Cinematic Experiences

This past week was full of fun and unique opportunities for me. I was carpe dieming all over the place. I have already told you about some of the fun things I did, but today I'll tell you about two movies I saw. They were not your ordinary movies. Or at least, they weren't MY ordinary movies. You'll see what I mean as you read on.

The first was a movie called "The Doll Squad" which is one of the worst movies ever made. I mean, it was so bad my brain hurt. The acting was bad, the plot line made absolutely NO sense, and the camera work was..... I mean, there are no words for how bad it was. Which is exactly why Mystery Science Theater decided to riff on it. My friend who works for the Ann Arbor summer festival hooked me up with free tickets to see the gang LIVE riff on The Doll Squad at the Michigan theater.

In case you've never heard of Mystery Science Theater before, basically it's a group who find the worst movies ever made, and make jokes about the movie through out it. It's kind of nerdy. In fact, one of my friends made fun of me for going to it by saying, "it's where nerds go to die."

It was hilarious. I had only seen one Mystery Science Theater movie before so I wasn't sure what to expect. The gang sat on the sides of the stage and live riffed throughout the Doll Squad. I missed some of the dialogue in the movie because of that, but that was actually a huge blessing because the dialogue I did hear was awful.

Suffice it to say I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. And it didn't hurt that one of their roadies opened the show by interpretive lip syncing to "Quit Playing Games with my Heart" by Backstreet Boys. 'Nuff said.

The second unique movie experience I had was a completely different genre. I saw the new Madea movie: "Madea's Witness Protection." It's interesting because as I have told some friends I saw this movie, the reactions have been different than I expected. A few just seem mildly amused while others seem offended, saying, "I would never spend money on those movies. They are so racist."

All I knew going into it was the that the previews looked funny, that I'd never seen a Madea movie before, and that I was curious. Here's my review in bullet point form:

• Tyler Perry when he's playing a man? Hot.
• Tyler Perry when he's playing a woman? Hilarious. I'm sorry. But he was so funny as Madea.
• Denise Richards can NOT act.
• My friends and I cringed throughout the movie at the painful racial stereotypes, BUT...
• We also laughed a lot because Madea is very funny.

Overall? I wouldn't pay to see another Madea movie in the theater. The plot was weak, the ending was weird, and the racial stereotypes made me uncomfortable. I'm not sure the laughs are worth that for me. I guess I shouldn't assume all the Madea movies are as bad as this one. But I don't plan on watching them to find out. I have heard that Diary of a Mad Black Woman is really good though, so I will probably rent that one.

At the rate I'm going with bad movies lately, who knows what I'll see next? (checking movie times for the Katy Perry movie...)