Small Apartments has Matt Lucas (from Blur's "Country House" video) as Franklin Franklin, a guy whose brother (James Marsden) has been committed, so he lives in a small apartment and wears only his tighty-whities and socks, except when he needs to leave his apartment, when he also dons a coat and a wig. The other thing is he drinks my favorite soda, Moxie, even though I don't know if it was sold in LA. Anyway, his landlord (Peter Stormare) died in his place under mysterious circumstances, and Frank needs to sort this out because the body's starting to smell. As he's doing that, other people who live in his apartment building, like James Caan, Johnny Knoxville, and Juno Temple, have things going on, but they're only so fleshed out; then Frank runs into the kinds of issues people disposing of bodies in indie movies inevitably run into. Will he manage to get out of this situation?
The best way I can describe this is the people involved, like director Jonas Åkerlund and writer Chris Millis (whose novella of the same name this was based off of) had seen a lot of quirky 90s indie flicks, and they understood that those movies had certain elements, like buildings and cars and clothing that were seemingly from another time; or characters with quirky, off-beat traits, like the main character blowing a big Alphorn and only wearing underwear; but they couldn't replicate the actual DNA that made those movies work. There's a connective tissue that this was missing, pieces of characters and storylines that were left unfinished, never fully realized, so when they came to some kind of conclusion I didn't know them well enough to feel anything. In a way it's kind of fascinating to see what other people took from those movies, I wanted to connect with the characters, while the people who made this were focused on their surface quirkiness and things like off-beat settings and shot composition. Those things can be fun too, they just aren't what I look for in a film. If you do, or if you're a completist of one of the many names in this, you may want to give it a look, especially since it's on Tubi. One other thing, the music was done by Per Gessle from Roxette, so it's a bit better than what you'd expect from a movie like this.
It's time for the man of the hour though, Mr. Dolph Lundgren. This is his 75th film on the site as he celebrates his 68th birthday. And this probably is a good 75th movie, not in that it's a really big role or anything, but because he's not in it much, so it's more one you get to after you've done most of the bigger roles first. That's not to say it isn't a great part, Dolph plays a self-help guru type with his own self-help book and everything, and Dolph plays him as well as you'd want him to, with his dark hair, joining the Mile High Club with flight attendant, etc. The whole thing was a lot of fun, and just adds to this journey we've taken with Dolph over the past 18 years or so, where we've seen him play all manner of characters--or rather, mostly kick-ass action dudes, so to see him not play one here, and do a great job with it, was worth it, even if I could've taken or left the rest of the movie. Here's to you Mr. Lundgren, you're the greatest, and Happy Birthday!
There are a lot of names in this, but one I thought I'd never see on the site is Billy Crystal. Growing up in the 80s he was one of the biggest stars, especially with things like When Harry Met Sally and City Slickers. My personal favorite was Running Scared, with Gregory Hines they were two off-beat cops on the edge, I remember first seeing that on The Movie Loft on WSBK TV38 and loving it. You'd think this would be our first time for James Caan too, but he was in Santa's Slay, so we've seen him one other time before. The other one I thought we'd seen on here before was Johnny Knoxville, but this is his first appearance on the site too. Throw in Juno Temple, who we haven't reviewed on the site, but I covered Venom: The Last Dance on a DTVC Extra podcast where we looked at the Sony Spider-Verse Without Spider-Man, so she's been associated with the site in some way before. Anyway, all four of them played characters that could've been compelling, but were never properly developed, so we just get strands of them throughout the film, and then we're supposed to pretend these strands have magically formed into a sweater, but it's hard to make the mental leap to sweater when we've only had strands, so when we get to some sort of end to their strands of storyline, we can see that the sweater would've looked nice, had it actually been finished. Anyway, it's fun to see names we don't usually see, so reviewing something like this that we don't usually do gives us that opportunity.
One of the film's bright spots is it features my favorite soda, the official soda of Maine, Moxie! The movie took place in LA, and my understanding was you couldn't get Moxie outside of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and maybe parts of the other three New England states (and according to Wikipedia, Pennsylvania?), but it looks like maybe in the early 2010s there was a push to sell it in more places, which might have meant it was sold for a short period in LA? Or was it just the quirkiest of quirky sodas that Matt Lucas's character could drink? I've always liked it, but since I moved to Philly--where it's not sold--it's something I have to have now when I visit my family in Maine. You also may have noticed that on my video appearances on Jon Cross's podcasts, or on some of the original YouTube videos I've been making, I wear my Moxie hat, so I'm always excited to represent it. If you ever get a chance to try it, you may not be a fan, because it's an acquired taste, but once you've acquired it, I think you'll like it. Also note: they no longer use that logo, they're back to something more like the original. That one in the image I think was only around for a short period of time.
Finally, I don't want to give away too much, but one of the characters tells Matt Lucas's character that you need to live life to the fullest, and that time wasted is time lost. It sounds profound in theory, but in reality, humans can't live like that, they need some level of routine and mundaneness. The problem is, in a capitalist society, routine and mundaneness doesn't compel people to spend above their means. If I just need a car to get to and from work, I'll get a cheap sedan; but if I think I'm going to spend every weekend white water rafting and rockclimbing, I need a more expensive, gas-guzzling SUV! And then I can feel like a schlub when it sits in the yard while my rockclimbing gears collects dust because I just want to relax at home and eat Doritos. Social media is even better for this kind of thing, because you have your friends and family showing you how they're going on vacation to exciting places to make you feel like you have to be out there doing stuff too, they're like free advertising the moment you see that SUV commercial or travel credit card commercial again. Now, this isn't to say you shouldn't take advantages of the moments you have to experience new things, that's important too, but what we need to do is re-normalize the normal, or celebrate the smaller new experiences, like watching a new movie, or visiting a new coffee shop. Forget "wasted time is time lost," let's stop worrying about making the most of every minute, and just live. At least that's what I'm doing.
And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing you can get this on Tubi here in the States, and I think that's been the case for roughly as long as Tubi's existed. If you're a completist of any of the actors in this, then check it out while you can for no cost other than sitting through some mobile casino ads.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1272886/
Looking for more action? Check out my short action novel, Bainbridge, and all my other novels, over at my author's page! Click on the image below, go to https://www.matthewpoirierauthor.com/
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