Maythew Bonus: Theodore Rex (1995)

*
Director: Jonathan R. Betuel
Starring: Whoopi Goldberg

When I kicked off this series, I expressed my gratitude that Theodore Rex hadn't been included on the list. And then... oh, and then. And then a friend of my brother's found this "movie" on DVD and bought it for him. And then he made me watch it, which is why I now find myself reviewing this insult to narrative, comedy, extinct creatures, science, and the future. Join me, won’t you?

Theodore Rex stars Academy Award winner Whoopi Goldberg, Academy Award nominee Armin Mueller-Stahl, and the private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks. Damn right, I’m talking about Richard Roundtree. The story is set sometime in the future when scientists are able to bring dinosaurs back to life (and, somehow, make them human sized and give them the ability to speak) by cloning the DNA from fossils. The engineer behind this is Elizar Kane (Muehller-Stahl), whose plans to create a new Eden secretly also involves ushering in a new ice age, thus killing off humanity. Why does he want to do this? Because he’s a mad scientist. That’s all the reason one needs.

After a dinosaur is found dead in an apparent “dinocide,” the Chief of Police (Roundtree) decides to promote Teddy Rex, a gentle and kind of goofy T-Rex, from his desk job to temporary detective. He becomes the partner of badass cop Coltrane (Goldberg) and though she resents it at first ("He's a dinosaur!" she says over and over again, much as I did while watching this), they eventually find a way to work together to take down the bad guys and save the world. Oh, and also? Coltrane is, possibly, a robot or some kind of human-robot hybrid. Yeah, I don't know. I just know that at the climactic moment she shorts out and it's up to Teddy to finish the job on his own.

Words cannot adequately express just how stupid this movie is. To give you an idea of the level of thought that's gone into it, allow me to share this tidbit: characters who are working undercover? Work with equipment that is neon glow in the dark. That's just... fuck you movie! Also, there is a very brief moment in which I thought we were going to see a dinosaur puppet sex scene. It was scary.

Matt's Thoughts: 92 minutes of pure entertainment. This cinematic masterpiece left many questions unanswered: is Whoopi a robot? does this take place in our future, or our supposed past? why do all covert missions involve glow-in-the-dark, neon technology? Don't get me wrong, this was no Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit but I think it held it's own. Now let's never speak of it again.

... And, with that, I'm taking the next week off. I'll be back on the 21st with new content.

Friday's Top 5... TV Shows Destined To Become Films

#5: Deadwood
Truthfully, I don't really think this is likely but *sigh* a girl can dream, can't she?


#4: Moonlighting
Hey, if Miami Vice and The A-Team can get the big screen treatment, why not Moonlighting? With the right casting and the right mix of action and romance, it would have a wide potential appeal.


#3:The Sopranos
They've got to, right? I mean, it can't just end like that.


#2: Glee
Mark my words: one day this will happen. It will be big, the soundtrack will be huge, and there will once again be a chorus of people saying that the musical is back. Mark my words.


#1: 24
This one actually isn't even theoretical, as Kiefer Sutherland has already stated his intention to develop the show as a film franchise. Will it work without the gimmick? Probably - all you need is some stuff blowing up real good.

Canadian Film Review: Scandalous Me (1998)

* * *
Director: Bruce McDonald
Starring: Michele Lee

I've come to the conclusion that the biopic is the most difficult of all film genres. I've made this lament before but it really is hard to find a genuinely good one, one that gets the facts right, captures the spirit of its subject, and doesn't get buried in gossipy details of the subject's sex life. Scandalous Me, which takes Jacqueline Susann as its subject, is a film that is far from perfect but it succeeds where a lot of other biopics fail.

Michele Lee stars as Susann and serves as narrator, giving the film an intimate, conversational feel. This plays a pretty big part in the film's success just as the tone of Susann's novel Valley of the Dolls - which a character in the film describes as like gossiping with friends over lunch - helped launch it into the stratosphere. Starting at the end, with Susann dying of cancer, the film then flashes back to the experiences that have brought her to this point. The film then zips through her childhood, lingering just long enough to establish her worship of her father, who encourages her to pursue greatness in the arts, and her more difficult relationship with her mother.

The primary focus of the film is on Susann's tenacious rise to the top with the help of her husband, Irving Mansfield (Peter Riegert). Though it touches on some of the more salacious details of Susann's life - her infidelities, her bisexuality, and her more than passing acquaintance with those "dolls" that helped make her famous - and the tragic circumstances of her son, Guy, it doesn't let them overwhelm the narrative. It never loses sight of Susann as a personality and its construction and campy tone is built to compliment the character.

The film is particularly strong as it explores Susann's drive to be taken seriously in the literary world. Valley of the Dolls is pretty much immediately dismissed as "trashy" by publishers, critics and other writers and Susann is written off as a writer who doesn't have to be taken seriously in spite of her massive popular success. What the film points out (and manages to do so in a fairly subtle way rather than hitting the viewer over the head with it) is that the people writting her off tend to be male and the people embracing her tend to be female. Could the problem, perhaps, be that since her work is geared to women, men have no point of identification and not recognizing themselves reflected in the work lose interest and reject it? I'm not arguing that Valley of the Dolls is great art but considering the way that so many female writers today find their work dismissed as "chick lit," while works by men for men are simply considered "literature," I think it's safe to say that there's at least a bit of sexism involved. I mean, the basic message is that things that are interesting primarily to men are universal while things that are interesting primarily to women are somehow niche. Susann, however, gets the last laugh, breaking sales records and altering the publishing landscape.

As Susann, Lee gives a solid performance that finds the right balance between the heavier and lighter moments of the story. She portrays Susann as a force of nature, a woman desperate for the love and approval of those closest to her (especially her father), and determined to gain the love and approval of the public. The woman presented to us is flawed (in some ways deeply) but ultimately quite likeable and I think that's a good way to describe the film itself. It certainly has its shortcomings, but in the end it's entertaining enough to make up for them.

Maythew #10: Fanboys (2008)

* * *
Director: Kyle Newman
Starring: Jay Baruchel, Chris Marquette, Don Fogler, Sam Huntington, Kristen Bell

Who says you never learn anything from movies? Until seeing Fanboys I had no idea that there existed such a fierce rivalry between Trekkies and Star Wars fans (... Warsies?). I'm not someone who really understands the kind of obsessive fandom that those two franchises inspire but I found a lot to like in Fanboys. I'm sure there are plenty of little in jokes that I missed since I'm not part of fandom culture, but I still found it very accessible and very funny.

Set in 1998, the story centres on five friends: Linus (Chris Marquette), Eric (Sam Huntington), Windows (Jay Baruchel), Hutch (Don Fogler), and Zoe (Kristen Bell). While Eric has grown apart from the others since high school, the rest remain connected by their love for comic books and Star Wars. When Eric learns that Linus is dying, he realizes that he needs to find a way to reconnect with him before it's too late. He also wants to take the opportunity to make an impossible dream come true by dusting off an old plan they had had as children to break into the Skywalker Ranch. Windows and Hutch are game and the four set off on a road trip in Hutch's rickety van, which he fancies is the automobile equivalent of the Millennium Falcon.

Along the way, the boys have a series of small adventures, including a run-in with Star Trek fans, a drug fantasy involving an Ewok, an arrest, another run in with Star Trek fans, and encounters with William Shatner and hookers (not in the same scene). After being called to bail the boys out of jail, Zoe joins them for the rest of the journey and the five successfully break into Skywalker Ranch, which apparently has the worst security ever. Inside they find the Holy Grail of Geekery, including a copy of the as yet unreleased The Phantom Menace.

The film has a lot of affection for its characters and the world of fandom, which goes a long way. Fanboys are probably an easy target for mockery but the film isn't mean spirited in the way that it ribs the characters and instead celebrates their devotion to the mythology that certain pieces of work inspire. It has heart, in short, and a strange, disarming charm.

Matt's Thoughts: Fanboys is a love letter to Star Wars, and, as much as I glaze over everytime anyone starts talking about Star Wars to me, I think it's just awesome how unabashedly geeky these guys are about what they love. Each of the main characters are fleshed out in such a way that I would get along with them quite well, and I root for them in their pursuit, so I was taken by surprise when the film took that sharp turn from madcap romp around America to heartwarming tale of a friend's last adventure. It wouldn't affect me so much if they didn't make you care for these people, but, by the end of the movie, you really do care, and even though you know it's coming you just don't want it to. I never thought I would see camping out for the release of a new movie as a memorial for a fallen comrade, but it really works this time, and it becomes one of the films I could watch repeatedly and not tire of.

Maythew #9: Stone of Destiny (2008)

* * *
Director: Charles Martin Smith
Starring: Charlie Cox, Kate Mara, Robert Carlyle

Reviewer's dilemma: you see a movie that, while not "bad" really, is kind of bland and fails to make an impression on you. You can't envision yourself recommending it to anyone and yet it's so earnest and harmless that you're reluctant to give it an unfavorable rating. This is the mind space in which I find myself as I try to sum up my feelings on Stone of Destiny. It's a perfectly decent movie and yet for an inspirational story, all it inspired me to wonder is why a film with a premise so deeply rooted in Scottish nationalism cast an American actress to work an accent and play "the girl."

Set in the 1950s, Stone of Destiny centers on Ian Hamilton (Charlie Cox - incidentally, also not Scottish), a bright eyed college student with a dream of restoring the eponymous symbol to its rightful land. Since the stone is currently housed in Westminster Abbey, getting it back is a rather difficult endeavor, though others have tried. Nevertheless, Ian manages to get three others to join him in his plot - Kay (Kate Mara), Gavin (Stephen McCole), and Alan (Ciaron Kelly) - and convinces politician John MacCormick (Robert Carlyle) to provide financial backing.

The four students set off on their plan, intending to take advantage of Christmas time festivities to get to and remove the stone. Their plans unravel in fairly spectacular fashion and the fact that they suceed anyway proves the notion that some stories are so unbelievable that they can't be anything but true since no one would dare make them up. When you think of heist movies, you think of sophisticated plans carried out by expert criminals but apparently in real life all you need is really good luck.

Written and directed by Charles Martin Smith, Stone of Destiny is a bit odd in that it manages to be simultaneously fast paced and low energy. Even the celebrations surrounding the return of the stone seem muted, as if Smith is approaching the material from mere curiosity rather than from any kind of emotional investment (which may very well be true given that he's American). And yet, like I said, it's not a bad movie. It's competently assembled and performed; it just never finds its spark. So, if you're in the mood for a stunningly adequate film, I suppose this gentle caper is as good a pick as any.

Matt's Thoughts: I really, really liked this movie. Granted, there are some pacing issues, and the script isn't the strongest that it could be, but I just thought it was a really fun film. In a world where so many movies are pro-America, it's nice to see a movie so full of pride in a country across the globe. It's the ending, of course, that gets to me: rather than abandoning the stone of destiny in the churchyard knowing that the authorities are on their way, the heroes stand and wait their punishment, having fulfilled their quest to return what rightfully belongs to Scotland; it's their firm belief that theirs was a necessary crime that I find admirable, and I can't help but love every one of these people.