Christian McKay

The Leisure Seeker

First Hit: This film is, at times, funny, sad, and depressing, and well acted.

Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren are two very strong actors and I’d be hard pressed to find two other actors capable of pulling these characters off as well as they do.

Donald plays John Spencer a former literary professor who loves the writing of Ernest Hemingway. He’s losing his memory but can remember long passages of Hemingway’s writings. He often forgets much of his past life including the names of his grown children. But his wife Ella (Mirren) remembers almost everything, likes to talk to strangers freely but has cancer and it’s taking over her body.

The film opens with son Will (Christian McKay) coming by John and Ella’s house with a cake for John’s birthday. He finds no one home. He calls his sister Jane (Janel Moloney) who is on her way over for the party asking her if she knows where their parents are.

Not discovering anything, they look in a covered storage area next to the house only to find their Winnebago Indian, they call the Leisure Seeker, gone. This thing is old and hasn’t been driven for years.

The audience catches up the John and Ella as they tool down the highway, Ella navigating and John behind the wheel.

Many of the scenes and dialogue while they are in the Leisure Seeker and during their stops, allows the audience to learn about their histories, current foibles, and mostly how they really adore each other.

There are some very funny scenes, like when they visit Ella’s first boyfriend. The ending is apropos in that, they do not want to be a burden to each other or their children.

Sutherland did an excellent job of being lucid in sparse moments. The color of his life were added in these moments showed why he was a good man. Mirren was excellent at putting up with having to be John’s memory as well as keeping herself together. The character liked to talk and would talk with anyone, and she did this extremely well. Her flowing segues were perfect. Moloney was wonderful as the daughter. When John shares his pride of her, her reaction was perfect. McKay was good as the son who was more lost in life and used his parent’s challenges for his martyrdom. Stephen Amidon wrote a smart script as it had a wide range of emotions. Paolo Virzi did a great job of putting enough of these wide-ranging emotions to us.

Overall: Although most critics didn’t give this film much regard, my own experience tells me the writers had some real life experience to draw upon.

I Melt with You

First Hit: An attempt to show how men struggle to see and share themselves clearly.

There are men who like the camaraderie of men. There are men who long for the camaraderie of the guys they hung out with while in college and felt that those days and those guys were the best of times.

This film attempts to share one story about 4 of these guys. Richard (Thomas Jane), Ron (Jeremy Piven), Jonathan (Rob Lowe) and Tim (Christian McKay) who sent time together and back then we discover they made a pact (or covenant) that if in 25 years things aren’t going well for them, they will die together.

Richard is a writer of one popular book and is now a school teacher. He's run out of ideas and his students don't care much any longer. Ron is an investment banker who is now being investigated by the SEC for ill begotten money.

Jonathan is a medical doctor who has taken to the art of selling drug prescriptions under the table for money and is recently divorced. And Tim is gay and his former partner has just died of aids. They arrive at a beautiful house just south of Carmel on the Big Sur cliffs. They are there for for their annual meeting and seven days of total inebriation. It is all the booze and drugs they can consume while awake with occasional outings (like fishing).

Most of the film is shot inside the house where they get into long drug fueled discussions about very little and, on occasion, an intimate one on one discussion about what is going on in their life to one of the other friends. Distraught Tim has a night of wild sex with a man and woman who came to the house to party, he hates himself, pulls out the pact they made in college and hangs himself in the bathroom.

The rest of the film tells the story about what the others do, or not do, based on the pact they wrote together. The drug crazed binges were very realistic and in some cases the actors didn’t have to dig too deep to find their characters.

However, I did like watching how men will slowly tell their real story behind the veneer one, and that there is a sort of weird honor in living up to pact they made.

Jane was very good as the most vocal and energetic force of the 4 men. Piven was also very good as the guy who long ago turned a corner to illegal work to make his family happy and he aches within from the moment he made that decision. Lowe was interesting to watch because I wondered if he found his role easy or difficult to play based on his past public relationship with drugs. Yes it could be a partial story of his past, and he was convincing. McKay was excellent at being the most troubled one of the group. He was the introspective one of the group who wore his heart on his sleeve. When he shaved off his beard, the audience knew the story was going to change. Glenn Porter wrote the screenplay and at times it was excessive, but other times quite poignant. Mark Pellington directed this cast with a loose hand which allowed the actors some freedom.

Overall: I wouldn’t suggest paying to see this in a theater, but it might be worth a watch if you’re up to watching men indulge obsessively.

Me and Orson Welles

First Hit: A somewhat delightful film with an outstanding performance.

I’ve heard stories of the early Orson Welles and his dynamic personality. Later in life, as I saw this rotund man sitting in Johnny Carson’s guest chairs, I wondered how he became so famous because he didn’t seem to have much going for him while I listened to him talk with Johnny.

However in this film Christian McKay plays the early Orson to the hilt; arrogant, self assured, strong, intelligent, and clearly “the man in charge”.

The film is about the creation of Orson's Julius Cesar in his own theater on 46th Avenue in New York. McKay’s booming voice barking out orders to the actors of how they are to play each part indicated that Orson was charge. People are fired on a whim (especially if you question him) and brought back just as easily. Often his work associates had to clean up his personnel messes.

Claire Danes plays Sonja Jones, the production assistant who is clearly looking out for herself and her career. She is loyal to Orson but only for her advantage. Zac Efron plays Richard a young man who wants to be in theater and stumbles across Orson’s production of Julius Caesar.

Like Orson Richard is bold and self assured and ends with a part to fill in for a just fired actor. He takes a shine to Sonja as does everyone in the production company, and as a surprise to everyone else, she takes a shine to him.

The film is about how this production develops into its critic pleasing performance and about Orson and his driving, unforgiving personality.

 McKay is outstanding as Orson and matches some of information I gathered about Orson’s early career in creating Broadway plays while also doing radio, where he was already a star. Efron, is good looking, cute and is strong enough to match McKay’s strong performance with his own. Danes is OK as a conduit of communication and Efron's love interest but nothing outstanding.

Overall: The overall direction and story line was limited in scope and therefore the film felt limited . However, McKay's Orson and the stage performance, which they were rehearsing, made the film interesting and watchable.

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