July 30, 2004
HOME IS WHERE THE CRAP IS
When Judgment Day comes, I suspect women will have quite a bit to answer for. Sure, men will still have to own up to wars, oppression, and NASCAR. Yes, we had Hitler (who long ago dropped Adolf and just goes by one name, like Beck) and Billy Ray Cyrus (who still goes by three, like Lee Harvey Oswald). But women have romantic comedies and Reese Witherspoon.
A tad harsh, you say? Oh really? Have you seen SWEET HOME ALABAMA? You have? I'm sorry.
At this point, you could quite reasonably point out that, while Ms. Witherspoon simply starred in SWEET HOME, this film was actually written and directed by men, to which I would respond that you're totally wrong. The film is credited to two people with masculine-sounding names. In fact, the film's screenplay was generated by an expensive computer program, called ScriptHack, invented in 1988 as a simple way to crank out Kickboxer sequels for Jean-Claude Van Damme. The programmer simply plugged in the script to the Sylvester Stallone epic Over the Top, replaced each appearance of "arm wrestling" with "kicking," and then had the computer rearrange the dialogue at random. Before anyone thought to shut it down, the program churned out somewhere in the realm of 16,000 kickboxing scripts, only about half of which were ever filmed.
ScriptHack was so successful that it was secretly adapted to other genres besides kickboxing, though the original Over the Top template has remained. Stallone would likely be surprised to learn that his plucky, personal film about the dog-eat-dog world of men who like to hold hands was actually responsible for, among others, Meet the Parents, Batman Forever, and indeed everything Joel Schumacher's ever filmed, though at this point, Stallone is probably surprised by toast.
For Sweet Home Alabama, ScriptHack was bolstered with "Southern Sass" plugins, for just the right mix of Deep South jargon and stereotypes. Characters named Earl, Elvin and Bobby-Ray actually spout dialogue like "You can't ride two horses with one ass, sugar bean." I fully expected Witherspoon to break into "Zip-a-dee Doo-Dah" at some point.
As for the direction, the movie wasn't so much directed as it was filmed. In his commentary, director Andy Tennant admits to being blasted on crack and "X" during the entire shooting, and indeed while he signed on to do this film as well. (You have to read between the lines a bit to get this, as Tennant never actually, you know, comes out and says it. But if you listen closely, you can hear the studio VP holding a gun to the director's whimpering wife and children in the background.) How else could you explain signing on to do a "romantic comedy" that begins with two children getting struck by lightning, and originally ended with the lead faking her own death at her wedding? Add a chorus and some incest, and this could have been a lost Greek tragedy.
Come to think of it...
ALABAMA's plot concerns Melanie Carmichael, played by the incessantly perky Ms. Witherspoon. Melanie has shunned her Southern roots in order to become a big-time fashion designer in New York, where people believe that Southerners all have mullets and drive pickup trucks with hound dogs in the back around rustic cities that still haven't paved their roads. And, according to this film, they'd be dead-on.
Melanie has to secure a divorce from her scruffy, hound-dog-owning husband Jake so that she can marry Patrick Dempsey, who is rich and has great hair. Of course, Melanie returns to Alabama, rediscovers her neglected Southern ways (and accent, occasionally), falls back in love with her husband, and then both of them go on a nine-state killing spree before being brutally gunned down by the FBI in front of a diner.
No, no, of course that didn't happen, though I really wish it had. Besides making the movie infinitely more interesting, it also would guarantee us that there could never possibly be a sequel. I shudder to think what other Lynyrd Skynyrd songs are just waiting to be plundered. Sweet Home 2: Gimme Three Steps, in which Ms. Witherspoon returns as Melanie, only to discover that she has another, even scruffier husband living in Georgia? Sweet Home 3: Free Bird, wherein we discover that Melanie accidentally married the Atlanta Falcons defensive line, and is convicted of violating federal bigamy laws?
Naturally, this would lead to Sweet Home 4: Saturday Night Special, where Melanie finally finds true love in federal lockup with a hulking bank robber named Edna.
Finally: a movie both sexes could agree on.
NEXT WEEK: You wanna know what movie totally sucks? CITIZEN KANE.
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