WEEKLY GROSS-OUT: Actually, I can’t decide

This week, it’s a toss-up between false advertising and drinking songs. I’ll do both.

Yesterday, I saw The Thing. I thought it was going to be about the similarly-named Fantastic Four superhero’s origin story, and it started off quite bizarre, being set near a Norwegian research station on Antarctica in 1982, and instead of being a hero, the “thing” was some weird creature from outer space who transmitted a virus in the blood of its victims, turning them into scary monsters who would go round devouring the other people at the station. Even after Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character had started torching every incarnation of that beast (and also another human who had not yet transformed), it didn’t turn into a good guy. In fact, when I looked at the movie’s Wikipedia article, it turned out to be a prequel to a movie released in 1982 that also didn’t feature anybody from the Fantastic Four. But even so, they shouldn’t have just called the movie The Thing, because if someone who was actually into the Fantastic Four (hint: not me) had seen it just because of the word “thing”, they would walk out feeling ripped off because it doesn’t have a single detail about Thing or his origins.

Also, before the previews leading into that sick disappointment of a superhero flick, I heard the entirety of Rihanna’s song Cheers (Drink to That). I liked the song’s apparent interpolations of I’m With You by Avril Lavigne, but the lyrics extol the consumption of alcohol (e.g. “oh, let the Jameson sink in” and “turn it around with another round”) and building up credit card debt (e.g. “'bout to hop on the bar, put it all on my card tonight”). Also, I noticed the word “hella” (which is used in the north of California as an adverb meaning “very” and as an adjective meaning “a lot of”) in one line, and that word is hella lame. Rihanna is the official ambassador of youth and culture for Barbados, but the lyrics of her latest hit show that she is in no way worthy of such an honour. But at least I didn’t hear any Justin Bieber or Enya or Billy Ray.