And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Hollywood to be born?

Disaster Movie, the latest cinematic abortion produced by writer/director/crapmasters Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, opens today, and if you actually pay to see it in the theater, you are a bad person. There is no wiggle room here. Seriously. This is a Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll-level indictment of your worthiness as a human being.

Friedberg and Seltzer are the pathetically talentless duo responsible for Epic Movie, about which I had a thing or two to say, and Meet the Spartans, which Slate's Josh Levin eviscerated in one of the funniest negative reviews I've ever read:

This was the worst movie I've ever seen, so bad that I hesitate to label it a "movie" and thus reflect shame upon the entire medium of film. Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it. They are not filmmakers. They are evildoers, charlatans, symbols of Western civilization's decline under the weight of too many pop culture references.

Awesome. "A bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it." That immediately joins the grand pantheon of brilliantly vicious pans, which also includes:

Roger Ebert on North: "I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it."

Bloom County's Opus as movie critic: "George Phblat's new film, 'Benji Saves the Universe,' has brought the word 'bad' to new levels of badness. Bad acting. Bad effects. Bad everything. This bad film just oozed rottenness from every bad scene. Simply bad beyond all infinite dimensions of possible badness."

Family Guy's Cleveland on Skeet Ulrich: "There is nothing good about who you are or what you do."

James Downey on Adam Sandler in Billy Madison: "Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

Me on Committed: "This show is bitterest poison. It should be banned by the protocols established by the Geneva Convention. I hate it. I hate everyone associated with it, I hate myself for watching it, and I hate you for reading about it."

Although truly no invective foul enough exists to adequately describe how awful Friedberg and Seltzer and their movies are. And I'm sure that will hurt their feelings, if they happen to read it in between rolling around on their giant piles of money.

TV:24 and Committed, yet again

Writing about 24, Bill Sherman at Pop Culture Gadabout has jarred my memory about something that was bothering me in the first episode this season. Bill writes about how the ep's reference to Michael Moore (a slam against him delivered by Secretary of Defense William Devane) detracted from the show's believability rather than enhancing it.

It bothered me, too, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Bill makes a good point about the show's timeline (as you know, I'm a stickler for television timelines), but that wasn't quite it. Then it suddenly struck me: in the 24 world, George W. Bush was never President!

When the show began in 2001, it was in the middle of the Presidential campaign, which immediately established it as outside our reality. In the following season, we saw Dennis Haysbert had been elected President, and was serving his term during the time when Dubya would've been President. Now, we have Geoff Pierson as President, during what would be Dubya's second term. (If it actually is 2005 in their world, and not 2008 or 2009, as Bill postulates.)

No Dubya means no Fahrenheit 9/11. Which means that Michael Moore's prominence would be greatly diminished from what it is currently in our world, where he is the go-to liberal target for conservative pundits and politicians. Prior to that movie, conservatives were somewhat aware of Moore, but he hadn't become the omnipresent object of all-consuming hatred he is to them now. Devane's knee-jerk snipe against Moore makes no sense in the world 24 has established for itself.

Yes, this is the kind of thing that I think about.

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I've also been thinking about: have any of you people who threatened to watch Committed when I was bagging on it gone through with it? An episode was on last night. Have you all become fans of the show? Or do you instead now realize: Tom is always right. We must not question Tom. Make the pain stop, Tom.

TV: TeeVee

Chris Rywalt of TeeVee is in agreement with me about Committed.

Some choice lines from his assessments of the show:

"Committed, in short, was easily the most godawful, unwatchable show I've ever seen in my time writing for TeeVee."

"If you really want to know what I think of it, go back and read every negative thing I've ever written for this site, then multiply it by ten, then shoot yourself in the head."

"...Committed is a steaming puddle of diarrhetic dog poop..."

"They're so unfunny, metaphors fail me. They're as funny as the least funny thing in the universe. I believe it might be possible to prove mathematically that they are not only the least funny people in history, but that they are the least funny it is possible for humans to be."

See, my review doesn't seem quite so negative now, does it?

TV: Committed

I TiVoed the first couple episodes of Committed, even though I could tell from the commercials that it was going to be bad. And holy mother of pearl, was I ever right. That was the worst hour of television I've seen since... I honestly can't remember when.

I don't know why (or how) I watched both full episodes. I guess I just couldn't believe anything so irredeemably, godforsaken awful could slip past so very many producers, executives, etc., to actually make it onto the air. I kept waiting to see something, just the faintest whiff of what could have ever made anyone think this show had any quality whatsoever. And I was repeatedly disappointed.

The two leads are blander than bland, the acting equivalent of elevator muzak. The woman I recognize from her short stint on Crossing Jordan last year; not entirely coincidentally, I stopped watching Crossing Jordan last year. The man I've never seen before, and hope never to see again. I feel sad for Tom Poston, who wanders lifelessly through lifeless scenes, a great comedic talent wasted in an idiotic, pointless role.

Committed tries (and fails, of course) to mine laughter from the neuroses of the two leads. He doesn't like elevators! She says inappropriate things! What kismet, that they should meet! Ugh. And I've never heard such a flagrant abuse of the laugh track. At every single hint of the smallest of jests, a roar erupts from the studio audience, a deafening, hysterical cacophony of mirth; I can only assume that there is a gun to the head of each and every individual misfortunate enough to bear witness to this abomination. I can not conceive of laughter being extracted from any audience member by any method other than the dire and immediate threat of death.

This show is bitterest poison. It should be banned by the protocols established by the Geneva Convention. I hate it. I hate everyone associated with it, I hate myself for watching it, and I hate you for reading about it. I award it no stars, and may God have mercy on our souls.