MY DAY AT THE MOVIES

There’s no finer manner to dispose of entire afternoon, then to watch two movies one after another at the local cineplex. Sure, you’ll come out groggy and slurring your speech from overdose of escapism, but if you’ve double upped successfully it will be one of the finer days you’ve ever spent indoors.

I targeted this past New Year’s[1] as one of those finer days. My friend and I started with Juno, which was a joy to watch. Sharp funny dialogue mostly discharged by the clever yet vulnerable Ellen Page[2] made Juno the kind of indie heroine that makes you wish you could travel back in time and make yourself a little more angsty at 16. J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney are particularly funny as Juno’s disappointed yet accepting HVAC Dad and dog loving step Mom. There is of course, as the trailers have told you, Jason Bateman and Michael Cera. While never sharing screen time, they continuing to play their Arrested Development characters for yucks, but surprisingly its Mrs. Affleck, Jennifer Garner that was really deserving of praise. Her tightly wound, lily white, scared not to be perfect, adoptive Mom was the perfect foil to Juno’s unbridled teenager.

The movie was a little heavy handed with the music and its indie quirkiness was turned up a little high in the beginning but Jason Reitman[3] found the core and settled into the kind of movie Judd Apatow usually makes[4]. Needless to say, I was quite happy leaving the first film selection of the day.

The glitch in the double feature plan is that you’re mostly at the whim of that cruel mistress of what’s playing around the time you get out. The big city scapes of I Am Legend had already started and There Will Be Blood was almost 45 minutes from starting up again. So it was Walk Hard or Atonement. Neither I nor my companion felt like a weepy Keira Knightly movie.

Walk Hard is certainly a different style movie to be sure. It’s a parody movie in the vein of the Scary Movie franchise or Airplane! Going in I knew it would be futile to compare Juno to Dewey Cox, but there really is no comparison between a good movie and a dick joke craptacular.

The problems start at the top of the marquee. For the past ten years, John C. Reilly has been one of the more bankable character actors on Earth. In his starring turn, he may have lit on fire all the comedic street cred he earned while stealing scenes in Talladega Nights. More likely he set it on fire, pissed on the fire and then stomped the fire to ashes, mixed it with Earth, planted an apple tree, waited a couple months and then knocked all the apples out of the tree with hand grenades[5].

Then there’s Judd. Now let me preface this by saying Judd Apatow has been a hero of mine since Heavyweights, but I think he’s getting a little tired from his never ending stint writing, producing and/ or directing every third comedy[6]. It’s a little too obvious that he was firing up a bong the size of a grain silo watching Joaquin Phoenix and the next thing he remembers is standing next to a line producer on the farm house set, thinking, “Well we’re already dressed. Might as well.”

Almost every scene is as predictable and desperate as a Melanie Hutsell SNL skit at 12:43am. Should running jokes be gratingly old by the second go round? I’m guessing no. In fact, the only time I genuinely laughed was at a nice little throw away joke about how Dewey got his pet giraffe.

The supporting characters were as shallow as bolted shut ash tray on a 747. Besides Reilly’s wooden Cox[7], Kristen Wiig’s[8] wet blanket first wife and the three seconds of Jack White’s karate chopping Elvis were the only other cast members that I had any recollection of after my Carl Lewis wind sprint for daylight during the credits.

When I came to, my friend and I decided that out of the 12 dollars we spent on the movies we would have given Juno 11.75 and Walk Hard a sympathy two bits. Even thought we were very content knowing Walk Hard wouldn’t see any of our hard earned Ameros. But to be honest, I’m calling Walk Hard a mulligan. I’m disappointed, but I’m sure somewhere out there, Seth Rogan is reciting a pot joke that I will be tickling my funny bone soon enough. I know there is more Superbad then Walk Hard in Judd, and I know I’ll be making him the first leg of the double header soon enough.

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[1] With New Year’s lack of ANYTHING non Asian being open, it becomes the greatest day to attempt the double dip.

[2] She almost made up for XMen 3 all by herself. If you’re not a human IMDB, she played Kitty Pryde and XMen 3 was the worst comic book movie ever put to celluloid.

[3] Son of the man who brought us Ghostbusters.

[4] And Wes Anderson used to.

[5] For which he will win a Golden Globe.

[6] Which has got to be wearing on Paul Rudd too.

[7] There is a pun there which is unintentional but just fits so beautifully I just went with it.

[8] Who is one of the only highlights of the current SNL cast and I have a bit of crush on.