Concessions

As part of my job as new-DVD-release-receiver at The
Stranger, I watch things like the Skulls Trilogy box set so you
don’t have to. (I mean, you can if you want. I won’t be mad.) I have a
vague and shameful recollection of wanting to see The Skulls when it came out in 2000. I believe I was a Joshua Jackson fan,
a condition left over from season one of Dawson’s Creek, which
was—you may quote me on this—totally good (remember
when he’s all sleeping with his English teacher even though he’s
literally 12, and by literally I mean figuratively, and by English
teacher I mean ADULT LADY-RAPIST?!).

The Skulls is a secret society of beautiful
man-WASPs—of which “at least three U.S. presidents are known
to have been members”—who wear corny robes and do secret rituals
and help each other get into law school. Sinister! Joshua Jackson is a
poor orphan who wants to join, because with a Skulls membership comes
big bucks. But when his Skulls “soul mate,” Paul Walker, kind of
accidentally murders Joshua Jackson’s BFF, Joshua Jackson doesn’t know
what the snatch to do! Also, Craig T. Nelson plays the King of the
Skulls! And Creed are on the soundtrack. Oh, year 2000! I love you!

There’s nothing notable about The Skulls II, except that it
contains boobs. Its plot is almost identical to the first—the
idea being that if you liked The Skulls, you probably want to
see it again with shittier actors and with a main character who is a
motorcycle enthusiast. That assumption is incorrect. I did, however,
laugh at this line: “This is like the holy grail of
motorcycles!” So… it’s the motorcycle Jesus rode to the Last
Supper?

One time I spent a day watching a marathon of the surprisingly
charming Tori & Dean: Inn Love, in which Tori Spelling and
her husband, Dean McDermott, buy a B and B and then fail miserably at
running it while pregnant Tori eats a thousand pizzas. The show
claimed that McDermott’s profession is “actor,” but I saw no evidence
of any such profession. Until now! D-McD most definitely plays a
detective in The Skulls III! I did not watch this movie all the
way to the end.

The extras are magnificent. In a short making-of documentary, the
cast and director of The Skulls (there are no extras for the two
sequels) achieve truly amazing heights of blowhardsmanship,
sometimes devolving into Sarah Palin–esque scramble-ramblings.
Sayeth ironing-board-with-teeth Leslie Bibb: “When you look at this,
you see it’s a moral tale. That friendship should not—is so
precious, that it should not be, like, money can come along, and money
is very enticing, and you think it’s gonna change your life, but it
can, I mean, that money is the root of all evil—[long
pause]—but in a strange way with this movie it kind of is. You
don’t get anything for free.”

You, Bibb, are a gift.