Monday, January 4, 2010

Volume 1, Number 4: Click and Grab

(Note: I originally posted this in 2006 on a blog I created on GeoCities that same year. Yahoo! shut down GeoCities last year.)

There was a film that, up until I read Roger Ebert's review about it, I was interested in seeing: "Click," starring Adam Sandler as a man who gains possession of a powerful remote control, one that lets him fast-forward through getting showered and dressed, makes people speak Spanish, freezes time (so he can beat up his boss), etc. It came out a little over a week ago. Problem is, according to Roger Ebert, the film turns into a depressing morality tale. (The same thing happened with "Liar Liar," a 1997 film starring Jim Carrey as a lawyer who habitually lies and then suddenly can't lie anymore after his son wishes it). "This isn't funny... It's not just sad, it's brutal," Ebert says in his Chicago Sun-Times review as he talks about what Sandler's character does and what happens to him as a result. Ebert gave "Click" the thumbs-down, so I won't waste my money. What a shame--the trailer looked excellent. And Christopher Walken was in it, too.

In my estimation, Ebert is the most reliable film critic alive today. By "reliable," I simply mean that if he doesn't like a film, chances are, I won't like it, either. Up until around 1989, it was Kathy Huffhines of the Detroit Free Press, but in one of the freakiest accidents ever, a tree fell on a car she was riding in, killing her.

I read an outrageous news story last Tuesday in the Detroit News: An Allen Park man paid a $10 parking ticket, but the Berkley District Court took exception to his writing the words "BULLSHIT MONEY GRAB" on the memo line on his check. The court charged the man with contempt of court. Why?!? What he writes on that memo line is his business; as long as the City of Berkley got its money, why should it give a darn about anything else?!? As it happens, the charge was dismissed the next day, but still, this so-called "contempt of court" case was an extraordinary waste of time, money and resources.

No comments:

Post a Comment