FOOL'S GOLD

FOOL'S GOLD:

Directed by Andy Tennant
(who was raised in Flossmoor, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.where my grandfather, my grandmother, my aunt,.and her family and my uncle and his family used to and those still above ground, still reside. Not something to be proud of but interesting to note).
Fool's Gold:
Reaping intelligent thoughts from a senseless, infantile, vacuous almost two hour extravaganza where the music, blessedly, over powers each scene and the characters never seem to touch solid ground literally nor figuratively, is the thankless job of a self designated film reviewer such as I
and here it is


PLOT:
A new clue to the whereabouts of a lost treasure rekindles a married couple's sense of adventure -- and their estranged romance.

With my initial commentary spelled out in the above prologue to this review, it will surprise no one that this film Fool's Gold is not really worth discussing per se. But it does bring up the notion of the quality of rhetoric in today's films.

Consistent with 2005 Hard Candy,(David Slade) where Ellen Page plays
Hayley Stark and Juno,(directed by Jason Reitman) where Ellen Page plays Juno, and Brian De Palma's 2007 Redacted (Inspired by one of the most serious crimes committed by American soldiers in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, the real-life rape and killing of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl by U.S. soldiers). is the simultaneous use of the "new' English language with speed and force reminiscent of the effect Rap first had on contemporary music .

This rapid fire New English is presented in the above mentioned films interspersed with the language of old, read to the viewer from books as if to tell us that the film makers also remember and love the English language as it used to be.

This juxtaposition of the new and the old is particularly striking in Fool's Gold because there, admits the dumbest plot, performed by serious actors forced into slick slap characters, we hear moments, maybe a full minute of the old written English with all the slow moving pronouncement that beautiful English used to demand.,

In Redacted Brian De Palma has his "don't ask/don't tell" character read to us from a book and then he has his macho, fat, sloppy, aggressive, domineering character speaking fast vulgar unforgettable dialogue. This juxtaposition in language is deliberate but I don't know what it means except perhaps to remind us there is more to music than Rap and more to English than the fast speak of today's youth.

It's almost enough to make a viewer want to stay home, take up a"good" book and read in the quiet of one's personal space.

But maybe not.

If you never want to have your feet touch solid ground or your mind engage in serious thought, I recommend Fool's Gold.

LindaZ
WBAI Women's Collective