Being a Cinecultist is about seeing the same movie more than once. Even if we didn't really like it much the first time, it can be tempting for CC to see a particular movie again partially just because it's there on tv and partially to see if we still really did hate it as much as we thought we did the first time. We conducted said experiment last night. The Good News? Roger Avary's Rules of Attraction looks much better on the small screen. The pretension fits in more with the smaller scale. The Bad News? It's still pretty damn pretentious twattle at that, all masquerading as a teensploitation flick. And there's no way to get around it, James Van Der Beek has an enormous forehead. Huge.
Cinecultist can offer this confident assessment of the Van Der Forehead because we saw it in person the first time we saw this movie, at it's New York premiere in Chelsea last year. In all fairness, CC didn't know it was going to be the premiere until spotting the limos and red carpet out front. We just thought we were catching an advance screening with our friend Jose, hence the marinara-stained cotton dress we had on. When watching Rules on tv, you can enjoy the good bits like Victor's whirlwind debauched tour through Europe or when minor character Richard "Dick" tells his drunk mother Swoosie Kurtz that school "sucks coooooock." The rest of the ponderous angstifying (they're so jaded from all that meaningless sex and drugs, *snore*) can be spent doing the dishes or picking lint out of the rug. Ex-cellent.
"Dude, I'm the Dude." In other re-viewings, the Cohen Brothers' Big Lebowski (a favorite movie of some we know, a reviled blight on cinema to others) is playing as a midnight screening at the Sunshine Theater on Houston for the next four nights. Cinecultist recommends many many White Russians before and after the film, it makes so much more sense that way. [via flavorpill]
Posted by karen at November 26, 2003 7:58 AM