We live in a strange world, a place where serial killers actually seem to enjoy “The Exorcist III.” In our world, the director of “Irreversible” gets death threats while the men behind “Wild Wild West” walk free to spread even more cancer. In this same world, Paris Hilton is considered a celebrity and people actually believe that Jesus is going to swoop down like Superman and save a bunch of “believers” from some kind of damnation.
Is it any wonder “Hitch” did so well at the box office?
I shouldn’t be surprised by that … not at this stage in life. I’ve seen George W. Bush elected twice. If that can happen, “Hitch” can make a few bucks, especially since it stars the lovable Will Smith and the goof from that popular CBS sitcom I’ve never watched. It is just the kind of movie mediocre people love … and there are a lot of mediocre people on this planet.
I must confess, I haven’t seen “Hitch.” It’s not because I haven’t had the time. It’s because I haven’t made the time. The second I saw that trailer, I knew it wasn’t the movie for me. I know, I know. I can hear someone in the back shouting, “How can you criticize a movie without even seeing it?” Look, I don’t have to get shot to know I won’t like it, and I’m not here to criticize the movie. I’m here to criticize its audience because those are the people responsible for Hollywood making stuff like this and “Without a Paddle.”
I’ve often thought about the best way to take revenge on this audience of diseased cattle. I mean, these people really need to wake up and take a deep breath of the stench-filled air around them. Life isn’t “Hitch.” Life is “Requiem for a Dream.” And sure, entertainment is fine every once in a while, but to make it your diet? Come on! We can do better than that. We proved that when someone hit Bill Gates with a pie. We can do that, we can do anything.
My perfect plan would involve me making a movie exactly like “Hitch.” Not “Hitch,” but the same type of film. You know, the kind where investors would know there’s an audience practically built right into it. I’d even hire Will Smith and Sandra Bullock, though I’d try to be quite medicated when I wrote up the contracts. I’d make the movie, submit it for a rating and get a PG-13 for “some language and slight sexual humor.” After that, I’d send the stars out to promote the f**k out of the thing and then, at the very last minute, I’d take out the last fifteen minutes of the film where our actors are racing to the predictable-yet-hilarious conclusion. Why? Because I’d replace that ending with a homosexual scat film where one of the actors is shot at the end. (Not shot for real, but it would look like someone in the theatre spliced on a snuff film to the end of my movie, “My Best Man’s Girl.” The scene would be filmed with a cheap digital camera in someone’s sparse basement. In the background, just under the grunts and screams, a Lionel Ritchie song would be playing. Perhaps “All Night Long.” That adds realism, and I guarantee it would look much better than the ending of “Snuff.”)
Wow, I would give a t******e to be at that first screening. Imagine the crowd — laughing as Will Smith is about to ditch his money-grubbing bride-to-be for his best man’s girlfriend, and then … boom! One guy is crapping in another man’s mouth. I can practically hear the people screaming.
This tacked-on scene would be on every print of the film, and I would take total credit for it. As I did the talk show rounds, I’d say I did it to “wake people from that slumber they’ve been in the past twenty-some years.” Matt Lauer would tell me how wrong I am, and Bill O’Reilly would call for my head on a stick (right before asking me if I “know any brown chicks into threesomes”). And audiences everywhere would be demanding their money back. “I didn’t pay to watch s**t splattering on the walls.”
Oh yes you did. It’s a Will Smith/Sandra Bullock film.
Those people who saw the film would never feel safe going to see any other movie ever again. There would always be some hesitation. “What if some dopehead filmed kids having sex in a slaughterhouse or something?” Even the most baseless entertainment “stars” like Vin Diesel would be suspect. “What if the end of the film is him humping a corpse? I don’t want to see that.” My little stunt would change the way people watch these “mind candy” films, and I can think of no greater accomplishment than to add a little danger to their entertainment viewing.
In case you haven’t guessed, I’m one of those people who believes art shouldn’t be safe. Safety is for kid’s films and automobiles. Art should get you to think. It should cause a reaction. And yes, entertainment is art … just the more commercial side of it.
My faux homosexual snuff film is not art, but crafting it onto the end of “My Best Man’s Girl” and manipulating the audience does start to push it in that direction. Like I said in the beginning, we live in a strange world. Sometimes you have to meet that strangeness head-on in order to defeat it.
Now, are there any investors out there willing to work with me? I have this idea for a little film starring Sean Penn. He plays a crippled cab driver who falls in love with one of his fares, who is blind …
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