InkBlog

Scanning the pages of online satirical rag the Onion this week (www.theonion.com), one article in particular catches the eye. Its opening sentence goes like this: "Focus groups at advance screenings for Gigli, a romantic comedy starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez set to open here on September 26, have demanded a new ending in which both stars die 'in as brutal a manner as possible', sources at Sony Pictures said Tuesday."

If only, eh? A final-reel splatterfest that took out America's current sweethearts would mean there'd be two whole reasons to see the Jen and Ben Go Down the Dumper flick. The first, of course, being Gigli's much-trumpeted sex scene. This occurs when Lopez, who plays a lesbian gangster, turns hetero due to the irresistible masculinity of - stop laughing at the back - Affleck. (Don't tell me that that character development wasn't focus-grouped: big tick from the middle-aged male fantasists there.) Anyway, J-Lo gets B-Lo to go below by flipping the gormless boy into bed with one heft of her rump, then tempting his big head southwards with the line: "It's turkey time! Gobble, gobble, gobble."

If I were a Sony executive, I'd whack that quote all over Gigli's poster. It's a classic. And it sounds so much better than: "The worst movie of our admittedly young century - The Wall Street Journal." Or: "Enervated, slack, dreary and, oh yes, brutish and long - The Washington Post." We could go on, and the critics do, with glee, but why? We all knew Gigli would be a stinker. Why else would Lopez and Affleck do so much lovey-dovey promotion? All journalists want to know what famous people are like at home, because true, unassailable stars just don't let writers past the gate. It's only those in trouble who play housey with hacks (cf Cherie Blair), and Jen'n'Ben have been holding hands, baking cookies, and being just darlin' together all over the US media for a couple of months now. We could smell the turkey being basted from the other side of the Atlantic. Lopez didn't need to remind us.

Although Gigli, which cost $30m, only took $3.8m on its opening weekend, I predict it'll be a hit on DVD. Bad films always do well in take-home form. There's nothing like a late-night viewing of Swept Away to cheer you up. Look! All that money and a lovestruck director, and she still comes across like an animated Indian rope trick! It's especially entertaining if your copy is a not strictly legal one from the far east, where they take video cameras into cinemas. In those versions, you see the silhouetted heads of the people who leave before the end. With Swept Away, after a while, you can barely see the film at all.

Anyhow, if the director's cut DVD of Gigli actually included the Onion suggestions, it would clean up, although perhaps not to the tune of $27m. But by giving the viewers alternative, audience-pleasing endings, or, indeed, entire plot-lines, it would at least have a chance. In fact, with so many films being issued and reissued on DVD, more movie houses should think along the Onion lines. You don't need focus groups. Just use common sense. We all know what we really want.

Harry Potter, for instance. Both Harry Potter films suffer from an excess of Hermione - or, at least, an excess of the check-my-vowels little prima donna chosen to play her - and would benefit strongly from an injection of social realism. Let's have Hogwarts burnt to the ground by disgruntled ex-pupils, the most disreputable of whom gets Hermione pregnant. Shunned by her so-called friends Harry and Ron, who've used their magic skills to create a crack den in Hagrid's cottage, Hermione is forced to turn to evil pimp Dumbledore for help. The tragic final scene sees Hermione trying, and failing, to pick up a lost sheep (neat allegory, huh?). "He had such a kind face," says our heroine, before dying, lengthily.

With Titanic, you don't need a focus group to know the film only picks up when the ship starts going down. Why not dispense with the tedious love story - thereby freeing up two whole hours - and insert more footage of Kate Winslet's breasts battling through the bathwater while little people tumble from the deck they call poop? Plotwise, this could be achieved by making Titanic impossible to sink. Every time it goes under water, up it pops back again.

The Sound of Music? Clearly, this much-loved film needs to acknowledge its true fans - gay men - by pepping up its fashion and music sense. Let's get Sex and the City on its ass. Julie Andrews should be replaced by a younger, prettier Sarah Jessica Parker, or similar transvestite, looking hot hot hot in a knicker-skimming, off-the-shoulder Marc Jacobs nun's habit and hand-knitted Manolo Blahniks. She falls out of a yellow taxi as the music swells. "The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Me Breaking A Nail And Working It Into My Column: Why Is Dating So Like Contemporary Cuticle Maintenance?"

Anyway, you get the idea. And if the entertainment corporations don't take us up on this - which they won't, unless we really do infiltrate their focus groups - then there is another Gigli-inspired way to make most boring films more bearable. Simply insert J-Lo's gobble speech yourself whenever things get dull. It's remarkable just how relaxing shouting "It's turkey time!" at the telly can be.

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