Aieee! Fuzzy white bunnies! The horror...the horror...

[onager]

OK, I like some good cinematic hokum as much as the next person. Maybe more, judging by the by all those cheap boxed sets cluttering up my den with titles like 8 Drive-In Classics #37.

I'm also a sucker for end-of-the-whole-world disaster movies, probably because I'm a misanthrope or something.

Now I can suspend my disbelief just fine for horror/sci-fi. But a movie has to give me SOMETHING to work with, or my suspended disbelief will soon start creaking, groaning, and eventually crashing into the Chasm of Total Unbelievable Assholish Stupidity.

Which brings me to tonight's entertainment - Knowing.

Well, I'm knowing a movie is already in deep doo-doo when an "M.I.T. astrophysicist" starts spouting off about "the meaning of life." And giving his class an assignment to write about "determinism vs. randomness." (And that's in, like, the first 10 minutes.)

Huh? Isn't that cosmology? In the same speech, the prof comes very close to defending Intelligent Design. I was expecting Ben Whine to pop up in a cameo, a la Ferris Bueller's Day at the Inquistion.

The prof is played by Nicolas Cage, who goes thru the whole movie looking so constipated you're afraid his hair plugs are going to pop right out.

Oh, and...Brat Factor! This movie has one of the most annoying kids in it I have ever seen on-screen. He's even more annoying than Will Smith's sprog. Or that little fish-faced fucker in the awful TV-movie version of The Shining. (Caught that one recently for the first time. And the last. Hard to believe that was the "vision" Stephen King personally wanted as his legacy.)

Bonus! The CGI effects in this thing were just awful. Completely unbelievable. They mirror the plot.

I'm trying not to do too many **SPOILERS** but...a movie is also in trouble when the only emotion you feel, at the death of a major character, is relief that she finally stopped whining.

This is the female lead, occupying the obligatory Must-Get-Killed role usually played by the Sassy Gay/Ethnic Best Friend.

As you may have guessed, this movie has a strong stench of Xian propaganda about it. But as the late Billy Mays would say - wait, there's more! It also occasionally veers off into $cientology propaganda! (That was spotted by quite a few IMDB reviewers.)

There's also a literal deus ex machina, asparagus-shaped spacecraft that could have been designed by Ed Wood, burning moose, and Men In Black who steal Toyotas. (At least get a Crown Vic, asswads!)

Oh, and the bunnies. El Ron save us, the cute, fuzzy white bunnies who come out of nowhere to terrorize us with their blinding pink-eyed symbolism.

If you have a free DVD rental coupon, Knowing might be worth the price.

[charlie]

1. Aw, geez

Where were you last week? I had no idea it was going to be a Spielberg with Capra stuffed up his ass religious redemption flick.

I avoid Nick Cage blockbusters, but there are two reasons I saw this one.

One: Ebert. Jeebus help me, I know how loopy his picks can be sometimes (a Siskel recommend was always more reliable). But he's a smart and interesting guy, and he called this thing one of the best sci-fi movies he's ever seen.

Two: Proyas made Dark City. If you haven't seen his grand little bit of sci-fi noir, you're in luck. You'll get a chance to forgive, while I'm stuck with you're-fucking-better-than-this peevishness.

[moggie]

2. Could you tell me how to get to Shell Beach?

I loves me some Dark City.

[charlie]

3. There you go

I love it too! The man does have the Right Stuff. So, I hope he was paid really, really well to do this manipulative chain-the-cliches piece of dreck.

I should've just bailed on it early, its intent is telegraphed with kazoos and trombones from the start. The lead is an atheist who freezes for 10 minutes with existential despair every time he remembers he's an atheist. What else can happen to a guy like that but a Big Lesson on the Power o' Faith? But noooo, I wanted my buck's worth and that's what I got, a buck's worth of entertainment.

[TZ]

4. I tend to avoid biology based movies

like "Outbreak" because even suspension of disbelief doesn't help me from getting pissed off at the scientific innacuracies.
I've seen the trailers for Knowing and got annoyed and rolled my eyes. Thanks for the review though.:)

[moggie]

5. You lost me at Nic Cage

I don't hate him as an actor, but I rarely believe in him, and with his limited range I just can't see him as an MIT anything. Also, I usually need subtitles to understand his dialogue, and his hair scares me.

[progressoid]

9. What you said.

Except, I don't mind the hair so much. At least it has some personality.

[semillama]

6. Burning moose???

Did you really say "Burning Moose"?

WTF?

[onager]

7. Indeed I did!

Looked like moose, anyway. At first I thought it was some bizarre Sarah Palin in-joke.

Do they even have moose in Moosachu...er, Massachusetts?

And yes. Everything fried except the two Fuzzy White Bunnies Of Horror...

I still tremble at the very thought.

Off-topic, but I also tremble at the thought of any other re-makes starring Nicolas Cage. He's really becoming the go-to guy for bad remakes.

The Wicker Man was one of those movies that did not need a re-make by anyone, anywhere, anytime. The whole theme of the original movie was just flushed away by that horrible remake: the Xians pray, the pagans sacrifice, and none of that stuff works. (Not surprising, it was written by the atheist Anthony Shaffer.)

Then there was Gone In 60 Seconds, which also didn't need a remake. The original was shot for about $1.50 around Long Beach, CA, by junkman-turned-auteur H.B. Halicki. Its whole theme was destroying a bunch of cars in 45 minutes. The multi-million $$$ remake managed to provide a lot less entertainment for a lot bigger budget.

[Warpy]

8. Perhaps before you spent the money and bought the

overpriced popcorn and drinks, you might have consulted this page: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/knowing/?critic=creamcrop

To be fair, the critics overall gave it a 33% favorable rating instead of the dismal 14% the top reviewers did, but it's still not enough to chivvy me out of my nice comfy house and into a cramped seat with my feet stuck to the floor while people rattle candy papers and talk into their cell phones, describing the action on the screen.

I found when Siskel and Ebert were reviewing movies together, they complemented each other nicely. If Ebert didn't like a film, it lacked a heart. If Siskel didn't like it, it lacked a brain.

I can well imagine Siskel's reaction to this one.

I'll spend the free DVD coupon on something foreign and cerebral. This film looks like a dog. An incontinent dog.

[onager]

10. I didn't see it in the theaters!

I'm dumb, but not THAT dumb. I rented it on a freebie deal, myself. And I sort of knew what I was in for, remembering the hype when the movie was released. Which wasn't that long ago, IIRC.

Calling it a dog is an insult to the entire canine species, and probably puts you in danger of a defamation lawsuit from jackals.

Knowing? Ha! It should have been named Blowing.

I had a similar experience with M. Night Charlatan's The Happening, in which not much happened. Rented it on DVD, partly because of the box artwork (a scene which appears nowhere in the movie, as I recall).

Like yourself, I don't much like going to the movies anymore. Prices are outrageous, and I always seem to be seated near those bucket-heads who THINK they are at home and yak thru the whole movie.

I made an exception a couple of weeks ago and saw Public Enemies in a theater. Matinee showing!

[Silent3]

11. Now that we have this in the basement of our new house...

...we don't bother going out to a theater unless it's for something pretty special that we're eager to see right away. :)

[onager]

12. Oh, that is beautiful.

Unfortunately I live in a condo. I have to make do with a 73-inch Mitsubishi DLP.

[Warpy]

15. Funny, I lived with a projection TV in the 80s

and discovered that sitting in a dark room with that thing on didn't really hold my attention all that well and that I really preferred a small screen with lights on so I could do projects. Besides, that huge screen magnified everybody's flaws. You want to see something truly grotesque, tune in to an old Lawrence Welk show and check out the makeup.

My TVs are both 20 inch, one LCD and one CRT that will be replaced when it dies.

[Silent3]

16. I don't watch everything I watch in that room.

I save the big screen for movies and TV shows like Battlestar Gallactica. No sense wasting the projector lamp life and extra electrical power on watching Keith Olbermann. :) (One day I hope they'll have LED projectors with enough light output for something like this.)

A good Blu-Ray disc is absolutely stunning with this set up. Even at a 110" the detail holds up. Standard definition cable, on the other, especially some channels like news channels which I think get an extra dose of compression, look like crap.

What did you have for a sound system? I think that good sound to go with the picture is a big part of what will get you wrapped up in what you're watching. There's a small TV in the room, under the big screen, so I can turn off the projector and listen to music using the smaller, quieter, less distracting, more power-efficient display for things like navigating through my music library.

[Warpy]

17. Remember, this was the dark ages

and I had the TV sound patched into an old Marantz amp with some KLH bookshelf speakers.

It was home theater on the super cheap.

[onager]

18. I'm the opposite.

When I try to watch TV and work on a project, like my Weird Hobby, both suffer.

I lose track of what I'm watching and also don't pay enough attention to the project. Since my Weird Hobby involves stuff like X-Acto knives and super-glue, not paying attention can be...painful. (I build scale models.)

Projection TVs nowadays are light-years better than those from the 1980s. They do magnify flaws, and that is multiplied immensely by High Definition. This is not all bad - those big red splotches under the makeup on Bill O'Reilly's face indicate that he may keel over anytime from high blood pressure. Or alcholism.

For the record, I suffer from the childhood trauma of being forced to watch Lawrence Velk and cannot watch him today. Not even if they find the famous Lost Tape, which I've heard involves a cheap motel room, Lawrence, the bubble machine, various North Dakota dairy products, and all three Lennon Sisters.

[onager]

14. Warpy: "foreign and cerebral?"

You're probably way ahead of me. But if you haven't seen it yet, I'd highly recommend the Swedish vampire movie Let The Right One In.

I almost hate calling it a "vampire movie." It's a lot more than that, but I don't want to ruin it just in case you haven't seen it yet.

One thing I can mention without ruination, that caught my attention: the (novel-based) movie preserves some of the traditional vampire lore - as the title indicates - but scraps the crucifix/holy water stuff completely. Damn Scandinavian atheists!

I always like horror movies that play against type, and this is a great example. No crumbling Romanian castles or dark old mansions. LTROI is set in 1982, in a drab modernist apartment complex. And it's Sweden, so the horror emerges from eye-hurting winter brightness and snow. Very effective.

Somebody immediately needs to mash this with Twilight. The vampire in LTROI would take about 3 nanoseconds to vaporize that smarmy, fey Edward and his "sparkles in sunlight" BS. As a bonus, she would rip the throat out of Bella just on general principles.

By way of a review, I saw this and immediately thought of your post: It’s as if Bergman made a horror film at last. Unless you count "Scenes from a Marriage."

:rofl:

Oh, and for a real horror story: LTROI is being re-made and "Americanized," by the director of Cloverfield. I can just imagine how that will play out - with the sarcasm and extremely black humor of the original shit-canned, to be replaced with cute vampires who haunt the local mall.

Jebus! This movie is perfect as is and doesn't need a remake (see my other rants in this thread). Are my fellow Americans really too lazy and stupid to read subtitles? (And there's a dubbed version on the DVD to cover that.)

Oh, never mind, I already know the answer...

[drm604]

13. I actually saw this in a theater.

My mother was invited to a wedding shower at a restaurant about an hour from home. Since she doesn't drive, my brother and I took her. It was too far away from any of our homes to justify going home and coming back later to pick her up, so we had a couple of hours to kill. We found a local movie theater, looked at the choices, and somehow came to the conclusion that this was probably the least bad amongst a slate of bad choices.

I would have had a better time simply waiting in the restaurant bar, and I don't even drink.