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Monday, November 24, 2008
Fail Noir
The
Good German. If they hadn't
put the word 'good' in the title,
no one would ever associate that adjective with this awful movie.
no one would ever associate that adjective with this awful movie.
CLOONEY AND SODERBERGH. Apologies. This post was going to be about three good movies you probably haven't seen, plus one that's so bad it's hilarious. Unfortunately, I managed to scrape my right eye with the corner of a pillowcase last night, and so I'm not able to look at the screen very long without shrieking suddenly and falling down. Which means our loyal Bad Penny should really like the brevity of today's entry about the worst film noir ever made. (I'll be back with the good movies in a day or so.)
Imagine that all the cameramen and lighting directors who know how to shoot a movie in black and white are dead. Imagine that you have enough Hollywood clout to make a 1940s film noir anyway. Imagine that you have a huge enough ego to think you're up to doing an homage to B&W classics like The Third Man, Casablanca, Touch of Evil, and Citizen Kane. Imagine that somehow you can convince George Clooney, Cate Blanchette, Toby Maguire and other legitimate talents to participate. Got it?
Now imagine that you make a movie so bad that you spend $30 million to take in $1.25 million at the box office. Trust me. You won't know which of the many unforgivable movie crimes committed by Steven Soderbergh is funnier: the incompetent mix of overexposed outside shots and too dim to see interior shots; the reduction of Cate Blanchette to a clown mask femme fatale; the sore thumb anachronisms of gratuitous nudity and ubiquitous F-words; or the repeated explicit visual references to all the real movie masterpieces named above.
Scratch that. If you make it all the way to the end (which is hard but oh so rewarding), you will know which is the worst. Try to imagine a final scene that quotes both Casablanca and Citizen Kane in the most laughably obvious way possible. Okay? Guess what. However falling down funny your imagined scene is, it can't hold a candle to the end of The Good German. You've just got to see this movie. Your ribs will hurt for a month from the guffawing you'll do. You'll feel better about all the bad news of the past month. I promise.
