BEFORE: This week I'm managing to disable at least three connections to "Avengers: Endgame" by watching films with Elizabeth Olsen ("Peace, Love & Misunderstanding") and two more tonight, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mark Ruffalo. That's OK, I've got about 20 back-up connections, and really, in the end, I'll only need two when late April rolls around. Right now it looks like Bradley Cooper will be the best lead-in, and Jeremy Renner could be the outro connection, but that could change. There's another film with both Chris Evans and Scarlett Johannson in it that could work just as well, it will all depend on which path will allow me to link to "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" in the right number of steps. It's too far away to calculate, so I just have to keep all of my options open for now.
Mark Ruffalo carries over from "Rumor Has It..." and we're getting closer to the Oscars now. Having seen only two of the Best Picture nominees - "Black Panther" and "Vice" - according to Entertainment Weekly, there's only a combined 13% chance that I've already seen the winner of the top prize, but in some recent years I've had a 0% chance, so I'll have to be good with 13%. Right now the favorite seems to be "Roma", with an outside chance of "Green Book", but I guess we'll all find out tomorrow.
One thing's for sure, tomorrow's TCM "31 Days of Oscar" line-up consists of "Musicals - Part II" during the day, followed by two films in the category "Best Picture Winners with No Other Wins" and then two films vying for "Best Conrad A. Nervig Editing Win", which sounds oddly specific.
5:30 am "42nd Street" (1933)
7:00 am "Easter Parade" (1948)
9:00 am "Lili" (1953)
10:30 am "A Hard Day's Night" (1964)
12:15 pm "High Society" (1956)
2:15 pm "The Music Man" (1962)
5:00 pm "1776" (1972)
8:00 pm "The Broadway Melody" (1929)
10:00 pm "Grand Hotel" (1932)
12:00 am "King Solomon's Mines" (1950)
2:00 am "Eskimo" (1933)
I've seen 6 out of these 11 - "Easter Parade", "A Hard Day's Night", "High Society", "The Music Man", "1776" and "Grand Hotel". That brings me up to 109 seen out of 272, or just over 40%.
THE PLOT: Three disparate characters are learning to face a challenging and often confusing world as they struggle against a common demon: sex addiction.
AFTER: Well, I said I was itching to see a different sort of romance film, and I certainly got one today. You might come to think that everyone in New York City is in some kind of 12-step program, with so many characters being treated for one addiction or another. Mostly the focus here is on sex addiction, which some people don't believe is really a thing, but you can get addicted to anything, really - food or TV or sex or yes, even movies. We're a nation of workaholics, alcoholics, sexaholics and chocoholics. Is there anything we're not overdoing or addicted to in some way?
The film focuses on three male characters in different stages of recovery - Neil, who's just starting out in the program, having been court-ordered to stop grinding on other subway passengers (eewwww...), another, Adam, who's five years "sober", and a third, Mike, who's much further along in the program and acts as a group leader and a father figure, he's married and seems to have found the balance between having a relationship and not overdoing it. The whole use of the word "sober" here is a little suspect, if you ask me, because for an alcoholic to stay sober, they can't have one drop of alcohol, but a sex addict is apparently allowed to have sex, but only within the confines of a committed, exclusive relationship. Which means no casual partners, no prostitutes, and no, umm, watching pornography while alone. As Woody Allen once famously said, "Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone you love."
But I get it, some people need practical rules to get by, or guidelines, or whatever you want to call them, after surrendering themselves to their higher power, because when left to their own devices, people tend to gravitate toward behavior that ends up getting them in trouble. If you get away with something once and it feels good or benefits you in some way, then you want to have it again, even if it's generally regarded as "wrong" or aberrant behavior. Then before you know it, you're lumped into a category with Harvey Weinstein or Louis C.K. because you're out of control. But I'm not sure if the answer is always to air your personal dirty laundry in a group setting, that's so potentially embarrassing I wonder if it does more harm than good. Can't some people just see a therapist one-on-one and get on the road to recovery faster, like this way they don't have to wait for 20 other people in the room to share their truths before they can talk?
They all encounter bumps on the road to recovery - Neil stops taking the subway, but then has to get around NYC via cab, biking and running, all of which present challenges since he's out of a job and also out of shape. Adam starts dating again after 5 years, lands a hot girlfriend but then neglects to admit that he's an addict (she only asks if he's an alcoholic, so he's technically not lying, but still, should have come clean from the start) and Mike has to deal with his son returning home after several years away, and his son's an ex-drug addict who wants to make amends with his parents. Mike eventually has to confront that he might have missed a few steps of his own, like apologizing to his family for his own behavior.
I can't say I have much first-hand knowledge of addiction treatment, but the film feels very real in that everything the characters encounter is difficult, and nothing is easy - I can't imagine any way that having a relationship with an addict would be easy. That point alone sets this one apart from the average Hollywood romance film, where the worst thing that happens is that somebody falls into the giant cake before the wedding reception.
Also starring Tim Robbins (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Gwyneth Paltrow (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Josh Gad (last seen in "Wish I Was Here"), Joely Richardson (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Patrick Fugit (last seen in "Gone Girl"), Pink (Alecia Moore) (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Carol Kane (last seen in "Ishtar"), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (last seen in "Pete's Dragon"), Michaela Watkins (last seen in "The House"), Emily Meade (last seen in "Nerve"), Poorna Jagannathan (last seen in "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding"), Okieriete Onaodowan, with a cameo from David Wain (last heard in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture").
RATING: 5 out of 10 triggers
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