Monday, December 21, 2009

"You KILLED Bags?!?!"

In light of this weekend's tragic and way-too-early loss of actress Brittany Murphy, I thought back to one of my favorite movies starring her, 'Just Married'.

'Just Married' was a movie that I saw in the theatre, and was merely average--certainly not an intellectual thriller by any means. At the time, my now ex-husband and I were living in our first apartment, it was my senior year in college and I worked full-time. However, I worked full-time at a job where I had a ton of free time, so I used all that free time to do whatever studying and school work I had, so I was left with plenty of leisure time at home.

My ex-husband worked nights four nights a week, and since it was the first time I'd ever lived away from home, it was eerie for me to be home alone with no noise, so I left the TV on a lot. We had the "premium" movie packages, which one would think, since you are paying "premium" prices, one would get "premium" programming, but not so much. I have since learned that the premium movie channels typically play the same movies over and over, until they move on to the next movie, which they then play over and over. The premium cycle repeats.

That particular fall, the movie 'Road Trip' played incessantly, and sadly, it had become part of my daily routine. Come home from work, cook dinner, eat with ex-husband, read newspaper and magazines, shower and watch 'Road Trip'. It was truly ridiculous TV, and for the rest of my life, I will be haunted by Tom Green and DJ Qualls. In fact, I was recently stunned upon downloading a Britney Spears video onto my iPhone, only to discover him in the video, reappearing in my thoughts. At the time--the early 2000s--he dominated pop culture. Now I don't even know if he is still alive.

After HBO had exhausted its run of 'Road Trip', it moved on to 'Just Married'. So then my daily routine became come home from work, cook dinner, eat with ex-husband, read newspaper and magazines, shower and watch 'Just Married'.

My favorite part of 'Just Married' was the part where Ashton Kutcher's character was working on work--I can't remember his job exactly, but he was working at home--and Brittany Murphy's dog, Bags, annoys him. In frustration, he tosses a toy for Bags, which sadly flies through the window, with Bags chasing right after it. Bags is dead, and Ashton is responsible.

When Brittany's character comes home, she automatically looks for Bags, and confronts Ashton on his whereabouts. Ashton had no choice but to look her straight in the eye and tell her that Bags had had a terrible accident. Brittany looked at Ashton and screamed, "YOU KILLED BAGS?!?!"

To this day, I do not even know why I found this amusing. Was it Brittany's tone of voice? Was it the ridiculousness of the situation, which was common in movies of this era? Was it that the dog's name was Bags?

Here's a shot of poor Bags before his untimely and made-up death, credit 20th Century Fox in 2003:



When I was watching 'Just Married', if I happened to be on the phone at the same time as the "YOU KILLED BAGS?!?!" part was about to come on, I would need to put the person on hold, because I knew I would laugh too hard to have a normal conversation. I would laugh like a schizophrenic over poor Bags, and no one I was talking to on the phone could ever understand, no matter how much I tried to explain. And this was fine, since I also did not understand the hilarity of Bags.

I vowed to name my next pet Bags. Unfortunately, I forgot this vow when I got my dog, who is named Kennedy. Luckily, though, I will never have to worry about looking at a boyfriend and screaming, "YOU KILLED BAGS?!?"

No comments:

Post a Comment