Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #32



The Da Vinci Code


starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tatou, Sir Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany

directed by Ron Howard (Splash, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind... oh, come on, it's Opie Cunningham!)


Prologue

Renowned blogger Pops of Pops' Bucket fame staggered through the long week of thinking up shit to fill blogspace. Politics, immigration, Mother's Day, even a post about a dog... he was a desperate man in desperate circumstances of his own stupid, stupid making. He sat at his little computer desk as he always did mid-mornings, in a tweed jacket, elbow patches, no pants, smoking tobacco cut with construction paper in his shallow-bowl pipe carved from a petrified bull's penis.

He stared at the picture from Friday's post. Why hadn't he seen it there before? There were the images: George Bush, the dirtbike, the three faces, the tree... but there was something there, something deeper, something meaningfully symbolic that could shatter the entire facade of western civilization. If only he weren't functionally illiterate, he could just read the text labels, which sort of spelled it all out. But as it is, the mystery would have to remain a mystery, hidden behind the inscrutible inscrutibility of regular English letters.

Chapter 1

When Fridays arrived, Pops would always feel a little bit of relief. At least he could fall back on this crappy recurring feature and not have to think of anything original. But then he always remembered, just at the last second, that he would actually have to write the thing. Stupid text-based blog.

Chapter 2

How many weeks until X-Men comes out?

Chapter 3

Most mysteries of deep sociological and historical significance, I think, would be easier to solve if I had the promise of tapping some hot, French Audrey Tatou-esque ass at the end of it just because we happened to be of opposite genders and had been in close proximity for a while and not because we had developed any kind of actual personal connection on any level. That was the great beauty of the book, the fact that at the end, the hero nails the heroine even though they have no hint of a romantic connection through the preceding 300 pages. I also liked the ridiculously short chapters. Oh, which reminds me:

Chapter 4

There is NO CHAPTER FOUR.

Chapter 5

Ian McKellen is the Barry Bonds of acting. Barry Bonds is a baseball player famous for hitting home-runs while being hopped up on the same kind of medication they use to put horses down. He is also famous for having an astonishing upsurge in production after hitting an age (35) where most players (up to and including all players before and since) begin to decline. Sir Ian I'd never heard of until I saw him in Richard III in 1995, when he was already 56 years old. Since then, has anyone's films made more money than his? Of course I say this before Sam Jackson's Snakes on a Plane comes out. After that, Mr. Jackson will be untouchable. Just like Hank Aaron.

Chapter 6

Not only is the Catholic church pissed off about this movie, but the albinos... seriously, there are albinos mad because this movie features a non-albino (the freakishly albino-esque Paul Bettany) playing an albino who kills people. Their position, I think, is that if anyone's going to portray a murdering albino, it should be an albino. Or, failing that, Samuel L. Jackson. Even the albinos love Sam Jackson.

Chapters 7-34

In which I am boringly and repetitively chased by albinos, priests, rival symbologists, cripples and a whole host of French gendarmes (the last all played by Jean Reno) while solving puzzles left over from the original version of Myst. Except less taxing. And remember: hot French chick.

Chapter 35

The reviews for this film have been brutal. Just brutal. The only person who liked it was Roger Ebert, which gave me pause, until I remembered that ever since he had cancer surgery, he likes every movie ever. I've noticed that before in this space, but now it's just gotten silly. I've done a total 180 on Roger Ebert. Now his reviews are a Kiss of Death. If he actually disliked something, I'd notice. We could show him a 90 minute film of just some guy strangling puppies (Vincent Gallo is said to be working on this) and he'd probably find something nice to say about the lighting.

Chapter 36

When I first read the book, I was just kind of indifferent to it. Now every day that goes by, I resent the time I spent reading it. All 75 minutes of it. It actually makes me angry.

Chapter 37

I finally saw Wednesday's Lost last night.

Chapter 38

If you taped it and haven't seen it yet, don't read Chapter 39.

Chapter 39

What was with the fucking boat? Come on, we were all gearing up for Island Assault, or the Best Survivor Episode Ever. And then a boat? Fucking deus ex machina. And now next Wednesday, they all get in the boat and leave. End of show.

Chapter 40

My first instinct is to give this film a Zero. The Andrew Shue. And I should. I really should. But between the super-high quality of the cast (come on, it's got Ian McKellen in it), monster production values, the hotness of the Tatou, the high cultural visibility of the project and the intrigue-inducing universal anger--really, there's anger--of the reviews, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little curious. They say test audiences LAUGHED at the super-serious high-drama ending.

Chapter 41

That said I must submit:

Chapter 42

One (out of 3) on the Hot Babysitter Scale

Chapter 43

I heart cheese. But the only way to make good cheese is by accident.

Chapter 44

There is NO CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR!

Chapter 45

Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:35 AM