2.22.2007

Movies the Mere Plot Summation and Cast List of Which Make Me Want to Kill Myself

Contact, starring Jodi Foster and Matthew McConahaguahery. I am always amazed that people will actually sit through this, or that it is even on TV.

The search for life outside our solar system becomes a personal and spiritual quest for a young researcher. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster) is a scientist who lost her faith in God after her parents died when she was a child. However, Ellie has learned to develop a different sort of faith in the seemingly unknowable: working with a group that monitors radio waves from space, Ellie hopes that some day she will receive a coherent message from another world that will prove that there is a world beyond our own. Ellie's hard work is rewarded when her team picks up a signal that does not appear to be of earthly origin. Ellie decodes the message, which turns out to be plans for a space craft, which she takes as an invitation for a meeting with the aliens. Ellie and her fellow researchers soon run into interference from a White House scientific advisor, David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt), who cuts off their funding and tries to take credit for their achievements. However, Ellie receives moral support from Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a spiritual teacher who advises President Clinton and tries to persuade her to accept the existence of a higher power, and financial backing from S.R. Hadden (John Hurt), a multi-millionaire willing to fund her attempts to contact the source of the message. Contact was
based on a novel by Carl Sagan, who advised director Robert Zemeckis during the film's production until his death in 1996.

BTW, this is the second movie involving Jodi's Jedi-like searching her feelings about her Daddy, though in the first movie we had Hannibal Lecter to bring her back down to earth.




2 comments:

dave said...

On this same topic, I'm embarrassed every single morning by just walking by the poster for that new Eddie Murphy movie Norbit. My god, who wants to see Eddie Murphy play every character in a movie? Who wants to see another dude in fat-drag making funny with the booty jokes? For fuck's sake, seriously, I walk by that goddam poster and think, How fucking stupid are we? The answer, provided by the box office: pretty fucking stupid.

It's like Eddie Murphy is masturbating and asking everybody to watch. Hey, everybody, look at me! I'm playing every part! Look at me! Wooo-hooo!

Eddie Murphy does not need you, Time Magazine's Person of the Year, to ruin his career. Eddie Murphy has done a more than capable job of that by himself, like five times now.

Anonymous said...

And if we had a TV category, the as yet unseen "Black Donnellys" would top my list. 4 South Boston brothers written by Paul Haggis whose loyalty towards each other trumps all else? Wow, that's a tale that's never been told before. I wonder if their bonds of loyalty will be strained. That would be original.