Sunday, January 01, 2006

First Review of Jovi Film Oeuvre: Pay It Forward




I have not seen the Film "Pay It Forward" in a while and I have only seen it once, so forgive any murkiness in my review. The most important aspect of the film, of course, is the fact that it featured our hero, Jon Bon Jovi, as the abusive, drunkard (what a stretch) boyfriend of Helen Hunt's character, boozebag cocktail waitress, Arlene.

Kevin Spacey plays teacher, Eugene Simonet, whose badly disfigured face contributes to his social ineptitude. This social awkwardness, however, certainly does not reflect on Simonet's ability to shape the minds and improve the lives of the youngsters in his tutelage.

At the beginning of the film, Simonet charges his studnets with quite a daunting assignment; "Think of an idea to change the world-and put it into action." (The teacher in me wants to ask a few questions...is there a rubric? how will the principal evaluate this lesson? what are the assessment tools? will the parents call and give me crap for this assignment? will I have to grade a ton of badly written papers?)

The wise-beyond-his-years and precaucious pupil, Trevor McKinney, gives birth to the idea of "pay it forward." This means that rather than pay a good deed back to the person who carried it out, turn to three others in need and pay the good deed forward. In theory, the idea is that those three individuals will also pay the good deed forward to three other people and so on.

Forgive me for not recalling fully the scene in which Jovi makes his appearance. Let's just say that in it, he breaks the bullshit pyramid of altruism of this foolish kid and roughs up Helen Hunt a little bit. For this alone, Jovi should have been nominated for and academy award. Somebody needs to slap Helen Hunt around!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, no more JOVI reviews without total details. Who cares about the punk that can see dead people. I only wanna know what Jovi contributes to these films. In this flick, Jovi plays Ricky, the father of the punk ass kid. Helen Hunt's character gives Ricky another chance and naturally, Ricky resorts to the hooch and his old mean spirited ways. One thing that always impressed me in this movie was the incredible cover up job that the make -up artist did on Jovi's arms. Tattos were completly covered up and virtually gone. I thought that was impressive. The moral of this film is to do something really big for someone then that person can repay you by "Paying it Forward". Considering my man, JBJ was in the flick, ( I dont care if it was for only 6 minutes and 12 seconds) You can "Pay it Forward" all you want as long as we can watch JBJ "Pay it Backward", Gotta love that ass!!

Canoes under my shoes said...

I haven't seen the movie but now that I know Helen Hunt gets slapped around in it, I just might have to make a trip to Blockbuster.

JoviFan said...

Good one, Laurita!

Anonymous said...

Actually, It's Helen Hunt that does the smacking. She smacks that little kid who sees dead people right across the mouth, he deserved it!!!