BEFORE: I counted up how many movies, shows and specials are in my Netflix list, and I came up with 90. That seems like way too much. But, it does include stand-up comedy specials from a lot of the comedians that I dig, I just haven't been able to make the time to watch any of those. If I watch a movie on Netflix and it's relatively short, I try to squeeze in a random comedy special, or preferably one that's been on the list for a while and might be in danger of disappearing. Last week I watched specials from Jerry Seinfeld and Judah Friedlander, after clearing the Patton Oswalt and Marc Maron specials.
It's also going to help that there are 20 or so music documentaries on Netflix that I want to see, and I've got the whole linking plan laid out for the Summer Rock Concert series, so by the end of August, that should be 20 more items off the list. Then I just need to carve out some time to finish "Stranger Things" season 2 and start the series "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp" and maybe I'll be getting somewhere.
But that's not fast enough. So tonight before watching Rob Brydon in "The Trip to Spain", I'm going to knock off an animated short (27 min.) that's on Netflix, which was Oscar-nominated a few years back, called "The Gruffalo", which coincidentally features Mr. Brydon in a voice role. No need to review it here because shorts fall out of this project's scope, but it's nice that it also ties in with the feature.
Steve Coogan and nearly the entire cast of last night's film carries over, and we're all off to Spain tonight.
THE PLOT: Actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon embark on a six-part episodic road trip through Spain, sampling the restaurants and sights along the way.
AFTER: I'm just sort of realizing that this is a week when many people go on vacation, right around the July 4 holiday, so it was a bit of accidental genius to schedule these vacation-themed movies here. Right now in NYC it's too hot to even walk outside, so I can't imagine this is a great weekend to be at the beach, or down in Florida or out in Vegas. If it's 90 degrees here, it's got to be over 100 in some of those places. I'm fine with spending my weekend inside an air-conditioned house, watching TV and movies.
The fictional Coogan and Brydon get hired to do another set of restaurant reviews, this time for the (failing) New York Times in addition to the Observer. So they pack up all their impressions and hit the road again. It's funny, we don't see them taking down any notes about their meals or even taking any pictures of them. I take photos of most of my special meals, and then my wife and I play a game where we look at random photos the other took of food, and try to remember when and where it was taken. We usually play this game while in a different restaurant, waiting for our meals.
This time they're sort of re-creating a journey that Steve took as a young man, plus also perhaps following in the trail of Laurie Lee, an author I've never heard of, but apparently he walked through Spain and got involved in the Spanish Civil War. This film also makes references to Cervantes' "Don Quixote", for obvious reasons, and (though I missed them) George Orwell, for non-obvious ones. Why not Hemingway, who was there at least twice, during both World War I and the Spanish Civil War?
They start in Santander, by taking a ferry over from the U.K., which allows them to bring their own Range Rover this time (and I'm sure that was totally Coogan's own personal car and not one that Land Rover gave him in exchange for screen time) and from there they head east to a town near the Pyrenees, where Ferdinand and Isabella are interred, then they head south through Guadalajara and the province of La Mancha, and finally end their journey in Malaga, on the Mediterranean. Now, most of what I know about Spanish geography comes from which cities have the best film festivals, like Gijon, Barcelona, San Sebastian and Sitges, so it leaves me to wonder why they missed all of these great cities, not to mention Madrid. I realize they were looking to avoid the most commonly visited tourist sites, but come on.
Coogan and Brydon bring out their dueling Michael Caine impressions again, plus Roger Moore and also Anthony Hopkins (clearly from "The Bounty", since they always make him scream about "rounding the horn") but three years later, they've updated their arsenal with impressions of Mick Jagger, John Hurt (who also did a voice in "The Gruffalo") and of course Connery and Pacino come out to play again too. It's also good to hear a couple of Brits reference a "Monty Python" skit - the one about the Spanish Inquisition, of course - I was afraid that maybe only Americans are familiar enough with them to know them by heart.
The two actors playing actors have advanced in their personal lives, the fictional Brydon now has two young kids, and apparently his marriage is still on track, while the fictional Coogan has gotten back together with his old girlfriend, who is now married to another man - meanwhile his son might become a father soon, making him a grandfather at age 50, so there's that to deal with. Plus his agent seems to have changed jobs and taken all his other clients with him, except for Steve, but this is a plot line that doesn't really go anywhere, except it calls the whole documentary process into question - like, how did they have a camera crew standing by at the agent's office in L.A.?
The fictional Coogan decides to spend another week in Spain to write after Brydon goes home, but then there's a twist that nobody sees coming, and there's a confusing ending. I guess that was done to guarantee that there will be a fourth movie in the series, if for no other reason than to explain what happened in the ending of the third one? And are we going to have to wait another three years to find out what country they'll be touring next?
Also starring Rob Brydon, Claire Keelan, Marta Barrio, Rebecca Johnson, Timothy Leach (all carrying over from "The Trip to Italy"), Tom Clegg, Justin Edwards, Kerry Shale (last seen in "Moonwalkers"), Kyle Soller, Margo Stilley (last seen in "The Trip").
RATING: 5 out of 10 street musicians
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