Entering Miss Plaza

    There is something great about the summer. In a effort to increase movie ticket sales, movie companies start doing two late night early shows for the newest movies. It helps those of us who love to go see the late night shows but maybe don’t want to be snuggling with the couple next to us on the aisle who needs to buy the large drink even though it will cause them to leave at the most crucial point in the movie and proceed to fall on top of you (and not in a good way). I’ve never been able to grasp going to the bathroom in the middle of a movie. How can you just get up and miss major part to the storyline of the movie? Sure in a movie like Grown Ups 2, where there is very little you need to know to enjoy yourself, it barely matters but in an intricate movie like say Inception, you are gonna miss some important details. Personally, I’m a holder. I know it is not necessarily the best thing to do but if I don’t feel like I can’t stand up straight at the end of a movie because my kidneys are holding a  few cups of water, I’m not doing my job correctly...or I am severely dehydrated. So I guess my point is, please stop climbing over everyone to go use the cesspool of a bathroom during the crucial scene in the movie. My testicles (which you will undoubtedly grab and twist as you fall across me) thank you.

    Where was I? Oh yeah, the summer late night showings of new movies. As a working stiff who usually has to work on Friday (of course now I have fuck all to do), the midnight showings are a nightmare. You get out at 2 am and if you have to wake up at 8am or earlier, you are entering the arena of “Should I go to sleep or just stay awake?” With these new summer late night shows, you get in at 10:00pm and are out by 12:00 at the latest and able to head home and be asleep by 1am (hopefully). The problem lies on nights like last night. Two movies I want to see were playing at the same time. The Wolverine (I know, I’m a glutton for shitty movies) and The To-Do List were both playing and I had to make a decision. I know this is a first world problem but it is a dilemma for someone like me. The Wolverine has actiony violence and a dude with claws scratching his way through the Yakuza  while The To-Do List has Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza in a light hearted, R-Rated sex romp.

    There were valid arguments to be made for either movie. The To-Do List has one of my favorite actresses in Aubrey Plaza and not just from her role on Parks and Recreation. I loved Safety Not Guaranteed with Mark Duplass. That movie not only gave her a chance to lead a movie but fit with her personal style of humor and there was heart in her performance. She is also a great looking girl. Her deadpan humor and awkwardness is oddly endearing all in it’s own way. The Wolverine has a hulked out Hugh Jackman and a desperate need to be better than the previous effort in the series. I’ve been watching the commercials closely this week and is it just me or does it seem like they are beating you over the head with a desire to say “We didn’t fuck this one up like the last one!” What, do you want a cookie? That’s your job. Make a good movie and don't fuck it up.  The last movie I had that feeling about was Cowboys and Aliens. I don't want to toot my own horn but toot motherf**king toot. As you can probably tell, the choice for me was relatively clear. To avoid a potential suckfest, I went to see...

The To Do List

    I've always enjoyed a good teen sex romp. The boys from Porky’s and American Pie could always make you cackle with joy and absurd sexual situations. I’ve always thought that these movies were perhaps the most realistic idea of what being a guy in their late teens meant. Sex was some how a mythical creature that only the cool kids could get. Sure, you wanted to have  naked fumbling in the back seat of your Camaro with someone but there was no chance you would know what to do or how to do or how to not blow it. You aren’t prepared for the emotions but your body keeps screaming at you to do it now. It is a common movie experience. A boy or boys want to lose his virginity and goes through embarrassing events to finally learn the true meaning of sexual intimacy.
   
    The To Do List switches it up and tells the familiar story of  losing your virginity from the girls point of view. Aubrey Plaza stars as Brandy Klark, an overachiever in the class of 1993 who never had time in High School to have a boyfriend and go through those awkward first fumblings. She was so laser focused on her school work and getting into college that she missed half the point of high school, to build memories and friendships. To have awkward moments with boys, and learn how to kiss, touch, grope and fondle. She is so pristine and uptight that after graduation,  she is dragged  to a party that she doesn’t want to be at until she spies Rusty (played by the excellent Scott Porter of Friday Night Lights) playing an acoustic version of Pour Some Sugar On Me. Something in her snaps and she let’s loose, getting drunk, having fun and enjoying her grad night. After enjoying the party a little too much and being placed in a bunk bed by her friends, Rusty comes into the room looking for his hook up. He awkwardly makes out with Brandy until she constantly corrects his make out grammar, kisses other parts of his face while completely missing his lips and he finally turns on the lights to figure out that she is not the blonde he was looking for.  Sickened  by her lack of experience, she (as an anal overachiever does) comes up with a to do list of sexual acts that she needs to experience before she can lose her virginity to Rusty.
   
    With a little helpful encouragement from her friends, she decides to work down her list during the summer and culminate the summer by getting the boy of her dreams. I’ve always thought that women haven’t been portrayed enough as  wanting sex and pursuing it too. Experience tells me this is not the case. Women can be sexual aggressors. So it was refreshing to see a woman take charge of the bedroom. Lost in the shuffle is Cameron, Brandy’s lab partner who has a massive crush on her and wants nothing more than to be her first lover. He is quite in love with her and when she approaches him at a party because she wants to be finger banged/blasted/bombed (according to who you ask in the movie), he is quite happy. The problem is she is just using him and so those real feelings he is developing is nothing more than a science experiment to Brandy.
   
    I could appreciate the honesty and realism the relationships in the movie and how women can make mistakes and are not all knowing over what should be done. Brandy does not think of what could happen to Cameron and takes it upon herself to make out with him, give him a handjob (with butter) at a movie to the chagrin of those around them. Not to mention that she experiments with oral sex at the pool (where she, Rusty, Cameron and a wonderful Bill Hader all work) with a guy in a grunge band after he’s ingested several pineapple juices to make his come taste better. The To Do List tackles the subject of sex with such earnestness that you are quite happy to follow Brandy on her journey although it is not necessarily a noble one. She is using a guy who really cares about her, hooks up with a guy her friend still likes, and obsesses over Rusty as though he is the golden ticket to a pleasurable loss of her virginity. It is the first time I could say a movie considered a sex romp can be consider sweet.

    And yet the movie is sweet. Her parents played by Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Mrs. Coach (Connie Britton) are the typical parents of the 90's. One is a conservative who doesn’t want his daughter to experiment with sex while her mom is quite open and offers up lube for a more pleasurable sexual experience. Brandy’s sister Amber is a all knowing sexual guru who mocks Brandy for being such a loser. Fiona and Wendy are Brandy’s best friends who have all had sex and encourage her in her quest for sexual experience while really just wanting to have a night they can all hang out and watch Beaches. Brandy herself is so innocent and blind to what relationships are that you can’t really blame her for breaking Cameron’s heart.

    What makes the To Do List so innocently heartfelt is the passion Brandy takes to completing her list that she barely pauses to enjoy the experiences she has. It is a lesson for kids that isn’t the normal “Don’t have sex” company line. It teaches us that sex is perhaps the most powerful act we, as adults, can do but that it cannot be quantified in a scientific way. Sex is, as your parents would say, about loving someone and until you learn that lesson, it really is just squishy parts slamming together in a more or less pleasurable way. When you finally find someone you love, sex is truly amazing. I’m not saying there is not a point to sleeping with someone you don’t love. I’m trying to say that it is so much better when you know, care, and love the person.  I know you are saying “Mr. Unhappy, stop being a preacher.” What can I say?  That’s how it worked for me and now I don’t want anything less. That’s just my opinion, I am most likely wrong.
 

In closing...

Mr. Unhappy sez: The To Do List adds heart where heart has not been before. Sure there is a girl masturbating with a pillow wearing a Hillary Clinton t-shirt but the heart thing too. 

Creepy Dolls and Music Boxes

The Conjuring

Here’s a thought I had as I left The Conjuring tonight. Why the hell did people back in the 1800's make their toys so damn creepy? Was it part of the toughness of growing up that your dolls and music boxes scare the crap out of you? The Conjuring has two such items. One is a doll that while being a little worn still looks like it would frighten the bejezus out of small children everywhere and the other is a music box with a circus theme. When you wind it up, the mirror inside spins whilst a creepy ass clown pops it’s head up and down. Of course when the music stops you can see a ghost in the mirror, the creator of this pocket nightmare obviously performed some sort of virgin sacrifice over it after they came up with it.

The Conjuring is a true(ish) story from the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who as paranormal investigators, have investigated some of the scariest haunted houses on the East Coast. The haunting at Amityville is perhaps one of their most famous cases. Lorraine is a medium who can have visions of the spirits and connect with them. As Ed says every time she does one of these hauntings, a piece of her goes too. Ed is a demonologist, author, lecturer and husband to Lorraine. Throughout the movie, they keep alluding to what they were put on this Earth to do. They live in New Jersey, with their daughter and have an  room dedicated to keeping the haunted items they have picked up in their cases. One such thing is a doll named Annabelle who is the host for a demon or so claim the former owners. The story of Annabelle is told in the beginning of The Conjuring to give us a context for their lives and while it is a great scary story, it is only the beginning of the ride you are about to go on.

The real story of The Conjuring is the Perron family's who moved into a New Jersey home that had been home to several tragedies and I’m pretty sure the real estate agency or the bank that sold it to them, should have been upfront with that. Regardless, the Perron’s sink all their money into the new house and move in with their five daughters. Soon after arriving you know something is not right. The dog refuses to go into the house, the doorway to the basement has been shoddily boarded up, and as they sleep, a odor of rotten meat floats around the house. One daughter sleep walks into her sister’s room and bangs her head against the door to the closet, another daughter talks to her invisible friend Rory who owned the aforementioned music creepfest box, and the other daughter hears whispers in the night and gets her foot tugged while she sleeps. All of this stuff would send me screaming from the house and to my real estate agents house so I could kick him/her in the balls (although if it were a her, I might have to dig around with my foot a bit to find the ovaries and it would cease to be a punishment). The incidents eventually get so bad, Carolyn Perron seeks out the Warrens. Ed and Lorraine decide to visit the house and immediately see that this is not a drafty house with leaky pipes. Well it is but it also has some dark forces at work. As time goes on, we see the incidents gain in strength. Ghosts are seen, things pop out of places to scare the crap out of you, and one of the daughters gets thrown around the living room by an unseen force. An exorcism is needed and fast. The church (as the people who should leap to help you) review the evidence and bring it to the Vatican for approval. Red tape is exactly what the family being stalked by demons wants to hear.  The final battle is as it always is in movies about demonic possessions. There is growling, there is holy water and there is Christ compelling something again.  While the same beats are played, the movie itself remains fresh.

The Conjuring is a good if not great movie to see with your girlfriend, loved on, or just someone you could clutch onto and turn to when someone goes to investigate why the pictures all slammed off the walls. I had a series of good “Where the fuck are you going?” comments and no one to share them with. Don’t be like me. What The Conjuring does have in abundance is creepiness. From the doll to the music box to the anticipation of some unknown scary as hell thing to happens. It keeps you on your toes and offers a few scares that will meet horror movie veterans jump from their seats. I don’t have any reason not to believe in ghosts or demons but I do share a scared scepticism of people like Ed an Lorraine. Do they help explain normal psychotic matters with supernatural means or do we just rather believe that the people are insane then try to understand the evil forces in our world? I hope for the former over the latter. I like to keep my scary forces of evil on movie screens and out of my bedroom where ghosts tug on my foot while I sleep. And please keep your creepy ass clown/dolls the fuck in the other room...across town...in France because well fuck the French, they deserve creepy ass things. Creepiness does not belong in toys. Give me a lead painted doll with a happy face and small choking hazard parts over the toys we gave our great great grandfathers any day. 

Mr. Unhappy sez:  After seeing The Conjuring I may jump from my bed for a few nights, just in case the bogeyman is down there to grab me. Not that I believe in that stuff...but what if they believe in me and my tasty ankles.

Yeah...live with that.

We all go a little mad sometimes...

A Quick Hit on Insanity

      I've always thought that I am a little quirky. I'm sure in many books I would be considered insane. I talk to myself and answer myself sometimes. Perhaps this is insanity and perhaps this is me working through my own stuff out loud. It can be quite embarrassing to have someone catch me talking to myself. I always shut up and pretend I didn't get caught. I try to make the person who caught me think that they didn't catch me and that it is in fact their own head voices they heard. I've been in love with someone for two years that doesn't love me and probably never will. I've barely tried to meet anyone new and those I have met bore me because they are so normal. You ever wake up from a dream where you rejected yourself? I have. So insanity may be something I have a good idea about. So I give you my top 5 insanity movies.

In The Mouth Of Madness

My roommate just recently made the observation that Here Comes Honey Boo Boo is the real world incarnation of a Lovecraftian theme. It is that quite astute thought that made me think of In the Mouth of Madness. In the Mouth Of Madness is the third movie in John Carpenter’s apocalypse trilogy and is arguably the best of the three. I could make the argument for John Carpenter's The Thing and I am sure someone out there holds a torch for Prince of Darkness but I still choose this movie. The movie stars Sam Neill as a insurance detective asked to look into the disappearance of famed horror novelist Sutter Cane and how his search that takes him down the rabbit hole into insanity. That he is committed at the beginning of the movie tells you that much. Yet the movie is more about the razor’s edge between the insane and the sane. What if the world went insane? Do the sane people then become the insane? I’ve watched the movie many times and each time it disturbs me. The movie slowly creeps up your spine tickling parts of your mind that might be better left untickled. Go buy it or rent it from Amazon or if you know me ask me for the DVD. I don't think you'll be disappointed and if you are well I can hardly be blamed for your problems.

Mr. Unhappy sez: The end of the world as told by the insane. To quote Ron Weasley "Wicked."

Fight Club

      Based on the book by Chuck Palahniuk this movie is literally about two men who inhabit the same body. Edward Norton is the unnamed narrator who lives his life going to self help groups so he can feel OK enough to go to sleep. Brad Pitt plays Tyler Durden, the man Norton meets who changes his life. That Norton and Pitt are in fact the (spoilers) same person (and if you didn't know that where the hell have you been since this movie came out?) is something you never even suspect until the end of the movie. Once you see it, you can understand and look at the movie in new and interesting ways. I thoroughly enjoy the story of a man who really doesn't know who he is anymore and it takes his own Id to show him a new way to live. This movie, literally, lets you follow insanity and even when you know the trick, you can still enjoy finding all the clues throughout the movie you missed and you get to wonder. How did I not see this coming? 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Don't you hate it when you bang the girl you hate while in a fugue state? Although you are banging...could be worse things to do...like destroy the world.

The Shining 

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Perhaps the scariest movie ever. I think at one point a walrus is blowing a bear. I'm not sure. You got Jack Nicholson at his full Jackness, Shelley Duvall looking like a shaky girl with a mild meth problem, Scatman Caruthers as a freaked out pimp who loves to get in kids heads and give them the sexy eyes, and two twins that speak in unison and then flash into being cut up into not quite even pieces. It isn't the violence...it's the non uniformity of the pieces. Watching The Shining, you wonder if Jack is being haunted or is simply insane. Proof for being haunted is when he walks into room 237 and he makes out with the decomposing girl in the tub. Proof he is insane, my favorite line. "I'm not gonna hurt you, I'm just gonna bash your brains in, bash em right the fuck in!" and the novel he is writing. All I know is that when Shelley Duvall goes running through the hotel finding creepy things along the way, I felt as insane as Jack did. Redrum indeed.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Redrum...redrum...watching a father go insane to the point he'd kill his family. Madness had never been so clear and precise.

Mullholland Drive  

If you've ever watched the scene from David Lynch's Twin Peaks where the little person in a red suit speaks backwards and dances creepily, you understand that a David Lynch movie is not gonna be the most normal experience of your life. Mullholland Drive is a movie that throws you off by simply changing whenever it decides it has run out of story. Mullholland Drive is the short story collection of movies. One minute your watching the story of a young actress who comes to Hollywood to achieve fame the next you are in a diner where a man is describing the dream he had that suddenly becomes true. Then you are back with the actress who now starts a lesbian relationship with the roommate who crawled into her house with no memory of who she was. Then you are transported to the future when the actress and the no memory girl are broken up and she is masturbating in the living room and finally some tiny old people (like smurf sized) grow into normal sized people and chase the actress around the house until she dies of fear because it is scary as shit to have smiling old people chase you. Still gives me the willies. This is the movie equivalent of being schizophrenic...I think.

Mr. Unhappy sez: This movie makes me want to give David Lynch a lifetime achievement award just so I could sit down with him and find out what the hell this movie means. Like seriously what the hell is with those old people?

Psycho 

The original movie about madness. The movie itself keeps the watcher off balance as it takes you through the first half of the movie following Janet Leigh's Marion Crane only to kill her off. The shower scene has made baths the sexy choice when at a motel in the middle of nowhere. Anthony Perkins is genius playing Norman Bates with a likable charm that hides the storm of madness beneath his cool exterior. I've enjoyed this movie from the moment I first watched it. Alfred Hitchcock was the master of suspense and gave you a glimpse into the mind of a psychopath. Based on real life serial killer, Ed Gein, Psycho was and is a portrait of a man who loves his mother and what boy doesn't love his mother. I loved mine. Not enough to keep her corpse in the basement and hold conversations with her. Just a note: The 1998 Gus Van Sant shot for shot remake is well done. There are some minor problems with it but as Kevin Smith pointed out to me, if you pause the shower scene just right as Anne Heche falls over and the camera pans above her you can see her butthole. Juvenile...yes...are you gonna check to see if it is true? Of course you are.

Mr. Unhappy sez:  If you ever wanted to see a man play crazy as deftly as humanly possible, watch Anthony Perkins. If you just want to see b-hole...check out Anne Heche.

Identity

I was gonna end on Psycho. It is the movie I quoted as the title to this blog entry but I was looking for something to watch and saw Identity and realized just how awesomely well it would fit with this theme. Identity is the story of a group of people, all stuck during a storm at a Motel where a serial killer is killing them off one by one. One of them is the killer but the trick is figuring out who it is. I'll give you a hint, it is not who you think it is. Also the overwhelming arc is regarding a serial killer being sent to the electric chair unless his last ditch effort to prove himself insane gives him a reprieve. The killer and the folks at the hotel are connected but how they are is the great twist of the movie. I like this movie. It is a smart movie that keeps the viewer engaged and wondering whodunit until the very end.  Like The Sixth Sense, you may want to watch the movie over again to see the things you've missed because it seems so simple once you get it. John Cusak, Amanda Peete, Ray Liotta, Jake Busey, and John C. McGinley all bring their "A" game and deliver a solid mystery and a creepy movie. Not every one's cup of tea but if you give it a chance, I think you'll be happy.

 

 Mr. Unhappy sez: Identity is a movie about who you are and what goes on in a killer's head. Although I may or may not cackle out loud when John C. McGinley's wife gets hammered by a car. Hilarious.

 

 

***

 This is not a complete list of movies that show you madness but it is a good list. Some others you might want to see...

1. Antichrist

2. One Flew over The Cuckoo's Nest

3. Black Swan

4. Shutter Island

5. Misery

 In Closing...

 

Mr. Unhappy sez: Ask not what a psycho can do to your friends, ask what friends you would like to see killed by a psycho.   

Adult Movies...

I’ve been let go from my job. So as you can see I have a lot more free time for things such as blogging, fretting about the future and wondering about the girl who got away. One might say that I shouldn’t be too concerned with my romantic life when I don’t have a job but I’m not wired that way. I always worry about the time when I realize that I am gonna be alone for the rest of my life. Not because I want to but because I didn’t get the chance to show the woman I want to be with that I am worth the annoyance of what it is truly like to be with a undiagnosed depressive personality. Just look at the title of my blog. Mr. Unhappy’s Movie Blog. I could have given myself a happy moniker because at the time I was dating (surreptitiously) the girl of my dreams. Yet something inside of me made me want to self name myself Mr. Unhappy. In truth, Mr. Unhappy was a idea I had for a screenplay for a slasher movie. It wasn’t a portrayal of what my mood was but just something that made sense at the time.

Regardless being unemployed makes you start to think about your life decisions and somehow, someway I start thinking about that moment when I had the gravy train with biscuit wheels and I fucked it up. Yet this is a movie blog and not a whine about my life blog so I guess I should bring this to the point I was originally trying to make. There comes a time in your life, usually a couple of times, when you have to make a decision about what type of person you will be. One is usually in your teenage years and the other come as you hit your late twenties (if you are normal) or your mid thirties (if you are me).

In the movie The Way Way Back, Duncan is trying to figure out what he is in life and a summer at the Water Whizz water slide park helps him find his inner grown up. In the movie Liberal Arts (written, starring and directed by How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor) Jesse is at a critical moment in his life when he meets Zibby and it turns his life upside down while helping him realize what he wants in his adult life. These two movies touch on those special moments in your life when you come to a decision about your life and choose the type of man (or woman) you will grow up to be.

Lets begin with...

The Way Way Back

When I was a teenager I was a lot like Duncan. A quiet loner who liked to be alone and left to my own devices. As Steve Carell’s excellently portrayed douchebag Trent tells him “I think your a 3” and at the beginning of the movie maybe Duncan is. Still it isn’t something your father figure needs to say especially when a kid is really just beginning to deal with his mom dating again after the breakup of his parents marriage. It isn’t the type of bonding moment you should have with your would be stepson. Duncan is on one of these movie vacations where during the summer everyone gets to take three months off and people seemingly don’t have to work or pay rent. Maybe it is an east coast thing. Suffer through the snow and hurricanes and you get three months in summer to enjoy yourself at a beach house.

The trip was obviously not Duncan’s idea. He is stuck at the beach with only Trent’s daughter Steph or the next door neighbor Peter who has a lazy eye that his mother constantly ridicules. So Duncan tags along with Steph and her friends, including Peter’s sister Susanna (played by AnnaSophia Robb, quickly becoming the Dakota Fanning of teenage roles) to the beach where he has little to do but play with sand and check out the nubile bodies of his near step sister’s friends. So Duncan takes off on a bike and eventually comes to the Water Whizz waterpark. There he meets Owen (Iron Man 2’s underrated Sam Rockwell), a manchild who manages the park with as little management as possible to the chagrin of his assistant manager Caitlin played by SNL’s Maya Rudolph. Owen gives Duncan a summer job doing odd jobs around the park and takes him under his wing.

As the summer wears on, Trent is shown for the a-hole he truly is, Owen helps Duncan find his voice and personality (dragging him out of his shell) and helping him find the courage to pitch so serious woo at Susanna who likes him, for some reason. The Way Way Back is a story about finding who you want to be despite what others may think of you. It captures the summers of all of our youths where you obsessed over a girl (or guy), tried to not make a fool out of yourself and looked up to the cool guy who while actually not having it together seems like he has it all. There are moments in this movie when I cackled out loud and I’m pretty sure the smile never left my face. It was a solid debut for Jim Rash (Dean Pelton from Community) and Nat Faxon (from MadTV and various other movies) as writer/directors. They so eloquently capture the awkwardness of early teenage years and never become unrealistic or preachy.

The acting performances are managed as well. Trent is an asshole and he is played brilliantly by Steve Carell who is not my first choice for playing a bad guy. Owen’s glib man child is embodied by Sam Rockwell who seems so effortless in most everything he does. AnnaSophia Robb astounds me in everything I see her in (maybe if I watch the Sex and The City prequel series I would not say that) and she plays her role perfectly, never really coming on to Duncan but always trying to be near him, look after him, and give him a chance to be more than a three. Duncan as played by Liam James (From TV’s The Killing) is able to pull off both the awkward as well as the emotional growth the character has. This movie takes a simple idea, a summer vacation to the beach, and yet makes it all new.

Mr. Unhappy sez: I’d like to go way way back and get a job with Sam Rockwell at the water slide park. Maybe I wouldn’t be such a mess now.

Which leads me to...

Liberal Arts

I was never a good student and as time went on it became clear to me that college, for me, was not the way. I just couldn’t get past the idea of going to class when the teachers or administration didn’t care that I did. I was never a social butterfly so college for me was a waste of money. The only class I cared to go to was Screenwriting and as time went on, even that became something I could do on my own. So I stopped and got jobs so I could pay the bills and move out on my own. I never really got into the college experience. Josh Radnor’s (TV’s Ted Mosby) character Jesse Fisher loved college and the freedom he got to read and be his own man. Now 35 he has just broken up with his live in girlfriend, has a love/hate relationship with his hometown New York City and is drifting through life. So when one of his favorite teachers Peter Hoberg (Richard Jenkins) invites him back to his Alma mater for his retirement dinner, Jesse is happy to go. Once there he meets the incomparable Elizabeth (Zibby) played to perfection by the better Olsen sister Elizabeth, a 19 year old Sophomore who captures Jesse’s imagination and heart.

Jesse and Zibby begin to hang out (with a little prompting by a quirky performance by Zac Efron as the hippy sage Nat) and when Jesse leaves, Zibby burns him a CD of music to live by and he promises to write her a actual letter (with paper and pen). Back in New York, Jesse is a changed man, listening to the music Zibby gave him and has found his soul again. He writes Zibby and as their flirtation grows Jesse begins to wonder if he can, in good faith, date a woman 16 years his junior. Zibby is grown up beyond her years but as my friend Phil said once of a girl I dated “There are inherent problems to dating someone that young.”

Still Jesse returns to his old school to visit Zibby and their relationship is tested. Radnor in his writing/directing debut is smart to build the relationship first and then begin to point out the flaws so the viewer is invested in seeing this relationship grow. As Jesse learns more about himself and the person he wants to be, he begins to learn about what he wants out of life. The relationship with Zibby is strong and we never are as conflicted as to whether they should be together as Radnor is. I was drawn to the movie for the Mosbyness of it all but the strong story and chemistry between the two stars is palpable. Liberal Arts tells the story of a man who has no idea what he wants finding exactly what he wants. The journey isn’t easy or fast but a necessary one to become the adult he is supposed to be.

Mr. Unhappy sez: Liberal Arts makes going back to college seem easy but growing up a lot harder. Elizabeth Olsen helps...

***

Finding out who you are and what you want is a lot harder than it sounds. For me, I looked at these two movies and while it made me realize some bad truths about myself, it put into focus something that I’ve been thinking for two years now. I don’t want to be alone in life but I don’t fear it as much as I once did. Sometimes when you want something bad enough, you’d rather wait for what you want and risk being alone rather than try to be something your not. From the time when I was a teen, I’ve never tried to be anything but myself. As a 34 year old, I am still willing to hope that the one that got away will still see in me what I see in her. If not, I’m willing to see what happens... and Elizabeth Olsen helps...

The Way Way Back is in Theaters now and 

Liberal Arts can be found on Amazon Instant Watch and Xfinity On Demand

 

   

Hooking up with my mom..

I was 15 when my mother died. I was not quite ready for that to happen but are you really ever ready? She was a great lady and every time I doubt that being a nice person is worth something, I think of her. She was the most kind, loving, sweet and coolest Mom in Mom history. I’m not gonna get into a pissing contest with you on that last statement but I know that in just 15 years, she shaped my life and the man I am now. I miss her daily. I wonder if I would have the abandonment issues I have if she was still here or if I wouldn’t be deathly afraid of doctors and hospitals if she was still here. At 34, I still occasionally have a dream where she was not dead and it was all a mistake so I was able to hug her one last time, talk with her one last time, and go to a movie with her one last time.

I came across the movie Hook tonight and I was reminded of her again. This movie still provides me with the clearest memory I have of her. I sat in the theater watching Robin Williams become Peter Pan before my eyes and Dustin Hoffman disappear into Captain Hook. I remember laughing and loving every minute of it. It concluded with us leaving the theater into the bright afternoon sun and my mother realizing that at some point in the movie, her watch had stopped. If you’ve seen Hook, clocks are no longer allowed in Neverland since that tick tock croc ate Hook’s hand. I remember thinking it quite amazing that my mother’s watch had stopped. It was the first time that a movie reached through the screen and grabbed me. My mother might have stopped her own watch but for that brief moment she gave me my first taste of the sense of wonder and emotional connection to movies that I have carried with me throughout my adult life.

It is with the in mind that I add the movie Hook to the Unhappy Hall Of Fame with the addendum that as long as I remember this movie, I will forever remember my mother and thus keep her alive in my heart. I love you Mom.
 

Hook

Peter Pan has been a classic character in literature, plays and movies forever. It is a story of a boy who doesn’t want to grow up and finds a way to make that happen. Through the eyes of Wendy, Michael, and John we see the amazing boy who chases his shadow into the Darling household and takes the children on fantastic journey to Neverland where they meet the Lost Boys and the villainous Captain Hook. The story captures the imagination. What child wouldn’t want to fly to a far off land, never grow up, and battle pirates? But we all grow up. Hook is the natural addition to the original stories which tells us the story of Peter Pan after he finally grows up and forgets Neverland. However Neverland doesn’t forget him.
 

Peter Banning, a perfectly cat Robin Williams, is a grown up in every sense of the word. He is a corporate lawyer so busy with his work that he is coasting through his children’s lives and ignoring his wife, Moira. He is five steps away from having a heart attack but doesn’t seem to care. He misses his daughter Maggie’s play and his son Jack’s baseball game. When he is around, his cell phone is attached to his ear and this is not in a bluetooth sort of way. This is a one generation past the Zach Morris cell phone. He is petrified of heights and forbids his children from doing anything dangerous. Work comes first in Banning's life and when we meet him,  he is an absent father and husband on the way to death or a divorce. The family is about to head off on a trip to England to visit Grannie Wendy (yep that Wendy). On the plane, Peter is white knuckled and petrified. They make it, despite Maggie drawing the plane crashing and everyone floating to safety but Peter. They make it to Granny Wendy's house and Peter, Moira, and Wendy head off to a dedication of a wing of the children’s hospital to Wendy who became quite the advocate for orphaned children, including Peter. While the adults are away at the dinner honoring Wendy, a mysterious force comes into the Darling home and takes the children. The adults return home to find the house trashed, the children missing and  a note from Captain Hook adorning the children’s bedroom door telling Peter that he needs to return to Neverland and retrieve his kids.

Wendy collapses at the strain and is bedridden calling for Peter. When he is there, she tells him the secret she's been hiding since he was an orphan in her care. Peter Banning is, in fact, Peter Pan. That is a hell of a thing to be told and Peter reacts as any adult would, he needs a drink. That's when Tinkerbell shows up (the remarkably enjoyable Julia Roberts) and takes him to Neverland. The best part of this movie is the Neverland sequences. The pirates seem dirty and freshly picked up at some scurvy ridden bar in the bad part of town. The lost boys live in a tree the Swiss Family Robinson would love. The waters are blue and the mermaids are well...the mermaids are a little treat for all the dad's who had to see the movie. It takes the better part of the second act for Peter to find his inner Pan and as he does, he finds that piece of himself that he lost. The part that never wanted to grow up. He begins to use his imagination, rediscovers his ability with a sword and challenges Rufio (the lost boy left in charge) for control of the Lost Boys. It isn't until Peter finds his happy thought and flies for the first time that Rufio finally realizes that he is the Pan. Peter is finally ready for a final battle between Peter Pan and Captain Hook with his children's lives on the line.

The overriding theme in this movie is to never forget what it means to be a child. While growing up is necessary and indeed inevitable, you still need to hang on to your youthful sense of adventure. When you become so wrapped up in being an adult, you lose that sense of wonder. That time when you built a fort in a bamboo bush and hid from your enemies or when you went off on your own for the first time on your bike and the world around your house still seemed so large and untamed. As you grow, the world opens to you but I miss those moments when I was a young child, playing baseball at the park with my brother, or having sword fights with my friends. Adventures are easy as a kid and as an adult you get so wrapped up in your own head that sometimes life passes you by.  I get why we need to grow up but if you completely give up the child like part of you, you stop living and to live is an awfully big adventure.

The Golden Unhappy Awards Hook Edition

Julia Roberts - The proof that the smaller you are, the cuter you get award. 

I have hated Julia Roberts since Pretty Woman. I don't get her "good looks" except that her mouth looks like it could swallow a watermelon...without cutting it. Julia's mouth is the fully dilated vagina of mouths. Yet as the tiny fairy Tinkerbell, she was downright precious. It furthers my theory that as you become proportionally  smaller you cuteness level increase. True story.

Dustin Hoffman - The invisibility cloak award for disappearing into a role.
I look at the roles I've seen Dustin Hoffman play and I've always thought they were all versions of himself. Even Rain Man was a little Dustin Hoffman if he really wanted to see The People's Court. Here, as Captain Hook, he is unrecognizable. 

Amber Scott - The daughter of Peter Pan grew up to be a hottie award.

The little girl who played Maggie Banning in Hook was an amazing find. She could act (reasonably well), was precious enough that you rooted for no harm to come to her and well she sang too. She sang so well that they had her come back for the Academy Awards and sing. She's done nothing since, unless she has a stage name now. Yet if you look at her IMDB page, you see the woman she grew up to be and may I just say,  she has a pants tightening effect on all guys who see her. See for yourself...

Damn.