As a young girl in southern Belgium after World War II, I was introduced to Hollywood cinema at my small village퀌_s community theater. At the time, the European film industry had been completely decimated and we Belgians loved the Hollywood movie. I, a young girl with nothing to do, born to a father who had an unnatural love of French pastries and a mother who sold broken radio transistors to Turkish immigrants at the march퀏� on Sundays, realized my true calling at an early age, being so lucky. I realized I could see ahead, I could see the future, not for all, but only in Hollywood movies. The endings became so clear to me, even before they happened. I was always one step ahead of the plot points. I now bring my talent to you to help in selecting your movie-going pleasures.
Competency Rating (16) : Bon jour, mes amis! You may consider this to be the triumphant return of the most competent and attractive movie pyschic this side of Moscow, fresh out of spirtual rehab, and reinvigerating the bowels of the cosmos with a flood of psychic vision that I, Madame Beignet de la Mort, can only liken to the liquid rush of a champagne enema or a foie gras milkshake.
Yes, while recently riding this wave of-um, how do you say?-ah, yes, this wave of megolomanical self-worth, I recieved a hastely written email from a young man who will remained unnamed, who informed me that my recent prediction of “Scary Movie 3” contained an innaccuracy, if one can call an unimportant detail like “the filmmaker” an inaccuarcy at all. While this young man was astute enough to point out that the Wayans Brothers had nothing to do with the conception of “Scary Movie 3” and it was in fact one of the Zucker brothers from “Airplane” and “Naked Gun” fame who deserved all of the petence for making this film, this unnamed young man went on to propose that the Wayans brothers deserved an apology from the most attractive cinematic clairavoyent to ever bet money on the date of Jean Dixon’s death (and win, I might add) at a Vegas sportsbar.
There of course are two problems with this request: 1. The fact that Wayans brothers had nothing to do with “Scary Movie 3” did not in any way change the outcome of my prediction for this horrible film. It was still neither scary nor a movie. Some of us, who happen to be very, very, VERY attractive, happened to be in a psychic detox center in Southern Austria that week and had to rely on our wits, our beauty, and our unimaginabley stellar psychic connection to the cosmos to write our articles rather than some of us who had access to press releases and a 56k internet connection. And, 2. If anyone in the world does not deserve an apology, it is the Wayans brothers. Why, you ask? I can invariably sum up that answer in fourteen words: “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.” And now with that out of the way, on a scale of 1, not being psychic at all, to 10, being horribly attractive and totally pyschic almost to a fault, this week I would have to give myself a competency rating of 16, because I deserve it.
YOUR MOVIE FORECAST FOR THE WEEKEND OF 7 NOVEMBER 2003:
“Love Actually”
What is it about English people? No, really-I’m serious. Is it the teeth? The culinary disasters, such as blood puddings and saugages? The fact that they think that they are too good for the Euro? The tea and crumpets? Or is it just the fact that they are unemotionable beasts once hell-bent on world domination, but are now more than content with dry wit, an overwhelming fear of embarrassment, and a sullen pair of eyes that try desperately to appear emotionally vacant while feigning intellectual curiousity? Maybe, it’s because I’m Francophonic Belgian, but I predict that “Love Actually” will be the most unbelievable movie ever made.
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Suspension of disbelief aside, what this film actually presupposes is that British people actually fall in love and don’t just copulate to pass the rainy days while keeping their fingers crossed that they produce a Jude Law and not one hundred Prince Charles.
What this film attempts to do is tell the ambitious tale of ten different people. This does seem ambitious, until you realize that all ten of these characters are typecast English actors just doing their unemotive schticks: Hugh Grant as “Prime Minister” Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson as Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson… WHAT? Rowan Atkinson is acting wiry and out-of-place? If one were to rent every romantic comedy the aforementioned actors have appeared in and an episode of “Mr. Bean”, put on a Santa cap and watch all of these films at once it might produce the sappy feeling that the creator of “Love Actually” Richard Curtis, wanted to produce in his audience as they left the theater-the kind of sappiness that real British people never feel.
“Elf”
Hmm… I see… fart jokes, ��a big man in an elf suit, a raccon attack, burp jokes, jokes about New Yorkers being insensitive, people not believing in Christmas or Santa Claus, and a redemptive ending, where all faith in Christams and Santa is restored that makes the fungus on my little toe tingle.