BEFORE: 50 films in, so Movie Year 12 is already 1/6 over, and it still feels like it JUST started. But that can't be either because look how far I've already come this year, and yet there's still so much linking to do. I've only programmed until Mother's Day, and I only have a vague idea how I'm going to connect to Father's Day, let alone the 4th of July. But I have to believe I can get there, because believing that there is a path is half the battle, now all I have to do is figure one out.
Beverly D'Angelo carries over from "Dreamland".
Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, Russ Tamblyn links from "Father of the Bride" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links? Answers below.
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 19)
6:45 am "The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm" (1962) with _____________ linking to:
9:15 am "Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet" (1940) with _____________ linking to:
11:00 am "It Happened Tomorrow" (1944) with _____________ linking to:
12:30 pm "Mighty Joe Young" (1949) with _____________ linking to:
2:15 pm "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 pm "Gunga Din" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 pm "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "Dr. Strangelove" (1964) with _____________ linking to:
9:45 pm "The Pink Panther" (1963) with _____________ linking to:
12:00 am "Around the World in 80 Days" (1963) with _____________ linking to:
3:15 am "Pepe" (1960)
I've only seen three of tomorrow's movies - "Dr. Strangelove", "The Pink Panther" and "Around the World in 80 Days" (the obvious ones) but that's OK because some of these are LONG films, so they were only able to squeeze 11 films into a day's programming. 3 out of 11 brings me up to 69 out of 219, or 31.5%, only losing a little ground today. Just 12 days to go, and I'd love to at least get back up to 33% before the end.
THE PLOT: A screenwriter working on a script for a romantic comedy meets a girl who captures his heart, the problem is that she's already engaged.
AFTER: This is one of those films that spends a lot of time going through the lead character's fantasies, as he imagines himself in different outlandish romantic scenarios, so the whole film bounces around quite liberally through different little skits that aren't really part of the main story. I'm not even sure what this technique is called, but I saw it used last in a film from the 1960's called "Paris When It Sizzles", which was also about a screenwriter trying to write a romantic movie on a tight deadline. So this feels very much like a remake of sorts of that 1964 film - but that movie had writer William Holden falling for his assistant, and here the lead character falls for a woman he meets at a charity gala.
So I'm back on writers falling in love tonight, having spent a few days on musicians and their romantic problems. This year it seems I'm sort of toggling between the two, as writers popped up in "Private Life", "Long Shot" (reporter/scriptwriter), "Love Happens" (self-help book author), "You, Me and Dupree" (ditto) and of course "Professor Marston & the Wonder Women" (comic-book writer). One on level, you would expect writers to be very creative people (in theory, anyway) and therefore lead very interesting and creative lives, which should extend into the relationship arena, but on the other hand, at the same time it kind of feels like a narrative cheat, because then a character can work anywhere, at any time, and isn't stuck in an office all day from 9 to 5 or whatever. The exciting bits of the character's life aren't just confined to Friday night dates and weekend getaways, see what I mean?
(Plus, if you know anything about real-life comic-book writers, they're super-nerdy uber-geeks who probably don't have extremely active dating lives. Travel writers, romance writers, even screenwriters might do OK, but comic-book writers? William Moulton Marston was probably the ONLY comic-book writer to ever have a threesome, I'll bet. I'd say he might have been the last one to be married, except I've seen a lot of writers and artists at conventions, and some of them travel with their wives who also help out at the booths. Then there's the DC comics "power couple" of Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, for example, but maybe they're the exception that proves the rule. The stereotype of the comic-book writer as perennially single is still prominent.)
Speaking of stereotypes, this film manages to make fun of Hollywood conventions while at the same time using THE EXACT same conventions - whether this is done with a knowing wink toward the audience or represents more narrative shortcuts, I'll leave up to each viewer to decide. They make mention of how many tired Hollywood rom-coms use the "gay best friend" trope, and then of course we later learn that the lead character's best friend happens to be gay. Can a film simultaneously take other films to task for using the same story elements over and over, and also use them in the same way? I maintain that making the audience AWARE of the use of the tired stereotypes is not enough to excuse their usage, even if someone is doing so comedically. There are also knowing references to the typical rom-com formulas, where boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy searches all over town for girl to stop her wedding, so pretty early on you may get an idea where THIS film you're watching is going to end up - and you can't say they didn't warn you.
The lead characters are never named here, just referred to as "Me" and "Her" in the credits. Another blatant little storytelling trick to get everyone in the audience to identify with the lead characters, the theory is that people will see themselves in one of the lead roles, and that's easier if they don't have names. But most people watching the film aren't going to be screenwriters, or go to a ton of charity events just to find someone again, or be hopelessly stuck in patterns of bad behavior. Oh, yeah, the lead character ("Me") got hurt pretty badly when his mother abandoned him as a small boy, and we're supposed to infer that this has made him unable to form a proper adult relationship with women. He claims to have never been in love, he's always been a "love 'em and leave 'em" type, and his relationships tend to him with him getting punched in the face after he says the words that women don't want to hear: "I just don't see myself with a woman like you."
Ugh, he feels like a terrible person, always putting all of the blame on his romantic partners and none on himself. Why can't he ever say, "I'm sorry, I'm a damaged person who's incapable of having a committed relationship - it's not you, it's me." Whether it's honest or not, is that so freaking hard? But finally he meets a woman who he thinks he can have a genuine, adult relationship with - it turns out the secret sauce was to be FRIENDS with her first, not just treat her like a sexual object, why did this take him so long to figure out? But then of course he blows it by lying about his charity work just to get in her good graces - again, what's the reasoning here, did he think that women really enjoy men who are habitual liars? It's really tough to understand his reasoning here, even when he's TRYING to be a good boyfriend. OK, maybe she can't commit to her current boyfriend and pull the trigger on a wedding, but that doesn't mean she deserves to be LIED to.
And for the (probably) hundredth time, I have to ask, do we NEED another film where a writer is having difficulty writing? Has anyone ever made a movie where a writer is good at his job? You would think that screenwriters would know a lot about the practice of writing, but from the looks of it, all they know about their own craft is that it's difficult, and it involves a lot of staring at a blank screen or blank piece of paper in a typewriter - at least this film adds a little soul-searching to the process, but what gives? Maybe writers don't want to write about writers being successful, because that would give away their trade secrets about their process to everyone? And here comes the NITPICK POINT, why the HELL would the studio executive hire the one man who's never been in love to write a romantic comedy? If he wants to write the action movie, let him write that, but if you force a writer to write something he knows NOTHING about, no good can come of that.
And I have to point out one other positive, at least the movie that "HE" was trying to write over the course of this film didn't turn out to be "Playing It Cool", the movie that we, the audience ended up watching, that's just too meta - and it's impossible, yet I've seen several films attempt iterations of this logical fallacy, and it never lands. The "romantic comedy" that he writes ends up being "Love Is a Many Splintered Thing", about two people with multiple personalities and one of HIS personalities falls in love with one of HER personalities. Damn it, if that movie existed I'd probably watch it - too bad multiple personalities isn't a real affliction any more, now it's called dissociative identity disorder or something. They took a big chance on describing a film-within-the-film that sounds like it might have a better plot than "Playing It Cool" does.
I didn't really understand why the lead character's "heart" was represented by his evil twin in a suit and hat who follows him around, sits in the background, smokes and sometimes tap-dances. This was a weird tangent that never really went anywhere, even the strange fantasy sequences made more sense than this did. For that matter, I don't know why he imagined a crowd following him around San Francisco that disappeared as soon as the director realized how expensive crowd scenes are, that you have to pay every actor in them.
If I have to say something nice about this film, I thought the conversations between HE and HER were pretty funny, and therefore proving the point that if two people are laughing, they've got a shot at this crazy little thing called love. But anyone who thought that they could go on some "friend dates" without them turning into "date dates" has clearly never seen a rom-com before.
Also starring Chris Evans (last seen in "Sunshine"), Michelle Monaghan (last seen in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"), Topher Grace (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Aubrey Plaza (last seen in "The Little Hours"), Luke Wilson (last seen in "The Ridiculous 6"), Martin Starr (last seen in "Lemon"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "The Hate U Give"), Ioan Gruffudd (last seen in "San Andreas"), Philip Baker Hall (last seen in "Dogville"), Patrick Warburton (last seen in "Movie 43"), Peyton List, Kyle Mooney (last seen in "Hello, My Name Is Doris"), Sarah Dumont (last seen in "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse"), Matthew Morrison (last seen in "I Think I Love My Wife"), Ashley Tisdale, Scott Evans, Tony Cavalero, Abby Ryder Fortson (last seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp"), Fabianne Therese (last seen in "Frank and Cindy"), Jaeden Martell (last seen in "It"), Carmina Garay, Mikaela Hoover,
RATING: 4 out of 10 yoga poses
ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Otto Kruger, Sig Ruman, Paul Guilfoyle, Ben Johnson, Victor McLaglen, Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden, Peter Sellers, David Niven and Cantinflas.
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