fever and all the neurotic ticks that come with it.

Do you know what I’m talking about here? The ones who could be marrying a 250-lb. barrel of cat anuses and wouldn’t care because they’re getting married? You with me yet? The characters in this trailer are like people who want to go through the process of owning their own respective homes so much that they don’t care which house they buy. I know it’s a stretch, but trust me, they’re out there. Perhaps it’s a creaking duplex infested with black mold they’re financing. How about some Victorian older than Gahd, formerly owned by an alcoholic who couldn’t even paraphrase the definition of the word “maintenance”? Maybe a post-WWII cedar rat trap that looks identical to every house within a quarter mile, and wasn’t meant to last longer than a 16-year-old in a whorehouse? All so you can say you’re closing on a house and sound like a goddamn grown-up.

So anyway, Hathaway and Hudson are both wedding psychos who’ve been dreaming of The Day since a creepy flashback at the beginning of the trailer. They both wind up slated to marry at the same place, they’re going to be each other’s maid of honor, they’re both getting great dresses and just when their respective neuroticism reaches its peak a clerical error has them getting married at THE SAME TIME ON THE SAME DAY AT THE SAME PLACE!!! Oh boy, oh boy! I can’t wait to see how they take the news!

In the name of horrible comedy, the two are at each other’s throats. One messes with the other’s fake tan. In retaliation, one puts blue coloring in when the other gets a dye job. And if this nonsense isn’t bad enough, Broadzilla Kristen Johnson shows up as one of their friends to dish out bad advice, act as an eyesore in general, and give me bulimia of the soul.

My Bloody Valentine 3D

“This one, as is, is gonna suck, fellas. But if we do it in 3D, we’ll make a shitload of dough! Throw in a few pairs of titties and have a lot of shit coming at the camera. Problem solved! Now get me a Croatian whore!”

-What I’m pretty sure had to be a quote from the pitch meeting for My Bloody Valentine 3D

Whenever they tag 3D onto the end of a movie title, you’re automatically supposed to go see it. Some Hollywood fatcat is jingling his keys in front of your face, counting on your hardwired monkey reflexes to kick in, grab those shiny things from his hand then start giggling as you run around in circles and piss your pants with glee. It doesn’t matter if the movie’s about necrophiliac Nazis or pedophiliac Puritans. Whoever’s making the movie thinks you’re a goddamned rube and they’re going to treat you like one. Hell, they’re probably assuming you’re a country rube. That’s how little these bastards think of you.

The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter at all what this movie is about. You can have some homicidal coal miner with a gas mask on running around town cutting up jerks because a cat he had when he was 8 would never let him pet it. Ahhhh!

But the not”you wouldnI’m heading over am too ironic, definitely not funny thing about that plot from last paragraph is that it’s pretty much true. I’m flabbergasted after watching the trailer for this movie. And I’m in such a state for a few reasons.

1) I know the original My Bloody Valentine came out in the early ‘80s, a time when all horror movies seemed to be in some kind of incestuous relationship with each other, thus creating incredibly silly inbred versions of one another. If the killer wasn’t wearing a hockey mask he was wearing a William Shatner mask. There was a murdered naked teenager minimum and they always left it open for another one. Yeah, yeah. But a coal miner? Why not a traffic cop? Maytag Man maybe? How about a UPS guy killing people with their own parcels? Who wouldn’t want to see an old lady killed with her Fingerhut order?

2) Are these jagweeds even putting any effort into making a decent movie without pulling the 3D card? I know there’s not much to go on, but can’t they at least try? This trailer actually tries to divert your attention from the fact that My Bloody Valentine promises to be worse than slowly passing a gallstone. The trailer shows people sitting in the audience acting like a gaggle of douche nozzles whenever something pops out of the screen at them. I know whenever I go see a movie nothing gets me off more than acting like I’m rocking extra chromosomes while wearing a pair of rubber underwear filled with Vaseline, lunchmeat and live goldfish. Mommy made me fish sticks and tater tots today! Assclowns.

3) Did the band My Bloody Valentine get their name from this movie? I mean, do you really have to get the name of your band from a Canadian slasher movie? What’s wrong with the graffiti in the can at the local dive bar? Was The Joke’s in Your Hand already taken?

The Unborn

The Unborn is a testament to the fact that January is the worst month of the year for movies. I know I say this every year, but it’s true. And I have to say it when a movie that looks so incredibly bad comes out in the month of January, because I’m pretty sure I’m legally obligated to do so.

Who else has that daydream about their twin they killed in the womb? I know I do! Call me old-fashioned, but there’s just something about two unborn babies fighting to the death in a small organic arena like tiny, wrinkly purple gladiators with only their umbilical cords as weapons, that warms the cockles of my heart. Now just because I experience what must be an unparalleled sense of merriment when I think about the twin I vanquished back in the ‘70s, it doesn’t mean I want to see a story about some other puss who couldn’t finish theirs off, now reaping what they’ve sown.

Blah, blah. Some girl’s eyes start changing color, then it comes out she was supposed to be a twin. The soul or something of her evil unborn twin brother starts killing people and that’s where I blanked out. I want to say I saw Gary Oldman lurking around somewhere and the whole thing’s creepy in the most contrived way possible. If any of the cast aside from Oldman would ever be in a position to drum up interest in their memoirs, I’m sure The Unborn would warrant at least three chapters during The Dark Years.

If you’re looking to get scared in January, I suggest you open your credit card bill instead, and count the grey hairs afterward. Perhaps your car insurance is about to renew and Gahd knows putting off the opening of that letter is always painfully suspenseful. But if those won’t rattle your nerves, there’s always another season of American Idol that’ll start up. If that doesn’t freak you out, you’re officially among the undead.

Notorious

Look man, I can’t tell you shit about The Notorious B.I.G. aside from the fact that he loved it when you called him Big Poppa, took the East Coast/West Coast feud way too seriously (East Coast!!!) and eventually got shot D.E.A.D. All I know is I was listening to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the Replacements and Jesus Lizard a lot at the time, so I really didn’t care about Biggie.

And after seeing the trailer for Notorious, the movie about Biggie, I probably care even less. Admittedly, I haven’t heard much of the man’s work and I probably never will, more out of laziness than disdain. But if there’s one thing I know about movies about rappers, it’s that they’re all based on Scarface. A talented, scrappy little roustabout making a name for himself on the streets, gets picked up by and joins the crew of The Big Man. Through perseverance and a lack of scruples, said scrapper shines and makes it... big, then is brought down by his own inevitable corruption and enormous ego. Or the Crips.

Yeah, I’m not biting. Nowhere in this trailer did I see Puff Daddy (as he was called back in the day) get thrown out of a helicopter with a rope around his neck. And where’s the scene where one of the members of Junior M.A.F.I.A. gets dismembered with a chainsaw? And I didn’t hear Biggie complaining in the trailer that Faith Evans’ womb was so polluted that he can’t even make a baby with her. Eff this, I’m going to go get loaded on cough syrup and watch Scarface again instead.

New In Town

I’ve always said that Renee Zellweger’s got the kind of face that belongs on a scarecrow, down at the DMV court office or in an ad to effectively scare kids away from the temptations of drunk driving. Oh, and her movies should legally only be allowed to come out within the two weeks before Halloween, because with a face like that they’re obviously going to be horror movies. Saw movies don’t scare me (aside from the fact that they keep getting made) but that woman’s face gives me some fierce nicotine patch and peyote nightmares. And I’ve never touched either.

Zellweger plays a rosacea victim/corporate executive sent to some backwater Minnesota town to restructure a glue factory or something. She’s a snobby bitch who didn’t look before she leapt and the town is full of folksy inbreds who think city slickers talk funny. They all clash and it’s so funny and you can’t believe this fish out of water type of story never gets old. Oh wait, it does. Very quickly.

So Zellweger the Jerk seems to get sick of being a bitch, gives up all hope, and is rewarded with the velvety-voiced Harry Connick, Jr, who is not only that squinty-eyed pig’s love interest, but proof that New in Town is not only a chick flick, but a chick flick you can ignore without any guilt.

The only thing I can think of that could turn New in Town around would be for Connick to be revealed as a serial killer (maybe reprising his role from Copycat?) or some evil corporate fixer who decapitates Zellweger with some rusty piano wire. And don’t even think of telling me you wouldn’t want to see that. Just don’t. 

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

The Underworld series could’ve been the best thing to happen to horror movies since Cannibal Holocaust, but because it decided to take itself too seriously and be completely terrible, we ended up with some bad Matrix rehashing that replaced man vs. machine with vampires vs. werewolves. A porcelain Kate Beckinsale in skin-tight vinyl aside (or maybe even included) these movies blew cow. The first one definitely, but I didn’t get past the sex scene in the second, so I couldn’t tell you much about that last one.

I’m guessing that Beckinsale wouldn’t come back and the story had more skid marks in it than Eva Mendez’s face. Screw Beckinsale anyway. Everyone knows that Englishwomen have no souls. And when I say soul, I don’t mean the kind that Amy Winehouse has too much of, but the one thing that Paris Hilton does not possess. So let’s get another Englishwoman instead who kind of looks like Beckinsale anyway, and tell an Underworld story from the past that explains why the werewolves and the vampires started all this fussin’ and feudin’.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans looks like it’s perfect for confused teenagers who can’t decide if they want to goth out in front of the mall or go to a medieval festival. Don’t you see? They really can have it all!

Beckinsale was literally the only thing about the Underworld movies that wrangled me into the theater or caught me in a moment of weakness to keep me from flipping channels when they were on TV. Why the hell would you go on without her? Seriously, that’s like luring someone over to your shithole, Lovejoy studio apartment with homemade apple pie. Normally I wouldn’t be caught dead over there, but because you have homemade apple pie, those rational thoughts in my head telling me to blow you off like the last day of school are silenced and I’ll come over. But now you couldn’t make homemade apple pie and you’re trying to sucker me into that House marathon at your place with fucking mincemeat.

Why the hell would I even talk to you if homemade apple pie isn’t involved? And who the hell eats mincemeat pie anyway? What am I? What do I look like? A goddamn farmer? What have I ever said to you that could possibly lead you to believe I’d be down for mincemeat pie? What are you, deranged? Go scare up some of those medieval geeks. Maybe they’ll enjoy your mincemeat pie. And I don’t even give a shit if that’s historically accurate. Do you hear me? I don’t care if there was no such thing as mincemeat pie back in medieval times! Never trust Mexican research! I’m telling you!