30 july 1999		deep blue sea: the review i don't understand the agenda, but it's there.
The quote of the day: "I had a dream last night that Bill Gates' wife murdered him and got away with it! What does it mean?" "That you're writing a mystery novel?" -- me and Darin, respectively, on my dreams. Today's news question: Who is the chancellor of Germany? (Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)		We wanted to see a movie today, but there was no movie we particularly wanted to see. Darin said he would see anything I wanted to see, and I really wanted to see The Blair Witch Project, except my stomach's been feeling ooky and I understand the camera work in TBWP induces nausea. So I decided that we should see Deep Blue Sea instead, and Fernando came along with. I don't think he wanted to see it either, but he wanted to go to a movie, and how bad could it be? Well, let me put it this way: you cannot turn your brain far enough off for this film. In order to be on a level where you can truly enjoy this film, your autonomic functioning will be in danger of shutting down. Fernando out-and-out hated the movie; Darin and I didn't completely mourn the two hours out of our lives, but there were better things we could have done. Now, I knew before walking in that Deep Blue Sea is the kind of stupid summer haunted house movie where the primary fun is figuring out who dies and when. But it's stupider than that. There are some scary moments in the movie--well, if you're a big 'fraidy-cat like me. Hey, I get totally into the world of a movie, even when you can see the wires and papier-maché--I jump pretty much when they want me to. And I knew a few of the things that happen in the movie before I walked in, so I was extra jumpy in some scenes, waiting for the Bad Thing to happen. But there are no characters to root for, really--after a while, I was hoping the sharks won. The story is terrible. And the dialogue--I mean, for God's sake: you're doing a cheesy B-movie, be a man about it, admit it, and go crazy with the dialogue. Only LL Cool J (in the role of "Sassy Black Man"...I mean "Preacher") gets funny, arch dialogue, and the movie really could have used a lot more of it. I liked most of the special effects--there's one that's absolutely terrible, but they use a variation on it several times--but Fernando thought they were all out-and-out terrible. Darin thought they were okay. The sharks all looked the same and the their skin was kind of weird, but they looked shark-like. The biggest problem in the movie is the unbelievable degree to which science gets bashed. Darin said this movie should have been named Religion Good, Science Bad. To paraphrase Variety's review, did the makers of this film have no cognitive dissonance when they used so much science and technology to bash science and technology? How bad is the anti-science bias in the movie? Major spoiler: Every character who has anything to do with science or technology dies. Only the religious nut and the ex-con survive. If only everyone else had accepted Jesus. Imagine if those really smart sharks had accepted Jesus. Also, if Michael Rapaport's character is typical of Caltech grads, no child of mine is ever going there. When Preacher gives his own version of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, I said loudly, "Oh no, it isn't." I think people nearby chuckled. Well, I think Darin did. And what the hell was Ronny Cox doing in that movie? Did his role get cut or what? The best thing about this movie is that we get lots of shots of Thomas Jane looking extremely babelicious. (And I don't even like blonds.) Of course, that did nothing for Darin or Fernando. In fact, Darin thought Thomas Jane looks like Christoph Lambert, which just goes to show that Darin isn't a girl, because the two men are unlikely to be from the same planet, let alone be the same guy. The answer to Tuesday's question: Ernesto Zedillo is the President of Mexico. I knew this one! And now, the bonus question. Darin managed to name four states of Mexico: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Oaxaca, and Jalisco. I only got two: Chiapas and Quintana Roo. A complete list (I hope--I did this the old-fashioned way, by looking at a map): Baja California Baja California Sur Sonora Quintana Roo Chiapas Chihuahua Durango Sinaloa Coahuila de Zaragoza Zacatecas Nuevo León Tamaulipas San Luis Potosí Nayarit Jalisco Veracruz Michoacán de Ocampo Puebla Tabasco Guerrero Oaxaca Champeche Yucatan Aguascalientes Tlaxcala Distrito Federale Guanajuato Hidalgo México Morelos Querétara de Arteaga Campeche
		Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com