TIDBITS
... of humorous stories

"Movies That Kill"

  I am here today to review the recently released Britney Spears and Mariah Carey films. Please be forewarned that both movies have the same basic theme:  have the audience projectile vomiting within ten minutes of the opening.

Each actress (did I actually call them actresses?) faces a tragedy.

Britney's mom leaves when she was three years old. Young Britney probably told her she wanted to be on the big screen and she immediately packed her bags and ran out the back door never to return.

Whereas Mariah's mother is hooked on booze and drugs and burns down her house while being under the influence.

Each picture of course goes out of its' way to be politically correct trying to make every ethnic group equally represented, and equally humiliated.

Britney's two girlfriends are Kit, an African American, and Mimi, a Latino. Mariah's friends are Roxanne, an African American and Louise who is, you guessed it, a Latino.

Let's all take a No-Doze and examine the story lines. Britney and her two girlfriends bury a box of 'Hopes' when they are nine years old and pledge to dig it up when they graduate high school.

Meanwhile, back at the Mariah's soap fest, she is put in a shelter where she meets her two soulmates. It's a wonderful place and they even let her keep her cat.

Promise me you'll put the razor blades back in the medicine cabinet and I will tell you the name of the kitten. It's Whiskers (excuse me one minute as I upchuck my breakfast). Little did I realize how much fun growing up in a state shelter could be.

At this point in the movie theater I hear the unmistakable sound of someone pushing bullets into a revolver. As I agonized over the decision to stop this person or help her pull the trigger, a security guard demanded she hand over the weapon.

Are you ready for a brief interlude of Double Jeopardy? Please answer it in the form of a question. Which one of these divas will become the valedictorian of her high school class?

It's Britney and (get your hanky out) when all the other students were dating and partying she was home studying. What's an even bigger hoop to jump through is that she is a virgin. But don't worry about the film being out of touch with today's young women because Kit is the school's prom-slut and Mimi is five month's pregnant.

Just moments after the graduation ceremony Britney and her father bump into a teacher who asks if she will continue working on her musical talent. When she tells her instructor she will be studying premed, the audience is asked to buy into his disappointment.

Anyway, that same night the three girls dig up the memory box and they review their long ago buried dreams. Kit wanted to be married, Mimi desired to be a singer and Britney wanted to find Mommie Dearest.

What to do?...road trip of course! They decide to go to California. By now Mariah and her two friends are singing backup for a pop star, and Mariah hooks up with Dice, the owner of the club.

At first I thought he was a cosmotologist because of his under-powering macho attitude. She tells him she has a tough time trusting people (someone please hand me an air sickness bag) but eventually they move in together.

She finally hits the big time and late at night when they are driving through the South Bronx her song comes on the radio and they ask the taxi driver to pull over.

They get out and dance in the street while the tires are stolen off the cab and the driver is beaten unconscious and his money stolen. OK... nothing happened to the cab....can't a viewer just hope.

Even this overflow of crap-o-la had a funny side. The audience members were falling on the floor laughing when Mariah met the record label executives and one of them asked her, "have you thought of acting?"

Well, Mariah and her boyfriend eventually have a fight and she takes her cat and moves out. Please tell me the movie is over...not by a long shot.

She sells out her first concert at Madison Square Garden but still misses Dice (God's knows why!). He is on his way to see her sing when he is shot to death.

About eight and a half minutes before she goes on stage she is told of his demise but she braves it all and gets out there and sings. She opens by telling the audience, "please don't ever take anyone in your life for granted".

The concert finally ends and when she gets back to her dressing room there is a single rose with a note from her dead boyfriend telling her where she can find her mother.

The last scene is Mariah at her long-lost mom's house in Maryland. They are holding hands, of course mom is now clean and sober. Mariah stares up into the heavens as if to say thank you. It was the perfect opportunity for a bolt of lightening to fry her but life is not fair.

But what happened with Britney's trip?

By now Britney and the jailbird are in deep Hollywood-love. Their car breaks down and our little diva figures out the problem. Since they brought about six cents to pay for the whole two thousand mile journey, they sign-up to sing at the local bar's open mike contest in order to get the dough to repair the car.

Guess what? She sang with her two girlfriends backing her up and made about thirty-two million dollars.

The boyfriend it turns out is really just another one of those convicted felons who really is a great guy. He went to jail for driving his underage stepsister out of the state (by this time the movie felt like it was moving in reverse).

Britney finally finds her mother who wants nothing to do with her (can't say I blame her) and quite heartbroken, she jumps into bed and does the humpty dance with the jailbird, who by now is no doubt praying that he will go back to prison and be put on death row.

The rest of the gang isn't too happy either. Kit finds her fiance fooling around with another women and Mimi falls down a flight of stairs and looses the baby.

It finally concludes with the inseparable threesome digging a hole in the sand at the beach.

The gentleman behind me in the movie theater whispered to his wife that they were probably going to bury Britney up to her neck and watch the incoming tide drown her.

Unfortunately, the girls put a new box of "Hopes" in the ground to be opened sometime in the future. The movie ended and there was cheering and a run for the exit doors.

As a postscript, this reviewer feels it is his duty to inform his audience of a bone chilling rumor: both of these actresses (OOPS - I called them the "A" word again) are, once again, looking at...God help us all...movie scripts!

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