Chelsea Clinton Stole My Man!!!

reviewed Sun, 30 Jul 2000

I'll get to the movies in a minute, but first I have to explain the headline for my weekend.  My friend Stephen was kind enough to invite me to the White House picnic on Saturday.  Free food, free rides, and the smug sense of superiority looking at the plebian tourists huddled enviously outside the gate -- does life get any better?  As we walked around, I spotted a beautiful man -- tall, dark, handsome, and fabulously dressed, and my friend said he wasn't getting any readings on his Gaydar, so I insisted we stalk... uh, follow this guy. We briefly lost him and his friend, and when Stephen spotted them again, there was some chickie talking to my man, and when she left him, she touched his arm, and I'm all, "Get your stinkin' hands off him!"  So we walk past the chickie, who's talking to her friends, and Stephen is all, "Did you see that?  Your competition?"  I thought he meant she was talking to her friends about the guy, so I asked if he heard anything.  He was all, "No, that was Chelsea."  I was like, no, it wasn't.  We turn around, and there's a crowd of people around the chickie taking her picture.  Oh. It is Chelsea.  (Which made me think, maybe the beautiful man was a Secret Service agent, and he was looking at me not because he thought I was hot, but because he thought I was a security risk.  I wanted to say to him, "I'm stalking YOU, not Chelsea!")  So I bowed out, because who am I to compete with Chelsea Clinton?  She can say, "Want to see my house, decorated with priceless American heirlooms, and meet my dad, the President?"  I can say, "Want to see my house, decorated with cheap crap from gas stations, and see a picture of me looking at the President?"  Besides, I don't think the guy would have been interested in me anyway, so grousing that Chelsea stole him is really just a way of saving face.

Anyway, to the movies...

Eyes Wide Shut:  I was peer pressured into seeing this movie; I never wanted to see it, but everyone kept asking my opinion of it, so I saw it as my duty as a self-appointed arbiter of taste to form an opinion.  I am not, contrary to what everyone seems to think, a Kubrick fan. Dr. Strangelove is brilliant, and I enjoyed Lolita, The Shining, and Full Metal Jacket, but Kubrick's work is generally too cold and sterile for me.  And Eyes Wide Shut is frozen in that same remote chill.  First of all, every.      One.        Talks.        Like.        This.      And then they repeat things.  Do they repeat things? Yes, they repeat things.  We get long, meaningful shots of Tom Cruise's furrowed face -- at least, they would be meaningful if his face conveyed anything more agonizing than, "Where did I leave my keys?"  Get folks talking at a human pace, slice the redundancies, and cut the Cruise soul searching, and the movie's maybe half the length.  Not that that would make it any better.  It's sort of like After Hours, only it takes itself deadly seriously.  Where After Hours's surreal experiences were played for laughs, Eyes Wide Shut's are lurid and overwrought, getting laughs, too, but probably not intentionally.  I may sound like I'm slamming this movie, but really, I didn't have much of a reaction to it.  Didn't like it, didn't hate it.  So, my review?  A shrug.

Never Been Kissed:  Actually, this was another peer pressure one.  Never would have watched it if the most unlikely people hadn't said good things.  It's painless and inoffensive, but it's a little much to have us believe Drew Barrymore could be an ugly geek in high school.  And then she falls for the hunky, sensitive, insightful teacher.  How come all the teachers in my high school were, like, 50 years old and smelled like socks?

Two disappointments, both of which looked great on paper but bored me silly.  Soft Fruit -- Australian, and yet, not good.  Go figure.  Orphans -- Directed by Peter Mullen, who starred in the under-seen My Name Is Joe.  Supposed to be a very black comedy.  Well, if by "black" you mean "horribly depressing, sad, and unfunny," then, yes, it is a black comedy.  Rent My Name Is Joe instead.

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