CostaCoast

Info on the bar - I'm sure Chicago people caught right away that it was filmed in the Green Mill, an Uptown bar that was famous as Al Capone's favorite hangout - his booth is the one where you can see both entrances. They're still around, and have poetry slams, live jazz almost every night, and a variety show/"live magazine" on Saturday afternoons. There's a wood paneled paintings illustrating a poem about the time the place got raided during prohibition, and there are apparently escape tunnels underneath. It's a really cool place. So exactly like they show it in the movie.

The Canadian government has a culture fund (perhaps real Canadians can explain better than I can?) that will fund movies that promote the country. There are I believe different amounts they will give you, depending on what percent of your cast and crew are Canadian, but it has to be set in Canada. That being said, between Jane Seymour telling ER she had to go back to Canada and Lei-O showing up in his Blue Jays jacket, I got at least through Denial and Anger in the stages of grief. Not sure I ever moved past anger though....

Alternate Title: MoonSuck I couldn't get a handle on wether Emma Roberts and Luigi would've really known each other that well, which made it all the more disturbing when he prances around naked in front of her the morning after drunk soccer, and then lets her believe they had sex. You know, as a joke. Then as soon as she composes herself, Leo does the same thing! She wakes up in the morning from being blackout, and the first two people she talks to tell her they date raped her. Which, the more I think about it, I'm not convinced that Leo didn't. But that fits this movie, which HATES ER's character. She "wins" their little soccer game (which is just the two of them playing around in the park, alone. Is Rain Soccer supposed to be the rematch of that? Why would anyone care?) by standing still and getting knocked out by HC's kick. LATER - in cooking class, Jane Seymour (who is apparently the only chef in the world that Michelin changed their ratings system to give a fourth star to), pulls her out of class and tells her to go home for two weeks to change her visa for a job she may not even get, in which case she will be an unemployed cooking school dropout living on a work visa in the most expensive city in the world. But luckily, Leo is there with lines like "I wanna introduce you to someone - The Nikki I used to know." You know, before she ate so much kale. Are we still making jokes about kale? Even in the airport, at the end, when she is CARRYING OUT THE PLAN SHE HAD ALL ALONG, Leo and both families show up and say "What are you doing? Don't run away from HIM" and "It doesn't matter about them, I'VE CHANGED. I want to open MY own shop." No one gives a shit about the fact that SHE'S OPENING A RESTAURANT IN LONDON - with a famous chef - who she's studied with FOR YEARS and has CHANGED HER VISA FOR. It's more important that she stays at home and does the books at Pizza Organica. Of course, like all the garbage in this movie, the writers think that they can cover it up if they just point it out. Emma Roberts at one point says "How is it that I'm the one in culinary school, but you're the one coming up with the dishes?" (Also: TSA Agent: "Don't change your plans for no man") Hey screenwriters - EXACTLY. Why didn't you LET HER COME UP WITH SOME DISHES!?!?!? Why didn't you LET HER COOK???? The fact that she is a chef is immaterial to the movie. Her great cooking triumphs consist of slicing a raw fig and getting her grandma to share her sauce recipe. HC's rooftop 'za is talked about in detail, but in the cooking contest ER just seems to advance because she needs to; I have no idea what HER IDEAS were, only that she used Nonna's sauce. To top it off, at the end of our story (and the reveal of the source of the VO), Jane Seymour comes to the wedding to recruit ER, but in the end just ends up franchising LEO's PIZZA PLACE - which again, her only contribution to seems to be that her grandma was so horny over Danny Aiello that she gave away her sauce recipe. I wish the screenwriters had spent a little less of their Starbucks time asking for money, and a little more working on this nonsense script. Then again, they got one produced, so what do I know. Five Stars.

By CostaCoast

Assorted thoughts: Did anyone notice the large painting hanging in the basement of the antique shop, featuring what looks like Will Ferrel's character from the "Lovers" sketch on SNL and a RenFaire actress? It's very creepy. Also, the GPKs seem happiest when they toil away on the graveyard shift in an actual sweatshop...is this movie anti-union propoganda? The State Home for the Ugly doesn't make sense, but nearly every single character in this film belongs in prison. Greaser Greg alone threatens several people with a knife, is drunk driving on the little ATV, and attempts to rape Valerie Vomit, but the movie ends with them talking about all the new mischief they can get up to. Why does nothing pay off? The trip to the movies (disguised as Beat Poets?), Chekov's broken TV, the GPKs' "friends", the space pail, their clown disguises, Captain Manzini's search for a Magic Song...what am I missing?

https://soundcloud.c...cbb-plugs-theme I'm not a musician.