Albert Nobbs

Year 10, Day 13 - 1/13/18 - Movie #2,813

BEFORE: I spent most of today asleep, it's really the first chance I've had to sleep long and try to shake this cold.  Between work and getting our heat and then a small plumbing leak repaired, I've been either waiting for repairmen or forcing myself through the workday for the last five days.  My wife caught my cold (as always) and she's been asleep most of today as well, but hey, that's what Saturdays are for.

This may seem a little jarring, to go from a part-CGI fantasy epic based on a video-game to a period drama, but that's just the way my linking system works.  The crossover today is Glenn Close, who had an uncredited role in "Warcraft".  But it was her for sure, that's why I spend so much time reviewing the cast lists on the IMDB.

THE PLOT: Posing as a man so she can work as a butler in Dublin's most elegant hotel, Albert Nobbs struggles to survive in late 19th-century Ireland, then meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living.

AFTER: I don't know how often other people play that "Hey, that's the actor from..." game.  For people who don't follow movies that closely, maybe they call it "Hey, where have I seen that guy before?"  Obviously I force myself after watching a film to go through the cast list, so eventually I always know where I've seen that guy (or gal) before, even if it's just when I saw them last.  There are a bunch of people in this cast that you can play this game with - THAT guy played Ron Weasley's dad in 7 out of 8 Harry Potter films, for example, and THAT guy was "Mad-Eye" Moody in the same series.  And THAT guy played both Kick-Ass and Quicksilver from "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (and young John Lennon in "Nowhere Boy").  There's the girl from the latest "Alice in Wonderland", and if you're a fan of British cinema, you'll probably have better luck recognizing the other women here from films like "The Commitments" and "My Left Foot".

But that's exactly the problem with the lead role, if you ask me.  We all recognize Glenn Close's face, we've all just seen her in so many things.  So whenever we see Albert Nobbs, who's supposed to read as male to everyone around him, the audience has the inside track to knowing his secret, that he's really female.  Close developed this character in a stage play, and it's no fault of her acting that this conceit doesn't fully work, it's a side result of her fame in other films, she's a bit too recognizable.  So unfortunately because of this every time I saw her dressed as a man, I still thought of her as a woman.

But, my question then becomes, was I supposed to?  Back when this film was set, people didn't understand gender issues quite as well, which is kind of the point.  We're not sure if Albert Nobbs qualifies or as transgender, because that word didn't exist.  Transvestite is the best word we have, and even that word may not have been a word in the 1800's.  Did Albert identify as male, or female?  As a straight man or a lesbian women?  Even when Albert meets another woman who is passing as a man, this encounter only leads to more uncertainty and more questions, for both him and us.  It seems like once Albert finds out that there's another woman who not only dresses and lives as a man but also has a wife, this awakens something inside him and he starts to have fantasies of owning his own tobacco shop and having a wife of his own to run the sweetmeats counter.  But what was in Albert's heart before this, just an empty void?

The hardest part for me to believe is not that a woman could pass as a man, but that a person who'd been alive for that long would be so clueless about love and romance in general, and specifically the desires of his own heart.  Surely working in a hotel he must have been aware of what people do in hotels, both in public and private - how does he not know the basics of courting, kissing, etc.?  And even if he's been celibate all this time, surely there must have been a curiosity about sex at some point in his life, or something he would have read about it in a book, right?  It's awfully convenient that the character has led a sexless, emotionless life right up until the point that someone shows him there is a way to be happy.  And even then, he develops a fantasy around what he wants, but has no real clue on how to get there.

Still, it's a fascinating look at the gender politics of what, the Victorian era?  Just as "The Finest Hours" gave a look at the "women should not be heard from" attitude of 1950's America.  Was it just SO important to be polite, and not discuss certain matters in conversation, that Albert was even afraid to ask his close friend what sex with her wife was like?

Also starring Mia Wasikowska (last seen in "Maps to the Stars"), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (last seen in "Godzilla"), Janet McTeer (last seen in "Maleficent"), Pauline Collins (last seen in "From Time to Time"), Brenda Fricker (last seen in "My Left Foot"), Jonathan Rhys Myers (last seen in "Alexander"), Brendan Gleeson (last seen in "Live by Night"), Maria Doyle Kennedy (last seen in "The Commitments"), Mark Williams (last seen in "101 Dalmatians"), Michael McElhatton (last seen in "Justice League"), Serena Brabazon, John Light, Kenneth Collard (last seen in "Anna Karenina"), Judy Donovan, Bronagh Gallagher (last seen in "Tristan + Isolde"), Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Phyllida Law (last seen in "Copying Beethoven").

RATING: 6 out of 10 serving trays

Warcraft

Year 10, Day 12 - 1/12/18 - Movie #2,812

BEFORE:  Ben Foster carries over from "The Finest Hours" for his third appearance in a row - he and Chris Pine have already made the 2018 year-end countdown by appearing in three films, and we're not even 2 weeks in!  My scheduling for the rest of January is going to be pretty random - a fantasy film could be followed by a Western, which in turn could be followed by a war movie or a boxing film.  By February 1 I'll be back on some thematic as well as actor-based linking.

THE PLOT: As an Orc horde invades the planet Azeroth using a magic portal, a few human heroes and dissenting Orcs must attempt to stop the true evil behind this war.

AFTER: No, no, you can't get me to sympathize with orcs!  You can get me to root for the bank robbers in a heist film, but this is where I draw the line, this is a complete bastardization of everything that J.R.R. Tolkien stood for, where orcs are concerned.  They're nasty, evil creatures and telling me that there are "good" ones is a lot like saying there were "good people on both sides" at a Nazi counter protest.  Oh, yeah, that did happen last year, didn't it?

I've never played the Warcraft game - it's a video game, right?  Geez, remember when video games were based on movies, instead of the other way around?  Maybe that would have helped me to understand this film better, but I just don't have that kind of time.  If I had more time I'd be playing the Lego Marvel Heroes video game, or I'd be trying to finally finish Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which I had to put on hold about 9 or 10 years ago.  So without any of that background, this film is a confusing mess.

Like, just because the Orcs got taken from their ruined world and were sent to Azeroth against their will, I'm supposed to feel sorry for them, and forgive them for killing humans?  It's not going to happen.  They probably destroyed their own world, when they weren't busy being evil and orcs.  And who brought them to Azeroth anyway, was it the Guardian?  And if so, then how come he doesn't remember doing it?  And why is he so bad at being the Guardian?  Can anyone explain anything to me in a coherent manner?

The fact that this is titled "Warcraft: The Beginning" on IMDB is very troubling - this means that there will be more of these films, and just like with the "Underworld" franchise, they will become more elaborate with their own mythology and make less and less sense as the story unfolds.  That whole series was a nightmare, like why should I care if vampires and werewolves are fighting each other?  And why do I have to root for one over the other, when I can choose "neither"? I don't

I'm sorry, but I'm from old-school fantasy gaming, where the only good orc is a dead orc.  That sound you're hearing is J.R.R. Tolkien, spinning in his grave.  But then, I suppose this is the sort of film you get after the "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" franchises wrap up, and dozens of copycat films spring up...

Also starring Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton (last seen in "Idlewild"), Dominic Cooper (last seen in "Dracula Untold"), Ben Schnetzer (last seen in "Snowden"), Ruth Negga (last seen in "Jimi: All Is by My Side"), Anna Galvin, Callum Keith Rennie (last seen in "Fifty Shades of Grey"), Burkely Duffield, Ryan Robbins, Dean Redman (last seen in "Godzilla"), Glenn Close (last seen in "102 Dalmatians") and the voices of Toby Kebbell, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Terry Notary, Michael Adamthwaite,

RATING: 3 out of 10 battle-axes

The Finest Hours

Year 10, Day 11 - 1/11/18 - Movie #2,811

BEFORE: After learning that "Hell or High Water" is now on that list of "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", I decided to take a spin through the updated list (on IMDB, not in book form) to see what has changed since the last edition I checked, which was in 2013.  In the first (almost) 800 listings, nothing has changed.  But 22 of the newer (2007 and later) films are gone, replaced in order to keep the list current.

So, the bad news is that 10 films that I've seen are now gone from that list: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", "Slumdog Millionaire", "Black Swan", "Drive", "Django Unchained", "Life of Pi", "American Hustle", "Inside Llewyn Davis", "Nebraska" and "The Wolf of Wall Street".  This is confusing on a couple levels - were these films only "Must-See" for a couple of years, like did their relevance expire or something?  Or did was there a sudden influx of super-great movies in 2015 and 2016, and these just had to be jettisoned because they paled in comparison to the new, hipper films?  Hey, if something needed to go, why wasn't it the old foreign films that today's audience has no interest in seeing?  Dropping these 10 films (along with 12 others I haven't seen) brought my total down from 410 to an even 400, as I feared.

However, there is some good news - because I've spent so much time catching up with the films of 2015 and 2016, of the 22 films added since my last check-in, I've seen 13 of them!  So my stats actually went UP when you factor in these newer films: "Boyhood", "Birdman", "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", "The Revenant", "Spotlight", "Mad Max: Fury Road", "La La Land", "Hell or High Water", "The Jungle Book (2016)", "Jackie", "Manchester by the Sea" and "Arrival".  So my total viewed jumped back up from 400 to 413.  I made progress after someone else did some list maintenance!

Of course, it's all arbitrary - is "Jackie" a better or more relevant film than "Black Swan"?  In my opinion, no, but it's not up to me.  Is "La La Land" better than "Drive"?  They both got a score of "6" from me.  What about "The Revenant" replacing "The Wolf of Wall Street"?  OK, so I agree with that one.  Is the recent "Jungle Book" remake better than "Life of Pi"?  It's debatable, since I liked a lot of the films that got replaced, but I also liked a lot of the added films, so I guess it's a wash.

Two actors carry over from "Hell or High Water", Chris Pine and Ben Foster.

THE PLOT: The Coast Guard makes a daring rescue attempt off the coast of Cape Cod after a pair of oil tankers are destroyed during a blizzard in 1952.

AFTER: I'm back on Netflix tonight, which of course does not reduce my main watchlist at all, though it does make a dent in the larger list, which is the films available to me on streaming services and Academy screeners.  (The next step is to make a list of the new screeners that came in this January, but there are so many of them, so I've been avoiding this.)  I can't ignore a link that allows TWO actors to carry over between films, that's just too perfect.  And the goal is to get to these films on Netflix before they all start to disappear.

I watched a number of films in 2017 that were set in Massachusetts - see the 2017 wrap-up post for that list, and here's another one.  It's a true story about a Coast Guard (or Coast Gaahd) rescue from 1952, and since it took place during a January blizzard, that couldn't be more timely.  I saw the footage from last week's weather in Massachusetts, where incredibly high waves were causing floods in the coastal towns of Hull and Scituate, and it's not too much of a stretch to get from that to tonight's film.  I think this is a great reminder that while most people have the option to stay home and hunker down during a winter storm, maybe miss a day's work while they watch TV and drink some hot cocoa, there are people who HAVE to go to work, even in the middle of a storm, because other people's lives are on the line.  Doctors, nurses, police, firemen, and yes, the Coast Guard.  Those of us whose jobs are not critical thank you for your service.

(News and weather reporters, I have much less admiration for.  The people who report on the weather should be smart enough to not do so while standing outside, in the thick of it.  They'll tell everyone to stay off the roads unless travel is vital or emergency-based, then they'll head out in the Channel 6 "Mobile Weather Center", which is really just a SUV crossover with cameras in it, just to get some great footage to demonstrate how hard the roads are to navigate.  Does anyone else see the irony here?)

But let's get back to "The Finest Hours".  For the first 1/4 of the film, we see Chris Pine's character doing exactly what his other character did in "People Like Us".  He's supposed to talk to his superior about getting married to his girlfriend (he's under the mistaken belief that he needs "permission" from the Coast Guard to get engaged) and yet time and time again, he can't quite bring himself to say the words.  So it's delay, delay, delay until thankfully there's an emergency at sea and he can head out.  Dude, if you're not ready to SAY the word "marriage", you're really not ready to do it.

Meanwhile, on an oil tanker there's a bunch of manly men who are suddenly wondering what happened to the other half of their ship.  Ah, that propably explains why they haven't heard any orders from the bridge in a while....  But then this leads to other questions, like how long can a half-ship stay afloat, and should they try to leave the half-ship in lifeboats, stare bailing water futilely, or just sit quietly and prepare to drown?  Thankfully the quiet guy who knows the most about the ship has another solution.  And it sounds crazy, but it just might work...

The problem with rescuing these men is two-fold - nobody knows exactly where this half-ship is (it seems that radar was in its infancy back then) and to get there, a ship has to cross the Chatham Bar (pronounced "Chattem Baah" in the local parlance).  This is a series of shoals on the southern part of Cape Cod that is notable for having extremely high waves during a storm - so it's very nearly a suicide mission.  But Bernie Webber ("Webbah") headed out with three other men in a 36-foot wooden lifeboat, which had the advantage of being self-righting, into this wicked winter storm, in the hopes of finding the rapidly-sinking half-tanker and getting any surviving crewmen to safety.

The ending, with the town pulling together to help the lifeboat find its way back to land, is one of those inspiring moments - I haven't seen the film "Dunkirk" yet, but perhaps this is somewhat reminiscent of that event, let's call this one "Dunkirk Lite" for now.  I suppose this is tempered somewhat by the reminder that back in 1952, women's opinions didn't seem to matter much, at least on perceived "manly" things like sailing and military operations.

Also starring Casey Affleck (last seen in "I'm Still Here"), John Ortiz (last seen in "Going in Style"), Holliday Grainger (last seen in "Cinderella"), Eric Bana (last seen in "Lone Survivor"), Graham McTavish (last seen in "Creed"), Kyle Gallner, (last seen in "American Sniper"), Michael Raymond-James (last seen in "Black Snake Moan"), John Magaro (last seen in "Unbroken"), Abraham Benrubi (last heard in "Big Hero 6", Keiynan Lonsdale, Beau Knapp (last seen in "The Nice Guys"), Josh Stewart (last heard in "Interstellar"), Rachel Brosnahan (last seen in "Patriots Day"), Matthew Maher,(also last seen in "I'm Still Here"), Benjamin Koldyke (last seen in "Stuck on You"), Jesse Gabbard, Alexander Cook (last seen in "Black Mass"), Danny Connelly (last seen in "Bride Wars"), Angela Hope Smith,

RATING: 6 out of 10 life-jackets

Hell or High Water

Year 10, Day 10 - 1/10/18 - Movie #2,810

BEFORE: We're just ten days in to the New Year, and here comes my second film about bank robberies - I'm not sure what that means for 2018.  I can only hope that the characters hang out in a few diners, so I can keep that streak going.  Chris Pine carries over from "People Like Us", where he ate in a whole bunch of cafés and restaurants.

THE PLOT: A divorced father and his ex-con older brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's ranch in West Texas.

AFTER:  Well, I guess some ex-cons go work in diners, like in "Frankie and Johnny", and others go right back to committing crimes...

I would love to figure out when, exactly, did the bank robbers in films become the "good guys" and the banks became the "bad guys"?  Was it a subtle shift, or did it happen all at once?  Like in the 1970's, did we suddenly start rooting for the bank robbers in "Dog Day Afternoon" because of Watergate, Vietnam and Attica?  Or were we all seduced by Redford and Newman in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid", and Jeff Bridges in "Thunderbolt and Lightfoot"?  (Bridges appears in tonight's film on the other side of the law, playing the grizzled Texas Ranger who's both too old for this shit AND one week away from retirement...).  Was it in the 1980's as a reaction to Reaganomics and corporate greed - and is it suddenly back in vogue now after the recession, the sub-prime mortgage disaster and the ensuing bank bailout?

I've got to assume the latter, because here the family farm is nearly lost due to a "reverse mortgage", and they come right out and use that term, which "Going in Style" avoided.  But this makes more sense this way, while one brother was in jail and the other was distracted by his failing marriage, that the bank would step in and con their dying mother.  So I'm sure they exhausted many other plans and possibilities before falling back on "Hey, let's rob some banks."  Just kidding, that would be silly, why with all the guns available in Texas, it would be stupid of them NOT to rob a bank.  It's an "open-carry" state, so have at it, everyone.  That money ain't gonna rob itself!

This point is addressed, somewhat, within this film.  The theory is that if more people are armed, there would be more "good people" with guns to stop "bad people" with guns.  So why doesn't that happen more often?  How come it's always 12 people dead at the movie theater or 20 kids dead in the classroom before the shooter takes his own life?  Where were the "good people" with guns to kill him sooner?  And why do we still have people robbing banks while using guns?  Our two brothers only get shot at by civilians once or twice during their robbery spree.

The lead Texas Ranger (who's partnered with a half-Native American, leading to a bunch of white man/red man ribbing back and forth) happens to notice that all of these robberies are taking place at different branches of the same bank, and so he starts staking out the branches that haven't been hit yet.  That's smart, trying to get ahead of the game.  And I suppose most robbers do have a pattern, even if they're not aware of it themselves.  You know, get up, grab a bagel and a coffee, rob a bank, be home by 11 to catch "The Price is Right" - that's the kind of pattern that's going to get you caught.

But the idea to take stolen money from the bank and launder it through a casino in the next state over - man, that's smart.  Is that a thing that robbers do?  I don't think a casino cares whether it gets stolen money or not, and they're used to taking in large sums of money for chips, then after a few hours at the poker tables, these guys cash in their chips and get a nice, legal check from the casino.  I think then they turn right around and deposit that check in the same bank they just robbed.  Genius.  But then any criminal activity can be a success, right up until the cops start chasing you.

The IMDB trivia section is telling me that this film is included on that list of "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", but not on my copy of the list.  I guess that's because I'm still working from the version of the list that came out in 2013, and I think they make minor changes to it every year.  I'll have to research what's been added to that list, but I'm afraid that means they've also removed a few films, which means my stats may go down - currently I've seen 410 of the films on the 2013 list, and I'm proud of that.  I would prefer if that didn't change.

Also starring Ben Foster (last seen in "Inferno"), Jeff Bridges (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Gil Birmingham, Marin Ireland (last seen in "Hope Springs"), Katy Mixon (last heard in "Minions"), Dale Dickey (last seen in "Winter's Bone"), Kevin Rankin (last seen in "Wild"), Melanie Papalia, Amber Midthunder, John Paul Howard, Christopher Garcia, Alma Sisneros, Joe Berryman (last seen in "A Million Ways to Die in the West"), Jackamoe Buzzell (ditto), Buck Taylor (last seen in "Hard Time"), Kristin Berg, William Sterchi (last seen in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"), Taylor Sheridan, Paul Howard Smith.

RATING: 5 out of 10 getaway cars

People Like Us

Year 10, Day 9 - 1/9/18 - Movie #2,809

BEFORE: This time, Michelle Pfeiffer carries over from "Frankie and Johnny".  I'm going to try my best to be coherent today, through a giant fog of cold medicine brain-haze.

THE PLOT: While settling his deceased father's estate, a salesman discovers he has a sister that he never knew about, leading both siblings to re-examine their perceptions about family and life choices.

AFTER: I'm going to have to charge this film with violation of the classic six-act structure.  There's really just an introduction here, then a VERY long middle period where essentially nothing happens, and then a wrap-up.  By all rights, this should have been a short film, since there's only about 20 minutes of plot to sustain a nearly 2-hour film.  Please note that inactivity is not a proper substitute for character development.

You can easily spot this sort of delaying tactic when there is essentially one crucial piece of information that needs to be relayed from Person A to Person B, and for some reason or a variety of reasons, that information does not get spoken or transmitted in any fashion.  Things keep cropping up - but in the real world, if there is one crucial piece of information that needs to be said, most of the time it gets said, and we deal with it (in either a good or bad way) and we move on.

What's worse is that this film commits the very same plot-non-developmental sin at least THREE times.  Sam tracks down his half-sister, and he can't quite bring himself to tell her that he's her half-brother.  He'll get a phone call, or he'll jump in his car and drive away (running away doesn't count as character development, either) or just change his mind every time an opportunity presents itself.  There are several opportunities to confront his mother with the knowledge of his father's other family, and he can't quite bring himself to pull the trigger on that either.  Meanwhile FTC investigators are leaving messages on his cell phone about the mishap he caused at work (he's employed by some sort of semi-legal bartering company and he found a way to violate some customs laws) and he KNOWS that he has to call these investigators back, yet he never gets around to it.  So, what DOES he do all day?

Because of his inability to act, he finds himself working his way more and more into the life of his new half-sister and her son - but since he doesn't reveal his identity, the sister is slowly coming to depend on him, and the relationship starts to border on attraction.  Soon this starts to have "bad idea" written all over it - plus, anyone can see that the longer he takes to tell her, the worse her reaction is going to be.  So again, why all the delaying, delaying?  It's not like there's some limited window on telling the truth, and if he misses it, he can't go back and make it right.

Beyond that, some pretty big coincidences/contrivances take place - Sam just HAPPENS to go to the one A.A. meeting where his sister discusses her feelings about her father?  (Well, sort of, anyway, she only reveals a little bit, in what's probably the most confusing alcoholic confessional ever, for anyone not following along.)  And NITPICK POINT: How could two people spend so much time together over the course of a few weeks without her ever learning his last name?  Wouldn't that be something you learn about someone on the first day, or in the first couple days?

There is a nice pay-off at the end, but I'm left feeling like it just took too much time to get there.

Also starring Chris Pine (last seen in "For the Love of Spock"), Elizabeth Banks (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), Olivia Wilde (last seen in "Rush"), Mark Duplass (last seen in "Tammy"), Michael Hall D'Addario, Philip Baker Hall (last seen in "Bad Words"), Jon Favreau (last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), Sara Mornell,

RATING: 6 out of 10 maraschino cherries

Frankie and Johnny

Year 10, Day 8 - 1/8/18 - Movie #2,808

BEFORE: It may seem a little weird to drop a romantic comedy in here, because I usually handle them during February - and that was the original plan when I recorded this film to go on a DVD with "Danny Collins", which I watched last year.  The only problem now is that this doesn't link to any of my other romance-based films on the February schedule, but it does link here, with Nathan Lane carrying over from the archive footage of "I'm Still Here".  So this one goes here in January, because I'm trying not to save anything for February 2019, and this helps get me to February 2018.

Anyway, there's a nice tie-in with all the films this year set in diners and restaurants - Pee-Wee Herman worked in the town diner in "Pee-Wee's Big Holiday", then the three main characters in "Going in Style" met at the (Clinton) diner to plan their heist.  Then Nick and Cora ran the diner in "The Postman Always Rings Twice", followed by Frank and Cora doing the same.  Plus a lot of "The Comedian" took place in comedy clubs and "I'm Still Here" featured some nightclubs, but that's not exactly the same thing.

THE PLOT: Johnny, who has just been released from prison, gets a job in a café beside waitress Frankie.  Frankie is a bit of a loner, but Johnny is determined that their romance will blossom.

AFTER: This is really just an average romance film, playing off the formula of putting two damaged people together and watching them work out a relationship that works for both of them - the old "Two Wrongs Somehow Make a Right" concept.  He's an ex-con, she's a lonely waitress.  He's divorced, she got cheated on by her last boyfriend, and so on.  He's desperately lonely, she's wary about opening herself up to a new relationship - she feels that with a new VCR and take-out food, there's simply no need to date.  Ah, the 1980's version of "Netflix and chill", but somehow "Local video store and solitude" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Look, she's already got a busy life, between working at the diner, playing on a bowling league (which somehow also includes everyone who works at the diner) and feeling sorry for herself, that doesn't leave a heck of a lot of time to date.  And this was a different time, people didn't meet each other via Facebook or Tinder or Match.com - back then you were limited to people recommended to you by friends, or people you met in bars, or people you worked with.  And back then it also wasn't as frowned upon to hook up with people you worked with or make sexual innuendos with your co-workers.  Oh, sure, the boss may not have liked it, but it's not like there were rules against it put in place by the H.R. department...

Beyond that, tonight's time capsule of a film has references to the age of AIDS and the gay rights movement, both through the obligatory "we can't have sex without condoms" scene and the introduction of the blatantly gay best friend, who's in a loving committed relationship with another man, because they have those too, don't you know.  If I didn't already know this film was based on a play produced in the 1980's, it wouldn't have been too difficult to figure that out.

Also starring Al Pacino (last seen in "Danny Collins"), Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Sweet Liberty"), Hector Elizondo (last heard in "The Lego Batman Movie"), Kate Nelligan (last seen in "Dracula" (1979)), Jane Morris, Greg Lewis, Al Fann, Ele Keats, Fernando Lopez, Glenn Plummer, Sean O'Bryan (last seen in "Vantage Point"), Phil Leeds (last seen in "He Said, She Said"), Goldie McLaughlin, Shannon Wilcox, K Callan, DeDee Pfeiffer (last seen in "Into the Night")

RATING: 4 out of 10 runny eggs

I'm Still Here

Year 10, Day 7 - 1/7/18 - Movie #2,807

BEFORE: In addition to fighting with my neighbors over improper snow shoveling techniques, I've been fighting a cold, so I'm housebound for two reasons.  Today I started fighting back with vitamin C, ramen soup, a hot shower and DewQuil (my patent-pending combination of DayQuil and Mountain Dew).  But having a cold means that I can't sleep lying down because that will make me cough, so I have to sleep sitting up - and sitting up, I've noticed, means that I have longer and more vivid dreams.

Last night I dreamt that I was back in high-school chorus, and after showing up for a joint concert with the neighboring town, I learned that I was the only bass singer among the two choruses, and that meant I had to perform a solo on a song that I had never seen before - I'd have to sight-read it, and it was in Italian, and the concert was starting in just a few minutes.  All the anxieties of live performing, rolled up in a convenient dream package.  I started out poorly, but after a few bars I got a handle on the solo, and was feeling rather exhilarated that it was going so well.  But then the notes went very high, way off of the bass clef, and I just couldn't handle it.  Immediately after, the piano player, who was also my mother, explained how I should have picked up the piece right away, because the first few notes had the same intervals as the song "Do You Love Me?" from the musical "Fiddler on the Roof", and she kept on pointing out my shortcomings, even though the chorus had moved on to the next song, and I was begging her to be quiet.

So yeah, there's a lot to unravel there, but I know where a lot of these elements came from - I did a lot of singing and community theater during high school, and there weren't many good bass singers in my town.  After my voice dropped I had an opportunity to stand out with some success in the barbershop quartet in the play "The Music Man".  But then I lost the lead in "Fiddler on the Roof" (directed by my mother) after a ringer showed up and had an amazing audition for Tevye.  I had to admit he deserved the role over me, and decided that I could settle for making my mark in that play as Lazar Wolfe, the butcher.  My mother worked for over 40 years as a music teacher (thankfully, not at my schools, but in the next town over) and my high-school music teacher was also the church choir director with my mom as her organist, so at Christmastime I'd often sneak into the choir loft and sight-read the bass part on all the Christmas music.  And I just saw my mother at Christmas, and watched her interact with her grandchildren, so that probably brought all those memories of my over-protected upbringing to the surface.

The good news is that I no longer have those recurring nightmares of watching my first wife make out with other women, but my brain has chosen to replace those by going back to high-school anxieties, even though I'm nearly 50.  And of course, they can't be GOOD high-school dreams about doing well on tests or enjoying lunch in the cafeteria - at night when my defenses are down, my brain can't resist focusing on bad stuff.

Jack Nicholson carries over from "The Postman Always Rings Twice" to make a cameo in this documentary.  This was on my someday/maybe list, but including it made my January linking possible, so that moved it up to near the top of the list.

THE PLOT: Documents Joaquin Phoenix's transition from the acting world to a career as an aspiring rapper.

AFTER: Speaking of anxiety, I mentioned on January 1 that I was planning to watch at least 10 films this month on Netflix, partly because those films are instrumental to keeping my chain going, but also because I was worried that they could vanish from the streaming service at any time.  Sure enough, that happened - this film was available on Netflix a couple of months ago when I first noticed it, and still available there a couple of weeks ago when I programmed it into my chain.  But tonight when I sat down to watch it, it was gone.  So I had to watch it on iTunes at an additional cost of $3.99 - I just made this chain, I'm not going to try and alter it now.

Maybe there's no real rhyme or reason to why films come on and off various streaming sites - the animated feature I worked on was made available on Netflix for a 2-year period, and right after the contract was up, it was no longer available there.  So maybe it was just time.  Or maybe there are too many people connected with this film who got caught up in the recent sexual harassment scandals - Casey Affleck directed this film (Joaquin was his brother-in-law at the time) and it seems like maybe somebody at Netflix wanted to distance the company from Casey or this film.  Based on some of the content here, I can certainly understand why.

(EDIT: Suspicions confirmed.  A producer on this film sued Affleck for $2 million, and a cinematographer also filed a suit.  I won't get into the details of the claims here, but you can find them on Wikipedia.  Joaquin Phoenix is seen in this documentary hiring two hookers at one point, and in another segment bringing several women to his hotel room to party after his performance at a nightclub.  After a few drinks he pulled what's probably his signature "move", telling the ladies that his friend Antony has an unusual Johnson, prompting him to expose himself, thereby breaking the ice with the ladies.  This actually gives some insight into the recent accounts of Hollywood sexual assault behavior, and as I suspected, some of it probably came about from just terrible flirting technique.  That doesn't make it right, by any means, but I understand where some of it may come from.  And then the offenders keep doing it because at least part of the time, it gets results.)

The main gist of the film concern's Joaquin's decision to quit acting and record a rap album, and while I applaud anyone's decision to stretch their talents and try new things, a cause I've been championing here in the first week of the New Year, come on.  There's only one white rapper who's any good - just try and name another one.  Can't do it, can you?  Here's a case where someone looked down deep inside himself and asked the question "What do I want to be doing with my life?" and forgot to ask the question "But, am I any good at rapping?"  And the answer was a resounding "NO", even if he refused to hear it.  So this documentary becomes a descent into a form of heartbreak, as Joaquin meets with Sean "P. Diddy" Combs who first asks him how much money he's willing to spend to make the album, but ultimately has to find a way to tell him that he's not going to produce an album for "J.P." (or is it "Jay-P"?)

The decision over the announcement to quit acting - when to make it, how to talk about it on his "last" press junket - looms over everything here, and it led to the extremely awkward interview on Dave Letterman's show, where Joaquin was so stilted and unwilling to provide information that Dave ended by quipping, "Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight."  As for the rap career, consider that after he quit acting, he was in the films "Her", "Inherent Vice" and that last Woody Allen film - because he still needed to make payments on his house.  And in the end, it's the market that dictates whether someone's going to succeed with a side venture like this.  Currently we're being told that Daniel Day-Lewis is retiring from acting, and you have to wonder if this is just a publicity hoax to sell more tickets to his "last" film.  Japanese animator Miyazaki has retired three times by my count, each of his last three films was supposedly his "last" film, and this was likely done to secure the film better festival slots - what programmer wouldn't want to screen a master animator's last film?   But it's an ongoing scam.

The rest of the film concerns Joaquin's interactions with other actors during script meetings and play rehearsals - Casey Affleck talked Joaquin into doing a reading of a play for charity, and then Joaquin got upset that Casey's character was in every scene, and his wasn't.  He also meets with Ben Stiller for a possible role in the film "Greenberg" and gets upset when he thinks Stiller is acting too much like Ben Stiller (the character) during the meeting, then tearing apart the type of humor seen in "Meet the Parents".  (He may be right about slapstick humor, but he just doesn't say this in the best way.) Poetic justice occurs later when Stiller parodies Joaquin during an award show by wearing a large fake beard and claiming that he wants to quit acting too.

And we see Joaquin spending time with his two best friends, aka his entourage - and they have to cook and clean for him, make all his travel arrangements on a moment's notice, and play phone tag with the assistants of other celebrities to arrange meetings.  They seem to be paid in blame and insults, with Joaquin frequently tearing them down so that he can feel better about himself when things go wrong, which is often.  These guys take so much crap from their friend/boss that one even decides to pay him back in that same currency, literally.

But how much of this is real and how much isn't?  This is a common problem with documentaries - th act of filming has been known to change the events in front of the camera, plus with editing we have to wonder if the events before us really went down in this order, or if pick-up shots were made later to justify certain behaviors. And when Jay-P's rap performance ended with him brawling with some audience members, I noticed that there's a listing in IMDB for "Miami hecklers", so were they actors hired to make trouble, or did they just happen to be actors?  This is unclear.

Saying after the fact that the majority of this film was staged is either a bold play after-the-fact to clear the way for the actor to return to acting, or a genuinely insightful take-down of so-called "reality" television, much of which is also staged to some degree.  Or possibly an attempt to excuse the behavior of its star in the "candid" footage, which is just disgraceful.  Now I'm not even sure which is worse, if the events in this film are real or staged.  Because if it's real, these people should be ashamed of themselves, and if it's not, then they've wasted everybody's time, so they should again be ashamed of themselves.

Also starring Joaquin Phoenix (last seen in "Irrational Man"), Antony Langdon, Larry McHale, Casey Affleck (last seen in "Out of the Furnace"), Sean Combs (last seen in "Muppets Most Wanted"), Ben Stiller (last seen in "Orange County"), Carey Perloff, Edward James Olmos (last seen in "Blade Runner 2049"), with cameos from Billy Crystal (last seen in "The Comedian"), Danny DeVito (ditto), Danny Glover (last seen in "Dirty Grandpa"), Bruce Willis (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), Robin Wright (last seen in "Justice League"), Sean Penn (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie"), Mos Def (last seen in "16 Blocks"), Jamie Foxx (last heard in "Rio 2"), Jerry Penacoli, with archive footage of David Letterman (last seen in "Sully"), Paul Shaffer, Natalie Portman (last seen in "Jackie"), John Travolta (last seen in "Savages"), Nathan Lane (last seen in "He Said, She Said"), Jay Leno (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Conan O'Brien (ditto), Alec Baldwin (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Steve Coogan (ditto), Regis Philbin, Kelly Ripa, Ashley Olsen, Joan Rivers, Britney Spears, Olivia Munn, Kevin Pereira, Hugh Grant, Brett (ugh) Ratner.

RATING: 3 out of 10 limo rides