Countdown to TixMas #5: Winter Passing (Ticket Stubs #47)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The TixMaster

'Tis the fifth night of the Countdown to TixMas, and all through the blog,

few readers are reading my holiday slog.

This One A HoliDay special which I have written,

today has Zoey Deschanel drowning a kitten.

And each line of this poem I'm composing myself

hints at a Will Ferrell movie where he doth not play an Elf.

But enough of this Christmas-y, poetic half-assing;

It's time for a Ticket Stubs on the film, Winter Passing.

As I said at the end of my Guardians Of the Galaxy: Holiday Special review (and referenced in the above impromptu composition), this post features a review of mine from the "old MySpace" days--you can tell because of the "current mood" tag--of the 2005 film, Winter Passing, in which Elf stars Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel swap billing and take things way too seriously.

The review was originally part of a double-feature post titled SW@ Ticket #54: Black & White, FROM July 16, 2008, when my Current mood on MySpace was eccentric. I had posted fifty-three review issues of SW@ Ticket alone on Yahoo! Groups before switching to MySpace. Social forums such as Yahoo! Groups were being banned on campus at the time, so many of my reviews that I wrote offline (which I called the SW@ Ticket Archive) were forgotten in the backlog and misnumbered. The Black & White entry was one such piece, and is the true fifty-fourth issue of SW@ Ticket; sequentially (if not chronologically) the first review I posted on a platform other than Yahoo! Groups. Did I mention at some point that I really know how to pick the hot new social media thing? I'm almost as bad at it as I am good at Dad Jokes and sarcasm.

You know what's an even better pairing than Dad Jokes and sarcasm?

Liking and commenting on this post! You can do both at the bottom. There are a few buttons down there, and a text field where you can spread TixMas cheer or express other opinions. So, yeah. Go do those. I and the finicky, internet robot spiders that tell you what's cool would really appreciate it.

I have to do an old vs. new copy-and-paste thing with this review where depression and comedy mix with snow for some (more or less) interesting cinema. Check it out:

In the black comedy, Winter Passing. Zooey Deschanel is more black hole than star as a shy and monotonously depressed and depressing young woman who, upon drowning her kitten for no apparent reason and being hounded by a famous publisher, makes her way back home where she finds her father (William Hurt) has gone mad and a wannabe rock star (Will Ferrell) is living in her house. There are moments amid the depression when comedy shines through like a 20-watt bulb in a tub of pea soup. After much awkwardness, crying, stoicism, and insignificant conversation that often fills the average trying-to-be-real drama, we and the characters end in a place no different from where we started.

Will Ferrell's over-the-top idiocy is sufficiently less over-the-top and idiotic than in Anchorman, due to being smothered by the surrounding gloom, so that he becomes just a caring and likeable dim-bulb; in short (notwithstanding the additional star power of Hurt and Deschanel), Will Ferrell is this movie's only saving grace. But while the movie may have been a waste of my viewing time, I find its parallels to Catcher in the Rye interesting by themselves. Hurt plays a writer who chose to resign himself to hermitage and never write again (much to the tune of CitR author, J.D. Salinger), and Deschanel's character has the last name of Holden (as in Holden Caulfield, the depressed, cynical main character of Catcher in the Rye). Goddamn phonies!

F+

TixMaster's Note: The following is the original, MySpace version of what received the Greatest Hits treatment above. You will notice that there are the usual omissions, like foul and otherwise unprofessional language and spoiled "plot" details, as well as phrasing that is more sympathetic and empathetic than shocking in the above revision. I chose to leave in one instance of foul language in the name of artistic license: the "Goddamn phonies!" closer. It is an iconic phrase used by Holden Caulfield in the referenced work, to refer to those whom he deems pretentious, overly artsy, or hard-working. We all gotta get that brass ring whatever it takes, right? Even if we just end up going in circles with nothing but a non-precious metal circle in our hands for our efforts. Even if that pursuit (or the choice to stubbornly not pursue) drives us insane. Which is why I'm sticking to this thirteen-plus day marathon of posts. And doing "the definition of insanity" by posting the same thing twice and expecting different results. So, this issue, depression and comedy mix with snow for some (more or less) interesting cinema. Check it out:

We begin with the black comedy, Winter Passing. Zooey Deschanel stars--or rather, is a black hole--as a shy and monotonously depressed and depressing young woman who, upon drowning her kitten for no apparent reason and being hounded by a famous publisher, makes her way back home where she finds that her father (William Hurt) has gone mad and a wannabe rock star (Will Ferrell) is living in her house. There are moments amid the depression when comedy shines through like a 20-watt bulb in a tub of pea soup. For instance, Hurt and Ferrell playing golf in the gutted upstairs bedroom (Hurt's character sleeps in the backyard and works and lives in the garage). After much awkwardness, crying, stoicism, and go-nowhere stonerspeak, the movie ends with Deschanel in better financial condition and in pretty much the same emotional condition as when it began. Will Ferrell's over-the-top idiocy is sufficiently less over-the-top and idiotic than in Anchorman, due to his being smothered by the surrounding gloom, so that he becomes just a caring and likeable dim-bulb; in short (notwithstanding the additional star power of Hurt and Deschanel), Will Ferrell is this movie's only saving grace. But while the movie may be shit, I find its parallels to Catcher in the Rye interesting by themselves. Hurt plays a writer who chose to resign himself to hermitage and never write again (much to the tune of CitR author J.D. Salinger), and Deschanel's character has the last name of Holden (as in Holden Caulfield, the depressed, cynical main character of Catcher in the Rye). Goddamn phonies!

F+

Stay Tuned, wait smart, and save those Ticket Stubs for tomorrow's conclusion of the Black & White double-feature: a winter-set comedy of errors starring the late Robin Williams. And speaking of Countdowns, Robin Williams, comedians being too serious, and passing, you can also check out my review of Williams' final film in Just the Ticket #99: Cinematic Callbacks (which was my last post before starting my Countdown to Hallows' Eve in 2015). Have a merry day, and

TixMaster,

Out.