Ennui, Cubed and Squared:

[jrittenhouse]

I’m come to the conclusion, especially after reading the MSNBC review, that I would rather have my teeth removed with a buzzsaw than watch REVOLUTIONARY ROAD.   I don’t need anything depressing, and people flailing each other over their own shallow talentlessness and devising stupid schemes to Run Away in the process - oy.  Gevalt, even.

If you

Comments

[popebuck1]

We started watching a screener copy of the DVD yesterday afternoon, and everyone dozed off within the first half hour. Honest to God.

[jrittenhouse]

After the last half-dozen years, I have overdosed and then some on boring, pseudo-arty movies in which everyone is miserable and an inch from homicide or suicide. Last year was just depressing as hell, Oscar-movie wise (as least for the subject matter).

[popebuck1]

My friend Rob once wrote a short play called "Generic Play Festival" which encapsulated about twenty really cliched dramatic formats. One of them was "Family Drama," and I believe it went something like this:

MOM: Here we are at our family reunion! Aren't we just so upper-middle-class and happy!

SON 1: I'm gay and have AIDS!

SON 2: I'm going broke!

DAUGHTER 1: I'm pregnant!

DAUGHTER 2: I'm married to an asshole everyone hates!

DAUGHTER 3: I've tried to kill myself four times now!

DAD: I'm dying of cancer!

MOM: Wow, I guess in retrospect, my opening comment was more than a little ironic.

{CURTAIN}

[rmjwell]

Okay, how many of this year's Oscar contenders fall into this trap?

[jrittenhouse]

Depends on what category. REVOLUTIONARY ROAD sure does.

HUSBAND AND WIFE: We're hot, and we're existentially bored with our lives.

WIFE: What happened to our lives? We were supposed to be bright, chic and avant-garde, and here we are with two kids and another on the way!

HUSBAND: Argh! I was going to be a hot writer!

WIFE: I know! I'll stop banging the neighbor out of boredom, and let's drop everything and split to the Left Bank. You'll quit that soul-sucking big business job and become a Great Writer, and we'll all sit around and smoke Gauloises and drink wine and discuss Proust!

HUSBAND: (goes off to work)(fools around with secretary)(returns home)

WIFE: Well?

HUSBAND: Oh, shut up! I didn't have the guts to tell them to stuff their job.

WIFE: *primal scream* (waves around suction device) OK, I've had it. I'm gonna suck the kid out of me with this thing and bleed to death in the process, and leave you with a huge cleaning bill and the other two kids.

HUSBAND: Man, I'm bored, and I hate and love you.

(the end)