This past weekend was one of reunions. While I had initially thought that my entire weekend would be spent hanging out with the visiting Chris Agra, it turned out that Chris only ended up being in town Friday night. So me, Chris, Chris' travelling posse, and our former 6th-floor Sleeper Hall-mate Josh met up late Friday, but made the most of our time ... hitting up Hollywood hotspot Barney's where a great time was had by all. Not only that, but I guess the Beanery was the place to be on Friday, as we ran into a bunch o' the BU crew, as well as a number of former / current NBC colleagues. All of which made me seem tres cool, since I knew like half the people there that night. Good times.
Unfortunately, Chris and his crew headed south to visit a friend on Saturday, so our BU reunion was cut a bit short. But luckily I was able to hit up a truly great movie Saturday evening: Little Miss Sunshine, the review of which I will get to in a minute, don't worry.
Sunday the remnants of the NBC Page Class of January, 05 were brought together once again. No longer constricted by the confines of a Communist regime, future journalist extraordinaire Adriana joined the G-Man and myself, as well as her partner in crime Diane, for a very nice dinner in Pasadena followed by the obligatory stop at 21 Choices frozen yogurt shop. We were regaled by Adriana's tales of adventure in Hong Kong and China (the land where this very blog is banned!), and my usual anxiety about Mondays was made all the more painful by my renewed wish to just quit my job and travel the world in search of adventure while I'm still young. Well, I guess its better to at least be inspired to dream of such things than to be devoid of such ideas of faraway lands altogether. So yeah, a nice way to cap off the weekend before I found myself once again staring at a computer behind a desk, staring down the corporate void wondering how I got to this point and why.
Um, yeah, it's not that bad ... I just really don't like Mondays. Can you tell?
But anyways ...
RANDOM THOUGHTS:
- I finally watched Adult Swim last night for the first time in a long time, as I've been meaning to see what all the hype about The Venture Bros is about. I was definitely entertained by the show, although it's another one of those quirky Cartoon Net shows where the premise is a little bit funnier in theory than in execution. I definitely want to see more episodes, but I feel like with this show its one of those situaitons where things are thrown at the wall simply in the name of being quirky, without really being thought-out. I get that it's supposed to be random, and I have a deep affection for all the Hannah Barbera genre stuff that this show satirizes, but I guess it's just a little too disjointed for me. Still, that's just my initial opinion - like I said, I definitely need to see more. And yes, Brock Sampson sneaking up on and holding three separate villains at knifepoint in a men's room was pretty hilarious. Also ... Metalpocalypse -- again, the whole premise and crazy sensibility of this show cracks me up. Extremely random almost to a fault, but it's reassuring to know that absolutely crazy animation like this has a home on TV. I mean, where else can you see a ficticious, animated Metal band sing a song called "Mer Maid Murder?" Yeah, that's what I thought.
- How about that new Buck Cherry song, "Crazy Bitch?" Pretty sweet, huh? I totally forgot who Buck Cherry was until I was pointed in the direction of their 90's one-hit-wonder song "Lit Up," which still rocks.
- "This reminds me of Highlander"
" What's that?"
" A movie. It won an academy award."
" For what?"
" Best movie -- ever."
Why do I have the feeling that years from now, this paraphrased exchange will be the most quoted line from Talladega Nights? Classic.
- Season 8 of The Simpsons is out on DVD this week - nice! Probably the last CLASSIC season ever of The Simpsons. While it would be "very good" for a few more years before eventually becoming a much lesser show than in its prime, Season 8 is rife with all time, legendary episodes. The Frank Grimes ep might still be the single funniest episode ever of the Simpsons, and who doesn't love Hank Scorpio? If you don't enjoy the Hank Scorpio episode of the Simpsons, I seriously question your sense of humor. That is all. PS - been gunning through season 1 of Futurama - amazing show - sharp writing, awesome animation, and tons of quotable lines - most of these eps I've only seen probably once before, so now I am finally able revisit some of the best quotes that I hadn't really absorbed until now. All I'll say for now is: Zap Brannigan = comedy gold.
- Well with the cease-fire in effect between Israel and Lebanon, we can only hope that this means peace in the region. But other than end the immediate hostilities, I don't see exactly what this truce accomplishes. You still have Hezbollah out there - not only as a terrorist group but as a faction of the Lebonese governement ... yet still they are looked at in many corners as a legitimate movment ... it really is amazing. Again, you can't really negotiate with terrorists, and while a prolonged air and ground war isn't exactly the best way to dismantle them either, it seems naive to think that a treaty really addresses the root of the problem in any way. You don't see the US making a treaty with Al Queida, do you? It just saddens me that even with this temporary peace, there is no real indication that this is an end point of any real legitimacy.
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE REVIEW:
Amidst all of the overhyped blockbusters of this summer, I am pretty sure that this weekend I saw one of the few truly "great" movies of the last few months. In fact, Little Miss Sunshine is maybe the first movie since United 93 where I really was thinking "Oscar" after I saw the film.
What is Little Miss Sunshine? It's not exactly easy to describe, but to use Hollywood's favorite method of tagging a movie, I'd say this: take the basic family road-trip premise behind National Lampoon's Vacation, add in the family drama and angst of Ordinary People, and mix with a little of the dark comedy of The Royal Tannenbaums and a dash of the earnest quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite. That is Little Miss Sunshine in a nutshell, but it really is its own unique thing - the tone of the movie is heartfelt, affectionate, even sentimental at times ... yet it definitely has a little bit of a darker, adult edge.
What I loved about this movie though is how its different scenes really took you through the gamut of emotions that a family trip like this might have. There are the moments where you can't stand everyone else - are you really even related to these people? There's the moments where you fight even though you know it's pointless. There's the arguments about little things that quickly escalate into family State of the Unions. And then there's these weird moments of triumph, where some external factor puts everyone on the same wavelength, and the family really does function as a unit in the way that only a family can.
Little Miss Sunshine just kind of captured this whole feeling of looking around at your family members and wondering who these people are. Take Alan Arkin as the outspoken granfather figure in the movie. To his young grandaughter he's a hero, a mentor, a silly cheerleader of her burgeoning beauty pageant career. But to almost everyone else he's a vice-riddled, vulgar, problematic character - he really is kind of an odd, sketchy guy. But to Olive, his eight year old granddaughter, he's just Grandpa, with all the unconditional love that that title entails.
The movie really is, as you can see, a fantastic character study, and that's in no small part due to the absolutely phenomenal cast, each of whom turns in a performance for the ages.
As I said, Alan Arkin is the scene-stealer here. What I didn't mention before is that he's freaking hilarious in this movie. I won't spoil the jokes but some of the very un-grandfatherly advice that he gives his teenaged grandson concerning women is just off-the-charts hilarious. Arkin's distinct voice is put to full comedic effect. When he utters things like "Chicken? Again with the chicken?" he makes it funny in a a way that only he can. Basically, this is one of the best actors around putting in perhaps one of his best and most memorable performances ever.
Steve Carell really showed me something here. Carell takes his deadpan comedy skills and puts them to use in a whole new way. While this is the same droopy-eyed Carell you know and love, it is a character far-removed from anything he's played before - a much darker character, and yet one who's really the heart and soul of the movie. Just as in the 40-Year Old Virgin, you find yourself rooting for Carell here, even though he plays a depressed, suicidal, gay Proust scholar - not exactly the recipe for a lovable character, but Carell somehow makes it all work.
Greg Kinnear may have the most underrated role in the movie. He takes the classic embattled Chevy Chase character from Vacation and puts a darker, more desperate spin on it. The irony that he's a motivational speaker whose family is in shambles only adds to the depth of his character - great work here by Kinnear.
The rest of the cast is universally talented. Toni Collette does a great job as the broken-down mother, desperately clinging to a sense of familial unity. The scene in the beginning where she spreads out fast-food chicken, a salad, and Sprite at the dinner table is perfectly symbolic of her character - grasping at straws to preserve a semblance of normality. Paul Dano as the brooding teenaged son who has taken a vow of silence is another great performance. Dano and Steve Carell have a great chemistry in their scenes together, and it's yet another performance that mixes laughter, sadness, comedy, and tragedy, to great dramatic effect.
And lastly, special mention has to be made of Abigail Breslyn, who has got to be one of the most talented child actors around. She is effortlessly real and believable as a little girl who dreams of being a pageant queen, and is funny, poignant, and just really, really good here. Just like her character in a movie, she never really felt like an actress playing a part - just a real, ordinary kid.
Abigail's character of Olive is the stimulis for the story, and through her the movie becomes more than just a family-based character study, but a social satire, a look at the pursuit of fame and of living out a dream when it's all you have left.
This movie is loaded with great little cameos and tons of funny bit characters. But with a lot of these quirkier indie comedies, you get a few funny lines, and a lot of self-aware cleverness, but rarely does a dark comedy in this vein make you laugh out loud continuously throughout an entire scene. Not this one. While Little Miss Sunshine is by no means a comedy in the vein of the latest Will Ferell movie or whatever, it is not just a clever arthouse film either. The last ten minutes or so of this movie had me, and the entire theater audience, laughing so hard we were in tears - and man, the climactic moment of this film is just one of those all-time great film moments, where it's so funny you're laughing out loud like crazy, but it's such a great, happy moment that it becomes so much more than just pure comedy. I won't say any more, just that as much as this is a "dark" comedy, it really is also an uplifiting, enlightening, life-affirming one. Suffice to say, this one is a crowd-pleaser, an applause-getter. And overall, I'd call it one of my favorite movies so far this year.
My Grade: A
- Alright, well, that's about it for today. I've been thinking of creating a separate blog that would have all of my TV and movie reviews in one place - I'd still post them here, but then cut and paste them separately into a more organized format later on. What do you think?
- Lastly, I will get in a few quick plugs. Any of you guys soap opera fans? Anyone you know? Parents, grandparents? Well starting tommorow, fans of PASSIONS will be able to download episodes of the show, daily, on I-Tunes. Never miss an episode again! Brilliant!
- Okay, seriously now, I'm out.
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