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Stuck on You

Seen: 2003.12.22   ¶   Reviewed: 2003.12.28

Well, I pre-insulated myself from this one, and what do I get? I get surprised is what I get. It always happens.

I expected a gross-out comedy. I did not expect the most pro-disability movie in Hollywood history. (Hollywood history, not film history.) Setting aside for the moment that all conjoined twins are identical twins, which Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear surely are not, the twins like themselves. In a vain effort to be happy apart, they undergo the risky separation operation (funny, nothing untoward happens) and find out they’re miserable apart. In some if not most cases, if you remove the disability from a disabled person, you get a different person. Professor Xavier could tell you that easily. Here we’ve got the Farrelly brothers doing it.

Who would have thought?

The film’s “You had me at ‘hello’ ” moment was Walt’s appearing onstage, dragging a sweaty and ashamed Bob along with him, portraying Truman Capote in Tru. We’ve got Simpsons levels of irony and knowingness going on here!

Theatre experience

What a difference a week makes.

Why... why, yes. Yes, it is the same playa who ratted me out to management. But in front of me in line is a boy getting a refund on a movie. The playa has him fill out a form with a reason. “Reason?” he asks. There’s some to-and-fro. “ ‘Hated it’ is a reason,” I eventually offer after he stands there frozen for too many seconds. He thinks and blurts out “Sucked!” which is exactly what he writes.

“Well, look who’s back,” I tell the playa when it’s my turn. “Can I have a reflector and a headset, please?” She gets out the gear, which is in perfect condition, signs me in (helpfully including my area code without asking this time), and gives me a Big Card–sponsored ticket without the slightest problem.

In I go. I ask a boy if he doesn’t mind terribly if I sit in My Seat, since I have to read the reflected captions. He gets right up. Just as the movie proper is starting, one boy behind me hollers “Could you chew any louder?” We’ll be hearing more from him soon!

Caption quality

Seven-Up is in fact 7-Up. Actually, the perverse corporate orthography is 7 UP.

"The Lion King" and "CHiPs" and "Annie Hall" (always unwise with the quotation marks) but a musical version of Bonnie and Clyde. (A sign for a theatre production later reads Bonnie & Clyde.)

three medium Pepsi's: Apostrophe-S isn’t a plural.

in the middle of being balled out: What, do we have a 22-year-old poli-sci student still living in her parents’ basement at the controls today? Bawled out. “We’re gonna canvas all 48 states with denials”: Canvass.

It seems the MoPix character set doesn’t include @, either: You’re, uh, HoldThePickle at Hotmail.com.

Aren’t Navy Seals actually Navy SEALs? Isn’t it an acronym?

“This movie sucks!” the boy behind me states loudly.

A mishandled extended quotation:

"Despite its generic title,

"Honey and the Beaze" should generate
some significant buzz.

Oopsie and whoopsie should be oopsy and whoopsy. (I use them myself, manfully.)

“This movie sucks!” the boy behind me states loudly one more time in case we missed it. “What time is it?” he shortly asks his friend. “Shut up!” he hollers at Walt onscreen.

In credit cookies: Thank you for your fabulous 45-record collection: No, a collection of 45(-RPM) records, hence 45 record collection. I expect he’d have more than 45 of them for the collection to be “fabulous.” But what would I know about being fabulous?

Description quality

Gaille Heidemann narrates, I think. I’m getting squelchy interference on the headset (heard before) when there’s no description narration. It varies in intensity with main dialogue.

The twins are seen shirtless. I don’t get why they’re in such bad shape, except for verisimilitude, nor do I get why they have identical and seemingly fake strawberry-blond chest hair. We are told “one has short brown hair and a brawny physique” – that would be Damon, who’s a bit tubby. “The other has long blond hair and a lean form.”

“An old geezer at his table faces him”: He’s not that old! But that’s how he’s listed in the credits, I believe.

“In the back room, an African-American man dozes on a couch.” “A busty woman shows her cleavage.” “A curvaceous brunette appears wearing a sheer jacket, a halter top, and shoes.” “The blonde beauty hugs Bob.” Up to our old tricks, I see.

A very dense scene: A beach segment shows, among other buskers, a group of blind (“African-American”) singers with canes. The description runs essentially nonstop over the whole scene, dialogue, singing, and all, and tells us about people on the beach other than the singing troupe, though they were the star of this scene. (You have to describe the presence of any people obviously visually-impaired.) But in an apparent case of post-postproduction sweetening, no background music was heard though it was captioned thus, and what we did hear – one of the buskers yammering away – was uncaptioned. The singers, by the way, were simply said to have canes. I didn’t get any more detailed notes.

“As she snaps fingers, Moe opens his painted eyes and types.” He has eyeballs painted on his closed eyelids.

“As a buff DJ puts on a record”: He’s tall, edemic, and tattooed.

“A slick-haired guy” is Orientalist. (That’s one of my old tricks again.)

“Frankie Mooniz” sits in bed with Cher. Funny, in the actual Franki Muniz movie, his name was pronounced correctly.

“Outside, a sign reads ‘Show Girls.’ ” It says Fantasy Island Show Girls. Maybe they didn’t have time.

“The superstar looks him up and down.” I think that’s Cher.

“A vintage microphone” was surely that, but it was also a suspension microphone. Perhaps too technical.

Consistency

Nothing I saw.

Exit interview

Whoa, what a surprise: As I’m busying with my purse and coats so people won’t bug me with questions, the crowd thins out and I see, several rows below, another reflector. It’s one blonde girl with (apparently) her two blonde sisters and blonde mom. I wave until I get her attention, then mom’s attention. She’s the only one with the reflector. They make their way out and I wave again.

Took two tries to explain the squelchy audio to the manager, but he got it. The playa was nice as pie.


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