BEFORE: Last night I sort of went back to where it all began - this restaurant near the skating rink in Rockefeller Center (and during the summer, they're where the rink is during the winter) for a pop-up beer dinner from the Brooklyn Brewery. This was where I went to my first beer pairing dinner in 2003, and I was a regular there for monthly dinners for about 9 or 10 years, until they suddenly stopped hosting them. Which was a shame, it was a great deal, paying about $50 for a dinner of four courses paired with 4 beers, right in the heart of the city - OK, so I usually had to listen to a brewer talk about how great his company's beers were, that's a small price to pay. When they stopped, I had to seek out beer dinners at other venues, which eventually led to me escaping from a burning restaurant last September. So it was great that the original restaurant has revived the concept.
Robin Williams carries over from "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn", though he's not the star of this film, so I wasn't sure whether to watch this now, or in a Kevin Spacey chain. But I needed to stretch out the chain to hit Memorial Day right, so here goes.
THE PLOT: Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.
AFTER: See, I went with my gut, and I shouldn't have worried. This works as a companion piece to last night's film - that was an ensemble film of messed-up NYC characters, and this is an ensemble film of messed-up L.A. characters. Which city's people are more screwed up? Well, if New Yorkers are rude and angry and bitter, Los Angelenos are depressed, introspective and self-absorbed. You tell me who you'd rather hang out with.
Thematically it fits, because in its own way this is about death and dying and the effects that people feel after the loss of a loved one. Ah, I get it, there's a double meaning, in that people tend to "shrink" away from their commitments and friends when they're hurting. Again, Robin Williams, I want to know - how do you make a film where a character is suffering greatly after a family member has committed suicide, and then just a few years later, you do the same thing to your own family? When I debate this in my mind, I can't come up with an equation that would lead anyone to think that suicide is the answer - how can anything seem so hopeless, that you view the world as better off without you?
The main character has just written a self-help book, which is only ironic because that phrase represents the only thing that he seems unable to do. Me, I like to go into bookstores and ask the clerks where the self-help section is, just to see if they'll spot the irony. I'd love to hear one say, "Sir, if I told you where that is, it would defeat the purpose." Other characters suffer other indignities, while working as parking valets or film-production gofers or actresses being told that they're now too old for leading roles. Oh, and the drug dealer, who's positioned to act as a foil character for the therapist - he also dispenses the medicine and advice, just in a different form.
Beer is now my drug of choice, which is only a problem if I treat beer like movies - I have to try all of them! My life might have been different if the people I hung out with in junior year of college had been better pot smokers - these were people who didn't have much spare cash, so if they heard you could get high by smoking banana peels or peanut shells, they'd try it, because think of all the money we'd save! So my experiences with marijuana are somewhat limited, but that doesn't mean I can't book a trip to Colorado someday and give it another go.
I'm guessing life is somewhat different in California too these days, where they've had medical marijuana since 2003. Lewis Black used to have a joke that the easiest job in the world was being a weatherman in southern California (today's weather - umm, nice!) but perhaps the second easiest job now is being a psychiatrist there. Can't sleep? Smoke some pot. Feeling uptight? Smoke some pot. Stressed out from work? Let's see...have you tried pot?
This film ended up coming across like "The Player" without the star power or murder plot, or "Crash" without the star power or racial tension. If you watch all of these films, you may come to the conclusion that Los Angeles is exactly like you see in these movies, in that everyone is connected to everyone else via links that they may not even be aware of, and if they're going to get through life, they're going to have to work together. <
But it all feels rather pointless and random, until they get to the Hollywood ending - no, not that one, the one that says, "Let's make a movie out of it!" Why is this always your answer, Hollywood people? The film industry fuels the economy and is our country's main export, so don't try to tell me you're in that business to do some good in the world, because I ain't buying that hogwash. You're in it to make money, which is fine, but why can't you just admit that?
Also starring Kevin Spacey (last seen in "The Shipping News"), Mark Webber (last seen in "Hollywood Ending"), Keke Palmer (last heard in "Ice Age: Continental Drift"), Pell James (last seen in "Zodiac"), Saffron Burrows (last seen in "Circle of Friends"), Dallas Roberts (last seen in "The Notorious Bettie Page"), Jesse Plemons (last seen in "The Master"), Jack Huston (last seen in "American Hustle"), Robert Loggia, with cameos from Gore Vidal, Griffin Dunne (last seen in "Once Around").
RATING: 3 out of 10 trips through the car wash
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