a movie critic is me

Dec 1, 2010

I rented a movie the other night — The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, primarily because it was directed by Werner Herzog. Werner Herzog also directed Stroszek, the movie that my favorite brother, Scott, had a part in many, many years ago.

(You can view a scene of Scott McKain in action on youtube.com — the glasses are so awesome, you really gotta’ check out the short clip!)

I can’t recommend that you run out and grab The Bad Lieutenant, or spend the time to watch it. I didn’t hate it exactly, but it simply wasn’t the kind of movie I enjoy. The whole drug scene after drug scene is lost on me. I can tell you this much — Nicolas Cage is a very, very bad lieutenant. At least I understood that much. Shooting people’s dancing spirits after they’ve already been shot to death? I didn’t get it — sorry.

The movie that keeps coming to my mind today that I CAN understand, and I haven’t watched it in years, is I Saw What You Did. Have y’all seen it? It’s a really old flick (1965), starring Joan Crawford and John Ireland. It’s definitely a lesson against dialing telephone numbers and telling whoever answers: “I saw what you did, and I know who you are.” Big mistake when the wrong person takes the call. As the movie’s marketing poster to the left says, “Fate dials the number…terror answers the phone!”

It’s not 1965 any longer, and calls placed (even with call block) are easily traced. While that might take some of the mystery out of this old movie — there’s still a lesson to be learned!

Blabbing to others (by phone or email or even face-to-face) about something you really don’t know what you’re talking about may not have the outcome you desire. So simple. Right?