Parentheses laden post

[Don't say you weren't warned]

Me and my pal Nick (not to be confused with Nic) (side bar: everyone I know is either called Nick/Nic or Dan and variations thereof which makes life confusing on a number of levels when most of these souls have little to do with one another and you have to explain that no, this is the Dan that's the alcoholic fuck-up that sent you to counseling and that is the Dan who is the wicked funny one with a penchant for Ricky Martin tunes and that happens to be the Dan that messed your best friend around about 17 times and is a total dick, etc etc ad infinitum). (This is why nicknames were invented). (I guess?)

Where was I?

Yes. NICK for the purposes of this blog known as 'gay husband' or to give him the name by which I actually call him to his face 'Bobbins' (long story. Does one ever grow out of calling people by their non-parent given names just to make it be a bit more insidery, and therefore more difficult, for anyone trying to get along with your 'group'? Particularly when you insist on calling them by their actual name, fake name, fake nickname, new name that probably won't catch on, in a random rotation so that no-one is ever 100 per cent sure of whom is being discussed at any given time? Will I grow out of that when I hit 27? NEXT MONTH HOLY SHIT I'M FREAKING THE FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW might I add) and I are both fans of these new-fangled celluloid motion pictures that all the kids are talking about ('they' say they'll be the next big thing but I'm yet to be convinced. I have my trusty puppet and shadow theater that caters to all my entertainment needs thank you very much). But yes, blah blah jokes, we watch a lot of films yet we rarely agree on what makes a good one. Unless it's foreign language in which case we do. And it's always that we like it (possibly because we don't really understand them so just pretend to like them for the sake of keeping up appearances? We're both Hyacinth Bucket enough for that to be a plausible hypothesis). Anyway, much like with crushes (which was on my mind today as I have a new girl crush - it has been so long since I've had a real-life girl crush I've changed dress size and hair colour about 16 times - and I was imagining us going on a date and her asking what celebrities I found attractive because, of course that is something that comes up in normal dating conversations, when you are 12, but I couldn't think of anyone. I'm always like, oh my god I LOVE him/her when other people mention their passions but these names never stick in my mind when I'm asked outright. I fill my walls with pictures of unicorns and Ethel Merman and, no disrespect to either of them, I like them but just not like that, so it's not even that I can do a mental sweep of hotty pictures about my palatial surroundings . Of course, if she was asking me when I was 12 to answer this question it'd be easy - Dean Cain and Joey Lawrence. Simple. Fast Forward centrefolds and cut-out thumbnail pics of both them adorned my abode), I can never think of films that are worse than the ones he comes up with when we have that argument (most recently Benjamen Button and Vicky Christina Barcelona, the latter of which he hasn't even seen b.t.dubs, have been the subject of our lively over-dinner conversation. Which, just to set the mood, was in an African-Latino restaurant soundtracked by your-dad-by-way-of-Chevy-Chase covering Keane songs? Seriously. Your Dad/Chevy came to each of the tables asking for requests and we wanted something by Hall & Oates but he didn't know any :( How is that even possible?) so the list that precedes is basically for my reference purposes and nothing you really have to worry your pretty little head about but like, it's there if you want to read/comment. Who am I? Blogging Hitler (like normal Hitler but fascist about blogs, not ethnicity). I am not blogging Hitler. I am blogging Sazz. Nice to meet you.

Anywho.

Crash
Paul Haggis is the worst writer of all time ever. No hyperbole, just science. That's the worst film I think my eyes have ever witnessed. This shit won an OSCAR? What?! HOW? Not for the screenplay though right? Because the screenplay was abominable... SHIT OFF! IT WON BEST PICTURE AND BEST SCREENPLAY?! This is not happening, this is NOT HAPPENING. I love a film that makes you think but all this did was make me think about blowing a hole in my head. Because really? Racism is bad. Oh yes, I see now, but maybe we are racist in ways we didn't even think about. (I am looking at you Sandra Bullock). And also racists can be nice because they sometimes pull Thandie Newton out of her car which has just crashed. And also Ryan Phillippe shoots people in the head occasionally for being mad about something but I forget what now. Awesome. Nailed it. Instead of a semester spent learning about social groups and their tendency towards prejudice and the wider implications of that using the Holocaust as a case study I should have just watched this film. Except I shouldn't because it was dumb and awful. I think it angers me so greatly because people told me this was good. It is not good. It is the opposite of good. It is ungood. That's how not good it is. I resent the fact I sat through this waiting for a pay off of some kind and never got it. Maybe the Academy was just giving out awards for being the worst that year? That'd make a lot of sense.

Match Point
Jonathan Rhys Meyers. Very attractive guy. Probably a lovely guy were you to meet him in person (who am I kidding, he looks like he'd be a dick to you). He cannot act. I cannot watch him on screen without cringing.
I tried to watch The Tudors the other day and I couldn't sit through more than 4 minutes of his wooden, HAS-to-be-reading-directly-off-the-cue-cards 'acting'. What's weird is that I saw this at the cinema alone and thought it was ok. I remember walking out thinking 'yeah, not great but pretty good' and then I watched it on DVD with someone else and couldn't get beyond him saying 'you have very sensual lips' to ScarJo and that was me done. Forever. JRM is outta my life. He was ok in Bend it Like Beckham right? Was I just too enamoured by his pretty pretty face back then? PastSazz sure is dumb.

Planet of the Apes
If you ever get the urge to cast Mark Walberg in a starring role then just take a step back, breathe deeply and ask yourself the following question what the fuck do I think I'm doing? And then, hopefully, we can all be saved from disasters like this.

Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous
I'm sure I have spoken about this before. Let us not dredge up the past again but looky here, Sandra Bullock pops up again. I sense a theme.

Teen Monster
My friend Kes gets these weird crushes every now and then that make my face do this :S and Ryan Reynolds is currently top of that list. Which means we have to watch every Ryan Reynolds film. Including this one which was rated 18 (for no reason whatsoever except that maybe children shouldn't be privvy to this mess of a movie) and comes on a Sky Movies channel intermittently and basically is the oddest thing ever with things like Back to the Future references peppered throughout that make no contextual sense. It's a mess of a movie, which you know five minutes going in when Ryan is presented as a goth. No. Just... no.

Films I like that I know I probably shouldn't like
- The Hottie & the Nottie (I'm sorry I do. It's not 1.7/10 bad at any rate)
- The Lake House (I might even go so far as to purchase this on DVD. I really like it and not even in a 'so bad it's good' way but in a 'I like this' way. Even though I can see it's objectively bad. I don't know what to tell you!)
- Loads of stuff I could probably cop some shit for but I'm not necessarily embarrassed about.

Films I refuse to watch on the grounds of human taste and decency
- Most Kevin Spacey films. I kinda like him, I just think he seems to make really bad choices.
- White Chicks. Which Bobbins likes. I rest my case.