The Prefabricated Future

Not many people can say that they’ve spent significant amounts of time in supermarkets with Lowtax, but I can. For some reason, every time I drop by his “swinging bachelor pad” to work on some ill-fated “internet films,” he ends up suddenly remembering that he absolutely has to drag me to the supermarket right now so he can get some obscure lotion for his dry skin, cherry cobbler mix, Carnation Instant Breakfast, or oversized bars of white chocolate. I don’t understand why he always buys such unusual and totally un-tasty products. Maybe he secretly feeds on homeless pets and just grabs random items off the shelf in an asinine attempt to conceal his dark, ritualistic, midnight pet eating orgies. I also seriously think he’s afraid to go into grocery stores alone, and that’s why he always drags me along. Despite the fact that I look like a former skin-head Woody Allen, I’m a pretty tough guy.

About two months ago I was shuffling behind Lowtax as he searched for meat to stuff into his newly acquired George Foreman Grill when we encountered an old crone pushing free samples of Ruffles potato chips. Using her long, pointy fingers as incentive, the hag offered a handful of chips to Lowtax. Lowtax attempted to respond with a witty reply, but he ended up saying something like “No thanks I’m afraid of potatoes.” I forget what he said. Then the witch asked me if I wanted some, and I nasally replied that I had already eaten a bag of Twinkies while Lowtax was hunting for fresh Brussel Sprouts or something like that. At this point, the old woman with impossibly frazzled hair became surprisingly animated and proudly proclaimed (and I quote this exactly, as I will never forget this encounter for the rest of my life):

“ I have seen the future, and the future is a Ruffles chip, and the future is a Ruffles dip!”

At the time, this announcement shocked us and we quickly scampered down the frozen peas aisle to laugh and recount the entire bizarre experience. Best of all, as we made our way back to Lowtax’s car in the parking lot, we encountered the old hag again, as she had inexplicably parked her car next to Lowtax’s and probably needed to snag some goat tongue from her trunk during her 5-minute break.

That, my fellow humans, is a true story. And I share it with you for a very compelling reason. You see I too have seen the future. And while the future does indeed contain a Ruffles chip and a Ruffles dip, it is also a future filled with nifty pre-fabricated food.

The inspiration behind this update was my purchase of Nestle Toll House “break & bake” cookies. I saw an ad for this product on TV and was completely blown away. See, you buy this one pound rectangle of cookie dough, put square chunks of it into your oven, and boom: ten minutes later, you get perfectly round cookies HOW CAN THIS POSSIBLY BE!?! See, the small squares transform into tasty circles! My brain just can’t fathom this technology. Nestle has invented hyper-intelligent cookie batter that can change shape on consumer demand. And these aren’t crappy airport cookies, either, oh no. These are mommy-slaved-over-a-hot-stove-for-three-hours home-style chocolate chip cookie goodness! The back of the package claims that the entire process is “Like Magic.” But us educated folk know that Nestle isn’t selling magic, they’re selling advanced technology of possible alien origin. These cookies can’t be magic, because magic never tasted this good!

I don’t see why the mainstream media isn’t making a bigger deal out of these recent developments. The way things are going, we’ll all be eating Jetsons-style in just a few short months. Entire eleven course meals will be compressed into easy to bake one-pound rectangles. And once micro-technology catches up, we’ll be able to pop food pills, just like Judy Jetson did before going out to hyper-kiss on a space couch at the cyber movies with the guy who ran the Sprocket company. A prefabricated future of transforming, morphing, simple to prepare nourishment is just around the corner. I have seen the future of food, and it geometrically pleasing!

Movie Review: Freddy Got Fingered

I just got back from seeing Tom Green’s way-too heavily promoted first feature film Freddy Got Fingered. This film is getting absolutely trashed by the critics. CNN calls it “quite simply the worst movie ever released by a major studio in Hollywood history.” Even worse than Battlefield Earth?! Impossible, I thought. Roger Ebert said “This movie doesn't scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn't below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.”

I’m ashamed to admit it at this point, but I consider myself to be a Tom Green fan. Scoff if you will, but I find a good portion of his Canadian public access stuff especially to be incredibly amusing. So I went into the theater with at least modest expectations. After all, most movie critics are seventy-year old zombies who only giggle at Cosmopolitan jokes. (Warning, minor spoilers below)

Unfortunately, the critics were right. This movie truly is something awful, and I can only recommend it to die-hard Tom Green fans who enjoy looking at animal penises. The movie falls apart just five or so minutes in when Tom jumps out his car to jerk off a horse and scream “Look at me, I’m a farmer!” Most of the jokes revolve around animal cocks, oral sex, injuries, and child molestation. The remainder of the jokes consist of bad inside jokes and recycled Tom Green show comedy bits done with actors instead of real people. And none of them are very funny, except in the “I can’t believe this got filmed and approved by the MPAA” sense. My guess is that Tom thought that since sucking milk out of cow’s udders was kind of funny, jacking off animals would comedy gold.

Oh, and if you thought the cheese factory scene or the sausage song in the trailers looked promising, they’re not. Not only do the trailers contain pretty much the entire respective scenes, but also the shot of Tom screaming about his cheese helmet isn’t even in the final cut. Not like that’s a bad thing, mind you. I won’t bother to recap the excuse for a plot, it’s basically just torn out of a bad episode of Get a Life.

I really feel sorry for the other actors involved with this mess. Rip Torn, who plays Tom’s dad, is reduced to dropping his pants and begging his son to fuck him. Tom’s romantic interest (Marisa Coughlan) is a wheelchair-bound airhead who spends most of the movie begging Tom to cane her legs with bamboo sticks and engaging in oral sex . Her final line in the film, is something like “I don’t care if your rich or not, I just want to give you blow jobs. Just blow jobs. Since I can’t walk.” The only person to escape the experience relatively unharmed is Julie Hagerty (Tom’s Mom in the film), who played the stewardess in Airplane and is best known for giving head to a blow-up pilot.

I feel even more sorry for the two six-year-old or so kids who were watching the movie across the aisle from us with their parents. They’re pretty much fucked up for life now, hooray for poor parenting.

While I’m glad Tom Green didn’t sell out and make some watered down, mainstream-friendly movie where he tries to save his Grandma’s house from evil land developers, I was pretty disappointed with the movie and I don’t think it’s going to help his career very much. Some have compared Freddy Got Fingered to Clerks, another movie that skirted a NC-17 rating and grossed out a lot of critics with its vulgar dialogue. This isn’t a fair comparison at all, Freddy Got Fingered is more like Showgirls or Spice World. Even Mr. Accident - a Yahoo Serious film - tops Freddy Got Fingered. In my opinion, of course!

Even if autopsy photos make you giggle, you probably won’t enjoy Freddy Got Fingered. Yes, there are a handful of funny moments in the beginning of the film, but it’s certainly not worth shelling out $5 to $10 for. And it’s not as bad as Battlefield Earth, partly because nearly every shot in Battlefield Earth was inexplicably tilted for no reason at all, I think the cinematographer must have had mismatched legs. I can’t say I was offended by any of the content in Freddy Got Fingered since the things you see on the Internet desensitizes you to about anything real quick, but I was disappointed and expected something more than a ragtag collection of bad, extreme Farrelly Brothers-style gross out jokes and recycled Tom Green Show sketches. If you must go (it’ll certainly be a memorable experience), be sure to bring a parent, grandparent, or date. They’ll never forgive you.

– Kevin "Fragmaster" Bowen (@sexyfacts4u)