The Cheap-Arse Film Review #8- "CREATURE." (MONSTER FLICK DOUBLE BILL PT. 2)

NAME: CREATURE

RATED: 15

RELEASED: 2004

WRITTEN BY: ADRIENNE STOUT-COPPOLA & CHRISTOPHER COPOLLA

DIRECTED BY: CHRISTOPHER COPOLLA

STARRING: ANDRE WARE, STEVE "CHICKENBONE" HEDDEN, FRANK GORSHIN, ANDRE MARCUS

GENRE: CREATURE FEATURE

BOUGHT FROM: A RECORD FAIR

PRICE: £1.00

Before I get onto this movie and it's director (and believe me, I have alot to say about both...), I'd like to spend a bit of time talking about the company that distributed both this movie and "Crocodile," Boulevard Entertainment. They are, to my mind, the most lazy, slap-dash, bare-bones distribution company I have come across in all my 26 years. When I say "bare-bones," I don't mean the DVDs themselves have no extras, even though they don't. I don't expect them to, so to complain about that would be churlish. No, I say it to mean the amount of effort they put into the whole package, from the disc itself right down to the front and back covers of their DVDs.

At this point, I'm going to use photographs to make my point. I don't like using too many pictures in these things because I don't want it to look like I'm slacking off on the writing and using them to bulk up the posts, but I really do need visual aids to get what I'm saying across properly.

First of all, let's examine the actual discs themselves, as in the labelling of them. Unless it's quite clever, you never really notice the amount of effort that goes into them. They're just there so you know what disc you're putting in your player. But in this case you definitely do notice them, for the wrong reasons. For comparison's sake, here's a picture of the "Going Overboard," disc, a film that I bought for 50p, remember...... it's alright. It's nothing special, and when I hold it up to the light I think it may actually be see-through... I've never seen a label so thin on a disc you could see light through it before... wow... um, anyway, but it does the job, It's fairly colourful, it's got the logo for the movie on it, everything you'd expect.

Now here's a picture of the "Creature," disc, which cost me one pound...... black text on a white background. That's it. That's your lot. The disc for "Crocodile," was like this too, and I've seen one other disc put out by this company, and that was exactly the same as well, so this wasn't a one off, this is the amount of effort they apparently put into labelling all their movies. All they do each time is change the name that's going on there. Even the BBFC rating is in black & white! When I label up my discs, like when I make a mix CD or something, I put more effort into it than these guys do, just by virtue of the fact that I'll sometimes use a red pen.

Then there's the back and front covers of the boxes themselves. I sometimes find that reviewing the packaging the movies can be as much fun as reviewing the movies themselves, and this was no excepting. For a start, here's the covers of both "Creature," and "Crocodile" laid side-by-side...... "Being John Malkovich" levels of originality there, I'm sure you'll agree. Compound that with the fact that both these movies were distributed by the same company and apparently released a year apart, and I'm almost lost for words. It may not even really be a year either, for all I know "Crocodile," came out December 2006 and "Creature," was released January 2007.

Then, finally, the back of the "Creature," box provides plenty worth talking about, specifically the credits at the bottom. For a start, there are two credited writers, but they don't share a credit like I had them do up top- instead, Adrienne Stout-Copolla gets a "Screenplay by..." one, and Christopher Copolla get a "Written by..." one. Could someone please explain to me what the difference is between these two? How has he written this movie if he's not contributed to the screenplay? Did he just come up with the idea? Isn't that usually noted with a "Story by..." credit? Did they not know what that was?

Then there's the cast credits. I was making note of who's in this in order to fill out the "STARRING," section up-top, And I couldn't help noticing how many names there were, it was as if they had just put everybody who's in this on there. Then I got to a credit that simply read, "Leon." Leon? Just one name? What did they do, stunt-cast some obscure eighties pop star? Confused, I did what I've done many times before and surely will do many times in the future, which is turn to IMDb to ease my troubled mind. I typed "Creature, into it's search bar, and after I discovered doing that was as useful as typing "and," into Google, I instead searched for the the director and found what I was looking for, discovering two things- 1) This movie was originally entitled, "The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park," a title so amazing that whoever suggested it be shortened to the generic "Creature," should be eaten alive by ferrets, and 2) the "Leon," in question wasn't an actor, but the name of the character played by Fort Atkinson, whose name comes just defore Leon's. It turned out that half the names I had made note of were, infact, fictional. I realised what had happened. They'd put the actors names down, then the characters they were playing next to them, but made no effort to differentiate the credits from one another. No quotation makrs, by "as.." between the two names, nothing. And nobody had picked up on this. Nobody.

"Boulevard Entertainment: We truely don't give a shit."

There's also another complaint I have about the cast listing, but that one makes more sense to mention within the context of the actual review. So I suppose I should talk about the director and the film now, shouldn't I? Seems like the thing to do.

I'm sure by now you've noticed that last name, and yes, Christopher Copolla is from that family, specifically nephew of Francis Ford, cousin of Sophia, and perhaps most fantastically of all, Nicolas Cage's older brother. As well as directing movies with titles like "Dracula's Widow," and "G-Men from Hell," he's also a writer, producer, actor (and oh, the movies he's been in...), and has appeared as himself in television shows such as "They Live by Night: The Twisted Road," and "Acts of Violence: Dealing with the Devil." In all pictures I've seen of him he looks like he'd be at home in some dive bar downing shots of the house whiskey before tearing off on his Harley, with his shaved head, bandana and leather waistcoat. I bet he livens up family gatherings.

When he movie begins, it's instantly obvious we're going to get a very different film from "Crocodile." There's no happy-go-lucky music for a start. Infact to begin with, there's no music at all, as our perspective is from the back of a mail truck as the Postman rides around. The Postman, a short, weaselish-looking named Chuck. Whilst doing his rounds, he finds a bunch of letters in one of the post boxes with a note attached to them from a woman named Charlotte, asking him to send them urgently, because she's running out of time and he owes her. So already we know that this isn't going to be the light-hearted romp that the last film was, this one seems to want to take itself a little more seriously. Not to seriously obvisously, because it's still about a monster, but it wants to set a more foreboding tone. And that's okay, I can deal with that. Just as long as it doesn't get too cheesy and introduce a cult of people with robes and hoods carry torches, it'll be...

... oh, there they come. And here also comes the dark, ominous stock music that soundtracks every scene of hooded figures doing mysterious things, such as seemingly escavating a temple and cutting themselves, tossing bodies into holes, things involving fire, everything they're doing here. This scene also serves as the credit sequence, and I was trying to pay more attention to that's going on with the montage, but every now and again one would catch my eye, such as Christopher getting a "Story by..." credit, which proves to me that whoever was in charge of typing up the credits for the box didn't know what that was, and then this...

ALSO STARRING
LYNDA CARTER

... WAT? No. No way. It couldn't be that Lynda Carter. I mean, what kind of a DVD distribution company would have fucking Wonder Woman, a genre Goddess, appear in a movie that only genre geeks would give a damn about, and not make a big deal about her on the box? Even if she's not in the movie that long, She'd easily be the biggest star in this thing. Nobody could be that...

...

... oh dear Lord. THEY HAVE WONDER WOMAN IN THIS MOVIE AND THEY NEVER THOUGHT TO MENTION OF IT! I swear to Christ this company must hate money and the prospect of making any. Okay, mentioning her isn't going to turn it into a blockbuster, but she has fans, very rabid fans, all over the world, and maybe seeing her name on the box would have inspired a few more people to buy this thing. I've had a few people try to tell me that she wasn't mentioned because maybe they were trying to keep it a surprise for when she appears, to which I say simply, no. For one thing, surprise cameos only really work if you've got a movie people want to see regardless. If you're movie's gone straight to video as this one has, then alot of people aren't going to want to see it, so your job is to make them want to see, by mentioning everything and anything that would do that. And also, HOW IS IT A SURPRISE IF SHE'S MENTIONED IN THE FUCKING CREDITS!?

It's worth mentioning that on the wall of this temple or cave or whatever it is these people are working on, there are drawings, one of presents two figures who look exactly like the guys who eventually recieve the letters; Donnie (Andre Ware) and Doug ("Chickenbone," which is a great nickname). One's black, the other's white, but other than that they could be brother, both being huge men with beards and bald heads. A little bit like Christopher Copolla himself actually, thinking about it.

Andre we meet in his place of work, a bookshop-cum-coffee shop that he appears to own. There are black power posters on the walls, and the movie tries to get across that he, at best, has a dislike of white people, and at worst is out-and-out racist. The only problem is it tries to do that by having him scream at a white guy dressed up like a Rasta who orders his coffee with a Jamaican accent. Fair game. Doug meanwhile is seen mooching around his apartment with his two stoner buddies, who find both a cat licking a bird's head and a man saying the word, "penis," to be hilarious, like any good stoner should. Both the letters say the same thing, that they were left a patch of land by their dead mother, The Sunny Side Up Trailer Park (seriously, who gave the call to change this movie's name? Unforgivable), and that they're to travel to California and claim it. I guess that would make them brothers, and... oh God, I bet Doug's racist too, and they hate each other on sight, and over the course of the movie they learn the error of their ways and learn to accept each other as people and family. Oh please no. Yeah, it's a good lesson to put out there, but I don't want social commentary during my monster movies. I just want to see people get eaten.

Doug reaches the town first after Donnie's car break's down, and after a very strange conversation with the city clerk over a game of miniature golf, is told to drive up to the trailer park so they can have a sit-down talk later. There's something strange about the clerk and his friends, as were not-so-subtly alerted to when he starts rubbing a tattoo on his arm. So, cult member then? Gooooooood. This is compounded by the fact that the first person Doug sees when he reaches the park, upn being asked who's in charge, pretty much tells Doug he'd be better off getting the hell out of there. Something's going on here, and I'm willing to bet some kind of creature's involved.

And oh look, there's Lynda Carter! She plays Lynette, a character who's, as she describes herself, "the epitome of trailer trash." Her job in this film is mostly to distract both Donnie and Doug so that the people of the trailer park can do such things as steal their wallets, which later end up being ritualistically sacrificed by fire for... no reason I can think of. It's not the biggest role in the world, but she has fun with it, seemingly enjoying being the vixen at a time in her life when the chances to play those sort of roles should have well and truely gone away. And it's definitely big enough for her to be mentioned on the bloody box.

Oh, and by the way, she'd be, what, well into her fifties when she filmed this? I still would.

Donnie has pretty much the same conversation with the clerk when his car is finally fixed with the help of a police officer, who then escorts him to where he needs to go. Donnie's reluctant to accept his help, and I don't really know if that's because he just doesn't want the help of a white guy, or if he just senses something's not right about the guy. I mean, he's very nice. Obviously a cult member, but nice all the same. Both he and Doug have a meeting with the park's interim owner, Burdus (Frank Gorshin) a blind guy who both looks and sounds a bit like Mickie from the "Rocky," movies would if he'd had a stroke. They're told that the land was left to both of them, and that their mother's wish was for it to be turned int a nature preserve. We're told this a few times actually, enough to make me think it might be important to the plot, or at the very least that we'd see some kind of pay-off with regards to it. We don't.

Donnie and Doug then start fighting over who owns the and and how they can both share the same mother, and as I predicted, Doug is indeed a racist man. However, and this does bare mentioning, the movie very cautious with this fact, to the point that you could almost call it cowardly. Over the course of this ninty-minute plus film, Doug drops exactly one N-Bomb, and I'm amazed they had the guts to do that. It's like they're trying to say, "Yeah, he's a racist, but he's not that bad, he doesn't use that word that much." Bullshit. Don't insult my intelligence, and also don't go with something if you're not willing to fully commit to it. If you're going to have one of your main characters be a racist, have him be a racist.

We're then introduced to Jackson (Andre Marcus), a pudgy little kid who speaks in a strange, riddle-like manner whose eyes have a habit of rolling into the back of his head from time to time. So he'll be the monster then? In any case, until that's revealed, he befriends both Donnie and Doug, who both proceed to teach him some of worst life lessons I have ever heard. When it becomes apparent to Donnie that Jackson has no friends, he offers him this advice: "Real friends, they're overrated. They're hard to come by anyway. You've got to learn to rely on yourself. That's what being a man is all about. You learn how to look after number one and you don't take shi... no stuff from anyone." And when Doug sees scratches on Jackson's body ad suspects his grandfather is abusing him, he has these tender, heartfelt words words ready: "Somebody hits you, hit 'em back twice, somebody calls you no good, you spit in their face and you hit 'em twice." Lovely. And I kept waiting for the moment when either or both of these guys later spoke to Jackson again and told him they were wrong, but nope, it would seem that the movie really does believe what it's preaching to it's audience in those case. Fascinating.

Donnie decides soon after meeting Doug that it isn't worth the hassle staying in the park and tries to leave, only to find his car won't start again, none of the phones work and the only man who can fix it for him has gone to Vegas for three days. It would seem the the people of the park are trying to keep both him and his brother their, which confused me. If their mother brought them here to stop whatever's going on, as Jackson also keeps hinting at, and the residents, who we've already established/guessed are all in on it, would like to see it continue for whatever reason, wouldn't they want to see the back of one or both of them? So what good does keeping them around do them? What's going on? And then Donnie, whilst visiting his mother's place in order to use what is seemingly the only phone that works, starts randomly bleeding from the nose and ears. The sudden violent nosebleed has really become a horror movie cliche, hasn't it? Once he's done washing away the blood in the sink, he looks in the mirror to check himself, and sees that his eyes are glowing red and his face is partially obscured by what appears to be a mask. This is one of the few uses of CGI in the entire movie, and after seeing it, all I can say is good. Donnie then inspects a mask on the wall of the bathroom, which of course would have you think that masks, and maybe even that mask in particular, will play into the plot.

It doesn't.

Why does this movie keep making a big deal about things that mean jack shit in the grand scheme of things? I'll tell you now, that CGI effect amounts to nothing too, other than to say, "Freaky stuff is happening here!" I could have worked that out on my own, thanks.

Lynette and Doug then go to watch a drive-in movie together. I find it strange that, when she invites him, alrady in her car presumably heading to her destinatin, it's at best mid-afternoon, and by the time they get there it seems to be the dead of night. How long did they drive for? In any event, I'll accept a loss of time worthy of an alien induction, because in this section of the movie we finally get to see the monster, when it attacks the projectionist, who's planning to get away rom the park and whatever's going on there with her boyfriend. The best thing about it is it's a guy in a suit every time we see it, which is totally in keeping with the spirit of these movies. It looks kind of cool too, like if The Creature From The Black Lagoon had mated with a chicken and then their offspring had been painted red. The best thing, though, is the way it kills people- it opens it's massive beak and CLAMPS DOWN ON THEIR FUCKING HEADS! At first I thought it just crushed them like it seemed to do with the woman here (And I'm not kidding, there is so much fake blood in this scene that at one point it's running down her face like a waterfall) But later it attacks another woman trying to leave (which seems to be all it does), and it actually rips her head clean off. Both of these death scenes are cool, and really makes me wish we saw more of this thing, which is another complaint- in "Crocodile" you got loads of Crocodile, yet a movie called "Creature" is, well, seriously lacking creature.

Oh, and this thing has a name, but I'm not going to mention it until I get to the point that it's spoken in the movie, because it's hilarious.

Doug begins to suspect something's wrong when he's buying Lynette a box of popcorn and sees a river or blood flowing off the ceiling and down the walls of the snack shop. He runs back outside to get his date, only to find she's gone, along with everybody else in the drive-in, as well as seemingly everybody else in the whole park. So after this distressing occurance, the first thing he does is... go into a trailer and take a piss? Okay. When you gotta go you gotta go, I guess. He's then rudely interrupted during this very human moment by the projectionist's boyfriend, who was sent back to their house, despite her knowing how dangerous it would be, to get her cat (sounds like something my Mum would do). He too would appear to have been set upon, but still has his head, so at least he got lucky there. Or at least he did, until the creature comes back and finishes the job. After that, Doug finally has the sense to want to get out of dodge, tries to start his truck, only to find it won't start. I like how it's almost a running joke that things just stop working the second either of the two main characters touch them. Desperate for help, he bangs on the door of his mothers house, not knowing that's what it is, and is shocked to see Donnie open the door, at which point he decides, hey, I don't really need help. So, he's such a racist that he'd rather be ripped to shreads by a monster than accept help from a black man, but he'll still barely use the N-Word? He then tries his truck one more time before just going to sleep. This thing is clearly a threat to be taken seriously.

The next day Doug wakes up and, instead if continuing his attempt to get away, decides to not only stick around, but to continues his fight with Donnie over who actually owns the land. And these two, I want this on the record now, I was so sick of these two fighting by this point. I know I said I didn't want social commentary in these movies, and I don't, but I would actually perfer it over this. They're constantly bitching and throwing snide remarks at each other, and when they both have to walk to the city clerk's trailer, they even refuse to walk on the same side of the road as each other like a couple of five-year olds. And this goes on for literally almost the entire movie. And why do either of them still want this place? It should be obvious to both of them at this point that something very wrong is going on here, and why would anyone want any part of that? Just let these people do what they want to do and wash your hands of it.

Following some more strange occurances, like Doug discovering that the reason his truck wouldn't start is because the engine had been filled with blood, the brothers finally have an actual, physical fist-fight inside their mother's house. It's pretty good ruck, lots of stuff gets smashed, and also this has to be the moment they get all their hostility out and stop fighting, especially since the only reason they stop is because they're visited by the ghost of their mother, who tells them to do just that, and finally explains to them why she brought them together. She's awesome by the way, a cantankerous old broad with a detatchable head, made completely out of blue light like a dead Jedi.

"Your old dead Mama's askin' ya t'set aside ya hate, and work together for a greater power. The strongest in the universe."

The Force?

"Money!"

Oh.

It turns out she wants them to find some gold shell or something that she found and had stolen from her. "HUMAN NATURE SUCKS!" she says. "IT FLAT OUT SUCKS! Only money can ease the pain." This movie has the most screwed-up world view of any film I've ever seen. According to it, people are better off alone leading selfish lives, turning the other cheek is for pansies, and the only thing that makes life better is money and material possessions. What a psychological case study Christopher Copolla must be.

The next day, Jackson invites both of them over to his Grandfather's trailer, in order to finally tell them what's going on, and also because it's his birthday. Here, we learn that when their mother found the shell, she awakened the creature, or opened a portal, or something. We even see a flashback scene of her digging up the shell, which features Charlotte dressed like she's in the sahara, a Native American gentleman and... is that a camel? It's here we finally discover te creature's name. "It's keeper... the bringer of dreams... the tester of faith... the spirit they call...

... Bloodhead."

Bloodhead. Yes, the bringer of dreams is called Bloodhead. And it gets better. If they return the shell from where it originally came from, Bloodhead will "turn dreams to life." and when Doug finally asks what I've been wondering for a while now, which is where's his Grandfather, Jackson points at his chest and says, "In here." Is this going to be another one of those movies where everything ends up being a dream? I don't think I could cope with that tonight.

Jackson finally says something that makes sense when he reveals that Burdus has the shell stashed away in his trailer. They break in and start turning the place upside-down, with Donnie eventually finding it. So, does he take it to the rest of the group and set the plan to end this madness in motion? Don't be silly, of course he doesn't. He puts it back where he found it so he can come back for it later and keep it for himself. So, even after their fight and a visit from their dead mother, both men are still trying to screw each other over. The joke is on them though, as when Donnie tries to take the shell later, he finds that it's already been taken. He presumes by Doug, who proclaims his innocence, they start arguing again, and yep, another fist fight, which is again broken up by Mama's spirit, in a manner that implies she's as sick of this as I am now. They then see a car being driven away with Jackson in it yelling for help, so do they stop the fussin' and the feudin' that second to try and save him? Again, nope. They both get one more shot in each, Doug to Donnie's balls, before jumping on some very conveniently placed Quad Bikes (that actually work!), and give chase. And even during that, they ram into each other over and over again until they both explode, sadly not with them on them.

They get to the temple/pit thing that all the cult stuff has been happening around, where Jackson is standing in said pit screaming for help. To their credit, they actually pull themselves away from trying to kill each other long enough to try and save him, but end up being pushed into the pit themselves by the cult members, who turn out to be almost everyone in the park, as expected. The cop even still has his hat and sunglasses on. They're told that this is their destiny, to "share the dream," "our salvation, your destruction." What are they talking about? What destiny? What are Doug and Donnie supposed to do? Jackson, care to shed any light on this?

"I can't hear my Grandpa, I dont know why..."

Who's your Grandfather? What are you talking about? Why were you so intent in getting Doug and Donnie to stop the creature when they're apparently part of the cultist's prophecy? What...

"That's because he's not here, Jackson..."

SHUT UP, CULT MAN! I'M TRYING TO FIGURE THIS OUT! WHAT GOING ON?! SOMEONE SAY SOMETHING THAT WILL MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE!

"... When we share the the dream we take the place of your Grandfather."

I was about to yell, "WHAT DAMN DREAM ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!?" when Donnie's kind enough to do it for me.

"The dream of birth from a womb of death."

...

... Of fuck off. That's it, I've had enough. I'm not recapping anymore of this in any detail, because I've clearly put more effort into doing that than was put into coming up with it. Basically, as I suspected, Jackson's the monster, he fights Donnie and Doug, they win using their shirts (not making that up), get out of the pit, fight Bloodhead some more, he dies, everyone in the cult dies, there's one more big explosion for shits and giggles, and our two heroes drive away, now completely fine with each other.

Be honest guys, you just wanted to make a film about a monster that bites people's heads off, didn't you? But you didn't want it to look like you just wanted to make a movie about a monster that bites people's head's off, you wanted it to look like you wanted to make a proper movie, so you came up with all this stuff about ghost mothers and dream bringers and boys that speak to dead people (wow, I only just noticed that) and cults and multi-racial brothers and cursed artifacts. And then you couldn't put all those pieces together in a way that made sense, but you did it anyway.

When I started watching this, as I noted, I was worried this film would take itself too seriously and be a downer. Oh how I now wish that was they way they went. Instead, they made something that's almost impossible to follow, full of horrible characters nobody could root for, featuring a monster I'll be amazed to find out was on-screen longer than ten minutes tops.

The lesson I took from watching "Crocodile," was that as long as you keep things simple, don't bite off more than you can chew (no pun intended), and don't lose sight of the fact that the audience should be having fun, then it's possible to make a riotous ride on any budget. "Creature," breaks every single one of those rules, and as such...

FINAL VERDICT

BINNED!

Also before anyone says anything, my bin has been emptied since I took this picture. It's just when I took it I'd barely left my bedroom in three days.

Before I go, an announcement. Starting next week is The Cheap-Arse Film Review's "Four Weeks of Christmas," which is what it sounds like, four holiday movies over four weeks, all bought within the budget I've set myself. There'll be festive fun, frolics, some alcohol, and possibly even a seasonal rejiggering of my ratings system. I'm quite looking forward to it until I actually think about some of the movies I'll be doing. Hopefully I'll see you there.

Until next week, I'm The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and don't be alarmed, ladies and gentlemen, those chains are made of chrome steel.

The Cheap-Arse Film Review #7- "CROCODILE." (MONSTER FLICK DOUBLE BILL PT. 1)

NAME: CROCODILE

RATED: 15

RELEASED: 2000

WRITTEN BY: MICHAEL D. WEISS, ADAM GIERASCH & JACE ANDERSON FROM A BOAZ DAVIDSON STORY

DIRECTED BY: TOBE HOOPER

STARRING: MARK MCLAUGHIN, CAITLIN MARTINI, CHRIS SOLARI

GENRES: CREATURE FEATURE

BOUGHT FROM: A RECORD FAIR

PRICE: £1.00

This was originally going to be my first double feature review. I had this idea in the back of my head that at varying points in this project I'd do two movies in one entry, films that would be linked by a genre, or an actor, or a director, title, production company, anything really, tenuous link central. I was going to try and invoke the spirit of those old fifties drive-in double bills with this one, reviewing two moster movies that share more than a couple of things in common, play them off one another, make mention of their differences and similarities, what worked and didn't in each, stuff like that. In my head, this sounded like lots of fun, and couple that with the fact that I was horricially ill over the weekend and really had nothing better to do but drink Dyralite, watch movies and write about them, I got stuck in.

It soon became clear that what seemed like a fun idea in my head was actually a total fucking nightmare in execution, to the point that I'm never going to attempt it again. Frankly, it's too much work. If you're reading this, I'm going to assume you've read a few of my other posts already, but if you haven't, you'll soon learn what everyone else has, which is that I'm a verbose motherfucker and I don't know when to shut up. As a result, my reviews are looooooooooooooooooong. So imagine taking one, like the last one for instance, which even by my standards was huge (that's what she said...), and double it. It wasn't much fun to attempt to write (which was the first time I could say that about any of these, usually I'm sitting here having a ball) and I can't imagine it would have been much fun to read, either. So I put the ixnay on it.

The plan now is this- I still intend to review two movies this week, I'm just going to space them out over a couple of days. This review went up on Wednesday as usual, so you can expect the second review on Friday, Saturday morning at the absolute latest (I have a party to go to Saturday night). That way I can still address a few of the duel themes I wanted to, whilst also treating each as a self-contained piece. Like a good episode of "The X-Files."

So, "Crocodile." I've always been amazed that Tobe Hooper didn't become a bigger name director than he is. He made two great movies, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Poltergeist," the second of which I believe he was hand-picked to direct by Steven Spielberg himself. He showed flair and talent, and through both also showed he wasn't one-dimensional and understood how to make two very different kinds of scary movie. The future should have been bright, at the very least in the world of mainstream American horror cinema. But going over his career history as a director, you soon discover that the bulk of it is made up of TV movies, direct-to-video bombs and gigs on shows like "Dark Skies," "Perversions Of Science," "Nowhere Man," and "Masters Of Horror." I'm not calling him a failure, I would never do that. He seems to be that rare thing, a consistantly-employed director. And if he's happy with the path his career has take then God bless him. But I can't help but think that, in a genre where it seems like you don't have to do much or back up the things you promise in order to be held up as some great talent (hello Eli Roth), for a man who clearly showed he was good at this to be stuck directing episodes of "Night Visions," is disheartening at best.

The film kicks of with a thumping, upbeat pop-punk ditty, and suddenly I am transported back to the turn of the century, when I was 18 and life was strangely less and more complicated all at once. In a car driving down a long stretch of road, we meet our two main male protagonists, nice guy Brady (Mark McLachlin) and his fratboy prick friend Duncan (Chris Solari). Both seem really familiar to me, but I can't place them from anywhere. Solari apparently had a small part in "Great Balls Of Fire!" when he was a child, a movie I have seen, but there's no way I would have remembered that, and this was McLachlin's first screen role, and he's apparently only been in four films since, in one being credited as "Dead Robber," which must have stretched his talents. Their final destination is some harbour so they can spend their Spring Break sailing, drinking and swapping various fluids, I'm presuming not with each other. Along the way they pass the time by discussing what they would have if they could only eat one food for the rest of their lives, with Duncan throwing his weight behind pizza, because as he puts it, "It's like sex... when it's good it's great, right? And when it's bad, it's still pretty damn good." I can't find fault in this logic if I'm truly honest, but will say that I've probably had more pizzas than I have sex in my life, so what do I know?

Another car full of college kids drives past and shoots their car with water pistols. It turns out this crew of shaved chimps is also with them, amongst them a pretty girl with multi-coloured hair in a tight T-Shirt. Her name is Sunny, she's played by Somme Knight, and she's a slut. Don't yell at me, I'm not being sexist, I just know how these movies work, and when a girl shows up dressed like that, surrounded by a bunch of baying males, she's either had or will have them all. And for fairness and balance, Brady, the hero of our piece, doesn't come across as some shining beacon of virtue either, as it quickly comes out that he's not pleased to see her because at some point he and her would appear to have got to know each other carnally, which is going to be a problem because his girlfriend Claire (Caitlin Martin) is meeting them at the dock. At this point I was sitting here really, really hoping this wasn't going to turn into an episode of "Dawson's Creek," with a rampaging Crocodile in it. I mean, yes, that premise has some merits, but that's not what I came into this expecting. And happily, it's not what I got.

The gang reaches the boat they've hired, along with it's owners, Kit (Doug/DW Reiser), Annabelle (Julie Mintz), and they're horrible, yappy little ball of fluff that I ironically refer to as a dog named (GAH) Princess. I hated that dog on sight, but consoled myself with the thought that there as no way the little fucker was getting to the other end of this thing alive. She may be the first to go. Brady meets up with Claire, there's some kissing, then off to town to buy beers, where they're hassled by the local police. Well I say "hassled," but in truth they do nothing to them that's in any way unreasonable, even though the low, slow guitar music and reactions from certain characters make it obvious the movie wants us to think this. They see a bunch of loud kids who could easily be underaged running around with beer, stop them to check their IDs, and tell them to be careful when they're out on the lake and make sure nobody operates the boat whilst drunk, otherwise something bad could happen. And all they get back is attitude. Which makes this as good a point as any to bring this up- with the exception of Brady and Claire, and Kit and Annabelle up to a point (they lose points just through association with the dog), every single one of these people is a cock. Borish, belligerant, sarcastic, hedonistic and in a couple of cases showing genuine evidence of mental instability, there's not a single person here you'd want to see survive.

And that's great. Because while I'll admit that you do need a few likeale human protagonists in there, for most of the movie, whether you want to or not, you're going to find yourself rooting for the monster. So any halfway decent creature flick should be kind enough to serve up a few arseholes for you to gleefully watch get chomped. And here you practically get a buffet full of them.

And speaking of chomping on arseholes, there's a very strange moment not long after this. The boat is now sailing, and we're in one of the cabins. There's a close-up of Claire's face, she's giggling and ever-so-slightly bent forward. We then move out a little bit to see the top half of her body, then Brady's head raises up into shot... from behind her.

Now, maybe it's just me, infact it very well could be, I'm not discounting that, but from what they're visually implying here, there's only a couple of things he could have been doing to her. And they're either cool or gross, depending on your level of prudishness. Aaaaaanyway, through this scene, we learn a few things about the relationships of these characters, mostly that Claire hates Duncan with a firey passion because he got Brady caught up in some cheating scandle that got him kicked out of school, and thus he and Claire can no longer be together. I really don't care, to be honest.

Following some bodyshot-related party humour and some vomit jokes, we're then whisked to a campfire at night, which exists in order for Kit to tell he story of this movie's monster, the giant Egyptian Crocodile, or as it's called, the "Flat Dog," that was brought to America by Harlan Clements, who built and owned the old hotel that could be seen from the camp. The Croc was said to be descended from the ones the Pharaohs rode into battle, and apparently Harlen worshipped it, created a shrine for it within the hotel and built a cult around it, believing that he could use it to harness the powers of the ancient Egyptian Crocodile Gods. He was about to be run out of town for his un-Christian ways, when the Flat Dog somehow laid eggs without obviously having anything to mate with. I don't understand why this stopped him from being run out of town, but never mind. It's then said that Harlen's eight-year-old son got mad at him for some unrevealed reason, smashed the eggs, and then all that was ever seen of him again was his hand. It's a fun tale, and you could easily buy it as a real urban legend. The most fun aspect of this scene though is the kids heckling and dicking around with Kit as he tells it though, throwing out such gems as, "Can we just fast-forward to the flying guts and assholes?" and the frankly rather random, "LICK MY HAIRY BALL SACK!" Also in later scenes more mention is made of the hotel, of a fire that happened there and evidence of some real freaky shit being found. I was rubbing my hands together, because I thought not only are they going to be chased around by a beast, but they're also going to end up in a haunted house with it. Sadly, this never happens, which confuses me. Why would you set things up like that and give the hotel an elaborate backstory if you're not going to do anything with it? It seems like alot of work for absolutely no return. I have found out this movie has a sequel out there, so who knows, maybe the house is featured there. Hopefully one day I'll get to find out.

Intercut with this scene is another with two fishermen. They're just dicks, kicking over a sign that tells them not to fish where they want to, complaining about "Goddamn animal rights activists," before finding a nest full of large eggs on the bank of the river and deciding, "HEY, DURR, LET'S SMASH 'EM!" seemingly for no other reason than for the louls. I was a bit embarrassed watching this scene, because these guys are just cartoon characters written by by a college student in a PETA T-Shirt, but at the same time I welcomed their arrival the same way a small child does Christmas, beause I knew they heralded, finally, the coming of the Flat Dog. AND HERE IT COMES, AAAAAAND...

... it's shitty CGI. God damn it, it's shitty CGI. I physically deflated (that may have been the Dyralite though), and almost turned the movie off right there, but instead I sighed, tutted at myself for expecting anything else, and sat back down to watch the rest.

Then something wonderful happened. The other fisherman runs away, and the Flat Dog gives chase. Only we see the chase from the Flat Dog's point of view, and I swear, it looks like they used the old Sam Raimi "Shakey-Cam" effect to pull it off. Then the guy get in the car, Flat Dog gets in with him, and... YES! YES! IT'S A RUBBER CREATURE! IT'S A REAL TANGIBLE THING AND IT'S BITING HIM AND HE'S SCREAMING AND KICKING IT AND IT'S BITING HIS LEG AND NOW HALF HIS BODY IS IN IT'S MOUTH AND HE'S STILL SCREAMING AND BLOOD IS SPRAYING ALL OVER THE SEATS AND THE WINDOWS AND THE DASHBOARD AND HE'S STILL SCREAMING AND THEN IT PUSHES THE CAR INTO THE WATER AND OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!!

I quite liked it.

From that point forward they fall into the pattern of sometimes having the Flat Dog be represented by animatronics, and occasionally by CGI. Neither looks particularly realistic, but that's not the point, the point is, does the creature have character? And to that question, I answer a resounding yes. Even in computer-generated form. I've complained about the use of CGI in movies that couldn't afford it before, and I stand by those statements, but it seems here that everybody involved had the sense to realise their limitations and not go for an over-realistic look like so many small-budget genre movies do as a way to overcompensate. Here, the Flat Dog look a little goofy, but you get the impression that was more by design by anything else. And they really do only use the effect for things they obviously didn't know how to do practically, so they weren't a slave to it. It's a good way to work.

Now the film sets out to establish a reason for why Flat Dog would want to kill the kids. Here's where it gets a little bit clunky. The day following the camp out, the kids are having fun in the river frolicking whilst Sunny shakes her boobs at them, when they find the remains of what was Flat Dog's nest, as well as the lone remaining egg. They are, as they are with practically everything, utter wankers about it, taking taking and tossing it around like a football. Princess also eats the contents of one of the smashed ones as Mummy looks on (oh, you're going to get it, dog...). Upon returning to the boat, one of the nerdier and seemingly more unhinged of the group starts muttering some jealous ramblings about Claire, before putting the last remaining egg in her bag as a "joke." Okay, this is usually where I say, "two things," but in this case, THREE things- 1) Why does it seem like all Brady's friends hate Claire? What has she done to inspire this level of hostility from them? Other than not sleep with them all I mean, which seems like what you have to do to be a woman and for them to like you, 2) Where did this creepy loser having the hots for her come from? There's been absolutely nothing pointing to this in any way up until this moment, and 3) How is putting an egg in her bag even a joke? Okay, put an egg in her bag and then stamping on it, that's a joke. But just putting an egg in her bag isn't a joke. That's just... putting an egg in her bag.

In any event, this is briefly forgot about when we take a quick detour back to "Joey & Pacey Land" when Claire finally discovers her boyfriend has at some point been with Sunny, and to be honest with you, the dumb bastard has nobody to blame but himself. I'm not advocating anybody ever cheat on their respective others. I never have. But if you are going to, at least be able to think on your feet a little bit. Here's how it went down- Sunny's a drunk mess again, so Brady decides to help her back onto the boat. She starts to kiss him, and Claire tells her, in a firm but friendly way, "back off, bitch." To which Sunny apologetically responds, "You're so nice, I never would have done it if I had known." Claire looks confused, asks Brady what she means, and the best he can come up with is to pause before saying, "She's been drinking." WAT?! There's no way any woman with half a brain is going to accept that! And he had an out! He could have told her she's obviously so drunk she forgot he had a girlfriend and was apologising for kissing him! But no, no, the best he could come up with was, "She's been drinking." What a moron. So then it all comes out, the shit hits the fan, Claire starts to cry, and Brady finds himself sleeping on the poop deck in his sleeping bag.

I can believe I just wrote a paragraph about te problem solving abilities of a fictional character.

After that little bout of melodrama I was really feeling the need to see someone get eaten, and happily the movie obliged me- Creepy Dude Who Thinks Putting Eggs In Someone's Bag Is A Joke is left on shore so he can sober up. He wakes up, walks to the end on the peer to puke, and then BOOM! FLAT DOG OUTTA NOWHERE, SWALLOWING HIM WHOLE AND AND TAKING A MASSIVE CHUNK OUT OF THE WOOD! It also accidently cuts he rope holding the boat in place, causing it to float off. They all wake up later having floated miles down stream, with no real idea of where they are and the boat stuck on the bank. Like the ungreatful little shits that they are, most of the kids are more interested in making Bloody Marys and trying to convince their friend's heartbroken girlfriend to have sex with them to help get their vessel up and running again.

Brady's not much help either, as he just goes for a walk to be alone with his thoughts. He's joined by Sunny, who thinks the best thing to do to cheer him up would be to try and fuck him. Gotta love this girl. Her seduction technique is odd though, as it consists of her getting into the river fully clothed. Nothing sexier than soggy cotton. Have none of these people heard of skinny dipping? Thankfully Flat Dog shows up to stop Brady potentially making another big mistake. In many ways the monster is the most moral character in this movie. There's a critique of modern American youth for you. It's at this point some inconsistancies start to become apparent in Flat Dog. In some scenes he's fast enough to kil people in the blink of an eye, but in this scene he can't outswim two humans who aren't so much running back to camp as they are slowly jogging. It's hokey, but it's made up for when it reaches the boat, everyone freaks out, and... DOG'S IN THE WATER! OH SWEET CHRIST THE DOG IS IN THE WATER! YOU'RE GONNA GET IT NOW, DOGGY! AND IT STARTS GOING FOR PEOPLE AND ONE DUDE'S LIKE "OH SHIT IT'S A DINOSAUR!" AND RUNS OFF TO GRAB AN AX AND IT STARTS RAMMING THE BOAT AND THE DUDE GETS THE AX AND IT COMES UP THROUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE BOAT AND HE'S HITTING IT WITH AN AX AND IT STARTS CHOMPING ON HIM AND HE'S SCREAMING AND BLEEDING AND EVERYONE ELSE FLEES FOR THEIR LIVES AND MAKES IT TO THE BANK AND THE BOAT FALLS TO PIECES AND THEN THE FLAT DOG COMES BACK OUT WITH THE DUDE STILL IN HIS MOUTH AND EVERYONG SCREAMS AND HE STARTS CHOMPING ON HIM AS IF TO SAY "I'M CHEWING YOUR FRIEND WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT?!" AND THEN THE BODY FALLS TO PIECES AND THEY ALL RUN AWAY SCREAMING AND I NEED A CIGARETTE AND I DON'T EVEN SMOKE!!!!!!!

The only disappointment is the dog survives.

While all this is going on, The Sherrif from the start of the movie (played by Harrison Young, who amazingly played "Old Ryan" in "Saving Private Ryan" two years earlier. Life of a jobbing actor, I guess) is having his own adventure. He discovers the chewed up remains of the two fishermen, as well as what's left of the nest, and pays a visit to Lester (Adam Gierasch) and Shurkin (Terrence Evans), two backwater hicks who run a very strange gift shop and also keep Alligators, suspecting that one of their pets had escaped and done the damage. Shurkin soon puts him straight, telling him it was the Flat Dog and insistng on coming along to help The Sherrif take it down, as it killed his father and grandfather. It's a BLOODFEUD! there are no words to describe how superb that is. Lester stays behind, supposedly to keep an eye on things, but we later see him feeding the Flat Dog chickens. He seems to be caring for it, but the movie never really makes it clear if he's always been doing this, or if he just happened to find it and had some chickens on him. While feeding it, he asks it if it would eat The Sherrif and Shurkin for him. "Ah'm sicka Shurkin," he says, "ah'm sicka all his buggerin's..."

... Excuse me? Did... did I just hear what I thought I did? Where's the rewind button?

"Ah'm sicka Shurkin, ah'm sicka all his buggerin's..."

Yep, thought so. Wow. First implied analingus, now outright stated forced sodomy. This is the most anally-obsessed horror movie since "Deliverence." Who wrote this, John Stagliano? Anyway, Lester is spared any further, ahem, indignity when the Flat Dog decides to thank him for the meal by eating him.

And so we're back to the survivors, and the problem now is that because most of the total dickheads have already been done away with, seeing people get eaten might not be as fun as it had been previously. Thankfully, the movie seems to expect this and to have planned for it by having them argue and bicker amongst themselves to such an annoying degree that I'm eventually more than happy to see some of them go away. I'm not going to get overexcited here, instead I'm going to look at this scene objectively and point out what's good and not so about it. For a start, I find the fact that they've acting like this thing could pop out at them from anywhere to be ludicrous. It's huge, and they're walking through a not-particularly dense forest. You should be able to see or hear it coming a mile away. On the plus side, there's one unique moment that made me go, "Huh." Once the creature appears again (when the group discover Princess STANDING ON IT'S HEAD, which was the exact moment I gave up on the dog getting it), everyone scatters, and Sunny, whose foot was already injured in the first attack, gets it stuck between to tree roots. She's screaming in pain and for someone to help her, and Claire finds her... but so does the Flat Dog. She watches it approach, and in most movies this is where Claire would show what a good person she is by saving the person who did wrong by her, maybe even by sacrificing her own life. But she doesn't. She just stands there, frozen by fear, and watches screaming as it eats her.

The remaining five eventually find refuge in a closed local convinience store, where they act like everything is now going to be fine, they hug, high five, Brady and Claire kiss. That last one is really weird to me, it's like the second Sunny died, whatever was wrong in their relationship suddenly went away, which doesn't seem like a sensible message to be sending out. "Hey kid! Boyfriend or girlfriend screwing around on you? Do away with the other person and everything will be fine!" They're looking around the store for food and weapons (we get obvious-but-fun wink to Hooper's past when they find a chainsaw, which sadly isn't used later), Duncan covers himself with bug spray (which actually does come into play later in one of the most hilarious ways possible), and Annabelle sneaks off to the bathroom to have a bit of a cry, which felt to me like too heavy a moment for a film like this. I don't want to see tears unless it's people crying through pain. She also can't do crying acting worth a damn. She sits on the toilet with her dog, and all I could think was, "please let the Flat Dog burst through the toilet and eat her, please let the Flat Dog burst though the toilet and eat her." He doesn't, but he does the next best thing, he BURSTS THROUGH THE FUCKING BRICK WALL! THEN HE'S IN THE STORE AND HE EATS ANNABELLE AND BLOOD SQIRTS NEARLY HITTING THE DOG AND IT'S KNOCKING SHIT OVER AND PEOPLE ARE SHOOTING IT AND IT'S HAVING NO EFFECT AND IT MUNCHES ON DUNCAN'S FOOT AND KIT GETS IN A TRUCK OUTSIDE THAT WON'T START AND IT GOES OUT AFTER HIM AND IT KNOCKS GAS EVERYWHERE AND SOMEHOW THERE'S FIRE AND IT RUNS AWAY AND THE TRUCK BLOWS UP WITH KIT IN IT! A CROCODILE JUST BLEW UP A FUCKING TRUCK!!!!!!!

After this, we're treated to several lush shots of Shurkin and The Sherrif riding around in their boat, with inappropriately romantic music playing over the top of it, which given what we already know about Shurkin is enough to make me wonder what's been going on off-screen between the two of them. They see the smoke coming from the exploded store and decide to invetigate closer. "It just keeps getting better," The Sherrif say. I didn't know about that one at the time. I thought it might have peaked. Brady, Claire and Duncan are at this point a real sight to behold, clothes ripped to shreads, arguing over who pushes Duncan in the wheelbarrow they have him in as he complains and sprays more bug spray over himself. If I were either of them, I'd have left him behind miles back, on the off-chance that Flat Dog finds him and get distracted for a few moments as it eats him.

They spy The Sherrif and Shurkin, and again act like they're saved when they get on their boat, which makes perhaps the least sense of anything so far, because you know what? The last place I would feel safe if I was being hunted by a giant Crocodile would be on a boat surrounded by water. And indeed, the creature appears, rams the boat, knocks Shurkin into the water and does the same thing to him as it did the previous two generation. At least he's with Lester now. The Sherrif bites it next, along with half the engine, thus causing the boat to burst into flames and the other three to have to abandon ship and, once the egg is finally discovered, decide to use it as bait and make one last stand against Flat Dog, armed with a pen knife and some sticks. Duncan, who for most of the movie has pretty much been an insufferable twat, is actually hilarious in this scene, his declaration that he's had enough and is willing to let the creature eat him, and his utter disbelief at both his friend's desire to fight and the tools with which he wants to do it with both being brilliant.

So here they are, three beaten up teens hiding behind bushes armed with sticks ready to do battle with a giant Egypyian Crocodile. There's no way this fight scene can live up to what's come before, and in truth it doesn't. But there are two moments here that elevate it to greatness, and both in some way involve Duncan, who it seems like the writers realised they'd given the short end of the stick to most of the movie and tried to make up for this fact in the last ten minutes. Firstly, in order to stop Brady being eaten, he jumps on top of Flat Dog's mouth and attemps to hold it's jaws shut. Flat Dog's response? IT TOSSES HIM INTO THE AIR AND SWALLOWS HIM WHOLE! My God they did it, they actually managed to save the coolest death in the movie until the very end. Oh wait, did I say death? My mistake. Because you see, Duncan doesn't die here. How does he survive being swallowed whole, you ask? Well shortly after the fact, Flat Dog starts gagging and making hurling noises and... can you guess where I'm going with this yet? HE PUKES HIM UP! HE PUKES HIM UP BECAUSE HE'S SO COVERED IN BUG SPRAY THAT HE'S INDIGESTIBLE! I literally threw my arms in the air and shouted, "YEAH!!!"

And then the egg hatches, and Flat Dog and baby go away. I'm not being needlessly abrupt when I put it like that either. That's really what happens. It just swims away with it's kin, leaving the three friends standing on the river bank watching it go. And then the movie ends. No seeing how this event has effected the three and made them closer and stronger friends, no scenes with them in hospital, nothing. It's just over. Roll credits. The End. And I liked that, it was a movie being satisfied that it had done what it set out to do, leaving when it had nothing more to add. More movies should have the conviction to do that.

I like this movie. I really do. It's not high art, but it was never meant to be. It's not that scary, but with these kinds of movies, that's not really the point. The point is to make sure the viewer is riotously entertained, which I was. There are flaws. While it looks fine for what it is, on account that it's directed by someone who actually knows what he's doing, it feels like it's getting cheaper and cheaper the longer it goes on, like it was filmed in sequence and you could see them running out of money. There's also one continuity error right at the end- Brady tells Claire he saw the creepy guy mucking around with her bag, and when she asks why he didn't tell her about it, he says she wasn't talking to him at the time. Um, no, the scene where they fell out came after that one. I guess that's what happens when you have three people writing the screenplay. But I'll forgive that, because there were moments in this film that had me smiling, laughing, and yes, even cheering. It's like a frat party, it's childish, populated by dumb people, saying silly things, and you feel a bit ashamed of yourself for having a good time, but you're having one anyway. Just don't forget to bring beer.

FINAL VERDICT

KEPT!

One down, one to go.

Until, well, Saturday morning at the latest, I'm the Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and you sure do got a purdy mouth.

The Cheap-Arse Film Review #6- "BRAIN DEAD."

NAME: BRAIN DEAD

RATED: 15

RELEASED: 1990

WRITTEN BY: CHARLES BEAUMONT

DIRECTED BY: ADAM SIMON

STARRING: BILL PULLMAN, BILL PAXTON, BUD CORT, NICHOLAS PRYOR, PATRICIA CHARBONNEAU

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR

BOUGHT FROM: QD STORE

PRICE: 99p

No, sadly not the "Brain Dead" with the kung-fu fighting preacher. Don't feel too bad, I made the same mistake myself. I mean, how many films can there be out there called "Brain Dead?" Well, as it turn out, at least two. This "Brain Dead," stars the Bills Pullman and Paxton, which was a selling point in and of itself, because I always had a sneaking suspicion that they were the same person, so if nothing else this puts that theory to bed.

I've always found both actors interesting for two reasons. First of all, they're both just a little bit, well, odd. Pullman moreso than Paxton, he's got this weird, jittery, unnerving quality about him, even though most of the time he's playing a pretty nice guy. He's like that guy that lived next door to you when you were a child. He seemed normal, was polite, your Mum and Dad never had a bad word to say about him, and maybe even had a wife and children of his own. But you knew there was something not right about him, like he had a basement full of torture devices or something. Whereas Paxton, well, he's just sleazy. He's always got this glint in the eye, this smirk like he's mentally undressing everyone on-set, the production crew included. And again, he's sometimes called to play characters where this characteristic doesn't really gel with what's being asked of him.

The second reason is, they're both pretty much like water off a duck's back. Their performances never stick in your mind, even if you've quite enjoyed the movie you've just watched. I mean, I sitting here trying to think of movies they've been in, and I'm really struggling. I know Pullman was in "Casper," because I had an unhealthy obsession with that movie when I was a child, which resulted in me seeing it three times in cinemas (which ranks it at number two on the list of movies I saw the most times on the big screen; "The Royal Tenenbaums" is at number one with five), then bought it on video and watched it until, and I'm not kidding when I say this, the tape broke. But after that... was he in "Independence Day?" I just IMDb'd it, and yes he was, playing THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. A central character. I remembered that Jeff fucking Goldblum was in this movie, but I couldn't remember Bill Pullman playing the leader of the Free World. Same deal with Paxton. I know he was in "Twister." I wish I didn't know that, frankly. But after that, nothing. Again, I turned to IMDb and found out that he's actually been in alot of movies I like: "Near Dark," "Commando," "Predator 2," "True Lies," "Aliens," "Frailty." And yet off the top of my head I couldn't have named any of those. Which tells me something about both of these two, which is yes, it's not impossible to enjoy their work whilst it's happening in front of you, but they don't have the charisma to make any real lasting impression. So sticking them both in the same movie, and even having them do scenes together, should be fascinating.

(Speaking of "Casper," I'm reminded me of something that happened to me involving that movie. If you don't want to read this, feel free to skip, because it really has nothing to do with the rest of the review...

... last year, I was mooching around a local DVD shop that was having a closing down sale, and found "Casper," on DVD for a really reasonable price. Not a pound, but still reasonable, so out of nostalgia and a desire to see if the movie was as good as I remembered it, I picked it up and headed for the counter. On my way though, another film, well documentary really, that I'd been meaning to see for a while caught my eye. It was also going cheap, so I decided fuck it, I'd have both. I walked up to the counter that had a very pretty woman with pink hair and a nose piercing sitting at the till. She smiled at me, I smiled back, then handed over my purchases. She looked at "Casper," laughed, shook her head, then scanned it. Then she looked at the other DVD and her smile disappeared. She looked at it some more, looked back at "Casper," back at the other DVD, back at "Casper," then looked up at me with a look of pure, unadulterated disgust, as if any man who would choose to watch this combination of movies must have something deeply wrong with him. I handed her the money, she snatched it off me, practically threw both DVDs and my change at me, and I left the shop.

What was the other movie I bought, you ask?

"Inside Deep Throat."

By the way, "Casper," was alright.)

So anyway, enough of this, let's get to the movie. From the off, I like the credits. Some movies like to try and get creative with their credits, sometimes with horrifying results (hello, "Going Overboard"), but not this move, this movie is no bullshit, just white text on a black background, with brain scans thrown in periodically. Some might think this looks cheap, but I quite like it. It's stark and clinical, like the credits of a movie about the human brain should be, and there's ominous, "BA-DOOM-BA-DOOM" music playing over the top, which is always cool.

The movie begins, and we meet Bill Pullman's character, Dr. Rex Martin, who we quickly discover is conducting experiments on the human brain. We know this because his lab has a shelfing unit with lots of brains in jars on it that he insists on being refered to by name instead of jar number because, "every brain is a living record of a life... who knows what journey they're on now," which doesn't sound like something anyone with any real medical training would say, and when he enters said lab he finds one of his assistance expermenting on a brain, stimulating parts of it in on order to make a very gross looking fake face perform expressions. It's the same face that's on the box, the thing that looks like a smaller, uglier version of Lady Cassandra from "Doctor Who," which lead me to believe that it played a big part in the rest of the movie. Maybe it starts talking, develops sentience and attempts to kill the people conducting experiments on it? That sounded like a plausible plot for this kind of film. Well, believe it or not, this scene is the only time during the entire movie that you see it, which makes the box art not only misleading with regards to the kind of movie you think you're getting, but it also can't be a good sign when the people in marketing deside that the coolest thing in the flick is something that's on-screen roughly ninty seconds, can it?

Later Dr. Martin is in his office when he's visited by his friend Jim Reston, played by Paxton. Now, after the build up I gave, at this point I should be writing something about how these two meeting caused the world to explode, but in truth, their scenes together are alright. Both are exactly how I described them in the third paragraph, creepy and letcherous respectively, but it works for the characters they're playing, so it's not that distracting. It's established in this scene that Reston and Martin have been friends since college, where both were interested in the woman that would eventually become Matin's wife, before getting into the meat of what what would eventually become the plot, that being Reston wanting Martin's help dealing with Jack Halsey. Apparently he was an accountant who worked for Reston's company, Eunice, who went mad, killed his family, pleaded insanity and ended up in the Lakeside mental institution, which Eunice own (sounds like a massive confilct of interest to me, but never mind...). At this point I lost track of things a little bit, because Reston's story flies all over the place. At points he's indicating that he thinks Halsey is faking his insanity to get off charges, but then he says he knows for a fact that he's bouncing off the walls, says he wasn't happy "with some of the applications that his work might be put to," which makes him sound more like a scientist or a doctor than an accountant, and there's mention of "numbers." Numbers that they either need to know, or want Halsey to forget, I really didn't know at this point.

After a bit of initial reluctance, Martin agrees to meet Halsey when the temptation of having a fresh brain to play with is dangled in front of him. He travels to Lakeside, which looks more like a giant greenhouse than a nuthouse. Why anyone would think it's a good idea to lock dangerous, psychotic people in a place seemingly totally made out of glass, I've no idea. We finally meet Halsey, and it quickly becomes clear that the guy's a total fucking loon who barely knows what day it is. Halsey is played by Bud Cort, who most people reading this will have the best chance of knowing from "The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou," where he played Bill Ubell, the bond company stooge who gets quite offended when he's referred to as such. To put it bluntly, he's the best thing in this movie. By turns crazy, paranoid, funny and sympathetic, he's the only one who seems to have the sense to treat this movie like the cartoon it is and have fun with it. He babbles about smiling faces on money watching him and men having sex with his wife following him around, before agreeing to allow Martin to run tests on his brain, which prove that he's definitely not faking it. The tests are great, they involve Halsey just sitting in a chair with electrodes wired up to his head as a Commadore 64-worthy image of a brain appears on a monitor with the words "DISFUNCTION," and "PARONOID," flashing over the top of it. Martin shows his finding to Reston, who again starts talking about numbers, about how Halsey was working on "cornerstone technology," "classified shit." Seriously, is he an accountant, or a scientist? It's like this movie can barely decide what some characters even do. He then asks when Martin's going to perform surgery on him, which Martin says he's not ready to do, but Reston is insistant that he goes ahead with. Basically they want him either cured or brain dead, because "we need those numbers, or we need to make sure nobody will ever get them." ENOUGH WITH THE NUMBERS ALREADY! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!? At this point the movie was legit giving me a headache.

As confusing as the last 16 minutes (Jesus, has it really only been 16 minutes?) have been, it's following the next scene that thing's really go apeshit. Martin is shown casually walking out of his building carrying a jar with a brain in it under his arm (as you do), when he's attacked by a bum who screams "THAT'S MY BRAIN! GIVE ME BRAIN!" at him continually. I liked this scene because it reminded me of the bit from "The Simpsons," where Chief Wiggum listens to a crazy homeless man jabber at him for a couple of seconds before asking, "So, who's stealing your thoughts?" During the scuffle, the jar ends up being thrown into the air and smashing on the ground at the same time that Martin gets hit by a car and cracks his head on the windscreen. Now, apart from being the most unsubtle kind of visual symbolism it's possible to see, this scene may as well hang a sign around it's neck that says, "FROM THIS POINT ON, NOTHING'S GOING TO MAKE SENSE. NOT THAT IT MADE MUCH ANYWAY."

And as expected, after this, the film descends into being little more than a series of dreams within dreams, the first one being Martin having his research taken away from him and then seeing all his beloved brains falling to the floor. When he wakes from that, we finally meet his wife Dana, played by Patricia Charbonneau. She's not a very good actress, but she's not in alot of the movie so it doesn't matter that much.

The surgery scene follows shortly afterwards, which strangle takes place in the board room of the Eunice building, in a room with two way glass that seems to exist for no other reason than for surgery to happen there. That must have been a strange request to ask the architect- "Say, now that you've made room for the large table, how about a fully-functioning operating theatre?" I really shouldn't be complaining about logic at this point, because the movie has made it totally obvious that nothing that's happening now is real, but the point should be that we shouldn't really know if things are happening or not. Making it this obvious is taking the fun out of it, and also makes it very difficult to be emotionally involved with anything.

In any event, this particular scene is the best in the movie, and again, that's totally down to Bud Cort. During Dr. Martin's procedure, which he dubs "a kinder, gentler lobotomy," Halsey hallucinates, appearing on a beach still strapped to the chair, the top of his head removed, seeing his wife and chldren still caked in their own blood saying things being said by others in the room around him, sometimes with their own voices, sometimes with the voices of the people speaking. It's a genuinely haunting moment, aided by Cort's performance, or more specifically his facial expression, a combination of confusion and heartbreak. It belongs in a better movie than this. He belongs in a better movie than this.

After the procedure is completed and appears to be a success, with the memory of what Halsey did to his family appearing to have been erased from his mind, Reston announces out of nowhere that they should market this to people who like plastic surgery, because after all, if people like changing their appearence, wouldn't they like to be able to chance their minds, their personalities, their souls? This is later dubber "The New You," and finally I think to myself that something's actually kind of making sense. Operating under the likely assumption that nothing here is real, this scene must represent Martin's fear that his research will be misused, and now the rest of the movie will be about him trying to put a stop to Eunice doing just that, as things get stranger and stranger all around him.

Right?

Noooooooo.

During the op, Halsey makes reference again to the man that he says was following him around the institution, only this time we see him- he's a laughing man with a demented grin, wearing a white, blood-splattered suit and holding a knife, played by Nicholas Pryor. Once the op is complete, Halsey can no longer see him, only now (DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUUN!) Martin can. He follows him everywhere, appearing in his car, as a hitchiker by the side of the road, in the restaurant where Martin and his wife meet up with Reston and his superior, the stress causing him to act like he's drunk and make a fool out of himself, and finally inside his own house, where he sees Reston and his wife having sex on the dining room table. The Man In White promptly kills them both, stabbing them in the eyes, Martin enters the house to look at the bodies sad for a bit, before a neighbor knocks on the door to tell them to keep the noise down, only to see (DUN-DUN-DUUUUUUUN! again) that Martin is holding the bloody knife. he insists loudly that he didn't do it, and then, boom, we wake up from that dream into what must be another dream. This one, however, plays that old chesnut of having the doctor be revealed to be the patient, with Martin being told that he's actually Halsey. His doctor is again played by Pryor, and it's odd, but he's nowhere near as good an actor in this role. When playing a psycho, he's suitably-deranged looking with an awesome cackle, but the second he has to recite actual dialogue, it's like he's reading aloud from the phone book. That's a tired cliche, but it's the only way I can accurately describe what hearing him say lines.

From this point forward, the movie really goes nuts. We meet Halsey again twice over the course of two almost identical dreams, one of which ends with him hiding in a closet and being discovered with his eyes stabbed out, the second again with him hiding in a closet, only for Martin to follow him and fall into water, where Halsey informs him that they're both in his brain (this is actually a clever pun on a line that's said a couple of times during the course of the movie, that madness is simply water on the brain). After some more stuff (yes, at this point, things are so difficult to either describe or make sense of that I'm reduced to describing it mearly as "stuff." Call me unprofessional if you want, I really don't care), Martin/Halsey/Whoever is recaptured by Eunice and subjected to the procedure that the original/fake/imaginary/whatever Halsey was. And dear God, they're talking about numbers again. WHAT ARE THESE NUMBERS?! HAVE THEY HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOT AT ALL?! THEY HAVEN'T BEEN MENTIONED FOR ABOUT THE LAST THIRTY MINUTES! WHAT IS THIS "CORNERSTONE TECHNOLOGY?!" Please, someone help me.

And then, finally, finally, it looks like we may get some answers to some things. Martin wakes up again, in another operating theatre surrounded by doctors, who tell him that he'd been in an accident, and they were operating on him to relieve pressure on his brain, and over the course of the surgery he'd been suffering seizures, which I suppose is the excuse given for the dreams. Which is okay. It doesn't improve the quality of the flick even slightly, but at least they saw fit to give us something of a "EUREKA!" moment that all these movies need. Otherwise you've just dedicated the last 80 minutes of your life to watching jibberish, and nobody wants to admit that to themselves.

So they're operating on him, his wife and Reston are there waching, and then... suddenly we're back in the Lakeside Mental Institution? And Martin's walking around in a very obvious wig with a bandage wrapped around his head? He goes into the toilet and sees Halsey there, who's very obviously dressed like a doctor? He takes off the wig to show the scar that indicated the top of his head has been cut off? He rips the top of his head open? Butterflies fly out of it? Then we cut back to the operating thearte to see that Martin has died, and hear his wife told "At least he didn't feel any pain" in the kind of flippant manner that would imply this has to be another dream? Oh God. Oh God, they're not going to explain anything. They're just gonna leave everything hanging because they think it's cool and arty to not have to explain themselves. They're...

.. but then they do. Oh good.

Martin's a brain in a jar

...

... Martin's a brain in a jar?

...

... MARTIN'S A BRAIN IN A JAR?! OH, YOU'RE HAVING A FUCKING LAUGH! THAT'S IT?! THAT'S YOUR EXPLAINATION!? THAT'S YOUR EXCUSE FOR WHY NOTHING IN THIS MOVIE HAS MADE SENSE AT ANY POINT?! "OH NOTHING HAS TO MAKE SENSE! IT'S BEING REMEMBERED BY A BRAIN IN A JAR!" WELL, FUCK YOU! THAT'S NOT A EUREKA MOMENT! THAT'S BOBBY WAKING UP IN THE SHOWER ON "DALLAS!" I WATCHED THIS MOVIE THREE TIMES, AND THIS REVIEW TOOK A COMBINED TOTAL OF EIGHT HOURS TO WRITE! I WANT THE TWELVE HOURS OF MY LIFE THAT YOU STOLE FROM ME BACK! WHAT WERE THOSE FUCKING NUMBERS?!?!?!?!?!

And do you know what the funny thing is? I wan't going to be that down on this movie. I was going to try and focus more on the stuff I liked, like Bud Cort's performance, the fact that a couple of dated special effects accepted, it doesn't look too bad for a movie that's almost 20 years old, and that the overall mood for the piece is fairly creepy, which is exactly the kind of tone they should be going for. They even squeezed in one decent jump moment when Halsey's found with his eyes removed in the closet. But then it ended like that, and all good will went out the window.

You know what happened here? What I'm sure happened? Charles Beaumont, the writer of this movie, also wrote 22 episodes of the original "Twilight Zone" series, as well as two episodes of the 1980's relaunch, and that's what this feels like, a really long "Twilight Zone" episode, where he was told he could do everything he ever wanted to do on that show but wasn't allowed. Now, when some people come from a very restricting creative enviroment and are allowed to stretch themselves a little more, they either thrive and produce works of genius, or the freedom gets to them and they end up cramming every idea they weren't allowed to do before into one story. I'm convinced that's what happened here. Some people work better with limits, they need to be told, "No, you can't do that, it's silly." Otherwise they end up writing "Brain Dead."

FINAL VERDICT

BINNED!

I really wish this had been the other "Brain Dead." I would much rather have watched zombies get hacked to pieces by a lawnmower.

Until next week, I'm The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and I kick arse for The Lord.

The Cheap-Arse Flim Review #5- "AMERICAN DREAMZ."

NAME: AMERICAN DREAMZ

RATED: 12

RELEASED: 2006

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: PAUL WEITZ

STARRING: HUGH GRANT, DENNIS QUAID, WILLEM DEFOE, MANDY MOORE, SAM GOLZARI

GENRE: COMEDY SATIRE

BOUGHT FROM: CEX

PRICE: £1.00

First things first, I'd like to congratulate my friends Darren & Claire on the birth of their daughter, Sophie. Congrats you two, you created a human being. The only thing of any significance I've ever contributed to this world is carbon dioxide. Now, with that said...

... no, I can't believe I'm reviewing this movie, either. It's distrubted by a proper studio (Universal), written and directed by someone who's made movies you've probably heard of and maybe even like (Paul Weitz, who co-directed "American Pie," and "About A Boy," with his brother Chris, and gave the world "In Good Company," and "The Golden Compass" solo), stars people you'll probably know (Hugh Grant, Dennis Quaid, Willam Defoe and Mandy Moore being the biggest, if not always the best, of the bunch), and was released in 2006. Two years ago! and yet, here we are. One pound.

I'm also a little bit surprised at myself that I'd not seen this until now. I mean, I'm a big fan of almost all the films Weitz has been involved in writing and/or directing. I even thought "Golden Compass," was alright. And the one movie he's been involved with as either a writer or director that I haven't liked, that being "Down To Earth," had nothing to do with anything he and his brother did, and everything to do with Chris Rock's frustrating and continued inability to translate whatever makes him funny and likeable during his stand-up onto the big screen (NOTE: Shortly after writing this paragraph, I discovered that he and his brother were two of the four people involved in the screenplay for "Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps." I've decided to pretend this didn't happen and just move on with my life).

To be honest, the second I heard what the subject matter was, I pretty much lost all interest. For those that don't know, this movie sets out to be a scathing attack on reality television talent shows, those that make them, those that take part in them, and those that judge on them. Now, when I say I've no interest in seeing this, don't take that to mean I'm a fan of those sorts of shows, because I'm not. I just feels like I've been hearing the same jokes and complaints, with little-to-no variation, for years now. And that's because I have. I mean, they must have been running out of material to mine from this genre back in the seventies with the likes of "The Gong Show," and nobody seems to have found anything new to say about it over the course of the last 30-something years. Yes, most of the contestants really aren't that talented. Yes, most of the people judging the contestants are either awful or have such low self-esteem they really have no right judging anyone. Yes, the producers of the shows are exploiting people and have already decided who should win. And yes, there's always one contestant who is so driven to win that he/she/it's practically psychotic. I get all that. It stopped being funny and actually became a little bit sad quite some time ago.

Grant is playing Simon Cowell. I don't care what his character's name really is, he's playing Simon Cowell. I have a funny relationship with Hugh Grant. On the one hand, every time he does an interview or a television appearence, such as the one he did on "Top Gear" last year, I find him to be a very charming and engaging man. I also like how he's kind of a throwback to the old fashioned movie stars that this country used to be famous for, the kind that doesn't really act so much as they just bring little bits of themselves to every role. But on the other, he always moans about how he doesn't really like acting and finds it a childish pursuit, and I can't stop myself from thinking that if he hates it so much, why doesn't he just stop? I mean, there's probably hundreds of British actors in his age bracket working in bars and restaurants in LA that would sell the souls of their first borns in order to be in the position he's in.

Anyway, the movie starts with Simon reading a fax with the ratings for the last season of "American Dreamz," on it, which says they're excellent, which he strangely doesn't seem too happy about. His girlfriend than tells him she's leaving him, which he says he's happy about, because in his own words, "You make me want to be a better person. And I'm not a better person. I'm me." So straight off the bat, we find that Grant's character is going to occupy the safe comfort zone he's been in since "Bridget Jones' Diary," that of the total git. Only this time there's a little bit of vulnerablity and self-loathing mixed in, ticking two of the boxes I previously mentioned with one character, which I have to admit is good economy. I think they think this makes him complex, but in truth, it makes him a bit of a confusing character. There are scenes where he's telling his production crew to "bring me freaks," and that when looking for contestants he wants, "Someone to love, someone to pity, someone to laugh at, someone to masturbate over." But then there will be other scenes when he's practically banging his head against a wall begging for there not to be another season, and in conversation with Mandy Moore's character reveals that his Mother told him he had no talent and that nobody would ever love him. This implies that he realises he has to be horrible in order to maintain his fame, to continue to be able to give his mother the finger (blimey, what a horrific mental image that is...), but because he has such low and fragile self-worth, being the most hated man in the world absolutely destroys him, which would be an interesting contradiction, were it not for the fact that it's never really addressed in any detail. Most of the time he's just a scummy human being.

The next character we meet is Dennis Quaid's. He's playing George W. Bush. I don't care what his character's name really is, he's playing George W. Bush. Quaid's another actor I've had a few problems with recently. When he was younger, he was powerhouse of a movie star, with an irrsistable grin and wild, almost dangerous charisma. But if his recent roles were anything to go by, that all seemed to have gone away. He just seems to be happy sleepwalking through movies with an angry scowl on his face. Even in "In Good Company," a movie I really like and think houses one of his better recent performances, I struggled to connect with his character, and I felt he struggled to connect with the other characters on-screen. When that movie ended, I didn't believe for a second that he had any kind of affection for Topher Grace's character, because he'd done nothing to convince me that he did. I mean, seriously Dennis, what happened? Was it when Meg Ryan left you that the joy just disappeared from your life? If you asked me, you dodged a bullet on that one. Have you seen her lately? She may as well be called Robocop, because at this point there's probably about as much original organic material left on her as there is on Murphy.

For what it's worth, this turns out to be one of his better performances. At first he plays Dubya like you'd expect, as an ignorant goof with a bit of a Massiah complex and very little understanding of what's going on in the world. However, as the movie goes on, it's revealed that during his last campaign, he had something of a breakdown, and has started to realise that he's being used as a puppet by those around him, especially his Chief Of Staff (played by Willem Defoe, who with his shaved head looks like John Malkovich's even uglier brother), who is so disturbed by his superior's desire to actually read a newspaper that he convinces him to wear an earpiece and parrot the whatever he feeds to him word-for-word in an attempt to keep him on message.

We then meet the two main contestants of the show, that being Omar, played by Sam Golzari, and Sally Kendoo (Geddit? "Kendoo?" "Can Do?" To imply that she's, y'know, driven? Anyone? Anyone?), who's played by Mandy Moore.

We first meet Omar when he's being filmed training for a terrorist propaganda video on the Afgan-Pakistan border. He is, to put it bluntly, not prime terroist material. He gets in people's way on the monkey bars, is practically used as a trampoline to get over walls, and as for his ability to fire a gun, well forget it. Eventually he's dismissed from filming, and later that night soothes his soul by listening old fifties showtunes. Wait, WAT? It's at least explained that he developed a love for this sort of music from his mother, who managed to amass a collection of 50 records before she was blown up by an Amerian bomb. He's sent away to live with his Aunt and Uncle in America and told to wait to be contacted by his Sleeper Cell, which we find out is never planned to happen, on account of him obviously being rubbish at killing things. Once there, he meets his two Americanised cousins, Shazzy and Igbal. Igbal is, and there's no delicate way of putting this, super gay, spending most of his free time dancing and singing in front of a mirror on a self-made stage, complete with it's own glitter ball. Talking logic in a movie like this is a bit redundant, because its obviously operating in its own little world in order to make its point, but it struck me as odd that Omar, who is a member of an obviously extreme-religious terrorist organisation, never has an issue with his cousin's obvious sexuality. Maybe that's done to hammer home just how much he's not cut out for this line of work. Anyway, Omar decides to stay in when his cousins go to the mall in order to use said stage to indulge is desire to perform something from "Guys & Dolls," ony to have an "American Dreamz" camera crew walk in on him, expecting to find Igbal, but decide to go with him instead. This catches the eye of his contacts in America, who decide to use him as a suicide bomber in order to assassinate The President, who's appearing at the final to act as a guest judge. Still following this at the back? Excellent.

Mandy in many ways gets the most juicy character to play in Sally, that of the totally ambition-motivated young woman who dumps her boyfriend, the brilliantly named William Willams (played by Chris Klein, who gives his best performance since "Election") the second she gets so much of a wiff of fame, only to get back together with him when he comes back from Iraq a decorated war hero because it makes for a good story to tell on TV. She's been preparing for this moment her whole life, to the point that she doesn't bat an eyelid when the producers of the show ask her to reenact her excitement at being told she's going to be on the show. It's this drive (Kendoo!!!) that brings her to the attenion of Cowell, who sees in her the same ruthlessness and desire to be famous at all costs that he has, and the two spark up a strange friendship/non-romance. In a way, they can be themselves with each other, as shallow and ruthlessly honest as they want, and neither of them judges the other, like when Cowell makes a lame joke, then tries to explain it to Sally when she doesn't laugh, only for her to tell him that she knew it was a joke, but didn't find it funny, and not laughing at it would in a strange way be kissing his arse more than if she had laughed like everybody else would have.

So the movie goes on, we see snatches of the other acts and Cowell's reactions to them, the highlight of which being when he tells one poor young girl, "I've felt like this before, and it was right before I tried to kill myself." I would give anything to hear the real Simon Cowell say that. We don't actually see as much of the other acts as I was hoping. To be honest this section feels really rushed through, like nobody involved had any interest in showing how the show works. Or maybe they just assumed we all know how shows like this work, and devoting too much time to it would be pointless. Either way, it left me a bit cold.

We eventually reach the final, where the two finalists are, you guessed it, Omar and Sally. Simon reveals to Sally that he's rigged the thing for her the best he can, as he's helped Omar along into the final with his positive comments because "novelty acts never win the whole thing," and they have another ace in the hole, with Sally's boyfriend poised to propose to her on live television. They then have an exchange that's almost worth sitting through the entire movie for...

"Sometimes I look at you and see my own reflection, and it's revolting. And attractive."

"Martin, I'm not physically attracted to other people, but if you want me, I'm yours."

I might try both of those out on a girl next time I'm down the pub, see where it gets me.

Of course they have sex, which is seen by William through the keyhole of the door, who is so distraught he later apears on stage wearing the bomb Omar decided not to, blowing both himself and Cowell up. It's revealed six months later that this lead to him being voted the winner of that season's American Dreamz, along with Omar going on tour performing showtunes, and Sally achieving her dream of fame by becoming the new host of the show.

I want to say there were a few I liked about this movie. For a start, it looks great. In some of my past reviews I had to stop myself over-praising the production values, because I realised I was starting to grade things on a curve. This though, this is the real deal. The lighting, the set design, the camera work, everything just screams quality and money. After a month of doing this, watching this movie is like getting naked into a hot tub full of warm melted chocolate. There were also some character moments that caught me off-guard, most of them coming from Quaid's portrayal of Dubya. Going into this, I was expecting him to be a totally unlikable idiot, but the movie surprises me by, in many ways, making him the most endearing character of the piece, portraying a man coming to the slow realisation that everyone around him is using him. There are two great scenes in particular; one with him talking to his wife (played by the always wonderful Marcia Gay Harden, who really has nothing to do), telling her that he thinks the only reason he got into politics was because his mother wanted him to in order to show his father that any idiot could do it; the other between him and his Chief Of Staff, shortly after he's convinced him to wear the earpiece, where he's caually told the only reason he just met Carmen Elektra is because the Chief loves her but never had the courage to talk to her, so he used the President to talk to her for him. After being told this, Dubya's eyes fill up with tears, and he starts to cry. And you genuinely feel for him, because here's a man who's just suddenly realised that all he is is a hollow shell for other people to live through. When he finally accidenly dislodges the earpiece and starts speaking for himself again, it really is a great feel-good moment.

But for all the things I liked, there was more I didn't. For a start, this movie is sinfully wasteful with it's talent. Other than the aforementioned Harden, Jennifer Coolidge, John Cho and Judy Greer have to make do with basically nothing part. You had Judy Greer, one of the most beautiful and talented comedic actresses of her generation, playing a part that I could have played just as well. That's just shameful. There's also a pretty blase attitude towards the issues in the Middle East that's more than a little bit dubious. But the thing that really bothers me about this film is it's tone. It's a spiteful, mean-spirited movie. And that's fine, some of my favourite movies are both of those things. But I've spoken before about filmmakers making movies they don't really know how to, and it's obvious that Paul Weitz doesn't know how to make this kind of movie. If you look back at all his previous films, whether he wrote them or not, they're all very bright-eyed and optimistic. Even "About A Boy," which flirts with cynisism, ends on a euphoric, uplifting note. And that also shows in the scenes I mentioned in the previous paragraph. They were very obviously written by a man who just downright cares about people, and you can almost hear him breathing a sigh of relief before has to go back to pretending he doesn't. I'm all for people adding more strings to their banjo, but sometimes people are better off sticking to what they know. Mr. Weitz, you're clearly a big-hearted man. Stick to making big-hearted, if occasionally foul-mouthed, movies.

I can't believe I'm about to do this, but...

FINAL VERDICT

BINNED!

If there were any proof that I'm being totally fair with these reviews, it's this one. This is just not a movie I would ever want to own, so in the bin it goes.

Until next time, I'm The Cheap-Arse Film Critic, and I'm articulate.

(PS- Winston, if you're reading this, please not that this review doesn't have one curse word in it, unless we're going to get picky about the use of the word "git." So I can do it, I just choose not to.)