MOVIE REVIEWS 5: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK

by Chris Becker

(originally appeared in the March 3, 2004 issue of the Advance-Titan)



Everybody seems to be so upset over the new motion picture depicting the grotesque death of the Savior. And while I’m sure there are plenty of things to get offended by in the upcoming remake of “Starsky and Hutch,” you people need to remember that it is just a movie and Huggy Bear isn’t actually being brutally scourged and nailed to a cross, and that isn’t real blood being squirted onto the camera lens; it’s just pretend.

And “Starsky and Hutch” isn’t the most offensive Jesus film this year. Hell, it’s not even the most offensive Jesus film since the turn of the new century when Jesus was supposed to come back to life and kill us all because he turned 2,000.

In 2001 some obvious creative genius felt the muse’s bludgeon crush his face and was thus inspired to give the world “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.” In this marvel of mankind, Jesus’ second coming is put on hold when he must team up with a Mexican wrestler to fight vampires.

And now that it’s been established that nothing Mad Max could direct would ever be able to compete with the last movie made about Jesus, I now make the obvious transition to my latest installment of the graphic novel I am currently writing entitled “How Not to Write Movie Reviews.”

If you are not familiar with my system, here’s a brief overview. If I like a movie, it gets rated with some horrible activity that one could probably live through. For example, if I didn’t completely hate a movie I would rate it by saying I would rather have my toes run over by a Chevy Nova than watch it.

But since the Ben Stiller debacle “Along Came Polly” looks atrocious, I would rate it by saying I would rather have boiling-hot pesticides poured into my ears than watch it. Or let's say I actually see the movie and make my opinion of it worse than before? Then I would rate it by saying I would rather have a two-hour, one-sided conversation with George Lucas about what he thinks is "k-rad" than ever murder two hours of my life by seeing it again. And away!



Eurotrip

Have you ever wanted to see the 2000 movie “Road Trip” except set in Europe and without Tom Green or anybody else ? If you have, then I pity you dearly, and you’re in luck! You aren’t the only person dumb enough to think that movie should be made, because somebody made “Eurotrip.”

Expect to see lots of hilarious and wacky antics involving European stereotypes, such as an excessive amount of puns on the word English people use instead of cigarettes or visual gags indicating how fruity we think French people are and how they never shave their armpits.

Rating: I would rather send a convoy of scorpions into my colon using a large glass tube and a cork than watch this smut.



Starsky and Hutch

As previously mentioned, this movie revolves around the person I have chosen as my own personal savior for the kook religion I founded, police informant/pimp Huggy Bear. However, this movie does not feature the real Huggy Bear, but actually classical musician Snoop Dogg portraying the flamboyant snitch.

You see, “Starsky and Hutch” is a documentary that dramatically recreates the heroic exploits of two real-life detectives in some unnamed American city (the city is unnamed because they are working undercover).

Ben Stiller, who apparently felt that this year’s aforementioned “Along Came Polly” wasn’t bad enough, plays Detective Bartleby Starskalopolis, while Owen Wilson, who replaced Chris Tucker as Jackie Chan’s sidekick in “Rush Hour 2: This Time They’re Cowboys” and “Rush Hour 4: Cowboys in England For Some Reason,” plays Cornpone Hutchowskovitch.

While I am pleased with the creative liberties taken with this project, such as taking a very tragic story and turning it into a comedy, I was absolutely disgusted by the crucifixion of Huggy Bear scene. They really toned down the violence just to get a PG-13 rating.

I’d have thought the filmmakers would have taken advantage of all the new-fangled computer effects available to produce a nice waterfall effect of Huggy Bear’s organs as they cascade out of the cataracts of his eviscerated torso, but I guess that just goes to show how lazy everyone in Hollywood really is.

Rating: I’d rather have my rectum sewn completely shut with metal wires and then force-fed 60 pounds of tree bark than watch a horribly inaccurate movie about the savage murder of my Lord.



50 First Dates

You may remember little-known actor Adam Sandler as the guy on Saturday Night Live who used to put random objects on his forehead (newspaper, football, empty can of soup, etc.) and say “Look at me! I have a newspaper / football / empty can of soup on my head! Pay attention to me, laugh and for the love of God, somebody please like me!”

That unique brand of excruciatingly painful comedy is probably evident in the movie “50 First Dates,” what with it starring Sandler and all. The plot revolves around Sandler and his attempt to woo Drew Barrymore, who has lost her ability to short-term remember.

Which means if you like those episodes of soap operas in which a box falls on a character’s head, thus giving them amnesia, then you probably won’t like “50 First Dates,” as people who like soap operas tend not to like jokes about walrus vomit.

Here’s a fun fact: I was going to make a hilarious joke about “50 First Dates’” Rob Schneider that would have been basically nothing but mentioning some movie he was in years ago that he probably doesn’t put on his resume due to shame (I was torn between “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” and “Surf Ninjas”), but then I noticed that a sequel to the movie “Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo” is in the works with the titular word “Male” replaced with “European,” and it was just too hard to make jokes through the streams of tears pouring down my face.

Rating: I’d rather have a live eel shoved entirely in my mouth and then yanked out my nose with a rusty fishing hook than watch this movie.



The Passion of the Christ

Now it’s fine that Mel Gibson wants to portray an accurate image of Jesus, but accuracy is boring. Case in point: How many of you heard of Jason Blaire before you found out he was making stuff up?

I’m sure Gibson’s Jesus works just peachy for him, but I really doubt anybody would pay to see the son of God get savagely beaten by some Romans for two hours. That‘s why I predict this movie will bomb so tremendously that it will be on cable TV in a month. Nobody wants to see boring movies. I mean, “E.T.” is a movie about a Christ figure that doesn’t have any adult situations aside from the extreme violence, and I don’t know anybody in my family who has even heard of it.

“Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter,” on the other hand, has a good premise, but with one fatal flaw: it’s from Canada. Even more than a nonviolent Jesus, people would be less willing to see a movie from a country with a law that requires every sign must be written in both English and French.

The movie about Jesus I want to see would involve Jesus Christ (or “J.C.” as his street-smart partner capably played by renowned-dramatist John Leguizamo will call him) busting up a vampire drug cartel run by the same man that killed his father and caused Jesus to become a loose-cannon L.A. cop who plays by his own rules. Yeah, that’s right; you heard me.

Did I mention that every single commercial for the movie will feature the same footage of Jesus with two handguns blazing, firing at a helicopter while in slow motion? Because I’m pretty sure I did. I’m also pretty sure that I mentioned the fact that the movie’s tagline will be “Half cyborg; half zombie; all Messiah.”

Rating: I’d rather watch “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” than “The Passion of the Christ,” and since someone in the former is listed in the movie’s credits as “Athest 1 (sic),” I think that I would rather lead a panel discussion at a convention for people whose fetish is to fuck each other while dressed up as cute forest creatures. Ouch, Mel Gibson. Ouch.








The only things I have are my intellectual property and mycollection of plastic souvenir cups from Taco Bell commemorating the release of "Batman Returns."  So if you steal the former well then I might just have to kill himself.  Everything on this site is copyright Chris Becker, except for the pictures I stole and then Photoshopped the crap out of.  If for some bizarre reason you want to reprint any of  bullplop written here, or just want to send me any death threats or marriage proposals, contact Chris Becker at beckec89(at)uwosh(dot)edu.