Stick (Apple+ series, one season... so far)

As of posting this, Season two has been confirmed...

Promotion and Writing


This series was promoted as the next “Ted Lasso”… but with golf.
While this was a good way to promote it, it was also to its detriment. I’d only just experienced that series for the first time this year and it was VERY fresh in my memory.
They have two things in common- the main character is a middle aged white dude, played by a well known actor, and it revolves around some sport.

For me, Ted Lasso was a very “cozy” series. Meaning it was a lighthearted mix of drama, humor and pop culture references… but mostly because I almost never had to worry about the show hitting that “point of no return”- where some irreconcilable drama happens that derails the entire plot and it's a slow painful slog until it gets fixed... assuming it gets fixed at all.

Stick, unfortunately, had a few of those extra dramatic moments. One of these moments spanned an entire episode and it took the entire half hour runtime for a last minute epiphany to magically solve the problem.

Granted, I’m thankful it didn't last past an episode… but it also felt so rushed that I complained the writing wasn’t very good.


Watching this as a golf fan

I hadn’t read many reviews just to keep my perspective pure but I did read one with a notable criticism— it’s a show about golf, but the golfing terminology left something to be desired. This one reviewer complained that this one tournament or going pro was referred to as “the dance”- when that term does not exist in the golf world.
But hey- I’d been watching golf for years. So for me, it was accurate enough and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also taught me something I spent the last 30 years knowing nothing about. Namely why we have the different numbered clubs, woods vs irons and so on. The number determines the amount of curvature in the club face, which is why some are built better for longer distances.

And while this show didn’t have a lot of the heavy hitters like Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy making cameos, they did have Keegan Bradley and Collin Morikawa among others.
If Ted Lasso had any cameos, I didn’t know who they were. But I’m also not a soccer fan and I still don't get why the clock counts upward and how/why time gets added after the initial 90 minutes.


The characters


When we first meet Pryce “Stick” Cahill, he’s working at a pro shop and sells a customer on some heavy duty (not to mention expensive) hardware.
But beyond that, to paraphrase Taylor Swift, he’d been “sleeping… in a 20 year dark night.” He’s on the cusp of a divorce, his house is a mess and he’s still grieving a very traumatic loss.

He comes across Santiago “Santi” Wheeler, a 17 year old prodigy who can drive over 300 yards when he sneaks into the local driving range between shifts at his after school job. So Pryce gets the idea to be his coach and get him into the tour. Of course he has a lot of convincing to do- both with Santi and his mom, Elena, and his friend/caddie Mitts. Mostly making sure he’s in this for the right reasons. That Santi, the kid not the golfer, comes first.
Along the way, they also meet Zero, who later joins the group as Santi’s caddie and later love interest.

At one point or another, all of the characters did get on my nerves over something. They also got on each other’s nerves, whether it’s Mitts thinking Pryce’s idea is crazy or Elena being frustrated with Mitts when he tried to talk her out of investing all of her windfall (courtesy of Pryce to get her onboard) in one thing… you have a lot of strong personalities in close proximity for an extended amount of time, it’s bound to happen. Plus they come to consider each other family and families argue.

I’m not sure if I’m alone in this but I could understand if people found Zero a polarizing character. Especially if those that aren't gen Z.
I’m a year away from 40 and I never felt closer to that age than I did watching this show and feeling out of the loop.
Whether it’s the ever growing “correct pronouns” conversation (which to me is ridiculous when Zero also said “she/her” was acceptable…) or the flagrant disregard for adults and authority figures Zero and the other gen Z characters seem to have… a lot of the conversations involving the younger characters grated on my nerves. So yeah, I've officially become one of those people who gripes about the younger generations.

One plus about the writing, uneven as it can be sometimes, is how it explains and navigates a lot of these disagreements.
Zero worked as a server/bartender at a country club and got harassed by the patrons… so I can understand developing a thick skin and not trusting adults.
Same with Elena in that conversation with Mitts. I understood where he was coming from by encouraging her to diversify her investments. But because she had to fight for her livelihood as a single parent and a woman, it’s important to her personally that she stands up for herself. And she’s done her research so she’s aware of the risks but still willing to take the chance.

And to be honest, Santi got on my nerves sometimes too. Yeah, he’s gifted but when he didn’t listen to Pryce’s advice and things went sideways, he didn’t handle things well.

We also have Mitts the curmudgeon but over time we learn more about him and he grows on you.


The Show

Now we’re getting into some spoiler territory…


For the actual show itself, yeah, it had its ups and downs. It wasn’t perfect but it ultimately came through in the times where it really mattered.
There’s a lot of heart and the characters go through a lot together. And while it had a good finale, there’s room for more story.

The first few episodes are the introductory period, getting to know the characters and their relationships and personalities.
In addition to being his former caddie, Mitts has a history of helping Pryce with various hustles. Usually involving alcohol and heated arguments at bars and Pryce showing the other person up in the end.
The series starts with a hustle and we get at least one more later on.

After this group of misfits come together, Santi has to qualify for the amateur championship. Pryce instructs him as his caddie which clubs to use in different situations. As a prodigy, Santi has great instincts but he’s still young enough where that isn’t sustainable in the long run.
They eventually butt heads and it becomes a slippery slope. We hear about his dad a few times, how he’d coached him and his coaching style put him off playing for a few years and his dad took off.

Zero comes in around this time and the two of them hit it off quickly. So Pryce gets the bright idea to have Zero caddie and he’ll signal from the sidelines which clubs to use. Plus, with the two of them being around the same age, it might be a better arrangement.
My one little nitpick- and this is another generational grip. Some of Zero’s comments, saying to Santi something like “as long as you feel safe” before leaving when Pryce wants to have a few words one on one, and later about “holding space” or “having space” in a conversation with Mitts and he rolls his eyes at the terminology… yeah I can’t help but agree. Gen Z is weird about stuff like this coupled with this whole “distrust of authority” thing.

But as friends and later a couple, Santi and Zero are great together. It’s nice having a friend your own age on the road but also for someone like Zero who’s a self proclaimed nomad, it’s nice having someone you feel comfortable around enough to be yourself.
But like all sorts of background arrangements in media, the truth comes out and things blow up between everyone. Obviously things would work themselves out but it’s hard to trust sometimes. I definitely didn’t want this to be a 3+ episode arc.

The later episodes revolve around the last chance for Santi to qualify for the pro circuit and it involves getting an exemption from an old rival of Pryce’s.
He reminded me a little of the bad guy from Happy Gilmore although not nearly as antagonistic or stuck on himself… although he spend a lot of his time in retirement riding on the coattails of a handful of victories. Including insurance advertisements, a golfing academy and a fancy steakhouse.
While we don’t get to see Pryce’s infamous career ending meltdown, we get a decent picture of what it was like because this was the guy he ultimately lost to… and I think Pryce beat him up afterwards. It all circles back to the loss Pryce is still grieving… now we sort of know why he blew up like he did. And can you honestly blame him?

The final hurdle takes place over the season finale. When Santi is riding the high of finally taking the lead and going viral on TikTok, his dad comes back into the picture… and it goes about as well as you’d expect.
His dad had a mercurial coaching style where he’d be his best friend when he’s doing well but become hypercritical and dismissive when he was not.
Elena talked about it a few times and here we finally see it and it’s ugly. When you’re having a rough time, the last thing you need is for someone to talk down to you and grumble about you needing to “play better” without any constructive advice on how to achieve that.
Had this not gone sideways, he probably would’ve taken credit for his success even though he didn’t show up until the final day of the tournament. The worst part is him assuming no responsibility for any of the bad turns even when it was his advice that got him there in the first place.
The only thing I wish we had was just someone laying a massive tirade on him or at least Elena slapping him. Either way, people like him we sadly just accept will never change.
Unlike Tin Cup (heavy sarcasm implied), at least we get a decent redemption arc to close it all out. And there’s definitely plenty of room left for subsequent seasons.

As a final note, the Simon and Garfunkel song “Cecilia” makes a number of appearances throughout the series. Pryce said how it was a song he’d recall to ground himself in his uncertain moments and how it guarantees a smile.
Let’s just say good luck getting it out of your head after finishing the final episode…
I can count the number of S&G songs I know on one hand and this became another to add. And yes, I still have it going through my head and that was a couple days ago, lol

The Internship (2013)

Since Owen Wilson’s Apple+ series is wrapping up this week, it felt like a good time to do a post on another of his movies.
With the recent exception of “Masterminds” (as in recent to me- the movie came out 9 years ago and I saw it last month), I’ve never met an Owen Wilson character I didn’t like. I’ve always found him generally likable, but a bit more since seeing Midnight in Paris.
This movie was promoted as the much anticipated reunion of him with his Wedding Crasher partner-in-crime Vince Vaughn. The end result… maybe didn’t meet expectations but even with its flaws I found it enjoyable. We have the DVD in our shorehouse movie collection so we see it at least once a year.

The initial premise- the duo are businessmen who sell watches and they awkwardly learn on a sales call that they no longer have jobs. (By the way- this probably the best use you’ll ever see of “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette in media).
Because of this, Vince Vaughn loses his girlfriend and his house (as well as some of the audience’s respect over his idiotic pronunciation of Barcelona). Owen Wilson isn’t much better off, selling mattresses for Will Ferrell (who definitely has a sexual harassment lawsuit in his future with how inappropriate he is with his “hotter” customers).

Suddenly Vince Vaughn has an epiphany… the two of them can participate in Google’s internship program, which is a gateway to full time employment.
Their interview scene to get accepted into this program is a good showcase of this movie’s writing, both the good and the… for lack of a better word, annoying. Some jokes throughout the movie either do too good of a job showing how clueless these guys are about how technology works or they just run way too long.
They do their interview via Skype (dating this movie a bit... Skype closed up shop early 2025) in a public library and they essentially BS their way through it. They enroll in The University of Phoenix to meet the student requirement and Owen Wilson’s major is physics. Also, they call it “the Harvard of the internet,” which is definitely not true.
The key question they’re asked: you’re shrunk down to the size of nickels and dropped into a blender. What do you do?
They never answer this directly but their answer is clever enough to get them chosen. They do a silly reference to Fantastic Voyager, saying they’ll get out of the blender and go into the mini submarine to save lives. But their whole message is essentially “it’s not about getting out of the blender, it’s what you do next” and how they had been in the blender and this is their second chance to make a difference.

They get to the actual Google campus out in California and all the interns are put into teams. Predictably, they wind up in the team with all the misfits or as head honco Mr. Chetty puts it “the leftovers” and Lyle (who we see campaign for them at the admissions meeting) is their team captain/supervisor. Josh Brener, who plays Lyle, later plays a notable role in the HBO series "Silicon Valley," but he sadly winds up being one of TJ Miller's many punching bags throughout the series.

Graham, the intern who serves as the antagonist drafts his teammates all based on their colleges- only Ivy League are good enough in his eyes.
While Vince Vaughn regularly butts heads with him and Chetty, Owen Wilson spends the majority of his time essentially stalking Rose Bryne. I love the guy but I just found this character arc so annoying— first because she’s an employee and interns aren’t supposed to date them and second, it just perpetuates the myth that a girl will eventually agree to go out with you if you ask them enough times. I want to scream “she’s not interested in you- leave her alone!”

As for the rest of Team Lyle, we have Yo-Yo Santos, the neurotic son of a “tiger mom” (this term for overbearing Asian moms came into being a few years prior), Neha, an Indian girl who loves anime and Star Wars, and Stuart, a deadpan-humor type of guy who needs to learn the valuable lesson that there’s a whole world out there- just 3 inches up.

The internship program consists of challenges and the team with the highest grand total is guaranteed jobs after graduation.
The challenges vary, as do how well the two guys handle them.
The first challenge is finding a bug in the code… and since they have ZERO coding knowledge and annoy their teammates to death as they play 6 degrees of separation with pop culture references, they get sent away to find the creator of the code… Professor Xavier.
There’s a quidditch match and Vince Vaughn gives a pretty cool halftime pep talk referencing Alex, the steel mill girl with a dream to dance (aka the plot of Flashdance). As a Harry Potter fan, it was a fun scene but Lyle’s comment about recommending a stag patronus in case of dementor attack… ugh, it annoys me cuz last I checked, you don’t choose what your patronus looks like. The form chooses you. Although Snape’s patronus in the deathly hallows might prove otherwise…

Next is a “create your own app” challenge where the team with the most downloads wins… once we get out the annoying loop that includes “on the line/online” and “exchange-a-gram," Team Lyle comes up with their million download idea after a crazy night out off campus. The first time any of the younger interns really get to experience the real world so it comes with a lot of shenanigans but also some cool moments.

After hearing the lot of them bemoan they need to win because jobs are no longer a sure thing after graduating from college, it's nice for them to get away from that stress and find a way to savor the in-between moments.

The final two challenges are the most pivotal to the plot for typical plot reason- one where all hope seems lost afterwards and one that’s a redemption arc.
Josh Gad has somewhat of a small role in this movie until this point, where he sort of becomes a mentor to Vince Vaughn while he’s studying for the customer hotline challenge. He has a cool line about how mentoring him isn't like teaching a kid the alphabet, it's like teaching them a single letter. Pretty deep stuff and the best part… I’ll leave for you to find out. It’s always a cool moment when a background character winds contributing to the plot in a huge way.

Another entertaining detail- in the first class where Mr. Chetty teaches the interns the do's and don't's of the program and outright refuses to “get a cold one” with Vince Vaughn, they have banter about different food items interns can’t take home with them… Aasif Mandvi was a regular correspondent on The Daily Show in his heyday so his improv chops are put to good use. But the funniest part- throughout the movie after that scene, you’ll see Vince Vaughn eating one of the food items mentioned in that conversation.

And say what you want about the guy, Vince Vaughn is a hell of a salesman. At one point I think Owen Wilson says he could sell ice to an Eskimo or some other version of that adage.
Also he co-wrote the script. While it’s not perfect, it’s good in the moments where the chips are down and it really counts.

41. Midnight in Paris (2011)

Code-name: Nostalgia

Writer/Director: Woody Allen
Type: Fantasy, Drama, Romance

Cast:
[Mortals]
Gil Pender- Owen Wilson
Inez- Rachel McAdams
Inez's mother, Helen- Mimi Kenndedy
Inez's father, John- Kurt Fuller
Paul- Michael Sheen
Carol- Nina Arianda
Tour Guide- Carla Bruni
Gabrielle- Lea Seydoux
Adriana- Marion Cotillard
[Immortal Greats of the Arts]
1920's
Zelda Fitzgerald-Alison Pill
F. Scott Fitzgerald- Tom Hiddleston
Cole Porter- Yves Heck
Ernest Hemingway- Corey Stoll
Gertude Stein- Kathy Bates
Pablo Picasso- Marcial Di Fonzo Bo
T.S. Eliot- David Lowe
Salvador Dali- Adrien Brody
Henri Matisse- Yves-Antoine Spoto
1890's
Toulouse Lautrec- Vincent Menjou Cortes
Degas- François Rostain
Gauguin- Olivier Rabourdin

Awards & Nominations:
OSCAR- Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Picture
nomination- OSCAR- Best Director (Woody Allen)
nomination- OSCAR- Best Art Direction
Golden Globe- Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)- Owen Wilson
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Picture (Comedy/Musical)
nomination- Golden Globe- Best Director (Woody Allen)
AFI- Best Film of the Year
Grammy- Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media

Write-up:

[On a Whim...]

As a general rule, I usually don't like to buy movies without seeing them first. But in the rare occasion that I do, it works out pretty well. The one thing it didn't... well, I'm willing to give "The Big Lebowski" another shot. It just wasn't at all what I expected. I'll never make that mistake with Coen Brothers films again.(While on the subject, I loved "Burned After Reading" and really enjoyed "Fargo").

I've heard of "Midnight in Paris," but only who was in it and it was already up for several Golden Globes. I had trouble imagining Owen Wilson as a serious contender for Best Actor.
I remember watching the awards show and seeing it win Best Original Screenplay (Woody Allen wasn't present to accept).

Then the following night I had the most unusual dream that made me take the gamble of buying it... On a good night, I'm a vivid dreamer and often times, celebrities star in them with or without me.
The dream was as follows: I was in a relationship with Rachel McAdams and I had serious thoughts about cheating on her with Owen Wilson, who I happened to be good friends with and was venting to about the current lull in said relationship.
I'd go further, but the entry as a whole would do better if I kept my mental dialogue out of it. For the record, I am straight :-P but I don't mind divulging when I have a girl crush.

So yeah, probably the strangest reason to pick up a movie... and this worked out better than I could have imagined. To me, "Midnight in Paris" was one of those "life-changing" movies because I was a different person after seeing it.

[Plot]

Before I get too ahead of myself, here's the plot in a nutshell:

Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) is a former Hollywood screenwriter struggling with his first novel. He's vacationing in Paris, his favorite city in the world, with his fiancé Inez and her parents. While returning home from a wine tasting, he stumbles upon an old Peugeot, which transports him into 1920's Paris... which happens to be teeming with his personal heroes of art and literature.


[Old Friends and New Friends]
Spoilers Start Sprinkling in from this point on...

As if picking up where they left off in "Wedding Crashers" (just change the names and add in new people), Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams play an engaged couple vacationing in Paris with her parents. Except the movie becomes less about them as a couple and more about Gil (Owen Wilson) finding himself as a writer alongside his personal heroes.

Up to this point, the only Woody Allen movie I ever saw was "Antz." Yeah, I know, it's animated and he didn't write/direct it, so it really shouldn't count. But as I got lost in the fantasy of this movie and the depth of its dialogue, I instantly became a fan.

2010 had quite a few movies I enjoyed because their scripts were fresh and different. Often times, they were comedic in nature and made jokes out of things people think but often won't say aloud. Having said that, "Midnight in Paris" stood out to me because it was probably the cleverest writing I'd seen in a movie. I related so much to Gil Pender as a fellow writer and in that he's such a dreamer. To be real, nobody outside of movies talks the way he does, but the way he explained things... it's hard to describe, exactly, but I agreed with his way of thinking. Other characters too. They often address commonplace things and editorialize what they see. The dialogue has a lot of depth and more than enough room to breathe so you can take it in at your own pace.
I wanna say it's a writer/director thing, but it might just be a Woody Allen thing. This movie convinced me to give "Annie Hall" a shot (which I enjoyed quite a bit), but I need to see more of his work to be absolutely sure.

As much as I liked Rachel McAdams's look in this movie, I liked her character less and less as the movie went on. It's so strange how the two seem so in love at the beginning, but over time, you start to wonder why they're even together because their ideals are so different. Gil's a dreamer, but Inez and her family are wealthy realists. There's a conversation in the beginning where he and her father (Kurt Fuller, who I know as Woody the M.E. in "Psych") butt heads. Gil is absolutely in love with Paris and his would-be father-in-law looks down on it. He says how much he hates their politics because they never pledged their support to America. Gil backs them up, saying they probably didn't want to follow us "down that rabbit hole" in Iraq...

So he gets the impression (from this as well a comment he made about the Tea Party) that Gil is a communist because he doesn't agree with him.
Again, I don't want to get off topic, but that closed-minded-ness just annoyed the hell out of me.

Even more annoying was the character of Paul. (I'd only seen him previously as Aro of The Volturi in the "Twilight" films). When they weren't spending time with her parents, Gil gets dragged into spending time with Inez's college friend, Paul and his wife, Carol. They'd spend time in certain artistic areas of the city and Paul would give them tours as if he knew EVERYTHING. Like he's an expert in fine art, wine and so many other things and Inez eats it up as if he's Jesus Christ.
As it turns out, there is a word for someone like him, which shows up in the book Gil is writing about the man working in the nostalgia shop.

 

Pedantic: (adj) someone who makes a show of knowledge

Two scenes I find particular infuriating involving him:

• he argues with an actual tour guide (played by the actual wife of France's then-President, Nicolas Sarkozy) over who inspired Rodin
• they're in an art museum and happen to stumble across the Picasso painting Gil saw the night before at Gertude Stein's... he tries to explain the truth, but Inez thinks he's high. Earlier in this scene, she also tells him to shut up, adding "you might learn something," as if Paul's word is always true and Gil's wrong even when he isn't.

Could it be more obviously that Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen were dating at the time?

Out of the actors who play the historic figures, Adrien Brody (an oddly hilarious Salavador Dali who seems to be obsessed with rhinoceroses), Kathy Bates (a very helpful Gertude Stein) and Zelda (Alison Pill, who I briefly mentioned in "Scott Pilgrim") and Scott Fitzgerald (Loki himself, Tom HIddleston) were the only ones I recognized.
Then there was Marion Cotlillard who played fellow dreamer and artist groupie Adriana, who I'd only previously seen in "Inception," but this would become the role I'd forever associate with her. Not just because I love her in flapper fashion, but I loved the relationship between her and Gil. How they have so much in common, how she almost proved to be more compatible with him than Inez. You're just drawn to her immediately.

All of the renderings were on point. You truly believed that they were these historical figures. How F. Scott Fitzgerald used the term "Old Sport" as his character Gatsby did regularly. How Dali and the other surrealists were so out there in the matter of speaking. Probably the most convincing was the dude who played Hemingway. He was SO hard-core and intense. I thought Corey Stoll deserved a little awards recognition for this portrayal.

[Golden Age Syndrome]

My code-name for this movie was "nostalgia" for a number of reasons.
Gil's protagonist is a man that works in a nostalgia shop, which sells memorabilia and such. He wishes he lived in 1920's Paris because it was a time period that inspired many of his heroes and he'd like to have that experience as well. 

Then there's a side-plot later on where he and Adriana stumble across a horse-drawn carriage that takes them to Paris in the 1890's, a time she wishes she could disappear into. There, they meet artists Degas and Gauguin who long to be in the Renaissance. This more or less puts an end to Gil's romance with Adriana because he realizes he'd only been escaping into the 20's to run away from things in his own life.

In a way, I can relate to this phenomenon as well. I'm particularly nostalgic for the pop culture of the 80's. I was born in 1986, so I'm really fascinated with this decade. Some of my favorite movies and some of the best music comes from the 80's.
After seeing this movie, would I still take the chance of visiting the decade? Absolutely. But I never want to get to the point where I get tired of it.

[Souvenirs]

Aside from a couple of actors, I got a lot of other things out of this movie. Paris was shown in such a gorgeous way that I have even more reasons to want to go visit. The way the film is shot, how Gil and some of the other character speak so lovingly about the city... it's breathtaking. It brings out the romantic in you, but here they show it in ways you don't quite expect.

Before the film, I'd read Fitzgerald and Hemingway and knew of Dali and Picasso. Afterwards, I became acquainted with Gertude Stein, Matisse, Degas and Gauguin... I want to get to know their works... if only to be better prepared for the category in Jeopardy 8-) and I'm always up for getting more culture in the arts. Open my mind to new and different experiences, kinda the way I did in Chinese culture when we covered the different religions and art forms.

...ironically, I'm posting this on Michael Sheen's 45th birthday. Except for Aro, it seems like every other role I see him in, I just want to punch him in the face :-P he never seems to play any likable characters