Break-Up Movies!

by: Katie Bruggeman

Being in a monogamous relationship is hard, especially if you and your sweetie are both drunk all of the time, you’re similarly selfish and stubborn, and probably have some underlying sexual addictions that aren’t helped by the shirtless hedonism of summertime. I, for one, was dumped (literally) in the parking lot of a strip club called “Boobies” out in Maspeth, Queens, after my boyfriend and I had spent a solid two days doing whip-its and drinking brandy on various city buses. It was a rough couple of weeks after that, what with all of the litigation and court dates and detox centers, and that unwanted pregnancy didn’t help much.  But, in the end, everything worked out fine. I’m sure both of us are still drunk, still selfish, and currently boning someone that we don’t care about (he didn’t want to move in with me—how novel, a man that isn’t comfortable with commitment!)

The main characters in break-up movies usually end up going out with someone else by the end of the story, so I guess the lessons they teach us are that, if you’re single, you’re a terrible sociopath that lives outside of the mainstream of society, and therefore no one will ever write a movie about your stupid, lonely life.

Here are some reviews of break-up movies. See you on Match.com!




The Passion of the Christ

I stopped seeing a guy after he took me to this movie, on our first real date, on Ash Wednesday. There were Catholic families aplenty, with toddlers, old grandmas, moms and dads, all wearing special Passion of the Christ t-shirts and novelty crowns of thorns. They had those little ash crosses on their foreheads—I wanted to fit in, so I put some soot from my cigarette on mine. Sorry, God!
 
I felt so awkward during the movie, sitting next to that guy that I always ran into at the bar and participated with him in a few awesome make-out sessions. He liked hip-hop, was a big Yankees fan, and told some really funny jokes. At one point he mentioned that he grew up Catholic, but I didn’t think he was, like, Catholic Catholic.

We sat and ate popcorn and watched Jesus get the living shit kicked out of him on the silver screen. The Son of God also got the blood stabbed out of him, and the eyeballs ripped out of his face, and the bones broken out of his skin. Then our Lord and Savior got rammed up the ass with a spiked bat. Really nice. During one particularly bloody scene, these people just ripped the skin off of Jesus’ ribs. I mean, this movie is a fucking horror show, dude. No wonder everyone hates Jews! Just kidding! I’m not anti-Semitic, no matter what my friends say about me.

The movie ended and I just sat there, stunned, and he leaned over to me and said, “What a great film, huh? Mel Gibson is a genius.”

I just sort of backed away from him and out of the theater, saying, “Maybe we should just be friends,” got onto to the subway, and never returned any of his phone calls again.
 
Umm, psychopath alert!




Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers

This movie starts out in the basement of the World Trade Center in 1977, and is a magical, madcap tale of a tiny little janitor named Gary, whose insensitive and cruel co-workers have nicknamed “The Hobbit.” He’s been unlucky in love and life, and has retreated to a mescaline habit that allows him to dive into the fantastical realms of his imagination.

Along the way he meets lots of dwarves and witches and trolls and monsters, but the most magical of all is Princess Moleskin, played by Aerosmith frontman Liv Tyler. Moleskin tantalizes him with so many different elfish sexual positions that Gary finds it almost impossible to return to the real world. It becomes a tragic conundrum: does he continue to eat more psychotropic drugs so that he can stay with Moleskin and her fancy enchanted vagina? Or should he sober up and go back to work, so that he can make some money and therefore won’t get evicted from his nasty apartment and forced live on the gritty pre-Giuliani New York streets?

In the end, responsibility trumps intercourse, and Gary and Moleskin call it quits. She gives him back this special Ring that he found in a cave or something, and their engagement ends in a tearful de-witching ceremony on the top of a mountain. Little Gary will just have to go back to his old habits of sobbing and masturbation. Welcome to my world, Hobbit.



Mask

This extraordinary film is based on the real-life story of Rocky Dennis, a teenager disfigured by elephantiasis. Despite the love of his mother “Rusty”, Rocky’s face becomes more and more mask-like, causing everyone to be super disgusted every time he walks into a room. Maybe she shouldn’t have smoked all of those cigarettes when she was pregnant, huh? Ever think of that, “Rusty”? That you shouldn’t smoke when you’re pregnant, because your kid is gonna come out all weird-looking, and strangers will throw garbage at him in the street? 

The film begins as Rocky slogs through a life of loneliness and desperation, what with all of that elephantitis and everything. Meanwhile, “Rusty” sluts it up with every guy in town, making things even more difficult for her horribly wretched son. Imagine waking up in the morning and looking at your elephantitized face in the bathroom mirror, only to walk into the kitchen to get some fuckin’ cornflakes and there’s a biker in a leather vest is sitting at the table, picking his nails and nursing some hangover/STD symptoms from the previous night? Not cool, “Rusty.”

Rocky finally meets a girl that he can call his own, and it’s really great because she’s blind and can’t see how gross his face is. They hold hands at the old horse ranch and confide their secrets and dreams. Her greatest wish: the gift of sight. His: to get rid of all of this elephantitis.

In the end, Rocky’s girlfriend gets trampled by a horse and goes into the kind of semi-vegetative state that would put Terri Shiavo to shame.

That’s the way that relationships go. I’m gonna die alone, and so are you!



Legally Blonde

I know what you’re thinking: “Any tramp that would watch shitty movies like this deserves to get dumped.” Okay, but you see, the only reason why I recently watched it on TBS (twice in one weekend) is because I’m preparing to go to law school next year and I need to do some research on what it will be like. Ahem. Leave me alone, I’m depressed.

So anyway, this pile of trash stars Reese Witherspoon and it sucks and you’ve all probably seen it already. I will say this, though: Luke Wilson will do anything for money.















The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns

An adventure unfolds when American Jack Woods (played by Randy Quaid—brilliant casting, you guys) rents a quaint cottage in Ireland and finds, to his dismay, that the house is inhabited by a family of leprechauns. When one of the little guys, “O’Shamicant the Destroyer”, and his son, “O’Shamicant, Jr,” crash the fairies' ball, a feud between the leprechauns and the fairies is rekindled. The Grand Banshee (Whoopi Goldberg) warns of terrible consequences, and Jack is chosen to make peace.  In typical leprechaun-movie fashion, these thrilling creatures can really fuck shit up. Not only do they conjure up demons, but they also have buckets of gold and can fit into very small places, making it easy for them to hide and sneak around and commit various acts of espionage. A number one rule in the magic community: never cross a Leprechaun, because they will best you each and every time. More than likely you’ll end up at the bottom of a well, with rocks and urine falling onto your head.

Besides all of the fantastic Leprechaun antics in ‘The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns,’ there’s also a pretty great/gross love story between Jack Woods and The Great Banshee. They have a series of meet-cutes where she’s just screaming her guts out, in ditches, post offices, church, whatever, and he thinks that she’s in trouble, so he tries to save her over and over again. And she’s like, “I’m a Banshee. This is what I do. I scream, okay? But, really, I’m fine.” Regardless, they fall into supernatural love and are very happy, until the Immigration Department catches up to him and he’s deported after his visa expires. Good-bye, rolling fields of Ireland and rolling curves of Whoopi Goldberg. Hello, Delta Flight #516, which is quite lonely and Leprechaun-less.

Thanks to the visionary thinking of the people at Hallmark Studios, this movie actually exists. There are still some beautiful things in this life.





Visit Katie's blog, Dancing at Gunpoint, here: www.gstringsfororphans.blogspot.com

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