COLUMNIST OF THE DAY: I tried to get riled up about something for today, but it was no use. I’m too happy with the industry this week. Zorro, Mary and Pvt. Ryan have entertained and me and given me hope despite soft box office numbers. Besides, I’ve got to save up my bile for the first episode of my Yahoo! Chat, which starts this Friday at 5:00 p.m. ET/2:00 p.m. PT at chat.yahoo.com. In the meantime, there are some readers who have opinions that are, shall we say, a little controversial. First, a tongue-in-cheek defense of CG showdowns. Then, I found the few people who have something bad to say about The Mask of Zorro, There’s Something About Mary and my (and the vast majority of your) beloved Out of Sight. Finally, a take on Saving Private Ryan‘s rating. The following are not necessarily (or often, remotely) the opinion of this columnist, roughcut.com or most of you. But that’s why you’ll enjoy reading them, right?
From Jason: “Dave, How can you be sick of weekly CG showdowns? Come on!!!! That is practically the best show of the summer. These companies spend millions and millions of dollars on movies, marked the you-know-what out of them, and then send them into an instant death. How can you not love all the big execs saying how happy they are with a lower than expected opening on Monday? They know exactly what they are getting into, yet week after week, year after year, they never quit. They all think their movie will do Titanic business, yet what they do not realize is that when Titanic was doing amazing business every week, there were NO OTHER FILMS WORTHY OF BEATING IT!!! It played clear through January and February, which are graveyards, and the modest films in March came close but never beat it. I personally love it when a huge budget movie bombs. I do not know why, but it is just really, really funny to me.”
From Dale M.R.: “OK. There IS Something About Mary. It stinks. The comedy is based on the single concept of schadenfreude — literally, the joy we take from the pain of others. Nothing wrong with that; it is as old as laughter. It’s why Wile E. Coyote is hilarious when he eats yet another Acme explosive device and winds up in a hole on the canyon floor. The problem here is that the Farrelly Bros. rest this movie on the slender shoulders of Ben Stiller who is subjected to an endless excess of misfortunes, humiliations and outrages. Stiller is neither much of an actor nor enjoyable to watch. His hapless geek-of-a-character fails the jokes from the get-go. We don’t care what happens to this jerk, and without the sympathy of the audience, schadenfreude is all pain and no joy. Unless you find sadism attractive. Matt Dillon makes a believable creep but, to be as charitable as possible, he is not an actor blessed with a comedic touch. Chris Elliott is both unbelievable and unfunny. On the other hand, or ear in this movie, Cameron Diaz is all she is cracked up to be. She is the one lotus rising out of this odoriferous sewer of a movie. Otherwise reasonable critics, to their eternal shame, make this dreck out to be in a league with such low-class, sophomoric and wonderful gross-me-out-with-a-spoon movies like Animal House or Airplane or even Naked Gun. There’s Something About Mary is as funny as the humor impaired Bobby and Peter Farrelly‘s other misguided movies. Pathetic.”
From GWHunting: “In my newspaper yesterday, they had the box office report, and it was saying how despite Zorro’s reviews, the best since The Truman Show, it didn’t do terribly well. The best reviews since The Truman Show?! Give me a break. I guess we forgot about Out of Sight, There’s Something About Mary, Buffalo 66, The Opposite of Sex and more. The day I waste seven more bucks on that piece of s–t will be the day I hang myself off of a ledge.”
From (a different) David: “I saw Out of Sight with a bunch of people, and no one liked it. As we were walking out of the theater, it seemed like the audience kept muttering the same thing: ‘That movie sucked, but since it got such great reviews, it must just be me.’ I heard that about 20 times. I think that’s why it’s done poorly at the box office. If it’s as great as you say, then it would have at least SOME legs to it. But it just died. The problem for me was that after each forward scene, there was a flashback scene and usually that flashback scene was really irrelevant to the story. Since the narrative was done so poorly, that left the movie to be what it really was: a character study. Which is perfectly fine except none of the characters seemed real or all that interesting. (Except for Steve Zahn’s character.) Let me give you a prime example of what irked me the most. Right at the start when Selena (sorry, I don’t know her real name) is kidnapped in the trunk by George Clooney, she (or he) says something to the effect, ‘The idea that a woman would instantly fall in love with her captor is what made me not believe Three Days of the Condor.’ Then, instantly she is in love with him. It’s a shorthand for the writer (or director) saying, ‘I can’t think of a way to show them falling in love, so instead I’ll make a cute reference to another movie that did the same thing (and better) and you’ll just have to accept it.’ So, instead of being original or creative, they basically cop out. But in a cultural-reference Tarantino way that’s supposed to suggest they really ARE clever. (Which they weren’t.) In addition, the director kept, for lack of a better phrase, showing off. The supposedly brilliant sex scene with Jennifer Lopez (Hey! I remembered her name!) and George Clooney was a showcase of his editing and directing talents. However, it COMPLETELY (for about the 10th time during the film) completely took me out of the story. I kept saying, ‘Well, at least we know Soderbergh can EDIT! It’s a good music video but its dull as all hell.’
“Most importantly, the movie was deadly dull. The best example: When I saw it the night it came out in a packed theater, people around me were actually snoring! Sleeping in the theater! The theater was completely quiet (except for the people talking amongst themselves about how boring it was.) Then, near the end, you have a moment that was funny. It was unexpected. It was interesting. It made sense. The audience enjoyed it. Unfortunately, it was virtually the only moment like that in the entire movie. But, it was the exception that proved the rule — that the filmmakers were capable of making something entertaining, and the film itself could have been good. To me, it just seemed warmed-over Tarantino. It also left me emotionally cold. Have you noticed that that is indeed Soderbergh’s directorial style though? Unfortunately, he chooses material where this style just isn’t suited for, like Out of Sight, for example, which to me seems like it should have been a more passionate, intense movie.”
From Ryan: “Dave, Why are people complaining about a rating for Saving Private Ryan? Since when has violence been considered too graphic? The Mask of Zorro contained a head floating in a jar, a decapitation, people living in squalor, and various impalements, shootings and stabbings. Yet this film only warranted a PG-13. Had Antonio Banderas been naked — if only for a brief second, or Catherine Zeta-Jones and he had a roll in the hay — it would have been R-rated for sure. [David note: Hard to argue that Spielberg gets the benefit of the doubt in one film and not the other.] So why pick on Saving Private Ryan? Because it’s based on a war that really happened? World War II was not all about the romanticized world we often perceive it to be. It was a real war, and people lived and died heroically, tragically and violently. To slap it with a harsh rating does nothing. We all know what perception the NC-17 rating has. It’s unfortunate (again, sex is BAD, bloody death, OK), but it will only keep people away. And that is a crime. It’s too important to restrict its viewing. This film represents a part of our history that too many people no longer give any thought to. It’s a period that changed a generation and a world forever, and like the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. or a Civil War battlefield, people should see it to remember; see it so they never forget. To quibble about a rating lessens the importance of what the film is about and lessens the meaning of what people like my grandparents fought for. And to show the film to anyone under the age of high school forces a subject matter that they cannot fully understand. It’s a film, folks. No one is putting a gun to your head and marching you to the theater. If the violence offends you, stay home. And for God’s sake, leave the little ones at home.”

Be Sociable, Share!

• 
•