Sucky Summer Cinema

Sex and the City: the story of four women and their pet horse.
-Numerous clever fucks

Advisory: If your date wants to see "The Human Centipede", have a long talk with yourself about who this person really is.

-Roger Ebert

There aren't a lot of great summer movies for you to choose from this year. What you have to ask yourself is this: "How much I want to puke my pants at the movies?" You have to know analyze your taste in film and ask yourself which is more effective for this purpose. *Slight spoiler alert*

Will it be:

A. Watching an Asian man defecate into a woman's mouth, or

B. looking at Sarah Jessica Parker's face for 146 minutes?

If you chose A, go see The Human Centipede and seek therapy if you enjoy it.

If you chose B, go see Sex and the City 2, but do make sure you have a female escort unless you want your ass kicked. By me.

Disclaimer: I had the opportunity to see The Human Centipede in theatres and I loved it. I will not take my own advice and seek therapy because I would most definitely be prescribed medication that mellow my ability to hate sufficiently to write my blog. Cheers!

Secret Life of the American Victim of Abstinence-Only Education

Look out, ABC Family, Anniehilation is looking your way.

I'm not going to lie to you, I missed most of the second season. However, I was fortunate enough to see all its events montage-ed in the first episode of the third season. As soon as I have seen the most recent episode (302) I will be kind enough to provide a thought-provoking post about it.

Keeping You a Secret

I know it's not Anniehilation's job to rag on anything she dislikes. I'm here to rag on stupid things that everyone else likes. So why, then, am I going to review the Julie Anne Peters young adult novel Keeping You a Secret when we all know that most of the 13-18 year old crowd lacks the ability to read? Answer: To show just how much reverence people can have for a poorly written book. (I know that Twilight is the first thing that came to your mind, but that series has given me far too much material to organize for publication right now.)

Let's begin with judging a book by its cover. A blue image of a girls head leaning on a shoulder - the other face is mostly out of the frame but the lips that we can see definitely look like those of a girl. The tagline reads "Is it worth falling in love if you have to keep it a secret?" I was like, okay Peter, I'll bite. But was it worth reading this piece of shit to find out? Not really. But I'll be polite enough to indicate that this is where the *spoiler alerts* start just in case any of my readers feel like putting themselves through this.

Our main character's name is Holland Jaeger, and that is the only cool thing about this book. (Then again, if that's not a name that gives off the almost the same feeling as Aryan Nation, I don't know what is.) As we get to know Holland, we learn that she swims for her high school team, doesn't like having sex with her boyfriend but fulfills her obligations, is applying to Ivy League schools, and is not a likeable character in the least. Nobody in this entire book is likeable. The first thing that Holland did to piss me off was refer to her stepsister as a walking freakshow because she's "into Goth right now, which is just sick after Columbine." I sincerely hoped, for the author's sake, that it was the character who was this naive and not the author herself.

Anyway, guess what? Our all-American protagonist Netherlands Jaegermeister starts to get all tingly about Cece, the new girl at school! Here is the passage of realization, the entire inner struggle, that you get from the book that's been so applauded for its realism.

Ms. Fielding, in German class. I was so in love with her. I used to pretend I needed help so I could stay after school. She wasn't gay, I don't think. Just beautiful. And Leah. God. I had a torrid crush on Leah in sixth grade . . . My pulse quickened. Was I? Gay, I mean? If so, what was I doing with Seth? Maybe I was bi. That would explain it. An open heart, willing to give and accept love wherever it came from. The feelings, the stirrings, the awakening senses with Cece, though, I'd never experienced those with Seth. With any guy.

So how long did it take you read that paragraph? That, according to Julie Anne Peters, is exactly how long it takes to figure out you're gay. Did you notice how she even went through the intermediate bisexual stage before she went over to the dark side completely? That must be the realistic part. And since when does internal monologue sound like that? I can't quite remember the last time I thought to myself, "Am I? Hideous, I mean." Sorry, I just think the girl who is accepted to Stanford later in the book could have thought patterns a bit more coherent.

So moving on to Amsterdam Weinerschnitzel's girlfriend, well, she's a bitch. Cece has just transferred from a different school for "health reasons" - her health was endangered by all the gay bashers at her old school, you see. So instead of keeping things on the downlow and trying to get through the rest of school without dying, she wears a different lesbian-themed t-shirt every day and tries to start a GLBT club at school. To be clear, this isn't the part I hate about her. It's actually kind of noble. The thing is, when she's told her only chance to have her club at school is to make it a non-discriminatory Gay-Straight Alliance, she says no. According to Cece, straight people can't possibly understand the real issues. That's a pretty cunty thing to say when you're asking for acceptance.

So how does their relationship go down? Well, after Cece demands that the relationship be kept a secret for Holland's sake, it takes them about a minute and a half to fall "so unabashedly in love." Nothing about how different it is to have sex with a girl, no worries about who gets to wear the pants in the relationship, no feelings at all really. Why was Peters in such a damn hurry writing this book, I wonder? Now I know that some people believe that the gays don't really love each other and are just satisfying their perverted urges, but you will change your mind after you read Cece's profession.

"No, I only get up at the butt-crack of dawn so I can pretend we're having breakfast together at our lockers. I don't even have a seven o' clock class, you know. I dropped it after the first day . . . Then I have to haul ass down three flights of stairs to pass you in the hall between third and fourth period. And I stall around outside the restroom by the art studio so I can watch you walking down the hall. I'm late to algebra every day . . . I drive by Children's Cottage after school to see if you're there yet, to see if I can catch a glimpse of you in the window. I go by your house on the way to school. Sometimes from the library, I'd watch you guys leave for lunch. A couple of times I even followed you so I could maybe find out what you liked to eat." [hint: it's pussy.]

Look, if any young adults are out there, please listen to me. I don't care who says this to you, whether it's your brand new gay lover or a sparkly vampire or the guy you met on Craigslist. The appropriate response is running and possibly calling the cops, not swooning.

The secret love doesn't last long, obviously. Soon, Holland is outed to everyone at school, and those who hate her for it out her to her own mother. The important thing to know about Mama Jaeger is that her parents disowned her when she got pregnant in high school. Having vowed to give her daughter a better life, she attempts to beat the shit out of Holland and throws her out on her ass upon finding out that she's a lesbian. The whole situation is a little bit surreal though. I don't know many people who, if their mother was asking in a very serious and angry way whether or not you're dating someone of the same sex and sleeping with said person, would respond, "Well, actually, [*smirk*] we don't get a lot of sleep." I'm sure that helped her case. To make things even more confusing, Mrs. Jaeger is in the middle of frosting a cake when she confronts Holland. We never find out why. Holland wonders whose birthday it is, but she never finds out. Is this some kind of meaningful juxtaposition of the happiness of cakery and raging homophobia? I've seen the Ace of Cakes get pretty stressed over a deadline, but I have never seen someone frost a cake angrily. Where was I? Oh yeah. Holland has to move into a shelter for abandoned gays.

The best part is when homeless Windmill ThirdReich has to give up all her dreams now that her mother won't so much as look at her. She registers for community college just after finding out that she was accepted to Stanford, and begins working two jobs just to support herself. But I guess we're supposed to infer that it's all worth it or something because she's found love.

I am not saying that the book should have ended happily. Things like this do indeed happen, so I suppose that's where the realism comes from. But when it comes down to it, there's really no closure. Holland's life sucks, and it doesn't even necessarily suck for love. It sucks for the sake of a stalky high school girlfriend who she's known for two or three months.

If this book exists to teach gay teens anything, it's this: Don't come out until you're independent. Shit will get way too real. Be terrified of people's reactions.

So hopefully Peters wasn't trying for, "Be yourself no matter what!"

Chasing Cars? More like chasing down a better grasp on the English language.

Take a listen to this bullshit. Just the chorus will do for the point I'm about to make.







The fundamental problem here is that the vocalist asks a hypothetical question about what would happen if he was to "lay here" but never states what object he intends to lay. Certainly he is not implying that he means to recline somewhere, intransitively. Because you know, then he'd say "if I just lie here." Curiously, he asks the person to whom this song is devoted if he or she would lie with him! I really do not understand how it can be possible to make this mistake once, and to correct oneself in the same sentence. Was the writer in a lyrical race, questioning which verb was correct and using both in an attempt to get half credit or something? If so, this would be the result (click to enlarge):

The Second Short Life of Bree Tanner

Stephenie Meyer will never give up.

Steph has written exactly five books thus far: one entitled The Host and the four epics of the Twilight series. Every time some socially awkward and/or braindead teen girl goes out and buys one of these paperback monstrosities, she [unknowingly?] makes a donation to the Jesus Christ Church of Latter-Day Saints. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but hopefully for Steph these saints are so latter that she'll be able to get canonized after the Breaking Dawn comes out - 10% of the profits from all the Twilight bullshit should keep all the Prop 8's and Prop 1's of the U.S. strong for years! Thanks Steph!

Anyway, on to the reason Anniehilation's hatred for Smeyer has flared up this week: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. I saw an ad for this in the window and Border's and thought, huh, she's writing another book. Maybe it'll have a plot and not suck so hard this time. And then I read the subtitle: an Eclipse novella. I really didn't know she could sink this low. Steph's first attempt at exploiting how incredibly stupid her disciples are was Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from Edward's perspective instead of Bella's. Seriously, she thought her fans were so dense they'd want to read the exact same book over again. (She was right.) Anyway, it was never formally published because one of her trusted beta readers posted it online. Her second attempt is basically the same damn thing, replace Twilight with Eclipse and Edward with Bree. There's nothing wrong with whoring out your creative gold for fan service, particularly if it's going to keep your income nice and steady. God forbid Steph try anything new, it might not be as well received.

Oh, that or she doesn't have an original thought in her head. At least The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them were metafiction written under pseudonyms. Not Tom Riddle’s fucking first-person orphan sob story.

Don't worry, Twitards, it doesn't have to ever end. I assume that immediately after you've all grown tired of the Bree Tanner book, film, broadway musical, and theme park, there will be something else on the shelves. Perhaps we could do New Moon from Alice’s perspective, revealing her hardcore lesbian crush on Bella, or Bella’s entire childhood narrated by her mother! Maybe I can ghostwrite what it was like to suck so many delicate little teenage necks from Carlisle’s point of view. Actually, everyone should read that one. Sounds like it’d answer a lot of questions.

My Life As Liz

If you've been keeping up with your MTV, you know that My Life As Liz is a "reality" show about a girl who just doesn't fit in at her high school, which is mostly due to the fact that she makes awkward, arbitrary Star Wars references and isn't blond.

So let's talk about Liz herself. In the first episode, through a series of events that reek of incredibly lazy exposition (Liz picks up the phone and says "Hey cuz, you're weird, I can't believe I'm related to you. Get it? It's her cousin! For real, not just figuratively!) the viewers come to know that Liz is just way too good for her Bible-thumping pig farmer hometown of Burleson, Texas. She's sophisticated! "Everyone in this town looks, acts, and thinks the same! And they don't take too kind to anyone who's not a blond Texan barbie doll," she laments. In addition to proving that MTV shows are produced by old white guys who have done their research watching every teen movie since 1980 (Sarcastic redhead = 21st century Molly Ringwald?) this show plays gracelessly on every Texas and high school stereotype in existence.

Excerpt from Liz's official bio:
Liz often finds herself mixing up a fresh batch of mix CDs with the latest and greatest indie songs. . . When she's not jamming out to tunes. . . she is often face planted in front of a classic comic book, or trying to invent new ways to insult the blond conformists who populate her high school. She has a pet snake and is a vegan. . .

Alright, we get it, everything about Liz is supposed to be indie as fuck. You might even say she's this generation's attempt at Daria, but then I'd have to kill you because that's damn near blasphemy. She could only prove herself further if she made mixtapes instead of CDs and played guitar! And guess what, her friends guy enjoy LARPing! If at some point we find out they're Trekkies, that would just be perfect.

By the way, aren't good characters supposed to have flaws? You might think that the "insulting the blond conformists part" takes care of this, but it doesn't. This show doesn't encourage being yourself, it only glorifies clique wars. So it's okay to be a giant bitch if you're an indie kid, because you're right. How would MTV feel about making a show featuring Tiffani, a Camaro-driving cheerleader whose hobbies include tanning, shopping with Daddy's credit card, and thinking of new ways to insult the nerds who simply exist in her high school. A hero for us all!

Liz's love life echoes the triangle we've seen over and over: chunky nerd BFF Sully likes Liz, but she's oblivious and flaunts her crush on Bryson right in front of him! But don't worry, this trying-too-hard-to-be-indie series doesn't take a completely original turn by having Liz actually end up with the one who's always been loyal and made sacrifices for her. That would be heinous - he's fat, for fuck's sake!

Liz's friendships sure are deep. She doesn't just hang out with the LARP kids, you know. In the first episode of the series, Liz accidentally befriends pageant queen Taylor Terry. And she's going to fix her, help her escape the mold! Their friendship consists of awkward culture clashes and pushing each other around in shopping carts.

Oh and guess what? Burleson High has a prom! And Liz struggles with whether or not she's going to go. Liz is cool and indie enough to associate with the LARP guys, but definitely not cool enough to reject stupid traditions like prom and Valentine's Day. She "feels behind in life" because she hadn't been to the prom before her senior year. Really kids, like every series MTV pulls out of its ass will tell you, if you don't go to the prom you might as well kill yourself. I guess Liz feels behind because she's never been to "anything remotely close to the prom." You know, except for the Valentine's Day dance she went to in the second episode. And let's not forget when she was a "sports-loving, school-spirited, school dance-attending, Jesus-adoring preteen." Actual fucking quote from the first episode.

Liz seems to think that everything that happens to her is somehow larger than life, so no wonder she feels like she deserves her own damn "reality" show. The first instance of this that really stuck out to me was when she implied that Bryson rejecting her as a prom date was more awkward than an incestuous makeout. But then again, that may have just been the only place they could fit in the obligatory Star Wars reference and have it almost make sense. But don't worry, she "won't spend a single lightyear" thinking about that. Probably because lightyears measure distance. Dumbass. But of course this only makes it a little bit hypocritical when Liz offers her sage advice, "It's just high school," to blond Cori. Oh, isn't she smart?


The last episode is Liz's graduation, so hopefully this means there won't be a second season. Liz has never once talked about her ambitions during the eight episodes leading up to this, and all of a sudden we're suppose to pretend we knew it was her lifelong dream to go to New York. Of course, she never implies what it is she wants to do there, just that it's full of "enough weird people to make [her] seem normal." No job, school, or living conditions are mentioned. Six weeks after graduation, it's time - she's leaving for New York because Bryson never came out to her about his feelings. Yeah, this "lifelong dream" depends on whether or not a guy she met earlier this year who did nothing but play mind games with her will finally admit to liking her. Remember, Liz has always had the lowest opinion of Texas and just can't wait to get out and go some place where people will understand her liberal, Star Wars fan, dyed-hair, vegan, ways. But when you hear what Bryson says to her in this year's most dramatic TV moment, you can't blame her for wanting to stay:

(monotone) "You really are cool. Like, so much cooler than any girl I know. You have a favorite comic book artist. You listen to some of the best music of anybody I know . . . I like that you have that, uh, red hair. I, just, uh, I like you.

Liz's conclusion? "I don't really know what happens from here . . . Sometimes it's best when things aren't perfect. At least then, you know they're real."

Oh, precisely. As real as when the high school student who owns a Mustang lets you sit on the hood of his car and eat french fries. As real as the fat friend suddenly deciding he'll help the not-fat friend get Liz. As real as this being a scene from the actual high school hallway:


I hope you all appreciated this post - you have NO idea how many Crest and Tampax commercials I had to sit through to watch enough episodes to write this shit.

Taylor Swift

If you didn't know Taylor Swift from hearing her bullshit every five seconds on the radio, then you probably know her from a certain incident at the 2009 VMA's involving Kanye West.

I first realized I hate Swift in the dining hall at school when I was listening to her very originally titled song "Love Story." All I could discern in the lyrics was a repetitive mention of Romeo and Juliet. Even though the music didn't suit me, I thought the lyrics might - I'm into tragedies. So when I finally got around to looking up the lyrics, here's what I found for the final verse:

Marry me, Juliet, you'll never have to be alone
I love you and that's all I really know
I talked to your dad, go pick out a white dress
It's a love story, baby, just say yes

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly sure that's not how Romeo and Juliet ends. I have to assume that Swift stopped reading halfway through. I wonder if she was using No Fear Shakespeare or the original text. Whatever it was, she didn't quite understand, judging by the line in the chorus that says You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess. Her grasp on the actual play must have been something like this:



I love how the entire song promotes the image of the weak female, with several mentions to the Juliet character waiting around and crying. How about something more like get up off your ass and do something? Or is that just too edgy for a country musician?

One might want to forgive these awful lyrics and assume that since she's so young, Swift must be a beginner. Well, that's not quite the case here - she spends quite enough time in the biography section of her official website congratulating herself for being so experienced and original:

“I didn’t want to write songs about being on the road and being on hotels and missing your family and missing your friends,” insists Swift. “When I was like 14 or 15 and I would hear those things on an album...being alone, living out of a suitcase... and I was always like, ‘Ugh, skip!’ I’m inspired by boys and love. I’d rather write songs about how I’m feeling and the relationship side of things.”

I simply cannot accept this as a legitimate excuse - how fucking hard is it to write lyrics for country music? All the naive young ladies who are buying up all the Taylor Swift albums and are also inspired by, erm, "love and boys" are going to think they can make it to the top too... fear for the future of popular music.

The next item that needs to be discussed is Swift's award-winning video, "You Belong With Me." Don't let the title fool you like the Romeo and Juliet references did, it may sound warm and fuzzy but I think there's cause for a bit of concern here. It all starts with Taylor watching a boy through his window - is this permissible? I know with the invention of the Twilight series we've all come to think that stalking and obsession is just about as romantic as it gets, but really? Anyway, in this masterpiece, Swift makes sure not to miss out on exploiting the most classic exhausted high school stereotypes in existence.

But she wears short skirts, I wear t-shirts
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers

She wears high heels, I wear sneakers
She's cheer captain and I'm on the bleachers

Oh God. She goes to high school and wears t-shirts? What is she thinking? And she's in the band? SOCIAL FUCKING SUICIDE. Oh, and don't forget the glasses. Girls that wear glasses, are you trying to be hideous?

But wait! The thrilling conclusion will save us all!



Following the same exact formulas of every high school movie ever, the big dance is the climax. (Which in turn has led more than one teenager to believe that their own prom will be something more than an overpriced dinner and dancefloor - like, for instance, the high point of her life.) In accordance with the rules, the main character has removed her glasses and/or taken her hair down and/or put on a dress and is miraculously HAWT. (See She's All That, The Princess Diaries, A Walk to Remember.)

It is at this point we find out that the pretty blonde boy from next door has loved HER along, and not the popular but bitchy cheerleader! Funny that he should only admit this after Tay has ditched the glasses, sneakers, and t-shirt. What remains untold is whether or not she's quit the band yet. Remember girls, he really does like you, he'd just be too embarrassed to be seen with you if you're going to wear those atrocious lenses on your face. Change your look and he's yours!

If you want to stop here and say, hold up, it's clear that not all teen girls are dumb enough to buy into this. Swift begs to differ with the lyrics to another popular single from 2009, "Fifteen."

Cause when you're fifteen and
Somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them

Much of the song is written to "you," as if generalizing the entire fifteen-year-old population. About halfway through, Swift changes "you" to "I" - this is much more fitting, as her statements were getting a bit specific to encompass the typical experience of a high schooler (You sit in class next to a redhead named Abigail/And soon enough you're best friends/Laughing at the other girls who think they're so cool/We'll be out of here as soon as we can - did that happen to most people?). So why the change in subject? I theorize that it's a trick; Swift wants you to think her song is about you, but in the end you find out it's all about her looking back on how stupid she was to lose her virginity to a boy. Oh wait, my mistake, she decided to celebrate her own coming of age while exploiting her "best friend's" folly - Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday/But I realized some bigger dreams of mine/And Abigail gave everything she had to a boy/Who changed his mind.

So why the are Fifteen and You Belong With Me so ridiculously juvenile? The imagery in the videos is damn near sickening, and you would have to wonder if the people who directed them had ever actually been in high school. I theorize that she must be incredibly bitter about her own homeschooling. Perhaps she never got that prom climax she so desperately needed. If there's one thing the teenagers of today do not need, it's more pop culture bullshit that portrays high school as a battleground between vicious blonde cheerleaders and sweet misunderstood individuals interrupted only by the occasional dance or convertible ride to a cliff overlooking the city with a boy. Now I know a completely realistic portrayal of high school would not suffice for the entertainment industry, but would it upset the balance to subtly imply that academics are part of those four years?


Just as a bonus, take a look at how Swift answered this interview question:

4. When you are not touring, what do you like to do for fun?
My best friend, Abigail, and I like to drive past our ex-boyfriends' houses.

No red flags there.