Paper
Street Cinema
Films reviewed in
August
2003
(Last Updated 11/30/03)
By Greg Douglass
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Open
Range 8/20/2003 |
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A couple of months
ago it was a different story. It was me saying that the musical was a
lively yet neglected genre that should be embraced. I got my wish, and
then some—expect the Gaydar to go off the charts with a deluge of
upcoming Chicago/Moulin Rouge!/American Idol-posing films that
finally see the inexhaustible dollar signs in the genre of music cover
movies. Translation: the studios are going to over saturate the market
with one brassy dance number after another. I find myself a little off
topic but after this film what crossed my mind was that a few years ago,
along with the musical, there was another great American genre that was
in danger of going extinct. The Western. And if there’s any justice in
this cruel, cruel world, Open Range will be the Chicago of
this year. |
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open range A- Fresh (critics that liked it): 108+me Rotten: 32 |
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Freddy
vs. Jason 8/22/2003 |
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People are calling it “Freddy vs. Silicone” which gives me a great indication of how neither the audience nor the filmmakers could take this film's content seriously. Had either done so, this novelty flick would have been a disaster. From a mythology standpoint there could have been a million better ways to tell the tale of why Freddy chose to fight Jason, and no doubt most of them would have been better than the one New Line Cinema settled with. Joseph Campbell approved this film is not but even if it could have been a cerebral manifestation of horror mythology, why would it want to be? Both franchises have always been about the exploitation of blood and sex. Low costs, high dividends, not enriching storytelling. But it’s not that Freddy vs. Jason is a sup-par slasher film, its just that it feels like a sub par slasher flick which is exactly the point.
The
film’s plot—if you could call it that—revolves around an inexplicably
re-re-re-re-re-reincarnated Freddy who attempts to return Jason’s soul
from hell (why?) back to his lumbering hockey mask body, then to trick Jason into
scaring up young teens in his old Nightmare on Elm Street
haunting grounds (wha?!) because this will, um, give a spiritually weak
Freddy power again so he can, uh, reign supreme in his idealized, woman-killing dream world
(wait, wha, why?!) and this inciting incident leads to a silly-beyond-all-reason hack-saw and machete murder scenario involving sexually
charged teens, a "special" band of which
amazingly “figure out” exactly what Freddy and Jason are up to with
uncanny amount of efficiency and faith in the unknown—it’s almost as if they’ve read the ten-page
script. As muddled as the plot grew, I didn’t much care because I
watched in guilty pleasure awe as the cast of six or so got mowed down
in one hilariously bloody scene after another. In the end, the film’s
fetishistic view towards big breasted dead women and teen horror
blood-play is just an excuse to get to the payoff where only two remain.
A bland James Franco look-alike (Jason Ritter) who has all the wooden personality of,
well, James Franco, and the film’s main character played by the
diminutive but (surgically) endowed Barby doll, Monica Keena and
the two are left to
do nothing but watch Freddy and Jason go at it (in the non-sexual way...
I think)
as they do an unconvincing job at acting surprised. Character's in the
film never really question the fact that these are creatures from hell
and how they are perhaps walking proof of a hellish afterlife (have sex
before marriage and you go there too) but, again, why should they
pretend as if they are real people--Rosemary's Baby this is not.
They are fodder, here for our salacious gaze and here to be stepped on.
Wonky motivation aside, as Jason and Freddy separately (then conjointly) paint the town crimson red with their antiquated and, like, totally misdirected blade wielding rage, the film offers some stupefying 80s-esq exploitation as we see one fake breasted girl after another get gruesomely murdered. "Yuck," any sane person might say but hold on. Granted, the film has a sicko personality, and the misogyny is quite appalling if taken literally but I want to know who's taking this pap seriously? Not the enthralled and grinning audience I saw the film with. Fact is, I too was on the fence until this film refreshed my memory that that the vulgar 80’s teen cinematic ethos was where all that ultraviolet, post Vietnam shame, Regan inspired shit started and this film is quite the comedy of (kill)errs. The film is poised for a Gigli-esq barrage of criticism but I say Freddy Vs. Jason is merely paying hilarious homage to a (thankfully) passed era. So yes, like Terminator 3 know that this is a once totally serious film that in these times could only be made as a comedy; to take the film literally is to hate it. That the film had me laughing and whooping at its ridiculous discourse is not to be disputed. But was this the intention? Perhaps calling this film anything close to a satire is giving it too much credit. Did Ronny Yu really want me to laugh at the sight of Freddy pulling a girls nose off while saying “ARGH, got your nose!”? God I hope so because if this is not a comic horror film, if my laughter towards this film content was inappropriate, then these filmmakers are demented fucks. The film’s ripe strong point is right there in the title, Freddy VS. Jason. The gravity of this horror icon meets horror icon novelty holds what was a tattered film together and never wears off. There are major problems, though. Forget the teen melodrama trash, the film soars thanks to Robert England’s self-effacing menace; that is not to be disputed. But when it came time for the pivotal battle, my heart belonged to the trickster Freddy besting that lump of dead weight, Jason, I would have been happy to see either win for the sheer bravery of pissing off one film’s dorky fan base. But that’s the thing (spoiler ahead) the film doesn’t commit to a winner. I must say that it felt like a knife clawed slap in the face when a film called Freddy VS Jason chickens out and fails to let either monster win. Or, rather, is too kind and let's both monsters win. Lame. After the battle is over there is a surreal prologue where the supposed victor rises out of a misty lake, Apocalypse Now style, holding the head of the supposed looser but then, oh wait, we learn the looser isn't really dead (his head winks at us as the film irises out) and so the supposed victor may really be dreaming, thus making him the victor and the looser... oh sweet irony! All I'm saying is that the meaning of last shot declares the match to be a draw, and this totally negates the reason everybody saw the film. The preposition "versus" implies a winner and the only real winner here is New Line for they now have another franchise which they can milk the life out of. And believe me, next summer we'll will be seeing More Freddy Vs. Jason and I guarantee a Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Austin Powers. Throughout the first half of the film I checked the ticket stub to see if this was really titled Freddy and Jason, for the vs. was nowhere to be seen until the last quarter of the story gives us long aged horror fans something to scream about. The film takes a little too long to built up to what the title promises. The sublimely absurd sight of Freddy beating the holy shit out of Jason and vice versa. But once it does, well, for anyone raised on trashy eighties cinema, words can’t express the sight of these two giants engaged in mortal combat. |
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freddy vs. jason B- Fresh (critics that liked it): 47+me Rotten: 68 |
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S.W.A.T. 8/13/2003 |
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S.W.A.T. turned out to be the most exciting film I saw all summer… and then the second half commenced and pissed an acidy stream of action-y junk all over my once grinning face. And while the first half of this film may have indeed represented the best out of a lot of crumby summer movies, the second half joins the ranks of every other crumby summer movie. Too bad. In the early scenes, S.W.A.T. creates a dizzyingly realistic world of cops and robbers under pressure as we see an assembled team of elite SWAT officers –an eclectic and rag tag bunch; the hot head, the brave hero, the tough as nails chick, the family guy cop doomed to die… bla bla, you know the deal— that arduously train in hopes of solving problematic situations and defending the City of Angels from… Alien scum who seek to colonize human bodies as an energy source that will fuel they’re space crafts and lead to world domination and bad sequels. Er, there may be no aliens (unless you count Michelle Rodriguez as… not funny Greg, drop the joke, drop it now), but considering the quality of the anything-goes last half of the story, there might as well have been. The ubiquitous (and strangely bearable) Colin Farrell stars as the tenacious, spiky haired hero that lost his cool in an early scene when he and his renegade partner (Jeremy Renner from an Angel season one) went against protocol only to get demoted by the stock ass-hole captain, only to transition his life into a beyond cheesy 80’s "Eye of the Tiger" working out montage where a running (and, he he, vomiting) Farrell looks more like Rocky than Martin Riggs, only to get promoted once again by Dan 'Hondo' Harrelson (Sammy Jackson in full Bad Motherfucker mode) who is heading up a new SWAT team commissioned to clean up the streets and has a purely hetero vibe thing going for Farrell's character. Barebones as it is this is a fine premise held together by a solid production so why, then, by the end of it all was I thinking: after Daredevil, The Recruit, Phone Booth and this film, four Colin Farrell moves down, a thousand to go? So, yeah, the first half dazzled me with it's meticulous attention to the officer's training scenes and being someone who loves tactics based games such as "Rainbow Six," "Ghost Recon," "Splinter Cell" and "Metal Gear Solid" (I'm a dork, I even bought the VR training missions and expansion packs) I was on board with this picture, amazed that a Hollywood “action” film could be exciting while still being more about procedure and split second techniques and gut instinct than bang-bang action. The early scenes where we see this newly assembled S.W.A.T. team training their cocky asses off and picking locks and looking at schematics had me reeling with joy until the anvil dropped. At a certain point, the realism of this world's action grew further and further away from authentic movie reality to the point where this film’s portrayal of Los Angeles makes the place look like a post apocalyptic wasteland where marshal law is in effect and criminals own the street with a mighty grip--well, okay, L.A. is like that anyway but you get my point. After the entrance of Oliver Martinez, an incarcerated crime lord who offers a “hundre-millio dolles” to any good citizen that will bust his French fanny out of this jam. The LAPD's collective arses puckers as every gang banger in L.A., tats/baggy pants and all, bafflingly turn all high-tec on us during one of the worst scenes of the year where the T.W.A.T. lovin' gangsta mo-fos all amazingly coordinate their thug-like attacks; i.e. nerdy white screenwriters attempt to ghettoize the script and add "cool" minority types. This is thankfully a short scene but it indicates how far gone this film is. Besides the obvious stupidity in the sight of L.A. gangsters acting like an organized crime syndicate, how logical is it that the police would first advertise that there moving this high profile criminal and allow the brothas ambush a squad of heavily armed police guards transporting the precious cargo IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY and after one of their helicopters was already shot down... all those wasted lives and all that trouble was just a rouse anyway for the real SWAT guys were moving Martinez underground anyways! Are you getting an idea of why I hate this film yet? I mean, this is not Clear In Present Danger in da Hood it's a cop movie with too much ambition. This film should have listened to that dude from Pride and Predigest who said "simplify, simplify." That cargo being guarded by the cops is the scowling and insincere Alex Montel (Oliver) and this silly character ruined the film (where's Richard Gear when you need him) and had the S.W.A.T. team I once loved running around the city looking damn stupid. This entirely unnecessary subplot of L.A. vs. the S.W.A.T. guys usurps the last half of the picture in a way that would make Donald Kauffman proud. The real sting comes when I realized that the first half was not a intended to be a thoughtful look into how real S.W.A.T. officers do their real jobs, but preparation for a action laden and truly mindless last half whose flights of bullet dodging fancy betrays every scene we’ve seen leading up to it. The early scenes, like the almost great GI Jane, create a frank look into something we don’t get to seen enough in action films. Tactics. Both films create high wire tension in their respective training scenes and, unfortunately, both are once intelligent thrillers that get corrupted by these studio idiots listening to a deadbeat audience's test screening reaction, which probably stated things like "Moure big action less talking stuff." In S.W.A.T., the unhurried plot and likable characters mind meld as they morph into a belligerently unbelievable action scenario that take you out of the picture. Remember the lamo end of Sum of All Fears where Mr. Gigli Affleck, playing Jack Ryan, goes from pencil pushing analyst to a buff action hero? Well the events of this film are even more farfetched than that for we have been tossed the scraps of a noisy action film coda. But hey, don’t be saying I’m too hard on action movies! I love em’. Love even the illogical ones because all that needs to be accomplished in a film like, say, Con Air is for it to play by the rules it created within the world these characters exist. Con Air may be impetuous and silly but it’s consistent and that goes a long way with me. Look, if a film like Con Air had started off as realistically as S.W.A.T. did, it too would have failed to gain my respect. As is, films like Air --or other faithful action films I'm embarrassed to say I liked: Blue Streak, Resident Evil, Vertical Limit, Spy Kids 2, Hannibal etc.-- get a reverent pass while this hypocritical film has a lot more to answer for. It’s a shame that S.W.A.T. choose to cheat with an absurdly lame ending that breaks the rules it established—scenes take place in, huh, a downtown L.A. subway station!!! A few guys actually stage a successful prison break, Montel is free and totally rid of the cops but instead of hiding out for a couple of days, the supposedly smart bad guys that broke him free hire a plane to land ON A FREEWAY for everybody to see!!!! And how could I forget the scene where bats-- yeah BATS, as in flying mammals of the order Chiroptera-- attack the S.W.A.T. guys!!!!!!!!!! Who wrote this shit? I've totally been repeating myself but, one last time: if S.W.A.T. wanted to be an overkill action picture, more power to it. But it should have not wasted our time and money and decided to be that kind of movie from the start. Problem is, then I might have actually liked the film and considering the quality of movies this summer, we can't have happening. |
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s.w.a.t. C- |
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American Splendor 8/12/2003 |
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As biopics go American Splendor applies a surprisingly crafty and unconventional approach to a conventional landscape. And this is coming from someone who listens to Love Line and is as happy as a pig in shit whilst sifting through BS to find meaningful resonance in even the most mundane and private aspects of people's (and especially character's) lives. As such, American Splendor is the kind of explosive art house film that’s fascinating in that it takes the scope and grandiose narrative of a culturally relevant biography yet the content focuses on an everyman slob from Cleveland who’s never really done anything extraordinary yet writes himself into a comic book. This comic book "hero" makes no apologies about being a wheezy bastard who has been made popular for the sole reason that he is is a wheezy bastard with a keen eye and some great stories to tell. Long gone are the days of those larger-than-life, mythically sketched-out historic figures like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) or Joan of Arc (1927). Real people like that can’t exist in hero-less times like this anyways because you show me a "hero" and I'll show you a dozen malcontent groups just waiting to bomb the shit out of them. Accordingly, this film proves that in a modern age where there is no real truth and no real heroism, a character like Harvey Pekar unintentionally captures the modern malaise and hopeless state of being… yet through the spirit of his mundanely virtuous comics, still makes us laugh at how inconsequential the great void of our lives are. But the film is not negative because while Pekar skewers the suburban life of conformity he is celebrating the richness of those brave enough to be an individuals in the same breath. A great moral and an amazingly complicated feet to boot. What else can one say about liking a film that ends with these closely paraphrased sentiments “Well that’s the end of my story. I’m still poor, I haven’t done much in life, and if I’m lucky I’ll have another ten good years before I drop dead.” Exaggerated pessimism at its best? Wry sarcasm? Whatever you want to call it I loved it. This move isn’t really about anything but the main character, who in turn is not about anything either. I love that notion. Paul Giamatti, in an Oscar worthy performance plays Pekar the iconoclastic hospital file clerk who writes (not draws, wrights) comic books that detail the events of his day-to-day existence to ease the lonely misery that is his life (kind of like what I do when I redirect my angst and apply my misplaced rage on Gigli). Here is most uncommon comic book movie hero since Bruce Willis donned that janitor's cape in the straight-A brilliant Unbreakable. In American Splendor, a tickling story about an underground comic book misanthrope, we see Harvey’s life take many turns but give the film credit for not glorifying or whitewashing any of the events. Harvey is no savior. He knows no answers and has no overall plan. Harvey is just Harvey. The film could have been title Curb Your Enthusiasm for actor Paul Giamatti and the films two directors have the uncanny ability of making boring events touching, funny and perhaps even thrillingly poignant. Also, like Adaptation, that deliciously self reflexive meta-comedy about the process of creating art and getting utterly lost and disenfranchised in the creation of our art, American Splendor is a film that blends “real life” elements within this cinematic non-fic universe. Peppered throughout the film are documentary-like scenes where we see the actual Harvey Pekar, in documentary fashion, as he tells us about his real life while giving us insights and interpretations of events being depicted in the film. In a stroke of postmod brilliance, Harvey is the film's narrator and at various points he will mention thinks like the fact that Paul Giamatti, the actor playing him, “looks nothing like me.” Folks, you can’t get more postmodern than that. As we get to know this fastidious character's eternal annoyances and phobias towards modern living (from food stores to dumb-ass movies like Revenge of the Nerds, Harvey rages against the machine a lot), we gain insight into the method of an obsessive compulsive artist; his dejected “plebian” friend (a very funny Judah Friedlander) and alienated family members (a great Hope Davis) love the guy yet, like us, find his eccentricities hard to swallow. Any well adjusted person will ask can any mortal man be this bitter? As someone with a lot of experience in being "too negative" I have the answer and it's a resounding yes. So like most postmodern romps, the film is always up for reminding us that, yes, this is a movie and, yes, we should take note that the characters we are watching are Actors (in the James Lipton sense of the word), yet unlike the film Adaptation, what we are watching is, get this, a movie that knows it’s a movie about stuff that really happened outside of this move--and by the end of this movie, in the movie too for American Splendor shows how this movie has affected the real Harvey's non-movie life. I just confused myself, irony sucks, but my point is that the film's structure deftly weaves in and out of reality and the the director's visualization of meshing fiction with Peker's comic book sketches is flat out fascinating. At one point, the animated comic book Harvey pops up on the screen and screams at Paul Giamatti's Harvey for being a stupid slob-- now why couldn't the comic book Daredevil have made a cameo and bitch slapped the weave off Gigli Affleck's massive noggin? More than anything to be gained from the failed comic book exterior of a similar (in style) film like Hulk, this film successfully leaps off the pages and works its antiestablishmentarianism magic on us. |
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american splendor A- |
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Thirteen
8/12/2003 |
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I AM NEVER GOING TO HAVE CHILDREN! |
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thirteen B- |
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Gigli
8/09/2003 |
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Where to begin? I wish modern performers got a taste of the wrath of live renaissance theater. If you, as an performer, do your job right the audience will respect you. If not, they let you know it, fast. It’s too easy to swindle audiences these days. Any millionaire boob can choose an abysmal project, get paid handsomely for their “services” and after the shit storm hits, hide in the comfort of a posh home until everybody forgets their crimes against cinema. I just, I don’t know, I feel Ben, Jennifer and director Martin Brest need to be punished. Pelt them with various fruits and vegetables like they did in the old times. Some measure of physical pain must be brought upon their bodies for what they have done to us with this film. I suppose the modern equivalent could be that we could pelt them with our cell phones when we see them ogling for the cameras on Sunset Blvd. Before I get into specifics I must confess that the film led me to commit a crime. It’s been a while since I did it but Gigli made me return to my thieving ways. The nicest thing I heard about this film was that it was “un-releasable,” which, considering all the other un-releasable films that I've seen this year, was saying something. With that in mind, after I had just gotten out of of a seven PM showing of American Wedding, I saw that the only showing of Gigli that would be played all day at the multiplex was starting in ten minutes. I then jumped at the chance to steal this movie. On came my best burgling face as I not-so-casually sneaked into the movie that’s being hailed as “the worst film since Pearl Harbor.” So, yes, while I am a firm believer in the movie theater honor code, I made an exception. Yet guilt is not what I’m feeling. Anger is. You see, I didn’t steal from Sony, they have stolen from me. My time! So bring it on, let the MPAA authorities come and get me, I could make a case –take it to the supreme court if needs be—that Gigli is so incompetent and void of any entertainment value that not asking for you money back is an insult to common aesthetic decency. Think about it. You go to a restaurant and order some marinated chicken dinner. If the restaurant instead decides to hands you that little poodle turd from American Wedding and call it, as Julius from "Pulp Fiction" said, "gourmet shit," should you the patron have to pay? To put it another way, if enough votes can attempt to recall the governorship of some moronic twit in California who didn’t do his job, then can’t moviegoers demand a recall of their hard earned money and possibly sue due to the emotional distress caused by a film like Gigli? I say yes and I'd like anyone who paid for the film to sign my petition. I am killing time because toil in the exact method in writing about a film like Gigli. A dialogue would be more advantageous in the case of a film like this. Some shit talking session where one party says that they they hated most about the film and another party either agrees or comes up with an even more putrid scene from the movie. "How bad was the scene with the fish eating the brain?” One could say and be retorted with “Bad but not nearly as awful as that cow/bull speech. Or how about the scene where Affleck praised his gentiles?.” Then the conversation should move on to studios that allow mediocre directors like Martin Brest final cut. Talk about how it sucks that now Kevin Smith, a director that needs all the help he can get, and his new film (also with Ben and Lopez) will suffer as a result of this fiasco. And, of course, end with an assault on how annoying Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are now in their bloated sense of stardom and egregious self love. On and on you trying to comprehend what we just saw. So bring a date because the surefire mutual hatred of the film has a way of bring any two people closer together and perhaps --to widen the scope a bit-- unite a nation, and a world--whatever color you are, whatever god you bow down to, the species can all agree that this film sucks. Gigli is so confused as to what it is that you watch nearly every scene, unaware of what's supposed to be funny and what is intended to be horribly unsettling. Fact is, I have now seen the year’s first true fascinatingly bad film and by that I mean the film’s only redeeming values lie in figuring how a forty million dollar Hollywood film could be this utterly inept and successfully alienating. Scene after scene—besides dragging on far too long—contain that same awkward grandiosity as Charlie's Angels 2; except—and I cant believe I am about to compliment Charlie's Angels 2-- at least we knew Charlie's Angels was an action/comedy –hey, that wasn’t so hard-- this film, well, not sure what it is, what the man-hating director was trying to say, and why, for that matter, it was ever made in the first palce. The film exists to praise how fabulous these characters (and actors) are yet it fails to make them or the plot engaging, likable, or believable. Studio head Joe Roth should have cut his losses and released the film straight to video; no, straight to cable. Or, if I may offer up the solution of a Nazi-esq bonfire where every print of this damned film is purged form history’s records. My final solution would be: instead of knowing releasing a film of this inferior quality (an act as bad as anything done by this country in the Iran Contra affair) the studio should have instead turned the cameras on us and released a recording of the reactions of a besieged audience duped into seeing a test screening of this film. After all, watching two hours of the audience’s reaction to this film would be far more interesting than anything that's actually in the film. Plus, by watching people watch this movie the film's genre could have been more definable as it could be changed from present "romantic-comedy" state to horror due to the ghastly expression of any soft chair prisoner unlucky enough to have been in a position to see this piece of pretentious dreck. But I haven’t gotten to the part where I toil--I'm not reviewing the film, all I'm really doing is saying over and over again how much I hate it. Problem is, there’s no fresh insight I can give. No new way of calling crap like this crap when it is so uniformly agreed to be crap. This review, when compared to the other (probably better written) “real” reviews linked on rottentomatoes.com all basically say the same thing unless your Roger Ebert who inexplicably gave this film half a star less than Godfather II. But other than a few paid-off critics, most sane people bashed the film in an array of new yet not so inventive ways, and so here I am doing the same. The film is trash. Uh huh. The film is laughably incompetent. Yup, heard that one before too. Poorly acted by fat butt and pancake head. Well, that's a given but it's also ugly. Stupid. Uh, full of kaka smelly poopy pants… Gigli ultimate flaw is that as romantic/thriller/black comedies go, we gain no insights into romance, the mob, we are not thrilled and are wholeheartedly unsure about why I should be laughing with black comedy that's so black and muddled that it can’t even be seen. As a convoluted and uncommonly boring mob movie about a confused lesbian and block head stealing the Rain Man brother of a cop investigating a New York Mobster, J Lo is unconvincing as a hit woman and a lesbian and Ben Affleck is unconvincing as both a hit man and, well a man. Not only is there no chemistry, which any qualified critic or audience member will tell you, but worse yet, there’s not plot to cushion the lack of chemistry. I just saw The Truth About Charlie DVD yesterday and while the couple in that film (Markey Mark and Thandie Newton) also have no tangible chemistry, the film still works quite well because at least the plot is appealing and the director, Jonathan Demmie, uses his great technical skill as a director to mask the fact that there is no chemistry on screen. Rather than getting into the details of the film's moronic plot and silly character arcs I will instead list my five least favorite scenes.
Dark comedies can offer a refreshing break from the norm of dreary action movies. Author Elmore Leonard does dark mob comedies like nobodies business. And from cinematic adaptations of his work ranging from Get Shorty to Out of Sight to Jacky Brown (originally titled Rum Punch) the author's style has inspired directors like Quentin Tarantino with his use of dark and gruesomely funny narratives that unfold through the exquisitely guttural poetry spilling from the character’s mouths. Gigli tries for that but the director (Brest) is so impotent at his job that a California governorship is sure to be in his cards. Yes, I believe Tarantino could have made the sight of a fish eating a chunk of splattered brain work. Soderbergh could have too. The bloody cranial deaths seen in Pulp and Out of Sight were shockingly revolting, yes, but funny in their absolute sense of swift comic absurdities--the line "Man, I shot Marvin in the face." from Pulp and Clooney's reaction shot from Out of Sight are both classic reactions to the gag-inducing development of someone, um, loosing their heads. Yet the violence and humor does not work in this film and that is precisely because this maladroit mess of a story has no identify and therefore no right to go out on a limb and expect us to sympathize with its characters. Unlike a story from Leonard or Tarantino this film gives no insight into the milieu of these people’s lives and jobs. We get no sense of who they are besides two big headed celebrities in their "look at us" vanity project. The film doesn’t so much try to explore the comic possibilities of a bullheaded thug, a dike and a retard getting together and hiding out in an apartment for two endless hours and it doesn’t really try to give us an understanding of what motivates these humans (maybe the film would have worked if it was more contained and personal, as in the similar but worlds better locked-in-the-apartment/hotel genre of movies like Tape or The Big Kahuna). Hell, the film doesn't even bother to give us some insights into the new mob of the 21st century. Rather, it exists to preach the glory of the babbling egoist Jennifer Lopez and blank-faced simian Ben Affleck. More than a real film this is a propaganda piece whose sole purpose is to make us know that the Bennifer couple represent sentient movie dirties whose glory must be immortalized. Affleck can be likeable, Lopez has been charming, but neither are in this film. The dialogue in Gigli can at times be original but like high school kids in Dawson’s Creek talking like PHD’s, all the dialogue in this film feels askew, clunky and out of place. From a deep discussions of the usefulness of cocks vs. pussies to retarded people singing Sir Mix A Lot's "I Like Big Butts" while thumbs are being removed with plastic spoons to the enlightened lesbian Lopez pretending like she’s a smart person who has read The Art Of War, each syllable, each soliloquy each awkwardly placed moment between each awkwardly delivered line of dialogue, and especially each mistimed comic mishap... all this and more caused me to cringe more than I would have during a double Ben "sold out, fuck nut" Affleck double-feature of Armageddon and Pearl Harbor. But here I go again bashing a film that everybody already knows is F.U.B.A.R. I write here because I wanted my words to give an idea, a verbal representation of my distain for the film. I realize that is as much an impossible task as explaining the color orange to the blind Daredevil. Basically, all I seek to do here is illustrate how a film like Gigli transcends the very root of the word “awful” in a way few films have. Only in writing this hate letter did I realize that the feeling at the pit of my stomach can never be expressed in mortal words. The film Gigli is so far beyond awful and so wrecked, that the only way to describe the experience of watching it is to invent a brand new word to describe what it is. The new word that I would like to see be entered into the lexicon would be Gigliesq, adj. Relating to, characteristic of something that is awful beyond all calculation. That being said all that's left to say is that Martin Brest really, really Giglied this movie. |
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gigli
gets a big fat
F
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American Wedding8/09/2003 |
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There’s not much to consider here except, does the film work? Have the crass joke grown old and antiquated. Do we like the characters? Yes on all counts. At it’s basic, bittersweet-cum-guzzling-feces-eating-low-lowbrow-humor level, American Wedding may be offering up the same old crusty pie/pubes-in-your-face jokes but thanks to a few anything goes actors giving it they’re absolute all I walked away from this glorified high school gross-out jaunt having laughed, yes, but also having cared about those joyously infantile, damn near iconic American Pie alums. That the film works enough to get the job done is not surprising. You see, I hated the first film, thought the jokes about Biggs getting caught with his wa-wa hanging out got too old too soon because the film failed to find any inner purpose for the raunchiness. The characters were there, I even liked a few of em', but the film hadn’t found it’s footing. Second time around, despite it's lack of Shannon Elizabeth’s plastic hooters, American Pie 2 vastly improved upon the formula of the first and that's mainly due to the inclusion of a charming new plot where Jim Michelle grew attracted to each other while the others had one last bash before entering the adult world. Which (kinda) occurs during this, the supposedly last American Pie film. But don’t worry, while the boys have grown up and graduated school they've certainly not matured--sample jokes: Jim asks Michelle to marry him right after she goes down on him at a restaurant, she wipes her mouth and says yes, at a reception an uninvited Stifler sneaks in, sees a ceremonial cake and changes the words of "Jims Wedding" to "Jism Wedding." It's as simple as this, if you saw or plan to see the film and a joke like that works, then this franchise is for you. So now that this review has landed in the warm afterglow of the popular third film I am resigned to the notion that this franchise lives (and hopefully will live on) to embarrass Jason Biggs character in some sorted way involving either the possibility of sex or other people coming into contact with his unruly sexual organ. I'm not only okay with that, I have grown to expect it with great anticipation. To borrow a platitude, this film made me I laughed out loud which is a relief considering the act of laughing at a movie is something I've only experienced a paltry one other time this year, during Old School. But the film has it's flaws, I felt, for instance, that the transitions between the many comic set pieces were a little rough and hurried, and while almost half of the jokes simply did not work for me (Jason Biggs shaving his pubes paled in comparison to his spooge session of the first and his hand-in-cock crazy glue dilemma of the second) I felt the film’s 50/50 batting average was negligible for it was intensity of the raucous jokes that did work that count. So I dug the character’s genial frat boy vibes and appreciated, perhaps for the first time ever, the near genus of Stiflerdom— Steve Stifler (Seann William Scott in full Jim Carrey assault mode) practically takes center stage in this film and delivers giggling brilliant lines like “It’s on like Donkey Kong, Beyooch” with sardonic gusto. So I admit I couldn’t find anything not to like here; epically considering I saw the appallingly unfunny Gigli immediately afterwards. I suppose the film succeeds for me precisely because I disliked the first one. Unlike the bloated cast roster from film’s like Lethal Weapon 4 or The Mummy Returns whose respective posters look like a bunch of tanned lowlifes standing in line at the DMV, American Wedding’s success lies in it’s brave attempt to streamline the cast. I.E. silence the uselessly drab actors from the last two films. As far as I’m concerned, I never have to see Chris Kline, Tara Reed Meena Suvari or Shannon Elizabeth in another movie ever again… that means no Say It Isn't So 2, no Van Wilder-er no Looser in Space or Revenge of the Tomcats and, oh thank god, we may never have to seem these four Losers in another American Pie film. The film (directed by Jesse Dylan) has proudly done away with the smelly dead weight, those inexplicably popular actors who continue to get comedies despite their utter lack of a sense of humor, and instead has emphasize the threads from the second film that worked. Less Tara “who fucking cares” Reed means more Jim (Jason Biggs, growing on me with every movie… except Loser) blushing at the hands of his sexual stupidity, more of Stifler and Shit Break’s antagonism towards each other, more close-ups of Eugene Levi's eyebrows, and, of course, more of the charming wiles of that comely horn-dog Michelle (Alison Hannigan). This new and improved American Wedding may not be innovative but it's the kind of cake walk comedy that I'd be gladly cum back to. |
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american wedding B- |
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Charlie's Angels 2: Full
Throttle 8/01/2003 |
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Four short reviews for a movie too bad to give an F just once.
Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle
Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle
To Barrymore this
is what Charlie’s Angels mission statement is: “I know what I
wanted {Angels} to be: I love love, and I love couples, and I think
about couples going to the movies. I was so profoundly wanting a couple
to watch this movie and have the guy dig what he was seeing—love the
action, love the girls, not be bummed out that his girlfriend is
dragging him to this movie—yet the woman {isn’t} threatened. The woman
is thinking, This is about woman, I am a woman therefore I can do this.”
Now, this is a word-for-word quote and I suppose as syntax goes, the
unintentionally enigmatic quote is as ignorant and as it sounds but it
makes perfect sense that the people behind the making of this movie were
all on that same jumbled page. I may not know what they are talking
about, you may not know either, but they at least think they know and,
so, at least give em’ credit for
being consistent… ly awful. Barrymore was right about one thing: Yes I
saw this film with my significant other. Yes I was the “guy.” And, you
know what, my girlfriend wasn’t “threatened.” The differences is that
instead of digging what we were seeing and instead of my girlfriend
feeling that “this is about women, I am a woman therefore I can do this”
(not sure what that means but if she did feel she “can do this” after
seeing a film like Charlie’s Angels 2 I would probably be forced
to dump her) we were both brought closer together, not because we “love
the action” but in mutual disgust for the film’s babbling heroes. Hey,
same thing happened with Gigli. Bad movies this year have
certainly been a great uniting force for moviegoers.
Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle The poles have reversed so far that it is now men who need empowering films to tell them that they too are worthy. Fight Club being the first un-PC film of this modern age to be brave enough to say that men, the victimizers of the past, are possibly becoming the victims in the eyes of this pop culture. That aside, messages of girl power in movies can create tasty flavors of empowering social goodness—even to men—yet Angels plastic-y ideological way of making a message about “Girl Power” capital G capital P, is simply to indignantly protest as many times as you can that this their film is about, as Faith said in the infinitely more thoughtful Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “hot chicks with superpowers.” Sure this film is that but it’s the usage and meaning behind the characters utilizing those superpowers where a show like Buffy succeeds and a movie like Angels founders. When any text (cinema, lit or other) aggressively asserts it’s theme without backing that said theme up with any thoughtful ponderings, extractable meaning or, hell, even a bit of content then all the viewers have is a message without any meaning. Noise. Here is an action film that would have been bearable and perhaps even likable if only it was just about action, but Angels 2 has a chip on its hot pink bra-strap so large that this misguided product must preach at us and pretend that the action we are witnessing bears some lofty entertainment/empowering purpose, which it so obviously does not. Alien, now that was an empowering film for female characters but it was a good action movie first. A fascinating gender study of action movies mainly because that film didn’t take in to consideration that the main character was a woman. On the other hand, last years Powerpuff Girls animated feature was a solid film because it was comfortable in its lack of message... and through that humble yet violent cartoon discourse, a message actually came through in a retrospective interoperation of this film that is silly, yes, but tactful enough to allow careful viewers to extract meaning on their own instead of those three yapping Angels who are forcing their muddy medicine down our throats. On the other end of the spectrum, even a preachy film like Holy Smoke works because at least what it preaches HAS A POINT. Hell, you could even squeeze out a thesis paper out of a critically panned fluff film like Josie and the Pussycats. But this film… na. No thesis paper. I doubt one could even fill an index card while discussing the film’s meaning. Why?…
Because the film has none. Dead inside and if that weren’t bad enough, the already empty
shell of an action film has as much flabby personality as Cameron Diaz
shaking her ever-present bum. Which reminds me, will somebody please
tell her to stop showing that thing? Charlie’s Angels 2, besides
being a stylish excuse for zero content action, is a fundamentally flawed pop
culture blackboard full of random content devised only to grab our
attention; Oh wow, thanks, I’ve always wanted to see Pink, Bruce
Willis, Bob Forster and the Olsen twins in the same movie! And hey, Luke
Wilson and Matt the Blank were blackmailed into coming back! Ah
cool, look how the forty -somethin’ Demi looks hotter than all three
Angels combined! And lookie there, another slow motion bullet—haven’t
seen that this week. And over there, Cameron Diaz’s is showing her ass.
Crispin Glover is being Crispin Glover. Ha, Diaz just said something
about” hard boards”... with all that, uh, stuff the film must be good!
Charlie's Angels 2: Full Throttle |
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charlie's angels 2 F |