Jayne Mansfield's Car Is A Great Movie

I know, I know: two posts in one week - the subsequent shock to your system probably requires that you sit down and take some deep breaths. This is important, okay, so calm down.

First Off:
I shook this man's hand

Second Off:

This was a great movie

And Third Off:

Email is easy. It's just like writing a letter, only with your keyboard

And it hasn't changed in ten years!

I would like now to launch into what I consider to be a counter-attack on all the negative reviews out there concerning this film. I'll start out by saying that Mr. Thornton (you may recall I recently shook his hand), has no interest in either your approval or disapproval of his picture (I speak to those internet-based movie reviewing neophyte's who regard storytelling as a succession of structural checkpoints rather than a living breathing thing). 

Jayne Mansfield's Car is "willfully out of step," and will "struggle to connect with an audience," says Justin Chang of Variety. It "lacks consistent, overall conviction" according to Bob's Movie Reviews and Stale Popcorn just thinks "the title is a doozy." Absolutely. I mean, obviously when Thornton sat down to do this movie his most prominent goals were to assert his celebrity to make the most out of step, emotionally disconnected, frivolous piece of cinema and then slap a name on it that would invoke outrage from every corner of the earth. And then he stuck all his best friends in the picture, just to rub it in our faces!

Or...

Billy Bob Thornton set out to make a movie that meant something to him. That's all. He took something that means a great deal to him and he went to a lot of trouble to share that something with us in the hopes that it might mean something to someone else. And either it did, or it didn't mean something to you but your interpretation of a thing has little to no bearing on whether that thing has worth or merit or deserves to exist.

I like The Avengers; I thought the Social Network was brilliant. Tropic Thunder is hands down the best comedy in recent history and You've Got Mail makes me feel good (it's no use trying to talk me out of it). There's a point I'm trying to make here, and I think it's that it takes all kinds. With all the insipid, transparent, studio-generated, based-on-a-bestselling-vampire-novel muck that's being dredged up and slopped into theaters, is it really that important to focus on the structural inconsistencies of a story that actually came from somewhere real? 

Billy Bob Thornton is a weird dude, there's no doubt about it. He doesn't use email, he wrote a rock opera called "Dinosaur" and he thinks technology is blatantly trying to end human interaction. But at the end of the screening, a man stood up and (I paraphrase) said, "I'm a baby boomer, and if they made more movies like this then we'd all get back into the theaters." Was this guy some kind of national spokesperson for baby boomers? Likely not (likely - who can say; we don't really know). Either way, that's connecting with an audience. A big audience. 

Movies are meant to be stories, and whether that's dudes racing souped up Hondas around the streets of Tokyo, or a rich Alabama family exploring the significance of war and father-son relationships, it all means something to somebody. So relax, damn it! There's rich emotional experiences out there to be had if you'd take a second and stop being so brutally serious. I mean, come on! Billy Bob, close us out:

That's my guy. I shook that hand (I didn't know if you'd heard).