Yes, I realize this title looks offensive. But I swear to you I don’t have anything against Matthew Modine, and I don’t think rape is funny (usually.) But I’m compelled to deal with this issue anyway, for reasons I can’t quite explain.
Four weeks ago I watched a movie from the eighties called The Hotel New Hampshire. I had no intention of writing about it because it seems completely irrelevent at this stage in time. So irrelevent, in fact, that I saw this on my Tivo after recording it off of the Encore Love Channel almost two years ago. The damn movie probably isn’t airing on that niche channel anymore, and I haven’t had premium channels for a long time, so the channel itself may not even exist anymore for all I know.
Why did I record it and watch it, then? I saw the name while aimlessly searching for movies to record, and I had a vivid memory of the theatrical trailer. The movie was sold as your basic eighties coming-of-age exploitation movie, and because I was a high school loser whose only shot at seeing naked boobs was in movies, I’m sure I wanted to see the hell out of it. I never did, however, because when I expressed my interest to a friend, he informed me that the movie made no sense and had almost no boob shots. Instead, I rented Screwballs and was extremely pleased.
Because I hate myself so completely, I continue to read Entertainment Weekly, and every week there’s at least one thing that boils my blood and causes me to involuntarily throw the magazine at my fireplace. This week it was an article about “stoner movies” in which the author boldly stated that pot movies make lots of money because they do. Way to go out on a limb! But it wasn’t the stupidity of the puff piece that made me mad given that I have been completely desensitized to inane puff pieces. What made me mad was Seth Rogan. He obviously feels he has made the best stoner movies to date.