I figure what with having so many opinions about film that I should get off my ass and make my own. So last night at dinner, the Husband, Giga, Nala and I came up with an Idea that I'm ready to run with. Keep in mind, if you're a Famous Hollywood Director or Action Star and want to do this, you have to give me a cut of the profits, and I want my own action figure. And a novel tie-in by Star Wars/X-Files/Dune hack Kevin J. Anderson. And collectible trading cards. And Jeff Goldblum reading the Audio Adaptation for Young Readers.
When you hear this sound (*ding*) turn the page.
And now...FLUSH POINT
Flush Point is based on ACTUAL SCIENCE currently being ignored by the Bush Administration!!! See this NOVA Special, Magnetic Storm. Apparently we are in the middle of what could be the most Traumatic Experience the Earth has ever witnessed, and NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING TO STOP IT!!!
President Morgan Freeman has been in secret discussions with his top Scientific Advisor Brian Cox about the dangers that face the planet should the magnetic poles suddenly shift. CLIMATE CHANGES and INCREASES IN DEADLY RADIATION!!! It's all INCREDIBLY SERIOUS AND GRAVE!!!
But deep within the bowels of the White House, Official White House Plumber Will Patton/Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman knows THE TRUTH!!! (Since these three actors are often confused by audiences, during the movie they will each appear, at various times, as Official White House Plumber.) A SUDDEN SHIFT IN THE EARTH'S MAGNETIC POLES WOULD CAUSE THE WATER IN TOILETS TO GO DOWN THE BOWL THE WRONG WAY!!!! Science has long understood that the Coriolis Force causes water draining from a toilet to spin clockwise north of the equator, but a sudden change in the pressure during a Magnetic Pole Shift would cause toilets all over the world to EXPLODE SIMULTANEOUSLY!!! The results would be CATASTROPHIC!!!
Will Patton/Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman tries desperately to warn the President, but he's having none of it, because EVIL SCIENTIST Brian Cox is downplaying the threat because he WANTS all the toilets to explode, sending the planet back into the Dark Ages, which he and his evil cohorts would then RULE!!! Will Patton/Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman says to the President, "Migratory Patterns be damned, man!!! We've got a bigger problem on our hands!!!" But the President doesn't believe him, and Will Patton/Bill Paxton/Bill Pullman is left to try to salvage some remnant of humanity with the help of his wife Helen Hunt and his spunky daughter Leelee Sobieski.
The sequel, FLUSH POINT 2: FORCE OF GRAVITY, would have the human race reduced to those few people on the planet who used outhouses struggling to rebuild after billions of tons of raw sewage exploded forth during the Cataclysm, contaminating and eating through everything. And then they also have to deal with all the birds running into things.
But that's the plot of FLUSH POINT 3: BALLCOCK AND FLOATBALL in 3-D.
Friday, May 28, 2004
Monday, May 24, 2004
review tres--HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE
SPOILERS!!!
So I finally got to do what I've always dreamed of doing.
I attended a star-studded Hollywood Movie Premiere.
Granted, it was in Columbus, OH. And the premiere was only bedazzled by two marginally famous actors and many local news talents. And it reeked of frying animal flesh. However, there was a red carpet and a limo and a very long wait in line and it took me until next morning but I finally figured out how tangentially I met Kevin Bacon in under six degrees. I had an awesome time.
I did not, however, get a free t-shirt.
Jen, our Ticket Hook-Up who works for an Evil Entertainment Conglomerate that we conveniently forget she works for when she scams us free tickets, hooked us up with tickets to the premiere of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. See, Columbus is the home of White Castle, hence the lame marketing tie-in. But hey, free movie. We (being me, that is Kelmeister, and my droogs: Nala, Giga, the Fab Jen and Vijay) were supposed to be in line at the theater to get in by the absolute cut-off of DOORS CLOSE AT 6:45, but of course we were running late and we got there at a little after six and the line was huge and although I was trying to pretend I was way cooler than I actually am I was secretly peeing a little in my pants at the thought that we'd missed our chance. So as we made fun of all the people way overdressed for a Columbus premiere of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (like, Harold and Kumar are TOTALLY going to see you in the theater in that tiny sun dress and think you are so hot and want to have sex with you and take you to Hollywood were you'll TOTALLY meet Brad Pitt at a party and dump Harold and Kumar and break up Brad's marriage to Jennifer and you and Brad will live Happily Evah After. Seriously, I gave up those fantasies when I turned 30. Duh.) as I stood there doing a little Pee Dance.
There were ferocious security guards there yelling for people to leave their cell phones in their cars, for fear that someone would illegally record and/or broadcast Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Because I know that personally, were I to spend 24 hours illegally downloading a film from the Internet over my dial-up line, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle would be the movie I'd pick.
Anyway, after listening to a Local Radio Personality babble unintelligibly over a loud-speaker for over a half hour, we FINALLY made it to the doors, where we were practically strip searched and then led to a table of bags full o' White Castles. I, being a vegetarian, walked on by, but was quickly admonished by my companions for ONLY THINKING ABOUT MYSELF and GO BACK AND GET YOUR BAG AND GIVE IT TO US. Between the four of them I guesstimate that they consumed at least two dozen White Castles. Nala had nine. I gravely warned them of the dangers of contracting explosive diarrhea, but like Cassandra, I was ignored.
After the crowd had gorged themselves, the stars of the film graced us with their presence to say a few words about THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME TO WORK ON and WE HOPE YOU ENJOY WATCHING IT AS MUCH AS WE ENJOYED MAKING IT. John Cho and Kal Penn are very short. Although I was sitting down so my perception may have been skewed. Also, I am left wondering if I found them attractive in real life. Kal Penn is a total hottie in the movie, but I don't think I was really paying much attention when they were right in front of me because I was suddenly stuck by the thought, "What does this meeting mean in terms of six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon," and I was so preoccupied with trying to figure that one out that I spaced and then missed quite a bit until the movie started.
You know, premieres don't have previews. Someone should do something about this.
From the director of Dude, Where's My Car, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle is the first film by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and basically involves the misadventures of Harold and Kumar as they get totally stoned and try to find some food. Their quest for White Castle is precipitated by food porn on the teevee in the form of a White Castle commercial. By the end of the film it becomes more about succeeding in the quest than actually eating, but they do gorge themselves much as everyone in the audience did. So stuff happens in between, and there's pooping, and more pot, and Neil Patrick Harris undulating erotically. And in the end Harold and Kumar learn that IT IS WHAT'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS and IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF YOU CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING and IF YOU SMOKE ENOUGH POT WHITE CASTLE DOES NOT CAUSE SEVERE INTESTINAL DISTRESS. Seriously, I would have thought the last scene would have been them fighting over a roll of toilet paper, but that's just me. Maybe when I write my Oscar Winning Teen Film that REDEFINES A GENERATION and TEACHES CHILDREN THE VALUE OF PROTECTING YOUR VIRGINITY UNTIL MARRIAGE I'll include that scene.
Actually, I don't mean to sound harsh, because I actually enjoyed this movie a lot. I laughed more than I have during a film in quite a while. I haven't seen Dude, Where's My Car (which they reference here, cleverly), so I can't compare stories and scripts and such, but I get the sense that Harold and Kumar are far more intelligent than the Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher characters, which is a good thing. And as I said before, John Cho and Kal Penn are good-looking, likable actors with a ton of chemistry. The story's pretty goofy with a menagerie of crazy characters, but it's really the relationship between Cho and Penn that carries the movie. They're a delight to watch, and as Nala said afterward, someone should seriously consider some sequels: road movies a la Hope and Crosby. Which is actually a pretty awesome idea.
So who'da thunk that a piece of crap stoners movie would kick more ass than Van Helsing? This will one day be in heavy rotation on Comedy Central, but for a night out you could do way worse (like Van Helsing).
--kelmeister
P.S. Cho and Penn were in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle with Christopher Meloni who was in Wet Hot American Summer with David Hyde Pierce who was on Fraiser with Laura Linney who was in Mystic River with Kevin Bacon.
Although you could also go through Fred Willard, who was in Waiting for Guffman with Christopher Guest, who was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon.
I could have cured cancer with this brain, once...
So I finally got to do what I've always dreamed of doing.
I attended a star-studded Hollywood Movie Premiere.
Granted, it was in Columbus, OH. And the premiere was only bedazzled by two marginally famous actors and many local news talents. And it reeked of frying animal flesh. However, there was a red carpet and a limo and a very long wait in line and it took me until next morning but I finally figured out how tangentially I met Kevin Bacon in under six degrees. I had an awesome time.
I did not, however, get a free t-shirt.
Jen, our Ticket Hook-Up who works for an Evil Entertainment Conglomerate that we conveniently forget she works for when she scams us free tickets, hooked us up with tickets to the premiere of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. See, Columbus is the home of White Castle, hence the lame marketing tie-in. But hey, free movie. We (being me, that is Kelmeister, and my droogs: Nala, Giga, the Fab Jen and Vijay) were supposed to be in line at the theater to get in by the absolute cut-off of DOORS CLOSE AT 6:45, but of course we were running late and we got there at a little after six and the line was huge and although I was trying to pretend I was way cooler than I actually am I was secretly peeing a little in my pants at the thought that we'd missed our chance. So as we made fun of all the people way overdressed for a Columbus premiere of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (like, Harold and Kumar are TOTALLY going to see you in the theater in that tiny sun dress and think you are so hot and want to have sex with you and take you to Hollywood were you'll TOTALLY meet Brad Pitt at a party and dump Harold and Kumar and break up Brad's marriage to Jennifer and you and Brad will live Happily Evah After. Seriously, I gave up those fantasies when I turned 30. Duh.) as I stood there doing a little Pee Dance.
There were ferocious security guards there yelling for people to leave their cell phones in their cars, for fear that someone would illegally record and/or broadcast Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. Because I know that personally, were I to spend 24 hours illegally downloading a film from the Internet over my dial-up line, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle would be the movie I'd pick.
Anyway, after listening to a Local Radio Personality babble unintelligibly over a loud-speaker for over a half hour, we FINALLY made it to the doors, where we were practically strip searched and then led to a table of bags full o' White Castles. I, being a vegetarian, walked on by, but was quickly admonished by my companions for ONLY THINKING ABOUT MYSELF and GO BACK AND GET YOUR BAG AND GIVE IT TO US. Between the four of them I guesstimate that they consumed at least two dozen White Castles. Nala had nine. I gravely warned them of the dangers of contracting explosive diarrhea, but like Cassandra, I was ignored.
After the crowd had gorged themselves, the stars of the film graced us with their presence to say a few words about THIS MOVIE WAS AWESOME TO WORK ON and WE HOPE YOU ENJOY WATCHING IT AS MUCH AS WE ENJOYED MAKING IT. John Cho and Kal Penn are very short. Although I was sitting down so my perception may have been skewed. Also, I am left wondering if I found them attractive in real life. Kal Penn is a total hottie in the movie, but I don't think I was really paying much attention when they were right in front of me because I was suddenly stuck by the thought, "What does this meeting mean in terms of six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon," and I was so preoccupied with trying to figure that one out that I spaced and then missed quite a bit until the movie started.
You know, premieres don't have previews. Someone should do something about this.
From the director of Dude, Where's My Car, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle is the first film by Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and basically involves the misadventures of Harold and Kumar as they get totally stoned and try to find some food. Their quest for White Castle is precipitated by food porn on the teevee in the form of a White Castle commercial. By the end of the film it becomes more about succeeding in the quest than actually eating, but they do gorge themselves much as everyone in the audience did. So stuff happens in between, and there's pooping, and more pot, and Neil Patrick Harris undulating erotically. And in the end Harold and Kumar learn that IT IS WHAT'S INSIDE THAT COUNTS and IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF YOU CAN ACHIEVE ANYTHING and IF YOU SMOKE ENOUGH POT WHITE CASTLE DOES NOT CAUSE SEVERE INTESTINAL DISTRESS. Seriously, I would have thought the last scene would have been them fighting over a roll of toilet paper, but that's just me. Maybe when I write my Oscar Winning Teen Film that REDEFINES A GENERATION and TEACHES CHILDREN THE VALUE OF PROTECTING YOUR VIRGINITY UNTIL MARRIAGE I'll include that scene.
Actually, I don't mean to sound harsh, because I actually enjoyed this movie a lot. I laughed more than I have during a film in quite a while. I haven't seen Dude, Where's My Car (which they reference here, cleverly), so I can't compare stories and scripts and such, but I get the sense that Harold and Kumar are far more intelligent than the Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher characters, which is a good thing. And as I said before, John Cho and Kal Penn are good-looking, likable actors with a ton of chemistry. The story's pretty goofy with a menagerie of crazy characters, but it's really the relationship between Cho and Penn that carries the movie. They're a delight to watch, and as Nala said afterward, someone should seriously consider some sequels: road movies a la Hope and Crosby. Which is actually a pretty awesome idea.
So who'da thunk that a piece of crap stoners movie would kick more ass than Van Helsing? This will one day be in heavy rotation on Comedy Central, but for a night out you could do way worse (like Van Helsing).
--kelmeister
P.S. Cho and Penn were in Harold and Kumar go to White Castle with Christopher Meloni who was in Wet Hot American Summer with David Hyde Pierce who was on Fraiser with Laura Linney who was in Mystic River with Kevin Bacon.
Although you could also go through Fred Willard, who was in Waiting for Guffman with Christopher Guest, who was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon.
I could have cured cancer with this brain, once...
Monday, May 17, 2004
review number deux--TAKING LIVES
SPOILERS!!
So the husband and I celebrated our 11th month wedding anniversary this month, and as things had been a little rough for us this week, we decided to go on a date. We'd not been out alone together on a "date date" for a while, so what better way to reconnect and rediscover your love for another by enjoying mutilated bodies, naked Angelina Jolie, and Taco Bell!!
One of these three things was awesome. I'm going to let you guess which one.
TACO BELL!!! Hubby got the Nachos BelGrande sans meat, so for the first time ever I was able to enjoy their crunchy, cheesy-cheese goodness. Although I briefly panicked over the presence of scallions, I'm pretty sure I don't have hepatitis.
But, I digress.
Unlike the $17 travesty of Van Helsing, we made the smart move and actually waited until Taking Lives was at the dollar theater (but with the evening rates, it was THREE DOLLARS for two people. THREE DOLLARS!!! And people think the gas prices are bad!!). I'm still trying to decide if the money was worth it. Taking Lives is based on a book of the same name, which I looked up on Amazon on a lark and the book is completely different. It actually sounds way cooler. Someday I'm going to get it from the library and read it and post an update. But not right now, because I'm in the middle of like six different books, one of which is due back next week and I should just buy my own copy because it's taking me forever to get into and it's French history and there are way too many names I can't pronounce. The book--Taking Lives, not the one I'm currently reading--is apparently about an art dealer who is actually a serial killer who's killed the art dealer and taken over his life, and the private investigator looking for a stolen rare manuscript that the art dealer is supposedly an expert on (which he isn't, because he's the serial killer).
The movie actually gives the art dealer the name of the book's private investigator, Cabot, and you'd never know he's an art dealer. I think they may have said something about this at some point but so much random shit happens in this movie that they never explain. Him being an art dealer is just a side note to explain some other red herring's presence in the film anyway, so ignore it for a moment.
Anyway, Taking Lives has FBI Profiler Angelina Jolie called to Montreal by her friend and former Quantico classmate Tcheky Karyo to help with the investigation of a series of unsolved murders. The killer smashes in the victims' faces and cuts off the hands, leaving it almost impossible to identify the bodies. Fortunately, art dealer Ethan Hawke stops one of the mutilations, helping with the case and making himself a target for the killer. Of course, then he has sex with Angelina Jolie, because as Speed taught us, relationships based on intense experiences never work, so you have to base them on sex.
If I were teaching a film theory class on mysteries with surprise endings, this would be the film I'd use as an example of a big DON'T. I will enumerate for you some of the stupid shit in this movie that should not be done in a film supposedly supplying "twists and turns."
We begin at the beginning, with a young guy homo-erotically hitting it off with another young dude on a bus.
POINT ONE: If you decide to actually see the movie for yourself, THIS IS IN FACT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, AND NOT A TRAILER FOR TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE TWO.
This is an important part to remember. I guarantee you'll be confused for ten to fifteen minutes if you forget this. What should have been the real beginning of the movie involves Gena Rowlands complaining to the cops that she just saw her dead son on a cruise ship.
POINT TWO: IF YOU WANT THE KILLER TO BE A SURPRISE, DON'T HIRE A YOUNG ACTOR WHO LOOKS LIKE JUST LIKE THE DUDE PLAYING THE KILLER.
Seriously, I knew at the very beginning who the killer was because the kid in the Chainsaw trailer looked just like him. Hence another reason to totally get rid of that part.
POINT THREE: THE FILM TAKES PLACE IN MONTREAL, SO EVERYONE HAS REALLY THICK FRENCH-CANADIAN ACCENTS.
This has nothing to do with the plot of the film; it just pissed me off. The levels on either the print we saw or the theater sound system were fucked, meaning I had to strain to hear the dialogue. For some bizarre reason, even though this was in Canada very few people say "aboot." Trust me, I was paying attention. Otherwise I think I would have fallen asleep. Plus, this film was very unpatriotic, what with having France and Canada being represented in the same movie. Because we hate France and Canada.
POINT FOUR: ANGELINA JOLIE LOOKS AT A LOT OF STUFF, BUT NEVER EXPLAINS WHY SHE'S LOOKING AT IT.
Five minute close-up of someone's eye ball...five minute close-up of lace doilies...five minute close-up of my ass. None of this has any relevance to anything. Then the one thing she should have been paying attention to, Ethan Hawke's bruised knuckles, gets completely ignored. Apparently they don't make watching an episode of CSI or Law and Order a requirement at FBI school, otherwise she'd know that bruised knuckles mean struggle, usually with said knuckles dealing out the aforementioned struggle, hence making Ethan Hawke the killer. I know, there's more involved with crime solving. But we're not talking about a documentary.
POINT FIVE: THE FUNNY, SELF-DEPRECATING COP IS A TOTAL RED-SHIRT. ESPECIALLY WHEN HE VOLUNTEERS TO GO ON AN UNASSUMING MISSION ALONE.
Duval, we hardly knew ye.
POINT SIX: YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL THE TYPE OF MAN YOU'RE SEEING BY THE SEX: ROMANTIC = GOOD GUY; SLOPPY AND VIOLENT ON TOP OF FURNITURE NOT MEANT TO SUPPORT SEX WITH CLOTHES ON WHILE DOOR TO HOTEL HALLWAY WIDE OPEN = KILLER.
Seriously. They left the door open! That's at least a sign that he likes to kick puppies.
POINT SEVEN: STRONG, INTELLIGENT, ICY PROFESSIONAL WOMEN GET FUCKED, PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY.
What better way to punish a woman than to allow one moment of sexual happiness, followed by knowing the guy was the killer you've long sought. Cat, meet mouse.
POINT EIGHT: DUDE HAD A TWIN WHO DIED IN AN ACCIDENT.
Angelina Jolie thought this scarred the young man for life. I thought the dude killed him. I need a badge and a gun, I'm unstoppable!!!
POINT NINE: IT MAY SEEN LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO TROT OUT THE BIG NAME STAR NEAR THE END TO THROW THE AUDIENCE OFF THE TRAIL OF THE REAL KILLER, BUT INSTEAD IT'S MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE--KILLER DUDE THROWN IN NEAR THE END.
I HATE when the killer is someone no one mentions at all during the movie, like, "OH MY GOD, it was ol' hermit Wilson who lives in the hovel that we never even thought to mention until now because even though the original script had Michael Douglas's character as the killer his agent negotiated for a contract that forbid him to play any character that might reflect negatively on his real life persona so we had to re-write the script at the last minute and throw in this character that heretofore didn't exist." Whatever.
POINT TEN: SIMPSONS DID IT.
The best part of the movie was that Gena Rowlands apparently kept her surviving son locked in the basement, which totally reminded me of the treehouse of horror episode where Bart's a conjoined twin, and Hibbert separates them and Marge and Homer lock the supposedly evil one in the attic, but it turns out he was the nice one and Bart was the evil one. Why is everything reminding me of the Simpsons?
POINT ELEVEN: I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS CONNECTS WITH WHAT'S COME BEFORE, BUT THE END WAS REALLY WEIRD AND STUPID.
So it's seven months after Ethan Hawke escapes capture and Angelina Jolie had supposedly gotten knocked up during her romp with Ethan Hawke and she goes off to the middle of nowhere and gets this farmhouse that's totally uninhabitable and I think she totally told Ethan Hawke that she grew up in this middle of nowhere town earlier in the film and he comes to her house and says it took him a while to find her which was totally stupid because if I'd been him it totally would have been the first place I looked seeing as how there are only like a couple hundred people living in the town and they'd totally remember seeing Angelina Jolie buying toilet paper at the local market, because wouldn't you? And that's usually what people do in situations like that, they go back home. But anyway, he comes in and tells her he's been watching her and she's pregnant with twins isn't she, but she's totally not because she's way too small to be seven months pregnant with twins and unless she has a family history of twins she's probably not pregnant with twins because twins are usually passed through the mother. But I'm no scientist so I could be wrong. But it doesn't matter anyway because Ethan Hawke totally stabs her in the stomach saying she can't have his babies, but she's not really pregnant!!! It was a fake belly!!! So she stabs him back and kills him, telling him everything he saw she wanted him to see and he smiles an enigmatic smile before he dies which I think is supposed to mean that he's impressed by how she outfoxed him. Then she calls Tcheky and tells him it's all over. At which point Ethan Hawke totally should have COME BACK TO LIFE AND TRIED TO KILL HER AGAIN!!! But he doesn't. But that would have been cool. Anyway, stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach is pretty fucked up, especially after you just praised her obvious love for the children and her possible ability to raise both of them so that one doesn't kill the other and then go on a sociopathic rampage. But I may be reading too much into it.
POINT TWELVE: MY HUSBAND THOUGHT NAKED ANGELINA JOLIE WAS STUPID AND POINTLESS AND NOT AT ALL TITILLATING AND WAS INSTEAD DISTRACTING AND SILLY.
That should pretty much sum up the movie, and my review.
So the husband and I celebrated our 11th month wedding anniversary this month, and as things had been a little rough for us this week, we decided to go on a date. We'd not been out alone together on a "date date" for a while, so what better way to reconnect and rediscover your love for another by enjoying mutilated bodies, naked Angelina Jolie, and Taco Bell!!
One of these three things was awesome. I'm going to let you guess which one.
TACO BELL!!! Hubby got the Nachos BelGrande sans meat, so for the first time ever I was able to enjoy their crunchy, cheesy-cheese goodness. Although I briefly panicked over the presence of scallions, I'm pretty sure I don't have hepatitis.
But, I digress.
Unlike the $17 travesty of Van Helsing, we made the smart move and actually waited until Taking Lives was at the dollar theater (but with the evening rates, it was THREE DOLLARS for two people. THREE DOLLARS!!! And people think the gas prices are bad!!). I'm still trying to decide if the money was worth it. Taking Lives is based on a book of the same name, which I looked up on Amazon on a lark and the book is completely different. It actually sounds way cooler. Someday I'm going to get it from the library and read it and post an update. But not right now, because I'm in the middle of like six different books, one of which is due back next week and I should just buy my own copy because it's taking me forever to get into and it's French history and there are way too many names I can't pronounce. The book--Taking Lives, not the one I'm currently reading--is apparently about an art dealer who is actually a serial killer who's killed the art dealer and taken over his life, and the private investigator looking for a stolen rare manuscript that the art dealer is supposedly an expert on (which he isn't, because he's the serial killer).
The movie actually gives the art dealer the name of the book's private investigator, Cabot, and you'd never know he's an art dealer. I think they may have said something about this at some point but so much random shit happens in this movie that they never explain. Him being an art dealer is just a side note to explain some other red herring's presence in the film anyway, so ignore it for a moment.
Anyway, Taking Lives has FBI Profiler Angelina Jolie called to Montreal by her friend and former Quantico classmate Tcheky Karyo to help with the investigation of a series of unsolved murders. The killer smashes in the victims' faces and cuts off the hands, leaving it almost impossible to identify the bodies. Fortunately, art dealer Ethan Hawke stops one of the mutilations, helping with the case and making himself a target for the killer. Of course, then he has sex with Angelina Jolie, because as Speed taught us, relationships based on intense experiences never work, so you have to base them on sex.
If I were teaching a film theory class on mysteries with surprise endings, this would be the film I'd use as an example of a big DON'T. I will enumerate for you some of the stupid shit in this movie that should not be done in a film supposedly supplying "twists and turns."
We begin at the beginning, with a young guy homo-erotically hitting it off with another young dude on a bus.
POINT ONE: If you decide to actually see the movie for yourself, THIS IS IN FACT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, AND NOT A TRAILER FOR TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE TWO.
This is an important part to remember. I guarantee you'll be confused for ten to fifteen minutes if you forget this. What should have been the real beginning of the movie involves Gena Rowlands complaining to the cops that she just saw her dead son on a cruise ship.
POINT TWO: IF YOU WANT THE KILLER TO BE A SURPRISE, DON'T HIRE A YOUNG ACTOR WHO LOOKS LIKE JUST LIKE THE DUDE PLAYING THE KILLER.
Seriously, I knew at the very beginning who the killer was because the kid in the Chainsaw trailer looked just like him. Hence another reason to totally get rid of that part.
POINT THREE: THE FILM TAKES PLACE IN MONTREAL, SO EVERYONE HAS REALLY THICK FRENCH-CANADIAN ACCENTS.
This has nothing to do with the plot of the film; it just pissed me off. The levels on either the print we saw or the theater sound system were fucked, meaning I had to strain to hear the dialogue. For some bizarre reason, even though this was in Canada very few people say "aboot." Trust me, I was paying attention. Otherwise I think I would have fallen asleep. Plus, this film was very unpatriotic, what with having France and Canada being represented in the same movie. Because we hate France and Canada.
POINT FOUR: ANGELINA JOLIE LOOKS AT A LOT OF STUFF, BUT NEVER EXPLAINS WHY SHE'S LOOKING AT IT.
Five minute close-up of someone's eye ball...five minute close-up of lace doilies...five minute close-up of my ass. None of this has any relevance to anything. Then the one thing she should have been paying attention to, Ethan Hawke's bruised knuckles, gets completely ignored. Apparently they don't make watching an episode of CSI or Law and Order a requirement at FBI school, otherwise she'd know that bruised knuckles mean struggle, usually with said knuckles dealing out the aforementioned struggle, hence making Ethan Hawke the killer. I know, there's more involved with crime solving. But we're not talking about a documentary.
POINT FIVE: THE FUNNY, SELF-DEPRECATING COP IS A TOTAL RED-SHIRT. ESPECIALLY WHEN HE VOLUNTEERS TO GO ON AN UNASSUMING MISSION ALONE.
Duval, we hardly knew ye.
POINT SIX: YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL THE TYPE OF MAN YOU'RE SEEING BY THE SEX: ROMANTIC = GOOD GUY; SLOPPY AND VIOLENT ON TOP OF FURNITURE NOT MEANT TO SUPPORT SEX WITH CLOTHES ON WHILE DOOR TO HOTEL HALLWAY WIDE OPEN = KILLER.
Seriously. They left the door open! That's at least a sign that he likes to kick puppies.
POINT SEVEN: STRONG, INTELLIGENT, ICY PROFESSIONAL WOMEN GET FUCKED, PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY.
What better way to punish a woman than to allow one moment of sexual happiness, followed by knowing the guy was the killer you've long sought. Cat, meet mouse.
POINT EIGHT: DUDE HAD A TWIN WHO DIED IN AN ACCIDENT.
Angelina Jolie thought this scarred the young man for life. I thought the dude killed him. I need a badge and a gun, I'm unstoppable!!!
POINT NINE: IT MAY SEEN LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO TROT OUT THE BIG NAME STAR NEAR THE END TO THROW THE AUDIENCE OFF THE TRAIL OF THE REAL KILLER, BUT INSTEAD IT'S MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE--KILLER DUDE THROWN IN NEAR THE END.
I HATE when the killer is someone no one mentions at all during the movie, like, "OH MY GOD, it was ol' hermit Wilson who lives in the hovel that we never even thought to mention until now because even though the original script had Michael Douglas's character as the killer his agent negotiated for a contract that forbid him to play any character that might reflect negatively on his real life persona so we had to re-write the script at the last minute and throw in this character that heretofore didn't exist." Whatever.
POINT TEN: SIMPSONS DID IT.
The best part of the movie was that Gena Rowlands apparently kept her surviving son locked in the basement, which totally reminded me of the treehouse of horror episode where Bart's a conjoined twin, and Hibbert separates them and Marge and Homer lock the supposedly evil one in the attic, but it turns out he was the nice one and Bart was the evil one. Why is everything reminding me of the Simpsons?
POINT ELEVEN: I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS CONNECTS WITH WHAT'S COME BEFORE, BUT THE END WAS REALLY WEIRD AND STUPID.
So it's seven months after Ethan Hawke escapes capture and Angelina Jolie had supposedly gotten knocked up during her romp with Ethan Hawke and she goes off to the middle of nowhere and gets this farmhouse that's totally uninhabitable and I think she totally told Ethan Hawke that she grew up in this middle of nowhere town earlier in the film and he comes to her house and says it took him a while to find her which was totally stupid because if I'd been him it totally would have been the first place I looked seeing as how there are only like a couple hundred people living in the town and they'd totally remember seeing Angelina Jolie buying toilet paper at the local market, because wouldn't you? And that's usually what people do in situations like that, they go back home. But anyway, he comes in and tells her he's been watching her and she's pregnant with twins isn't she, but she's totally not because she's way too small to be seven months pregnant with twins and unless she has a family history of twins she's probably not pregnant with twins because twins are usually passed through the mother. But I'm no scientist so I could be wrong. But it doesn't matter anyway because Ethan Hawke totally stabs her in the stomach saying she can't have his babies, but she's not really pregnant!!! It was a fake belly!!! So she stabs him back and kills him, telling him everything he saw she wanted him to see and he smiles an enigmatic smile before he dies which I think is supposed to mean that he's impressed by how she outfoxed him. Then she calls Tcheky and tells him it's all over. At which point Ethan Hawke totally should have COME BACK TO LIFE AND TRIED TO KILL HER AGAIN!!! But he doesn't. But that would have been cool. Anyway, stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach is pretty fucked up, especially after you just praised her obvious love for the children and her possible ability to raise both of them so that one doesn't kill the other and then go on a sociopathic rampage. But I may be reading too much into it.
POINT TWELVE: MY HUSBAND THOUGHT NAKED ANGELINA JOLIE WAS STUPID AND POINTLESS AND NOT AT ALL TITILLATING AND WAS INSTEAD DISTRACTING AND SILLY.
That should pretty much sum up the movie, and my review.
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
my firest entry--A REVIEW OF VAN HELSING
SPOILERS!!!
Van Helsing would have been an awesome dollar movie. It was laughably bad; I was smiling when I left, but only because it was so ridiculous. For example, here's an exchange my brother Eddy and I had when describing the movie to our mom
Me: "The worst part of the movie--"
Eddy: "You mean there's one part you can single out?"
Me: "The part of the film that betrayed all that is good and holy was when Hugh Jackman turned back into a human from being a werewolf and his pants were still on."
Yes, Van Helsing is bitten by a werewolf. You pretty much know going in that Dracula can only be killed by a werewolf, which is stupid because if he can be killed like that, then how the hell does Van Helsing's descendant Abraham go after him in the book? But ignoring that, I doubt I'm spoiling anything for you because you literally know like 15 minutes into the movie that's what痴 going to happen, because one of the main characters, who is also a vampire hunter, gets bitten and I was for a second thinking he was going to kill Dracula but then I realized I was watching a Hollywood movie and the death of Dracula surely had to involve that scene in the trailer where Hugh Jackman takes his shirt off, and sure enough it does. But not his pants. Which I've already mentioned is a crime.
So anyway, the movie, which already requires quite a suspension of disbelief, then asks us to remove whatever brains we may have left and drop them into our popcorn tubs. Kate Beckinsdale, who has survived all manner of falling from three story buildings, falling from tall trees and hitting very large branches on the way down, being dropped from great heights by flying vampires, etc, etc, etc, dies when Hugh Jackman's werewolf sits on her.
He sits on her.
Let me stress this again. He sits on her, and he kills her. But she of course in her last dying act gives him the werewolf antidote, so he's fine, and also still wearing his pants. And he just killed the love of his life that he knew for all of like two days by sitting on her. Maybe he farted on her, too; they don't really get into it.
So then Eddy and I, after I snort, turn to each other and exclaim, OH NO THEY ARE SO NOT GOING THERE!!! But then they do, for the next scene spliced into the movie is the end of return of the jedi. Hugh Jackman is cremating Darth Vader next to the beautiful sea, because during the one solitary moment of calm in the whole film Vader for absolutely no reason whatsoever very gravely told Hugh she'd never been to the sea, what with fighting Dracula and all that. Apparently though she and her family weren't REALLY fighting Dracula because he only killed like one or two people a month. Or so the town mortician said. BUT ANYWHOO, Hugh cremates Kate, and then Eddy and I again turn to one another and exclaim, OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO NOT ALSO GOING TO GO THERE TOO, knowing full well they were, and sure enough Vader appears among the clouds with Yoda and Ben and her whole family who are all in Heaven having unsuccessfully battled Dracula even though he apparently wasn't that bad of a guy. What with only killing two people a month.
So Eddy and I left the theater, giggling insanely and saying LUKE, SIMBA, THIS IS CNN over and over and over. Maybe I'm getting old; maybe wasting $8.50 a ticket is getting to be too much. GO SEE PUNISHER instead. That movie KICKS ASS.
--kelmeister
(on edit: a friend writes, "that movie made 52 million opening wknd!! how is that possible?" my only answer: america's on crack. and they all thought they'd see hugh jackman without pants. at least, that's what i thought, and you know how that turned out.)
Van Helsing would have been an awesome dollar movie. It was laughably bad; I was smiling when I left, but only because it was so ridiculous. For example, here's an exchange my brother Eddy and I had when describing the movie to our mom
Me: "The worst part of the movie--"
Eddy: "You mean there's one part you can single out?"
Me: "The part of the film that betrayed all that is good and holy was when Hugh Jackman turned back into a human from being a werewolf and his pants were still on."
Yes, Van Helsing is bitten by a werewolf. You pretty much know going in that Dracula can only be killed by a werewolf, which is stupid because if he can be killed like that, then how the hell does Van Helsing's descendant Abraham go after him in the book? But ignoring that, I doubt I'm spoiling anything for you because you literally know like 15 minutes into the movie that's what痴 going to happen, because one of the main characters, who is also a vampire hunter, gets bitten and I was for a second thinking he was going to kill Dracula but then I realized I was watching a Hollywood movie and the death of Dracula surely had to involve that scene in the trailer where Hugh Jackman takes his shirt off, and sure enough it does. But not his pants. Which I've already mentioned is a crime.
So anyway, the movie, which already requires quite a suspension of disbelief, then asks us to remove whatever brains we may have left and drop them into our popcorn tubs. Kate Beckinsdale, who has survived all manner of falling from three story buildings, falling from tall trees and hitting very large branches on the way down, being dropped from great heights by flying vampires, etc, etc, etc, dies when Hugh Jackman's werewolf sits on her.
He sits on her.
Let me stress this again. He sits on her, and he kills her. But she of course in her last dying act gives him the werewolf antidote, so he's fine, and also still wearing his pants. And he just killed the love of his life that he knew for all of like two days by sitting on her. Maybe he farted on her, too; they don't really get into it.
So then Eddy and I, after I snort, turn to each other and exclaim, OH NO THEY ARE SO NOT GOING THERE!!! But then they do, for the next scene spliced into the movie is the end of return of the jedi. Hugh Jackman is cremating Darth Vader next to the beautiful sea, because during the one solitary moment of calm in the whole film Vader for absolutely no reason whatsoever very gravely told Hugh she'd never been to the sea, what with fighting Dracula and all that. Apparently though she and her family weren't REALLY fighting Dracula because he only killed like one or two people a month. Or so the town mortician said. BUT ANYWHOO, Hugh cremates Kate, and then Eddy and I again turn to one another and exclaim, OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO NOT ALSO GOING TO GO THERE TOO, knowing full well they were, and sure enough Vader appears among the clouds with Yoda and Ben and her whole family who are all in Heaven having unsuccessfully battled Dracula even though he apparently wasn't that bad of a guy. What with only killing two people a month.
So Eddy and I left the theater, giggling insanely and saying LUKE, SIMBA, THIS IS CNN over and over and over. Maybe I'm getting old; maybe wasting $8.50 a ticket is getting to be too much. GO SEE PUNISHER instead. That movie KICKS ASS.
--kelmeister
(on edit: a friend writes, "that movie made 52 million opening wknd!! how is that possible?" my only answer: america's on crack. and they all thought they'd see hugh jackman without pants. at least, that's what i thought, and you know how that turned out.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)