One of the best movie reviews I’ve ever read was Lisa Schwarzbaum’s Entertainment Weekly review of Chocolat, the twee little nominated-for-Best-Picture-by-accident nightmare of a film you only woke up during when your friend nudged you in the ribs four hours into it and loudly whispered, “See, I TOLD you Johnny Depp was in this.” EW noted that the film was “manufactured from a proprietary recipe based on focus group data about what consumers enjoy most in a Miramax movie,” and it’s true that the movie feels like it’s been generated by the HeartStringPuller2000 and spat out by a Hollywood that forgot movies used to be based on actual life and not just on other movies.
Yesterday, I had the pointed misfortune of seeing another such movie which, for various political reasons, I am not yet at liberty to reveal. Its genre is completely different from the movie mentioned above, but for its genre, I felt like I was watching yet another retread of “that kind of film.” That is, an award-begging prestige movie, unwilling to take any real artistic chances in assuming that we come to the film with a fully realized vocabulary of its style, simply because we’ve seen so many movies like it.
So I’ve decided to review it. But, due to my limitations in actually revealing the film I’ve chosen to review, I’ve decided that the best compromise is to do it Mad Libs style. So follow along and answer with “butt” as many times as you want as we travel back to our childhoods in…
A Trip To The Movies With Djb
Fade up on [Name Of Starlet In Film], riding a [Non-Motorized Vehicle] and revealing no sign of the eventual [Psychological Condition] that would ultimately cripple her and lead to her [Life-Ending Noun]. She is soon to meet [Name Of Actor You’ve Never Heard Of], and the two embark on a wild love affair of passion mixed with infidelity, which is perhaps an inadvertent retelling of [Name Of Starlet In Film]’s real-life failed relationship with [Name Of Talentless Actor Who Can’t Write, Either].
The trouble with the [Film Genre], especially one about [Name Of Title Character], is that it’s so one-dimensional. You have to know everything about [Name Of Title Character] coming in, but there’s a paradox in the reality that real fans of [Name Of Title Character] will never be satisfied by a two-hour simplification of her life. I, for one, don’t believe for a [Miniscule Measure Of Time] that the cause of [Name Of Title Character]’s downfall was her husband’s [Violation Of Marriage Vows], which was, as the film would like me to believe, not only the reason for her eventual downfall but ALSO the inspiration for her decision to [Verb] the [Thing That Rings] [A Type Of Container]. Add in depressing shots of the [Western European Country] countryside, a sky without a [Yellow Glowing Orb], and moodily-blowing leaves that are a metaphor for all that is sad about the human condition, and you’ll hardly be able to stop yourself from sticking your own head in the [Large Kitchen Appliance] before [Extraneous Runtime] have elapsed. Enjoy.
[Adjective] stuff, eh, Pamie?