Scribblerchick's Movie Dish

Mr. Woodcock

I saw the previews for this film and I thought it looked interesting - a quirky little movie about a kid who grows up and watches his widowed mother get involved with his sadistic former gym teacher. Cool. I once had a sadistic gym teacher. Didn't we all? This movie fell flat on its face, though.

Maybe my expectations were too high. Billy Bob Thornton plays the gym teacher, and he usually chooses good roles in intelligent films. Susan Sarandon is also in it, as the mom, and she, too, usually picks good material. I guess everyone screws up once in a while.

This movie wasn't sure what it wanted to be. It looks like a little indie film, done in a small town in Nebraska. No flashy special effects. Yet, Billy Bob and Sarandon are major "stars." The problem is, it didn't have the slickness of Hollywood, BUT it didn't have the cleverness or uniqueness of most indie films [the ones I've seen that were any good, anyway].

Is Mr. Woodcock  a comedy or a drama? Or a "dramedy"? I don't know. I laughed out loud only about 4 times. My kids laughed out loud maybe once.

WARNING - THIS CONTAINS A SPOILER!

I so WANTED to see John, the main character, exact revenge on Woodcock. The audience is set up for that from the beginning. After all, John was personally brutalized by Woodcock as a child. There's no payoff, though. [In a Hollywood film, there would be a what the writers call a "payoff" scene - where a character gets what's coming to them.] No such scene in this film.

No, instead of a payoff, the film goes all mushy. It's about John making peace with the fact his mother is marrying Woodcock. Instead of getting her away from the monster, he caves in. I wanted him to sit down and patiently explain to her all of the awful things Woodcock did to him as a chubby, unathletic child. I wanted him to tell his Mother how Woodcock hit kids in the testicles, made them run until they collapsed, etc. There's one scene that LOOKS like it's going to go there, then doesn't.

Woodcock is a one-dimensional character, only getting 1% nicer by film's end. I hated to see John's mother with him. I wanted to see him beaten to a pulp and run out of town.

No wonder this came out and quickly died. I was hoping to watch it and discover an overlooked gem of a movie. Instead, I felt like I'd just wasted my time.

The Forbidden Kingdom

I took the kids to see The Forbidden Kingdom on Sunday afternoon. I was glad I had watched the preview on the computer twice, once with each child, though. The plot is a tiny bit complicated.

I read The Hobbit when I was a kid, well, the first 5 pages or so. When I realized I was going to have to remember all the background material and the structure and rules of the whole Hobbit world, I quit reading. That's what fantasy is all about. You have to understand and accept an entire alternate reality, and that's just too mentally exhausting, to me. I saw the Hobbit movies when they came out, but really just because my dates wanted to see them. I didn't understand the plots too well, and I concentrated on fantasies about me and Viggo Mortenson.

[I read recently that Viggo doesn't use deoderant. Therefore, no more fantasies, unless we're talking about me spraying him with deoderant. Not too enticing, that one.]

Anyway, The Forbidden Kingdom takes place mostly in what looks like China of 300 or so years ago. To sum up the plot: a teenager in America who loves kung fu movies takes a magic staff from a pawnshop owner and is transported to a different reality, where he's told it's the staff of the Monkey King. The Monkey King was turned into a statue in a duel with the Jade Warlord. If MK gets his staff back he will stop the reign of the evil Jade Warlord. The teenager sets out to give back the staff. For a much more detailed plot summary see here.

I loved Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and ever since then I've made a point of seeing the occasional martial arts movie. I particularly love seeing the choreographed fight sequences with the combatants on wires, leaping and spinning like mad.

My only complaint with The Forbidden Kingdom is that the fight sequences go on a little too long, and are a shade too elaborate. Watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight is awesome, but watching them go into combat against dozens of guys with weapons is a bit much. Sometimes the sequences just went on and on, and I found myself thinking hmm, how much furniture did they actually break making this? did they have a chiropractor on the set every day? why does their hair always look nice and why don't they sweat when they fight?

The young actor who plays the kid transported to China is Michael Angarano. He has the same flaring nostrils as Judd Nelson. I don't mind that. I did mind a couple of closeups where he had visible whitehead pimples [or nipples, as my son sometimes calls them accidentally.] You'd think with their budget they could've gotten the kid to the dermatologist before filming began.

These are niggling complaints, though. Overall, it was a very entertaining film. There was also no nudity or bad language, and I think anyone would enjoy it, except maybe a small child who couldn't keep up with the plot. Or someone who's really looking for a lot of cussing and nudity. Or if you're a small child who likes films with cussing and nudity. Frightening thought. I digress...