Watching Gigli so you don't have to. *HOME ENTRY*

Seriously, the sacrifices I make for you all sometimes. OK, this is probably the only sacrifice I’ve made, but man, you people owe me. Or maybe just Bethhead owes me as she is the one who suggested (as a new thing to do) “Rent some really bad movies you haven't seen yet.” So I did.



I gave the selection of a ‘really bad movie’ some serious thought. I even polled a few people at work. I obviously knew horror movies would be out because that’s just too damn easy, the same goes for westerns and musicals. If I had run into Jill earlier in the week, I might have changed my mind and went for her suggestion of ‘Ishtar’. I wish I ran into Jill earlier because if I had, I would have seen a really bad movie with Dustin Hoffman running around in the desert rather than the debacle of J-Lo and Affleck doing…well, I STILL have no idea what they were doing, in ‘Gigli’.

We all know ‘Gigli’ was a bad movie. You didn’t even have to see ‘Gigli’ to know it was bad. I decided to watch it to see just HOW bad it was. I wasn’t disappointed.


Funny, that's the exact look I had when watching this movie.

I started watching the movie at about 4:30 on a workday afternoon. I had my bottle of wine (which, consequentially, was also horrible, so it fit the mood) and the remote. The only thing I knew about ‘Gigli’ prior to watching the movie was that J-Lo played a lesbian who was won over straight by the charms of Mr. Affleck. God, just that premise is horrible. What studio exec let this one pass under the radar?

Anyhow, the opening shot is of Affleck, a.k.a. Larry Gigli, threatening a small little man for the money that’s owed his boss by throwing said little man in a laundry machine. It’s actually a decent first shot which makes me think that this movie doesn’t seem so bad so far. I also note that Affleck is putting on a bad Brooklyn accent and the small little man also has one - which can only mean that we’re in New York.


First scene, not so bad. What the hell happened?

But we’re not in New York. We’re in L.A. But this doesn’t stop every. single. one. of. the. characters. from speaking in a New York accent. What is this suppose to be? A New York mob in L.A.? Too much pasta from the Old Spaghetti Factory on Sunset? Fine. For the sake of giving this movie a chance, I’ll let it slide.

Oh, and we learn right away ‘Gigli’ is pronounced like ‘Really’ but with a ‘G’. Now you know.

So the plot, what little there is of it, goes like this: Affleck keeps screwing up but he’s giving a last chance by his boss by kidnapping an autistic boy who happens to be the brother of a guy who his boss is trying to extort. (deep breath) J-Lo is also hired on to keep an eye on Affleck and the autistic boy. J-Lo is gay. Affleck is a macho asshole. J-Lo and Affleck hate each other at first, grow affections for each other later (and for autistic boy), then run away somewhere after they completely botch the job that they’re suppose to do. Or something.



I’d really like to give this movie some credit but I can’t. The accents are horrible. The whole idea that a full out lesbian (not ‘I’m going to experiment in college lesbian’) would just drop the whole thing and say “you’re such a macho asshole, you must be the one guy I’d really enjoy…THAT way.” Even the autistic boy keeps getting less autistic as the movie goes on. I truly thought that they might have a plot twist and say he was actually a normal kid trying to pull one over on Affleck or something. But you know what really Really REALLY ticked me off about this movie? It was the guest appearances of Christopher Walken and Al Pacino. They had the best performances of the entire movie but it made me mad that they were there because once their scenes were over, I was back to watching crap.


"See? I'm reading. I must be a lesbian. But just until you macho Italian me over."

It took me over two hours to watch this movie. I kept pausing it to take cigarette breaks, or to refill my wine, or just for a fucking break of awfulness (i.e. all the rolling of my eyes started giving me a headache).


Biggest tool in the shed.

I watched ‘Gigli’ so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.