John Patrick Amedori | Through the Shattered Lens

How many different ways can Ashton Kutcher fuck up time and space?

That’s the question asked in the gloriously silly The Butterfly Effect, a film that was a minor hit back in 2004. Ashton plays Evan Treborn, a disheveled college student who is studying how memory works. All through his life, Evan has suffered from seizures that are triggered by stress. Evan has a lot of stress because apparently, there’s not a single bad thing that didn’t happen to him when he was a child.

Crazy father who tried to strangle Evan before being gunned down in front of his son’s terrified eyes? Yep.

Sexual molestation at the hands of a suburban drunk? Yep.

A best friend who blew up not only a mailbox but also a mother and a baby? Yep.

A dog that was set on fire by a neighborhood bully? Yep.

Another friend who was driven into a catatonic state by all the madness around him? Yep.

A girlfriend who, due to family tragedy, had to move away? Yep.

However, things seem to be getting better for Evan. Now, he’s a psychology major with a bright future. His professors love him. He’s even got a roommate named Thumper (played, somewhat inevitably, by Ethan Suplee). And, as he’s soon to discover, he possesses a special power. All he has to do is read his old journals and, for a limited time, he can go into the past and change his history.

Of course, it turns out that changing history is a lot more complicated than it looks. Evan goes back into the past and confronts the pervy suburban drunk. He then goes back to the present and discovers that he’s now a shallow frat boy who is hated by both his professors and Thumper! Even worse, he eventually ends up in prison for killing a man. Going back into the past and saving his dog leads to his friend Lenny (Elden Hansen) spending the rest of his life imprisoned. Another trip to the past results in Evan waking up as a double amputee. Depending on what Evan does, his friend Kayleigh (Amy Smart) either becomes a shallow sorority princess or a drug-addicted prostitute. Meanwhile, Kayleigh’s brother (William Lee Scott) goes from being a psychotic murderer to a clean-cut religious guy.

Thumper never changers, though. Thumper endures.

This, of course, is a lot of pressure to put on any character played by Ashton Kutcher and soon, Evan is having nosebleeds and migraines. Every time he changes the past, his brain is flooded with 20 years worth of new memories. His brain might explode before he can fix all the damage that he’s done….

Watching The Butterfly Effect is an odd experience because, on the one hand, the premise is genuinely intriguing but, on the other hand, the film stars the reliably goofy Ashton Kutcher. Ashton grows a beard and doesn’t wash his hair for the first half of the movie, which is the film’s way of letting us know that we’re meant to take him seriously but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s still Ashton Kutcher. Even when playing the most dramatic of scenes, Ashton tends to deliver every line as if it’s the set up for a punch line. It’s not surprising that the best part of The Butterfly Effect is when Ashton wakes up and discovers that he’s now a frat boy. Those scenes are intentionally funny and they take advantage of what Ashton Kutcher is actually good at.

At the same time, it’s hard not to get into The Butterfly Effect. It’s a mess but it’s a likable mess and it’s undeniably enjoyable to see how everyone’s life changes as a result of Ashton’s constant meddling. (William Lee Scott especially has fun, switching between being full-blown psycho and full-blown religious.) The Butterfly Effect may be dumb but it’s fun. It’s a film that’s best watched with your snarkiest friends.

With our look back at Twin Peaks now entering its final week, it’s time for me to get back to trying to clean out my DVR. When last we checked on the DVR, I had about 187 movies that I needed to watch. At the end of March, I started in on them but then I got distracted by a number of things. I put the clean-up on hold for a month and I even recorded some more films.

So, now, as April comes to a close, I have 200 movies on my DVR.

(The writer Derrick Ferguson once asked me just how much space I have on my DVR. To be honest, I’m really not sure. All I know is that I’ve got 200 movies recorded and 20% of the DVR is still free.)

If I’m going to have my DVR cleaned out by the end of May, then I better get back to watching all of this stuff. I got things off to a good start, on Monday night, by watching a film about gymnastics in Texas, Stick It.

I think I may have actually seen Stick It when it was originally released in 2006. I can’t say for sure because I spent most of 2006 in a daze but it seems like the type of movie that I would have gone to see back then. The film itself felt familiar but that could just be because I’ve seen a lot of movies about gymnasts.

Anyway, Stick It is one of those movies that’s set in Texas but was filmed in California. This leads to several unintentional laughs. For instance, the movie opens in Plano, Texas. Plano is a suburb of Dallas. For some reason, Plano seems to show up in a lot of random movies. (When Ed Helms visits his sister and Chris Hemsworth in Vacation, we are specifically told that they live in Plano.) The movies, of course, never get Plano right. Plano is not a rural community nor is it a junior version of the Park Cities. Instead, it’s a typical suburb, one that is somewhat infamous for being home to a lot of people who have moved down to Texas from up north.

In Stick It, Plano is portrayed as being surrounded by mountains. When the action later moves down to Houston, there are even more mountains in the background. Of course, any true Texan knows that there aren’t any mountains near either Dallas or Houston. Dallas sits on the plains. Houston is known as the Bayou City. If you want to make a movie about Texas with mountains, go film in El Paso.

As for the rest of the film, it tells the story of Haley Graham (Missy Peregrym), who was one of the top ranked gymnasts in America until she walked out during the World Gymnastics Championship, costing her team a gold medal and making her one of the most hated people in America. Having abandoned gymnastics, Haley spends her time hanging out with skaters in Plano. (I used to do the same thing. Plano skaters are wild and rich.) One day, Haley and the skaters get caught breaking into an abandoned building. The judge gives Haley a choice. Either go to military school or enroll at the prestigious but tough Vickerman Gymnastics Academy. Haley picks military school so, of course, the judge sends her to VGA.

And here’s the thing. It’s easy to be dismissive of a character like Haley but Missy Peregrym gives such a sincere performance and is so committed to the role that you’re on her side even when she seems like a privileged brat. Haley’s parents are bitterly divorced and, even though they’re presented as being cartoonish caricatures, I could immediately relate to Haley. When my parents got divorced, I acted out too. I even hung out with wild skaters in Plano.

Anyway, Haley ends up in Houston. Her new coach is Burt Veckerman (Jeff Bridges) who convinces her to start competing again, just so she can win enough money to pay off all of that Plano property damage. She agrees, reluctantly. Haley may love gymnastics but she hates all of the little rules that come along with competition. Interestingly enough, that’s the way I’ve always felt about dancing. Haley might as well have just been named Lisa.

Haley returns to the competition world and, while she’s obviously talented, she struggles to prove that she’s better than her reputation. Even worse, she has to deal with judges who are obsessed with minutiae and who are biased towards their pre-determined favorites. It doesn’t matter how talented you are or how well you compete. All that matters is that you follow the rules and that you have the “right” attitude.

The movie ends with Haley taking a stand against the unfair judging system and humiliating the clueless judges. It’s a great moment, even though it would never happen in real life. For one thing, it involves convincing all the other gymnasts to give up their chance to win just so they can do the right thing. Myself, I would never go along with that. I may hate following rules but I love winning trophies.

But still, it’s a nice little fantasy. Stick It is one of those films that got terrible reviews when it was released but it’s a real crowd pleaser. This is a fun movie and, while it doesn’t tell a particularly deep story, it’s message of ignoring rules is one that’s needed in this increasingly authoritarian society. Both Missy Peregrym and Jeff Bridges gave good performances and director Jessica Bendinger did a good job of keeping the action moving quickly. (Bendiner also wrote the greatest of all cheerleading movies, Bring It On.)

How entertaining was Stick It?

Entertaining enough to survive mountains in Plano.