|
||||
|
Wednesday, Mar 17, 2010
|
||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
![[Valid RSS]](images/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
Shuttle is two films
in one
|
|
 |
|
| Shuttle is two films in one | |
|
by Scott Rice -
SGN Contributing Writer Shuttle now playing Shuttle is like two films in one. The first two acts are irritating; the last act is surprisingly decent. The first two acts are chock-full, like in, "so full I'm choking," of bad acting, silly dialogue, and obvious plot devices. I spent a good deal of this time rolling my eyes and staring at the ceiling shaking my head. I wanted to shout to our five protagonists, "Get off the bus already! Just get off the damn bus." A couple of hot girls and a couple of dreamy guys are returning from a trip to Mexico and all they want to do is get home. They take the last shuttle from the airport thinking they'll be home and safely tucked into their upper-middle-class beds in no time. Of course, they are terribly wrong. There is the good couple, the horny couple, a cowardly accountant with kids at home, and a shuttle driver that just doesn't seem right. I wonder what will happen next? There was one clever writing moment I only put together in retrospect. A character says, "Asian women are so exotic." The quote is accompanied by a shot, of course, of attractive Asian women. I noticed it because I found it to be base stereotyping whose main purpose was to titillate a straight adolescent male audience. To my surprise, this was a purposeful little nugget dropped into the early stages of the story that would become surprisingly evocative later. This single nugget, though there may be more that I missed during my sophomoric eye-rolling, is not enough to redeem the early going. But things do get better toward the end. I don't want to give too much away for those willing to wade through the flotsam and jetsam, but the last 30 minutes or so are almost terrific and definitely qualify as good. There is a little Brian de Palma and a nod to Hitchcock and even a nice, though utterly disturbing, surprise. I still couldn't buy in 100%, but it was welcome relief at that point. Shuttle played Austin's South by Southwest Film Festival in 2008. It's been in limited release in the States since March of this year. The film is Edward Anderson's directing/writing debut though he also wrote (but did not direct) Flawless, the Demi Moore and Michael Caine vehicle that bowed and bombed in 2008. I'd be willing to bet my left nut this was a short film, or short film script, tuned into a feature-length project by a bunch of suits after Anderson sold the script for Flawless. The last act would make a terrific short of about 20 minutes but I can't get past the ridiculous machinations of the beginning. Anderson must choose his audience. Adults are not likely to sit through 2/3 of a stupid teen-baiting slasher flick just to watch an interesting short film tacked onto the end, though teens are. You know what? Teens will probably love this obvious mess because they are more interested in gross-out death scenes and boobies than plausibility. And that's what being a teenager is all about. If you're under 25; enjoy yourself. If you're over 25; skip it. Contact the critic at scott@sgn.org. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 post your own information onthe Seattle Gay Blog |
|
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
2.jpg)
3Hairspr.jpg)
: http://sgn.org/rss.xml | what is RSS? | 
use Google to set up your RSS feed
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2009
USA Gay News American News American Gay News USA American Gay News United States American Lesbian News USA American Lesbian News United States USA News