Sting has Stung, the Hogs has Riz...
...I wonder where my patience is?Excuse me while I rant in the corner like a really crabby old man for a bit about movies (and a concert) that I'll never see.
People of America, why for the love of God's white silk knickers have you made Wild Hogs an across-the-board hit? Are you so utterly starved for escapism, so bereft of functioning grey matter that you're willing to pack theaters--at 11 bucks a head, no less--and waste 90 minutes of your lives on high-concept product that'd be laughed out of a King of Queens script powwow? Can you not see straight from the trailers that the star chemistry is more forced than the grin on Katie Couric's face? Am I the only human being in the U.S. of A who wants with all my heart and soul for Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence to go the hell AWAY?! And while we're at it, is anyone taking a collection to pay the wonderful William H. Macy NOT to do numbingly-dumb crap like this? If so, count me in.
You'd think that serious 'message movies' would offer some respite, but the previews for Reign Over Me inspire just as much bile in my craw. The soaring 'inspirational' music; the oh-so-topical subject matter leavening this formula weeper like frosting on a grease-saturated hamburger bun; one more teeth-clenchingly forced Hollywood pairing (Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler look wincingly uncomfortable together on the screen); the aroma of comedian-lurching-cloddishly-for-dramatic-credibility wafting from every frame. At least the chuckleheads excreting Wild Hogs aren't hiding behind a veneer of emotional profundity and self-importance (a big swat to the backs of the heads of critics hurling hosannas at this underwear-clad message-movie emperor). And while we're at it, is anyone taking up a collection to pay the wonderful Don Cheadle NOT to do emotionally disingenuous crap like this? If so, count me in.
Disturbia, meanwhile, sounds like a made-up title of a made-up horror movie dreamt up by some long-in-the-tooth scriptwriting mole as a plot device in an episode of Diagnosis: Murder. And Perfect Stranger, sadly (for Mark-Lin Baker and Bronson Pinchot, at least) is not the umpteenth megabuck big-screen adaptation of a TV show; just looks like another wafer-thin diet shortbread cookie of a thriller from here, with Halle Berry playing Nancy Drew to Bruce Willis's smirking Snidely Whiplash. When this hits theaters it could cause Berry's Oscar to spontaneously combust.
And finally on a completely different tangent, eighties rock superstars The Police reunite to take the money and run in a series of live arena shows (they arrive in Seattle in June). Every bit of
goodwill engendered by the relative niftiness of this band's first two albums has been utterly pummelled away by three decades' worth of the unchecked ego and grandpa's-polyester-shirt stodginess of the band's lead singer (like I said about Harry Connick, Jr. awhile back, I don't care how much photographic evidence you present me to the contrary: Sting is more of a gassy old man than Tony Bennett'll ever be). The only good that'll ever come from one of rock's greatest drummers and one of its most influential guitarists reuniting with this musty windbag is a significant fattening of their respective wallets. And don't tell me that this tour amounts to anything else.
I feel an essay on the utter fraudulence of Sting's work on the massively-overrated Police swansong Synchronicity coming on. After all, the album's biggest hit was so suitably wallysville as to merit sampling by Hip-Hop's Crown Prince of Vacuous Insincerity, and its second-biggest track name-dropped Greek mythology to a now-laughable Velveeta reggae backbeat. But what's coming on even stronger is the need to go to bed.
There. I feel better now. Good night.
People of America, why for the love of God's white silk knickers have you made Wild Hogs an across-the-board hit? Are you so utterly starved for escapism, so bereft of functioning grey matter that you're willing to pack theaters--at 11 bucks a head, no less--and waste 90 minutes of your lives on high-concept product that'd be laughed out of a King of Queens script powwow? Can you not see straight from the trailers that the star chemistry is more forced than the grin on Katie Couric's face? Am I the only human being in the U.S. of A who wants with all my heart and soul for Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence to go the hell AWAY?! And while we're at it, is anyone taking a collection to pay the wonderful William H. Macy NOT to do numbingly-dumb crap like this? If so, count me in.
You'd think that serious 'message movies' would offer some respite, but the previews for Reign Over Me inspire just as much bile in my craw. The soaring 'inspirational' music; the oh-so-topical subject matter leavening this formula weeper like frosting on a grease-saturated hamburger bun; one more teeth-clenchingly forced Hollywood pairing (Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler look wincingly uncomfortable together on the screen); the aroma of comedian-lurching-cloddishly-for-dramatic-credibility wafting from every frame. At least the chuckleheads excreting Wild Hogs aren't hiding behind a veneer of emotional profundity and self-importance (a big swat to the backs of the heads of critics hurling hosannas at this underwear-clad message-movie emperor). And while we're at it, is anyone taking up a collection to pay the wonderful Don Cheadle NOT to do emotionally disingenuous crap like this? If so, count me in.Disturbia, meanwhile, sounds like a made-up title of a made-up horror movie dreamt up by some long-in-the-tooth scriptwriting mole as a plot device in an episode of Diagnosis: Murder. And Perfect Stranger, sadly (for Mark-Lin Baker and Bronson Pinchot, at least) is not the umpteenth megabuck big-screen adaptation of a TV show; just looks like another wafer-thin diet shortbread cookie of a thriller from here, with Halle Berry playing Nancy Drew to Bruce Willis's smirking Snidely Whiplash. When this hits theaters it could cause Berry's Oscar to spontaneously combust.
And finally on a completely different tangent, eighties rock superstars The Police reunite to take the money and run in a series of live arena shows (they arrive in Seattle in June). Every bit of
goodwill engendered by the relative niftiness of this band's first two albums has been utterly pummelled away by three decades' worth of the unchecked ego and grandpa's-polyester-shirt stodginess of the band's lead singer (like I said about Harry Connick, Jr. awhile back, I don't care how much photographic evidence you present me to the contrary: Sting is more of a gassy old man than Tony Bennett'll ever be). The only good that'll ever come from one of rock's greatest drummers and one of its most influential guitarists reuniting with this musty windbag is a significant fattening of their respective wallets. And don't tell me that this tour amounts to anything else.I feel an essay on the utter fraudulence of Sting's work on the massively-overrated Police swansong Synchronicity coming on. After all, the album's biggest hit was so suitably wallysville as to merit sampling by Hip-Hop's Crown Prince of Vacuous Insincerity, and its second-biggest track name-dropped Greek mythology to a now-laughable Velveeta reggae backbeat. But what's coming on even stronger is the need to go to bed.
There. I feel better now. Good night.
Comments
Great work!!! This is going to sound like AA or something, but there's a real support group for all those who just don't get/like Sting get involved with The Campaign for Sting For Nolte, seriously...
http://www.stingfornolte.com