Wanted, Starring Angelina Jolie, Is The Greatest Movie Of Our Generation
And if you dispute that, I am coming over to your house, pants down and guns blazing.
If it doesn't look like anything you'd ever like, then you probably want to buy a copy of The Women, a movie so dangerously vacuous it carries a Black Box Warning for Suicidality in Children and Adolescents. It's the movie Mick Jagger would produce if he he simultaneously hit male menopause and a truckload of opaku dung and then got down to producing, which, believe it or not, is almost exactly what happened, except that it wasn't male menopause.
The best thing that can happen to you while watching The Women is cataracts.
AREN'T YOU BEING JUST A TAD JUDGMENTAL?
No.
SO WHY IS WANTED SO GOOD? IS ANGELINA JOLIE NAKED IN IT?
Well, no, not really. There's a brief shot of her from the back getting out of a bathtub, but she is so heavily tattooed that she looks like Venom got her.
WHAT?
Hey, if you don't like the reference go back to The Women.
SO WHAT MAKES THIS MOVIE SO GOOD?
I didn't say it was good, I said it was GREAT. It contains all the elements a pathologically narcissistic and emasculated generation of men need to make themselves feel good again, without marijuana OR facebook. Let's review:
1. Subtext: "You are special."
By "subtext," I of course mean "subtitle." While to the great unwashed it appears that you are a lowly account manager in a cubicle with a cheating girlfriend and no self-respect, in fact you are much, much more than that, like, for example, a mystical assassin with the ability to shoot curveball bullets.
Importantly, your specialness comes not from effort, work, emotion, intellect, perseverance, or concentration, but from just being you-- in this case, being from the lineage of a 1000 years of special people. All you had to do is get born! Thanks feudalism!
2. Campbell/Lucas mythology of the heroic son unaware of his special lineage
You know how your Dad sucks? Well, he's not really your Dad. Your real Dad was a great hero, not an HVAC repairman, didn't your mother tell you? His sword is out back under a rock.
In this movie, he was a child when his Dad left (to be a mystical assassin) but, keeping to the mythology, was closely but secretly monitoring his son's development (in this case by moving in across the street and buying a telescope.)
3. Genetics is an untapped endless reservoir of possibility.
You know how you suck? Turns out it's genetic, but don't Mapquest cyanide plants just yet. Once you unlock your genes, you'll be able to do almost anything, including but not limited to shooting curveball bullets and slowing down time. I know, it's far in the future. But until then you can keep yourself from a suicide/pregnancy pact by remaining optimistic: the best scientists in the secret labs of Asia are working on it. In the meantime, why not test out your awesomeness by wrestling pumas?
4. Hot woman with amazing special talents and abilities chooses you.
Awesome. The Fifth Element, Alias, Ultraviolet, Underworld, Resident Evil-- all these movies represent the demasculinization of a decade of twenty-somethings, but lacked the most important element: you. This was fixed with Wanted. Angelina Jolie has all the necessary special powers and abilities, yet she chose you.
Back in the day-- e.g. the six thousand years preceding 1992-- the man had to earn the girl's interest/love/vagina by doing something extraordinary, or at least trying to be extraordinary, or at least being a good person, or at least paying her. Now, thanks to a lifetime of Captain Crunch, Coldplay, and institutionalized narcissism, a man can hope that a woman with special powers will want him precisely because these special powers allow her to see how awesome he really is. Not what he is now, of course, but, you know, what he really is. You know. Look past the XBox, you damn bitch.
Key point: even if he doesn't ultimately live up to his potential, he still got to make out with her. Nice!
5. You get to kill people.
Awesome, again. You know, back in the day (see above) all special abilities were to be used for saving people, and killing was always the last resort, and only to be done under the specific direction of John Woo or one of the remaining Wachowski Brothers. As the Bible teaches us, it's not murder if you're doing a back flip.
If a man doth close both eyes, and raise both guns, so does his aim grow more true.-- Galat 25:3But in this movie, killing is the point. Never mind that there's no evidence that the targets are actually bad people-- that's a decision that Fate makes. Not metaphorically, I mean literally Fate makes it, and it lets you know by sending you a message in binary code written by a... magic loom. Look, if Angelina Jolie is going to like you, some people are going to need to die to balance out the universe.
6. Hot chick who saves you also kills people.
Madonna, whore and death instinct, all in high def! Thanks Freud!
7. Mystical manmade machines.
If your iPhone suddenly sends you a message in a binary code that says you need to kill John Smith, you're going to think back if you took your Zyprexa. Why? Because no one tells an iPhone owner what to do except Steve Jobs, got it?
But if something with no technology in it at all-- say, a loom-- tells you you need to kill John Smith, you have no choice but to pull up your pants and get your Sig Sauer. It's totally logical that God can influence a loom-- been doing that since Arachne-- but clearly He's too old to understand all that new fangled technology. The last time He did was in Stephen King's Processor of the Gods, which, if I'm not mistaken, was an IBM PC. Look, he's writing out the Book Of Names by hand.
What does it say about our time when we are more in awe of mechanical objects then we are of technology that uses quantum mechanics to operate?
8. You get to yell "FACE" to your ex-girlfriend.
I did have one question. If Wesley is such a loser before he learns of his specialness, how did he manage to get this girl as a girlfriend in the first place?
I'd like to see that movie, please.
That aside-- and maybe I'm different-- but if I was able to bend space and time at will, and I learned I was the first lieutenant of Fate itself, and it was my responsibility to emotionlessly execute specific human beings in order to restore balance to the universe, then obviously I'm definitely going to want to find my ex-girlfriend and show her what she missed out on, right? Why else even have those powers? Does that make me a bad person?
9. Breaking the Fourth Wall.
Nothing in a movie speaks to a viewer more than actually speaking to a viewer, and that's what this movie does. As it ends, Wesley looks up from his rifle scope, turns to the camera and asks, "This is me taking back control of my life. What the fuck have you done lately?" Well? "Not killing people" is, of course, a loser's answer, so don't pick it. Correct answers include, "waiting for my powers to kick in" and "not learning jujitsu because I'll be handed those skills all at once when they are necessary" and "waiting for Angelina to swing buy with a pizza" and "masturbating."
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October 15, 2008 11:38 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I had heard good things about your website. So I linked to it and this was the article that popped up. So I won't be visiting your website alot now. If you thought this was a good movie, you are a simple, simple person. And I had heard you were intelligent. This movie was cliche in almost every way imaginable. It was pretty much a WWE match in movie format, targeted at people who are simple minded, and easily amused. I mean the movie is easy to enjoy, until you actually realize how trashy it is. Mild mannered guy finds out he has super amazing powers and life changes and battles secret societies and his dad is a good/bad guy and whatever who cares. It is so transparent. Anyways good luck with your website. Try watching movies with a more critical eye from now on. Later!
October 15, 2008 11:43 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Hahaha! Good critique.
I avoided the movie like the plague after reading the comic book it was based on. Same problems there, only with the added bonus of corruption of childhood favorite super-heroes and villains. That universe's version of Batman is now dead (and humiliated) of course, his enemy "Clayface" is literally made of poop and renamed "Shithead," etc. Clever stuff. Shows you the nuanced mind from which this product originally sprang.
October 15, 2008 11:48 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Re: yoyoma
I suggest you look up the definition of satire sometime.
October 15, 2008 12:16 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Greetings, earthlings!
I watch gladly how you've treated my siblings Wesley & yoyoma with respect. I will bestow stelar benefits upon you...
[LMFHO! i.e. Laughing My Fine Head Off]
October 15, 2008 12:25 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I want to know how old Lasty is.
There are so many cultural clues- must be between 35 and 45- but I'm guessing 40?
"FACE!" indeed.
October 15, 2008 12:26 PM | Posted by : | Reply
this really made my morning, and also reminded me that it's been entirely too long since I've had a good laugh.
(and I like the comments on the front page, too.)
October 15, 2008 12:46 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Hey, why bag on The Fifth Element? The hero's not "chosen", he's just in the right place at the right time, and it's established early on that he's a man of resources, the last surviving member of his blah blah blah. The female lead is an ass-kicker, but then so is he, and in the end he saves her. It's a big, loud cartoon, but it's hardly emasculating. It's part of a long tradition of Saturday matinees about a drifting cowboy who saves the ranch of the plucky widow from the evil cattle baron.
October 15, 2008 2:50 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Alone, I think you are spending too much time alone.
If you show up at my house with your pants down and end up masturbating, watch out for the 13 cats. They think anything you wave in the air is for their amusement.
October 15, 2008 3:01 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I'm sorry to face this, but this is one of the best you've written. it may seem trivial, but this delivers at a more accessible level (not "up there" with the rest of your writings).
ok, yoyo may prove I'm wrong, but then again - yoyo may well be a genius is his? own right; that comment may be satire, too ;-)
October 15, 2008 3:05 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Oh my God, the Last Psychiatrist arrives on my doorstep packing heat, with his pants down?
I am actually fascinated. I'll buy a bottle of rum, just for you.
Just bring me a scrip for Celexa, please, pretty please?
October 15, 2008 3:30 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Excellent at detailing the many levels of mythic idiocy being vomited at the adolescent male (now aged 13-43). And hats off to marketing. Only Hollywood could elevate an anorexic, botoxed, breast-augmented, face zombie into the outer reaches of cinematic goddess-hood. Witness Angela's emaciated right arm and shoulder in the top-most picture. Angela n'est pas jolie.
Ending with 9. Breaking the Fourth Wall ... inspired. "This is me taking back control of my life." Well, yes ... I take control of my life by listening to this magic loom, see? And it tells me to kill and I do, see? And that's my definition of control, see? Stand back ... it's the dawning of the age of psychopathic hero.
October 15, 2008 4:33 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Didn't the age of the psychopathic hero dawn with Fight Club?
October 15, 2008 4:43 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
What about Mad Max, as in Mad Max and the Thunder Dome? Wasn't he a psychopathic hero about 20 or 30 years ago? Everything's been recycled these days.
October 15, 2008 4:58 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Ahh. Good point. Dawn of the neo-psychopathic-hero era, then?
October 15, 2008 5:41 PM | Posted by : | Reply
It dawns repeatedly. Like some sort of cycle, like day and night. Punk's ideals have to keep ahead of the people selling it. Right now it's falling behind, so I'll just not buy.
Must be why they don't seem to be targeting me very well.
Now a butch-dyke narcissist action hero/killer dating Angelina Jolie for no good reason. :P
October 15, 2008 6:41 PM | Posted by : | Reply
So, uhm, Spriteless... I guess your answer would be "masturbate" to the movies in your head?
October 15, 2008 8:47 PM | Posted by : | Reply
This was incredibly funny. It also reminds me of your critique of that beatnik book, On the Road by Jack K.
Anyway, when do you think the wussification of the American Male started? You indicate the 90's but that might have been a symptom of something from earlier? Jack's book may be another indicator.
October 15, 2008 9:19 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I think the wussification set in when children were no longer allowed to play unsupervised and create thier own recreation.
Remember back in the day when we used to walk and or bicycle to and from school?
And when vacant lots were available and kids could create ball games themselves with no adult supervision?
When that ended, and whole sale supervision of kids came into play, there were fewer opportunites to go off and create ones own adventures--and find out, at a young age, what it meant to take risks, and who your friends were, vs the ones who would split.
My mom and her brothers used to get involved in all sorts of foul and funny adventures, back in the 30s and 40s. Mom told me Grandma would tell them go play on the freeway, and not come back till supper. (Especially if she was up to her elbows baking a dessert and too many small fry were crowding the kitchen and getting on her nerves).
I didnt get into nearly the kind of trouble my uncles did, but at least I got to walk to school. I thought insects were excellent and brought them with me. I didnt mean to start scenes, but they'd escape from my desk.
I couldnt understand why the other kids, (including many of the boys) panicked. I sat there wondering at the ripe old age of 10 why they had such trouble appreciating the better things in life.
But now, if you're a child, you're as heavily supervised as a bunch of chained up prisoners in the sheriffs or US Marshal's transport van. No chance to walk around, find a dead pigeon and take it to school, thinking you'll learn taxidermy from a book when you get home and preserve the thing before bedtime.
Nope. These days, if you're a minor, you get your entertainment from the same standardized gadget your classmates use, your butt is shipped to and from school in some glassed in vehicle, and you cant even pick your nose without some adult getting on your case.
Ugh.
October 15, 2008 10:05 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Thank you to all who liked it and commented here, made my day.
But what about some Diggs or Reddits!?!
October 15, 2008 10:48 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Excellent review. Interestingly, I think you could swap this review with one for "Legends of the Fall" and you'd hardly have to change any of the words.
So, I won't be wasting my time watching "Wanted," thanks for wasting yours.
October 15, 2008 11:11 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Brilliant. I would add that this is similar to the plot from Chronicles of Narnia. The living embodiment of Jesus Christ as a lion tells a bunch of spoiled, selfish kids that they are destined to be royalty for no particular reason and they also know how to sword fight with monsters.
October 15, 2008 11:26 PM | Posted by : | Reply
dugg...
Digg: Wanted w/ Angelina Jolie Is The Greatest Move Of Our Time
October 15, 2008 11:35 PM | Posted by : | Reply
I'm a Psych NP at a CMHC and your blog makes my life better. Thank you.
October 16, 2008 12:15 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
dugg!. . . all of two times so far.
alone, are you sure your readers are actually digg and reddit users?
October 16, 2008 12:17 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
oops, that was mine. works better when I remember to put my name on it, huh?
October 16, 2008 3:27 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
"Fight Club" was essentially a remake of "Bad Influence", a James Spader, Rob Lowe movie. And in both cases, the protagonist ends up rejecting his nihilistic alter-ego. In that sense they're both rather conventional morality plays, although many fans of "Fight Club" seem to have missed the message.
October 16, 2008 9:50 AM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
No, I'm not sure they are Digg and reddit users. Come on, people, sign up-- traffic and donations are the lifeline of this blog, pick one...
October 16, 2008 11:03 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I'm not sure what Digg and reddit are, to be honest.
October 16, 2008 12:15 PM | Posted by : | Reply
We post your stuff on reddit, but no one upmods it. Unless you're talking about white trash taking their kids to shitty movies, of course.
October 16, 2008 2:24 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Dear Last Psychiatrist, you are right. Angelina Jolie's arm looks emaciated.
What's rotten is that is from a movie publicity poster--so a lot of people are going to get distorted mirroring concerning body image.
That kind of skinniness is UGLY--and incompatible with good health.
How in fuck can you carry groceries, or maintain bone health when underweight to that degree?
And there's little reserve of muscle mass in event of illness, accident or sudden and heavy emotional stress.
October 17, 2008 2:46 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I'm more of a "delicious" it kind of gal. So, I did that.
Also, now I wanted to see both The Women and Wanted. I'm a masochist.
AK, actually I don't remember back in the day when we could do whatever. I wasn't even allowed to take the bus, in LA in the 80's and 90's. When I was a senior in college (and probably 25, I was a little old for that) I told my mom I was taking the bus to school and she sounded horrified and scared for me and asked if I needed money. (nevermind the convenience factor).
On the other hand, my bf, who is 6 mos younger than I am, had a child hood similar to the one you described, where he was sent out until sundown and played with his neighbors and ran around in the outdoors without adult supervision, but he grew up in Texas.
October 17, 2008 11:24 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I second the good reviews. This is in the same caliber of posts as the one that made me start reading your blog in the first place (and I don't remember which one that was, at this point). I would post a link on Reddit, but I don't post -- the constant rejection from not having links upmodded is just too much for me these days.
October 18, 2008 10:56 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Dear Lexi, its interesting the differences you describe. I grew up in LA, but had my free range childhood in the mid to late 1960s. Our neighborhood was middle class, but there was still
some Midwestern common sense. I ran almost as free as your boyfriend and I dont recall anyone getting into any trouble--and this was Hollywood. I didnt even hear the F word until I was 12--and went to the public schools. My parents were not uptight, either.
Your boyfriend was lucky. I bet he knows his inner resources a lot better than kids whose play was micromanaged, every waking moment.
Once, at a party, I met a girl who was younger than I was, who ran free in Arizona much like you describe your boyfriend doing.
She said she ate live grasshoppers with some friends.
'Eeeewww!' I wailed, 'Why did you do that?'
'We dared each other. And all my playmates were boys. You just ate grasshoppers if someone thought it was a good idea.'
At least my friend knew she was hardy enough to eat bugs and not get sick. That sort of thing has to build confidence.
One friend told me that when he was 14, he decided he knew how to drive the family car. So he'd sneak out of the house, with the keys, while the grownups slept, and go driving that car down the highway in the fog. All went well until he drove it into a ditch.
Fuuuuuck.
I think that is when his old man forced him to do ROTC for 3 years. My pal hated ROTC and deliberately swished like a homo when marching. It took three years of his working the instructors nerves before he got himself kicked out of ROTC. He's been married for years to the same lady, and after torturing his parents by being a hippie, is now a first class LCSW therapist.
But another guy I know had a friend who was much more clever, back when the two of them were 14. They'd wait until the parents were out of the house. Then my buddy's pal would go to the garage, use chalk to mark the exact position of the car's wheels on the pavement.
They'd then drive that car around town, have a grand time, then slip it back to the garage, reposition the wheels to match the chalk marks, then erase the marks.
They never got caught.
October 18, 2008 10:59 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Great face... but she's so thin it's distracting at best, totally un-sexy at worst.
October 19, 2008 8:14 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I suppose it is neither here nor there, but in reference to her skinniness: Ms. Jolie's mother died of cancer just prior to the filming of this movie. Ms. Jolie acknowledged in a NY Times article that she did the movie as a type of catharsis (lots of physical action, few words). I doubt she was in top physical form to begin with, much less when filming finished.
Great post, anon.
October 19, 2008 11:52 AM | Posted by : | Reply
Just a practical question...how on earth can a person run around
fighting bad guys with his or her pants down?
With my luck, I'd fall flat on my face, break my front teeth and lose control of whatever firearm I was carrying.
Note to Last Psychiatrist:
I am still waiting for you to show up on my doorstep with your trousers down, and an RX for Celexa.
(just kidding)
October 19, 2008 5:51 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
AK, you're aiming too low. You want Alone to show up on your doorstep, trousers down, with six months worth of Celexa samples.
:)
October 20, 2008 10:43 AM | Posted by : | Reply
No, I am nto aiming too low at all.
I was a wreck until I started Celexa.
Actually, it is one of the great mysteries of physics how people can go running around gangbanging, with those pants hanging down so low.
How do they keep from tripping and falling?
With my terminal klutzitis, I'd never be able to do that.
November 5, 2008 12:14 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Yoyoma:
Seriously?
SERIOUSLY?
YOU DIDN'T EVEN READ THE FIRST FEW LINES?
When my powers kick in, I'm going to fuck you up something rotten.
I love you on the Cello, you fuck.
November 6, 2008 8:31 PM | Posted by : | Reply
Holy shit. I was thinking all of these things (of course not as eloquently) the minute I got out of this movie. And my friends took until the next day to realize how shitty it was. And they didn't even catch on to the subtexts. So I am special after all, right?
November 8, 2008 2:52 AM | Posted by : | Reply
I enjoyed the review, but just one question: how does presenting an ass-kicking female hero represent the demasculinization of young men?
Are gender roles a zero-sum game?
December 8, 2008 2:05 PM | Posted, in reply to , by : | Reply
Ok first. yoyoma u really have no idea what your talking about do u?
Next JKM In traditional american society their aren't supposed to be ass kicking females because that would mean that young men aren't as bad ass as they think they should be. It is showing that women can be men's equals meaning the classical masculine man is becoming more and more obsolete.
And on the review: This is an incredible review. I love it. Its very critical but very true.
January 2, 2009 1:25 AM | Posted by : | Reply
So should I be proud of the fact that I took my girlfriend to this movie, we both enjoyed it immensely, and we're spending our New Years Day in bed together cackling at your review?
Spot on. ("It ees vonderful, she says.")
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