Regretful Film Reviews

It's the new year in my part of the world. And what's more, we are starting with a clean slate (metaphysically speaking). This refreshing cycle makes it possible to access a higher state of consciousness -- which we immediately put to work by building an outdoor thatched-roof hut. Glass of havdalah wine in hand, we head outside following 26 hours of no food and drink, to start work with power tools.

It seems appropriate to stop focusing on negativity for once. Instead of roasting another movie that did everything wrong, I am going to talk about a few that did something right. (Don't worry, we'll be back to the harsh stuff next week.) Hence, the most memorable moments in cinema...

Pretty daring, huh? Obviously what follows is a subjective list of the film moments that were most memorable to me. This is based on no survey, although you are free to suggest your own. And I am not even claiming they were great moments. These were the moments that stuck in my mind for some reason, for a long time, and in some cases had a profound effect on my aesthetic. I cannot always say exactly why. But these are moments when, in my opinion, a filmmaker was doing something right. Something amazingly right. Something that makes me glad I sat through the whole film.

You might notice a trend or two. The sometimes skewed nature of the choices is just due to the selection of movies that I have and have not seen. One more thing: most of this is from memory, so there may be a few factual errors.

Here they are, in no particular order.

• Mark Walberg (as Eddie Adams/Dirk Diggler) slowly realises he really needs to get out of his current path in life, while waiting in a dealer's living room for a bag of fake heroin to be bought, in Boogie Nights.
  
  
• Elinor Dashwood (Emma Thompson) discovers her mistake about Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant)'s marital status in Sense and Sensibility.
  
  
• Tom Cruise (as Frank T.J. Mackey) holds the telephone on which Philip Seymour Hoffman (as Phil Parma) has managed to call him, and hesitating to talk to his father ,in Magnolia.
  
  
• Warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton) opens up Andy Dufresne's (Tim Robbins) Bible in Shawshank Redemption.
  
  
• Gérard Depardieu, as Cyrano de Bergerac, composes a sonnet while sword-fighting in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's film named for that character.
  
  
• Robin Williams goes back into the crumbling house with his wife Annabella Sciorra in What Dreams May Come.
  
  
• Jean Réno taking the NY subway after his day job in Léon (a.k.a. The Professional)
  
  
• Jacques Mayol (Jean-Marc Barr)'s underwater dream in Le Grand Bleu.
  
  
• Sean Connery eating steak in The Hunt for Red October (and calmly stating, "Personally, I give us... one chance in three").
  
  
• Neo getting up off the floor in The Matrix.
  
  
• "The Frog" Jean-Baptiste (Cris Campion) and Princess María-Dolores de la Jenya de la Calde (Charlotte Lewis) floating apart in separate boats at the end of Roman Polanski's Pirates.
  
  
• Mel Gibson realising his daughter's glasses of water are not such a nuisance, in Signs.
  
  
• Depardieu, as Christopher Columbus, beginning to dictate his memoirs to his son in 1492. ("I remember...", he says, and drops of ink fall from his son's pen.)
  
  
• Marcel Proust (Marcello Mazzarella)'s face liquifing, from sobreity to grief, in Le Temps Retrouvé.
  
  
• Mandy Patinkin declaring "My Name is Inigo Montoya", in The Princess Bride. Oh, and the Cliffs of Insanity.
  
  
• Jenny (Robin Wright Penn) throwing rocks at her childhood home in Forrest Gump.
  
  
• Tom Hanks losing Wilson in Cast Away.
  
  
• Depardieu, (again) playing a piano solo in Green Card.
  
  
• Braveheart (Mel Gibson, again) gets a chance to recant, and instead cries out "Freedom".
  
  
• André Ziman's wife Elise sings "I'm in Heaven" to her husband, along with the radio, in Claude Lelouche's Les Misérables.
  
  
• Wind in His Hair shouts to Dances with Wolves (Kevin Costner) from a ledge above, as the latter leaves the tribe.
  
  
• Val Kilmer, as Doc Holliday, showing up at a duel with a marshall's badge, in Tombstone. ("I'm your huckleberry.")
  
  
• Bill Murray, in What about Bob?, cheerfully continuing to take Richard Dreyfus' advice as metaphor, after being tied with ropes to a chair in the forest.
  
  
• Jim Carrey, in the Truman Show, starting to suspect something.
  
  
• Kiefer Sutherland (as Dr. Daniel Schreber) refreshing a few childhood memories for Rufus Sewell (as John Murdoch), in Dark City.
  
  
• Bill Murray filming his whisky advert "with intensity", in Lost in Translation.
  
  
• Robert Duvall arguing with God in The Apostle.
  
  
• Winona Ryder writing furiously in her journal, in Heathers.
  
  
• Charles Berling (Grégoire) riding his horse across the French plains in Ridicule.
  
  
• Audrey Tautou leading the blind man across the block in Paris, in le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain.
  
  
• The Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Glenn Close), explaining to Vicomte Sébastien de Valmont (John Malkovich), how she trained herself to hide her feelings by stabbing herself with a fork under the table, in Dangerous Liaisons.
  
  
• Tom Hulce as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, dictating his Requiem mass to F. Murray Abraham (Antonio Salieri).
  
  
• Steve Martin and John Candy think the drivers who are in the opposite lane on the highway cannot possibly know which way they are going ("Thank you!") (Planes, Trains, and Automobiles).
  
  
• Robin Williams (again), telling Matt Damon "It's not your fault", in Good Will Hunting.
  
  
• Steve Buscemi's opening narrative in Desperado.
  

Just what are the laws of attraction (not to be confused with the Rules of Attraction, the Rules, or the Code)?

I'll tell you, dear reader, because this took a lot of figuring out. Apparently the secret connexion between the title of this film and its contents is that the principle characters are lawyers. Hence, the "Laws" of attraction!

And that is about as deep as this movie gets. Not that it needs to be deep. Hey, maybe viewers just want a simple laugh with popcorn once in a while, no brains required. Maybe viewers want to watch two highly famous actors, Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan, argue and flirt, and argue and flirt some more, and perhaps hit it off, and perhaps get married, and argue a lot more, and perhaps fall in love, and argue some more, because it's just so darned cute to see mature adults carry on like that!

But maybe, precisely because these two are such mature, seasoned actors we can allow ourselves expect more? If the romantic comedy genre must exist, and I think it does, then we might anticipate a variety of characters, represented by a variety of actors. Those on the bottom of the echelon can be stereotypical, for all I care. You know, hen I see a movie with an actor from Friends, I don't care if it's the same basic character, just with a different name. If Adam Sandler is in the billing, I'm not disappointed if it's the same old shtick. But Julianne Moore doesn't need to do their job. She should be above that.

Admittedly, this film had genuinely funny moments. But I saw a lot more moments that were obviously supposed to be humorous, but which depended upon the audience sacrificing an awful lot of their good sense in order to accept.

The plot and its many details are about as realistic as the First Wives' Club, and are apparently directed at the same demographic group. I hesitated to make such a cruel comparison, and almost did not type it. But that is the purpose of this website. FWC was perhaps my first glimpse at full-bore stupidity in the guise of a narrative about intelligent women.

The story: Julianne Moore, doing her best Andy McDowell simple-country-girl accent, has ever lived in the shadow of her socialite mother, Frances Fisher, who is doing her best Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy-Onassis accent. This actress, by the way, was the evil, selfish mother of Kate Winslet in Titanic, but now she is the doting, "go gettim' girl" mother of Moore, who is only a few years younger in real life. (Funny: that Jackie-O accent comparison arrived at to me by my own analysis, before I saw her filmography. Take a look at #11.) Anyway, Moore is a an anal-retentive divorce attourney who is serious about breaking up marriages when it becomes clear that they are finished. Pierce Brosnan is an apparently scatterbrained divorce attourney who becomes her opponent.

Brosnan's character is inexplicable. We have no indication of where his motivations come from, or whether he believes anything he actually says. He is sort of like Wally in the Dilbert comic strip. You know, the middle-aged loser with deplorable social mores, who gets his thrills taking advantage of everyone else. But there is a twist somewhere, at which point Brosnan becomes likeable. No reason given, mind you. He claims to be in love at one or two points, and we wonder, Is he really? How would we know? How would he know?

The answer: it doesn't matter. It's Pierce Brosnan, and the women are all sucked in by this point by his devastating looks, despite everything else.

The deepest indication of his character is that he seems to prefer patching up a broken marriage rather than purusing divorce. And since that was the focal point of George Clooney's character in Intolerable Cruelty, all I can say is, there is little originality here.

(Side note: I am not accusing anyone of plagiarism. But I have noticed an awful lot of movies in the past two years with repeated themes, or even complete scenes borrowed from one another. Or at least gimmics. See a gimmic once and it's "fresh". See it again in a movie made at the same time, + or - 6 months, and something is fishy. See my upcoming postings on some very regrettable films, Cradle 2 the Grave and Bad Boys 2. Why is this? Is it just the coincidence of cultural streams, or is there a lot of saliva being swapped in Hollywood writers' workshops?)

The worst part of this film is the fact-finding junket that both Moore and Brosnan take, flying to Ireland. The landscape is predictably beautiful, and the milieu is sufficiently romantic enough for the emotional mishaps that are supposed to take place. But the Irish are pitilessly ridiculed here. You would think this was made back in the 1950s, when it was okay to paint an entire nationality with one brush, making them all buffoons. For those who would enjoy the scenery but want a romantic comedy that is not so insulting, I recommend The Englishman who Went up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain.

The characters whom they are ostensibly divorcing are horrible. One is supposed to be a British rockah; his wife is supposed to be a highly successful clothing designer. Fine, that's not bad writing. The dude is seen in concert, spitting out Satan Metal, but generally he's a nice guy who just can't keep his pants zipped up. The woman who plays his wife is one of the worst acts I've seen in a long time. Hardly convincing. Must be a struggling actress's first time....

Geez louise, it's Parker Posey! What the **** happened here?!

The flow is not unified; it is mostly just a series of gags. Did you buy that one? Okay, so you'll buy this one. Did she really drink that? Okay, so you will laugh when she is making others drink it later on.

One nagging question remained for me at the end. I know it is not so crucial, but I just want to see if anyone else noticed it. At one point, Audrey Woods' mother, Sara Miller, says that she had to pull a big favour with her friends. She's admitting that she was responsible for something that happened a little bit earlier in the story. At the moment, this something was perceived as a crisis, but it later led to the Audrey and Daniel romantic leads to do something drastic. Audrey, and presumably the audience, finds this stunt cute and caring. I had to wonder, though, if the consequences were really all that good in retrospect. Why didn't Audrey react in fury, "Do you know how much trouble you have caused me?!" But somehow she thinks it is all fine. Why?

Because it's just so darned cute to see mature adults carry on like that.

A few notes before we get on to our next cinematic failure.

1. After much consideration, the name of my female Orthodox informant is being changed from "Madame N" to "Mlle N". "Mlle" is of course short for Mademoiselle, which is somewhat more flattering than the matronly, brothel-managing connotations that come with calling her "Madame".


2. I am writing several reviews simultaneously, and they will be published as I complete them. They are guaranteed to be huge disappointments. But then, that's the point.


3. I don't know why the hits on this page are so high, but thanks!

I have come to the conclusion, after watching this movie, that Indians living in diaspora are basically Persian Jews with bare midriffs (bared only on formal occasions, mind you). The almost excessive politeness they practice with guests, the emphasis on family honour, the picture of the bearded Baba on the wall, the equation of "learning to cook like mother" with "coming of age", and the religious devotion can only be found in... well, almost any Sephardic clan, but especially Iranian Jews. But I suppose you could find parallels elsewhere.

It almost happens in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, for example. The religious identity is a bit toned down in that one, because Greeks are more from the West than from the East, and they are Christians, after all. But if you saw the scene of John Corbett being baptised, you'll remember that that movie went for ethnic-wierdness laughs with the religious angle, too.

And as long as we're making the comparison... It is perhaps inevitable that films like Bend it like Beckham and MBFGW will boil down to one or two basic plots:

1. An family with a high-level ethnic identity, but in exile from that country, faces the challenges of Dominant Anglo culture.


2. One of their children (usually the daughter) will want to marry someone from outside that culture.


3. Clashes occur and hilarity ensues, and parental authority is weighted against their offspring's independence, but in the end, everyone learns a valuable life lesson.

That can only be funny and original so many times. After a while, ethnicities in the English-language film industry are going to have to start coming up with some other issues. (oops, I forgot to turn on the <irony> tag. Obviously they do have other issues. Obviously someone is ready to write a novel script about them. It just remains for us to see the finished product.)

I used to pick up a monthly magazine marketed to the Indian-American population in Atlanta, which was distributed for free in organic grocery stores such as Earth Fare and Whole Foods. It was written in English, ostensibly. I could barely read it. Not that the writing was bad; it seemed to be great for those who knew about these cultural subjects already.

But that is probably what it is like for a standard goy to pick up a copy of the Jewish Times. Or better yet, a parshah sheet full of dialectal yeshivish, but trying to explain a story known to everyone, like the story of Noah and the ark. You feel like Lisa Simpson looking at the marquee for a Yahoo Serious Festival: "I know those words, but that sign makes no sense."

The fact is that I like Indians, and believe they have a lot of interesting facets to their culture that the Western world could possibly benefit from if they apprehended it. Unfortunately, encounters with them in diaspora are usually limited to seeing them in the [excrement] jobs they are working in while pursuing the American Dream (or its British equivalent, perhaps).

One more personal anecdote. In my last year of university I was a graduate resident assistant in a dormitory. My job was part of a programme that encouraged students of French or Spanish to speak those languages exclusively: a French house and a Spanish house, in other words (it's still going strong, aparently; see the official site here). But we "immersion" students were on one floor, and on the floors above and below us were normal U.Ga. students, who were not part of the language experiment bubble. Two of the residents in the floor above me were of Indian origin and were somewhat religious, and they became my best friends outside of the language community. One of them, a contagiously happy girl named Aperna, casually explained to me that she did not intend to date until her Baba chose a husband for her. She was a miracle baby, and had been born against all medical expectations, until her parents went to see a Baba, who told them that they would indeed have a daughter, and that they would name her Aperna. So she trusted him with the big decisions. Like I said: Jews.

Their religious convictions appeared to be monotheistic and seemed, strangely, neither to contradict Christianity or Judaism. I do not know if this is part of a syncretic truth dating back to the yeshivah of Shem and Ever (inside reference there; don't fret if you don't get it), or if it is just their way of assimilating into monotheistic society. Supposedly India is the last holdout for polytheism, which is why Israeli soldiers head directly there for a spiritual experience, after they finish their tour of duty. But best of all, these Indian Americans I knew did not pursue converts, and saw their religion mostly as a family tradition that they, and not outsiders, were obligated to. I can deal much better with that, than with a religion that puts up a front of tolerance, but is secretly waiting for the chance to invite you to a "really cool" Bible study or to ask you to read a leaflet.

Back to the movie. My re-subscription to a DSL connexion got me one free movie on the ISP's online-low-res-video selection (complete with Hebrew subtitles). Madame N M^lle N and I had already seen Whale Rider (2002), and had enjoyed its subtle bizarreness enough to try this comedy, which had somehow been compared to WR one in reviews. So we used the freebie on this one, expecting something like a fun treatment of Indian exiles' issues in British society, mixed with a young girl's confrontation with tradition. That's what it looks like, right?

There were several directions this 112-minute movie could possibly go. If you haven't seen it yet, try to predict some plots with me:

• The daughter of an orthodox Sikh family rebels against her parents' traditionalism by running off to Germany with a football team. (So says the description on IMDB.)
  
• A British girl, who happens to be of an ethnic minority, is really good playing football, and can only compete against guys until a bona fide girls team becomes available.
  
• A Sikh family tries to marry off their daughter to another Indian family of higher economic status. There are some obstacels, but in the end, it's a great wedding.
  
• A comedy of errors causes a religious family to become ashamed, and the engagement of their daughter broken, when one of their children is mistaken for being too loose with the guys.
  
• A white British girl is a good football player, pleasing her father, but causing her highly sexuality-minded mother to despair at the thought that she is not attracting enough boys and is, in all probability, a lesbian.
  
• An Irishman faces prejudice in England, so he can relate to Indians.
  
• A teenage athlete has to face the embarrassment of wearing shorts because she has a large scar on her leg, but is comforted by the fact that her coach also has a scar on his leg.
  
• A coach has big regrets about his relationship with his father, who expected him to be a great athlete rather than a coach.
  
• Several British teenagers idolise David Beckham, to the point that one builds a shrine to him on her wall and speaks to him like a baba. But one of them loves Beckham a little bit too much.
  
• The teenage daughter of a Sikh family is not yet ready for dating, but thinks she had better force herself to get an Indian boyfriend in order to keep her parents happy.
  
• The ethnic father of an aspiring athlete has to face his own difficult past, since he was the object of prejudice in his own athletic aspirations as a young man.
  
• Two female athletes, who are otherwise friends, compete for the romantic attentions of their male coach, and their friendship is endangered.
  
• A British teenager from a close-knit family wants to go to college in the U.S.
  
• A boy from a traditionally religious family and community is gay, and must hide it.
  
• An engaged couple from religious families are actually in love and make out regularly in a parked car away from both families, but their families know about it after all.
  

I'm sure I could think of a few more plots; the fact is that they were all there in that one movie. The result was that a few characters were developed while the supporting actors were left in the dust (check out the personalities on the girls soccer team, for instance), and that the struggles and issues at hand were, well, cliché. I know what Gurinder Chadha was trying to do; she was trying to wrap up all these teenage-ethnic-love-sports-gender issues into one curry-spiced burrito, preparing ethnic problems for Western tastes. To this end, there are some genuinely funny scenes, and some nice scenes of Indian celebrations and traditional behaviour. But the major mistake that Chadha made was not believing in the richness of that ethnic identity to carry the film. Instead, she had to throw in the whole pile of coming-of-age-comedy-drama stuff from the war reels.

E.g.:

• Girls go shopping! (with a horrible soundtrack -- loud and sucky retro-pop that mars an otherwise cool collection of snippets of Indian pop)
  
  
• The ugly duckling dresses up in her friends clothes and turns out to be drop-dead gorgeous, attracting the prince to kiss her!
  
  
• The angry father goes down to stop his daughter from an activity that he disapproves of, but instead ends up enjoying it!
  
  
• And a celebrity cameo! (but seen from afar, making me think this part was filmed like Chubby Rain in Bowfinger).

And the list goes on. All this story lacks is a scene with Slow Clap and a good moralising speech by a former celebrity, and we would have another teen movie.

Look, some of it works. There is an effort to do something original here. Some of the characters are genuinely interesting, and we would like to see more of them and their feelings. The ugly-duckling thing works; but there was no point in it. We like Jess and we see her attractiveness just from her personality; we don't need to see her turned into a sex object. (Or for that matter, we don't need to see that done to her friend Jules, as is done in a gut-wrenching disco scene. Considering the prudisheness practiced in the girls locker room changing scene, I was shocked at Jules' overt mating dance at this point.)

But the overabundance of subplots does not lend to complexity or character development. It just demonstrates lack of confidence in the core story. And it's confusing; just when you thought one real issue was about to be dealt with, along comes another plot twist from another movie. Chadha needs to focus from now on. And audiences need to learn not to clap their hands just because a few good scenes are thrown at them. And Parminder Nagra deserves to go on to better things.

Oy va voy! What a stinker that flick was! What am I watching here, cinema or chopped liver?! I feel so guilty now!

If that's the kind of discourse you are expecting from a blog called "Regretful Film Reviews", written by an Orthodox Jewish man, then you are in the wrong place.

I just wanted to set the record clear there. The purpose of this site is twofold: (1) praise films that are well-thought-out works of art and give us something substantial to think about and (2) roast the movies that insult our intelligence and waste our time (and money). The title comes from the latter category, which I am afraid is going to be more numerous. (From the notes that I have already jotted down, it's heading that way.)

Why "Regretful"? Because wasting time is like a capital offense for those of us whose lives... (sorry, can't avoid it) answer to a higher authority.

You want a more elaborate answer? Here it is.

<seriousness>

Since moving to Israel in August of 2003, I have been integrating into 'harédi life and yeshivah study. For those of you who do not know what this word "'harédi"means, I'll tell you. Literally, it means fearful, as one who is trembling before God. In practice, however, that translation is not necessarily accurate. It has social and political implications: it is the world of Jewish people who are striving to keep the commandments in the Torah to the best of their abilities and live lives that constantly reflect this purpose. Basically, as if it were possible to sum up such a life, that means constantly studying the Torah and its infinite teachings, while trying to apply them to one's daily life, and avoiding activities and influences that detract from this sense of higher purpose. Of course, the teaching and specific application of those rules are handed down from rabbinic authorities. So a constant awareness of these teachings does indeed keep one busy. The most popular places for the diffusion and understanding of these teachings is in the yeshivah (Torah school) or in the synagogue.

I am not saying it is a perfect system, but in some ways it is an efficient one for education in and practice of our holy sources. And a person who lives here is constantly reminded of this ongoing activity. But one can also forget all those "distractions" and influences that lie outside of the domain of the yeshivah or the synagogue. For example, secular studies are not encouraged or celebrated, except to the extent to which they may lead to making a living. Studying a trade is fine, but studying liberal arts is not so cool. Eventually one chooses either to be part of of the system, for all of its benefits and drawbacks, or not. And for what it's worth, I have chosen to live this life. Sort of. I love living in Jerusalem, and I love studying the Torah, and this is a prime place to do it. Someone who thinks they can show me otherwise, by all means: try.

But I'm not saying I avoid learning secular subjects -- to the contrary. In this society it is easy to lose touch with the outside world, which only drizzles its way into Jerusalem life occasionally and in often undesirable ways (clothing design, for example -- boys are wearing clothes that were designed for Brazilian women in the 1970s, and porn-star sunglasses). A person like me who has some background in academics and the liberal arts may have a longing, once in a while, to reeducate himself with current events and keep up with what is going on, despite the danger of this distraction. So I do engage in one forbidden activity: watching films.

In a way, it's sort of my business. Not my "trade", exactly, but they are a form of literature. And that is my academic field (I passed my doctoral comps in the corpus of French literature, for crimeny. I could be a literature professor by now, if I could just get to a research library, and land the position of course. And I've been branching out to this Semitic stuff for several years now, with some familiarity with its writings...) I love literature, and I love analysing it. And I love producing it, but that remains to be proven. So in addition to enjoying a good story, I am enjoying it on many levels. And while some may watch films for their basic content, I am running plot-debugging scripts.

Not that I'm special. I know people who are exponentially more talented in this domain than I am. I'm just the one writing the blog right now.

I do not think that film-viewing should be a forbidden activity. And I think that it is a recent ruling issued only with those persons in mind who think they are prepared to streamline their lives for 100% Torah-Related Activities. (The feasibility of that in itself is a debatable concept. Cf. the lives of the Rishonim, ahem.) Or those who really do not know how to choose, and are going to make bad (really bad) decisions if given the leeway to watch anything. Not that that's my business. So, yes, I watch some films, even against the objections of bittul zman (waste of time). But I also believe that watching and being engaged by a quality cinematic experience is analogous to reading a good book, albeit shorter, and involving less brain-power. Usually.

Alarms are going off everywhere as frum people read this. Are you implying that the rishonim would have watched today's movies? that they would have wallowed in Hollywood's gutters of foul language and sex? So, (1) of course not. Different times, different issues. But (2) sex in today's Hollywood is a lot less prolific, and less offensive, than the violence portrayed.

I have been trying to indoctrinate my Israeli 'harédia secret companion (known heretofore as Madame N M^elle N), not on stereotypical American-male cinema taste, but rather on the films that I have enjoyed most throughout the years growing up in America. Especially those who have influenced me heavily, and from which I have derived important lessons about the construction of good fiction. She has seen considerably fewer movies, and is still impressed by some plot devices that to me are old-hat, but our taste often falls along the same lines.

For the record, she was educated in the Beit Ya'akov HaYashan "seminary", which is the premier training ground for 'Harédi Israeli women.

So we try to educate ourselves with a few hours of well-done cinema here and there, something the 'harédim are not supposed to do -- so sue me. We have also used our subscription to the DVD store to try to find a few entertaining new titles along the way. And sometimes that is where the problem comes in. Because I have been hugely disappointed too many times. Just within this year I have realised that my standards have been jacked up way too high. Either that, or filmmakers are just letting their standards down. Probably it's a combination of both.

Upshot: they are often a waste of time. Oh, the cruel irony! So I regret both the waste of time and the brain clutter that they have produced.

What is most disappointing? Probably that which educated film-viewers and students of the cinema have long been aware of, long before me. My biggest complaints:

• Lack of plot originality,


• Plots that contradict themselves because they are not well enough though-out,


• Unrealistic details that insult the audience's intelligence and its willing suspension of disbelief,


• And downright insulting character portraits and plot techniques that go for the easy payoff, rather than giving the audience something to think about.

So this blog is here for the purpose of critiquing these movies as badly as they have disappointed me. Take note, Hollywood stupidity: your days are numbered. I am here to blow your cover, make the paying public more demanding, and destroy your easy business!

[sound of crickets chirping]