- - The "Ben Affleck" screen title is now pasted on all movies because, say Vegas oddsmakers, chances are he's in them.
- - Amy "Washington" Irving has been in grizzly-like hibernation, hidden away in a secret underground cryo-chamber during the 20 years between the Carrie 1 and 2.
- - What the rest of us call marriage, Lynn Redgrave calls "a 32-year-long opportunity to have my head examined."
- - Wing Commander? If I want teens in outer space I'll go straight to the source: The employees at Tower Records, where cultured indifference is high art. Asking for help in that place is like probing deep space for alien radio signals.
If you said "all of the above," you are correct!
I like Ben Affleck, and now for the first time I actually understand the secret of his mystique: Ben is Tom Hanks with a chin!
But Ben, what's with your new-movie-every-other-week work schedule? Let the camera make new friends! It's feeling trapped and lonely! Where's the rest of Screen Actors' Guild male contingent anyway, parking cars with Chris O'Donnell? Help! Nine out of ten valet parkers are cursed with Ben-is envy, a peculiar Hollywood Affleck-tion.
In Forces of Nature, Ben plays "Ben." Word has it that Ben specifically requested all of his characters to use his real name due to the difficulty of playing in a hundred movies a year and memorizing 500 pages of dialogue a day. And that doesn't include the time spent rationalizing his breakup with Gwyneth or penning special purpose pick-up dialogue like:
- - "You're as beautiful as the shine on my Academy Award, and probably as smart too!"
- - "Oh, you're a casting director? Have you met my brother Casey?"
- - "Hi! I'm friends with Matt Damon"
- - "Would you like to stroke my statuette?"
- - "I'm so hot for you my Oscar needs an iced tea and a beach umbrella"
"He went from the eye of a storm into the arms of a hurricane," says the sell-line. And to the mouth of the river, to the depths of the ocean, to the bottom of the sea, to the midst of a clichΘ. In other words, Sandra Bullock is bad weather personified. And Ben wants to stroll along her sandy beach, dip his toes into her salty ocean, and bury his face in her Amazonian rainforest. Hey, don't blame me, it's Dreamworks' analogy!
To be sure, Forces of Nature is a frothy confection. But as froth goes, this is one cool whip! It's a lot funnier than most of the stuff that passes for comedy nowadays, despite the fact that the chain of road-trip events laid out here is about as likely as my hands reaching out from the computer screen right now, grabbing your head, and banging it repeatedly into the monitor.
Scared you a little, didn't I?
The trouble starts when a very stupid bird cruises straight into the plane engine as Ben and Sandy speed down the runway. Suddenly, our heroes enter a dream world where raindrops move in digitally enhanced slo-mo because fancy workstations just can't resist screwing with even a simple romantic comedy. When will you people learn, because you can doesn't mean you should!
Sandy Bullock is terrific, despite some overzealous faux-hipster eye makeup reminiscent of early Fairuza Balk or a Halloween Jack-o-lantern. "I'm ready for a candle in my head, Mr. DeMille."
Ladies, you'll especially enjoy the already famous Ben Affleck stripping scene. But don't drop any valuables on his chest - you might as well toss "The Heart of the Ocean" into the North Atlantic. That's one bushy Bermuda Triangle! Hey, Austin Affleck, do you use soap or just steam-clean once a year? They've found Bigfoot and he's at a Cineplex near you! Get a plaster cast of his footprint - quick!
The real road in Forces of Nature is from "marriage as evil" to "marriage as beautiful." A message unheard back in Hollywood, where marriages would probably work better if they included points on the gross, were negotiated by ICM, and scripted by Robert Rodat. That damn "freedom to choose" will get you every time.
Especially if, as in Lynn Redgrave's case, your hubby is free to choose knocking up the young chippee who later marries his own son. Man! This guy's testicles should be chloroformed in a glass jar at Johns Hopkins with a 24-hour guard, right next to the jar containing his brain.
As if there's a difference.
Copyright 1999 Mark Ramsey. All rights reserved. NO PORTION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR.
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