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Saturday, January 29, 2011

Peggy Sue Got Married

The only reason anyone, ever, will watch this movie.
I had to drink so much wine to get through this film that any passer by might have thought I’d just christened an entire fleet. 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married is an affront to heterosexualism.

First of all, any movie where Helen Hunt is your most attractive female is a movie in some serious trouble. Really, she’s a 3 at best. Her eyelids look like they are the heaviest thing known to mankind, and her eyebrows seems to be doing everything in their power to escape her face and take refuge in her hairline.

Secondly you have not one, but two absolute assholes for leading men. Seriously, at what point did someone say, “Well, we have Nicolas Cage already, but I just don’t think we have enough stupidity. How about we get Jim Carrey as well?” You can imagine that this guy was fired shortly after saying this.

Jim Carrey and Nicolas Cage? It’s a competition in ridiculousness. They seem to try to best each others idiocy at every turn. Jim Carrey does his Jim Carrey bit, “Oh, look at me, I’m double jointed and can pull faces. Hurr Durr.” And Nicolas Cage, for a reason I was not able to determine, talks like Peewee Herman the whole fucking time. I didn’t think it possible that Cage’s acting could get noticeably worse, but I was wrong. So very, very wrong. Nicolas Cage wrong.

Ok, our protagonist. There was a time, somewhere in the distant past, where Kathleen Turner didn’t look like a burns victim. A time when she was marginally attractive. A time when she was believable as a leading lady. This was a time before Peggy Sue Got Married, because she looks older that she actually was, and she was 32 then, so she looked pretty haggard. What kind of idiot could ever believe that Kathleen Turner was still in high school? I’ll tell you. Exactly the same kind of idiot who cast Jim Carrey and Nicolas Cage. What kind of horrid duo is that? One's incapable of acting serious and the other is incapable of acting, period.

The only reason Cage got the part is because the director – big shot Francis Ford Coppola – is his uncle. That also explains how the other half of the cast were chosen. Who in Hollywood isn’t related to this guy? He’s like a Mormon or something.

Anyway, Jim Carrey’s funniest line is when he’s too busy cutting a line of coke to talk. That’s right, Jim Carrey is a nasty coke fiend with a crew cut and an overbite you could spelunk in. I’m just going to let you think for a minute of what Jim Carrey would be like on cocaine. I don’t think there is yet a word to describe that terrifying thought. I imagine it would be like giving the complete works of Sylvia Plath to a teenage girl. Over-kill.

I’m not even going to bother explaining the premise in anything other than the briefest of mentions. Mostly because it’s shit, but also because it made me angry. It’s 1986 and Peggy Sue feints while attending her 25th high school reunion after realizing her life has gone to shit and having 3 kids gave her a figure which could be best described as ‘Grimace-like’. She wakes up in her high school in 1960 and is convinced she has died. Unfortunately she’s wrong and we are subjected to her vain attempts to sleep with a communist, fix her mistakes and relive poor life choices before she... doesn’t change a fucking thing. Really movie? You’ve had me sitting here for 96 agonizing minutes only to come full circle and end up the same as it otherwise would have been had she not time travelled to her graduation? This plot is the height of callousness.

Absolutely nothing changes from her attempts to change the past. Mostly because she’s an idiot and a woman, but also because the writers didn’t seem to give half a shit. There is no point to this film. You could watch the first 15 minutes and the last 5 minutes, skipping everything in between, and still get the message that she loves Nicolas Cage and that her life sucks. Shit, go eat a handful of anti-depressants Peggy, you slut.

This movie sucked so much it inhaled the hairs right out of my nut sack. If you’re young enough to still have your original teeth, then this movie will probably make you hate your fellow man.

If, however, you’re like my mum and predate the French Revolution, then you’d probably enjoy this monument to Coppola’s hubris.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Batman & Robin

Batman arrests Poison Ivy for being a filthy hippie.
I would have attached a photo here for use as a visual aid to express my true feelings about this movie, but I already took a shit today. So, instead, what I will do is just make the noise simulating me defecating (plthhthppllth ka-ploonk) and let you visualise it in whatever fashion you see fit. It might be sloppy, it might be green, it might look like a slightly gnawed on snickers bar resembling a brown Steve Buscemi; there is no wrong answer. I’m sure whatever you choose to visualise will be apt.

Ok, onto the movie.

This movie sucks. It sucks so bad that Wesley Snipes used it in his defence statement while in court for tax evasion. He said, and I quote, “I might have committed tax evasion, but at least I didn’t make Batman & Robin.” I asked a young boy at the video store what he thought about it and he replied, “Gayer than Batman Forever.” The boy’s father said, and once again I quote, “I’d rather sit through Seal’s ‘Kissed by a Rose’ film clip on repeat for 2 hours.”

The strange thing is I really don’t know how this movie sucked so bad. Really. It had every chance of success the studio could give it. It was written by Akiva Goldsman (who has penned such memorable films as The Client, A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code to name a few) and directed by Joel Schumacher (famous for having directed The Lost Boys, Falling Down and Tigerland), and had big names stars like George Clooney, Uma Thurman and Chris O’Donnell. It’s as if the producers gave this movie the best possible chance a film can get, which makes it's dismal failure that much more pathetic. That’s what you get for firing Tim Burton, Warner Bros.

Now that I look at what else Akiva has written, it kind of makes sense. Lost in Space was fucking atrocious, and I’m still having a hard time believing Practical Magic was scripted by this man and not some fat girl with Asperger’s. 

The thing that makes this movie suck more than it otherwise would have is the shitty jokes. Seriously, how many puns can you think up to do with ‘cold’? 5? 6 maybe? This movie makes 53 ice related puns. I know because I counted them. Seriously, 53. And that doesn't include any bat, bird or plant related puns. That is just amateur writing. Using the same lines over and over again is not character development Akiva, you lazy Jew. 

And it doesn’t stop at puns. There is actually an American Express joke. Yes, a Bat-express. “Never leave the cave without it.” I’m not even making that up. That is honesty a quote straight from this movie. I know this was a movie targeted at kids, but really? The first batman was dark and edgy, and made as much for an adult fan base as it was for children. The second one was darker, a bit frightening at times, but overall a descent movie. The third blew hobos for spare change, but this one takes the cake... bu-kake.

Another thing that makes this movie so hard to take even the slightest bit seriously is that the villains are so outrageously camp. The henchmen are flat out retarded and the fight scenes offensively ridiculous. It’s almost as if they remade the colourful and zany Batman series from the 1960’s, ambiguously gay tendencies included, only without the distinct characters and surreal plots. Instead we get barely restrained latent homosexuality and a story so farfetched and so shit that you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a Saturday morning serial..

And Batgirl? Talk about a fucking gimmick. If I were to describe this movie in 2 words, they’d be “predictable” and “cliché”. Seriously, it is just too much in one film. You have about 8 story arcs going on at once, 3 heroes, 4 villains and 0 plausibility.

I hate it so much. It is one of the most painful things I have ever had to endure. I would honestly prefer to have major surgery without anaesthetic than watch it again. I would rather eat my own face off and chase it with a glass of hot sauce and metal filings. I would rather my own child buy a MacBook and go to ‘art school’ with their same-sex 'life partner'. 

I don’t know how this movie got off the ground. No one liked it, and fewer still thought it was funny. Maybe if we were all seven years old. And mentally handicapped. And then dumb even for a mentally handicapped person.
This film is often regarded as one of the worst movies ever made, and it’s easy to see why. Scientists genuinely believe that the numerical value to which this movie sucked cannot be quantified by any philosophical or mathematical theorem that mankind, to date, possesses.

Recommendation: I would strongly recommend staying the fuck away from this atrocity. Seal it in concrete and throw it off a bridge. If, however, your idea of a good night is getting punched in the dick for 125 minutes while someone shits in your fridge, then by all means watch it. 

But trust me; dick punching ain’t got shit on this film.