Blog vs. Blog: Movie Suck Edition™

MINNEAPOLIS — You can only cut family so much slack, mostly because you share too much DNA to cast stones from your genetic glass house. At some point, though, lines must be drawn. And so it has come to pass with my sassy host/niece in this Coldest of Major American Cities™.

Last Saturday I was assaulted by a “film” starring Jenny McCarthy, “Dirty Love,” in which she tries to do her best Jim Carrey impression … falling far, far short. And yet my niece, whose love for movies and pop culture has until now done nothing but impress me, likes this movie. ¡Likes it! Naturally, Ms. McCarthy wrote this travesty herself, and it was directed by her now ex-husband. Don’t believe it’s as bad as I portray? Its IMDB plot keywords include the term cavity search. It gets a 4 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, along with reviews like the following —

Even by the standards of its bottom-feeding genre, Dirty Love clings to the gutter like a rat in garbage. (Stephen Holden, New York Times)

Here is a film so pitiful, it doesn’t rise to the level of badness. It is hopelessly incompetent. (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times)

PROSECUTION RESTS. It’s really that bad. And my niece spent actual dollars on this film. She readily admits that she has a strain of appreciation for crappy movies (her words, not mine). But hearing of so many in her DVD collection worried me. Deeply. Even moreso when she joined the cynics in their pre-release dissing of James Cameron’s upcoming “Avatar.” ¡The hypocrisy!

Such talk made me wonder aloud whether what I had written off as merely her quota of guilty pleasure flicks was, in fact, a Problem. The intervention kind. Quota exceeded.

¡Blog vs. Blog!

So we’re devoting this week to a rational examination of her DVD collection. Yes, we’re talking spreadsheets, and also a database. There will be charts. Pie charts. Also the graphs. Possibly some Venn diagrams if y’all play your cards right. No screamfests here. Just data-mining that I’m confident will confirm my suspicion that, as she puts it, her “love for crap has gotten out of control.”

My duty as an uncle demands action.

So it’s blog vs. blog all week as we apply technology, sass and snark to identify her Issues. And then get her some help. Her sister will assist with the logistics. And in keeping us from escalating to cinematic violence.

You can keep track of my reasoned reporting here, or look askance at the lies she will no doubt purvey on her blog. Bring it, Little Junkies!