Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Jason goes to the Roxie and watches THE COMEDY

It bears repeating, there is still time to donate to the Roxie's Kickstarter campaign. I know they've already reached their goal, but anything extra is...well, extra. And as any film fan in San Francisco knows, our single-screen art house theaters need all the help they can get. R.I.P., Bridge.

So I saw a second movie at the Roxie last night (Tuesday,) and it was as different as night and day from THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (inspiring a rather odd tweet.) It's the story of a 30-something hipster Swanson (Tim Heidecker) and his small group of friends (most notably Eric Wareheim, Tim's partner in "Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!") Swanson is set to inherit his father's estate, which is large enough to make it apparent that he's a trust fund hipster who has never really worked a day in his life. I assume so are all his friends. When he does decide to work (which seems more of a curiosity than a necessity) he doesn't even know what typical dish-washing wages are. Instead he and his friends hang out, drink (and spit) beer, and make bizarre jokes to try to make each other laugh (like riffing on how clean hobos' dicks are because they all go to Wall Street at 5:01 where all the investment bankers just can't wait to suck them off.) But they don't laugh--they're hipsters so they're way too cool to laugh. The audience last night laughed quite a bit, but the characters didn't. And that awkward dynamic is what the movie is all about. People who are too cool to laugh trying to make each other laugh. And how far that practiced indifference can go. What's surprising is how well it seems to work for him. I would never have believed you could get a girl naked by talking about how Hitler had some good ideas...and horrible flatulence (I almost said "bad gas," but that could be taken the wrong way.)

Running Time: 90 minutes
My Total Minutes: 308,070

1 comment:

Dan said...

1) Congratulations on the new job. Your post did not state the location but I assume it is in the Bay Area. How many other places could you satisfy your cinephilia in public?

2) Sad new about the Bridge although it has been looking tattered for quite awhile. I just went there on Saturday night and there were only 20 people in the audience.

3) Another soon-to-be shuttered movie theater is the Retro Dome in San Jose. It's closing on January 31.