Party over, whoops, out of time

Make no mistake from any snarkiness deployed throughout the course of this recap. I freakin' love this movie. Ah, 1999. The closest thing to an apex of American society as our generation will ever know. Pervasive Y2K anxiety separated the normal from the loony by sending the latter to dwell beneath the earth while simultaneously ridding the supermarket shelves of Spam, Hormel Meat-Like Product, and other objectionable canned non-perishables intended for consumption exclusively by the subterranean Y2K alarmist demographic who took to their bomb shelters the first time a light bulb blew. Quality fare of the Fatboy Slim variety stormed the pop charts, while a young dreamer named Lou Bega fostered dreams of superstardom, bagging groceries in a Pasadena Food Lion -- ringing up can after can of Spam and Hormel Meat-Like Product for the burgeoning race of Earth's mutant mole people -- all the while honing the skills that would cement him evermore as The First Tangible Signal Of Earth's Demise In The Impending Millennium, regaling customers with his off-the-cuff song stylings, "A little bit of Spam in my life. A little bit of Hormel Meat-Like Product in my life. A little bit of…what's this? A record contract? For me? Hey, thanks!" And I, four seconds out of college and mistakenly believing that I still had any chance of remaining cool here in the mid-to-late July of my years, went to see Go at a Manhattan movie theater. For only eight dollars! Sniff. Come come, glorified pre-century rave mentality. Back when ripping off the cinematic structure of Quentin Tarantino wasn't yet a crime punishable by death-by-Hollywood-banishment. Back when being known as "that guy from Party of Five" or "that chick from Dawson's Creek" wasn't exactly the industry poison that such an epithet might be interpreted as today. Sure, Fichtner's sex appeal might have been a bit more of a niche market than it was to become at its height (if, indeed, the height has been reached), but I suspect he knew that would change very soon, and for the better. In a way, I think we all knew. The opening credits roll over shots of E-induced euphoria (not the entertainment network, you chastened post-2K downers; besides, that "E" would have had an exclamation point after it…duh) at some serious kind of rave thing going on. Cut from this shaking of fresh teen booty (you can rewind it all you want…I know I did. Mere description just won't transport you quite the way watching it will) to inside of what looks like a diner, where a ragged-looking, ratty-haired Katie Holmes talks at a healthy clip to another person we'll ambiguously nickname -- for the sake of not giving anything away -- "The Back Of Timothy Olyphant's Head." She half-smiles, "You know what I like best about Christmas? The surprises. I mean, it's like you get this box, and you're sure you know what's inside of it. Y'know, you shake it, you weigh it, you're totally convinced you have it pegged. No doubt in your mind. But then you open it up and it's totally different." Is that what it's like, Katie? Is that just exactly what it's like? Sing us another verse from Bing Crosby's instant holiday classic "Have Yourself a Metaphor Little Christmas," won't you? Instead, Katie thanks the screenwriting gods that the mutant mole people didn't take even a meager ration of plot exposition underground with them and their Spam and their Hormel Meat-Like Product, seeing as they have no need for future exposition (because of the end of the world and all), and also because it spoils as quickly as this rapidly ripening dialogue, so what good could it be to them way down there? And she expositions thusly: "I mean, it's kind of like you and me here, you know? I'm not saying it's anything it's not, it's…c'mon, this time yesterday, who woulda thunk it?" Cut to an establishing shot of a supermarket called the "It's This Time Yesterday And No One Is Thinking It Emporium." Actually, it's called "Sons," and it appears there was a second half of that word which has since fallen from the façade. It's "Ram" meets "Shackle." It's ramshackle. Check. A close-up on about forty cans of frozen orange juice concentrate cuts to Sarah "Turns Out My Hereafter Wasn't So Sweet After All" Polley, playing the check-out girl and grimacing at her sorry, minimum-wage lot in life. And trying to cement her plain blonde image in our collective pop-culture consciousness in a vain attempt to convince us that there was a time in Hollywood history when she achieved a level of fame that was not in a perpetual dead heat with the likes of Leelee Sobieski. We believe you, Sarah. Sure, in 2001 "Atom Egoyan" doesn't sound like much more than the antagonist in a poorly dubbed addition to the King Kong oeuvre, but he was on your speed dial once, and that's okay. Without looking at the woman whose groceries she's ringing up, Sarah tiredly asks, "Paper or plastic?" No answer. She asks again. And again. And again. She finally barks it right in the face of the woman, and said woman responds "both" without looking up from the cash she's counting while holding a baby in her arms. Apparently, Baby Holder considers this lip to be the highest form of hubris, for she stares at Polley after a few more barbed exchanges and takes her down: "Don't think you're something you're not. I used to have your job." Sarah shoots back, "Look how far it got you." An intertitle screen reading "Ronna" appears, because the director has momentarily forgotten, I guess, that this is not a silent movie. At least it doesn't read "The Ronna Situation." Because otherwise that would have been a bit of a Pulp Fiction rip-off right there. "Deck the Halls" kicks up on a supermarket muzak system as Polly Olly Oxen Peeved makes her way to the coveted Employees Only section of the store. She walks right past Katie and Desmond "Simon from Go" Askew, Katie warning him at the sight of her, "Don't." He asks, "Why not?" and it's double coupon day for the Exposition Fairy, who floats down and reminds us, "Because she's been on for fourteen hours." Simon approaches Ronna, madly in the process of retrieving items from her locker and punching out, but before he gets around to asking whatever Katie warned him not to ask, Ronna snaps, "No." He reminds her, "Christmas is a time for giving!" She snarkily apologizes for not being in a "holly jolly mood," dumping out the contents of her embroidered stocking and discovering only a black lump of awkward exposition inside, continuing on, "I'm getting evicted tomorrow." Simon does himself no favors in currying favor, failing to crack up his audience of everyone but me in telling her that she'd be "ho-ho-homeless." Hee. That Simon. As she prepares to ditch the supermarket entirely, he offers to switch shifts with her so he can go with his "mates" to Las Vegas. She takes the money. "I'll throw in an extra twenty for a blow job." She gives him the finger. Back inside The It's This Time Yesterday And No One Is Thinking It Emporium, a woman with a shopping cart reaches for a bottle of orange juice, which is ripped away from her from behind the aisle in one of my favorite shots in cinematic history. Seriously. It's the "Rosebud" shot at the end of Citizen Kane, except it's the "Attack Of The Killer Concentrate" shot and it's in the first four minutes of Go. Behind the scenes of the refrigerator aisle, Sarah, Katie, and New Boy play a spirited round of something called "Dead Celebrities" -- because the "Royale With Cheese" conversation has already been had, and someone else is already the foot fuckin' master -- where the name of the dead celebrity is a challenge for the opponent, who must in turn name a dead celebrity whose first name begins with the same letter as the dead celebrity's last name. Omar Sharif. Steve McQueen. Michael Landon. Lee Marvin. Sarah, taking fake drags off a cigarette she has no intention of ever learning how to smoke, tries to use "Malcolm X," which is a perfectly good answer, and is told she can't use him. Which is bullshit, because it's an automatic stumper. She loses the round and ends up back at the checkout line, which is where the plot is all going down anyway. Let's go see! Yay! It's my TV boyfriend Scott "Bailey" Wolf and his movie boyfriend (er, spoiler?) Jay Mohr, talking fast either because he's a low-level drug dealer playing a smarmy role or he's late for the open casting call for Action. Run, Jay! This show could be your big break. More O.J. concentrate, as Bailey (or, for the purposes of this film, "Gailey") smiles apologetically at Sarah while Jay ACTS UP into a cell phone, "What do you mean he's snowed in?" Gailey asks if "the British guy" still works there (he means Simon! Simon from Go!) , and upon finding out he's taken off for Vegas, Jay decides that Ronna appears strung out enough to know people on the inside. He tells her that they're going to this party -- Gailey produces a card from his pocket with a cartoon Santa reading "Mary X-mas Super Fest" -- and tells her that they're having a pre-party and promised twenty hits of some kind of drug something. Sarah takes a number and tells them she'll see what she can do. Sigh. Hi, Bailey. Sarah counts cash in the passenger seat of New Boy's car, Katie warning from the back, "You know Simon's in Vegas." Sarah responds that she's going to go directly to "Todd," and New Boy clarifies, "Todd Gaines?" That's Simon (from Go's) dealer, and New Boy tells her that it's "an evolutionary leap," and to go directly to his dealer would be "moving up the drug food chain without permission." Sarah tells them both to "chill the fuck out" (as if some WB-sanctioned permutation of that line weren't already hurled in Katie's direction on a fairly consistent basis), and that they'll go back to overpaying Simon when he gets back to town. The Debased Drum Samples Of Debased Teens Who Just Say Yes ring through the Los Angeles night. Sarah gains entry to Todd's apartment, and we cut to her entering a shirtless and spiky-haired Timothy Olyphant's main drawing room. Banter about Simon ripping her off, The Olyphant Man taking a moment to kiss a female caller goodbye for, like, five hours, and she plants a Santa hat on him and takes off without a word. He focuses on Sarah: "I take it this is not a social call." She needs a favor. "Wow, I didn't know we were such good friends, Ronna. Because if we were, you would know that I give head before I give favors." Tempting, but no. She's tries to slice through some of the banter even before the twist contest at Jackrabbit Slim's, telling him, "I need twenty hits of ecstasy." He cranks up the music and whispers something in her ear, inspiring Sarah to stand up and remove her shirt. And turn around. He clicks off the soundtrack filler and berates her for baiting him into selling her twenty hits, which, as we all learned at Drug Dealer School, is "the magic number where intent to sell becomes trafficking." He retires to the room and returns with some pill bottles, foreshadowing, "Only one hit per headbanger." For fifteen dollars a pill. But she doesn't have enough money. She gives him two hundred dollars and tells him she'll leave collateral until she returns with the rest of the money. The Olyphant Man takes up snark duties for a moment: "I've already got a fuckin' Swatch." Heh. He doesn't want a watch. He wants A-Watch. By Armitron. There you go, Olyphant Man. I see your one kitschy eighties time-telling reference and raise you one more. "I need something I know you'll come back for." Cut to Sarah bullying Katie into sitting upstairs with George Jung until she returns with the money, whining, "I don't get this money, I get evicted, okay? My ass is on the street." Oh, the moral bankruptcy. Katie goes up. Sarah promises to be back by eight. Sarah lies when she cries. New Boy's car pulls up in front of another ramshackle-y house as New Boy tells her, "time ask for directions," and a subtitle appears reading "8:04." Wait for the Wolf, who should be comin' directly. Sarah attempts to pull off the perfect crime, but New Boy has pilfered two pills from the bottle and downs them both as Ronna walks in the house. Foreshadowing and impatient narrative drive high five in the back seat as Chekhov smacks his forehead with his palm and yells, "No, you idiots! The gun goes off in the third act, not the third scene!" That Chekhov. Such a diva. Always running around nineteenth-century Russia, smacking his forehead with his palm and calling people "idiot." Inside the house, Gailey and Jay Mohr stand in the background looking vaguely guilty as Fichtner, holding a beer, opens the door, calls Sarah "Rhonda," and tells her how worried he became when he found out Philly was snowed in. Sarah's beeper goes off, and Fichtner sympathizes that Friday must be a "busy night" before offering to get her a drink. She asks for "some of that orange juice," but an awkward pause and a few furtive glances later, Fichtner returns from the kitchen and apologizes for being "fresh out of O.J." My. Curious. Gailey offers to grab the O.J. from the car, but Fichtner changes the subject to the drugs a bit too quickly, and Sarah makes for the bathroom. A quick shot of a surveillance camera watching over the scene cuts back to Sarah alone in the bathroom, Gailey whisper-yelling, "We said Chicago, you said Philly! Maybe she didn't notice." Sarah turns on the water and looks around for an escape, opening the pill bottle and emptying the contents into the toilet. Fichtner uses a key to gain access, but Sarah flushes the toilet just then and tells him, "It's all yours." He follows her back into the living room, barking about making a deal. She asks, "Who the fuck are you, Monty Hall?" She takes a serious swig of her beer, and then reminds Mr. Blown Cover that she's only seventeen, telling him that she shouldn't be drinking the beer, seeing as she's so "underage." Back in the car, Sarah berates New Guy (his name is "Manny," and it's a shame I know that because that nickname was so endlessly sustaining) for taking one of the pills, and demands that he drive. He's looking all sweaty and fried. Chekhov's giggling like an idiot in the back seat, and he's got himself a serious case of the munchies. This is Manny's brain. This is Manny's brain on drugs. Any questions? Back inside The It's This Time Yesterday And No One Is Thinking It Emporium, Manny knows that this is his brain, this is his brain on drugs, and his only question, I'm guessing, is, "Am I Jesus?" or "Can I fly?" As Sarah shoplifts a few key pharmaceuticals, Manny lapses fully into his drug-induced haze and goes full-tilt burn mode with a lengthy hallucination of a samba with a middle-aged women at the check-out counter. Oh, sure. She's coy at first. They always are. But the strains of the Macarena are a siren song too wooing for any woman to resist. And so they dance. Sorry for the gloss, folks, but at 6 PM this movie is late and my soul becomes official property of Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc. I've already given my life for you people. Must you take my death as well? Simon from Go calls Todd from Vegas to remind us to feel unsettled by the splintered narrative we've seen no evidence of yet. Sexy getting-to-know-you banter between Todd and Katie, and a little nostalgia-for-the-present reference to The Breakfast Club. Sarah and Manny finally show up at Todd's apartment, and as Todd wah-wahs about life being so hard when you're a drug dealer on the up-and-up, Manny takes charge of the narrative flow as a few sloping pans around the room wind up with him and Todd's cat staring each other right in the eyes. Feline technobabble kicks up as a subtitle appears below a shot of the cat staring at Manny: "I can hear your thoughts." Heh. I love that they used subtitles rather than CGI to make it look like the cat's lips were moving. Because that would have crossed the fine line between stoner cool and a commercial for Fancy Feast. And if there's one genre of humor in this world I just resolutely hate, it's damn animal humor where shameless and abusive pet owners put their dog in a business suit and a bowler cap and take pictures for some calendar, or some America's Funniest Home Videos runner-up shows Bob Saget voicing the wacky antics of monkeys in clown suits on unicycles careening off high diving boards at ninety miles an hour. Manny returns to this world again just in time to see Sarah apologize again, and the three of them burn the hell out of there. Todd calls her back in. "Hey, Ronna? I just gave you a favor." Ronna: "Here I thought you just gave me head." Manny is fucked up and lying on the roof of the car while poverty-stricken Katie and Sarah sit in said car outside the party. They're all sharing a joint because pot is, y'know, free. Katie asks what Sarah's going to do about being evicted, and Sarah unearths the pills she stole from the supermarket and taps them on the steering wheel. Cut to Katie and Sarah hanging out in a van with Random Ravers, one of whom takes, like, a Motrin, and telling them he thinks he "feels something." Sarah pulls off the best line of the trailer, and by far one of the comedic high points in the movie, in advising him, "You know what makes it even better? If you take, like, a lot of pot with it. Like, a lot of pot." She's made four hundred dollars before they even get in the front door, but the news does not stay good when, back at home, Todd cracks open the pill bottle and realizes it's the night of the big Mary X-Mas Rave Blah Party, and he's sitting at home with a troll doll haircut and a sack of Midol. One of which he'll be needing presently, what with the hissyfit he throws in knocking the pills off the counter and looking most vexed. Back at the party, Manny is just cognizant enough to let Sarah know that Todd has come to enact some serious spiky-headed vengeance, and she grabs him and runs out a back door. Sarah promises to go get the car, concealing Manny behind an aluminum board in a back alley behind the warehouse. But before she can even get behind the wheel, Todd is right behind her, all eerily intoning, "Hi, Ronna." Who? Oh, yeah. Sarah. She tries to explain, and he tells her it's not like he's in the most ethical industry to begin with, and he pulls out a gun and she takes off running. A yellow Miata blindsides her, and she lands on top of it. Said Miata backs up, rears forward, throws Sarah off the roof, and screeches out of the parking lot. Todd puts the gun back in his pocket and takes the living hell off. Mary freakin' Christmas, indeed. More. Sex. But this time it's compliments of Todd Gaines, whose credit card they offer in the skanky back room of Crazy Horse. But Simon can't keep his hands off the merchandise, and a stripper leaps off him and screams "HANDS." A Gestapo stripper guard of some kind slams into the room. Melee. Simon's gun goes off, again about four seconds after its introduction, and Gestapo is shot in the arm. Simon throws the gun out the window of the car they speed off in, and Taye sends him to retrieve it (hi. Fingerprints), and we're back in the club, Stripper Gestapo's wound being stitched by a gruff fellow with what looks like rusty fishing wire. Taye and Simon burst into their hotel room with the two guys hot on their trail, telling Breckin and the other guy they have to get the hell out and blah. More in the melee department. Knock. Knock. Knock. Breckin knocks on the neighboring door, apologizing for earlier but begging for help. Kid: "Fuck you!" Earth: debased. Got it. The kid demands a hundred bucks, which they scrape together quickly and shove under the crack in the door just as the room door bursts open. They make to the car and tear the hell out of the parking lot as the two hapless enforcers run into the parking garage and watch them driving away. The car tears out onto the Strip with the black van right behind them. The chase is on! Cue "Magic Carpet Ride." Hell, I'll cue it for you, and then we'll all go have a karaoke time of it. I know a place about three blocks away from where they're driving. Back in Vegas, the older guy runs a credit-card scan on Todd Gaines. It's This Time Yesterday And No One Is Thinking It Emporium. Deck. Halls. Don't. Why? On for fourteen. Ronna? Evicted. Vegas. Shift. Blow job. Finger. A pan over to a nearby television reveals a shot of Gailey and Jay, in the middle of ACTING in a show I'll call the Gailey and Jay Variety Hour, Gailey brandishing an index finger at Jay and warning him, "I don't care how many high-priced lawyers you bring in. Eden Valley will never stand for your kind of scum." Piercing stares. Intertitle: "Adam & Zack." Yay. And yum. Cut to the interior of a police station, where Scott Wolf, stripped down to an unbuttoned shirt and a pair of gray briefs (I know there was a reason I had two tickets stubs for this movie…in my hope chest), Fichtner commenting way too matter of factly for Jay's liking, "You got a good body." Jay wants to make sure that all they have to do is complete this one task and their involvement with Fichtner is over, and Fichtner shoots back with a genuine guffaw, "Seems to me if a guy is that concerned about the legal process, he shouldn't find himself getting busted for possession." And for a movie that starts itself over and over again, it's no surprise that the careful viewer can just barely hear the Exposition Fairy slamming into the ground just feet from the set, her angelic fairy wings frayed and exhausted from sheer overuse. It has begun again. The Exposition Fairy sobs audibly. Gailey is wired for sound, and Fichtner sits in a car across the street and makes sure the bug they have recently attached to him works without a problem. Back inside the car, Gailey and Jay have a veiled conversation about how both of their girlfriends are "fucking around," a conversation which continues inside the supermarket. Oh, the suspense. Who are these random, unseen girlfriends? Perhaps we shall never know. They walk past Katie and Manny, Katie intoning to no one in particular, "Gay men are so hot. It's tragic." Word. They near the register and discover that the guy they're looking for isn't there, and back in the car Fichtner tells them they did fine and that as long as they get a bust, there's no problem. Repeat of the entire scene of Sarah showing up at the house, her taking off to the bathroom and losing the pills in the toilet. In a slo-mo shot, Jay whispers "go" as she walks past, which is, in my opinion, a pointless conceit. Blah underage drinking. Blah big sip. Surveillance cameras blah, and she's gone. Fichtner is mad. Jay asks again if they're done here, and Fichtner tells them that he and his wife both have to work on Christmas and would they like to come over for an early Christmas dinner. And so they do. And so they do. Fichtner is married to Jane Krakowski, whose most recent credits are as follows, for fans among you: losing a co-hosting job to a third-tier soap opera non-diva, and losing by a wide margin on Celebrity Jeopardy to both Mike Piazza and -- wait for it -- Kevin Sorbo. Piazza won, by the way. Jeopardy tidbit. You're welcome. Inside the bedroom, Jay enters to find Fichtner completely naked (Sars, that's at exactly 1:13:14 on my counter…you're welcome ["thanks, but sadly I already knew that" -- Sars]), who shows him the glory of a cologne he's wearing and the bed he sleeps on. He mercifully adds boxers to his wardrobe of nothing and pushes Jay onto the bed, leaning in close to him and asking, "Would you say you're open to new things?" And further sexual deviance in the kitchen, where Jane's advances on Gailey go over not that well for some reason. What could it be? What could it be? Jay thanks them for dinner and apologizes, telling them they have to leave. Fichtner understands, but first has something to discuss with them. As such: "Okay. You've looked around our place. Where do you think we got most of this stuff?" Gailey goes with Sears. He's wrong. "It's actually from Confederated Products…Confederated Products is a multi-level direct wholesaling company, which means we don't just sell the products ourselves, no sirree Bob, we recruit and manage teams that work under us." Jane wants to know if some nice chaps from the entertainment industry would like to be involved. Hee. The Cult Of Amway. It makes this movie just a bit more brilliant than it otherwise might have been. Fichtner flinches at the mere mention of the word, and we cut to Gailey and Jay in a liquor store, swearing that after that experience they have to "bathe themselves in sin." They each come clean that the sexual indiscretions they've had in their relationship with each other was with "Jimmy in makeup." Wait, those two are together? And so they're off to This Jimmy's house, where Sookie from Gilmore Girls (!) answers the door and tells them that Jimmy has gone off to "some kind of rave thing." Mary X-mas, Gailey. Jimmy, by comparison, is a hideous mess worthy of neither man. After finding him inside the rave and shearing a lock of his very, very Nelson-brothers long, cheesy-ass hair, the two, drunk with glee, are back in the Miata trying to get out of the parking lot. "Where'd you learn to drive, Circleville?" Hee. It's the little lines that get you. This part? Not so funny: they slam into an unknown presence and begin to scream like little girls when the windshield wipers fail to wipe away a hundred and twenty pounds of bloody flesh. It begins to rain, as it so often does when the mood takes a sudden turn for the sad, and in a gas station parking lot, Jay tries to do the car right, picking clumps of bloody hair off the hood. They convince themselves they've gotten away with the whole thing, seeing as if they hadn't killed her, the guy outside of the car with the gun would have, until Gailey excuses himself to the bathroom, and, in unfairly cheating the world with fewer ass shots than this movie's current Fichtner total, reaches down and finds the surveillance equipment still inside his pants. Uh. Oh. Jay tells Gailey that "if there's no body there's no crime" because he's, what, in the Gay Mafia? So they have to return to the scene and retrieve the girl, dead or no. Back in the parking lot in the rain, Jay jumps into Deadish Girl Ravine and Gailey, after a brief stint in the Breakdown Lane, collects himself enough to pick her up. Sarah coughs. She's still alive. They ditch her on the roof of a random car and take off. She's found one cut later as day starts to dawn and the long, dark night of iniquity comes to a slow end. Scott Wolf. Awwwww. Katie, alone, lies on top of Manny's car and, realizing she's going to continue to be alone, wanders away from the warehouse and into a diner. Sitting in a corner reading the paper is The Olyphant Man, who she walks over to and asks if he's seen Sarah. "We usually meet her in case we get separated. Thanks for buying me breakfast." Heh. Banter about the endless suckitude of The Family Circus and how it's the worst comic ever. Word, but it looks like someone's comic strip syndicate in no way involves Baby Blues. I'm just sayin'. Katie babbles unbearably and The Olyphant Man asks what she's on. "Ginseng and Dexatrim." Thanks for the ad lib. Speech from the first act goes off in the ninetieth, blah Christmas presents and surprises. And to them hooking up on the steps of his apartment building, until they look up to see the two Vegas baddies looking down on them. To wacky horn music, Todd figures out why they came for him and gives them directions to Simon's apartment, where Katie screams for them to shut up when they take Simon to the table. She asks the guy what he wants. "Justice." And from this to the Stripper Gestapo making Simon shoot himself in the arm in retribution. Katie gets pissed and leaves. Gun shot. Pause. Simon, from the through the closed door: "I'm all right! I'm okay!" Damn all. I freakin' love this movie. Sarah wakes up in a hospital, and we see her hobbling back into the supermarket, telling Katie that "things didn't go exactly according to plan." She's glad everything seems to have worked out, with the exception of the whole getting of rent money (which won't be addressed at this juncture unless anyone here is particularly interested in waiting for the movie to replay itself from the perspective of, like, the cartoon vampire on the front of someone's supermarket box of Count Chocula), and Katie tries to wrap up, asking where Manny is. Oh fuck, Manny. Cut to the aluminum shack that has been his home for an indefinite amount of time now, as they rescue him and make for the car. It's then that Katie remembers to ask if Sarah had enough to pay off the rent man. "With twenty left over. Maybe I'll open a savings account." Heh. And, finally, Manny pipes up from the back to have that kick-ass last line people only dream about: "So. What are we doing for New Year's?" Talk about your "Rosebud"-esque tagline right there.