BEFORE: Maya Rudolph carries over from "Wine Country", though I'm jumping back through the mists of time to the year 2000 - then I'll bounce forward again tomorrow and we'll be back up to speed. I have to take issue with the IMDB for the order in which they list an actor's credits if they've been on a show like "SNL". If being on this show was very helpful for Ms. Rudolph's career, then it should appear at the bottom of her credits list, like chronologically, not up near the start of her credits list with more recent movie roles. She was most active on that show from 2000-2007, so "SNL" should appear in her credits among the movie roles she had in 2000 - but since she's been back to make cameo appearances in recent years, most recently playing presidential candidate Kamala Harris in mock debate skits, her entire SNL show history gets filed under 2019, not 2000, and that seems misplaced.
I love the IMDB and I don't think I could do what I'm doing without their help, but sometimes it feels like the folks in charge there have no idea how to properly organize the vast amount of information that they have.
THE PLOT: An oddly naive man-child stalks his childhood best friend and tries to reconnect with their past.
AFTER: I know Mike White as the writer of "The School of Rock", and also as a contestant on two seasons of "The Amazing Race" and one season of "Survivor" (the "David vs. Goliath" season" in 2018). But until now, I've never seen the film that launched his career, which made waves at Sundance in 2000 (I didn't go to Park City that year, but I went the year after and people were still talking about it...). Since then, he's had writing credits on several films that have come my way, like "Pitch Perfect 3", "Beatriz at Dinner" and "Orange County".
So I put "Chuck & Buck" on my Hulu list, and guess what happened - yep, it scrolled off before I could link to it. But it also popped up on the Epix "Drive-In" channel last year, so I hedged my bets and I've had it on the DVR for nearly a year. Yep, it's still THAT hard to link to. If I weren't doing a Maya Rudolph chain I don't think I could have gotten there.
And, a couple of coincidences - tonight is the season finale of "Survivor: Winners at War", so good timing there. Mike White's not involved, but it's been an All-Stars season full of previous winners, so while I probably won't get to watch it until Thursday afternoon, it's bound to be a solid ending. I'll just have to maintain internet "radio silence" and stay off Twitter and Facebook until after I watch it. Thank God we still have new episodes of "Survivor" and "The Masked Singer" that were all filmed before the lockdown began. I think California should prioritize opening up the film & TV industry - not movie theaters necessarily, but they've got to get started on filming new reality shows for the fall, right?
Also, National Mental Health Month continues, so this film found its way to the schedule during an appropriate month. White's character, Buck, is dealing with the death of his mother, which of course is a high-stress situation for anyone to go through, but it seems to really hit him hard. She seemed to have some kind of respiratory illness, so once again, a film is accidentally relevant and timely. During his grieving period, Buck invites his old childhood friend, Chuck, to the funeral (point of order, do you "invite" people to funerals, or just post a notice in the newspaper and see who shows up?) and then seems to develop an odd obsession with Chuck. After Chuck gives him a very vague, "Oh, sure, come and visit me in L.A. some time - only the next two weeks are out of the question..." Buck instead packs all his things into his car and drives to L.A.
Buck withdraws all the money (inheritance?) from his account, gets a motel room and makes inquiries at a local theater, across the street from Chuck's office, about putting on a play that he's about to write, and hires a theater staffer as the play's director, then he starts on writing the play, which turns out to be a thinly-veiled plea for Chuck's love and an attack on Chuck's fiancée, all based on an incident that happened to them as children. Buck follows Chuck home and spies on him at night through the bedroom window, tries to visit Chuck at his office several times, and calls his house every 15 minutes, hanging up if the girlfriend answers.
There's more to the story, of course, which may seem obvious or be well-known now due to what's been written about it over the years - it's now considered ground-breaking in the world of queer cinema, but I think that needle has been moved quite a bit in the last two decades. Now that some time has passed, I wonder if it should be regarded with the same praise, because it could be said that it equates a same-sex attraction with obsessiveness and stalking. Sure, it only details one particular case, but the small always symbolizes the large, so if one gay fixation comes from a naive, out of line man who doesn't seem to respect personal boundaries, then by extension, to some degree, it's saying that they all do. And when people fought to have same-sex attractions included in movies, I'm not sure that this is what they had in mind. I guess that a depiction of a healthy same-sex attraction that came from a noble place and had its proper place in the world and might be reciprocated would still have to wait a few years to be seen by the masses. Oh, well, baby steps were needed, I guess.
Also starring Mike White (last seen in "The Stepford Wives"), Chris Weitz (last seen in "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"), Lupe Ontiveros (last seen in "The Big Fix"), Paul Weitz (last seen in "The Little Hours"), Beth Colt, Mary Wigmore (last seen in "Shallow Hal"), Paul Sand (last seen in "The Main Event"), Pamela Gordon (last seen in "Frances"), Tony Maxwell, Glory Simon, Gino Buccola, Annette Murphy.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Blow Pops
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