BEFORE: When I plotted out the chain between Mothers Day and Fathers Day, I couldn't resist putting both films titled "Havoc" so close together - this is what I find funny these days, apparently. Who knew that two films with the same title, released 20 years apart, could be linked with just ONE film in between? I certainly didn't, until I started playing around with some different chains. This is film that's been on and off my radar a couple of times, though I guess once a film is ON my radar it's never really OFF until I, you know, watch it. Even if I schedule it and my plans then change, the film stays on my list, it just cycles back to the bottom until I can find a new link - though there are probably a few dozen films that I will never, ever watch as long as I maintain this linking arrangement.
You can't see it now, but I'm getting closer to reviewing two more Marvel movies this week, let's just say this week is about both soldiers AND super-soldiers. And there's another film that was on the schedule, however I'm probably going to move it to August because now that I know where my Doc Block will begin in June, I also know where it will likely END in August, and that film seems like it will be the perfect outro to the last documentary, and give me a LOT of linking opportunities for where to go next - and that's important for when I'll be trying to connect mid-August and early October, and I don't know yet where the horror chain will start, that's kind of also a little bit important.
Channing Tatum AND Joseph Gordon-Levitt both carry over from "Stop-Loss".
THE PLOT: Two affluent suburban girls clash with the Latino gang culture of East Los Angeles.
AFTER: Ugh, now I know why I put this film off for so long. I think I fast-forwarded through it once just to see Anne Hathaway's nude scenes, big deal, now, I've seen what she wanted to show me, and now there's the tedious process of watching the entire film surrounding those scenes, which, let's face it, are really the highlight of the movie.
This is a film about bored suburban California high school kids - in 2005. They're so bored with their own lives that many of them have adopted the street culture as their own, even though they are NOT from the streets, not by a long-shot. Yeah, "wigger" culture had its moment, and that moment is long over, thank God. One thing that none of us need is more white kids trying to rap and be all "street". Remember when entitled rich white kids could just be rich and entitled and that was enough? Those were the days...
If "Stop-Loss" was really the first film about military service that was shot like an episode of "The Real World", then this might be the first film about high-school kids that was shot like an episode of "Cribs". No, wait, that's not right, maybe "Yo! MTV Raps"? Nope, still not right. This is the first film about high-school kids that looks like a Vanilla Ice music video. Yeah, that's it. It's not GOOD, by any means, and you really have to feel sorry for any white kid rapping or trying to be inner-city tough, because, well, they're just not capable of it. No, not even the girls. Go be white and entitled somewhere, for god's sake, just take the win, you're just embarrassing yourself.
Allison Lang is one of those entitled white kids from Pacific Palisades, and her boyfriend Toby is a total wigger, there is a brawl between two gangs of white kids at the beginning of the film, and except for those Hathaway nude scenes, THAT might be the best part of the movie. But it can't last, which is a shame - I would for sure watch 90 minutes of white teenagers in 2005 beating the hell out of each other. But then, of course, there would be no third act that way.
Allison meets with her father for lunch, after reading the weekly affirmations her parents made at their therapy session, which are hanging on the fridge for everyone to see. Her father agreed to be more open, and honest, and talk about his feelings, while her mother agreed to have sex with him at least once a week. Damn, if you have to schedule it, that relationship is really doomed. Allison, of course, feels completely disconnected from her parents, they don't really "get" her anyway, or why she wants to cut class and smoke weed and maybe try crack. Well, it's good to have attainable goals, at least. While buying drugs in East L.A., Toby thinks the dealer has sold him short, so he goes back to demand some more drugs, which of course is never a good idea. Toby was lucky to be able to walk away from that in one piece.
But Allison, for some reason, goes back, and befriends that same drug dealer, Hector. (What could POSSIBLY go wrong?). She brings three of her girlfriends to a party at Hector's house, and then he tells them about a nearby motel where he and his crew usually party. (Again, #WCPGW?). Before long, Allison is dressing all "street" and hanging out in Hector's hood, pretending to bump into him. Girl, we get it, your poser wigger boyfriend is just not cutting it, but if you want to upgrade, why settle for a drug dealer? Some people have to learn the hard way not to date bad boys, I guess.
The next time Allison parties with Hector she brings one friend, Emily. The girls ask if they can join Hector's crew, like they're THAT infatuated with thug life that they want to become members of the gang. Hector says that they each have to roll a die, and have sex with the same number of gang members to match the roll. Allison rolls a "1" but Emily rolls a "3". Allison starts to have sex with Hector himself, but she can't go through with it, it all just suddenly became too real. Emily goes through with it, but panics when she realizes that all three guys want to have sex with her at the same time. I guess the gang lifestyle isn't for everyone, after all.
Emily covers up for her actions by accusing Hector's crew of gang raping her. For the third time, you know what I'm about to say. Hector gets arrested, and members of his crew try to track down Allison and Emily to silence them. At the same time, Toby and Emily's sort-of wigger boyfriend, Sam drive over to East L.A. Look, we all know this is NOT going to end well, however the movie neglects to tell us exactly how it doesn't end well, all we hear is a gunshot and we're left wondering who shot who. Jesus, have some balls and tell us who paid the price for a couple of bored white girls hanging out with a Mexican gang. You can sort of tell this story was written by a 14-year old, somebody too young to realize that every story needs a solid ending.
Or maybe this feels unfinished because the screenwriter died in a plane crash shortly before filming began. So what does this mean, they couldn't hire another writer to come up with a resolution? How disappointing, almost like starting to have sex with somebody and then backing out at the last minute. Then once the film was done, the producers took the final cut rights away from the director and chose, for some reason, to not release the film in theaters. Well, it was 2005 and DVDs were the preferred format, and streaming hadn't been invented yet. Still, the only reason to NOT release in theaters is if you know the film's a stinker.
If I'm late posting this review tonight, it's because I had to go to work in the afternoon, earlier than I thought. Someone else called in sick so they asked me to come on shift at 3 pm instead of 5 pm. But the event was the premiere of the new film "Karate Kid: Legends", so I got to see Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio and Joshua Johnson walking on the black carpet. I had to oversee the tent breakdown, though there was no tent, just an outdoor carpeted press area - but the breakdown of the exterior and cleaning of the theater took until after midnight, so I didn't get home until about 2:30 am. I can still stay on track, though, I'll just watch my Wednesday movie on Wednesday morning instead of late Tuesday night.
Directed by Barbara Kopple
Also starring Anne Hathaway (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Bijou Phillips (last seen in "Choke"), Shiri Appleby (last seen in "Your Place or Mine"), Michael Biehn (last seen in "Take Me Home Tonight"), Matt O'Leary (last seen in "Cinema Verite"), Freddy Rodriguez (last seen in "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden"), Laura San Giacomo (last seen in "Quigley Down Under"), Mike Vogel (last seen in "Fantasy Island"), Raymond Cruz (last seen in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"), Alexis Dziena (last seen in "When in Rome"), Jose Vasquez (last seen in "The Marksman"), Luis Robledo, Sam Hennings (last seen in "The Aviator"), Cecilia Peck (last seen in "Wall Street"), Josh Peck (last seen in "Oppenheimer"), Robert Shapiro, JD Pardo (last seen in "The Contractor"), Terri Hanauer, Sam Bottoms (last seen in "Winter Passing"), Jon Erik, Laura Breckenridge, Alysia Joy Powell (last seen in "Judas and the Black Messiah"), Richard Pagano, Samar Omar, Laurel Parmet, Tammy Trull, Jossara Jinaro, Angela Meryl
RATING: 4 out of 10 cans of soup (which nobody wants to eat)
No comments:
Post a Comment