Movie Review: The Big Kahuna

The Big Kahuna (2000) 

Directed by John Swanbeck 

Written by Roger Rueff 

Starring Kevin Spacey, Danny Devito, Peter Fascinelli 

Release Date April 28th, 2000 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

Will the real Kevin Spacey please come home! I'm talking about the Spacey who portrayed Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects, Lester Burnham in American Beauty and John Doe in Seven. Not the Spacey who was the dour schoolteacher in Pay It Forward, the sanctified crazy in K-Pax or the dull schlub from The Shipping News. The last time we saw the real Kevin Spacey was the three-guys-in-a-hotel-room drama The Big Kahuna.

In The Big Kahuna, Spacey portrays Larry Mann, one of the best industrial lubricant salesman there is. Larry, along with partner and best friend Phil (Danny DeVito), are attending a convention to pitch their industrial lubricants to clients and while they are at it, they teach the business to a new recruit named Bob (Peter Fascinelli).

The film takes place all in one hotel room as the three salesman rehash the nights goings on and their seeming failure to find the big kahuna, the big client they desperately want to sign. As it turns out however, Bob actually did find the big kahuna, but instead of pitching him industrial lubricants they talk about their families and religion. This leads to a philosophical debate about the importance of family and God and what role, if any, they play in business. 

Larry is the hardliner married to the job at the expense of everything else. Phil is the would-be family man who longs for the ideals he gave up to be successful. For Bob, each of his two mentors represent two disparate paths, focus solely on work and become successful but lonely or focus on family and give up on the big sales and big money. A far more difficult decision than it seems.

The Big Kahuna doesn't have any big flashy set pieces, no chase scenes or mystery. It is essentially a stage play on film and each of the three actors is given a well-written monologue to explain their character and motivation. I must say what a joy it is to listen to intelligent people carry on intelligent conversation. Especially DeVito, whose calmness and maturity shines a light on what an under-appreciated talent he is. 

While Spacey does a good deal of screen chewing in The Big Kahuna, you still get the feeling of watching a real person, he's a salesman so larger than life showboating and grandstanding come with the territory. As for Peter Fascinelli he does a great job of not getting completely blown off the screen by his costars. 

Movie Review: The Twilight Saga Eclipse

The Twilight Saga Eclipse (2010) 

Directed by David Slade 

Written by Melissa Rosenberg

Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Elizabeth Reaser

Release Date June 30th, 2010 

Published June 29th, 2010

The Twilight movies are about sex. Sex is why the Cullen family, and indeed all Vampires are so damned Gap model attractive. Sex is why Taylor Lautner’s Jacob, and the rest of his Wolf pack are shirtless for most of the movie. The denial of sex from Edward to Bella, from Bella to Jacob, is the driving force of the plot of the latest Twilight chapter “Eclipse” and it makes for one exceptionally irritating tease. Not to mention one truly irresponsible and outdated morality play.

As we rejoin the “Twilight Saga,” a young man in Seattle is being menaced in the rain. He is soon bitten and will become a Vampire, the first in an army of newborn Vamps under the control of the evil redhead Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard). She is building an army to attack the Cullen Clan and especially Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), the love of Victoria's mortal enemy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson).

Bella and Edward, reunited after Edward tried to runaway in “New Moon,” are now in the full blossom of love, as demonstrated by the two of them reading poetry in a flowery meadow together. How else would you know they were in love? Bella is still pestering Edward about becoming a Vampire while Edward talks of marriage.

Meanwhile, Bella has drama with her pal Jacob, yet another of Edward's sworn enemies, who happens to also be in love with Bella. Bella has feelings for Jacob and this love triangle is supposed to be a source of deathly, primal, tension that smolders off of the screen but as written and played it comes off much more like two boys fighting over a favored toy.

Bella and Jacob haven't spoken in the months since she chose Edward over him but, when Victoria returns to their tiny corner of Washington State, Jacob wants to know that Bella is protected and that he and his wolf pack are ready to do the protecting if Edward and his vampires can't do it. Victoria’s army leads to a truce between the Cullen clan and the Wolf pack and some newborn vampire heads get crushed in the film’s best sequence.

The battle scenes staged by director David Slade have a crisp, professional look that was desperately lacking in the first two Twilight movies. Slade's experience on the vampire flick “30 Days of Night” definitely pays off here even as he is restrained by a bloodless PG-13 rating. Did you know that Vampires are made of marble? I’m not kidding, freaking marble, like tabletops. Goofy as that sounds, the visual of marble crushed by Vampire fist and Werewolf teeth is pretty cool.

As an action movie, this is certainly the best of the Twilight brand of action. But, “Twilight” is not about Vampires and Werewolves punching and biting one another in some CGI universe. No, “Twilight” is about sex, more to the point, it's about spreading a fear and loathing of sex. Stephanie Meyer has crafted a morality play in which Vampirism and the Werewolf version of eternal love, known as ‘Imprinting,’ are merely poorly veiled metaphors for sex. The pain of turning into a Vampire, the fear of Edward’s uncontrollable ‘blood’ lust and Jacob’s animal sexuality are Meyer’s way of making sex dangerous and foreboding.

In the “Twilight” series sex is threatening, mystical and frightening unless you are married. It’s the Purity Ring of movie franchises, clinging desperately to an outdated idea of chastity as the only way to live. Teens are sexually active and the more society attempts to frighten them away from sexuality the more dangerous teen experimentation becomes. Instead of teaching teens the joy of safe, responsible sex, “Twilight” preaches abstinence through fear and encourages ignorance in the form of outdated moralism.

If you must send this chastity/abstinence/purity message then at least do it better than this. In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the message is delivered with Ms. Meyer and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg employing undercooked analogies, juvenile romantic fantasy, and groan inducing monologue that run page after page apparently communicating what the writers felt could not be communicated by the cast through that talent known as acting.

Like the first and second film in the saga, “Eclipse” is for fans only. Those who love the books are blind to the immature romance, the stolid monologues, and the attempt to push an abstinence message in the guise of a Vampire movie. I’m sure if Twi-hards would pull their eyes away from Edward’s gleaming skin or Jacob’s rippling abs they would see this series for what it is; but trust me that is never going to happen.

Movie Review: Twilight

Twilight (2008) 

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke 

Written by Melissa Rosenberg 

Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Anna Kendrick, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli

Release Date November 21st, 2008 

Published November 20th, 2008

I must first admit my ignorance of the Twilight phenomena. Not spending much time chatting with members of the tween set, having no teenage daughters, I was blissfully unaware of writer Stephanie Meyers anguished teen vampire romance series. Now that the series and movie have become inescapable the culture vulture in me has absorbed as much as I can about the series without resorting to actually reading the weighty tomes themselves. Does the overall ignorance of the book prevent me from offering fair insight of the movie? Hardly.

Freed of the need to refer back to the efficacy of book to movie I am able to judge the movie for what it is without the weight of the literary literalism that will, no doubt, arise within those who find Stephanie Meyers words sacred. Twilight is a loosely Shakespearean romance that lifts, as does much modern romance, from the Bard's Romeo and Juliet, a tale of tragic, agonized love. Edward Cullen is a shy, pasty faced young man with no friends in school. He hovers close to four equally pallid brothers and sisters and rejects the world around him.

Bella Swan is similar in ghostly appearance to Edward. Her pale whiteness an oddity as her character comes from the sun drenched deserts of Arizona. Nevertheless, Bella and Edward could bond over the necessity for sunscreen but they don't. Bella is also similarly afflicted with the need to avoid social interaction. Though she is adopted by a social group of boys and girls in her new school in Forks Washington, where this story plays out, Bella is never comfortable. Her elusive manner and general social discomfort are yet another bonding opportunity for she and Edward.

And bond they do. After nearly 2 acts worth of scenes of doubt and confusion, Edward and Bella admit they are destined to be together. Therein comes the major complication. Aware to us from the start, Bella is thusly introduced to Edward's deepest secret; he is a vampire. Moreover, her blood has a particular scent that drives him near frenzy. He fears that he cannot control the instinct to devour her but he cannot stay away from her either. For her part Bella is infatuated with Edward's stunning edifice. The kid is great looking. Add that face to his tortured poet manner and he is irresistible.

Now, if you can't follow the glaring metaphors, shining nearly as bright as Edward's diamond dust skin in the bright sunlight (I'll explain later), you really should pay closer attention. Meyers and now screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, have crafted an allegory about sex, teens, hormones, abstinence and marriage. Lust, temptation and resistance are Twilight's true subjects. Vampires are merely the construct, an enticement to read more about the strength it takes to love but not make love. If Bella and Edward are anything more than lusty teens longing for a backseat or basement couch I'll eat my hat.

The dangers of the vampire are merely a representation of all that could go wrong should the teens indulge their urges. Edward could infect or even kill Bella if he allowed things to go to far. Indeed, Edward carries the burden of much of the metaphor, his being the dangerous condition. Bella is merely tempting and tempted.

The metonymy is fairly simpleminded and once you have sussed it out and discarded it as obvious; you are left with director Catherine Hardwicke and her exceptionally mediocre effort to give it cinematic life. Twilight the movie, beyond the metaphor, is a flabby, shabby effort of a mind numbing length and amateur special effects. Then there is absolute disregard for all that we know of vampires. Edward and his family walk in daylight. No burning skin, no running for cover, not even a passing reference to the need for sunscreen. Now, the Cullen clan does have issues with the sun but it's not a fiery death they fear.

Click here for my review