In-Flight Movie Rant Rant Rant

[Squishy]

In-flight!...where you're trapped in the theatre for eight to eleven hours!

Stupidest Move An Airline Can Make These Days: The first movie scheduled on my flight to Japan was--and I am not making this up--What's The Worst That Could Happen? It was replaced by the Minnie Driver/David Duchovny romance Return To Me, ironically answering, in its own way, the question posed by the originally-scheduled title. Crap-flavored truffle.

Would You Like Some Salt With That Head Wound? The second movie was Dr. Dolittle 2. Step One: write down enough plot to fill a thirty-minute long TV episode. Step Two: throw plot into a powerful fan. Step Three: reassemble plot in the order you pick the scraps up off the floor. Step Four: remember--audiences love animal urine! Show lots of it! This will help fill up the rest of the movie. p**s your head off! A tension-devoid subplot about a dog getting laid, and another about a chameleon who can't change color. Oh, joy, I can't wait to see it again.

That's Better... Flight was a little long, so we got to see Greenfingers too. Surprise! Pretty predictable and sometimes clumsy as hell, but I didn't expect a Brit movie about prison-lifers trying to become show-winning gardeners (yes, gardeners, stop laughing at me) to not suck, so that was pretty amazing. Engaging, funny, well-acted by everyone but Helen Mirren (!).

Ooh, A "Theme" Double-Feature for the way back. Anachronism theatre!

(1) Moulin Rouge!

The Good News: Visually stunning. That goes for the direction, the sets, the special effects, and especially Nicole Kidman, who looks so good I wanted to eat the screen. Go-for-broke humor and wackily-misplaced songs will keep you giggling. The bit players are outrageous.

The Bad News: a lot of it is the script's fault, but not all of it--Ewan MacGregor IS Brendan Fraser...without all the charm and masculinity. I've never seen a whiny simp insist on making such a public Spectactle Spectactle of his spinelessness and stupidity in my life--again and again and again, and one more time at the climax. The soup-thin plot features every single idiot cliche in the book, including a major plot element that was made into a joke by Love Story OVER THIRTY YEARS AGO*, along with that whole "hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold" fartcloud. The oddball surprise comedy in the script and the modern songs and effects can't hide the fact that the main plot is strictly Old Hat Crap. Look, this is the story: Idiot New Boy "reforms" (Beautiful But) Slimy Hooker, and then they rub everyone's nose in their "romance,"  including people they need in order to succeed--and are shocked to find out people resent being jerked around. Huh, didn't see that coming. And every time everything's just getting sorted out, MacGregor's character f***s it all up again because he's thinking with the wrong head. Tragedy abounds--but when it's largely the victims' own fault, who gives a rat's ass? Romea & Juliet can get away with that because it was written back in caveman days; Moulin Rouge! was supposed to have been written in the past decade or so.

See it for the visuals, and to roll your orbs at the "plot." Warning: John Leguizamo, playing another "cute" midget. You have been warned.

(2) A Knight's Tale

No surprises except one: for all the WWF-style hoohah, this was so much better than I thought it would be, I would almost call it...good. Almost. It's just dumb fluff, but it's entertaining for ninety-minutes. The script does avoid one cliche that Moulin Rouge! didn't get to exploit: the hero is after a princess, ignoring the less-fancy-but-smarter-and-more-faithful babe on his little support team; and not only does the princess NOT betray the hero, the low-income babe DOESN'T get the Main Prize. Not crappy--and given the other shocking disasters I sat through on these two flights, that's a very, very, very good thing.



*Oh, come on, you know which plot element I mean. Kidman's character, Satine, is diagnosed with "consumption" early on, and regularly faints, falls down a lot, and coughs up blood frequently--so it's not really a spoiler to reveal that she kicks off. The shocker is, she has no idea she's dying until she's at the stage she should be bedridden, and even then it's only because someone TELLS her. Beautiful and stupid as a rock--I think I'm in love. And by the time this cliche-parade winds down to a sputter, you fully expect her to croak three seconds after saving her "love" in the middle of the stage at the climax--which is exactly what she does. "Consumption" is Old School for cancer, but Satine continues to look fantastic and performs athletic feats with the occasional "accident" to remind us she's dying--we get a reminder every ten minutes or so, thank you--and just all of a sudden she blows a wad of blood onto Fraser (um, MacGregor)'s shirt, says her line, and gets really, really quiet. This movie was written by grown-ups--believe it...or not. Greenfingers has a dying old man, who proceeds to die--but it's not a "surprise," he (and everyone else) knows it going to happen, it's not the zenith of the plot, he hero doesn't bawl and blubber his guts out hysterically, and yet it's about seventy times sadder than Kidman's passing in Moulin Rouge! Go figure.

[Mofo Rising]

Not to undermine the rest of your rant, which was pretty entertaining, but "consumption" is "old school" for "tuberculosis".

Here's an interesting article regarding consumption and the works of Poe.  Don't now its validity, but it's interesting.

http://users.aol.com/paulcllins/respoe.html

[Squishy]

Ah, well, I was...close? Still, TB or cancer, either way you don't run around like a thoroughbred for weeks--with occasional sniffles and phlegm--and then suddenly keel over dead. Watching Moulin Rouge! might. We'll see.

And that should'a been Romeo, not "Romea." Hey, I spent twenty of the last seventy-two hours in flight, and I don't sleep well in the air. I'm lucky my brain's functioning at all. Durrrrrrrr

Mr. Cranky (mrcranky.com) tears Moulin Rouge! another well-deserved bunghole, and both Cranky and Movie Pooper (moviepooper.com--warning, a spoiler site) point out plot holes in Don't Say A Word that Rusty Nail could drive his damn rig through--sideways. (Cranky also wallops the crap outta Rusty's Joy Ride. I love Mr. Cranky. We must have the exact same kind of corn cob stuck up our a*****.)

[BoyScoutKevin]

That is why I never watch in-flight movies. Not only do they never have anything that I want to see, but, they edit out all the good parts. By that, I mean the violence, sex, profanity, and especially the nudity. If I get the headphones, I use them to listen to the in-flight music. Though, there again, it is getting to the point, there is seldom anything I want to listen to. Enjoy

[Abby]

I enjoyed "Moulin Rouge," but the consumption bit creeped me out. I kept saying, "No Ewan! Stop! Don't kiss her! She's contagious!!"

Every in-flight movie I've ever seen sucked, though I rarely take flights long enough to warrant in-flight flicks. "Holy Man," "Golf Punks," and "Lucky Numbers" were the last three movies I was offered on an airplane. "Golf Punks" made me want to pull a John Lithgow/William Shatner/Twilight Zone move.

[Squishy]

Golf Punks? Holy crap. Gee, I wonder why I've never heard of that one? Coming soon: Bumper Pool Dumbasses Go Nutzoid! Also: Summer Catch II. (Just kidding, put the gun down.)

Don't get me wrong, I dwell on the negative aspects of Moulin Rouge! but I would recommend it for at least one viewing. It has, I suppose, something to p**s off everyone--one reviewer roasted it over the altered songs, for example; I didn't mind that so much, even if tweaking the lyrics for two guys singing "Like A Virgin" about a third party got a bit desparate. I'm just glad it tanked at the box office (the US gross just scraped the budget back) so the director and try to get his head on straight.

...it worked so well for Jan DeBont, Renny Harlin, and Michael Cimino. :)

And I would also recommend Greenfingers.

[Abby]

Well, while I enjoyed Moulin Rouge, it did leave the impression that either people would love it or hate it. Frankly, I admire the "singular vision"  quality of the film and its director. I only wish I could convice someone to hand ME several million dollars to make a movie for myself.

I believe Tom Arnold starred in "Golf Punks." You understand why I equate the film with a vicious Twilight Zone gremlin bent on destruction.