Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #8



Mr. and Mrs. Smith

starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie... Other people too, one imagines.

directed by Doug Liman (Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity)


It's only appropriate that we close out what has turned out to be Brad Pitt Week here in the Bucket (with one short aside into Anne Bancroft Day) with a discussion of an actual movie the man is in. After all, movies are the #2 reason why Brad Pitt exists in the public eye at all.

The #1 reason (apparently) Brad Pitt is famous is actually a tie between a) his fabulous, greased-up abs and b) whatever celebrity person is attached to the vagina he currently has regular access to.

[Math nerds take note: I realize a first place tie means the next thing down the list should technically be ranked #3, to which I reply: fuck you, math nerds. I owe you a wedgie.]

You know, yesterday during the Parent Day program I was really impressed with my son's performance as the Squirrel in the epic children's classic 3-page play called... OK, I forget it was called, but it had something to do with a bird and a helpful turtle who was kind of a dick.

Anyway, this being a kindergarten "play", basically the kids march up to the microphone and spew out their lines inonesingletonealltogetherwithnobreaksforbreathorinflectionofanykind, staring with wide, terrified eyes at their clenched-fisted parents in the audience, hoping and praying they did well enough to be allowed to eat that night.

My boy, on the other hand, gets some kind of sick charge out of performance. He was hopping around, waving his arms, mugging and generally hamming it up for all he was worth (this being kindergarten, all the time with a one-handed death-grip on the crotch of his shorts).

I stood there watching thinking, Oh Lordy-Lord, my kid's got talent! OK, talent or some kind of rare deblilitating nervous condition akin to Tourette's, but either way it translated to stage presence. Just like a parent who's undersized asthmatic Little League no-hoper accidentally cracks the baseball instead of his own head one game flashes forwards to delusions of college scholarships, Major League contracts and a retirement home in Switzerland, I had a similar sort of flash: My Boy, Movie Star.

As I've gone back and filled in the projected biography of Movie Star, I thought about high school and college drama departments, dinner theater, amusement park work, local repertory theater, etc., etc., ending eventually in tabloids and hotel rooms under assumed names. And I couldn't help but think: Man, that's a lot of sex.

I have the opposite of stage presence. In any crowd of any kind up to the age of about 19, I was actually able to spontaneously generate a little field of null space that rendered me completely invisible. My self-sustaining null-space field was so powerful, I couldn't even be seen from space.

Suffice it to say I know nothing of theater people or the drama education experience, but from the outside, it looks like there's a whole lotta bonin' goin' on. Male actors are either the ones hanging out with all the hot chicks in tune with their "passions" and susceptible to really terrible pick-up lines about art and muses or they're gay men hanging out with other like-minded gay men. Either way, I imagine a theater company has a great deal in common with a rabbit warren.

As a father it's all good. Either way I anticipate lots of high-fives and (when his mother is around) winking conversation.

He can throw a ball and often mismatches his clothes, so thus far I'd say he's leaning theater-studly, but it's too early to tell. My only hesitancy about him swinging the other direction--my only reticence about him associating with the theater queens--is that the prime example of the one is Brad Pitt and the other is Harvey Fierstein. Sexuality aside, which one would you rather your son turn out as? Yeah, me too.

It probably won't matter. It will probably just turn out to be that debilitating nervous condition thing. If that's the case, he'll probably just end up a twitchy homeless guy muttering to himself and I won't have to worry about any of this.

Oh yeah, there was that movie thing. There are people who are going to rule out seeing Mr. and Mrs. Smith because of the tabloid turmoil, à la Gigli. But while Gigli looked like it was made from a script cobbled together by the tiny, blistered fingers of retarded Taiwanese sweatshop kids and then translated by Babelfish, this one actually looks wicked and funny.

Plus I think people who write off seeing movies because of off-screen details are stupid. Or to paraphrase Bill Maher with regard to Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie, shouldn't the two hottest people in the world be allowed to fuck each other? Such a simple, beautiful sentiment deserves a firm, throbbing yes.

I'd be even more excited about this film, but I've already seen War of the Roses.

No critic's blurbs in the newspaper ad, which is never a positive sign. Either way, good or bad, one Angelina is worth two Shues.


Two (out of 3) on the Hot Babysitter Scale.


Happy viewing, Bucketeers. And just because I'm feeling dick-ish, I'm totally going to ruin the end for you: Anakin becomes Darth Vader!


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:54 AM