Has the cocaine strain in Hollywood changed recently? Why are movies so retarded these days?
I
decided to screen Everybody’s Fine because of the cast: Robert De Niro,
Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore & Kate
Beckinsale. Robert De Niro basically plays Warren Schmidt, just not as well as as Jack Nicholson. You’ll see what I mean.
Deniro’s wife has died (About Schmidt), so he puts on a “members-only”
jacket (About Schmidt), and surprises his kids because they all made excuses not to come over for the weekend, and they’re really
mean to him (About Schmidt) because the troubled artist kid can’t be
found in Mexico and they’re worried but don’t want to tell dad. He visits the artist in New York, the
advertising exec in Chicago (Beckinbitch), the drummer in Denver
(Rockwell), and the lesbo-mom waitress in Vegas (Barrymore). During his travels, he has some old-man talk with strangers on
trains that some people found tickling.
In the beginning, the audience laughed at the old man things Robert
De Niro did – mow lawn, clip hedges, buy meat. Aren’t you over the whole
De Niro as regular citizen? Ronin is quite possibly my favorite movie so
I think that’s a disgrace. Heist is also one of my tops, so seeing Sam
Rockwell as an orchestral drummer which is apparently an
appalling job and acting like a loser because he told his dad he was a
conductor, is sad.
And then there’s this: sometimes the adult kids turn into real kids in Poppa’s eyes and they have conversations as real and adult kids. So
exhausting!
In the end, there’s this whole life/death, secrets-revealed dream
sequence which isn’t very good because we all know that Alan Ball or
David Chase are the only ones who can do those well. And it’s fitting that I say David Chase, because this is a remake of the 1990 Italian movie, Stanno tutti bene, with Marcello Mastroianni.
I’m over the age of 24, so I have no patience for European film anymore, but I think there was much lost in Americanizing. The original had characters who mimicked their given Opera names, but here in the US, we have names like Frank, Amy, Rosie, and Robert. I’d say the names do not have the importance that they did in the Italian version, which I’m assuming is a big part of why the Italian one is popular and interesting — adopting a personality/character/fate based on your given name.
I’m not quite sure why this movie was re-made, or why the story is being retold USA style. Because over sentimentality combined with old-man sadness is not fine.
Starts today at Embarcadero Cinema.
