Two Movies

Do you ever come away from watching a movie and think, "Someone in Hollywood thought this was a good idea?"

Last night I rented "Without a Paddle," a screwball comedy about three friends seeking D.B. Cooper's treasure in the Cascade mountains. Now, I didn't expect this was going to be a good movie, but often there's lots of fun to be had in lowbrow entertainment. I'd been sick in bed all day; I wanted something that wasn't going to be, shall we say, challenging. Ohbbboy.

It was the longest 98 minutes of my life. The eye candy was nice, even if the scenario in which our three heroes lost their clothes was more far-fetched than the abruptly abandoned subplot with the grizzly bear. (Personally, I think that would have been a great running gag, if they'd succeeded in making the bear simply an affectionate nuisance rather than a danger. Hey, it could work. It's a comedy. The Simpsons did it. The bear could have come to their rescue, on more than one occasion. Did no one consider that?) Of course the "three guys naked in the woods huddling in a cave together" required a gag to assure us that none of these young men are, you know, that way. Seth Green's character, the "weakling" with the pecs and washboard stomach and myriad neuroses had an almost coming out moment, but in the final scenes of the movie we see him hooking up with the hot babe who lives in the tree. Um, no, I'm not going to explain that one.

Also I found it bizarre that upon discovering D.B. Cooper's resting place -- I'm not really giving anything away, am I? -- our adventurers gazed upon it with such reverence. Um, he hijacked an airliner, people. He was a terrorist.

I'm trying to envision the board room in the Hollywood studio where, after hearing the pitch, some producer says, "Yes! I want to make this movie!" They even signed Ngila Dickson, costume designer of the "Lord of the Rings" movies. Did she, personally, design Seth Green's tighty-whities? Boy, after the drudgery of creating all those overdyed velvet gowns for such plain Janes as Liv Tyler and Miranda Otto, it must have been sheer joy to build mudstained overalls and plaid shirts for some fat Oregon hillbillies. I hope she's not counting on a second Oscar.

Compare that with "The House of Flying Daggers," which I saw on Tuesday night. Granted, this was not a Hollywood film, so it is comparing apples and oranges. "House" is a movie that perhaps wouldn't stand well as just a script (though it was far more literate and interesting than even many "serious" Hollywood films, like "Alexander"), but it was a lush and lavish visual orgy of a spectacle. The "Echo Dance" early in the film was something I will never forget.

You wonder if scripts in Hollywood ever get turned down. Obviously, yes, they do. You also have to wonder if it's the good ones that get rejected.