kpduty

TACO BELL!!! Hubby got the Nachos BelGrande sans meat, so for the first time ever I was able to enjoy their crunchy, cheesy-cheese goodness. Although I briefly panicked over the presence of scallions, I'm pretty sure I don't have hepatitis.

But, I digress.

Unlike the $17 travesty of Van Helsing, we made the smart move and actually waited until Taking Lives was at the dollar theater (but with the evening rates, it was THREE DOLLARS for two people. THREE DOLLARS!!! And people think the gas prices are bad!!). I'm still trying to decide if the money was worth it. Taking Lives is based on a book of the same name, which I looked up on Amazon on a lark and the book is completely different. It actually sounds way cooler. Someday I'm going to get it from the library and read it and post an update. But not right now, because I'm in the middle of like six different books, one of which is due back next week and I should just buy my own copy because it's taking me forever to get into and it's French history and there are way too many names I can't pronounce. The book--Taking Lives, not the one I'm currently reading--is apparently about an art dealer who is actually a serial killer who's killed the art dealer and taken over his life, and the private investigator looking for a stolen rare manuscript that the art dealer is supposedly an expert on (which he isn't, because he's the serial killer).

The movie actually gives the art dealer the name of the book's private investigator, Cabot, and you'd never know he's an art dealer. I think they may have said something about this at some point but so much random shit happens in this movie that they never explain. Him being an art dealer is just a side note to explain some other red herring's presense in the film anyway, so ignore it for a moment.

Anyway, Taking Lives has FBI Profiler Angelina Jolie called to Montreal by her friend and former Quantico classmate Tcheky Karyo to help with the investigation of a series of unsolved murders. The killer smashes in the victims' faces and cuts off the hands, leaving it almost impossible to identify the bodies. Fortunately, art dealer Ethan Hawke stops one of the mutilations, helping with the case and making himself a target for the killer. Of course, then he has sex with Angelina Jolie, because as Speed taught us, relationships based on intense experiences never work, so you have to base them on sex.

If I were teaching a film theory class on mysteries with surprise endings, this would be the film I'd use as an example of a big DON'T. I will enumerate for you some of the stupid shit in this movie that should not be done in a film supposedly supplying "twists and turns."

We begin at the beginning, with a young guy homoerotically hitting it off with another young dude on a bus.

POINT ONE: If you decide to actually see the movie for yourself, THIS IS IN FACT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE, AND NOT A TRAILER FOR TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE TWO.

This is an important part to remember. I guarantee you'll be confused for ten to fifteen minutes if you forget this. What should have been the real beginning of the movie involves Gena Rowlands complaining to the cops that she just saw her dead son on a cruise ship.

POINT TWO: IF YOU WANT THE KILLER TO BE A SURPRISE, DON'T HIRE A YOUNG ACTOR WHO LOOKS LIKE JUST LIKE THE DUDE PLAYING THE KILLER.

Seriously, I knew at the very beginning who the killer was because the kid in the Chainsaw trailer looked just like him. Hence another reason to totally get rid of that part.

POINT THREE: THE FILM TAKES PLACE IN MONTREAL, SO EVERYONE HAS REALLY THICK FRENCH-CANADIAN ACCENTS.

This has nothing to do with the plot of the film; it just pissed me off. The levels on either the print we saw or the theater sound system were fucked, meaning I had to strain to hear the dialogue. For some bizarre reason, even though this was in Canada very few people say "aboot." Trust me, I was paying attention. Otherwise I think I would have fallen asleep. Plus, this film was very unpatriotic, what with having France and Canada being represented in the same movie. Because we hate France and Canada.

POINT FOUR: ANGELINA JOLIE LOOKS AT A LOT OF STUFF, BUT NEVER EXPLAINS WHY SHE'S LOOKING AT IT.

Five minute close-up of someone's eye ball...five minute close-up of lace doilies...five minute close-up of my ass. None of this has any relevance to anything. Then the one thing she should have been paying attention to, Ethan Hawke's bruised knuckles, gets completely ignored. Apparently they don't make watching an episode of CSI or Law and Order a requirement at FBI school, otherwise she'd know that bruised knuckles mean struggle, usually with said knuckles dealing out the aforementioned struggle, hence making Ethan Hawke the killer. I know, there's more involved with crime solving. But we're not talking about a documentary.

POINT FIVE: THE FUNNY, SELF-DEPRECATING COP IS A TOTAL RED-SHIRT. ESPECIALLY WHEN HE VOLUNTEERS TO GO ON AN UNASSUMING MISSION ALONE.

Duval, we hardly knew ye.

POINT SIX: YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL THE TYPE OF MAN YOU'RE SEEING BY THE SEX: ROMANTIC = GOOD GUY; SLOPPY AND VIOLENT ON TOP OF FURNITURE NOT MEANT TO SUPPORT SEX WITH CLOTHES ON WHILE DOOR TO HOTEL HALLWAY WIDE OPEN = KILLER.

Seriously. They left the door open! That's at least a sign that he likes to kick puppies.

POINT SEVEN: STRONG, INTELLIGENT, ICY PROFESSIONAL WOMEN GET FUCKED, PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY.

What better way to punish a woman than to allow one moment of sexual happiness, followed by knowing the guy was the killer you've long sought. Cat, meet mouse.

POINT EIGHT: DUDE HAD A TWIN WHO DIED IN AN ACCIDENT.

Angelina Jolie thought this scarred the young man for life. I thought the dude killed him. I need a badge and a gun, I'm unstoppable!!!

POINT NINE: IT MAY SEEN LIKE A GOOD IDEA TO TROT OUT THE BIG NAME STAR NEAR THE END TO THROW THE AUDIENCE OFF THE TRAIL OF THE REAL KILLER, BUT INSTEAD IT'S MY BIGGEST PET PEEVE--KILLER DUDE THROWN IN NEAR THE END.

I HATE when the killer is someone no one mentions at all during the movie, like, "OH MY GOD, it was ol' hermit Wilson who lives in the hovel that we never even thought to mention until now because even though the original script had Michael Douglas's character as the killer his agent negotiated for a contract that forbid him to play any character that might reflect negatively on his real life persona so we had to re-write the script at the last minute and throw in this character that heretofore didn't exist." Whatever.

POINT TEN: SIMPSONS DID IT.

The best part of the movie was that Gena Rowlands apparently kept her surviving son locked in the basement, which totally reminded me of the treehouse of horror episode where Bart's a conjoined twin, and Hibbert separates them and Marge and Homer lock the supposedly evil one in the attic, but it turns out he was the nice one and Bart was the evil one. Why is everything reminding me of the Simpsons?

POINT ELEVEN: I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS CONNECTS WITH WHAT'S COME BEFORE, BUT THE END WAS REALLY WEIRD AND STUPID.

So it's seven months after Ethan Hawke escapes capture and Angelina Jolie had supposedly gotten knocked up during her romp with Ethan Hawke and she goes off to the middle of nowhere and gets this farmhouse that's totally uninhabitable and I think she totally told Ethan Hawke that she grew up in this middle of nowhere town earlier in the film and he comes to her house and says it took him a while to find her which was totally stupid because if I'd been him it totally would have been the first place I looked seeing as how there are only like a couple hundred people living in the town and they'd totally remember seeing Angelina Jolie buying toilet paper at the local market, because wouldn't you? And that's usually what people do in situations like that, they go back home. But anyway, he comes in and tells her he's been watching her and she's pregnant with twins isn't she, but she's totally not because she's way too small to be seven months pregnant with twins and unless she has a family history of twins she's probably not pregnant with twins because twins are usually passed through the mother. But I'm no scientist so I could be wrong. But it doesn't matter anyway because Ethan Hawke totally stabs her in the stomach saying she can't have his babies, but she's not really pregnant!!! It was a fake belly!!! So she stabs him back and kills him, telling him everything he saw she wanted him to see and he smiles an enigmatic smile before he dies which I think is supposed to mean that he's impressed by how she outfoxed him. Then she calls Tcheky and tells him it's all over. At which point Ethan Hawke totally should have COME BACK TO LIFE AND TRIED TO KILL HER AGAIN!!! But he doesn't. But that would have been cool. Anyway, stabbing a pregnant woman in the stomach is pretty fucked up, especially after you just praised her obvious love for the children and her possible ability to raise both of them so that one doesn't kill the other and then go on a sociopathic rampage. But I may be reading too much into it.

POINT TWELVE: MY HUSBAND THOUGHT NAKED ANGELINA JOLIE WAS STUPID AND POINTLESS AND NOT AT ALL TITILATING AND WAS INSTEAD DISTRACTING AND SILLY.

That should pretty much sum up the movie, and my review.