California Dreaming

If you've never been to Omaha, you're doing good and if you've never watched this movie, you're doing better than me.

This movie is as exciting as Omaha - and Omaha is not exciting.

A script that is as lame as the bland, vacant, uninteresting of Nebraska.

If you live in Nebraska, I now know what your life must be like. My heart goes out to you.

Poor Ginger Gainor, she would love to take her family to a California beach where she vacationed and has the fondest memories of that time. She is an uptight real estate woman who might have the best intentions in wanting to show that part of the country to her family, but little does she realize, no one really wants to go! Her family, though, really enjoy going to Branson, where they feel 'at home' and are surrounded from people like them, so why bother?. Ginger is, what appears to be, a take charge woman, who does everything by the book and even calculates how long they will spend traveling from Omaha to California!

Unfortunately, things don't work the way Ginger wants. Things have a way of happening to her that completely derail her carefully laid plans. Ginger is defeated by everyone and everything, so guess where the family will head, after all? Yes, you guessed it!

What is Lea Thompson doing in this movie? She certainly deserved better. The movie will not add anything to her film career. The idea might have looked better in the written script by Linda Voorhees, who also directed, but alas, it doesn't translate to a fun time at all.

I love films about family dynamics and lost dreams, so California Dreaming (aka Out of Omaha) seemed like a winner. With engaging actors including charismatic "News Radio" alums Dave Foley, the thinking man's comedy icon, and wacky Vicki Lewis; the wonderful Patricia Richardson, winsome and lovable Lea Thompson, and the under-appreciated Ethan Phillips, how could this comedy go wrong?

Incredibly, in so many ways, it's difficult to count. The worst performance of her career, and one that almost broke my heart, was the strange and almost surreal work of Patricia Richardson. In one inappropriate moment after another, she reluctantly chews up the scenery, making me want to disgorge it myself. Tragically, she sort of spoils every scene she's in, and since she intrudes upon the action more and more as the story lurches forward, the film doesn't so much end as screech to a merciful halt.

I kept asking myself, how did these wonderful, wonderful actors get involved in such a mess of a film? The real problem is the script, which forces the cast into doing and saying the most ridiculous and unmotivated things that one can only sit, jaw agape, and wonder what in the world is going on here. Technically, the film looks and sounds quite good, though devoid of any cinematic mercy; the camera lingers on every tiny imperfection in the faces of its aging cast. Other than that, I can't bring myself to list the many offenses against craft, so let's just say avoid this (with the caveat below) and keep your good memories of these actors and wish them well on their next outing. It can only get better from here.

But the buck stops at the directors chair, and that brings up a host of issues. As a director, you have an obligation to keep your actors from making fools of themselves. I wonder if this director learned that lesson in the end. I would hate to be in her shoes right now. How will she ever get another gig? Will she even want to? Maybe there's a film there about lost dreams. (But perhaps someone else should make it.) I just hope that enough people stay away from this film long enough for its cast to resume their careers with a minimum of disruption.

I give the film a 4/10 for its "reality bites" educational value.

Oh, my Gosh! This has to be the most horrible film I've ever seen in my entire life, and I'm Lea's age! I cannot believe the awful acting. I don't care how dysfunctional the family is supposed to be. The entire movie made me sick. My 13 year-old girl could have written something better than this junk. Such absurdly ridiculous lines and predictable responses from the characters gave me a knot in my stomach and a severe headache. I cannot believe Lea Thompson could make such good movies in her past such as "Back To the Future," and then turn around and play an overbearing, neurotic, judgmental blabber-mouth of a mother. What is happening to her ability to recognize BAD material? If you watch this film and don't get sick, my hat's off to you! I really wanted to cry it was so BAD.

I like funny family movies, I like family travel movies, the idea of going along on a motor home vacation at some level with a nice middle class family seemed like at least it would be pleasant if not raucously funny. I did not like this movie.

I blame the writing. The basic premise, that the family spends a day trying to get on the road to CA with their motor home and continually runs into time-sucking obstacles, totally pulled the idea of a 'family traveling comedy' movie right off the table. This is a depressing movie. DEPRESSING. The husband and wife have a very cold relationship, the daughter is downright annoying, and the son, well he's there and says what few lines he has but he really doesn't have anything going in the story beyond maybe saying "I want waffles and syrup too." I think I could have learned his part in less than five minutes. Of all the characters, he's just 'there'. Maybe that makes him the least annoying.

The bunch of obstacles the face are also annoying. The daughter doesn't want to go on vacation without taking her airhead boyfriend, the boyfriend's parents are quirky in a bad way and unlikeable, the aunt and grandmother are also someone you can't wait to get away from, the aunt's dog runs in front of the motorhome (what is the dog doing in the street??) and seems to have gotten killed, the family has to take the boyfriend's mother to her parole officer for a meeting, there is NOTHING funny. On top of this, the husband and wife spend half the movie unhappy (or sad) with each other. It's all tedious and annoying and after a while you feel this movie sucking out any happiness or joy you had earlier in the day. You find yourself wishing that the family would finally overcome all these delays and just get the motor home on the damned road so the movie can end, hopefully with a shot of them happily playing on the California beach where they were headed, but we didn't even get that.

This movie could have been written in two hours by someone with a hangover being held at gunpoint. Awful. I give it two stars instead of one because, they could have made it longer and that would have been even worse.