WTF! Great Films That Make No Sense!

The Usual Suspects is so cool that I want to friend it on Facebook and tell me stories for hours on end. But unfortunately, the slick exterior belies the fact that its story-telling capabilities are more similar to the tree-within-a-tree-going-nowhere narrative of one of my mother's tales.

Not convinced? Who can deny that...

"A few years back I stopped by the supermarket with your father and found some apples your grandmother said she'd had when they owned the caravan in Dorset but back then she'd said there was a fruit shortage so they had to find another product to sell in their store they'd rented from the neighbors that went to school with the Bishop of Lindford's brother - you know, the guy off the news that got fired by the local paper for some questionable relationship with a kindergarten teacher who was married to.... oh wait, I didn't know you father then, ignore all that."

.... isn't exactly the same as The Usual Suspects but without guns being fired sideways and cool shit?

In an effort to build up to an uber-climax, the Usual Suspects paints itself into a corner where the laws of storytelling fall apart and you just realize the last two hours were an enormous amount of bullshit.

And it's a shame, since I really love this film. A cow's fart to you, Bryan Singer! A cow's fart on ye!

Bonus information: I once saw Gabriel Byrne drunk in New York. And I mean *drunk*.

Bob Zemeckis (can I call you Bob?) is one of the most talented and lazy film-makers ever. In a violent head-nod to Hitchcock, WLB has some terrific tension, truly well-timed scares, and a constant sense of forboding. If Zemeckis could have gotten his ass off the couch he would have been the next Spielberg or Cameron - or at least like a hybrid of the two without their respective father and mother issues.

*** Spoiler - although the trailer's so bad, it practically gives it away ***

What thoroughly spanks the plot logic of WLB is that the ghost effectively terrorizes the wife of her murderer (the ghost's) rather the the husband (the wife's). Wow, that explanation sucked - let's try again: the ghost goes after the wrong person. Try this version of  WLB, written by yours truly:

FADE IN:

INT - NICE DOCTOR'S HOUSE - DAY

A GHOST appears on the sofa, much to the surprise of the WOMAN sat opposite.

GHOST

Sorry to bother you but your husband killed me.
 

FADE OUT

Oh look - it's Zemeckis again, the lazy-slash-brilliant bastard! For all the technical screwery in WFRR that practically bookends cinema before CGI arrived, there's one big basic problem...

Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

So who was it? Because it was not - repeat, not - Judge Doom. And you posed the plot question in the title! Donnie Darko would have fallen into this trap if it had been called "What the Hell Happens In Donnie Darko?" but they were smarter than that.

A big forehead slap to you, Zemeckis! Right on the spam!

Deception is what happens when you play Scriptwriting Scrabble and draw "Sex Clubs", "International Robbery" and "Maggie Q". The plot is reminiscent of those times you have very vivid dreams that would make a great movie until you have your first cup of coffee and realize it was all a bunch of non-sequiturial nonsense.

Admittedly, Hollywood script reviews are like the dramatic equivalent of getting laws through Congress, but the legal equivalent of this film would be legislation that bans dogs over 12" long, makes marijuana a requirement for driving RVs, and starts a war with countries with three syllables. The classic line about sex in this film ("when it's so good, you have to kill someone") was probably cribbed a early script draft ("this film is so bad, I have to kill you"). 

And yes, I said this list would be about good films, but it has some very good actors looking embarrassed. Does that count? I think it does.

Proof that God gives some people the unalienable right to repeatedly screw up, M.D. is another WTF Lynch-Fest that sits somewhere between cinematic gold dust and Oscar statuette bronze rust.

The set-up of Mulholland Drive is engaging, suspenseful, well-shot, layered - but then, so are most hamburger commercials. Especially when they add the second bun and do a 360-camera move as the lettuce and mayo are dropped in slo-mo.

But much like the disappointment of meeting the star of the burger commercial, with its flaccid patties and sad-looking buns, Mulholland Drive collapses in on itself and becomes a big mess. Unlike the burger commercial, we get to see some Naomi Watts, which redeems the whole thing.

Confidence is a wonderful film where Ed Burns plays Ed Burns (can I call you Ed?) and Rachel Weisz plays Rachel Weisz. It even has Dustin Hoffman playing a weird Dustin Hoffman. So it's a very clever heist movie with slick editing and Ocean's 11-style music and a whole bunch of things I like.

But it doesn't play backwards. Once you know the whole story, the principal characters would have needed such a unbelievably supernatural level of prediction that either:

• They would have all have gotten killed if they were wrong
• They should have bought lottery tickets, since the cash payout was better and the chances of getting shot much lower.

Fun film. But so full of bullshit. Next!

Avatar has the infectious wonder of all (well, most) James Cameron films, driven by big ideas, impeccable details and effects that don't need 3D to reach out of the screen and start strangling the audience. But any list of crazy plot holes would be remiss in ignoring the world's top-grossing movie. 

I love Avatar in the same foam-at-the-mouth batshit crazy as an Apple fanboy, but it commits several sins simultaneously:

- Many films have evil corporate types. Many have evil military types. This has both, and it's too much! ("Double Mumbo-Jumbo" as screenwriting God Blake Snyder would have said.)

- It's Dances With Wolves and Ferngully, and that's just too problematic. Who the hell allowed that? It also has "Unobtainium" and "Pandora" in one film. And then it adds some spiritual tree-hugging shit that would raise some flags too if they didn't look so good.

- The good guys look like the Smurfs mated with the Thundercats.

When you considered how this is basically Aliens without an edge, it does everything wrong that Aliens does so, so right. This moment in Cameron's career is like when Spielberg did Hook, and we all know what happened after that.
See the full review, "The next century of cinema has finally started".