A movie after my own heart -- almost the title sequence is about breakfast cereals, which I love but don't eat anymore since once I start eating them I tend to eat them for all three meals. After four days of only Captain Crunch and Lucky Charms my body starts doing weird things. And by weird I mean disgusting. Apparently once you turn 40 sugary breakfast cereals aren't your friends anymore.
The movie was directed by Michael Lehmann, who directed one of my all-time favorite movies, HEATHERS, and features Zooey Deschanel. According to Wiki it was released in December, 2007. It was in the theaters for nine days and made $778. Yes, less than a thousand dollars.
The story: this guy manages a cereal shop (kind of like a coffee shop, only instead of coffee people come in and get bowls of cereal), but really he wants to be a musician but he never gives any time to his music. Then his girlfriend loses her job and offers to take over the store so he can finish his album. He fires her. At the same time a guy who wanted to franchise the store but was turned down opens another cereal store right across the street, so the girlfriend goes to work for him. The stores compete until the original store is out of money and closes. The guy works for the other store, but now his girlfriend fires him. So he hires a lawyer and sues the store and they win and everything works out okay and he makes his album and stuff.
Yikes. To say this movie wanders a bit is being generous. I just it makes sense since it's that whole Gen X get your life together sort of thing, but you'd think that as a movie, even if the main character is a bit unfocused, that the movie itself would be very focused. Again, stories at the most basic are the protagonist wants something and we watch them try to achieve it. It's never clear here what he is trying to achieve. It isn't really about getting money together. It doesn't seem to be the store vs store stuff, since it's not like he really seems invested in the original store -- he doesn't own it and doesn't want to work there forever and I think he leaves it at the end anyway. There isn't really anything to his relationship -- they are on opposite sides of the store vs store, but there's no real tension of will they be together or not and nothing in the story explores their relationship with any depth.
This was a big disappointment. I'm a fan of Zooey Deshcanel and Michael Lehmann's HEATHERS is one of my all time favorites.
** AVOID ***
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