emgasulla

I can understand that our average bong-smoking, jobless, couch (or rug) potato American doesn't see himself represented too often in the movies, at least not in a favorable light, so The Big Lebowski must be appealing to a sizable portion of our population. But, for the rest of us, this movie is painful to watch. Have you ever tried to listen to a gang of complete idiots chitchatting for ten minutes? Then go figure what it is to watch it for a full length movie. The worst thing is, the fact this movie was done by the Coen bros. and has a well known cast gives it an aura of respectability it does not deserve. Forget for a second the names in the credits and you're watching standard Cheech & chong material. And that's not a good thing.

I honestly don't think the movie is worth an 8, not in its released form. But since the cuts and additions from the suits are so painfully obvious, I'm willing to give a higher rating to the movie that could have been... and for now, only the original director Oliver something has seen.

So the original movie (which is still discernible somehow) was supposed to be a dark, slow take on isolation, pill overuse and boring modern life. With a twist: a mom so desperate to protect her child, she would silently watch other people being killed as long as she can find her kid. That's actually moving and seldom seen in a macho-dominated Hollywood. I won't say that ice cold Kidman is the right choice to depict a desperate mom, but given that her role is to often look emotionless (so she can pass as another "pod people") she doesn't do too badly.

Now, the suits didn't like that and called those soft-brained Wachowski bros to make it -supposedly- more mainstream. And what they did was to add car chases, crashes, helicopters, fires and senseless violence in general. Inserted into the original movie at close intervals to keep people amused (or so they thought). Now, there are a few good directors who can pull out a combination of slow burn and crazy action. But a patchwork movie made of two different directors' bits, guys with widely opposed instincts and goals, no wonder the result is a flop.

If anything is to be learned from this, it's how little do Hollywood executives know about what makes a good movie. Granted, a non-stop mishmash of violence and fifth-drink bar philosophy like The Matrix can earn the big bucks, but you can't expect Matrix-like bits to improve what was intended to be a slow paced, moody film. Which was probably condemned to be a box office failure, but also could have been pretty good.

I just happen to cross paths with this miniseries looking for something else, and I thought it would be amusing to read the reviews.

And amusing it was, but in the wrong sense: turns out that most people think of it as one of TV's greatest masterpieces!!! I remember it as an over-sized turd. Primitive idea, appealing to our worst fears and prejudices (aliens might look good from the outside but actually they are cruel, ugly lizards). Stone faced acting. You-got-to-be-kidding plot twists. True, the first scenes looked decent, but the very moment some green lizard skin was exposed it became just another crappy TV laughing stock.

Well, no wonder Hollywood suits can still pullout stinkers like Independence Day -if so many people think V was that great!