BEFORE: We've come to another confluence this year, like earlier we had Easter Sunday butting up against April Fool's Day, and before that we had Ash Wednesday on the same day as Valentine's Day - now I blame the eclipse for these things maybe but come on, it's been a weird year as the calendar goes. Remember that there was another confluence, between the 2024 solar eclipse and the NCAA men's basketball championship game. If you were to tell me that Election Day, Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving were all in the same week in November this year, I'd be inclined to believe you. But today is Father's Day and the last day of the Tribeca Film Festival, that's got to mean something to somebody, right?
This year, the Tribeca Festival announced De Niro Con, which is a block of Robert De Niro films on the last three days of the festival - yesterday at the theater where I work there was a panel with De Niro and Quentin Tarantino, but of course it was my day off. BUT, I've seen both of those people in person before, I met Tarantino at San Diego Comic-Con years ago, and I saw De Niro crossing the sidewalk to enter the theater last year to attend the premiere screening of "About My Father, on May 9, 2023. That was the same day that it was announced that De Niro's girlfriend was pregnant, and he was due to become a father again at the age of 80.
The real De Niro Con officially ends today, but my own version is just starting - I've got a few of his films left that I haven't seen, so I'll cross those off this week, and then he also appears in the first film of my Documentary Block, so this means my month-long foray into docs is very, very close.
THE PLOT: When Sebastian tells his old-school Italian immigrant father Salvo that he is going to propose to his all-American girlfriend, Salvo insists on crashing a weekend with her rich parents.
AFTER: Yeah, maybe I wish this one had been funnier, but I suppose I could say that very often. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, just kind of slice-of-life funny, if that makes sense. But it kind of highlights the class difference in America, between the middle- and the upper-, or the difference between being a second-generation American and a tenth-generation, between someone whose ancestors came through Ellis Island and someone whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.
On the other hand, it also feels like kind of a re-tread of "Meet the Fockers", with the parents of both halves of a couple coming together, and them being total polar opposites of each other.
Sebastian Maniscalco plays sort of a fictionalized version of himself, and I suppose that kind of warrants its own category in the year end wrap-up maybe, between "Die Hart" and "I Love My Dad" and probably a few others.
The fear in both cases is that your parents are going to embarrass you, especially dear ol' Dad. Bringing your father along on a trip to your potential in-law's summer house on July 4 is a great idea, except that it's also a terrible idea. Sebastian can't seem to properly play tennis when his dad is watching, because he's self-conscious about enjoying himself with his dad around, also he knows that his father's going to knock him for spending money on frivolous tennis lessons. It's great that Salvo is there AND he runs a women's hair salon, because Ellie's mother, Tigger, needs to appear on MSNBC and because it's a holiday weekend, she can't get her hair done, so Salvo steps in. Except that he gives her a near crew-cut, which is terrible. Except that the TV viewers regard it as a "power" haircut, so it's actually a great political move. Jeez, this movie can't seem to make up its mind about whether things are good or bad...
Ellie's parents own a giant hotel chain, and Sebastian also works in that industry, which is GOOD. BUT he works for the competition, and he wants to marry their daughter, which is potentially BAD. BUT they offer him a job managing a fancy hotel that they own, so that's GOOD, right? Wrong, because that would mean he'd have to move out of Chicago, leaving his father behind, and that's BAD. Plus Salvo already doesn't trust Ellie's parents, and them giving his son a new job somehow makes him trust them even less. I mean, what are they up to, being so kind and generous and accepting, it's unnatural, right?
Ellie's parents also scheme to have a famous designer buy a bunch of her "professional" artworks. Which is GOOD, except they didn't tell her that they were the ones financing the purchase of those artworks. so that's BAD. And they want to put those artworks prominently in their hotels, which is GOOD, except then Sebastian recognizes one of her paintings in the hotel brochure they gave him, which is BAD, because now he's complicit in keeping their secret, unless he can find a way to tell his girlfriend that her parents secretly bought her paintings, which made her feel GOOD but if she knew that her parents were giving her money, again, that would be BAD. She just wants to be successful in her artistic endeavors because she earned it, and she can't do that if her parents keep helping her out.
Look, I'm exhausted, I just got home after a 16 hour shift at the theater, so I've got to wrap this up. What we've learned from this year's Father's Day movies is that fathers want to protect their sons and daughters, and are willing to go to some crazy insane lengths to do that. Ellie's father was willing to buy a bunch of her paintings to make her feel successful, and Sebastian's father was willing to compete in July 4 party games and a hot-dog eating contest and have actual FUN just to try and figure out if his son's girlfriend's family were decent people, and if Ellie was worth giving Sebastian grandma's ring so he could propose. Joe Russo got his son's girlfriend to pretend to get back together with him so he wouldn't be depressed and therefore practice basketball and win that scholarship to Drexel, and craziest of all, Chuck catfished his own son and pretended to be a waitress named Becca in order to give him something to live for. Yeah, these fathers ALL screwed up, but they all did it to protect their children, so, really, they care too much and they have a really screwy way of showing it. OK, maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere, I don't know, I'm way too tired.
I hope you got to take your father out to brunch or lunch or dinner, and it wasn't too crowded. If you don't live nearby, I hope you were able to connect on the phone. And if your father is no longer with us, I hope you have good memories that you can keep with you.
Also starring Robert De Niro (last seen in "Stanley & Iris"), Leslie Bibb (last seen in "No Good Deed"), Kim Cattrall (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), David Rasche (last seen in "Kill Your Darlings"), Anders Holm (last seen in "Top Five"), Brett Dier, Adan James Carrillo, Colby Shinn, Jessie Camacho, Carla Christina Contreras, Arielle Prepetit, Zue Farmer, Marisa Cornett
with cameos from Chris Hayes (last seen in "Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump"), Ana Navarro, Jonathan Van Ness.
RATING: 4 out of 10 bottles of "night cologne"
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