Welcome to Two on the Margin, where Melanie Billings and Tamara Thorne convene to review movies, books, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes, or just about anything else they've encountered that has left them tickled or in the mood to snipe. Ever fickle, rarely interested in anything that doesn't involved the weird, Tamara and Melanie are your best bet for marginal reviews!

Van Helsing

Tamara: Critics suck, not Van Helsing. The critics who bashed Van Helsing wouldn't recognize deadpan humor unless it came in the form of a pie in the face. Nothing more needs to be said. Also, is there a woman or gay man alive who doesn't appreciate the charms of Hugh Jackman? Especially that upper lip. Purrrrrowl!

Day after Tomorrow

Tamara: Big disaster flick based loosely on a Whitely Strieber /Art Bell book. Strieber has now written a book based on the movie based on his book. This big piece of eye candy is destroyed by a ludicrous plot.  Day After Tomorrow, for all the visual effects, is so lacking in character of any sort that not even the considerable charms of Dennis Quaid as the hero can overcome the weak dialogue and idiotic quest. Give me drunken, alien-probed Randy Quaid, give me Will Smith punching out stinking aliens, hell, give me the crazy Area 51 scientist and ridiculously heroic Bill Pullman as a fighter-pilot president. That brings us to the only fun bit of casting in Day After Tomorrow-- A dim-witted president who bears passing resemblance to another dim-bulb leader -- and the connivingly clichéd (yet so dead-on it's a little scary) Veep who's Cheney with a strand  more hair.

Mel: DAT is just Independence Day with water and ice instead of aliens. I kept looking for the brave (yet incredibly stupid) welcome wagon pro-Ice Age group standing atop a building waving their Pro Ice Age signs and watching with gleeful anticipation the huge wall of water coming towards them. And then they all drown.

Tamara: (after finishing nodding and snorting gleefully) : While the truth is that the Day After Tomorrow scenario could not happen at the pace presented in the movie, that shouldn't matter since it's "Who cares? It's fiction!" The fact that the Shrubbery Administration doesn't want you to see it makes it worth patronizing -- as long as you can just get off on the eye-candy and ignore the moronic motivations Emmerich has suffered upon his characters. Oh, and giggle lots when the ship pulls up next to the NYC Library. The movie it makes you think of is Ghostbusters II.

Mel: I was a little disappointed not to see our intrepid young hero make a brave leap from the ship to the library steps with evil and horridly CGI-d wolves in hot pursuit. And what is that behind the leaping, snarling wolves? Why, it's the creeping ice moving at an incredible rate of speed (but able to slow down enough to allow our hero to escape into the safety of the library). CGI-d evil wolves are fast but creeping ice is faster. Cut to scene of wolves leaping...and freezing solid as the ice hits them and falling to the ground and shattering into a million evil CGI-d wolf pieces. In slo-mo, of course.

Independence Day

Tamara:   I'm a big fan of disaster movies, corn and all, and Roland Emmerich's Independence Day with its big pastichey ode to sci-fi flicks, oozing with over-the-top characters, rings my chimes. It's big, it's cornpone, it's great!  I recommend a Science Fiction Theater Night. Bring beverages and snacks of choice  and these movies, viewed in this order:

 (1) The Day the Earth Stood Still

(2) Mars Attacks!

 (3) Independence Day

The first is seminal (Heh. Heh-heh) science fiction, the latter two are fun, part homage, part poke, and deliver up beloved clichés in all sorts of subversive or cornball ways. If it gets late, toast some bread and top off the night with a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Then you'll have a Science Fiction Quadruple Feature (Tamara wanders off, looking for her sweet transvestite.)

Mel: Cliché, cliché, cliché, but it's damn good fun to watch. And it teaches us all a valuable lesson too. In the event of an alien invasion, keep in mind that despite the fact the aliens are from light-years beyond earth and resemble a blob with tentacles more than a human, they will invariably use a Windows OS and regular keyboards on the mothership's master computer thus making it a snap to disarm them and win back our freedom.

Tamara: (hitting leg with glee over acidic Mel!) That's why I use Spybot AND Norton Security. I don't want anything sneaking through my sphincter unannounced!

Mars Attacks!

Mel: Ack! Ack! Ack! Big goofy fun with vaporizing Martian guns and disembodied Carrie from Sex and the City in her most challenging role ever! And extra points for the idiotic Pro-Alien invasion protestors who also appeared in Independence Day. Really, you'd think they'd have learned the error of their ways after being blasted to smithereens by the alien mothership in ID4, but no, here they are again.

Tamara: Watch this, as above, between The Day the Earth Stood Still and Independence Day. Mmmmm. That's good goofy science fiction! This little piece of wacky taffy works because the filmmaker's love of the genre glows like a flying saucer throughout the film. The casting is killer. I don't know what my favorite part was -- when the Martian in the Sexy Woman disguise bumps and grinds (and chews) her way into the White House or when the Martians raise their flag on Mr. President, in a scene that makes me think the South Park guys probably remembered for Cartman's alien probe problems. It all just puts me on the floor...Ack! Ack! Ack! What does it mean? For you Seinfeld aficionados, it translates to "Yada, yada, yada."

28 Days Later

Tamara: I thought at first it was the usual grainy early -21st -century - style horror movie, but it soon showed me that it was pretty freaking brilliant in its cinematography and its storyline, which was vivid and compelling and all about human nature. telling about human nature.

Mel: The little horror movie that could. Brilliant!! And one of its finer points being that the zombies actually moved swiftly instead of the usual leg-dragging, moaning wave of zombies in perpetual pursuit of the un-zombiefied. Faster zombies=more terror. For me, at least. Lots of high-tension moments in this movie.

DaVinci Code

Tamara:  Dan Brown . Almost as good as his earlier Angels & Demons. Lots of conspiracy and truth-twisting make this a Grimm Acres favorite...

Mel: Truly a guilty pleasure. Although I can knock the questionable science behind the conspiracy theories, I will admit that I did develop a fascination for Knights Templar and the legend of Mary Magdalene. And stared for hours at Da Vinci's "Last Supper" painting. Any book that leads to further reading on its subject (whether its to debunk or simply learn more) automatically gets extra points from me.

Signs

Tamara:  How convenient. . . So many holes I laughed in the wrong spots. Got to liking it on repeated viewing, but the Scary Movie 3 version is better. Thumb down in the Plum Pie for bad pet horror. Kill people, not animals. Missionaries, car salesmen, politicians all work for me. If you have to kill animals, do in some monkeys. Aaron Burr says they smell bad. I agree!

Mel: I'd love to say I liked Signs for its deeper meaning--that the movie wasn't just about the alien invasion, for crying out loud! It was about one man's struggle to regain his faith in God, himself and mankind. Or something. But really I just liked the spooky bits the best. The alien caught on videotape, the rattling doorknob in the basement, the skittering footsteps on the roof, the chattering creepy voices on the baby monitor. Classic stuff and very well-done. Of course, that all was instantly forgotten when the completely laughable alien made his appearance in the completely laughable final sequence. Man in a rubber alien suit! Quick, pour water on him so he'll melt! And, umm, hit him over the head with that bat conveniently located just over your left shoulder! Bat! Water! Look! We used foreshadowing in a very clunky way!

Tamara: That alien on the doorstep was a genuinely spooky scene. And I was jazzed because I thought Shaymalan had caught on that aliens = earthly paranormal stuff, like oh, I don't know. . . greenjacks?
But what really cheesed me off, in a serious way, was the Message. You know, there's a purpose for everything if only you have blind faith with blinders on to make you really, really blind? And absolutely nothing is coincidence?? Oh, please! There's only one absolute: nothing is absolute. I nearly gagged on the platitudinous Father Mel getting his faith back. Way to rationalize, Padre! The spirit of MacGyver was far more helpful than Fate.
Some people feel a need to find a reason for everything, to dig up missing links even if they don't exist. Sure, many things aren't just coincidences and there's a nice dash of synchronicity running through life on this planet, but that preordained heap of parrot droppings just makes me want to puke. Uh, is this the argument clinic?

The Passion of the Christ

Tamara: Yetch. I hate slasher films. I'm taking a pass on this basketful of gore. Only Bruce Campbell/Sam Raimi can make slashing watchable.

Mel: I haven't seen this one yet. But I already know the ending anyway.