Take Five
By George Rose
July 28, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Over dinner, we discussed a few more of their cultural differences that I came across today, much like the ones I went over in the last article. Here are some new ones I found noteworthy:
"Until you marry, it will pass": I was playing paddle ball on the beach today (or "racquets" as they call it here), which was not a good idea. Anyone who knows me knows that sports are my Kryptonite. I don't look or act particularly gay (as I've been told), but if you're going to throw a ball at me, you might as well throw a handful of knives in my direction. Either way, I will duck and run. To uphold my masculine image, I agreed to play racquets with the cougar's best friend's boyfriend. It took less than five minutes for me to fall to the ground and scrape off a layer of skin from my leg. There was literally a clump of my leg hair on the bloodied rock. Movies are safe, sports are dangerous. This has been and will now forever remain my mantra. After making a fuss that I would have to get my leg amputated, my new friend said to me "until you marry, it will pass." After I inquired, I learned that this is often said with reference to "minor" injuries. It means that, unlike marriage, the wound would eventually go away. It sounded to me like "stop whining like a little sissy," but they made it sound philosophical, as if the words were all the band-aid I would need. They weren't and I went home shortly after and took care of my new masculine scar.
"Yamas!" – the sequel: I mentioned this in the last article, although now it has a new meaning. It is the Greek version of "Cheers!" though it means "to health." It is said while drinking and will cause everyone around you to stop what they are doing or saying, and raise their glass. It has gotten me out of many uncomfortable situations. It also caused a very uncomfortable situation. Sometimes in America – and I'm aware this is very, very uncommon – I will raise my cigarette with my smoking buddy and say "Cheers!" We say it as a joke, as if we are raising pints of beer, and we move forward with a laugh and the continuation of our cigarette. Doing this in Greece is a fatal mistake. If you raise a cigarette and say "yamas," you are basically asking the person if they smoke marijuana. Drugs, including entry level ones like pot, are not acceptable. They are about as unacceptable as homosexuality. By doing this, I not only offended the person I was smoking with, but I seemed to have given them the impression that I meant what I was doing and was revealing that I am some sort of major stoner and hoped they were too. That was the end of that conversation and cigarette break.
"The can rolls down the hill and finds its cap": Two people in love are soul mates. The yin and the yang, the lock and the key, and so on. Two entities that cannot live without one another. In Greece, they consider two people of the same gender (no, not homos) that are, or should be, best friends the can and the cap. On my "double date" this evening, the girls were making fun of me and the other guy because we were bonding over videos games. Yes, it is possible for a gay man to be friends with a straight man, even if the straight one doesn't know the other is gay. I know my boundaries and respect them thoroughly. While some gays enjoy bringing straight men "to the dark side," I prefer the men I'm with to be gay beforehand. Converting someone feels wrong and isn't something I care to waste time attempting, especially when there is usually a great friendship available. In any case, they girls were teasing our friendship (they were really just jealous we stopped paying them attention for a minute) and said, "the can rolls down the hill and finds its cap." After explaining what this meant, the two of us agreed that we were good friends and raised our glasses. Yamas!
All those little tidbits aside, I'm still having a blast, even if every day is like Halloween and I'm dressed up as a macho man. I was trying to think of ways to let this poor girl down, one of which included letting her read my articles, but since my family is all arriving within the next week, things should find a way to work themselves out. Family first, right? Until then, I have five movies to watch that I have never seen and will review for you.
Fargo (1996) – watched/written on July 18, 2009
I picked Fargo for its critical acclaim since I have spent these last few days "dating" this cougar and needed a surefire pick-me-up, or at least something worthy of my time. My actions, while probably unforgiveable, could be worse. I could be like Jerry (William H. Macy), who starts the movie plotting with Carl and Gaear (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to have his wife kidnapped. This guy plans to split the $80,000 ransom with these thugs so he can use his half to make an investment in some sort of parking lot that costs $750,000. Either his math is as bad as his intentions, or there is a depth to his dark side that can't be seen under his nervous demeanor and plastered on salesman smile. He is a car dealer who cares more about making a dollar than being a good, honest husband and father. If it weren't for Macy's stellar acting, I might have punched a hole right through my laptop watching him. It kills me that such people actually exist, and they really do, since Fargo is a true story. The only differences to reality are the names, which were changed to respect the privacy of the survivors and deceased.
These events take place in Minnesota and Fargo, North Dakota in 1987, and it is here that Carl and Gaear kidnap this housewife, whose father is a very wealthy man. This is why Jerry planned the setup to begin with, because his family has no faith in him (and rightfully so) and he thinks the only way he'll be happy is if he gets this money and makes the investment. Money is all he cares about. After he comes home to see his wife is missing, he takes a few moments to practice the phone call he'll make to his father-in-law. There is no end to his greed and no beginning to his remorse. When his family insists that they call the cops, he refuses, claiming the best way to handle the kidnappers is to give in to their demand to remain under the radar. Should the cops become involved, he won't be able to arrange the pickup of his half of the money, which actually isn't $40,000. He tells his father-in-law the ransom is $1,000,000, which he eventually agrees to pay. When Carl and Gaear, after being forced to kill a few innocent bystanders, demand they keep the entire $80,000, Jerry pitches a fit. As if $920,000 isn't enough money to buy a crummy piece of land.
Enter Margie (Best Actress Oscar winner Frances McDormand), a local cop on the hunt to solve the initial three homicides. She is great at what she does, solving the pieces of the murders just seen in the movie with ease. Better yet, she is a good person. Scratch that, she is a wonderful person. A loving wife, helpful coworker and all around chipper woman, it barely bothers me when she opens her mouth and spews that thick North Dakota accent. I would have screamed, "It's not ‘oh yaaah?' It's ‘OH, YEAH?'" if I weren't so in love with her character. Her pregnant cop routine is so charming and deserving of the Oscar that the movie stops feeling like a depressing drama and feels like an upbeat character piece. She fearlessly follows the tracks of Carl and Gaear, only stopping occasionally to have a meal with her adoring husband.
By the end of the film, written by Oscar winners Joel and Ethan Coen and directed by Joel, only one questions remains: what happens with the son? Giving away the ending would be a travesty, since you should all go rent this fantastic movie. But since it is a true story, I would have liked to know what happened with the child. My only guess is that he's in a mental institution for having likely been informed afterwards what happened to his entire family. This might be an extreme guess, but it's all I have since it's the one plot point left out. Regardless, the movie is amazing and should immediately be added to your list of movies to rent in the near future.
Overall Rating: A-
The Running Man (1987) – watched/written on July 19, 2009
My head feels as though it's going to explode from the insanity that was last night at the Chios club, After. Most clubs in America close at 2:00 a.m. In Greece, they close at around 7:00 a.m, just after the sun has come up. Even though I'm hardwired for a good time, as the result of dating a bartender for most of my college experience, I could barely keep up with the non-stop bottle service that comes with being friends with the club owner's nephew. Today I woke up at 4:00 p.m, just in time to get in a movie before my siblings arrive at 8:00 p.m.
Because my brain was barely functioning, I figured I'd pick a fun, mindless action movie. Instead, it appears I only picked a mindless one. Why is it that Stephen King, the legendary writer, has betrayed me once again? The Running Man is an adaption of his work, and while it is not nearly as bad as Pet Sematary (a film I watched and reviewed in my last article), it was still not at all what I expected from a bestselling author like him. Throw in Arnold Schwarzenegger and you have yourself a monster hit in the making, right? No, not even close.
I'd say you need to watch the movie to know the plot but they give it away in the first five seconds. Before the movie starts, text begins scrolling up the screen to inform the viewer that it is the year 2017, a time when the world economy has collapsed, resources are in short supply, the police rule with absolute force, TV and all media is censored, and "The Running Man" is the most popular show on television. Naturally, there is an underground resistance trying to stop all of this. Why wouldn't there be? This plot feels so overdone already that I would have walked away from the movie right then and there, but my hangover prevented any sort of real movement on my part.
Then we meet Ben Richards (Schwarzenegger), a cop who refuses to take an order to terminate the lives of many unarmed, hungry rioting citizens. Going against the iron fist puts him directly in front of it, and within ten minutes he is sent to and escapes from a detaining zone for the unruly and unresponsive. Just before killing one of the guards, he raises him up into the air and says, "give you a lift?" It is right then and there that I realize this movie is going to be among the more cheesy 1980s action movies stuffed with one-liners.
After his escape, he meets Amber (Maria Conchita Alonso), a woman living in the apartment where his brother once resided. She turns him in to the police, where he is then offered a deal: become a contestant on "The Running Man" or your friends will die. We already know he's a good man so we know exactly what his answer will be, and he volunteers to be one of the latest "convicts" to attempt surviving the battle arenas of the show, where gladiators hunt and kill criminals for our viewing pleasure. I swear this movie had been remade a thousand times. Death Race with Jason Statham comes to mind.
Killian (Richard Dawson), the show's creator and host, is as much a fan of propaganda as the rest of the media, and convinces everyone to believe Ben is a murderer and deserves to be hunted. Amber gets the hint that maybe Ben is a half-decent guy and searches for the footage needed to clear his name. She is caught in the act and thrown into the death ring with Ben, where they, along with two of Ben's friends, must survive the four quadrants of the arena. It starts to pick up pace and entertainment value, but then you can tell the writers weren't sure how to wrap it all up, so they made the resistance's secret hiding place in the fourth and final section. This is also where they find the signal needed to post new footage clearing Ben's name and ruin the reputation of Killian. What a coincidence! Is it over yet?
Unfortunately it's not. More one-liners, failed attempts at intriguing plot twists, and a final showdown have to take place. I could go on and on with complaints and examples of the lackluster writing here (Really, an opera singing gladiator? Half-time show dancers that look like a Jane Fonda workout video?), but I've already ranted for far too long. This really isn't the worst movie in the world but it's nowhere near the top five best Schwarzenegger movies. It's an ‘80s action film, so you really can't expect too much to begin with. Like I said, it's better than Pet Sematary but it's still no Total Recall.
Overall Rating: C-
The Big Lebowski (1998) – also watched/written on July 19, 2009
So my brother and sister arrived today around 8:30 p.m., just as my hangover took care of itself and I was ready to take them out for a night of beachside drinking at our uncle's bar. They both tell me how tired they are from a day and a half of traveling, and say they want to go to bed at 10:00 p.m. instead. I thought partying was supposed to run in the family blood? I was drunk two hours after I arrived in Greece and these two are already passed out sober. Shame on them. Since they crapped out on me, I decided to stay in and watch another movie, just in case they surprise me tomorrow and grow a pair of... well, you know. My brother said he wanted to fall asleep to a movie, so I rolled the dice and let him pick which one he wanted to see the first 20 minutes of.
As the opening credits rolled, I thought I was having déjà vu. Joel and Ethan Coen? Steve Buscemi? Am I watching Fargo again? Nope, I'm watching the much talked about, but for some reason never seen, The Big Lebowski. As an avid viewer of new releases, it doesn't surprise me that this R-rated movie was overlooked in 1998 when I was 13-years-old, but I'm surprised and somewhat upset nobody forced me to watch it sooner.
"The Dude" Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) – oh yes, that's his name – is a hilarious deadbeat, an unemployed pacifist with a love for booze, pot and bowling. He is such a lazy, senseless guy that he goes grocery shopping in his pajamas and pays for his $0.69 drink by writing a check. The narrator mentions "a lot doesn't make sense about him," and while it couldn't be more true, it also couldn't be more entertaining. His bowling teammate Donny (Buscemi) and best friend Walter (John Goodman) are equally funny, especially Walter. He is a war veteran prone to outbreaks of rage and a tendency to screw up everything the laid back Dude barely manages to plan. The Dude probably wouldn't plan more than his bowling practice schedule if he weren't thrust into a kidnapping scandal after a few thugs accidentally stumble into his house and mistake him for the rich Big Lebowski.
If The Dude had overlooked one of the thugs peeing on his carpet, he might not have hunted down the Big Lebowski and found himself searching for his kidnapped wife, Bunny. Why anyone would care to rescue or pay more than $5 for Tara Reid is beside me, but the Coen brothers seem to enjoy stories of kidnapping and consider $1,000,000 to be the lucky ransom number. The movie is no Fargo, but luck has found these two again as the movie and characters are quite humorous.
The movie follows The Dude on his quest to recover the ransom money he was hired to deliver, and would have had Walter not stepped in and ruined things as usual. After a teenager steals The Dude's car and the briefcase containing the money, they start the race to find both the ransom and the woman. On their quest they encounter a slew of the Coen's most clever characters: the Big Lebowski's brown nosing assistant (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a pedophile bowling competitor named Jesus (John Turturro), the Big Lebowski's feminist painter of a daughter (Julianne Moore), a band of German nihilists (one of whom is Peter Stormare, another actor from Fargo), a nervous landlord with a love for dancing, and many more.
The cast is a top-notch crew, but some of the actors feel a bit out of place. I understand they would want to partake in a Coen brothers creation, especially after their Oscar win two years earlier with Fargo, but I think some of the characters would have benefitted from lesser known talent. Casting aside, the film was well paced and actually had me laughing out loud. It made me wish I had friends like The Dude and Walter. If their banter had made up the entirety of the nearly two hour film, I might have enjoyed it a bit more. Instead, it felt a bit long toward the end and might have benefited from being 15 minutes shorter. Not necessarily all of the last 15 minutes, but once you find out the plot twist regarding Bunny's kidnapping you sort of expect things to wrap up a bit more quickly. You might be saying the same thing about this review, so I'll offer my final thoughts: for no other reason than Jeff Bridges as The Dude and John Goodman as Walter should you see this film. I have a newfound appreciation for them as actors and would gladly accompany them on any life threatening adventure, even if it was as pointless as saving Tara Reid's life.
Overall Rating: B+
Lost: Season 1 – watched July 20-23, 2009; written July 23, 2009
In the least five years, for as long as "Lost" has been on television, I have seen maybe five random episodes. Since I had missed the first season, I refused to get into Lost, knowing I would be out of the loop and, for lack of a better word, lost. What I have seen are my versions of "flash forwards," bits and pieces of the future of Lost that I am now on course to discover. When I came to Greece, I knew I wanted to spend most of my time on mini-adventures and exploring with new friends and family. I also knew I had to watch and review five movies every two weeks, so a fair amount of my free time would be spent indoors watching a ton of unseen films. To prevent locking myself inside for the entirety of my Greek vacation, I limited myself to only one season of one show. With the final season of the show premiering in a few months, I chose to bring Lost: Season 1 and finally see what all the fuss is about.
Holy crap. No, really, HOLY FREAKING CRAP. This show is amazing! I love TV as much as the next person, and have watched and re-watched many series before, but nothing could have prepared me for this newfound drug. How the heck do normal people wait a week between watching episodes? How do you go months between seasons without killing yourself or someone else in an effort to acquire your next fix? If I had Season 2 on me right now, I'd be watching it instead of writing this section of the article. Show creator J.J. Abrams is a god, as if I didn't already know that after seeing the Star Trek reboot.
I don't even know where to begin. My mind is still reeling. The most simple plot point is that a plane has crashed on an island, 1,000 miles off course from its route between Sydney, Australia and Los Angeles. There are just under 50 known survivors of the crash but only about a dozen are relevant. There's Jack the doctor, the appointed leader of the group and only medicine man. Locke the hunter, who was once paralyzed from the waist down but regained the ability to walk once on the island, which seems to have mysterious healing abilities. Kate the fugitive, a women with an uncanny ability to compulsively lie yet always appear affectionate. The list goes on and so could I, but I wouldn't want to take all the fun away from getting to know these guys.
Since I've seen bits and pieces of future seasons, I "already know too much" as my brother puts it. What I've seen isn't really confusing. It's actually quite appealing. Time traveling, flash forwards, smoke monsters, atom bombs, Jacob, and so on and so forth. But because I had never seen the first season, I refused to just pick up and go along for the ride. The thing about later seasons is that so much of the show revolves around the island itself. What it's capable of, "the others", what monsters lurk on it, why these people were chosen to be on it... it's all mind-boggling. It's like, as everyone keeps pointing out, a drug. It'll mess with your head and make you see crazy things, but it's still fun to participate in. The joy of Season 1 is the simplicity of it. Each episode is another day or two of the survivors' struggle, with each episode using flash-backs to tell the origin of a different person. Getting to know these dozen characters gives me a new appreciation for the random episodes I've seen before. I don't just recognize the actors/actresses faces. I know their characters now, and better yet, I love and hate them! Those that I love my brothers says I'll soon hate, and those that I hate my brother tells me to be patient with. Anyone who has seen Lost knows patience is not an option. I NEED TO KNOW NOW!
Each episode is fast paced, informative, well acted, closes old doors and opens new ones, is full of twists and turns, and never goes to a commercial break or ends an episode without making you want to throw your controller at the TV screen. J.J. Abrams really knows how to make you love TV and hate life at the same time. I laughed, I jumped in fear, my draw dropped in shock, I got butterflies in my stomach and, yes, I even cried. I almost want to cut my vacation short so I can go home and borrow Seasons 2-5 from a friend, but for now I'm still enjoying being stranded on the island of Chios. If only there were a hatch around here for me to explode open with dynamite found in the Black Rock, or a small plane filled with the dead bodies of fake priests and Virgin Mary statues full of heroine. I guess I'll just have to settle with the arrival of my own version of "the others", my cousins and their friends who just arrived yesterday.
Overall Rating: A
National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985) – watched/written on July 25, 2009
Warning: stop reading this article right now if you want to end it with a good recommendation (Lost). I've seen National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and Vegas Vacation, and thought they were mildly entertaining. Since I am on a Greek vacation, I thought it might be appropriate to catch up on another one of the Griswold family adventures, especially one with a title similar to my current experience. Suddenly pretending to date a woman doesn't seem so bad. In fact, I just realized how much funnier it is than anything European Vacation has to offer. Maybe I should write a screenplay.
It all begins with the Griswold family as contestants on a game show called "Pig in a Poke." They've already won numerous prizes but have to option to pass them all up for a chance to win a special prize. The title alone sort of gives away what the prize will be AND whether or not they'll win that prize. Lo and behold, they won a two week trip to Europe. This is just one of many predictable moments we're offered.
This Vacation movie series finds humor in replacing their children, Audrey and Rusty, for each film, while the parents, Clark (Chevy Chase) and Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo), always remain the same. In Vegas Vacation, they were attractive children, so I wasn't so bothered by their oddball hijinks. Call me shallow, but if the director of European Vacation was going to have the young stars act a fool and make them constantly complain about A FREE VACATION (those spoiled brats), she could have at least cast cuter kids. A chubby girl with a bad perm? Don't worry, she's dating a beautiful blonde jock. Lord knows how, but she is. Her brother is a red headed, freckle covered 15-year-old with braces, yet the European women seem to find him irresistible. None of this movie is realistic. Even worse, none of it is funny.
As the Griswolds head to England, they all enjoy various dream sequences of what their trip might be like. Four attempts at humor and they all fall short. One sequence, featuring Princess Diana, barely made me crack a smile, and that was mostly out of nostalgia for the now deceased royalty. It was the highlight of the hour and a half film, and while it was the best part, I couldn't help but wonder why so much of the movie was wasted on dream sequences instead of what could be a wild adventure though a foreign land. It was then that I knew to predict the absence of a plot.
"Jokes" include driving on the wrong side of the road, an expensive phone bill, the difficulty of driving around a rotary, knocking down Stonehenge, doing a German jig, a car chase, Audrey's eating habits, the "sexual chemistry" between Clark and Ellen, a sex video scandal, more silly driving incidences, and so on. What is the fascination with driving in Europe? Was this really all the screenwriters could come up with? After the film removes the rental cars from the plot, they insert many blatant stereotypes of the foreign countries they visit to compensate, which would have offended me if I weren't American or if they included Greece on the itinerary. England is full of morons who forgive and forget car accidents with great big smiles, France is full of pretentious jerks who mock and abuse Americans, Germany is overly aggressive and nearly disregarded (when they arrive, subtitles note that they are "somewhere in Germany," as opposed to actual locations like London, England; Paris, France; and Rome, Italy), and Italians are suave con artists.
With only 20 minutes left, a subplot featuring a bank robbery, a kidnapping, a ransom and another kidnapping are crammed in for good measure. The writers must have realized they forgot to tell a story and assumed we'd forgive them if they added one in at the last second. Since it was so rushed and lacked depth, it only made me dislike the film more. If it weren't for Chevy Chase (who I like because of Saturday Night Live) and Beverly D'Angelo (who is wonderful as Ellen and I like on her stint on Entourage), I wouldn't have been able to tolerate the movie. It's a good thing I didn't watch European Vacation before the others in the series, or I might have missed out on what little the others have to offer. As it stands, this is the worst of the bunch and should be avoided at all costs, even if it you win the DVD on a silly game show.
Overall Rating: D-
*And that wraps another Take Five from Greece. Thanks again for joining my adventures and I hope you return to check out the next article in two weeks, on August 10, 2009.