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Sometimes a movie identifiable as bad for you has the allure of the forbidden, but as I watched The Lizzie McGuire Movie and, as a chaser, From Justin to Kelly, the pall of mortality came over me: I realized that not only would I never get those three hours back, but that it would also sting to remember them. I had submitted to intellectual rape; I'm keeping this piece brief out of shame. The day before this consensual violation, I took in Peter Bogdanovich's beautiful, disturbing, masterful fiction-filmmaking debut Targets for the sixth or seventh time. A meditation on violence with more resonance than Bonnie & Clyde and less zeitgeist baggage than Psycho, Targets juxtaposes a day in the life of Byron Orlok, a retiring horror institution (played with game self-referentiality by Boris Karloff) with that of Bobby (Tim O'Kelly, who looks like a Kennedy), an all-American boy turned water-tower sniper, following each man until their fates apocalyptically converge at a drive-in movie theatre.
Targets continues to nourish on repeat viewings, each shot applying the knowledge Bogdanovich amassed interviewing his directing idols Orson Welles, Howard Hawks, Samuel Fuller (Targets' ghost-writer), et al to ultimately pass a synthesized whole of cinematic experience on to subsequent generations--that culminating effect reflected in the film's compendious view of the '60s as tainted by the previous decade's brittle façade of unity. Bobby lives with his folks and his pretty blonde wife in a suburban house whose colour scheme is relentlessly blue, like a swollen egg ready to hatch something cuckoo. The movie tells an allegory of any repressed society but is particularly significant for the existential despair it summons by paralleling a Vietnam-era headcase and an obsolete spookshow actor, both of whom thrive in a culture of fear and are destined to be its prime casualties.
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| Buy the FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY poster at Moviegoods |
Though Targets feels perpetually significant (particularly in light of last year's Washington tragedies), such cannot and will never be said of either From Justin to Kelly or The Lizzie McGuire Movie. This despite the latter's tether to a hypespawn by the name of Hilary Duff (as well as an eponymous TV show that's popular in the minds of its small cult) and the former's having mushroomed from the peculiar gladiatorial spectacle that is "American Idol". These films, vehicles for questionable performers, are misbegotten progenies of American business and pod politics cashing in on trends that were prefabricated in the first place. Remember: the point of trying out for "American Idol" is to become a star, but consider how bizarre it is that the winners emerge actual stars. The consequences could be disastrous for the popular arts (not to mention society as a whole) if more Orwellian factories like "American Idol" crop up, because all the show did to earn the right to create stars was to say that it had it. Where was the backlash? From Justin to Kelly is a sinister movie besides, ostensibly belonging to the beach-movie tradition (ah, and what a proud lineage) but more closely resembling incest propaganda: Justin and Kelly are offspring of the same publicity machinery, after all, and watching them lock lips in the grand finale is right up there with Princess Leia using Luke Skywalker to make Han Solo jealous. Though the film's songs are awful, the singing is worse, with Kelly Clarkson doing that multi-octave pseudo-gospel gargle that indicates bogus passion; whenever anybody protests that the Mariah Careys and Kelly Clarksons of the world have technique, I think back to a conversation I eavesdropped in film school wherein a peer complained that he'd received a grade too low for a movie as visually accomplished as his. "I'm good at masturbating," the teacher replied. "Doesn't mean I come art."
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With undue struggle, I can almost see the appeal of The Lizzie McGuire Movie, at least: Duff is cute (there's not a photogenic face in all of From Justin to Kelly), if saddled with the wrong hair colour for two-thirds of the film until Lizzie's better-looking brunette identical twin shows up (brown tresses give Duff an appealing confidence that's not just character-based), and the movie--in which clutzy junior-high grad Lizzie takes a class trip to Italy, where she's mistaken for a Euro-diva--aspires to eighties dumb (its tone is identical to the travelogue movies of the week that NBC used to spin from their hit sitcoms), which is by nature preferable to the dumb of the aughts, as From Justin to Kelly so handily demonstrates. No southern belles pretending they fit the BET demographic in Lizzie McGuire's universe, thank God.
There are, however, too many great films out there waiting to be discovered--and probed, to justify my putting Targets on loop--to even so much as acknowledge the existence of cinema's scourge, the cynical dreck borne of corporate synergy. (Why do fads last so long these days, anyway? You'd think the teeny-bopper craze rekindled in the late-'90s would've died by now.) The Lizzie McGuire Movie is to From Justin to Kelly as "The Facts of Life Go to Paris" is to a bath in feces; avoid them, or risk sending the studios a message of approval.
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| 1.78:1 DVD capture: Boris Karloff in Targets |
Paramount has a good track record when it comes to remastering catalogue titles, but Targets has been none-too-lovingly restored for DVD. Colours are the strongest aspect of this 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation, which is unrelentingly speckled and of dim shadow detail. Audio is in rather brittle 2.0 mono. Laurent Bouzereau's surprisingly tasteful interview featurette with Bogdanovich is nonetheless mistitled "Targets: An Introduction"--this spoiler-filled 12-minute chat is hardly the stuff of preamble. There and in his commentary over the film proper, Bogdanovich is in rare deferring form, crediting the talents of others for many of Targets' best scenes and illuminating the contribution of ex-wife Polly Platt without hesitation or qualification. Revelatory highlights of the yakker include how the long takes were executed, the story behind Karloff's classic double-take before a bedroom mirror, and a frustrating answer to whatever happened to the reclusive Tim O'Kelly, who's extraordinary as the vicious Bobby.
The Lizzie McGuire Movie and From Justin to Kelly still aren't worth your time in spite of immaculate transfers that come in widescreen (2.35:1 for Lizzie, 1.85:1 for Justin) and full-frame flavours on the same disc. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundmixes of each are quite thunderous, again not that it matters. The Lizzie McGuire Movie pads out its platter with Duff fluff like her "hot new music video" for the anti-song "Why Not" (less a sign of the starlet's versatility than of her greed), while From Justin to Kelly contains a gag reel (an outtakes collection, not a clever nickname for the film itself), an extended version of the film reinstating (via seamless branching) the numbers "Brighter Star" and "With Love From Me to You," and an insipid commentary track with Justin Guarini, Kelly Clarkson, and director Robert Iscove. Both DVDs have supplemental deleted scenes that are indistinguishable from anything that made the final product.-Bill Chambers
© Film Freak Central; filmfreakcentral.net. This review may not be reprinted, in whole or in part, without the express consent of its author. |
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DVD GRADES:
Image C+
Sound C+
Extras B+ |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
89 minutes
MPAA
R
Aspect Ratio(s)
1.85:1 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English Mono
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English
DVD-9
Region One
Paramount
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DVD GRADES:
Image A
Sound A
Extras F |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
81 minutes
MPAA
PG
Aspect Ratio(s)
1.85:1, 16x9-enhanced/Standard 1.33:1
Languages
English DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English, Spanish
DVD-10
Region One
Fox
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DVD GRADES:
Image A-
Sound A
Extras D |
DVD VITALS:
Running Time
94 minutes
MPAA
PG
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.35:1, 16x9-enhanced/Standard 1.33:1
Languages
English DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
None
DVD-9
Region One
Disney
the critic
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Published: August 13, 2003
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