cloudsponge

This is a great movie. I didn't begin to nod off and fall asleep even once. There was always some unconnected and random dramatic kick in the eyeballs to skitch things up.

Things I learned: 1) With the right attitude, "Do you like peanut-butter sandwiches?" can make a great pick-up line. 2) There was some obscure bongo-drumming sculptor somewhere. I wonder what the story there was. Ha ha. 3) Running out of gas can be a thrill ride times over in the hands of the right director. 4) Aging out is a Hollywood inevitability: From child actors growing out of being children, to mature A-listers past their prime holding on to those long-past glory days by spouting dramatic nostalgic nonsense. Hmmm. You might say that "Jack" Holden was shown entering the Norma Desmond stage of his life: over the hill, yet still holding on; in his case literally but briefly. Or is that Holden on?

All-in-all a fun but disjointed Hollywood (via that area of the Valley) romp.

As an aside, I went to Grant High summer school in 1966. A lot of the boys were dog-butt ugly, and a lot of the girl students were knock-out gorgeous. It occurred to me that a lot of the fathers were financially successful Jewish businessmen, Sherman Oaks after all, and a lot of the mothers were gentile trophy wives. A correlation with their kids' appearances?

The art direction, set direction, costume design, and cinematography were all top notch. This, after all, is an art film. But of a particular genre that could only be called arty farty. There is nothing of substance whatsoever beneath the thin veneer of glitzy surface (albeit at times muddy). Nothing rings true. Nothing happens in a way that one could believe would actually happen that way. In fact, things happen, multiple things, for which there are no explanations. They just suddenly happen because they make good visual glitz. And happening they don't reach their logical conclusions. Premises are cast aside and ignored, basically slapping the thinking viewers upside their heads. It's not just the history that is wrong, it is certain explanations, character arcs, psychology; set ups and expectations that go nowhere, that just die as orphans in the pretty wasteland of this movie.