Into The Core Of My Movie-Watching Soul

So I was recently accused of having bad taste in movies. I believe the person stated it like this: “hey you really like all those really bad B-rate movies, right?” and I was like “what’s B-rate about the Patrick Swayze/Keanu Reeves smash-hit Point Break?” And I meant it. Wait, hear me out!! The tag-line for the movie? "100% PURE ADRENALINE." How rad is that?? (this just in: only dorks and teenage mutant ninja turtles still use the word radical to imply awesomeness...) And to pacify the anticipated barrage of comments from annoying fault-finders out there, let me beat you to the punch. I know that pure adrenaline is the only type of adrenaline the human body produces. Its not like I think there's a "watered-down-with-orange-juice variety" or something. It just sounds cool. Way cooler than "COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU, POINT BREAK: "100% NORMAL ADRENAL GLAND SECRETION." Besides, that may trick audiences into thinking they are seeing some sort of medical drama. So please keep your smart ass comments to yourself. I don't enjoy competition....

Whoops, off topic already. Let's back the truck up. I can certainly see how someone might think I have bad taste in movies. I did voluntarily watch Marley and Me (ooooh so bad). And Blacula (racial twist on a classic horror anyone?). Let's see, there was also Snakes on a Plane, Punch Drunk Love and (oh dear god this stays between you and I) Nights in Rondanthe. In my defense, I didn't go looking for that one. A mislabeled torrent I downloaded dropped it into my thieving lap(top). But yes, I continued watching once the main titles confirmed that is wasn't Knights In Rhonda:4 Nights of Cabiria. And I admittedly didn't turn it off when Richard Gere made his cliched entrance as the Man With A Troubled Past. Even more appalling, I kept watching through the terribly awkward intercourse scene between him and Diane Lane (I'm all for elderly people having sex, but please not on my computer. PLEASE not on my computer). And the nail in the coffin? I waited it out to the bitter end to see if Diane Lane went back to her douche ex-husband or if she stayed with Richard Gere. Ugh, I am so ashamed....

So yeah. I guess when you start adding them up, the list looks a little damning. But to outright label me as a Bad Movie Liker is harsh. Before you feel too bad for me, I got this person back by securing a promise from them to watch any cheesy 80’s movie of my choosing. 'Cheesy' was his terminology. Personally, I don’t find anything cheesy about musical montages in which a do-good neighborhood bands together to clean up a refuse site, transforming it into some sort of community garden within the 1:23 it takes for Journey to get to the chorus of "Don't Stop Believing." Said montage of course includes the obligatory paint-fight scene: cute girl sneaks up behind cute boy to adorably dab paint on his nose and him responding in true barftastic lovey-dovey fashion with an equally pathetic dab on her nose resulting in a nauseating paint/love fest making you question the romance in your own relationship throw up in your mouth; the hose-spraying scene: cute topless boy sprays pack of cute bikini-topped girls with a garden hose, sending them into an estrogen-fueled squealing fit of delight/horror ("Aaaah! Now I'm all wet you jerk! But you're so cute and hey, I am wearing a bathing suit so I guess getting wet isn't the end of the world. But you're still a jerk! That I secretly have a crush on and make out to my pillow thinking of.....jerk.") in their cutoff jean-shorts and scrunchied side-ponies; and of course we can’t forget the post-work party self-congratulations culminating in a giant high-five that freeze frames mid clap.

Nothing cheesy about that.

But I digress.

Whoa. I'm realizing mid-typage that what's about to follow isn't the previously planned clamorous argument convincing the world of my excellent cinematic taste but instead a revelation to you of yet another atrocious box-office blunder I recently made. (Hey, remember in university when you'd be writing a term paper at the last minute and get halfway through only to realize that the body of your essay in no way resembles your outline or introduction? And you'd be left sitting there, scratching your head thinking "Oh wow. I have strayed. I have strayed far. In fact, I am dangerously close to being on a completely different subject matter here. Huh. Hmmmm. Crap...oh well, let's slap a conclusion on this baby and go play some frisbee!")

Wait, where was I going with this?

Right. Back to the topic at hand. Or one of them at least (we seem to have covered considerable ground in this post already). SO, ever hear of an actress named Hillary Swank? Accomplished Academy Award-winner who starred in some of Hollywood's most ridiculously successful flicks such as Boys Don’t Cry and Million Dollar Baby? Well, have you by chance seen the less critically-acclaimed 2003 non-hit The Core? Let me jog your memory. This Epic Fail Of A Movie tells the tale of Swank saving the planet by piloting a ship deep into the centre of the earth to jumpstart the molten core (which has stopped spinning and thus deactivated the earth's electromagnetic field, obviously) by setting off nuclear bombs to induce a rotational force. Ringing any bells? No? That’s a shame. Its not that I’m asking for those 2 hours of my life back. Really. I probably would have just spent them on thesuperficial.com curing cancer or something.....oh wait, in that case I am asking for my 2 hours back. I'm fairly confident that during those painful 135 minutes, I'd have been able to make a pretty serious dent in prostate cancer---THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID! Ooooh. Yes? No? I have lost all sense of appropriate That's-What-She-Said placement. Forgive me.

So, The Core. The moment they showed a woman co-piloting a NASA shuttle mission in the opening 10 minutes, I knew that the believability of this movie was going to be squat. Women can barely drive cars, was I really supposed to believe that one could make it into the exosphere without accidentally reversing into a Hubble Space Station? Let's not be ridiculous.

At least I was set with low expectations for the remainder of the film. But here's the thing: its really not about how much the producers made me reach for some semblance of scientific plausibility during these painful 2 hours. It's more about how insulted I felt the entire time. Let's just lay it out there: this movie was meant to be watched by babies, monkeys and inanimate objects. Those are the only demographics that could possibly buy the load of crap this movie throws at you.

Let's begin.

A secret special ship that shoots green lasers (x-rays? who the fuck knows) which basically makes anything it points at a giant smoking hole. That's the method of transportation they use to GET to the centre of the earth. Some questions you may have? Like what about the massive crushing pressure that increases as one moves towards the earth's core? Sure no problem. The secret special ship gets more indestructible with increasing pressure. Okaaay. I didn't see the chalkboard schematic of that one with the corresponding mathematics to prove it, but ok.

Well, what about the giant underground diamond field they run into that badly damages their ship's hull and kills one of their crew members? You made a ship that's drilling down through the earth, out of special super strong material that will go through everything BUT diamonds? Dude, where do you think diamonds live?? Chances are, you're going to run into a few...And its not like you didn't have the money. The US Government said "we'll give you 50 billion dollars" and you took that to mean "well we could build an everlasting ship out of solid diamonds seeing as how money is no issue AND the fate of the world relies on the success of this mission buuuuut...it just seems a bit wasteful. Hmmm. Nope, I'm just not comfortable spending that kind of money. Let's use only half of it and build an inferior ship out of something stupid that will get us all killed." I would have SO fired that guy (don't worry, he dies).

Moving on.

Ooh ooh this is fun! Ok, my personal favourite was the special skin-tight space suits they wore at the centre of the earth when they stepped outside of the ship (you know, to stretch out the ole legs and have another crew member conveniently kick the bucket in order to keep the plot tension high - trust me, the dialogue wasn't doing it). So there they are. The Earth's core. 100 millions tons of pressure on them. And you know what's keeping them from being pulverized into dust? Synthetic stretchy nylon with a shiny finish. I LOVE IT. They go to the trouble of making the ship out of a mythical substance that will withstand the weight of the world due to some fictitious inverse pressure-to-strength ratio, but the suits they wear end up doing the exact same thing! The US Government spent 25 billion dollars on an industrial strength, ship-worthy material that they could have got for $70 in the FabricLand bargain bin. No wonder America is in a recession.

Of course it ends with the classic "oh well, we did everything we could but it still wasn't enough. I guess we'll just sit hear and die while that really sad music plays in the background. But wait! I have an idea! A totally far-fetched idea that I was only just able to think of at this very moment. There is a 0.1% chance of it working but we've gotta try. For the United States of America. For God. For Freedom!!" Pan camera to complex scene where plan gets put into action, world gets saved, yadda, yadda, yadda and end with a one-liner joke to make the viewer "think" about what it all means. Aaaaaand CUT!

Please do not watch this movie. Consider this my Personal Service Announcement of the year. Do all the other things PSA's tell you not to do before you watch this movie. Go do some drugs. Start a few forest fires. Pirate a few movies (did you know its no different than stealing a car?). Definitely spend some time with low self-esteem where you act out in self-destructive and sexually deviant ways. Do it all! Just please don't watch this movie.