Please Give

Deb 6 Me 6

Back in 1990 there was a HBO special featuring an unknown Tim Allen doing an act titled “Men are Pigs”. I cracked up. Then the guy got a TV show based on the material and I didn’t pay much attention. Each TV episode was based on a single bit or line from the stand-up show. The TV version was stretched and watered down to the point it became inane and I didn’t watch it, although I liked the material it was based on.

So it is with mainstream movies. Usually they are based on a premise from a classic movie, sometimes a single plot line or even a phrase from an ageless film. Then it is stretched and diluted and disguised and presented as a new idea.

This flick has a respectable cast, we both like Catherine Keener, at least since she played Harper Lee in Capote. Oliver Platt is steady as a rock, and the gal that played Millie on the Dick Van Dyke Show had a big role and she was a treat.

The movie had a neat premise, people buy furniture from estates of the deceased and resell it for profit. Most everyone in the film is dysfunctional and has issues the others must deal with. There is guilt, there are laughs, they get old, blah blah. It seems to want to deal with big issues, but it’s just kind of a flat movie watered down to be palatable by the biggest number of moviegoers possible.