Whoops!

Ok, so I had a big ol' list of junk on the DVR to work my way through this afternoon--a couple of shows from the Travel Channel, the Food Network, and a bunch of poker programming, too. Not only that, I've recorded a bunch of movies over the course of the past week, and planned on watching them during my on-call days later this week. There was a bunch of stuff that I'd never seen, like Click, Casino Royale, Flyboys, and The Da Vinci Code.

Yeah, I missed all of those films when they were released in theaters.

So, this evening, after watching the WSOP coverage on ESPN, I decided to watch a movie from the list. I figured I'd go with oldest first, so I brought up The Da Vinci Code.

It kinda caught me off guard when just as the movie started, that disclaimer popped up warning me about nudity and whatnot. Really--nudity? Score!, I thought. Who knew there was a bunch of nudity in the movie? No wonder all the Catholics were up in arms when it was released.

Well, I figured that maybe something wasn't quite right when this was the opening scene:

Pavarotti in a renaissance hat, frolicking in a hot tub with some nubile young nymphs? That's what this movie was about?

Confused, I clicked the 'Info' button on the remote, and I discovered that I wasn't watching a Tom Hanks movie... Actually, I was watching an Oscar-worthy flick called The Da Vinci Coed.

Whoops!

Of course, my first reaction was Woo Hoo! Free pr0n on Showtime!!!

And of course I watched for a bit--I mean, who's gonna pass up free pr0n? Not I!

While I had to give the creators of the movie mad props for coming up with a great title that caught me by surprise (and I'm sure I wasn't the only one), I have to give the film a couple of huge thumbs down. Having viewed my fair share of erotic cinema over the years, I feel that I'm qualified to offer up the following critique:

It. was. awful.

Pretty much unwatchable. Granted, pr0no films aren't exactly known for their screenplays and scripts, but this was just plain bad. It had some redeeming qualities--I mean, who doesn't love to see boobies? But still, there's got to be some sort of context, but this movie was just so damn cheesy that I was expecting to see some 'disco bush' or an errant boom mic hanging down from the top of the screen. I could only take about 15 minutes of it before giving up, shaking my head in disgust. Not that I found the content offensive, but the acting and writing was just so awful that I actually felt bad for those poor tramps who thought that starring in such a vehicle was their big break. For a second there, I was thinking to myself that if this poker thing doesn't work out, I could move out to the San Fernando Valley and make a living writing screenplays for the adult film industry. Seriously--a third grader could've written the dialogue in that movie. A really farked-up third grader, but you get my point.

Perhaps my standards are too high, but I gave up after just a few minutes, wondering just what kind of person would get their jollies by watching something so crappy. But I just couldn't resist getting a screen-shot of the opening scene before I erased the movie from the DVR.

I guess next time I'm scrolling through the on-screen tv guide, I'll pay a bit closer attention to the movie titles before I hit the 'record' button...

Mikey