The Basic Plot in the form of a Haiku:

Nazis are evil.
Evil evil evil, in
case you hadn't guessed.

My Basic Ramblings: So for only the third time in my life, I went to see a movie in the theaters by myself. (For those of you scoring at home, the other two were Trainspotting and Bound.)

I don't know why it's so ingrained in society (or at least my personal society) that you must see a movie with another person. You can't talk to the person during the film (without invoking the wrath of other viewers).  Maybe it's so you have someone to talk to about the movie once it's over. I dunno.

Anyway, the theater was pretty empty, but of course people sat directly behind me and talked and chomped on popcorn throughout the entire film. Sigh.

There were, of course, trailers.

Psycho - the trailer is pretty cool, I gotta admit - short, rapidly-fired cuts of different scenes. Attention Deficit Disorder Trailer. The end goes something like "On December 4th, enter the world of Norman Bates."  Well, guess what, folks?  You can enter it right now, with Alfred Hitchcock's movie!

8mm - Another one from the King of Happy, David Fincher (Alien³, Seven). Nicolas Cage stars as the cop-on-the-edge who gets the world of snuff films foisted upon him. This one looks pretty cool.

There were a few other trailers which obviously made such a big impression on me that I can't remember them, and then, the movie.

I waited ten years for this movie.  I would've waited longer for Bryan Singer to come up with a better one.

I'm not saying it was horrid; Ian McKellen was fantastic as Kurt Dussander, Nazi Guy, and the cinematography was cool. But basically it boiled down to: 

1. Brad Renfro just didn't work, and
2. David Schwimmer in a mustache was the dictionary definition of "distraction".

When the movie was first being filmed, lo those many, many, many years ago, Ricky Schroeder (now known as Rick and starring in an episode of NYPD Blue near you) was All-American Boy Todd Bowden. More recently, Macauley Culkin's name was tossed around. They would've worked; the world would have seen their smiling, apple-cheeked faces and thought "Oh, whatever could they possibly do that's evil," and learn that evil doesn't always wander around all menacing-like.  Brad Renfro didn't seem very All-American Boy to me (and maybe that's partially due to his drug arrest, or whatever that was, earlier over the summer. I know that you shouldn't take elements of an actor's personal life and stick them into a character he or she plays, but I can't help it).

And mustaches are just plain wrong, whether they are on David Schwimmer or not.

Is the fact that the movie takes place in "1984" supposed to be some sort of George Orwellian reminder, or is it just to make sure Dussander isn't hundreds of years old? (I don't remember in what year the novella takes place.)

The movie also features Joshua Jackson in a role created for the movie: The Concerned Best Friend. His role basically consists of "Are you all right, Todd?  I haven't seen you lately." They apparently stuck him in to get the Dawson's Creek fans in to see the film.

The novella was, as is usually the case, so, so, so much better than the movie. It spans a longer time period (three or four years, as opposed to the apparent six months of the movie), you are able to get deeper into the heads of the characters, Todd turns more evil (in the book, a lot more deaths occur than merely Mr. Shovel meeting Mr. Bum's Head). The very, very end is different as well (in case you haven't read the book, let's just say that "I'm King of the World!" is more than a line from James Cameron's Titanic).

So, I'm glad I saw it as a matinee. I probably would've been a little more upset if I'd paid full price.

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