Hey folks, Harry here... I don't know about you, but I loved D.J. Caruso's last outing with THE SALTON SEA, but... following that film up with Ethan Hawke and Angelina Jolie... well, it's like getting laid with a tattoo saying EAT SHIT on your forehead... It could happen, just ain't easy. The films that Clayton Bigsby describes below are fairly awful sounding. TAKING LIVES is coming from Warner Brothers in late February... which again... isn't a good sign. And ALONG CAME POLLY is from the writer of the atrocious ZOOLANDER and is due out in January. Let's see how future reports go, but for now... BEWARE!!!
Clayton Bigsby here, back from a screening at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. The film: TAKING LIVES.
The NRG guy let's us all know that we're the 'first audience, anywhere' to see 'TAKING LIVES and that they're going to be looking for people with audio and video recording devices. They were searching bags at the door and using detectors and there was even a disclaimer on screen warning of prosecution for recording the movie. People are pissed about this!! Saw Mark Canton there too. He looked less than impressed at the end.
Angelina Jolie is a FBI Profiler, who is hunting a serial killer in Canada. Ethan Hawke is a witness, or so we think at first, to a murder, that fits the description of numerous unsolved murders in the area. Keifer Sutherland is a character? Olivier Martinez is a french cop working with Jolie. And the always awesome Tchecky Karyo,though completely wasted, is another french cop.
Anyways, the plot is ludicrous. Nothing really makes sense, and the script constantly thinks its clever when its really not. The begining and the end feel terribly disjointed.
There were two good things in this movie. First, and foremost, ANGELINA JOLIE UNABASHEDLY SHOWS HER TITS IN THIS MOVIE!!! She has a steamy sex scene with a fully clothed Hawke (of course, men always keep their clothes on in movie sex scenes!) and her amazing ta-ta's are lovingly captured on screen NUMEROUS times. She really is a hot as hell, though when was she ever good in anything, honestly? GIA maybe.
The second strong point was Ethan Hawke, who despite a floundering script, clearly had fun playing the villian for the first time. He did a good job with his character, and really impressed me with his ability to be creepy. Its just too bad that he didn't have a smarter script. After TRAINING DAY and this movie, he has done some strong work of late.
The music we heard was all temp music, and it was just atrocious. They kept on using the score for REQUIEM FOR A DREAM and it just was terrible. In fact, the song from REQUIEM that is used in the LOTR previews was used during the sex scene, and produced some howling from the audience. However, interestingly enough, the NRG announcer stated at the beginning of the movie that PHILIP GLASS would be doing the original score to the film! I don't have any clue why someone like Glass would want to score such a shit burger like this, but whatever, he is a genius, and maybe he can compose some creepy tunes to accompany this train-wreck.
The ending is a mess, clearly not planned well at all. The twist at the very end wants to be cool and smart but just felt so stupid and obvious to me. But of course, the audience loved it and rewarded the movie with applause at the end. People are so stupid.
The movie was stylish at times. I credit director D.J. Caruso (THE SALTON SEA) for at least trying to spice the proceedings up a bit with some beautiful extreme close ups and some generally arresting visuals. But he fails misreably with the car chase at the mid point of the movie, and everything that happens plot wise feels so predetermined and routine that it was all kind of boring. Jolie was average, as was Mr. Hunk of the moment Martinez.
All in all, a bad movie. It won't do as bad as BEYOND
BORDERS, but its not gonna do much better I don't
think. BUT AGAIN, I REPEAT, ANGELINA JOLIE GRACIOUSLY
EXPOSES HER GORGEOUS MELONS MORE THAN ONCE in this
pile of shit.
ALONG CAME POLLY
Clayton Bigsby here, back from a rally, with a review for you. I caught a sneak in Sherman Oaks of ALONG CAME POLLY last week but havent been compelled to write anything because it sucked. But I was bored so I thought I would give you a few words on it.
Yet another example of a bullshit, studio romantic "comedy," ALONG CAME POLLY should be retitiled ALONG CAME MY ASS CRACK.
Honestly, here we have Ben Stiller (who really needs STARSKY AND HUTCH to open in like, 15 mintues) playing another neurotiuc, self-loathing, "your dick is bigger than my dick," priss of a guy who gets cheated on by his outrageoulsy hot wife (in this case played by Debra Messing, who really needs to get topless in something) on their honeymoon. After a somewhat amusing interlude with a nude (from the back side only) scuba instructor played Hank Azaria, doing a derivative charicature of a islander, Stiller finds his wife getting banged by Azaria on his suba-diving boat. Naturally, he flips out and heads back to New York.
When Stiller gets back, he hooks up with his buddy, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (more on his character in a minute) They go to a party and Stiller re-connectes with an old girlfriend from middle school named Polly, played by the outrageosuly hot Jenniffer Anniston, who is a waitress at the party he is at. They flirt and start going out. They fight a little bit, they get mad at each other, and then there is a scene with Stiller running in slow motion at the last minute to get to Anniston before she skips town. Messing's slutty wife predictably appears at the begining of the second act, somewhat complicating matters. But its a for gone conclusion that Stiller and Aniston are going to be together in the end. It doenst matter that I am spoiling it in this summary, everyone knows it.
Man, did this film suck. It completely wastes Hoffman, who seems to be riffing his own recent work in PUNCH DRUNK LOVE. He now needs to be careful that he he doesnt take these type of throwaway roles in tons of studio movies. I love Hoffman and have for years. I saw him on Broadway when he and John C Reiley were in TRUE WEST. He is awesome. But here, he is the worst he's ever been. The audience was in dead slience during scenes that must have seemed funny to the actors and filmmakers when they were filming. He just yells and acts disgusting. Dont get me wrong, I love stupid humor. I am totally immature and I love sophomorinc antics. And there is, truth be told, one hilarious line in the movie delivered by Hoffman. But for such a funny and awesome actor to be wasted like this, it's a crime.
I am now officially sick of Ben Stiller I think. I mean, Derek Zoolander is one of the best characters in film history, and Greg Focker had his moments, but Stiller is begining to irk me. I like him when he is surrounded with other morns who egg him on, because when he acts like an ass, he's fantastic. Here, he is painfully restricted, and reduced to gags and situational comedy that is now so played out. For instance, Stiller's characters has a disease called IBS, or Irritible Bowel Syndrome. After eating out with Anniston at a nasty ethnic restaurant in the movie, hsi character proceeds to get the shits at her apartment and then flood the toilet and get caught with his pants around his ankles, and so on and so son. After DUPLEX and the shelved ENVY (I have head DISASTROUS things about this movie), Stiller needs a shot in the arm.
Aniston has been good once (THE GOOD GIRL) and serviceable everything other time. She is fucking hot though, and sports a sexy tatoo right abover her ass and is seen in skimpy shorts in a few scenes. She is such a piece of ass that I forgive her for not seeming very into the film in some sequences. At times, she seemed like she was phoning in her scenes from her trailer.
I was moderatley entertained by this movie. There is a one great comedic scene, in which Stiller and Anniston have sex. It's the funniest scene I have seen in a long time, and is worth seeking out when ALONG CAME POLLY hits HBO. The voiceover that Stiller gives when he is getting it on with Anniston is PRICELESS. But beyond that, this movie was a waste of time and talent.
ALONG CAME POLLY was directed by John Hamburg, one of the co-writers of MEET THE PARENTS and ZOOLANDER, two vastly better comedies. Hamburg lacks any sense of directoral panache and imbues the film with no sort of visual personality. His DP, Seamus McGarvey, brings nothing to the table. McGravey has done solid studio work for years (THE HOURS and HIGH FIDELITY) so I was kind of surprised at how pedestrian the whole movie seemed. Doesn't anyone watch dailies? Hamburgs script is cliche beyond belief and relies on so many over used bits, that it definitley begins to feel like this was an early effort in his career and now that he got some clout with the success of PARENTS, he got to direct this piece of shit.
So, did I like it? ALONG CAME POLLY was like watching shit that had been smeared on film stock and then run through a dim-bulbed projector.
--Clayton Bigsby
