Well it's that time of year again folks. Time for the summer run of movies, and man do we have a bunch of degenerates this time around. I suppose I shouldn't be all that surprised, it's a scientifically proven fact than any film without the word "road" somewhere in the title will suck donkey balls.
Still, though, I always feel hopeful when I walk into a theater. Maybe this will be the one, the first good movie I see this year. Of course it never is. I should be able to tell that right from the start. As soon as I see that the ticket taker is having trouble with the daunting task of ripping a piece of paper in two I know I'm in for it. People in front of me tend to complain when the ticket taker has these types of problems, but come on, it's probably just his first day on the job. However, if realizing that an adult human being paid $6an hour doesn't have the dexterity to tear on the indentation doesn’t chill your soul, further horrors await you at the concession stand. The prices are horrendous. Shipping a bag of popcorn to the moon wouldn’t even cost this much.
If there are ever movie theaters on the moon, they'll STILL have to lower their prices to make it reasonable. On a recent trip to the movies I actually saw a sign that read "Real Movie Theater Popcorn Here!" Now I don't know about you, but I've never walked up to a concession stand and thought "that popcorn looks fake to me..." I mean, think about it, if it's popcorn and it's in a movie theater then it must be real movie theater popcorn, right?
There's no way to get around the prices. You could always buy a smaller size but when you look at the prices you realize that it’s useless. For $2.75 you get a cup of cola that looks like it's one of those urine specimens. For $2.80 you get the mega-orgasmic sized cup that contains approximately the same amount of liquid as Lake Winnipeg. If anyone ever spilled a whole one of these the result would probably be a tsunami. Of course you could always try to sneakin your own food and drink, but this doesn't work so well with popcorn. I once tried to sneak in a bag of popcorn in my shorts, but the stream of boiling hot yellow butter running down my leg not only gave me away, it also severely disrupted my flirtations with the lady at the ticket booth (which is really the only reason I go to the movies anyway.)
Well, without further interruption, here's Bob's Movie Reviews for the Summer Films.
Air Force One:? Now, I don't know about you folks, but I can’t imagine Bill Clinton wrestling fully automatic weapons away from terrorists and beating them senseless with his bare hands. Hillary could probably pull it off, but definitely not Bill.
Face/Off:? Oh! Where to begin? Here we have a classic example of a movie who's only flaw was not explaining to the audience what the hell was going on. We did learn a lot from this film, though. We learned that even if all of the agents involved are killed or wounded, and even if the main suspect gets away, the papers will still hail your FBI raid as a resounding success.
We learned that all speedboats explode on impact. We also learned that if your writers think of several different possible endings for your movie, you don't have to pick one. You can just film them all and leave the audience to pick the one they like best. This movie also finally answered all of our worries about that burning question: What happened to Michael Jackson, and whatever did he do with the Elephant Man’s face?
Contact:? I won't review this one since I'm still trying to get a date with Jodie Foster.
Batman and Robin:? I have just one question. The hell? Watching this film was like watching a 90 minute commercial for Energizer Batteries. It also sports the two most pathetic "how I became a villain" stories in all of movie history. I mean honestly, when a scientist keeps a large, open vat of liquid nitrogen sitting just behind his equipment, he's just asking to be turned into a maniacle villain. In my theater, the surround sound went out half way through the film and people started complaining. I had to wonder: why? I would prefer the sound to go out entirely, then the audience could make up its own dialogue. As a side note, all of the audience members were better actors than half the cast. Of course we are left with several burning questions. Like, why is it that Mr. Freeze's suit needs frequent injections of huge diamonds to work, but my Maytag works fine plugged into a 110 volt outlet? I'd also like to know why the bat suit had nipples. I mean, unless Batman is lactating I think that’s completely unnecessary. The last thing I want to see when I go to the movies is a rubber impression of George Clooney's nipples. All in all you're paying $6.50 to see one good Alicia Silverstone butt shot, the rest of the movie was a complete waste.
Spawn:? This is one of those films that leaves you thinking, "Geez, evil is really dumb sometimes." We have here a Satan who doesn't even know what the hell is going on in hell, but makes up for that defect by having the unique ability to talk without moving his lips. The story is that of Al Simmons who, after being sprayed with guacamole and set on fire by his boss, is reborn as a demon who strongly resembles Irving R. Levine. He makes up for his lost looks though, by acquiring all types of interesting powers, such as his new Swiss Army Hand. This is actually pretty interesting, whenever he needs a knife or four, there it is. I was expecting to see a spoon or bottle opener pop out of that wrist a couple of times. But what really worried me was the way Al referred to his mentor as an 'old man'. I mean, the guy looked like he was 45. Is this really what CIA killers reborn as demons think that old is? That was the scariest concept in the whole film. At the end the narrator inferred that there would be a sequel. The tentative title is "Movie to be Released When Primary Film Location Freezes Over"
Men In Black:? Now, this film had Tommy Lee Jones in it, so there’s no way I can possibly call it bad. But let's just say that every element of the film that was not a direct result of Tommy's influence was bad. I'm told that director Barry Sonnenfeld cried when he found out that the two million dollar model of the space cockroach wouldn’t work right. I can only imagine that he had a similar reaction when he read the final draft of the script.
We note that one of the aliens in this film demanded sugar after landing. I can only take this to mean that space travel between Alpha Centauri and Earth does not include an in-flight meal, this doesn't surprise me.
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