Robotjohnny.com>

My Missing Monkey

By now everyone’s aware of Google’s image search engine.  Well, I certainly am.  It’s a handy tool which I’ve used myself, but it’s also caused me a bit of annoyance.

Imagine how often someone types the word “monkey” into the image search.  Now image you’ve drawn a cartoon of a monkey that shows up on the first page of results.

That’s what’s happened to me thanks to the previous version of robotjohnny.com, and it’s a thrill to be ranked so well in Google for such a common search, but many people started to deep-link to my image from various message boards and other sites, and well dammit—I’m paying for that bandwidth!

So for all you kids looking for my damn monkey picture, shown here a bit blurry:

I’ve replaced the original file with this:

So now, all you pesky kids linking to my image in your chatrooms and “what animal are you?” quizes will get the message!  Okay, I’m a huge jerk, I know.... Originally, however, I thought I’d just replace it with something crude and pornographic, but I think most of these searchers are children, and I’m sure they get enough porn in their e-mail just like the rest of us.

7 Comments

Gigli: The Critics Don’t Lie

It’s true.  It’s absolutely true.  Gigli is everything the critics are saying.  And less!

One can’t help but feel sorry for writer/director Martin Brest.  Perhaps he’ll never work again!  Perhaps we’ll never have to sit through another Gigli or Meet Joe Black!

It’s hard to pinpoint the *worst* moment of _Gigli_.  Is it the lack of plot?  The phoned-in cameos by Pacino and Walken?  The heavy-handed Dawnson’s Creek dialogue?

I think the reason this movie fails is simple.  Everything about it—every single thing—is awful.  And by awful I mean completely delightful.

Let’s start with the performances.  Ben Affleck.  Ben, Ben, Ben.  Whoever told you that you could be a tough guy?  Was it your boyfriend Matt Damon?  Because if it was, he lied.

J.Lo, by far the better actor in the Ben-Jen team, does surprisingly well.  She plays a super-model lesbian hitman.  We know she’s a lesbian because she spends a good fifteen minutes waxing muliebral about the majesty of the vagina while all but thrusting her genitalia right into Ben Affleck’s face in a bizarre spread-eagle Yoga cocktease.  (Has Martin Brest even met a real lesbian before? Or does he just watch a lot of pornos?)

Justin Bartha’s performance of the “Generically Mentally Handicapped” Brian is one of the most inconsistent characters ever seen on screen.  Trying to fit a whole cuckoo’s nest of eccentricities into one head, Bartha takes turns channelling everyone from Rain Man to Cliff Robertson’s Charly.  One moment he has Turrett’s Syndrome, the next minute he’s Leo DiCaprio in Gilbert Grape.  Whatever his inspiration was, it is clear that Brian grows less and less “retarded” as the movie progresses.

Speaking of inconsistencies, how bout that music?  Jokes are punchlined with soaring orchestral strings and the sex scenes between Gay-Lo and toughguy Ben are punctuated with plucky stoccato faerie music.  The rest of the film seems to be underscored with a variety of jazzy porn instrumentals, except for that tear-jerking final scene (in which Bennifer Affleck stands at one end of the beach, fully able to hear a conversation between Bartha and a beach bimbo hundreds of feet away through the surf, the wind, and the hundreds of other people’s conversations) which is capped off with an emotional choral exaltation.  It’s as if the heavens opened up and the angels are rejoicing that the movie is finally over.

But of course it’s not over.  J-Lo has to make her return.  She has to show the audience that Ben Affleck has the almighty power to make gay gals go ga-ga.  After all, it wouldn’t be a “Ben Affleck Falls in Love with a Lesbian” movie without a little sexual conversion on the woman’s part.

This movie is so bad that even 14-year old girls left the theatre mid way. 

Like a bowl of pie, says Christopher Walken, it’ll make your tongue reach out and slap your brain.

I can’t recommend it enough.

10 Comments