EdExtract

No film buffs or Scorsese fans are going to take my word for it, but here goes a warning I need to get off my chest: THE DEPARTED is a wretched way to slowly waste 2.5 hours of your life.

We get Marty's little auteur flourishes, all of which we've seen repeatedly since GOODFELLAS, sprinkled heavily over the blandest spaghetti bowl of a plot.

The actors don't lack for talent, but here they seem to have been directed to give flashy soliloquies and never actually interact with each other. The film is like a whole series of audition readings, where each actor is reading his part alone on a stage. There can't be much chemistry if each chemical is kept in its own test tube!

Jack reprises his Joker role, except here he was encouraged to ham it up a little more. That said, he's the only aspect of this train wreck that kept me from giving the film one star instead of three. (Sorry, Mr. Nicholson; it wasn't your fault.) Sure, sneer at me because Marty won the BD Oscar. I can only conclude that 2006 was a year weak enough to console him for being robbed when he made GOODFELLAS, a great film that he has been remaking over and over. But this version stinks, and its success at the Academy Awards just means we will get loads of copycats who think this is what they should be chasing.

OK, now go ahead and waste your time watching it.

This time, the critics have opened their trench coats to expose their hypocrisies! When a film this good—that is, better than average—gets panned so badly by so many Hollywood critics, you have to wonder what made the critics sulk. Critics, like paparazzi, are parasites: few of them have ever created anything; instead, they live off the inspiration of others. But, as sophisticated readers and movie lovers know, the relationship between critics and artists is extremely complex: the artists need critics to expose their work and, sometimes, even interpret it.

But in this case, perhaps understandably (because murder is involved), the real critics working for US media (see Rotten Tomatoes) have responded to having the spotlight shone on their own profession by trying to bury this movie under piles of negative rhetoric.

Celebrity photographers and the tabloids they supply are our visual age's personality critics. Using photo essays and headlines, they can either tear down or glorify a star, just as print critics can alter our perceptions of written, painted, or performed art.

The Hollywood critics and the paparazzi walk, philosophically, hand and hand, so perhaps they feel protective of each other. And here, in PAPARAZZI, is some evidence of a mutual-protection society in action: a film that is competently acted, written, and directed, is demonized. Suddenly, in this age of senselessly violent movies that get called "artistic," "bold," etc., a movie in which parasitic photographers get a little more than what's coming to them is persecuted for violating a point of the old Hays Code (i.e. "Revenge (by murder) in modern times shall not be justified.")

This movie is sharply satiric, exciting, and satisfying, and there is very little graphic violence. How could it fairly be given 1 or even 0 stars unless the issuing critic is angry about the spotlight being swung in his or her direction? There have been plenty of gory films and revenge movies. When the "victims" of the "hero/vigilante" are sexually twisted stalkers or evil government agents, do critics get so high-minded about the "message" violence in cinema sends to the audience?

(Maybe a better question is: how dare a Hollywood insider, such as Mr. Gibson, laughingly throw a little hot sand in the out of control publicity machine?)

By trashing this generally entertaining film, the community of critics have made it a must-see for the controversial questions they and the film raise.

(Note: key elements of this movie's plot and themes can also be seen in the 1969 film, THEATER OF BLOOD, starring Vincent Price. I wonder how that was received by critics of its time.)

We get lots of movies here in Kunming. We pay about 72 cents for a DVD. Many times we buy movies that we'd pass up in the States for one reason or another.

Ben Stiller movies have become so darn predictable that only the desperation of boredom known only to expats in Kunming prompted me to buy it. Choices made due to desperation rarely pan out.

Poor Ben Stiller. He reminds me of a character in a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, a man who must keep reliving the same day over and over again. What circle of Dante's Hell would you say Ben Stiller is trapped in? MEET THE PARENTS and SOMETHING ABOUT MARY are two examples of movies nearly identical to ALONG CAME POLLY in plot and feel, but not in quality. ALONG CAME POLLY has the same dizzy type of girl looking for a sincere dimwit, a cute animal deserving a bit of kicking around, and a zoned out Ben Stiller character stumbling along until luck brings him into the arms of the dizzy girl.

The setup of the gags in ALONG CAME POLLY are pathetically and aggravatingly elaborate...And then the punchline, which was easy to visualize during the setup, becomes a disappointing scene I feel like I've already seen. It's as if the director says to the audience, "We are getting ready to make you laugh. Get ready...ready...LAUGH!"

And then there is Jennifer Aniston. If any TV actress perfectly exemplifies the charismatic inferiority of a sitcom princess to a true silver screen star, it is Ms. Aniston. Compare her to a great like Drew Barrymore or a lesser star such as Cameron Diaz, and it is easy to see she simply doesn't have the stuff to keep an audience interested and charmed for nearly two hours. She can barely do it in the 20 minutes or so she has on FRIENDS. In this movie her acting skill is as limp as her hair.

My advice to those thinking of watching this movie: if you can view it for 72 cents or less, and if you have some friends to keep you awake with conversation between the dull gags, avoid it anyway.

And now back to the monsoon...