May 1, 2005

I'm 5 minutes in ...

... to Riding the Bus with my Sister and ...

my skin is crawling.

Rosie: what are you doing with your voice???????? You guys, it is SO BAD!!!!!! It's so bad. It's so bad. Holy crap.

I can't get over it. She's just screaming. What??

I am so embarrassed right now.

More: If I were on a bus route that consistently had a shrieking woman wearing some kind of Care Bear outfit sitting in the front seat, I think I would start to walk to work.

More: Andie Macdowell is so beautiful. I love her face.

More: Okay, say you're on a bus, going to work. Shrieking Care Bear woman is in the front seat having some kind of meltdown. You sit in the back, minding your own business, trying to tune out the hysterical yowling. Suddenly, Driver makes an announcement: "Folks, we have a bit of an emergency - we are going to need to take a detour, to drop Beth off at the hospital." It's not that Beth was sick, it was that her FATHER was sick. So ... maybe I'm callous ... but I would ask to be let off the bus, before they take their detour. You know. We all have lives to live. We all have places to go. But the people in this movie all nod understandingly, nobody makes a fuss ... Rick (the most understanding bus driver I have ever seen - he also looks like a pinup model) calls through the rear view mirror to one of the riders: "Gus, looks like you're gonna be a little late to your doctor's appointment!" Gus calls back good-naturedly, "Oh, it's okay - He's a quack anyway." In what universe would this exchange occur? A happy Care Bear universe, obviously. In what universe does NO ONE on a crowded bus have ANYWHERE they need to be?

Just a quick aside: Other people live-blog the State of the Union address. I live-blog Riding on the Bus with my Sister. Such as we are made.

More: Rosie. ROSIE. Stop. Screaming. Please. I beg you.

More: Believe it or not, but Andie Macdowell is doing some pretty okay work in the middle of this train-wreck.

Posted by sheila
Comments

What, the commercials weren't bad enough for you?! You have to watch?!

Posted by: popskull at May 1, 2005 9:44 PM

I read the piece in the Times and I thought: I just HAVE to see this. Not because it sounded good ... but the opposite. Kinda like the whole Battlefield Earth thing.

Posted by: red at May 1, 2005 9:45 PM

You're sterner stuff than I. Sci-fi bad I can dig, but schmaltzy tear-jerker bad, I'd need to punch somthing.

Posted by: popskull at May 1, 2005 9:48 PM

Yup. I'm feeling violent right now.

Posted by: red at May 1, 2005 9:49 PM

If mental disabilities were considered a race, Rosie O'Donnell would be considered a racist. This is the worst and most off base depiction of a mentally disabled individual I have ever had to watch. She really should have stuck with daytime talk- or something. How awful, how incredibly pathetic. I can hardly take it.

Posted by: aware at May 1, 2005 10:55 PM

Only in the la-la land of Hollywood could this movie have been written. I have been in many places and ridden many buses, and I don't care where you are, no way will any bus driver deliberately leave his route unless (as once happened here in Orlando when I was riding the bus to work) there was a police road block and they were redirected. And even then they'd have to call it in. But to go out of the way for a screaming mentally handicapped person? In real life she'd have been off that bus in jig time.

Posted by: Andrea Harris at May 1, 2005 11:51 PM

I couldn't even stomach the previews. Rosie should stick to comedies like the nun thing she did with Whoopie G.

Posted by: Candace at May 2, 2005 4:00 AM

I just laughed out loud and snorted coffee out my nose at the State of the Union/My Sister Rides the Bus live-blogging parallel.

Posted by: Anne at May 2, 2005 9:51 AM

Anne - hahahaha I know. I realized in the middle of it how unbelievably lame I was being. But it was also enjoyable. I embrace the lame.

Posted by: red at May 2, 2005 10:06 AM

Thank you for doing this.

Posted by: Dan at May 2, 2005 10:41 AM

I made Jean watch it for about five minutes, then I got mad at her for not making fun of it enough.
Do you think that Rosie watched it and said "Man, I really pulled it off."

Posted by: Patrick W at May 2, 2005 11:21 AM

Pat: HAHAHAHA

I think she thinks she did an awesome job. I really do. Which is terrifying.

Posted by: red at May 2, 2005 11:22 AM

Just in case you wanted to revisit (hah!) -

Highlight reel:

http://www.tvgasm.com/archives/television_specials/000761.php

Posted by: melissa at May 4, 2005 2:42 PM