ecko_47
Joined Jul 2006
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"Right at Your Door" starts out so well. In Los Angeles, an unemployed musician (Rory Cochrane) sees his white-collar professional wife (Mary McCormack) off to work. Minutes later, a series of dirty bombs bearing a mysterious "molecular toxin" goes off across Los Angeles.
Writer-director Chris Gorak, an accomplished art director who worked on "Fight Club" and "Minority Report," does a lot with very little here, using Cochrane's terror, radio reports and the briefest glances at ash clouds and emergency vehicles to create a real sense of panic, while keeping the worst destruction off camera.
But then, as soon as Cochrane seals himself into his house and we're forced to settle in with a handful of survivors, the movie slowly but surely loses its hard-earned claustrophobia. The dialogue devolves into endless F-bombs and actorly exhales. The characters devolve into boring narcissists. And the movie devolves into a broad-brush dark satire of emergency bureaucracy that feels a lot sillier than the post-9/11 panic attack of the first half-hour.
Writer-director Chris Gorak, an accomplished art director who worked on "Fight Club" and "Minority Report," does a lot with very little here, using Cochrane's terror, radio reports and the briefest glances at ash clouds and emergency vehicles to create a real sense of panic, while keeping the worst destruction off camera.
But then, as soon as Cochrane seals himself into his house and we're forced to settle in with a handful of survivors, the movie slowly but surely loses its hard-earned claustrophobia. The dialogue devolves into endless F-bombs and actorly exhales. The characters devolve into boring narcissists. And the movie devolves into a broad-brush dark satire of emergency bureaucracy that feels a lot sillier than the post-9/11 panic attack of the first half-hour.
In "The Age of Love" a genial Australian hunk named Mark Philippoussis is made to face a conundrum: Would he rather seek true love with one of seven seasoned, sexually available women in or near their 40s, or with one of several moist-eyed, sexually voracious women in their 20s? This proves a real poser, because Philippoussis is exactly 30 years old, and thus old enough to appreciate a woman with experience. Yet he's also an internationally famous tennis player who has long since grown accustomed to having his pick of the world's attractive women.
Will he choose character over skankiness? Philippoussis' brow furrows and his eyes seem to cross. No amount of muscles, dimples and international charm can help him here. Any and every decision he makes is going to end in tears, heartbreak and anguish.
"It's like throwing some piranhas in the deep end with me," he yelps.
Yes, but while Philippoussis believes he's talking about the women vying for his affections, they're the least of his problems. For "The Age of Love," in the tradition of "The Bachelor" and its romantic-competition ilk, is the most heartless kind of TV spectacle. Posing as a wish-fulfillment show for the love-and-excitement-lorn, it's actually a high-tech humiliation-fest. Its contestants set in motion to eviscerate one another's most delicate hopes and dreams, all for the delectation of the network cameras.
That these people may be a trifle narcissistic, or maybe lacking in some crucial measure of judgment, seems clear. But these are minor flaws compared with NBC's diabolical trick of inventing and airing such emotional bloodsport.
Particularly given how NBC's dark imps have concealed "The Age of Love's" most distinctive, and repellent, wrinkle from the folks at the center of the game: The older women will be competing for Philippoussis' affections with a gang of women nearly half their age.
And while this writer is not a morality professional (he merely plays one while musing on the lives of TV characters), I suspect the viewer may want to think a bit about his or her role in this whole affair, too.
Heaven knows the "Age of Love" contestants, from Philippoussis on down, haven't put much thought into how the show is going to play out for them.
For Philippoussis, the goal seems to have something to do with brand extension. He's a pretty good tennis player, but at 30, he's nearing the end of his pro circuit days. Fortunately, he's also an alarmingly handsome man who has already spent a lot of time in front of cameras with his shirt off. With a vast American market yet to be conquered, his managers must have flipped at the notion of a major network airing a Philippoussis-centered reality show.
And maybe it's the best possible thing, Q-rating wise. But the internal havoc begins just moments after Philippoussis takes residence in the gleaming Los Angeles skyscraper where "The Age of Love" is set. Standing on a balcony next to a shimmering pool, the tennis player is greeted by a procession of elegant women who have been coached to greet him with special emphasis given to their ages.
"I was born in 1967, so that makes me 40!" one chirps.
Philippoussis' shock is a bit too evident, and it only gets worse when the others turn out to be just as old, and even older. When one turns out to be 48, with a son who is nearly his own age, the tennis player is close to tears.
"She could be my mom," he says, gloomily, in a post-game interview. "The thought of that just freaks me out." The women, on the other hand, are thrilled. For all their accrued experience -- the careers, children, ex-husbands, real estate holdings, etc. -- they're all eager to settle down with the right guy. And clearly, a hunky pro athlete with dancing eyes qualifies, as their first glimpse at Philippoussis, via a video introduction, proves.
"Oh my God!" one cries.
"What a sweet guy!" chimes in another.
"He looks like my next husband!" gushes a third.
At which point the women realize, seemingly for the first time, that they must destroy one anthers' hopes in order to achieve their own.
"Game on!" one growls.
You can already anticipate the gamesmanship, subtle and otherwise, that comes to define the group's interactions with their quarry. All of which creates a wicked undercurrent that makes the flirty small talk even more excruciating than usual. One woman is sent home, tears stinging her eyes, even as Philippoussis urges her to know how lovely and special she truly is.
She should be grateful. Philippoussis has just spared her from the twist that comes with the arrival of six new women. All are in their early 20s, all prone to halter tops and extremely short shorts. In fact, nothing about their dress or behavior will seem out of character for an average, if high-end, prostitute.
That sounds harsh, I know. And yet you try to find another way to describe half a dozen women who allow themselves to be presented, en masse, as a kind of writhing tableau, all of them regarding poor Philippoussis -- now in complete hormonal meltdown -- with winks, leers and lip-smacking.
Could it get worse? Yes, it could. A brief montage at the end contrasts the older and younger women by showing the latter squirming around their bachelorette pad (which has been equipped with hula hoops, for some reason) while their elders occupy themselves in their apartment by reading novels, doing laundry and, I swear to God, doing needlepoint.
"The Age of Love" will not end happily for anyone. Including Western civilization.
Will he choose character over skankiness? Philippoussis' brow furrows and his eyes seem to cross. No amount of muscles, dimples and international charm can help him here. Any and every decision he makes is going to end in tears, heartbreak and anguish.
"It's like throwing some piranhas in the deep end with me," he yelps.
Yes, but while Philippoussis believes he's talking about the women vying for his affections, they're the least of his problems. For "The Age of Love," in the tradition of "The Bachelor" and its romantic-competition ilk, is the most heartless kind of TV spectacle. Posing as a wish-fulfillment show for the love-and-excitement-lorn, it's actually a high-tech humiliation-fest. Its contestants set in motion to eviscerate one another's most delicate hopes and dreams, all for the delectation of the network cameras.
That these people may be a trifle narcissistic, or maybe lacking in some crucial measure of judgment, seems clear. But these are minor flaws compared with NBC's diabolical trick of inventing and airing such emotional bloodsport.
Particularly given how NBC's dark imps have concealed "The Age of Love's" most distinctive, and repellent, wrinkle from the folks at the center of the game: The older women will be competing for Philippoussis' affections with a gang of women nearly half their age.
And while this writer is not a morality professional (he merely plays one while musing on the lives of TV characters), I suspect the viewer may want to think a bit about his or her role in this whole affair, too.
Heaven knows the "Age of Love" contestants, from Philippoussis on down, haven't put much thought into how the show is going to play out for them.
For Philippoussis, the goal seems to have something to do with brand extension. He's a pretty good tennis player, but at 30, he's nearing the end of his pro circuit days. Fortunately, he's also an alarmingly handsome man who has already spent a lot of time in front of cameras with his shirt off. With a vast American market yet to be conquered, his managers must have flipped at the notion of a major network airing a Philippoussis-centered reality show.
And maybe it's the best possible thing, Q-rating wise. But the internal havoc begins just moments after Philippoussis takes residence in the gleaming Los Angeles skyscraper where "The Age of Love" is set. Standing on a balcony next to a shimmering pool, the tennis player is greeted by a procession of elegant women who have been coached to greet him with special emphasis given to their ages.
"I was born in 1967, so that makes me 40!" one chirps.
Philippoussis' shock is a bit too evident, and it only gets worse when the others turn out to be just as old, and even older. When one turns out to be 48, with a son who is nearly his own age, the tennis player is close to tears.
"She could be my mom," he says, gloomily, in a post-game interview. "The thought of that just freaks me out." The women, on the other hand, are thrilled. For all their accrued experience -- the careers, children, ex-husbands, real estate holdings, etc. -- they're all eager to settle down with the right guy. And clearly, a hunky pro athlete with dancing eyes qualifies, as their first glimpse at Philippoussis, via a video introduction, proves.
"Oh my God!" one cries.
"What a sweet guy!" chimes in another.
"He looks like my next husband!" gushes a third.
At which point the women realize, seemingly for the first time, that they must destroy one anthers' hopes in order to achieve their own.
"Game on!" one growls.
You can already anticipate the gamesmanship, subtle and otherwise, that comes to define the group's interactions with their quarry. All of which creates a wicked undercurrent that makes the flirty small talk even more excruciating than usual. One woman is sent home, tears stinging her eyes, even as Philippoussis urges her to know how lovely and special she truly is.
She should be grateful. Philippoussis has just spared her from the twist that comes with the arrival of six new women. All are in their early 20s, all prone to halter tops and extremely short shorts. In fact, nothing about their dress or behavior will seem out of character for an average, if high-end, prostitute.
That sounds harsh, I know. And yet you try to find another way to describe half a dozen women who allow themselves to be presented, en masse, as a kind of writhing tableau, all of them regarding poor Philippoussis -- now in complete hormonal meltdown -- with winks, leers and lip-smacking.
Could it get worse? Yes, it could. A brief montage at the end contrasts the older and younger women by showing the latter squirming around their bachelorette pad (which has been equipped with hula hoops, for some reason) while their elders occupy themselves in their apartment by reading novels, doing laundry and, I swear to God, doing needlepoint.
"The Age of Love" will not end happily for anyone. Including Western civilization.
Like its predecessor films, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" is meant to be, in large part, a comedy. But the only laughs at the press screening (We movie reviewers get to see this early) were afforded in retrospect, when reviewers recalled the plea of the studio that they not reveal details of the plot's twists and resolutions in writing about it.
Reveal 'em? I'd bet a wooden eye that there wasn't anyone in the room who could understand 'em! Unless you watch the first two "Pirates" movies in the hours before you see this one, unless you have a Ph.D. in "Pirates of the Caribbean" studies, you will have no idea what in blazes is going on nor, I reckon, will you give an undead monkey's patootie.
In what's shaping up to be a summer of deflating third-films-in-the-series, "At World's End" is the loudest, dumbest, slowest, least entertaining and most annoying by a very comfortable margin. The second "Pirates" film did quite a bit to erase the good will created by the first. This one makes matters worse, leaving you feeling angry, cheap and suckered -- after the coma lifts and the raging headache subsides, that is.
Director Gore Verbinski and a team of writers who should wear masks when picking up their checks have turned their serendipitous blend of comedy and action into a grotesque special effects franchise laden with jokes that were already tired when the first film dragged to its conclusion. They have let the tail grow so big that it not only wags the dog but dashes its brains out against a mast.
The ineptitude of "At World's End" is evinced in its hoohah about the goddess Calypso, the mythological sea nymph who, here, has been trapped in human form by a cabal of pirates. For reasons too complex to explain (wouldn't want to spoil those precious plot twists!), she is released from her fleshy bonds, morphs with unintentional hilarity into a giantess and . . . disappears from the film without rhyme, reason, explanation or purpose. A good 15 minutes has been spent fussing about nothing. Add 21/2 hours to that and you pretty much sum up the whole ordeal.
For the record, a crew led by Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) sets off to free Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Davy Jones' Locker, a spectral underworld comically filled with multiple Captain Jacks, so that he can join a council of pirate bigwigs assembling against the British; Jones himself (Bill Nighy) is in the thrall of the evil capitalist Beckett (Tom Hollander), who controls his heart and thus his invincible ship; Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) struggles to free his dad, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), from Jones' crew; and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) pursues both Will and Captain Jack, unsure whom she truly loves.
Throw in several more plot lines, a few new characters, the icky romance of moony Bloom and knock-kneed Knightley, lots of computerized fighting and sailing, and painfully tiresome comic relief involving Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg, and it amounts to nearly three hours of slow misery, none of which rises to the level of a "surprise" or "twist" that can be spoiled for anyone.
Grudging credit is due to some of the special effects and, especially, to Keith Richards, the only one among all this prattling mob who knows that less is more. Of course, he's granted a mere 90 seconds of screen time before the film succumbs once again to its congenital pointlessness. The pang of regret you feel at his departure is the sole emotion this mess ever manages to stir.
Reveal 'em? I'd bet a wooden eye that there wasn't anyone in the room who could understand 'em! Unless you watch the first two "Pirates" movies in the hours before you see this one, unless you have a Ph.D. in "Pirates of the Caribbean" studies, you will have no idea what in blazes is going on nor, I reckon, will you give an undead monkey's patootie.
In what's shaping up to be a summer of deflating third-films-in-the-series, "At World's End" is the loudest, dumbest, slowest, least entertaining and most annoying by a very comfortable margin. The second "Pirates" film did quite a bit to erase the good will created by the first. This one makes matters worse, leaving you feeling angry, cheap and suckered -- after the coma lifts and the raging headache subsides, that is.
Director Gore Verbinski and a team of writers who should wear masks when picking up their checks have turned their serendipitous blend of comedy and action into a grotesque special effects franchise laden with jokes that were already tired when the first film dragged to its conclusion. They have let the tail grow so big that it not only wags the dog but dashes its brains out against a mast.
The ineptitude of "At World's End" is evinced in its hoohah about the goddess Calypso, the mythological sea nymph who, here, has been trapped in human form by a cabal of pirates. For reasons too complex to explain (wouldn't want to spoil those precious plot twists!), she is released from her fleshy bonds, morphs with unintentional hilarity into a giantess and . . . disappears from the film without rhyme, reason, explanation or purpose. A good 15 minutes has been spent fussing about nothing. Add 21/2 hours to that and you pretty much sum up the whole ordeal.
For the record, a crew led by Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) sets off to free Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Davy Jones' Locker, a spectral underworld comically filled with multiple Captain Jacks, so that he can join a council of pirate bigwigs assembling against the British; Jones himself (Bill Nighy) is in the thrall of the evil capitalist Beckett (Tom Hollander), who controls his heart and thus his invincible ship; Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) struggles to free his dad, Bootstrap Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), from Jones' crew; and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) pursues both Will and Captain Jack, unsure whom she truly loves.
Throw in several more plot lines, a few new characters, the icky romance of moony Bloom and knock-kneed Knightley, lots of computerized fighting and sailing, and painfully tiresome comic relief involving Mackenzie Crook and Lee Arenberg, and it amounts to nearly three hours of slow misery, none of which rises to the level of a "surprise" or "twist" that can be spoiled for anyone.
Grudging credit is due to some of the special effects and, especially, to Keith Richards, the only one among all this prattling mob who knows that less is more. Of course, he's granted a mere 90 seconds of screen time before the film succumbs once again to its congenital pointlessness. The pang of regret you feel at his departure is the sole emotion this mess ever manages to stir.