Phillyist Framed Returns!
Hey Man, Can't We All Just Get Along?
Playlist Rewind: AFI at the Factory
Yo, Philly in the News
Whole Hog Is All Heart
Film: Consequences
Future Screenings: No future screenings scheduled
Once in a while, you hear about a movie that gets booed at a film festival, that film festival usually being Cannes, a.k.a. the film festival to end all film festivals. Having your film booed at Cannes is almost a death sentence: the film has to be re-edited, new scenes have to be filmed, and even then, chances are that it won't do very well in the box office. In Philadelphia, however (and I never thought I'd have occasion to type this sentence), we're much more polite: instead of booing a bad film outright, we just don't applaud it when the credits roll. And then we all jump to our feet (seriously, you hear all the chairs' seats slamming shut at once) and make a mass exodus from the theatre, lest someone should remind us that the film's producer/director/star is present for a talkback. It may not be nice, but at least we're not booing.
Consequences
It is very rare that I would hate something so strongly that I'd drop my southern courtesy to let you know. This is one of those rare occasions, because I'm going to tell you, flat out, that Consequences was one of the worst pieces of shit I have ever seen brought to the big screen. I'd been so optimistic about it, from how the festival program described it: a buddy movie set in Philly and filmed locally, but that's not what it was at all. So here, for your enjoyment, is what I understood from the program, and what it really meant. (Warning, spoilers ahead. Not that you should care.)
| What the Program Said: | What I Thought It Meant: | What It Actually Meant: |
| "In this extremely offbeat buddy film, five old friends, now in their middle ages, reunite in Philadelphia for their annual football weekend getaway, but one last 'boy's night out' in Philly's shadowy, sex-crazed underworld goes terribly wrong." | Madcap romp about a group of old buddies trying to regain their youths as best they can, often making questionable or even unsafe choices, but eventually learning a valuable lesson. | Group of men go to Philadelphia, do a lot of blow, make the conscious decision to cheat on their wives, and end up paying the consequences. With their genitals. (And since when is mid-thirties middle ages?) |
| "Perhaps no other locally-made film this year exemplifies uncompromising vision more than this low-budget epic. Cleverly employing a wealth of city locations, audiences will be impressed by the sheer ambition of this production." | It's a local movie made by local filmmakers who know and love the city and want to show it off. | Epic? Seriously? (Also, since when was City Hall a train station? Yeah, I know, Suburban Station is right there, but trust me, that's not the way it reads.) |
| "The impressive casting is another high point, including the director himself in the role of a villain." | Oh wow! A real auteur! | That's because nobody else was willing to play the part. |
| "Shifting between the present and the men's shared boyhood past, their youth of football, keg parties and girls is familiar enough. But it is their reunion for an Eagles' home game that takes them in another direction entirely." | Coming of age story, kind of like Now and Then, but for guys. | Clearly, keg parties and snuff films have a ton in common, which is why the mind-numbingly obvious juxtaposition worked so well. |
| "To reveal anymore would ruin the fun, but suffice it to say that this cautionary tale will give the audience something to think about the next time they or their boyfriends or husbands feel the urge to seek a raucous night out in the City of Brotherly Love." | Mistakes will be made and then rectified, and then everyone's going to laugh about them over a few beers. | Fun? |
| "If strong images of sex and violence offend you, please see this film. It will validate all of your fears." | This is clearly an exaggeration. | Holy crap. Run away. |
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Yeah, heard something about what happens when a jackhammer meets a phallus. barf.
More jigsaw, methinks, than jackhammer.
Anyway, it killed the guy. Scientific evidence and John Wayne Bobbit be damned.