What people miss about the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is that they aren’t actually “responsible” for the censorship or (lack thereof) of radio and TV. They only really “step in” when compelled to do so, and like most governemt entities they do their best to “work” as little as possible. For the most part they are merely enforcing laws previously decided upon by Congress or (as is more often the case these days) responding to pressure from agenda-driven lobbyists and/or “watchdog” groups like the Parents Television Council or the American Family Association. (You can read my full expose of the PTC at the link below:)
http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2005/02/your-freedom-is-in-danger-plus-meet.html

The FCC has been in the news again for the last few days, following their decision that “Saving Private Ryan” can run unedited if broadcasters so desire:
http://www.smartmoney.com/bn/ON/index.cfm?story=ON-20050228-000618-1628

Now, firstly, this is an enormous victory for common sense in the Culture Wars, and represents a major setback for the finger-wagging Puritanism that has gotten so uppity since the manufactured controversy of the Janet Jackson Halftime Incident. Let’s put it this way: Saying that a network cannot air “Ryan,” a patriotic ode to WWII heroics because of foul language used by characters playing soldiers under fire is so blatantly moronic an idea that even the PTC’s professional-prude leader L. Brent Bozell thinks it should be left alone:

“We agreed with the FCC on its ruling that the airing of ‘Schindler’s List’ on television was not indecent and we feel that ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is in the same category. In both films, the content is not meant to shock, nor is it gratuitous.”

Lest you think Bozell is going soft on us, though, the PTC this week is launching a campaign against the “CSI” franchise. True to form, what finally tipped the scale wasn’t “CSI’s” celebrated gorey violence, but an episode centered around kinky sex fetishism. At least they’re consistent.

So the PTC is cool with “Ryan,” but the even MORE radical fringe of the Religious “Right” isn’t. The “American Family Association” is mad as hell:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/afa/12005c.asp
You can check the AFA’s official website here:
http://www.afa.net/

There’s nothing too special or imporant about the AFA. Most have never heard of them, and they aren’t taken that seriously even on the censorship circuit. They’re pretty cookie-cutter as these things go, like most religious groups with “family” in their name they have very little to offer in the way of family-help and dedicate most of their time attempting to undermine the First Ammendment and spread hatred for gays and lesbians. The only interesting thing about them is that their founder is one Donald E. Wildmon.

Wildmon was a big wheel on the Christian pro-censorship movement back in the 80s, but he lost essentially all mainstream credibility when he went to battle against Mighty Mouse because he was positive that the cartoon hero was a cocaine addict. No, seriously, that’s what happened. Read all about it in THIS expose on Wildmon:
http://www.mediacoalition.org/reports/wildmon.html

But since that expose is long, here’s the topical part:

“In the disputed episode, Wildmon charged Bakshi with portraying Mighty Mouse as experiencing drug-induced exhilaration after inhaling the petals of a flower. Mighty Mouse had sniffed cocaine, Wildmon contended.”

Somehow, the term “religious nut” suddenly seems so… inadequate.

Anyway, here’s why I think the FCC still got this wrong: In making their decision, the FCC came down heavily on the side that “Ryan” got a pass because of the “context.” In other words, “these are still naughty words, but it’s an important historical movie so that makes it okay.” Now look, I’m all for anything that helps point out how pointless and wrong any of the broadcast decency laws are, but the plain fact is, the context shouldn’t matter.

If these words are inherently harmful, which is the entirely wrongheaded, unproven and unprovable “logic” on which the whole decency-laws concept is founded, then it should not make them “less bad” if presented in a film about WWII or the Holocaust. Likewise, if Tom Hanks cussing in a movie is okay, then one of the Desperate Housewives doing the same should be okay too. If this was a court case, allowing “SPR” to use “harsh language” on TV would free up everyone else’s right to do it on TV as well, (fair-and-equal treatment, remember?)

The FCC is right to allow networks the right to run “Ryan” uncut, but they were wrong to stop there. By reaffirming the intangible of “context” as a mitigating factor, the FCC has ensured that broadcast “standards” will continue to be run through an ideology of complete hypocrisy.

Let’s just say it: The show was good, but predictable and nothing Earth-shatteringly interesting happened. I really don’t have much more to say about it than what I posted last night right afterwards, but as expected a score of entertainment pundits were out in force to post their views on the show as a whole; and some of these I do indeed have something to say about. So let’s get to it…

AICN’s Harry Knowles weighed in on the show today, and like myself he’s mad-as-hell about the short-shrift given to the technical awards in the “new format” this year. It’s a tangent, but it’s a passionate one:
http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19520

Speaking of angry, the “Passion” boosters are still trying to spin righteous talking points out of a controversy that just hasn’t materialized for most of us… the public at large just isn’t all that upset that a C-list actor getting whipped in a Jesus costume was deemed unworthy of a Best Picture nominee. Still, Bozell and company as a culture-critics have refined grasping at straws to the stature of a martial-art, and so here presents his scathing indictment of the evening: The audience applause sounded a little louder, apparently, for Chris Rock’s jokes about “Fahrenheit 9/11” than for Chris Rock’s jokes about “The Passion.” Bozell’s “Media Research Center” apparently finds this to be of such incredible importance that it made the top-entry of their latest “Cyberalerts” posting:
http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2005/cyb20050228.asp#1

Another unhappy fellow is Dr. James Hirsen. Yes, the Dr. James Hirsen. What? Never heard of him? Wow, what a surprise 🙂

Hirsen is basically an E!/National Inquirer-style celebrity/Hollywood gossip journalist with not one but TWO regular columns on the Far-Right website Newsmax.com. His schtick is covering the same “juicy” Hollywood scandal-rag stories as every other entertainment psuedo-journalist out there, but slanting every story towards “proving” his belief that the creative community is swarming with Weirdos and Freaks who (no doubt) need more Church in their lives. His thoughts on the show:
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/2/28/10449.shtml

Money quote: “But after hearing from countless numbers of folks, I suspect Rock’s attempts did nothing to assuage the rage that people felt regarding the disgraceful dismissal of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ.”

“Rage?” Folks, if you or anyone else is feeling anything that could be described as rage over the lack of “Passion” nominations, then you really need to sit back and take stock of your priorities. Those of you who would define yourselves as Christians may want to consider what Christ might have thought about His followers feeling rage about a crappy movie based on His death being denied a trophy. You may even want to reaquaint yourself with His actual philosophy and teachings on the subject of priorities, rage, etc… though you’ll have to rent a different movie because none of that was considered worthwhile for inclusion in “The Passion.”

And hey, were you wondering what Robin Williams putting that peice of tape over his mouth was all about? Well, turns out that the show’s producers had nixed Williams’ plan to sing a song trashing James Dobson and other so-called “conservative” religious leaders who’d been attacking cartoon characters for appearing in a schoolroom “pro-tolerance” video that they feared might inspire the coming generation to disregard the Christian Right’s hatred of gays:
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/news/wire/sns-ap-oscars-williams,0,3155460.story?coll=sns-ap-entertainment-headlines

Of course, as you saw, Williams proceeded to rip the tape off of his mouth and got in his digs at the Culture Warriors’ expense in spoken-word form. Bravo to you, Mr. Williams.

More of these little vignettes of punditry as I find `em, but that’s all for now…

Okay, a more detailed entry will likely follow as the “rest of the story”-stories about the just-concluded Oscar telecast begin to trickle out, but for now my first impressions are as follows:

Chris Rock’s hosting turn was funny and fresh, but not so funny and fresh enough I fear to dispell the notion that his MTV-generation comedy was an awkward fit for the too-stuffy-even-for-VH1 asthetic of the Academy. Rock’s best material came in the form of “did he say that?”-deapans (introducing Halle Berry as star of “the highly anticipated Catwoman 2,” or Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek as “four of the lovliest images in Hollywood”), while “energy-injecting” exercises (interviewing attendees at the local Magic Johnson Cinema who prefered “White Chicks” to any of the nominated films, an embarassing sketch where he pretended to be a line-reading substitute for Catherine Zeta Jones opposite Adam Sandler) just didn’t come off. Nice job overall, though.

The “shakeup” of giving out the lower-profile awards in the seats or by lineup is the worst idea for the show in many a moon. It was awkward, stilted and terribly undignified, and now that those subjected to it have nothing to lose I suspect most of them will be agreeing with me loudly tomorrow. This could not have been a more naked attempt to “speed things up” by further ghettoizing the technical and short-subject categories in order to give the Joan Rivers crowd more time to gawk at the Big Names in Pretty Dresses. Every single award handed out in one of the “new” methods was damned disgrace, no two ways about it.

Holy cow! Julia Roberts with a FIGURE!!?? Wow, thank heaven for those twins… and the two babies that helped make them possible 🙂

Morgan Freeman is just pure class. Finally able to see his name removed from the “I can’t believe he’s never won…” list, Freeman’s speech is a short, pleasant thank you that spends more time praising the other players in the movie than it does on the man giving it. Well done.

How sweet was it to hear the near-total lack of applause any time “Passion of The Christ” was mentioned for anything? And how much sweeter to see it step up to get beat-down in every one of it’s paltry nominated categories? The only thing that could have added to the overall sense of justice-served I felt at this would have been for “Sister Rose’s Passion,” a biography of the revolutionary Catholic nun who became a champion for purging Catholicism of it’s anti-semetic “Passion Play”-era past, to have won the “Best Documentary – Short Subject” award, but this was not to be.

And speaking of “The Passion,” how angry do you supposed Michael Medved, L. Brent Bozell and all the rest are that not only did their yearlong campaign to turn the film into an Oscar winner implode, but so did their spiteful Plan-B of destroying the win-chances of “Million Dollar Baby”? Clint Eastwood’s film took home four of the six major awards, including Picture and Director, and will now likely be seen by everyone who was previously on the fence about seeing it. In the words of Clint’s character, Frankie Dunn, at a point when one of “Baby’s” major players scores a decisive moral victory over a gaggle of opportunistic neanderthals who just can’t help but remind me of the Medvedites for some reason: “Maybe somebody ought to count to ten.”

What was the deal with Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand? Something got said just before they stepped into view, and Hoffman was pulling away from her like she’d just contracted smallpox. Was this failed schtick or was something else going on?

What is Beyonce Knowles doing there? I know, I know, this is more of trying to make the show “hip,” but a pop crooner doing middling interpretations of the nominated songs is irritating and obnoxious in the extreme. Just play the damn songs, already.

That’s all for now, be back later with more details and more blogging. Lemme know what you though in the Comments section.

WARNING: Even though most of you have by now either had the ending of “Million Dollar Baby” spoiled for you and/or have seen the film for yourselves, I’m still going to avoid actively posting or discussing the specifics on this blog entry. The folks in the articles I’ll be linking to, though, will not be so kind so click at your own risk. You have been warned.

As of this writing, the Academy Awards are only about sixteen hours away. For the entire awards season, we’ve watched extremists claiming to represent America’s religious community vent their frustrations at the “snubbing” of their beloved epic of medievalistic torture-porn, “The Passion of The Christ,” by trying to “take down” the Awards themselves and the likely winners in particular. With it seeming more and more certain that Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” will be the film that “steals ‘The Passions’ award,” so called culture-watchers are making one last ditch effort to damage the reputation of the film and Eastwood out of what I can only describe as distinctly un-Christian spitefulness.

Albert Mohler, (posting at the Christian family website Crosswalk.com,) throws his hat in with the Medvedite critics who feel that spoiling the film will “save” potential viewers from it’s “harmful” message:
http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/?adate=2/24/2005#1314506

It’s mostly spoilers, so I can’t use most of the best money quotes, but here he is defending Medved:

“The cultural left responded with a vengeance, defending “Million Dollar Baby” and Clint Eastwood and suggesting that Medved was a “spoiler,” out to ruin the movie’s commercial prospects.”

Okay, let’s be clear about this here: Medved IS a spoiler, and there’s nothing “vengeance”-related about calling him so. Whether you disagree (as Medved does) with what he sees as the film’s message, withholding the dark 3rd-act plot twist so that it wallops the audience the same as it does the characters is THE central narrative mechanism of the film: In giving it away, anyone who does so forces the audience to see the film in a manner infinitely less affecting than was intended, and beyond all that it’s still just a rotten thing to do.

Crosswalk also posts an article adding fuel to the “boycott the Oscars for ignoring Mel Gibson!” fires, courtesy of “independent film producer-director and screenwriter” Joe Camp, best known (oh heck, ONLY known) as the creator of “Benji.” Joe Camp thinks our culture is going downhill, that Hollywood is to blame, and that their failure to nominate a nearly-plotless feature-length depiction of a C-list actor in a Jesus costume getting the stuffing kicked out of him as the Best Picture of The Year is the final nail in the coffin. But Mr. Camp can say it better for himself:
http://www.crosswalk.com/fun/movies/1314224.html

Now, I’ve never heard that Joe Camp is anything but a really stellar guy. And I’m certainly not going to argue the film-quality-gauging skills of the auteur who cracked the uber-complex cinematic equation of “that dog is cute, let’s film that dog,” but lets look at some quotes here:

“I would like to see all the Christian people who went out and spent money and made it one of the top-grossing pictures of all time not watch the Academy Awards, just because of that,”

And before that, the article tells us (in regards to the “Family Values” of the “Benji” franchise):

“Another movie that depicts those values even more directly is one “Benji”‘s creator regards with great admiration: “The Passion of the Christ.” He feels producer-director Mel Gibson’s movie about the crucifixion of Jesus has proven the power of the individual, with uncompromising vision and beauty, as few other films before it have done — and, lest anyone forget, it was a box office blockbuster to boot.”

Yegh. Enough is enough, people. I want ONE of these Religious “Right” zealots propping up “The Passion” to explain to me where all these “values” are in the film. We see almost none of Christs’ good works or teachings, of the multiple miracles he’s said to have performed the film feels the best thing to show us is a fictional scene crediting The Lamb of God with the invention of Big Tables. If I’m not already a believing, practicing, 100%-converted Fundamentalist Christian before I sit down for this movie, WHAT am I supposed to get out of this other than a long stretch of the kind of “plotless gorefest” the Michael Medveds of the world have spent their whole prior careers telling me I was going to Hell for enjoying? If watching a main character take a hellacious beating and come back for more is the definition of a film about values, then “Passion” shares values-movie shelf space with everything from“Lord of The Rings” and “Star Wars” to “Salo,” “Kill Bill” and “The Story of O.” Yet somehow, I don’t think the director of “Benji” is going to try and convince me that “The Story of O” was robbed of an Academy Award nod anytime soon. Just a ballpark guess.

Ahem. That being said, Camp makes his point eloquently and his feelings sound sincere. And “Benji” really is one of the better dog movies, when you get right down to it.

Let’s hear from a lady. Jill Stanek is an anti-abortion-rights activist, who’s position on the subject lies slightly to the right of the talon-fingered newborn from “It’s Alive!” Though she’s definately not-kidding-around with her comittment to her cause, she’s evidently not above using the difficult subject matter of her cause as the money-shot in a gag headline. Witness her new Worldnetdaily column, entitled “Pro-lifers: Abort the Academy Awards!”
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43052

Here’s where this one gets interesting: After using the word “abortion” as a shock-word for a jokey headline about a movie award show, the actual column attacks Oscar Host-to-be Chris Rock for having made abortion jokes in his past. Here’s Rock’s joke:

“Abortion, it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful abortion is legal,” joked Rock. “I love going to an abortion rally to pick up women, cause you know they are f—ing.”

Okay, the only thing “shocking” about that joke is that an original talent like Rock would resort to that worn-out Frat Boy oldie of a dirty joke. But here’s Stanek’s outraged reaction:

“Some say Rock was actually making a sarcastic indictment against abortion. That could be, and his comment did open my eyes a little wider on the exploitive nature of abortion. Nevertheless, the joke was repulsive, and any comedian who would use abortion to get a laugh is the last comedian in the world I want to watch on television. Abortion is the unfunniest topic in the world.”

“The unfunniest topic in the world…” unless the funny is occuring in headlines to her own articles, apparently. But while pointing out baldfaced hypocrisy may be fun, (and it is,) we move on to the REAL reason she’s up in arms: The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences has had the unmitigated gall to nominated for various awards not one but TWO films that run counter to the personal politics of Jill Stanek. Well, at least she’s not being unreasonable or anything…

Specifically, she takes issue with “Million Dollar Baby,” for reasons I’m still not going to spoil for you, and “Vera Drake” for being about the life, arrest and trial of a pre-abortion-legality working class Englishwoman who provides (illegal) abortions for those too poor (or in too bad a situation) to afford the nice, discreet, clean (but still illegal) ones used frequently by the wealthy. My immediate reaction here is: “Tsk, tsk. She forgot ‘Kinsey!”

But okay, as a “pro-lifer” Stanke has, of course, all the right in the world to be irked that “Vera Drake” has three nods. But she also saddles up next to the Medvedites when it comes to “Million Dollar Baby”…

“You’ve likely heard about the shocking end of “Million Dollar Baby” only from friends. Its ads and trailers give no clue to its real agenda.”

This kind of groupthink borders on the eerie. People: Withholding details of a major plot and tonal shift is a NARRATIVE DEVICE, not evidence of a hidden agenda. Granted, Stanek and others who confuse the two have the benefit of not being professional critics and former film-scholars of note… what’s Medved’s excuse again?

In the end, there’s ONE person left yet who hasn’t been much heard from on the controversy, and that’s the director/actor himself. Clint Eastwood has only offered smatterings of info on how he feels about the propaganda campaign being waged against him, but he finally spoke in depth in an extraordinary interview with Time Magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1029865,00.html

Seriously, take the time and read that. Eastwood is not only the finest living actor/director in America, he’s also one of the most honest and intelligent. One of the best filmmaker interviews I’ve ever read. But let’s see the “money quote” exchange here, when Time writer Richard Schickle puts the Big One right on the table i.e. former Republican mayor Clint Eastwood “turning against” his Conservative fans with “Baby”:

TIME: THERE’S A NOTION THAT CLINT EASTWOOD, THE GREAT AMERICAN ICON, HAS SOMEHOW DISAPPOINTED A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF HIS CONSTITUENCY WITH THIS MOVIE.

EASTWOOD: “Well, I got a big laugh out of that. These people are always bitching about “Hollyweird,” and then they start bitching about this film. Are they all so mad because The Passion of the Christ is only up for the makeup award and a couple of other minor things? Extremism is so easy. You’ve got your position, and that’s it. It doesn’t take much thought. And when you go far enough to the right you meet the same idiots coming around from the left.”

Hey, whaddaya know… Dirty Harry just made my day 🙂

MovieBob to Universe: You can please stop with all of the you-asked-for-it ironic/karmic signs already, we get the idea. The 90s are over.

Our latest exhibit that the preceeding decade has, officially, passed into the ether comes in the form of “Cursed,” a teenaged-werewolf entry from the former “Scream” team of director Wes Craven and writer Kevin Williamson, which arrived in U.S. theater’s yesterday to snatch the title of “worst excuse for a horror movie in 2006 thus-far” from “Boogeyman.” Yup, it’s as bad as you’ve heard.

You might remember that, back in 1996, Williamson and Craven’s innaugural collaboration, “Scream,” was regarded as something of a big deal. If you were pop-culture-attuned at all at the time, you may recall hearing that this film, an updated 80s-style “teen slasher” with the “hook” that the characters were aware of the “rules” of their genre, was credited with “reviving horror movies.” If you were a Movie Geek at the time, you may recall getting unspeakably annoyed at people who, upon hearing you say something marginally obscure about film, were given to point and declare “Yo! He’s like that dude from “Scream!”

You might also remember that Williamson followed his success with three more teenaged horror movies, “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “The Faculty,” and “Teaching Mrs. Tingle,” (none of which were very good), a “Scream” sequel (also not all that good) and the catastrophically awful WB teen-drama “Dawson’s Creek,” the toxic influence of which is still being felt today. Craven, the one-time 70s/80s horror master who had fallen on hard times prior to “Scream,” had a brief upshot in work-quality, then went back to hard times as the executive-producer of a slew of bad movies and director of a Meryl Streep oscar-bait yawner about a violin teacher. No, really.

“Scream” was the quintessential “90’s” horror-movie, in as much as it was an “independent film” made and released by a big studio with name actors, endlessly in love with it’s own glib cleverness and, above all else, traded heavily in the “reference humor” popularized by Kevin Smith and run mercilessly into the ground by… everyone else and Kevin Williamson in particular. One more thing that makes it utterly a film of the 90s is that “Scream” became dated so fast that it became itself easy-fodder for the “reference humor” of “Scary Movie” with dizzying quickness. In fact, let me put it out on the table right now: As far as Williamson is concerned, I’m of the mind that the emporer has no clothes.

Williamson’s “Scream” schtick (a formula movie where the main cast kept joking about formula movies) went over big with the mainstream critics, who openly welcomed a “horror” movie that seemed to agree with them about how silly they always thought horror movies were to begin with. From where I was standing, most of the teenage audiences whom the media told us were “won back” to slasher films by Williamson’s cleverness didn’t really get into the jokes, and the Horror Geeks who would’ve gotten into the jokes didn’t because they weren’t all that nifty as references go (Jason wasn’t the killer in the first “Friday the 13th???” Whoa!) For my money, “Scream” was a hit because it was a solid Wes Craven slasher movie, and teens of that generation hadn’t had one to call their own yet. As if to prove my point for me, Williamson’s follow-up script for “I Know…” was in-joke free and did the same kind of business.

And furthermore, Williamson can’t even lay claim to having pioneered anything with self-aware horror. Horror movies where the characters were “aware” of horror movies had been done as recently as 1991 in “There’s Nothing Out There,” as the boys at StompTokyo.com discovered:
http://www.stomptokyo.com/movies/theres-nothing-out-there.html
(And yes, I’m aware that StompTokyo’s reviewers say in that review that they think “Scream” was still better, so you don’t need to bother pointing that out.)

And hey, Wes Craven himself did it before “Scream” as well, in “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111686/

Agree or disagree with me about “Scream,” but it can’t be denied that “Cursed” was hoped by all involved to be the Craven/Williamson-blockbuster’s second coming: The poster is nigh-identical, it’s a teen-targeted horror release, etc. From the get-go, this has been the promise: “Scream’ but with Werewolves!” Granted, exploring teenaged-angst through the metaphor of Lyncathropy is precisely as old as the teen-horror genre itself (having been originated in the 50s with “I Was A Teenaged Werewolf”), but surely a decent entry can be drawn from this material. Craven, for all his ups and downs, is a great director of both young actors and onscreen carnage, and Werewolves are certainly the most violent of the “classic” movie monsters; so if nothing else we should be in for some good old fashioned monster-splatter courtesy of creature-FX god Rick Baker. And hey, Christina Ricci is in it, and her bambi-eyed sexy/creepy hotness goes with horror films like pizza goes with everything. Someone would have to try to screw this up, right?

Well, if so, “someone” tried their ass off.

MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW:

“Cursed” finds Ricci as a 20-something TV publicist (in an early sign of unintentional-hilarity to come, she works for the canceled-ages-ago Craig Kilborn Show) taking care of her geeky teenaged brother (Jesse Eisenberg) after their parents’ untimely deaths. She’s in a dramatic relationship with a Wax Museum owner (Joshua Jackson sporting look-I’m-a-grownup-now facial hair) while lil’ brother is pining for the high school hottie who’s hot-tempered boyfriend (Milo Ventimiglia) likes to beat him up and accuse him of being gay. One night, the sibs get throttled by a Werewolf and wake up with canine-style superpowers that increasing at the ever-frightening rate of whenever-the-plot-dictates, and as you might expect The Race Is On to find and destroy the “original Werewolf” and end the curse before more (offscreen) violence occurs.

Would you be surprised if I told you that Ricci’s wolf-powers interfere with her work while Eisenberg’s turn him into an overnight campus big-shot? Would it bowl you over if I told you that the initial attacker-Wolf is walking around in-congito among the main cast? Or that it’s not only eye-rollingly easy to pick out not only the “whodunnit” twist but also the supposed-gotcha “who-also-dunnit” twist? No? Hm. How’d I know? Maybe I’m psychic… but it’s funny, I don’t feel like Patricia Arquette…

Okay, so the plot is trash and the characters are central-casting cutouts even on Kevin Williamson’s curve, but this is STILL Wes Craven, still a Werewolf movie and still has Rick Baker effects, so at least there’s plenty of sweet man-in-suit monsters spilling plenty of latex entrails and Karo syrup all over the place, right? Nope, no dice.

The industry scuttlebutt on this one, for awhile, has been that the studio tossed out the script and ordered a rehaul in the middle of shooting, (tossing out original castmembers Skeet Ulrich and Omar Epps,) and that in addition they ordered scenes featuring Baker’s monster-suit werewolf trimmed and replaced with a CGI-double. After Wes Craven claiming that he was “still proud” of the finished film so long as they didn’t “cut it,” the film was stripped of its gore-scenes in order to take advantage of the post-Ring/Grudge/Boogeyman paradigm of “make a PG-13 horror movie, open in the #1 spot.

What we’re left with is a film that is, without hyperbole, almost-totally useless: A lousy-looking Werewolf we almost never see, making a gorey mess that we really never see, out of a roster of character we can’t possibly care about. Oh, and the requisite bad taste in our mouths from knowing that we’ll have to wait for the innevitable “UNRATED DIRECTOR’S CUT” DVD double-dip to find out of this was any better when it had some blood in it.

The film has ONE semi-interesting moment where a slightly better movie seems to be on the horizon: After Kid Brother throttles Homophobic Jock with his Werewolf-Kwon-Do in gym class, he points out the oft-held irony that vocal-homophobes are often closeted gays themselves. That night, Homophobic Jock comes to the house to appologize, comes out of the closet to Kid Brother and, still under the assumption that Kid Brother is also gay, tries to kiss him. The film unwisely (yet sadly in-tune with the likely sensibilities of most of it’s audience) plays the whole thing for laughs, (“I’m not gay, I’m cursed!” “Dude, I know! It does feel like a curse sometimes…” yuk, yuk, yuk,) but it’s the one unexpected thing in an entirely paint-by-numbers movie; and Ventimiglia as the Jock manages the character shift so well that by the time he’s charging off into anti-Werewolf battle with the would-be object of his affection he turns into “Cursed’s” best character in almost exact concurrance with the film’s forgetting his existance.

Even given this bad review (and all the other bad reviews,) some of you, like me, know you’re going to see this anyway just to get a look at the latest Rick Baker monster suit (for the record: There’s really only two good solid full-body shots of it when it’s not the ultra-cheap CGI dupe,) and I’m sorry to report that it’s a letdown as well: Oh, Baker’s sculpting and musculature are as good looking as ever, but at the level of basic design this is one of the least cool-looking Werewolves in a long time; barely even looking like a wolf at all and in fact bearing a closer resemblance to a giant bipedal Badger. Worse yet, the one transformation scene we get is done entirely with CGI, and Ricci and Eisenberg never transform at all. In fact, one of the big “final confrontation scenes” between characters who are all Werewolves has them in human form the whole time, tossing eachother around a kitchen and bellowing teen-angst melodrama just like in “Scream.” If there’s a mistake a Werewolf movie can make, “Cursed” makes it twice.

This is the kind of bad horror movie that will be making the lists of bad horror movies compiled by Film Geeks well into the next decade. It’s not scary, it’s not interesting, it’s characters are empty, it’s script is disposable, it’s monsters suck and it’s gore is nonexistant. I’m going to beg you here: Don’t see this movie. Don’t give your money to this. Don’t let this turn into a hit and send one more message to Hollywood that they don’t have to try to make successful horror movies. If you want a “teen-angst Werewolf movie,” get down to the rental place and ask them for THIS:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0210070/

It’s called “Ginger Snaps,” and if you’ve got a Horror Geek worth his weight in Fango backissues in your life he’s probably already told you that this “has to be” better than “Cursed.” Listen to him. It’s got better Werewolves, better gore and one of the best horror scripts of the last couple of years. Just like “Cursed,” it’s got introverted siblings, teenaged-issues exaggerated into horrors by a Werewolf bite, even an Evil Jock as a red-herring baddie, but UNLIKE “Cursed” it’s not afraid of being smart, creepy and sexy about things; eventually turning Lycanthropy into a fits-like-a-glove metaphor for teenaged menstrual-angst. It’s good stuff.

“Cursed” is not good stuff. “Cursed” is a film of no use or value to film buffs, Movie Geeks, Horror Geeks or just general moviegoers. It’s a nothing-movie, and the only scary prospect it brings is the thought of having to endure “Cursed II: The Suckening” should this make back it’s budget come Monday morning.

FINAL RATING: 3/10

Yeah, I know. No one cares how this is, no one was waiting for this, a great deal of you had never even heard of it or, if you had, knew it was coming. I was planning on reviewing it, but it turned out to be the only new movie my schedule allowed me to see tonight, so more’s the pity on the both of us, eh?

This is one of those bad comedies that probably lost any chance it had to be any good the moment someone decided “it can’t not work!” Most likely that moment occured concurrently with the hiring of Tommy Lee Jones for the lead. Jones is one of those little showbiz marvels, the talented, utterly-unpretentious workmanlike character actor so adept at filling up (often) thinly-written supporting roles with charisma that they become “marquee-name” leading-men because their very presence makes audiences feel instantly comfortable and “connected” to their role.

Always a reliable actor well-liked in his industry, Jones went from character actor to unlikely leading man after his “holy crap!”-inducing turn as Sam Gerad in “The Fugitive.” Since that film (and his subsequent Oscar win) Jones has been one of Hollywood’s busiest older-stars, appearing in a spectacular number of major-release films giving performances that are always good, frequently great and consistently based on the same premise: That audiences instantly connect with his decidedly-unimpressed-with-himself/old-school tough-guy vibe and can instantly imagine how “good” a movie might be by placing that “vibe” in any given situation. “Tommy Lee Jones fighting aliens with Will Smith” (“Men in Black”) sounded like fun, and it was. “Tommy Lee Jones versus an evil version of Rambo” (“The Hunted”) sounded like a decent little actioner, and it was. And so on, and so forth.

In “Man of The House,” Jones is playing a hardcase Texas Ranger Roland Sharp who’s chasing down the mystery-asassin who killed a high-profile witness and wounded a fellow Ranger in the process. The only witness to the crime and, thus, the bad-guy’s face, are five College football cheerleaders; so Sharp is assigned to move into the girls’ sorority house, protect them from the at-large killer and wait it out while they try to pin down whodunnit. (Provided with the information, as we are, that the girls cannot pick the killer from a list of “every known criminal in the United States,” will tell every member of the audience who’s seen more than a few cop movies in their lives who the bad guy is much quicker than it takes for anyone in the movie to figure it out.)

So the idea here is “Tommy Lee Jones having to share a house with five dizzy girls,” and let’s not lie: It’s a good idea. It sounds good. Jone’s rough-hewn bluntness paired off against five yip-yapping young girls is immediately appealing, and we can imagine all the fun scenes that will organically grow out of it: It’ll be funny to hear what he thinks of current pop music, his thoughts on their fashions, his reaction to encountering a bathroom full of feminine products, etc. It’s understood that the opening and closing acts will contain a healthy amount of shoot-em-up action business while the “funny stuff” will occupy the length of the 2nd act. It’s a given that Jones will impart some old-fashioned wisdom to the youthful girls, help them solve problems with experienced advice, etc., while they in turn will help him “loosen up,” and everyone will learn something and grow as people just in time for the bad guy to show up and get foiled before everyone reconvenes for the one-big-happy-movie-family coda. In addition, there’s the opportunity to stock the cheerleader roles with fresh young faces eager to use the role as a full-motion headshot for future work. Done well, or even passably-well, this could easily be a fine little no-brainer comedy.

Too bad it’s not done well, or even passably well.

It seems obvious, almost from the get-go, that the “this HAS to be funny” nature of the project may have inspired either a bit of laziness, a bit of producer interferance or a combination of both in the production overall. It’s just not very funny. The characters are sketched too broadly, even for a film like this, and it just does not work. Jones is as good as ever, and all the girls’ aquit themselves well enough, but there’s just not enough there to work with. Scenes and events that rely on a connection with the characters or an understanding of reaction falter because the connection and understanding simply aren’t there. Jones’ role, even moreso than usual is based entirely on the idea that “it’s Tommy Lee Jones.” The girls’ roles are so thin that it almost feels like overkill when the film gives them names, as they’re really only defined by their broad archetypes: as expected, we have Smart Girl, a Silly Girl, Hot-Tempered Latino, Edgy Bad-Girl and Largely Uninteresting African-American Leader Girl. (“Stoic Asian Martial-Arts Expert Girl,” apparently, was not invited to attend on the grounds that the film was already being too nice to me by providing some lovely footage of Monica Keena in a sports bra.)

Monica who? Keena has yet become a suitably big-named starlet despite a genuine talent and, it must be said, a tremendous sex appeal, but you might know her as “that actress who looks like Brittany Murphy might look if she ate some food once in awhile.” Take a look:
http://www.wallpaperbase.com/wallpapers/celebs/monicakeena/monica_keena_2.jpg

So yeah, it’s not a total waste.

The director is Stephen Herek, a solid worker-bee filmmaker who started out in the late-80s with a pair of genuine classics- “Critters” (which he also co-wrote) in 1986 and “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” in 1989- before settling into a good niche as a maker of likable family fare like “The Mighty Ducks” and “Don’t Tell Mom, The Babysitter’s Dead.” He also made the perpetually-underappreciated “Mr. Holland’s Opus.” So the guy can direct, and he doesn’t so much do many things wrong with this material as he does “not do enough” (it would be too harsh to say “fails”) to elevate it from a disposable collection of gags with barely enough laughs to fill it’s own trailer into something slightly more likable. The film’s biggest running joke, about Sharp’s insistance that the girls avoid wearing revealing outfits, not only doesn’t produce any great deal of laughs, it serves to make Sharp look creepily preoccupied with the subject. (It’s also a little too smug of the film to point out how “Girls Gone Wild” the cheerleaders’ early appearances are.)

There are brief glimpses of a better movie wanting to poke it’s head through: One of the girls developing a crush on Sharp comes up and is quickly dropped, as is the quick rapport he develops with “Bad Girl.” And yeah, the expected sequence in which Sharp undergoes a “makeover” is about as clever as you’d, well.. expect.

But in the end, this is pretty bad. Too few laughs in a film that’s really designed to provide as many as possible. Not that it’ll take much effort, but this is really worth skipping (unless choice #2 is “The Wedding Date,” in which case… it’s really worth examining what you’re doing in a situation where those are your only two choices.)

FINAL RATING: 2/10

I’ve put this off long enough.

What I have here is a blog about movies. There are certain things you just HAVE to do on a movie blog. One of those things is, when this time of year (end of winter) rolls about, you turn your attention to “the big stuff coming this summer.” It’s one of those trends that’s not worth bucking. Everyone is doing it because, really, Hollywood makes darn sure there’s not much else for us to do.

So I’m sitting here, trying to organize my thoughts about the upcoming Summer Slate and find a thread around which to build a posting that doesn’t read like every other blog posting on the same topic. To jog my memory, I start running through the “upcoming” lists around the web, and the expected stuff starts to jump out at me: “War of The Worlds” is coming. “Fantastic Four” is coming… and not looking one ounce better, sadly. “Batman Begins,” “Sin City” and “Hitchhikers Guide” are all coming. All good so far, right?

And then, as if waking from a dream, two words come to my mind: “Star Wars.”

And then it hits me like a ton of bricks: I had completely forgotten that this was even coming out.

I should offer you some context in which to better understand what a shocking/englightening moment this was for me: I have a full-size reprint of an original “Star Wars” theatrical poster hanging on the wall opposite my bed, positioned as such that it’s one of the first things I see when I wake up each morning. Next to that, both volumes of the “Star Wars Infinities” comic collections are sitting atop one of my bookstacks. A DVD set of the original SW trilogy (pre-not-so-special-edition “fixes” versions, thank you) holds a prominent place on the “frequently-watched” section of the DVD shelf.

I had “Empire Strikes Back” bedsheets when I was a kid. I watched the originals to the point of memorization. When I got my first working copy of Adobe Premier, the first thing I did was make a half-dozen short films of myself and friends weilding lightsabers. I’m a “Star Wars” fan in the truest, bluest, child-of-the-80s sense of the word.

And I had completely forgotten that a new “Star Wars” movie was among the big Summer releases this year.”

And not just any “Star Wars” movie. “Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of The Sith.”

As in “the one where we’ll see the birth of Darth Vader.” As in “the one where we see the Republic fall, the Empire rise, and the end of the Jedi.”

As in: THE LAST “STAR WARS” MOVIE THAT WILL EVER BE MADE.

And I’d completely forgotten about it.

And I didn’t have to look far or even wonder too long about why this act of forgetfulness was able to occur. The answer was staring me in the face, and indeed has been doing so for well over two years now:

I just don’t care anymore.

You’ve all heard this before, not from me but from others like me, so lets not dwell on a story we’re all overly-familiar with. In brief: Waited in line for “Phantom Menace,” went into about 6th months of denial, eventually admitted to myself that it sucked, held out hope for “Attack of The Clones,” immediately recognized that it was better but still sucked, now awaiting #3 in the same way one awaits a funeral (i.e. wanting it to arrive and get over with so you can begin trying to let the good memories eclipse the bad.) By now it’s a story as archetypal as “boy meets girl.”

And it’s not just me.

And it’s not just the Geek Community.

The magazines and film sites are beginning to trickle out their “Summer Preview” stuff, and patterns are beginning to emerge: “Will The Fantastic Four be the nadir for Marvel characters as movies?” is a hot topic, as is “Do we really need another Batman movie?” (answer: YES.) “Will Hitchhiker’s Guide appeal to non-fans?” You get the idea.

But, while it is getting obligatory covers and mentions, another pattern is becoming strikingly clear: “Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of The Sith,” the final question-answering installment of the former keystone franchise of all cinematic scifi/fantasy, the film “we’ve waited over 20 years to see”… doesn’t really rate that much of a mention. Theaters have massive advertising up for “Robots” unknown bionic heroes but not yet even a single image of C-3PO. “Star Wars,” once as a collective franchise a member of the pantheon of “above criticism classics” like “Godfather,” “2001,” “Citizen Kane” and “Psycho” has been reduced back to “just another big movie coming out,” and as far as “anticipated blockbusters” of the coming summer go Obi-Wan vs. Anakin in “RoTS” seems to be registering currently as barely more noteworthy than Jamie Foxx vs. A Killer Airplane in “Stealth.”

There’s a growingly-common analogy out there that compares Star Wars fans experiencing the meltdown of the franchise to battered wives. It’s allegedly hillarious, dontcha know, because “all those geeks never get laid, so it’s clever to compare their fandom to a relationship to highlight that fact.” But nonetheless, there’s a grain of truth to it. Being a SW fan right now is painful, and each day brings new bruises. By now, many have moved on or at looking at it as just another movie. Others, like myself, have worked tirelessly to recondition our minds to be able to easily seperate “real” SW (unedited originals) from the prequels and special editions. Others, though, are still working themselves raw trying to remain in denial about how far the thing has fallen, and these are the poor fellows who come off like abuse-victims.

But I want to know what you think. Hit that comment button below and tell me if you’ve had a similar experience it not being able to even remember it’s still coming, if you don’t care or if you think I’m crazy and want to tell me off on the whole thing.

Let’s hear it.

Those of you who read my little peice last week about the toxic influence of pro-censorship advocate L. Brent Bozell and his web-based outfits The Media Research Center and Parents Television Council on the current national FCC policy know I’m not a fan of the guy or his work. Those of you who didn’t, well, here’s your chance:
http://moviebob.blogspot.com/2005/02/your-freedom-is-in-danger-plus-meet.html

But as a refresher: Bozell calls himself a “conservative watchdog” and dedicates his life to stamping out stuff he doesn’t like from TV, film and radio. So, yeah, not a fan.

But the thing is, Mr. Bozell and I have a lot in common. For example, both of us share the likelihood of our ears perking up when we hear the word “lesbian” bandied about in relation to a television show. In fact, we’re both much more likely to watch any show that promises a “lesbian twist,” which these days is just about any show other than “Everybody Loves Raymond” (and thank heaven for that, I wouldn’t wish having to lock lips with Patricia Heaton on anyone of any sex.) Where we diverge is, I’m comfortable admitting I’m just a sucker for two girls “getting together.” It’s sexy. Whereas Bozell is allegedly devoting himself to watching sex-fueled TV shows “so you don’t have to.” Ahem. In any case, we both taped that last episode of “The O.C.”

Anyhow, Bozell is up in a dander about an “outbreak” of lesbian moments on TV during sweeps month. It’s understandable that he’d be upset, the notion that TV Networks add girl/girl coupling to their shows during the ratings-sweeps because they know for a fact that it will make many more people than usual watch flies in the face of his zealous insistence that the “Liberal Media” boogeyman is trying to force this content on a public that “doesn’t want it.”

Last night “The Simpsons” outed perennially single supporting character Patti Bouvier, and predictably Bozell is cheesed off…
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2005-02-21/#tv1

Man, if yellow-skinned cartoon characters that every other censorship-pundit gave up on trying to silence about eleven years ago talking sex bother him so much, my Anime collection would give him a seizure…

And to prove himself further, he elaborates on the subject on his MRC column. Here Bozell clicks off every Sapphic instance he’s witnessed on the boob tube this month, and honestly his list puts mine to shame. I’m envious that this guy has seen so much more girl-on-girl action on TV this month than I have, and he’s (allegedly) not even enjoying it.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellColumns/entertainmentcolumn/2005/col20050218.asp

But hey, look what I found…

In the screed linked-to above, Bozell goes off on the recent episode of ABC’s ghastly “Wife Swap” in which the trading couples were Evangelical Christians and a Lesbian family. He describes the predictable results:

At the end of the “swap,” the Christian mom makes the lesbian cry by saying, “I think you are, according to the word of God, depraved, and I don’t want anyone depraved near my kids.”

At first, I’m thinking the point here is “gee, isn’t it typical that what bugs Bozell about “Wife Swap” isn’t the inherent cruelty and indignity of the show and most of it’s Reality TV ilk, but that the show has trained the TV Eye on the seething, irrational hatred that informs too much of so-called ‘Christians’ thinking in this country,” but then he goes on…

“That leaves everyone in the audience thinking, correctly: then maybe you shouldn’t have volunteered to go on “Wife Swap,” dummy.”

Okay, so he doesn’t like Wife Swap. Fine, at least he’s not being a hypocr…

Oh, wait. Look at this from September 30, 2004…
http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellColumns/entertainmentcolumn/2004/col20040930.asp

That was Bozell praising the heck out of “Wife Swap” back when it was new. Check this out:

“While the shows center on women from radically different home environments switching places, there is no sleazy expectation of swinging infidelity. Instead, the two families struggle to integrate a total stranger into their lives for a week, and often what emerges by show’s end is a renewed appreciation of the very essence of motherhood.”

So back then he ADORED “Wife Swap” for it’s family-values influence on the Reality TV culture, but NOW someone who goes on deserves to be verbally abused because they are a “dummy” who ought to have known better?

Now, admittedly, catching a pro-censorship advocate like Bozell in an act of hypocrisy is about as exciting as catching Winnie The Pooh in an act of honey-eating, but I just thought I’d bring it to your attention. And remember, this man and his organization are right now exercising an incredible amount of pressure on the FCC. Do you want these people in charge of what’s “decent” and what’s not?

Didn’t think so.

Here’s something to think about: When was the last time we had a “typical Superhero” movie. That is to say, a movie that the majority of critics informed of it’s comic book origins were not compelled to describe using the sentence: “______ isn’t your typical Superhero.”

Here’s the thing: They say that about almost every comic book-based movie that comes down the pipe: Batman “isn’t a traditional superhero” because he has no powers. Spider-Man “isn’t a traditional superhero” because he’s a teenager. Blade “isn’t a traditional superhero” because he’s black. And a vampire. The X-Men “aren’t” because they’re societal outcasts, The Punisher “isn’t” because he uses guns, Hellboy “isn’t” because he’s a big red demon guy. Spawn “wasn’t” because, um… well, pretty much because Todd MacFarlane kept saying that he wasn’t, and at the time people were taking him seriously on such matters. But you get my point. The vey notion of being “not typical” has become the most typical thing of all. How, er… typical.

So let’s get this out of the way right now: John Constantine is (drumroll) not your typical superhero (wow, what a fresh idea!) because he’s, well, not a superhero. He’s a noirish occult detective, battling his way through an H.P. Lovecraft world with a Philip Marlowe additude in an ongoing DC/Vertigo comic series called “Hellblazer,” (I can’t imagine why they didn’t keep the name) but he popped up initially as an expository player in Alan Moore’s seminal 1980s run as the writer of “Swamp Thing.”

Lemme put this on the table: I’ve never managed to follow “Hellblazer” regularly. Strange, given my affection for all things Alan Moore and all things occult, but it just never made it to my pull list. So if you’re looking for a fan’s review of this as an adaptation, I’m afraid I’ll be of little help. Fortunately, Film Threat’s Pete Vonder Haar has gone ahead and written a “fan’s perspective” review of the film HERE:
http://www.filmthreat.com/Reviews.asp?Id=7117
And he even put up an alternate “just as a movie” review as well. Good show.

In terms of the film on it’s own from MY perspective, here we go: John Constantine (“J.C.,” get it?) can see halfbreed Angels and Demons (the full-fledged ones aren’t allowed on Earth, apparently, owing to a playful detente’ God and Satan are apparently having for kicks) walking around invisible to the rest of us mortals. These visions drove him to attempt suicide as a kid, and since suicide is the Big Unforgivable of all sins (the whole thing is DRIPPING in old-school Catholic Angst like that) his near-death experience has left him not only condemned to Hell, but with a firsthand glimpse of what it means for him. So now, as an adult, he trolls the occult underground “deporting” misbehaving demons as a kind of freelance exorcist in hopes of scoring a reprieve from the Almighty.

The introduction, it must be said, is a doozy; a cracking-good spin on the traditional “exorcism” scene we’ve seen in so many horror films. Instead of the expected old-priest/young-priest team confronting the posessed little girl with the demon-face strapped to the bed with dual utterings of “the power of Christ compels you!” we get chain-smoking, grubby suit-wearing John Constantine hopping onto the bed and leaning in to hiss “This is John Constantine, ___hole!” to the offending hellspawn. Not one for subtlety, when what appears to be demonic jaws lunge up from the poor kid’s neck, he simply slugs it.

As played by Keanu Reeves in full-on minimalist mode, Constantine lives out his crusade in Los Angeles. The comic book Constantine, I’m told, is a bloke doing his thing in England. This will no doubt annoy the hell out of you if you’re a “Hellblazer” fan and be of no consequence if you’re not, save for the fact that the knowledge makes it an inescapable truism that this would be soooo much cooler in a British setting. But L.A. is where we are and, in L.A., a lady detective (Rachel Weisz) is seeking Constantine’s help in proving that her devoutly-Catholic twin sister’s suicide was actually an act of murder. It all ties in to a big doomsday/antichrist hulabaloo involving Catholic Arcana fan-fiction staples like the Spear of Destiny (look it up) and the Angel Gabriel (Tilda Swinton.)

It’s odd how old-hat some of this seems by now. So many films, especially in the horror genre, have mined this material by now that it’s starting to seem almost quaint. I’m sure this is all culled from one or more “Hellblazer” arcs, but the material has been mined so often by everything from “The Prophecy” to Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” that even items like the Gnostic Gospels that used to be the stuff of gasp-inducing gag-references for Seminary scholars is now the backbone of a sewing-circle potboiler like “The DaVinci Code.” Still, speaking as a 12-year veteran of Catholic School, it’s fun to see all the old trinkets trotted out as gadgetry in an action film. I don’t care if their born of the movie or the comic, but I love Constantine’s shotgun/crucifix firing gold bullets made from melted relics. Or the use of holy water as napalm. Or “the last rites” as a method of demon-torture. And my personal “omigodthatsocool!!!!” favorite, a pair of golden, crucifix-emblazoned Holy Brass Knuckles.

This is all very silly when you get down to it, but I have to say I dug the hell out of this. It just “works for me.” I love the offbeat no-sequitor level at which this is all pitched, like the scene where Constantine matter of factly snatches up a housecat before a “teleport me to hell” recon-mission with only the explanation being: “Thats good! Cats are good, half-in half-out already.” I even like Swinton’s Gabriel popping up wearing what must be the silliest concept for what an Angel might wear yet put to film. I dig the wild Heronymous Bosch-influenced hell, or Constantine’s weapons-supplier nonchalantly dropping off “bullet shavings from the asassination attempt on the Pope,” and Djimon Honsou’s not-nearly-as-racially-bothersome-as-it-sounds turn as a kind of Witch Doctor nightclub owner (who employs the most memorable door security I’ve seen in awhile.) And, dear me, how I do love Peter Stormare’s 3rd-act scene-stealer turn as as dandy, doting Lucifer.

Overall, “Constantine” is trying to set up a franchise, and it’s doing a DAMN good job of it. I want to see more of this guy, and his cool blasphemy-busting weaponry and his colorful friends. There’s a good series in here if they want it. So, overall, consider this a FIRM reccomendation.

Sidebar: Back in 1997, right before Marvel Films got it’s act going and started the then-to-present “comic book movie craze,” their first shot was “Blade,” an R-rated action/horror film based on one of their most obscure characters reimagined. It was a modest hit, heralding the arrival of “X-Men” and the triumph of “Spider-Man.” DC comics-based films have floundered for awhile, but now here they have a likely mini-hit in an R-rated obscure-character reworking… and waiting in the wings is non other than Batman and Superman films soon to come. Not saying history always repeats itself, just saying it’s… interesting.

Additional sidebar: Y’ever notice that in horror movies Christianity is ONLY ever represented by Catholicism, because Protestantism just isn’t “scary enough” I guess? Y’ever notice also that, for all the Religious Right knocking of movie violence, ultraviolent horror films like this an “Exorcist” are the most devout, literal religious films getting made these days?

In conclusion: To my usual battle cry of “to hell with ‘The Passion,'” I can now add this revision: “To hell with ‘The Passion,’ THIS is my kinda ultra-violent Catholicism movie!”

FINAL RATING: 8/10

This is the sort of movie that, given the conditions of it’s release (i.e. as the only new mass-market family film opening opposite an R-rated action/horror movie) and the overall impression left by every shred of it’s marketing, gives any film critic reason to pause and consider if he should really even bother with it. After all, almost no-one thinks it will be good, and even less people than that really care. The math is simple: If you’ve got kids, and they want to go see a new movie this weekend, you’re probably going to see this, and “liking” it is irrelevant. So, really, there’s no reason for a review. This is cinematic fast-food, a “McMovie,” and it’s opening-weekend money was made the moment it was greenlit.

Then, of course, we critics remember that if we start acknowledging that on some movies our work just isn’t necessary, people might start to question if our work is “necessary” on ANY movie, and we can’t very well have that. So we review it anyway.

The original “The Mask” is best remembered, imo, as the shrug-inducing low end of the mid-1990s Jim Carrey arrival-impact, (spanning roughly “Ace Ventura” to “The Cable Guy”,) an unremarkable superhero spoof featuring an ancient Norse mask imbued with the power of Loki (Viking god of mischief) which brings to life the exaggerated “inner self” of anyone who wears it. In that film, the wearer was Stanley Ipkiss, (Carrey,) who was a fan of Tex Avery cartoons and thus who’s “mask-self” was a human cartoon, a small triumph of Carrey’s own rubberfaced talents blended with the latest in CGI. Oh, it’s also where we got our first good look at Cameron Diaz, back when she had a figure. Remember?

The problem posed immediately to any sequel to such a one-man show of a movie is that, almost ten years later, the original star is now well beyond this material. Granted, this might provide the ideal opportunity to find and launch a whole new “next big thing” physical comedian, but the producers here have taken the low road: Mining the original backstory for a story just convoluted enough in which all the best-remembered gags from the original can be replicated. So the story picks up with Loki (Alan Cumming… no, really, Alan Cumming) being pressured by Norse God Allfather Odin (Bob Hoskins) to find and retrieve The Mask before it causes more trouble. A surprising amount of screentime is somehow needed to establish all of this, in a series of painful scenes that serve chiefly to kill any chance of Marvel Films getting a good “Mighty Thor” movie off the ground any time soon.

Meanwhile, The Mask finds it’s way into the hands of struggling animator Tim Avery (Jamie Kennedy, and har-har on the name) who dons it and turns into a staggeringly bad imitation of Carrey’s mask-persona at an office Halloween party. (the franchise mythology has been, I guess, reconstrued so that the cartoon-esque powers are simply Loki and thusly The Mask’s “default setting,” so I guess Ipkiss’s toon-fetish in the original is now just an odd coincidence) In the first of many scenes that will have your kids asking plenty of awkward questions during the ride home, he keeps the mask on when he heads home for post-party sex with the wife, leading to the nine-months-later birth of Baby Avery, who has all the powers of someone wearing The Mask without having to wear one. This causes the Avery family to pop up on Loki’s radar, just in time for Mrs. Avery to be called away on business leaving responsibility-phobic Tim alone with the baby just at the same time the big bosses at work are finally asking to see his Big Idea for a cartoon show and… oh, to hell with it. Lots of stuff that’s not funny happens, over and over again, until everyone reaches the end of their painfully transparent character arcs and all learn Important Lessons.

With all that “story” going on, the film manages to devote most of the long 2nd act to a B-story in which Tim’s dog Otis dons The Mask (in a repetition of the only thing from the Mask anyone remembers other than Carrey or Cameron Diaz’s late, lamented cleavage) and battles superpowered Baby Avery for the attention of Tim, who’s also (for some reason) getting the “One Froggy Evening“-treatment from the baby. (The old Looney Tune with the singing frog only one guy knows about, remember?)

If nothing else, “Son of The Mask” serves as a helpful primer on how difficult the art of slapstick really is. It’s a thin line to walk between “funny horseplay” and “cruel, unfunny violence,” and this film approaches that line with the approximate precision of the Incredible Hulk trying to program a new wallpaper onto his cellphone. Scene after scene features gags that would compell the Three Stooges to telephone Child Services: In one scene, Tim tackles his wife thinking her to be the shape-shifting Loki. There’s a way to make that funny, but here the gag plunges into astonishing mean-spiritedness, with Tim pummeling his wife and repeatedly slamming her head to the floor before realizing his error. Charming. In another, Tim nearly electrocutes Avery with a broken, electrified lightbulb he’s sleepily-mistaken for a milk bottle. People, I laughed when Tom Green spun a newborn over his head by it’s umbilical cord, and even I don’t think there’s a universe where that’s funny.

It seems astonishing to say, but “Son of The Mask” is even worse than it’s trailers made it look. Along with the ghastly-misteps of slapstick noted above, it’s incoherent and none of it’s jokes land very well if at all. It’s junk, trading cheaply on memories of a decade-old hit that wasn’t all that good to begin with. It may be futile for you parents out there to try and avoid it, but you should still try. This isn’t just a bad movie, it’s bad for you. (And, honestly, I don’t think the kids are going to like it much either.)

FINAL RATING: 1/10.