BEFORE: Somebody stole my idea for a superhero-themed restaurant. We saw a flyer the other day for a burger joint/arcade in Brooklyn, with a comic-book hero theme, and it separated the menu into healthier sandwiches (heroes) and less healthy burgers and cheesesteaks (villains). Fries and chips were listed on a "sidekicks" menu, which I had also envisioned. Now, in my pipe dream there would be all kinds of specific hero-related fare, like a "Captain American Grilled Cheese" or a pulled pork sandwich in pita bread named the "Pita Porker", but of course then I'd run afoul of copyright issues. But what kind of a world do we live in, where someone can just steal the idea right out of my head, the one that I was never going to follow through with? I guess I can still design a food truck that serves "Super Heroes" and park it right outside Comic-Con and make a ton of money.
I tried to get this movie way back, when I was doing a geographically-based virtual trip around the world. It wasn't available, no channel was running it, so I watched other films set in the L.A. area instead. Then I finally got a copy and I tried to get it to pair with "Laurel Canyon", but it just didn't fit in this January's line-up either. So it goes here, with Marisa Tomei carrying over from "Four Rooms", and it helps provide a link to Audrey Hepburn and, ultimately, Cary Grant. Everything does seem to happen for a reason.
THE PLOT: This semiautobiographical story follows a lower-middle-class teenager and her neurotic family in 1976 Tinseltown.
AFTER: I don't think we're ever going to have true gender equality in this country, at least not until films by women about women find a way to tell a story that also appeals to men. Let me explain. Agreed that we have all kinds of films, we have action films and comedy films and sci-fi films and Westerns, and in those genres the tendencies seem to be male-dominated, but they technically are open to all audiences. Some women enjoy comedies, right? Maybe there are even a few women out there who enjoy a good Western.
But when women write and direct films, the tendency seems to be to tell stories about female characters, in a way that celebrates womynhood, but also doesn't seem to have anything to make men want to watch them. I don't get this, why alienate half of your audience right off the bat? Can't they tell the story of a person who happens to be a woman, rather than someone who's drowning in a sea of female problems, or who breaks the glass ceiling and finds a way to make it in a "man's world"? In other words, why is it always about that?
I'm making a generalization, of course. I'm sure there are exceptions, like, umm, "The Hurt Locker", for one. Kathryn Bigelow directed a story about male soldiers in a war zone, and look how successful that was! Men went to see it because it had some appeal for them, something they understood, something exciting like defusing bombs. If it had been about female soldiers, and they had trouble defusing bombs because of debilitating menstrual cramps, men would have stayed away in droves.
It's kind of like African-American or Latino comics. Can't they tell jokes that aren't about the Black or Latino experience? They won't enjoy any crossover appeal until they can find some topics that are more universal - like Bill Cosby's routine about going to the dentist. It wasn't about being black, it described a situation that nearly everyone could understand. Or Spike Lee's early films, like "She's Gotta Have It" and "School Daze" - so rooted in their ethnic origin that there wasn't much appeal for Caucasian audiences. Now, of course you write what you know, and I wouldn't suggest that anyone deny their roots for the sake of a story, but what about just telling a good story, regardless of all the racially-based polarization? The same people who would put pressure on white directors to hire minorities seem to have no problem making a film with an all-minority cast, and if making an all-white film is wrong, then the opposite should be true as well.
So we have a story tonight about a teen girl, and all of her problems are teen girl problems, like getting her first bra and waxing the hair on her lip and running out of tampons, and really, I just don't care. The problems of the male members of the family, like trying out for the school musical, or keeping a roof over the family's heads are really given sub-plot status, even though these are things that I might understand or relate to.
NITPICK POINT: Every time I've ever been to Sizzler, there's been a salad bar, where people serve themselves buffet-style. Maybe things were different back in 1976, but if not, why would the family ask the waiter for more cole slaw, when they were supposed to get it for themselves?
Also starring Natasha Lyonne (last seen in "Girl Most Likely"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone"), David Krumholtz (last seen in "This Is the End"), Kevin Corrigan (last seen in "The Dictator"), Carl Reiner, Rita Moreno (last seen in "The Four Seasons"), Jessica Walter (last seen in "Play Misty For Me"), with a cameo from Mena Suvari (last seen in "The Musketeer").
RATING: 4 out of 10 dingbat apartments
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