Zach Braff first angered the Kickstarter Gods about a year ago, when he dared to ask his fans for money to make a film, despite already being kinda sorta famous. He got the money amidst competing cries of foulplay and counter cries of you’re just butthurt, but in the end, nothing matters except what ends up on screen, and now we can see some of that in the first teaser for Wish I Was Here, being distributed by Focus Features. Does it have The Shins on the soundtrack? You better f*cking believe it has the goddamned Shins on the soundtrack, you motherf*cker.
There’s a lot of pretty footage, but it’s hard to tell what it’s actually about. Let’s go back to the original Kickstarter:
“Wish I Was Here” is the story of Aidan Bloom (played by me), a struggling actor, father and husband, who at 35 is still trying to find his identity; a purpose for his life. He and his wife are barely getting by financially and Aidan passes his time by fantasizing about being the great futuristic Space-Knight he’d always dreamed he’d be as a little kid.
When his ailing father can no longer afford to pay for private school for his two kids (ages 5 and 12) and the only available public school is on its last legs, Aidan reluctantly agrees to attempt to home-school them.
The result is some funny chaos, until Aidan decides to scrap the traditional academic curriculum and come up with his own. Through teaching them about life his way, Aidan gradually discovers some of the parts of himself he couldn’t find.
Uh oh, my magical realism sense is tingling, meaning I might have to fly to Never Never Land to save my dying nephew from the cum falcons while a Killers song plays. But before I go, I’ll simply say that I’ll watch damn near anything with Mandy Patinkin in it, the world’s best and foremost blink actor. The man conveys more with closed eyes than most actors do their entire career.
And God help me, I like The Shins. DAMN THESE CAUCASIAN GENES!