This week…
THE FORGOTTEN (2004)
Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise

If ever a movie was suitably named, it is this one.

By the end of The Forgotten, I was rummaging through the drawers and cupboards, rooting around for anything that could pry open my skull, and anything else that could sever the memory lobe-thingy from my brain.

I was frantic, irrational. I can’t do brain surgery on myself without my Neurology For Dummies book, and wouldn’t you know I had loaned it to the kid down the street. Now his little sister is bald, has a curious scar on her cranium, and speaks like Truman Capote. I’m going to have to be more responsible about loaning out that book along with my surgical tools…

Back to the movie. I have a hard time understanding how this kind of dreck ever gets made. It had to be a bad idea at every stage of the process. All I can gather is that this project became a progressively larger sh*tball, rolling downhill, gaining momentum. By the time Julianne Moore was cast in the lead role, there was no stopping this fecal orb.

And think of what else that $40 million could have been used for – eliminating poverty in Africa, eradicating illiteracy in American ghettoes, providing Kate Moss with a secure and discreet place to snort her coke – ah, the things we could have fixed, hey?

As I have done with other actors in the past, I gave Ms. Moore a free pass in this film, for the simple reason that I would like to shag her rotten. Pale, freckly, wispy redheads rev my engine, and no, that does not include Eric Stoltz.

The plot in a nutshell, with room left over: Moore lost her son in an accident, or did she? It seems she’s the only one who remembers the existence of the little guy. Is she crazy, or is there a TOP SECRET GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY at work behind the scenes? Hmm, I wonder…

Moore plays a formerly successful book editor, so bereaved that she can’t do much these days, except look at old memorabilia of her son. She spends a lot of time alone, as her husband seems to be a workaholic. What kind of jerk would leave a pale, freckly, wispy redhead all alone?

The asexual Anthony Edwards, that’s who, and he will always be the asexual Goose from Top Gun, and the asexual Dr. Mark Greene from ER. Gosh, the budget must have gotten tight if he was cast as Moore’s husband. What, Bill Pullman wasn’t available?

There’s zero chemistry between these two, probably because the asexual Edwards presents himself like he has the wee-wee and staying power of an infant hamster:

Moore: Is it in yet?
Asexual Edwards: Uh, I’m done?

Then there’s Gary Sinise, who used to be an interesting actor, around the time of Forrest Gump. People said his name in hushed tones, like Gary Sinise is in this film? Oh, well, it must be good.

Oh wait, nobody ever said that about Sinise. They were talking about Ralph Fiennes. But Sinise did have some credibility for a short while.

Now he’s just another hack, cashing in with bit parts in big films, and that role in CSI: Special Victims Unit - Vanuatu 90210, or whatever the latest interchangeable franchise doth wrought.

In this movie he plays Moore’s psychiatrist, and he’s a “I dunno, what do you think it means?” type of analyst, the kind who probably bought his degrees off the black market in Eastern Europe. He’s not really helping her manage the grief, or the crazies, as it were.

Out of nowhere, every last memory of her son disappears. Hubby wants to commit her to an asylum. Me, I’d hang in there for some lunatic sex, but I only know what it’s like to be unintentionally celibate, not asexual.

Moore does the only thing she can under the circumstances – bolts for the door and runs like a chicken with its head cut off, screaming all the way, exactly what I’ll be doing after my first prostate examination.

She ends up at a neighbor’s place (Dominic West), and what a cowinkydink – he lost a child too – only he doesn’t remember. Incredibly, he lets the crazy woman hide out in his place. This gives Moore time to jog his memory, plus we find out that he’s drinking to forget…something or other. See, he can’t remember, dammit!

The Plot Exposition Fairy jumps into the fray, greases the lurching, creaky plot with a jumbo can of WD-40, and sends the story careening downhill, literally and figuratively.

Out of nowhere, West recalls the existence of his daughter. This propels he and Moore to Get To The Bottom Of Things. Somehow they acquire a car and start driving frantically in no particular direction, the better to Uncover The Disturbing Truth.

Then the Plot Exposition Fairy starts dropping clues out of the sky, randomly, like a pigeon sh*tting on statues. The clunking clues allow Moore and West to piece together the existence of a, you guessed it - TOP SECRET GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY.

The filmmakers play fast and loose with the actual details of the conspiracy, but we infer that the government is trying to find a way to erase its citizens’ minds whenever it is deemed necessary, and it is implied that this is somehow a bad thing...

Geez, if I was in a position of power, that would be the first thing I worked on, as a way to consolidate my status as Eternal Ruler of the Randarchy. Well, the second thing. First I would decree that every episode of WKRP In Cincinnati be re-enacted as a play in my Presidential Blanket & Pillow Fort. Loni Anderson would be there, and so would the chick who played Bailey. I would play all of the other parts, and there would be lots of rehearsals, especially of the kissing scenes. There would also be many deleted scenes, especially the one where Bailey and Jennifer get naked and smell each other’s hair, and then I deliver a pizza to them (cue music)…

Back to the movie – it turns out the government began the memory-scrubbing project by experimenting on Moore and West. A-ha! She not so crazy no more, hey?

But then it gets downright silly, with people getting yanked into the sky as if connected to a cosmic bungee cord, Moore’s son returning in a creepy, otherworldly form, and the conspiracy’s mastermind just being sort of evil and sinister, but not convincingly. Kind of like the guy at the vendor who collects my beer empties. Dude, the combination of mullet, goatee, and Nickelback tour t-shirt does not a badass make, mmkay?

Absurdly, Moore simply calls the evil mastermind on his sh*t, and he just gives up. We jump-cut back to a world where Moore has her kid back, and so does West. The only constant in both worlds was the asexual Edwards’ gerbil dink.

As bad as it was, I’m still lobbying for the beguilingly frail and translucent Moore’s retroactive Academy Award nomination. And if she can’t have that, then she may have me as her lovah. Go to the bank with that.

At the end of the movie, I forgot to unplug the toaster before bringing it into the shower with me. The resulting shock re-wired my brain, thus allowing me to forget The Forgotten.