Review: Crossroads

Plot: Three adorable, precocious little girls bury a shoebox filled with all their hopes and dreams for the future. Several years later, upon their high school graduation, the girls return to dig up the box, just like they swore.  Only problem is? Well, they all kinda hate each other now. One of them grew up to be Britney Spears, the other grew up to be a trashy trailer park gal with a lisp, a baby in her belly and a heart of gold (Taryn Manning), and the other one is now a bitchy Queen Bee type (Zoe Saldana). So even though they hate each other, they still dig up the box and then pretty much out of the blue, they decide to take a road trip together to California. Seems the trailer park gal wants to take part in some kind of singing competition, the Queen Bee wants to go see her boyfriend and the Brit would just love to see her estranged mom who lives in Arizona. Only problem? They need someone to drive them there. Luckily there’s a generic good-looking guy hanging around town who may or may not have been in jail for murder. After all, what could possibly go wrong for three young ladies traveling cross country with a suspected homicidal maniac? Oh …

Thoughts: Well, luckily for our three leading ladies, “Crossroads” ain’t that kind of movie. Turns out the guy is not a killer and in addition to being extremely, generically handsome, he also has a heart of gold.

                Oh well. You get lucky sometimes.

                So, let’s see. “Crossroads.”

Mixed bag of acting, weak, shallow and cliche story, a total lack of focus, but the adorable Taryn Manning would almost, almost make me OK with watching it again many years from now.

                People throw around the term “star vehicle” to describe movies built for the sole purpose of putting over an actor or actress. Never before has that term been so accurate. Everything in “Crossroads” exists solely to serve Brit.

                Everything in the movie is hers for the taking. Spoiler alert, she gets the generically handsome dude, even though he started out sort of friendly with the trailer park gal. While she’s at it, Brit also takes the trailer park gal’s lifelong dream of becoming a singer and gets to perform at the big singing competition.

                Somehow, through all those trials and tribulations, the trailer park gal never loses her spunk or her positive outlook on life. Even after she has a miscarriage. Oh, did I forget to mention that? Yeah, her baby dies. There’s some random heavy stuff in this movie.

                This girl gets so much crap dumped on her throughout the movie (she was raped earlier in her life, too, told you about the heavy stuff) it’s mind boggling that trailer park gal never just absolutely loses her mind.  Especially when she has to sit there and listen to the other two girls complain about their lives.

                Oh boo-hoo Brit, your mom doesn’t love you and Queen Bee, your boyfriend cheated on you.

                Needless to say, it’s kind of hard to care about the other two leading ladies. I did really like the trailer park gal though. Taryn Manning is a cutie and how could you not like such a punching bag of a character?  

                Let’s not forget the fact that there’s really no reason for these three girls to be together. They haven’t been friends for years, in fact, Brit and the Queen Bee are depicted as basically enemies at the start. Yet all that goes away almost for good at the first mention of the word road trip.                     

                In addition to the clunky story, “Crossroads” just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a movie. It’s meant for younger girls, I guess, due to Brittney being in it, but there’s underage drinking, premarital sex, endless examples of parental authority being ignored. Not a great message to send to kids. Also, Britney dancing around for long stretches of time in her undies sends a weird message too.

                Allow me to get philosophical for a moment. Perhaps, like the soundtrack’s big hit “I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman,” “Crossroads” is stuck in the middle. It’s got too much adult stuff to work for kids and is too mind-numbingly hollow and Britney-centric to be geared towards adults. So it’s stuck somewhere out in the middle, not really doing much of anything for anyone.

                The few times Britney gets to stretch her chops as an actress are kind of a mixed bag. She’s got one good scene with the generic good-looking dude after her mom rejects her, but she’s got plenty of other clunkers that cancel it out.

                The rest of the cast, including Dan Akroyd as Brit’s loving, but overwhelming father, is completely forgettable outside of Manning. Everyone else, feh!

                Worst of the Worst

                Britney and the generic good-looking guy sit around a piano to turn a poem she wrote into a moving, beautiful song. Well, they try anyway. The song’s terrible and they’ve got the exact opposite of chemistry.  The scene is super uncomfortable to watch and man is that one of the most childish and stupid songs ever written? Brit, lose the heavy-handed messages and stick to catchy pop tunes.

                There you go, “Crossroads.” Bumblebee tuna.  

Review: My Soul to Take

Plot: Sixteen years ago, the town of Riverton was haunted by a sadistic killer with multiple personalities known as the “Riverton Ripper.” Eventually, the cops tracked him down and sort of killed him maybe? See, when they found him, he’d already stabbed himself a bunch of times, then they shot him a lot, then they put him in an ambulance but the ambulance crashed and then it exploded. But despite all that, the mystery remains: Is the Riverton Ripper dead?? I’d frigging hope so, otherwise the guy’s real name must be Clarke Kent. Anyway, on the night he may or may not have died, seven kids were born. Legend has it each kid got one of the Ripper’s personalities. Flash to the present day, the kids are all obnoxious and in several cases, really disgusting, borderline evil teens. Shockingly, someone starts offing the kids one by one. Is the Ripper back? Or is one of the kids doing the killing? Or is it someone … else? Spoooooky!

Thoughts: I’ve watched a lot of movies for this blog, and I’m not lying when I say almost all of them have been pretty poorly written. I mean, for god sakes Tommy Wiseau wrote one of them and I’m almost positive he’s insane.

                And yet, I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that made less sense than “My Soul to Take.”

                The biggest problem is Wes Craven. I mean, he wrote, directed and produced it so yeah, this is clearly his fault. I feel confident saying that this is the worst piece of crap he’s ever attached his name to and this man has attached his name to lots of junk over the years. 

Everything sucks. I'm not sure about the acting, I think it mostly might be Craven's horrible writing, but it's still not a great cast.

                Craven can’t figure out what kind of movie he wants “My Soul to Take” to be. Is it a slasher? Or a psychological thriller? Supernatural something or other? It’s got elements of all three sort of jumbled together into one big nasty stew.

                In the plot summary I mentioned each of the seven kids got one of the Ripper’s many personalities. Of course, one of those personalities is a psychotic killer, so we can assume one of the kids is a killer (or is the Ripper still alive???). That’s one. The Ripper also had a personality that was very artistic, and we learn one of the kids is awesome at designing costumes. That’s two.

                Other than those two examples, Craven completely ignores this plot thread. And the artistic one I had to piece together for myself while I was brushing my teeth this morning so for all I know that wasn’t even intentional.

                There’s also a lot of spiritual hooey about condors and how they eat the dead and supposedly absorb the souls of their meals. Turns out, one of the kids must be part condor because he has this power also. I mean, he doesn’t eat people, but I guess when people die nearby, he can absorb their essence. I uh… guess. I’m flying without a net here because none of this gets explained very clearly. It’s all in the movie, but Craven doesn’t seem that interested.

                Look, let’s forget about all that and just focus on the only thing Wes cares at all about: teenagers and their stupid f’n problems and relationships. This is his wheelhouse.

                We spend ample time finding out which girls our main character Bug (Max Theriot) wants to date, and we get to see him in class and presenting a project for Biology class, and him hanging out with his best friend, dealing with bullies. All this time wasted on trivial issues may have been better served trying to make sense of the rest of the plot maybe? No of course not! Kid problems!!

                Also, “My Soul to Take” does something unforgivable in my book. In the movie, the kids are constantly shown wandering around their high school, sitting in courtyards and things but are almost never in class. This is not how any high school works. If you don’t want to show kids sitting bored in class, make it the weekend or after 3:30. No public high school on the planet in the year 2005 just lets students roam freely for hours at a time.

                Somewhere around the third act the movie decides it’s a slasher again and so Craven grabs his other security blanket: talky endings. He actually does the “Scream” ending again. You know, the one where the previously ruthlessly efficient killer can’t stop talking about his/her grand plans and suddenly forgets how to kill things? Wes you lazy basterd. You (and Kevin Williamson) used the same frigging ending in four “Scream” movies and a werewolf movie, then you used it by yourself in “Red Eye,” and now this? Are you serious?

                I can’t even. I don’t know. The story is such a disaster, the directing is a mess. The opening sequence is an absolute joke well before the ambulance randomly explodes. I’m not even sure how bad the acting is because the material the actors are given is such a cluster f, it’s not super fair to judge the kids.               

                Still, I’ll assume it wasn’t great. Either way, the characters are all horrible clichés. The psycho with the abusive dad, the other psycho with the killer dad, the cute blonde, the rapey jock, the religious freak. Don’t care about any of you. 

Worst of the Worst

                At one point the killer says: “F you and f your unborn baby.” True story.

                I guess the real worst scene though is the opening. It’s full of so many quick cuts and fakeouts that it’s impossible to follow. Cops make insane decisions like embracing seemingly dead serial killers. And the frigging ambulance blows up. Perfect storm of craziness.

Cheese List preview

Not too long ago, we talked about a movie by a horror icon who may or may not actually be very good at his job. But hey, he picked a cool name and made 2/3 of a few great movies, so he did more than most Kardashians anyway.

                But here we are again, talking about Wes Craven. Sixteen years ago a serial killer vanished without a trace and, in a totally unrelated note: seven kids were born. Now, those kids are all having their sweet sixteens and then winding up dead. So, yeah, maybe something’s up with that missing killer guy after all.

                Boys and girls, here is: “My Soul to Take.”

                Credentials: 9%, Certified Rotten (Rottentomatoes.com) // 4.6 out of 10 (Imdb.com) // 25 out of 100 (Metacritic.com)

                Let’s see what our dear friends the critics had in store for “My Soul to Take.”

                Eric D. Snider from Film.com said: “What sinks it is Craven’s simplistic, ham-fisted writing and inert direction.”

                Wesley Morris, from The Boston Globe, one-upped him and called it “the worst movie Craven’s made, perhaps ever.” Wes Craven is the same guy who used the same ending for four separate “Scream” movies and one werewolf movie, by the way. And before that, he used the same ending for “Hills Have Eyes,” “Last House on the Left” and “Nightmare on Elm Street.” So yeah, he’s had his problems in the past.

                “Everyone in front of and behind the camera look and feel like they're lifting the heaviest, least horrifying ton of bricks invented,” raved David White, from Movies.com.

                So what do I have to look forward to here? “My Soul to Take ends up being mere Chucky cheese,” said D.K. Holm, from the Vancouver Voice. I don’t know what that means.

                Bumblebee tuna.