Pops' Bucket: Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #42

Friday, February 16, 2007

Movies I Have No Intention Of Seeing, #42

Ghost Rider

starring Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Peter Fonda(!)

directed by Mark Steven Johnson (Daredevil, Simon Birch)

My kids have the day off school today, which means I don't have a lot of time to do all the lengthy background work I usually put into one of these MIHNIoS dealios. That's why I chose Ghost Rider to feature, not because of any particular interest, but because, since the studio declined to have it screened by critics, I don't have to read any reviews!

Not that I ever really do anyway, but just not having to take the time to opt not to read them is really handy on a day like today.

See, I could have talked about the far more intriguing-looking spy movie Breach, a great premise with a cast of fantastic actors like Chris Cooper, Laura Linney, Dennis Haysbert, Gary Cole, etc. But see, with a movie like that, a studio will get the stupid-ass idea in their heads that people will want to know what it's about in advance, to prime them for the machinations and complications of the plot, introduce the base elements of the dramatic tension so they come into the theater ready to take a complicated narrative journey.

Ghost Rider you have to sort of more understand what it is on a gut level, like right around about the same level that people like Bill O'Reilly "know" things without having read, seen or heard anything about them. Information travels directly through whatever sensory organ it happens to hit first and travels straight to the gut which, when it is not processing the nutritional elements out of food, also dispenses immediately gratifying emotional conclusions without the messy and tiresome need for input and/or reason.

Reviews? Reviews are for pussies. Everything you need to know about Ghost Rider you can learn right here.

Go ahead, I'll wait. It'll only take you a second to decide.

Did you see that? Fuckin' motorcycle, man. Bad-ass. And it was fuckin' on fuckin' fire, bitches. Holy fuck. And that bitch with him? Can't really see what kind of shape she's in, but just from her face, yeah, I'd fuck her. And the dude walking up in the middle? Head is on fuckin' fire too, man. And Nic Cage. Goddamn, dude from The fuckin' Rock dude. And Con fuckin' Air.

My gut has processed. My gut fuckin' likes. Skull dude, motorcycle, devil, swings a chain. I'm in. Here's my $10. Hey, is there any way I could pay more for a ticket? My gut demands it.

If we were to examine it any further (already a mistake!), we could see that it was directed by the same dude who directed the messy, messy and still slightly--but only slightly--underrated Daredevil movie. Yeah, it wasn't overall what you'd call "good", but it did get something of an undeserved beating for being associated with Gigli-era Affleck.

That said, it did deserve something of a beating.

This "Mark Steven Johnson" has clearly decided he's a comic-book adaptation director after Daredevil and now this. Apparently his initial foray into the exciting genre of midget snuff films didn't have the legs he'd hoped and he's gone conventional since, which is unfortunate. Warwick Davis needs the work.

Everything else you need to know about Ghost Rider can be found in the IMDb trivia section for the film.

Nicolas Cage's hairpiece required three hours to apply every day.

Nicolas Cage wrote sections of the script.

Was originally planned for a summer 2006 release.

The first two are kind of funny, but the last one... not available for review by critics AND moved from a central summer release to the bleak movie wasteland that is February. You expect schmaltzy pap for Valentine's Day, but anything else this time of year, when two-thirds of the country is under a collective 3,000 miles of snow, well...

No reviews, retreat to February, the lead actor doing personal rewrites... Sony wants you to know: they know this movie sucks. They know we know they know this movie sucks.

But did you see the fuckin' motorcycle? It's on fuckin' fire!