Poolman review: The walkouts were (mostly) right
Yes, Chris Pine’s directorial debut is as bad as everyone says it is
Film Reviews Poolman
Movie stars will literally direct a whole movie about going to therapy instead of, you know, actually going to therapy. This could be the tagline for Chris Pine’s Poolman, a film that so deeply misunderstands what normal people like about the movies that it could have only come from someone who’s never done anything else.
If you clicked on this Poolman review, there’s a good chance it was out of morbid curiosity rather than any genuine, honest desire to sit through the excruciating 100 minutes of this movie. If not, here’s a quick catch-up: Pine debuted his attempt at a neo-noir satire at TIFF last fall, and the reviews were nothing short of abysmal. There were apparently numerous walkouts, and multiple mainstream outlets said it was not only the worst film of that festival season, but that it would probably be the worst film in any festival season in which it was released. Definitely not what you want to hear about your baby that was “born from a giggle, made with the softest of puppy Labrador licks to the face, and presented with a giant hug of compassion,” as Pine described the film at a recent screening in New York City.
We honestly feel kinda bad for the guy, so here’s another way to look at it: If you’re a cultural anthropologist, a psychiatrist to the stars looking to understand a little bit more about what the hell goes on in A-listers’ brains, or even just a regular old hater looking to engage in a little bit of schadenfreude, Poolman might be a valuable research tool for you. On a meta level, it’s genuinely kind of fascinating to reckon with the fact that sometimes, the stars aren’t just like us. On just about every other level, though, Poolman sinks long before it gives itself the chance to swim.
Poolman reads kind of like an episode of Community if Abed didn’t actually understand any of the movies he referenced. Pine stars as Darren Barrenman (get it? “Barren Man”?), a “long-haired manchild” who talks and dresses like a fifth grader and writes daily letters to Erin Brockovich (not Julia Roberts) on his typewriter. He cleans the pool at his shabby L.A. apartment complex (but literally only that one pool), engages in extremely awkward and painfully long post-coital banter with his girlfriend Susan (Jennifer Jason Leigh), crashes city council meetings to complain about the transportation options, and does it all over again the next day.
That is, until a mysterious femme fatale figure (DeWanda Wise, trying really hard to make this all work) shows up to alert Darren to a vague governmental conspiracy involving the city council official he’s been bothering for months (Stephen Tobolowsky), an incoming real estate development, and something about the city’s water. Pine and Ian Gotler’s script isn’t remotely concerned with the details, and you shouldn’t be either. The only thing that matters is that it’s just like Chinatown, a reference the movie bashes over its audience’s heads so frequently that one might start to wonder if Paramount, Chinatown’s distributor, inked some sort of bizarre product placement deal with Poolman’s producers.
Even though that obviously isn’t what happened, the free advertising is still coming directly out of Poolman’s pockets. The movie makes its terminal blunder somewhere in its first half hour, when it actually puts a clip of the Roman Polanski film on screen. From there, it’s hard to spend any of the next 100 minutes of origami, egg cream, and almond-centric bits (there are multiple instances of each) wishing for anything other than to be watching a real movie. Best Original Screenplay this is not.
It’s a shame, because there are definitely a few seeds of something workable here. The entire supporting cast—including Danny DeVito (playing an out-of-work filmmaker) and Annette Bening (a “Jungian therapist”) who serve as Darren’s surrogate parent figures—commit hard to their roles. There’s a fun cameo from Ray Wise, and there were some scattered moments that elicit real laughs. In one, Darren has a brief moment of something resembling actual characterization as he reacts to his best friend’s (John Ortiz) betrayal. Later, he cracks a genuinely funny joke about watching Brené Brown.
But these disparate giggles can’t make up for the fact that this movie was clearly made by Chris Pine, for Chris Pine. It’s not even really so much a movie, as a collection of things Chris Pine finds funny and interesting without even a whisper of a cohesive narrative to tie any of them together. In his talkback, for example, the actor-director explained that Tobolowsky’s character doubles as an Orthodox rabbi because he trained as one in real life, and the two actors once had a conversation about the Talmud. None of that is explained in the actual film, of course. The councilman is just randomly also a rabbi. The same is true for all those L.A. references, which are largely to things Pine “find[s] very personally important as an aesthete.” Hanna-Barbera makes an appearance because Pine found the studios beautiful as a kid. The story is the same for the long-ago demolished Garden of Allah hotel in West Hollywood. “This is a really dense film and I was told many times to cut it. I was like, ‘I just don’t want to cut it,’” he said. “I just find it very funny.” That much is clear.
If you’re a Chris Pine super-fan looking to live inside the actor’s head for a little while, Poolman just might be for you. But if you’re pretty much anyone else—even someone looking for some so-bad-it’s-good fun—take a lesson from the walkouts and stay out of the splash zone.
136 Comments
The movie’s conceit is really that a guy can afford to live in LA (even in a shabby apartment) when his job is just cleaning a single pool?
Parts of DTLA and most of east LA are cheap, and where most of the working class lives.
Chris Pine: How much could a shabby apartment in LA cost? Ten dollars?
“Do you have proof of income?”“I don’t understand the question, and I won’t respond to it.”
“Welcome to the unemployment office, anywhere you like!”
This does not bode well…
The movie seems more The Big Lebowski than Chinatown — a mystery story where the detective is a bedraggled, amiable loser in LA. And The Big Lebowski is also a meandering movie that tends to elicit a “WTF am I watching” reaction on first viewing. But it grows on you in a way that The Poolman seems unlikely to do.
“All the ratty-ass Dude wanted was his skimmer net back…”
It really tied the pool together.
That’s just, like, your chlorine, man!
The Big Lebowski really is a unicorn of a movie. You’re right, the first time through it seems like a mess. Speaking for myself, what brought me back were two things: the jokes (my friends and I incessantly quoted that movie) and the fact that I appreciated that this whole story happens around Lebowski, who has no clue what is happening. I will admit that I enjoy noir mysteries, but I usually find them hard to follow and could relate to Lebowski being caught up in all this shit accidentally and trying his best to sort through it.
also always respect the absolute gall of the coen bros to make THAT as their followup to fargo.
Best thing about the Coens is their next movie was always whatever was most interesting to them personally, rather than shooting to leverage the last one into something bigger. Try to find the connective tissues between their final run (never mind how they started, Blood Simple / Arizona / Miller’s Crossing):No CountryBurn After ReadingA Serious ManTrue GritLlewyn DavisHail Caeser Buster Scruggs
The Ladykillers was the movie they made right before No Country for Old Men. And I have a personal affection for that one as well (not as good as the original though).
Thought that was right before, but that really serves to only reinforce the point
they even accidentally did it when they went solo with macbeth/drive away dolls.genuinely can’t believe it’s as simple as one guy knows where to put the camera and how a scene is constructed and the other guy is really funny.
Well, plus a big dose of trust between brothers. The didn’t much second-guess one another.
You gotta love Caesar for having capitalism described in terms of shaving Sammy Davis Jr’s back.
Actually, Nicholson doesn’t know what’s going on in Chinatown. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade are often in that same boat. It’s a film noir trope that works really well. It’s a fascinating way to approach a narrative.
‘”Actually, Nicholson doesn’t know what’s going on in Chinatown. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade are often in that same boat. It’s a film noir trope that works really well. It’s a fascinating way to approach a narrative.”’Noir (French) usually means black in English. But I wondered if there was anyway that it could mean dark. I mean if the main protagonist being in the dark is a staple of the film noir genre it seems like it should be a far gone conclusion.So black dark is noir foncé in French. A little further research reveals that dans le noir is French for “in the dark”.
RE: “Lebowski,” most of the time in these movies, the main perspective would be from a character like the P.I. DaFino (or a Jake Gittes): someone who begins his hero’s journey suspicious that something nefarious is going on, and proceeds to slowly piece together the puzzle through active investigation and reactions to twists and revelations in the way the audience is also expected to do. But the Dude is a unique noir protagonist in that way. El Duderino is sort of unwittingly shuffled from major character to character, many of whom (hilariously) expound upon their motivations and conflicts while Lebowski half-listens and zones out, rolling a joint, or observing unrelated miniatuae while (supposedly) major plot beats are dolled out. It’s like the rest of the movie itself wants so bad to be a mystery/noir, but it’s been saddled with His Dudeness as it’s main point of focus so it just can’t do it. This conflict is embodied in Dude’s interaction with the sheriff who insults and assaults him for simply being who he is.
South Park also utilizes this type of parodic structure where the four kids are merely interested in some mundane goal like getting their video game system back from the government/aliens/whatever increasingly ludicrous antagonist force emerge throughout an episode, and the humor comes from the constantly raised stakes being mocked, ignored or reacted to with petulant frustration.
I agree with all of that and I’ll add that something I really enjoy about the film is that *although* The Dude is an unwitting and reluctant PI character who constantly gets distracted, his motivations STILL drive the plot forward. Like… I didn’t want to push back too hard on the idea that he’s shuffled through the plot because I think you’re *mostly* right. But I think it’s important to the appeal of the film that the audience still has some plot to hold onto and that it’s driven by what our protagonist wants. He wants his rug back. He wants his car back. He wants some quick and easy cash. He wants to go bowling. With the shagginess of the story and the protagonist it might be tempting to make everything happen sort of willy-nilly but it’s not. It’s always “The Dude wants X. Pursuing X turns into a ridiculous shaggy chore.” Maybe people would argue with me cuz they hate standard narrative structure or they want to believe that the film is unique in its storytelling. And that’s fine. But from a narrative traditionalist POV it works much better than some might think.
You make excellent points: my comment disregarded the Dude’s motivations and actions triggering plot beats and driving the story forward. That’s absolutely essential to him being a compelling lead, otherwise you end up with similarly shaggy noir flicks, that come off far more disjointed and oddball largely because the lead and supporting ensemble isn’t strong enough to propel the story, like in “Inherent Vice” or “Under the Silver Lake,” movies that have their strengths, but do not manage to reach the heights of “Lebowski.”
I’d throw some Inherent Vice in there.
With a dash of “Lodge 49″, if only because the protagonists are both pool guys.
I loved TBL the first time through. Having read a lot of Chandler when I first saw the movie, I recognized pretty quickly that it was like a Chandler novel with a stoner dude and his angry bowling buddy in place of Philip Marlowe.
It seem more like The Big Lebowski is a good movie, and this one isn’t.
“Lebowski” was pretty lambasted when it first came out, as well. One doesn’t have to look hard to find the negative reviews from the L.A. Times, New Yorker, SF Chronicle, etc. calling it a chaotic mess. I remember my girlfriend at the time had the same reaction when we saw it in the theater. It took quite a while to find its audience.
You’re exactly right about The Big Lebowski. That’s exactly what I was thinking when I watched it. I haven’t gone back for a second viewing, though, because I have no desire to watch it again. It was not good.
Ah yes, The Gentleman’s F returns.
I wonder if Paste-era AV Club could tempt Ignatiy Vishnevetsky back. There was a guy who knew how to pan a movie.
His Seagal film reviews need to be submitted to the National Archives for being culturally significant or something. The one for “Contract To Kill” was a masterpiece.
The line “Seagal gives the kind of performance typically associated with actors who died during production” lives on in my heart.
They had some absolute artists at that over the years. I’d love to see them try to put the band back together as much as possible, especially on the music side.
This movie sounds terrible, but I don’t understand the connection between claiming Pine made a whole movie to avoid going to therapy and the movie being an unwieldy pastiche of everything Chris Pine likes. For some (and I can’t stress “some” enough) people, expressing themselves through art and going to therapy accomplishes the same thing. “Avoiding” therapy to me suggests someone who needs a professional to help them work through a trauma or some serious personal issues. And maybe something about Poolman suggests he has some issues he needs help working through, but this review only tells me the movie isn’t good enough to sit through to find out what they are.
it’s not a real connection or meant to be taken literally, they’re just referencing the ‘men will literally do X instead of going to therapy’ meme.
Because the 30-somethings that write for this site get all the cultural cues from 19-year-olds on tiktok.
i think it’s more of a twitter joke for 40 year olds who think they’re tapped in with what 19 year olds are saying.
Yeah, if this was actually a joke from 19 year olds, it would just be a slow fade of Chris Pine melting into Peter Griffin with big block letters reading “krumker” at the bottom, or something equally unparseable.
I would say to those people no, it doesn’t accomplish the same thing. And as a moviegoer, nay a cinephile!, I resent the shit out of having to endure someone’s therapy session. I didn’t sign up for that. I’ve known filmmakers to do this and I always find the end result a frustrating waste of my time. Richard Kelly loves to do that shit. Blurgh, I say.
I would draw a distinction between making a movie specifically to serve as therapy session and the general act of creating any form of art, but I guess I wouldn’t know where to draw the line. Though it wasn’t initially my intent, I’ve made short films that absolutely helped me re-evaluate moments by seeing them through a different perspective, which I found helpful and rewarding. They might end up a frustrating waste of your time – I’m not arguing that – but I find it overly reductive to dismiss self-expression through art (including filmmaking) as a form of therapy. For some people, it’s art, for others, it’s exercise or a hobby.To be clear, I don’t think these things are replacements for actual therapy. But I’ve heard ads for things like BetterHelp that encourage people to talk to a therapist even if they don’t have any sort of trauma, and that makes sense in a society where loneliness among adults is increasing and there are fewer people we trust to talk to. But I also suspect they’re redirecting energy that used to go into creating things.
Actually, the more time I’ve had to reflect on what you wrote, the more I’m inclined to agree. I have zero interest in stand-up “comedy” specials like Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, and even though all the discussion about Baby Reindeer (including some rave reviews from a couple reviewers I trust) made me want to watch it, the fallout from the creator and Netflix(?)’s decision to not just base the show on real events but promote it heavily as Things that Really Happened makes me think the guy Gadd really should have gone to therapy instead of creating a whole ass live show and Netflix series.
To be fair, I lean more hyperbolic in my online speech than I am IRL. My feelings generally are the same, just usually less harsh. In truth I do appreciate the usefulness of art therapy, I just think that mass media narrative art is a really stupid avenue to practice art therapy, in part because it forces others to participate. And even then I wouldn’t care that much except when said filmmakers privilege their therapeutic process over the telling of the story. A narrative film has to be ultimately devoted to the story. If its primary purpose is serving the filmmakers personal needs that filmmaker needs to reconsider the medium. (Incidentally this is why I’m 100% with you on Nanette.)
So 15 or 20 years before the cultural re-evaluation?
It’ll peak as meme fodder for the Tuesday-Friday the week of it’s streaming release.
I’m a big fan of Pine, and good for him for making his own version of BIG LEBOWSKI, but this:
“born from a giggle, made with the softest of puppy Labrador licks to the face, and presented with a giant hug of compassion,”
Good God, I cringed so hard my teeth rattled.
If that was submitted to Chicken Soup For The Soul, it would be rejected on the grounds of being too saccharine.
Yeah this is kind of a shame since Pine has banked so much public goodwill, and I’d say he burned more with that intro than the film itself. Gaaah.
And now his directing career is fucked like a dog in the street.
You’re…you’re not exactly selling me on the idea of visiting New York.
This guy is banging Jennifer Jason Leigh? That’s what this movie is asking us to accept?
Hey, at least the 20-year age difference isn’t the usual older man / younger woman one….Which doesn’t make not weird, but at least it’s different
Yes?
yeah but she’s looking a bit rough these days, so maybe she’s lowered her standards a bit
Banging? You mean coitus?
I know, look at the picture. Even he can’t seem to believe it.
Don’t interruptus!
BRO, I DIDN’T KNOW SHE WAS YOUR WIFE, LET’S JUST BE COOL- wait, what were you talking about?
It can be a natural, zesty enterprise.
I mean, unshaved Chris Pine in a bad wig is still Chris Pine. So not that hard to believe. It’s the male equivalent of putting a gorgeous woman in glasses and a ponytail – she’s still gorgeous.
…and my favorite fantasy…!…
what were we talking about?
I love really bad movies, as long as they aren’t boring. I have to watch this now
This is too bad because I was up for a spiritual successor to Lebowski, which this looked to be. Apparently not. If Pine wants to make a personal film, that’s all well and good; he’s earned it, he can do it. At the same time, these passion projects don’t always work out, in part because film seems to be such a collaborative medium.
i’d say pt anderson’s inherent vice is about as close as we’re gonna get ever again.
I dunno, The Nice Guys feels like it’s playing the same sport, even if it’s not necessarily in the same ballpark.
Any shaggy-dog story that features a clueless protagonist in the middle of something way beyond his understanding is going to draw tough comparisons to Lebowski and Inherent Vice, but I thought The Nice Guys handled it perfectly (especially since it was so damn fun). Granted Gosling’s bumbling PI had Crowe’s more steady hand to lead him through.
The Nice Guys is criminally under-rated/under-appreciated. It has Crowe, Gosling and Black right in their sweet zone and at the top of their games. And a really strong supporting cast, as well.
“This is a really dense film and I was told many times to cut it. I was like, ‘I just don’t want to cut it,’” he said. “I just find it very funny.”I mean, if someone wants to make something purely for their own amusement and they have the money (and/or production companies who are willing to set a bunch of money on fire for them) to not have to worry about that part then more power to them, I guess.
I don’t know why, but I’m getting Southland Tales vibes from what I’m hearing about this movie.
So, awesome?
Harry Styles should spit on him again.
Having seen him in the Wet Hot American Summer stuff…yeah, dude’s not as funny as he might think he is.
On the other hand, after Dungeons & Dragons, I prefer him over Chris Pratt in the charismatic goofball role.
Works for me. I’ve only ever found Chris Pratt to be “aggressively fine.”
Dungeons & Dragons was the perfect vehicle for him. I like Pine generally, but D&D was the first time I was like, this is the exact type of role he needs to be playing.
Everyone in ‘Honour Among Thieves’ seemed to get the assignment: Pine, Rodriguez, Grant, all brought what was needed to make that film work.
If you told me a year ago that my favorite movie of last year was Dungeons and Dragons I would have called you an idiot but that movie just worked. Movies like LOTR or Conan the Barbarian are what gamers wish their games would be like but D&D manages to capture the truth of what D&D actually is most the time. A motley band of murder hobos getting caught up in a giant city changing plot and goofiness and heroics ensue.
I really liked that film. It didn’t need to be anything spectacular, it was just a fun time and the cast almost all appeared to be having a blast.
I was shocked at how much I loved it. The trailer definitely looked good to me, but I’ve been burned plenty of times by good trailers. Such a good flick. Just missed on my personal Top 10 of last year.
Chris Pine works better as the charismatic goofball who isn’t as competent as he seems to think he is, while Pratt works better as the competent goofball who isn’t as charming as he seems to think he is.
Pine’s great on that, you’re nuts.
“The music’s gawn…”
Takin it higher and higher!
“Pine’s great on that, you’re nuts.”Wordplay!
This sounds like it could be just as bad as another recent “actor becomes first-time director” film, last year’s Fool’s Paradise (by Charlie Day). I love Charlie/Always Sunny and was really looking forward to a feature that he wrote and directed, and it was the worst movie of 2023 for me. Poolman looks just as meandering and unfunny to me, unfortunately. I just heard Chris Pine on the WTF w/Marc Maron podcast the other day, and he seemed pretty bummed that Poolman got such a horrible reaction at TIFF with all the walkouts. His interview was a surprisingly good listen though.
Don’t forget James Franco thrashing around for a while with a bunch of aggressively mediocre projects.
Great interview. Pine seemed like a very thoughtful and humble dude.Marc Maron continues to be one of the best interviewers out there. I’ll listen to Conan’s podcast and Smartless, but those two, respectively, just riff with the guest and wash their balls. Maron is able to generate some banter but also gives the listener actual insight into their guest.
Yeah, I feel exactly the same about all three of these podcasts (and they’re among the few that I listen to). When Maron is most on his game (i.e., when you can tell as he’s actually interested in the guest and their work), he can probe and get things out of these celebs that I’ve never seen them give in other interviews.
His interview with David Lee Roth was great. DLR was all over the place but Maron did a fantastic job of keeping him reined in without totally stifling him.
Jake Johnson’s last movie was also really bad.
the weirdest one is when edward norton cashed in all his chips to direct and star in a ben stiller romcom about a priest and a rabbi.
Not gonna lie, I love that movie!
oh it’s not bad by any stretch it was just such a wild move.
I like it a lot, too. And I tend to like Norton’s stuff generally, which I know he often has a hand in rewriting. I don’t love how pushy he is about having creative control but I can’t argue with the results. To this day I think people are too quick to love up on the Ruffalo MCU Hulk. Norton’s Hulk and Banner have been my favorite. (To be fair, I was hugely influenced by the TV show as a kid. So Norton’s lean into that was welcome to me.)
Is this some kind of joke?
Self Reliance really made me wonder how much room there is between Jake Johnson and Nick Miller. I almost wouldn’t be surprised if he was constantly writing screenplays while on New Girl, and somebody found them and immediately made Nick a writer on the show.
I didn’t mind Self-Reliance as much as I did, say, Fool’s Paradise. Self-Reliance was just a bit mid, which isn’t the worst thing a movie can be.
After Dev Patel’s excellent Monkey Man I got curious about these kinds of films, written, directed, and starring the same guy. I had just seen the trailer for Poolman and had Fool’s Paradise on my list, so I gave it a go with some friends, all of us big fans of Sunny. Woof. We got the most mileage of playing “Spot the Sunny actor”. And now with these Poolman reviews I’m starting to thin Monkey Man was the exception, the one time someone got this kind of project right, at least recently.
Yeah, it’s kind of a crapshoot. Seems like for every Clint Eastwood, Greta Gerwig, Mel Gibson (as controversial as he is as a person, he’s a very skilled director), Ben Affleck, or early-career Kenneth Branagh, there are just as many Olivia Wilde’s, Zach Braff’s, William Shatner’s or later-career Kenneth Branagh’s.I got to give a shout-out to Danny DeVito, though: most people forget he’s directed movies, but pretty much all of his films are at least good-to-great.
It’s a weird movie (most of his films are), but I’ve always had a soft spot for Throw Momma From the Train.
Reading between the lines of some interviews given by Dev, it sounds like Monkey Man was also kind of a misfire until Jordan Peele came in and shepherded a substantial re-edit of the film.
Lost River is a massively forgotten “actor turns director” blunder film. Particularly remarkable it’s totally forgotten given how beloved Ryan Gosling is now.
Oh yeah, I saw Lost River. Gosling had just done two movies with Nicolas Winding Refn, and Lost River’s visuals and languid pace definitely seemed to be influenced by Refn. I recall feeling that it was nice to look at but vacuous.
I wanted to like Fool’s Paradise so bad for Charlie Day (and Ken Jeong), but that movie was just awful. It wanted to be Being There so much, but it did not have the magic to make that work.
Pine stars as Darren Barrenman (get it? “Barren Man”?), a “long-haired
manchild” who talks and dresses like a fifth grader and writes daily
letters to Erin Brockovich (not Julia Roberts) on his typewriterUm, you do realize that Erin Brockovich isn’t just a character that Julia Roberts played but an actual real living person that one could write to?
yeah seems clear they made that little aside specifically for people who may not know that.
Okay, I was more interpreting it as “look at this loon writing letters to a fictional character and not the actress who played her” but I suppose it could be interpreted your way too.
I think you’re correct. If they had known/remembered the real person they would have said “the activist and not the actress who played her, Julia Roberts” or something similar. This sort of thing is why editing is important. It’s not just finding spelling errors and grammatical mistakes, it’s a pool of knowledge if done correctly. I don’t think less of the author for not recalling that a movie from a couple decades ago was based on a true story but I would think less of the publication were that possible. Hopefully someone will show the new owners the sign I saw at building supply store that said “Good, fast and cheap: pick two” and realize that applies to content as well as construction.
The massive recent layoffs at my editing focused company do not make me optimistic
No, I do not think AVC realized this at all.
Dear Die Hard, you rock!
You reference Brene Brown like I’m supposed to know who that is, and I looked her up and nope, I had no idea that person existed.I like Pine a lot, but this sounds like a Prime or Tubi watch (read: free).
i’m not even gonna bother looking her up
Indeed. Zero bells rung.Brené Brown – according to Google, she is ‘a researcher and storyteller who’s spent two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy.’Apparently, she has a Ted Talk. Still…zero bells rung. And no interest in furthering my 1 minute of wasted time.
She’s like a self-help guru. In my understanding a less grifty one than most, but who knows
I was ready to bemoan the overused trope of nefarious real estate development, and that I want a movie where it’s a bunch of grey hairs who just don’t want to share their paradise behind the scheme, but that’s Hot Fuzz, so carry on.
this feels like a late 80s/90s style comedy concept that was forced into being a festival release because there’s no market for comedies anymore.like, honestly, this sounds like a dana carvey vehicle.
Waterboy became Poolman!
I’m assuming the movie is as painful as people have said it is…but it sounds kinda good to me? Pseudo modern noir with idiot protagonist, dumb jokes/references (which Don’t tie to the meaningless plot), extra character details on top of archetypes – I mean, I liked The Big Lebowski (didn’t love it), so why not this?
i think the reason it’s hitting with SUCH a thud is precisely because it sounds like it should be good, and isn’t.
“because it sounds like it should be good”Or at the very least, interesting.
“This is a really dense film and I was told many times to cut it. I was like, ‘I just don’t want to cut it,’” he said. “I just find it very funny.” There’s a reason that one of the big pieces of advice writers get (and give) is “Kill your darlings.” If a scene doesn’t work, even if you love that scene and find it funny, you still have to kill it.
It’s why OJ Simpson was such an acclaimed screenwriter.
Fuck me, this is amazing. I gave a star but you deserve more than that.
This review actually makes me really want to see the movie.
It makes me want to watch HUGO POOL.
“The movie makes its terminal blunder somewhere in its first half hour, when it actually puts a clip of the Roman Polanski film on screen.”
Or, as Tom Servo stated when seeing the protagonist of Overdrawn at the Memory Bank watch Casablanca:
“Man, never show a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie”.
Remember “Fantasia 2000″ and how it stuck in Mickey Mouse in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” from the original “Fantasia”? Man, that was a mistake…instantly when the segment from the original movie started, you thought “Oh, this is soooooo much better”. Instantly.
Fantasia 2000 gave us the story of Noah’s ark from the perspectives of Donald and Daisy set to “Pomp and Circumstance.” I will defend that sequel.
OTOH, Fantasia 2000 gave us the story of Noah’s ark from the perspectives of Donald and Daisy set to “Pomp and Circumstance.”
That’s catchier than: “Never put a child rapist in the middle of your crappy movie”.
Ah, another actor falling to thinking they can direct. It’s fairly few and far between that can.
I like Chris Pine I hope the best for this; I’ll catch it streaming somewhere…
“born from a giggle, made with the softest of puppy Labrador licks to the face, and presented with a giant hug of compassion,” I now want to avoid anything connected to chris pine going forward
I had almost this exact idea a few years ago that I pitched to a friend of mine who is a pool man. Except in my telling, it was more of a “Pineapple Express” than “Big Lebowski”
So it’s like a narcissist tried to make a hybrid baby from the DNA of The Big Lebowski and L.A. Story, is that it?