So movie studios send me free stuff sometimes. Sometimes it’s cool. Sometimes its not. The past week or two, however, has been really weird in terms of free swag. And by “been really weird” I mean “consisted of a whole bunch of useless crap.” First there was this:

Can’t tell what that is? No, of course you can’t, because it makes no sense. It’s a Beowulf blanket, because apparently nothing says “Olde English literarie epic adapted as a CG action movie” like “polyester fur.” As my buddy James pointed out, this thing would be way more badass if it had a hood, and therefore served as a cloak. He’d have a good point, provided I wasn’t living in Portland in 2007 and was instead living in a fucking castle in the Dark Ages. As is, it just looks like something some Klingon cos-play fiend would wear to a World of Warcraft pizza party. “Quaplah, guild brothers! Hands off of the Double-Stuff Oreos, and who’s up for Wii Sports?”

Here we have… a… it’s a big… punching bag?… with a… panda on it? Apparently this is for Kung Fu Panda, a movie in which Jack Black voices a (you guessed it!) panda who does kung fu! (Here’s hoping it’s as brilliant as Beverly Hills Ninja, a film even Chris Farley [RIP] was so embarrassed by that it made him really go live in a van down by the river for six months as an act of self-flagellation. [Don’t feel too bad, he had like 8 pounds of coke with him the whole time, and David Spade brought him plenty of milkshakes and french fries; the six months went by super-quick.]) Anyway, you’ll note that that this goddamn thing is uninflated. This is because I will not blow anything that is any way reminiscent of or connected to Jack Black.

And now comes the thing that pretty much ruined my day when I got it in the mail this a.m.

What the fuck is that, you ask? Good question. It’s a box full of shredded money and a padlock (?), all to promote some movie called Mad Money. This morning when I woke up, I didn’t know that Mad Money even existed, and now I do, and it’s kind of the worst feeling ever. Oh, if only I could go back to this morning when this movie didn’t even exist for me. FUCK. Anyway, now I know all sorts of things about it, thanks to the postcard that it came with:

So there’s Queen Latifah, Diane Keaton, and Katie Holmes, otherwise known as THE THREE LEAST LIKEABLE ACTRESSES EVER. Apparently this is a movie about them being rich, which should be a real treat, since all of them are, in real life, unspeakably rich, especially Katie Holmes, who was once cute in Wonder Boys, and is now a dead-eyed zombie who is not allowed to speak and always follows exactly five paces behind her batshit-crazy husband, who also forces her to watch Battlefield Earth, in its entirety, every night promptly at 8 pm. I can guarantee you that the following was said by some studio exec in the godforsaken greenlight meeting for Mad Money: “Okay, so we’ll cast that Queen broad for the ‘urban’ women, and that dried-up old WASP who hasn’t been in anything good since Manhattan—all those lonely old women whose children don’t call them anymore can’t get enough of her—and sure, the fuck not, get Tom’s wife in there too. She damn near ruined that Batman movie, so no one else will cast her, so we’ll get her for cheap. I think we’ve got a winner on our hands, boys! Now, how to promote it… hmmm. I know! We’ll give out padlocks! Yeah! Why the fuck not!”