J O H N ' S    J O U R N A L I S M M O V I E    R E N T A L    H E L L by John Connolly for the Irish Times, Summer 2003 Like checking the menu board at your local fast food joint to see if it has suddenly added caviar and swan to its meal deals, the weekly trip to the video store has become a triumph of optimism over experience. According to a nice lady at the British Video Association, some 500 new movies were released for rental last year, yet the odds are still stacked against finding more than a handful that any self-respecting DVD player won't spit out like a piece of bad fish. With this in mind, I decided that I would briefly stop fighting the inevitable, and embrace mediocrity. For as long as I could stand to do so, I would watch only the films that nobody else wanted to rent: direct-to-video movies featuring members of the Baldwin family; bad erotica involving the misuse of children's confectionery; and big-budget Hollywood films made by talented individuals (and Whoopi Goldberg) that tanked so badly at the U.S. box office they weren't deemed worthy of a proper release here. I would mine the dross in the hope of finding a single diamond. But don't try this at home. I am a trained professional. And I'm on expenses. Day 1: Unerotic Erotica Night (Centre of the World, Killing Me Softly) Sex is hard to do well, even on film. Wayne Wang used to make interesting, intelligent movies like Smoke, but now appears intent on doing for erotica what John Bruton does for sex education, i.e. he wants to take all the fun out of it. Mind you, in Centre Molly Parker does perform a sexual act with a lollipop that would probably have killed the kiddie lollipop industry stone dead if anyone had bothered to see the film. (Then again, it might have opened up a whole new adult market for lollipops. The whistling ones would have been particularly novel.) A number of New York intellectuals, including Paul Auster and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, apparently helped with Centre's storyline, which, for what it's worth can be summarised as 'man hires hooker for trip to Vegas, falls for her a bit, then is surprised when it doesn't work out.' Oh dear, I've given away the ending. What a shame. Chen Kaige's Killing Me Softly, meanwhile, is unspeakably bad, and makes one wish that Heather Graham could just meet a nice man who would encourage her to keep her clothes on in films. Both of these movies managed to put me off sex. Sex, and lollipops sold without protective wrappers. Day 2: "You Know, For Kids" Night, or Jeremy Irons Pays the Rent (The Time Machine) Jeremy Irons has never exactly evoked affection as an actor. Asking him to generate actual warmth in a role is like asking a fridge to emote, so when he stars in what appears to be a children's movie it is with the creeping sense that no good can come of it. I missed The Time Machine on its theatrical run. Actually, I say "missed" when what I really mean to say is that I would rather have run naked through a rusty razor blade factory while covered in leeches than pay good money to see it in a cinema. Jeremy only crops up at the end of the film as the lead villain which, for reasons best known to the filmakers, requires him to dress as an ageing German transsexual who has accidentally wandered in from a bondage remake of Cabaret. There is no legitimate artistic reason why Jeremy Irons should have starred in this film, although his physical appearance might explain why he painted his castle in County Cork pink. Day 3: Sci-Fi Night, or Eddie Murphy Does Not Date Transsexuals (The Adventures of Pluto Nash) In a neat segue from last night's Jeremy Irons-in-bondage-gear epic, in 1997 Eddie Murphy was stopped by police who found a transsexual prostitute in the passenger seat of his car, although it's not clear if the transsexual had modeled his appearance on a Jeremy Irons role. This was probably embarrassing for Eddie (who claimed he was just trying to be nice by giving the hooker a ride) but not as embarrassing as The Adventures of Pluto Nash, a 'sci-fi-comedy-thriller/ piece-0f-garbage /new-swimming-pool-for-Eddie/ new-car-in-the drive/reminder-to-self: do not use it to give rides to strange transsexuals' attempt at a kids' movie. Is it any good? Of course it is, and I'm just giving this transsexual a ride home. Day 4: Whores From China Night, or Not Everyone Can Be Ang Lee Asian cinema has enjoyed a renaissance in popularity in recent years, but Asian filmakers still seem keener than most on churning out offensive, cheaply produced, sexist trash, so I was spoiled for choice. Still, at least you know what you're getting with a movie called Whores From China. Nobody is going to take it home, put it in the VCR and say, "Heeyyyy, wait a minute! This film has whores in it. From China." Neither is there a need to pepper it with stickers bearing the words "Warning: may contain whores (Chinese)" For what it's worth, the movie is about whores. From China. But you probably guessed that. Day 5: Stuff That Should Have Been Good But Really Sucked Night (Monkeybone) A lot of very talented people (and Whoopi Goldberg) were involved in the creation of "Monkeybone." Unfortunately, none were clever enough to get their names taken off the finished product once they saw how bad it was. Brendan Fraser plays a cartoonist whose most famous character, a malevolent monkey, comes to life. This gives Brendan the opportunity to threaten to "choke his monkey", which is the funniest line in the film and still isn't even remotely humorous. Whoopi Goldberg plays Death, at least allowing us to proclaim officially, and without fear of litigation, that Whoopi Goldberg is death in a comedy. Day 6: A Night On Baldwin Mountain (Warnings) Warnings is such a blatant rip-off of the Mel Gibson, alien crop circle chiller Signs that it almost qualifies as postmodern, like Gus Van Sant's scene-by-scene remake of Psycho. Short of simply taking the Signs cover, crossing out the word 'Signs' and scribbling 'Warnings' above it in crayon, it couldn't advertise its origins more clearly. I suspect that just renting it may have involved me in some form of plagiarism lawsuit. Despite receiving top billing, Stephen Baldwin - a bad actor from a family of bad actors, with the possible exception of his brother Alec - only appears in the first few minutes of the movie and then gets killed. In other words, this may be the ultimate bad movie: a Stephen Baldwin film so bad even Stephen Baldwin would rather die than be in it. Day 7: Thriller Night, or Hope Springs Eternal (Bare Witness, Femme Fatale) The best thing about Bare Witness, a "steamy" thriller starring Stephen Baldwin's 'put-him-on-the-Atkins-Diet' brother Daniel, is its title, and its title is horrible. But just as I had given up all hope of enjoying a single worthwhile viewing experience, respite came from the most unlikely of sources. Brian De Palma hasn't made a decent film since 1990's Casualties of War, but Femme Fatale is - whisper it - not bad, and it didn't even get a release here. Admittedly, after a week of Baldwins and demented monkeys the competition wasn't exactly stiff, but Femme Fatale manages to be reasonably entertaining and, in Rebecca Unpronounceablename of X-Men fame, boasts a star who can carry off De Palma's voyeur schtick with some degree of dignity. It's not much of a return for fifteen hours of tedium, but I'm still pathetically grateful for it. So what have I learned from all this? Well, I know that this is 40 Euros I could have spent on drilling for oil in my garden and still have received a better return on my investment. I know that my local video library now has a record of me renting Whores from China, which may lead to follow-up calls from the police, and possibly from curious Chinese whores. I also know that there's a good reason why nobody wanted to see Bare Witness, or Monkeybone, or The Adventures of Pluto Nash. They're not lost masterpieces. They're not even worthy failures. They're just plain bad, and there's something vaguely depressing about the waste of money, energy, talent (and Whoopi Goldberg) involved in their production. On your death bed, you'll want the time you spent watching Warnings back, and you won't get it. Instead, you'll go to hell for encouraging these people, and hell will be a Baldwin Brothers' Movie Festival with the sweeties provided by the people who made Centre of the World. You have been warned.