It's Oscar time again. I'm hoping my reviewer's eye hasn't failed me regarding the best movie category, hoping that Roma doesn't win and that A Star Is Born does. I never did get around to watching the last half of Roma, but based on the first half, I still say it smells more like dog poop than Channel. We'll see this evening.
Last night, because regular programming was a wasteland,we went to Netflix and found a small gem, Paddleton, starring Mark Duplass and Ray Romano as two middleage, semi-nerdy friends whose favorite movie is a kung fu classic and who often play a non-competitive paddle game they invented called, naturally, "paddleton." It's a cooperative effort to bounce a tennis ball off the back of an abandoned outdoor movie screen and into an empty oil barrel. Mike (Duplass) learns that he has terminal cancer. He decides not to wait for the ugliness of death by the cancer and instead chooses to take his own life. He asks his friend (his only friend?) Andy (Romano) to be with him throughout the fatal medicating process, a request Andy painfully agrees to. The nearest pharmacy that would fill his prescription was six hours away, all those nearer refusing to fill it on moral grounds. This review doesn't need a spoiler alert since the ending is obvious and inevitable. How they get there is what makes this such a great movie. We see them interacting on their way to get the drugs, their overnight stay, and the trip back. I called this movie a small gem because it has a singular premise, assisted suicide, colored in with the details that reveal the nature of Mark and Andy's friendship, their love. The motel owner mistakenly assumes they're a gay couple and a comically. awkward discussion ensues about the number of beds they would need. Their relationship is more than friendship but it isn't a physical love. Love comes in many forms and now it's become almost daily more and more complicated. I remember thinking about this complexity when I first saw The Crying Game. If a man falls in love with a woman who he then finds out is actually a man, does that mean he's gay? Or does it mean that anyone can fall in love with anyone else regardless of sexual orientation? That's where Andy and Mike are--in a love between two people regardless of sexual orientation.
This is such a simple movie but so incredibly effective for so many simple reasons. Much of the dialogue felt like improv, making it fascinating to watch Duplass and Romano bounce lines off each other. I and so many others are long-time Romano fans, from his early days of standup to all those episodes loving Raymond, to his ill-fated but excellent series about men of a certain age, to his Oscar-worthy performance in The Big Sick. Thanks, Ray. I wish Paddleton was the nominee for best picture instead of Roma.
Last night, because regular programming was a wasteland,we went to Netflix and found a small gem, Paddleton, starring Mark Duplass and Ray Romano as two middleage, semi-nerdy friends whose favorite movie is a kung fu classic and who often play a non-competitive paddle game they invented called, naturally, "paddleton." It's a cooperative effort to bounce a tennis ball off the back of an abandoned outdoor movie screen and into an empty oil barrel. Mike (Duplass) learns that he has terminal cancer. He decides not to wait for the ugliness of death by the cancer and instead chooses to take his own life. He asks his friend (his only friend?) Andy (Romano) to be with him throughout the fatal medicating process, a request Andy painfully agrees to. The nearest pharmacy that would fill his prescription was six hours away, all those nearer refusing to fill it on moral grounds. This review doesn't need a spoiler alert since the ending is obvious and inevitable. How they get there is what makes this such a great movie. We see them interacting on their way to get the drugs, their overnight stay, and the trip back. I called this movie a small gem because it has a singular premise, assisted suicide, colored in with the details that reveal the nature of Mark and Andy's friendship, their love. The motel owner mistakenly assumes they're a gay couple and a comically. awkward discussion ensues about the number of beds they would need. Their relationship is more than friendship but it isn't a physical love. Love comes in many forms and now it's become almost daily more and more complicated. I remember thinking about this complexity when I first saw The Crying Game. If a man falls in love with a woman who he then finds out is actually a man, does that mean he's gay? Or does it mean that anyone can fall in love with anyone else regardless of sexual orientation? That's where Andy and Mike are--in a love between two people regardless of sexual orientation.
This is such a simple movie but so incredibly effective for so many simple reasons. Much of the dialogue felt like improv, making it fascinating to watch Duplass and Romano bounce lines off each other. I and so many others are long-time Romano fans, from his early days of standup to all those episodes loving Raymond, to his ill-fated but excellent series about men of a certain age, to his Oscar-worthy performance in The Big Sick. Thanks, Ray. I wish Paddleton was the nominee for best picture instead of Roma.
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