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AaronMichaelGordon.com Voice of Degeneration
AaronMichaelGordon.com: Voice of Degeneration
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I love bad movies that are so bad, they cross over into pure awesomeness. Last night, I happened to luck into a classic "Gleefully Great Bad Movie," the unbelievable "Millennium ." By combining ideas about time travel, ecological protection, existentialism, and 1980s hairstyling, this piece of claptrap never fails to entertain.
Right from the opening credits (which look as if they were rendered on an original Macintosh,) you know this "science fiction epic" is going to be anything but. Kris Kristofferson plays the world's foremost airplane crash expert, whose been discovering a whole bunch of weirdness around his latest crash.
Wait...latest? The way in which this movie presents air travel, planes are falling out of the skies every other week! One of the characters actually says "he's been to several Midwest crashes." Sigh, you can't buy American, you can't fly American...
Daniel J. Travanti shows up, wondering about the weirdness (and lamenting the sad, quick decay of his post-Hill Street Blues career,) which Kris cares nothing about: he just wants to prevent further crashes (good luck with that; the Midwest is apparently riddled with carcasses,) and bone the hot, leggy blonde who keeps showing up.
Said blonde is Cheryl Ladd, who smokes nonstop in this movie. As in entire forests of cigarettes. While eating a salad in one scene (and now you know the secret Charlie's Angels diet.) She smokes so much that Kris Kristofferson, of all people living in Marlboro Country, advises her to lay off, or at least put out one before they screw again.
Let's stop and talk about this for a second. Cheryl, nobody's idea of a great actress, is pushing about 40 here but looks about 30. And hot. Kris, on the other hand, is pushing about 55 here and looks 70. And not. Anyway you slice it, the "romance" just feels off, especially when Cheryl gets all doe-eyed about Grandpa Kris.
Turns out, Cheryl is from 1000 years in the future, where the decay of the Earth has rendered humanity infertile. So, they use their advanced technology to rescue plane crash victims before the crashes, replace them with genetic doubles, send the doomed plane back, and hopefully keep the human race going in their present.
Now, when I explain this, the plot actually sounds cool and smart, which I suspect "Millennium" was, back as a pitch. But in practice? Not so much...and for the better! Let's start with the future. It looks a lot like a movie studio decorated with tubes and trash and "Tron" styled backlighting. There's a "robot," or a man in a Halloween costume and metallic makeup. There are council members, ruling from tubes, rotting away.
And then there's Cheryl's hair, practically its own character in the flick. In the future, it sports a nuclear-Elvis look and height. In the 1989s, it's practically its own raincloud. Frankly, I'm amazed that all that smoking didn't set poor Cheryl on fire. That's a whole lot of hairspray to ignite.
Anyway, I'm not going to give the entire film away, but it really is a laugh a minute. Check it out. "Timequake!"
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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| OK, I'm so far from an economist, it's not even funny. Yet, I think I'm a pretty smart cookie, so I've had some thoughts brewing ... |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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OK, in case you haven't heard, Alec Baldwin has just written a book about "parental alienation," which is basically when one parent uses the courts and custody to "alienate" their child from the other one. In effect, this is (a) Baldwin's attempt to recast himself as the ostracized good guy who only called his daughter a "thoughtless, little pig" out of frustration, and to make the world aware of how female-centric the divorce court system is in this country.
Ummmm...duh. And it's not by accident. While there may be some exceptions to this rule (and perhaps Baldwin is one of them,) in general, it's the mom who wants the kid, it's the mom who takes responsibility as the primary care-giver, and it's the mom who picks up the pieces. Again, not always the case...but the phrase "deadbeat dad" isn't something fashioned out of thin air.
Anyhoo, Baldwin wrote a book, gave an interview, and seems to take every opportunity to trash his ex-wife, Kim Basinger, in the press. Meanwhile, Basinger has said nothing. She has no comment for we, the people.
That, my friends, is fucking awesome parenting. Period.
Why? Because it's none of our business. Isn't divorce hard enough on the damn kid, without reading about it in the papers and online? Isn't it better to minimize the harm by keeping Perez Hilton out of it? Or ABC News?
Look, I don't know Basinger OR Baldwin personally, so I can't testify as to whether or not either is a good or bad or indifferent parent. I don't know if either is batshit, if Kim bathes in the blood of innocents, or if Baldwin shaves his back. What I do know is that it's best for the kid if we, the people, aren't involved in the custody hearings. That little Ireland really doesn't need to see her family life on the cover of a glossy mag. And that whatever is going on between Kim, Alec and Ireland should stay between them.
And guess who's fulfilling that promise? Basinger.
So Alec? Shut UP. |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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Let's get this right out of the way from the start. I'm a ShanDo fan.
Seriously.
There are many reasons why, but I think it all boils down to the theme of survival. Shannen Doherty is a survivor in show business. Moreover, she's not a 'survivor' like people with the last name 'Spelling' or 'Sheen' are. She's a kid from nowhere who's been shot to the moon, shot by the press, shot down by the press, and keeps on tickin'.
That's worth an extraordinary amount of respect.
Along the way, she's been idolized, demonized, glamorized and villified. She's done some brilliant work, some very popular work, some so-bad-its-awesome work...and some utter crap.
She's been written off so many times, the inkwell has run dry on snarky sarcasm.
And yet, like the awesome Stephen Sondheim song, Shannen Doherty can gloat and smile and sing, "I'm Still Here."
Heck, look at her resume. She never went away. There's a continuous block of work from 1981-2008. That's damn astonishing, for any actor, let alone Shannen Doherty.
So why do I have mixed feelings about her five-episode 'iconic' return to her old zipcode?
On the one hand, you can't blame the CW here. The original 90210 basically became utter crap (instead of angsty, enjoyable crap,) when ShanDo left the building. The buzz on their remake launched into the stratosphere when she signed up.
...but this needs to be a limited engagement for Shannen. We need to see Brenda, love her, and move on. Let's leave the past in the past, shall we?
And give Shannen Doherty a damn series already! Seriously. Clearly, we're all waiting for the next series that ShanDo can rock out. Alas, it wasn't "North Shore."
Yet, whether or not she stays on 90210 or moves on to her next movie-of-the-week...or in fact, gets her deserved series (and career vindication,) Shannen's a survivor. And that's why we're all tuning in, really. To see this chick survive, against all odds, Garths and Milanos.
You go, girl. |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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| You know, when I was in Vermont, one of my friends fessed up to not seeing the utterly brilliant film, Body Heat. From a ... |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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| It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon in the District. I had tumbled out of bed around 12:00, still groggy from the effects of the previous ... |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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| You know, normally I love Time Magazine. It's a nice, unbiased slice of life I can digest as I move my bowels each and ... |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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| OK, so I journeyed back to Vermont for my second time as an adult (went skiing as a child in Killington.) And now I can ... |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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| I have to get this right out of the way. I abhore the new Madonna song, "Four Minutes." Having said that, I adore her new ... |
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Posted by Aaron Michael Gordon at
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