This week…
MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004)
Hilary Swank, Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman

I'm really gonna do it. I’m going to trash an Oscar winner.

Good grief, this film took home, like, 608 Oscars, and 1,104 Golden Globes, even a Finnish People’s Choice Award! The Finns, for crying out loud, who we know to be a melancholy people, appreciative of sad cinema, but did you know they are also a notoriously fussy and anti-Hollywood lot?

Should I pick on Clint Eastwood? What, do I feel lucky today?

Skank on Swank? How scabrous!

Then there’s Morgan Freeman. If I’m going to dump on a thespian, on a man of his grace and gravitas, then I suppose nothing is sacred.

Why don’t I just push little kids off tricycles? Better yet, why don’t I offer some tricycles to young hurricane victims, travel two thousand miles to hand-deliver them, and then just as the kids get pedaling a bit, feel the breeze in their hair, the sun on their little faces, and a glimmer of hope that today might be a good day, I’ll swat them off, sending them cart-wheeling into a ditch.

Even that wouldn’t be as heinous as saying a critical word about Mr. Freeman. I mean, the guy has actually played God on the big screen. It was in a terrible Jim Carrey movie, but he took that role and owned it.

How can I deviate from popular opinion? When you visit the Rotten Tomatoes website, notice that ninety-two percent of the critics who saw Million Dollar Baby endorsed it. These people can separate the good from the bad, and they have the pasty white faces and squinty, sun-starved eyes to prove it.

But I know when I’m being manipulated, at least by a film. As soon as Hilary Swank entered from stage left with a solemn, puppy dog face and an intimation of trailer trash birthright, my palms began to sweat. Then she spoke, with that quasi-Ozark/Cajun/Okie twang that movie stars use so ham-fistedly in the Big Movies, the kind of accent that a real hillbilly would dismiss as faux-inbred.

That’s when I knew we this was no longer a legitimate movie, but an expensive and flashy bid for at least one actor’s Oscar immortality.

Let’s size it up. You’ve got Eastwood, content to put the icing on a stellar career. It’s not urgent for him to collect more hardware, but it’s nice. You’ve got Swank, who already knows you’ve got to play a tragically-accented loser if you want to grasp the gold. And in this movie, she doesn’t even have to strap on a cock and balls. Another Oscar win puts her in Streep’s stratosphere, at least on the awards stat sheet. But even she knows she can’t hold Meryl’s coffee mug.

Then you’ve got Freeman, sturdy as an oak tree, reliable as a bran muffin. He acts, he narrates, and he usually serves as the Big Film’s moral conscience. Many consider him one of The Greatest Actors Of All Time.

And until this film, he was oh-for three in Oscar noms. Unbelievable, if not unforgivable.

So we’ve got to get Freeman an Oscar, and we’re going to have to load the deck in his favor. That’s how we ended up with a top-heavy cast and a flimsy script. If you dazzle the viewer with shiny legends and dazzling award winners, they won’t notice the been-there, done-that, mocked-it-lamely-on Saturday Night Live storyline.

A scrappy underdog meets a tough-as-nails old-timer… She’s got no daddy, and he’s estranged from his daughter. She’s got just… one… chance to rise out of a cesspool of poverty and despair, and he’s looking for redemption…

That smell isn’t coming from Eastwood and Freeman. True, there is a hint of Old Spice (and old guy) coming from them, but that moldy stench is coming from the script.

Then it’s all laid out for us, enhanced by the mellifluous timbre of the Freeman Narration™, which adds a lacquer of sophistication to this tired tale. Many dupes paid eight dollars and spent two hours blissfully unaware of the con. I spent one dollar and sixty one cents, including taxes, at the video store. Heh, me not so dumb.

Imagine it, if you had cast this movie with Tom Skeritt, Bill Cosby, and say, Kelly Ripa, it would have gone straight to video, and you may very well have taken it as your free pick with two new release rentals, but then hey, you noticed they had The Whole Ten Yards, and you sort of didn’t mind The Whole Nine Yards, so you tossed Million Dollar Baby back in the reminder bin. Am I right? I’m right.

But for two hours, blinded by star power, we trod the well-worn trail, excited to be on this journey. Swank went from hopeless hack to world-class boxer, Eastwood got her there, and they formed an unshakeable father-daughter bond. Sweet. Meanwhile, Freeman carried the mail, as it were, running the boxing gym and carrying the damn film, mainly with The Voice.

Freeman can say just about anything using The Voice, and you feel you’ve heard a sermon from the mount:

“Boy can’t even afford a pair of pants.” Damn straight!

“Get a job, punk.” Here’s the want ads!

“'Cause ma daytime socks got too many holes in ‘em.” Get the man a needle and thread!

“Sometimes, when it gets real hot, so hot you wanna climb inside the refrigerator for some respite, leaving the door open so as not to suffocate, and you wanna stay in there till the last day of summer, and then, when that day finally comes, you decide not to ever come out, cause you don’t ever wanna be hot again - when it gets that hot, my balls itch something fierce.”

He never said that. But if he did, people would have listened with reverence, and nodded attentively.

After a series of bulky, clanky hints that tell us Something Really, Really Bad is going to happen to our heroine, we see Swank take a dirty punch from an opponent, causing a swan dive where her head lands awkwardly on the stool she uses between rounds. The impact twists her neck and breaks her spine. We are supposed to regard this as an all at once tragic and treacherous act, when really it’s just about the most freakishly random accident one could have, since she would have been totally okay were it not for that stool that Eastwood had prematurely put into the ring. Way to go, Clint..

So Swank lies paralyzed in a care home, and Eastwood paces without a hint of guilt. In fact, he has the stones to actually blame it on Freeman, like the black man is to blame for every single thing. Well done, Clint.

But Freeman brushes it off and minds the boxing gym in Eastwood’s absence, offering up a little bit of mentorship, mixed with a dash of ass-kicking, made all the more profound by The Voice.

Meanwhile, back at the care home, Swank realizes what the rest of her life has in store for her – pureed peas, and drool pails. Not exactly The American Dream. So she asks Eastwood to re-enact the last scene from Ol’ Yeller. Well she doesn’t put it that way, because she knows that dog was a lot prettier than she is, even with the foaming mouth and glassy eyes. But clearly, she wants to be put down.

With his tail between his legs and a sh*t-eating smirk on his face, Eastwood seeks Freeman’s advice. Using The Voice, he pretty much spews nonsense, a whole lot of shizzle frizzle whazzle dazzle, but in a pitch that resonates profoundly with Eastwood and sets him on his course.

We conclude with a stealthy midnight trip to the care home. Eastwood gives Swank enough adrenaline to cause a cardiac explosion in an elephant. The coroner is going to love sorting through that bloody, chunky mess. Cause of death? Sh*t, I dunno, did she swallow a car bomb? Thanks a lot, Clint.

Eastwood never returns to his former life, and so we (nearly) end with Freeman presumably inheriting the gym, which probably owes three times its value in back taxes. Thanks again Clint, ya dink. But The Voice makes a life of perpetual debt and phlegmy spit buckets seem pretty darn good, if not downright honorable.

Then, somewhere in the Ozarks, we see Eastwood sitting in a shack eating pie, the lazy f*cker, and we fade to black. Who wants an Oscar? Line up to my left…

After the film, I hired a local boxer to work the speed bag while I held my face in its path. After twenty minutes I was bruised, bloody, and dazed enough to forget I ever saw Million Dollar Baby.

This week…
Freaky Friday (1976)
Jodie Foster, Barbara Harris, John Astin


I know what you’re thinking.

If I’ll sink so low that I’ll criticize a Disney film, what else might I be capable of?

Would I hide my great-grandmother’s dentures?

Would I send Canadian Tire money to hurricane victims?

Would I boo at the Special Olympics?

Now, before I get carried away, I’ve got my reasons for panning this film. This is one of those rare instances where the remake is vastly superior to the original.

Call me biased, but when you cast cougar-emeritus Jamie Lee Curtis, and a pre-skank Lindsay Lohan in a new version of Freaky Friday, you’re already golden in my books.

Sadly, we’re not talking about the remake today.

The original film’s mother/daughter pairing leaves me lukewarm. Barbara Harris played the mom, and she is certainly schwing-fully fine. Jodie Foster, not a girl, not yet a closet lesbian, left me, uh, schwing-less.

The story captures the post-hippy, hey-whatever way of life in the mid-seventies, minus the key parties, but with the decade’s painfully patriarchal structure. Keep in mind it’s an old Disney film, not exactly the place to go if you’re seeking strong, independent female role models.

Foster plays Annabel, a whisky-voiced tomboy who is an awesome water-skier, and the star of her school’s field hockey team. She also has a huge crush on the boy next door. We’ll just call him The Beard, and then never refer to him again.

Barbara Harris plays Ellen, a chain-smoking stay-at-home mom, who keeps the home fires burning while hubby Bill (John Astin) plys his trade at a big public relations firm.

We join the family at the start of a typical Friday. Annabel is hiding all of her Kristy McNicol pictures under her bed, the worse for wear after a sleepless night of frantic rug-tugging. Her mom urges her to get ready for school.

She rolls her eyes at that goddamn b*tch, then looks in the mirror, dark bags underlining the unending toll of living the lie, circa 1976.

Meanwhile, Mom is juggling fifteen chores as Dad sips coffee and reads the morning paper. He peers over the Business section long enough to add fifteen more chores to the list. You see, he’s got another really busy day ahead, sitting around with his boss sipping Johnnie Walker Red and talking stock options. On top of that, he has to spend the latter part of his day sipping Johnnie Walker Red, talking stock options, and watching The Aquacade, some kind of PR stunt he must have planned between hangovers.

Mom sighs and sparks another menthol, watching the smoke ring hit the ceiling. On her worst day, she never thought it would turn out like this. No more than an indentured servant, with an indifferent husband, and a resentful, disturbingly mannish daughter who hates her mother with a seething, husky fervor. Why me? she sobs, shaking her fists, reaching for the flask behind the toaster oven.

Meanwhile, Annabel is at a diner with her friend Becky, eating breakfast before her first class. L’il Prince(ss) is too good for cereal and toast in her own kitchen, apparently. She pours out some of her heart, unloading years of frustration over her inability to relate to her mother, carefully withholding her parallel frustration over her inability to take Becky in her arms, or at least to the prom. Still, that social taboo won’t keep her from getting a wee bit handsy with the “Beckster” behind the bleachers, I’m guessing. But that's for another movie, which would have been called Where The Boys Aren't, I think.

Simultaneously, Annabel and her mom recognize that Hell is the mother-daughter bond, and curse their miserable lives, causing them to change places!

For the next hour we are forced to endure an array of painfully forced hijinks and tomfoolery. In her mom’s body, Annabel pretty well f*cks up everything on her mom’s to do list, including her twice-weekly lube job from the neighbor who works out of his house, selling Amway and weed. In her daughter’s body, Mom pretty well alienates the entire school population, and without knowing why, yearns for a career as a phys-ed teacher at an all-girls boarding school.

The unfathomable Ruth Buzzi makes a cameo appearance, as a field hockey coach. My gonads crawl behind my pancreas, and do not emerge for twelve days.

Then there’s that damn music, that wild and wacky seventies score, which accompanies every trip, pratfall, car chase, and bludgeoning. Bludgeoning? Sorry, I was thinking about Ruth Buzzi again.

Every Disney film from the era broke down during the interminable hijinks montage. Think of all the character actors who had to play policemen, henchmen, grocers, and stagecoach drivers, all with that sh*t-eating grin on their face as they went and did something so incredibly stupid it should have earned them a place in the Darwin Hall of Fame.

We conclude at the Aquacade, a water-ski spectacle starring the amazing Annabel. Too bad her mom’s trapped in her body. I wonder if she can ski? Or will there be some loopy shenanigans as she fumbles her way across the water? Oh god, oh god, I don’t CARE, now please, where’s my 151-proof rum and my cheese and pickle sandwich? Daddy needs a good buzz if he's going to make it through the last ten minutes...

Meanwhile, her dad observes the spectacle from the hospitality tent, visibly lit and playing grab-ass with Dick Van Patten, as if there was anything else he could do.

Wackily, the Aquacade is a smashing success. Annabel and Mom switch back, each with a new appreciation for the other that probably lasts five minutes past the closing credits.

At the conclusion of this film, I wrapped a blanket over my head, then inhaled the vapors from my humidifier. Of course, instead of water and vap-o-rub, I filled it with ammonia, then fell into a coma for eight days, the better to forget the misery that was Freaky Friday.

Next @ SSC…
Potpourri…in other words, I don’t know yet! But I'm considering something from the David Hasselhoff ouevre, we'll see...

This week…
DEADLY SKIES (2005)
Antonio Sabato, Jr., Rae Dawn Chong, Michael Moriarty

I give the producers of Deadly Skies credit for at least trying to capitalize on the "Asteroid Armageddon" fad. Mind you, in order to capitalize, one needed to get in during the actual fad, which happened in 1998, nearly eight years ago.

Oopsy…

But that’s okay, since the casting is stellar. You’ve got an ex-underwear model, Antonio Sabato, Jr. (formerly of Melrose Place), playing an Air Force colonel with expertise in laser weapon technology. That’s believable. You have Rae Dawn Chong, who’s been in lots of stuff, but what would you remember her from, exactly? Quest For Fire? She’s playing an extremely perceptive astronomer, and surely, that’s within the realm of possibility. And then there’s Michael Moriarty (Law & Order), and he’s, well, drunk off his ass.

Oopsy…

So we have a past-due film, with D-List actors over their heads for one reason or another, including one who spent his downtime on the shoot raiding his hotel room’s mini-bar. Did anything else go wrong? Not much, unless you consider the story and the screenplay that serves it to be important.

In one of the least compelling angles one could take when creating an Asteroid Armageddon pic, Chong plays a crusading astronomer (is there any other kind?) who is almost totally sure a massive asteroid is hiding behind another asteroid, and that one is headed straight for Earth. Understand? Not the one you can see, but the one behind it. Yes, you’d think the first one would be the one to worry about. But it’s not. It’s the one behind it. I swear, it’s there...

But as we know, in the movies, nobody believes the lone voice in the wilderness, dammit! Why won’t they believe her? Why? Why?

Fortunately for all mankind, she encounters ex-colonel/laser dude Sabato, Jr. He left the military in a huff, because the Air Force mothballed his Absurdly Powerful Laser Beam project, since it no longer served a purpose. Or it did serve a purpose, but they wanted to use it for evil instead of good, or something like that. I’m not sure, since I was in my kitchen, making myself a cheese and pickle sandwich to accompany my third shot of 151-proof rum, the drink of choice for movie reviewing, and er, everything else. Anyway, I surmise that Sabato was mad that he couldn’t use his massive tool the way he wanted, and guys, haven’t we all been there at one time or another?

Sabato buys into Chong’s theory, and they assemble a tiny squad of surly ragamuffins. Together, they will save the Earth from that asteroid, you know, not the one you can see, but the one behind it? Yeah, I’m almost positive it’s there, even if I can’t prove it. But how will we save the world, should that be necessary?

The quartet sits around brainstorming. If only we had an Absurdly Powerful Laser Beam, one that could reach outer space, packing sufficient force to deflect the asteroid off course. Hmmph, like such a thing would even exist…

(cue chirping crickets, rolling tumbleweeds)

Then a lightbulb blinks over Chong’s head! Hey Sabato, just how big is your (laser) tool? Big enough to bat an asteroid out of the way?

Somehow, Sabato knows exactly what she is referring to, so instead of turning down the lights, turning up the Barry White album, and unzipping his pants, he chooses to whip out his laptop, to “run the data”. Sure enough, his tool can do the job.

Back in Washington DC, Moriarty, aka Brigadier General Weavy MacSlursHisSpeech, senses something is amiss. Even in his drunken stupor, he just seems to know that Sabato will find some way to get his hands on that massive laser beam. But how?

Meanwhile, the Apple Dumpling Gang easily penetrates the security at the air force base housing the Absurdly Powerful Laser Beam, putting them that much closer to Sabato’s massive tool. My, what a huge base! How big is this tool, anyway?

They head straight for the Massive Tool Room. They become frantic when their magnetic swipe card fails to provide access. The tension (nearly) builds as they swipe it, again and again. What could be wrong with it?

Dust, it turns out. After a quick rub on his jacket sleeve, Sabato successfully swipes the gang into the Massive Tool Room. Phew, that was close…

As any real man knows, the first thing a Massive Tool needs is some warm-up, so Sabato turns on the thingy that fires up the laser-ma-bob. No it wasn’t Paris Hilton’s sex video, in case you were wondering. I’m actually talking about the Massive Tool now, okay? Stay with me, it’s nearly over.

Sabato stands at a large console, pressing buttons purposefully, trying to look like he really could program a laser beam to deflect an incoming asteroid. Chong monitors the asteroid’s progress on her laptop. Using what, exactly, Google’s Asteroid Tracker? Could be, those Google dudes are f---ing smart.

As the asteroid nears, Chong starts losing her sh-t.

“Is it ready yet? I need it soon!” she wails to Sabato.

“Let me get the shaft warmed up,” says Sabato referring to the laser’s optimum firing temperature. Hey, when did he put on the ascot and smoking jacket?

“Dammit, I need it this instant, or we’re finished!” she screams.

“I know, I know, but we can’t rush it. It has to be just right,” he says. We’re not quite there yet. More wine, perhaps some fine saxophone from Kenny G, while I warm the shaft? Baby, we’ve got all night…

Suddenly the power goes out, rendering Sabato’s Big Instrument, uh, useless. General Drunkard and his henchman have foiled the plan!

Moriarty confronts Sabato, angry that he would be so reckless with his Massive Tool.

“But we need it to deflect an asteroid!” says Sabato.

And that’s that. Moriarty caves, like “well geez, why didn’t you tell me there was an asteroid?” or something, and just like that, the power is switched on again.

Alas, Sabato can’t regain his mojo from five minutes ago.

“Our firing window is closed,” he says “there’s nothing to do but wait.”

“Unless you shoot that laser right into the asteroid, breaking it in half!” says Chong, who likes the rough stuff, apparently.

“That’s just crazy enough to work!” says Sabato, who pleads for a few more moments to warm his shaft.

“Dammit, just drill it! Now!” screams Moriarty’s flunky, possibly revealing more about himself than we needed to know.

Despite its lukewarm shaft, Sabato presses the laser beam’s big red FIRE button, and the assembled mass waits nervously. Sure enough, there are two asteroids, and conveniently the first one moves aside, just as the laser pokes through the atmosphere. That first asteroid might be headed for Earth too, but only to spend a harmless weekend antiquing in Vermont, I guess.

Seconds later, the laser penetrates the second asteroid, alleviating any worries about its ability to perform under pressure.

“C’mon baby, break her in two!” screams Sabato and Chong, who are really getting into it, white-knuckled and glassy-eyed as they peer into the computer screen.

As expected, the asteroid splits in two, the planet is saved, and Moriarty heads back to his trailer for many tiny bottles of Jim Beam. Lots and lots and lots of bottles…

And as expected, Sabato and Chong do get it on, but we don’t have to see that, thankfully.

After the movie, I clipped my tongue onto the eavestrough along the high side of my house, and dangled from it for an hour, crying tears mingled with joy and excrutiating pain as my tongue slowly tore away from my mouth, the better to purge all memory of Deadly Skies. Good times.

NEXT @ SSC...
The movie Jodie Foster never wanted you to see, Freaky Friday!