Maria
Salas of GEMS TV
Hey whore,
how's the whoring?
Along Came a
Spider is "a
classic suspense thriller with surprising twists and turns! It
will keep you on the edge of your seat!"
In Someone Like
You "Hugh Jackman will melt your heart!"
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J. D. Salinger - Catcher
in the Rye
(I read this a lot)
Pixies - Surfer
Rosa/Come on Pilgrim
SCTV NBC is showing old SCTV episdes when
Later used to show, after Conan O'Brien. There has never been
and never will be a funnier show on TV. Man, I could watch the
"Sammy Maudlin Show" or "Mel's Rockpile"
for hours and hours. And, much to Mrs. Filthy's frustration,
I do. do yourself a favor and tape a few episodes.
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©2001 by
Randy Shandis Enterprises. All rights fucking reserved.
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This week:
Memento
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Filthy says:
"Fucking weird and clever." |
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I've got a review of Memento in here somewhere, but
I hope you don't mind me venting a little bit first.
Fucking Dipshit Suzanne. If there's a worse boss, I'm sure
I'll work for him next. Dipshit Suzanne decided her Oscar party
was a big success, despite the fact that she's still pissed about
someone stealing her potpourri teddy bear "Pickles"
from the "powder room." Jesus, the dumbass cries about
her missing Pickles almost every day. But, the stupid knick-knack
isn't stolen, it's hidden. Next time, if Dipshit Suzanne doesn't
want to lose a family heirloom as valued as Pickles she should
hide it, or make sure there's toilet paper in the john before
she serves those nasty cheese burritos. Hell, if I gave a fuck
about Suzanne, maybe I'd send her an anonymous note telling her
to look for Pickles in the cupboard under the sink. He's a little
crusty and not smelling so pretty, but he's not missing.
I hate Dipshit Suzanne, and not just because I got a boner
that time she was wiggling in my lap. I hate her because she's
too fucking lazy to alphabetize the movies at First American.
You want Notorious? It's right there, next to Big Daddy
in the "Action" section. You want Frances the Talking
Mule? Of course it's in the "Classics" section,
beside four Frances sequels, and next to Big Trouble
in Little China. She loves movies about as much as I love
splinters up my urethra.
And I hate Dispshit Suzanne for holding a mandatory company
picnic in Hoskinson Park. It was a potluck, Dipshit Suzanne brought
some diarrhea-looking casserole with corn flakes in it, Catherine
brought this green potato salad, Mario brought baked beans, and
Teresa made her "world-famous" pigs in blankets. I
was assigned to bring plastic forks and paper plates. Fuck that.
The one way to survive was with a case of malt liquor (well,
21 bottles by the time I got there). Dipshit Suzanne was pissed.
Oh, beer! Can't you follow simple directions? Your inconsiderateness
is ruining our picnic! Can't you have a good time without it?
You're just like my second ex-husband. This tastes kind of good.
Oh, I'm feeling lightheaded. Come here, let me sit in your lap.
What's that in your pants, hmmm?
Dipshit Suzanne. I hope she's still passed out under the oak
tree.
Okay, so I've been sort of procrastinating in writing my review
of Memento, and that's because I'm having a hard time
figuring out what to make of it. Is it good? Yeah, it's good,
but it didn't do much for me. It's a case of admiring something
for being done real well, but still not giving a shit. Like when
the harelip showed us all the stitches in her abdomen after she
fell in the Tavern's ladies' room. The doctor did a swell job
patching up the grainy, loose skin of her belly, but I didn't
need to see it.
Guy Pearce is an insurance investigator whose wife is raped
and murdered and he is beaten so badly he loses his short-term
memory. The last thing he remembers clearly is his wife's death,
and he vows to hunt down the killer. Because he has no short-term
memory, he keeps track by tattooing clues on his body, taking
photos of the people he meets, and writing down what he knows
about them on the back. See, he won't even remember them the
next time he sees them. A mysterious character named Teddy (Joe
Pantoliano) might or might not be helping him. All Pearce knows
is not to trust his lies. Carrie Ann-Moss is also either helping
or hurting him, but he doesn't know, since he has n idea if what
they are telling him now matches up with what they told him before.
Memento is a noir told backward. The first scene is
the end of the story, and you know who Pearce kills. The rest
of the story rewinds to the beginning, revealing the details
of how and why Pearce killed the person he did. You see the end
of story strands, red herrings and fights, before the beginning.
It's supposed to give the viewer the same disorientation as Pearce
has with his memory loss.
And fuck if it isn't disorienting. Writer/director Christopher
Nolan wants to keep you in the dark, looking forward for clues
and motives, not backward. The viewer has to remember what you
just saw and put what you're seeing before it in your mind. Throughout
most of the movie, it's like you woke up in a booth at the It'll
Do Lounge, it's eight in the morning, and you can't remember
how you got here. I'm sure we all know what that's like.
But, it's a gimmick. A great gimmick, sure, but nothing more
than a gimmick to keep you confused. While it does a good job
of keeping the audience in the dark, it also strips us of the
desire to care. But that's what kind of movie this is, the kind
where the delight is in saying "Oh, I get it now,"
but in nothing else. Because, in its fervent effort to
confound you, it does a shitty job developing the characters
or their motives. They are simplistic puppets driven by the story,
not vice-versa. In fact, they frequently act illogically because
if they didn't the whole house of cards would collapse. At the
end of the movie, I was impressed by the style, but felt completely
unmoved and slightly annoyed at how manipulative it was. It was
impressive like a contortionist is. At first, you marvel and
say how the fuck do they twist themselves up like that?
After more reflection, the question is why the fuck do
they twist themselves up like this?
In the meantime, there are some brilliant scenes. Pearce get
caught in a chase and can't remember whether he is doing the
chasing or being chased. That is, until he gets shot at. A motel
manager charges him for two rooms because he'll willingly pay
every time he comes down to the lobby. And throughout the story,
he must navigate between those who understand his memory problem
and help, and those who take advantage by spinning a new story
every time they see him.
But, because the characters are all so single-minded, there's
not much left to marvel at beyond the loopy structure. The ending
falls flat because it doesn't really matter. It's arbitrary and
convenient, just another twist in a story where Nolan has carte
blanche to jerk and twist more than an epileptic at a Pokemon
movie.
The cast is good, but less than great. Pantoliano stands out
as the only character not speaking in a cool monotone. Pearce
is a bit too low-key. He never extends beyond a range of hip
that's narrower than the Fonz's. And Moss continues to be a very
mediocre actress who can pout and who finds herself in the right
place at the right time.
The story's setting is a mythic, sun-bleached Los Angeles
that is never actually called Los Angeles. It's an almalgam of
empty warehouses, outdated coffee shops and dirty motels that
would make Raymond Chandler proud. I assume this is done as a
modest tribute to Chandler. If it's not, it's a damn cheap ripoff.
Three Fingers for Memento. It's worth seeing
for you movie nuts. But, if you're right now trying to figure
out where First American Video is so you can rent our Talking
Mule movies, go see some shit like Just Visiting instead.
Want
to tell Filthy something?
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