Ticket Stubs #18.5: Drag Ain't Easy, Either

Back in the second issue of Ticket Stubs, I promised that "the other Pimpin' Ain't Easy selection, the brilliantly pointless Broken Flowers, is another review for another day." Well, that day has come. But first, a critical history lesson that proves Drag Ain't Easy, Either:

FROM September 10, 2004 (SW@ Ticket #17: Drag): In Shakespeare's plays, women weren't allowed to perform, so men  played the female roles. In the script, when a female character entered, Shakespeare would write DRAG (DRessed As Girl). And so the term drag queen was born.

You learn something new every day on SW@ Ticket, and today I'm going to review the gay masterpiece known as Connie and Carla. Starring writer/director Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and English actress Toni Colette (Shaft) as the title pair, Connie and Carla is packed with annoying but familiar show-tunes, a few minutes of Lucy and Ethel-style slapstick, a bit too much Gigli-style romance, and just the right number of Drag Queens to make the movie funny and bearable. Connie and Carla are two women who have been performing the same show-tune montage since they were ten years old ("You only have one life. Might as well enjoy it." But what does that have to do with singing show-tunes for thirty years?).
They fall on hard times and seek help from an airport lounge owner who gets killed by the mob because he screwed up on a coke deal. The two witnesses (our heroines) run off to LA (a place where there is "no culture at all to speak of") and pose as Drag Queens in an effort to remain unnoticed and still perform.
Running on the stereotype that Drag Queens lip sync and all gay people like show-tunes, Connie and Carla become a smash hit as the only show-tune-singing Drag Queens who actually sing. Connie falls for the straight brother of one of her fellow Queens (X-Files' David Duchovny). The mounting success of their show draws the mob to LA in time to ruin the final curtain, Debbie Reynolds lends a hand at the last minute, and Connie gets her man. Vardalos is too attractive to be believable as a Drag Queen, and Colette (being English) is too ugly to be believed as a woman, so it's all supposed to balance out. It just goes to show you that "Life is like a patio door. You never know what side will be open until you slam your face into the glass."
C-

Now that I'm done spouting artless, unfamiliar quotations, it's time to keep one of my promises.

FROM April 11, 2006 (SW@ Ticket #47: Pimpin' Ain't Easy): Bill Murray stars in Broken Flowers, a slightly dull mystery about a man (Murray) who embodies the old adage, "money can't buy happiness;" a man who got rich by investing in computers and spends his days alone and depressed, watching old movies and reading the mail. When a single pink envelope falls on his rug, Murray goes to his PI novel-obsessed neighbor (played by Jeffrey Wright, who got his ass kicked by Samuel L Jackson in Shaft), who sends the reluctant antihero on an interesting wild goose chase for the mother of his estranged son.
One teen mom, a real estate saleswoman, a redneck, and a lesbian pet psychic later, the viewer is faced with exactly the kind of bullshit, go-nowhere ending that could be (and was) nominated for an Academy Award. Murray's close-mouthed detective is beaten, rejected, and gradually transformed from a man who ignores the life of friendship and adventure he could have so easily embraced to a man who is obsessed with finding a life and a family that most likely do not exist. Ergo: Bullshit ending.
HOWEVER: what saves this movie from a SW@ Ticket F is the teenage boy who Murray sees leaning out the window of a passing car at film's end. In the credits, Boy In Car is revealed to be none other than Homer Murray, Bill Murray's actual son.
Cool, huh?
B+

If you liked that little twist, you may be wondering why I decided to make this a decimal issue instead of going straight to #19. If not, too bad. I have reserved the nineteenth issue of Ticket Stubs for the opportunity to kick off my two issue retrospective on The Heroic Journey, starting with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (and also serving as a nostalgic tribute to the upcoming Hobbit films), and culminating in a run-through of a certain writer's mediaverse (where the number 19 holds some significance) in the second issue of Cover Charge. So stay tuned and say thankya big-big, ye kennit?

"Kennit" means to understand, according to the Mid-World dictionary, and I understand it's time for another Critical Quickie:

Marley--Interesting tidbits permeate this documentary of the life and career of reggae legend and Rastafarian activist Bob Marley, but the two-and-a-half-hour running time, the super-thick Jamaican ghetto patois, and the un-translated subtitles quickly got in the way of any enjoyment I was anticipating. Just a little fair warning. :)
D+

This issue has come to the clearing at the end of its path, so until next time, Ticketholders!