So I finally saw Predators . . . .

. . . . my BFF Matthew was kind enough to go with me to see Predators, perhaps hoping (rather foolishly) that seeing Walton Goggins as a death-row rapist in a prison jumpsuit would somehow cure me of my love for him.

He could not have been more wrong if he tried.

I've been in Maine for just over a week, and I cannot cannot CANNOT stop thinking about Walton Goggins.  Maybe it's because one of the guys in my writing program looks like him.  Maybe I'm obsessed and need mental help.  But more than likely, it's because I miss watching The Shield with my boyfriend, Ian.  So when I think "Walton Goggins," I'm really thinking "Ian."  We saw AvP 2 on our 2-year anniversery, so it's always held kind of a special place in our relationship.

But anyway, back to Walton Goggins.  Predators was a collossal failure on all levels except the "Walton Goggins saying things that are awesome."  More than once during a faculty reading one has leaned over to the other and whispered, "when this residency is done, I am going to do so much cocaine," leaving the other one snorting and trying not to laugh out loud.

And once Walton Goggins met his inevitable fate, well, the movie may as well have been over for me.  And yet, I found myself wanting to watch it over and over again, like some sort of security blanket.  I go through these sorts of movie phases--when my ex-best-friend Catch was in London. I watched the "Big Fat Kill" section of Sin City over and over and over and over.  When I was living in Brooklyn and was lonely and miserable, I watched Sideways and thought of Mike.  When I was in Brewster pining for Ian behind my then-boyfriend's back, I watched the daffodil scene in Big Fish.  I don't know what it was about Predators that made me so actively long for another viewing.

But don't let my sentimentality and my love of Walton Goggins distract you from the fact that this movie sucked.

. . . . but even a WG-free screen had more redeeming value than the trailer for Scott Pilgram vs. The World

This is going to be simultaniously the best and the worst movie ever made in the history of anything.  It's a checklist of nerd fantasies in which the nerd gets to be the hero.  We have:
1) Michael Cera
2) Moderatly hot indie chick
3) Michael Cera plays in a band (sure he does)
4) Video Game sound effects
5) "Evil" ex-boyfriends
6) Matrix-style camera work
7) Jason Schwartzman

On the other hand, it also has Michael Cera getting punched in the face.

Michael Cera needs to stop.  He just needs to go to college and become a vet or do something other than play the exact same rube over and over.  It's sort of like that episode of Arrested Development where he takes the "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day" joke too far.  I'm sick of George-Michael and I'm sick of this generation that think that some mopey-eyed dope is what a girl wants in a guy.  I don't want to date some overgrown manchild who thinks that I will be impressed when he plays "Message in a Bottle" for me on Guitar Hero.  Amd I'm utterly disgusted by this need to "save" a girl from her "evil" ex-boyfriends.  I've dated plenty of jerks.  Mail me some pizza rolls and I'll give you their names and addresses.  But I'm not wowed by some desparate John Cusack wanna-be, and I certainly don't want to pay ten bucks to see one one the screen.

What all women want, what we really want is Walton Goggins yelling "Die, space faggot, die!"

Ugly Men I Have Loved

On this, the eve of both my final graduate school residency, my friend Eeon's wedding and, most importantly, the release of Predators, it is time I confess what everyone has known for months.

I am so in love with Walton Goggins.



I love his femmy eyes.  I love his woodchuck teeth.  I love his receeding hairline and his southern accent and his boot cut jeans.  The man's got the nicest pants I've ever seen, even beating out Jeff Goldblum's skinny slacks on Law and Order: Criminal Intent.


Ian and I have been devouring The Shield. We just finished season five, and things are getting rough.  I sobbed during the finale.  It was not good, but for whatever reason, I just couldn't stay mad at Shane.  And I know things aren't going to end well for him, because it's The Shield, and nothing ends well for anybody.

By all logic, I should have had the crush on Dutch Boy, because he looks like Homicide's Det. Bayliss, who I was secretly in love with back in the day.

Or Lem, who looks like Trigun's Vash the Stampede.

Okay, that's cheating, because I did have a crush on Lem, but anyone who's watched The Shield knows that that's a love that ends pretty badly.

But there was just something about Shane that struck me.  Maybe it was because there's an ernestly about Shane, a real divide between wanting to do right by Vic and the team and wanting to do right by Shane.  He's the most complex character on the show, and I'm drawn to that.  Plus, as I said before, the man wears a pair of blue jeans like you can't believe.

Walton Goggins is just one more in a long list of ugly celebrities I've had the hots for, which includes babes like Benicio del Toro in Sin City, Adrien Brody (who's also in Predators) and Tom Waits in Down By Law.  In my defense, Tom Waits has an absolutely breathtaking heinie.  Watch the scene where the cops frisk him and check that thing out.  It's really something special.

My adoration for ugly dudes does not manifest itself in my real life.  Ian looks like Ewan McGregor.  My friend Matthew, the second hottest guy I know, looks like Jeff Goldblum, unless he's wearing his other glasses and then he looks like Morrissey. 

But on film, ugliness carries a raw sexuality.  There are a million petty boys, but to find a man with Benicio del Toro's lips or Walton Goggins' eyes or Tom Waits butt is a real gem.  They captivate me and I can't look away.

Also, Shane once said, "Eatin' ain't cheatin'" which just about made me faint dead away.  The man knows what the ladies like.

Of course, my friend Eeon, not thinking ahead, planned his wedding for the day Predators opens.  I think he's letting me give Bill Pullman's speech from Independence Day to make up for this grevious error.  I forgive him.  I'm a generous girl.