The Super Unintentionally Hilarious Magic Mike

While watching nearly nude men dry hump furniture can be entertaining in the right atmosphere, I do not recommend you do so while holding a large popcorn and coke. I say this with extreme discretion, for while I am not entirely embarrassed to have been viewing the humping, gyrating, or dangling manhoods, I am slightly ashamed about the popcorn and coke.

That said, I recognize that I am truly a “liberated woman”. I buy cheap Pinot Grigio and proudly pour it into my five-dollar Walmart wine glass. I pair the black dress I saved months for with my one-dollar Old Navy flip flops and call myself a fashionista. I’ve got this grown-up woman thing under control now, right?

I started seeing movies by myself way back in the 90’s. The sweet flick My Girl was my very first and after two hours of quiet crying by myself with that tear jerker, I was hooked. Liberation is sobbing (quietly of course) with the knowledge that no one has the ability to hold it over your head one day. Even your best girlfriend loves gloating about the time she walked in while you were dry heaving, covered in snot, during what can only be described as a “Steel Magnolias” moment.

Completely expecting a Flashdance sexy dance flick with a quiet role reversal of drama, I walked into the vacant theater.
“I’d like one ticket for the incredibly embarrassing Magic Mike,” I told the handsome young concession boy. He was polite enough to laugh as he took my credit card. Darling dimples and post pubescent chin hair. “That will be theater number one on your right,” he told me.

I had enough experience with this place to know that theater one was on the crappy non remodeled side of the cinema. The side that houses the almost finished low-money-earning hanger-onners. The mothball section where movies go to die.

Now twenty dollars poorer (oh so many Old Navy flip flops), I entered musty old theater number one. The initial aroma hit my nostrils like fifth-grade B.O. it was soon Febreeze-it-neutralized by my overly buttered large popcorn.

I was alone, free to choose any dust-mite-ridden seat that I wanted. I picked a cozy center chair and settled down to enjoy some movie magic...uhhh Magic Mike that is.  I felt a little relieved being alone. Perhaps no one would see me sitting in this dank movie house and think of, Pee Wee Herman ala 1991.

Moments later, and to my utter surprise, the theater began to fill with the most unusual bunch of movie watchers. Doting boyfriends holding firmly to their girlfriends’ hands, strutting down the aisles with an “I’m Not Gay” kind of swagger. Some pre-middle-aged women like myself. A gaggle of teenage girls that I can only imagine were garnered entry by the cute concession boy. And lastly, the cutest little Norman Rockwell couple that had to be well into their 80‘s.

The previews, always so foretelling, were of super sad looking horror flicks that my brain instantly compartmentalized into the wait-for-Netflix, not-even-worth-the-buck-twenty-at-Redbox category.

Then the moment!  Matthew McConaughey, all lean naked torso and leather chaps, spouting the sexy dialogue we’ve all seen in the previews.  “I bet there’s a lot of lawbreakers in here,” he drawls in that erotic southern way that is all McConaughey.

Okay, we were off to a great start and then...nothing...quiet morning...birds chirping five-minutes of dullness until beef cake Channing, aka Magic Mike, wakes up. And then BOOM! He’s out of the bed and his naked ass is displayed for all. The audience actually gasped. I think I may have been included in the gasping as well, but I cant be entirely sure because I was spell bound by the magic ass for the entire ten seconds it appeared on the giant screen. Bugle Boy jean ads be damned.

Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was simply unable to live up to well...those buns. Seriously bad acting was mixed with a ludicrous story line. Plus, once you’ve seen the butt you can never go back.

Mike is a poor hard working entrepreneur by day, stripper by night. I know Flashdance flashbacks, right? Working as a construction worker, which you only see him do once, he meets another tough-on-his-luck hot-bodied young buck. Mike in a convoluted series of B.S., takes the young kid under his wing and after a very obvious older stripper passes out and misses his cue story line. The young kid is thrust into the stripper spotlight where he ridiculously and literally strips down to his black BVDs. I found myself praying that he had no holes or stains on those undies...that would have simply been embarrassing. Of course, the women go wild for his Like A Virgin dance moves and the kid becomes a regular greased-up, leg-shaving, penis-pumping imbecile.

There is a rather stupid sub plot where you slowly notice Mike’s attraction for the kid’s non-approving older nursing assistant sister, but I haven’t seen acting as bad as hers since I played mother number one in my sixth grade Christmas play. And of course, Mike has a dream of designing furniture that we never see him build.

All and all, Magic Mike was unable to live up to his name or his ass and I was more entertained by the eighty-year-old couple sitting in front of me than any semi impressive dance moves Channing had to offer. I suggest waiting for this one to come out on Redbox...and definitely watch it with some cheap pinot, give or take the Walmart glass!''