Monday, October 25, 2004

Conspiracy Theory!!

Have you ever wondered to yourself, "How did this crappy TV show/movie/torture device EVER get made?" There’s a reason for everything!

1. From Justin to Kelly: An American Idol Movie
Wow, this movie was bad. If you could call it a movie, or if you could call it "bad" – I’d call it atrocious. Take your pick: Beach ball choreography? Surreal subplots involving dancing waiters? A neverending boat ride where the two amateurtagonists (I wouldn’t call them PROtaganists) hum treacly ballads to one another? A dance routine to "That’s the Way I Like It"? Better yet, stilted dialogue like, "I am genetically incapable of a relationship with a woman"? Take your pick, there are literally hundreds of reasons to hate this film. So, how did it ever get made? An optimist might say it was greed, but I’ve thought of a more sinister reason.

The Culprit: College-age rock snob guys created this film as an insidious plot to get their girlfriends to stop listening to Top 40 music. I bet every 19-year-old girl who saw this film started to listen to Pink Floyd and Zeppelin in order to cleanse their brains.

2. Beverly Hills, 90210
In retrospect, this show sucked like a Hoover on steroids. The hair was always plentiful and gel-frozen. The plots were a universe of random. In the last week of episodes I’ve seen, Kelly attempted to adopt an abandoned baby (abandoned by a teenage Jessica Alba!), David walked away from his big musical break due to a payola scandal, Noah lost a $10 million lawsuit, and Donna got wacky on painkillers and stole another fashion designer’s ideas. Let’s for a moment ignore the fact that, in this show’s world, a 22-year-old is a major fashion designer. Let’s look at why this show was ever made.

The Culprit: Aaron Spelling. This entire show was designed to boost the ego of Tori Spelling. Over the course of 10 years, Donna is stalked on four separate occasions, becomes a model, beds a millionaire or two, and is told 100 times an episode by other characters that she’s beautiful and wonderful. All this for a girl who looks like Donald Duck? Yeah, I’ll put in for conspiracy.

3. "Gigli", "Paycheck", "Surviving Christmas"

Granted, I’ve never seen any of these movies. I’d really rather not make my eyeballs bleed.

The Culprit: All that is good and kind in the world, in an attempt to end the career of Ben Affleck. Right on!

4. "7th Heaven"
Ah, my old favorite. Confused plots, ridiculous moralizing, 27 people living in a parsonage, and characters mysteriously moving to "Florida" (known in the rest of the world as "rehab".)

The Culprit: The atheists. This show makes organized religion seem so uppity, condescending and awful that people who see it leave their church in droves.