Category Archives: Movies
Liz Tells Frank Stuff She Forgot Happened In “Titanic”
Dear Frank,
Normally, I write these missives to tell you about stuff you have a real need to know about; this week, though, we’re going to try something different. Because you are a human being who was alive in the year 1997, I’m fairly confident that you’ve seen the movie Titanic — but the thing about a meticulously made three-hour epic is that time fades away certain details, especially if you weren’t one of those Titanic-holic teenyboppers who rewatched it obsessively on VHS.
I wasn’t one of them, myself — I’ve probably seen the movie, start to finish, four times total, including last night’s viewing. But Frank, I was SHOCKED by how little I remembered. Perhaps these are things you’d also forgotten about? We’ll find out!
First huge thing I’d forgotten? Frank, it takes 24 minutes for anyone to actually set foot on board the Titanic. For perspective’s sake — that means there’s an entire Two Broke Girls-worth of Bill Paxton and his crew of submarine duders rummaging around the Titanic wreckage and not believing the old lady who says that she’s Rose, the naked hottie from the drawing they just pulled out of a submerged safe.
Oh, and the REASON these guys are going all out in their Titanic investigation? Frank, this entire fucking movie is a jewel hunt! Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In Some Stupid Katherine Heigl Movie
Dear Frank,
I’m super sick. This is how you know I am super sick — I just watched a movie starring this bitch, from beginning to end.
Ugh.
It was pretty bad. I mean, there were a bunch of really great character actors being wasted in side roles. And there were a couple of decent bits of dialogue.
But the movie basically consisted of Katherine Heigl being the perfect woman except slightly uptight, which means that she clashed with the super-cute but totally irresponsible guy with whom she was thrown into an impossible-to-believe situation.
But don’t worry — despite there being a much more suitable guy around, she ended up with the irresponsible manly guy who taught her how to loosen up. Because OPPOSITES ATTRACT, FRANK, AND LOVE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT IS THE MOST NATURAL AND POSSIBLE THING.
Oh, and she sat in bubble baths a bunch. Whatever. Bitch.
Don’t worry, Frank. I’m watching old Mad Men episodes now, and thus I am feeling much better.
Love,
Liz
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Hell Comes to Frogtown”
Dear Frank,
So I should have written this post sometime during 2011, as it was heavily requested during the last round of open calls for what I should tell you about. It didn’t happen. You know why, Frank? I really didn’t want to watch this movie! But I got called out, and god forbid I quaver at the feet of any challenge. Even the challenge of a 1987 post-apocalyptic pseudo-comedy starring Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Thus, here’s this movie! The backstory: Apocalypse, of the nuclear kind. And there are dudes who make frog noises and they’re not allowed to have guns? I’m guessing they’re the titular frogs? I am mentally preparing myself for a great deal of literalness. Because, lest you think the title was some sort of fancypants metaphor thing, we establish right away that Rowdy Roddy Piper’s character is named Sam Hell. I bet at some point, he comes to Frogtown!
But first, he’s in jail, getting a bottle broken over his head for some sort of grievious offense against a dude’s daughter — I’m guessing it’s a SEXY offense? Oh, it totally is, because it’s just been revealed that the guy’s daughter is pregnant, which is a miracle in these barren apocalypse-y days, and is thus very interesting to the ladies of Med-Tech, some sort of government organization devoted to making more babies, because doing it naturally isn’t working out so well. This is delivered with all the subtlety and wit that you’d expect from a movie about giant mutated frog people, just so we’re clear. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In the Anti-Choice Drama “Sarah’s Choice”
Dear Frank,
There was a sad article in Salon this week about how the savvy video store clerk is becoming an endangered species, replaced by algorithmic recommendations developed by companies like Netflix and Amazon. This article is depressing on a personal level, because I spent some formative years behind the counter of a video store, but also depressing because Netflix recommendations are FAR from accurate.
How do I know this? Because a movie called Sarah’s Choice ended up as one of my Netflix recommendations at some point. Now, due to the amount of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I watch, I’ve always assumed that Netflix thinks I’m a gay man with a crush on Dr. Bashir (which isn’t too far off from the truth). But somehow this anti-choice abortion drama slipped through the cracks.
A properly-trained video store clerk would never have let this happen. And more importantly, they would have never let me watch it, even for comedy purposes. Alas, I am alone. So let’s do this. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Speed 2: Cruise Control”
Dear Frank,
The other day, I was sitting on the couch finishing a sandwich and watching TV, and I ended up on a HBO channel playing The Blind Side, a movie I saw months ago and didn’t much care for.
Which is why I’m very confused about this: I watched the WHOLE DAMN MOVIE, Frank. Start to finish. The whole time, I was thinking, god, this movie is really bad, but Sandra Bullock is so good in it! Sandra Bullock has been very good in many bad movies! What is the deal with that?
And that’s how I ended up watching Speed 2: Cruise Control, Frank. Because I kinda wanted to see which was the worst Sandra Bullock film between the two, thinking at the time that there was no way Speed 2 could be as bad as I remembered. WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Flashdance”
Dear Frank,
One of the fascinating things about doing this blog is that I can never properly predict what gaps might need filling in your pop culture consciousness. For example, I know you’ve seen Dirty Dancing and Center Stage — but you haven’t seen Flashdance? Frank, what the hell.
Flashdance is worth knowing about for many reasons, but the most important might be that it launched the following things: a rage for shoulder-baring sweatshirts, the epic producing partnership between Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson and the writing career of Joe Eszterhas, one of the geniuses behind Showgirls. That’s right — without Flashdance, there is no Showgirls and the world is a… Different place, definitely. Better? Worse? Who knows. I’m just saying, different.
Flashdance opens with our lady hero, spunky 18-year-old Alex, stopping to pet a cat while biking to work. What does she do at work? Holy shit, she’s a welder! She welds things! Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 