BEFORE: I've simply got to slow down and add some more skip days, or I'll have to sit idle for a few days at the end of the month, and nobody wants that. Just 12 more films in September, and 16 (30 days has September...30 minus 14, yeah that's right) days to watch them. So at least one skip day this week, maybe two.
But this movie is an HBO original, which means it's Emmy-eligible, and the Emmys are coming up this weekend. Yep, for once I'm watching a film while it's still a contender, in the category of Outstandingng Television Movie, and also Hugh Jackman is up for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. Hey, I may watch the award show this weekend then, because after tonight I'll have seen one of the nominees!
Seriously, though, I don't want nearly as much TV as I used to, but there are a few nominated series this year that I HAVE seen, in what little free time remains after I watch all my movies. "Bad Education" will be the only TV movie I'll have seen, let's see - DAMN, this breakdown on Wikipedia is very confusing, because it's got all the "Creative Arts" Emmys on a separate page, and it looks like those are given out over four nights, starting with tonight? I don't get it.
But here are the Emmy-nominated shows that I HAVE seen: In the comedy category, "Schitt's Creek" and that's it. That's it? For drama series, "Stranger Things" and "The Mandalorian" - OK, I guess two is better than one. Limited series - "Watchmen", and that's all. Well, that was all I needed to watch. Competition program, I've seen "Top Chef" and "The Masked Singer", at least in the Variety Talk category I'm four for five, since I watch "The Daily Show", "Full Frontal", "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and "This Week Tonight with John Oliver" regularly. (Sorry, Jimmy Kimmel...)
My acting picks sort of echo what I've mentioned above - I wouldn't mind if Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Dan Levy and Annie Murphy made it a clean sweep for "Schitt's Creek" in the comedy category. (Yes, I've also seen "SNL", but I'm not as much of a fan of Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon.). But for drama series, I've seen NONE of the nominated performances for lead actor, lead actress, or supporting actor, only Thandie Newton for best supporting actress for "Westworld". (What, no nomination for Evan Rachel Wood?). For limited series or movie, it comes down to Jeremy Irons for "Watchmen" or Hugh Jackman for "Bad Education" in the lead actor category, Regina King for "Watchmen" in the lead actress category, THREE actors from "Watchmen" nominated for best supporting actor, and Jean Smart nominated for best supporting actress for "Watchmen".
So there you go, I'm Team Watchmen and Team Schitt's Creek - most of the other shows are alien to me. Sure, I've heard about "Ozark" and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel", and I'd love to catch up on "The Good Place" someday, but I just don't have that kind of time. I'm not going to watch "Better Call Saul" because I never watched "Breaking Bad" - look, if I had any extra time I'd buckle down and watch "Game of Thrones", but it's just not possible, I have a job. I can't watch the series "The Handmaid's Tale" or "What We Do in the Shadows" because they're based on movies I haven't seen, but are on my list, so maybe someday. That leaves "The Crown", "Big Little Lies", "Killing Eve", "Mrs. America", "Dead to Me", "Succession", "Hollywood", "Insecure", "Little Fires Everywhere" and "The Kominsky Method" - hmm, I've heard good things about all of them, but I'd need to be three people to watch all that TV!
Wait, there are also those Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, whatever that means. I'm still WAY behind the rest of the country on pop culture, but I do watch a couple of the shows that have been nominated in the "throwaway" categories - like "Shark Tank", "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" (almost done!), "A Very Brady Renovation" (not proud...), "Drunk History" in the Variety Sketch category, and three nominated documentary series or specials: "Tiger King", "McMillions" and "Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time". Then there are the animated programs: "The Simpsons" and "Bob's Burgers", also "Robot Chicken" in the short form category, and three comedy specials: "John Mulaney & the Sack Lunch Bunch", "Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill", and "Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones". Jeez, I've got a much better record of watching these "fringe" shows than I do for the main dramas and comedies! What does that say about me?
That's my Emmy preview, I'll tune in on Sunday to see if any of my shows won anything. For today, Jimmy Tatro carries over from "Stuber", and this is BACK TO SCHOOL movie #3 for 2020.
THE PLOT: The beloved superintendent of New York's Roslyn school district and his staff, friends and relatives become the prime suspects in the unfolding of the single largest public school embezzlement scandal in American history.
AFTER: This one's based on a true story, in the town of Roslyn on Long Island, it was discovered in 2004 that several of the school officials had been embezzling money from the district, though it's a little unclear from my initial research if those funds were connected to construction projects, as depicted in the film. But it is true that the story was first broken by a reporter for the school newspaper, which seems a little odd because as the film itself states, most often an article for the school newspaper would need to be approved not only by an editor but also the school principal, and other officials as well. "Bad Education" doubles down on this premise, suggesting that the superintendent would also have had to approve the article (which doesn't make sense, since the article would implicate him) and also depicts him at the start of the film encouraging that reporter to take risks, to treat every story like an opportunity, to turn that puff piece about the new school skywalk into something. Well, don't say he didn't ask for it... I figured from the start that this scene might turn out to be a bit overly ironic.
In real life, the reporter for the high-school paper was investigating the dismissal of a woman who had worked as an assistant superintendent and stole money two years earlier, but was allowed to resign her job without criminal charges. While researching this article, the reporter was told that she could not print that woman's name (but anybody up on the town gossip could probably figure it out) and sure enough, she did interview the superintendent, Frank Tassone, who eventually was charged as a co-conspirator on similar charges. So the film's account gets some of the details wrong, but is sort of tru-ish. (has truthiness?).
But knowing that the filmmakers perhaps changed some of the details makes it a bit hard to then figure out what's real and what's been changed for the sake of drama. Kudos for portraying a gay man whose orientation doesn't completely define his character, but then that's probably balanced by portraying a gay man as an embezzler and a liar, so I suppose that's a wash. One step forward and one step back for LGBTQ representation, I guess. Remember this is set back in 2004, it was a different time, I think, like there was no gay marriage, so it's possible that the portrayal of a closeted superintendent who wears a wedding ring as a dodge (he claims to be a widower, but is he?) might be somewhat accurate? Further revelations about his relationships also help to create this very nebulous, murky sort of character - but again, pre-gay marriage so maybe at the time it was common for a gay man to have a longtime live-in lover, but also something else on the side.
The theory proposed here is that these members of the superintendent's office and school board were allowed to cook the books for years because things were going well in the community - the high-school was getting ranked higher each year (umm, by whoever ranks high schools, not sure who that is) and more of its students were getting accepted into Ivy League schools. Therefore there was sort of a ripple effect where wealthier people were buying houses in that district so their kids could go to Roslyn High, and in turn, property values were going up, and that means everyone in town was doing well. If anyone were to burst that bubble and uncover the corruption connected to the school's improvements fund, their next budget wouldn't be improved, the school's ranking could go down, fewer students accepted into Brown or Dartmouth, and the next thing you know, the rich people are moving away. Hmm, I'm not sure about that last part, it sounds a lot like some of Trump's warnings about Joe Biden's America, where the suburbs are vast wastelands and gang members are moving in to the house next door to you.
In fact, there's a lot here that reminds me of Trump-like practices and current events. It's easy to draw a connection between Frank Tassone and our Commander in Cheeto, our "Orange Julius Caesar". In both cases, as staffers and assistants kept getting accused of crimes, both Tassone and Trump would disavow their actions and distance themselves, despite the fact that they probably ordered the wrongdoing to happen in the first place. How many Trump staffers were forced to resign or incarcerated at some point? Michael Cohen, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, just to name a few. Others had such short tenures (Scaramucci, H.R. McMaster) that it may lead you to believe they were asked very quickly to do something shady and took the first opportunity to resign instead. James Comey, Sebastian Gorka, Rex Tillerson - come on, they're all dirty but they somehow managed to get off the Titanic before the iceberg hit.
But let's just focus on Steve Bannon for a second - you knew this guy was six shades of corrupt when you first saw him, right? And now he's been arrested for pocketing large amounts of money from a fund that was raising money to build that border wall. That's not too different from taking money designed for school construction and building a back patio with it, right? All through the film, they keep talking about a "skywalk" - but what the hell is a skywalk? And why did the school need one, as a place to store their multiple pizza ovens? Oh, I had a good long laugh when Bannon got arrested on mail fraud and money laundering charges, I mean, what else can you expect from someone who was involved with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, then founded Breitbart News? The good news is that his trial won't start until 2021, so there's a good chance that Trump won't be still in office to pardon him. Things are already looking up for 2021.
The other thing I'm reminded of here is Frank Tassone giving that interview to a high-school reporter, and that leading to the news of his own corruption breaking. Let's see, who also recently gave an interview to a reporter, with that coming back to bite him in the ass? Right, it's Trump, who talked with Bob Woodward back in April about how he was trying to "downplay" the pandemic so that people wouldn't panic, instead of, you know, keeping the public properly informed or giving them the knowledge and equipment needed to save their lives. It's unconscionable to think that he held back time, effort and resources because it briefly looked like COVID-19 was only going to spread in big cities and blue states. The geography and math on this is akin to a Hitler-like "final solution" that would reduce the number of Democrats and secure him another term. I feel like we should maybe hold Bob Woodward responsible too, if he knew this back in April and didn't report it, but I suppose that if he had, without the weight of almost 200,000 dead U.S. citizens attached, it could have been waved off as "fake news" - or worse, spun just like the Republicans are spinning it now, like a country without panic is somehow better than a country with 200,000 more alive citizens in it. This latest scandal, which is like scandal number 1,000 and counting, just makes me want to vomit. And then vote.
So, bottom line, there are people in positions of power, whether that's at the federal, state or local level, who will put their personal needs ahead of the people they're supposed to be serving. Perhaps it's always been this way, perhaps it will always be this way. But we have to believe that eventually, the actions of those people will be exposed, and the damage will be tabulated and some form of penance or retribution will be enacted. Think about how many political scandals there have been in the last decade - were there really that many more corrupt politicians working their scams, or did journalists and investigators just get better at exposing and prosecuting them? Maybe it's a little of both, but that's my small glimmer of hope for today. "Sic semper tyrannis." - thus always to tyrants.
Also starring Hugh Jackman (last seen in "The Front Runner"), Allison Janney (last seen in "The Chumscrubber"), Geraldine Viswanathan, Alex Wolff (last seen in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle"), Rafael Casal, Stephen Spinella (last seen in "House of D"), Annaleigh Ashford (last seen in "Late Night"), Ray Romano (last seen in "The Irishman"), Stephanie Kurtzuba (ditto), Larry Romano (ditto), John Scurti (ditto), Steve Routman (ditto), Hari Dhillon, Jeremy Shamos (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Catherine Curtin, Kathrine Narducci (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Ray Abruzzo (last seen in "House of Sand and Fog"), Kayli Carter (last seen in "Private Life"), Pat Healy (last seen in "Velvet Buzzsaw"), Welker White (last seen in "Morning Glory"), Justin Swain (last seen in "The Post"), Victor Verhaeghe (last seen in "Time Out of Mind"), Peter Appel, Jorge Chapa (last seen in "The Wilde Wedding"), Jane Brockman.
RATING: 5 out of 10 first-class plane tickets
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