Blood Diamond: More Like Dicrapio!

by Terri Kauffman

-----

From time to time, Terri will be providing reviews of movies she has yet to see.In her latest, she tackles the moral question of seeing this, or any, Leonardo DiCaprio movie.

-----

Blood Diamond? Seriously?

Let me guess what it’s about … it’s about the blood that’s shed over a priceless diamond. I bet during the film, someone also learns a lesson or two about greed and how you shouldn’t benefit from the suffering of others. Thanks, because I was just about to kick my mother in the teeth for her Bingo winnings. But is it fair not to go and see a film just because it’s got a stupid title? Most of the time, yes, but in the case of Blood Diamond there is one other really good reason.

I haven’t seen Blood Diamond, and I don’t plan to anytime soon. The title, I could forgive. But I am sick and tired of Leonardo DiCaprio. Does anyone realize this person claims he's 32 years old? Funny, he doesn’t look a day over Luke from Growing Pains. Has he hit puberty yet? I keep wondering what kind of a shake up it’s going to be to his career when he finally reaches puberty. Many a child star has suffered from the awkward process of aging, so I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see what becomes of the man Leo.

In all seriousness, I do not see what America sees in this guy. I mean, I understand why 12-year-old girls enjoyed multiple repeat viewings of Titanic (incidentally, he looked like he was twelve years old at the time as well). But those fans have grown up now, and are presumably interested in adult men and not man-boys like Leo. The worst of it is I have to hear all this nonsense about what a great actor he is, how he played a retard so well in that movie about the fat woman, and wasn’t he so great in The Aviator? No. He wasn't.

He’s annoying in every single role he’s ever played, and never was he more annoying than playing the retard or giving his impersonation of Howard Hughes. That’s right: impersonating, not acting. The Academy Awards people absolutely love actors who play someone with any sort of mental or physical disability, but are those roles more difficult? Or did we forget that we used to pretend to be retards all the time on the playground. Sure it wasn’t nice of us, but was it difficult? Not really.

I haven’t seen the movie and I have never been to South Africa, but I did once know someone from South Africa and he sounded absolutely nothing at all like the ridiculous accent spewing from Retardo’s mouth in those trailers. I swear if I hear “You know the bling-bling? Here we have bling-bang” one more time I am going to bling-bang myself right in the head. If Leonardo gets to pass that shit off as an accent from anywhere in the world, I can say whatever bullshit I want too. In all seriousness, if that's an accent from a real country, I’m going to make a note never to go there. If I had to live in a place where it sounds like everyone is talking in a fake accent, I would go absolutely, positively insane. I’d rather watch this movie than be in that place, and that’s saying a lot.

If you need another reason not to see this movie, Warner Bros. allegedly told twenty-seven amputees, all of them children or teenagers, that they would provide prosthetics for them. When the amputees demanded they come through on their promise, the studio allegedly refused to provide said prosthetics until the film’s release in December. Why? For the publicity of course. Hey, in the studio’s defense (assuming it’s true), these kids have been living without arms and legs for years, so what’s a few more months to them? Do they even have calendars down there? But for the movie studio, there’s only one good time to get fat Americans to buy tickets to your movie. Maybe if they would have explained that to the crippled children of Africa, they would have understood and been more grateful.

Since people should avoid this movie at all costs, I'm going to tell you the lesson you would have learned if you saw it: It’s wrong to make crippled Africans suffer so you can have expensive jewelry. But I think you knew that already. With that in mind, I'd like to do a diamond count on the red carpet of this premiere!

But I know you’ve already heard about the Golden Globe nominations and you’re thinking that if Leo got nominated for not just once but twice, then he must be a really, really good actor. And so you’re going to fork out your $28 (plus $15 for popcorn and soda) and find out for yourself. But let me remind you, the Golden Globes are determined by around 90 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. As a general rule, the people who get the nominations are those whose studios handed out the most gourmet dinners, luxury hotel stays, and trips to Paris. So don’t let me stop you from wasting your money on this movie, just don’t be fooled into thinking this douchebag is really a good actor and not just another Hollywood idiot that lucked his way into the hearts of Hollywood’s award czars.

-----

People say you can’t judge a book by its cover. Terri Kauffman thinks those people are wrong. Her favorite pastime is judging things immediately, whether they're books, movies, or people. You've been warned.