Mediola

Cellular: Even worse than Planet 9 From Outer Space

I'm as we say "calling for scripts", putting out the word to screenwriters that I'm looking for scripts I can produce. One of the sources I'm using to request "queries", or brief emails with story synopses, asked what genre I'm looking for. I replied, "Suspense and horror". She asked if there was a single film I could identify that was similar to what I was looking for, given certain parameters I listed for her. While I was pondering, she suggested "Cellular". I hadn't seen it, and told her I'd dash out to Hollywood Video a grab a copy.

OK, I got through about 15 minutes. Now, I read a lot of scripts, as everyone in the film business must. I've read some stinkers, and some absolutely amateurish efforts. But I've never read anything nearly so pathetically, laughably horrible as Cellular. And the direction is equally awful. The people who made this film could not possibly ever make even one episode of a prime time TV series.

The box office on this picture was over $30 million dollars. The budget was $25 million. It looks like it cost 3 cents. This means they lost a lot of money. Which is good. What's not good is that some people like this garbage.

This is at the bottom of my Vomit List.

The Golden Globes: Ya gotta love em! NOT

My notes on the Golden Globes:

• Wonderful black gown worn by Renee Zellwegger
• Clive Owen is the next James Bond, or else
• WONDERFUL! Bill Shatner wins again for Denny Crane! If you're not watching Boston Legal, you're missing some of the greatest characters ever created for television. I've raved about Shatner's creation of the Denny Crane character before, and I'll say it again...it's unforgettable

• Hand me the barf bag. Somebody named Moushkee Hargity or something from Law & Order beat Edie Falco. Mousky better look both ways when she crosses Sunset. Ya neva no when some nut is gonna drive crazy, ya know?

 

Troy: Unbearable ancient shit

I've known since junior high that Trojans were designed to prevent life-bearing sperm from getting into a woman's vagina. They've always worked for me, and they worked for Warner Bros. too, sucking any possible life out of this never ending, incomprehensible bore of a feature.

I remember when Wolfgang Petersen could direct. But there isn't even one single shot in this mess that looks better than any 14 year old could make with a Kodak. The CGI is the worst I have ever seen. The script, by somebody who doesn't deserve mentioning, but who has NEVER written one single movie that played anywhere but in his brain, is semi-literate and so stupid and confused and simple-minded that if I did any research I'd probably discover that he is a milkman who screwed a studio executive.

Puke, puke and puke.

I truly feel bad for the actors. They seem to be trying to do what they can amidst this barrel of slops.

I had a long conversation last night with a very bright young development executive. At one point he expressed his belief that many brilliant people in the movie industry work extremely hard to create the scripts that we may think are mediocre. He said if they're mediocre, it's be cause these brilliant people want them to be mediocre.  Years, he said, are spent shaping these films into their final form.

If he's right, I'm a green Chuckle. This movie was made by illiterate morons with too much money.

Fans of The Da Vinci Code...I want to point out that Troy spelled backwards is Yort. And yort an idiot if you see this piece of crap.