Lightning movie reviews
I saw a bunch of terrible movies, or bits of them, on this recent trip, what with two long flights and a few spare moments in a hotel room. I found it vaguely interesting how horrible they all were. I thought I’d say which ones they were and why I thought they were horrible in case anyone else has seen any of them too and thought so too, or thought the opposite.
The first one was on the Seattle to Amsterdam flight, and it’s the only one I saw the beginning and end of along with much in between. Spoiler alert – I’m going to say how it ends, so if you care, don’t keep reading – but you shouldn’t care. It was The Joneses. It was about four people who pretended to be a couple with teenage children in order to do lifestyle marketing – look at me, look at my stuff, don’t you wish you had my stuff. The premise was interesting for maybe about ten minutes, but then it just got stupider and stupider – Demi Moore saunters past a bunch of women out walking, so all of them rush off to buy the shoes she was wearing. Right. It ends with the two people playing the couple getting together, and that was supposed to be a happy ending – but what the hell was happy about it? She was a horrible person, and he was turned off by what they’d been doing, so why would it be nice for them to get together? It wouldn’t. It was idiotic.
There was that one with Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker – [looks it up] – Did You Hear About the Morgans? I’d seen the trailer on tv more times than I wanted to, and it looked stupid, but I thought for a few minutes before going to sleep it would be ok. It wasn’t. It was excruciating. Not merely boring, but actively repellent. Trying to be funny and failing, and SJP being just…the way she is. Nervy, bratty, demanding, shallow as a fingernail, stupid…a vision of the American Woman.
Then there was Julie and Julia. That’s another I’d seen the trailer for more times than wanted, and I was pretty sure I would hate the Julie parts, but I thought maybe Meryl Streep would make up for it a little. But no. Again, I found it simply excruciating – actively irritating and bad and unpleasant. Why? I don’t know…the horrible patronizing, I think; the relentless stupidification. I’m a woman, so this loathsome saccharine perky cutesy version of women just turns my stomach, and makes me feel like a being from another (and better) planet.
Those two were at the hotel, and I could just watch BBC news instead, so it didn’t matter, it was just a little bit interesting. Who makes these things? And why?
On the Amsterdam to Seattle flight I saw Date Night. That was the least terrible; it was endurable at times; but it was far from brilliant. There was also something unspeakable called Valentine’s Day – which was exactly what it sounds like, and unwatchable.
And speaking of badness, and so bad it’s good-ness, Jerry has introduced a marveling readership to the “pake” – which is a supermarket pie baked into a cake-mix cake then frosted with cream cheese icing. I can’t look at it without feeling faintly sick. I find it hilarious – far funnier than all those movies put together.
I’ve just removed Phil Nugent from my daily read.
Sorry about all that bad cinema. I’ve been watching a lot of movies on DVD this summer, and here are some I liked: Revanche, Il Generale Della Rovere, A Prophet, Ashes and Diamonds, What Remains, Hunger (not The Hunger, that’s something else), Paisa‘, and a three-fer from S. Imamura: Pigs and Battleships, The Insect Woman, and Intentions of Murder. Check ’em out!
Not surprising, considering airlines aim to pick the “least offensive” movies to show, which, of course, means they pick the ones most offensive to anyone with more than a bundle of ganglia around the mid-section to control their locomotion. Any American movie marketed to “women” is almost guaranteed to fall into that category, which tells us everything we need to know about Hollywood’s conception of women.
So sorry to hear Meryl Streep couldn’t save the picture, though. I really do think she’s the finest living American actress, and she’s one of the few people whose name alone can make me buy a ticket, sight unseen.
You’ve discovered a universal law of in-flight movies: they’re always the dregs, and they’re always hacked up to remove anything that might be offensive to little kiddies in the seats around you. I quite like really bad movies, but in-flight movies are never even bad enough to be interesting.
The pake is obscene.
Long airplane trips are the occasion to watch plot-free movies with lots of explosions — no sense in wasting a half-decent flick on a tiny screen, crappy headphones and loud background droning. Of course, you wouldn’t catch me watching rom-com under any circumstances.
You’re just saying that cuz your doctors done told you you can’t have none. :)
Seriously, you watch movies on transatlantic flights? I have long since figured out that the only sensible thing to do (for me, anyway) is to get as much sleep as possible. If I find it impossible to sleep, I read a book.
So true. That kind of thing makes me feel like I failed “American Womanhood 101” or something. Not a bad thing to fail at, but it does make one feel like a weirdo who is trying to survive in a sea of Carrie Bradshaws.
Three partially redeeming things about Julia and Julie:
1) Meryl Streep’s characterization of Julia.
2) The fact that the simply unbelievable premise of the “plot” (that Julie would attempt to cook everything in the cookbook in a year) actually happened in what passes for real life these days.
3) That the movie ended with an accurate account of how stupid Julia thought Julie’s endeavor to be.
These combined were good for about 2½ minutes of interest.
Ya…I sort of knew about the law of in-flight movies, but was still mildly surprised that there were so many really awful movies to choose from, and by some of the ways they were really awful.
I would of course sleep the entire time if I could, but I can’t; I can’t sleep at all westbound, and only fitfully and shallowly eastbound. I do read, but in a plane it makes me headachy. Of course so does watching a movie; so does everything.
I didn’t even like Streep’s Child all that much. It was too Nora Ephronesque.
Josh @6 – oh come on – you don’t think those pake things are obscene?! Let’s not confuse “obviously not health-inducing” with “decadently delicious.” Just because a pake is the first doesn’t mean it’s also the second.
Mainly I wanted to needle PZ:) But yeah, the pake is . . . well, I’m conflicted about it. One minute I think it’s decadent. The next I think it’s disgusting. But it’s always funny.
I think it’s hugely funny – but I never think it’s decadent.
I can imagine one that would be decadent – a pecan pie inside a rich chocolate cake, for example. Well no, wait, even there you would have the pie crust in the way. No. I want layers, but I don’t want superfluous layers of pie crust in between. Pie crust is structural, so it’s just stupid to make it part of the filling. Plus the cheap supermarket pie plus cake mix thing takes decadence entirely out of the picture. If you’re going to do a decadent rich greedy dessert – and by all means do just that! – you have to do it right. Wasting it on dreck is just silly!
I love the one with a cheeseburger baked in the middle. That was brilliant. Heeheehee.
I had about the same expectation going into Julie and Julia, but I didn’t think it was all that bad. Although, it must be rather forgettable, because I only saw it a couple months ago and I already can’t remember what exactly I liked and didn’t like about it… but I remember it being at least somewhat enjoyable, and the “Julie” parts irritated me a lot less than I expected.
I had the same thought, and was already wondering about whether it would be feasible to do an entirely homemade version. But you are quite right to point this out:
Hmmm, yes, part of what makes an excellent pie is a properly light and flaky crust. Baking said crust inside cake batter is going to eliminate all lightness, and probably crush out all of the flakiness too. Rather silly.
On reflection, this sounds like a clever-but-chintzy way to put fruit filling in a cake. Ho-hum.
Although…. now I’m wondering about putting the cake inside the pie… hmmm…. :)
Well now see this is just it – it’s ill-conceived. Layers are a good idea, certainly – and one could do all kinds of decadent things with them – but layers of cake/pie just…miss the point.
I mean you could have a dense chocolate base, then a dense filling, then a layer of marzipan that would be crust-like, then another filling, and so on and so on – using all flavors that go well together, as opposed to pumpkin and cherry which is disgusting. You could do something way richer than the pake, but it would actually be good, so it would be worth doing. You could have chocolate layers, nut layers, coffee layers, creamy layers, liqueur layers, all compatible and all good. Or compatible fruits, and creamy items, and liqueurs. Or chocolate and butterscotch and caramel, with or without nuts.
So why bother with cake mix?
I sense a confectionery schism coming on.
Down with the New Pakists!
I cannot believe there’s anyone who hasn’t yet discovered the Flyer’s Best Friend – Xanax. If you don’t have to be immediately in business when you get off the plane, there’s nothing like it. Admittedly, I take it to ward off panic attacks, which I am prone to on planes, but it’s very effective and pleasant for a lot of people, and it wears off quickly.
As Josh says, P.Z.’s just trying to make a virtue of necessity. Absent his stent, he’d be nomming a pake like there’s no tomorrow. And I was appalled at the thought of a pake, too. I read about them several months ago, and thought, “Ugh, what a HORRIBLE idea.” And then somebody made me one, and it was GREAT!
Well PZ said the pake is obscene, he didn’t say he wouldn’t eat it in a stentless world.
The most I can say is I’ll take your word for it, on principle, but I don’t hope anyone makes me one.
Josh – I decidedly did have to be in business the minute I got off the plane, remember?! Besides, it was 1 in the afternoon when I left – I didn’t want to knock myself out at 1 in the afternoon. But most of all I wanted to save my drug-taking until bed time in Stockholm, which I did. The result is that I survived while in Stockholm.
Well, like, duh Ophelia, mmkay? But you *did* have to fly *back* to Seattle:))
That has me cackling! I usually ask for a tall glass of Ophelia Benson to slake my thirst for incisive snark and communal righteous indignation, but you’ve been supplying my necessary daily intake of humor for 24 hours!
@ 20 – heh. True. But – there again, I didn’t want to go to sleep at 1 in the afternoon, I didn’t want to bollix myself up more than I would be anyway, etc. I save drugging for when I have a bed to sleep in and time to sleep, that’s what it boils down to.
#22 – That’s sensible, and obviously what most people would think. I tend to forget this, because my problem with panic attacks on planes is so acute it overrides any other consideration, hence the drugs are non-negotiable. This is not an optimal disposition to have, mind, for someone who flies at least a dozen times a year. . .lol.
Chick Flick = Brain Rot
Brilliant.