look at how goddamn ugly the stars are

[penfield]

"Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you've made is worth the misery of having to review it."
- Federico Fellini (Italian filmmaker)

For weeks, and from friends, family and strangers, I had been hearing about the transcendant cinematic experience is the film Juno. To hear people tell it, this movie cures cancer.

For example, village_twins could not have been more insistent with his praise, which is surprising because he should know that I am magnetically repelled by hype, particularly from the hipster set. In 2004 I saw the similarly indie-oriented "Garden State" at the dizzying apex of Zach Braff-mania and came away thoroughly unimpressed and irritated by the mass hysteria that had brought me there. I practically invented the Zach Braff-lash.

True, I've had my own romances with indie films -- I was one of the first people on the Crash train and aboard the Little Miss Sunshine microbus -- but I was early enough to those parties that I wasn't worn down by the endless word of mouth.

So Juno, which I found alluring when I first heard of it months ago and now apparently has Braff's semi-dried DNA all over it, suddenly had me wary.

But seeing as how the film has entered the pop culture vernacular to the point where I soon may not be able to have a conversation in English without it, J. and I decided to catch the 7:45 showing at E Street Cinema on Saturday night, before our 10 p.m. dinner reservation (my review of that experience is coming later this week).

We meant to get to the theater nice and early, but we were a little late leaving the apartment and got caught up in the Metro "Improvement" cluster-f#&k. By the time we arrived at 7:30, the show was sold out.

So, we were stuck in the city until our 10 p.m. suppertime with nothing to do. J. still wanted to see a movie, but none of the other films at E Street fit our timetable, so we walked over to the Regal Gallery Place Mega-Plex And Petulant Teenager Spawning Pool. We (meaning J., at that moment I was looking at my watch) settled on the only viable option the offered: Mad Money a post-feminist caper flick starring the perpetually sassy Queen Latifah, the reanimated corpse of Annie Hall and America's girl next door-turned-maritally lobotomized fembot.



I don't mean this to be a review of "Mad Money," but it is important for the purposes of this story that I explain what an incredibly awful movie it was. Despite being a film about grown-ups with grown-up problems in grown-up situations, every character talks, thinks and behaves like a third-grader. The premise (and attendant denouement) not only strains credulity, it is positively insulting on a logical, psychological, sociological, legal and fiscal level. The plot, conceivably based on the barely lucid imaginings of the criminally delusional, has more holes than 50 Cent's lucky undershirt. In fact, the one remarkable element of the story is that it is both totally ridiculous and entirely predictable at the same time.

The performances, admittedly limited by ham-fisted direction and a malnourished script, barely rise to the technical proficiency of most Muppets. The aesthetic was bland. Various (indeed, too various) stylistic conceits were muddled and derivative. The film's message, if you could hear it above the clanging, was morally repugnant. Other abortive attempts at conveying a social "message" were grounded in shallow digressions on race relations, gender relations and state of the global economy, and not one but two contrived, obligatory "girl power" moments paradoxically juxtaposed with a certain kind of man-made precipitation.

Making it worse -- in terms of my own viewing experience and my faith in the viewing public -- was the fact that the theater was almost entirely full by the time J. and I arrived, meaning that we had to sit in floor seats three rows from the screen. At times I felt as if I were trapped inside Queen Latifah's structurally imposing cleavage. I could not only see the various imperfections in the actors' and actresses' faces, I could see the actual imperfections in the movie screen itself. As a side note, couldn't movie theaters construct those floor seats to provide a little more recline and a bit better viewing angle? Yawning with a stiff neck can be painful.

J. and I invested a total of $21.00 in this movie, the artistic equivalent of a violent mugging. Perhaps that is the real "mad money." In any case, it will take at least a month, maybe more, for me to amortize the cost of this movie to the point were I can walk into a theater again. I'm probably just going to have to skip Juno, or wait until it is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and distributed to every American household in accordance with federal law.

But if it makes the Juno fans feel any better, I consider Mad Money to be the aesthetic, thematic and technical inverse of your typical indie film. So, logically, if I don't like not-Juno, maybe I like it after all, anyway.

Comments

Re: Other bad movies

[village-twins.livejournal.com]

Without saying why?

Did you ever ask why?

Re: Other bad movies

[enchanted-pants.livejournal.com]

I do recall asking, "what's so great about it?" But I admit that I wasn't really paying attention to the answer, as I was preoccupied with my burrito.