Review of Back in the Day (2014) by Alice S — 18 Jan 2014

Not often does Evansville see the return of a native son-turned-Hollywood Top Dog, so Showplace East was brimming with eager viewers on the night of Michael Rosenbaum's movie screening + talkback, hoping to rub elbows and share their I knew-you-whens. Not having watched much "Smallville" but always having been a fan of his chrome dome, I enjoyed Rosenbaum's Dane Cook-y stand-up persona which, albeit fratty, livened up the typical Q&A format.

"Back in the Day" is a raunchy, nostalgic, coming-of-middle-age, high school reunion romp, and while that trope is trite, Rosenbaum brings some smart surprises to the lewd/scatological genre: the rude-nude-dude bouncing along in the pick-up truck and the slo-mo close-up of his giblets; the hiding in the shower dual vomiting scene, and my favorite, the homage to Hitchcock's "Psycho" shower scene with the illusory flash cuts and colored water going down the drain.

The men are all pretty much the same, the women are also pretty much the same, and the small-town loser stereotypes are a bit stale, but Sarah Colonna plays a great wallflower with secret bondage fetish, Morena Baccarin is sassy and accessibly beautiful in a "regular girl" role, and Rosenbaum's likable straight man who does the honorable thing in the end is all the more impressive after having seen his real life dude-brah persona.

The script does rely too much on flashbacks, but it was nice to see familiar Evansville and Newburgh scenery. The movie ends well with the half-patronizing but ultimately comforting thumbs up on Jim's ubiquitous insurance-shilling ads.