I want to start by saying that all this blathering I hear on NPR and talk radio about newspapers going the way of disco is disheartening. I have the local paper delivered to my house every morning and I skim it almost every other night. That there is a decline in newspaper readership I do not doubt, but don't let the industry die just because you prefer to get your daily news from the internet or blogs not devoted to celebrity gossip or rabid right/left wing ideology. Pick up a newspaper, friends. Not only do you get crossword puzzles, TV listings, and horoscopes, but if you search real hard amongst the furniture advertisements you may discover tiny blurbs relating to the housing crisis, the war in Iraq, and the complete breakdown of the world economy. Oh, and there's Marmaduke! If I hadn't read the News and Observer this week I would have completely missed the story of Sheri Gilbert, a North Carolina woman who believes Monster-In-Law, the forgettable romantic comedy from 2005 starring Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez, is a rip off of a script she wrote over ten years ago. Sheri, with the help a high-powered lawyer and her castrated-at-least- metaphorically husband, is suing everybody involved with this box office failure for a cut of the profits, which, trust me, are far below those of, say, Iron Man or Paul Blart: Mall Cop.
So, Sheri, let me get this straight: you want people to associate you and your budding screenwriting career with Monster-in-Law? You really think suing for the right to add Monster-in-Law to your Hollywood resume is going to open a lot of previously locked doors? C'mon! You're either doing this on a dare or you suffer from severe emotional problems that require the ingestion of serious narcotics to regulate.
And Willie Gilbert Junior, you're really going to support your wife in this pointless quest? I'd be deeply embarrassed if my wife pursued a similarly retarded course of action, like, if she claimed to have written the screenplay for Apocalypse Now when she was an infant living in South Korea. I wouldn't stand beside her. I'd take a long vacation until the whole thing blew over.
Sheri claims that while watching Monster-In-Law she was able to accurately predict the plot's progression perfectly as it seemed to be following her copyrighted script exactly. What? You could predict what was going to happen before it happened in Monster-In-Law? A fucking drugged-up chimpanzee could figure out Monster-In-Law just by looking at the poster! In fact, I'll tell you what happens in Monster-In-Law right now, and I think we can all agree I am tons smarter than a doped-up monkey:
1. Man asks Woman to marry him and Woman accepts.
2. Man takes Woman to meet his Mother.
3. Woman and her future Mother-In-Law do not get along.
4. Man begs Woman to try to make things work and Woman does for a time until she is pushed too far.
5. Woman and future Mother-In-Law engage in battle of pranks, each more ridiculous than the last.
6. Woman and future Mother-In-Law realize they both love Man very much and agree to bury the hatchet.
7. An Event of Some Kind occurs and relationship between Woman and future Mother-In-Law stops being fake for Man's sake and becomes real.
8. Probably an Epilogue in which Woman gives birth to now Mother-In-Law's first Grandchild; Suggestion that there will be disagreements between Woman and Mother-In-Law in the proper raising of said Grandchild leaving the whole thing open for a Sequel.
Every romantic comedy in human existence is predictable, that's why stupid people make them #1 at the box office all the damn time. A lot of moviegoers enjoy the familiar. It makes them comfortable. The movie might be a horrendous waste of $9.00, but it didn't challenge them or surprise them in any way, so they leave happy.
Not only that, but have you ever seen a movie/television sit-com about somebody's mother-in-law in which the mother-in-law in question was a friendly, caring individual who only wanted what was best for her son/daughter-in-law? Of course not! "Mother-in-law" is synonymous with "bitch" in popular entertainment. The News and Observer offers examples, so that is all I'm going to say.
GEP is going to follow this story to its end, which I can say is probably as predictable as Monster-In-Law's.
