Michael Keaton in White Noise and something even scarier

I honestly don't remember signing up on the Boston Phoenix's movie preview page for passes to White Noise. The "free movie" thing is almost a reflex with me, so I don't doubt that I did it. It did lead to some IMDB surfing while chatting with my brother (and, you know, working) that pointed out interesting information.

First, we couldn't quite figure out how Keaton's career sunk to the point where he was doing crappy "supernatural thrillers" that get dumped the first week of January. One minute, he's Batman, then he's doing Shakespeare, and then he's in a series of good movies that catch a bad break or something (for example, the very funny Multiplicity opened the week that the 1996 Summer Olympics started. I was working in a theater, and that killed The Frighteners, too. Then, I guess, Jack Frost nuked it.

Second, he's been talking about wanting to return to Beetlejuice. Not that I think that's a good idea, but if ever there was a cast that needed and deserved a career-boosting sequel, it's Keaton, Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, and Winona Ryder. (This also leads to the reminder that Ms. Davis is just five years younger than our mom. We shall debate whether finding her or Audrey Hepburn attractive is freakier later)

Third, though, we see that his next movie is something called Game 6, about a playwright skipping a premiere to watch the sixth game of the 1986 World Series.

Someone made a movie about watching That Game. And since it's premiering at Sundance, they must have made it before the joyous events of October 2004. What sort of mean-spirited, sadistic sons of bitches would do that? Aside from New Yorkers, that is.

It's just another reason to be glad the Red Sox won the World Series. Otherwise, I still would have gone to see it, and the inevitable shot of Mookie Wilson poking a ground ball through Bill Buckner blown up larger-than-life would have just been immense, raw pain. Now, it'll just be remembered sadness.

But, that's not what I saw Tuesday night. I saw...

White Noise

* ¼ (out of four)
Seen 4 January 2005 at Loews Boston Common #16 (preview)

When a movie starts with by quoting Thomas Edison, the audience can be forgiven for expecting a certain sort of rationality. Eidson, as a billboard near my apartment reminds me, founded the respected academic journal Science, and contributed enormously to science and engineering. I suspect the quote, about a machine that allows the dead to communicate with the living, referenced the phonograph rather than the radio.

Read the rest at HBS.

(Ironically, the writer of Game 6 wrote a book named White Noise which is supposedly in production with Barry Sonnenfeld directing. I doubt it will see the light of day now, at least under that name)