A Guys Guide to Surviving Sex and The City 2 

By Blake Townsley

Howdy, friends, and happy Memorial Day Weekend to all of you. I’m hoping everyone’s getting ready for the official start of summer, and planning on getting out there and safely enjoying yourselves. Unfortunately, I think that too many guys out there are unknowingly headed towards a catastrophic disaster of a weekend, and I want to take some time to warn y’all before it’s too late. 

I’m speaking of course about the Sex and the City 2 movie that opens this weekend. I don’t know how much attention the fellas have been paying, but if my Facebook feed is any indication, this is going to be the highest grossing movie of all time in about four days. I’ve been getting notices for four weeks in the vein of, “OMG, just bought my SATC2 tickets for a night out with the girls. Can’t wait!!!” That way lies damnation, gents.  

Like most of you with the Y chromosome, I am utterly baffled by the excitement surrounding this movie. The critical reviews are nearly universal in panning everything about it, and with what seems like good reason. To me it looks like a cross between Ishtar and a drag show produced by the mentally infirm, with a plot written by an English class of gay racist tweens. As near as I can tell, however, Sex and the City has two things going for it as a franchise, shoe porn and female bonding. Those are some powerful forces at work. That means the ladies are going to see it, and you’re probably going to be forced to talk about it, or hear about it in the near future. In order to help you survive this ordeal, I’m going to provide the greatest public service I possibly can, The Guy’s Guide to Surviving SATC2, in easy to read question-and-answer format. As always, all questions and answers are totally made up.  

Q: Blake, I’ve never heard of Sex and the City. What is it?

A: It used to be an HBO show about four women living in New York City, and their relationship travails. The four women can be loosely categorized as the romantic, the workaholic, the sexually voracious one, and the one who wore a flowerpot on her head to the premiere of the first movie. 

Q: It sounds…weird.

A: It sorta was, but it didn’t really start out as horrendously as its current incarnation. The show used to be somewhat entertaining, and sometimes you’d get to see some boob. Or the chick from Mannequin proving how flexible she was.

Q: So why does this girl I’m interested in want to see the movie so much if it’s as terrible as it sounds?

A: It’s kind of like a high school reunion. It sounds like a good idea at the time. You’ll get to see old friends, and reminisce about what things were like in the good old days. Also, as I mentioned above, ladies love shoe porn and stories about tightly-knit friendships amongst women who will always love each other. 

Q: Wow! Both of those things sound hot, but what is shoe porn exactly?

A: Neither is exciting as it sounds. Shoe porn, much like real porn, is the gratuitous display of ridiculous things you would never do in real life. In the case of SATC2, this involves ridiculous shoes that cost more than a monthly mortgage payment, and $20,000 dresses. It’s basically a shopping fantasy. 

Q: BORING!

A: I’m with you on that one, pal. Believe me. 

Q: So what if this girl I’m dating asks me to go see the movie with her?

A: Make up any excuse you can think of to get out of it, my friend. Tell her you’d rather she share that experience with her girlfriends. Tell her you’d rather have a Memorial Day barbecue. Tell her you’ve suddenly become really interested in watching the Stanley Cup Finals, and can’t make it. Tell her your dog drove your parents off a cliff, Toonces-style, and you have to preside over three funerals this weekend. Basically, tell her anything you can to get out of it. 

Q: What if she says she really wants me to go see it with her, and she’ll have sex with me afterwards?

A: Ouch, that’s a real Sophie’s Choice right there. I mean, you’d think the no-brainer choice would be sex, right? WRONG! I’m telling you right now there is no way you’ll feel like having sex after having gouged your eyes out with the popcorn bucket.

Q: I’m scared, Blake.

A: Me too, buddy. Me too.  

Q: So what should I do?

A: The best thing you can do, fight fire with fire. If this is a girl you’re serious about, tell her the truth, that you’re not really interested in seeing the movie, but you will anyway because you like her. And then make plans to see a movie of your choice later in the year. I’m recommending the A-Team. If she likes you, she’ll appreciate that you’re thinking about your future together. If she doesn’t, she’ll probably dump you right then, and then you won’t have to go see the movie. Everybody wins!

Until next week, kids, take care!

(Credits: Image by lorenzinhos)

MACGRUBER!

By Blake Townsley

Howdy folks, and welcome to the Friday pop culture roundup. This week, I’m here to talk about my favorite movie of 2010. Or at least, I’m assuming it will be once I actually see it. You see, I’ve totally bought in to the MacGruber hype. For the first time in my life, I believe everything being said by people who are handsomely rewarded when the movie does well: writers, producers, actors, and Jimmy Fallon. I read the marketing blurbs and I totally abandon my normal, overly critical take on marketing blurbs. Roger Ebert vaguely complains on Twitter that critics aren’t being allowed to see the movie until the night before it releases, and I don’t stop to wonder why. 

Until I recently stopped to wonder why.  

I was having lunch with a friend earlier this week, one with whom I’ve seen possibly hundreds of movies with in the past six years. I excitedly asked her if she wanted to see MacGruber with me this weekend, expecting her enthusiasm to not quite match mine, but to exist in detectable amounts.  

“Nope, not interested.”

Umm, what? This was the woman who forced me to pay to see Saw, the most laughably-acted movie of the decade, infamous for being the film that caused us to enact a movie-going quid pro quo. The deal allows each of us to pick one or two movies a year that the other one has to go see, no questions asked. That’s how I ended up seeing It’s Complicated in the theater, and she ended up seeing A Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. 

So in that moment at lunch, I thought about cashing in my first Saw card of 2010. But before I did, I got mad that she wasn’t into seeing it. I mean, it looks hilarious right?

“I don’t know, it’s a Saturday Night Live movie. It doesn’t look funny. At all.”

I gotta tell you, it really took the wind out of my sails. I mean, sure, MacGruber wasn’t the most intellectual sketch of all-time, but neither was Wayne’s World. I don’t know how popular it really is among the masses, but the fake theme song (MACGRUBER!!!) and writing always made me laugh, especially when they brought in the inspiration, Richard Dean Anderson, to play MacGruber’s dad on an episode of Saturday Night Live earlier this season. 

But a couple things have started to make me nervous. First, the dreaded tag of “Saturday Night Live Movie.” For every Wayne’s World or Blues Brothers, there’s ten movies like Superstar, Blues Brothers 2000, A Night At The Roxbury, The Ladies’ Man, etc. The good people over at SNL aren’t knocking ‘em out of the ballpark. Secondly, the fact that professional reviewers haven’t exactly been granted full access to the movie ahead of time scares me just a bit. It reeks just a tiny bit of desperation for a big opening weekend before anyone finds out how bad the movie really is. It’s one thing to hear that Roger Ebert likes the movie, quite another to find out that some random blogger on the Internet was amused by it. I know for a fact those guys and gals are mostly unreliable consumers of pop culture with weird, nerdy taste in movies, music and tv shows. 

So what’s the plan here, you ask? Like Winston Churchill would have wanted, I’m going to press ahead despite my uncertainty. I may be going alone to the theater, but that just means I get to tell all my friends about what an awesome movie they’ve missed. And it means I get to use the first Saw card of the year on Tron: Legacy. 

Until next week, y’all, have a great weekend!

(Credits: Image by Focal Intent)

When Heidi Montag Beats Lindsay Lohan

By Blake Townsely 

Howdy folks, and welcome back to another edition of the Pickv pop culture corner.  This week at Pickv a theme developed among the bloggers, albeit not necessarily on purpose. In addition to some great advice from Magic and Samantha on how best to behave, Scherry and Damon had some excellent tips on things you should avoid in your dating life. So continuing with the advice-on-behavior theme of the week, I’m here with some more advice for a very specific person, one who’s been in the tabloids a LOT this week, Miss Lindsay Dee Lohan. 

If y’all have been paying attention as closely as I do, it’s been quite the week for our ginger friend. Her dad showed up at her place with the cops in tow threatening a Spearsian conservatorship, which led to a bitchy exchange of commentary on Twitter, and an utter lack of follow through by her famewhoring (and let’s face it, also a bit of regular whoring) dad. Lindsay’s mom, Dina, arrived in LA to make sure her little moneymaking trainwreck attended a court hearing after missing the first two, knowing that a third absence would mean an automatic judgment against Lilo and an end to the halcyon days of that sweet, sweet Disney money. Good news, right? You would guess those are the actions of a responsible mother making sure her offspring behaves in a socially acceptable manner, huh?

Wrong. 

Lindsay and her mom were spotted drinking at an LA club until two in the morning the night before the hearing was supposed to start. I’m guessing Dina didn’t pick up the tab. While some progress was made in that Lilo actually showed up for this one, I’m not exactly impressed since the heavy odds are that she’s going to lose the case even if she shows up for every hearing. Hell, she could go dressed as a nun with Michelle Obama, Oprah and a miraculously-recovered Bret Michaels in tow and I’d still bet against her winning this case, even if the judge was a Democratic book-club member with a fondness for the upbeat message of Unskinny Bop. 

I’m actually hoping Lindsay does lose the case, since I think it’ll be fascinating to see how she’d pay off a civil judgment of any significant size. If the rumors can be believed, Lindsay’s racked up credit card debt in the six figures, which is never a good sign when your last project was a straight-to-TV movie for Lifetime. Appearance fees for her aren’t exactly rolling in since word got around about what a pain in the ass she is to work with. I’m guessing the residuals from Mean Girls and The Parent Trap ain’t what they used to be either. It’s gotta be awkward for Disney and the TV networks to screen those for the public, since it’s impossible to watch one of her movies and not see today’s spoiled Hollywood brat with a Kirstie Alley-sized sense of entitlement and a problem holding her liquor. It just absolutely ruins Herbie Fully Loaded for me every time I pop in the DVD. 

So at this point you might ask, gee Blake, is there any good news for Lindsay on the horizon? Your answer? Of course there is! An actress as talented as Lilo surely won’t go unemployed for long! Her IMDB page looks to have a steady amount of work on it over the past few years! She was on Ugly Betty! And the good news is this, kids. Lindsay did announce a new role this week. She’s gonna play porn star Linda Lovelace in a friend’s indie movie about the making of Deep Throat. 

The bad news is this: I’d bet this week’s paycheck that there is no way this movie ever sees the light of day. Between the lack of studio backing and the fact that Lindsay’s track record for recent projects is less than stellar, I’m guessing this is another publicity stunt designed to convince her creditors to back off for another couple of weeks. 

At this point, I think Lindsay would probably be better off actually doing porn. At least she could command a tremendous sum of money for very little time out of her partying schedule. Hell, a Playboy shoot alone would probably net her somewhere in the high six figures. Somebody’s gotta pay those bills, and there’s no way in hell she’s getting a real acting job until she hits rock bottom and cleans herself up. 

You know what the sad thing is? I’m not really serious about suggesting Lindsay pose naked, but it certainly feels like it’s headed that way doesn’t it? I mean, even Heidi Montag, that brainless, vacuous dolt, has a more credible career at this point. Come on, Lohan! Did you see what I just wrote?! Heidi Montag is beating you in the game of life! Pull yourself together! Prior to your decision that the world exists to serve at your whim, your acting ability garnered the highest praise from Meryl Streep. Meryl Streep thinks that at one point you were in command of the art form of acting! Stop wasting your talent! 

Unfortunately, I don’t think Lindsay has the self-awareness to realize anything is wrong. She was quoted a few years ago as saying that she wants to end up like Marilyn Monroe, an icon who died before her time. It was this sort of idiotic thinking that caused me to use a very high selection on Lindsay in my annual friends-and-family celebrity death pool. At the time I congratulated myself on a savvy pick, but now it just feels dirty, and this is coming from the guy who picked Patrick Swayze with no remorse whatsoever. 

So what’s the takeaway here, loyal readers? Lesson number one, don’t do cocaine. There’s a reason Rick James couldn’t handle it, and if Rick James can’t believe how destructive it is, just shout “Amen!” and move on. Lesson number two, if you happen to run into Lindsay on the street or at a bar, give her a hug from me and tell her it doesn’t have to be like this. Then knock her down, take her cocaine and run for all you’re worth, for you will have awakened the fury of hell and she will chase you to the ends of the block to enact vengeance. If you can get Ali out of there to a shelter of some sort in the process, so much the better.  Lesson number three, don’t mess with me in a celebrity death pool, for I have no conscience whatsoever, and I really like winning stuff. 

Until next week, folks. Have a good one. 

(Credits: Image by Hot Rod Homepage)