Coyote Ugly

Lesson one: Do NOT start a movie trailer off with John “Hey, I'm A Blues Brother Now” Goodman's fat ole face taking up the entire frame. This is not a good thing, it never was a good thing, and it never will be a good thing. Unfortunately, the folks who made up the “Coyote Ugly” trailer didn't learn this lesson, which means they really start off on the wrong foot. Of course, maybe this was their intention – start the trailer down at its lowest possible point, and everything afterwards will seem like Clio Award material. If this was their intention, then I guess it worked, although it's a pretty cheap move and, frankly, unnecessary as women with big breasts dancing around while serving alcohol should automatically be Clio Award material, or so countless Budweiser ads have taught me.

Right out of the chute, we know we're getting a “fish out of water” movie of some kind, because you have daddy John Goodman telling his movie daughter* to not move to the big city. There's the obligatory “weepy” music in the background to emphasize the fact that if you see this movie, you'll cry. To make sure you'll also laugh, they include a “humorous” clip where Goodman tells his daughter to keep her pepper spray handy. This is all before the interstitial Bruckheimer Productions snippet which is the true mark of a film's quality and tells you, the audience member, to either prepare for lots of action or T&A.

And that's what you get, because we immediately kick into our requisite dance music as our lead enters the big city of New York, which apparently is not free from the typical movie stereotypes of yellow police tape across your neighbor's door. Like a mini-movie, the trailer takes us on our heroine's journey to find a job, which she finds in a bar. Our female lead is of course still dressed in her small town clothing and very demure and naďve, because that can only place us on a collision course with wackiness when she sees how wild the bar is.

The preview makers chose some “choice” clips to show us as an example of the witty repartee that we can expect, like the fact the bar is named Coyote Ugly because Cheers was taken. Seriously people, if you're going to make a trailer for a movie about booze and the scantly clad women who love to serve it, get to the point. There is no need to beat around the bush, as it were, and show the type of non-award winning dialogue we'll get to hear if we see the movie.

Of course moments of dialogue are nicely spaced between the high points of the trailer – women line dancing on bars while serving alcohol. Sure, the choice of country music is probably a bad one, especially when you're stuck in a fantastic new state-of-the-art theater with a 300db sound system, but it could be worse, it could be that inane techno mix of “O Fortuna,” which has NEVER been used in movie previews. The fun really starts when we get the much needed “new bartender” clip in which our heroine, now dressed like a slut**, tries to be Tom Cruise in “Cocktail” and do fancy bottle spinning tricks. Of course she fails and drops several bottles, wasting the precious booze***.

About a minute and a half in, we're introduced to the possibility that the movie will have some sex being cooked when our lead tells some guy from the bar that she's never had her “ass” leered at for half an hour. However, since this guy, the potential romantic interest, is a Brit, or some pansy foreigner, the movie has to lose points. The preview makers should know that jingoism is alive and well, and they'd be advised to leave clips that imply the theft of our national resource of attractive women by foreigners on the floor because it is not something Americans will pay to see.

Anyway, the trailer finally gets back to some bar action, dancing, and booze. Oh, and we see our small town frau has finally gotten a knack at tossing bottles and pouring drinks, which again, is totally not from “Cocktail.” From this point on, the trailer takes off because there's a lot more drinking, a lot more dancing, and a lot more drunken people yelling. Apparently, the preview makers figure all the men in the audience will be suffering from a lack of blood in their brains, so they helpfully assign the characters easy to remember nicknames, like “The Law,” “The Dreamer,” “The Flame,” “The Heartbreaker” and “The Boss.” Sadly, there is no “The Commander and Leader,” “The Joy and Laughter,” or “The Toughest Fighter” to be found. The trailer ends fairly abruptly with the fade to credits, release date, and a coyote howl.

Now I cheated a bit when looking around for the “Coyote Ugly” trailer and discovered this is supposed to be a romantic-comedy****. Sadly, the trailer doesn't give you the impression of this supposed rom-com story line, which makes you wonder if they're ashamed that they made a rom-com without Meg Ryan, or were unable to snag Hugh Grant as their squirrelly foreign guy.

Overall though, you have a preview with lots of busty women dancing around in tight shirts and serving booze. How can you go wrong? Remember “Showgirls”? That offered similar testosterone pleasing promises, but when my friends and I saw it, it turned into a giant “Mystery Science Theater 3000” riff session that the 6 other people in the theater decided to join in on. I'm not saying “Coyote Ugly” looks like it's going to go the direction of “Showgirls,” but I'm not ruling out the possibilities, with the exception of Kyle McLaughlin showing his smarmy mug and ass. One thing that the “Coyote Ugly” trailer has going for it, is that while it's apparently aimed at those possessing the Y chromosome*****, there's some feminine appeal in it, and not just the lesbian kind. You have the pseudo-female empowering message going on as evidenced at the start of the trailer, and it continues on if you count the “women controlling men by leading them around by their penises” theme, which you can catch on any “Jenny Jones Show” titled “I Like To Strip, Because Men Like To Tip.”*******

Based on the trailer, I'd say this movie is worth paying for, especially if you're a guy. If you can score comps or matinee pricing, go for it, although this seems to be the sort of movie you'd take several friends to on a late weekend, just so you can go visit a bar afterwards and drink. It also seems like the kind of movie to which you could bring a small Super Soaker filled with warm lotion, as long as you think such entertainment is well worth getting kicked out of the theater for.

*There is no way in hell John Goodman has the genes to create a daughter that looks like her which totally prevents you from becoming immersed in the movie since it goes beyond any degree of "suspension of disbelief."
**And I assure you, there will be a slutwear shopping scene in this movie even though they managed to leave it out of the trailer.
***When viewed in the context of the movie, this is probably an attempt to make the audience hate her, because wasting sweet booze is akin to kicking a puppy in a bar movie.
****Rom-com to those of us in the know, and by that I mean anyone who's watched "Access Hollywood."
*****Folks with Klinefelter's Syndrome****** excluded, maybe.
******That's having a sex chromosome constitution of XXY, not XY, like normal males, making these people into men possessing breasts and other feminine qualities, like crying during "The Patriot."
*******This is usually every Wednesday because Monday is when she does her "I'm A Mom Who Needs To Win People Over, Help Me With A Beauty Makeover" program, Tuesday her "My Daughter Dresses Like A Slut, Tell Her To Cover Her Butt" show, Thursday is the "I Used To Be A Geek, But Now I'm Chic" program, and Friday the "Surprise, I'm Your Secret Gay Lover, Now Why Don't You Kill Me, You Homophobic F&@$%er" program.

Review by drunks@homegame.org

She must be moving into Mulder's apartment building.

Awww, isn't she soooooo *cute*, looking all innocent and demure?

Thanks to newly relaxed OSHA laws, dancing on bars is once again permitted.

Our slutted up heroine tries her hand at manipulating bottles, but she's no Thom Cruz.

Someone needs to tell Tyra "Have You Seen My Chest" Banks that the "Wasssssuuup" catch phrase is dead.

This movie's target audience - Gen-Xers with hip haircuts and guys who always seem to have a drink in their hand, like Giovanni Ribisi.

Woooo! Play some Skynard!

"Hahahahaha!"