Hot Tub Time Machine Thoughts

Before I discuss the story problems with this film, I want to preface it. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for months. John Cusack, the king of the 80’s, returning to an era he knows all too well, joined by talented funny guys, how could it go wrong? But while the concept was fun, it missed a lot of marks.

1) Humor — this movie has been advertised as a raunchy, crazy comedy, but it didn’t really do that at all. There were some subtle jokes thrown in the film, which I appreciated, but the laughs just weren’t frequent enough. I found scenes where it appeared they didn’t try to put any sort of jokes in it. For screenwriters the universal rule is there needs to be at least a joke on every page. Even if it’s not the funniest joke every written, you need something for everyone included.

2) Time Travel Talk — they spend way too much time discussing the theory of time travel, or how it worked, yada yada. At this point in the history of cinema, everyone has seen a few time travel movies. We get it. Just move on. Take a cue from Coppola’s only comedy (from the 80’s) “Peggy Sue Got Married.” Just jump into the story, let the characters and audience figure out what’s going on as the story continues. Don’t stop the action so these guys can sit in a room for what felt like 5 minutes.

3) The bad guy sucked — big time. The big “rival” to Rob Corddry’s character was hardly threatening, and I never felt like the guys were ever in any real danger of not returning. Part of the problem is you don’t ever meet this character until a third into the film, which is a real problem. The script needed to take a closer viewing of Back To The Future and see how they handled Biff, introducing him as a jackass who controls Marty’s Fathers life, to the end, where he kisses his ass.

4) The whole premise of Hot Tub Time Machine is that they travel back in time. And that’s why we are in our theater seats! So why do they wait until Act 2 before they FINALLY travel back in time? Too long! Too much backstory! I want to see these guys rip apart and make fun of people in the 80’s, not bitch and moan for the first 20 minutes about their lives.

I really wanted to love this film, it was aware the premise was ridiculous and was ready to go crazy. But then they backed off by trying to instill more of a deeper meaning into the film, which wasn’t going to work. Would I watch it again? Sure, but only for the actors…

Day 1: Job Hunt

As you may have seen on my Twitter feed, I’m now in Los Angeles, throwing my job net over the metropolis known as L.A., and all I’ve caught are crabs… wait a second… In the weeks leading up to moving, I began to realize my resume sucked, so I had been desperately re-tuning it to showcase my abilities. If anything positive comes out of job hunting, it’s that you spend hours pouring over 2-sheets of papers and over analyzing whether every word conveys who you are, so eventually you’re able to summarize your accomplishments pretty well.

Yahoo recently posted an article of 5 steps to help your job hunt. Of course it would be more helpful if they were new suggestions I hadn’t already seen. But what’s interesting to note was the large percent of people who said they’re unhappy with their new job. Bad sign for a lot of companies once the economy turns around.

I’m glad I’m beginning my job search before college seniors graduate in the spring, although it may not make that much of a difference. With a recent job I applied for, I went through the interview process and found out later who I was up against — people with years and years of experience, and they were all fighting me over a part time job. It’s brutal out there.

With all that said, I just have to keep at it. I spent several hours today calling production offices, searching online sites, and contacting recruiters. We’ll see where all these roads lead.