Worst of the Worst: #5, National Lampoon's Gold Diggers

I seem to remember National Lampoon magazine as being that dirty magazine that, as kids, we'd look at in the library for a laugh. Don't know if it was actually funny. National Lampoon did present Animal House and the Vacation series, but what happened? Apparently, the company got re-formed around eight years ago to produce their own entertainment and it's been miserable. Supposedly their website is funny, but I follow their sports jokes on Twitter and they are horribly unfunny. In fact, I'm now going to unfollow them because of this piece of s*** movie. I don't know that this was ever a great brand name, but it now stands for garbage.

The older brother from Boy Meets World and the Sherminator from American Pie (how's that for pedigree?) star as two loser friends who decide to marry two older women in order to steal their money. The older women don't actually have any money and marry the two younger men to take out insurance and kill them. What follows is such an incredible menagerie of failed gags that, by the end, I alternated between counting the minutes until the movie was over (out loud) and slamming the remote against the couch in frustration. I'm not joking; I did both those things. Garbage.

Somehow, this movie opened on 1,000 screens back in 2004 and it made around $400,000 in its first weekend and an additional $120,000 in its second and final weekend. $400 per screen. The average movie ticket price in 2004 was $6.21, so that works out to 64 people per screen. I don't know how this didn't go direct to DVD. I don't know how this didn't go direct to the toilet. One critic on Rotten Tomatoes said, "If you watch this movie, you are an idiot." Guilty.

Idol Chatter

One day of Passover, arguably the most important Jewish holiday, in the books but now it's time to once again be enslaved to American Idol's suckiness. If only one of them sang on key, dayenu:

• Siobhan Magnus, singing Chaka Khan's "Through the Fire": When someone brings her pancakes, she just sips the syzurp. Uncharacteristically rough beginning from one of the favorites. Sleepy, and then it got worse... This was really freaking awful. I wish her mouth had been wired shut for this. This is a bad portent for the night. Ten not-so-great singers, ten plagues. Sounds like fate! Siobhan is the plague of cattle disease, because I can only imagine that a cow's pain-driven screams sound about as good as tonight's screeches.
• Casey James, singing Sam and Dave's "Hold On, I'm Comin'": Way too smiley. He still has too much vibrato. I can't quite tell if I like him or not. He can play the guitar play well, but he doesn't really ever challenge his voice at all. I feel like he yells the songs. Just hard to take him seriously when he smiles as much as he did tonight. He played with his hair a bit tonight and earned himself the plague of lice.
• Michael.Lynche, singing India.Arie's "Ready for Love": Solid, but boring. Par for the course for Big Mike. It was fine. I'll give him the plague of darkness, because I was unable to see once my eyelids locked shut halfway through the song.
• Didi Benami, singing Jimmy Ruffin's "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted": She looked kind of rough in the Usher part, even before she started crying. She has as much soul as the cast of Night of the Living Dead. Her voice is okay, but this was really Broadway. Her phrasing was awful and for a song that is apparently so emotional, it sounded pretty fake. Ryan tried to make her cry, which was obnoxious, but the tears came falling, just like the plague of hail.
• Tim Urban, singing Anita Baker's "Sweet Love": I'm concerned that he's not going to do well by such a melodic song. Okay, to be fair, he wouldn't do well by "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Here's a tip-off: when the singer is off-key in the rehearsal video, you're in for a disaster. Not only did he struggle with key, as usual, but this is the guy with the least soul of any of the contestants. A list of people with more soul include Rasputin, the skeleton in an anatomy classroom, and Didi Benami. He's the plague of frogs, because his Idol career has croaked. Yep, I did that.
• Between the interviews, the time-killing, and then Ryan being obliquely racist, I'm having a major problem with tonight's episode.
• Andrew Garcia, singing Chris Brown's "Forever": I'm done with him. Sure, he was a little better than usual, but I'm still done. I expected him to beat up this song, but he didn't really abuse it at all. So often this year, he's given his performances a black eye to the point that I thought he should be arrested for domestic violence against music, but this week wasn't as bad. Still done with him. The plague of flies, because his music is just so much insignificant buzzing to my ears at this point.
• Katie Stevens, singing Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools": One would think that Katie Stevens singing an Aretha Franklin song would be a really, really bad idea. One would be right. My wife notes that Katie was channeling Katherine McPhee a little bit and I totally agree. I was never a big McPhee fan (though she acted surprisingly well on Community a few weeks ago), but her voice was better than Katie's here. Just too much song for her. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but it was just not a good song choice. I'll say the plague of blood, because my blood ran cold when I saw she was going to be doing this song.
• Lee DeWyze, singing the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose's "Treat Her Like a Lady": I said last week that I kind of liked Lee and I thought this was the best performance of the night. Not the kind of thing that wins this show, but very enjoyable. He did a song that nobody had ever heard before, which was a huge plus. I'm going to give him the plague of boils, because this was hot! That made no sense.
• Crystal Bowersox, singing Gladys Knight and the Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia": I made the mistake of watching a clip of Gladys Knight singing this just a few minutes ago and there's no chance that Crystal can live up to that. I always think, when watching this show, that you have to take into account how these performances stack up (or often don't) to the original recordings. But, but! She may have even a better voice than I thought she did. A big change-up for her and it totally worked. As far as I'm concerned, this whole thing remains hers to lose. She's swarming these fools like a pack of locusts, so I'll give her that one. (I was going to give her "lice" originally, but her hair actually looked relatively nice.)
• Aaron Kelly, singing Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine": Aaron's voice is big enough for this song, right? Right? Just another song that needs considerably more feeling than the young MPM is capable of providing. Singing a soul song with a hoodie and a Bob's Big Boy haircut. Out of control, rough phrasing, missing the key left and right. He's killing the show. He's the angel of death of the show. The last contestant gets the final plague, that of the firstborn (since I'm firstborn and I cannot stand him).

Lost Comments/ Questions:

• As one would expect, it was a setup episode after last week's was so meaty.
• I especially like it wheV
• You know, the part when SuV
• So, yeah, it was pretty grV

Notes

Couple of things besides the Final Four being complete, Duke screwing me out of a good amount of money, and it being set up next weekend with three good guys and a bad guy.

Went yesterday to go see Hot Tub Time Machine. It was a little awkward at the box office to ask for the movie by name, especially when the guy (supposedly) didn't hear me the first time I said it. Anyway, I got the tickets, sat down with raised expectations because of good reviews, and... I freaking loved it. It is laugh-out-loud funny almost throughout the entire movie. I looked up Rob Corddry's resume on IMDB and saw that the only big movie role he had ever really had was in Harold and Kumar Escape Guantanamo Bay. Surprising, because he absolutely steals this movie. Everyone in it is funny, but he's the funniest. It may not be funnier than The Hangover, but it may be in that conversation and it definitely has funnier single lines. On top of that, it has a Back to the Future spoof in one scene that had me rolling. You want a good old profane R-rated movie with sex and sex jokes and people getting drunk until they puke? Go see it. Added bonus: Billy Zabka has a small role!

During halftime of one of the games today, I was searching through On Demand and came across a collection of some songs from VH1's Storytellers. I watched the performance of the Foo Fighters' "Big Me", which I highly recommend because it includes a well-told and very, very funny story. I watched a couple of other ones and for "This Is a Call," Dave Grohl talks about how it was his first single and how, when he cut it, he could never have imagined talking about it fifteen years later. The Foo Fighters have been around for fifteen years! Which brought me to this question: Could one consider the Foo Fighters a greater band than Nirvana? On one hand, Nirvana is known for their influence in making grunge music popular. On the other hand, the Foo Fighters have been around for much longer and have had many more hits. Sure, Cobain is considered a genius, but is that only because he's dead? I think I come down on the side of Nirvana, but it's not cut-and-dry and that's not something we could have foreseen fifteen years ago.

The Final Half

Kansas going out wrecked everyone's bracket, but the craziness continued as all of the 1-seeds besides Duke are now gone (and Duke may very well lose tomorrow). My biggest Cinderella team, Butler, has now made it to the Final Four. Those games, next weekend, are being played in Indianapolis and the host school is, er, Butler. Think they may have chance to win it all in front of a raucous home crowd?

In the other game of the night, West Virginia advanced to the Final Four even though they had zero two-point field goals in the first half. Zero. I didn't believe in Kentucky because I didn't think they shot well enough from outside and I was positive that their lack of experience would show up. Sure enough, they missed their first twenty three-point shots and they exhibited a dearth of mental toughness. John Wall ends his brief college career by being outplayed by a guy who wasn't even starting two games ago.

Even with my brackets wrecked last week, I still have a chance to come out on top. It looks like if Baylor can win tomorrow and anyone but WVU wins the champsionship, I could win all of my pools and be in line for a nice payday. Which means that Duke is going to screw it up for me, as usual.

Worst of the Worst: #77, Date Movie

This was the last of the ____ Movie franchise that I have to watch. Thank God. I think it was the worst one, if it's possible to differentiate between varieties of shit.

Madness

I didn't post last night because the basketball ended so late. Nothing I could write would be as interesting as if you just went and found highlights of Butler's win over Syracuse (remember how high I've been on Butler all year) and the Xavier-Kansas State game, which was one of the great tournament games ever. Think clutch shooting, impossible 3-point shots, two overtimes, and the great Gus Johnson calling it all. Tonight, my two other favorite mid-majors go and both Northern Iowa and St. Mary's have real shots at going to the Final Four. The best NCAA tourney in recent memory rolls on.

Also, today starts two straight weeks without work, so I'm going to try to make a serious dent in the "Worst of the Worst" list. Any ideas, beside the cherry blossoms, on what to do for two weeks?

El Tiene Demencia De Espacio

• The Monologue:
• An island in the Bay of Bengal just disappeared. It was located at 4815 degrees south, 162342 degrees east.
• Justin Bieber's (who I seriously wouldn't have ever heard of if he wasn't one of the perpetual "trending topics" on Twitter) manager got arrested. Thank God; now it's time to go after Miley Cyrus' and Demi Lovato's.
• Singer Akon had to postpone a concert in Sri Lanka after his music video was deemed offensive to Buddhists. This comes on the tails of a controversy last year when he gave tax advice to a pimp and prostitute.
• Random Pop Culture:
• Paige Miles went home. Yawn. The big thing on the Idol results show was the horrible performances. Tonight marks the second time that I've watched the crappy group song and the second time that they've used autotune in said song. I know they're bad, but really? And Demi Lovato could actually use the help; she was really off-key in her duet with the Brother Jonas (I only watched like ten seconds of it though).
• Another great Survivor episode, but this one included a truly bone-headed move. Boston Rob set up Russell, Russell saw through it, Boston Rob anticipated Russell's move and set up the perfect strategy. And Tyson screwed it all up by trusting Russell for no apparent reason. At least it only cost him his game and not anybody else's.
• No more picks, but I don't see why Northern Iowa can't make the Final Four. I may actually think they're the best team left in that bracket.
• Random Movie Scene:
• I just can not get enough of it. Humor me.