BY STEPHANIE CALLAS

I guess I should begin by saying it’s been a weird month. My horoscope warned me that the full moon on April 19 would bring a “jarring” event that would throw me for a loop, and uh, yeah, that happened. Oh, plus my horoscope told me I would travel somewhere, and that the trip, thanks to Venus, Neptune, and Mercury, would be “sensational.” Well, I did travel, and no, it wasn’t “sensational,” because yes, that full moon BS was really rather “jarring” indeed.

I’ll tell ya what else was jarring: Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thrones. Cathartic, right? Get ‘em. Kill ‘em. All of ‘em. Oh, and I’ll tell you what else is jarring: getting a phone call from my dad the following morning after a family friend succumbed to a six-year battle with cancer. Not great. A few hours later I got another jarring phone call, and while I don’t want to give details about that particular one, I will say the whole exchange made me feel like I had just discovered that the old, reliable “Dracarys” wasn’t gonna help me end this particular battle. So. What did I do? I hung up from Sad Call #2 and made Sad Call #3 (because I had to and because I’m not the only one having a weird month). Once I hung up from that fun-filled 41 minutes, my phone rang again. It was my doctor. He didn’t like something he saw in my blood.

“There’s nothing that needs to be done now,” he said. “We’ll just keep an eye on it.” Aside from, “It’s probably nothing,” or, “I’m sure he’ll call,” name a less reassuring sentence than, “We’ll just keep an eye on it.” In the pit of my stomach, I felt the Night King raise his weird arms toward the sky. I was mad, I was terrified, and I was not at all surprised. I thanked my doctor for the call and didn’t think about it again until I got into my car an hour later. Then I screamed bad words. Oh yeah.

Ya know what else? And I’m sharing this ‘cause I feel like we’re friends now, ok? On April 1, I got my period. It was a week early. Know what happened this morning (on April 30)?

No, I didn’t get laid. No, I didn’t get a raise. No, I didn’t get good news about anything; I got my period. Yeah. April 2019 has brought me multiple deaths, multiple Sad Calls, and multiple periods. From now on, I just wanna stay home and, I dunno, practice becoming the Three Eyed Raven so I can skip all the life or death battles and let everyone else do the work.

Oh, but I’m not finished; I had to watch Gigli today.

Was it the low point of my month? Not at all. Still, as I sit back and reflect on how hellish the last 30 days have been and wonder how I could have taken better care of myself, I really have to admit there was probably a better option than unwinding with freakin’ Gigli. Oh well. I did it. Let’s dive in.

Gigli stars former celebrity super couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck. It was released in 2003, and it effectively ended the career of writer-director Martin Brest. Ben Affleck plays Larry Gigli, an awkward Mafioso who shouts things like,
“You wanna be a thug? You sit at my fckin’ feet, gather pearls that emanate forth from me. ‘Cause I’m the fckin’ original straight, first, foremost, pimp-mac-f*ckin’-hustler original gangster’s gangster.” Oh yeah. He says that.

Anyway, he’s a gangster and he’s hired by a bigger gangster to kidnap a young man with disabilities so that Al Pacino doesn’t have to go to prison. I think. Still, none of that matters because this movie is actually about J.Lo’s character, Rochelle, a smooth-talking fellow gangster who also goes on uncomfortably long rants about things. Like eating pussy.

(Guys, I’m trying. I really am. My back hurts and I’m worried about my blood. All my blood.)

So, look. I am sorry, but it must be said that J.Lo is freakishly stunning in her unforgiving early-aughts getups. The first time we see her she’s wearing a cropped long-sleeved blouse paired with tight denim flares that hang so low on her body they’re hardly hip-huggers, but pubic-pinchers. She’s also got some red-heeled boots on. And she’s a lesbian.

(I know, this is so, so dumb, and of course I did this to myself because it’s April, and April, in the words of Tennessee Williams, is “the cruelest month.”

Wait. I thought my ability to quote 20th Century poetry was a sign that Gigli didn’t kill off my remaining brain cells, but what the hell dude, Tennessee Williams did not write “The Hollowmen.” Jeez, I’m not even quoting “The Hollowmen”! I’m quoting “The Waste Land”! Which is by… T.S. Eliot! Okay. Phew. That’s over. So seriously, back to Gigli.)

The script is a disaster. Christopher Walken is in one scene toward the beginning and then by the end you have completely forgotten that you even saw Christopher Walken. Al Pacino shows up a bit before the 90-minute mark and delivers some very important exposition, and yes, I found it strange that
I wasn’t already aware of the information he was giving me, but hey, better late than never. He yells a lot, and then he shoots a guy in the head and then J.Lo talks him out of shooting her and Ben Affleck in the head and then you see a fish eat the dead guy’s brain because it’s sorta raining down into an
expensive-looking tank.

That’s another thing – I don’t know what this movie was supposed to be. To say “the tone is uneven” would only be annoying. I’ll go one step further and say that no two characters ever looked like they were in the same movie.
Christopher Walken was at a 3 while Ben Affleck was at a 10. J.Lo was at a 4 while Al Pacino was at, well, Al Pacino. Nothing about the movie is romantic or funny, nor is it suspenseful or scary or exciting or sweet. There’s a complete joke of a plot about a crime the gangsters commit to cover up another crime,
and it’s all so horribly executed you forget there’s even been a kidnapping (despite the fact that the hostage is in almost every scene).

Oh man, and all the rampant homophobia! From the minute Rochelle tells Larry she’s a lesbian, Larry makes it his damn mission to, I dunno, completely alter her perception of her own sexuality with his all-powerful penis. Ya know what’s
extra awful? He succeeds. She’s completely ready to “jump the fence” after one night with the sexual dynamo who we all know as…Larry Gigli. Yes. This completely moronic, hugely homophobic, barely literate and painfully whiny little marshmallow of a man manages to seduce the sexiest, smartest, most confident woman in the world with his…with his…with…his……man-ness.

(I want to cut my swollen body out of my jeans and punch many, many people in the head.)

Now, as I sat in my uncomfortable chair drinking black coffee and watching Ben Affleck and J.Lo, um, act together, I was so confused by their utter lack of chemistry that I actually thought this movie marked the end of their real life romance. I consulted the Internet, and whoa, was I shocked to see the very
opposite is true: Gigli was the beginning. Somehow, these two actors delivering dead-eyed performances managed to fall in love with each other on the set of what is largely regarded as one of the biggest disasters in the history of filmmaking. This idea isn’t new. I mean, c’mon, Cleopatra, anyone? Still, for as bad as Dick and Liz are in their portrayals of Antony and Cleo, the way they look at each other? There’s sex behind their eyes. You can see it. Not so the case with Ben and OG Jen. Were they not having sex yet? Did they wait until filming wrapped to even dare flirt with each other? Maybe they’re both just fantastic at
keeping secrets, which would actually make them the most incredible actors of their time.

Perhaps this can be a valuable lesson. Perhaps this can teach us how to remain hopeful for a better future. Yes, you may wake up one April morning to discover your life has become as painful and awkward and disappointing as Gigli, but hey, something earth-shatteringly important just might result from the disastrous Hollywood production that is your existence. Right?

Dude, don’t be a quitter. Don’t be the freakin’ Three Eyed Raven who just says a buncha creepy stuff and zones out. Be there on the ground. Fight the scary undead people who are most likely gonna kill you. And while you’re at it, squeeze into your pubic pinchers and memorize your uncomfortable monologue about eating pussy. Why? It might be worth it. As Larry Gigli says during the opening credits, “The only thing you can really count on in this world is that you just never f*cking know.”

Happy May, everyone.

Stephanie is a writer and podcaster from Los Angeles. When she’s not writing or podcasting, she enjoys drinking bourbon and watching videos of Freddie Mercury on YouTube. You can connect with her podcast on Twitter at @AngloPodcast