Worst Movies Of All Time: February 2011

February 4, 2011 by Editor
Filed under Worst Movies Of All Time

Worst Movies Of All Time: February 2011

The Weather Man (2005)

Written By: Ken Knight
Mondo Film & Video Guide Feature Contributor

Arguably either a Box-Office “bomb” (it grossed a paltry 19 million worldwide) or a kitschy cult-film, THE WEATHER MAN starring Nicholas Cage is a strange film overall and one of those which despite hating it, one can’t seem to look away until the ending!

I did like it’s “climate” portrayal of cold snowy weather, icy river opening scene, and the general “winter” backgrounds not to mention the crass narratives (spoken by Cage himself) throughout the length of the film. Dave Spritz (Cage) is a TV Weather Man who is famous enough in Chicago to the point strangers throw sodas and fast food at him on the street and at first he doesn’t realize why such attacks occur. Estranged from his wife and kids, Dave Spritz carries out his mundane routine as a well-paid Weather Announcer with serious doubts as to where and why he’s going in life (kind of like those people you see walking by you with the mindless “thousand yard stare”) and like a teenager he doesn’t really know what he wants to do when he grows up though he realizes he is way-past adulthood and even his elderly dying father Robert (played by the legendary Michael Caine) takes care to admonish his only son David with rapier wisdom such as “Easy doesn’t enter into grown-up life” and points out the fact Dave’s young daughter wears her jeans too tightly and other kids are calling her “camel-toe” because of it.

Way too lenient with his son and daughter, Dave has to realize that his son’s trouble with drugs and delinquency at school just got the 15-year old in the crosshairs of a homosexual pedophile “Counselor” (who later tries to seduce the kid but Dave’s son fights him off) and the fact his daughter is an underage smoker with gender identity problems and a piss-poor wardrobe!

Leave it to Dave to be such a softie when it comes to shit like this, it makes the average viewer of the film yell at the screen for the character to grow a pair and fight back! One sex scene in this film has Dave Spritz dressed up as “Abe Lincoln” for a Weatherman public event later getting-it-on with a big-boobed blonde dressed as a German Beer-Wench in the motel room which was half-way decent with just the wench riding up and down on Dave’s manhood with one of her tits popping out of the costume she was still wearing (fantasy role-players might appreciate such a sex scene!).

Later during a “couples self-help” meeting where Dave and his estranged wife try to get help for better relations between them, Dave flunks an exercise in trust and reads his wife’s secret note about how she hated his failed fiction novel, then she reads his when he confronts her about it which detailed how during the course of their marriage her blowjobs “lacked enthusiasm”. She then goes on to tell him that her blowjobs lacked enthusiasm because she hated him all along! Long story short, his bitch-shrew of an ex-wife refuses to take him back and tells him she’s marrying a fat man named Russ.

The film then diverts to Dave’s desire to make amends with his dying father Robert and wants the old guy to “respect” him before he dies, not to mention the offer Dave has to go work for a News Station in New York City for $250,000 a year plus better benefits, although such a move would take him away from his family nonetheless.

At a “Living Funeral” held for Robert (Michael Caine) Dave lingers outside away from everyone else in the cold with his Bow and Arrow, even taking aim at his ex-wife’s new beau “Russ” (seen by his father and kids doing so) then he gets up to the podium to finally try and express his guilt and adoration to his father in front of everyone at the event, then the power goes out!

A Living-Funeral is one where the soon-to-be-deceased is gathered around by friends and family one final time in a “thanksgiving” atmosphere where everyone gets to pay their respects to the person before death (not a bad idea really) and Dave Spritz even screws this up, though he later finds time to have a word with his father before the actual funeral is held. I was bored stiff as a corpse during this portion of the movie, and though such a dram would fare okay in a novel, it’s dead-weight in a fictional film like this, thus adding to it’s dull continuity. The entire premise of this film revolves around the main character of Dave Spritz during a “mid-life crisis” catch is…he realizes he’s not happy with the life he’s lived so far and all of a sudden it’s too late to change certain factors this late in the game (a very real depression for some).

Yes, good plotline for a drama, but this film falls short of making a point of useful reference for any viewer who may actually “recognize” the character’s difficulty!

Nicholas Cage is a good actor all around, one of the few who can portray multiple personality roles and not just himself in every film (like Will Smith does) so I imagine he was really a good pick for the part of the meek beta-male character of “Dave Spritz” despite this film’s slow moving plotline that missed out on some points the viewer has to add in to make sense of it all. By the time his ex-wife Doreen (poorly acted by Hope Davis) finally rejects marital reconciliation and his $250,000 a year paycheck in favor of the lower earning lard-ass schmuck named Russ, the viewing audience is left shrugging their shoulders because by that time, really….who gives a shit?!

If I was Dave Spritz…I would have told my ex-wife to go give lousy blowjobs to her new retarded boyfriend and never call me again while I jet off to NYC and a $250,000 a year gig where I’d have one-night-stands with any hot female star-f*ckers that come around ~ all the while telling the rest of humanity to kiss my single ass (even if they continue to throw Big Gulp sodas at me!). Hey Dave, the way other people look at you no longer matters as long as the man staring back at you in the mirror every morning is smiling.