MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE NECESSARY ROUGHNESS

Those of you tuning in this month expecting to read the 2009 Foybles are going to be greatly disappointed. The time I would normally spend compiling that year end list was spent writing my epic list of the TEN WORST HORROR MOVIES OF THE PAST DECADE for Dread Central (link). I might do a condensed version of the Foybles next month. Or I might not. I haven't decided. As I stated last month in the set-up for the annual top ten, I feel 2009 was the lamest year for movies in recent memory. I just find myself looking back with total apathy towards the movie year that was. If you were to ask me what should win the Best Picture Oscar this year I would just shrug my shoulders and reply, "I don't know. Avatar? The Hurt Locker? Can they retroactively give it to The Dark Knight or Gran Torino?" I say good riddance to 2009 and hope this year proves better and that goes for the quality of both good movies and the bad movies.

One change that has already begun in 2010: The Foywonder has entered the world of Facebook. I resisted the call of MySpace. I will continue to shun Twitter until my will breaks. I've noticed I keep getting web traffic from readers posting links on Facebook I decided to give in and set-up a Facebook page of my own. Don't expect me to hang out there a whole lot, more of a marketing tool, but friend requests are welcome.

 

HOLIER THAN THOU

 

Tweak the script a bit and THE BLIND SIDE could have been billed as a big screen version of "Webster", except in this version Webster's pituitary disorder causes him to grow extra large.

If I didn't know THE BLIND SIDE was based on a true story I would swear it was the strangest remake of HARRY & THE HENDERSONS I've ever seen. An average family driving down an isolated road happens upon a large humanoid, bring him home, and introduce him to a world foreign to him, a modern world he experiences with a sense of trepidation and wonder. I know I'm exaggerating. But watch THE BLIND SIDE and watch HARRY & THE HENDERSONS and then tell me the actor portraying Michael Oher does not exude many of the same mannerisms and body language as Kevin Peter Hall did in the Bigfoot suit. So uncanny it's bizarre.

The character of Michael Oher starts out as a big lovable oaf with a heart of gold and impeccable blocking skills and even as he betters himself academically and on the football field his persona in the film never evolves past lovable oafdom. The real-life Michael Oher from footage I have seen is not some Forrest Gump-like simpleton. Every other black character is portrayed as either downtrodden or a criminal, giving THE BLIND SIDE a condescending attitude I assume was unintentional.

Every last bit of THE BLIND SIDE's surprise box office success is due to Sandra Bullock's Oscar caliber performance. The movie sells itself as the true-life story of an orphaned black teen taken in by a well-to-do Southern family and how their turning his life around led him down the path to being an NFL first-round draft pick. Really, it's less about Michael Oher and more about Leah Anne Tuohy, the matriarch of the family. Without Bullock's career best performance THE BLIND SIDE would be nothing more than a glorified Afterschool Special. I strongly urge diabetics to avoid this movie at all cost. Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory contains less sugar than THE BLIND SIDE. This movie lays on the schmaltz to the same degree 2012 uncorked catastrophe. Too long and too saccharine for my tastes, only Bullock kept me watching.

The Tuohy's are so Southern they have a daughter named Collins. Only in the heart of Dixie would anyone think Collins is a good girl's name. Halfway shocked Sandra Bullock never uttered the line "Fiddle-Dee-Dee" at some point.

With Leah Anne Tuohy's faith, family, sassy persona, NRA membership, and willingness to use her Saturday Night Special to shoot gangbangers if need be, it's easy to see why conservative Christians have flocked to see THE BLIND SIDE. She's like a smarter, wiser, less self-serving Sarah Palin. I can't help but imagine some of Mrs. Tuohy's selfless actions to help a misfortunate soul might seem a bit alien to certain segments of the conservative Christian crowd given we currently live in an age where some argue the Biblical principles of that noted capitalist Jesus as a reason to oppose universal health care. Wonder how they also feel hearing Mrs. Tuohy putting leg-breaking, coke-snorting ex-New York Giants linebacker Laurence Taylor on the pedestal right next to their Savior in the opening and closing soliloquies? Then again, Laurence Taylor, Jesus Christ, they both loved prostitutes, just in entirely different ways.

One major plot twist has the college football ethics committee (or whatever the hell they're called) believing the Tuohy's purposely took in this large black boy for the sole purpose of grooming him to play on the football team for Ole Miss, their alma mater. There clearly were ethics violations - just not the parents. Their eight-year old son S.J, the little brat is all about the bribe. He doesn't give a damn which school his new adopted big brother chooses when the cavalcade of college coaches come calling; he just wants to know what it's it not for him. Me! Me! Me! Coach after coach is forced to genuflect before this snot-nosed punk until he finally gets to lead parades onto the football field or run around wearing the mascot's head piece or peep in the cheerleader's locker room or whatever dowry he demands in exchange for him allowing Michael to play for their school. If they ever made a big screen version of "Diff'rent Strokes" the annoying child actor playing this annoying little punk is guaranteed the role of that irritating ginger kid Sam they brought in for the final seasons when Gary Coleman got to old for the little kid crap. Perhaps it's time to remake PROBLEM CHILD?

Now that I think about it; an affluent white family takes in a wayward young African-American and immediately begins training him for a life of battle on the gridiron.... That's it! That's it! That's what THE BLIND SIDE is: "Diff'rent Strokes" meets Pokemon. The guy even has a Pokemon sounding name: Mikelor.

Fitting that the poster looks like a mug shot because SEVEN POUNDS is a crime against cinema

Ever see that dreadful Rob Reiner movie THE STORY OF US? Probably not, nobody saw it. What sort of person would want to subject themself to two hours of Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer as an unhappily married couple on the verge of divorce yelling at each other about how miserable they make each other? You think the producers sat around afterwards trying to figure out why the film bombed at the box office?

Even what's considered tough material should be in some way entertaining. That's why THE BUCKET LIST was a surprise hit despite getting dumped on by just about every critic on the planet. I've never actually seen THE BUCKET LIST nor do I have plans to ever do so but from what I've been told by people who have it's a bittersweet feel-good flick about two terminally ill men still finding ways to live it up even as cancer slowly eats them alive from the inside out. A movie about two people dying of cancer could be described as tough material that audiences wouldn't want to subject themselves too, so Hollywood lightened it up a bit by making it a buddy flick and having Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman go on a road trip, sky diving, exchange zingers, and what not just like real terminally ill cancer patients have to do when Patch Adams isn't around to clown them into momentarily forgetting that a painful disease is ravaging their body. Rob Reiner also directed THE BUCKET LIST. I'm surprised he didn't also make PATCH ADAMS. Rob Reiner makes a lot of crap; ever noticed that?

Keeping it uplifting despite being tough material is a lesson the makers of SEVEN POUNDS understood. Have you seen SEVEN POUNDS, the inspirational yet tragically uplifting tale of a mentally disturbed man hell-bent on committing suicide in order to have his organs harvested and transplanted into the bodies of seven people on transplant lists who he has personally spied on to ensure that they are good people worthy of the ultimate gift he's about to bestow upon them?

Let me repeat that. Will Smith as a guilt-ridden suicidal loon scheming to kill himself and give his organs to some worthy people he's deemed deserving of a second chance; everyone aware of what he is up to weepily assists him on his path to commit the ultimate self-sacrifice. Since his brother wants to keep Smith from killing himself, the brother is treated as an obstacle in the way of the Fresh Prince's road to deification.

SEVEN POUNDS is the kind of vomit-inducing pap Mitch Albom probably kicks himself for having not come up with first. I am shocked Rob Reiner did not direct this emotionally dishonest drivel as well.

Oprah porn.

I do believe I have just coined a slang term for a genre of film. "Oprah porn" is a good term to describe a movie such as SEVEN POUNDS. Like torture porn, only feel-good platitudes splatter across the screen like so many disemboweled entrails. Here the emphasis is on trying to make depressing material into the most syrupy, spiritually uplifting cocktail possible with little regard for the emotional honesty of the material. The kind of mawkish claptrap Oprah Winfrey champions on her TV show on a regular basis. SEVEN POUNDS is Oprah porn in its purest state.

My biggest grievous with SEVEN POUNDS (aside from how stodgy and dull it was) stems from having to watch Will Smith's character get treated more like the Fresh Saint of Bel-Aire rather than what he actually is, a mentally unbalanced lunatic. Since the biggest movie star in the world can't play a disturbed character with a dark side Hollywood has to spin this warped tale into feel-good pabulum, the ultimate opiate of the Oprah-worshipping masses. Never has the term "tearjerker" been more appropriate to describe a motion picture; characters shed a whole lot of tears as SEVEN POUNDS emotionally jerks us around for two hours.

A man guilt ridden because of a car accident he inadvertently caused while checking his Blackberry leading to the death of his wife and a family of six in the on-coming minivan. Shortly after the accident, he donated a lung to his brother after his being diagnosed with lung cancer. Then this man gave a piece of his liver to save the life of a social worker now assisting him in finding needy people that might be worthy of his special brand of charity. From there he just wanted to keep on giving until he was dead and clear of a guilty conscience. Again, this is the mindset of a man in need of a therapist, not a surgeon. Or the mindset of Ned Flanders, like in that episode of the Simpsons when Homer happens upon Ned in the hospital donating a kidney and a lung; "First come, first serve."

Will Smith is at his serious drama Will Smithiest playing a suicidal crackpot masquerading as a tax man insinuating himself into the lives of sick people he had his friend, a lawyer - I think, somehow track down as perfect matches on an organ transplant waiting list. He doesn't just want to give his organs to anybody; he wants to make absolute certain that the recipients are decent people that deserve to live. In essence, he's playing God, which only makes his motivations all the more dubious. Such as when Smith meets up with a potential recipient, manager of an old folks home, finds out he isn't very nice to a bed-ridden, borderline senile, elderly lady, and decides the man deserves to die.

He meets Woody Harrelson, a blind musician in need of a sight-restoring cornea transplant who, given how Harrelson plays the role, might also suffer from some form of mental retardation. There's a difference between being timid and socially aloof and having the Gump-like personality Harrelson displays (Or maybe the pot was particularly potent the days Harrelson shot his scenes?) Smith anonymously browbeats Harrelson over the phone to see if the blind man will take the bait and lash out; by allowing himself to be mercilessly insulted by a perfect stranger, comes to the conclusion that this meek man has earned himself the right to vision. Just like in the Bible when Jesus went around verbally assaulting the lepers and only healed the ones that didn't cry or fight back.

The most important potential recipient he meets is Rosario Dawson. She suffers from Ali MacGraw LOVE STORY Syndrome, that fatal filmdom disease by which the sicker one gets, the more beautiful one becomes. Okay, maybe not more beautiful, but she continues to look mighty fine for a woman weeks from death. Her character has a congenital heart disease that's getting progressively worse and the only the color of her face turns a little flush. She still looks hot. She stills looks like she'd be the cover model for People Magazine's "50 Most Beautiful Terminally Ill People" issue.

Naturally, he falls for her. It's okay for Will Smith to fall in love with Rosario Dawson because she is an actress of Hispanic, Latino, or Puerto Rican heritage. You ever noticed this little trend? There's this misguided notion by many producers in Hollywood that white audiences don't want to watch a black couple and that black women take offence at a black man being paired with a white woman so they split the difference by often pairing a black man with a woman who is either of Hispanic, Latino, or Puerto Rican ethnicity. An Asian woman is also acceptable - especially if the film stars Wesley Snipes.

He's willing to give her his heart, but first, he has another organ he'd like to put inside her. Dawson is told that her heart will give out in less than a month after collapsing doing as non-strenuous an activity as walking her dog yet she is still somehow able to have sex with Smith without putting any strain on her broken ticker?

More improbable than that, Smith surprises her by repairing this antique printing press that she hadn't been able to fix due to not being able to find someone qualified to repair it? He repairs that ancient printing press without even so much as an instruction manual. Is there nothing he can do? I'm shocked their dinner scene didn't begin with him turning water into wine.

Smith goes to the hospital to check on Dawson, see a sick kid, and comes back later to donate bone marrow for the boy. The way it plays out, it's almost as if he just waltzed into the hospital, demanded on the spot to donate marrow to this kid without even being confirmed as a match, and specifically requested the doctor to extract the marrow without benefit of anesthesia (more penance on Smith's part), which the doctor obliges with little objection outside of casually commenting that this is not normal procedure. Cast Will Smith as the crazy masochist in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS and he would be portrayed as a prince amongst men nobly sacrificing his teeth to the downtrodden.

A soon-to-be dead man has no need for worldly possessions and since not everyone needs a body part, his holy jigginess bequeaths his lavish seaside home to an abused mother so that she and the kids can escape her violent husband forever. Not sure what would stop him from tracking her down to this new beachfront home and beat the crap out of her some more. That's one of those logic thingies the script never concerns itself with because doing so might interfere with the good vibrations.

Smith succeeds in killing himself and manipulating the medical system to guarantee that his organs were transplanted in the specific patients of his choosing. How does he go about killing himself? In that most tried and true way most suicidal people off themselves: check into a motel room and take an ice bath with a highly poisonous box jellyfish. If I was going to kill myself bathing with a box jellyfish is how I'd wanna go. Actually, my perfect suicide would be stripping naked and repeatedly sliding down a Slip 'N' Slide covered in South American poison arrow frogs until the toxin in their skin finally caused me to croak - no pun intended.

DEATH BY BATHTUB JELLYFISH POISONING?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

SUICIDE BY DUMPING A BOX JELLYFISH ONTO YOU IN A BATHTUB FULL OF ICE?

SERIOUSLY?

Looking back, his suicide now plays more like a deleted scene from THE HAPPENING.

Why not hang just yourself? Or simply asphyxiate himself? Putting a plastic bag over your head and suffocating yourself seems much simpler and less contrived than taking a motel room ice bath with one of the most poisonous sea creatures on the planet. Wouldn't there be a real risk of its deadly venom getting pumped into his precious organs, in particular his heart, and make them useless for transplantation? Ah, who am I to question the all-knowing, all-powerful Saint Will 2K.

Again, SEVEN POUNDS is meant to be a sad yet feel good film, a film that never honestly deals with the fact that Smith's character is clearly nutjob. It tiptoes around his fragile sanity because the point is to be awed and saddened by this man's self-sacrifice even if it comes from a place of psychologically unsound self-loathing. Too bad his character wasn't Catholic otherwise the film could have ended with Pope Benedict beatifying him.

When the two primary recipients of his grace (Rosario Dawson: heart, Woody Harrelson: eyes and hopefully a spine) meet for the first time at the very end and I halfway expected flames to appear over their heads like the disciples in the Bible after Jesus resurrected. Their savior has risen and they are better for it. This guy was kind of like Jesus except he died for his own sins and being that he's Will Smith, that makes him cooler than Jesus, right? He's the Fresh Prince of Peace. The Jiggy Messiah. There's no need to argue. Non-believers just don't understand.

MY NAME IS SCOTT FOY AND I PAID TO SEE THE OMEGA CODE