MOM'S BRINGING IT ON

I MEANT TO DO THAT
The Game Plan is holding at number one and now The Rock is rationalizing his success with family films as part of a “choice” he made. As if Doom had made more than $2 worldwide he’d still be here. At least Krya Sedgwick here (as his agent) knows fully well she’s just making a quick buck. She has a real day job with The Closer. Likewise for Roselyn Sanchez, who landed a cushy gig on Without A Trace. They’ve got no illusions about big screen careers. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that Roselyn Sanchez is the love interest. She’s hot and she’s brown the way The Rock and the actress who plays his daughter are, though they are without being any specific ethnic group. His character’s name is “Kingman” so I guess they could all be Israelis who are dark and hot, but I doubt it. But even Disney isn’t going to throw some blue-eyed blonde in there to be this girl’s potential mom. Not in this PC era. But godforbid the half-Black Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson ever touch a sista onscreen.

THERE’S NOTHING ABOUT THE FARRELLYS
I walked away from Ben Stiller’s “Theater of Pain” awhile back and judging by The Heartbreak Kid opening at number two, I’m not the only one. Though a remake of a film from the 70’s with Charles Grodin, this seems to be an attempt for the Farrelly Brothers to recreate their glory days of There’s Something About Mary from a decade ago. Ben Stiller is doing them a favor as his career has only gotten better, whereas they’ve had disappointment after disappointment with Me, Myself & Irene, Osmosis Jones, Shallow Hal, Stuck on You and Fever Pitch. They even tried to replaced Cameron Diaz with another wide-eyed blonde in Malin Akerman, who did better for herself for gross-out comedies in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (as the nympho wife of the freak). You may also know her as the girl from Eric’s threeway on “entourage.” Yeah, now you see she’s just Cameron Diaz younger, less skanky and doing nudity. But if anyone benefited from this disappointment it was Cameron Diaz, whose credit in the success of There’s Something About Mary has now increase since she was missing ingredient (though she never had another comedy hit like that again either). Then there’s the near two-hour runtime for what should be a brainless movie. Brainless movies cannot be that freaking long. Movies like this should be 90 minutes, tops. 30 minutes for each act; first, second and third act conclusion. A two-hour movie means forty fucking minutes just to set-up, forty fucking minutes milling about in it and forty fucking minutes just to resolve it. Too much. That’s only for movies that have a brain. Also, any movie with Carlos Mencia has to suck. It’s pretty much Spanish for “Dane Cook.”

AND AS “THE WOMAN IN THE ELEVATOR” HIS MOM
The Kingdom is down to number three and this movie is filled with a “Hey, they look familiar” supporting cast. Danny Huston is there for 30 seconds as a very oily Attorney General, Frances Fisher as a journalist, Anna Deavere Smith as a government official, Kyle Chandler as an FBI agent, Ashley Scott as a housewife in Saudi Arabia and…Tim McGraw as a worker widowed by the initial attack? Seriously? Tim McGraw? Why are they here like this? Well, when your director is an actor himself you get these odd appearances in small roles that are pretty much a director’s discretion because he’s essentially casting his friends. Luckily for him, his friends have some degree of talent. Yeah, even Tim McGraw.

LOOK FOR RHIANNA IN HALO THE MOVIE
Resident Evil: Apocalypse is down to number four and also along for the ride as zombie fodder is…Ashanti (or, as I like to call her Aliyah 2.0 as opposed to Ciara who was Aliyah 3.0 or Rhianna who is Aliyah 4.0) and the only thing that even remotely interests me about this is that Mike Epps dies. I despise Mike Epps to the point where I’d send you money if you promise not to put him in your movie.

THEY CALL ME THE SEEKER
The Seeker: The Dark is Rising opens poorly at number five and you have to pity authors like Susan Cooper who wrote The Darkness Rising books long before Harry Potter took over the world, only see it just crapped onto the big screen by these people who have been trying to cash in on its success. It’s now to the point where anyone anywhere who’s ever written a “magical story with a kid in it” can get a movie deal. I know jack shit about this, but I know I don’t care and neither does anyone else apparently. You know the producers of the other derivative movies are shitting bricks right about now, because Eragon bombed and now this is tanking. Gee, could it be a sign that loyal book readers know when their beloved novels are being turned into cinematic garbage by quick buck producers? It doesn’t help when your director flat out admits he didn’t think the books would make good movies, so obviously he’s a whore for doing this. And poor Ian McShane. From Deadwood to this? Ouch.

YOU GOT SERVED LEFTOVERS
Good Luck Chuck is down to number six followed by Feel The Noise opening at number seven and aren’t the leads in movies for young people supposed to be good looking? Sorry, I don’t find ex- member of B2K, Omarion the least big attractive. Yeah, he’s coming in with a built-in fanbase, but if you didn’t care for B2K or You Got Served (and I didn’t), then there’s no motivation to see something like this. Again, the plight of the young black actor, losing roles to guys like this. Then again, I’m sure Justin Timberlake’s recent movies roles are also pissing off a whole bunch of young white actors who thought that maybe, just maybe, years or training and actual work might have qualified them to work with Samuel L. Jackson, but they would have been wrong.

TRANSVESTITES BRING OUT THE BEST IN A MAN
3:10 To Yuma is down to eight and followed by The Brave One at number nine which was directed by Neil Jordan. Remember when The Crying Game briefly made him the shit? When his casting of Tom Cruise in Interview With The Vampire was controversial? Ever wonder what happened to him? Well, Michael Collins happened, where for some godforsaken reason he allowed Julia Roberts to do an Irish accent. In Dreams happened, which allowed Annette Bening to continue derailing her once promising career (and providing money for Robert Downey Jr. to keep doing drugs). The Butcher Boy happened and while it may be an excellent novel about an abused boy with delusions who murders his neighbor and spends the next few decades in an institution, but it’s not a movie anyone, anywhere wants to see. End of the Affair also happened allowing Ralph Fiennes to continue playing miserable bastards who are unlucky in love. Point being, Neil Jordan only became a mainstream name as a fluke. The Crying Game should have let you know he had no business in Hollywood with people like Julia Roberts and Tom Cruise. And you can now add Jodie Foster to that list.

BRING IT ON AGAIN AND AGAIN
In case you wonder why men run the world, look no further than CMT, Country Music Television, and their shows. First they had Making the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders (which is still on and still wonderfully horrible to watch), then the Coyote Ugly Search (who the fuck competes to be a fucking bartender!?!) and now…I Want To Look Like A High School Cheerleader Again. They have a group of women from their 20’s to their 40’s who were once cheerleaders and want their teenage bodies back. How fucking sad is this!?! First of all, you can’t have that teenage body back because you can’t have your teenage metabolism back! Unless you’re freak skinny like Mick Jagger or Teri Hatcher, you’re just going to get thicker are you get older, so just deal with it. Now, I’m not going to pretend they didn’t all need to lose weight. Like typical Americans, they were needlessly heavy, but it’s not like they were obese. If they’d just made this show about getting into a type of shape commiserate with their ages, it would have been different. Hell, even if they’d just taken “high school” out of the title I’d respect it more (especially since two are actually former professional football cheerleaders). And if they really wanted to fun, they would have reunited an complete squad from 20 years ago and let them compete against one another, re-opening all the old wounds from high school (and you know there’s the chance that a few of those bitches are like Teri Hatcher and still look the same, which would have instantly caused eating disorders in 38-year old women). But the biggest problem is for me is where are their husbands? I’d like to see those pot-bellied bastards. Where’s “I Want To Look Like A High School Football Player Again.” Huh? Where’s that show? Oh, that’s right. Men are too busy running the world to do that show. And do not get me started on the first competition where the two black women (whose names are Glenetta and Shamekia) could not participate BECAUSE THEY WERE THE ONLY TWO WHO COULDN’T SWIM! It got worse when the tempted the women with a layout of fried chicken and one of the sistas recognized it a being specifically from Popeye’s. Sigh. Needless to say, I will watch every episode (it’s on right after the Dallas Cowyboys Cheerleader show).

I’M STILL CRAZY, BITCH
My star sightings haven’t stopped, I just keep forgetting to mention them. But this past week was David Chapelle in a Miles Davis t-shirt waiting for his change at The Coffee Shop. He didn’t look stoned, but he did look a little lost. Or maybe trying to remember where he’d left his sanity. Patricia Clarkson, very tiny and in a hurry in the theater district and incredibly the tiny Holly Hunter on her way to attend the Barack Obama rally in Washington Square with her two kids in their stroller. You think she looks small and thin on TV, on person it would be scary if you didn’t see she was all muscle and sinew.

AND ENDLESS RESOURCES OF CRAP
I love the internet. Know why? Because when you can’t remember something, you can type in the fewest amount of details and still find it. Now, there was a song I loved from my youth from a minor band that I could not remember. All I could remember was the chorus, which was “This feeling for you/Is like a tattoo/Just like a tattoo-ooo-ooo/It won’t ever away.” I had a vague memory of the band’s name being something like “ovo-ovo” so I kept thinking it was Aldo Nova, who scored with one minor hit in the 80’s. Well, I was close. Thanks to a breast cancer website where the women were playing a music trivia game, I found my answer: Novo Combo. And because the internet is all-giving, I was able to download on top of it. Yes, it was illegal, but it’s not my fault! No one is selling it for me to buy. Now, the next on the list is some odd song with a video showing the location of a guy and girl from space and the lyrics are “you are something _______” and then “Why can’t we get halfway there/Why can’t we get______” That’s all I remember.

BETTER OFF WITH THE MASTER CHIEF
So, I’ve slowly been returning to my old life. I went out drinking with Chasing Amy with no ill effects. If anything the only problem was our age (as she said, “You’re in a jacket and I’m in heels---what's wrong with this picture?”) and the changes in NYC. We had our first margarita ever together at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame so we went there after having a few with dinner at Tortilla Flats. When did straight people take over the West Village? Seriously. White Horse Tavern is one thing, but all along Hudson are bars and restaurants that stink of breeders and heterosexuality and Cowgirl is no exception. Yeah, there was the older lesbian with her obviously much younger companion (younger to the point where Chasing Amy wanted to stop their aesthetically unappealing union), but they were the exception. It was very sad, but the upside is it was easier to play our game of “Watch the Mating Rituals.” This time it was a Guy Who Wanted to Leave, but his girlfriend was having fun spending time with her good friends, one in particular. Enter his Pretty Boy Buddy who is obviously meant to solve that problem. Problem is Pretty Boy Buddy is a playa and is better looking than Her Good Friend. He gave off nothing but an attitude about it and obviously didn’t feel the need to try too hard. Her Good Fiend still had some pride over it and instead turned away from him to the attention of a Group of Yahoos who never would have been in that bar five or six years ago. Not geeks or frat boys; these were guys who wait inline to buy Halo 3, but still had enough testosterone to go out on Friday night looking for women (something real geeks with Halo 3 would never do). They’re more like guys who work in a music store as opposed to comic book store. Of course, to them she’s a goddess, so with Fat Red (a fat guy in a red shirt) on point, they chat her up and include her when buying shots----which was their undoing. See, the shots helped to kill her pride enough so that she would take shit from Pretty Boy Buddy in order to go home with him, but they weren’t nearly enough that she would go home with Fat Red or any of his crew. So soon after that, Guy Who Wanted to Leave had, in fact, managed to get his girlfriend out, leaving Her Good Friend with Pretty Boy Buddy and outside probably the least attractive of The Group of Yahoos was screaming about how he hated that place and they needed to go somewhere else. Yeah, like you’d get laid anywhere (he looked like that angry, bald short guy in every IT department who will probably be a serial killer). Chasing Amy was very adamant in how he’d wasted his time even coming out.

WHITE RICE: THE NEW ENEMY
In addition to trying to drink again, I’ve returned to the gym----and not a moment too soon, as 6 of the lost 11 pounds has returned. I kept them off for the longest time, but then football season kicked in and I just cannot watch football without nachos and melted cheese (plus, I added shredded chicken). But the real sticking weight oddly wasn’t until I started eating sushi again. Seriously. I haven’t had a taste for it since July, but it came back with a vengeance and I was literally having it every day, for lunch or dinner or even both. Bear in mind, I’ve been eating Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms daily since getting out of the hospital without gaining an ounce. Damn white rice. But since I’m not giving up sushi, it’s just more gym motivation. I took it easy, cutting all my activities in half. Half the number of crunches, half the time on the bike and half the amount of time in the pool. And I was only lightheaded after that first workout, but fine for the other two. Needless to say, just as my body is in a place where I can do this crap again, it’s time for me to go back and have my final angiogram, where they punch an hole in the femoral artery in my thigh, which means no gym for the next two or three weeks until it heals. Sigh. Where’s my reality show? Where’s “I Want The Body of A High School Geek”? I wasn’t ripped, but I didn’t have man-boobs either.