Archive for May 1st, 2009

When I saw the (first) reboot of The Punisher, I figured there was no way you could screw up such a simple story. A war hero is with his family in Central Park when his wife and kids get caught in the crossfire of a mob war. They die, he vows to kill any mobsters he finds, hoping to prevent future collateral damage like his family.

It’s Batman with guns and without costumes (making Thomas Jane’s “costume” a t-shirt was truly a brilliant idea). Think Death Wish VI: The One With Twice The Budget Of The Previous Five Entries Combined… Plus John Travolta For Some Reason!

But anyone who saw that reboot (or the next reboot) knows that, indeed, Marvel found a way to screw the pooch (maybe the 4th time’s the charm?) and deliver a half-baked convoluted movie that deserved Rick Rossovich more than Thomas Jane.

See where I’m going with this?

Obsessed is embarrassing. I haven’t seen Dreamgirls, or Cadillac Records, or The Fighting Temptations (co-starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.) so I had only ever seen Beyonce in Austin Powers 3: The Beginning Of The Slow Fade (and five minutes — that felt like 8 years — of The Pink Panther: Remember When Steve Martin Was Hilarious And Subversive? Well, THIS Time, He’s Got A SILLY MUSTACHE!). She was angry she didn’t get an Oscar nod for Dreamgirls and she was the executive producer of Obsessed, so I figured she can act and she’d make sure her role was written well and that the story made sense.

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope.

I forgot my notebook, so I jotted my notes down on a handful of napkins. I hope I understand what I scribbled in the dark.

OK. Let’s start with the opening credits. Here’s what we know. Idris Elba (Derek) and Beyonce (Sharon) are married with a baby boy and have just moved into a palatial home in L.A. They flirt, they hold hands, they do it on the carpet upstairs while their baby sleeps next to the fireplace downstairs (they started a fire using the “SOLD” sign outside). Then Derek gets in the car and goes to work (still rolling credits).

The song that is playing through all of this (and into a back and forth of Idris driving* and Sharon telling movers where to put things) is astonishingly inappropriate. It doesn’t fit. I was sure that it was a duet between Dave Matthews and some woman, but the only duet I can find on the soundtrack is Norah Jones and Wyclef Jean. Whatevs. It felt like the wrong movie was playing (the song begs for a Matthew McConaughey cameo).

*Jed’s Movie Pet Peeve #97: If you haven’t chosen what music you’ll have playing in a car while an actor is driving, DON’T LET HIM TAP HIS HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL. Especially if he’s Black. Seriously, whenever I see a White guy doing that in movies, I chalk it up to subversive humor. But if you think Stringer Bell wildly tapping along to a slow jam isn’t violently distracting, then you, sir, are probably the guy that made Shadowboxer.

Oh! I almost forgot. During the “let’s look around our new house” montage before they have sex, they go into their attic and Sharon walks along rickety planks until Derek grabs her and motions toward where she was headed: the end of the planks.

Now, I’m no architect, but the implication here is that this attic has areas that are just ceiling. I feel like the seller would have to inform the buyer, “by the way, I decided not to finish putting in that floor in the attic, so if you walk on it, you’ll fall through and die.”

But this all happens while Wyclef does his Dave Matthews impression (later on the soundtrack, Beyonce sings a song called Crash Into Me, but it’s not Dave’s), so I immediately thought, “that’s where the movie ends; whatever else happens, that close call is the worst cinematic foreshadowing since the handing over of the Zippo lighter in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3.” Would I be proven correct?

We’ll later learn that Derek has been the top man at his office for years and has the respect of his co-workers and superiors, who are also his friends. But for now, he’s in an elevator with a lot of people. Everyone gets off on the 4th floor, except Idris… and Ali Larter (Lisa). They’re both going to the 24th floor. The elevator ride is approximately 5 minutes long (great writing/direction!). He looks at her, she looks at him… it isn’t flirting, but it also isn’t not flirting. So you think, “hmmm… is Derek a horndog?” and he and Lisa chat and discover that she’s heading for Gage/Bendix. Where Derek works. She says she has to drop stuff off at Derek Charles’ office and he says, “I know him. He’s a real asshole.” They exit, a little more joking small talk and that’s that. Later in the day, she’ll tell Derek that she’s asked around and he isn’t an asshole. Then he leaves for the weekend (TGIF!). And Lisa looks at the Gage Bendix website, where the executives are listed as Gage, then Bendix, then Derek Charles. Homeboy’s got mad status, yo.

Come Monday, Lisa is back – because Patrick, Derek’s gay male assistant has the flu. So, Lisa becomes Derek’s assistant (she says she traded with an other temp – if that’s OK). Derek seems put off, but whatever. They work together (totes professional-like) and then he sees her crying in the lunch room and offers an ear.Nothing flirty, but again I wonder what’s going on. Derek says he loves his wife (roughly 83 times over the course of the film) and he acts like he does, but Sharon seems suspicious of him and he seems suspicious of himself.

Anyhoodles, when Patrick returns to the office, Derek is relieved, until he sees Lisa… AT MARGIE’S DESK!!!! Seems Margie has the flu now. Lisa and Patrick become best friends. Then comes the  office Christmas party. Derek and Lisa dance, they end up by the mistletoe. She offers her cheek, he explains (yet again) that he loves his wife and feels it’s inappropriate. She presses, he walks away and tells his buddy (Jerry O’Connell, looking like a 48-year-old gay Jew with a spray-on tan) he’s going to leave after he pees (oh, b’also? He rarely drinks anymore — just an occasional beer or something, but Lisa keeps pressuring im to drink, so he does!).

As Derek drunkenly urinates, mistletoe is lowered onto his bald head and dragged down it. He turns around (after, sadly, he stopped peeing) and sees Lisa. She pushes him into the stall. She’s grabbing his junk, she on her knees tugging at his pants, she’s rubbing her ass on him like a dog with scabies. And throughout, he is telling her no, pushing her off, demanding that she stops. Then someone walks in. Sees her on her knees with a man in there, too…

“Ah!” I thought. “It’s Black Disclosure! He’ll show up at work tomorrow and the cops will be there. OK. I see where this is going.”

Sure enough, Derek storms out, ignoring everyone that says hello/goodbye (Innocent Man Acting Suspicious? Check.). Lisa soon follows and Patrick dances with her. So… she probably doesn’t have much of a case if she’s going to claim rape (“yes, I was raped, which I why I danced with a gay guy – to balance it out”). When Derek gets home and slinks into bed, Sharon asks, “Did anything interesting happen at the party?” and Derek says no. This, coupled with the fact that Sharon freaked when she found out a woman was temping for the ill Patrick, makes us wonder if maybe Derek did something affair-like in the past…

This is also when I made a mental note to look for The Temp. That was a fun movie (Timothy Hutton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Oliver Platt and a fun script) that tells pretty much the same story. Maybe this is The Black Temp?

I guess my frustration comes from the fact that I/m well into this movie and I don’t know who these people are. It hurts that Ali Larter’s acting opus was that Doritos commercial years ago. She is terrible. Beyonce is even more terrible. And Idris? Let’s just say he wasn’t asked to do much (or much that made sense).

Anyhoodles, Derek gets in his car in his office’s parking garage (by the way, they show the building’s exterior as an establishing shot and IT DOESN’T HAVE 24 STORIES) and Lisa jumps in. She flashes her bra and panties and talks about how much she wants him and he yells for her to get out of the car and she’s mad and insisting that something happened at the party… we’re back in Disclosure-land. Derek speeds away and when he arrives at home, he tells Sharon, “There’s something I need to talk to you about.” Sharon sits with a bottle of wine and a telephone. Did Lisa…?

Nnnnnnnnnnnope. Sharon’s sister’s husband told her he’s leaving for a woman he’s been sleeping with at work. For over a year. Once Derek calms Sharon down, she asks what he needed to tell her and his response is more cartoonish than Fox’s idea of what a liberal is.

Derek: “Er… NO! I mean…”

Sharon: “Is there a problem?”

Derek: “Problem? (one… two… three… four… five) No… there’s no problem…”

And ultimately, this is why I hated this movie. We learn that Sharon was Derek’s secretary (that’s how they met) and that’s why she’s worried he’ll fuck any female secretary (the audience isn’t supposed to notice that Sharon looks EXACTLY LIKE BEYONCE). And, as someone in a loving marriage, it irks me that Derek supposedly loves his wife, but he can’t tell her that a crazy woman grabbed his junk? He hasn’t done anything wrong!

The next day, Derek comes clean. To Jerry O’Connell. He warns Derek that he might not want to talk to HR about Lisa because of “your history.” Because he married his secretary, he might be seen as a serial secretary-romancer? What year is this? What planet is this? Well, he goes to HR and HR says that Lisa’s agency called (Disclosure!) and Lisa has decided she doesn’t want to work at Gage/Bendix anymore. Derek asks if they said why and HR says nope. “Was there a problem?” he asks Derek WHO ONCE AGAIN HAS A CHANCE TO TELL SOMEONE THE TRUTH AND DOESN’T. “Nah,” he replied like a poorly-written movie character.

Then we’re at a business retreat! It looks like the boss (Bruce McGill, going through the motions) and Jerry and one other guy are getting ready to hit some titty bars, but Derek doesn’t want to go because he loves his wife and family (#36). He remembers that he forgot to call his wife so he walks to a secluded area… where Lisa shows up. She explains that she quit because Derek said he wouldn’t put his job at risk by having an affair with her and that they can be together now. He argues with her and turns his back long enough to spike the drink that he happened to bring with him. Then she tells him to come to her room.

That night, Jerry and Derek are returning to their rooms (a few doors away from each other) and Derek is really feeling the mickey. He has just enough strength to open his door, go in, close his door (which, in this hotel and ONLY this hotel, doesn’t automatically lock) and collapse on the bed. Minutes later, in comes Lisa. She climbs on him, kisses him, rubs his junk… all while he’s quietly protesting as he passes out.

POP QUIZ: You are reading this screenplay as a favor to the studio and has gotten to precisely this point. They’ve given you their only copy and they haven’t read it yet. A hawk flies down and steals the part of the script that you haven’t gotten to yet. In 2 hours, they want it back. You rush home to type up what you imagine the rest of the script is. What happens next:

1) Lisa has raped Derek and now has physical evidence that he has had intercourse with her (non-consensual, but intercourse nonetheless). She goes to the police and we are FINALLY at Disclosure. It’s a he-said/she-said until Sharon finds crucial evidence and confronts Lisa… in the attic.

2) Derek wakes up and Lisa is dead and he has blood on him and he’s been framed for her murder. He goes to jail, Sharon learns that Lisa had a twin sister and she confronts her… in the attic.

3) Derek wakes up alone, realizes he is late for his morning business meeting and races downstairs. He enters the meeting and minutes later a hotel clerk enters and tells Derek his wife has arrived. He leaves and finds… Lisa. She speaks of what great sex they had, he calls her names and demands that she enter the meeting with him and tell everyone that she’s full of shit. She gets pissed and calls his bluff, he stops her from entering the meeting. She storms off, he returns to the meeting. That night, Derek enters his room to find… Lisa. Naked on his bed. OD’d on sleeping pills. He is panicked. He races to the phone, picks it up, screams that he needs an ambulance right now! HURRY! And, so help me God I couldn’t make this up if I tried, he gets on top of her and yells into her face, “BITCH, BREATHE!”

If you said #1 or #2, you are overqualified to work in Hollywood. If you said #3, congratulations. You understand how ridiculous this movie is. But here’s where it gets even worse.

Derek went to the hospital with Lisa. Every time a doctor walks by, he leaps up, “How is she? Is she going to be OK?” as if this wasn’t the person who tried to rape him 3 times.

Sharon calls Jerry and asks if Derek is with him. He says, “Um… he’s at the hospital…” to which she replies, “What? What’s going on?” “I… I think he should tell you.” “Come on, you’re scaring me now.” “Talk to Derek.”

So who shows up at the hospital? Sharon. She obviously knew which one somehow and when she flew to wherever this retreat was, she brought their car. Enter Christine Lahti (she looks like a fucking rock star in this movie merely by not being abyssmal) as the cop assigned to this case. She wants to know how Derek knows Lisa. Sharon is freaking out because she hasn’t been told about any of this. The cop and Derek discuss the chain of events with Sharon acting like a Greek chorus (by way of Bed-Stuy).

“She was naked in yo’ bed?!?”

And, again, if I loved my husband and he explained that this woman kept making advances and he kept thwarting them until she drugged him, I’d want to console him, not yell at him for doing… well, nothing wrong. Not Sharon. She storms out, followed by Derek. He doesn’t mention the rape to the cop. She seems to think maybe Derek is lying.

The car ride home from the hospital is completely silent. But once they’re in their kitchen, they have a shouting match wherein Sharon tells Derek to move out. She tells him, “You let this happen.” And she’s absolutely right.

Derek moves to a hotel (with a self-locking door, I hope) and chats with the cop again who tells him that Lisa moved back to San Diego or San Francisco or San Bernadino to be with her sister (is it a twin?). So, she tells him, you don’t even need to file a restraining order (great police work!). Just live your life and forget this ever happened.

Roll credits? I wish. Next comes the Derek-visits-his-son-a-lot-and-slowly-chips-away-at-Sharon’s-cold-exterior montage that culminates in him asking if she’ll make him spend his birthday alone. They agree to dinner. While they’re reconciling, Lisa shows up at their house. The babysitter explains that no one is home and she should leave. Lisa says that she’s Sharon’s friend Kate and she’s just dropping something off for the baby. The babysitter asks her to come back later and Lisa says, “but I’m here now.”

Bested by her intellectual superior, the babysitter returns to watching TV, listening to her iPod and texting — simultaneously (now THAT’S social satire!) and Lisa goes upstairs. She’s there for a while. Then she sneaks out shouting “Goodbye!” and the babysitter, without looking up replies, “You, too!” (huh? huh?)

Later, The Charleses return and the babysitter says, “Oh, you just missed your friend, Kate.” And there’s not a single second between that sentence and Sharon’s reply, “I don’t know a Kate.” Again, I have to ask: What planet does this take place on? Never in your life have you known a Kate? Maybe you could look at your husband and see if he knows who she’s talking about?

They run upstairs to find an empty crib. Oh noes! Sharon immediately runs to check… the attic?!? And Derek races outside and shouts his kid’s name at his bushes. Then he decides to call the police and he is much calmer than he was when he called for Lisa’s ambulance. He decides to try and find his baby by driving somewhere and he enters the car to find… the baby. In his car seat. With a lipstick kiss on his forehead (wait… so this is Black Kiss of Death? Remember? Nicolas Cage wrote “B.A.D.” on David Caruso’s daughter’s forehead?). They take the baby to the hospital – he’s fine. They return home to find their bedroom trashed. Sharon immediately says, “She never left.” Not, “did she come back?” or “is she still here?”

Then Sharon calls Lisa and leaves a threatening message on her answering machine (MacGuffin #817) telling her to stay away. Then we’re back at work! And Patrick gets a phone call from… Lisa! And it becomes clear that Derek has mentioned NONE of these things to his assistant, which is why he tells her that Sharon is leaving for her parents’ place this afternoon and Derek is driving up in the morning.

The Charleses installed a brand new alarm system. One by the front door, one by the door to the master bedroom. The installer points out the panic button. Push it, the cops will arrive in minutes. When Sharon is ready to go, he sets the alarm, walks a few steps, drops her back on the ground (I thought the baby was in it) and she remembers her purse. She enters, turns off the alarm, walks 5 feet to her purse and… forgets to turn the alarm back on.

Lisa had been parked in front of their house for a while prior to this (ats’a stealthy stalking!), and once Sharon is gone, Lisa breaks in and gets sprinkles rose petals all over the bed, etc etc. Sharon is on the phone with Derek and he asks if she set the alarm. She remembers not remembering and decides to drive back and do it herself. She enters the house, pushes all the buttons except one and… champagne pops upstairs. Does she push the panic button? Ask who’s there? Get a weapon?

Nnnnnnnnnnnope. She “sneaks” up her creaky-ass steps and enters the bedroom and sees… Lisa on the bed. She explains that Derek is leaving Sharon for her. Then comes the catfight.

Based on the reaction of the 5 people seeing it with me, this is the main event. The reason (other) people paid to see it. To watch two grown women slap each other and throw shit at each other.

(waves miniature American flag)

During this long drawn-out fight, there are roughly 36 opportunities for Sharon to push the panic button. She never does. When Derek calls, her cell rings… in the car (and we see the caller is “Derek Charles” – does anyone on this planet put their spouse’s LAST name in their phone? WTF?) He calls the house, Sharon uses the phone to smack Lisa in the head and she tells Derek, “I’ll call you back.”

Derek races to the elevator of his office building and, as the doors of the elevators close, he yells into the phone that he has an emergency (which is why he’s entering an elevator — on its way to the lower levels of the parking garage — on a cell phone).

Back at Chez Charles, the fight has moved to..

1) the attic.

2) the attic.

3) the attic.

4) earth.

If you answered #4, you are wrong. Everyone else gets one point.

Sure enough, Sharon lures Lisa to the exact spot we saw in the opening credits. And Lisa (after 4 solid minutes of Sharon saying, “That’s right, you also got me, just a little further, that’s it”) falls right through the ceiling. But she’s still holding on. So, naturally, Sharon (who has been screaming that no one touches her baby and that she’s going to kill Lisa) immediately:

1) says something clever and stomps on Lisa’s hands.

2) watches Lisa fall to her death with a cold smirk on her face.

3) jumps onto the part of the ceiling that has fallen into their living room and screams, “Give me your hand!” which allows Lisa to try and take Sharon with her.

Yeah, it’s the only stupid answer in the bunch. But, as executive producer, Sharon survives as Lisa falls onto their giant glass table. In fact, so does Lisa somehow. Luckily, the chandelier falls next and kills her.

Sharon stumbles out of the house, beaten and bloodied. Christine Lahti runs over and asks, “Are you OK? What happened here?”

“I think you know what happened here,” she coolly replies.

I sure as Hell don’t.

Then Derek shows up and they hug.

Roll credits.

And there you have it. The worst movie (so far) of 2009.

My goal is to, every Monday, let America decide what I see by picking the highest-grossing movie of the previous weekend (that’s playing at the Pavilion). So far, America had it right with Crank 2 (doesn’t come close to the first one and I should have listened to their apathy) and waaaaaay wrong with this awful movie.

All they had to do was add a sentence about how he cheated ONCE. Then Sharon’s fears would seem moderately justified and so would Derek’s discomfort around Lisa. Instead, we have a movie where the successful Black guy is restless because his wife is Beyonce.

I shudder to think how many Tyler Perry movies America will make me see.

I am floored at how much free advertising/racism-fomenting that Popeyes has gotten from the local news recently. This is from last week in Rochester, NY.

And then the two thin White ladies smile, as if the previous footage was of adorably stupid kittens.

Oh, you think I’m reading into this too much? This is from Minneapolis – on the same day.

“I haven’t seen people this passionate about something in a long time,” says Tom Lyden, who needs to get out more.

And since this happened more than an hour ago, the parody videos ae already all over YouTube (as well as a lot of remixes of that “there’s a Leprechaun up in the tree evvybody seen the leprechaun say yeah!” news clip. But this is my favorite. Well worth your time.

I’m hoping to do the Post and Obsessed later today. Stay tuned! And thanks for the first two clips, Jerry!