ONE LAST THING is the next film from Magnolia Pictures. MagPics is of course the distribution arm of 2929 Entertainment, which is owned by Dallas Maverick Mark Cuban.
Last year, 2929 announced that it was eliminating its movie windows and that it was essentially making its DVDs available in stores at the same time as the film's release in theaters.
Basically, if you prefer to see this movie on the big screen, you can go to your nearest Landmark theater on Friday, May 5th.
But, if you don't, you can go instead to the video store and pick it up on Tuesday, May 23rd and not have to wait so long for the DVD.
It won't be the usual 3-month or 5-month distance between the film and DVD releases. However, regardless of how one chooses to see it, I recommend that no one does.
So far, MagPics and 2929 have been putting out some great material including two great documentaries, ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM and HERBIE HANCOCK: POSSIBILITIES, as well as some interesting dramas like BUBBLE and THE WAR WITHIN, so when I heard about this movie I got excited, especially since I saw it playing at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
Philly is my hometown and most of the movie was filmed there, specifically in the Marcus Hook neighborhood. The story centers on Dylan, a 16-year-old kid who is dying of cancer. Cynthia Nixon from "Sex and the City" plays his widowed mother. United Wish Givers, a Make-A-Wish foundation-type of organization, decides to grant Dylan one wish before he keels over from cancer.
At first, they think his wish is to go fishing with super star football player Jason O'Malley, but during the press conference, Dylan recants and says his wish is really to have sex with super-beautiful, super model Nikki Sinclair in her mid to upper 20s. What proceeds are Dylan's attempts to make that wish come true.
But, instead of ONE LAST THING, the movie should have been titled "The Film That Tries to Justify Statutory Rape." This film is more about taking us to a contrived destination that defies reason or believability than really giving us something honest and real. It tries to be heartfelt but really just comes off superficial and annoying.
For example, Dylan's two friends, Ricky and Slap, played by Philly natives Matt Bush and Gideon Glick, tag along when Dylan sets out to New York to score with the super model, but while Dylan is throwing up in the bathroom and is clearly becoming sicker, all his friends want to do is concentrate on sneaking into a strip club.
Wow, two teenage, horny boys with a one track mind! Haven't we seen this before? Haven't the American Pie movies been enough? Couldn't the screenwriter, Barry Stringfellow, have come up with something else a bit more original, or supporting characters with maybe a bit more depth? Also, Wyclef Jean plays a foreign cab driver. How cliché! Jean's cab driver magically drops in here and there for no real reason and his appearance seems only to add a little color to this otherwise lame white-washed world.
Ethan Hawke makes an uncredited cameo, but I'm forced to ask why. His efforts are wasted.
Michael Angarano who plays Dylan is a cute kid and potentially a great actor, but I was "so" not impressed with his performance here, and quite frankly I haven't really been impressed with any of the movies I've seen him in. He was funny though as Jack's son Elliott on the NBC TV show "Will & Grace."
But, I think there are a ton of better actors in his age group like British actors Jamie Bell and Max Minghella, Canadian import Kevin Zegers, Dane Christensen, Jesse Eisenberg, and Robert Ri'chard. Watch out for these guys in the future, all of them are amazing.
More amazing than I've seen Angarano, but I don't really blame him though. He did the best he could with what he had to work with, which wasn't much. The script here was simply senseless. Just a bad indie film! Just bad!
