Criminals are hawt
Today at the mall I noticed that 50 Cent movie "Get Rich or Die Tryin'"
has come out on DVD. In the revised movie poster, Fiddy is gently
holding a sleeping baby in his arms. I wonder what focus group gave the
producers that idea.
I watched the first two episodes of "Heist", the new cops and robbers drama that tries to be a combination of the movies "Heat" and "Ocean's 11". The main storyline is that a bunch of cool and wisecracking criminals plans to rob a bunch of Rodeo Drive jewellery stores during the Oscar Night, with a projected goal of hundreds of millions of dollars in diamonds. The criminals have some kind of a complicated plan for doing this, and they helpfully discuss its presently relevant details out loud in the stores and on Rodeo Drive itself so that the viewers find it easier to see what is going on. Let's hope no security guard will overhear them, or film them pointing around with a security camera.
After two episodes, the format of each future episode has become clear: the gang reaches some subgoal of their grand scheme by executing some needlessly complicated plan that precariously depends on some third party doing some thing exactly without having been told to do so. Meanwhile on the white hats' side, the strong and independent girl detective catches the criminal redshirts of the week while her two underling detectives, a young black rookie paired with a cynical and fat white racist, annoy each other but gradually become friends and learn to respect each other. Will the master criminal succeed in his plan of seducing the girl detective to ultimately join his side? Will the criminal crew succeed in pulling their diamond caper, or will they fail but learn that the real "loot" was the fond memories that they were creating together? And was it Richard Burgi who plays the master criminal's ex-wife's new husband? That guy sure is in every show these days! I guess we'll just have to watch and see! Although I don't think that I will. These days if a show doesn't capture me in its first episode, that's that about that.
It was amusing to note that every single newspaper that I read gave "Basic Instict 2" (or as Dose magazine dubbed it in its review, "American Cougar in London") one star out of five. Apparently the movie is just as stupid as I predicted, essentially a remake of the Madonna flop "Body of Evidence". Some hack screenwriter probably wrote an "erotic thriller" that the producers bought and rewrote so that it involves the main elements and themes of the original, Sharon joined in for the paycheck, and conveniently "leaked" nudie scenes created buzz on the Internet. But hey, whatever. Myself, I never quite understood what exactly was so "powerful" in a woman showing her crotch and why this was some kind of an important cultural event that was rewarded with a $300M box office gross worldwide, since thousands of porn starlets routinely do the same.
I think I recently read some book that proved that watching The Sopranos makes you smarter, so I can do this with a good conscience and announce this habit to the whole world without losing my status as a cosmopolitan urban intellectual. Sunday night is always The Sopranos night, now that the new season has finally started. The only problem with this show is that it always gives me a hankering to eat something Italian. I guess that I'd better not write anything about the plot twists of the new season so that I wouldn't spoil the enjoyment of my Finnish readers who don't get to see this show until later --- and learn why the movie title "Ghostbusters" has been so rib-ticklingly funny for the past week. I couldn't explain it, but you'll know when you see it.
I watched the first two episodes of "Heist", the new cops and robbers drama that tries to be a combination of the movies "Heat" and "Ocean's 11". The main storyline is that a bunch of cool and wisecracking criminals plans to rob a bunch of Rodeo Drive jewellery stores during the Oscar Night, with a projected goal of hundreds of millions of dollars in diamonds. The criminals have some kind of a complicated plan for doing this, and they helpfully discuss its presently relevant details out loud in the stores and on Rodeo Drive itself so that the viewers find it easier to see what is going on. Let's hope no security guard will overhear them, or film them pointing around with a security camera.
After two episodes, the format of each future episode has become clear: the gang reaches some subgoal of their grand scheme by executing some needlessly complicated plan that precariously depends on some third party doing some thing exactly without having been told to do so. Meanwhile on the white hats' side, the strong and independent girl detective catches the criminal redshirts of the week while her two underling detectives, a young black rookie paired with a cynical and fat white racist, annoy each other but gradually become friends and learn to respect each other. Will the master criminal succeed in his plan of seducing the girl detective to ultimately join his side? Will the criminal crew succeed in pulling their diamond caper, or will they fail but learn that the real "loot" was the fond memories that they were creating together? And was it Richard Burgi who plays the master criminal's ex-wife's new husband? That guy sure is in every show these days! I guess we'll just have to watch and see! Although I don't think that I will. These days if a show doesn't capture me in its first episode, that's that about that.
It was amusing to note that every single newspaper that I read gave "Basic Instict 2" (or as Dose magazine dubbed it in its review, "American Cougar in London") one star out of five. Apparently the movie is just as stupid as I predicted, essentially a remake of the Madonna flop "Body of Evidence". Some hack screenwriter probably wrote an "erotic thriller" that the producers bought and rewrote so that it involves the main elements and themes of the original, Sharon joined in for the paycheck, and conveniently "leaked" nudie scenes created buzz on the Internet. But hey, whatever. Myself, I never quite understood what exactly was so "powerful" in a woman showing her crotch and why this was some kind of an important cultural event that was rewarded with a $300M box office gross worldwide, since thousands of porn starlets routinely do the same.
I think I recently read some book that proved that watching The Sopranos makes you smarter, so I can do this with a good conscience and announce this habit to the whole world without losing my status as a cosmopolitan urban intellectual. Sunday night is always The Sopranos night, now that the new season has finally started. The only problem with this show is that it always gives me a hankering to eat something Italian. I guess that I'd better not write anything about the plot twists of the new season so that I wouldn't spoil the enjoyment of my Finnish readers who don't get to see this show until later --- and learn why the movie title "Ghostbusters" has been so rib-ticklingly funny for the past week. I couldn't explain it, but you'll know when you see it.
I'm not sure why it was "Basic Instinct" of all erotic thrillers back then (or was it just the first one of them all) that became so successful, but sure you can tell that there was a certain message in the movie: "Girls, you can become powerful by choosing carefully who you show your crotch to and when you do it."
The movie also praised psychological studies and woman intelligence so much that I have often wondered if this can be seen in the number of applications to undergraduate study in psychology after the movie got out.
Perhaps the movie became so popular because it was the first movie that gave men an impression "this is a soft-porn movie _and your girlfriend is going to like it_!" I can imagine why it worked back then but it wouldn't work anymore.
Posted by Rebyk | 4:41 AM