Pop Culture

The worst part of Jurassic World

Penni Jones1 Comment

It’s a really good movie. Not going to lie. But one thing bugged me the entire film. The female lead Claire, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, could have been so much better.

Here’s why: she’s a pent-up career woman who, when reminded by her sister that having children is a ‘when’ and not an ‘if’, gets all teary-eyed and weird even though she’s super successful and who cares if she doesn’t have kids.

But the absolute worst part was her attire. She starts off in a crisp white blouse and skirt combo, complete with heels. She remains in heels the entire movie, even when running from dinosaurs through the jungle. Yet she becomes progressively more undressed. By the end she’s in a tight camisole and her skirt is ripped up the side to give her Angelina-side-leg. And she can finally kiss the hero because she’s suddenly sexy and no longer frigid. Cliché much?

It’s like on Saved by the Bell when Jessie Spano relented on allowing Slater to call her ‘mama’ because he was so damn dreamy. That slippery slope of Freudian creepiness led to straight to Showgirls.

Or on Miss Congeniality when Benjamin Bratt finally showed Sandra Bullock some positive attention because she brushed her hair and put on make-up, because being a badass FBI agent wasn’t good enough until she could walk in heels.

Or my beloved Princess Bride when Buttercup screams uselessly instead of hitting the rodent of unusual size with a stick (they were in the woods, there were sticks EVERYWHERE) as it attacked Wesley.

Jurassic World is a great film, but I couldn’t help but cringe when the movie’s outstanding hero was the strapping alpha male (literally, there’s a whole subplot about him being the alpha in a pack of raptors) who spoke through gritted teeth, even though the damsel in distress saved the day a few times herself. Unfortunately, those heroics were muted by her rack and a hint of thigh.

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Fun facts* to brighten your Friday

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I love it when my friends post happy things on Facebook that make me forget that the world is full of terrorists, GMOs, and Glenn Beck. So I decided to contribute to your happiness with these fun, little-known facts, sure to bring a smile to your face:

  • The popular children’s character Barney was originally conceived as refrigerator box with googly eyes. Test viewers found the box overly sexual, so the creators settled on an androgynous purple dinosaur.
  •  We shouldn’t feel bad about eating pigs because 85% of them are suicidal.
  • If you eat paper clips, your colon will become more organized.
  • The first choice for Vivian in “Pretty Woman” was not Julia Roberts. It was Bea Arthur! But she and Richard Gere had shared a tumultuous love affair years before, and he stole her cat Mr. Knickers when she dumped him for a pre-Xenu Tom Cruise. Ms. Arthur went to her grave angry with Gere over Mr. Knickers.
  • If you see someone with a weak chin, you can assume he/she has a weak bladder.
  • If you go barefoot and step on worm eggs, your foot will get pregnant with worm babies.

Happy Friday, friends!

*Facts might not be an accurate description of what you just read.

Cameron Diaz: A celebration in pictures

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The beloved American actress Cameron Michelle Diaz was born August 30, 1972. Here’s what Michael Jackson looked like when Cameron Diaz was born:

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It’s no surprise that this human ray of sunshine was born in San Deigo, California. Larry Wilcox from CHiPs fame is also from San Deigo:
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Ms. Diaz signed with Elite Model Management at the age of 16, and landed her first Seventeen magazine cover the following year. She was 17 on the cover of Seventeen.  I bet Kip Winger of the band Winger really enjoyed that. You know, since he had that pervy song about a 17-year-old.

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At the age of 21, Cameron landed her first movie role in The Mask, opposite mega-star Jim Carrey. That was in 1994, the same year Kurt Cobain died.

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Cameron’s career took off like meth-addled race horse from there! A few (it was so hard to narrow down the list) of my favorites have been A Life Less Ordinary (1997),

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Being John Malkovich (1999),

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and Bad Teacher (2011).

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I can’t wait to see what this ageless powerhouse does next!  You go, Cameron Diaz!

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John Mayer is addicted to liking himself

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Last week John Mayer went on the Today show to tell the world that he is a “recovered ego addict”. Does this mean he’s not the giant douche that we all thought he was? Of course! Just like Tiger Woods with his sex addiction that made him poke every Denny’s waitress across the Midwest, John has a problem that got a little out of hand. What can we learn from John’s brave declaration?

  • Praise is poison and it makes you act like a frat-boy assclown. Only hang out with people who tell you how much you suck. Added bonus if the friends also tell you your butt looks huge in those pants.
  • Talent makes you an asshole. It’s best to be really, really bad at stuff. Mediocrity should be your highest goal.
  • No matter how horrible you behave, if you put the word “addiction” with another word, the media will call you “troubled” instead of “narcissistic”.
  • Katy Perry’s boobs are magical enough to make someone seek help.
  • Calling your own penis a racist is a side-effect of ego-addiction, not a side-effect of douchebaggery.
  • Making up a justification for bad behavior doesn’t make you a bad person, but being a smug self-absorbed twat does.

True Blood: thanks for wasting our time

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Many viewers feel completely cheated after last night’s finale. True Blood was a great show for the first season. And some of us hung in there after that. One reason was that we believed it could return to its early glory. Another reason was Eric’s frequently naked bum. Or for me, it was to see Lafayette and Pam.

Here are some of the highlights of the show that culminated in an utterly disappointing last season:

Remember that time in the first season when Jason punched Sookie and we were all, “Oh no!” He totally should have saved that for any other season, when we would have been fine with Sookie taking a fist to the face.

And then Tara turned that vampire who looked like he escaped from a methadone clinic into massive headwound Harry. That’s not how they die, dumbass. The head has to come all the way off.

Or when Tara ran off and became some sort of wrestler and a lesbian and she was FINALLY interesting so they turned her into a resentful vampire. On the upside, the turning scene with Pam in a sweat suit was kind of the best thing that ever happened.

And when Terry died there was an entire episode devoted to his funeral and flashbacks of his life, but when Tara died it was off-screen and then only person who really gave a shit was her crazy-ass mama. Everybody else was all, “Tara’s dead. This sucks.”

What about the whole Warlow season? What a crock of crap that was. “I’ve been looking for you for hundreds of years. I love you. Now do what I say or I’ll kill everyone.”

Do we even need to talk about Lilith, with her band of blood-covered naked chicks with pube goatees? Nah.

Or when Sookie put Russell Edgington’s dead lover’s remains down the garbage disposal just to be a massive bee-yatch?

And how about Jessica? She kills two of Andy Bellefluer’s fairy children (who apparently suffered from soap-opera-rapid-aging-syndrome), and then he presides over her wedding about eight weeks later. Why not? Time obviously has no meaning in Bon Temps, or Sookie wouldn’t have doinked Bill two days after Alcide was shot right in front of her.

If nothing else, True Blood gave us Lafayette. And our lives are better for knowing him. But why, oh why, was there plenty of Holly in the finale, and no Lafayette except for a flash of his lovely face at the end? If Nelsan Ellis doesn’t have a flourishing movie career soon and I’m going to sue Hollywood for punitive damages. I think that’s a thing, right?

We stuck with this madness for seven seasons, only to have it end with Sookie knocked up by a nameless, faceless beardy guy and spreading out food on an outside table a la Parenthood. And with Sarah Newlin chained up and not feeling thankful. I’m calling bullshit, Alan Ball.

An open letter to Dr. Neil Clark Warren (eHarmony guy)

Penni Jones12 Comments

Dear Dr. Neil Clark Warren, 

Why are we as a society ignoring the creepy factor of your eHarmony ads? We need to get the grodiness of the eHarmony ads right out in the open. I’m sick of being bombarded with skin-crawling messages meant to be conducive with harmonious love-type feelings.

The one with the goth guy. This guy is obviously a device to distract the viewer from your creepiness. Some old dude plops down across from a woman at some speed dating event to tell her how the cow ate the cabbage and we’re supposed to pretend that’s okay. Oh wait, a goth guy. Now you seem like someone whose car a woman can get into with confidence. Well played, I suppose.

Then there’s the one with your granddaughter. It’s supposed to be cute, I guess. She’s bossing some teacher around about how to date, spouting off statistics about her grandfather’s bigoted dating website. Oh, adorable! Baby’s learning how to support hate very early. Good girl!

And the freaking worst is the ten-year anniversary party where the celebrated couple, who are obviously swingers, sneak off to make-out. No one wants to see a married couple make-out, especially if they’ve been married that long. But their friends burst in and smile as if to say, “Oh, you guys. Making out again!” And then they just stand there, grinning and staring. For someone who thinks gay marriage is wrong, you sure are liberal about swinging.

Dr. Neil Clark Warren, on behalf of TV viewers across the country, please adjust your commercials to something that doesn’t give us the same feeling as when we watch the zombies-eating-innards scenes of The Walking Dead.

 Sincerely,

SGSC

Katherine Heigl is still getting jobs

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Katherine Heigl is set to return to the small screen soon. That’s great news for all 7 people who enjoy seeing her face every week. In celebration of her return, let’s talk about some of her films.

  1. Knocked-Up (2007): Though Heigl had made several movies before this one, Knocked-Up really catapulted her career in a way no other film ever had. As a sign of respect for the movie’s writer and director Judd Apatow, Heigl bad-mouthed the film, stating that it painted women as uptight, humorless shrews. The irony is that her statements made her appear to be an uptight, humorless shrew.
  2. My Father the Hero (1994): Heigl plays a teenager on vacation with her father (Gerard Depardieu). She’s trying to impress a boy, so she pretends her father is her lover. As if that’s not creepy enough, her father actually goes along with it to make her happy. The daughter eventually accuses the father of being a pedophile. I didn’t make that up.
  3. 27 Dresses (2008): This rom-com is apparently a girl who has been a bridesmaid a bunch of times. I think she’s also a hoarder who eventually buries herself under a mound of dresses and suffocates. I’m not sure if that’s completely true because I haven’t seen that piece of bullshit cinema and if you try to make me I’ll stab you in the ear.
  4. Life As We Know It (2010): Heigl plays opposite Josh Duhamel in this gem about two people who hate each other (of course) and are left in charge of a baby when both parents die. They move in together to share the responsibility. I saw about fifteen minutes of it on TV. Duhamel plays a lazy slacker while Heigl plays an uptight, humorless shrew.
  5. Zyzzyx Road (2006): In this film, Heigl plays a sexy lady who picks up an old dude and then her ex-boyfriend (Tom Sizemore–not kidding) finds them and tries to murder them or something. Never heard of it? NO ONE HAS.

I wish Katherine Heigl all the best on her new show. Maybe this time she won’t crap all over her opportunity, and actually be grateful that people keep giving her chances.

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3 Movie Sequels That Should Happen

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Titanic 2: Just like Terminator 2, this one will be way better than the first. Rose is so wracked with guilt over not sharing the door with Jack and letting him freeze to death just so she could have more room to stretch out and relax, she completely loses her mind. She seeks out men named Jack, seduces them and then kills them. Rose becomes the most infamous female serial killer in history.

 

Romy & Michele’s High School Reunion 2: I love, love, love Romy & Michele. In the sequel, Romy is recovering from a long struggle with bulimia. Michele is married to Sandy Frink (played by the delightful Alan Cumming once again). Michele is super rich so she pays for Romy’s rehabilitation. Romy and Michele return to their fashion design roots, and Romy vows to never eat laxatives again. Heather Mooney (Janeane Garofalo) never got over Sandy Frink, and is actively stalking Sandy and Michele. The movie ends with Heather hanging herself in the Frink’s luxurious master bedroom closet. Get ready for laughs!

 

Election 2: At the end of the original Election, we see Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) getting into a limo with politician. She’s working as his aid or something, and stares at him longingly. Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) sees this happen, and he becomes enraged. In the sequel, Jim stalks Tracy with the intent to murder her. But as he watches her every day for an entire year, he falls desperately in love. He begins to woo Tracy, they eventually get married. They name their first child Tammy, after learning that Tammy Metzler hurled herself off the Brooklyn Bridge when her girlfriend dumped her to take up with a man. After their third child is born, Tracy runs for president and another election debacle ensues. I think this time Mr. McAllister should get beestings on BOTH eyelids.

 

 

3 Broke Girls

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Lindsay Lohan guest-starred on this week’s episode of 2 Broke Girls. She hasn’t seen the episode yet because she’s terribly busy getting wasted at Coachella. (Stop claiming to try, Lindsay. People CAN SEE YOU.)

In case you didn’t see the episode, here’s a recap:

First Max made a boob joke because that’s her thing. Soon followed by an STD joke because that’s her other thing.

Lindsay appeared with a string of jokes that made it clear that her character is spoiled. By the sound of her prematurely aged voice, I’d say she accidentally smoked her comedic timing.

Then Caroline made some jokes about not being rich anymore because that’s her thing.

There was a butt stuff joke from Lindsay, then Sophie made a joke about waxing her “downstairs eyebrows”.

So Lindsay played a bride-to-be who kept changing her mind about her wedding cake. If you think this concept doesn’t sound funny, you are correct! Caroline and Max finally made her perfect cake, then Caroline’s arm went through the cake on the subway on the way to the wedding. They stuffed it with Styrofoam and covered it with fondant. (Sorry for the spoilers.)

Flo from the Progressive ads appeared as the wedding planner. Then Max worked in a molestation joke. Then Lindsay made a herpes joke.

Fast forward to Lindsay taking off from her own wedding. Then Max put on the wedding dress because this was supposed to ensure that they got paid for the messed-up cake. Insert yeast infection joke from Max, then she walked down the aisle. Lindsay reappeared and got married. Then Lindsay decided she might be into chicks.

One of the running gags was Lindsay and her fiancé both saying “babe” way too much. It wasn’t funny the first time, second time, or the ninety-seventh.

I think I have the 2 Broke Girls formula down. Here it is: boob joke + STD joke + pube joke + joke about their short Asian boss + joke about losing money + molestation/pedophilia joke + boob joke + sex joke + STD joke + drugs joke = twenty-two minute script.

I’m beginning to think that we all over-estimated Lindsay’s potential. I admit that the material from 2 Broke Girls wasn’t the best, but the talented Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs make the most of it. Lindsay didn’t have an authentic moment the entire episode. Was she ever really great in anything? Mean Girls is an awesome flick, and Lindsay did a good job in it. But her supporting cast was brilliant. Maybe we need to consider the possibility that her performance was a fluke. Perhaps that was her shining moment, never to be duplicated.

Meanwhile Lindsay is reportedly blaming her reality show on OWN for ruining her chances at a comeback.

Sure, Lindsay. Oprah is totally to blame for your ruined career. Stick with that story.

 

 

 

Stick to the book, wankers.

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A lot of people are upset that Darren Arofonsky’s ‘Noah’ doesn’t follow the story in the Bible. Changing major plot points is an all-too-common phenomenon in Hollywood. Here are 5 movies that went too far from the author’s vision.

  1. Dude, Where’s My Car (2000): This movie is based on the 1979 epic novel The Car We Lost. In the novel, Chester Greenburg (played by Seann William Scott) is an aspiring mime who is in love with Jesse Montgomery III (Ashton Kutcher). Chester’s unrequited love drives him mad, and he kills himself by sticking a fireplace poker through his heart.

2.    Jurassic Park (1993): It’s a common misconception that this movie is based on a Michael Crichton novel. The truth is that it’s based on the 1991 thriller Party in the Back about a scientist who can’t face the end of the mullet culture, so he begins cloning rockers and rednecks. The mullet men take over the entire East Coast, leaving chewing tobacco trails and beer cans in their wake. The chilling novel drove many people to build underground bunkers in case there was any chance that it was a sign of things to come. Steven Spielberg decided to turn the mullet men into dinosaurs to present the work as a metaphor.

3.   Lost in Translation (2003): Sofia Coppola’s subtle masterpiece is based on the 1988 novel by the same name. In the novel, Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johnansson) can’t escape the feeling that her life is pointless and boring, so she disappears into Tokyo’s underbelly to live a life of prostitution. Bob (Bill Murray) becomes her pimp, and they live happily ever after. The novel also inspired ‘Pretty Woman’.

4.    Home Alone (1990): The 1965 novel Cannibal Christmas that inspired this movie paints a much darker portrait of Kevin McCallister (Macauley Culkin). In the book, Kevin creates a wacky series of booby traps in hopes of murdering his family and roasting their remains. I won’t tell you who lives or dies. You’ll have to read it yourself to find out!

5.    The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005): In the 1999 novel Purity Ring, Andy (Steve Carell) is a religious zealot experiencing an existential crisis. Andy has worn a purity ring since junior high, and it won’t come off. We follow the protagonist through a series of heart-warming misadventures as he tries to remove the ring. In one scene, he follows his friend’s advice to use mayonnaise as a ring-removing lubricant, and he ends up with his entire hand stuck in the jar. The goofiness is offset by touching moments, such as Andy reading boy band lyrics aloud to the woman he keeps chained up in his basement.