The Forgotten

As you undoubtedly have discovered, cheesy horror, action, thriller flicks are usually at the top of my list to see. The Forgotten was one that I had wanted to see in the theater but was very skeptical about (not unlike White Noise).

Guess what? That skepticism was right.

This is yet another one of those movies where a bunch of big name actors (Julianne Moore, Gary Sinise, Anthony Edwards) somehow end up in a movie that should be showing on the Sci-Fi channel starring Bruce Campbell (nothing against BCam, of course, I love that guy). I don't know much about how actors' salaries work out, but in the case of a movie like this, I've got to guess that it works something like:

• Gary Sinise wants to do cheap-ass arthouse flick.
• Studio says, "Hey Gary Sinise, we know you're into doing cheap-ass arthouse movies, but we all need to make a living somehow. What if we quintupled the size of that money bag if you do this chintsy horror flick as well"
• Gary: "Well sure!"

And that explains how Robert DeNiro ends up in approximately 4 shitty movies to every 1 decent movie he's in.

Back to "The Forgotten." After reading the Tivo blurb ("Woman [Julianne Moore] has psychologist [Gary Sinise] tell her dead child never existed"), you basically figure there are three ways this can end up: (a) She's nuts, (b) There's some kind of trickery/government plot going on, or (c) supernatural.

Actually, I won't give too much away, but it ends up being all three. And there are a couple of awesome surprises that you won't ever see coming (the third time they try to surprise you, it's old hat by then). This movie comes in at almost exactly an hour and a half.. and in my firm believe that all movies are too long, this movie is too long. It had basically 60 minutes of material -- it probably would have been a pretty kick-ass episode of the X-files. As 90 minutes, it just ends up being dull.

So thank god I saw it on Starz! It's worth watching if you're semi-interested. On the other hand, this movie's missing something that Boogie Nights delivered on: there's not nearly enough nudity coming from Julianne Moore's corner. I wish she had played a psycho woman who's missing her child and loved to take her clothes off.