Hot tub time machine, huh?  Big deal.  It appeared, what, two or three times in the movie?  And it never even had any speaking lines.  What the hell?  Why name a movie after a glorified extra??

Now me, I’m a character actor.  I don’t depend on my matinee star circumference or ability to bend the laws of physics to my will, oh no.  I work for my craft.  I’m a water glass.

You may have seen my work in a number of pivotal scenes wherein a douchey male at a restaurant or bar is taught a lesson by yours truly.  Usually I’m just the vessel for throwing water in their faces with the help of my lovely actress co-stars.  But I have branched out on occasion to other liquids.  I never want to stop growing as an actor, you know?  I never want to limit myself.  I was born a water glass, but I can hold other liquids.  For that matter, I could even hold plasmas and solids, depending on the size and shape of the solid.

Take that, hot tub.  I have never seen it offer to hold anything other than water.  Well, water and actors whose talent it can leech off of.  Humph.  Ooh it has jets that make bubbles.  Big deal.  I have contained various whiskeys, fruit juices and sodas in my day.  Sometimes with ice cubes, although I prefer not since the ice makes me sweat.  But a job’s a job and it’s not my place to say what goes in me.  You know how it is.

I’m surprised that the actors agreed to get into that hot tub in the first place.  It’s not known as the most agreeable appliance in the entertainment industry.  I mean, you hear about suction accidents all the time.  And yes, I know, that’s usually the fault of the person getting suctioned but still.  The hot tub has so many demands and is immoveable once it has settled on its position.  A cast with the likes of John Cusack, Rob Corddry, that warehouse guy from The Office and the pale chubby kid who was not in Superbad doesn’t need to deal with that.  The hot tub is just dead weight in the company of those guys!  I mean, do I even need to say it?  The humans are the only ones moving the plot along.  The hot tub just stays put while they relive a day and night in 1986, trying to learn life lessons and return to the present.  What self respecting water container just sits there while something like that is going on??

I have been in this business a long time.  Been put on a shelf to gather dust, only to be rediscovered, brushed off, Jet Dried if I’m lucky, and put back into action.  I worked with M. Night Shyamalan, you know.  [SPOILER ALERT for another movie]  Remember that movie Signs where the aliens died if water touched them?  Remember that pivotal scene where a glass of water tips over onto an alien and the humans learn how to fight back?  That glass was me!  Now, before you claim that all I had to do was fall over (which I had to do 27 times by the way, because somebody didn’t learn his lines), let me remind you that it took a great deal of effort and skill to convincingly act as if I believed that a superior alien race capable of interstellar invasion would actually overlook the fact that our planet is comprised of over 70% of a substance that is toxic to their kind.  That’s acting.  They would never have cast the hot tub in that scene.

Now, not to start rumors or anything, but I’ve heard that the hot tub can hardly get going these days without the aid of a certain boost in the form of a Russian energy drink and some squirrel play.  I have no idea what these major actors get out of playing with squirrels.  Just the thought of it smears my surface.  Maybe the hot tub wouldn’t be such a lethargic actor if it focused less on that stuff and more on the craft.  It amazes me that some actors can show so little professionalism and still manage to get movies named after them.  Not that I’d want that anyway.  I do what I do for the love of the art form, not for empty meaningless attention and the adulation of millions.

Sometimes I dream of returning to my theatrical roots.  My first big break was performing in the title role of the classic Water Glass Menagerie.  There is more emphasis on acting when you are on stage.  No fancy camera tricks to hide behind like in movies.  But there are some great masters to work with in film.  My fondest wish, if you’ll allow me to get personal, is to be broken on a bar and used as a weapon in a Martin Scorsese film.  If I could land that role, I would shatter a happy glass.

Ultimately, all the time/space continuum bending hot tubs in the world can’t take my dreams away from me.  After all, it’s not the size of the water container that matters.  It’s what it holds inside.

The below reads like a press release because it sort of is, but all the same you should check this out!

Filmmakers, listen up! A new film festival is in Austin, Texas and wants your
submissions. Lights.Camera.Help., a film festival exclusively for nonprofits
and cause advocates, debuted in 2009 with great success. Lights.Camera.Help.
is also a nonprofit organization that functions year-round with educational
programs and a unique volunteer match program that helps connect nonprofit
organizations with creative talent.

The annual film festival unites filmmakers with nonprofits and allows these
organizations to support their missions and tell their stories in the form
of public service announcements, short films, and documentaries. The 2009
festival brought in more than 140 submissions from around the world.

According to Rich Vázquez, Lights. Camera. Help. co-founder, “We believe
that film and video are the best way for nonprofits and other cause-driven
organizations to share their stories with the world. That’s the whole reason
behind the film festival and, ultimately, the nonprofit organization
overall.”

Lights.Camera.Help. creator and co-founder, David J. Neff, adds, “We really
want to foster the growth of this industry and offer a place where people
looking to use their talents for good can collaborate.”

Entries for the 2010 festival will be open until June 30. According to a
press release, “In July, Lights. Camera.Help. will judge the submissions
based on the cinematic quality and the ability to tell the nonprofit’s
story, among other factors.” The submission form can be downloaded at the
Lights.Camera.Help. website (http://lightscamerahelp.org/film-festival).

The festival itself will be held from July 29 through August 1 in Austin,
Texas. The cause-driven films that win will be awarded the proceeds from the
event’s ticket sales. The filmmaker who won the 2009 festival received
$1,000! Whoa.

In an October 17, 2009 film review written in The Hollywood reporter, film critic Frank Scheck states: “It’s hard to imagine who this film will appeal to other than the most devoted sci-fi geeks, and even they are likely to be unimpressed by the uninspired parody on display.”[1]

Uh… Frank?  Did you actually watch the film?

Gentleman Broncos is the brilliant story of Ben (Michael Angarano – The Forbidden Kingdom, Black Irish), the young, home-schooled, aspiring sci-fi writer whose favorite manuscript is stolen by his idol, Dr. Ronald Chevalier (Jermaine Clement – Flight of the Conchords), during Cletus Fest, the best annual writer’s workshop in the state.  The festival, put on by Dr. Chevalier’s publishing company, promises to award a mediocre prize to the best manuscript submitted.  The pompous and entirely too self-righteous Dr. Chevalier, fresh out of ideas, notices Ben’s manuscript cover amongst the pile of student entries, after being told his latest novella is a flop by his publisher.  He begins reading Ben’s work, and decides to change a few names and pass it off as his own work.

In the film, director Jared Hess touches on several major underlying cinematic themes, perhaps poking fun at film making and previous genre classifications as a whole?  I don’t even know why I posed that as a question, as anyone with a film background and half a brain would be able to pick up on that.  For example, the incorporation of homosexual themes into speculative fiction that began in the 1960’s is obviously represented in this film in the juxtaposition between Ben’s masculine version of Bronco and Dr. Chevalier’s effeminate Brutus (hilarious scenes of the Manuscript appear throughout the film, with slight differences letting the audience know who’s version we are watching).  Also, many of the overall elements of the film itself make reference to that time period, from Ben’s geodesic home to his Mother’s clothing designs and even the actors’ wardrobe and hair.  I find it fucking amazing that no one has touched on this obvious element, in all the reviews and articles I read in my research for this piece.

TRAILER

GENTLEMEN BRONCOS Trailer – Watch more Funny Videos

The character development is genius as well, as is the case with any Hess film (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre), but even more so, with such subtleties as the interesting facial features of independent filmmaker Lonnie Donaho (played by Hector Jimenez) not to mention Sam Rockwell’s brilliant performance, going back and forth between Ben’s masculine Bronco and Dr. Chevalier’s Brutus.

I also personally loved the parody on the Big Brother/Big Sister Program with Ben’s “Guardian Angel” Dusty’s (Mike White – Writer: Orange County, Nacho Libre) hidden agenda to hit on his Mom and liberal tutelage on poisonous darts.  The hilarious parody of the absurdity of the Sci-fi community is second only to the underlying look at an unsung creative hero who’s genius and talent are finally recognized after the unintentional yet truly loving and supportive actions of a wonderful Mother (Jennifer Coolidge – American Pie, Legally Blonde), who wants nothing more than for her son’s talents to be recognized, save young Ben, and the family. It portrays the struggles and obstacles all beginning writers and filmmakers face, and ends with sweet gratification after Ben is recognized for the true talent that he is, and Dr. Chevalier is put in his rightful place.  Really, much less of a parody on the science fiction genre as it is a true underdog tale, and a smart play on several cinematic themes, that apparently went way over the heads of quite a few people.

I give this film two fucking thumbs up.  I would also like to make a suggestion to my fellow film critics to actually watch a film prior to writing a critique about it.  You can’t just watch the beginning credits, make a few comparisons and call it a review.  Wake up people.

And to Jared Hess; how the hell did you guys get that snake to do that?  Was it “special effects”, or did that actually happen and you all were able to keep it together and get the shot without any of the actors cracking.  If that is the case… that is film making excellence at its finest.

[1] Scheck, F. (2009, October 23). Gentlemen Broncos — Film Review. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/gentlemen-broncos-film-review-1004030200.story

You know, I’ve hung out with some pretty wild ones in my day. I could tell you about all the crazy nights at Studio 54 with Mother T., back before she got deep into the Indian mysticism stuff, or about the back entrance to Jimmy Carter’s “peanut farm,” and suffice it to say that if I were you, I’d stay far away from the Dalai Lama’s high-stakes poker game – it took me six months to learn how to walk right without that toe. But Jesus? Don’t even get me started on that guy. Sometimes I have to ask myself: what wouldn’t Jesus do?

Like last month, Jesus comes in to the office one day and he’s like “let’s go to Hawaii!” Before I even know it, he’s taken out his magical Jesus teleporter – it’s how he makes it to all his appointments, I guess – and boom. We’re on Oahu, on the highest cliff you’ve ever seen. And Jesus just jumps off, right over the cliff! I yell after him “man, you might die,” and he just yells back “been there, done that!”

Talk about a sanctified pair! I think he resurrected maybe five times that night alone! When he got me back to work, he sneezed a little “milk-of-human-kindness” on my boss and I ended up with a raise out of the whole deal.

And he is the absolute best wingman. Whenever we go out to bars, he takes the ugly friend without even thinking twice. I asked him about it once, and he said he sort of has a thing for the downtrodden, so I don’t even feel guilty about it anymore. And anyway, even if I did, I know he’d forgive me like that – not a grudge-holder, that Jesus.

Plus, he keeps my tabs way down; all I have to do is order the lady a water, and when she turns her back, Jesus turns it into a cosmo, or a mai-tai, or whatever she wanted. When I tell him it’s a miracle, and he doesn’t have to do that for me all the time, he’s just like “hey, dude, the only miracle here would be if you were able to get tail without liquoring her up; I’m just helping out a bro.”

But it’s not like he’s just there for me, oh no. Like I said, Jesus doesn’t even know the meaning of the word “limits.” He said it had something to do with a desert quest he took once – sounded sort of like a horrible “Outward Bound” experience.

Point is, the morning after, no one ever has a better story than Jesus. One time he teleports in to brunch and he’s still got a ball-gag in his mouth that he can’t get out because his hands are nailed into a plank – I mean, the guy likes it kin-ky. I asked him if he didn’t think his dad might get a little pissed off at him for some of the crazy shit he pulls in the bedroom (or in the bar bathroom!), because, I mean, the guy is pretty protective of the family name from what I understand, and Jesus just looked at me, absolutely straight-faced, and says “he’s the one who made me flesh, am I right?”

Even though he has enough endorsement deals to buy up half the eastern seaboard, I’m pretty sure the guy hasn’t paid for a meal in his entire life, and he eats out all the time. He’ll be going crazy, ordering ten, twelve appetizers for the table, getting the two most expensive entrees on the menu “so he can see which he likes better,” you know, big-shot stuff. Then when the waitress comes with the check, he’ll just touch her hand, and say to her, in this solemn voice he has, “my daughter, ’tis better to give than to receive,” – the guy is just a riot, I’m telling you – and at least half the time, we just get up and walk out, no problem! If that doesn’t work, he might give the manager a chance to talk to a dead relative, which usually gets us comped, or, if the boss is being a real dick, he’ll just replenish the restaurant’s walk-ins with frozen bread rolls and about a thousand dollars-worth of fresh fish; I have never seen that one fail. He’s also managed to rack up quite a tidy little sum in bets with non-believers on whether or not he can do it. I mean, if I tried to pull that stuff, I’d end up washing dishes for a week, but Jesus can just work it. It’s really pretty awe-inspiring.

I was talking with him just last night while we were watching “Dog the Bounty Hunter” – he just can’t get enough of that guy – and I told him that I wished I could have the sort of charmed life he had. He turns to me and he’s like “Larry, I had to be crucified, die, and be buried to get this life, and you can’t even imagine the burden the weight of Christendom can be.”

I felt horrible – after all, I was just making conversation, hardly paying attention to what I was saying – so I got down on my knees and started to say an Our Son to let him know I didn’t mean anything by it. He stands up, all wrath-of-god, with fire shooting out of the sides of his head and a flaming sword in his hand that he definitely didn’t find at my place, staring at me like he’s going to take revenge on the whole Warren family, and just when I’m literally pissing my pants, Jesus starts cracking up. “Larry,” he says, choking a little on some of the sulfur he’d just released “Larry, I’m fucking with you. Of course it’s amazing – totally worth it.” Then, just to show there were no hard feelings, he whipped up a round of Harvey Wallbangers and called up a few of his latest converts to “make things interesting.”

If Jesus is the one saying it, I have a deep and abiding faith that statement will come true. In fact, I would swear three times before the cock crowed for morning: I don’t know anything that guy wouldn’t do.