Ad Astra

Year 12, Day 88 - 3/28/20 - Movie #3,491

BEFORE: Today's film is another one, like "Uncut Gems", that had a lot of Oscar buzz at one point, only it all went away, I guess when other films took prominence.  This one ended up with just one nomination, for Sound Mixing.  Ouch.  Still, I'm intensely curious about it, so it's part of my Oscar Hopefuls screener-based round-up.  And I'm only about two months late, thanks to the extended romance chain.

Natasha Lyonne carries over from "Uncut Gems".  If you missed her in that film, she wasn't seen but only heard as the voice of someone from the Boston Celtics organization, speaking to Sandler's character on the phone.  OK, I realize that may not seem like a big role, but her voice appearance counts for my purposes, and it was a role that served a purpose to the plot.  When I make my linked chains, I often don't know how large someone's role is going to be - maybe she'll have a bigger part today?

THE PLOT: Astronaut Roy McBride undertakes a mission across an unforgiving solar system to uncover the truth about his missing father and a doomed expedition from 30 years before that threatens the universe.

AFTER: I skipped over another film from last year, which is on my secondary list, that has Natasha Lyonne in it - "Honey Boy".  I failed to grab that screener on my last day at the studio, that's one reason I skipped it, but also I didn't have a slot for it in March, I had to cut something or I won't make my (admittedly arbitrary) themes for certain holidays.  For now I'm looking at a film that I think feels appropriate for April 1, and I was over.  Of course, I could have doubled up, but I already doubled up once in March, and I also never know if I'm going to need these slots later in the year, so it comes down to a judgment call based on a feeling.  I can circle back to "Honey Boy" later via Shia LaBoeuf, maybe after the virus lockdown ends.

It turned out Natasha Lyonne had another small role, she just played a person processing astronaut's paperwork when they get to Mars, but again, even that counts for my linking purposes.  Oh, yeah, Brad Pitt goes to Mars. (Did you think he would let Matt Damon have all the fun?). Should probably issue a SPOILER ALERT here before I give away anything else that people might not want to know before watching this film.  And with Brad Pitt front and center here, tomorrow's film is probably very easy to predict.

Here's what I can tell you about the (near?) future seen in this film - the timeline's a little weird because this film's past hasn't really happened yet, so this has to be set at least 30-plus years from now.  We're still a ways away from sending people to Mars, and this story has to happen 30 years after that, so, what, 2055? 2060?  And by that point it's interesting to note that flights to the moon are commercially available, and run by Virgin Air.  It's about as easy for people as flying across the world, I guess, only a pillow and blanket will run you $125 for some reason on that flight.  I'd hate to think how expensive the fruit and cheese plate is.  The moon is also considered free territory, it doesn't belong to any one country, which seems noble until you also realize that means there are also disputed war zones and freelance moon pirates.

From the Moon, astronaut Roy McBride hops aboard another spacecraft bound for Mars, which is where SpaceForce wants him to go to send some kind of message to his father, who decades earlier went out to get cigarettes from Saturn and never came back.  Actually McBride Sr. was part of a mission searching for signs of intelligent life in space (if you ask me, they should try to find some on Earth first) and the theory is that once you get to the outer planets, away from most of the sun's radiation, you can really get a better look at planets in other solar systems.  Roy has long assumed that his father was dead, but SpaceCom suspects that he's alive, and might be responsible for these weird power surges coming from Neptune that are reaching the earth in waves and causing all kinds of destruction.  If that's true, you may notice that one power surge was timed to hit Earth JUST as Roy was outside working on the giant space antenna, so yeah, probably Daddy doesn't care about his now-adult son.

The scripted message is sent, but Roy can't resist also making an emotional appeal to his father - it seems maybe he's had some time to think while on the way to Mars.  This does not please his superiors, and he's scrapped from the mission.  But after meeting someone working on Mars whose parents were also part of his father's LIMA project, he realizes he needs to be on that spacecraft heading to Neptune, so he sneaks on board, and, umm, things don't go so well.  That's really as far as I want to go talking about the plot, but hey, it's a space mission movie.  Things go right and other things go wrong, and the characters have to deal with that as best as they can.

If I'm being honest, I didn't fully understand everything that happened after that point - I had to go to the Wikipedia plot summary to figure out all the details.  Space is also very quiet, and very lonely, and there's not a lot of talking between people about what exactly is going on.  There's also a lot of time for self-reflection and inner monologuing - it takes almost 80 days to get to Neptune, which seems like progress, but also, the ship didn't seem like it was going that fast.  Whatever.  But maybe there's something in here for people who are right now self-isolating because of the Covid-19 virus - I saw one news program interviewing Scott Kelly, who spent like a year in space, to find out how astronauts deal with being in very small spaces for long periods of time.  And then there's a process where they have to re-connect with friends and family after long periods of isolation, and what does it all do to them, physically and mentally?

Obviously, the film doesn't have 79 days of time to completely depict Roy's journey, but his monologues do tell us that he probably does go a little nutso - and in the future, all psycho-analysis is done by talking to computers, so that also means it probably also relies on the honor system.  If you know what the computer wants to hear, it can be easy to want to provide that.  But we also know that Roy's incredibly calm under pressure, unlike some other astronauts I could name - no matter what happens, his vital signs never peak, and emotionally he's a rock, for the most part, anyway.  I guess that fits the profile if Daddy took off when he was a kid, and that toughened him up.  Add this one to the long list of movies I've seen about absent fathers and the grown-up children they create, I guess.

There's a larger question here, which of course concerns whether humans are alone in the universe.  What does that mean if the answer is no - what lengths will we go to in order to find another species on another planet, and are we even looking in the right places?  Will we ever be able to find someone else out there, and when we do, will we be able to communicate with them, or will they be ahead of us or behind in the process of evolution?  Will they eat us, or will we eat them?  And if the answer is yes, we're alone and there's no other intelligent life, what are the implications of that?  Is it up to humans to spread out and populate the universe, or at that point are we considered some kind of fluke, an accident that happened on our planet produced carbon-based life that is somehow unique?  Do we have more right to exist and expand, or none at all?  Even if this film doesn't supply all the answers, I applaud the attempt to raise the questions.

I see a lot of similarities to other films that I've enjoyed over the years - "2001: A Space Odyssey", first and foremost, because of the mission to the outer planets, and its sequel, "2010", for its mission to track down a previous spaceflight and figure out what went wrong.  Then there's "Contact", that film based on a Carl Sagan novel where Jodie Foster played the astronaut with some similar daddy issues.  "Interstellar", of course, raised some of the same questions about man's place in the universe, only it ultimately supplied more answers than "Ad Astra" did (or maybe just the opposite answer) and then throw in a little bit of "A Wrinkle in Time", which also had someone tracking down their absent father out in space.

The ultimate message, one that may be right on point for our current situation, is (I think) that sometimes you have to be alone for a long period of time in order to learn just how valuable your connections to family and friends are.  At the start of the film, Roy says things like "I will make only pragmatic decisions, I will not allow myself to be distracted. I will not relay on anyone or anything, I will not be vulnerable to mistakes."  After the events of the film, he's a changed man, and his final monologue is: "I am looking forward to the day my solitude ends....I'm unsure of the future but I'm not concerned.  I will rely on those closest to me, and I will share their burdens, as they share mine.  I will live and I will love."

If you can put aside the absurdity of this guy flying all the way to Neptune to find himself, I think there's some poignancy there.

Also starring Brad Pitt (last seen in "Exit Through the Gift Shop"), Tommy Lee Jones (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Ruth Negga (last seen in "Loving"), Liv Tyler (last seen in "Dr. T & the Women"), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), John Ortiz (last seen in "The Cloverfield Paradox"), Greg Bryk (last seen in "Immortals"), Loren Dean (last seen in "The Mule"), John Finn (last seen in "Gifted"), Kimberly Elise (last seen in "The Manchurian Candidate"), Sean Blakemore, Bobby Nish, LisaGay Hamilton (last seen in "Vice"), Donnie Keshawarz, Freda Foh Shen (last heard in "Mulan II"), Ravi Kapoor (last seen in "Book Club"), Daniel Sauli (last seen in "Bleed for This"), Kimmy Shields.

RATING: 6 out of 10 lunar rovers

Uncut Gems

Year 12, Day 87 - 3/27/20 - Movie #3,490

BEFORE: Amid all the devastation, there's a glimmer of hope - it's not being well reported on, not as far as I can tell, but I did find an NPR article that described the fact that biotech companies are already searching for Covid-19 antibodies in the blood of people who have been exposed to the virus and have recovered.  Collectively, we should know by now that this process has worked before on other viruses, like SARS, and unfortunately, even with this plan, it's going to take months to develop proper anti-viral strategies or anything close to a vaccine.  But I'm left wondering why this process didn't start sooner, like if there were people in China who recovered from corona virus in December, couldn't the search through their blood have started in January instead of March?  Maybe it was an access problem, or an inability to find the right healthy people in rural China?  I don't know, you only need a few, I think, and they could have been flown to a lab in another country, right?

Anyway, I've given up on help coming from the President, who was reluctant for nearly a month to admit there even could possibly be a problem looming.  That's always the best way to prepare, right?  No, by all means, go play another round of golf while people are getting on planes in Asia and traveling all over the world spreading an illness.  What could possibly go wrong with that?  So now I'm hoping that science will come through, now I don't think any medicine should be distributed before it's properly tested, but maybe somebody can think of a way to shorten the testing and approval process from months down to weeks, while people are dying in such large numbers.  Just my feeling that this is the way to go.  Money sent to citizens and small business is no doubt appreciated, but I think money will accomplish the most if it's sent to the proper biotech firm.  While we're debating whether every crisis is also an opportunity, there's an opportunity here for somebody to become the next Jonas Salk or Alexander Fleming, and come up with the thing (anti-virus, vaccine, immune system booster) that's going to take down this invisible enemy.  That's what I hope for every morning now when I turn on the news.

Adam Sandler carries over from "Murder Mystery".

THE PLOT: With his debts mounting and angry collectors closing in, a fast-talking New York City jeweler risks everything in hope of staying afloat and alive.

AFTER: Well, leading out of "Murder Mystery", I think my choices were this film or "Dumplin'" with Jennifer Aniston, I think I made the right call.  People were buzzing about this one around Oscar time, mostly about the fact that it got zero nominations, though Sandler won the Best Male Lead from the Independent Spirit Awards.  A co-worker was disappointed that he didn't get an Oscar nom, but hey, comedy people always have an uphill battle where the Oscars are concerned.  (No Golden Globe nominations, either?  That seems a little shocking.).

Two problems where Adam Sandler is concered - first off, he's always going to be seen as Billy Madison, or Happy Gilmore, or that guy from "The Waterboy", no matter how old he ever gets to be. He did that to himself, he did silly characters for so long, a logical continuation of his work on SNL, of course, and nowadays we find Will Ferrell in the same boat.  After "Anchorman" and "Elf", do you think Ferrell will ever be nominated for an Oscar?  Very doubtful.  Steve Carell got an Oscar nom, but he's put in the time doing the transition to serious work in films like "Foxcatcher".  Sandler's been in the world of silly things for far too long to be considered.  Don't get me wrong, I admire the attempt.  But he's played silly characters for so long, I honestly couldn't tell if he was being serious as Howard Ratner, or if he was just playing another silly character, falling back on Jewish mannerisms and speech patterns.

And that's connected to the second problem - at every moment, in every scene, I was never able to forget that I was looking at Adam Sandler.  I've spent too much time watching his movies where he acts that same goofy, clueless way, and in some ways Howard Ratner is just an extension of that, which he's fallen back on so many times before.  Good acting involves making the audience forget, somehow, or at least not be constantly aware, that someone is an actor playing a part, reading written lines.  And because I was aware at every moment I was watching Adam Sandler, because he was so darn Adam Sandler-y, that I was also aware of him being an actor playing a part.  OK, maybe only 99% of the time.

But what really works here is the depiction of the gambler mentality, that feeling that somehow there's a magical combination of moving money (and in this case objects too) around that will produce the ultimate pay-off, the one that will allow him to never need to gamble any more.  Only he won't stop, because he's addicted, he's never going to stop, he's only going to keep going until he's super-rich or flat broke.  The question then becomes, where this film is concerned, which one is he going to be?

When we first meet Howard, it's clear that he's drawn to being on the edge, he must sort of get off on the danger of it all, because he walks around town placing bets, even though he knows (?) he's being followed and watched by people he owes money to.  It turns out that loan sharks you owe money to don't really like it when they see you placing a bet with another bookie - because if you have any money, you should be using it to pay down your debt with them, not making another, larger bet, to maybe get yourself out of the hole.  Which is a great metaphor, if you think about it, we say "being in the hole" when you're in debt.  If you're standing in a hole, and you keep digging, you're only going to make the hole deeper, right?  Keep that up long enough and you're just not going to be able to climb out.  You should be looking for ways to put more dirt back in the hole, even if you fill it up just a little at a time, you're adding dirt that you can eventually stand on to get out.

But Howard keeps on digging - he's made some arrangement to get an uncut opal delivered from Africa, and instead of keeping it hidden, he shows it to a high-profile sports client who wants to borrow it for luck, leaving his championship ring as collateral.  Howard turns right around and pawns that ring (which, umm, is not even his) to get more money to make a bet.  Every logical piece of my mind was screaming for him not to do this, but it's who he is.  Of course, if he loses that bet, then he doesn't have the money to get the ring back, then he can't get his opal back.  So naturally I thought I knew which way the film was heading, but then the deals become so much more complicated.

Generally speaking, Howard does many different things that conventional wisdom says not to do.  It's not really a smart idea to have both a wife and a girlfriend, but if you look around, some people do end up doing that in their lives.  It's not really a good idea to have that girlfriend working in your jewelry shop, or living in the apartment that you maintain in Manhattan in case you work late, but again, Howard seems drawn to the danger of it all somehow.  That creates a sense of building dread throughout the film - which eventually created an edge-of-my-seat reaction, similar to the one in "Marriage Story" during the part when (that thing) happens.

There's no connection to the current pandemic, but the film is all about stress and debt, so in that sense it couldn't be more timely.  I started describing the storyline to my wife today, and she just said, "No way am I watching that, life is stressful enough as it is right now!"

Several climactic scenes were filmed at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, a place I've been a few times.  They name-check the casino, of course, and a character travels there by helicopter to place a bet.  Great advertising for the casino, but factually incorrect, they don't have a sports book desk there, like the Atlantic City casinos do, just slots and table games.  There's a high-roller character in these scenes who nearly steals the whole movie with his smarmy charm - this guy looks and FEELS like someone who would take a helicopter to a casino, rent out the penthouse suite and then part with some serious cash playing poker or blackjack.  The actor's backstory is that he worked in the garment district in New York during the 1970's and 80's, designed dresses for Vanna White to wear on "Wheel of Fortune", and after retiring, happened to meet the directors of "Uncut Gems" at the famous Pete's Tavern in NYC's Greenwich Village.  Talk about a natural - unlike Adam Sandler, I believed 100% that this guy was his character. He came out of nowhere, may never have another part this great in another movie, but who cares?  He sure doesn't, and he looked like he was having fun.

Also starring Lakeith Stanfield (last seen in "Sorry to Bother You"), Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel (last seen in "Rent"), Eric Bogosian (last seen in "Rebel in the Rye"), Judd Hirsch (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)"), Keith Williams Richards, Jonathan Aranbayev, Noa Fisher, The Weeknd (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Mike Francesca, Jacob Igielski, Wayne Diamond, Josh Ostrovsky (last seen in "Nerve"), Ronald Greenberg, Marshall Greenberg, Hailey Gates (last seen in "Ricki and the Flash"), Benjy Kleiner, Tommy Kominik, Louis Anthony Arias, Keren Shemel, Sahar Bibiyan, Lana Levitin, with cameos from Pom Klementieff (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), John Amos, Ca$h Out, Trinidad James, and the voices of Natasha Lyonne (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Tilda Swinton (also last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Doc Rivers.

RATING: 7 out of 10 fake Rolex watches

Murder Mystery

Year 12, Day 86 - 3/26/20 - Movie #3,489

BEFORE: Yesterday I was put in the odd position of having to promote something on social media, in the middle of the Covid-19 virus spreading across America.  I wondered, "Is that even appropriate?"  But the shift has already happened - the car commercials were first, I think, promoting their new car models while at the same time offering incentives like no interest for four months "due to the current crisis".  Umm, gee, thanks, but since we're all homebound and can't go anywhere, who the hell needs a new car right now?  It won't be long before other advertising campaigns also adjust their pitches to take advantage of the crisis - streaming services, delivery services and internet services are already made in the shade, but soon every company will be running ads with heart-warming music and "heartfelt" messages of hope and togetherness.  Some MAYBE because it's the right thing to do, but others probably just don't want to be behind the curve - sending out messages of hope because it's "trendy", though?  That kind of doesn't seem right.

Then I got a text message from the Bernie Sanders campaign, telling me how much better Sanders' Corona virus response plan is than Biden's, how this underscores the need for Medicare for All, and this is what Bernie has been fighting for all his adult life.  OK, first off, screw off and remove me from your list. Secondly, he couldn't have been fighting this virus his whole life, because it's a new virus!  And finally, how dare you use this "crisis-opportunity" to advance your candidate, at a time when he should be considering dropping out of the race so there can be ONE Democrat left to rally all the party's support to defeat Trump!  If he really cared about America, he'd withdraw to increase the chances of Trump losing in November.  And why can't the campaign see that the optics of using the sickness and deaths of Americans to get ahead is absolutely shameless and terrible?

After that, I didn't feel as bad about promoting my boss's short film library, which made the School of Visual Arts' list of things for people to binge while quarantined.  If you want to see the list, it's here:

https://sva.edu/features/sva-watch-list-13-tv-shows-and-movies-to-binge-during-quarantine

And you can binge-watch the short films of animator Bill Plympton here:

http://www.shoutfactorytv.com/series/plymptoons

Also, one of his features, "Revengeance", which I worked on (and reviewed in this space last year) is available for FREE on Tubi, so why not watch it if you're stuck inside and looking for things to help pass the time?  It's here:

https://tubitv.com/movies/506250/revengeance

And here's (part of) what I'm watching to pass the time - last night after my movie, I watched the Netflix comedy special "Marc Maron - End Times Fun" and there were some incredibly dead-on jokes about how humans have broken the planet, trendy dietary supplements, why Iron Man is like nerd Jesus, and the fact we all need to do more than stop using plastic straws and bringing our own bags to the store.  Yes, there were authors who predicted a pandemic in various books - but how many stand-up comics had a themed special ready to go?  Just one anxious, very lucky guy.

I also binge-watched "Kidding" Season 2 on Showtime, and now I've started "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" Season 7 on Disney+.  Thankfully "Top Chef" is back, and "Survivor" and "The Masked Singer" are continuing, both must have shot their whole seasons before the crisis.  The late night shows are either still on break or are now unwatchable with no audience to laugh at the jokes - but hey, there's always "Jeopardy!" and FOX's Sunday animation line-up to distract me from the news.  If I stay up late watching MSNBC or CNN, I just get depressed.  I'm hoping against hope for some better news soon, but I'm not sure when it's going to arrive.

Olafur Darri Olafsson carries over from "The Spy Who Dumped Me", where he played the crucial role of "Finnish backpacker".  In retrospect, maybe this film could have fit somewhere in the romance chain but it didn't - probably for these three reasons: A) I didn't realize it centered on a couple going on a trip to celebrate their anniversary B) that would have made the romance chain longer, and it was already too long and C) if I had, then I wouldn't have had this film here, and I wouldn't be able to link to tomorrow's film.  So there you go.

THE PLOT: A New York cop and his wife go on a European vacation to reinvigorate the spark in their marriage, but end up getting framed for the death of an elderly billionaire and are forced to go on the run.

AFTER: OK, so now for at least an hour and a half every day, my scheduled movie is a time where I get to stop thinking about the pandemic.  Stress can come back during my dreams at night, that's fine, but just leave me alone during movie time, OK?  Look, I don't know when movie theaters are coming back, just tell me that I've got a chance of seeing "Black Widow" and "The New Mutants" before October, and I'll be OK with that.  Or if they get released to Disney+ and I watch them that way, I'm cool with that, too.  In the meantime, I can keep chipping away at the Netflix queue and reducing my watchlist while I'm also "reducing the spread" by not leaving the house.  (It's not really the right term, because thankfully I'm not sick, so by leaving the house I won't spread anything, but then again, I won't catch anything either, and then I can't spread THAT.  But really, I'm staying inside because I don't want to die, or be held responsible for spreading anything to someone who will die.  So how about, "Just stay home and don't be a dick"?)

Tonight we're off again to Europe, virtually, of course, because nobody sane is flying there for real right now.  Like yesterday's film, this is about two normal Americans who get caught up in some intrigue and fly to Europe (umm, only not in the same order).  Here's it's a married couple, Sandler plays a cop who hasn't told his wife that he's failed the detective exam several times, and can't really shoot a gun worth a damn.  Umm, yeah, so not much respect for our first responders today, that's not good.  His wife is a hair stylist who's upset that they've never gotten around to taking that European vacation that was supposed to be their honeymoon, and now 15 years have gone by.  Right, she's never once complained about this in 15 years, or done anything to help make it happen?  That seems a little hard to believe.  OK, so they were busy, it's tough to save up the money, but come on, both of you, do SOMETHING, just put aside $100 a month and then maybe you've got it after like three years...

While on the flight to Italy (?) Mrs. Spitz sneaks in to first class and catches the eye of Lord Cavendish, who seems like one of the bad rich guys in the crime novels that she frequently reads.  He invites them both to his yacht, where his even richer uncle, Malcolm Quince, is throwing a party to celebrate his engagement to his nephew's former girlfriend.  A whole colorful cast of characters is on board the yacht, including Quince's son, an actress, an African colonel, a Maharajah, an Italian racecar driver, the colonel's bodyguard, and Quince's fiancée.  When the lights go out and Quince is killed, which person killed him?  It's a bit like "Clue" or "The Orient Express" with a list of suspects so diverse and colorful.

But when the yacht reaches Monte Carlo, the Inspector on the case interviews everyone, and decides to focus on the two people who weren't supposed to even be there, the Spitzes.  This is a bit illogical, because they have no motive for murder, and the room is otherwise filled with people who could have either inherited Quince's fortune or become dis-inherited if he signed a new will.  But for the purposes of comedy, the Spitzes have to be chased across Europe as they investigate the others and figure out who benefited the most by killing Quince, and having the Americans be blamed for it.

It's a little formulaic to cross off the suspects one by one, and this process is made even easier when a few more get killed, but eventually a cop and a crime-novel fan are able to piece everything together and come up with the solution that makes the most sense.  The cop also gets the chance to prove that he deserves the rank of detective, which I'll admit was a nice touch.  Ending with a car chase is also very formulaic, but it gets the job done.  All in all, it's probably one of the better movies that was released as part of Sandler's Netflix deal.

Also starring Adam Sandler (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "She's Funny That Way"), Luke Evans (last seen in "Professor Marston & the Wonder Women"), Terence Stamp (last seen in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children"), Gemma Arterton (last seen in "The Voices"), David Walliams (last seen in "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story"), Dany Boon (last seen in "Joyeux Noel"), John Kani (last seen in "Black Panther"), Adeel Akhtar (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Luis Gerardo Mendez, Shiori Kutsuna (last seen in "Deadpool 2"), Erik Griffin (last seen in "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates"), Sufe Bradshaw, Molly McNearney, Nicole Randall Johnson (last seen in "In Her Shoes"), Andrea Bendewald, Victor Turpin, Simon Sinn (last seen in "Where the Truth Lies"), Jackie Sandler (last seen in "The Week Of"), Allen Covert (last seen in "Sandy Wexler").

RATING: 5 out of 10 smoke rings

The Spy Who Dumped Me

Year 12, Day 85 - 3/25/20 - Movie #3,488

BEFORE: It's only Day 5 or so at home, and already the days are starting to run together - if I didn't have my movies to help me delineate, I don't think I'd even know what day it is.  I think on some level before the virus crisis, if you'd told me I didn't have to go to work, I could sleep late every day, and my main concern each day would be figuring out what to read or watch to entertain myself, that would have sounded pretty good.  But without the main responsibility of getting up and going to work, a strange effect takes over, and it's harder to recognize the preferred, leisurely parts of the day when they take up the whole day.  Add in the stress and anxiety caused by the news, and you get this weird combination of fear, dread, boredom and ennui.  Playing video-games in the early morning hours helps some, but that's like a temporary fix - the larger problems are still there.  I should make a list of things to improve around the house, because without some kind of structure, my days are already starting to seem aimless.  I guess we'll see what kind of news tomorrow brings, and then next week...

It's four in a row for Kate McKinnon as she carries over from "Ferdinand".  She's also in the film "Yesterday", which is on my watchlist, but I'm saving that one, because I may need it in December to connect the Christmas movies on my list.

THE PLOT: Audrey and Morgan are best friends who unwittingly become entangled in an international conspiracy when one of them discovers the boyfriend who dumped her was actually a spy.

AFTER: Maybe it's the isolation affecting me, but this one didn't seem that bad, and honestly I was preparing for the worst.  I guess maybe if you prepare yourself for the worst, sometimes an OK film can then surpass your expectations?  It's a case of aiming really low, I think, which makes it easier to succeed?  I'm not sure.  But I didn't hate this one.

Obviously it's got a (probably) overly simplistic view of intelligence work, but hey, so did "Johnny English Strikes Again".  Good guys are good, bad guys are bad, it just becomes a matter of figuring which is which - when in reality I'm guessing that things are probably more complex.  And no, having double agents or someone who was THOUGHT to be a good guy being revealed as a bad guy doesn't count as more complex, it's just the same simplicity, only doubled.  Think about the CIA, for example, does it do good things for America or bad things?  I don't know, maybe a little bit of both?  Maybe that depends on your nationality or your point of view?  All I'm saying is, if I found out that somebody I knew works for the CIA, I wouldn't automatically mentally picture him wearing a white hat. Real-life situations don't get to be simple, but a film can tell us any potentially inaccurate thing it wants about how spies work.

This film is about two normal American women who run into international intrigue, and aren't sure whom to trust, or believe.  They all want something left behind by Audrey's boyfriend, who gets outed as a CIA agent by other CIA agents, and right there that should be a red flag.  Someone's not who they say they are, or somebody's a double agent, so Audrey and Morgan fly to Europe to make the delivery that Audrey's ex was going to make, and from their they stumble their way through a world of gadgets, weapons, torture and a Cirque du Soleil performance.  (That almost sounds repetitive, isn't a Cirque du Soleil show a form of torture?)

For a minute, I was willing to entertain that Morgan was an embedded Russian agent or something - why did I think this?  Because at one point, just before they fly off to Vienna, she reminds her friend Audrey that their friendship is real, and that she's not some secret agent who befriended her as a teen and has been concealing her true identity for 10 years.  "Hmm," I thought, "what an oddly specific thing to deny in a conversation.  Let's put a pin in that idea and see if it surfaces later as a plot point." Nah, it wasn't to be - but still, why point that out in a bit of dialogue?  Red herring, I guess.

Maybe it's all the Grand Theft Auto I've been playing, but some of the jokes really landed for me - like when the girls jack a car from a well-dressed couple, then get in and realize that it's a stick-shift, and neither one knows how to drive it.  The car sort of rolls away slowly, because they can't get it into gear, and the couple is walking along beside the car, banging on the windows to try to get their car back.  Hilarious, and unexpected - never seen a joke like that in an action film before, not even a parody spy film.  So often a character needs a car, takes one, and everything from there works perfectly, they never even need to adjust the seat or the mirrors, but think about it, all that would probably have to happen when you take someone else's car.

Sure, there are things that seem pretty far-fetched, but for the most part, that's OK, it's a movie, not meant to be any sort of really informative guide on how things like cell phone tracking, code decryption and using stolen passports really works.  I guess go in like I did, not expecting a lot, and maybe then you'll find more entertainment than you planned on.  Just a thought on how to approach it.

Also starring Mila Kunis (last seen in "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn"), Sam Heughan, Justin Theroux (last seen in "Joker"), Gillian Anderson (last seen in "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story"), Hasan Minhaj (last seen in "Rough Night"), Ivanna Sakhno (last seen in "Pacific Rim: Uprising"), Fred Melamed (last seen in "Lemon"), Jane Curtin (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"), Paul Reiser (last seen in "The Little Hours"), Lolly Adefope, Kev Adams, Olafur Darri Olafsson (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Tom Stourton, James Fleet (also last seen in "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story"), Carolyn Pickles (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"), Mirjam Novak, Dustin Demri-Burns.

RATING: 6 out of 10 songs on the jukebox

Ferdinand

Year 12, Day 84 - 3/24/20 - Movie #3,487

BEFORE: I'm doubling up today on animated films - this was always part of the plan, even before I was stuck at home, unable to get on the subway to go to work.  This sheltering-at-home thing is a complete pain, but it at least gives me the opportunity to watch more movies if I want to.  I figured the movies for kids are usually shorter, because of their reduced attention spans, why not turn that to my advantage?  This is also the second of two films that was once part of last October's chain, the plan was to connect a few horror films that couldn't connect any other way, only then I found the other way.  So let's clear "Leap!" and this one off the board today, OK?

Kate McKinnon carries over again from "Leap!" - at least, I think she does, it was honestly hard to get a valid list of credits for that movie.  Why did everything about that production have to be so damn confusing?

THE PLOT: After Ferdinand, a bull with a big heart, is mistaken for a dangerous beast, he is captured and torn from his home.  Determined to return to his family, he rallies a misfit team on the ultimate adventure.

AFTER: Hmm, this is better than "Leap!", that's for sure.  But there are still some strange story choices made here - I'm going to try to be nice because I've got a friend working over at Blue Sky and she's credited as a story editor here, one of many, but still, I don't want to hurt her feelings.

First off, bullfighting?  That's an odd choice for a kids movie - you know that the bulls always die, right?  The matadors always win and every match always ends with a ritual stabbing and the death of the bulls.  That's the sport.  Secondly, why is bullfighting still a thing, in this day and age?  This is set in Spain, and I know old traditions die hard, but come on, already, there's no place for this in the new millennium, who's with me?

To this film's credit, Ferdinand eventually figures out that the bulls never win, and to be sent to the ring is a death sentence - up until this point in the movie, the bulls were competing with each other for the privilege of being in the bullfight, because that's what bulls do, they fight.  And then they just never come back.  The alternative, if not selected for the bullfight, is to be sent to the "chophouse", so on some level, the bulls also know that they're potential food, "chophouse" being a relatively mild way of saying "slaughterhouse".  Again, what is this doing in a movie for kids?  OK, some kids are really hip and vegetarian and take stands against animal cruelty, but I'm thinking only a small percentage of them are that enlightened.  Was this meant to be here to get more kids to come around to that way of thinking?  Because it's all presented here so matter-of-factly that I can't tell.

I guess this is a metaphor for bullying, and I can't quite decide if that's ironic or not.  Because young Ferdinand is on the smaller side, and he likes to smell flowers and not fight, so he and the other smaller bulls get bullied by the larger young bulls.  Then after Ferdinand runs away from the ranch and spends time on a flower farm, he grows to be larger than the other bulls.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing, bad because when he follows his new owners to the flower festival, he ends up causing so much destruction in the town (literally, a bull in a china shop becomes a disaster) that he's mistaken for a dangerous bull, which he isn't, and gets sent back to the ranch where he was born.

At first, he's still bullied by the bull that bullied him when he was a younger bull, but then all the bulls unite against the bigger bully, which is man.  The champion matador comes to the ranch to pick the last bull he will face before he retires, and he also mistakes Ferdinand as the toughest bull, just because he's the biggest - he also catches him knocking the horn off of Valiente, the bully bull.  Ferdinand manages to rescue Valiente and another bull, Guapo, from the "chophouse" before they all take off in a truck with Ferdinand's trainer (a "calming goat" who also happens to be a screaming goat, not sure how to resolve that one) and three hedgehog sidekicks who also helped him.

The bulls take a truck to a train (this whole chase sequence was super-confusing, plus I'd pretty much tuned out by that point) and most escape, but Ferdinand is re-captured and finally sent to the bullfighting ring to face that retiring matador.  Instead of fighting back against the matador, Ferdinand becomes the first bull ever to survive the ring by offering only passive resistance.  I approve of the solution, because fighting back against a bully shouldn't be seen as the answer, but in the real world being passive isn't usually going to work either, but I guess they could only bend the story points so far, and a proper resolution that would also be a workable anti-bullying solution didn't present itself.

If I'm being really nitpicky, I found some of the voices to be very similar, especially John Cena as Ferdinand and Jerrod Carmichael (as Paco, a farm dog).  When those two characters spoke to each other, I couldn't distinguish the two voices, it sounded like someone having a conversation with himself.  Someone should have noticed this during the recording process and asked one of them to change it up a little.  But it seems like John Cena was a replacement for Adam Devine, so perhaps these characters sounded more distinct at one stage of production, then a casting change created this problem.

NITPICK POINT: I didn't quite get why the horses in Spain had German accents - I kind of understood why they danced, because I'm familiar with the famous Lipizzan (or Lipizzaner) horses, which is a breed that actually originated in Slovenia.  A little research into history, however, tells me that the Lipizzans were first bred by the Habsburgs in the 16th century, a time when they ruled both Spain and Austria.  They took Spanish Andalusian horses and cross-bred them with Arabian ones to create the new breed.  The famous training ground for the horses still exists in Vienna, and it's called the Spanish Riding School.  But I'm still scratching my head over this, it seems to me like these horses should be in Austria with Spanish accents, not in Spain with Austrian accents.  Right?

Also starring the voices of John Cena (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Happy Endings"), Peyton Manning, Anthony Anderson (last seen in "Grudge Match"), David Tennant (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Tim Nordquist, Lily Day, Jerrod Carmichael (last seen in "The Meddler"), Miguel Angel Silvestre, Gina Rodriguez (last heard in "Smallfoot"), Daveed Diggs (last seen in "Velvet Buzzsaw"), Gabriel Iglesias (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature"), Flula Borg (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Boris Kodjoe, Sally Phillips (last seen in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"), Jeremy Sisto (last seen in "Clueless"), Cindy Slattery (last heard in "Rio 2"), Raul Esparza, Colin H. Murphy, Jack Gore, Jet Jurgensmeyer, Nile Diaz, Julia Scarpa Saldanha.

RATING: 4 out of 10 Pitbull remixes

Leap!

Year 12, Day 84 - 3/24/20 - Movie #3,486

BEFORE: Ah, here was the dilemma - how do I follow up "Bombshell", with a cast of hundreds, so many possible paths I could take - as I said yesterday, I first saw the easy path that would take me straight to "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood" via Margot Robbie.  I didn't want to take that easy path, because that would create too many wasted opportunities.  Even color-mapping out all the possible paths I could take was no help, because I could have followed up today with another film that had Connie Britton, Malcolm McDowell, Alice Eve, Stephen Root - seriously, I had like 25 possible choices other than the one I'm making.  So, what to do?  The only way to figure something like this out, I've learned, is to have a destination in mind - in this case, it's Hitler's birthday  Which path gets me to watch some World War II-related material on April 20?  I played around with a lot of different possibilities before I found a very complicated path through the movies on my watchlist, and eventually found the right path, one that also gets me to where I need to be on Mother's Day, and in a few weeks I'll figure out the path to Father's Day, I've already got something of a rough head-start.

This choice also has another advantage, it gets me to watch two films that had previously been part of last October's schedule, but both got shelved in favor of more appropriate horror-themed material.  So now those two films are back on the schedule, and getting crossed off my list.  Now, the cast list is a bit questionable, because the IMDB and Wikipedia both point out that there are several versions of this film, and in some cases the European version (which is titled "Ballerina") uses different voices than the U.S. release.  I had this same problem with "My Life as a Zucchini" a couple years ago.  So I've got to figure out which version I saw, and whose voices were used.  But one think I think I know for sure is that the voice of Kate McKinnon carries over from "Bombshell"

THE PLOT: An orphan girl dreams of becoming a ballerina and flees her rural Brittany for Paris, where she passes for someone else and accedes to the position of pupil at the Grand Opera House.

AFTER: Look, I'm trying to be kind here, but everything about this film seems like a bit of a mess.  It's got two different titles, different voice casts for releases in different countries, and I haven't even gotten to the story problems yet.  How the hell do you market something that has so many different versions?  When I choose this one on Netflix, or order it on demand, or sit down to watch the DVD, what version am I watching?  If a film is strong enough, it only needs to be made once, and the simple fact that some other actors had to come in and re-voice some characters, that means there were problems.  Maybe some actors didn't sound "European" enough, or "American" enough, but those are problems that should have been solved in advance, at the casting stage.  Or maybe you get a voice actor to record every line twice, once with a strong French accent, and one with no accent - any talented voice actor should be able to handle that.  So it just feels like confusion across the board.

Now, let's get to that story.  An orphaned girl in France has unrealistic dreams about becoming a ballerina.  Yes, I said unrealistic - because I think a big problem with the way that we're raising children these days is that we tell them that they can do anything they want.  Umm, sorry, no, they can't.  A kid can grow up and do almost everything, but you just can't say "anything" - there's always that weird kid who wants to be a tree or an elephant, and come on, you've got to draw the line somewhere.  The classic example is that we say that any kid can grow up to be President, and come on, we all know that's not true.  We've proven over the last few primaries that the odds are stacked against anyone who isn't an old, white male with connections, right?  So why do we give false hopes to inner city minority kids?  Obama, right, but I don't think he's really the exception that proves the rule.

The truth is, kids, you're going to try a few different jobs when you're a teen and you may fail at a couple of them, and then slowly you're going to develop a certain skill set, or realize that you have an affinity for something, be it accounting or gardening or cooking, and then you'll get locked in to a certain dead-end career that you'll probably hate, and then you'll have a mid-life crisis, maybe change careers, there'll be some adjustments made, and then maybe a second career that you might also hate. True happiness comes from within, not from success as a ballerina or four-star chef or rock star or whatever.  Eventually you'll realize that the impossible dream you had as a kid is just that, an impossible dream - someone's going to make it happen, that's a given, but it may not be you.  Then you have to watch as someone else lives out your childhood fantasy, but if you're lucky you've built up the mental capacity to accept that reality, and a support system through which you find some kind of contentment.  Just keeping it real.

Now, I don't really expect a children's film to adopt all that as its mantra, because it's complicated and doesn't really fit in a short synopsis, but all that rings truer to me than any sort of animated fantasy.  "Leap!" ends up being like a Hollywood rom-com, by that I mean it has a "everything's going to work out" turn of events that I think has no reflection of the real world.  I know, I know, let the kids have a few years before their dreams get crushed, but I think if we prepare them early, just maybe we can cushion the blow.

So, anyway, this orphan girl heads off for Paris, along with another orphan, Victor, who wants to become a famous inventor, or engineer, or something.  He's got this set of wings that he built, that he thinks will enable him to fly, and now we're getting close to a metaphor, I think.  Her dreams of being a famous ballet dancer are just as unrealistic as his dream to fly with mechanical wings - only wouldn't you know it, his wings (eventually) work.  But again, I think this is a terrible idea, because personal flying wings DON'T work in the real world, why should we make kids think that they do?  The worst-case scenario here is that a kid will go out and build their own wings, jump off of a roof, then get injured or die.  How did this get approved as a story point?  It's reckless and potentially dangerous!  If that "Peter Rabbit" movie got in trouble for showing the main character attack the farmer with berries that he was allergic to, this film should have also come with a warning label!

I also have to take an issue with the fact that Felicie basically steals another girl's identity, just to get an audition for the ballet school.  I mean, the plot dictates that she has to get into the school, because that will provide the character with a place to live, her meals, etc.  She works her way in at first by helping out the cleaning woman, which is a message I can get behind, that hard work gets your foot in the door, but when she sees the opportunity to steal the "mean" girl's identity and her audition slot, she takes it - what kind of message does that send out to young girls, that's it's OK to step on someone else's dreams in pursuit of your own, especially if they were mean to you?  Not cool.

Another irresponsible thing (apart from telling kids they can fly with mechanical wings, or they can be anything they want to be) is related to the character design.  All of the ballerinas are depicted as very thin, like with very thin limbs, and giant heads.  Really?  Isn't there already enough pressure put on children to conform to some imaginary version of physical perfection, and aren't dancers (like ballerinas) under constant pressure to look thin, and doesn't this cause eating disorders in that line of work?  Jesus, what the heck were they thinking?  And how do these really thin bodies support those giant heads?  Just irresponsible, across the board, I don't know what else to say.

Ah, the IMDB tells me that this movie was originally distributed in the U.S. by the Weinstein Company, and maybe that explains a lot.  Quality control might have been lax, because that company was having a lot of problems relating to its chief executive being sued for sexual harassment?  That explains some of the problems, perhaps, but I think story problems and casting problems run a bit deeper, you have to look back to the original animation company for those.

Also starring the voices of Elle Fanning (last seen in "Mary Shelley"), Nat Wolff (last seen in "Home Again"), Maddie Ziegler (last seen in "The Book of Henry"), Carly Rae Jepsen, Terrence Scammell, Mel Brooks (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), Joe Sheridan (last seen in "Moonwalkers"), Elana Dunkelman, Stephanie Sanditz.

RATING: 3 out of 10 pirouettes

Bombshell

Year 12, Day 83 - 3/23/20 - Movie #3,485

BEFORE: If there's any silver lining at all in this pandemic, and I'm not saying that there is, because it's a terrible, terrible thing, it's that people who are usually busy workaholics are spending more time with their families.  Well, yes and no, because they're being told to stay away from older and more vulnerable family members, but hey, more time at home with the kids for some people!  Just keep the kids away from Grandma and Pop-Pop.  Jeez, if they had pitched this thing as a paid "stay-cation" for everyone, there might not be as many people who are anxious and stress-buying groceries.  For me, I'm looking at more time at home, I'm catching up on TV, watched the whole second season of "Kidding" on Showtime this weekend, and I'm going to try to play through a bunch of video-games.

More good news, I was able to drop by the office with all the screeners, so I cherry-picked the 8 or 9 discs that are going to make it possible for me to keep up with my chain, I know I can at least make it to Mother's Day now.  I can't celebrate Mother's Day with my mother, but at least I can watch a couple appropriate movies in her honor.  Now the bad news, I can't really go back to that office, it's shutting down for three months, that's the plan for now, anyway.  So come April 1 I'll have to either file for unemployment or find some way to do other work from home - which is tough because right now I don't know if that studio will re-open at all.  It's a bit like that "Twilight Zone" episode where the last man alive on earth finally has all the time to read all the books he wants, and then he breaks his glasses.  I've got plenty of time, but without income, can I afford to just stay at home and watch all my movies?

Again, trying to look at the positives here, I'm no longer constrained by time limits, so if I want to watch two movies a day, I can do that, or cram 40 into a month because I just got the chain the way I want it, and I don't want to cut anything.  I was thinking I could re-arrange the chain to avoid films that aren't streaming yet, but now I don't have to, not until I have to connect Mother's Day to Father's Day somehow.  And I can save some money now, some of these films (like today's) would set me back $5.99 on iTunes, or $6.99 on Cable On Demand.  Those costs add up quickly after a while.

John Lithgow carries over from "Late Night" - how could I resist putting two films with him next to each other, especially when they both are about the production of television, and both are also connected to the #metoo movement?

THE PLOT: A group of women take on Fox News head Roger Ailes, and the toxic atmosphere he presided over at the network.

AFTER: This is one of the two films I scheduled for March that has an enormous cast - "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood" is the other.  And the two films link together, they share two actors, I think.  But that would be a huge waste to watch them back-to-back when I can squeeze another six films in between them.  Don't worry, I'm going to get there before the end of the month.

Obviously, this is both an important topic and a very sensitive subject, so first off, kudos for getting this film made, and for shining a light on what went down behind the scenes at the toxic environment of the Fox News Studios.  It's unfortunate that the situation there was anything but unique, and it's comforting in some small way that Roger Ailes and many other rich corporate fatcats got what was coming to them over the last few years.  The entire industry felt the effects, and Harvey Weinstein got his, and in TV news alone down went Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Bill O'Reilly, Les Moonves, and then of course there were the high-profile cases among actors and filmmakers.

It's something of a complicated issue, though - at least I thought it was, then for a while it seemed like maybe it wasn't, and now that I've watched this film, I think I'm back on calling it complicated.  Because while "Bombshell" sheds a light on just how much of a perv and a snake Roger Ailes was, it was also a toxic environment all over Fox News, and Ailes might have been at the center of it all, but he was surrounded by enablers and a system that made his harassment and abuse possible, and I think you have to take a look at all that, too.  I mean, you're talking about a system that's putting images out there on TV every day, and there's a primary concern about how people look - therefore there's an impetus to put prettier people on camera, but beauty is subjective, so who decides what constitutes pretty?  Someone has to come along and say "Yes" to this person and "No" to that person, and then if that person has a fondness for blondes over brunettes, or nice legs, thin waists, etc. it becomes a slippery slope, and then before long you've got the news equivalent of "Charlie's Angels".  I'm not justifying this line of reasoning, just saying I understand how they got there.

Secondly, Fox News has always had a conservative slant - and preaching those good ol'fashioned Amurrican values meant, to some degree, the tired Christian mantra about women being subservient, men being in power and writing the rules that help them remain in power.  So, being a woman working at a place like Fox News, what did they THINK was going to happen when they tried to advance in the company?  The system was stacked against them from the start, by men like Ailes who saw them as eye candy at best, and sex objects at worst.  But here I've got to be careful, because I don't want to sound like I'm victim-blaming, or slut-shaming, or whatever it's called now.  Still, I have to wonder JUST a bit why this bad behavior of Roger Ailes went on for SO LONG without anybody calling him on it.  I know, I know, he was a man in power and he used that power and influence to keep all his victims quiet, and that was very wrong.  But perhaps he should have been taken to task for his harassment and abuse sooner, and that happened because nobody was willing or able to call him out for it.  The situation turns out to be a bit more complex than I thought.

The film sort of implies - through shots where all three featured harassed women (Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson, and another who's apparently a fictional amalgam of several women) are together in the same elevator - that perhaps if these women had only confided in each other, perhaps Ailes' harassment would have been stopped sooner.  At least, I think that's what these shots are meant to imply - quite honestly, a dramatic shot of three women in an elevator, NOT talking to each other doesn't really say much, so perhaps if it doesn't mean what I think it means, then it's just lazy filmmaking.

Similarly, we only see one example of harassment, where Ailes asks the amalgam character to lift up her skirt, so he can see her legs.  Then he asks her to raise it higher.  All the other incidents occur off camera, and I'm not sure if this was for the sake of decorum, or to maintain a sense of uncertainty or suspense, or again, perhaps just consitutes lazy filmmaking.  It should be "show us, don't tell us".  We do see Ailes' harassment of Gretchen Carlson, because most of this didn't take a sexual form, it was Ailes watching her show and then berating her for not wearing enough make-up, or showing enough leg, etc.  I'm very torn on this issue, because of the way that the film chose to present the harassment to us, it's not always in a matter-of-fact way, there's a lot we hear about second-hand, and that's a bit of a red flag.  But perhaps it also mimics most harassment cases, where there isn't any photographic or video evidence, and prosecutors have to rely on witness testimony alone.  But this is a FILM, and it's a visual medium, so not being able to see what happened is a bit of a problem.

The other side of that argument goes that this is a film about someone who took advantage of women, put them on display as sexual objects, made sure that the prettiest women (in one man's opinion) got on camera.  But isn't that also what a film director does?  Weren't these actresses asked to do, essentially, some of the same things that Roger Ailes asked women to do?  There's a whole montage at one point with actresses playing Fox news anchors, and they're in their underwear, putting on Spanx under their low-cut dresses.  I know some sacrifices need to be made to tell the story properly, but one has to be careful to not commit the same sins.  And this is coming from me, a guy who generally appreciates beautiful actresses - however I admit that there's still a systemic problem inherent in this story-telling industry, based on showing a little more skin to get the audience's attention.

The film also follows the non-traditional formula of films like "The Big Short", with Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly here talking directly to the audience about how things work (or fail to) at Fox News.  This is all valuable information for both fans and haters of that network.  We learn that Fox News didn't support Trump at first, in fact they were working hard to discredit him in the early days of the 2016 Presidential campaign.  Then something changed (maybe due to his growing popularity, and the increased chance that he could win) and after Megyn Kelly hit him hard with tough debate questions about his misogyny and mis-treatment of women, there was that infamous set of tweets where Trump said she had "blood coming out of her...wherever" - Fox News stood behind their anchor for a while, but soon after that, she was sacrificed and Trump became the network's golden boy.

I actually tuned in to Fox News for a short time the other day, because I've been watching the virus response coverage late at night - I tried MSNBC for a while, but they switch over to reruns of "Dateline" at about 2 am.  The ridiculousness I saw on Fox News with regards to the Corona virus was beyond belief, Jeanine Pirro was connecting it to Mexican immigration at the U.S. southern border (umm, from everything I've heard, there's no connection there, in fact Mexico so far has had fewer cases than the U.S.) and then Greg Gutfeld came on to try to comfort Americans, by reminding us that things are still great in America, we still have Necco Wafers and the best ketchup in the world.  Are you kidding me?  This is a time to be very concerned about the pandemic outside our windows, and he's running down a list of consumer products he likes?  Get your priorities in line, please!

Look, we still don't know how long this pandemic will be affecting us - will restaurants and bars re-open in two weeks, two months or two years?  When will life return to something close to normal?  One thing that everyone needs to admit is that Trump waived off the virus concerns, failed to act quickly, demoted the pandemic response team, and finally broke the economy, just like he's broken everything he's ever touched financially, from Trump University to Trump Air to Trump Steaks and his casinos, etc.  In 2016, I figured SOMETHING bad would happen after Trump's election, due to his arrogance, prevarication and complete lack of experience - it was just a matter of time.  Well, now we know exactly how bad things under Trump can get.  Even if he somehow pulls out of this, I don't think he can blame this one on the Chinese, so please tell me that he's now got zero chance of re-election.  All the hardcore Trumpers, when presented with evidence of his inactivity, harassment, and treasonous behavior, have always been able to fall back on, "Yeah, but the economy's doing great!"  Well, that's no longer the case, we could be looking at a recession, 20% unemployment, and the stock market's in the toilet.  So, um, without the economy doing great, what exactly are his good points?

"Sic semper tyrannis" - I have to keep thinking about this. It means "Thus always to tyrants," and suggests that all people who abuse their power will or should fall from power.  Roger Ailes is dead, Harvey Weinstein's in jail and has the corona virus, now we just have to work on Trump.

The most fun I had with this film was checking out who they got to play each Fox anchor - the hair and make-up (and occasionally, prosthetic effects) used to make actors resemble the real anchors is very good.  Charlize Theron in particular became a dead-ringer for Megyn Kelly, but Kidman as Gretchen Carlson required a little more imagination on the viewer's part.  Casting Richard Kind as Rudy Guiliani was particularly inspired, though - the actors playing Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera also ended up having uncanny resemblances.

Also starring Charlize Theron (last seen in "Long Shot"), Nicole Kidman (last seen in "The Portrait of a Lady"), Margot Robbie (last seen in "Mary Queen of Scots"), Allison Janney (last seen in "I, Tonya"), Malcolm McDowell (last seen in "In Good Company"), Kate McKinnon (last seen in "Rough Night"), Connie Britton (last seen in "Professor Marston & The Wonder Women"), Liv Hewson, Brigette Lundy-Paine (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Rob Delaney (last seen in "Deadpool 2"), Mark Duplass (last seen in "Darling Companion"), Stephen Root (last heard in "Superman: Unbound"), Robin Weigert (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Amy Landecker (last seen in "Dreamland"), Mark Moses (last seen in "Paranoia"), Nazanin Boniadi (last seen in "Ben-Hur"), Ben Lawson (last seen in "No Strings Attached"), Josh Lawson (last seen in "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues"), Alanna Ubach (last seen in "Still Waiting..."), Andy Buckley (last seen in "Lady Bird"), Brooke Smith (last seen in "In Her Shoes"), Bree Condon, D'Arcy Carden, Kevin Dorff, Richard Kind (last seen in "Gilbert"), Michael Buie, Marc Evan Jackson (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"), Anne Ramsay, Jennifer Morrison (last seen in "Star Trek Into Darkness"), Ashley Greene (last seen in "Wish I Was Here"), Ahna O'Reilly (last seen in "She's Funny That Way"), Lisa Canning, Elisabeth Röhm (last seen in "Joy"), Alice Eve (last seen in "Before We Go"), Katie Aselton (last seen in "Book Club"), P.J. Byrne (last seen in "Home Again"), Spencer Garrett (last seen in "House of Sand and Fog"), Tony Plana (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), John Rothman (last seen in "Adam"), Tricia Helfer, Madeline Zima, Lennon Parham (last seen in "The House"), Brian d'Arcy James (last seen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"), Holland Taylor (last seen in "Town & Country") with archive footage of Joe Biden (last seen in "The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley"), George H.W. Bush (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone"), Rudy Giuliani (last seen in "The Last Laugh"), Walter Mondale (last seen in "The Front Runner"), Richard Nixon (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Hands of Stone"), Donald Trump (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Eric Bolling, Steve Doocy, Lester Holt (also last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone"), Bill O'Reilly (ditto), Brian Kilmeade (last seen in "Fahrenheit 11/9"), Seth Meyers (also carrying over from "Late Night"), Shepard Smith.

RATING: 6 out of 10 glass desks

Late Night

Year 12, Day 82 - 3/22/20 - Movie #3,484

BEFORE: I made this schedule a month or so ago, and I'm reluctant to change it (tweak it, sure, but not tear it all down and rebuild it) so that puts the Amazon Prime movie "Late Night" here and now, during a time when all the late night talk shows are closed down.  Some of them tried broadcasting last week without an audience, but that just doesn't work - the sports stars kind of feel the same way about playing games with no crowd in the stadium.  I'm actually still surprised about the sports cancellations, because they could still end up with something they could broadcast on TV, and their multi-million dollar endorsement deals could still be valid, plus ratings would be higher than ever, with everyone stuck at home and unable to attend the games in person.  But I think a couple team employees or arena staffers tested positive for Covid, so the safest course of action is just to cancel everything.

So without my daily (OK, I watch the shows on the weekends) doses of Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Conan O'Brien and Trevor Noah, where am I going to get my entertainment from?  I've had to watch the NEWS channels this week to stay informed, and I really prefer to have that comedy filter in place.  Some stuff is just too real otherwise.  Well, all the more reason to watch this film, I guess - if I can't have real late-night programming, I'll have to settle for a fictitious late-night show.

Emma Thompson carries over again from "Johnny English Strikes Again")

THE PLOT: A late-night talk show host suspects that she may soon lose her long-running show.

AFTER: Well, I already watched one film this year about a struggling morning talk show ("Morning Glory") so why not one about a struggling late night talk show?  Oh, sure, there are differences, mostly mandated by the format, where a morning show has two hosts and a weather person, while a late night show has one host, a band, a monologue, etc.  And the new member of the crew is a writer, not a producer - but in many ways, this is nearly the same plotline as "Morning Glory", where the show is just a few months from cancellation, and the newcomer has to find a way to motivate people to change and improve themselves so the ratings will go up.

I'm really torn on this one, because it sort of simultaneously makes sense and also doesn't make sense, like the fact that it's about a woman who's hosted a late-night show for several decades, and that just doesn't exist in the real world.  Only men get hired to host these shows - I'm not saying that's right or fair, but it's what's traditionally taken place.  So portraying something that could only take place in an alternate reality doesn't necessarily feel like a good idea, because it makes me super aware that I'm watching fiction, that this couldn't possibly be real.  I think we should work on disabling the "old boy" network, and the mentality that suggests that Americans will only watch a nighttime talk show with a male host, only none of the networks seem willing to roll those dice.  Ellen, Kelly Clarkson, hosts of "The View" and "The Talk", they're all on during the day, so the message from the networks seems pretty clear on this point.  Again, don't blame the messenger - I'd consider watching a late night show hosted by a woman, only the current crop of Jimmys and Stephen and Seth don't seem willing to give up their spots.

The flip-side of this is that women broke through into the writing staffs years ago, Seth Meyers in particular has been great about highlighting the diversity of his writers' room, he employs a very diverse crew, and as far as I can tell, that was done to get the best possible range of perspective for the show's humor.  I can't speak for the writing staffs of the other shows, but as far as I know, hiring with no regard toward race, gender or sexual orientation is now the law, not just a good idea.  So on that front, this film feels like it's a bit late, in pointing out a problem that may no longer exist.  They try to cover this up by pinning the problem on the show's ficitious host, Katherine Newbury, claiming that she "hates other women" and enjoys the jokes from a writing staff of all white men.  Yet the movie also points out that she hasn't even MET most of her current writers, when she finally does she learns that the one writer whose name she knew died several years ago.  So, umm, NITPICK POINT then, which is it, is she actively sexist in hiring only men, or is she so out of touch that she doesn't know who's on the staff?  Because I don't see how she can be both of those things.

This is all clearly done to set up the "fish out of water" storyline where a woman of Indian descent improbably lands herself a job interview (through a very contrived device) on the same day that Newbury gets pressured to have more women on her writing staff.  Again, gotta call a NITPICK POINT because one women doesn't constitute "more women", and then hiring one woman for a short trial period doesn't really move the needle, not nearly far enough, anyway.  One person out of eight just isn't going to do it, so what was Newbury really thinking she was accomplishing here?

I wish this had just a bit more focus, there are too many plotlines running at once - there's the fact that Newbury is out of touch with her audience, refuses to do remote segments or book guests that appeal to the younger crowd, the people who wouldn't know who Doris Kearns Goodwin is.  Then there's the whole issue of "diversity hiring", which is a complex issue and raises questions that come close to suggesting people should be hired on their merits alone, but this is also contradicted by the fact that the Indian-American woman doesn't seem to be very good at writing jokes, at least not at first.  So which is it, should we hire people based on their talent alone, or just because they're female?  Again, you can't have both of these reasons in the same story.  

Then the film goes a step further, and bungles the whole #metoo storyline - it comes to light that the female host once had a short extra-marital fling with one of her writers.  This also doesn't work, because the movement was specially designed to take down men in power, including the entertainment field, who took advantage of female employees.  While this is a humbling moment for the character, and getting beyond this is part of her personal growth, it's very tone-deaf to connect this to the #metoo or #timesup headlines, and you just can't gender-flip this.  There's not one woman who got called out in the last couple of years for doing what men in power did - back-pedaling by invoking "slut-shaming" or general social media backlash can't make up for this error, either.

It kind of feels like this wanted to be allegorical in some ways - I couldn't help but think of David Letterman's admission and following contrition about a relationship with a female staffer.  And other late-night talk show hosts have dealt with situations where they were replaced as a host, and the show survived with a new host, like Craig Ferguson being replaced by James Corden.  But no one talk-show host has encountered ALL of these problems - being forced to diversify hiring, dealing with a sex scandal made public, and having the network threaten to replace the host if ratings don't improve - all at the same time.  That's what doesn't feel very realistic here.

It's a fact of life, contracts sometimes don't get renewed and ratings sometimes play a part in whether they do or don't, but it's very rare in reality that someone in danger of being replaced could change their ratings enough to make a difference.  So it's especially odd that I've seen this plotline in TWO films recently, this one and "Morning Glory", and in both cases the solution is the same - make the host more personable, create some viral moments for maximum attention from younger viewers, rally the troops and make the show BETTER, and all our problems will be solved.  Hey, if it was that easy to make good TV, then everyone would just DO it, and it just isn't that simple.  Half of all TV shows are always going to get below-average ratings, that's just math.

Also starring Mindy Kaling (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), John Lithgow (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Hugh Dancy (last seen in "King Arthur"), Reid Scott (last seen in "Dean"), Denis O'Hare (last seen in "The Proposal"), Max Casella (last seen in "Wonder Wheel"), Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), John Early (last seen in "Beatriz at Dinner"), Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "Central Intelligence"), Amy Ryan (ditto), Marc Kudisch, Megalyn Echikunwoke (last seen in "Night School"), Annaleigh Ashford (last seen in "Top Five"), Halston Sage (last seen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"), Blake DeLong, Maria Dizzia (last seen in "Vox Lux"), Sakina Jaffrey (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe") with cameos from Bill Maher (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Jake Tapper (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone").

RATING: 5 out of 10 cue cards