Luke Wilson in 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend'

Luke Wilson as Matt Saunders
Anna Faris as Hannah Lewis
Rainn Wilson as Vaughn Haige
Wanda Sykes as Carla Dunkirk





This is a horrible movie.

Drawings!

Architect Glasses!

Hard Hats!

Models!

"Our design integrates classic architectural ideas from the history of Chinese culture and transforms them into a contemporary 21st century aesthetic, but you can see clearly that funtionality has not been sacrificed, as you can see here by the the multiple entrances into the central courtyard area. And with the total capacity for...(stops talking as he sees his girlfriend fly by the window outside)"

Michael Keaton in "White Noise"

Michael Keaton as Jonathan Rivers








Whats that? Another movie with an architect who's wife dies? Then he gets messages from beyond the grave? Sounds like a winner!

Too Many TVs are Spooky.

You see the Ring and then you die. Oh, wrong movie. I get these things confused sometimes.

Mark Ruffalo in "Just Like Heaven"

Mark Ruffalo as David the Landscape Architect








Ok, so its another movie where the architect's wife is dead and he starts to see spirits. But instead of mean ghouls, he sees cute-as-a-basket-of-kittens Reese Witherspoon. And they fall in love. But she's not dead, shes in a coma! So he builds her a garden. Then they kiss at the end. Seriously, if Reese wasn't in this movie I would have turned the movie off. The only way they could have made the movie worse is if they cast Napoleon Dynamite in a role. Whats that? Oh, they did cast Napoleon Dynamite in a role! I do this stuff in the name of research, kids, all for you.

Keanu Reeves in "The Lake House"

Keanu Reeves as Ted "Theodor" Logan as Alex Wyler
Christopher Plummer as Simon Wyler
Eban Moss-Bachrach as Henry Wyler






Reeves and Bullock team up again in this supernatural story about a mailbox that sends letters though time. Reeves is Alex, a contractor who was trained as an architect under the supervision of his starchitect/professor father Simon. When we first meet the father, he is teaching a design studio at an unknown Chicago school. The professor's youngest son, Henry is in this course and starts to explain his project's concept to his father...

Bowtie? Check.
Drawings of ionic columns? Check.

Henry: Obviously I derived my inspiration from the metophor of The Louvre ...[pauses]...uh, yeah...

They scene abruptly cuts, but they imply through dialog in the next scene that the father stood their for two hours without speaking in order to humiliate his son. Which is what all good architecture professors do when they aren't busy either making students cry, setting models on fire, or speaking only in words that they read in their bedside thesaurus the previous night.

To cool down from the ordeal, the brother goes out to get a beer with his older bro, Alex, who has been absent from the family for a few years. Alex goes on to explain to Henry what hes been doing....

Henry: Condos?
Alex: I don't believe it. I come back after 4 years and I get this infront of me.
Henry: What?
Alex: My little brother thining he's Frank Lloyd Whatever.
Henry: Ah, Come on!
Alex: Dad keeps you hostage in that myth-making factory of his, but you still haven't built so much as a telephone booth or a hamster cage.
Henry: That's funny you say that actually, I have a hamster cage in mind. A development of them actually. Prefab, no foundations, What do you think about that?
Alex: See? That's what I'm talking about! You have visions. Speaking of which, I bought a house...

Its like Speed, but in a house. Over a long drawn out 4 years. And no explosions. But Keanu and Sandra do kiss in the end.

When Alex shows his little brother the house for the first time, a house that their father built for the family in the 70's, before their mom left the father...

Henry: When did he build it?
Alex: You weren't born and I was 8.
Henry: Corbusier meets Frank Lloyd Wright
Alex: Did you know, dad played cards with both of them.

Probably more like Corbusier meets the Victorian era. In truth, the stage that was built as the house had no toilets or running water. Seriously.

Alex: There should be a stairway down to the water, a porch, a deck. Here, you're in a - in a box. A glass box with a view to everything that's around you... but you can't touch it. No interconnection between you and what you're looking at.
Henry: I don't know, you know. He's got this big maple growing right in the middle of the house.
Alex: Containment.
[He pushes a button which opens a glass door]
Alex: Containment and control. This house is about ownership, not connection. I mean, it's beautiful. Seductive, even. But, it's incomplete.
[He pauses]
Alex: It was all about him. Dad knew how to build a house, not a home. But you know... I think he wants us to do what he couldn't. But, admitting that would mean admitting that he came up short in some way... that he could do more. And that tortures him.
Henry: Do you remembering being here with Mom?
Alex: I remember she tried to make it work here... with us... with him.

In this next scene, Ted hatches a plan to travel back in time to nab Core-Bus-Air for his architectural history thesis.

In the series of letters that Alex sends Sandra through the film, they get to know each other. When asked to discribe his favorite things, Alex writes, "For me its this city. On a day when the light is so clear I can touch every detail, every brick and window of the buildings I love..."

He then goes on to include in his next magical care package for her a map of Chicago with all of his favorite buildings on it in hopes that shes goes on a walking tour of the city and shares in his joys. She does. Along the path he drew for her, he spray painted a note for her (two years in the past, remember the magical timetraveling mailbox?) on the side of a building that reads, "(Sandra), I'm walking with you right now." Really, this seems like a jerk thing to do, defacing the buildings that he loves in the city that he love. I guess that the light wasn't so clear that day.

Customized walking tour maps are like the mixed tape of the architecture world, when you want to tell a girl how special she is.

Michael J. Fox in "The Frighteners"

Michael J. Fox as Frank Bannister








Before Peter Jackson made Kong and the Lord of the Rings trilogy he wrote, produced and directed this horror/supernatural comedy. Frank Bannister is an architect who is involved in a car accident that results in a) his wife dying and 2) he sees spirits.

Years of all nighters produce strange side effects

Years later, when the movie begins, he is a supernatural investigator/conman who uses his ghost friends to earn a quick buck. While the movie focuses mostly on his second job, there is a subplot that involved Bannister's unfinished house. The movie is supposed to take place in the midwest, but was actually filmed in New Zealand.

Alex P. Keaton, AIA

Adam Sandler in "Click"

Adam Sander as Michael Newman
David Hasselhoff as John Ammer
Jake Hoffman as Ben Newman

Michael Newman stands in front of the only semi-decent design in this piece of crap film.

Michael Newman is the typical workaholic architect in this comedy film. After a trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond, Newman finds himself in the possession of a remote that controls the universe. The film starts out with Newman late for a meeting with the Arab Prince Habeeboo (played by Rob "Dwerp" Schnieder), who commissioned a new resturant from Newman's firm, Ammer Architects, headed by John Ammer (David Haselhoff). Newman has the opportunity to present the design concept to the Prince

The Prince Habeeboo and John Ammer discuss high design.

"Prince Haboobie, when Mr. Ammer explained to me the type of man you are, a visionary who prides himself on originality, I said to myself 'Let's smash the mold and redefine elegance'. I present to you, your resturant!"

The awesomeness of it all.

The first question the prince asks, "Where is bar?". Then the prince demands that the bar be bigger, taking over the Atrium/Garden/Pond area. "No atrium, longer bar. And put drain in floor for wet T-shirt contest."
"You're kidding me!?!?" Michael responds.
"Well, he's right, water has to go somewhere Mike," Ammer says as he rips the model apart and pokes a drain into the foamcore with his pencil.
"I love it! It's Awesome!" exclaims the prince.
For those of you students out there, slaving away in studio, don't forget this very important lesson: Water does have to go somewhere.

Later, a chance to design a new hotel for a group of Japenese investors come up, Associate Michael Newman jumps at the chance thinking it will make him a partner. Taking the design home over fourth of July weekend, Michael works late into the night on this:

Angled walls always never a bad choice for good design.

As Michael tires of working, he decides to use the remote to fast forward through the weekend. Keep in mind, that in the movie they show that Michael acts like a braindead fool when he's on "Autopilot", so its no suprise that on Monday morning Mike shows up at the office with this plan:

"Its actually pretty good. Look, a river in the lobby! Cool"

However, Michael is actually suprised that his design is good. I guess he's also a bumbling idiot in real life. However, the Japanese investors don't give a damn. Once again, Mike is forced to sell out to maximize rooms and profit.

The Hoff debating the aesthetic qualities of his secretaries' toenail colors

Who would have guessed, but the remote control starts to develop a mind of its own, and forwards Michael 10 years into the future. How do we know its the future?

In the future, architects still love Barcelona chairs and the Eames chairs.


In the future, all architects will ride segways around the office while carrying brightly colored drawing tube on their back. Why can't this future be now?

Michael Newman now holds the title of "Architect of the Year". I can only assume that the Prizker foundation decides to alter their prize of have been completely wiped out of existence.

In the future, the success of the Freedom Tower leads to the construction of a second, identical Freedom Tower.

In some movies, the architect is supposed to be a cultivated man, a thoughtful man, someone who thinks through problems, is a romantic, or creative. In Click, Sandler's role as an architect is used for two main purposes. The first, as a workaholic, he seems like a great candidate for the Angle of Death (played great by Walken) to give his time remote control to. The second, we get a reminder of how the future is represented by the built environment. If a hospital door opens like a door from the USS Enterprise, it must be the future. Unfortuanly, Newman plays the architect not as the sophisticate, but as the common man who kicks people in the balls and farts in their face. But hey! Who doesn't enjoy a good laugh at a dog banging a stuffed duck?

The aesthetics of the furniture and decor of this frame serve as a reminder that the setting is the present day.