It seems that I've seen a few mediocre if not wretchedly bad movies lately, which is certainly not part of the plan. However, just as last year's recording of everything I read, I'm trying to be honest and not gloss over my reading/viewing habits for the year. The other night I decided to give another chance to a movie that I had watched a few years ago and truly disliked: Atom Egoyan's 2005 dud Where the Truth Lies. It popped up on the Criterion Channel as disappearing at the end of June (it was part of an Atom Egoyan collection) so I thought I'd give it a re-watch before it disappeared into the ether. I think I may have disliked it more the second time. I think it's supposed to be a sexually charged murder mystery, but it's really just a mess. Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth play a Lewis & Martin team who are popular in the 1950s, and there's a dead woman shows up in their hotel room, and the mystery is not solved, sort of, until the 1970s. Allison Lohman, who played the reporter, received a fair amount of critical scorn for her performance, but she's far from the biggest problem with this utter misfire. I guess the thing that bothered me the most is that this is Atom Egoyan, FFS (this makes his film Chloe seem like a towering cinematic success). It's just so difficult to reconcile this effort with the Atom Egoyan who directed The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica and Calendar and Family Viewing, etc. I saw that it was based on an novel by Rupert Holmes, and I suddenly thought, "Wait, not that Rupert Holmes the guy who wrote the Pina Colada Song and Timothy (the cave-in cannibalism song, which I still passionately argue is the worst song ever written)?" Yes, that Rupert Holmes. I'm happy he's making a living, but, wow, that's a heavy weight of cultural degradation that he's forced to carry around. Anyway, do not, under any circumstances, watch Where the Truth Lies.
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