Random Recap - The Russell Girl aka When Peasant Smocks Attack

Defining hallmarks (do u c what I did thar?) of TV movies:

- terrible acting/don't-give-a-fuck acting/trying-so-hard-to-make-this-work acting
- familiar faces who are known for better projects appearing possibly for the sake of a paycheck
- plot involving something horrible happening to a female character, often the protagonist
- cheap-looking graphics, titles, sets, actors, etc.
- general apathy from everyone all 'round, viewer included

So, while waiting for Amber Tamblyn to debut on House and possibly make me more interested in watching, I perused her IMDb profile as a means to procrastinate from study (what else is new?) and decided to check out The Russell Girl. Despite its listing as a TV movie, I selectively didn't read that part and in my mind, I somehow decided it was an independent feature that would be very charming in a big-city-girl-returns-to-small-home-town-rediscovers-life kind of way. Yeah, I didn't read the plot either, just judged it straight from its cover:

Oh...dis gonna be goooooood.

Because of formatting issues, the recap resides elsewhere, so follow me.

Quantum of Blah aka Gold Class Cinema is a Sham

After a false start wherein I forgot to bring the tickets with me and had to rush back home to get them, thereby making us miss the opening credits of Quantum of Solace, I eventually sat down to my first Village Gold Class experience. The fact that I have nothing very much to say about it should give y'all an indication of how it was: nothing very much. Sure, the chairs are equipped with a nifty little button so that you can tip it back and forth and recline at your leisure but for someone fidgety like myself, it's only going to serve as a distraction. Oh, and you get a table. With a 'call waiter' button. When pressed, your waiter appears after a speedy 15 or 20 minutes. To take the order you've decided upon after reading the menu by mobile phone light. Menus in a cinema, what a dang bright (pun intended) idea.

"Could we please get the Gold Class tasting plate?"

"Oh, we don't have that today."

The fuck? Do you mean, you don't have any more today because the other FOUR people in this theatre ordered it all before I did? Or do you mean, you don't want to actually prepare the plate for me so you're just going to say you don't have any? Or do you mean, you don't actually stock what's listed in your menu but you can't be bothered taking it off said menu? What's the use of this "ultimate cinematic experience" if it can't even be provided?? Gold Class, peoples! I don't expect service befitting a movie star or royalty but I'd like to be able to pick something off your wanky menu and have it actually be available.

I placed our drinks' order and asked him to wait for a minute while we squinted in the blue light at the fine print. Hem, haw, wedges? Okay, wedges. I turn to tell the waiter our choice only to see the back of him disappearing out the door. Alrighty then. I gotta say, this ultimate in cinema viewing thing? Swanky. And by swanky, I mean the opposite. It's like dining at an expensive restaurant with bad service, but you can't even talk about said bad service because James Bond is busy blowing up your eardrums in surround sound. I don't even know if that last part is oxymoronic.

Speaking of, Quantum of Solace is a ridiculous movie. Ridonkulous, in fact. Actually, I have to admit I'm a Bond novice and this was my deflowering but it's not really a first time I'm going to treasure. I won't even begin asking the multitude of questions I have concerning his ridiculous plights because none of it even makes sense and how is it even possible that he doesn't end up DEAD after all this time but never mind that small detail, folks! Mr. Bond is invincible! And incapable of more than one facial expression.

And it's not even a movie where it's logical to suspend your disbelief, like your Harry Potter films or your Star Wars flicks, where characters can legitimately dodge death because they have MAGIC WANDS and LIGHT SABRES with which to defend themselves. Bond? He gets shot at MULTIPLE TIMES and does not wear a bulletproof vest and somehow manages to never end up with a bullet lodged in some vital organ or main artery. That is LUDICROUS. He gets wedged between a wall and a car and a shower of SHATTERED GLASS pelts down on him. He leaps from balcony to balcony, ledge to ledge, rooftop to rooftop and somehow manages to NOT MISS HIS FOOTING. That is IMPOSSIBLE! And then, sometimes, gravity goes, "Fuck you, Bond!" and tries to plunge him to his death and I start sitting up in my button-controlled chair to take notice. And you know what happens, right? He smashes down onto the pavement with enough force to die or at the very least, BREAK SEVERAL BONES, he rolls around, grabs his gun and TAKES OFF RUNNING AGAIN. Say it with me: RIDICULOUS!

"Grool!"

I love me some Mean Girls. So I'm sitting here, taking a looooong, extended break from study, flipping between the footy (that of the 'Wha-? The boys are trying to win, you say? Well, I never!') and that delightful Lindsay Lohan vehicle that ultimately gave her reason to believe she could run around Hollywood like a crack whore thereafter.

(14 minutes have passed and the boys are down to chasing only 3 points. History-making game right here, y'all.)

Rachel McAdams and her wig are the bomb. And it makes you wish you'd gone up to those Regina Georges in high school and yanked their hair just to see if it too was a wig. Not that I really knew anyone as vindictive as Regina George in high school. Or maybe I did and I'm repressing...no, there were no Reginas. There were definitely Plastics though.

(24 minutes. Trailing by 4. Damn those stupid losers for raising a flare of hope in me!)

In fact, I could probably say I spent an earlier part of high school being part of a Plastics-wannabe group. We weren't in the same bitchy league as Regina George, but we definitely had some Gretchen Weiners's and Karen Smiths.

(27 minutes and it's still by 4. What are they playing at? BASKETBALL CRAP?! Oh Kevin, I miss you.)

Why, oh why, did I waste my time with these insipid twits? I ask myself the same question every now and then, when something arises to stir my memories of those days.

(Oh really? Oh really? 5 points? Full time and Crappy Crows won by 5 points?! What'd they do, basketball it around for 15 minutes only to be able to score a behind? Good job, Radelaide. You have just lost all credibility for letting my boys come THIS CLOSE to beating you and let me tell you, my boys are a pack of whiny sissies, so what does that say about you?!)

I guess the only really good thing about my time as Plastic-wannabe was my fateful discovery of eyeliner. It was bound to happen one day, but being a Plastic wannabe meant I was encouraged to explore Slut Eyes sooner, you know, the better to lord it over the makeup-less nerds and geeks and dorks with (ouch). Eyeliner and I have been BFFL ever since. Clouds and silver linings blah de blah.

(Also, what the fuck? McPhee scored 3? McPhee scored 3?!? What, is it Opposite Day and everyone forgot to tell me?)

Okay, I think I'm pathetically at the end of my blogging tether for tonight. Yeah, I'm disappointed by my effort too.

(Seriously. What. The. Fuck?)