| Panic Room |
| OK, we just got back from the movie place, after having about a 15 minute debate on which movies we were gonna get. They Royal Tennenbaums was our first choice. Stefan and Cathy went to the store specifically to get it. I'm not really a fan of that movie, and neither is Jake, so we got another one for after the Tennenbaums. I kind of wanted "Changing Lanes", but people didn't really want it. So first in the quest, Cathy pointed out "Panic Room". Jake wanted "The Count of Monte Cristo". I wasn't too excited about either of these. I suggested "Gosford Park", and said that if there was one movied there that I wanted to see, it would be "Amelie". Then we went off onto some tangent and started picking up things like "Ghetto Dawgs" and "Black Knight". Stuff like "Hart's War" and "We Were Soldiers" and that third one, with either Nicolas Cage, Mel Gibson, or Owen Wilson....I have no idea which is which....all got suggested. "Ali" was suggested but dismissed. I don't know why. I'm trying to remember the situation, but somehow it just blew over. Like "How about 'Ali'? That's supposed to......the Teletubbies have a movie?!" Anyway, somehow, it ended up that "The Count of Monte Cristo" was going to be selected, so I tried to stall because I didn't want to see that, and "Panic Room" is what we ended up with, because it was the movie we were holding when Cathy couldn't handle her hunger pains anymore. OK. First off, if you plan on seeing this movie, don't read on. I'm going to reveal what happens. In the middle, even the end of this fine piece of cinematography. I'm gonna spill it all. It's one of those ironies, though, because if you don't read on, you won't know not to watch the movie. If you do read on, you're not going to watch it anyway, or don't care either way, so there's basically no way I'm gonna ruin this movie for you. We start the movie with Jodie Foster and her son/daughter person looking for an apartment. We in the room all war on whether the kid is a boy or a girl for at least half the movie. Stefan and Cathy were sure it's a girl. Jake's sure it's a boy. I think it's a girl at this point, but I don't dismiss Jake's claim. He/she is sporting the exact hair-do as John in Terminator 2. Anyway, they're trying to get an apartment in Manhattan which, if you don't know, isn't easy. They choose the first one they see, of course, since it's NYC. They go into the house, and kind of pan around, and I think "man.....they must be fucking loaded!". The floor space was incredible. Then they mention stuff like "Buy it. You're not going to find anything in Manhattan with a yard". Stop right there. It has a nice back yard too? Yep. Oh. Wait. I forgot to mention the other 3 huge floors. This place is humongous. I estimate $20,000 a month, but Cathy and Stefan said they bought it. So I say maybe a million? I don't know. Maybe more. When they look at the house, they also see a panic room. The idea is that if anything happens, you just lock yourself in. Self sustainable, impossible to break into, etc. Hmmmm....Do you think they'll use it at all? There is blatant foreshadowing all through the movie. Anyway, they unpack a little bit and kind of develop their characters for the next 10 minutes of the movie. It seems kind of weak. Any time there's a kid saying "fuck" to it's (I say "it" on purpose here, because we're not sure of the gender yet) mom, I think they're reaching for something. But it's OK. So they have this gigantic house with a couple rooms and this panic room, and this mom and son/daughter go to bed for the first night. In New York City. In a new apartment. That is all empty besides them. I know I wouldn't even fall asleep that night, but these two are unphased. Not only do they fall asleep easily, they don't even sleep in the same room, or even the same floor for that matter! Little do they know, their lives will be forever changed after this night.... They pan through the house, at some of their unpacking, and they already have this place furnished pretty well. Then they show someone outside, trying to get in. There are a couple guys outside. They try all of the entrances. Luckily, there is a great security system. Forrest Whitaker finds a way in, and the system notifies Jodie. With a beep that is quiter than most watches. He looks around, and you can tell something's not right. Like he just realizes that people are living there now. Oh well. He goes and lets the other guys in and turns off the system. He's done it before. But the guy brings in a new guy to the deal, "Raul". So they start arguing about what they're going to do now that there is someone in the house, and they also argue about the new guy being there. Forrest Whitaker and Jared Leto. So they argue loudly for a while, which would be dumb, except Jodie and her child are sleeping about 14 floors up, so no one will hear anything. I take it back. It's still dumb. They couldn't argue quietly or take it outside? Have I mentioned that this movie has the weakest dialogue and worst "great lines" ever? And don't get me started on this guy, Leto. He's terrible. I've never seen such bad acting, or such a bad fit into a character, or whatever. It's just embarrassingly bad. If you were in this situation, wouldn't you just leave and come back one day when they went to the store or something, and do it then? Anyway, a non-thrilling sequence occurs, and now Jodie and her kid (I'm starting to be swayed onto Jake's side, but I'm wavering. I think 50-50 right now, boy or girl) are in the panic room and the three robbers are outside. The problem is, there's money inside the room that no one except them knows about. Luckily for the plot of this movie, they never hooked up the phone inside that room. End phase 2. Now the robbers try to make up plans to get in. I don't remember what all they do. I don't really care. The one that struck me was when they hosed propane into the ventilation system. Jodie and Sarah (There it is!!! Sarah! It's a girl!!) start coughing, but this girl instinctively rips off a metal duct cover and voila. A drainpipe with air, sweet air. But Jodie won't take this. She finds a lighter and covers her daughter with a fire blanket. We all think "gay" right about now. She holds the lighter up and lights it, exploding a guy's face, but not herself. There are blue flames and stuff in the room, but luckily, Jodie doesn't even get a scratch. Leto looks pretty bad though. So the whole time, the bad guys are coming up with plans to get in, and the good guys are coming up with ways to get help. Jodie then remembers that she must've been an electrician. She rips off one of the grates, and goes straight for the house phone line, which she did hook up earlier that day. How she knew the phone wire was over there, or even which wire the phone wire was, I don't know. She grabs it and yells to the daughter "Strip the wire and expose it", or something like that. She does, with her teeth. Right here, the writers realize that this is retarded, and I spent the whole summer doing this stuff and I wouldn't have been able to do that. So the daughter asks "now what?" and Jodie says "I have no idea". Do the writers know this process? If she could figure out the wire, and then knew to strip the wire......why do you think you stripped the wire, Jodie? You strip a wire to connect it with another wire. Jodie remembers this, and they make a call, to 911. I don't know how they got their service up in one day, but they did. Unfortunately, 911 puts them on hold, and when they call the husband, the bad guys cut it before she can deliver her message. They get a chance to leave the room and get the cell phone, but it doesn't work inside the room. Oh well. Yeah, and also, none of the crooks can get along with each other about anything! You'd think if all you had to do was drill into a safe and walk out with $3 million, you'd cooperate with the only guy who could get into the safe. Not these guys though. All they can do is fight, the whole time. Wait, I almost forgot to go into more detail about that cell phone scene. They realize that everyone's downstairs, so Jodie runs out of the room, in slow motion. Then to slow it down more, the writers or producers or whoever is in charge of things like this play it at about 1/4 speed. You know how in a movie, when they do that, it's usually tense? Well it wasn't. It was just dumb, and everyone in the room exchanged glances. And then it was just really bad when she repeatedly swatted at the phone under the bed, and accidentally would push it away a tiny bit farther each time. Then a lamp fell of the table in ultra slow motion, and jodie popped up her head even slower. This concludes the dumbest slow-motion scene ever. |