Susan Bonicillo

It's a curious world that we live in, filled with nearly incomprehensible phenomena ranging from the wondrous to the monstrous. It takes talent, or a sheer lack of will, to find things uninteresting. Boredom truly is just a condition in which the suffering is entirely self-inflicted.

Most curious of all the things in this world, however, is the behavior of the animal we know as homo sapiens. It's translated from the Latin as "wise human" but sometimes I have a hard time believing in this self-congratulatory and entirely unearned title.

Take for instance "Big Momma's House 2," which is the No. 1 movie at the box office right now.

Wait, let me repeat that, as you're probably still reeling from the incredulity of this statement: "Big Momma's House 2" is the No.1 movie at the box office.

Moviegoers across the nation have spent a collective $27,736,056 to watch Martin Lawrence recycle the same shtick of a skinny black man in a fat black woman's body.

The reason this is so fascinating is that I've never met anyone who has seen the first one or, at least, has ever owned up to it.

It's the curious phenomenon of creating sequels from already crappy movies. Hollywood has given us "Anacondas," "2 Fast 2 Furious" and the live-action "Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed," which gave "American Idol" winner Ruben Studdard a few more minutes before his 15 were up.

Why do we patronize the continuation of an awful concept? I can understand seeing a bad movie at the behest of a trusted friend's urging. I'll take responsibility for subjecting a good friend to the model-turned-bounty-hunter fiasco named "Domino," which made me glad that Keira Knightley decided to reverse direction and up her acting chops in "Pride and Prejudice."

However, to go out and see part two when the precedent set by its forerunner was one in which drivel was taken to phenomenal proportions, is a testament to the human ability of denial and suspension of good taste.

As a business, the movie industry is an incredible machine whose recipe for success is completely contradictory to traditional business practice. Churning out a bad product and operating on sub-par standards, it manages to parlay crap into profit. Meanwhile, good products create meager earnings and aren't nearly as widely regarded as they should be until about 10 to 20 years down the road when people can finally appreciate them.

We've got to think of upping customer satisfaction. Like any business that caters to customer satisfaction, movies should be driven by the wants of the consumer. The consumer needs to step up and demand a better product.

However, when the norm is drivel, when the ruling order of the day is that of barely adequate, then it is the people who suffer from the exclusion of the possibility that all of this can be better.

It's like living a lifetime of eating tasteless food cubes and never realizing that there's choice filet mignon out there ripe for the taking.

So, in this era where horrible movies are followed by the unnecessary continuation of their badness, what can one do?

The answer is simple: we need to get organized. Boycott bad movies.

Bring back the protest movement. March around your local cineplex waving furious anger placards on which bold block letters declare "Script first, marketing campaign second," "Tired of soundtracks being better than the movie itself," "or "Uwe Boll should be dragged out to the street and shot. Several times."

This is a movement that's been a long time coming: better movies for the people. We can start by stopping ourselves from giving money to sequels that should never have been considered for a storyboard.

We could all gather underneath the banner of my dream organization called the People Against the Proliferation of Sequels to Movies that Excel in Awfulness and Rubbish. Unfortunately, the acronym for that would be PAP SMEAR.

But you get the idea.