Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas (2006)

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Bickford Shmeckler's Cool Ideas, Comedy, Drama, Fran Kranz, John Cho, Matthew Lillard, Movie, Olivia Wilde, Patrick Fugit

this helmet is not one of my cooler ideas...

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Patrick Fugit, Olivia Wilde, Fran Kranz, John Cho, Matthew Lillard

Trent: I gotta get to practice.
Sarah: 9:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning?  That is so NOT rock and roll.
Trent: Yeah?  Well, we’re not rock and roll, we’re adult contemporary…there’s a difference.

An eccentric fellow, Bickford Shmeckler (Fugit), living in the basement of a college Frat house has written a book containing all of his philosophical ideas about life and existence.  During a toga party, Sarah (Wilde) finds the book, thinks it sounds interesting, and steals it.  Bickford flips out and sets out on a quest to find it.

This is one of those movies that just asks you to roll with the silly premise that a bunch of average college kids would somehow fall down and worship somebody just because they had a few interesting ideas about life.  We never really get a full picture of what Bickford has written, but when we do get little slices of it, it doesn’t sound like anything more than your average pop philosophy that’s been spouted many many times before.

For the sake of argument, let’s say you buy the idea that this book of “cool ideas” actually is as arousing as most of the characters think it is.  Does the movie work once that basic premise is sold?  Not really.  There are a few good moments here and there, and I thought Olivia Wilde had the standout performance, but it all just sort of treads water until the inevitable ending where Bickford learns a big life lesson.

Speaking of Bickford, he is a hard character to root for.  He’s mean, pompous, and prone to temper tantrums.  He storms around the movie like a little kid that wants his favorite toy truck back.  In the end, when the character seems to change his ways, it doesn’t ring true at all.  Basically he wants to change his outlook on life entirely so he can stay with the hot chick that inexplicably likes him.

Not sure I blame him either…

Matthew Lillard is still annoying.

10 – 2.1 for an annoying lead character – 1.3 for the dull, thin story – .9 for the hard to buy ending = 5.7

The Good Life (2007)

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Bill Paxton, Drama, Harry Dean Stanton, Mark Webber, Movie, Patrick Fugit, Zooey Deschanel

look, I told you...I'm sorry I superglued my hand to you...it was an accident...

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Mark Webber, Zooey Deschanel, Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, Patrick Fugit

Jason: My dad used to tell me that the people I meet will never care more about who I am than they will about what I look like.  And because I look the way I do…people may never care about me at all.

Jason (Webber) lives in a small, football-crazy, town.  His family is poor, his father has just committed suicide, and paying the bills is basically impossible.  He also suffers from an immune system disorder that causes all his hair to fall out.  Despite all that, he’s a generally humble, nice guy, and Frances (Deschanel) takes a liking to him when they meet.  Of course, she’s got some issues of her own.

Here’s the pattern of the mood of this movie:  depressing, depressing, dark, sad, depressing, depressing, everything’s actually great!

That pattern didn’t work too well for me.  Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t feel like a tacked on ending, only there to assuage the worries of some important people that didn’t want to green light such a depressing movie.

The tone problems aside, it just wasn’t a very compelling movie.  Zooey is playing a slight twist on her usual character.  She’s the beautiful girl who comes along, instantly falls for the quiet, troubled protagonist, and leads him on various little adventures that show him a better side to life.  I say it’s a twist on the usual character because this girl has some pretty serious secrets she’s hiding.  Their relationship was probably the best plot line in the movie, but that’s only because everything else was even less interesting.

Maybe it was just the boring lead performance by Webber that did it in.  I’m not sure.  I kept thinking that Patrick Fugit, who has a smaller part, would have been better in the lead.  He’s a more interesting actor, in my opinion.

The movie’s point, in the end, is to notice the little moments in life that make it worth living.  A smile here, a beautiful sight there…but to only dwell on depressing moments for the first hour and a half, then remind us of the happy stuff for the final minute, just doesn’t work.  I think dwelling on the good moments in between the bad would have made for a more enjoyable movie, and it would have gotten the point across even better.  As is, it just felt phony and insincere.  Then again, phoniness is sort of a theme in the movie…

Apparently a pretty girl singing a pretty song can instantly put a stop to an elderly person’s dementia-related outbursts.

10 – 3.5 for being way too depressing and then trying to spring happy on us at the end – 1.4 for a dull lead performance = 5.1

The Amateurs (2005)

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Comedy, Drama, Glenne Headley, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Jeff Bridges, Joe Pantoliano, Lauren Graham, Movie, Patrick Fugit, Ted Danson, Tim Blake Nelson, William Fichtner

hey guys, I'm criminally underused in this movie, so I'll just be over here havin' a soda...

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Jeff Bridges, Tim Blake Nelson, Joe Pantoliano, Ted Danson, William Fichtner, Patrick Fugit, Glenne Headley, Lauren Graham, Jeanne Tripplehorn

Andy: That was Moe and Ron…we called them Mo-ron.

After losing his job and his wife, Andy (Bridges) decides that, to make money, he and his friends should make an adult film.

This movie is filled with recognizable actors and actresses in almost every role that’s even semi-major, but in the end, it’s just a waste of a lot of talent.  The script just isn’t very funny or interesting.  There are a few good moments, but overall, it’s boring.  In fact, I may have fallen asleep at one point, but just for a minute or two.  Only the general likability of the cast saves it from certain doom.

Jeff Bridges is playing a slightly more driven (and slightly better dressed) version of Jeff Lebowski, but like the other performances in the movie, it’s just so lackluster that you can’t work up any enthusiasm for his story or his character.  Also, the narration supplied by Andy throughout the film is a nuisance.  As the character Robert McKee said in Adaptation:  “God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends.  God help you.  That’s flaccid, sloppy writing.  Any idiot can write a voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.”

Still, I did enjoy this movie more than I enjoyed Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which is essentially the same story with a younger cast.  This is also a much tamer movie, with no nudity and few obscenities, though there is a lot of fairly explicit talk about what they need to shoot in their movie.

I can’t help but think that all the ingredients were here for a funny, entertaining movie, but the sub-par script and some poor direction mixed up those ingredients into a tepid concoction that only delivered a few laughs and tested my ability to stay awake for the entirety of its running time.

With money and success comes happiness…?

10 – 3.3 because the script and direction resulted in a mostly unfunny, lifeless film – 1 for the overuse of narration = 5.7

Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006)

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Comedy, Drama, Movie, Patrick Fugit, Romance, Shannyn Sossamon, Shea Whigham, Wristcutters: A Love Story

Yes...I am the guy from Almost Famous...

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Patrick Fugit, Shannyn Sossamon, Shea Whigham

Zia: Who could think of a better punishment than this?  Everything’s the same…just a little worse.

Zia (Fugit) has just committed suicide and finds himself in a place, much like the world he left, filled with others who took the same route he did.  Though, in this world, there are no stars in the night sky, nobody smiles, and occassionally you’ll find a random black hole under the seat of your car.  After Zia finds out that his ex-girlfriend has also committed suicide, he sets off on a road trip with Eugene (Whigham) to find her.

I did not know what to expect going into this movie, and I was pleasantly surprised.  I thought it had interesting characters, a good story, and – for a movie where nobody smiles – quite a few amusing moments.  I’m not entirely sure what message, if any, the movie was trying to get across, but that didn’t really detract from the experience for me.

There are plenty of odd characters that Zia, Eugene, and Mikal (Sossamon) meet along the way, but thankfully none of them are too over the top, even Will Arnett as “Messiah”.  They could have easily just had him take over the movie when he showed up, but happily the focus remains on our main characters.

The topic of suicide might be a bit grim for some people, but the movie really doesn’t focus on it too much after the opening scene.  In this new world they find themselves in, the characters seem to focus more on things that are important to them and what – if anything – they miss from life.  So maybe that’s the movie’s message…

10 – 1.4 for safe ending + .5 for Shannyn Sossamon – .3 for playing that one song over and over – .7 for the fact that Zia’s ex does not seem like anybody he’d ever actually want to date – .2 for being a little confusing at times = 7.9