Interesting week at the movies. A film called Two Brothers opens starring a pair of twin tigers separated at birth and raised very differently, and another movie called White Chicks stars two brothers (Marlon and Shawn Wayans) disguised as, you guessed it, rich white chicks. While Two Brothers is beautifully shot and packs a solid narrative punch, White Chicks , with its creepy masks and awkward physical comedy, plays out more like a bad acid trip.
As well, if you like crying in movies then director Nick Cassavetes’ The Notebook is for you. Nothing gets the tear ducts going like watching a couple of old people engage in almost masturbatory bouts of romantic nostalgia. "Oh darling, you’re old and pretty senile but remember back when we were kids and we fell in love? Yeah, those were the days, despite the fact your mother hated me because I was a poor boy tapping a rich girl and looking for more. And what about that pesky World War II? That didn’t help things did it?"
Cassavetes hits us with another "tender love story", strange from a guy who wrote Blow and starred in Delta Force 3. In any case, The Notebook didn’t do it for me. The sex is tame, the war scenes are watered down (or I’m desensitized to violence) and the love, yeah well, whatever. This kind of stuff is really pertinent and emotional to my grandparents but the only tears I see myself spilling would be over a wasted 12 bucks.
Tissues aside, with documentary films making a comeback (thanks in huge part to Michael Moore and Bowling for Columbine) the most worth-seeing movie this week is Super Size Me. Basically a reality-show styled documentary Super Size Me is a clever experiment director Morgan Spurlock decides to conduct on himself: Eat nothing but McDonald’s three times a day for a month and see what happens. It’s gross and funny and really well done.
Before beginning to poison himself, Spurlock confers with a gaggle of doctors including a nutritionist, cardiologist and a gastroenterologist (intestine/stomach specialist, presumably spends a fair amount of time analyzing human feces; tough gig). Anyhow, after a physical check-up in which he is seen to be in great health, Spurlock consumes nothing but food which comes from McDonald’s, including bottled water, for 30 days. The results really need to be seen to be believed so go see this movie and find out for yourself. (Hint: he gains 17 pounds in the first 12 days and is later told it’d be healthier to try and drink himself to death like Nick Cage did in Leaving Las Vegas.)
In his first movie, Morgan Spurlock shows us what you can accomplish with a good idea and the balls to take it all the way. Super Size Me is both horrifying and incredibly entertaining, and even though you can discern Spurlock’s intentions early on (he comes across a bit superior and smug), it’s a movie that’ll make you think, at least for a moment, about what you put into your body.
Super Size Me
is even more pertinent with the release of recent U.S. Center for Disease Control statistics claiming obesity is fast approaching tobacco smoking as America’s leading cause for preventable deaths. Sure that’s America, but we live right beside those guys and their media (including McDonalds’ $1.2 billion ad campaign) reaches us too.And that, my movie loving friends, is a good reason for you to push pause on the Final Destination 1 and 2 marathon, get off the couch and shovel your ass over to the conference centre on Monday, June 28 and vote. Even if you don’t give a shit about anything write that on your ballot, "I don’t give a shit." If two million people write that it will at least send some kind of message to the chumps running the show. Maybe they’ll try harder next time. Just remember, there are a lot of countries in the world where people are dying for the right to do what you just can’t be bothered with.
Besides, if you don’t vote, you’re not allowed to complain when things end up like a Terry Gilliam movie ( Brazil, 12 Monkeys. ) Both of which are the DVD of the week. Get ’em, then vote.
At Village 8 June 25-July 1: Super Size Me, The Notebook, Two Brothers, White Chicks, Around the World in 80 Days, Shrek 2, Terminal, Dodgeball and Harry Potter. Starting June 30: Spider-Man 2.
At Rainbow Theatre June 25-July 1:
