Matthew McConaughey's comedic talents are criminally overlooked. Everyone knows brah has pecs and is widely credited with inventing chill, but few realize just how funny he is, on and off the screen. In terms of Hollywood movie stars, he's one of the few I can stomach as a human being. Along with Nic Cage, McCon is one of the "actors" in the cast of my Fantasy Film (kinda like Fantasy Baseball except for pop culture nerds). I see all of McCon's movies and will tell anyone who'll listen that The Wedding Planner is a delight. Most people think I'm being sarcastic when I rhapsodize about the McCon. He was People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, surely he doesn't also make great movies? Of course he doesn't, but who does these days? Issues of "great" or even "good" are beside the point. If 2010 has so far taught us anything in terms of entertainment, it's that we must lower our lowered expectations even further, and perhaps look to the not-so-distant or not-much-better past for our entertainment. Like say, 2005's Two For The Money co-starring Al Pacino. In no possible sense is it "good", but it's entertaining in spite of or maybe because of its many failures. McCon is a constant reminder of what we seem to have lost: movie star-driven vapidity, which is surprisingly less offensive than brand-driven vapidity.
I remember a time when movie stars had a very specific job to do--which was appearing to be better than us in all things--and them doing this job was essential to our happiness. Tom Cruise was a little king among men. Mel Gibson was a mulleted god who shot people with a twinkle in his eye. What the fuck has happened since then? Our movie stars have been exposed as merely human and perhaps not as beautiful on the inside as they are on the surface. We now regularly see up their skirts and read what they are thinking on a minute-to-minute basis. They have awkward political views which they feel the need to utter in public. They champion ethical and environmental causes and in the process acknowledge that a world exists outside of Hollywood. There is no more mystery as to whether or not they are better than us-- they aren't, just richer. I believe our cultures hopelessness and apocalyptic dread are directly in line with the demystification of our movie stars at the hands of entertainment journalism and the internet. The system used to protect its own, now it turns them out, cuts them down. The balance has been lost and all is not right with the world. But McConaughey harkens back to a simpler time. He is one of the last true movie stars, who in the process of showing us how down-to-earth he is, reveals himself to be floating high above us in the stratosphere--an awesome place we we are never meant to know.
To McCon the actor, characters are simply thinly-veiled versions of himself, and the films he appears in merely advertisements for his own established brand of relaxed virility. To McCon the man, Hollywood is just a way to fund his camping trips and cook-outs, and must never interfere with the endlessly braking wave that is life, a wave meant to be surfed into the arms of chillness. Even McCon's camera-ready body is not the result of some rigorously prescribed training regime, but rather the fruits of his exercise philosophy of "breaking a sweat at least once a day". Sweat can be broken playing Ultimate Frisbee on the beach with his brahs, or simply by throwing heavy stones into the water to see them splash. It's all good. McCon named his son Levi, surely after the jeans that are at once a symbol of American ruggedness and personal comfort. Only this Levi wasn't made in China, no sirree. This Levi was manufactured in the belly of a supermodel, with premium materials provided by McCon himself. It is these aspects of McConaughey's real life persona, always transparent at the core of his disposable ouevre of movies, that have a calming effect on the viewer. In a world where Martin Riggs is angrily demanding to be blown by BitchCuntWhoreGoldDiggers and Maverick is hysterically cataloguing the crimes of psychiatry, McCon is there to tell you to J.K.Livin-- The J is for Just and the K is for Keep.
J.K. Livin is not only McCon's trademarked motto, but the name of his lifestyle website which asks if you want to "Enter Easy" or "Real Easy" (both answers lead to the same place, so don't worry about the choice harshing your buzz). McCon's website has a McConaughey Fact ticker that I once watched for 45 minutes straight without ever seeing a repeat. It informs the weary internet traveler things like:
- He has won 16 water drinking competitions
- He writes poetry and short stories in his free time and is so humble that the never bothers to publish them
- Every year he goes on a 3 week walkabout by himself somewhere in the world
- On one of his walkabouts, he became a wrestling champion in 4 African villages
- His favourite number is 8
My favourite McCon story comes from the press junket for Reign of Fire, a movie about a post-apocalyptic world ruled by dragons. He did the junket interview in-character as dragon-killer Denton Van Zan. When the reporter asked him what it was like to film Reign of Fire, McConaughey pretended as if the question was instead "how do you kill a dragon?" and proceeded to burn a hole in the camera with an intense description of the correct degree of sharpness your axe needs to be in order to penetrate the scales of a dragon. For a second, I believed McCon had actually killed a dragon. Hell, I believed that dragons were real. That's a fucking Movie Star!
Okay, Two For The Money. Well, it is terrible.TER-RI-BLE. That's of course not surprising. And yet it was more entertaining than most of the films on pretty much every critics 10 best list from 2005. It was definitely more entertaining than Capote. Way, way more entertaining than Cache. And with the exception of the moment where Jake Gylenhall says "I don't know how to quit you", totally more entertaining than Brokeback Mountain. Crash? Fuck, don't get me started on how much better Two For The Money is than Best Picture winner, Crash. The point is, pound for pound, this little-seen, money-losing Pacino-McCon vehicle provides more of what we actually desire from movies--entertainment-- than all the rest of those precious darlings above. Perhaps it's cynical and jaded to admit that I purposely seek out Hollywood's many failures rather than it's few successes, but it's the truth. I regularly plumb the depths of what the industry has to offer, dumpster diving behind Hollywood's abortion clinic for my reverse-entertainment. 9 times out of 10 I'll rent the DVD with a glowing box quote from Arkansas Web Radio Affiliates, rather than the movie boasting a list of awards and critic raves from publications I've actually heard of. Two For The Money provides exactly what I'm looking for in these masochist garbage raids. It's preposterous, clueless and totally hilarious throughout.
To give you an idea of how much more entertainment Two For The Money provides over say, An Education to pull something out of a hat, look no further than the DVD's Main Menu which had me laughing out loud (LOLing?). The movie hadn't even started yet and already it was funny. That's how badgood it is. Then the movie actually starts and its a retarded mix of machismo and misplaced sentimentality complete with hysterical childhood flashbacks and terrible narration. After that, Pacino shows up and once again reminds you to forget that he was ever considered one of the greatest actors of all time. To say that he chews the scenery is a massive understatement. He fucks it without consent and then chews it up, snorts the crumbs and then looks around wild-eyed for more. The Devil's Advocate with Keanu Reeves is one of my favourite movies from the 90's. In it, Pacino plays, oh, what's his name again? Oh right, SATAN! It's an absolutely hilarious, wild performance where the 5 foot 2 inch Pacino constantly screams for the backrow of the multiplex. I feel like Pacino has been playing a slight variation on his Satan role ever since, and Two For The Money is no different. Almost every one of his scenes contains a ridiculous monologue about the nature of man and vice and Pacino seems to relish every over-sold word.
In Two For The Money, McCon plays a sports-betting expert or something and he goes on a rags-to-riches-to-rags rollercoaster ride with Pacino's amoralist svengali. The transitions back and forth between lean times and salad days are so abrupt that it's impossible to take any of the dramatic implications seriously, especially with Pacino screaming his lines as if they are all fodder for Best Actor nomination clips. The whole movie feels like a series of mistakes strung together with the plot husks of several other movies. The 3rd billed presence of former almost-was Rene Russo confirms that the movie shouldn't even exist. I'm glad it does though. Keep 'em coming, McConaughey.
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