For those who might envy my position as film critic, let me fill you in on what my job entails. I sit alone, in near-empty theaters, looking for ways to pick apart movies that I usually have no interest in watching, all the while eating an unreasonable amount of popcorn. I tell you one thing \u2013 those self-serve butter dispensers that have been popping up around the nation are going to be the death of me. I might as well eat butter soup.<\/p>\n
And my social life? Nothing says \u201ccool\u201d more than \u201cfilm critic\u201d. Right. I\u2019ll bet tuba players see more action. But I didn\u2019t start writing reviews because I thought the ladies might dig it. I do this because I love movies.<\/p>\n
Ironically, after half a year on the job, it\u2019s becoming clear to me why so many film critics actually seem to despise movies. It\u2019s because when you watch so many of them they all start to look the same. If it weren\u2019t for the diamonds in the rough (like Ray, available on DVD tomorrow), I think most film critics would be looking for new jobs.<\/p>\n
With Hide & Seek, an unoriginal and unconvincing mystery\/thriller, newcomer screenwriter Barry Josephson adds to the long list of recent screenwriters trying to impersonate M. Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village). Unless you\u2019re new to the multiplex, you\u2019ve already seen this movie a hundred times.<\/p>\n
In Hide & Seek, Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning (Uptown Girls, Man on Fire) star as father and daughter, David and Emily Calloway. When Mrs. Calloway kills herself, Mr. Calloway decides it\u2019d be good for his daughter for them to move to a creepy house, in the middle of the creepy woods, in creepy upstate New York. Things really get creepy when Emily tells dad about her new friend, \u201cCharlie\u201d, a character with clearly malevolent intentions.<\/p>\n
The mystery aspect of Hide & Seek is that we\u2019re supposed to try and figure out who \u201cCharlie\u201d is. Is he Emily\u2019s imaginary friend? Is he a real person? If he is a real person, then who? The neighbor? The landlord? Or is he just a really mean ghost?<\/p>\n
I think the premise of the movie is interesting enough, and could\u2019ve been better, in the hands of a more skilled screenwriter, but the way it plays itself out in Hide & Seek, I doubt there\u2019ll be many audience members sold on the thing. I can honestly say that I had \u201cCharlie\u201d pinned in the first 10 minutes of the movie, and I\u2019m guessing that most viewers will have one of two reactions. You\u2019ll either figure it out way too early, like I did (perhaps an indication that you watch entirely too many movies), or you\u2019ll feel like The Big Twist came so far from left field that it\u2019s just kinda silly. Either way, the pieces of the puzzle never completely fit together.<\/p>\n
If Hide & Seek is so bad, then how come I\u2019m not giving it an \u201cF\u201d? Because the movie, as a whole, isn\u2019t excruciatingly horrible \u2013 only the screenplay is. Director John Polson (Swimfan) is able to create a little tension, here and there (though he\u2019s no Shyamalan), and John Ottman\u2019s (X2, Gothika) original score is sufficiently spooky when it needs to be. More than anything else, this movie belongs to the actors.<\/p>\n
Even with a bad script, DeNiro seems incapable of turning in a poor performance. As solid as he is, he\u2019s actually upstaged by 10-year-old Fanning. She\u2019s really a talented young actress, and we should expect to see much more from her in the future. Sadly, based on the tragic lives of every other former child superstar, my psychic intuitions are telling me she\u2019ll be checking into rehab in about six years. Let\u2019s hope she bucks the trend.<\/p>\n
Hide & Seek was released in January for good reason \u2013 it\u2019s really not the best movie ever made. But if you\u2019re in a movie mood, and intent on heading to the multiplex, you could do much worse.<\/p>\n
Hide & Seek; 1:45; R, for horror and violence. Grade: C (Joe Weindl)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For those who might envy my position as film critic, let me fill you in on what my job entails. I sit alone, in near-empty theaters, looking for ways to pick apart movies that I usually have no interest in watching, all the while eating an unreasonable amount of popcorn. I tell you one thing \u2013 those self-serve butter dispensers that have been popping up around the nation are going to be the death of me. I might as well eat butter soup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}