WHITE NOISE starring Batman and THE FORGOTTEN with Clarise Starling II
In case you were wondering, WHITE NOISE is crap. Really crap. Crappity crap crap crap. Maybe about as silly and pointless as THE FORGOTTEN with Julianne Moore. Both films start out promisingly enough. Both are ambiguous in the first acts as to whether the supposed "supernatural events" are even occurring or if it is all a sham perpetrated by less-than-benign characters. But somewhere in the turning point from first to second acts, the scripts veer into the preposterous and basically show you their asses for the next 60 minutes of your life.
NOISE never ever seems brilliant, but it is at least serviceably intriguing for the first half-hour or so. Grieving widower Michael Keaton is approached by a slippery stranger named Raymond who claims to be receiving messages on de-tuned radios and TV sets from Keaton's dead wife. Keaton seems willing to buy into this story after hearing some vague static-filled recordings of someone saying his name. He then meets fellow-griever Deborah Unger who has also been reeled-in by Raymond to listen to tapes of her dead husband. The whole setup seems ludicrous enough to be nothing more than a cruel con pulled on a mournful man, with Raymond and Deborah Unger as the perpetrators stringing him along. Thus endeth the promise of the film.
The movie quickly lays its cards on the table for all to see, and even though the hand is played, it expects us to continue looking for the next hour. Turns out there are GHOSTS! And evil malevolent SPIRITS, too! We know this because Raymond gets his ass killed and Deb and Mike join their formidable forces together to go watch Ant Wars on channel 2 and listen to some Noise Rock. What a bunch of bollocks. Mike quickly figures out his dead wife is guiding him to endangered people who need his help. He dutifully follows her every word until he winds up in the hands of a serial killer who has been killing people like Raymond. But stop the press --- the killer is being guided by 3 "evil spirits" bent on ... something. They are never really explained. Mike has his ass handed to him by 3 CGI ghosts who break his legs and toss him to his death on some rocks. Then the cops kill the serial killer, providing for a tidy explanation of the murders that have occurred in the narrative.
Never has a horror movie filled me with such ... well, not-horror. Bemusement? Passive apathy? This is one of the least affecting movies I have ever seen. Not a single scare to be had. Loads of crummy acting. Very shitty CGI. Flaccid direction and canned music. I'd ultimately call it 'unremarkable' if not for the previous few paragraphs illustrating the opposite.
THE FORGOTTEN is a similar failed enterprise. It, too, deals with a grieving character, which is a neat device, as a person suffering from traumatic loss is very vulnerable and subject to any degree of delusion. You'd think a readable script could come from a character who might be slightly off their nut but we don't know for sure. It seems like this could work, right? But I suspect, nay, FEAR that somewhere in the creative process, a decent script existed for both of these films, but was quickly re-written to "make them more clear." THE FORGOTTEN gets off on the right foot by having everyone around Julianne insist she *is* delusional. Freaked-out over the death of her son, she can't move on. She's in therapy and she's a wreck. When photos of her son start to disappear from her house, she accuses her husband of trying to force her to forget, which seems grandly paranoid but at least interesting. Then we get a real doozy tossed in our lap --- her therapist informs her that her son was actually stillborn and she has created his entire life and even his death to help cope! At this point I'm really on board. Its just crazy enough and atypical enough for me to be able to brag to my friends that I "saw a cool movie that actually did not have dinosaurs or car chases in it."
But believe me, a few dinosaurs could really have helped. But instead we get aliens. I know what you're saying; you're saying some variation on "What the F*CK?!" But yeah its aliens that took her kid. Extraterrestrials whose existence is asserted to us as true, with no ambiguity. I could at least tolerate Julianne *thinking* aliens took her kid; but to be expected to *buy* this horse puckey is a bit much. We are even treated to a spooky T-1000 type of alien who gets run over and such but suffers no harm. We get scary UFO's in the clouds, and people sucked up by blue beams and stuff. Its all exactly like it sounds. It plays out very predictably with her joining forces with a grieving father who has crawled into a bottle to forget his daughter's "death." She dries him out just in time for him to get abducted himself. Then she confronts T-1000 alien and bests him in a game of will, "proving that you cannot sever the bond between mother and child" and whatever. Then everything is put back the way it was, all the kids are returned, the clock is turned back, yadda yadda yadda. What a stupid f*cking movie.
Not to be indelicate, but both these movies are dumb pieces of sh*t. I never expected genius but I certainly did not expect the ending of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL to be copied almost verbatim for essentially their full running time either. Here's a question for Hollywood Slumptown: do you think we're a bunch of retards? Because there is more reward to be had with a toilet seat cover than either of these two movies provides. At least one of these things protects my ass from other peoples' ass germs. Then again, I *did* sit through both of these movies, and I distinctly remember that no gun was at my head. So hell maybe we *are* retarded. But PLEASE, Hollywood --- if it has to be dumb, at least blow it up at the end. Is that too much to ask?
NOISE never ever seems brilliant, but it is at least serviceably intriguing for the first half-hour or so. Grieving widower Michael Keaton is approached by a slippery stranger named Raymond who claims to be receiving messages on de-tuned radios and TV sets from Keaton's dead wife. Keaton seems willing to buy into this story after hearing some vague static-filled recordings of someone saying his name. He then meets fellow-griever Deborah Unger who has also been reeled-in by Raymond to listen to tapes of her dead husband. The whole setup seems ludicrous enough to be nothing more than a cruel con pulled on a mournful man, with Raymond and Deborah Unger as the perpetrators stringing him along. Thus endeth the promise of the film.
The movie quickly lays its cards on the table for all to see, and even though the hand is played, it expects us to continue looking for the next hour. Turns out there are GHOSTS! And evil malevolent SPIRITS, too! We know this because Raymond gets his ass killed and Deb and Mike join their formidable forces together to go watch Ant Wars on channel 2 and listen to some Noise Rock. What a bunch of bollocks. Mike quickly figures out his dead wife is guiding him to endangered people who need his help. He dutifully follows her every word until he winds up in the hands of a serial killer who has been killing people like Raymond. But stop the press --- the killer is being guided by 3 "evil spirits" bent on ... something. They are never really explained. Mike has his ass handed to him by 3 CGI ghosts who break his legs and toss him to his death on some rocks. Then the cops kill the serial killer, providing for a tidy explanation of the murders that have occurred in the narrative.
Never has a horror movie filled me with such ... well, not-horror. Bemusement? Passive apathy? This is one of the least affecting movies I have ever seen. Not a single scare to be had. Loads of crummy acting. Very shitty CGI. Flaccid direction and canned music. I'd ultimately call it 'unremarkable' if not for the previous few paragraphs illustrating the opposite.
THE FORGOTTEN is a similar failed enterprise. It, too, deals with a grieving character, which is a neat device, as a person suffering from traumatic loss is very vulnerable and subject to any degree of delusion. You'd think a readable script could come from a character who might be slightly off their nut but we don't know for sure. It seems like this could work, right? But I suspect, nay, FEAR that somewhere in the creative process, a decent script existed for both of these films, but was quickly re-written to "make them more clear." THE FORGOTTEN gets off on the right foot by having everyone around Julianne insist she *is* delusional. Freaked-out over the death of her son, she can't move on. She's in therapy and she's a wreck. When photos of her son start to disappear from her house, she accuses her husband of trying to force her to forget, which seems grandly paranoid but at least interesting. Then we get a real doozy tossed in our lap --- her therapist informs her that her son was actually stillborn and she has created his entire life and even his death to help cope! At this point I'm really on board. Its just crazy enough and atypical enough for me to be able to brag to my friends that I "saw a cool movie that actually did not have dinosaurs or car chases in it."
But believe me, a few dinosaurs could really have helped. But instead we get aliens. I know what you're saying; you're saying some variation on "What the F*CK?!" But yeah its aliens that took her kid. Extraterrestrials whose existence is asserted to us as true, with no ambiguity. I could at least tolerate Julianne *thinking* aliens took her kid; but to be expected to *buy* this horse puckey is a bit much. We are even treated to a spooky T-1000 type of alien who gets run over and such but suffers no harm. We get scary UFO's in the clouds, and people sucked up by blue beams and stuff. Its all exactly like it sounds. It plays out very predictably with her joining forces with a grieving father who has crawled into a bottle to forget his daughter's "death." She dries him out just in time for him to get abducted himself. Then she confronts T-1000 alien and bests him in a game of will, "proving that you cannot sever the bond between mother and child" and whatever. Then everything is put back the way it was, all the kids are returned, the clock is turned back, yadda yadda yadda. What a stupid f*cking movie.
Not to be indelicate, but both these movies are dumb pieces of sh*t. I never expected genius but I certainly did not expect the ending of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL to be copied almost verbatim for essentially their full running time either. Here's a question for Hollywood Slumptown: do you think we're a bunch of retards? Because there is more reward to be had with a toilet seat cover than either of these two movies provides. At least one of these things protects my ass from other peoples' ass germs. Then again, I *did* sit through both of these movies, and I distinctly remember that no gun was at my head. So hell maybe we *are* retarded. But PLEASE, Hollywood --- if it has to be dumb, at least blow it up at the end. Is that too much to ask?
posted by figurebuilder at 10:52 AM
4 Comments:
there are few movies that prove to scare me these days. what ever happened to them? or maybe they were only good cos i was a lot younger. i'm hoping the "exercism of ?" is good. prob not. i didn't mind the movies tho. they weren't terrific, but since i HOPE that things such as these exist...i guess i'm hangin onto every tid bit to say it may be so...and...robin never wants to watch"scarey" movies with me anyway-so any teeny scarey thing i get to see is great to me.
Well darlin just allow me to at least steer you in the right direction. Which is AWAY from these 2 stinkers!!!! If you want a good UFO movie try FIRE IN THE SKY. Great little movie. Even CLOSE ENCOUNTERS still holds up! For ghosties there's about a gazillion movies better than WHITE NOISE. Next time you visit I'll just have to PROVE IT!!!
but doesn't white noise come together for you when dead michael keaton talks to his kid through the radio at the end after the funeral and deborah kara unger wheels herself around in that wheelchair looking like she's really pissed james spader isn't around to get all hot and bothered over her wounds and hardware like in Crash (the cronenberg. the cronenberg, dammit. not the one by that guy who wrote the totally overrated and thoroughly terrible Million Dollar Fifi. but i digress.) so yeah, but michael keaton talks to his kid, right? through the raido. all ghosty and shit. and isn't a little bit of drippy sentiment what we really want out of a horror movie? i know what i go to horror movies for is sensitive exploration of childhood trauma and emotional closure for families riven by the occult. that shit scares the holy living fuck out of me.
Word up. But I go to modern horror movie because I just can't get enough of that snazzy farmed-out Korean CGI.
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