Film

Concessions

Gaping Eyeholes

by Lindy West

I know it's that one week a year when we semi-arbitrarily eat very small Three Musketeers bars and get all spastic about mummies, so one might expect me to devote this column to my top five ways for a hill mutant to rip out a sorority girl's eyeball (okay, fine: 5. grapefruit spoon, 4. mutant telepathy, 3. bug vacuum, 2. voodoo chicken bone, 1. prehensile toe). However! I have gone on record many times explaining that STRANGELY ENOUGH, I DO NOT ENJOY THE FEELING OF WARM TERROR-PEE FILLING MY PANTS, BUT THANK YOU OH SO MUCH FOR OFFERING. No, I shall not partake of the frights this week. Instead, here's a roundup of overdue movie reviews that I'm going to call "Filling in the Holes"—much like a sorority girl might use a totally cute Juicy Couture key fob to fill in the hole where her eyeball used to be! (Top five things a sorority girl could stick in her gaping eye socket: 5. a tampon, 4. a single red rose, 3. a totally cute Juicy Couture key fob, 2. a hotter, skinnier, prosthetic eyeball, 1. prehensile toe.) Mazel tov, bitchez!

dir. Peter Billingsley

Here's what I think happened. Jon Favreau—older now, doughier, a sad clown of a certain age—tried to write a serious, emotional, midlife-crisis-soothing exploration of his post-settling-down malaise. But director Peter Billingsley—confused by Favreau's comedy past—tried to force Couples Retreat into the shape of a madcap rom-com. This is the only explanation. The film is WEIRD. It doesn't actually contain jokes (unless you count the tres naughty observation that "ass" can mean both "donkey" and "butt"!), and its hee-larious couples-therapy sessions are not so much like joke therapy as they are like actual therapy. Whooooo likes bickering!?

dir. Paul Weitz

I sat in the theater. I dutifully turned off my cell phone du freak and opened my peanut M&Ms du freak. I had low hopes. But guess what, foolz!? Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, despite having more words and subclauses and silly, arcane nonsense in its title THAN THE ENTIRE BIBLE, is totally enjoyable! Du freak!!! It's the story of two best friends—Steve and Darren—who stumble upon an underworld of weird sideshow creatures and warring vampire clans. It's funny, it sorts out complicated backstory with a light touch, and it's not sugarcoated for babies. "Can I turn into a bat now?" "No. That's bullshit." HA HA HA DU FREAK!

dir. Mira Nair

This movie is full of little-known facts. Did you know that Amelia Earhart was not a respiring, cardiovasculatory meat-human, but instead was an intricately carved wooden womannequin clad in the latest jodhpurs (no expense was spared on the jodhpurs!) and varnished with a thick, glass-hard coating of moxie? SO MUCH MOXIE. Did you know that Richard Gere is gross? Did you know that Gore Vidal was once a baby? Did you know that Ewan McGregor is part downy lamb? THESE ARE LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS! Um, Amelia is okay. It has its feminism in the right place, I think—an annoyingly heavy-handed place, for sure ("The wrong Roosevelt got elected," Amelia tells Eleanor, winkily), but one I wouldn't mind my future daughters absorbing. Unfortunately, Amelia-the-super-interesting-person is consumed by Amelia-the-prerecorded-inspirational-Teddy-Ruxpin-thingy, and her story becomes a big, goopy, Hollywood mess. Oops, my eyeballs rolled out of my head and rolled away and now all I have left are these gaping eyeholes. WHAT WILL I PUT IN THESE HOLES, BITCHEZ!?!?