V: The Not-at-all Shocking Disaster of an Unnecessary Remake

I try not to judge a television show too negatively based on its pilot. After all, every show takes a little while to hit its stride. 30 Rock hadn't yet gained the confidence to hit its loony, less sitcommy beats; Mad Men hadn't yet struck the magnetic balance between being visually (and somewhat superficially) stunning and intellectually/emotionally stimulating; Dexter was a little too quick to tell instead of show. In these cases, they just needed a little time. I tried - nay, struggled - to keep this in mind as I watched the pilot for V, ABC's flashy remake of an 80s "classic" (I hesitate to use the word, but it's pretty close, I guess). Whatever you want to say about the original miniseries, you cannot call it "just obnoxiously stupid." That is what you can call the remake.

Everything about this show is uninspired, from the plodding direction to the lazy and/or awkward acting. Instead of characters, we have Types, easily recognized by anyone who's seen what-the-studios-want-us-to-believe-is-edgy production: The Cynical & Resourceful FBI Agent Who Cares About Her Son; The Man Who Sees His Bland Girlfriend As a Chance at A New Life; The Scruffy Young Priest Who Is Having Doubts And Questioning Things; and, of course, The Eager Reporter Who Wants To Be Taken More Seriously. I'm bored just writing those titles; you can imagine how it felt to watch them drag themselves across the screen.

Some are reading this show as carrying an anti-Obama message. Anna, Queen or Whatever of the Vs, is beautiful, poised, and insistent on only being portrayed positively by the media. The Vs use catchy yet rote phrases like "we are of peace always' and "hope," and find an especially strong following in America's youth. They even wish to deliver "universal health care" to the world. The Scruffy Young Priest, in a fit of Having Doubts and Questioning Things, cautions against bandwagoning and trusting things before they've "earned our trust." The Eager Reporter, who quickly becomes sympathetic towards the Vs after Anna flirts with him, wonders on-screen whether they deserve so much scrutiny since "after all, they just got here." At this point, the Obama interpretation doesn't "make sense" so much as "club your face like you're a baby seal." I'm all for subversive messages, but literally any subtlety at all would make the message actually worth while. As it is, it just feels simultaneously inert and knee jerky.

I will say that the second twist of the episode really did surprise me. In the last 10 minutes, we find out that two Types we've come to know and not care about over the past half hour are actually Vs. The first one isn't a surprise at all, since he is so inept at his job of finding out things about Vs as to be hugely suspicious. It's extremely possible that this obvious twist was installed just to distract the audience from the real surprise awaiting them; in which case, I very grudgingly congratulate the writers. Very, very grudgingly. It's just about the only more-than-competent thing they do all episode.

M

How to Lose A Viewer in (Less Than) 10 Minutes

I don't know how many people are with me on this, but I periodically take the opportunity to watch movies just to test my endurance. These movies tend to be mediocre-to-poor romantic comedies, which are my absolute least favorite genre. It's something like a baptism of fire, I suppose - I emerge with renewed love for good cinema, reminded of just how rare it really is. I tried this most recently with the movie Made of Honor (I understand the title is a pun, but what the fuck, movie), and I'm ashamed to say I couldn't withstand five minutes.

Ok. I know that the beginning of the movie is (arbitrarily) set in 1998. I know that that means the movie will take the opportunity to subject its audience to some nostalgia-inducing, lowest common denominator tunes. But did it have to be That Smash Mouth Song That's Not "Allstar"? You know the one. It's in all the mediocre-to-poor romantic comedies made from 1997-2001, for whatever reason. Its use broadcasts, from the first second, that this isn't a movie that's going to try hard in any way, or do anything remotely different from all the MTPRC's before it. Great.

The scene opens on Cornell's campus, where a swingin' costume party is taking place. We'll put aside the fact that there are no swingin' anything parties at Cornell, and instead laugh at the lazy screenwriter shorthand for "brilliant but accessible" - they don't go to Harvard, so they're not snobs; but they do go to a Good School, so they're totally smart! Anyway, some doofy guy dances around wearing a Bill Clinton mask, and is quickly surrounded by three women dressed as Monica Lewinsky. Ah, 1998. When Monica jokes were still relevant, if not necessarily funny. Don't you wish we could go back to that time? I know screenwriters Sztykiel, Kaplan, and Elfont do!

Bill Clinton then weaves his way into a dorm room and begins whispering sweet nothings to the motionless lump on the bed while hopping out of his clothes. (Please note that there was no response whatsoever from the motionless lump, a point which leads me to believe that this alleged protagonist would probably have had sex with her while she slept. Not choosy, our boy.) Suddenly, the woman awakens from her slumber and begins screaming "adorably," then sprays Bill's face with what we think is mace. A case of mistaken identity? Looks like things just got madcap! One completely random plug for Calvin Klein's "Eternity" (that's what our heroine used instead of mace. Because.....it's hilarious?) later, and I had to turn the whole thing off.

I didn't get to the point when the heroine asks her best friend to be her maid of honor. (Hell, I didn't even get to the point where these two become best friends.) Perhaps the film explains why she is determined to call this man a maid, when she could easily have just asked him to be the best man, but I very much doubt it. Perhaps the film tries to be more than a limp, gender-swapped remake of My Best Friend's Wedding, but I doubt that too. I do know that, as far as terrible movies go, I have met my match. Well played, Patrick Dempsey. Well played.

Donkey Punch: Even Dumber Than You'd Expect

Let's all just be honest with each other - a movie named Donkey Punch didn't really have a fighting chance. At best, a viewer armed only with the title and a vague idea that it's about 20-somethings on a boat who start killing each other could expect a harmless guilty pleasure on par with Cruel Intentions 2 (you read it right. That 2 was intentional). Unfortunately, I didn't have nearly so delightful an experience.

So, the basic premise: three lower-middle class young things are having a Girls' Weekend Out in Mallorca to help one of them (her name could well be Kim) get over a bad break up. They meet three upper-middle class young men who invite them to spend the night on "their" boat. For whatever reason, the two girls who aren't Kim are barely skeeved out by the obviously-skeevy boys at all, and happily take them up on the offer. A few drug inhalations and a conversation about sex acts later, and two of the rather loosely-formed couples take it to the bedroom. By the end of this scene, someone winds up on the wrong (read: fatal) end of a donkey punch. Complicating matters somewhat - the fact that this girl, whose name may be Lisa, was on ecstasy and weed when she died; the fact that the whole episode was filmed; and the fact that the boys simply want to just dump the body and chalk it up to a drunken fall overboard. Before you can say "three naked penises," people are waving guns and knives about, and nobody's trusting anybody.

Around this time, the movie makes a decision. It could be an interesting study in trust, friendship, self-preservation, and class conflicts - the fact that the three boys went to public school (which is British for private school) is mentioned early on, after all, as is the possibility that one of Kim's friends could have been the reason for her break up. Or, it could be a random assemblage of scenes involving no tension or character development whatsoever. You can imagine which direction the movie chose. For most of the movie, you're just watching hot young things bicker, then suddenly stab/shoot each other. One young man gets shot with a flare gun for no discernible reason, except perhaps to show what happens when someone gets shot with a flare gun. (Apparently the flare shoots straight through the body, while flames consume the clothes and friends look on in mute boredom.) I honestly have no idea what the characters' motivations were to walk into a room, let alone start killing each other.

The rudderless plot could have been salvaged by engaging performances; alas, no such luck. None of these characters is remotely likable or even interesting, so one feels nothing for them or for their situations. One performance in particular - that of Julian Morris, the baby-faced boy who administers the fateful donkey punch - becomes extremely laughable when the time comes for him to do anything but smile bashfully. When he threatens people, be it with weapons or with jail time, he's less menacing and more idiotic. Morris keeps showing up in these movies (Cry_Wolf and Sorority Row, to name the two that I've seen), and his presence in any film at all is making less and less sense to me.

By the end of the day, only one character survives the aimless melee. In case you were curious, it was the Sensible Brunette - "sensible" here meaning she only takes half an ecstasy pill, while the others all take one each. Of course, this is the same character who broke through a glass door for NO REASON AT ALL, so I suppose "sensible" only goes so far. Anyway, now that you know the ending, you can go ahead and give this awkward fumble of a movie a miss.

M