Zac Efron's in the Dog House

Here's a photo Zac Efron tweeted of his newish Australian Shepherd on Friday. I use this as a way of coming clean about going to see "The Lucky One" over the weekend, something I'm not exactly proud of. The good news (for him) is that the movie did better than expected at the box office, which might extend his career as a leading man. The bad news is that people like me -- who had noticed how incredibly cute he is, but had never seen him onscreen before -- found out that the poor thing cannot act his way out of a paper bag. It was kind of shocking, quite frankly. He maintained one -- yes, one -- facial expression for 90 minutes straight (not counting an eyebrow raise during a violin recital). And despite being incredibly handsome, exuded little sex appeal and no chemistry with costar Taylor Schilling, who admittedly looked like she could be his mother, or at the very least his big sister who had already gone away to college when he was young. (There were more sparks between Richard Gere and Jodie Foster in "Somersby.") There was a half-second flash of his ass, but otherwise it was like spending 15 bucks to flip through pictures of him, which I already do online for free. "The Lucky One' succeeded mightily in incorporating all of the required elements of a Nicholas Sparks movie, as brilliantly outlined here. And while we were shocked at how bad it was -- it makes "The Notebook" look like "Casablanca" -- when torrential rains began to pour as we exited the theater, it did seem like the perfect moment to shove Michael up on the side of the building and start kissing him. Someone's gotta teach this kid how it's done.