[Review] Phone Booth

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 7:35 pm

Lemme state it right here, up front, for all of you to ridicule me for the rest of my life: I shed an actual tear watching this movie.

But perhaps a film about a guy being stripped of his defenses and forced to face his own shame is not exactly the kind of movie, or perhaps is exactly the kind of movie, to show a guy who's in the midst of a psychological self-re-evaluation and healing process. And who's been drinking.

Other than that theme, the movie is a pretty good excuse for an episode of a TV show, tightly paced, stylishly presented, and with the coolest opening credit sequence I can remember.

And just as soon as it starts to get stupid, it stops. Good on ya, Phone Booth.

Also, there's something about watching the movie with headphones. All the on-screen characters sound like regular movie characters, with the proper reverb and ambient noise you'd expect, but the "guy on the other end of the phone" (Keifer Sutherland) comes through pristine, clear, and loud, apparently unfettered by any artificial processing. The effect is to drive home the point which the movie is, I'm assuming, attempting to make, in that the voice on the other end of the phone is the douchebag publicist's conscience. Because when you hear it on headphones, I mean, Keifer SOUNDS like your conscience!

3.1415926 stars.

Movie Maven · Post by **Movie Maven** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:08 pm

Garbage. Boo hoo, a guy cheats on his wife and gets what is coming to him almost.

One star.

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:22 pm

I'm going to watch this movie before anymore bad gimmicks reveal more parts. Well, at least it isn't a big point. But, what the fuck who believes in the sanctity of marriage anymore?

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:29 pm

Movie Maven wrote:Garbage. Boo hoo, a guy cheats on his wife and gets what is coming to him almost.

One star.

This is either Vitriola or ICJ, but it's hard to tell since they're inseparable these days. And it's a horrible review. These are people who thrive on disliking things. They feed on hatred like dilithium crystals.

Their idea of a good movie is "Cheerleader Slumber Party Massacre III" or whatever the fuck.

PB is a fine film, don't believe them.

"I've seen 8 out of 10 BAD movies ever made, but none of the good ones." - ICJ, at lunch today. True quote.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:40 pm

Movie Maven wrote:Garbage. Boo hoo, a guy cheats on his wife and gets what is coming to him almost.

This illustrates my chief problem with the movie: I get the sense we're supposed to hate the Colin Farrel character and, to some degree at least, sympathize with the Keifer Sutherland character. I didn't especially like the publicist, maybe, but there was nothing he did that warranted his treatment. OMG he fantasized about another woman! He was mean to an obnoxsious hooker while under pressure of some guy threatening to kill him!!

There were sort of two memes going on here: Guy forced to face himself honestly under a high-pressure situation and stupid revenge fantasy against rich asshole. The former I liked a lot, but latter struck me as self-righteous and tiresome whenever it came to the forefront (especially the bit where the sniper described his other kills and the very very ending with Keifer's curtain call). So I sort of vacillated between loving this movie and hating it.

It was amusing to see this film followed immediately by Catch me if You Can last weekend. Shows how weird and divergent even our mainstream culture can be.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 8:57 pm

Debaser wrote:There were sort of two memes going on here: Guy forced to face himself honestly under a high-pressure situation and stupid revenge fantasy against rich asshole.

Personally, I don't think your latter "meme" has anything to do with the movie. There is no one here taking revenge. "The voice", as he is called in reviews, has nothing against the "rich asshole" other than his moral structure. Or rather, as I see it, his defense structure. The voice is not a real person. He's not a character in the movie. He is simply "the voice" which talks to all of us on occasion, peeking through our various levels of denial and compartmentalization to ask, "Hey, who do you think you are?" (The mural on the wall in the background of the phone booth itself is no accident.)

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 10:10 pm

You're abstracting too much. Or I am. Taking the film on the surface level, a self-righteous maniac takes it upon himself to get bloody revenge for society on rich assholes of all kinds (hence the bit where the sniper describes in loving detail his previous victims). And on the very next level down it feels, and admittedly I can't really back this up with anything specific because it's a feeling, like we're supposed to cheer the sniper the same way we were supposed to cheer for the protagonist in Falling Down.

In my deluded daydreams about the making of this movie, some guy wanted to create the movie you think Phone Booth is, but along the way it kept trying to morph into a morality play where we're supposed to cheer because the asshole gets his and those two aspects are sort of engaged in an artistic chess match. Your side seems to have won with the monologue near the end, but then we get the final twist at the very end and it feels like they were playing to the opposition there.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:15 am

Ain't it cute, then, that my vision of the film matched with the creators' deluded daydreams.

I realized while watching it that many would have your complaints. I just didn't. As a creator, I generally want people to accept my creation in the spirit it's intended, and thus, I give the same courtesy to the creations of others.

In that context, it worked just fine.

Debaser · Post by **Debaser** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:35 am

pinback wrote:Ain't it cute, then, that my vision of the film matched with the creators' deluded daydreams.

No, mang, the deluded daydreams were mine. I have no idea beyond a mostly blind best guess what the creators wanted to do with this film. To some degree I never know precisely what a creator wants to do with a piece of art, because if he could articulate that in verbal terms with perfect clarity, then art would have no purpose in the first place. And considering how much a movie is a collaborative effort, that only muddies the waters even further. I mean, the screenwriter may have had one thing in mind, and the director might have had something else, and every performer has his or her take on his or her character. And that's before the studio gets their hands on it and wants a more marketable ending or a love interest or some such.

So I can only really judge on how the film came across to me. And so I did. And so you did, too, really. And so it came across differently to both of us. And so we both offered circumstantial evidence on our points of view. And so film was discussed.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 12:41 am

Yeah, but I still think I'm right. And speaking of that:

QUEEN TO KING ONE, BITCH!!!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 10:58 am

pinback wrote:In that context, it worked just fine.

It was AWFUL. What a terrible movie. It would have been OK as a television episode for Law and Order or something, but to make people plan their night around it and spend $7.50 on it... what a complete waste of time.

They even had to invoke the Forest Whitaker clause just so that there was one character in it people would or could like. (Forest Whitaker is wholly likeable in every flick he's ever been in, so much that they'll put him in something like Panic Room because they know you'll otherwise hate everyone else there.)

You know when I said I've seen 8 out of every 10 bad movies? Well, I've seen "Phone Booth." THE LEGACY STANDS!!!

Don't care about the "voice." Don't care about the protagnoist. Don't care about hookers. Don't care about people cheating on their wives. Don't care about awkward explanations of how there is one phone booth left in NYC because this shitty script took so long to finally be made that no phone booths are left anymore.

And here's the last bit. Does it pass the "Zombie Test"? In other words, in a movie you're not quite sure about whether it's good or not, would the introduction of zombies instantly make it better? IT WOULD. If the guy was trapped in a phone booth and the sniper was there and suddenly a zombie infestation broke out -- but they couldn't get into the phone booth -- and he had to call everyone he loved and cared about to warn them and they had flashbacks and he was truly sorry that he was such an asshole because he meant to make things better eventually but now the world was ending and everyone was a zombie and then his wife came to the scene and was gonna get eaten by a zombie but then the sniper shot the offending zombie that was going to kill her and he opens the booth and apologizes and she accepts and they embrace and close the phone booth and the camera starts to pull away and you know they are together and the last bit of the movie is the sniper chortling because he's in heaven with all the target practice while our couple is left in there presumably forever...

... Well that's a good movie.

Fuck "Phone Booth."

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 11:15 am

Wait, so you don't like it?

Lysander · Post by **Lysander** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 5:35 pm

Worm wrote:I'm going to watch this movie before anymore bad gimmicks reveal more parts.

A fucking MEN. People who reveal the plots of movies to people who haven't seen them are a step on the ladder below terrorists. At least the terrorists do cool things that you can look at later and think "Hey, that looked pretty fuckin' cool," like--oh, well, say, crashing a plane into a building. But I digress.

Having not seen this movie yet, I have a comparison for those who have: Do you think it's fair to say that Phone Booth is the movie version of Enemmies by Andy Philips, only with a different setting and characters? Discuss. Or... not. Whatever.

Jethro Q. Walrustitty · Thu Jul 15, 2004 1:47 pm

Phone Booth, written by Larry Cohen, along with the upcoming "Cellular" - about a kidnapped chick with a cellphone that's running out of batteries.

He's also written Black Caesar, It's Alive (1, 2, and 3), God Told Me To, Full Moon High, The Stuff, Maniac Cop (1, 2, and 3), Wicked Stepmother, and Uncle Sam:

I love when a genre filmmaker makes a cheeseball "mainstream" movie (usually worse than their genre work) and the fools who only see movies that play in multiplexes start to take them seriously.

You can't appreciate movies like this properly without knowing some history.
You shouldn't see Spiderman without seeing Sam Raimi playing the Manson-like nut in "Though Shalt Not Kill... Except", or Lord of the Rings without seeing Peter Jackson playing dual roles in "Bad Taste" or even his whackfest, "Meet the Feebles".

Speaking of bad taste, methinks that last Lysander comment might have been a bit uncalled for. 9/11 = a "cool thing"? Even in jest, that's really wrong.

Lysander · Post by **Lysander** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:21 pm

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Speaking of bad taste, methinks that last Lysander comment might have been a bit uncalled for. 9/11 = a "cool thing"? Even in jest, that's really wrong.

That's what I'm here for.

No, seriously. I'm not calling 9/11 a cool thing, but even you have to admit that if the event had no personal significance for you, footage of a plain arcing into a building would be pretty fucking cool, yes?

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 2:37 pm

Lysander wrote:
Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Speaking of bad taste, methinks that last Lysander comment might have been a bit uncalled for. 9/11 = a "cool thing"? Even in jest, that's really wrong.
That's what I'm here for.

No, seriously. I'm not calling 9/11 a cool thing, but even you have to admit that if the event had no personal significance for you, footage of a plain arcing into a building would be pretty fucking cool, yes?

Yes, if both the plane and building were abandoned it would totally rawk. I think that's what he means it was an awesome display of power apart from deaths.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 4:56 pm

Jethro Q. Walrustitty wrote:Speaking of bad taste, methinks that last Lysander comment might have been a bit uncalled for. 9/11 = a "cool thing"? Even in jest, that's really wrong.

Oh, shut the fuck up.

Roody_Yogurt · Post by **Roody_Yogurt** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:06 pm

I think what we're saying is that someone should make a musical... with super gay planes.

Worm · Post by **Worm** » Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:12 pm

Roody_Yogurt wrote:I think what we're saying is that someone should make a musical... with super gay planes.

oh! Would the buildings they crash into have to be gay? Would that be a hate crime? I WONDER.

Jethro Q. Walrustitty · Fri Jul 16, 2004 12:29 pm

Pindick - that's the best you can do? Oh, I understand - you're still broken up after having SOBBED LIKE A BABY at the shocking and heartwrenching conclusion of Maniac Cop 3.

It's OK! I understand! I got a little choked up when I watch "The Stuff", I feel the whole Larry "choke 'em up" Cohen vibe.

Now don't worry about me, and go back to watching "Days of our Lives" and "One Life to Live".