Reel of Fish VII
Why, children of the Revolution, do you make me hit you?
I don't want to hit you. I love you! But you MAKE me hit you when you do this to me!
You let me get all lazy and useless. You let me go THREE WEEKS without a single prodding comment about missing Reel of Fish! You know, Reel of Fish? The light of your life, the hop in your step, the maltodextrose in your coffee, the motivator of your turntable, your raisin de otter?! Instead I just play video games and collect interesting new wireless mice and go drinking with my no-good tech support buddies. And no one says a THING to me about how you're not up-to-date on the latest flicks, the realest reels, the movingest movies, the sinful cinema brought to you by your host with the most. This is why I gotta hit you, baby.
Now let's talk turkey. And then you can go make me a sandwich.
In re: my life, nothing of consequence has really occurred. I'm still employed at Apple and have a nice mid-day schedule and a few peons to boss around ("Go ring up that guy who wants a nano, tell Dane he can take his 15 after that phone call, and chop some more lumber so we can build another ogre ship." "Zug zug!"). I'm currently taking a full-system antibiotic to kill a minor ear infection I've been unable to rid myself of - and we're talking here of drugs so strong that I can't go out in direct sunlight for long periods of time or eat too much iron or anything terribly hard to digest, since all the organisms that help process those vitamins and minerals and nutrients have been killed in the pharmacological genocide I've inflicted on my own gentle person in an effort to make my ear stop itching. That's how medicine works. At least it was free. Anyone who says America has no socialized health care has never been to Publix, where you can get locally-made generic drugs on the cheap and free antibiotics as well as really good fried chicken and orange blossom honey and Double Stuf Oreos and Tide and meat thermometers.
In re: the cinema, you've all caught up on the Oscars and read my earth-shattering revelations from the last edition of Reel of Fish, and are thus now all fully aware of my prognosticative (prognosticatonal? prognosticateral? progsis?) powers, and will tremble in fear at the truths and mysteries I will reveal to you. Sadly, I cannot stop (except for a couple of weeks at a time, whereupon I gotta hit you, baby), as I am, like Destiny, chained to my fate, doomed to read the future and then post it with links to IMDB.com. Unlike Cassandra, however, people listen to me. Like Cassandra, however, none of you ever comment on my freakin' LiveJournal entries.
Not that I'm bitter. I'm sweet. Sweet like beet sugar. And I'll beat you, sugar, if you don't shut your big yap and let me get back to Reel of Fish:
Week 7 of 51 - Vantage Point
Director: Sly pimp Pete Travis
Starring: Brazen strumpet Dennis Quaid, cheap trollop Forest Whitaker, saucy tart Zoe Saldana, expensive doxy Sigourney Weaver, and aged madam William Hurt.*
What It Is - BLAM!
#1 - Vantage Point is the story of a conspiracy to assassinate President William Hurt and how it affects 8 people who are all in Spain for a variety of unlikely reasons.
#2 - Vantage Point is both a heavy-handed study of terrorist philosophy and a commercial for Bluetooth headsets and other cellphone accessories such as sniper rifle remote controls.
#3 - Vantage Point is a great way to watch Zoe Saldana get blown up a bunch of times.
#4 - Vantage Point is the story of how ice cream can save the President from terrorists.
#5 - Vantage Point is the only movie that gives Patriot Games a run for its money for movies featuring relentless heroes in suits.
#6 - Vantage Point is a gimmick flick that seems like it was filmed just so the director could see it compared to Rashomon in print.
#7 - Vantage Point is, to its credit, the only movie I've seen featuring a quick-assemble remote sniper rifle.
#8 - Vantage Point is about 90 minutes long.
Comment il Rouler - Vantage Point does deliver exactly what it promised in the 9,428 trailers I saw for it between November of last year and now. Someone shoots President William Hurt and then we see the same half-hour bloc of time from 8 different perspectives in 5 different segments. The movie is very pretty, with much of it shot in the exceedingly gorgeous city of Salamanca, Spain (well, it's nice, but it's no Bruges), and featuring a truly astonishing number of spinning-camera shots and lots of bright colors and beautifully-done explosions. Many people are shot, there's at least two new twists per segment, and Dennis Quaid spends a whole lot of time looking around with the expression of wide-eyed furious shock that he had trademarked eight years ago. There's fuzzy flashbacks and ominous staring into mirrors and James Bond gimmicks and high-speed car chases through what is supposed to be Spain but is very clearly Mexico.
It's not a BAD movie. Per se.
It's just not very good. Especially after the over-the-top sci-fi and headwrenching cult flicks and Oscar fodder I've been savoring for the past few weeks. It's lukewarm, and like Jesus I would spew it all over the walls if it didn't cost 7 bucks for the discounted ticket. So instead I chewed this political shoot-'em-up pap up and swallowed it with the handfuls of buttered popcorn and Sour Patch Watermelon Slices that have become the favored elixir of delight for my flickering kinetoscope expeditions (seriously, so good - take a handful of hot buttered corn and place a sour-sweet slice of watermelon candy on top; exquisite). Everyone turns in the performances that you'd expect them to. Dennis Quaid grits his teeth and Forest Whitaker looks harmless, astonished and mildly retarded and the various ethnic guys are lethal, cruel, efficient, and - as previously mentioned - chattily philosophical.
But the movie relies way too heavily on its gimmick, and once you see past the multiple-perspective schtick you realize you're left with a paper tiger of a plot built out of a shaky lattice of extremely unlikely scenarios. I don't mean unlikely like Lex Luthor finding Kryptonite; I mean unlikely like the Joker shooting down the damn Batwing with one shot from his novelty pistol. The way it all hangs together is just exceedingly unlikely (the damn President has TWO GUARDS in the hallway of the hotel where he's staying? TWO?) when you look at the details, which ironically you're forced to after watching the same damn half-hour sequence for the fifth time. This is not to say that, un-nitpicked, there's not a lot to enjoy. The beautiful square, the goofy CNN-style segments (why the hell doesn't one of the news networks just get on board to take those roles? GNN? Like Wolf Blitzer is too good to do a forty-second guest spot talking to Zoe Saldana. I guess Ted Turner is too busy screwing Jane Fonda on his organic buffalo ranch to take an extra million so I don't have to look at a Dollar Store knock-off CNN logo) with Sigourney Weaver as a harried producer, the car chases - all cool enough. And the helado the little girl eats while she's talking to the terrorist mastermind looks freakin' DELICIOUS.
But on the other hand, you've got what little subtext there is being laid out in plain sight like a dead hooker by every character who can string two lines together ("You can't just have your characters SAY how they feel! That makes me feel angry!") and you've got a very silly ending that I'm sure seemed very clever when it was sitting there blinking on the screen of a Vaio in a tapas bar in Aspen but comes across a bit anti-climactically when you're sitting there after 90 minutes of film (and 10 of those minutes you've seen 5 times by now). On the other hand, I have to give the movie credit, as it is the FIRST of the movies I've reviewed for Reel of Fish where - and if this is a spoiler alert, you need to be a bit quicker on the draw when going to see your conspiracy thrillers - not every protagonist dies. In fact, the body count of non-villains is amazingly low. Not even the black guy dies. That's got to be some kind of record.
Endgame - There's better ways to spend 90 minutes, inside and outside of movie theaters, but you could also do a hell of a lot worse. If you don't want to watch Rashomon because you secretly hate subtitles (or the Japanese) and you want to be able to snigger knowingly at that one Simpsons line, then this flick'll do the trick. Just don't walk away expecting to be edified, enlightened, enriched, exalted, or anything else that begins with an E.
Well, that was fun. Now I'm tired. This Cipro I'm on reacts with beer to make you really, really sleepy and spin-headed, so I went ahead and had two Sam Adams Winter Ales (mmm, gingery), so it's actually a bit hard to see the keyboard now, but y'know, still fun.
Now, to clarify, I saw Vantage Point a bit over a week ago, and I saw another one this week. Tomorrow I'll watch one more and then post both reviews to get caught up to last week. Then this Friday you get the star-spangled tenth edition of Reel of Fish! AWESOME. EXALTEDLY AWESOME.
Don't lie. You know you're excited. I can sense your arousal from here.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow as we go back in time to Saturday when I saw a movie I was meant to see the Friday before - and review the ridiculously overhyped 10,000 BC!
Be there - or be sacrificed to the God King!
* We've all failed our saving throws vs. Heartbreak with the loss of GG, and deal with it whatever way we can.
I don't want to hit you. I love you! But you MAKE me hit you when you do this to me!
You let me get all lazy and useless. You let me go THREE WEEKS without a single prodding comment about missing Reel of Fish! You know, Reel of Fish? The light of your life, the hop in your step, the maltodextrose in your coffee, the motivator of your turntable, your raisin de otter?! Instead I just play video games and collect interesting new wireless mice and go drinking with my no-good tech support buddies. And no one says a THING to me about how you're not up-to-date on the latest flicks, the realest reels, the movingest movies, the sinful cinema brought to you by your host with the most. This is why I gotta hit you, baby.
Now let's talk turkey. And then you can go make me a sandwich.
In re: my life, nothing of consequence has really occurred. I'm still employed at Apple and have a nice mid-day schedule and a few peons to boss around ("Go ring up that guy who wants a nano, tell Dane he can take his 15 after that phone call, and chop some more lumber so we can build another ogre ship." "Zug zug!"). I'm currently taking a full-system antibiotic to kill a minor ear infection I've been unable to rid myself of - and we're talking here of drugs so strong that I can't go out in direct sunlight for long periods of time or eat too much iron or anything terribly hard to digest, since all the organisms that help process those vitamins and minerals and nutrients have been killed in the pharmacological genocide I've inflicted on my own gentle person in an effort to make my ear stop itching. That's how medicine works. At least it was free. Anyone who says America has no socialized health care has never been to Publix, where you can get locally-made generic drugs on the cheap and free antibiotics as well as really good fried chicken and orange blossom honey and Double Stuf Oreos and Tide and meat thermometers.
In re: the cinema, you've all caught up on the Oscars and read my earth-shattering revelations from the last edition of Reel of Fish, and are thus now all fully aware of my prognosticative (prognosticatonal? prognosticateral? progsis?) powers, and will tremble in fear at the truths and mysteries I will reveal to you. Sadly, I cannot stop (except for a couple of weeks at a time, whereupon I gotta hit you, baby), as I am, like Destiny, chained to my fate, doomed to read the future and then post it with links to IMDB.com. Unlike Cassandra, however, people listen to me. Like Cassandra, however, none of you ever comment on my freakin' LiveJournal entries.
Not that I'm bitter. I'm sweet. Sweet like beet sugar. And I'll beat you, sugar, if you don't shut your big yap and let me get back to Reel of Fish:
Week 7 of 51 - Vantage Point
Director: Sly pimp Pete Travis
Starring: Brazen strumpet Dennis Quaid, cheap trollop Forest Whitaker, saucy tart Zoe Saldana, expensive doxy Sigourney Weaver, and aged madam William Hurt.*
What It Is - BLAM!
#1 - Vantage Point is the story of a conspiracy to assassinate President William Hurt and how it affects 8 people who are all in Spain for a variety of unlikely reasons.
#2 - Vantage Point is both a heavy-handed study of terrorist philosophy and a commercial for Bluetooth headsets and other cellphone accessories such as sniper rifle remote controls.
#3 - Vantage Point is a great way to watch Zoe Saldana get blown up a bunch of times.
#4 - Vantage Point is the story of how ice cream can save the President from terrorists.
#5 - Vantage Point is the only movie that gives Patriot Games a run for its money for movies featuring relentless heroes in suits.
#6 - Vantage Point is a gimmick flick that seems like it was filmed just so the director could see it compared to Rashomon in print.
#7 - Vantage Point is, to its credit, the only movie I've seen featuring a quick-assemble remote sniper rifle.
#8 - Vantage Point is about 90 minutes long.
Comment il Rouler - Vantage Point does deliver exactly what it promised in the 9,428 trailers I saw for it between November of last year and now. Someone shoots President William Hurt and then we see the same half-hour bloc of time from 8 different perspectives in 5 different segments. The movie is very pretty, with much of it shot in the exceedingly gorgeous city of Salamanca, Spain (well, it's nice, but it's no Bruges), and featuring a truly astonishing number of spinning-camera shots and lots of bright colors and beautifully-done explosions. Many people are shot, there's at least two new twists per segment, and Dennis Quaid spends a whole lot of time looking around with the expression of wide-eyed furious shock that he had trademarked eight years ago. There's fuzzy flashbacks and ominous staring into mirrors and James Bond gimmicks and high-speed car chases through what is supposed to be Spain but is very clearly Mexico.
It's not a BAD movie. Per se.
It's just not very good. Especially after the over-the-top sci-fi and headwrenching cult flicks and Oscar fodder I've been savoring for the past few weeks. It's lukewarm, and like Jesus I would spew it all over the walls if it didn't cost 7 bucks for the discounted ticket. So instead I chewed this political shoot-'em-up pap up and swallowed it with the handfuls of buttered popcorn and Sour Patch Watermelon Slices that have become the favored elixir of delight for my flickering kinetoscope expeditions (seriously, so good - take a handful of hot buttered corn and place a sour-sweet slice of watermelon candy on top; exquisite). Everyone turns in the performances that you'd expect them to. Dennis Quaid grits his teeth and Forest Whitaker looks harmless, astonished and mildly retarded and the various ethnic guys are lethal, cruel, efficient, and - as previously mentioned - chattily philosophical.
But the movie relies way too heavily on its gimmick, and once you see past the multiple-perspective schtick you realize you're left with a paper tiger of a plot built out of a shaky lattice of extremely unlikely scenarios. I don't mean unlikely like Lex Luthor finding Kryptonite; I mean unlikely like the Joker shooting down the damn Batwing with one shot from his novelty pistol. The way it all hangs together is just exceedingly unlikely (the damn President has TWO GUARDS in the hallway of the hotel where he's staying? TWO?) when you look at the details, which ironically you're forced to after watching the same damn half-hour sequence for the fifth time. This is not to say that, un-nitpicked, there's not a lot to enjoy. The beautiful square, the goofy CNN-style segments (why the hell doesn't one of the news networks just get on board to take those roles? GNN? Like Wolf Blitzer is too good to do a forty-second guest spot talking to Zoe Saldana. I guess Ted Turner is too busy screwing Jane Fonda on his organic buffalo ranch to take an extra million so I don't have to look at a Dollar Store knock-off CNN logo) with Sigourney Weaver as a harried producer, the car chases - all cool enough. And the helado the little girl eats while she's talking to the terrorist mastermind looks freakin' DELICIOUS.
But on the other hand, you've got what little subtext there is being laid out in plain sight like a dead hooker by every character who can string two lines together ("You can't just have your characters SAY how they feel! That makes me feel angry!") and you've got a very silly ending that I'm sure seemed very clever when it was sitting there blinking on the screen of a Vaio in a tapas bar in Aspen but comes across a bit anti-climactically when you're sitting there after 90 minutes of film (and 10 of those minutes you've seen 5 times by now). On the other hand, I have to give the movie credit, as it is the FIRST of the movies I've reviewed for Reel of Fish where - and if this is a spoiler alert, you need to be a bit quicker on the draw when going to see your conspiracy thrillers - not every protagonist dies. In fact, the body count of non-villains is amazingly low. Not even the black guy dies. That's got to be some kind of record.
Endgame - There's better ways to spend 90 minutes, inside and outside of movie theaters, but you could also do a hell of a lot worse. If you don't want to watch Rashomon because you secretly hate subtitles (or the Japanese) and you want to be able to snigger knowingly at that one Simpsons line, then this flick'll do the trick. Just don't walk away expecting to be edified, enlightened, enriched, exalted, or anything else that begins with an E.
Well, that was fun. Now I'm tired. This Cipro I'm on reacts with beer to make you really, really sleepy and spin-headed, so I went ahead and had two Sam Adams Winter Ales (mmm, gingery), so it's actually a bit hard to see the keyboard now, but y'know, still fun.
Now, to clarify, I saw Vantage Point a bit over a week ago, and I saw another one this week. Tomorrow I'll watch one more and then post both reviews to get caught up to last week. Then this Friday you get the star-spangled tenth edition of Reel of Fish! AWESOME. EXALTEDLY AWESOME.
Don't lie. You know you're excited. I can sense your arousal from here.
Be sure to tune in tomorrow as we go back in time to Saturday when I saw a movie I was meant to see the Friday before - and review the ridiculously overhyped 10,000 BC!
Be there - or be sacrificed to the God King!
* We've all failed our saving throws vs. Heartbreak with the loss of GG, and deal with it whatever way we can.