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THAT'S
IT! WINTER CAN BE OFFICIALLY DECLARED OVER BECAUSE THERE ARE NO MORE
DAMN PLACES TO PUT THE SNOW.
I shouldn't
complain, you know. In the winter, walking the mutt and shoveling
snow are the only honest forms of exercise I get. But today I just
gave up. Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow. There's no point
in shoveling any more because there's no place to shovel it to without
one of those pesky neighbour squabbles erupting. So I just drove
the car in and out the the driveway taking care to change my angle
a few degrees each time. Pretty soon it looked, well kinda like
I'd been busting my ass all morning shovelling it out. And I thought,
optical illusion for sure, but a damn good one. Now if only I could
figure some way to get the car up the sidewalk.
FORMULA 51 (TWO SPUDS)
This is one of those movies we decided to pass on when it showed
up in theatres last summer, cause the previews made it look way
too goofy. It was a tough decision though, because it did have Samuel
L. Jackson, the blackest black guy in Hollyweird and Robert Carlyle,
the Scottish actor who played Hamish MacBeth and has been working
steadily ever since.
Anyway, we pounced on it the day it came out on video and I have
to tell you, this movie is a genuine hoot. It's actually a take-off
on the whole Guy Richie thing, but with nowhere near the staggering
amount of pretension that comes free with every Guy Ritchie movie
(Snatch, Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels etc.)
In Formula 51, Sam L. plays a genius chemist who has made a legal
drug that's 51 times more powerful than the baddest methamphetamine
out there. He doublecrosses his crazy ass American boss (Meat Loaf),
and heads to England to sell his formula for a huge amount of money.
That's enough about the plot, because in spite of the fact that
this movie is a complete whack job, there really is a plot and I
don't think I should reveal it.
Suffice it to say, that being a Guy Ritchie send-up, every character
in the movie is some sort of nutbar or really pissed off hoodlum--Sam
L, being the most nutty and pissed off of all. This film bounces
along at a breakneck pace with all kinds of absurd little subplots
involving soccer (football), sex and other stuff. About five minutes
into this film the Wife and I started to get the joke and began
to chuckle, guffaw and laugh out loud for most of the next two hours.
And it was pretty easy to do because Sam L., who is in just about
every scene in the movie, makes himself into a visual cartoon by
wearing this tartan kilt and carrying a bag of golf clubs everywhere
he goes. And no matter how carefully we listened for clues as to
why the hell he was doing that, no clues were forthcoming. I know
that Sam L. is a golfing fanatic and usually has it written into
his contracts that he has to be lodged on or near a golf course.
So maybe he was doing a send up of himself in addition to the send
up of Mr. Madonna. What a bonus, eh?
Anyway, Formula 51 is entertaining as hell, and not at all as asinine
as its trailers would lead you to believe. Guess you just gotta
have faith. Now there is a @#$%* of a lot of foul language in it,
if that sort of thing gets up your nose. But no more than say your
average Guy Ritchie film. In fact, I'd have to say it was a hell
of a lot better overall than any Guy Ritchie film ever made, because
it's not trying to be at all coy about that fact that its putting
form over content. Nobody will be studying this film at The Sundance
Institute, but you know what? I don't care. Everybody was having
fun doing it, and as a result, the Wife and I had a lot of fun watching
it.
BEHIND THE BADGE (ONE SPUD)
I haven't been able to find out much about this movie, except for
the fact that it was originally made for TV. Probably Showtime or
TNT, 'cause it's not historically significant enough to be HBO.
Behind The Badge takes place in a parish north of New Orleans, where
Billy Bob Thornton is the hard drinking sheriff who's separated
from the country prosecutor (Sela Ward), has a daughter who wants
a tattoo and is on the outs with the political bosses in his town,
a mob run by William Devane. I'm not sure how Billy Bob ended up
in this movie cause it's very much a made for TV style i.e. chock
full of made for TV characters, isn't well written enough for him
to get up any kind of a head of steam, and forces him to play opposite
Patricia Arquette, who couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag.
Any, there's a murder and a situation that needs to be covered up
and a very stubborn Billy Bob trying like hell to prove that he's
not the screw-up that his daddy was, (there's that damn father thing
again.) when he was sheriff back in the day. There's also a lot
of small town atmosphere and everybody gets to haul out their best
country drawls, except Sela, who is obviously a Yankee and Patricia
Arquette, who probably couldn't muster up an accent if her ass was
on fire.
In spite of all its shortcomings, this is a strangely watchable
movie. Billy Bob has a great deal of presence and can make even
the most mundane material seem interesting, cause he's a damn good
actor. William Devane is fun to watch too, although I'll always
see him as the guy who played John Kennedy. He and Billy Bob get
to do a little verbal jousting and it's not bad. I still can't figure
out how Billy Bob ended up in this movie in the first place. It's
gotta be something personal like he's buddies with the writer/director
Robby Henson, who probably shortened him name down from Robby Ed
Henson or something. These southern boys stick together like molasses
cookies in a bayou heatwave. (Do you like that? I just made it up.)
Anyway, later in the summer when you're scraping the bottom of the
video barrel, it could be an OK timewaster.
MY BIG FAT GREEK LIFE (TWO SPUDS)
I saw the pilot for this show, based on the extremely successful
comedy feature My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a few weeks ago, and wasn't
all that impressed. But I have a lot of respect for some the people
involved, especially Michael Constantine and Andrea Martin and so
I decided to hold off trashing this show until I saw an episode
that wasn't all about explaining itself and introducing a fairly
large cast of characters. This sort of thing is necessary I guess
because when it comes to mainstream TV, because the audience is
made up of a rather large number of brain dead idiots who would
not have seen the movie, but would be perfectly willing to tune
into anything that screamed at them from the front cover of TV Guide.
Well, I was glad I waited. Those of you have been reading this column
for any length of time will probably have noticed that I don't pay
much attention to mainstream sitcoms, except for the really off
the-wall-stuff like Sienfeld and Men Behaving Badly, and Third Rock
From The Sun, all of which I loved, and Curb Your Enthusiasm, which
I have just discovered. That's primarily because I think most mainstream
sitcoms are formula crap. But, although My Big Fat Greek Life falls
into this category, I think I am going to give it a shot. Because
the second episode it caused me to do something I haven't done for
a quite some time while sitting in front of a sitcom, and that is
to actually laugh.
If you want to know what this show is about, see My Big Fat Greek
Wedding, which just came out on video, because My Big Fat Greek
Life really is a pretty loyal extension of the film. Except for
John Corbett, who plays the husband of star Nia Vadalos in the movie,
pretty much the whole cast is in this series. And because Nia is
a damn good comedy writer, the script was pretty solid and because
Nia , Michael Constantine, Andrea Martin and Lanie Kazan are all
brilliant comic actors, the show has quite a bit of zip. Sure the
story lines are as insipid as any other sitcom out there, but there's
a really good energy about this show that just kind of sucks you
into it. It's all about the characters. It always is with sitcoms.
And these characters are all really likeable and genuinely funny.
This show is not gonna set the world on fire and it probably won't
have much of a run, maybe a season or two, but I wish it all the
best, because this is fun stuff in a billion channel universe that
keeps trying to pass of sophomoric crap as comedy and hasn't realized
that we're all just a little bit more discerning than they want
to give us credit for being.
FRAILTY (ONE SPUD AND A BIT)
The Wife was out so I went off the the Hasty Market and picked up
this nastly little piece of southern gothic nonsense.
Frailty is one of those movies that I found interesting to watch,
but for the life of me couldn't figure out what the people who signed
the cheques to finance this film were thinking. I mean this is very.
very dark stuff.
Essentially it's the story of a regular Texas guy who starts getting
messages from God to go out and kill people who God tells him are
demonic. The only problem with this is that he brings his kids along
and puts them to work making them accessories before and after the
fact. Over the years, he kills what amounts to dozens of people
and well, hey, it's a mystery and you know the rules about that.
Bill Paxton (who also directs) plays the dad and he's pretty convincing
because he plays his part dead straight ahead. Matthew McConaughey
plays one of the kids some twenty years later who is telling the
story to a skeptical FBI agent (Powers Boothe, King of The B-Pictures).
This is a very slow moving story and there's not a lot of gore for
what is essentially an axe murderer film. I felt a little uncomfortable
watching it because, I have a feeling that the South is filled with
people like the guy Bill Paxton was playing. People with issues
that are far deeper than anything this Spud has issues with even
on a bad day. And I'm not so sure that's a good thing to be making
a film about, even a half decent one like Frailty.
That's enough nattering for this week. See you soon.
COPYRIGHT 2003, Jim Murray COUCH POTATO CHRONICLES
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