Hot Dog The Movie

When I saw that this was On demand my curiosity got the best of me. Supposedly this is the quintessential 'snobs vs slobs' eighties ski film that has been so mercilessly parodied over the years. That's not quite true, its more of a wannabe sports film, but the odd thing was that I knew exactly what was going to happen just from watching all the satires. The film doesn't help itself by seeming like a farce itself (one of the big ski sequences is a competition where they actually do a dance routine on skis down the mountain, I guess I missed that at the last Olympics) and the level of acting, and writing, is shockingly bad (when Shannon tweed is acting circles around your leads that's not a good sign). Really, not just bad, but laughably inept. I guess the equivalent of these type of films currently would be American Pie and their ilk but even those films display a level of competence that is completely lacking from Hot Dog.

However the one thing that sort keeps you involved is the complete lack of irony. You can tell the filmmakers really thought they were making an inspiring underdog story, and really wanted you to hate the evil Europeans (yes not Russians, Europeans). This lack of cynicism in the face of overwhelming incompetence is actually fairly mesmerizing and almost makes you ignore the casual misogyny, and borderline sociopathic tendencies of the 'scruffy' protagonists. Not enthralling enough for me to want to revisit Hot Dog (or its cousins) any time soon, but still an interesting viewing experience.

Unstoppable

Since I'm tired of writing plot recaps lets steal yahoo's:
A veteran engineer (Denzel Wahshington) and a young conductor (Chris Pine) try frantically to stop a run-away half-mile long freight train carrying enough combustible liquids and poisonous gas to wipe out a nearby city. Inspired by true events.

Inspired by true events huh? That must mean it was inspired by that time your mom went to an all you can eat buffet (zing!). Also since Denzel's in it shouldn't we just call the film Runaway Train-ing day? Good one Eric.

Overall Unstoppable is pretty much what you'd expect from a runaway train movie. The train gets loose in the first fifteen minutes (mainly because a fat guy can't run fast enough to catch it when its barely moving, something else we can blame on obesity) and then they chase it. Since the train can't really be sneaky or twirl its mustache we also get its corporate owners who only care about their bottom line and not how many lives are going to lost, blah blah blah. Look the film hits the expected beats, it thankfully isn't too long (if Michael Bay had made this it would have been two and a half hours) and Denzel and Chris Pine have a nice rapport. Tony Scott almost ruins it with his constant cutting (seriously heaven forbid you stay on a shot long enough so we can see what's happening), but overall its enjoyable if forgettable.

Now there is one thing I have to address that might be considered a spoiler (though if you're surprised by any development in this film you probably think Thomas Kinkade makes great art). We learn early on that Chris Pine's wife is estranged from him, won't let him see their kid, won't answer the phone, etc. Well the minute she sees him on TV saving the day guess who suddenly decides to come running and be all lovey dovey? Its the most blatant example of a shallow wife this side of Will Patton's in Armageddon (the chick who won't even let his kid know that he's his father, but once he gets back from saving the world guess she's more than ready to claim paternity). Look lady if you're so afraid of your husband you take a restraining order out on him (something the film sort of glosses over) the fact that he's suddenly famous shouldn't suddenly make you want to run back into his arms. Who are you a Kardashian? In reality Chris Pine would have given her the straight arm and started hooking up with either Rosario Dawson's character or Denzel's two college age daughters who work at hooters (yeah they actually had them working at hooters. I think the crew just wanted to shoot b-roll there and needed a reason).

Beautiful Girls

I vaguely remember seeing this in college and thinking it was alright, and after watching it again I guess its still okay but probably a bit to full of itself.



Let me just give you the ONDEMAND recap for the plot:


A young man on the verge of marriage returns to his hometown to reconsider, hanging out with his old pals and seeing the ruts they're stuck in.


Its written by Scott Rosenberg who covered similar in his adaptation of High Fidelity, but with much more subtlety and humor in the latter work. The first problem is that Natalie Portman plays the world's most well-spoken, all knowing 13 year old who constantly comments on the action and represents the ideal woman to the main character Timothy Hutton (which actually is kind of creepy). It also doesn't help that one of the film's big points is that men are avoid commiting to normal women because of some pipe dream about landing a super model. However the fact that the supposed average women in the film are played by Mira Sorvino, Lauren Holly, Annabeth Gish, and Rosie O'donnel (okay the last one works) sort of mutes the point. But whatever this is hollywood, I've worked in Beverly Hills and the average isn't far from what the film portrays. The biggest problem is that every character (including Michael Rappaport) feels the need to speechify all the time, with no real sense of humor either. Its not completely uninteresting, but it feels overbearing after awhile. Part of my problem is probably that I never felt the late 20's malaise often portrayed in these type of films, which would of course require me to you know care about stuff which we all know is ridiculous (except for hummus, I do love me some hummus).


Also what is with these towns that apparently only allow one guy per high school class to move away? It seems like all these films feature a protagonist who returns home to see all his high school friends (who haven't left even though the town sucks, in my experience if the town is that bad you move but whatever) while he's in the midst of some existential crisis. I go home several times a year and most of my high school friends have moved on and I rarely learn a life changing lesson that shakes me out of my rut (except for that one time I learned how to be a drug charge, that was definitely life changing).

This is a corollary to the film towns that have one person who moves a way to big city, becomes absolutely insufferable, but after a dose of some good old fashioned rednecks they decide that they no longer want to live someplace that has museums, mass transit, and more than two restaurants. But I digress, Beautiful Girls has its moments it just tries way too hard to be profound.

Red/The Town

Red is a moderately entertaining film that falls into that zone where it doesn't suck, but I'm not sure its good enough to merit more than a tepid endorsement. The film follows retired CIA agent Bruce Willis, who is engaging in a flirtatious relationship with a government pension agent played by Mary Louise Parker. His idyll is interupted by a hit squad and he decides he needs to Kidnap parker since she may also be a target. He proceeds to get his old squad back together (Morgan freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malchovich, Brian Cox) as they try to figure out who's after him. Anyway when the film just coasts on the charm of its leads and lets them riff its actually pretty enjoyable, when it tries to be a hardcore action film everything falters. The film desperately wants to be both a humorous character piece, and a Zach Snyder-esque stylized action thriller. While it does passably well at the former, it fails at the second, and any time there's a big set piece the momentum grinds to a halt. Like I said its not horrible, and it is fun seeing a cast with as much history as this do an action comedy. Also I really liked that Mary Louise Parker didn't complain for the whole time about being kidnapped and taken on a mission. In fact she embraces it to an almost sociopathic degree in contrast to most Adrian Balboa-types we get who just whine whenever something cool happens.

One more thing, the only other people in theatre besides us were four middle aged single guys who sat in opposite ends of the theatre forming a square around us. It was kind of depressing actually. Maybe they're big Helen Mirren fans?

The Town

I'm writing this about a week after originally seeing the film and not much has really stuck with me. Oh its reasonably entertaining (even if the Boston accents are comically thick) and Ben Afleck does a decent job staging the action sequences, but everything about the plot is completely nonsensical and it becomes impossible to suspend disbelief. Really my brother and I were the only people in the theatre and we spent most of the climax wondering how stupid all the characters could be and didn't really care what happened to them. Also if you're going to cast Don Draper make sure you change his haircut, its way to distracting otherwise.

Whatever, its watchable but over all pretty disposable.

The Rock

The Rock was one of the first films I remember going and seeing with friends when I was in high school and of course as a high school male I absolutely loved it. More importantly I got a free VHS copy a few years later and probably watched it at least once a year through college (I had a lot of free time and no cable). To be fair this was well before Michael Bay had become as annoying as he is now and I was at the age where the film's blend of machismo, slow-motion, and Nic Cage was right in my wheelhouse (of course as you well know Nic Cage is always in my strike zone). Anyway its been probably a decade since I last saw it and when it turned up for free ONDEMAND I couldn't resist seeing if it still held up.

Now let it be said that this is not what would be conventionally called a 'great' film, but I'll be damned if it still isn't entertaining in its own way. Believe me, it still has enough Bay-isms and plot-holes to potentially kill it (constant edits, military action being shot as lovingly as a porn film, and all non-military black people talking with 'sass') but he was still early enough in his career where at least his more annoying tendencies were somewhat in check. More importantly the cast is just solid and they carry the film through its more ludicrous moments (which is appropriately most of it). I'm not just talking about the three leads (Nic Cage, Ed Harris, and Sean Connery) who go a long way to making you care, but the supporting cast is loaded with 'those guys' (John Spencer, John Morris, Michael Bien, John C McGinley, Vanessa Marcil, Claire Folriani, and the black guy from the Practice) that I couldn't help but smile.

Look the film is overwrought, illogical, and doesn't really hold up to scrutiny, I admit all that. But it still remains one of the three Michael Bay films I can actually tolerate (the others being Armageddon and Bad Boys), and the only one that I can say I enjoy even a bit un-ironically. Whether this has to do with the fact that I have such a history with the film, or an unnatural obsession with over-the-top Nic Cage (who am I kidding that's entirely natural) is tough to say, but I can't deny that almost fifteen years after its release its still reasonably entertaining.

'We got Green Smoke'