I wish it had been a total and complete liberaloctomy. Who needs yet another preachy political thriller made by people who snort white powder every five minutes...
Or perhaps the movie received an accidental sublimeioscopy and died only 110 minutes later, after having struggled through various phases of unconsciousness and coma. Nothing sublime here, except the supreme stupidity/clumsiness exhibited by all involved.
Tom Cavanagh, who plays the dull main character George (as in "George Bush", get it??), is a cross between Colin Hanks (Tom's little baby boy) and Tony Blair - and is just as charismatic. His acting range stretches the gamut from "vague smile" to "relatively bored grin". Hence I don't see why he wasn't showered with awards, especially since this movie's laughable message happens to be fanatically/droolingly anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Capitalist. Even Michael Moore doesn't hate the white man this much...
Yep, you heard that right, you're not hallucinating like poor, barely emotional George Grievez Hanks (he is white and middle/upper-class hence uptight, get it??)... Krantz, the creator of this mess, has a message for us all: "America is a place in which minorities and especially blacks are still practically slaves, the health care system doesn't work (except when it successfully butchers Latinos), Capitalism stinks because the U.S. is still a Third World nation, and Iran is a wonderful country from whose gentle democracy we could all learn a lot - if only we would bother to get our stupid white male heads out of our supremely egotistical derrières for just one lousy second".
Yes, I know... Half the time "Subpar" gives the impression of standing for the OPPOSITE of all this, but that's only because Krantz is a schmuck, and schmucks tend to get confused when they give themselves any even half-way pseudo-intellectual assignment - in this case to make yet another (256,783rd) Leftist propaganda crap for the sleepy, brainwashed, comatose, easy-to-fool Western masses. Krantz has no idea how to handle his liberal/Marxist ideas in a symbolic and organized manner (yet he loves his shoddy Eurotrash "arteaux" 50s/60s cinema), hence ends up with a hodge-podge of scenes that can easily lead the average viewer to believe that Krantz is a racist Right-winger who wants to nuke Iran and enslave all black people. Krantz theorizes that George, the "typical" rich, white liberal, is in fact a flaming racist just like all the "others". The implication is that white men are racist no matter what political side they opt for. I.e. you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.
Jesus Christ, Krantz, try making a simple action film next time! You were way over your head with this one. But if there is anything to learn from international cinema since its very inception, it's that it attracts society's worst and most neurotic/psychotic elements. Nothing new there... Misfits, misanthropes, and the mentally ill: unite to create garbage in order to change the world!
However, being the experienced film-goer that I am, it's hardly the first time I cringed with deep embarrassment (Fremdenscham) while watching a silly little director stumble over his (bleedin'-heart) political dogma by managing to mix up all the symbols he'd so "meticulously" prepared. I quickly realized that what Krantz had intended was a Leftist mess(age). The problem is that we do not even know when Tom George Bush Blair Hanks Colin Cavanagh is hallucinating and when not. Krantz, who couldn't put together a 25-piece Mickey Mouse puzzle in under 100 hours, tries to mesh three types of sequences: George's recent memories, George's reality-based hospital experiences, and George's hospital-related hallucinations. Quite an ambitious goal for someone who might need a 150-page manual to press "PLAY" on a DVD player.
Sure, the (hopefully intelligent) viewer should essentially always try to figure things out for himself instead of having everything served to him on a Chuck-Norris-like plate, but even the viewer needs a few knowns in the equation in order to deduce the unknowns. Figuring out the MESSage through the thickets of a pretentious, low-IQ filmmaker's piece of trash is one thing, but telepathy is still impossible... If indeed Krantz even possesses a mind one can hypothetically read anything from.
Tom George Bush Blair Hanks plays a white middle-aged liberal, i.e. a very, very nice guy (but only on the surface! deep down he is racist trash) whose mild-mannered semi-apathy is meant to portray the stereotypical successful white guy: dull and bland. But Krantz, being far more Left than your average liberal, has a bone to pick even with white male Democrats! Wow. Why is Krantz so bitter? Because George Hanks Cavanagh voting for Obama and being guilt-ridden over America's past is simply NOT ENOUGH for foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful Krantz. George doesn't do enough to help minorities, to save the spotted owl, to ban all GM foods, and hasn't done anything to befriend noble Syria and Iran while alienating undemocratic Israel. So George has to suffer for this, get a taste of his own medicine: let him experience great mental/physical pain in a shoddy, cold hospital run by greedy white men. Ah, those white doctors... they're so Satanic in every way.
The sad thing is, "Subpar" isn't even remotely original - and God knows it tried so hard to get there. The hospital as a substitute for an "ill society": "Britannia Hospital". George witnessing weird, weird, evil deeds in the depths of the building during his wheelchair bound tour: "Jacob's Ladder". The ending, with George Hanks Bush dying in a coma because he wanted to: ripped off from the last scenes in "Possible Worlds". Etc.
Not to mention the pungent stench of "originality" in producing the 256,790th Left-wing propaganda film. (The figure has in the meantime risen by seven from the time I wrote 256,783, a few minutes ago). Bashing George Bush anno 2007 was so very creative, so unique, so new. How did Krantz come up with that?
Or perhaps the movie received an accidental sublimeioscopy and died only 110 minutes later, after having struggled through various phases of unconsciousness and coma. Nothing sublime here, except the supreme stupidity/clumsiness exhibited by all involved.
Tom Cavanagh, who plays the dull main character George (as in "George Bush", get it??), is a cross between Colin Hanks (Tom's little baby boy) and Tony Blair - and is just as charismatic. His acting range stretches the gamut from "vague smile" to "relatively bored grin". Hence I don't see why he wasn't showered with awards, especially since this movie's laughable message happens to be fanatically/droolingly anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Capitalist. Even Michael Moore doesn't hate the white man this much...
Yep, you heard that right, you're not hallucinating like poor, barely emotional George Grievez Hanks (he is white and middle/upper-class hence uptight, get it??)... Krantz, the creator of this mess, has a message for us all: "America is a place in which minorities and especially blacks are still practically slaves, the health care system doesn't work (except when it successfully butchers Latinos), Capitalism stinks because the U.S. is still a Third World nation, and Iran is a wonderful country from whose gentle democracy we could all learn a lot - if only we would bother to get our stupid white male heads out of our supremely egotistical derrières for just one lousy second".
Yes, I know... Half the time "Subpar" gives the impression of standing for the OPPOSITE of all this, but that's only because Krantz is a schmuck, and schmucks tend to get confused when they give themselves any even half-way pseudo-intellectual assignment - in this case to make yet another (256,783rd) Leftist propaganda crap for the sleepy, brainwashed, comatose, easy-to-fool Western masses. Krantz has no idea how to handle his liberal/Marxist ideas in a symbolic and organized manner (yet he loves his shoddy Eurotrash "arteaux" 50s/60s cinema), hence ends up with a hodge-podge of scenes that can easily lead the average viewer to believe that Krantz is a racist Right-winger who wants to nuke Iran and enslave all black people. Krantz theorizes that George, the "typical" rich, white liberal, is in fact a flaming racist just like all the "others". The implication is that white men are racist no matter what political side they opt for. I.e. you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.
Jesus Christ, Krantz, try making a simple action film next time! You were way over your head with this one. But if there is anything to learn from international cinema since its very inception, it's that it attracts society's worst and most neurotic/psychotic elements. Nothing new there... Misfits, misanthropes, and the mentally ill: unite to create garbage in order to change the world!
However, being the experienced film-goer that I am, it's hardly the first time I cringed with deep embarrassment (Fremdenscham) while watching a silly little director stumble over his (bleedin'-heart) political dogma by managing to mix up all the symbols he'd so "meticulously" prepared. I quickly realized that what Krantz had intended was a Leftist mess(age). The problem is that we do not even know when Tom George Bush Blair Hanks Colin Cavanagh is hallucinating and when not. Krantz, who couldn't put together a 25-piece Mickey Mouse puzzle in under 100 hours, tries to mesh three types of sequences: George's recent memories, George's reality-based hospital experiences, and George's hospital-related hallucinations. Quite an ambitious goal for someone who might need a 150-page manual to press "PLAY" on a DVD player.
Sure, the (hopefully intelligent) viewer should essentially always try to figure things out for himself instead of having everything served to him on a Chuck-Norris-like plate, but even the viewer needs a few knowns in the equation in order to deduce the unknowns. Figuring out the MESSage through the thickets of a pretentious, low-IQ filmmaker's piece of trash is one thing, but telepathy is still impossible... If indeed Krantz even possesses a mind one can hypothetically read anything from.
Tom George Bush Blair Hanks plays a white middle-aged liberal, i.e. a very, very nice guy (but only on the surface! deep down he is racist trash) whose mild-mannered semi-apathy is meant to portray the stereotypical successful white guy: dull and bland. But Krantz, being far more Left than your average liberal, has a bone to pick even with white male Democrats! Wow. Why is Krantz so bitter? Because George Hanks Cavanagh voting for Obama and being guilt-ridden over America's past is simply NOT ENOUGH for foaming-at-the-mouth, hateful Krantz. George doesn't do enough to help minorities, to save the spotted owl, to ban all GM foods, and hasn't done anything to befriend noble Syria and Iran while alienating undemocratic Israel. So George has to suffer for this, get a taste of his own medicine: let him experience great mental/physical pain in a shoddy, cold hospital run by greedy white men. Ah, those white doctors... they're so Satanic in every way.
The sad thing is, "Subpar" isn't even remotely original - and God knows it tried so hard to get there. The hospital as a substitute for an "ill society": "Britannia Hospital". George witnessing weird, weird, evil deeds in the depths of the building during his wheelchair bound tour: "Jacob's Ladder". The ending, with George Hanks Bush dying in a coma because he wanted to: ripped off from the last scenes in "Possible Worlds". Etc.
Not to mention the pungent stench of "originality" in producing the 256,790th Left-wing propaganda film. (The figure has in the meantime risen by seven from the time I wrote 256,783, a few minutes ago). Bashing George Bush anno 2007 was so very creative, so unique, so new. How did Krantz come up with that?