Writing live from the Chicago Loop, I’m Phil Bolger sitting in for John.

As the title indicates, he’s currently wandering around Millenium Park bothering tourists for money “for medication!”

But while he’s out, I’d like to talk about a topic very near and dear to my heart…awful movies.

Southland Tales: Redefining Shit on Camera

Today’s atrocious “work” of cinema comes from the creative mind behind Donnie Darko. Southland Tales is best described as trying to be “The Big Lebowski” meets “V for Vendetta,”if both of those films were written by disgruntled postal workers whose combined total education might’ve gotten them through 5th grade.

There’s a lot of big names in Southland Tales.  The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, and pretty much every modern alt-rock(Muse, the Killers, etc.) band on the soundtrack. In fact, if the movie was entirely redone as a music video, it might have made more sense. Since it wasn’t, I’m going to attempt to relay the plot in three sentences.

America is controlled by a right-wing dictatorship featuring the Republican Party as evil(what a novel idea! this has never been done in film before!)

A kind of New Age SLA(who are, by the by, this story’s protagonists) capture and brainwash the Rock(whose character name, Boxer Santaros, reminds me of the kind of name you’d find starring in Vicious Viking Vixens), and then said Marxists try to extort this act for money.

At this point, Justin Timberlake shows up as a disgruntled war vet and uses some incredibly over-complicated sniper rifle platform to shoot somebody on a beach, then the Killers play and he gets all emotional.

(Justin understands love, sexy. He was there, mannnn)

If that sounded appealing to you,  then you can tell me the rest of the story sometime, since that’s when I turned it off out of fear of killing too many brain cells.

I’d really  like to talk to Richard Kelly and find out what he was on when he made this film. Wait, “talk”?  I meant “turn upside down and shake to get my money back.”

St. Paddy’s Day Aftermath

Thankfully, we watched Southland Tales at a time where going out to shitfaced plastered was perfectly acceptable.  St. Paddy’s day celebrations were in full swing this weekend, and they kicked ass!  If you’ve never been to a St. Paddy’s day celebration in Chicago, make time next year, you will not regret it. It’s like Boston, execept no one will threaten you for thinking the Red Sox suck balls.

Granted, today is what it is for a reason. Here’s some hangover cures you can always try if you’re really desperate:

1.) Showering in the toilet. Keeps you close if you need to hurl, and the drunken wino in the subway swears, “It’s more refreshing than a normal shower!”

2.) Break one of your little fingers to distract your mind from the pain.

3.) Mix any (ANY) five ingredients from your spice cabinet in a milkshake, and chug that sucker.

And if these don’t work…well, just like a drive-by shooting, it’ll all be over soon and you’ll have to replace those windows.

But, all in all, thanks for reading, and as my uncle would say…

“Have a day!”