Movie Details
| Title: | The Big White | |
| Director: | Mark Mylod | |
| Year: | 2005 | |
| Genre: | Dark Comedy | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 10.08.05 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Ali G Indahouse
- The Menu
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 10.08.05 | Alamo South Lamar | This Screening is part of event: FantasticFest 2005 Another sunny day with temperatures in the 70s. Sounds like a perfect day to spend inside watching movie after movie with a bunch of other pale long-haired delinquents and reprobates! Maybe it's because I got there after today's screening of Sin City: Recut & Extended already started, but the theater was absolutely dead when I got there. Wimps! The midnight shows tonight were also feeble... and I thought this was a movie town! My day started with a black comedy called The Big White, starring Robin Williams in a quiet desperation role similar to William H. Macy in Fargo (that and the snow are about where the Fargo similarities end. Oh there's hitmen too, I guess that counts), Holly Hunter as his crazy but funny wife, Giovanni Ribisi as an insurance claims investigator who hates Alaska, Alison Lohman as his girlfriend, a phone psychic who is pretty ok with Alaska (her scenes play like a PG version of Jennifer Jason Leigh's character in Short Cuts). Tim Blake Nelson and W. Earl Brown (who absolutely kicks ass in Deadwood) are also in it as the aforementioned hitmen, along with Woody Harrelson, who's thrown into the mix to add that pinch of spice. This is easily the most mainstream-Hollywood film screened to date. I can easily see this popping up on pay-per-view and Blockbuster shelves everywhere. It's the kind of movie that you expect to be quirky but it's really not. It's got decent production value, big name stars, and all the requisite character arcs and little plot twists that make a mainstream movie what it is. Now, that doesn't mean this is bad. I quite liked it, in a very comfortable sort of way. Even though there is a dead body or two and a little gristle and blood here and there, the movie doesn't send off a dangerous vibe at all. Nelson and Brown's kidnappers never quite make it past "bumbling" to authentically threatening, steadily debasing to the point where Nelson's sensitive about his cooking and they run around snapping each other with wet towels after a shower. This is what Makes Harrelson's performance as, not surprisingly, the crazy missing brother to Robins Williams a centerpiece in the film. Although there's really not much of a character there, Harrelson manages to inject real trouble into the movie, literally invading and hijacking it halfway through and driving it toward its climax. I don't think I'm alone in having no problem believing that Woody Harrelson is crazy, so he really plays it up. It's a pretty decent flick that doesn't really disappoint but also doesn't really challenge or stick to your ribs much. Nevertheless, it's worth watching. The short that played before it however, was not. Rex Steele: Nazi Smasher was a cartoon (yes, cartoon. not animated short, cartoon) about a 50s-esque hero type guy who fights nazis including the staple impossibly-endowed nazi dominatrix. I'll give you a hint on how it ends: he saves the day. Random Notes: -they played a video by Motorhead before the show. You have to respect a song titled "Killed by Death"... you just can't argue with it... are you gonna argue with Lemmy? I didn't think so. -"Why are the flowers talking?" -"Tastes like a rectal Polyp" -"How would she know?" |
