The Last Man

I took a detour from watching classics to rent The Last Kiss, because I do enjoy me some Zach Braff. It was a bad move. I ended up hating The Last Kiss so much it may have actually tarnished my love for Garden State.

The problem was the premise. Zach's character's girlfriend is pregnant, they're about to get married -- his whole life is plotted out in front of him and he freaks out and self-destructs. OK, I could get on board with that... Except that he's freaking 29 years old!

If he were just out of college and saddled with "real life," a la Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, fine. That makes sense. But 29? 29?! I couldn't generate an ounce of sympathy for him. In fact, it made me depressed and nostalgic for a time when I imagine there were real men.

Maybe it's because I've been watching so many old movies lately, but it seems to me that once upon a time, men were men, not boy-men who can't/won't grow up. What would Clark Gable say about Matthew McConaughey's recent Failure to Launch, about the 40-year-old who still lives with his parents? And if The Odd Couple was made today it would star Ashton Kutcher and Topher Grace and have a pop soundtrack.

People probably haven't changed. I'm sure in 1935 there were plenty of irresponsible boy-men just like there are today. But now we celebrate it and project it onto the silver screen as the standard and the ideal. And that blows.