White Boy Rick

Year 11, Day 123 - 5/3/19 - Movie #3,221

BEFORE: It feels like there will always be one or two more Nicole Kidman or Matthew McConaughey films to go, even if I clear the list - Kidman's going to pop up again in June in documentary, and for McConaughey there's also "The Dark Tower", which is based on a Stephen King story, so it's floating around my October plans right now, but if it doesn't link up with anything there, I'll have to reconsider its placement.  But then there's also "The Lincoln Lawyer" that I never watched, because it hasn't run on cable lately and doesn't seem to be streaming anywhere.  But it is on iTunes, so I'll add it to the "someday" list and that way if I need it for linking, I'll know where to find it.  But I only have room for one more McConaughey film here, so it's "The Lincoln Lawyer" or "White Boy Rick", I can't do both right now.  Hmm, one will cost me another $3.99, the other one's on premium cable, so I'm already paying for it - the choice is clear.

McConaughey carries over from "The Paperboy", and I've unintentionally created a trilogy of films with "boy" in the title.

THE PLOT: The story of teenager Richard Wershe Jr., who became an undercover informant for the FBI during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.

AFTER: At this point I was willing to bet money that a film this week would feature either an absent mother or a father with poor parenting skills - and look at that, I got both in one film.  Ricky Jr.'s mother is long gone, while his father makes money by buying AK-47s at gun shows, adding silencers and re-selling them to drug dealers.  Much like Clint Eastwood's character in "The Mule", as long as he's getting paid for his efforts, he doesn't worry very much about the collateral damage from his product.  Sure, he had plans to open up a video store, which counted as a great plan in 1984, not so much in, say, 2004.  But his plans never amounted to much except for collecting videos - jeez, at this point I've got so many movies that I could open up a video store in 1984.

Ricky Jr. seems to have a better business model dealing drugs - as he was instructed to do by the FBI, initially as a cover to gain the trust of the gangs.  The problem was, he was supposed to STOP once they got their information from him and made their busts.  Long story short, he didn't.  His work for the FBI was intended to keep his father out of jail, but then it seems there was no immunity offered to him, or if there was, it was only during the term of his usefulness to the feds.  And by the time that his family had enough money to open that video store, probably Blockbuster had taken over that part of the retail market, so what's a teen to do?  (Umm, maybe get a job at Blockbuster?)

I'm not sure I understood certain parts of this film's story, like what happened at the boxing match in Las Vegas, or why Ricky started wearing a Jewish star on a gold chain (he didn't seem to know it was a Jewish symbol?).  For that matter, I didn't get who Art Derrick was, or why he was important.  Ricky met him in Vegas, and Art seemed to know Ricky's father, but so what?  I had to look him up online to learn who he was.  For that matter, I learned more details about Ricky Jr. in 5 minutes online than I feel I was given during a 110-minute movie.

After serving 30 years of a life sentence in Michigan, the real Richard Wershe Jr. was paroled, and there's audio of him at the end of the film, talking about how great it felt to get parole.  But the film doesn't mention anything about how he was transferred to Florida to start doing time on a separate charge, involvement in a car theft ring.  But hey, after you've done 30 years in prison in Michigan, three more years in Florida probably feels like a vacation, right?  I mean, the weather's better, maybe the view from between the bars is a little nicer, the only drawback is when you get released, you're in Florida.  Thank god there's no trouble he can get into there, involving drugs or guns...

I almost feel the grandparents were the best characters here, and they just didn't get enough screen time...

Also starring Richie Merritt, Bel Powley, Jennifer Jason Leigh (last seen in "The Spectacular Now"), Brian Tyree Henry (last heard in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"), Rory Cochrane (last seen in "The Most Hated Woman in America", RJ Cyler (last seen in "War Machine"), Jonathan Majors (last seen in "Hostiles"), Eddie Marsan (last seen in "Vice"), Bruce Dern (last seen in "Chappaquiddick"), Piper Laurie (last seen in "Hesher"), Raekwon Haynes, YG, Taylour Paige, Danny Brown, Ishmael Ali, Kyanna Simone Simpson

RATING: 4 out of 10 roller skates

The Paperboy

Year 11, Day 122 - 5/2/19 - Movie #3,220

BEFORE: Of course, this one was available on Netflix at some point, when it came to my attention - but now that I've finally found a slot to watch it, it's gone from the service.  This keeps happening, at least once or twice every month.  Why on Earth would their service recommend a movie to me, say, "Oh, here's something you might really like to watch, based on your history" and then pull it a month or two later?  How the hell does Netflix stay in business if they're always frustrating their customers like this?  I suppose most potential viewers would just shrug that off and say, "Oh, well, I guess I'll just watch something else..." but here I made a PLAN and everything, this film now serves a vital link between the Nicole Kidman movies and two more films with Matthew McConaughey.  So now I have to go spend $3.99 to rent it on iTunes, or re-work my chain, which I don't want to do at this time.  I think secretly Netflix must get some kind of kick-back from Apple and Amazon Prime whenever this happens.  It's a diabolical plot to make me pay for more movie rentals.

Wait, this has been gone from Netflix since October?  And it was only streaming there for one year, not the usual two?  Something must have gone wrong, like nobody was watching it - now I've got a bad feeling this is a terrible movie, if it couldn't even stay on Netflix for a full two-year cycle.  And still, there's no way to find out in advance if a movie is about to disappear - what would be so wrong with posting the dates IN ADVANCE when films are due to be removed from the service.  Or how about some kind of alert that say, four titles on my list are going to be gone within the next 30 days?  Wouldn't that be kind of useful, so I could prioritize my watch-list?  I'm just sayin'.

Nicole Kidman carries over again from "Boy Erased".

THE PLOT: A reporter returns to his Florida hometown to investigate a cast involving a death row inmate.

AFTER: Well, this is a weird one, to say the least.  It's set back in 1969, and essentially it's about this man who's about to receive the death penalty for killing a sheriff, only it seems that much of the evidence has gone missing, or possibly never existed at all, and the man who's been charged might be innocent.  The lead character is Ward, a reporter who comes back to his hometown in Florida with Yardley, a black reporter, to help exonerate the man, or at least write a story about him, and also arriving in town at the same time is Charlotte, a woman who's been exchanging letters with the convicted man, and wants to marry him.  Rounding out the foursome is the reporter's younger brother, Jack, who's been working as a paperboy since getting kicked out of college for vandalism.  (He emptied the pool after a swim meet, but doesn't explain how or why, this is one of many loose narrative threads that is never really explained to a satisfying degree...)

The film isn't very concerned about the "why" of things, like why does the reporter feel so strongly that the killer is innocent?  Does he just have a strong feeling that the death penalty is wrong in all cases, or does he have some knowledge about the accused killer, perhaps from when he used to live in that town?  And why does it fall upon a reporter to clear this guy, isn't that what a lawyer is supposed to do?  OK, sure, maybe a reporter could get some publicity for the inconsistencies in the case like the lack of evidence, but a lawyer would still need to be involved, right?

NITPICK POINT: Ward writes for the Miami Times, and his father publishes a much smaller, local newspaper in Moat County, but the father also distributes the Times in that county - huh?  This seems very weird, like if you ran a small newspaper why would you also promote the much larger newspaper that sells better, and could run you out of business?  Did some screenwriter not understand how newspapers work?  Like when I was a kid there was a local soda company in town, and they sold ONLY their own brand, if they sold Coke and Pepsi also, that would make no sense.  Or imagine a craft brewery that also sold Budweiser and Miller beer to the same bars, it just wouldn't happen.  I was a paperboy myself for a local newspaper in Massachusetts, one that covered three small towns, and there's no way that tiny outfit would also distribute, say, the Boston Globe.  Why would anyone help sell the competition's newspapers?

Since Ward and Jack's mother split years ago and lives in Tucson, this film continues the loose theme of absent or inattentive parents - last week it was absent fathers, this week seems to be all about absent mothers.  Since Jack never had a strong mother figure, except for the family's black maid, he falls for the older Charlotte as some combination of mother and sex object - so he's smitten by her, but he also resents her, for some reason he thinks they aren't very different in age, but they obviously are. He wants to get closer to her, but then ends up pushing her away.  There's a lot to unpack there, but again, the movie doesn't feel like getting around to it.  Of course he and his brother hate their father's latest girlfriend - she is rather annoying - but in such a case, no woman can ever replace their mother in their hearts, even if that mother abandoned the family.  (Not that it's clear whether she did, another loose unexplained thread...)

Possibly connected to this is the implication that Ward has a dark side, suggested by the scars on his face, umm, I think.  There seem to be all sorts of implied things taking place just below the surface, but the revelations still come from a bit out of left field, when they do come at all.  The film also can't seem to decide if nobody is exactly who they say they are, or if everyone is exactly who they appear to be, in the end.  A little more clarity about everyone's true intentions would have gone a long way here. Similarly the plot gets sidetracked with everything from civil rights to kinky sex to people drinking too much that now I'm not sure if they ever got around to answering the question that was asked in the first place - namely, who killed the sheriff?

Also starring Matthew McConaughey (last seen in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"), Zac Efron (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), John Cusack (last seen in "Bob Roberts"), David Oyelowo (last heard in "A Wrinkle in Time"), Macy Gray (last seen in "Idlewild"), Scott Glenn (last seen in "Nights in Rodanthe"), Ned Bellamy (also last seen in "Bob Roberts"), Nealla Gordon (last seen in "The Butler"), Danny Hanemann with cameos from J.D. Evermore (last seen in "Live by Night"), Faizon Love (also last seen in "Idlewild"), Lee Daniels and archive footage of Johnny Carson (last seen in "The Most Hated Woman in America"), Barbara Bain.

RATING: 4 out of 10 jellyfish stings

Boy Erased

Year 11, Day 121 - 5/1/19 - Movie #3,219

BEFORE: Nicole Kidman carries over from "Destroyer" which allows me to get started on the slew of films from the past year that were all about teens going to rehab (be it drug rehab, alcohol rehab, or gay rehab, I'm assuming they're all working off the same theme...).  There was also "Beautiful Boy", "The Miseducation of Cameron Post", and "Ben Is Back", which also starred Lucas Hedges, like today's film does.  I don't have access to a copy of that one yet, or it might have made sense to link from this one to that one.  I'll just have to circle back if that one becomes available.  My point is, it was a big year for teen rehab dramas.

Ah, it's May 1, May Day - now I wish I'd worked it to watch something like "The Death of Stalin" today, that would have been a good fit.  Something about Communism or the workers of the world - geez, even "Norma Rae" might have worked.  Oh, well, I'm on this path now and I can't make too many alterations for every little holiday that comes along...

FOLLOW-UP TO: "I Am Michael" (Movie #3,165)

THE PLOT: The son of a Baptist preacher is forced to participate in a church-supported gay conversion program after being forcibly outed to his parents.

AFTER: So I don't pretend to understand all of the ins and outs on this topic, especially since it's so very controversial.  But this is based on a 2016 book by Gerrard Conley, based on his real-life experiences after being sent to a conversion camp called Love in Action that was run by fundamentalist ministries in Arkansas - as if a gay teen in Arkansas didn't face enough problems as is...

Part of me feels that rejecting everything your parents stand for is a natural part of life, that it would be hard in today's world to become the adult you're supposed to be without rejecting your parents in some way, preferably in all ways.  Does that make sense?  Like, who doesn't go through some form of crises between 16 and 25 in some manner that puts them in conflict with their parents?  Maybe there are a few people in their 20's who do everything their parents want, go to college close to home and then enter exactly the line of work that their parents want them to, but I suspect that those people are few and far between.  Plus, are they really who they're meant to be at that point, or just who their parents WANTED them to be?  It just sounds so weird.

That's what I remember about being 17 or 18 years old - wanting to get out of my hometown, move to someplace big like New York where I could both disappear and do anything I wanted to do, and most importantly, get away from organized religion.  It's not like some priest in the Boston diocese got all handsy with me, but maybe that COULD have happened if I stayed.  JK.  It was more like I didn't agree with any of the teachings of the church, particularly with regards to how I should be spending my Sunday mornings - I would much rather spend them sleeping than getting up to go to church.

But I digress.  A peek behind the curtain here at the gay conversion therapy process reveals that the teens sent to this religious camp were expected to complete "moral inventories" of themselves, basically a compilation of all of their gay feelings and actions, and then compile a family histories that looked like complex family trees, with parents, aunts and uncles labeled as alcoholics, drug users, homosexuals or even "gang members", as if assigning some kind of blame on relatives for each individual's sexuality - because of course they couldn't be "born that way".  The sum total of this is to pitch the mistaken belief that gay people are somehow imperfect, or that their actions and feelings are standing between them and God, or preventing his holiness from entering their lives.  Me, I wouldn't recommend any worship of a God whose love is conditional, anyway that's not what the Bible said at one point, so why this contradiction?

It's another case of "too many flashbacks" tonight, because after the lead character, Jared, enters the program, the film flashes back to his first gay encounter in college, which doesn't go well, and also leads to his first sex partner outing him to his parents in a roundabout way.  Then we see scenes of his father (a Baptist minister) and mother making the hard decision to send him to conversion camp, which at this point seems like putting the cart before the horse, it's a strange editing decision that carries no dramatic tension, because we the audience already know that this is where he's going to go.  Why put the scenes of him GOING to conversion therapy before the scene of the decision made to send him there?  Oh, right, flashbacks are trendy now - but putting the scenes in the film in the proper order could have generated some suspense here, but as is, we know the result before it even happens.

Last night I counted up the films I've seen so far in 2019 that use the "timeline toggle" technique, but I also counted up the films that I've deemed to be "too flashbacky" and that number is much larger - like, well over 20.  I just can't understand why so many directors seem to have forgotten how to start a story at the beginning and end with an ending.  I maintain that all this time-jumping is probably easier, then there's a lot of storytelling in the middle that no longer needs to take place.  Starting a film with the "most exciting" or "moment of greatest change" (here, that's checking into gay rehab) must make things easier, but let's call it what it is - a giant narrative cop-out.

NITPICK POINT: Why did every major adult role in this film have to be played by an Australian doing a Southern American accent?  Did we run out of U.S. actors that can sound like they're from Arkansas?

NITPICK POINT #2: One of the negative things about gay conversion therapy that gets highlighted here is the fact that it has "no end point" - but that's ALL therapy.  I don't think any therapy has a set ending point, unless the exact results desired are achieved.  I went through a version of psychotherapy while getting divorced, and there was no clear set goal of the therapy, which made it very hard to determine whether the required progress had been made.  Finally I think I just ran out of things to talk about, and felt good enough about myself and my place in the universe that I chose to end it - also, I realized that my therapist was never going to end it, because it didn't financially benefit him to do so.  Therefore, therapists would be out of work if their therapy methods were completely successful, and that itself sort of calls the whole process into question, doesn't it?

NITPICK POINT #3: Who lives in NYC and drives back to Arkansas?  That's an 18-hour trip, but if you don't have a driving buddy, it's probably a 2-day trip, at least.  Geez, I used to drive overnight from NYC to Cleveland, but that would wear me out for the whole next day.  Maybe I'm spoiled by taking the train up to visit my parents in Massachusetts if needed, but I can't imagine paying rent on a NYC apartment and also wasting a week of time driving to Arkansas and back.  Like, did he sublet his place?

Also starring Lucas Hedges (last seen in "Lady Bird"), Russell Crowe (last seen in "The Mummy"), Joel Edgerton (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Joe Alwyn, Xavier Dolan, Troye Sivan (last seen in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"), Britton Sear, Theodore Pellerin, Cherry Jones (last seen in "The Beaver"), Flea (last heard in "Inside Out"), Madelyn Cline, Emily Hinkler (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Jesse LaTourette, David Joseph Craig, Matt Burke, David Ditmore, Tim Ware (last seen in "A Simple Twist of Fate")

RATING: 5 out of 10 confiscated cell phones

Destroyer

Year 11, Day 120 - 4/30/19 - Movie #3,218

BEFORE: OK, so the original plan was to follow "Avengers: Endgame" with a film called "Lay the Favorite", with Frank Grillo carrying over.  This would have led to "Warrior" with Joel Edgerton and then to what is now tomorrow's film with Edgerton and Nicole Kidman.  But since I added "The Sweet Hereafter" at the last minute, my count has been off, and I was out of sync with Mother's Day on May 12.  So I've now cut "Lay the Favorite" and "Warrior" (my DVR only recorded the first hour of "Warrior" anyway, so that was clearly a sign) and moved straight on to Nicole Kidman films, with Sebastian Stan carrying over from "Avengers: Endgame" instead.  The Winter Soldier was a much more important character than Crossbones, anyway, so this is good, plus I'm back on track for Mother's Day.

Remember, I've looked into the future, about 14 million different paths, but right now only ONE gets me to "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" and "Spider-Man: Far From Home" on the right days.  So that's where I'm headed.

Here are the stats for April, based on HOW I watched my movies:
7 Movies watched on Cable (saved to DVD): Alien: Covenant, Born to Be Blue, Sherlock Gnomes, A Quiet Place, The Death of Stalin, Trolls,  Swept Away
4 Movies watched on Cable (not saved): Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again!, Paddington 2, Pitch Perfect 3, The Core
9 Watched on Netflix: Spring Breakers, The Vault, Christopher Robin, The Most Hated Woman in America, The Captive, Gerald's Game, The Place Beyond the Pines, A Wrinkle in Time, Quincy
7 Watched on Academy screeners: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Mary Poppins Returns, Wonder Wheel, Moonlight, A Star Is Born, The Mule, Destroyer
1 watched on iTunes: The Voices
1 watched on Amazon Prime: The Sweet Hereafter
1 Watched in Theaters: Avengers: Endgame
0 Watched on Commercial DVD:
30 Total in April

I'm down to just 11 films that were watched on premium cable, there were 16 of those in March, 18 in February, and 20 in January - so I'm definitely trending away from cable, as I expected.  But it's really Netflix and the Academy screeners that are enabling me to make my connections, and have a shot at a perfect chain that's 300 films long.  So I'm just going to go with whatever format helps me maintain that chain.

THE PLOT: A police detective reconnects with people from an undercover assignment in her distant past in order to make peace.

AFTER: Well, it's another split timeline today, which I've now determined to be a specific type of storytelling, different from the more common problem "too many flashbacks" - this follow the current trend of having a past timeline and a present timeline, and toggling between them.  I just went back and counted, this is the EIGHTH film I've seen this year (plus the TV show "True Detective") to use this technique, which also allows a filmmaker the flexibility to start the film at the most exciting part, or start either timeline whenever they want, and proceed forward in each narrative from there, or even backwards or random order if they want.  But random is even more confusing, and this technique seems to work best when both (or all 3) timelines move forward, and also this way any boring moments are eliminated, because any time things get boring, the film can just toggle back to the other timeline, where something more interesting is taking place.

"Destroyer" muddies the timelines even further, because it starts at the most interesting point - the discovery of a dead body, with Detective Bell arriving on the scene for a closer look.  Bell is limping, perhaps injured or just hung over, and claims to have some knowledge about "who did it" without disclosing this information to the other detectives on the scene, then limps away to go sit in her car. What follows is a mix of the past timeline (15 years ago) and the present one (the film jumps back a few days, maybe a week, only this isn't made clear at first).  In a process similar to "Avengers: Endgame", only entirely different, we're eventually going to end up right back where we started, only with more knowledge about what the events leading up to that point.

Technically, this film uses this becoming-popular technique in the proper fashion - to slowly reveal more information to the audience about what happened/is happening in each timeline, the past and the present.  We gradually learn that Detective Bell was part of an undercover operation in the past, and somehow it went spectacularly wrong, and her efforts in the present to track down someone named Silas are probably connected to what went wrong before.  From this point, details are tossed to us like little bread crumbs from which we'll eventually be asked to turn back into something like a loaf of bread.  Only you can't do that, there will always be large chunks of bread missing, so the best we can hope for is that the missing pieces will be the boring parts, and that the material we can piece together will be enough to understand it and feel satisfied.

They did a good job of making Nicole Kidman's character different in the two timelines, even though 15 years isn't TOO much of a time-span, clearly she's also been through some rough times in-between, because she's strikingly pretty in the past and uglied up for the present-day scenes.  I'm not sure if this was all done through old-person make-up, or CGI de-aging for the flashbacks, or a combination of the two.  Kidman's just over 50 now, so it might be tough for her to play someone who's, say, 35 any more without some CGI assistance - but perhaps this technique is just prominent in my mind after seeing it used in "Avengers: Endgame" yesterday on Stan Lee and others.  (A quick scan of a couple of web articles about this film suggests that I might be right on the money here, with prosthetics and make-up used for the present-day scenes, and de-aging effects for the past ones.)

While working her way across L.A., tracking down ex-members of Silas' gang, hoping that will lead her to more current contacts, Det. Bell is sidetracked by domestic issues, like her daughter getting into trouble and acting very rebellious, partially due to a new dirtbag boyfriend, and we also learn that juggling police work and motherhood is not especially easy, so it seems like I've moved off of absent fathers, and maybe I'm starting a chain about neglectful mothers, or maybe difficult teens.  I guess we'll see.

It's a bit hard to say what the timeframe is for the present-day scenes, like how many days does Det. Bell spend working her way up the chain to find Silas - of course by the time she finds him, she stumbles on his location right before his next heist, so the action of the film finally kicks in with a bank robbery.  Actually, two bank robberies, because we also finally get to see the one that took place in the past that went so very wrong.  Eventually all is revealed, and we find out that maybe our hero is more of an anti-hero, because of her unorthodox tactics and her willingness to rough up informants and suspects to get information from them. But again, that's the best use of the "toggling timelines" technique, the gradual doling out of information that changes the audience's perceptions over time, so that by the time we get back to the point where we started, we've got an entirely different understanding of the events in question.

Also starring Nicole Kidman (last seen in "Aquaman"), Toby Kebbell (last seen in "Kong: Skull Island"), Tatiana Maslany (last seen in "Stronger"), Bradley Whitford (last seen in "I Saw the Light"), Scoot McNairy (last seen in "Frank"), Jade Pettyjohn, Toby Huss (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Zach Villa, James Jordan, Beau Knapp (last seen in "The Gift"), Shamier Anderson (last seen in "Race"), Kelvin Han Yee, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, Jan Hoag.

RATING: 5 out of 10 dye-packs

Avengers: Endgame

Year 11, Day 119 - 4/29/19 - Movie #3,217

BEFORE: OK, getting ready for "Avengers: Endgame" has proven to be a massive amount of work, which included (but is not limited to): staying mostly off of Twitter and Facebook for a week leading up to today's screening, re-alphabetizing my comic-book collection from letters D through M, re-reading the original "Infinity Gauntlet" series for clues on how to wrap up the storyline, and re-watching "Avengers: Infinity War" the night before so the lead-in to today's film would be fresh in my mind.  Oh, and I had to find a way to drop two films from my chain and then seal the gap.  All told, it was a monumental set of tasks, but since my wife's out of town for a few days, I found the time to do all the prep-work.  I miss her, of course, but her temporary absence not only allows me time, but in fact forces me to do all these things so that I can stay busy.  If not for these tasks, I could possibly revert to caveman state without her, or she may return to find me on the floor in a fetal position, rocking back and forth mumbling to myself.  You never know.

I should point out that even though I'm seeing this film on the fourth day of its release, I understand that not everyone gets to see the film on opening weekend.  I didn't want to fight those crowds myself, and I've had the best luck lately waiting until the Monday (or Wednesday) right after opening weekend.  People just don't think about going to a movie on a Monday - but considering how full the seating chart looked when my friend Adam bought us two tickets, I think the theater will be packed tonight, even though it's Monday. The overflow alone of people who WANTED to see this on opening weekend, but couldn't get a ticket, should be enough to fill all the seats.

Be warned, there could be MASSIVE SPOILERS ahead - but not for "Endgame", if I can help it.  However, I can't talk about "Endgame" without revealing what went down in "Avengers: Infinity War", so those are the spoilers I'm worried about.  If you haven't seen "Infinity War" in the last year, please don't read any further.  Or stop here and watch that movie on Netflix, what are you waiting for?  It's 2 1/2 hours long, but so worth it - I'll still be here when you get back, I promise.  And if you've seen "Infinity War" but not "Endgame", I still say to proceed with caution, because anything is a potential spoiler - even just a list of actors is a spoiler in this case, I think.

Bradley Cooper carries over again from "The Mule", this week he's been seen as a cop, a country-rock star, a DEA agent, and now he's the voice of a talking raccoon.  OK, whatever.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Avengers: Infinity War" (Movie #2,940), "Captain Marvel" (Movie #3,175)

THE PLOT: After the devastating events of "Avengers: Infinity War", the universe is in ruins.  With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to undo Thanos' actions and restore order to the universe.

AFTER: Supposedly this film is the last piece in a giant, 22-film jigsaw puzzle, and therefore it's got a lot of threads to follow up on, not just THE BIG ONE, but also all the little ones.  Ideally it should contain the answers to everything, only that's an impossible task, so instead it has to settle on some kind of resolution for "Infinity War", only that's a near-impossible task as well - even if you're not up on ALL the Marvel movies, you probably heard what happened at the end of "Infinity War" (TURN BACK NOW if you don't know what I'm talking about, last chance...) when half of Earth's heroes, hell, half of Earth's population, wait, no, half of the life in the universe turned to dust.  Wiped out of existence by Thanos, using the six Infinity Stones.  That's what Thanos is, that's WHY Thanos is, his goal was to reduce the population of the universe by half, so that the remaining half would have more resources, more food, and no planet would suffer and die due to over-population.  (Now, if you've read the comic book "Infinity Gauntlet", he had a different reason, he was "in love" with the female personification of Death, think of a feminine Grim Reaper character).

In a weird way, Thanos was right - over-population is a problem, running out of resources, pollution, climate change, quality of life, these are problems that could be fixed by eliminating 1/2 of the world's population.  But Thanos is also very wrong, because killing, even without pain, has been determined to be morally not good, and then if controls aren't put into place, the population is only going to grow again, and then we'll be back where we started eventually.  Earth's population HAS to learn to control itself before we reach the tipping point, or we could face famine, disease, more climate change, and massive destruction in some form. (There's a bedtime story for you, kids.  Good luck getting to sleep.)  Plus, then how do you choose which people live and which ones die to save the planet?  Thanos said his choices were random, but he could have just as easily eliminated ALL of the superheroes, or, my suggestion, start with the people who put ketchup on their hot dogs (because they're all monsters) and then start working your way through the vegans, vegetarians, and people with food allergies.  Trust me, he'd be doing the planet a favor, at least from a culinary point of view.  We can then think about eliminating the people who use the word "literally" incorrectly and the word "actually" too often, though then I fear there just wouldn't be many humans left.

But take it from me, I've been reading comic books for a long time, over 35 years, and I've just about seen it all.  Take a character like the Hulk, who's gone through so many incarnations - I've seen gray Hulk, green Hulk, red Hulk, dumb Hulk, smart Hulk, I've seen Bruce Banner and the Hulk separated at least twice, I've seen the character DIE at least twice, get exiled from the Earth twice, and he always, always comes back - they all do. (I'm not even counting Hulkling, She-Hulk or Red-She-Hulk, because those are different characters...) The latest version of the Hulk comic book is even called "The Immortal Hulk" instead of "The Incredible Hulk" because Marvel freely admits now that the character dies so often that's his storyline has lost all believability and sense, so it really should be called "The Non-Credible Hulk", if you think about it.  Name a Marvel hero, I've seen him (or her) die and come back - I've seen Captain America die twice, quit at least twice, get frozen twice, and even retconned out of existence to be an agent of HYDRA.  I've seen Iron Man die at least twice, quit twice, go to rehab, and rebuild his entire body on the molecular level.  They killed off Black Widow at the end of a crossover called "Secret Empire", I mean she was really dead, her neck snapped and everything, and another writer brought her back TWO MONTHS later in a series called "Tales of Suspense".

So there's dead, and then there's "comic-book dead", which means that another writer can always find a way to bring a character back, usually in a new #1 issue, or preferably in a 6-part limited series that, if it sells well, will lead to a new ongoing series with yet ANOTHER #1 issue.  You see, much like a soap opera, Marvel's not in the business of ending things - the story is never over.  Characters come back in soap operas after a plane crash or car crash or something, when it's revealed they were burned in the crash and spent 6 months in a hospital in Argentina, and after massive plastic surgery they look different (because they're now played by a different actor) and we all just roll with it, because it allows the story to continue.  And now they're back, ready to go back to work at the hospital or inherit the family fortune, or stop that wedding just before their ex says "I do" to someone else.

Think about it - what would happen if Batman caught all the criminals in Gotham City?  What if Superman solved world hunger and all the world's energy problems?  What if the Avengers captured all their recurring villains and made them stand trial, then what would happen in the comic books?  It would probably be pretty boring, watching them sit around their headquarters, playing cards between training sessions, right?

About 30 minutes after watching "Infinity War" last year, on the way home from the theater even, it hit me - all those Avengers and their friends were not really dead, they were only "comic-book dead".  Which doesn't count as a spoiler, because it makes perfect sense if you look at the release schedule for future Marvel movies - they'd already announced "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and a third volume in the "Guardians of the Galaxy" series, so how could they make those films unless they brought back the heroes lost during "Infinity War"?  Turning them all into prequels, watching the adventures of the dead heroes before they died would be too depressing.

Ah, genius, I thought, the next movie's going to be all about bringing them back - only, how?  My mind filled with theories for the next few months, about what circumstances could possibly take place to bring this about, it's not impossible, though it seemed very, very unlikely.  Finally, after months of speculation I went back to read "Infinity Gauntlet" (released in 1991!) for some clues - now, the movie doesn't HAVE to follow the comic book, right off there are some major differences, like in the comic book it's Silver Surfer that crashes into Dr. Strange's house to warn about Thanos, and in the movies, it's Bruce Banner that does this.  Thanos also fights the Elders of the Universe (Eternity, Master Order, Lord Chaos, the In-Betweener, etc.) in the comic, and those characters just aren't in the MCU.  So some allowances have to be made.  Still, these are (roughly) the theories I kept coming back to:

1) The "Captain Marvel" theory - we learned in her solo movie where she'd been all those years (since the mid-1990's) and a hint of what she'd be capable of when she came back.  So, perhaps she's got some energy or just plain raw power that could take down Thanos, so they could put together a special "hit squad" of Avengers to track him down and make (?) him un-do his genocide.

2) The "Nebula" theory - somehow get the Infinity Gems away from Thanos, and another person could use them to "rewind time", like Thanos did to get the Mind Stone away from Vision.  In the "Infinity Gauntlet" comic, Nebula grabbed the gauntlet with the gems and immediately said "Let everything be the way it was 24 hours ago!" but of course, she forgot that 24 hours prior, Thanos was holding her hostage in a zombie-fied stasis, between life and death.  So, poor planning there, but a smarter gauntlet user could find a way to phrase this wish a little better, and bring all the heroes back.

3) The "Iron Man" theory - in "Infinity War", Dr. Strange scanned over 14 million possible futures, and found exactly ONE way to defeat Thanos.  His next action was to trade the Time Stone for Iron Man's life, to make sure that Iron Man wasn't part of the universe's eliminated people.  Did Dr. Strange know that Iron Man's knowledge, skill or power was somehow the key to defeating Thanos?

4) The Avengers soldier on with the heroes they have left, maybe bringing back Hawkeye and Ant-Man to the roster, and move forward, guiding the world toward acceptance of the things they can't change, and making the best of things while defending the world against future alien invasions, and making sure that Thanos never comes back, even when the world gets full of people again?  (I know, that sounds pretty boring, right?)  But this is, generally speaking, what the Avengers do - the roster keeps changing but the mission parameters remain the same - protect the planet.

Now, I've told you all the theories I had BEFORE watching "Endgame" - so I haven't really told you anything about what IS in the movie, just what I expected to see.  Maybe some of the things above happened, maybe none of them happened, maybe ALL of them happened.  I kept going back and forth - Iron Man is the key, no, wait, Captain Marvel's the key - no, wait, maybe it's Nebula.

Here's what I think I can tell you - the first hour of the film is just mired in grief, I mean, you've got to have the lowest possible lows for maximum impact if you're then going to reach the highest highs, right?  And everybody's who's still actively on the Avengers (Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, War Machine, Rocket, Captain Marvel) has lost somebody, so they're doing the best that they can - but something is still wrong with the planet, and that's somehow related to Thanos's actions, so bringing back the disassembled Avengers isn't just a personal issue, it could be a way to save the planet.  (See, I told you, Thanos was right, but Thanos was also wrong...)  But this is also a shout-out to the original comic "Infinity Gauntlet", where Thanos's power knocks all of California into the ocean, and the West Coast Avengers are forced to relocate their headquarters to Las Vegas.

The question then becomes, for the audience at least, is "Can they bring back the Avengers that were wiped away by Thanos in a believable and satisfying way?"  Again, remember that Marvel is NOT in the business of ending stories, so what follows is another two hours of complications, essentially.  But what was apparently wrong with my theories listed above is that they would wrap things up in five minutes, and not three hours.  (Yes, this film is THREE hours long.  Be sure to visit the restroom before the film begins, maybe during the previews.  And buy a small soda or water, not the large one, even if the large is only 50 cents more.  You can thank me later.)

So the middle of the film is SO convoluted, SO full of twists and turns and shout-outs and callbacks to the Marvel movies that came before, you might have trouble keeping track of it all.  I sure did, and I've seen all 21 MCU movies before this, plus I have 35 years of comic-book reading experience.  I'm not saying you need this, or do any of the rituals that I did to prepare for this film, but they couldn't hurt. Then there are (I'm sure) about a hundred Easter eggs and inside jokes for the Marvel fans - after I finish typing this I'm going to look for a list of them all online.

Then there's a final battle that feels it has to top everything that has gone before, even the battle that went down in Wakanda during "Infinity War".  It's just a bit unfortunate that the movie spent two and a half hours bending itself over backwards and sideways to seemingly avoid this sort of thing, and then ends up right back there again, almost exactly where it left off. BUT if you have a favorite character, that character will probably get a moment to shine somewhere in that battle, so you've got that to look forward to.

But whether this ends in a satisfying conclusion (or at least a stopping point) is for you to decide, I wouldn't try to impose my opinion on you.  But hey, I trust Doctor Strange, who looked at 14 million possible futures (one wonders if this is how many ideas the screenwriters rejected...) and if he says this is the way it's got to be, who am I to argue with him?

Without spoiling anything (I'll leave that to others) about the ending, I just want to say this - the Marvel Cinematic Universe began with Iron Man and Captain America, and to a certain degree, this phase of storytelling ends with Iron Man and Captain America.  They were on opposite sides during the "Civil War", and that was by design, because they represent two completely different attitudes toward superheroing - Tony Stark was always selfish and arrogant to a degree, while Steve Rogers was always sacrificing and humble. They worked together well until this difference in personality caused a huge rift.  But they come back together in "Endgame", and they put aside their differences, and they learn from each other, in a certain sense they also sort of switch places.  At the start of "Endgame", Tony Stark is still saying "I won't give up my personal life." and Steve Rogers is saying, "We'll do whatever it takes."  In the very end, Tony Stark learns the meaning of sacrifice, and Steve Rogers learns to be a little bit selfish - the symmetry is quite amazing, and that's all I want to say about it.

Also starring Chris Evans (last seen in "Captain Marvel"), Scarlett Johansson (ditto), Mark Ruffalo (ditto), Brie Larson (ditto), Don Cheadle (ditto), Robert Downey Jr. (last seen in "The Singing Detective"), Chris Hemsworth (last seen in "12 Strong"), Jeremy Renner (last seen in "Kill the Messenger"), Paul Rudd (last seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp"), Evangeline Lilly (ditto), Josh Brolin (last seen in "Only the Brave"), Chadwick Boseman (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Danai Gurira (ditto), Anthony Mackie (ditto), Sebastian Stan (ditto), Tom Holland (ditto), Benedict Cumberbatch (ditto), Pom Klementieff (ditto), Dave Bautista (ditto), Zoe Saldana (ditto), Winston Duke (ditto), Elizabeth Olsen (last seen in "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding"), Jon Favreau (last heard in "Solo: A Star Wars Story"), Chris Pratt (last seen in "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom"), Karen Gillan (last seen in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle"), Benedict Wong (last seen in "Annihilation"), Tessa Thompson (ditto), Gwyneth Paltrow (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), Letitia Wright (last seen in "The Commuter"), Frank Grillo (last seen in "The Grey"), Ty Simpkins (last seen in "The Nice Guys"), Hiroyuki Sanada (last seen in "Life"), Tom Hiddleston (last heard in "Early Man"), Maximiliano Hernandez (last seen in "Sicario"), Callan Mulvey, Jacob Batalon, Ross Marquand, James D'Arcy (last seen in "The Snowman"), Emma Fuhrmann, Lexi Rabe, with the voices of Carrie Coon, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Michael James Shaw, Terry Notary, Vin Diesel (last heard in "Avengers: Infinity War'), Taika Waititi (last heard in "Thor: Ragnarok"), Kerry Condon, and cameos from Michael Douglas (last seen in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"), Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Mother!"), Cobie Smulders (last seen in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Quincy"), Robert Redford (last seen in "Pete's Dragon"), Angela Bassett (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout"), William Hurt (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Rene Russo (last seen in "Nightcrawler"), Natalie Portman (last seen in "Vox Lux"), John Slattery (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile), Tilda Swinton (last heard in "Isle of Dogs"), Hayley Atwell (last seen in "Christopher Robin"), Marisa Tomei (last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), Linda Cardellini (last seen in "The Founder"), Stan Lee (last seen in "Venom"), Ken Jeong (last heard in "Norm of the North"), Yvette Nicole Brown (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters"), Jim Starlin.

RATING: 8 out of 10 Pym particles

The Mule

Year 11, Day 118 - 4/28/19 - Movie #3,216

BEFORE: Bradley Cooper carries over again from "A Star Is Born", and I'm ready for "Avengers: Endgame" on Monday evening, I already have an IMAX ticket purchased for me.  Right after posting I'm going to begin my planned regimen of getting ready for the new "Avengers" film, which includes getting a good morning's sleep, then getting the Sunday paper, re-alphabetizing comic books for a few hours, then maybe re-watching "Infinity War" just so it will be fresh in my mind for tomorrow.

THE PLOT: A 90-year-old horticulturist and Korean War veteran turns drug mule for a Mexican cartel.

AFTER: Here we go again with the "absent father" theme, only this time the character is also an absent (ex-)husband, and he's on his way to becoming an absent grandfather, too.  But really, it's just that he's so senile he forgets about the places where he's supposed to be - you know, like his daughter's wedding.  Plus he's pre-occupied with his flower farm that grows something called day-lilies - for a second I thought they were poppies, and we were going to get into the drug-running thing    a whole different way.

But he's guilty of always putting work before family, because, you know, the life of a flower expert is so jam-packed with attending flower conventions and giving out lily plants (bulbs? shoots? seeds?  Honestly, I have no idea what he was handing out to people, or why they wanted them. Not a flower guy.) And then somebody goes and invents the internet, and somehow this leads him to lose his business, though it's never explained exactly how - did everyone suddenly switch over to FTD or 1-800-Flowers.com?  Was there a sudden internet rumor spread about daylilies being hazardous to one's health?  Or did people start watching movies and porn online and forget about how much they liked flowers?  Someone connect these dots for me, please.

Then I guess he forgot to apply for Social Security or something, because he finds himself a senior citizen with no income, and a granddaughter's wedding that he said he'd help pay for.  So logically, that means that delivering a couple packages for a cartel of drug dealers seems like a good idea, right?  He wants to get out after one quick trip that will pay for the flowers at her wedding (ooh, if ONLY he knew someone who still owned a flower farm - that's a tough break, there...) but then he finds that he enjoys the work, he's able to drive around with some purpose, meet interesting people with a lot of scars and tattoos, and feel productive again.  And never does he give ONE second of thought to the people who are being harmed by the (probably) drugs that are in those duffel bags...

The drugs get taken from his truck overnight while he's parked at the motel, and envelopes of cash are placed in his glove compartment, so, really, where's the harm?  And after the wedding, he finds that he soon has enough cash to put his granddaughter through cosmetology school, renovate the local VFW center, and also buy himself a new truck.  And that's where this scenario started to get very problematic, because I can almost get behind an old man with a beat-up pick-up running drugs and never once catching the attention of the cops or the DEA, because they'd never expect this guy with a "Korean War veteran" license plate and about as much mileage on his face as on his truck to be doing anything illegal.  And even if they did, he could just start talking about his grandkids or that time that Bob Hope put on a USO show in Seoul, and the cops would probably send him on his way just to end the conversation.

But a shiny, new black Tacoma truck, doesn't that just SCREAM "drug-runner"?  Very fashionable, harder to see at night, plus all the bells and whistles and a top-of-the-line bed cover on the back (I'm not a car guy either, so I'm speculating here...)  Connected to this is the issue that since he makes these delivery runs at pretty much his own pace, stopping at a farmer's market here for a piece of pie or a BBQ pork sandwich there, eventually the cartel wants to send a couple of thugs along to figure out why it takes him 2 days just to drive across Indiana.  Don't the drug dealers realize how great his cover is?  Plus if he gets stopped, he needs to have a destination in mind, or at least a couple of bags of take-out food.  And a 90-year-old man can go unnoticed by the police, but a 90-year-old man being tailed by a couple of Mexicans in a sportscar looks a lot more suspicious.

Over time, there's a change of management at the cartel (those are never very pretty, I bet) and the new bosses don't take kindly to his lack of speed (umm, then maybe don't hire really old guys?) or the fact that he has to stop at every single rest stop to use the men's room (again, I'm speculating, but come on...) so they give him an ultimatum, make the next delivery on time or his services will be terminated - and he's seen too much to get a pink slip or a severance package.  Meanwhile, a group of DEA agents are trying to figure out who the mule is that's setting records for how many kilos he's delivered, even if he takes forever because he never drives above the speed limit, and his right turn signal is always on.

So it's probably a bad time to make amends with his family and prove that they come first - yet that's what he does, and let the chips fall where they may.  But hey, the drug cartel is filled with very understanding people, they'll probably just give him another stern warning, or a couple demerits on his record, right?  I don't know, the whole premise is very shoddy here, because why trust a 90-year-old guy in the first place to make these deliveries?  Isn't there a solid chance that he'll suddenly just forget his destination in the middle of a run?  The guy can't even send a text message, and that's sort of a requirement for the job, but all the hardened dealers just overlook this fact?  The guy's got a flip-phone with a Jitterbug plan, for Pete's sake.  For many reasons, like failing eyesight, dementia and poor reaction time, I don't think anyone that old should even be driving any more.

Also starring Clint Eastwood (last seen in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"), Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "Last Flag Flying"), Michael Peña (last seen in "A Wrinkle in Time"), Dianne Wiest (last seen in "Rabbit Hole"), Andy Garcia (last seen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"), Alison Eastwood (last seen in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil"), Taissa Farmiga (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Ignacio Serricchio, Loren Dean (last seen in "Gattaca"), Victor Rasuk (last seen in "Godzilla"), Manny Montana, Clifton Collins Jr. (last seen in "The Vault"), Noel Gugliemi, Robert LaSardo, Eugene Cordero (last seen in "Kong: Skull Island"), Richard Herd (last seen in "Get Out"), Austin Freeman, Daniel Moncada, Derek Russo.

RATING: 5 out of 10 bags of pecans