"Knowing" when a terrible movie is made

I received the following in an email from a friend. As a warning, do NOT read this if you plan on seeing the new Nic Cage movie "Knowing". Or maybe do, then don't see the movie. This isn't so much a spoiler alert as it is a full summary of the ending.

I hereby bestow up you all, the final act of the latest Nic Cage vehicle, Knowing:

Initially believing that the last event will kill only 33, John eventually re-examines the numbers. He discovers that the final digits are not "33", but actually "EE" written backwards, and the upcoming event is a massive solar flare that will be so strong, it will kill "Everyone Else." As Diana prepares to travel to a system of caves she believes will save them, John breaks into the school to steal the door Lucinda scratched the numbers on. At his house, he begins to scrape the paint off the door, but Diana refuses to wait for him, and leaves with the kids. As the solar flare begins to reach Earth, it begins to disrupt cell phone signals, preventing John from contacting Diana. She finally is able to contact John through a gas station pay phone, and he tells her that the coordinates are those of her mother's house, which he believes is safe, while the caves won't protect them from the solar flare's radiation. When panic erupts at the gas station following the government's announcement of the solar flare, two of the"whisperers" hijack Diana's car with the two children. Giving chase in another car, Diana is killed trying to run a red light, dying exactly at midnight, on the very day her mother predicted.

Arriving back at Lucinda's mobile home, John discovers the children are safe and comfortable in the presence of the "whisperers." The"whisperers" are revealed to be ethereal angel-like beings who invite the children to escape the destruction "to help everyone start over."At first, Caleb is very reluctant to go when his father is not invited to come along; John successfully persuades him to go, saying that they will be together again eventually. The group of "whisperers" leave Earth on their "ship," a massive structure resembling Ezekiel's Wheel,as other ships also depart Earth. As anarchy reigns in New York, John arrives to be with his father, mother, and sister just as the solar flare strikes the Earth and kills everyone. In the last scene, Caleb and Abby are dropped off on what appears to be a new Earth (albeit with at least two moons) as the other ships drop off their passengers. The movie ends as the two children run toward a large white tree, possibly being the Tree of Life.

Funny, I didn't know M. Night Shymalan was at the helm. Or is this a scientology lesson?

Like I've said 1,000 times, just make another Princess Bride! What's so hard about this? Stardust did it. Just grab Neil Gaiman again, stick him in square room and threaten him until he writes another. Then make it into a movie. What's he gonna do, go to the police? He's Neil Gaiman! He's (brilliant but) twisted six ways to Sunday. Everyone will assume he's finally lost it and is slipping into one of his myriad worlds. The plan is flawless.

You know what, forget it. I've said too much. Let's agree to disagree with Mr. Cage on the quality of the films he selects. If Gaiman disappears for six months, I'm officially on bed rest.

Boo Oscars, yay beer!

Could any group of people be more predictable than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? What a ridiculous group of chumps.

I think the overall biggest embarrassment id the predictability of the lot. Point out something they do wrong, call them prejudiced for it, then watch them overreact for the next couple of years.

The biggest example of this is the whole handling Denzel Washington. I love Denzel. I think he’s probably the best actor in Hollywood who isn’t really old, and as good as any, as well as being a good man in real life. Now look at his film biography. How he never won for Glory, Cry Freedom or The Hurricane is beyond me, but the year following people calling the Academy racist he won for Training Day. Riiiight. I like Training Day, I own it on DVD, and he was very good in it, but DMX could have played that role and the film would have been 95% identical. Seriously. Either American Gangster or Remember the Titans would have been better, roles where no one else could have done it without transforming/ruining the movies.

I’m not saying there wasn’t any racism in the history of the Academy, but what made it worse was the knee-jerk reaction to select less than perfect performances to make up for it. Jamie Foxx did a borderline Ray Charles impression and won an Oscar for it. Will Smith (a better actor) was incredible in Ali (a better movie) and lost. Now we have these “oops” moments to treasure, to gaze upon and stare back at in incredulity.

Well, two years after Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash and everyone threw the tizzy fit to end all tizzy fits (they both should have lost to A History of Violence, which wasn’t nominated), Sean Penn won for a slightly scenery chewing performance in Milk. It wasn’t terrible, but this category was stacked this year. For my pick, Mickey Rourke gave the performance of a lifetime in, The Wrestler. At least they didn’t hand Milk Best Picture, too. Way to represent, poor children of India.

Of course, it’s only right to bring up the biggest screw job in Oscar history, Shakespeare in Love topping Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. The former is a solid, enjoyable chick flick, the latter probably the greatest war film ever made. It redefined the genre, permanently. What makes this screw job, and the victory of Crash, most embarrassing is how predictable they were in retrospect. Let’s see, we have a story about a bunch of people writing, putting on, and acting in shows, and a web of interracial interaction set in LA. I wonder why the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in Los Angeles, went for them…

The second worst part of the Academy dropping the ball is the counter-reaction to the film “lucky” enough to pull the upset. Shakespeare is not a bad movie, but for many it’s synonymous with feces for beating SPR. I know critics who actively enjoyed Crash before it beat Brokeback, and now use it as a punch line. There’s a lack of reasoning in these antics. It’s childish to change your opinion of one piece of art because you prefer another. Children, can’t we all get along?

The American Way

On a lazy Sunday morning, after taking the dog out for a morning hike/bathroom break, I settle on the couch to surf the channels for a few pre-breakfast minutes. Fortune smiles on me and I stumble upon Die Hard on A&E HD, a cable movie channel that shows a large number of awesome, though edited, feature films.

As a believer in free speech I prefer owning the unedited versions of everything I purchase, but there is some fascination for me in viewing something I’ve seen a million times in a restricted form. It’s always interesting to see what gets cut.

Stumbling into the film just as Hans and his squad are busting up the Christmas party in the Takagi building, I was not at all surprised when the chest of an up-close topless woman was blurred away. Now, we all know the preference in American media for violence over nudity and even profanity, but the coming moments were pretty stunning by even our standards.

In his office, Mr. Takagi refuses to cooperate with Hans in opening the electronically coded piece of the corporate safe. After a countdown, Hans looks Takagi in the eyes and shoots him in the face, with a large amount of blood exploding out the back of his head and covering the glass door windows behind him. As the audience, we hear the gun fire, see Takagi’s head jerk backward, and blood cover the windows in front of the camera.

The fact that this is unedited is a little disturbing, but it is the juxtaposition with what follows that truly captures the moment. After a mishap, John McClane is upstairs, berating himself. “Why didn’t you save him, John? ‘Cause then you’d be dead, too,” followed by blurred mouth, and silence. The missing word, for those of unfamiliar with the film, is asshole.

A moment later, staring across the street into a lit apartment, a woman is undressing at a great distance. Though barely visible, even in HD, there is a blurred circle over her lower body. You’d think I needn’t explain what makes up the missing picture, but you’d be wrong. This is not some lurid shot removed for the sake of the children, but a barely discernible image from some fifty yards. The director edited the scene with distance and darkness, and we didn’t need a digital cloud to get the job done.

As a recap, the audience has now seen a man’s brains blown out in direct view, followed by the removal of a not-that-bad-of-a-word and the blurring of telescopic nudity. Graphic violence: check. Bad word and almost nudity: no check. This is the censor’s equivalent of nailing Capone on tax evasion.

I thought I was okay with the status quo in American media, but I’m just not sure I can accept it any longer. It’s just childish to be offended by one and so nonchalant about the other. I’m not arguing for on-screen sexual acts, but could we at least pare down the gap in the double standard? Either lessen the nudity controls or crank up the violence ones. We may need to examine our values as a society when we view a bad word as worse than an execution right before our eyes.

Side note: after completing this post and doing a couple chores, I came back and caught the end of the movie and the beginning of the next, Analyze This. I loved seeing Karl get shot at the end of the former, blood squirting and body heaving, and then watching Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) interrogate somebody with the censors on overdrive. Any De Niro mafia performance comes with its fair share of F-bombs, and the absence of his catch word makes for high comedy, especially when their removal comes immediately after a brutal killing.