Henry Foolin'

If there is one thing I cannot understand, it is how movies are done nowadays. It seems like the big Hollywood studios have no problem rehashing the same story lines, with new characters and locations. I guess it makes a shitload of money so they do it.
Another thing I cannot understand is sequels. There are a lot of sequels being made, it seems like everyone wants a franchise. But sometimes the sequel is unnecessary and feels like it is only made for the money. One example is the movie Fay Grim. Fay Grim is the sequel to the movie Henry Fool. Henry Fool is about this eccentric guy who comes to a shit town and gets a creepy looking garbage man (Simon) to start writing poetry. Simon causes controversy and eventually gets his stuff published, and becomes a popular poet, after his previous attempt was not successful. Henry during the whole movie, is trying to sleep with any woman with legs (he was previously arrested for statutory rape and sounds like a pseudo-intellectual spouting cliches (" An honest man is always in trouble, remember that Simon.", being an example). Later in the movie, Henry ends up knocking up Simon's sister (Fay) and they get married. Henry comes home one day to find a neighborhood girl, Pearl in the basement apartment. Pearl's mom was being beaten by her husband through the whole movie, and after Pearl says that she is afraid of going home, Henry decides that he is going to do something about it. He goes over and ends up killing the stepfather, and gets in arrested. It turns out that Pearl offered to give Henry sexual favors for killing the stepfather, and Henry once bailed out has to go out on the lamb. Henry escapes using Simon's passport and plane ticket (he was supposed to go to Sweden to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature) and that is the end. It was a pretty good movie, I know my language doesn't seem like the best, but I liked it, I thought it was pretty well acted.
Henry Fool came out in 1997. Ten years passed and the writer/director of the movie wanted to do a sequel. The sequel is called Fay Grim and continues with the story of everyone. Well, not exactly. It turns out that Henry is now a big star since he bailed on the charges, and his memoirs are a hot item. There is now an international web of intrigue that surrounds the characters as everyone wants a piece of Henry's memoirs to make some money off of them. They contain his times in Chile during the overthrow of Allende which implicates the CIA agent (played by Jeff Goldblum in his worst role ever). In order to get the memoirs back, Fay goes to Europe to get the volumes that the French have. It turns out that the Israelis switched the books, and they contain codes for satellites. Fay gets the books, but the French agent switches them for the real ones, and Fay ends up with them after secret agents are shot in a stairwell (in the worst action scene ever.....they use slow motion frame by frame type of thing that conveys no action....and there is no blood, I have never seen a movie where people get shot fall down to the ground and don't bleed....how are they hurt). Fay sneaks away to Istanbul to find the other books and Henry. While in Istanbul, she meets with a man who is a terrorist who Henry tutored for a bit (like Simon), she apparently wants to see Henry who is under the care of the same man. After a bit, Fay gets a call to drop the books off on a ferry that is going across the Black Sea. Jeff Goldblum's character chases Fay down to Istanbul and searches her room. Fay calls her friend who was waiting in the hotel room for her to come back, and threatens the CIA agent. They later are looking for Fay on the street, when her friend escapes and they get in a van to follow someone who just committed a crime, when it explodes. Fay's friend meets her at the sweet shop, and is shot by a cop. Apparently she is considered a Russian terrorist, but they never really elaborated on that. Fay goes down to the dock, where Simon (who started the movie in jail and got out as a deal for Fay going to Europe to get the books) put the books on the ferry to have them smuggled to Odessa. Fay ends up missing the boat, and as it is pulling away we see Henry looking back at them. The end.
As I write this now, I still have no idea what the fuck was going on. Apparently this kid touching poet was an international man of mystery who was in Chile and Afghanistan and all these other places when things got hairy, which is totally different from the parolee who drank a lot of beer and chain smoked. I cannot put the two pieces together. It wouldn't be that bad if the movie stood on it's own, and we had no previous experience with the characters. But after you spend two and a half hours (Henry Fool was long, but still a good movie) developing characters, it makes sense to use the same characters in the sequel, not to use the names and have different people with different emotions and such. Simon had one facial expression in the first movie, which was and expression less, but in the second movie, he moved his face muscles to wince and such. I was confused with all that. Also, Fay was a white trash girl who would fuck anyone who moved in the first movie, and in the second movie she is responsible while caring for her child and acting like she cared about things. I couldn't follow that.
I wish I could ask Hal Hartley (the guy who wrote and directed both movies) why the second movie was so different from the first. I say I wish, because his website has no email link on it. Only information about buying and distributing his movies.
I must say that Fay Grim is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. The budget seemed it was wasted on the location shooting (Berlin, New York, Paris, Istanbul) so they didn't have any money left for special effects (remember what I said about the shootout, it happened two other times), editing and the cast. I know the cast (especially Jeff Goldblum and Parker Posey) aren't bad actors, but they give the worst performances of their lives in this movie. It is trash, and like most bad movies, everything has to be right to have it be bad. The script, the directing, the acting, and it all comes into line in this piece of horse shit. I cannot say enough about how bad it is. It is in my opinion the worst sequel ever. Go and see it if you want to see a confusing movie, that will leave you asking questions. Questions about why the movie was made in the first place.

The earth is alive?

This Saturday 7/7/07 marks Al Gore's Live Earth concerts for awareness about global warming. While I agree with the cause, I don't really see how a concert will make a difference. They tried global concerts for awareness a few years ago with Live 8, for debt relief to Africa. They staged free concerts around the world, and in between acts showed videos of people who supported the cause. Most of the people where wealthy entertainers who could have ponied up some dough for causes like this. Or maybe it is just the image that they set out there, that they are rich, I don't know. But not asking for money, only awareness seems weird to me.
The Live Earth concerts, for the most part, do charge the people who attend them. The concert at Giants Stadium in my home state of New Jersey features some big acts like Kelly Clarkson and Bon Jovi, and I know those tickets weren't free. That makes me think that they are actually raising funds for the cause and not just paying lip service to the whole thing. I do know that Mr. Gore is an environmental activist with his speeches and movies, but with concerts the whole message thing might seem tacked on. There haven't been big political concerts in while, since the Tibetan Freedom Concerts, that have raised significant awareness for a cause. There could have been another one, but that was the last one I remember, and that one faded from existence. The concerts for a cause seem to be a passing trend every few years and I wish it wasn't like that, but getting all these big acts on one stage for a cause does seem a bit empty. I would rather see the artists donate some of their money to the cause at hand, and do the show for free, or not charge people to go.
I would like to see Live Earth be a success, and that there is something being done about global warming or climate change, whatever you call it. But I really cannot stand Al Gore. I didn't vote for him once, and I won't vote for him again if he runs and wins the nomination of a party (I doubt he'll run or win). But global warming is a serious issue that is being addressed by these concerts and I do hope that awareness is raised, not just among concert goers, but by people who are in governments who can do something about it.
On another note, I'm glad to see that Kelly Clarkson is doing a show this summer. She recently canceled her entire summer tour due to lack of ticket sales, due to the buzz (or lack their of) surrounding her new album. I am a Kelly Clarkson fan, more so for looks than her music, but I do enjoy her music. She did a half hour long special on Fuse a few weeks ago, where she sang some new stuff. She looked really good on it, I like the chunky not on tour Kelly, rather than the skinny Kelly. From what I've heard of her new album, it is pretty good. I liked the last one (Breakaway) and from what I've heard, the new one (My December) is more personal and dark.