Snap Judgment: "...but that won't change your situation"

Yeah, sort of a light weekend, seeing as we're only five days away from Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot Superman remake... er, I mean, Bryan Singer's brand new creative vision of Superman. (We'll get to that one next week.)

Anyway.


Click (comedy, rated PG-13, directed by Frank Coraci, written by Steve Koren & Adam O'Keefe)

All kidding aside, you know what keeps me from ever being willing to see any Adam Sandler movie ever? No, not the fact that they were filming this in Westwood last summer and using up about 1/2 the UCLA lot I park in and making it a bitch for normal employees to find a space. That's just the reality of living in L.A., because if the movie gods want to claim eminent domain on your life they can pretty much do so at any time. (True story: a couple years ago I had to lend Jerry Bruckheimer my liver for a particularly gruesome action scene in Bad Boys 2. It was cut from the movie, and my liver never even got its SAG card.) No, the reason I will never venture into the Cinema de Sandler is because the trailers are constantly telling me that his movies have a heart. Sandler sings wacky 80s songs in crazy outfits, but he JUST WANTS LOVE! Sandler adopts a moppet and teaches him to spit, but he really JUST WANTS THE KID TO LOVE HIM! And now, Sandler fast forwards his life but MISSES HIS KID'S CHILDHOOD AND FEELS WIWWY WIWWY BAAAD ABOUT IT! And frankly, all that repulses me a lot more than whatever poop/fart/snot jokes the guy can come up with. Because I really don't think the emotional crap is just a concession to the studio to make more money. No, it's an extension of Adam's ego: we can't just laugh at him; we also have to loooove him. I plan to do neither. Yes, my heart is one of coal. Deal with it.


Wassup Rockers (indie comedy/drama, rated R, written by Larry Clark and Matthew Frost)

Let me ask you, Larry Clark, is it really the best idea to be saying "It's been 10 years since Kids" right smack dab on the middle of your poster? Because frankly, you might as well be saying "It's been 10 years since Kids and I still find myself waking up in cold sweats during the night, unable to suppress my obsession with filming pubescent boys and girls engaged in risque behaviors." And what's the deal with throwing Janice Dickinson in there as 'Beverly Hills Actress'? Was there a shortage of heroin and tantrums on set?


Waist Deep (crime drama, rated R, directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall, written by Vondie Curtis-Hall, Darin Scott, Michael Mahern)

Once upon a time, Vondie Curtis-Hall had a pretty cool role in Die Hard 2, even though I can't remember exactly which role it was since it's been over a year since I popped in that particular DVD. Oh, and he was the voice print analyst in Clear and Present Danger, a movie I prefer to think of as the last one of Harrison Ford's career before he took the high road and retired on an up note. A bit part, sure, but I remember that scene like the back of my hand (possibly because I've seen C&PD about 15 times) and let me tell you, Vondie played the hell out of it. But it troubles me to think that while he was telling Harrison that the Columbian drug lord played by Joaquim de Almeida had to have been educated in the eastern United States, in the back of his mind Vondie was already planning out a future directing career that included both Gridlock'd and... yes... Glitter. And maybe he also had the idea that he'd rebound from those masterpieces to put Tyrese and The Game in a pretty average-looking crime thriller type thing (even though, in 1994, the only game The Game was playing was, like, freeze tag)... but nonetheless, I wish someone could have read his mind at the time and staged some sort of intervention. Okay, yeah, I've heard that Glitter is legitimately one of those "so horrendous it's entertaining" kind of exercises, though I haven't tested that theory yet. Anyway, Vondie, why don't you quit the behind-the-camera stuff and go talk to Harrison Ford. Tell him if he ever wants to get back into the good movie business, you'll be right there waiting to analyze a voice print. It just might get both your lives back on track.