Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays."
Mike Judge's classic film Office Space brought that line to the masses but there's no doubt about it — for most of the working class Mondays suck. Monday is the start of the routine — the first day of four or five consecutive, nearly identical days also known as "the grind."
Monday sucks the most because it comes first, a cold bucket of grim reality thrown in the face of last weekend's charm.
Chris Pratt didn't have that kind of Monday this week though. Pratt stars in Jurassic World and that flick chewed off almost $26 million this past Monday, right after the biggest international opening weekend of all time. (Yes, the fourth film in the Jurassic franchise took in over half a billion dollars in the three days after I used it as an example of the impeding death of cinema in these very pages.)
Pratt now has three mega-hit films in a row (The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World). Combined with the comedic street cred he earned on the Parks and Recreation TV series and a hard-not-to-like demeanor on the press/promotion tours for everything he does, Pratt is essentially the most bankable man in Hollywood these days.
This is pretty awesome, considering he was discovered at age 19 waiting tables at a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company restaurant in Maui.
Prior to that, Pratt, who turns 36 this month, also worked as a coupon salesman and daytime stripper but ended up homeless and living in a van in Maui where he spent his time fishing, smoking weed and listening to Dr. Dre's classic album, 2001 (a.k.a. living the dream).
And now he's the embodiment of the American Dream, a rags to riches story but don't forget to add in the bit about working his ass off — Pratt has been acting since 2001, most notably in Wanted, Her, Moneyball and alongside Megan Fox in Jennifer's Body. Chris Pratt deserves a $26-million Monday.
Speaking of hard work, they say beside every great man is an equally-great-or-probably-greater woman, so it's not surprising that Chris Pratt (who has worked with some of the most notable women in the industry: Angelina, Amy Poehler, Scarlett Johansson, Diablo Cody, Kathryn Bigelow) is married to comedy genius and veteran actress (and 2007 High Times Magazine "Stoner of the Year") Anna Faris.
Anna has been pushing the limits and fanning the flames of female comedy in Hollywood for well over a decade and it seems like 2015 might, finally, be a tipping point for women in Tinseltown.
Charlize Theron was the real star of Mad Max and Melissa McCarthy's Spy won over both critics and fans a couple weeks ago. Comedy Central sensation Amy Schumer is owning the Internet right now and her first feature film Trainwreck (she wrote and stars, Judd Apatow directs), is set for a July release. And this week Mindy Kaling, Phyllis Smith and Amy Poehler hold down what looks like the big animated hit of the year, as Inside Out opens at the Village 8.
The latest from Pixar/Disney, Inside Out is a surprisingly honest look at the dog days of childhood as a young girl deals with that time of life when much of the wonder drains away. The kicker is the story is really about a group of anthropomorphized emotions —Joy, Sadness, Anger, etc. — living inside the girl's head, navigating their own personal crises. This is a cartoon for the parents who get dragged to cartoons. Remember the life-flashes-by opening montage of director Peter Doctor's Up? Well, Peter just made a whole movie like that. It's a tear-jerker, it's anchored by women, and it's really quite good.
So maybe the Hollywood playbook is getting a bit of a shakeup. Bear in mind that in 2014, the lion's share (69.1 per cent) of speaking roles in movies went to men and only 7 per cent of the directors were women. Hopefully, this year is a sign of things to come and a crack in the explosions and testosterone-filled cinematic routine.
Speaking of, there is a pretty nifty flick on Vimeo right now called The Thousand Year Journey: Oregon to Patagonia.
It's about Jebidiah Jenkins, a dude from Oregon who's been living off his bicycle for the last year, slowly making his way to the southern tip of South America.
"Routine is the enemy of time," Jenkins says. "It makes it fly by."
It's a slick short film with an incredible message, but be warned: watching this one in the office will really harsh out your Monday.
