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The Film Habit #15 - August 5, 2004 So this morning I woke up, got dressed, went outside and said good morning to my car. I’ve been watching way too much “Knight Rider”. The first season DVD set arrived mid-week and I’ve been drowning myself in it ever since. No, not because it’s so incredibly good. It’s actually pretty cheesy… if nostalgic fun. But deadlines are deadlines and I’ve only got till Sunday to get it done. I’m worried that if I watch much longer I’ll stop noticing how much eyeliner Michael Knight is wearing and maybe even start digging his white guy fro.
Open Water Attacked By Sharks What happened to all the phenomenal buzz we had for Open Water? The closer it gets to wide release, the faster that slips away. Critics have gotten downright vicious, to the point where their interviews with the film’s creators have become almost attack pieces. This is one movie whose director shouldn’t find himself on the defensive. They weren’t this hard on Halle Berry for making Catwoman! What is the agenda here? Is it just easy to pick on the little guy? Was there too much positive buzz and now you have to bring them down?  Here’s the thing… they’re all missing the point. Every negative remark has been aimed almost exclusively at the relationship between the two main characters, husband and wife. The complaints are all the same… there’s not enough to their relationship! Where is the conflict? When they decide not to have sex one night, why isn’t there a huge discussion about impotence? Where is the drama???
It’s in the ocean bud. These are NORMAL characters, normal people in a normal relationship. It’s not Humphrey Bogart and Greta Garbo living out some artificial yet entertaining relationship fantasy. Real life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes married folks just don’t have sex. That’s ok, you don’t have to every night and it doesn’t signify the end of your marriage. These characters are normal, so normal in fact that critics used to art film pandering and Hollywood dramatics have forgotten what normal relationships look like, especially when shown only in snippets. That normalcy is why Open Water works. Because when the sharks start coming, you feel like those people could be you. They are you! They’re just normal folks stuck in the middle of the ocean. Using a laptop on your vacation or hitting cliché tourist spots doesn’t make you an evil, unsympathetic yuppie. Hopefully real people will get what a lot of critics suddenly can’t. It’s just a shame that so many writers are missing out on such a great thing. Not all, but more than enough. Or maybe I’m just insane. Could be. After all, my favorite movie of the year is Spider-Man 2, meanwhile there are people out there right now starting to trumpet The Brown Bunny. It’s cool to be contrary and artsy and aloof and stuff. me if you think I’m crazy about Open Water. What to Watch New movies come out each week. I don’t see all of them, but still feel qualified to tell you which movie you should watch. Feed your film habit from my picks. No, this isn’t another ode to Open Water so just relax. It only opens in New York and LA this week and as I’m sick of saying by now, most of us don’t live there. I’m saving more Open Water rant for August 20 when it gets wide release. In fact, there’s only two movies opening anywhere but the all powerful east and west coasts this weekend and one of them is Little Black Book. That’s great, because it makes my decision easy. Little Black Book is another of those horrible romantic comedies starring skank-ho Brittany Murphy. This one has a hackneyed plot that focuses around a Palm Pilot. Scratch it right off your list.  Collateral is the sure bet for weekend releases, being the best movie I’ve seen since Open Water and probably one of the best movies of the year to boot. After dropping the ball with Ali, Michael Mann has really pulled himself together to deliver one of the most electrifying and flat out smooth movie experiences of the year. Tom Cruise for the first time plays a bona fide villain, a convincing killer with cold hard eyes of doom. Jamie Foxx OWNS this film and will fast earn himself an Oscar if he keeps performing like this. Collateral, in any weekend would be the sort of movie that you just can’t miss. In a weekend with such weak competition, this is the movie that you MUST see.
Hey! Do you like working for free? Are you over 18? Do you secretly wish you could live the wild and exciting life of Michael Brody? You’re in luck. CinemaBlend.com is looking for writers, specifically the type interested in slogging it out on DVD’s or those with a flair for internet news stories. If you think you can capture the signature Cinema Blend style as a DVD critic and/or BNN reporter send me an with a few samples and we’ll talk. |
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