Dreamers

They might as well back the Budweiser Clydesdales up to the Landmark Mayan as long as they're gonna dump this much horseshit on the screen. At least that would be fresher crap than The Dreamers. Good fucking God. What a lousy, self-important, draggy, worthless assload. The name of it name pretty much tells you the kind of lazy, overreaching nonsense you're gonna see. It's called The Dreamers and it's about kids who do nothing, let alone dream. Unless I've got dreaming and spouting sophomoric movie opinions confused.

I wanted to take my wife to see The Dreamers for Valentine's Day, because I heard it had lots of sex in it, and then maybe she'd get all hot and bothered and hump me right there on the sticky floor until the usher stopped us. No, she said, money's tight right now. So I went by myself. Man, can naked people be any less appealing? I didn't even want to hump myself after this mess..

And I had to think up something else to celebrate the Day of Love. It's so fucking romantic when it's 14 degrees outside, isn't it? When I lived in warmer climates, I would do naked interpretive dances for my paramours to celebrate our love. The dances never failed to scare the holy shit out of the girls.

I tried that once here in Arvada for my Mrs. Filthy and nearly snapped my frozen dick off when I spun out of control and hit the doghouse. I have to find other ways to show the Mrs. how much I love her, how much I appreciate each and every time she saves me every time I eat something shiny and poisonous and the way she pretends she doesn't notice when I fall into a drunken coma just inside the front door.

This year she's gotten me out of more scrapes than usual, and bought us our own home-use stomach pump, so I needed to be extra expressive. It's hard, though, on my budget. That is, a budget of whatever I can lift from her purse. What says "I love you" more than getting real value for the dollars you steal?

Nothing, that's what. But those fucking merchants really screw the romantic with high prices on everything they paint red or pink. So, I came up with an alternative plan. On Friday night, I drugged my lovely lady with antihistamines. They knock out my knockout bride in a minute flat. I think it's an allergic reaction because she turns red, too. Anyway, whenever she takes an antihistamine, she drools like a dog getting its teeth removed, but she looks sexier. Once she was sort of loopy, I fed her two bottles of Nyquil and tucked her into bed to let her sleep right through Valentine's Day.

Mrs. Filthy hasn't woken yet, but when she does, she's probably gonna pass right back out with joy. She won't know it's already the 15th, or that all this awesome shit I got her was 50% off by the time I bought it. And the Safeway still had a lot of good shit: two pounds of chocolates shaped like goats, eight bags of those chalky hearts, but with Internet emoticons on them, a silver balloon that says "Merry Christmas" (that was 75% off!), red latex gloves with hearts on them, and a Garfield card with some bullshit about him loving lasagna. I mean, they had so much good shit left, that I spent almost all her cash. She's gonna be so damn happy.

Meanwhile, let me tell you how fucking awful The Dreamers is. I mean, this is a movie where even the nudity will bore any horny boy older than 14. Michael Pitt plays an American college student in 1968 Paris. It is the height of the French cinema craze, and according the movie, the kids pack the Cinematheque every night to watch classic American movies. The country is on the verge of cultural revolution, starting with the movies and ending with communist uprising and protests of their Vietnam involvement. Pitt is befriended and then taken in by twin brother and sister, wannabe Bohemian Frogs played by Louis Garrel and Eva Green.

Pitt falls in love with the beautiful and well-endowed Green, much to the chagrin of her brother, with whom she has an ambiguously incestuous relationship. The twins sleep together naked, but they've never fucked. Once befriended, the three of them mostly stay locked in an apartment, fucking, walking around naked (Green looks fan-fucking-tastic in gauzy robes) and talking about how much they love movies. They constantly challenge each other over who knows the most about old movies. Occasionally we see that there is a revolution going on outside their windows, but the movie doesn't really give a rat's ass. Ultimately, Pitt gives Green the ultimatum of choosing between her brother and him.

By placing this slight story against the background of revolution, The Dreamers wants us to think it's profound and daring. Bullshit. The story is just a thin, creepy love theme that exploits the cultural and political revolutions of the time as a backdrop. The revolution is a disguise to fool us into thinking something deep is at work, when there is no depth. Mostly, the movie feels like the spooky fetishes of an old man played out as acceptably as possible so nobody catches on that he's a pervert. The soundtrack is heavy on Doors, and anytime the music of the world's most overrated band is needed to add weight to a story, it's in trouble.

The incest is brought up, hangs around the movie like a pervert at the fence of a grade school, but never really makes much impact. It sets up some awkward plot points, but its emotional resonance is zilch. And the constant nudity feels more self-congratulatory than necessary. Hell, it ain't even hot; it's just sort of depressing. Green has nice tits, but otherwise, these kids aren't fun to look at, and they're even less fun to listen to. Really, unless you have something to say, I don't cae how little clothes you have on. That's what makes Candy Bottoms' performance in Ass Tariffs so powerful; she's naked and getting double penetration, sure, but she's also speaks a convincing case against export taxes in the texitle industries.

The characters are jabbering bores. They skulk around an apartment, quoting and mimicking old movies, and having conversations that sound like kids trying to convince each they love movies, rather than sounding like kids who actually do love movies. A debate over who is better, Keaton or Chaplin, is not about that tpic, it's just a director trying to show us that he cares. He has no confidence in his ability to show it through anything original, I guess. The movie's big highlight is the characters imitating a run through the Louvre from A Band Apart. That's pretty fucking sad, a movie about kids whose lives are so empty they have to steal their highlights from elsewhere. Who in the world thought we would rather watch them than the originals?

As if to illustrate that a love of movies alone doesn't make you interesting, Bertolucci splices in clips from great old flicks that his characters are imitating. It doesn't enhance the movie. I thought I was being treated like a child too stupid to get the references on my own (or that getting the reference in some way mattered), and it showed me how far off the mark Bertolucci's imitation is. It might be flattery, but it's also really fucking bad entertainment. Sort of pretentious. You can love old movies, and respect old movies, but for God's sake, don't fuck the corpses.

The Dreamers' has nothing to say that hasn't been said already, and it admits it. That doesn't make it any better. One Finger for The Dreamers. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I hear my wife stirring.