Nothing could entice us to review Tower Heist or Puss in Boots this week. Good thing, too, because there was so much more to choose from...oh, wait, that's a lie. This week's offerings suck. Let's start with the television series releases. There are those series that stand the test of time, somehow finding new ways to explore themes and relationships. Then there are those series that initially make a splash, but don't warrant reruns.
Among the no-reruns-warranted titles, there's House Season 8, Top Chef Season 9, Grimm Season 1, Grey's Anatomy Season 8 and The Real Housewives of Orange County Season 7. There's also -- we kid you not -- Matlock The Seventh Season.
House had its fans over the years, and initially it was amusing to have such a sarcastic jackass as the lead character in a series. That novelty wore off, very, very quickly. How many times could House piss off hospital officials, sneak some drugs, draw attention to his leg for a quick shot at sympathy and in general ignore every emotional boundary anyone tried to set without boring us all to death? House was rude and got ruder. He was semi-interesting to start with and almost immediately got extremely uninteresting.
House is a prime example of "I thought that was already canceled" television programming. Nobody cares. Nobody's watching. And, saddest of all, nobody's acting. Hugh Laurie's been phoning in his performances for the last three or four seasons, and it's all the supporting cast can do to keep from nodding off in the middle of their lines.
Eight seasons was way too long to keep this one-note series limping along (no pun intended).
As if House wasn't dull enough, there are loads of movies being released this week that are just as awful.
We've watched some horrible movies over the years (we're ashamed to say that many years ago we saw The Beverly Hillbillies on purpose), but in general we've tried to skip trashy-trash flicks. Not the "it's so bad, it's good" type of trashy movies (we like those), we're talking about the WTF? releases.
The worst offender among the mainstream releases is Honey 2. Its most obvious sin is its lack of originality. Honey, the first one, was simple enough -- pretty bodies, a loose plot nobody paid much attention to, and lots of pounding music. Nothing really noteworthy, but pretty harmless. Honey 2 repeats the formula, adding nothing and wasting Lonette McKee in the role of Honey's mom.
Next is Return to Blood Fart Lake. (Excuse us while we go wash our hands. Just typing that title made us feel grungy. Yuck!) The only good thing we can say about Blood Fart Lake is that it wasn't a mainstream release.
Swirling around the bottom of the barrel with Blood Fart Lake is 1313: Cougar Cult (older women, younger men, lots of screaming, something about cougars eating their cubs), and Monsters in the Woods, (the title is self-explanatory). Monsters has the unmitigated gall to have a suggested retail price of $24.98. That's just adding insult to injury.
