Bad movies get a bad rap. This past weekend I played a poker game and the stakes weren't the usual twenty dollar bills. See, when my friend and I are flat broke, we find other things to play for. A popular prize is DVDs. The winner gets to pick from each loser's DVD collection, etc. I don't care for this option because I take pride in my DVD collections and I hate buying the same title twice. I'd rather just lose the twenty bucks, personally.

So I played for something slightly different this time. If I won, I'd pick a DVD out of each of their DVD collections. If I lost, I'd have to watch ... The Notebook. One of my best friends, Les, has a DVD collection me and my friends like to refer to as "soft." I've never seen a guy with so many chick flicks in his collection in my life. It's pathetic. It's sad. It's sadly pathetic. He actually owns movies like Center Stage, Save The Last Dance, Wedding Planner and yes, The Notebook. He's got the Goodfellas and the Casinos and the Swingers and other quality flicks, to be sure. But it's movies like Sweet November that stick out like a sore thumb and drag the entire collection to Davy Jones' Locker (yes, he's straight ... I think). He makes excuses that it's for "his ladies," and yes, the ladies love to raid his DVD collection like it's catnip. But my God, man. Where is your dignity?

Now most of my friends are well aware that I have flat-out refused to watch The Notebook for ages. I don't have a hell of a lot of machismo left, but what I've got is mine, damnit. Or so I thought.

I didn't win.

So again I say, bad movies get a bad rap. There are some bad movies that are just so bad they are actually perversely entertaining. For example, Cool As Ice is laughably bad, the keyword being "laughably." Mystery Science Theatre 3000 knew the power of bad movies and how much fun they can actually be. And you have to admit it is more than a little entertaining seeing everyone's favorite Robert Van Winkle (who was neither cool nor made of ice) donning a mile-high hairdo, pursing his lips and trying to be Marlon Brando in the Wild One. Now that's entertainment. Bad movies don't scare me. It's the okay ones that put the fear of God into me.

So goes the story of The Notebook. It's a well-made movie for what it is; I just can't stand what it is. With every passing moment I felt my manhood being stripped from me. I felt like Beecher on HBO's Oz when he first stepped foot in that five-by-nine cell with Vern. You knew that was going to end badly.

With every "twist" that you could see happening within the first five minutes, with no romantic cliche left unturned, I watched the drop-dead gorgeous Rachel McAdams (the film's one saving grace) go through the motions of good old-fashioned American schmaltz. There is a lesson to be learned here, though. Never go "all in" with pocket jacks.

They kill you every time.

Dre Rivas
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Dre writes 5 times a week for Film.com, covering Movies and DVD with his Floridian flare.

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