Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. Well... okay... maybe “loves” is putting it strongly. Actually, Copernicus sort of despises the film. And it’s funny, because normally I think Copernicus and I are closer in terms of what we think about film. Copernicus earned his nickname honestly... he’s an honest-to-god published astronomer, one o’ them big-brained types. And his complete and total rejection of THE FOUNTAIN suggests to me that it simply didn’t connect for him from the very beginning. His review primarily mocks the completely symbolic world of the film on a literal level, and that sort of explains why none of it worked for him at all. And that’s a risk, I guess, when you make a film as specific and stylized and emotionally bare as this one. I completely disagree with Copernicus, but it’d be cowardly of me to not post this review. Just keep in mind... for everyone who reacts as negatively as this reviewer, there will no doubt be someone like Austin AICN regular Kraken, who told me tonight that he and his wife both cried their eyes out at the end of the film. Take it away, Copernicus:
I know this puts Harry in a real tight spot, since THE FOUNTAIN is playing as the closing night film of Fantastic Fest, and Darren Aronofsky is going to be there in Austin to introduce it, and they'll probably both get wood out of mutual love. Now you might expect Harry to have an ass-kissing review because of this. And he almost certainly will have an embarrassingly gushing review. You won't even be able to read it because it is painful to read a 34 year old write like a 13 year-old penning a love letter. But I think it will be like that not because he is now man-crazy for Aronofsky, but because he generally goes for overwrought crap like THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. By now you've no doubt heard that THE FOUNTAIN was booed in Venice. Canadians are much more polite. Talkbacker Garbageman33 summed up the Toronto reception best when he said: "All the King's Men went over like a fart in church. The Fountain, on the other hand, went over like a bowel movement in church." See, no booing, just quiet filing out, with people holding their nose, saying "WTF!" By now, I'm sure just about every film geek is familiar with the plot: there are three time periods -- present, past and future. In the present, Hugh Jackman plays Tom Verde -- a glorified veterinarian trying to save his wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz) from dying from a brain tumor. In the past Jackman is a conquistador on a quest for the new age equivalent of the fountain of youth -- the tree of life. And in the future, Jackman has his head shaved, rides a space bubble to a nebula and mostly whispers to a tree. He does ninja moves in silhouette against a backdrop of stars. Man, I can't make this stuff up. Well, if I made this up it would be a lot more fun. Like my tree spaceship would have immortal squirrels. As in, you could levitate up to the top of the tree and just grab an eternal squirrel and eat it, but it would keep on living because of the superpowered tree molecules in its cells. Then you would keep on living forever too, and spend eternity totally jamming out and eating nothing but fried chicken and heroin because you can't die as long as you've got those magic ever-squirrels. I totally would not mope through space wishing for death because of some chick who died like a billion years ago. Think about all the tail this dude must have gotten since then. Hell by that time chicks will have evolved into a new species of supermodels with levitating powers. And with your tree spaceship and bottomless squirrel deal you could totally pack it with homo supermodelus babes and party like its the year before the billionium. And in my version arbor day would replace Christmas, because that tree has way more eteral life than that slacker Christ who went and died. Twice. Yet in Aronofsky's vision there is nary a squirrel or supermodel or sweet-ass arbor day to be found. Mostly it is Hugh Jackman trying to hug a tree in the past or levitate and pine in the future. You can tell the time period because of their voices. In the past they talk like "Donde esta el arbol estupendo!?" In the present they only scream at each other and throw things and cry because of impending death. And in the future they only whisper English words to magic trees. I know I am just a simple astronomer, but if I may give Mr. Aronofsky a couple of pieces of advice on shooting scenes of his wife in a tub (1) no bubbles, and (2) no Hugh Jackman on top of her. And since I'm now addressing Mr. Aronofsky, excuse me, Darren, directly, and I'm sure he is reading this, I should say something nice about his movie. It has nice transitions. That is really important when you are jumping around spacetime every few minutes. I know when I'm doing shrooms it can be quite jarring when I snap back to reality from outer space without a clever wipe or some such that you can only get in movies. The film tells us that Tom is a surgeon and medical researcher, but he seems more like a movie character. First of all, his operating room is all sweet and tricked out in like black and yellow and has cool dim lighting. It seems like there should be a DJ and some guy in a turtleneck in the corner mixing mojitoes. He has a lot of helpers who are supposed to be MD-PhD types, but who act like Otis-from-Superman idiot minions. Tom has to mentally bitchslap them with lines like, "Fold the molecules in your head, you dumbass, and make a new drug out of the tree juice and rub it in the monkey." Then the minions are reduced to saying ridiculous things like "Oh my god, look at the recovery time on that monkey, I've never seen anything like it! Yesterday he had a tumor but now he's totally pwning at chess!" (For everyone over 16, "pwn" like "own" but it is owning so hard that the o is bleeding, see). The last time I saw a film that was a heart-on-its-sleeve, reality-phobic crapfest it was called ARMAGEDDON, and it also had a guy flying through space on a rock. But at least he was Bruce Willis, and he brought a gun to his asteroid, because there is a secret clause in the second ammendment that says Texas extends all the way up to space. In fact I'd like to see a showdown between these two characters. Bruce Willis could use sweet, sweet heater as an instrument of audience catharsis and blow the everliving fuck of that mopehead Hugh Jackman. Of course that wouldn't work because he's immortal, so the rest of the movie would be Bruce Willis trying to find new ways to justifiably murder Hugh Jackman for his billion years of crying and failure to achieve enlightenment. (Who's thinking FOUNTAIN 2? We could get a greenlight for this before this paragraph is finished.) Bruce would find a way to get the job done. Probably in the end he would shoot a star and the bullet would cause it to go supernova and kill them both. Because even space Buddhists can't hide from the wicked stellar fury of a supernova. My further ranting is going to require spoilers, so go away if you don't want to have the movie explained to you as if you are a three year old just so I can prove I "get" the movie. SPOILER ALERT: Only the modern time period is real. The scenes in the past are from the book Izzi is writing (using an ink pen and calligraphy, since that is now most novelists write nowadays). The scenes in the future are Tom's slacking for a really long time before finishing the book. For a long time he can't come to terms with her passing until he accepts death as part of a grand circle of life. (I half-expected to see space lions singing Hakuna Matata). This is represented in the real world by his planting a tree (in winter, again good solid farming practice gives way to poetic license), and in the book by some yogi supernova bullshit. And yes, his tattoos are like tree rings, only vertically, because if he had to slice off his leg to show you them that would be gross. Ok, hope you don't try to sit through this movie, but I know you will because to geeks the intersection of Hugh Jackman and rocks in space is like a cash-spending mandate from God Suckers. I warned you! -Copernicus
