Off With Their Heads!

Word around the campfire is that the Affleck/Lopez vehicle "Gigli" is heading for box-office bombitude on the levels of "Ishtar" or "Waterworld," i.e., films that don't just flop, they flop in a truly embarrassing manner. I can only say I have prayed for it to be so, and this piece in the Onion encourages my hope. You see, boys and girls, there's been a bit of a backlash against those two overexposed mediocrities, and internet culture has been a prime mover in that. Observe this denunciation from the famously high-brow, low-blow Whatever-Dude.com. Dated from April of this year, it renders the absurdity of "Gigli," perfectly, as only a succint description of a lame plot can:

The movie stars Jennifer Lopez as a lesbian hitman, Ben Affleck as the hitman with morals that converts her to heterosexuality, and a mentally retarded guy that Affleck and Lopez kidnap and take on a road trip. Do I even need to make jokes about this? Lopez as lesbian hitwoman? Affleck as the manly man that’s so manly that he reforms her wayward homo ways through the power of his manhood? The kidnap a mentally retarded person and take them on a nutty comedic road trip bit?

The article closed with a horrifying account of Bennifer's next film after "Gigli," and Kevin Smith's "Jersey Girl," (read it, if you have the stomach) and in doing so, convinced me of their utter wrongness and unfitness to appear in films in my native land. Are these two media whores somehow not satisfied with sucking on their own? Do they have to take poor Kevin Smith down with them? Do they have to dirty one of the great achievements in American cinema with their attempt to re-make it as a vehicle for themselves? I would ask if nothing was sacred, but I was convinced of the answer to that long ago.


What's sacred is righteous indignation in the face of self-idolatry. Let's hope "Gigli" becomes the bomb that destroys them.