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POPCORN: Two Films For The Masses

© Clinton Davis

As insightful and groundbreaking as this column is, it sadly doesn’t pay the bills. I know how shocking that may seem to my loyal fans… er, fan… but in this day and age, the phone company doesn’t accept pithy, reference-laden reviews in lieu of a check, so I have been forced to seek out gainful employment. Naturally, a video store seemed like the logical choice, but since I refuse to work at Blockbuster (because there is evil there), my options were a tad limited. Finally I came to a place that I now consider my second home; a little independently owned video store that is brimming with every kind of film imaginable. Funky and hip, it suits me well, even though I am neither funky nor hip. However, the downside of working at a video store that trades in hard-to-find movies and other oddities is having to deal with the film snobs… by that I mean the types of movie watchers that will only, and I mean ONLY rent, say, obscure Middle eastern films, but nothing before 1940. They treat the act of watching a movie like it’s kin with a lecture on business finance. To them, films are not to be enjoyed. They are to be watched only to enrich the mind and body. That’s great and all… I mean, I’m all for expanding one’s horizons, but it’s the fact that these people won’t even watch a movie to have a good laugh or to get a small thrill that really burns me up. So it’s to these people that I dedicate this weeks column: POPCORN: Two Films For The Masses. Now, I love Woody Allen movies and I also like bizarre, cultish things. I cannot say with all honesty that I haven’t engaged in a little snobbery my own self, particularly when films with the word “dude” in the title come along. But beyond those petty offences, I’m always one to sit down with a movie simply to engage in the act of having fun. Mainly, for that type of viewing, I like the loud stupid action films or horror films of the splatter variety. And what a coincidence, our first movie happens to be a hybrid of both! It’s a little piece of Splatter Action starring Treat Williams and Famke Jannsen called DEEP RISING. You folks may remember this from a few years ago. I believe it did fairly well at the box office, despite having the worst tag line ever (“This ain’t no pleasure cruise…”). It concerns a lowly boat captain (Williams, coming off like a poor-man’s Kurt Russell) who’s hired by a band of modern-day pirates to take them out to their next target, a cruise ship not unlike the Titanic, but with worse luck. When they get there, everyone is gone, leaving nothing but a lot of blood and some very confused pirates. Of course, the boat is swarming with sea-snake-esque monsters, just itching to take out the crew one by one until it’s up to our man Treat to take ‘em on, mano a mano. Yeah, I know, it’s not the greatest plot in the world, nor is it the most inventive idea, but it’s not a movie made with that in mind. It’s a movie made to demonstrate how to blow crap up and also how monsters can eat people. It’s a movie that’s made for the comic relief to spout out glib one-liners in times of great action. In short, it’s a magnificent action film and I highly recommend you rent it instead of that Icelandic documentary on sorrow next time you’re round the video store. Also of note is that it was written and directed by Stephen Sommers, the man who brought us not only THE MUMMY, but also THE MUMMY 2. A dubious distinction, yes, but it proves that as far as action stuff goes, he’s got game.

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