Issa Rae on creating her web series THE MIS-ADVENTURES OF AWKWARD BLACK GIRL!
George Pelecanos, Peter Craig, and Rian Johnson on writing crime!
Commiserating with Peter Craig (who wrote THE TOWN and BAD BOYS 3) about sitting next to a legend (George Pelecanos) and then accidentally insulting that legend’s editor! (He did it, not me.)
The incredible short doc THE GUIDE that was so absorbing I was actually shocked to learn it is 40 minutes long!
Then I caught a back-to-back at the State Theater of THE ODD WAY HOME and CRACKHEADS.
There was a pretty decent line for THE ODD WAY HOME, which I mostly skipped since I shelled out the cash for a Conference Badge. Getting a badge is great because it lets you look down on those who do not have a badge and all the luxuries and access it allows. While looking like an utter dork because you’re wearing a big badge dangling from a lanyard. It’s not a good look. The only person who doesn’t look dorky in his badge is George Pelecanos because he shames the rest of us with his poise and dapperness.
Anyway. THE ODD WAY HOME. When the screening finished, there was much cheering and carrying on. During the Q & A, the actors, director, and audience praised the “emotion” and the “meaning” of the movie. Which I can see. Yes, there was a lot of emotion and the “meaning” of finding someone to form “family” is a touching idea (if oft-repeated in the indie-sphere). But the movie, in its current form, just isn’t that great as a narrative film because it employs the kitchen sink method for touching the audience. As we got deeper into the second act, I was cringing with each new emotional booby-trap.
The story follows a damaged young woman who happens to bump into a young man with autism and they go on an aimless road trip across the southwest US, eventually visiting her lost love and both their parents.
Not exactly high-concept, but the road-trip movie is a pretty standard dramatic template. You’re on a mission, you have a destination, obstacles pop up along the way. THE ODD WAY HOME found some traction when the characters were forced to deal with plot-based obstacles (like running out of gas, stopping for food, etc.) but mostly it moved from one semi-unconnected “emotional” moment to the next. It felt like the writers were ticking off a list of pathos scenes/events instead of building a story.
For example, one of the lead characters, Maya, deals with the following issues in the course of the film:
Prescription pill addition.
Alcohol abuse.
Sexually abusive father.
Physically abusive boyfriend.
Learning she can’t have children.
Emotionally abusive mother.
Long lost love is married.
Drug withdrawal.
An attempted parking lot rape.
Misuse of firearms.
Wearing ratty punk clothing before she kicks the pills.
This is A LOT of shit to have happen to your main character. But instead of building and building and putting the screws on her, the story is written so that each of these is contained in its own little episode. Each is segmented and dealt with in turn with little narrative drive connecting them.
Example, just as our characters are getting into their road trip:
Nothing outrageous has happened in the past 5 minutes, so our characters meet this super-creepy dude in a bar and he’ll try to rape Maya in the parking lot. Why? Because it’s… emotional? And when that obstacle is overcome, they go back on the road as if it never happened.
When the long lost love says a line to Maya akin to “Someday the world will appreciate your awesomeness and I’ll be proud when it does” the line sounds nice but we wonder what awesomeness he’s talking about. Because up to that point she’s really just been popping pills and robbing people and wearing tattered clothes. But then the next scene she sings a song in his podunk bar and we wonder why the movie didn’t feel it necessary to explain that she’s a talented musician who lost her way. And then the rest of the movie we wonder why it never comes up again, this idea that she’s a talented musician. Because, it seems, that that info is only important as it relates to the emotional moment that’s passed.
So by the time we get to the big barn-burner confrontation with Maya’s desperate and emotionally ravaged mother, there are massive actorly fireworks and rage and tears, but it doesn’t feel earned because there is no real lead-up to it. We just show up at the mother’s horrible derelict house without any real introduction and then the screaming starts.
Each of these supposed gut-punch events are cordoned off from the rest of the movie. This is the main problem with the movie. It’s a collection of little vignettes, but not a coherent narrative that allows for the build of emotion.
So the film lacks a cohesiveness of plot. The narrative isn’t good enough to make the film work. It’s a collection of emotional moments strung together. Since there’s little connective tissue, the emotional moments don’t feel earned, they feel a little cheap.
The other lead, the young autistic man, has his own problems including a dead grandmother and father who’s disowned him and while Chris Arquette did an admirable job giving us what one of the producers called “the most normal character in the film,” his character generated the most laughs. Which normally would be good, except the laughs came from his autistic behavior. It was hard to tell if Arquette was playing the character for laughs (I don’t really think so) or if the directing and editing shaded it that way (more likely). I don’t feel great about a drama using the autistic character to provide comic relief. It felt a little cheesy and easy.
Maybe with some more editing this movie will work better. Give it a clearer destination so it doesn’t feel so meandering. Make a narrative instead of a collection of scenes. Thankfully, that’s not my job.
After THE ODD WAY HOME finished, I left the theater, got right back in line and saw CRACKHEADS, a pretty degenerate Kiwi comedy about four friends who descend into meth addiction. It was great.
Cumulative beer tally:
Fireman’s #4
Guinness
Southern Tier Pumpkin Ale
Independence Stash IPA
Austin Beerworks Fire Eagle IPA
Independence Brewery Convict Hill Oatmeal Stout
512 Brewing Pecan Porter
Modelo Especial
Full Circle Blur (banana hefe)
Lonestar
Shiner Prickly Pear
Dogfish Head American Beauty
Current *best* TX beer:
(tie) Independence Stash IPA & 512 Pecan Porter
FADE OUT 