RazzyBlog: <em>Fool's</em> rush in

Monday, February 11, 2008

Fool's rush in

I am having a hard time figuring out who I'd like to hit because I'm really not in any kind of mood to declare my love or fondness for any person or group of people today, as today is actually Sunday night and I'm still hung over from Saturday night's disaster of scotch and personal drama. Although I got over the personal drama, I'm still suffering the physical sequelae of consuming approximately eight glasses of Johnnie Walker Black Label blended scotch, followed by at least two Jaegermeister shots. I'm so sick I even had to call in sick from a date, which is really lame, but my dry heaving-ass is no condition for romance. I want to get an early start in the old laboratory tomorrow, so I figured I'd do my blogging tonight and publish it tomorrow and save myself some time in the morning. Clever, eh? Anyway, since while waiting for the Grammys to start I was just convalescing in my bed flipping between "American Gladiators" and a "Rock of Love" rerun I've now seen approximately eighty-five times, I might as well get tomorrow's--which is now today's--posts rode hard and put away wet, or whatever it is real journalists say when they finish writing.

Anyway, I was trying to think about who I would want to hit besides myself, and I was idly skimming the weekend's news and came upon a report of this weekend's box office returns. This put any notion of lauding anybody or anything far, far out of my mind:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- "Fool's Gold" found real treasure as the romantic adventure starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson led the weekend box office with a $22 million debut.

Martin Lawrence's family reunion comedy "Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins" opened at No. 2 with $17.1 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Disney's "Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert," the 3-D concert film that was the previous weekend's top movie, fell to third place with $10.5 million, a sharp drop from its $31.1 million opening. The movie has grossed $53.4 million after 10 days.

Ugh. Good thing I didn't make any movie plans this weekend, because I would rather see the movie that just had a trailer on Vh1. I didn't catch the name, but the trailer started with "The safety of a federal witness is in the hands of ONE MAN...LARRY THE CABLE GUY." In fact, I would rather sit through fucking Cocoon--which is one of the most appalling cinematic shitshows of all time as it features old people in bathing suits and having sex--in 3-D IMAX than see any of these films. but ESPECIALLY Fool's Gold. I've been seeing Fool's Gold trailers ad nauseum for the last week and at this point, I think I would instantly kick anyone who suggested I see Fool's Gold squarely in their genitalia on principle, because anyone who wants to see this garbage should be prevented from reproducing by any means necessary. Humanity does not need any more people creating a market for movies like Fool's Gold, since the gene pool already has enough alleles conferring stupidity floating around in it.

Released by Warner Bros., "Fool's Gold" came in a bit under the $23.8 million opening of McConaughey and Hudson's hit romance "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days," which debuted over the same pre-Valentine's Day weekend in 2003.

With Valentine's Day on Thursday, the studio is counting on "Fool's Gold" to hold up well, said Jeff Goldstein, Warner vice president of distribution.

Critics hated "Fool's Gold" but audiences were eager to catch McConaughey and Hudson, who play a divorced couple reunited in a quest for 18th-century treasure lost at sea.

"A great marketing campaign, two appealing stars, and reviews be damned," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "Heading into Valentine's week, it's sort of a natural."

Wait, even though people who watch and judge movies professionally universally hated it, Americans were lining up to see Fool's Gold because they just fucking love to see two hours of "a divorced couple reunited in a quest for 18th-century treasure lost at sea."? How could you hate that? It sounds hilarious! I'd love to see two fucking hours of compelling scenes such as these:

This movie basically consists of Kate Hudson being a whiny shrew in various tropical locations, and Matthew McConaughey looking like an unshorn hippie with a penchant for making the Hollywood version of Eli "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome" Manning's typical slack-jawed yokel expression. And would someone kindly tell me why bitches think this dude is hot? He's like the Mel Gibson of his generation: inexplicably being heralded three years ago as "the sexiest man alive" and boasting a massive following of older ladies who fantasize about being wrapped in his stumpy Tyrannosaurus rex arms. I'll pass.

In addition to the mystery of McConaughey's alleged good looks, I have never understood romantic comedies, and I have ESPECIALLY never understood romantic action/adventure comedies. Why is it funny that Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey spend a movie engaging in a lot of inane banter that is supposed to pass for sexual tension while looking for some historically implausible treasure? I don't want their annoying asses flirting or getting rich via acquisition of sunken doubloons or doing anything else except maybe dying in a freak woodchipper accident. I mean, thanks to the incessant trailers for this clusterfuck of irritation I know that in one scene they go down in a seaplane crash, but the chances that this means a grisly death for the lead actors are slim. They probably swim out unscathed, kiss, and make banal quips at each other. I didn't see what kind of proven onscreen chemistry the idiots are flocking to the theaters for as I didn't see How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (obviously), but I'm pretty sure that it was just as formulaic and fucking stupid. Adding an element of danger in the form of some bullshit treasure hunt doesn't make an already bad movie funnier. Besides, there was only one movie where this kind of premise ever worked, and Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey are not Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas, and Fool's Gold is a pale imitation of the greatness that is Romancing the Stone.

People are fucking stupid and have horrible taste. I have realized that my esteem for my fellow man is inversely proportional to my fellow man's willingness to drop their hard-earned cash on movies like Fool's Gold. This makes me pray that some kind of apocalyptic cataclysm results in the end of culture as we know it, because I would rather live in a Mad Max-type of world where I engage in vicious shotgun and blast fuse-mediated battles for petrol with gay BDSM bikers in the Australian outback than in one where people line up to see Fool's Gold like lemmings at a goddamned cliff. No fucking thank you. I do NOT approve.

Labels: assholes, movies, oh the horror, ranting, retard rage