Mystery, Alaska

March 27, 2001

I was expecting the Mighty Ducks in Alaska.

But it wasn’t, thank god. I remember having to sit through The Mighty Ducks in my 11th grade Sociology class. Don’t ask me why we watched it, probably the same reason we watched The Fall of the House of Usher – our teacher was a coach – or maybe it was after finals, I don’t recall…anyway, I enjoyed Mystery, Alaska whereas The Mighty Ducks was….but I digress.

It was an interesting film with interesting characters. There were just enough subplots to keep it from being a straight on sports movie (which I hate), to being a movie that happens to include sports, which is okay sometimes. I honestly tried to go to sleep while watching it, but I couldn’t. I guess that’s as good a testimonial as any.

Russell Crowe actually looked cute in this film. I think it was the hair. Long hair suits him better than the Gladiator cut or whatever the fuck he did to his hair at the Oscars – was that a perm? He hid his accent pretty well in this one – better than in Gladiator anyway. I would like to see him in a film where he actually gets to play an Australian though – he could have Hugh Jackman from X-Men in it too and they could maybe have some reason or other to have Nicole Kidman in it, but she dies horribly in the first scene. I would pay full price to see that film.

I was also suprised that the director was Jay Roach – since he directed the Austin Powers films, I didn’t expect Mystery, Alaska to be so subdued. I didn’t expect the cameo by Mike Myers, either – but I should have. He was shitty in the way that only sportscasters can be shitty – lovin’ the team when their winning, but talkin’ shit when they’re not.

Burt Reynold was an everloving dick at the start of the film, but he turned out to be pretty cool. He look so much better with his new white toupee as opposed to his old black one. His son was played by Scott Grimes, remember him? He was one of Sam’s boyfriends on Who’s the Boss? – he was kind of geeky then, but okay now. I used to have thing for redheaded boys, until I realized cute little redheaded boys usually grew up into ugly redheaded men.

It’s a cute little film, not too brain intensive, but too Hollywood. It’s on cable every other day now, so give it a chance if there’s no skin on Skinemax.