While describing what it takes to be a great straightman would require more skill and finesse than I have, at least, I can tell you what can make for a perfectly competent one: repeat the question.
Funny Guy: Hey, what is the sound of one hand clapping?
Straightman: Gee, I dunno. What *IS* the sound of one hand clapping?
See? That’s it. Simplest thing in the world. Now, this allows for this particular setup:
Funny Guy: Hey, what’s the secret to comedy?
Straightman: Gee, I dunno. What *IS…
Funny Guy (interrupting): TIMING!
(which also allows for this one:
Funny Guy: Hey, what’s the secret to comedy?
Straightman: Gee, I dunno. What *IS the secret to comedy?
Funny Guy (after an uncomfortable silence): timing.)
In any case, all of that setup was to remember a little movie called “Stir of Echoes
I’m going to be discussing mild spoilers for both of these movies after the cut (well, *MAJOR* spoilers for Sixth Sense, if you’re the one person who hasn’t seen it). If you haven’t seen Stir of Echoes and suspect that you want to be only as spoiled as a good trailer would spoil you, that’d be a good decision on your part as it’s one heck of a movie. Here’s the trailer (which is remarkably spoiler-free as these things go) and we’ll continue talking after the cut:
(but if you’d like to discuss other movies that, seriously, should have been released in different years entirely because they were seriously overshadowed by the dang movie released the month before, that’d be a pretty good topic for the comments too)
They’re both little kid “I see dead people” movies but, unlike Sixth Sense (which, if you don’t mind, I’ll just assume you saw with everybody else on the planet), the big idea behind the movie isn’t the BIG SURPRISE THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING though. It has a basic premise that Kevin Bacon’s kid has, as one of the people in the film puts it, “the eyes”. “The kid’s got the eyes on him.” At the beginning of the movie, we overhear the kid playing by himself in his room and having a conversation that has far too many directed (and pointed) questions to wave away the whole “he’s just playing by himself” thing and, a few nights after that, at a grownup party, Kevin Bacon gets hypotized by his sister-in-law. One of the suggestions she gives him while he is under? “Be more open-minded” and, of course, he starts being a receiver as well but the ghost isn’t half as kind to him as to his son.
That’s pretty much enough data there, I’d think, as it’s really a movie that is worth seeing (and if you’re apprehensive about creepy movies that are rated R (and who isn’t?), know that this movie is NOWHERE NEAR as bad as anything we discussed in our discussion of splat movies. This is not another Event Horizon. It’s closer to Sixth Sense… though, I’ll have to grant, it is a ratchet or two tenser. If the creepiest parts of Sixth Sense were not too creepy, this movie could well be ‘just creepy enough’. It’s more a thriller than anything else).
So… that’s my recommendation for you this week.
(And, yeah, this is the movie that Jason mentioned in the comments yesterday.)
1) “The Sixth Sense” was good, but craaaaaaay-zeeeeeee overrated. That thing has so many plot holes you could use it to drain your spaghetti. But I’m always happy when Olivia Williams gets work, so… good. (On the other hand, I think we’ve all seen enough now, Mr Shyamalan.)
2) So, um… a movie need not be as scary as “Event Horizon” for me to find it too scary to enjoy. (I will admit that I have to avert my gaze during bits of “The Sixth Sense,” which I realize does not redound to my manliness.) (I was, just this past weekend, discussing my experience of seeing “Event Horizon,” which… *shudders*) From what you say, “Stir of Echoes” may surpass my tolerance.
Fair enough. For me, I’d say “Stir of Echoes” is exactly as creepy as I prefer my thrillers and no creepier. The lingering questions were more of the form “well, what if…?” rather than “exactly how will my organs be harvested?”
Hey JB, totally OT, but I saw this yesterday and thought that you and Mike as Who fanatics might enjoy, it’s completely bonkers (Entwhistle’s bass from ‘Fooled’, isolated):
http://youtu.be/Rf6tp2c6nMM
I’ll check it out tonight.
I can’t watch the clip here, but was that the Kevin Bacon movie with “Paint it Black” in the commercial?
Yes. If’n you ain’t seen it, you aughta.
I ain’t seen it. I guess I aughta.
You will put the remote down after the movie ends, turn to whomever might be there, and you will say “how did we not see this before?”
Those are always fun.
Oh, there’s a post in the queue (violence). It’s done, let it fly whenever you feel like not writing a post.
Oh, I’m so pleased! Tomorrow night?
Mr. Sulu, you have the conn.