SLEEPLESS will put you to sleep.

Sleepless in Seattle? Must be from all that grunge music you kids are listening to.

The macro, self-aware message in SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE is in the scene where characters measure the emotional impact of 1957’s AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER against the parachuting scene in THE DIRTY DOZEN where Trini Lopez breaks his neck. It’s far and away the absolute funniest scene in the movie (ad-libbed by Tom Hanks), but writer-director Nora Ephron is also confessing something: “Men, I know you don’t understand why we women weep over AFFAIR, that we’ve got vastly different tastes, so in giving you that acknowledgement, I’m asking in return that you give me a little pass as well for my movie crafted in that movie’s shadow…”

Uh, now can we have an apology for insulting our intelligence with Meg Ryan’s character and performance, Nora?

Hanks is widower Sam Baldwin, lonely guy in Seattle with son Jonah (Ross Malinger). One night, Jonah calls a radio show and moans about his dad’s loneliness. Sam is forced onto the phone, the DJ dubbing him “Sleepless In Seattle,” whereupon he oozes that Hanks-ian charm, enough to wet the knicks of listener Annie (Meg Ryan) in her car over the other side of the country in Baltimore. (Stop right there: this is not a national newscast. It’s a call-in talk show for weepy chicks – and it’s being broadcast across the country in real time? Okay, apology accepted, Nora. We’ll move on.)

Due to being conditioned by First World society to believe it’s her duty to marry and spawn, Annie is trapped in a loveless engagement with Walter (Bill Pullman, playing the definition of the word “nice”; read as beige, vanilla, Breckin Meyer, etc.), yet starts fantasizing about the Seattle lonely guy. She is enamored with the concept of true love across the wires – and that’s what she tells her fat friend (Rosie O’Donnell) – but let’s face it, she’s an unbalanced stalker.

Accompanied by snappy, poppy, peppy music that will make you puke in your mouth, the two protagonists run through a series of misadventures where they don’t quite meet. In a desperate attempt at matchmaking, son Jonah arranges to meet Annie atop the Empire State Building, as the romantic couple promised in AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER. (Matter of fact, every second scene is a reminder that this movie is begging, borrowing and stealing from that earlier, even dumber movie.) Tension mounts, as Sam comes after Jonah, Jonah leaves his teddy on deck, Annie is rushing from her date with Walter, elevator with Sam goes down, elevator with Annie goes up… oh lordy! Will they ever meet and let us jizz in our pants?

At this point, are any men left watching at all, except those balled-and-chained pussies holding their wives’ purses?

Rita Wilson, Hanks’s real life wife, is here (she weeps over AFFAIR), 100 times more radiant, more intelligent, more loving, more wondrous and more sane than Meg Ryan, yet Ryan gets the lead because her front lip curls just that much higher than Wilson’s. As she did in her first role opposite Hanks (in JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO), Ryan tries overly hard to be cute and coy and comes off as abnormal.

Think about it: this woman is “having fantasies about a man on a radio show,” taking her romantic cues from Cary Grant movies, obsessive about getting married and falling in love in the manner prescribed by movies… even if she gets together with Sam, what will she do at the first sign of reality impinging upon their Hollywood existence, like when he takes the garbage out in his tighty-whiteys with the skid marks? Does she tune back in to Pathetic Friendless Radio and seek out another “hopeless romantic” to pursue like a she-mantis?

Okay men, you can come back in the room now. Nora Ephron says she’s sorry.

END

You’ve Got Fail.

There’s nothing like a good romance. And YOU’VE GOT MAIL is nothing like a good romance.

You see, it’s trying to sell us “romance” via e-mail. And the very nature of electronic mail – digitization, depersonalization – removes the elements that romance is built upon. Writer-director Nora Ephron has taken an old story (Ernst Lubitsch’s THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER 1940, where a couple communicated via handwritten letters, from a Miklós László play called Parfumerie) and attempts a modern updating. And it works about as well as “rocking out” christmas songs. In other words, it makes us feel dirty.

In YOU’VE GOT MAIL, two grown people court each other via e-mail, the man duping the woman into falling for him, due to him knowing her identity in real life, but she being unaware of his real life identity, his duplicitous modus operandi being to use his real life persona to cultivate her in the direction of his e-mail persona. America’s Sweethearts, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, reunite in this witless romantic comedy (their previous witless romantic comedies: JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO,SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE) and take another giant leap towards becoming America’s Retards.

Hanks is corporate cool, playing powerful businessman Joe Fox, who opens a mega-chain bookstore right around the corner from a hole-in-the-wall indie bookstore owned by Kathleen Kelly (Ryan, once again trying overhard to be fastidiously cute, and since she’s not a 23-year-old with 36Ds – failing), causing her store to go bankrupt, which makes her despise him. He, in turn, just wants to spam her Inbox. Oh, okay, you could say that he sees in her a return to the wonder of reading before it became a business model and blah blah, but who are we kidding? Are we 12 years old?

When Joe and Kelly meet in an aol chat room, he somehow discovers she is the chick in the shop around the corner with the Inbox that needs filling – but she remains clueless that her knight in shining HTML is her business rival.

Duplicity ensues. Joe smooth-tongues his way into Kelly’s good graces – even though they are still business rivals – taking her out on talk-dates, with the eminently compelling conversation (you know I’m being sarcastic, right?) always turning to her e-mail romancer. He nudges her to a deep understanding of the frailties of this mysterious stranger – but again, we all know he’s just nudging her towards the Personal Folder in his pants.

And isn’t she – a good-looking woman – not the least bit suspicious of a virile, heterosexual male taking her out so much and NOT trying to view her Contents? Is she so incognizant that she still harbors the prepubescent girly notion of Just Friends? Shouldn’t her small brain at some point ponder on what every father on Earth has asked every teen wolf, “What are your intentions, young man?” We, on the other hand, know Joe’s intentions – he’s warming up that chocolate starfish, so that when it’s dilated fully he can slide in ripe without any lube – yet the film desperately tries to shove that purely honorable evolutionary intent under the carpet. What, may I ask, do the filmmakers think Joe’s intent is? Walk his fingers down her Index? Roughly remove her Dust Jacket? Or – is he actually fixin’ to marry this broad with whom he began a relationship through duplicity?… A fine message for all the potential stalkers out there who don’t how to begin courting the girl of their fevered fantasies.

Greg Kinnear in a vapid role as Kelly’s initial boyfriend; Parker Posey in a shrikey role as Joe’s initial girlfriend. I like both these actors, given wretched roles here purely to show the lead characters making a journey from a dull relationship to a romantic chocolate starfish.

The only reason you need to send e-mail to a woman is for work-related documentation, or specific directions to cut out her incessant, inane yammering and unnecessary foreplay: “I’m going to be there at 11pm, so leave the door unlocked and be ass-up naked on the dining room table. Put on the dog-collar, wear the latex hood and don’t talk.” (How did my e-mail from last week get in here? Damn you, NSA!)

Long after the movie has overrun its welcome, Joe must reveal himself to Kelly as the man behind the e-mail (otherwise he’d never get to toss that salad, unless he wanted to resort to rape, or latex hoods). When Kelly discovers it has been Joe all along that was sniffing her out behind her back right under her nose, deceiving her and leading her on deceptively like a cow with a ring through her nose, her last line, as tears edge her eyes and her chocolate starfish dilates, readying for insertion, is, “I wanted it to be you.” Oh, so women really are stupid! And as they lick each other’s typeface, I was so nauseous that I cried real tears (and women around me thought I was an incurable romantic and I got a few numbers and tossed a few salads, so it all worked out).

I’m sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. Undeliverable Mail Returned to Sender.

END

Highway to the Gayer Zone.

TOP GUN – the movie that wrested the crown from MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR as the Gayest Movie Ever Made.

Y’know, I had a gay comment for this picture – but it speaks for itself.

Tom Cruise is Maverick, the pop gun let loose in billion dollar taxpayer war machinery, one of the best fancypants F14 Tomcat pilots stationed onboard an aircraft carrier, though so smug, irritating and insubordinate his commanding officers want to take him down to Chinatown, but he’s the only movie star in the herd, so is begrudgingly sent to TOP GUN school, to learn how to be more smug, irritating and insubordinate.

At Top Gun Academy, Maverick is one of many hotshot pilots in competition with each other for who’s got the best hair. Their slogan is “The Best of the Best,” but no one ever says what they’re the best AT – I’d say it’s pectorals, but others might go for abs, or even toyt botties.

Maverick is not just battling other homosexual pilots with call signs like Iceman (Val Kilmer, with hair frosted so high the canopy of his Tomcat has skid marks), Slider (Rick Rossovich, whom we presume uses awesome lube), Jester (Michael Ironside, who wears bells on his head on his days off) and Commander Viper (Tom Skerritt, obviously named for his big snake), he is also battling the ghosts of his past (his pilot father froze up and got other pilots killed, for the convenience of having traumatic backstory for Maverick to overcome later).

By the way, little known fact: the other fighter pilot called Maverick who is even gayer than Tom Cruise – John McCain.

Maverick outflies everyone with his wingman Goose (Anthony Edwards, who must be a bottom with a call sign like that), and taunts Iceman, “That’s right – I’m dangerous!” That put as much fear into me as a Hello Kitty backpack. It only made Iceman want him more.

Iceman chomps his teeth at Maverick – now hold on: Was that a show of machismo or an invitation to put it in his mouth? The sexual tension is mesmerizing.

Then it’s off to the locker rooms for the homoerotic posedown – suck in gut, stick out ass. Maverick leans on the bench, his toweled ass sticking out in the direction of Iceman, his torso glistening with strawberry body oil. Director Tony Scott cuts away before anyone ejaculates.

We were hedging on whether this was truly a gay movie – until manly Kelly McGillis shows up – now we’re sure! Is that a man in women’s clothing? She’s the Pentagon instructor, Charlie (see? A man’s name), talking about thrust and negative insertion. (Oh, I get it: she’s talking about SEX WITH MAVERICK. And if you didn’t realize that two seconds into her monologue, you’re a ten-year-old girl.) Charlie constantly reminds us she’s a Pentagon instructor, or we’d break out laughing at her pretend performance as a Pentagon instructor. She’s also the love interest for the ambiguously gay guy with the Raybans… oh, sorry, you’re right, that could be anyone – she’s the love interest for Tom Cruise.

He sings to her The Righteous Brothers’ You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling in one of filmdom’s most embarrassing moments. Kenny Loggins sings the nominal “rock” song, Highway To The Danger Zone, which sounds more like a highway to a gloryhole at a men’s truck stop. Later, Berlin’s Take My Breath Away would accompany the Maverick-Charlie slow motion romance, and then start playing on national radio. And wouldn’t stop. Ever.

The soppy love story is inserted sideways into the plot so that girlies who are not taken in by the labia-pounding afterburners of the supersonic jets will have something to cling to after the testosterone subsides.

Man, these gay jokes are just writing themselves…

Nominated for the most flesh-crawling line in a movie: “And I just don’t want anyone to know that I’ve fallen for you.” (Years later, it would take BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN‘s “I can’t quit you” to dislodge this from the top of the pile.)

And who the hell is Charlie fooling instructing fighter pilots anyway? Do they really let blondes with no flight experience yap unintelligibly to a room of semen-throbbing males while wearing those heels?

You lost me at topless male volleyball.

Meg Ryan in a small weepy role with a bad hairstyle, as Goose’s wife (her first feature film). When Goose dies, due to his frosted hair impacting the canopy, Maverick is so cut up about the death of his bum-chum that when we next see him in the locker room, he’s not sticking his butt out even half as much.

All the Top Guns, no matter their former rivalry, have to watch each other’s backs as they fly off on a Real Mission into preternaturally red skies over Russia, or somewhere where there’s a pretend war they can stick their clams into. Who cares? They’re just happy to be watching each other’s backs. The air battle dogfights are man-merizing – it’s supersonic thunder and screaming speed, those swing-wing Tomcats engineered to do one thing and one thing only: make women wet. And gay guys.

Maverick and Iceman survive the mission because of their love for watching each other’s backs. They land, and run into each other’s arms: “You can be my wingman anytime!” “You can be mine!” Correct me if I’m wrong, but are they making plans for who’s going to be the “top” gun tonight? They look so right together that the “affair” with Charlie looks like the wrong type of love.

What was that about topless male volleyball again?…

END

Gutless Under Cliché.

Yes, I know it’s trying to be inspiring and heroic and poignant, but COURAGE UNDER FIRE is one of the most blatantly gutless movies ever made. About a soldier investigating whether a downed female United States helicopter pilot in Desert Storm deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor. So I ask you: in which universe will America ever make a movie where a Medal of Honor is investigated and NOT awarded?

So it’s a foregone conclusion – all the mystery and mayhem and maybes are simply wasting our time more than the actual war this story was set in – as it leads inexorably to the melodramatic military funeral, the flags, saluting, tears of the family, proud shiny buttons and white gloves, the flyover with one plane breaking formation, and that bilious, bleating orchestra swell. And the Medal. The End. Cry me a river; cry me a patently meaningless award, military swine.

Then the coda: the investigating soldier visits pilot’s grave, salutes grave, tiny flag, voiceover of dead pilot to American Pie Mom and Dad, talking of the Big Push and hero hero hero hero hero hero another blithering orchestra swell I’m going to vomit…

Denzel Washington is the investigating soldier, with demons of his own. (Well, they’re not really demons; they’re roiling stabs of conscience he feels for stupidly shooting one of his own tanks during a skirmish, killing his own men in the hilariously black euphemism “friendly fire,” and then having the military cover-up his blunder.) And whenever he has visions of that po’ boy he fricasseed in that tank (Mmm! Soldierboy, the other white meat!), he heads straight for the alcohol… uh, cos he’s a hero, see.

When he’s asked to investigate whether Captain Karen Walden (Meg Ryan) is worthy of receiving the Medal of Honor for “courage under fire,” the story ends right there. Of course she’s deserving of it. She’s the first female officer recommended, she’s regarded as a hero for sacrificing her life for her men–and she’s Meg Ryan. As if the movie would go to all the trouble setting up her heroism and feminism and Ryanism and NOT award her the medal.

And every cliché in the military lexicon is thrown at us like grenades lobbed into foxholes:

• the tragic family that Denzel has to leave behind to “do his duty for his country” and investigate this chick; make that tragic “perfect” family–with four kids, none of them fight or scream or whine, his wife is totally supportive, no one is on drugs or getting pregnant or having affairs… yawn;
• Denzel is damaged goods, investigating soldiers who are damaged goods;
• Meg’s selflessness, the care for her boys, the tough love, the noble leader, the smart tactician–who was she? William Wallace or Jesus Christ?;
• the novice (Matt Damon), the toughguy (Lou Diamond Phillips), the hero-worshipper (Tim Guinee) and all the other bumboys under her command, like the Benetton passengers of SPEED;
• the hospitalized guy (Seth Gilliam) whose seen one battle too many;
• the military cover-up (common practice, we must assume, for all those dolts who lose their heads in firefights, only rarely exposed as public disgrace like Pat Tillman’s incident);
• everyone’s got Movie PTSD.

Denzel wants to find out “what really happened,” so COURAGE is constructed like a RASHOMON for rednecks, as we see all the alternate flashbacks with a coy Walden, an indecisive Walden and a butch Walden barking orders and trying not to look like a sex object. Not one of the scenarios is ambiguous about her Hero status — no matter if she threw Iraqi babies at walls or defunded the G.I. Bill. If we can call football players heroes, and people who jumped from the Twin Towers heroes, then this chopper pilot must be a shoo-in, so I ask again: what compels viewers to spend 120 minutes pretending there’s any doubt?

Denzel visits Walden’s helicopter bumboys, who all give differing accounts of My Night In The Desert With Captain Walden. Diamond Phillips claims he was the toughguy, as he lies and plies himself with alcohol and commits suicide (cos he’s a hero!); Damon claims Walden was a strategic hardnose, as he admits to being a junkie and afraid to go flying again (cos he’s a hero!); Guinee relates how Walden sacrificed herself for them, even as he reveals how she got them shot down by taking another pass at an Iraqi tank when she could have flown away–cognitive dissonance rules!–while constantly telling his wife to shutup for calling Walden butch (cos he’s a hero!); while Seth Gilliam pounds his medication to numb himself out of the running as a reputable eyewitness (cos he’s a hero, see!).

What’s in it for her bumboys to report that she was a coward? Nothing. But saying she was a HERO makes them vicarious heroes alongside her. Ooo-rah!

And here’s a note to all you military wardogs whose first reaction is to Spock-chop me for “disrespecting” you (such heroes, fighting for my right to have a differing opinion in a free country!): When are you going to realize your own government, who pays you hypocritical lip service, regards you with even less respect than I do? I just consider you deluded and egotistical and sometimes uneducated, while they consider you cannon fodder!

It’s the United States government that fools you into getting your asses shot off for them in the first place; it’s the United States government that refuses you and your family financial benefits when you return from war; it’s the United States government that stop-losses you, reneging on your stipulated leave time, over and over and over again; it’s the United States government that cuts your medical funding; it’s the United States government that evicts your family, that lies about friendly fire, that doesn’t provide armor for you or your vehicles; it’s the United States government that kicks you out for being gay after you’ve dedicated your life to them; it’s the United States government that supposedly trains you for PTSD and then all of you return from war with PTSD (Who are the assholes? You, who are either failing your training, or the government who are failing to train you properly?).

Is that what you bitches call “respect”?

Under fire from your own government, it’s about time you showed some real Courage Under Fire and tell them where to shove it next time they want to exploit you for political gain. That is, unless you really are as dumb as they consider you to be.

Ooo-rah!

END

French Crass.

When one is in love one begins by deceiving oneself, one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls romance.
— Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

Kate’s (Meg Ryan) love-of-her-life, Charlie (Timothy Hutton) travels to France, where he meets his love-of-his-life (Suzan Anbeh), and leaves Kate. Misbegotten, forlorn, neurotic, rudderless Kate pursues Charlie to France, where she meets an all-new, all-criminal, all-French love-of-her-life, Luc (Kevin Kline). After unfathomably contrived and felonious adventures, Happily Ever After ensues.

Kline as Luc is the only watchable thing in FRENCH KISS – besides the glorious Parisian backdrop. The great Jean Reno (LEON, 1992) plays a one-dimensional French cop who allows Luc to evade him because Luc saved his life once; Hutton is a McGuffin and his high-thighed temptress merely a plot element. And Ryan is so ingenuously irritating and cloying and provincial and desperate and ugly it is no wonder she had that facelift that destroyed her face and career.

Timothy Hutton does exactly the same thing Warren Beatty does in LOVE AFFAIR 1994 – finds “true love” on a trip abroad and leaves his current partner to pursue it. Yet this movie makes him the Bad Guy! Even though, like Beatty, he professes his new love is The Real Thing. But “true love” here is from the dumped partner’s point of view: “…because my love is there with his slut girlfriend…”

And true love to Kate is what she has been indoctrinated to believe in her immature Disney-Brady Bunch culture. She actually says: “I’m gonna get him back, and I’m gonna make him love me and we are gonna live happily ever after!” Uh, how do you plan on “making” him love you? Bring him breakfast in bed? Spend ten extra minutes on your mediocre hummers? What? Free will, emotions, hormones, pheromones, rationale, reality be damned.

Kate meets Luc on the plane. He uses her to smuggle a small grapevine into France without her knowledge. He fawns over this illegal vine sapling, which he aims to start a vineyard with and Go Legit (of course, his idea of Legit is to illegitimately rip off anyone who could contribute towards his Legit Dream). This redemptive gimmick only exists to cushion the blow of perceiving him as a one-dimensional thief – the “tender” side of Luc that we are meant to harken back to as Luc perpetrates one criminal act after another for the sake of “love” and his “dream.”

While in France, Kate gets her bag stolen, so Luc (at this point, her pseudo-beau) steals a car to recover her bag. But he steals it for a SENSITIVE reason, cos he’s worried about that poor sapling is all…

Luc is also in possession of a stolen bracelet – but there’s that sapling thing…

In trying to re-steal his necklace from another con-man, Luc steals a bike. How many people laughed at the owner of the bike running after Luc in fury? Answer: Everyone. Because oh, that sapling, illustrating his nurturing and caring side…

But all that stealing and low crime is simply to kill time while Luc and Kate fall for each other in Paris while saying they hate each other. If you’ve seen any Hollywood Romance, you know the formulaic guff by now.

Luc calls attention to the woman’s “weapon” – the Pout – where she implies Yes when she means No and says No when she means Yes, leaving her suitor in a state of lustful disarray. How does this appraisal sit with all those High Court Judges and sleek-thighed, mini-skirted temptresses insisting that NoMeansNo? The same audience that laughed at Luc’s wrongful deeds must now search their principles and wonder on whether they agree with him on how women Ask For It. More than likely, I’d say they only accept the parts of him that they like and sweep the rest under the carpet, like the King James bible.

Kate is oblivious to the Eiffel Tower, continually missing glimpses of it, until her latent sexual feelings (euphemized in the film as “love”) rise to the surface. Only when she realizes she is “falling in love” does she notice that BIG PENIS.

What can we learn from FRENCH KISS? Bleary-eyed women will lament, “This is how a man should woo me!” (Be a criminal?) Men should view this pathetic farce as education, gleaning the angles women will fall for in The Cultivation. The most valuable lesson any man can learn from any Romantic Comedy is: Disguising the fact that the One Thing is prevalent in your mind, is the quickest way to get the One Thing.

Movie ends with Luc and Kate strolling through that vaunted vineyard he committed all those crimes to attain. Legitimately, of course.

Ain’t love grand theft auto?

END

Sacrificial Ham.

During JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO, Tom Hanks‘s head took out a restraining order on his hairstyle. His head won the case, which is why halfway through the film, Hanks sports a halfway decent ‘do – the old hairstyle finding a home on Whitney Houston’s head, of which Houston is still unaware.

Diagnosed with a “brain cloud” which leaves him only months to live, Joe Banks (Hanks) is conned into leaping into a volcano to appease an island god. Under this surface premise, there is political intrigue and other such overwhelmingly inane minutiae – purely McGuffin, as the film stabs at philosophizing over Life itself. I’m afraid I might have fallen asleep, but I’m more afraid that I might have been awake and only thought I was asleep. Philosophy, I can appreciate; quirky, I can appreciate – add “romance” to the mix and skew everything with irrationality over repressing bodily fluids.

Meg Ryan has three different hairstyles in JOE VERSUS THE VOLCANO, playing three separate characters, all of whom run across Joe and make him want her and make us want her – to stop. Though it alludes to her talent, each character is only a variation on the ingratiating coquette persona we have all grown to grimace over.

Long before CAST AWAY, Tom Hanks finds himself adrift on an endless ocean with nothing but a mindless entity for companionship – Meg Ryan.

END