BEFORE: OK, technically I'm on vacation now, but I can squeeze one more film in before I pack. This way, when I get back I'll have just four films left in the chain, and I can definitely finish it before the end of the month. Linking from "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", Patricia Clarkson carries over.
THE PLOT: A middle-aged, misanthropic divorce surprisingly enters into a fulfilling Pygmalion type relationship with a much younger, unsophisticated Southern girl.
AFTER: Well, Woody had to come back to New York sooner or later. And I bet like the main character, as a true New Yorker, he had never visited the Statue of Liberty or Grant's Tomb before.
The contrivance is one Woody's used before, similar to the "stranger knocking on the door" seen in "Melinda and Melinda". But here it's used to explain how an older man ended up in a relationship with a younger woman, and I can't imagine why he feels the need to explain that. I mean, such things happen all the time, right? Because older men are so easygoing and non-irritable and don't have any annoying quirks or health problems that would make them unattractive in any way.
What I'm saying is, it's clear the lead male is a stand-in for Woody, and it's a long way for the director to go to justify his own lifestyle. You want to date younger women? Fine, then OWN it, and stop apologizing for it. I work for a man who's in his late 60's, and he's married to a woman in her 30's, and he had his first child at age 66. I've never heard him feel the need to apologize for this, not once. Why should he? You can do the math and try to figure out if he'll ever see his kid grow up, but then you're the one being a buzzkill.
I've got more of a problem, with people like Neil DeGrasse Tyson. That's right, beloved science figure and host of TV's "Cosmos" remake, but the guy just rubs me the wrong way. Like many intellectuals (including the one depicted in tonight's film) he comes off as way too smart for his own good. But that's not my problem with the guy. (And no, it's not that either, why would you even think that about me?) It's more of a vibe I get - like he's too smart for the room, too full of himself. The first episode of "Cosmos" devoted a fair amount of time to depicting how small and insignificant we are - we're just specks riding around on a rotating speck, in one corner of a galaxy, which is just one of billions of galaxies, etc. etc. And if the life of the universe was expressed in terms of a cosmic year, we humans didn't show up until the last second of Dec. 31.
I get it, we're relatively insignificant - so what gives you the right to take some time on the show to tell your story of how you once met Carl Sagan, and he autographed your book? Do you know how many books he probably autographed in his career? Oh, so he gave you a ride in his car and let you use his phone? Congratulations, but cosmically, in the grand scheme of things, this still means next to nothing. The show's supposed to be about the universe, not you.
I'd write more about people who piss me off, but I'm going to go and try to have some fun now.
Also starring Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood (last seen in "The Ides of March"), Henry Cavill (lat seen in "Immortals"), Ed Begley Jr. (last seen in "Recount"), Michael McKean, Christopher Evan Welch (also carrying over from "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), Jessica Hecht, with a cameo from Samantha Bee.
RATING: 5 out of 10 inchworms
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