This Message Board, This Movie, and Then my stuff

It is tempting to make this a 'review', but of this board. What is it about this film that gets such a range of postings. "not a comedy" and "painful" on one hand, and "sweet" and "love it!" on the other, plus a number of "meh" and "it's okay" sprinkled in.

A lot is being said about the Jewish humor, and about Rogen's step away from his usual brand. That may account for a lot of this -- they are more than "acquired tastes", some get offended by old Jewish jokes, or newer jokes that are attempts to be edgy (not saying all that is in this.)

This particular board, though, seems pretty rare in that I haven't seen a lot of personal attacks -- perhaps because the posters are caught up in the actual task of actually making observations on this film.

And as for me . . .

1. Always nice to see Nora Dunn (as the HSN host), who always has me in awe since she willingly threw away her job on SNL a good while back over a matter of principle. (May 1990 episode)

2. Rogen does good job, again, as the unkempt man-child, but playing a dedicated 'organic chemist'? Some very clever moves for his character in this story.

3. Streisand ... her skin is unreal, distracting. 'Distracting' in that we know this is an actress in her seventies, and she is playing a thirty-ish man's mother, so ... No wrinkles at all? None? Yes, she looks great, but ... she does not look like any mother that I know, she actually looks maybe as young as her son, and how many face peels has she had (although they don't have that 'too many face peels' look)? She looks great, but ...

4. And where that actually goes over the top is in the movie poster, the one on the DVD box and other ads (and in IMDB's photo gallery for this film.) Not the one in the car, it's got a white background and she's nuzzling her cheek against his head. She's crunching Seth's face, he's hairy and he looks put-upon, and she ... egad, I think they've airbrushed every pixel of her skin. That does not look like a mother, doesn't even look real. But ... with her money ... she DID manage to get her face to look really good. But no wrinkles at all, not even small ones? The skin on this actress is distracting in the movie, but is over-the-top in the picture on the box.

5. One for my 'unsung acting performances' list -- Streisand is playing the same character she played lots of times before. BUT, but, but ... damn, she's good, good as an actress. A very good three seconds can be seen in the car right after Seth Rogen says the lines about how the son attended UCLA, not to get away from the mother, but because he had ALWAYS wanted to be an organic chemist and UCLA had the best organic chemistry program anywhere. In the two or three seconds that shows the reaction on the mother's face, well, Streisand was busy with the right motions and head turns and she did all the right stuff showing the huge tsunami of different emotions playing through her face. (And then the sign for that Lubbock steak house appears.) She is a lot of things, but she definitely is an Actress.

6. In the bar fight scene, a move I'd never seen before -- Andy is wearing glasses, but he slaps the cowboy, so the cowboy punches him on the cheekbone. That is, gets punched in the face, but not in the mouth (that would probably hurt some teeth), and not in the eye (that would destroy the glasses, right?). So he winds up, not with a black eye, but a black cheek. Do people do that? Interesting, anyway.

7. I understand that Rogen and Streisand did a lot of improvising in their scenes. The ones shown during the credits are as good as those embedded in the story.

8. One takeaway for the film, a bunch of tips for how to eat a huge steak. Those could be useful for me sometime, if they work. Be a shame if they were all made-up by Dan Folgelman for his script.

9. Nonetheless, I liked Folgelman's script. I could pick out this film for my wife and myself, and I wasn't embarrassed by it, or shocked, or bored. Good weekend night film, short enough to get to bed and sleep by my usual bedtime.

I picture that the script was being assembled, and they got Streisand and then Rogen on board. Wow, she's only done about 40 movies in a half century (according to IMDB) and this is one of them. A big win for someone.

(Thanks for reading, I'll get my second cup of coffee of the day now and then maybe I won't ramble so much.) God's Blessings.