Last night, I skipped Santa Monica’s yearly not-the-Fourth-of-July fireworks show, and, instead, watched two very bad movies on cable. Or parts of them. One was “Going the Distance” with Justin (“I’m a Mac, and no matter what I do for the rest of my life, that’s what you’ll remember me for”) Long and Drew Barrymore, playing two annoying and unpleasant people who are dealing with long-distance relationship issues. Before it ended I was honestly hoping for one of them to be killed in a plane crash during one of their expensive, booked-last-minute, cross-country flights.
The other turkey was “Robin Hood” with Russell Crowe (ah, Crowe/Turkey, I get the bird pun now; THANKS UNIVERSE!), that I had to turn off before I threw things at my Bravia, because the film’s whole premise was a complete rewrite of English history, with Richard being killed in battle returning from the Crusades (no, kids, he was not), and a rewrite of the myth, with “Robin” now a thug impersonating the dead Robin of Locksley (spelled “Loxley” in the credits).
The world did not need another expensive cinematic buggering of the Robin Hood myth—though, it would have been better if the mythic reboot had a storyline where Robin is captured by a wizard and cast into a deep sleep, only to awaken centuries later and, through a series of rom-com coincidences and cute misunderstandings, eventually ends up attacking, robbing, and killing Justin and Drew in “Going the Distance.” I’d buy a Blu-ray player just to watch that Robin Hood reboot over and over again.