Sometimes, it’s 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday and you’re awake and downing coffee with a splash of International Delight Sweet & Creamy coffee creamer, sitting at your desk click-clacking away at your laptop keyboard because you have to get up a review of the feature film Bottoms first thing the morning after it wide releases because this is your job, this is the life you have signed up for, a life of having gay takes about gay things. Sometimes, these specific conditions lead to a slight state of delirium and queer chaos witnessed only by yourself. Sometimes, you have to share that delirium with the wider world.

Indeed, I wrote my review of Bottoms from a mental place I can only think to describe as early morning lesbian hysteria. While my partner slumbered silently in our room, I sat just on the other side of the sliding door that separates that room and my lofted office space, channeling the frenzied glee I’d experienced the evening before when we saw the movie onto the glowing document in front of me. I wrote a whole ass opening about my own story having to do with being gay, coveting cheerleaders, and participating in lite emotional manipulation as a teen before scrapping the whole thing and deciding it was for a future, longer piece to be written after I’ve had a chance to marinate in Bottoms a little longer.

When I finished writing my short, initial reaction review (okay, so it’s still 1k words, but that’s sort for me), I had to contend with the challenge of title. I’d been avoiding reading other reviews of the movie for the past week, but I inevitably saw their titles when compiling gay links for the gay link roundup I pen twice a week here at Autostraddle. I wanted to write a title that stood out, that was as foolish (complimentary) as the movie itself, which was how I landed on “Bottoms” Punched Me in the Face (and I Liked It).

But before I got there, I played around with a few other alternatives that I ultimately rejected but threw into the wasteland of a separate document. This briefly turned into me becoming distracted by no one other than myself as I tried to think up as many joke titles as possible.

And now, I present those alt titles to you! I look forward to accepting my Pulitzer Prize.

1. Bottoms Healed My Inner Horny Freak #3
2. Bottoms Punched Me in the Face — It Was AWESOME
3. Bottoms Understands What Teen Lesbians Desire: Being Punched By Girls in the Face
4. Bottoms Is a Movie About Two Baby Tops Terrorizing Their School
5. If Bottoms Had Come Out When I Was in High School, I Would Have Figured Out I Was Gay Sooner
6. Bottoms Asks the Question I Was Afraid to Ask Girls in High School: What If We All Just Hit Each Other Right Now?
7. Bottoms Says the Quiet Part Out Loud (All Cheerleaders Are Gay)
8. “Bottoms” Review: All Cheerleaders Kiss
9. Bottoms Reviewed By a Bottom
10. Bottoms Up: A Bottoms Review By a Bottom
11. Bottoms Is DYKE RIGHTS
12. Bottoms Is Better Than Fight Club
13. Top of the Bottoms To Ya

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