Collateral Beauty is a real movie that actually played in theaters
December 15, 2016 6:33 PM   Subscribe

Maybe you'll be at a dinner. Maybe nobody will believe you. Or maybe they will, and someone will say, "Hollywood is terrible at making movies about trauma." The Village Voice reviews Collateral Beauty. [cw: death of a child, may contain spoilers]

Here's a promise few movies can make. If you sink two hours into Collateral Beauty now, it's guaranteed that for the rest of your life, when conversation stalls, you can save the night by asking, "Did you ever see that movie where Will Smith plays an ad executive so shut down with grief over the death of his daughter that his business partners — played by Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Peña — hire actors to confront him in public in the roles of Death, Time, and Love, the abstract concepts to whom he has been penning and mailing angry letters?"
posted by teponaztli (81 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's like Charlie Kaufman's brother tried to write a Nicholas Sparks movie.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:36 PM on December 15, 2016 [39 favorites]


"It's the kind of serious performance you sometimes see from Adam Sandler or Robin Williams when they've mistaken 'seriousness' for giving us nothing."

Damn that's good.
posted by griphus at 6:37 PM on December 15, 2016 [14 favorites]


Oh damn, I just noticed I used the wrong quote at the top there. Ah well, hope it's not too cryptic.
posted by teponaztli at 6:39 PM on December 15, 2016


I saw the trailer again when I went to see Loving, and knowing the full situation from this review made me laugh so hard I almost couldn't stop.
posted by minsies at 6:39 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


I am waiting with so much glee for the coming Flophouse episode.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:46 PM on December 15, 2016 [8 favorites]


Will Smith realllllllly wants an Oscar, doesn't he?
posted by codacorolla at 6:49 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


OK, every review I've read about this movie mentions that there are horrible, unbelievably bad plot twists. But they won't say what they are.

I have no intention of seeing this. Has somebody out there done the courtesy of explaining the twists so that I can indulge my morbid curiousity?
posted by nubs at 6:52 PM on December 15, 2016 [7 favorites]


"It's the kind of serious performance you sometimes see from Adam Sandler or Robin Williams when they've mistaken 'seriousness' for giving us nothing."

Punch Drunk Love is excellent. Also Popeye.
posted by gwint at 6:58 PM on December 15, 2016 [8 favorites]


“It's the kind of serious performance you sometimes see from Adam Sandler or Robin Williams when they've mistaken ‘seriousness’ for giving us nothing.”

Punch Drunk Love is excellent.

Aw man, I used to love Punch Drunk Love so much. Still do, kind of, still do. But then when I saw it with someone else and realized that Sandler’s actions, as beautiful and fumbling and awkward as they are in an abstract space, are in a more realistic realm the actions of a super creepy stalker guy who hunts a normal pixie dream girl to a different state. At that point it became a bit of an uncomfortable watch.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:04 PM on December 15, 2016 [9 favorites]


I have no intention of seeing this. Has somebody out there done the courtesy of explaining the twists so that I can indulge my morbid curiousity?

I went googling because I have the same curiosity. This review includes spoilers, but I've also rot-13'd them for you here.

N jbzna ur zrrgf ng n tebhc sbe orernirq cneragf vf erirnyrq ng gur raq bs gur zbivr gb or uvf rk-jvsr naq pb-cnerag bs uvf qrnq qnhtugre. Gurer'f n fprar ng gur raq gung fhttrfgf gung gur guerr npgbef ernyyl jrer fbzr xvaq bs zlfgvpny rzobqvzrag bs Ybir, Qrngu, naq Gvzr naq gung abobql ohg uvz ernyyl pbhyq frr gurz.
posted by Orlop at 7:10 PM on December 15, 2016 [14 favorites]


Okay, this movie sounds like an abomination and the spoilers make me angry for the time I've spent thinking about this story (the 10 minutes or so I've been reading these reviews) but man, do I love this picture of Helen Mirren in it.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 7:18 PM on December 15, 2016 [28 favorites]


I am sad that Helen Mirren is in this thing.

Anyway, reading reviews of it almost make me want to see it. Almost. On Netflix. While drinking.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:24 PM on December 15, 2016




NO SPOILERS MUCH, AMIRITE? I was so looking forward to seeing Helen Mirren actually play Death, thanks for fucking ruining it by letting me know she's just been hired by Will Smith's partners.
posted by Bringer Tom at 7:43 PM on December 15, 2016


Aww c'mon, Adam was pretty good in Reign Over Me
posted by scruss at 7:44 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


NO SPOILERS MUCH, AMIRITE? I was so looking forward to seeing Helen Mirren actually play Death, thanks for fucking ruining it by letting me know she's just been hired by Will Smith's partners.

…OR WAS SHE????
posted by Going To Maine at 7:44 PM on December 15, 2016 [13 favorites]


(Now you can go see it!)
posted by Going To Maine at 7:44 PM on December 15, 2016 [18 favorites]


commercials about dogs that befriend horses.

How does this have the gall to not be a link to what it should be?
posted by ODiV at 7:45 PM on December 15, 2016 [11 favorites]



commercials about dogs that befriend horses.


Fixed. Also I cry at that commercial so I guess I'll love this film. I'll spend my whole life wishing I could be as hip as the reviewers though.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:51 PM on December 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


That ad made me cry and laugh at the same time. Like, I'm a pretty sentimental person, but also on some level that's one of the weirdest things I've ever seen.
posted by teponaztli at 8:03 PM on December 15, 2016


I had to click on the ad just to make sure it wasn't some dogs-befriending-horses commercial that I hadn't already seen.
posted by Jeanne at 8:27 PM on December 15, 2016 [13 favorites]


Gah. The movie sounds horrifying.

Though I'm sure they're nothing more but the heaviest-handed metaphors for grief and human uselessness, those domino structures do look cool. Here is a nice article about the teenager who was the film's assistant domino artist.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 9:01 PM on December 15, 2016 [6 favorites]


Whoa whoa whoa, let's not bring dogs befriending horses into this.
posted by redsparkler at 9:01 PM on December 15, 2016 [33 favorites]


Not here for this dumb-seeming movie, always and forever here for dogs befriending horses.
posted by protocoach at 9:05 PM on December 15, 2016 [14 favorites]


Aww c'mon, Adam was pretty good in Reign Over Me

A favorite of mine, Sandler and Cheadle's performances were as nuanced and controlled as any dramatic actor ever. And how few movies dealt with 911 so directly? What years? It's a solid movie with fantastic performances.

The hate on Sandler's commercial jags/personal fortune are so tired. If he had stopped with albums and SNL sketches, it would be more than many. I'm glad he didn't and I'm not even a fan really.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 9:05 PM on December 15, 2016 [1 favorite]


"Did you ever see that xyz" is one of the most delightful conversation topics I can think of. Like, "did you ever read that book where the main characters get trapped in Hemingway's head as he ages backwards?"

"Did you ever see that movie with Will Smith" is good, too, though.
posted by steady-state strawberry at 9:09 PM on December 15, 2016 [2 favorites]


Without snark or derision intended, I'm honestly surprised that you other criers trust your immediate responses so much. I'll cry at a damn beer can floating down a dirty river if you put the right sad piano music behind it, and it's precisely because of that that I've become conditioned to question just how I'm being manipulated whenever the waterworks get going. I mean, a little bit afterwards, of course. A good cry is a good cry.
posted by invitapriore at 9:46 PM on December 15, 2016 [20 favorites]


I think my verbatim reaction to the trailer was "Is this Bruce Almighty, but a drama?"

Now I find out it's not even that? Boo.
posted by nonasuch at 9:48 PM on December 15, 2016


This review includes spoilers, but I've also rot-13'd them for you here.

The twists turned this whole thing around for me and now I think the screenwriter was ripped on loads of drugs and seeing if he could get away with the most intricately ridiculous idea possible and still get rich off it. I demand Primer-style flowcharts laying out the entire reality-space of the movie.
posted by naju at 9:49 PM on December 15, 2016 [5 favorites]


commercials about dogs that befriend horses.

So, my childhood actually did involve dogs and horses running around together and occasionally touching noses. (The horses were mostly just basic, sorrel quarter horses; the dogs were a shaggy, black and white farm collie, a brindled wolf hound, and a dachshund-corgi-lab mix.) Indeed, the horses sometimes went so far as to lick the dogs' noses, though this seemed to be the equine equivalent of "Oh, bless your heart," rather than a purely affectionate gesture.

That commercial makes me cry so much, in a way always threatens to turn into a ragged, shuddering, uncontrolled, snot-gush. Like, it slices through my heart and embeds itself in the bone in a way that is genuinely physically uncomfortable.

I still don't want to see this movie, though.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 9:53 PM on December 15, 2016 [15 favorites]


And wouldn't movie people know better than the rest of us how prohibitively expensive it would be to digitally scrape Helen Mirren from that subway footage where Smith rages at her? The detective filmed her from behind, standing right in front of Smith — a team of overseas CGI artists would have to render every fabric and fiber of Smith's scarf and jacket, just to pull this stunt off!

I haven't seen the scene, so maybe I'm misreading this paragraph, but wouldn't this be pretty easy to shoot without CGI? Film Smith yelling at the camera, without Mirren, and then another shot with her standing there?
posted by AFABulous at 10:08 PM on December 15, 2016


I haven't seen the scene, so maybe I'm misreading this paragraph, but wouldn't this be pretty easy to shoot without CGI? Film Smith yelling at the camera, without Mirren, and then another shot with her standing there?

I think the point is that, within the world of the movie, they wouldn't have the luxury of doing two takes. In the real world, I'm sure they did what you suggest, but within the reality of the movie the detective would have only had the footage in which Mirren was present and had to be erased, even if said erasure meant that a portion of Smith's body would have to be created digitally.
posted by nubs at 10:17 PM on December 15, 2016


two-sided Kandinksy
posted by stevil at 10:19 PM on December 15, 2016 [4 favorites]


Oh, that makes more sense, nubs. Thanks. That is an absolutely wacky plot, then.
posted by AFABulous at 11:20 PM on December 15, 2016


This movie sounds amazing--in the same way the tortured, "deep" stories I wrote as a preteen were amazing.

I can understand why bad movies get made. What I don't understand as much is how bad movies that are trying so hard to be good and important get made. I share the review's puzzlement that this passed by so many eyes without anyone going "wait..." Is everyone involved in the decision-making process just that, well, bad at it?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:48 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


teponaztli: "That ad made me cry and laugh at the same time."

This is the best kind of crying.
And the best kind of laughing.

It's like an emotional Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.
posted by chavenet at 1:56 AM on December 16, 2016 [7 favorites]


Yes they are. William Goldman observed years ago that nobody knows anything and that hasn't changed a bit.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:56 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


I think we also need the second puppy/clydesdale ad. Just, you know, for completeness.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 2:26 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


I was so looking forward to seeing Helen Mirren actually play Death

The elevator pitch for this movie might have began as "We should adapt Piers Anthony's Incarnations Of Immortality books as a series, either of tentpole movies or maybe on HBO", but somewhere along the line of development someone said "Yeah, those books aren't going to work on the screen, but there's some core ideas we can work with..." and then later in development someone said "Hrm, we've already had two versions of Joe Black, so maybe we don't REALLY need to have another movie about Death, so what if someone is faked out into believing they're talking to Death?" And then Will Smith's name came up, and he's obviously got some history with making movies that are inspirational and feelgood pieces, playing the magic negro here and there plus more than one movie about a dad struggling with family...

The movie was originally going to be Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara, so I guess bully on the development team for looking beyond white people for the multiple re-castings the movie went through. Shame it's earning a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 22/100 on Metacritic.

I'm amazed they didn't move the release date to mid-January. That's where they usually dump this kind of crap.
posted by hippybear at 2:39 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


I saw a trailer for this before watching Manchester by the Sea. If you are looking for a good cry, skip what ever it is that this is, and go see Manchester by the Sea (also about grief and trauma), it was excellent.
posted by walkinginsunshine at 3:28 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Thank you for posting that heavily-spoilered review. I love that level of detail and in this case especially, I truly believe it kept me from a traumatic experience of my own (had I ended up seeing the movie).
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:14 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


"I’d like to say Collateral Beauty is Smith hitting rock bottom, but then I remembered he was in a movie where his character committed suicide using a jellyfish."

That review is a staggering work of heartbreaking genius.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:17 AM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


It could well be that this is a terrible movie. Seems pretty likely, in fact.

But the premise isn't the problem. Throwing a bit of world-breaking absurdity into a film that isn't billed as a comedy is something I wish Hollywood would do more of. Just because we've decided serious literature cannot contain a plot doesn't mean we need to infect other media with the same artificial lack of imagination. "This script includes things that wouldn't happen in real life," is a pretty uncompelling reason to hate a film. Especially one that, by all accounts, seems to have gotten all the other parts of filmmaking wrong.

The only thing about this movie that actually sounds good is the synopsis. I suspect if the same plot had been made into a film by Hirokazu Koreeda or Tom Tykwer it would have been fantastic, and the critics stumbling over themselves to slam the concept rather than its execution would have agreed.

But then, I also remember enjoying What Dreams May Come, so perhaps I'm just a sucker for this sort of thing.
posted by eotvos at 4:18 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


What Dreams May Come had really great visuals to make it worth at least a mild shroom viewing. (I also remember liking it, but I have only seen it once.)

I do wonder what a different director or DP might have done with this exact same script. Zemeckis? Burton? Haynes? PTAnderson? or maybe del Toro? (hehehe)

I was actually thinking recently that I sort of wish movies were like jazz. I was actually thinking about how Van Zant remade Psycho shot for shot, and was thinking, what if there was the same screenplay, but it was given to different directors? Or what if directors from today decided to take old screenplays and remake them today?

I also had the same thought about film editors, who actually are the people who create what we see on the screen much more than the director or actors (but who are at the mercy of the DP). What if the same batch of raw footage from a movie shoot were given to several different editors? That would also be a fascinating expression of individuality around a central theme, like in jazz.

It's all just a thought experiment as I don't conceive of this happening often if ever, but I do sort of like the ideas.
posted by hippybear at 4:29 AM on December 16, 2016 [8 favorites]


Okay that second puppy ad is some bullshit. How the hell did that trailer door open in the middle of the intersection to let the puppy out? Huh? How? Neither the horse nor the puppy can open doors, and the guy was busy driving the truck. Jesus. And horses are apparently no longer scared of wolves.


Also Collateral Beauty sounds like a box of shit.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 4:59 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


on the one hand, i understand that the trailer was the way it was, because the plot is so byzantine that it would be impossible to condense into a coherent two minutes, but on the other hand it makes you think that the filmmakers thought that the reveal that the avatars of Big Concepts were actors hired in an attempt to defraud a business partner would be a charming surprise to the audience?
posted by murphy slaw at 5:04 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm pretty sure the true art of this film is in inspiring all the really awesome, snarky, hilarious, and brilliant reviews I'm seeing of it.

Like the whole cast are going to wait until this thing wins a Razzie, and then they'll all show up together to accept the award, and their acceptance speech will be Helen Mirren, going "and... scene!"
posted by Naberius at 5:05 AM on December 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


also i haven't had coffee yet
and i realized that while i was reading the review i was visualizing Martin Short every time i read Edward Norton's name
and then i realized that every Edward Norton movie would be 100x better if it starred Martin Short
posted by murphy slaw at 5:16 AM on December 16, 2016 [10 favorites]


murphy slaw after seeing him cavort joyfully through Hairspray Live last week I agree in such copious amounts it cannot be quantified.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 5:28 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


MetaFilter: It's like an emotional Reese's Peanut Butter Cup
posted by briank at 5:33 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Is everyone involved in the decision-making process just that, well, bad at it?

A lot of times, when truly obviously shitty scripts get made, it's because an A-lister decided to make it. This is almost certainly Will Smith's fault, in a Battlefield Earth kind of way.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:47 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


also what is the movie where will smith commits suicide with a jellyfish, i must add it to my netflix queue
posted by murphy slaw at 5:47 AM on December 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


Without snark or derision intended, I'm honestly surprised that you other criers trust your immediate responses so much. I'll cry at a damn beer can floating down a dirty river if you put the right sad piano music behind it, and it's precisely because of that that I've become conditioned to question just how I'm being manipulated whenever the waterworks get going. I mean, a little bit afterwards, of course. A good cry is a good cry.

I have this problem with, of all the fucking embarrassing God damn things in the world, that stupid fucking awful Christmas Shoes song. It will ROUTINELY make me SOB EVEN THOUGH I know it is just awful schlocky drek, just the God damn worst. Even knowing this, even knowing that it is terrible and bad and manipulative and stupid and awful I STILL FUCKING CRY AT IT. WHY? This might actually be one of the most embarrassing things about me and please believe me when I say that it is not a short list.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 5:57 AM on December 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


murphy slaw, that would be Seven Pounds, which when I saw it, I couldn't make up my mind if it was brilliant or stupid. It's a well-executed example of whatever it is, though.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 6:22 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


What Dreams May Come ... I do wonder what a different director or DP might have done with this exact same script.

I worked on that, and it turned out that no one did anything with "the exact same script." The actual script ending was a tragic downer, and from the beginning the director insisted that, "The ending stays this way!"

To make sure that the ending wouldn't change, he tore down all of the gigantic sets for the last part, while keeping the sets for some other scenes that he hoped to tweak, (but was never allowed to.)

Sure enough, bad audience testing feedback, and they changed the ending without him, and that's why it switches to 60 minutes-style tight close ups on faces in the last couple of scenes.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:32 AM on December 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


I feel like the plot is a love letter to capitalism-- "if you want to get rid of your business partner/boss, gaslighting him during his earthshattering grief until he is declared mentally incompetent is truly the most LOVING thing to do! Plus, stock options!" It is actually kind of helpful to me, to think that venture capitalists think of themselves as soft-focus Kate Winslets.

(Also, if the plot is "have Will Smith committed so we can steal his company and his freedom/bodily autonomy", but one of the other partners is dying, and another one is planning to go on maternity leave, does that make Edward Norton even more of an evil genius? Sequel: he steals Kate Winslet's sperm donor baby and replaces it with a changeling, has her declared mentally incompetent. Also he shows up to the reading of Michael Pena's will, and everyone discovers that all of his wealth has been left to EDWARD NORTON MWAHAHA.)

In a way, this movie sounds like it accidentally confirms a very dark truth: when you are grieving, everyone around you wants you to just go away and stop reminding them that you are in pain. Go away. Vanish.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 6:33 AM on December 16, 2016 [13 favorites]


Wow. I've seen a couple of trailers for "Collateral Beauty", and based on those I was pretty sure I wouldn't end up seeing it...I think Will Smith is a terrific actor, but I don't trust his instincts in selecting what he films he chooses to make. On the other hand, the rest of the cast was pretty damn impressive, and the premise was the type of thing that could go either schmaltzy or amazing. So I made a note to wait and hear how the reviews turned out.

That they're bad isn't all that surprising...like I said, I wasn't expecting to go see this anyhow. But the specific information about the plot is kind of shocking. Like, it's such an obviously misguided concept. "This guy's friends and coworkers are going to gaslight him into processing his grief" is an idea fit only for the blackest of black comedies. It's such a tone deaf idea right on the face of it that I can well understand why the trailers are at such pains to disguise that this is in fact the plot.

"A man is enabled to process his grief over the death of his daughter through a series of encounters with gods" is an idea that, like I said, could turn out incredibly cheesy. But it could also turn out great. The plot that they do have, by comparison, simultaneously requires you to accept that most people are shitty, dishonest sociopaths *AND* that it's all really heartwarming.
posted by Ipsifendus at 6:38 AM on December 16, 2016


dogs that befriend horses.

Fixed. Also I cry at that commercial so I guess I'll love this film.


To defend Richard Roeper, which is odd for me because he's generally my least-favorite local critic, the rest of that quote says:

It’s quite possible “Collateral Beauty” will move you to tears. Then again, it’s quite possible you’ve been moved to tears by commercials about dogs that befriend horses, viral videos where students surprise a retiring teacher with a musical tribute and/or violently yanking out one of your own nose hairs.

All three of those examples go about earning your emotions in a more legitimate way than this nonsense.


Though he's still not giving dog and horse friendships enough credit, I think this is a pretty great way to end a review of a horrible movie. Roger Ebert would be proud.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:48 AM on December 16, 2016 [9 favorites]


The plot that they do have, by comparison, simultaneously requires you to accept that most people are shitty, dishonest sociopaths *AND* that it's all really heartwarming.

Sounds like Love Actually.
posted by codacorolla at 6:50 AM on December 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


I love this article. It's an inspired conceit.
posted by putzface_dickman at 6:53 AM on December 16, 2016


I'm trying to work out how disturbed I should be that the background songs in both dogs-befriending-horses commercials are about adult romantic relationships.
posted by BrashTech at 6:58 AM on December 16, 2016


Okay, this movie sounds like an abomination and the spoilers make me angry for the time I've spent thinking about this story (the 10 minutes or so I've been reading these reviews) but man, do I love this picture of Helen Mirren in it.


i would pay full price for a movie that featured helen mirren in that outfit, either fronting a punk band of septuagenarians, using kung fu on nazis, or both.
posted by murphy slaw at 7:02 AM on December 16, 2016 [16 favorites]


With this movie, and probably from now on every shitty movie that Helen Mirren has the misfortune to be in, I'll think, she could have done this movie instead.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:06 AM on December 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


I don't always pay a lot of attention to TV, so when I first saw the ads for this movie, I briefly thought it had something to do with Michael Mann's excellent 2004 film, Collateral. It still sounds like Collateral Beauty would be improved by Tom Cruise showing up and shooting some people.
posted by liet at 8:04 AM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


I knew this movie was trouble when the first ad I saw for it wasn't even a "trailer" in the conventional sense of "assorted clips from the film strung together," but instead was just clips of the actors talking about how "powerful and moving" it is. Like, you haven't even shown me a second of actual footage but you're already telling me how I'm supposed to feel about this movie I haven't seen?

That, and that title. You just know what happened is some marketing person thought up that title, thought it was a perfect name for an "inspirational movie," then the story got figured out later.
posted by dnash at 8:05 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


"i would pay full price for a movie that featured helen mirren in that outfit, either fronting a punk band of septuagenarians, using kung fu on nazis, or both."

If you want you some Helen Mirren in (and out of) some interesting outfits, you really need to see The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.
posted by TwoToneRow at 8:11 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


That, and that title. You just know what happened is some marketing person thought up that title, thought it was a perfect name for an "inspirational movie," then the story got figured out later.

I almost hope this is true because the despite all the other awful and treacly things about it, the title is definitely the thing I'm most offended by in this movie I've never seen. I was glad to read in a review that there is, of course, a scene in which somebody uses and explains the term because it means at least something in the world still makes sense to me.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:27 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


It still sounds like Collateral Beauty would be improved by Tom Cruise showing up and shooting some people.

Hired killer Tom Cruise follows Kevin Spacey around for a night, but he mostly just jerks off in the shower.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:46 AM on December 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


You just know what happened is some marketing person thought up that title,

What the bleep is that title even supposed to mean? It sounds like bad corporate-speak left to cure overnight in some inspirational brine.
posted by praemunire at 9:01 AM on December 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


i assume it's supposed to be a play on "collateral damage", but just no.
posted by murphy slaw at 9:14 AM on December 16, 2016


Exactly. Some pseudo-artist one day went "what if, like, you took 'collateral damage' but instead of 'damage' it was, like, beauty!"
posted by dnash at 9:22 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


One of the best things about the film Collateral was all the people coming in to the video store where I worked and accidentally renting Collateral Damage instead.
posted by ODiV at 9:25 AM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Aw man, I used to love Punch Drunk Love so much. Still do, kind of, still do. But then when I saw it with someone else and realized that Sandler’s actions, as beautiful and fumbling and awkward as they are in an abstract space, are in a more realistic realm the actions of a super creepy stalker guy who hunts a normal pixie dream girl to a different state. At that point it became a bit of an uncomfortable watch.

I loathe basically every Sandler film with their mawkish man-child idiocy, but people kept telling me that PDL was 'the GOOD Sandler film, it's not a comedy, it's different blah blah blah'. I gave it a shot. It is EXACTLY the same as every other Sandler film, with the same 'manchild idiot behaves like a belligerent loon to get the girl', except they edited the cinematography as a drama instead of a comedy. It's 'Big Bang Theory without Laughtrack' as a film.

'Funny People', on the other hand, is a much better film with Sandler in it playing himself as a complete hack cranking out garbage comedies as his empty life withers around him. The only downside of Funny People is that it has a bit too much Sandler in it.

tl;dr i can't stand sandler
posted by FatherDagon at 9:31 AM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Some pseudo-artist one day went "what if, like, you took 'collateral damage' but instead of 'damage' it was, like, beauty!"

Someone was trying to riff off of whoever went from "random acts of violence" to "random acts of kindness" is my guess.
posted by nubs at 9:32 AM on December 16, 2016


Halloween Jack: "With this movie, and probably from now on every shitty movie that Helen Mirren has the misfortune to be in, I'll think, she could have done this movie instead."

Everybody should go ahead and click that link and read it. It's brilliant. I would watch that movie.

Matt Bomer plays Helen Mirren’s sadder-but-wiser ex, computer-savvy, gorgeous but still single, fiercely independent (but it’s all an act).

Helen Mirren shows up on his doorstep to ask him for one last hacker job, for old time’s sake. Matt hauls off to slap Helen in the face, but Helen catches his wrist, pulls him close, and kisses him long and hard. Matt struggles at first but finally melts into her embrace.

Lucy Liu strolls past them into Matt’s chic apartment, slapping Matt on the ass as she mutters “Some things never change, do they?”

posted by chavenet at 9:40 AM on December 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


I worked on that, and it turned out that no one did anything with “the exact same script.” The actual script ending was a tragic downer, and from the beginning the director insisted that, “The ending stays this way!”

The original What Dreams May Come Ending was on the extras DVD, it is on bonkers amazeballs in the most terrible way (if my college memories are accurate), and it is on YouTube.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:27 PM on December 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


"The elevator pitch for this movie might have began as "We should adapt Piers Anthony's Incarnations Of Immortality books as a series, either of tentpole movies or maybe on HBO", but somewhere along the line of development someone said "Yeah, those books aren't going to work on the screen, but there's some core ideas we can work with..." and then later in development someone said "Hrm, we've already had two versions of Joe Black, so maybe we don't REALLY need to have another movie about Death, so what if someone is faked out into believing they're talking to Death?" And then Will Smith's name came up, and he's obviously got some history with making movies that are inspirational and feelgood pieces, playing the magic negro here and there plus more than one movie about a dad struggling with family... "

I was googling around to see if this cod spirituality was written by a Scientologist, because Smith, obvs. Turns out it was written by Allan Loeb, the definition of a hack screenwriter, as an attempt to rewrite It's A Wonderful Life with elements of A Christmas Carol. Given the reviews, it may be safe to assume that this rewrite happened during a prolonged ether binge.
posted by klangklangston at 2:06 PM on December 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


i would pay full price for a movie that featured helen mirren in that outfit, either fronting a punk band of septuagenarians, using kung fu on nazis, or both.

Can we have two standalone movies with Mirren and Swinton separately, then the crossover Mirren V Swinton? Maybe three movies followed by Mirren V Swinton V Dench? Essentially I would like the entire upcoming DC cinematic universe replaced by British women actors over 50, it would be a huge improvement.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:41 PM on December 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


In a similar vein there is Noel (2004), where Paul Walker, Susan Sarandon, Penelope Cruz, Robin Williams, and Alan Arkin... ah, I won't spoil it. It is an excellent watch for some reason. Not any of the intended reasons.
posted by benadryl at 6:58 PM on December 16, 2016


When films in the 1970s and 1980s got weird and wrong, you could easily explain it: "Too much cocaine." Now, I can't really find an explanation for Collateral Beauty, except perhaps "Too much Scientology."
posted by jonp72 at 10:16 AM on December 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


It can still be 'too much cocaine.'
posted by teponaztli at 12:30 PM on December 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


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