bgbm

So my roommate and I decided that Oscar weekend was the perfect time to venture out and see a film that received only a 6% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  That film was The Roommate.  While we love bad movies, it's not often that we pay to see them in theaters.  Usually we and some other friends relegate them to something called bgbm.  The "bgbm" stands for "bad girls, bad movies" and while I'm still a little unclear about the bad girls part (maybe because we make rude comments?), the bad movies began in 2007 with 50 First Dates and have gone on to include It's Alive, The Room, I Know Who Killed Me, Troll 2, Gymkata, Leprechaun 5: In the Hood, and even one called The Oscar.

Some were not so bad (Death to Smoochy, Spice World).  Others were so terrible they could only be categorized as mind-numbingly dull and not even worth making fun of (*cough Glitter cough*).  And yet others were remarkable because of the discovery of people who are famous now but at one time were attached to schlock like this (google The Apple and Nigel Lythgoe).

While we're on the subject of bad movies, might I also suggest that there is a fourth category which could be labeled "Movies I Am Ashamed to Admit I Love"?  These are movies that I acknowledge are not paragons of cinema, yet every time they are on TV I have to watch or record them.  You could also call it Jurassic Park Syndrome, but that movie is EXCELLENT.

For me, probably the best example of MIAATAIL would be Where the Heart Is.  That movie . . . where do I even begin?  It has everything:  an all-star cast, babies born in Wal-mart, tornadoes, kidnapping, children named after snack foods, bad southern accents, librarian alcoholism, deadbeat dads getting hit by trains . . . and I love it.  It fascinates me.  I will never get tired of watching this movie.  The only reason I would ever change the channel when it's on is if my roommate walks into the room, and even then I usually make her watch about 10 minutes of it, depending on if Natalie Portman had the Wal-mart baby yet.

So there you have it.  If you, too, would like to start your own bgbm (or bbbm), email me and I'll give you a starter list of movies free of charge.

Oh and hey!  Today is Dr. Seuss's birthday!  Enjoy:

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons, and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn’t a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one, and calls out “Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!” she doesn’t get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves’
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn.
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O’Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate…
But she didn’t do it. And now it’s too late.

Cannibals and pineapples

Because it is Monday, and I think we all need a bit of a pick-me-up, I'm going to share my second favorite joke with you.  It goes like this:

There were three men who were lost in the jungle.  They were captured by cannibals.  The cannibal king told the prisoners that they could live if they pass a test.  The first part of the test was to go into the jungle and get ten pieces of the same kind of fruit. So all three men went their separate ways to gather fruits.

The first one came back and said to the king, "I brought ten apples."

The king then explains the rest of the test to him: you have to shove all ten fruits up your butt without any expression on your face or you'll be eaten.

The first apple went in...but on the second one he winced in pain, so he was killed and went to heaven.

The second guy arrives with ten berries. When the king explained the test to him, he thought to himself that this should be easy. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...but on the ninth berry he burst out laughing and therefore also was killed.

The first guy and the second guy met up in heaven.  The first one said, "You almost made it.  Why did you laugh?"

The second one replied, "I couldn't help it.   I saw the third guy walking up with ten pineapples."

It's silly, but I can't help but giggle every time I read it.  Two things made me think of that joke.  One was that my roommate challenged me to write about pineapples, and the other was that I found an old email (yes, my favorite past time) with this poem attached:

Fork

by Charles Simic 

This strange thing must have crept
Right out of hell.
It resembles a bird’s foot
Worn around the cannibal’s neck.

As you hold it in your hand,
As you stab with it into a piece of meat,
It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird:
Its head which like your fist
Is large, bald, beakless and blind.


In the email, my friend said he thought of me as soon as he read it but that he wasn't sure what that said about me or him for that matter.  I think it says that I love a good cannibal joke. 

And in case you were wondering, my number one favorite joke goes, What did the fish say to the concrete wall? 


"Dam."