Bad movie

Because the rest of the United States has apparently gone absolutely BATSHIT MENTAL, I decided to follow suit (or out of sheer boredom and lack of wanting to watch any actual news out of sheer disbelief/pissed-off-dom, which I am THIS CLOSE to attempting to coin as a phrase) and engaged in an airing of this fully abysmal horseshit of a movie that was playing on the only premium channel I get, because I knew that by doing so I wouldn’t be bombarded by the onslaught of jack-assery that the national media is without a doubt dispensing like little candied pills to all of us on the local networks.

I digress.

That piss poor excuse for a movie was Charlie St. Cloud.

Oh holy lord, I’m pretty sure I’ve just exonerated any former boyfriend who tried to explain to me why they attempted to watch The Notebook or any other absurd rendition of an on-screen massacre of an already butchered attempt at chick-lit.

Par example:  An actual conversation that went down between me and a previous fellow, which now makes me cringe with self-indignation at how callous I was (but somehow, I really don’t think I’ve changed that much since):

Ashlin:  So what’d you do last night?

Guy:  Nothing.  You know, there was nothing on tv, nothing going on, so I just ended up watching a movie.

Ashlin:  Cool.  Whatcha watch?

Guy:  Ummm… nothing really.  Just some crappy movie.

Ashlin:  Haha- what was it?

Guy:   I dunno.  I wasn’t really watching it.  I was cleaning my room andyouknowIwasn’treallypayinattentiontoit.

Ashlin:  (because now I’m intrigued simply because he’s circumventing the question).  Aw, c’mon, what was it?

Guy:  *siiiiighhh* … Aotmninooyrk.

Ashlin:  Wait, sorry, I think you cut out, what?

Guy:  *SIIIIGHH* AUTUMN IN NEW YORK.

Ashlin:  … Oh!…

Guy:  … Yeah…

Ashlin:  Well, I mean, that’s cool, you know… whatevah.

Guy:  Shut up, you know it’s crap.

Ashlin:  …Dude.  You lame.

Guy:  Shutup!

Ashlin:  HA!  Sucker.

(I actually ended up really liking that guy and eventually got slammed for not being open enough.  Touché. Point taken. I AM workin’ on it, Neener, promise 😉 )

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So, anywayyyy… Charlie St. Cloud.

There’s something really weird about this movie that I can’t quite put my finger on.  Maybe it’s the fact that such an absolute piece of tar could actually have been made and set free into the wilds of movie theaters everywhere.

Here’s a movie about a guy, played by the headache-inducing Oscar-worthy Zac Efron who apparently has been allowed to let his grief for his dead brother manifest in hallucinations rather than seeking proper psychological aid.  That’s pretty screwed up enough already. BUT HOLD UP! It’s also the saving grace for his ability to save his love interest who turns out lost at sea because you’re never quite sure if his problem is a legitimately understandable issue of an inability to come to terms with human mortality or if it’s some sort of supernatural talent for seeing dead people, since she begins showing up around him and no one else can see her.  So instead you, the audience, gets strung along for an hour and a half not really getting what the HELL is going on.  Is she dead?  Is she dying?  Is she eating cucumber tea sandwiches on her hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of a sailboat that she just happens to own at 16 years old, all under the guise of being a regular girl?  Oh yeah, they sprinkle in some E. E. Cummings in there to make you think they’re well-read or some shit, when really you know it’s just a trap.  A big, fancypanced trap to make you think this movie is making you a better, more well-rounded person. Lest we forget this is a dude who is talking to a fabrication of his mind that might be indicative of schizophrenia or something even worse… AND PEOPLE STILL LET HIM STEER A BOAT.

Notice that kid's face. That ain't acting. That's poorly disguised fear.

You ever get so hungry you’ll eat just about anything, so you opt for the nearest thing around you in some sort of low blood sugar haze and realize after the fact that you just ate an entire bag of 5 day old stale Snyders of Hanover pretzels that you drenched in yellow mustard to distract your tongue from the fact that it was trying to send you messages that you were eating food that was no longer edible.  Then somewhere about 5 minutes later, when you return to normal and your skin is no longer green, and you’ve got to once again find a store that will sell your size of purple pants, and you realize what you’ve just done and the waves of self-loathing wash over you in typhoon capacity?  That’s the type of poor-decision hangover I had this morning after gulping down that cowplop.

The only thing that made me feel any better about it was when I talked to a friend this morning and mentioned that I had submitted myself to self-torture last night, and she helped talk me down from the ledge with a simple pivotting of perspective:

Ashlin:  Ugh, I can’t believe I watched that crap.

Friend:  Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a movie you would enjoy.

Ashlin:  It was just so absolutely dumb.  Why the hell would someone actually make a movie like that?!

Friend:  Hmm.  Yeah, no, I don’t think you’re looking at it the right way.

Ashlin:  Huh?!  Are you actually vouching for it?

Friend:  No, I’m not.  But you’re trying to actually get something from it, like a lesson, or something.

Ashlin:  Right.

Friend:  Don’t you realize the only reason that movie was made, and also the only reason most people watched it, was to see Zac Efron take his shirt of continuously for several hours?

Ashlin:  … Holy shit.

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I think everyone should find themselves a friend who can provide bad movie refuge if they haven’t already, and do so immediately.  I already feel much, much better.

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