Confessions of a Twentysomething Entertainment Addict, Part 1

Though I'm proud enough of my taste in the finer arts, I'm not the eyes-shut type of guy who wont admit to some pretty heinous follies in judgment. There was that Tony Yayo album I gave a pretty strong review in print, but then realized how derivative and laughably cliche the entire thing is once I actually had the disc in my possession and wasn't confined to a G-Unit office and a sound system that could make a Sade album bump hardcore. Or, the way I proclaimed to those around me that George Romero's long-awaited Land of the Dead would blow their minds, but then we all saw it and there was no epic climax of "zombies swarm, attack, and then devour the jerkoff villains," with the undead instead being given the sympathetic washover.

Plenty more examples I could cite, but for overdoing-it's sake, I'll stop with this next one.

For whatever reason, probably a cruel joke on the part of the cinematic gods to beat over my head how much of a dumbass I was to actually recommend this movie at one point, The Wicker Man remake has been popping up in various movie blogs and sites of the such in recent days. Mainly to hurl further bile its way, deservedly. Under any other circumstance, it'd be an unnecessary redo that I'd see once and then totally forget about, focusing energy on more important things, like how those gorgeous-yet-soulless Ikki twins on MTV's Double Shot at Love were in Hoboken during one episode, or what I'll have for dinner tonight (Lean Pockets last night, the night before, and the night before that....Lean Pockets it is).

But Nicolas Cage's Wicker Man got me upon initial viewing, and fuck if I can really explain. The old British original is a film I both admire and own on DVD, so all signs pointed to me hating this new one, but I didn't (at first). Sad as it may be, I saw it twice in theaters, and knowingly bypassed its many flaws to give it a thumbs-up pass. But then it came out on DVD, and I rented it. And it sucked balls the size of watermelons. And I wondered, "What the fuck was I thinking?" Having revisited it a few more times since on cable, I can say with a straight-face that it's not too far behind The Happening in the space of "Films That Have Absolutely Nothing Going For Them," and I'm still quite ashamed at myself for needing three exposures to understand.

I'm sure there's not many out there who'd voluntarily watch a movie that everybody else with a pulse has deemed "utter shit," so I'll just post this well-edited compilation of The Wicker Man's worst scenes. It's a movie filled with nothing but bad moments, so you know these must really be barrel-bottom material. Why do people keep casting Nicolas Cage, again? If you like those Da Vinci Code-but-not-really National Treasure turds, then you have no business coming down on me for ever enjoying The Wicker Man. Those movies a truly rape-for-the-senses.

The highlight here: Cage in a bearsuit, going all WWE Divas on these bitches: