It's a pity we never learn anything from history. I'm supposed to write this week's column when middle-aged rich people are sending young poor people off to murder each other again for whatever stupid reason both sides have drummed up. And we're all supposed to sit around and take sides … but I'll try ….
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… Even though I can't avoid the war completely. You have to wonder about human rights, and exactly what human rights the U.S. is fighting for, when you read an article about equality for gays like this one in the London Times: 'The long-term partners of soldiers, sailors and airmen killed in action in the Gulf will for the first time be entitled to pension payments.'
Geoff Hoon, the British Defense Secretary says, 'The change, effective immediately, will be a morale boost for troops in the Gulf. Under the new scheme, the boyfriend or girlfriend of someone who dies in the conflict will be entitled to about 90 percent of their partner's pension.'
I feel sorry for the partners of gay U.S. military personnel over there, because if they die their lovers don't get shit. Oh, I forgot, there aren't any gays in the U.S. military …
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I haven't seen the movie Boat Trip starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as a straight man stranded on a gay cruise ship, so I can't really comment on it. However, the reviews are amusing:
Lisa Schwarzbaum for Entertainment Weekly wrote: 'I thought Cuba Gooding Jr. couldn't blow his Oscar cred more profligately than he did last year in the pandering black-guy-lost-among-white-folks comedy Snow Dogs.
'I was wrong.'
Wesley Morris at the Boston Globe headed his review: 'Stereotypes Sink Boat Trip.' 'There has been some concern that Boat Trip ... might be harmful to gay men. This is not entirely true. Boat Trip is bad for everybody.
' … TV veteran Mort Nathan co-wrote and directed Boat Trip. His credits include Benson, Archie Bunker's Place, the horrific Secret Life of Desmond Pfeiffer, 'The Golden Girls, and the screenplay for the Farrelly brothers' bowling gross-out, Kingpin.
'It's a body of work that pushes the envelope of comic mediocrity and iffy social satire, qualities that Boat Trip heartily embraces.'
Chris Hewitt of the Philadelphia Inquirer wades in with 'Cruise Comedy Misses the Boat.' 'It's a lame, gender-mixed, mistaken-identity, cross-dressing comedy: Some Like It Tepid if you will . … (It's) designed to appeal to closet cases who subscribe to Hustler in order to prove their heterosexuality.'
Under the headline 'Ohhh, That Sinking Feeling,' Jim Slotek of the Toronto Sun writes: 'While Boat Trip's central gag is indeed a boatload of flaming stereotypes, this movie manages to insult the intelligence of all vertebrates, gay, straight or other.
'It also revives a periodic Hollywood parlor game called 'What The Heck Has Happened With Cuba Gooding Jr.?' Has any Oscar winner fallen this far this fast? ...
'There's also a cretinous subplot about a bunch of big-breasted competitive sun-tanners from Sweden who literally fall from the sky—as if the filmmakers themselves are concerned that the whole thing might be just a little, y'know, TOO gay.'
Michael N. Westley of the Salt Lake Tribune writes under 'Boat Trip Awash in Gay Clichés.' 'With gay characters throughout prime-time sitcoms and movies, gay-themed films require depth and content. Boat Trip, a veritable Titanic of clichés, stereotypes and penis jokes, hits its iceberg before it has a chance to leave the harbor.'
I guess this is a case of the reviews being funnier than the movie.
