BEFORE: Justin Long carries over from "Going the Distance", and Anna Faris is back after a short absence. Honestly, I wasn't sure if this film qualified as a romance film, and it may not, but that's OK, I could sure use a break from rom-coms, even a straight com would be appreciated right now. I chose this film to go here because it links one section (let's say #2) of my romance chain with the next - otherwise I would have had a gap here, or a break in the chain. But including this film (and its sequel) allowed me to fit two big chunks of romance chain together and continue on. And both "Waiting" films link heavy to each other, but not to many other films - so sticking them in February helps to get them off my list, and free up some room for other films, so it's a win-win, even if they don't 100% fit here thematically.
But hey, Drew Barrymore's character in "Going the Distance" worked as a waitress, so this fits here no matter what, because I say it does.
Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, Janet Leigh links from "The Naked Spur" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links? Answers below.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 25)
6:30 am "That Forsyte Woman" (1949) with _____________ linking to:
8:45 am "Varsity Show" (1937) with _____________ linking to:
10:15 am "Cain and Mabel" (1936) with _____________ linking to:
12:00 pm "Bachelor Mother" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
1:30 pm "B.F.'s Daughter" (1948) with _____________ linking to:
3:30 pm "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 pm "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (1934) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "The Divorcee" (1930) with _____________ linking to:
9:30 pm "Night Must Fall" (1937) with _____________ linking to:
11:45 pm "Sister Kenny" (1946) with _____________ linking to:
2:00 am "The Sea Wolf" (1941) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 am "Something to Sing About" (1937)
Damn, I've only seen one of these, "Mutiny on the Bounty". I made it a point a few years back to watch every version of that story ever filmed. But 93 seen out of 290 is starting to look like a failing grade, and there are only 6 days left to redeem myself. Down to 32% seen.
THE PLOT: Young employees at Shenaniganz restaurant collectively stave off boredom and adulthood with their antics.
AFTER: Well, I think there's at least a tangential connection to romance, because Ryan Reynold's character has a reputation as a prolific dater, even though most of his partners tend to be under the age of 18. Yeah, that's not good. But hey, there's room for some character growth as he learns to NOT sleep with underage girls, so that's good, right? The rest of the film is way off theme, but I'll still need to watch this film's sequel tomorrow for a particular actor who's NOT in today's film that will link me back up to the scheduled romance chain. Anna Faris, Justin Long, you can see how I got here, right? And then Ryan Reynolds, who's NOT in the sequel, will be back again for 2 films when I get near the end of the romance/relationship chain. It's all part of the plan...
Maybe I would have had more of a connection to this film if I had ever worked in a restaurant, but I haven't - the closest I ever came was a summer at the concession stand in Showcase Cinemas in Dedham, MA before my last year at NYU. Like, we still had to know a little about proper handling of food and such, but not much. Most everything was packaged, like the candy and the ice-cream bits, except for the popcorn and soda, and really, food cleanliness is just common sense stuff like washing your hands and not directly touching people's food. But of course those rules go right out the window at Shenaniganz, especially if a customer is rude or bossy to the wait-staff. Then their food is going to get all the "special toppings", from spit and dandruff to "fromunda" cheese, which involves rubbing someone's garlic bread in a very personal place. Yeah, this is every diner's nightmare, right up there on screen...reasons why it's always good to be polite to your waiter in a chain restaurant. And tip well, or be a regular customer with a good reputation if you can.
I've seen other takes on this in other comedies, of course - most notably that "other" comedy about no-good waiters, "The Slammin' Salmon", plus "South Park" did a hilarious take-down of self-rightesous Yelp! reviewers with a song about all the bodily fluids that waiters could put in their food... (featuring the unforgettable lyrics "Boogers and cum, you like that queefy quarter pounder? Boogers and cum, how 'bout some feces with your flounder?" And we see all this through the "training" of a new employee, as the irresponsible wait-staff instructs him in the finer points of playing a game where the men try to drop their pants at random places and times, just to get the other men to see their genitalia, the weirder the angle the better, just so they can call the other guy "queer" and then kick him in the ass.
But come on, even the "get back at the customer" jokes lose some of their bite just because we all know this is a movie, and you can't force an actor to eat a plate of food that people have spit in and done other bad, naughty things to. You know that someone just yells "cut" and then they can replace the tainted food with a different plate, right? I mean, I know that actors are little more than trained monkeys, but even they have rights on a set. At the very least they filmed the scene with the customer eating the food first, and then shot the scene with the waiters fouling up an identical-looking plate later, or even the next day, because that's how editing works. People are still talking about that John Waters film "Pink Flamingos", where the drag-queen Divine appeared to eat dog crap - you're really naive if you think that's really what happened. Everything in making movies is built on illusion, and I don't believe for a second that any actor willingly did this - not when it's so easy to fashion a piece of chocolate to look like a dog turd. Don't believe the hype.
OK, so maybe this isn't exactly "Pride and Prejudice" here. Really low-brow humor, and of course I watch most of my movies by myself, and maybe that's not the best way to do things sometimes. I didn't think much of "The Slammin' Salmon" after watching it alone late at night, but my wife told me she found the movie very entertaining (we both love the other Broken Lizard movies, especially "Beerfest" and "Super Troopers") so I watched it again with her, and it was a totally different experience. Some comedies are best watched in groups larger than one, I guess. So as always, your mileage may vary, but my rating is based on my solo experience, how I feel TODAY about the movie I watched last night. And that wasn't very encouraging, there wasn't much of a message in the film, except that jobs tend to suck, and I knew that already.
Then there are all sorts of story diversions that never really pay off, like the guy who's very pee shy - where can that story possibly go? Or the two white rapper busboys who just get stoned while taking out the trash - they don't even know how to properly inhale the CO2 from the whipped-cream cans, it looks like they're eating it instead, which doesn't even get you high. Their whole storyline also goes nowhere - is that the point? That the plot, by going nowhere most of the time, symbolizes their dead-end jobs? I think assuming that is giving the screenwriter too much credit. I'm still "Waiting..." for some kind of pay-off, but I don't think it's coming.
The one thing that I think the film gets right is the fact that only the VERY BEST waiters are able to remember an order without writing it down. Most who attempt this end up forgetting some items or details, or they have to go back to the customer and ask them to repeat their order again and again. For God sakes, unless you're a genetic freak with a superlative memory, write that down! Even if you don't think you have to, at least just write the order down for appearance's sake, because that will make the diners feel more secure. We had this happen to us on 25-cent Wing Night at our local pub, I had a complex order with three flavors of wings, plus an app, and the guy just WOULD not write it down. BUT then he had to double-check the order, and STILL forgot the app. PLUS he had to write down the order for the check anyway (because he hadn't put the app into the POS system, clearly) as "proof" that he got the order right in the first place, but because it was hand-written, it only proved to me that he wrote it all down AFTER I complained about what was missing from my order. Nice try.
Also starring Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "The Captive), Anna Faris (last seen in "Overboard"), David Koechner (last seen in "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse"), Luis Guzman (last seen in "Top Five"), Chi McBride (last seen in "The Great White Hype"), John Francis Daley (last seen in "Game Night"), Kaitlin Doubleday (last seen in "Catch Me If You Can"), Robert Patrick Benedict, Alanna Ubach (last heard in "Coco"), Vanessa Lengies, Max Kasch (last seen in "Holes"), Andy Milonakis, Dane Cook (last seen in "Mr. Brooks"), Jordan Ladd (last seen in "Death Proof"), Emmanuelle Chriqui (last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Wendie Malick (last seen in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel"), Skyler Stone, J.D. Evermore (last seen in "The Host").
RATING: 3 out of 10 training videos
ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Halliwell Hobbes, Walter Catlett, E.E. Clive, Charles Coburn, Spring Byington, Charles Laughton, Norma Shearer, Robert Montgomery, Rosalind Russell, Alexander Knox, Gene Lockhart.
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