This Ticket limits our liability. Read It.

 By reading the enclosed, Reader (hereby referred to as Reader) agrees to imdemnify Batman (hereby referred to as Writer) from the following:

 Resolved: that these are not movie reviews, and therefore Writer reserves all rights to spoil every plot turn, line of dialog, and gratuitous Matthew McConaughey casting that he sees fit, not only with the movie in question, but with any movie he has seen, heard about it, or simply made up, even if Reader really, really was going to see that one, but couldn't figure out how the Netflix queue works.

 Resolved: that these are not reviews, Reader will not hold Writer responsible if Writer does not convey if a movie is Good (hereby defined as Good) or Bad (hereby also defined as Good). This is largely because Writer isn't sure either.

Many years ago, the LA Weekly review of Showgirls was struggling to explain how difficult this film was to categorize (and Showgirls is that).  The reviewer explained (and I’m quoting from memory here), “At one point during the preview screening, a man behind me said, ‘This is the greatest movie I have ever seen in my entire life.’” 

That man was me.  

This may be difficult to believe, but I was at that preview screening, and anyone who knows me will tell you those exact words have tumbled from my mouth more than once (though I was slightly misquoted.  The exact phrasing is, “This is the Greatest Film.  I Have Ever Seen.  In My Entire Life”  Happy to set the record straight).  That being said, my friends are lying if they tell you that I say it about every movie I see.  That being said, it is a phrase I will use at least four or five times a year.  It is a statement reserved for the truly remarkable and wonderful, not the good.  And to be clear, I mean it each time I say it.  My Name Is Bruce is not a good movie.  It may even be terrible.  But that doesn’t stop it from being the greatest movie I have ever seen in my entire life.

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Jacques Laçan was a french psychoanalyst who came up with the bright idea that the length of the therapy session should be according to the patient’s need.  If you were in a space to open up, the session would go on for hours.  If you weren’t ready to get better, he would kick you out after five minutes.  I’ve always suspected that he quintuple booked, and would up getting paid for 20 sessions an hour, but you never know.  History is still debating the accuracy of his filofax. 

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Dietrich Dörner, in The Logic of Failure, outlines the various ways systems, countries, nuclear safety teams, and minor bureaucrats create disasters, all the while knowing better.  And, for a change of pace, I’m not going to apply this to studio heads, but to myself.  It seems there’s a particular way that we do, that I do, stupid stuff, and that is called Goal Degeneration.  Basically, if you start out trying to run a nuclear power plant, become consumed with how good you are at running that plant, you might try to prove how smart you are and cause a meltdown.  It’s mistaking the means for the ends, and it’s something we do all the time: if you get into a relationship to be happy, and wind up fighting all the time for the sake of the relationship, that’s goal degeneration.  

A few months ago, as a goof, I started writing a little bit about movies that I had seen.  It was fun, trying to be witty, and sometimes succeeding, and putting it down on paper, or, for the more literal minded, on MySQL servers.  Then, it became something I had to do, and it wasn’t so much a goof anymore.   Then, I saw Doubt, and it reached the threshold, what we’ll call the homework continuum.  The goal, of goofing off, had degenerated into something obligatory.  So to get back on track, and not cause any Chernobyls, from a literary point of view, I’m just going to ramble, and see what comes of it. (more…)

I was on the way out of the Westfield Century City shopping complex, and I was in a good mood.  The AMC Century 15 is now my new favorite theatre.  It has a Godiva chocolate store out front, the earliest showtimes in Los Angeles County (a 9:45 morning showtime of Bolt in 3D.  9:45!) (more…)

Now we all hate humanity, at least a little bit.  That’s why we have movies.  Admit it - you didn’t see Independence Day for the part where Bill Pulman raises his hands and goes, “Woo”; you saw it to watch the White House explode.  And The Day After Tomorrow?  Do we really care if Jake Gyllenhaal and co. make it out alive?  Do we even remember if they did?  No, we want to see New York swallowed by a wave of water and then frozen.  That’s why they put it in the trailer.  So out pops the 2008 remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still: another opportunity to witness the annihilation of mankind - what’s not to like?  

The answer to that is The Day The Earth Stood Still.  I’ve made it clear: I hate humanity, but, to paraphrase, people, individually aren’t so bad.  Some of them I rather like.  With one horrible, horrible exception.

Jacob Benson, the kid in The Day The Earth Stood Still.

Die, Jacob Benson, Die.

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You may in fact wonder why I would see Australia, by all accounts, now including my own, an overlong and pointless mess.  Well, I have a rule.  I have many, but this is a new one, to you anyway.  It’s more of a criterion: any ill-adviced story with an obscenely high budget and I’m there.  If Kevin Costner is directing himself delivering mail in a post-apocolyptic Southwest, you know I’m there (an experience that comes replete with an inexplicably enthusiastic Will Patton, as Costner’s enemy, screaming “Ride, Postman, Ride!!!!’.  Again, there’s my $7.50 right there).  

Put Eddie Murphy (and Eddie Murphy!) in space as a detective on the moon.  Sure!  He’s fighting the mob?  Sure, why not?  Are they selling drugs?  No?  Rubbing out the competition?  Not exactly…no it’s a movie about the moon mob’s attempt to monopolize singers in the nightclub business.  That would have been my next guess.  I am, and I was, there.

In a certain sense, the rule has served me well, since what most people call flops are rarely boring.  Enter Australia, which I now realize is a war movie.  Not in the conventional sense, though there are plenty of dull battle scenes in it.  No Australia is going to war with you, the viewer.  

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There’s a bit in the otherwise forgettable remake of The Manchurian Candidate (let’s, said the filmmakers, make Manchurian the name of an evil corporation, you know because corporations are always doing stuff in politics.  It’s an idea that if presented to conservatives even way back in 1962 would elicit the response: “Yes, well, we were hoping for something a little more…controversial.”), where a creepy and somewhat ominous Robyn Hitchcock appears in the background and looks creepy and, well, at very least English.  You wonder, who was that?  When is he coming back?  And why would they update The Manchurian Candidate in 2004 and make it less relevant?

Oh.  Answered my own question.

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