Pops' Bucket: Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #44

Friday, March 30, 2007

Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #44

Blades of Glory

starring Will Ferrell, John Heder, Will Arnett, Amy Poehler and Craig T. Nelson(!)

directed by Josh Gordon and Will Speck (those Geico "Caveman" commercials)

I'm in my early thirties, but I've already been married a long time. It will be ten years this year, in fact. A full decade is enough for me to know: I will probably never see Blades of Glory.

Do I want to? That's a complicated question.

The premise is borderline-retarded. Male figure-skating rivals are banned from singles competition and thus skirt said ban by entering the pairs competition--together. Will Ferrell and that Napoleon Dynamite kid and whammo! Instant movie, right?

I have a master's degree. Not a lot of people can say that, so I'm proud of it. Despite the bragging rights and the opportunity to get my ass kicked in almost any bar in America should I mention it, the responsibility that goes along with an advanced degree is that I'm supposed to show some kind of intellectual sophistication that innoculates me from interest in movies that include fart jokes and a huffy skein of homophobia disguised as humor.

And yet I like Fall Out Boy songs and I am drawn to Blades of Glory.

As a further complication, the reason I mentioned my marriage earlier is that I only get to go to movies that my wife will agree to accompany me to. Yes, I could always go to a film by myself--and have done--but there's something sort of sideways about it when you have the option of companionship and you still elect to go alone. The way I figure it, if I'm going to skulk off with the shame of having my tastes de-valued, un-validated and rejected and then turn that into unsupervised Pops-alone time, the obvious place to spend that time? Titty bar. That's what a real man would do.

But then again, a "real man" would probably also buy Toby Keith records and vote for George Bush.

Man, being a dedicated Registered Contrarian is hard work.

The real prize for any Registered Contrarian is to confront someone whom you automatically and unthinkingly oppose (for the sake of the Contrarian principle, the details of which are in the Registered Contrarian oath, which we all refuse to take, naturally) and find a way to bullshit them into changing their point of view. That way you can have a whole new perspective to reflexively gainsay.

Mrs. Pops, however, is wise to this scheme. If you need any further indication as to her powers in this respect, I still have yet to see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. She is a worthy foe, which is all a Registered Contrarian can hope for.

I must rate this film: