Teeth

Sometimes things are so campy that we can’t help but love them. Other times their just excessively so that we’re turned off by the attempt to be something more important than just what it is – a bad movie. And then there are those in between: a motley crew of elements, ideas, themes that most people probably get fooled into thinking they have a great, poignant film on their hands when all they have is a mess. We don’t hate them, we don’t love them. We watch them and when the credits roll we walk out the same as when we went in just two hours older.

A perfect example of this is Teeth, a horroredy from writer-director Mitchell Lichtenstein about the newest edition to Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week” (click her to get real synopsis).
When it was released in 2007 I couldn’t get two feet without hearing praise for this movie. And it wasn’t the Williamsburg “Juno is the greatest movie ever!” hipster crowd that was saying this. I’m talking about legit critics on Reel Talk on NBC, Entertainment Weekly, etc. So I thought, “how could these good people steer me wrong?” Oh, my ignorance knows no bounds.

Look, I’m all for “different”, “quirky”, or whatever, but let’s just go down the list of bad things this movie has to offer:
1. Jess Weixler (Dawn), our heroine: She’s terrible in this movie. Is it supposed to be on purpose? I don’t know and I don’t care. She’s basically doing a terrible Delia Deetz impersonation the whole movie. Guess what Jess, you’re no Delia Deetz!
2. Every other actor: Shame on you all! I understand campy, but come on. Where did they find the guy who was supposed to be her initial love interest (Hale Appleman)? He looked like the Jonas brother they locked up in the basement for being too weird (yeah, because the other three are sooooooo normal).
3. Too much penis: Honestly, not really a problem because this is a movie about the power of women, women’s sexuality, etc. But the problem with the excessive count is that they’re never attached to a body! Someone call Trojan and tell them they need to make a chainmaille condom, stat!
4. Was there an unmentioned environmental theme to this movie? Are those Mr. Burns’ smoking power plant stacks in the background? Ok, I get it. I’ll turn off my lights!
5. Just too slow: We all know where this is going. Early on I kind of knew we’d end up with a vagina toothed, penis crunching vigilante by the end of our movie. So let’s move this pony along if we’re not going to do anything in the middle.

Seriously though, I laughed out-loud a few times during this movie although it was usually preceded by making sure my ol' "flux capacitors" were still there. I did enjoy the “power of women/sexuality” themes. I’m sure you can come across a lot of people who will love this movie - its comedic timing, its thesis and themes, and ability to present equal parts horror and comedy. But for me, this movie just fell short. It wasn’t that funny, and it was never too scary, just gory with its bad props (again, on purpose, but it just didn’t work for me). And as I stated earlier, there was just too much going on and the whole suffered.

And I’m not going to give it any leeway because of its trendiness/campiness; movies have to prove to me that I should be watching. The street doesn’t run the other way. The burden of proof lays with the filmmaker and his/her crew. I’m tired of cutting movies slack just so I can say “it’s good for that type of movie”. That’s BS! Good movies are good movies and if you’re asking for me to give you $15 at a theatre or two hours of my at home time then you better live up to your end of the deal.

In the end, Teeth didn’t make me want to recommend it to anyone. Instead it just left me wondering: what’s Dawn’s orthodontic bill look like? – 2 reels out of 5

Ever seen "Event Horizon"? Yeah, you don't need to see "Event Horizon"

So let's be honest here, we do not have the funds to keep reviewing new movies for our loyal followers every week. Sometimes we may have to go to the vault and discuss a movie that isn't exactly the new craze at the cinemas, but hey we're trying our best here.

That being said, HBO has been playing the Sci-Fi thriller "Event Horizon" very frequently the past week and I figured since I'd never seen it then why not give it a chance? Then I thought so many people now have HBO so they can check out the new episode of "Hung" every Sunday I should inform anyone who was like me and thought about devoting 90 minutes to Larry Fishburne and Dr Grant from "Jurassic Park" in space. Not your best work fellas.

"Event Horizon" came out in 1997 and what happens in a nut shell is this spaceship called the Event Horizon (title in the movie!, always popular) gets sent out close to Venus (Oh I should mention this is one of those movies where they drastically overestimate how fast space travel would advance in terms of time and there are colonies on the moon in 2011) and it disappears. Seven years later, guess who's back? The ship appears out of nowhere and Larry Fishburne and his crew are sent to go check it out and rescue any survivors. Along with the crew is Dr. Weir, who built the Event Horizon and as we are introduced to him in the beginning we see he has a "past". Well they get to the ship, blood everywhere, no crew, and apparently the ship has somehow travelled through a black hole and brought hell back with it. Shenanigans ensue, people start seeing their worst nightmares, people start dying, and get this, Fishburne and his crew's ship gets destroyed, so they have to get home on the "Horizon". Oh how are they gonna get out of this pickle??

Some of the movie is pretty scary, as there is a video they find of what happened to the old crew that's really disturbing, but other than that I found it to be kind of lame. I mean this could just be me, but I am not a fan when the "monster" or "evil" in a movie is simply something that shows you bad things or takes over your mind. That doesn't do it for me, I need something with fangs or one big arm accompanied by a little one. One scene really made me mad when a woman thinks she sees her son on the ship and follows him. Was your son on your ship? Does he have the technology or the knowledge that could enable him to fly his own ship to yours? Of course not, it's not him, don't follow the hallucination, you deserved to fall down that shaft.

Two final thoughts, Joely Richardson from "Nip Tuck" was in this movie. She didn't do much and wasn't particularly good in it, but I came away realizing she's British in real life and she does an American accent on the show. Good for her and honestly I am really impressed by a lot of British actors who are able to handle American speak so well. Say what you will about Colin Farrell (I know he's Irish, still counts) but he can speak like he's from the States like nobody's business. Damian Lewis from "Band of Brothers" and NBC's "Life" is another British actor who sounds more like an American than I do and I am from the birthplace of this great nation.

Lastly, before the movie started they do what they always do and show why a movie is rated whatever it's rated. For PG-13 you'll usually get an Adult Content and an Adult Language. But for R, it's anybody's game and let's face it, we all hope for that beautiful uppercase N that stands for Nudity. "Event Horizon" has that N people, but it's for the dreaded Bad Nudity. BN can hit at anytime and in this picture it's when we see a flashback of Dr. Weir's wife slitting her wrists in a bathtub. When you wait a hour into a movie to see what this Nudity business is all about and it turns out it's a naked chick in a tub offing herself, well it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Some other BN moments in case you're wondering is the scene from "The Shining" with the chick in the tub (see a pattern?) and anytime it's a man's ass.

So in conclusion, yeah you don't need to see this movie, unless Jake Noseworthy is your nephew and if he is and you haven't seen it by now then I don't think you two have the most heartwarming talks at Easter anyways.