Contradicting Popular Opinion
A.K.A.
An Enquiry Concerning Why Your Favorite Movie Sucks:Amélie
INTRO
Ah, Amélie AKA Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain AKA Amelie of Montmartre AKA The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain AKA Is this freaking thing over yet?
Seriously, the movie is f*cking 2 hours worth of color. There’s a lot of color, but nothing else. It’s like watching the world’s longest MENTOS commercial.
Amélie: Zee freshmaker! No?
She even looks into the camera like the star of a Mentos commercial. This connection must be important.
Amélie
Now, despite what a lot of you think, I do actually like some movies.
But I do have a rule or twenty that must be followed for me to enjoy a movie. Here are some of these guidelines, in no particular order.
-Voice-over belongs only in Noir.
-Computer effects should be used sparingly, and only when absolutely necessary.
-Stuff must happen.
-When characters act “all weird” somebody should occasionally acknowledge it.
-There must exist at least one character that I do NOT want to slap sharply and without apology.
-The movie must not be French.
Amélie BRAZENLY breaks all of these rules, yet despite all of that, I still managed to… (wait for it)… f*cking hate this thing.
You thought I was gonna zig, didn’t ya?
Anyways, Amélie is the story of a waitress-slash-obsessive-voyeur who often has a stupid look on her face. She enjoys gaslighting older men for kicks. She toys with the emotions of others, holding hostage their prized possessions and leading them into deadly games of cat and mouse (or should it be cats and mice?). She also collects stones to throw, and sets up dysfunctional, if not slightly abusive, relationships. Amélie also disrespects the memories of the deceased.
So, let’s talk plot. Our protagonist, Amélie, mercilessly stalks a fella who works at a pornography store because Lady Di-ed in a car crash. The object of her objection was a bit of a cult hero in my old dorm, as he is the “Do you like my hat?! I don’t need it!!” guy.
After a while the guy tires of Amélie’s cruel games, so he goes to her house and f*cks her. Then they ride on his moped together. The end.
It might be slightly more complicated than that, but not much.
I did forget to mention the old white French Samuel L. Jackson. “The kids all used to call me ‘Mr. Glass.'”
And there is a tobacconist (which is fun to say), and a slightly retarded bag boy.
At any rate, I find the whole thing a lethal mix of French and cutesy. Amélie is also about forty minutes too long.
Amélie herself never seems to face any consequences or repercussions for her constant meddling and manipulation, which include electrocution, poisoning, forged documents, petty theft, grand theft gnome, trespassing, and f*cking with a soccer hooligan .
Her only antagonist seems to be self-inflicted shyness.
That would be okay, if the shyness were portrayed by Christopher Walken. Sadly, no.
That would also be okay if the whole thing turned into May. It felt like this thing could happen at any moment. Sadly, no.
The love story feels pretty childish and simplistic to me. For all the talk of true love, it seems to me that what our romantic leads have is an infatuation based on mutual weirdness and modest good-looks.
I’ve seen worse movies, though, so I’ll end this on a positive note. I would rather watch this movie again than get AIDS. Probably…
OUTRO
Make sure you check out the rest of IP this week. The Movies section has Michelangelo’s giant list of the 100 greatest characters of all time. He worked like a dog on that thing, but sadly it doesn’t appear to contain any Dracula, Robert Mitchum characters, Swayze, Cary Grant, etc. So it goes. Interesting reading still.
There is also a King Kong Roundtable, which I show up in. I ended that sentence with 2 prepositions! Take that grammar!
By the way, what happened to Peter Jackson? He’s so thin. Did he get a Carnie Wilson or something? Is he dying?
I also show up in Moodspins and Culture this week. Man, I’m a busy guy… Widro should buy me a present…
At any rate, we here at CPO are a little concerned about something. Ya see, we’ve been making fun of girly movies lately. This could lead to an unintentional face-turn considering IP’s main audience. Kinda like Curt Hennig with the “Rap is crap” cowboy stuff…
I must ponder this thing.
