Here Comes the
Boom
We thought this was a very entertaining, inspirational movie, and aside from some violence, I thought it was a great movie for the
family. No wonder the critics hated it!
So what if it was derivative of everything from Rocky to Mr. Holland’s Opus to any other
film you can think of where an underdog competes in a sport, against all odds,
and comes out a winner, or where a teacher fights against the system for his
students to be all they can be. It seems
to me the critics hated it mostly for this reason, and the film crosses all the T’s
and dots all the I’s, but who cares? It
was still a well structured and written piece of entertainment (especially when you consider it's another Kevin James/Adam Sandler collaboration), and I found myself caught up in
it by the end, and enjoyed it on many different levels. The critics probably hate the fact that it
was designed to be a crowd pleaser, and in my humble opinion, designed quite
well. So while the stony critics that
love foreign films and cinéma vérité can talk about its lack of originality and
its cookie cutter script and sitcom caliber characters, and a lack of
sophistication (and these days, sophistication seems to be synonymous with well
lit and thematic raunch and sex), the common man can love it for just being a
good movie without all the filth! They
even manage to work in a bible passage about Jacob wrestling with God, and they
manage to make it mean something.
Critics were probably left sighing or scratching their heads by this
point, probably wanting a bit of “sophistication”. It’s why there continues to be a disconnect
between critics and the public, and it’s not always because the public craves
base, dumb entertainment (though a lot of times, they do!). It’s because sometimes the critics can’t see
an actually good movie because they’re too busy looking for fault. Not everything has to be thematically brilliant.
Besides,
this is one of the better Kevin James movies, and just because it’s
a second rate Rocky meets Mr. Holland’s Opus doesn’t mean they didn’t have some
good writing. The final fight scene hits
all the right notes for a feel good movie, and they didn’t shirk on the editing
and pacing. I actually bought Kevin
James as a Mixed Martial Arts fighter and lackluster biology teacher who
changes because of his fight for his music teacher friend, and in so doing,
changes the attitudes of everyone else around him. I also (finally) bought him as the romantic
lead, opposite Selma Hayek. That may be clichéd
and cause critics to roll their eyes, but it’s still not a bad message among
all the immoral movies Hollywood usually loves to make! Even Henry Winkler, as the music teacher,
gave a pretty good speech towards the end.
Going
in, I wasn’t expecting much. In fact,
based on the critics, I wasn’t expecting anything good at all; therefore, I was
surprised when I enjoyed it, and realized my perceptions going in were wrong,
because the critics were wrong!
The Perks of Being a
Wallflower
I’d have to say this one belongs in the plus column. It started out following much the same path
of a serious John Hughes movie. The main
character is Charlie, played by the very likeable Logan Lerman of Percy Jackson
fame. He becomes friends with a pair of step-siblings, Patrick (Ezra Miller) and
Sam (Emma Watson, fresh from her final film as Hermione Granger in the Harry
Potter franchise) and they welcome him into their group. We were made a bit uncomfortable when this group included a free
spirited lifestyle full of drugs and alcohol and lots of past secrets, such as
Sam being molested repeatedly by her Dad’s boss and Patrick’s out and proud
homosexuality and the jock he’s seeing secretly. It turns out that Charlie has a few secrets
of his own, including a best friend who died a short time ago, bouts of severe
depression with black outs, and a sister who is dating an abuser, and there are
even further secrets that Charlie has buried deep inside.
I felt an
instant connection to Charlie, the character who was the outsider, the quiet
wallflower, the socially awkward kid who doesn’t have many friends and has a
passion for writing, and parts of this had me re-experiencing some of the
feelings and emotions I had during that time in my life. When he becomes accepted by Sam and Patrick
and their group of misfits, corrupting influences that they are, it doesn’t
matter to Charlie because he has found people who really do care about
him. Yet more than just the drugs, this
film deals with quite a few uncomfortable issues mixed in with the acceptance
Charlie feels to be part of this group of nonconformists, including the groups’
weekly performances of the rather disturbing cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
They may be strange, and they may be druggies, but they are his friends,
and after a mishap, he proves his worth to them by sticking up for Patrick,
revealing his own emotional instability at the same time.
The film is
filled with some great writing and acting, and that’s the main reason I can’t
just outright dismiss it for courting some corruption and vice in the
story. It’s about being different, something I know a lot about: Patrick rejoices over a C- and celebrates with Sam for being below average! It’s
about friendship: Patrick gets everyone
to raise their glasses to Charlie, and embarrasses him by calling him a
wallflower. Charlie ironically responds
“I didn’t think anyone noticed me,” and Patrick sweetly responds, “Well we
didn’t think there was anyone cool left to meet. So come on everyone. To Charlie!”
“Why do I
and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we’re nothing?” Sam asks at
one point, and Charlie replies, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” What a great answer to such a great question! At another time, Charlie asks Sam, “Sam, do
you ever think that if people knew how crazy you really were that no one would
ever talk to you?” and she replies, “All the time.” When Charlie eventually tries to tell Sam how
he really feels about her, he says, “I know I’m quiet, and, and I should speak
more. But if you knew the things that were in my head most of the time, you’d
know what I really meant; how, how much we’re alike and, and how we’ve been
through things… and you’re not small.
You’re beautiful.” There’s a
realness to the writing that is missing in many other films.
At the
beginning of the movie, Charlie, Patrick and Sam are in Patrick’s truck
driving through a tunnel, and Charlie sits in amazement at his newfound friends
while Sam courts danger by standing in the back of the truck with her arms
spread out, wind whipping through her short hair. At the end of the film, after all that has
happened, and all the revelations Charlie has had to deal with, it is Charlie’s
turn. In that final scene, with that
final voice-over of Charlie’s, as he kisses Sam and then stands up in the back
of that truck with his arms stretched wide and that look of total love and
adoration on his face, a feeling that brings back strong memories of a few
similar times in my own life, those final words have real depth of meaning, and
show exactly why this film has to be listed as one of the good ones: “And our pictures will become old
photographs. We'll all become somebody's mom or dad. But right now these
moments are not stories. This is happening, I am here and I am looking at her.
And she is so beautiful. I can see it. This one moment when you know you're not
a sad story. You are alive, and you stand up and see the lights on the
buildings and everything that makes you wonder. And you're listening to that
song and that drive with the people you love most in this world. And in this
moment I swear, we are infinite.”
That’s poetry, and it actually gives
me goose bumps, even now when I’m not seeing it; when I’m just writing about
it, or rereading it before posting it in my blog. I like it because it captures the
story and the moment, the feelings and emotions, and makes it not only fondly
nostalgic, but real. It makes me feel
the power of fantasy, to know that it can touch our lives in ways we never
really anticipated or expected.
That's the power of writing. That's the power of movies.
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