April Fools Week: Looking For The Worst Movie Ever? It’s Pat!

Written by: JackHork, Special to CC2K

Recently, 50 First Dates, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, was on television and I couldn't help myself as I started watching it again. I say again, because I'd actually seen it before, several times in fact, and I like it every time. It's a simple love story that has a nifty twist, sweet characters, and a real message about finding that certain someone and accepting them as a whole being…all the baggage, all the weirdness and not only accepting it but finding a way to revel in it. I even tear up a little at the end when Lucy wakes up and finds she's married, living on a boat with Henry and she has a beautiful little girl. What a marvelous way to wake up every morning! It's like all your dreams came true and you didn't even know you made them. It's a message about true love winning, and when people care about you, miracles happening.

…which brings me to It's Pat: The Movie. I don't know how many people Julia Sweeney had to blow to get this movie made, or if Lorne Michaels felt that he 'owed her one' after such a dismal Saturday Night Live run, but Jesus H. Bald-Headed Christ on a pogo stick, this thing is fucking horrible.

Let's start with the characters:

First there's the titular character Pat Riley. Pat (Julia Sweeney) is the definition of androgyny: short black curly hair, thick glasses, and indeterminate sex. And when I say 'the definition of', I kid you not, there is an actual scene where Pat looks up androgynous in the dictionary and there in black and white, is Pat's picture.

Next comes Chris (Dave Foley) who is equally androgynous, but where Pat is crass, naive and completely unlikable, Chris comes off as pleasant and kind. If I were to meet a Chris-type in my life, I probably wouldn't care whether male or female genitalia lurked under the ugly pantsuits, there might me some interesting conversation involved. Pat on the other hand is so fucking annoying and obnoxious that the shape of its junk would be the furthest fucking thing from my mind as I try to distance myself from him/her/it.

Neighbor Chad (Charles Rocket) moves in next door and immediately becomes ‘intrigued to the point of obsession’ with Pat's gender; going so far as to lock himself in a room while taking pictures of Pat, alienating his wife to the point of divorce, and stealing Pat's computer diary in the hopes of finding out THE SECRET!

Rounding out the cast are Kathy Griffin, playing pre-plastic surgery Kathy Griffin; Tim Meadows who is still under that 99-year contract to the devil; Kathy Najimy; Tim Stack; and Ween, a piece of shit band that must be related to Julia S-WEEN-ey some how, because if that's the only hard-up band they could find for this turd, then damn, the casting team did not look very hard.

The premise is this: Pat can't seem to hold a job, and during his/her stumblings through the various careers available to the uneducated masses, he/she stumbles upon Chris at a strip club (**Note to straight men and gay women: no actual nudity occurs in said strip club scene. End note.**) Chris and Pat immediately hit it off and spend the next several minutes of screen time montage-ing about their perfect date. Pat's rough exterior apparently hides an equally abysmal interior and when Chris finally realizes that, he/she leaves the dead-beat (possible) hermaphrodite.

During this pathetically written, directed and executed story, nut job neighbor Chad has been searching for clues to Pat's true gender, but it doesn't matter because Pat isn't cute like Hillary Swank in Boys Don't Cry or Hillary Swank in Million Dollar Baby or Hilary Swank in The Core. No, Pat is disgusting and it has nothing to do with Pat's penis/vagina; Pat is completely unlikable as a person. I will honestly say that I don't believe I've ever been mistaken for a woman or gender-indeterminate, but if you ever were, either accidentally or intentionally going for that look, then frankly, you should be driving to Julia Sweeney's house and punching her in the neck for doing such a complete disservice to your cause.

Finally, Pat stumbles upon his/her perfect career: annoying radio talk show host. (I guess the old adage is true: with a face like that…) Only after his/her precious computer diary is offered as a bargaining chip does the movie finally move toward the resolution. Chad tells Pat (in Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum of Oddities of all places) that he will return the computer IF Pat removes all his/her clothing. Stunned, Pat runs for it, falls from a scaffold, gets caught on an industrial sized hook that tears away all his/her clothing, and in a twist not seen since the letter S, gets displayed in front of a concert going crowd who gives him/her a round of rousing applause. (**Note to confused men and curious women: no actual nudity occurs in said concert display scene, thank GOD! End note.**) Chad gets taken away by big burly security men, and Pat realizes being self-centered is probably not the best way to finding happiness and races through town in search of Chris.

At least the ending was good…that meant I could stop watching. Look for it around the 74 minute mark.

This film, and I use the term very loosely, was so painful to watch, so horrible to remember, so ridiculous and stupid and bad and every other adjective that means ‘shitty’ that it should have been offered up for the CC2k horror fest last October. This is not an April Fool’s Prank; this is an April FUCK-YOU Prank. It's one of those pranks that looks good on paper, but then you realize afterwards that not only wasn't it fun or funny, but you ended up killing a bus load of nuns and orphans who were on their way to the pound to rescue abused puppies and kittens that will instead have to be violently sodomized to death by crazed hyenas on meth for the pleasure of Al-Qaeda chieftains and then fed to Osama bin-Laden to appease his appetite for senseless slaughter.

I know who offered this up, and I will make it my mission in life to track you down.

(Actually, just semi-kidding about that last bit, Beth!!)