Some Things You Can't Unwatch (i.e. The New Hollywood Trend) (i.e. I Hope I'm Not Too Late to Save You)

Let's travel back in time, why don't we? It's 2009 and two movies have been released starring the amazingly talent Sandra Bullock. One of them is receiving Oscar buzz, while the other is leading people to question whether they ever want to watch a movie again. I am talking of course of The Blind Side and All About Steve (respectively; just to clarify I'm not speaking of both respectively, I'm referring to in the order used in the previous sentence). Unbeknownst to Hollywood, this may have been the beginning of a trend.


Now let's hop back in our theoretical time machine and head back to 2011. No, no detours, I'm sorry. We can't fix your little indiscretion from New Year's eve. What's done is done and all you can do is try not to repeat that event. Another time. Right, so 2011. With just 14 days of release in 2010, I'm willing to call Black Swan a movie of 2011, especially since in areas as rural as mine, it didn't actually hit theaters until the year before the apocalypse (trust me, this fact will become relevant). Another movie that was released was the Danny McBride-penned and Danny McBride-starring Your Highness. The unifying thing with these two films is the female lead in each: Natalie Portman. Regardless of her mistake of signing up for the "Star Wars" movies (which don't even merit the name, hence the quotation marks ihateyousomuchlucasyouruineditforeveryone), Portman is a very talented actress and an amazingly intelligent woman. Apparently she likes making a pattern of releasing crap within a year of cinematic gold. For example: Episode II (2002) and Cold Mountain (2003); Episode III (2005) and V for Vendetta (2006); and finally Your Highness (2011) and Black Swan (2010).

Here's where Sandra Bullock may have started a trend: the same year she won her Oscar for The Blind Side, she was also granted a Razzie, that award that commemorates moments stars would gladly forget, for All About Steve. In case you missed it, Portman won an Oscar for Black Swan already and guess what?! Your Highness is already an offiical contender for this year's Razzie's! It was so bad I almost stopped watching it at least 15 times in the first 20 minutes. I now know I should have believed my instincts, but I figured with a cast including James Franco, Natalie Portman, and Zooey Deschanel it had to get better. Didn't it? Why wasn't it gettng better? Oh my god what production company would condescend to produce this shit?! Why??!?!?!?!

In short, I did not care for this movie. But I really should have known better. This is clearly Danny McBride's way of finding himself starring opposite a woman as beautiful as Natalie Portman in a romantic way. Look at the guy: overweight, kind of looks like a dog, and is clearly as mentally developed as an eleven-year-old boy. There's no way that he could get someone as smart and accomplished as Portman in real life Therefore he wrote, produced, and starred in his fantasy. Unfortunately, his fantasy had neither the box-office draw or class as fantasies such as James Cameron's (Writer/Dir., Avatar) or Chris Miller (Dir., Puss in Boots). It would be a toss-up between watching this movie again, watching the first Twilight movie for the first time, or getting scalding water poured on me repeatedly. And honestly, I'd probably go with the water.