I Hear A Lot of Women Commenting, But I Have Yet To Receive My Sandwich
The Top 10 Comments of the Week / Brian Prisco
Eloquent Eloquence | September 19, 2008 | Comments (90)
Sweet victorious vacation! I’m so looking forward to hoisting pints of frosty Yuengling with Julie, Nicole and the Jodester at The Khyber next Friday while you’re all bursting with gales of laughter with Che Grovera’s mighty tackling of this bitter article. Far be it for me to complain about getting paid to abuse you mongrels, but some weeks, it ain’t easy. With our spanky new format, there tends to run upwards of 1500+ comments a week. And 77 percent of them are in the vein of “fuck that fucking guy” or “I really want to fuck that fucking guy.” Another 10 percent are Skittimus’ alter egos or BarbadoSlim calling us communists.
I take a page from Diablo Cody. Of course I’m not qualified to review movies or judge you people. Who the fuck hit that peg on their guidance counselor aptitude tests? Seriously. I spend each week trashing the fruits of cleverly cultivated marketing campaigns bent on culling as much money from people’s pockets before the next factory-fresh turd comes down the conveyor. I came to Hollywood to make movies. But every week I sit there punching up a screenplay, I watch as the top movies are “Ben Stiller Testicle Shots III” or “Half-Naked Maxim Spread Chick With Increasingly Smaller Purses” get churned out. And indie films, the things I love, get shit on, because the only markets are for dreary Coldplay-harmonized stories about lesbian Eskimos running a prostitution ring, or Dutch drug dealers trying to find their birth parents. Everything is considered too self-indulgent, or boring. Every day I watch movies, I don’t want to make movies anymore.
And fuck television. Quick! Someone make a sitcom for the Jonas Brothers! But let’s make them part owners of an ice-cream shop! Yeah! Their mother homeschools them, and we’ll call it “Too Cool For School” Can we spell that with some number-letters and Zs?
Sarah Palin has dominated this week’s comments, complaints, and Pajiba Love, so no doubt most of it’s going to make it up on the old Family Feud toteboard. The election, which is less than two fucking months away, is no longer about policies or platforms. The Republicans Fox-ed you. You think “Prison Break” and “Bones” are shitty shows? Not when we put it up against “How Many Fifth Graders Can Beat Up An Alligator!” Let’s stunt cast a terrible game show to make your eyes bleed! We’re going to shove a frozen dairy treat up your ass and you tell us what the flavor is! We’re calling it “Too Cool For School!” Wait, what? ABC Family already has a … oh.
Does nobody remember Admiral Stockdale? Crazy Grandpa went all Alzheimer’s on the podium and suddenly Ross Perot became a viable third party candidate? But, surely, Americans won’t vote for someone just because it seems like an amusing idea. I mean, nobody would trust government to somebody who didn’t know what they were doing merely because it would be funny? THREE cast members from Predator held political office. The last “great” Republican president was famous for making movies with a chimpanzee named Bonzo.
Hope you like the taste of snowcones, assholes! Now drop and give me TEN!
10. Now those’ll grow balls on your chest! — BWeaves
The only time I’ve had balls on my chest was in prison. They weren’t mine, I didn’t want them there, and that’s about all I’m going to say about that … — Skittimus Maximus
9. So. (related anecdote incoming)
At my collegiate-student-run-marketing-agency creative team meeting today we were talking about doing trailers for our movie-themed “Open House Gala!” to promote ourselves and some of our client work. Which led to talks of parodies. We talked about some really great action/thriller ideas, some drama ideas, some clearly hamming for an oscar ideas, and some animal comedy ideas (long story).
Anyway, what it boiled down to is that the guys are going to do the kick ass mafia/espionage trailer and the “girls” are going to do a sex and the city-esque parody where all we want to do is shop and drink.
Can I cry over that? Or would I be fulfilling a stereotype? — Kayanne
8. I predict that this comment thread will have no more than ten posts, all of which will be civil and free of political discourse. I also predict that I will kick the game winning field goal during the Cowboy-Eagles game on Monday, spontaneously grow a tail, and one day change my name to Wilomena Von Spermreceptacle. I am the prognosticator of prognosticators. — Julie
7. I got up to the part where you said their names are Turk and Rooster, lost interest and respect, and decided to go to a museum. So… thanks for getting me out of the house? — Sabrina
6. TRL is the undead, and someone finally put the last bullet in its zombie braaaain. It died around 9 plus years ago when boy bands made their resurgence and then Tom Green’s Bum Bum song topped their “charts” for a bunch of weeks in a row. Ever since then, TRL’s been shuffling about in circles waiting for someone to boomstick them us out of their our misery. — branded
5. Why is it always the fat white guy? I was hoping Meryl Streep was the kid toucher, but no, let’s go predictable and make it the fat white guy. I have an idea: what if we outlaw children? Then there’ll be none to touch, and fat white guys can go back to being jolly.
And that clears up the abortion issue too. Republicans don’t like women’s lib and Democrats don’t like babies, so get rid of a woman’s right to choose by making abortions mandatory.
I hate children. — Lucas
4. Tyler Perry just fucked up my whole goddamned week. 18 million? 1800000 negros went to see that movie? That shit is fucking embarassing. I mean, the march on Selma, the lunch counter sit ins, freedom riders, Medgar Evers, the Watts riots, the Civil rights act. All that hard work to provide us blacks with the opportunity to have what every other man could have…and all we have to show for it is Puff Daddy, Kobe Bryant and motherfucking Tyler Perry. I mean, if he were alive I think Dr. King would just shoot himself. — Gamal
(I’d give you a high-five, but apparently, I hate black people. Also, Dustin hates women, even though apparently he is one.)
3. My father is an asshole.
My mom divorced him when I was eighteen because he was a sad, bitter old man who abused all of us, which I’m sure is the reason I have generally lousy taste in men and low self esteem. Sometimes I get sad thinking about how when he dies I won’t be able to give a real heartfelt tear-soaked eulogy about how warm and loving he was because I’ll be remembering the times he called me a whore and screamed in my face until I cried.
I’ll be remembering the fact he met someone else less than a year after he got divorced and set up shop with her kids instead of dealing with me (the rebellious one) and my sister with Asperger’s Syndrome.
Ever meet your new step brother and step sister the DAY OF your parents wedding? I have. Have you ever gotten coaxed into a father-daughter dance and halfway through he stops and says he’s going to dance with your new step sister? And he doesn’t ask your handicapped sister to do anything because he’s afraid she’ll cause an outburst?
I’m twenty-six years old and I have only a few good memories of life with my father. One of our best includes John Candy.
Dad rented “Uncle Buck” for me when I was about ten, somehow thinking it was going to be this wacky family comedy. In a way it is, just with more swearing and a scene of a chick’s black panties. Basically him renting it was a huge mistake and Dad sent me to my room and watched it himself so he couldn’t be accused of corrupting his child. But when I was twelve we rented it again. And we LAUGHED. We laughed at John Candy’s speech to the little kids about how people are “angered” by his hat. I memorized the monologue he told the principal about how all kids are great, until “dried out scags” like her beat them down. He made me watch the message about boys pressuring girls into having sex (that’s when he’d pause the video and tell me in case something happens to fight back and hit and scream and run away and call my parents no matter where I am and they’ll come and get me) and laughed when Bug got hit in the head with golf balls. He loved the car backfiring and I wished I had a giant pancake. After that, we tried out Summer Rental and Only the Lonely and Who’s Harry Crumb? and Cool Runnings. We couldn’t talk about anything but we laughed at John Candy together.
To this day, the few times I speak with my father we sign off with a line from Uncle Buck. I want to believe that there is love between us, even if it’s one of us simply quoting in a high pitched voice “Ever hear of a tune up? Ah HEE HEE HEE HEE!”
When John Candy died, I think my father and I both felt bad. The one therapist that worked for us, we never got to thank in person.
Thanks for listening. — scorzi
(I have no idea what prompted me to write my John Candy appreciation, but I always heard people hating on Summer Rental and The Great Outdoors, so I felt like I had to defend them. I like when people give me compliments on my writing, but I like when these kinds of stories are shared even more.)
2. I blame Sarah Palin on reality television.
Seriously, hear me out: we, as a culture, have gotten accustomed to being entertained by the antics of people “just like us”. Game shows have been dumbed down so that anyone with an IQ over 50 stands a chance of winning, and the people they find for these shows are generally not the best and brightest anyway. Now there’s this attitude that it’s ‘elitist’ to be smart or capable or to aspire to something better than the person next to you. Sarah Palin appears to people with her folksy mannerisms and “aw, shucks, I just ended up governor of Alaska! Isn’t that crazy!” persona. She refuses to acknowledge her own achievements or even QUESTION whether those achievements merit the position she’s currently in and so does the reality-drunk populus. They’re “rooting” for her to “win” the campaign because she’s the most relatable “player” without realizing the implications that could have for the future. — Genny (Also Rusty)
(Oh, I would have given you the top spot, my spirited ginger, but alas, it was a throne that has already felt your supple buttocks. God that sentence sounded less sleazy in my head. Also it was in the voice of Dr. Orpheus. You understand. But alas, I had to instead reward a newbie for this magnum opus:)
1. What the fuck? Since when am I, as a person in possession of both ovaries and fallopian tubes, supposed to allow this movie to speak for me? “The Women”? I am a woman. These women are not at all like me. I do not resemble these miserable, pitiful wastes of celluloid and I am insulted by the idea that they are supposed to represent me. So fuck it. I’m pissed as fuck and I’m not going to take it any more. No more lurking or passive complaining.
I’m going to get out my cheap-ass notebook paper and collection of awesome sharpies, and I’m gonna cause some hell at the nearest motherfucker that tries to show this shit. I will cover the posters with signs saying “Bitches, you’re not like me!” and draw penises on their mouths. I’ll sneak into movie theaters and change the showing times board. I’ll violate every dvd cover that I can find. I mean guerrilla warfare.
And I’m not going to stop until somebody acquiesces to my demands.
My demands: I want a script written about actual women that I want representing me. I want this to be called “Actual Women.” It will be about fictional characters banding up and righting wrongs and living their lives, kickass-style. The core of 4 women will have a character from television, cinema, animation, and a lesbian/bisexual. They will be assisted and occasionally mentored by awesome 2 real-life women. These women will be: Maude (of Harold and Maude), Irina Derevko (of Alias), Marji Satrapi (of Persepolis) and Toshiko Sato (of Torchwood). They will be assisted by Katharine Hepburn and Pam Grier.
There is also a backup team, consisting of: Eleanor Iselin (of The Manchurian Candidate, the original one), Zoe Washbourne (of Firefly), Daria (of Daria) and Tara Maclay (of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). Assisted by Gilda Radner and Sarah Jane Smith. (You think she’s fictional? Fuck you with something hard and sandpapery.)
Bonus points for Laura Roslin as President with CJ Cregg as her VP. Extra bonus points for the actual women beating the characters in “The Women” to a bloody, whimpering pulp.
There will be no tampon jokes. There will be no jokes where chocolate tames the rabid beast of PMS. There will be no scantily-dressed slumber parties. And there will be no male-bashing. This movie will be too classy to do that. And anybody that tries to fuck with anybody else’s agency gets Irina Derevko’s red stiletto up the ass.
I’m too pissed to keep lurking. Any suggestions for additions to the team of actual women? Any Pajibans want to help me with the guerrilla warfare? — robot cookie
——
It combines vitriol, mayhem, scheming and more nerd name drops than one of my reviews. If it takes a shitty movie to cause delurkers to pop their cerebral cortexes (corti?) and spew out this venom, then maybe my assessment of the studio culture was wrong.
Nah.
For your hate, please send dustin at pajiba dot com a defaced poster, a script that’s been registered with the Writer’s Guild of America East or West, and the best place to stuff junk in your vicinity, my dear madam robot cookie.
Enjoy your substitute overlord, Che Grovera in my absence. And yes, contrary to popular rumor, opinion, and hope, I WILL be returning, so don’t get used to it. I’ll be good and goddamned if I let some muppet snuff me. You’re just a fancy sock filled with hope, dreams, and a stoned summer stock actor’s fist. There will be future opportunities for others to take my place in the…futurama.
OBAMA/BJORK ‘08
Fight Crazy With Crazier
Comments
Posted by: firedmyass at September 19, 2008 10:45 AM
Daaaaaaaamn. Congrats to the de-lurked robot cookie, that was a sexy sexy debut. (I don't mean that in a diminishing way... I mean that I find everyone you name-checked in your post incredibly appealing)
Plus, you sure talk good.