BEFORE: I know I'm late getting to my annual "back to school" movies - I promise they'll be here in just a few days. That rock music chain held me up, so blame people like the guy who sang "School's Out" for that - I suppose that's somewhat ironic. And now I keep inserting more Paul Rudd movies, so the school films keep getting pushed back, and now we're a week past Labor Day and kids are already back in school. Honestly, if people had kept better track on IMDB about who appeared in each documentary, I probably could have watched fewer films and still kept the chain alive. As things are right now, if nothing changes in October, I'll be 1 film over the limit in December, and that's not ideal.
Aside from watching so many films about rock musicians (most of whom dropped out of school, or didn't do well in school, it seems) I did accomplish something else in the latter half of summer - I caught up on a lot of TV shows. Once "Jeopardy!" and the nightly talk shows all go on vacation in August, I can really make up some ground. I finished season 2 of "Stranger Things" before they could release season 3, so that's something. I knocked out "Cloak and Dagger" and "12 Monkeys", my wife and I watched most of the last season of "Iron Chef America", and then I started chipping away at my two biggest DVR-cloggers, "Food Paradise" and "Carnival Eats". I had over 30 episodes of each show stored up, and while I still have a way to go, my bedroom DVR is only 40% full, and I can't remember the last time I had so much space available there. Now I've started on the final season of "Face Off" on Syfy and the latest season of "MasterChef". The only show I can't seem to get to is the 2nd season of "Genius", since I'm much less interested in Picasso's life than I was in Einstein's.
Also, about a month ago I binged on two other Netflix shows, which both had Paul Rudd in them: "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp" and "Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later". Both of these had been in my queue since my wife gave me access to her account, and it felt good to finally cross them off the list - and summer was the best time to watch shows about people at camp, right? After all the music docs, I found I had made great progress on the whole Netflix list, and my list was down to under 65 items, but then this weekend I started checking out possible films for next February and beyond, so I probably doubled it in size again. Oh well, time to start chipping away at it again with tonight's film, and then maybe I can squeeze in a stand-up special before bedtime to keep reducing that list.
Paul Rudd carries over from "Mute" and gets me one step closer to school-based films.
THE PLOT: A writer retires after a personal tragedy and becomes a disabled teen's caregiver. When the two embark on a road trip, their ability to cope is tested as they start to understand the importance of hope and friendship.
AFTER: Thankfully, I was spared from the traditional "this writer can't write" scenes, where said writer is staring at an empty sheet of paper in a typewriter (umm, why did he load the paper in the typewriter if he didn't have an idea yet?) or even worse, a blank screen on a laptop with a blinking cursor. Don't screenwriters understand that this is not only very clichéd, but also the most uninteresting scene for an audience to watch? There simply has to be a better way to get across the concept of writer's block - and there is, you just have the writer mention it, it's much easier and doesn't waste time on a scene that literally goes nowhere.
When we first see Ben Benjamin, the writer character here, he's much further along in the "can't write" process, he's studying to be a qualified care-giver. It's some kind of training course, you get some kind of certificate and then you look for someone who needs help. Like babysitting, only for adults. We soon find out that he's going through a divorce, or rather, avoiding the process of going through a divorce, but clearly his wife has moved on. We later learn the reason for the split (hint, I've seen it before already this year, in another film) but at first, we're not sure if this guy is really looking for a new career, or just a way to pass the time.
He takes a job caring for Trevor, a teen with muscular dystrophy, and soon learns that the teen toggles between self-pity, self-loathing and a dark sense of humor on his better days. He also wants nothing more than to eat the same meals every day, and sit in his house watching travel shows depicting kitschy road-side attractions that he'll never see. But when Ben breaks through his facade, he wonders why Trevor doesn't have any interest in getting out and seeing some of those weird tourist traps, after all many disabled people still go to movies and concerts and sporting events. Plus, you'd think someone with a limited life-span might be more interested in seeing the world, not less, so why not make the most of his life while he can?
This leads to a week on the road to go and see "The World's Deepest Pit", with planned stops to see things along the way like the world's biggest cow. I do appreciate road trips myself, especially after last year's BBQ Crawl from Dallas to Nashville, and my wife and I found so many other fun things to do along the way that we've planned another drive for next month, from Dallas to New Orleans. I try to have plans and back-up plans for each city we visit, but then again, sometimes it's just fun to wander around for an hour or two, like we did in Little Rock. (Our vacations are kind of like my movie chains, I like to have a solid plan, but if an opportunity merits a change in plans, it helps to be a little bit flexible. Over-planning can sometimes lead to disappointment, too.)
Ben and Trevor end up getting more out of their road trip than they expected, when they see a 21-year old girl hitchhiking, and they offer to drive her to Denver. Ben's a nice guy who wants to keep this girl safe, while Trevor just wants to be able to talk to a girl. Then they meet a pregnant woman named Peaches with car trouble, so the van keeps these four strangers together in a de facto road-trip family, for lack of a better word. As with any road trip, some things will go wrong and some things will go right, but if they can keep their wits about them and not get under each other's skin, they'll get to see what they came to see. Umm, this kid does know about the Grand Canyon, right? That's probably much more impressive than "The World's Deepest Pit". Hell, they could have driven to Las Vegas, that would have allowed for much more of an educational and entertaining road trip.
But I understand the appeal of doing things that are very kitschy, like when we were in Memphis we visited this big glass pyramid that turned out to be a giant Bass Pro Shop, with a central elevator and a restaurant on top that served wild game, with an observation deck that allowed us to watch the sun set over the Mississippi River. That was a surreal experience, and not just because it allowed me to put words together in an unusual way to form that last sentence. We visited the Southfork Ranch (from the TV show "Dallas") outside of Dallas, went to our first rodeo, and we ate at the Dallas State Fair. In Memphis we toured Elvis Presley's house, Graceland (and his car collection, most famous clothing and his private planes) and stood in the lobby of Sun Records. In Nashville we stood near a reproduction of the Greek Parthenon, and ate some very strange Japanese food. And in 6 weeks we're going to fly down South again and do more silly random things, and I can't wait.
Maybe I'm just happy to be back watching narrative films again, but I liked this one more than I thought I would, I'm glad I saw fit to work it in to my schedule. I'm sure the tempation was there to be very heavy-handed with the symbolism, like making a comparison between "The World's Deepest Pit" and each character's individual situation/depression, but I kind of like how they just let that be.
Also starring Craig Roberts (last seen in "22 Jump Street"), Jennifer Ehle (last seen in "MI-5"), Selena Gomez (last seen in "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising"), Megan Ferguson (last seen in "Love & Other Drugs"), Julia Denton, Frederick Weller, Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "I, Tonya"), Alex Huff, Donna Biscoe (last seen in "Hidden Figures"), Ashley White.
RATING: 7 out of 10 Slim Jims
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