We went to see the movie 'Run Fatboy Run' yesterday which is a testament to just how bored I am sitting at home on the couch. I went in with fairly low expectations-stupid plot line, commercial 'Hollywood' movie, David Schwimmer producer-it did not have a lot going for it other than Simon Pegg (from 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz') and the possibility of jokes about running/marathons. It turned out to be better than expected but definitely Netflix material unless you're recovering from foot surgery and desperate to get out of the house for any damn stupid reason.
The plot is pretty stupid, you have to let it go if you're going to enjoy the movie. Simon Pegg plays an unambitious loser incapable of finishing anything he starts (almost identical to his character in 'Shaun of the Dead'). He leaves his pregnant bride at the alter and several years later decides he wants her back after she's acquired a smarmy rich American boyfriend who's intent on marrying her. Smarmy boyfriend also runs marathons so Simon decides to run a marathon to prove to his former girlfriend that he's just as good and can finish something that he starts, or something. This is where the plot gets stupid, using a marathon to win back the girl. To its credit the movie does acknowledge the stupidity of this but it's not until late in the movie that the reasoning starts to seem even slightly plausible. Oh and by the way the marathon is in 3 weeks and the main character is an out of shape junk food eating smoker who can barely run a block without stopping to wheeze. For those unfamiliar, marathons are 26.2 miles long and typical training programs for beginners are 18 weeks plus several months of base building before starting the 18 week training program. Typically at 3 weeks from the marathon you are starting to taper. If there's anyone out there reading this who's an out of shape smoker with no fitness base whatsoever who has completed a marathon on 3 weeks of training I'd love to hear your story.
One other bit of ickiness was the over the top hyping of Nike which is a company that already reminds me way too much of big brother. The London Marathon wouldn't give them permission to use their race in the movie so they came up with a fake (I think, anyone know if this race is real?) marathon sponsored by Nike and the name & logo were everywhere during the marathon scenes.
But if you can put aside the absurdness of the plot and not let your head explode at the idea of running a marathon on 3 weeks training there are lots of funny bits that make the movie better than it sounds. Look at it more as a series of funny little skits and it's worth putting in your Netflix queue when it goes to DVD which probably won't be all that long from now.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I did manage to get out of the house a bit on Sunday morning to attend the pre-opening of an agility friend's new cafe. The cafe is out on the plains in a small town on the outskirts of Boulder so it's a bit of a drive but it's right on one of my cycling routes so I'm sure once I'm on my bike again I'll be stopping by there. The cafe looked fantastic, they'd done a really nice job rehabbing it. Between being on a major cycling route and being one of the only businesses in the area I'm sure they'll do well. Also, what a great excuse for us to go out to breakfast on a Sunday. O.k., we typically don't need an excuse to go out to breakfast on a Sunday but still it will be nice to have the option of another place to go plus support our friends.
Joy was back from Florida and showed up at the cafe with a brand new Sheltie puppy. Oh so cute! I love puppy fuzz. Especially when said fuzz goes home with someone else. Another agility friend had her 6 month Norwegian Elkhound puppy and the 2 looked so funny together. Such nice sweet puppies saying hi and being all friendly to each other then my carful of rabble rousers spotted them and commenced to loud barking fits. Sigh. We took them out to the reservoir again for more running and recall practice. No photos this time and such a shame since I had my purple fleece hat, leopard mittens and Michelin Man purple puffy coat, certainly a few pegs up on the Crazy Dog Lady meter from yesterday. It was too cold though and I didn't want to take my hands out of my mittens to mess with the camera.
An agility friend's husband took a script-writing class and wrote a whole script whose main characters are agility dogs. This is cool. But the main human character decides that she needs to win the Nationals, so about 3 weeks before the Nationals, she goes out and gets a new dog to start training. Something like that. People are funny about understanding what goes into things that other people do.
ReplyDelete-ellen
3 weeks to train a dog to win Nationals-now that's funny! That would be like saying you're going to win the marathon on 3 weeks training.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny as well that they would use the marathon to prove this guy has perseverence yet only give him 3 weeks to train. The marathon is easy, it's the months of traiing beforehand where you're going to be proving yourself. Something like 90% of the people who make it to the start line of a marathon finish and a percentage of those who don't finish do so out of choice to save themselves for another race when they realize they aren't going to make their time goal. Many more people don't make it to the start line in the first place due to injury, illness, lack of training, etc. It's funny that in this day and age a 3 week time commitment to something is viewed as impressive.
i wonder did they mention the timing he completed the race?
ReplyDeletethis is absoluely insane...
i've been training for 10k for a year, n i still can't make it for the full marathon... ok,maybe my fitness is worst than a smoker...LoL
Ah, I don't want to spoil the movie so I won't post any details about if he finished but I will say the writers found a way to turn the plot to make it seem sorta kinda believeable.
ReplyDeleteIf you can do a 10k your fitness is just fine. I believe that barring any serious medical/physical conditions most people can run a marathon if they put their mind to it. If I can do it anyone can, I'm horribly unathletic.