How to Be a Latin Lover

Year 12, Day 53 - 2/22/20 - Movie #3,455

BEFORE: Valentine's Day is in the rearview, but I've still got more films about romance and relationships to go - today's film is the halfway point, I think, and now I've got to work my way out of it.  Some of the upcoming films are more relationship-oriented than romance-based, but that's OK, that feels sort of appropriate if I want to make some kind of transition, I can't just suddenly stop on a dime and pivot over to an action film or a sci-fi horror film, you know?  Though I probably have in the past...

Eugenio Derbez carries over from "Overboard".  Anna Faris will be back in just a couple of days.

Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, Keenan Wynn links from "Kind Lady" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links?  Answers below.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 23)
6:15 am "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950) with _____________ linking to:
8:30 am "The Perils of Pauline" (1947) with _____________ linking to:
10:15 am "Wee Willie Winkie" (1937) with _____________ linking to:
12:00 pm "The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer" (1947) with _____________ linking to:
1:45 pm "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 pm "Suspicion" (1941) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 pm "Ivanhoe" (1952) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "Waterloo Bridge" (1940) with _____________ linking to:
10:00 pm "Gone With the Wind" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
2:00 am "Mogambo" (1953) with _____________ linking to:
4:15 am "Knights of the Round Table" (1953)

Wow, they sure went to a lot of trouble just to get "Gone With the Wind" to air during prime-time.  I guess that was worth it?  I'm hitting for another  5 tomorrow: "Annie Get Your Gun", "The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer", "Suspicion", "Gone With the Wind", and "Knights of the Round Table" (which I watched last year on my King Arthur jag).  So I'm up to 92 out of 266, or 34.5%, and I feel that may be my high score for the whole month, because I'm pulling a goose egg the next day - looks like I'll be limping to the finish line during the last week.

THE PLOT: Finding himself dumped after 25 years of marriage, a man who made a career of seducing rich older women must move in with his estranged sister, where he begins to learn the value of family.

AFTER: Again, I'm really out of my depth here, I have no firsthand knowledge of Latino culture - having characters speak Spanish for half of the movie is not a problem for me, because I tend to keep the captions on all the time these days, even during movies in English, so reading subtitles is no big deal.  And thankfully somebody smart worked things out so that when characters start speaking in Spanish and the English subtitles come up, the English captions toggle off, which is great because nobody wants to see one set of captions blocking another, or worse, to have two sets of captions at the same time that say slightly different things.

I was expecting much worse out of this plot, which is basically about Maximo, a Mexican himbo who, as a young man, targeted the richest, oldest American woman he could find, had sex with her and moved to America as her husband, so he could be rich in America without working hard at all, as long as he stayed with his rich wife and satisfies her.  Thankfully, the plot takes a twist after he's been with this wife for 25 years, basically waiting for her to die, only she takes up with a younger man and he's out of the picture because he signed a pre-nup.  It's a very interesting gender-flip of the stereotypical situation of an older rich man dumping his faithful wife so he can be with a younger woman.  Only when you flip it around, what happens to the slightly older husband, who no longer has a place to live, or a meal ticket?

Maximo's an interesting character because he has no clue how the world works - how to get a job, how to pay for things, how to cook or eat dinner like a normal person.  So it's a classic fish-out-of-water idea, but in a way that I've never seen before.  Umm, except for the fact that this actor played nearly the same character yesterday in "Overboard", only he was a rich person with amnesia.  This time he's very conscious of the fact that he once HAD money, a mansion, servants taking care of him, and now it's gone.  He tries crashing with his best friend (also a rich woman's boy-toy) by sleeping in a little girl's playhouse - which is a tiny mansion and bigger than most NYC apartments - only that goes badly when the little girl finds him there.  He's then forced to track down his sister, who he hasn't seen in 20 years, and try to stay with her.

He meets his 10-year-old nephew, Hugo, and tries to teach him how to talk to girls.  (Hey, I wish I'd known someone like that, I couldn't talk to girls until I was 19 or 20.).  He gets into a lot of trouble with his sister, like earning money by having wrap-around ads placed on her car, then gets into more trouble when his sister makes him remove the ads, and the guys who paid him want their money back.  He targets an older rich woman with a dead husband - coincidentally the grandmother of the girl that his nephew likes - and things don't go as planned there, either.  On one level this is all pretty standard "things spiral out of control" stuff, but the interplay between Maximo, his sister and his nephew is thankfully charming enough to help me forgive a lot.  Other characters are so over-the-top that they're essentially live-action cartoon characters, like the tough-guy car ad guys or the yogurt-store manager who rescues stray cats.

I may have an issue with the ending, because if you want to gauge Maximo's personal growth through the movie as some kind of learning experience, the way things get settled at the end doesn't really demonstrate that he's learned very much along the way, other than the importance of being with family.  Other than that, the solution to everyone's problems is a bit too pat, and involves returning to his old habits, rather than any positive development or change.  But it's not a film to be taken that seriously, I suppose.

Also starring Salma Hayek (last seen in "Tale of Tales"), Raphael Alejandro, Rob Lowe (last seen in "Super Troopers 2"), Kristen Bell (last heard in "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies"), Raquel Welch (last seen in "100 Rifles"), Linda Lavin (last seen in "The Intern"), Renee Taylor (last seen in "The Do-Over"), Rob Riggle (last seen in "Killers"), Rob Huebel (last seen in "Baywatch"), Rob Corddry (last seen in "Shimmer Lake"), McKenna Grace (last seen in "Captain Marvel"), Mather Zickel (last seen in "Suburbicon"), Michaela Watkins (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), Michael Cera (last seen in "Lemon"), Ben Schwartz (last seen in "Everybody's Fine"), Jeffrey Scott Basham, Omar Chaparro (also carrying over from "Overboard"), Noel Calabaza, Vadhir Derbez, Manelly Zepeda, Jose Eduardo Derbez, with a cameo from "Weird Al" Yankovic (last seen in "Tapeheads").

RATING: 5 out of 10 hoverboards

ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Betty Hutton, Constance Collier, Shirley Temple, Harry Davenport, Cedric Hardwicke, Joan Fontaine, Robert Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Ava Gardner.

Overboard (2018)

Year 12, Day 52 - 2/21/20 - Movie #3,454

BEFORE: Anna Faris carries over from "What's Your Number?"  And I sincerely hope that yesterday's film represents the low point in the romance chain, where quality and ratings are concerned.  It sort of feels like there's nowhere to go from there but up, right? Here's hoping.

Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, Tommy Rall links from "Pennies From Heaven" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links?  Answers below.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 22)
6:15 am "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 am "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) with _____________ linking to:
10:00 am "The Green Years" (1946) with _____________ linking to:
12:15 pm "The Southerner" (1945) with _____________ linking to:
2:00 pm "Three Little Words" (1950) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 pm "Kisses For My President" (1964) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 pm "Baby Doll" (1956) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "How the West Was Won" (1962) with _____________ linking to:
11:00 pm "The Gunfighter" (1950) with _____________ linking to:
12:45 am "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) with _____________ linking to:
3:00 am "Planet of the Apes" (1968) with _____________ linking to:
5:00 am "Kind Lady" (1951)

Ah, my decisions in past Februarys to watch chains featuring Fred Astaire and Howard Keel are still paying off. (Those actors are not among today's links, though.). But I've seen five of today's twelve: "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "Witness for the Prosecution", "Three Little Words", "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Planet of the Apes".  Linking by actor sure makes for some strange bedfellows, right, TCM?  Anyway, I'm up to 87 seen out of 255, or 34.1%.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Overboard" (1987) (Movie #3,143)

THE PLOT: After a spoiled wealthy yacht owner is thrown overboard and loses his memory, a mistreated employee convinces him that he is her working-class husband.

AFTER:  I admit I was a little skeptical about remaking "Overboard", the Garry Marshall-directed film from 1987.  Despite the fact that we all knew that Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell were together as a couple in real life, the film's seemed a little off, with a working-class man taking advantage of a rich woman with (convenient movie) amnesia, and by tricking her into thinking she was his wife and the mother of three boys.  Because at the end of the day, there was kidnapping involved, a type of brainwashing and then when she sort of fell for him, that was still a bit rapey.

But then I found out that the 2018 remake (reboot?) with a similar plot did a whole gender-flip thing, and now the story is about a working-class single MOTHER taking advantage of a rich MAN'S amnesia, and that feels a little...well, better I guess.  Down with the patriarchy, right?  And let's give a shout-out to the single mothers out there working two minimum-wage jobs while also putting themselves through school... Now, there's still a bit of an issue because the amnesiac man falls for the woman who he believes is his wife, and they end up sleeping together, so there's still that small matter of torture, brainwashing and rape.  But you never hear much about women raping men, right? Sometimes you hear about female teachers sleeping with high-school students, but I have to wonder how many of those incidents are never reported, when male students don't want to ruin a good thing...

There's also a heavy Latin flair to this film, which is also in touch with the times - the man who falls off the yacht is the son of a Mexican billionaire, who's never really worked a day in his life, and treats everyone around him like his servants.  There's also a heavy Latino population in Elk Grove now, not-so-coincidentally the same Oregon town where the original film was set - so though they share no characters in common, there's a wink at the audience to let them know the two films are set in the same fictional universe.

The amnesiac son, Leonardo, also has a sister who wants to run their father's company - so that explains why his absence from the yacht is not properly investigated, when she finds him in the hospital, she claims that man is not her brother, then uses the opportunity to tell her family that he was eaten by a shark, eliminating the competition to inherit their father's holdings.  Meanwhile, Kate Sullivan, the woman who was hired to clean his carpets but was fired without being paid, comes up with a scheme to torture him by making Leonardo think that he's her husband, and he does all the chores around the house and does back-breaking work for a construction company.  Well, OK, her friend comes up with the idea, Kate's not really smart enough to think this up on her own.  (Why does Anna Faris always play the dumbest character in every movie that she's in?  Hmmmm...)

The whole scheme, including the amnesia, feels like something out of a telenovela, which it sort of is.  Kate's friend was partially inspired by the story from a Spanish soap opera, so that links rather elegantly back to the Latino culture thing.  And there's such a vast discrepancy between Mexican billionaires, like Carlos Slim, and Mexican immigrants doing day-laborer work in the U.S., that chasm is just perfect for a fish-out-of-water comedy like this.

I know, I know, real memory loss doesn't work like it does in the movies.  But here at least it's all in the name of comedy, and it's funny to see a rich a-hole taken down a peg and forced to haul bags of concrete mix at a construction site.  And it's way too slapstick-y too, with Leonardo trying to cook and ending up spilling spaghetti sauce all over himself, then falling on the floor.  But if you can look beyond all that, there's some good stick-it-to-the-man humor in the situation here.  But the acting is WAY over the top, the same kind of over-emoting that you expect from a telenovela, and all that just doesn't belong.

Plus the message is still weird - if you want a man that doesn't act like a pig and will agree to do chores around the house, just pick a random one and drop him in the ocean, umm, OK?

Also starring Eugenio Derbez (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Eva Longoria (last seen in "In a World..."), John Hannah (last seen in "The Words"), Swoosie Kurtz (last seen in "Against All Odds"), Mel Rodriguez, Hannah Nordberg, Alyvia Alyn Lind, Payton Lepinski, Fernando Lujan, Cecilia Suarez (last seen in "Spanglish"), Mariana Trevino, Josh Segarra (last seen in "The Music Never Stopped"), Jesus Ochoa (last seen in "Quantum of Solace"), Omar Chaparro, Adrian Uribe, Javier Lacroix (last seen in "The Predator"), Garry Chalk (ditto), Edgar Vivar (last seen in "Bandidas"), Per Graffman, Eric Keenleyside (last seen in "1922").

RATING: 6 out of 10 life-jackets

ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Ruta Lee, Norma Varden, Norman Lloyd, Paul Harvey, Arlene Dahl, Eli Wallach, Carroll Baker, Gregory Peck, Karl Malden, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans.

What's Your Number?

Year 12, Day 51 - 2/20/20 - Movie #3,453

BEFORE: Chris Evans carries over again from "Before We Go".

Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Crawford links from "Torch Song" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links?  Answers below.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 21)
6:00 am "Grand Hotel" (1932) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 am "Suzy" (1936) with _____________ linking to:
10:00 am "Libeled Lady" (1936) with _____________ linking to:
12:00 pm "It Happened One Night" (1934) with _____________ linking to:
2:00 pm "Drums Along the Mohawk" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 pm "Jezebel" (1938) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 pm "The Children's Hour" (1961) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "Terms of Endearment" (1983) with _____________ linking to:
10:30 pm "The Hours" (2002) with _____________ linking to:
12:45 am "Manhattan" (1979) with _____________ linking to:
2:30 am "My Favorite Year" (1982) with _____________ linking to:
4:15 am "Pennies From Heaven" (1981)

Wow, look at TCM, really spanning the timeline tomorrow, there's a 70-year difference between the oldest movie and the most recent - and showing a film from THIS millennium, that's unusual for them, but hey, good get. I've seen a whopping 8 of these: "Grand Hotel", "It Happened One Night", "The Children's Hour", "Terms of Endearment", 'The Hours", "Manhattan", "My Favorite Year" and "Pennies from Heaven" so I'll be having a good day, now with 82 of 243 seen I'm up to 33.7%

THE PLOT: A woman looks back at the past nineteen men she's had relationships with in her life and wonders if one of them might be her true love.

AFTER: Oh, boy, I don't even know where to start with this one.  First off, I'm just about to the halfway point in the romance chain, and I feel very much like each screenplay, though technically different from the last, got its start by some screenwriter filling in a sort of "Mad Libs" form.  In other words, there's definitely a formula for most Hollywood rom-coms, they just change a couple little details here and there and hope that nobody notices how much it's like the last one they saw.  First is the writer/musician thing, and today I'm back on musicians (Chris Evans played trumpet in the last film, here he plays guitar in a band).  Meanwhile the lead female character is in "marketing", whatever that means, but loses her job very early in the film, which frees her up for the mate search, when she really should be doing a new job search.

But here's the formula, at least for the three Chris Evans films, and probably many others like them - two people meet by basically random chance (in Grand Central, at a party or because they live in the same building) and have to work together to solve a problem (getting the woman home, or saving the tree frogs or here, tracking down her old exes) but even though there's some conflict, working ont he problem and spending time together brings them both to realize that the perfect person MIGHT be right next to them.  Sure, that's a little pat and it sounds like almost any movie, but it's a pattern for sure and I've already grown tired of it.

The films have also been bouncing back and forth between NYC and L.A., tonight's film is set in Boston, which is a welcome change.  (Ally also visits a couple other cities in her quest for Mr. Right, even though she says at the start that she will only travel by car, not plane, then proceeds to break her own rules for no good reason.)  I recently learned (via that Super Bowl commercial he did) that Chris Evans, Mr. Captain America, grew up in Boston.  He, John Krasinski and Rachel Dratch all did their best authentic Boston accents in a Hyundai commercial for the "Smart Park" (aka "Smaht Pahk") feature.  (Sample line: Did you pahk in Dahchester, or by the hahbah?  Genius stuff.)  Anyway, it was great to see the old Red Line T train in a movie, and people jumping into Boston Harbor for fun (you couldn't do that when I was a kid, the pollution was much worse back then.)

But the crux of the film concerns Ally's dating history, how she's dated a bunch of terrible guys over the years, and then finds out via a magazine article that the average person has had 10.5 sexual partners, and after making a list, she realizes that she's nearly double that.  But there's an appalling lack of understanding here about how math works, specifically averages, or "means".  (Let's assume that the magazine article knows the difference between "means" and "medians", but I doubt that Ally does...).  For the average to be 10.5, that means there HAVE to be people surveyed with lower numbers, and others with higher numbers - and some could be very higher, and some just a little higher.  So, what's the big deal?  She is where she is on the curve, there's no need for slut-shaming when it comes to math.  I don't think the magazine even took task with people's numbers, so it appears that in this film, Ally sort of slut-shames herself, which isn't helping the cause of feminism.  Did she not get the memo that it's OK for women to be sexual beings, with multiple partners over time?  Why stay shackled to the mental constructs of the past when they don't apply any more?

Anyway, for whatever reason, dum-dum self-slut shaming Ally figures that her number is way too high, and that she won't sleep with another man until she's found "the one".  I guess this makes sense, although it's not a very logical progression - neither is the inspiration that one of her previous sexual partners might have straightened his life out, and over time could have become a better partner for her NOW than he was at the time.  Supposedly one of her previous partners, "Disgusting Donald" got himself thin and cleaned up, so therefore hope springs eternal for the rest of the loser brigade.  If you follow the logic here, she could marry one of these past partners, or hook up with him, without adding to her overall total and pushing her number into the (very arbitrary) danger zone, which is 21, by her count.

And so she enlists the help of her neighbor, because Googling her exes is too much work (all of their names are common ones) and she's not very good at navigating Facebook either, not without falling asleep (?) and just by coincidence, her neighbor is an expert at tracking people down because he comes from a "cop family" (umm, my father was a truck driver, does that mean I should know how to drive a tractor-trailer? Because that's not how things work.)  Also, quite conveniently, he's something of a notorious "ladies man" and also needs a place to hide in the morning, after a date, which is a not-so-subtle way of telling his sexual partners to GTFO.  Very not classy. 

So let's be clear, a woman sleeping with double-digit partners over the course of years, not OK.  But cyber-stalking her exes?  Somehow THAT'S OK?  And the man across the hall having HUNDREDS of sex partners in the same time-frame, that's OK too?  If slut-shaming is enforced, it needs to be enforced on both genders equally, if you ask me.  These two failure piles deserve each other, so that's one more sign that this is where the plot is going to be heading in the end.  But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

One of Ally's exes is from the richest family in the Boston area, another is a gynecologist in Florida, and yet another is a senatorial aide in Washington D.C. with eyes on being the next Barack Obama.  This is where Ally goes traveling, and eliminates the men in Florida and DC for various reasons that I won't get into here.  It's nice, though, that the guy in D.C. was African-American and THAT was not the reason that she couldn't get back together with him.  Kudos, umm, I guess?  It's too bad Ally was so particular about her potential partner's proclivities, maybe she could have become first lady?  That could have had some nice benefits. 

Anyway, they sort of save the "least worst" guy for last, when she finally connects with the rich guy from the family in Boston.  This man ticks off all the boxes, even goes with Ally to her sister's wedding, and he's a big hit - with Ally's mother.  This forces a tough decision, does she want to be with the man that will make her mother happy, or the guy that will make HER happy?  This is probably the only thing close to a reasonable, logical argument that the film ever gets around to making.

Yep, the "perfect" guy for her is the one she's been hanging around with for the whole movie, who helped her track down all the OTHER, less-perfect guys.  Only I learned in yesterday's movie that there's no such thing as a perfect mate, it's always going to be a struggle, it only matters who you want to spend time struggling with.  So I guess we sort of ended up with a similar lesson here, when Ally ultimately realizes that she wants to struggle with the guy who is also the best friend, and thankfully he's an even bigger slut than she is.  Wow, that's a weird message to send out to the kids.  Hey, teens, just look for somebody who's more messed-up than you are, then all your sins will be forgiven!

Plus, it's OK to steal somebody's car or bicycle if you need to race across town to find out which wedding somebody you care for is at?  NITPICK POINT, that's another bad message.  Grand theft auto is FINE if it's done in the name of love, apparently.

Also starring Anna Faris (last seen in "Movie 43"), Ari Graynor (last seen in "The Front Runner"), Blythe Danner (last seen in "Sylvia"), Ed Begley Jr. (last seen in "Streets of Fire"), Oliver Jackson-Cohen (last seen in "The Raven"), Dave Annable, Heather Burns (last seen in "You've Got Mail"), Eliza Coupe (last seen in "I Think I Love My Wife"), Tika Sumpter (last seen in "The Old Man & The Gun"), Joel McHale (last seen in "The Happytime Murders"), Chris Pratt (last seen in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"), Denise Vasi, Zachary Quinto (last seen in "Hotel Artemis"), Mike Vogel (last seen in "Rumor Has It..."), Martin Freeman (last seen in "Black Panther"), Andy Samberg (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), Thomas Lennon (last seen in "Pottersville"), Anthony Mackie (last seen in "Playing It Cool"), Ivana Milicevic (last seen in "Aloha"), Jason Bowen, Tyler Peck, Kate Simses, Sondra James (last seen in "Joker"), Nadine Jacobsen (last seen in "Perfect Stranger"), Colby Parsons, with the voice of Aziz Ansari (last seen in "This Is the End").

RATING: 3 out of 10 booked-up harpists

ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Lewis Stone, Jean Harlow, Walter Connolly, Claudette Colbert, Henry Fonda, Fay Bainter, Shirley MacLaine, Jeff Daniels, Meryl Streep, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper.

Before We Go

Year 12, Day 50 - 2/19/20 - Movie #3,452

BEFORE: Chris Evans carries over from "Playing It Cool".  A side-effect of the final February re-organization was being able to put three Chris Evans films next to each other, as they should be.  Some other actors weren't so lucky during this year's romance chain, I had to split up the Martin Starrs and the Owen Wilsons and a few others - but it will all come out in the wash by the end of the year, and it's worth it if that means a stronger romance chain in the end, right?  One that includes "Some Kind of Wonderful" and "Grace of My Heart", which both fit in with the theme, and I also got to postpone a few films that didn't seem to fit.  It's a win all around, I realize, as I approach the middle of the scheduled films on this topic - I'll let you know when I'm at the creamy caramel center, though I think there may be a little cayenne pepper hidden in the center of this chocolate bon-bon.

This is another one that I missed on Netflix, and I think I missed it on Hulu too, but I'm catching it on Tubi.  I realize there's always iTunes, which makes for a great safety net, but Tubi films are free, no rental fee or subscription fee, just a couple random ads during the film.  I know it's annoying, but whatever saves me $2.99 at this point that also keeps the chain alive is worth doing.

Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, Shirley Jones links from "Pepe" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links?  Answers below.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 20)
6:00 am "The Music Man" (1962) with _____________ linking to:
8:45 am "Tulsa" (1949) with _____________ linking to:
10:30 am "Smash Up: The Story of a Woman" (1947) with _____________ linking to:
12:15 pm "Experiment Perilous" (1944) with _____________ linking to:
2:00 pm "Algiers" (1938) with _____________ linking to:
3:45 pm "After the Thin Man" (1936) with _____________ linking to:
5:45 pm "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "The Talk of the Town" (1942) with _____________ linking to:
10:15 pm "My Favorite Wife" (1940) with _____________ linking to:
12:00 am "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1942) with _____________ linking to:
2:15 am "Too Young to Kiss" (1951) with _____________ linking to:
4:15 am "Torch Song" (1953)

Another 5 films tomorrow that I've seen: "The Music Man", "After the Thin Man", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", "The Talk of the Town" and "My Favorite Wife".  After the romance chain in 2015, I watched a whole chain of films starring link #8, glad to see that paying off. Anyway, 74 seen out of 231 brings me up to 32%.

THE PLOT: Two strangers stuck in Manhattan for the night grow into each other's most trusted confidants when an evening of unexpected adventure forces them to confront their fears and take control of their lives.

AFTER: If you're not that familiar with New York, it might seem unlikely that two different people independently could be "stuck" there, actually only one is truly stranded, with her phone broken and having missed her train out of Grand Central, she's really kind of screwed.  It turns out her bag was also stolen, so she can't get a hotel room or a cab out of town, with no credit card or bank card she might as well be stranded on a deserted island (that's right, I said "deserted", not "desert", because you can't survive more than a few days on a desert island, so it's not really the right term for a place to be stranded, despite being stuck in the common parlance as a phrase.).  Let's not forget that Manhattan IS an island, and it costs money to enter it, and it costs money to leave - really, they get you coming and going, don't they?

But it's a bit of a NITPICK POINT here that they depict both Grand Central Terminal (that's right, "Terminal", not Grand Central "Station", that's also incorrect...) and Penn Station shutting down for the night.  I'm not sure this is what happens - isn't New York the city that never sleeps, or completely shuts down?  I've been at Penn Station to catch that red-eye train, and I don't remember being kicked out by the staff - I remember all of the restaurants shutting down, so I had to cross the street and eat an overnight meal at (shudder) Sbarro's one time.  But then I think I went back to the waiting area in Penn Station, where they will let you sit or even lie down (if you dare) while you wait to board that 5 am train.

Ah, OK, I just Googled "When does Grand Central close" and it turns out that the whole place DOES shut down each morning at 2 am, and re-opens at 5:30 am.  Makes sense, they probably need some time to disinfect everything and perform basic maintenance on the place without millions of commuters getting in the way.  But by contrast, Penn Station and the Port Authority Bus Terminal are open 24 hours, so the movie is partially right, but so am I.  I will concede that she could not have caught another train to New Haven out of Grand Central, but instead of doing what they did in this film, they could have walked across town the short way to Port Authority, and she probably could have caught a bus.  So my NITPICK POINT stands, with a slight alteration.

But then, we wouldn't really have the same movie, would we?  Together these two people, clueless on how to get her out of town with little money and no I.D., have ample time to get to know each other, learn each other's strengths and weaknesses, and become the type of people that would offer the proper encouragement to the other to get them to do that thing that they're so afraid of doing, the thing that is holding each one of them back from moving forward.  (Again, I hate to harp on this, but buses are usually cheaper than trains, so they probably could have scraped together some bus fare for her, and that means movie over, no personal connection made.  Curse me for wanting to solve the immediate problem in the quickest and most efficient manner.)

Also, I'll let you in on a little-known secret about Manhattan - nobody really lives there.  I know what you've seen in movies and on TV, there are hundreds, if not thousands of buildings in that borough, how could nobody live there?  It's all a giant real-estate scam.  Oh, people USED to live in Manhattan, and millions of people work there every day in various office buildings, stores, restaurants, movie theaters, etc. but all those greedy landlords and real-estate companies kept raising the rents and forced everyone out, except for a few billionaires, who each bought up like a whole block's worth of buildings and took out all the interior walls, so that each long row of buildings you see on a Manhattan block is just ONE big building that looks like a dozen non-connected buildings.  But inside each giant mega-building is just enough room for one billionaire, his family and maybe a few friends.  High-rise apartment buildings?  Same deal - each one holds ONE billionaire and he (or she, let's be fair) needs all those different floors to store all their stuff - billionaires have a lot of stuff, see?  How many times have you seen a TV sitcom set in Manhattan, and the apartment looks impossibly huge and you think, that can't be right, Manhattan apartments are all tiny and the bathtub is in the kitchen, or there's a Murphy bed that turns into a dining room table to save space.  The TV shows actually get this right, the Manhattan apartments are very big, the only thing wrong with the scenarios on TV is the income level of the people who live in the apartment.  All the middle-class and poorer people moved out to Brooklyn or up to the Bronx years ago, didn't they?

But let's get back to the issue that kicks off the film - helping out a stranger.  Not all superheroes wear capes, and of course Captain America is one of those heroes.  Sorry, "Steve Rogers" is actually going by the name of "Nick" in this film, and you can tell he's not a true New Yorker because he picks up the pieces of a woman's broken cel phone as she's running for a train, and he follows her to give her those pieces.  Then he offers her money for a cab out of town after Grand Central closes - only the cabbie wants $1000 to drive her to New Haven (or is it Boston? the story keeps changing - for that matter, after they've established that she needs to go to New Haven, nobody seems able to determine if New Haven is in Connecticut or Massachusetts.  Umm, it's Connecticut, why wouldn't she know that if she lives there?)  Taking a cab to Connecticut is a TERRIBLE IDEA, and nobody does that.  I remember there was an elderly couple years ago that hired a NYC cab to take them to Colorado or something, and it cost them thousands of dollars, and they had to pay for 2 hotel rooms everywhere in-between, one for them and one for the cabbie.  Again, nobody else ever does this.

When she rebuffs all of his efforts to help her, which again, is atypical for New Yorkers, he follows her anyway, helps her out of a jam when she's cornered by street ruffians, then looks after her for the night, trying to raise $500 bucks so she can get out of town, also trying to get her stolen Prada bag back from the Chinatown fence who's selling it.  Jesus, I'm good for helping somebody with directions in NYC, or telling someone a good place to eat BBQ, but this is really above and beyond the call of duty.  Turns out that Nick has a hidden agenda, he'd rather do anything than attend an engagement party where he's likely to run into his ex-girlfriend.  Geez, when you see someone playing trumpet in a subway station, you may not realize what an interesting back-story they could have.

You can probably guess where this all is headed - over the course of a crazy night in Manhattan, they get to know each other well, stop hiding behind fake names, and offer up advice to each other - in some quirky turn of coincidence each one might speak the proper advice that the other one needs to hear, and if Brooke can get Nick to confront his ex before his audition, and Nick can influence Brooke to deal with her stagnant relationship, then where do you suppose that leaves the two of them?  Single and ready to mingle, after shaking off the emotional shackles of their pasts, anyway.

In some ways, Hollywood just never stopped remaking "When Harry Met Sally", I'm disappointed to learn.  By that, I mean that any film where two people get together, become friends and have to watch the other person get hurt by others, and then come together as a couple in the emotional fallout of their doomed relationships, that reminds me of that Billy Crystal-Meg Ryan thing.  The elevator pitch for "Before We Go" was probably "It's like 'When Harry Met Sally', but it all takes place in one night."  And that pitch could get somebody's attention.  Or maybe this is the NYC version of "Before Midnight" - then for good measure, they borrowed a bit of "The Blues Brothers" as Nick and Brooke pretend to be the band hired for a party, in an attempt to raise a quick $500.

I think I'll be a little kind with my rating tonight, because a lot of this feels like it could happen, there's something that rings semi-true about it, except for that confusion over the train station stuff.  When both parties need to consciously decide to put the past behind them and move on, they get some free relationship advice from a psychic who is also a widower, and his message is that no relationship is perfect, it's always going to be a struggle, but you can choose who you want to fight those battles with - and preferably you'll be fighting battles WITH your partner, and not AGAINST.  To some extent, that can be a conscious choice, but it all comes down to the personalities involved.  As a comedian once said, you and your partner don't need to like all the same things, but you at least need to hate some of the same things, especially if it's going to be the two of you against the world.

There are some parts that are WAY too cutesy, like the lead characters using old payphones to pretend to call the past and deliver advice to their younger selves - but there's still a lot of good material here, especially for viewers who may feel bogged down by the past and unable to move forward.  There's also a lot of stuff that wasn't spelled out, like why was Brooke in New York specifically?  And what was written on the other side of the hotel comment card?  But I guess some mystery gets preserved that way, and we don't need to know everything.

Catch this one on Tubi if you can - it's FREE, so why wouldn't you?  Anyway, the film cost $3 million to make and didn't break half a million at the box office, and that's probably why it's on Tubi.  But show it some love and help spread the word about it, that's what I'm doing.

Also starring Alice Eve (last seen in "Criminal"), Emma Fitzpatrick (last seen in "The Social Network"), Mark Kassen (last seen in "Jobs"), Daniel Spink, Elijah Moreland, John Cullum (last seen in "The Conspirator"), Scott Evans (also carrying over from "Playing It Cool"), Kevin Carolan (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"), Fenton Lawless.

RATING: 6 out of 10 cups of diner coffee

ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Robert Preston, Susan Hayward, Carl Esmond, Hedy Lamar, Josepha Calleia, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Van Johnson, Gig Young.

Playing It Cool

Year 12, Day 49 - 2/18/20 - Movie #3,451

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.

Dreamland (2016)

Year 12, Day 48 - 2/17/20 - Movie #3,450

BEFORE: Musicians in relationships has become sort of a running theme this February here at the Movie Year - "Save the Date" and "Happy Endings" featured people currently in rock bands and "Frank and Cindy" had an ex-rocker, then "Grace of My Heart" told the story of a singer/songwriter and "Some Kind of Wonderful" had a high-school drummer in it, and a drummer is almost like a musician.  Musicians are probably tied with writers this month ("Private Life", "Long Shot", "Professor Marston and the Wonder Women", maybe "Love Happens") but I've still got a long way to go in the romance chain.

Johnny Simmons carries over from "Frank and Cindy".

Tomorrow on Turner Classic Movies, George Arliss links from "The Green Goddess" to the day's first film, can you fill in the other links?  Answers below.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 18)
7:15 am "Disraeli" (1929) with _____________ linking to:
8:45 am "Raffles" (1930) with _____________ linking to:
10:00 am "The Prisoner of Zenda" (1937) with _____________ linking to:
12:00 pm "49th Parallel" (1941) with _____________ linking to:
2:15 pm "Vacation from Marriage" (1945) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 pm "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (1939) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 pm "In Which We Serve" (1942) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "Brief Encounter" (1945) with _____________ linking to:
9:45 pm "Sons and Lovers" (1960) with _____________ linking to:
11:45 pm "Pygmalion" (1938) with _____________ linking to:
1:30 am "Of Human Bondage" (1934) with _____________ linking to:
3:00 am "Little Women" (1933) with _____________ linking to:
5:00 am "Father of the Bride" (1950)

Damn it, another near-total loss today.  I've seen "Goodbye Mr. Chips", but not this version, I watched the later remake with Peter O'Toole.  And I have "The Prisoner of Zenda" on my list, just haven't been able to link to it.  The only one I can really claim is "Father of the Bride", I just know I watched that back in the day, way before I ever started this project.  But one seen out of 13 today only gets me up to 66 out of 208, or 31.7%.

THE PLOT: Part-time pianist Monty Fagan begins a May-December romance that upends his home life.

AFTER: If you're playing along at home, please note that there are several different films with the title "Dreamland", which is why I noted the year of release, 2016, in the heading of this post. There's a 2006 drama with the same title about a woman living in a desert trailer park, then there's a 2019 comedy/fantasy film starring Juliette Lewis and a 2019 drama about a teenage bounty hunter with Margot Robbie in it.  Then there's ANOTHER drama titled "Dreamland" coming out later in 2020 about the illegal drug trade, starring Gary Oldman and Armie Hammer.  Unless you're on the IMDB every day like I am, it can be hard to keep it all straight - and I bet that the 2020 film changes its title before release.

But all this highlights an odd little legal quirk - you can't copyright a film's title.  You can copyright a screenplay or a finished film, but not the title.  So if I wanted to make a documentary about people studying tornadoes and call it "Gone With the Wind", I'm within my legal rights.  One of the documentaries that was nominated for an Oscar this year was titled "Les Miserables" and had nothing directly to do with the famous Victor Hugo work.  Yet when that documentary finally airs, it's going to be easy for some fans of the 2012 musical (or of any of the other filmed versions of Hugo's novel) with the same title to accidentally record the wrong film.  It's a different animal, but with the same title it ends up sowing confusion in the marketplace.  You'd better believe that if I made an animated film about native Inuit people and called it "Frozen" that I'd be hearing from Disney's lawyers, or beaten up by costumed characters.

So, to be clear, this is a 2016 romance film set in Los Angeles and the central character is a pianist who has a troubled romantic relationship and dreams of opening up his own club.  Hmm, there was another 2016 film that also fits that description, and also ends in "--Land".  I wonder if this is another case of two studios (Lionsgate and Orion Pictures) somehow ending up with very similar films on their release schedules - "Dreamland" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2016, while "La La Land" opened the Venice Film Festival in October 2016.  "Dreamland" was released in theaters in November 2016 and then "La La Land" followed a month later - there's no box office info on IMDB for "Dreamland", but "La La Land" made over $450 million, so there's a clear winner and there's an also-ran.  (Oddly, there were other films titled "La La Land" released in 2010 and 2012, which nobody ever saw, and now probably never will.)

But "Dreamland" isn't a knock-off of "La La Land", that doesn't seem possible, given the time-frame. "La La Land" was supposed to be released first, but then the release was delayed - probably so they could get that Venice Film Festival opening night premiere, which couldn't have happened after a U.S. release.  But given that Damien Chazelle had been developing "La La Land" for years, before he made "Whiplash" even, it's possible that he shopped it around to a few studios and some greedy executive green-lit a screenplay written by someone else that had some similarities, but how would that exec have known that "La La Land" was going to be successful?  It's easier to believe that two separate creative entities came up with two films about L.A. pianists independently, and that those two films happen to share some story elements in common.

However, there are some key differences between "La La Land" and "Dreamland".  The pianist in "La La Land" meets a woman in a traffic jam, and she later comes to hear him play in a club, and after a few magical dates and some dance numbers, they go on to have a rather complicated relationship, arguing over what it means to follow their dreams.  The pianist in "Dreamland" is already in a relationship when the film starts, though it's a shaky one where they live with his girlfriend's mother and this causes tension, plus it seems like the spark has gone out of their relationship, they're no longer physically intimate.  The lead character is working as a private piano teacher when he gets a temporary gig at a fancy hotel when their regular pianist has a heart attack, and his performance is heard by an older married woman with a ton of money, and so he ends up giving (and getting) a few private lessons, if you know what I mean.  At the same time, his girlfriend fools around with a plumber who's visited her mother's house to unclog the upstairs toilet.  I get it, he's big, muscular, good with his hands, plus a plumber probably has a steady income, unlike, say, a freelance musician.

See?  Very different films, though both are about L.A. pianists in doomed relationships.  (And which one made a gazillion dollars?  The one with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, duh.)  But which one has Jason Schwartzman as a banker who won't give Monty the pianist a loan to open up his proposed piano bar?  Schwartzman practically steals the film here, which not-so-coincidentally was written and directed by his older brother, Robert Schwartzman.  Also appearing are Jason's mother (Talia Shire) as Monty's mother, and a son (?) or nephew (?) as a piano student.  Hey, it's a family affair.

There's not a great portrayal of women here, of all the women in Monty's life, none are really ideal - his young girlfriend won't have sex with him, but his girlfriend's mother tries to seduce him at one point.  I'm not sure if this was a fantasy sequence or genuinely was supposed to be happening - and if it was real, was this older woman crazy, or just trying to get some of what her own daughter was passing up on?  Then there's the other older woman, the "cougar" who seduces Monty and keeps paying him for sex - she says the money should go toward opening his piano bar, but come on, she's really turning him in to a de facto gigolo.  And it's possible that she doesn't love him either, she's only sleeping with him to make her husband jealous, which is exactly what happens.  Is it any wonder that Monty doesn't know which way is up by the end of the film, and ends up making a pass at his piano student's (also married) mother?

This is the irony of relationships sometimes - a man might find himself chasing after women who are clearly out of his league, meanwhile he is pursued by other women who are either too old, or come with too many strings attached.  Sometimes the only thing to do is to clear the deck, break off all ties and start fresh in a new relationship.  Someone on his level, not too far over him and not beneath him either.  And maybe that's the romantic lesson for the day.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that there's rock royalty in this film, one of the great songwriters of all time, Jeff Barry, played the pianist at the hotel that Monty subs in for.  Songs he wrote or co-wrote include "Chapel of Love", "River Deep, Mountain High", "Leader of the Pack", "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Do Wah Diddy Diddy", "Be My Baby", and "Then He Kissed Me".  Oh, and also "Sugar, Sugar" and "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" and the theme songs for "The Jeffersons" and "One Day at a Time".  He was often teamed with wife Ellie Greenwich and Phil Spector, so I wouldn't be surprised that one of the characters in "Grace of My Heart" was a thinly-veiled version of Barry (perhaps the one played by Chris Isaak).

Also starring Amy Landecker (last seen in "Beatriz at Dinner"), Jason Schwartzman (last seen in "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III"), Noël Wells, Alan Ruck (last seen in "Cheaper by the Dozen"), Beverly D'Angelo (last seen in "Wakefield"), Talia Shire (last seen in "I Heart Huckabees"), Shay Mitchell (last seen in "Mother's Day"), Frankie Shaw (last seen in "Stronger"), Nick Thune (last seen in "Venom"), Robin Thomas (last seen in "The Banger Sisters"), Lilli Birdsell, William Schwartzman, Brittany Furlan, Jeff Barry.

RATING: 5 out of 10 strange wigs with no narrative justification

ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are David Torrence, Ronald Colman, Raymond Massey, Glynis Johns, Robert Donat, John Mills, Celia Johnson, Trevor Howard, Wendy Hiller, Leslie Howard, Frances Dee, Joan Bennett.

Frank and Cindy

Year 12, Day 47 - 2/16/20 - Movie #3,449

BEFORE: Oliver Platt carries over from "Professor Marston & the Wonder Women" and tonight I'm back on Netflix, still trying to clear my queue before things start disappearing on their own. My list there is down to 75 films, I can remember when it was hovering around 105.  I should probably scroll through the "Recently added" list on Netflix to see if there's anything new for me, but I haven't added anything in a while, maybe a few more of the Oscar-nominated films are there now.

 I watched yesterday's film on Hulu, and that interface is so problematic - when films I added to my list are no longer available on that service, they don't automatically get removed from my list, they just get shuffled down to the bottom of the list, but when I select them, "Play movie" is no longer an option.  What's the point of keeping a film on my list if I can't WATCH it, are they just trying to taunt me, or piss me off with their half-assed form of "service"?  How is this a good business model anyway, promising stuff and then not delivering it?  These streaming services were supposed to be an improvement over cable, and with these weird quirks, many just are not living up to their ideals.

Then I made the mistake of scrolling through the "Recommended for you" section, and while I have to give their matrix credit for coming close to figuring out my tastes, based on what I've viewed before on that platform (it recommended several films I've already watched elsewhere, which was a good sign) what the matrix doesn't realize is that I'll watch just about anything at this point, but adding another 40-plus movies to my watchlist isn't really going to help me now, that's more like negative progress.  Thanks a lot, Hulu.  A year from now I'll be removing many of those films from my Hulu list when they're no longer available, and then I'll have to rent them on iTunes at $2.99 each.  Maybe I'll get lucky and some of them will end up in the garbage bin that is Tubi.com for free, as long as I'm willing to watch a few ads.

Over on Turner Classic Movies, Fernando Lamas links from "The Merry Widow" to tomorrow's first film, can you fill in the other links?  Answers below.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17 on TCM (31 Days of Oscar, Day 17)
7:00 am "Rich, Young and Pretty" (1951) with _____________ linking to:
9:00 am "Small Town Girl" (1953) with _____________ linking to:
11:00 am "Kiss Me Kate" (1953) with _____________ linking to:
1:15 pm "Show Boat" (1951) with _____________ linking to:
3:15 pm "Anchors Aweigh" (1945) with _____________ linking to:
5:45 pm "An American in Paris" (1951) with _____________ linking to:
8:00 pm "Gigi" (1958) with _____________ linking to:
10:15 pm "One Hour With You" (1932) with _____________ linking to:
11:45 pm "Naughty Marietta" (1935) with _____________ linking to:
2:00 am "The Chocolate Soldier" (1941) with _____________ linking to:
4:00 am "Frenchman's Creek" (1944) with _____________ linking to:
6:00 am "The Green Goddess" (1930)

Now, tomorrow is President's Day, so if I were a TCM programmer, that's when I would have scheduled the films from last Tuesday, which included "George Washington Slept Here", or even the films that ended up on February 7, which included "Sunrise at Campobello", for the FDR tie-in.  Or something with Ronald Reagan in it, even. Since the whole chain is one big circle, it shouldn't matter where you start, and the whole thing could be shifted to put the program in line with one day on the calendar - let's see, if they had moved everything 5 days forward, that would have put the Feb. 9 programming on Valentine's Day, like the 1954 "A Star Is Born" and "On the Waterfront".

I guess there was no easy way to get everything to line up - the Feb. 12 programming could have gone on Valentine's Day, with film titles like "The Subject was Roses", "Always in my Heart", and "Of Human Hearts".  But those are just titles, thematically tomorrow's programming could have also fit on Valentine's Day, with "Kiss Me Kate", "An American in Paris" and "The Chocolate Soldier" - kisses, Paris and chocolate, get it?  That would also have the benefit of moving "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" on to Presidents Day, so to me that might have been the best solution (only then the cycle would have started on Feb. 1 with Ann Harding instead of Laurence Olivier...).  Anyway, I've seen four of tomorrow's (non-Valentine's Day) offerings: "Kiss Me Kate", "Show Boat", "An American in Paris" and "Gigi" - how fortunate that in February 2018 I did a 5-film chain starring missing link #3.  I've probably seen "Anchors Aweigh" but I can't prove it right now, so 4 out of 12 brings me up to 65 out of 195, still holding at 33.33%

THE PLOT: G.J. Echternkamp tells the story of his relationship with his parents, his mother Cindy and his step-father, Frank.  Frank used to be a member of OXO, a band from the '80's and Cindy was the ultimate groupie who married Frank and thought life would be glamorous, but that's not how it turned out.

AFTER: I had this one pegged as a "based on a true story" movie pretty early on, based on the fact that the lead character was named G.J., the same as the film's director - plus the main character is a filmmaker trying to apply to film school, much like a character in "Happy Endings" just four days ago.  After that, things sort of fell into place, like there really was an 80's band named OXO, and they did have a bass player named Frank, and so on.  Of course during the end credits they put up photos of the real Frank and Cindy next to pictures of the actors who played them, as many films do these days, to inject that extra dose of truthiness.

But of course, this then raises the questions about how close the fictional Frank and Cindy come to the real people, and if the real people are so fascinating, why aren't we watching a documentary instead of a fictionalized version of one?  I guess some documentaries, like "White Boy", end up becoming fiction films, too, like "White Boy Rick" - it turns out some people don't watch any documentaries at all, but some of them might watch the same story if Matthew McConaughey is appearing in it.  Anyway, let's break it down.

G.J. comes back to live with his parents (mother and step-father) after several years away, and we learn later that he's been raised by his grandmother, who left him money for film school when she died.  We also learn that he tested well as a teen and somehow skipped high school, but it took him eight years to finish college, or something like that, so it's a bit of a wash.  If he went to college, I'm not quite sure why he didn't just study film in college, which would have killed two birds with one stone.  I went to film school but I also had to fulfill NYU's requirements in things like English, History, Math and Science - thank God I passed several A.P. exams in high school, which got me college credit toward most of those requirements, I just had to take Intro to Psychology (science) and Astronomy (which counted as a Math class, for some reason).  I was then able to spend more of my time on film courses, and as a result I was able to graduate a year early, which saved my parents a bunch of money and enabled me to be student loan free.  In return I've been paying my parents' cable bill for the last 15 years, and I like to tell myself I got the better of that deal - any time I visit them I still have access to (non-premium) cable and wi-fi that may not be great, but it works - and the rest of the time they get to watch CBS, PBS and History Channel in HD.

Sorry, back to Frank and Cindy.  G.J. soon learns that their relationship is quite unusual, Frank can't climb the stairs so he lives on the ground floor, where there is no bathroom but plenty of old coffee cans, and Cindy sleeps upstairs and decorates the house with items swiped from other people's porches, or (one assumes) collected from the trash.  He's always tooling around in his sound studio, which is decked out with the latest equipment and she's always making plans for how to better her life, none of which ever come to fruition.  He's an alcoholic and she's a smoker and pill-popper, but both are constantly preparing to get sober, or claiming to be sober by their own definition of that condition.  Moving back in with them brings G.J. (or "Geej", which is about as horrible of a nickname as it is difficult to say) right into the middle of their cycles of addiction and co-dependency, so naturally he starts filming them, hoping to end up with some kind of short documentary that can secure him a spot in the Arts Center.

Unfortunately, he learns that the rules of quantum physics are in place here, and the act of observing and recording his parents' dynamic has an effect on it, and inserting himself into their equation makes them bounce back and forth between doting parents, quarreling lovers and a pair of roommates who can't quite seem to function together, yet also can't bring themselves to the point where they can consider any kind of separation.  This seems somewhat impossible and untenable, yet at the same time very real and believable.  If you live with any one person long enough, you may find that their quirks will have a very special way of getting under your skin, yet you also can't contemplate living without them, so ultimately there becomes a form of begrudging acceptance of all that they are and the crazy things they do.  They've both got pre-loaded responses to justify their own bad behavior by pointing out things that the other one did that could be regarded as much worse.

That's a relationship, I'm not saying it's the best one or the most productive one, but it's at least a long-lasting one.  And people often have plans within plans that may not ever happen, but the human mind does go down these avenues, thinking about what they'd do if the other person moved out or passed away, or deciding to go on job interviews, but only after they get their teeth fixed or buy some better clothing, and those things may or may not ever happen, and on some level, that's OK too.  "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans", somebody once sang.  This really should be called "Lennon's Paradox", and while it doesn't specifically say you shouldn't make plans, or that the process is pointless, but rather that making plans is only part of life, and another part is things happening that you couldn't possibly plan for, so you've got to roll with the changes.

All of this qualifies the film for inclusion here in the romance/relationship chain, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it makes for the best story - I'm not a big fan of "Let me take my life experiences and turn them into a movie" because to me that's very ego-centric, and it's the kind of attitude that people have when they're trying to get into film school.  You may be sitting on a few interesting anecdotes about your own life, but you can't force other people to find those anecdotes interesting.  These events may be real, but that doesn't make them important, you know what I mean? I tried several times to turn the break-up of my first marriage into a screenplay, but each time I got bogged down in negative thoughts like, "Sure, these events meant something to me, but how do I know that other people would be interested in them?"  So while the process of reliving the events was very therapeutic, the story never got formed into anything that I was willing to show to others.

I wish I could have seen more of G.J.'s biological father, who's played by Marc Maron, who's only in the film for a short time, although also heard leaving long rhyming messages on an answering machine.  To me this was the most fascinating character in the film, he lives in a trailer with several cats and I don't know what his job is or how he's slept with so many women or the extent to which he is also neurotic and messed-up.  Great casting, I love Marc Maron and I wanted to see more of him.  But perhaps his character is so interesting because so much is unknown, so it's a tough call.

Maybe we all have plans that don't develop fully, life is long and there are many choices of roads to walk down, and nobody can walk down all of them.  To me it sort of feels like cheating to get further along by making a story out of part of your journey, unless that's a super-interesting story, and this one only got me about halfway there.  Which is not nothing, but neither is it everything.

UPDATE: I just found out that this story WAS a documentary before it was a fiction film - and both versions are currently on Netflix.  Obviously I can't squeeze in the doc version without breaking my chain, but if you want, you can watch them back-to-back.  Better hurry, before one of them disappears from that platform, which could happen at any time.  That means, however, that the same filmmaker was double-dipping, telling the same story from his life several times, and to me that's almost like cheating twice.

Also starring Rene Russo (last seen in "Velvet Buzzsaw"), Johnny Simmons (The Stanford Prison Experiment"), Jane Levy (last seen in "Fun Size"), Marc Maron (last seen in "Joker"), Jessica Garrison, Claire Titelman, Fabianne Therese (last seen in "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III").

RATING: 5 out of 10 missed job interviews

ANSWERS: The missing TCM "360 Degrees of Oscar" links are Jane Powell, Ann Miller, Howard Keel, Kathryn Grayson, Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Jeannette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Nigel Bruce, Ralph Forbes.