Shrooms

Today as I prayed to the gods to take my hangover away (it's a particularly violent one, the result of an impromptu dance party, a gay birthday bash, and the consumption of a shot called a Statutory Rape), I watched SHROOMS. Because sometimes you just want to watch something stupid that you don't have to think too hard about because thinking hurts. Thinking really hurts right now. Everything really hurts right now.

It's your standard attractive college kids going into the woods for a weekend of partying but some shit hits the fan and people start dying movie. This one features deadly, eat 'em and you'll see into the future and possibly become evil hallucinogenic mushrooms.

It is no secret that I party. Before you fall out of your chair from the shock of hearing that news, let me tell you, I have never taken mushrooms. I've never dropped acid, either. And I've never wanted to. Something about my brain would probably make me freak out, so I never understood the whole mentality about tripping. It just seems dumb to me. That being said....

This complete dumbasses in this movie have traveled all the way from happy American college life to the middle of fucking nowhere Ireland to pick these crazy mushrooms to brew into a tea so they'll start to see shit. They have a friend that's native to the region and he helps them pick the mushrooms and warns them off of the one's with a black nipple because if you eat those, you'll go fucking crazy as a loon and start fucking everyone's shit up. And you might also become psychic. He also regales them with tales about a nearby abandoned home for screwed up youth where some bad shit went down years before and some people got their asses killed.

Their guide has failed to mention this to Tara, our final girl in the tale, and she eats one of the bad ones - just plucks it right off the floor as if she's compulsed to eat it. She has a seizure and then starts to have prophetic dreams about her friends dying. She also says the best line in the movie, 'I just overdosed on the heroin of mushrooms!' Who says stuff like that? I love it - but that's about all I love here.

There's also two weirdos that live in the forest and some thing about sticking your dick in car windows while there are two people fucking inside to get a blow job. And there's a guy with a sack on his head and another ghostly presence that may or may not be killing everyone. And a twist ending.

Why did I watch this? The characters are horrible people - the jock is just such an asshole - you can't wait for him to die. But the actor that plays him doesn't have the panache to pull off even this stock of a character. His girlfriend's alright, but not particularly memorable, either. The other hippy-ish couple hate the jock and his GF, which is weird, because why you make an international trip with people that you hate? I know I like to go on vacation with people I can't stand. Tara's the good girl, but particularly annoying for no reason at all just because. The ending was abrupt and it's attempt at a twist felt forced.

I hate when there is just absolutely nothing to love in a movie (save for that one piece of aforementioned dialogue). Sometimes it helps if I picture something sucky as a seventies Italian version it makes it better, but even that wouldn't help this shit fest. My brain hurts now. I'm going to watch cartoons.

Baffled!

Tell me this doesn't sound like GOLD - Leonard Nimoy stars as international race-car driving playboy with unhinged psychic abilities who subsequently becomes embroiled with a Satanic cult. Over the course of said embroilment, he manages to be involved in a high speed car chase involving a super seventies black van, engage in a psychic staredown with a young daughter of a famous actress who is also involved in the aformentioned Satanic cult, the daughter, not the actress, and beat down an old lady, who really isn't an old lady, but the former BFF of the actress' late husband, who both were members of, you guessed it, the Satanic cult. And there's plenty of slo-mo running AND screaming. Nice.

Now, I love a Scooby Doo ending (almost as much as I love the he woke up and it was all a dream ending) and the thought of Spock in a fistacuffs with a meemaw. The mere thought of this makes me dizzy- and I'm glad to say that BAFFLED! delivers this action in spades. But you have wade through a freakin' hour and thirty six minutes of stupid. But let me back up.

So Tom (Spock) is driving his racing car in a race (go figure) and he suddenly gets a psychic vision of an old manor house, a little girl descending a staircase, and a woman screaming. It's an intense vision, and being that Tom's not used to these sorts of things, he crashes his race car. Then he does what most of us would likely do in the same situation - he goes on national television and blabs about how he's a crazy psychic person.

This interview attracts the attention of a lovely English bird, Michelle, who is also a rare books dealer and specialist in occult sciences, natch. She rings Tom up and manages to convince him in several short minutes to accompany her back to England so they can find the source of his vision and possibly help the screaming woman. You can tell Tom can really care less; Michelle is a looker and a half, and so you know that's why he agrees to fly to a foreign country and go on a caper with this woman.

That being said, I would love to be part of a couple that goes on capers together. I'd wear sexy mod outfits and drive the getaway vintage jaguar, because my man and I, we wouldn't be going on any helping people capers like Tom and Michelle. Oh no, we'd be going on dangerous adventure capers to steal rare jewels. I guess I wouldn't mind being psychic, too. It would aid in the capering, no doubt.

So back to boring old Tom and Michelle. Geez, I'm so bored already. They get to England and go to this manor house from Tom's vision. How they found it, I don't remember. Michelle had a brochure or something for it. Who knows. It's unimportant. The proprietress, Mrs. Faraday, is one of those old bitches you just know has something to hide. She's got that written all over her. But, and this is one of my problems with this movie, is that Tom and Michelle are not idiots, Michelle especially what with her esoteric knowledge of history and the occult, but they act like idiots. Most of the rest of this is them walking around speculating on who does what and why and where and walking into cellars with lit matches and getting stuck in elevator shafts. And REALLY, who cares? Why do they care?

If I had psychic visions, I would keep that shit to myself and use it for EEEVIL. I certainly wouldn't travel to England because my mind's eye saw a woman screaming and I felt the need to help her. Are you kidding me, BAFFLED!? So yeah, Tom and Michelle get stuck in places and open secret doors and try to expose everyone else in the house as poisoners or cult people or something and there's the actress and her daughter, who I mentioned earlier, as well as an Italian butcher, two drug-dealing newlyweds, and a butler named Hopkins.

If I had a butler, I would name him Cinnamon. Just so I could say things like, Cinnamon, please to answer the door. And I'll have my tea in the solarium today at precisely four. That is all for now, thank you, Cinnamon.

I mentioned the ending - which was AWESOME- so basically what you do is this - find a copy of BAFFLED! and just skip right to the ending, watch that a few times, LOL as if your heart depended on it, I did, and then go back to watching internet porn. There, I saved you a BAFFLING hour and a half. Yeah, you waited for it and I went there. But seriously, this thing was boring AND confusing. All the slow motion running set to super sexy swinging sounds doesn't even save this. And Leonard Nimoy was creeping me the fuck out - smiling and leering at Michelle and attempting innuendo. Do. Not. Want.

So, in theory and on paper, this sounds stunning. In real life, not so much. In fact, it took me two days and three hangovers (something about that math isn't right, but whatever) to watch it. But my made-for-tv seventies movies kick continues.