Blue Lagoon: The Awakening - "Film" #13

You know what this world needs more of???



The Blue Lagoon!!!

Thank GOD! I had just healed my retinas from the last sequel starring Mila Jovovich; they were in need of some permanent re-scarring!



I mean, did anyone else forget her sweet virgin diaper???

Blue Lagoon: The Awakening is the touching story of Dean (aka "Holden Caulfield") and Emma (aka Molly Ringwald/The Prom Queen).

Dean is a rebel without a cause. But with a knife. That he carries in school. Because that's so cool.

And phallic.

And Lord of the Flies.

And illegal.

None of which the movie concerns itself with.

Emma is an overachiever who hates to be off-schedule. Her friends think she needs to sleep with the quarterback.

And you know what???

She really does.

But she won't, because there's a price on virginity in these things.

Long story short, they go to Trinidad on a school trip of spirit and giving. And alcohol. Somehow, they both end up on a boat raver that gets busted by the cops. As the cops yell the VERY fitting and slightly portentous "you're about to be boarded", Emma falls out of the boat, gets into a dinghy with Sk8r Boi, and the two drift off into the deep blue sea.

I'm pretty sure Thomas C. Foster would have a lot to say about this movie's use of water.

Regardless, somehow, the dinghy with two hungover kids on it makes it to an island while their teacher, played by the aged first generation Blue Lagoon "Adam" figure Christopher Atkins, finally realizes he is missing two of his students in what can only be described as the worst teachable moment ever.



I hope I never have to explain to a parent that I let her daughter get on a dinghy with Danger Boy on my watch.

"Don't be sorry. Just help us find our children."

Gah.

I'm pretty sure they don't rehire you after something like this.

That shit just would not fly.

I also hope I never need money so badly that I'll revisit a movie chain that has long since played to death the whole "return to innocence" bull that this smut purports to.



Tangent: I wonder when loin cloths are going to come back in style???

Dean and Emma, meanwhile, take to island life like two kids in a candy store.

If the candy store sold palm fronds, playful monkeys, and rogue panthers instead of candy, of course.

Here are my main ruminations/concerns upon watching this "film":

1.There is a serious dearth of loin cloth-age going on here. Even Mila got the aforementioned diaper. This version's Adam and Eve are practically clothed. What the heck, Lifetime! How are we supposed to know they're pre-fallen if they are too ashamed to be naked??? She wears either a blue bikini or blue tank top and cut offs. He is usually shirtless, which is, I think, his main function in the film. See photo:


I'm pretty sure the blue is supposed to highlight her virginity/parallel to Virgin Mary/etc. I'm also pretty sure his abs are supposed to highlight the fact that most men do not work out nearly enough to compete with the Australians.

Seriously, what do they feed them down there???

2. 

Don't worry, that's not virgin blood. Or even menstrual blood (who could forget THAT scene from Return to the Blue Lagoon!). Nay, good folks, that's motherfucking PANTHER blood.

Now, here's a good rule of thumb for all y'all: if you hear growling in a jungle, don't hunt it. Particularly if you have nothing to hunt with. Dean hears growling, then chases it down, until he catches up with a panther. Who then proceeds to chase him. Now, I don't know much about animals, but I do know this general tidbit: I don't care how cut Dean is. He cannot outrun a panther. But he almost does! until he trips on a rogue log and the panther pounces on Dean who somehow manages to get his illegal pocket knife out and kill him with one mighty stab to the panther heart.

That's right.

Little Dean gets to use his knife.

In case we missed it during all the weirdly quiet, gentile porn on the island...

He's a real man now.

3.  And what about the sex? Because they're Adam and Eve. They get to have sex with no consequences. It's a rule!

(Hey, Lifetime, it's Adam and Eve, not Emma and Dean!)

First, it feels creepily voyeuristic. But yet also masterfully tasteful. This movie may suck plot-wise but it gets an A+++ in strategic palm frond/tree branch placement. At one point, we even get to see through a little makeshift sunroof in their thatched hut of lovemaking joy. At another, a barky limb obscures the naughty bits. It's like Austin Powers without the winking.

I'm not even going to touch the fact that they engage in their premarital sexcapades because they find a crusty skeleton buried in their hut and the thought of their impending mortality creates some sort of psychological downward spiraling that culminates in Emma getting sand in her very special lady crevices. Sure, it's yet another blatant homage to the inexorable link between sex and death, but, damn.



Chester Copperpot should not inspire this much teenaged fornication.

Don't Dean and Emma know...

GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!

Sigh.

Relax, the sex is not that graphic.

I mean, by Lifetime standards, it's Skin-a-max. But for the average viewer, it's politely untamed.

Beforehand, it's a lot of stolen glances and strutting around in varying degrees of clothed-ness. There's a lot of slow-mo involving Dean jumping and frolicking like a punch-drunk seven-year-old at the desert island gymnastics class.

But the eventual act(s) itself...very...quiet. I mean, pretty much she bites her lip and he puts his head down and we're supposed to just "know" that something magical has happened. And then they talk about how mindblowing the experience was for both of them. Before and after she does that insipid girl thing of asking him to 1. rank her performance among the mighty pantheon of his myriad sex partners and 2. tricks him into telling her all about his uber-sketchy first time with a junior in college (while he was a sophomore - which, if he didn't stay back, makes him at most SIXTEEN at that time and her well-past the age of legal adulthood) and 3. confesses that she gave him her most special chaste treasure.

He is, as all boys are in these things, overjoyed at how fortuitously things worked out for him in the virginity department while she is relieved to have someone pre-trained take care of all that awkward deflowering.

Just how God intended.

4. "Honey, we need to talk..."



After several vanilla sex scenes (and, yeah, Christian Grey, THIS is vanilla), we get a scene where pretty, perfect Emma starts vomiting.

Dean: Do you think it's the fish?
Us: No, Dean. We do not think it's the fish.
Emma: Maybe, it did smell a little funny.
Dean: Do you think you could...you know? Be pregnant?
Us: Yes, Dean. We do think it's a VirginBirthMiracleIslandBaby!
Emma: NOOOOOO. I am NOT pregnant.
Dean: Good. Because I have the emotional maturity of a toddler. Sure I have very handy knowledge about the appropriate berries to eat and not eat, but fatherhood? Man, that some heavy shit!
Us: Couldn't have said it better ourselves, Dean!
Emma: I want kids someday. With you. Maybe.
Dean: Me too, Emma-kins. Me too.
Us: Vomit!

And then she's not pregnant!!!

WTF, people!

The last time two young, good-looking kids had that much sex and DIDN'T get pregnant, this happened:



I guess Jenny was right, Oliver. Love means never having to say you're sorry you didn't know how to fasten a makeshift condom out of jellyfish skin.

Seriously, Lifetime. You of all people should know the importance of having tangible repercussions for this type of behavior! Now every teen who gets stranded on a desert island with her local resident bad boy is going to have non-stop sex for days and find themselves woefully unprepared to give birth in a sandpit! We should be getting ready to watch a very special episode of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant: Island Edition, not heaving a collective sigh of relief at their blameless (babyless) wild abandonment.

5. What happened to Denise Richards's face?


None of the adults in this film have understood the concept of "growing older gracefully"...Denise's character has clearly had her lips and nose done. Her husband had hair three shades too dark. And you already know how I feel about the Atkins diet.

Sadness.

6. "WHAT ABOUT PROM, BLAINE???"


I hope I'm spoiling this for you: Dean and Emma get rescued. That's why she couldn't get pregnant. Paradise island babies/tangible symbols of hope for an unruined future can only exist ON THE ISLAND. Didn't we learn anything from Lost??? If they're going to get off the island intact, an impending baby turns their story into an episode of Teen Mom and that's a whole other TV movie right there. So, they get rescued and escape the shackles of an 18+ year commitment.

Score.

And, predictably, life off the island is not as idyllic for these two sex fiends. Emma returns to her life of popularity and overscheduling. Dean becomes once more otherwise ignored. Despite his efforts to keep their thang going strong, the two drift apart like two dinghies in the night.

Until prom.

Prom is magical. It's when ugly ducking little sisters who are not named Ducky get to go to prom with the prettiest girl in whole world and then get dragged off to dance by a non-Kristy Swanson "hipster boy" thus leaving the more attractive date unattended and ready for some rekindling.

And the good friends who once thought "Hot Steven" would be the ideal bedroom/prom/life date are all now rooting for the former freaky loser boy and the prom queen to get their romance on.

In the rain.

While her friends watch on (because he still doesn't have any), shit-eating grins plastered to their smarmy little faces.

Yes, sir!

7. The Green Flash/Light


Hey, Dean...Gatsby also believed in the green light...the orgastic future (that's WAY different from your orgasmic one). Stop using played out metaphors for the American Dream and the power of hope and nostalgia in your Lifetime movie, please!

Wait, did we talk about Dean's mother???

The movie attempts to flesh out Dean's character (because, let's face it, a 12 pack set of abs does not a troubled past make!) by giving him a sordid backstory involving his dead mother, that he may or may not have accidentally killed in a poorly timed game of "Warp Speed!".

Or something.

And what, you might ask, does every boy stranded on an island with a half naked hot chick think about constantly?



His mother.

She is the green flash, the guardian angel, the creepy overlord of Dean's emotions, and the catalyst for sexual exploration.

It's so very wrong indeed.

8. "Should we feel guilty?"


Yes.

I mean, that is SORT of the whole point here, right, Genesis fans?

Again...

Sigh.

This movie gave me sand in weird places.

Or crabs. I can't tell which.

Look, if I could leave you with one wish for this movie, it's this: watch this movie for the people in the background who clearly think NO ONE is watching them.

They are the true makers of music, the real dreamers of dreams.

(You Sunk My) Battleship - "Film" #11

Everyone has a birthday tradition. Some people go out to dinner, some people eat cake...me? I go to see a movie. A bad one. Oddly, usually of the action-y variety. And I make my sister come with me.

Because that's love.

I've been eagerly anticipating "Battleship" for MONTHS now (or weeks, or years, or decades - I'm really not sure which)...and, man, did it not disappoint!

I am so going to spoil the shit out of this one. Consider that your only warning.

So...shall we get down to brass tacks?

Or, should I say, plastic red pegs???



First, let there be no pretense here. My motives for seeing this film were pretty obvious, in a lanky Nordic kind of way:


(world, meet Alexander Skarsgard. If you are not familiar with his work, by which I mean abs, you should amend that)

There is so much wrong with Skarsgard's casting here, I can't even begin to explain it all. Besides the fact that he and Taylor Kitsch are supposed to be brothers despite some pretty heavily apparent ethnic dissimilarities in their genetic compositions or the fact that there is NO way that their "parents" named one child "Stone" and the other "Alex," I'm also fairly certain that Mr. Skarsgard has never played Battleship (the game) ever. Do they even have Battleship in Sweden?


(Eric dons Navy whites because he heard a rumor that Sookie loves a man in uniform)

Poor Alex Skarsgard, nobody told him the film was going to be a rehash of Contact, Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, Forrest Gump, Independence Day, and Die Hard. And that he would be serving the same role that Josh Hartnett and Harry Connick, Jr. do in their respective films.

Mainly die.

Only here, in the first act of the film, which was totally unfair considering they gave him second billing in the movie.

Seriously, his whole function is to serve as the most perfect example of a human being ever so that his brother can feel like a total asshat in comparison, and thus, by the older brother's death, creating some sort of impetus for change in his wayward brother's naval life.

Stone also had to die because according to the naval bro code, in order for his brother to become captain, he had to be the person on board with the most stripes. I'm pretty sure with his impeccable understanding of what a colossal screwup his brother is that Stone would have battled through any flesh wound to ensure that travesty wouldn't happen.


(people in glass battleships shouldn't throw Stone)

After Stone's demise, the movie's plot held considerable less interest for me. Here's what I gleaned:

1. Aliens respond to a signal sent up by some too-smart-for-our-own-good earthlings by sending their own version of battleships and attempt to eradicate all our metal-based appliances and structures but preserve our organic integrity thus ensuring that no children were harmed during the fictional rendering of this movie.

2. Stone's little brother - who I shall call Gunny Riggins even though that is neither his name nor his rank - must assume control of the embattered fleet of shippery left after the aliens establish a kickass force field and his brother goes to the big Naval Yard in the sky.

3. The Navy apparently employs people whose sole purpose is to yell things like "Miss!" whenever one of our missiles refuses to hit its designated target. That person looks an awful lot like "Landry" from "Friday Night Lights".

4. In times of crisis, veterans apparently have nothing else to do but wander around Battleship museums in desperate hopes that they will be able to once more sacrifice their lives for the greater good. Or get an opportunity to use some of that salty sailor sea jargon you know their spouses do not permit at home.

5. The state of Japanese-American relations is really, really not fucking good.

6. Soccer is the kickassiest (or kissfaciest) sport that ever kickassed. And the Navy apparently sponsors something called "RIMPAC" which is not nearly as controversially scandalous as the name implies.

7. Women in these movies always suck.


(Rihanna is as comfortable in a Navy uniform as we would be watching her in a Chris Brown video)

First, Rihanna, who is the gratuitous female on the boat, appears like an androgynous waif whose sole function here is to remind us all that the navy is VERY open-minded when it comes to allowing people to serve someone else's country (although her accent is better than Skarsgard, who starts off southern and then switches to...something else...).

Of course, Peter Berg's most questionable scene regarding the aforementioned songstress is not when Rihanna sings quietly to herself on a boat ("Show me the way to go home / I'm tired and I want to go to bed..."), nor is it when she shoots something scary and otherworldly and shouts (and I shit you not) "Ma halo Mother-Fu-" (it gets cut off to spare the rating, I guess). No, no, it is when he gives us a scene where a big bruiser of a humanoid alien beats the shit out of her face.

Too soon, Peter Berg. TOO SOON!

No wonder she later does this:
 

Of course, the only other female of note (besides the mysterious female in a picture with Alexander Skarsgard who is NEVER IN THE FILM EVER) is the love interest of Gunny Riggins and the daughter of Admiral Liam Neeson, who could not have been more bored. She has a name, but I don't really remember it, so let's call her "Chicken Burrito".


(Reese Witherspoon? Never heard of her)

Chicken Burrito is a physical therapist who wants to be eternally bonded to loserboy Gunny Riggins before he saves the world (so it really must be love). She adopts a new pet amputee named Mick and together they roam the mountains of Hawaii, oblivious to the impending extinction level doom surrounding them both.

Then, they help save the world, too.

It's pathetic.

Come on, people, it cannot be that hard to have a female character who does not need to get saved at the last minute by a man with no legs, a science nerd with an indestructible metal suitcase, or her navy boyfriend!

But still, the movie was epic,

And I'm torn on the whole stance of war the movie has. The end credits roll to the tune of "Fortunate Son" - an anti-war protest song...so either the filmmakers are incredibly obtuse (which is possible) or this whole blockbuster is a masterful subversive lesson in the power of humility.

And The Art of War.