PROJECT X Makes Me Feel Old

"Is this big enough to be cool?"

If these children are our future, we're all fucked.

Project X is a movie that champions excess and debauchery without real consequence, full of reprehensible characters that do terrible things all in the name of "being cool."  Granted I never did any drinking in high school and never really went to any big parties, but the entire thing just felt totally foreign to me.  Obviously a rager with 1500 people that burns down a Pasadena neighborhood is meant to be exaggerated and over the top, but I also have no doubt that plenty of teenagers would line up and pay good money to crash this kind of party.  Is this really the mindset of today's teenagers?  And do they not give a shit about movies with three dimensional characters and plot development?  Apparently not, seeing as Project X was the most illegally downloaded movie of 2012.

More importantly, when did I become a cranky old man?

The only compelling factor here is the actual shooting of the thing.  The crew passed out Flip video cameras and iPhones to some of the 200 extras assembled for the party scenes and let them shoot some the scripted action from their own perspectives while also improvising party shenanigans in the background.  It's a cool concept that yields little more than a lot of low-res, poorly composed YouTube-esque footage.  And a teenager girl peeing on concrete.

This is an awful movie made for awful people, but somehow it seems not worth the effort of actually trying to critique it.  It's like taking shots at My Little Pony or The Smurfs - movies that weren't made for an audience of intelligent thinking adults.  I'm just not the target demographic here.  I'm sure there are plenty of drunken, horny teenagers who think this movie is totally fucking awesome.

I'm going to bed.  Can I get a glass of warm milk?

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Title: Project X
Director: Nima Nourizadeh
Starring: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Dax Flame, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Alexis Knapp, Miles Teller
Year Of Release: 2012
Viewing Method: Showtime HD

THE HEAT Has Heart And Chemistry, Too Few Laughs

"That was almost cool.  Almost."

Oh Paul Feig, why do you make it so hard to love you?

When you creates something as singularly wonderful as Freaks and Geeks, I really want to be on your side and love everything you make from then on.  When the first trailers for Bridesmaids came out, I admit I was pretty underwhelmed.  But Kristen Wiig can be plenty funny and a few friends really enjoyed the film so I went into it with an open mind.  I ultimately found it to be only moderately better than average, with some serious laughs that were a bit too few and far between.  The same could be said about The Heat.

I'll be honest: at this point I have absolutely no comedic interest in Sandra Bullock.  I loved her early work in stuff like Speed, The Net and even Demolition Man.  I think she carries serious dramatic weight in stuff like The Blind Side or the upcoming Gravity, which I'm just dying to see.  But her buttoned-down, socially awkward shtick from stuff like Miss Congeniality or The Proposal is not only unfunny, it's downright boring to watch.  I was really hoping that Feig and McCarthy would be able to coax something edgier or more compelling out of her, but Bullock's FBI agent Sarah Ashburn is simply more of the same.  I just don't think she's very funny.  But hey, if you enjoy her comedy work and this trailer made you laugh, then I'm sure The Heat is your kind of flick.

McCarthy on the other hand is top notch, taking a character that is literally described as a bull in a china shop and imparting upon her a remarkable sense of not only depth, but also grace - no easy feat considering the high percentage of her dialogue which is just the word "fuck."  Her East Boston beat cop Shannon Mullins is the terror of her precinct, scaring the living piss out of her fellow male officers.  But she's also got a big heart, the kind of person who became a cop so she could keep her neighborhood safe.  And her family hates her because she sent one of her four brothers to prison on drug charges, but she did it out of love, the only way she could think of to protect him.  It's the kind of backstory material that would easily fall flat in the hands of a lesser performer, but McCarthy really makes it work.  For all her profane bluster, Mullins is actually a total sweetheart and that's 100% due to McCarthy's incredible pathos.

I will admit I experienced a spark of excitement during the film's vintage 70's style opening credits, and it's clear that Feig is shooting for the tone of some classic odd couple buddy-cop comedies like the great Midnight Run, Lethal Weapon or 48 Hours.  Those movies live and die on the chemistry between their leads and I'll admit that Bullock and McCarthy are nothing short of great together.  They have a natural rhythm, an easy give and take that just plain works.  Their extended drunken bonding scene in a local dive bar is a riot and when Bullock's character finally loosens up towards the end the two are super watchable.  In fact, there's a scene with a knife in the finale which is simply fantastic.  This kind of connection is a totally intangible thing that simply can't be faked, and these two have unquestionably got it.

In fact, I wish that they had a stronger script to prop up their talents.  Here's what the movie gets right: despite their respective foibles, both characters are super competent.  Ashburn has closed more cases that anyone else in the department and is constantly outsmarting drug-sniffing dogs (a solid running bit) while Mullins is able to disarm a man with startling speed and skill.  Both are able to pick up on the subtlest of clues like a stray cigarette butt that doesn't match the rest of the ashtray and they're not afraid to mix it up with the boys.  Here's another plus: the fact that Ashburn and Mullins are women is almost entirely incidental.  It's not ignored, as evidenced by the mini-makeover scene in a bar bathroom that's been so heavily featured in the trailers, but this isn't a movie about women trying to make it in a man's world.  Ashburn and Mullins are cops above all else, and what's more they're damn good cops.

Here's what the script gets wrong: the story totally blows.  Not only is it two-dimensional and dull, but it's full of weird narrative dead ends.  There's a long sequence where Bullock tries to hit on a guy in a club so she can plant a bug on his phone, but then they never actually use the bug for any reason.  They don't track him with it, they don't listen in to his phone calls...it's just forgotten.  Dan Bakkedahl shows up halfway through as a chauvinist albino DEA agent, a choice that feels even weirder appearing so late in a film that's largely devoid of sexism.  And a boring story would be forgivable if the movie was truly funny, but it's just not.  It often gets sidetracked by long, extended jokes that not only exist outside the plot, but they fall tragically flat.  There's a scene in a Denny's where Ashburn tries to give a choking man a tracheotomy with a drinking straw that goes on forever and is only vaguely redeemed when the EMT shows up to give her shit for such an obviously dumb move.  And there's a lot of stuff with Mullins' family that plays on their Boston accents and their general townie-ness.  It's all feels like a pretty cheap shot, but I'm willing to give Feig a bit of a pass because her brothers are all played by locals like Nate Corddry, Bill Burr and one-time New Kid On The Block Joey McIntyre.  So while I rolled my eyes at five minutes of Bullock's confusion over Corddry's pronunciation of the word "narc," a lot of the family's back and forth at least feels like it comes from an authentic place.

But yeah, in the end The Heat just feels like a big missed opportunity, a squandering of great lead chemistry and smart girl power on a mediocre story with too few honest laughs.  But like I said, if the trailer made you laugh then you'll definitely enjoy the movie they're selling you.  It always felt like a long shot to me, but I always love it when a film somehow manages to subvert my expectations.  That would have been a pleasant surprise.

I haven't given up on you yet, Paul Feig.  Maybe next time.


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Title: The Heat
Director: Paul Feig
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Michael Rappaport, Demian Bechir, Marlon Wayans, Spoken Reasons, Nate Corddray, Bill Burr, Joey McIntyre, Jane Curtain
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - Showcase Revere

Traveling THE WAY In Search Of Meaningful Experience

"I needed a new suit anyway."

I had a friend who told me that, when it came to TV, he lived by what he called "The Wire Rule."  Whenever he saw a new TV show that had a cast member from The Wire, he would at least give the show one look to see if there was anything there worth watching.  I have a very similar rule, but for me it's The West Wing.  Aaron Sorkin's series depicting life in the Bartlett White House is without question my very favorite television show of all time.  It holds a very special place in my heart for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that every time I watch it I wish that Jed Bartlett were really the President of the United States.  (Which is nothing against Barack Obama, who is easily my favorite President of my lifetime.)

Suffice it to say, any movie starring Martin Sheen has me interested.  And when it's written and directed by Sheen's son and former Mighty Ducks coach Emilio Estevez, then I'm even more curious.  Besides, after coming home from Ms L's funeral, a film about a man coming to grips with the death of a loved one felt more than a little bit appropriate.

Sheen stars as Tom, an opthamologist whose globe-trotting, estranged son (played by Estevez himself) is unexpectedly killed in France while hiking the el Camino de Santiago, a nearly 500 mile pilgrimage that stretches from France to Spain.  When Tom arrives in France to claim the body, he suddenly takes to heart his son's urging to get out and see the world.  And so, with his son's ashes secured firmly to his pack, Tom decides to set off on a pilgrimage of his own.  Over the course of his journey, he encounters a garrulous Dutchman named Joost looking to lose weight, an excitable Irish writer trying to work through his writer's block, and a cantankerous Canadian named Sarah who wants to quit smoking.  The ragtag group of pilgrims travels across the Spanish countryside together, taking in breathtaking sights while meeting colorful characters and making their own personal discoveries.

It's a lovely showcase for Sheen, who is really just never not awesome.*  He particularly shines in the few scenes he has with Estevez, who now bears an even more startling resemblance to his father with age.  Tom's transition from surly, bereaved loner to friendly, generous patriarch is absolutely lovely to watch.  Much like Tom's months long physical journey, his emotional journey is gradual and given plenty of room to breathe.  Some might find it a bit slow or ponderous, but I thought the pacing was appropriate given the circumstances.  And there's one scene in particular when Tom's pack and the ashes contained within are stolen by a gypsy boy and Martin's reaction is absolutely devastating.

Estevez deserves credit as a director for not only crafting a smart, emotional piece that allows his father to do fantastic work in a rare leading role, but he also shows off all the wonders of a long hike cross country without ever making the thing feel like a travelogue.  In fact, after watching The Way, both Jamie and I were definitely won over on the idea of spending a few months backpacking across Europe or Australia.  Many people travel the Camino with some sort of religious motivation (the path ends at the supposed resting place of the remains of the apostle St James) but it's certainly not necessary to embark on the journey.  Anyone can tell you that I'm not exactly a spiritual person, but the whole point of traveling The Way is that everyone finds their own meaning in the journey, even if it's not the same thing that motivated the traveler in the first place.

A little bit of self-discovery is good for everyone.  And honestly, there's nothing like a funeral to motivate you to get out and see the world a bit.  Ms. L lived to the age of 72, but I've seen too many friends cut down far too early in life.  We only get so many opportunities to have real, meaningful experiences in life, and it's important to take advantage of each and every one.  As much as I've enjoyed being back in Boston, close to family and friends, I'm looking forward to our eventual departure and I can't wait to see where life takes us next and what I'll discover about myself along the way.



*Let's not talk about Spawn.

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Title: The Way
Director: Emilio Estevez
Starring: Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, Yorick van Wageningen, James Nesbitt, Emilio Estevez
Year Of Release: 2010
Viewing Method: Netflix Instant (TV)

Adam Scott Embraces His Darker Side In THE VICIOUS KIND

"Sometimes people do things that they know are wrong, but they just do 'em anyway, 'cuz to do the right thing would be too painful."

My Netflix queue is full of movies I've never heard of that never got a proper theatrical release but star actors that I'm very fond of.  Direct-to-video doesn't carry nearly the stigma it once did, so you see lots of reputable folks starring in curious indie films that play at a few festivals but then skip the multiplex and head right to iTunes and Netflix.  There's got to be some kind of draw for these talented actors and it certainly isn't the paycheck.  Maybe it's an interesting character, a cool story premise or perhaps it's just the chance to work with a promising young writer or director.  Either way I'm curious, especially since that initial promise ultimately never paid off as box office success.

That's how I discovered The Vicious Kind. It's not a movie I was in anyway familiar with, but it features Adam Scott, an actor I absolutely adore, in a role that is a real departure from the kind of mainstream comedy work he's known for on shows like Parks & Rec and Party Down. It's always nice to see an artist you respect really stretching their talents and pushing themselves in a direction that's not only new, but also truly challenging, and that much is obvious here right from director Lee Toland Krieger's very first shot of a bearded Scott smoking in a diner booth, trying to hold back tears.  Scott plays Caleb, a broken, sleep-deprived man who's still recovering from a nasty break-up and hasn't spoken to his father (J.K. Simmons) in eight years despite living in the same small Connecticut town.  When his younger brother comes home from college for Thanksgiving with his new girlfriend in tow - a girl (Brittany Snow) who looks exactly like Caleb's ex - her presence sends Caleb over the edge and he just totally loses it, swinging from charming asshole to violent psychopath to blubbering mess with every encounter that slowly draws the two closer together.

The great thing about Scott's performance here is that Caleb isn't your typical nice-guy-who's-just-lashing-out.  You never get the sense that if he could just meet the right girl and get some sleep that he would actually turn things around and discover the good person buried beneath the painful surface.  Caleb is a true asshole, the kind of guy who never takes the feelings of others into account and whose sole motivation for every action is pure self-satisfaction.  He's an emotional bull in a china shop, willing to shatter everything in his path if it might make him feel just a little bit better about himself.  You're never really rooting for Caleb, but Scott imbues the character with so many different facets that he becomes equal parts engrossing and repulsive.  You simply can't look away, even if it's only to see what he'll say or do next.  Despite his wounded and terrible nature, he can also be acerbic and funny - his delivery of the line "thinking about how small they could make a t-shirt" absolutely slays me every time.

Certain movies have always served as a form of comfort food for me.  There are some films I like to watch when I'm really happy or depressed or lonely or angry.  If I had discovered The Vicious Kind back in my single days, it would have certainly found its way into heavy post-breakup rotation.  It allows you to revel in that state of abject pain and emotional turmoil that sets in after the death of a relationship, to the point where you almost cheer on Caleb in every terrible decision he makes.  But at the same time, it's also somewhat reassuring, because at least your life isn't that fucked up.  It's a sharp bit of writing from Lee Toland Krieger that absolutely crackles with energy.  The style often echoes the writing of Neil Labute, so it's easy to see why he ended up as a producer on the film.  (If you had told me that Labute did a polish on the script I wouldn't be surprised in the least.)  Krieger has since directed the very sweet Celeste & Jesse Forever with Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg, another movie which not only examines how we deal with the end of a relationship, but also features solid dramatic performances from some primarily comic actors.  I'm curious to see not only what other subject matters Krieger tackles in the future, but also what kind of surprising performances he'll be able to coax out his actors.

But mostly I want to see more dramatic work from Adam Scott.

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Title: The Vicious Kind
Director: Lee Toland Krieger
Starring: Adam Scott, Brittany Snow, J.K. Simmons, Alex Frost
Year Of Release: 2009
Viewing Method: Netflix Instant (Laptop)

Wife's Choice: SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Appeals To The Film Nerd In Me

"Why don't you go out there right now and recite the Gettysburg Address?"

There's no reason for me to beat a dead horse.  Old time musicals simply aren't my jam, and most of the problems I had watching An American In Paris can be directly translated to Singin' In The Rain - most egregious is the impressively staged but protracted "Broadway Melody" song and dance number which is only a minor step up from the lengthy dream sequence that concludes Paris.  Gene Kelly's musical prowess simply cannot be denied and he's certainly entertaining.  And once again there are some really captivating visuals in the musicals numbers (all directed by Kelly himself) that are just stunning to behold, particularly Kelly's duet Cyd Charisse and her extraordinarily long white shawl.  But in the end I get bored with musical routines that don't actually have any impact on the story and feel like nothing more than spectacle for spectacle's sake.

That being said, there are two things in the movie that I genuinely enjoyed.  First of all, I love movies about making movies, and the era when "talkies" began to crowd out the old silent films is endlessly fascinating to me.  There are some great bits when the crew starts shooting their first film with sound and struggle to hide giant microphones around the set.  And the first screening of The Dueling Cavalier is rife with clever audio gags like the cacophonous racking of a pearl necklace, or the volume of Lina Lamont's voice drifting in and out as she moves her head away from the microphone.  In fact, I would have gladly traded a dance number or two for an extended version of the audience cracking jokes at all of The Dueling Cavalier's terrible sound cues.

I remember the change from optical to digital special effects, and I've witnessed the embrace of digital capture and non-linear editing over working with actual celluloid, but while the results are fascinating it often feels very selective in terms of which aspects of filmmaking are directly affected.  Sure you've got actors wearing motion capture suits and acting against tennis balls that will eventually become digital monsters on the big screen, but that's nothing compared to switching from what was essentially pantomime to a full on physical and vocal performance.  In fact, it's easy to see why Debbie Reynolds's Kathy Seldon disparages Kelly's Don Lockwood earlier on in the picture, rightfully asserting that film acting and stage acting are so incredibly different it's almost not even worth comparing the two.  It's understandable that a lot of actors would have trouble transitioning from just having to look good on camera, hit their marks and adopt the right facial expression to match the scene, but having to both believably deliver dialogue and convey emotion and character through words is a whole other barrel of monkeys.  I'm can't help but wonder if I'll ever get to see a similar shift in the industry, where filmmakers utilize some new form of technology (perhaps fully immersive 3D holograms?) that so completely alters the way an actor has to perform for the camera that some people simply cannot handle the change and are left watching as the industry moves on without them.

There's one other scene in Singin' In The Rain that I absolutely adored, and that's Donald O'Connor's infamous "Make 'Em Laugh" routine.

Holy balls, that's not only hilarious, but it's also one of the most jaw-dropping displays of physical comedy I've ever seen, made all the more impressive considering that O'Connor supposedly smoked four packs of cigarettes a day.  As a kid, I spent almost every Sunday morning watching old Three Stooges shorts, fostering a lifelong love of pratfalls, eye-pokes and other forms of great physical comedy.  It's also why I'll love Jim Carrey forever.  Not only is O'Connor seemingly a man made of rubber (the bit where he runs into the wall and tries to fix his flattened face is priceless) but the entire routine is full of great Stooges-esque sound effects that really punch up O'Connor's already astounding physical work.  "Make 'Em Laugh" was an absolute joy to watch, thoroughly cracking me up from start to finish.

It's easy to see why Singin' In The Rain is such a beloved classic, and if I was fonder of the musical genre as a whole, then this would almost certainly be one of my favorite films.  But while I enjoyed the film overall, I don't exactly see it as a movie I'll be revisiting with any great frequency.

I am curious to check out Donald O'Connor in The Buster Keaton Story though...


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Title: Singin' In The Rain
Director: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly
Starring: Gene Kelley, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Jean Hagen, Millard Mitchell, Cyd Charisse
Year Of Release: 1952
Viewing Method: DVD

THE LONE RANGER Is Aggressively Awful, Makes Me Despair For Intelligent Audiences

"They were gonna violate me with a duck's foot!"

Jesus Fuck, there simply isn't enough firewater in the world to get me to watch this movie again.

My problems with Disney's The Lone Ranger are perfectly encapsulated in the film's very last scene.  The Lone Ranger, wearing his signature black mask and white hat, sits atop his trusty steed, Silver.  He rears the horse back on its hind legs, holds his hat up in the air and cries out, "Hi ho, Silver!  Away!"  It's the character's classic pose, a perfect iconic image.  The film then immediately cuts to Johnny Depp's Tonto, who looks at the Lone Ranger with a look of absolute horror and yells, "Don't ever do that again!"

If that's how you feel about the character, why the fuck bother making this movie?  And what's worse, the audience I was with reacted like it was THE FUNNIEST GODDAMN THING THEY'VE EVER SEEN.

Let's rewind.  First of all, an irate aside: Since I was attending a preview screening, I had to go through Disney's draconian security process to get in.  Now I worked security for these kinds of screenings for the better part of four years, so I know exactly how this game is played.  You want to take my phone away because it has a camera?  Fine.  It's annoying, but understandable, even if the movie I'm about to watch hits theaters in a mere three days.  I will surrender my iPhone and accept it as the cost of doing business.  But you know what you don't need to confiscate?  Some lady's headphones.  Or the Kindle of the guy in front of me.  Or my fucking flash drives.  I'm all about preventing piracy, but there's no reason that we can't have policies which operate on the most basic awareness of how technology works.  Just because something contains a circuit, that doesn't make it a recording device.  (It's the same reason I hate being told I can't read my Kindle on a plane during takeoff, despite the fact that the whole point of e-ink displays is that they literally do not use any power except for the moment you flip the page.)  If you really think that I'm hiding a camera in my headphones, then the security guards who you're paying to stand in the theater with night vision scopes will certainly catch me.  But there's no reason to make getting in the theater (or retrieving my belongings after the show) any more arduous a procedure than absolutely necessary.

Okay, rant over.  What about the actual movie?

This is a film that is chock full of terrible decisions, most if which can be attributed to screenwriters Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio and Justin Haythe. There's the basic, conceptual stuff like turning The Lone Ranger into a wimpy lawyer who spends most of the movie refusing to use a gun and the rest of the movie pulling off incredible trick shots entirely by accident. Or there's the utterly pointless inclusion of the wraparound scenes with Old Man Tonto relaying the entire story to a kid at a traveling fair in 1933, all of which plays like the Fred Savage scenes from Princess Bride but without the innate charm of Peter Faulk. And let's not forget the utter lack of consistent tone, with the film constantly switching between dark, savage violence (like the compete massacre of not one but TWO Native American tribes) and zany, cartoon stunts like the magical white horse who climbs onto roofs or into trees for no reason other than OH MY GOD, THAT HORSE IS CRAZY!

In fact, it's utterly astounding just how packed to the gills this movie is with incredibly broad humor that just doesn't land.  There are all these terrible bits with giant-fanged CGI rabbits that are supposed to indicate that nature is somehow out of balance, but don't worry if you find it confusing because it's not a plot point that goes anywhere or means anything. The movie also contains the single most tasteless, borderline offensive joke of the year, in which Tonto threatens to rape a transvestite bandit with a petrified duck's foot.  Seriously. Not only is this stuff not funny, but they're clearly playing to the absolute dumbest motherfucker in the room, as evidenced by a closeup shot of Silver taking a huge dump and then Armie Hammer getting dragged through the ensuing pile of horseshit.

And the audience absolutely ate it up.  Couldn't get enough of it!  "More horse poop!"

I was joking on Twitter before the screening about the public's love of Johnny Depp wearing a funny hat, but now that comment feels downright prescient.  It's common knowledge at this point that Depp spends the movie with a dead crow perched atop his head, but just to drive the image home he is constantly trying to feed the thing peanuts and birdseed.  Once or twice would have been funny, but eventually it basically devolves into a weird character tic that my audience totally fell in love with while I searched for pointed sticks to jab into my eyes.  Where Captain Jack Sparrow was a competent, lovable rogue, Tonto is quickly revealed to be nothing more than a idiotic, delusional asshole.  The same can be said Johnny Depp.  There's no more debate over whether not the guy's shtick has jumped the shark, now its just a question of how high. Depp is constantly clowning and mugging for the camera while cracking jokes in an oddly modern parlance, but then in the middle of all his red-face bullshit there will be glimmer of hope, a quick flash of brilliance that reminds me  why he can be such a compelling onscreen force when he wants to be.  But then it's gone just as swiftly as it appeared and I'm forced to admit that, much like Tim Burton, Gore Verbinski is a director who now only enables Depp's  very worst tendencies.

I'll give Verbinski this: he shoots the living shit out of the thing, filling the frame with a million moving pieces hurtling at breakneck speeds, yet somehow bringing order to the chaos and managing to make it look downright beautiful at times.  But there's just no saving this runaway train.  It's about a half an hour longer than it needs to be, it strands great character actors like Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner, Barry Pepper and Helena Bonham-Carter with absolutely nothing to do, and it sets the bar for humor and storytelling impossibly low...then somehow manages to trip over it.  The only person I feel really bad for is Armie Hammer, a seriously talented guy who's clearly giving it everything he's got but is ultimately stuck playing a character that just flat out doesn't work as written.

This is an objectively bad movie.  Just awful on every front.  But what really put it over the top for me was the moronic, mouth-breathing audience that surrounded me.  Their reactions just astounded me at every turn. Not only did they crack up laughing at terrible jokes, (or every single time Depp fed that fucking bird), but they even laughed at things that were clearly not jokes.  Late in the film (too late) the Lone Ranger finally realizes that his much vaunted society of law and order has become utterly corrupt and that he must take matters into his own hands.  He and Tonto sit in the darkness on a riverbank, dejected after watching the U.S. Army slaughter an entire tribe of natives solely to cover up a silver theft.  As the Lone Ranger sits by the water, a man betrayed by the system he prized above all else, Tonto slowly holds up the black mask, offering him a means to find justice and to save the the people he loves...and the audience started cackling.  I honestly couldn't tell you why.  Here's an even more befuddling example: early on, when the Lone Ranger's brother Dan, one of the movie's few well defined characters played to the hilt by James Badge Dale, prepares to ride off with his posse to capture William Fichtner, he has a long, drawn out goodbye with his wife and son, underscored by a super heavy-handed musical cue.  It's very clear that he's saying goodbye to them for the last time and won't be coming home alive.  And yet, when he gets shot down ten minutes later, the room reacted with complete shock and surprise.  The same when the Ranger's love interest is casually backhanded by a villain in the middle of a big action scene and appears for a quick moment to fall out of the train.  This is a major character who we've spent a lot of time with, the kind who don't get accidentally pushed to their death while seven other things are happening.  And yet, I heard people gasping as if they thought she'd really been casually killed.  Walking out of the theater, I felt like I was living in a present day Idiocracy.  These people not only lost their minds and the stupidest jokes imaginable, (they'd probably line up for a show called Ow, My Balls) but they had apparently never seen a movie before.  As bad as the film was, watching it with that audience only increased my anger and frustration exponentially.  It actually made me long for the version of this movie that was about werewolves.

I don't know what more I can possibly say to warn you off of seeing The Lone Ranger.  It's an absolute failure on every conceivable level and it encapsulates all of the absolute worst instincts of the modern Hollywood machine.  It instantly leaped to the top of my "Bottom Ten" list and I'll be astounded if anything can manage to knock it from it's shitty throne.

Be warned: your punishment for buying a ticket to The Lone Ranger is that you have to watch The Lone Ranger.


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Title: The Lone Ranger
Director: Gore Verbinski
Starring: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Helena Bonham-Carter, James Badge Dale, Barry Pepper, Ruth Wilson, Stephen Root
Year Of Release: 2013
Viewing Method: Theatrical - AMC Boston Common (Advanced Screening)

BEING FLYNN And Mourning My A/V Mom

"We were put on this earth to help other people."

Paul Weitz's Being Flynn isn't great.  Paul Dano is good, Julianne Moore is present, Olivia Thirlby is adorable, and Robert De Niro is actually awake and giving a shit.  But the pacing is downright awful, dragging in the middle and then inexplicably rushing the end.  My ultimate conclusion is that the most notable aspect of this movie is the title: it's based on the autobiographical book by Nick Flynn called Another Bullshit Night In Suck City.  I understand that most theaters won't post the word "bullshit" on their marquee, but I've never seen a more dramatic example of a title downgrading from Totally Freaking Awesome to Bland As Hell.

But despite all that it's a film I'll henceforth remember with sadness, a movie inextricably tied to my specific viewing experience.  You see, I had to pause the film multiple times to make and receive phone calls with a lot of old friends, but they weren't the kind of calls that anybody enjoys.  That's because, about five minutes into the movie, I received an email telling me that an important person in my life was gone from this world.

When I was in high school, I spent the majority of my free time in the basement of the science building, home of the A/V crew.  There were about 20-30 of us who were allowed to lounge in the office during our free periods and long after the school day had ended, playing computer games (mostly Tetris, South Park Snood, Daleks, Dome Wars and Skittles) while munching on our own private supply of snacks in exchange for a willingness to set up equipment when necessary and help project movies on the weekends.  We were a pretty diverse group, spanning the range from theater kids to athletes and from loquacious extroverts to kids who barely spoke.  But above all and despite our differences, we were a family.

Our A/V family had two parent figures.  Mr. Moll was our fun-loving father figure, both the film teacher and head of the A/V department, and our collective mother was his assistant Mrs. Lyons, who we affectionately called Ms. L.  She had been at the school for more than a decade when I got there and had seen countless audio/visually-inclined students pass through the office over the years.  Ms. L was a short, heavyset woman in her late 50's with closely cropped blonde hair and a seemingly boundless reserve of energy despite being slow to move thanks to a pair of knees that had betrayed her long ago.  She was also whip-smart: in the back of the office was "the stacks," a video library containing hundreds of movies (on VHS!) that she kept track of with startling precision.  And, like any good mother figure, Ms. L was both affectionate and stern in equal measure.  She'd be the first one to wish you a happy birthday, or bring in Munchkins from Dunkin Donuts when we embarked on our senior projects in the spring, but she'd also call you out on your shit if you broke the rules or were just generally acting like an ass.  She was, quite simply, one of the kindest, funniest and most giving ladies I have ever had the pleasure to meet.

When I think of Ms. L, I will forever think of this story: At the tail end of my senior year, Mr. Moll left the school to take an unexpected job offer and the school hastily hired someone who was almost completely unqualified to fill his position for the remainder of the year.  In fact, not only was he an asshat and borderline incompetent, but he was later found to be stealing equipment from the school.  From this point on, we'll refer to him as Thieving Bastard.  Ms. L did not care for Thieving Bastard (neither did anyone else) and when it became clear that he was going to return for the following school year, she decided that it was perhaps time for her to retire.  However, when we seniors went on project, Thieving Bastard began to heavily rely on one of the more knowledgeable juniors, let's call him Albert, to get everything done.  Albert was such a nice kid and loved working in the A/V so much that soon his schoolwork began to suffer and Ms. L worried that, if left unchecked for the entirety of his senior year, Albert simply wouldn't graduate on time.  And so she quietly decided that she would stay on for another year solely to ensure that Thieving Bastard didn't take undue advantage of Albert and to make sure he finished his senior year.  I was unaware of all of this at the time, but after I graduated someone told me that Albert had actually decided to change schools for his senior year.  I was working in the A/V that summer and one day Ms. L stopped by to pick up some things from the office.  I mentioned off-hand that Albert wasn't coming back next year and I could see her visibly tremble as tears of relief came to her eyes.  "Good for him," she said, as she told me about her now unnecessary plan to delay her retirement.  A week later a letter came into the office addressed to the head of the department.  I immediately recognized Ms. L's handwriting and knew that I was holding her letter of resignation.  I couldn't have been happier for her.

Sadly I haven't seen her much since that day.  As it just so happens, her former boss, Mr. Moll, is my current boss and we often reminisce about our days in the A/V with Ms. L.  (Hilariously, my high school almost hired me to fill her position a few years ago.)  Her family has a place on Cape Cod a few blocks away from my parents, so occasionally I would run into her during the summer, standing in front of her house watering her flowers.  As it happens, I was driving through that neighborhood just yesterday morning and immediately thought of her.  But, in truth, it's been years since I saw her last and I can only blame myself for missing out on the opportunity to check in since moving back from Los Angeles.  I would have loved to introduce her to my wife.  I think they would have gotten along famously.

Ms. L passed away surrounded by family in her home on June 27.  Let me quote one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite TV shows after the death of another great Ms. L:

"She was a real dame, old friend, a real broad."


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Title: Being Flynn
Director: Paul Weitz
Starring: Robert De Niro, Paul Dano, Julianne Moore, Olivia Thirlby, Victor Rasuk, Lili Taylor
Year Of Release: 2012
Viewing Method: HBO HD