You know what? The Fifth Element just is not good. It would probably be passable if not for one of the most annoying characters in movie history, that obnoxious radio announcer guy. I mean come on. I suppose he is meant to inject a bit of style and glamor into the whole science fiction genre but christ, what a screwup. It's either incredibly pretentious or just bad, take your pick. Speaking of incredibly pretentious or just bad, that scene with the diva is just awful. The music is bad, and the crappy house beat and the diva doing her little rave dance is just embarrassing. I don't want to be a bigot, but it just all seems so eurotrashy.

And while the premise "hot chick turns out to be the secret weapon that will save the universe!" sounds good on paper, the realization is just lame. Yes, Milla Jovovich is pretty and has some good moves, and is occasionally cutely funny in her (character's) efforts to speak English, but she doesn't really have the magnetism to hold your attention in the midst of a weak film. And a special award of shame should go to Gary Oldman, who can be very good, but who rapidly descends into awful when he's just playing a caricature of his other roles. And come on, how stupid a supervillain do you have to be to make a deal with an ever-expanding ball of dark matter that calls you on the phone and makes your forehead bleed? He may promise you wealth, but I'm pretty sure there won't be anywhere to spend it once he consumes the entire fucking universe. Wise up, man. And as long as we're nitpicking, just how big is this universe we're talking about? People seem able to zip from one end of it to the other in a couple of hours at light speed. I have news for you, it takes four years traveling at light speed just to get to the nearest star from here, never mind halfway across the galaxy to fight the expanding ball of dark matter guy.

On the other hand, some of that stuff early on in the New York of the future or whatever is nicely done. Bruce Willis's tiny apartment is comically amusing, ha ha. I know, this movie is supposed to be campy or whatever. Well hallelujah. Try Flash Gordon; now that's campy. This is just Luc Besson smoking too much weed.

Go to hell, Italo Calvino.

Here's what I don't like about Borges. His stories tend to be relentlessly meta -- they are usually in some way or other about themselves or about "Borges" or about the practice of writing itself. I don't have a problem with meta per se -- meta can be fun -- but the problem with Borges is that he would rather allude to a good story than actually tell it. He's like an inventor who prefers to just come up with the good idea and let someone else handle the details. A number of his stories involve a simple, even trite story at their center, which story is then described (rather than actually told) by some kind of narrator (sometimes named "Borges") or referred to in some kind of document discovered by some sort of anthropologist etc. This narrator or document will always allude to the story as being mysterious, significant, and/or interesting when it is, in fact, fairly trite and/or predictable. Typically this narrator or document would then him/itself be described, narrated, or alluded to by another layer of narrator, document, or so on (sometimes also named "Borges"). This second layer of narration will then call into question the reliability of the first layer, though without questioning the essential interestingness of the central (trite or simple) story. The whole layered onion typically then ends with murky questions of narratorial authenticity and a lingering sense that one has just experienced something meaningful and/or significant, a sense that dissipates if you actually think through what you've just experienced. This, then, is Borges.

To be fair, I've only read Labyrinths, and I did enjoy some of his ideas. But overall the thing kind of annoyed me, especially my second time through. I like to bash Borges but probably wouldn't have bothered if Wallace's Oblivion hadn't brought him powerfully (and annoyingly) to mind. The review of Oblivion is currently writing itself in my head, but this shot at Borges serves as its prelude or opening salvo.

1. Watch all the episodes of Dallas from that one "it was all a dream" season to get in the right frame of mind.
2. Write up the general outlines of an interesting story. Don't worry about an ending, you can take care of that later.
3. Cast some hot chicks and various weird-looking dudes to be in your movie.²
4. Remind yourself that you are like a Totally Misunderstood Genius.
5. Totally nail some awesome sound production and cinematography.³
6. Have the chicks get naked.⁴
7. Tell your hastily scribbled story in a masterful way, and draw out the characters interestingly in a way that makes the viewer really want to know how it ends.
8. Any cool or weird idea that occurs to you, film it and put it in the movie, especially if it would be really weird set to Roy Orbison music. Don't worry about what order the scenes should go in or how they relate to the story, you can take care of that later.
9. Realize you've run out of space to include an ending. Well don't worry, you didn't write one anyway.
10. Add the roy orbison music.⁵
11. If people are confused by your movie, hint that it's an exploration of the Dark Side of the Human Psyche and/or the Dream World that Reflects the Real Truth behind our Surface Lives, or something like that.
12. Remind yourself that you are like a Totally Misunderstood Genius.



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¹ Not actually by david lynch.
² If you can't find enough weird-looking dudes, dig up some washed up TV actors and cast them wildly against type. If you can't find any of those, use more Roy Orbison music, but sung in Italian.
³ Well, it can't hurt.
⁴ Ideally, in an uncomfortable situation in which the viewer (and optionally a naive protagonist who stands in for the viewer) is both aroused and repulsed and feels guilty for both the arousal and the repulsion. Or just make them lesbians.
⁵ In Italian, as appropriate.