Day: September 14, 2014

I can’t think of a single interesting thing to say about A.O. Scott‘s “The Death of Adulthood in American Culture,” which appears in today’s Sunday N.Y. Times magazine. I despise submental, diaper-boy humor in comedies (Zak Galfianakis, etc.) but I’m sick of bitching about that. Maybe it’s best to just re-run an HE piece called “Party On” that I posted in July 2006? Scott’s piece is broader and thinkier but mine addressed similar concerns.

“There’s a trend in movies about GenX guys in their early to mid 30s who’re having trouble growing up,” I began. “Guys who can’t seem to get rolling with a career or commit to a serious relationship or even think about becoming productive, semi-responsible adults, and instead are working dead-end jobs, hanging with the guys all the time, watching ESPN 24/7, eating fritos, getting wasted and popping Vicodins.

“There have probably been at least fifteen or twenty films that have come out over the last four or five years about 30ish guys finding it hard to get real.

“The 40 Year-Old Virgin was basically about a bunch of aging testosterone monkeys doing this same old dance (with Steve Carell’s character being a slightly more mature and/or sensitive variation). Virgin director-writer Judd Apatow has made a career out of mining this psychology. Simon Pegg’s obese layabout friend in Shaun of the Dead was another manifestation — a 245-pound Dupree.

“Prolonged adolescence is an old pattern, of course. The difference these days is that practitioner-victims are getting older and older.

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As my first official act upon returning from the Toronto Film Festival, I’m getting rid of my Masters of Cinema Blurays of Double Indemnity and Red River, both of which are all but smothered in grain. I’m trading them in for store value at Ameoba. The Universal Home Video Bluray of Double Indemnity and the Criterion Bluray of Red River are beautiful — full satisfaction. From here on I’ll think twice before buying another Masters of Cinema Bluray.

The 49 year-old Robert Downey sounds like a satisfied, fair-minded guy with a good amount of smarts and self-knowledge in Krista Smith’s interview piece in the current Vanity Fair. But the old truism about a performer’s personal happiness and stability having little if anything to do with how exciting or magnetic their “act” might be still applies. Downey was a fascinating actor for 20-plus years, and then he became a corporate franchise megastar starting with Iron Man in ’08. I really, really don’t care how wealthy he is now (although Vanity Fair‘s editors clearly do) or how close to ruination he was during his druggie period of the late ’80s and ’90s. I only know that my favorite Downey performance was in James Toback‘s Black and White (’99), and that my second favorite was his crime reporter character in David Fincher‘s Zodiac. I also know that talented people leading unhealthy, high-throttle lifestyles can sometimes exude peak-energy highs. From my vantage point John Lennon was much, much cooler when he was struggling with his demons (’64 to ’74) than when he became a happy house-husband. Jackie Gleason and Sid Ceasar seemed much cooler when they were live TV madmen in the ’50s and, from what I’ve read, boozing almost every night in midtown Manhattan. I’ve been told by more than one friend that I was a funnier, more whoo-whoo type of guy when I was drinking…fair enough.

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Chris Evans was on my Air Canada flight last night — five and a half dull, bordering-on-miserable hours from Toronto to LAX. He sat five rows ahead of me. He seemed to be wearing the exact same black baseball cap and blue flannel shirt as in the photo below. He had a carry-on bag and a modest 21-inch suitcase that he wheeled off. A big, black, bad-ass SUV met him at the arrivals level so he avoided the mob and the baggage carousel. I was thinking about introducing myself and saying “I didn’t see Before We Go but I’m sorry Scott Foundas called it lukewarm” but I thought better of it.

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