"Whoo, check me out, I'm Cindy Sherman! WTFIU?"

Man, What To Expect When You're Expecting would have been SO MUCH BETTER had "J-Lo" said that, or words to that effect, at some point during its running time. But no. The movie is not very good, my review for MSN Movies argues. And the somewhat tonier Hysteria is not much better. Ouf. 

Comments

[Lex]

Buncha hot chicks all stuffed with disgusting babies, fuck that.

Movie would RULE if all the cooze had abortions and went on being hot.

[Lex]

They can outlaw abortion

But they can't outlaw throwing your bitch down a flight of stairs.

YEP YEP.

Problem solves itself. Who the fuck would ever want a kid?

[Glenn Kenny]

After a fair amount of consideration, I've decided to let these comments stand, for reasons I trust will be kind of obvious. While I'm not happy about the kind of offense they're likely to give, I think it's potentially instructive to have some counter-evidence on hand, for the next time someone wants to get, or bid for, some kind of automatic pass involving terms such as "schtick," "persona," "I was drunk," whatever.

[Petey]

You ought to be honored that Lex Luther deigns to take time away from his diabolical plots to enslave humanity to comment on your blog, Glenn...

[Steve]

Perhaps Lex is a new Sacha Baron Cohen persona?

[Oliver_C]

Lex's WORST NIGHTMARE:

http://foxx.tf-media.net/phase8/JustGreat.jpg

(R-rated for cartoon nudity and Tiresiasian weirdness :-)

[Lex]

STEVE above for the win.

IRONIC AS HELL Glenn would act all offended then one thread up give a positive review to "The Dictator."

I do the same thing as Sascha Baron Cohen. Or Dice. Have said it for years. It's only because it's a 60/40 "Which Way is Up?" mix of real and put-on that people get so goddamn fidgety about it.

But the point stands, who wants to see a FAT Diaz/Decker/Lopez/Banks?

And why is Dennis Quaid paired with Brooklyn Decker? That's like pairing Judi Dench with Chace Crawford.

[Petey]

"I think it's potentially instructive to have some counter-evidence on hand, for the next time someone wants to get, or bid for, some kind of automatic pass involving terms such as "schtick," "persona," "I was drunk," whatever."

Counter-evidence securely in evidence. Now can you make him go away?

[bill]

But he is a "great writer."

[Glenn Kenny]

Indeed, bill. Perhaps more experienced purveyors of "new media" "content" such as ourselves ought to offer him some "assistance" on starting a "website" or "blog." I am sure he will welcome this offer to help him "establish" a "permanent" "new media" "venue." It's certain everyone will "enjoy" that.

[bill]

That is a "wonderful" "idea."

[Joel]

Steve: I've always thought that "LexG" was Sam Lipsyte trying one of his characters out before putting him in a novel. That presumption lets me enjoy his comments here.

[Nicolas Leblanc]

"They can outlaw abortion

But they can't outlaw throwing your bitch down a flight of stairs.

YEP YEP."

Your problem in a nutshell Lex: it's funny when Dave Attell says it because HIS schtick contains a strong element of absurdity. That's what makes him hilarious instead of just plain creepy and wrong.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

Sidelining discussion of Lex, I'm just chiming in to say that photo caption has cracked me up several times this morning.

[Petey]

"Sidelining discussion of Lex, I'm just chiming in to say that photo caption has cracked me up several times this morning."

You beat me to the punch, TFB. I was waiting for Lex-gate to die down before I made a very similar comment. Good on Glenn.

(It also made me pissed that Office Killer is out of print on disc or VOD. I haven't seen it in a decade, and I'd like to revisit.)

[Bettencourt]

Thank you for mentioning OFFICE KILLER, but only because I kept thinking the headline referred to antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, and I just wasn't getting the joke.

[Petey]

"Thank you for mentioning OFFICE KILLER, but only because I kept thinking the headline referred to antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan, and I just wasn't getting the joke."

Hmmm...

If it takes Office Killer to clue you in on the Cindy Sherman joke, your view of the arts might be too narrowly focused on the cinema, no? But alternately, I suppose memory can work in mysterious ways.

[Bettencourt]

No, I used to have Sherman's "Movie Stills" book and was fairly familiar with her work back in the late 80s and early 90s. I've just heard more about Sheehan than Sherman in the last decade or so.

(I know this probably makes me a philistine, but I never cared for Sherman's "Movie Stills" that much -- frankly, they never looked like real movie stills, and the photography critics who raved about them didn't apparently have much real knowledge of the great craft of movie still photography)

[Petey]

"I know this probably makes me a philistine, but I never cared for Sherman's "Movie Stills" that much -- frankly, they never looked like real movie stills, and the photography critics who raved about them didn't apparently have much real knowledge of the great craft of movie still photography"

I wouldn't say "philistine". I'd return to my "view of the arts a bit too narrowly focused on the cinema" formulation. Which ain't the worst sin in the world, of course, not to mention that we're chatting on a cinema blog.

But I feel on solid ground arguing that Sherman's Movie Stills not looking like 'real' movie stills is a feature, not a bug. Accurate simulation wasn't her concern, and they work superbly well on their own terms. I know, de gustibus non, and all that. I'm just sayin' that they're not about 'real' movie stills.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

Yeah, I always took the Movie Stills as being a sort of wrestling cagematch between movie stills, classical portraiture, and the loose, informal modern portraits of someone like Nan Goldin (or anyone with a Polarioid). They seem less like movie stills than the nightmare of a woman in the 70s who passed out while looking at movie stills. As Petey says, the fact that they never cohere into being quite any of those things is very much the idea.