Want moore? Mandy, perhaps
SO- Planetarium finagled access to an ultra-exclusive screening of Fahrenheit 9/11 last night, the day before the official release, so that we could give you, dear readers, a pre-hype guide to the water-cooler talk for the weekend, so you know just what to say to the annoying people who come up to you and want to talk about it before you've seen it. We've even prepared a couple of sentences that you can spew out quickly and then retreat, leaving them with the distinct impression that you, too, have already seen it. So when that fuckin' dork at the bar or at the next cubicle down sidles up to you while you're trying to finish reading the sweet piece on Batman Begins in the newest Entertainment Weekly, and says "So what'd you think about Fahrenheit 9/11?", you can reply forthrightly:
1. "Ahhh, it was good. Not great, but good. Don't you wish it had been funnier?"
2. "Man, it got a lot better in the second hour, didn't it? Once he forgot about everything else and just focused on the Iraq war?"
3. (assume blank look)"What the hell is THAT?" (pull copy of Hustler out of back pocket) "I'm just tryin' to get my FREAK on, knamean?"
All three will be patently true. At least, we assume you're trying to get your freak on. But one and two are definitely true. It's a serioud topic, to be sure, but Moore seems to be falling into the trap of political satirists since time immemorial: He seems to have stopped making good entertainment out of being outraged, and is instead just plain outraged. There's some moments of hilarity, but the best clips you already saw in the trailer. Drag, right? This is not to say it's not very worth seeing, just that you may have to be in a slightly different demographic to really love it. (Planetarium brought a friend who was NOT a Michael Moore fan normally, and she really enjoyed it.)
On the other hand, we DO have a movie that requires your immediate attention. A movie destined for greatness. A movie that demands repeat watching, to fully appreciate just how great it is. We refer, of course, to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story". Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn have apparently remembered how to be funny again, because it's Stiller's best work since Zoolander, and Vaughn's best since, well, Old School. Okay, not so long ago- guess Vaughn is just more consistent.
We'll be back this weekend with more truth- here on Planetarium.
Comments
I didn't think it should be any more funny. To me it's like saying the movie about how fucked up Hitler was wasn't satirical enough. "I just wanted to be able to laugh after seeing all those dead people, man." Bowling for Columbine dealt with a serious problem, no doubt, but the scale is incomparable, in my opinion. If we were in a post-Bush world where everything is fixed, I might want to laugh. Join the DFL.
Posted by: B. Alec | July 1, 2004 12:00 AM