WWJAT?

JA from MNPP here, asking the question on all of our minds these days: What Was Joan Allen Thinking? I think it every time I see the trailer for Death Race... which seems to have been every time I've gone to a movie theater for the past eight months. They've seriously worn out their welcome with that thing by now, no? I'll be sooooo happy once next Friday comes and goes and the flick dissolves from my consciousness (until it's set for DVD of course, when the whole dance begins again).

The thing is, I had some interest in the movie at first. The 1975 version is a terrifically schlocky good-time. The director of the remake, Paul W.S. Anderson... well, he's given us a good movie (Event Horizon), a good-bad movie that I unrepentantly love (Resident Evil - love you, Milla!), and then... well and then he's given us Mortal Kombat and AVP: Alien vs. Predator (a film that I will never ever forgive for casting the lovely Raoul Bova and then burying inside a giant parka the entire running time).

And the cast started filling in and I was curious. Jason Statham seemed perfect, not to mention is a hot piece. Ian McShane was suddenly all popular due to that western program filled with profanities I'd heard such wonderful things about. And then.... Joan Allen? What's that? Huh? Say that again, stranger? Are we talking about the same Joan Allen?

Yes, yes we were. And I thought I got it at first... everybody needs a break from the heavy-lifting, right? She just wanted to have some fun. But the doubts have come home to roost. The trailer wore me down, and now... now I really just don't understand, Joan Allen.

So I'm asking y'all to explain this to me. I need my view of the world, of humanity, placed back into order. Why is Joan Allen in Death Race?

A) Atheism - She's a witch in hiding whose goal in life is to prove the absence of a Divine Power, which she's doing by acting in this film.

B) Blackmail - They have photographs of her in an orgy that they were going to release if she didn't sign on to the picture.

C) Community Service - She got caught stealing from the local pharmacy, and doing this flick counts as Time-Served.

D) Drunkenness - She'd been on a bender for weeks when they approached her and was so wasted that she had no idea what she was doing.

E) Mama needed a vacation home, stupid.

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