A Clockwork Olsen
Before Paris Hilton and the unending roster of those who are famous for being famous, there were the vapid Olsen twins (Mary-Kate and Ashley), whose mediocre TV sitcom (Full House) went off the air nine years ago. That they managed to make the intolerable New York Minute, which they also produced, reflects today's cultural bankruptcy.
It's not that the teenaged twins are especially distasteful—they have as much claim on riding Hollywood's decline as anyone—yet the Olsens are particularly prevalent in this public relations society. From late-night jokes about them to their dull vanity vehicles, Mary-Kate and Ashley are probably better known than any one of their numerous made-for-video movies.
That made seeing their latest project, New York Minute, an opportunity to see whether they could carry a picture, with co-star Eugene Levy's help, and make a movie that matched their name recognition.
The script poses them as two mismatched twins whose personality clash—exacerbated by the loss of their mother—is the plot's only real conflict. The double trouble starts ticking like a time bomb when the organized twin is derailed by her disorganized sister's antics and the pair is thrown together in an excursion accompanied by a loud, heavy metal soundtrack. The scholarly girl (Ashley Olsen) must deliver a speech for a chance to study at Oxford while the musician twin (Mary-Kate Olsen) takes a crack at delivering her demo tape at a music video production.
Trying to stop them are a Chinese gang of intellectual property pirates and a truancy officer (Levy). Mixed up in this mess are the wasted Andrea Martin as a senator, a couple of pretty boys as romantic interests and the usually sensible Dr. Drew Pinsky, playing their father. The multi-writers' screenplay and Dennie Gordon's direction are built squarely around the girls—whose sexual teasing is apparently a grab for the soft-core set—and their exasperated expressions are what passes for acting.
They calm down long enough for an effective moment of sisterhood, but it's gone in less than sixty seconds and the movie climaxes with a preposterous scene that makes Legally Blonde's Harvard speech sound like the Gettysburg Address. There are too many plot holes to try plugging in this short space.
With its sexual innuendo, negligent father and a character named Ma Bang, New York Minute is as family-friendly as a midnight ride on the subway, and it's another movie that substitutes its product—the Olsen twins—for its plot.
It's not that the teenaged twins are especially distasteful—they have as much claim on riding Hollywood's decline as anyone—yet the Olsens are particularly prevalent in this public relations society. From late-night jokes about them to their dull vanity vehicles, Mary-Kate and Ashley are probably better known than any one of their numerous made-for-video movies.
That made seeing their latest project, New York Minute, an opportunity to see whether they could carry a picture, with co-star Eugene Levy's help, and make a movie that matched their name recognition.
The script poses them as two mismatched twins whose personality clash—exacerbated by the loss of their mother—is the plot's only real conflict. The double trouble starts ticking like a time bomb when the organized twin is derailed by her disorganized sister's antics and the pair is thrown together in an excursion accompanied by a loud, heavy metal soundtrack. The scholarly girl (Ashley Olsen) must deliver a speech for a chance to study at Oxford while the musician twin (Mary-Kate Olsen) takes a crack at delivering her demo tape at a music video production.
Trying to stop them are a Chinese gang of intellectual property pirates and a truancy officer (Levy). Mixed up in this mess are the wasted Andrea Martin as a senator, a couple of pretty boys as romantic interests and the usually sensible Dr. Drew Pinsky, playing their father. The multi-writers' screenplay and Dennie Gordon's direction are built squarely around the girls—whose sexual teasing is apparently a grab for the soft-core set—and their exasperated expressions are what passes for acting.
They calm down long enough for an effective moment of sisterhood, but it's gone in less than sixty seconds and the movie climaxes with a preposterous scene that makes Legally Blonde's Harvard speech sound like the Gettysburg Address. There are too many plot holes to try plugging in this short space.
With its sexual innuendo, negligent father and a character named Ma Bang, New York Minute is as family-friendly as a midnight ride on the subway, and it's another movie that substitutes its product—the Olsen twins—for its plot.
