Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

In case you lived on a deserted island a couple years ago and haven’t interacted with the media since then, I’ll lay out the basic facts that led to the events behind this documentary. Jay Leno announced that Conan O’Brien would succeed him as host of The Tonight Show, then he didn’t leave for years, then, when he finally did leave and O’Brien took over the show, Leno announced that he would start a new show and it would run immediately before The Tonight Show, essentially stealing a chunk of O’Brien’s thunder and audience. Then Leno convinced NBC to move his show to The Tonight Show slot, moving O’Brien to after midnight. O’Brien had enough and quit, quite publicly.

NBC paid him heaps of money and let him leave without suit if he would agree not to appear on television or speak ill publicly about The Tonight Show for one year.

So, does the workaholic, driven O’Brien take this time off to opine or write or spend time with his family? Of course not, hence the title. He launches a live show tour of the US called The Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour. This documentary is somewhat about his fall from The Tonight Show and somewhat about his plans for the future, but largely it’s about the tour and, via the tour, a look at his life immediately following the Tonight Show debacle.

O’Brien was a lead writer for The Simpsons, Saturday Night Live, Late Night and The Tonight Show. He’s a seriously funny guy whose comedy has greatly impacted modern comedy in ways many people don’t realize. When this crap all went down last year it was a great disservice to him. This doc is an interesting and thorough look at his reaction to this disservice. It is not fluff, it’s a very transparent look at a dark time for O’Brien and it’s certainly a good watch.

S’good

Mr. Popper's Penguins

Yeah, that’s right, I saw it. So, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m reviewing it. Hey, I’ve got nothing to hide.

Tom Popper never had a relationship with his father and, as a result, has a barrier up that keeps him from being too warmhearted or human. He’s a coldhearted commercial real estate agent with a lovely penthouse apartment and a broken down life. His father suddenly passes and leaves Tom a very peculiar inheritance…six penguins. I’m going to let you write the rest of the plot description. I’ll give you only two hints: he doesn’t get rid of the penguins and they serve as a catalyst that brings about the warming of his heart (irony?). Sorry, before laying that bombshell on you, I should have warned you to sit down first, as I know it must have come as quite a shock.

Ok, so, this movie’s plot progression and series of events are totally ridiculous. They are unbelievable , unrealistic and, well, ridiculous. That said, it wasn’t nearly as awful as the critics largely say it is. Jim Carrey is actually quite good in it. The writing is largely crap and the story makes the writing look like a true work of art, but he does a decent job with what he has and is fairly funny at times. Movies like this weren’t made for me (and probably not for most of you), but, let me say this, I saw it as part of a ‘family matinee’ program at a local theater and the kids were downright cheering at the end. My 11-year-old declared it her new favorite movie of all time.

In short, it’s stupid, it’s ludicrous, but it’s also sweet and pretty bearable. I have a close friend whose kids are crazy smart for their age and homeschooled. When I saw this movie, I asked them, when I saw them later that day, if they’d seen Mr. Popper’s Penguins and they said “what do you mean ‘seen,’ it’s a book and yes we’ve read it, we love it.” Turns out it was a Newberry Award winning kids book written in the ‘30’s. Listen to those sweet nerds and read your kids the book, but if you get dragged into seeing the movie, don’t worry, it won’t hurt too much.

U/SA

Everything Must Go

Everything Must Go is about, well, letting go and moving on. Often our lives begin us down a path and keep us on that path, whether we like or not, whether it is productive or not. Nick’s life was good. He had all the trappings of success, with a wife, a good job and a beautiful house in the suburbs. While his life might look like it is squarely on track, he keeps derailing it with a major drinking problem. This pot of rancid water finally comes to a boil when he has yet another relapse, leading to him losing his wife, losing his job, potentially committing adultery and being locked out of his own house, all in the course of a couple days. Now, his accounts are all frozen, he has no money, all his belongings are sitting on his lawn and he feels like he has nowhere to go. So, what does he do? Drink himself into oblivion? Sit on his lawn until his wife comes back and attempt to get yet another second chance? Or does he move on and put his life on a new path?

While Everything Must Go is a hopeful and enjoyable movie, it lacks a certain amount of dramatic punch with its overreliance on formula. In other words, it’s not a bad movie, but I don’t think a single scene had anything all that surprising in it. You can predict every twist and turn. I’m a big believer that life is what you make of what is given you, and I like that this movie shares that sentiment. What truly keeps this flick out of made-for-tv territory is Will Ferrell’s performance. He is just great. His Nick is well formed, natural and capable of gently keeping the movie from being a major downer. Based on the subject matter, in fact, you would think this would be the most depressing movie of the year, but it’s not at all and that is largely due to Ferrell. He makes a mediocre movie very very watchable. In short, it’s not the best thing around, but it’s a sweet story with a good message and Ferrell knocks it out of the park.

SA

Moneyball

Moneyball tells the true story of how, in 2001, a chance meeting between a very unlikely pair changed the way baseball is played. When Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane went to Cleveland to discuss trades with their GM, he couldn’t help but notice a nerdy, young looking man in the meeting that seemed to be making big decisions for the Cleveland GM. So, after the meeting, Beane tracks the kids down and asks him who he is. The young man says Peter Brand, but, as Beane put it, I don’t care what your name is, I want to know who you are. He finds out that Brand is an egghead from Yale who uses statistics and computer code to determine the best possible roster for a ball club. He doesn’t care about fame, salary or even physical characteristics. Instead, he takes a completely cold, facts only approach, plugs the person into the code and they either show up on his chart as a good bet or a bad bet. Billy is sold and hires the kid on as his new assistant GM. Of course, both this move and the new method fly into the face of over a century of baseball wisdom and just about everyone thinks Beane has completely lost it. Will it pan out? Is ne nuts or is he onto something?

I’m about to give this movie a very mild recommendation and I have to start out by saying I recognize that I am in the vast minority on this one. For crying out loud, the movie has a 94% Approval Rating on Rotton Tomatoes right now. Well, too freaking bad, because, like baseball itself, I know there are many aspects of it that, on paper, make it look like I would like it, but when I’m actually watching it, I just don’t dig it. I didn’t care what happened to these characters, I didn’t care if it worked out all that much and, generally speaking, I really wasn’t much engaged in the movie at all from start to finish.

How can this be when the cast was fantastic, the performances were very natural, the cinematography great and the script written by two of the best screenwriters in existence? Well, I think it boils down to the story itself. It’s not about how two unlikely heroes saved baseball or came up with a way that took a rag tag team to the top. In fact, the A’s had just been very deep into the playoffs the year before. Essentially this movie is about how a GM took a chance on a theory that made his good team slightly better. They don’t go on to win the world series and, in fact, they don’t even go further into the playoffs than they did the season before the new approach was put into place. Yes, Beane’s new approach did have a huge impact on the way all teams approach playing the game, but very little of that in the movie. Most of the movie is about a guy making his team slightly better. And where is the drama? These are rich white guys, one of whom has a degree from Yale, who are making millions while managing a pro sports team. They go to their fantastic job and do a good job thereat, there’s the movie, that’s it. I just never felt any drama, anything engaging, and at the end I just sort of shrugged. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t that good. In a way, I felt like I was watching an actual baseball game. Like in a game of baseball, it has a small handful of thrilling moments, but overall it’s usually pretty forgettable.

SA

The Man From Nowhere

This movie tells the story of a no name, skinny, goth looking guy who runs a pawnshop in a rundown apartment building in the wrong part of town. He lives in his shop and only leaves to go to the store. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t say a word and is clearly in hiding. No one notices him and he grows callous as he watches the parade of filth that comes by his kiosk window all day long. A sweet, innocent little latchkey kid takes a liking to him and seems intent on becoming friends. Just as he opens up to her, the little girl is kidnapped along with her mother by some very bad people. The pawnshop owner can’t let this fly and tracks each person involved down one by one, exacting revenge until they give him back the girl.

The Man from Nowhere is a classic revenge flick. If you can picture this movie as an American vehicle from several decades ago, the lead would easily be held by the likes of John Wayne, Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson. Highly skilled, cold hearted badass doesn’t give a rip about anything in this world, never letting anyone inside the watertight heart of his, that is until some innocent person (a woman or a child usually) comes into his life. Just when he lightens up and lets her in she is kidnapped, killed, robbed, hurt or meets some other unfortunate fate. Well, the hero, be it Wayne or Eastwood, can’t let this happen and proceeds to track down the bad guys and tear them a new asshole.

Well, that basically sums up this flick too. It’s a classic, hard-boiled revenge flick where some bad dudes have messed with the wrong guy and they’re soon to find out just how big a mistake they’ve made. Let me sum it up with a quote from a crucial scene in the movie. Upon finding one of the scumbags he’s looking for he sees that a whole gang of dudes have come out to stop our hero from reaching the scumbag. The scumbag asks if he has anything to say about this and he says, “how many cavities do you all have? I run a pawnshop, I’ll take your gold teeth, but anything else I touch I’m going to chew up and spit out.” If you like this kind of movie, you’re going to love The Man From Nowhere. If not, you may still like it, as the acting is great, the action is too and the martial arts are top notch. The performances are memorable and I love this kind of story. I hope to see more from all involved.

S'good