Kansas or Not Kansas

I was sitting in the theater watching Avatar with my wife and sons, thoroughly enjoying myself in the world of flying dragons, blue people riding 6-legged horses, and a 3D movie that didn’t give me a headache, when it happened. A line was spoken that took me right out of the movie world and dropped me into the lazy dialog and weak humor world. The grizzled army veteran opened the welcoming speech to the new recruits with a very curt, “You are not in Kansas anymore.”


Of course this didn’t ruin the movie for me. I was fully vested and my disbelief had been completely suspended. But it did annoy me enough for it to stay somewhere in the back of my mind, where it swirled around until it reared its ugly head a few weeks later. I was sitting on the couch watching the tube when a trailer for Sex and the City 2 came on. Sure enough, there was a shot where the four heroines walk into very richly appointed hotel or palace in a foreign country and one says, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” In the interest of brevity, from now on I'll refer to the line as NIKA.

To be honest I had no plans to see Sex and the City 2, and I still managed to enjoy Avatar, so why would it bug me? I think what it boils down to is this; I love good dialog . I love it in movies, I love it in books, and I love it in actual conversations I have with people. I think I equate NIKA with someone coming up to you on the job and asking, “Working hard or hardly working?” It just makes me want to groan and roll my eyes. And I might point out, the character who utters this tired piece of verbiage in Sex in the City 2 is a writer. It’s the same thing that always bothered me about Everyone Loves Ramon; the guy was a writer but you almost never heard anything he wrote and he didn’t come across as particularly articulate.

Now don’t get me wrong. NIKA is a great line. It worked in the Wizard of Oz and probably in a movie or two after that as a joke/homage. But it’s been played. It’s been milked of all irony and humor so instead of garnishing the smallest or chuckles, it falls flat. It’s not exactly a turd in the punchbowl but it’s at least something in the punchbowl that would make me fill my cup from the other side. Maybe it should be retired.

Along with NIKA I think we should also get rid of, “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Really? So if you get run over by a train, lose both arms and legs, and are put in a coma you’re stronger? “I have a bad feeling about this” and “Houston, we have a problem” are on the bubble.

My fondest wish is to be watching a movie where the characters find themselves in some exotic or magical world and utter the line, “You know, this is a lot like Kansas.”