Guilty pleasures Part 1: The Final Destination movies

Developing a blog post that can be turned into an ongoing series is not a new idea. My fellow blogger at Round Seventeen has a series of posts called Things Jews Don't Do. And I've done it as well with a couple posts, like Why I Love Costco, and The Luckiest Actor Alive. Now I'm doing it again with Guilty Pleasures. It's like what Hollywood does over and over. Take one idea, recycle it, and wait until people are sick and tired of it.

Then do it again.

So here we go. First up, the Final Destination movies. I’ve seen them all. I'm not proud. But I sure am entertained.

I'm the first to recognize that the money I spend on tickets for these movies could be spent on better things. Like books. Or dry cleaning. Or the college fund (just kidding: what college fund?). But then I wouldn’t have the pure joy and satisfaction of watching a bunch of snotty teenagers who're just asking for it get what’s coming to them.

And by that I mean death. Dead as disco.

Seriously, who doesn’t like to see that?

Every Final Destination movie has the same group of four or five kids. You know the ones: the brainy guy. The smarmy guy. The good girl. The slutty girl. The nerd.

Somehow, they all manage to avoid dying in a plane crash, or a roller coaster derailing, or a race car crashing into the stands. You know, everyday stuff.

Well apparently Death has a quota to make and a timecard to punch. And he gets pissed when people don't die when they're supposed to. So he has to track the kids down and off them one by one.

The great part about these movies for me is the Rube Goldberg way the killings are done. Intricate, clever and way over the top. I don't know which I liked better - the girl stuck in the car wash with her head out the sunroof that won't open, or the guy getting acupuncture who winds up falling off the table and impaling himself on the needles.

I know I'm not doing these scenes justice. You have to see them for yourself. Or not.

On the New Rules segment of his show, Bill Maher had a joke about all these movies. He said the producers of Final Destination need to look up the meaning of the word "final."

For my sake, I hope they don't.