KINO KORNER by Michael Gildea

Whether or not Ray Romano genuinely wanted to do this movie, I couldn’t tell. His show, "Everybody Loves Raymond," is starting to lose steam (the albino twins are growing up and Patricia Heaton’s gargantuan ears aren’t taking too kindly to hiding behind a chemically altered coif as much), and within a few years he’s going to have to make a choice: start starring in movies or on "Hollywood Squares" with Joan Rivers and Rip Taylor. Unfortunately, doing this movie may have made the choice for him. You see, Romano and his nose play the EXACT same character they play on his show, showcasing their ready-to-be-Shatnerized career. The plot’s crap, and an unnamed source at a local movie theater said that the management wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to slash the seats in retaliation. Gene Hackman (one of the only good things about this movie, and the sole reason I saw it) stars as an ex-president who moves to a New England town to get away from his ex-wife. He winds up getting talked into running for mayor and dating Romano’s ex Maura Tierney. So what does Ray Ray have to do with this, you ask? Romano was dating Tierney for seven years and she got sick and tired of him not proposing. So he, the local handyman, runs against Hackman for mayor of Mooseport to get her back. Constant cockblocking ensues, and you the movie viewer gets screwed out of a few bucks and a little fodder for your next conversation at a dinner party. Just think of the esteem from your peers when you announce, " I saw Welcome to Mooseport!" Save your money; you can see it on illegal pay-per-view in a few months.

I’m going to give you a lesson in avoiding a bad movie, that is if you want to avoid a bad movie. Pay close attention to commercials and advertisements. They tell you just as much as they’ll show you a lot of the time. A lot of trailers will pitch their movie based on one reason. Maybe it’s Jennifer Lopez’s ass, computer animated special effects, or because the director of that particular movie directed another movie that happened to make money. All of those are good reasons. Somebody (actors, special effects people, or directors) actually did something entertaining before (apparently entertaining enough to mention) and they’re going to do it again. This method of advertising has been going on since the forties. But when an ad tells you that a particular movie is brought to you by the producers of something else, the movie’s dogshit. That’s like saying the guy who brought the coffee to the director in another movie brought the coffee to the director in this movie. It’s safe to say that when the studios use the brought-to-you-by angle, they’re trying to make another version of the other movie. One of the movies mentioned in the Eurotrip ads is Road Trip. It’s even got one of the words in the title. TRIP. And Eurotrip cops off of Road Trip mercilessly. Tits and ass. But it didn’t borrow enough funny. Eurotrip is a mosaic of recycled gags, reccurring jokes, and weak humor. It’s even got the same plot for crissakes! Eurotrip is the kind of movie that you sneak into when you’re fourteen. A sex comedy with very little comedy. Take a date and, once you both realize it’s really boring, you can make out and moan loudly, ruining the experience for everyone else. I do that, but I don’t make out at theaters anymore. Now I just throw peanut M&Ms.

Normally, when you’ve got the words confessions in the title of a movie, it leads you to the conclusion that someone’s done something wrong. Maybe even something interesting…! In Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Chuck Barris allegedly killed people for the U.S. Government. He did something wrong. He killed people. He had remorse about something he did. But in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, nobody really does anything wrong, with the exception of the producer. What he does wrong is getting this fucking piece of shit made. In Confessions of a Hack Shitbird Producer, a producer wastes millions of dollars that could have been donated to thousands of charites on a piece of shit movie that even the least discriminating of children will avoid. So who will go and see this pathetic example of contemptuous, shrill, and obnoxious cinema? Simple: There are still people out there who are attracted to shiny and colorful things like newborn chimpanzees. For a little while, it may be fun to imagine what your dick would look like in the mouth of Lindsay Lohan, who plays the main character. But eventually her character gets so whiny and annoying (by the time the opening credits are done rolling) that you won’t get physically aroused for weeks, and ultimately you learn something. I like to think that I learn something from every movie I see, and the lesson I walked away with from this movie is: no matter how big your dick looks in the hand of a teenage girl, it’s just not worth having to listen to them talk. So even though this movie was sheer horror, I am saving a small fortune on juice-boxes and gummy worms as bait. Not to mention the fact that I don’t have to spend as much on gas as I did prowling around high schools…

Here’s another lesson in avoiding pure shit: if a movie was supposed to come out forever and a day ago, and then it just suddenly comes out, that’s because the studio, having seen the final version of the movie, knows that there’s no way in hell that they’re going to be able to market it. They’re usually waiting for something big to happen and slip it in the back pocket so it can slide right in. This is the case with some of the biggest turds in cinematic history. And now the newest in an ongoing series of cinematic turds is Against the Ropes. It’s the true and grossly embellished story of Jackie Kallan, the boxing world’s first female fight promoter. It’s boring, it’s flat, and it stars Meg Ryan. The only good thing in this dud is Omar Epps as Ryan’s fighter. His character is the only one with a remotely interesting story, but it’s so painfully underdeveloped that it’s not even really worth seeing. It’s got more clichés than an episode of "Friends," and is equally non-gratifying. Movies like this make me wish I became a literary critic instead.

I tend to shy away from documentaries, only because I prefer the escapism of movies. The cost of a movie ticket to forget the consistent amount of daily bullshit is a very small price to pay, as far as I’m concerned. And every time I switch over and decide to catch a documentary, I always regret that I did. Not because they’re poorly made or because the subject matter isn’t interesting; far from it. It’s just that I didn’t really want to know the numerous little disturbing facts laid out before me about things that happen in real life. There was a point, for about forty-five minutes while watching Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, where I was ashamed to live in this country. And the same holds true for Errol Morris’ Fog of War. Morris interviews former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the man considered to be the architect of the Vietnam War. Mr. McNamara shares his recollections from such hits as firebombing Japan and claiming 100,000 lives, the Cuban missile crisis, Cliffs’ notes from Vietnam, and "11 From the Life of Robert McNamara." Even though it doesn’t star Mandy Moore or Colin Farrell and is completely devoid of a happy "Hollywood ending," Fog of War is a truly sick watch. And although McNamara headed Ford Motor Co and World Bank at certain points of his life, please remember he’s not an actor. If anything is going to make you appreciate the pure fluff of Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, this is it.

Now, I never went to Sunday school beyond the convenience for my mother (handy Saturday mornings gave way to Monday nights that conflicted with "Rosanne"), so all I know about the crucifixion of Christ is that Jesus went up on a Friday afternoon and walked out of a cave on a Sunday morning. Even so, all that religious imagery (of which there’s a few truly creepy scenes in this film) scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. But according to the guy I went to see it with (who had a strict religious upbringing), Mel Gibson nailed it (get it?) with The Passion of the Christ, his story of the last twelve hours of Christ’s life. And not only did Mel Gibson make up for What Women Want with this greatness, but he wrapped The Passion up in the best package you can—negative publicity and the Holy Grail of controversy. He put it out through his own company (every major candy-ass felch-chugging studio didn’t want to offend anyone by releasing it) and made it for $25 million (the average movie costs at least $60 million these days). This is a recipe for success. He’s going to make his money back by the end of the month and, in all likelihood, double if not triple it by Easter. All of these zealots who are standing outside of the theaters protesting the movie are only making you, the moviegoer, wonder what all the fuss is about and, as a result, you’re going to go and check it out. (They don’t remember when Last Temptation of Christ came out?) For months, the Jewish community has been crying like a bunch of queens who couldn’t get tickets to a Britney concert because Gibson’s depiction makes it look like the Jews are responsible for the death of Christ. Christ was meant to die anyway, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Germans weren’t pissing and moaning when Schindler’s List came out. Get over it! Your sins were forgiven! But as for the movie itself, it was rather damned good. The acting was top shelf and it was a beautiful-looking picture. With not a word of English spoken whatsoever, the grisly and gory punishments inflicted upon Christ are going to have you looking away a few times and keep it from getting screened at those aforementioned CCD classes. Yeah, no sugar coating at all. I actually had a newfound respect for Jesus, just because he got the living shit beat out of him and he kept getting up and asking for more. I’m not going to start getting up early for church on Sundays or anything like that, but I’m not going to diss bible-thumpers as much as I used to either. So if the sight of blood freaks you out (you’re a pussy—fine, but you’re a pussy), don’t bother. But if it’s a case of you being too goddamned (in the name of the father, son, holy spirit, amen…) lazy to read subtitles, go fuck yourself. Get over yourself, because you’re missing out on a truly great movie for a really stupid reason if you can’t be bothered to read a little. And furthermore, if a little reading at the bottom of a screen is too much for you, I don’t want you reading my column anymore. Go see something like Win a Date with Tad Hamilton with your significant other, who refuses to acknowledge what a floundering dick you are. Why not see You Got Served for a fourth time? That sounds like loads of fun. You’re probably one of the thirteen people on the planet who watches the dubbed version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Loser…

As comely as Ashley Judd is, these stupid-ass murder/thrillers have to go. It’s either courtroom dramas or Se7en rip-offs. And we all know she’s above this shit. When she shows up in a small role sort of setting (Frida) she steals the show, but she chokes once she’s center stage. The chick dated Michael Bolton. What do you want from her? As for our course of the day, Twisted chronicles the exploits of a boozehag homicide detective who’ll fuck any loser with a hard-on and a heartbeat. Things try to get interesting when the victims at her crime scenes are the same clowns who sprayed their DNA in her ass not long before. Samuel L. Jackson plays the police commissioner, who raised Judd when his friend/her father went batshit and went on a killing rampage back in the day. This movie will probably receive its highest point of notoriety when gay men rent it just to pull a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" on it and rip it to shit. Other than that, look forward to people with indiscriminate tastes in movies talking about how great it was at work.

"Completely idiotic and absolutely retarded," is what I thought to myself when I saw trailers for Super Troopers. I dismissed it, but was finally apprehended by a viewing of it, when I was too chemically incapacitated to resist, many months later. I laughed like a goddamned fool. For me, it was that chemical incapacitation that was part of its charm. Sort of like night fishing with infrared goggles on. You don’t need them, but they certainly help. Broken Lizard’s Club Dread takes the posse from Super Troopers (all playing different characters) and puts them on a party island where a serial killer it running loose. So you’ve got a horror movie/comedy. A stupid premise made funny. Club Dread is more fun than the Scary Movie series and just as funny as Super Troopers. Incidentally, I wasn’t chemically incapacitated upon viewing this flick, and that kind of took away from the overall experience for me. So if I were, I’d probably be raving about it the same way I was with Super Troopers. Don’t you go making the same mistakes I did…

I think it’s a good idea for anyone who plans to see Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights to watch The Passion of the Christ beforehand. I don’t say this so you can see a good movie to have to compare to the shit movie that Havana Nights is; I say this so you know how I felt while watching Havana Nights. About ten or fifteen minutes into The Passion of the Christ, Jesus begins to get beaten and tortured consistently and maliciously right through to the end of the movie. How Christ looked on the outside in The Passion of the Christ is how I felt on the inside while watching Havana Nights. It was an anguishing and tormenting experience watching the overrated first one, but the only things that seem to connect this one to the previous one are it’s name, some fancy dancing, the fact that they’re both horrible, and Patrick Swayze (What the hell else is he going to do?). To show I’m not a total prick, I will say one nice thing about this turkey and point out that the set design was delightful. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out why in the hell Fidel Castro’s assault on the Batista regime had to be the backdrop for a corn-fed white rich bitch on vacation learning to dance like a full-fledged slut, while developing a magnificent sense of rhythm.