This past weekend a movie that nobody cared about, written and directed by a filmmaker that people used to care about, starring actors and actresses that people seem to care about came out with very little fanfare. "Aloha" written and directed by Cameron Crowe made a little bit of money - around 10 Million - which is respectable, but not great. Considering that the lead of the movie is Bradley Cooper whose last movie made 350 Million (American Sniper) and whose last 4 before that made over 100 million and one of those is the monstrosity that was "The Hangover Part 3," it seems like quite the bomb. Money aside, according to Rotten Tomatoes, the movie is god awful at 18%. Eighteen is not a good number for a filmmaker. The only director who's life would've been easier if he had an eighteen is Roman Polanski.
I used to love Cameron Crowe. I was so influenced by his directorial debut, "Say Anything..." that I used it as the blueprint on how to act like a respectable man when I first started dating. I was so influenced by John Cusack's portrayal of Lloyd Dobler, that I even sent the woman I lost my virginity to a card thanking her, just like Lloyd did. To this day, when I get nervous, I talk way too much and spurt out a bunch of nonsense just like Lloyd did. I once tried to profess my love to a woman I had a massive crush on my Freshmen year of college and after the most painful 6 seconds of silence, she quickly handed me a T-shirt, sprinted down the University Towers 5th Floor hallway, flew down 3 flights of stairs to her room and barely made eye contact with me for the next four years. That was the equivalent to one of my favorite lines in move history when Lloyd Dobler heartbreakingly speaks into a payphone during a rainstorm, "I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen." Except in this case, the "pen" was an AE PHI Sorority Crush Party Off-White T-shirt that was 3 sizes too big and made me look like I was the "After" picture of a Jenny Craig ad.
"Say Anything..." to "Singles" to "Jerry Maguire" to "Almost Famous" is quite a resume, most people would say. I loved each and every one of these when they first came out. I suppose I must now say one of the most controversial things a self proclaimed movie nerd like myself can say about any movie. This is something that I should be ashamed of, but I now feel I'm ready to stand strong and "come out" to the world... I do not like the movie "Almost Famous." For some reason, this is a very blasphemous thing to say. I saw this "masterpiece" on Opening Night in the year 2000 and thought it was fantastic. I then saw it again about 6 months ago and I know think it may be the most overrated movie of all time. I disliked it so much that I assumed something was wrong with me. This is supposed to be one of cinema's finest treasures of the millennium and I found it to be cheesier than a chunk of cheddar humping a slice of Swiss. Regardless of my feeling towards that hunk of garbage, I understand that most people cherish it in the same way Renee Zellweger cherishes Tom Cruise in "Jerry Maguire" or the way Tom Cruise cherishes Xenu in a religious pyramid scheme.
After "Almost Famous," Mr. Crowe made the polarizing "Vanilla Sky." This was some sort of hallucinatory dreamscape which some people seemed to like but most people seemed to hate. I'm somewhere in the middle - didn't exactly hate it, but didn't like it. It was a departure for ol' Cam Cam and I gave him the benefit of the doubt for the effort. Up until this deformed Tom Cruise flick, he had pretty much only made "young men trying to figure things out" movies and his next project would be right in that lane. "Elizabethtown" was Cameron's follow up to "Cameron Diaz possibly kills Tom Cruise because he's lusting after a cartoon mouse played by Penelope Cruz" and it seemed to have all the elements that made C.C. one of the most respected writer/directors of his generation. Something happened with that movie though - It was a heaping pile of shit. That movie was so bad it made "The Godfather Part 3" look like "The Godfather." "Elizabethtown" was so horrible it killed the careers of both the male and female lead. If this movie had not have come out, we might have seen "Silver Linings Playbook" starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. I guess there's a silver lining after all.
After the monstrosity of "Legolas goes back home to Kentucky for his dad's funeral and falls in love with a very annoying child-woman," the ex-husband of the guitarist from Heart didn't make another (non-documentary) film for 6 years. Normally that wouldn't be that big of a deal. Quentin Tarantino generally takes a few years between movies. Stanley Kubrick took 12 years in between his last movie (Eyes Wide Shut) and his second to last movie (Full Metal Jacket). Terrence Malick pretty much has made a career of making one movie, then waiting 20 years and making another one. Terrence Malick is to filmmaking what Michael Douglas is to parenting. The problem with Cameron Crowe taking 6 years to make his next movie is because the next one was "We Bought a Zoo."
"We Bought a Zoo" is as bad as its title. The movie is literally about Will Hunting buying a dilapidated zoo run by Lucy from the movie "Lucy." It is also over two hours which seems excessive. How long do we need to watch Jason Bourne try to bond with an elephant before we realize that this movie is a joke? The Joke was on me though, because this insane flick grossed 75 million dollars. I guess people will pay for anything if there's a small chance of seeing Scarlett Johansson's cleavage.
With his latest movie, Cameron Crowe has let us all down again. "Aloha" looks like the kind of movie Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone would go see in another movie where they play a mismatched couple on a first date seeing a generic shitty rom-com set in Hawaii. Having said this, I'll admit that I haven't actually seen "Aloha." I also haven't seen "We Bought a Zoo." I don't think I need to because these movies seem lame, immature and childless with no redeeming qualities. I don't know why anyone would want to watch that nonsense. They're both about men who refuse to grow up and go about their life in a constant string of delusion and arrogance. What a bunch of crap.
Now if you excuse me, I have to go get my tickets for the "Entourage" movie.
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