It has become a holiday tradition for us to go to a movie on Thanksgiving and Christmas. We started this practice innocently when we found ourselves without a plan for a Christmas day, a houseful of family, and an inner need to do something other than crash on the sofa. Since then it seems like the right thing to do.
This hasn't always turned out to be the outstanding activity it was supposed to be. We've seen some pretty awful movies. Yesterday was no exception. With the Pitt game scheduled for the evening, and nothing we wanted to watch in the afternoon, we headed for the theater to see one of the movies promoted for the season, The Men Who Stare at Goats. The name sounded kookie enough to warrant a look-see, and the list of stars performing in it was incredible.
It was terrible.
I fell asleep twice during the movie, partly because it was too hot in the theater. But the movie lent itself to sleep to avoid what, to a packed theater, seemed like a waste of time. You could hear it throughout the theater, and when the movie ended, there was a murmur which was unlike that of an appreciative audience. I have no idea what the movie was supposed to be about. Oh, I got the story line, but it is the purpose that escapes me.
The acting was superficial, the cinematography was amateurish, and the script was...well it was...I think it was.... I can't even go there. I ate an entire bag of popcorn and swilled a can of caffeine-free Diet Coke which I had secreted into the theater in my jacket pocket. The accomplishment of that was the best part of the afternoon.
I think what set up our reaction was the fact that earlier in the day our daughter had pulled up a copy of the movie, Miss Potter, while we were lounging around after breakfast. It is a lovely movie. I chose that word carefully, and it describes the movie to a tee. Renee Zellweger does a fantastic job of portraying Beatrix Potter, the illustrator and author of the Peter Rabbit series. The story is somewhat predictable, but it is filmed in a magnificent setting in the Lakes District of England, the acting is superb, and the storyline is well written.
We were set up. The glow from watching Miss Potter was shattered by the foul-mouthed, coarse, and senseless portrayal of a group of zany characters who thought they had been trained to be psychics. Weird.
Incidentally, lest I forget, this is a critique, the purpose of today's posting. It is a written criticism of a movie (actually two movies) intended to assess the quality of the product. I've written reviews of books before, but never a movie. This one brought out such a visceral reaction I could not resist. I'll be anxious to hear from someone who had a different take on it.
We saw it, too ... last night, the day after T-giving (close enough). And though our reaction wasn't quite as visceral as yours, we didn't care for it, ESPECIALLY Kevin Spacey. I read something recently about how he — Sir Spacey — came to Newport and insisted on smoking in a restaurant (against the law), and when the waitperson asked him (with considerable good humor) to stop, he blew his top, threw his weight around, and the WAITPERSON ended up getting fired. Said waitperson then went public with it and found ways to diss Sir Spacey online — a perfect response, to my mind. Which brings me to my take on the movie (!!): Even if you're Kevin Spacey or George Clooney or Ewan McGregor or Jeff Bridges, that does not mean you can make your own rules. Nor can you make a weak movie and expect everyone to applaud it. That said, I did find the general CONCEPT of psychic warriors novel, as opposed to other sorts of warriors, and I suppose there was a backhanded message of PEACE. That I welcome; please give us PEACE!! And the implication, fictional or otherwise, that perhaps Reagan latched onto this idea in the same way he latched onto his Star Wars policy; that was interesting. And the introductory line: "More of this is true than you want to believe." But, aside from that — like you — we didn't care for it. Oh, and I enjoyed your critique ...
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