2005-05-19 - 12:55 p.m.

Three things I hate that everybody else loves (a.k.a. My Unpopular Opinions, Volume I of MCDVII):

• Family Guy: It's just not that funny. It has individual jokes that are funny, but all in all, the timing is way off and there are too many jokes ripped off from inspired by other, funnier shows and comedians, and too much humor that is deliberately "out there" and calculated to "shock" without actually being "funny". I'd rather watch The Simpsons, Daria, The Critic, King of the Hill, Pinky and the Brain, Duckman, Futurama or any other thinking man's cartoon show than watch watered down, derivative mush like Family Guy. Also, talking dog = funny. Talking baby = funny. Talking dog *and* talking baby = overkill.

• Mayonnaise: Imagine you have a perfect BLT sub. The bread is soft and hearty with just a bit of a crust, the bacon is crisp and slightly burnt on the edges, the tomatoes are perfectly firm and ripe and not too thickly sliced, the lettuce is fresh and there's enough to offset the bacon grease but not so much that it overwhelms the sandwich, and there are plenty of paper-thin red onion slices. Oh, and maybe you've got a bag of kettle-fried potato chips and a bottle of Reed's ginger ale. So you've got this perfect sandwich and someone with severe post-nasal drip comes and sneezes messily all over it. That, my friend, is what mayonnaise is to me.

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Actually, I don't hate Buffy. What I've seen of the show has been entertaining - not mindblowing, but a decent way to spend an hour. I guess what I don't like is one of Buffy creator Joss Whedon's lines from the first X-men movie. Whedon wrote two lines, one which I enjoyed, despite it being mildly out of character (I think Wolverine would say "asshole" and not "dick"), and one which is not only extremely out of character, but quite possibly the worst line in cinematic history. Storm says to Toad, "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? Same thing that happens to everything else," and then she zaps him.

  First off, Storm wouldn't kill anyone (For more on how out of character Storm was in the first X-men movie, mention it around me and I'll whine about it for at least two hours). Secondly... what a shitty line. And every time someone brings this up, some fanboy or -girl stops licking their Joss Whedon poster for 10 seconds to say, "Well, you've got to imagine Buffy saying it," sometimes adding that Halle Berry can't act. To which I say, no. I don't have to imagine Buffy saying it, because I don't freaking care about Buffy. Also, NO ONE could make that line sound good. James Earl Jones couldn't say it. Katherine Hepburn couldn't. Sir Laurence Olivier couldn't. Bruce Campbell couldn't. It's the stupidest thing anyone has ever said on film, and bear in mind, I've seen quite a few episodes of MST3K, as well as many of Bush's televised speeches and the entirety of Star Wars 2: The Clonus Horror. So stop defending the line, people. It sucks.

   

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