WAY TO READ A LINE: Willem DaFoe in 'The Boondock Saints'

Hopefully you know what line I am gonna say. I say that because I am in favor of calling 'The Boondock Saints' a bad movie. Why? The plot and directing. I'm not here to get into that. I am here to heap praise on one particular line of that movie. The approximate 1/2038th of the movie I enjoyed. And of course it belongs to Willem DaFoe. DaFoe has a maniacal impatience he brings to his character. Like how the Green Goblin still felt cartoony despite being a businessman. Or how he illustrates the naturally goofiness of having a bloody penis meeting the actual horror of such an act in 'Antichrist'. Or really any line he says as Klaus in 'The Life Aquatic'. DaFoe is straight up IN-DEPTH. So, he makes an imperfect movie less tolerable by simply acting the fuck out of this scene, which he narrates: (watch for 43 seconds in).

You don't need to see this movie now. Dafoe delivers a ridiculous sentence 'There was a Fire FIGHT!' with a gusto that catches the viewer off-guard. He then follows it up by swaying around. He also takes a backseat to his hair, letting that sweaty string quartet dance in the daylight for a bit. 'There was a Fire FIGHT!' is a great line because you really don't need any plot or story, but you just want to see. In fact, the plot and story bury that line so deeply that I almost forgot about it completely. So Boondock Saints would only be a good movie if Willem DaFoe was at least 90% of it. Or if it was The Boondocks playing for the New Orleans Saints in a series of vignettes set to the same pacing, music, and shot similarly to Treme.

Also, I'm sorry if you actually like Boondock Saints. I hate it so much I honestly forget why I hate it. So I owe you? Nah.

WAY TO READ A LINE: Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer

Let me save my shaved face here. Adam Sandler is squandering his talents and pandering to his audience in making ego-serving movies that exist to make money from idiots. Now let me blow my face off my face into a face receptacle: Adam Sandler is a funny guy who used his talents to make more money than I could ever think to know exists, while still maintaining shards of credibility. He's an absolute peach in Punch-Drunk Love, I found him sadistically relatable in the vastly underrated Funny People, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore were crack to 13 year old me, and I think I might be able to defend the social merits and controlled zaniness of Don't Mess with the Zohan. Also, his SNL characters are a bit of post-modern commercialized dadaism zeitgeist. So however polarizing I myself find Adam Sandler to be, I can agree on what thing. THIS:

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THAT at the very end there. "things that could've been brought to my attention YESTERDAY". Sandler has that ability to turn mucky muck muck scenes on a dime with a simple bout of manic yelling. Robbie Hart is a sad guy, but we don't want to see that. We want the fire that lets us know, "hey- there is a rest of a movie still going on." And that slow build to the word 'Yesterday' lets the audience know not to worry, and that this Robbie Hart in an altered state can be funny. They try the joke later in a more wordier manner while making it less poignant and more annoying: "well I have a microphone, and you don't, SO YOU WILL LISTEN TO EVERY WORD I HAVE TO SAY". This just comes off as a joke painting the Robbie as selfish, while YESTERDAY casts Robbie in a scorned lover light.

Adam Sandler's career is based around playing juvenile, ill-mannered, egotistical demeanors who mostly thrash about vulgarly displaying, not controlling, the characteristics. When he's not doing that he chokes wry sentiment from emotional situations (Big Daddy, 50 First Dates, Click). The Wedding Singer falls into the latter, but coming off of the career establishing of Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, and SNL, we were still tossed a couple of uninhibited goofing. The line 'things that could've been brought to my attention YESTERDAY' establishes the emotion without sacrificing the fact that Adam Sandler is here to amuse us. With that line in that scene, his career peaked. Sandler has been a mess of money-making PG-13 affairs and ho-hum attempts of crediblity ever since. I don't know whether it is a sad thing to encapsulate someone's career into one line or not, especially for an actor as successful as Sandler. It probably isn't. What I do know is that I am glad Adam Sandler delivered us a line that is a lighthouse of a sentence in a rough seas of a career.

WAY TO READ A LINE: Jamie Lee Curtis in Freaky Friday

Sentences are what makes movies great. Sure, visuals, acting, and story all have their great say. But sentences can tie all those aspects together in harmonium. The sentences are where we understand situation. A great sentence can articulate emotion, character depth, situation, and tone of a movie all at once. The 'Way to Read a Line' portion of Dumb Reviews is a hall of fame of sorts for these sentences.

Freaky Friday. Have you seen it? It's alright if you haven't, its a disney movie starring Lindsay Lohan. It was the movie that let us know- 'uh oh, she's gonna be hot' after the delightful re-telling of The Parent Trap. Here we see Lindsay cast as a punk rocker styled teen, which is a way to show us she is a little bit rock n roll despite her little bit of country upbringing. The Parent Trap made Lindsay work, sharing most of her scenes with herself in a dual role. Here- Lindsay doesn't have to do much, as she is being carried by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Oh you know what line I am going to do. The line is so great, it pretty much is the entire movie.

1:17 mark (then you shouldn't watch the rest)

"OH I'M LIKE THE CRYPT KEEPER!!!!"

'Oh I'm like the crypt keeper'. The line establishes that Jamie Lee is here to play the game. She is willing to say stupid and genial lines with such gusto that a teenager who looks like a mom is not just plausible, but of course one exists. Jamie Lee just set the gold standard for the standard of adults who have switched with the body of their teenager (Hanks in Big does not count, no switching... the movie you're thinking of is Judge Reinhold/Fred Savage in Vice Versa). All in the line about a basic cable late 90s reference. The Lohan character would've been about 8 when Tales from the Crypt aired, but clearly the character (now in Mom form) couldn't think of anything uglier than the crypt keeper. But maybe not uglier... wrinklier, and older both are covered by the Crypt Keeper, as is the angst expressed in teen's and their nostalgic references. It also should be noted that Tales from The Crypt was dead and gone, but Disney did a good job of picking a safe target, one that was still well enough within our collective memory (not too soon, not too late) to get a whole harted chuckle out of.

I really can't think of anything else from that movie you need to know about. I have seen the movie, as it aired on a consistent basis on the Disney Channel back when Even Stevens re-runs were in about 3rd or 4th rotation. Mom switches body with daughter, they learn to love to live.... but just say the line to yourself plainly, now say it to yourself with the enthusiasm of Jamie Lee Curtis. It's ridiculous, and it is just what the movie needed. Too bad, nothing everTry saying it to your friend out of context, or to someone on the street. I haven't tried that, but I bet it'd be semi-funny. It's the best line from a C+ movie. The line alone explains why the plus is a necessary addition: sweet Jamie Lee.

Congratulation Jamie Lee Curtis-- Way to read a line.