Movies

I have stopped reviewing every single movie I see, because I got tired of thinking about how I was going to describe a movie while I was watching it. I just want to watch them sometimes. I still watch one or two movies every day but a lot of it is fairly unremarkable, or for sociological research. When I do a write-up it is because I find something exceptionally unusual.

When I read about Passion Play (2011) I knew I had to see it. It was so poorly received on its film festival debut that they despaired of distribution and went direct to video. The few reviews I read were pretty harsh, calling it a "sub-lynchean fantasy." Those reviewers were just showing their ignorance because in fact it is a sub-jodorowskian fantasy. Mickey Rourke is a jazz trumpeter who incurs the wrath of a gangster (Bill Murray) and is taken out to the desert to be killed. He is mysteriously rescued by a band of white-clad indians and walks all night until he finds a carnival in the middle of nowhere, where he meets and falls in love with a winged woman. Then lots of other stuff happens. I can see why people who have to see a lot of movies might not like this, but it has a quality I really enjoy in a movie - it makes a break from reality early on and stays away from it for the whole movie. That's a common feature in all the movies I am writing up today, along with the fact that they were all flops. When Passion Play winds down to its punchline, laughable but in a kindly happy way, it explains everything about why the movie is so crazy and weird, which I suppose could make a lot of people angry, but I thought it was okay. I'm not recommending it, but I kind of liked it. It's mystically good/bad in the same way as Jodorowsky's lesser works, kind of half-assedly impressive. The one thing completely unbelievable about it is Mickey Rourke's facelift. Bad choice.

Since I was determined to go on a flop binge I figured I should see Gigli (2003), another one I had been wanting to see for a long time Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez are mismatched gangsters who have to babysit the kidnapped autistic brother of a local district attorney. Utterly ridiculous premise, carried out with complete sincerity, and I honestly don't know why people dislike it so much. It dragged a few things out a bit long, but I really kind of liked it. Not a whole lot, but it was entertaining, funny and interesting, and had ideas you don't normally see in a movie. I guess it was too weird for most people.

Catwoman (2004), on the other hand, deserves all the bad stuff ever said about it. It's terrible. What's worse it suffers from an especially bad case of Editing Room Syndrome in that every time things get a bit active or exciting, they try to "amp it up" by making five jump cuts a second, like waving their hands in front of your face so you can't see what's happening. It is significant that no one person wants to take credit for the editing, instead hiding behind assistant editor titles. Cowards.

All About Steve (2009) is a picaresque absurdity in which Sandra Bullock portrays a creator of crossword puzzles who believes she has been invited by her failed blind date, a news cameraman, to follow him around the country. Her character is a total assburger who drives everybody crazy by constantly babbling unnecessary information at them, but Bullock does an amazing job of being a complete she-dork who is accidentally cute and sexy. Nothing about it makes sense or is reasonable in any way, and it gets so stupid and ridiculous that it's kind of fun. Might make a good double feature with Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

No flop-fest would be complete without Hudson Hawk (1991). Understand that I am 100% gay for Bruce Willis in a completely non-sexual way. I will watch pretty near anything that he is in but I like him better in non-comedies. This one here is a comedy that he co-wrote the story on. He plays a cat burglar who is forced by insane super-criminals to steal the fragments of the alchemical crystal of Leonardo da Vinci from the Vatican and other places. If that was the genuine Vatican City postal subway they were filming in, that was really impressive. I was amazed at how much money they must have spent on this painfully pretentious idiocy. It put me in mind of the self-congratulatory smarminess of the Rat Pack - Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and Sammy Davis Jr. in particular, with lots of mugging and leaden wisecracks. I admit the "falling out the back of an ambulance on a gurney" sequence had me going, but most of the rest of it was just a chore to endure. I just wanted to kick the guy. If you really wanted to be mean to someone you would pair this up with Bill Cosby's Leonard Part 6.

So there you go. Back to watching anything that has Mantan Moreland in it (except Charlie Chan).