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Believe it or not, there was a time when everyone in America didn’t want to spin kick Ashton Kutcher down an elevator shaft full of alligators. I know that’s hard to believe, and some of you reading this might even be too young to remember that time. It was a distant, far more innocent time - before 9/11, and before That '70s Show jumped the shark. I don’t claim to be able to pinpoint exactly when, but sometime between then and now, Kutcher went from being the next John Travolta to...well...the next John Travolta. And now, everyone wants to spin kick him down an elevator shaft full of alligators.

If I sound harsh, it’s only because you can’t say hateful things on Twitter any more.

But let’s not think about Punk’d. Let’s not think about What Happens in Vegas. And for the love of God, let’s not think about Two and a Half Men. Let us instead hearken back to that golden age of yesteryear, when thousands of unsuspecting knobs went to see Dude, Where’s My Car? - specifically because That Guy Who Plays Kelso was in it. I would say that I’m not ashamed to admit being one of those knobs, but I don’t think that’s me talking. It’s mostly the drunken rush of power I get from having a weekly column where I get to talk about feeding Ashton Kutcher to alligators.

But I don’t want to squander my credibility this early in the article. Normally I wait until the last paragraph to do that. At this point, I just want to say that I kind of like Dude, Where’s My Car. I like it in the same way I like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, for instance. It’s not a great movie, and it’s certainly anything but a work of art. It’s acutely self aware of its stupidity, and it harbors no grand illusions about anything. In fact, it’s not really “about anything” other than a couple of lovable dimwits doing lovable dimwitted things for 90 minutes and completely getting away with all of it. This isn’t the kind of movie that makes you “think” - in fact, you’ll be punished for even attempting to use your brain.

But don’t we need movies like that? Isn’t that what we need sometimes? Why else drink Pepsi, or eat funnel cake, or follow minor league baseball? Sometimes, emptiness is just the ticket.

And today’s Journey into the Abyss begins with Jesse Montgomery (Kutcher) and Chester Greenburg (Seann William Scott), two hard partying slackers who wake up the morning after an epic party, unable to remember anything about the previous night. Within five minutes they discover the following things. They are in big trouble with their girlfriends (Jennifer Garner, someone who kind of looks like Jennifer Garner), whose picturesque home was destroyed during the festivities. There is a fat guy camping out in the living room closet. They’re about to lose their jobs as pizza delivery boys because they keep eating the pizza instead of delivering it. The kitchen is filled with pudding.

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