BEFORE: All right, let's talk about the Oscars. It's a rare moment when I've seen one of the nominated films BEFORE the nominations are announced, but that's the case with "Black Panther". Congratulations to all of the nominees, but special congrats to the first superhero movie with an Oscar nomination for Best Picture! That's big news for the whole genre, and I think I may sneak out tonight to see "Aquaman" to celebrate. (Review will be put on hold until I can link to it, which I suspect will be in early March, right before "Captain Marvel", which it links to.)
Between now and the Oscar ceremony, I've got some time, and access to screeners - but the big problem is that I always turn February over to films about love and romance, so there's really not as much time as I think. I can definitely get to "Vice" in a few days, that's always been part of the plan. But except for the Animated Feature category, where I've seen two nominees ("Incredibles 2" and "Isle of Dogs") and the Visual Effects category where I've seen THREE ("Avengers: Infinity War", "Ready Player One" and "Solo: A Star Wars Story") I'm afraid the rest will have to wait. I'd love to see "Bohemian Rhapsody", "A Star Is Born" and even "BlacKkKlansman", but they're not easily scheduled at this point in time, I've got too much else to try to get to.
Today, Joel McHale carries over from "A Futile and Stupid Gesture" - and I've also started watching his new clip-show on Netflix. Since it's already been cancelled, it could disappear from the service at any time - so now I see the evil genius in their plans, people are FORCED to binge watch shows and movies there, because they could vanish at any moment. It's damn near diabolical.
THE PLOT: A young, narcissistic entrepreneur crashes and burns on the eve of his company's big launch. With his entire life in total disarray, he leaves Manhattan to move in with his estranged pregnant sister, brother-in-law and nephew in the suburbs.
AFTER: I almost put this film in the romance chain, because I've got two Rose Byrne films there together, and this could have just slipped on in between them. But then I noticed it also provided me a link to get from "A Futile and Stupid Gesture" to where I need to be on February 1, so though it could have probably worked in either spot, it seemed to fit better here. I'm never 100% sure about this sort of thing, but at the end of the day, whatever happens, that's what happens.
The title comes from the name of an adult swimming class, because two of the main characters are adults who never learned to swim, and I never did either, so I feel their inadequacy. I dreaded the week during high school where "everybody" had to get in the pool for gym class, and I'd have to get a note from my doctor saying I had a crippling fear of going in the water, which wasn't exactly true. However, I did have a crippling fear about drowning, and even worse, drowning right in front of my classmates, with the shame carrying over into the afterlife. So I had to sit out a week of P.E. every year, I've endured worse. Here's a tip, teens, your gym teacher has no power over you, and simply can't make you do anything you don't want to do. So you get a "C" in gym class, and you'll never be valedictorian that way, but it's more important for you in the long run that you stood up for yourself.
But that's a life lesson, and if you don't learn how to swim when you're a teen then you at least have to learn a way around (or over, or under, or somehow through) that little problem. When I became an adult, I didn't let my fear of the ocean (or drowning, or sharks, or appearing in a swimsuit in public) stop me from going on some very enjoyable cruises. I just told myself that if the ship goes down, and I can't make it to a lifeboat, well, then, I'm dead and there will be no more discussion about it, so now let's go and have a good time with whatever time I have left.
But this is really a film about failing at adulting, only never giving up and always striving to be better, which is another important life lesson. The main character, Jake, is a tech guy whose company is creating a product called "Minds I" which looks a heck of a lot like Google Glass. But the manufacturer has an unexpected problem making one of the parts, and so the whole company goes belly-up, taking many investors' money with it. In the real non-movie world, there probably would have been some safeguard in place so this wouldn't happen, but it's necessary here to drive the plot. Still, it leads to the obvious question, "Whatever happened to Google Glass? Wasn't it supposed to be the Next Big Thing, back a few Next Big Things ago?" Was it just a terrible idea, or did it fail to function as it was supposed to? Let me check - ah, it seems there were a host of ethical, privacy and security concerns over the product. Duly noted.
With his career ruined and his reputation destroyed, he drops in on, and then moves in with, his sister Justine - and she's not adulting much better, trying to balance raising a three-year-old with her job as a guidance counselor, and since she's pregnant again, she's always ducking out of meetings saying that she's got a doctor's appointment, but instead she ends up watching "The Vow" in her car in the parking lot just to feel all emotional over something. And her husband is doing contracting work, but might also possibly be stepping out with his attractive female business partner, who's a real-estate agent. And then there's their son, who's three years old and just learning how to be difficult and stand up to his parents. They're so non-cute at that age, right?
Jake learns to function as a sort of nanny (or "manny") for his nephew, while Justine tries to find the motivation to get some work done, and Danny smokes a lot of pot, while trying to break free from his affair and get back to focusing on his wife again. Meanwhile Jake and Justine have to finally deal with their emotions concerning their mother's death years ago. Their father certainly seems to have moved on, because he's re-married and living elsewhere, while Justine's still living in the house they grew up in. Can these three people also share a house and propel
Also starring Nick Kroll (last seen in "The House") Rose Byrne (last seen in "Peter Rabbit"), Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle"), Paula Garces (last seen in "Dangerous Minds"), Jane Krakowski (last seen in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas"), Jason Mantzoukas (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), Bobby Moynihan (last seen in "The Book of Henry"), Josh Charles (last seen in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"), Neil Casey (also carrying over from "A Futile and Stupid Gesture), Mike Birbiglia (last seen in "Popstar; Never Stop Never Stopping"), Julie White (last seen in "Lincoln"), Jeffrey DeMunn, Celia Weston (last seen in "Happy Tears"), Caitlin Fitzgerald, Caleb Paddock, Matthew Paddock and the voice of Fred Melamed (last heard in "Passengers").
RATING: 4 out of 10 sonograms
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