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SIDE EFFECTS (2013)

Posted in 2013, Cinema Knife Fights, Compelling Cinema, Medical Experiments!, Plot Twists, Psychological Thrillers, Steven Soderbergh, Thrillers with tags , , , , , , , on February 19, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: SIDE EFFECTS (2013)
By Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

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(THE SCENE: A hospital room.  MICHAEL ARRUDA , wearing a white lab coat and holding a chart, addresses a young woman.)

MICHAEL ARRUDA:  My chart says you’re feeling depressed.  Is that true?

WOMAN:  You’re the one holding the chart.  Shouldn’t you know what the chart says?

MA:  No, I meant, is it true that you’re depressed?

WOMAN:  Yes.  I’m depressed something awful.  It’s so bad that I have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

MA:  Are you married?

WOMAN:  Yes.  Here’s a picture of my husband.  (Hands MA a picture of a shirtless hunk of a man.)

MA (looking at picture of hunky husband):  No wonder you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

WOMAN:  Can you help me?  Can you give me some pills or something?

MA:  Well, I’m supposed to, but we’re such a pill dependent society, I really wish we could try some natural remedies first.

WOMAN:  Do these natural remedies work?

MA: Well, no.  But these pills, they just have so many— side effects. (CUE dramatic music.)

WOMAN:  The last pills I took made me drowsy and I couldn’t stay awake.

MA:  Oh, that won’t happen.  My partner and associate can take care of that for you.

(Door bursts open, and L.L. SOARES enters the examination room, also wearing a lab coat.)

L.L. SOARES (looks at woman):  Is this the patient?

MA:  Yes, she’s afraid the pills will make her sleepy.

LS (leans closely into her face):  Look at me.  Take a good look at my face! (contorts his face into a horrifying scowl, causing the woman to recoil in terror.)  If you find yourself feeling sleepy, you’re gonna see my face!  Do you want to see my face?

WOMAN:  N-no.

LS: The second you start nodding off, I’ll be in your room, and you’re gonna have to deal with the likes of me!  Are you sleepy now?

WOMAN:  No!

LS:  Are the pills gonna make you sleepy later?

WOMAN:  Nooo!!!

LS: Good.  You’re cured.  You can go home now.  We’ll bill your insurance.

WOMAN:  Gee, thanks.  (Exits)

LS:  I should’ve been a doctor!

MA (shaking his head):  No, you shouldn’t.  Anyway, that was our last patient of the day.  Shall we review today’s movie?

LS:  Why, of course!  You start.  I need to wash up for this afternoon’s operation.  (starts washing blood off his hands.)

MA:  Operation?  Anyway, no matter.  Welcome folks, to another edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.  Today we’re reviewing SIDE EFFECTS (2013), the latest thriller from director Steven Soderbergh, and rumor has it this will be Soderbergh’s last movie, as it’s been said that he plans to retire after this.

Not sure why.  Soderbergh’s not an old guy. He just turned 50.

LS: I think he has other interests and wants to pursue things other than movies. Which is too bad, because he’s so good at it.

MA:  I don’t know.  I’m hot and cold with Soderbergh’s body of work, mostly cold.

LS:  Not everything he does it great. But he does so many different kinds of movies—he’s just really interesting. You know you’re not going to always get the same old thing with Soderbergh.

Oh, and some people may notice that SIDE EFFECTS came out in theaters a week ago in most places. We would have reviewed it earlier, but we were buried under several feet of snow last weekend in New England, and some of us even lost power.

MA:   But you can’t keep a good Cinema Knife Fighter down!  So, here we are a week later with our SIDE EFFECTS review.

LS: Anything, so long as I don’t have to review BEAUTIFUL CREATURES.

MA: SIDE EFFECTS (2013) opens with a young woman Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) getting ready to re-start her life with her husband Martin (Channing Tatum, MAGIC MIKE himself), who has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for insider trading.  She should be ecstatic, right?  But she’s not.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite, as she finds herself dealing with serious depression, so serious that she attempts to kill herself by driving her car into a cement wall.

LS: Ouch!

MA: In the emergency room, where oddly, she has only received minor scratches and bruises, she meets psychiatrist Jonathan Banks (Jude Law).  When she tells him about her depression, he agrees to treat her.  He prescribes an antidepressant medication for her, and when that doesn’t work, he decides to learn more about her history by contacting her former psychiatrist, Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones).  Banks also happens to be a paid consultant for a new anti-depressant medication on the market, and he eventually puts Emily on this new medication.

One of the drawbacks of the medication is it makes Emily sleepy, and she sleepwalks.  No big deal, until the day when in a sleepwalking stupor she stabs and kills her husband.

LS: Oops, sorry honey!

MA: From this point, the movie switches gears dramatically.  First it deals with how responsible Emily may or not be for the crime, given her mental and drug induced state, and then, when the story breaks that Dr. Banks was the doctor who prescribed the medication for her, it moves towards the pressure Banks feels when suddenly everyone and their grandmother is painting him as an irresponsible psychiatrist.  Banks loses his job, his consulting gig, and eventually his wife and stepson leave him.

Finally, the film swerves yet again when Banks begins to investigate all that has happened, and begins to discover that things aren’t as they seem where his former patient is concerned.

LS: Yeah, this one definitely took some turns I wasn’t expecting. The first half or so of the movie seemed almost like a Public Service Announcement about the way this country over-prescribes medications for illnesses like depression, and how doctors are enticed by offers of big money to push specific brands. Also, you know those commercials for medications where they list side effects that go on for half an hour? That seemed like the inspiration for this movie. With all the side effects everything seems to have—it’s a wonder we trust any drugs at all.

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MA: SIDE EFFECTS is a thriller that had me early on but lost me midway through as it became more and more convoluted with an intricate plot that just didn’t work for me.  I liked the initial workings of the story, when it seemed this would be a tale about medicine gone wrong, and just who bears the responsibility for such a thing: the patient, the doctor who should have known better, who should have known exactly what it was he was prescribing, or the drug companies who produced the drug in the first place.  These thoughts are firmly rooted in reality.  We really are a drug dependent society, and this plot, had it remained firm to its roots, would have been a compelling drama.

But screenwriter Scott Z. Burns, who also penned the screenplay for CONTAGION (2011), another Soderbergh thriller I didn’t like all that much, takes it in a different direction.  People suddenly have sinister ulterior motives, and these motivations and actions become more and more farfetched, to the point where near the end of the movie, I really didn’t believe everything that was going on.  The story definitely loses credibility towards the end, and as a result, its edge.

LS: Yeah, we’re in total disagreement on this one. The first half – for me – was kind of a drag. I mean, Emily’s story was kind of interesting, but overall, I felt like I’d seen this kind of thing before, and I was worried it might become a preachy diatribe against the pharmaceutical industry. That didn’t seem all that compelling to me.

Then, when things start to change and we realize there is so much more to the story—all of this deception and the twists—and it’s really a completely different kind of movie than we thought – that’s when I started to perk and the movie hooked me. I wanted to see what was going to happen next, and how Jude Law’s Dr. Banks was going to recover his life and reputation after such a devastating event.

MA:  I didn’t find it preachy at all.  I found it interesting.  I guess I was enjoying the drama and wish it had played out that way, rather than turning into a thriller, which I found less realistic.

LS: I didn’t say it was preachy. I said, it seemed to be going in that direction. Then it didn’t.

MA: Well, another problem I had with SIDE EFFECTS is I didn’t like the characters.  Dr. Banks is probably the most likeable character in the film, but he grows less likeable as the movie goes on, as the methods he uses when he tries to clear his name are just as bad as those used by the people he’s trying to expose.

LS: I found him believable, because he based his decisions on logical reasons. His motivations made sense. This kind of thing could ruin his career completely, and yet, instead of just accepting his downfall, he is determined to do something about it, and I found that intriguing. I liked that he wasn’t completely likable. It made him seem more human to me.

MA: Emily isn’t likeable at all, and it’s hard to feel sympathy for her husband Martin who was convicted of insider trading and looks for all intents and purposes as if he’s about to follow the same path yet again.

LS: I think she’s likable early on, and kind of sad. She doesn’t stay as sympathetic, but I liked Rooney Mara’s performance.

MA: I agree with you there.  I liked Rooney Mara’s performance too.

And Jude Law is fine as Dr. Banks, but I enjoyed him more early on when I liked his character better.  Once he starts investigating Emily and her motives, he fluctuates between being obsessed and crazed. It’s hard to get excited about his efforts when he teeters on being psychologically imbalanced himself.

LS: But by seeming unbalanced it added to the dilemma. Is he a trustworthy protagonist? Should we be rooting for this guy? I liked that question mark, and I think Jude Law is, for the most part, a rather underrated actor. He’s good here.

MA: I enjoyed Rooney Mara best, and thought her performance as Emily was the strongest one in the movie.  It’s really difficult to read her.  Early on, she’s sympathetic, but later, like Law’s Dr. Banks, we’re uncertain what to make of her, and she’s less likeable because of it.  Still, it’s a strong performance, and while it’s not as compelling as her work in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (2011) she succeeds in creating in Emily a woman who at first seems unstable but later is revealed to be very calculating.

LS: Yeah, let’s not say too much about that, but Mara is an actress to watch. I loved her in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, and this role was very different, and I liked seeing her play someone so removed from Lisbeth Salander.

MA: On the other hand, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ performance as Dr. Victoria Siebert did nothing for me.  I didn’t buy into her character or her motivations.

LS: I disagree. I think Zeta-Jones is really a master when it comes to playing stone-cold ice queens who obviously want to control everything around them. I didn’t think her character was sympathetic, but then, she wasn’t meant to be. She was meant to be formidable, and in the scenes where Dr. Banks butts heads with her, Dr. Siebert is a believably formidable foe.

MA: She’s a corpse.  That’s how much life she gave her character.  I saw and heard her motivations, but I didn’t believe them.

Channing Tatum barely makes an impression as Emily’s husband Martin.  If anything, he succeeds in creating a character I didn’t like very much.

LS: I think Tatum is very likable as an actor, and I think that comes through here as well. But you’re right, he’s not given much to do, and it’s a mostly underwritten role.

MA: This movie did remind me somewhat of Soderbergh’s earlier effort CONTAGION.  Like that movie, there’s a disconnect here that prevents it from really resonating.  There’s also something sterile about the whole production, like a hospital room, that extinguishes any sort of passion one might feel towards its story and its characters.

LS: I didn’t see CONTAGION, but I think Soderbergh is a very capable filmmaker, whether he’s making multi-character blockbusters like TRAFFIC or smaller, tightly-wound thrillers like SIDE EFFECTS. I think he’s a really gifted director, and I hope he reconsiders his “early retirement” from the medium. I think the sometimes “sterile” feel of the movie actually added a tone and feel to the proceedings that worked for me. These are medical professionals who want to keep things “sterile” and safe for themselves, so that didn’t bother me.

MA: I enjoyed the first third of SIDE EFFECTS, but after that, the film started to lose me, as its plot became more convoluted and less believable.

LS: Yep, I think the opposite. I found the first half of the movie to be functional, but not very exciting. When things start to slowly reveal themselves, I found myself drawn into this smart, well-plotted thriller. I think a lot of our readers would really like this movie.

MA: I still say that SIDE EFFECTS starts out promising but doesn’t last, and like a medicine that doesn’t work, you won’t want to stay with it very long.

LS: I would prefer to describe it as a strong, effective medication that takes a little bit to get into your system and work. But once it’s activated, it keeps you glued to the screen.

MA: I give it two knives.

LS: I give it three knives.

MA: So that’s done. What should we do now?

LS: I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the hell out of here. Last time I checked, impersonating doctors is frowned upon.

MA (looks around):  Yeah, let’s get out of here.

(They run toward the elevator)

—END—

© Copyright 2013 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

Michael Arruda gives SIDE EFFECTS  ~ two knives!

LL Soares gives SIDE EFFECTS ~three knives.

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SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011)

Posted in 2011, Action Movies, Cinema Knife Fights, Detectives, Garrett Cook Articles, Michael Arruda Reviews, Mystery, Sherlock Holmes with tags , , , , , , on December 19, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011)
By Michael Arruda and Garrett Cook

 

(THE SCENE: A moving train, travelling through a picturesque European countryside circa the 1890s. On the train, in a private compartment, sits MICHAEL ARRUDA reading a book titled “Huckleberry Hound of the Baskervilles.” MA looks up at the camera, then at the book, and then back at the camera.)

MA: It’s a re-imagining.

(There is a knock on the door, and GARRETT COOK enters dressed as a woman.)

MA: Now I know why L.L. took this weekend off.

GARRETT COOK: Hey there. I made it.
MA: Right on time, too. You know, that costume looked horrible on Robert Downey Jr., and it’s not so hot on you either. You don’t have to wear that for the whole review, you know. (MA’s cell phone rings.) Yeah, I know cell phones didn’t exist in the 1890s. It’s an anachronism. Hello? Yeah, he made it. (to GC) It’s LL. He said since it’s your first Cinema Knife Fight, you should wear the dress.

GC: What? Give me the phone. Hey, L.L, I get the dress, but I don’t think they had thongs in the…

MA: He hung up. Let me start the review, and we’ll get this over with quickly, so you can change.

Garrett and I are here on this train today to review the new Sherlock Holmes movie, SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS (2011), starring Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson.

I enjoyed the first film in this series, SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009), as it was one of those movies I didn’t really expect much from, but was pleasantly surprised.

This time around, Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) square off against their arch-enemy Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). Moriarty is hell-bent on getting the European powers-that-be to go to war with each other, and he’s doing this by arranging bombings and assassinations of key officials, always behind the scenes of course, and never leaving any evidence. It’s up to Sherlock Holmes to match his superior wits against those of the genius villain, Moriarty. Of course, in this series, Holmes is not only a super sleuth, but also a super fighter. Throw in a little James Bond, and this Holmes is as adept with his fists and guns as he is with his powers of deduction.

This Holmes is less apt to utter “Elementary, my dear Watson” than “Hand me that machine gun.” Still, I can’t deny that through it all, Holmes remains entertaining.

GC: Yes, well the movie does take Sherlock Holmes out of the tea parlor intrigues we’ve come to expect from our Victorian detectives. Thing is, a lot of those expectations come from PBS and our imaginations and misconceptions.

If you hear interviews with Robert Downey Jr., he constantly brings up that Holmes used to be a more dynamic character. Holmes was a martial artist, Holmes packed heat, and while Holmes was the archetypical Victorian detective in a lot of ways, he was still a forerunner to pulp heroes and superheroes as we know them.

When we watch Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett playing the character, we see Holmes as an urbane genius with mild eccentricities. But you’ve gotta remember this is the same guy that shot down the Hound of the Baskervilles and also the same guy, who in ”A Study in Scarlet” lectured Watson on why he really didn’t need to know that we live in a heliocentric universe.

MA: Good points.

GC: Sherlock Holmes is not just a great detective, but one of the deadliest men on the autism spectrum. And Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes does everything to remind you of this. One of my favorite things from the first SHERLOCK HOLMES movie was that, each time we see Holmes engage in a fight, we get to watch him reason out and imagine the consequences of each action he takes. Which adds a lot to the (all too frequent) fight scenes.

MA: I liked this better in the first movie. It started to get old in this sequel.

GC: That’s because SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS takes both the eccentricity and the combat readiness of the detective a little too far. When Watson first meets up with Holmes, he finds that he has turned his office into a jungle of sorts and is trying to perfect a form of “urban camouflage,” and soon he’s wearing a dress and shooting people. Like this.

(GC pulls a gun out of the bodice of the dress and fires off a shot. A scruffy Victorian thug manifests out of nowhere, clutches his chest and dies. MA applauds.)

MA: Nicely done. You fit in here very well.

GC: Having seen me do that, you have no reason to think I’m a skilled film critic or at least no more reason than you would have before reading this piece.

MA: That’s okay. We shoot people around here all the time. Actually, we do much worse. (with his foot, MA slyly pushes a machete underneath his seat, concealing it.)

GC: Watching Holmes wear a dress and shoot scruffy Victorian thugs, you have little reason to think he’s a great detective, which is one of my biggest complaints about A GAME OF SHADOWS. You don’t get to watch Holmes doing detective work all that often. While it’s refreshing that you get to see Holmes as a man of action, the only times you get to see Holmes as a great detective are during his confrontations with Moriarty.

MA: I definitely agree with you here. It would have been nice to see Holmes do some old-fashioned detective work.

Getting back to the story, the bottom line is the plot doesn’t really matter. It’s just an excuse for the audience to see Holmes in action. The only other plot point of note is that the case leads Holmes to a fortune teller gypsy woman, Madam Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace, who was Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO films), whose brother has gone missing and is somehow mixed up with Moriarty, and so she wants to find him to save him, and Holmes wants to find him to learn more about Moriarty’s plot. Rapace is excellent in the role, and her scenes with Downey Jr. are energetic and entertaining.

The conclusion to this story is never in doubt. We all know who’s going to come out on top, and so there’s not much suspense in this one, even as it builds to its explosive climax.

I could take or leave SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, depending on my mood. I’ve seen much worse sequels (I thought this was a better sequel, for instance, than Downey Jr.’s IRON MAN 2 (2010)), but it didn’t rise above my expectations by any means.

(A pair of thugs suddenly appear outside the window and attempt to break into the compartment. MA hits one over the head with a club, while GC removes a bra from inside his dress and strangles the second thug with it. They kick both thugs off the moving train.)

MA: Nice job.

GC: Thanks.

MA (pointing to bra): I can’t say that we’ve ever used a bra as weapon before in this column. How about that? A first!

GC: I try.

MA: Getting back to the movie—there is non-stop action, one action sequence after another, and you barely have time to breathe. While on paper this sounds like a lot of fun, I always find movies like this get boring after a while, and this movie is no exception.

I wish things had slowed down long enough to give Downey and Jude Law a chance to act, because I certainly would have enjoyed seeing them do more. Now, they do a lot of fighting, chasing, and shooting, but their best scenes are actually when they’re talking. Imagine that!

By far, my favorite part of this Sherlock Holmes movie, and the first one, is the camaraderie and chemistry shared by Downey and Jude Law. They really work well together, and they make for a very entertaining and enjoyable Holmes and Watson. And I like Robert Downey Jr. a lot as Sherlock Holmes. After two movies, I’m almost ready to say I like him better as Holmes than as Tony Stark. Almost.

Noomi Rapace brings a lot of energy to her role as Madam Simza Heron. I thought her scenes with Downey really sizzled. Jared Harris also made for a fine Professor Moriarty. He was an effective evil genius.

GC: I thought Jared Harris as Moriarty was the best part of the movie. The confrontations between Holmes and Moriarty are fantastic.

If you’ve seen Guy Ritchie movies, one thing you expect is a great monologue from an intimidating criminal mastermind. I can’t tell you how many times I heard friends of mine quote crime boss Brick Top’s “Nemesis” speech when they first saw SNATCH (2002). The Napoleon of Crime delivers on this.

Jared Harris makes this movie, and his chemistry with Robert Downey Jr. is explosive, down to the final battle of wills and intellects.

MA: And Stephen Fry was also memorable in a supporting role as Sherlock Holmes’s brother, Mycroft Holmes. He generated a few welcome laughs in the movie. SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS certainly has a strong cast.

It also has a catchy music score, again written by Hans Zimmer. Zimmer has a very impressive resume of film scores going back to the 1980s. His recent credits include both the Christopher Nolan BATMAN movies and the PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN series.

As Garrett noted, Guy Ritchie, who directed the first HOLMES movie, is back at the helm for this one. There are lots of satisfying action scenes and some picturesque European locations (even if they are CGI creations) and the pacing is good, as there’s one action sequence after another, but in terms of story, this one never really grabbed me.

(A man appears from behind MA’s seat and grabs him by the back of the neck, strangling him.

GC: That’s because unfortunately, Guy Ritchie makes all of the mistakes you’ve seen him make before, with the exception of marrying Madonna ten years too late into her career and letting her convince him to remake a Lina Wertmuller film.

(MA gesticulates to GC that he needs help. GC removes a hairpin from his hair and sticks the thug in the eye with it. The thug releases MA and flees, screaming.

GC: Ever use a hairpin in this column before?

MA (catching his breath): Nope.

GC: Two firsts.

I brought up the overabundance of uninformative action scenes, but there’s also the problem that the film’s female characters are almost completely undeveloped. Holmes’s love interest, chirpy femme fatale Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) is seen all too briefly, and worse yet, she’s not particularly interesting as a character during her time in the movie.

MA: I agree. She’s not in this movie enough, and I was disappointed she wasn’t in it more.

GC: Noomi Rapace’s character Simza the gypsy is motivated by her desire to find her misguided anarchist brother, but we don’t get to see her character grow and develop. We’ve had an entire film to get to know Holmes, Watson and their relationship, but Simza is a recent addition to the cast. With a bit less action, this could have been possible.

MA: Yep, definitely. There was way too much action in this one, and not enough character development.

Michele Mulroney and Kieran Mulroney wrote the screenplay, and I’m sure they wrote what was expected of them, but that’s not saying a whole lot. The story didn’t take me to places I didn’t expect, nor did it truly captivate me. It played out, like so many other movies nowadays, like a video game. Let’s watch Sherlock Holmes fight this group of bad guys. Okay, now let’s watch Holmes get on this train and take on that group of baddies. And so on. For me, this gets stale after a while, even with a top-notch performer like Robert Downey Jr. on the screen.

That being said, it’s still hard not to like SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS, because it looks good, it’s got terrific acting, lots of action, and is permeated by a general sense of fun. However, it never rises above the average in terms of story, plot development, and characterization, and as such, as easy as it is on the eyes, for the mind and heart, it’s mundane.

Watching SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS is like being at a shopping mall during the holidays. It’s all richly decorated and looks great, and there’s certainly a lot going on, but it’s loud and noisy and not that satisfying. After a while, you really just want to go home.

I give SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS two and a half knives.

 Garrett?

GC: I agree with most of what you said, Michael, but I liked it slightly more than you. I found it to be a fast-paced, clever blockbuster, well-acted with strong set pieces, one of which in particular proves that Ritchie and crew do actually care what fans of the detective care about their work, so I give SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS three knives.

All the leads are magnetic and fun to watch. The lesser characters are also fun, and more importantly, this is the right time for the American public to be exposed to Holmes’s adventures. If, even for two hours in the dark, American filmgoers change the way they look at smart people and the military industrial complex, it’s a good thing. In times of rampant misinformation and factphobia, if American filmgoers are exposed to analytical thinking and people who are heroes because they think analytically, it’s a good thing.

MA: Uh-oh. Don’t go getting all philosophical on me now.

GC: How about it’s a timely, exciting holiday blockbuster?

MA: That’s better. So, that’s it. You found SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS to be really exciting and fun, and I found it a bit too shallow and action-oriented, but nonetheless entertaining.

Okay, we’re done. Garrett, thanks for filling in for L.L.

GC: No problem. Happy to do it. Thanks for asking me. I can’t believe he told me to keep this dress on, though. (Exits).

MA (to camera): I can’t believe it either, especially since—he didn’t call. LL’s not the only one with a dark side in this partnership, heh, heh.

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda and Garrett Cook

Michael Arruda gives SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS ~ two and a half knives!

Garrett Cook gives SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS ~three knives.

(“Cinema Knife Fight” title coined by L.L. Soares)

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CONTAGION

Posted in 2011, Apocalyptic Films, Cinema Knife Fights, Disaster Films, Disease!, Michael Arruda Reviews, Thrillers with tags , , , , , on September 12, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: CONTAGION (2011)
By Michael Arruda

(THE SCENE: A crowded restaurant. MICHAEL ARRUDA sits alone at a table as a waiter approaches with a food tray. The waiter places a plate of food in front of MA.)

MA: Thank you.

WAITER: You’re welcome. Aaa-choo!!! (He sneezes onto MA’s plate.)

MA (looks at camera): Now, that’s contagion!

WAITER: I’m so sorry. Let me get you another plate.

MA: Yes, well, when I ordered the pasta and clam sauce, that wasn’t the type of clam I had in mind.

(Waiter takes plate and scurries away, coughing and sneezing on everyone in his path.)

MA: Welcome, folks, to another edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT. I’m dining solo tonight, as L.L. Soares is out and about on another assignment. Tonight I’m reviewing CONTAGION, the new thriller by acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh, and featuring an A-list cast that includes Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Does all this talent add up to a great movie? Let’s find out!

If you’ve seen the preview, you know the plot, and then some. Yep, CONTAGION had one of those previews that pretty much showed the entire movie. Why see the movie when you’ve seen it all in the preview? I seriously wish someone out there would do something about movie previews that give everything away. It’s a disservice to movie audiences.

Anyway, CONTAGION begins with a woman Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returning home from a trip to Hong Kong. She’s sick with a cough, fever, and splitting headache. The next morning, she suffers a seizure, and her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) whisks her to the emergency room, where to his shock, she dies.

This same scenario plays out in other areas around the world, and suddenly the CDC (Center of Disease Control) is on the case, led by Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne). He sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to Chicago to investigate firsthand the case involving Beth Emhoff.

They discover that they are dealing with a new disease, and after some research, deduce that it most likely originated in Hong Kong. Dr. Leonara Orantes (Marion Cotillard) is dispatched to Hong Kong to learn more about the disease’s origins. Meanwhile, there’s a mad scramble to find a cure.

Journalist/blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) tells his readers that the real cure is a natural remedy called Forsythia, and that the government, CDC, and drug companies are ignoring this truth, keeping this cure from the public, so they can make money on their own new drug which they hope will treat the disease.

While the doctors search for a cure, ordinary people like Mitch Emhoff and his surviving daughter stay at home and hope for the best, while around them, the world begins to fall apart as looters take over, and law and order breaks down.

(Cue LAW AND ORDER theme music.)

MA (looks at camera with a puzzled expression) (Music stops.): That was weird.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of CONTAGION is restraint, and for a thriller, that’s not a good thing.

The movie gets off to a quick start. Things happen right away, as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Beth Emhoff gets sick right off the bat and dies within the first few minutes of the movie. From there, the film takes on an almost a newscast feel to it as we watch events unfold and follow multiple storylines as the doctors and scientists race to find a cure.

But the movie never hits a home run with this material. It moves along at a moderate pace and later, when things should be heating up, they don’t. For a film about a worldwide contagion, CONTAGION just isn’t that intense.

About the most intense thing in this movie is a neat scene early on (at least neat for horror fans) of an autopsy in which we hear the grotesque sound of the saw cutting into a skull and see a scalp peeled back. That’s about it for intensity.

There were certainly opportunities for intensity, but the film drops the ball with all of them. For example, when looters run rampant, and people are shooting and breaking into homes and stores, all of this tends to happen around Mitch Emhoff and his daughter, but none of it seems to directly impact them. I mean, nobody breaks into their home and holds them at gunpoint trying to steal food or medicine. I never really felt that they were in imminent danger. They seem to be safe inside their home the whole time. Ho hum.

By the end of the movie, this particular storyline had pretty much put me to sleep.

When Dr. Leonara Orantes (Marion Cotillard) goes to Hong Kong to investigate the disease’s origins, she is abducted and held for ransom, the ransom being the antidote. But is her life in danger here? Nope. In fact, she’s treated well.

And there are hardly any scenes of people dying, suffering, or panicking. This is a contagion!!! Why aren’t people going to pieces? They are, but the movie doesn’t really do a good job showing us this. CONTAGION is more interested in pointing out that we touch our faces an incredible amount of times per day, that it’s so easy to pass germs from just touching things like door handles, glasses, cups, etc., but don’t we already know this from dealing with flu season every year? At times, the movie plays like a public service announcement on how not to catch the flu. It certainly doesn’t play like a major theatrical thriller.

Another problem with CONTAGION is its multiple storylines. There are just too many characters. There really isn’t one strong main character to hold this film together, and the movie suffers for it. Sure, Laurence Fishburne’s Dr. Cheever is a nice guy, but nice guys can be boring, and as such, Cheever doesn’t carry this movie.

My favorite part of CONTAGION is the Jude Law storyline. His character, blogger Alan Krumwiede, is supposed to be shady, and I’m not sure we’re supposed to believe him. Trouble is, I found his arguments believable. When he talks about drug companies wanting to make money off the disease and purposely not telling the public about the homeopathic treatment Forsythia, it makes sense. In the real world, drug companies do often ignore natural remedies, and they do make tons of money off drugs that treat diseases rather than cure them.

With an A-list cast, it’s hard to find fault with the acting. As I just said, my favorite character was Alan Krumweide, and as such, I thought Jude Law delivered the best performance. But like Fishburne’s Dr. Cheever, he’s just one part of this movie and so, while he’s excellent, he doesn’t carry this movie.

I also really liked Marion Cotillard as Dr. Leonara Orantes. She’s fun to watch, and there’s an aura about her that makes it really difficult NOT to watch her. Cotillard, if you remember, was also excellent in INCEPTION (2010) as Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife, Mal.

Kate Winslet—coincidentally another DiCaprio love interest, in TITANIC (1997) —-is also very good as Dr. Erin Mears, and I wish she had been in the movie more. These three actors/characters probably fare the best.

Matt Damon is OK as Mitch Emhoff, the character audiences probably will most identify with, since he’s your everyday ordinary guy, but his best moments definitely come in the first half of the movie, especially early on when he’s dealing with the death of his wife. Later, his character and his storyline simply run out of gas.

(Behind MA gun shots ring out, and suddenly MATT DAMON is in hand to hand combat, kicking butt against several assassins. He makes short work of these guys, dusts himself off and waves at the camera.)

MA: Not that I want Damon to be typecast, but he’s certainly much more fun as Jason Bourne.

(WAITER reappears and sneezes on MATT DAMON, who promptly slugs the waiter in the face, sending him and his food tray crashing into a wall.)

MA: I guess I’ll get my food someday.

Gwyneth Paltrow is hardly in the movie, but I like Paltrow a lot, and so I did enjoy her brief screen time. Laurence Fishburne is also very likeable as Dr. Ellis Cheever, but he always seems to be outside the action. He’s always on the phone asking questions, getting information, and dishing out instructions. He never seems to get down and dirty.

Elliot Gould has a nice bit as Dr. Ian Sussman, and he has one of the better lines in the movie, when he confronts Jude Law’s Alan Krumwiede, attacking his credentials, saying, “Blogging is not writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.”

Enrico Colantoni makes his mark playing the “heavy,” a government official named Dennis French, and Bryan Cranston is also memorable as Homeland Security Officer Lyle Haggerty.

So, you have all these fine actors displaying their talents, but it’s still not enough to save this movie, and that’s because there are too many of them, and no single player is allowed to carry this movie and take it to the next level.

Director Steven Soderbergh, [SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE (1989), ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000), and many others] crafts a film that succeeds in being entertaining for about two-thirds of the way through, before it simply runs out of steam. It does present a believable story—I buy that such an outbreak could happen—, and it does give us believable, likeable characters. Unfortunately, these likeable characters for the most part also happen to be boring. You’d like them helping you in a crisis, but you wouldn’t want to go out for a beer with them.

Scott Z. Burns wrote the screenplay, and while he succeeds in writing a believable tale with credible information regarding its threat, he doesn’t provide the whole package. What’s missing? The thrills!!! CONTAGION is boring! It’s about as thrilling as a PBS documentary on contagion. It’s interesting, no doubt about that, but it’s never on-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting.

CONTAGION simply lacks the necessary intensity to succeed as a thriller. I was never scared, never disturbed. I give it two knives.

(Waiter returns with a tray of food.)

MA: Well, it looks as if my dinner is finally going to arrive. (To waiter, who’s looking scary pale): Er, excuse me, but you don’t look so good.

WAITER: I feel terrible. I think I have a fever, I can’t swallow, I have a splitting headache, and—.

(WAITER passes out and lands face first into MA’s plate of food.)

MA (rolls eyes): I think I’ll just go pick up some fast food. Well, folks, thank you for joining me for another edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT. L.L. will be back next week, and he and I will be reviewing another new movie. So long for now!

(MA exits the crowded restaurant, walking past the patrons and wait staff, all of them coughing and sneezing, and some of them collapsing onto the floor.)

—END—

© Copyright 2011 by Michael Arruda

Michael Arruda gives CONTAGION ~ two knives!

2 Comments »

REPO MEN

Posted in 2010, Cinema Knife Fights, Science Fiction with tags , , , , , , on March 22, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT:  REPO MEN (2010)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(Inside a dark, decrepit warehouse, MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES move through the darkness. They jump two unsuspecting people, zapping them unconscious with some fancy taser dart guns. LS removes a hacksaw from a bag.)

LS:  Finally, a job I was born to do!  Repo men!

MA:  Removing organs from people who can’t finish paying for them. It does sound right up your alley.

LS (His clothes covered in blood, his face sporting a mighty grin):  I can’t think of anything better. I’m surprised you agreed to this gig, though.

MA (Suddenly joined by two workmen pushing a huge pipe organ across room):  What’s wrong with moving organs?

LS (Rolling eyes):  That’s not what— didn’t you watch the movie?

MA:  REPO MEN?  Sure did. That’s why we’re here after all, to review this new science fiction thriller starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

LS: Wait a minute. I thought this one starred Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton as guys who repossess cars – one of which has an alien suitcase in the trunk.

MA: That’s REPO MAN (1984).

LS: Oh yeah, I was having a flashback to my punk rock days. I love that movie! But yeah, this is a new one with Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. I was actually kidding.

Hey, why don’t you start this one off?  I need to wash up.

MA:  Sure. REPO MEN (2010) is the story of two best buddies Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) who work for a cold-hearted medical company run by their cold-hearted boss, Frank (Liev Shreiber). This company leases out artificial organs such as hearts and livers to people who need transplants, but the catch is, if people can’t keep up with their payments, then repo men like Remy and Jake are sent in to collect these organs back.

LS (Comes back wearing clean white suit):  I’m baaack! I look just like Tom Wolfe now! Yeah, the medical company, called “The Union” is a lot like the most evil corporation you can think of. As if a credit card company merged with a health insurance company.

MA (Shudders):  Now, that’s scary!

LS:  First off, they charge insane prices for the artificial organs – prices most people could never pay. Then they tag on an exorbitant interest rate – to pretty much guarantee that people will be paying for the rest of their lives. As Shreiber says at one point “People paying up in full is not good for business.”

MA: That does sound like a credit card company!  Anyway, Remy and Jake do their job in gruesome fashion, slicing out organs in scenes of brutality that are certainly not for the squeamish, but a job is a job.

LS: Yeah, “A job is a job.” Both Jude Law and Forest Whitaker say that a lot in this movie. You know, there is a lot of cutting and bleeding in this movie, but I never found it particularly gruesome, until a big scene at the end. Maybe because it is such a slick Hollywood confection that the violence seemed “sanitized” to me. In a more gritty director’s hands, this could have been a truly disturbing movie. As is, it’s pretty mainstream, despite the plot.

MA: Really?  I didn’t find it all that mainstream. I thought the violence was disturbing enough, and I think the average moviegoer would be disturbed by some of the early cutting scenes.

But back to the plot. Although Remy’s wife is trying to convince him to leave the repo division and go into sales, where he’d have more normal hours and could work a clean job in a suit and tie, he doesn’t want to, until he suffers an electric shock on the job, knocking him unconscious. When he awakens, he finds he has been in a coma and was fitted with one of the company’s artificial hearts. Immediately after, his wife leaves him and takes their son.

LS: I saw this coming a mile away. Hell, before I saw the movie I knew one of the characters was going to get put in a situation where they’d become the hunted. This was just way too predictable. As for Remy’s wife Carol (Carice van Houten), it’s really hard to feel anything for her. She’s mainly portrayed as just a humorless bitch who wants her husband domesticated and safe. While I can understand that, I also totally understand why he enjoys cutting loose in his job so much. His work life is so much more exciting than his way-too-normal personal life, and it makes perfect sense that he’d get addicted to the life of a repo man.

MA: At this point, Remy seems to develop a conscience and realizes he cannot do his job anymore. No job, no money, and soon he’s behind on his payments, and you know what that means.

LS: Yeah, it means any originality the movie started out with goes right out of the window, for a while anyway. Nothing like “developing a conscience” to make a cool character boring.

(JIMINY CRICKET strolls by.)

JIMINY CRICKET:  Let your conscience be your guide.

(LS flattens the cartoon cricket with a giant fly swatter).

MA (Shaking head):  Is that any way to treat a beloved cartoon character?

LS:  I was following his advice!

MA:  To let your conscience be your guide?

LS: What can I say? I have a very dark conscience.

MA: When Remy meets a lounge singer named Beth (Alice Braga), who seems to have more artificial parts inside her than the Terminator’s girlfriend— (think about that one, folks), they develop a bond and soon find themselves on the run together. When they realize there is no escape, they come up with a bold plan to return to the company’s headquarters and wipe its computer systems clean, thus erasing for all time the record of their artificial organs, and everyone else’s.

LS: Aww, the old “you and me against the world” plotline.

MA: They figure if they do this, then they finally will be free. Of course, this also leads to the obligatory confrontation between Remy and Jake.

LS: The big showdown!

MA: REPO MEN was a movie I really wasn’t looking forward to seeing, since its subject matter, the removal of human organs, did little to pique my interest. For the first third of this movie, it was as dark and dreary as I expected. I didn’t really relate to either of the two main characters, and I thought the film struggled to find its tone. It didn’t seem to know whether or not to play the satire card, or just be a dark thriller.

LS: I agree with that. The movie doesn’t seem which way it wants to go at first.

MA: And even when Remy meets Beth, I didn’t find much chemistry between them. But after the scene when they survive the first attempt against their lives, things began to change. I began to warm up to Remy and Beth, as suddenly they did share some chemistry, and the film really seemed to hit its stride as it became much more of a straight melodrama. The tension built and there were several suspenseful scenes, including a memorable one involving airport security.

LS: Yeah, I liked that scene.

MA: Afterwards, things heated up even more, and in spite of the increase in bloody violence, I was really into this movie, and it was close to winning me over. There were even some effective humorous scenes along the way, including a 9 year-old girl who is a “surgeon.”

LS: The black market organ scene. Another good one!

(A 9-YEAR OLD GIRL pops into frame, wearing a lab coat and a stethoscope)

GIRL: Yes. I’ll take health insurance or Hannah Montana tickets as payment.

MA: However, the very end of this movie reveals a twist, that frankly I didn’t see coming. It was a twist I thought unnecessary, and I didn’t like it at all. Why?  Because by this point the two main characters had really grown on me, and their plight to escape had really drawn me in, to the point where I was emotionally involved, and then the ending just pulls the plug on everything. This is too bad, because REPO MEN was on its way to being a pleasant surprise for me.

LS: I didn’t mind the twist ending so much, except that that kind of “big surprise” has been done so much now; it’s just not surprising anymore. It’s a cliché. Then again, there’s nothing all that original about this movie. Even its best scenes seem to be call outs to similar scenes in other movies. For example, there is a terrific scene where Jude Law moves down a long hallway, fighting a whole bunch of people one after another. This scene really worked for me, but it also seemed like a big rip-off of a similar (and even better) scene in Chan-wook Park’s modern classic, OLDBOY. There’s also an “adrenaline needle to the heart” scene that was straight out of PULP FICTION.

MA:  You mean that wasn’t from THE WIZARD OF OZ?

LS:  No.

MA:  Sure it was. Take a look.

(Behind them, on a wide screen TV monitor, the SCARECROW and COWARDLY LION approach the unconscious body of the Tin Man.)

SCARECROW:  Quick, give him the needle.

LION:  I can’t!  I’m too afraid!  You do it!

(SCARECROW  rips needle from LION’s fingers, and then plunges it into the chest of the Tin Man. The needle bounces off the tin chest violently, propelling the shrieking SCARECROW 50 feet into the air until he disappears from view.)

LION:  And he’s the brains of this outfit?  I’m going back to the forest.

MA (shuts off TV with remote):  A deleted scene.

LS:  Yeah, right. Then how come the Tin Man looked suspiciously like you in silver paint?

MA: I have no idea what you’re talking about!

LS: Even funnier, I mentioned in our MARCH PREVIEW column, before we saw REPO MEN, that it seemed to be a whole movie based on a Monty Python skit. There’s a bit in THE MEANING OF LIFE where two medics go to someone’s house and say they’re there for a liver donation. The guy says “But I’m still using it,” and they proceed to cut it out of him. In REPO MEN, there is actually a scene where Law and Whitaker are watching THIS EXACT SAME BIT ON TV!! That really cracked me up, that they acknowledged that. But at the same time, it shows how derivative this flick is.

(There’s a knock at the door. LS opens it)

(JOHN CLEESE is standing there in an EMT uniform)

CLEESE: We’ve come for your liver!

LS (Slams door): Wow. Talk about déjà vu!

MA: I thought the acting was very good. I enjoyed Jude Law in the lead as Remy. In the first third of the movie, I found his character cold and rather boring, but as the film heated up, he did as well, morphing into an intense hero who I found myself rooting for. Forest Whitaker was even better, and he too gets better as the movie moves along. Whitaker gave his Jake character a depth that the other characters in the movie did not have. Jake is driven by his need to keep his friend Remy in his life, and this drive leads him to make some unconventional decisions.

LS: Yeah, it’s clear that Remy is all Jake’s got, and the strongest emotional relationship in this movie is easily the one between Remy and Jake. They’ve known each other since childhood (originally Jake was a bully who beat Remy up in the schoolyard), and there is no other scene in the entire movie that shows such unbridled joy as one where Jake and Remy sneak aboard a ship full of people who are overdue on their organ payments, and they go on a killing spree to repossess them. The two just seem to be having such a great time in that scene. I was almost jealous.

MA:  See, I got that sense more from Whitaker than I did Law, who I found cold and uninspiring early on. I definitely got the feeling from Whitaker’s character Jake that his relationship with Remy was the most important part of his life. Law’s character Remy to me didn’t seem to know what he was interested in. I didn’t find him developing his focus until later, when he became involved with Beth.

I enjoyed Alice Braga as Beth as well. I thought she and Law shared one of the best scenes in the movie, towards the end, when they make the decision to take an incredible and horrifying series of steps in order to finally free themselves from the repo men. The scene, as gruesome as it is, is almost sexy.

LS: That’s got to be my favorite scene in the movie. At first, I didn’t think Braga’s character was all that great, but she really grew on me as the story progressed, and I think that scene was dynamite, and actually kinda ballsy.

MA: I would have to agree with you on both counts. Braga definitely grew on me, and that last scene, as shocking as it was, probably was my favorite too.

And while Liev Schreiber as the cold-hearted boss Frank is sufficiently villainous, he never really inspired me to hate him. He was somehow too wooden, and not quite as fleshed out as the other main characters in the movie.

LS: I agree. I think he should have worn a sign that said “Corporate Bad Guy.” He just seemed like a stock character, like Giovanni Ribissi’s similar jerk in AVATAR. It would be nice to finally see a character like this get fleshed out a bit.

MA: I thought the direction by Miguel Sapochnik was adequate. Some of the visuals of the futuristic cityscapes reminded me of BLADE RUNNER (1981).

LS:  This movie had a TOTAL Philip K. Dick vibe to it. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it was based on one of his short stories (it isn’t). The look of it is total BLADE RUNNER. The only thing is, if Dick had written it, it would have been a lot more compelling (and bizarre). This was just too by-the-numbers, for the most part.

MA: I also thought he handled the action sequences well. This is an “R” rated movie, and the fight scenes are very violent and bloody. But then again, if you’re going to see a movie like REPO MEN, and you know what it’s about, you won’t be surprised.

LS: I dunno. With a name like that, it could have been a sequel to the cult-classic Emilio Estevez movie.

MA:  That’s a good point!  I wonder how many people out there remember the Estevez movie. I sure hope no one goes to this one expecting a sequel to that one!  Now, that would be a surprise!

LS: For some reason I think people who like one, might like the other. They certainly wouldn’t be shocked by anything in the new movie.

MA: The screenplay by Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner was OK. I thought it worked much better as a melodrama. I thought the beginning tried to show a little social commentary, and this didn’t work for me. It came off as somewhat muddled and basically was too dark to work as a successful satire.

So, what do I ultimately think of REPO MEN?  I think a quote from the movie explains it best, when Remy speaks of being “alive and dead at the same time” and tries to understand what that means.

LS: Ah, the whole “Schrodinger’s Cat” analogy.

MA: REPO MEN was a lot like that, alive and dead at the same time, at times more alive than dead, but ultimately, after a final twist ending, falling to the dank ground, dead as a doornail.

LS: I actually had a slightly different take on it. I thought it started out good, developing Remy and Jake’s relationship, but that got tired quickly, when they just repossessed organ after organ. There’s only so much you can do with that before it gets monotonous (although the scene on the ship was great). Then, the part where Remy gets an artificial heart and grows a conscience was really pretty boring to me. I don’t want to see an adrenaline-junkie killer grow a friggin conscience! And what kind of health plan does The Union offer its employees anyway? They can’t even give free organs to their most valuable employees without strings attached? Talk about corporate greed! And this movie really made me pine for the possibilities of universal health care. Because, if the HMOs get this much power in the future, we’re screwed.

MA:  Don’t laugh, but I had the same thought!  I was sitting there thinking how exaggerated this was, and then thinking, you know what, 50 years down the line this might not be so exaggerated. There are such greedy bastards in the world!

LS:  Then, once Remy becomes a fugitive from his own company and hooks up with Braga, it gets good again, especially the final half hour of so, which is the best part of the whole movie.

MA:  Yes, you are right there. The final half hour is by far the best part.

LS:  If it had been that good all the way through, I would gladly recommend this movie without reservation. As is, I gotta say it’s a mixed bag. But I went in expecting a total dud, and I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was at times.

MA: There was a lot I did like about this movie, especially as the suspense built in its exciting second half, but because of its twist ending, I left the theater disappointed, and so I don’t recommend REPO MEN.

LS: Like I said, the twist didn’t bother me as much. But it could have had a more clever ending.

And I like Jude Law. He’s been in good movies and bad ones, but he’s mostly kept his acting cred inact. But Forest Whitaker is a force of nature in this movie. Every single scene he is in crackles, and I almost wished he was the lead character instead.

I’m actually on the fence about recommending it, though. There’s almost enough good stuff here for me to say it’s worth seeing in the theater. If this review sounds good to you, you might want to go see it. If you’re on the fence, then it is definitely a rental when it comes out on DVD. But it’s worth seeing. I’m just not sure if it’s worth the $11 I paid for it.

MA:  I went back and forth on this one too, because I was really enjoying it there for a while, but for me, the ending was the final nail in the coffin. Had the ending not been a downer, I would have recommended it in a heartbeat.

LS:  Speaking of beating hearts…(Opens door to reveal several people running away. He pulls out his fancy taser gun.)  Time to collect. Are you coming with me?

MA:  I don’t know. I mean, I wanted to go out to dinner later tonight, and I don’t feel like ruining my appetite.

LS:  Don’t be a wuss. Besides, I plan to eat on the job.

MA:  You mean?

LS:  Gotta get my protein!  Come on!  It’ll be fun!

MA:  The things I do for this column. Okay, so this is where we say: So long, folks! Until next time—.

LS (laughs): Looks like daddy’s having liver for dinner!

FADE OUT.

© Copyright 2010 by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

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