g_photo09.jpgA Stinkin' Rumor

Fresh on your DVD shelves today I hear. Hold me back!

Some time during Christmas when I was, unfortunately, sober, I got to see "Rumor Has It...", the newest directorial effort of Meathead (Rob Reiner in case you missed CBS comedies in the 70's, or are fixated on "CSI"). Yes, I agree there is nothing wrong with a so-called "nice and simple" movie. But there is something wrong with any movie that has me ready to gouge my eyes out with a steak knife at the 20-minute mark.

Look - I can tolerate scripts that have about as much depth as a wading pool. Where I have a big problem is when a film's writers and director treats their audience as if they are absolute morons. I'm sure Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures won't have a problem when I disclose that the 20-minute mark is the point where the "rumor" is confirmed. Not that you even need that long to figure it out since no less than the damn opening shot of the picture and one about 19 minutes later clearly tells you who Mrs. Robinson is. Now that you've blown out the reason for the title and the entire reason to have a movie, what do you do next? Well, if you're Meathead and you're in that frame of mind when you came up with movies like "North" and "Alex & Emma" instead of "A Few Good Men" or "When Harry Met Sally", you decide to spend 75 minutes conjuring up an incredible amount of self-flagellating comedy and drama. If you think "self-flagellating" is a bit harsh, take a good look at the scene when Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner playing his Crash Davis in "Bull Durham" persona about 20 years older and about 20 times more boring) shows pallid Jennifer Aniston (well on her way to losing the big paycheques) his "I'm hot shit" photographs with three famous luminaries - Bill Clinton.....Bill Gates.....and Rob Reiner(!)

Okay, but what about the comedy? See if you can even snicker along to the following:

1) Everybody in Pasadena, California wears lily-white Lacoste shirts.
2) Some recurring thing about if you came to Los Angeles, you must be from Pasadena. Come to think of it, this is clear evidence that a gang of putzes put this picture together. First of all, practically nobody outside of the Los Angeles area even knows where Pasadena is, let alone gives a damn about it. Second of all, this is probably news to anybody in Los Angeles where the running joke is that, if you came there, 1 in 10 of you came from Toronto.
3) Shirley MacLaine and Kathy Bates doing their improvised "we're funny old broads" shtick. Since I guess either Dame Judi Dench really hated the script or the producers deemed considering putting her in the picture as profoundly unpatriotic.

I suppose those of you who can put up with this kind of dreck will take comfort that Ebert & Roeper gave the film "Two Thumbs Up". I suppose I could do the same thing were it not that I didn't disclocate my thumb and had it stuck in a splint. About the only time I'll ever see "Rumor Has It..." again is to track how many people leave that theater and move on to a screening of "The Ringer". A guy pretends to be mentally challenged so he can clean up the medals at the Special Olympics. Sounds like "nice and simple" entertainment to me....

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