Miss Potter

Year 10, Day 55 - 2/24/18 - Movie #2,856

BEFORE: Went out last night with some old co-workers, friends I haven't seen in a couple of years, and we hung out in a tiny bar in the East Village, chewed the fat for a while, had some beers and then went to chew on some Yakitori in a little Japanese place on St. Mark's.  I think I ate some chicken gizzards on a stick and some fried octopus balls, I'm not sure.  (That poor octopus, now missing his balls...). Anyway, it's going to be a challenge to stay awake for this one, I may have to get as far as I can and then regroup in the morning.

No more films directed by John Carney on the schedule, but I'm staying in the UK tonight for this film about Beatrix Potter, who wrote and illustrated the story of "Peter Rabbit" - nice timing, with the Hollywood CGI version of "Peter Rabbit" now in theaters, though I'm sure that's a complete bastardization of her work.  If she were able to see what horrid sort of kids movie her book was turned into, I'm sure she'd kill herself, if she weren't already dead.  But what do I know?

I'm getting really clever with the linking tonight - I mentioned before that putting all my Renee Zellweger films together was a bad idea, for several reasons, but mainly because I can fit more films in the line-up if I break them up.  So instead, Lucy Boynton who played the teen girl in "Sing Street" carries over to play Beatrix Potter, I presume as a young girl in the flashback scenes.

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 25, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and they're finally up to nominees and winners for Best Picture:

5:30 am "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935)
8:00 am "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)
10:00 am "Top Hat" (1935)
12:00 pm "The Thin Man" (1934)
1:45 pm "Gaslight" (1944)
4:00 pm "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954)
6:00 pm "Picnic" (1956)
8:00 pm "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935) - winner
10:30 pm "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930) - winner
1:00 am "Wings" (1927) - winner
3:45 am "Cimarron" (1930) - winner

Hooray, another 7 out of 11 already seen!  My decision to watch those Howard Keel films really paid off here with "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", and a couple of years ago, my decision to watch every version of "Mutiny on the Bounty" was another smart one.  Also seen: "The Maltese Falcon", "Top Hat", "The Thin Man", "Gaslight" and "All Quiet on the Western Front", so another 7 out of 11 brings my total up to 103 seen out of 279.  Up to 36.9%

AFTER: Honestly, if not for the linking I could have avoided this film and been completely happy, but just how was I supposed to know that, before watching it?  Ugh, I regret it now.  This film is way too cutesy, plus it feels the need to spell out everything as if the audience is really dumb, and I hate being talked down to like that.  I could have guessed that Beatrix Potter loved animals when she was a child, and drawing, that's completely logical.  So that information could have been expressed in a simple line of dialogue - I know, I'm usually the one saying, "Show, don't tell."  But here's a case where showing the blatantly obvious just wasted everyone's time.  Like later in the film, when she returns from her family's country home to London, we see her in a carriage, then on the train, then on ANOTHER carriage.  Can't we just assume that she went through all the proper steps to get from Point A to Point B, and cut out a few in the middle?

When we first see Beatrix Potter, she's pitching her first book to a couple of publishers.  When they buy the rights to her book (figuring their useless brother could take the reins on this project), she's so happy that she goes for a long carriage ride in some parks.  But she rides with her head sticking out - WTF?  Is she a dog?  What point was made, exactly, by showing her riding this way?  There are better ways to depict joy, or her love of nature, or whatever it was, and this way was just stupid.

Later we learn that she talks to her characters.  Maybe this is common, maybe there are authors who have imaginary conversations with their creations, I'm not one to judge.  But then she sees the still images move, which means she's either crazy or she's hallucinating - or this was just a cheesy way to work in some animation, perhaps to brighten up an otherwise boring movie.  As an effect, I just don't think this brought much to the table, especially since animation didn't exist in the early 1900's.

Why is there this recurring fascination with the stories about how stories were made?  "Saving Mr. Banks".  If the stories are so good, why can't we just appreciate them for what they are, why do we need to know everything about their creators?  50 years from now, will someone release a biopic about the romantic life of J.K. Rowling, or Stephen King?  Also, someone then made a documentary about the making of "Miss Potter", which is ALREADY a "making of" story itself - can we please stop the madness?  How meta do movies need to be?  Or will someone make a documentary about the making of the documentary about the making of "Miss Potter", which is about the making of "Peter Rabbit"?

But I'm getting away from the reason this was included in the February chain in the first place - there is a romantic element here, but I'm not sure it's enough to consider the film a proper romance.  We're told that Miss Potter turned down every suitor that her parents suggested for her, and it seems that in many ways she didn't see eye-to-eye with her parents.  And then when she became close friends with her publisher, Norman Warne (and besties with his sister, Emily) and decided to marry him, her parents didn't approve because he worked in a trade, and didn't come from a wealthy family.  But by this time, the "Peter Rabbit" books were selling so well that Miss Potter was basically set for life, so why she didn't just move out and tell her parents to screw off, I don't quite understand.

Instead a complicated compromise was worked out, so that Beatrix would spend the summer away from her beau, at a country house with her parents.  If she still wanted to marry Norman, after a summer apart, the parents would agree to that - but I'm guessing that they still wouldn't, because her parents as portrayed here seem like a couple of lying bastards.  No spoilers here about how the situation played out - but we never do find out if the parents would have kept their word.

Eventually Beatrix moved out, and bought farmland in the country.  Then more land, and more land.  Again, no spoilers, but I suspect that this time in her life was perhaps the most interesting, only the movie ends before we get to see much of it, which is a very questionable choice.

Also starring Renée Zellweger (last seen in "Appaloosa"), Ewan McGregor (last seen in "Miles Ahead"), Emily Watson (last seen in "Everest"), Barbara Flynn, Bill Paterson (last seen in "The Killing Fields"), Lloyd Owen, Justin McDonald (last heard in "A Liar's Autobiography"), Anton Lesser (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides"), David Bamber (last seen in "The King's Speech"), Phyllida Law (last seen in "Albert Nobbs"), Judith Barker, Jennifer Castle, Lynn Farleigh (last seen in "From Time to Time"), John Woodvine, Jane How, Geoffrey Beevers (last seen in "Legend"), Clare Clifford, Andy McSorley, Sarah Crowden, Bridget McConnell, Joseph Grieves, Chris Middleton.

RATING: 3 out of 10 Herwick sheep

Sing Street

Year 10, Day 54 - 2/23/18 - Movie #2,855

BEFORE: This film is from the same director as "Once", John Carney, and that's the sort of thing that I really should pay more attention to.  Why I don't list the director of each film I watch, I really don't know.  Some directors like to hire the same actors over and over, and that can only help me.  Tonight Marcella Plunkett, who played the ex-girlfriend in "Once", seen only in home movie footage, carries over and appears again. 

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 24, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and they're running the last of the films nominated for Best Actor:

6:45 am "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936) - Paul Muni, winner
8:15 am "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933) - Charles Laughton, winner
10:00 am "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940) - Raymond Massey
12:00 pm "Lust for Life" (1956) - Kirk Douglas
2:15 pm "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955) - Spencer Tracy
4:00 pm "The Search" (1948) - Montgomery Clift
6:00 pm "My Favorite Year" (1982) - Peter O'Toole
8:00 pm "Cat Ballou" (1965) - Lee Marvin, winner
10:00 pm "Harry and Tonto" (1974) - Art Carney, winner
12:15 am "There Will Be Blood" (2007) - Daniel Day-Lewis, winner
3:15 am "Network" (1976) - Peter Finch, winner

I can say for sure that I've seen 6 out of these 11: "Abe Lincoln in Illinois", "Lust for Life", "My Favorite Year", "Cat Ballou", "There Will Be Blood" and "Network".  Plus I'm going to watch "The Private Life of Henry VIII" in March for sure, so another 7 out of 11 brings my total up to 96 seen out of 268.  Up to 35.8%

THE PLOT: A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes.

AFTER: Oh, I liked this one SO much better than I did "Once".  Maybe that's because I grew up during the 1980's, and I still remember when MTV first started airing music videos, and then the whole world changed.  Suddenly all musicians were also actors, bands like Duran Duran, The Police and Men at Work were everywhere - all the girls wanted to date them, all the guys wanted to BE them, and I think a few people wanted to do both.  But what could you do if you were 13 or 14 years old, stuck in school for most of the day, while people were out there somewhere conducting photo shoots with models, riding on sailboats with girls in bikinis, and singing on stage for thousands of people in arenas? 

OK, so I never lived in Dublin and I never attended parochial school - but I still feel this Conor kid's pain.  His parents are constantly fighting and are short on money, so he has to attend a school run by the Jesuits.  (I didn't really understand this part, because in America, public school is free and the parochial schools all have tuition costs.  Either this is a plothole or the system works the other way in Ireland...)  Plus he's bullied all the time in his new school, and his parents won't buy him the mandated black shoes, so the priests make him walk around all day in his socks.  Yep, that sounds about right - the religion is full of arbitrary rules that serve no purpose except to inconvenience people. 

Conor manages to find one ally, a short kid named Darren, and strikes up a conversation with the strange girl across the street, Raphina, who claims to be a model.  He offers her a gig in a music video that he's shooting, which would only be a problem if he didn't have a band.  Or a song.  Or costumes, instruments or an idea for the video - you get the idea.  But Darren knows another kid, Eamon, who's got a ton of instruments, and even knows how to play a few of them.  A band is hastily put together and a song, "The Riddle of the Model", is hastily written just to Conor can spend some quality time on the shoot with Raphina.  On such whims as these, grand plans are formed.

Conor soon becomes that "kid with a band" in the school, starts wearing cooler clothes and make-up (I know, it sounds weird now, but in the 1980's, this made sense...) and develops some serious songwriting chops by working with Eamon.  What I liked about his development was being able to see how it changed over time, whenever his brother introduced a new album to him (The Cure, Hall & Oates, Joe Jackson) we got to see how it changed his fashion AND his songwriting.  Along with the hits you might expect to hear in a 1980's film - Duran Duran's "Rio", Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out', Genesis's "Paperlate", there are a few originals here, with a couple co-written by Glen Hansard of "Once". 

NITPICK POINT: "Drive It Like You Stole It" is a great title for a song, and OK, it's a fine song, too - though I'm not sure the metaphor completely works.  But did people say that back in the 1980's?  I'd like to find out when the expression was first used, because I'm thinking I never heard anyone say that until the early 2000's.  But I could be wrong.

The takeaway here is that being in a band (and practice, and hard work, and self-promotion) will solve all your problems - you can get the girl, you can gain some self-confidence, you can even take down all the bullies in your life.  Who's to say this isn't the case?  OK, so it can't fix your parents' relationship, but in a few months you'll be so cool that you won't even care.  Your hair will be spiked, you'll have a lot of cool new clothes and new friends.  Now THAT is what the 1980's music videos promised us, and I'm glad to see it came true for somebody. 

Now, the only thing is that I would have recommended to Conor that he run off with Eamon - because as we all know from watching bands over the years, girlfriends come and go.  Heck, marriages come and go - but a good, solid songwriting partnership?  Man, that comes around once if you're lucky - you better hold on to that, it can take you very far indeed.  Lennon & McCartney, Simon & Garfunkel, Hall & Oates?  I rest my case.

Also starring Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Lucy Boynton, Jack Reynor (last seen in "Delivery Man"), Aidan Gillen (last seen in "Circle of Friends"), Maria Doyle Kennedy (last seen in "Albert Nobbs"), Kelly Thornton, Mark McKenna, Ben Carolan, Percy Chamburuka, Conor Hamilton, Karl Rice, Ian Kenny, Don Wycherley, Lydia McGuinness, Peter Campion.

RATING: 7 out of 10 rabbits on the bed

Once

Year 10, Day 53 - 2/22/18 - Movie #2,854

BEFORE: This is the day I've been dreading, as "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" represented the end of a chain - all those brothers and their wives, and NONE of them appeared in another movie on my list.  But there's a reason I put that film last in the Howard Keel chain - it does link to tonight's film, only indirectly.  (Hell, every movie links to every other movie indirectly...)  It's not much, but it's something, at least - Ian Wolfe was also in "Dick Tracy" with Colm Meaney, who was also in "The Commitments" with Glen Hansard. Or, Ian Wolfe was in "Reds" with Ralph Morse, who was also in "The Commitments".  Either way, my break in the chain has now been turned into indirect linking, I have to be OK with that.

The two films also have something else in common - both "Seven Brides" and "Once" used to be on that list of "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", and both are no longer on that list, not the latest version anyway.  I understand that they need to clear some films off every year, in order to make some room for more current gems, but what's the implication here?  These films used to be great, and they are no longer?  Times change, but a great movie is always a great movie, it would be more fair if they added four or five slots each year to accommodate new films, but then they'd have to change the name of the list and the book that goes with it.

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 23, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and it's last call for Best Actress nominees and winners:

6:45 am "Caged" (1950) - Eleanor Parker
8:45 am "Some Came Running" (1958) - Shirley MacLaine
11:15 am "Two Women" (1961) - Sophia Loren, winner
1:15 pm "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) - Vivien Leigh, winner
3:45 pm "I Want to Live!" (1958) - Susan Hayward, winner
6:00 pm "BUtterfield 8" (1960) - Elizabeth Taylor, winner
8:00 pm "Suspicion" (1941) - Joan Fontaine, winner
10:00 pm "Johnny Belinda" (1948) - Jane Wyman, winner
12:00 am "Dead Man Walking" (1995) - Susan Sarandon, winner
2:15 am "Klute" (1971) - Jane Fonda, winner
4:30 am "Women in Love" (1969) - Glenda Jackson, winner

I think I can only claim 5 out of 11 tonight, but still, that's better than half: "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Butterfield 8", "Suspicion", "Dead Man Walking", and "Klute".  Another 5 out of 11 brings my total up to 89 seen out of 257.  Up to 34.6%

THE PLOT: A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story.

AFTER: You can see why this film spent the better part of the last year stuck at the bottom of my list, right?  It barely links to ANYTHING, so it was nearly impossible to put it between two films it might relate to.  It was made with a very small cast, and no name actors - but in a way, it's the little independent movie that could.  The total shooting budget was just $150,000 - an amount that other films might spend on catering for a couple of months' shooting time.  And it grossed over $9 million dollars in the U.S. - against the initial budget, that's a 6,293% return on investment.  (Not a record, though - apparently the most profitable movie of all time is "Paranormal Activity", which grossed $89 million against a budget of only $450,000 which is a 19,749% ROI)

I really hate to be the screen door in the submarine here, but I just didn't get this film, it didn't seem like a great love story to me, and I was left questioning whether it even deserved to be part of the February chain in the first place.  How is this a great love story?  The leads seem to enjoy spending time together, but I don't think it ever got physical.  Not that every love needs to be sexual, obviously there are higher loves and all different kinds of love, mental and spiritual and unrequited, etc.  But both the "guy" and "girl" here are different kinds of emotionally unavailable.  Is it enough that they're able to harmonize and connect through music?  I'm just not sure.

Maybe it's me - I snuck out earlier tonight to see "Black Panther" (a review will be posted just as soon as I can work it into the chain, but it might be a while) and that's an action-packed movie, to be sure.  By comparison to THAT film, it seems like very little happens in "Once".  Two people meet, they share a love for music, they record a few songs together, hang out and...well, that's about it.  Did I miss something?  Is there something romantic about a love that just can't be?  How am I supposed to distinguish that from a love that isn't there at all, because those two things might appear very similar.  Is their love supposed to be represented by "the path not taken" or something?

Here's my other problem - the lead actress.  I understand she's from Eastern Europe, and I understand that English is probably not her first language.  But the biggest part of acting is being able to say one's lines clearly and with conviction, and she failed on both of those.  Look, I speak a little French and a little German, but since those aren't my native languages, I couldn't speak convincingly in either of them.  A real French or German person will always be aware that I'm stumbling through the language, and I'm probably not adding the right tones to convey emotions or subtle meanings.  This actress just left me cold, because not only was she hard to understand, because of this I was aware at all times that she was in fact an actress just saying her lines.  I know some people from Latvia and Croatia, and while they speak English differently than Americans, I can still have conversations with them because they speak English in a natural way.  There was nothing natural about this actress's performance, it all felt incredibly forced, and therefore not believable.  (The best acting comes when people stop acting and start just being, does that make sense?)

Which is ironic, because I think that life sort of imitated art and the two leads here dated for a while when they were touring and promoting this picture, then they played music together as a duo called The Swell Season, but it seems that the relationship part didn't last.  Fans of this movie (I'm assuming they're out there somewhere) are probably disappointed about that, but what can you do?

Personally I just don't think there's much to this film, outside of "Falling Slowly", which won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 2008.  I just wish there were a more substantial story to go around that song.

Starring Glen Hansard (last seen in "The Commitments"), Marketa Irglova, Marcella Plunkett, Keith Byrne, Hugh Walsh, Gerard Hendrick, Bill Hodnett, Darren Healy (last seen in "Layer Cake"), Geoff Minogue, Mal Whyte, Niall Cleary, Alaistair Foley, Danuse Ktresova.

RATING: 4 out of 10 broken Hoovers

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

Year 10, Day 52 - 2/21/18 - Movie #2,853

BEFORE: It's the final day of the Howard Keel chain, and I'll explain tomorrow why I put this one last.  Really, it's the end of the chain I began on January 1, and it feels like old home week where the cast is concerned.  I'm tying up a lot of loose ends tonight, with the lead actress from "Royal Wedding" returning, and the 2nd male lead from "Kiss Me Kate" also playing one of the 7 brothers.  There's even a guy in here somewhere who played in "Daddy Long Legs", so everything sort of connects to everything else, even if there's no actor from tonight's film carrying over to the next film.

But we're back out on the frontier in the 1800's, just like in "Annie Get Your Gun" and "Show Boat", for whatever reason the people who made musicals in the 1950's were obsessed with this time period, it seems.

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 22, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and they're back on Best Actor nominees and winners:

6:00 am "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1932) - Fredric March, winner
8:00 am "Bright Victory" (1951) - Arthur Kennedy
9:45 am "Fanny" (1961) - Charles Boyer
12:00 pm "Watch on the Rhine" (1943) - Paul Lukas, winner
2:00 pm "Life With Father" (1947) - William Powell
4:00 pm "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955) - James Cagney
6:15 pm "Babes in Arms" (1939) - Mickey Rooney
8:00 pm "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1939) - Robert Donat, winner
10:15 pm "Marty" (1955) - Ernest Borgnine, winner
12:00 am "Sergeant York" (1941) - Gary Cooper, winner
2:30 am "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1950) - José Ferrer, winner
4:45 am "The Goodbye Girl" (1977) - Richard Dreyfuss, winner

I can only claim three tonight, "Marty", "Sergeant York" and "The Goodbye Girl".  I've seen the OTHER version of "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (the one with Peter O'Toole) and I've got the OTHER version of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (the one with Spencer Tracy) on my list, so those don't count.  Another 3 out of 12 brings my total up to 84 seen out of 246.  Down to 34.1%

THE PLOT: In 1850's Oregon, when a backwoodsman brings a wife home to his farm, his six brothers decide that they want to get married, too. 

AFTER: Going in I knew very little about this musical, other than the fact that there would be seven brothers at some point, and it seemed like they'd all be getting married.  Yep, there are those crack movie instincts kicking in, all right.  But since this is set in the 1850's in addition to that plot we get a whole lot of outdated attitudes about men and women's roles out on the frontier.  Seems like the wimmenfolk are only good for cooking and laundry and keeping a fella warm on a cold winter night (and wouldn't you know, winter's about 8 months long up in this part of Oregon...)

It starts when the oldest brother, Adam, comes into town to do a little trading, and decides to find himself a wife there.  But since he knows very little about romance, having been raised in the back woods, it's more of a business deal to him - so naturally he chooses the woman who cooks and serves at the local eatery, because he needs someone who can cook for all of his brothers.  Umm, and he sort of forgets to mention his 6 brothers when he sweeps poor Milly off her feet - instead she falls for the promise of co-owning a piece of land and running a farm, which she's kind of always wanted to do. (This is how the Portland area works, one day you're working at a diner, the next you're starting your own farm to raise artisanal eggs and locally-sourced grass-fed beef...)

Milly not only serves food, but gets the brothers to shave and clean themselves up and learn some manners, she even teaches them how to dance and how to court women, lessons that she probably wished her own husband had learned.  When the brothers finally come to town for a social event, they accidentally end up inventing the dance-off - who knew?  It seems there are only so many women to go around in this part of Oregon, so if the brothers want to get brides, they kind of have to take ones that are already promised to other men.  Hey, that's just manifest destiny, how our country grew - if you see something you like, feel free to take it from whoever's already got it.

And this becomes quite literal after the brothers are pining over the women they met - Milly suggests they "go out and get 'em", but Adam takes this the wrong way, using the Roman story about the Sabine Women as a guide.  Ha, ha, the kidnapping of teenage girls is just rife with comedy, isn't it?  What could be funnier than throwing a blanket over a woman's head, dragging her back to your wagon and bringing her to your isolated cabin in the woods?  (Do they want to marry them, or eat them?).

A convenient avalanche means that no one from the town can pursue the kidnapped women until the snow melts, and even though Milly makes the brothers sleep in the barn, and Adam heads up to his trapping cabin on the mountain, a form of Stockholm syndrome kicks in, and the women end up falling for the brothers in the end, anyway.  Well, they did take them away from their parents, and they did at least bring some excitement into their otherwise drab lives.  Sure, why not start six relationships with a mass kidnapping?  (Really?)

NITPICK POINT: If there's a barn raising event, is it really smart to have four teams compete to see who can raise their wall the fastest?  I mean, it's played for comedy here because it turns into a brawl (after the brothers promised Milly that they wouldn't fight) but what if there wasn't a fight?  Do you really want a barn to be constructed by people trying to do it as quickly, and therefore as shoddily, as possible?  I bet nobody ever built a barn this way more than once.

This was a really great film to watch on a day when the weather really started to feel like spring - which happens at a key moment near the end of the film.  I also just realized that I passed the end of the show-within-a-show musicals, there were eight of them in a row, but the last one was "Kiss Me Kate".  Tomorrow I'm going to watch a different kind of musical, a more modern one.

Also starring Jane Powell (last seen in "Royal Wedding"), Jeff Richards, Russ Tamblyn (last seen in "Drive"), Tommy Rall (last seen in "Kiss Me Kate"), Matt Mattox (last seen in "Easter Parade"), Marc Platt, Jacques D'Amboise,  Julie Newmar (last seen in "The Band Wagon"), Ruta Lee (last seen in "Funny Face"), Virginia Gibson (ditto), Nancy Kilgas (ditto), Norma Doggett, Betty Carr, Ian Wolfe (last seen in "Reds"), Howard Petrie, Russell Simpson (last seen in "Meet John Doe"), Marjorie Wood (last seen in "Annie Get Your Gun"), Earl Barton, Dante DiPaolo, Kelly Brown (last seen in "Daddy Long Legs"), Matt Moore, Dick Rich.

RATING: 6 out of 10 snowballs

Kismet (1955)

Year 10, Day 51 - 2/20/18 - Movie #2,852

BEFORE: I've been sifting through my list of what's available on Netflix, looking for connections to the films already in my collection, or thematic tie-ins to the films I have access to on Academy screeners.  I've realized that I have another long list of documentaries that has built up, mostly on Netflix.  If I get to a point this year where I can't extend my chain any longer, another break in the linking, I can always switch over to docs for a while, and waive the linking rule for the duration.

Last year, about a month after Comic-Con, I did a great week (and a half) of documentaries about geek stuff, behind-the-scenes docs on Star Trek and Star Wars, Back to the Future and Ghostbusters, plus fan films and poster artist Drew Struzan and then just people who go to Comic-Con, and I thought that all came together rather well.   Now I seem to have access to a bunch of documentaries on music stuff, like one about the "Sgt. Pepper" album, two docs about David Bowie, that new one about Eric Clapton, and more docs on Netflix about Chicago, the Eagles and even Pentatonix.  Plus I never got around to seeing that film about Amy Winehouse - there's a week of programming right there.

There's at least another 15 documentaries that I could program - like "Going Clear", "Life, Animated", "Life Itself", "The Wolfpack", "The Queen of Versailles", "Being Elmo" and so on.  I'll have to find a good time to work in one or two documentary breaks before these films start disappearing from Netflix, because then it will cost me cash money to watch them.  Only it never seems to be a good time.  So, I'll have to wait for the next break, which won't come until mid-May at the earliest.  Maybe it's just good to have this ready as a back-up plan in case my linking system doesn't work any more.

For now, it's Day 4 of the Howard Keel Film Festival, with one more day to go.

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 21, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and now it's time to celebrate the Best Actress nominees:

6:15 am "Coquette" (1929) - Mary Pickford, winner
7:45 am "Min and Bill" (1930) - Marie Dressler, winner
9:00 am "The Divorcee" (1930) - Norma Shearer, winner
10:30 am "Lady For a Day" (1933) - May Robson
12:15 pm "Theodora Goes Wild" (1936) - Irene Dunne
2:00 pm "Ball of Fire" (1941) - Barbara Stanwyck
4:00 pm "Kitty Foyle" (1940) - Ginger Rogers, winner
6:00 pm "Jezebel" (1938) - Bette Davis, winner
8:00 pm "The Three Faces of Eve" (1957) - Joanne Woodward, winner
9:45 pm "Born Yesterday" (1950) - Judy Holliday, winner
11:45 pm "The Lion in Winter" (1968) - Katharine Hepburn, winner
2:15 am "Sunrise" (1927) - Janet Gaynor, winner
4:00 am "Blue Sky" (1994) - Jessica Lange, winner

Yet again, I've only see ONE of these, "The Lion in Winter".  These films from the 1920's and 1930's are dragging down my score.  One out of 13 (!!) brings my total up to 81 seen out of 234.  Down to 34.6%

THE PLOT: A roguish poet is given the run of the scheming Wazir's harem while pretending to help him usurp the young caliph.

AFTER: This is another case where the same story was made into Hollywood films, over and over.  This 1955 musical is the FOURTH version of this "Kismet" story to be filmed, although it's based on the 1953 stage musical, and the other three were based on the original 1911 (non-musical) play.  But either way, the story was turned into films in 1920, 1930, and 1944 before this.  So exactly how necessary was it for the film to be made yet again?

Especially since it doesn't seem to portray anything like an accurate version of real life in Baghdad - not ancient Baghdad, not current Baghdad, not any Baghdad that ever was.  I guarantee that no writer involved here ever set foot in Iraq, or did anything but the most basic of research - it's all based on this Americanized version of what we THINK that Muslim life is like.  (Is Iraq Muslim?  I thought it was Shiite or Sunni - is that the same as Muslim?  See, I don't even know, and just by asking this question, I've done more research than the screenwriters here.)  They basically just bought a bunch of turbans and robes, framed a basic mistaken-identity storyline and then started rehearsals.

So this has got to be offensive to millions of people, right?  Reducing the entire Iraqi city of Baghdad to a bunch of stereotypes - someone's either a beggar or a royal person, there's nothing in between.  OK, I guess there are merchants in the marketplace, but if someone's not a royal or a merchant, then he must be a beggar.   The lead role is a poet, which means he might as well be a beggar.  He couldn't possibly have a steady job like cobbler or camel herder, now could he?  Circumstances of the mistaken identity type dictating that the poet gets mistaken for a beggar who put a curse on another man 15 years ago, and that man's son was kidnapped after he was cursed.  The poet (as the beggar) asks for 100 gold pieces to remove the curse, so the man pays him, because everyone in this society is simple and superstitious.  

But when the poet starts spending the money, someone sees that the purse contains the insignia of a wealthy family that was robbed, so now the poet is mistaken for a thief.  (Oh yeah, thieves, forgot about them.  OK, anyone who isn't a royal, a merchant or a beggar has to be a thief.)  This brings the poet into the palace, where the Wazir tries him for robbery.  Another unbelievable set of coincidences not only clears him of the crime, but also makes the Wazir believe that the poet is really a mystic - again, everyone in this society is either simple or superstitious.

Meanwhile, the Caliph is exercising his right to go traveling around the city disguised as a commoner, another storytelling convention that probably doesn't ever happen in real life, but which is necessary so that he can meet the poet's daughter and fall in love with her.  And when the Caliph announces his intention to marry, the Wazir needs to ensure that he doesn't marry the woman he wants, but instead marries a princess of Ababu, which would benefit the Wazir financially, or something.  So the Wazir tasks the poet (now an Emir) with breaking up the intended marriage.

But wait, there's more - one of the Wazir's wives (he's got a harem, naturally, as all Iraqi bigwigs do) takes a liking to the poet, and agrees to let him live in the palace with his daughter.  They hide the daughter in the harem (naturally) and the Caliph sees her there (because the Wazir spies on his own harem for some reason) and then Caliph then assumes she's one of the Wazir's wives, so his wedding to her is off, and the poet accidentally succeeds in the task of breaking up the marriage, but also simultaneously hurting his own daughter.  The Wazir didn't recognize her as one of his wives, so of course he drugs her and marries her against her will.  That's a shameful little turn of events.

More contrivances and trickery is needed to get her out of this marriage (as in "Kiss Me Kate" there's a rather grim off-screen turn of events that somehow makes everything OK again) but by this point, my head was spinning.  Not even a Shakespearean mistaken identity plot of epic proportion would be this confusing.  I wasn't crazy about any of the songs, either - and overall this just felt like it was made by some producers who predicted that in 1955, Arab-based stories were going to be some kind of hot trend, and then they turned out to be very, very wrong.

Also starring Ann Blyth (last seen in "Mildred Pierce"), Dolores Gray, Vic Damone, Monty Woolley, Sebastian Cabot (last heard in "The Sword in the Stone"), Jay C. Flippen (last seen in "The Wild One"), Mike Mazurki (last seen in "Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Hollywood"), Jack Elam (last seen in "Artists and Models"), Ted de Corsia, Norman Leavitt (last seen in "Show Boat"), with cameos from Ross Bagdasarian (last seen in "Rear Window"), Aaron Spelling, Jamie Farr.

RATING: 3 out of 10 watermelons (really? in Iraq?)

Kiss Me Kate (1953)

Year 10, Day 50 - 2/19/18 - Movie #2,851

BEFORE: Howard Keel carries over again in my tour of movie musicals, and I've got two more films with him before I can get back to contemporary cinema.  I'm so eager to start the new chain, because it's going to lead me to "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War" eventually, and I'm very excited about that.  I saw the preview for "Infinity War" again yesterday when I saw "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" for the second time (with my wife, who was seeing it for the first time) and it really looks fantastic - though I worry about a film with that many characters.  (However, fitting it into my schedule was a breeze...)

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 20, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and they're back to more nominees and winners for Best Supporting Actor:

6:30 am "Come and Get it" (1936) - Walter Brennan, winner
8:15 am "Tortilla Flat" (1942) - Frank Morgan
10;15 am "The Story of G.I. Joe" (1945) - Robert Mitchum
12:15 pm "The Best Man" (1964) - Lee Tracy
2:00 pm "Broken Arrow" (1950) - Jeff Chandler
3:45 pm "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1962) - Ed Begley, winner
6:00 pm "The Subject Was Roses" (1968) - Jack Albertson, winner
8:00 pm "Viva Zapata!" (1952) - Anthony Quinn, winner
10:00 pm "A Thousand Clowns" (1965) - Martin Balsam, winner
12:15 am "All the President's Men" (1976) - Jason Robards, winner
2:45 am "Ryan's Daughter" (1970) - John Mills, winner

I'm striking out today, I've only see ONE of these, "All the President's Men".  (Hey, TCM, why not flip the Monday and Tuesday schedule, so that this film could air on President's Day?)  But in my defense, some of these films feel really obscure - I haven't even HEARD of some of them before. This brings my total up to 80 seen out of 221.  Down to 36.2%, I've got to finish strong in the remaining categories.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Taming of the Shrew" (Movie #2,597)

THE PLOT: An ex-husband and wife team star in a musical version of "The Taming of the Shrew"; off-stage the production is troublesome with ex-lovers' quarrels and a gangster looking for some money owed to them.

AFTER: I'll admit that everything I know about Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew", I learned from watching the Richard Burton/Liz Taylor movie last year.  Which is fine, because before that all I knew about it came from that spoof they did on "Moonlighting" in the late 80's...  But here it serves as the show-within-a-show (and that makes EIGHT films in a row using the show-within-a-show framework...) and the means by which two exes work together again, and we all know what working together in close quarters can do, behind the scenes. 

It's essentially your basic love quadrangle here, each of the ex-partners has a new life partner, leading to awkward moments when Lilli comes over to the apartment she used to share with Fred as they start to rehearse for the new show.  Soon the younger new dancer shows up (her name is Lois Lane, but it's just a coincidence, no connection to Superman or the Daily Planet...) and she's very affectionate toward Fred.  Lilli then reveals that she's engaged to her new man, who's a Texas cattle baron.  Sure, all this won't make each other jealous at all...

Comedy (even more than the bard intended) ensues when Lois Lane's other boyfriend (again, not Superman or even Clark Kent) has a gambling debt, and signs Fred's name to the IOU.  Two junior mobsters show up on behalf of the big gangster and try to get the money from Fred (they weren't present when the IOU was signed).  Fred convinces them he can only pay them if the show runs for a week, so the gangsters have to convince the leading lady not to quit, and this leads to them donning period costumes and appearing in the show, almost like an additional Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who are in the wrong show. 

But it feels like more than half of Billy Shakes' original play gets jettisonned here, and I was thinking maybe we'd get to see more of "The Taming of the Shrew" here, while also getting a peek behind the curtain - more of a "Noises Off" type of production, but that's not the way they went with it here.  Where's all the discussion about Katharina's dowry?  That was another important motivation for Petruchio to marry her, after all.  He didn't just do it to win a bet, or to "take one for the team" so that the other suitors could marry Bianca.  And what about Lucentio and Hortensio disguising themselves as tutors so they could get closer to Bianca, then Lucentio's father appearing in Padua at precisely the wrong time?  All that gets cut out of this production?  I'd seriously ask for my money back, the play's the thing, and now the play is only about 10 minutes long. 

It's more Cole Porter songs tonight, and I didn't really care for most of them, except maybe there were some clever rhymes in "Where Is the Life That Late I Led?"  Of course, I was already familiar with "Too Darn Hot", which was apparently so darn hot that it got cut from the show-within-the-show, only nobody told Lois, so we see her do the dance number in the spacious apartment before the rehearsals begin.  Sneaky, I see what you did there.  But also late in the film comes the song "Brush Up Your Shakespeare", how did I not know that this song comes from this musical?  This song I know, with its rhymes that are alternately clever and cringeworthy. 

Clever: "With the wife of the British Ambassida, Try a crack out of "Troilus and Cressida"
Cringeworthy: "If your girl is a Washington Heights dream, Treat the kid to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Clever: "If she says your behavior is heinous, Kick her right in the Coriolanus."
Cringeworthy: "Better mention "The Merchant of Venice" When her sweet pound o'flesh you would menace." 

And since it's Cole Porter, some of the lines are a bit racy.  (I think they cut that last verse from the film, it was also "Too Darn Hot" for a Hollywood movie.)  But this was filmed back when you COULD kick a woman right in the "Coriolanus" and not get into trouble for it.  Or you could spank a woman right on stage if she started to have her own opinion about things, or if she threatened to walk out of the show.  (And you could put that spanking image right on the movie poster, and nobody would find that either strange, or oddly tantalizing...)  Again, this was a different time.  The poster just ends up giving off a real Russ Meyer or John Waters vibe to me.  ("Faster, PussyKate! Kiss! Kiss!")

Also starring Kathryn Grayson (also carrying over from "Show Boat"), Ann Miller (last seen in "Easter Parade"), Keenan Wynn (last seen in "Annie Get Your Gun"), James Whitmore (last seen in "Them!"), Bobby Van, Tommy Rall (last seen in "Pennies From Heaven"), Kurt Kasznar (last seen in "A Farewell to Arms"), Bob Fosse, Ron Randell, Willard Parker, Ann Codee (last seen in "Daddy Long Legs")

RATING: 4 out of 10 broken pitchers

Show Boat (1951)

Year 10, Day 49 - 2/18/18 - Movie #2,850

BEFORE: It's Day 2 of musicals with Howard Keel, as he carries over from "Annie Get Your Gun". I still have the dreaded link in the chain coming up in just 3 days, but I think I've found a way to deal with it.  Also, I've blocked out the schedule for March, April and early May, taking me all the way from Easter to Mother's Day, working in both "Black Panther" and "Avengers: Infinity War".  Now I have to try to plan to reach the film "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and then maybe Memorial Day and Father's Day.  I promise not to think about a July 4 film until then.  Just kidding, I already have one picked out.

It's occurred to me that having access to Netflix now (in addition to iTunes), and a pile of Academy screeners from the past few years, has simultaneously made my linking both more difficult and a lot easier.  It's more difficult because I have to pay attention to what's available on each platform, plus keep a working list of what I have on DVD that I haven't watch, scan the cable guide not only weekly but also DAILY to see if anything new has popped up, and then also keep one eye on the release schedule for the theaters, so that when something like "Black Panther" rolls around, I've already saved a slot for it.  (As it is, I'm going to see this film on Wednesday, but I don't have a space to review it in February or March, so I can't post my thoughts until April.)

As it is, I can't plan more than two or three months ahead, because things keep changing - even the Hollywood release schedule, like "The New Mutants" just got pushed back from this April to February 2018 - so I'm glad I hadn't worked out a way to link to it.  But my collection is also changing, so there may be films that I record off cable in 2 weeks that could play a part in the linking in June or July, and there's no way to know now what will be of use to me then.  BUT, I think that having access to more titles now does also make linking easier - in addition to the watchlist, I now have a second list of films that I know are on Netflix, or coming up in theaters, or available to me on a screener.  So if I want to check if an actor or actress is in more than one film that I want to see, it's just a quick search of two lists I'm maintaining on the IMDB.

It's a bit like traveling across the country, let's say from New York to the West Coast, and I've given myself several months to see everything interesting along the way.  The starting point is fixed, I've got an endpoint in mind, let's say the Pacific Ocean, only I'm not too picky about exactly where or when I reach it.  The different platforms available to me (DVD, premium cable, Netflix, iTunes, screeners) are just like different ways of getting to the next city or town - sometimes I may take a train, or a bus, or rent a car, or even walk to the next town, depending on the circumstances.   As long as I'm making continuous progress, and I stay on track to reach the destination by the target date, it doesn't matter how I get there.

Here's the schedule for tomorrow, February 19, on TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and they're bouncing back to more nominees and winners for Best Supporting Actress.

7:00 am "None But the Lonely Heart" (1944) - Ethel Barrymore, winner
9:00 am "Key Largo" (1948) - Claire Trevor, winner
11:00 am "The Little Foxes" (1941) - Patricia Collinge and Teresa Wright
1:15 pm "Anna and the King of Siam" (1946) - Gale Sondergaard
3:45 pm "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952) - Gloria Grahame, winner
6:00 pm "California Suite" (1978) - Maggie Smith, winner
8:00 pm "The Great Lie" (1941) - Mary Astor, winner
10:00 pm "The V.I.P.s" (1963) - Margaret Rutherford, winner
12:15 am "Separate Tables" (1958) - Wendy Hiller, winner
2:15 am "The Last Picture Show" (1971) - Cloris Leachman, winner
4:30 am "The Year of Living Dangerously" (1982) - Linda Hunt, winner

I've seen 3 of these: "California Suite", "The Last Picture Show" and "The Year of Living Dangerously", plus I'm going to watch "The V.I.Ps" in early March, so I'm counting that.  I'm also recording "The Last Picture Show" because even though I've seen it, I don't have a copy in my collection. Another 4 out of 11 brings my total up to 79 out of 210.  Score stays flat at 37.6%, but I still expect to do better in the last 2 weeks.

THE PLOT: The daughter of a riverboat captain falls in love with a charming gambler, but their fairytale romance is threatened when his luck turns sour.

AFTER: I didn't realize that these musicals with Howard Keel would share so much DNA with the Fred Astaire films - not just from sharing actors, but also their stories' framing devices.  Having the characters put on a show is the easiest, best way to get a lot of musical numbers into the film, even if that show is a traveling Wild West Show, or a revue on a riverboat going up and down the Mississippi.

Of course, in all cases some of the song and dances take place on the stage, and some don't.  It seems that once you're in the show business life you may break into song at any time, when you're with your sweetheart on a train, or even when you're by yourself.  (Annie Oakley mused that "You Can't Get a Man With a Gun" when there was nobody else around!  Was she trying to convince herself?).  And in "Show Boat" we're treated to people singing Jerome Kern classics like "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" as people just muse about life on the river when they're all alone.

Oddly, this is the third romance film this month where people are concerned about interracial romance (again, this was a different time, made in 1951, based on a stage play from the 1920's and set in the 1880's) and the second to bring up laws against interracial marriage.  In "Show Boat", after a crewman is denied attention from the show's married leading lady, he exposes her as being half-black and married to a white man, which was illegal.  And though her husband tries to cover with a weird half-truth, claiming to be part black himself, they still have to leave their jobs, because blacks weren't allowed to perform on stage, either.  (I'd argue that if the performance is taking place on the river, then they're technically not IN the state of Mississippi, but what do I know?).

This creates two openings in the cast, which a riverboat gambler, Gaylord Ravenal, takes advantage of by claiming to be an actor to get free passage to New Orleans.  (But, if he's pretending to be an actor, doesn't that MAKE him an actor, by default?).  He's been smitten by Magnolia, the boat captain's daughter and suggests that she step up to the leading lady position, with the side benefit that he then gets to kiss her during the course of each performance.  And while her stern mother is against this at first, it still takes place, and the leading lady falls for the leading man.  The "show within the show" affects the reality it takes place in, yet again.

Eventually the deception is revealed, but the damage is done - the young girl is now in love with a gambler, and leaves the ship for a life on the road.  (I'm not sure why he couldn't just stay in place, I mean, don't people gamble on the riverboat?). And when his luck turns bad, this turns them into the kind of people who have to sneak out of hotels in the middle of the night to avoid paying the bill.  When she finally tells him off, he leaves her in a one-room furnished rental in Chicago.  From there it's a long road back to the riverboat, filled with coincidences like the old dance team from the boat just "happening" to get a job in Chicago, and just "happening" to end up at the same boarding-house.  Yeah, right.

Further coincidences allow Magnolia to audition for the same club that Julie (the half-black woman from before) is singing in, and then put Magnolia's father in the club during his daughter's first performance.  And a final coincidence puts Julie and Gaylord in the same place, which allows for him to be updated on Magnolia's life, so he can consider going back to her.  That's an awful lot of coincidences for one dance-hall circuit.

It turns out that this is really the THIRD filmed adaptation of the "Show Boat" musical, prior versions were released in 1929 and 1936.  There are substantial differences in the plot for this third one, but since it's the only one I've seen, I won't get into them here.  But I wonder if audiences in 1951 wondered how many times Hollywood was going to re-make this film, in the same way that I wondered why "Spider-Man" needed to be re-booted a third time.

Also starring Kathryn Grayson (last seen in "Rio Rita"), Ava Gardner (last seen in "The Band Wagon"), Joe E. Brown (last seen in "Around the World in Eighty Days"), Gower Champion, Marge Champion, Agnes Moorehead (last seen in "The Swan"), Leif Erickson (last seen in "Kiss Them For Me"), Robert Sterling, William Warfield, Norman Leavitt (last seen in "Harvey"), Sheila Clark, Frances E. Williams, Regis Toomey (last seen in "Meet John Doe"), Emory Parnell (last seen in "You're Never Too Young"), Owen McGiveney.

RATING: 5 out of 10 pawned diamonds