Stay Cool, 2009

Definitely not a must-see but very enjoyable.

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I don’t like to bother with low-budget, straight to DVD movies but this one had a lot of promise: A plethora of great actors, the presage of a story about a middle-aged man, and a poster that looks like it was doodled on a piece of paper. Come on, a movie about a high school and the poster has little scribbles and drawings on it. It’s awesome and completely original. How charming! In most cases, when a movie goes straight to DVD… it is an indication of a bad movie. The movies usually aren’t picked up by a studio for a reason. But with movies like Unthinkable proving that gems are sometimes overlooked, it’s only fair to give a straight to DVD release a chance. Stay Cool follows 37 year old author Henry McCarthy as he heads back to his home town to give the commencement speech to the high school’s graduating class. Everything would be fine but, ruh-roh, he still has feelings for his high school crush. Henry has a book called “How Lionel Got Me Laid” which is a novel chronicling his geeky high school career while talking about his enormous love for his high school crush. Now the plot of this movie is nothing to write home about. It is a very generic, middle-aged man returns to his home town, reunites with old buddies, runs in to people from high school, and tries to obtain the love that never was type of movie. My problem with the story is that it just isn’t interesting at all. The plot has been done many times before and was done again in this movie, only with very little diversity. The movie is sporadically narrated by Henry with snippets from his book. Through this narration, we learn about the girl he was once in love with in his Chemistry class. This girl is Scarlet, played by Winona Ryder. The narration is fun and gives us a sense of what has been going through Henry’s mind for the past 20 years since graduating high school. What’s going through his mind is he just wishes the hot cheerleader noticed him. Since this movie plays out formulaically, it only makes sense for Henry to return to his home town and meet up with Scarlet who wishes she would have paid attention to the now “hot” nerd. There isn’t much to their relationship. And how could there be? They’re only together for a few days or so. Winona Ryder doesn’t strike me as the hot former cheerleader. She tries to play cute and charming but cute and charming just aren’t enough to keep us interested in her character. Cute isn’t a character Ms. Ryder should play. She attempts to repress her character but she ends up acting like this teenager in a high school play instead of a 37 year old woman. Henry and Scarlet have their rom-com moments in the movie, but the two as a couple just aren’t convincing at all. And it’s ironic because even though it’s trying to show that these two characters like each other, their relationship proves that the love just may not exist 20 years later. Henry, played by the movie’s writer, Mark Polish (as well as being the twin brother of the director Michael Polish who goes by the pseudonym Ted Smith), returns to his high school and is greeted by his former principal, the great Chevy Chase. And what can one really say about a Chevy Chase performance? Chase is Chase. He’s arguably funny even when he’s not trying to be. It’s too bad for Chase that, despite his limited screen time, his character wasn’t written very well. He treats Henry like he’s a student. He even suspends him in the movie. Don’t get me wrong. It’s funny. Just out of place. This movie seemed to suffer with lots of things that are out of place. One of Henry’s best friends, Big Girl, is played by Sean Astin, who is supposed to be this over the top flamboyantly gay character complete with purple leopard print seat covers, flowing robes, and a Mini Cooper named Liza. I think it’s safe to say that Sean Astin is better at accidentally playing a gay character as Sam from Lord of the Rings than playing Big Girl in this movie. Watching him try to queen out is enough to make Adam Lambert cringe. He gets the point across as Henry’s outcast friend but it’s not as easy playing a screaming ‘mo as it may seem. Another out of place character is Shasta O’Neil, played by Hilary Duff. Unless her character went completely over my head, Shasta is supposed to be the hot high school senior Henry couldn’t get with then, but can get with now. The problem is Shasta is supposed to be a love interest and is supposed to be Henry’s second chance at the hot popular senior, but that plot point isn’t conveyed very well. Shasta ends up being just some girl who has an interest in Henry. She gives him sideways glances when he sits in on the class, and she tries to make him her rebound when she breaks up with her boyfriend. What makes her unnecessary is that Henry shows no interest at all in her. He ends up escorting her to the senior prom (weird, I know) but he seems to only do it to amuse her and to give him something to do. Whenever she came on screen I found myself rolling my eyes. She brings nothing to the story and she doesn’t really advance Henry’s character along since Henry has zero interest in her. As generic as the story is, it’s just not put together very well. This movie seems to want to be so many things. If this were a romantic-comedy, a drama-dy about being middle-aged and still in love with your high school crush, or just a flat out comedy, then it may have scored better. But, unfortunately, it’s all of those things and it’s a bit of overkill. It just all feels very disjointed. Henry isn’t a very likable character. I think this is mostly due to Mark Polish’s acting. Some people are meant to write, some people are meant to act. But some aren’t meant to do both in the same movie. We’re meant to connect with Henry. How many of us have had that crush in high school that we knew was completely unobtainable? But how many of us are still brooding over said crush 20 years later? Maybe it’s because I’m but a young naïve twenty-something or maybe it’s because I was created without an emotional microchip, but even in my twenties I know hanging onto a high school crush for 20 years merits a few hours in therapy. From what I gather, Henry comes off as the creepy nerdy kid who sat in the back of the classroom and spent the entire time staring at his crush and writing her name with his last name over and over. There is just nothing that makes me want to have the least bit of sympathy for him. He’s boring, annoying, and doesn’t have an interesting personality. Not all the characters are bad though. Josh Holloway plays Wino Henry’s weird, tattoo artist (and I’m assuming pot head based on the movie poster) best friend who provides a great deal of laughs. Frances Conroy’s character is supposed to be there to kick Henry in the butt but she seems underused. We’re supposed to hate her coming down so hard on Henry but then suddenly smile when she helps him at the VERY last minute. She’s another underdeveloped character but her acting is flawless as usual. Michael Gross (you know that guy from those movies) and Dee Wallace are hilarious as Henry’s parents despite being a bit cheesy at times. Oh and Jon Cryer is there too but whatever. When it comes to low budget indie movies, it’s always best to give some wiggle room with production. But, one part of production that couldn’t be ignored was the editing. Like many other aspects of this movie, the editing was weird and out of place. There were lots of unnecessary quick cuts and transitions that were just awkward and too quick. Much of the editing made the movie feel too rushed. But a redeeming quality for production is the way the movie is shot. There are lots of rich colors that translate very well onto the screen. Whether this was on purpose or not is questionable at this point, but it’s still a redeeming quality. The composition is great in many parts of the movie. This movie is what happens if one were to give college film students a decent budget to make a movie. Just like the straight to DVD movie Operation Endgame, this movie has a decent cast but a horrible script.

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