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July 30, 2004Movies, baby...
I just got back from seeing “The Manchurian Candidate,” curious to see whether or not it was close enough to a script I’d been working on to merit a permanent mothballing. Luckily, there’s enough of a difference between “The Manchurian Candidate” and my idea to where I think my script will still be viable—well, as viable as ever it was (which, admittedly, might not be very).
Overall, I dug this remake. Meryl Streep went a little overboard from time to time, but it would have been hard to do the role without veering in that direction at least a bit. Besides, if that’s what she had to do to make the part her own and not invite comparison to Angela Lansbury’s iconic portrayal in the original film, so be it.
The script had to go out on a limb to make the original film title work, seeing as how the Korean war (and thus, Manchuria) had nothing to do with anything in this version, but it wasn’t a stretch to the point of distraction. I will admit missing the Chevy Chase-looking Chinese guy, Frank Sinatra’s kung-fu chop through his coffee table (during a fight scene with aforementioned pseudo-Chevy), and Laurence Harvey’s drunken rambling (“I…I’m not l-lovable!”) from the first film.
I still have to catch “Fahrenheit 9/11,” so I looked up the showtimes this morning. I was shocked to find that it had already been shuffled out of every theater in the area but one (the arthouse place down the street from my apartment) by crap like “Catwoman,” “King Arthur,” “Thunderbirds,” “A Cinderella Story,” and “The Village”. If all it takes to bump it out of rotation is the usual summer pap, the Republicans can stop sweating.
Speaking of “The Village,” I’m skipping it. I already looked up spoilers online, and they all pretty much were in keeping with the sort of predictable, low-rent twist I had anticipated. I’ve had a bad vibe about this one pretty much from the word go—and I’m a guy who really enjoyed Shyamalan’s first three films. So was Ebert, and he saw fit to pan “The Village” but good.
The problem beyond the immediate stinkiness of “The Village,” as so many people have pointed out, is that Shyamalan has painted himself into a thematic corner. We all expect the twist. We go in looking for it. He was three for three before this—now he’s apparently four for four. He’s in an unenviable position with whatever he tackles next. After all the griping this time, he’d be foolish to include a major plot twist. At the same time, though, people will be expecting him not to have a twist—and the lack of twist, in effect, will become the twist itself. He should direct a screwball comedy, go for broke, eschew the twists, and hope for the best. If nothing else, the critics will at least cut him some slack for trying to branch out into unfamiliar waters.
That’s it for now. I might go to a screening of “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle” tonight, if I feel like braving A) the Friday night crowds and B) the film’s target demographic. I don’t know if I want to spend an hour and a half surrounded by pot-addled teenagers, chuckling a la Butthead and compulsively kicking the back of my seat.
I’ve never been to a White Castle before—and don’t want to try it for the next three months, lest I get caught in a throng of like-minded people. There’s a burger place not too far from my ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Venice that used to be a White Castle; you can tell by the shape of the sign and the castellated frau-frau attached to the roof. And the name of the new establishment, you ask? El Castillo. Truly, the apex of multicultural creativity.
Posted by patrick at July 30, 2004 02:48 PM
CommentsI think M. Knight's next flick should be a twistless Bollywood-style musical. Well, okay, only one twist; that one choreographed to a Chubby Checker tune near the end of Act III, just so he can say, "See? My film still had a twist."
But, honestly, I think MKS is one of the most overrated filmmakers currently on the planet. I used to reserve that title for Quentin Tarantino after "Jackie Brown," but he so utterly redeemed himself with "Kill Bill" that he's since moved onto my short list of great directors.
But... MKS is so obvious (to me) in how he hides clues to his twists in every scene, that I figure them out right away. For example, in "The Sixth Sense," I had a pretty good idea when Bruce Willis got shot what the deal was, and the restaurant scene with his wife confirmed it for me, so I was way ahead of the film. Still enjoyed that one. I also liked "Unbreakable," although the twist in that one really didn't matter. I appreciated what he was trying to do, but the film ultimately drowned itself in its own mundanity, as if his theme ("Comic book heroes imagined in the real world") couldn't sustain... well, comic book heroes imagined in the real world.
Skipped "Signs", because I still refuse to see anything that Mel Gibson has touched. (You ever gonna apologize for your comments to that Spanish magazine, you conservative homophobic bastard?) But any film in which the crop circles and aliens are real just ain't my thing. I'd be sitting in the theatre muttering, "Oh, bullshit" every two minutes.
As for "The Village," I think I've figured out what's going on from the trailers and tag lines. Let's just say that I don't think the village is quite as isolated as the villagers think it is, and somebody (cough-the grown-ups-cough) is zooming somebody else (cough-the kids-cough). Okay, I get the impression that it's actually his metaphor for the post 9/11, "booga booga" world, and might thematically deal with the power and danger of creating fear.
But... he's a crappy, predictable filmmaker, so I say, "So what?" MKS has got to stop parodying himself if he wants to go anywhere. And it's a sad commentary on this business that he gets to keep making crap because the powers that be at the studios are dazzled.
C'mon, MKS. Bollywood. Technicolor. Musical. Go for it... Call if "Sings". Or "Unsingable". Or "The Sixth Dance". Just no goddamned unearned twists, okay?
Posted by: Jon Bastian at August 1, 2004 10:55 PM
Thank you! Chinese Apes.
Posted by: Yellow Monkey at March 2, 2005 03:50 AM
Thank you! Chinese Apes.
Posted by: Yellow Monkey at March 2, 2005 03:52 AM
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