Movies I thought were good but turned out to be bad.

I have always loved movies.  Books too.  I like to escape to a place I will never go and experience a world as a person I will never be.  I am a re-reader.  If I like a book I will read it several times.  If I like a movie I will watch it over and over again.  I have read "Boy's Life" something like 5 times.  I have seen "Dumb and Dumber" over 30 times.  The neat thing about revisiting these classics is catching the little things you missed the first few times.  Like when Lloyd asks the waitress at the diner what the soup dejour is and she says, "It's the soup of the day." completely dead pan.  Lloyd then says, "That sounds good.  I'll have that."  Genius.  Pure GEEENYUSS. 

Good books and good movies get better after repeated readings and viewings.

The opposite is true of bad books and movies. 

I never re-read a bad book.  But I will re-watch a bad movie sometimes because they come on USA or TBS.  One exception to a bad movie getting worse is "Road House".  This is a bad movie but it keeps getting better every time it is on CMT.  It will be late at night and I am getting ready to go to bed and I scan past CMT and see "Roadhouse" on and I know I am up for another 2 hours.  ("Don't eat the big white mint.")

The following is a list of movies I used to think were good but now realize they are bad.

1.  The Notebook:  Good acting.  So-so story.  Rachel McAdams.  What's not to like?  Nobody fights as much as those people and still like each other.  There is one piece of advice I give to dating couples.  If you fight more than you don't it is time to end it.  Because marriage always makes problems go away.  Yeah right.  If this dude had married that girl in the real world he would have killed her before year two was over.  On the bright side neither one of them would have ended up in a nursing home.
I watched this one with Kara.  She said I would like it.  I was crying at the end and she was inconsolable.  I mean she was a wreck.  I hate it when  movie makes me cry about people I don't even like. 

2.  Conan The Barbarian:  I shouldn't have watched this as a kid but I did.  I watched it again this summer.  Ahnuld made this movie before he learned to act.  (Did I actually just type that?)  Anyhow...this was a horrible movie.  At one point he is fighting and he spends 3 minutes of film making Ahnuld noises.  Think the noises he made in Total Recall when he face was getting ready to explode on Mars.  For 3 minutes. 
Best quote from the movie: 
Mongol General: "What is best in life?"

Conan: "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

To hear this line from Ahnuld's mouth is like music.  At least he could say lamentations.

3. Titanic:  Beautiful looking movie.  Great acting.  Good score.  Kate Winslett.  What's not to like?  Just one little thing that ruined the movie for me after thinking about it.  Toward the end of the movie when the old woman is standing on the back of the boat and she takes the necklace and throws it into the ocean.  What a selfish old hag.  I would have loved it if Bill Paxton's character would have walked around the corner about the same time as she was putting the necklace overboard.  Then I would have loved it if he screamed like a crazy person and thrown her after it.  Then throwing stuff at her every time she surfaced.  "Don't even think about coming back aboard until you have a necklace or $20,000,000.  And you did let go.  Hag."

 

4.  Pretty in Pink:  Molly Ringwald whines on the first date almost non-stop.  They get in an argument.  On the first date.  If I'm the rich guy I drop her off in front of her house 20 minutes in. 

There are plenty of others I am sure.  I can't really remember. 

Are there any movies you now realize steam with badness after a repeated viewing?

Post # 100. "I gave my last $10.00 to a hooker."

This is post #100. 99 times before this I have not told this story. My good friends know it. I told it at church one time. From the pulpit.

This happened while Kara and I were still dating so it was at least 14 or 15 years ago. I was living in Bessemer. She was living in Corner. It was late and I was getting off I-59 at 18th street in Bessemer. It was about 2:00 AM. I notice a woman standing on the corner of the ramp and 19th street. She is all alone.

I have a policy. If I have a get a weird feeling about a person needing a ride I trust that hunch. This hunch is something my forebears used to great effectiveness whilst not getting eaten by sabre-tooth tigers.

I do not get the sabre-tooth vibe when I pull up. She is wearing modest jean shorts (Jorts if you will) and an Auburn t-shirt. (I am making up the part about the Auburn t-shirt* but it does add a certain something to the visual doesn't it) She was alone and I thought it was dangerous for her to be standing on the side of the road in Bessemer at 2:00 in the morning. So I roll down the window and ask, "Do you need a ride?"

She said yes and walked around and got in the car. The following is a transcript of the conversation that ensued.

Me: Where are you going.
Her: I don't know. (Pause) So do you want to fool around or something because I need some money.

This is where a good Christian and minister of the Gospel would have stepped up to the plate and walked through the door He opened and shared had the right words to say. Jesus definitely would have had something to say. He did it all the time.

 I'm not sure I'm a good Christian or not. My father is fond of saying he has tried all his life just to be a bad Christian. And the Gospel is not what went through my head. What went through my head was all of the images I have seen of prostitutes on TV. None of those images featured Jorts. Not. Even. One. There was no Huggy Bear standing off to the side. No high heels. Just a woman in Jorts, Auburn t-shirt, and tennis shoes.

(Transcript continued)

Me: No ma'am. (There's no point in being rude and forgetting my manners is there?)

Me: Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat?

Her: Yes.

So I pulled into a convenience store not far down the road and reached for my wallet. All I had was $10.00. I gave it to her and drove away, mind reeling.

I had just been solicited by a prostitute. Not only that I had been solicited by a prostitute in my car. At 2:00 in the morning.

It is early Sunday morning and I go home and go to sleep. I wake up and go to church and never once tell anyone my story of the night before. My mother was at church that morning. After the service she asked if I wanted to go and get something to eat. I had been waiting to unleash the line in my head all morning and here was the chance.

Me: Yes but you are going to have to pay for it. I don't have any money because I gave my last $10.00 to a hooker last night."

There were several people standing around while this line hit the air. Everyone stopped what they were talking about and looked at me. Including my pastor, Roy Hill. I told the story of being propositioned and relayed my shock at how she did not look like anything I had expected. Nothing like Starskey and Hutch. That was when a woman I went to high school with delivered the best line on the subject.

"You didn't even get a back rub?"

* Note:  The woman holding the Auburn T-Shirt is Kathryn Tucker Windham of Thirteen Ghosts of Alabama fame.  This was chilling stuff for a small tike like me back in the day @ Greenwood Elementary.

My Very First Web Giveaway

I am a sucker for a good story.  Everyone has at one good one.  My father is an encyclopedia of stories about flying planes dangerously.  He and a companion we beat up by a bar full of people that wanted them to bleed.  Bill says that before he blocked out he saw round face and punched it.  As he was coming to he was being dragged out of the bar.  One of the dudes mentioned that he was a heavy son of bad word some people call women.  He has had a beer or 10 with Truman Capote at the Tide and Tiger out side of Legion field in Birmingham.

My stories pale in comparison.

But I do have stories that are funny.  People I have met in nearly 20 years of ministry that crack me up.  And not in a good way.  I have met ministers that I wanted to punch out and I have met sincere brothers and sisters that still make me feel inadequate to the task given me. 

I have loved a few women that broke my heart and found one that put it back together so it fits nicely with hers. 

These are stories that we all have in us. They just want to get out. 

Herein lies my challenge to you dear reader: 
1.  Send me a story.  Let it be honest.  It doesn't have to be a long one.  It doesn't have to be short.  It has to be true. 
2.  If the story invovles me and I did something that changed you life, good or bad, you will get extra points.
3.  If you follow The Blog-o-Log you get extra points.
4.  If you follow me on the Twitter you get extra point and extra nuggets of widsom for your day.  Win/win in my book.

The Prize will be a paper back copy of my favorite book, "Boy's Life." by Robert McCammon.  He is a local writer who made it big telling stories of horror.  "Boy's Life." is nothing like the rest of his cataloge.

The winner will have this book signed (by me of course because I don't know Bobby Mac at all.

Deadline for submissions will be September 10 and precisely 5:17.

These stories need to be told.

Vaya con Dios mis amigos.

Joseph