In Which The Era Of The Racially Progressively Gangster Passes

The Bloat

by ELEANOR MORROW

Live by Night
dir. Ben Affleck
129 minutes

Once you notice one major flaw in a friend, the rest generally come tumbling out. I knew a guy several years ago who made all his girlfriends get the exact same haircut. It was sort of like the haircut that Rachel got on Friends but with a touch of wretched abandon to it. None of the women involved presumably saw pictures of their forebears, and he did the styling himself. That same sort of creepy feeling radiates off Joe Coughlin (Ben Affleck).

Besides this fatal flaw, Coughlin is also a murderer and thief. Besides those other two fatal flaws, he is a prince of a fellow. The thing he hates most is racism, and he is always fighting it, even though it is not even World War II yet and most of the people he meets in the progressive paradise of, ahem, Ybor City, Florida, also live very progressive lives.

After his first relationship falls apart, Mr. Coughlin brings two key people into his life. One is Mindy Lahiri's ex-boyfriend Danny (Chris Messina), who makes Affleck look like a handsome giant in comparison.

Coughlin's other friend is the Cuban alcohol smuggler who becomes his wife, Graciela (Zoe Saldana). She has the exact same haircut, as I mentioned, of the last woman he was in love with, but I would not spend too much time thinking about what these two people have in common. She is falling all over him with the sex — isn't Batman attractive? you will hopefully be thinking to yourself.

That is when I began to realize Live by Night was just an extended apologia/rehabilitation created by Affleck to make him look attractive to other women, since whenever the paparazzi insist on taking photos of him he looks more bloated than end-stage Marlon Brando. Ben was clearly disappointed that he looked like Chunk from The Goonies during the lengthy running time of Zack Snyder's Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

In Live by Night, Affleck dresses himself up in these amazing suits that do the service of making him seem svelte by virtue of old fashioned lines and tailoring that diminishes the weight he carries in his hips. The women of Live by Night are also completely hidden by swaths of clothes and fabric, indicating that this must be merely the custom of the time.

Affleck's character kills a bunch of police officers. He never shows any remorse for what he's done. Since his father (Brendan Gleeson) is the police captain, he gets off with a very light prison sentence. Coughlin heads right back on the streets looking for revenge on the Irish boss who betrayed him for schtupping his girlfriend (Sienna Miller, whose head is now a perfect circle).

For some reason Coughlin's plan is to offer his services to the Italian mafia. He asks the Boston-based boss of the family if he has trouble with an Irishman working for him, and the guy is like, no not at all. The important thing to know is that these men may be vicious killers, but they have avoided a far worse fate — being indicted on charges of bigotry or racial preference.

What a world. Coughlin agrees to go to Florida, and Affleck turns Live by Night into a buddy comedy for a bit. Affleck has never had much talent behind or in front of the camera, but sticking to Dennis Lehane's basic novel means he can get the pacing down all right. He tries to turn every plot he works with into a thriller, which is really not what Live by Night is meant to be. The events themselves aren't much — the entire program depends on investments in the characters, which Affleck flattens by making them seem like caricatures from other, better mob movies.

Because of his interracial marriage, the local Ku Klux Klan starts going after Joe Coughlin in a major way. He fails as a mobster since he won't expand his business to the drug trade after Prohibition ends. You see, Joe's moral compass permits the taking of human life, but not the enjoyment of the same.

Somewhere in here Elle Fanning shows up. Like all the women in Live by Night, she has no actual agency of her own and exists in the plot merely as a functionary whose death serves to propel various events forwards. No woman should probably ever agree to work with Mr. Affleck again based on these results.

Maybe a better performer like Joaquin Phoenix or (producer on this disaster) Leonardo DiCaprio could have carried Live by Night to something close to watchability, but Affleck plays Coughlin as an overserious lug — we never get the sense he is capable of the insight the lugubrious voiceover attributes to him. Moreover, Affleck's lower body and hands never seem to move at all, meaning Joe Coughlin might as well be a talking head ping-ponging through cinematic space.

Affleck's worst trait as a director is his prosaic and overly symbolic use of light. The way he puts all the morally dubious characters in darkness, obscuring the actual abilities of the talented performers in this ensemble is extremely distracting and counterproductive to our basic enjoyment of the story. Just go back to The Batman and leave these poor actors alone.

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording.

In Which You Better Start Thinking Of Ways To Make It Up To Him

A Lively Marriage

by DICK CHENEY

The Mindy Project
creator Mindy Kaling

I miss Cliff. Ever since Mindy finally consummated the mediocre sexual attraction between her fellow gynecologist Daniel (Chris Messina), The Mindy Project has turned into a show about a relationship.

In a recent episode of The Mindy Project, a major plot point concerned Mindy's boyfriend's talents at cunnilingus, and her telling all the other characters about it. Not only does this make me look bad in my relationship, but I am pretty tired of some asshole being redeemable simply because he is good at giving head (I'm looking at you Michael Caine).

It's so important to emphasize how good the sex is, because the chemistry that Mindy and Daniel share is largely based on how good his dancing is. He does a short dance in every episode, and usually punctuates it by thrusting his pelvis in a lewd manner. Eventually people had to tell Fred Astaire to stop doing this, and Fred Astaire was a lot better dancer than Mindy's boyfriend.

What you and every other man did to Chloe Sevigny is unforgivable.

Many shows torpedoed once their long-single protagonists found love, since it is never actually interesting for other people to hear how satisfied you are by your partner. An emotional time was had by all when Ross made love to Rachel in that planetarium; however I once had the job of cleaning a planetarium at a Wyoming-based history museum and it is nowhere you would want to spread a blanket on.

Ross (David Schwimmer) had a much better thing going with this British woman, Emily. Emily (I'm assuming her last name was Bronte?) was very needy and suspicious of Rachel, but considering the situation I guess she had a right to be. Once Rachel and Ross became a very boring couple they moved into an apartment together. I hated the color scheme of this apartment, and all my memories are of Ross complaining there. Eventually they started doing a Joey and Rachel storyline which did not make much sense, and Pheobe married Paul Rudd, which made all the sense in the world for everyone except Paul Rudd.

At least Friends had a variety of eligible men that Rachel could potentially end of the rainbow with.  It must be weird to have a baby on a TV show but not in real life.

Sadly, his nascent sexual attraction to his sister Monica would never be consummated in quite this fashion.

The men in Mindy's life are all extremely terrible. Danny let his mother disrespect Mindy at an excessively long brunch, and even briefly let his mother think that Ms. Kaling was his cleaning lady. He is constantly looking for things to complain about when he comes to his girlfriend, and should he even suffer the slightest indignity, he tells Mindy, "You better start thinking of ways to make it up to me." She accepts this for some reason.

Mindy's other colleagues regularly cheat on their girlfriends, sometimes even with each other. There should be a lot of options for an attractive single gynecologist, but instead she has to get with a police officer who is twenty years older than her (Tim Daly)? Despite his offensive accent, Tim Daly was by far the most handsome of these men; Danny's lips look like they are permanently sealed in a frown.

I still don't understand why it was such a big deal to talk to a guy while in a pool.

I'm still mad about what they did to Cliff, though. He was a suave lawyer one second, the next he was singing a Sarah McLachlan song for an entire episode, and projecting a creepy vibe never present in the original Cliff.

It's not even like you can bring another man into Mindy's life at this point to complicate things. She will just look flightly after lusting after Castellano for so long and bragging about how good he is at oral, and Daniel would never tolerate an actual competition for the love of a good woman. I'm starting to worry if it is going to be another year of romanticizing a union that never should have happened.

Blake Lively has no chance of pulling that dress off or eating anything but baby food without assistance.

It really chars my balls that Ryan Reynolds was taken, and even now has a baby on the way with that blonde older woman he's been seeing. If it weren't for Blake Lively, he would be getting all of Matthew McConaughey's roles, but who can stand to hear him relating tales about how Blake is absolutely "hangry as all get out when she's on a cleanse" or his innocent general questions about her, like, "Do you guys think it's common for a grown woman to say 'chomp chomp' when she bites into a carrot?"?

I'm sorry, but Danny Castellano is an asshole for not giving Mindy space in his closet, or telling her that she can't tell her friends about his proficency with his mouth. A relationship is only actually fun for the people in it.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.

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In Which Mindy Kaling's Name Is An Anagram

From the Mouth of a Babe

by DURGA CHEW-BOSE

Mindy Lahiri and Danny Castellano have finally kissed. Until now, The Mindy Project has been building up to this moment where the gruff and grumpy, sometimes jerk (played by Chris Messina) is wooed by (or woos) his colleague, the sincere and occasionally clueless, though ever-confident, Lahiri (Mindy Kaling).

They are, after all, a match made in Jack and Kate Spade heaven. His waxwear messenger bag to her allover print silk blouse. His Barbour jacket and dude-type maxims to her sequined sweater and Twitter tailored specificity. Theirs is a Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks pantomime with hints of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn (mostly the slapstick physical comedy; after all, Kaling trips and falls in nearly every episode of the show). She’s a Romantic with a plan and an endless supply of silk, men’s pajamas. He’s a guy who punctuates his sentences with how much he can bench at the gym. Their sexual tension is perfect for TV.

The show resumes on April 1st, but until then, let’s revisit that time we riffed on what might have happened, had their repartee taken a Notting Hill turn. - DCB

The Mindy Project: Notting Hill Episode

From the moment we were introduced to Ed Weeks’s character, Dr. Jeremy Reed, on Fox’s The Mindy Project, Hugh Grant has been the obvious comparison. Like Grant, Weeks is tall and British. Like Grant, Weeks’s long face is one-third forehead and steadied by an all but imperceptible rascally smile. Like Grant before him, Weeks is that precise blend of reticent British rearing mixed with a skewed and slightly overeager American awakening. Dr. Jeremy Reed, as with some of Grant’s most memorable roles, is the London version of what might have happened had '80s Andrew McCarthy and Rob Lowe merged into one. Self-loathing and self-loving, both. A sometimes dope with great hair whose romantic exploits are punctuated by a woeful second act.

For this viewer, a Hugh Grant rom com inspired Mindy Project episode seems inevitable. But which one? Nine Months? Two Weeks Notice? Bridget Jones? Dr. Reed and Dr. Danny Castellano (Chris Messina) could duke it out in the street as “It’s Raining Men” plays. After all, Castellano possesses some distinctly Mark Darcy traits. Or, like in Love Actually Dr. Reed could get caught making out with the office receptionist backstage at Dr. Lahiri’s best friend Gwen’s (Anna Camp) kid’s Christmas recital. And of course, there’s always About a Boy: bored of the New York dating scene, Dr. Reed pretends to have a kid (stealing Gwen’s of course) in order to meet single moms. While one of Grant's most-loved roles as Will Thacker, the lovestruck travel bookshop owner in Notting Hill might be a less obvious Mindy choice, we thought here at TR we’d give it a go.

The episode would begin with Mindy waxing about her favorite neighborhood in New York—probably the West Village. Like Grant’s appraisal of Notting Hill, Kaling’s character, Dr. Lahiri, would catalog the brownstones, the smell of sugar wafting from Magnolia Bakery (the cupcakes, she’ll admit, are overrated), the coffee shop where every movie is shot, the bookstore where every movie is shot, the dollar pizza for hangover breakfast, and the store that sells clothes for grown women who want to look like Parisian toddlers.

Next, Mindy leads us to her obstetrics practice where everyone is huddled around the receptionist’s computer looking at red carpet pictures from the previous night’s Golden Globes. (Likely the Globes so that Mindy can reference the year Matt Damon boasted about getting a better seat than Jack Nicholson). Everyone wittily banters. Betsy (Zoe Jarman) mentions she has a crush on Ryan Seacrest and Morgan (Ike Barinholtz) the nurse, who may as well be a beefier Rhys Ifans (Will's lovably bizarre roommate in Notting Hill, Spike), makes some quintessentially weird yet apt comment. “Funny you should mention Ryan Seacrest in a room full of OB-GYNs, Betsy. After all, his name is an anagram for Try Cesareans."

Then, the most famous movie actress in the world walks in for an appointment. She’s an Emma. Emma Jones. Or Emma Hudson. Or Emma Wood. She’s played by Rachel McAdams or Anne Hathaway. She’s wearing sunglasses, a cornflower blue garment washed Mets cap, t-shirt and jeans. Everyone at the office gets weird and whispery, and awkward. Morgan is not altered in the least. Castellano gawks. Jeremy and Emma are immediately, very sweetly, smitten.  Mindy, seeing potential for a Notting Hill romance, calls everyone to her office for a meeting.

From her desk, she orders Jeremy, without any explanation, to recite a few lines.

“Come on Bridget, we belong together.”

AND

“In my opinion, all men are islands. And what's more, now's the time to be one. This is an island age.”

AND

“Who do you have to screw around here to get a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit?”

Jeremy goes along with it but is confused. Danny interrupts, having figured out what is going on and bluntly asks, “Do you think Andie MacDowell and Julia Roberts are hot?” Mindy rolls her eyes and explains to Jeremy while apologizing for reducing him to stereotype that he’s basically Hugh Grant. The gang all agrees and Mindy insists he “Notting Hill the day” and ask Emma the actress out on a date. Betsy chimes in and instructs Jeremy that, just like in the movie, he should rush out when Emma leaves and accidently spill coffee on her. Castellano corrects her. “Orange juice. It’s orange juice not coffee that Hugh Grant spills on Julia Roberts.” Everyone turns. Mindy is impressed by but prepared to mock Castellano for his detailed knowledge of the 1999 romantic comedy. Because the gang was already invited for dinner at Mindy’s that evening, she suggests that Jeremy invite Emma, just like in the movie.

Dinner at Mindy’s is cozy. Her apartment is all white bookshelves and warm lighting. Think Nancy Meyers seashell tones with Jonathan Adler orange and fuscia throw cushions. Emma gets along easily with everyone. She laughs with her mouth wide open. She finds Morgan especially charming and watches Mindy admiringly. She compliments Betsy on her outfit and Betsy, like Hugh Grant’s sister in Notting Hill, declares that she and Emma should be best friends forever. Jeremy has obviously fallen in love. Mindy catches herself staring at Danny who is uncharacteristically well behaved at dinner. He looks handsome and relaxed.

Unfortunately Mindy forgets to make dessert. She rummages through her fridge, freezer, and pantry only to find a half-empty jar of Nutella. She hands everyone a spoon—one scoop each. But there’s a little left and Betsy insists that they fight for the last scoop: “Whoever’s the saddest act here, get’s to finish the jar.” They all play. Morgan doesn’t quite get the game and starts confessing to weird shit he’s done in his life like lying every time he’s claimed to see the image in a Magic Eye. Mindy goes on a tangent but then realizes she’s pretty happy with her laugh right now. Danny’s speech is oddly sentimental. He mentions his divorce and hints at perhaps being lonely. Embarrassed he ruins the moment by taking the last scoop of Nutella before Jeremy, Emma, or Betsy get to go. Jeremy and Emma leave together. “I Do” by 98 Degrees plays.

The episode ends with Mindy, the next day at work, standing at the threshold of Danny’s office door, grinning. “Hey Danny,” she says. He stares at her impatiently. "Yes, Mindy?" She looks at him with puppy eyes and says, “I’m just a girl…standing in front of a boy, asking him to…” Danny shoos her out before she can finish. He appreciates being made fun of by Mindy.

The camera pans out of the office and onto the street where a group of 30 something girlfriends are gabbing and dressed like Parisian toddlers.

Durga Chew-Bose is the senior editor of This Recording. She is a writer living in Brooklyn. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

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