BEFORE: Love in the Time of Corona, Day 5 - it's one month to go until the April 15 tax deadline, so that meant we had a meeting with our tax preparer, and got everything squared away - unfortunately, we got in the habit over the past couple of years of rewarding ourselves for getting our return in early, and that meant a trip to IHOP for some afternoon breakfast specials and pancakes. But the tide seems to have turned in the last couple of days, like on Friday we felt that we were doing the right thing by continuing to go to one of our usual Queens Friday night restaurants, and they seemed very happy to have our business. After all, WE'RE not sick, so what's the harm in dining out? But when we got to IHOP today, we had to wait to be seated, because the restaurant was apparently already at 50% capacity, and that's the new cut-off for making sure that gathering places are not crowded enough for viruses to spread between customers. However, it's a faulty system at best, because all of the people waiting for tables were in one small seating area by the door, and therefore we were all crowded together, which is exactly the situation that the new rules were established to avoid. I'm told something similar happened at U.S. airports this weekend, with people being forced to stand in long lines for hours, in very close proximity to each other, to be properly screened for the virus before being released back into the general population. Bad news, if any of the people in that huge waiting area had the virus, now it's possible that they ALL have it. So I have to wonder who created the new rules, and who didn't realize that bunching people together to test them would also force them to share the same air, and cough and sneeze all over each other? They might as well have passed out not enough bottles of water and told everyone to share.
Now I'm seeing a lot of people on Twitter complaining that while they're self-quarantining, they've also noticed that many people are still going out to bars and restaurants and (God forbid) having a good time. So by tomorrow this will probably be banned two, so without sports, theme parks, movies and now restaurants and bars, the remainder of March will officially be the most boring two weeks in all of human history, and I'm including the Ice Ages and the Dark Ages, when they didn't even have movies or TV. Hey, I've still got movies and TV, with no late-night talk shows I can maybe clear my TV-show DVR, even those episodes of "Food Paradise" and "Carnival Eats" I never have time to watch. Damn it, if they cancel all the fun things, they should probably cancel work too, right?
This time it's Diane Keaton carrying over from "Darling Companion", but Kevin Kline will be back for one more tomorrow when I FINALLY wrap up the romance/relationship chain for another year. That subject never really goes away, because every film is about relationships in some way, but soon I'll be done with rom-coms and such, and that's quite a relief.
THE PLOT: An upstart television producer accepts the challenge of reviving an struggling morning show with warring co-hosts.
AFTER: I rather enjoyed this one, even though I've never worked in news or for a major network of any kind. (I've thought about it recently, I mean, my boss isn't going to live forever, and I wouldn't mind making a competitive wage for the first time, so would I have what it takes to cut it in a TV station or network position? Not sure.).
The young, scrappy producer of "Good Morning New Jersey" thinks she's in line for a promotion, but then finds out that she's being sacked in favor of someone with more experience. Or more connections, it's tought to say. She picks herself, dusts herself off, and starts getting her resumé out there - pretty unbelievable, I think most people at this point would spend at least a few days wallowing in self-pity, sleeping late and eating cookies on the couch, am I right? (Wait, I do all of those things, and I HAVE a job. Must consider the meaning of this.). But Becky (with the not-so-good hair) persists, and gets a call from the IBS network, whose morning show is nationally syndicated, but getting killed in the ratings by "The Today Show" and the others. Becky's the latest in a long string of executive producers who have not been able to get the ratings up, or control the out-of-control team of hosts.
This came out in what year? 2010? And it sort of predated and predicted the whole sexual harassment purge at the network morning shows - the male lead anchor is blatant about his affinity for watching porn, ogling all the women in the office and offering to take artful photos - yeah, right - of their feet. Becky fires him straight away, which was not only the right move to make, it also demonstrated her authority and gave her some command over the rest of her staff. Good career advice here, like punching the biggest guy in the prison on your first day if you should get incarcerated. (Only don't really do this, it may only work in movies and you may get shanked instead.)
One downside to striking a blow against chauvinism and harassment in the workplace, though - now the "Daybreak" show needs a new co-host, and the network can't afford to hire one. But Becky remembers meeting her idol, a famously aggressive news reporter, in the elevator, and she finds out that he's under contract to IBS, but since he's got story approval and creative control, he's just riding out the last few years of his contract. Reading the fine print in his contract, though, brings Becky to realize that if he doesn't do SOMETHING for the network in a few months, they have the right to terminate him, so she wrangles him in for "Daybreak".
There's some precedence for this in the real world, of course - Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters were morning hosts before hosting the news show "20/20", and Jane Pauley and Katie Couric bounced back and forth between nightly news and morning shows. But we all know those are two very different animals, morning shows have cooking segments, interviews with movie stars and performances by pop stars, while the nightly news is "serious business". One starts many people's day and tries to hook them in for three or four hours, while the news tries to summarize everything you need to know and deliver it in 30 minutes - if not, I think it's free.
Naturally, things don't go well at first - the grizzled newsman is stone cold at first, too cool for school when it comes to witty banter and wacky weathermen. Plus there's a big dispute over which co-host gets to say goodbye, leading to some sign-offs that won't seem to end. (NITPICK POINT: can't the director just cut away from this? Apparently not...). Meanwhile Becky's life is full of long hours solving problems, booking guests and figuring out tomorrow's story focus, leaving no time for a personal life. So OF COURSE she meets a great guy working as a producer for the same network's news magazine, and after some initial bungling, it's established that he likes Becky, and Becky likes him back.
Only, how is this relationship going to work? She has to leave for work at like 3 am in order to be there by 4, to get everything ready for a show that goes on the air at 7. If her boyfriend works more conventional hours at the station, I don't know how they're ever going to get in sync with each other. And then even when they do, Becky's constantly distracted by breaking news stories and also everyone under her calling on her cell phone with problems. But what I like is that eventually some life advice comes from a very unlikely source, someone who lived that hectic "job comes first" life for many years, and found out that it leads to a very dark place. He might have a Pulitzer and several Emmys, but that grizzled newsman turns out to have regrets about distancing himself from his friends and family for so long.
I also liked that the advice between the older newsman and the younger producer becomes a two-way street - she learns to strike a balance between her career and her relationship, and he learns to loosen up, step out from behind the news desk, and cook some eggs in front of the camera. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Even though it's only to keep the producer from taking a better job at "The Today Show", it's still an encouraging sign of personal growth in a character, and I'll take it.
Unfortunately, there's only a bit of romance here, and nothing in this story about marriage, so I may have to remove it from the tournament, giving the edge to tomorrow's film. We'll see. One day left before I can get off of silly, mindless romance films and get back on some silly, mindless sci-fi or something. As for "Morning Glory", honestly it was a nice change to look back at a time where the morning shows were about things that were entertaining, and they weren't all about election news or updates on the virus. Those were good times, and who knows if they'll come around again.
Also starring Rachel McAdams (last seen in "Game Night"), Harrison Ford (last seen in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Patrick Wilson (last seen in "The Commuter"), John Pankow (last seen in "Bride Wars"), Jeff Goldblum (last seen in "Hotel Artemis"), Matt Malloy (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Ty Burrell (last seen in "In Good Company"), Patti D'Arbanville (last seen in "Happy Tears"), Adrian Martinez (last seen in "I Feel Pretty"), David Fonteno (last seen in "The Interpreter"), Steve Park (last seen in "Snowpiercer"), Jeff Hiller (last seen in "Set It Up"), J. Elaine Marcos, Bruce Altman (last seen in "Regarding Henry"), Jason Kravits (last seen in "The Stepford Wives"), Reed Birney, Welker White (last seen in "The Irishman"), Rizwan Manji (last seen in "Paterson"), Noah Bean, with cameos from Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Chris Matthews (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone"), Bob Schieffer (ditto), Morley Safer (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Arden Myrin (last seen in "What Women Want"), Maddie Corman (last seen in "Some Kind of Wonderful"), and archive footage of George Clooney (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Condoleezza Rice (ditto), Eva Longoria (last seen in "Overboard"),
RATING: 6 out of 10 tropical fruits on a platter
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