P.S. This Movie Sucks

Last evening, James, Christoph and I had ourselves a little movie night. In the past, we've watched such things as "Coffee & Cigarettes," "Strange Brew," "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," and a heck of alot of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Last night was a little different. We kicked things off with a great episode of MacGyver, and then followed it up with one of the worst movies I've ever seen... P.S. Your Cat is Dead.

They rented it knowing it was going to be pretty bad. Chris and James had chosen it because of its top billing: A film by Steve Guttenberg. It was also co-written and starred Guttenberg. For those of you who don't know who that is, he is basically a sub-par actor who spent the majority of his career on direct-to-TV Disney movies like "Tower of Terror," "It Takes Two," and "Zeus and Roxanne." He was also in the first four Police Academy movies and "Short Circuit." But it appeared as if this time, he was trying his best to turn his career around, become a serious actor/director, and break into the indie scene. Instead, he turned a crappy play into an even crappier movie that, while it tries to be as serious as can be, fails at the pudgy hands of Guttenberg's incapable acting ability.

The story goes something like this: Steve is a flopping actor who is failing miserable in LA. He comes home to find that his wife is leaving him, or something, and that he owes a mob (of gay latinos?) alot of money... or something. Then, he gets robbed, but catches the robber and ties him to a table in the kitchen. That is the set up for the whole movie (actually the movie begins with about 15 minutes of exposition narration, which is the scourge of all screenplays) which takes place mainly in Guttenberg's kitchen. Movies can be claustrophobic, or have a static setting, but they have to be done right. Movies can also be based on plays, but they have to be done right. A prime example is "12 Angry Men," one of my favorite movies of all time. However, this movie is pitiful in this execution. It's so obvious it was based on a play, and was very poorly translated to the screen. I had suspected it was a play even before I knew that it was, which is never a good thing. Some movies, like Mamet's "American Buffalo" are only obviously based on a play when they are looked back upon, after you've already watched them. But this film screamed it, from the top of Guttenberg's wealthy loft (which they refer to as a crappy apartment for some reason).

There were times during this movie where we couldn't help but laugh. Not because it was funny, but because Guttenberg is such a terrible actor. The film is supposed to be a comedy, but instead plays out like a morality play. The moral of the story is: don't ever watch a Guttenberg movie again.

Just to make sure you never go out and rent this movie, I'll break the ending to you... Guttenberg spends the evening with this robber tied to the table. At first they hate each other, then they find common ground and begin to have dialogue. Guttenberg finds out the robber is gay, and he begins to realize that he himself could possibly, maybe, be gay too... or something? Then these gay mobsters come in to collect money and possibly rape Guttenberg! (I'm not lying!) But then the robber comes to his rescue (like you didn't see that coming). Eventually the two of them make amends and he lets the robber go. Guttenberg watches the sun rise on his roof, which symbolizes a new start to his life. And then, surprise, the robber comes back to him, and the movie ends with those two on the roof together, looking off into the horizon of their lives. Holy, freaking, crap.

Please, don't shorten your life by watching this festering piece of rotting movie career. You may be fooled into thinking, "Hey, this looks indie and pretentious! And it was based on a play! This has to be worth seeing..." but I assure you its not. We should have seen this coming, we should have known to avoid it. The heading "A film by Steve Guttenberg" should have given it away. We should have watched Funky Monkey instead.