Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Year 9, Day 349 - 12/15/17 - Movie #2,796

BEFORE: I've been building to this all year long, it turns out.  Every choice I made, to watch THIS movie next or to skip THAT one for now has led me here, basically back to the beginning - the beginning of the Movie Year in January 2009 ("Star Wars: The Clone Wars" was movie #2) and to the beginning of my own fascination with films, which was kicked into high-gear in 1977 when I saw the first film (Episode IV: A New Hope) as we're now supposed to call it.  I've seen every Star Wars film since then (umm, except the animated one...) on opening day, and I don't intend to break that streak now.  Whatever I've had to do, skip out of school, call in sick, that is what I'll do, because this is the film series that I live for.

I've avoided all reviews, stayed off of Twitter and Facebook (mostly) this week, in anticipation of Opening Day.  I didn't even watch Colbert's interview with Mark Hamill until it was a week old, and only then after I was fairly confident that no spoilers would be involved.  All I really watched was the official "Last Jedi" previews, and then I felt even that might have been too much.  You see, back in the day, 1983, on the eve of the premiere of "Return of the Jedi", I bought the paperback novelization and read the first half of the book before seeing the movie, and then of course instantly regretted doing so.  There need to be surprises, so I take this very seriously, for a "Star Wars" film I go in as cold as I possibly can.  Good or bad, that's what I've decided to do.

Expectations are extremely high - and I've already rated two films with scores of "9" this year - "Thor: Ragnarok" and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2".  Can anything possibly beat those scores, and consider that I'm probably TOUGHER on a "Star Wars" film than any film from any other franchise...   Obviously, Carrie Fisher "carries" over from "Bright Lights".

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (Movie #2,200)

THE PLOT: Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers. Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order. 

AFTER: I went to see "The Last Jedi" at the AMC Empire Theater on 42nd St. in Manhattan, it's where I saw "The Force Awakens" too.  Right across the street was the Regal Theater, which used to the Regal E-Walk (Ewok?) but now has a giant sign that reads "Rebel", so you have the Empire on one side of the street and the Rebel on the other - appropriate for "Star Wars", right?  Only the sides aren't called the Empire and the Rebellion any more, they're the First Order and the Resistance.  So this coincidence would only have been applicable for Episodes 4-6, I guess, or "Rogue One".

But I realize that not everyone feels compelled to see this on opening day, as I did.  So how do I write about the film, without writing about the film?  This was a common problem for me this year, by my rough count I went out to the movies 10 times this year, all sci-fi and superhero and animated films, and I'm not going to be the guy spoiling any film, especially a "Star Wars" film, for anyone.  In this case, I'll use some metaphors and reference what I liked and didn't like about it, just without being very specific.

The first thing that leaps to mind is, maybe this film is perfect for our current political climate, with an unpopular (at least in MY state...) President with some people, at least, comparing him to a tyrant.  So naturally one might infer that Trump's administration is the Evil Empire (sorry, "First Order"), and the liberal Democrats are the Resistance. Well, General Hux does have that shockingly orange hair... Possibly this isn't the "Star Wars" film we deserve, but perhaps it's the one that we need to see, to keep our own hope alive.  And that's a funny sort of PC shift, the way that the good guys in "Star Wars" used to be called "Rebels", but now they're "Resistance".

When I hear "resistance", it calls to mind the French citizens during World War II, who fought against the Nazis occupying their country.  We've determined that Nazis were on the wrong side of history, and therefore the Resistance was on the right side of history.  (Well, duh, history is written by the winners, and the Nazis lost...). But I think we can all agree that Hitler was evil and wrong, and therefore Nazis were too.  (See, Mr. Trump, it's not that hard to get there...).  The problem with the word "rebels" is that it calls to mind the Confederacy from the Civil War, and again, we now believe they were on the wrong side of history, too.  So it's a subtle shift from "rebels" to "resistance", but it carries some weight.  Looking back on my review of "The Force Awakens", I struggled then with determining the difference between "rebels" and "terrorists", because I'm really not sure what the difference is, I think it really depends on your point of view, and whether you agree with their cause.

But in another sense, since I work in independent filmmaking, I could also depict DisneyCorp as the Evil Empire (and I say this as a shareholder...) - Disney bought Marvel, Disney bought Lucasfilm, and they just bought much of 20th Century Fox.  It's ironic to me that they own the "Star Wars" franchise now, and have to release a story about the little independent rebels fighting against the giant mega-conglomerate First Order, when that's exactly what Disney does, they buy up other studios and other franchises.  You could say Disney's mission is to take over the entire entertainment galaxy, and it's a bit weird that they plan to get there with films like this one, where ruling the galaxy with an iron (cartoon) glove is a BAD thing.  I used to hear radio stations all the time play that sound clip from "A New Hope" where an imperial general says, "This station is now the ultimate power in the universe..."  Sure, it's funny when "station" means a subversive radio station, it's less funny when it's a movie studio that now owns half of Hollywood's output.

But let's get back to "The Last Jedi".  In much the same vein as "The Force Awakens", this film throws pieces of former Star Wars plots back at us, little things that reference bits of Episode V or Episode VI, while still taking the overall plot in a drastic new direction.  If that's what you're looking for from a new "Star Wars" film, then this is an unqualified success.  But still, just a bit long with a running time of 2 1/2 hours. (Make sure to use the restroom before the film begins...). As you could probably surmise from the film's preview (and the ending of the previous film, so no spoiler) Luke Skywalker has been found - but did he want to be found?  And if not, then why?  And why does he say that "The Jedi must end"?

We "Star Wars" fans came out of "The Force Awakens" with three major questions - 1) Who is Supreme Leader Snoke, and where did he come from?  2) Who are Rey's parents?  and 3) What the heck happened between Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo during Ben's Jedi training?  I can't really say that we get a whole lot of coherent answers to these questions, but maybe between zero and one of these get addressed.  That's not to say a lot doesn't happen in this film, a great many things happen, but unfortunately if you're looking for clear answers, as Luke says, "This is not going to go the way you think!"

As the second film in the sequel trilogy, this is the "Empire Strikes Back" for the new generation.  It's designed to continue the story, but not really resolve anything.  Go back and watch Episode V and you'll see it's the darkest of the original trilogy, where the rebels are on the run and all hope looks lost, Luke is many things but he's not a Jedi yet, and essentially, it gave the audience very few answers and a ton of new questions.

And what these two newer films do very well is continue the spirit of Luke, Han and Leia in the three new heroes - Rey, Finn and Poe.  They are not carbon copies of the first three stars, sometimes Poe reminds me of Han but he flies an X-Wing like Luke did, and he's got a military mind like Leia's.  Finn has the eagerness and drive of Luke, but he's got an outsider's mind for strategy, like Han.  And Rey has force powers like Luke, but she flies the Falcon and hangs out with Chewbacca like Han did, and she's a strong woman like Leia is.  So they all have these little echoes of the original three main characters, while representing entirely new combinations of those heroic traits at the same time.  Kylo Ren, meanwhile, wants very badly to be the new Darth Vader, but he's still a whiny millennial brat - and yes, they do have those in other galaxies too.

But (and you knew there'd be a "but", right?) back in the days of the original trilogy, there was a lot of romance in "Star Wars".  OK, not a lot, but a little.  There was this "will they or won't they" speculation about Luke and Leia, and then about Han and Leia (and a few freaks who, after learning Luke and Leia were siblings, still thought they should get it on...).  So far, in the sequel trilogy, there's been no real romance, just suggestions of possible romance down the line.  After "The Force Awakens", I thought it was clear that they would eventually pair up Rey and Finn, but now I'm not so sure.  I think this is an unfortunate by-product of having a new director take over, and it feels like the last director didn't share his notes about what direction he was going to take things eventually.

So it's maddening to me that we don't know if we'll ever see Rey and Finn together, or Rey and Poe, or Finn and this new girl, or possibly even Rey and Kylo have some kind of connection.  Heck, at this point I'd settle for Finn and Poe falling for each other, because at least that would BE a direction.  But hey, maybe nobody's got time for romance because, you know, there's a war going on.

If I'm critical at all of this film, it's still too long, and that means the pacing is sort of off.  When it comes to key over-arching story elements, there's a sense of "delay, delay, delay" because all the pieces have to be in place for certain things to happen.  But still, there are about 10 "Holy crap!" moments for "Star Wars" fans, and that means in one sense, this film's swinging for the fences, much like "Thor: Ragnarok" did, and that's very important in the end.

There, I feel like I've told you everything you need to know, while telling you nothing at all.  My work is done.

Also starring Mark Hamill (last seen in "Elstree 1976"), Adam Driver (last seen in "Midnight Special"), Daisy Ridley (last seen in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"), John Boyega (ditto), Oscar Isaac (last seen in "Drive"), Andy Serkis (last heard but not-seen in "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"), Domhnall Gleeson (last seen in "Ex Machina"), Gwendoline Christie (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), Anthony Daniels (last seen in "Rogue One"), Laura Dern (last seen in "The Founder"), Kelly Marie Tran, Benicio Del Toro (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Billie Lourd (also carrying over from "Bright Lights"), Joonas Suotamo, Jimmy Vee (last seen in "Pan"), Tim Rose, Mike Quinn, Veronica Ngo, Mark Lewis Jones, Adrian Edmondson, Amanda Lawrence, the voices of Frank Oz (last heard in "Inside Out"), Lupita Nyong'o (last heard in "The Jungle Book"), Tom Kane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (last seen in "Hesher") and cameos from Justin Theroux (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Lily Cole (last seen in "Snow White and the Huntsman"), Warwick Davis (also last seen in "Rogue One")

RATING: 8 out of 10 ski speeders (I really think I should give 8.5 here, but I don't do halves because the IMDB won't register that as a rating.  However, I reserve the right to alter my rating after a second viewing, and you KNOW I'll be seeing this one again...)

Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

Year 9, Day 347 - 12/13/17 - Movie #2,795

BEFORE: I'm finally getting to the Carrie Fisher chain - which will set me up perfectly for the premiere of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" on Friday.  And that will really be MY Christmas this year, sure I'll send out Christmas cards and have dinner with my family, and exchange gifts and all that - but this year, Geek Christmas comes on December 15.  I'm taking a half day off from work to attend a noon screening, that was the best I could do.  But really, this plan has been in the works since January 1, when I sent out a dedication to the late Ms. Fisher - and it took almost a whole year to come to fruition.

Since this is a relatively short feature, I'm programming another short today to precede the feature - it's Carrie Fisher's hour-long HBO special "Wishful Drinking", which is a cable broadcast of her one-woman show from 2010.  I taped it to fill up the DVD and I've seen about half of it before, tonight I'm watching/re-watching the entire thing to preface the documentary.  My favorite part is when she pulls out a "Family Tree" chart of Hollywood marriages, divorces and lineage to figure out if her own daughter, Billie Lourd, might be related to a man she was interested in dating, who was a grandson of Liz Taylor and Mike Todd.  I guess you wouldn't want anyone in Hollywood to date their own half-sibling or anything.  Surprisingly Liz Taylor is NOT the person on the chart with the most marriages...

I might have screwed myself here, though - I was so anxious to get here that when I saw the link between "Bob Roberts" and this film, I set the plan in motion.  Only the link is Fisher Stevens, who did a cameo in "Bob Roberts" as a news reporter, and he DIRECTED this documentary about Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.  That doesn't count by my linking rules, unless he appears in this film somehow.  What the heck was I thinking?  Perhaps I figured that if these actresses were being interviewed for this documentary, then the director would be the one asking them questions, so I'd at least be able to hear his voice, and then that would count as an appearance.

It's also an appropriate film for the first day of Hanukkah, though, right?  At least according to the title...

THE PLOT: An intimate portrait of actress Debbie Reynolds and her relationship with her beloved children, Carrie Fisher and Todd Fisher.

AFTER: Great news, Fisher Stevens does appear briefly in this documentary he directed - some kind of fire or burglar alarm goes off at Debbie Reynolds' house at one point in the filming, and I caught a glimpse of him standing among the chaos.  So the linking is preserved, and I don't have to wonder whether that's his voice asking Debbie questions.

"Bright Lights" (taken in conjunction with "Wishful Drinking") gives us a peek into the "typical" (if there is such a thing) Hollywood family, and a lot of it is not pretty.  Multiple marriages, multiple divorces, drug and alcohol abuse, stepfathers who gamble and frequent prostitutes, etc.  Debbie Reynolds was regarded as "America's Sweetheart", but ignored the advice she got from Frank Sinatra ("Don't marry a singer") and there seemed to be something of a domino effect from there.  Eddie Fisher went and slept with Liz Taylor, his best friend's widow, and this led to a high-profile divorce.  He had five wives in total and four children, while Liz Taylor went on to marry Richard Burton, her co-star in "Cleopatra", and divorce, re-marry and re-divorce him.  Carrie's take on the whole thing casts Liz Taylor as the Angelina Jolie of her time, breaking up the happy marriage between Eddie Fisher (Brad Pitt) and Debbie Reynolds (Jennifer Aniston).

Carrie, meanwhile, found herself with a stepfather who was a tycoon in the shoe business (instead of show business, there must have been a miscommunication there) and rooming with three new step-children, one of whom apparently should have been in some form of institution.  And Carrie herself was bi-polar, only they didn't call it that back then, or really understand that condition, I think "manic depression" was the favored name at the time.  She describes it as having two driving internal forces - "Roy", always in search of a good time, and "Pam", the sedentary one who stares out at the beach from the window.  Teen experimentation with drugs and alcohol only then fueled more addictive behavior, and I'm sure pulling her out of high-school to appear in her mother's stage act in NYC didn't help things.

With the odds stacked against her, it's surprising that Carrie Fisher had such a great attitude, and could make humor from her own life.  Everything from interaction with fans at Comic-Cons (which she often referred to as "giving lapdances") where the fans thought it would be a compliment to tell her stories about pleasuring themselves while thinking about her (umm, inappropriate) to her failed marriages to both Paul Simon and a gay talent agent to her time in rehab - with enough time, everything became grist for the comedy mill.  That's how she ended up writing "Postcards From the Edge", which became a hit movie - you take the tragedies in your life and you try to make something artistic from them that other people will connect with.  It's the very definition of a writer/artist, even when you factor in the electro-shock therapy that helped her find some form of daily peace.

Carrie and Debbie lived next door to each other for many years, and spent time together every day, assuming both were in town.  And then the film show that even when one went to do a concert or an awards show, the other was likely to come along.  Somehow they grew old together, became co-dependent on each other, kept each other in check and acted more like best friends than a mother-daughter pair.  It's somehow both comforting and pathetic at the same time, if that makes any sense - two damaged people living next door, taking care of each other, giving each other advice and help as needed.

I didn't know that Debbie Reynolds had done so much to preserve the artifacts of old Hollywood, like costumes and props - not just the ones she wore and used, but from other films like "The Wizard of Oz", often buying them with her own money in the hopes of opening up some kind of Hollywood-themed museum someday.  She and her family worked on this for decades, but ultimately had to auction off most of them just to keep the project afloat.  Meanwhile, Carrie managed to amass her own collection of personal and Star Wars-themed memorabilia, and I got to take my own little tour of that this past July at San Diego Comic-Con, where many of the items were on display. 

We're coming up on the first anniversary of Carrie Fisher's death, now just two weeks away, and as we all know, Debbie died just a few days later, in the way that some married couples that have been together for decades end up dying - one just can't face the reality of life without the other, in a semi-symbiotic relationship. And in two days, I get to see Carrie's last film (along with millions of other people) and that's going to be bittersweet.  I'm glad I got to meet her in person about 11 years ago, I'm glad that I kept the conversation on topic when asking for her autograph, and I'm glad I got my picture taken with her, I keep that handy on my phone at all times.

It was one thing to watch "Rogue One" last year with a stand-in/CGI version of Princess Leia that was made to look like she looked in 1977, but this Friday's going to be quite different, seeing her on-screen for the last time, knowing what happened one year ago.  Time moves on, and eventually everything becomes a little nostalgic and sad - I just hope that like many of the things in Carrie's life, with enough time and distance, eventually they become fun again. 

Also starring Debbie Reynolds (last seen in "Three Little Words"), Carrie Fisher (last seen in "Wonderland"), Todd Fisher, Catherine Hickland, Griffin Dunne (last seen in "Dallas Buyers Club"), Eddie Fisher, with cameos from Elizabeth Taylor (last seen in "The Taming of the Shrew"), Liberace, Billie Lourd (last seen in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"), Oprah Winfrey.

RATING: 7 out of 10 home movies

Bob Roberts

Year 9, Day 346 - 12/12/17 - Movie #2,794

BEFORE: Tim Robbins carries over from "Tapeheads", and so do two other actors in smaller roles.  Well, I did say I wanted to get more political this year, and I've done that - but this is perhaps my last attempt to add to that topic, with just six more films to watch this year.  Unless Snoke is seen in "The Last Jedi" wearing a red baseball cap and starts talking about "Making Alderaan Great Again".

THE PLOT: A right-wing folk singer becomes a corrupt politician and runs a crooked election campaign.  Only one independent muck-raking reporter is trying to stop him.

AFTER: I'm not the only one who sees the connection here - the internet is now calling this "the 1992 film that predicted Donald Trump", despite some obvious differences.  The character of Bob Roberts was running for U.S. Senator, not President, for just one example.  Also, Roberts used folk music as his platform for becoming famous before launching his political career, not reality TV.  But aside from those things, it's another case where a movie seemed to function a bit like a crystal ball for the election of 2016.

Both Bob Roberts and Trump are rich right-wingers, and both are very willing to talk about their wealth (though Trump seemed to adopt right-wing politics after being a Democrat for a very long time, and still won't release his tax returns, so we don't REALLY know if he's as rich as he claims).  But both used racial divisiveness and catchy slogans to get elected - for Roberts those slogans were in the form of songs, and for Trump they were in the form of three-word phrases ("Build the wall", "Lock her up", and so on...).  And both, of course, would say just about anything to get elected.

Another telling moment is what seems to be a predictor of Trump's appearance on "SNL" during the 2016 campaign.  In this film, Bob Roberts travels to New York City to appear on a comedy show called "Cutting Edge Live" and perform a song.  We see him meeting with a very Lorne Michaels-like producer (named "Michael Janes") and the guest host of the show, John Cusack (possibly playing himself) is not happy about sharing the stage with a right-wing politician - and neither is one of the female staffers, who knocks out the power during Roberts' performance.

Roberts is also a slick businessman, who went to military school as a teen, is a manipulator of the media who displays any negative press as "fake news" and there are rumors of a connection to failed businesses (savings and loans) in his past, while his political opponents all call him a "con man".  Sound familiar?  Bob Roberts might as well have been hash-tagging "MAGA", only we didn't have Twitter back then.  Oh, plus we see him hosting a beauty pageant in Pennsylvania - and as the election draws near, protestors start appearing at Bob Roberts' rallies, only to be roughed up by security and yelled at by the candidate on the stage.  Watch it yourself if you don't believe me, that's all in the film.  The signs were there, we chose to ignore them - I took my time getting to this film, so I take on some of the blame.  But in 1992, this was considered an outrageous satire, and looking back on it in 2017, it's very close to our current reality.

The prophecies only go so far, of course - Roberts chooses to imply that his opponent, incumbent Senator Paiste, had an improper encounter with a 14-year old girl, while the Senator claims she was just a friend of his granddaughter, who was in the back-seat of the car, and he was giving her a ride home.  (If this were truly predictive of Trump, he'd probably support a candidate for dating a 14-year old, like he's doing for Roy Moore, rather than criticizing him for it...)  And in the film there's only one diligent reporter trying to take Bob Roberts down, while in our reality there are probably hundreds of them trying to get the dirt on Trump, and it doesn't seem to be making a difference, at least not yet.

This is a fascinating peek inside the playbook of the things that politicians will do or say to get elected, promising everyone everything while campaigning, while knowing that it will be mathematically impossible to both cut taxes AND increase military spending, to create jobs AND reduce the deficit, to maintain peace AND keep us out of war.  But some people keep believing in those contradictions, don't they?  Last year at Christmas, my (younger) cousin kept telling me what a great President Trump was going to be, and if I see him this year and the FIRST thing he says to me isn't "Boy, was I wrong!" then we've got nothing constructive to talk about.

Also starring Giancarlo Esposito (last heard in "The Jungle Book"), Alan Rickman (last seen in "Sense and Sensibility"), Ray Wise (last seen in "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie"), Brian Murray, Gore Vidal (last seen in "Gattaca"), Robert Stanton (last seen in "Jason Bourne"), Harry Lennix (last seen in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"), Rebecca Jenkins, John Ottavino, Merrilee Dale, Kelly Willis, Tom Atkins, David Strathiirn (last seen in "Godzilla" (2014)), Jack Black (last seen in "Orange County"), John Cusack (also carrying over from "Tapeheads"), Lee Arenberg (ditto), Bob Balaban (last seen in "Catch-22"), Lynne Thigpen (last seen in "Sweet Liberty"), Bingo O'Malley (last seen in "Out of the Furnace"), Kathleen Chalfont (last seen in "Perfect Stranger"), Anita Gillette, Matt McGrath (last seen in "The Anniversary Party"), with cameos from James Spader (last seen in "Supernova"), Pamela Reed (last seen in "Eyewitness"), Helen Hunt (last seen in "Bobby"), Peter Gallagher, Susan Sarandon (last seen in "Moonlight Mile"), Fred Ward (last seen in "Masked and Anonymous"), Fisher Stevens (last seen in "Hail, Caesar!"), Jeremy Piven (last seen in "The Crew"), Robert Hegyes.

RATING: 5 out of 10 local news anchors

Tapeheads

Year 9, Day 345 - 12/11/17 - Movie #2,793

BEFORE: Two actors carry over from "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping" - they are "Weird Al" Yankovic (big fan, happy to FINALLY use him as a link) and Steve Higgins, who's known now for being Fallon's sidekick on "The Tonight Show", but apparently he's been around for years as a writer on SNL.  Higgins may not have many acting credits, but Weird Al has made a TON of cameos over the years, it's surprising that he hasn't turned up more often here at the Movie Year.  He's only popped up in four films out of nearly 2,800 and three of those were in this calendar year.

I last saw him in concert in San Diego in July 2016, and in-between the songs (while Al was changing costumes, no doubt) they played video montages of Al's cameos from various movies and TV shows over the years, and there really are a lot of them.  Just look on IMDB, the guy has over 100 acting credits (these include his own music videos, though), and almost 200 credits as "Self" (but some of these count as acting, this includes times he played himself in movies as well as talk-show appearances).  The IMDB really needs to break down these categories better - I think many of these listings end up in the wrong section...

 THE PLOT: A couple of creative losers accidentally become big shots in the music video industry.

AFTER: I passed on this film a few times, because like many cult films it comes around on cable every so often - I think I was probably confusing it with the film "Airheads", which I had seen. But it's a different film with a different agenda, and I've just seen it referred to online as "a little film that tried way too hard", and that's as good a description as any.

But let's get the Trump similarities out of the way - part of the plot concerns a rich right-wing Presidential candidate with two useless adult sons, trying to track down an incriminating sex tape of him doing some really kinky things.  Hmm, does that sound familiar?  The character's name is Norman Mart, and that even has the same cadence, two-syllable first name and a one-syllable last name.  There's no way this film from 1988 could have peeked into the future, but maybe this film is  worth another look for its predictive quality alone.

I did a lot of work on music videos myself in the late 1980's, mostly as a production assistant, when I was a recent graduate of NYU film school, and just glad to have a foot, or any other kind of appendage, in the proverbial door.  So I know this world well, for a few years there it seemed like the only money to be made came from music videos, because at least the clients had money to spend, and the alternative was to work on an educational piece, or worse, your own project, both of which were likely to pay a lot less.  I've spoken often about my first day on the job, which was prepping for two music videos being shot back-to-back, one for Rick James and the other for Apollonia - I got to be on set for the Rick James one, I remember holding the cables off the floor as the director moved around with the handheld camera.  I worked in some capacity on other music videos (or Sesame Street segments, we treated them equally) for Leon Redbone, Jeff Healey, En Vogue, Alphaville, and a piece for The Residents.  The directors I was working for were part of the whole downtown art scene, so they knew a bunch of the big names in the video art and dance world - but it was still a rough place to work, never knowing when the next paying gig was going to come in, so we'd spend a lot of time sending out demo reels and taking any job that came in, even if it was just editing stock footage together for a video-game commercial or an in-house corporate promo.

So this film sort of works in that sense, capturing the feeling of owning a tiny video-production company in the late 1980's.  But I have to consider it a NITPICK POINT that characters in this film are just starting to figure out the power and potential of music videos, when the truth is that they'd been prominent since at least 1983 when MTV started, and also before that, so why doesn't anyone in a 1988 film seem to believe in them at first? 

There's another NITPICK POINT in the film where the two video entrepreneurs are hired to tape a man reading his own will, and the gag is that they're acting like auteurs, forcing him to record the thing again and again while he's lying in a hospital bed, because he's not delivering the lines with enough "feeling".  It's supposed to be funny when the guy expires on the 14th take, and it is - but then the director acts like he didn't get the shot, and the implication then is that they won't get paid.  But hey, guys, if it's the 14th take, that means that there are 13 previous takes where the guy read the will, so that means that they DID get the will recorded, and the job was therefore completed - unless they did something incredibly stupid like keep recording over the same piece of tape, and nobody did that back then, because videotape was seemingly infinite, we all just kept buying more and more of it. 

This film also predicted that the best use of music-video imagery would be to sell stuff, the directors make an upgraded commercial for Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles (which is apparently a real restaurant in L.A.!) and it looks and sounds just like a rap video.  There's also a music video they make for a Swedish band called Cube Squared that ends up looking like something that OK GO would make a couple of decades later.

But the main plot (umm, I guess) concerns a plot to sabotage the Menudo concert, which is about to be broadcast around the world, and replace it with a performance by the Swanky Modes, a couple of famous soul singers who have fallen on hard times.  It's a noble enough calling, I suppose - but are the people who tuned in to see Menudo really going to be satisfied if they don't see their favorite boy band, but a couple of old soul singers instead?  Aren't they just going to change the channel when they find out that Menudo isn't going to be performing?

Also starring John Cusack (last seen in "Hot Tub Time Machine 2"), Tim Robbins (last seen in "Arlington Road"), Mary Crosby (last seen in "The Legend of Zorro"), Clu Galager (last seen in "Into the Night"), Katy Boyer (last seen in "The Island"), Jessica Walter (last seen in "Slums of Beverly Hills"), Sam Moore (last seen in "Blues Brothers 2000"), Junior Walker, Susan Tyrrell (last seen in "Masked and Anonymous"), Doug McClure (last seen in "52 Pick-Up"), Connie Stevens (last seen in "Way...Way Out"), King Cotton, Don Cornelius, Lee Arenberg (last seen in "Robocop 3"), with cameos from Lyle Alzado, Xander Berkeley (last seen in "Sid and Nancy"), Coati Mundi (ditto), Bobcat Goldthwait, Ted Nugent, Jello Biafra, Doug E. Fresh, Michael Nesmith, Martha Quinn, Courtney Love (also last seen in "Sid and Nancy"), David Anthony Higgins and the band Fishbone.

RATING: 4 out of 10 limbo dancers

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

Year 9, Day 344 - 12/10/17 - Movie #2,792

BEFORE: If this were a typical Movie Year, I'd be closing up shop right about now, so I could focus on getting some Christmas cards mailed out, and some catalog browsing to at least start thinking about gifts for family and friends.  But it's not a typical year - I took time off for a vacation in addition to two Comic-Cons this year, so I've still got another week and a half of movies to hit 300.  With 21 days left in 2017, I'm sure I can make it - the trick will be finishing with enough time to do those other holiday things.

Shorter feature films do help, this one's just under 90 minutes long.  But I'm going to do something I only do a couple of times a year, and watch a short tonight before the feature.  My only rule for this is that the short must be on topic.  It won't increase the count or affect the linking, I'll just mention it here as an extra - but it does star Andy Samberg, who's also in today's feature.  It's "Tour de Pharmacy", a 40-minute mockumentary spoof that's about the Tour de France, only it's set in a year where nearly every cyclist was caught using drugs, so all were banned from the race except for 5 non-dopers.  And this is quite topical, considering the Russians were just banned from the Winter Olympics for a drug scandal.  But this short is all in fun, with tons of guest stars and a bunch of inside jokes about the world of sports and fame.  Check it out on HBO if you get a chance.

Now that's out of the way, and Imogen Poots carries over from "Jimi: All Is By My Side" to another film about a famous music star, only it's another spoof.

THE PLOT: When it becomes clear that his solo album is a failure, a former boy-band member does everything in his power to maintain his celebrity status.

AFTER: I'm sure it was quite easy to take some of these potshots at the world of today's pop music, everything from the ridiculous boy bands of the 90's (the Style Boyz here) to the way that musicians feel the need to reinvent themselves for each new tour - after the band breaks up, the lead renames himself "Conner4Real" to the constant need to over-hype and outdo the last album.  Conner is a pastiche of Justin Bieber, Harry Styles, and let's say Justin Timberlake (who also came out of the boy-band scene, and appears here in a role as Conner's personal chef).

So every aspect of being a pop-music star is taken to its extreme and illogical conclusion - in much the same way that "Tour de Pharmacy" oversold every joke.  A cyclist isn't just doping, he's super-doping, taking every steroid and drug known to man, because a longer list is (theoretically) funnier.  And so Conner's new album can't just do poorly, it's got to do phenomenally horribly just to over-sell the joke.  In reality, you've got to imagine that an album doing slightly worse sales than expected is probably a lot more common.  The concert arena can't just have a few empty seats, it's got to look like there were zero tickets sold, and so on.

I try to follow pop culture, but watching this, I wish I knew a bit more about current pop music, just so I could understand all of the references.  Probably that just means I'm too old to fully enjoy this film.  I sort of got that Conner's song "Equal Rights" was a dig at Macklemore, but if I didn't know that, it could have come off as really homophobic, since Conner drops in the line "I'm not gay" as many times as possible in a song calling for gay marriage rights.  Of course, Conner finds out that his protest anthem hit the stores just a bit too late, after gay marriage became legal, because in this film, everything that can go wrong does go wrong.

Conner owns a large turtle, and I guess this is supposed to a reference to Justin Bieber's pet monkey - the one that he tried to take to Germany, which got confiscated.  Hey, did he ever get that monkey back?  Just wondering, the news doesn't always do proper follow-ups on things like this.  Ah, I guess it lives in a zoo in Germany now, that probably draws a few extra people in, to see a famous person's ex-monkey.

I didn't really get the joke about putting Conner's new album into appliances like refrigerators and microwaves - apparently this was a dig at U2 for having their album installed for free in everyone's phones, which I guess people didn't appreciate.  I knew about the U2 thing, but the joke was too different from reality for me to make the connection.  I would guess it's a lot of work not only to do parody work, but to strike the right balance between reality and fiction - how far into left field should a spoof go?

Also starring Andy Samberg (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 2"), Jorma Taccone (last seen in "Neighbors"), Akiva Schaffer (ditto), Tim Meadows (last seen in "Trainwreck"), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "A Million Ways to Die in the West"), Chris Redd, Maya Rudolph (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie"), Bill Hader (ditto), Joan Cusack (last seen in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), James Buckley, Edgar Blackmon, Justin Timberlake (last seen in "Runner Runner"), Danny Strong, Kevin Nealon (last seen in "Cecil B. Demented"), Will Arnett (last heard in "The Lego Batman Movie"), Mike Birbiglia (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"), Chelsea Peretti, Eric André (last seen in "The Internship"), Paul Scheer (last seen in "Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope"), Will Forte (last seen in "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie"), Joanna Newsom (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Derek Mears (last seen in "Live by Night"), with cameos from Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Carrie Underwood, Nas, Usher (last seen in "The Faculty"), 50 Cent (last seen in "Southpaw"), Simon Cowell, Ringo Starr (last seen in "George Harrison: Living in the Material World"), Adam Levine (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Mario Lopez (ditto), Akon, Mariah Carey (last seen in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan"), Pink, DJ Khaled, A$AP Rocky, Danger Mouse, RZA (last seen in "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai"), T.I. (last seen in "Get Hard"), Pharrell Williams, Seal, Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "Factory Girl"), Steve Higgins (last seen in "Ghostbusters"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Emma Stone (last seen in "Irrational Man"), Katy Perry (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Snoop Dogg (also last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Michael Bolton and "Weird Al" Yankovic (last seen in "Sandy Wexler")

RATING: 4 out of 10 quick costume changes