Movie Previews
So Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World last night turned out to be a really terrible movie. Quick review: I thought it would be a genuine movie, and it was a facetious movie. Multiple plotlines are never resolved or even halfway developed, and more than anything, the movie's just not funny. It was roughly as funny as my everyday life, except that in my life I care about the serious stuff, and in the movie I just want it to be funny. It's neither funny nor insightful. Don't see it.
Fortunately, the previews were fantastic, and I am only too happy to describe them here. The first is Thank You For Smoking (trailer), in which the tobacco lobbyist is the protagonist. I'm looking forward to this movie for three reasons: one, it looks hilarious, two, movies about people who are the best at making political arguments is right up my alley, and three, how often do we get to hear the tobacco lobbyist's side of the story? In the trailer this guy goes onto a talk show with a kid with cancer, going through chemo. The lobbyist says, "How on earth would big tobacco profit off of the loss of this young man? It's in our best interest to keep Robin alive and smoking." They high-five. Here's another quote, to his son: "if you argue correctly, you're never wrong." How true is that? I can't conceive of this movie not being absolutely terrific, though it may be my kind of movie in the way that, say, Brokeback Mountain (which I did see) was not. Also, it helps when you have a Killers song playing in the background of the trailer.
Even more intriguing is American Dreamz (trailer), which my ever more pregnant sister Laura (happy birthday Laura!!) already discussed like a month ago. In a nutshell, I can't figure out if this movie is the dumbest movie ever created, or if people are going to leave this movie with a whole different outlook on life. Here's the rough premise (though the movie changes names to protect the impeachable): imagine that President Bush finally realizes one day that he's out of touch and decides to spend all his time holed up and learning about the world, then decides to reconnect with the people by being a guest judge on American Idol. The movie focuses on the William Hung joke contestant, here an Arab who gets shoved into a setup where fundamentalists cheat him into the final round of the competition so he can kill the president onstage, plus the Simon Cowell host, who's sick of being a star, and the Carrie Underwood character, who here desperately wants to become a star, and will gladly throw away everyone who cared about her to do it. Sounds like everyone has a lot to learn about becoming who they are and doing the right thing. But is it slapstick? I can't tell. It could work as slapstick, and it could work a lot better if it has a point. Some movies are meant to be transcendent. It stars Mandy Moore, so until it comes out I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, plus, again, the song in the background is awesome. That should be a prerequisite.
Finally we had A Scanner Darkly, one of those movies with a plot inscrutable from the trailer and probably from actual viewing too, but that doesn't mean it doesn't look fantastic. I mostly include this paragraph so that you'll check out the preview for yourself (though, seriously, see if you can watch it without installing iTunes) so you can see how good it looks. What do they call this, "mostly animated"? They use real actors. I know a creative and cartoonish style worked for Sin City, which is even better than the 1991 Super NES game that inspired it, but I have no idea whether that will apply to A Scanner Darkly.
In any case, these were terrific previews, almost worth the price of admission, and certainly enough to reinforce my well-considered philosophy that missing any of the previews renders the whole movie experience unacceptable. Also, read the reader reviews for this book. Thank you Aaron Clauset for the link.