I’d just managed to bury the terrible blood behind my viewing of the Changeling, when along comes Benjamin Button to stir the pot again. Admittedly, I’d read enough glowing reviews of both films to have higher-than-normal expectations. Still, I’d never expected that everyone involved with both productions (I will leave Taraji P Henson alone–she was in her own movie, anyway–) could be guilty of phoning it in.

And then somehow getting their studios to press hard for an Oscar nomination.

My main problems are as follows: Why can’t these directors convey a “heavy” message without their stories crawling at a pace more languid than Cate Blanchett’s excruciating drawl?

I understand that there are tax breaks for filming in the Big Easy, and it’s somehow become patriotic to film down there. But not everything below the Mason Dixon Line moves like a cripple stuck in molasses . It is possible to tell a story set in the south without falling victim to plot torpor. (See: Hustle and Flow.)

Here’s the takeaway from Benjamin Button–the version that will save you almost 3 hours of precious existence: Life happens. Now you can skip the effects, which are supposed to be so riveting, and spend your money on Australia instead. Believe me, you’re better off for not having wasted 25 minutes at a Russian hotel for no reason.

Changeling: if I never see another skeleton on roller skates shed crocodile tears it’ll be too soon. Here’s the flick in a nutshell: Never, ever fuck with tha LAPD. Especially if you’re a woman.

Now, come on heavy-hitters: make me feel something, think something, AND plaster me to my seat. I don’t need an hour and a half of set-up to get me into the story. Really, I don’t. I’d much prefer to get in, get out, and leave with mascara streaming down my cheeks.

If there’s enough time for my makeup to dry again before the credits roll, you haven’t done your job.

“I see something shitty happening in the world, and I slap some zombies on it.” –George Romero.

The Peter Travers review of Diary of the Dead included this quote, which makes me want to rent his entire zombie canon this weekend. My plan is to settle down with a big bowl of popcorn, a cake, and a catheter only to emerge again, hair unkempt, on a monday morning. We’ll see if the man goes along with the plan….

It struck me, too, that “slapping a zombie on it” seems to be the Republican Party’s approach to the election. 

Ahem.

I’m still looking for a one-liner to sum up my own artistic process. Maybe “get snacks, start up my laptop and see what happens?”

Sadly, I think it lacks a certain…je ne sais quois….

Any takers on the undead film fest??

Since I live in a rural community where the highlight of the 4th of July is, honestly, watching my vet blow up explosives in his backyard, I did exactly what Hollywood hoped I would this weekend: dragged my man to the movies.

I guess the blowing-stuff-up bug hadn’t left me at the vet’s backyard, because I had a hankering to see Wanted.  I got just what I paid for, too: stuff blew up. There were car chases, dudes-in-peril, knife fights and, best of all, a cubicle take-down. But of all the millions of dollars spent to engrain these scenes in my brain, the image that won’t leave me is Angelina Jolie eating a hamburger.

Here’s the scene: James McAvoy is getting the crap kicked out of him. He’s bleeding heavily through the nose. There are knives. Angelina is in the background, smirking, ostensibly chewing. Damn it! I can’t pay attention to the blood gushing all over the place because I’m waiting to see Angelina swallow her food.

She never does.

Now, I know the movie is supposed to be a bit ridiculous. I mean, an underground network of assassins run windsprints atop a subway car. Clearly it’s a comic book world. I buy that. But in no way can I buy a 5′7″, 95 lb woman pretending to enjoy a gigantic slab of red meat on a bun.

I guess we all have our limits. Mine, I discovered, start–and end–with anorexic chicks. Blood, gore, assassination attempts are all no problem. But when a grown female with the BMI of an adolescent famine victim acts like she’s not starving herself, my hackles go up.

Eat the damn burger, Angelina. Kill the bad guys on screen, not yourself. 

Before leaving the house for the 7:20 showing of The Happening, the man and I agreed that this was M. Night Shyamalan’s very last chance to separate us from our hard earned money. To date, I’ve coughed up for theatrical showings of The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and Lady in the Water (The Village was a Netflix). And every single time since the first time, I’ve been disappointed. Not to mention, I actually sat through two hours of Mel Gibson in that lameo crop circle flick (pre-DUI bust, post-Braveheart), which was an inexcusably bad call to begin with.

So why do I keep forking over my greenbacks? I’m no better than a lab rat, tapping at that lever, trying to trigger my pleasure receptor, over and over. Except a rat would probably have learned by now. If it’s pleasure I’m looking for, my ten bucks is better spent on bing cherries. Especially in-season. A mere half-pound of cherries has been scientifically proven to emote better than Zooey Deschanel.

And yet, we showered on a Sunday night and drove 25 miles to the theater. Granted, the first-run options in our town are always limited, and currently include the please-kill-me-first Kung Fu Panda. Granted, too, we’d just painted the upstairs loft and the choice of “go to a movie” or “inhale toxic fumes for another few hours” wasn’t a tough one. Knowing what I know now, though, I’d rather inhale the blackberry eggshell. Hell, I’d rather spoon it onto my steak.

No, M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t learned to pen witty dialogue. Nor has he figured out how to pace a feature film, or to maintain dramatic tension, or to defy expectations. The only thing it seems he does well is cast non-white actors in minor roles. He fills his frames with people who are actually representative of the American public. For that, I applaud him.

For everything else, the man would be well-served by perusing William Goldman, now and again. Even auteurs owe their audience a modicum of craft. It’s the backbone of entertainment.