Pinkerton's Weblog

JayPinkerton.com Rates The New Video Releases

Down With Love
Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, David Hyde Pierce

Down With Love is an attempt to update the Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedies of the 1960's. While I admit it might be tempting to try and recapture Rock Hudson's on-screen chemistry with women -- let's face it, that's lightning in a bottle -- one could also argue successfully that Rock Hudson/Doris Day comedies were all punishingly stupid. Updating them with an ironic 21st century in-our-faces sensibility is like taking a huge shit, then making quote gestures at it while saying "Whatever."

I also continue to be mystified as to Renee Zellweger's sex appeal -- to clarify that, I continue to be mystified that Renee Zellweger has sex appeal. I recognize that she has a certain earnestness to her, which I suppose translates to "easy" in guyspeak -- so I guess I understand the basic appeal. Nonetheless, I refuse to admit that scrunched up, "the sun's forever in my eyes" face thing she's always doing is getting any man thinking sexy thoughts, unless that man is an optometrist or the sun. I couldn't imagine enjoying any kind of sex fantasy involving Renee Zellweger -- most likely I'd just be looking at her pinched, wincing sex faces and wondering how my semen somehow got replaced with grapefruit juice.

Pinkerton's Verdict: If Down With Love was honestly trying to recreate the chemistry of Doris Day and Rock Hudson, they should have given Ewan McGregor's part to David Hyde Pierce. Either that, or they should have given Renee Zellweger's part to a lamp post. At least the title's accurate.

I will never rent this, and if you do, I will make fun of you.

The Italian Job
Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton

The trailers for Italian Job not only gave away the big double-cross that the entire film rests on, but also made it look like the whole movie took place in Italian speedboats, thus making it all Europe-y and gay. Luckily, only the opening takes place in Venice -- after the credits, the whole film goes back to the good ol' U S of A, and American heterosexuality is safely restored.

There's a lot of heisting going on here, and the acting's solid. On the demerit side, though, there's also more than enough scenes of Charlize Theron with moist, tear-wet eyes, which after 167 straight films, I hope I'm not alone in being sick to death of seeing. The film really takes its time, too, and the finale takes place with a helicopter chasing a car, which is about as effective as you'd guess an ending with the hero and villain hundreds of feet away from each other at all times would be.

Pinkerton's Verdict: If you're really expecting something, you'll be let down. If you're just sort of kicking around the house and in the mood to rent something, it'll fill the bill. With helicopters.

Bend It Like Beckham
Parminder K. Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers

Bend It Like Beckham looks pretty darn inspirational. Even the poster, which shows two triumphant soccer players in the throes of victory, fills me with uplifting can-do spirit, like I can do anything boys can do. I've never seen Bend It, so I couldn't tell you if it's any good or not. All I know is I made a joke about it once on a yahoo group with friends, and several people leapt all over me about it -- "It's a really good movie! It made a ton of money!" (I believe I had intimated that it had made $4.93 its first week in America.) So: either Bend It Like Beckham is a surprisingly great film that only looks like after-school-special ass dribble, or it is ass dribble and I need to get new, non-retarded friends.

Pinkerton's Verdict: Fuck, you got me. It might be Citizen Kane 2: Rosebud's Revenge for all I know; regardless, that's a pretty sissy-looking video case to be taking up to the cash register, no matter how good the film ends up being. I wish video stores would make potentially good films with two different covers -- one with the original poster, and the other with like explosions and kickboxers airbrushed in. That way I could finally rent Bridget Jones' Diary without dying of shame before I got to my car. In conclusion: I'm not renting anything that looks like it wants to teach me something about life and stereotypes. If I wanted a lecture, I'd rent documentaries. Bend It Like Beckham looks like it wants to teach me something, and probably be uplifting and spirit-soaring in the process. It also looks suspiciously like nobody will be getting naked. I'm passing on Bend It until someone gives me a good reason not to.

2 Fast 2 Furious
Paul Walker, Eva Mendes, Cole Hauser

Outlaw racer Brian O'Conner superteams with his ex-con buddy in an effort to clear their reputations through nitro-penis street-penis racing in their too-fast, too-furious, too-too-penis cars. Should appeal to the too drunk and the too stupid. Penis.

Pinkerton's Verdict: If I have to tell you you shouldn't rent this, then you probably should rent this, because you're just dense enough to be the target market. Maybe they should put Bend it Like Beckham in 2 Fast 2 Furious cases. That way nobody feels like an idiot in the video store line, and nobody becomes an idiot while watching the film after.

Yes, Virginia, Your Parents Despise You

Mommy and daddy are always fighting, and you're confused. When you ask mommy if she loves daddy, she says yes -- but they don't act like they love eachother. Mommy says she loves you more than anything in the world. Is she lying about that too?

Now daddy's sleeping somewhere else. He still comes by at night and watches TV with you. When you ask daddy if he's gonna come sleep in the house again soon, he doesn't say anything for a while, and then says "We'll see." And when you go to bed, mommy and daddy are yelling again. And you can't help but think: If I tried harder, would mommy and daddy love each other again? Am I the reason daddy's leaving? Is it my fault?

According to new findings, that answer's a big fat yes, if you're a girl!

An article in Slate Magazine, called "Oh No: It's a Girl", puts forward the hilariously horrible notion that little girls are absolutely worthless, thus destroying twenty years of equality movements and inspirational soccer movies.

As it turns out, though, the fault doesn't really lie with poor little girls, but apparently the fact that adult men are petty, self-centered scum. Again according to the article, most men want boys, and if the baby turns out to be a girl, the man will stick around longer in a relationship in the hopes that the next bun in the oven might have a penis. As for divorce, men seemingly feel more comfortable abandoning an eight-year-old girl to raise alone by a mother, whereas leaving an eight-year-old boy without a strong male role model in the house is, of course, inexcusable.

This child of divorce looks for evidence of her parents' love in the microscope -- coming up snake-eyes, of course, because she has a uterus.

No doubt the children of divorce reading this article have a few things to say about it, like: "I'm a guy, and my dad had no problems leaving," or "I'm a girl, my parents divorced, and I still see my dad all the time. He loves me very much." According to science, you're both wrong: parents prefer boys. If female, it was all your mother could do to stop an enraged dad from eating you whole as a baby.

Other news breaks from science expected in the near future: enjoying sex will make your genitals explode in flame; drinking alcohol past 5:00 PM will result in permanent, irreversible brain damage; your children will not remember anything about you after you die; and life is a meaningless chaos amidst which the only purchase you can find is misery and loneliness.

Wud

I had to share this one, since it's such a clear example of the sort of toilet humor I find hilarious that everyone else gives me puzzled, concerned stares over. From the latest update of The Trailer Trash:

I spent Saturday afternoon puzzling over this comic, trying to think of the dialogue. Every time I looked at it, I kept chuckling, though, and I couldn't figure out what he could possibly be saying to justify the actions in the panels. Finally I realized it was probably funnier without any dialogue at all.

What do you think? was I right? Or should it have had some dialogue? What dialogue would YOU have used?

Free Costume Ideas For Halloween!

Get yourself a Darth Vader mask. Then simply find a pair of sweatpants, a wife-beater and a John Deere hat that'll fit around the mask. Tape a cigarette to the mouthpiece for extra authenticity, and voila: Darth Vader on Galactic welfare after the Death Star exploded. Feel free to use!

Artist's Interpretation:

Translation For British Visitors: I know clothing has completely different names in the States and the UK. You call pants underwear, and knickers mean pants, and socks mean shirts, and you wear hats on your feet. So I've helpfully translated "sweatpants" into its British equivelant: "knobbens blimey-Clancyworthshiretonford".

It's Like Stealing, But With Stamps!

I just heard a radio commercial for some sort of free pizza promotional give-away with two-fours of beer. I forget which beer -- I think Molson -- but the deal is, it's not like the coupon is in one in four two-fours, or one in eight or something. The coupon seems to be in every two-four. It's a "personal pizza", so I assume it's a Pizza Hut tie-in, and you just get one of those little guys.

But here's the thing: at the end of the ad, the announcer comes on and gives the usual legal obligations. At the tail end of the spiel, in this really fast voice, he says "no purchase necessary." This has to be a mistake, or else I've misunderstood the promotion. "No purchase necessary" provisions are there to satisfy certain legal conditions, such as people not wishing to buy the product still being able to play, with an equal chance of winning as someone who purchases the product. But as I understand it, everyone wins the coupons: they're in every two-four.

I've got to figure out which one is wrong: if the commercial was just misleading, then you simply get a chance to win pizza through a ballot or something with every two-four. But if there's a coupon in every two-four, then the commercial actually screwed up with the legal provisions. Because technically, with no purchase, every one of us could write a hundred letters to Molson and get back 100 coupons for free pizza, and all it'd cost us is the stamps.