Red hot confession time: I, like a few of my fellow perverts here at the merry ol’ Counterforce, love trash. Not so much the people (dirtbags and trashy people aren’t always one and the same, though they probably poop in the same hole), and not always in our music, but otherwise in our pop culture? Hell yes. A trashy film or the occasional trashy TV is our wheelhouse. It’s our nasty little raison d’etre. It’s our thing that we love so much, we say, “I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.”
Well, for the most part.
Cruel Intentions:
Awesome stuff. Those liaisons just got a whole lot more dangerous, if you know what I mean.
You can’t deny that this movie does what it does perfectly. You know what I’m talking about. And Matt Dillon is on a whole other level of professional sleaze (here and especially with his brilliant turn in There’s Something About Mary). And suck it, Doc Manhattan, because Kevin Bacon is the original unnecessary dangling penis cameo.
Never seen this movie? Well, of course you haven’t. This is the most B of B-trash, but look at this cast that surely has to regret they ever came near this thing: Dominique Swain (naturally), Mia Kirshner (naturally), Meredith Monroe (Andie from Dawson’s Creek), Oliver Hudson (eat a dick, Kate Hudson’s brother), Scott Bairstow (you too, Bairstow), and bizarrely, Taye Diggs slutting it up for a paycheck.
I promise you that the lesbian kiss theme is (mostly) unintentional.
You know what’s bizarrely just as good as the previously two mentioned super films (and as bad as New Best Friend)? Cruel Intentions 2, that’s what:
No bullshit there. Originally meant as the pilot for a Fox TV show to be entitled Manchester Prep that didn’t get picked up, a few scenes were re-shot and it was edited together (shades of Mulholland Drive) as straight to DVD sequel (one of the first of many of it’s kind):
The original Roadhouse is brilliant 80s cinema exploding to life, the last gasp of a dying world on fire, and with The Swayze so damn near death, I highly recommend a viewing of this film for everyone who likes a good laugh, trashy good times, and high kicks (and who lives by a bizarre code of ethics). See it not as memento mori because of The Swayze, no, no, no. Instead view it as a brilliant viking funeral sailing into that blazing horizon of tomorrow. Or just go watch Point Break again. That movie is still the business.
This is just a fraction of my (and ours, but mostly mine, if we’re to be honest here) credentials on the glory of the trash cinema and broadcasting. But here’s my question for you, o fair reader: What’s the new shit?
Nip/Tuck:
…is still not bad, but the current season is almost over, and though there’s another season left in this plastic bitch, you can feel that it’s struggling to make it over the finish line. Forget going out with any relevance, I just want the show to end while it’s still pretty (fat chance of that though, I’m guessing). Also, bring back the Carver.
The new 90210:
…something tells me that this show isn’t so much trashy as just kind of dumb. Watered down for the watered down generation, I wonder? Perhaps. Also, let me ask you this: Is this show even still on?
The OC:
…believe it or not, I actually kind of miss this show. Well, actually, I can’t fully back up that statement.
Skins:
You’ve heard me go off on this show plenty, haven’t you? Well, it’s not plenty enough, let me tell you. The new season with the debut of a new cast kicked off a few weeks ago and while it’s initial legs were shaky, it’s getting to some good places. It’s a little goofier than the last series (goodbye pathos, hello twisted almost John Hughes-ian juvenile charm!), it’s got a certain freshness I’m enjoying. This is American ridiculous trash shows like Gossip Girl and Dawson’s Creek (and Canada’s mega monster Degrassi)(or even Edgemont, the adorable Degrassi clone) lit on fire and put out with MDMA and then fucked on top of while a rave is erected around it’s storylines.
Gossip Girl:
…I remember pounding out the first season of this show on DVD in a weekend and not loving it, but considering myself fairly invested. Then the second season started, I caught a few episodes, and slowly started to drift away from it like the continents. Or, maybe like a lover that I feel asleep on top of during the physical act of love, I don’t know. Maybe that one works better because, like a once cherished lover, I ponder from time to time, Is this show still good? And, Will it be canceled at the end of this season? I rely on you, o faithful reader, to provide me with much needed answers here.
Granted, trash comes in a great many shapes and forms and sizes and bizarre genre types, but that’s a little more of my credentials in the skeezy teen “drama” market. That’s what I’m referring to in particular, if you haven’t guessed yet. Quick, let’s do a little time travel…
Hidden Palms:
Remember this show? No, of course you don’t. This Kevin Williamson corpse (which actually started Amber Heard before Pineapple Express and All The Boys Love Mandy Lane)(and also that villainous douche Oliver from The OC is the star, ugh) only lasted a few episodes on TV and was actually canceled right before the last episode, in which answers were to be provided to the show’s big mystery suicide blah blah blah. Sadly, I watched every episode of this show and you want to know why? Because I fucking hate myself as a person. Clearly.
Why did I watch this show? See above. Though, sadly, my comrade Benjamin Light saw more of this than me, but then again, he was aided by the glory days of Mighty Big TV to get through it. This show also featured every straight girl’s secret (and sometimes not so secret) lesbian crush, Kate Moening.
This stupid piece of afternoon teen soap was the first time I ever laid eyes on Sarah Michelle Gellar (and we’re talking 3 whole months back in the halcyon days of Bill Clinton, baby: 1992!) and let me tell ya, it was love at first fucking sight (her co-stars here were Mira Sorvino, Brittany Daniel, and the douche who went on to star in Airborne). This was before she went on to snatch a daytime Emmy away from Susan Lucci (which is seemingly not that hard cause, I mean, shit, even I have a daytime Emmy) in All My Children, and before she went on to become the definitive Buffy the Vampire Slayer (sorry, Kristy Swanson, you were hot an all, but let’s face faces here: You fucked Alan Thicke) and firmly cemented that my tiny little heart was hers. Of course, then she went on to marry Freddie Prinze, Jr. and show me that not only did she not desire a potential mate to be talented, but that love was fickle and I would be alone forever. Anyways…
Enough about me and the tortured love affairs of my youth.
So, I put it to you, since you are the new scum, to tell me, if you please, what is the new dirt? What is the new trash? Granted, I could probably just go and discover Valley Of The Dolls or something. Or, even better, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, which Roger Ebert (from who the title of this post came from thanks to his review of Wild Things) co-wrote with Russ Meyers. I could do that, but I really don’t want to. Give me something new. And don’t suggest The Hills or The City to me or I will bite your jugular out. Talk to me!
