Running at the Mouth

Paul Verhoeven Makes Shitty Movies, Blames Bush

"Basic Instinct" and "Showgirls" director Paul Verhoeven believes that his movies either don't get made or don't make any money not because they suck, but because George W. Bush is our President:

"Anything that is erotic has been banned in the United States," said the Dutch native. "Look at the people at the top (of the government). We are living under a government that is constantly hammering out Christian values. And Christianity and sex have never been good friends."

George, you magnificent bastard, where do you find the time?  On top of conducting a war and leading the free world, you still find time to save us from more crap like "Showgirls."  For that, we as a people are in your debt.  (And I'm not even going to get into the brilliance of Verhoeven's first statement; as anyone even passingly familiar with the Internet knows, it's impossible to find anything erotic whatsoever in cyberspace.)  Perhaps Verhoeven should go back to his home country, where he can make any kind of film he wants without fear of reprisals by religious groups.

Some producers get it, though, like Mark Damon and JC Spink:

[Damon] stopped producing sex-steeped dramas because "I didn't find any scripts that were worth producing. The genre had exhausted itself."

* * * *

For producer JC Spink, the genre's demise has little to do with politics, scripts or willing talent and everything to do with the Internet, which became ubiquitous in American homes around the same time studio executives were suffering through such debacles as "Body of Evidence," "Showgirls" and "Jade."

"Why pay $10 to see something at the movies that you can see for free on the Internet?" Spink asked. "I think the genre is suffering because sex is more pervasive in our society now than it was 10 years ago, from Vanity Fair ads to reality TV. I mean, there's porn stars on reality TV."

Amen, brother.  If I want to see a stranger's cooch, I can do that in the privacy of my own home for nothing.  Even 47 year-old cooch like Sharon Stone's (not that I'd want to, but if that's your thing there are websites out there specializing in that type of action).

UPDATE:  Dave at Garfield Ridge has similar thoughts, which are much more thorough than my own.

My Top 100 Movies

One of the memes making the rounds in the blogosphere right now is “What are your top 100 movies?”, inspired by this ridiculous list in Time magazine. Many bloggers are taking umbrage with Time’s list, and rightly so: the Time critics ignore some great films, while at the same time listing a lot of foreign films and other crapfests no one has seen or enjoyed but will never admit it.  The implication, of course, is that you’re a slackjawed, Wal-Mart-shoppin’, gubmint-cheese-eatin’, NASCAR-watchin’ Hee-Haw-lovin’, summer-teeth-havin’ simpleton (not that there’s anything wrong with that, except in the eyes of the New York Times) if you (a) haven’t seen those movies; or (b) have seen them and think they suck.

Well, Time’s critics can get bent.  What follows is my list of 100 movies that I would want to have if I could only watch 100 movies for the rest of my life.  Before I even begin, let it be known that I'm not an art house goon.  My primary criterion is “Was I entertained?”  Then, I ask how the movie holds up over multiple viewings.  In other words, whether I enjoy watching it more than once.  And, it has to be quotable.  To get down to 100, though, I had to go to the flipper test, i.e., when I’m flipping through the channels, whether I stop and watch for at least 15 minutes.  If so, it’s on the list.

One more thing:  this is my list.  Mine.  If you want to agree with me, great.  If not, go make your own damn list; I’m not interested in you insulting my taste.

IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER

1. Office Space
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Tommy Boy
4. Swingers
5. Stripes
6. Trading Places
7. Real Genius
8. White Christmas
9. To Catch a Thief
10. The Full Monty
11. Heat
12. Shrek 2
13. Ocean’s 11
14. A River Runs Through It
15. Batman
16. Grosse Pointe Blank
17. Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead
18. Chariots of Fire
19. Austin Powers:  International Man of Mystery
20. The Adventures of Ford Fairlane – Shut up.  Just shut up.  I mean it.
21. The Terminator
22. The Dirty Dozen
23. Animal House
24. The Empire Strikes Back
25. High Fidelity
26. True Romance
27. Finding Nemo
28. The Shawshank Redemption
29. The Seven Samurai
30. Papillon – Some people will tell you Bullitt.  Give me Papillon.
31. Hoosiers
32. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
33. Bull Durham
34. Die Hard
35. Snatch
36. Clerks
37. History of the World, Pt. 1
38. The Princess Bride
39. The Omen – Scariest.  Movie.  EVAR.
40. Raiders of the Lost Ark
41. Crossroads – NOT the Britney Spears one.  The one with Ralph Macchio and Jami Gertz.  Wait . . . that not exactly a ringing endorsement either.
42. Rounders
43. The Usual Suspects
44. Excalibur
45. Old School
46. Saturday Night Fever
47. Sixteen Candles
48. Dragnet
49. Rear Window
50. Goldfinger

10 Word Movie Review

The Girl Next Door:  I liked it better when it was called Risky Business.

WATFO*, Celebrity Edition

1. Courtney Love has been cast to play Linda Lovelace in the upcoming biopic.
2. Whitney Houston is in rehab.  Again.
3. A rap artist calling himself "C-Murder," a convicted murderer, lost his latest appeal.
4. The Ashton Kutcher vehicle Guess Who sucks.

At this rate, I fully expect Bronson Pinchot to show up on The Surreal Life.  What?  That, too, has happened?  Shit.

Movies in Seven Words

Via Michele at A Small Victory and Fark:  Describe your favorite movie in precisely seven words.  This is too much fun to limit to just one movie.  I've only got a couple now, but I'm sure I'll be updating this post for the next three days.

UPDATE:  Be sure to read the comments.  My buddy Adam's contributed three already, any one of which is better than any of mine.

1. Struggling actors chase skirts, fancy themselves "money."
2. He can't be bargained with, Sarah Connor.
3. Angry genius hangs with Mork, frustrates mathematician.
4. Obese halfwit, twerp sell brakepads.  Hilarity ensues.
5. Whiny bitch meets hermit.  Bye, Death Star!
6. Stand up, Jean Louise.  Your father's passing.
7. Red stapler-fueled arson hides botched embezzlement.

Haiku Movie Review of King Arthur

A twist on legend,
Keira Knightley: bondage gear.
A poor man's Braveheart.

My Secret Shame

Michele Catalano has listed her five movies that she admits owning and watching despite their badness. Since she's got 102 comments, I'm listing mine here:

1. The Adventures of Ford Fairlane;
   
2. For Love of the Game;
   
3. The North Shore;
   
4. Varsity Blues; and
   
5. Gleaming the Cube.

Keep in mind, these aren't the only crapfests in my collection, just the ones I'm most ashamed of.

The Exception That Proves The Rule

The rule being that sequels are never as good as the original (Rocky II, Aliens, Empire are other exceptions, of course). Spiderman 2 is better. Terrific story, incredibly suspenseful action sequences and Tobey Maguire brings his A-game (Kirsten Dunst, on the other hand, pretty much mails it in). Even an appearance by Cliff Robertson and his startlingly bad toupee. Just outstanding.

And the Dr. Octopus character far outshines Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin. While Dr. Octopus was better written and better acted, this is especially true in comparing costumes. Frankly, I felt gypped by the Green Goblin get-up; it was like the producers left the Green Goblin costume for last, and then had only about $47 in the budget to make the whole thing. That mask plain sucked. And I'm sure I'm not the first one to notice that Dafoe, with his angular countenance, didn't even need the mask. Anyway, Doc Ock, played by Alfred Molina, is a great villain. Not quite on par with Jack Nicholson's Joker from the first Batman movie or Ian McKellan's Magneto from the X-Men movies, but close. Highly recommended.

ASIDE: One thing left me confused. Spiderman takes a number of hard tumbles from high places in the film, yet walks away virtually uninjured. What's the deal there? Does he have some sort of carapace or chitonous exoskeleton that keeps him safe? Or does he have remarkable regenerative powers? I don't recall either of these from the comic book. I mean, usually when I step on a spider it stays dead, you know?

Still Waiting, Mikey

UPDATE: We'll be waiting a little longer at least. 17 year-old Daniel Ledeen asked Moore at his Washington press conference about the Hezbollah endorsement. Not surprisingly, Moore stonewalled. What does it say about our illustrious press corps that it took a teenager on a summer internship to think to ask this question?

As noted last week, Hezbollah is all about promoting the Michael Moore craptacular Fahrenheit 9/11. While the Ticonderoga-class Moore hasn't commented officially on this yet, distributor Front Row welcomes the murderous terrorists' support:

The company distributing filmmaker Michael Moore’s Bush-bashing movie “Fahrenheit 9/11” says it won’t reject an offer of help from Middle East terrorist organization Hezbollah.

As WorldNetDaily reported, terrorists affiliated with the Iran-backed network last week offered to help promote the film in the United Arab Emirates.

The movie industry publication Screen Daily reported, “In terms of marketing the film, [distributor] Front Row is getting a boost from organizations related to Hezbollah which have rung up from Lebanon to ask if there’s anything they can do to support the film.”

The story then quotes Front Row Managing Director Gianluca Chacra: “We can’t go against these organizations as they could strongly boycott the film in Lebanon and Syria.”

LGF supplies the link and the appropriate mockery.

Crap Helsing

Saw Van Helsing over the weekend. My buddy John liked it a lot more than I did. I thought the plot was weak, and I was particularly offended by how the writers blatantly plagiarized Ian Fleming with the character "Carl," who was essentially Q. They even did the same scene that's included in every Bond film where he goes into Q's lab to get his new gear and sees amusing R&D along the way. Shameless.

Anyway, Slate's David Edelstein savages the film, but in his haste to bash he undermines his credibility by showing that he wasn't paying attention:

This Van Helsing, name of Gabriel, is supposed to be some kind of immortal, but he has amnesia (I think), so it's never too clear where he came from or why the movie's dullard Dracula (Richard Roxburgh) seems drawn to him. For all we know, he's the Wolverine. Dracula covets the Frankenstein monster (Shuler Hensley), who carries some sort of life force that can power scores of little vampirish thingies he has hanging from the ceiling in slimy cocoons ... I think they're like his test-tube babies (with his vampire brides), but the details are murky.

None of this (other than that Van Helsing's first name is Gabriel and that Dracula is pretty uninspiring) is true. All is explained, albeit inartfully; it's, like, the movie's climax. Edelstein is right, though, that the dialogue is terrible. I had a lot of those "I could write this shit" moments, i.e., the next line is so obvious that you say it out loud before the actor. Never good. Edelstein is also right that the very-fetching Kate Beckinsale makes the movie at least bearable.