Saturday Night at the Movies

Watched some movies last night with friends. One stunk, one was excellent and one was just bizarre.

Started out at Andrew and Lori's where we watched the first 15 minutes of Johnny English, I was mildly amused, but not enough to make up for the fact that this movie was predictable and boring. I'd recommend the Austin Powers movies instead of this one. I normally like Rowan Atkinson, but more for his stand-up and Blackadder, than for Mr. Bean. Johnny English was closer to Mr. Bean. Spy Spoofs have been done better, the afore-mentioned Austin Powers trilogy comes to mind again. And since James Bond has been known to parody itself at times, I'd rather watch one of those again.

I then went down the block to another friend's place, Mark. Where along with James, Rob and Celine, we watched La Femme Nikita, now this was an excellent Spy movie, far superior to the Americanized version, Point of No Return. Luc Besson is an intriguing director and I adore the style and feel of this movie. I was glad to see this again, although I must remark that the english subtitles of this edition were subpar, but that may have been rectified with the newer special edition.

And now for something completely different, Rob and Celine then left and Mark, James and I were skimming the channels when on Scream TV we discovered a completely Bizarre film entitled Killer Condoms, it was an homage to Film Noire with a counter-culture twist, amusing and audacious in its way, the bizarreness of it seemed to draw you in. I'm not sure I would call it a cult classic, but it is definitely a cult film and cleverly done. It subverts the genre in many ways. The hard-nosed Sicilian trench-coated cop is unabashedly homosexual for one thing. It's set in New York, where it deals with seedier aspects of the city. The movie could be mistaken for a classic film noir save for one thing, the killer condoms themselves. The sheer silliness of the monster in question, almost over-shadows the message underlying the film. It takes an intriguing look at the treatment of of those who live alternative life-styles and asks acceptance. I'm not sure if I liked the movie, but it did draw me in. It's not for everyone, but if you happen to catch it. It does have it's moments.