Hail, Caesar

Movie : Hail, Caesar
Drink: tequila, grapefruit vodka, espresso vodka, moonshine.




     The theater I go to most often these days is in a mall.  There is a food court with an Asian style place called Fuji Chen.  I often go there before the show and dine on  blackened or bourbon chicken, Fuji pork, and sesame chicken.  It is some great food at reasonable prices.  I mention these details only because burping up Fuji Chen was, by far,  my favorite part of Hail, Caesar.
     It was as if the Coen brothers handed out camcorders to a handful of actors and told them to film themselves doing something, anything really, and then stuck it all together and called it a day.  There was a particularly dull scene where a group of men sat in chairs talking about something, the subject of which was far too boring for me to recall.  I got up to get a drink of water as slowly as I could.  On my way out I noticed a newly emptied trash can, a lone, empty popcorn bucket at the bottom.  I thought, "what the hell, why not?" and took the empty bucket to get a popcorn refill.  Best and worst case scenario: I get sick and have to go home.
     Unfortunately the popcorn was delicious and virus free.  I shoveled it into my mouth and watched as a group of fine actors dug themselves into a hole from which they may never escape.  I mean, how many times have you gone to a movie starring an actor you liked thinking, "well if THEY'RE in it, how bad can it be?" I can personally tell you, pretty bad.  Scarlett Johansen, George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, and a host of others have now pretty much become Brendan Frasier.
     At first I thought procession of seemingly unrelated plots and twists would congeal into a complicated, sophisticated story that would inspire you to want to see it again and again if only to figure out how it all works.  But the plot twists were actually plot unravelings, and it unraveled and unravelled until all the plot lay like a limp pile of polyester yarn that not even a neutered cat would play with.
     I saw this movie with a couple of other people, and as we left in a slow, confused shuffle, we passed by a photo booth machine.  Someone suggested we get our pictures taken. We looked each other over with our glazed expressions, our drooping shoulders, and in the end, we just kept walking.      None of us wanted to remember that we had ever been there