Attention Deficit Theater

Take about 20 small plots set around a popular American holiday, mix in about three dozen characters all played by people we know, and then never let them occupy the screen for no more than two minutes at a time.

That, my friends, is now what we know as the prototypical Garry Marshall film.

Nobody was more surprised than me when this recipe worked, well, okay in "Valentine's Day," which I somehow enjoyed.  But, as Marshall now goes down the Hallmark list of holidays that scream longingly for a movie treatment, we arrive at the just-released "New Year's Eve."  And midnight can't come soon enough.

You can't help but marvel at the precise machinations of a production like this.  There have to be at least two thousand scenes in this two-hour movie.  You don't like what you're seeing at the moment?  Well, wait, we shift gears completely in approximately 42 seconds.  The film becomes a memory test.  Five minutes later, you are racking your brain to remember who this person is and why he or she is now involved with that other person you met four minutes ago.   If you think this is confusing, simply skip the box of Raisinets at the candy counter and head straight for a bottle of Advil.

It's New Year's Eve in New York City and there are a million stories to tell in the naked city.  But, Marshall has time just to show you 999,999 of them.  And you just know that some of them will collide together,  like a 17 car pile-up on an icy West Side Highway.  Does this theater come equipped with a "jaws of life" so innocent folks can get extricated from their seats?

Let's see.  We have Hilary Swank, who's in charge of the Times Square festivities including the dropping of the famous ball which breaks down and needs to be fixed by Hector Elizondo, who has been in every Garry Marshall movie, no doubt begrudgingly.  Josh Duhamel is looking for a lost love, but is stuck in a motor van with the voice of Lisa Simpson, who, in reality, once was at an adjacent table from me on a New Year's Eve several years back.  Sarah Jessica Parker is trying to ground her daughter from going out to celebrate, because you know that Sarah Jessica is aware there's a lot of sex going on in that city. 

Meanwhile, Halle Berry is a hospital nurse tending to dying cancer patient Robert DeNiro.  He grimaces a lot and, given what he has read in the script, you can't blame him.  Michelle Pfeiffer, who looks like she really was in a 17-car collision, is a lonely secretary being led around town by, of all people, Zac Efron.  Seth Meyers is a husband who's trying to get his pregnant wife to deliver quickly so they can win a "first baby of the year" competition.  Katherine Heigl, who is absolutely hateful in real life, is a chef who wants to reconcile with Jon Bon Jovi, who is scheduled to sing in Times Square.  And let's not forget that Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michele, looking a bit like a prostitute ring has opened up on Glee, are in that wonderful, mechanical "meet cute"---trapped in a stuck elevator.

That's just what we learn in the first thirty seconds.  And they wonder why people drink on New Year's Eve.

Meanwhile, there are dozens of other plots and cameos featuring everybody in Garry Marshall's cell phone contacts list.  From Ryan Seacrest to sister Penny Marshall to Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Matthew Broderick, who was probably simply bringing wife Sarah Jessica a sandwich for lunch.  What?  Al Molinaro was busy?  Regardless, the cast is a veritable who's who, but, in reality, the audience wants to continually ask "what's that."

Meanwhile, the entire production looks like it was shot last week as it features so many up-to-date references that the film will seem stale by January.   I am shocked they didn't work in two or three plots that featured some Occupy Wall Streeters.  In the Times Square vista of garish billboards, there's even a big ad for the studio's upcoming release, the Sherlock Holmes sequel with Robert Downey Jr., which has to be one of the most shameful displays of product placement in movie history. 

Truth be told, "New Year's Eve" doesn't allow the viewer to be bored, because there really isn't any time.  You have to wait longer for the Air Train at JFK Airport than you do for the next scene or plot change.  And, almost sadly, I must admit that one or two plots did pluck at a heartstring.  Or was that indigestion from the Italian meal I had before the movie?  Like everything else in the movie, I figured the discomfort would be gone in a minute.

Now, I like Garry Marshall.  I think the guy's talented and even met him once in a bathroom at Warner Brothers.  For bringing us the "Odd Couple" with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, he gets the official Len "lifetime hall pass."  But, I'm hoping he realizes that these holiday concoctions are not a fitting end to a wonderful career.  And I pray this happens before 2013 when we are likely to see...

"Arbor Day."

Dinner last night:  Back in LA for beef and mushroom risotto.