*Constantine

Directed by Francis Lawrence
Written by Kevin Brodbin, Frank Cappello, Jamie Delano (comic), Garth Ennis (comic)

Man it's cold out - 21 degrees, and windy. And I know I'm going to hell already anyway, so I don't feel too scared about the repercussions of what I'm about to say:

Hell doesn't really look all that bad.

But...why are there cars in hell? And palm trees? And the brief view of what we see going on underneath (I guess even hell has an underneath) to me looked a great deal like the classic dance party Zion scene in The Matrix Reloaded.

Okay, I take that back. Hell looks downright awful.

I've never read Hellblazer, though I'm a big fan of the Vertigo brand (geez, listen to me). Apparently the original John Constantine was British, and based physically on Sting. Not so, here, on either count.

John Constantine is not your everyday guy-who-looks-good-in-a-suit. Due to a psychic gift, some bad parenting, and a few questionable life choices, Constantine has now dedicated his life, like most of us, I suppose, to get on God's good graces and secure himself a place in Heaven. Then we find out he's dying, which I think is supposed to be the big driving motivation behind the actions to come, though I don't really see things going any differently either way.

We're taken to Constantine's shithole apartment, which is about four times the size of mine and one bottle of Windex and a free weekend away from being four times nicer. I'm serious! High ceilings, dramatic lighting, and only a pullman kitchen, but did you see the size of that bathroom? The last six Chinese restaurants I've eaten at put together could fit in that bathroom!

The plot, involving an attempt to bring about hell on Earth using the Spear of Destiny (which you will remember from the TNT original movie The Librarian: Quest for the Spear starring Noah Wylie was the spear that killed Jesus, and is rumored to bring it's bearer great power, and don't pretend like you didn't see the TNT original movie The Librarian: Quest for the Spear) didn't make a lot of sense to me the first time around, and I doubt that it would hold up under repeated viewings, though it was actually involving enough to make the kids in the theater stop yakking on their cellies for about an hour. If you want plot, go watch the TNT original movie The Librarian: Quest for the Spear. Constantine is a fun Friday night. Goes good with popcorn. Believe me, you've seen much worse.

The plot also involves several trips to hell. Going to hell involves lots of water. All those bottles of water in that huge apartment makes me think Constantine goes to hell a lot. You'd think he'd be used to it by now.

Casting is good, for the most part - Keanu somewhat redeems himself from the last few Matrix movies ("At least the weather's nice" - classic), and Rachel Weisz is not annoying. Pruitt Taylor Vince, Djimon Hounsou and Tilda Swinton are great, as always, as expected. It was fun watching Gavin Rossdale (or Mr. Gwen Stefani - oh come on, you saw that coming from a mile away) die, and Peter Stormare can now add "Gay Christopher Walken" to his resume. But Shia LaBoeuf - poor guy. Showed such promise in Holes and (to a much lesser extent) The Battle of Shaker Heights, but now seems doomed to play the annoying know-it-all sidekick for the rest of his life.

Constantine was originally to be directed by original video auteur Tarsem Singh, with Nick Cage starring. Tarsem left the production because he refused to work with Nick. I don't know why Nick left. Director Francis Lawrence is also from music video land, though I don't know that I've seen anything that he's done.

Fun movie - I wonder if the book's better.

Trailer watch:

A Scanner Darkly - looks better than I expected (though, School of Rock aside, I tend not to so much get into Linklater's non-walking-around movies). I haven't read this particular PKD, but based on what they reveal of the plot, it looks like there's actually a reason why this movie is animated - I had previously thought that this was just one of those let's-animate-it-for-the-sake-of-animating-it movies. Oh, and a note about the animation here as well as in Waking Life - breathtaking? Groundbreaking? Completely state-of-the-art and unlike anything you have ever seen? It's called rotoscoping, and not only have people been doing it at least since the early 1900s, it's actually much easier than what's referred to as "normal" animation. Yeesh.
Batman Begins - sigh.
The New World - geez, give it a rest already?
Stealth - oh my god, this is the worst movie ever made.
House of Wax - no, THIS is the worst movie ever made.

*Inside Deep Throat

Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato

It's hard to talk about a movie like this. Whenever people start talking about movies like this, they wind up talking more about the actual events or engage in the debate itself, rather than talking about the film as a film. So, I'm going to try not to talk about politics, sexual or otherwise, or life in the age of "porno" vs. the age of "porn", or how much I miss top-loaders (I do! Top-loaders are the shit! Do the kids still say that? "The shit"?) - most importantly, I will do my best to separate discussion of the movie Deep Throat (which I've never seen - I'm sure I would have remembered if I had, I remember all the other awful '70s porn videos I saw when I was a kid) from that of the movie I just saw tonight, Inside Deep Throat. DT and IDT, for short.

So, first off, did I like IDT? Yeah, it was alright. I was a bit worried at first that the makers seemed overly coy about DT's subject matter, that they were dancing around it, always referring to it as "the act", or "that thing that she could do". It reminded me of an professor I had in undergrad, poor thing, who was trying to teach us the (non-)subtleties of Restoration-era English comedies, but seemed incapable of even alluding to anything at all untoward without blushing, giggling, covering her mouth, let alone actually being able to say aloud the word S-E-X.

And then, they show it. They show it. And it's masterful. Not only what Linda Lovelace does, but the way it is revealed in the film. Finally, I think, a movie!

Oh, and before I'm accused of being overly coy and all blushy and giggly myself, allow me to be completely clear what "it" is. "It" is Linda Lovelace taking a huge, erect penis all the way down her throat.

The history and aftermath of this one wonderful (possibly even important) moment in pop culture, and to a lesser extent, pornography itself, is traced through some cool archival footage and excellent interviews with everyone involved in its making, including its distributors, prosecutors and defenders, a handful of some of the best-selling authors and thinkers on the subject, Dr. Ruth Westheimer (I swear, didn't she die?), and of course the filmmakers themsleves, including director Gerard Damiano (he of the worst hairpiece in history), a crazy-eyed Harry Reems (who I can't remember if he actually did fake his own death, or was just rumored to have died), even Linda Lovelace herself (who, sadly, did pass away in April 2002). Stories from Lovelace's family and a childhood friend add weight and gravity, if not any concrete answers, to what pretty much amounts to a very, very sad life.

There are some things I could have done without. I could have done without the cutesy introductions of the protagonists of this little tale, and the Big Ending tries to give both this film and its subject far greater cultural weight than either have, on the terms of IDT, I think, earned. I mean, I could buy that the emergence and popularity of pornography in the early '70s was, in its way, the birth (or, at the very least, a birth) of today's independent film, and this one stupid little movie (DT) really did open up discussion and debate not only on censorship and morality, but on the idea of the clitoral orgasm and, by extension, the very concept of female sexuality itself, not to mention making a ton of money for...well, the mob, I guess, seeing as how everyone interviewed claims not to have seen dime one of the literally hundreds of millions of dollars DT has made, and though IDT's assertion that the porn industry is killing itself with oversaturation is true, the film goes on to posit that this oversaturation is removing all trace of art that ever existed in porn. This, not thirty minutes after talking about, and showing, Harry Reems giving the worst acting performance ever committed to film. Honestly, how much "art" was there ever involved?

Also, with all the interviews, why the distracting, heavy-handed narration (Dennis Hopper, no less)? One or two additional interviews would have taken care of it. It is, after all, the great interviews that make this movie. If you're are looking for a human face to put to the triumphs, tragedies, and reluctant legacy of this one, single, stupid movie from long long ago, don't ask the starlets at the AVN Awards, who have hardly even heard of DT, let alone seen it. No, you need look no further than the wife of former Miami theater owner Arthur Sommer. Classic.