“Jennifer’s Body” (official movie trailer) [HQ]

Ok, I’m a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of bile pouring out the fingers of t’internet peeps at the trailer for the new movie written by Diablo Cody. In case you have been living under a rock with no clear broadband signal (or just don’t give a fig about pop culture) the movie is called Jennifer’s Body and it’s due for release in September.

Here be the trailer:

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Okay… my thoughts, it looks a bit like Heathers crossed with the original Buffy movie. Could be awesome, could be painful. I’m thinking it’s probably going to be best approached with an open mind.

Reading around a few message boards (and braving the you tube comments), there’s a heck of a lot of hate going on out there…and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.

I did mention, in an earlier post how there appeared to be some sort of backlash in progress after the script for Jennifer’s Body was leaked on the web (early draft…). Today there’s nothing but razzing on Diablo Cody’s use of language (“Nobody talks like that!11eleventy!!”) and screeds about “Not going to pay $12 to look at Megan Fox’s bewbs” (I censor) etc. etc.

Um, folks, it’s a damn trailer. Get over yourselves.

On the “nobody talks like that” front, I’d advise people to go look at Heathers, nobody talks like that either, but that didn’t stop it becoming a cult classic. The same way, like it or not, Juno is likely to (if it hasn’t already attained that status). As a linguist, I freaking love movies like Heathers and Juno, because they have the power to affect the way people talk. Seriously, I did my final year thesis on phrases being imported into Hiberno-English (English as it is spoken in Ireland) from US movies. It was around the time of Wayne’s World and the original Buffy movie (oh shut up, I know I’m old), and I had a wealth of catchphrases to choose from. People start off quoting from the movie, often in a US accent, and as the phrases gain traction, the accent is dropped and bingo! the phrase is in the lexicon. Mightn’t stay there very long, but it has made it off the screen and onto the streets.

Saw the same thing happen with Juno. Expect to see it again with Jennifer’s Body, and I thank Diablo Cody for it. I can futz around with the Urban Dictionary and learn all the new phrases as they materialize, but I won’t be half as entertained as I would be watching a movie filled with phrases that make my head spin, and render my inner word-geek dizzy with joy.

On the Megan Fox thing, can I just say, I prefer it when she’s saying stuff other people have written for her than when she is speaking for herself. She is a very pretty girl, but I’d go see this movie whether her bewbs were in it or not. A blackly comic horror movie with an excellent soundtrack (Ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry BOMB!) is always something to look forward to, at least for me. And I’ve already seen Drag me to Hell (it’s pretty darn good ), so this one’s on my must see-list.

Shouldn’t people wait til they actually see the movie before they rant and rave about how crap it is? I mean, they don’t actually know yet, right?

Trolls fail at pre-emptive criticism. That’s the issue right there, in a nutshell.

Books from blogs part deux….

Since Diablo Cody has (deservedly) won her Oscar for “Juno” (while being backlashed at all over the net for her allegedly not-very-good-at-all follow-up “Jennifer’s Body” – google it yourself, if you care) – I feel it may be a good time to revisit the whole books-from-blogs thing…especially in light of the imminent Irish contribution from slightly famous Dublin blogger (as in he has won awards and has a much bigger following than me (ie thousands of people actually look at his blog every day) and even a wikipedia page, pointing all of the above out in order to cut the inevitable trolls off at the pass) Twenty Major.
The book is called “The Order of the Phoenix Park” (see what he did there, see?) and is a (takes deep breath) satire/adventure/escapade/avert-global-catastrophe-with-yer-mates type thing. All very well and good, since reading about his mates on his blog has always been fun. Sadly, it works best in small doses. The book comes across not so much as a satire but as a massive personal-grudge-settling endeavour, with his personal gripes and ham-fisted (nearly as bad as a Sindo journalist) similes that bludgeon politics into every available cranny of the text – those that aren’t concerned with how many times he wipes himself after taking a dump and other such “witticisms” that may amuse 14 year old boys. The plot, such as it is, isn’t too bad, in that there is one and it is quasi-amusing if a bit join-the-dots-y, but the pointless digressions into “hilarity” do nothing but undermine the story and grate on the reader’s patience. Well they grated on mine to such an extent that when I reached the end of it and realised there was going to be a sequel I groaned out loud…I won’t be reading it that’s for sure, it took me days to get through this one…
Or maybe I have no sense of humour (though I did check by watching “Black Books” and cracking open “A Confederacy of Dunces” to make sure I hadn’t temporarily misplaced my funnybone, apparently I hadn’t because they both made me (as Twenty would say) piss myself, as usual). Maybe the book will be a phenomenal success and he’ll be the new “Ross O’Carroll Kelly” a hero to the inner 12-year-old of the nation. Best of luck to him!

Books from blogs, a good idea?

Bit of a talking point this one.

I say it depends on the blogger, and what they intend writing about in the book.

Someone like Diablo Cody can take a pile of her own blog entries and shape them into a fabulous read like “Candy Girl”, but (as evidenced by “Juno”) she can really really write. (Yes, I could be slightly jealous. But that’s allowed because I’m also predicting “Juno” is one of those movies that will add phrases to the vocabulary of a generation. Like “Heathers” did. And it should too. So there.)

/edit/ rest of post deleted and will be restored at some further point in the future