Jimi: All Is By My Side

Year 9, Day 343 - 12/9/17 - Movie #2,791

BEFORE: André Benjamin (André 3000?  Which is it?) carries over from "Idlewild", and this is the film I've been looking forward to, they took their sweet time running this 2013 on premium cable.  I know because I've been waiting for four years, since before there was even a Netflix to check obsessively.  This will also cap off a trilogy of 1970's bio-pics this week, which included Linda Lovelace and John Holmes.  Now, whatever happened to those Janis Joplin movies that competing studios were supposedly developing a few years ago, will any of those ever get produced?

I don't have many films left in this year's chain - and I can't make any changes now, not if I want to link to "Star Wars: The Last Jedi", which is now just five films away.  But if I had an open slot, I could drop in a documentary about Hendrix that I recently taped - maybe I'll watch it anyway as an extra after this to verify the events in this movie.  If needed.

THE PLOT: A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off.

AFTER: It's the stuff of rock and roll legend, how Jimi Hendrix did a show in London with two of the Beatles in the crowd (Paul and George) and happened to have an advance copy of the "Sgt. Pepper" album backstage, so he quickly listened to the title track and went over the chords with the other members of his band, all so he could get ahead of the curve and be the first person to play a song from that upcoming album live in concert.  Now, since that album had only been released three days prior, very few people in that audience were likely to recognize it, but for the few that would, hearing Jimi play it was really going to mess with their heads.  Was Jimi trying to steal the Beatles' thunder, pay homage to their new album, or just blow their minds with a musical magic trick of sorts?

This did happen, there's a video of it online.  Hendrix didn't get all of the chords right, and added an extended guitar solo, of course.  But that's all we see of this concert in this movie, though Hendrix went on to perform "Foxy Lady", "Manic Depression", "Hey Joe", "Purple Haze", "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Are You Experienced".  That's about when you realize that the filmmakers here weren't able to secure the rights to any of Hendrix's original songs, but they went ahead with the movie anyway.

To pull off their own little magic trick, they had to compose a few song pieces that sounded a bit like early Jimi Hendrix Experience numbers, and they were able to record Hendrix-like versions of "Wild Thing" and "Hound Dog", but other than that, there's a lot of footage of André as Jimi tuning up, or getting ready to play, or stalling within a recording session.  Turns out you really do need some of those songs if you're going to make the point that Hendrix was a great guitarist, if not a great song-writer.  But the film, in this roundabout way, then raises the question about his songwriting - was he just a great guitarist, in the end?

For these purposes, you have to examine his most famous tracks - "All Along the Watchtower" was a Bob Dylan song.  "Hey Joe" goes back to Billy Roberts in 1962, and possibly before that. "Red House" came out of Albert King's 1961 recording "Travelin' to California", and so on.  And the version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" he played at Woodstock would be completely out of copyright, of course.  Rock has undergone a sort of revisionist history in the last few years, with musicologists pointing out that nearly every Led Zeppelin song was just a fresh take on an old blues song by Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, so they've been forced to credit the real songwriters on the new releases of their old albums.  Even "Stairway to Heaven" bears a strong resemblance to a song called "Taurus" from a band called Spirit, which Zeppelin toured with before they released "Stairway".  Hmmmm......

So the film chooses to focus only on Jimi's time in London, which means it conveniently ends as he flies off to play at the Monterey Pop Festival, another iconic performance where he played some songs that he did write, which we'll never get to hear here.  It's kind of similar to how "Wonderland" chose to focus on John Holmes' connection to a murder scene, rather than the x-rated film work that he was more famous for.  And both remind me of Patton Oswalt's routine about "The Passion of the Christ", comparing a film focusing solely on Jesus' torture and crucifixion to an imaginary film about Albert Einstein that would focus solely on those three days where he had really bad stomach flu.

But for the positives, André Benjamin was great at capturing the speech pattern, the look and the FEEL of Jimi Hendrix.  And even though he still had that "too cool" detached manner that was evident yesterday in "Idlewild", here that attitude really works, because I'm guessing that quite often, Hendrix WAS the coolest person in the room, and he knew it.  It's too bad that the narrative and musical constraints here forced the story to add in a bunch of insecurity (to explain the overly-long guitar tuning sessions) and also the times he beat his girlfriend (which she claims never happened).

Also starring Hayley Atwell (last seen in "Cinderella"), Imogen Poots (last seen in "28 Weeks Later"), Ruth Negga (last seen in "World War Z"), Andrew Buckley, Oliver Bennett, Tom Dunlea, Adrian Lester (last seen in "Primary Colors"), Burn Gorman (last seen in "Layer Cake"), Amy de Bhrun (last seen in "Jason Bourne"), Clare-Hope Ashitey, Laurence Kinlan, Jade Yourell, Sam McGovern, Robbie Jarvis, Danny McColgan, Sean Duggan, Geoffrey Burton, Richard Lintern (last seen in "Syriana").

RATING: 5 out of 10 hair curlers

Idlewild

Year 9, Day 342 - 12/8/17 - Movie #2,790

BEFORE: Faizon Love carries over from "Wonderland", and this is a film that I recorded months ago, but I kept it down at the bottom of the list, because I was waiting for some channel to run the film I'm going to watch tomorrow.  That took some time, longer than expected.  But eventually it did air, so I'm moving forward with my plan to get this one AND that one off the watchlist before the end of the year.

THE PLOT: A musical set in prohibition-era American South, where Rooster, a speakeasy performer and club manager, must contend with gangsters while his partner, piano player Percival, must choose between his love and his obligations to his father.

AFTER: This sort of fits into that fascination we seem to have as a country with the Jazz Age, the birth of the club scene and a particular style of music, and the gangster lifestyle that went along with the combination of those things and Prohibition.  Just as American culture and nightlife were developing, alcohol happened to be illegal, so naturally crime flourished in the form of bootlegging and other illicit night-time activities.

But I found this film very hard to follow - and very hard to finish, since I kept falling asleep, rewinding back to the last thing I remembered, and falling asleep again.  How did someone make singing, dancing and running hooch so flipping boring?  I had to give up on the film after about an hour, and then get some real sleep.  After work on Friday I had to finish the final hour of the film, but all told, that took way too much time.  If only there had been anything interesting in the plot, maybe I could have stayed awake.

I think the main problem here is that even some of the actors don't seem like they care - and if they don't seem invested in what's going on, then neither do I.  Bear in mind that some of these actors fell backwards into movies through music, so they may not have had formal training in acting, and sometimes that does make a difference.  Terrence Howard, I don't know what his deal is, but he always gives off that air like he doesn't care what's happening.  Acting is about showing emotions, not just being the coolest, most emotionally detached person in the room at any given time.

But there are also parts of the story that don't make any sense.  There's a woman who impersonates a famous singer, just to get into the club - and then when she gets up on stage, she realizes that she can't perform due to stage fright.  Really?  If she can't sing, then what was her big plan, what was the endgame to her little scam?  It just doesn't track.  In another instance, a gangster informs the new owner of the club that the previous owner's debt is now his problem.  Umm, no, pretty much everyone agrees that when someone dies, their debts are wiped clean.  Not even a mobster would go after someone else to collect a debt, or am I way off base here?

Plus, it just didn't work for me to have characters performing in a nightclub in the 1930's, singing what are essentially hip-hop songs.  You can't re-work the historical timeline to put a modern piece of music in a historical setting.  This didn't work in "Moulin Rouge", and it didn't work here.

On top of all that, I didn't even understand the bits with the talking rooster on the flask.  I literally have no idea what that was all about.  Was Rooster insane, hallucinating, or what?  Same goes for the little animated characters on the sheet music - what did that even bring to the table, or was it just a time-killer?   I'm just not following so much of this randomness.  And on top of THAT, it doesn't make any sense for someone to collect cuckoo clocks, to have a whole wall of them.  That's just not a thing - I guarantee that for anyone who owns one of those items, one is plenty, possibly too many.

There are a couple of nice camera tricks in this film, but a movie needs to be about more than just a couple pieces of interesting cinematography and a hokey ending.

Also starring André Benjamin, Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, Paula Patton (last seen in "The Do-Over"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "St. Vincent"), Malinda Williams, Cicely Tyson (last seen in "Alex Cross"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"), Macy Gray (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Jackie Long, Ben Vereen, Bill Nunn (last seen in "Regarding Henry"), Paula Jai Parker (last seen in "Hustle & Flow"), Bobb'e J. Thompson, Patti Labelle, Karen Dyer (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Oscar Dillon, Esau McGraw, Bruce Bruce, with the voice of Fonzworth Bentley.

RATING: 3 out of 10 tommy guns

Wonderland

Year 9, Day 341 - 12/7/17 - Movie #2,789

BEFORE: Christina Applegate carries over from "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip", and it's another one of those weeks where I'm absolutely certain that no one ever, besides me, has watched these particular films in this order.  Who watches an animated movie for kids and then follows it up with a film about porn stars and murder?  You really should watch out for someone like that, there's probably something very wrong with them.

Speaking of which, I have heard from a reliable source that there will be no more "Chipmunks" films produced, after "The Road Chip", and it's probably just as well.  It seems like Alvin's really in trouble this time, some of the Chipettes have accused him of sexual harassment, so his Hollywood career is over, unless he goes to sex rehab and then does the apology publicity tour.  It's very sad - but you just can't have someone like that serving as a role model for kids.

THE PLOT: In the investigation of a brutal crime scene, one man was at the center of it all: legendary porn star John Holmes.

AFTER: Way back at the start of this year, I sent out a dedication to Carrie Fisher, who passed away just before Christmas.  It took 11 months to finally get to some films with her in them - she turns up tonight in a small role as a religious L.A. woman trying to help get troubled women off the streets - but I didn't expect her to pop up here.  This is almost too soon - I've got three more films with her scheduled for next week, including a little sci-fi film you might be anticipating, if you're like me.  I'm still 7 films away from linking to "The Last Jedi" - but I'm gonna get back to Carrie in time for next Friday.

This film about John Holmes is a bit of an odd duck - I mean, there's no denying the fact that he was a person of interest in what came to be known as the "Wonderland Murders" (which took place on Wonderland Avenue) and were probably a gangster's retaliation for a robbery by a group of people who were also connected to Holmes.  The connection between all the parties involved seems to be that John Holmes liked to come over to their houses, snort a bunch of cocaine, and then leave.  Holmes also apparently worked out a deal to trade one person's antique guns for a bunch of drugs, and then may have suggested the plan to go steal the guns back, which then in turn precipitated the murders.

The problem is that being involved in both the heist and the murder plot is probably not the most interesting thing about John Holmes, who was much more famous for his x-rated movies, where he was known for, well, let's just say his size and his endurance.  How did he get started in the industry?  Once that happened, how did he become so famous?  And then what effect did this have on his marriage and his personal life?  How did he get addicted to drugs?  All of these things I would be curious about, but this film just doesn't seem interested in them.

Instead we have to just assume that someone working in the porn industry probably made a number of bad life choices, and that's a pattern that seems to continue when we're introduced to Holmes as a character.  He makes a stop at a house on Wonderland, then leaves his girlfriend in a hotel room, disappears for a few hours, and when he comes back, the news comes on with the story about four people killed in that very same house.  Slowly we're shown the events of that night from several different perspectives, and the facts seem to change depending on who's relaying them.  And you know I hate movies where I have to assemble the narrative myself from all the pieces, especially when they're not given out in the proper order.

And even when we do piece everything together, it scarcely matters since nearly everyone connected with the case either died in the house in Wonderland, or died a few years later from other causes.  Also, several people were arrested and tried for the murders, but hardly anyone served any hard time.  Everything about this case just ends up feeling pointless and depressing.  Plus I think the director often lost track of this story, because there were a few times where there were flashbacks within flashbacks, and that's a big narrative no-no...this isn't "Inception".

Also starring Val Kilmer (last seen in "The Island of Dr. Moreau") Kate Bosworth (last seen in "Still Alice"), Lisa Kudrow (last seen in "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising"), Dylan McDermott (last seen in "Olympus Has Fallen"), Josh Lucas (last seen in "Stolen"), Ted Levine (last seen in "Shutter Island"), Tim Blake Nelson (last seen in "Fantastic Four"), Faizon Love, M.C. Gainey (also last seen in "Stolen"), Eric Bogosian, Carrie Fisher (last seen in "Maps to the Stars") Janeane Garofalo (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Natasha Greyson Wagner (last seen in "Lost Highway"), Louis Lombardi (last seen in "Runner Runner"), Franky G (last seen in "The Italian Job"), Scoot McNairy (last seen in "Bobby"), Joleigh Fioravanti, George Leonardopoulos, Michelle Borth, Chris Ellis, with a cameo from Paris Hilton.

RATING: 4 out of 10 metal pipes

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip

Year 9, Day 340 - 12/6/17 - Movie #2,788

BEFORE: OK, this may seem a little weird, because I'm putting a (partially) animated kids movie right in between two films about the porn industry, and another about filmmaking terrorists.  What can I say, my linking makes for some strange neighbors sometimes.  John Waters made a cameo in his own film "Cecil B. Demented", and he carries over to make another cameo in this film.

I guess it's part of a larger theme week about fame - the chipmunks are singing stars in their film series, right?  What's odd is that last night's film had a whole bit about a porn film with a rodent entering a certain body cavity, and now tonight it's a whole bunch of famous singing rats.  (Chipmunks are really rats, right?)

I must confess this is being included just to get it off of the list - this film has been languishing down in the "Unlinkables" section of my list for some time.  It didn't share actors with ANY of the many animated films I watched this year, and that should tell you something right there. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" (Movie #1,324)

THE PLOT: Through a series of misunderstandings, Alvin, Simon and Theodore come to believe that Dave is going to propose to his new girlfriend in Miami, and dump them.  They have three days to get to him and stop the proposal, saving themselves from losing Dave and gaining a terrible stepbrother.

AFTER: I know, it's supposed to be a movie for kids, and I'm not a kid - nor do I have any kids.  But I started this damn Chipmunks series, and I'm going to finish it today.  Please PLEASE let this be the last "Chipmunks", movie, OK, Hollywood?  We all have to stop letting people go to the movies to see films like this, or else they're just going to keep barfing out more of the same.   Hey, if your kids like this movie, that's fine, but you may want to think about getting smarter kids in the long run.  If I did have a kid, he or she would probably say something to me like, "How come Alvin, Simon and Theodore can talk and sing, but in their world there are also other animals, including squirrels, that can't?"  That's assuming that I raised that kid correctly, with extra love and attention whenever they prove that they're smarter than the other kids their age.

Does this film series ever address this point?  I doubt it.  Are these 3 (OK, 6) Chipmunks extra special, was there some kind of mutation caused by a radiation leak that granted them intelligence and the power of speech?  Are we as viewers just supposed to ignore this, like the people on screen in this wacko universe that's just like our own, except with 6 talking rodents?  Now my head hurts.

The film itself is not only powered by misunderstandings, but also by the certainty that the three rats-in-sweaters are NOT going to behave.  As soon as Dave, their foster father (apparently) tells them NOT to leave the house, or NOT to leave the hotel room, or NOT to follow him to Florida, you just know that's exactly what they're going to do, right?  This is another very important reason to not let your kids see this - each time, the chipmunks are rewarded for NOT obeying the rules.  It shouldn't matter if they're trying to fix things each time, a rule is a rule, and each time they transgress then they are punished more severely and have to apologize more sincerely, and after three times it just makes you wonder why there are even rules imposed on them in the first place.
Dismiss
"I know you said not to kill anyone, Dave, but we were just trying to fix things!" would be the ultimate illogical extension of this.  I know, it's ridiculous, but that's where my mind tends to go, to take everything to its extreme illogical conclusion.

Part of the plot involves the possibility of Dave getting married, to a woman who has a son, and the first few meetings between the son and the Chipmunks do not go well.  This would have been an excellent opportunity to make a statement about bullying, how wrong that is, and how a bully really only hates himself, or is acting out because of troubles at home, but the film just lets that alone - so there are no consquences for the bully, or motivations for him to change his behavior.  What a shame, from a narrative standpoint. 

And the character who kept getting beaten up by the Chipmunks in the first three films, played by David Cross, did not return - so they had to create a new character, who's an Air Marshal, who follows them and keeps getting injured or falling down or in some other crazy situation.  Kudos to the actor who was smart enough to not take the job, and pity the actor who took his place.

And why was the actress who played the girlfriend delivering all of her lines through clenched teeth?  She didn't seem to want to be there either, or maybe she got lockjaw after being bitten by a rabid CGI chipmunk?  This franchise needs to end ASAP - someone call an exterminator.

Also starring Jason Lee (last seen in "Dreamcatcher"), Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Josh Green, Tony Hale (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie"), Bella Thorne, Eddie Steeples, Maxie McClintock, Laura Marano, with the voices of Justin Long (last seen in "The Conspirator"), Matthew Gray Gubler (last heard in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked"), Jesse McCartney (ditto), Christina Applegate (last seen in "The Sweetest Thing"), Kaley Cuoco (last seen in "A Million Ways to Die in the West"), Anna Faris (last seen in "Keanu"), and cameos from Jennifer Coolidge (last seen in "A Series of Unfortunate Events"), Uzo Aduba, Retta, Flula Borg (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), RedFoo.

RATING: 2 out of 10 horrible pop songs that sound even worse when "sung" at chipmunk speed.

Cecil B. Demented

Year 9, Day 339 - 12/5/17 - Movie #2,787

BEFORE: Eric Roberts carries over from "Lovelace", though it seems he just did a quick cameo last night as a polygraph operator, and I think he's just got a quick cameo in this film, but that counts.  Cameos keep my linking alive, and will get me to the end of the year.

THE PLOT: An insane independent film director and his renegade group of teenage filmmakers kidnap an A-list Hollywood actress and force her to star in their underground film.

AFTER: It seems like I've got a loose theme this week about fame and filmmaking, and that's going to continue for a few more days, though it looks like it's going to turn into a fame and music thing, then a political thing again.  That's OK, fame is fame and the theme should get me to next Friday's new "Star Wars" film.  But first, a different kind of "star" wars.  Here a Hollywood star is kidnapped at gunpoint and forced to act in an independent film.  Ugh, how humiliating.

You have to go back and consider this film was released in 2000, that's pre-9/11 so when they use the word "terrorist" here, it's an entirely different animal than the ones we're concerned with now.  And there are scenes where the filmmakers storm a movie theater in a mall with guns and bombs, which might have been funny back before it started happening in real life.  I didn't even go to see "The Dark Knight Rises" in a theater because some idiot shot up a theater in Denver that was showing that film, and even now, I'm still a little wary when I go to the movies, I check where the exits are and I think about how I should duck under the seats if I should hear any gunfire that doesn't come from the screen.

I'm not sure how I feel about John Waters movies, it seems like he should have been uniquely positioned to have a distinct point of view in the filmmaking business, but that he squandered most of his opportunities just being weird and outrageous.  And then the whole world sort of caught up with him and got even weirder than even he could have imagined, so now his stuff doesn't seem shocking at all.  He was fascinated by transvestite and transgender performers way before all that was commonplace, before we had a half-dozen reality shows about drag queens and people changing their genders - maybe he laid all the groundwork for that, I'm not sure.  I think the closest he ever got to making a real point about social change was "Hairspray", with its pokes at racism and fat-shaming.

But then I see the same old problems with both the character and the plot of "Cecil B. Demented" - it never gets around to making a real statement about anything.  And Cecil's big moves seem to be storming into places and saying, "Hey, I'm Cecil B. Demented!"  OK, so what?  Do you have anything else to say, now that you've announced yourself?  No, I didn't think so.  Sure, he wants to make a shocking film, where people set themselves on fire or shoot at cops - but how does this add up to a coherent film-within-the-film?  Well, it doesn't, at least not one that we ever get to see, so what the hell is the point?

OK, so they take over the "Forrest Gump" sequel that's being shot in Baltimore - so what?  If Hollywood's intent on making a crappy sequel, they're going to do it, no matter what a bunch of renegade filmmakers say.  You don't overthrow the Hollywood system, the only way to change it is from within, it's just too big and powerful.  You can spend your entire career working outside the system and do quite well without breaking the law and trying to tear it all down.

And getting a tattoo of your favorite filmmaker's name doesn't mean squat in the end unless you're suddenly going to adopt their style.  It just felt like a cheap way for Waters to justify these "terrorist" actions - oh, they know who Almodovar and Peckinpah and Fassbinder are?  They must be OK, then. Not necessarily.  It's like a math problem, you've got to show your work, you just can't guess at the right answer.  Going out of their way to make each member of the "Sprocket Holes" unique just ended up making them a bunch of quirky people who would probably never hang out with each other in the real world, because collectively they'd be firing in every creative direction at once, without a clear point of view.

File this one sort of midway between "The King of Comedy" and "Bowfinger", which both riffed on similar concepts.  I'm left feeling like I may want to see a few more John Waters films, maybe "Serial Mom" and "Pecker", but really that's about it.

Also starring Melanie Griffith (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), Stephen Dorff (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Alicia Witt (last seen in "Four Rooms"), Adrian Grenier (last seen in "The Devil Wears Prada"), Maggie Gyllenhaal (last seen in "Riding in Cars With Boys"), Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Jack Noseworthy (last seen in "The Brady Bunch Movie"), Ricki Lake (last seen in "Hairspray" (2007)), Mink Stole (last seen in "Lost Highway"), Michael Shannon (last seen in "Premium Rush"), Patricia Hearst, Eric Barry, Kevin Nealon (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Harry (Harriet?) Dodge, Erika Auchterlonie, with cameos from Roseanne Barr, John Waters.

RATING: 4 out of 10 raw oysters

Lovelace

Year 9, Day 338 - 12/4/17 - Movie #2,786

BEFORE: Peter Sarsgaard carries over from "The Magnificent Seven", and this might be a bit of an odd week - as I draw closer to the end of Year 9, it's something of a mixed bag, I'll admit.  Some of December's films were chosen just so they would allow me to link to the upcoming "Star Wars" film.

But, that being said, I have been very curious about this film, the first of two films this week on the topic of porn actors.  I happen to know, in the real world, someone who wrote a book about Linda Lovelace after interviewing her extensively, and he also served as a consultant on this film.  I remember that two studios were developing films about her a few years ago, and this one got made and released, the other one, not so much.  But it's been four years now and this film has not run on premium cable, and honestly, I grew tired of waiting for it.

When I saw it listed on Netflix a few months ago, I allowed myself to work it into my chain, hoping that it would still be there in December (you never know when films are going to disappear from Netflix, it turns out....). But I think I've confused the Netflix software, which now does not know what to make of me - in July I watched a bunch of animated films for kids, and now I'm watching a film about a real porn actress.  That software that recommends titles probably just shrugs now when it looks through my viewing history.  It's OK, both the IMDB and Amazon recommendation software have given up, they don't know what to recommend to me either.

Look, I get it - in the past week alone I went from an economic-based thriller to the dystopian future of "The Hunger Games", to a drama about a Southern teen, to a sci-fi action film, to a Western and then a porn biopic.  Anyone trying to get a handle on my viewing habits, even some software, is not going to be able to keep up.  

THE PLOT: The story of Linda Lovelace, who is used and abused by the porn industry at the behest of her coercive husband before taking control of her life. 

AFTER: The history of porn is a hot topic right now - I just finished watching the first season of HBO's "The Deuce" and it covers some of the same territory, how the industry grew in the 1970's from a few theaters and peep-shows screening plotless porn "loops" to a multi-million dollar industry, with a few select films, like "Deep Throat", attracting wider audiences and causing contoversy at the same time.

Obviously, it was a different era, with different roles for women and different attitudes toward sex.  But at the same time that women were gaining ground in the workplace, the porn industry was setting them back, if you ask me.  When Hugh Hefner died a couple of months ago, the verdict was split on whether magazines like Playboy were good or bad for feminism.  Sure, they made a few women super-famous as centerfolds or Playmates of the Year, but at what cost?  More damage was probably done in the long run by making male readers regard them as only sex objects, instead of sexual beings.  Hefner was happy to run pictorials about women going to college or working as doctors or lawyers, provided they were all willing to get naked for him and the readers - that's not exactly helping the cause of feminism.

And if you ask me, that's why we're in the situation in the news now, with widespread sexual harassment among the men in power in Washington and Hollywood.  I enjoy porn as much as the next guy, but I acknowledge that it has long-lasting, damaging effects, and these result from depicting one truth and one lie, which got spread more quickly with the inventions of home video and then the internet.  The truth it tells is that women are sexual beings, with their own desires (it seems obvious now, but in past decades, many were told to hide or not acknowledge their feelings) and the lie it depicts is that all women, everywhere, are ready for sex at any time.  This is the male fantasy that powers just about every x-rated film.

Add this fantasy to the Hollywood patriarchal power structure, which was primed to take advantage of young women already via the casting couch, and it's like throwing gasoline on a fire.  I don't condone the actions of anyone guilty of sexual harassment or who took advantage of their positions of power or fame, I'm just saying I understand where the fantasy that perhaps propelled some of their actions came from. When a man watches porn movies for a few decades, in which no woman ever says "No" to anything in any way, that man's going to have a distorted view of sex, and it's very possible that he'll eventually get a distorted view of reality as well. 

The odd thing about the X-rated film industry is that it's one of the rare places that women earn more money than men.  But as the story of Linda Lovelace tells us, the pay's often not enough to make up for the hazards.  This film depicts her coerced into porn by her husband, who also pimped her out when he could make a few extra bucks for doing so, and also beat her up for good measure.  Even when she became famous (or infamous) for appearing in "Deep Throat", he kept controlling her actions and collecting her money to settle his debts.  She couldn't even leave him, because her parents were of that generation that believed that marriage came first, and that wives should obey their husbands.

If I've got any beef with this film, it's the fact that there seem to be confusing timelines? I don't think the narrative is strictly non-linear here, but it doesn't seem to be 100% linear either.  A couple times a graphic appears that says "Six years later", but then there's no warning when we're snapped back to the past - I'm fairly sure that the timeline didn't advance another 6 years each time, we seem to be toggling a bit back-and-forth between 1972 and 1978 (or so) but how about a little warning when we return to the earlier time? 

Or is the conceit here that the film tells her story three times, adding more details with each pass, and therefore growing darker as we learn more about the domestic abuse?  Sure, there's conflicting information in each version of her story, but this is a woman who wrote three different autobiographies, which conflicted with each other on some key details.  So what can you do but tell ALL of her different stories, and let the audience judge for themselves?  I guess....

Also starring Amanda Seyfried (last seen in "Pan"), Sharon Stone (last seen in "Bobby"), Robert Patrick (last seen in "The Faculty"), Juno Temple (last seen in "Black Mass"), Chris Noth, Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Danny Collins"), Hank Azaria (last heard in "The Smurfs 2"), Adam Brody (last seen in "Sleeping With Other People"), Chloe Sevigny (last seen in "Melinda and Melinda"), James Franco (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Debi Mazar (last seen in "Collateral"), Wes Bentley (last seen in "The Hunger Games"), Eric Roberts (last seen in "The Specialist"), Don McManus (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), Ron Pritchard, Cory Hardrict (last seen in "American Sniper"), with archive footage of Johnny Carson, Walter Cronkite, Phil Donahue, Bob Hope. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 photo shoots

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Year 9, Day 337 - 12/3/17 - Movie #2,785

BEFORE: Chris Pratt carries over from "Passengers", and I just couldn't watch both "The Hateful Eight" and "The Ridiculous Six" this year without getting to this one too.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Magnificent Seven" (Movie #244)

THE PLOT: Seven gunmen in the old west gradually come together to help a poor village against savage thieves.

AFTER: As I said the other day, there are really only about four different stories, when you look at the basic elements, and this is an instance of "put a team together to defeat the evil power".  That puts it in good company with recently-viewed films like "The Hunger Games", "Independence Day: Resurgence", "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Justice League", and therefore also "The Avengers", not to mention franchises like "Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars", "Mission: Impossible" and so on.  So since "The Magnificent Seven" is based on "The Seven Samurai", that means that by transitive properties when you go out to see "Justice League", you're really seeing "Seven Samurai" for the umpteenth time - a good superhero film may be bringing something new to the table, but at heart it's the same meal that's been served up for a long time.

The dressings of the story usually end up reflecting the current world around us, regardless of whether the film is set in a dystopian future, or a barbaric past, like the Old West - which is why the villain here is a corporate man, and the good-hearted gunslingers are a multi-cultural bunch, with a black man leading and an Asian and Native American thrown in for good measure.  How dare this businessman try to make a profit by exploiting workers and running a gold mine!  Capitalism is out of control, and it's high time that the ethnically diverse lower class destroys his business and ruins his livelihood!  This is the way that today's P.C. crowd wishes that the Old West was, but I doubt it bears any resemblance to reality.

Of course, the businessman doesn't see himself as evil, no evil person ever does.  From the Empire's point of view, Luke Skywalker was a mass-murderer, and from Jabba the Hutt's perspective, "Return of the Jedi" is a story about a bunch of rebels who break into his palace, steal his stuff and then kill him.  But then this film does go out of way to make Bartholomew Bogue a bad dude, because he torches the town church and kills anyone in the town of Rose Creek who speaks out against him.

Two townspeople, Emma Cullen and Teddy Q, ride to another town, where they encounter Sam Chisholm, a U.S. Marshal, and he expresses interest after hearing the name of their town's oppressor. Perhaps there's some history there, or else he just likes noble but near-impossible crusades.  He soon recruits outlaw, gambler (and amateur magician) Josh Faraday, supposedly this was to get his horse back, but I found in general that most of the recruiting here happened just a little too quickly and felt a little forced as a result.  I guess times were hard and these men were all motivated by the money, I just wonder if that's a little too simplistic.

The team gets rounded out by an ex-Confederate marksman, his Korean traveling companion, a Mexican fugitive, an older mountain-man game hunter, and a walkabout Comanche warrior.  That's 7, the minimum amount of characters required to form a ragtag band with an unlikely chance of success.  But at least they had a week to train the townspeople, gather materials and create a plan for the town's defense, and thankfully they didn't pull a "Blazing Saddles" and build an exact copy of the town about a mile down the road.  (Having a black man leading the defense of the town was itself enough of a reference to that classic Mel Brooks comedy....)

Also starring Denzel Washington (last seen in "The Equalizer"), Ethan Hawke (last seen in "Gattaca"), Vincent D'Onofrio (last seen in "Mystic Pizza"), Peter Sarsgaard (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Byung-hun Lee (last seen in "Terminator Genisys"), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Luke Grimes (last seen in "Fifty Shades of Grey"), Matt Bomer (last seen in "The Nice Guys"), Jonathan Joss, Cam Gigandet (last seen in "Easy A"), Sean Bridgers (last seen in "Trumbo"), Billy Slaughter (last seen in "Trumbo"), Griff Furst (ditto), Mark Ashworth (last seen in "Logan").

RATING: 7 out of 10 burning wagons