Fire in the Sky

Year 16, Day 117 - 4/26/24 - Movie #4,716

BEFORE: So, an opportunity to get a film that's been on my list for a VERY long time crossed off. It's probably been on the list for more than three years, maybe more than five years. I don't keep track of how long something's been on the list.  I think I just put it on the list with a "what the hell" attitude, I mean, the film was released in 1993, and if I haven't watched it in thirty years' time, I figured it was a real longshot, and the cast is fairly obscure except for a couple major roles, so honestly, I thought I'd just never get around to this one, and then one day I'd die with maybe 10 films to go, and this one was likely to be one of those ten.  But no, the chain's got a plan for me, or the linking gods have looked favorably upon this alien abduction film from three decades ago.  

OK, so "what the hell", let's go for it.  Robert Patrick carries over from "Tell". 

THE PLOT: An Arizona logger mysteriously disappears for five days in an alleged encounter with a UFO in 1975. His co-workers endure ridicule and contempt as they are wrongly accused of murder. 

AFTER: It's just a coincidence that Season 5 of "The Secretsof Skinwalker Ranch" is starting THIS WEEK. I watched the first season of the show a few years back, so I could figure out why my mother was watching weird alien shows on The History Channel.  (Yes, alien investigations are somehow part of "History", there might be something wrong with that, sure.). And here it is, 5 seasons later and I'm still watching, trying to find something to disprove.  These ranch guys keep thinking they're going to find the right combination of frequencies, high-speed cameras and launching rockets and drones into the air above the ranch that will make the aliens reveal themselves and say, "OK, you got us, here we are.  We were going to stay invisible and off-radar, but wow, come on, 86.5 megahertz AND four rockets launched at once?  We just HAD to meet you guys!"  Yeah, UFOs (or I think it's UFPs now) don't work like that.

1975 was a different time, for sure. (Hell, 1993 was a different time, too...). America's obsession with UFO's was in its infancy, even the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was still two years away.  Travis Walton wrote a book about how he was abducted by aliens, or maybe he just needed to explain why he disappeared for five days, and if he was drunk or high or just fell down into a ditch for a while, who's to really say?  But his co-workers couldn't find him, and when he finally resurfaced, he was blaming the aliens for whatever happened.  Apparently the movie changed a lot of elements of the book he wrote, so, umm, what are we doing here then, guys?  Are we going to say this guy is 100% believable and then just make a movie about whatever we want, whether's it's part of his story or not?  If he's credible, then why not just film what was described in his book?  And if he's not credible, then why make a movie at all? 

Either way, I don't think that filmmakers can be trusted to handle information like this, even if Mr. Walton is believable and his story checks out, they're going to use movie magic to create their own thing, so we're not even comparing apples to apples here, we're hearing one man's account of an abduction, but filtered through a book AND a screenplay, and filmmakers who set out to try to make the best possible movie, and please don't confuse them with the facts, because they're professionals!  If you're looking to learn about what REALLY happened (or didn't happen) in the mountains of Arizona, boy, did you come to the wrong place.  Movie makers just want to make a movie that puts asses in the seats, and they'll do whatever it takes to do that.  I feel foolish even looking into this further, because if they changed the abductee's account, then I probably shouldn't take anything in this film too seriously.  

And then what happened?  You almost never hear about anybody claiming to be abducted by aliens any more.  Did if fall out of vogue?  Did people realize they were watching movies about alien abductions and then having very vivid dreams about it, which they then thought were real?  Did people stop chain-drinking and get sober and stop remembering things that didn't happen to them?  Or did the aliens abduct a few rednecks and then decide to leave the planet alone and never visit again - either because they saw the human race as no threat at all, or because they saw rednecks who stockpile guns as a very real threat, and vow never to visit Earth again?  Or maybe they ate a few humans and realized we don't taste very good at all - great plan everyone, keep fit and lean so we'll taste terrible to invading aliens.  This means more snacks and fatty meat for me, of course, so I'm all for it.  

More recent movies like "Attack the Block", "The Darkest Hour" and even the most recent remake of "The War of the Worlds" are big spectacle events, naturally they depict thousands of alien ships coming to Earth, they're trying to take over.  Oh, what happened to the old days when the aliens abducted people in secret, they weren't trying to take over the planet, just learn more about us, umm, both inside and out.  That's the problem with modern times, things are so impersonal - in the old days the aliens took over one person at a time, they really got a chance to do the probing and experiments on a small scale, and they'd at least get to know you.  It's a damn shame. 

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed that the film sort of doubled down on the alien invasion thing.  There's not any attempt to suggest that the logging crew might have been drinking or smoking the wacky tobaccy or anything that might have interfered with their perceptions and memories of the events in question.  Nope, we're sticking with aliens.  It's a bold move, but it's also a boring one, I'm sorry to say. 

Also starring D.B. Sweeney (last seen in "Introducing Dorothy Dandrige"), Craig Sheffer (last seen in "Some Kind of Wonderful"), Peter Berg (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Henry Thomas (last seen in "Spielberg"), Bradley Gregg, Noble Willingham (last seen in "Paper Moon"), Kathleen Wilhoite, James Garner (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Georgia Emelin (last seen in "Space Cowboys"), Scott MacDonald (last seen in "The Call of the Wild"), Wayne Grace (last seen in "All About Steve"), Kenneth White (last seen in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas"), Robert Covarrubias (last seen in "Sunset"), Bruce Wright (last seen in "The Negotiator"), Robert Biheller, Tom McGranahan Sr., Julie Ariola, Peter Vasquez, Gordon Scott, Mical Shannon Lewis, Courtney Esler, Holly Hoffman, Marcia MacLaine, Vernon Barkhurst, Jane Ferguson, Nancy Neifert, Charley Lang, Lynn Marie Sager, Mari Pedron, Frank Chavez, Eric Wilsey.

RATING: 4 out of 10 chain saws - and yet we never get to see the loggers fighting back against the aliens with their logging equipment, like what IS UP with that? 

Tell

Year 16, Day 116 - 4/25/24 - Movie #4,715

BEFORE: OK, Disney break over, back to movies about people stealing stuff and trying to kill each other.  At least it's adult stuff I can relate with, not having any kids just makes it weird that I'm watching Disney movies.  I got some funny looks when I went to the theater two years ago to see the "Minions" movie and I didn't have a kid with me, I guess I was giving off child molester vibes or something, and I usually try very hard not to do that. I wonder if child predators watch kids movies in their spare time, probably not.  But still they have to stay current on what's popular, right? 

Alan Tudyk carries over again from "Peter Pan & Wendy". And a great big accidental Birthday SHOUT-out to Jason Lee, born April 25, 1970. 

THE PLOT: Ethan Tell is a small-time crook who makes a big-time score when he steals 1 million dollars. But his life changes radically for the worse when he discovers that stealing the money was the easy part. 

AFTER: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this movie made almost nothing at the box office.  Weird name, no A-level stars and it couldn't decide if it wanted to be a crime film or a comedy, so it tried to be both.  That hardly ever works.  Well, the IMDB doesn't say how much the movie earned, so that's a clear sign that it bombed.  The Wiki pages just says the film was released, but no comment about how it did.  

I think it's safe to say that in a few months, I'll have completely forgotten about this one - it kind of feels like somebody made a crime movie without ever having seen one before, because there's little focus on the heist itself, which is the most important part of a crime film.  Think about "Ocean's Eleven", 'The Italian Job", "Baby Driver", what makes them work, what's the engine that drives the car.  It's planning the heist and pulling it off, watching IT happen even if everything doesn't go as planned.  But this film is somehow about everything else, like trying to fake a broken arm to get out of doing the heist in the first place.  

And then when things accidentally succeed, it's about what happens to the money AFTER the lead character serves three years in prison. Tell's wife shot him and took off as soon as she heard sirens - but were the cops even coming to their house, or were they just in the neighborhood for some other reason?  We'll never know.  Tell then stumbled out into the streets with the bag of money and we then see him waking up in the hospital.  He says that the money got stolen from him, but his ex-partner and a couple of dirty cops don't believe him, so they all follow him around to see if he's got a stash somewhere.  

But now he's an ex-convict, so that means reporting in to his parole officer, being aware of the fact that hanging out with criminals or being caught with a gun in his possession will send him back to prison.  And he finds out his wife is now his ex-wife, and she's married another man so that she could raise Tell's son.  Oh, yeah, Tell now has a son that she won't let him see, unless of course he's still got that million dollars stashed somewhere. 

Based on the fact that he moves out of the halfway house and into a room above a church rectory, it sure seems like he doesn't have money hidden away somewhere.  A priest hires him to clean out the apartment after the last caretaker committed suicide - he finds a safe there but has no idea how to open it, so he just sleeps with it in his bed, as if that will give him some kind of inspiration?  That's a bit weird.  I'm not a professional safecracker but if it were important to me to get into a safe, I'd at least do a little research about it, probably you only have to get so close to the right number, and if you've got some time, trying every possible combination isn't out of the question.

Then his ex-partner in crime (and ex-wife's brother) gets released, and he also wants to know where the money from the heist is.  Like everyone else in this film, he beats or tortures Tell to try to find out, but then when this doesn't work they become partners (again) in another money-making scheme, but it's blackmail this time.  I wanted to like these characters, but they kept doing more crime things and this made it very hard for me to root for them.  From a filmmaking perspective, and pretty much any angle, it's just one bad idea after another.  

Worse, they tried to do that "splash page" thing where they show us the most exciting part of the movie first, then the plot snaps back three years to show us the original crime, but then the whole movie, we kind of know where things are headed, so there's no real surprise when we finally get back there.  I know why they put the most exciting bit first, but it's not really justified if that gives too much away.  

Well at under 90 minutes at least it won't waste too much of your time.  But if that's the best thing I can say about a movie, you probably realize it's not going to be worthwhile either, it's kind of right down the middle, not overly annoying but then there's not much to enjoy either, it's simply not going to be anybody's favorite movie, so then what exactly was someone trying to accomplish? 

Also starring Milo Ventimiglia (last seen in "Second Act"), Katee Sackhoff (last heard in "Batman: Year One"), Jason Lee (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Robert Patrick (last seen in "The Protégé"), John Michael Higgins (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Faizon Love (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Oscar Nunez (last seen in "Disenchanted"), Peter Reinert (last seen in "Fanboys"), Monica Young, Joseph O'Neill, Gage Christopher, Frank Drank (last seen in "The Campaign"), Kenny Tarr, Cassandra Clark, Philip Cole. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 bullet-ridden watermelons

Peter Pan & Wendy

Year 16, Day 115 - 4/24/24 - Movie #4,714

BEFORE: I was smart yesterday to post my review of "Disenchanted" before going to work, it turned out to be the big premiere of "Boy Kills World" at the theater, and there was nearly a full house, with a red carpet and some stars from the film there - Bill Skarsgard, Famke Janssen and Brett Gelman.  Lots of snacks, too, but I was there late for the clean-up, since there was popcorn and soda bottles all over the big theater.  But I don't mind staying late, more hours for me, even if all my co-workers bail early to catch trains out of town, I'm there for the duration and I have keys to lock up.  I'm going to try to grab as many shifts as I can so I can take that week off after Mother's Day and not really feel it in the old wallet. 

Alan Tudyk carries over from "Disenchanted". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Peter Pan" (2003) (Movie #2,615)

THE PLOT: Peter Pan, a boy who does not want to grow up, recruits three siblings in London and together they embark on a magical adventure on the enchanted island of Neverland. 

AFTER: Disney Studios, of course, has been on an absolute tear to re-make every single one of their classic animated films from the 1940's and 1950's, up through the 80's ("Aladdin" and "The Little Mermaid") as live-action films, really live-action with a lot of animation and effects in them, and honestly, I've just never seen the point, other than it doubles the output of the studio, and saves on the costs of writing new stories or stealing from different source material.  It's a copyright dodge, I'm sure of it, because the company can claim that since they made a version of "Peter Pan" in the 1950's, then they have the right to make a reboot of the same story without having to go back to the Barrie estate and re-license the rights to "Peter Pan".  

But for all their efforts, the only good reboots they've made in the last few years are the updated "Aladdin" and "Lion King".  I thought the new "Little Mermaid" was only fair at best, and that new version of "Pinocchio", geez, what a real stinker.  Not even America's favorite nutty uncle Tom Hanks could make it entertaining, it was awful across the board.  But still, they're persisting, they're down to "Peter Pan" now, and really, it is worth all the effort, just to have a new version of the same old story?  No, it most definitely is not. 

Look, certain things worked in the 1950's that just aren't going to work today. If they continue and re-make "Snow White" as a live-action film full of effects, they'd better hire real little people or they're going to hear about it for sure - Peter Dinklage will lead the charge and there will be lawsuits if they cast regular-sized actors as the dwarves.  I still don't know how Peter Jackson managed to cast famous regular-sized actors as hobbits and dwarves in "The Lord of the Rings" and somehow he skated, I guess because those movies were so effin' great.  If they had, the next thing you know there would have been lawsuits from people who identiy as orcs and evil wizards about how they were portrayed in those films. JK. 

The "Peter Pan" story has a big problem, in that the villain is missing a hand and has a giant hook where his hand used to be.  OK, so disabled or differently-abled people are evil pirates, is that what we're saying?  Then the 1953 animated feature also had a whole subtext about Captain Hook being a stand-in for Wendy's father, this stems from the original plays where the same actor was cast as both Mr. Darling AND Captain Hook, maybe originally it was done to save money, I mean Mr. Darling doesn't appear after Act I, so that actor can just throw on a pirate hat and a big fake mustache and now he can play both roles.  BUT that gave a whole Freudian subtext to the whole deal, like Wendy sees her father as a controlling, dominating figure who is so over-protective he won't let any irresponsible boys come near her, and he'd rather she walk the plank and drown than to be caught fooling around with boys.  Oh, it's there. 

I won't even get into how the stage play version got turned into a musical in the 1950's, and Peter's songs were written for an alto voice, which meant that a short-haired woman usually ended up playing Peter Pan, and thus it was also easier to have a small pixie-like woman flying around the stage on ropes, instead of a man, since men tend to be bigger and burlier, it all kind of worked - but then by casting a woman in a boy's role they opened up a larger can of worms regarding gender roles, and isn't a boyish woman very close in many respects to an effeminate young man?  Wait a minute...that's the sound of people's minds being blown in the 1950's.  We'd better throw in a hyper-sexualized Marilyn Monroe-style Tinkerbell character so everyone can at least tell the genders apart.

So now here comes the 2023 update with "Peter Pan & Wendy", and notice how the female lead ALMOST gets top billing with the male lead, because we've got to strive for equality now.  But let's make sure that Peter Pan gets played by a boy and is clearly identifiable as male, because some people out there in America lose their minds as soon as they can't tell what gender somebody is, or if they're one gender and they identify as the other, well, forget about it.  OK, Peter's a boy, now we just have to throw some girls into the cast as part of the "Lost Boys" tribe, but they'll clearly be identifiable as girls, and then we can at least say the film is closer to equal representation by gender.  Boost up the part of the Native American girl, and make sure she can speak the Cree language, just to be on the safe side. 

That just leave the evil pirate who's missing a hand, we need to find a way to make him more sympathetic.  So they added a subplot about Captain Hook being one of the Lost Boys himself, only he and Peter had a falling out and Hook started a band of pirates, also he started to age again.  Hmm, OK, but that still doesn't turn him into a villain, are we putting that on Peter or on the large crocodile that ate his hand?  Try to remember, he's the victim here, so umm, wait, who's the villain here then?  They also added something of a back-story for Peter, he was a real boy in the real London and he used to live in the house where the Darlings live now, only he can't go back to his real parents even if he wanted to, because they must be dead by now, he spent too much time in Neverland I guess. 

But some of the Lost Boys DO want to return home to London, which is going to cause a problem for the Darling family.  What happens if they can't be reunited with their old families, for the same reason or a different one?  Do the Darlings have 18 new mouths to feed, or will they all be sent to orphanages or foster homes?  

What this film DID keep from the original plays was the focus on Wendy, how this trip to Neverland is really HER journey, it symbolizes the time just before she's ready to leave her parents home and travel to school, become a young woman out in the world, and all that entails.  Peter may be her first love, but he's unreliable and won't grow up - hmm, does this sound like somebody that every woman knows?  Yeah, the first time you fall in love it could very well be with someone who doesn't take the relationship as seriously as you do, so he'll be involved with his sword-fighting or his schoolwork or his cars or his stamp collection, and he's not going to give the woman who cares for him the attention she wants, and this will be a limited time offer that he'll probably miss out on, and maybe after a few more relationships he may smarten up, or maybe not.  But SHE will, she'll seek out somebody in the future who cares about her in all the ways that "Peter Pan" didn't, and they'll both be better off. 

Right, but the only problem here is that they cast an actress to play Wendy who seems unable to express happiness or joy in any way - she's got a look of constantly being concerned about something, or maybe it's "resting crying face".  Even when she's flying, which you're only supposed to be able to do when you think happy thoughts, she still doesn't look happy.  Also, NITPICK POINT here, which is it that makes the Darling kids able to fly, is it happy thoughts or is it pixie dust?  Pick a lane here and stick with it, unless for some reason it's the unlikely combination of both thoughts and dust, I'm just asking for a little consistency though. 

Also, really, there's a lot that DOESN'T happen in this movie.  It's 109 minutes long and there are really just TWO action scenes where the kids fight with the pirates, and really except for the flying ship, the scenes are very similar, a lot like one pirate battle twice instead of two different pirate battles.  Captain Hook wants to drown the two boys in the first part and make Wendy walk the plank in the second part, but that's just variations on the same theme, isn't it? 

Also what was the deal with Tiger Lily, anyway?  Where does she even fit into this story, and if she doesn't fit, then why is she here?   Oh, right, the Native American thing.  Well, we also got a Tinkerbell of color, so I guess there's that, but at this point, why bother?  Are we just filling quotas or something or is Disney trying to qualify for a grant?  This magical adventure left me wondering if the trip was even necessary in the first place. There's just nothing here that we didn't see in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, except this has more kids in it. 

NITPICK POINT #2: I never understood the whole "2nd star to the right, and straight on until morning" thing.  To the right of what?  The sky is filled with stars, where do I start if I'm going to count up to two?  And there's no "right" in space, because you could be upside-down and right would then be left, so this direction just isn't helpful at all if you're trying to get to Neverland. 

Also starring Alexander Molony (last heard in "The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales"), Ever Anderson (last seen in "Black Widow"), Jude Law (last seen in "Side Effects"), Alyssa Wapanatahk, Jim Gaffigan (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania"), Joshua Pickering, Jacobi Jupe, Molly Parker (last seen in "1922"), Yara Shahidi (last seen in "All In: The Fight for Democracy"), Florence Bensberg, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Noah Matthews Matofsky, Caelan Edie, Skyler Yates, Kelsey Yates, Diana Tsoy, Felix De Sousa, John DeSantis (last seen in "Seventh Son"), Garfield Wilson (last seen in "Coffee & Kareem"), Ian Tracey (last seen in "A Score to Settle"), Mark Acheson (last seen in "She's the Man"), Jesse James Pierce, Cassie Van Wolde, Deborah Ramsey, Paloma Nuñez (last seen in "Shazam!"), Paul Cheng (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Mike Ching (last seen in "Nacho Libre"), Kevan Cameron, Todd Allen Johnson (last seen in "Deadpool 2"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 sea shanties that almost rhyme but don't

Disenchanted

Year 16, Day 114 - 4/23/24 - Movie #4,713

BEFORE: I'm going to take a two-day detour over to Disney Plus, the chain kind of demands it.  I really should be spending more time over there, because I only got through Season 1 of "What If..?" and then didn't even start the "Ms. Marvel" and "Echo" shows, which I said I was going to do, but there just hasn't been time.  I got enough shifts at the theater this month, and that's kept me occupied, to the point where a co-worker texted me and asked me if I would cover his shift this week, and I turned it down - usually I'd just say "Yes" right away and then start counting how many more hours will be in my check, but really, my dance card is plenty full.  Still, I'll be taking a week off in May and I could use those hours...nope, not going to do it, I'm behind on too many other things at home. 

James Marsden carries over from "Unfinished Business", and with "Sex Drive" in February, yep, that's three this year for him. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Enchanted" (Movie #443)

THE PLOT: Fifteen years after her "happily ever after", Giselle questions her happiness, inadvertently turning the lives of those in the real world and Andalasia upside down in the process. 

AFTER: Fifteen years is a long time between sequels, though it may not be a record - it might, though be a personal record for me, the longest time between watching a film and its sequel - I think this beat out "Avatar: The Weight of Water" in that sense.  It's enough time for Robert's daughter Morgan to now be in high school (and also get played by a different actress), but I have to call a NITPICK POINT on this, because if Morgan was about nine years old in the first movie, she should be 24 now and out of college, not still attending high school.  The math doesn't add up for her here. Ah, I guess maybe 15 years have gone by in the real world, but only ten have passed in the movie world.  So she's 19?  By 19 I was a sophomore in college, just saying. 

Giselle (former resident of the fairy-tale world of Andalasia) and Robert are moving out of Manhattan as people tend to do, to the suburban land of Monroeville, only to find that their very large house needs further renovations, Robert can't quite get the hang of commuting to the city (which is weird, because, millions do it every day...) and Morgan has trouble fitting in at her new high school.  OK, well, pack up the stuff and move back to the city, then, because suburbia really doesn't get any better, I can assure you.  Why would anyone leave the land of 24-hour delis and subway trains that run all night?  OK, it's expensive to live in Manhattan, but now it's expensive to live anywhere.  All right, based on the square footage of that house, I think I see the appeal.  The kitchen is gigantic, and they're only in it for a few minutes every morning!

Also, the backyard comes with a portal back to Andalasia, and soon they're visited by the King and Queen, Edward and Nancy (Nancy used to be Robert's girlfriend, but somehow their visit isn't awkward at all.  Not until they reveal that they brought a magic wand as a gift, but there's a whole scroll that comes with it to explain the magic and how to use it (Pay attention, this could all be important later.) and they also say it can ONLY be used by true children of Andalasia (sounds like another codicil that could be important...).  

Giselle goes a little too far in trying to help her daughter acclimate - but come on, she MEANS well - and this puts her in conflict with Malvina Monroe, who doesn't officially run the town, but she runs the school PTA, the local HOA and probably has a seat on the town council as well, so she might as well be the Evil Queen.  This encounter (or something else, I have my own theory) brings out another side of Giselle, when the town clock strikes, her eyes turn yellow and she says some back-handed compliments in a not-nice way, also she takes her daughter out shopping for a dress for the town festival/ball, and buys more clothes for herself.  A little bit later, she's forbidding her daughter to go to the ball and locking her up in the tower, she's showing signs of turning into (wait for it) a wicked stepmother instead of just a regular one.  

I think this process started before Giselle used the magic wand, but now, honestly, I'm not sure.  To try and fix everything, Giselle uses the wand to turn the town into a "fairy-tale life" for them, but I guess she left out the word "perfect" and forgot somehow that fairy tales have a darker side, and not all of them end well for everybody.  The whole town is transformed into "Monrolasia", Malvina becomes the Evil Queen, the three gardeners become the three fairies from "Sleeping Beauty", and then there are musical numbers throughout the town that look like ones from "Beauty and the Beast" or what have you.  

It's a bit "WandaVision", perhaps, with an upstate NY town that seems to be living out its own reality, though we're not sure if there's a bubble over the town or if the wishing spell somehow affected the whole planet.  It doesn't really matter, all that matters is that the chipmunk turns into a cat sidekick, and Giselle and Malvina compete to see who's going to be the villain (because there can only be one) and Malvina tries to get the magic wand, but she doesn't realize that it won't work for humans or transformed humans, only true sons or daughters of the fairy-tale realm.

That realm, by the way, is suddenly in danger of disappearing, because its magic is being siphoned off to keep this NY town from reverting back to normal, or something, and the scroll tells us that by midnight the spell will be irreversible, more or less, so time is of the essence.  Robert's no help because he's suddenly engaged in a battle against a family of giants that has come to town, so Morgan goes through the well to the land of 2-D animation to enlist help from Edward and Nancy.  The scroll, meanwhile, is not really any help at all, but I guess maybe that's because they consulted him too late?  It's hard to say.  

I don't know, maybe fifteen years is too long to wait for a sequel - or maybe it's a bit odd that a film that talks so much about magic doesn't seem to have very much of its own, and what is magical here feels kind of forced.  Like, just because you can turn a chipmunk into a cat using CGI animation, that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to do so.  Having two characters sing about which one can be more evil feels similarly misguided, I want to like these characters, but now how can I.  Maybe spending 10 years developing a movie isn't helpful either, because any great ideas that people had at the start of the process maybe got worked over and rethought and then ultimately removed in favor of other things that were proposed by committee, or maybe this is just how a movie feels when it doesn't live up to the original source material, I don't know. 

I know all the references to other Disney movies were cute at first, who doesn't like keeping an eye out for Easter eggs like dancing brooms and poisoned apples, but then they did a similar thing in "Pinocchio" where all the clocks in Geppetto's shops had characters like Bambi or Donald Duck on them, and then it all starts to feel like shameless cross-promotion.  Disney Studios used to make more original stories (well, ok they stole from Brothers Grimm and others, but you know what I mean) and now all they do is jam as many cameos as possible into every film, because no amount of advertising is ever enough. (See also: "Ralph Breaks the Internet")

Also starring Amy Adams (last seen in "Dear Evan Hansen"), Patrick Dempsey (last seen in "Scream 3"), Maya Rudolph (last seen in "Maggie's Plan"), Gabriella Baldacchino, Idina Menzel (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Yvette Nicole Brown (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Jayma Mays (last seen in 'Bill & Ted Face the Music"), Kolton Stewart (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"), Oscar Nuñez (last seen in "The Lost City"), Brooke Josephson, Rachel Duff, Mila Jackson, Lara Jackson, Elmear Morrissey, James Monroe Iglehart (last seen in "Three Christs"), Michael McCorry Rose, Ann Harada (last seen in "The Art of Getting By"), Rachel Covey (last seen in "Enchanted"), Stephanie Karam, Fiona Browne, Camille Lucy Ross (last seen in "Arrival"), Matt Servitto (last seen in "Going the Distance"), Anthony R. Mottola, 

with the voices of Griffin Newman (last seen in "A Rainy Day in New York"), Alan Tudyk (last heard in "Strange World"), Adam Shankman (last seen in "A Walk to Remember")

RATING: 5 out of 10 singing NYC pigeons and rats 

Unfinished Business

Year 16, Day 113 - 4/22/24 - Movie #4,712

BEFORE: I just added this to the list a few weeks ago, it's running on cable and I spotted it in the on-screen guide.  I didn't realize I'd be watching it so quickly, that it would immediately play an important part of getting from April 1 to May 1, which also means it comes between "Oppenheimer" and "Barbie", if you want to look at it that way.  Or it's part of the connective tissue between Easter and Mother's Day, whichever. 

Nick Frost carries over from "Kinky Boots".  

THE PLOT: A hard-working small business owner and his two associates travel to Europe to close the most important deal of their lives.  But what began as a routine business trip goes off the rails in every way imaginable. 

AFTER: It's like somebody tried to make "Dodgeball" into a film about other businesses - you rooted for the Average Joes in that sports setting because they were the underdogs, they had a near-zero chance of winning their games but they had heart, and misplaced optimism, and part of you wants to believe that's enough to succeed in this world.  But in the world of business, any business, we all know that probably isn't true.  

Take restaurants, a big chain restaurant has a corporate structure and an advertising budget, and therefore it's got more visibility, name recognition, customer awareness, where a mom-and-pop diner has none of those things, just maybe a local following, possibly a good location, and maybe better food, but really, it's all a gamble.  You see a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts anywhere, and you know what to expect, maybe it's a little boring but you know at least there will be standards, but a regular one location coffee shop?  Could be fine but you're taking your chances, right?  It's like this across the board, for insurance, car sales, banking, big business has you covered - are you going to go open an account at Citibank, or Fred's Saving and Loan? 

So really, this could have been any business featured in this film, but they went with swarf-selling.  Swarf is apparently metal chips left over from manufacturing processes, and ideally they need to be recycled by some company, whether it's global Dynamic Systems, Inc. or a company that consists of three guys who don't even HAVE an office building, made up of two guys that used to work for Dynamic Systems and one guy they met in the parking lot after being "let go". Sure, that can be a company, and they've got NO overhead, so maybe they can keep costs down, but how are they going to get business, do the work and retain their customers?

The short answer is, they're not - but Dan Trunkman believes that they can, and without the stupid managerial systems and corporate retreat nonsense of the big guys, he can just focus on the very non-important work of recycling metal shards.  (BTW, happy Earth Day, everyone, that was a happy accident, I swear...). Meanwhile the three men get to go on a business trip from St. Louis up to Portland, and while Dan assumed that they were the only company bidding for the job, after checking into the hotel he saw Chuck, his old manager from Dynamic, was also in town.  Ah the fix is in, and it's possible that the client is just making a show of things, and pretending to be considering hiring a smaller company for a lesser cost to drive Dynamic's bid down, and they've got no intention of hiring Apex Select, after all.  

Well, that sucks, but is it enough to hang a comedy movie on?  Not really, so the plot has to send these three guys from Portland to Germany to try to do an end-run around the mid-level corporate structure in Portland, and deal with the REAL owners of the company, if they can just figure out who exactly that is.  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?  Well, everything of course. The three men have to drive to Hamburg to find a client who can help them get their price down, only she's relaxing at a sauna, as German people do, and doesn't trust Americans who are too stuck up and not comfortable with their bodies.  SO, they all have to get naked to prove they're not like that.  You have to figure no business really runs like this, it violates all kinds of H.R. codes, doesn't it? 

There's more, because they get the run-around from this German company, and their meeting gets pushed back three days, so they have to find someplace to stay, only it's October, and all the hotels are booked up because of Oktoberfest, and the G8 Summit is in town, also a very large Gay Pride festival, and several other events.  So the young dumb-but-well meaning worker and the older worker have to stay at a youth hostel, and Dan gets a deal on a room which is also somehow an exhibit in an art museum, and crowds watch him shave and shower and talk on the phone.  Germans are weird, sure, but are they THAT weird?  

In the meantime, Dan has to deal with family issues back home, his teenage son is being bullied AND cyber-bullied for being overweight, while his younger daughter is getting in trouble for being a bully herself.  Dan's wife wants to put them in private school so they won't be permanently scarred, but this costs money, and unless he closes this deal in Germany, they just can't afford it.  Also in the meantime, both Mike, the young guy and Timothy, the old guy are trying to get laid all the time, Mike because he's a virgin and Tim because he's been married for so long and he's never had a fling before, so yeah, sure, why not use the business trip to hire hookers who dress like maids, that couldn't possibly lead to any awkward situations at a hotel.

The biggest problem here is that none of this is remotely funny, and the film is marked as a comedy, when it's really anything but.  If you make every character's situation very pathetic, that's really the antithesis of comedy, even if they then get into humorous situations, well, it's all still going to read as depressing instead of funny.  Getting fired isn't funny, struggling at a company that isn't succeeding isn't funny, and then taking a desperate business trip and letting that be a further sign that nobody knows what the heck they're even doing is just piling more unfunny on top of all that. 

Sure, we know they're probably going to get this deal in the end, too much screen time was invested in the trying for them not to get it in some unlikely round-about way.  But then what? 

You can't win business by landing one deal, just like you can't win baseball by winning one game, even if it's the last game in the World Series.  Then in a few months you've got to start all over again (only it's going to be tougher because the best players on the team went and signed with other teams for more money.)

It just feels like a very poor framework for montages of German people partying, drinking, sitting naked in saunas and sticking dicks through glory holes in a gay sex club.  Look, there's ALMOST a movie right there, and that seems, well, moderately interesting - but you could have filmed those scenes without all the stupid business meetings, travel mishaps and awkward family conversations and it might have worked out better, but, too bad, we'll never know. 

Also starring Vince Vaughn (last seen in "Dragged Across Concrete"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Dave Franco (last seen in "Zeroville"), Sienna Miller (last seen in "An Imperfect Murder"), June Diane Raphael (last seen in "The High Note"), Ella Anderson (last seen in "The Giant Mechanical Man"), Britton Sear (last seen in "Boy Erased"), James Marsden (last seen in "Sex Drive"), Uwe Ochsenknecht, Bonita Friedericy (last seen in "House of Sand and Fog"), Kasia Malinowska, Carmen Lopez (last seen in "Two Days in New York"), Melissa McMeekin (last seen in "Hubie Halloween"), Jil Funke, Leonard Carow (last seen in "War Horse"), Rainer Reiners (last seen in "The Book Thief"), Terry Conforti (last seen in "Black Mass"), Michael Tow (last seen in "Free Guy"), Jamal Peters (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"). 

RATING: 3 out of 10 slaps to the face after tequila shots

Kinky Boots

Year 16, Day 112 - 4/21/24 - Movie #4,711

BEFORE: Went out yesterday with a colleague from Calfornia, an animation friend passing through town on his way to a comic-con in Italy - we've worked together remotely on a couple of films, we've done voices for two of the same films, and we used to hang out together at San Diego Comic-Con during all that.  He offered to buy dinner so I suggested a BBQ restaurant in Manhattan that I haven't been to in years, but I used to go there all the time when they had all-you-can-eat Mondays. (That was during a recession, they don't offer that any more.).  He also invited an ex-co-worker of mine, who I worked with for 5 years, and she and I have worked for three of the same employers, two animators and one college.  Talked about the old times, but it's bittersweet because we're revisiting a time in our lives that's over, and there's no going back.  

This week I had the occasion to do something similar, I went back to our old studio space because someone shipped a thank-you gift to our old address by mistake, just three blocks away but it was like going back in time eight years, and I saw that the studio space is now a DJ academy.  Also every place I used to eat lunch in that neighborhood closed down, either during the pandemic or maybe after.  It was a bit like going on a date with your ex, I imagine, things are kind of how you remember them except things don't feel quite right, you've moved past this and you've made your peace with the fact that things are different now and yet here you are again in the same spot. 

All I could focus on was the fact that the restaurant had a certain vibe, you'd stand in this long line and pass by the carving station, order your meats by the pound or in one of their combos, get sides at the next station and carry your tray back to your table, but of course now it's all table -side service, because of COVID, and it's just like every other damn restaurant.  They also don't serve green bean casserole any more, but that was their BEST side dish, of course.  Everything else was fine, but I just can't get over the missing pieces, whether they're tangible or intangible, to properly enjoy myself.  Nostalgia, I suppose, is just focusing on what's not there any more. 

Geoffrey Streatfeild carries over from "A Royal Night Out". Yesterday's film was directed by Julian Jarrold, who directed today's film as well.  But I don't track directors for some reason, so I don't know how many times this has happened accidentally. 

THE PLOT: A drag queen comes to the rescue of a man who, after inheriting his father's shoe factory, needs to diversify his product if he wants to keep his business afloat. 

AFTER: Sometimes I find a movie because I'm looking for another film to pair with something else and fill up a DVD. This time I was putting "Dirty Pretty Things" on a disc and looking for something to fill the disc and make a double-bill of sorts.  Searching the cable guide on the actors' names is often a quick way to do this - so even if I can't find two movies that pair thematically, at least they'll have one thing, or one person in common.  This process is guided by the chain, but it also has an influence on guiding the future chain, if that makes sense.  Assuming the second film is available on demand, I'll dub it even if I haven't seen the film before, and then just add it to the list and wait for it to surface to the top, and this is usually by providing a link between two other films, or between two holidays.  

So this got suggested by the process because it had Chiwetel Ejiofor in it, and then there was a kind of acceptance, in me saying, "Well, I've probably avoided this film long enough..." or maybe it's a "might as well" kind of thing.  I'm not drawn to movies about drag queens, but I'm also not intentionally avoiding them, it's just not my world but I'm also for practicing acceptance.  It's like finding out my co-workers are going to pride parade, which might have bothered me a bit in the past considering my history, but now I just let it go and think, "Well, OK, good for them, I hope they have fun...but it's not part of my world."  Live and let live, I don't force my lifestyle on other people, and I keep my private stuff private, but I realize at the same time that other people live differently, and that's OK.

Disclaimer over, I know Pride month is coming up, and I'll probably end up working at Newfest for a few days, but a gig is a gig.  Every year I think my ex-wife is going to show up to watch a film, if feels kind of inevitable but it hasn't happened yet.  I'll deal with it when it happens.  In the meantime, let's get into "Kinky Boots", about a man who inherits a shoe factory, and things being what they are, the economy is bad and inferior shoes are being imported from Slovakia, Charlie Price finds that he keeps having to lay off more and more workers, and eventually if this keeps up the factory will have to close.  But one female employee points out that he needs to diversify, seek out new markets for his products and think differently if he wants the business to succeed.  Charlie's wife, meanwhile, wants to sell the factory to a developer who would turn all that big empty factory space into luxury condos or flats.  

I can't argue, that's probably the idea that makes the most financial sense - but it also feels like giving up, and I see this every day in the animation business.  The studio is struggling, there's little money left after paying the studio rent and the payroll taxes, so how do we get ahead?  Diversifying is the strategy, let's see if we can get a table at Comic-Con, run a Kickstarter campaign, monetize the YouTube channel, sell some signed drawings and cels from the older films, license a couple features to a BluRay distributor, and then maybe that gets us through another two months, repeat as necessary.  That's been my life for the last two years, wait make that ten years, no wait, it's really been more like thirty, hasn't it?  So yeah, I get it, find your tribe, put something out there that's not like anything else on the market, do whatever you can to get publicity, and hopefully it all adds up to something.  

One night Charlie sees four guys in an alley bothering a woman, and he steps in to her defense, and instead gets a boot to his head, when Lola the drag queen defends herself.  When he comes to in the drag show dressing room, he sees the broken heel, and eventually has the lightbulb moment - transvestite men need better boots, ones that will support a man but are also made for a woman, if you know what I mean.  OK, so he's got a lot to learn about the drag queen market, but at least he wants to be invited to the party.  There's a niche market there for making boots, but first he has to find out how to make them sexy.  Or kinky, and maybe there's a fine line there.  

Charlie hires back Lauren, the employee who gave him the push, and also calls on Simon/Lola, who gave him the inspiration.  Now he just has to convince all of these factory workers, some of whom are conservative and set in their ways, to stop making Oxfords and switch over to thigh-high lipstick red zippered boots, and also black patent leather, zebra print, and whatever else the drag community might be inclined to wear.  Charlie has a falling-out with Lola, and also with his fiancée, but he'd already set up a fashion show in Milan, but has no models to wear the boots on stage.  He literally falls flat on his face, trying to model the boots himself, but since he'd placed a call earlier to Lola to apologize, she shows up with her entourage of Angel Boys and they put on a daring musical display on the runway (These Boots Are Made for Walkin') and save the day.  Sure, its formulaic, but formulas tend to have a way of working, don't they?  

The film got turned into a Broadway musical that ran from 2013 to 2019, co-written by Harvey Fierstein and with songs by Cyndi Lauper.  Then, of course, there's a filmed version of the stage musical, and probably a documentary about it as well, and I think also a documentary about the real-life shoe factory, but I'm just going to watch the original film and then move on, because there are still so many more movies to watch. 

Also starring Joel Edgerton (last seen in "The Green Knight"), Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"), Sarah-Jane Potts, Jemima Rooper (last seen in "The People We Hate at the Wedding"), Nick Frost (last seen in "Attack the Block"), Linda Bassett (last seen in "Effie Gray"), Robert Pugh (last seen in "Colette"), Ewan Hooper (last seen in "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave"), Stephen Marcus (last seen in "Iris"), Mona Hammond (last seen in "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers"), Kellie Bright (last seen in "Ali G Indahouse"), Joanna Scanlan (last seen in "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"), Leo Bill (last seen in "Cruella"), Gwenlian Davies, Sebastian Hurst-Palmer, Courtney Phillip, Ilario Bisi-Pedro (last seen in "Children of Men"), Barry McCarthy (last seen in "Notes on a Scandal"), Mark Haddon

RATING: 5 out of 10 arm-wrestling trophies

A Royal Night Out

Year 16, Day 111 - 4/20/24 - Movie #4,710

BEFORE: It's still a bit of a jump, but I'm staying with the topic of kings from the U.K. - from the king(s) of Scotland to King George VI and the future Queen Elizabeth.  Makes perfect sense that this would have landed on 4/20 because in addition to that other thing that gets celebrated today, it's Hitler's birthday - Adolf would have been 135 today if he'd lived, but come on, there was no way he was going to live that long.  With his diet?  Forget about it.  But that makes me think about World War II, and here comes a film about the end of all that.  Yeah, yeah, I know that Hitler died on April 30, and V-E Day was really May 8, but I'm doing the best that I can here. 

Jack Reynor carries over from "Macbeth". 

THE PLOT: On V.E. Day in 1945, as peace extends across Europe, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret are allowed out to join the celebrations.  It is a night full of excitement, danger and the first flutters of romance. 

AFTER: All kidding aside, Queen Elizabeth lived until she was 96, and it's only been about a year and a half since she died - the longest reigning British monarch, the longest reigning female monarch, with 70 years on the throne. (Her grandfather was King George V and HIS grandmother was Queen Victoria.). The majority of people can't remember a time when she wasn't queen, because they simply weren't alive then.  So we probably all tend to forget that she was a teenager once upon a time, and she went by the nickname "Lilibet", and she had one sister, Princess Margaret, who went by the nickname "Horseface".  (Wait a minute, no, that's right.)

The two teens desperately desired to go out and celebrate when peace broke out in Europe in 1945, but thanks to a combination of home-schooling and in-breeding, they both were ill-prepared to be out in public.  Elizabeth kept asking everyone for directions, because she never learned to read a map, also she'd been delivered everywhere by servants her whole life.  Not a good look.  And Margaret somehow knew all the best places to dance and party, despite never having danced or partied.  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?  The two girls were do dumb that they ended on separate buses with no open windows, and neither one could comprehend the fact that they couldn't hear each other or communicate in any way.  It's almost painful how they're depicted as ignorant in the ways of common man.  Like, when they got separated, why didn't they just text each other, or call each other's cell phones?  Oh, right, it was 1945. 

Princess Margaret ended up drinking too much, as teen girls out partying for the first time might do, and then jumped into a fountain on her way to the nightclubs to dance the Lindy Hop, and then - funny story - ended up with a bunch of prostitutes that were on their way to the Chelsea Barracks to show soldiers a "good time".  Ha ha, it's so hilarious to imagine a British princess servicing random soldiers and being totally out of control.  (Rule 34 says there simply must be porn about this somewhere, perhaps in a Tijuana bible...).  I hate to say it, but the King and the Queen Mum were right to set them up with a room at the Ritz, at a social gathering filled with older aristocrats.  I mean, it looked boring but there was probably a good buffet.  

Elizabeth, on the other hand, was the more responsible one, even if she didn't understand how maps or buses work, at least she tried to find her wayward sister, with the help of an RAF pilot who had recently gone AWOL.  Sure, I know this night probably never happened, but it's a good enough "fish out of water" story with the future queen going incognito and interacting with the common folk.  There's a bit of a disconnect here, though, because the film also mentions that Princess Elizabeth served in the military, sort of, as an honorary second subaltern in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Services - she trained as a driver and mechanic, even if the role was mostly honorary, you'd think that a driver would at least know her way around town.

Supposedly there were two army officers assigned to be their escorts, and according to the film, those escorts were bumbling idiots who got distracted by a conga, went off to have random sex at a party and then were probably court-martialed for losing track of the princesses.  These officers never existed, and the night just didn't go down like this, but sure, it's fun to imagine.  The real story is that the princesses went out with a group of friends that were also military officers, they walked through Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Pall Mall, watched their own parents on the palace balcony, and partied until about 3 am, with no known repercussions and without the King having to make a call to cover for an RAF deserter. 

I don't watch "The Crown", but I've heard good things - my wife has watched the whole series, while I clearly don't have time for it.  I know that Season 1 begins with Elizabeth marrying Prince Philip, so this film could serve as something of a prequel to that series, but then again, so could "The King's Speech". It's a very fertile era for movies, that post World War 2 U.K. setting. 

Also starring Sarah Gadon (last heard in "The Nut Job"), Bel Powley (last seen in "Carrie Pilby"), Emily Watson (last seen in "The Book Thief"), Rupert Everett (last seen in "An Ideal Husband"), Mark Hadfield (last seen in "Belfast"), Jack Laskey (last seen in "The Aftermath"), Jack Gordon (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Tim Potter (last seen in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"), Annabel Leventon (last seen in "Wimbledon"), Geoffrey Streatfeild (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), Roger Allam (ditto), Debra Penny, Ricky Champ (last seen in "Lost in London"), Jack Brady (last seen in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children"), Jessica Jay, Samantha Baines, Emma Connell, Rab Affleck (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Matt Sutton, Anna Swan, Sophia De Martino (last seen in "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain"), Hayley Squires (ditto), Fiona Skinner (last seen in "Official Secrets"), Laurence Spellman (last seen in "Venom: Let There Be Carnage"), Ben Hall, Ruth Sheen (last seen in "Cyrano"), Edward Killingback, Gintare Belnoraviciute (last seen in "Tomb Raider"), Derek Lawson, with archive footage of Winston Churchill (last seen in "The Special Relationship")

RATING: 6 out of 10 liberated bottles of champagne