I can't wait to see The Lucky One, a new movie based on the book by Nicholas Sparks. I watched the trailer a few weeks ago on YouTube and I'm still flying high on its positive message.



See, Zac Efron is a Marine fighting in Iraq. He's selflessly serving our country when he sees something on the ground. He picks it up and sees it's a photo of a gorgeous young woman.

Zac stares at it. "Be safe!" it says on the back. Why, it's like this message was intended just for him. Was it . . . fate? It's fair to say Zac is stunned. He stands there and examines the photo, and when he finally starts walking again a bomb explodes three feet in front of him.

He's thrown to the ground. We can barely breathe until he gets up and dusts himself off, and then it hits us:

Was Zac saved because he was staring at a photo of a chick he wanted to fuck?

As your average God-fearing man, I say the answer is yes. I believe that you die when your time is up -- and if it's not your time, God saves you. Sometimes he sends a barking dog to warn you about a fire, or lets you cough up that wad of Cherries Jubilee. In this case, to keep Zac from walking into the jaws of death God intervened with the photo of a chick he wanted to masturbate to.

This is patently offensive, you say. Does this mean God has no use for ugly people? Of course it doesn't! God has a use for all his children. There aren't any books or movies about soldiers finding pictures of ugly women, though, because they all died. That's right. Maybe they saw the horrible snapshot half-buried in the Iraqi sand, thrown away by somebody who accidentally glanced at it while they were eating. Maybe they gave a little half-shudder, made temporarily queasy by a rheumy eye or constellation of facial moles. They quickened their step, anxious to put some distance between themselves and Edna Chickenlips, and BLAMMO! Smithereens. Nicholas Sparks probably would have written about that but the book would have been four pages long.

Sadly, I think this is evidence that God doesn't want gays in the military. I mean, how many photos can he have? He's got one shot of a chick with fabulous titties, and one shot of Wanda Noboobs. Now he needs dudes too? Say he spots some gay man in the path of a bullet, but it isn't the guy's time. What, is God supposed to find a shirtless picture of Chris Hemsworth to distract him? And what if this particular gay man just happens to like rough trade? Our Father Who Art In Heaven doesn't exactly keep spare copies of Manorama on his ottoman. As he's racing to a West Hollywood newsstand the guy would be blown to bits.

After his discharge, Efron tries to find the woman in the photo. The journey changes his life, emphasizing The Lucky One's positive message: when we need God, sometimes he's there. Is the photo a tangible symbol of God's love for us? Well, I'm thinking its previous owner didn't exactly lose it in a poker game, but God only knows about that.