:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 ::

I saw quite a few movies last weekend. Friday night, I saw “Finding Nemo,” which despite being a kid’s film, was quite entertaining for grown ups as well. Chalk it up to the very clever writing. (Mine? Mine? MINE?!? I’ll never look at seagulls the same way.) All the voice acting done was very good, with Ellen DeGeneres’ turn as an amnesiac fish named Dory being quite funny.

On Sunday I saw "Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle." It was alternately very entertaining and very idiotic. One thing that struck me about this movie is that it completely, unabashedly pandered to the viewer in a manner similar to a nightmarishly needy date grabbing you by the collar and yelling "like me! I need you to like me! Please!!!" It was essentially one long music video with bits of acting interspersed among the videos. The visuals were nice but the writing, oh my gawd. It's the kind of movie where the makers thought they could get significant mileage from the name "Helen Zass." The only real motivation for me to see it was my long-standing crush on the luminous Cameron Diaz. She was decent in this role but it’s because she didn't have to do that much other than dance, act goofy, and look good. Lucy Liu was Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore was... surprisingly butch now that I think about it. She’s supposed to be the tomboyishly attractive girl with an attitude but she just struck me as rather androgynous. I haven't seen a character this gender ambiguous since... well... Crispin Glover's Creepy Thin Man character. So I wonder if it was coincidental (SPOILER WARNING for those who haven’t seen it yet) that a rather odd sexual tension developed between the two near the end of the movie. (END SPOILER WARNING.)

Actually, I was debating whether to see"Charlie’s Angels" or "2 Fast 2 Furious." While it never before occurred to me watch "2F2F," (because of my aversion towards that whole rice-rocket car culture) the friend I was seeing it with has a crush on Paul Walker and it was her birthday and I'm just that generous of a friend. That and the movie co-starred Eva Mendes who I think is more "caliente" than Jennifer Lopez so at least I had some eye candy to ogle. So we paid for and saw "Charlie’s Angels" and sneaked into "2F2F" afterwards to catch last hour or so. Cuz, that’s the kind of friend that I am ;)

A few thoughts on "2 Fast 2 Furious:" The character playing Suki has to be the most realistic looking CG-animated character I've ever seen. She made Gollum look like the donkey from "Shrek." Computer artists have really outdone themselves this time.

Paul Walker is, in my mind, the Second Coming of Keanu Reeves. His mannerisms, his monosyllabic line delivery, that deep, monotonous voice, everything reminded me of something Reeves might have done between "Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure" and "Point Break."

Is it me or was there some unintentional homoerotic tension between Paul Walker and Tyrese's characters? I don't get why Walker’s character would deny checking out a woman as attractive as Eva Mendes, or that Tyrese was looking at him with a facial expression resembling that of a spurned lover any time Mendes was involved. This despite that the fact that both characters are ostensibly heterosexual. Bad acting or bad directing? You tell me. Or maybe I have a funny way of enjoying bad movies.

Yeah, I actually enjoyed it since I knew going in that it might be one of those movies that are so bad that it’s actually fun to watch. I was chuckling at various onscreen missteps almost immediately and my friend repeatedly elbowed me telling me to shut up. Good naturedly, I think. But in the end she got her eye candy, I got to make fun of the movie so everyone came out a winner ;)

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 5:37 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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