Archives for April 2003

Do you know what really annoys me? People who speed their way through teacher/instructor evaluation forms. These people lose forever the privilege of complaining about a teacher. People don’t realize how much these forms effect change. If a teacher gets an average rating of “below average,” the higher-ups are going to take notice. And no teacher is perfect… so even if you love your teacher, don’t just “excellent, excellent, excellent” your way through it and call it a day. They really cherish constructive criticism written on the back. You might think “well what good is it going to do me? I’m already done with the course!”… but it’s that same attitude last semester that caused the teacher’s problems to go unnoted and hence become your problem this semester. The only thing worse than a bad teacher is a bad teacher who doesn’t realize there is a problem. And the only thing better than a good teacher is a good teacher who wants to improve even more. It’s 5 minutes of your time. Suck it up.

Apparently it’s okay to release a movie about a sniper now. I’m sorry if I’m insensitive, but America needs to chill out. Bad things happen. Sometimes bad things make for a good conflict in a movie. People aren’t making movies to mock you or to trivialize your loss.

Anyway, Phone Booth is finally out, and it’s definitely worth a watch. My review:

Phone Booth is a movie for those who would like to see the potential of the film format of entertainment. There’s no glitz, no super-cool special effects, no soundtrack that you’re going to rush out to buy. This is a movie that seems to be created just to see how far a bare bones budget, some acting talent, and an utterly simplistic script can get you. How far? Pretty far. Here’s the premise. Stu Shepard is a publicist, and a jerk. He lies to others to advance his goals, and he lies to himself because it’s the only way he’s able to live with his pathetic facade of a lifestyle. He toys with the idea of cheating on his wife, just because it makes him feel better just to know that he could, if he wanted to. Yet he takes his ring off when he calls his platonic girl on the side, and he makes the call from a phone booth, because he’s paranoid that his wife will check his cell phone bill and notice one single number among the hundreds of phone calls he makes a month (he makes 4 phone calls in the span of 2 minutes in the opening scene). Oh yeah… the phone booth. This is where the movie takes place. Get comfortable, because for the next 70 minutes, this booth is your home. After hanging up on his girlfriend-hopeful, Stu is called back to the booth to answer its ring. On the other line? The telemarketer from hell. He knows Stu’s name, job, wife, girlfriend, everything. But he doesn’t want a donation, he doesn’t want a few minutes of Stu’s time for a survey. He wants to change Stu’s life. Did I mention he has a gun? The situation escalates from a mere “say you’re a bad person or I’ll shoot you” interaction into a multi-pronged drama. Hookers want the phone. The man on the phone thinks it’d be a good idea to shoot someone and blame it on Stu. The cops want to arrest him, but don’t see the gun, and don’t want to risk taking him down in the middle of NYC. Stu’s wife shows up. Then his girlfriend. Phone Booth is a short movie, but it will have you glued the whole time. There is not a slow spot to mention, despite that the movie unfolds in real time (or very close to it). Colin Farrell (“The Recruit,” “Minority Report”) lends a strong lead performance, New York accent glitches aside. When he finally breaks down, it is convincing, and moving. Because Stu is portrayed from the start as a jerk, you don’t fear for him, but in his moment of weakness, when he lets his cool exterior crumble, you can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. The voice on the other end of the phone is marvelously provided by Kiefer Sutherland (most notable for his award-winning lead in the television drama series “24.”) When audio tracks are put together for movies, the dialogue usually comes out of the front center speaker, but in a smart move, Kiefer’s voice comes in stereo, providing an eerie omnipresence to his invisible character. Sutherland’s dialogue was recorded after primary filming, yet the interaction between the two main characters sounds decidedly natural. When the cops arrive on the scene, fingering Shepherd as the perp, they are headed by Captain Ramey (Forrest Whitaker), a lonely man haunted by the loss of life incurred in his last standoff. The movie doesn’t provide any of the usual Hollywood twists. No one is pregnant, The Caller isn’t an old enemy of Stu’s, and there isn’t some lame “one year later” scene showing how everything wrapped up. You are left to your own conclusions, and the movie is better because of it.

If you get a chance, it’s definitely worth a look. Give it a rent when it comes out, if theaters aren’t your thing. Even if it doesn’t wow you, who cares? It’s barely an hour long. It’s earned a place next to “Following” in my now two-movie-long list of “good short films made with a small budget.”

Interesting sidenotes: Alfred Hitchcock wanted to direct Phone Booth, after the idea was concocted by him and writer Larry Cohen 30 years ago. Unfortunately, the script was not finished in Hitchcock’s lifetime.

Stephen Spielburg turned the script down because he was busy with other projects, but afterwards he said “I’m still kicking myself for not getting that script. If Hitchcock were alive he’d want to direct [it].”

Mel Gibson wanted to star in it, but the deal fell through, although some of his ideas were used in the final script.

Will Smith wanted the lead, as did Jim Carrey. Luckily for the film, they were busy with “Ali” and “The Majestic.”

Phone Booth was filmed in 10 days in Los Angeles in December, 2000. Fox wanted to wait until Colin Farrell’s career took off before they’d let him headline a movie. But Hart’s War, and American Outlaws sucked, so they had to wait until Minority Report. But then the DC Snipers were on the loose and no network would take ads for the film, so once again it was shelved. As it turns out, the final version is different than the 1st version shown to reviewers. I guess they thought with more than 2 years of sitting on the shelf, the least they could do was fix some of the small editing problems pointed out by reviewers.