Long
ago in a faraway land I was a film critic for a major daily newspaper. Well,
not really that far away. It was in Central California. The paper’s circulation
covered an area larger than New Jersey , Delaware and Massachusetts
combined. That’s a lot of theaters in a lot of small towns where there often
isn’t much to do except go to the movies which made being the local film critic
kind of a big deal.
I
got the job for three reasons. One: I attended a university film school. There
I saw lots of French New Wave cinema filled with metaphors for contemporary
social values and brooding Scandinavian films with lots of pale people. Two: I
had actually worked around television and movies so I knew the technical jargon
like “Cut!”
And
three: with Wife locally employed I was not going to move to a big city where, stimulated
by the vibrant lifestyle, I’d probably have won a Pulitzer. In other words I
would stay put and work cheap.
It
was a good gig, particularly when the studios flew me to “the coast” to see free
movies and interview people I usually saw only on the cover of PEOPLE. The parties
were fun and I was welcome to bring Wife. To this day Daughter is jealous that
we did not include her but as I keep reminding her she wasn’t born yet.
Part
of the movie TIME AFTER TIME is laid in Victorian London. At the San Francisco opening we
were served champagne by people dressed as if they had wandered over from
Downton Abbey. Meanwhile a hidden machine puffed out fog that swirled around our
knees.
After
seeing BLUE LAGOON in Hollywood
we were directed behind the theater. There Columbia Pictures wizards had
transformed a parking lot into a Polynesian beach. In New Mexico I waited on a dusty movie set for
the Lone Ranger to gallop up on his great white horse Silver. (Unfortunately
Ranger suffered a wardrobe malfunction (split his pants) and arrived by
stagecoach instead.)
That
by the way was not the current Lone Ranger box office flop. It was an earlier
Lone Ranger box office flop starring Klinton Spilsbury. Who? Exactly.
A
sense of the absurd helped. Like at the CADDYSHACK party in Rockefeller Center ’s
plaza (the one you see in movies about New
York ). The plaza is a level down from the street and
open to the sky. Passersby look down on you. I looked back up, sipped my
cocktail and thought, “My God, they shot the Czar for living like this!”
That
was then and this is now and yes there’s times when I miss it. But then
something happens to make me realize that I don’t. Not entirely anyway. Certainly
not the many clinkers I had to sit through. Which brings me to having just sat
through IDENTITY THIEF.
According
to its DVD box IDENTITY THIEF is “hilarious” as well as “smart and funny.” Two
(count ‘em) hilarious (There’s that word again) comedy stars (Melissa McCarthy
and John Bateman).
Uh
uh. Predictable plot, unlikable characters, unnecessary “ehuu” moments. Hippo
of a movie, lying on its back, waving its stubby feet in the air, begging to be
thought of as sharp and funny and just not making it.
Kind
of movie people should be paid to sit through. Come to think of it, kind of
movie I was paid to sit through.
Dad
out.
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