BEFORE: OK, I can report back from the red carpet - sorry, BLACK carpet - premiere event for "Karate Kid: Legends". I was on outdoor duty for most of the night, which meant keeping an eye on the ADA sidewalk ramps (as pedestrians needed to walk around the press area, which meant walking in a blocked-off street lane, which meant for people with walkers or baby carriages, they needed to use these ramps) and making sure that parents could pick up their kids outside after the screening, because some parents went out for food or drinks, rather than watch the film. Also, I made sure that nobody forgot about the kids from the Karate Foundation who came in their karate outfits to see the film - and they JUST got in, 5 minutes before the screening, which was delayed because Jackie Chan was signing autographs outside. Ralph Macchio was there, too, but Jackie Chan drew the most photographs from bystanders, who stood in the street and risked getting run over to take his picture. Worth it?
The theater was a mess after - which is what happens when you let a bunch of kids in to see something and you give them popcorn, soda and candy. Sure, I was on outdoor duty but I couldn't lock up until the porters finished cleaning both theaters, and that took a few hours. So I was there until about 1 am, and this was on a Tuesday night, so getting home was a challenge, my usual subway line was shut down (they do need to clean all the stations sometimes, I guess) and I had to take a shuttle bus, did not get home until 2:30 am. At that point, I didn't want to stay up and watch a movie, besides I was super tired, so I went to bed earlier than usual, and watched today's movie in the late morning. Got to stay on track, after all.
Channing Tatum carries over one more time from "Havoc" (2005).
THE PLOT: On the night of their high school reunion, a group of friends realize they still haven't grown up in some ways.
AFTER: The IMDB classified this film as a romantic comedy, but I chose not to see it that way - rom-coms are a dime a dozen, after all, but films about high-school reunions are few and far-between. "Romy & Michele's High School Reunion" comes to mind, and "The D Train", and well, that's about it. Besides, it doesn't link to much that's currently on my romance sub-list, maybe a film or two with Aubrey Plaza in it, there was probably more connective tissue before I burned off a bunch of the romances this February, like "Dear John" and "Safe Haven". Maybe I'll regret placing this one here next February when I'm having trouble connecting romances, I don't know - but with this cast, it's going to function better for me as a film that will link just about anything to anything else. Look, it's the film that's going to get me from one Marvel film ("Venom 3") to another, and those films are set in different universes, for now, anyway. I suspect a merger will occur at some point.
No lie, at one point several of the reunion attendees went out to a car to smoke a joint, and I realized that within that car were the actors who played Star-Lord, Gambit, Falcon and Moon Knight (also Apocalypse, but again, different universe) in various Marvel movies and TV shows. Really, I only need ONE of them to carry over to tomorrow's movie, but we'll deal with that tomorrow. Tomorrow's slot was GOING to be used for "The Electric State", with Anthony Mackie AND Chris Pratt carrying over, but that film has now been re-scheduled for August, and re-purposed as the film that will get me out of the Doc Block. That's another film, like this one, that could go almost anywhere, but I need it for a very specific purpose.
Anyway, let's deal with "10 Years", a film that is now almost 15 years old (it happens) and honestly, I'm a bit surprised that nobody made a sequel called "20 Years" to update us more on these characters and their lives. The big, big problem here is that we're shown a very large number of characters arriving at this 10-year reunion, and we have no idea what relationships they had with each other while in high school. So the first 2/3 of the film has to have a lot of exposition, people talking about their pasts, because we don't get to see that in flashbacks, footage of these actors from 10 years previous is not available. That means a lot of "tell" and very little "show" while we're learning all their backstories. It does get tiresome after a while, but be honest, isn't listening to a bunch of your old school-mates reliving their glory moments a very tiresome thing? It's almost too real here, nearly interactive because that's what you do at a reunion, you play catch-up and ask questions about how people spent their last ten years. Or people offer up all that information, which is even worse.
Who got fat, who got rich, who got hot? These are questions mentioned on the poster, but even more important is figuring out who dated who back then, and who WANTED to date who, because a reunion is also a second shot at the relationships you screwed up or missed out on. Well, maybe, if you play your cards right. And a lot of these characters play it cool, they don't offer up too much information until they learn what the playing field is like, and get an estimate of how they might measure up against their old classmates. Relatable.
However, there are quite a few cringe-worthy moments, too - Chris Pratt's character has had a realization that he was a bit of a bully back in high school, and he's changed (or at least he believes he has) so he wants to find all those people he mistreated or made fun of, and apologize to them, whether they want him to or not. He wants to put in the work, which is great, but if those people aren't receptive to it, he isn't going to let that stop him, which means, wait for it, that he's STILL a bully, only now he's going to bully those people until they like him or forgive him, or pretend to forgive him just to make him go away. Beware, it's a trap, because once they forgive him he now wants to hang out with them, or force them to hang out with him, which turns into, you guessed it, another form of bullying. And this gets worse and worse as he drinks more and more.
True story, I got a phone call once from someone who didn't treat me great in grade school, I wouldn't call what he did bullying, though - I was bullied by others, but not him - really I was in his friend group and I was just the lowest in the pecking order, that's a different thing, I think. Anyway, as an adult he was going through the 12-step program and he'd reached the step where he had to ask forgiveness from people, so he called me, and I'd never had anyone contact me in this way before, so I wasn't sure what to do. I did think about it and I determined that however he treated me, it played a part in shaping my personality, and I felt I was in a pretty good place in life, so I told him I wasn't holding anything against him, that I'd forgiven him for whatever. I'm not going to stand in the way of anyone trying to get sober, if that's what they want to do or feel they need to do. I certainly wasn't going to demand any form of restitution - I still had to encounter him at future reunions, after all.
Anyway, there's a lot of back and forth at the reunion, people talking with their old friends, their old flames, and if their spouses or significant others are also there, it's a chance to learn what their lovers were like back in high school. For this crowd at this age, that means learning who was into breakdancing and who didn't go to the prom (and why) and who got married and who moved to Japan (and why). It's also awkward that one person from this high school became a famous music artist, so he's the center of attention for a while, but then prefers to hang out with that girl from physics class that he almost had a moment with back then, but she had a boyfriend in another town or something.
Wisely, once the reunion ends most everyone goes to a local karaoke bar, and sure, we the audience appreciate the change in venue - 90 minutes in just one location would have been too long. So it's off to Pretzel's for more alcohol, except two characters decide to follow the former prom queen home when they don't connect with her, and cover her yard with toilet paper, just like the old days. Also relatable, when you're 28 and you have your first reunion, you might be inclined to act like you're 18 again - but they get caught by her, and they have to apologize, at which time they learn the real truth about what her life is like now, she's a single mother with two kids from two different dads, and maybe Marty and AJ have been fronting too, and so for all three maybe life's not all that it could be, but hey, later they can still eat breakfast together!
Meanwhile at the karaoke bar, Cully is even more drunk and still trying to push everyone around and his wife is completely embarrassed. Jake re-unites with Mary, and they recall that their prom night was spoiled by her dad having a heart attack. Jake's wife Jess goes back to the hotel so he can spend time with Mary, who is now married but still wants to have that prom dance with Jake. Reeves is still talking to the reclusive Elise, and when he's pushed into singing his hit song about a girl with yellow shoes, Elise realizes that he wrote the song about her. Garrity impresses his wife with his breakdancing skills while Scotty sings, and Andre just keeps flirting with the ladies, eventually we learn that he had a long-term relationship that didn't work out, and jeez, really everyone is masking their pain with either humor or alcohol or music, so hey maybe nobody really has it together, do they?
I'm glad I stuck with it because the film kind of redeems itself in the end, once everyone stops pretending that their lives are going great, and only then can the healing begin. There's more heart and self-realization in the last third of this film than you would expect to find in three other movies, if you can believe that. And really, you can't move forward in life until you've made peace with your past, or something to that effect.
There is a real Lake Howell high school, in Winter Park, Florida - the director and one of the actors went to school there together, and obviously there's at least one real-life couple playing a couple, or at least they WERE a couple at the time. Three actors also went to Julliard together, so there are probably a number of ways where art reflects real life here. And we've got a loose theme for the week so far, in that "Stop-Loss", "Havoc" (2005) and today's film all feature footage that looks like it was shot on a camcorder, to create handheld footage of the soldiers in Iraq, the doc footage that Eric was making about the Pacific Palisades students, and the footage shot at the 10 year reunion.
Directed by Jamie Linden (writer and producer of "Dear John")
Also starring Jenna Dewan (last seen in "Berlin, I Love You"), Justin Long (last seen in "Jeepers Creepers 2"), Max Minghella (last seen in "The Darkest Hour"), Oscar Isaac (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Chris Pratt (last heard in "The Garfield Movie"), Ari Graynor (last seen in "Game 6"), Scott Porter (last seen in "Dear John"), Eiko Nijo (last seen in "Eagle Eye"), Brian Geraghty (last seen in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile"), Aubrey Plaza (last seen in "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn"), Kate Mara (last seen in "Shooter"), Lynn Collins (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "We Have a Ghost"), Rosario Dawson (last seen in "Clerks III"), Ron Livingston (last seen in "The Flash"), Aaron Yoo (last seen in "Rocket Science"), Daniel Scott Lumpkin Jr., Lily Lumpkin (last seen in "Safe Haven"), Mike Miller (last seen in "Vengeance"), Kelly Noonan, Nick Zano (last seen in "Catch Me If You Can"), Isaac Kappy (last seen in "Thor"), Sara Emami, Bryce Hayes (also last seen in "Dear John"), Marie A.K. McMaster, Brady Kephart, Kenneth McGlothin, Todd Malta (last seen in "The Interpreter"), Lauren Poole (last seen in "Frank"), Cat Stone, Alex Knight (last seen in "The Marksman"), Frantz Durand, Michelle Griego, Monique Candelaria, Rebekah Wiggins (last seen in "Let Me In"), Ivan Martin (last seen in "Chuck"), Antonio Spirovski, Jack Nation (last seen in "Crazy Heart"), Ian French, Juliet Lopez
RATING: 6 out of 10 fried eggs (eating them is better than throwing them at Anna's house)
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