Come on, you’ve probably got them too—those big movies that
everybody around you loves, but that make you reach for the remote as soon as they come on.
Maybe the jokes don’t work for you, you don’t like the hero’s forelock curl, or…well, you just can’t stand it and that’s that. Here are a few popular
films that, for one reason or another, make me want to stick a fork in my eye.
I don’t know how many times I’ve sat down to watch this
movie, thinking I might like it this time. But it just never works. I like the little
hard guys in the Lollipop Guild and the Cowardly Lion’s song (“What makes the
Hottentot so hot? What puts the ‘ape’ in apricot?”). But a half-hour in, right after
Billie Burke floats away in her big bubble and inexplicably strands Dorothy, I
find myself squirming, stuck in this movie’s spiral of frustration. It’s like
one of those dreams where you’re trying to catch a plane or drive to work, but everything
keeps going wrong and you never get there. Too many of the songs have the same
melody (bad dream again), the talking trees scare the crap out of me, and I get
antsy for Dorothy—I keep thinking she should sit down and have a meal, or maybe
take a shower. And when the scene with the poppies comes up, I find myself
wishing I were watching Traffik
instead. Now there were some poppies.
Forrest Gump
Fingernails on a blackboard, people, from beginning to end. For
my money, Tom Hanks hams it up too much when he’s playing “extraordinary”
characters, like that morose cryptologist in The Da Vinci Code or the stressed-out survivor in Cast Away. I love him when he’s playing more
of an everyman, like the poor schlub in Catch
Me If You Can or level-headed James Lovell in Apollo 13. Forrest Gump is
further hampered by one of my pet peeves: actors playing people with learning
disabilities. It just seems like something we’ll look back on in 50 years with
shame, the modern equivalent of white actors playing in blackface. And despite this
movie’s having Gary Sinise—who can pretty much do no wrong—it doesn’t convince
me of its magic realism and whimsical sweet nature because I’m too busy
thinking about how Hanks is putting on an act and Sinise’s legs were erased
with special effects. And if you buy the right box of chocolates, you do know what you’ll get. There’s a chart
and everything.
I like Hanks fine here, but this movie has the version of
Meg Ryan that grates on my nerves*—the one where the director seems to have
said, “Look how cute she is! Let’s exploit that in every possible way!” But the
elaborate stalker story is creepy, and I can’t believe any man would be
attracted to a woman who stands in the middle of a busy road, gaping at him
like she’s had about 16 margaritas. At the end, when they’re peering soulfully
at each other and walking away with the kid, I always think, “Won’t last six
months.” They don’t know each other at all! And she’s crazy! The movie does have
a lot of funny lines and some great supporting actors—David Hyde Pierce, Rosie
O’Donnell, and the always wonderful Victor Garber. They’re just not enough to
overcome the cringeworthy premise.
Braveheart
The trouble with this Scottish historical saga is that
whenever I see it, I find myself comparing it to the other Scottish historical saga that came out the same year, the fantastic
Rob Roy. That movie had Liam Neeson (always
perfect in my book) and a much wider emotional range than Braveheart: good guys who make mistakes, an almost-too-intimate air
of tragedy, and a couple of the best swordfights ever filmed. Braveheart also doesn’t bear up well
against Gladiator, which came out
five years later and basically tells the same story—a chaste hero’s family is
killed by a bad guy, driving the hero to exact revenge on said bad guy—and Gladiator, of course, had Russell Crowe**.
So when Braveheart comes on, I just
find myself sitting there thinking about other movies I’d rather be watching. Some of them are even Mel Gibson movies; although he made a few that I didn’t like (all the Lethal Weapons and What Women
Want), he’s been in three that I absolutely love: The Year of Living Dangerously, The Bounty, and Signs.
This is another one with a creepy premise that I can’t get
past: Richard Gere buys Julia Roberts, and then the “happy ending” is that he
buys her again (to snuggle up against
for a few more weeks before he throws her back on the street, I cynically figure). Of course, it’s based on Pygmalion, so Roberts’ lady of the night
has to be as chipper and undamaged as Eliza Doolittle (“Oy’m a good girl, oy
am!”), which is beyond implausible. Her street-smart roomie—the formidable
Laura San Giacomo—is much more convincing, and I always wish the movie were
about her instead. There is one fun thing about Pretty Woman, though: It bears a strange resemblance to The Princess Diaries.*** Maybe it’s because
Héctor Elizondo is in both of them, playing more or less the same guy, but Anne
Hathaway starts to look like Julia Roberts if you squint your eyes and think
“hooker” instead of “princess.”
* I am not a Meg Ryan basher,
though I hope never, ever to have to watch When
Harry Met Sally again. I like her fine in You’ve Got Mail, but her character is smarter and more cynical in that one than in Sleepless. And I like her a lot in Proof of Life. But that has Russell Crowe in it, and—well, that man
is hot sex on toast.
** See * above. Sub-footnote:
Other actors considered for the starring role in Gladiator were Hugh Jackman, Antonio Banderas, and…Mel Gibson.
*** My other favorite thing about Pretty Woman is that it’s used as a joke in a much better movie, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion. (Lisa Kudrow, tearfully: “I just get really happy when they finally let her shop.”)
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