BEFORE: Nothing makes me happier than scheduling a film, to watch via iTunes or Hulu or even on an Academy screener, and assigning it a spot in the rotation, only to find as that date draws near that it's going to premiere on premium cable just a few days before. I'm happy not only because this saves me a few bucks or the need to remember to carry a DVD home from the office, but also because for a moment I believe that I have some kind of scheduling "sixth sense", like somehow I knew the universe wanted me to have full access to that film by that date, even though it's probably just a matter of coincidence - if nothing else, it's good to have back-up ways to watch each film, just in case the cable goes out or the DVD is scratched.
This just happened with "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood", which I had tentatively scheduled for March 29 - and now I just found out from seeing a promo that it will run on Starz beginning March 27, perfect for my timeline. The flip-side of this, though, is a film like "Yesterday", which premieres tonight on HBO, and I'd therefore scheduled it for March 24, right between other films with Kate McKinnon in them. This caused a problem, though, because even though it looks like a film I might enjoy, it wasn't originally part of the March plan, so to watch it I'd have to double-up again, or drop a film from the rest of the romance chain. And that's what I'd been planning to do, because I'm eager to get off this topic, but then I was debating back and forth over WHICH film to drop.
But hang on, before I ink in "Yesterday", I figured I should check the linking possibilities if I DON'T watch it in March - it turns out to have links to THREE different Christmas movies, which weren't linked to each other. Damn, I have to take that into consideration, because I don't want to be stuck at the end of the year with a bunch of Christmas movies, several slots left, and no way to link them. This one hurts, but I'm gonna have sit on "Yesterday" for a few months, until I can firm up my October and December plans. If another way to make those connections pops up I'll consider it, but right now the October chain's looking pretty solid - I have a lead-in to the horror chain and also a lead-out, but until I figure out how many films I need to program to get from there to Christmas movies, nothing's set in stone. If I keep over-packing my schedule now, then I could skip the whole month of November, link from the horror chain to "Parasite" and call the year over with no nod to Christmas, that's one way to go, but it's too early to tell if that will work.
But the end result of dropping "Yesterday" from March is that now I don't have to drop another film from the planned romance/relationship chain, I can just keep going and clear as many films from the category as possible. That means the chain's back to being a couple days longer, and the more films I include, the fewer linking possibilities I'll have next year, but so be it. There's plenty of time to find more films for next February, and October and December will be here first, so they take priority. And I lose any hope of putting a chain together with films about mental illness and calling that "March Madness", which is a fun idea I thought of that I never get the chance to program. C'est la vie.
For today, Topher Grace carries over from "Opening Night" - oh, and I shuffled the order around on the remaining romance films one last time, I swear, still ending in the same place though. I decided a gradual tapering off the romance topic was probably best, so as I get further into March the films sort of focus less and less on the topic (I think). I don't want to just suddenly stop, I'll get the thematic equivalent of "the bends".
THE PLOT: A middle-aged ad exec is faced with a new boss who's nearly half his age... and who also happens to be sleeping with his daughter.
AFTER: You can probably tell where I'm heading with this one, today's film was carefully programmed to link the Taye Diggs mini-chain with the Scarlett Johansson mini-chain. I'm headed to "Marriage Story", I just have to make one more little stop first, and then the real clean-up work will begin, courtesy of Mary Steenburgen, Ryan Reynolds, Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline. The theory is that the longer this topical chain goes, the easier it will be to link to 4/20 and then Mother's Day.
This one really isn't all about the romance, but it does have two perspectives on the topic - the lead character is in his 50's, married with two daughters, when he learns that his wife is pregnant again. Not too long after a corporate take-over and his demotion, he learns that his college-age daughter has started dating his new boss, who's recently divorced and closer to his daughter's age than his own. That's the premise, and ideally all the comedic situations are designed to cascade down from there. It more of a workplace comedy, therefore, than a romantic comedy - like I said, I'm sort of tapering off.
What does it mean to be 51 or 52 and have to re-start your career, or take a demotion in order to keep your job? When your new boss is half your age, knows nothing about good old-fashioned salesmanship, and suddenly takes over, telling you that your co-workers, the ones you hired years ago, now are being sacked? When the executives that HE'S trying to impress start talking about things like corporate synergy and meeting the new needs of a more connected world, strategic partnerships between your sports magazine and some sugary breakfast cereal. Increasing the ad space in the magazine to increase revenue, while also laying off staff to cut overhead.
Look, I feel this guy's pain, even though I don't have two daughters and one on the way, and I don't have any corporate overlords since I work for independent filmmakers - but I've had to deal with a lot of similar changes over the years. When I started out there was no internet, no digital filmmaking and no crowd-funding, it was a simpler time - you make your movie, get the film cans out to the festivals and hopefully make a distribution deal so that Lionsgate or whoever picks up the publicity costs, and you just wait for the money to come. It rarely worked out that way, but when it did, man, you were golden. But gradually everything changed, and I had to learn how to create a web-site, with a web-store, ship BluRays out direct to the fans and backers, instead of boxes of VHS tapes out to the video retailers. How to publicize our screenings on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and whatever's coming next. How to run a successful Kickstarter campaign, which can generate enough income to finish the film, even more than the distribution deals that might come when the film is sold. How to get the films on streaming sites, or at least Vimeo. How to get the films to the festivals on DCP, or by FTP, or Filemail in a pinch.
I've looked at life from both sides now, I was the young buck at 25 who thought he knew it all, then became the veteran at 51 who had to learn the hard way to never stop learning. For my latest trick I had to learn about grants and foundations to keep an animated feature in production - what are they, where are they, how do we find them, and what forms need to be filled out to qualify for them. Thankfully this process paid off before I had to start cold-calling people at foundations to ask them to donate - to me that's much too close to tele-marketing, the devil's business. I didn't go to film school to dial up random strangers and beg them for money. Can't we just run another Kickstarter campaign and keep our souls intact?
I bring this up because in any good boss/employee relationship, I feel like each party has something to learn from the other, and that's what ends up happening between Dan and Carter here. Dan learns that the world is constantly changing, including corporate strategies, and also new blood's always coming into the picture, with new ideas and new technology. Carter learns that sometimes the old ways are still good, there's no substitute for a face-to-face meeting with a new client, connecting on a personal level and treating employees with respect even when "letting them go", because you never know, you might need to hire them back. I've gone through something like this with my co-workers, who are now sometimes half my age, and I find that some of them I can work with, if they're willing to work with me. I'm able to impart my knowledge of running a Comic-Con booth if they want to hear it, but at the same time, the younger person may have some better ideas about what we should be selling, and how to publicize it. It turns out to be a two-way street in the end.
Now, the romance part - it's all about making this 50-year-old father's life as miserable as possible here, and the only thing worse than dealing with his daughter's first adult relationship is finding out the identity of her boyfriend, and now of course that fickle finger of fate (aka coincidence) dictates that it's the one person in the world that would drive him the absolute craziest. It's probably not good that the relationship developed without his knowledge, so that when he does find them together in a restaurant, he goes full-impact ballistic. To be fair, he had a right to know, but on the other hand, once in college she's considered an adult, and entitled to her own personal life. It's a tricky call, she's barely out of the nest, but if she's not allowed to make her own decisions and potential mistakes, then she's never going to learn.
On the point of acting ability, I'm not sure exactly when Ms. Johansson became a believable actress, I just know that this film was made before that point. Something's just...off here, like I can watch her in an "Avengers" movie and I can forget that she's an actor acting, she's just Black Widow. But here I was conscious at every single moment that this is an actress, saying lines, and, well, not saying them well. She just didn't speak clearly, like she didn't enunciate enough, yet still technically managed to blurt out every line. Did she have massive dental work at some point, did she get those lip injections that were all the rage at some point, or did she get horrible advice like "Never stop smiling at any point." Because you have to stop smiling in order to properly talk, and it just seems like she forgot that little point - I don't know what her deal was in 2004, post "Lost in Translation", but she just seems like she was not having a good time, uncomfortable in her own skin, and that made ME uncomfortable. Discuss. She played tennis well, but speaking lines just felt so unnatural, and to me the best actors are natural ones, so that you won't notice that they're acting. I guess that takes time for some people to achieve.
NITPICK POINT: In a basketball game between the corporate executives and the sales staff, would the sales staff really be trying THAT hard to win? Seems like a no-brainer to me - tank the game and let the executives have their moment, you'll be doing yourself a favor in the long run. I don't even WORK in a corporate job, and I know that much.
NITPICK POINT #2: The head of advertising sales personally packages up copies of the magazine to mail to potential clients? Doesn't he have a secretary or executive assistant that would do that?
Also starring Dennis Quaid (last seen in "Movie 43"), Scarlett Johansson (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far From Home"), Marg Helgenberger (last seen in "Mr. Brooks"), Clark Gregg (last seen in "Captain Marvel"), David Paymer (last seen in "Lemon"), Philip Baker Hall (last seen in "Playing It Cool"), Selma Blair (last seen in "The Sweetest Thing"), Ty Burrell (last seen in "Rough Night"), Frankie Faison (last seen in "Adam"), Amy Aquino (last seen in "The Singing Detective"), Kevin Chapman (last seen in "Two for the Money"), Lauren Tom (last heard in "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"), Colleen Camp (last seen in "She's Funny That Way"), Zena Grey, John Cho (last seen in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas"), Malcolm McDowell (last seen in "Filmworker").
RATING: 5 out of 10 furniture movers
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