I had the pleasure of briefly meeting David Pasquesi many years ago. Watching him perform was enough to garner my lifelong fandom, but meeting him showed me (yet again) that some of the most talented people in the world are also some of the kindest (which makes people like Benjamin Hendrickson — the actor not the ballplayer — all the more disgusting). Seeing him pop up in Angels & Demons put a gigantic smile on my face that only got larger with each new line he delivered (in an Italian accent!).

I would put money down that if you’ve seen over 1,000 movies, you’ve seen Dave (here’s his imdb listing). I think Mayor Daley passed a law in the ’80s that any film shot in Chicago had to employ either Dave or Neil Flynn (you’ve seen him, too: here’s his imdb listing). But he’s a major character in this Hollywood mega-blockbuster (I think he has more screen time than the female lead) and it’s about fucking time. I hope that this gets him even further through the door (if such is his desire) and that I’ll see him (and his buddy with the initials whose name I can’t quite recall) on my weekly jaunts to the Pavilion (and beyond) for many years to come.

I also feel the need to share some epiphanies I had since last week. Firstly, I couldn’t stop thinking about how awkward it was to have a Beastie Boys song in Star Trek. And then I remembered my Celebrities At Their Worst CDs and William Shatner’s nasty argument about the pronunciation of the word “sabotage”

Is it possible that J.J. Abrams was flipping {the guy who was a dick to his castmates, insulted his fanbase, killed his wife [and totes got away with it], almost singlehandedly destroyed the use of irony in commercials, and threw a press conference hissy fit over not being given a role in the reboot} the bird by including that song? I’d like to think so.

Also, ST fans will be pleased to know that “Bones” does get to loudly ask SylarSpock “Are you out of your Vulcan mind!?!” at some point in the reboot. The “I totally see what they did there” applause of your fellow audience members should offer your pelvis something akin to arousal.

I really like the Pavilion. Super-great popcorn. But today I am not in one of their big screening rooms. I’m in a tiny one. It sucks. What sucks more than the smaller screen is the two old pug-faced lesbians who sat behind me as the previews began. They were somehow under the delusion that: a) they were still in their living room; b) the paper shopping bags full of individually-wrapped-in-paper-and-crinkle-wrap-and velcro treats they EACH brought with them wouldn’t be a nuisance to anyone; and c) that John Travolta is supposed to be in the movie whose trailer they were watching (he had spent 30 seconds talking directly to them when one of them had this epiphany).

Also, why do you have to show commercials, then say “here are previews” and go straight into that movietickets.com ad? Why must you turn my multiplex into a den of lies?

In addition to the Transformers 2: Revenge of the Greenscreen trailer, I got a chance to watch one for My Life in Ruins.

Pro: Rachel Dratch. Con: “From the director of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days“

Actually, the trailer is the entire movie (wait until you see Poopy all shaved!). I guess they’re trying to appeal to people that like connecting dots and filling in blanks (I think Richard Dreyfuss might wind up a warmer and happier person by the film’s end, but I’ll only know if America makes me find out).

The Taking of Pelham 123 (already I hate it — The Taking of Pelham One Two Three was a beautiful title whereas this looks like The Taking of Pelham One-hundred-and-twenty-three) has John Turturro (really, Barton?), the visual sensibility of a seizing epileptic (Tony Scott, you so artsy) and a scene where Travolta (not fit to hold Robert Shaw’s cup) and Washington (did Matthau really need to be sexier?) are separated by a chain link fence (if and when I see this, Denzel’s gun has better be empty or I might have to mail out some packages of vomit) (mailing vomit is illegal and messy and I would never do it or suggest seriously that you do it, officers).

Angels & Demons begins with a history lesson about the Pope. I think it’s Alfred Molina’s narration, but the lesbians were giggling because I moved away from their improvised symposium on recycling and I might have misheard. We get to meet a few of the major characters in the film and the basic set-up (people in silly hats are voting on who will next get to wear the silliest hat of all). I learned that the Pope also goes by the name “The Vicar of Christ” which immediately made me wonder who Dibley is.

I also like Ron Howard (he’s directed some great films, produced some great TV, gives great interview), but when he decided to fade from a glowing communion wafer to one of the facilities at CERN (The European Center of Nuclear Research or Something or Other), I knew this wasn’t going to be an exercise in subtlety.

The basic premise (which is already a gargantuan misnomer) is that someone has stolen anti-matter and four of the front-runners in the silly-hat election and is threatening to kill them. So the Vatican sends Dave Pasquesi to get Tom Hanks and fly back to the Vatican. By the time they get there, they only have a few hours until the first murder (which makes me wonder why they didn’t maybe teleconference instead).

Hollywood seems to have taught itself that the best action movies are non-stop thrill rides. The Dark Knight began with a bank robbery and never stopped spinning plates and advancing the narrative forward. Here, we get a lecture on what a camerlengo is (I want to write a Broadway musical based on this movie and call it CAMERLENGO!), see a barely-explained experiment partially stolen (thank God I read comic books or I’d have no idea what anti-matter is) and then watch as Tom Hanks listens to yet still more exposition about the Illuminati and the kidnappings and… it’s pretty to look at (thanks for the haircut, Tom), but it’s also what happens when you try to adapt a long complex novel into a 2-hour popcorn flick. It’s a ticking clock that everyone understands is ticking, but no one (except Saint Tom) really seems too worried about the approaching deadlines for executions (at some point after at least one murder has taken place, the Camerlengo gives Tommy a change of clothes [a priest's black suit] and, as Tom races to try and prevent another murder, he stops him to ask “Would it surprise you to hear those clothes suit you?” to which Tom smiles and calmly responds, “It would surprise the Hell out of me.” and they both smile and I wanted to scream “I hope you don’t look back on this gayballs dialogue as the amount of time you needed to have saved the next guy!”).

This is basically a battle between science (the Illuminati) and religion (the church) as filtered through the action movie structure (think The Bourne Papacy). So once we’ve eaten all our vegetables and understand what’s going on and why, the clock really starts ticking and each clue must be discovered in the nick of time and can they prevent the Vatican from blowing up in time?!?!?!?

Here’s my biggest problem with this movie: the riddle-like clues and the answers to them. It’s like an old episode of the Batman TV show.

ROBIN: What did the Riddler say?

BATMAN: He said, “What has hands, but no thumbs?”

ROBIN: A clock!

BATMAN: Precisely. And what does time do, old chum?

ROBIN: Time… flies? Of course! He’s planning to rob the Flyswatter Museum!

That’s what this movie was like. For every interpretation of a clue that Tom has (and which always turns out right), there are an infinite amount of equally-plausible possibilities. I guess Ron figured that we’d all be so happy to have gotten through all the exposition that we wouldn’t care if the action made little sense — at least it was action!

Tom races away from the guy guarding him in the Vatican library and speeds away in a cop car to Raphael’s tomb. And there he meets… the guy from the library. B’also? If I were Vatican Police and this shit was going on? I’d be freaking out. When does the Vatican Police ever have anything exciting to do? Come on, Vati-cops! I just saw a priest’s corpse being eaten by rats! And another burn to death! Why are you all still so calm????

While Angels & Demons will go down in history as the only film ever wherein its protagonist exclaims, “Of course! Bas relief!” it will also be remembered as a movie that tried so hard to make everyone look like a suspect that no one seemed to be acting naturally.

The Camerlengo at the end of the movie tells Tom that “religion is flawed only because man is flawed.” This is the closest that a film about the struggle between religion and science can come to a compromise. And though I haven’t read the book, that’s what this movie felt like to me. A compromise. A watering down. An abridgment. Or maybe it was an implausible and mediocre book to begin with.

I’d say B/B- (but Pasquesi gets an A) since it has a great cast and (though I may have rolled my eyes once or thrice) a few pretty cool sequences. You can (and will) do far worse this summer.

Oh, also? [SPOILER-ISH WARNING!!!] If you do go see the movie, consider this: Tom Hanks is supposed to be a super-duper riddle solver. Galileo told him to “let angels guide you” and this sent him on a wild goose chase all over Rome ending… at the Castle of the Angels — which used to be a prison the Vatican used to hold members members of the Illuminati. That’s some super-duper riddle-solving, that is.