Fraters Libertas

A Flick Appalling Enough To Make One Sick?

(No, this isn't a post about Gigli .)

All I was looking for on Saturday night was a movie with little humor. I was tired and not in the mood for seriousness. I wanted a "stupid comedy" of the 'Dumb & Dumber', 'American Pie', 'Something About Mary' genre. I didn't want to think. I wanted to laugh.

Unfortunately, the comedy I chose for the evening's entertainment was 'Old School'.

Boring? Unbearably.

Plotless? Completely.

Incoherent? Jarringly.

Slow paced? Agonizingly so.

Funny? No.

Okay there were a few gags that brought a brief smile but they were few and far between. The writing was abysmal. Every college movie cliché was used, none to humorous effect.

Fraternity of losers? Check.

Wild parties? Check.

Evil dean? Check.

Sex with underage girl? Check.

Underage girl who's the daughter of someone in a position of power? Check.

J.B. Doubtless watched the movie with me (that is until he reached the point where he couldn't take it no more) and commented that to mention 'Old School' in the same breathe as 'Revenge of the Nerds' would be sacrilegious to say nothing of trying to compare it in any way to 'Animal House'.

It was horrendous. After I finished watching the entire train wreck of a movie I noticed that I felt a bit nauseous. Not an entirely unusual feeling to have after having wasted ninety minutes of one's life on such a fruitless pursuit of entertainment but this was something else. I went to bed thinking a little sleep would prove to be an elixir. But sleep would not come. I'm not certain if it was the disconcerting image of Will Ferrell's flabby naked ass or just bad pork but the conditions inside my stomach deteriorated as the night wore on. I fought the urge to clear out the contents of my gut for as long as I could but at around 4am I realized the battle was lost.

I lurched downstairs to the bathroom and made a rather generous deposit in the porcelain bank. We're talking about four or five separate spewings here, each a little lighter but more acidic than the last. I struggled to catch my breath between streams and managed to flush a couple of times as well which helped minimize the frightful splash back. I don't know if it's physically possible, but I swear that the vomit wasn't just coming out of the my mouth and nose but that it was actually seeping out of my EYES. That's how intense this session was.

When it was all over I kneeled there shaking like Howard Dean on 'Meet the Press' . The strange thing about vomiting or puking (Puke, now that's a funny word!) is that while you're in the midst of the action it's probably the closest thing to hell on earth you can experience but when you're done you feel a great sense of relief and calmness. Somewhat akin to having sex with Courtney Love I imagine. You almost have the urge to reach for a cigarette. Well you would if your throat wasn't burning intensely from the bile that you just dredged up.

I cleaned up best as I could considering my condition and crawled into the spare bedroom figuring my wife would appreciate not having the wafting odor of vomit next to her in bed. Next came the chills and shivering interspersed with feverish dreams (which thankfully did not feature Will Ferrell's ass in any manner) stage which lasted until later in the morning. The rest of the day was spent in recovery mode, napping and cautiously determining what food/liquids I could keep down.

Today I feel better although nowhere near normal (silence in the peanut gallery please). I think I might have picked up a bug recently. God only knows what kind of mutantous bacteria are floating around Northern Wisconsin these days. Or maybe I did have a bad hunk of pork on Saturday night.

Or maybe 'Old School' really was such a bad movie that watching it made me violently ill.

Applying William of Occam's blade to the question leads me to believe the latter.