What is wrong with humanity? What kind of a world do we live in?

Seinfeld

2.6: The Chinese Restaurant

The Premise

Jerry, George and Elaine wait for a table at a Chinese restaurant.

Observational

Rating Seinfeldepisodes isn’t as easy as it looks. Most of them are pretty, pretty good so you have to use the full five stars judiciously if you’re going to properly recognise the crème de la crème. The Chinese Restaurant is one such episode. I’d been merrily amusing myself with the season so far, noting the steady increase in quality from episode to episode. And then Restaurant is served up as a gourmet feast; each mouthful is a succulent delight. Seinfeld and David ensure every line sings and every digression sparkles. It’s so stuffed with goodness, it makes the previous episodes seem comparatively underfed.

NBC really didn’t like the script because “nothing happens”, and you can see why they might think that. It’s a fairly outlandish premise (and for only the eleventh episode made, they hit their stride very early). Set in real time, and with the only glue being that they are trapped waiting for the duration, it’s a wonder that David and Seinfeld had the material to fill it out, except that when you watch it you realise there isn’t a moment of dead air or a vignette that doesn’t play. Apparently the time pressure (to get to the movie) was a sop to satisfy the studio, but the only aspect that doesn’t quite work is the convenience of Jerry bumping into a woman who works at his uncle’s office (which uncle, Leo?), the very uncle he lied to so he could go and see Plan 9 From Outer Space that evening.

ABC didn’t like the finished article either (consistent, you can give them that), and delayed showing it until later in the run. Jerry has proved charitable about their attitude; they may not have appreciated it, but they still let them make it. And it became one of the series’ defining moments.

There’s no Kramer this time, which upset Michael Richards (the original conception was that Kramer didn’t go out, although we just saw him do exactly that in The Busboy). His character is often the highlight of an episode, so it’s a strong statement of how tight The Chinese Restaurant is that you don’t miss him. The remaining trio all have multiple great moments, with George and Elaine suffering particular frustrations.

George probably has the pick of the material, as dictated by his penchant for embarrassment and self-delusion. His story about needing a poo while having sex with girlfriend Tatiana is a classic example (and one of the earliest) of the series getting away with being risqué by discussing a subject in a roundabout way. When George tells Jerry the bathroom at her house doesn’t provide enough privacy (“no buffer zone”), he doesn’t need to go into graphic detail about exploding bowels and straining noises. Indeed, the network limitations requiring them to speak around a subject result in turns of phrase much funnier than explicit language. George talks about the need to “relieve this unstoppable force”. And his reported exit is beautifully inappropriate (“I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I think it would best that I left”).

His rage over the phone guy, whom he sees as rudely hogging the public phone (that’s one plotline that would go straight in the bin today), is spectacularly self-righteous and disproportionate (“What is wrong with humanity? What kind of a world do we live in?”). As ever, the fury and indignation (“I really hate this guy”) is completely diffused when the guy confronts him:

Phone Guy: Hey, sorry I took so long.

George: Oh, that’s okay. Really. Don’t worry about it.

His petty behaviour (although entirely understandable; with George it’s all about how he reacts, not that we don’t share his irritations) receives a perfect rebuke when he protests that he was ahead of the next person to pick up the phone (“Well, if you were here first, you’d be holding the phone”). Later, his miserliness comes to the fore when he opts for the smallest share of the table bribe (“I’m not going to eat that much”). But the crowning moment occurs when we learn that Bruce mistook his surname for Cartwright (“I yell “Cartwright, Cartwright”. Nobody answer”), and told Tatiana he wasn’t there.

Elaine’s on pugnacious form, railing against customers who are grateful to be given a table (“It’s enough to make you sick!”), cinema snacks (“I’d rather lick the food off the floor!”), and her own jaded attitude to eating out (“Now I just feel like a big sweaty hog, waiting for them to fill up the trough”). To top it all, she descends into her unique brand of freak-out as everyone else continually gets shown to a table (“Where am I? Is this a dream? What in God’s name is going on here?”)

Jerry is much more mild-mannered than his friends, even though he has the greater vested interest (the cinema visit is his idea). He has fun winding up Elaine, particularly when it comes to her suggestion that men are more suited to making deals with restaurateurs (“The women’s movement can’t seem to make much progress in the world of bribery, can they?”) and his tickled response to her failure to get a table by this means (“What sort of a sorry exhibition was that?”) Elaine already had a good laugh at his expense though, when he engages in a conversation with his uncle’s employee without admitting he has no idea who she is (“Definitely, I plan to. And I’m not just saying that”). This moment marks out Jerry as a polar opposite to George; instead of being flustered and wracked with nerves, Jerry exudes wry self-amusement. No one could be less flustered at a potentially embarrassing situation.

There other star is James Hong as the restaurant manager, Bruce. Hong is perhaps best known as Lo Pang in Big Trouble in Little China. His benign indifference to our desperate trio makes their vexation all the funnier. He even segues into offering relationship advice to Jerry about Elaine (“Well, actually we did date for a while, but that’s really not relevant”). And naturally, as soon as they depart the restaurant, resigned to a failure of an evening, their table is called.

Quotable

Elaine: Do you notice how happy people are when they finally get a table. They feel so special because they’ve been chosen. It’s enough to make you sick!

Jerry: Boy, you are really hungry.

George: For 50 bucks? I’d put my face in their soup and blow.

Woman: Well, if you were here first, you’d be holding the phone.

George: You know, we’re supposed to be living in a society. We’re supposed to act in a civilised way!

Elaine: Movie hotdogs? I’d rather lick the food off the floor.

Jerry: Who’s Cartwright?

George: I’m Cartwright!

Jerry: You’re not Cartwright.

George: Of course I’m not Cartwright!

Jerry: I can’t go to a bad movie by myself. What, am I going to make smart remarks to strangers?

Verdict:

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

I’m just the balloon man.

Copshop (2021) (SPOILERS) A consistent problem with Joe Carnahan’s oeuvre is that, no matter how confidently his movies begin, or how strong his premise, or how adept his direction or compelling the performances he extracts, he ends up blowing it. He blows it with Copshop , a ’70s-inspired variant on Assault on Precinct 13 that is pretty damn good during the first hour, before devolving into his standard mode of sado-nihilistic mayhem.

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

When we have been subtle, then can I kill him?

The Avengers 6.16. Legacy of Death There’s scarcely any crediting the Terry Nation of Noon-Doomsday as the same Terry Nation that wrote this, let alone the Terry Nation churning out a no-frills Dalek story a season for the latter stages of the Jon Pertwee era. Of course, Nation had started out as a comedy writer (for Hancock), and it may be that the kick Brian Clemens gave him up the pants in reaction to the quality of Noon-Doomsday loosened a whole load of gags. Admittedly, a lot of them are well worn, but they come so thick and fast in Legacy of Death , accompanied by an assuredly giddy pace from director Don Chaffey (of Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts ) and a fine ensemble of supporting players, that it would be churlish to complain.

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog