12 JUNE, 2001: I had a feeling we were in for a long, dry, depressing summer the moment those "Mummy Returns" numbers came in. Seventy million. Seventy million FUCKING dollars! Are people really that goddamn stupid?
No, I haven’t seen "The Mummy Returns", and I hate it anyway. I don’t have to be anally raped to know it’d be an unpleasant experience. And that’s a pretty apt metaphor for this movie, which reeks with the stench of a cold, mechanical machine, built for one purpose and one purpose only: to fuck dumbshit moviegoers who don’t know any better.
Not that the schmucks who shelled out that $70 mill deserve to get away scot-free. What the fuck did you expect? Were there really that many bothersome questions left unanswered by the bullshit original? (Which I did see, by the way, and I’d rather open my wrists then see THAT again, much less some lame-ass carbon copy sequel). And, honestly, do you know anyone who set out to see "The Mummy Returns"? Anyone who was excited to check it out? If so, it’s time to clean house, cause you’ve got some dipshit friends. Yet, it somehow made $70 million in its opening weekend. And yes, I do know people who’ve seen it. But they all, interestingly, claim to have seen it by accident—"I was with somebody and they wanted to see it" and so forth. "The Mummy Returns" is the Denny’s of movies; people go to Denny’s because it’s late and it’s the only thing open. People went to "The Mummy Returns" because it was summer and it was the only summer movie open.
I have always suspected that this kind of logic was the key to the inexplicable success of the original movie, which opened the first weekend of May 1999, a few weeks before "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace". I thought then, and still believe, that people were just ready for summer movies, and went to see the first one out of the gate because it was marketed well and promised thrills and chills and summer fun, and once they got people’s money, fuck ‘em! Why bother making the movie worth a shit? (God, I hated that movie).
And, like abused housewives on "Cops", we keep going back for me. They pulled the same shit on us this summer, and YOU FUCKERS FELL FOR IT AGAIN. Not me. I may have been the one idiot who went to see "Town and Country", but these Mummy jagoffs aren’t getting any of my money. They can go fuck themselves with a big rubber dick.
By the way, they’re already working on a spin-off movie for the Rock’s five-minutes-of-screen-time character from "The Mummy Returns", The Scorpian King. That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, a major studio in Hollywood is currently preparing to make a spin-off of a sequel of a remake. How fucking artistically bankrupt is this industry gonna get?
That’s a question I carried into "Pearl Harbor", which isn’t a terrible movie, but it sure as hell isn’t a very good one either. And I’ll give it to the Mummy jizzdrinkers, at least they had the balls to admit they were making a sequel. "Pearl Harbor" wants to be "Titanic" so bad, I’m surprised they didn’t get James Horner to do a sound-alike score (oops, forgot. All of James Horner’s scores sound the same).
Here’s a brief list of the ways "Pearl Harbor" tries to be like "Titanic".
1) Major historical tragedy, fictionalized through the story of young lovers (this, by the way, is a really disturbing trend that I’d like to end soon. What’s next? Chris Klein and Katie Holmes in love at a concentration camp in "Holocaust"? Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Matthew Lillard as the corners of a Jerusalem love triangle in "Crucifixtion"?)
2) Big budget epic running three hours.
3) Romance for girls, destruction for boys.
4) Awful, trite closing credits love ballad, performed by a popular diva and ready for slick, accessible packaging as hit single and video.
5) Teary, sad death at the end.
6) During the sinking of the U.S.S. Arizona, director Michael Bay seems to do a direct, shot-for-shot homage to the sinking of the Titanic.
I’m sure there’s more; those are just the ones that leap to mind. The first point is the most disturbing, since this time we’re dealing with a fairly sacred historical event, and when, in the midst of the (admittedly powerful and well-done) Pearl Harbor attack sequence, good ol’ Ben and Josh jumped in their planes and seemed to single-handedly save the day, I couldn’t help but wonder: isn’t that a little disrespectful to the guys who actually DID save the day?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some super-patriot who gets all choked up about "The Greatest Generation", and I’m sorry Michael Bay, but slo-mo shots of flags waving don’t really do anything for me. But it’s not the lapses in historical accuracy that do "Pearl Harbor" in; it’s the lapses in judgement.
And man, it seems like you’re waiting forever for the Japs to attack. The first 100 minutes of this movie are slow, slow, slow. Everything you’ve heard about the soap opera elements of this movie is true—it’s hokey, goofy, and hard to sit through. You’ll have to go far and wide to find a bigger Ben Affleck fan than me, but he’s in way over his head here. Josh Harnett fairs moderately better; Kate Beckinsale is pretty but blank. Cuba Gooding Jr has maybe, MAYBE ten minutes of screen time. Alec Baldwin is about the only supporting actor who makes any kind of an impression, even it it’s just because he’s Alec Baldwin.
And how about those scenes of the Japanese planning the attack? What a bunch of shit! Scenes like this look like screenwriter Randall Wallace got paid by the cliché.
There’s good stuff in this movie. It is a technical marvel, and the attack sequence shakes you up good. But to what end? The movie could have ended about 40 minutes before it does, and the first hour and a half could have been at least forty-five minutes shorter. So we’ve got a 90 minute movie, stretched out to three hours. I know it’s become something of a national obligation to see the movie—modern marketing makes it your duty to see certain films, lest you be the only one in your peer group left out. So you’ll probably see it, in spite of (or perhaps because of) my warnings. So, you know, best of luck to you.
There is salvation out there, however. Within the Warren Theatre, the very same multi-plex that runs hourly shows of these two "blockbusters", there is showing a smart, funny, clever thriller that is the best movie 2001 has yet given us. It’s called "Memento", and even if you’ve sat through all the summer bullshit you can stand, this movie will restore your faith in the medium.
"Memento" is a gloriously intelligent little wind-up toy of a movie, a film that pulses with the excitement of filmmakers who are getting away with something great, and know it. It has the same kind of giddy fun that "Run Lola Run" and "Pulp Fiction" had—cheerful disregard for the rules, warm embracing of new ideas in form and formula.
The idea here is that Guy Pearce is an insurance investigator who witnessed the rape and murder of his wife, and hasn’t been the same since. He’s developed a bizarre condition whereby he has no short-term memory; he can remember nothing that’s happened since the incident and can make new memories, and relies on notes, Polaroid photos, and tattoos to keep the facts straight as he searches for his wife’s killer.
From that, it sounds like a dramatic version of Dana Carvey’s 1994 comedy "Clean Slate". The twist, and it is a good one, is that the story is told backwards. The device is conveyed beautifully in a perfect opening that literally runs backwards (we watch a developed Polaroid fade to grey, go back into the camera, and then see a bullet come out of the villain’s head and back into Pearce’s gun). After that, the sequences are played out in reverse order, interspersed by a fascinating story that Pearce is telling someone over his motel phone, about a man he investigated in his insurance days who had a similar condition.
What’s great about the movie is how well all this manages to come together, and how what would seem to be a gimmick (after all, you know who he kills at the end/beginning, so the movie would seem then to be about how he found him out) and twisting it into a surprisingly tricky resolution.
Jesus Christ, "Memento" kicks ass. The acting is top-notch, the writing is sharp, and the Christopher Nolan’s direction manages to make the movie into a modern film noir without ever reverting to the obvious noir look (most of the film takes place in bright daylight, instead of the usual smoky nightdrops and vertical blinds). It’s a movie that was clearly made by people who love movies, and not (as is often the case; see above) by people who love money.