UNCLE DON’S VIEWS OF NIL REPUTE

The flick I saw on Saturday was, is and will continue to be the worst

movie of 2001. It is arguably the worst movie of the new century. I

should beat my editor’s pointed little head for making me go see it.

Sitting peacefully at the office last week, the phone rang. There was

an evil voice on the other end pleading for a column. “Would you review a

movie for me,” the voice begged.

Then the bad ideas started their way out. How about “Hardball” --

great, the “Bad News Bears” again -- or “Rock Star,” starring some not

very new kid on the block. Maybe “Glitter”? Oh Lordy, not Mariah Carey.

We ended up settling on “The Glass House.” Something about innocent

kids and evil stepparents. Sounded good.

“The Glass House” is about the Glass house. Oh, not a glass house, but

the Glass house. Yup, it seems as though some family by the name of Glass

lives in this glass house. That, folks, is as deep as it gets in this

mind-boggling awful excuse of a flick.

Seems you’ve got this chain-smoking airhead of a girl with a nose you

could fish for marlin with and her dribble-brained, videogame-addicted

younger brother. Their parents croak in a car crash. They inherit a house

with more knickknacks than the entire Franklin Mint catalog. Both

underage, they are remanded to the custody of their parents’ best

friends.

These yuppified friends -- a mafia-controlled clown with an

indeterminate career and his drug-addicted doctor wife, i.e. Mr. and Mrs.

Glass -- are up to no good as they flounder through their glass house in

search of script doctors, acting coaches and new futures after starring

in this “moronstrocity.”

To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Never in the field of cinema was so

little accomplished by so many for the enjoyment of so few. There were

three of us in the audience. At least one overpaid. I wonder who that

idiot was.

So, the parents are buried, their house sold, the kids packed off in a

limousine as the cheesy music crescendos in disbelief.

Well, you don’t think the Glasses took in those kids out of the

kindness of their hearts do you? Turns out the kiddies have inherited $4

million or so, and those so-called friends are seriously hurtin’ for that

green.

This flick moves slower than a ’70 Vega. By this point, I wished I’d

gone to see Mariah Carey. Really. Not lying this time.

What sort of fools put this disaster together? There’s one

recognizable actor, Bruce Dern playing an enfeebled lawyer. The rest of

the chump change flap around and really shouldn’t quit their day jobs at

the 7-Eleven or delivering Dominos.

They also ought to erase “The Glass House” from their resumes, as not

only were they not acting, but this ain’t really a movie, it’s an

accident.

Anyhow, old man Glass walks like Frankenstein’s monster, falls like

Chevy Chase and prowls around the Glass house like one of the raptors in

“Jurassic Park.” Meantime, his wife sticks needles in her arm, loses her

medical license and proves to be an even worse actor than the old man.

That, folks, took effort.

Then there’s the kids. An hour and a half is spent wishing they’d be

tossed into foster care to bring an early end to this unmitigated waste

of celluloid. This flick is so incredibly awful that it boggles the mind.

Say a prayer for the people who made it. “The Glass House” ain’t got one.

Why did they make this piece of cheese? Was there a sale on movie film

from Kodak? Was it a student film that snuck out? Did somebody owe

somebody something?

Ahh, some of the unanswered mysteries of the universe.

“The Glass House” rated PG-13 for sinister thematic elements,

violence, drug content and language.

* UNCLE DON reviews b-movies and cheesy musical acts for the Daily

Pilot. He may be reached by e-mail at [email protected]