BUG
Wow. You know there are times you go to the movies knowing it will be pretty bad - hello Sharon Stone, Cuba Gooding and Sly (although I did love Rocky Balboa and Rambo looks like it will kick ass).
Then there are movies that grab your attention...like um well the critics for the most part are saying how gripping and terrifying the movie is etc...Then throw in there, Ashley Judd is not only a great actress, but has a kick ass bod....
You got my attention.
So I dragged two of my best friends to see Bug Friday afternoon.
Wow.
I don't think I will have as singularly bad a worst experience watching the movie than what I experienced in Bug.
Based on the Steppenwolf stage play by writer Tracey Letts and directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection, Rules of Engagement) Ashley Judd plays a lonely, coked-up, lesbian waitress named Agnes. Agnes works in a lesbian bar with her friend, RC, played by Lynn Collins. Agnes goes to work then comes home to her hovel - a run down motel that would scare Norman Bates. Here, she drinks non-stop and answers a phone that never stops ringing, nor do we know who is calling her.
One night RC brings a drifter named Peter, played by Michael Shannon (who reprises his role from the play). Peter is strange, but seems fairly harmless. He tells Agnes that he fought in the Iraq war and was just released from an army hospital.
So of course Peter spends the night. Agnes becomes intrigued by Peter...also she confesses that she's lonely. Way to tee it up, Agnes! Next thing you know, we see Ashley Judd (no body double here) 's boobs and, wait for it, BUSH! Yes, Mr. Skin would be proud.
Of course after they become lovers, everything goes to hell. Peter imagines that he has been bitten by a BUG. Even though there is nothing in his hand when he shows it to Agnes, he is convincing enough for her, that she starts to believe him. He even goes to to tell her how he was experimented on in the hospital - they injected bugs into his skin.
NOTE - White people when you allow a drifter to stay in your house and he says he has bugs in his skin, this would be the appropriate moment to kick him out. This never happens to black folk!
Eventually, when Peter is convinced spraying doesn't work, he convinces Agnes to cover her motel room in foil and hang bug zappers as lights. And when Agnes comes to the conclusion about the origin of the bugs, she and Peter cover themselves in gasoline and, well, kill themselves.
Maybe Bug worked as a stage play, but as a piece of film, it is a piece of garbage. My friends, Chuck and Sue, as well as myself, sat there and laughed for like 5 minutes while the credits rolled.
Ashley Judd, who I feel is one of the best actresses out there, is actually pretty good. And Harry Connick, Jr as her ex husband is decent as well. It's just the essence of believability. Of course you have to check your reality hat at the door when you're seeing a horror or action movie. But Bug never got me to the point where I felt comfortable giving it up.
But because I got long lingering looks at Ashley Judd's bush, I give Bug....
ONE AND A HALF BALL POINT PENS