PATHOLOGY
PATHOLOGY
September 20 2008, DVD, rented from Hollywood Video
I've been waiting to see this Milo Ventimigila vehicle since the very early days of me knowing who the hell he was, and after many a delay, I snagged the last available copy at the video store. Say what you will about Heroes, Milo can at least open a window on the DVD rental market. Is he trying to become a superstar, or is it just happening in some weird way? Or is it just me? Because I fancy him; I won't lie. He joins an elite cadre of actors who I will watch in absolutely anything, for the rest of their lives. Kiefer Sutherland is one; Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is another, Tyrone Power, Pierce Brosnan, Dick Powell, etc. etc. Those guys I have massive crushes on and who I also really love as actors. Other folks might not dig them; I've had nasty fights about whether or not Pierce Brosnan is worth anything. But I care, and I support them.
For God's sake, JOHN DE LANCIE is in this. It's an entirely different movie to me now. It's like when I spot Brent Spiner in anything; I know what's up. Plus, it's been too long since I've seen him.
Anyway, Milo plays Ted Gray (A CLUE??), a driven, uptight young doctor studying pathology at some medical university somewhere. He's away from his girl, who apparently used to go out with John DeLancie's professor character or something like that. At the university he shares classes with Ben, a decent schlub who is obviously puppyishly in love with Ted, and a group of nihilistic bullies who fail to treat corpses - or death itself - with any kind of respect. They think Ted's a square, and he thinks they're mean, thoughtless douchebags. But hey, you gotta socialize with someone, and killing at random can be a blast.
I had been told that the sexual tension in this movie was off the charts, and they did not lie. I guess it's just supposed to add to the general oversexed air of the film, but dang. Even Professor Q seems to want to kind of get with Milo, possibly vicariously. Then again, if he's going to be giving everyone those smoky glances, what can they do?
On the other hand, the bullies in this film are the kind of bullies that go out of style in fifth grade or so; shoving each other in the dissection room, wearing black jackets and swaggering around like a mob etc. But hey, they are kind of like the Lost Boys of medicine. OK, fine. One fateful night their de facto leader Jake gets Milo drunk, takes him to a whorehouse, and then he staggers around holding the camera until he vividly barfs on said camera. Go Milo! And eww. After an unpleasant morning, Ted suddenly gets his shit together because he is brilliant after all - but his nemesis/counterpart/hate boyfriend Jake is equally brilliant! and explains - in detail - how the murder they are trying to do forensics on was executed, because of course, Jake did it himself. And of course, poor innocent Milo is caught up in the middle of it. Ah, a cat and mouse game! Milo makes a pretty mouse, and one with a massive, raging dark side.
This movie is well-written (mostly; it bizarrely veers into some kind of stilted formalism when Ted is talking to Professor Q), well-filmed, and relatively well-acted, for what it is. Milo is strongly reliable as usual, and is really attempting to redefine the white V-neck T-shirt as a fetish object. (It's working for me, anyway.) Alyssa Milano is heard but not often seen as the long-distance girlfriend, Gwen. She's aging, but damn if she's not still absolutely gorgeous. Michael Weston as Jake pleasantly reminds me of a cross between Bradley Cooper, who I totally miss, and Jeremy Davies, who I also kind of miss; also he's practically breathing on Milo half the time, so that brings a certain watchability. Lauren Lee Smith plays the kind of blank-eyed moral burnout/sex puppet of the type better provided by Winona Ryder. Mei Malançon provides totally unnecessary, but not unwelcome lesbian appeal - the only thing unwelcome about it is that it's just so blatantly there to titillate straight males; she has no other characteristics whatsoever, and that bugs me. On the other hand, who has a problem looking at a hot Asian babe kissing on a cute redhead? These are not real girls; they're mere symbols of just what a depraved world our nice Dr. Ted has fallen into. I mean, really! Smoking weed! Nitrous oxide! Nipple piercing! Cunnilingus! (wow.) Prostitution! Crack! Rampant beer drinking! Sex in the room with a fresh corpse! This reminds me of my own writing in the vampire books, or at least what I was trying to do, with the minor exception that my women are actual people. OH! And then Maury - I mean Alan Blumenfeld - pops up as Gwen's dad, making all the Heroes fans applaud with the magic of Hey! It's That Guy-ness.
I think this could easily be a sleeper favorite; it's gripping, vicious, and both judgmental and nihilistic, as some the best stylish horror thrillers should be. And it's got a really great super-fake corpse for an autopsy scene that will bring much needed laughs into a grim part of the movie. It's fun, twisted, erratic, and only intermittently insulting. And the climax is really, really something else. If it tells you anything, there's an ad for ALIEN VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM included on the disk. I recommend it!
September 20 2008, DVD, rented from Hollywood Video
I've been waiting to see this Milo Ventimigila vehicle since the very early days of me knowing who the hell he was, and after many a delay, I snagged the last available copy at the video store. Say what you will about Heroes, Milo can at least open a window on the DVD rental market. Is he trying to become a superstar, or is it just happening in some weird way? Or is it just me? Because I fancy him; I won't lie. He joins an elite cadre of actors who I will watch in absolutely anything, for the rest of their lives. Kiefer Sutherland is one; Joseph Gordon-Leavitt is another, Tyrone Power, Pierce Brosnan, Dick Powell, etc. etc. Those guys I have massive crushes on and who I also really love as actors. Other folks might not dig them; I've had nasty fights about whether or not Pierce Brosnan is worth anything. But I care, and I support them.
For God's sake, JOHN DE LANCIE is in this. It's an entirely different movie to me now. It's like when I spot Brent Spiner in anything; I know what's up. Plus, it's been too long since I've seen him.
Anyway, Milo plays Ted Gray (A CLUE??), a driven, uptight young doctor studying pathology at some medical university somewhere. He's away from his girl, who apparently used to go out with John DeLancie's professor character or something like that. At the university he shares classes with Ben, a decent schlub who is obviously puppyishly in love with Ted, and a group of nihilistic bullies who fail to treat corpses - or death itself - with any kind of respect. They think Ted's a square, and he thinks they're mean, thoughtless douchebags. But hey, you gotta socialize with someone, and killing at random can be a blast.
I had been told that the sexual tension in this movie was off the charts, and they did not lie. I guess it's just supposed to add to the general oversexed air of the film, but dang. Even Professor Q seems to want to kind of get with Milo, possibly vicariously. Then again, if he's going to be giving everyone those smoky glances, what can they do?
On the other hand, the bullies in this film are the kind of bullies that go out of style in fifth grade or so; shoving each other in the dissection room, wearing black jackets and swaggering around like a mob etc. But hey, they are kind of like the Lost Boys of medicine. OK, fine. One fateful night their de facto leader Jake gets Milo drunk, takes him to a whorehouse, and then he staggers around holding the camera until he vividly barfs on said camera. Go Milo! And eww. After an unpleasant morning, Ted suddenly gets his shit together because he is brilliant after all - but his nemesis/counterpart/hate boyfriend Jake is equally brilliant! and explains - in detail - how the murder they are trying to do forensics on was executed, because of course, Jake did it himself. And of course, poor innocent Milo is caught up in the middle of it. Ah, a cat and mouse game! Milo makes a pretty mouse, and one with a massive, raging dark side.
This movie is well-written (mostly; it bizarrely veers into some kind of stilted formalism when Ted is talking to Professor Q), well-filmed, and relatively well-acted, for what it is. Milo is strongly reliable as usual, and is really attempting to redefine the white V-neck T-shirt as a fetish object. (It's working for me, anyway.) Alyssa Milano is heard but not often seen as the long-distance girlfriend, Gwen. She's aging, but damn if she's not still absolutely gorgeous. Michael Weston as Jake pleasantly reminds me of a cross between Bradley Cooper, who I totally miss, and Jeremy Davies, who I also kind of miss; also he's practically breathing on Milo half the time, so that brings a certain watchability. Lauren Lee Smith plays the kind of blank-eyed moral burnout/sex puppet of the type better provided by Winona Ryder. Mei Malançon provides totally unnecessary, but not unwelcome lesbian appeal - the only thing unwelcome about it is that it's just so blatantly there to titillate straight males; she has no other characteristics whatsoever, and that bugs me. On the other hand, who has a problem looking at a hot Asian babe kissing on a cute redhead? These are not real girls; they're mere symbols of just what a depraved world our nice Dr. Ted has fallen into. I mean, really! Smoking weed! Nitrous oxide! Nipple piercing! Cunnilingus! (wow.) Prostitution! Crack! Rampant beer drinking! Sex in the room with a fresh corpse! This reminds me of my own writing in the vampire books, or at least what I was trying to do, with the minor exception that my women are actual people. OH! And then Maury - I mean Alan Blumenfeld - pops up as Gwen's dad, making all the Heroes fans applaud with the magic of Hey! It's That Guy-ness.
I think this could easily be a sleeper favorite; it's gripping, vicious, and both judgmental and nihilistic, as some the best stylish horror thrillers should be. And it's got a really great super-fake corpse for an autopsy scene that will bring much needed laughs into a grim part of the movie. It's fun, twisted, erratic, and only intermittently insulting. And the climax is really, really something else. If it tells you anything, there's an ad for ALIEN VS PREDATOR: REQUIEM included on the disk. I recommend it!