The Last Laugh (2019)

Year 12, Day 144 - 5/23/20 - Movie #3,549

BEFORE: Well, this is a bit embarrassing, I don't really have material programmed that's appropriate for Memorial Day, and here we are headed into the big holiday weekend.  I was so busy finding films for Mother's Day and Father's Day, and making sure I could connect those dots, and also link from Father's Day to July 4 that I sort of forgot all about Memorial Day.  In past years I've at least watched a solid war movie like "The Dirty Dozen" or "Flags of Our Fathers" or even a spy movie like "Notorious" or the James Bond films.  "The Monuments Men", "Catch-22", "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot", "Heartbreak Ridge", those are some of my great choices from past years for Memorial Day - last year's choice of "The Lego Movie 2", maybe not so much.

I guess I have to take another pass this year, because it's too late to change things up and still make Father's Day on time.  Mea culpa, unless one of my choices this weekend turns out to be about something war-related, but I'm finishing up this little mini-theme about stand-up comics and neurotic people (remember, it's still National Mental Health Awareness month) so based on what I know about this weekend's films, I'm probably not even in the ballpark of war or military stuff.

Richard Kind carries over from "Obvious Child", and for a while I had TWO films with the same title on my list - last summer I watched a documentary also called "The Last Laugh", also about stand-up comics, but specifically it examined whether it's appropriate to make jokes about things like the Holocaust.  Yep, even THAT would have been more appropriate for Memorial Day, over what I have planned.  Oh, well.  But this is another film on the shorter side, so it's another opportunity to watch a stand-up special in addition to the feature, and cross something else off my Netflix list - only the best fit would be a Lewis Black special, and he hasn't released anything new in a while.  I think maybe I'll rewatch his "Black to the Future" or maybe "Old Yeller: Live at the Borgata", either of those could be a good fit.  I just have to think, which is more important, watching a comedy special that ties in with the main theme (or at least features a comic who's also in the movie) or eliminating something from the voluminous Netflix queue?

I'm going to go with "Black to the Future", which is a comedy special from 2016 that focuses on the election.  Hey, at least that's about American politics for this American holiday weekend, right?  But in that special, Lewis Black talks about possibly retiring because he can't do jokes about Trump, because nothing he could write would be any crazier than the real man, his history and his politics.  Great, first Trump broke the country, now he also broke Lewis Black - notice that he hasn't released a new comedy special since 2016, and I hold the President responsible.

THE PLOT: When retired talent manager Al Hart is reunited with his first client, Buddy Green, a comic who quit show business 50 years ago, he convinces Buddy to escape their retirement community and hit the road for a cross-country comedy tour.

AFTER: OK, I'm feeling a little better about my choice tonight, because this is a road-trip buddy comedy, and what's more American than driving across America?  Umm, only maybe right now's not the best time to go anywhere, like motels or comedy clubs or diners, which are all things they do in this film.  Well, maybe you're in one of those states that's re-opened for business, in which case this film is very accidentally relevant!  Pack up the kids and the dog or maybe your best buddy from 50 years ago and get out there, hit some bars and roadside attractions and a comedy club or two.  It's still too early for us here in New York City, 7 out of 10 of our metrics still say we're not ready, but they are opening beaches this weekend, only you can't swim in the water or get too close to other beach-goers, or ride any nearby carnival rides, or eat any boardwalk food that isn't grab-and-go.  Umm, thanks, but I think I'll skip the beach - but call me when the Atlantic City casinos finally re-open, only that's going to be without buffets (always the highlight of the trip) or shows or any boardwalk food that isn't grab-and-go.  Looks like I'll still be house-bound for a while.

It was also my Dad's 79th birthday yesterday, so topically a film about older men is right on point for me.  When Al, a retired talent agent, finally takes the advice of his granddaughter and moves into assisted living, he re-meets Buddy, a comic who lives there that he used to represent, who turned down an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and quit the business for a podiatry career just before he broke big in comedy.  Al doesn't really take to the slow pace of the senior-home lifestyle, so he convinces Buddy to go back out on the road with him, work a few clubs and then head to New York for an appearance on "The Tonight Show".  Buddy still thinks Johnny Carson's doing the show out of L.A., so Al has to break some sad news to him...

This is a tough year for nursing homes and assisted living, that's for sure - and if someone has the ability and the means and the good health to drive across the country, that's not a terrible idea, at any age.  But aren't these guys paying for the nursing home care but not getting anything out of it while they're on the road?  That just seems like a waste of money, that's all, paying for hotel rooms AND the nursing home (sorry, senior living facility)  Maybe their social security is paying for it?  I just think there were probably a bunch of comedy clubs in the L.A. area that they could have started with, instead of immediately booking a 12-city tour.  Also, I think that any agent worth his salt would have asked to see his client do a set first, before packing his bags.  Sure, Buddy SAYS he has fifty years of jokes saved up, but let's hear a tight five minutes before making that call to Fallon's booker, that's all.  Al shouldn't have had to wait until the first time on stage in front of an audience to confirm that Buddy had material, and wasn't going to freeze up.

Surprisingly, most of the jokes are pretty good here, and they didn't fall back on the trope of a comedian bombing just because he's having a bad day, which for Buddy, means a day without his medical marijuana.  It's kind of interesting now to think that a senior citizen now driving across country has to know the drug laws of all the different states, which ones he can score weed in, and which state line crossings mean that he has to hide his stash.  As we learned in "The Mule", police aren't likely to suspect the elderly to be carrying, but they probably should.

Al and Buddy both make the same mistake, they don't tell their families about their road trip, but they do this for different reasons.  This leads to Al's granddaughter and Buddy's son teaming up to track them down in Kansas.  I wondered if this was going to lead to those two (relative) youngsters getting together, but it's just not that kind of movie.  I think this could have fit into the romance chain because of Al's new relationship with the artist they meet in Texas, but I've probably got bigger fish to fry in February.  Be warned that there's a long drug-induced hallucination, complete with a questionable musical number - the writing credits for the odd throwback song reveal that it was written by the film's director, and that sort of explains a lot.  Let's just say that song was conspicuously absent from the Oscar nominations last year.

But there's a logical problem in doing a drug-trip fantasy in a film, however insightful it might be into Al's hopes and fears, it's not real.  And when he asks another person if what he's seeing is real, she says, "No, you're just hallucinating."  Umm, how does SHE know what he's seeing?  It's not like he's describing it to her...

They finally make it to New York, and Al pulls some strings with another of his former clients to get him to give up his spot on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" so he can finally perform at the Ed Sullivan Theater.  This is a nice touch, except for a few NITPICK POINTS, namely that it wouldn't be up to a comedian to book someone else in his spot on a late-night talk show.  That would have to be done with the approval of the show's booker.  Patton Oswalt recently released a second hour of his Netflix special "I Love Everything" to give one of his mentors, Bob Rubin, a shot on Netflix, but I'm sure this was done with Netflix's approval.  But "The Late Show"?  You can't swap out a comedy routine at the last second like that.  Also, that may be the exterior of the Ed Sullivan theater, but NO WAY is that the interior.  It looked fairly familiar, but I've been at enough Letterman (and one Colbert) tapings to know what the audience area of the Ed Sullivan looks like - there's no giant curtain like Carson used to have, for example.  (BTW, what network has the rights to air either NBC or CBS Letterman reruns?  Are they even airing anywhere?)

(EDIT - Eventually, I found it by Googling "Filming locations The Last Laugh 2019" - though this is a road-trip film where the characters go to Texas, Chicago, New York, etc. it seems the interiors were shot mostly in New Orleans.  Obviously some travel was needed, especially a shot of Chevy Chase gazing at the exterior of the Ed Sullivan Theater, but the inside was the Orpheum Theater in New Orleans.  Harrah's Casino in New Orleans was the stand-in for Las Vegas, and I really should have recognized that "Texas" restaurant with the giant mug of root beer for a sign, I just saw it profiled on an episode of "Food Paradise" a few weeks ago, it's Ted's Frostop outside NOLA. Even that "Chicago" hotel was really a New Orleans hotel.)

I saw briefly in the credits a "Thank you" to someone named Bitsy, with the director's last name.  Ah, I thought, there's the connection to "The Late Show", which has a writer who sometimes sends his mother out to do funny bits where she interviews politicians.  So the writer/director must have experience writing for Colbert, so why the hell couldn't they use footage recording during a real episode of "The Late Show"?  My mistake, I was confusing "Bitsy" with "Bootsie", Bootsie Plunkett is the mother of that talk show writer who gets confused about politics and such.  Still, she's a funny lady, we need her back after the lockdown ends.  Hell, we need talk show audiences back, my late night shows just aren't the same when they're just Zoom conferences.  We also need comedy clubs, roadside diners and casinos back, please.  And hotels (which, final NITPICK POINT, I'm pretty sure you can't smoke in any more - not cigarettes, not medical marijuana.  OK, maybe a few hotels in the midwest, but not very many.)

Also starring Richard Dreyfuss (last seen in "Book Club"), Chevy Chase (last seen in "Love, Gilda"), Andie MacDowell (last seen in "Only the Brave"), Lewis Black (last seen in "Gilbert"), Kate Micucci (last seen in "The Little Hours"), Chris Parnell (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), George Wallace (last seen in "Mr. Deeds"), Chris Fleming, Carol Sutton (last seen in "Hot Pursuit"), Ritchie Montgomery (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Allan Harvey with archive footage of Lawrence Welk, Bing Crosby (last heard in "Scared Stiff"), Bob Hope (ditto) and the voices of Stephen Colbert (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe")

RATING: 6 out of 10 Mariachi bands in Tijuana

Obvious Child

Year 12, Day 143 - 5/22/20 - Movie #3,548

BEFORE: Making some real progress on the Netflix list this month - today I'm preceding this feature with another comedy special, Michelle Wolf's "Joke Show", which I'm hoping will be on topic.  Hey, it's a female doing stand-up, which is also the topic of today's feature, so how could it not be?  Just 96 titles to go before I run out of Netflix, at the rate of two per day (1 film, 1 comedy special) I could have it down to a much more manageable size by the end of June.  Then I can focus more on the other streaming services.  (As of this week, the Disney Plus list is down to just six films that are not "Star Wars" titles I've already seen...)

Jenny Slate carries over from "The Secret Life of Pets 2", and one of this film's other actors is going to get me to my halfway point for 2020, which one will it be?

THE PLOT: A twenty-something comedienne's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the realities of independent womanhood for the first time.

AFTER: I sort of tentatively had this one on my romance list, which would mean I could hold it for next February, but when the linking dictated the need to put it here, so I could make a connection to the next set of three films, which connects to the next set of three after that, I thought things might still work out OK.  There are still tons of films on the romance list, and next February's chain is probably going to be fine without this one, as it doesn't link to much else.  There's also a nice unintended thematic tie-in with tomorrow's film, which is also about stand-up comics - also several comics appeared as voices in yesterday's film, so it's a loose theme for the second half of this week.

This is an expanded version of a short film of the same name, which was intended to fill a void in the film marketplace, namely to depict the topic of abortion in a non-negative way, as the director felt there were too many films relying on the trope of showcasing all the downsides when that plot point is included.  My suspicion is that some writer based this on her personal experience, and found that her history or personal opinion on this topic tended to not match what is usually seen on film, but I can't find any information to confirm that yet.  Which seems weird, because Hollywood has the tendency to be very liberal, and most screenwriters too, with notable exceptions of course, so it's a little strange that I also can't seem to think of a film that doesn't make having an abortion out to be some kind of horrible experience, for which a woman character is made to appear shameful or embarrassed before the procedure, and depressed and guilt-ridden afterwards.  But then, the only movie that leaps to mind for me is "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".  Wait, there's also "The Last American Virgin", but that's kind of the same film.

But I am getting a little tired of the other trope seen here, which is depicting a stand-up comedian bombing when something's not going well in their personal life.  "The Comedian", "Joker", and I can probably come up with a few more examples - let's throw "The Big Sick" in there too.  Look, even if a comedian is having a bad day, or a bad week, they don't stop knowing what's funny, or what works in front of an audience and what doesn't.  Just like if I'm having a terrible day and I go to work, I don't forget how to do my job - I may not WANT to do the job, but I haven't forgotten how.  A fireman might be going through a break-up, but when he gets to work, he doesn't suddenly forget how to put out a fire, right?  In the same way, a stand-up comedian probably already has a routine worked out, it's memorized, more or less, and they believe that combination of sentences is going to make the audience laugh when they get on stage.  So even if they're not feeling particularly hilarious, they know they can fall back on some material that's going to at least get them through their five minutes and probably elicit a few laughs.  Here Donna Stern gets dumped and decides to just "wing it" on stage, and it's a terrible idea, of course - but I just don't see this happening in the real world of comedy.  Look at what Patton Oswalt went through with his first wife dying, but he didn't stop being funny.  If he wasn't in the mood to perform, I bet he just didn't perform, took some time, got his head together, but eventually he got back on stage and even talked about it in his comedy specials.  Even funny people go through some painful life experiences, but they don't suddenly forget how to be funny.

But what's great here is that even though Donna is extremely anxiety-ridden over having to tell her new boyfriend that she's pregnant, to the point where she avoids opportunity after opportunity to do so, even though she doesn't tell him in a nice or constructive way (umm, she mentions her pregnancy AND her upcoming abortion in her stage act, while he's in the crowd) they very quickly get to a place where they can both crack jokes about it.  So maybe while it's not a very good time to have a baby, the fact that they can still relate to each other, and even find some humor in a usually non-humorous situation means that there's some hope for them to work things out.

My problem here is that she was so sure that Max was going to react poorly to her pregnancy, that she didn't even give him the CHANCE to react at all, by not telling him, avoiding him, and then deflecting the issue.  Deflection is a great comedy technique, but it's terrible where relationships and intimacy are concerned.  Take it from someone who cracked jokes during his own divorce negotiations - and some of them even landed!  I've made jokes in the hospital, like while getting x-rays or minor surgery done after a head injury, or while in pain from a kidney stone, so I know that if you can keep your wits about you and bring some humor during the tougher times, you may be OK.  But of course, your mileage may vary, there may be hospital staffers or divorce lawyers out there who don't have much of a sense of humor.

Once again, I'm questioning the music choice - "Obvious Child" is a great name for this film, because it could refer to either the pregnancy or the lead female character herself, who is still childlike in some ways, but forced to figure out adulthood very quickly.  It's also a famous Paul Simon song from his album "The Rhythm of the Saints", and I guess if you can get the music rights to that song, you should get them, only there's no thematic connection between the song and the movie's story.  So why spend money on those rights if they don't bring any insight or meaning to the table?  "The cross is in the ballpark", great, Paul, that's great, but what does that have to do with either stand-up comedy or abortion?  I'm guessing not much.

This sort of reminds me of "Chuck & Buck", in that it's ground-breaking in one small way, but then there's no framework, no support system built up around that one little thing.  In both cases there's about 90 minutes of not really going anywhere, except for that one big/little plot point that up until that point, had maybe never been seen before in a movie, even a small independent one.  And depending on how you feel about that particular issue, that would either be like making the first car with a reverse gear, or perhaps the first car with cupholders.  They may both be needed advances, but one's probably going to be much more important in the long run than the other.

Just to be clear, I'm not hating on the film for the same reason that the Moral Majority or anti-Planned Parenthood religious types would.  I support the cause, and a woman's right to choose - it should be 100% her decision, but then again, there's a part of me that wonders if it could be 99% her decision and maybe we should save 1% of the decision for the potential father?  I mean, shouldn't he at least be told or consulted or have his opinion asked in some way?  It just didn't seem fair that Donna didn't even let him know until she'd made up her mind about how to handle the situation.  I wouldn't suggest enough legal power to sway the decision, I'm saying like 1% as a symbolic value, a token just so he's not completely out of the picture at this point. Just a thought.  It's a bit of a weird situation that some of the same people who support equal rights for women (50% across the board, and I'm fine with that...) also support 100% of the reproductive rights for women, but it takes genetic material from two people to make a baby.

(I noticed that while on a date with Max at the Italian restaurant, Donna ordered for him without even asking him what he might like.  Now, if a MAN did that for a woman in a modern movie, the feminists would be all over this character, who had the nerve to just assume what his date wanted to eat!  Why should this female character get a pass here?  I found this to be very symbolic of her decision to terminate the pregnancy, without even asking him.)

Also starring Jake Lacy (last seen in "Johnny English Strikes Again"), Gaby Hoffmann (last seen in "You Can Count on Me"), David Cross (last heard in "Sorry to Bother You"), Gabe Liedman, Richard Kind (last seen in "Bombshell"), Polly Draper (last seen in "Demolition"), Paul Briganti, Cindy Cheung, Stephen Singer (last seen in "The Kitchen").

RATING: 4 out of 10 cab rides to Brooklyn

The Secret Life of Pets 2

Year 12, Day 142 - 5/21//20 - Movie #3,547

BEFORE: I don't often mention this, but to help chip away at my Netflix list (still close to 100 titles) whenever I'm there to watch a feature, I also try to knock off one of the many comedy specials on my list.  I think I've watched the last two Marc Maron specials twice each, because after watching them, I removed them from my list, then found them again when searching for more things to watch, and re-added them.  Hey, Netflix, how about a pop-up alert that tells me when I'm adding something to my list that I've already seen, so I can avoid watching it a second time?  While I'm at it, why not add a feature to your software that allows me to opt out of being interrupted during the credits for one movie with a preview of another one?  Like, can I finish what I'm doing here, pay my respect to the people who worked so hard making this movie before you shove another one in my face?  You can run the promos for your other movies, sure, just give me the option to watch them AFTER the credits are OVER.  Really, totally, completely OVER.  I promise to watch your promos then, only not really.

If possible, I try to stay on theme so the comedy special (or other short film) connects in some way to the main feature.  In my fantasy, I'm a film festival programmer choosing the appropriate short to precede the main attraction.  So tonight it's the new Patton Oswalt special, "I Love Everything" - that's bound to be good, his stuff is always good.  I may watch it after this animated feature that includes his voice-over work, but I'll mention it before, so it will be like the introduction to the main film.

Tara Strong carries over again from "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay", and I've got that Frank Welker-like dilemma again today, IMDB only lists her as "additional voices", without specifying a character, and by my rules, that's something of a no-no.  Because these animation companies use the same people over and over for minor roles, I guess maybe they pay them at a lower rate if no specific character is mentioned in the credits?  Hey, save your money where you can, I guess - only if I listed all the voice artists in my blog who are credited with "additional voices", my entry below would be longer than my review.  It would be like listing all the actors who are credited as "pedestrian on street" during a big crowd scene in a live-action movie.  So to decrease the length of my year-end countdown, I had to make a cut-off somewhere, so I usually discount voice-work if an actor is not credited with a named role in an animated film.  However, that would leave me with no connection to yesterday's movie.

But it's Wikipedia to the rescue again, because somebody posted the names of the minor characters performed by some of the voice actors who were uncredited for their work on today's film.  So that confirms that Tara Strong performed the voices of two characters, a parakeet named Sweetpea, and an English bulldog puppy named Pickles.  Problem solved, link fixed and order is restored.  I don't know why IMDB has a bug up their butt when it comes to some credits, but whoever updated the Wiki page is my hero. I'll try to pay it forward with all the archive footage appearances I add to the listings for documentaries on the IMDB.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Secret Life of Pets" (Movie #2,690)

THE PLOT: Continuing the story of Max and his pet friends, following their secret lives after their owners leave them for work or school each day.

AFTER: The first "Secret Life of Pets" film was about a single woman who adopts a new dog, and the dog she already lives with (you apparently can't say "owns" any more when it comes to pets) has trouble accepting the new dog.  We've got a similar sort of situation in our house now, only with cats. W brought our new cat, Dax, indoors from our porch in November, and she's been living in the basement ever since, because we didn't think that Heidi, another former stray cat, would be very accepting of her.  Cats are very territorial, after all, so we kept them separate while we figured this out.  I've integrated cats before, with different levels of success, but since the loss of our older cat, Data, my heart just wasn't really in starting another training program.  However, being home during the pandemic gave me plenty of time, so in mid-March I started some kind of process.  At first I'd just go down the basement with some treats, and try to get Dax to approach me - I'd bring a book to read or play a game on my phone, because the progress was glacially slow.  But eventually she'd approach me - for the treats, at first - but in a couple weeks I was petting her regularly and even rubbing her belly.

A few weeks after that, I stopped bringing her food down to the basement, and placing her bowl instead just outside the basement door, meaning she would have to come upstairs to eat.  Then she barely noticed that every day her bowl got a few inches further away from the door, and she'd have to spend more time upstairs in the danger zone to get to the bowl, and eventually, when she learned that nothing on the main floor would harm her, she got more comfortable with traveling a little further to get her lunch and thus spending more time away from her safe space in the basement.  This went on for six weeks, and now the two cats eat about two feet away from each other, and then after lunch, Dax gets to spend time with my wife (her favorite person) and now that we're leaving the basement door open for longer and longer periods each day, she can wander up whenever she feels like it, at least whenever we're there to supervise her interactions with the other cat.  Heidi's been (mostly) great, so I wonder if she remembers when she was the new cat and had to be introduced to the older cat very gradually.  But Dax will still hiss at her if they get too close, though thankfully there hasn't been a big fight between them, since they can just retreat to their safe spaces upstairs or downstairs if they're not in the mood to spend time with each other.

We joke that it's a lot like social distancing rules being slowly relaxed, Dax is perfectly safe if she stays in the basement, but she can't stay down there forever, at some point she's got to come out and interact with others and learn to be sociable, just as at some point I'm going to need to go back to work, though there's still no concrete timetable.  We're in like Phase 2 of socializing the cats, and though we're making progress, I can't predict when we'll reach Phase 3, which involves leaving them alone together during a workday or while we're away for the weekend.  Well, there are no weekend trips planned right now either, so we may get them interacting before the need arises to get a cat-sitter to feed them while we're away.  I don't think we could have made this much progress in 8 weeks without me being mostly housebound, so maybe something small but good comes out of all of this.

But anyway, back to those dogs from the first film.  A lot has changed in Max's life since we saw him in two or three years ago (I watched the first film in 2017, not sure when you did...).  He's become best friends with the other dog, Duke, plus his person Katie got married to a swell guy, and then had a baby (NITPICK POINT: and they're still in the same not-so-spacious NYC apartment?  Not likely...how can there be enough room for three people and two dogs?). But the biggest change of all for Max is that he now sounds like a different famous stand-up comedian, because the last one who provided his voice got caught up in a bit of a scandal, you might have heard about it...

Snowball the rabbit is living in the same building, he's the pet of a young girl who likes to dress him up as a superhero, to the point where he now believes that he IS one, and other pets who need his help are starting to seek out the infamous "Captain Snowball".  A dog named Daisy comes to him for help rescuing an abused animal from a circus.  Meanwhile, neurotic Max and overly-naive Duke find out they're about to go on vacation with their family to a farm (not one upstate, I hope...) so Max asks another dog, Gidget, to look after his favorite toy, which she promptly loses in an apartment full of cats (oh, great, here come the "crazy old cat lady" stereotypes...). Second NITPICK POINT - if a dog is scratching himself too much, it's unlikely that a vet would put a cone around his neck.  That might be appropriate if he were biting himself, but it would do nothing to stop him from scratching himself, unless he was scratching his face, which was not the case.  The cone would also be used if a dog had a wound or stitches after surgery, to keep him from biting out the stitches, but for general itching and scratching, it would essentially be useless.

Splitting the narrative (and the cast) into three separate storylines in three different locations seemed like a huge mistake for most of the film, because the best things about the first film were the scenes where all the pets in the same building got together during the workday and had huge blow-out parties.  When a film has to toggle between three disparate storylines, there's such a great risk that something will go wrong, it's very easy for the pacing to feel weird, or for an editor to give in to the temptation to switch to another storyline just when something was about to happen in the current one.  BUT they juggled all three pretty well here, and after Max and Duke get back from the farm, they somehow managed to bring all three storylines together in a meaningful way.  And very correctly for proper story structure, Max was transformed by his experiences on the farm and his newfound hero-like confidence came in handy when he teamed up with Snowball and Gidget to defeat the evil circus tiger trainer.

However, I've got another NITPICK POINT where the circus was concerned, not with the portrayal of the circus trainer as evil, because popular opinion is now on the right side of this issue, and accordingly, trained animal acts are no longer in vogue in the few circuses that are left since Ringling Brothers folded.  BUT, there's a big difference between a circus, an amusement park and a county fair.  Since this circus had a prominent Ferris wheel in the background, my guess is that the French director and French production company don't understand the distinction.  It's not likely that you'll see rides at a circus, that's more of an amusement park thing (if the rides are permanent) or maybe a county fair (if they're temporary) but at a circus?  No way, not an American one, anyway.  A circus is clowns and wild animal acts and maybe a sideshow, but a county fair is more likely to have pigs and horses, but not tigers and elephants.  Are we clear?

Another NITPICK POINT concerns the dishwasher scene - when Max first visits Gidget, she's seen emerging from a kitchen dishwasher, as if she had been using it like a sauna or steam room.  While there were scenes animated for this film that showed animals partying among mixers and blenders, which were in the film's preview trailer but were cut because of possible kitchen appliance violence, why did they leave a scene in with a dog in a dishwasher?  Isn't there some potential here that a young child would put their dog in their dishwasher at home because of what they saw in the movie? Very irresponsible, and once again, I await the inevitable scandal.  Similarly, there's a shot with Max and Duke riding in the car, when their humans lower the windows in the back seat - Max is such a small dog, he could easily jump out of the window when it's lowered down that much.  Not very likely perhaps but still potentially very dangerous.

Once again, I'm very confused by the music choices for a film targeted at kids.  "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane?  That's a song about drugs (OK, Alice in Wonderland, but really, drugs.) so what's it doing in a kids' movie?  Oh, right, there's a white rabbit in the film.  Well, then, it's a bit too on the nose, isn't it?  "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"?  Right, because kids today are really into some 1970's post-Garfunkel Paul Simon music.  But the worst was "La Grange" by ZZ Top - it's a great song, and it's clearly there for the great guitar riffs in the intro, but didn't the filmmakers know it's a song about a whorehouse?  (The same one that the movie "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" is about, BTW.).  Good God, just listen to the lyrics, it's got no place here. (I think they trimmed out any references to prostitutes, but still...)

Wow, it's been a big week for big cats, right?  I'm kind of sorry that I finished watching "The Tiger King" earlier during lockdown, because this week would have been a hell of a tie-in.  There was Rajah the tiger in "Aladdin", Sabor the leopardess in "Tarzan 2", a couple of panthers in "Tarzan & Jane" and then Bronze Tiger in "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay".  OK, technically Bronze Tiger was a human, but he had a cool superhero name!  Today we had Hu the White Tiger, so it's nearly a clean sweep for the week.  But final NITPICK POINT, how's it going to work with Hu living in the apartment building going forward, isn't he going to be a grown-up tiger someday, and isn't he going to have a serious appetite?  What's he going to do then, eat house cats?  It's also another terrible message to send out to the kiddies, hey, there's nothing wrong with having a tiger in a NYC apartment!  No, no, that's VERY wrong, and another solution should definitely have been offered up.  Sorry, I take my animated movies very seriously, and I wish that these studios had a bit more of an awareness of their legal liability in such matters. A tiger as a pet is no bueno.

That's going to wrap up my week's worth (OK, 8 days) of animated films, because from here I can't connect to any more on my list, or even some of the Disney live-action/CGI remakes like "Dumbo", "Lady and the Tramp" or "The Lion King", which still could have been on topic.  I've got only one animated film scheduled now for late June, but I could include more later in the year, like maybe "Klaus" at Christmas or "The Addams Family" in October, we'll have to wait and see how everything plays out.

Also starring the voices of Patton Oswalt (last heard in "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies"), Kevin Hart (last seen in "The Upside"), Harrison Ford (last seen in "Morning Glory"), Eric Stonestreet (last heard in "The Secret Life of Pets"), Jenny Slate (last seen in "Hotel Artemis"), Tiffany Haddish (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Lake Bell (last seen in "Home Again"), Nick Kroll (last seen in "Adult Beginners"), Dana Carvey (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Bobby Moynihan (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature"), Hannibal Buress (last seen in "Baywatch"), Chris Renaud (also last heard in "The Secret Life of Pets"), Ellie Kemper (last seen in "Laggies"), Pete Holmes (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"), Henry Lynch, Sean Giambrone (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Meredith Salenger (also last heard in "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies"), Michael Beattie (last heard in "The Grinch"), Kiely Renaud, Jessica DiCicco, Garth Jennings (last heard in "Sing").  (The IMDB trivia section says Frank Welker did the vocals for the circus monkey, but so far, I'm unable to confirm...another source says it was John Kassir.)

RATING: 5 out of 10 missing socks

Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay

Year 12, Day 141 - 5/20/20 - Movie #3,546

BEFORE: Well, since I figured out that I need to move "The Laundromat" from late May to early July, that leaves me with an empty slot in May now.  I thought I was going to have to drop this one again, after dropping it back in January, but now it turns out I have room for it.  This was going to connect to the earlier films with Tara Strong, but now Tara Strong carries over from "Tarzan & Jane", and with a sixth appearance today and a seventh tomorrow, suddenly she's a contender for the most films in the year, as I approach the halfway point of 300 films for 2020.

We're slowly getting close to normal life resuming, word is they may start printing comic books again, though right now the comic book stores aren't even open.  That's OK, I switched over to mail-order at the Manhattan chain where I'm registered, and I've slowly been using the two months of lockdown to catch up, I was 5 weeks behind on comics in March, now I'm just 1 week behind.  And there's talk of movies getting released soon too, all the ones I want to see are comic-book related, like "New Mutants" and "Wonder Woman 1984" in August and "Black Widow" in November.  All that still could happen if we all keep wearing our face-masks and don't blow it by going to bars and parties and spreading the virus.  Ah, crap, in some states it's already too late for that.

OK, so since New York City's stats are still inching toward progress, this summer I hope to enjoy going to movie theaters and comic-book stores again, but if you want to join me, keep doing the social distancing, even if your state says it's OK to relax the protocols.  Within another two or three weeks everyone who's gone to the beach too early will be either dead or immune,  and maybe enough people will have the antibodies that Covid-19 won't be spreading any more.  Honestly in those states that re-opened things too early, I don't see another way out.  I'm still at home collecting checks and playing video-games until my governor and mayor tell me to do otherwise - I've got enough movies to last until late July.  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Suicide Squad" (Movie #2,512)

THE PLOT: Amanda Waller's task force targets a powerful mystical object that they will risk their lives to steal. 

AFTER: It's a little weird, but in hindsight I can often see other paths that I couldn't see before - like if I had linked from "Hard Rain" to this film, via Christian Slater, then I could have flipped the last 26 films around in reverse order, and ended with "The Kitchen", which just happens to also link to tomorrow's film, but in a different way.  But, then, of course, all the animated films wouldn't have been in a nice little row together, and I wouldn't have landed an appropriate film on Mother's Day.  So maybe that tells me that my scheduling, for all its faults and petty annoyances, is in fact about as good as it can be.  

I really didn't have a problem with the "Suicide Squad" movie that came out in 2016 - it had big stars, it had a Joker in it, it introduced the movie-going public to Harley Quinn, who'd been a fan favorite in the Batman animated series and then the comic books for years, and I ended up giving it a 7 when I finally saw it in January 2017.  If there were any negatives for me, they include a somewhat confusing storyline - their mission was to "save the world", which didn't sound like a clear set of parameters, but since the danger came from within their own group, I guess you could say they did save the world from themselves, so, umm, mission accomplished?  Also, the poster was very busy and poorly-designed, so that didn't really help sell it as a superhero film.  But the backlash was very terrible and heated against it, you'd think that this movie killed everybody's favorite pet, which I can confirm it did NOT do.

There's another "Suicide Squad" movie due in 2021 (assuming the production wasn't slowed down too much by the pandemic) and DC/Time Warner/AOL is about to make the same mistake they did with "Birds of Prey", only in reverse.  "Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of Something or Other" was an extremely complicated title, and they had to change it to "Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey" after its release just to get people to go and see it.  But the "Suicide Squad" sequel title is too simple, it's just "The Suicide Squad", they just added the "The", and that's too close to the original movie, so many people may avoid it because they'll think they already saw this movie. Just call it "Suicide Squad 2" or "Suicide Squad: The Final Mission", just something to distinguish it from the 2016 movie, or else you'll have to do that in the third week of release just to draw some box office after two weeks of fail.

But between 2016 and 2021 came this animated "Suicide Squad" movie, and since it's out of live-action DCU continuity, they could do anything they wanted, even kill off the main characters, which works great because those are the parameters of the plot anyway - criminals are given an opportunity to knock years off their sentence if they take part in a near-impossible mission, a suicide mission if you will, at least for some of them.  In the real world city and state governments faced a similar dilemma, by keeping criminals incarcerated they ran the risk of exposing them to Covid-19, which could mean their death, and that's a potentially cruel and unusual punishment, especially for non-violent offenders who didn't deserve the death penalty, or even a serious illness penalty.  So in the early days of the pandemic, a lot of criminals were given early release, and at least here in NYC, some of them went right back to committing crimes.  What dopes, they got a "Get out of jail free" card, and then stupidly rolled doubles three times in a row AGAIN, and ended up back where they started.

But the answer to the dilemma was right here in the "Suicide Squad" movies - if you want early release, you have to do a difficult task.  Those jailbirds should have been put to work to earn their release, either by cleaning the subways or delivering food to food pantries, or helping to load bodies out of hospitals, something in-between prison and release I think, something that maybe put them at a lesser risk than jail, but would also help out the community during a difficult time.  I think this should have at least been discussed before they cleared out the prisons to the extent that they did.  Public service should have been a fine alternative to incarceration.

Anyway, the animated film brings back three characters from the 2016 live-action film - Harley Quinn (of course), Deadshot, and Amanda Waller (the characters blatantly discuss how she's recently lost weight, which suggests they may have started animating this before Viola Davis took the role in the DCU).  What's great here is that there really are no superheroes, just three sets of villains that find themselves at cross purposes - there's the Suicide Squad of Harley, Deadshot, Bronze Tiger, Killer Frost and Copperhead, then there's the eternally immortal Vandal Savage and his crew, and the third faction is led by Zoom (sort of an alt-universe reverse Flash) but also includes Silver Banshee and Blockbuster.

(Before that, there's an intelligence-gathering mission with a different Suicide Squad line-up, with Deadshot's team of Count Vertigo, and the criminal couple Punch and Jewelee, who were always seen as a wanna-be Joker and Harley.  The preliminary mission succeeds, but there's a reason why none of the other anti-heroes stick around for the main storyline.)

What they're all after is a mystical object, a sort of "Get Out of Hell Free" card, something that will get someone straight to heaven if they die while holding it.  Umm, I thought we had a separation of church and superhero movie in this country, this is just a little too much Christian religion coming in to an action film.  Hell and heaven are real in the DCU, is this firmly established?  Then how come Superman died and came back to life?  He should be more popular than Jesus in the greater Metropolis area.  But I digress.

Everybody who wants this card is either sick or dying, which is a bit of a bummer.  We even see Amanda Waller undergoing some medical tests, so is this a mission for the good of the country, or does she want the card because she has some terminal illness?  Vandal Savage wants it because even though he's eternal, he's not immortal, or something - hell, I don't think he even understands his own powers, he's been alive for 10,000 years but he's afraid to die?  Does he just think he's been extremely lucky all that time, or what?  And Zoom, with his Flash-like speed powers, wants the card because even he can't outrace death, apparently he got killed by Batman (Thomas Wayne?) in another dimension last week, and he's so fast that he's dying really slow - does that even make sense?  I thought all the guys with Flash-powers could run so fast they could go back in time, so why doesn't he just do THAT?

This is not really a superhero film for kids, DC made a push to try to appeal to some more adult fans (or I should say OLDER fans, "adult" implies that they've grown up, which we clearly have not...) so these are super-powered people who curse, kill, and attend (or perform in) male strip clubs.  So if your kids watch this, they may have some interesting questions after, like "Who is Magic Mike?"  Don't say I didn't warn you.  But what's great about it is that there are enough characters with their own motivations, so they keep you guessing about who's really working for whom, and you're very aware that when you put villains up against villains, that's going to create a situation that's very difficult to navigate or predict, with constantly shifting sands.  But perhaps there's just one too many reversals here.

I'm really more of a Marvel comics fan than a DC fan, but I like to stay current on the exploits of Batman and Superman, plus I read the Justice League trade paperbacks.  I should eventually catch up again with the Batman & Superman movies on iTunes - I count 5 Superman movies and 9 Batman ones there that I haven't seen, but even at $3 per movie, that adds up quickly to some real money to watch all of those. And now I think I have to add the "Justice League" animated movies, too, like "The Flashpoint Paradox", which I think got referenced here.  I wonder if I can join the DC movies streaming service for a free month or something, and then cancel - that might be worth looking into. But there are 10 other "Justice League" films available also, and that seems like a ton of work to go through all the cast lists and figure out the best order to watch them in.  

Also starring the voices of Christian Slater (last seen in "Hard Rain"), Vanessa Williams (last seen in "Shaft"), Billy Brown (last seen in "Race to Witch Mountain"), Liam McIntyre, Kristin Bauer van Straten (last seen in "Nocturnal Animals"), Gideon Emery (last heard in "Krampus"), C. Thomas Howell (last seen in "Hidalgo"), Jim Pirri, Dania Ramirez (last seen in "Premium Rush"), Dave Fennoy (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty By Nature"), Greg Grunberg (last seen in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), David Boat, Trevor Devall, Cissy Jones, Julie Nathanson, James Urbaniak (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Natalie Lander, Matthew Mercer. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 chicken nudges

Tarzan & Jane

Year 12, Day 140 - 5/19/20 - Movie #3,545

BEFORE: Frank Welker carries over from "Tarzan II", at least I think he does.  Once again, no mention of him in the IMDB, but Wikipedia says he provides the voice (vocal effects?) for two characters, Nuru and Sheeta.  Or else they just used his tiger growls from the first "Tarzan" film for new leopard characters, but to me, that's going to serve my purposes, because I planned to put the two direct-to-video "Tarzan" sequels together, and that's the way it's going to be.

I've got to keep moving, I can't shut down my blog just because of a little linking dispute - either Frank Welker's voice is in these "Tarzan" sequels, or it isn't.  If it is, the chain is still good and I'm still on track for another perfect year.  If it isn't, well, at least the pressure's off.  Similarly, some small parts of Disney's Orlando operations are going to open this week (thank God we didn't stick to our plan to go to Florida in the first week of May) and the shops and restaurants at Disney World are going to open in about a week.  The theme park itself is still closed, but at this point it's probably just a matter of time, they'll have signs up that the management is not responsible for any Covid-19 transmission (but hey, neither is our government, apparently) and then maybe by next spring this whole thing will have blown over, and if people still don't want to visit Epcot or Galaxy's Edge, well, that will just make it easier for me to get in.

Meanwhile, we've got some restaurants opening up here in NYC - I saw signs last week that Starbucks stores would open today, and over the weekend I stood in line at Carvel for some ice cream, but the line moved much too slowly and I decided it wasn't worth it.  I think it will be a while before the service industry gets its act together and starts providing, you know, service.  But I think I'll go for a walk today to get some more cold cuts from the pork store, just to have something to do.

THE PLOT: After being married an entire year, Jane thinks back on some of her and Tarzan's adventures as she searches for something special to mark the occasion with.

AFTER: Well, now I feel like I was tricked into watching this.  While this was technically the first direct-to-video sequel to Disney's "Tarzan" (released three years before "Tarzan II") it's really just three (unaired) episodes of the Disney Channel show "The Legend of Tarzan", stitched together in order to make a home-video release out of them.  Shameless.  What an obvious cash-grab, but I guess Disney did what they had to do in order to keep the franchise alive until a proper sequel could be produced.  Still, this is no way to treat fans of the original 1999 movie.

They even use that horrible sit-com format from the 1970's that came around at the close of a season, when the writers had nothing left in the tank, or some star was in rehab and unavailable, where a few of the characters would sit around and say, "Hey, remember that time we got locked in that meat locker at the butcher shop?"  "Oh, yeah, that was terrible..." and then they'd run a few scenes from that previous episode, and repeat until a half-hour show is full.  Worse yet, they'd promote it as an "All-New" episode, which it obviously wasn't, just the framing device was new and the rest was old.  I mean, come on, call it a "New" episode, I can let that slide because it's a new edit of previously aired material, but "ALL-NEW"?  Someone felt they needed to invent a word that was an even greater lie to hide to disguise their duplicity and trick viewers into tuning in.

I can also see why these three episodes didn't make the cut - in the first one, Jane's friends come to visit her in the jungle, and all three prudish women are CLEARLY attracted to muscle-bound Tarzan, who swings around wearing just a loincloth that barely covers what needs to be covered.  The three women wondered why their friend would stay in the jungle and not come back to England, but by the end of their visit, they all understand the appeal of jungle life.  Gee, umm, Jane, your husband Tarzan, does he have a brother, maybe a cousin?  We know he swings on a vine, but does he, you know, SWING?

In the second episode (to explain why Jane shouldn't get Tarzan an anniversary gift), they flashback to Tarzan being hired as a guide to help two men get across the jungle.  They claim to there to study the volcano, but they're really there to get some diamonds from the mine that's WAY too close to said volcano.  (I bet if I Googled whether any diamond mines in the world are near active volcanoes, the answer would be a resounding no...).

And in the third flashback episode, a couple of World War I biplane pilots crash near Tarzan and Jane's tree-story treehouse, and one just happens to be an old childhood friend of Jane's, there to collect a music box that he gave her years ago, which somehow has something to do with secret codes.  Tarzan doesn't like this guy from the start, and he turns out to be a double-agent, so there's a great lesson for the kids, first impressions are usually correct, so always judge a book by its cover.
The third flashback is supposed to prove why Jane shouldn't expect Tarzan to dance with her on their anniversary, but I'm not sure anyone dances in that whole story, especially not Tarzan, so I fail to see how that story even illustrates the point it was supposed to be making.

Along the way, Tarzan battles panthers, surfs on a crocodile, and rides a slab of rock down a volcano's lava flow, among other extreme sports, but I still feel that I tried very hard to re-work this film into my schedule after skipping it in January, but in the end I probably shouldn't have bothered. The animation is very crude in some parts, nearly threadbare line-drawing, not all that beautiful shading that we saw during the tree-surfing scenes in the original film.  Plus the sound-mixing in the third episode was WAY off, the music was much too loud and I could barely hear the voices.  Why not fix that before posting this film on your wonderful new Disney Plus streaming service?

Also starring the voices of Michael T. Weiss, Olivia d'Abo (last heard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"), Jeff Bennett, Jim Cummings (last heard in "Christopher Robin"), April Winchell (also carrying over from "Tarzan II", just in case), Rene Auberjonois (last seen in "McCabe & Mrs. Miller"), Grey DeLisle-Griffin, Alexis Denisof (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), John O'Hurley, Nicollette Sheridan (last seen in "Code Name: the Cleaner"), Tara Strong (last heard in "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies"), Kevin Michael Richardson (also last heard in "All-Star Superman").

RATING: 2 out of 10 cricket scores

Tarzan 2: The Legend Begins

Year 12, Day 139 - 5/18/20 - Movie #3,544

BEFORE: OK, here's where things maybe get a bit confusing.  This film and the next two on my list were originally going to be watched in January, along with that week of Batman and Superman-based animated films, but then I added "The Irishman", "Stand Up Guys", "Joker" and "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies" all at the last minute, and I found myself with too many films, and February 1 coming up fast.  So I cut a couple of animated films, which I think made that DC Comics week a little stronger, without Tarzan in the mix.  And it was only four months before I found a new place to re-schedule them, and they serve a different purpose here, connecting other Disney films to my last animated film (for now) and then in turn, helping me get to the end of May and all that June has to offer.  So, on that level, it seems like it was meant to be.

Only, here's the problem - Frank Welker is the connection from "Aladdin", where he was the voice of the Cave of Wonders, Apu the monkey, and also the sounds made by Jasmine's tiger, Rajah.  Only I can't confirm with the IMDB that Frank Welker did a voice for "Tarzan 2", he's not listed.  He's listed as the voice of a leopardess in this film on Wikipedia, but noticeably absent from IMDB and the film's official credits.  He voiced that same leopard, Sabor, in the original "Tarzan" film, but didn't appear in that film's credits either, so it's possible that they just re-used the sounds he recorded for the first "Tarzan" film here, and that would still count, by my rules.  He's also listed as the voice of Sabor in several Disney-based Wikis, so I'm going to stand by the very probable possibility that he's the source of the leopard sounds in today's film, but I just can't completely confirm it.  I'd hate to break the chain over something like this, and I have no time to re-work the chain and still stay on schedule. (There are other films I could add in here that would serve as a more definite link, the problem there is, I don't want to watch "Tom & Jerry Blast Off to Mars" or "Scooby-Doo: Where's My Mummy?")

So, my belief is that Frank Welker carries over from "Aladdin", from tiger sounds to leopard sounds, and I really hope that's correct.

THE PLOT: The tale of Tarzan's misadventures as a boy as he searches for his true identity and the meaning of family.

AFTER: This one's still on Netflix, though it's in my Disney Plus watchlist, when I tried to watch it I noticed it said "coming June 25" so I guess whenever the Netflix contract on a Disney film runs out, it comes back to home base.  But all this drama over whether Frank Welker's voice is in this film or not, and I wish that the film's story had made this risk worth it, because it really didn't.  Young Tarzan gets separated from his adoptive gorilla mom, and it appears to Kala that he died by falling off a cliff, only he didn't, he grabbed a vine and slammed into a cliff ledge.  (Some Disney films seem to have a problem with the laws of momentum, there was a moment in "Frozen II" where Olaf was riding on a wagon or something, and after the wagon hit a barrier, he got knocked off and flew BACKWARDS into Anna's arms.  If the wagon stopped suddenly, his momentum should have made him fly off the wagon in a FORWARD direction, not back.)

But because Tarzan hears another gorilla say something about how Kala is "better off without him", he gets it in his head that he probably shouldn't go back to her and reveal that he's alive.  Right, because seeing his crying, grieving mother should be seen as a definite sign that she doesn't want to find out that her son didn't die.  Huh?  It's also a bad lesson for the kids, who should always call their mother to let them know they're alive, if there's ever any reason to think otherwise.  But this sets Tarzan off on an adventure to Dark Mountain, to try to find out why he's not like the other apes, and maybe how to learn to be a better ape (umm, you'd think he'd be in the best position to learn that by going back to his ape family, but I guess let's assume that young Tarzan maybe isn't very smart?).

I don't know, this is all a bit weird, like the fact that it's called "Tarzan 2" but takes place BEFORE most of the original "Tarzan" film.  I guess it's set between the opening boyhood scenes of that movie, but before the adult Tarzan scenes?  So it's not a sequel but a - midquel?  Would "Tarzan 1.5" make more sense than "Tarzan 2"?  Did we need a full-on "Muppet Babies" type version of the Tarzan story?  I guess this was made during a different time, back when Disney was ripping itself off before other studios could, making quickie home-video sequels to all their big-budget animation films that were successful?  Then, of course, they moved on to making live-action remakes of all their big-budget animation films that were successful, I'm not sure if that was an improvement.  But you have to admit that DisneyCo. is very eco-friendly, they truly believe in recycling, at least when it comes to characters and plotlines.  And Phil Collins songs.

Things turned out OK for Tarzan, he went all the way to the Dark Mountain and hung out with a couple bullying brother gorillas and also a cranky senior hermit gorilla, just to figure out he was better off back at home with his family.  Seems to me that should have been evident in the first place, but what the heck do I know?  In case you were wondering if adult-humor comic George Carlin ever appeared in a Disney film, this is that film.

Also starring the voices of Harrison Chad (last heard in "Charlotte's Web 2"), Glenn Close (last seen in "The Chumscrubber"), Brenda Grate, Harrison Fahn (last heard in "The Fox and the Hound 2"), Lance Henriksen (last heard in "Superman: Brainiac Attacks"), George Carlin (last seen in "The Last Laugh"), Estelle Harris (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in America"), Brad Garrett (last heard in "Ralph Breaks the Internet"), Ron Perlman (last seen in "Pottersville"), Connor Hutcherson.

RATING: 4 out of 10 conveniently-placed vines

Aladdin (2019)

Year 12, Day 138 - 5/17/20 - Movie #3,543

BEFORE: It's Disney's world now, we all just live in it - especially since Disney owns ABC, ESPN, Marvel Comics and a bunch of other things.  They just can't make much money right now, with the theme parks and movie theaters closed.  So like many people, I'm on Disney Plus this week, I joined the service with a free year last October after getting a new iPhone on our Vegas trip, and then I got another free year as a Christmas gift, so come November I can add the 2nd free year to my first free year, and maybe by then the Marvel superheroes shows will be airing.

Up until now, I've only used the Disney Plus service for "The Mandalorian" and the final season of "The Clone Wars", but that's not nothing - that's a lot, and if it's the only way to watch TWO "Star Wars" TV series, then I'm in.  Now, after 7 months on the service, I can finally get to some movies.  I should re-watch "Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker" but who has the time?  (Oh, wait, that's right, I do because I'm technically unemployed right now.).

Originally, I was supposed to be in Orlando last week, that was the plan we made in February, bought the plane tickets and everything, but then March came along and said, "Mmm, nah, I don't think so..." so we had to cancel the trip.  While it was snowing in May in NYC, we could have been on a Florida beach - but you know what?  Beaches suck, I don't know why people are clamoring for beaches to be open by Memorial Day.  Who wants sand in their shoes and getting sunburned and possibly being drowned by the undertow or eaten by a shark (or an alligator, it is Florida...)?  I like some things that are near beaches, like boardwalks and amusement parks and seafood shacks, but I can do without the beach itself.  But then again, I could have been at Epcot Center or Galaxy's Edge, so hey, Orlando, maybe I'll see you next May?  Disney Shanghai did open up the other day, so there's some hope.

Alan Tudyk carries over from "Frozen II" as the voice of Iago, the parrot.

THE PLOT: A kind-hearted street urchin and a power-hungry Grand Vizier vie for a magic lamp that has the power to make their deepest wishes come true.

AFTER: Well, if last week was a big week here for "Star Wars" actors, there's no doubt that this week has been just as big for stars from "Saturday Night Live".  There was Molly Shannon twice, Maya Rudolph a bunch of times, plus Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Leslie Jones, Pete Davidson and Beck Bennett in "Angry Birds 2", Will Forte in "The Willoughbys", and Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer in "Wine Country" (along with SNL writers Paula Pell and Emily Spivey).  No SNL actors in "Frozen II", but I've got Nasim Pedrad tonight in a new character (best friend of the princess) created for the remake.  But every trend has to end sometime - George Carlin will be here tomorrow, but he only hosted the show a bunch of times, he wasn't a regular cast member.

It's been a LONG time since I last watched Disney's 1992 "Aladdin" movie - but I remember dubbing that movie and its two sequels to a DVD, so I must have watched them in order sometime between 2004 and 2009, I think the Disney channel had a marathon or something.  Strangely, I approve of the live-action/CGI update, so this bodes well if I want to get around to the new CGI version of "The Lion King" - which is on my list, I've just been in no hurry to get to it.  That film has a fair number of connections, so I think it (and Disney) will be OK if I wait.

But man, what an update for "Aladdin", from 2-D animation to full-on live-action spectacular, complete with a cast of thousands and big dance numbers that seem a little more Bollywood than Khali-wood, but what do I know?  (Actually, the Arab cinema industry in Hyderabad is nicknamed "Tollywood", and the Pakistan cinema industry is called "Lollywood", but I had to look those up.).  And I heard that Will Smith was concerned about replacing Robin Williams as the Genie, but really, he shouldn't have been.  He got to be expressive and over-the-top in his own way, which involved a little bit of beatboxing and some rapping, but he's also a fair singer, it turns out.  Williams was manic and hilarious, but not really a great singer, so it's great that somebody else could step into the same role, and use different talents to shine, and not just do a copycat performance.

And I think the music really stood out here too, a couple songs were new and some from the 1992 film got updated or reworked, which was also smart.  I never noticed how clever the rhymes were in the 1992 film, like when the song "Prince Ali" rhymed "camels" with "mammals" or "monkeys" with "flunkies", were those rhymes always there?  My one quibble was that in "A Friend Like Me", Will Smith pronounced "bona fide" as "bone-a fee-day", which may be more correct in terms of Latin words, except that in the song, it's paired to rhyme with "certified", so it should have been sung as "bone-a fied".  They couldn't record another take?

The whole thing's just a bit too long now, running 2 hours and 8 minutes, when the original 1992 animated version was just 90 minutes.  I got a little bored right before Jafar stole the lamp and got his own wishes, there was a bit of a drag leading up to this.  Really, I shouldn't be rooting for Jafar at that point because his success is going to be a nice change and get the story moving again.  I understand the importance of adding the handmaiden/friend character for Jasmine, and also her dissatisfaction with the patriarchal society that somehow prevents her from becoming the sultan and forces her to marry a prince.  Pointing out gender inequality is always a good use of time, even if it's somewhat apocryphal, but even so, that shouldn't add an extra half-hour to a movie meant for kids (and their parents, who might need to use the cinema's restroom halfway through the film).

For that matter, almost the entire cast is olive- or brown-skinned people, and that's also great news for equality.  Who says kids won't go to see a movie unless the cast is mostly Caucasian?  It may have cost nearly $200 million to make, but it took in over a billion, great for Disney's bottom line - I hoped they saved some of that money for the tough theater-less days ahead.

It's also great that special effects have progressed to the point where anything is possible in a live-action film.  Animation used to have an advantage where anything somebody could think of, if it could be drawn, it could happen in animation.  Now it scarcely matters, anything's possible with CGI too, so there's only a marginal difference now between a "live-action" and an animated film, when everything is this seamless it may even be tough to tell where the live-action leaves off and the CGI starts.  So I'm sort of OK with people calling this the "live-action" remake of "Aladdin", but it's still the wrong term for the remake of "The Lion King", which is about 99% CGI and very little live.

Also starring Will Smith (last seen in "Quincy"), Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott (last seen in "The 33"), Marwan Kenzari (last seen in "What Happened to Monday"), Navid Negahban (last seen in "12 Strong"), Nasim Pedrad (last heard in "Despicable Me 2"), Billy Magnussen (last seen in "Velvet Buzzsaw"), Numan Acar (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far From Home"), Nina Wadia, Jordan A. Nash, Taliyah Blair, Amir Boutrous, Aubrey Lin and the voice of Frank Welker (last heard in "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker")

RATING: 6 out of 10 palace guards