Year 13, Day 87 - 3/28/21 - Movie #3,790
BEFORE: Kevin Corrigan carries over from "Steal This Movie", and I've got another Birthday SHOUT-out, comedian Bonnie McFarlane (born March 28, 1969) has a cameo in today's film. It's also the birthday of Dianne Wiest, Reba McEntire, Lady Gaga, these other famous women from history: Angela Ruiz Robles, Spanish inventor of the electronic book (born in 1895), Ingrid of Sweden, the Queen of Denmark (born in 1910), Eileen Crofton, British physician and anti-smoking crusader (born in 1919)
THE PLOT: Scott spends his days smoking weed and dreaming of being a tattoo artist until events force him to grapple with his grief over his firefighter dad's death and take his first steps forward in life.
AFTER: This one started out very janky, and for the whole first half I was wondering if this was going anywhere at all, or if it was just going to be an aimless movie about an aimless guy. Sure, Scott Carlin's arrested development can easily be traced back to his father's death, but is that an explanation for his lifestyle, or more of an excuse? He and his friends watch a lot of movies, smoke a lot of weed, and then he practices being an amateur tattoo artist on his friends, though they're not crazy about his design skills and getting rather tired of the less than stellar results.
So the film starts out in a rather weird place, not a bad place necessarily, but there's a sense of everything feeling pointless, or hopeless. Scott's stuck in his career path, has very little ambition, still lives at home and has no plans to change that situation. I can sympathize, I've been working only part-time since the pandemic hit, and though I've been searching for part-time jobs on LinkedIn and Indeed, I've received zero responses to all the applications I've made, all the resumés I've sent out. I thought maybe I could ride the wave of hirings at NYC movie theaters, but so far, that's led to nothing, too. Last week I applied for positions at movie theaters, ice cream shops, parks, museums, and a BBQ restaurant, but still no responses. To be fair, I have little experience in the food-service industry, and I'm probably well past the age range these McJobs are looking for, also there are probably 1,000 other people applying for each job, given the state of unemployment right now.
So, I wait at home for some manager somewhere to call or e-mail, because jobs similar to the one I have now are hard to come by - and the best matching jobs I've found are full-time, meaning I'd have to quit my current position to take one. Really, I just want something seasonal to do on the weekends and maybe a few nights a week, just to get out of the house more often. The other option is to work fewer hours and maybe go back on partial unemployment, but I'd rather not do that. I bring this up because I can sympathize with the lead character here, sometimes you can see where you want to be, and just not know how you're going to get there.
This is obviously a very personal film, Pete Davidson did have a firefighter father, who died on 9/11/01, and over the years he's had to deal with that. He also lived in Staten Island with his mother, even after joining the cast of SNL and earning the money that comes with that. I know the guy's had his issues, because he's joked about them on SNL's Weekend Update. So perhaps this film was also a form of therapy in some way. His character here clashes with the man who starts dating his mother, who's also a firefighter, and that eventually leads to Scott doing odd jobs at the local firehouse, and finally developing some form of responsibility. Plus his slacker friends end up in trouble after trying to rob a pharmacy, so this helped him too, to be no longer running with the "bad crowd".
The film ends in a much better place than it started in, and I guess sometimes that's the best you can hope for. I'm not sure, though, that wait-staff and busboys in Staten Island restaurants have to participate in late night "fight clubs" to see who gets to keep their tips. This could be a fiction created for the film, one hopes. There are several other divergences that seem to keep the film from getting somewhere at a good rate, but, hey, at least it gets there.
The Staten Island Yankees no longer exist, I just found out. Their whole AAA-league (NY-Penn) was disbanded, so there's no minor league baseball being played on Staten Island as of last year. Perhaps also it was too confusing to have two teams named the Yankees playing within the city limits? I don't know, but I echo Bill Burr's characters feelings about going to the Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, as a former Masshole I wouldn't even consider it, unless they were playing the Red Sox. I've gone there (OK, to the old Yankee Stadium) in Sox gear, and in retrospect, that was probably a mistake - you should only do that if you like being doused by other people's beers.
NITPICK POINT: Did Scott ever make good on his promise to Oscar, to take care of his cat? I just wonder if he forgot to do it, or the director forgot to show it. These are the things I worry about.
Also starring Pete Davidson (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Marisa Tomei (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), Bill Burr (last seen in "Stand Up Guys"), Ricky Velez, Bel Powley (last seen in "Mary Shelley"), Maude Apatow (last seen in "Other People"), Steve Buscemi (last seen in "Dead Man"), Pamela Adlon (last seen in "I Love You, Daddy"), Jimmy Tatro (last seen in "Bad Education"), Domenick Lombardozzi (last seen in "The Gambler"), Mike Vecchione, Moises Arias (last seen in "The Stanford Prison Experiment"), Carly Aquilino, Lou Wilson (last seen in "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"), Derek Gaines, Pauline Chalamet, Colson "Machine Gun Kelly" Baker (last seen in "Captive State"), Mario Polit (last seen in "Hustlers"), Luke David Blumm, Action Bronson (last seen in "The Irishman"), Keith Robinson, Lynne Koplitz (last seen in "Top Five"), Nina Hellman, Jack Hamblin, with cameos from Rich Vos (also last seen in "I Love You, Daddy"), Bonnie McFarlane, Robert Smigel (last seen in "Marriage Story"), Jessica Kirson (last seen in "The Comedian").
RATING: 6 out of 10 questions from the civil service exam
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