I guess it's back to the pole.

I was the last in the group to turn 40. The baby. There had already been a small party. There had already been a big party. Hell, there had already been a giant f--king soiree. So, being the last one up, the question seemed both ridiculous and ridiculously complicated...

So, what do you want to do for your 40th birthday?

If you're reading this, you know I'm an asshole, so of course I said, with a very serious look on my face, let's do something we've never done: we should all go to a strip club.

*crickets*

It was a joke of course, unless, you know...the stars aligned and it wasn't.

(it was)

That said, it was entirely coincidental that we went to the movies to see Hustlers on the night of my birthday [yikes?]. Okay, it's actually not at all coincidental that we went to the movies, just a happy accident, right, that the flick happened to be about strippers. Ahem. Er, exotic...dancer ladies. Boobs.

It's 2019 friends, so obviously we all know, or should know, that even a movie set in a strip club is going to be damn near titty and booty free. At least one with A-listers, anyway. But let's be honest with ourselves, shall we? Even if the lack of nudity is a bit ridiculous considering the setting, so were those extended shower scenes in every 80s movie ever. There's supposed to be balance with The Force, dammit. And in the lifespan of one simple pervert...we're seeing it.

*teeters off hastily made soapbox*

Hustlers tells the (mostly? somewhat?) true story of a small cadre of strippers who developed and executed an elaborate scheme to scam their clientele of thousands, if not millions of dollars. These ladies, led by veteran dancer Ramona (peak Jenny from the Block), essentially drug and rob a slew of poor saps to not only get even, but also to live it the f--k up. Which by all accounts is pretty f--king awesome. Until you realize, of course, that not all dudes who visit strip clubs are utter pieces of shit, and it ain't exactly honorable to milk these f--kers for everything they've got. Uh, or something.



Eventually, the jig(gle) is up, and our pseudo-Robin Hood tale (they're like Costner...but with way better tits) comes crashing down. Some of the ladies get greedy, and what was once a business you'd buy into on Shark Tank, becomes something much more...predatory.

The woman in the middle cracks me up. Is she with them, or just looking for her stepson?

Overall, I remember thinking it was a pretty solid flick, anchored by a fairly kickass J.Lo (with more than a little help from Constance Wu). Speaking of women I find incredibly beautiful, my wife also dug the film, and not in a general, first-twenty-minutes sense, either, as she managed to stay awake the entire time. Someone should put some money in her bra. Or mine. Wait, what?

We should interrupt that haunting visual with a quick nip-slip from the Yays and Boos. Assuming I've posted this in 2019, I'm now even closer to exiting my blogging hole and rejoining society. Or at least the part of society that s afflicted with the mental disorder of writing about every single movie they see in the order that they see them.

This reminds me of college. Not, like...doing things with sexy ladies.
But staring at pictures of them. On the internet.

Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

• Not that I remember it, but even in the nearly indecipherable chicken scratch that I call handwriting, the word underboob is a Yay. Has to be.
• Speaking of, damn Cardi B. Damn. 
• I know she's beautiful, obviously, butt I have never been a big ass fan of J.Lo. I'm sorry, had never. (any time she hits the pole in this movie is the best time)
• Those car dealership old guys were pretty rad.
• But not quite as motherf--king Usher making appearance. As soon as he showed up, I too wanted to make love in this club - eyyy!. In this club - eyyy! I'm sorry, what were we talking about? EYYYY!
• That had to be the first time Jennifer Lopez had ever been to an Old Navy, right?
• My wife was not (/is not) a fan a anyone who throws up all the time. Me? I find it kind of endearing (more on this when I get to Zombieland: Double Tap which my wife also rode shotgun on).
• That drug-making montage was very well done. Yay for drugs!
• Bleeping out a name in a movie has always been one of my favorite things. Not sure why, but I totally dig it.
• I'm not sure if it's already there, but Royals by Lorde is a first-ballot Soundtrack Hall of Fame inductee, and I'm not even taking questions on the matter. You put that hook over a movie theater sound-system and it's f--king magical.
• And finally, I guess it's all about expectations, but I wasn't really expecting much from the stripper movie with J.Lo even if the trailer was setting up to be a newfangled Goodfellas. Yeah, it ain't exactly brilliant, but it was way better than I thought it would be. But, hey, it was a night out with my wife. Everything after that is icing on the (birthday) cake, you know?

The hood suggests she doesn't want to be noticed.

Boooooooooooo!

• Hey, Lucy Liu! Ugh. F--king dudes are the worst. And even she was an entirely different person, her hands aren't going anywhere near your staff.
• Doesn't money make you horny? Uh, no. It just makes me want to wash my hands.
• There's a scene early on where J.Lo's Ramona spreads her legs and says, Here, climb into my fur. Um, excuse me?
• I never buy the kids in these movies. They're always too...well-adjusted or something. And I don't mean for a stripper's kid, either. I mean, just in general. Kids are weird as f--k. Always.
• Why was she such a dick to Stephen? Dude seemed kind of nice, right?
• Wait, now she's doing blow? That escalated quickly. 
• (oh and f--k that guy who only gave her sixty bucks - that dude was a f--king nightmare)
• Okay, Mark at Old Navy, you rotten turd. First, you work retail. Chill the f--k out and go fold some shirts. And second, you have someone who looks like J.Lo on your staff, you should be way too intimidated to even talk to her, let alone deny her a shift change you f--king prick. Give her time off and so you can quickly head to your Ford Focus and punch yourself in the dick.
• Yo, that rag-tag team of D-listers that are eventually recruited are f--king ROUGH. 
• I'm probably not doing so hot myself, but no lie, every single guy in this film is straight up trash. *thinks about it* Alright, fine. That's...kind of fair.
• Is it me, or does Ramona every so often give off a kind of I'm-Ursula-and-I'm-gonna-steal-your-precious-voice kind of vibe? No? Just me, then?
• Wow, that sucks. Having to drop your kid off at school, in full stripper DLC costume must really suck. Especially for the male teachers WHO THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO (though I heard about a parent conference where the mom wore a fishnet shirt?).
• Aw, Nana. Noooooo!
• And finally, it takes about, I don't know, 347 hours for anything resembling conflict to even kinda set in. I get it, we need to see how successful the ladies are and all, but holy shit, they were essentially invincible for 97% of this film. I guess that it was supposed to be inspiring, but it turned out to be a bit...boring. Even if everyone involved is super f--king sexy (see also: Ocean's 8 [review] (just kidding, please don't).

Perhaps obviously, my wife and our friends denied my lame attempt at making the evening more, um, grown up, so instead we went bowling and I regaled them with a tale from the last time I went to a strip club (though that term is entirely too classy for the establishment we were dealing with that night). It's an awful story full of lubed up...devices, the worst menu I've ever seen (it didn't have any food on it) and an epic game of Cooterball.

No I'm just kidding, I would never throw crinkled-up bills into a plastic cup affixed by saliva to someone's desperate vagina. What am I, human garbage?

It was a bill.

And I totally missed.