Let me tell you a sad story. A few years ago, I took a little vacation down to Buenos Aries. It was before their currency and country disintegrated, and I had a lovely time. The city was alive, the guys were intelligent and hysterical and the women collectively were the best looking I have laid eyes upon, save possibly the girls in Copenhagen. In fact, the men down their have an expression worth quoting here. Por Todos Lados. Literally, “They’re everywhere.” And it was true.
Almost unbelievable, but ultimately true. An entire city populated by exquisitely beautiful women and short, unremarkable looking men. My friend, Chris, and I would go on “ass walks.” Anyone who has spent any time at all in New York City already knows what I am talking about. Basically, you find the best-looking ass on the street and follow it around for several blocks. Of course, there is no heaven on earth, I quickly realized. Argentina is strictly, almost vehemently Catholic and to my surprise and the natives day-to-day horror, the women down there will not screw out of wedlock.
The house I was staying in was populated with exchange students from France. Mostly female, but one of them was a gay guy. While these women had little to offer looks wise vis-Ã -vis their Argentinean counter parts, they were in fact women and Chris and I were over-sexed out of our little minds. One night the French girls came home and they were all horny. Really horny.
Unfortunately, all but one had already shacked up with our gracious hosts (Bastards!). Still, Chris and I were intrigued. What had brought this transformation about? What had roused the passions of these ladies in the most sexually repressed country this side of Vatican City? Turns out, it was the Jerry Bruckheimer “film,” Coyote Ugly. Chris and I decided to check it out and see what in fact had set these little women ablaze.
Halfway through the “movie,” Chris and I were punching each other in the shoulders. Though we failed to vocalize the thoughts at the time, running through our minds was the fact that here we were, a world away from Los Angeles and we had fallen victim to another brutal “cinematic” rape from that notorious pervert, Herr Bruckheimer. We could have been doing any number of worthwhile cultural and international activities. Like checking out the Recoletta or having some coffee in Barrio Alto. I’m sure there were museums or an opera or something to check out. Heck, we could have even been following some poor and unsuspecting pair of buttocks around town. Instead though, being the absolutely horrible Americans that we are, we sat in abject misery watching the atrocity that is Coyote Ugly unfold before us like a soiled dipaer.
I actually remember very little about the “film” other than the fact that it sucked in every single way a “movie” can. Shear banality and raw, unrepentant tediousness tend not to specifically linger for all too long inside my noodle. Same goes for out and out crappiness. Coyote Ugly involved a group of stupid strippers who masqueraded as bartenders in a fictional NYC bar called Coyote Ugly. [Ed Note: there is a real bar called Coyote Ugly, but it is in the East Village, not the Meat Packing District.] At one point, the dumbest of all the strippers (Tyra Banks) told the rest of the girls that she got accepted into law school. Enter the main character (Piper Perabo), a hot but otherwise pathetic girl, who overhears the strippers talking about how much money they had made “working” at the bar, so she decides to apply for a job. Turns out that she wants to be a Jewel style singer/songwriter. She of course sucks, but she is really hot.
In case the review itself doesn’t convince you,
that’s LeAnne Fucking Rimes…
The single worst scene from the “movie,” and possibly the worst scene in the entire cinematic cannon, is when the hot singer chick is having a spell of writer’s block. There is too much noise in her crappy apartment to properly “compose.” She goes up on her roof (I think) where she sees what else, but a black guy dancing in his apartment. I’m not even going to bother with the obviousness of that one. Suddenly inspired, hot chick begins jamming along with the music coming from the black guy’s apartment and manages to “write” a song. I believe this is the point where Chris and I began beating each other.
What we could never figure out is what the French girls liked about the “film,” and especially what got their little panties in a bunch. Fully dressed strippers? The average woman cruising down the street in Buenos Aries is twelve to eighteen times hotter than all the women in the movie mashed together. Maybe young French girls are just plain stupid? Maybe they ate ecstasy before they sat down? We’ll never know for sure. Avoid Coyote Ugly, and really all other Bruckheimer movies, like the plague. Save for The Rock, of course.
Ruthless Ratings:
- Overall: 1
- Direction: 1
- Acting: 1
- Story: 1
- Re-watchability: May I poke my own eyes out if that possibility ever becomes a reality
Special Ruthless Ratings:
- Number of times you have mentioned Coyote Ugly when friends or whomever begin discussing “the worst movie you’ve ever seen.”: 342
- Is it possible that another Jerry Bruckheimer mass rape, Gone In Sixty Seconds is worse: Yes
- Is Coyote Ugly worse than Crossroads: Maybe
- Number of times the fact that they serve and you bought beer in Buenos Aries theaters kept you from walking out: 5
- Number of times that raw masochism kept your ass firmly rooted in that seat: 10
- Number of times you thought you were pretty clever putting quotes around words like, “movie,” “film” and “cinema” while writing this review: 12
- Number of times you thought you were a complete moron for seeing Coyote Ugly: 231
- Number of times you thought you were a complete moron for seeing Coyote Ugly given the circumstances on the day you watched it: 1,324