Hemo2Homo review: KNOWING (with spoilers)

Homo: Hemo, I hear you’re home sick.

Hemo: Pesky little cold. Sorry I couldn’t make it to a movie this weekend. But I did make this killer movie poster…

Homo: Nice work!

And that’s OK- I’ll entertain you by telling you about what I saw. Nic Cage’s deliciously bad new movie might be as bad as the last M. Night movie. In fact, I’m going to tell you the entire movie so that I can save you those two and a half hours of your precious life.

Hemo: Please, I just have a cold. Enough friends already thinking I’m dying of AIDS here… It’s just a cold, dammit!

Homo: … or is it?

Hemo: Seriously, you were saying something about a movie? Nic Cage- let me guess, he has a peculiar expression on his face throughout most of the film?

Homo: Just like the audience who sat through this one. You couldn’t have a better weekend to catch that death plague of yours. I will say this: if you enjoy hearing a woman shriek, you’ll like this movie.

Hemo: … I just got a little bit hard.

Homo: Not that kind of shrieking, thinblood. This shrieking isn’t for any good reason; it’s a generic “helpless
female” role designed to make Nic Cage look even more butch than he
already thinks he is — and boy does he get butch as an astrophysicist.

Hemo: Wasn’t he one of those in that last thing he did? International Treasurer? He hasn’t branched out since Valley Girl, my fave Cage flick of all time.

Homo: National Treasure, bleeder. But Nic’s really tough in this one. He hits a tree with a baseball bat to keep a roving pack of Gothic Sting lookalikes away from his kid.

Hemo: Makes sense- gothic kids hate baseball.

Homo: As excruciating as it was, its basic concept and execution are so far off the edge of kookoo that I’m starting to like it in retrospect. Before I go any further…CAUTION TO READERS: I will reveal everything about this movie. Do not read this if you don’t want to know the plot and/or ending of this movie.

Hemo: They already stopped reading. So tell me more about the goth kids- you know I have a small goth following?

Homo: They’re just waiting for you to die. In this movie, these skinny, black-clad male models mysteriously hang out in the woods. They turn out to be aliens on a gay planet filled with Sting look-alikes. I think I rented that once already, only it was in one of those dark book stores your mama warns you about and it cost 25 cents per minute.

Hemo: The true sign of being old is having ever paid for porn.

Homo: Nic Cage is getting up there. But he retains his youth by jumping onto a speeding subway and protecting a woman from getting crushed in a big CGI crash sequence by just crouching over her. I guess this was to protest the fact that he didn’t get to play Superman?

Hemo: Why did you see this thing? I was unknowing of Knowing; never heard a thing about it.

Homo: I never miss a macho physicist movie. The plot, such as it is, is about the End of All There Is. There’s a page of numbers, which turn out to contain Big Spooky Movie Secrets that have Hidden Mysterious Meanings.

And, of course, there are two adorable children who talk to the Gay Goth Aliens, referring to them as “the whisper people.” Red herrings abound in act one along with A LOT OF BORING DIALOGUE, but there is a semi-cool plane crash (featured in the ads), complete with stunt guys running around on fire, the subway crash that’s very obviously CGI (also featured in the ads), and… Hemo?

Hemo: *sleeping*

Homo: Oh, dear. And I haven’t even gotten to the stupid parts. It has one of the most asinine out of left field endings ever, complete with little kids holding bunny rabbits for some inexplicable reason… Hemo? You know what? I’ll spare you all the ending. You might be up late some night and if nothing else is on…

Anyway, my score for this movie: Two weary red-eyes closed. I guessing Hemo here would second that if he were awake.

The Hemo2Homo Connection are Shawn Decker and Steve Schalchlin.

The creators met online in 1996, and
posted their first movie review in 1998. Both have been living with HIV
for over twenty years, and have annoyed their friends and loved ones
for longer than that.

Steve Schalchlin resides in Los Angeles, CA. He is an award-winning musician, singer and songwriter. Shawn Decker lives in Charlottesville, VA. He is an HIV/AIDS educator and the author of My Pet Virus.