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I am a man. I am not ashamed of this, nor am I overly proud of this fact. It has its pluses and minuses, as do all sexes. However, as many men have been known to do, I tend to enjoy a good "Guy's Flick" now and again. Truth told, I dig 'em hard. Many of you loyal and wonderful readers have, on occasion, noted that I should take time out to view and review a more... gentle movie. While normally, I would simply laugh at you and catch the next Jackie Chan flick, I am no longer in control of my own destiny. That is the one of the evils of being bought by a larger, stronger corporation (i.e. The Brunching Shuttlecocks). So now there's money enough for me to buy all the Pixie Sticks I want, but I have to answer to The Man. And The Man said, "See a Chick Flick." So I did. I saw The Locusts. I chose The Locusts because I figured that with a title like "The Locusts," there had to be some killer insect scenes in it somewhere, and hey, who am I to turn down man-eating insects? Sadly, I have been misled. There are no rampaging bugs out to stomp on humanity. (That's next month - Starship Troopers). Instead, get this, the title is a metaphor. Yeah, like I didn't deal with enough of those things in Mrs. Horsewaller's Primary English Class. So here goes. The Locusts is a tender, moving story about some kids, a cattle ranch, some old secrets about sex and a big bull. Not sex with a bull, mind you. This ain't no freak show. Vince Vaughn, who is riding his Swingers fame for all it'll get him, is this lonely drifter who drifts all lonely-like into town. Naturally, he gets a quick job at Kate Capshaw's cattle ranch. Naturally. I mean that's the first place I'd go if I were a drifter. Kate likes him, which annoys the heck out of everyone else. She's also got an "emotionally crippled" son named Flyboy. First rule of child-naming. If you name them Flyboy, they're going to be warped in one way or another. Trust me. Anyway the movie goes on, no one's happy, there's a lot of poetic story-line stuff and no horde of deadly insects anywhere. Bummer. Is it a good movie? It's OK. I mean aside from it being a Chick Flick, it does have some merit. Jeremy Davies, Ashley Judd and Vince Vaughn are all quite good in this. I tell you, Vince is a stud, and we're gonna be seeing a lot more of him in the future. In fact, all of the actor-types are pretty darned good in this...except one. But we can't talk bad about her because we want to work for her husband someday. So there ya go, I'm giving The Locusts 2 1/2 Babylons, plus my ever-elusive "Chick Flick Extra." That means if you really like Chick Flicks, then add a babylon to the score. See? A little something for everyone. OK, now to the big news. We're in Newsweek!!! Well not Self-Made, per se, but one of the other features owned and operated by that glorious conglomerate of comedy, The Brunching Shuttlecocks. Near as I can tell, a totally brilliant Newsweek person took a fancy to us and gave us a really great paragraph in the newest issue, you know the one, it's got the idiot kid on the cover. So here's the thing. I urge everyone to go out and buy 100 or so copies. This way, Newsweek will assume that this incredible boost in sales is because of us, and then they'll send another reporter out to do another story on The Shuttlecocks, this time, perhaps on... oh I don't know, me. Here's the real deal, The Ratings has now been in Newsweek while The Self-Made Critic has been in an independent newspaper in Chico, California. Who do you think got the better slice of that pie? And to top it off, the Newspaper guy never even sent me a copy! I need me some press, or The Ratings people are gonna be gloating at me for the rest of my miserable life. OK, you have your mission. Party on. Editor's Note: *sigh* The issue of Newsweek in question came out on October 27th, 1997. The cover story is called "Kids Who Can't Learn." We're on page 12. It really is a great story. Please ignore The S-M Critic's rather juvenile play for attention. He was dropped on his head a lot as a child. Or at least he should have been. Rated: R |
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