Knight And Day Of The Dead

Knight And Day

I'll start off with this: I have no problems with Tom Cruise. Sure, he's a Scientologist. Sure, he's probably mentally unstable. But I don't give a shit about his personal life. On the big screen, he's a pretty consistently entertaining person. He's the kind of guy who throws himself into a role, the kind of guy who really seems to relish the job.

Is he always great? No, of course not. Nobody has a perfect track record. Even Marlon Brando starred in some garbage. But even when he's been woefully miscast (Interview With The Vampire) or clearly out of his depth (The Color Of Money), the guy is always trying. I respect the guy for that. I always will. He's always been an interesting actor to follow.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm the guy who liked "The Last Samurai".

So what about "Knight and Day"?

When this project was first announced, it was called "Wichita". Living in Wichita, I was understandably intrigued. My big question was "why the fuck is this movie called 'Wichita'?" Of course, it didn't take long for the project's title to change. Who the hell is going to see a movie called "Wichita", anyway? People in Wichita, sure. But there are only around 400,000 people in the greater metropolitan area, and that's not a very big audience for an expensive Hollywood blockbuster.

So "Wichita" became "Knight and Day".

My mother was very excited to see this movie. I guess it looked like a good time. So she ended up taking me, my brother, my cousin Ky, and his mother to see "Knight and Day" on Sunday afternoon. It was just a big, old-fashioned family affair. Hooray!

Now my local movie house recently upgraded their surround sound systems to a brand-spanking new, state-of-the-art 7.1 "Sensurround"-esque soundscape. I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. In short, I think it was too loud. Annoyingly loud. The action moments were so oppressively noisy, I walked out of the theatre with a splitting headache. The bass was tuned up so high that it rattled my ribcage, like it does at a big, loud rock concert. Overkill.

Jesus, maybe I'm just getting old.

Onto the movie, itself.

The film opens in "Wichita, Kansas", at "Mid-Continent Airport". Now I put these names in quotes because to anyone who has ever been to Wichita's delightful Mid-Continent Airport, you will not recognize any of this. Now I don't blame the filmmakers for this. Why would they take time out of their busy schedule to film on-location in Wichita? I love my hometown, and even I understand.

It's just a little jarring. That's all.

Cameron Diaz, a successful follower of the Auschwitz Diet Plan, is a greaser mechanic named June, and she came to Wichita to pick up some car parts for her father's old GTO. Apparently, the best scrap is found in Kansas. Thanks. She wants to finish restoring the old Goat in time to present it as a wedding gift for her sister, April, in three days.

She "bumps into" Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) twice: Once before the security check, and once again shortly afterward. Suspicious? They both happen to be booked on the same flight for Boston, but June is turned away at the gate. Apparently, the flight was already fully booked, and they sold June her ticket by mistake. Walking past her, Roy mysteriously says that "sometimes things happen for a reason..."

Cut to boring Peter Sarsgaard, playing an agent of the FBI or the CIA, I don't care which. He's just so boring. The best thing he ever did was get knifed to death by a crazy midget in "Orphan". Anyway, his Agent Fitzgerald is watching security camera feeds from the airport, and he notices June's repeated contact with Miller. He surmises that she might be working with Miller, and pulls some strings to get her back on the plane.

When June finally enters the plane, she notices that only a handful of the seats are filled. The plane takes off, she flirts with Miller a bit, then goes to the bathroom. As soon as she closes the door, everybody on the plane starts trying to kill Miller. Being awesome, Miller kills everybody, including the pilot, who accidentally shoots his co-pilot as he dies.

So, if everybody onboard was working with Fitzgerald, does that mean that Miller bought up every ticket on the flight? Is that why June was turned away? Obviously, he knew that everybody on the plane was going to try and kill him, beforehand. This point is never actually explained, and it bothered me a little.

June eventually leaves the bathroom, and she's so oblivious as she walks back to her seat that she doesn't notice that everybody except for Roy is dead. He gives her a cocktail and tells her exactly what happened. She doesn't believe him, of course. Until she actually looks around and sees all of the dead people. She freaks out, and Roy lands the plane in a cornfield. He drugs her, and as she drifts off to Sleepytown, he tells her that other agents will come asking questions.

Roy tells June not to get into a car with them, and that if she hears the use words like "secure" and "safe", then they're going to try and kill her. Basically, he tells her to just run if anybody wearing a cheap suit and big sunglasses comes looking for her.

June wakes up at home in Boston, pretending that the last several hours of her life never happened. She goes to a fitting for her bridesmaids dress wearing a pair of old boots! Isn't that just so fucking quirky!?

Of course, a gaggle of G-Men appear, and of course, she gets into their car. They use words like "safe" and "secure", and June gets scared. Roy shows up on a motorcycle and kills a bunch of people, and for June, the shit gets real.

June runs away, finding her ex-boyfriend Rodney, a fireman with an annoying moustache. She attempts to explain her plight to Rodney over pie, as Roy walks in. June gets all bug-eyed, telling Rodney that this is the crazy guy who kidnapped her, or whatever. Unphased, Roy has a short but pleasant conversation with Rodney about how much he admires firefighters.

This scene is very funny. Roy sounds so genuine in his conversation with poor Rodney. It seems like these two could be friends in another life.

Roy then handcuffs June and produces a gun, putting on a big show for all of the people in the diner. As the pair exit the diner, he tells the waitresses to give everybody free pie, but no ice cream. Because pie a la mode makes your legs weak. Abraham Lincoln knew that, and that's why he got murdered.

Yeah, I don't know what that means, either.

Rodney follows Roy and June out of the diner, and Roy, who warned Rodney to stay inside, shoots the firefighter in his thigh. Not to worry, though. Roy explains to his new friend that it's only a fleshwound, and that he'll probably get a commendation for his bravery. Now the globe-trotting adventure begins.

It's kind of nice to see a big action movie that actually goes places. The movie filmed in exotic locations all over the world, and it shows. I appreciate it.

The rest of the movie concerns agent Fitzgerald chasing Roy around the world, because Roy is in possession of a unique battery codenamed "Zephyr", a source of seemingly limitless power. The battery was invented by a young genius named Simon Feck, played by Paul Dano.

Now Paul Dano sucks in this movie. He's a jittery, annoying little twerp who loves Hall & Oates and is cursed with some of the worst facial hair I have ever seen. His shitty little moustache reminds me of the fake facial hair a particularly resourceful nerd would slap on his face when he dresses up like a klingon at a Star Trek convention.

You know the kind. It looks like garbage, but the nerd is so proud of it, because he groomed it himself and applied it to his greasy face with copious amounts of spirit gum. He thinks it looks cool, and he doesn't care what anybody else thinks.

Fitzgerald wants the Zephyr because he plans to sell it to a Spanish arms dealer named Antonio. Roy found out about Fitzgerald's plan and stole the battery, along with young Mr. Feck, to keep them both safe. Fitzgerald made up a bunch of bullshit about Roy going rogue in order to use the resources of his agency to hunt Roy down.

There's a moment in the film where June follows Roy around some Spanish city in the middle of the night. She overhears a conversation between Roy and a lovely lady and Roy implies that he's willing to sell the Zephyr to Antonio. Feeling betrayed, she gets picked up by the CIA, and they show her security camera footage from the airport in Wichita that shows Roy using June's luggage to smuggle the Zephyr through the security checkpoint. Apparently, this is damning evidence of Roy's douchebaggery, and she decides to help the CIA trap Roy.

A big chase ensues, and Roy is seemingly killed, falling into a river. Maybe it was a lake. I don't know. June decides that it's time to move on with her life, and goes back home to Boston. Feeling curious, she visits an address she remembers from Roy's phone, and meets Roy's parents.

It turns out that "Roy Miller" is a cover name. His real name is Matthew Knight, and as far as his parents know, he died during Operation Desert Storm. His parents are also incredibly wealthy, because they won the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes a few times, and they've also won the lottery. Although neither of them remember buying lottery tickets or anything like that.

Do you get it, yet? Knight is a fucking good guy. He's taking excellent care of parents from beyond the grave. And his parents are also mentally challenged.

June leaves a message on her answering machine telling "whoever is listening" that she's got the Zephyr. Antonio's goons drug her and take her back to Spain, because that's what she wanted, anyway. She just wants to get back to Roy, dammit!

By this point, the whole "June gets drugged" theme is just fucking grating. She gets knocked out at least four times in the movie. Enough, already.

I don't really know what happens next. It seems that Roy orchestrated the whole "I'm going to pretend to sell the Zephyr to Antonio" plot to clear June's name and get her back home, safe and sound. That doesn't make any sense if you actually break it down, but whatever.

But Roy also cleared June's name when he kidnapped her from the diner. That's why he put on the show for all of the patrons; he knew that Fitzgerald would be viewing the security camera feeds from the diner, and would assume that June was Roy's victim.

So why the fuck does Roy go through the trouble of keeping her with him at all times when he explicitly states that he was trying to keep her out of the whole situation?

The plot is bullshit, anyway.

So after a few more big, loud action sequences, Fitzgerald kidnaps Simon, and proposes a trade to Roy: the kid for the battery. Roy throws the battery to his enemy, and Simon mumbles something, and this pisses Fitzgerald off, so he decides to shoot Simon. Roy leaps in front of Simon and takes the bullet.

It looks like Fitzgerald is getting away with his nefarious plan, but fret not. It's been established that the Zephyr is unstable, growing increasingly hotter as the film pregresses. So obviously it explodes moments after Fitzgerald's seaplane takes off. Obviously.

With Simon safe, Roy convalesces in a hospital that I assume is in America. His old CIA boss visits him, telling him that with his name cleared, he'll be back to work in no time. She also tells him that he'll soon be moved to a "secure" facility. For his "safety". Uh-oh!

Luckily June, who is furiously in love with Roy, dresses up like a doctor (still wearing those old boots! So fucking quirky!) and sneaks into the hospital. She drugs Roy (Turnabout! Fairplay!) and gets him out of the hospital. Together, they ride South in her GTO, en route to Cape Horn.

Roll credits.

I didn't particularly like this movie. The plot sucks. There are holes in the story large enough to drive a truck through. Most of the actors are merely phoning in their performances. And Cameron Diaz? Where do I start? She's never been a very good actress. And she's never been the sexiest starlet in Hollywood. But she used to look good.

She looks like fucking Skeletor in this movie. Like a ruined mannequin. And for some inexpicable reason, James Mangold thought it was a good idea to get this woman into a bikini for twenty minutes. Cameron Diaz has no business wearing a bikini. She looked hideous. I'm going to have nightmares about Cameron Diaz in that bikini.

Maybe I'm being too hard on her. I don't think so, but maybe I am. But dammit, this is my blog, and I can say whatever the fuck I want to say! My psychiatrist said I could!

Cameron Diaz sucks in "Knight and Day". She looks like a Universal movie monster created by the legendary Jack Pierce. She just screams and flails through her role. And she has no chemistry with Tom Cruise. God, I am tired of typing variations of that phrase. But I only type it because it's true.

This film's only saving grace is Tom Cruise. Because he's actually trying. He's funny, he's likeable, and he's a credible man of action. But that's no surprise. Because he's fucking Tom Cruise, and he knows what he's doing.

There's a surprising amount of rather shoddy digital effects in the film. James Mangold directs the movie with very little flair. The script is flat. I don't know why the film tries to convince the audience that Tom Cruise may actually be a rogue agent. Of course, he's not a fucking rogue agent! Stop insulting us by attempting to throw us so many curveballs! It doesn't work!

In the end, "Knight and Day" is a disposable, noisy, overly long movie with very little to praise. Except for Tom Cruise. It's not setting the box office on fire, and that makes sense. Soon, this movie will fade from the collective memory, and people will forget that it exists. This is a good thing.

The Lost Weekend

I didn't see any movies on the weekend of June 18th. There was just nothing I wanted to see. I don't care about "Toy Story 3" and "Jonah Hex" looked dreadful.

Now I don't have any real beef with "Toy Story 3". I'm sure it's a fine, entertaining motion picture. Yet I have no interest in it. I never even saw "Toy Story 2". I would just prefer it if Pixar focused on original properties. Stop wasting time with sequels and make another unique and enchanting motion picture. Those folks are good at that. But with sequels to "Monsters Inc." and "Cars" on the way, it seems like Pixar is stuck in franchise mode.

As for "Jonah Hex", the trailer just looked like shit. I saw nothing in that trailer that made me want to see the film. Josh Brolin looked utterly bored and uncomfortable in his make-up. Megan Fox looked like a blow-up doll. The film looked cheap. I was just completely turned off.

I'm not even a big fan of the "Jonah Hex" comics. I read a few good stories back in the '80's, but I never felt compelled to follow the character. His look always bugged me. His right eye was always drawn two sizes larger than it could ever possibly be. I understand that he's horribly scarred and his eyelids are burned away, but that's no excuse for the eye itself to look like a bloated condom.

And that stupid flap of skin over his mouth? Come on. It just doesn't make any sense. Why would any event that would ruin the right half of his face cause his skin to run over his lips like nacho cheese and harden there? And why wouldn't Hex just pull out his hunting knife and cut that fucking flap of skin off? He's supposed to be a big badass, why would that be a problem for him?

It would hinder his ability to speak. It clearly does so for Josh Brolin, according to the trailer. He can't open his fucking mouth, for pity's sake! He has to growl out all of his lines. He sounds nearly unintelligible. The filmmakers clearly thought the massive eye was stupid, so they nixed that aspect of the Jonah Hex make-up. Why didn't they remove the mouth flap, as well?

Sure, some people consider it iconic, an integral part of Jonah Hex's look, but then so is his ruined fucking eye. If you're going to remove one stupid aspect of his scarring, then go whole hog and remove the skin flap, too.

It seems to me that when whoever created Jonah Hex thought the character up, he probably just had a big hole in his right cheek, that exposed his molars. The skin flap was just the remaining portion of his cheek, next to his lips. If this is true, then why did his look "evolve" into its current state? And if this is not true, then why the fuck not?!

Neveldine and Taylor should have been allowed to make the bugfuck crazy version of "Jonah Hex" that they originally wrote. That would have been a sight to behold. I would have paid money to see that movie.

Brothers Will Be Brothers

I watched a movie last night called "The Long Riders", about the James-Younger gang. I watched it on a whim. It was on cable, and I tuned in. I tuned in because the program guide told me that it starred David Carradine, Keith Carradine, and Robert Carradine. I couldn't let that opportunity pass me by.

The Carradine boys all starred in the same movie? No fucking way!

As the opening credits rolled, I was astonished to see that Stacy and James Keach were also in the film. Also: Dennis and Randy Quaid! What the fuck? How did this movie exist? It was just amazing. And they were all playing brothers! The Carradines played the Younger brothers. The Keaches played the James boys. And the Quaids played the Millers.

That's brilliant casting, right there. Brothers playing brothers. It's elegant in its simplicity.

Later on, Pamela Reed showed up. She played a prostitute who was in love with David Carradine. That makes sense. I mean, it's David Carradine. Of course she's in love with him. She also showed off her lovely rear end in a touching bathtub scene. Good work.

Then James Remar showed up as Pamela Reed's wife, and he got into a knife fight with David Carradine. This scene just came out of nowhere, and it was awesome.

"The Long Riders" is actually a pretty decent movie. Walter Hill directed, and he did a good job. The cinematography is intermittently beautiful. The music, by Ry Cooder, is memorable but never intrusive.

And the climactic sequence involving a botched bank robbery in Minnesota is very tense and effective. Every time a Carradine gets shot, it looks painful. And the Carradines get shot a lot during this sequence. You can definitely see the "Wild Bunch" influence in the sequence, and it serves as a nice homage.

The only problem the film has is named James Keach. God, that guy is fucking boring. He has no charisma. And he's playing Jesse James! What a stupid move. Of course, he's playing Jesse James, because he co-wrote and co-produced the film with his brother Stacey. It's just such a damned shame that he's playing such an iconic individual. Because he fails.

Luckily, the movie focuses more on David Carradine as Cole Younger. He's really the star of the film. I'm not sure if this was how the film was written, or if Walter Hill saw the dailies and realized that James Keach's performance was so fucking terrible and decided to cut a lot of his scenes. Either way, the film is better for changing the focus from Jesse James to Cole Younger.

And when Christopher Guest and his brother Nick showed up as Charlie and Robert Ford to blast a hole in James Keach's head, my brain melted. Christopher Guest? And his brother? The almost fetishistic casting in this film nearly drove me insane.

I'm glad I watched "The Long Riders". It was fun.

Creativity?

I'm getting ready to shoot another episode of "The Real Face Of America", for the two people in the world who care. I'm going to actually work harder on this one. I'm going to try and write the narration this time, so it flows better. I'm not sure when circumstances will allow me to shoot the damned thing, but when it happens, you, Dear Imaginary Reader, will know.

I've also become rather obsessed with another project I am eager to shoot. It started out as a joke I told my cousin Ky, but I've been running it through my head over and over, and now I'm feeling ambitious. It's not a photoplay, it's something else. Something weirder. And when I finish it, I'll unleash it upon the unsuspecting world. You've been warned.

Until next time, you poor fools!