Earl Dittman
of Wireless Magazine
Hey Whore, how's
the whoring? According to this week's Quote Whore:
The Next Best
Thing is "The
Next Best Thing is a funny and fabulous date-movie with a twist!
Blah Blah Blah!'"
Drowning Mona
is "A comedy
classic!"
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©2000 by
Randy Shandis Enterprises. All rights fucking reserved.
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This week:
Mission to Mars
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Filthy says:
"It's Out of Their Fucking Asses!" |
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I have been to Mars, and I know what it's made of: pure, unadulterated
crap, just like we have on Earth. "Mission to Mars"
is monumentally stupid. It will stand for all time as a monolithic
tribute to Hollywood's elite and their colossal egos. It is,
to date, the worst movie of 2000. It's worse than "Down
to You" because that movie was the testament to the incompetence
of a few while this flick speaks for an entire industry that
is creatively and intellectually bankrupt. In other words, it's
worse than sucking wooden dildos until your lips are covered
in splinters.
"Mission to Mars" starts slowly enough with a bunch
of mini-van yuppies from the future eating barbecue and talking
about how they're leaving for Mars the next day. That this scene
takes, oh, about three hours of screen time, should be a tip-off
to the tedious adventure ahead. But I guess I'm stupid because
I sat there hoping it would get better. Gary Sinise is a crack
astronaut who can't go on the mission because he went bonkers
when his wife died. So, Don Cheadle and a bunch of unknowns certain
to die, go in his place. On Mars, they encounter some mysterious
life form that kills everyone but Cheadle.
Sinise, Tim Robbins and the rest of the movie's real stars
have to go and rescue him. After a series of really forced incidents
that put the rescue mission in jeopardy, our heroes reach the
surface of Mars, find Cheadle living like Robinson Crusoe in
a greenhouse, and then make contact with the Mars life form through
a series of increasingly stupid plot machinations. I mean, Jesus
Fucking Mary on the Couch Christ is this shit lame.
High-budget shitslinger Brian de Palma doesn't succumb to
incoherence, but he slavishly follows a script that must have
read like bloody stools on paper and manages to make it look
like that on screen. Although he gets nothing right, the worst
element of this movie is how serious he makes it all. That fucker
wants us to believe this is an IMPORTANT MOVIE, and he's
got important shit to say. Important shit like Martians cry and
hold hands a lot. Important shit like, um, like this is not just
a stupid, expensive pussy-fart but a revelation about, um, how
Martians are the source of overly-sentimental life on Earth,
and we can thank them for "Ziggy," "Family Circus"
and "Love Is..."
Several hacks wrote the script, and not a single one of them
had the common sense to take his name off. I don't know how many
times characters said "Oh, my God!" and "Dear
God, no!" but it was in double digits. And every time they
said a line that lame, it was to tell a numb audience to be shocked
or worried. The writers with 100 million bones in budget couldn't
find any visual way to convey this message. My tip to them: if
the audience isn't going to be wowed, don't tell them to be.
It only makes you look stupid.
Add to this the long stretches of dialog meant to explain
the plot in brutal detail, a plot that even the fucking moron
sitting behind me understood. The characters spend 75% of this
dog repeating what was already said or explaining what we already
saw. And they do it with dialog more wooden than the dick of
a teen boy watching the scrambled porn channel.
The scenarios this cavalcade of overpaid assholes comes up
with are so awfully boring. First, there is a meteor storm that
breaches the hull of the spaceship. By using a multitude of products
carefully placed with the label to the camera, the crew is able
to find the breach and repair it. Where this could be a fast
action sequence, it takes forever, and we know it will be fixed.
It's all filmed with the drama of a documentary about the secret
life of apples. The next crisis burped out of the screenwriting
machine is the destruction of the ship. This requires the movie's
yuppies to go into space in their suits. It's another scene that
might have worked had it not taken so long and been taken so
seriously that it gave me plenty of time to reminisce about "The
Black Hole," "Supernova" and other vastly superior
space movies.
The actors are constipated, like their butts are plugged with
pulpy chunks of script. I couldn't tell if they knew they were
in a terrible movie, or if they were playing along. In any case,
they are never more interesting than the parents on the sideline
of a YMCA soccer game. Gary Sinise looks freaky and does nothing
to expand his limited acting range. He is dreadfully emotionless,
but one of his scenes is spectacularly framed. He is watching
his dead wife on his computer, but from the angle, I thought
he was sitting on the pot, trying to shit and Tim Robbins stood
in the doorway, anxious for him to finish up so he could take
a crack at dislodging his own script.
Tim Robbins gets a special "fuck you" for being
such a pretentious, loud-mouthed political activist. What kind
of fucking phony goes around talking about the plight of the
common man and how they're getting screwed at the same time he's
shoveling this horseshit down our throats. Robbins probably feels
pretty good about himself for being such a terrific humanitarian,
but that fucker has already cost me $15 this year, money I would
have rather given to some kid in Mozambique. Next time, Mr. Robbins,
look at the fascism of your own acting choices before you start
preaching.
There is no nudity, which is okay because the actors are all
ugly and boring. Jerry O'Connell is plugged into the movie to
attract the Down Syndrome movie-going public under 40. He's the
comic-relief, a young computer whiz with the personality of a
lobotomized frat boy. Really, he's just a 60-year old screenwriter's
interpretation of a wacky young guy.
Part of the reason the "Mission to Mars" is so limp
and lame is because the characters get along wonderfully. There
are no disagreements or fights, just a bunch of yuppie friends
who might as well be loading up their Jeep Grand Cherokee for
a trip to the outlet mall. It's great they all get along, but
I would have rather seen them take space-hatchets to each other
in zero gravity.
This movie is further hampered by its lame special effects
and the organ soundtrack. The effects don't even work as well
as the ones they are ripping off from "2001." Mars
looks like an Arizona desert, and space looks like a black matte
background with people hanging on wires. The alien, when we finally
meet him, is cheap and hokey, except he sparkles. He also cries
(this scene is so fucking funny I practically pissed my pants)
and needs lots of reassurance. Ennio Morricone's organ music
makes the movie feel even cheaper than it looks, like they turned
out the lights at roller rink for the "couples skate."
It's super-corny.
One finger for "Mission to Mars." Like the
movie, I hope to have the chance to meet the producers and shove
it into their outer limits.
A special congratualtions to last week's trivia winner. To
be fair "Mission to Mars" was his choice not mine,
and then he fucking cheated at shuffleboard at the Arvada Tavern.
He also was hitting on this drunk broad with four teeth. Well,
what do you expect from a Filthy Reader? We'll have another trivia
contest some time in the future. The answer will be "The
Vapors."
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