Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Cliché Away

I watch a lot of movies, but I can't say I enjoy many of them. If only they were missing a few stock elements that would improve them...

The slow clap
There has never been and will never be a moment where you are in public where a lone person will start a clapping chain reaction that picks up speed and depth. If there’s something that’s so impressive that it merits applause, you better believe it will garner a full scale ovation and not a building wave. Even at a sporting event where some guy who got clocked gets up and dragged back to the dressing room it doesn’t start with one person. If they weren’t in the film, I guess everybody would just stand around awkwardly after the big moment until they got hungry and left or something. I feel that most people are remotely as smart as my luggage, but that’s still more intelligent than whoever thinks a rallying storm of claps is plausible. Nobody is so retarded, except in movies, where it takes the guy standing next to them clapping to let them know they ought to. Not even retards.






Owen Wilson & Ben Stiller
When I think of great duos in film, it’s not the butterscotch stoner and his high strung, neurotic buddy. Eventually their contracts will be out in the public domain and we’ll be able to see the provision that they have to be in movies together. I’ve heard of actors asking for amenities in their trailers or special chefs, but casting provisions if off the charts ridiculous. I’m sure messieurs Wilson and Stiller like each other’s company very much, but I don’t want to pay $10.50 to watch them pal around, especially when their separate work is overall better than their output. Well, Stiller’s at least. Owen Wilson just flat out sucks in virtually all of his movies. There are states that are processing gay marriages, right? Can’t they just go to Vermont for a few months at a time instead of being in a movie together? Once I can handle, but Jesus Christ, get a room if you want to be together that badly -- and make sure there’s no one filming a movie in there either.

Dirty
Psychic wounds are great way to castigate, but the worst to watch are the ones that are self-inflicted. But why is it that upon confrontation of whatever dastardly activity the first order of business is to sit with the water running in a shower fully clothed. Yes, we get it, you’re never going to feel clean or pure and you are tainted, but nobody does that. Because if they did, there’d be that moment when they do finally get out of the shower, totally soaked, thinking “Goddamn that was stupid. Now everything I’m wearing is drenched. What the fuck!” You’re not going to see that in a movie, because that’s how it would have really happened, and the whole point of the thing would be blown. Cry yourself to sleep…okay. Do a little secret cutting on your arm…go for it. Need to clean out the soiled remnants of your soul? Bottle of Jack and Coke will take you miles beyond a clothing shower.






Sick
Hollywood needs to stop giving people terminal diseases. Watching a family try to pull together midway through the film when the surprise illness is announced is trite. Having characters reexamining relationships and reflecting on the death of their loved one and find unity and peace with each other by the films end is the same load of crap. Anybody who’s had a sick family member knows it is hell emotionally and there’s nothing cinematic or entertaining about it. The truth is all the ladies out there who like to go and have a good cry at one of these films have no meaningful relationships with family members, and it is that lack of connection that leaves them dead inside, with the only way to experience what others have to suffer through in real life is to buy the experience in two hour blocks.

And why is it that Julia Roberts is often in movies where somebody ends up terminal? She’s like asbestos. Dying Young – see ya later Campbell Scott. Stepmom – bye bye Susan Sarandon. Steel Magnolias – adios Julia. Pretty Woman – well, she played a prostitute, and we all know they are already dead on the inside and only waiting for the rest of themselves to eventually catch up.

Post-sex modesty
I will admit that I have had sex at least twice in my life, and the unsuspecting partner in both cases was not wrapped up to their bosom with the bed sheet afterwards as we discussed Korean foreign policy or 60’s muscle cars or learned each other’s names. Let’s get this straight – you just had your dingle all up on some gal’s cookie. You smacked her on the ass like she was being punished for cursing in church, and she nearly broke your pelvis riding you like something out of Urban Cowboy. People had fingers in their asses, there were submission holds applied, and only Rocky and Apollo were more out of breath and sweatier after their second fight than both of you. However, in Hollywood, you can do all kinds of crazy deviant sex, and yet somehow the girl from the bar who was ready to pull a train on your buddies is now a middle aged librarian, tucked in like a goose down burrito. If actresses don’t want to keep it real then fine, but you can shoot the scene 864 other ways then where I can actually believe the girl who just spread her legs like an isosceles triangle didn’t all of a sudden become embarrassed of her body. If she’s so self-conscious and , maybe she ought to get dressed and take a shower…

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