Why do movies suck? (Bob, from St. Louis.)

It’s your girlfriends fault. How many times have you been at the video store and you see a decent movie on the shelf, and she says something to the effect of "Oh, that looks good. I do want to see that; I do. But I’m not in the mood for something like that tonight." "like that" being the operative words, and in this case, they mean, “good.” She wants to see something designed to enhance her comfort in sitting on the couch -- something that won’t be too much of an intrusion. She’ll spend more time thinking about what snack she wants with the movie then the actual movie, and she wants it that way. You, being a big puss, will comply, and you’ll end up driving back home with some 2 ½ star, unchallenging, homogenized, innocuous piece of crap staring Hugh Grant or Eddie Murphy or Sandra Bullock or Mathew McConaughey. Something like Micky Blue Eyes or Doctor Doolittle 2 or 28 Days.

Should you blame yourself for having no spine? No. Because even the "good" movies of the last few years don’t warrant using your "get’cher way" card in this instance. Use it later to pressure her into having sex with you, or use it to get your way in choosing the next restaurant you decide to go to. Plus, if you do get a get a little gem like A Simple Plan your girlfriend will end up depressing you by critiquing the entire film with a review like, "I didn’t like it. It was depressing." Then she’ll grease the bad movie machine, when after seeing some piece of crap like Spiderman she’ll tell her friends, "I liked it!" and leave it at that. She won’t be able to explain why she like it, but don’t press her on the issue. She’s a girl. That’s how they review movies.

Also, your friends are to blame. Those morons will see anything. They don’t check reviews, and they don’t feel comfortable seeing movies with each other that involve human emotion, because they feel like it’s kind of gay to see something like In the Bedroom with another guy. So they end up seeing some movie simply because it has a "hot chick in it." Either this or they’ll see something with loud noises and lots of cuts. Expect a movie your male friend picks to have anywhere from 1 to 2 thousand different camera shots in it. But the headache you’ll leave with will be better than turning gay, right?

What’s the difference between The Bone Collector, Kiss the Girls, and Along Came a Spider? (Ed, Milwaukee)

The same difference you find between CSI, CSI Miami, Homicide Special Victims Unit, and Law and Order -- which is analogous to the differences you find between, The Profiler, John Doe, and Hack.

Help! I’m up for a best actress award. What should I do if I win? (Julia, Holywood)

Ok, first thing: don’t panic. Ok, now that you’re calm, follow the following formula:

1. Panic.
2. Feign Disbelief
3. Spout out an unfunny and bizarre non-sequator or two.
4. Recover your sanity to thank your agent, your manager, your publicist, and God (in order of importance.)
5. Break out the translucently insincere modest routine. (Best to mention how you feel honored just to be nominated with the likes of, then name the oldest hag up for the award that year.)
6. Claim your win as a win for the group represented in the character you played (cancer patients, human rights advocates, etc.) or the ethnic group you’re from (blacks, etc.)
7. Deify the director or at minimum label him a genius.
8. Canonize your parents, as if how f#cking great you are proves what great people they are.
9. Cry a little. Hear the band start up, and get off the stage (but not before starting in the wrong direction.)

Man, movies suck. What are they gayest elements consistently caught on film? (Tony, Toledo)

Thank you for your important and excellent question. Yes movies are lame. They are lame in their completeness, and they are lame in their parts. Some of the lamest elements are: (in no particular Order)

• Training Montages
• Love Montages that involve parks, and/or goofy wrestling.
• Studying or Work Montages that involve disheveled clothes, furrowed brows, and insufficient light.
• House prepping montages that involve Chinese take out containers, dancing while working, and painting someone’s nose to make the work fun.
• Pumped fists.
• Births that involve the woman getting mad at the husband for “doing this to her.” And the husband fainting and/or screaming along with the contractions and doctors who speak broken English with Indian accents.

Jesus, you must be retarded. That stupid magic trick is going to save the East Coast from Nuclear annihilation, you dumb ass.

How do I know not to rent a movie by looking at its box? (Name Withheld)

Excellent question. In the case of movies, you can generally judge a book by it’s cover. (Which is true of people too actually.)

Do NOT rent a movie if you see ANY of the following on the box:

• “Hilarious!”
• “Funny!”
• “This year’s Full Monty.”
• “This year’s” anything for that matter.
• A movie made in the early 90’s not directed by Taranteno that references Taranteno on the cover.
• “You’ll stand up a Cheer!”
• “Combines the (insert positive quality) of (insert successful movie) with the (insert a different positive quality) of (insert another successful movie.)”
• Any cover that uses a review from the Urban Radio Network, The Hollywood Minute, or any source that involves the words “Radio,” “Newz,” “Online,” “.com,” or “Larry King”
• Any movie with the word “Girl” or “Woman” in the title. Trust me.
• “From the Director of Ace Ventura 2. (and Yes, there is a real example of this.)

I’m a lazy and talentless director, and I have to phone in a piece of shit that’s going direct to Showtime. Can you help me? (Alan Smithee, Los Angeles)

Yes. Use the following techniques and you’ll be able to slap together a lousy piece of fluff with limited effort:

Tell Don’t Show.
You can accomplish this by having the protagonist narrate the movie as it goes along. You can do this by having the story happen in the past and have him tell it in the present to a bartender or to a jury or a psychiatrist, or just don’t explain why he’s narrating it all. Just have him do it. This way he can explain his motifs, and his emotions, etc. It’s a lot easier than having him act.

If you can’t figure out how to get the narration to work to move the story along, just splice in monolouges against a backdrop to tell the story. Plus it looks artsy-fartsy.

Use Flashback for Exposition a lot.
It’s a whole lot easier than trying to write a script that naturally and seamlessly adds in the exposition. That’s real hard!

Use the Score Extensively to Express Emotion.
If God wanted actors to emote, He wouldn’t have invented the whammy bar. Am I right?

Finally, Throw in some Twist at the End that would make O. Henry Blush
It’ll be the only thing the audience will remember from your sh!t movie, and will leave them thinking it was clever.

There you go. You should be all set.