Far From Heaven

Year 10, Day 34 - 2/3/18 - Movie #2,834

BEFORE: I can't follow up with a Catherine Zeta-Jones film, because I don't have any to watch.  Anyway, she's one of those super-famous actresses who really hasn't made that many movies, when you start crunching the numbers.  She's only got 39 credits in the IMDB, and that includes TV work and those crappy movies she made in Europe before going to Hollywood!  How do you get to be that famous after so few movies?  That's the American dream right there.  Tom Cruise is another example, he has just 43 IMDB credits, but is super-famous.  For the really extensive film resumés, you have to look at voice actors, character actors, and porn actors.

With that in mind, Patricia Clarkson carries over from "No Reservations", and so does a character actress making another cameo.

Here's an advance look at the schedule for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming for tomorrow, February 4:

Best Cinematography Nominees & Winners:
5:45 am "Captains of the Clouds" (1942)
8:00 am "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952)
10:00 am "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940)
12:00 pm "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956)
2:15 pm "Ice Station Zebra" (1968)
5:00 pm "The Great Race" (1965)
8:00 pm "Black Narcissus" (1947)
10:00 pm "Zorba the Greek" (1964)
12:30 am "The Song of Bernadette (1943)
3:15 am "The Naked City" (1948)
5:00 am "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)

I'm only hitting for 2 out of 11 tomorrow, I've seen "Somebody Up There Likes Me" and "The Great Race", which brings my total up to 19 out of 45, and down to 43%.

THE PLOT: In 1950's Connecticut, a housewife faces a marital crisis and mounting racial tensions in the outside world.

AFTER: In many ways, this film is a re-make, or update, of the 1955 film "All That Heaven Allows", in which an upper-class widow, played by Jane Wyman, falls in love with her gardener, played by Rock Hudson.  With what we know now about Rock Hudson's secret life, it almost seems like someone wanted to make a reference to his lifestyle by adding the gay husband character here, and then creating another kind of scandal by making the gardener African-American, so the film could touch on issues of racism as well.  It makes sense, every film reflects the time is was made, so a film from 2002 might naturally have an agenda to prove that gay people were always there, just hiding, and that racism wasn't limited to the South.

But we've come a long way since 2002, and what stands out to me here is the fact that the female lead character is woefully underdeveloped.  I might expect that a story set in 1957 would depict a woman feeling helpless in a male-dominated world, but it overreaches in this sense.  She can't even stand up for herself when her husband's "working late" turns out to be making out with another guy at the office?  (We see them kissing, and I'm sure they were probably doing a lot more than kissing, but I guess even in 2002 audiences weren't ready to see more.).  What about, "Frank, please explain what I saw!" or how about "How long have you been sleeping with men, Frank?"  Nope, nothing like that, she just goes with him to his first therapy session, but isn't even allowed to be part of the conversation.  Girl, you step up and you MAKE yourself part of that conversation!

Without seeing most of Frank's therapy, how do we the audience know that he's making progress?  Wait, should I even use the word "progress" when referring to gay conversion therapy?  Progress should be more toward reaching some form of acceptance, not trying to pray the gay away, or use ECT or drugs or anything like that.  I don't even think they say the word "gay" anywhere in this film, they just allude to it with phrases like "light in the loafers", which is kind of sad.  If nobody can say it, then they're not really dealing with it.  Also, is he gay or bisexual?  I mean, he had two children with Cathy, so their relationship was physical at one point.  Maybe he needs both types of relationships in his life, and he only wants to be with a man because he's been with a woman for so long.  But nobody here can see the big picture like that, either.

For comparison, I look to the film "Carol", which I watched last year, and is a much more powerful film, partially because it's told from the P.O.V. of the spouse having the homosexual affair, and it also shows the woman in a position of power, getting what she wants, and not taking the husband's needs into consideration.  The husband in "Carol" is quite ineffectual, if anything his role is similar to the female role from "Far From Heaven".

As a result, this story had some really weak sauce, with so many unanswered questions - did Frank at least give her alimony?  Was she awarded sole custody of those kids that never listened to her?  Did she ever get down to Baltimore?  Did she ever find love again, or did she just sit around the house and sulk for the rest of her life?

I also had an issue with the way that some of the characters talked, there was too much exposition in their lines, and overall that made them seem really fake.  Like Frank saying, "Honey, I have to work late, because I'm the second assistant executive at MagnaTech!  The Jenkins proposal isn't going to review itself, that's the responsibility of the second assistant executive!"  Yeah, I don't think people ever talked like that, not even in 1957.  Too many notes.  "Frank, come on, it's 10 seconds to midnight on New Year's Eve and we're in Miami and it's 90 degrees - shouldn't we raise our glasses and kiss when the band counts down to zero?"  Nobody would say any of that, they'd just go and do it.

Also starring Julianne Moore (last seen in "The Hunger Games; Mockingjay - Part 2"), Dennis Quaid (last seen in "Vantage Point"), Dennis Haysbert (last heard in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"), Viola Davis (last seen in "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them"), James Rebhorn (last seen in "Regarding Henry"), Michael Gaston (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Celia Weston (also carrying over from "No Reservations"), Barbara Garrick (last seen in "Miami Rhapsody"), Bette Henritze, June Squibb, Ryan Ward, Lindsay Andretta, Jordan Puryear, J.B. Adams, Matt Malloy (last seen in "Dr. T & The Women"), Olivia Birkelund.

RATING: 4 out of 10 modern art paintings

No Reservations

Year 10, Day 33 - 2/2/18 - Movie #2,833

BEFORE: It's Groundhog Day, the first of the February holidays that I'm forced to ignore, because there's only one movie about that, and I've already seen it.  Whether the rodent sees his shadow or not, either way I get about six more weeks of romance films.

I've got a few more Nicole Kidman films on the watchlist, but none of them seem right for the February chain, they're more crime or horror-based, and that just won't do.  So I'll link from the other lead actor, and Aaron Eckhart carries over from "Rabbit Hole".

Before I get to tonight's romance, here's a look at the schedule for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming for tomorrow, February 3:

Best Cinematography Nominees & Winners:
6:00 am "Lassie Come Home" (1943)
7:30 am "Strangers on a Train" (1951)
9:30 am "Show Boat" (1951)
11:30 am "The Four Feathers" (1939)
1:45 pm "Blood and Sand" (1941)
4:00 pm "King Solomon's Mines" (1950)
6:00 pm "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949)
8:00 pm "A River Runs Through It" (1992)
10:15 pm "Bound for Glory" (1976)
1:00 am "The Hustler" (1961)
3:30 am "Battleground" (1949)

Dang it, I've only seen three of these 11 films - "Strangers on a Train", "A River Runs Through It" and "The Hustler", but I'm going to watch "Show Boat" in February, so I'll count that.  Another 4 out of 11 brings my total up to 17 out of 34, exactly 50%.  Which is great, but I know that once they get to Best Documentary and Best Foreign Film, my numbers are going to drop quite quickly.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Burnt" (Movie #2,624) and "Chef" (Movie #2.681)

THE PLOT: The life of a top chef changes when she becomes the guardian of her young niece.

AFTER: This is a mostly-inoffensive comedy/romance - although it's a rare "comedy" that starts with a character's family member dying in a car accident.  That's a strange coincidental story element to carry over from "Rabbit Hole", by the way, and it was not planned - but as I said yesterday, I've got a sudden build-up of these "grief-based" films, so it makes sense that a few of them are going to end up next to each other. 

This completes my trilogy of films about chefs, two of which I watched last year - this third one didn't seem to connect with the others because they didn't share any actors, so I tabled it until February, and sure enough, linking was later available.  In all three movies the lead chef character was talented, opinionated, egotistic and high-strung - geez, you'd think there was a formula or something, or that Hollywood films just run on simple stereotypes.  Other similarities - all three movies have precocious kids (in "Chef" it's a son, here it's a niece and in "Burnt" it was a girlfriend's kid) that the lead chef has to connect or re-connect with, and of course they have to juggle a relationship along with their high-paying chef job.  Conflict with the restaurant owners is inevitable in all three films, and I think al three films feature the high-class chef getting "humbled" by failure or loss of a job.  So yeah, essentially it's the same film three times over, just with some different details in each one. 

(The title "No Reservations" might lead one to believe this has something to do with Anthony Bourdain, who hosted a travel/food show for 7 years with a similar title, but that's not the case.  Bourdain also wrote a book called "Kitchen Confidential", which was sort of the source material for a TV comedy with the same name, where the lead chef character, Jack Bourdain, was played by Bradley Cooper.  And Cooper went on to play the chef character in "Burnt" - so it's all connected, man...   But "No Reservations" is really a re-make of a German film titled "Mostly Martha".)

But the title doesn't really work here, not any meaning of it at all.  It can't mean that her restaurant doesn't take reservations, because how would that work?  And we SEE people making reservations there several times during the film.  It could mean that she lives her life without reservations, like she regrets nothing and throws caution to the wind, but that's not the case either, because that doesn't match up with what we know about her character, clearly she has a lot of reservations about caring for her niece, and forming a relationship with her co-worker.  So I don't get it, there must have been a better way to title this film. 

Also, NITPICK POINT here, if she's such a great chef, why does she have so much trouble cooking food for her niece at first.  This is meant to symbolize that she doesn't really understand children, but surely at some point during her illustrious career, she must have cooked for kids, or at least learned that they don't have adult palates yet, and probably enjoy different foods.  When she cooks a whole fish or makes duck sandwiches for her niece it's played for laughs here, but the joke also has to make some sense, and it just doesn't.  I doubt she could be so clueless that she wouldn't understand that kids like to eat things like spaghetti and pizza.  What's worse is that people tell her this several times, her therapist suggests fish sticks (which all kids like, apparently) then she has to learn this AGAIN later in the film, why is she so dense about this?

And not ONE person in this professional kitchen wears latex gloves or a hair net?  I sure wouldn't want to eat there if they don't follow proper sanitary procedures.  I realize those things may not look very attractive on film, but it's very unappetizing to think of all the germs being spread around that kitchen by these so-called expert chefs.  I see this all the time on the food shows I watch, like "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" and "Food Paradise".  These chefs might be only demonstrating their recipes for the camera, but I'll be more inclined to visit those places if I see the chefs wearing gloves.

Also starring Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in "Entrapment"), Abigail Breslin (last seen in "Zombieland"), Patricia Clarkson (last seen in "Everybody's All-American"), Jenny Wade, Bob Balaban (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Brian F. O'Byrne, Lily Rabe (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Arija Bareikis, Zoë Kravitz (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), with cameos from Celia Weston (last seen in "The Intern"), Matt Servitto and composer Philip Glass.

RATING: 6 out of 10 white truffles

Rabbit Hole

Year 10, Day 32 - 2/1/18 - Movie #2,832

BEFORE: And with a flip of the calendar page, I'm off of plane crashes and treks across Siberia, kidnappings and killings, and on to affairs of the heart.  February is here, and that means a lot of holidays and observances that I tend to ignore with my movie selections, like Groundhog Day, Super Bowl Sunday, Presidents Day and Black History Month.  Instead, I focus on two things: Valentine's Day, and TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming.  (I always think it might be respectful to do a Black History chain, once I run out of romance films, but I never run out of romance films...)

So, let's get things going - I've got at least 31 days of romance and relationship films coming up, with Miles Teller carrying over from "War Dogs".  You can see how if I hadn't dropped in "War Dogs", there would have been TWO actors carrying over from "Bleed For This", right?  But just because I'm on the romance topic, that doesn't mean that the subject matter is going to be easy, all flowers and candy and sunshine.  Nope, a peek at the plotline means this is still heavy subject matter, coincidentally a similar jumping-off point as those "Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby" films.

Now, as for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, after the terrible alphabetical organization system they employed last year, this time they're organizing the films by award category, which makes much more sense.  There's still no artistry to it, but at least they're paying tribute to the awards themselves with this system.  Day 1's programming features nominees and winners from the Best Original Song category, and they are:

6:00 am "Gold Diggers of 1935" (1935) - nominee for the song "Lullaby of Broadway"
8:00 am "An Affair to Remember" (1957) - nominee for the song "An Affair to Remember"
10:00 am "Lady Be Good" (1941) - winner for the song "The Last Time I Saw Paris"
12:00 pm "The Strip" (1951) - nominee for the song "A Kiss to Build a Dream On"
1:45 pm "Robin and the 7 Hoods" (1964) - nominee for the song "My Kind of Town"
4:00 pm "High Society" (1956) - nominee for the song "True Love"
6:00 pm "Neptune's Daughter" (1949) - nominee for the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
8:00 pm "Swing Time" (1936) - nominee for the song "The Way You Look Tonight"
10:00 pm "The Harvey Girls" (1946) - winner for the song "On the Aitchison, Topeka and Santa Fe"
12:00 am "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing" (1955) - winner for the song of the same name
2:00 am "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962) - winner for the song "Days of Wine and Roses"
4:15 am "Born Free" (1965) - winner for the song "Born Free"

Man, I got really excited when I saw two Frank Sinatra films, back-to-back - I thought maybe they were linking by actor, too, as they've done in the past.  No such luck - but I do like how they're ending the broadcast day with three films that won Oscars for their title musical tracks.  Now, thanks in part to last year's focus on Sinatra and Fred Astaire, I've seen exactly half of these films: "An Affair to Remember", "Robin and the 7 Hoods", "High Society", "Swing Time", "Days of Wine and Roses" and "Born Free".

I use this to keep track of my progress from year to year - last year I think I had seen 36% of all the films that aired during "31 Days of Oscar" - but here on Day 1, I'm at a whopping 50% viewed rate!  Wow, I should just stop calculating, that's incredible, I can't remember a clearer sign of my movie-watching progress!  But you know I just can't stop.  Tomorrow's a new day in MovieLand, and here's the schedule for Day 2, Friday, February 2:

Best Original Score Winners & Nominees:
6:00 am "Our Town" (1940)
7:30 am "This Is the Army (1943) - winner
9:45 am "The Old Man and the Sea" (1958) - winner
11:15 am "A Star Is Born" (1954)
2:15 pm "On the Town" (1949) - winner
4:00 pm "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950) - winner
6:00 pm "Now, Voyager" (1942) - winner
8:00 pm "Limelight" (1952) - winner
10:30 pm "Fiddler On the Roof" (1971) - winner
1:45 am "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942) - winner
4:00 am "Cover Girl" (1944) - winner

Woo-hoo, I've seen 7 out of these 11!  (Or 6, really, I'm going to watch "Annie Get Your Gun" in about 2 weeks, so I'm going to count it.)  I have not seen "Our Town", "This Is the Army", "Limelight" or "Yankee Doodle Dandy", but this still brings me up to 13 out of 23, or 56.5%, so I'm off to a great start.  I'm going to record "Fiddler on the Roof", because even though I've seen it before, I don't have a copy in my collection.  My mother made me watch it back in the day, and I played Lazar Wolfe in a stage production in junior high.

THE PLOT: Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

AFTER: For some reason I've had a sudden influx of grief-based films, movies about dying mothers and fathers, spouses committing suicide and such.  These things tend to come in waves, I'm not sure how or why.  Yeah, it's going to be a fun year, especially around Mother's Day and Father's Day...

But you've got to take the bad with the good, here in Year 10 I have to theorize that maybe I watched all the happy films already, and now I'm dealing with the rest.  But romance films are not just about coming together, they can also be about people breaking up, or falling apart.  The only way out is right through it, and that goes for me as as a viewer as well as for the characters in the film.

We first see Becca and Howie about 8 months after their son has died, and even though it seems like they've dealt with the majority of the grief, things still aren't back to normal, nor are they going well.  They attend a weekly group counseling session for parents who have lost children, and Becca can't help but point out the lack of logic among the religious people there.  "God called her home because he needed another angel..." and Becca wants to know why God didn't just skip a step and make himself an angel, if there was some kind of shortage.  I'm with her on this point - the religious nuts always fall back on "God works in mysterious ways" to explain away tragedies, when the simpler answer is that God's not working at all, in fact he's slacking off so much as to appear non-existent.

Becca is then seen having various arguments with her newly-pregnant sister and her mother, who keeps comparing her grandson's death with the death of her own son, who lived to adulthood, though they're not really the same thing.  But in some sense they are the same, grief over the death of a loved one is universal, it's something we all understand, and we go through the same stages of anger, depression and finally acceptance.  Becca and Howie seem to be stuck on anger and depression, repeat as necessary, and everyone around them ends up not knowing what to say or do when they're around.

They end up fixated on other people for a while, Howie smokes pot and plays skee-ball with another woman from the counseling group, and Becca follows a high-school student around, one that her family has a connection with which we, the audience, eventually figure out.  He turns out to be a nice teen with the ability to write and draw comic-books, and one in particular that suggests alternate, parellel universes and is titled "Rabbit Hole", just like the film.  As in "Alice in Wonderland", down the old rabbit hole.

Their actions represent two separate methods for dealing with their loss - Howie watches videos of their departed son over and over on his phone, while Becca sets about giving away his clothing so she won't have to think about him every time she opens the closet.  One keeps going to the counseling sessions, the other chooses to opt out.  One thinks they should sell the house and move away, the other one doesn't - so in many ways, they're just not on the same page, and may never be again if they don't take steps to work through it all.  Will they get past their grief and get themselves back to some place where they can have fun again, maybe invite people over to their giant house on the Hudson River again for a garden party?

(OK, I guess I'm wrong, this wasn't shot upstate, but in Queens, where I live.  But that house is out in Douglaston, which is the last neighborhood in Queens before you hit Long Island.)

Also starring Aaron Eckhart (last seen in "Bleed For This"), Nicole Kidman (last seen in "Australia") Dianne Wiest (last seen in "The Lost Boys"), Tammy Blanchard (last seen in "The Music Never Stopped"), Sandra Oh (last seen in "Tammy"), Giancarlo Esposito (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Jon Tenney (last seen in "Tombstone") Stephen Mailer, Mike Doyle, Patricia Kalember (last seen in "Run All Night").

RATING: 5 out of 10 frames of bowling

War Dogs

Year 10, Day 31 - 1/31/18 - Movie #2,831

BEFORE: Miles Teller carries over from "Bleed For This", and he'll be here tomorrow also as we reach February and kick off the romance & relationships chain.  "War Dogs" was a bit of a last-minute add to the list, it wasn't part of the initial chain I devised in late December, but it came into my possession about 2 weeks ago and I was able to slot it in here.

Boy, what a January it's been - between bank robberies ("Going in Style", "Hell or High Water"), murders ("Like Minds", "The Postman Always Rings Twice"), kidnappings ("Split), war ("Hacksaw Ridge"), and torture ("Silence").  Plus we saw prison escapees walk across Asia ("The Way Back") and plane crash survivors try to survive in Alaska ("The Grey").  Pee-Wee Herman took a trip across the country, Alice went back to Wonderland, and we caught some Fantastic Beasts.  Orcs turned out to be not so bad in "Warcraft", Albert Nobbs turned out to be a woman, and De Niro couldn't keep from pissing people off in "The Comedian".  And there were family squabbles in "Matilda", "People Like Us" and "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby" (three times!).  Plus Western fighting in "Appaloosa" and prizefighting in "Bleed for This".

I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.  After all that's gone down, it almost makes sense that I'm ending the month with a comedy about war munitions.  Seems about right.

THE PLOT: Loosely based on the true story of two young men who won a three hundred million dollar contract from the Pentagon to arm America's allies in Afghanistan.

AFTER: Eh, I don't know.  A comedy about two guys getting stoned and selling weapons isn't really my cup of tea, especially when it's not a laugh-out-loud comedy, more like a dark comedy that reminds us that everyone in the government and everyone dealing with the government, and everyone outside the government that THEY'RE dealing with is corrupt.  Do we need to know this?  Can't we just assume that everyone in the world of guns and ammo are not very nice, trustworthy people?  (Ironically, nobody here is what you'd call a "straight shooter"...)

This is the story of two guys who ran arms deals despite having no idea what they were doing.  No knowledge of shipping, international laws or treaties, statutes on military contractors, etc.  But why bother to learn the right way of doing things when you can just fake it and forge ahead?  This may be the American dream in a fashion, but it's a terrible example of it.  At a time when any gun control legislation is D.O.A., do we really want to champion people who had no regard for the few gun laws that our country DID have?

They learn that you can't lie down with dogs without waking up with a few fleas - this happens because they put the almighty dollar ahead of ethics.  Who cares if that guy's on the terrorist watch list, as long as his money's good, right?  Hmm, there might be a law against repackaging ammo before selling it to the army, but as long as we don't confirm that fact, we're in the clear, right?  Umm, no.

NITPICK POINT: They make a big deal out of the company name, AEY, and the fact that it doesn't stand for anything - but the character freaks out so much when he's asked this question, that leads the viewer to believe that it DOES stand for something.  But what?  We never find out.  Why make such a big deal plot point out of this and then never deliver any kind of answer, did the screenwriter just forget?   And if it truly doesn't stand for anything, then isn't it like the worst company name ever?

I never understand why certain songs keep getting used again and again as music cues - the "classic rock" songs heard in this film were outdated at the time the story is taking place (2005?) and are all another 12 years older by now.  Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion", CCR's "Fortunate Son", Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here", and The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" may all be great songs, but they're all from the 1970's, so they're about 3 decades off.  "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by Vanilla Fudge is even older, and Dean Martin's "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" is positively ancient, couldn't they license any music from the correct decade?

Also starring Jonah Hill (last heard in "The Lego Batman Movie"), Kevin Pollak (last seen in "Grumpier Old Men"), Ana de Armas (last seen in "Blade Runner 2049"), Bradley Cooper (last heard in "10 Cloverfield Lane"), Patrick St. Esprit (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), Eddie Jemison, Shaun Toub, JB Blanc, Barry Livingston (last seen in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan"), Aaron Lustig, Gabriel Spahiu, with cameos from Wallace Langham (last seen in "Taken 3") and the real David Packouz.

RATING: 4 out of 10 duffel bags filled with cash 

Bleed For This

Year 10, Day 30 - 1/30/18 - Movie #2,830

BEFORE: After watching "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby" three times (essentially...) anything's bound to be a welcome change.  It's kind of like when you've got a cold and you can't really taste food, then you go out to a restaurant when you feel a little better, and whatever you order, it's going to taste like the most amazing meal ever.

Ciaran Hinds carries over from the "Them" version of the Eleanor Rigby trilogy, and of course, now I can't delete the "Them" film without messing with my linking - because he's the ONE actor who was in the "Him" version that didn't appear at all in the "Her" version.

THE PLOT: The inspirational story of World Champion boxer Vinny Pazienza who, after a near-fatal car crash, made one of sport's most incredible comebacks.

AFTER: It seems like there's always one more boxing movie - the last one I watched was "Creed", about a year ago, and then the topic was clear for a while, but of course that can't last, there's always one more.  Except when there are two more, like there are now - I taped "Chuck" to go on a DVD with this one, and I just saw that "Hands of Stone" is on Netflix, which is a shame because I need it to air on premium cable to fill up a DVD with another De Niro film, "The Comedian".

We love boxing films because they allow us to root for the underdog, a tradition which goes back at least as far as the first "Rocky", which more recently was seen in not just "Creed" but also "Southpaw".  But how about this for an underdog story, a boxing champ who's told that he may not ever walk again after a car accident, but he doesn't let that stop him.  He goes for the spinal fusion surgery, which also puts a "halo" device around his head to immobile his neck, and then not only walks during his recovery, but also begins to train again in secret.

Because what's he going to do, NOT BOX?  That's crazy talk, apparently.  But it's good to have goals during a recovery period, and it's good to take what they predict you won't be able to do, turn that around and show it can be done, plus a whole lot more.  All this guy needed was the right trainer, apparently, instead of his non-professional dad, somebody that would know when to push him, how to get rid of his bad boxing habits, and suggest that he move up a couple of weight classes.  Though I wish the film could have explained a little more about why that's risky for someone to do, apart from the extra health problems associated with gaining weight.

This is a mostly true story, though - but the IMDB points out that Pazienza's comeback fight was not against Roberto Duran, but Luis Santana instead - and he didn't fight Duran until two years later.  Dramatic license, I suppose, but why not try to get the facts right?

Also starring Miles Teller (last seen in "Fantastic Four"), Aaron Eckhart (last seen in "Sully"), Katey Sagal (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Ted Levine (last seen in "Wonderland"), Jordan Gelber (last seen in "Riding in Cars with Boys"), Amanda Clayton (last seen in "John Carter"), Daniel Sauli (last seen in "Boiler Room"), Tina Casciani, Liz Carey, Christine Evangelista, Denise Schaefer, Peter Quillin, Jean Pierre Augustin, Edwin Rodriguez, Marv Albert (last seen in "Trainwreck"), Sully Erna and archive footage of the real Vinny Pazienza.

RATING: 6 out of 10 sparring partners

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them

Year 10, Day 29 - 1/29/18 - Movie #2,829

BEFORE: Film #5 for James McAvoy, and pretty much the entire cast of "Her" carries over also.  It's everybody into the pool tonight as the "Him" and "Her" storylines come together at last.  But somehow I feel this third film is not necessary at all, but I'm going to reserve my comments until after I watch it and confirm. 

THE PLOT: One couple's story as they try to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.

AFTER: It is as I feared, since I've seen both "Him" and "Her" storylines, "Them" is merely an editing together of both, and I fear not in the best way.  I preferred the starting point of "Him", and "Them" shares the same beginning with "Her", which is more enigmatic.  Now I realize that when someone takes two films that are over 90 minutes long and edits them together, the goal would be to avoid a three-hour long compilation.  But still, 5 minutes at the beginning with Conor coming home from the bar and having that conversation with Eleanor, that would have gone a long way as an introduction to these two characters, for anyone who might not have seen the other two films.  Starting the film on the bridge, well that's enigmatic, sure, but also confusing - plus it's been done before.

One thing I can say is that watching Conor and Eleanor separating for the third time, at least this film went quickly - two hours rolled by like it was nothing, because I'd seen it all before, I knew exactly what was going to happen next, but then again, there were no surprises to anticipate.  It's like when I go back and watch the original "Star Wars: Episode IV", I know it's two hours long, but to me it feels like it takes about 5 minutes to watch, because I know every line and every upcoming action.  I'm definitely ready to move on from this story, having seen it twice from each angle now.

I certainly recommend that you watch the two separate films, and I recommend starting with "Him" and following up with "Her".  Or, if you only have a limited amount of time, or you only have access to "Them", you can proceed with caution, but I don't think you'll get the full experience if you just watch "Them".  Like, who's the target audience here, people with terminal illnesses who don't have time left to watch 2 full films?

But hey, maybe you're the kind of person who likes everything to be straightforward and certain, and you don't want to go through the mental work of keeping the story straight from two different perspectives and then assembling it in your head.  I get that, I've been there - if that's the case, then "Them" is definitely for you.  But it's also quite generic, in some ways it resembles every simple romance movie that Hollywood puts out again and again, but the "Him" & "Her" combination is unique, I don't think I've ever seen two films designed to work together like this, where one fills in the gaps of the other.

My rating below represents my experience with "Them", which was a slog for me to get through simply because I'd seen it all before.  But if you only watch "Them", then of course your mileage may vary.  I can't un-see what I've seen already.  And since this film had NO new material in it, I feel I must reserve the right to come back and delete this review if needed, like if I reach the end of 2018 and I need just ONE more slot in order to make a chain work.  That would mean a lot of re-numbering, and it's something I've never done before, but this is a unique situation, being forced to watch through a film that's just comprised of two other films, shuffled together.

I can't make heads or tails out of the release schedule, either.  The two films "Him" & "Her" debuted at film festivals in 2013, and by the time the film was released theatrically in 2014, the "Them" version had been edited together.  And "Them" was then released one month BEFORE the other two - it just seems like a very odd strategy.  Something unique and beautiful, a set of interlocking films, apparently got dumbed down for general release because some distributor didn't think that the audience would "get it".  What a damn shame.

But I know that there is something universal about this story, especially if you watch all three films, which I cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone else do.  There were elements of their break-up that reminded me of how I split from my first wife in 1996, and as a result of watching their story, over and over, I had that dream last night where my ex-wife tracks me down and knocks on my door and suggests we get back together, and I have to be the adult and remind her of the many reasons why that is not anything close to a good idea, not the least of which being that we're both married to other women now.

Also starring Jessica Chastain, Nina Arlanda, Viola Davis, Bill Hader, Isabelle Huppert, Nikki M. James, William Hurt, Jess Weixler, Ryan Eggold, Will Beinbrink, Wyatt Raiff (all carrying over from "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her"), Ciaran Hinds (last seen in "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him")

RATING: 3 out of 10 fireflies

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her

Year 10, Day 28 - 1/28/18 - Movie #2,828

BEFORE: James McAvoy carries over from last night's film, and so do most of the other actors, but not all of them.  This is because I'm now going to see the other side of the story of this relationship in crisis, and the wife and husband were spending time apart, so they obviously interacted with different people, I would assume.

I'm fascinated by a different telling of the same events, but I'm also frustrated by the possibility that I'll gain no special insight by watching both films, or perhaps I'll get some insight from this second film, but none from the third film.  You know what I mean.

THE PLOT: Told from the female perspective, the story of a couple trying to reclaim the life and love they once knew and pick up the pieces of a past that may be too far gone.

AFTER: OK, I have to admit this film was helpful in filling in the gaps left from the "Him" film, but of course that's exactly what it was intended to do.  After she "disappeared", where did she go?  Now we know - so by watching the "Her" film second, I at least kept the mystery alive for a little longer.  Even though this feels "correct", that I watched the husband's side of the same story first, it's also possible that it might have also felt "correct" if I had done the reverse.  Then HER story would have had a lot of gaps in it, and I'd be wondering what the deal with the husband was, where did he work, where did he live, who did he sleep with, etc.

Her story starts in a different place, which is a little later than the "Him" film starts, but in the first few scenes we learn how she ended up in the hospital, where he visited her in the last film.  And then there are only three scenes - no, sorry, I think it's four - after that which are common to both films, so that represents the number of times that they encounter each other after that.  But if you pay close attention, there are times when they ALMOST encounter her, like one of them could be on a train station platform and not see the other walk by in the background.  I'm sure stuff like that happens all over NYC all the time.  I've bumped into my ex-wife once or twice on subway platforms, so this rings true to me.

But I'm not sure if Eleanor's personality ever really comes through here - perhaps it was an acting choice to depict someone who closed off her emotions after suffering a great personal loss?  She goes back to stay at her parents' house in Connecticut for a while, but she's often at odds with them, though she does seem to enjoy spending time with her younger sister and her nephew.  There are many forms of therapy, and going out clubbing might be one for some people, almost having sex with random strangers, maybe not so much.  But at least she's trying to figure out who she is and how she wants to move forward.  She enrolls in a couple of classes (Wikipedia says she goes to NYU, but the dialogue in this 2nd film contradicts that, plus the building's location suggests Cooper Union.) and bonds with the teacher, who's a friend of her father.

But the "Her" volume is more flashbacky, which explains some things, like a past joyride to nowhere that motivates the present-tense "Hey, let's rent a car..." scene but also serves to make things a bit more confusing overall, because there's no subtitle or other indication that we're watching a flashback.  It also cleared up the fact that Eleanor was really there in the apartment when Conor came to pack things up, from just watching the "Him" film I thought he might have imagined her being there.

I must be crazy if I'm considering watching the "Them" version, especially if it contains no new footage, and is merely an exercise in editing.  But "Them" shares an actor with the next film, and "Her" doesn't, so it looks like I'm going to invest another 2 hours in this story.  By the end of tomorrow I think I'll remember more about Eleanor and Conor's marriage than I do my own....

Also starring Jessica Chastain, Nina Arlanda, Viola Davis, Bill Hader, Isabelle Huppert, Nikki M. James (all carrying over from "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him"), William Hurt (last seen in "Into the Wild"), Jess Weixler (last seen in "The Face of Love"), Katherine Waterston (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), Ryan Eggold, Will Beinbrink, Wyatt Ralff.

RATING: 5 out of 10 Splenda packets