Ticket Stubs #39: Employee Of the Month
Happy 30th Birthday to me!
Yes, Ticketholders, I said apples. Oh, and hi, by the way. We're back to Christina Applegate's career as a sarcastically-quoted "film star," this time with a more positive review FROM February 8, 2005 (SW@ Ticket #32: Angered Critic - The Bludgeoning of Ron Burgandy, Employee of the Month), featuring the amazingly deceptive comedy Employee Of the Month.
The movie stars Christina Applegate, Matt Dillon (One Night At McCool's, Wild Things), and Steve Zahn (Joy Ride). Dillon is a disfigured nice guy who works at the local big bank, under a tightwad manager and his asshole son, who is--guess what?--Employee of the Month. Applegate is Dillon's recently acquired wife and Zahn is his criminal best friend who never shuts up.
While Zahn's character is chasing ambulances to lift expensive jewelry and replace it with fakes, Dillon's character is fired, divorced, relieved of his car, placed on a bus next to a homeless man sitting in his own filth, condemned to hell by the ex-wife's minister father, and attacked outside a strip club in the course of a single day. With one day left at the bank, Dillon's character prepares to go postal on the management, but will things work out as planned?Plenty of good twists that only a leftist asshole movie critic (Duncan Shepherd) at a certain free local circular (The San Diego Reader) would label as predictable, plenty more great comedy as Dillon's character gets romantic advice from a hooker, Zahn blames the male polygamist nature on tryptophan and oxytocin, and Dillon echoes the truthful outburst comedy of Jim Carrey's Liar Liar character. Even a few subtle background elements add comedy to less comic moments, echoing movies like Hot Shots! but not in the obnoxious Mel Brooks/Wayans Bros. fashion.
The ending even prompts slightly deep thought as it needs a second viewing to fully appreciate. Not the weird, non-linear stuff of McCool's that I enjoy so much, but even more well-rounded because of it.
A+ (Most Wanted)
If the Lyric Fits:
"Everything I am is an illusion."
-Matt Dillon, "Philosophy (The Remix)," Employee of the Month Soundtrack
You'd think a newly minted thirty-year-old would have moved out of his parents' house by now, or gotten a driver's license, or even bothered to request his birthday off so he could do something the least bit celebratory, but no. Guess I'll have to settle for a decent paycheck and tell you to stay tuned for an Amazing Spider-Man 2 review coming this Tuesday or Wednesday to a chunk of cyberspace near you. In the meantime, I'm almost ready to give you a new Heroines Are Made profile to consider.
I'm about to fire up iHeartRadio and listen to Skratch 'n' Sniff, so good night until then.
Ticketmaster Of the Month,
out.
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