Anger Management

I sat in the cinema and despaired.

These situations were so unbelievable. Worse, they had been directed in an unbelievable way, with music that suggested it was subtle. And the most predictable jokes were so crass. I still have trouble comprehending how so many millions of dollars can be poured into a movie without any of it being spent on the script.

And that was just the trailer - thank God I didn’t have to sit through the actual film.

Fast-forward three years to tonight, and my evening pre-intermediate English class merged with the beginner class for a special film-night. The movie? …oh.

Oh well, maybe it wasn’t all that bad. Maybe it was brilliant. Perhaps I had hastily misjudged it.

I hadn’t.

***** CONTAINS SPOILERS *****

Steve Goble wrote:

I have just sat through a film that was perhaps even worse than Playtime. But no, nothing could ever be as bad as Playtime. Oh I don't know. I don't know anything. It's all still too fresh in my mind. It was called "Anger Management", and it was even worse than the trailer looked.

Its one redeeming feature was that, as I watched it with a class of Chinese people, I actually got paid to sit through it.

I can't make a living like this...

On 11/12/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

I'm off work for three weeks and I get paid for THAT! Go back to your two hour film, loser!

Steve Goble wrote:

Jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler. Sandler is a really timid guy who keeps getting accused of being violent, which he doesn't have the self-confidence to argue with. So the judge sentences him to spend 20 days with psychologist Nicholson who is really REALLY annoying. In lots of really unexpected rude ways. Even his girlfriend ditches him for the annoying guy.

And then, at the end, you'll never see this coming, it turns out that his girlfriend has hired Nicholson to deliberately wind him up to MAKE him lose his temper ALL ALONG, and everyone in the entire film is an actor who he'd employed - even the judge!

Oh for the love of God, newbie...

On 11/12/06, Herschel Krustofski wrote:

The only way this could have been worse is if you'd had to sit through it with Kelso's mother, Dr Cox.



And there it is. I tried to be positive, but this film simply wouldn’t let me. It just had everything not going for it. The sledgehammer cameo by John McEnroe as himself. The pretentious voice-over at the end to explain such a clever plot. The fake judge who we’re supposed to accept got paid to pronounce THREE SEPARATE fake sentences! Worst of all, the offended Buddhists getting angry because their god had been insulted. I mean, even I felt insulted!

Uuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr……..

On the other hand, the film’s central theme of a nice guy’s obliging nature being taken advantage of by others jarred with me a heck of a lot. After all, this film was stealing two hours of my life, and I was just sitting there letting it.