05/12: "Cannonball Run II" OR "A Confederacy of Dunces"
Category: movies that suck
Posted by: Danny
The South and movies - a deadlier combination than moonshine and diesel fuel
Everyone has a great love for their hometown, but it's far from the world's most perfect relationship.
That's because no matter how many family, friends and good memories one may have in their birthplace, they can't help but acknowledge it has a side that's darker than a remake of "The Wizard of Oz" directed by Marilyn Manson.
For example, my roots are firmly planted in Southern culture as a New Orleans native, which is one of the most beautiful and exciting towns in the history of the universe. But the rising murder rate, ridiculously high level of government corruption and the casinos that have suddenly multiplied all over town like pairs of rabbits on their wedding night are hard to ignore.
In fact, the entire Southern region of the continental United States doesn't have the greatest public relations department. Sure, people in the Midwest are called dull and boring, New Yorkers are called rude and uncaring and Minnesota's populace elected a third-rate professional wrestler as their Governor. But Southerners have been hit with some pretty nasty jokes for what seems like an eternity. Don't believe me? Well, has anyone accused you of selling your house for a new hunting dog, turning your front lawn into an appliance graveyard or trying to score with chicks at the family reunion?
But the South doesn't have the greatest track record either thanks to our ancestors and their narrow minded ways of thinking that it's no wonder we're the target of so much ridicule. Thanks to years of intolerance of others and backwards thinking, the South has spawned such national tragedies as the Civil War, yellow fever and Spam.
And our tastes in music, food and other entertainment doesn't make the rest of the country want to give us group hugs either. First, there is that tourist hell hole called Branson, Missouri, which I'm not to even going to start ranting about because returning from that place is like returning from Vietnam and I still have Andy Williams flashbacks to this day. Most of the food's not bad, if you grew up with it like I did, but it's very unhealthy and the unaccustomed think it's spicy enough to remove paint. Then, there's the movies.
I'm sorry to say the entire Southern United States is responsible for a large portion of the suckiest movies of all time. Here in the South, they're regarded as cinematic treasures while the rest of the country tries to figure out what we're doing to our drinking water to make us so brain dead.
"Cannonball Run II" is particularly sucky because it's a sequel to a sucky movie, which means test groups, who were probably Southerners with roots deeper than potatoes, clamored for the release of this movie not once, but twice! That's like when someone who is about to be shot by firing squad makes a last request to be electrocuted before they're buried.
But it's spawned by Southerners because it contains the three key ingredients for making a good movie: (1) high speed car chases and crashes, (2) fist fights in houses of ill-repute, and (3) Jim Nabors who, for some reason that I dare not wish to explore, has become the Lawrence Olivier of the South.
Obviously, they need to be stopped, but maybe the problem isn't that we can't stop them but that we don't know how to stop ourselves. You might even be indirectly responsible for wanting movies like these to come to life. It could be buried in your bloodline and you don't even know about it. So, here's a little test I've created to help people to determine if they're a movie redneck.
- If you organized a petition for a studio to do a big screen remake of "Hee Haw," you might be a movie redneck.
- If you thought "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" was a documentary, you might be a movie redneck.
- If you went to see "The Cable Guy" because you thought it was about that fat guy that toured with Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a movie redneck.
- If you rooted for the "squeal like a pig" guys in "Deliverance," you might be a movie redneck.
- If you thought "Babe" would've been better if they ended it with a barbecue, you might be a movie redneck.
- If every soundtrack you own has a track of "Dueling Banjos," you might be a movie redneck.
- If you snuck a six pack into "Finding Nemo," you might be a movie redneck.
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©2004 by Danny Gallagher
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Everyone has a great love for their hometown, but it's far from the world's most perfect relationship.
That's because no matter how many family, friends and good memories one may have in their birthplace, they can't help but acknowledge it has a side that's darker than a remake of "The Wizard of Oz" directed by Marilyn Manson.
For example, my roots are firmly planted in Southern culture as a New Orleans native, which is one of the most beautiful and exciting towns in the history of the universe. But the rising murder rate, ridiculously high level of government corruption and the casinos that have suddenly multiplied all over town like pairs of rabbits on their wedding night are hard to ignore.
In fact, the entire Southern region of the continental United States doesn't have the greatest public relations department. Sure, people in the Midwest are called dull and boring, New Yorkers are called rude and uncaring and Minnesota's populace elected a third-rate professional wrestler as their Governor. But Southerners have been hit with some pretty nasty jokes for what seems like an eternity. Don't believe me? Well, has anyone accused you of selling your house for a new hunting dog, turning your front lawn into an appliance graveyard or trying to score with chicks at the family reunion?
But the South doesn't have the greatest track record either thanks to our ancestors and their narrow minded ways of thinking that it's no wonder we're the target of so much ridicule. Thanks to years of intolerance of others and backwards thinking, the South has spawned such national tragedies as the Civil War, yellow fever and Spam.
And our tastes in music, food and other entertainment doesn't make the rest of the country want to give us group hugs either. First, there is that tourist hell hole called Branson, Missouri, which I'm not to even going to start ranting about because returning from that place is like returning from Vietnam and I still have Andy Williams flashbacks to this day. Most of the food's not bad, if you grew up with it like I did, but it's very unhealthy and the unaccustomed think it's spicy enough to remove paint. Then, there's the movies.
I'm sorry to say the entire Southern United States is responsible for a large portion of the suckiest movies of all time. Here in the South, they're regarded as cinematic treasures while the rest of the country tries to figure out what we're doing to our drinking water to make us so brain dead.
"Cannonball Run II" is particularly sucky because it's a sequel to a sucky movie, which means test groups, who were probably Southerners with roots deeper than potatoes, clamored for the release of this movie not once, but twice! That's like when someone who is about to be shot by firing squad makes a last request to be electrocuted before they're buried.
But it's spawned by Southerners because it contains the three key ingredients for making a good movie: (1) high speed car chases and crashes, (2) fist fights in houses of ill-repute, and (3) Jim Nabors who, for some reason that I dare not wish to explore, has become the Lawrence Olivier of the South.
Obviously, they need to be stopped, but maybe the problem isn't that we can't stop them but that we don't know how to stop ourselves. You might even be indirectly responsible for wanting movies like these to come to life. It could be buried in your bloodline and you don't even know about it. So, here's a little test I've created to help people to determine if they're a movie redneck.
- If you organized a petition for a studio to do a big screen remake of "Hee Haw," you might be a movie redneck.
- If you thought "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" was a documentary, you might be a movie redneck.
- If you went to see "The Cable Guy" because you thought it was about that fat guy that toured with Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a movie redneck.
- If you rooted for the "squeal like a pig" guys in "Deliverance," you might be a movie redneck.
- If you thought "Babe" would've been better if they ended it with a barbecue, you might be a movie redneck.
- If every soundtrack you own has a track of "Dueling Banjos," you might be a movie redneck.
- If you snuck a six pack into "Finding Nemo," you might be a movie redneck.
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©2004 by Danny Gallagher
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