Shia, Shia, Shia

I rented Disturbia yesterday. Yes, it's a typical "Rear Window" kind of plot with a "dramatic twist" that's really hard to believe. When the movie came out I wasn't going to be caught DEAD watching it, since, really, it sounded to MENTAL, but now I have decided to give it a shot for one reason and one reason only: Shia. Well, he does look lovely, I must say. The plot is... bad. First: kid loses his dad in a car accident. But what an accident! Ain't your Alstate kind of advertisting accident, but a vicious kind of accident, which you pretty much see at the end of the movies as the finishing touch of a car chase. (Good thing they did a better and more believable job in Eagle Eye.) Second: boo-hoo, the poor kid becomes a bad student because he's still mourning his father and it's a touchy issue... yadda-yadda-yadda... can't you really come up with something more "original" and less "movie pre-aproved formula, tested on millions of viewers! Get it NOW!"? I mean...

"Problems finding a plot for a multimillion movie? No ideas whatsoever? Would like to catch your audience and make it believable? Well, here's your solution! Every moviemaker's and screenplay writer's dream! All the movie formulas you've ever wanted to create emotion, excitement, believable plots and drama, as well as comedy into a 90 minute feature! Don't sweat it, buy it! Hitchcock style, Coppola style, Allen style, Polansky style... chick-flick, action-movie, summer blockbuster... all the masters and all the fashionable styles proven to land you an award or two. Call Now!"

Well, "Disturbia" took a classic, shaved it to it's basic blocks and rebuilt it entirely with formula's. The distressed teen, the hot girl next door who swims in skimpy bikinies every day... and what to do with the "home restriction"? Oh, that was brilliant. Though they could have gone for the original "broken leg" thing, they decided that it was much funnier to make the kid stay at home under house arrest. Okay, that's cool, specially when they include that audience trap where you hear the dude make "happy noises" in the bathroom, first see a chair rocking in rhythm with the insistent groaning, and then it turns out he's scratching! The strangest way to scratch, by the way. However, how do you get this kid, a nice kid into house arrest? Easy, by punching his teacher. O_O Sorry, but I find that one very, very hard to believe. Add to it, he's in house arrest exactly through all the summer. Can you be more cliché?

Have not finished watching it, honestly, maybe today, but then again, I'm watching it for the guy, not the plot, so why do I complain? Man, because I may like this dude, but can't he pick better movies? And on top of that, why can't movie makers make more decent movies? If I weren't so allergic to writing screenplays (I'm entirely a prose writer), I'd scribble up something and donate it to some movie studio. For real.