December 13, 2005
Movie Suggestions
Just waiting for the car pool to be ready to split gives me a couple of minutes to do a quick run-down.
Chai-Rista is soliciting ideas for movies to watch---National Treasure is on her "maybe" list.
Maybe?
MAYBE??????????????????????
Liz, Liz, Liz...........WHO ARE YOU???? I DON'T KNOW YOU ANYMORE!!!!!!
National Treasure is so bad, it's Kurt Russell bad. Seriously. It's one stinking bromide of badness, which makes it ever so watchable. It's Nicholas Cage at his obtuse best, kind of an Indiana Jones with a solid case of Aspergers. Needless to say, that makes it one of my favorite flicks of the past five years.
OCEAN'S 12 UPDATE: RE yesterday's discussion of what was the core of the stinkola at the heart of Ocean's 12, it suddenly dawned on me it was the Bruce Willis cameo when they have Tess (played by Julia Roberts) impersonating Julia Roberts so to steal some egg thing-ee.
Anyhoo, it spun around in my brain last night, and popped out unexpectedly: it was the vision of seeing Bruce Willis---bald Bruce Willils, in an Italian art museum, in a caper/heist/con movie.
Yes, folks, it set off the HUDSON HAWK detector in my brain: Hudson Hawk being the movie that almost single-handedly destroyed the whole heist/caper/con man movie genre. It's awfulness should have been enough to end Bruce Willis' career, but somehow the stench ricoched off of him and hit Danny Aiello instead. (Which is too bad, as Danny Aiello is a fun actor to watch, particularly after his gripping portrayal of "Papa" in Madonna's cutting edge video "Papa don't preach.")
Anyhoo, Hudson Hawk was a movie before its time, as the plot revolved around discovering a code hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci that would have earth-shattering implications for western civilization as we know it. Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code hackery knows no bounds: not only did he relentlessly steal from Elaine Pagels and the Gnostics as well as countless Templar writers, but he ripped off the premise from perhaps the worst Bruce Willis movie of them all.
And still he made a bajillion dollars.
What can I say, life is not just.
Hudson Hawk was not nearly as bad as the Fifth Element.
But I do like your discription of National Treasure! Aspergers indeed.
Constantine is bad - K Reaves should not be allowed to make any more movies after Matrix. But I thought the story was interesting.
And none of these stack up against the truly bad movies - like Killer Klowns from Outer Space. A whole new level of Bad!
Posted by: Zendo Deb at December 13, 2005 06:23 PMNational Treasure was good fun. Movies don't always have to be deep or meaningful. I love a good conspiracy yarn, and NT was done just right to keep my disbelief sustained throughout.
I'm looking forward to the Da Vinci Code for the same reason. And say what you will about the book, but a lot of people who might otherwise have gone through life thinking the New Testament was pretty much dictated in its current form by the Big Guy Himself now know about the Gospel of Thomas and the intervention of the early church in setting the canon.
(I think Danny Aiello's best role was as the wise chiropractor in Jacob's Ladder.)
My problem wasn't IF to watch it . . . it was which should come first? National Treasue in the DVD player now? Or would the whole Bad experience crescendo better if Constantine came before?
Should Land of the Dead be the 'naners-&-peanutbutter of this sandwhich? Or should it comprise one of the bready foundational slabs? Is the proper order of viewing Nick Cage and THEN K. Reeves?
If I need guidance in this area, I pale to think of the condition of the general public. You see my difficulty . . .
Posted by: Chai-rista at December 13, 2005 07:38 PMReally, go to internet movie database dot com and look up a movie called "Postal Worker."
Worst. Movie. Ever.
It starred the guy who did the Bud Light "I love you man!" commercials.
Posted by: Vinnie at December 13, 2005 08:45 PMtruer words never spoken - Oceans 12 sucked.
Posted by: Keith S. at December 13, 2005 09:20 PMReviewed it earlier in the year.
I loved Hudson Hawk.
http://www.colossusblog.com/mt/archives/000724.html
Posted by: The Colossus at December 13, 2005 10:18 PMFrankly, i enjoyed National Treasure -- but then again, as a history teacher, I enjoy a wildly improbable historical yarn.
But for what it is worth, I also enjoyed WaterWorld and The Postman.
Posted by: Rhymes With Right at December 13, 2005 10:45 PMI actually liked Hudson Hawk as well. I laughed my head off.
Posted by: The Unabrewer at December 14, 2005 01:24 AMI liked National Treasure, too -- it was definitely a Dan Brown-esque story, but done a mite better. Cage is great, too -- a thinking man's Kurt Russell. :-)
My one sentence summary of Brown: a third rate writer with second rate ideas about first rate material. The DaVinci code's central premise is taken from Baigent and Leigh's classic "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" which is a pretty fascinating 1980s British book -- purportedly a documentary -- involving the Merovingians, the Templars, the Cathars, and Jesus's adventures in the south of France. Ties in the Rennes Le Chateau conspiracy, Rosslyn Chapel, and other stuff as well, as I remember. Pretty interesting and entertaining stuff, though I don't believe a word of it -- it's the 1980s "Chariots of the Gods" if you take my meaning.
Brown's book basically adopts the Baigent and Leigh universe, and adds the touches about DaVinci to it to make it interesting.
Brown's books are airplane fare. As such, they're not bad books, but they're given far too much credence by the gullible and silly. The media loves him because the books supposedly provoke controversy over the divinity of Jesus, as well as saying bad things about Opus Dei. Bonus points for that.
If anything, the books' popularity is a measure of our society's progressive stumble into illiteracy and the lack of critical thinking ability.
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