And now for something completely different

My husband and I have actually made it to the movies on a few occasions, a rare feat when you have a kid who can't watch the gory, or the scary, or the inappropriately funny with you (well, you could bring the kid, but be prepared to be judged and hear a chorus of teeth sucking and "oh no they din't"s when you bring "the baby" to an R-rated flick).

We have seen:
Repo Men
Okay I had to break my rotten tomatoes rule on this one. Usually if Rottentomatoes ranks something as rotten, I use that as an excuse to nix watching a movie. Most of the time that rule applies to something my husband wants me to watch with him (that usually involves a ridiculous budget, a hammy cast and/or Jerry Bruckheimer). Hypocrite that I am, I still wanted to see it. Why? Jude Law. I know he's lost some points due to the Phil Collins-esque pattern baldness, and the nanny cheating incident and the lollipop physique, but I like watching him. It also stars Forest Whitaker. It took a science fiction concept and a dystopian future (it's always interesting to see how that's portrayed, usually it's dark, dingy and depressing) and a plot that starts off okay but makes less and less sense as you progress towards the end. This isn't the only science fiction thing I've weathered due to J.L. I also watched "A.I." which is sort of unwatchable, except for Gigolo Joe. You come out of the theater wishing the whole movie had been about him instead. Oh and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." Sky who and the what, you say? Yeah, that one might have lasted in the theaters for an entire two hours. But, Jude Law! And lots of ridiculous green screen fun. Hm. It turns out rotten movies that star an actor with the initials "J.L." seem to defy my common sense when it comes to picking a movie.

Hot Tub Time Machine
I know, I know, right? It's like, Noooo, come on, how could you blow a night out on this crap? My husband rarely sees comedy movies in the theaters and I figured out why. If you watch a bad movie in another genre, then it turns into a comedy and there's still some level of enjoyment there. If a comedy fails, you've got nothing. It doesn't become a drama, or an action flick, or a visual masterpiece, it's just a waste of money and time. I admit that I also liked "The Hangover" and "Knocked Up." I can watch, laugh at the jokes, and then be perfectly fine if I never saw them again. They're disposable movies. You go in knowing it's stupid humor while feeling incredulous that someone actually greenlighted a movie involving time travel through a hot tub (and you bought tickets). You lose some brain cells, you hand over your money, but it was still fun.

Adaptation

I had a weekend to myself and I did what any other person might have done—I went to the movies.

Yeah, whoopity-dee-doo. But the last movie I saw in the theaters was “Notorious” so with that knowledge, maybe now you can understand why it was kind of a big deal; I hardly ever go to the movies.

Despite the complaints that there was no reason to make a movie out of a perfectly good graphic novel, I sat through the nearly 3 hours of Watchmen. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a movie review. I won’t tell you what I thought. I did read the reviews beforehand. Rottentomatoes generally serves as my filter when I’m trying to decide whether I want to see a movie or not. If it’s deemed “fresh” I will check out the bad reviews to see if the negatives are worth overlooking. If it’s “rotten” I generally don’t bother. If it’s right before the movie is released and there are no early reviews, it means the film has not been screened, and that’s generally not the sign of a good movie (Tyler Perry, I’m looking at YOU)

Lately movies have been made for the following reasons: Artistic expression (okay, just kidding), because everybody loves a sequel (or trilogy--or fourth, fifth, sixth or however many follow ups are deemed absolutely necessary to complete a story), there’s an ‘80’s era childhood cartoon/action figure legend that has not been capitalized upon told yet, we need a remake because the special effects from the original aren’t scary or cool enough to be convincing anymore, and finally, there’s a novel that would translate into a super-fantastic movie (what you don't hear is the the super-fantastic sarcasm when I say this).

Well, you know what happens when you’ve read the book and then see the movie adaptation. It starts with a D and ends with an "isappointment." If it was a recent reading, you can pick out the parts of the story that got cut or changed immediately. If they make major changes, and you liked the book better, the experience is pretty much ruined. Sometimes it works. People love The Shawshank Redemption—it’s not really based on a book though, it was originally a short story that ended up providing enough material for a two hour film. Sometimes the director and screenwriter tweak the story and make the film a compliment to the book. (The Shining and Children of Men). Sometimes it's just not meant to be. If you take the Cider House Rules and cram 598 pages (paperback) into to a movie, you wind up with something that barely resembles the original. I only discovered this upon reading the book after seeing the movie. I went in thinking I knew the story, and what happened on the pages was entirely different. A whole subplot had been cannibalized to make the movie into a neat little package. The book was so much richer. In this case, a trilogy would have worked, but people only come back to see Tobey MaGuire play Spiderman every two years, not Homer Wells. The trilogy format doesn't work for every story, even if there's enough material to fill 6-8 hours of film time.

Watchmen itself was entertaining, even though I know the man who wrote the story did so knowing that the movie was going to be a bastardized version of his book. He wanted nothing to do with it; even the allure of money wasn’t enough to get him to sign off. The movie was just okay. It was eye candy. I see they went the other direction with the “to pants-or not-to pants” dilemma that occurred when the Incredible Hulk hit the big screen. I went into Watchmen knowing the original work was so much better, which means I won’t be disappointed when I finally read it.

It's PEOPLE!

I’ve been fascinated with dystopian stories ever since I read 1984 and “Brave New World.” No one wants to hear about the perfect future, they want to hear about the worst case scenario. That’s why the Matrix and Terminator were so popular. Even Pixar covered the subject. We like our darkness.

If it's a particularly slow day, you could even stitch some of these stories together, since many of them seem to have similar threads (for example, after Skynet took over and the machines evolved enough, you've gone from Terminator to Matrix). Some of them are older movies. Some are so old that you can find them. Online. For free! FREE! The future is NOW, people!

I googled “Soylent Green” and through I read the wikipedia entry that gave away the big secret, I decided to sit down and watch it. Sure, the quality sucked, but let me remind you that it was FREE. Free! And we all know you get what you pay for.

The movie starts with a montage of all of the innovations that humans brought to the earth. Then it descends into displaying the bad—you know, the smog, the overpopulation—well, you know, pretty much what we see every day.

The plot of the movie is actually pretty good. The execution? Wellll…not so much. There are futuristic movies that can sometimes stay pretty timeless, but many of them end up being betrayed by dated looking sets, clothing, and yes, soundtracks. This one was chock full of dated-ness. Clunky TV’s with tiny monitors (even “Brazil” got it right with the flat panel concept). Kitchens with late 60’s era appliances. First of all, if we don’t have Jetson-like cooking capabilities in the future, then forget it. I want no parts of that. Funky music and women who just hang around because they’re pretty and play no real part in the story (again, I want no parts of that). And Charlton Heston! With guns(!) No, no, not laser guns, just guns, period. With plain old bullets. What is this, the old west? Snoooze. This is also a future without real food. In fact that is the entire point of the story (let me repeat, I want no parts of that). The “food” was in the form of “Soylent Green”, which was explained to be some kind of wafer made from plankton. Sounds harmless, right?

(SPOILER ALERT!)

The big twist is that those little green felt like snack wafers were recycled dead people (this was also done in the Matrix, except it was a lot wetter, redder and it involved less processing). Our hero stows away in a dump truck that takes the bodies away, which leads to a sequence of conveyor belts transporting human shaped objects, covered in sheets, and ends in those lovely little green square wafers. (EPIPHANY ALERT!) The oceans are dying! These wafers aint made from sea creatures! Overpopulation and hunger are solved in one neat little process (!)

If this movie is remade, you know that factory sequence will be a lot more explicit. We have the special effects technology that can effectively burn an image into your head in just seconds. It’s the same horror you felt when the alien popped out of that dude’s abdomen. It’s the shock factor from the bathroom scene in “Dreamcatcher.” We have been too desensitized to be stunned by a concept. In the updated “Soylent Green” we would be treated to no less than a half hour of the hero watching every single step of the manufacturing process.

In the remake:

The dead people would not be covered in sheets.

I believe there would be a few tenderizers involved.

We would see some kind of vat o' chemicals at some point.

There might be some kind of heavy rolling device, kind of like the thing that presses dough into lasagna noodles.

Finally, the giant sheet of corpse rollups would have to be dried and cut.

The line "I eat dead people!" may or may not make it into the movie, it depending on how whimsical the director feels the day the scene is edited.

Anyway, you get it. Most newer movies don’t let you fill in the blanks. They give you every single step in the process so there’s nothing left to the imagination, so while the old movie needs updating, the newer version may not necessarily be an improvement.

(and what do you know, I guess someone really is working on it.)

"Skiddoosh"

Yesterday I had the privilege of taking my 2 1/2 year old to the movies. We almost had to abort the mission when we arrived at 12:02 to an 11:45 showing. We entered the theater and as we walked up the aisle towards the seats, a scary part of a scene played. My initial thought was "WTF, it already started? I thought this was the 12:15 show!" For two year olds, you hear exactly what they're thinking, and in this instance it was:

"I WANNA GO HOME!"

I coaxed her towards the exit (which is the same door as the entrance) and went back out to the ticket taker, who then welcomed me, for the second time, to Loews. I thought, "Dude, you just took my ticket a minute ago." I said, "Um, this ticket is for the 11:45 show. It's already started and I wanted a ticket for the 12:15 show."

Without sending me back to the ticket counter for the correctly stamped tickets (thank goodness for common sense because toting an Icee, a bag of popcorn and holding a 2 year old's hand while trying to conduct a ticket exchange didn't sound appealing to me), he directed me to the right theater.

Take 2.

We entered again, me, spilling popcorn while dragging my kid, who was still hesitant about the whole movie thing. We made it up the aisle, and across the divide between the neck breaking seats and the normal seats. We settled into an island of three seats just behind the divide. I sat down, continuing to spill popcorn, while my kid, who was experiencing her first taste of the stuff, was grabbing for the kernels that plopped to the floor. "No, no, no, don't eat those," I said. The five second rule does not apply in the movies, but it was already too late. I find the best way to remind myself that a few germs won't kill her is to remember how much bacteria laden crap I must have consumed as a child. It's the "hey, I turned out okay," line of reasoning.

We sit through almost twenty minutes of previews. The Wall-E (Pixar) one is amazing. I am glad we're in a dark theater so no one can see the tears coming. Yes, I am a sap at the movies, but only for cartoon trailers, nothing else. Seriously, I just thought of how breathtaking the images were for that film and how much I look forward to watching the entire story. Other cartoons that brought tears: Iron Giant, Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc. (not anymore, I've seen it about 50 times)...yup I am a big ol' sap. Just for cartoons, though. You can show me real human sob stories and I'm hard pressed not to feel like I've been manipulated into crying. Cartoons, on the other hand--well they are just so derned innocent. I can't help it, I tell you!

The movie starts. I think "Oh boy, we have to sit through the scary scene again--maybe it won't be so scary the second time around." I get a few "I WANNA GO HOME!"'s throughout the movie, but mostly I get wide eyes and a hand shoved into the bag of popcorn or in her mouth. I get through it without tantrums, freak outs, or having to chase a wandering kid through the theater. It was an overall success. The funniest part is that she's more obsessed with the movie after having seen it. I've played the trailer many times now--so often that I say "Skiddoosh" and it results in a flurry of toddler laughter.

:)