BEFORE: I won a court case today, which is kind of an odd feeling, but it's all based on a big misunderstanding. Back in late July it looked like the theater where I work part-time was going to shut down for a few weeks, for roof repairs. No screenings for a month, so no shifts, no pay for me, in my mind I was being temporarily laid off, so I looked into collecting partial unemployment, which was very helpful to me during the pandemic. I knew if I kept my hours at my main job under a certain amount, I'd qualify for a small payment each week, to get me through the summer. BUT, there was some kind of glitch in the system that prevented me from filing against my CURRENT theater employer, and my claim was then filed against my PREVIOUS theater employer. Whether this happened because I clicked the wrong button on the web-site, or the system just doesn't allow a person to file against a current employer, I'm not really sure.
I ended up not collecting any money this summer, because after I filed, New York State has a two-week waiting period before anyone collects any payments, and after those two weeks the roof repairs were done, and I was back on the job. So I got zero dollars for my claim, plus two weeks off during which I started to go a little batty from inactivity all over again. BUT my ex-employer decided to challenge the claim against them, on the grounds that I left voluntarily, I quit and wasn't fired. That's 100% accurate, which meant they were right to deny the claim I accidentally filed against them. So I was given a hearing date of today, and all I had to do was be available by phone at 1 pm - I was all set to throw myself on the mercy of the court, admit I (or the Dept. of Labor's web-site) messed up, and fold like a cheap suit.
BUT, the hearing came around, I got the phone call from the Dept. of Labor, and the other party didn't answer their phone. So the plaintiff was deemed absent, and I won by default. Again, this carried no monetary victory for me, and no loss for the plaintiff, just a slightly higher percentage on their unemployment taxes in the future - and I probably can't show my face at that other movie theater for a while. I have to wonder if justice was really served here, probably not, and I say this as the winning (?) party. How much of life, as the saying goes, is just showing up? You can't speak for yourself or plead your case in any situation if you don't.
I feel good about this only because that's how I see myself, as the guy who shows up. For the past few months I've taken every shift that the theater has offered me, and some co-workers have moved on or taken other jobs or made themselves unavailable for weeks at a time, while with the exception of one vacation week in October, I've been the guy who shows up. Morning, afternoon, even locking up the building after midnight, I'm on it. And it's starting to show in the paychecks, which is nice - the check I'll get in December for my November shifts is going to help me get through the holiday season, for sure. No money came from unemployment, but I think that's probably for the best - since I misfiled and didn't deserve it, I probably would have felt like I needed to give it back. But still, in the eyes of the law, I'm a winner today.
Kevin Kline carries over from "Here Today". This makes four appearances for Mr. Kline this year, I wanted to make sure he'll get name-checked in my year-end wrap-up, and three is usually the cut-off. There might be a couple more people on the bubble who will benefit from another appearance tonight, and with just five films to go until Thanksgiving and only 15 films left in this Movie Year, it's kind of now or never.
THE PLOT: The Belchers try to save their restaurant from closing as a sinkhole forms in front of it, while the kids try to solve a mystery that could help save their family's restaurant.
AFTER: For me this is one of those "MUST SEE" movies that I had to get in before the end of the year - "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" and tomorrow's film are the two others. After that, I"m basically coasting until it's time to watch a couple Christmas movies. My blog will probably go dark for the rest of November and I'll watch the last ten movies for the year in December, at least that's one way to do it. I need some more time to watch TV and clear my DVR, I made a dent this past weekend but it's filling up yet again. Is November still sweeps month or something?
(I was ALMOST unable to watch this movie - I recorded it on my DVR, but about 20 minutes in, the picture started freezing up and only advancing about every 10 seconds, making it impossible to watch. I stopped the film and switched over to HBO on Demand, only to encounter the same problem at the same point in the film. WTF? OK, fine, I know the film's on Hulu, too, so I'll just turn on the PlayStation and watch it on Hulu through the gaming system.... I got an error message that Hulu is NO LONGER compatible with our PS3, so even that was impossible. I gave up and fell asleep, and I had to finish the movie this morning on Hulu on my PHONE. Not my preferred way of watching any film, but damn it, I got it done.)
Anyway, I make sure to catch the animation block every Sunday on FOX, I still watch "The Simpsons", "Family Guy" and "Bob's Burgers", and I picked up the new show "The Great North", which is made by the same production company as "Bob's Burgers", it's just focused on an unusual family in Alaska that runs a fishing boat rather than one in New Jersey (?) that runs a burger restaurant. (I had to look it up, the fictional town of Wagstaff is most likely a riff on Ocean City, NJ, according to the interwebs.). But the TV show "Bob's Burgers" is really a play on "The Simpsons", it for sure never would have existed if the show about Homer, Marge and their kids hadn't been running for 25 years (it's now 37, of course, but when "Bob's Burgers" started 11 years ago, it was more like 25.)
The adventures of the Belchers, like the Simpsons, are evergreen - the kids never get any older or advance to the next grade at school, meanwhile there's a Halloween and/or Thanksgiving episode every year which suggests that they SHOULD be aging, but they're not. Maybe in the final episode of "The Simpsons" in the year 2075 the characters will realize that they've been stuck in a time loop for almost a century, and they'll step out of it and all crumble to dust due to their advanced ages. Probably not. The weekly adventures of the Belchers have to similarly "reset" them at the end of every episode, the narrative pieces have to go back into the box so that all of the episodes can be syndicated and broadcast in any order, so no long linear storylines that change the characters in any permanent way are allowed. So it's refreshing that this movie actually takes a couple baby steps to inch that narrative forward, it's the last day of school before summer, and Tina wants to make things official with her prospective partner, Jimmy Jr., so she can have a hot boyfriend summer, whatever that entails.
But the financial problems of the struggling burger restaurant owners are also evergreen, here Bob and Linda have to make a quarterly payment on their loan, and their request for an extension is turned down, which means they have to sell a lot of burgers in the next week, and this suddenly becomes impossible when a sinkhole opens in their street, and customers are unable to enter the front door. Nobody seems willing to walk through the alley to the side entrance, because the alley of course smells like trash and pee. But if they could convince their landlord, Calvin Fischoeder, to let them slide on the rent, then maybe they could pay the bank instead. But Mr. Fischoeder also owns the amusement park at the neighboring wharf, and since the body of the missing carnival worker, Cotton Candy Dan, was found in the sinkhole, their landlord gets arrested for murder, so that's more bad news for the Belchers. Their landlord is going to need bail money, so he's less likely to let them slide on the rent.
Here's where the "Bob's Burgers" show starts to differentiate itself from "The Simpsons". "The Simpsons" has a set voice-cast of about 7 or 8 people who perform most of the voices (Hank Azaria no longer does the ethnic voices, that became problematic, so the cast grew a little bit when they found new voices for Apu and Lenny.). Beyond that, there's usually 1 or 2 mega-stars in any given episode, every A-Lister from Helen Mirren to Paul McCartney has put in an appearance. "Bob's Burgers", on the other hand, has a steady group of 6 or 7 regular voices, and then the rest of the cast is usually a bunch of stand-up comics, plus an occasional semi-regular like Megan Mullally or Zach Galifianakis. PLUS, the great Kevin Kline as Calvin Fischoeder - I don't know how they landed him, but if you can get an Oscar-WINNER to voice the show's landlord, then that's what you do. And he's great in the role, whatever they're paying him, I'm sure it's not enough.
The plot for the movie is very Fischoeder-centric, which is great. Calvin and his brother Felix are the entitled rich people in a world of struggling store owners and constantly-closing businesses, plus all the little people who work at the school and run stands at the carnival. And for good measure, there's a THIRD Fischoeder in the mix here, Grover Fischoeder, the cousin (?) of the two brothers, and he's also their lawyer and sycophantic hanger-on. Great, I'm there for it. I don't want to give too much away here, but while Bob relucantly agrees to sell burgers from a makeshift food cart inside Wonder Wharf, the three kids set out to solve the murder of Cotton Candy Dan, because if they can prove their landlord's innocence, then maybe they can save the restaurant.
The initial release date for the film was in July 2020, and then it was re-scheduled for April 2021. But then it was decided to pull the film from release AGAIN, and wait until audiences felt safe coming back to theaters in person. So that meant sitting on the shelf for nearly two years, the film was made after production ended on the show's eleventh season, and now the show's airing season 13. (I just read that if you watch season 12's episodes closely, you can see the sidewalk outside the restaurant slowly deteriorating, which foreshadows the sinkhole.). But that's all OK, any episode takes place during "story time", which is whatever time makes the most sense at the moment. Much like "The Simpsons", the show made a decision to recast the black characters with black voice actors, and one actor was fired from the series because he participated in the January 6 Capitol Insurrection, apparently.
Other notable notes: the film includes the first appearance of Bob's mother in a flashback, Paul Rudd voices Tina's imaginary horse, Jericho, and Jordan Peele has a cameo as Felix's girlfriend, Fanny. Jordan Peele also directed "Us", which I watched a few weeks ago, and which also features a secret underworld beneath a seaside carnival. That's an odd coincidence.
Anyway, if you enjoy the TV show then you simply HAVE to watch the movie. And even if you don't, give it a try because knowing the characters from the show isn't required, you could just drop into the Belcher's lives here and the film will give you everything you need to know. The show has acquired a very strong fan base, I always see people at Comic-Con dressed as members of the Belcher family, girls dressed like Louise and guys dressed like Tina, men wearing aprons like Bob and women wearing the infamous "spice rack" that Linda sported in one episode. It's all good, like Comic-Con the show accepts fans from all genders, preferences and identifications.
Still, part of me wonders, if they came after white voice actors for playing ethnic roles, at some point is cancel culture going to go after men who voice female characters? After all, those men are taking jobs away from capable female voice actors. Just saying.
Also starring the voices of H. Jon Benjamin (last seen in "Not Another Teen Movie"), John Roberts, Dan Mintz, Eugene Mirman, Kristen Schaal (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), David Wain (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), Zach Galifianakis (last heard in "Ron's Gone Wrong"), Larry Murphy, Gary Cole (last seen in "The Gift" (2000)), Paul F. Tompkins (last seen in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), John Q. Kubin, Nick Kroll (last heard in "The Addams Family 2'), Craig Anton, David Herman, Jaime Moyer, Brian Huskey (last seen in "Father Figures"), Bobby Tisdale (last seen in "Can You Keep a Secret?"), Stephanie Beatriz (last seen in "In The Heights"), Jordan Peele (last heard in "Us"), Rob Huebel (last seen in "How It Ends"), Parvesh Cheena (last seen in "The High Note"), Nicole Byer (last heard in "Vivo"), Robert Ben Garant (last heard in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"), Laura Silverman (last heard in "Nerdland"), Aziz Ansari (last heard in "What's Your Number?"), Sam Seder, Paul Rudd (last seen in "Adrienne"), Ron Lynch, Jenny Slate (last seen in "On the Rocks"), Andy Kindler, Sarah Silverman (last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie"), Ashley Nicole Black, Brooke Dillman.
RATING: 7 out of 10 second-shift carnies
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