Amityville 3-D

John Baxter is supposed to be smart.  His whole job involves exposing bullshit.  But in Amityville 3-D, he turns out to be an easy mark.

As played by Tony Roberts, who kind of resembles a more handsome Ron Perlman with a Jew-fro, he’s a tabloid journalist who works for Reveal Magazine.  Along with photog Melanie (Candy Clark), on a dark and windy night, they make a fateful trip to the infamous Amityville house, the strangely preserved site of a family massacre.

They are greeted by the current occupants, an old man and an old woman, renters and supposed experts on contacting the dead.  But John and Melanie are ready for them, masquerading as a distressed married couple wanting to communicate with their non-existent son.

As the old woman humourously moans, she suddenly coughs and has trouble breathing.  She succinctly recaps what happened to the fake child.  He died in a fire.  Then, we hear a voice meant to resemble the kid.

Finally, some weird orb starts floating around and that’s when Melanie starts snapping.  Through the constant camera flashes some guy in a black leotard is seen carrying a glowing lantern around on a stick.  Someone representing the kid flies out of the room.  The lights go on, the now angry old man threatens a lawsuit and the equally incensed old woman spits on Melanie.

The next day, the place now abandoned, the journos return to continue their investigation, amused by their discoveries.  While finding all these props in the basement, they are greeted by the visiting real estate agent who looks a lot like the comedian John Pinette.

As he himself marvels at the scene, he nearly falls through a covered well, only saved by his bigness, his arm strength and the assistance of the media.

Outside, he confesses to John that he hasn’t been able to dump this place on a willing sucker.  Not only that, he can’t make deals on vacant, adjoining properties.  He thought buying it cheap during all the hysteria over the murders was a good investment, believing eventually what happened would be forgotten.

But it hasn’t and now he’s stuck.  Thankfully, John is looking to relocate.

Hoping to write his first book in peace (no idea what it’s about; the premise is never mentioned) and going through a divorce with overly bitchy Tess Harper, when he learns that the Amityville place is “very affordable”, he jumps on it.  All an incredulous Melanie can do is sigh in the car when he stubbornly stands by his decision.

The second he moves in, the shit goes sideways.  The real estate guy shows up, gets covered in flies and is discovered by an arriving John as puffy-eyed and gasping before conking out.  (Really?)  Later, when Melanie visits, the power goes out.  Too fearful to go all the way down the basement to check the fusebox, after she closes the door, it flings open and she gets bukkakied by frost.  (The house likes to lower the temperature a lot.)

John returns later that night finding her shaking and whimpering in the fetal position in the hallway.  (The spirits have a habit of locking you in.)  Screaming at him like a maniac, she wants nothing to do with him or this house.

Whenever something odd like this occurs, the naturally skeptical John explains it away as if it were nothing.  Oh, the real estate guy didn’t look well.  Oh, honey, you were hallucinating.  Oh, Melanie, there’s something wrong with your camera.

The spirits of this house are so powerful they can actually wreak havoc beyond its boundaries, an absurd advancement not at all pursued in the earlier Amityville films.  (Number two remains the worst overall.)  At work, John gets into an elevator and it suddenly starts rebelling, speeding all the way to the top then plummeting all the way to the bottom.  At no time does the man think this has something to do with his bad purchase.

In the meantime, Melanie’s photos of the real estate agent show the man’s face all distorted.  It isn’t until she gets them blown up a bit that she spots something unusual.  The house will never let her get that information to John in another ridiculous scene.

John’s teen daughter Susan (a young Lori Loughlin) and her best pal Lisa (cute as a button Meg Ryan) visit the house on a number of occasions.  Lisa seems a little too obsessed with its history as she cheerfully recounts it through an impromptu murder tour, although she does end her recap solemnly.  And later, along with their dicky boyfriends, they attempt a séance with a makeshift Ouija board comprised of little pieces of paper representing the letters, numbers and words, and an upside down glass cup.  (Too cheap to buy a real board?)  When it goes sliding across the floor on its own and smashes, instead of realizing the reality of this place, Susan gets blamed for carelessness.

Having defied her mother’s wishes to avoid the Amityville house altogether, she shows up looking for her only to see her daughter walk in, hair all wet and silently headed towards her room where she locks the door behind her and isn’t seen again.

When mom goes outside to find out what all the commotion is about, she’s in deep denial about what she sees.  John is no help to her whatsoever.  No wonder she’s divorcing him.

Amityville 3-D was released in 1983 during a thankfully brief period where awful horror threequels were extra annoying because of those stupid red and blue glasses you had to wear to see them.  (Jaws 3D and Friday The 13^th, Part 3 were the others.)  During the opening titles, the separate graphics for “Amityville” and “3-D” push toward the screen in such an obvious way I laughed.  Then, certain names push forward as well.  If only they put as much effort into the screenplay and the visuals.

Early on, we meet a scientist who conducts bizarre mind experiments.  While talking with Tess Harper, he casually mentions that the woman suddenly shrieking in the other room has had her senses deprived for about 52 hours.  Why?  Who the fuck knows?  The CIA could’ve used him at Gitmo.

Late in the film, he convinces John to bring his team to the house to see if they can capture this supernatural phenomena in action, a bit recycled from Poltergeist.  You can tell the scientist has never seen a horror film before because he goes down in the basement and stupidly stares at the boiling cauldron before him.  His girlish scream is more silly than terrifying.

Almost nothing in Amityville 3-D makes sense.  Say what you will about the first one, yes it was bullshit, too, but the idea of someone being possessed by an evil spirit that turns them into a mass murderer at least has a hint of logic.  What is the purpose of this one?

No one turns heel.  The real estate agent is killed for no reason.  Somehow, a haunted house can cause a car crash, employ a fly as a lookout, spontaneously start a fire to protect its secrets, manually override an elevator, duplicate the presence of a human being (later turned into a floating, shapeless aura), force that same person to fall out of a moving speedboat, not do anything bad to the old con artists, leave an imprint on a photograph, drag a dumb character through a well full of hot water, have another hiding in that same spot and most bizarrely, blow itself up.

It seems clear this third chapter was meant to be the last one hence the hectic finale.  But the series would drag on for decades almost entirely resigning itself to straight-to-video sequels until The Awakening’s disastrous run in theatres in 2017.  In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s implosion, it made less than 10000 dollars.  Another installment is out next month.

With a talented cast it doesn’t deserve and featuring really crummy special effects (Is that fly on a string?), even by 1980s standards, Amityville 3-D has no chance of truly getting under your skin.  It lacks tension, intelligence and credibility.  You know you’re immediately watching a stinker when a For Sale signs gets an unintentional laugh.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, September 30, 2020
6:10 p.m.

Rabid (2019)

I have this policy on remakes.  What’s the point of making one if they don’t improve upon the original?

David Cronenberg’s Rabid has a timelessly intriguing opening and a consistently solid lead performance from Marilyn Chambers but ultimately, isn’t scary enough to fulfill the full potential of its clever premise.  Released in 1977, the only good reason to re-do it now is to try to up the ante, update it for contemporary times and provide more consistent screams.

Unfortunately, this 2019 version is worse.  Stunning Dutch-Canadian Laura Vandervoort plays sympathetic Sarah, the long suffering assistant of Gunter, a pretentious German fashion bigwig who looks like Stephen Rea reimagined as Mick Jagger with Keith Richards’ hair.  In the very first scene she nearly gets hits by a car while riding her scooter but he only cares that she’s late yet again.

This is a touchy subject since she survived a car accident her parents didn’t.  She still bares the scars.  Well, one, which I didn’t really notice at first.  Adopted by the family of her supportive sister and colleague, a British model, less charitable co-workers openly mock her behind her back.  One calls her Scarface.  Not even remotely believable.  Even with that bump in her nose (the make-up is so effective I thought it was real) and her orange face, she still looks amazingly hot.  I’ve always have a soft spot for cute dames in glasses.

After realizing she’s on a pity date at a company club function with another co-worker, a charmless photographer named Brad, another unconvincing development, and overhearing the twin directors of this film, the Soska sisters, who play bitchy models a little too convincingly, openly mocking her while snorting coke in the bathroom (the 80s never died, apparently), she gets back on the scooter and proceeds to ride right into an oncoming car.  Sure.

Hospitalized and looked after by Elaine Benes’ controlling shrink, she is horrified by what she sees in the mirror.  Now out of work, mute and living with her model sister, she checks out a video for a company that specializes in an experimental surgery.  Despite deep reservations, she decides to go through with it.

The result is an astonishing transformation.  No more need for glasses.  (Bummer.)  No more wired jaw.  (Thank goodness.)  No more bump on the nose.

But there are a few, little side effects.  No big deal but you can’t eat food anymore (it’ll make you hurl), only human blood.  If you don’t feed, you get sudden, horrendously painful stomach pains.  Oh, and you suddenly develop a bad case of rabies, too, which means you’re a threat to society.  No worries.  At least you look fabulous, right?

Poor CM Punk becomes one of her victims.  He’s in heel mode here playing this predatory clubgoer kicked out of one place who then starts harassing a woman out on the street.  When she ignores him, among other derogatory remarks he declares, “You’re a New Jersey six!”.  I hope that was an intended laugh.

Sarah approaches him all dewy-eyed and the Second City Saint is a goner.  We only see him again one more time as he comes barrelling through the front window of a cafe and takes a few bumps before exiting for good.  A waste of a cameo, really.  His wife, AJ Brooks, is also funny in her one moment playing one of the bitchy models.

After her successful surgery, Brad the photographer guy comes calling and calling and Sarah eventually gives in to a dinner date.  But after the Punk interruption, she feels ill and calls it a night.  My instincts about him turned out to be absolutely correct.  She should’ve heeded her own doubts.

Meanwhile, Gunter the fashion mogul (who I wish was funnier and meaner) spots her outside the club with her sister and insists she come back to work now that she looks better than any of the actual models in his employ.  It’s her dream to design clothes and thanks to her restored glamour (and the unexpected consequences of the surgery), her new far out ideas are now met with a receptive ear.  She becomes his favourite employee.  One of her dresses, worn by her sister, will end his upcoming show, the amusingly titled Shadenfreude, Who’s Laughing Now?

But of course, it will be a complete disaster thanks to the sudden rabies outbreak caused by her unintentional shenanigans (goodbye, Haus of Gunter), a public health calamity that one doctor believes should be kept quiet so there isn’t a panic.  Surprised he hasn’t been recruited by Trump.

In the meantime, Dr. William Burroughs (an uneven Ted Atherton), the quack who performed the groundbreaking skin surgery (neat effect) on a duped Sarah, hatches a sinister plan to bring her back to his facility, thanks to a big assist.  It is here we learn that his wife probably regrets ever marrying him.

This new version of Rabid, released just before Christmas last year, begins in a most curious fashion.  After the near-miss involving Sarah and her scooter, Gunter poses the following:

“Why do we keep remaking old trends?  How are we breathing new life into the old?  Are we adding something new?  If there is no soul, there cannot be life.  So, do we cater to the masses or do we create art only for the few who dare experience it?”

The Soska sisters don’t have good answers to any of those questions.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, September 27, 2020
3:11 a.m.

Hostel Part II

There’s good news and bad news about Hostel Part II.  The good news is it’s better than the first one.  The bad news is it’s still terrible.  And yeah, I’m on a 13-year tape delay.

Once again written and directed by Eli Roth, another bunch of clueless American tourists find themselves stupidly caught in the web of an underground torture club.  Hate when that happens.

Before we meet them, though, there’s some unfinished business.  The sole survivor of the first film has been haunted by his experience.  Loaded up on drugs, which don’t prevent his constant nightmares, he’s freaked out that his fed-up girlfriend told someone where they’re hiding out.  He’s too scared to call the police.

His paranoia is completely justified.  (His latest nightmare features corrupt cops interrogating him while bearing that infamous bloodhound tattoo.)  Taking its cue from Friday The 13^th Part 2, by the time she comes down to the kitchen she realizes a little too late that he was right.  Do kitties love the taste of neck blood?

Meanwhile, 3 young women are travelling Europe.  At one point, they take an outdoor art class where they sketch live nudes.  The female model, absolutely beautiful and of course, too good to be true, befriends them and lays her trap.  She’s clearly into the oblivious brunette.  The sophisticated accent gets ‘em every time.

There’s a pivotal moment where the brunette’s dad, an understandable worrywart, calls her yet again.  (He calls her “every five fucking minutes”, she foolishly complains.)  He offers to set her up in a Four Seasons.  The brunette declines, complaining there are too many old people there and not any hot young playthings for her and her friends.  They book somewhere less prestigious and safe.  I should mention that thanks to an inheritance bequeathed to her from her dead mother the brunette is fucking loaded (her dad is on an allowance!) so this is especially idiotic.

While on a train ride, they encounter rapey goons who offer drugs they obviously don’t have.  We know they have bad intentions because one of them repeatedly and mindlessly stabs at a girly magazine picture of a nude model’s bare leg.  Surprised he doesn’t have a Red Flag tattoo.

Acting as their protector, the art class model, coincidentally on the same train (what are the odds?), comes to their rescue and convinces them to change their plans.  The shot of the hostel sign in the very next scene is surely a punchline in a sequel that is surprisingly campier and far less violent than its garbage predecessor.

Knowing looks from a whole bunch of nefarious foreigners, including the hostel clerk, clues in the audience.  But our outmatched victims remain in the dark, even when the brunette notices something suspicious in the room down the hall.

Invited to a lame outdoor medieval shindig that only happens in Europe (and really drags down the pacing), the brunette’s bitchy blonde pal (a perfectly cast Bijou Phillips who is basically playing herself based on what I’ve read about her online) who has issues with their anxious straight edge friend (poor sweet Heather Matarazzo) decides to make her more palatable.  (The real Phillips actually choked the real Matarazzo before filming.  How delightfully method!)   She secretly offers her alcohol which an unsuspecting Matarazzo obligingly guzzles.  Soon, she’s downing more drinks and taking an ill-advised boat ride with a shady, ponytailed big man despite promising the brunette to be less gullible.

What the girls don’t know is that they are being put up for auction by the underground torture club.  International high rollers with a lot of misogynistic rage start the bidding war online.  Two of the winners are two dicks from America, one very gung ho about hurting the bitchy blonde (he has a pretty good speech where he explains why he’s doing this), the other seriously reluctant especially after he accidentally meets his selection, the brunette, at the outdoor shindig.  He needs a divorce.

With Matarazzo missing, the brunette is the only worried one.  Bitchy blonde is too busy getting drunk and horny to care that much.  And soon, she’ll go missing, too.  That leaves the brunette all alone in the outdoor hot springs, the only reason they’ve all come here.   Have to admit the steam off the water is atmospheric.  Say what you will, the cinematography in general is terrific.

It’s been eight years since I screened the original Hostel and it was far more grotesque than this.  With the exception of a horrifyingly brutal bloodletting sequence, clearly constructed for titillation purposes (spoiler: it’s too gross to be hot) and a well-timed headbutt from bitchy blonde in another, much of the violence is surprisingly played for laughs.

There’s a Hannibal Lecter wannabe who slices off another slab of raw man meat (from a torture victim’s leg) while in the middle of already eating another presumably cooked portion.  (Wonder if he washes it down with Chianti.)  A man’s clearly fake-looking penis is sliced off his body and fed to a guard dog.  And a decapitated head is instantly turned into a soccer ball, the only hilarious gag of the lot.

Unlike the first Hostel where the paying customers aren’t developed at all, at least we understand why the two American dicks are here.  One’s motivation is only revealed in the final stages but just before the full-on heel turn we’re already anticipating the moment.  Not sure I completely buy the role reversal, though.

Fans of torture porn were likely impatient with Part II when it first appeared on my 32^nd birthday in 2007.  With the exception of an early torture/murder, it takes a lot longer than expected to get back to the grisly business of dissecting a fresh batch of naive young American tourists in this one.  About an hour, actually.  Clearly stung by the criticism of his earlier feature, Roth has tried to be more accommodating this time:  making the key victims sympathetic women instead of douchey men, throwing in gratuitous junk shots, investing a little more in character development and putting a dark comic twist on many of the horror sequences.

But despite that, Hostel Part II still isn’t a fun experience and it lacks political courage.  Both films were released during the George W. Bush era when CIA torture was a shocking international scandal.  Imagine if Roth had figured out a way to tie that in to the on-screen mayhem here.

Also imagine if he had configured a compelling backstory for the torturers.  Who are they?  Why do they do this?  How are they able to maintain this profitable system of abuse without any consequences?  Is it because they have deep ties with Western governments, particularly the international deep state?

But Roth is more about the spectacle than the insight.  It’s easier to just show us the violence than explain it and it’s more profitable to revel in it than to condemn it.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, September 27, 2020
12:13 a.m.

Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star

Bucky Larson isn’t born to be a star.  He’s born to be a perpetual punching bag, a permanent target of abuse, a national object of ridicule.  And he has no idea.

As played by frequent Adam Sandler side player Nick Swardson (who co-wrote and co-produced this infamously awful tripe with him), Bucky has two protruding teeth like Nosferatu and almost the exact same unflattering blond wig he wore in The Benchwarmers.

When we first meet him, he’s a cheerfully helpful bag boy at a grocery store.  But the cashier has a hair trigger temper.  He hates small talk with customers.  Slows down the checkout process.  In an instant, he picks a bizarre fight with him.  The result is an unemployed Bucky.  (Is he also the owner?)

The old lady customer at the heart of this insignificant dispute feels terrible.  Bucky knows it wasn’t her fault she liked the food item he suggested.  She then proclaims he’s destined for something great.  A fateful night at his friend’s place (did he really need to ride his bike literally next door?) changes his life forever.

A hopeless innocent, he’s never masturbated or had sex.  His creepy guy friends tell him to whip it out while they put on an old skin flick from the 70s.  Bucky is shocked to see his own parents as the stars.  Not freaked out in the slightest, he decides he wants to be a porn guy, too.  So, he buses it to Hollywood.

I suppose Larson, who never attended high school, is meant to be a Gump-like figure, a lucky dimwit who falls into success without really trying, but this time the gimmick is far less charming and intelligent.  In fact, it’s quite repugnant and cruel.  Every joke is at his oblivious expense.

Shortly after arriving, Bucky goes to a local diner and encounters sweet and lovely Christina Ricci, a waitress still haunted by an incident at a higher quality eatery, an experience so traumatizing she decides to permanently slum it in this rinky dink operation run by a jerky, demanding Nicholas Turturro.  (She accidentally spilled hot soup on an old lady.)  She must not meet a lot of compatible suitors because she clearly takes a shine to Bucky, especially when he’s too stupid to book a hotel room even though he can afford it.  He prefers the bushes.

Kindly Ricci knows someone in her apartment complex who’s looking for a roommate.  Unfortunately, it’s Kevin Nealon, a psychotic paranoic who flips out constantly over nothing.  (Who is he always talking to on the phone?)  Nealon’s way into Ricci big time.  She’s not feeling it.  Good decision on her part.

On the bulletin board near their apartment swimming pool, Bucky discovers an ad for a cattle call audition.  It’s a TV commercial job for one of his favourite foods.  Things seem to be going great in the room until he suddenly pulls down his pants and starts jacking it.  Weinstein would be proud.

After being thrown out, the director (the vengeful driver from Seinfeld’s Puerto Rican Day Parade episode) quickly catches up with him outside realizing he’s not a bad guy, just incredibly confused.  When he learns who Bucky’s parents are (he started out like Wes Craven helming sex shoots), he gets him into a party thrown by obnoxious superstar Dick Shadow.  Played by Stephen Dorff who looks more like Kurt Cobain than Peter North, Bucky gets humiliated multiple times.  It does not help that he has a big bush and really tiny penis.  (All he needs for protection is a small portion of a straw?  Come on.)

Back at the diner the following day, he encounters washed up ragey director Miles Deep (Don Johnson), a pill-dependent, nine-time divorcee who gets roughed up and denied entry at Shadow’s soiree.  When he learns about Bucky’s lineage (Deep was a PA on one of their 70s films), he hires the kid for a test shoot.  But when it comes time to get busy, Bucky takes one look at his scene partner and suddenly his penis turns into a cum bazooka, spraying the entire room.  Yes, that’s the level of “comedy” we get on a regular basis here.

After dismissing the footage as totally unusable (there is no physical contact whatsoever and an excited Bucky waves directly into the camera), Deep gives his enabling nephew free reign to do what he wants with it.  So the kid puts it on YouPube and Bucky is an instant web sensation.  Deep learns the news through his email.  (The video’s been sent to him dozens of times.)  It’s the most popular new clip on the site.  This thing’s so awful it wouldn’t make the cut on Ridiculousness, not even the gross episode.

Realizing he may have accidentally stumbled into future success himself, after being initially rejected for major distribution, Deep hires Bucky to basically do the same thing over and over again in a series of mafia-financed films that absurdly become best sellers.  Considering Bucky Larson: Born To Be A Star was released in 2011 and free tube sites were already siphoning profits away from the major porn distributors, this is an enormous stretch of credibility, even for a fantasy comedy.  Even if those sites didn’t exist, no one would be forking over dough for no-contact porn.  No one.

The selling point for these films is particularly harsh and demeaning.  Because Bucky is about as unattractive as a man can get, the thinking goes, men will feel less threatened by his body thereby making them feel better about their own and their women will be far more accepting of their physical inadequacies.  This is demonstrated during an adult video store DVD signing where one such woman goes on and on about how Bucky’s terrible movies have saved her relationship with her small-donged beau, rekindling their once dormant sex life.  That poor guy looks oh so pleased with her comments.

In the meantime, Bucky falls for a reciprocating Ricci who becomes his date for what passes for an adult video awards show.  (Bucky’s porn star parents show up, as well.)  The only laugh in the entire film is the announcement of the host.  Too perfect.

Up for a bunch of prizes that mostly emphasize body parts, Bucky makes history by winning the most individual awards in the show’s history (give me a break), one more than the previous recordholder Shadow who can only seethe impotently and make fun of Bucky instead of directly competing with him or even sabotaging his career.  He turns out to be a big-dicked paper tiger.

Bucky Larson was so unloved during its remarkably brief foray into theatres that it didn’t even make a third of its 9 million budget back.  It played for just two weeks.  Critics hated it even more.  It received six well deserved  Razzie nominations.

Honestly, I’ve seen way worse from the Happy Madison folks but yeah, this isn’t good at all.  Larson isn’t a character, he’s a one-note cartoon prop, a literal funhouse mirror that reflects society’s unapologetically superficial dickishness.  He’s only popular because people are laughing at him.  Twice.  (Imagine a better film where the jokes are directed in the opposite direction.)  But they pay no price for such harmful derision, unless you consider Bucky celebritizing his own humiliations vindication.  I consider it sad.

The questionable ethics of Deep’s shameless exploitation of him to restore his own fortunes goes curiously unexamined (Bucky can’t be making that much money if he’s still living with psychotic Nealon), his sudden change of heart from such actions in the final act equally suspect.  Born To Be A Star wants to end happily, not truthfully.

The movie really tries to sell Bucky’s romance with Ricci to the point of overkill but I don’t know, as sweet as she is, she looks like she’d rather be anywhere than in this movie.  When she suddenly dumps him, albeit through outside pressure, it’s more believable than the actual relationship.

Johnson isn’t given anything funny to say (why is he so angry?).  Ditto smug, humourless Dorff who is clearly the wrong guy to play Shadow.  (Why not Will Ferrell instead?)  He acts and looks too much like an entitled rock star.

This whole premise is too convoluted for an actual porn film.  No one in the real world would pay to see Bucky’s parents fuck.  Why they would pay to see him not fuck?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, September 26, 2020
9:37 p.m.

The House Bunny

The House Bunny is the phoniest romantic comedy I’ve seen in a while.  Part dishonest infomercial for Playboy Magazine, part conflicted panderfest for both horny dudes and insecure women, it annoyingly alternates between uncomfortable scenes of bullying and eye-rolling moments of sentimental preaching.  Put it together and it is the ultimate horror show:  one big laughless wince.

Anna Faris continues her tired, well-meaning, ditzy blond shtick as Shelley, an abandoned orphan turned improbable guest at The Playboy Mansion.  When you see pics of her as a young kid, she’s so adorable you wonder 1) why she was even dropped off at the orphanage in the first place and 2) why she couldn’t get adopted if her life depended on it.

After winning a beauty pageant as a teen, she ends up at The Mansion with the real Hugh Hefner (who can’t even play himself naturally) and his then-steady trio of young, blonde companions, the ones from The Girls Next Door.  I wonder what was worse for them.  Fucking this controlling old man or appearing in this movie.  I think I know the answer.

Shelley is excited by the possible prospect of being a playmate (her lifelong dream) but is soon ex-communicated for an all-too-believable reason.  After turning 27, she’s now considered too old to be in Hef’s company.  Too on the nose but, as it turns out, her eviction is not the Playboy founder’s doing.  Someone else wants to be Miss November.

Now homeless and living in her shitty car (opening the creakingly loud driver’s side door scares birds and dogs, an instantly tired gag needlessly repeated), she overhears a few college girls talk about some rager which leads her to a nearby sorority.  She’s not a student (she has her GED, though) so she can’t move in.  But when she learns about housemothers, she gets a tip on an opening.

Rejected at first, she eventually gets hired by the Zetas, the obligatory loser sorority on the verge of being shut down.  They need 30 pledges by mid-October (they have zero) or the more popular snotty sorority, Phi Iota Mu, will be expanding.

A somewhat unrecognizable Kat Denning (2 Broke Girls) is the cynical, cranky, punky feminist, American Idol alumnus Katherine McPhee is mysteriously pregnant (the father is never mentioned or seen; there’s literally no backstory to this), Rumer Willis is wearing a medieval back brace she hasn’t needed in four years (again, no back story; it’s just there) and bespectacled nerd Emma Stone is their awkward leader.  There’s also a butch chick with bad hygiene and a cringy approach with men (Dana Goodman), a dwarf (Kimberly Makkouk) and a Black girl so mousy she only communicates through texts and whispers until she suddenly becomes a chatty Brit (Kiely Williams).

It seems awfully hard to believe that no other nerds attend this particular college.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a story here.  Not that we actually have a story to begin with.

You can pretty much figure out what will happen.  Lonely Shelley, longing to belong somewhere now that she’s been shoveled out of Hefner’s lair, gives the skeptical girls a whole bunch of bad tips straight out of Cosmo.  They get makeovers, although most of them look fine to begin with, making the whole process redundant.  (How did Denning’s spiky short hair suddenly get long?)  And now that they’re considered hot, they get a whole lot of the wrong kind of attention.  Eventually, they’ll become what they despise until they suddenly snap out of it.  Well, up to a point.

The nasty bitches of Phi Iota Mu continually humiliate them (the karaoke scene is particularly ugly) while plotting almost successfully to sabotage their last-ditch recruitment drive.

None of this is funny.  In fact, it’s all incredibly mean.  Apart from denying us a single genuine laugh (Shelley’s strange method of remembering names was funnier in the trailer), The House Bunny is utterly depressing to watch.

Not even the romances are fun.  Stone has a major jones for All-American Rejects frontman Tyson Ritter (who is a lot funnier as himself on TV) and the feeling is mutual despite her irritating inability to make small talk and overall general klutziness.

Shelley meets Colin Hanks who runs a local senior’s home and they end up having two of the worst dates I’ve seen on screen.  “Vapid” Shelley spends the first one talking constantly about her ass and then, after getting her own makeover from her misfit proteges, pretends to be something she’s clearly not:  an intelligent person.  But, of course, none of this is a turn-off for him.  Surely, he has other options.

Eventually, Hef, away in Vegas with his trio of young lovers for the first half of the movie, returns to the Mansion and falls into an unpersuasive depression over Shelley’s absence.  (She’s not Dorothy Stratten.)  Shelley goes back and forth about whether to actually accept the Miss November honour.  And a final plan is hatched to save the Zeta house which leads to The Big Speech that is meant to be goofy yet inspirational but fails miserably on both counts.

Who is this movie for, exactly?  It’s too PG to be a cheeky sex comedy.  It’s too dishonest to depict what life is really like for women in The Playboy Mansion.  (In a curious deleted scene, Shelley mentions to the Zetas that Hef doesn’t allow outside dating and enforces a “strict curfew.”  No wonder it’s not in the movie.)  It gives women incredibly mixed messages on how to live their lives and how to interact with men.  And it’s too shamefully cloying in those dreaded serious moments when we’re supposed to accept the bonds that Shelley has made with her new friends.

The House Bunny is also ridiculously inconsistent.  When trickery gets Shelley out of the Mansion, she loses all her privileges including access to a nice company car.  So she drives her rickety piece of shit, which she briefly lives in, to the sorority.  Does she not have a bank account?  Money of her own?  I ask because when she convinces the Zetas they need to throw their own rager, something called an Aztec party, to attract guys and potential pledges, she is somehow able to order from two different party companies, each with their own big delivery truck.  How is this possible when she can’t even fix her own fucking car?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Thursday, September 24, 2020
11:40 p.m.

The Craft (1996)

In The Craft, Robin Tunney is a “natural witch”, a teenage girl who can summon powers of her own will through simple, rhyming chants.  (Calling for quiet leads to three days of deafness.)  But she’s raw and undisciplined and desperately lonely.  Too desperate, it turns out.

After her family relocates from San Francisco to a secluded, leaky estate in New York, she immediately finds herself facing unsavory characters like the mysterious guy with the snake, plus jerky guys and three misfits at her new Catholic school.

Their leader is the striking Fairuza Balk, who looks like the love child of Robert Smith and Keith Richards.  She has a miserable life.  Her mom, a big-haired, seemingly drunk Helen Shaver, is involved with the sniffing accountant from Seinfeld, a creepy abuser.  They live in a dump.  He forgets to pay the electricity bill.  No wonder she has a bad attitude.

Neve Campbell, a mousy burn victim, and Rachel True, a Black diver with a racist mean girl nemesis (Christine Taylor), round out the threesome.  Nicknamed “The Bitches Of Eastwick”, they can’t truly become witches until they find a fourth member.  (Each one represents a direction.)  After Campbell witnesses Tunney’s levitating, rotating pencil trick in class one day, they can finally move forward.

I want to focus on Campbell’s character for a second.  Does anyone else actually know that she’s a burn victim?  No one ever makes fun of her for it.  In fact, I had to go on Wikipedia to even know what happened to her back.  (She was in a car accident which I don’t remember ever being mentioned or shown.)

We also have no idea where her father is.  (Did he die in the accident?)  We only see her mother holding her hand as she goes through a painful experimental procedure at a local medical facility, overseen by Sue-Ellen Mischke, to have those nasty-looking scars repeatedly poked by a giant needle.  But her condition doesn’t improve.

It’s only after the foursome cast individual spells that her back completely heals.  Once it does, suddenly she becomes extremely flirtatious and confident.  Again, no one outside the group addresses the scars and Campbell never mentions it ever being a hindrance to her love life, so why the self-consciousness?

Meanwhile, True gets her revenge on Taylor which leads to a very funny moment in the girls shower.  At least I hope that was an intentional laugh.  But what’s with the mirror gag?  Why the delay?  No explanation.

When the sniffing accountant gets fresh with Shaver, Balk makes him die of a heart attack.  Mother and daughter then discover he has a valuable pension they stand to inherit.  It’s worth $175000.  This leads to an obvious question.  Why were they living in squalor this entire time if he could afford to move them somewhere nicer?

And then there’s Tunney’s uncomfortable romance with Skeet Ulrich.  During their one and only date, we learn he’s obsessed with head sizes.  (Great small talk, bud.)  When he asks Tunney to come home with him for a fuck since they’ll be alone, she demurs.  The next day at school, she learns he’s buried her as a bad lay to supposedly save face.  After telling him to fuck off, she then decides to cast a love spell on him which at first results in him being a non-sexual, apologetic submissive.

But expectedly, this bad stunt ultimately backfires.  Ulrich suddenly becomes obsessed with Tunney.  He starts calling her late at night and stalking her.  She finally gives in to a dinner date but they never make it to a restaurant.  Instead, he pulls a Weinstein hoping she’ll appreciate his spontaneous massage.  Then, after they both exit his car, he attempts to rape her.  She flees after kneeing him in the nuts.

Balk, who had a fling with a now repulsed Ulrich in the past and warns her friend early on about his promiscuousness, pretends to be Tunney so he’ll stop resisting her and leave her friend alone.  But then the real Tunney shows up with Campbell and True, Balk cuts a promo on the dickhead and then, splat.  Incredibly, after all of this, Tunney feels incredible guilt but she still considers her would-be assailant “a good guy underneath it all”.  You can tell women didn’t write the screenplay.

This pivotal moment leads to a permanent rift in the coven as Balk, feeling deeply unappreciated for solving her friend’s love spell dilemma without being thanked, declares war on her with the weak-willed Campbell and True also turning against Tunney.  And that’s when The Craft suddenly remembers it’s a horror movie (most of the time it’s a depressingly bland drama set to mostly bad alt-rock covers) as the remaining threesome start haunting their former pal’s dreams, falsely broadcasting a fake plane crash involving Tunney’s missing dad and stepmom, and temporarily surround her with the future stars of Fear Factor.

The Craft was a surprise hit in the spring of 1996 and helped launch the film careers of many of its leads.  Too bad it’s so unworthy of its success.

Balk is clearly having the most fun here.  That said, she tries so hard to generate heel heat.  (Taylor, Ulrich and Breckin Meyer are more detestable.)  The enthusiasm is there but not the killer lines.  What a missed opportunity to not have black humour repeatedly spewing out of her mouth.  She’s so much better in the poignant Personal Velocity.

The sympathetic Tunney is a good actor in her own right.  (She makes good emotional choices and looks great in close-up, the movie star test.)  But her entanglement with Ulrich is ridiculous and nonsensical.  She’s such a lovely woman it’s hard to imagine her being single for any extended length of time.  So why does she pine for a rapist?

Campbell can be absolutely charming as she was in the otherwise egregious Three To Tango but she lacks Balk’s edge.  And True, also sympathetic in her scenes with Taylor, isn’t allowed to be anything more than a victim of racism.

Besides not being terribly frightening, The Craft lacks a grand purpose for its anti-heroes.  They have such small ambitions for their newly established powers.  They could skip school without consequence but never consider it.  They could rule the world if they want, but only care about their own easily solvable problems.  Beyond the sniffing accountant’s unexpectedly bountiful pension, they could all become financially independent but would rather steal than pay, which doesn’t even last that long.  The shopkeeper witch they briefly steal from doesn’t seem to give a shit anyway.

Honestly, what’s the point of summoning Manon’s spirit if you don’t take full advantage?

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Sunday, September 20, 2020
3:31 a.m.

Bingo (1991)

Bingo, the cute, cold cream-loving hero of this very dumb self-named family comedy, is a lot like The Littlest Hobo.  Both are loners, strays really, who come in contact with nefarious villains and charmed temporary companions.  Both are somehow able to outsmart most humans they encounter.  Both are extremely protective of vulnerable kids they openly adore.  But unlike the Canadian pooch, the American Bingo does eventually find a permanent home.  Too bad it happens in this dreadful hackwork.

When we first meet him, he’s working for an abusive circus performer who has a poodle act.  (Bingo can easily fetch water for these bitches on his own.)  For their finale, they all jump one at a time through a hoop of fire.  When one of the poodles can’t perform because of an injury caused by the removal of a ginormous nail found stuck in her paw, Bingo is called into action.  Wearing a costume so that he passes for one (they’re not fooling anyone with that obvious disguise), he chokes during his big moment.

He has a good reason.  As a pup, he barely survived a pet store fire but his mom didn’t.  (What is the deal with her memorial?  A giant fountain?)

Fed up, the abusive circus performer pulls out his gun.  His assistant stops him.  She likes Bingo.  But when the dog continually misunderstands her repeatedly expressed wish for him to escape, she wants to shoot him, too.  This is a family film.

Once safely away, the next day he ends up rescuing an overacting Robert J. Steinmiller Jr., the youngest son of struggling Denver Broncos place kicker David Rasche from Sledgehammer.  Poor Bobby J. has a bad landing after trying to do a bicycle jump into the lake, the result of dumb peer pressure from his older brother and his friends.  He’s knocked cold.  Oblivious and indifferent, they leave him behind not giving a damn.  That sure looks like a much taller stuntman taking the not-so-impressive dive.

Bingo, you see, is a highly intelligent dog.  He can’t perform CPR like a human being so he improvises, jumping off that same bridge and landing so hard on the kid’s stomach, he spits up the water he swallowed.  After the kid passes out again, he drags him to the shore, removes all of his wet clothing, hangs each item up on a makeshift clothesline and then creates his own tent while waiting for his new friend to come to.  Call me when he cures cancer.

Naturally, the kid wants to adopt him but of course his dad is not a fan of the canines, so after they spend the entire night hiding in a tree to avoid an angry bear (Bingo is also excellent at fishing which made me laugh), he sneaks him into the family’s home which they won’t be staying in for long because dad the struggling place kicker has been traded to Green Bay.

Sure enough, the two get separated and the parallels with The Littlest Hobo become unmistakable.  To keep him on the right path, the kid makes strategic piss stops along the way, marking his own territory.  Because this is a very smart dog, Bingo catches the scent every goddamn time.

In the most disturbing sequence by far, Rasche insists the family eat hot dogs at an outdoor truck stop restaurant converted from an abandoned barn.  Despite advertising multiple varieties, they all come from the same source:  stray dogs.  This is a family film.

After leaving another urine clue for Bingo, Bobby J. passes out upon learning the truth.  (The cook doesn’t seem too upset about being exposed, for some reason.)  His ever faithful companion arrives too late (the family has already departed), tuckered out on the road from no food or water and discovered by the cook who locks him in a cage hoping to make him into a future meal.  The inevitable happens.  A revolt, revenge, a collective escape and a necessary separation.  Not a second of it believable.  The mirror gag is funny, though.

Missing the family again after their brief stay at a lodge, while rummaging for grub in the garbage Bingo encounters two bumbling thieves straight out of the Home Alone formula.  They’ve commandeered a trailer and tied up the bespectacled family inside.  Because he’s a very smart dog, Bingo is somehow able to dial 911 at a nearby pay phone which reveals his location, untie the hostages and attack one of the thieves.  Way too many cops show up.  One of the thieves tries to use Bingo as a back-up hostage.  The cops blast away (not one bullet lands) until they surrender.  The grateful family adopts Bingo.  Bobby J. catches the report on TV and sends him a handwritten letter because apparently he can understand English fluently.

Because this movie thinks a barking dog is a credible witness in a criminal trial, the thieves are implicated in court.  But incredibly, after being cited for contempt, Bingo and the villains are put in the same prison.  I know this is a comedy but come on.

Yet another escape is put into motion, this one orchestrated by a fellow inmate who looks more like an accountant than a threat to society.  There’s yet another separation.  With his friend’s note as a guide, he finally makes his way to Wisconsin.  If he’s such a smart dog, why the misunderstanding?  Then again, he does need someone to open the front door so he can go out and pee.

When he’s not saving the day or tangling with heels (how did those thieves get out of prison?), Bingo is a capitalist slave.  First, as a bullied circus gopher (what’s that horse’s problem?), then as a dish licker at a local restaurant because the owner is as appalling as the hot dog guy.  (Where are the food inspectors?)  Eventually, he learns the truth about his old pal.  Now kidnapped himself by the thieves, his dad is threatened to miss every field goal in his next game so they can win back their money they lost on a previous sports bet or Bobby J. gets blown to bits.  This is a family film.

Bingo was supposed to be the first in a series of films had it found an audience back in the summer of 1991.  It didn’t even make back its ten million dollar budget.  I didn’t like it as a teen but had completely forgotten it.  Watching it again nearly 30 years later I’m struck by its dark tone.  Dogs fed to unsuspecting paying customers?  Our sweet furry hero being shot at by his abusive circus captors?  The peeing thing?  A kidnapped child?  The bomb plot?  This isn’t fun at all.  I’m amazed I laughed even a few times.  (Have to admit I love the goal posts in the family driveway.)

Predictable and annoying (there are nine separate times we suffer through the famous song that inspired its title, one of which rightly annoys one of the thieves), Bingo was doomed right out of the gate.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Saturday, September 5, 2020
7:59 p.m.

Psycho (1998)

Over the years, I have seen a lot of remakes.  Some good, a few great, most of them bad.  But this is shameless, utterly shameless.

Imagine recreating one of the most important horror films of all time by bringing almost nothing new to the table.  Liberally borrowing from its superior source the result is immediate disappointment.  The shots, the visuals, the sets, much of the dialogue, even the music.  Everything feels annoyingly second-hand.

Gus Van Sant’s Psycho is a pointless mistake.  It was misguided right from conception.  Alfred Hitchcock’s original was by no means a perfect film but it changed the game.  From Bernard Herrmann’s memorably chilling score to that stunning black and white cinematography to star making performances from Oscar nominee Janet Leigh and the much missed Anthony Perkins, 60 years after its earth shattering debut it remains a landmark.

It’s been 22 years since this second version first appeared and incredibly, a infinitesimal group of people like Quentin Tarantino (who has long had questionable taste) have not only defended it, they prefer it over its predecessor.  How could they?  It’s not scary, it’s not revelatory, it is a meaningless homage.

Gorgeous Anne Heche is Marion Crane and I felt bad for her.  She has always been a good actor even during her soap opera days playing twins on Another World.  But despite her cute pixie haircut and adorable wide-eyed expressions, she needs rescuing from this cinematic drowning.

As before, Marion is having an affair with Sam Loomis (now played by a Southern Viggo Mortensen who also does his best).  Right after the opening credits (which meticulously rips off to a tee the exact look but not feel of Hitchcock’s sequence), there’s a recreation of the famous long, drawn out zoom in to the hotel room (still a great shot admittedly) where the two lovers are cuddling after off-screen sex.  (As they talk about the uneaten sandwich with the fly on it, we now hear another amorous couple humping in the room next door.)  We even get similiar on-screen graphics indicating the location, the date and the time.  Only the year is different.  Oh, and yes, everything is in colour.  Black and white was more haunting.

Sam still lives in the back of a hardware store (a wasted Flea is his co-worker) and Marion still wonders when they will stop sneaking around.  He lives in California, she’s in nearby Arizona.  He’s in debt and still married.  She’s running out of patience.

Once again, while at work as a low-paying secretary for a realtor, Marion encounters a slimy tycoon about to buy a house for his soon-to-be-married teen daughter.  When he’s not harassing her he’s confidently flaunting all those thousand dollar bills he’s about to give to her boss.  But of course the money won’t stay in-house.  Marion will be tasked to put it in the bank.

She will not put it in the bank.  She will fake a headache, go home, pack a suitcase, steal the dough and start driving on the highway.  Then, she will get tired, pull the car over and fall asleep where the next morning a patrolman (James Remar from the 48 Hrs movies) will tap on her window, ask for her registration (since she’s driven out of state), check her license, realize it all checks out but then continue to follow her because he correctly assumes she’s done something wrong.  After she changes cars at a used dealership (An 89 Volvo?  Really?), he eventually relents and she goes back out on the road.

Feeling fatigued once more and finding it challenging to navigate through the dark and pouring rain, she spots a motel, pulls over and encounters the awkward owner Norman Bates (a seriously miscast Vince Vaughn).

Like the iconic Hitchcock original, the attempts at scaring the audience here are kept to a minimum.  Although a horror film, I would argue the 1960 Psycho is really more of a gripping drama with a few scares in it, an approach you rarely if ever see today.  If you’re going to remake it, do what John Carpenter did with Halloween and up the ante.  Try something different.  Take some chances.  Add more scares.

Instead, we get familiar rehashing.  Bates doing his “12 cabins, 12 vacancies” shtick but now with a very forced laugh.  Marion signing the registry with that same fake name.  Marion hiding the remaining $395000 in a newspaper.  Bates inviting a somewhat reluctant Marion into the parlour of his office to enjoy a crummy sandwich and fruit.  That odd discussion about birds.  Bates secretly spying on her while she’s in the bathroom.  Taking advantage of a less censorious period in filmmaking, this time he jerks off and finishes a little too quickly.

And then, inevitably, the shower scene.  They botch it.  And of course, the clean-up which feels much longer now because this all feels like a bad tribute we didn’t need.

Then, the detective Aborgast starts snooping around.  He’s played by William H. Macy who at first sounds like he’s acting in his own old school film noir, complete with a fedora, but then strangely modernizes his approach when he pays that fateful visit to Bates.  And yes, the staircase scene is also a blatant recycling that doesn’t work.

The beautiful Julianne Moore with her fiery mane and no-bullshit demeanour in what is easily the film’s best performance plays Marion’s concerned sister, Lila.  When Marion is missing for a week, she visits Sam at his workplace.  After the detective shows up informing them of the theft, they fear the worst.  When Aborgast goes missing, as well, Sam checks out the hotel, finds nothing and returns.  When he goes back, an insistent Lila goes with him.

With the exception of a porno mag Lila finds in Norman’s carefully preserved childhood bedroom, everything that follows is pretty much the same as before.  We even get the same third-act summation from Norman’s court-appointed shrink (Robert Forster) where he explains why the owner of the Bates Motel is so fucked up.

Needless to say, I’m not the only one who didn’t care for this unwanted copycat.  Critics carved the shit out of it and audiences stayed away.  Finally watching it more than two decades after its ill-fated theatrical run, while it could’ve certainly been much worse (Van Sant did cast some wonderful actors and there are no unwanted laughs), did they really expect a blatant facsimile to have the same impact?

During the last shot which is held for so long you think something’s going to happen but doesn’t, there’s a final on-screen credit.  It’s a dedication to Hitchcock who died in 1980.  That’s more insulting than this movie.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Wednesday, September 2, 2020
8:50 p.m.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

It’s hard not to think of John Shelby Spong while watching The Da Vinci Code.  A retired bishop of the Episcopal Church, he has dedicated much of his long life to questioning the fundamentalist revisionism of Christian traditions through an extensive series of books, articles, an interview with Playboy magazine and numerous TV appearances, including several on Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect.

Spong has openly doubted that Jesus Christ was single and unattached, maintaining he had a partner and probably children, as well.  (Ironically, The Last Temptation Of Christ suggested this very idea was a test of his devout, abstinent faith by the devil.)  He’s rightfully skeptical of the Miracle Man image presented in updates of the Bible not found in the original Gutenburg text.  He’s successfully debunked the Virgin Birth, itself a recycled concept from Paganism, as well as the Resurrection which also defies the laws of science, two more belated fundamentalist add-ons.  And he’s very persuasive in asserting that Mary Magdalene, long defined as a sex worker Jesus felt pity for, was actually a fully recognized and accepted disciple among a dozen men.

Before I discovered Spong hated the movie (and the cinema in general which sounds unusually cranky and close minded even for this wise old man I otherwise greatly admire), I wondered if he was the real inspiration for Leigh Teabing, the charmingly erudite historian played by Ian McKellan who exhibits so much joy in his performance you wish he was the lead character.  We meet him about halfway through this intriguingly reluctant two and a half hour epic late one night as a troubled twosome arrive suddenly at his estate in desperate need of his considerable expertise.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) is a celebrated academic from Harvard out hawking a new book on historical feminine symbolism.  (He delivers a fascinating lecture on how the shameless regurgitation of symbols in general has perverted the proper exploration and preservation of their original meanings and origins.)  He’s just been falsely accused of killing the grandfather of Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou from Amelie in her best performance) who deliberately misrepresents herself as a police officer to quietly rescue him from the clutches of Bezu Fache (the smoothly intimidating Jean Reno).  Her grandfather actually reached out to Langdon but never showed up for their outing together.

Through a long series of events and close calls, they’ve retrieved a nifty object called a cryptex which can only be opened by cracking a code, a single five-letter word.  Hiding inside is a clue to the possible location of The Holy Grail, a missing piece of history also being sought after by duplicitous members of the ultra-secretive, ultra-conservative Opus Dei, a controversial Catholic sect led by Bishop Aringarosa (a Spanish Alfred Molina).

Teabing argues that the Catholic Church does not want its followers to believe that 1) Jesus was just another human being and not divine, 2) that he had a romantic partner and 3) that she was carrying his only child at the time of his execution.  Why?  It’s not really stated but the implication sure seems to be that they want to maintain a male-only hierarchy and not allow the “Cafeteria Catholics”, to use Aringarosa’s memorable smear, to “corrupt” the purity of their sexist, fundamentalist doctrine.

Opus Dei would rather this part of history be erased so they can continue to philosophically dominate their flock which sounds absurd considering all the bad press they’ve been generating, not to mention their waning influence on modern society.  Gone are the days when they easily ostracized seminal “heretics” like Martin Luther and Isaac Newton without immediate consequence.  Their foundation is already cracking but not yet crumbled.

The idea of an heir to the Jesus throne threatens their power and narrative control, a very appealing notion to the twinkling, ever smiling Teabing, an obsessive widow who uses two canes to walk.  In a film with secretive characters often hiding their true selves from others, his ulterior motive is right there in the open, if you care to look closely.  I must admit, I was looking in the wrong direction.

The Da Vinci Code was directed by Ron Howard and adapted from Dan Brown’s blockbuster novel by Akiva Goldsman, the same winning team who made the brilliant A Beautiful Mind.  While clearly a lesser entry in their considerable filmographies, it still did not deserve the harsh criticism it received from most reviewers during its lucrative theatrical run in late 2006.  While certainly unwilling to go much further with its controversial leanings, it is an undeniably skillful conspiratorial thriller filled with ideas and constant questioning.  Langdon fiercely disagrees with much of Teabing’s reasoning but nevertheless knows he’s on to something.

Paul Bettany, another carryover from A Beautiful Mind, is genuinely scary as Silas, a troubled Italian Albino who once served a prison sentence for stabbing an abusive family member until he was recruited by Aringarosa, who he wrongly views as a substitute father figure, to do his dirty work.  When he’s not brutally overpowering elderly protectors of the secrets of The Holy Grail (there are numerous stops on the way to the cryptex), he’s routinely punishing himself with self-flagellation.  He even wears some sort of steel brace, alternating the excruciating agony on each of his legs, that keeps him in a state of perpetual suffering.  He resembles a demented David Bowie during his coke period.

German legend Jurgen Prochnow plays a banker who seems very accommodating to Langdon and Neveu and then not so welcoming after he helps them safely escape in an armoured truck as Captain Fache and the relentless French police force surround his establishment.  The Da Vinci Code manages to do something clever with The Fallacy Of The Talking Killer gimmick so prevalent and overused in thrillers like this.  When the back door is opened and a gun is pointed, a refusal to obey leads to a shot being fired.  That empty shell casing turns out to be a lifesaver.

I wondered why Prochnow’s banker doesn’t just shoot them right off during his first opportunity but when you think about it he would rather they be nailed for the grandpa murder and not have to get his hands dirty.  Still, he looks like a dummy for botching an easy double kill.

Another expected heel turn leads to another gunman hesitating to pull that trigger.  If only those doves had picked a different time to take flight.

The Da Vinci Code suggests that The Holy Grail is not an ordinary clay cup as famously depicted in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade but rather something far more significant, a revelation that leads to some cool pay-offs, especially the poignant ending.  Dan Brown maintains that his original novel is 100% authentic on all of this but he’s clearly bullshitting himself.  Much like National Treasure, another underappreciated guilty pleasure about a historical treasure hunt, this movie has fun blending little fact with a lot of fiction to the point where you yourself question what is real and what is Hollywood artifice but still find yourself very interested in the outcome nevertheless.

By now a solid leading man with character actor chops, Tom Hanks ably anchors the story with his character’s winning ability to solve tricky, seemingly enigmatic puzzles through his sharp memory and the helpful visualization of solutions.  His everyman likeability shines through once more.  The French performer Audrey Tautou is right there with him in every scene.  Both wounded by childhood traumas, hers far more devastating than his, she is extremely sympathetic and, as it turns out, the crucial key to the entire mystery.

Besides his cheerfully exuberant demeanour upon the arrival of Hanks and Tautou to his estate (like Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon, you like him no matter what), Ian McKellan provides some welcome well-timed wit when the film gets caught up in its dramatic historical speculations.  He is the best performer in the film.

Although well-acted, well-written and well photographed, The Da Vinci Code could’ve been so much more.  If only there were more women and religious historians involved in its creation.

Dennis Earl
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Tuesday, September 2, 2020
8:21 p.m.