Off the clock with The Checkout Girl: Now in 3-D!

It seems that Hollywood can’t make a movie these days without shooting it in 3-D. But why? Is everything really better when it feels like you are right in the middle of the action? YES! Why do you think people go to NASCAR races? Or spend time with Lindsay (milka-wha?) Lohan?

March 29, 2010; 12:00 PM • by The Checkout Girl

Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek Forever After, Tron Legacy. It seems that Hollywood can’t make a movie these days without shooting it in 3-D. But why? Is everything really better when it feels like you are right in the middle of the action?

YES!

Why do you think people go to NASCAR races? Or spend time with Lindsay (milka-wha?) Lohan? Partially, the chance of accidental nipple. But, mostly, ACTION! Trust me, I am more part of the problem than part of the solution and wonder why, as in the case of colorization, old movies can’t be trotted out and converted to 3-D. I am the Ted Turner of this stuff. Without the money. Or pornstache.

That being said, I present…

Movies That Ought To Be 3-D-fied For My Viewing Pleasure

Barbarella
You guys, the poster read: “The space age adventuress whose sex-ploits are among the most bizarre ever seen.” It’s campy, it’s dirty, and Jane Fonda undresses in zero gravity. What part of the 1960’s bombshell don’t you want to see flying at your face? Just try not to think about legwarmers or On Golden Pond. Trust me.

Sid and Nancy
Rock and roll shouldn’t just be filmed in 3-D, it should be LIVED in 3-D. Punk god Sid Vicious of Sex Pistols and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen did just that. I want to live it, too, but from the safety of a cushy movie theater, holding a big ol’ Coke with a Red Vine for a straw, reaching up to wipe grit, blood, and sweat from my silly 3-D glasses. Just the way Sid and Nancy would want it.

Field of Dreams
I’ve liked exactly four sports-themed movies in my entire life: this, A League of Their Own, Bring It On, and The Karate Kid. I chose this one because not only would it be really cool to duck baseballs that look like they are coming straight at you, but the family dysfunction would seem so life-like! Though they cost more than the 2-D version, a 3-D movie is still much cheaper than therapy for working out daddy issues.

Showgirls
One of the cheesiest but fun movies ever made (Roger Ebert even wrote that “it wasn’t completely terrible”) deserves one of the cheesiest but fun special effects. The seediness of Las Vegas, thinly-veiled by bright lights and sequins would be fantastic in 3-D. Not to mention lap dances and violence and lots and lots of making out. Oh, and Gina Gershon in the role she was born to play! And never forget, “There’s always someone younger and hungrier than you coming down the stairs behind you.” In 3-D!

Truth or Dare
Madonna Madonna Madonna! Remember the Madonna craze? Remember how I’m still in the thick of it? There is nothing I would love more than to see that concert footage in 3-D, not to mention the simulated oral sex. Warning: DO NOT 3-D anything after this movie. Remember the Dennis Rodman fling? Not 3-D material. Also, her arms and neck would likely shock an audience to death, should they see them as they are now.

Valley of the Dolls
Drugs, insanity, abortion, soft-core pornography — edgy stuff for 1967. Heck, edgy stuff for 2010. This movie was Dynasty, before Dynasty was Dynasty and the magnif catfight between Patty Duke and Sharon Tate would play brilliantly in 3-D. Face slapping, mascara smearing, wig pulling, and all.

Trainspotting
Wait, stay with me. How great would it be to show this movie to horrified teens in silly glasses? The dead baby, the dead baby’s ghost, the under-eye circles, the needles, the toilet. All right there in the room with you. If that’s not enough to scare ’em straight, I don’t know what is. Now if only they’d invent smell-vision. No one would ever touch drugs, or visit Scotland, ever again.

Sure, sure, I know you are going to say, “What about Star Wars?” or “Ever hear of Raiders of the Lost Ark?” or even “Isn’t Nine 1/2 Weeks a sexy movie?” and the answers are “Cliché”, “Blasé”, and “Yes, but Mickey Rourke scares the bejeezus out of me,” respectively. But they aren’t right for 3-D-ing. It takes something special to be worthy of that. After all, if we haphazardly convert, we could end up with Sharon Stone uncrossing her legs in Basic Instinct IN 3-D! Julie Andrews’s naked breasts in Victor Victoria IN 3-D! Ben Stiller’s crazy testicle/zipper massacre from There’s Something About Mary IN 3-D! No, my friends, we’ve got to be responsible with this technology. And don’t even THINK about getting near a Christopher Walken movie. I have enough trouble sleeping.

The Checkout Girl is a writer/retail superhero, originally from San Diego, CA, but currently rockin’ and rollin’ and whatnot in Richmond, VA. She attended Stephens College in Columbia, MO, where she excelled at keg stands and the rhythm method but realized too late that she couldn’t major in either. She spends her free time reading, knitting, watching crappy tv, googling celebrity breasts, and monitoring the zeitgeist. She chronicles her work escapades at thecheckoutgirl.net and her parenting adventures at fuckyeahmotherhood.com.

March 29, 2010 12:00 PM 2