Contradicting Popular Opinion:
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks
Preparing for Thanksgiving
It strikes me that Thanksgiving doesn’t get a lot of respect. These days, the Christmas stuff hits stores in full force right after Halloween (and in less full force, slightly before). Hell, we even got a Christmas movie at the beginning of November this year. What is up with that? Locally, 93.9 The Lite has already been playing Christmas music for the last two weeks.
Do we really need two months of Christmas? Is there that strong of a desire by the collective unconscious to hear “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” ad nauseam? Must I be accosted by anthropomorphic caribou for 60+ days? Honestly, people!
Now, don’t take me as some sort of wacky atheist out to destroy America by means of eliminating Christmas. I mean, I am an atheist, and fairly wacky, and I do want to destroy America … but by other means. Besides, if there were no Christmas, it would be harder for me to get egg nog. The two seem correlated, and I don’t want to do anything that hampers my ability to acquire nog of any sort.
Two months of Christmas means that Thanksgiving becomes just a part of Christmas. Is that fair to Thanksgiving? It is a nice American holiday about the joys of over-eating and football. Maybe something about being thankful is in there somewhere; I didn’t read the whole brochure. I know there is some historically inaccurate nonsense about Pilgrims wearing ridiculous top hats with buckles, and I have a vague notion about maize as well.
But the point of the thing is, Thanksgiving deserves better than being Pre-Christmas. It is not a Christmas appetizer, goddammit. The day after Thanksgiving, Christmas can have. Fuck that day man. But Thanksgiving, NO! I’m keeping that one. It will not be assimilated into the Christmas hive mind.
What can be done to take back the holiday? (You know, like how feminists take back the word cunt. How are those cunts doing with that anyway?) Well, we’ve already got food and football; what follows naturally is booze. (Myself, I’m a teetotaler, but when I host Thanksgiving we tend to go through a bottle of champagne per person, on top of dinner wine. That is how you do a f*cking holiday!)
So, we have food, football and booze. What else symbolizes America? Cars.
…
Unfortunately, we already added the booze, and big brother doesn’t trust people to drink and drive.
Fascists!
The only other thing America does well is film (and maybe spot welding, but again – the drinking). Does Thanksgiving have any films? It certainly is no Christmas in these terms. Quick name 5 Thanksgiving films!
…
Hard huh? Maybe it wasn’t. I can’t actually hear you. I wrote this at least 10 hours before you read it. Wait, hold on … I am getting something. Somebody shouted out “that Charlie Brown thing with the popcorn and toast!” Not a film, my friend, I am sorry.
Longtime readers of ML Kennedy (um … mom?) will know that the Thanksgiving tradition around these parts is a double feature. Namely, we watch Phantoms and one other film.
As has been previously, and rigorously, documented Affleck is the bomb in Phantoms. Sure, he might have ruined Daredevil comics for me, but Affleck like a motherf*cker, yo. Now, I’m not going to contend that Phantoms deserves a place in the vaunted 50 Club. Indeed it is a flawed film, mostly due to an aggrieves and unwarranted lack of the Swamp Thing. It falls into that crowded category of film known as “one Swamp Thing shy of greatness.”
That flick which is paired with Phantoms is of less import. Generally speaking, at least in my house, the film viewers are fairly schnockered at that point, and won’t really know what is going on anyway. They wouldn’t be able to tell 28 Days from 28 Days Later, and why should they? They both suck.
I do have this vague notion that the second feature should include Gabriel Byrne (End of Days, Ghost Ship, Stigmata, Angela’s Ashes, something like that), but it really isn’t a hard and fast rule.
But, it comes to my attention, mostly by means of reading the title of this column, that everybody is not me. So in order to help out all the non-ML Kennedy’s of the world, I’m going to offer some Thanksgiving Double Feature Ideas.
Option 2 (Phantoms is option 1)
MST3K Turkey Day
Years ago, back when Mystery Science Theater 3000 was on Comedy Central, there was Turkey Day. Basically, it amounted to an MST3K marathon with a couple of extra clips or host segments in there for the heck of it.
You can do this yourself at home. All you need is your bootlegged MST3K copy of Squirm and The Final Sacrifice, and you are done. If you have no bootlegs, I guess they sell proper DVDs of certain episodes of the show. My Hollywood Video even has some available to rent. SCORE! If you want to be a completist, try your hand at a Penn Jillette impersonation and do antiquated Comedy Central commercials between the flicks, preferably for Viva Variety! or Almost Live.
But these options aren’t available to all. So, let’s jump to –
Option 3
Homemade Turkey Day
This should generally be left to professionals. It takes quite a bit of care to select the proper bad movies to be ridiculed by a group of drunken friends. No amount of mocking could make a movie like The Cave into a pleasurable experience, but there is a bit of fun to be had in mocking House of the Dead which is in most ways a worse film.
One benefit of this option is this: you can give the appearance of appeasement by the choice of that which you mock. You can trick your girlfriend into thinking that you are watching a movie for her. “Sure honey, I want to watch The Lost Boys with you! Because you want to watch it, and not because I want to spend two hours making fun of Kiefer Sutherland’s hair.”
Option 4
Ultimate Turkey Day
I have to give a warning with this one: it is only to be attempted by professionals. Unless you have logged on over 200 hours in bad movie simulation, you should not try the following double feature. I don’t want to see anybody get hurt.
All right, here it is: The Core followed by the Brando version of The Island of Dr. Moreau. Anybody with even a passing interest in physics, will be brought to his knees by The Core‘s total inability to get the slightest thing right about anything vaguely scientific. If the characters in that film could breathe water, it wouldn’t make it much less scientifically accurate.
The less said about Moreau, the better.
Option 5
Mondo Culto Appreciation Day
Tell the world that you are thankful for the absent but not forgotten IP column Mondo Culto by watching a double feature of Hard Rock Zombies and 2,000 Maniacs.
(Getting through Hard Rock Zombies may actually prove harder than Option 4.)
Option 6
Christmas movies
What better time to watch a marathon of Christm- WAIT A MINUTE! That’s what I’m trying to stop. Fucking Christmas, always gotta poke its nose in Thanksgiving’s business!
Real Option 6
Movies For Which You Are Thankful
As a last resort, one might consider watching actual good movies instead of crap. I don’t recommend this course of action, as tryptophan lowers the body’s ability to appreciate art. Tryptophan does, however, increase the body’s tolerance to an “acting” performance by one Ben Affleck.
Pimps
Eric is stuck in Roskam territory. I think I should buy the poor bastard a pitcher at Jimmy’s Woodlawn Tap.
Nick’s column is the one I read most thoroughly here at IP. It’s the next best thing to having a friend! Although, I think he means ManLaw instead of ManLove.
God, I hope he does.
Sebert writes a good column, and doesn’t get enough love.
Christopher has a Bowen to pick with the gaming industry. I’m so sorry I did that pun.
Murray hasn’t looked on the Bright Side since the 25th of October. Things must be pretty dark.
If you look to your right, you can see the crap I’ve done in the last week or so. It’s all fantastic, naturally.
