NEW REVIEW!

American Dreamz

(2006, dir. Paul Weitz)

Oh Lord. What was this? :-( I feel bad ripping this movie apart because it wasn't bad so much as it was an embarrassment to the concept of cinema. It was like when your sister tells you she hooked up with your cousin and they were both sober. You could rub it in. But why? The fact that Owen Gleiberman and Roger Ebert gave this Chris Weitz film fluffy positive reviews should tell you a lot. Only complete lightweights would enjoy this cocktail-napkin of a movie.

As I walked into the theater, it suddenly dawned on me: "Who is the demographic for this film?" During the screening I got to experience that demographic first hand since there was nothing else to do. No one was watching the movie. The paltry audience made up of an odd mix of teenagers, old people, bored people and (probably) serial killers, along with yours truly, simply killed time until the projectionist stopped flashing images at us. Images of brown (Arabs singing show tunes! HIGH-larious!), grey (Quaid's hair looked confused), red, white and blue (get it, America?) and orange (Mandy Moore). The girls sitting next to me talked through the entire film while text messaged and randomly shouting "I hate you!" to Moore. I felt close to them at that moment.

When Zach Braff nails me, I think about puppies dying.

Literally, if this film were an action verb, it would be "to kill time." Not pass time. Ruthlessly murder it. Mercilessly suck the existence out of every second that tics by. This movie is the inevitable conclusion to what might be generously referred to as the Weitz brothers' body of "work." I mean, are you really surprised that the makers of American Pie had a moment where they were like "We should totally use our frat boy humor and complete lack of artistic vision to say something about this country!" And no one stopped them. The studio execs made sure the research screenings were full of deaf-mutes.

There's nothing to review here because there was no movie. There was no beginning, middle or end. None of the performances were interesting. There was no conflict. No moments of revelation. There was nothing to laugh at. No story just random images flashed at you. I felt like I was part of some sort of social experiment for most of the two hour!! run time. Not unlike V for Vendetta the major feeling the film solicited from me was resentment. You cannot just randomly jumble around topical issues, coat them with your humor or style and call it an idea. Furthermore, you can't enlist actors to throw their shit at the wall in an effort to transform that idea into a story/movie. I mean, you can try but nothing will be accomplished and you'll hurt my feelings, waste money and ruin cinema.

Conclusions I've come to regarding American Dreamz
1. Don't see it.
2. What movie is Willem Dafoe NOT in?
3. Judy Greer, stop doing what you are doing. Stop. Do something different immediately.
4. Don't see it.
5. Rent Network.

P.S. I saw John Cho at Blue Ribbon last night and it took every in me not scream at him that he was a tool in this movie. Seriously... I stopped in front of him and thought about it.