sh!t sandwich cinema

2006-01-14T01:57:00.000-06:00

This week…
MR. WRONG (1996)
Ellen Degeneres, Bill Pullman, Joan Cusack

Last weekend, I settled into my favorite easy chair to reflect on my life and times.

“Damn, I’m so lucky,” I thought to myself. “I’ve got my health, my family, a home, and a steady supply of malt liquor. Plus, I’ve got friends, a little bit of money in my pocket, and a healthy appreciation of online pornography. Can it get any better?”

Then, as it always does, my mind wandered to the dark side. I thought, “I don’t deserve this! What can I do to ruin my good mood and jump-start a three-day bout of debilitating depression?”

Luckily, I was surfing the idiot box as I asked myself that question. I landed on a moldy chestnut from the early days of Ellen Degeneres’ (mercifully) brief film career – Mr. Wrong.

This film came out just before Ellen, you know, came out. Does anyone remember those strange days in the mid-nineties (before she became America’s Favorite Aging Pussyhound), when heteroEllen’s star was ascending for the first time? She had a sitcom and a film deal. In her sitcom, she played a seemingly straight, thirtysomething single gal with a collection of wacky friends.

And we gasped, for never, had we ever seen this genius concept before…

But it seemed Ellen was hiding something, and not just her androgynous figure under those bulky sweaters and shapeless khaki pants. Sure, she went on dates, but you could tell she wasn’t interested in this guy or that guy. Finally, I figured out she wasn’t interested in guys, period. Heck, nothing gets past me for much longer than two or three years.

Finally, long after her sitcom had faded into irrelevancy, it was decided that Ellen should let the truth set her free, and come clean about who she really was (and generate a ratings bump at the same time, since TV is a business, after all).

I remember the episode, because Laura Dern played the woman who finally motivates Ellen to come out. Here’s something to know - if I had a shot at getting into Laura Dern’s pants, I’d tell everyone I was a lesbian too. I’d yell it from the rooftops. C’mon, it’s Laura damn Dern. I want to make a Hot Babe/Me/Sandwich joke, but I resolved to cut down on my hack tendencies this year. But I’d love to be some kind of spicy mustard spread over her metaphorical slab of mock chicken, on rye. Resolutions be damned.

Mr. Wrong is a bit of a time capsule piece, as Ellen was a few years away from announcing her preference for lik-a-maids, but we still get the sense that something hinky is going on here.

That sense is clouded by the casting of Bill Pullman as the titular Mr. Wrong. Pullman is our inaugural, 2006 Hack Emeritus, for his bland, boring take on any character he inhabits.

Here he plays Whit, a deeply weird guy. At least he tries to act weird. Well, at least he tries to act. Well, at least he made it to the set every day. I get the feeling that when directors tell Pullman to add layers to his performance, he starts wearing extra t-shirts and socks.

Degeneres plays Martha Alston, a talk show producer* who develops feelings for Whit, somehow. Despite the complete absence of anything resembling chemistry, they continue dating, and Martha grows to like him, then tells Whit he can let down his guard with her.

In the script, this means Whit is supposed to become a full-fledged wacko. On the screen, it means Whit becomes a bland, boring loser, as realized by Pullman. You know, casting is everything. If you had put this guy in Pullman’s role, well, we would have been cooking with gas.

Shenanigans ensue, as Whit shoplifts beer from a liquor store (that crazy motherf*cker!!!), stuffing the cans into Martha’s jacket. Later on, to prove his devotion to her, he breaks his little finger. I guess that’s better than the way I show my devotion to loved ones – by getting rip-roaring drunk and then pointing out all of their flaws to them. Oh, there have been tears, let me tell you. But it is very cleansing, for me anyway.

Joan Cusack provides some unexpected humor, playing Whit’s jilted ex. She stalks Martha in hopes of removing her from Whit’s life. At one point, she threatens to put gum in Martha’s hair as a form of torture. It was so stupid it was funny. And truly, I think a lot of people would wet themselves if you threatened to put gum in their hair.

I laughed at that, possibly out of desperation more than anything else. But I like Joan Cusack, and her brother John. All Cusacks Are Good, even when they’re knee-deep in kaka. Truly, this was the hardest movie to get through in the history of Sh-t Sandwich Cinema. Thank you Joan Cusack, for providing a respite, however brief it was.

When a freak accident puts Martha into a coma (moments before I slipped into one, my will to live having been sapped), the Plot Contrivance Fairy steps in, and somehow, Whit unilaterally becomes engaged to Martha.

Mr. Wrong lurches to a end, and I won’t bore you with what happened, since the ending doesn’t involve each and every character engaging in a group suicide pact, as should be mandated by law. We can’t always get what we want.

But at the very end, DeGeneres, clad in a wedding gown (hee), rides a donkey into the sunset. A misguided homage to Ishtar, one of the worst films of all time? Dare to dream.

*The talk show host she works for – a stunt-casted Robert Goulet. That stirred memories of Will Ferrell’s portrayal of Goulet on Saturday Night Live – The Coconut Bangers’ Ball, the staring contests with the mountain goat – ohh, funny, funny stuff. So in the interest of full disclosure, I missed about 15 minutes of the movie while I was thinking about that. Apologies.

2006-01-12T23:48:00.000-06:00

This week…
BOOGEYMAN (2005)
Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Lucy Lawless

Please bear with me while I tell you how I ended up watching Boogeyman.

It was all my daughter’s idea. Every time we go to the video store, she walks right past the kid’s films and bears down on the horror flicks. Curiously, she does the same thing at the record store – she is always able to see past the flowery packaging of the pop princess releases, and head to the dusty denizens of the old school Heavy Metal aisle, the land of Iron Maiden*, Black Sabbath, and any other band that features skulls, ghouls, and serpents prominently on their album covers.

She especially like skulls with snakes slithering out of the eyes. If she starts liking the music, we may have a problem.

Anyway, Boogeyman was a bit of a compromise. She really wanted House Of Wax, which carries an R rating, while Boogeyman’s rating is merely PG-13. And as much as I want to see Paris Hilton get hacked to bits by a crazed lunatic, I'm not going to let Sydney see an R-rated horror film until she's at least six.

I'm not one of those trying-too-hard-to-be-hip parents who ends up causing psychological harm to my child. My finely honed instincts say it will be another year before she's ready to see The Skank get shanked. Like good scotch, it’s best appreciated when you’re mature enough to handle it.

My wife is pretty much against our daughter viewing any horror films. Last spring we watched The Grudge, over her objections. For a few weeks afterward, Sydney had some nightmares and woke up crying in the middle of the night. Were these bad dreams related to The Grudge? Maybe, but they could have been caused by viewing The Big Comfy Couch too. I'm trying to create an aura of plausible deniability. It's not easy.

“I’m getting up every night to comfort her because of the movie you made her see,” said my wife.

“Really, we can’t discuss this rationally until you’ve had a full night’s sleep,” I said. “Get back to me when both of you are sleeping through the night.”

The doghouse has satellite TV and a bar fridge, in case you were wondering.

We cued up Boogeyman, and my wife, resigned to more sleepless nights the way Tibetans are resigned to more brutal oppression from the Chinese, left us to our fright fest.

There was no need to be concerned this time. In a nutshell, Boogeyman is the lamest horror film I’ve ever seen.

Our hero Tim (Barry Watson) has been plagued by a shadowy figure who has been living in his closet for the last fifteen years, ever since he was eight. It causes a few awkward moments, especially when someone asks him to grab their coat from the… (cue eerie music) closet. Tim stands there, trembling, with brutal flashbacks in his mind of the night the boogeyman took his dad. Then the person gets tired of waiting and says “Well I guess I’ll just get it myself.”

I suspect Tim smells vaguely of stale urine, most of the time.

Tim’s mother (the unusually unsultry, woefully miscast Lucy Lawless) dies, and the orphaned Tim must come to terms with her death. On the advice of his psychiatrist, he returns to his childhood home to face his demons, as it were.

Question: have we arrived at the fiftieth anniversary of Psychiatrists Giving Horrendously Bad Advice In Horror Films? Are we there yet? Just wondering…

Tim’s return to the house is a Very Bad Idea, telegraphed by all kinds of clunky foreshadowing, including the raven that flies into the windshield of his car. Good grief, why don’t you just have a plane sky-write YOU ARE DOOMED in 100-foot-high letters and be done with it?

His visit engenders countless tired and clichéd red herrings for the audience.

Ooh, what’s behind that door?
Well, nothing.

Eee, what’s under that bed?
Slowly now…oh, hey, nothing.

And so on.

A breath of fresh air arrives in the form of Tim’s childhood friend Kate (the beguiling Emily Deschanel, sister of the enticing Zooey, who you may have seen in Elf. Damn those Deschanel sisters are the spicy meatballs, hey? I wish I hadn’t sworn to cut down on my hack tendencies, because would I love to tell hack joke #1109 right now. It’s so filthy.

It becomes apparent that Kate has a wee crush on Tim. Tim’s either gay or a bit of a blockhead, so he fails to notice her come-ons, and sends Kate on her way. Stupid, stupid Tim! Hey, why don’t you go off to Brokeback Mountain and see if Heath Ledger can quit you, you Deschanel-spurning freak! You suck!

Call me a romantic, but I really wanted Tim and Kate to get all hot and bothered and then have a (filthy hack joke #235). Oh well.

From there, Boogeyman just plods along, like a doomed prisoner going to the gallows. Tim runs around in a frenzy, some people he knows get killed, some people he knows survive, and in the end he gets rid of the boogeyman by…striking him repeatedly with a baseball bat.

Yes, that’s the best example of the creative bankruptcy that plagued this film. Yikes, who greenlighted this thing? I need to thank them.

The kid enjoyed it though. She said it was way scarier than The Grudge. But she’s only four, what does she know?

*I’ve never heard an Iron Maiden song from start to finish. But once, circa 1983, I heard a snippet of an Iron Maiden song, and it has never left my head, since for me, it sums up the whole heavy metal genre better than anything else:

Run to the hills!
Run for your liiife!

Run to the hills!
Run for your liiiife!

Run to the hills!
Run for your liiiife!

Run to the hills!
Run…. for… your…liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!
(Close with massive, screaming guitars and crashing drums)

I think it might be called Run To The Hills. I'll check.

2005-11-06T19:39:00.000-06:00

This week…
BLIND OBSESSION (2001)
Brad Johnson, Megan Gallagher, Roxana Zal

I CAN'T IDENTIFY more than five elements on the periodic table - oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, espresso – that’s my limit.

Yet I can casually flick past a made-for TV movie on a Sunday afternoon and spot a long-forgotten ingénue of the late-70s/early-80s catalog of shows and made-for-TV films. Then I can list off her contributions to the genre, then her characters’ names, then her clothing for each scene, then, well, it just gets freakish and creepy.

You could catch les ingénues in a lot of places: the ABC Afterschool Specials, the NBC Monday Night Movies, the CBS Sunday Night Movies, the occasional Battle of the Network Stars, and countless Very Special Episodes of various sitcoms and family dramas. They were the Mischa Bartons of their time, unless that makes Mischa Barton sound unduly significant.

To name a few, there’s Tracey Gold, Danielle Brisebois, Melissa Sue Anderson, Melissa Gilbert, Denise Miller, Kristy McNicol, Kim Richards, and of course, Roxana Zal.

Roxana who?

Roxana Zal had the misfortune of starring in two of the most depressing made-for-TV films of all time, let alone the 80s. She made her debut in 1983, in Testament, a compelling but unbearably sad look at the aftermath of a nuclear war.

The next year, as if yearning to further plumb the depths of despair, she found an even more depressing topic in the groundbreaking but unbearably sad made-for-TV film Something About Amelia. It tackled the difficult subject of sexual molestation by one’s father. Jeepers, hey? Ted Danson, sensing an opportunity to ruin an otherwise burgeoning career, inexplicably took the role when he already had Cheers in his back pocket. Somehow, his career emerged unscathed.

But for Roxana Zal, all her future held was a string of bit parts in TV shows and cable movies. Surely there were many failed pilots as well, an endless series of screen tests where the director liked her a lot, but then remembered she was in that icky incest film and took a pass. This may explain why Shannen Doherty got so much work in the 80s and 90s, but I can’t prove this.

In Blind Obsession, Roxana plays Bedelia, the loopy younger sister to Rebecca (Megan Gallagher) a lonely woman saddled with guardianship of her crazy sis while trying to ward off spinsterhood through various creepy machinations. Got that?

There’s a long and tedious back story here, the kind that would be compelling if crafted by a competent writer. Here, it just drags out endlessly. Luckily I gave up on it to focus on the fantastically bad acting that was busting out all over, like chlamydia in a Columbian brothel.

Zal’s Bedelia is off-the-charts crazy, with saucer-like eyes and a sing-songy speech cadence. She appears to have borrowed from Bette Davis, Jack Nicholson, and Bronson Pinchot, when he played Balki on Perfect Strangers. But still, she’s kinda sexy, raising the question, could a woman be hot enough to make her twisted, tortured psyche irrelevant?

In other words, would you %$^# Angelina Jolie?

Add that question to your next game of Scruples, then let me know how it turns out.

Bedelia won’t let her sister have a normal life, because it might mean she would end up warehoused in a loony bin. So she manipulates her with guilt trips and mock suicide attempts, and by murdering her sister’s boyfriends. You know, just the stuff that sisters do to each other, all the time.

Gallagher’s Rebecca is no prize either. Seemingly innocent and noble, she’s a rehab counselor who helps newly-blind people adapt to their new reality. She falls for a client (Brad Johnson), and then stalks him. Hello, ethics? And besides, can you truly stalk a blind guy? I mean, you can stand right beside him and he would have no idea you were there. What kind of challenge is that? It’s like arm-wrestling an infant, sort of. Just saying.

So we have a wacko and a stalker sharing the same house. Like liberals and conservatives, you know you can’t put them in the same space without some fireworks. Sure enough, Bedelia figures out her sister is stalking the blind guy, the better to make him…love..her... (insert eerie stalker music), and she has to put a stop to this nonsense, pronto.

She journeys to the blind guy’s house, toting a large handgun and a Ziploc bag o’ bullets. I’m not kidding about the Ziploc bag, but mind you, if I was a crazed killer, I’d want my bullets to be at their peak of freshness too.

See? The green seal means the freshness is locked in!

Bedelia tries and fails to eliminate the object of her sister’s affections. I think the seal on the bag had been compromised, and you can’t kill someone with stale bullets, you know.

Consumed with rage and frustration, she heads home and knocks out her sister with a vase. Hey, you've gotta improvise when your bullets have gone moagy, right? She binds her to a chair with duct tape, a psycho’s best friend since 1911. This is how life will be from now on, says Bedelia - two sisters housebound, with one taped to a chair. Yahtzee, sis? Here, I’ll roll the dice for you, since your hands are bound with duct tape…

The blind guy infers something has gone amiss, what with the uninvited presence of a shrill moonbat in his home, and the sudden disappearance of his rehab counselor. Could the two events be related?

Hey, why don’t I get in a cab, drive to their home, and walk blindly into the middle of this mess, mmkay?

His plan proceeds perfectly, right up to walking blindly into the mess. From there, crazy Bedelia tries to kill him. Evidently, she found a properly sealed bag of bullets in the lettuce crisper.

Improbably, Blind Guy bobs and weaves and shoulder-rolls as Bedelia empties a fresh clip into every piece of furniture in the house, missing him completely. Hey wacko, a few visits to the firing range couldn’t have hurt, you know? Just saying.

The producers then pull out one of the worst contrivances ever, revealing that Blind Guy has a temporary condition known as hysterical blindness. As he flees, Blind Guy starts to see light, and fuzzy objects. Minutes later he acquires 20/20 vision. Amazing, and ever so helpful to the plot, groan.

Bedelia’s aim improves, as she takes down a cop who arrives on the scene, then plugs her sister, who somehow chewed through the duct tape, perhaps with her newfound beaver teeth.

We reach the inevitable stand-off, where the no longer blind guy and the ailing Rebecca must convince the crazy sister to Put Down That Gun, because It Doesn’t Have To End This Way, right? I mean, you could just put it down, and then Nobody Gets Hurt.

Fortunately Bedelia stays crazy to the end, turning the gun on the no longer Blind Guy but getting plugged by the police officer we had assumed to be dead. Then Rebecca dies, and the town is suddenly short two nutjobs. But I’m sure they’ll be replaced, allowing us to enjoy Blind Obsession II: Girls Gone Wild, starring Soleil Moon Frye and Nancy McKeon.

2005-10-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-09-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

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.

2005-09-08T23:02:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-09-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

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!