Hollywood endings

When I found out that there was a new John Cusack movie out, I cleared my day and headed down from the mountains to see it. Of course, it was all anti-climactic from there. Theaters were bare on a Sunday afternoon, and the story was the kind I would gush about with my mother (which I did).

You don’t see John Cusack movies to gush about it with your mother. I did not gush to her when I saw him as the lovable loser in Say Anything. I did not gush to her when I saw him as the mopey dick in High Fidelity. I did not gush to her when I saw him as the bumbling killer in Grosse Point Blank. No. Tom Hanks you take home to mom, John Cusack you date secretly.

Now seeing him in this mid-budget attempt to create a light-hearted family-oriented romantic comedy (the omnipresence of Dermot Mulroney must have been an indication of the rather predictable THX experience) was depressing. It’s like the robotic transformation of Tom Cruise. He was really nothing much to begin with, just cute and rather noble for battling his dyslexia (signs of being cured of Mimi Rogers, eh?) to Nicole Kidman (who gained perfection after a little doolittling). Did my dark brooding horse sell out?

Did he really need that house in Malibu that he had to do this movie? Was he in trouble? He could have called me, and I would have referred him to my loan shark and saved him from this movie. The mystery of why John Cusack would sink to the inflatable pool-level of a made for mid-America comedy remains to be solved.

And what’s up with the endings? The ending of Must Love Dogs was so Splenda sweet that it beat the heebie-jeebies I get when I remember the grossest guy I ever dated.

Even Wedding Crashers? It reminded me of when Lotlot and her best friend would end up having double weddings at the end of each Regal Film. See, we were visionaries after all.

We’ve seen perfectly good actors try to flex their muscles in different genres. Remember the pathetic attempt of good ol’ Gus Van Sant in the classic Hitchcock film Psycho? First of all, you never touch Hitchcock. Never. Second, you don’t ask Vince Vaughn to do it, especially right after Swingers. No more words. You see those people who speak in American accents and have never even gone to the States? That’s what that movie rates to in terms of sad pretension.

Good movies are hard to come by. Worse still, people run out of ideas, so they adapt movies from books or remake classics – two of the toughest challenges known to man, aside from putting up a honeymoon resort in Mars. I loved Les Miserables. The book changed my life and turned me wet on literature for life. Then, you see this parody played by a toothless Uma and a whiny Claire Danes. I left throwing all the popcorn that I could at the screen. These days, people write books to readily make them into movies. Which further dumbs down our choices. Soon on the silver screen is Devil Wears Prada (which still makes me cringe with another sellout, Meryl Streep playing Anna Wintour. Two bucks says Johnny Depp will do a better job, as proven in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), Harry Potter (why bother?), even Augusten Burroughs novels (although in fairness, I don’t think he had Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston in mind buying the rights to his books when he wrote it. I just hope it will bring justice to his perviness, which I adore – but wait, with the bitter split, the movie may just never be made!), and, of course, dear narcissistic Elizabeth Wurtzel of Prozac Nation and The Bitch Rules fame. At least they did not screw up Lord of the Rings.

My point is: Whatever happened to the movies?

Aside from wonderful pieces, like Closer, Lost in Translation, Pulp Fiction, Snatch, the sick but lovely Birth, and other carefully made and cradled stories, there seems to be a lot of cheese to coat our nachos out there.

Yes, my parents had to endure the war, but at least they had great films. Citizen Kane, All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, Butterfield 8, Grand Hotel, Notorious, Dr. Zhivago, and the whole lustrous lot.

Even in the fall of their youth and with me as a zygote, they had Carnal Knowledge, Easy Rider, Blade Runner (which I believe is where Chicane got their sound check out of the soundtrack), and Taxi Driver.

What will be our Citizen Kane? Many are betting on Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (another sellout but I don’t mind he shot the new Prada commercials) or some say Ray. With the lean pickings available, could we be a forgotten generation for cinema or, at the very least, known for Pixar, which is a chilling sign that humans may be useless soon. Thus, Tom Cruise beating us to the punch with his I, Robot act. Will we all be saucer-eyed like the Olsen twins, too?

What does it mean when our movies suck so much that TV becomes fun again? I stopped watching TV four years ago (except for Seinfeld), but after running out of all the great classics, early Allens and all the Almodovars I could get my hands on, I have resorted to the O.C. or Lost. It’s TV, I don’t have to expect much, and I get what I ask for. No disappointments. Except for the spectacular 24 and, as I heard, the Michael Mann production called the Shield, which is incredible, TV is pretty much there, witty to a pinch, but entertaining nonetheless, much more than I can personally say about movies these days. The good ones come few and far in between. It’s like gambling. You don’t know if you’re getting a good one even with a well represented cast (aka the Pat Kingsley droids). Problem is I take my movies personally . When I see a bad one, it’s like I gave birth to a really ugly baby, a shallow and despicable fear I have. Post-theater depression, I guess, which I take out on the heavenly 24-hour McDo. Nothing like a Quarter Pounder and cheese to make you forget about bad acting, spotty scripts and most especially a really bad remake. Imagine what I had to eat after seeing The Manchurian Candidate.

So maybe I’m just gonna have to live my life memorizing lines from All About Eve, just until Sophia Coppola releases her Marie Antoinette movie. Hope it doesn’t suck, and she doesn’t make nary a cameo even for that movie. Or I’m asking for my P150 (would you @#$%^& believe it?) back.