Film
My wish for 1999
Mark Steyn
If I have a moviegoing wish for 1999, it's never to see Robin Williams in anything ever again. I've seen him play a divorced dad (Mrs Doubtftre), an insecure dad (Hook), a would-be dad (Father's Day), a surrogate dad (Good Will Hunting), a gay dad (The Birdcage) and now a bereaved dad (What Dreams May Come) — and all I can say is: whom the gods would destroy, they first make dad. Whoever told Robin Williams he was an actor has a lot to answer for: he acts about as well as Bill Clinton, showing you how much he feels your pain by advertising his own. They even have the same expression: the ostentatious- ly downturned, lower-lip-jutting mouth. As with Bill, Robin's act gets sorrier and sorri- er: I'm getting tired of having to feel for him.
At his son's funeral, Robin says he would have become 'the kind of man other men like to be around', a cryptic remark. When Mister Moisty-Eyes himself gets killed and whisked up to heaven, you can only feel sorry for the other residents: this is not the kind of man other men like to be around. They say hell is other people, but, if heaven is Robin Williams, it's no contest: even God would find him a mite too weepy and huggy. What Dreams May Come has the worst cinematic depiction of the afterlife ever seen: a dayglo computer animation of the kind of flock wallpaper patterns you get in a Catskill restaurant's ladies' room.
Until What Dreams pipped it at the post, my Worst Movie Of The Year was going to be Wild Things. But, on reflection, I think Wild Things is, in fact, the Best Movie Of The Year. It's set at a Florida high school where guidance counsellor Matt Dillon is being accused of rape by two of his stu- dents. By the time they've gone through every zig-zagging plot twist, you don't really care who's triple-crossing whom, but the whole thing is carried off with such brio and cast so over-ripely — Theresa Russell as the mom, Robert Wagner as her lawyer — that it's a delight. The swimming-pool lesbo sex scene between rich bitch Denise Richards and swamp trash Neve Campbell is, without doubt, the Most Gratuitous Muff Dive Of The Year, and the moment where Kevin Bacon steps out of the shower and uncoils all six degrees of his magnifi- cent manhood is my choice for Best Part In A Motion Picture. Sometimes we critics get too hung up on films being good. Be warned, though, that some cinematic cir- cumcisionist has excised Kevin's penis from the video release, so we may have to wait a few decades before it's faithfully restored and digitally remastered for the director's cut.
Speaking of penises, my Law Suit Of The Year is Vince Offer's copyright-infringe- ment case against the Farrelly Brothers and 20th Century Fox for There's Something About Mary. Offer claims Mary lifted 14 scenes from his 1996 film The Underground Comedy Movie. Among the alleged plagia- risms is the seminal hair-gel scene in which Cameron Diaz goes to dinner with Ben Stiller's ejaculate in her coiffure. I'll be interested to hear the legal arguments: `Your Honour, this suit is completely with- out merit. In our film, the semen is hanging from the hero's ear, not his nose.' It promises to be the best showbiz case since the dog in Annie sued because another pooch was brought in to dub him on the soi-disant Original Cast Album.
My Best Line Of 1998 was a toss-up. I still find it hard to believe that Kevin Cost- ner, in The Postman, announces on screen his decision to make a list of 'things I like about my ass'. At the time, he's actually talking to his pet burro, who gets my vote for Best Ass Of The Year, if only because I'm grateful these days for Kevin's bringing in a body double for the ass scenes. Inci- dentally, for those correspondents to The Spectator who've recently complained about my using the ghastly Americanism `ass' instead of the robust Anglo-Saxon `arse', feel free to make that the Best Arse of The Year, and the pet burro a Blackpool seaside donkey, and replace Kevin Costner with Kenneth More — though possibly the joke loses something in translation. But, as my own New Year's resolution, this column will henceforth translate all Hollywood dia- logue into good British English: when Bruce Willis says 'Shut the fuck up, moth- er-fucker', in future this will appear here as `I say, old chap, be a good fellow and put a sock in it, won't you?'
But, despite the best efforts of The Post- man, the envelope for Best Line Of The Year goes to Drew Barrymore in Ever After: 'A bird could love a fish, but where would they live?' It's a perfect distillation of the fey philosophising twaddle that pass- es for intelligent screenwriting in Holly- wood.
In a year of long, long films, when Robert Redford's brooding pauses in The Horse Whisperer were long enough to run a two-reel western and a couple of travel- ogues in, the award for Longest Remake Of The Year goes to Meet Joe Black, based on Death Takes A Holiday. Death . . . lasts one hour and 12 minutes; Meet Joe Black lasts three hours and one second. So, on present trends, the remake of Meet Joe Black will last six hours, 55 minutes and 27.691 seconds.
And, finally, farewell to Anthony Hop- kins, whose retirement prompted a savage editorial by colleagues at the front of this magazine. For my own part, I feel Hoppo's pain: you spend decades doing good work on the London stage only to wind up get- ting gazillions of dollars to camp about as Zorro. Even the knighthood was for play- ing a Hollywood serial killer. As for his complaint about a 'futile, wasted life', I heard the news on the radio from UPN's top Hollywood reporter, who announced that 'Sir Anthony is currently in Italy com- pleting a new film called Titus Andronicus.' Poor old Hoppo: he's supp'd full with hor- rors, how weary, stale, flat seem all the uses of his world. But profitable.
`This is one of our more popular lines.'
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