Archive for July 24th, 2009

Fuck me for being on time. Tons of car commercials, one for the U.S. Air Force, one for Starz (which I’m pretty sure is one of the reasons for the decline of the cinematic box office [why take my family to a movie theater for $50 -- if we aren't hungry -- when I'm already buying cable every month?]), and apparently Sprint thinks that a terrible singer singing a terrible song on a gigantic 3-D Facebook page will make me want their new phone (to Sprint and everyone else that advertises before the movie: I will go out of my way to avoid everything you are pushing since I find it disgusting that I have to watch ads for your crap despite the exorbitant ticket prices [for all non-SAG members of the audience] and astonishingly overpriced concessions [oh, I can't stay mad at you, wheelbarrow of popcorn!]).

And like Pavlov’s dog, every time the lights fade and the screen tells me “Here’s the feature presentation!” I relax and pay attention. And then the radio starts again and the screen goes blank. EVERY. WEEK. But this time as I sank in my seat, muttering invectives at no one in particular, I noticed that 80% of the audience was kids. Not teenagers. Kids. Like screaming for soda kids. Six, maybe seven years old. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why they’re here. I mean, Up is playing next door. Ice Age 3 is upstairs. Surely the parents aren’t dragging the kids along so that THEY can see this, are they? Truly?

But once the movie was halfway done, I realized that big Hollywood movies are, for the most part, becoming porn.

Lemme ’splain. It’s often said that the way to pitch a movie is to boil it down to a sentence (por ejemplo, Short Time was probably pitched as “Due to a blood sample mix-up, police officer and family man Dabney Coleman thinks he has hours left to live, so he tries to get killed in the line of duty for the insurance money,” while The Apple was probably described as “hours of sparkly Biblical homo-erotica carelessly stuffed into an 86-minute musical with God fixing everything at the end by stepping out of his floating gold Rolls-Royce.”

The Proposal was no doubt pitched as “In order to avoid being deported, Sandra Bullock forces her assistant to marry her (even  though he hates her), but first she has to meet his cuh-razy family in Alaska of all places!” And if a second sentence was requested, it would prolly look like “But will this business-minded bitch start to fall for her perfect hunky assistant played by Ryan Reynolds or will he fall for her… or BOTH?!?!” Which is not to say that a movie that can be boiled down to a sentence is bad (Schindler’s List: “Guy saves Jews for monetary reasons during WW2, but grows to have a conscience and saves even more.” Basquiat: “It’s the life story of Basquiat.”). But good movies figure that a simple plot leaves room for character development or suspense or a car chase or Batman. The Proposal has a lot of characters that act like caricatures (charicaters?) but it’s gentle and you don’t have to think very hard and the scenery is pretty and I think I understand now why the kids were there.

It I can put on my big boy pants for a sec, the attention span of America has finally hit rock bottom. Most schoolkids have no idea what an answering machine is, what a VCR is, what it felt like to race home in order to watch something that, after airing once, might never be seen again. A couple can own a 2-disc DVD copy of whatever is currently playing in theaters for less than the price of two tickets. Or they can watch it on cable. Or Netflix it.

On the one hand, I’m glad that Hollywood is helping the theaters out by creating more 3-D/IMAX/can’t-wait-must-see-it-now fare in recent years (I don’t remember ever paying to see a movie twice [including at the $1.99 in Saratoga], but I paid to see The Dark Knight twice and again for the IMAX version [although I feel like Scott Finklepuss might have refused my reimbursement... so we'll stick with paying twice], so either there is a shift towards more must-buy-a-ticket-to-get-the-full-effect pictures [you were right Mr. Castle] or I’ve become even more of a rube in my middle age than I thought). People can now justify taking the brood to see Up in 3-D instead of turning on Nickelodeon and telling everyone to just shut up while Mommy naps.

On the other hand, never overestimate the intelligence of most Americans (m’self included, thankyewvurruhmuch). And don’t forget that most of today’s teenagers had a bootleg DVD copy of Star Wars III the week it hit theaters. Granted, it didn’t seem to hurt the mammoth box office, but this generation of kids will never know the simple pleasure of putting a dollar in a vending machine and getting a soda AND CHANGE, nor will they use “let’s all go to the movies!” as a go-to weekend activity as frequently as those of us without an internet did.

As people start to realize that there’s enough of a backlog now of quality movies (from the last 10 years alone) that if we all stopped going to movies in theaters and waited for the director’s cut DVDs and gave Netflix a workout or took them out of our libraries (for free), we’d never have to stop seeing great movies (and TV shows without commercials, a season at a time) in our lifetime (especially considering Apocalypto! is right around the corner). This is why I will go down the street to see The Final Destination in 3-D, but would have happily waited for the unrated DVD if not for the gimmick.

B’on the other other hand, stupid people love their routines. We fear change. We thought about trying that new restaurant but it smelled weird so we hit Sizzler again. We demand to see Obama’s birth certificate (again). We like the part when the guy got hit in the nuts and then he fell down but then he was OK later. Which is why Hollywood continues to produce (wait for it) by-the-numbers rom-coms that can not only be boiled down to one sentence, they can also be explained by their posters. Even if they’re in Russian.

And it explains the kids. They have ADD. They can’t watch 90 minutes of anything without getting bored. So, the stuck-in-their-rut parents will take their kids to the movies (mustn’t… break… from… routine….) and the kids will watch the movie, play their PSPs, talk to their folks, go to the bathroom, etc. A movie like Memento doesn’t mesh with this scenario, but The Proposal, like a porno, almost encourages you to stretch your legs between the money shots (or funny shots, if you will).

Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

Sandra Bullock (who should absolutely take this movie’s make-up people to court — she was wearing so much make-up, some of it got in my popcorn) works as a high-ranking publishing executive and a bitch that everyone hates because she treats everyone like shit (every cartoon character, sorry, person working in the office IMs “The witch is on her broom!” to each other as soon as she shows up every day so that they can stop, um, IMing and go back to doing work). Ryan Reynolds is her assistant and puts up with her because he wants to get his book published… someday.

Turns out Sandra is Canadian and her visa is expiring tomorrow and she has to leave the country and quit her job. UNLESS she can convince Ryan to marry her so she can stay in the U.S. and keep her job. He would be made an editor and get a divorce after a year or two. BUT Ryan is on his way to Alaska for the weekend for his grandmother’s birthday party. SO Sandra tells INS that they’re going to Alaska to get married.

Of course, lying to INS is a serious offense with plenty of jailtime, so you’d think it would behoove both of these wool-pullers to really sell their charade (surrounded by tons of Ryan’s family and friends, the two of them have a perfect opportunity to sell this hastily thrown together farce — all it would take is a kiss that didn’t look like k.d. lang trying to seduce John Travolta). But Sandra cannot not be an absolutely detestable jerk for even five minutes (to be fair, something this easy to follow almost requires play-to-the-seats-in-the-back slapstick, so I feel for Ms. Bullock).

And I feel for Aasif Mandvi, whose accent was a breath of fresh air (I have no idea what it was but I loved its unique melody) and whose all-too-brief scene comes all-too-soon in the movie. And I feel for Craig T. Nelson (yikes — Father Time no likey Coach) and Mary Steenburgen as Ryan’s parents. And Betty White as his grandmother. And especially the guy who plays Ramone (the running joke is that in this small Alaskan town, he is the male stripper, general store manager and cater waiter, among many other things). All great actors, all in a wet noodle of a movie.

Also, I have a feeling that after Amy Poehler had her first audition in L.A., Hollywood used black magic to create what they thought was a “better” version in Malin Ackerman. They succeeded in that she is taller and thinner, but failed in that she brings nothing to the table that a photograph wouldn’t also provide (whereas I could happily watch Amy read the phone book).

I also found it weird how awkward the extras are, how this super-tiny town is able to support a general store that sells candy, a candy store and a “fudgery,” how Sandra wears more make-up to bed than she did to her wedding, how she can’t swim but can tread water for five minutes, and how John Candy and Steve Martin had more sexual chemistry in Planes, Trains and Automobiles than Ryan and Sandra do in this movie.

But I must say that I laughed a few times and, despite my not buying most of his character’s choices, I will once again profess my mancrush on Ryan Reynolds. The guy is just naturally funny, which is probably why this over-the-top cartoon doesn’t play to his strengths (if that makes any sense). And I was able to put together a grocery list between money (sorry, funny) shots.

Like a mediocre sitcom or inoffensive background music, The Proposal gives you exactly what you would go to a movie like this for: easy laughs, pratfalls, decades of familial animosity being resolved in minutes, an ending that you don’t expect (if you’re 6) followed by the ending you do expect (especially if you’re 6) — and nothing more.

Not roll-your-eyes bad, but also not something you’d want to watch more than once (if at all).

C+