Guest Ruin: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Remember "The X-Files"? That was a fun show. You know what's not so fun? Paying 7 bucks (it was a matinee) to see a lousy remake of a cherished part of your adolescent nostalgia. The truth is out there.

Okay, let's get to it. Years have passed. Our heroes are older, wiser and more conflicted than ever. I don't know what happened with the whole "conspiracy" nonsense, but Mulder and Scully have been run out of the FBI. Scully is an ace surgeon. Mulder sports a beard, chews sunflower seeds and, taking a page from Mel Gibson's book, spends his days clipping newspaper articles about strange phenomena and government conspiracies. All is well until Scully is approached by an FBI agent, played by Amanda Peet, who needs help with a case. Women have gone missing, including a colleague of Peet's, and a psychic has offered to help. By the way, the psychic is an ex-priest. A pedophile ex-priest. (Cue pedophile priest jokes...now!) Peet has studied Mulder's work and figures he'll be able to handle the priest. Mulder shaves, signifying his readiness to again associate himself with the bureau. Peet touches the spot where he nicked himself; Scully watches with narrowed eyes. Drama.

Anyway, through a series of improbable twists, Mulder cracks the case, but not before Peet is shoved down an open elevator shaft and impaled on some rebar sticking through the concrete floor. (Oh, and the priest dies of lung cancer. It's ironic because: 1. He deserves it, and 2. He's psychic, but he didn't see that coming!) Mulder stumbles into a makeshift hospital in rural West Virginia, kills a two-headed dog, and discovers that Russian doctors are using body parts from the kidnap victims to keep a Russian dude with some freaky disease alive. Why? Good question...it seems to have something to do with another Russian guy, who is his lover. Mulder is overcome by the surgeons, and Ruskie #2 is about to chop him up with an axe when Scully and Skinner save the day. How did they know where to find Mulder in the middle of snow-covered rural West Virginia? After the two-headed dog, it's probably best not to worry about things like that. So Skinner busts the Russians, and Mulder and Scully agree to get away from "the darkness" for a while. They kiss, for like the millionth time. C'mon...it's just weird seeing that.

Conclusion: I saw this movie while hungover. It is probably best to see it before the more pleasant effects of drunkenness have worn off.

The Messengers

The drawback to finally ordering cable tv is I get 200+ channels of programming and still watch the same episodes of Law & Order and Family Guy I could have watched on normal broadcast television. The upside, without a doubt, is on demand. I now have access to more dumb movies than I could possibly have dreamt before. Robocop 3, anyone? Watched it recently. Who could blame Peter Weller for not donning that outfit for a second sequel. But on to the point of this shitty missive -

The Messengers is a textbook horror stinker for the new millenium. I don't know who writes this schlock these days, but CALL ME. I have 8 million retarded ideas and each is priced to move. The Messengers is up there with The Grudge, The Ring, The Eye, and all other 'The ___________" movies. As you might have surmised from such company, it is terrible.

Long story short

Haunted house - only little kid can see ghosts - ghosts terrorize troubled teenage daughter - I fall asleep on the couch for twenty minutes - daughter is attacked by ghost child - turns out the farm hand killed his family in house - farmhand attacks family - family hides in basement - ghosts in floor of basement pull crazed farmhandin mudpit/portal to netherworld.

Fin.

(fart sound)

Guest Ruin: The Mist, by Rebecca

I'm going to try not to insult anyone. Ruining the ending of a Stephen King movie is like ruining the end of a bus schedule: it'll get there, it just might be a few minutes late.

As usual, our hero (Thomas Jane...punishing) is a city-boy artist who has relocated to a New England hill town to cultivate his talents and raise a family. As usual, a New England hill town is ground zero for an interdimensional scrub match. Seems the local military base has been experimenting with "opening a window" to another dimension. The window is "broken" during a severe thunderstorm, and huge, flesh-hungry monsters seep through in a misty medium. The usual types are trapped in a grocery store to wait it out. And, as usual, the black characters are quickly dispatched when they try to leave the store. Insult to injury, TJ tries to get them to stay by offering barbequed chicken. Then Marcia Gay Hard-on goes all righteous and gets shot in the head. And oh my god, at the very very end, TJ shoots his son so the aliens won't get him. 5 minutes later, the mist clears and the military comes to the rescue! As we say in the hills, "Whooda thunk?"

BONUS RUIN: Stephen King's Life

Stephen King enters inpatient treatment for severe neurological effects of undiagnosed Lyme disease. The tick, a resident of Ogunquit, Maine, says that he settled behind the bestselling author’s ear during a summer he describes as "sweaty, but prolific." A representative of an unofficial Steven King fansite reports that he is deeply saddened by the news and ashamed for not having recognized Dreamcatcher as a clear indicator of Mr. King's condition.

Hancock

Hancock finds out he is immortal and had previously been married to Charlize Theron, who also an immortal superperson in the movie, is married to Jason Bateman's character. Like a real married couple, prolonged close-proximity drains each of them of their greatness and powers, and Hancock is forced to re-locate to the East Coast so that they can both go on living normal lives. There's some subplot about a jail break and attempt on Hancock's life, but what I just divulged is what you're really supposed to learn from this movie. Trust me.

After the credits begin rolling, there's an extra scene where a criminal calls Hancock 'handjob'. Not only did I find this joke enormously funny, but a very yound child in the row before me said aloud, 'he said handjob'. This was far and away funnier than the original joke. Children grow up so quickly these days.

Diary Of The Dead

PUT THE CAMERA DOWN, ASSHOLE.

I swear if I'm ever in some survival situation and someone I'm with insists on documenting it with a camera, I will not be pleased at all. That being said, the most gratifying moment of this film, as with Cloverfield, is the scene toward the end in which the chuckle who films everything is attacked by a zombie and has to be put down by his girlfriend.

This movie really sucked and making it all the way through merits some reward for me. In the end the few remaining kids lock themselves in the panic room of the rich kids house, and there's some goofy monologue about whether or not humanity is truly worth saving. GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. On top of that doozie, there was some lesson in here about the media, which I purposefully ignored because I am not taking lessons about the world from a zombie movie.