Jumping Without A Chute

Darth Infallible's Movie Reviews III: "A Sound of Thunder"

 The so-called "butterfly effect," in which slight changes earlier in a timeline lead to major changes further on, has obvious cinematic potential. In "Sliding Doors," serious developments turned on catching a train, and the movie pursued these in entertaining and thoughtful ways. In "The Butterfly Effect," serious developments turned on an airline's choice of in-flight entertainment. Trapped on a plane, yet without the proverbial gun to my head, I actually watched this film, with the result that two hours of my life are totally blank. I have not a single memory of the film, which is odd for Darth, who is blessed with a prodigious memory for cinema. Not a sequence, not a line, not a frame, not a character. (I think it rained at some point, but that's it.) When I left the plane, all I took with me was an intense hatred for Ashton Kutchner. Well, actually, I had that when I boarded.
    I did not realize then what I do now: Forgetfulness is a great mercy. But I fear many deep draughts from the river Lethe would be insufficient to drown my memories of "A Sound of Thunder," a movie so unfathomably bad, so jaw-droppingly awful, that it sparked the "MST3K Effect" in Darth and his movie-going companions. Like the good citizens of the Satellite of Love, we found ourselves talking back to the screen, supplying a running commentary which got a lot more laughs from the audience than any of the bargain basement, generic-action-hero-quips spouted by Edward Burns. (Incidentally, Mr. Burns apparently has a "shirtless clause" in his contract. I can appreciate the desire to show off the results of many hours at the gym, but couldn't some of those hours have been spent pounding the director and the screenwriter into dust?)
    I wish I could forget the supine dialogue, cardboard characters, ludicrous plot developements, and awful special effects. (If Chicago in the year 2055 A.D. looks half as phony as it does in this movie,  it will be time to dust off the tactical nukes.) Alas, I cannot forget. Do not see this movie. It will scar you for life.  I could actually feel myself getting stupider as the film wantonly killed off irreplaceable brain cells in every member of the audience. A jug of grain alcohol could not have flattened my brain waves more effectively. Afterwards in the parking lot, it took me several minutes of hard thinking to remember how to get home.
    In a nutshell, the film foretells that in about 50 years the technology for time travel is developed by an improbably comely scientist who, failing to read her contract, did not realize that all her research was owned by the company financing it. (Beautiful women scientists can be such scatterbrains.) Ben Kingsley, the unctuous, greedy, amoral corporate poobah sent over from central casting, snaps up the technology and puts it to the most obvious use imaginable: To provide a dinosaur safari to clients with more money than brains. Of course. What else would you do with a time machine, silly wabbit? The safari team is led by Mr. Burns, who holds a doctorate in squat thrusts and works as a time traveler only so he can raise money to fund his pet project: recovering DNA patterns so that extinct mammals can be cloned. Buff and environmentally active - isn't he just dreamy?! The safari always travels to the same time and place - a Cretaceous-era jungle - for the same fun - slaughtering an Allosaurus, which is expendable because it is about to be killed by a volcanic explosion, plus it is dying of whatever disease makes movie dinosaurs look like the director's check bounced at Industrial Light and Magic. One thing leads to another, the past is changed in an incredibly minute way, and 21st century Chicago winds up as an enormous arboretum populated by clutching, stinging vines  and - I kid you not - creatures which are a cross between some type of reptile and the nastiest baboons you've ever seen.
    As the cherry on the parfait, all of this takes place under the watchful, corrupt eye of a federal agency created solely to oversee this one company. I guess the Democrats are  back in power in 2055.
    The movie now becomes - well, ask any four-year-old boy what he would do, and you'll get a pretty clear picture of what happens next. The changes to modern Chicago happen in "waves." Why? Good question. The inventor of  time travel explains, "When you change the past, the effects don't happen all at once. They come in waves." Got that? In other words, the changes come in waves because the movie would be 40 minutes long if they didn't. So now a bunch of interchangeable characters line up to die in a race to discover and reverse whatever was done in the past, before the last wave hits Chicago and humanity winds up looking like bipedal bottom feeders. Of course, everyone knows what is and is not going to happen. Ed Burns ain't gonna die - the film would be nowhere without his abs and gluts. And the lithsome scientist ain't gonna die, because she's the only one who understands the technology. Guess who is gonna die? Everyone else.
    Logic doesn't just take a holiday in this movie: it downs 30 Xanax and a couple of Long Island iced teas.  For instance, fortunately for mankind there is a second time machine in Chicago (I guess it is one town that won't let you down), the one they keep over at the university so that  tenured faculty can sexually harass their hot graduate assistants over and over and over. And even more fortunately, the hard drive from the safari company with all the mathematical doo-hickeys and temporal wakka-wakkas fits the university's time machine. This bit of good fortune is on a par with the laptop computer in Independence Day which, at the crucial do-or-die moment, is able to talk to the alien ship and download information vital to the special effects department.  My computer won't even let me play Tetris, but I guess all the bugs are finally fixed in "Windows 2054."
    However, the grand idiocy of this film, I mean, the gaping, gasping, yawning maw of utter irrationality, involves the eponymous butterfly. [Spoiler!!!] See, there is a butterfly in the film (why can Spielberg make a Tyrannosaurus Rex look real, but these guys produce a butterfly that is barely a cut above a plastic cut-out on a string and a pole?). And this butterfly gets squashed. And a lot of nice lakefront property in Chicago becomes Baboon Central. Fine - but here's the problem. As mentioned earlier, the reason they repeatedly go to this one place and time in history for the dinosaur hunt is because the dinosaur would have been destroyed by a volcano 5 minutes later anyway (in a later scene, when the safari shows up late, we see the explosion, which the team barely escapes). Since the dinosaur will die soon anyway, no harm, no foul. However, unless there were jet-powered butterflies in the late Cretaceous Era, the particular example of Lepidoptera which gets squashed and starts all the trouble would have been destroyed by the volcano blast, along with everything else in a radius of many miles. Why, then, does squashing a butterfly five-minutes early change anything, when killing a dinosaur does not? In the last seconds of its life, does the butterfly initiate some chain of events that outruns a volcano?
    Please, if anyone has any theories, let me know.
    Intelligent, clever, involving science fiction movies aren't easy to make. Moronic, trite, dull ones aren't easy to forget. Darth's advice: If you want good science fiction, rent the DVD of Blade Runner or Outland. Harrison Ford and Sean Connery may not be as pumped as Ed Burns, but they will have a much better effect on your brain.

Darth Infallible's Movie Reviews II: "The Wedding Crashers"

  As noted earlier, when he is not crushing rebel scum or hitting on alien chicks who are turned on by power, Darth Infallible has been known to catch a movie now and again. Normally, I must slay everyone else in the theater, as the sound of cellphones, whispering, and human laughter is abhorrent to me. But once everyone is dead, I can watch the film in peace, and even slip out for some Milk Duds. (D.I. does not wait in lines at concession stands.)
    Recently, I saw "The Wedding Crashers," with Vince Vaughn and whichever Wilson brother looks like he lost a bar fight.  Vince Vaughn has had an up ("Swingers," "Old School," "Dodgeball") and down ("Psycho,"  "Clay Pigeons," "Domestic Disturbance") career, but is generally likeable and competent even in bad movies. Wilson's career has been much more down than up, although D.I. did like "The Royal Tennenbaums" and "Rushmore." (However, if he is the Wilson who was in "The Life Aquatic," he should be staked to an ant hill and smeared liberally with taffy.) In addition, "The Wedding Crashers" has the always delightful Christopher Walken, wasted in an uninteresting role.
    Alas, the movie is a bit of a dud. For those of us who were hoping for something as funny as last summer's hilarious "Dodgeball," disappointment abounds. The concept is solid, and the early scenes of Vaughn and Wilson not just crashing weddings but becoming the hit of the receptions are funny, if improbable. There is a hedonistic quality about them of which D.I. approves, on the principle, enuntiated by C.S. Lewis, then when one  winds up in hell, it will only add to the pain of the damned to realize that he did "neither what I ought nor what I liked."  Or, to paraphrase Luther, "Sin big."
    While they are sinning big, the film is enjoyable, in the typical double-standard sort of way, to wit: I can laugh at what I see, but in real life I would lock up my nieces and post men armed with Dragunov sniper rifles (HT: The Chief) to prevent men like Vaughn and Wilson from getting within a hundred yards of them. The problem is not that they are hedonists, but that they develop consciences in the course of the movie. This is not a happy turn of affairs. If, at the end of "Animal House," John Belushi stood up and shouted, "Wait a minute! We're in college, after all. We should buckle down and study and prepare to make something out of ourselves," the movie would have lost the lion's share of its appeal.  D.I. did not spend his college years like a member of Delta House, nor did he associate with such frat boys, nor would he wish to see his nephews behave in this fashion. However, D.I. still laughs himself silly at the movie.
    When I pick up Saint Augustine's Confessions, or Merton's Seven Storey Mountain, I am looking for the edification that comes from conversion. When I watch the peerless Groundhog Day, or Alastair Sim's A Christmas Carol, I am prepared to enjoy the same. But when I go to a move like The Wedding Crashers, I am hoping to see people really committed to outrageous behavior, not a "fooled around and fell in love" riff which introduces the dread voice of maturity into the proceedings. A good homily should remind me of the consequences of my actions. A good teacher should help me see the bigger picture of life. But a good comedy should play it light and breezy when it comes to the morning after.  (Proof of this is the movie "Arthur II: On the Rocks," the cinematic equivalent of spotting a piece of spinach between your girlfriend's teeth as you swoop in for a smooch. Arthur sober? Arthur a responsible parent? What were they thinking?)
    This is why there is no "Philadelphia Story II: The Haven Boys in Vietnam," or "The Goodbye Girl II: The Big Move to Westchester" (can anyone think of a  romantic comedy that spawned a good sequel?). No one wants to see Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert discuss their weekly food budget, or Kevin Kline and Meg Ryan (D.I. has a soft spot for "French Kiss") argue about who is going to pick up the kids from soccer practice. I don't want to know what happens after the big kiss ends and the music fades. If I did, I would have gotten married.  (D.I. is prepared to enslave whole populations, but not to subject the woman he loves to what he looks like at 6:00 a.m.)
    In real life, it is a great joy to see a friend bring an embarrassingly protracted adolescence to an end and begin to live like an adult. Sometimes, putting aside childish ways can make for an enjoyable coming-of-age film. But when you name a movie The Wedding Crashers, and cast Vince Vaughn and a Wilson, no one is looking for a conversion to responsible living. We're looking for Will Ferrell successfully hitting on babes at funerals.
    Darth Infallible's suggestion: Rent Dodgeball.  Rip Torn's performance alone is worth the rental fee. Of course, half the cast would not survive the physical abuse the movie puts them through. But that's the movies for you.

Darth Infallible's Movie Reviews: "Must Love Dogs"

  When he is not expanding his vast, evil empire, Darth Infallible has been known to unwind by attending one of your human movies. Most recently, he saw "Must Love Dogs," starring the delectable Diane Lane (one of the reasons I have not yet assimilated your world), and the still-winsome John Cusack (for whom D.I. has had a soft spot ever since "Say Anything" - soft enough to overlook the truly dreadful "Runaway Jury"). In addition, Christopher Plummer, Stockard Channing, and Elizabeth Perkins (*sigh* D.I. confesses to knowing most of the dialogue from "He Said, She Said") round out a fine cast.
    Much of the critical response to this film has centered on the massive unlikelihood that, outside of San Francisco and Massachusetts, a woman of such homespun beauty and chesty appeal as Diane Lane would remain without a date for more than a nano-second. But it has ever been so in romantic comedies. From Claudette Colbert to Meg Ryan, the heroines of such films have always been exactly the sort of sensitive, sultry women who in the real world get snapped up moments after passing the age of legal consent.  This tends to be the rule with men in romantic comedies as well (Clark Gable, Tom Hanks, Dermot Mulroney) but not always (Billy Crystal).
    Likewise, one can critique the string of punchy sitcom-style one-liners that pass for dialogue during extended sequences of the film.  "His Girl Friday" and "The Philadelphia Story" knew a thing or two about snappy, rapid-fire dialogue - but none of it sounds as if it could be easily slipped into a "Seinfeld" episode. Much of "Must Love Dogs" does. This, more than the implausibility of Diane Lane's singlehood, deeply mars the movie. It is ironic that Cusack's character is committed to the handcrafting of traditional wooden boats in an age of molded fiberglass, since the movie's structure, plots and sub-plots, accessories (gay colleague, tart older woman, nosy friends/siblings), and dialogue are more cookie-cutter than handmade.
    But what really drives a hole straight through the hull of "Must Love Dogs" is a sequence in which Lane's and Cusack's characters, having finally overcome their awkward first meeting and subsequent  misunderstandings and misgivings, finally decide to give themselves over to the throes of sexual congress (not to be confused with Ted Kennedy). Regrettably, neither has a male prophylactic. I have no idea what would happen in real life in such a situation, and would blush to speculate. What happens in this film, however, is that the screenwriters send the frustrated lovers on what is supposed to be a hilarious, madcap dash about town in search of an open drugstore. Darth Infallible stared in disbelief at the screen, and marveled at the mentality which would find this funny. Granted, I never understood the resistance of Planet Nebulon or the people of Recalmor to my demands; regretfully, I laid waste both worlds. But "Must Love Dogs" exceeds even these cases.
    Hence, I formulate Darth Infallible's First Law of Movies: "Condoms are neither funny nor romantic." One presumes that the protagonists in romantic comedies must obey the call of nature and relieve themselves; yet, no screenwriter in his right mind would depict this on film (N.B. John Waters does not make romantic comedies). Such a scene would necessarily ruin both the comedy and the romance. So, too, with condoms: widespread their use may be; coupled with the banana, a cornerstone of sixth grade public school sex education they may be; but they will never be romantic or funny. Although "Must Love Dogs" does its liberal civic duty by suggesting that no amount of passion is an excuse for neglecting the exigencies of "safe" sex (the notion that marriage is what makes sex safe being, along with spats and top hats, one of those old ideas D.I. wishes would make a comeback), it falls flat as romantic comedy.
    Why are condoms neither funny nor romantic?  Possibly because they are so intimate; more possibly, because they are disgusting; and certainly because they drag a romance "down to earth" (indeed, perhaps even somewhat further down than that). But I would argue that at the heart of romantic comedy is the demanding and delicate process of overcoming obstacles to giving oneself over to another human being. Can I trust this person? Can I make a better go of it than I have of my past relationships? Do I love this person enough to compromise, sacrifice, and share? But therein lies the conflict: romantic comedies are about overcoming obstacles to giving oneself over to another human being - but the very purpose of a condom is to be such an obstacle. Thus, whatever the morality of condoms may be (dubious, to D.I.'s mind), their risibility and romance are non-existent.
    Instead of "Must Love Dogs," Darth Infallible suggests that you see "It Happened One Night," where the "walls of Jericho" come tumbling down only after the wedding. That's romance.