BEFORE: OK, I made it to work on time at 6:30 am yesterday - hey, for me that's quite an accomplishment, I've spent decades NOT being at work before 10 am. I have to make special preparations to be somewhere by 6:30 am - like no caffeine in the evening, no sugar at night, and I need to fall asleep in the recliner with the news on and the sound low. Also, I may need a cat on my lap. Back in the old days, like pre-age 50, if I had to be somewhere super early I'd just stay up all night and crash the next afternoon, but I don't think I can do that any more, I'd be dead tired by 10 am these days if I tried to pull an all-nighter. Anyway, I was there to open up the theater and everything went well with the event, which was the school-wide staff meeting. Next week comes orientation meetings, so at least one more early morning shift for me.
It felt weird since I haven't been at that job for the last two months, like I didn't forget how to do anything but I spent two months at home, getting out of shape - not that I was ever IN shape, but still, it's getting harder for me to do physical stuff, so at some point I need to find a less taxing job, or think about packing it in. Maybe it's a bit on the nose that a film with this title came up on the schedule today....
Devon Graye carries over from "Nope".
THE PLOT: When a depressed woman is burgled, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves alongside her obnoxious neighbor. But they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals.
AFTER: The point of the film is that people act like assholes all over - across the board, generally speaking and you can see it everywhere, people cutting in line, people driving like maniacs on the highway, people giving away major plot points to that book or movie you haven't finished yet - God, those people are the absolute WORST, aren't they? Not me, of course, I always issue SPOILER ALERTS and in person I always ask people if they WANT to know details about a movie they haven't seen before i spill them. My wife had to drag the twist in "Nope" out of me, I had to double-check she was OK with it before I talked about it. I'm sure I'm an asshole in many other ways, like I let my wife pay for too many restaurant checks, and I never lock the front door the way she wants me to, and I'm sure there are other things I do that I'm unaware of. I try to cook dinner whenever I can, same goes for loading and unloading the dishwasher, and I've got my own bathroom in the basement, you can probably guess why. I make sure the DVR records the shows she wants to see, and I'm helping her navigate through the new Zelda video-game, just as I navigate for her when she drives while we're on vacation.
A big part of life is finding that one person who helps you navigate life, I think - and you don't have to like all of the same things, but it sure helps if you HATE some of the same things, or if you're at least united when you plan big vacations and smaller road trips. Like if we didn't both like BBQ and buffets, our last four vacations would have been big busts, and in between the big things we did, we made sure to leave room in the schedule for smaller things, like swinging by a fenced-off lot outside Houston that contained GIANT busts of all the U.S. Presidents, or visiting a geek market in North Carolina or spending time at a giant antiques warehouse outside Atlanta. We're over 50 now, so we decided we had to take up antiquing, as long as there's a Waffle House or an IHOP nearby.
Ruth does eventually make a connection here with her neighbor, Tony, but there are a lot of steps on that road - at first she's very angry with him because he lets his dog, Kevin, poop in her yard, right next to the very prominent "No pooping" sign. Maybe he thought that sign was for people, not for dogs, after all, dogs can't read signs. But whatever - in order to make up for his offense, Tony at least agrees to go with Ruth when she uses an app to track her stolen computer to a very shady house across town. The police, meanwhile, are not willing to help her, because just having that app denote that her computer is in that house is not enough for a search warrant. So Ruth and Tony barge in and demand the computer - technically that may also be stealing, but they're stealing it BACK, so I guess that's OK? Ruth and Tony then go on to engage in other not-so-nice behavior, but it's all with the intent of balancing the scales.
I don't really have an answer here, but if somebody steals your computer, is it OK to steal it back? Her aunt's silverware was also stolen from Ruth's house, and when they locate the collection for sale from a dealer, is it OK to steal it back from him as well? He may have bought it from the thief, and not known it was stolen property. But Ruth feels violated by the theft and she ends up going a pretty fair distance to try and make things right. At the same times, she spies the thief, or at least someone wearing a sneaker that matches the footprint in her backyard, so it seems that her amateur sleuthing pays off, because it's just not possible at all that two people in the same city could be wearing the same brand of sneakers, right? Wait a minute, I think I've found an N.P. here. She finds somebody wearing sneakers that are CONSISTENT with the tread seen in that footprint, but that's not conclusive evidence, is it?
We know she's probably right, though, because the movie spends a lot of time on that guy, Christian, and his two cohorts as they fence stolen merchandise, buy a gun, and start planning for the "big job". Ruth and Tony are hot on their trail, though, and so their paths may cross again. But come on, maybe Ruth should have quit after getting back her computer and that silverware, but she doesn't, she keeps on going and ends up in a lot more danger, just because of some petty sense of revenge, or maybe just that desire to convince people to not be assholes. Yeah, good luck with that, Ruth, if ever there were an uphill battle, it's that one.
This film ended up raising a lot of good questions about how the universe works, or how it should, I guess. Is it OK to steal something back from a thief who stole it from you? Is it OK to impersonate a cop to sit down with your thief's step-mother to learn more about him? Is it OK to destroy the lawn topiaries of somebody who wasn't helpful in your quest for justice? And most important of all, is it better to smash your burgers down when you grill them, or just flip them? I'm definitely in the second camp, because smashing the burgers squeezes out the juice, and everybody wants a juicy burger, right? So please, Food Network (and Guy Fieri in particular) can we come to a damn consensus about this? For everyone profiled on your network who doesn't smash the burgers, there's someone else who does. PICK ONE METHOD.
Another point made in this film is that there are people who act selflessly, serve as nurses or war doctors in the field, or they spend their spare time bringing meals to sick people, and then when those people die, they're just as dead as everyone else, just useless carbon. It's most likely true, however it's also very depressing, so therefore, not really helping. We also learn that police detectives, generally speaking, are not very helpful when it comes to solving crimes - however, this should NOT be seen as an invitation to pick up the slack yourself. It's just not safe. OK, lessons learned, let's move on to the next flick.
Also starring Melanie Lynskey (last seen in "Hello I Must Be Going"), Elijah Wood (last seen in "The Trust"), David Yow, Jane Levy (last seen in "Nobody Walks"), Myron Natwick (last seen in "Cats & Dogs"), Christine Woods (last seen in "Dean"), Robert Longstreet (last seen in "Judas and the Black Messiah"), Gary Anthony Williams (last seen in "Comic Book: The Movie"), Lee Eddy (last heard in "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood"), Derek Mears (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Jason Manuel Olazabal (last seen in "Inside Man"), Maxwell Hamilton, Matt Orduna, Michelle Moreno, Jeb Berrier, Macon Blair (last seen in "The Hunt"), Robin Blair, Buck Eddy-Blair, William Sydnor Blair, Marilyn Faith Hickey (last seen in "Men of Honor"), Jared Roylance, J.J. Green, Taylor Tunes, Kayla Dixon, Audrey Walker, Chris Sharp, Jana Lee Hamblin, Dana Millican (last seen in "Leave No Trace"), Ray Buckley (last seen in "World's Greatest Dad"), Lenka Becvar, Dagoberto Rodriguez,
RATING: 5 out of 10 throwing stars
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