Tag: Dennis Quaid

Smart People is a movie about “smart people”. Titles, straight to the point. I think the point is that normally, smart people in movies tend to be so smart, they tend to be pretty awesome. The real people with problems are the not as smart people. Smart people get to be doctors and save lives, or any number of things. But they usually help the dumb in movies, right?

Smart people may be smart, but are they happy?

And why do they look like hobos?

Dennis Quaid plays a university professor, teacher of some sort of literature and maybe some history too. He is really good knowing his shit, but he isn’t good as people. He is pompous, self centered, and a “misanthrope” (word of the day, bitches!) and can’t remember a single name of anyone he has ever taught. Mostly because he doesn’t give a poop.

And then he has a seizure. Bam, wake up in hospital, and under the care of head er nurse Sarah Jessica Parker. Another former student he can’t remember, who was so scorned by his meanness (despite her also crush) she switched to Bio/pre-med. Because of his seizure, he cannot drive himself for at least the next sixth months. That’s horrible. His daughter, Ellen Page, doesn’t want to drive him, mostly because she is in her final year of high school and freaking out about college.

But (thankfully?) his no good, beatnick, brother in law, Thomas Haden Church also has shown up again, looking for money, and willing to be his driving bitch. Also he has an older son who goes to the college he works at, Ashton Holmes, but who cares about that one. This is the Quaid and Page show!

Because of his wife dying a few years earlier, their home life may have been a mess. Page now cooks most of their dinners (and seems to be good at it). But somehow he goes on dates with SJP and you know what? He is bad at it. An asshole. Eventually with the realization that he is an asshole, he tries to change himself. But yet, still assholish. There is also the other plot with Page being all alone a lot, not friends, and finding (too much) comfort in her uncle, who wants her to have a good time. Damn high schoolers, always falling in love with their uncles.

“I KNOW right!”

One second. Can we talk about how weird it is that Ellen Page keeps having these roles where she is underage and falling for or having older men fall for her? Juno, she is pregnant and attracting older men. In Super, she wants Rainn Wilson‘s character. And don’t even get me started on Hard Candy. For all of these movies (Except for Super) she is underage too.

Creepy.

I like that the movie has a dysfunctional “smart family” for once, and it is a nice change of pace. After about 2-3 minutes into the movie, I had already wanted to punch Quaid in the face. His character is very hatable. It doesn’t really change until the end.

If you are guessing the ending from the description, well, you are wrong. Eat it. Ending was a nice way to end the movie, and not as cliche’d at the same time. After all, these are smart people. They can figure their lives out, right?

Oh snap, Beneath The Darkness, that sounds scary right? Seems like something that would fill me with fear, because there might be something else afoot, outside of the normal murder shit going on. Like ghosts? Double fear. Who doesn’t want that?

But there is no double fear. Just normal fear, that of which is not too scary. Damn it!

(And by damn it, I mean woo. I hate being scared).

Unless of course you don’t like the idea of digging your own grave and being buried alive.

Here is the basic premise. Dennis Quaid is a mortician, and thus has a creep factor going on. But when his wife dies (not in movie) he begins to stay at home more and more, yet still a respected member of the community. The actual first scene shows him going on a run and meeting a neighbor. He then takes said neighbor to a graveyard (with his gun), makes him dig up that grave, open the coffin, and hey look, it is empty. He pushes him in, locks the lid, and buries him. Okay, so yeah, Dennis Quaid is the bad guy!

Then we switch the movie to the group of teens and its stays there for awhile. The main character, Tony Oller, believes in ghosts. His sister died like, 10 years earlier, and he thought he saw a ghost over her bed. He also is the gardener for Quaid, so he and the others get the idea to go into his house at night, just to try and find ghosts.

But what they don’t find is ghosts. No, they find out that Quaid might actually be some crazy killer, and he is all like “Ahh!”. He ends up killing one of them, because they “accidentally fall down the stairs” and he is free to go, because hey. Respectable member of the community, and the others were breaking and entering!

Now Tony and his not girlfriend but maybe, Aimee Teegarden, and another friend want to try to prove that he is a murderer, and it wasn’t an accident. But the detective, Brett Cullen, can’t believe that without evidence. So yeah. Rest of the movie is trying to prove it, breaking and entering in more than one occasion, and a lot more funeral/buried alive talk.

Inappropriate picture, or a joke I haven’t made yet?

Obviously the movie doesn’t sound scary at all, just kind of suspenseful. Sure some people might die, like the nerd in the first scene, but not much. Really what it is, is a movie trying to figure out why he is doing the things. They give a reason, it is just bad. More or less, he is crazy. They try to compare it to some literature too, like the Tell-Tale Heart, but that doesn’t work too well either.

I think the only reason I am giving this a passable grade is because of Dennis Quaid. He hammed that role up, and it made it enjoyable, if not silly. Yes, I showed a pig picture, because I wanted to say “Hammed”. So damn hammy. The final scene the fourth wall is even broke, and unnecessarily.

Its an okay teen scary movie, but one that will also be forgettable in a few years.

Jesus. I mean really, Jesus. This film is super Christian based, and I had no idea. Putting the Soul in Soul Surfer.I was just hoping for cool surfing, shark attacks, and creepy one armed women. Sounds like a horror right? Thankfully this movie has Kevin Sorbo in it. Who doesn’t love Hercules? Even if he is going Hawaiian Shirt on you.

No one doesn’t love Hercules

Unfortunately this movie also has Carrie Underwood in it, as her first real role in anything. She plays a Christian pastor thing, and it is pretty obvious she isn’t a real actress. All she seems to do is guilt trip miss surfer. Who played the Violet Beauregarde character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! Now that’s creepy.

Maybe AnnaSophia Robb just plays winners.

This movie definitely focused a lot less on sharks and more on Christianity. Like, the scene with the shark is super quick. He bites and leaves. Rude. Doesn’t even want to snuggle. It also took forever. It kept teasing you knowing that you knew it was coming. But it kept not happening. Seriously, not only was this movie just secretly a pro Jesus movie, it is also kind of boring.

Sure this is a true story. But there is no way the rival surfer girl is as bitchy as the one in this movie. There is also no way her parents are as cool as Helen Hunt and Dennis Quaid.

Wait a minute. Jesus? Sharks? Violet Beauregarde? Kevin Sorbo in a Hawaiian T-Shirt? Carrie Underwood trying to act? Maybe this was a horror. That would explain it. I don’t like horrors.