Baron von Costume
TI Forumite
Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
Posts: 4,684 
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Post by Baron von Costume on Oct 19, 2016 10:55:00 GMT -5
Additional Notes
During a game involving elevators, Jonathan is waylaid by a child dressed in a devil costume who pushes all the buttons (has any child actually done this since the Kennedy administration?). A child in a devil costume...during Christmas.
You must not travel in elevators with children very often. This happens literally 1 in 4 rides I share with a child at my friend's apartment building. |
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Post by Logoboros on Oct 19, 2016 11:54:32 GMT -5
From Hell is a lot like Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ: you can kind of tell the filmmakers really just wanted to make a Jack the Ripper movie, and so optioned a property (or picked one the studio had optioned) and basically made a fairly stock Jack the Ripper movie (just as Scorsese really just wanted to make his own biblical epic), with a few nods to the particularities of the source artistic work but not really engaging with it very substantively.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 20, 2016 9:39:13 GMT -5
The Last Castle
Dir. Rod Lurie
Premiered October 19, 2001
In October of 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan, uniting with its former Cold War allies, the Northern Alliance, to oust the fanatical Taliban regime that had controlled the country since 1996, and which was harboring September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
During the Second World War, the American film industry contributed to the war effort by making propaganda films– perhaps you’ve heard of Casablanca– and it was eager to promote the new war effort in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Hollywood no longer moved as quickly as it did in the 1940s, most studio films having a gestation period of about two years.
In what might initially appear to be good fortune, three films were already set for release that fall which revolved around the US military in a more contemporary context than the recent rash of World War II flicks which had undergone renewed popularity following the success of 1998’s Saving Private Ryan. But because these movies were made before the attacks, their critical and commercial success heavily depended on how well they fit into this new, wartime environment. One of them was reviled as the exact type of empty, careless spectacle which 9/11 and the war had rendered tasteless. Another was a runaway success, praised for its gritty realism and unique visual style, which forever changed how Hollywood depicted war. The first of the three, The Last Castle, was neither: a drab, mediocre attempt at prestige cinema which would have failed to resonate with audiences in time of peace or war.
At a fictional US military prison, warden Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini) excitedly welcomes his newest inmate, Marine Lt. General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford), who has recently pled guilty to violating an order from the President himself during a peacekeeping mission in Burundi. Winter is in awe of Irwin, a legendary strategist, but so are the inmates, who rally around the reluctant commander in response to Winter’s icy manipulation and policy of shooting to kill. When Irwin concludes that Winter is violating the military code of justice, he leads his fellow prisoners in a plot to seize control of the prison, and raise the American flag upside-down (the international distress signal).
If that plan doesn’t seem to make any sense, you’re absolutely right. The film’s climax, an ersatz battle scene, begins by straining credibility and escalates from there. Critics at the time questioned the casting of James Gandolfini as the bookworm Winter, but I like him for it; he fills his role much better than Redford, who seems to think his usual charisma would carry him through. Far from a war film, The Last Castle most closely resembles Don Siegel’s 1979 classic Escape from Alcatraz, attempting to frame the story as a battle of wits between two classic toughs. Unfortunately, it is too sluggishly paced and unconcerned with detail to establish any suspense or urgency.
Signs This Was Made in 2001
- Before the September 11 Attacks, the biggest news from the US Army in 2001 was that they were switching their service uniform headgear from the garrison cap to the beret, and here it is!
- In what I suspect is a major oversight by the hair and makeup department, Captain Peretz’s (Steve Burton) crew cut has blond highlights.
Additional Notes
- Winter gets shit from the inmates (and, by proxy, the film) for never having served in combat, despite being a Colonel. I understand this puts him at a stark contrast with Vietnam POW Irwin, but if Winter is around the same age as Gandolfini, he would have been far too young to serve in Vietnam, and would have had few opportunities to see combat afterward, so I’m not sure his jobnik status carries as much of a stigma as the screenwriters imagined.
- The character of Corporal Aguilar (Clifton Collins, Jr.) is literally Billy Bibbitt from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, transposed into another movie. I don’t know how a man with such a severe stutter could get through basic training, let alone as a Marine. Also, Aguilar is a common name, especially in film industry capital Los Angeles, yet every mention of his name is mispronounced as “Agwillar.”
- General Irwin’s backstory is that he refused an order from the President to evacuate a notorious warlord in Burundi: along with its neighbor Rwanda, a country where the US military famously didn’t intervene.
- Spoiler alert: A trebuchet. Somehow they built a full-size wooden trebuchet in the prison yard and nobody noticed. Not only did nobody notice, but the film never showed any indication that such a construction project was taking place. Ditto all of the improvised weapons in the prison.
How Did It Do?
The Last Castle bombed, grossing $27.6 million against a $72 million budget, and accruing a lukewarm 52% rating on RottenTomatoes.
There is no scenario in which this film could’ve been a hit. At the time it was written and produced, the nation had been at peace for a decade, the most recent war having been a seven-month affair resulting in unequivocal victory; there was simply no audience for a military-centric movie set in the present-day with no war and no eye-catching action setpieces (and no, that stupid climax doesn’t count). When the film came out, and the nation was at war, there was little public interest in a film depicting military brass as the baddies.
Interestingly, the “controversy” over the film regarded the use of the upside-down flag. On September 11, most Americans saw the upside-down flag in action for the first time in their lives, and to see the distress signal used in this trivial manner remains as silly and insulting now as it was then (see also: In the Valley of Elah). In response to this, the film’s ending was hastily re-edited to put the flag right-side up, which of course makes no sense in-story.
I can imagine The Last Castle perhaps fitting into the context of the late 1970s perhaps, and would not be surprised if it had been recycled from some unproduced screenplay of that era, but that doesn’t mean it would have been good, and the movie certainly didn’t make sense in 2001.
Next Time: Riding in Cars with Boys
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Post by ganews on Oct 20, 2016 10:52:49 GMT -5
One of them was reviled as the exact type of empty, careless spectacle which 9/11 and the war had rendered tasteless. Another was a runaway success, praised for its gritty realism and unique visual style, which forever changed how Hollywood depicted war. Really? I saw Black Hawk Down in the theater somehow and have hardly heard of it since. I never sat all the way through Behind Enemy Lines, but it certainly has been on basic cable all the time in the past 15 years. Looking at Box Office Mojo, each grossed only a bit more than its budget (which was more than twice as large for BHD, making it less profitable both as a percentage and in absolute dollars). |
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Post by Jean-Luc Lemur on Oct 20, 2016 11:25:59 GMT -5
Is Chris Kattan a straight guy who made a living off of noxious gay stereotypes or a closeted guy whose only outlet is playing noxious gay stereotypes?
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 20, 2016 14:27:28 GMT -5
Is Chris Kattan a straight guy who made a living off of noxious gay stereotypes or a closeted guy whose only outlet is playing noxious gay stereotypes? I'm willing to take Kattan at his word that he's straight; there's no reason to assume otherwise. Regarding his portrayal of noxious gay stereotypes, I wouldn't include Corky Romano as one of them. For one, there's already a thinly-closeted gay character in the film, and he's not at all stereotypical (which for a shitty comedy in 2001 is kind of amazing). Second, while I distinctly recall the TV spots at the time (which I couldn't find) highlighting Corky's "flamboyant" traits... Well, I'm not going to say those traits are downplayed, but they're only a small part of a wide variety of obnoxious attributes which, taken all together, are so scattered and disconnected as to resist any particular stereotype. Which in a way is worse. If you want to see a generically annoying personality done right, look at Wayne Brady's one-off character on 30 Rock.
It's funny that your bring closetedness into the conversation now of all times. Next week we're going to discuss a film that was made specifically to suppress rumors about its then-closeted star, and which backfired completely.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 21, 2016 11:03:23 GMT -5
Riding in Cars with Boys
Dir. Penny Marshall
Premiered October 19, 2001
A few weeks ago, I read a clickbait article about forgotten hit films of the 1990s. It was mostly garbage, highlighting several films that are widely beloved to this day, such as Singles and That Thing You Do! But it got one thing right when it said “Drew Barrymore was the queen of the almost-good ‘90s drama.” Riding in Cars with Boys, in which Barrymore stars, certainly feels like it belongs in that category. Unfortunately, not only was it no longer the ‘90s, the film isn’t even “almost good.” It isn’t “almost” anything.
Based on the autobiography of essayist Beverly Donofrio, though clearly embellished during the adaptation process, Riding in Cars with Boys begins in the 1960s, where teenaged aspiring writer Beverly (Drew Barrymore) falls for sensitive loner Ray Hasek (Steve Zahn) and subsequently becomes pregnant with their son Jason. Beverly’s dreams of college are long-dashed, living in near-poverty and running in with the law while the congenitally unreliable Ray becomes addicted to heroin and leaves for the sake of their child.
By 1986, Beverly is a successful newspaper columnist with a Master’s Degree, about to publish her autobiography, and brings the now-grown Jason (Adam Garcia, who poorly and needlessly narrates his own scenes) in the hope that she can convince Ray to sign off on his portrayal in the book. This forms the framing device for the rest of the film while Jason, deeply resentful of his mother’s arrested development, plots to steal away with his childhood sweetheart Amelia (Maggie Gyllenhaal).
If it feels like we skipped a step, we did, as Riding in Cars with Boys omits its own climax, transitioning directly from buildup to denouement. Although discussed in the final scenes, nothing is shown of Jason’s budding relationship with Amelia, nor of Beverly’s education, supposedly the crux of the story. Instead, the film is overstuffed with heavyhanded, tonally confused depictions of Beverly’s struggle with her friends and judgmental family.
The screenplay stretches Donofrio’s real life so far to mine pathos that it creates plot holes. Consider the raw contempt Beverly receives from her extended family during her shotgun wedding reception. I get it: she’s sixteen. And they’re Catholic. And it’s 1965. On the other hand, it’s 1965– when the teen pregnancy was 7% and that was a huge improvement over previous years. And they’re Catholic, so they must go through this all the goddamn time. Or consider a scene in which Beverly is forced to bring a young Jason to an interview to receive a college scholarship when Ray can’t be found, and is then rejected because she has a child. Why didn’t she plan to leave Jason with her mother (Lorraine Bracco), when she had done it before, knew Ray was unreliable, and had the appointment made well in advance? Lots of other scenes tonally clash, attempting to convey both tragedy and comedy but succeeding only in arousing the distaste of the viewer.
When Riding in Cars with Boys came out on DVD, my mom rented it and I watched it with her for a lack of anything better to do. Though I never forgot the film, it left little impression. Revisiting it for this project, I genuinely didn’t expect to outright hate it. But even coming from a time when the moviegoing public outright craved boring movies, Riding in Cars with Boys stands out for its elemental failures. It tries to capture the magic of earlier boomer-retrospective movies, even mixing in the horribly dated Generation X-broken home narrative by way of Jason. But it tries far too hard to inject sympathy where it doesn’t belong, turning a real person’s life into an eyeroll-inducing, emotionally confused pity fantasy with no arc, theme, or payoff.
Additional Notes
- At one point, in a scene set in the 1970s, Beverly is invited to move to California, where “the state pays” for state college tuition. It is the official position of the California State University that tuition has never been free, and that any claims by older people that such a system existed is dangerous far-left propaganda. This additional note has been brought to you by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers’ Association.
- In the film’s first sequence, 11-year-old Beverly is played by Mika Boorem, who we previously saw in another 2001 bit of awkward boomer nostalgia, Hearts in Atlantis. That’s some serious typecasting.
How Did It Do?
Riding in Cars with Boys grossed $35.7 million against a $48 million budget. Critics were mostly negative, giving credit to Zahn for managing to make Ray sympathetic, but acknowledging the failure of the film to provide adequate characterization or plot. Penny Marshall, who had previously thrilled critics and audiences alike with Big, Awakenings, and A League of Their Own, never directed again.
In the decade leading up to the September 11 Attacks, history, they said, was over. In a world of spreading and seemingly unthreatened peace and prosperity, so-called “feel good” movies like Phenomenon, City of Angels, and Stepmom could become nine-figure blockbusters. That media landscape was destroyed that September and has never returned. And while Riding in Cars with Boys is a genuinely awful film, and probably would not have connected with audiences as intended anyway, it must be said that no one was in the mood for it either.
Next Time: K-PAX
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2016 0:04:33 GMT -5
As far as military members not seeing combat and getting shit for it if they are high rank. As someone in the military, I can't say for sure when it comes to combat specifically, but any other experience? Fuck yeah. If you are a high ranking officer trying to command and all you've had is an easy road, then people are going to resent the fuck outta you. Gotta walk the walk and what not.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 23, 2016 9:50:13 GMT -5
As far as military members not seeing combat and getting shit for it if they are high rank. As someone in the military, I can't say for sure when it comes to combat specifically, but any other experience? Fuck yeah. If you are a high ranking officer trying to command and all you've had is an easy road, then people are going to resent the fuck outta you. Gotta walk the walk and what not. , but in the context of decades of barely interrupted peace? |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2016 10:15:29 GMT -5
As far as military members not seeing combat and getting shit for it if they are high rank. As someone in the military, I can't say for sure when it comes to combat specifically, but any other experience? Fuck yeah. If you are a high ranking officer trying to command and all you've had is an easy road, then people are going to resent the fuck outta you. Gotta walk the walk and what not. , but in the context of decades of barely interrupted peace? yes. The older guys care even more about that stuff. So many guys who have been in for years just rag on newer guys because our BMT is a joke compared to what they had to go through. You have to prove yourself in the military. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 26, 2016 9:08:17 GMT -5
K-PAX
Dir. Iain Softley
Premiered October 26, 2001
Before getting into this review, I need to make two points.
First, this series was a mistake. With 2007, though I was selective, I never shied away from bad movies, but I wasn’t prepared for the particular nature of bad movies in 2001. Mostly they’re boring. And mostly they’re “feel good” movies, the kind that has so far given us Hearts in Atlantis, Riding in Cars with Boys, and now K-PAX. It won’t be the last.
But it gets worse. Doing series like these has alerted me to certain “microgenres,” small numbers of films, all made in within a certain time period with similar plots and themes, but which don’t appear to have been copying each other. The early 2000s had the “get-into-college-through-subterfuge” microgenre (How High, Orange County, Stealing Harvard, The Perfect Score, Accepted), the late 2000s had the crazy violent nonsensical out-of-its-depth paranoid left-wing partisan manifesto (Smokin’ Aces, Southland Tales, War Inc.), and K-PAX is to my knowledge the final example of perhaps the defining microgenre of the Turn of the Millennium, the Personal Jesus Movie.
The Personal Jesus Movie is, to me, the most irritating and painful of these Chicken Soup for the Soul-type films: a supernatural being arrives with the power to change the world. But instead of engineering world peace or curing cancer, he decides to teach a heartwarming lesson to his familiars, and by extent you the (presumably) middle-aged woman in the theater. Usually this will end in “beautiful” tragedy. And there’s a good chance your own Personal Jesus will be played by John Travolta. In K-PAX, mercifully, he isn’t.
Kevin Spacey plays Prot, a mysterious man who is arrested at Grand Central Terminal and hauled off to a mental institution when he is witness to a mugging and can’t produce a train ticket. Because no one has ever been allowed in Grand Central without a ticket, nor have they ever been allowed to go unmolested by police for refusing to adequately explain why. After months without avail, the mental hospital brings in Dr. Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges), an expert in highly-convincing delusions, to check him out. Prot, you see, claims to be light-surfing alien from the planet K-PAX in the constellation Lyra, and Mark believes that he can unlock Prot by exploring his claims.
K-PAX is the kind of film that attempts to get by on the merits of its stars– and Spacey and Bridges are certainly pros, even with this material– but it’s also the kind of film that, if you think about it for a second, falls apart and makes you deeply worried for the people who made it. Prot claims K-PAX is a highly advanced world without need for family, government, law, or indeed medicine, as “everyone has the power to heal themselves” –even humans, as Prot proves with his fellow mental patients.
The screenplay attempts to tease whether Prot is real or not, but can’t– Prot is immediately said to be able to see ultraviolet light, and is capable of bizarre changes in heart rate. Plus, the production gives it away, with an endlessly fawning score of whimsical tinkling piano and Hallmark Channel cinematography full of angelic rays of light. And yet, and I have no idea how else to say this, the film somehow attempts to have it both ways: Prot is both a mentally disturbed man and a superhuman extraterrestrial.
That K-PAX, based on a novel by Gene Brewer, was intent on pursuing a worldview somewhere between Anarchism, Transcendental Meditation, and Scientology is somewhat terrifying. That the film embellished this worldview and still demanded to be taken seriously is worse. When the film was released in theaters, I remember asking my mom to take me, because duh, it had an alien in it. She declined, and I’m glad she didn’t waste her money.
Additional Notes
- This movie intercuts Grand Central Terminal with a pre-renovation Union Station in Los Angeles. In addition, the exterior of the New York Psych Hospital is clearly Relativity Studios.
- There’s a minor subplot concerning Mark’s relationship with his son, who appears once, at the very end, and is played by a very young Aaron Paul.
- Just as in Don’t Say a Word, this film seems to take place in an alternate history with no Reagan presidency, because public mental hospitals still exist.
How Did It Do?
K-PAX grossed $65 million against its astonishingly gargantuan $68 million budget, and garnered a middling-to-poor 41% on RottenTomatoes. Some of a more sentimental nature, like Roger Ebert, came under the film’s spell, but most found it dull and tiresome. The author of the book, Gene Brewer, was subsequently sued for plagiarism by an Argentine filmmaker.
Personal Jesus Movies were basically lady porn. They were all tacky, insipid, and vain in a way that, in a new age of terrorism and war, suddenly seemed deeply inappropriate. Fifteen years on, we’ve thankfully never looked back.
Unfortunately, there were still a lot of similar movies that Hollywood had left to burn off.
Next Time: On the Line
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Post by ganews on Oct 26, 2016 9:49:08 GMT -5
But instead of engineering world peace or curing cancer, he decides to teach a heartwarming lesson to his familiars, and by extent you the (presumably) middle-aged woman in the theater. Usually this will end in “beautiful” tragedy. And there’s a good chance your own Personal Jesus will be played by John Travolta.
Hey, at least in Phenomenon Travolta tried to share his formula for super-fertilizer with university scientists to end world hunger. I never saw Michael. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 26, 2016 10:52:32 GMT -5
But instead of engineering world peace or curing cancer, he decides to teach a heartwarming lesson to his familiars, and by extent you the (presumably) middle-aged woman in the theater. Usually this will end in “beautiful” tragedy. And there’s a good chance your own Personal Jesus will be played by John Travolta.
Hey, at least in Phenomenon Travolta tried to share his formula for super-fertilizer with university scientists to end world hunger. I never saw Michael. Did you see City of Angels? The ladyporn-ified Hollywood remake of Wings of Desire with Nicolas Cage? Same deal. |
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Baron von Costume
TI Forumite
Like an iron maiden made of pillows... the punishment is decadence!
Posts: 4,684
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Post by Baron von Costume on Oct 26, 2016 11:33:54 GMT -5
Sitting through City of Angels was one of the more excruciating first date experiences of my life.
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Post by ganews on Oct 26, 2016 11:38:44 GMT -5
Hey, at least in Phenomenon Travolta tried to share his formula for super-fertilizer with university scientists to end world hunger. I never saw Michael. Did you see City of Angels? The ladyporn-ified Hollywood remake of Wings of Desire with Nicolas Cage? Same deal. No, but that's the movie where Nicholas Cage is Lucifer, right? The plot is that he quits heaven because of his earthly desire for Meg Ryan, which I'm pretty sure is the whole Lucifer deal. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 27, 2016 9:41:08 GMT -5
 On the Line
Dir. Eric Bross
Premiered October 26, 2001
I don’t know why, but when I was a kid, I watched a lot of 7th Heaven.
7th Heaven was a family-friendly nighttime soap on the now-defunct WB network, in which Protestant minister Eric (Stephen Collins) and his wife Annie (Catherine Hicks) raised five and later seven rambunctious children, all at different phases of childhood and adolescence, thus allowing for lots and lots of Very Special Episodes.
Such Very Special Episodes only comprised about half of 7th Heaven’s content– the other half was consumed with wheel-spinning relationship drama and bickering. One episode still stands out though, “Who Do You Trust?” On that episode, Lucy (Beverley Mitchell) is jealous that her bombshell older sister Mary (Jessica Biel) is in a relationship. Mary solves the problem by setting Lucy up with her boyfriend’s brother, played by Lance Bass, designated unthreatening sweetheart of the world-conquering boy band NSYNC.
The whole point of the episode– and the crux of the advertising for it– was Eric seeing Lucy making out with this guy. Or rather the audience seeing Bass making out with a woman. Though I can’t prove it, I strongly suspect that the episode was written with the express intention of dispelling rumors, now known to be true, that Bass was gay.
Not many people remember or care about 7th Heaven, but people who torture themselves by watching bad movies are generally familiar with On the Line, a 2001 film made for the same purpose. In 2016, it’s shocking to look back and think that stuff like this was felt to be necessary. Far more shocking is that this is the film they chose for that purpose, having originated as a raunchy R-rated comedy about a guy who lives with several other flamboyant men and is afraid of women. Incidentally, the film was hastily rewritten for a PG rating, and it shows.
On the Line opens at a high school dance in 1994, wherein young Kevin (Bass) leads a Blink-182-ish band, then freezes at the chance to dedicate his next song to his crush. We are meant to accept this as a justification for everything that happens afterward, as seven years later, Kevin is still congenitally unable to ask a girl out. In this case, the girl in question (Emanuelle Chriqui) is a fellow commuter on the Chicago L whom Kevin hits it off with immediately due to their mutual love of soul singer Al Green and ability to recite all 42* US Presidents in chronological order, only to realize afterward that he never asked her name or for her phone number.
In the hope of finally getting Kevin some action (it’s not clear if he’s a virgin; it’s unlikely in terms of his characterization, but logical in context and left ambiguous in accordance with Popstar Law), Kevin’s roommates– all four of them, all members of his high school band, all wildly different personalities who shouldn’t rightfully even know each other– place a personal ad in a local paper. When said personal ad becomes a media sensation (?) and touches the hearts of dozens of women enough for them to call in (??), the roommates organize a scheme to go out with each respondent and find out if she’s the one from the train.
If none of that makes sense to you, hold on to your fucking hat, because this 85-minute movie somehow finds room for some major subplots. Kevin is a copywriter for an advertising agency looking to market Reeboks to teenage girls. When Kevin isn’t making small talk with his Cubs-obsessed copy room jockey friend (Jerry Stiller) or getting maniacal lectures from his boss (Dave Foley, doing a Cary Grant impression because why not), his partner on the project (Tamala Jones) steals his work and claims it as her own, and this is treated as a minor hiccup rather than grounds to be fired. Meanwhile, one of the reporters at the newspaper (Dan Montgomery, Jr.) is a former classmate of Kevin’s who remains intensely jealous of Kevin’s charm with the ladies (clearly he hasn’t seen the rest of this movie), and tries to sabotage Kevin’s ad by writing a story that he’s a loser, which somehow makes Kevin even more popular with said ladies. That reporter’s girlfriend Julie (Amanda Foreman) is cheating on him with one of Kevin’s roommates Rod (Joey Fatone), who himself is a hair metal enthusiast worshipping at the feet of a fictional guitar god known as The Mick (Richie Sambora). And on a supposedly related note, other roommate Randy (GQ) is hit in the balls with a foul ball off Sammy Sosa’s bat on two separate occasions. For those keeping count, this is the second post-9/11 film to feature a cameo by Sammy Sosa.
As a person with over a decade of public transportation experience, I have to point out that if you see a cute girl you like on your morning commute, you’re probably going to see her there again, but frankly that’s the least of this film’s problems. It’s incredibly noisy and confusing, mixing hair metal and forced NSYNC tie-in songs, using nonstop sound-effects like crickets and record scratches. Hell, the Rod-Julie relationship consists of two scenes, and they’re placed in the wrong order!
On the Line was a disaster from day one and only got worse. Nothing about the film, in its story or production, makes any sense. And despite how insane it may sound, it’s not half as interesting as, say, Glitter. So congratulations, guys, your movie is “not as interestingly bad as Glitter.”
Signs This Was Made in 2001
If The Glass House was a showcase for New Millennium fashion as it applied to women, this film does the same for men. Bart Simpson spikes, frosted tips, olive green leather suits. And of course that mainstay of 1999-2003, the portable CD player.
Additional Notes
*Yes, there were 42 at the time. Grover Cleveland was one person.
How Did It Do?
On the Line grossed $4.4 million dollars against a $16 million budget, the lowest-grossing film since the attacks thus far. It also earned a 19% rating on RottenTomatoes and has been featured on the podcast How Did This Get Made?
The TRL era of music that had thrived at the turn of the millennium was already in decline before the September 11 Attacks, with most of Jive Records’ target demographic hitting puberty– though NSYNC’s Celebrity album surprisingly still managed to hit #1 that July. Pop charts were increasingly dominated by R&B, which itself was increasingly dark and contemplative. Of course, the attacks definitively killed whatever taste remained for virginal pop starlets and market-tested boy bands.
Gay rights, of course, became a major issue after the attacks; with gay marriage becoming legal in Massachusetts in 2003 and then nationwide by 2015. With many pop singers including Bass coming out as gay in those years to no public outcry or financial consequence, it’s amazing to think that someone would make a movie in 2001 determined to convince the public that a gay celebrity was straight.
Next Time: Thir13en Ghosts
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Post by MarkInTexas on Oct 27, 2016 13:06:54 GMT -5
Did you see City of Angels? The ladyporn-ified Hollywood remake of Wings of Desire with Nicolas Cage? Same deal. No, but that's the movie where Nicholas Cage is Lucifer, right? The plot is that he quits heaven because of his earthly desire for Meg Ryan, which I'm pretty sure is the whole Lucifer deal. And, as I recall, Meg Ryan promptly dies . While riding a bike down a hill with her eyes closed and her arms raised up, if I'm recalling correctly. It also gave us the Goo-Goo Dolls's "Iris", which was pretty inescapable for about five or six years after the movie came out. It was not a good movie. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Oct 27, 2016 13:18:25 GMT -5
Gay rights, of course, became a major issue after the attacks; with gay marriage becoming legal in Massachusetts in 2003 and then nationwide by 2015. With many pop singers including Bass coming out as gay in those years to no public outcry or financial consequence, it’s amazing to think that someone would make a movie in 2001 determined to convince the public that a gay celebrity was straight.
Kind of a shame, really. I would have paid good money around 2001/2002 to see Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Kevin Spacey in "Yes, I Think That Girl is Hot. No, Really, I Do!" |
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Post by Buon Funerale Amigos on Oct 27, 2016 13:37:32 GMT -5
I have to point out that if you see a cute girl you like on your morning commute, you’re probably going to see her there again . We got on Caltrain at 4th and King, and she got off at Belmont, and I never saw her again... |
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Post by ganews on Oct 27, 2016 14:09:18 GMT -5
No, but that's the movie where Nicholas Cage is Lucifer, right? The plot is that he quits heaven because of his earthly desire for Meg Ryan, which I'm pretty sure is the whole Lucifer deal. And, as I recall, Meg Ryan promptly dies . While riding a bike down a hill with her eyes closed and her arms raised up, if I'm recalling correctly. It also gave us the Goo-Goo Dolls's "Iris", which was pretty inescapable for about five or six years after the movie came out. It was not a good movie. Ha! I would hope Cage is then stuck on Earth. "DAMN IT!" |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 27, 2016 14:44:32 GMT -5
ganews He is! But it's okay, because life is precious and God and the Bible (just kidding, that movie about angels doesn't even have the balls to be religious). MarkInTexas Kevin Spacey? Buon Funerale Amigos Can we talk about that poster? Promotional material for this movie was harder than usual to find, but I wanted to find the original poster just because of how sad it was. First of all, five-pointed stars inside of hexagons— terrible design, also pointless, but the whole thing is very clearly aimed at the Lisa Frank crowd who have at this point moved on. And poor Emanuelle Chriqui doesn't even get her name up there! Second, the pull-quote is "A Killer Soundtrack With New Songs From *NSync And Britney Spears!" The best thing anyone said about this movie was apparently a wantonly-capitalized statement of fact that isn't even about the movie.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 28, 2016 9:10:48 GMT -5
Thir13en Ghosts
Dir. Steve Beck
Premiered October 26, 2001
Back in the day, critics hated Thir13en Ghosts. But many on this site have defended it. So how does it stack up? Well...
Widowed father Arthur Kritikos (Tony Shalhoub) struggles to get by after his wife is killed in the fire that destroys the family home. One day however, smarmy lawyer Ben Moss (J.R. Bourne) alerts Arthur that he has inherited the country home of his recently deceased uncle Cyrus (F. Murray Abraham). Bringing along his two kids (Shannon Elizabeth and Alec Roberts) and their nanny (Rah Digga), they find the house to be a bizarre construction of steel and seemingly unbreakable glass, all covered in Latin incantations. That’s when Cyrus’ companion Dennis (Matthew Lillard) arrives to reveal the horrible truth– Cyrus was a ghost hunter, and the house is actually a prison for the most evil spirits he could find. And that’s when the kids go into the basement...
Based on a film from 1960, Thir13en Ghosts is among the last, if not the last, of a brief trend of 60s horror remakes kicked off by Gus Van Sant’s widely-mocked shot-for-shot rendition of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. It’s definitely not the worst of the bunch, not when the Haunting remake exists. And I actually enjoyed the story; essentially it’s The Return of the Curse of the Creature’s Ghost, the classic archetype of a haunted house film.
But here’s the thing: ‘60s horror mostly comprised low-budget indie movies shot in black and white. They were very simple and created suspense with suggestion and ambiguity. And Thir13en Ghosts kinda gets it; the script and acting all suggest a warm sense of affectionate irony– hard-R gore this is not. However, the production and look clash wildly with that intent. The house, while novel, looks nothing like a house; it is, as mentioned before, a prison, a machine even, composed of glass and steel and nothing more; and it distracts immensely from the suspenseful buildup, especially at the beginning when it’s most crucial. Also, there’s some really bad CGI, and the cinematography makes the whole film resemble an episode of Deep Space Nine.
Thir13en Ghosts definitely didn’t deserve the critical drubbing it got (about which more below), but I didn’t really like it. I wanted to, but it was a film composed of two different visions, and I’m happy to declare it a noble failure.
Signs This Was Made in 2001
Young Bobby rides a razor scooter. Arthur makes a snarky reference to Dr. Phil.
Additional Notes
Thir13en Ghosts earned $68.5 million against a $42 million budget, likely not recouping its marketing costs. It also received an astonishingly low 14% on RottenTomatoes, with Roger Ebert going so far as to place it on his “most hated” list.
Ever since 2001, it’s been a tradition of sorts for whatever horror franchise is popular to put out some ever-diminishing sequel around Halloween. Thir13en Ghosts, meanwhile, was the only horror film to get a Halloween release in 2001. I suspect that that might have had something to do with the attacks, but can’t be sure.
As for the critical consensus, it must be said that 9/11 caused a brief return to 1980s-levels of irony– i.e. 0%. Given the circumstances, I can’t blame people for not having fun with some good old-fashioned scares, but I’m glad that feeling didn’t last too long.
Next Time: Domestic Disturbance
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Post by Logoboros on Oct 28, 2016 10:57:05 GMT -5
‘60s horror mostly comprised low-budget indie movies shot in black and white. They were very simple and created suspense with suggestion and ambiguity. The source movie here is a classic William Castle hard-gimmick flick, though. The big marketing point for the original 13 Ghosts was the special glasses they distributed in the theater to let you see the ghosts, whose scenes were presented with color filters on them (so that it worked like those "decode the answer by putting this red film over the red static obscuring the text" clues). It's not Night of the Living Dead or Carnival of Souls. It's high kitsch in a mostly deliberate form, and I think the remake does capture a bit of the mixture of "Gee whiz!" and "Step right up, folks! See this impossible marvel of nature!" salesmanship that was Castle's brand. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 28, 2016 12:21:54 GMT -5
‘60s horror mostly comprised low-budget indie movies shot in black and white. They were very simple and created suspense with suggestion and ambiguity. The source movie here is a classic William Castle hard-gimmick flick, though. The big marketing point for the original 13 Ghosts was the special glasses they distributed in the theater to let you see the ghosts, whose scenes were presented with color filters on them (so that it worked like those "decode the answer by putting this red film over the red static obscuring the text" clues). It's not Night of the Living Dead or Carnival of Souls. It's high kitsch in a mostly deliberate form, and I think the remake does capture a bit of the mixture of "Gee whiz!" and "Step right up, folks! See this impossible marvel of nature!" salesmanship that was Castle's brand. Well, shit. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Oct 28, 2016 15:16:38 GMT -5
Yeah, it's pretty much an open secret that Spacey is gay. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Oct 30, 2016 15:49:28 GMT -5
What is amazing to me is that I don't even remember that a few of these films ever existed. There was a Hearts in Atlantis film? The Last Castle? Some stupid Lance Bass movie? Not sure I even remembered Bandits. The Glass House, Don't Say a Word, Hardball... Good grief, I have no memory of any of these. Fall of 2001 was my last semester in college. I was taking a couple of time consuming classes and was working an internship. I was obviously not in tune with movies at that time. Ghost World and Zoolander are the only two so far that I've actually seen. And I saw those much later.
If only I could have also forgotten about Phenomenon and City of Angels. Wow, those were bad. Never saw K-Pax. If you say it is similar to those others, then I'm glad I missed it. Really hated those other two.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2016 17:02:13 GMT -5
I was only 11 at the time and I remember or know all of these. Weird.
Also, is Tom Cruise gay? Is it anything but rumors? With spacey and Travolta there is some concrete evidence, but cruise? He does seem weird but he comes off as asexual, which feels kinda demeaning to asexuals, because as where they are normal people cruise is just weird and lacking of any romantic/sexual notions, like an alien trying to be a human.
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Post by Ben Grimm on Oct 30, 2016 17:34:54 GMT -5
I was only 11 at the time and I remember or know all of these. Weird. Also, is Tom Cruise gay? Is it anything but rumors? With spacey and Travolta there is some concrete evidence, but cruise? He does seem weird but he comes off as asexual, which feels kinda demeaning to asexuals, because as where they are normal people cruise is just weird and lacking of any romantic/sexual notions, like an alien trying to be a human. In all honesty? I don't think so, at least how (I think) most of us define "gay" (i.e., a man who has sex with men). I think it's possible that, absent anything else, he'd be gay or bi or asexual or something other than conventionally straight. But I don't think he has sex with men, because, if he ever was attracted to men, I think he thinks Scientology cured him of it, and either has channeled it into something else or is able to set it aside (he is in his mid-50s, so it's plausible). I honestly think there would be much more solid rumors about it if he was actively having sex with guys. That said, he may have pre-Scientology. Spacey, I think, just wants to keep his private life private (and may have some dalliances with people flirting around the edges of the age of consent, according to some rumors). Travolta, I think, is just gay, and acts on it regularly, but sees it as a failing, so he hides it. |
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Oct 30, 2016 18:35:21 GMT -5
What is amazing to me is that I don't even remember that a few of these films ever existed. There was a Hearts in Atlantis film? The Last Castle? Some stupid Lance Bass movie? Not sure I even remembered Bandits. The Glass House, Don't Say a Word, Hardball... Good grief, I have no memory of any of these. Fall of 2001 was my last semester in college. I was taking a couple of time consuming classes and was working an internship. I was obviously not in tune with movies at that time. Ghost World and Zoolander are the only two so far that I've actually seen. And I saw those much later. If only I could have also forgotten about Phenomenon and City of Angels. Wow, those were bad. Never saw K-Pax. If you say it is similar to those others, then I'm glad I missed it. Really hated those other two. I'm about the same age as @matt1 and turned 12 that fall. Of the films I've published reviews of so far, I had seen Riding in Cars with Boys and K-PAX, but remember having heard of most of the others. The only complete obscurities to me thus far have been Hardball, Hearts in Atlantis, Bandits, and Thir13en Ghosts (which I remember the trailer for but somehow conflated with Jeepers Creepers). However, as I write each of these about a month before I post them here, I can say with confidence that November and December will feature progressively more well-known movies. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 30, 2016 18:48:50 GMT -5
The last castle is the only one that was obscure for me, and I found out about that one a few years ago after looking through gandolfini's filmography when I was on a sopranos kick. All the others films I had either seen or saw commerical/trailers for by the time 2002 was over. But that is the movies so far. I do not remember domestic disturbance at all though, and for the rest of the movies yet to be covered, life as a house, affair of the necklace, and the shipping news are the only I don't have a clue about. I guess getting free premium channels from Comcast helped out!
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