KUDZU:Movies You Should Avoid Renting...

...if You can Ignore Critics and Think for Yourself

(this is an older piece, but still useful in the age of Netflix).

I find it amazing how often I am all revved up by the idea of a movie, and how good it’s going to be, and then I find myself checking the marquee or the box to see if it is the same movie I read about. I don’t know very much about the movie industry, but I suspect it is just like any other big business where mega-bucks change hands. Sometimes someone is scratching someone else’s back, and the result has no foundation in truth or accuracy.


BASEketball-
Very rarely, do i stop a tape, or walk out of a movie before the end. I did so, with this lemon. And there wasn't even enough juice in it to make lemonade. The continual puerile, insipid jokes and visuals seem directed at 10 year old minds, yet the equation is confused by the preponderance of sleazy sexual eye-candy, definitely not suited for children. Therefore, the movie has NO audience. Not a smart investment for Hollywood moguls. To summarize very quickly, don't waste your time. The boys from South Park should stick to the cartoon.

Latter Days
This is from memory as I hadn't intended to write a review and already have sent the movie back.

I only give this movie 2 stars and not ONE because it did make me cry in places, (probably because I am an old softie anyway)and it portrayed gay men at least attempting to have something between them besides empty sex.

That aside, this movie really is a sad, clichéd and predictable attempt to inject some meaningful content into the cinematic reflections of gay life. It has been untenably difficult to discover a gay-themed movie that is certifiably GOOD (I hold up Desert Hearts and Better Than Chocolate as two that come to mind). It means nothing to hear that so many gay gatherings watched it and thought it was fabulous. The gay community is hungry for movies that accurately reflect gay life in a positive light, and so I think they see what they want to see. As a writer, I've managed to move past that and I think I can be more objective.

Latter Days wanted to be a good movie, and it tried to be a good movie, but it simply didn't try hard enough. The dialogue was largely forced, one-dimensional, and clichéd. The situations were so contrived and so staged, I could predict every single thing that was about to happen, while groaning as it did.

One example is the scene where Christian cuts his hip on something (the location near his ass--CONTRIVED) and then faints from--what? blood loss? squeamishness? Wherein Aaron rushes over to help him walk inside--half carrying him as if he had just lost a finger instead of gotten a nasty scratch. Then Christian stands at the sink and has Aaron nurse the wound, with a full view of his ass inside the thong--or shall is say the thong inside his ass--and then goes to lie down because the cut is so traumatic, and then develops a sudden fever so that he simply MUST remove his shirt and lie on the bed almost naked while Aaron brings a cold cloth to him, to soothe his fevered brow. (CONTRIVED! CLICHED! oh my god, please, tell me this is not going there!)

The sentiment in the film was forced overall, and way too melodramatic when it should have just been raw and real. That Mormon kid would never have moved from being helpful to deciding he was going to have SEX that quickly. Didn't buy it. Not for a second. The relationship between them did not develop sufficiently enough to make the interplay plausible or credible.

I was actually ashamed of Jacqueline Bisset's performance... especially out on the hospital park bench where she broke down in front of Aaron. Bad acting from someone who should be seasoned enough to know better. There were only a few scenes that were worthy of praise: one of them, the kitchen confrontation between the fallen-from-grace pariah Aaron, and his Mormon mother.

This scene was not enough to save the performance scene by his roommate, however, wherein she held the microphone like a kitchen spoon; If she had been a real singer, she would have known the proper way to sing into a microphone. (I'm a singer, and have had two bands, so I think I can say that with some degree of confidence). Same goes for the scene where she is playing the electric guitar. Real guitar players can't play like that with long fingernails, and besides, there was always something blocking her so we couldn't see that it was merely a prop, but it was painfully obvious (a finer example of realism can be found in Prey for Rock and Roll, wherein, they actually PLAYED their instruments). And all the hoopla about the songs and the lyrics had no credibility, since there was nothing special or unique about any of it.

I watched the bonus features that had interviews with participants, and when I heard one person say the script was "brilliant" I almost laughed out loud. It was a lot of things, but "brilliant" was not one of them. They even bragged that the movie had been shot in 20-something days. People! it showed. And while they interviewed several individuals involved in the soundtrack, not once did they give credit to Toad the Wet Sprocket, for the song "Windmills," which was by far the highest quality song in the film.

I appreciated the subject matter, and the intent of the movie: it's a subject that needs to be addressed on film more often. Fundamentalist and extremist religions that teach fear and intolerance have no useful purpose in a loving society, and the things that go on behind religious closed doors these days are nothing short of reprehensible. I just wish this film had been what it could have been, rather than what it was. I'm not sorry I saw it; I'm sorry it wasn't done better.

In a nutshell, Latter Days, could have been the best gay movie ever made; all the elements were there. But it was ultimately a really bad gay soap opera, with more cheese than Kraft--and I mean that in the most double-entendre way.


The Flowering of Human Consciousness: Eckhart Tolle
There seems to be a pack mentality in the spiritual milieu, which prevents spiritual, thinking people from admitting it when a pretender to the throne arrives to wave a magic enlightenment wand. More over, though I consider myself a highly spiritual person of above average intelligence, and have studied and followed the teachings of Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer and many other modern gurus for many years, it was patently obvious to me that this "lecture" was nothing more than the nonsensical meanderings of crazy person.

Eckhart Tolle presented himself as someone on a mind-altering drug. After about five minutes of listening to his babbling, i was thinking, "oh, kill me now!" He said nothing enlightening, and his content was wholly a disjointed form of gibberish with no redemption. It was an exercise in The Village Idiot speaking to other village idiots who had convinced themselves that his message was somehow illuminating. I have never in my life heard such an example of wasted space, money, and film. While I have not read this man's book, i can't imagine it's any more valuable than his verbal presentation. It was absurd, and by far the sorriest and most insipid example I've ever seen of supposed spiritual edification. I kept waiting for him to jump up on his chair and shout, "Live! from New York! It's Saturday night!"

Come on, people, not every self-described guru is really enlightened.