Amityville II: The Possession of Pussy. The Pussession? No, I'm sorry. It's not even funny and also it makes no sense????

       

 

There are like twelve million Amityville Horror films. I’ve seen…four? The first one, of course. Then…Amityville 2, which I’ll be discussing today (ugh), Amityville 3, a non-starter, and the one with Ryan Reynolds, or, more importantly, Chloë Grace Moretz. I used to think I really loved The Original Amityville Horror with Barbra Streisand's main piece, and also the shitty remake with my queen Chloë. I thought the first one was genuinely disturbing in that seventies sort of way, and I thought the remake was genuinely disturbing in that shitty modern remake sort of way. BUT THEN, I saw Amityville II: The Possession. All other Amityville movies – including maybe The Conjuring?? – have been rendered entirely insignificant to me since. 

Now. Is this a good film? By no means. It’s not bad, but it’s not good. Like pretty much all movies. Like, 10% of movies are actually goodgood. And then people never stop fucking talking about them because it’s so rare for goodgood movies to exist, and then you end up hating these movies and labeling them “overrated” just because you’ve been annoyed so greatly by excessive praise. Or maybe that’s just me. But seriously, most films are mediocre. That being said, I don’t exactly care about a movie not being good. I don’t so much look for overall quality in films as much as I look for…interesting elements. And Amityville 2 has them diarrheaing out of the asshole.

I know…not that much about the history of the actual ~Amityville House~. I do know that a kid – an adult, actually. He was like 23, right? – killed his entire family with a shotgun or maybe not a shotgun but definitely some sort of gun/killing mechanism. Probably a shotgun. His name was Some Italian Shit. And he killed his dad…his mom…and his (three? four??) siblings. I think he had a bunch of different stories as to why he murdered them: the house told me to, my sister did it (she got killed so I don’t know how that works), I’m crazy, Bert and Ernie are in a stifling, sexless marriage, etc. etc. Amityville 2 takes the approach that Some Italian Shit (Sonny here) killed his family because his Walkman said so. Good enough for me. 

Sonny’s family is the absolute fucking worse. His dad, FOR STARTERS, is a fucking asshole piece of shit played by the best dude to be playing an asshole piece of shit, Burt Young. He’s a dick, and like, unnecessarily rough on Sonny. It’s obviously that typical bullshit machismo dad thing, trying to assert dominance over his kingdom or whatever, feeling threatened by his grown man-ish son. But Sonny doesn’t really appear to be challenging him in any way. When we first see him he is all happy and excited about cigarettes or something? Gas in his car?? 

(Look how happy he is in this shitty, blurry ass screenshot!)

And then his dad comes out of nowhere grabbing him by the neck: YOU THINK YOU’RE A MAN NOW?? It’s like………………….. 

      

(Sonny's face was my face. Like, chill out, Paulie. I mean, whatever your name was in this shit).

No, seriously, when Sonny arrives on the scene he is like literally skipping. Okay, not literally, but he might as well have been. And he appears in no way to be a threat to the dad. But…actually, maybe.

LOOK. I think all the ladies in the house are gushing for Sonny. The mom, the two sisters: NIAGRA FALLS. He’s a cute--for the very post-seventies--kid. (Man?) 

 

(it's so post-seventies gq! Is this a thing? I keep saying post-seventies as if it means something. It's his entire face and being - look at it! Post-seventies, you ask? This^^^. That^^^.) 

No, he’s just cute for any generation, even though he has smoker’s mouth and might be thirty years old living at home. HOW OLD IS HE?? But, yeah, the ladies are hot for Sonny Boy (ugh). And just now I’m realizing maybe this is why the dad is all over his ass all the time. Because no one is hot for Burt Young. Except me a little bit, but I have many many many mental problems. 

   

(no I am legitimatey attracted to this. Is that one of those bubblegum cigars? Don't tell me it's not.)

Speaking of hot for him. NO. Let me go back to when the idiots first arrive at the house and just slowly make my way to that bit where Sonny fucks his sister. SO! They get to the house and we as the audience are like, Yeah, we know, we’ve already seen the first movie. Let’s get fucking to it. Thankfully, the director is like I KNOW, TOO, SHUT UP!! and jumps right into the action. 

A bunch of freaky house shit happens first with the mom. She’s in the basement doing box stuff…or…wait. She’s in the basement a lot in the beginning ugh what happens first? And also there’s a scene where blood pours out of the sink? BLOOD POURS OUT OF THE FAUCET WHEN SHE TURNS IT ON AND AT FIRST SHE’S LIKE…AH!!...BUT THEN SHE JUST LAUGHS???! What? Maybe…she just thinks it’s…I don’t know…rust?? I guess maybe if that happened to me I’d convince myself it was rust or…backed up stuff from lack of use? Fracking? So, okay. I’ll accept her eventual acceptance of OBVIOUSLY BLOOD  

coming out of the tap. Then in the basement she’s with some electrician plumber house inspectory type dude. He’s fat and wearing, like, some dirty cornflower blueish workman's uniform – he fixes house shit. He’s like OH! YOU’VE GOT A SECRET ROOM HERE! Why he needs to investigate, I have zero ideas. I mean, I don’t even know what this dude’s profession is. Probably it’d help if I did. Sir, who are you? He’s someone who crawls into that ~hidden space~ - which is essentially where you put fucking spare corpse bodies you just have lying around I guess - and immediately it’s super fucking terrible. Like, flies buzzing all over the place; he puts his hand down on the ground and its covered in them. And there’s this sticky grool stuff everywhere. Some cobwebs probably, some smells for sure. Rain???

But what’s funny about this man and this scene is that he spends a lot of time in that hole in the wall just batting cobwebs about his head, sort of groaning and being disgusted and afraid. And the whole time I’m like GET OUT OF THERE. He’s in there for nearly two minutes, I swear to god, and its so awkward and nonsense making. He’s just like… “ungh…ungh…” batting around his head, sort of struggling. But…all he had to do was get out of the hole. I can’t even do it justice here because I’m terrible at explaining things (bad at writing), but it’s so funny. And this happens pretty soon into the movie. Then, another thing that happens while the mommy is in the basement is she’s groped. By wind?

“I felt it touch me,” she later details sort of erotically to her son. It reminded me of that Barbara Hershey movie where’s she raped, repeatedly, by a fucking ghost. But really it was about her sexual frustration for her son?!?!?!?! Hmmm!!

While the mom’s in the basement getting felt up by Casper, Sonny and his sister, we’ll call her Eyebrows, are up in the attic flirting LIKE HOW SIBLINGS DO. 

(can you tell these aren't my own screencaps? I am just lazy and thieved them from Google. The blood sink pic I just snatched from someone else's review about this shit. The Internet: Lawless. Except that's not even true. Have you seen Lawless, though? Tom Hardy is essentially a fucking bear. A grumpy lil grizzly bear in tattered old timey sweaters. You never knew you needed it, until you got it. Wait...what am i)

Flowers in the attic, indeed. My big issue (not really) with this movie was how…the house was sort of blamed for all the family’s problems, and eventually their deaths. But no, I don’t fucking think so. This family was clearly very fucked up and damaged beyond repair long before they ever arrived at Amityville. Despite Sonny being “possessed”, I strongly feel like, had they never come to Amityville, he would have still murdered his entire family. Like, that was already set in fucking place. Another thing that was absolutely guaranteed, was Sonny and Eyebrows doing the fucky. …… ………… When Sonny comes on to Eyebrows he is allegedly “possessed”. So it’s The Demon making the moves on his sister (whatever). BUT, there’s no demon possessing Eyebrows. She is a very willing participant, which makes me sound like some lawyer defending a rapist on trial, but it’s true this time! Eyebrows just goes along! Ugh…I couldn’t hold out and talk about the other totally less interesting shit before I got to my favorite plot thing to happen: incest! So…I don’t know how old Eyebrows is. I want to randomly say 13, just to make it worse. We see her boobs in the movie though, so for some reason I’m assuming the actress was at least 18. But she seems really young. In the attic scene, pre-fucking, Sonny and Eyebrows are teasing each other. Asking each other what their “types” are. It’s very clear they’re just into each other, and they really needed no nudge from any house ghost to push things into motion. Or, at least, they didn’t need to push Eyebrows into motion. Later, when Sonny comes to her room and tells her to pose for him, they are going to play “Photographer and Model” or whatever, she’s super-willing. And you think, oh, okay, it’s just a creepy little game where Sonny is telling his sister how beautiful she is and asking her to pose for him – nothing weird about that, I do that with my brother all the time! (Get help if that’s you.) But it gets worse, because then Sonny is like: “Take off your shirt.” 

Maybe he says blouse, because this is an old-timey film (anything pre-2010). But he definitely orders her to take her ~top garment~ off. Instead of screaming for help, Eyebrows half-assedly protests. Sonny has to nudge her, but you can tell she really wants to. Oh my god, I’m so #Team Rape explaining this scene. But she definitely wants to. And then they fuck: The End. But this would have happened regardless to them moving to the supposedly ~haunted house~. And that was a huge (no, not really) issue for me. Like even way in the beginning a mirror falls off the wall and the dad instantly blames Sonny and all this fighting and ruckus ensues. Then the mom screams for them all to stop, saying how ever since they arrived at the house, all they’ve been doing is fighting. No, you stop, miss. Lies, lies, lies. Your family has been a terrible, crumbly ass piece of shit mess since the day of its fucking inception. This movie did a terrible job of making me believe this house had some sort of immense, malevolent hold on them. How the fuck are you going to show up in the discomforting, shabby ass condition you showed up in, and ask me to really believe a house is the reason for all your woes? That’s like some hungover fucking alcoholic going to the library and complaining the noise of people turning pages makes his head hurt. Maybe. But you know what else gives people headaches? Being an alcoholic. Do alcoholics even get hungover? Because, they’re like always drunk, right? Whatever. The awfully constructed point I was trying to make is, maybe the house has evil spirits. But a more put-together, less piece of shit family would have been able to weather or even resist them. You come in full of holes, entirely susceptible, and it’s your own fault for being weak, awful, terrible, and just plain bad. Don’t blame the house, blame your horrible self and your horrible, bad life. 

So Sonny kills everyone! Wait, first, there’s some other shit. A priest, for one, with a terrible comb-over toupée. (Pretend there's a great pic of his shitty scalp carpet here). What is that? The post-seventies, too-early in the eighties were fucked up, man. The mom calls the priest over to the house. Dumb, stupid, idiotic. He gets there, all hellfire breaks loose. The kitchen erupts with pots and pans and silverware flying everywhere, and the Dad instantly blames the two youngest kids, who were the only ones in there. Wait. Let’s talk about the dad blaming people for shit that makes absolutely no sense. 

When the mirror falls, he immediately blames Sonny. I was flummoxed, because I wasn’t sure if Sonny had been instructed to hang the mirror. But I felt like the mom hung it? Even if Sonny did, why the eff is the dad jumping up to hit him? What exactly is Sonny being punished for? Do you think he intentionally hung the mirror…badly…so it’d fall?? Or…did he just think…worthless piece of shit, can’t do anything right? Alright, fine. But then later some ~spooky~ house stuff happens, which culminates in the mom and dad going to the younger kids' room and seeing some shit drawn up on their wall essentially telling them to "dishonor thy father" and then "pigs!!" "pigs!". I think there’s…a dragon??

(would a kid ever do this? like...maybe the dragon. But dishonor thy father? What little kid knows the word "thy"? come on)

It’s some fairly disturbing graffiti, and it in no way looks like some kids did that shit. But of course here the father goes whipping off his belt to beat them. Their excuse for how it got that way though is hilarious: “It’s the brushes!” Which sucks, because it totally was the brushes. Should I talk about the two youngest kids really quick? When I say this entire family is Chernobyl in human form, I very much mean it, my brother! The two youngest ones, had they survived, would have turned out exactly like their older sibling counterparts. They would’ve fucked each other into oblivion and created an army of Tom Cruises. Just, inbred, robot monster disasters. Too sad for them that they perished at their brother’s hand. Too sad for them, and too sad for us. The fact that there is only one Tom Cruise on Earth is life’s greatest tragedy. 

Back to the priest coming over for tea and crumpets or exorcism or whatever. The young ones are in the kitchen and the girl one (the worst) puts a plastic bag over the boy one’s head. 

(fun for the whole family)

Keeps it there for too long (not long enough), and then pulls it off, kisses him, and tells him she loves him. Freaks. Then the kitchen explodes with cutlery and shit. The dad comes in, his whip-hand ready and strong. But you should see this fucking kitchen. I’m certain dishes have flown out of the top cabinets, unreachable to these children. And not even that, the destruction occurs in seconds. Kids of their size and stature would have to take all day creating that sort of mess. Is this dad a dummy head or what? Like, I get there’s no ~realistic~ explanation, but how is he just readily accepting something that makes about as much sense as the actual truth? I think he just likes to beat his family. It looks fun, and I can’t blame him, because they are gruesomely annoying. So carry-on, equally as shit brother of Adrian from Rocky. 

The priest, flabbergasted by all this drama coming from a white household – even though I think they’re supposed to be Italian, so basically black – peaces the fuck out. 

The priest. The priest is useless. Like, I’ve never seen anybody so fucking incompetent. One, he has terrible hair. Like Donald Trump is that a fucking exhumed cat on your head levels of awful. He has…what looks to be some sort of toupée. I think it’s a toupée, but I can’t understand why someone would get a toupée that looks awful. Like, the point is to provide the illusion you have actual hair growing out of your tundra of a scalp. But let’s be real, when has a toupée ever looked like real hair sprouting from a real scalp? None not never. And this was the eighties. If John Travolta can still look like he dipped his scalp into something at the Crayola Factory now, imagine the horror freakshow nightmares hairpieces were back then. No, I don’t have to imagine, because Exhibit A [blank card]. AND why does a priest even need a toupée? Who are you trying to look cute for? Jesus? 

(sexy 4 christ)

Do you think you are fooling the altar boys? Well maybe. You’ve gotta be pretty stupid to sign up to be an altar boy. Like, you’re practically begging to be damaged permanently forever for life – but then you get to become Tom Cruise!!

So the priest’s hair is bad, which is a huge strike one against him. He also fails to assist the family at all whatsoever when he makes his first visit to the house and the kitchen thing happens. Like the father is going ham on everyone and the priest is just standing around like…ummmm. Well, maybe he tries to intervene, but it’s half-assesed as heck. And the scene is very violent. Which makes sense why he would be hesitant, but…you’re a priest. Your job, I think, is to help people. How are you going to witness such a disturbing display in someone’s home and just leave? He doesn’t even call the cops or anything. And don’t even get me started on his handling of the sister. Eyebrows goes to confessional and gives a vague confession about her tryst with the broster. She doesn’t say it was with her broham, she tells Priest it was with a friend. Then she says all this disturbing shit about how “he does it just to hurt God” etc etc blah blah blagh. It’s fucked up. I really wish I knew how old this dumb bitch is supposed to be so I could determine how fucked up. But she is at least underage, I believe, and the way she’s talking about sex it sounds like she’s being abused. Never mind the fact that they consider it a sin to have sex before marriage. She runs out on confessional, but later returns to the priest’s (father's? is it the same thing??) office. He’s all like, I think we should talk about what you said in confessional. Okay, she’s…I forget, hesitant? But you can tell she really wants to confess everything and remove this huge weight from her shoulders. She’s like on the verge of tears – all that shit. BUT THEN, Father Toupée gets a phone call just as Eyebrows is about to lay everything out. Apparently, someone has had a stroke and died. Hm. So? Do priests really need to instantly rush off--oh, wait. Yeah, maybe. I’m not religious in any way so I don’t totally know things…but I guess priests go to give final blessings or whatever for dead-os? Sure! So he abandons Eyebrows in his office. So PAUSE on the priest’s incompetence to sort of follow the storyline. 

After this almost-confessional by Eyebrows in the priest’s office, it’s Sonny’s birthday and there’s a party. IT’S SO AWKWARD. 

(Paulie's face, basically)

I have to say that I Cesare Borgia-style ship Sonny with pretty much everyone in his family. I can’t tell if this was intentional on the director or actor’s part, but he totally has this terribly uncomfortable (not really, I love it) sexual chemistry with all his family members. Even the kids, and even his dad who hates him because obviously he’s in love with him. And what became clear to me at the party is that the mom is crushing on her son the same way the daughter is (was?). She sees Sonny give Eyebrows this really deep-ass hug, his hands all up in her back, and she’s like livid. Shocked? No, she’s jellin’. She wants that hug. Actually, she sort of got one. Not as intense, but close efuckingnough. Terrible. So, anyway, the mom knows now at this point that Sonny is boning (ugh) his sis. The mom even confronts Eyebrows later like WHAT DID YOU DO WITH YOUR BROTHER?! Slapping her and shit. This is what really made me believe the mom was jealous. Because…why would that be your response upon learning your two children are fucking each other??? Why didn't she confront Sonny first? He’s the older brother. If anyone fucked up, it’s him. Why are you snatching your innocent ass daughter up, trying to make it seem like it was her fault? No, girl. You…you can’t be jealous of your daughter because she’s fucking your son. I mean, I get it, because Sonny is hot for the early eighties (post-seventies), and your husband is a troll, but you need to pull your life together. Too late for that, though, because he kills you. Wait, before that, and I’m returning to incompetent Father Toupée, Eyebrows calls him at his office, I guess freaking out about Sonny, who has started to turn into that monster from The Goonies?

I mean Corey Feldman. (I’ve never seen The Goonies. 1, is there a monster and 2, is it Corey Feldman?) But just as Eyebrows is calling Father Toupée, his…friend has come to bully him into going camping. Should I get into this friend? Sigh. Look, they’re obviously fucking. The priest and his other priest friend are fucking each other. “Going camping”. Anyway this friend tells Father Toupée to ignore the phone call, AS PRIESTS DO. So Friend takes the phone off the receiver, the priest doesn’t get Eyebrows' desperate call. Sonny rifles up his entire family. Bang bang. Bang bang bang. I entirely blamed the priest, even though it was pretty much anyone else’s fault but his. But HOW DARE YOU NOT PICK UP THE PHONE?! I’m not even going to get into Sonny killing his family…like, the sequence. But I do really love a movie that offs kids. So, smiley face.

smiley face!

smiiiiiiiile!

sorry

I feel like all this happens…maybe forty-five minutes into the movie. All of this shit happens really quickly: the family is introduced, they spew all this inverted Brady Bunch family bullshit all over the movie, Sonny has sexual chemistry with every single member of his family, he fucks one (one?) of them, then kills all of them. 45 minutes into the film. Okay, maybe…maybe it gets to an hour in, but I really feel like it was no more than fifty. And then we get the priest for the remainder of the film. I…don’t understand what the director or screenwriter or whatever was going for here. Why do we have all this screen time with Father Toupée?? I don’t even want to get into the last half of the film because…euh. It’s just…all Father Toupée trying to get an exorcism for Sonny. He’s…sigh, in jail. And, ugh, I…I don’t even care. And I love this movie. But I soso wish I could fix it. As I often do with most movies, even ones I mostly really love like this one. This movie would be perfect to me if it was just two hours of scenes with the terrible ass…Montelli family (lol their last name was apparently Montelli according to me looking it up on imdb just now – DEFINITELY WOPS). I guess, sort of, I just wish this wasn’t even a horror film. Like, if this was just a domestic family drama I’d be fucking set. This…fucking family. They are amazing in their horribleness and insanity. And I think I just really love this movie because of them, but also because of the possibility of more them. And the last half isn’t even really that bad, because at least my baby Sonny is there, looking sickly and possessed. Did I really just write all this shit trying to analyze within myself and parse apart my feelings for this movie when, really, I could have just written: I love this movie for Jack Magner and Jack Magner alone. No, not alone. Because the family unit as a whole is neverendingly (not a word) entertaining. But I was massively obsessed with Sonny. It’s my cliché eternal love for strange, sickly-looking little waif man-boys. Troubled loner boys, in tight t-shirts. Emaciated and angsty – prob due to hunger. Emaciated and creepy. Emaciated and lactose intolerant so no milk so no bone growth so really like a cardboard person but with lungs. Emaciated and from the very specific decade of the seventies (post-sixties). Or the Monty Clift rip-offs of the fifties. Timothy fucking Hutton in Ordinary People. Emaciated and Ezra Miller. Or Dane DeHaan. Manic pixie dream boy. Jk. But not really. It’s a thing. We Need to Talk About Sonny, amirite? Like, Cal from East of Eden was totally possessed by a house ghost, non??? And you know what really fucking sucks? Jack Magner, Sonny, doesn’t even fucking act anymore. No, he literally, like, ONLY DID THIS MOVIE. Oh, and he was in Firestarter. Which of fucking course I only watched because of him and he’s in it for exactly two seconds and then Drew Barrymore sets his boots on fire with her eyeballs?? SOME MESS LIKE THAT. No, seriously, have you fucking seen Firestarter? TANGERINE DREAM. GEORGE C. SCOTT NATIVE AMERICAN JANITOR??? Should I do a separate post about that mess? I really shipped Drew Barrymore and Keith David. Or David Keith. One of those. Do you know that dude is like…some ambassador for child molesters or some shit? Or…against them? The opposite of being an ambassador for them? I think he…convicts kiddie rapists?? I…no. What are you doing. End this post now omfg. But seriously, Jack Magner, where the fuck are you, my buddy??? WHY DID YOU STOP ACTING??! Ugh, maybe you were like a decade too late? Because you would have been perfect for all those post-Easy Rider ~lost rebel anti-establishment hippie youth~ movies. Oh my god, like you could have had all of Brad Dourif’s roles. You could have been…maybe raped in Scarecrow?! Ugh, so many possibilities and I will never get any of it. That’s sort of how I felt about this movie. Is it okay to like a movie more for the possibilities than what it actually is? If it’s not okay I’m going to have to stop liking literally most of the movies I like. Like, 99% of them, let’s be fucking honest. So, depression. Good night. I said good night in a nasty way, though. I don’t want you to walk away thinking I literally fucking genuinely wished you a good night. I hope you fucking die in your sleep. 

Nashville: 99 problems, but a bitch aint one

I want to die for using that played-out song lyric (especially since I could not be more bored by Jay-Z), but it's apt for this piece of shit blog post I'm about to do on Nashville so...ugh. I just tried to justify it but I feel sick to my fucking stomach, I really do.

Anyway! The "bitch" this time refers to Hayden Panetierre!

My queen. Originially the pic^ also included Connie Britton's blank ass, but I cropped her out. To throw her a bone, I left in some of her elbow. 

Nashville is one of my current favorite TV shows, but I hate it a whole lot. It rivals Degrassi with being real real ridiculous and bad all the time always. But Degrassi isn't, to my knowledge, trying to be a good show. It's an institution, and most things get to institution level by being mediocre as fuck. Not too good to be afraid of going on too long, and not too terrible that this shit is canceled just so we don't accidentally become a third world country as a result of it's persistent existence. It's why things like Two and a Half Men have to call it quits eventually. At a certain point, you start getting really concerned we're going to be Africa soon. Like, Angus T. Jones is making fun of how lame Jon Cryer is for 100 years straight and all of a sudden everyone in America is living in mud huts and only ever are wearing those sandals you can buy at Pathmark. And, like, there's only Pathmarks. 

Anyway, Nashville is terrible. Not 2.5 Men terrible, but...close. And it's so totally embarrassing because I feel like maybe a lot of people involved in making this show thinks it's....nowhere near 2.5 Men levels of please stop?!?!? But, oh ho ho ho, it is. And I'm really bothered by how not self-aware they are about the badness, especially considering some of the people involved apparently read comments from viewers online about all the badness?? And if that's true, hmmmmm. Because a lot of criticism I've read about Nashville online is entirely accurate. It's not just people complaining about random things like "Where are the Asians in Tennessee????" or ""What's up with the jean shirts????". It's people who watch the show, and want to love it, but can't, because there's all this ridiculous not-goodness getting in the way. And it seems a lot of fans* of the show are irritated by the fact that Nashville has so much potential and if the creators just fixed a few thousand things it'd be perfect! 

Now it's my turn! lol seriously if creators actually read online stuff they probably take a defensive stance. Like, oh, you don't like Luke and Rayna together and their nickname Ruke? OKAY, WE'LL CHANGE THE COUPLE NAME TO LAYNA, HOW ABOUT THAT?! Like, they make passive aggressive changes, instead of just making changes that actually improve the show. Oh, everyone sort of hates Scarlett: ADDICTED TO PILLS AND MAYBE HER MOM IS JOAN CRAWFORD, HOW ABOUT THAT?! HAPPY?! No one liked Megan: SHE'S FORCED TO HAVE SEX SCENES WITH TEDDY NOW, SATISFIED?! Um, no, Nashville, because also we all hate Teddy. So, okay, Megan gets kicked off the show. Coolcoolcool...but a good thing that came from all that terribleness was that it actually gave Teddy, apparently a mainstay to you idiots, an interesting fucking storyline. BUT, NO, WE CAN'T HAVE THAT. GET RID OF THE ONLY MAYBE ASIAN WITHIN A 100 MILE RADIUS ASAP. What is wrong with you, Nashville? You can't fucking do anything right. 

Okay, no. You can do some things right, and I will talk about those briefly before I gleefully jump into all the things you fuck up constantly. 

THE GOOD

I've been watching this show since it premiered. So, like, almost three years, right? It doesn't even seem like the show has been on that long, and I'm amazed every day that it still is. One thing that I have always loved about the show has been Hayden/Juliette. She's just been killing it since day one and I have no ocmplaints about anything. Well, not in the performance. Sometimes Juliette gets stupid bullshit storylines: like fucking Jeff (blech), Derek Hough (????), stalking Avery (????????????????), but she still gets a ton of screen time, so I'm not fucking complaining, and hopefully the show will finally get smart and just rename itself JULIETTE (and Avery) and all will be good and right in the world. IN SHORT: WAY MORE JULIETTE, WAY LESS EVERYONE ELSE. And give her more song time, she's a good performer and I love when she pulls a heartbreaker like when she performed "Crazy" this season and had me all in my fucking feelings - MORE THAT, THANK YOU.

Jeff. Look, Jeff is the worst. But in soap opera world, that translates to him being the best. Well, no, Juliette is the best, but Jeff is a great ~villian~. And Oliver Hudson's smarmy-ish face is perfect for this sort of character. I love any Jeff scene, he's so fucking gross and it's just played so well. Like, this actor seems to be having fun. He also seems to be aware of the embarrassing corniness of the show, something way more people involved need to get fucking hip to. And I am SO EXCITED for whatever he has up his sleeve for Maddie and the other one, Teddy's dumb ass, and a possibly dead Layla. So amped. omg did I just type I was so amped? Oh boy

Will Lexington. Am I so over the closeted gay storyline? Answer: when the fuck have I ever been into it? I try to make excuses for this shit. Like, oh...this is...country music, so....I guess this makes sense. Not that the rest of the country is so much more progressive or anything, this just isn't 1952. Like, you're not Rock Hudson. And coming out as gay is not going to ruin you. If anything, being gay would make you an even bigger star, and it's dumb as hell that like no one acknowledges this. As far as I know, which is basically nothing, it does not seem there are any out gay country music stars. Why can't Will look at it as: I'll be the Neil Armstrong of Darius Ruckers??? Ugh, whatever. Besides my supreme hate for Will's entire storyline, I love him. Which, really, defies all reason. Seriously, I hate everything Nashville has him doing. But, somehow, Chris Carmack has managed to make me care about him as a character. When he first came on the scene I was like: EYEROLL. Like how I am with any new arrival who isn't a part of the original cast: or, whoever wasn't in the first fucking episode. But once I realized The Cowboy was gay I was like: HMM, OKAY. Then they made me immediately sad by having him be sort of a homophobe and deep as fuck in his walk-in closet, but by that time I was already devoted to Will as a character. Hate you, Nashy. 

THE BAD

Okay, enough of all that positive shit. Time to go in!!!! Time to turn up!!!!!! 

RAYNA. Hey, the unofficial ~protagonist~ of the show FUCKING SUCKS. First, Connie Britton. Where is this AMAZING ACTRESS I've been hearing so much fucking shit about??? I swear to god, before I watched this mess, all I ever heard about the Conster is that she's basically Cate Blanchett, but TV. UH, I DON'T THINK SO, MA'AM. The only other thing I've seen this wad of gum stuck under a desk in was American Horror Story: Murder House, and everyone knows that was all Jessica and Evan's show. I don't even remember what Connie's purpose in that shit was. I think...she gave birth??? Coolcool. Here, I also don't know what her purpose is. She's like a cipher, and it's awkward. We're...supposed to care about her, right? But there's nothing to care about. Like, what's going on in this bitch's innerlife? You're giving me zero, Connie and Nashville. Nothing to work with at all. Which makes the END GAME ~eternal love~ vomstory concerning her and Deacon silly at best. And I like Deacon, but you make me not like him as much as I can by being his object of affection. I'm like, and I'm sure a bunch of other people are like, Why is he so obsessed with her? It can't just be the hair. Oh my god, is it just the hair? AND SHE CAN'T SING. Come on, who made the decision to cast this bitch? You wanted Faith Hill, I guess. A Faith Hill type, for some reason. And I guess you looked at Connie B like: tall, she can do an accent, yess!!!! NO. And why did you even want a Faith Hill? She seems boring as fuck, and if she is anything like Rayna in real life, she is boring as fuck. I don't get it. Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, shit Miranda Lambert, all these country bitches are way more interesting-seeming and this is who, if you were looking to ape the story of a country music legend, you should have modeled a character after. Nonsense.

Scarlett anytime she's saying lines that are not sung in a song with another person, particularly Gunnar, or Deacon. Speaking of modeling characters after actually interesting people, Scarlett is, apparently, supposed to be modeled after Dolly or Loretta. Or both? NEITHER. She sucks. And I was a Scarlett apologist for fucking ever because she sung that beautiful duet with Gunnar in the first ep and I was here for her immediately. Then the show promptly proceeded to destroy all the goodwill that performance garnered with a fucking quickness, and they haven't let up since. Recently, Scarlett was involved in a horrid, cringe-stroke inducing ~Magical Negro~ storyline. Or a reverse one, maybe, as Scarlett ends up helping him. I guess he's supposed to be helping her get over her stage fright, but in the end Scarlett ends up defeating the fear herself. She looks over at the magical negro homeless bum drinking in the street and then is like: *Katy Perry voice* NOT ME! So, even more offensive than the typical magical negro storyline, in that the magical negro in this scenario serves as an example of what not to do. Who not to listen to. Terrible. AND WHY IS HER HAIR STILL BAD. WHY DOES SHE STILL HAVE THOSE SHITTY ROPEY ASS, STRINGY ASS, TRASH ASS FUCKING EXTENSIONS?? EXPLAIN YOURSELVES, NASHVILLE?? Does she have gross hair on purpose? Is this Clare Bowen's real-life hair that she refuses to take off for filming?? WHAT IS THIS SHIT WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?! It's almost as bad as Glenn's fucking hair hat. Why, Nashville, did we get only two glorious seconds of Glenn in all his bald naked beauty, only to have you rip that away from us seemingly forever?? I feel like you teased us with that just so we'd get pissed off. Just so the next time Glenn showed up onscreen we'd scream WHY IS HIS HAIR THING BACK?!?! Hate you, Nashy: Part II. 

Teddy, of course. Does anyone who watches this show care about Teddy? No, seriously, is there anyone out there who like, gets excited for Teddy scenes? Like, besides the actor's mom. Oh, she's dead? Then, okay, we're back to square one. Or...not even square one, because I already had said besides his mom, so. You know, I don't even hate Teddy as much as I feel like I should, or want to. I think...I don't hate Teddy as much as I find him the dumbest fucking idiot who has ever lived, and every time he shows up I'm like: SIGH AT YOUR LIFE, TEDDY. He's like Jon from Garfield transplanted into the ~sexy~ and ~glamorous~ world of Country Music. He gets to do sex, and he gets to be Mayor. But, he's still Jon from Garfield. And Jon would totally be the type to fall in love with a fucking prositute. And not even a Julia Roberts-type prostitute. This bitch looks like a housewife who idolizes Lisa Rinna or some shit. SIGH AT YOUR LIFE, TEDDY. And now he's going to be involved in some messy shit with Jeff that will ultimately end in Teddy not dying. Sigh at my life now. 

Gunnar, and anyone in his orbit. I liked Gunnar for 2.2 seconds. Probably never, actually. If I really think about it. He's so...try-hard. Ugh. Just, his hair, and...his...personality and life and just ughblechblugh. The fact that he proposed to Scarlett and then like three seconds later was loved up with her supposed best friend 4ever?? Okay, I guess. And really, ever since he and Scarlett split, Gunnar has been entirely insignificant. Like, for real. The show tried to make him relevant again recently with this bullshit kid storyline. And I want to feel like it's over and we'll never see that annoying ass kid again, but because he's Gunnar's dumb dead bro's demon spawn, I bet that little piece of shit will be back. Hopefully, though, someone else rendered wholly annoying just by being associated with Gunnar, Zoey, will be gone forever. Like, you can't become relevant being hitched to a character who also isn't, you know? Maybe if you'd come through as...I don't know, Juliette's...mom's...old girlfriend from...rehab? Then, maybe you would have had a chance. I'm going to ignore the fact that the show tried to force you down our throats for nearly two whole seasons. You better be fucking gone for good. And while the show is up to getting rid of dead weight, take out Gunnar. He might...I think I just realized Gunnar is possibly more unnecessary than Teddy. Wow. Ouch. Leave. 

Speaking of "leave": basically all ~secondary characters~, which, really, is everyone but Juliette. Who's the new one, what's her name, played by Laura Benanti? Look, I'm always here for a storyline about domestic abuse, but...why can't this be happening to a character from the main cast? They could've done this with Ruke! Could've really given that cringey ass relationship some gravitas! Could've made me care about Rayna, finally! Why give someone nobody cares about a juicy storyline? Who the fuck works on this show? Did you just shout from the window to people on the street: "Hey, you, drinking a Mountain Dew Code Red from the can, wanna come in and write for this show? Yeah? Okay, bring the imaginary friend you appear to be getting into a shouting match with. We'll take all the help we can get!!" This also seems to be how...maybe, they showrun??? It's just like this random grabbing at anything. Shoving your hand into the dark and just going with whatever you pull out?? I DON'T KNOW! But I don't understand the logic of introducing all these random new characters when you haven't even figured out what the fuck to do with the full-time cast. And no, you don't "fix" a main character by throwing a whole another new character at them. Are you an idiot, Nashville? You have to develop characters. How does it make sense to be like...hmm can't figure out Main Character so...let's toss this Newborn Thing at them that we'll also have to figure out....eventually. So...more work for us? That we ultimately won't do. Like, we'll just kill someone off or maybe have someone fake a miscarriage with pigs blood?? Whatever, where is my mountain dew code red in a can? 

And then some things are neither good nor bad, they're the ugly gunk in between. The murky grey stuff where you're like "Is this Lyme disease?" 

THE UGLY

Ruke. I don't want to pretend that I wasn't sort of entirely amused by this spectacle of a relationship. I actually wanted these two idiots to get married, because the prospect of them just being legally bound to each other was making me laugh my fucking ass off. Rayna so clearly despised Luke I don't honestly have any idea how they got this far. And now I fucking like Luke. This stupid show kept him around so long that I went from being like "...Why is he here?" to "Wow, I sort of feel bad for this dude". NO. I AM UPSET BY THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT IN MYSELF. And I'm excited about Luke sticking around. My one gripe is that I was really expecting Luke to come out with some crazy anger issue stuff. All over Rayna's face, perhaps? But maybe that'll be part of the second half of this season. I'm feeling a little wheels up (ugh). I'm so tired with myself for liking Luke now. But at least it gives me more reason to hate Rayna, which has become my fave pastime. Howdoyoukillyourself.com/whatifijustatetoomanycarrots?

Layla. [audience laughter] I.................I... Just, her beanie alone. And then, like, everything else. Oh my god, all that shit with the reality show and how they tried to force a Newlyweds comparison when Newlyweds was actually vaguely amusing, but Will and Layla were trying way too hard and it was just depressing and there's no way I believe their shitty country ass little reality show is a success, especially if they're faking it as hard they appeared to be. God, just. Ugh. And Layla deferred Harvard? YEAH, RIGHT. I mean, yeah, it happened. But, again, YEAH, RIGHT. You're Teddy-dumb. Stop frontin'. But, you know, that idiot is the fucking mayor. Of Nashville, but still. So I guess it takes all kinds. (This makes no sense. I deferred Harvard!). And, ugh, her thing with Jeff. And how she ended up face-down in the pool. Or, wait, was that because of her bearding for a dude who apparently will have sex with women, just not you, girl? Or, was it both of those things? Was she face-down with her Santa hat still on? Because if yes: hah. I read something funny where someone compared Layla/Aubrey Peeple's acting at one point to a high school staging of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and I just got all of my laughs. This basically just sums up Layla entirely (Aubrey Peeples?). You're trying hard, but it's goofy. It never won't be. But maybe, if she survives drowning in her stupid sorrows, the show will keep up with her acoustic beanie shit. The one thing this show has going for it is taking cheesy shit and throwing an acoustic guitar at it and - blammy! Not as cheesy anymore. But they need to be careful about doing that too much. They almost tipped the scales when Jeff pulled out a guitar [audience laughter]. At least he didn't sing. [audience laughter dying down because secretly they wanted him to]

Tandy. Cool haircut? Or did that happen in seasozzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................(this is me flatlinining after falling into a coma)

In short: If this show can kill off Powers Boothe, they can kill off literally everyone else. Besides Juliette, and Avery by proxy. BUT, if you're not going to be Tahj Mowry in Smart Guy, then at least listen to all the griping from the fans and change literally everything about this show. Like, everything. But if you give Deacon AIDS I'll forgive you for all your very many mistakes and won't care if you give Connie Britton more songs to do. AIDS is forever dong. In that, it lasts forever, and I want to fuck it as a storyline. (???)

*an asterik. To indicate terms and conditions. 

Joan Crawford does blackface, or why Torch Song is probably my favorite terrible movie of all her terrible movies

Hmm. Well, first off, Torch Song is actually not that bad of a....picture. It's Joan's attempt to do Judy. And...it's not that horrendous. Which, nothing Joan Crawford does can ever be truly atrocious. (I haven't seen Trog yet so maybe I'm speaking too soon). She's a good actress, but even more, she's a star. Which is sort of a hilarious thing to be calling someone in this day and age - or any age, really. Because what the fuck is a star? It sounds really hokey and artificial and explains why people like the Hemsworth Bros get to do anything besides being the half-assedly charming Outback Steakhouse busboys they were born to be. I guess a star, a true star, is someone with presence. And, in the case of Joan, that means someone who can perform in this ridiculous film and still manage to produce something legitimately intriguing and entertaining. 

Joan is playing "Broadway musical star" Jenny Stewart. Let's first tackle the name Jenny Stewart. I mean, I guess. But I'm sort of annoyed they didn't GO THERE. They really should have given her some extra-ass moniker to go along with the extra-ass material of the script. Jenny fucking Stewart? Who is this bitch - Teresa Wright? Jenny is a BROADWAY MUSICAL STAR. Her name should be on some Patti LuPone esque bullshit. Or Ethel Merman or some shit. Wasn't Jenny Stewart the name of the most annoying fucking character on The L Word? That has nothing to do with anything. Also, the most annoying character on The L Word was definitely Max. Like, when he/she was pregnant with facial hair looking like fucking Barbie Joaquin Phoenix doing Brando Later Years - FUCKING STOP IT. Woah, way off track. Anyway, I didn't like the name JENNY STEWART for a Broadway star. They could have tried a little harder. And if they were trying to go for subtlety or nuance here - I don't fucking think so. They weren't. So, what happened? 

ANYWAY, Jenny fucking Stewart is a Broadway star and she's working on a new musical. And oh my fucking god she is a bitch. And it's cliche. Like, she's the star and she can talk to people however she wants, so. But also I feel like they're going for the extra double-helping cliche of a ~mature older woman~ needing the love of a man to sacrifice his wooden leg in the bear claw trap that is her old rusted vagina?? I don't know, but they definitely are trying to drive home the point, the entire film, that Jenny is lonely as fuck. NO MAN. Well, she has Gig Young. But he appears to be some sort of male escort. 

    (his dick fell off, I surmise)

And everyone knows they're not human. They're like one step below cats on the Eleanor Rigby scale. So, Joan - I mean, Jenny - is ALOOOOOOOOOOOOONE. But before we really get into those scenes of Jenny in her bedroom playing around with pencils on her nightstand because she has no love in her life, we see her at rehersal, rehearsing some fucking song. I must say that I really loved all the music in the movie. "Two-Faced Woman" is good, even though Joan is not actually singing and then when she performs the song in its entirety she's...she has some dirt on her face. Some smudge or some such. I also really love "Tenderly", by Rosemary Clooney. And how it's just played on a record and Joan is sitting there listening to it despondently thinking about her blind beau.

(stop)

Speaking of BLIND! So Joan is a pterodactyl to her piano player whose name I don't know or remember. He's a guy. Anyway, he quits. Michael Wilding, Blind-o, takes his place. Joan is p-o'd. She's all like WHERE IS THE OTHER GUY?! Which is super-random because she appeared to have a huge problem with that dude. Like, she doesn't even give Michael Wilding a chance, even before she finds out he can't see. So, she's all rude. Then she sees he has a seeing-eye dog and...is still rude???? But Michael--Tye Graham--plays well. Maybe too well. Something happens...like, he changes the arrangement a little in the song Joan is rehearsing. He slows it down a bit or something like that but Joan is one of those over-the-top perfectionist types who think their way is the only way. And no one ever really stands up to her, so she's been behaving like this for quite some time and has become positively monsteresque. Which is all to say, she totally spazzes on Tye. And it's so funny because not only is her behavior entirely unprofessional and ridiculous, but Tye is blind. It's so awkward and horrible to be screaming like some crazy harridan at a disabled person. I don't care what their crime is, which, here, is simply Tye playing a song slightly differently from how Jenny is used to???? Like, chill out, bro. GET LAID, LONELY WOMAN, THEN YOU WILL BE LESS LONELY AND CRAZY, AMIRITE???

So Broadway Star Jenny Stewart fires Ray Charles but white and English. And she asks her stage manager person guy - who I think is named Joe and who is super hot which has nothing to do with anything but I was really into his glasses and how, like, wanting to be dead all the time he seemed - if she's a horrible person for firing Helen Keller but a man and he can still hear? I don't remember what Joe says. Probably he just looks like I Need A Drink And A Noose, like he does the entire film. Probably he looks like that and then Joan surmises that yes, he believes she's a bad person, but also it doesn't really matter, because we all die in the end. Later, but like, right after this scene, I think Joan/Jenny runs into Tye Graham - who, by the way, has an appropriate STAR OF SOMETHING name, even though he is just a measly no eye-seeing piano player - at a restaurant. He says a bunch of shit that establishes he sees right through Joan's halloween mask, to the mushy rotting meat underneath. Apparently, when you lose your sight, your able to gain other special senses like being able to tell that someone is very obviously being a bitch to hide the pain and loneliness she feels inside. You need to be blind to be able to determine this, so at least some good things come from not being able to see. /sarcasm

So Tye gets his stupid job back. Wait, no, first I think Jenny goes to his apartment and is, like, surprised he has a nice place. Which, maybe she was thinking: HE'S JUST A LOWLY MUSICIAN HOW CAN HE AFFORD THIS?? But really it came off more like: BLIND AND NOT BEING WHEELED AROUND SOME RUN-DOWN URINE-SCENTED SANITARIUM? HOW WHAT WHY???? So, that's funny. When Joan/Jenny arrives Tye is ~jammin'~ with a bunch of his musician friends. EYEROLL. Can we talk about Tye Graham really quick? He's smug. Blind and smug. Look, I should feel bad for him the way Joan/Jenny is carrying on, but I don't. He's gross. And then later on it's revealed he's also maybe sort of a stalker?? Like, before he went to the war, before he was blinded, Tye saw Jenny in some low-rent off-Broadway show maybe? Some shit. But anyway, he wrote a review about it in the paper? And like fawns all over the Jenster. BUT, LOOK, SHE WAS A BIT PLAYER AND IT'S WEIRD. It's weird he wrote this super amorous review about essentially an extra in a musical, and then he goes off to war, gets blind, then years and years later turns up as her piano man. THIS IS ALL VERY STRANGE. And when Jenny finds out she doesn't immediately start thinking about Kathy Bates in Misery or anything. I'm sure there are better stalker fan things to compare this to that actually are like this. Maybe Devon Sawa in the video for Stan?? (no.) Idk, but that crazy bitch from Misery is like the ultimate #1 Fan. Runner-up def goes to Jessica Walter stalking the shit out of Clint Eastwood in Play Misty for Me. She was the #1 Fan of dat d. 

Ugh I'm all over the place. Like, how did I get from the mostly beginning to spoilers in ~the climax~?? Somewhere in this mess there's a girl ~friend~ of Tye's, who is very attractive and loves him but Tye can't return the love because he can't ~~~~see~~~~ this bitch. When Tye says this to her I thought he was referring to her ~soul~ or something. Because Tye says he can see Jenny. BUT, NO. APPARRENTLY TYE MEANS HE CAN ACTUALLY SEE JENNY BECAUSE HE'S SEEN HER BEFORE. I MEAN, HE CAN'T SEE HER NOW BECAUSE HE'S FUCKING BLIND. BUT HE REMEMBERS WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE AND SO HE LOVES HER????? THIS OLD IMAGE OF HER FROM YEARS AND YEARS AGO??? Tye and Jenny fucking deserve each other. 

Can we just talk about when Jenny goes to see her mom and her mom is like "man troubles?" and Jenny explains her man troubles by basically being like "he's blind". ??? And then Jenny's mom proceeds to tell a story about her...bald husband? HOW THE FUCK DOES BALDNESS EQUATE TO BLINDESS?? And then I have to feel bad about thinking either of these things are dealbreakers, as this movie clearly wants me to. And I can't tell if we're supposed to look at Jenny's vaguely shitty mom as being shallow and obtuse and then...Jenny is supposed to see she's being sort of like her mom and to stop being like that??? I do not fucking know, nor do I really even want to, but what I do know is that immediately following this Jenny starts listening to "Tenderly", a record of hers she supposedly sung with her not at all Rosemary Clooney's voice. And it's just so weird. Who listens to their own music, and, in like, a depressed manner? Kanye West only. This is way too corny, Jenny. Pull your fucking self together. 

I suppose she does this by going to get her--vomit--man. Tye is at his too nice for a blind person apartment playing ~~Jenny's song~~ on the piano and his female friend is sitting on the couch listening. Someone needs to get a fucking clue. Someone receives it in the form of Jenny turning up with that fucking viking helmet for a hairdo ready to beat a bitch into the ground if she don't come correct. We don't really get to see any of this. Jenny shows up, That Bitch immediately rises from the couch and disappears into some back room. Jenny follows her. We get to watch dumb and blind Tye just tinkering on the keys while some actually legitmatelty interesting shit is going on in some room off-screen. Likely the kitchen, as this is 1953, and these are ovary bearers. Anyway, Tye's friend emerges from probably the cocina, and leaves the apartment. Jenny wordlessly takes her spot on the couch. I think it's a yellow couch? And did I mention that all this is going on without Tye's knowledge? As if...he is deaf? Or devoid of all his other senses? I mean, yeah, he's engrossed in piano playing the entire time...and I guess his peripheal vision is sort of shot from total blindness, but...can't he sense...movement in the room? Because seriously when Jenny goes to light his cigarette or whatever he basically shits his pants. Like: WHERE IS THE OTHER ONE?? (He actually says Other One's name but I'm too lazy to look it up. She had blonde hair, so let's say her name was Urine). Anyway, this creepy/gross scene culminates in...I think an embrace. Some sort of violence happens first, I believe. I think maybe Tye protests or gets angry and falls. They definitely end up on the floor, in the least sexiest way. Like, the carpet in Tye's apartment is probably hypo-allergenic. And then maybe they joke about how Jenny can't cook?? Ha. The only way this ends is someone is pushed down the stairs in a wheelchair. Someone, at some point in this gross, sad union will end up in a wheelchair (Jenny from ~dance injuries~?) and then they will be pushed down a Tara-style staircase by the other partner (Tye). He blames his non-seeing eyes for the whoopsies. No jury will convict him. The end.

Oh, and there was blackface. It's weird how it's basically a footnote in this mess. I love how Joan doing blackface is basically completely crowded out by the ridiculous/amazing performance she does blackface in and then the subsequent wig rip-off sequence that follows it. Like, it's basically Joan had on maybe too much foundation while slaying the shit out of "Two-Faced Woman", then ripping off her fucking wig in a jealous rage OVER A FUCKING BLIND MAN.

I really love this movie omg

and this^ robe. It was everything. And how Jenny wore fucking heels to bed. Like, I know those were a thing ~back then~ but omfg why. 

Should I talk about Jenny's random black secretary person? Nope! Good night!!!!!!