Monday, July 26, 2004
The Godfather, Part IIa: Havana Nights
Last night, after an expedition to a friend's yard sale, I received an invitation to attend a nearby cookout. Our host, a vegetarian, had kindly decided to make her makeshift grill available for the cooking of both herbivorous and carnivorous entrees, meaning that slices of lemon garlic eggplant rested side by side with hamburgers over the hickory fire. All well and good so far as an evening's entertainment was concerned, but then I learned that the remainder of the evening was to be spent watching a movie. And not just any movie. Oh, no...they had already called the video store. It would have to be Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
Now, I fought the choice as long as I could...but with a majority female audience, it was something of a losing battle and besides, as one friend noted, there are 11 copies of the DVD at the store! So, the girls went and picked up the movie, while the other male in the audience and I braced ourselves for the inevitable by watching old Simpsons episodes. ("We Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine.")
I have seen bad movies before, and compared to most people have a high tolerance for them. Sometimes, I have even gone out of my way to seek them out. (Who can forget the marvel that was Dungeons and Dragons? Or The Avengers?) Movies that are painfully bad are fun to watch...plain and simple.
Well...DD:HN was not as outright bad as say, Manos...The Hands of Fate or Pod People. I don't think I'd even list it among such pieces of modern drek as Van Helsing (I don't care what my sister says on this point.) or King Arthur. But, think about it. It's a sequel, made a good decade and a half after the original, but set five years in the past. The plot, such as it is, is uninspired at best and painfully hackneyed at worst. Gee, could the quiet, bookish girl possibly catch the attention of both the stuck-up WASP son of her father's boss and the humble (but lovable) Cuban waiter? Will said waiter be her partner in her dance contest? Will the heroine learn that all things are possible if you can finally accept her fear to be who she truly is?
Perhaps the best question I can ask about this movie is why, as you might guess from the title, is this movie set in Havana? And not just Havana, but Havana in 1958, just as the revolution is coming. Honestly, I'm not sure. We do not see any protests per se, just a handful of angry Cubans, token revolutionaries out to kick out Batista for reasons left...vague. I guess the best answer is that the choice of setting adds some emotional poignancy to the New Year's Eve final dance contest. (I kept hoping Castro would appear, in a stunning cameo, as a dance judge...)
To be honest, it made me far happier as I watched the credits roll to think that somewhere, in that same city, at the same time, and just a few hotels away, Michael Corelone was giving his brother Fredo a kiss for his betrayal of the family business.
Last night, after an expedition to a friend's yard sale, I received an invitation to attend a nearby cookout. Our host, a vegetarian, had kindly decided to make her makeshift grill available for the cooking of both herbivorous and carnivorous entrees, meaning that slices of lemon garlic eggplant rested side by side with hamburgers over the hickory fire. All well and good so far as an evening's entertainment was concerned, but then I learned that the remainder of the evening was to be spent watching a movie. And not just any movie. Oh, no...they had already called the video store. It would have to be Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
Now, I fought the choice as long as I could...but with a majority female audience, it was something of a losing battle and besides, as one friend noted, there are 11 copies of the DVD at the store! So, the girls went and picked up the movie, while the other male in the audience and I braced ourselves for the inevitable by watching old Simpsons episodes. ("We Germans aren't all smiles und sunshine.")
I have seen bad movies before, and compared to most people have a high tolerance for them. Sometimes, I have even gone out of my way to seek them out. (Who can forget the marvel that was Dungeons and Dragons? Or The Avengers?) Movies that are painfully bad are fun to watch...plain and simple.
Well...DD:HN was not as outright bad as say, Manos...The Hands of Fate or Pod People. I don't think I'd even list it among such pieces of modern drek as Van Helsing (I don't care what my sister says on this point.) or King Arthur. But, think about it. It's a sequel, made a good decade and a half after the original, but set five years in the past. The plot, such as it is, is uninspired at best and painfully hackneyed at worst. Gee, could the quiet, bookish girl possibly catch the attention of both the stuck-up WASP son of her father's boss and the humble (but lovable) Cuban waiter? Will said waiter be her partner in her dance contest? Will the heroine learn that all things are possible if you can finally accept her fear to be who she truly is?
Perhaps the best question I can ask about this movie is why, as you might guess from the title, is this movie set in Havana? And not just Havana, but Havana in 1958, just as the revolution is coming. Honestly, I'm not sure. We do not see any protests per se, just a handful of angry Cubans, token revolutionaries out to kick out Batista for reasons left...vague. I guess the best answer is that the choice of setting adds some emotional poignancy to the New Year's Eve final dance contest. (I kept hoping Castro would appear, in a stunning cameo, as a dance judge...)
To be honest, it made me far happier as I watched the credits roll to think that somewhere, in that same city, at the same time, and just a few hotels away, Michael Corelone was giving his brother Fredo a kiss for his betrayal of the family business.
