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I don’t know why I’m doing this. While skimming Vulture.com, I noticed an article mentioning this movie. Apparently they did some kind of review of this movie, but I didn’t read it. I thought I’d do one myself!

0.00 Setting of movie: well-to-do though non-descript suburb of California.

0.25 Literally the first thing the audience is confronted with in this film is an up-close of the main character’s underwear and his (slightly) bulging crotch. The first lines are a voice-over of him saying “I am so fucked.” My expectations for this movie are the same.

1.20 One minute and twenty seconds in and the movie has already revealed a classic movie cliche: the drunk mother.

1.54 Main character discovers his mother unconscious on her couch, surrounded by a bottle of pills and bottles of alcohol. Christ, this is not very wholesome. Isn’t Selena Gomez like some Disney foot-soldier?

3.00 After mother is taken away in ambulance (not dead, yay!), main character (the son) discovers written in his mother’s suicide note that she is aware that her son has been sleeping with his best friend’s mom, who is also a friend of the mother. Can’t tell if this is the reason she attempted suicide. But the movie doesn’t dwell on it either, and she’s carted off without much fanfare. Did I mention that the son is completely non-plussed during this entire thing?

4.00 Main character keeps breaking the fourth wall to explain plot points. My hopes for this film continue to diminish.

4.23 The audience is taken back to two weeks prior before this incident. We’re treated to another rather disappointing crotch-shot.

5.00 We discover that the mom’s name is Lucy.

5.27 During breakfast at the family’s home, we’re now introduced to the family, who all solidly flaunt their cliches. The mother is a forgetful alcoholic, the daughter is a sarcastic and slutty partygoer, the older brother (Steven) is a dimwitted ape, and the main character is the whiny misunderstood son.

6.52 The son (still don’t know his name) finally encounters the dad sneaking around outside the house. We are told that, apparently, the only reason the dad has not divorced the mom is because he can’t afford it. So instead he sneaks around and has affairs with secretaries. In very snarky, fast movie banter, the two discuss how the son has discovered one of his dad’s sex tapes with one of these women. Again, none of this makes either character uncomfortable.

6.55 Three thing: 1) The main character does not call his father “dad,” but instead by his first name, “Joseph.” 2) Maybe this is an indication of how distant or casual their relationship is, because he then politely asks his father please not to leave any semen on the camera tripod again when he’s done with it. 3) Every scene in this movie thus far has been packed to the brim with filthy, filthy content, as well as that typical movie dialogue in which everyone has a snarky line loaded in the chamber, and these quips are traded with lightning speed.

7.15 Wow, we now have our first full frontal nudity shot. Did not see that one coming. It’s of a girl working a pole in a strip joint. It’s also where the sister (Kristen) works. As a stripper.

7.25 More boobs.

7.30 I’ve lost track of the plot at this point. The main character has been tasked with running an errand for some coke-snorting macho dude at the strip club. He sends the main character to the apartment of a trashy looking woman (named –wait for it- “Cherish”), who promptly offers to blow the main character if he tells her how to get her stomach pumped. To recap: literally every single every woman in this film so far is either 1) an alcoholic; 2) a stripper; 3) an alcoholic stripper; or 4) in the ICU for being an alcoholic.

8.00 Main character does not tell Cherish how to get her stomach pumped, but she proceeds to blow him anyway. To arouse him, she takes off her shirt, revealing her silicone chest. Even more incredibly, the movie shamelessly replays the moment she takes off her shirt over and over, for no apparent reason other than to arouse the audience.

8.07 I remain flaccid.

8.39 I finally discover the main character’s name: Ricky. He runs to his best friend Billy’s house, and his greeted at the door by Mrs. Bender, Billy’s mother. She is wearing a glaringly low-cut black dress and holding (can you guess?!) a glass of wine.

9.00 After an awkward exchange, Ricky asks if Billy is home, and Mrs. Bender indicates that he is probably up in his room masturbating. I am now classifying this movie as science fiction, because none of these characters act or talk like real people. I am also becoming suspicious that this movie was a massive prank by Selena Gomez to punk the several dozen people who watched this film into wasting 90 minutes of their life.

9.02 I realize that the Selena Gomez character has yet to make a genuine appearance, besides as a shimmering, sexual figure of Ricky’s fantasies.

9.14 Ricky bursts into Billy’s room to discover Billy Bender, pants around his ankles, beating off to a Human Sexuality textbook. Nothing in this film surprises me anymore.

9.15 This reminds me of how my college sophomore year roommate -a fantastically conservative Christian kid from South Korea- had to take a Human Sexuality course. If I remember correctly, I recall being surprised when he told me how much he was enjoying the class, saying it was “very interesting.” His grades were always pretty bad, and eventually he left SU and returned to Korea to complete his military service there. I sometimes wonder whatever happened to him. Is he gearing up to defend the homeland from Kim Jong-un? Does he still have a personal relationship with Jesus? Does he cry tears of shame when he yanks it?

9.30 We now know what Billy’s o-face looks like, and we have to endure a painfully long scene of him cleaning up. All in all, Ricky takes the whole scene quite well.

10.50 Billy’s mom sends Billy off to the store to buy more cigarettes, but forces Ricky to stay, clearly hoping to seduce him.

11.30 Mrs. Bender proceeds to seduce Ricky on the couch. She offers to help Ricky get better with his sexual abilities by offering to be his “teacher” in this area. This all goes off without a hitch.

13.00 Mrs. Bender and Ricky have sex. (Unseen by the viewer.)

13.01 What are California’s laws, because I’m pretty sure this would be statutory rape in New York state.

14.00 Ricky, realizing the next day what he has done, imagines how every other character in the movie would react upon discovering his transgression. When we get to Selena Gomez, she says “You’re a mother fucker, Ricky Stevens, I will never be your girlfriend.”

14.20 I now find Selena Gomez even more wildly unattractive than I did before watching this film.

15.30 At school, Ricky announces to Billy that he’s going to ask out Nina (Selena Gomez). This is overheard by another boy, who reminds me of a more sinister version of Brainy from Hey Arnold! This boy, named Karlis, looks like a newsboy from the 1900s, and acts like the kind of person who builds pipebombs and enjoys smelling used panties. He challenges Ricky, on the wager of $1000, that he cannot nail Selena Gomez in two weeks. For reasons beyond anyone, Ricky accepts. I guess this is supposed to pass as the major subplot of the film.

15.41 We learn that Karlis is the son of a mobster. Will they do a spin-off movie featuring Karlis? I would watch that.

17.50 Ricky walks through the hallway of his school and witnesses Selena Gomez as she (for reasons not made clear) promptly breaks up with her slack-jawed boyfriend, Kevin, who shouts “Bitch!” as she stomps off.

18.00 The primary characters (Ricky, Karlis, Billy, Gomez) are sitting in Latin class. Their geriatric teacher tries to get Ricky to conjugate a verb before -and I can still hardly believe it- suddenly having from a heart attack, collapsing, and dying right there in the front of the classroom. From all my deductive reasoning, I have yet for the life of me to understand the purpose of this scene in the film.

19.00 Never mind, the point of his death was to allow classes to be cancelled for the rest of the day, which opens up an opportunity for Ricky to approach Gomez for some flirting. I am glad that old man died with purpose.

20.00 Ricky asks Gomez if she would like to attend the funeral with him. I suppose this is now considered an appropriate place to take a date.

20.05 I have decided that I will now being asking girls to be my +1 to all wakes and/or burials in the future.

21.00 Selena Gomez has a very round face, with puffy cheeks, big wet eyes, and tan skin. Perhaps she is really an Ewok.

25.00 A new sublot emerges in which Ricky, hoping to impress Gomez the Ewok, tells her that he likes Josh Groban. Amazingly, there is a Josh Groban concert the following day, forcing Ricky to scramble about trying to get tickets. Or something. At this point my eyes have mostly glazed over and my testicles have fully retreated back into my body.

20.00 Oh, one more thing: Selena Gomez’s character is a highly prude Christian girl who aspires to be a priest (I’m not making this up.) Obviously, this throws a wrench in Ricky’s plan to take her to pound-town.

20.35 Selena Gomez is not a very good actor.

32.00 Here’s a challenge. See if you can decide which of these are real plot points in this movie:

A) Ricky and Billy discover that their fathers both enjoy engaging in leather-clad BDSM together in a seedy motel room with their neighbors. Ricky and Billy decide to surprise them and photograph them in their BDSM costumes.

B) The actor who played David Puddy in Seinfeld is the principal of the school, and selects a feeble old Catholic nun to replace the dead Latin teacher. This nun also has narcolepsy and falls asleep at her desk. She briefly wakes up before losing consciousness again. However, this time, it’s because she has died.

C) Principal Puddy has an extensive collection of photos from the girl’s bathroom. Ricky and Billy discover these pictures and blackmail him in order to get out of trouble.

D) Ricky somehow manages to get a crooked car dealer to loan him an Aston Martin. Later, while driving it, Ricky is pulled over, and told by the police officer that the car formerly belonged to an infamous Lithuanian mobster. Then, at the police station, Ricky is questioned by the chief of police, played by Gary Busey, who reveals to Ricky that the aforementioned mobster was discovered tied up and dead in the trunk of the convertible.

E) As Ricky and Billy attempt to turn their house into a makeshift strip-joint/brothel full of strippers in order to make some fast cash, Mrs. Bender promptly crashes the party and attempts to force herself on Ricky. She then proceeds to masturbate with an electric whisk. Then Billy walks in and sees his mother doing this. Then she attempts to seduce Billy -her own son- by licking his face.

F) Ricky’s sister is accepted to Stanford University.**

49.47 I learn that Ricky is 17 years old. The age of consent in New York State is 17. So I think we’re good on the earlier statutory rape point. Thank goodness, for a second there I almost thought this movie’s plot was incoherent and disgusting.

50.01 I realize I have made a mistake. This movie was definitely not filmed in New York. After doing some fact-checking, I learn it was indeed filmed in California. California’s penal code defines statutory rape as someone who is not a minor having sex with someone who is a minor (in CA, defined as younger than 18). Therefore, the plot of this film rests on repeated instances of statutory rape (it is implied that Ricky and Mrs. Bender have sex repeatedly in the film). Which, you know, is kinda icky.

50.02 Upon further snooping, I learn that this film took 20 days to complete filming. I then surmise that it took the writers about 20 minutes to establish a working script.

51.34 The only redeeming scene of the movie thus far: M83’s “Midnight City” plays while Ricky drives his Aston Martin. This scene is then ruined by Ricky’s babbling blonde lawyer (not important) who is riding alongside him in the car, and has swallowed a handful of ecstasy pills, thinking them aspirin.

60.44 Selena Gomez is a horrible actor.

60.57 This movie would have been considerably better if they had replaced Selena Gomez with an actual Ewok.

64.18 I’m going to walk away from the movie as it plays for several minutes and see if it affects how I feel about the film.

67.12 I’ve returned to witness a scene in which the party/brothel has been broken up and, amid the chaos, a greasy looking Italian man has been struck and killed by a live electrical wire from a telephone pole.

67.35 A profound depression overtakes me, though I try to remain optimistic as I am now two-thirds done with my masochistic experiment.

70.09 For some reason, everyone but Ricky is in jail. Selena is in jail, too. I wish she’d stay there.

73.21 This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen. I feel that I am now mentally prepared, should I have to, to watch Scarlett Johansson in Lucy.

76.22 Most of the men (and some of the women) in this movie are getting crabs.

77.22 I’ve lost track of the number of prison rape jokes.

79.43 Ricky goes to the hospital to see his mother. Upon getting to her room, a Jamaican nurse tells him that he is too late, and that she has already died. The actor playing Ricky does a horrible attempt at what appears to be crying. Either that, or the writers purposefully wrote for him to act only mildly discomforted by the death of his mother. I think we all know which is more likely.

81.10 We discover that Ricky had went to the wrong hospital bed, and that his mother is in fact still alive. *sigh*

83.45 Ricky meets with his bosomy blonde lawyer (don’t worry, it’s an irrelevant plot point), who received her degree from Stanford. She then not-subtly implies that butt-sex and chlamydia are rampant at Stanford. Can anyone confirm this?

87.22 We come to what I hope is the conclusion of the film. Ricky leaves the hospital, his family salvaged and now accepting of each others’ differences. Out on the street, Ricky walks in front of a truck carrying caged chickens, causing the cages to spill into the street. Selena Gomez then comes out of nowhere. Amid the raining feathers, he then pronounces his love to the Ewok, and they kiss triumphantly. Fin.

90.00 Cut to credits. We learn that this film was based upon the book “While I’m Dead…Feed the Dog”. While I’ve never been a supporter of book burning, I am reconsidering it.

Bonus: After more snooping, I’ve learned that the author of the original novel as disavowed this film for having gone against the source material of the book. It makes you wonder why the screenwriters of this film didn’t just stick to the original plot of the book. In fact, the producers of this film could have just spliced the Ewok scenes from Return of the Jedi with any B-level porno movie and have made something better than this steaming piece of tripe.

*Apparently, Justin Bieber makes a brief cameo in this movie as a prisoner, during the jail scene. However, his scene must have occurred while I had briefly walked away from my computer. Disappointed at not having seen this, I compensated for this by looking at a picture of Justin Bieber’s actual mug shot.

**Trick question: these are all actual plot points in the movie.

Life of Frog

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