Movies Suck (I didn't actually come up with that title)
Last weekend the Martin Lawrence film Black Knight opened in theatres, thereby
proving my theory that the Hollywood creative process is run entirely by monkeys
in clown suits. One of these monkeys must have taken enough time out of his
busy workload of swinging on cubicles and setting things on fire to throw some
of his own feces at the Plot Idea Board, with little bits landing on 'soul brotha'
and 'mediaeval England' respectively. But how could two such disparate themes
plausibly come together? Surely you jest. Like Hollywood ever needed a plausible
reason for Jungle 2 Jungle.
If logic could be applied to this situation, I would argue that Hollywood is
simply trying to duplicate the successes of Plan 9 From Outer Space by trying
to create the Worst Movie Ever. Well, maybe if Martin Lawrence suffered a platypus-related
injury halfway through the filming and his vampire character was replaced by
a non-look-alike that had to crawl around shielding his face, then they might
have had something. Say what you want about Ed Wood, but that man totally revolutionized
the radical deconstruction of the hegemonic doxa relating to superstructural
qualitative narratives. And if you have any idea what that means, I will give
you a cookie.
Well, let's continue to pretend for a few minutes that producers are actually
looking for the next worst thing to turn into a cult classic. With that in mind,
here are some suggestions I humbly offer unto Robin Williams, Mario van Peebles
et al:
Leave it to Cleaver: a pedophiliac serial killer is magically sent back
in time into 1950s suburbia, where he must masquerade as the father of the whitebread
Reynolds family so that he might befriend a budding scientist who could conceivably
create a time machine to send him home. Will our (anti)hero's pedophiliac ways
rub off on his adopted children, or might he perhaps learn a little something
about culturally acceptable love from the town he finds himself in? Starring
Patrick Swayze, look for this film's release on Christmas Day, on a double billing
with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Snatch.
Aerospace Bud: in the year 2500, earth's colonies are under attack by
a marauding alien force. Only one being can lead the human Starfleet to success:
a golden retriever named Bud. Thrill to the edge-of-your-seat space battles
controlled under Bud's steady paw; sympathize as Bud takes heat from his speciesist
commander and rival wingmen. And steel yourselves for the biggest surprise of
all: are the invading aliens actually-other golden retrievers…? Co-starring
David Arquette.
WWF Lord of the Ring: OK, I don't really know anything about wrestling
or the Lord of the Rings, but just picture a mix of the two. I dunno, something
like Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock traveling through the wastelands of
Nevada looking for one ring to rule them all, or whatever. Maybe that one announcer
guy could be the bad dude, Sauron or whatever. Shit, I wish I knew more names.
Well, it'd be cool to see an invisible body-slam, anyway.
Terminator 3: Syndication Day: The Terminator (Brendan Fraser) must
travel back in time to save a failing public access television station which
could be instrumental to John Connor's future success against Skylab. Using
only a shoestring budget and a ragtag but eager group of community workers,
will the Terminator be able to develop exciting new talk shows and children's
programming to win over the hearts of southeast Akron, Ohio? Watch for exciting
cameos by Weird Al Yankovic and Michael Richards.
Prospero's Books: imagine a radical reinterpretation of Shakespeare's
The Tempest, except with every line from the play recited by one grizzled old
man surrounded by overweight naked dancers and little boys pissing on boats.
Thrill to the constant visceral onslaught of over-the-top visuals and effects,
creating a never-subsiding plateau of eyeball assault that induces both nausea
and insanity in the viewer. Impossible, you say? Wrong. I had to watch this
movie in Media Studies this semester, and if you find it hard to make sense
of anything I say anymore, this movie is to blame. If movies like this have
already been created, then Cop and a Half 2: Out For Bubble Gum can't be far
behind, mark my words.