Coffee Town

Explanatory note: I am a Grobanite and I bought this movie, because it featured Josh Groban
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OK, let's start out with genre here.

This is basically like an extended TV sitcom.

Now, I haven't watched much TV recently.  I didn't watch for 30 years, when I had sworn off TV, and I only watch clips on YouTube, now.

But, when I was a kid, I watched a lot of sitcoms.  One of the things that happened to me, as a kid, with these programs, was that I often ran out of the room screaming.  Our house had a circuit around the stairs, and I would run out of the living room past the stairs through the corridor in back, through the kitchen, and back to the living room, screaming.  Then if the scene that bothered me was still going on, I would leave again.

I think sometimes this was due to sexual content that I was not prepared to watch, but now I realize there was something else.  When they set up the plot so that characters are preparing to do something really dumb, where they're going to get in trouble, I still want to run out of the room screaming.

This happened during this movie, but I had to force myself to sit there, because Josh was going to be appearing on and off and I didn't want to miss his appearances.

It was really hard for me not to run out of the room, even tho I'm now in my fifties, just as if I were still 8.

So here I am studying improv comedy and there are comedy scenes, scenes that other people love, where I feel like I have to run out of the room.  Awkward.

I guess, if I'm on stage at the time and my team members set up one of these plot devices, given that it's improv, I can really run off the stage screaming hysterically, and maybe it will be funny.  Shudder.  OK, Arrow, practice gibbering in an exaggerated fashion and screeching -- and hope people find it funny, even though it's not funny inside.

Back to the movie review.

I survived the movie.  I did not die, even tho I stayed and watched the part I didn't want to watch.  It sure felt like I was going to die.  Now this is not a criticism of the movie.  If you look back at the sitcoms I was having this type of problem with in the 60's it was stuff like "I Love Lucy."  I'm just weird.

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Anyway, some Grobies have been worried that this movie would be juvenile and full of poop jokes.

No.  It's not juvenile.  It's "College Humor." It's a bit higher brow than the typical movie fare, aimed at a higher intellect, actually fairly slow paced and thoughtful.  I liked that about the movie.  It doesn't have frequent scene cuts.  They take time to develop characters.  They don't do a bunch of sensationalist special effects.  The main character is narrating, while also acting his role, and he's thinking and he's got ethics and social consciousness, and all that wonderful stuff.

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Now about my concerns with stereotyping and bigotry.

We already know these College Humor people are ageist, because they excluded older Grobies from the free screening last year -- and, sure enough, there were virtually no people over 40 in the movie, other than, perhaps, the coffee shop owner, who is a bad guy.  College Humor has publicly stated that they were targeting an under 40 audience.

Also, I sort of suspected that it was going to be sexist, because there were 5 main characters and only one was a woman.  Sure enough it was about a bunch of guys talking to each other, and the woman was basically only a love interest.

I also don't recall seeing African American characters, or, if they were there, it was only in minor roles.

So it's College Humor for white, male college students ...

Actually not really.

These guys are kidding themselves.  They're not college age.  They're in their 30's.  So, it's humor for reasonably intelligent, single, white guys in their 30's who want to believe that they're still just like college students -- perhaps a bit of arrested development.  Also, if they exclude older Grobies from their screening, they can continue to fool themselves into thinking they are very young, when really they're in early middle age.

There seem to be a lot of guys like that who are constantly hoping that they really come off younger than they are.  Surprise, guys!  You're going to be over 40 yourselves soon.  Nyah-nyah!  Grumble.

But, I suppose, even when you're over 40, women are still going to exist only for your romantic fantasies.

Hey, Josh, do you notice that it's mostly women who buy your albums?

But the movie is not at all juvenile, and, while there were poop comments, they were fairly tasteful, all things considered, and very few instances of the "f" word.  Mostly it was thoughtful and philosophical.

I liked the way they dealt with the retarded man, one of those few instances where they were inclusive.

So attitudes toward women and older people were bad, but toward people with disabilities not bad.   So I can give them a grudging point towards stepping out of bigotry a bit...

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Now about Josh.  I thought he did a good job.

It was a major role.  He was not the star.  He was the antagonist.

I'm used to seeing Josh on stage and on twitter going into this goofy childlike persona.  I have come to believe that that is really him, that child persona, that he's in fact not entirely grown up.  I sometimes wonder whether, in private, he's obnoxiously immature and whether that's why he is still single.

In any case, in this movie, he is playing someone who is grown up, and the goofy kid makes no appearances, so that says something already.

When Josh played in "The Office" and also in "Crazy, Stupid, Love," his characters spoke in a high voice.  The same was true in Josh's early interviews on Talk Shows.  Also, when Josh does impressions, he often goes into a high voice.  By contrast, in this movie, the high voice only appears when Josh is singing a bit of falsetto.   You definitely wouldn't take him for the same character he played in "The Office" or "Crazy, Stupid, Love."

He gets to show quite a range of emotions, tho, perhaps predictably, the one he does most affectingly is heartbreak, where he really grabs your heart ... just like on stage.

Still, I thought he showed that he can act.  I know some people feel that he's not good at it, but I liked what he did there as an actor.

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Anyway, overall, I can't say that I loved the movie.  There were parts of it I liked.  I wouldn't say I disliked it, either, tho.

Since I'm a Grobie (Yes, Josh, I know you don't like that term and I'm using it anyway, just to bug you, Nyah-nyah, again...) I'm interested in what Josh does, and therefore this movie was a must see.

I bought my copy, so, eventually, I am hoping to show the movie to my kids who are white males, tho they are actually really college age, unlike the College Humor people.  And, unlike the guys in their 30's, my sons are actually much less tasteful when making poop and sex jokes. This could be a step up for them.

Also I might invite a Grobie or two to watch it some time.

Maybe if I watch it a second time, I won't have to hold on quite so tightly to the arms of my chair to keep from running out screaming.