These Charming Men

I ate up a couple afternoons one weekend watching these two movies, both of which are completely worth it. Now, of the two, the better is Tremors. The more interesting (because it is a worse film) is The Scorpion King, but I’ll get to that in a second.

Tremors is a monster comedy full of interesting, well played characters and smart set pieces. (Pole jumping from rock to rock and the final scenes stand out.) It’s amazing how much this movie sets in motion and achieves in it’s short play time. There is complexity and depth within scenes (follow the grocer’s storyline, or Reba McIntyre’s), and it all wraps up with a return to the opening shot that closes things off and gives a big payoff. More recent narrative films have lost sight of the virtue of classical storytelling. The movie also uses puppets which are just as much better than digital effects as hand painted animation is than computer animation.

And if this weren’t praise enough, the film also stars Kevin Bacon! Who deserves all the accolades we can heap upon him. He has charisma to burn, genuine acting talent, and a lighthearted comedic sensibility that has no obvious match in movies today. (He is the antithesis of the mopey narcissists of the Twilight movies.) In this movie he portrays the stupid-smart frontiersman of American myth with a flair that with only slight adjustments would be right at home in a film like Red River.

Switching gears, I saw The Rock (aka Dwayne Johnson) bouncing nuts off his pecs in a trailer shown before Hugo. I immediately realized I needed to explore his cinematic oeuvre more thoroughly than I had so far. So, I decided to watch The Scorpion King despite disliking The Mummy films intensely.

Alas, fifteen minutes into it, I decided to stop watching: the whole thing was dreadfully corny and too “serious” to be tolerable. I kept thinking of Conan, because it too had been so obviously corny, and yet, it still managed to be one of those 80s movie that gets a lot done fast and does it all well. The Scorpion King suffered from the comparison. And The Rock is no Arnold.

Fortunately, the remote was out of arms’ reach (yes, it was one of those days), the cats were on my lap, I was comfy, and so, I let it play, figuring I’d zone out, daydream, maybe nap. Instead, I kept watching, and the thing got better and better as it went along. I mean, never great or even good, but  The Dwayne lightened up, began to wink, and by the time he had burst into the the harem, I was reaffirmed in my conviction that The Johnson is a diamond (of sorts) in the rough and needs a chance to play something for adults that doesn’t involve guns or swords. Ideally, it would be a comedy.

Final too-serious note: The Rock’s persona is all about being beaten up and thrown around in a way that matches WWF, but on the big screen this reads as vulnerable, masochistic and needy without ever being unmanly. It reminds me of….and I can’t believe I’m going to say this…..of a hyper-physical, extroverted, camp Montgomery Clift. In Red River.

The theme of this post is, therefore, clearly, that Kevin Bacon and The Rock should co-star in a buddy pic set in the west.