Laurel Canyon
So I saw Laurel Canyon today and I really should have stayed home. There was a 5:00 movie down the street and at like 4:50 I decided I was gonna go. So I threw on a sweatshirt and sweatpants and boatshoes and picked up a small can of pringles (yes frickin pringles) and a diet dr. pepper. I got there just as the previews started up and all the movies coming out look heinous. Bend It Like Beckham? They can't hide the fact that this movie sucks by slathering it up with foreign. What A Girl Wants? Uch. Double uch. And there was one other that I glossed over. Oh by the way they ran Sierra Mist ads again. Please boycott.
I put my feet up over the seat in front of me and settled in for a movie which I knew nothing about except Frances McDormand was in it and I think she's super so I was semi-psyched. The movie starts off relatively slowly putting two boring characters together-- Christian Bale-Bateman and some generic hot chick. Both were boring characters and the movie tried to get us all interested in their boring lives. Except the problem was the boring spilled over right off the screen into my lap and laid there like a lump.
Frances McDormand pretty much saved this movie from being a complete snoozer. Cause she really did light things up. She played Bateman's mom cool record producer living in a nice house smoking weed and producing albums or whatever. Bateman and his girlfriend go and stay with her and their boringness clashes with her hipsterity.
Blah blah blah. I won't get into the plot any more than that. It's really not necessary. Because this movie never grew beyond the basic idea for what the movie was supposed to be. The dialogue was all laggy and there wasn't one line that cut deep. It was all spelled out for us all nice and neat and it lacked humor big time. There were a few moments of good subtlety. Oh! And it did have little spicy sex scene. But it could have easily crossed over onto the Spice Channel. It was pretty cheese.
The shame about this movie is it looked good. And as boring as it was I wasn't bored out of my mind. I did watch it and got thru it without really ever hating it. Frances looked great and hot. Some of the shots were nicely set up. The side characters were all in place. But they all sort of stood around and looked at each other like...ok... so what do you want us to do. And the director was like... "I don't know. Act dramatic! I'm working on setting up the shot. Just do whatever. Don't worry it's all going to look good and artsy. We got a pool. We got like artists. We got like California! I'm gonna shoot the water! You just do your boring thing while I throw this whole movie onto McDormands back and let her lug it around for a really long hour and a half until it builds to an unconvincing climax! and..... ACTION!"
Three Good Things About This Movie
- Frances McDormand is great and we get to see a flash of her boobs.
- The spice channel sex scene was still kind of hot.
- The guy who played the rock star (don't know his name and am too lazy to look
it up right now) had some good lines.
Three Bad Things About This Movie
- It seemed like they left out all the good stuff.
- With all the dialogue at no point did I feel like I really knew anyone in the
movie.
- They didn't show the hot chicks boobs. And she flatlined as a character.
All in all this movie is a video rental. Or just wait for it to appear on cable a couple years from now and watch it on a lazy afternoon. Because you can doze off for 20 minutes or so and not even care. Or better yet (maybe literally) - just flip over a soap opera.