A couple of years ago, \Swimfan"" topped the North American box office in its opening week. But more than amounting to merely a surprise financial success, the teen thriller set a new high mark for ridiculous and badly conceived premises. The movie was designed to be a typical morality tale, in which a star high school swimmer cheats on his girlfriend and then watches his life unravel as his secret breast-stroke partner turns possessive and homicidal.
Yet here's where the movie's premise took a nose dive: the guy cheats on his girlfriend with a lunatic and has to suffer the consequences, right? Well, maybe not. The supposed lunatic also happened to be a straight-A student, a classically trained musician, a big fan of sex and a snappy dresser. And she only turned psycho and started killing people after the protagonist cast her aside. From where we're standing, he could have averted crisis and lived a happier life if he had dumped his girlfriend instead.
But hey, bad premises are a fact of life, and a longtime fact of cinema. And, as the aquatic stalker flick was number one in the box office, admit it: You or someone you love saw the movie in spite of the concept. So in the spirit of the late, great ""Swimfan,"" The Daily Cardinal is here to break down a few of the upcoming movies that just might approach that vaunted level of conceptual ludicrousness.
Set for a November release, ""Birth"" stars Nicole Kidman as a woman who comes to believe her husband has been reincarnated and is now a 10-year-old boy, with whom she subsequently builds a relationship. Go back and read that again.
And while the film's producers vehemently contend that the reported bathtub scene between Kidman and the little boy has been overblown by the press, there's still no excuse for a movie with this premise being made, let alone with an A-list cast. To make matters worse, silver screen legend Lauren Bacall plays a supporting role. Can you imagine a casual conversation between Bacall and Kidman at the end of a day of shooting?
""My leading man was Humphrey Bogart in several of my movies.""
""My leading man is 11.""
Watch out, ""Swimfan."" Here comes ""Little Boy Fan.""
Many of the biggest myths in this country surround supposed laws that don't actually exist. The brothel law, for instance, which supposedly says that cities like St. Louis can't have all-female dorms because they would be considered brothels by law, is fictional. But here's a little law that might still be true: You're not allowed to make a movie about pedophilia or terrible childhood secrets without Kevin Bacon. ""The Woodsman"" isn't a bad premise at face value, but it's part of a troubling new trend in Bacon's career. ""Sleepers,"" ""Mystic River"" and now ""The Woodsman."" Poor Kevin Bacon.
Among the recently announced films for next year is ""Tulip Fever,"" a movie about the tulip devaluation in 17th-century Amsterdam starring Keira Knightley and Jude Law. While there are plants in Amsterdam that can carry a movie, tulips are not among them, especially not for their prices. The hook of ""Tulip Fever"" is exactly that: Realizing that flowers were pretty, the Dutch bought so many tulips that the price exploded. For a while, their value was so great, tulip bulbs were used as currency. Using plants as currency, as it turns out, is a bad idea. Anyone can grow them. So, the price of tulips rocked dangerously high, only to come crashing down. The same thing happened to Enron stock, or, for that matter, pogs. Where can this movie go? Well, allow this paper to present our rough outline, the three act play ""Tulip Fever.""
Act One:
Keira Knightley: These tulips are pretty.
Jude Law: Let's buy a lot of them!
Act Two:
Jude Law: These tulips are worth a lot. We're rich!
Keira Knightley: Let's quit our jobs and invest in them full time. What can possibly go wrong?
Act Three:
Jude Law: The price of tulips went down! We're ruined!
Keira Knightley: You've changed, man. It used to be about the tulips.
It's also the script for Oliver Stone's ""The Doors.""
Ben Affleck is dumped by his girlfriend. Ben Affleck goes to his childhood home and finds a family, fathered by James Gandolfini. Ben Affleck pays James Gandolfini's family to take him in and treat him as family. Hilarity ensues.
Strikingly similar to the flop ""Dickie Roberts, Child Star,"" the only thing that can possibly save this movie is if it involves Gandolfini turning green and popping out of his shirt, while screaming, ""For the love of God, why am I in this movie?"" He would do this while smashing everything in sight as his traumatized children look on. Of course, if the children were too traumatized, then the movie would have to star Kevin Bacon. It's the law.
Here's a recipe for Hilary Duff pie. You take the story of Cinderella, water it down, and sugar it up. Put it in a crust of Hilary Duff pop music and illegal Hilary Duff eye candy. Do it once with the Lizzie McGuire name attached. Collect profits. Remove restrictive and expensive Lizzie McGuire name tag and repeat with ""Cinderella Story."" Now-you guessed it-do it again with ""Raise Your Voice.""
And aside from how weird it is to make a de-sexualized band camp movie in the post-""American Pie"" era, Hilary Duff's filmography is quickly becoming a good illustration of why cloning is illegal; producers think they're making the exact same movie over and over again with no dire consequences. But with each new repetition, the creativity pool gets a bit more stagnant, the movies get a bit dumber, and the cultural marketplace of young America becomes just a little more inbred.
""Flight of the Phoenix"" tells the harrowing story of a plane crash in the Gobi Desert. Miles away from any form of civilization, the survivors are without hope. They have little food, little water and a number of their friends have died in the crash. Currently it appears the ""Flight of the Phoenix"" is a pseudo-sequel to the 1993's smash hit ""Alive,"" so it's definitely the perfect premise for a light-hearted comedy! Marvel at the doomed passengers as they hilariously try fixing their plane! Giggle as mishap after mishap occurs! Laugh at their pain!
But wait! Movies about people slowly dying of starvation in the desert aren't very funny, so another genre addition occurs. However, it's not the expected jump to seriousness. Instead, ""Flight of the Phoenix,"" turns into an action movie. Apparently our hapless heroes can't catch a break. They had to contend with their plane crashing, and then an unlikely thunderstorm just happened to form in the middle of the desert. But freakish weather occurrences aren't all the heroes must endure; they also do battle with marauders.
Its a plane-crash, light-comedy, white-squall, dessert-island marauders movie. Unclear of what movie to make, they made all of them. The dinosaurs must be on the cutting-room floor.
All of these events might seem implausible, but they will lead up to what will be one of the greatest scenes in cinema for all of 2004. In a climatic scene the marauders are on their horses, chasing down the repaired plane as it is taking off.
In ""Adaptation,"" Donald, the hack screenwriter, said, ""I'm putting in a chase sequence. So the killer flees on horseback with the girl, the cop's after them on a motorcycle and it's like a battle between motors and horses, like technology vs. horse.""
While this was a hilarious joke in ""Adaptation,"" it's amazing that John Moore, Phoenix's director, was able to make the technology vs. horse motif come to life!
Anne Hathaway worked her way into the hearts of adolescent girls and the lexicon of movie critics by being radiant in cute movies, like ""The Princess Diaries"" and ""Ella Enchanted."" Now, with a host of underage fans on the verge of teendom, Hathaway's movie choice has aged with her audience. Hathaway will appear naked in ""Havoc,"" an immensely pornographic movie where oral sex gets affluent teenage girls initiated into a gang. The moral of ""The Princess Diaries"" was that each girl has a chance to emerge as a swan. And what better swan than ""Havoc?"" If only SpongeBob would go in the same direction.
Being the instant gratification best seller tripe of last year is all well and good, but suppose you'd like ""The Da Vinci Code"" but are illiterate, or don't have a plane ride to read it on. ""National Treasure,"" starring Nicholas Cage, may be for you.
It probably won't.
In a world with endless real things to go on a treasure hunt for, and even more fake things, on a planet full of pirate maps and Nazi gold, ""National Treasure"" seeks out the box of riches that our Founding Fathers buried. It's like ""The Goonies,"" sans Chunk.
Luckily, there are clues hidden on dollar bills and on the back of the Declaration of Independence. In 100 minutes, Nicholas Cage will find a way to urinate on 250 years of American history.
- Amos Posner, Joe Uchill and Kevin Nelson
