The Sheila Variations

Hilarious ...

review of Sahara on the very funny blog Miscellaneous, Etc.

You can read all of his other great 10-minute Reviews here. They're laugh-out-loud funny. Swimfan?? Ha ha).

Some of his choice words on Sahara:

It sounds like I'm being petty and picking on the realism of a popcorn movie, but it's important to understand that when you already know your characters are invincible -- like Indiana Jones or James Bond -- then the excitement comes from putting them in impossible situations and seeing how they get out of them. With Bond, it might be with the help of a totally cool gadget that you were shown at the start of the movie; with Indy, it might be through sheer, hard-assed grit and punching a lot of Nazis right in their faces.

With Dirk Pitt, Matthew McConaughey's character, it appears to be by having a craaaaaaaaazy idea that just might work! every single time.

I also feel completely vindicated by his lackluster response to the lackluster Penelope Cruz. Awesome. Except for her one over-the-top turn in Blow (that was the name of it, I think ... with Johnny Depp), I have been completely underwhelmed by her presence, her performances, her whole thing. And let's not even talk about her incomprehensible English. Cannot understand that chick's speech at ALL. Has anyone even approached her, someone she trusts, and said: "Listen, babe, this is a problem. Here's a book of How-to-Pronunciate-English-Words. You should study it."?? I wish I was her best friend, because I could tell her. I'd set her straight. I'd say, "Pen, I love you. But when you speak, my mind glazes over, because I don't know what. the. HELL. you are saying." (I wish I was best friends with Olivier Martinez too. We could have the same conversation.)

But here's how Mike puts it:

Before I go on, I should like to have a word about Penelope Cruz: Boring. Of the dozen lines of dialogue that she's given, you might think that her character was at some point meant to be plucky, independent, fiesty or something, but since everything is delivered with the same dead-eyed blandess, you're left wondering if she's in the WHO for the free access to morphine. I'm among those who are unconvinced by her sex appeal, given that if you spend any amount of time looking at her, you begin to wonder whether she was actually assembled from spare parts off the set of Latin Lover. I keep waiting to see the charisma and charm that made her the sensation of Latin cinema, and am instead only really fascinated by the raw, unavoidable flatness of her ass.

Also:

So, very quickly, you begin to realize that Sahara is going to be a sequence of nutty predicaments and craaaaaaaaaaaaazy ideas meant to get out of them. Depending on your gender, the only real excitement comes from seeing Matthew McConaughey take his shirt off, or wondering how much farther up Penelope Cruz's stupid boring tank top is going to creep up her stupid boring midriff before she'll notice and make the movie even more stupid-boring by pulling it back down again.

Oookaayyyy ... You know, I wasn't gonna go see this movie anyway, but now I REALLY won't go see it. heh heh

Mike's blog is my new addiction. Any blog that has in its heading: "Comedy, by any means necessary" certainly has my vote. A fabulous philosophy. It doesn't matter WHAT you do or HOW you do it, as long as it's funny.

Comedy, by any means necessary! That's my kind of outlook on life.

But anyway: please go read the rest of the review of Sahara.

Posted by sheila