WASTING TIME (MINE & YOURS)

Monday, January 28, 2008

Why I believe my family secretly hates me

I am a movie buff. Truly, I hate going to see movies that I don't choose. I detest having to defer to the tastes of others and allow someone else to choose the movie, especially if we're going to a theatre. Granted, I don't always choose great films. However, I don't think I'll ever let my husband or mother do to me again what they have done to me recently.

My mother is in her mid-fifties. She's awesome and funny and cool, but like the best of us, she has her idiosyncrasies. She loves to watch the Sci-Fi Channel and particularly loves their special made-for-tv creature features. These generally showcase some genetically engineered insect or reptile who wreaks havoc upon a small town. They lizard/snake/alligator/spider beast is taken out by a group of courageous townspeople, usually headed up by a feisty, busty brunette scientist and her brawny hero (played by some revered actor like Lorenzo Lamas). On Saturdays my mother does laundry and watches these horrible movies. In addition to these crapfests, my mother enjoys some legitimately decent sci-fi like the Alien movies. She also loved Predator. And yes, she enjoyed AVP: Alien Vs. Predator. Thus we arrive at her plea for my husband and I to take her to see AVP 2: Alien Vs. Predator - Requiem. So two weeks ago we took her to see it. Guess what??!!! It was awful. Painful and awful. I watched the first two Alien movies about 15 years ago, and I've never seen a Predator movie. If you haven't seen AVP Part 1, then you are totally screwed watching the new one. I couldn't even tell the Aliens from the Predators (evidently there are hybrids now). It was an hour and a half of complete confusion and boredom. However, it wasn't nearly as painful as what I suffered through yesterday.
Yep, that's right. My husband is a Rambo fan.
I agreed to go with him to the movies (he bought me popcorn) to see this latest Rambo movie. I was a bit morbidly curious to see how decrepit Stallone looks. I half expected him to be toothless and dragging his colostomy bag through the jungle. Instead, he just looks really weird and doughy with a giant scary neck. The film was an hour and half of pointless, senseless depraved violence with no point whatsoever. There wasn't really a plot to speak of and no characters. Rambo didn't do a whole lot other than look irritated and blow some stuff up. The violence is supposed to be a realistic depiction, but instead it's simply gratuitous and sad.
So now I have wasted over 3 hrs of my life on these atrocities. These are 3 hrs I will never have returned to me. I know that I had an option not to go, which in hindsight would have been the intelligent thing to do. My family members did not bind and gag me and drag me to the theatres whilst prying my eyes open a la Clockwork Orange. I did exhibit some free will, and I am dumber for having done so. Could it have been worse? Perhaps. I could have had to watch Atonement. The funniest part is that my mother thought AVP2 was awful and my husband hated the Rambo movie. Funnier still is that both of them were surprised that these movies sucked! I was not surprised.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that Stallone has forgotten what the twisted charm of First Blood and Part II was made of. I wanted to once again see Rambo as one man and a knife against an entire army, not an endless supply of explosives and guns with no plot. Yes, it sucked, but the legacy of the original is long from forgotten!!

Jeff said...

I think Stallone's appearance these days is probably borne of the fact that he's actually a proponent of steroids...

You should have gone to see Cloverfield instead. It was kind of uncomfortable in parts, but at least it was mostly interesting.

waltzingmathilda said...

I have to admit, I love the Sci-Fi originals. Yes, they are complete and utter crap, but where else can you get a title like "Mansquito"?