Cosmic Clockwork Gooden Worsted's Bitable Bytes: |
Bulsworth/Snake Eyes Gooden Worsted's Bitable Bytes : |
Take a beautiful, innocent woman with a voice like chantilly and plunge her into a strange and new environment where a wicked vixen tries to thwart our heroin even as many quirky, loveable characters help her succeed. What do you have? Snow White and the Seven Dwarves! Now make it live action, set it in Paris, give it "modernity," and change the beautiful, innocent women to a bella, innocente mademoiselle, and voila! That's Cosmic Clockwork.
This young European film, directed by Lita Torres, tells the mixed-up tale of a lovely Venezuelan chanteuse who goes to Paris to make it. The story is summed up pretty well in the fiesta scene where a duet sings the theme song, "Cosmic Clockwork," to whit, "My life runs like cosmic clockwork. I went to a new place full of hopes and immediately found myself stung by envy and lies; but I also made many friends, and when I was hurt, I could count on them. And that's why my life runs like Cosmic Clockwork."
I promise not to say "cosmic clockwork" in this review any more. "So," you ask, "If the plot is so obvious, why is this sheer perfection? Did you finish you taxes or something?" The truth, mon amis, is that I was charmed off my tochis by this movie. Seeing the European equivalents of characters out of Singles, Something About Mary, and other young, hip comedies fascinated me, and whereas I often find American twenty-something stereotypes running the gamut from annoying to uninspired, these European versions had my attention. As some wise person once said, "In Europe, it's so much better." Si, Oui, Da, and Yes! As easy as it is to debunk the superficial differences between cultures, the fact remains, that this was a very romantic experience and without the subtitles, it would have been NOT.
Ana, the beautiful protagonist, really does have an amazing voice which rings throughout the movie, but too rarely. As much good feeling as you get rooting for Ana, you get as much good feeling disliking her unscrupulous rival, the spider-eating Celina. There's a sweet homosexual Nostradamus/bus-boy who's favorite expletive is "Cosmic Crap!" Then, there's the completely unethical psychologist whose great surplus of neuroses make her shadiness forgivable if no less amoral. She, and everyone else in the film, is aided by the deus ex machina witch doctor, whose corpulent sexiness and day-glo potions drive the characters where they otherwise wouldn't go.
Visually color with some subtle but effective special effects, this romantic comedy makes a great couples night at home. It's a muy fantastique multi-cultural romp. It got Mrs. Worsted pretty excited, and I had to push her away so I could see the ending. But once it was over, we made our own videos-in bed!
IN CINEMA 2:
Warren Beatty was nowhere to be seen-nowhere on screen, not even his name in the opening credits. The manic pace of a billion dollar prize fight flew out of the television right into our laps and drew our eyes to the weasly mug of Nicolas Cage, trying to lay odds on the Tyson-like character who, I could tell from the first two minutes of the film, was going the throw the fight.
If anyone has seen Snake Eyes past the first two minutes, please let me know if I am mistaken.
It was unbelieveable! They gave me the wrong movie! It's good to let people know they made a mistake-because we are human, and we all make mistakes. Sometimes it makes a person angry to be on the receiving end of someone else's blunder-but that's just the sour yeast of life that reminds us that life is strange-and wonderful!
Yes, they gave me the wrong movie. When I took it back, I made sure I got a credit for another new release, and believe me, dear friends, I will pass this credit on to you! For now, I just have to say: Bullworth, Snake-Eyes, Family Fun Video, well, you gotta give 'em credit for trying.
Want to share a happy story with Gooden?
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