I saw this movie.
Night at the Museum 2 made me want to punish all the children in the theater. To sneak up behind each, and as they expressed some moment of pleasurable engagement with the film, just to scream “What the fuck is wrong with you!” into their ears so that they jumped, or cried, and forever after hated Ben Stiller. Or, rather, to punish all children, to stand outside of every theater in the country, and as children came out, to box each upon the ears. A hard box–a Dickens box, not one of those wussy tv ear-pats but a good Mr.-Gower-making-the-ears-bleed kind of smack. Or, if they looked particularly satisfied, to punch them. The happier they look, the bigger the smile, the more painful the body part targeted. Fuck you, children, for making this movie possible. And fuck you, parents, for actualizing this movie. There’s a reason children don’t have disposable income–they’d waste it on shit like this. So shame on you. You all get kicked hard, in soft tissue. Or maybe I just take one kid hostage, one poor hummel-eyed waif, and I set up a website, and I vow to make that kid watch Takashi Miike with me until gangs of children hunt down Shawn Levy, blood-crazed with fear for my webcammed hostage to rip Levy into unrecognizable bits that’ll never work with Steve Martin or any funny people ever again.
I’d punish myself but sitting through it was penance enough. Ah, shit, I probably deserve more.
Did you see it in IMAX?
I’m assuming your child loathed the movie as much as you?
If not, shouldn’t we be screaming “fuck you Mike Reynolds” for taking your kid to see this in the first place, or should we just tie your tyke to a chair and click play for the Miike retrospective? I made a deal with myself about six years ago; if I have no interest in seeing it, I ain’t taking my daughter. I’m selfish that way, but that’s the way I roll.
Ummm… what? I’m sure I never… ummm…. *nervously fingers collar, channels Charles Nelson Reilly*
Hey, look over there! Nikki’s got a question about butts again!
y’all’s tolerance for crap defies disbelief. chris saw Star Trek AND Terminator! i hope at least he took his kids…
Expose my kids to crap? What kind of parent would that make me? Actually I saw Star Trek twice so I could see it again with the kids. I made a vow many years back never to teach on Fridays so that I could catch the opening matinees of crap blockbusters. If Hollywood goes to the trouble of spending $200m to blow shit up on screen, who am I to act the critic? And in a recession, frankly it is my patriotic duty to stimulate the local movieplex economy. Watching crap is just the way I roll.
Gio–sounds like some high-toned university snobbery. every major film is by definition “crap” while every talky French film about family dysfunction is worth discussing?
by the way, I don’t mean to pick on the French..any talkfest around Big Issues will do. What makes the popular film–particularly the Science Fiction film–necessarily “crap,” eh?
Nicola and I are taking Cate to see Star Trek tomorrow. We’re excited. I wanted to be excited about T4 but we’ll see. Classes are over and Cate is in school for two and a half more weeks so I may check it out. I enjoy well-made, viscerally entertaining, popcorn movies, and I can get real excited about a summer blockbuster or two. But yeah, then there’s crap (which, if you read the film journals or Reynolds, can also smack of high-toned university snobbery . . . in the best possible way). Speaking of: congrats to Michael Haneke for winning the Palm d’Or and to Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Tarantino’s leading man (Christoph Waltz), and Andrea Arnold, and Park Chan-wook.
michael, i’m assuming they are crap. maybe they are not. i thought the summer blockbuster was crap by definition. but what do i know? i don’t watch them! haven’t been to the movies in two years!