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July 24, 2006

And Scene...

J’s been asking me to go see Pirates of the Caribbean with him for days now. I refuse, and he knows why so I don’t know why he keeps on pressing me.

First of all, I’m not a movie person really. I had a Netflix account but supreme laziness – seriously, how hard is it to put the disc in the sleeve and put the sleeve in the mailbox? That, combined with only wanting to see all the Jem and the Holograms episodes and Breakin’ repeatedly means I was wasting my money.

Secondly I can’t, for the life of me, suspend my system of belief. Not even for a moment. Say for example, J and I are attempting to watch Troy. He’ll say, “Yo, even I think Brad Pitt is hot so it’s cool. Let’s please just watch this. I think you’ll like it.” I’ll say no. And he’ll put it on anyway and I will ruin it for him, just like I always do, because I said I want to watch HGTVs Designed to Sell and that’s it! I love you Clive.

How do I ruin it? Oh, well I point out all the reasons why this movie is crazy, thus the entire world and the whole movie-making industry is insane and how have we, two supposedly intelligent people, succumb to this!

For example, I know for a fact that the second the director yelled Cut! Brad Pitt, in loin cloth and armor and fake dirt and sweat, went straight to his Starwagon and either stepped into a Slim Jim while answering his Blackberry or he removed his weed box from his duffel bag to roll what he deems the sickest joint ever. I just picture him rolling a joint so well that he and all his friends marvel at his skills. To the point where, when Jennifer Aniston is sitting on her patio looking out at Malibu beach as she’s rolling herself a joint, she looks over at Vince and goes, “Not to bring him up again, but seriously, he rolled a way better joint than I do.” Vince concedes, thinking back to the time that Brad rolled him a fattie in Vegas.

On all big budget films, I can only ever think about the craft services team. Is the main guy making a million little mac and cheese soufflés right now? Oh god, are they going to serve 298 filet mignons and only 40 are going to be eaten because the actresses just want Jamba Juices with energy boosts because they are anorexic liars? “No thanks, I already ate.” Lies! Do you know how much food goes to waste every single day on every single set in Hollywood? How many rolls of Lifesavers mints just sit there dying to be stolen by the production assistants? How many expensive packets of Vitamin C fizz just sit in the cartons, unopened and ready to take home so you can save $45? How many bottles of Fiji (the good kind) water just sit there, waiting, waiting to be drunk and have their empty bottle selves turned into pretty vases in your non air-conditioned apartment? Do you know!

It boggles my mind that celebrities will sit up there and be like, “I only drive a hybrid car” to protect the environment all the while watching as tens upon thousands of pounds of good, quality, gourmet food go to waste every single day. Every single day. Imagine an entire day’s waste at Cheesecake Factory. Now multiply that by the entire day’s waste of the entire chain. That’s what’s happening on set in Hollywood right now. TV and movies. Even Lifetime movies. (I won’t eat at Cheesecake Factory by the way – partially because of the waste and partially because the menu is too elaborate and it actually forces you to be wasteful. But I need the baby cheeseburgers and the fried chicken salad, I think…)

So while Tom Hanks is playing a castaway off the coast of actual paradise, does he truly not eat when the director doesn’t need him on set? I mean, I know they’re behind the scenes eating all kinds of sushi and shit. And then if Tom Hanks does eat in his little air conditioned trailer with wireless Internet and two phone lines (one personal, one business), does he lie in the corner of the plush bathroom naked, with sand all over to get back into the castaway frame of mind before he gets called back onto set? Or does he just remove the lobster bib and simply walk back to set because he’s that good of an actor that he can schizophrenically turn “it” on and off like that?

These are the things I think about. This is why I cannot watch movies.

Furthermore, because of my interest in tabloid magazines, it’s gotten worse. If I see Paris Hilton in a film (which I never have) I’ll know for a fact that the night before her pussy lips were spread across the VIP banquet at some night club. Am I now to believe she’s an innocent college girl who just heard a creepy sound outside her window? Nope, not gonna happen.

I also have a very hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that grown ass adults are getting paid millions upon millions of dollars to play make-believe. Owen Wilson just got a gang of cash to pretend get hit by a car which, by the way, is not funny anymore. Must we do that scene in every comedy? It’s not funny. The implications of getting hit by a car are not funny. I’m not laughing. The money they just spent on two stunt men, the driver and the person being hit, for a non-laugh is what’s funny to me.

For example, when I see Stacey Dash play a teenager in my mind I say, “Is she 39 in this movie?” and furthermore, she’s a grown ass adult playing pretend but dead serious. Meanwhile, my grown ass mother is turning and positioning an old person that has been abandoned by his family as he wets the bed and needs to be spoon-fed and she’s getting like two bucks more than minimum wage. Um, can someone clarify this shit for me? Does that change the recurring dream in my mind of "making it big" so that my mom can just live large in the house next door? No. And I'm dead serious.

Not that I’m some all-knowing good person that has never fallen into the traps of gluttony and greed. Trust. I have shoes for days and I can eat an entire box of fruit roll-ups in one sitting like a real asshole, but still.

Now, that’s not to say that I don’t think some actors are the bomb. Charlize Theron is one of the few that can make me forget I’m watching a movie, and thus really care about the situation as it unfolds before my eyes. In Monster, sister girl was straight acting her ass off. I was like, Okay she took it there. She was willing to get ugly to get into character and I respect that. See JLo, you have to actually cut the hair and not put a short wig on top of your existing weave to be taken seriously. Otherwise, you’re just a highly paid Fly Girl to me whose life would not be what it is had Selena’s life not been what it ended up being. Please, no hate mail from JLo or Selena fans. I know. I get it. It’s simply my opinion. JLo (are we still saying that?) is talented and everything, but for real let’s take it down a notch people.

So Charlize Theron, Morgan Freeman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Oprah You Told Harpo To Beat Me Winfrey and even Donnie Wahlburg have been on point to me.

Now you know I love Halle. I love her. However, in Losing Isaiah am I to believe this woman is a crackhead that just threw her baby in the Dumpster? I mean, she is the prettiest crackhead I have ever seen. With the neatest, most kempt wig I have ever seen a crackhead maintain! She was beautiful crackhead up there with the likes of Whitney Houston who is actually not acting. Every time Halle Berry comes across the screen, I grumble in my seat and think back to Losing Isaiah to which Coral snaps at me. Before I even get the words out she says, “Dude, you have to let that go!” The only time I’ve been able to let it go was with Dorothy Dandridge and that’s because the acting, the costuming and the furniture had me in a trance.

So I can’t get that into movies, but I do love television. True crime investigative reports and reality television to be specific.

I want to tell you about the best show ever! It feeds my reality needs but at the same time also satisfies my inability to get caught up in actor make-believe world.

Have you seen I Wanna Be a Soap Star yet?

Yo. YOOO. This is the shit!

It’s reality show contestants slash actors competing for a 13-week contract on a soap opera. This year, I think they’re trying to get on One Life to Live. Each day, they have acting competitions. They must perform in a scene. The scene could be anything! It could be lovemaking (yes, the good topless in the sheets 12-lbs of makeup on soap opera kind), discovering you’ve been having sex with your blood brother this whole time or fighting (fake punches and broken vases and brick walls tumbling down). Or my favorite:

Your dead brother just flashed back to life by a bolt of lightning crashing through your living room. He’s now in ghost form because you took out your book of black magic and cast a spell that brought him back and he’s not too happy with you as you both will have to pay the price (whatever that means). Your brother by the way could be a total black guy and you, a total white girl with all kinds of baby butterfly clips all over your head. Or if it’s your dead sister come back to life, she could have a British accent and you could be a black girl named Shamika. I am not making any of this up. It was on yesterday, I swear.

Now, they all live together outside of their acting workshops in 12 steel bunk beds. It looks like a dressing room converted into camp-like sleeping arrangements. So grown ass adults sharing lockers and bedrooms. It’s the best show you’ve ever seen.

Also, they say actor things like “And scene…” and “I was really present” and “I did my best work.” When they get voted off the show, the judges say “You’ve been killed off.” Then, before the credits roll, they put up a little blurb about what the actor that just got voted off is up to now. Last night, Lauren got killed off and the screen said she’d booked some commercial and print work and I rolled my eyes. An hour later, during Design Star, I saw her on a Sargento cheese commercial. So, this is a career booster. Let us not hate.

It’s on the SoapNet. You don’t have to regularly watch soap operas to understand it. It is the best show on television ever, ever, ever. I still, to this day, contend that being on a soap opera is the best job ever. Somewhere to go every day or not (flexibility), getting paid minimally $750 a week to say things like “I saw him lurking there in the catacombs with Helena,” hair and makeup, craft services, mall appearances and fan mail. If that’s not an awesome job, I don’t know what is.

Lastly, I know, I know. I watch a lot of television. But never before have I been disturbed by the amount until last night during Design Star because I'll follow Clive wherever he may go. The competitor named Ramona looked really familiar to me and I lost sleep over it. With a little research, I discovered I had seen her on Wife Swap before. In her Wife Swap bio, she says that she has banned “TV and competition” in her house, but I guess that didn’t stop her from COMPETING on a design TV show. Weirdo. Her “show was canceled” last night because she covered a vacuum cleaner in white putty and called it “sculpture.” Vern Yip told her it was bizarre. If you don’t know who Vern Yip is, you obviously were not a vintage Alex McCleoud pre-Paige Davis Trading Spaces fan.

J said, "Babe, you watch way too much TV" when I sang along to both the Match.com commercial and the Empire 800-588-2300 commercial. But how could you not know the Empire commercial song? Have you never seen a television in your life?

That’s all I have to say on that topic. Whatever. I watch a lot of TV. Which might be the root of my other problem…

The cellulite. As far as the cellulite solutions go, I have been told to exercise (boo!). Or, try all the creams but nobody seems to think they actually work. We could also try deep tissue massage which breaks up the fat. Or my personal favorite – get both your thighs covered in tattoos which hides the cellulite. Now at first that seemed a little crazy but that could be really hot. Now, when my newborn baby shoots out of me, do I want him, for the first time in his life, to see two fierce Japanese dragons staring back at him? No, but still.

Posted by melissah at July 24, 2006 02:32 PM