Elizabethtown (2005)
A failure on every conceivable level (except maybe the soundtrack).
1) The premise is ludicrous: supremely ugly and stupidly named sports shoes ("Spasmodica"!) make a company lose more than 900 million dollars. How is that even possible in a country that embraced day-glo crocs? And if I suspend my disbelief on the point that the public ignores ugly (or renames it something better) when it's the "next big thing" -- I'll ask a) did no one at the company have eyes? b) did they not test them? c) why did they spend so damn much on such a risky venture? It's absolutely mindboggling that one kid has to take entire blame for this and would fall apart over it rather than lash back at the company who let him fail.
2) The voice over is stilted and is neither poetic nor meaningful enough to be an asset.
3) Orlando Bloom looks about 10 years younger than (and bears no physical similarity to) Judy Greer, yet is cast as her older brother.
4) Susan Sarandon, someone most people can agree is a pretty decent actress, actually made me CRINGE in her big scene on the stage. It was so awful that I forced Gary to sit through it so that, in years to come when I refer to the hideous scene, he'll know what the heck I'm talking about.
5) The love story was crazy. Kirsten Dunst is a possible stalker and seems to have way more time than everyone else in the movie. How else to explain that she was able to put together a tailored scrapbook complete with maps, photos, and mix CDs for a days-long road trip all timed precisely for the driving time? That project was the type of thing that college-level art students are assigned at the beginning of a semester to be completed as part of their final grades. The only way it's even possible she'd be able to present that to him would be if she'd pre-made several in her spare time to be used as needed.
6) Absolutely no one in this movie was real: none of the central characters, none of the peripheral family members, none of the people at the shoe company, and none of the people in the hotel's ubiquitous wedding party. They were all bad actors playing characters in a sucky sitcom -- something on ABCFamily, maybe.
Seriously, nothing worked in this movie. It's a terrible mash-up. I'm sure I'm not the first person to call this movie Cameron Crowe's Spasmodica. I just hope he doesn't go all "suicide bike" over it.
F
1) The premise is ludicrous: supremely ugly and stupidly named sports shoes ("Spasmodica"!) make a company lose more than 900 million dollars. How is that even possible in a country that embraced day-glo crocs? And if I suspend my disbelief on the point that the public ignores ugly (or renames it something better) when it's the "next big thing" -- I'll ask a) did no one at the company have eyes? b) did they not test them? c) why did they spend so damn much on such a risky venture? It's absolutely mindboggling that one kid has to take entire blame for this and would fall apart over it rather than lash back at the company who let him fail.
2) The voice over is stilted and is neither poetic nor meaningful enough to be an asset.
3) Orlando Bloom looks about 10 years younger than (and bears no physical similarity to) Judy Greer, yet is cast as her older brother.
4) Susan Sarandon, someone most people can agree is a pretty decent actress, actually made me CRINGE in her big scene on the stage. It was so awful that I forced Gary to sit through it so that, in years to come when I refer to the hideous scene, he'll know what the heck I'm talking about.
5) The love story was crazy. Kirsten Dunst is a possible stalker and seems to have way more time than everyone else in the movie. How else to explain that she was able to put together a tailored scrapbook complete with maps, photos, and mix CDs for a days-long road trip all timed precisely for the driving time? That project was the type of thing that college-level art students are assigned at the beginning of a semester to be completed as part of their final grades. The only way it's even possible she'd be able to present that to him would be if she'd pre-made several in her spare time to be used as needed.
6) Absolutely no one in this movie was real: none of the central characters, none of the peripheral family members, none of the people at the shoe company, and none of the people in the hotel's ubiquitous wedding party. They were all bad actors playing characters in a sucky sitcom -- something on ABCFamily, maybe.
Seriously, nothing worked in this movie. It's a terrible mash-up. I'm sure I'm not the first person to call this movie Cameron Crowe's Spasmodica. I just hope he doesn't go all "suicide bike" over it.
F
posted by MeMe | 9:58 PM
<< Home