Some months ago some college students moved out of their apartment on my street. They didn't want to schlep their TV with them so they offered it to me. I'd been keeping it in my living rom closet because I didn't have the remote. Recently, though, my DVD player crapped out. As I finally noticed, this TV has a DVD player built in, at the top behind the screen.
So I set that up. Finally ordered a replacement remote. Good thing, too, because I watched a movie tonight, and you wouldn't believe how many trailers and promos it had beforehand. If I didn't have access to a fast forward button I'd have to spend at least twenty minutes just watching them.
Okay, so, the movie. It's called Everything Must Go. It's based on a Raymond Carver short story I've actually read. Will Ferrell plays a high-powered salesman who's also a huge problem drinker. His wife kicks him out of the house and he has nowhere to go, so he takes to living on his lawn and eventually organizes a yard sale. The movie has a little more resolution and uplift than the short story, but it's still somewhat open-ended. Ferrell is definitely the biggest reason to see it. He's a comedian playing an alcoholic, but avoids playing a fun drunk. He's not particularly boisterous either. He just sucks down beers at an alarming rate, in quiet need.
2 comments:
It was nice of those neighbors to give you their what sounds to be a fairly new television and even nicer when you realized it came with a built-in dvd player. Did you have your now defunct one hooked up to your computer? I'm guessing so since you didn't mention disposing of an old TV.
It's been a while since we watched any of our dvd collection that I'd forgotten how a number of them have trailers before the actual movie. You're right that they can be an annoyance except, of course, as historical references to movies you've either forgotten about or never wanted to see in the first place.
Speaking of trailers I did watch the one for Everything Must Go. We haven't see it but I did like the local kid who came by to hang out with Will Ferrell's Nick. "Black people don't play soccer" to which Ferell replied, "Except for most of the world". That was one sad scene after another for poor Nick Halsey - a cruel job dismissal followed by finding his stuff on the lawn and his house locked up and empty (?). I can understand how the Carver story may well have ended badly for him so I like to think the resolution and uplift you mentioned left Nick in a better position rather than in a makeshft tent under a brige.
No, it wasn't hooked up to the computer. The TV is still around. For one thing the trash collection company doesn't really do furniture or appliances. And the picture tube still works, it's just that with the broken antenna it's not much good for picking up broadcasts. So I haven't quite decided what to do with it.
Sometimes I'll see a trailer that actually makes me want to see the movie. Which is the point of making them, obviously. Of course sometimes it's an excellent sales job on a product that's not really up to snuff, as I'm sure I don't have to tell you.
Yeah, that kid is good. Apparently he's the son of the Notorious BIG and has done other stuff, although nothing I've seen yet. And Nick goes through a lot at the start of the movie, some of it the result of deliberate betrayal and cruelty, although some of that might be an effort to make him hit rock bottom. I don't want to overstate the difference between the film and the story. Part of it is that a ten page story is a different animal from a two hour movie. Carver wasn't trying to map out the turn in his character's life. He was just showing stuff, and letting that suggest other stuff that wasn't shown. Sort of theiceberg theory that Hemingway talked about.
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