Twixt (2011)There are movies you discover by accident and think 'Oh, cool!' and others you say 'Oh shit!' This film would be in the scatalogical category. How can that be? It was by the awe-inspiring Francis Ford Coppola after all, right? Young ones, let me break this down for you a bit:
FFC is currently 74 years old. He has a place in Napa Valley, California. In the 70's this gentleman was GOD. Ever heard of a little film called The Godfather? I know you little whippersnappers, lots of you weren't even born yet. Got it. Think of it this way - he was the Joss Whedon of the 70's, okay? Everything he made was golden. Happening to have a nephew named Nicolas Cage was NOT his fault.
In the 80's and 90's he tried to keep that Golden Boy status with mixed results 'cause hey, he was rich, he was getting older and probably didn't really care all that much. Sorry, that's real life. So here we are - in the 21st century and this dude is past retirement. But he makes a picture anyway. He chooses a potato as a leading man.
Not just any potato - you know the one at the bottom of the bag that's getting kind of mushy with the little white roots sticking out that you know you'll have to cut almost in half to get anything good out of it? That one. His name is Val Kilmer. And keeping with the food motif, FFC gives a very brief role (FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THEIR DIVORCE the reviews keep repeating) to a prune who keeps yelling at the potato over Skype about money. That... was almost funny.
The prune was, of course, Joanne Whalley. I know, I know, WHO? Trust me, they were a 'thing' for about a month when they appeared in Willow together (don't ask, that was probably before you were born too).
You know what was funnier? Some fan said he must have gained weight just for that role. Bwahahahaha... honey if that was true, he's been preparing for YEARS. It also reminded me of the Val I knew, from 1985's Real Genius when his professor said, "I want to see more of you around the lab," and Val's character instantly comes back with "Fine, I'll gain weight." <snicker>
AND there's a man whose voice was driving me crazy although he didn't look that familiar... I finally pinned it down and this is almost before MY time - Don Novello, better known to your parents (or grandparents) as SNL's Father Guido Sarducci played Melvin, the town's clock tower keeper.
This is supposed to have happened in some small town... somewhere. Actually a lot of the movie was filmed ON COPPOLA'S PROPERTY. See? He's so tired he doesn't even want to leave home. Welcome to my world.
So. I like having one word sentences. It drives my hubby crazy.
"So is not a sentence."
"So?"
So. We have a vegetable, a fruit, and a piece of petrified wood. That would be Bruce Dern to you older ones. And one stupid, vapid, nonsensical story that strung waaaay out like some kind of bad hangover.
A writer of witch hunter stories wants to write about something else and after being in this small town and discovering a place where Edgar Allan Poe once spent the night (In California?) he plops his mushy body down and thinks about what to write about. Looooong story shortened considerably, every time he falls asleep he has more interesting dreams than his waking life. Again, welcome to my world.
Not only does he decides to join the overdone vampire novel crowd, he thinks this particular town (with his new dream-buddy Poe's help) will be his inspiration and where REAL vampires are. Uh huh. They show the potato drinking constantly - gee, that couldn't have anything to do with all the dreams could it?
He also (in his dreams, in real life he'd get arrested) has an interesting and uneasy relationship with a 13-year-old girl (Elle Fanning - younger sister of Dakota) which gets even weirder when Poe points out that his wife was 13 AND his cousin (this is actually true). People didn't faint over that kind of thing in Poe's day but today, mating a half mushed potato and a young girl is just... sick.
So we get this convoluted story full of 'maybes' - maybe there are real vampires across the lake (there's a commune there for whatever reason), maybe there's a serial killer that's been killing kids for (they don't say - they don't provide a whole hell of a lot of info to keep the story rolling), maybe the latest victim (who has a huge rafter in her chest) was a vampire too, maybe she's the girl the potato dreams about, maybe Edgar Allan Poe really IS trying to get the potato to write a great book. Sheah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt. Ah geez, you guys are too young for THAT reference too?
I'm beginning to feel like a half mushed potato myself. Anyway, the story drags with maybes on and on and on... until this sorry piece of film is movie length then they cut to a quick ending that shows you what happened, kind of like when you chew food, open your mouth and show it to your sibling.
The girl is a metaphor, maybe, for love lost and his dead kid (I didn't mention that - cause it wasn't important), Poe is a metaphor, maybe, for the potato not being able to write his book without her, the town being a metaphor, maybe, for the small world he's stuck in, and since the last scene is him turning in the book the whole movie is a metaphor, maybe, for an old man looking to make a quick buck.
He wasn't able to squeeze it all into his ending though and has to tell you, in text (like this was real or something which blows the metaphor stuff out of the water) that the potato's book sold, he now writes vampire series (oh God please no), the murders in the town were never solved and a character they kept showing that may or may not have been real, a 50's style biker with emo makeup, is never seen again. And neither is 90 minutes of your life.
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