Ha! So many teenagers were probably taken to the hospital last night when their hearts exploded. I will admit that this looks much better than the previous trailers had suggested. At the very least there is a lot less crying on the floor of a forest, and almost no reference to the epic papercut fight of 2009. But Bella’s “adrenaline junkie” plotline reminds me of when Ryan on The O.C. became a cage fighter, except without the awesome cage fighting. What I’m saying is Bella should become a cage fighter. Then she will see Edward. Or whatever. I have no idea what half of the words I’m saying mean. But I also love that when you go to vampire court, which we all know is in a junkyard, the laws are enforced via hand-to-hand-combat. Classic Vampire Tort Reform. Dakota Fanning is Vampire Judge Judy. “This will probably hurt a little bit.” I didn’t think vampires had feelings? “They’ll kill him if he reveals himself in the sunlight.” I didn’t think vampires could go in the sunlight? Never mind. EDWARD, NO, YOU MUST PUT YOUR SHIRT BACK ON OR DAKOTA FANNING WILL MAGIC-BODY SLAM YOU!! Having your shirt off is the most serious Vampire Crime, duh, grandpa.

This confusion and frustration and sense of being completely outside of something must have been what my parents felt like when I was excited about the forthcoming second chapter in the Bill and Ted saga, Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.

Well, here we are. We stand at the precipice of an enormous crossroads. After months of speculation about how Jay Leno would forever change the face of late night television (or of prime time television? I’m not a Television Scheduling Scientist), all will be answered tonight. For the most part I think we know what to expect, though, right? It’s going to be tepid, toothless humor aimed at Brawndo sipping Buy-N-Large customers. But with more race cars.

I would like to say that I am curious, but I am not curious, because Jay Leno has built his career on a lack of curiosity. There is no ambition* or innovation in Jay Leno’s work. What we have always seen is what we have always gotten. There is no suggestion that this will be any different. Tonight will not be New Leno, it will be Classic Leno, and Classic Leno is awful. “No desk” is not innovation just as “talking to Jerry Seinfeld about expensive cars we own” is not funny.

Nevertheless, I will be watching. And we should take what little enjoyment we can find in this world where we can. So might as well have fun with it, right? After the jump, the rules for the Jay Leno Show Drinking Game.

Drink if:

you are watching The Jay Leno Show
Play along at home!

*That is not to say that Jay is not personally ambitious. No one takes over the Tonight Show and fills an airplane hangar with an offensive number of rare automobiles without having a serious work ethic and a tremendous amount of drive. I’m talking more about creative/artistic ambition here, which Jay Leno seems perfectly content to go without.

Can you FEEL the awkwardness? Those two are such good actors, working with such amazingly natural dialogue, that the audience actually feels transported to our respective high school cafeterias to make small talk at 7 AM with someone we’ve always hated.

Kelly: I hate early mornings.
Brenda: Don’t worry about it.

Did anyone else have the knee-jerk reaction to say, “Don’t worry about it” a la The Room’s Tommy Wisseau out loud as soon as Brenda said that? No? Just me? Weird.

Also, “My boyfriend is so young, I asked him where he was when Kurt Cobain died and he said he was watching cartoons.” Uggggh! Isn’t that an old Woody Allen joke, but with JFK? Did they really just steal a dumb old Woody Allen joke?

I love how Sam Tsui probably considers himself an artiste. And how he was like, “you know what YouTube needs? It needs a video of me…no! SEVEN of me! doing an a cappela medley of MJ songs.”

GET IT SAM! (p.s. please don’t get it. ever. again.)

I watched this whole stupid movie wondering “Okay, but when does she get raped?” Before realizing that was another Dakota Fanning set in The South movie.

The best part is when David Morse says, “there’s your boyfriend.”

At any rate, you’re welcome for posting that trailer. Now you’ve seen the whole movie, so if anyone asks at a party “Have you seen that movie where Dakota Fanning gets raped?” You can say “Yes. it wasn’t good.”

Also, nobody will ask you that.

It is easy to poke fun at the 2nd and 3rd place competitors in the 2009 Pokemon Championships (whatever that is), because they’ve dedicated their lives to something that seems pointless and silly and nerdy and come up short, but you can’t poke fun at this guy. Seriously. He is the World Champion of something. Are you the World Champion of Something? No, you are not. (You’re probably not even the 2nd or 3rd place competitors, so actually let’s ease up on the poking fun until we start placing.) We all need to work a little harder, you guys. Someone has to be the champion of everything, why not us?! Let’s paint, exercise, and be the best in the world at something, even if it might seem pointless or silly or nerdy to other people. Let’s all find our Niagara Falls, and then be better than everyone else at Niagara Falls. You know? Lock it in. Let’s go.