Special Correspondents

Year 11, Day 138 - 5/18/19 - Movie #3,236

BEFORE: OK, a couple more last-minute additions to the chain today, which is just really going to help me land something on the right day in July.  But I promise that now that I've flipped some of my chain around and moved "Dark Phoenix" to October, I'm going to stop messing with it.  (OK, probably not.). I really should be focusing on filling in the two gaps left in 2019, the one from mid-July to October 1 and the one from October 31 to the end of the year.  But maybe it's a bit too soon to do that, maybe I have to have faith that I'll be able to fill those empty spaces when I get a bit closer.

I just figured out how to get Hulu through our Playstation, which is how I also watch Netflix - this prompted me to take a spin through Hulu's line-up of films, and I found a bunch of films there that had scrolled off of Netflix, some of them are docs I was planning to watch in June/July, so now I don't have to rent those from iTunes, which will save me some money.  But there's another 20 or 30 films on Hulu that seemed interesting, so I added them to my watchlist there.  I haven't gone through those cast lists yet, because that's a lot of work, I don't have time right now and I don't want to distract myself from clearing my Netflix list, which the current chain is helping with.  I've finally got that list down close to 100 items, and I don't want to stop that progress now.

But eventually, I'll have to buckle down and go through those casts, because that COULD help me fill those two gaps and complete the chain this year, I'll never know if that could help if I don't start doing the research.  More later.

Vera Farmiga carries over from "The Front Runner", and so does one other actor.

THE PLOT: A radio journalist and his technician get in over their heads when they hatch a scheme to fake their own kidnapping during a rebel uprising in South America and hide out in New York instead.

AFTER: This is an entire film that riffs off the concept of "fake news" - when a reporter's technician accidentally throws away their passports and they can't get to Ecuador to report on the news there, they decide to double down and phone in their reports from an apartment across the street from the radio station, with the help of some sound effects.  Which leads to a couple of questions, like "Are radio reporters still a thing?" and "If so, then why don't all radio reporters just do this?"  Oh, right, ethics.  And then a variation on the questions about reporters from yesterday's film, where the Miami Herald and Washington Post were covering the same story - why do we need so MANY reporters, why can't each newspaper or radio station just get their news from the same reporter, and just repeat it?  Why do we need local reporters in each market?   I don't know, but I think it's got something to do with the Constitution.

(We should have superstar reporters, like we have superstar actors.  Brad Pitt makes a movie and it's seen around the world, it isn't re-made by other actors in every local market.  But maybe it's like stage acting, not everybody can come to Broadway and see the top actors do a play, so there are touring groups and local theater productions.)

The reporter here is already known as something of a B.S. artist, he's already making up stuff for his reports, so this seems like the next illogical step, in a way, he just has to make up everything about the fight in Ecuador.  (Again, why doesn't he read the news from there before he records his report, or at least pay more attention to what the other reporters are saying before he goes on the air and does improv, why does he have to go so far out on a limb here?). Conveniently there's also a border shutdown, so not many other reporters made it into the country, so this reporter can just claim to be one of the few who made it through.

But there was such an easy out, which these characters didn't think of.  After they said, "We're in Quito..." and their boss said "How did you get through the border shutdown?" they could have just said, "Umm, we didn't, we're at the airport and they won't let us leave, they're confiscating our passports and putting us on the next flight back."  See?  Problem solved, loose ends tied up, but also, movie over too soon.  So the plot here depends on everyone being just a little bit dim, especially the Spanish couple (or are they brother and sister?  It's hard to tell...) that owns a bar across the street from the station (in Queens, like maybe Long Island City, I'm guessing, that neighborhood isn't built up enough to be in Manhattan).  There's almost an element of "Wakefield" or "Addicted to Love" here, where the main characters spy on their friends and co-workers to see how they're dealing with their own absences.

Relationship-wise, Finch, the technician/sound-effects guy, gets to see how his wife deals with his "kidnapping", even though they were on the outs, she starts the whole movement to raise money for his eventual ransom, and writes and performs a song calling for his release that also manages to land her a record deal.  So, her motives may not be completely altruistic.  And then there's the story complication when the reporter sees her on TV and realizes she's the woman he had a one-night-stand with just before the assignment and the hatching of the whole scheme.  Sure, it's contrived, but it leads to another bonding moment between the very different men, when they realize they've slept with the same woman.

But at heart, it still feels like the comedy premise of NOT going to the war zone came from the fact that two actors hiding out in an apartment seems much, much easier to film than two actors actually going to a South American war zone.  It must cost a lot to simulate a war on film, but an apartment set created in a studio is cheap, cheap, cheap.  There's a bit of an attempt to make up for this when the two men realize that the only way to prove their story from the past week, and the only way to end their exile, is to somehow really get to the U.S. embassy in Ecuador.  But it's a case of too little, too late in terms of storytelling, so there's a fraction of the movie that contains real action and drama, but the rest just ends up being smoke and mirrors, just like the scheme depicted in the plot.

I want to like Ricky Gervais, I really do, but I sort of wish he'd be in more movies that I'm interested in seeing, if that makes any sense.  Outside of his appearances in the "Night at the Museum" films, it almost feels like he's avoided being in anything that appeals to me.  Like, I get that some actors want to do their own thing, or only be in projects they really believe in or have written for themselves, but why only choose (mostly) such esoteric movies to appear in?  Or maybe it's that I never watched the original British version of "The Office", so I feel like I sort of missed out on his early stuff, and thus I can't really figure out his career choices?

Also starring Eric Bana (last seen in "The Finest Hours"), Ricky Gervais (last seen in "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey"), Kevin Pollak (also carrying over from "The Front Runner") Kelly Macdonald (last seen in "Goodbye Christopher Robin"), America Ferrera (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon 2"), Raul Castillo, Benjamin Bratt (last seen in "Doctor Strange"), Ari Cohen (last seen in "It"), Kim Ramirez, Meghan Heffern, Mimi Kuzyk (last seen in "The Human Stain"), Pedro Miguel Arce, Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz, Walter Alza, with a cameo from Jim Norton (last seen in "The Comedian").

RATING: 4 out of 10 cups of vending-machine coffee

The Front Runner

Year 11, Day 137 - 5/17/19 - Movie #3,235

BEFORE: Well, I've already taken on one political film this year, with "Vice" detailing the activities of the Cheney administration - sorry, you probably know it better as the George W. Bush administration, but you've just GOT to stop fooling yourself there...  So, here's another political film from last year, and I've got more political material on the way in June when I start my documentary film chain in June.  

Hugh Jackman carries over again from "Movie 43"

THE PLOT: In 1987, U.S. Senator Gary Hart's presidential campaign is derailed when he's caught in a scandalous love affair.  

AFTER: This film couldn't have come along at a more crucial time - I suspect that people in Hollywood, like many of us, have their eyes on the next election in 2020.  If you don't remember Gary Hart, he ran for President in 1984 when, and stop me if you've heard this one before, the Democratic vice-president from four years prior finally declared he was running, and suddenly took over the front-runner position.  Sound familiar, current Democratic candidates?  That was Walter Mondale, and he went on to get completely crushed by the incumbent Republican President, who was an aging entertainment icon who had a knack for giving incoherent speeches.  Again, sound familiar?  I hope we're not schedule for a repeat of all this in 2020, but if Biden crashes and burns against Trump, remember that you heard it here first.

But the focus of this film is really the 1988 election, four years later when Mondale was damaged goods and didn't run again, leaving the field wide open for other candidates, like Gary Hart.  Only Gary seemed to have an eye for the ladies, and was sort of semi-separated from his wife, and he met a lady on a boat trip and conducted some late night "job interviews", and then eventually even the press found out about it.  And while the press had previously afforded candidates and Presidents a certain level of discretion (*cough* JFK *cough*) there was this thing in the 1980's called the Moral Majority, and conservative politics sort of demanded that all candidates had to be happily married men who had never cheated on their wives, went to church and practiced one of three acceptable faith denominations, and so on.

But what the hell happened since then?  How did our country, much of which still claims to be conservative in politics and faith, elect our current corruptor-in-chief?  A guy who's been divorced twice before, and you just KNOW he cheated on all of those wives, PLUS there were rumors (now confirmed) of an affair with a porn star, PLUS there was that tape where he talked about being a famous person who could seduce/molest any woman he wanted, even if they were resistant - what the HELL were we (collectively) thinking?  We can re-hash the 2016 election over and over, but I think what it came down to was people voting for the lesser of two evils, as they perceived it.  I told all my liberal friends that though I was voting for Hillary, I didn't think she could win, all because of how she reacted when her own husband was caught cheating.  She did what every American woman in the public eye is "expected" to do, which is to forgive her husband and stand by him, or at least pretend to.

When the Clinton scandals broke, Hillary was clearly in a no-win situation, if you ask me.  She could forgive Bill for cheating, which made her appear to be either a doormat in the relationship, or someone who didn't want to give up the position of First Lady, and all the perks that came with it.  Or she could have divorced him, which would carry its own stigma in certain parts of the country, and many would say that would also have ruined her chance at winning the Presidential election herself - a divorced woman as President?  Conservatives would have had a field day.  Me, I would have wanted to see Bill Clinton's clothes thrown out into the Rose Garden, if she had had the balls to kick him out of the White House for screwing with an intern.  So, if you ask me, the roots of Hillary's loss in the 2016 Election go all the way back to the Monica Lewinsky scandal - if you want somebody to blame for Trump being in the White House, you've got to trace it back to that.  It's Bill Clinton's fault, but history will probably give him a pass on this, as it has on just about everything else.  (And I say this as a registered Democrat, just one looking for the cause and effect.). But it's clear that Mr. Clinton learned nothing at all from the election of 1988.

Anyway, back to Gary Hart - the implication here in this film is that when asked about his fidelity and his extramarital relationships, his response to the press SHOULD have been "None of your damn business!"  Only it wasn't - he (more or less) said to a reporter, "Go ahead, follow me around, you'll be bored..."  Only they did, and they weren't, the senator from Colorado was enjoying a rather active nightlife, it turned out.  Leaving us to wonder about the alternate reality that would have taken place if Hart hadn't been caught, or if the newspapers had allowed the campaign that 24 hour grace period to properly manage the scandal.  Would he have beaten George H.W. Bush in the full election, would there then have been a Clinton administration later, would Al Gore have narrowly lost to George W., and so on?

With a slate of 20 or so Democratic candidates announced for next year's election, what can we learn from this, besides the fact that history tends to repeat itself?  Are we living in a new world of acceptance, now that we know our President has never been faithful, not to anyone, or at least not for very long?  Are the Democratic candidates going to be held to a higher standard, or do they just have to be better than Trump?  Already we're seeing Joe Biden's fitness for office being questioned with people complaining about times when he was too familiar and "hands-on" with people, not respecting their personal space issues.  OK, granted he might have some boundary issues, but to my knowledge he NEVER SLEPT WITH A PORN STAR while married to a European former model.  Also he never ran three bankrupt companies into the ground, lied on his taxes for several decades, defrauded people with a bogus "university", had immigrant kids put in cages, been palsy with TWO dictators (Russia and Korea), etc. etc. etc.

I can also see the other side of this issue, though, namely that the current generation of young folk is a bunch of big babies.  "Oooh, I don't like the way that the former vice-president touched my shoulders..."  Grow up!  Back in the early 1960's people were lined up around the block just to shake John F. Kennedy's hand, and I don't remember ever hearing anyone complain about the way he did it. "Oooh, the vice-president smelled my hair, that was creepy..." Well, think how much worse it could have been, if you were alone in a room with Donald Trump!  He'd probably be trying to touch more than your hair...  Also if Biden becomes president, these same people are probably going to be talking on and on about how the future president smelled their hair, and it was a bit weird, but at least he said their hair smelled great!

I'm very afraid with what's going to happen in the next 12 months, because it takes a lot to get an incumbent out of office, even one as corrupt and perfidious as Trump.  Whatever Democrat comes out on top, that person needs to have a SPOTLESS record, in both public and private life, I'm afraid. Meanwhile, I'm very suspicious of anyone who runs for President, because of all the power and the perks that come with the office.  I've said time and time again that if somebody WANTS to be President, that's a red flag for me right there, that they probably shouldn't be elected.  Can't we devise a system that would find the perfect person for the job, even if that person doesn't WANT the job?  As a matter of fact, I'd kind of prefer it that way.  But I realize how unlikely that sounds.

Look, I'll vote for whoever ends up going against Trump, probably.  Unless there's a candidate willing to take a stand against Daylight Saving Time, then I'm going to support that man or woman.  If Biden ends up being the Democratic nominee I'd like to think that he'd develop into the next Obama, but my fear right now is that he's instead going to be the next Walter Mondale.

Also starring Vera Farmiga (last seen in "The Commuter"), J.K Simmons (last seen in "The Meddler"), Alfred Molina (last seen in "Vice"), Sara Paxton, Mamoudou Athie, John Bedford Lloyd (last seen in "Winter Passing"), Spencer Garrett (last seen in "Bobby"), Steve Coulter (last seen in "American Made"), Ari Graynor (last seen in "Whip It"), Kaitlin Dever (last seen in "The Spectacular Now"), Toby Huss (last seen in "Destroyer"), Steve Zissis (last seen in "The House"), Bill Burr (last seen in "Daddy's Home"), Kevin Pollak (last seen in "War Dogs"), Mike Judge (last heard in "Sandy Wexler"), Tommy Dewey, Molly Ephraim, Josh Brener (last seen in "The Internship"), Mark O'Brien, Alex Karpovsky (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Oliver Cooper, Chris Coy (last seen in "Greenberg"), Courtney Ford, Rachel Walters, Randy Havens (last seen in "Boy Erased"), Jennifer Landon, Joe Chrest (last seen in "Gifted"), Mike Lawrence, Lee Armstrong, Jenna Kanell, RJ Brown, Jonny Pasvolsky, Jeff Witzke (last seen in "Vice"), Michael Crider, with archive footage of Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Jim Bakker, Tammy Faye Bakker, Tom Brokaw (last seen in "Eat That Question: Frank Zappa in His Own Words"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "The Paperboy"), Jane Pauley (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Maria Shriver. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 policy advisors

Movie 43

Year 11, Day 136 - 5/16/19 - Movie #3,234

BEFORE: OK, I think I've got a handle on the direction I want to go for, ideally, for the rest of 2019. I may not have anything lined up for Memorial Day or even Father's Day now, but I think I can get something to line up on July 4.  And after filling in/extending my May and June chain as best as I can, I've now counted the days remaining, there's just a 72-day gap between "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and the start of October, and if I can plug that gap, that will just leave a 12 film shortfall at the beginning of November, so 12 steps to get from the end of October to "Star Wars: Episode 9" and/or a Christmas movie.  Of course, the numbers are a little flexible, if I find a path from "Spider-Man" to "Toy Story 4", for example, that takes only 60 films, I can just add 12 more films to November or December, and that could easily work out, as long as this year's total adds up to 300 films and presents an unbroken chain, I'm good with it.

This looks like a bit of a strange film, it's a comedy anthology, a lot of short pieces stitched together, something that used to be an acceptable format back in the old days of "Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Amazon Women on the Moon", I guess somebody wanted to resurrect that type of thing.  And I've had several movies this year with similarly big casts, like "Avengers: Endgame", "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" and "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", films that make me feel like I can go in any of a dozen directions, but in some ways that's a double-edge sword.  It gives me more possibilities, but it makes it more difficult to choose between all of my options.  So tonight I'm really wasting a huge cast, I'm only using this film to link between two films with Hugh Jackman, who carries over from "Missing Link".  But this does help extend my chain so I'll hit the July 4 benchmark.

I'm going to get back to the documentaries in just over a month - again, it's too bad that "Quincy", "I Am Big Bird" and "Being Elmo" could have connected to my other documentaries, but since the IMDB listings for all of those films were incomplete, I had no way of knowing that.

THE PLOT: A series of interconnected short films follows a washed-up producer as he pitches insane storylines featuring some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

AFTER: In so many ways, I wish this had been a better movie - or at least a funnier one.  I already felt like I was wasting it by not saving it to get me out of some future linking jam, but now I wish that I had saved it, or perhaps avoided it altogether.  There's a reason why nobody makes these type of comedy anthology films any more, because they're so scattershot and the humor is so random that the whole film just tends to end up as completely incoherent.  What most of the segments have in common, though, is really aiming low, like for the lowest comedy common denominator.  So there are gags about balls, about piss, poop, and a teen girl getting her period for the first time, a teen making out with his mom, then his dad, and so on.  If you find this sort of thing funny, more power to you, I guess, I just find it really very commonplace, like really bottom-of-the-barrel comedy.

Framing is all is a writer or producer, pitching ideas to a studio executive, and I guess the gag here is that all of his ideas are bad, which is a very lame way of admitting that all of the ideas in THIS movie are bad, as if the creators and the audience are all in on the joke - "But they're SUPPOSED to be bad ideas, that's the point of the story!"  Umm, no, I'm guessing that's just a smokescreen.  Somebody was trying to polish up a turd here, and came up with a framing device that set out to excuse all the bad comedy that needed to be connected somehow.  One of the film's fourteen (yes) directors is Peter Farrelly, who used to do gross-out comedy in films like "Kingpin" and "There's Something About Mary", but now directs Oscar-winning films somehow, and at least two other directors have been accused of sexual harassment, and it's not hard to see why, if their segments showcase their attitudes toward women and sex.

Wikipedia is telling me that this film took over a decade to make, because studios kept rejecting it (gee, I wonder why...) and then shooting took a couple of years, probably because the producers had to stalk these actors for a long time to get enough material on their personal lives to blackmail them into participating.  Richard Gere reportedly tried very hard to get out of his commitment to this film, but couldn't manage to do that - I wonder how many actors came on board for this "comedy" before reading the script, and then regretted that decision?   Always get all the details before you sign something, kids...

I would put two segments into the "almost funny" category, and one of those would be the story about the teen being home-schooled, but his parents still want him to have the full public high-school experience, so they pretend to be a tough gym teacher, a bully who knocks his books out of his hands, a bully who makes fun of him in the shower, and so on.  This is also the segment where his Mom gives him his first awkward high-school kiss and then his dad pretends to be a fellow male student who awkwardly admits to a gay attraction to him.  Still, the whole premise doesn't really work, because if parents wanted their kid to have the public high-school experience, they would just simply send him to public school.  The entire reason to home-school a teen is to avoid the horrors of high-school, not bring them home.  This would be a bit like travelling by train to avoid the danger of an airplane crash, but then still setting yourself on fire while on the train.

The other one was the 'Superhero Speed-dating" segment, which featured Robin (of Batman and Robin) getting matched up with first Lois Lane and then Supergirl - this is an idea that has quite a bit of promise, but they managed to ruin it with Lois Lane talking about graphic sex stuff with her ex-boyfriend Superman, and then Batman hiding under the table and looking up Supergirl's skirt.  Yeah, way to take the high road, guys.  Then Wonder Woman shows up and accuses Batman of getting her pregnant and not going with her to get an abortion.  And then it gets even worse from there.  There are probably a dozen other ways this idea could have played out that would have been funnier.

Then later there's a segment that riffs on "Truth or Dare", where a couple on a blind date plays this game, and dares each other to do more and more dangerous and outrageous things, like getting a tattoo or having cosmetic surgery, pretending to be a stripper at a bachelorette party, etc.  The gags don't work because the whole game of "Truth or Dare" doesn't really work - unlike the game "Tag", which has specific rules and got turned into an OK comedy, this doesn't work here, because - well, how do you KNOW when someone playing the game is telling the truth?  They could just be better at lying than you.  And then if you took a dare and didn't like doing it, but couldn't turn it down, well then you probably wouldn't say "Dare" ever again when playing the game with that person.  Really, this was just an excuse to get Halle Berry to wear a set of large fake naked breasts, so it's just some male director's juvenile fantasy projected on to the screen.

There are fake commercials strung between the segments, but most of those don't work either - one suggests that there are small kids who live inside vending machines, ATMs and copy machines, who somehow dispense the food items and cash and make the copies (although they don't say how) so the PSA is meant to inform people that they shouldn't yell at the machines or bang on them, because they'll injure or hurt the feelings of the small children that live inside?  Yeah, this seems very ill-advised, and I can't even tell where the joke is coming from here.  Like, who even thinks this way?

There's a spoof of an inspiring sports story, where a black basketball coach in 1959 is trying to inspire his all-black team to go out and beat a team of white players, and it also heads right into the gutter when the coach says that the team's probably going to win, because they're black, and also their penises are larger.  Great, that's racist and sexist and also not funny.  And then there's some corporate meeting about an iPod-like device that's shaped like a life-sized naked woman, and really, that's just an excuse to get some more nudity in the film, right?  Again, this comes close to comedy because the clueless company CEO can't understand why teen boys are trying to have sex with the device, and getting injured in the process.

Reviews for this film ranged from "a masterpiece of tastelessness" to "the Citizen Kane of awful". OK, so this film doesn't even deserve to serve as an important link in my chain.  I'm going to try to forget it and just move on.

Also starring Dennis Quaid (last seen in "Smart People"), Greg Kinnear (last seen in "You've Got Mail"), Kate Winslet (last seen in "Wonder Wheel"), Liev Schreiber (last heard in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse"), Naomi Watts (last seen in "Eastern Promises"), Chris Pratt (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Anna Faris (last seen in "I Give It a Year"), J.B. Smoove (last seen in "The Polka King"), Emma Stone (last seen in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"), Kieran Culkin (last seen in "Music of the Heart"), Richard Gere (last seen in "Nights in Rodanthe"), Kate Bosworth (last seen in "Wonderland"), Jack McBrayer (last seen in "They Came Together"), Aasif Mandvi (last seen in "Premium Rush"), Common (last seen in "Suicide Squad"), Seth McFarlane (last heard in "Sing"), Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "Drinking Buddies"), Justin Long (last seen in "Yoga Hosers"), Uma Thurman (last seen in "Burnt"), Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Adult Beginners"), Kristen Bell (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), John Hodgman (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Leslie Bibb (last seen in "Tag"), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (last heard in "Trolls"), Chloe Grace Moretz (last seen in "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising"), Patrick Warburton (last heard in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"), Matt Walsh (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Gerard Butler (last seen in "P.S. I Love You"), Johnny Knoxville (last seen in "Bad Grandpa"), Seann William Scott (last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Will Sasso (ditto), Halle Berry (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Stephen Merchant (last heard in "Sherlock Gnomes"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "On the Road"), Elizabeth Banks (last seen in "Swept Away"), Josh Duhamel, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, Katrina Bowden (last seen in "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil"), Charlie Saxton, Odessa Rae, Roy Jenkins, Rocky Russo, Anna Madigan, Julie Claire, Katie Finneran (last seen in "You've Got Mail"), Jeremy Allen White, Alex Cranmer, Julie Ann Emery, Jarrad Paul, Aaron LaPlante, Arthur French (2 Days in New York"), Marc Ambrose, Will Carlough, Jimmy Bennett (last seen in "Poseidon"), Esti Ginzburg, Ricki Noel Lander, Zen Gesner, Corey Brewer, Jared Dudley, Larry Sanders, Aaron Jennings, Jay Ellis, Emily Alyn Lind.

RATING: 2 out of 10 scarfed-down burritos

Missing Link

Year 11, Day 135 - 5/15/19 - Movie #3,233 - VIEWED ON 5/8/19    

BEFORE: I snuck out to see this one on a weekday morning, because I knew that the following week I'd be watching a couple of films with Hugh Jackman in them, and also I wanted to extend my chain between Mother's Day and "X-Men: Dark Phoenix".

I half-dedicated this year to animator Will Vinton, and the studio that made this film USED to be called Will Vinton Studios - and that's a studio I used to (sort of) work for, so I do want to support their efforts.  BUT by taking an advance look at the theater schedules on the IMDB, it seemed like I nearly waited too long, this film was about to vanish from most of the NYC theaters it was booked into, leaving just one screen up on 86th St., and I rarely get to the Upper East Side.  So I had to get up early on the last day this film was screening on 42nd St., and catch a film before heading to work at noon.  In a perfect year (so far) where linking is concerned, I hate to mess with my time stream and watch films out of sequence, but I've sat on my reviews for a week or two before.  Whatever maintains the chain right now is considered fair game.

So, Hugh Jackman carries over from "Being Elmo" if I've planned this right.

THE PLOT: Mr. Link recruits explorer Sir Lionel Frost to help find his long-lost relatives in the fabled valley of Shangri-La.  Along with adventurer Adeline Fortnight, this trio of explorers travel the world to help their new friend.

AFTER: It's another one of those thematic vergences, really, where several animation studios get the idea to work on films with similar plot-lines.  Remember "Antz" and "A Bug's Life"?  Or "Finding Nemo" and "A Shark's Tale"?  Or just two years ago when "Sing", "Zootopia" and "The Secret Life of Pets" all came out in the same summer?  Then a few years before that, it was wall-to-wall penguins with films like "Happy Feet", "Surf's Up" and "Madagascar" released by different studios, fairly close together in time.  Now, either the studios all have spies at the other studios, or they're all watching each other's press releases very closely and trying to capitalize on each other's ideas, or perhaps there's some secret trend-followers in a weird corner of the internet who are paying attention to everyone's likes and dislikes, and they send the word out to the studios, like "We think talking animals in cities are going to be BIG BIG BIG this year" or "We believe that movies about fairies and trolls are going to dominate the fall release schedule, so you'd better get working on one!"

Then again, maybe it's all just a bunch of coincidences.  But then, how does one explain why there were suddenly so many movies about Sasquatches and/or Yetis coming to market?  First there was "Smallfoot" from Warner Bros. Animation, then this one from Laika Studios, and today I saw a trailer for "Abominable", from Dreamworks Animation.  OK, I guess last year there was also a Belgian animated kids film called "Son of Bigfoot", but it looks horrible.  But WHY do we need four kids movies about Bigfoots/Yetis, when I'm not even sure that we needed ONE of them?  And why do they all have to come out so close together?

Early in the film, there's a big story problem - Lionel finds the Sasquatch so quickly!  Once he finally gets to the right trail in Oregon, it takes him about 5 seconds to spot one.  Of course, that Sasquatch WANTED to be found, but that's a bit beside the point.  This could have been a major part of the story, the hunt for Bigfoot, and it's just dismissed like it's nothing.  People have been looking for Bigfoot for years (OK, at least going out in the woods and drinking and fooling around and PRETENDING to look for Bigfoot) and this leads the audience to think that it's THAT easy, you just go out in the woods and spot one.  I think even with the knowledge that the creature wanted to be found, there could have been more dramatic tension created with a longer search.

Then, shortly after Frost and the Sasquatch join forces, it's right off to the next adventure, to track down the Yetis in Shangri-La, because they MIGHT be related to the Sasquatch.  Dude, we JUST traveled from London to Oregon, in an Indiana-Jones style travel montage, and now we've got to go to where, Tibet?  But first we have to stop back in LONDON?  This makes no sense, wouldn't it be easier to cross the Pacific and go through the Orient to get to the Himalayas, instead of stopping in London (for NO reason) and then progressing over land by rail?  I think a ship leaving from Seattle or San Francisco would be much faster, and the trip would be shorter in overall mileage - I'll have to double-check this, of course.  But a stagecoach from the Pacific Northwest to NYC seems like that would take 2 or 3 weeks, at least, just to get on a boat in NYC?  They could have been halfway across the Pacific by then!  I have to call a NITPICK POINT on the travel geography here.

Of course, stopping back in London puts them back in conflict with Frost's nemesis, Lord Piggot-Dunceby at the Explorer's Club.  And pretending to get on the train to San Francisco enable them to shirk the villainous Willard Stenk, who'd been trailing them.  But this seems like a bit of a smokescreen just to cover up the fact that the itinerary doesn't make much sense.  Plus, SO much of this movie is just traveling from place to place, I wish more could have been devoted to things happening in the major locations.  Most of this becomes, "OK, we're here, now quickly, we have to to to THERE..."

(ASIDE: I've been watching Season 2 of "American Gods" on the Starz Channel, and that show suffers from a similar problem.  Sure, it's kind of exciting to see Odin re-uniting the Old World Gods to rally his forces against the threat of the New Gods, but when that boils down to, "Now we have to drive to Cairo, Illinois" followed by "Now we have to drive to Topeka, Kansas" and "OK, now down to New Orleans" then you realize that 90% of each episode is driving somewhere, with very little happening in each city upon arrival.  They're really stretching it out, trying to turn a one-volume book into a 3-season series - if you ask me, this story should have been told in ONE season, eight episodes, tops.  End of ASIDE.)

I'm sure this is probably better than "Smallfoot" or either of the other Bigfoot/Yeti films released in the last & upcoming year, but it's a long way from "Coraline" or "Kubo and the Two Strings", produced by the same studio.  It's not even on a par with "Paranorman", unfortunately, all because the story is just so weak - it's basically not much more than a travelogue.  There some fascinating animation work done on a ship at sea that's tilting so much on the waves that it's nearly at a 90-degree angle, so the characters run through the ship on the walls, not the deck, but that's about it.  The collapsing ice bridge near the end can't really hold up, because it's just the same gag over and over again, to the point of ridiculousness.

Also starring the voices of Zach Galifianakis (last seen in "A Wrinkle in Time"), Zoe Saldana (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Stephen Fry (last seen in "I.Q."), Timothy Olyphant (last seen in "Snowden"), Emma Thompson (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)"), Amrita Acharia, Matt Lucas (last heard in "Sherlock Gnomes"), David Walliams, Ching Valdes-Aran, Humphrey Ker, Adam Godley (last heard in "The BFG"), Neil Dickson, Ian Ruskin, Matthew Wolf, Darren Richardson, Alan Shearman, Jack Blessing, Richard Miro, Jaswant Dev Shrestha

RATING: 5 out of 10 bowls of yak stew

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

Year 11, Day 134 - 5/14/19 - Movie #3,232

BEFORE: OK, I think I've found an answer to my linking crisis from yesterday - sorry for putting out the panic vibes.  What I've decided to do is to put together the best possible chain for October that I can, now that "New Mutants" is off the 2019 release schedule.  I believe this will require moving "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" to October, because it shares actors with four horror films that are currently on my list - "Let Me In", "The Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse", "It: Chapter Two", and let's throw "Glass" in there as well.  Then what I can do is designate October as a mix of Halloween films and animated features (there are two cross-overs there, namely "Coco" and "Hotel Transylvania 3") = it's not my ideal way to run October, but it is what it is.  If I'm going to try for a perfectly linked year, then I have to be a little flexible, and any horror films that don't link to anything else will have to wait.

Now, since this removes a big blockbuster film from June, that's going to leave a hole there - so I found that by flipping a certain sequence of 16 films around, I can close the resulting gap, and the best part about this is, I don't really have to tear apart the chain and put it back together again!  Thankfully most movies have the ability to connect to several other films on the list, which makes this flip possible.  I now have about a week before the two plans diverge, and I'll have to decide whether to follow the new plan or the old plan.  This could give me time to see if there's definitely a path between "Spider-Man: Far From Home" and the movie set for October 1, and it also gives me an ending point for October, so I can try to figure out a path from there to "Star Wars: Episode IX" in December.  If I can do both of these things, I've got a map to the end of a perfectly-linked year.  And even if they're not possible to discern now, things might be different in July, a path to October may open up by then.

Also, the new Plan B, with my current films in a slightly different order, also has a place I could drop in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" in mid-June, so if I follow Plan B, I really have unti then to decide if I really want to sit on that film's review for four months, like I did with "X-Men: Apocalypse".  If in mid-June I suddenly think of some more horror films to add, and that creates a better October line-up, I can just move the X-Men film back to June and continue on.  I feel it's a little bit dishonest to not post all of my reviews right after each film was watched, but I was going to do that anyway with "New Mutants", by watching it in August and posting in October.   C'est la guerre.

But also, to make the October chain work, I now have to go see three more films in the movie theater this year, in addition to the "X-Men" and "Spider-Man" films - and those are "Godzilla: King of the Monsters", "Toy Story 4" and "It: Chapter Two".  So the punishment is not too bad, I think I can take it, except I don't like seeing really scary movies outside of the comforts of home, so that last one could be a bit of a challenge.

Kevin Clash carries over again from "I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story", as do many of his fellow puppeteers from Muppet-Land.

THE PLOT: The Muppet Elmo is one of the most beloved characters among children across the globe.  Meet the unlikely man behind the puppet - the heart and soul of Elmo - Kevin Clash.

AFTER: There's obviously a trend here, something about how a certain percentage of people who really enjoy something - whether that's puppetry or cartoons or rock music - end up working in that field, and for them no other line of work will really do.  Once you get bit by that bug, and again, it could be acting or playing guitar or telling jokes, that's all you really want to do, and a select few of those obsessive people really get to shine in that field.  I remember there was a computer in my high school guidance counselor's office that helped kids find the type of career they were best suited for, and I didn't like any of the careers it suggested for me.  I inquired with the computer about whether filmmaking was right for me as a career, and I got a print-out that told me I wasn't cut out for that line of work, because it required working well with other people, and I preferred to keep to myself.  Well, that only made me more determined to go enroll at NYU and prove that computer wrong.  It's been over 30 years and I'm still working in that field.

For Kevin Clash, puppetry was just always what he wanted to do, he would have been 9 years old when "Sesame Street" first aired, and he was fascinated by the Muppets on the show, and set right out to making his own from fabric around the house (like his father's coat lining) and then making up voices for them.  A class trip to New York brought him in touch with Kermit Love, who was a master puppet-maker and a mentor to Jim Henson.  After appearing with his puppets on several local Baltimore-area shows, he got the chance to work on the "Captain Kangaroo" show, then transitioned over to the Henson Studio after subbing in for the usual Cookie Monster puppeteer in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

When his other TV gigs ended, Clash got to work with Jim Henson on the film "Labyrinth" and then on Sesame Street (after previously turning down a job on "The Dark Crystal") and took over Elmo, a character that four other puppeteers had worked with, and were unable to find the right voice or attitude for (early Elmo appearances have him talking with a deeper voice, and a bit dumb, like a caveman.)  But Clash's high-pitched childlike voice and free-spirited "love everyone" attitude made the character take off, and a decade later there was a veritable craze with the release of the "Tickle Me Elmo" dolls.  Thousands of talk-show jokes about the true nature of the vibrating toy followed.

Clash performed several other Muppet characters, like Hoots the Owl and Clifford (the reggae-styled host of "Muppets Tonight") and the baby dinosaur on "Dinosaurs" but no other character competed with the worldwide sensation that was Elmo - geez, if you thought Big Bird connected with kids, Elmo probably went above and beyond that. This documentary ends with Clash working on Sesame Street as a director, and also traveling to train Sesame Street puppeteers in other countries.  If you read between the lines, you may notice that like Caroll Spinney in yesterday's film, it seems like fellow workaholic Clash hadn't spent as much time with his own daughter as he did working and playing with puppets.

So, I guess we're not going to talk about the sexual abuse allegations?  Oh, right, those came to light a year or so after this documentary was released - which admittedly raises the possibility that his accusers were just looking to get a piece of that sweet indie documentary money.  I'm sorry, I know this isn't a laughing matter, but way back, 8 years ago, before Weinstein and Cosby and Charlie Rose and Kevin Spacey and Matt freakin' Lauer and Louis CK, Kevin Clash was basically outed in the press after two different men came forward and said they'd had relationships with him that began when they were underage.  When it's one of those he said-he said situations, who can really say what took place?  Right or wrong, Clash was forced to resign from Sesame Street and it took him years to get back into puppeteering.

In a way, that whole media firestorm was worse than the freak-out that accompanies the debate over whether Bert and Ernie are gay.  The official word is "No", but come on, they live together, they share a bedroom, they both dress in stripes, and Ernie is very close friends with Bert's mother.  Plus then there's the whole pigeon-keeping obsession, but that's neither here nor there.  Even if the puppets were gay, so what if they were?  Only they're not, because they're fictional characters that are technically asexual, and if you've seen the puppeteers performing, you'd know that neither one even has a lower half to their body.  Still, it's what people obsess over and freak out about.

Also starring Joan Ganz Cooney (also carrying over from "I Am Big Bird"), Cheryl Henson (ditto), Fran Brill (ditto), Bill Barretta, Martin P. Robinson, with the voice of Whoopi Goldberg (last seen in "Quincy"),and archive footage of Jim Henson, Caroll Spinney, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, Richard Hunt, Steve Whitmire, Roscoe Orman, Sonia Manzano, Emilio Delgado, Bob McGrath, Will Lee (all carrying over from "I Am Big Bird"), Arsenio Hall (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Hugh Jackman (last seen in "Deadpool 2"), Rosie O'Donnell (last seen in "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"), Regis Philbin (last seen in "I'm Still Here"), Kathie Lee Gifford, Kofi Annan, Jack Black (last seen in "The Polka King"), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Crossfire Hurricane"), Peter Jennings, Robert Keeshan, Princess Diana, Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey (also last seen in "Quincy"), Michelle Obama (ditto), Ricky Gervais (last seen in "George Michael: Freedom"), LL Cool J.

RATING: 6 out of 10 Times Square Elmos

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story

Year 11, Day 133 - 5/13/19 - Movie #3,231

BEFORE: I've got something of a linking emergency on the horizon, because I found out today that the release date for "The New Mutants" has been pushed back yet again, and now that film won't be released in August 2019 but April 2020 instead.  This would only be a problem if I'd been planning to build my October horror movie schedule around this film - since it links to "Bird Box", "Glass" and "The Witch" it seemed like a natural fit, being something of a horror-based "X-Men" film, by all reports.  But now, without that film in the mix, my linking for October 2019 is liable to fall completely apart.  I can try to piece it back together again, but it won't be what it was, and what it was was an already reduced October, just a few films with no breaks, so as not to spoil my "perfect year".

Unfortunately, this could very easily have a domino effect - one solution to fix October would be to move "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" to that month, since that superhero film also looks very dark, and links to films like "Let Me In", "It: Chapter Two", "Glass" and "The Scout's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse".  But if I do THAT, then I'll have a hole to plug in June's schedule.  That would take some of the pressure off of seeing the "X-Men" film in the first week of release, but at what cost?

So, I've got to make a decision about how to deal with the loss of "The New Mutants".  I can:

a) keep going with my schedule as is, make it to "Spider-Man: Far from Home" and then re-assess October's schedule, and how to get there  OR

b) put a rough October schedule together now, and see if there's a path between "Spider-Man" and whatever the start of that October schedule is  OR

c) move "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" to October, find a new path to "Spider-Man: Far From Home", maybe flip the documentary chain around so it comes AFTER "Spider-Man" and not before, and see if the end of the doc chain will link to the start of the October chain, because they'll be a lot closer at that point.

Option "c" is clearly the most work, because I'd have to re-do almost two months of the upcoming chain, BUT the chain right now is far from perfect, I could try to come up with a better Memorial Day film, also try to find something for Father's Day in June, also I had a late May slot for "Hellboy" but it's now disappeared from theaters, and also maybe I can get something better to land on July 4.  That's a lot to accomplish, and I've only got a couple of days before another film on the schedule with like 100 different actors in it.  Perhaps I should treat that film as a nexus, and consider that from there, I can go just about anywhere - it almost seems a shame to waste such a film between two other films with Hugh Jackman in it.

That's a lot to think about, and not a lot of time to find the new course, if that's what I want to do.  I guess I'm going to treat my current plan as a back-up, in case I can't find another passage to get to "Spider-Man: Far From Home" that hits all the proper markers along the way.

Now, as for today's film, Kevin Clash, the voice of Elmo, was heard in "Tully" on the TV as the kids watched "Sesame Street", so that allows me to link to a couple of documentaries that resisted being part of that upcoming documentary chain.  I found that when I included these two films, the chain just didn't work, and as soon as I removed them from the larger chain, everything just sort of came together.  So my path was clear, I'd isolate them from the main herd, and just work them in between the fiction films, like I did with "Quincy".

THE PLOT: Caroll Spinney has been Sesame Street's Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch since 1969; at 78 years old, he has no intention of stopping.

AFTER: Well, the tagline does need some updating, because Mr. Spinney did retire last year, after making it to Sesame Street's 50th season.  But since I'm late myself in getting around to watching this film, some allowances have to be made...

Another thing that needed updating was the IMDB listing for this film - while I was watching I made notes about people in the film who were either interviewed OR appeared in archive footage but were not mentioned in the IMDB, and that was 30 people!  Now, maybe Michael Jackson only appeared interacting with a Muppet for a few seconds, or David Letterman was seen in an old episode of "Hollywood Squares", but that all counts, damn it!  If the IMDB listing had been complete in the first place, then I could probably very easily have included this film in my main doc chain.  But the only way for me to find out who's not listed is to watch the film, and I can't do that before scheduling it.  The best I can do is to make the best schedule I can, and then update the IMDB just in case anyone comes along doing the same thing that I'm doing - which is unlikely.

But the die is cast, I've watched this one, so let's get to talking about it.  This profiles about the best career that a puppeteer could hope for, even if there were a few bumps in the road at first.  Spinney was there at the beginning, as Jim Henson was formulating the ideas for the Muppets (few people remember that in addition to being on Sesame Street, the Muppets appeared on early episodes of "Saturday Night Live") and he got in on the ground floor as both Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch (whose NY accent was apparently borrowed from a cab driver that took Spinney to work on the first shooting day...).

Spinney was fascinated by puppet shows at an early age, but there's a big difference between enjoying those as a kid and then telling your parents that you want to play with puppets as an adult.  Spinney's father did not take it well, but everyone's got to make that break from their parents some time, right?  (And I was worried about telling my parents that I wanted to go to film school...). In my senior year at NYU I took an internship at a company that made music videos, dance videos, art videos, and once in a while, some contract work for Sesame Street.  Despite being federally funded, the Children's Television Workshop did pay pretty well, because they were looking for short pieces that resembled music videos, only they taught kids the meaning of words like "between" or "adventure".  So in the early 1990's I was a P.A. on several projects that ended up airing on Sesame St., sometimes they'd have a pop star or group in them (like En Vogue) and sometimes they'd have a muppet like The Count in the background.  I never worked with Big Bird, but we did film a piece with Blue Bird, who was the superhero version of the character, but he didn't last long on the show, and was performed by a different puppeteer.

Still, I learned a few things about how the costume works, like the fact that one of the puppeteer's arms is working the head, and his other arm works an arm, and then the other arm of the character tends to not move.  Once I realized that, I couldn't help but notice that Big Bird also had only one working arm, though in the years to come, they figured out a way to make one puppeteer arm work both Big Bird arms.  (It's probably best if kids don't watch this documentary, because it kind of spoils all the magic about how Big Bird and Oscar, and several other Muppets, work).  Some Muppets (like Kermit the Frog) require only one puppeteer hand, and then the character's hands are moved by small rods, and other Muppets (like Bert and Ernie) require two puppeteers, one who works the head and the left arm, the other works the right arm.  Spinney also had a TV monitor inside the suit, so he could see how his movements looked on camera, plus he found a way to tape his lines inside the suit so he wouldn't have to memorize them.  I think he also had like a microwave and coffee pot in there, which came in handy during those long shoot days.

Big Bird was not an instant hit, and whether this had to do with the way his character was written, or the fact that Caroll Spinney was going through a tough divorce, is probably a debatable point.  But once the man started putting more childlike wonder into the character (B.B. has the sensibility of a five-year-old who never ages) then it really struck a chord with the pre-school audience.  And for Spinney this led to many great moments over the years, like traveling around the world, entertaining children everywhere, and meeting his 2nd wife, who also worked as his manager/assistant/traveling companion.

Since I was born in 1968, I sort of came of age with the Sesame Street show, some of my earliest memories are sitting way too close to the screen because I was fascinated by TV, and I probably learned all my letters and numbers from the days they "sponsored" each broadcast.  This movie made me re-live the dark day that Big Bird had to deal with the 1982 death of "Mr. Hooper", who ran the local grocery on the show (though obviously, by that point I was 14 and had aged out of the program) and then in 1990, the death of Muppet creator Jim Henson.  Big Bird sang "It's Not Easy Being Green" at the funeral, which didn't really make sense because Big Bird is yellow, but he was wearing a green bow.  I think maybe "Rainbow Connection" would have been more appropriate, but what do I know...

Spinney had his own close call when he was invited to travel into orbit on the Space Shuttle and perform as Big Bird in orbit, which obviously would have gotten a lot of little kids interested in the space program.  He trained for the trip, but then NASA decided to send a teacher into space instead, and of course that was the ill-fated Challenger mission.  That must have been an odd feeling, to be disappointed that Big Bird got scrubbed from the Space Shuttle mission, but then the mission ended in disaster.  Probably a lot of mixed emotions there.

Anyway, this is a fascinating portrait that ended up being about creativity, perseverance, love, loss, love again, a guy trying to be a good Dad and a good husband but also spending a great portion of his life dressed up as a giant yellow bird that's beloved around the world, and all the ups and downs that came with that (mostly ups) and then making a very decent living at that, but ultimately needing to train someone to fill his shoes.  His giant, orange, three-toed shoes.  There are probably some parallels to Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca for many years in the "Star Wars" films, but eventually retired after training his replacement.

Several generations have grown up with Big Bird, and I think a lot of that has to do with the show's appeal - a lot of people who watched it as a kid come back to it as adults, either because they had kids of their own, or because they need something to watch while they get stoned, or in some cases, because they watch the show ironically.  It doesn't really matter - although I haven't seen the show since it moved to HBO, so I wonder how much the curse words and topless scenes have impacted the show.  The show got a lot of extra attention during the 2012 election, when Mitt Romney made some reference to de-funding PBS, even though he "liked Big Bird".  Yeah, Romney should have known better, to not fuck with the big yellow bird who grew up on the Street.

Also starring Caroll Spinney (last seen in "Drew: The Man Behind the Poster"), Frank Oz (last heard in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"), Jerry Nelson (last heard in "The Muppet Christmas Carol"), Dave Goelz (last heard in "Inside Out"), Joan Ganz Cooney, Roscoe Orman, Sonia Manzano, Emilio Delgado, Bob McGrath, Loretta Long, Matt Vogel, Cheryl Henson, Fran Brill, with archive footage of Jim Henson, Steve Whitmire, Richard Hunt, Will "Mr. Hooper" Lee, Chevy Chase (last seen in "Orange County"), Billy Crystal (last seen in "I'm Still Here"), Danny DeVito (ditto), Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "Whip It"), Robin Gibb, Bob Hope, Michael Jackson (last seen in "Quincy"), Barack Obama (ditto), Waylon Jennings, Jay Leno (last seen in "20 Feet from Stardom"), David Letterman (ditto), Seth Meyers (last seen in "Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden"), Mitt Romney (ditto), Conan O'Brien (last seen in "If You're Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast"), Jon Stewart (last seen in "The Beaver"), Barbara Walters (last seen in "Vice"), Flip Wilson, Anderson Cooper, Ed Schultz, Garry Moore, Kitty Carlisle.

RATING: 6 out of 10 Daytime Emmy nominations

Tully

Year 11, Day 132 - 5/12/19 - Movie #3,230

BEFORE: I've made it to my special Mother's Day film - it was either going to be this one, or "Motherhood" with Uma Thurman, and that film didn't seem to link to very much, it didn't fit in with my plan to get from "Avengers: Endgame" to "X-Men: Dark Phoenix", anyway.  There are probably a few other films on my list that would have worked, because mother characters are everywhere, but I wanted a safe bet that also fit in with my larger plan.  "Thirteen", "Serial Mom", "Cheaper By the Dozen", "Snatched", "Life of the Party" or even "The Blind Side" could have worked here, but I'm keeping an eye on making it to the next benchmark Marvel movie.

It's the end of the Ron Livingston chain, as he carries over again from "Shimmer Lake", and this would have nearly been a dead end, if not for the one link I'm going to follow for tomorrow's film, which will be a documentary.

THE PLOT: A struggling mother of three forms an unexpected bond with the night nanny hired to help with her newborn baby.

AFTER: I'm going to try very hard not to spoil this one, only then I can only say so much about it.  Let's just say it uses a very specific narrative trick, which for once does not involve jumping around the time-stream, or putting its scenes in random order.  And I've seen this trick used twice already this year, and if I say which films also used it, that would also give things away. I could also say two words here that would give away the store, so I'm obviously not going to do that.

All you really need to know going in is that Marlo, Charlize Theron's character, is pregnant with her third child, and during the final month of pregnancy we see her running errands, dealing with her brother and his wife, her husband and other two children.  Her daughter seems like a real together kid, but her son is autistic or at least somewhere on the spectrum.  He freaks out whenever there's anything different about his routine, he's scared by loud noises, even unexpected toilet flushes (to be fair, automatic toilets everywhere should be outlawed...) and every night he needs to be "brushed" so he can relax enough to go to bed.

So it makes sense that Marlo is stressed out, stretched out and at the end of her rope - and that's the main message here for Mother's Day.  This is a woman who's been giving, doing and working on her kids for so long that it probably seems like that's ALL she does.  Meanwhile, her husband's way of "helping" is to put his headphones on while he plays video games.  To be fair, he is the breadwinner, with some kind of tech job, but even that requires that he go on business trips to install and fix servers, or something, so that leaves Marlo to get the kids up and off to school, to all the sporting events and other activities, and still get dinner on the table.  It just doesn't seem fair.

So when her brother recommends a "night nanny", and even offers to pay for it, that seems like it can only improve her life.  Tully shows up one night and takes over the baby-care responsibilities overnight, and Marlo can finally get some sleep.  Tully even brings the baby in to her bedroom when it's time for a 2 am feeding.  And somehow that doesn't feel weird at all, despite how personal it all is. Tully becomes an important part of the family, and thanks to a "surplus of energy", she even takes to cleaning the house in the middle of the night, or making cupcakes for Marlo to take to school the next day.  Problem solved, right?

Oh, if only.  Tully makes some references to her complicated personal life, and hints that she might even be involved with several men and also her roommate.  Marlo tries to advise her on these matters, and seems to share a bond with Tully on some deep level.  Tully declares that she's there to help Marlo fix everything in her life, which doesn't seem to have any limits, like she even starts advising Marlo on how to re-connect sexually with her husband. Then when Tully suggests they both deserve a night off, they drive off into NYC (Brooklyn, to be exact) and go bar-hopping, without telling anyone where they're going.

And that's about all I'm willing to say about the plot - but there are clues throughout the film about what's really happening here, if you're inclined to pay attention and try to put it all together.  But even when you know, if you go back and think about what went before, it sort of all works, but then there are parts that clearly don't.  Some things might be able to be accounted for due to some form of post-partum depression, but I think that only goes so far, in the end.

Also starring Charlize Theron (last heard in Kubo and the Two Strings), Mackenzie Davis (last seen in "The Martian"), Mark Duplass (last seen in "People Like Us"), Diane Lane (last seen in "Streets of Fire"), Asher Miles Fallica, Lia Frankland, Elaine Tan, Gameela Wright, Tattiawna Jones, Stormy Ent, Maddie Dixon-Poirier, Bella Star Choy, Dominic Good, Joshua Pak, Emily Haine, Marceline Hugot, Colleen Wheeler, Xantha Radley, John Shaw and the voice of Kevin Clash (last heard in "Muppets From Space").

RATING: 5 out of 10 Cyndi Lauper songs

Shimmer Lake

Year 11, Day 131 - 5/11/19 - Movie #3,229

BEFORE: We went out for lunch at Smorgasburg, which is a weekly collection of food stands in Williamburg, Brooklyn - but getting there was problematic since we live closest to the "L" subway train, and they're finally doing the repairs on the tunnels to repair the damage from Superstorm Sandy (7 years ago!).  Initially they were going to completely shut down this subway line for 16 months, but now they've found a way to repair it without shutting it down - but the train runs only every 20 minutes between Brooklyn and Manhattan (every 10 minutes in Brooklyn) and we needed the Manhattan-bound train to get closer to Smorgasburg.

But once we were there, and after fighting through the giant crowds of hipsters (initially I thought the day would be overcast, which would have meant smaller crowds, but the weather turned out to be great, so there you go) I got to enjoy a wide variety of foods, like a pork taco with chicharrones, a ramen burger (hamburger with a bun made of noodles), some yakitori (scallops and pork belly grilled on skewers) and a meatball parm hero (not very exotic, but still delicious).  So it's like a weekly food festival, which sounds great, but then the high prices and huge crowds make me remember why we only go there about once every two or three years.

Ron Livingston carries over again from "The End of the Tour", and though the IMDB doesn't mention it, so does one other actor.

THE PLOT: A crime thriller told backwards - reversing day by day through a week - following a local sheriff's quest to unlock the mystery of three small-town criminals and a bank heist gone wrong.

AFTER: This is a crime film with a twist, and that's all in how the events are shown to the audience, with the days in reverse order.  This gimmick was most notably seen in the film "Memento", as a man with no short-term memory tries to unravel the mystery of his wife's death, and so he has to leave himself a lot of notes with the clues, he even has some tattooed on his body.  That film worked because at the start of the film / end of the story, we the audience knew just as much as the lead character (nothing) and at the end of the film / start of the story, we've pieced together nearly everything - although my "solution" for that film seems to be different from the one that most viewers have agreed upon.

So when it's used well, this is a technique that reveals more information as the film moves forward, even though we're going backwards in time.  The dialogue has to refer to the past events without giving away the whole store, and irony is achieved when characters talk about the future, and we the audience have advance knowledge regarding whether that future came to pass, or notably did not.  I'm happy to report this is a film that uses the technique well, because we are forced to re-evaluate what happened when we see it happen, and occasionally it's not what we were expecting at all.  Now, if there were no surprises while using this technique, I'd be tempted to say that an editor or directing was using it just to try to inject some life into a dull screenplay, and that's not the case here.  But it is possible that someone tried to write this story with the surprises at the end, and found that just didn't work, that they didn't feel motivated by the story or came too far out of left field.  With the days in backwards order, on the other hand, I'm almost praying for a last-minute (first-minute?) surprise to come along and shake things up.

In some ways, just getting a handle on what happened / will happen in this film is a bit of a beast, but just like a bank robbery, that's OK if there's a good payoff.  All we know at first is that something went down, and the town sheriff is looking for his brother.  People are hiding out, there's a bag of money, and (because of the structure) more characters get added to the story as the bodies start turning up, because the next / prior day, those people are still alive and are probably important to the story.  Eventually we learn what the big scheme was, who was responsible for it, but it's wheels-within-wheels and maybe not everything is as clear-cut as we first thought.  Everything could be important, so you've got to pay close attention.

This is not a technique that I would want to see used very often, because I wouldn't want it to become a trend or get played out - but once in a while, when warranted, it's OK.

NITPICK POINT: The town's judge also owns the local bank?  This seems like a strange combination of careers.  I'd like to know how many jurists also dabble in the world of finance - isn't that a conflict of interest?

Also starring Rainn Wilson (last seen in "Hesher"), Benjamin Walker (last seen in "In the Heart of the Sea"), Stephanie Sigman (last seen in "Spectre"), John Michael Higgins (also carrying over from "The End of the Tour" via footage from "The Late Shift"), Mark Rendall (last seen in "Charlie Bartlett"), Rob Corddry (last seen in "Office Christmas Party"), Wyatt Russell (last seen in "Everybody Wants Some!!"), Adam Pally (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"), Matt Landry, Isabel Dove, Neil Whitely, Angela Vint, Julie Khaner.

RATING: 5 out of 10 high-school football stories