Friday, July 01, 2005

White Noise (2005)

One could easily say that Michael Keaton's career is over because he was in this and the Herbie "Love Bug" remake. I won't say that because I have a lot of respect for him as an actor, and because if doing two bad movies indicated someone's career was over, Robert DeNiro's career wold have been over years ago. I prefer Keaton's humorous movies like Night Shift, Multiplicity and Mr. Mom. Night Shift is a must see if you haven't. It's Ron Howard's directorial debut, Michael Keaton's movie debut, and is just an all around hilarious movie.

Live Review!

Wow. Watching this makes me realize I am a true sucker for supernatural type movies. I say that in the present tense because I'm starting this review about 10 minutes into the movie. So welcome to the first Live Review on Joel Schumacher Sucks -- writing the review as the movie unfolds. Stay tuned.

Anyway, I say "true sucker" because that's how obvious it is that I spent 4 bucks I shouldn't have to watch this on PPV -- but hey, at least I saved $6 by not seeing it in the theater.

Before watching it, I knew "White Noise" was about getting messages from the dead through the static on untuned radios and shit like that. I pretty much thought Keaton's character would just be listening to the radio one day and hear a message from her. But actually, something just happened in this movie that I really liked. He hears from some dude who says he's been getting the electronic messages. Now this makes more sense in reality. No one comes up with this on their own, it takes some nutball to plant the seed in a sane person that they're receiving messages through the static on their radio.

Oooo -- he just received a mysterious call from his wife's cell phone. Why didn't he answer to dispel the mystery here? Instead he runs home to see her cell phone is turned off. Then he receives another call from her cell phone! When he answers, it's static on the line!

So, as usual, they've taken some phenomenon that regular people believe in and made it even more ridiculous than it's treated in real life. Did I mention that at the start of this movie, they had some quote from Thomas Edison about recording the dead? That's how you legitimatize something dumb, you take a quote from someone famous and smart and make it sound like it actually proves they believed in it.

Ok, I'm thinking there's got to be a plot somewhere in here. I'm going to take a guess that his dead wife is trying to tell him that someone actually murdered her. I'm going to guess it's the guy who Michael Keaton (an architect), is making a building for. Let's see what happens.

A few hours after the movie ends...

Ok, so I was too depressed for having spent $4 on this movie to continue the live review. However, I was pretty close on the plot. He discovers that his dead wife is trying to tell him about accidents that are happening to people she had contact with. There was someone perpetrating murders--I won't give away who (I was wrong, but close)--but they were doing it because the ghostly voices told them to.

This movie really reminded me of The Mothman Prophecies (remember "Chaaapstiiick?"). The original book reported on how this crazy Mothman appears near disasters. The movie takes one of those real life disasters and makes it ridiculous. Similarly, this movie takes this EVP thing that some people believe in and makes it ridiculous. When "White Noise" was being advertised, they were pushing it with this website (http://www.aaevp.com/). If I was serious about this EVP thing, I would have been embarrassed by this movie. It makes them all look like nuts (which they are, but at least they're probably not as nuts as the movie portrays).

Oh, probably lamest thing in this movie was the cheesy piano music whenever he thought of his wife. What a craptacular idea... cheery music whenever he thinks of his wife. How not-cliche.

Anyway, what I've realized is that I should write some EVP analysis software and sell it to these bozos.

Rating: USA Up All Night movie at best.

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