Life is Like a Train
If you are lucky enough to live in New York City, and unlucky enough to have no social life, then, like me, you probably spent some time at the Fringe before crashing at home and catching the rebroadcast of On the Line on WLNY.
What?
Honestly, there couldn’t be a better time to rerun this movie than now. Especially since the guy who conceived, produced, and starred in this very openly heterosexual romantic comedy and spent tons of money to convince the world that he wasn’t gay, just came out of the closet.
My older sister always had a morbid fascination with this movie, and I couldn’t understand why.
Then I actually watched it.
8:00 Cheap opening credits with an orange paper airplane flying over the panoramic landscape. We see a very bad, low-budget, predictable flashback of the lead character and his goofy best friend air-playing and lip-synching to a Spin Doctors song (Hey, remember them? This movie’s sense of humor will probably appeal to you, then) very, very badly. The other members of their “band” are a guy with bangs and some Kevin Cahoon-looking dude.
8:03 “Fat one.” Hee!
8:05 Fat One: “Pick the fruit, spit the wad. Know what I’m sayin’?” He knows!
Just how formulaic is this romantic comedy? It takes place in Chicago (but it was probably filmed in Canada regardless), and the lead character works at a PR firm.
Then he meets E’s girlfriend from “Entourage” (Not after that ménage a trois episode, though. Hoo boy, that obnoxious Leprechaun’s in deep shit now!). And that’s the whole story.
A bunch of contrived plot points involving Dave Foley, Reebok, Koosh Balls (Product placement!), Jerry Stiller’s bladder, ‘tween girls (You expected this fine film’s target audience to be Jerry Stiller fans?), a CD player(?), the U.S. Presidents, Al Green, the El train, and that damn paper airplane come up over the course of the next ten minutes.
8:17 Just as the girl leaves, and we get a very brief glimpse of Lance looking longingly at the camera like a sad puppy dog, we find out that this presentation of On the Line is sponsored by Centrum. Huh. I guess I was wrong about this film’s target audience after all.
8:20 Fat One tries to convince us he’s the talented one by singing and air-playing “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” There are a million bad-ass things he could do right now to develop his supposedly bad-ass character. Especially since he’s in a bar…well, albeit one that looks increasingly like a T.G.I. Friday’s. So, the local hangout for their circle of friends here is a family theme restaurant. But, instead of shoving something into the audience or gorging down beers, what does Fat One do onstage? He pours sugar on himself. Literally. Geez. Some people will do anything for a laugh. Which should be the tagline for this movie.
Oh shit. Case in point? One of their best friends is a Wigger. Complete with the backwards baseball cap. No wonder this movie couldn’t find its following.
Joey, who I forgot to mention has a totally hellacious hairdo, sings “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” with altered lyrics to comment about how much of an antisocial sad sack Lancelot is. So, you know he’s the bad-ass and not the wuss in this one. Wait.
8:24 The token “ancillary character describes a major plot point in a single, poorly-structured run-on sentence.” See also: Pretty much any adaptation of the Little Women books.
8:28 Some strange Fight Club-style edits of Lance talking to himself, sadly, do not lead to a bloody self-mutilation scene: Just a crappy, formulaic theme song about being “On the Line” for your love. He’s dancing to the song. This should be our first clue. That and the fact that he has absolutely zero chemistry with E’s girlfriend.
You know, the reason I find Eric so abnormally annoying is probably on account of either the fact that he’s an inassertive little twat, or the fact that he’s an inassertive little twat who just happens to bear a quite eerie resemblance to Chad Kimball.
Yet another cheap flashback. I can’t even keep track of them anymore.
See? Even those CapitalOne Vikings do a better job of air-playing than these delusional tools.
I mean, would you expect anything less than low-rent production values from a vanity project starring the two lesser members of N*Sync? I know Lance and Joey aren’t exactly the breadwinners in this family. Joey will be lucky if he doesn’t totally get reamed on Broadway – or if he hasn’t already. Lance, though…I can’t help but feel like coming out will be his life’s peak.
Notice how I didn’t mention Chris in all of this. Probably because he is the lessest member of them all. Whereas Joey is the fattest and Lance is the gayest, Chris was, and always has been the token member of N*Sync who looks forty. At least, since Lance officially came out and certifiably stole the “Queenliest” crown from the rest of the group – thus relieving Justin and JC of a whole lot of whore-humping just to make up for the whole “collectively gay public image” thing. Of course, Chris always had the gayest hairstyle. Not that it matters. See also: FuManSkeeTo.
8:33 Ah. Here we finally get a villain to compete with Lance for the girl’s affections. Is he anything less than corporate scum?
8:38 Lance finally meets up with his dream girl after placing a series of poorly-photocopied, handmade stalker notes all over the Chicagoland area (Well, maybe just Comiskey Park)? Nah, we’re just treated to a series of stereotypically unfunny “bad dates” straight out of Jewtopia.
Let’s see, there’s the granola hippie. All that’s missing is a cross-dresser or a trannie, because making fun of men who choose that lifestyle is always funny. Throw in a fat suit and a comically oversized fried chicken leg, and you’ve got Big Momma’s House 3. That is, if they’re not already making the straight-to-video version of that with Flex Alexander and Corey Holcomb.
Richie Sambora and Idalis de Leon have cameos here. Because, like Phat Beach before it, that’s exactly the sort of D-list “celebrity” benediction this movie deserves.
Holy, gum. They’ve finally made edible Ipods. Is that what the kids are listening to these days?
8:53 “It hit him in the…” Balls? Ass? Man-tits? We never hear what the hell was bleeped out of Fat One’s mouth.
8:55 Pointless montage set to a lesser N*Sync song that sounds suspiciously like “Bye, Bye, Bye”…but mercilessly isn’t. We see Lance predictably following through on his personal and professional goals, dating various comically androgynous women, and, facial expression-wise, entering various states of perpetual befuddlement.
8:56 Big Verizon plug!
Oh, right. The two doofy best friends were in their band in the flashback. That’s how little I care.
9:01 Oh, Al Green, not you, too. He’s apparently caved into the pressure to lip-synch.
9:03 Lance gives the worst line-reading I’ve ever heard in my life. Never mind this movie confirming that he’s pretty much a Chelsea Elsie through-and-through. He just can’t act.
9:06 And, finally, Lance’s campaign becomes the most uneventful of its kind since I quit LARPing. I think this calls for another PR success montage set to a bouncy, formulaic pop song.
So, it took two guys to write this, huh?
9:09 The token “Fat One gets his dick stuck in his fly” gag.
Hey, what’s better than a “bad date” montage or even a “doofy friend” montage? Having a montage of the doofy friends going on various bad dates! Set to Groove Armada! Meanwhile, Lance was probably at home watching Mildred Pierce on DVD.
Seriously, I haven’t seen a main character this flakily uninteresting since Ally McBeal.
9:19 Lance almost gets fired. I wonder why. Honestly, I wouldn’t be against what he’s doing with the whole billboard girlfriend stalker thing. Just befuddled. I mean, it’s always been pretty obvious he doesn’t go for the girls. Oh, I get it. His job is “On the Line,” too!
9:21 Fat One’s t-shirt says “Will Sing For Food.” Not since Ryan Seacrest’s “I Man-Whore for Petty Cash” has a t-shirt logo been so prophetically appropriate.
9:13 So, what exactly is Corporate Scum’s evil plan to get back at Lance? Expose him? As a dude who’s dating Reichen from “The Amazing Race”? That’s not shocking. What-ever.
9:25 Lance gets the copier to work again via the power of persuasive monologue.
It’s like Lance’s definition of acting consists almost solely of blank stares. No wonder Joey got to Broadway before he did.
9:26 If you’ve ever wanted to hear Joey Fatone cover Twisted Sister, now’s your chance.
9:30 Fat One: “It’s like that girl on the train…You want something so bad it hurts…You’ve got to put yourself On the Line.” Looks like Lance has got something he can’t hide. A dark secret!
Don’t get me wrong. I love the gays. If a guy like Gary Beach can be so open with his sexual identity as a gay man that he can portray Gay Hitler in a major movie, wear a sequined tux to the Tony Awards while he nudges his boyfriend on NY1, and still be immensely popular and have a great career – and headline the upcoming Les Miz 20 revival? I say more power to the Nancy boys. I’d take them over the heteros any day. Especially in light of the whole Crazy Mel controversy. And I told you so!
Just call me a one-woman campaign for gay rights.
America, meet your next Out Magazine cover boy.
What?
Honestly, there couldn’t be a better time to rerun this movie than now. Especially since the guy who conceived, produced, and starred in this very openly heterosexual romantic comedy and spent tons of money to convince the world that he wasn’t gay, just came out of the closet.
My older sister always had a morbid fascination with this movie, and I couldn’t understand why.
Then I actually watched it.
8:00 Cheap opening credits with an orange paper airplane flying over the panoramic landscape. We see a very bad, low-budget, predictable flashback of the lead character and his goofy best friend air-playing and lip-synching to a Spin Doctors song (Hey, remember them? This movie’s sense of humor will probably appeal to you, then) very, very badly. The other members of their “band” are a guy with bangs and some Kevin Cahoon-looking dude.
8:03 “Fat one.” Hee!
8:05 Fat One: “Pick the fruit, spit the wad. Know what I’m sayin’?” He knows!
Just how formulaic is this romantic comedy? It takes place in Chicago (but it was probably filmed in Canada regardless), and the lead character works at a PR firm.
Then he meets E’s girlfriend from “Entourage” (Not after that ménage a trois episode, though. Hoo boy, that obnoxious Leprechaun’s in deep shit now!). And that’s the whole story.
A bunch of contrived plot points involving Dave Foley, Reebok, Koosh Balls (Product placement!), Jerry Stiller’s bladder, ‘tween girls (You expected this fine film’s target audience to be Jerry Stiller fans?), a CD player(?), the U.S. Presidents, Al Green, the El train, and that damn paper airplane come up over the course of the next ten minutes.
8:17 Just as the girl leaves, and we get a very brief glimpse of Lance looking longingly at the camera like a sad puppy dog, we find out that this presentation of On the Line is sponsored by Centrum. Huh. I guess I was wrong about this film’s target audience after all.
8:20 Fat One tries to convince us he’s the talented one by singing and air-playing “Pour Some Sugar on Me.” There are a million bad-ass things he could do right now to develop his supposedly bad-ass character. Especially since he’s in a bar…well, albeit one that looks increasingly like a T.G.I. Friday’s. So, the local hangout for their circle of friends here is a family theme restaurant. But, instead of shoving something into the audience or gorging down beers, what does Fat One do onstage? He pours sugar on himself. Literally. Geez. Some people will do anything for a laugh. Which should be the tagline for this movie.
Oh shit. Case in point? One of their best friends is a Wigger. Complete with the backwards baseball cap. No wonder this movie couldn’t find its following.
Joey, who I forgot to mention has a totally hellacious hairdo, sings “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” with altered lyrics to comment about how much of an antisocial sad sack Lancelot is. So, you know he’s the bad-ass and not the wuss in this one. Wait.
8:24 The token “ancillary character describes a major plot point in a single, poorly-structured run-on sentence.” See also: Pretty much any adaptation of the Little Women books.
8:28 Some strange Fight Club-style edits of Lance talking to himself, sadly, do not lead to a bloody self-mutilation scene: Just a crappy, formulaic theme song about being “On the Line” for your love. He’s dancing to the song. This should be our first clue. That and the fact that he has absolutely zero chemistry with E’s girlfriend.
You know, the reason I find Eric so abnormally annoying is probably on account of either the fact that he’s an inassertive little twat, or the fact that he’s an inassertive little twat who just happens to bear a quite eerie resemblance to Chad Kimball.
Yet another cheap flashback. I can’t even keep track of them anymore.
See? Even those CapitalOne Vikings do a better job of air-playing than these delusional tools.
I mean, would you expect anything less than low-rent production values from a vanity project starring the two lesser members of N*Sync? I know Lance and Joey aren’t exactly the breadwinners in this family. Joey will be lucky if he doesn’t totally get reamed on Broadway – or if he hasn’t already. Lance, though…I can’t help but feel like coming out will be his life’s peak.
Notice how I didn’t mention Chris in all of this. Probably because he is the lessest member of them all. Whereas Joey is the fattest and Lance is the gayest, Chris was, and always has been the token member of N*Sync who looks forty. At least, since Lance officially came out and certifiably stole the “Queenliest” crown from the rest of the group – thus relieving Justin and JC of a whole lot of whore-humping just to make up for the whole “collectively gay public image” thing. Of course, Chris always had the gayest hairstyle. Not that it matters. See also: FuManSkeeTo.
8:33 Ah. Here we finally get a villain to compete with Lance for the girl’s affections. Is he anything less than corporate scum?
8:38 Lance finally meets up with his dream girl after placing a series of poorly-photocopied, handmade stalker notes all over the Chicagoland area (Well, maybe just Comiskey Park)? Nah, we’re just treated to a series of stereotypically unfunny “bad dates” straight out of Jewtopia.
Let’s see, there’s the granola hippie. All that’s missing is a cross-dresser or a trannie, because making fun of men who choose that lifestyle is always funny. Throw in a fat suit and a comically oversized fried chicken leg, and you’ve got Big Momma’s House 3. That is, if they’re not already making the straight-to-video version of that with Flex Alexander and Corey Holcomb.
Richie Sambora and Idalis de Leon have cameos here. Because, like Phat Beach before it, that’s exactly the sort of D-list “celebrity” benediction this movie deserves.
Holy, gum. They’ve finally made edible Ipods. Is that what the kids are listening to these days?
8:53 “It hit him in the…” Balls? Ass? Man-tits? We never hear what the hell was bleeped out of Fat One’s mouth.
8:55 Pointless montage set to a lesser N*Sync song that sounds suspiciously like “Bye, Bye, Bye”…but mercilessly isn’t. We see Lance predictably following through on his personal and professional goals, dating various comically androgynous women, and, facial expression-wise, entering various states of perpetual befuddlement.
8:56 Big Verizon plug!
Oh, right. The two doofy best friends were in their band in the flashback. That’s how little I care.
9:01 Oh, Al Green, not you, too. He’s apparently caved into the pressure to lip-synch.
9:03 Lance gives the worst line-reading I’ve ever heard in my life. Never mind this movie confirming that he’s pretty much a Chelsea Elsie through-and-through. He just can’t act.
9:06 And, finally, Lance’s campaign becomes the most uneventful of its kind since I quit LARPing. I think this calls for another PR success montage set to a bouncy, formulaic pop song.
So, it took two guys to write this, huh?
9:09 The token “Fat One gets his dick stuck in his fly” gag.
Hey, what’s better than a “bad date” montage or even a “doofy friend” montage? Having a montage of the doofy friends going on various bad dates! Set to Groove Armada! Meanwhile, Lance was probably at home watching Mildred Pierce on DVD.
Seriously, I haven’t seen a main character this flakily uninteresting since Ally McBeal.
9:19 Lance almost gets fired. I wonder why. Honestly, I wouldn’t be against what he’s doing with the whole billboard girlfriend stalker thing. Just befuddled. I mean, it’s always been pretty obvious he doesn’t go for the girls. Oh, I get it. His job is “On the Line,” too!
9:21 Fat One’s t-shirt says “Will Sing For Food.” Not since Ryan Seacrest’s “I Man-Whore for Petty Cash” has a t-shirt logo been so prophetically appropriate.
9:13 So, what exactly is Corporate Scum’s evil plan to get back at Lance? Expose him? As a dude who’s dating Reichen from “The Amazing Race”? That’s not shocking. What-ever.
9:25 Lance gets the copier to work again via the power of persuasive monologue.
It’s like Lance’s definition of acting consists almost solely of blank stares. No wonder Joey got to Broadway before he did.
9:26 If you’ve ever wanted to hear Joey Fatone cover Twisted Sister, now’s your chance.
9:30 Fat One: “It’s like that girl on the train…You want something so bad it hurts…You’ve got to put yourself On the Line.” Looks like Lance has got something he can’t hide. A dark secret!
Don’t get me wrong. I love the gays. If a guy like Gary Beach can be so open with his sexual identity as a gay man that he can portray Gay Hitler in a major movie, wear a sequined tux to the Tony Awards while he nudges his boyfriend on NY1, and still be immensely popular and have a great career – and headline the upcoming Les Miz 20 revival? I say more power to the Nancy boys. I’d take them over the heteros any day. Especially in light of the whole Crazy Mel controversy. And I told you so!
Just call me a one-woman campaign for gay rights.
America, meet your next Out Magazine cover boy.
On the Line: See it and live to...forget it.
posted by Gypsy at 10:31 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home