On the Quality of Things, #15
Summer Movie Spectacular!!!

by Wade Stuckwisch
illustration by Jacob Chabot

If fans of Hollywood cinema have one hobby in common (other than seeing far too many bad movies), it's conjecture. Much of the typical cinephile's year is spent "anticipating" high profile movies, and of course, a majority of the most "hotly anticipated" movies hit theaters during, not coincidentally, the hottest season of the year: summer. And since I have no interest in how many times Jennifer Lopez might get married or which one of the Olsen twins is off her Kibbles, I will deign to satisfy my audience's sweet tooth for gossip with a discussion of some of this summer's most anticipated flicks - both those which have debuted, and those which we still eagerly await, like the tintinnabulation of some Pavlovian dinner bell.

So what exactly are we in for this summer? Let's review. There's a mere three sequels to previous blockbusters, by my count (Spider-man 2, Shrek 2 and The Bourne Supremacy, unless you want to add on Alien Vs. Predator or that Exorcist prequel I would rather pretend is not happening). There are only about two remakes coming out, and there's nothing prominently featuring Ben Affleck slated for this summer, thank goodness. (If ever a guy needed to be more selective about his choice of roles, it would be our boy Ben.) Already it looks like an improvement on last summer's glut of sequels and other assorted crap. On the other hand, most of this summer's biggest releases are based on previously popular novels or comic book characters (I suppose Garfield is a character from a daily strip, not a comic book, but work with me here people), plus a couple more based on historical legends for good measure. I guess I shouldn't complain about a lack of originality since a few of those (like Spider-Man 2) are probably going to be the best movies of the summer. Besides, it is possible to create a unique screen story for an established character, and if you butcher a book so badly that it becomes unrecognizable, then that's sort of like coming up with a completely original concept, right? There are definitely some pictures I am not excited about - I don't know who thought Garfield needed a movie adaptation at this late point in the strip's life, and I have a feeling, were one to attach magnets to Isaac Asimov's corpse prior to the release of I, Robot, one could probably build a dynamo that could power Las Vegas, if common clichés regarding the rotation of cadavers are to be believed. Also, was it truly necessary to remake a genuine American classic like The Manchurian Candidate? John Frankenheimer did enough to sully his own legacy before he died by making movies like Reindeer Games; could we at least give him the dignity of not mangling his best film? On the other hand, there are a good number of movies out there that already look like winners - Spider-man 2 and Shrek 2 met or exceeded all my expectations, I'm intrigued to see Alien Vs. Predator finally become something other than an arcade game, and of course Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle is sure to become an instant classic. (Yes, I am dead serious about Harold and Kumar.) And then there are movies that must remain the subject of speculation. For example, will The Village be as earth-shaking as The Sixth Sense, or as forgettable as Unbreakable? (Or will it fall somewhere in the middle, like Signs?) Will Catwoman prove to be a horribly bad idea or just a conventionally bad idea? Will Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow…oh wait, that's been pushed back to September. Dang, I was looking forward to finding out whether it would live up to the quality of its cast and art design, or become a huge flop. (Or do both…)

Ah, but all this is conjecture on my part, which is something anyone can do. My role as the critic is to tell you how movies are, not expound on what they might be like based on the advertising and accounts in other media sources. Let's cut to the chase…

The Saddest Music In The World: This movie is about a legless beer baroness in Winnipeg (played by Isabella Rossellini) who holds a competition to find the saddest music in the world, hoping a melancholy ditty will boost sales of her ale when Prohibition ends in the Depression-weary United States. A small-time Canadian producer (played by Mark McKinney) and his girlfriend (Maria de Medeiros) show up from Hollywood and begin coercing musicians from other national teams to create a musical dream team for (boo! hiss!) the United States. Meanwhile, the producer's brother (Ross MacMillan, if that matters) shows up as a cellist from Serbia, and their father (David Fox, I believe, like you know who he is) represents Canada on an overturned upright piano. But the forementioned plot is secondary to one reoccurring visual motif from the film: the divine amputee Ms. Rossellini atop glass legs filled with beer. See, the father accidentally amputated both of her legs years ago, and to make his amends he has spent his life crafting the glass legs. And he needed to fill them with beer for some reason. All I know is, watching The Saddest Music in The World, I have never wanted a tall cool Labatts so badly in my whole life. As you've probably guessed, it's a exceedingly odd film, but the allegorical legend it spins is very compelling in a strange, Eraserhead sort of way. Definitely the best movie about cutting off a woman's legs since Boxing Helena, and please feel free to quote me on that. If you're a fan of that sort of thing, I highly recommend hunting it down, which may prove difficult given the film's very modest release. Meanwhile, I think I'm gonna go get a beer…

Van Helsing: How much could you possibly expect from this movie? Let's remember that Stephen Sommers is the director who brought us both recent Mummy movies, which were enjoyable but also pure hyperkinetic fluff. Van Helsing is about as over-the-top a movie as you can get without it becoming a parody of itself. Everyone has a silly accent, every line is wrung dry for dramatic impact, and every single piece of classic monster movie kitch is dragged out and proudly paraded about like an unearthed corpse. I know the advertising promised Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man, but what were Riff Raff from Rocky Horror and Mr. Hyde from LXG doing in this picture? The surprising thing is, as long as you don't expect anything above the level of schlock, it's a highly entertaining picture. In fact, Sommers could even be considered some sort of budding auteur of quasi-historical hyperactive silliness, in the same way that Michael Bay has become synonymous with big, loud and dumb. Heaven help us all if that's true…

Shrek 2: Believe it or not, up until a week or so before the sequel came out I had not seen the original Shrek in its entirety. And frankly… I though it was a little flat. Maybe I just knew enough of the story already to ruin the surprises, I don't know. So while some people I saw Shrek 2 with were mildly disappointed by the "more of everything" approach common to most sequels, I actually thought it produced a fuller, more amusing and more satisfying film. Regardless, Shrek's sequel is unarguably the funniest thing I've seen all year, and sure to please just about everyone. But you could have guessed that.

Coffee and Cigarettes: I have the feeling that, if you're not already a fan of Jim Jarmusch's storytelling style and laid-back comic timing, you may not have the patience for this film. The separate stories that make up Coffee and Cigarettes are highly fractious, betraying little of their interrelation until the very last segment. Luckily, several of the individual tableaus are priceless on their own. I don't think you could sit Iggy Pop and Tom Waits in the same booth in a coffee shop without coming away with something sterling, for example. The two goofiest segments, featuring Joie Lee and Cinque Lee (Spike Lee's siblings) with Steve Buscemi, and RZA and GZA (of Wu-Tang Clan) with Bill Murray, are also sure to entertain. There's an interesting piece where Cate Blanchette performs opposite herself as her less successful cousin, and a completely priceless dialogue between actors Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina (made much funnier by Molina's recent high-profile success with films like Spider-man 2). The contrast between performances by seasoned actors like Molina and Blanchette with non-actors like Iggy Pop or Jack and Meg White makes for an interesting mix, especially as Jarmusch slowly begins to spin the gossamer threads that tie together material dating from the present back to 1986. While it's not as complete a film as something like Night on Earth, it's still a fascinating experiment and an amusing diversion at the very least.

The Day After Tomorrow: I find it amusing that a certain left-of-center lobbying group that will remain nameless was encouraging its members to see this movie, just to raise its opening weekend receipts and hopefully get some people talking about global warming. Do these people not remember Independence Day? You know, that movie with the flags and the Army jets and the exploding White House and the "today is Independence Day for the whole world, and coincidentally Independence Day in America so it's kind of like America taking over the whole world" thing? Apparently not. Well, I'm a firm believer in the credo that people will believe what they want to believe despite all evidence to the contrary, so I doubt Dick Cheney will have a change of heart and ratify the Kyoto protocol just because the vice president character in Day After Tomorrow ended up looking like a grade-A schlemiel. The movie, by the way, was quite ludicrous in spots (WOLVES? Come on, writers!) but the renditions of global weather carnage did make quite an impact. The movie adds little to the global climate change debate and does nothing to elevate the image of stupid white people in Hollywood film (Come on lady, leave the kid with cancer to die already! He's going to die eventually anyway!) but it did make some poignant observations regarding America's place in the world that have led me to absolve Roland Emmerich for making ID4. I think he still might owe some people apologies for Godzilla and Eight Legged Freaks, though…

The Chronicles of Riddick: Do I not remember first hearing about this movie as a prequel rather than a sequel? Some sort of pre-release retooling could help explain some of the incoherencies in the plot, as well as why one character in the film goes by two names and why the middle of the film, where Riddick escapes from a prison planet, seems much more akin to the first Riddick movie, Pitch Black, than the rest of the film. The end result, speculation aside, is a not-so-exquisite corpse of a film, lacking in direction and begging the question of what any of this has to do with the Riddick of Pitch Black. Pitch Black was a small, low-budget film that, were it not for engaging characters like Riddick, could have wound up being a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie. Chronicles is much too big and loud to pay too much attention to character nuances, and thus loses all the elements that separated Pitch Black from the glut of awful sci-fi/horror films produced for video and cable. Admittedly some of the digital effects, especially those dealing with the invading Necromonger army, are impressive. (Which brings me to another point… who named things in this movie? That bad guys are "Necromongers," a group of aliens seeking a mysterious dimension known as "Underverse," and the constantly pissy Riddick is revealed to be (spolier alert) from a race of aliens known as "Furians," pronounced FURY-ans. Any high school dungeon master could have come up with less obviously contrived names over the span of a study hall.) All and all it was a decent movie for the genre, and the ending was intriguing, but I pray that, unless someone comes up with a coherent story and has the pull to keep it intact through the production process, we will see no more Riddick movies on Vin Diesel's resume.

Napoleon Dynamite: I think, given the existence of Welcome To The Dollhouse, Rushmore and even Pee Wee's Big Adventure, it's safe to say the Weird Kid movie has been done. Yes, this one is in rural Idaho and his name is Napoleon Dynamite, but the story remains essentially the same, even if the characters are different. Luckily, this movie is buoyed by such fantastic character portrayals that the occasional lack of plot or the hints of staleness in the story are wholly forgivable. Efren Ramirez is every bit as good being quietly confused as Napoleon's friend Pedro as Jon Heder is at being bombastically spastic as Napoleon, or as Aaron Ruell is at being a lisp-y milquetoast loser as Napoleon's brother Kip. The final, somewhat predictable message is that the so-called normal people, like Napoleon's football-obsessed uncle Rico (memorably portrayed by Jon Gries) are just as odd in their own way as the refreshingly unique Napoleon; while the story may not be altogether edifying, the character portrayals are so good that you may wind up hitting yourself in the head declaring "IDIOT!" if you miss it.

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story: I, for one, was really looking forward to this first film from the creator of Reebok's "Terry Tate, Office Linebacker" shorts. Ben Stiller did seem from the advertisements like he was rehashing Derek Zoolander as a muscle-headed hyper-jock, but he's a funny guy so I could let that slide. And with Vince Vaughn's considerable talent for playing the sarcastic straight man, not to mention the inclusion of Office Space's Stephen Root and Freddy Got Fingered's Rip Torn (yes, I know Rip Torn has done other things, I was being funny), I'll admit I had high expectations. Maybe my expectations were a little too high, since I came away feeling like most of the funniest jokes had been in the TV commercials (save one priceless set piece involving Stiller, Emeril and a slice of pizza). But who am I to say anything about a movie with a character named Steve the Pirate, a guy who thinks he's a pirate? I am not that person, whoever that person may be. So there.

Spider-Man 2: I can't believe how much the movie sucked. HA! Just kidding. While I won't say this movie was better than multiple orgasms like a lot of critics, I would have to stretch to find anything to fault Spider-Man 2 for, either. Oh yeah, some of the dialogue is unfortunate, some of the pseudo-science is laughable, the beginning is a touch slow and Spidey does seem to spend an inordinate amount of time unmasked for a guy who wants to keep his identity secret. On the other hand the action is spectacular, the story is solidly compelling and the direction shows some welcome touches of the Sam Raimi we knew from his wilder films like Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. (There's this musical montage set to "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" that simply must be seen.) Was it better than the original? Who cares, the original was so awesome that any comparison is a moot point. Plus, much like Spidey 1, the ending will leave you begging for more, which distinguishes it from multiple orgasms but still makes for a highly satisfying conclusionin its own right. Go see it again.

So that was May and June, more or less. Gotta go, the premier episode of Alf's new talk show is on soon…

-July 8, 2004