Flickpicking (Lad)

Dear Lad,
° I see your point. Netflix is all very well and good, but how to select from 20,000 offerings that one you wish to view?
° My quandary last weekend was even worse, because it was my quandary. 10 flicks opening in Overton. 10. At least two days' worth, and me with only a single August afternoon to while away . . . .
° Exorcist: The Beginning. No review available, no prescreening allowed. Translation: stinks so badly the distributor just hopes to sell a few tickets the first weekend. That sounds promising, I love smelly movies. But I never even saw the original film, don't remember why, but no use rethinking it now. Skip.
° Benji: Off the Leash! Three stars, really rather glowing review. Movie argues against cruelty, I myself am opposed to cruelty. Skip. (What do you mean why? Just look at the cutesy little pookypoo, just an invitation for some Big Bad Grim Wolf to inhale. Rowr!)
° Open Water. Threeandonehalfstars, really glowing review. Supposed to make Jaws look like the Three Little Fishies. Skip. (Why? The trailers and synopsis make it clear that one is fixing to watch the brinesoaked heads of two folks float in fishy water for a solid hourandahalf. Might as well film paint drying.)
° Once upon a Time in the West. Four stars, new print, big screen. Skip. Roy, Trigger, Gene, Gabby, Silver--don't care if I never see another western as long as I live; besides, I already saw this one new, on a bigger screen, in Italian, long time gone.
° The Corporation. Four stars. Skip. It's too hot for polemic, my brain just begins to melt and ooze out my left ear.

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° Well there's half of 'em culled, and not a watt of brainwaveage run through the meter.
° Without a Paddle. A single star, a review so corroded with scathing bitchiness, this must be a really really bad movie. Paydirt! I quote the beginning of Chris Hewitt's opinion:

If the Without a Paddle script were good, the movie would star Matt Damon, Ben Stiller and Will Smith. If it were OK, Chris O'Donnell, Elijah Wood and Jason Biggs would have signed on. But it reeks, so we get Matthew Lillard, Seth Green and some other guy.

"Reeks," o goody goody, bitchy bitchy. But he's just an amateur:

Yes, Chris, says I, and if the script were way excellent, the movie would star Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, and the cloned remains of Sarah Bernhardt.

For everyone nowadays is a male chauvinist pig (vuol dire, "a postfeminist") I reckon, but me and you.

° Mr. Hewitt has guessed my values all wrong. I haven't seen a Matt Damon vehicle since Ripley. Chris O'Donnell who? But Oz, this movie has Oz, and with any luck at all he'll transform into a werewolf partway through and devour the other actors, then repent, then confess to Willow, then saddle up a convertible and head down Route 66. I'd pay good money to see Seth Green eat his costars.
° This movie, however, is playing three screens in Pope, no fieldtrip needed.
° Garden State. Three stars. Clever visual of the shirt matching the wallpaper. Lithium, Zoloft, cold turkey. Must see. I often think the entire country's been prozacked into an evolutionary deadend. I mean, how can one overcome setbacks when no setbacks can be sensed? One screen in Pope, still not worth a fieldtrip.
° A Home at the End of the World. Twoandahalfstars, damned with faint praise. Glowing reviews for Colin Farrell's characterisation. Shocked reactions to the ubiquitous drug usage and general sexual and psychological screwedupness--o this is a must see. Won't come to Pope at all, fieldtrip positively necessary.°

° Touch of Pink. Onestarandonehalf. " . . . a rickety little romantic comedy . . . ." Must see. It'll never come to Pope, 'cause it's a Colinless samesexer. Yet somehow Kyle MacLachlan costars as Cary Grant. Add Isabella Rossellini and it'd be Pink Velvet. Add Robert Sterling and it'd be Topper. O yes, must see.

° The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi. Threestars. "Starts out fairly far-out and happily only gets weirder." Must see. How weird can a martial arts movie get?

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° So I ate Avena Selvaggia pizza to store calories, peed like there was to be no intermission, and settled in for a triple feature.

° Home. What in country music would be called a crossover. A bothsexer. Apparently edited down from a fourhour movie, so much is communicated by ellipsis. Howcome Dallas--lovely as he is--would leave Colin Farrell backhome just to go to NYC and catch AIDS? Howcome there is not a single case in recorded history of a mom as mellow as Sissy Spacek? Howcome Claire fell in love with Jonathan, and when was that? Howcome Child Welfare didn't take nineyearold Bobby away from his adored older brother's sexandacidism? Howcome Colin Farrel was still a mixedsex virgin at 24? Howcome the minute Jonathan begins to mince, he loses all our sympathy? Howcome--but there's a happy ending, sort of, only it happens both before and after the final scene. And there is the usual verdict on threesomes in the tourdeforce change of expression on Claire's face--from joy to dismay--as she watches Colin and Dallas dance on the front porch.

° And o yes, a death scene early on that's worth the ticket price by itself.

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° Touch. An allmale audience, box office suicide. Attractive romantic leads, especially Alim (Jimi Mistry). Touching, admirable, lunatick relatives. Boy can those Ontarionkenyanpakistani muslims throw a wedding! Cousin Khaled's stupendous nose, Cousin Khaled's stupendous whitesilk bridegroom's suit, Cousin Khaled's stupendous advice: "It's fine to f--- men, Alim, but you'd have to be nuts to love one." Kyle--ah yes, the Cary Grant thing just comes across as Harvey, the giant imaginary Bunny, doesn't work at all, probably did on paper.

° Happy ending, so important. But not credibly happy. Chris, displeased with Alim's unwillingness to "come out"--yes, male samesex films always seem to run through that briarpatch--asserts, "This is not the relationship I signed on for," and goes out a'shagging. You don't have to email Carolyn Hax to ask what the future holds for these two lovepuppies.

° But yes, Alim is very sweet and sympathetic, not at all "gay" like Dallas-Jonathan. Perhaps someday male samesex romantic comedies without characters who seem like they might could possibly have samesex tastes can do boffo box office--well that'll be the day . . . .

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° Blond (bleached) blueeyed (blind) bloodburbling baccaratbluffing bodybuffing--Zatoichi. Why this is as bad as Dumas, I groused at the first bloodbath. Then I noticed the purposeful cheesiness of the severed arm special effect, then I realised there wasn't a pig left in Japan with a bladder, so many had been excised for Shakespeare's favourite effect. Then I figured out Osei. Then came the soak tub. Then came--I don't believe even Ruby Keeler could've tapdanced in wooden flipflops.

° How weird can a martial arts movie get? I asked a while back. No weirder than Zatoichi, that's for sure, save a dvdsized space in the toe of your Christmas stocking, I'm ordering copies by the gross.

° Just be a good lad and act surprised.

° Affectionately, Giac.