MISERY: An Apology To My Mother-In-Law

Starring James Caan, Kathy Bates, Lauren Bacall, Richard Farnsworth, Frances Sternhagen. Directed by Rob Reiner. (1990, 107 min).

I'm one of the few married guys (that I know, anyway) who actually likes his mother-in-law. We get along pretty well. During the past 24 years I've been married to her daughter, Francie, she's always been gracious, caring and loving. And considering when she met me I was jobless, partied a lot, had no car and dressed like one of the guys from Whitesnake, she was able to overlook my many faults simply because I made her daughter happy. In ensuing years after Francie and I got married, I've done her the same solid by overlooking her tendency to clean our house whenever she visits.

But back in 1987, after being kicked out of college for smoking dope on campus, I was living in a tiny one bedroom apartment by night, looking for a job - any job - by day. During this time, I started dating Francie, probably the hottest girl to ever express interest in me, which even-then struck me as strange, considering she looked and acted like someone who'd gravitate toward college jocks and studs. I was neither, but she later informed me her initial attraction was because I seemed different & dangerous compared to guys she usually dated. She was also under the impression that I was a rebellious rich kid.

Different? Yeah. Dangerous? Hah! Rich? My parents had already had enough of my bullshit and stopped sending me money. A perpetually-stoned loser? Without a doubt. But we got along really great and laughed a lot when we were together.

Although I was able to land a cooking job shortly after being kicked out of school, my income was only enough to pay my rent and buy food. In order to continue dating Francie, I often shoplifted VHS movies and sold them to a pawn shop, continuing the facade that I was rolling in money. But even after that whole ruse fell apart, Francie still loved me.

Anyway, between paying rent and dating Francie, I had very little discretionary income, and spent a lot of my nights reading, my only affordable entertainment (and yes, I shoplifted most of the books I read...there was nothing on Earth easier to steal back then). One of the books I read during those dark times was Stephen King's Misery, the story of a popular romance writer, Paul Sheldon, who is rescued from a violent car crash by Annie Wilkes, a psychotic fan of his novels. She starts nursing him back to health, but upon discovering that he kills her favorite character in his most recent book, she keeps him captive and demands that he brings her back by writing a new novel.

It's a riveting book, one of King's most suspenseful, and I read it all in a single evening. I also made the mistake of telling Francie about it.

Have you ever read a story and, despite the author's description of a character, you picture someone you know in that role? I'd been dating Francie for about a month and had met her mother (Fran) one or two times. For some reason, when I first read Misery, I pictured Fran as Annie Wilkes.

I told Francie about the book and that I pictured her mother as Annie. Francie didn't take offense. In fact, she laughed hysterically after taking my copy and reading it herself, which she then passed to her mom.

As much as I love Francie, one of her true fallacies was not always keeping things to herself. Francie promptly told her mom I envisioned as her Annie Wilkes.

By this time, I was starting to take my relationship with Francie seriously, and couldn't think of a worse bit of info for her to share with her mom, considering I hadn't been leaving the greatest of impressions thus far.

Fortunately for me, Fran has a great sense of humor. After reading the book herself, she jokingly started calling me "Mr. Man" (how Annie addressed Paul Sheldon when she was upset). I don't know if Fran remembers this now, but it was at this time I knew she was an awesome lady.

Like nearly all Stephen King stories, Misery was later adapted into a movie by Rob Reiner. As a huge fan of King, I'm as critical as everyone else regarding movies based on his books, and have to say, along with The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist, Misery is one of the better ones.

SPIDER!  I'LL GET 'IM!

In fact, Reiner's version actually improves on the book, most notably during the always-hard-to-watch hobbling scene. In the book, Annie simply chops off Paul's foot. But since bloody gore isn't nearly as effective as showing body parts distorted into impossible angles, watching Wilkes hammer both ankles into submission remains one of the all-time nastiest moments in movie history.

Still, because of the baggage I carried from the original story, it was difficult to separate Annie Wilkes from my mother-in-law. Sure, Kathy Bates nailed it and totally deserved her Oscar for the role. But for me, based on what I was thinking as I read the original novel, Fran was Annie. As far as I know, Fran was never an actor, not even in high school theater. Too bad, because she would have been as awesome as Anthony Perkins playing Norman Bates.

Today, the rest of the world cannot picture anyone else besides Kathy Bates in this iconic role, and I’m probably the only one who once thought his mother-in-law would have been better.

20 Things We Learn From Watching INDEPENDENCE DAY

Starring Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Margaret Colin, Vivica A. Fox, Mary McDonnell, Judd Hirsch, Robert Loggia, Randy Quaid, James Rebhorn, Adam Baldwin. Directed by Roland Emmerich. (1996, 145 min).

1. Dogs are able to outrun massive, rolling fireballs.

2. When someone informs you she is a dancer, it is natural to assume she means ballet.

3. Even though they traveled "90 billion miles to get all rowdy,"  aliens will still rely on our clunky little statellites to wage their attack.

4. Jet fighters can bank on a fucking dime. Well, at least Will Smith can. Harry Connick, Jr...not so lucky.

5. Even though these creatures are wearing protective bio-mechanical suits, it is possible to knock them unconscious with a single punch without breaking every bone in your hand.

6. The United States is a much smaller country than we were taught in school, because even though most of these characters are separated by thousands of miles, they are all able to converge at one strategic spot within just a few hours.

7. Smoking cigars makes you cool.

8. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin must have watched the original V television series when they were younger. (see below)

 

V - The Original Series

Independence Day

9. It is possible for a human being (Will Smith, at least) to expertly fly an alien fighter simply because he's “seen these things in action” one time (I guess that means Smith can race in the next Daytona 500 if he wants).

10. The rest of the world will wait around helplessly for Americans come up with a plan to defeat the invaders, because America knows how to handle this shit.

11. Along with Air Force One, this is the kind of movie that Bill O’Reilly probably masturbates to.

12. An alien race, which has mastered interstellar travel and developed technology to commit worldwide genocide, but apparently has never heard of virus protection software, can be rendered defenseless by a single nerd with a laptop...

13. ...said-laptop is an Apple computer, which is so versatile you can plug it right into the dashboard of an alien ship.

14. It is impossible to set timers on nuclear weapons past thirty seconds...

15. ...but that’s okay, because thirty seconds takes a hell of a lot longer to elapse in outer space than it does on Earth.

16. You can destroy every major city on Earth, wipe out 90% of the military and kill millions of people, but still have a happy ending.

17. You can make a huge, dumb, audience-rousing blockbuster that isn't mostly CGI.

18. Jeff Goldblum, simply by being Jeff Goldblum, makes every movie funnier.

19. Idiotic doesn't always mean bad.

20. Not every blockbuster needs to be a franchise. Of the 50 top grossing movies of all time, Independence Day is one of only nine movies which didn’t launch a franchise or isn’t a sequel itself * (the others are Titanic **, The Passion of the Christ, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Finding Nemo, Forrest Gump ***, The Sixth Sense, Up and E.T. ***).

* However, Dean & Emmerich have recently been threatening to make, not one, but two sequels, shot back-to-back.
** Titanic II, by mockbuster kings, The Asylum, doesn’t count.
*** A sequel was planned at one time, but later abandoned.

ZOMBIE: A Review In Verse

Starring Tisa Farrow (Woody's ex-sister-in-law), Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson. Directed by Lucio Fulci. (1979, 91 min).

Once upon a time in a land across the sea
There lived an old man who hailed from Italy;
Lucio was his first name, Fulci was his last.
And he liked to make movies quick, cheap and fast.

The job of directing, he thought he understood,
But the truth of the matter is he was never very good;
He tried making comedies and westerns and such,
But none of them boosted his income too much.

For a brief bit of time, he wallowed in despair,
Because he truly loved his directorial chair;
"I need a big hit to establish my name,
But all of my movies are so silly and lame!"

Then one day it hit him like a truckload of bricks...
"If I can't make them laugh, I can sure them real sick!
I'll load-up my movies with violence and gore,
And if I go way too far, I'll throw in some more!"

There was cash to be had in making filmgoers ill,
And required a minimum of directorial skill,
So he drilled, disemboweled and beheaded his actors
Whose thespian skills were secondary factors.

It became Fulci's mission to always provide
Bleak brutal carnage for gorehounds worldwide;
His movies became international hits;
It didn't seem to matter they were celluloid shit.

When Fulci made Zombie, it left little doubt
Of the power of gore to one's filmmaking clout;
A rip-off of Romero, many critics have said,
It's oft-hyped as a sequel to Dawn of the Dead.

But the movie itself really offers no such parity
Because Zombie is mostly unintentional hilarity;
The acting is shitty, the dubbed voices a joke,
And just what was the shit the film's editor smoked?

The music sounds like it was composed in a day
On a cheap toy keyboard, with which my kids once played;
There's gratuitous boobies - Yay, boobies! That's great! -
But those who bare boobies meet a nasty-ass fate.

Zombie is a film in which talent is replaced
By split-open skulls and an eye-punctured face;
And though the entire tone of the movie is dark,
There's more comic relief when a ghoul fights a shark.

This is the film that made Fulci a star,
And this was, at the time, his goriest by far;
He's since been called the "Godfather of Gore,"
Though Hershell Gordon Lewis held that title before.

He's got lots of fans who oft-sing all his praises
But there is one vital point that this platitude raises...
The guy had no talent of his own, to be told;
Just a lot of disembowelings for the public to behold.

Fulci’s later films made even less coherent sense;
"My horror is surreal!" was his usual defense.
Folks call him a genius of this type of movie,
But his effects crew are who makes them so groovy.

Fanboys worldwide might be screaming for my head;
To them, I propose another question instead:
If you think he’s so awesome and my opinion stinks,
Then how come the eye-victim in Zombie never blinks?

TWO-MINUTE WARNING: The Pros & Cons Of Dollar Tree Sunglasses

Starring Charlton Heston, John Cassavetes, Martin Balsam, Beau Bridges, Marilyn Hassett, David Janssen, Jack Klugman, Gena Rowlands, Walter Pidgeon. Directed by Larry Peerce. (1976, 115 min).

I love Dollar Tree. My family and I go there at least once a week because we can cruise the aisles and fill our shopping cart with shit we generally don’t need. And there isn’t a better place in the world to get snacks...all kinds of craptastic stuff, like pizza-flavored potato chips, honey-mustard puffs and gobs weird-ass candy...you know, things no sane person would normally buy at Safeway...but hey, for a buck?

There’s a lot of useful stuff at Dollar Tree, too. That’s where we buy all our holiday decorations, birthday cards and wrapping paper. Why not? Spending five bucks on a roll of wrapping paper only makes sense if you’re gonna reuse it, and I defy you to name a single person in your life who really gives a damn about your effort to find the perfect, clever birthday card.

We also buy all our sandwich bags, dog toys, school supplies, stocking stuffers and cleaning products from Dollar Tree. If you have little ones, it’s the perfect place to pick that last-minute gift when he/she is invited to a birthday party. After all, why clean out your wallet for a kid you hardly know?

There are, however, some things you should never buy from Dollar Tree. Their deodorant is like applying grease under your arms, the main ingredient to their shampoos is water and a pack of AAA batteries will power your Wii remote long enough for one or two games of bowling. And whatever you do, do NOT buy Dollar Tree light bulbs. We bought a pack of six, and the first bulb exploded the second we flipped on the living room light switch, catching our curtains on fire and permanently frying the lamp we screwed it into.

Another thing I eventually discovered not to buy is sunglasses. Sure, a buck is a great deal for such an item, especially considering my luck with them. Cheap or expensive, designer or generic, I tend to lose or break them within a few weeks. We do a lot of boating in the summer, and I must have at least a dozen pair sitting at the bottom of the Columbia River by now. At first, Dollar Tree seemed like the perfect solution; racks of cheap shades which, if lost, no big deal. The problem is that Dollar Tree sunglasses only fit right the first couple of times you wear them. After that, they tend to sit on your face crooked. Since how my sunglasses look is at least as important as any practical purpose they might serve, I have an office drawer full of shades that no longer make me look as cool as I often assume I am.

What does a drawer of discarded Dollar Tree sunglasses have to do with Two-Minute Warning, a 1976 disaster thriller about a crazed sniper picking off football fans in a packed stadium? Almost nothing, save for way I watch that movie now.

Two-Minute Warning isn’t exactly a disaster movie in the purest sense, but it looks and feels like a disaster movie, with a lot of the same qualities...simple story, huge cast, needless sub-plots, spectacular deaths, scenes of mass panic, Charlton Heston. Disaster was, and still is, my favorite genre, so of course I wanted to see it when my thirteenth birthday rolled around. Since it was rated R, Dad graciously offered to take me.

This was actually a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, I’m pretty sure this was the first R-rated movie I ever saw in a theater (I was still a few months away gathering the courage to sneak into them on my own). But even if it wasn’t, I’m 100% positive it’s the first and only one either of my parents took me to because I wanted to see it. I remember strutting around in middle school the week before, crowing to anyone who’d listen that I was gonna see an R-rated movie...a grown-up movie. Everyone stop, behold and bask in the presence of Dave...the boy about to became a man through such manly activities as watching a manly movie.

Second, it was Dad who took me. I always had a decent relationship with him and, and for the most part, we got along just fine. But aside from soccer (he coached the team I played on), we never had a lot of common ground, and almost never did anything involving just the two of us. For all I knew, Mom was the one who volunteered Dad to take me to the movie, but it was a huge deal. This was my adolescent version of a guys’ night out! And although movies have never been Dad’s first choice of entertainment, because the plot of Two-Minute Warning centered around football, it was he who provided the first bit of useless-but-fascinating movie trivia I ever heard: Joe Kapp, who plays an aging quarterback in the film, was a once a real-life QB for the Minnesota Vikings.

The movie itself is about a psychotic sniper who manages to perch himself behind the scoreboard at LA’s Memorial Coliseum during the championship game. We’re supposed to assume it is the Super Bowl, but since the filmmakers received no cooperation from the NFL, it is called ‘Championship X.’ Similarly, both teams playing are not real NFL franchises, either (long-range shots used for the film consists of footage from a college match between Stanford and USC). I’m still not sure why the NFL refused to cooperate with Universal in the making of this one, yet allowed Paramount to film the climax of Black Sunday during the actual Super Bowl. I guess it depends on who a producer knows.

In Two-Minute Warning, we never actually see the sniper until the end, though we are provided shitloads of POV shots, from his initial practice kill (taking out a bicyclist from a hotel window), his long drive to the Coliseum, his trip through the stadium turnstyle, to finally sneaking past a couple of guard dogs (bad dogs indeed) in order to get up behind the scoreboard where he’ll eventually start picking-off the cast.

Meanwhile, the game commences, during which time we are introduced to characters whose only purpose is to die, like Jack Klugman as a gambler whose life depends on the game‘s outcome, Beau Bridges as a family man who smacks one of his kids when they mention he’s unemployed, Walter Pidgeon as a pickpocket who utters only one line in the whole movie, and David Janssen & Gene Rowland as a bickering couple. None of these characters have any baring on the plot whatsoever, but without them, like most disaster films, Two-Minute Warning would be thirty minutes long.

Charlton Heston and John Cassavetes star as a police captain and SWAT commander brought in to prevent the sniper from opening-fire. Heston has been in more disaster movies than anyone else I can think of, so he's gotten pretty damned good at phoning-it-in. Cassavetes was always respected in the 70s, but only showed up in audience pictures like this to finance his own quirky little film projects. So even though these two provide the star power, both of their characters are equally useless because, if they were truly good at their jobs, there would be no movie. Who the hell wants to watch a movie about a sniper who’s prevented from sniping?

So, yeah, at the game’s two-minute warning, our sniper starts blowing secondary cast members away. Even though there’s almost no action for most of the film, the last fifteen minutes are pretty wild, and the blood flies like it's exploding from water balloons. This really is a violent movie, and maybe even a bit more disturbing today, since it seems like some nut is blasting random people every week. The killer’s motives are never explained (we don’t even get a look at him until he has been taken down after shooting dozens of innocent people).

There are, however, some bits of unintentional hilarity. For example, once the sniper starts shooting, panic ensues throughout the entire stadium, which is understandable. We see numerous scenes of the terrified crowd scrambling for the exits, fighting, crushing and stepping all over each other in the time-honored tradition of self-preservation. But this chaotic melee continues outside the stadium, with hundreds still screaming, fighting and shoving long after any rationally-behaving person would realize they are already well-out-of harm’s way.

Then there are the sunglasses. Most of the manliest cast members (Heston and Cassavetes included) are wearing sunglasses through much of the movie. No problem there because, unless you are a total douche bag, sunglasses make most people look cooler than they really are.

That is, if they fit right.

I’ll be the first to admit that Two-Minute Warning is gratuitously violent, melodramatic, overacted and just-a-tad nihilistic, and critics generally hated it those all those reasons. Still, I have fond memories of the film because it was one of those father-son moments. But even personal nostalgia couldn’t keep me from eventually noticing that, upon later viewings, when Heston shows up at the stadium, his sunglasses don’t fit his face right; one lens is obviously higher up his forehead than the other. And it isn’t just one scene; it's throughout the whole movie. Didn’t anyone behind the camera notice this...even once?

Then I noticed a few characters in the background who had ill-fitting eyewear as well. It got to the point that, whenever a character appeared in a scene wearing glasses, I focused more on whether or not the shades were crooked than what he or she added to the plot.

But it gets worse. When Cassavetes shows up, at first his shades fit perfectly. But later, they are so askew that he looks like he’d just been in a bar fight, and I fought the compelling urge to scream, “Hey, fix your fucking glasses!” I can’t believe nobody, not even the director, noticed how stupid Cassavetes looked during the final scenes, just because of his glasses. One would think, with the millions it costs to make a film, that somebody, even the caterer, would have noticed this.

I dunno...did they have Dollar Tree stores back then? Did the costume designer stop by a store, scoop up all the cheap shades and slap them on the actors’ faces just to shave the budget a bit? Didn’t they know that wearing Dollar Tree sunglasses is far less cool than wearing none at all?

Two-Minute Warning is another one of those movies that’s forgotten by most people, and never-seen by even more. For me, it’s still a lot of dumb, disreputable fun, even with all the ill-fitting eyewear. I suppose, in this post 9/11 era, like Black Sunday, its once-silly premise might be taken a tad more seriously, but I don’t want to go there.

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961): A Serious Case Of The Crabs

Starring Michael Craig, Herbert Lom, Joan Greenwood, Michael Gallan, Gary Merrill. Directed by Cy Endfield. (1961, 101 min)

When I was in second or third grade, long before basic cable was even a glint in anyone’s eye, we lived in an apartment in Portland and had exactly four-and-a-half TV channels to choose from. There was ABC, CBS and NBC and the half-channel was obviously PBS, since once I outgrew Sesame Street, the programming of PBS was about as appealing as snacking on celery when your other choices were Ding Dongs and Doritos. Even today, PBS is the celery of television entertainment...obviously good for you, but unless you slather on a shitload of peanut butter, not all that tasty.

The other available channel was KPTV - Channel 12 - an independent station not affiliated with any network. Most of the programming consisted of old reruns like Perry Mason, Star Trek, I Dream of Jeannie & Gilligan’s Island. Hanna-Barbara cartoons like The Flintstones and The Jetsons were regular after-school staples. The channel also aired local sports events like Trailblazers basketball and Buckaroos hockey. There were also a few locally-produced shows like Portland Wrestling, KPTV News and, most notably, Ramblin’ Rod. The latter was a daily kids’ show hosted by Rod Anders (RIP), who showed up in a cardboard boat in front an live audience of enthusiastic children. In between smile contests and prize giveaways, the show would air lots of old Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry and Popeye. It was the goal of nearly every Portland area kid to appear in the studio audience of Ramblin’ Rod on their birthday because Rod himself would treat you like a VIP and your face was guaranteed to show up on TV.

But every weeknight at 8:00, it was time for The Movie (what the program was called), and KPTV would show the same film (usually from the 50s or 60s) every night for five straight days (sort-of making it the TNT of its time). Being only eight or nine, my short attention span never allowed me to give a damn what old movies they were usually showing, especially since most of them were in black & white.

But one Monday afternoon after school, while I was sitting on the couch watching Ramblin' Rod and snacking on a Ding Dong (to hell with celery), a commercial popped up advertising that week’s The Movie...1961’s Mysterious Island. My jaw dropped as I watched several men battle a giant crab.

Wow!

It was at that moment I realized not all non-Disney movies were long-ass, boring stories appealing only to Mom & Dad. Some of them had monsters!

I made sure to tune in at 8:00 that night. I had to watch it on the tiny TV in my parents’ bedroom because there was no way Mom & Dad were gonna let me tie up the big living room Magnavox with killer crabs...not when Columbo was on.

Mysterious Island is (very) loosely based on a novel by Jules Verne and sort-of a sequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. During the height of the Civil War, several union soldiers escape a prison camp in a hot-air balloon and drift for days until crash landing on an uncharted island. At first they think they are alone, but soon discover the island is crawling with a variety of mutated critters, such as gigantic chickens, oysters and the aforementioned crabs, not to mention some angry, marauding pirates.

For the first four days I watched the film, this was as far as I got because my weeknight bedtime was 9:00 and my mother wouldn’t let me stay up for the second half, no matter how much I begged (and trust me, I found this mutant monster movie so amazing that I begged a lot). But finally, Friday came, the night my bedtime was extended to the wee hour of 10:00 and I was allowed to catch the second half of the movie...

It turned out there was even more monster mayhem, like elephant-sized bees and an unholy cross between an octopus and a snail. Another major character eventually arrives, Captain Nemo, fresh from dying at the end of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (which I still hadn’t seen at the time) to inform these castaways that he’s the one responsible for all the mutant animals (trying to boost the world’s food supply). He is also the killjoy who brings the unfortunate news that the island’s angrily-bubbling volcano is about to erupt and they will all die. The rest of the film involves the castaways’ attempt to escape the island.

Giant monsters, pirates and a volcanic eruption! How cool was that for a nine-year-old? The only things missing were dinosaurs and aliens.

Mysterious Island was the first movie I ever sat all the way through that didn’t have Walt Disney’s name in the credits. For me, at that age, it was the best thing ever. Mysterious Island is definitely one of the titles what made me fall in love with movies.

Of course 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea had far better acting, direction and special effects, and Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion critters in Mysterious Island look absolutely archaic compared to, say, the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park (hell, the effects were sorta quaint even in the 70s). But I love this film more than both of them, mostly out of nostalgia, I suppose.

I still pop it into my DVD player about once a year, plop onto my sofa with a big-ass bowl of popcorn and enjoy the hell out of it. This is usually late at night because I no longer have a bed time, but also because my wife and kids can’t sit through the thing without getting bored or laughing their asses off. My youngest loves monster movies too, but she was brought up on Jurassic Park (the first non-Disney flick she ever sat through)...no way can stop-motion crabs and matte paintings compete with a roaring, gnashing T-Rex.

But that’s okay. I like watching this one alone, anyway. It reminds me of the first time I saw it, propped on a pillow in my parents’ room. Now that I think about it, Mysterious Island may be one of the few films that I’ve always watched alone.
 
It’s hard to believe the movie’s over fifty years old now and much or the cast & crew are now dead (though I was happy to discover, as of this writing, Michael Craig is still among the living). Jules Verne’s original novel (which I tried to read once but couldn’t get past page 10) has been adapted many times before and since (including some really shitty TV movies), but the 1961 version, for me anyway, is the definitive one.

APOLLO 18: The Ultimate Dumbass Litmus Test

Starring Warren Christie, Lloyd Owen, Ryan Robbins. Directed by Jose David Montero. (2011, 86 min)

I’m starting to really hate “found footage” films...you know, that genre where the actors themselves do most of the actual work documenting the story as it’s happening with hand-held video cameras. They are cheap to make and easy to market.

The Blair Witch Project proved that. The movie itself, depending on who you ask, ended up costing anywhere from $20,000 to $750,000, but through the most genius viral-marketing campaign of all time, it made over $200 million at the box office. This is a movie that had no actual screenplay, just a 68 page outline. The actors, using their real names in the film, mostly improvised all their lines.

This obviously convinced a slew of other would-be filmmakers to do the same thing. We’ve been inundated by found footage flicks ever since, the most successful being Paranormal Activity, which was cheaper than Blair Witch and made even more money. Even a few major studios have jumped on the bandwagon. Cloverfield had 60-times the budget of Blair Witch, but was still relatively cheap compared to, say, Transformers.

But I don’t hate this genre because a few amateur directors have gotten rich inducing motion sickness. The more power to them! I wish I had thought of getting a few people to film themselves screaming in horror at bundles of twigs. And I have to admit, though it’s a tad overpraised, Paranormal Activity is creepy because it is shot by the actors. But most found footage films are total shit, simply using the gimmick because it is cheap, not because it’s the best way to tell the story.

Such an example of decent storytelling in the found-footage genre is Apollo 18, a low-budget and claustrophobic sci-fi thriller that, even though underappreciated by both critics and audiences, uses this style to its advantage. It isn’t a “great” film (I don’t think it is possible for found footage movies to achieve such status), but it is an effective one, mainly because its entire story depends on found footage. Ask yourself this question...when watching a found footage film, would the movie have been better if it were filmed in the traditional manner? If the answer is yes, then the movie is shit. If the answer is no, then you’re watching a film made by someone who really understands the genre. Apollo 18 falls into the latter category.

Apollo 18 is about three astronauts enlisted for one last trip to the moon, even though NASA had officially scrubbed every flight after Apollo 17. This mission is top secret and will not be shown on TV or reported to the media. Reasons for the mission are not initially given, but we soon learn them when weird-ass shit starts happening once they land. It turns out that the Russians have previously landed there, too. Not only that, there are creatures living there that we once mistook for moon rocks.

I’ll be the first to admit that the revelation in Apollo 18 is stupid...crab-like critters who can survive in a zero-atmosphere environment. But what makes the movie such a great example of found footage is the painstaking effort for authenticity. We experience the utter monotony of space travel, we see what a pain-in-the-ass it is to perform even the most menial of tasks within the cramped confines of a space capsule, we are made to feel how utterly helpless and alone these astronauts are, even though they are in constant contact with Earth. This is one of the few films that make space look like a truly shitty place to be.

Best of all, we feel like we are really watching video footage from the 70s (when the story takes place). It looks old, worn and dated, and the characters are just as effectively bland as the real astronauts NASA shot into space 40 years ago (at least until these crab-critters start attacking). It is obvious a lot of effort was put into making this film look like the time when the story takes place.

And, as dumb as the premise is, these space crabs are kinda creepy, especially when only briefly seen through video cameras.

Apollo 18 is often excruciatingly slow moving; there are countless scenes when it seems like absolutely nothing is happening. Yet, if you were to look away for a second, you’d miss the only reason the camera is focused so intently on a single mound of rocks. This is a film that could not have been made in the traditional manner. It may not ultimately be an exciting film, but it is arguably one of the most effective uses of found footage as a vital part of the story.

How effective? Well, this is why I am growing to hate found-footage films.

They turn a lot of people into dumbasses.

For those of you who do not remember, the genius of the marketing campaign for The Blair Witch Project stemmed from its own promotional website, which was so-well put together that millions thought the film was an actual documentary. The same goes for Paranormal Activity. Legions of idiots thought they were watching a true paranormal event, simply because the movie was improvised and shot on video by its cast. I am sad to say, but there is something about hand-held video footage that convinces many people what they are seeing is real.

But this is the 21st Century, when people laugh at those old idiots once convinced by Orson Welles that a Martian invasion was taking place on Halloween in 1938. We’ve moved beyond such gullibility, right? Believing in malevolent ghosts is one thing, but killer space rocks? No one is that stupid.

Really?

My oldest daughter, a junior in high school, told me of a classmate who just saw Apollo 18 and, because it looked like authentic 70‘s video, was convinced he was watching historical footage, and asked their science teacher about killer moon rocks.

You might be saying to yourself, “That’s just a single dumbass. One guy out of a classroom of 30.”

Yeah? Try this bit of math. Several years ago, there was a survey asking 1000 American adults from various backgrounds who they thought was the greatest American of all time. There was a plethora of expected responses - Lincoln, Washington, King, Kennedy - along with a few delusional suggestions like Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley. But 1% actually responded with Jesus Christ.

1% may not seem like very much, but think about it...surveys are supposed to be a reflection of the population in general. There are roughly three-hundred-million people in this country right now. One percent of that is three million. That means there are three million people walking around right now who think, not only is Jesus Christ our lord and savior, but that he’s an American.

This dildo in my daughter’s science class may only be one in thirty, but how many high schools are there in this country alone? If even one moron in each class nationwide is convinced that what they see in Apollo 18 is real, it doesn’t take a math wizard to know that’s a legion of dumbasses who believe killer moon rocks live only 250,000 miles away from us.

And that’s what I hate about found footage films, especially those which do their jobs as effectively as Apollo 18.

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN: The Beloved Gorefest

Starring Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Vin Diesel. Directed by Steven Spielberg. (1998, 169 min).

Steven Spielberg is a closet gorehound, and the MPAA loves him so much they let him get away with anything. Not to take away from his enormous gifts as a filmmaker, but because he’s Steven Spielberg, he got to sever limbs, melt faces and rip out hearts in his early 80s PG movies (PG-13 was arguably created for him). When he decides to make important movies, he gets to spill intestines, explode bodies and show more gunshots to the head than an Italian zombie flick, and still earn an R rating.

Saving Private Ryan is an important movie, because important movies can get away with disembowelings, imploded faces & dismembered limbs without getting slapped with an NC-17, especially when Spielberg's directing. If the MPAA wants to indulge the man's secret passion for splatter cinema, that’s fine, but how about giving George A. Romero the same leniency when he makes a zombie picture?

I know, I know...zombies aren’t important...at least not as important as watching soldiers fly apart. I’ll bet those MPAA assholes will suddenly think zombies are real fucking important when legions of these drooling things come lurching to their front door. Just because World War II really happened doesn’t necessarily mean a zombie apocalypse won’t.

And it isn’t just the MPAA who considered Saving Private Ryan important. ABC did, too; they showed the damned thing uncut on TV. No one complained.

And teachers...especially social studies teachers? Man, they love the film. As an educator myself, I’ve known some high school teachers who justified showing Saving Private Ryan in class by arguing its historical importance. The flaw in that argument is that the movie itself is not actually a true story. Screenwriter Robert Rodat was initially inspired by a Civil War monument dedicated to eight brothers who died in battle, then loosely based the premise of his screenplay on four brothers who fought in WWII, two of whom died. But in reality, there was no Private Ryan who lost three brothers, nor was there a troop-led mission to save him.

But that’s just nitpicking about petty details which aren’t really important to the effectiveness of the film. Saving Private Ryan is a great, emotionally devastating movie that should have won the Best Picture Oscar in 1998 (losing to Shakespeare in Love, for chrissakes). But there are also a lot of people who treat it like some historical document, and simply watching the movie will educate you about WWII.

Sure, the Normandy Invasion sequence (roughly the first 30 minutes of the movie) is an ultra-graphic and realistic depiction of battle. Saving Private Ryan might be the goriest important movie ever. This opening sequence features the most grueling war footage ever shot, even though it really has nothing to do with the story. Bombs and bullets fall like rain, ripping soldiers to ribbons. One guy’s screaming for his mother while his bowels spill out; another is staggering around on the beach, searching for his own severed arm.

I’m still troubled by any social studies teacher’s decision to show the movie in class, other than it’s a great way to kill three class periods they would have otherwise spent teaching. Yeah, we learn the various ways mortar fire can rearrange the human anatomy, but the film itself does not delve into the politics, purpose or causes of WWII, nor America’s involvement. That’s not a criticism of the movie itself, and no, I do not think the film is too violent for kids to handle (they're the main reason there's five Final Destination movies). It is a criticism of anyone thinking the film is an academic learning experience. When my oldest daughter watched it in her high school history class, all she really learned was what FUBAR means.

I’m not upset with these teachers, though maybe just a little bit envious. I teach middle school English, and there aren’t too many opportunities for me to pop in a DVD for three consecutive class periods fwhile I check my fantasy football stats on the computer. And without a doubt, there are no movies as bloody as Saving Private Ryan that I could show without being called into my principal's office, verbally berated and ultimately fired.

As for the story itself, Tom Hanks plays Captain Miller, the uncertain leader of a small platoon assigned to wander the war-ravaged French countryside to locate a soldier, whose brothers have all been killed, and take him home. When they finally locate him, Private James Ryan (Matt Damon) refuses to leave his platoon, whom are preparing to face more Germans in an already battle-ravaged town. If I were Hanks, I would have said, “Fine, go ahead...get your ass blown off, dumbass.” Then I would have taken off to shack-up with a busty French prostitute until the war was over.

I guess that’s why no one lets me make movies.

But Hanks and his men feel obligated to stay and help defend a bridge the Germans want. The climactic battle that ensues is long, loud and just as violent as the Normandy scenes. German tanks blow the shit out of everything, while the out-numbered Americans make-do with what they have. Most of the cast dies, and I don’t think I’m giving anything way when I say they do end up saving Private Ryan, who should feel like a real asshole for making these guys stick around. Maybe that’s why he is seen weeping at the beginning of the film, perhaps thinking, “I was a real dick, wasn't I?”

Still, this is a great movie, an important movie, with phenomenal performances, great characters, a compelling story and, unless you’re utterly soulless, a resolution that will bring tears (even though it doesn't explain why Ryan is able to recall the Normandy Invasion, since he wasn't there).

But does that mean the MPAA should make a distinction between important violence and unimportant violence? If Saving Private Ryan can be given an R rating because the violence reflects reality, then shouldn't a sleazy celluloid suppository like 1980’s Maniac, about a serial killer who kills and scalps young women (released unrated due to its violence), have been given the same consideration. After all, sicko serial killers are every bit as real as WWII.

And does that mean that if a hack like Uwe Boll had directed this instead (yeah, that’s really stretching, but work with me here), he’d be given the same consideration by the MPAA as someone with the Hollywood clout as Spielberg?

And finally, does that mean a teacher can justify showing it to a classroom full of kids? I don‘t think there is a parent alive who wouldn’t agree that climbing into a stranger‘s van is a bad idea. So shouldn’t we show all of our kids The Silence of the Lambs in order to teach this lesson?

DEATH RACE 2000 / DEATHSPORT: Blood, Bombs & Boobies!

Being that these two films are Roger Corman quickies, It's fitting they'd included as a double-bill, much like most Corman-produced features were back in the 50s, 60s & 70s.

DEATH RACE 2000
Starring David Carradine, Sylvester Stallone, Simone Griffeth, Don Steele, Mary Woronov, Fred Grandy. Directed by Paul Bartel. (1975, 79 min)

Remember a Saturday morning cartoon called Wacky Races, which featured such loony characters as Dastardly and Muttley (the dog who snickered every time his master fucked up), the Slag Brothers, Rufus Ruffcut and Penelope Pitstop, competing against each other every week in their outrageous automobiles? Death Race 2000 is just like Wacky Races, only the drivers get additional points for mowing down pedestrians. How can you not love a movie like that?

And how can you not love a movie that features Sylvester Stallone’s only intentionally funny performance as driver/gangster Machine Gun Joe Viturbo?

And how can you not love a movie in which the wife of the first hit-and-run victim is showered with game show prizes?

And how can you not love a movie in which the “treacherous French” are our biggest enemy?

And how can you not love a movie in which David Carradine plans to kill the president with a hand grenade that’s literally a hand grenade?

And how can you not love a movie that is arguably the prime inspiration for the plethora of hit-and-run video games (such as Carmageddon, Grand Theft Auto and Twisted Metal) that had parents screaming for their lawyers?

And finally, how can you not love the fact that me and my little sister (age 12 and 9) were able to see this movie this bounty of blood, boobs and bombs, simply because it was the bottom half of a double-feature (the main movie being the PG-rated Corman quickie, Crazy Mama)?

Right now, you might be saying, "What were your parents thinking?"

I guess they probably didn't know much about the movie. But still, those were the good old days, before parents were enabled to blame their own kids' maladjusted, antisocial behavior on everyone other than themselves.

I guess this makes me an 'old school' parent today, because I still believe I'm the one most qualified to determine what my own children are ready to watch or play, and don't rely on others to make that determination for me. I've let my 8-year-old watch zombie movies, as well as the whole Final Destination series, because I know my own kid well enough to make a informed decision regarding what she's ready to watch. Fancy that.

If you are a parent, and you disagree with me, then you really need to ask yourself how well you know your own kid.

As for the sleazy 70’s relic, Death Race 2000...I’ve tried to get both of my kids to watch it, but both of them grew bored within a few minutes...too fake, too cheap looking and worst of all, too 70s.

DEATHSPORT
Starring David Carradine, Claudia Jennings, Richard Lynch. Directed by Allan Arkush. (1978, 82 min)

Except for the fact that it also stars David Carradine and is produced by Roger Corman, this isn’t really a sequel to Death Race 2000. That’s too bad, because DR2K, even though intended to be just a Rollerball knock-off, made the most of its low budget and ended up being a lot of hilarious, disreputable, tongue-in-cheek fun. Who wouldn’t want a sequel?

I don’t know what went wrong over at New World Pictures (the studio which released both films), but I do remember that, at one time, Deathsport originally was supposed to be a direct sequel. This was announced during an NBC News special focusing on violence in the media, and I distinctly remember one of the producers discussing this film-in-progress, which was to be called Death Sport 2020. But someone obviously fucked up, because what ultimately came out was this idiotic, dirt-cheap sleaze-fest that had the audacity to take itself seriously.

I didn’t know that at the time, however, and was simply jazzed to see a sequel to what-was easily the most disreputable guilty pleasure I’d ever seen at the time. But alas, I was still too young, and it was not playing at the trusty Southgate, where’d I’d become quite adept at sneaking into any R-rated flick that happened to be playing.

Still, I was able to convinced a buddy of mine, Greg, into giving it a go at the Rose Moyer 6-Plex. Sort-of uncharted territory, but still within driving range for my parents.

I’d known Greg for a few years at the time, and was sort-of in awe of the guy. When my family moved into the house next to his when I started 6th grade, he obviously became a friend out of proximity. He was also a year older, pretty popular at school, and a little more worldly with the ladies (at least by middle school standards). I think it is safe to say that, if I hadn’t moved next door, we would never have sought each other out as friends...Greg was a smooth-talking, laid-back athlete, and well-liked by just-about everybody. I, on the other hand, was a bit more awkward, less athletic (even though we both played on the same soccer team for several years), more into movies than girls. I wasn’t exactly a social pariah, but Greg simply knew how to look, talk and act cool.

At the same time, when it was just the two of us, he loved playing with Legos, making silly skits with my tape recorder, drawing cartoons based on our love of MAD Magazine. In other words, despite the persona he projected to others, Greg was a kind-of a closet geek. This was the guy who made me fall in love with Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Name another 12-year-old kid who was into those guys. But all of this was in private, away from the social scrutiny of middle school, where we really didn’t interact much at all. If you were to ask Greg today, he might say differently, but my memory is that I was the friend he didn’t want to admit he had.

Anyway, we did a lot of shit together over the next few years...lots of sleepovers, lots of bike rides, lots of Lego parties, lots of trips to the Southgate Theater (where it was only through his encouragement that I got the nerve to make-out with a girl I’d never met before). In public, Greg was Dean Martin to my Jerry Lewis. He always knew the right thing to say in any social situation; I was the one who threatened to unravel everything with one dumb-ass comment.

It was Greg’s smooth demeanor got us both out of a big scrape when going to see Deathsport.
My parents dropped us off at the Rose Moyer Theater, fairly new at the time (since bulldozed to make room for a strip mall). The plan was simple...pay for a PG movie, then sneak into the R-rated Deathsport. No problem.

Then, while we were sitting there, some employee (not much older than we were), started walking down the aisle, checking theater patrons for tickets.

Fuck...they never did this at the Southgate!

I suddenly panicked, looking to my smooth-talking friend for a way out. To my surprise, he didn’t seem phased at all.

Greg, we’re about to be kicked out of the theater! How can you be so cool about it?

Butterflies welled in my gut as the usher worked his way closer. I’d snuck into movies before, but the closest I’d ever been to actually confronting authority was when I used the word ‘hell’ in a short story I wrote for an English assignment.

When the usher reached us, asking for our ticket stubs, I was ready to piss myself, especially since the guy already looked like he was ready to nail us. I opened my mouth, scrambling for something - anything - that would bail us out.

Instead, Greg looked up at him, shrugged, and said “We don’t have them anymore, but I think they were blue.”

The usher paused, glanced suspiciously at both of us, then moved on.

I’m sure I must have had the ultimate ‘WTF’ expression on my face at that time. But Greg simply looked at me, smiled and pointed to the theater floor, where two blue ticket stubs laid.

Greg didn’t even break a sweat. How cool can you get?

Too bad he didn’t come-to-bat for a better movie, because the best thing about Deathsport was the promotional poster. Unlike the good-humored DR2K, this is a serious film with even cheaper visual effects. One thing that made DR2K so fun was that it knew it was a cheap-ass picture, but made up for it with intentional humor and sheer chutzpah. Yeah, Deathsport has former Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings as a perfect female specimen, but the movie itself was never more than an awesome poster promoting a movie with a $150,000 budget. But it duped me into going, which in-turn forced Greg to tag along and utilize his verbal skills so we could watch this shit.

THE HUNGER GAMES: No Happy Meal Toys?

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Stanley Tucci, Donald Sutherland. Directed by Gary Ross. (2012, 142 min)

I'm a middle school English teacher in the real world, so I am  privy to what books are popular with kids. Personally, I'm not a giant fan of most young adult fiction, even though there are some great books out there and I've published two myself. Still, I do feel it's part of my job to keep up with what kids are into. I tried reading both Harry Potter and Twilight. While I think it's pretty awesome something other than video games or Jersey Shore can excite legions of kids worldwide, I couldn't get through the first books of either series.

Harry Potter didn't intrigue me much, but then I never did care for fantasy novels. I'm also one of the six people on Earth who didn't think the movies were all that great, either. As for Twilight, I read about 50 pages before I couldn't take any more. Stephanie Meyer is a godawful writer, and it sickens me to this day that I'm torn between thinking "Thank God I don't write like that" and "Why the hell can't I write like that?"

But who am I to judge Meyer? Her novels sell in the millions and my books sell about one copy per week on Amazon. Maybe I'm just a tad resentful, not just because she’s read by millions and I‘m not, but also because, if you go to the young adult section of any bookstore, the majority of what you'll find are dark, romantic, emo novels written by authors jumping on the Twilight bandwagon.

As with any book series which becomes a pop culture phenomenon, the Twilight movies followed, all of them blockbusters. I do have to admit I enjoyed the first Twilight film; it was easily the funniest movie I'd seen in a long time. Even my oldest daughter, who read and enjoyed all four books in the series, finds the movies unintentionally hilarious. When the first film came out on DVD, we had a great time giving it the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment.

In my classroom, most of the girls were genuinely offended by my assessment of Twilight, while the boys mostly nodded and laughed, a few of them adding that Edward was a fag. Then again, a lot of them currently say that about Justin Beiber, too. Yeah, they say that, but I'll bet there isn't a single one of them who wouldn't trade places or Beiber or Robert Pattinson.

For me, Twilight-mania reached ridiculous levels, culminating in the whole Team Edward vs. Team Jacob thing. That shit was everywhere...on students' binders, buttons, T-shirts and backpacks. What the fuck does Team Edward even mean, anyway? Until Twilight came along, there was never such a retarded mass-declaration of allegiance to one movie character over another. I don't remember anything like Team Luke vs. Team Han, Team Batman vs. Team Joker or Team McClane vs. Team Gruber. Why was everyone suddenly treating a sparkly vampire and shirtless werewolf like Super Bowl opponents?

Now that both the Harry Potter and Twilight series have wrapped things up, the latest young adult series to explode is Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. I'd seen kids carrying the books around school over the past couple of years, but it wasn't until a movie adaptation of the first book was announced that I felt a sense of duty to sit down and read one. So one weekend I downloaded the first book onto my Kindle.

And I read the whole thing in one night. Unlike Rowling and Meyers, Suzanne Collins can really write. Not only that, The Hunger Games is only a young adult novel in the sense that the main characters are mostly kids. It's a brutal and violent story of a dystopian future where each of the twelve districts of Panem (which used to be America) are required to provide two kids, aged 12-18 (one boy and one girl), to participate in the Hunger Games, an annual event where they must fight to the death until only one remains.

Of course, being that The Hunger Games has spawned gobs of tie-in toys, clothing, posters, jewelery & school supplies (what...no Happy Meal toys?) you know this already. I truly didn't want to enjoy the book as much as I did, mainly because of its insane popularity. But all of a sudden, the upcoming film became numero uno on my must-see list, even though the pre-release hype bordered on offensive. When People Magazine published an asinine Team Peeta vs. Team Gale pole before the movie was even released, it tempted me to boycott it altogether. If the media wanted to reduce this awesomely dark & dystopian sci-fi story into mindless teen idol worship, I wanted no part of it.

My wife didn't want to see it, either, after reading the same People Magazine issue, which included an article featuring Jennifer Lawrence (who plays Katniss Everdeen). She thought Lawrence was pretentious and arrogant, and it influenced her decision whether or not to see the film. I'm still kind of perplexed by that philosophy, which a lot of people in the general population have...the idea that an actor's real-life likeability has anything to do with whether or not a movie is any good. I know a lot of folks who decided not to see War of the Worlds after Tom Cruise's couch incident on Oprah. Even more people have reassessed Mel Gibson's entire filmography following his drunken tirades. Yeah, Gibson may be a total prick, but that doesn't mean Braveheart is suddenly a shitty movie. When you think about it, how many of us would want others to judge our job performance on what we do outside of work?

Anyway, despite its massive popularity, I still felt compelled to see the film, and eventually played the Father's Day card to force my entire family to watch The Hunger Games with me when it arrived at a local second-run theater/arcade. The movie is remarkably faithful to the novel (thanks, in no part, to the fact that Suzanne Collins helped write the screenplay). I'm pretty sure my wife didn't like it, but my oldest daughter loved the film, and started reading my Kindle download shortly after we got home. Even my youngest daughter cried at the death of Rue (a 12-year-old whose death figures more prominently as the book series progresses).

Still, I watched the film with a curious sense of detachment. Yes, it is faithful to the book, and yes, the actors chosen to fill these roles do their jobs admirably (especially Lawrence). At the same time, I kind of felt like I did when forced the sit through the first two Harry Potter movies...I knew the filmmakers were faithful to the books, but somehow, I sensed there was not an emotional commitment...more like the filmmaking process was a checklist of key scenes. In the Hunger Games  novel, there was a feeling of impending dread throughout the story that isn’t present in the film.

But, on the other hand, what was I expecting, that the movie would somehow lift the story beyond its source material to become something...I dunno...legendary? Like Jaws? For those of you who don’t know, Jaws was actually a shitty book, and almost anyone who has read it will tell you that the movie is a hell of a lot better, despite the massive changes in the story.

Still, The Hunger Games, despite hyper-edited action scenes more at-home in a Michael Bay movie, is fun...much better than any movie in the Twilight series. It is also an extremely faithful adaptation of the novel, so much so that there aren’t any real surprises for anyone who read the book first.

Having since-read the other two books, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, I’ll be interested in seeing how this movie series can pull-off the events in the trilogy without watering down the violence to get a PG-13 rating.

DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN: The Most Obnoxious Movie Of All Time

Starring Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris, Shemar Moore, Tamara Taylor, Cicely Tyson & (of course) Tyler Perry. Directed by Darren Grant. (2005, 116 min).

I've seen thousands of movies in my life, so sometimes when someone asks me which one is my favorite, I don't usually have an easy answer. Sure, I have a short list of films which I hold in the highest esteem - Jaws, Pulp Fiction, The Big Lebowski, The Godfather, Fight Club, etc. - but to cite one as my all-time favorite gets tougher as I get older, and my answer often depends on my mood at the time. I suppose if a gun was put to my head, I'd have to choose Jaws.

I don't have that problem when it comes to my least favorite, the movie I hate, hate, hate above all others. That's easy...Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

I didn't say it was the worst movie. I could list hundreds of worse movies...grade-Z cheapies, unintentionally-hilarious teen dramas, egocentric vanity projects, budget-busting CG-fests that are like watching someone else play a video game, idiotic 'parodies' that simply mimic famous films with added fart jokes; and of course, Italian gorefests, incomprehensibly-edited action films, SyFy Channel premieres, 80's flicks created to sell records, Adam Sandler's entire filmography and fan-tarding YouTube videos.
Still, I'd rather endure all that shit than watch Diary of a Mad Black Woman again, the most annoying, schizophrenic and obnoxious movie I ever sat through, the one film that actually pissed me off while watching.

I know what you're saying: Why didn't you just stop watching it? Trust me, I would have, but at the time I had the good fortune to start writing reviews for a DVD website. The upside of this job was that I got a lot of free discs to add to my collection, and was able to write about a medium I loved, which would actually be read by people. I was also exposed to some absolutely wonderful films that, based on the genre, I would never have chosen on my own. In addition, I could take the discs I didn't like and sell them to a local used CD/DVD store...not for a ton of money, but often enough to fill my gas tank for the week. The downside was I sat through a lot of godawful shit...boxed sets of TV shows from the 70s, cartoons aimed at ten-year-olds, sleazy soft-core porn and movies which held no interest for me whatsoever. Hours - sometimes entire weekends - of reviewing crap I knew I was gonna hate. I used to think being a movie critic was the ultimate job. Now I know better.

One of those films which eventually helped fill my gas tank was Diary of a Mad Black Woman. If it were up to me, I would have shut it off after twenty minutes. Instead, I was forced to endure it all, becoming increasingly disgruntled with each passing minute displayed on my DVD player.

I'm a teacher in the real world, and not long after sitting through this, I attended a workshop with others in my profession. During some downtime, the topic of movies came up, and I expressed my utter hatred of this film. One of the people in this conversation was an African-American woman who tried to explain that the reason for my distain of the film was because I was not black, and could not relate to the culture Diary of a Mad Black Woman was created to appeal to, that this was a black film made for black people.

Well, lady, if that's the case, then you must not have a very high opinion of the intelligence of your own race. Diary of a Mad Black Woman doesn't suck because it's a 'black film.' It sucks because of its utter contempt for the intelligence of anyone watching, regardless of race.

In a nutshell, the film is about a devoted wife who is suddenly betrayed and kicked out of the house by her wealthy, cold-hearted husband. She eventually learns to adapt, work for a living and love again with the aid of her family and the chance-meeting of an impossibly good-looking, sympathetic blue-collar man. Sure, a bit cliche, but perfectly acceptable movie fodder.

But here's the problem...Tyler Perry.

He's not the star of the film, nor is he the director. He's the writer whose prior stage plays are heralded by African-American audiences. He's also the creator of the most blatantly obnoxious, stupid, over-the-top, unrealistic, overbearing and unfunny character in the history of movies...

...Madea, played by Tyler Perry himself.

This is a female character (Perry in drag), an easily-angered old lady who screams a lot and waves a handgun around. As Madea, Perry makes Jerry Lewis look subtle. Although intended to be a humorous character, Madea has nothing funny, clever or insightful to add to this movie. In fact, she almosts exists outside of this movie, and her frequent appearances are almost like intermissions in an otherwise-serious story about a woman trying to regain her life after being betrayed. Medea is hamfistedly wedged into key scenes, totally disrupting the tone of the film. Early on, when Helen (the female lead) is kicked out of the house she once shared with her husband of 20 years, Medea is almost randomly thrown into the picture, and, out of the blue, produces a chainsaw out of nowhere to carve up the man's furniture. It is supposed to be funny, but the viewer ends up thinking, what the fuck? Madea shows up frequently in this film to provide totally unnecessary slapstick comic relief. It's like watching Apocalypse Now, and every 15 minutes or so, The Three Stooges pop up to do their shtick. .

Worse yet is the fact the movie goes to great length making us sympathize with Helen, only to have her suddenly, without warning, turn vicious, vindictive and violent when her husband is incapacitated due to his mob dealings. I know this is supposed to be a “you go girl” moment, but at this point in the film, when Helen has already found true love, these scenes radically, and insultingly, alter the character entirely.

What is ultimately sad about Diary of a Mad Black Woman is there is a pretty good movie to be found in the material. A sentimental chick-flick to be sure, but a potentially audience-rousing film that isn’t an assault to our intelligence.

A great movie, even an “audience” picture, still needs to stick to the established rules of its genre. You simply can’t present a scenario where a woman is forced to make real-life choices, then randomly throw in a MAD Magazine interpretation of a black, anti-social grandma, simply because you cynically think you need to appeal to the dumbest of dumbasses in the audience.

And that’s the problem...Diary of a Mad Black Woman is not a “black film” that white people cannot relate to (in fact, to its credit, race is never an issue here). But it is a stupid, intelligence-bashing, over-the-top cartoon that dumbs-down its message, mostly because Tyler Perry felt the need to shoehorn his Madea creation into a movie which didn’t need it. This makes the movie nothing more than a vanity project of the worst kind.

What is really alarming is that so many people (black, white or whatever) truly love this movie...that so many think it is actually funny, clever, and reflective of real life, when in reality it is as childish as the script for Creepshow.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman is not a black movie. It is not a comedy. It is not a drama. It is not an audience picture. It is a simple-minded film which tries to be all of the above, but failing miserably.