The Big Empty (2003)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Why so much hype?

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I did not expect much of this movie, but I got a lot out of it. I don't know much about acting, but I do know story lines, and this has plenty of surprises and great plot twists ("real" not "contrived" in the sense that Superman or Star Trek can be contrived sometimes and real other times).It is entirely plausible (as one reviewer pointed out) that this is a recycling of the "Twilight Zone" To Serve Man (TV Episode 1962) with the ending quote: "The book 'How To Serve Man' is a cookbook". The band-aids remind me of a movie I saw in the late 1950's early 1960's about a kid seeing a meteor or spaceship land, and gradually everyone he knows has a band aid on their neck and a new attitude. The ending is cool with the girl friend sporting blue eyes for the first time ("you look different") and the #11 bowling shoes with the white heels, and the bowling ball in the desert. The creepy, but well-timed cowboy is a trip in-and-of-itself ("He left $1,000, and I don't charge that much"), and the jealous boyfriend is a cute realistic, yet sad touch to the empty, painful lives that are lived "in quiet desperation."Like slave trades in the 1700's, there are many who'd sell their own kind to get money. (Hey, forget about back then: Afghans made big money informing on neighbors who may / may not have been enemy combatants who wound up in Guantanamo Bay Prison. That's like torture, slavery. And one guy in Guantanamo was innocent, but was tortured so much that the US Government doesn't want to release him since he'll be really angry at the USA*... gee, we do that to people?).But, as i said: it makes sense that people are promised something (bogus or real) and they're "okay with it", which is the punchline at the end of the Roseanne (Barr) episode where Arnie leaves his girlfriend, and in a note says he is traveling with Aliens, which sounds like horrible baloney from Arnie, who is an ass, plain and simple. But as the credits roll, you see 2 aliens on a ship, with Arnie sitting in a chair in the back, and the one Alien says to the other Alien in a strange language but with subtitles: "Does he know that he is coming to our planet to be a pet for our kids," and the other alien replies "Yes, and he's okay with it"*' Yet another issue exists whereas innocent people are held. "Documents from CIA revealed that 150 Guantanamo Bay prisoners were innocent but the US government kept them locked up for years anyway, The Daily Record informs." http://goo.gl/vgWi0 Realistically, when tortures don't even work on guilty detainees, what can the US government get from innocent prisoners? ' http://debatewise.org/debates/3575-the-us-should-immediately-close- guantanamo-bay/

I have never in my life seen such a dull plot. They writer and director in that occasion, must have stolen all the movies he liked and yet created something boring. Who produce this movies? I understand the caliber of the actors playing in it, but why people spend money making these junks? The story seems fake from start to end, this damn suitcase is empty when the actors hold it The movie fails even for the obvious, to make you interested what the hell is in the suitcase.The guy is a low life, who has sex ideas coming out of nowhere and getting horny for every chick around. Even the masturbation reference is given in such an amateur way from the writer slash director.If you suffer insomnia, watch 30 minutes of that. On extreme cases take a lethal dose of 1 hour. If by accident or force you watch the whole flick, you will be in a comma, for several years, so make sure you live a note behind for the people who love you. I want a refund for my viewing time.

A soggy mash-up of genres, with Jon Favreau playing a comically (or, perhaps satirically) narcissistic unemployed actor in Los Angeles who accepts a courier job from his eccentric neighbor; his assignment is to deliver a blue suitcase to a man named Cowboy out in the remote town of Baker, CA...but when he gets there, the connection has already left. Most unemployed actors in Favreau's situation would turn around and head home, but he instead checks into the local motel and gets involved with several of the desert denizens. Writer-director Steve Anderson doesn't seem very intrigued by the familiar material, nor is he particularly anxious to put a different spin on it. It's "U-Turn" or "After Hours" accented with a Lynchian non-sensibility. Once the protagonist gets locked into this bizarre town, Anderson offers him nothing but off-putting company and outlandish avenues. Favreau (easy-going in a bowling shirt) ogles the sexy cowgirls--and his own reflection--without giving us a genuine character. This type of indifferent cockiness can get awfully monotonous, despite Favreau's overall polite nature. He's a handsome lug with an open face, yet he projects no other personality except as the proverbial guy-on-the-make. *1/2 from ****

John (Jon Favreau),a failing out of work actor, hesitantly agrees to transport a mysterious blue suitcase, contents unknown, into the remote desert and deliver it to a mysterious person only known as Cowboy in order to wipe his tremendous debt that he's in. By taking the job he doesn't realize that he's in far the weirdest events n his life (including but not limited to, a femme fatale, her crazy jealous boyfriend, Kelsey Grammar as a FBI guy investigating a beheading, and more) in this quirky little subtle comedy that's reminiscent of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" with a bit of "X-files" thrown in, but not as dark as the former, nor as complex and involved as the latter. Any film that Jon Favreau seems to star in I enjoy (well except for a small handful that I actively detest, but none because of him) and while this film is not as great as his other dark comedies that he's starred in (Very Bad Things and Made), it's still perfectly serviceable, with fine performances and is a pretty good first time effort by Director Steve Anderson. Even if it loses some steam towards the end (and I still can't divorce Kelsey Grammar with his "Frasier" character, no matter how hard I try) My Grade: B