BEFORE: I'm home from work today with a cold - I was going to say a "bad cold", but I realized that goes without saying - have you ever heard of a good one? Well, maybe a good one is the kind that keeps you from having to go to work on a Monday, so I stand corrected. OK, I'll stand corrected in a little while, right now I just want to go have a lie-down.
Susan Sarandon carries over from "The Meddler", and gets me to three films with Goldie Hawn. I had two Kate Hudson films last week, now here come three with her mother, and I can clear a couple of 80's films off of my list - it is getting harder and harder to link to those, now that my main list is over 2/3 films from this millennium.
Speaking of older films, TCM is "Taking on the Nazis" tomorrow (damn, I scheduled a 1940's WW2 film for Wednesday, not Tuesday) in their "31 Days of Oscar" line-up for February 12 - then in prime-time there's the battle for "Favorite Movie Butler" and the late-night "Best Supporting Actress Debut Win" face-off between Eva Marie Saint and Jo Van Fleet:
4:15 am "Days of Glory" (1944)
5:45 am "Ship of Fools" (1965)
8:15 am "The Desert Song" (1944)
10:00 am "The Stranger" (1946)
12:00 pm "Watch on the Rhine" (1943)
2:00 pm "To Be or Not to Be" (1942)
4:00 pm "Night Train to Munich" (1940)
6:00 pm "Casablanca" (1942)
8:00 pm "The Remains of the Day" (1993)
10:30 pm "Merrily We Live" (1938)
12:15 am "On the Waterfront" (1954)
2:15 am "East of Eden" (1955)
I have seen the original "To Be or Not To Be", thankfully, along with "Casablanca" (of course), "The Remains of the Day", "On the Waterfront" and "East of Eden", so that's another 5 out of 12 added to my total, bringing me up to 62 out of 138, or just under 45%. I'd love to break 50% again but it's probably not going to happen.
3 days until Valentine's Day, 13 days until the Oscars, and 73 days until "Avengers: Endgame". Spring can't get here fast enough, if you ask me.
THE PLOT: Lavinia and Suzette, former rock groupies and best friends, reconnect after twenty years; one is still as wild as ever, while the other has adopted a more conservative lifestyle.
AFTER: Once again, I was unsure when I scheduled this if there was even any romance or relationship stuff in it - really, I just needed the link between the Rose Byrne chain and the Goldie Hawn chain - but I think there's enough to work with here. Suzette picks up a guy on the way to Phoenix from L.A. because she needs gas money, but she ends up forming a relationship with him, and Lavinia's married, but her relationship is affected when her husband (and daughters) find out about her past as a rock groupie.
While it's not really a lifestyle to be championed, groupies used to be a real thing (are they still? I have no idea...) because you can't really expect rock stars, even the married ones, to be celibate or faithful while on the road, right? (umm, why not?) And it just comes down to economics, right? The groupies want something, to get closer to the bands, and they have something that the band members want, and they provide it more cheaply than hookers, right? So everybody wins, in a way, though it still all seems a bit tawdry somehow, even if we're talking about the 1960's and 1970's, the golden age of rock & roll, running concurrently with the sexual revolution, how convenient.
Lavinia, of course, has traded in her fast-living ways for a life as a wife and mother, with a pool and a husband who's thinking of running for office, one daughter who's class valedictorian and the other who's taking her driving test. It's supposedly an idyllic life-style, which could be shattered by the revelation of her past, I get that - but there are also signs that her daughters are as rebellious as she used to be, and that the perfect conservative suburban lifestyle is just a facade.
But I've got some issues - primarily, it's very clunky how they get the Banger Sisters back together. Suzette has no job or source of income, so she drives to Phoenix to see her old friend "Vinnie". She happens to arrive when the family is outside taking pictures of her daughter going to prom, so she doesn't disturb them, and drives back to her hotel. Which just HAPPENS to be hosting the very same prom in its ballroom. Is there only one event space in the city of Phoenix? Then after the prom, Suzette recognizes Vinnie's daughter Hannah, after seeing her before from afar, for about 5 seconds. Anyway, why would the kids be leaving the ballroom, which is on the main floor of the hotel, by way of the 7th floor, so they could pass by Suzette's room? I gotta call a NITPICK POINT on this. (Also, at the only hotel in Phoenix with a ballroom, it seems there's not much emphasis on security, as the front desk clerk will give away your room number to anyone who can properly describe you - what's up with THAT?)
She also acts like she's known Hannah all her life, but how is that possible? Hannah's what, 18? And Suzette hasn't seen Vinnie in 20 years, so there's no way she'd have any knowledge of her, unless she's seen pictures, but from how long ago? This just doesn't work. A better way to write this would be for Suzette to visit the house and talk to Vinnie before the prom, then leave, but this would have given her the opportunity to be introduced to Hannah, that way she'd recognize her later, after the prom.
Geoffrey Rush is somehow both slumming here AND terribly miscast as yet another writer who can't seem to write anything. It sounded like he was doing an impression of James Woods, which seems odd - why not just let Geoffrey Rush be Geoffrey Rush?
Also starring Goldie Hawn (last seen in "Town & Country"), Geoffrey Rush (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Erika Christensen (last seen in "Flightplan"), Robin Thomas (last seen in "About Last Night..."), Eve Amurri (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Matthew Carey, Andre Ware, Adam Tomei, Sal Lopez, Kohl Sudduth, Tinsley Grimes, Larry Krask, Marlayna Garrett, and the band Buckcherry.
RATING: 5 out of 10 Polaroid dick pics
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