For my first foray into reporting from the Mainstream, I decided to investigate Marley and Me. Obvious choice. The movie was number one at the box office throughout the entire holiday season, and has made about $120 million so far. Plus it stars ultimate Mainstreamer Jennifer Aniston. Also, it’s about a dog, and I’m really into dogs. Not weirdly!!! Just in a Mainstream kind of way.
Anyway, I was ready to love this movie. I wanted to watch a funny dog story. I also wanted to prove my friends wrong—the cat-loving, pretentious ones who said I was an idiot for going. I knew it would be bad, but I’m open to banal badness. For instance, The Holiday and The Wedding Date were OK with me. A bottle of wine, some wacky Cameron Diaz antics. Sure. I’m Mainstream.
And yet here I am with the sad, obvious, bottom line: Go nowhere near this movie if you value the precious minutes of your life. Marley and Me was just horrifying. It had no story. The acting sucked. The writing made me want to vomit. (“I just want to be there for you.” “Dogs don’t care if you’re rich or poor.”) Everyone in the movie—including the dog—was blindingly, offensively white. These people lived in Miami, and there weren’t even any hot Latin brunettes around. Oh wait. There was one Jew. The funny guy! But again, they gave him no good lines. And then, the worst crime: the dog-actors so obviously kept switching throughout the movie. Marley grew and shrank in a manner completely incongruous to his age. Plus his face wasn’t even close to similar from scene to scene. True, only a dog person would notice that, but it’s like they didn’t even try.
Two other people not trying: Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. Owen was completely baked the entire time. I can’t blame him; he’s an oddball genius caught in a Mainstream nightmare, so I forgive his need to numb out while earning rehab money. Jennifer Aniston, though. There’s something creepy about how she has reigned as the queen of Mainstream or so long. When she was Rachel on Friends, I gave her the benefit of the doubt for being slightly annoying. We all wanted to be friends with Rachel. Then she married Brad and we were so psyched for her. And he dumped her, of course. So Mainstream! But her weird I-don’t-age voodoo magic makes me uncomfortable. In this movie, she drones her lines and has total robot face. And you know what? I could totally tell she hates dogs. When she picked little-tiny-puppy-Marley up, it was like she was holding a used self-tanning towel. I felt dirty watching her.
But let’s take a step back and address the truly disturbing question at hand. How is this turd of a movie so popular? Literally, it’s for no one. It wasn’t for girls, because the romantic development and chemistry was non-existent. There wasn’t any hot sex or violence, so it’s not a dude movie. Kids? No way. The “plot” was an excruciating string of after-school-special, mind-numbingly boring adult issues: miscarriage, 40th birthdays, professional quandaries so lame if my friends complained about them I’d cut them off. Plus, the dog dies a slow, painful death. (I was wailing.) What imbecile would take their six-year-old to watch that?
And yet, the math. 120 million dollars in two weeks. OK. If a ticket cost $10, that means, according to my computer calculator, that at least 12,000,000 people went to see this piece of crap. I know I’m probably wildly off, but still. How did they get all those people to pay money to see that?
It took some serious Mainstream mind acrobatics, but I think I’ve figured it out. To really understand, I need you to be interactive for a moment. Click on the image of the poster to make it big, and then stare at Marley’s face for ten full seconds.
See how cuddly he is? And innocent? And that cute bow! What could go wrong in that perfect little puppy world? Stare harder. You sort of want to see the movie now, don’t you? Huh? Don’t you want to crawl in there and curl up and sleep next to Marley forever? Come on in. We’ll pet you. It’ll be Ok. It’ll be Oooookaaaaaaayyyy….
Quick, close that window! Oh my God! You see? Stay on your side of the plate glass, young hipsters. The Mainstream is a dangerous place. Because out here we can struggle all we want against Jennifer Aniston eating our souls and bathing in our blood to melt her cellulite, but it’s just no use. The puppy will get us in the end.
Yours from the Megaplex,
Mainstream K.
