Fool's Gold

Year 12, Day 192 - 7/10/20 - Movie #3,599

BEFORE: Matthew McConaughey carries over again from "The Beach Bum", and this marks his fourth appearance so far this year.  It's also the fourth appearance for Donald Sutherland, and also Kevin Hart, but this sort of thing will sort itself out at the end of the year, as it always does.  I'm focusing on McConaughey this week, and in this section of the year he should make it to 7 films, which is respectable, and then during October I'm planning to watch "The Dark Tower", which should bring him up to eight.

If you're keeping track at home, that will force a tie between him and Robert De Niro, Maya Rudolph, and Owen Wilson.  As I approach the 2/3 completion marker for the year, these actors seem to be competing for the top spot this year.  But, there are still 100 films to go, and a lot of actors have four or five appearances already - another mini-chain featuring someone like, say, Glenn Close, and these front-runners could be overtaken.  Or, someone could emerge as the front-runner after the Summer Music Concerts & Documentary chain, somebody like Mick Jagger or Paul McCartney who often make appearances via archive footage.  Or, if I watch all five "Twilight" movies in October, any actor who's in the entire series gets a 5-film bump very late in the year, for a potential come-from-behind victory.

I'm probably more excited than you are to find out who's going to win this year, and I'm resisting the urge to total up appearances in the unwatched films to find out.

THE PLOT: A new clue to the whereabouts of a lost treasure rekindles a married couple's sense of adventure - and their estranged romance.

AFTER: This is the third of three McConaughey films in a row with a maritime or beach theme, much of the action in "Serenity", "The Beach Bum" and this one take place on boats or beaches, and I had to organize them in some way - but it's also a nice coincidence that summer's really kicked in now post July 4.  Did anything nautical or Caribbean-related happen on this day in history?  On July 10, 1499, Portuguese explorer Nicolau Coelho returned to Lisbon, after discovering the sea route to India with Vasco de Gama.  On July 10, 1973, the Bahamas gained full independence, and on July 10, 1985, the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French agents and sunk in Auckland harbor.  And on July 10, 2011, the Russian cruise ship Bulgaria sank in the Volga River, Russia's worst maritime disaster since 1986.  (OK, there's a bit of a tie-in there, since this film begins with the accidental sinking of the boat that the lead character's using to search for treasure...)

But I'm a day late right now, I started watching this film on Friday July 10 and had to finish it on Saturday, after a trip out to Long Island where my wife bought cigarettes and we had our first INDOOR restaurant meal since March.  Our first choice of restaurant wasn't open, perhaps because they're doing outdoor dining and the weather report today called for thunderstorms and heavy rain, but then things changed.  So we had to go to one of our back-up L.I. restaurants, and they were serving indoors, while still observing the new necessary protocols (one-time use paper menus, wait staff in masks, cleaning all tables between uses).  The reason I'm a day behind is that I fell asleep last night, about halfway through the film - admittedly I did have two beers on Friday when I came home, and also had a two-hour conversation with my BFF before starting the film, but mostly I blame the film for not holding my attention.

The problem here is that you'd expect a film about searching for treasure to be exciting, and this one just isn't.  It's tedious, there's a lot more talking about looking for and finding treasure than there is, umm, looking for and finding treasure.  There's plenty of action, the different factions searching the ocean often get violent with each other, there are fist-fights and shootings and a few people get knocked out with shovels - but to what end?  All that's no substitute for DOING STUFF that gets our heroes closer to the treasure, because if you're mostly talking about it, then you're not DOING it.  I heard this story about the Spanish galleons sailing for Spain and then encountering a hurricane so many damn times, and each time it just kept getting longer and longer, with more details, and who the hell cares, just get out there and start finding the clues already!

First, we also have to watch as married couple Finn and Tess consciously uncouple, because he's still searching for this treasure and she's so over it, she wants to hold him to his promise to return to Chicago, and apparently he meant that he would...eventually.  So she's been saving up enough money for a divorce lawyer by working on a yacht for some multi-millionaire (Donald Sutherland doing a terrible British accent, for the duration of the film.).  Meanwhile Finn's kept the financing for his treasure hunt coming by taking money from a rapper who owns the nearby island, and the loss of his boat suggests that he's not going to be able to keep the search going, so the rapper wants results, or his money back, or Finn's head on a plate.  He prefers the latter, and Finn is thrown overboard in chains, but manages to escape and get back to land, just in time for his divorce hearing.  Hey, he's a busy guy.

But Finn also manages to find half of a broken plate, which he believes came from the galleon that they're all looking for - so he manages to convince the multi-millionaire and his horribly entitled daughter to use his yacht to go back and resume the search.  Only the rapper has hired another treasure hunter, Finn's old mentor, and the competition is on.  Hey, maybe if we recount everything we know about the sinking of that ship for the tenth time, we'll notice some small detail that we ignored the previous nine times.  Well, it's worth a try anyway, but won't that be boring for everyone in the audience, to hear the whole story yet again?  Yes, I suppose it will.

At one point during the production of this film, the shoot was delayed by an infestation of deadly box jellyfish, which prevented the stars from doing swimming scenes.  It's almost like the jellyfish knew something that the crew didn't, and were trying to prevent the film from being completed.  Noble jellyfish, we appreciate your efforts, even if they were in vain.  Ultimately this was better than "The Beach Bum", because the narrative did have an arc, and a proper ending, but ultimately it's neither here nor there, not good enough to be great and not bad enough to be terrible.  And gee, I wonder if working together to find the treasure will somehow get these crazy divorced kids back together again.  (Of course it will, but this is obviously unrealistic, they may be successful in their efforts to find treasure, but that's not likely to fix the other problems inherent in their marriage, right?)

Also starring Kate Hudson (last seen in "You, Me and Dupree"), Donald Sutherland (last heard in "Lord of War"), Alexis Dziena (last seen in "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist"), Ray Winstone (last seen in "King Arthur"), Kevin Hart (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Ewen Bremner (last seen in "The Rundown"), Brian Hooks, David Roberts (last seen in "Unbroken"), Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Michael Mulheren, Adam LeFevre (last seen in "House of D"), Rohan Nichol (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Roger Sciberras, Duncan Young, Luke Pegler (last seen in "Hacksaw Ridge"), Xavier Fernandez, Peter Whitford, Laurence Coy (last seen in "San Andreas"), Linda Cropper.

RATING: 5 out of 10 search grids

The Beach Bum

Year 12, Day 191 - 7/9/20 - Movie #3,598

BEFORE: Well, terrible news - right after I planned my chain of movies to get me from the end of my documentary chain to "Wonder Woman 1984", and from there to the start of my October horror chain, I found out that the release date of the new Wonder Woman movie has been moved, from August 14 to October 2.  So my new plan needed to be revised, maybe even scrapped entirely.

I know, there's a pandemic on, and we all have to make adjustments.  But I JUST MADE that plan, now it's out the window.  Or maybe not.  The best thing about my plan was that it got me focused on how I wanted to spend the rest of my slots this year, and it neatly divided my watchlist into two parts - one list of films that I could get to this year, and another list of films that would have to carry over into 2021. And I was fine with it, very comfortable with which films could make the cut and fit into what's left of 2020.  So maybe I didn't need to scrap the whole thing, maybe I could preserve some of it, or even most of it.

So I took a look at the films I had scheduled on either side of "Wonder Woman 1984".  Was there another film on my list that could take its place, connect the two films on either side.  No, there wasn't.  BUT, there were two films that could bridge that gap.  And I still have extra slots, so there you go.  One hole plugged.

Next problem - another film coming up that I may want to see is "Bill & Ted Face the Music" which got its release date moved UP to August 14.  So far it hasn't been part of my plan, but could it be?  I found a place where I could insert it, but is that really what I want to do?  And once I link to it, could I link back to the chain I just created, in (hopefully) not too many steps?  Why, yes I can, I'd have to delete two other films, and add one more with Keanu Reeves in it, but that's possible!

But with so much uncertainty still over when theaters are going to re-open, it makes sense right now for me to have a fluid plan, or as they say in the world of magic tricks, "multiple outs".  This applies to magic tricks that give the magician several ways to appear to complete a trick, so that even if a person picks the wrong card, or the wrong color from a set of choices, they can still have a way to complete the trick and still make it look like the trick worked, even if it's to a lesser degree.  This is what I've been planning for "The New Mutants", the X-Men spinoff that's had its release date delayed 4 times already, and the pandemic rescheduling would make that 5.  In my October chain I've got one plan if "The New Mutants" gets released on time, and I've got a back-up path in case it doesn't.  So the same will hold true for "Bill & Ted Face the Music" - if it gets released as planned on August 14, I have the option of going to the theater to see it.  If the pandemic restrictions are still in place, theaters don't re-open in time, and the film's release gets delayed, then I'll watch those two other movies instead.

But I'm sorry, now "Wonder Woman 1984" is probably off the table for me, because by October 2 I'll have started the horror chain, and for me that's set in stone already (umm, except for that bit about "The New Mutants").  After October's done I may have just 10 or 12 slots left in the year, and the chances of being able to link to that superhero film from the end of the horror chain are slim to none.  I'll double-check that, but it's looking very unlikely.  I'm keeping my options open and my plans fluid, because right now that's the only way I can be sure of having another Perfect Movie Year during this otherwise very imperfect, terrible, no-good year.

Matthew McConaughey carries over from "Serenity", and so does the nautical/summer/beach theme.

THE PLOT: A rebellious stoner named Moondog lives life by his own rules.

AFTER: Let's see, any beach-related milestones in history today?  On this day in 551 AD, a tsunami struck Phoenicia... nah, too depressing.  Happy birthday to Tom Hanks, who spent a lot of time hanging out on a beach in the film "Cast Away". Too bad I couldn't schedule a Tom Hanks film today, though... And Rod Steiger passed away on July 9, 2002, and of course he was in the film "On the Waterfront".  OK, so this doesn't always work very well.

It's funny, I didn't pay attention to who directed this film, but something during the film reminded me of a film I watched last year, "Spring Breakers", because in both movies characters just kept getting themselves into worse and worse trouble, and nobody seemed interested in doing anything to improve their situation. And both films were equally pointless and terrible, so when I saw Harmony Korine's name at the end listed as the director, I thought, "Well, sure, THAT makes sense."  Mr. Korine is now banned from future appearances in this blog - you just don't get a third chance with me.  I may forget but I don't forgive.

Up until that point, I was really wondering what the point of this whole little exercise was, now I know for sure that there is none.  Korine just wanted to show a descent into chaos, and had no interest in pulling that character away from it, not at any point.  Mucho self-destructive behavior is on display here, Mr. Moondog is not interested in improving his situation, finishing that book of poetry he's been putting together, or acting like a responsible adult at any moment in time.  He's always either drunk or stoned, or both, even during his daughter's wedding.  He also lives apart from his wife, who's up in Miami while he's catting around down in Key West. I can see the appeal of the island life down in the Keys, but generally you'd expect a character to pick one lifestyle or the other - either be married and live well in Miami, or be single and live like a hobo in Key West, but Moondog can't seem to choose.

Worse, he's got several girlfriends down in the Keys, so clearly he doesn't think the rules of fidelity apply to himself, but then he doesn't take it well when he finds out his wife is having an affair.  Well, you can't have it both ways, Moondog, that's an unfair, antiquated attitude - the concept of "free love" or an open marriage should apply to you, but not to your wife?  I already didn't like this character, and after seeing this I couldn't stand him.  Like, OK, be a bum, be an alcoholic, cheat on your wife, but don't be a hypocrite on top of all that.

Then I really REALLY hated him after the events following the wedding celebration.  OK, it's great that he forgave his wife and rekindled their relationship so they could go out and party together, but that just didn't end well.  And what SHOULD have then been a wake-up call for Moondog to stop his bad behavior only made things worse, the court orders him to rehab, and that restrictive lifestyle just doesn't work for him, so he and another patient, alcoholic pyromaniac Flicker, break out of rehab so Moondog can drink more beer, smoke more weed and get into even more trouble than before.  You see where I'm going with this?  Is this the type of character we should be making movies about, somebody who's clearly on a downward spiral and has no intention of pulling out of it?  You throw this guy a lifeline and he's likely to set it on fire and throw it back at you.

Who knows, maybe this is semi-autobiographical, or McConaughey saw something redeeming in Moondog, a guy who always lands on his feet yet also disproves the concept that if you do good things, good things will happen to you.  Moondog does terrible things, or regular things terribly, yet he keeps getting rewarded for this, for the most part.  I guess if all you want out of life is easy access to beer, weed and poontang, those are quite attainable goals that can be achieved with minimal effort. And when any restrictions are put on his behavior, he rebels - I guess we're seeing a lot of that Florida spirit now with all the people down there refusing to wear facemasks and practice social distancing, but look where that's gotten them!

(Umm, yeah, Florida people, you and I need to have a talk.  I'm going to need all of y'all to put your damn masks on and control the spread of Covid-19 in your state.  Because right now I need those movie theaters in NYC to open up, and that's not going to happen if any of you redneck yahoos travel outside your state and drive your infected asses up the East Coast.  Are we clear?  I'm rooting for you guys, I really am, I want to see those numbers come down in your state, for my sake as well as yours, but for that to happen, you've got to change your behavior, and your mistaken beliefs about the effectiveness of facemasks, and your so-called right to not wear them.  It's not just about protecting yourself, it's about protecting others, which is the decent thing to do.  Thank you for your attention.)

I think McConaughey probably just wanted to party - he's a good actor, even has an Oscar, but I think there's more Moondog in him than there is him in Moondog.  Just a theory.  The chance to hang out with Snoop Dogg for a few weeks, drink beer, smoke the wacky tobacky or the sticky icky AND get paid on top of that, was probably too good to pass up. But that doesn't mean it was a good idea.  At the very least, there should have been some lesson that Moondog learned from everything that happened to him.  Something to make a point, something to explain the why of it all, or demonstrate any sort of karmic balance - but it's just not there.

But karma did eventually strike - this film had a $5 million budget and took in only $3.5 million U.S. and only $4.5 million worldwide.  Karma's a bitch, ain't it?

Also starring Isla Fisher (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe"), Snoop Dogg (last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Stefania LaVie Owen (last seen in "Krampus"), Zac Efron (last seen in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile"), Martin Lawrence (last seen in "Bad Boys II"), Jonah Hill (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Donovan Williams, David Bennett, Clinton Archambault, Joshua Ritter, John Morris, Jo Marie Payton, Ricky Diaz, Chela Arias, Ricardo Matallana, Sharon Pfeiffer (last seen in "The Irishman"), Debra Cohen, Alan Frankel, with cameos from Jimmy Buffett (last seen in "Billionaire Boys Club"), Bertie Higgins.

RATING: 2 out of 10 cans of PBR

Serenity (2019)

Year 12, Day 190 - 7/8/20 - Movie #3,597

BEFORE: Djimon Hounsou carries over from "Charlie's Angels" for the last time in this chain, and in a neat bit of planning, the last of 5 films with him is also the first of SIX films with McConaughey - damn, it feels like I just did a McConaughey chain last year (2 here and 3 there, for a total of 5) - probably because I did - but that's how fast these things accumulate if you're not careful.

I also seem to be on a bit of a nautical/beach theme starting today, which is fine for summer, lots of outdoor summer water-adjacent activities are now available, at least in some areas, if it's not too freaking hot.  Anything nautical in the "This Day in History" file?  July 8, 1497 - Vasco de Gama set sail on the first direct European voyage to India.  July 8, 1760 - British forces defeated French forces in the last naval battle in New France. July 8, 1879 - The USS Jeannette departed San Francisco carrying an ill-fated expedition to the North Pole. (well, if it was ill-fated, then why did they go?). July 8, 1976 - Ellen MacArthur, successful solo long-distance yachtswoman was born, and on July 8, 2012, actor Ernest Borgnine, who appeared in "The Poseidon Adventure", died.  You know, I really should do this sort of thing more often, it's fascinating what can tie in with my movie choices.

But speaking of expeditions, I've found a path that will get me from "Wonder Woman '84" to the start of my October horror film chain.  It's not perfect, and it's a bit shorter than I would have liked, but maybe I can beef it up a bit along the way.  For right now, it's good to know that it's THERE, and even though it uses a couple films I might normally save for February, it's got two films on the "back to school" topic, and it includes some recent additions that I want to watch, like "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood", "Eurovision Song Contest" and the re-scheduled "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot".

What I have to do now is figure out if there's a similar but slightly different path that I might prefer, and get all these films in order on a worksheet so I can get an accurate count.  This way I can confirm that taking a few weeks off in August/September is the right move, and I'll know how many slots will be left for November/December.  Also I want to make sure I'm not missing something that I really wanted to get to before Movie Year 12 is over.  Once that's done I can really rest easy, and sort of coast to the end of the year.

THE PLOT: A fishing boat captain juggles facing his mysterious past and finding himself ensnared in a reality where nothing is what it seems.

AFTER: Another reminder that I'm still in my "Year of Weird Movies", and I'm pretty sure this one qualifies.  Nobody's really talking about this one (now on AmazonPrime and cable On Demand) and I wondered why - did this one fly below the radar or are people doing their part to not spoil the ending?  Maybe both?  Anyway, let me go ahead and issue a rare (for me) SPOILER ALERT just in case I write something that gives too much away, I'll try not to.

Baker Dill (not his real name, thankfully) is a fishing boat captain who takes rich tourists out to catch large game fish, only he often can't resist trying to reel in the big catch himself, and then spends his nights fishing to earn more money, so when does he sleep?  He clearly believes in the 3 F's - Fishing, Fighting with his unsatisfied customers, and Fooling around with his neighbor Constance, who keeps losing her cat.  Or is that just to get Baker to keep finding and returning it?  His arch nemesis is a giant tuna who he's caught on the line many times, but keeps escaping.

Into this world steps his ex-wife, who's following up a lead where an ex-classmate went fishing on vacation, and came home with a photo that appeared to show her ex-husband in the background.  She's flown to Plymouth Island on vacation, and wants to hire Baker (formerly John) to take her current abusive husband out fishing, and then, well, "take him out".  Lots of things can happen on a fishing boat, a man could get caught in a line and dragged overboard, could get eaten by a shark, fall backwards on to a knife or giant hook, you get the idea.  She's offering Baker ten million dollars and the assurance that she and Baker's son will now be free from living with this dangerous man.

As ridiculous as this sounds, this is the part of the movie that makes the most sense.  There are small indications along the way that something else is going on, beyond the obvious.  Baker goes swimming in the buff and seems to encounter a vision of his son, Patrick, while underwater.  His ex claims that when Baker talks, his son can hear what he says, even though he's thousands of miles away.  And the local DJ has an uncanny knack for saying things that are VERY relevant to Baker's moral dilemmas.  Then a geeky guy shows up out of nowhere, and after several attempts to track Baker down between his fishing trips, offers him a super high-tech fish finder at no cost, he just has to agree to use it to find that really big tuna he's been chasing.

So what the heck is going on here?  I've seen enough episodes of "The Twilight Zone" to anticipate some kind of reveal when things start to seem weird like this.  I ran down a list of the most commonly used weird scenarios - this is all a dream, everybody's dead and this is heaven/hell, or this is a story that somebody is writing and it's all going to end with a book closing or an author crumbling up a piece of paper.  Ehhh, it's none of those but you can't blame me for trying them out.  To be fair, the reveal is something of an original idea, but once you know it, if you go back and think about the film from the beginning, there are a fair amount of things that don't make any sense.

I'll try to keep my NITPICK POINTS to a minimum, so I don't give it away, and to a certain degree the reveal kind of negates some of them, but wouldn't you think that Karen's new husband would at least know what her ex-husband looked like?  I mean, when you marry someone who's been married before, you'd probably encounter some old family photos, or recognize a guy who looks quite a bit like your stepson.  Maybe's Frank's never looked into it, he's so busy abusing Karen that he's never taken the time, but that seems like a bit of a stretch.

Another NITPICK POINT, who was watching teenage Patrick while his mother and step-father were on vacation?  I guess this one doesn't really matter either, it's just another one of those things that clues you in that something's maybe a little "off".

Even if you feel a little disappointed in the reveal, or find that it stretches your belief system just a bit too far, there's still something to appreciate here.  As we all learned in "The Old Man and the Sea", a giant nemesis fish is more than just a fish, it's a symbol.  It's the unattainable goal, the thing we can chase after but never quite get, but it also represents the job, the thing you do day in and day out.  Maybe your job is frustrating and you want to do something different with your life, but what?  Are you going to negate the chain of events that brought you where you are, with your own boat and a few good friends and somebody who lets you find her kitty at night when you get lonely, just so you can go somewhere else and do something different?

Or maybe you feel like the universe brought you to where you are, got you into a certain line of work for a reason.  The debate here is - to what extent do we control our own reality, or does our reality control us?  Did we put ourselves on this career or relationship path, or did fate/karma/destiny play a hand.  And if so, does knowing that something put you on this path make it feel better or worse?  Does that make you want to stay on it, or rebel against that force and try something new, just to prove that you can?  I don't have any conclusive answer here, it's just something to think about.

Also starring Matthew McConaughey (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Anne Hathaway (last seen in "The Last Thing He Wanted"), Diane Lane (last seen in "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"), Jason Clarke (last seen in "First Man"), Jeremy Strong (last seen in "Selma"), Charlotte Butler, David Butler, Rafael Sayegh, Michael Richard, Robert Hobbs (last seen in "Chappie"), Kenneth Fok (last seen in "Eye in the Sky), Garion Dowds, John Whiteley, with the voice of Redd Pepper.

RATING: 4 out of 10 buckets of chum

Charlie's Angels (2019)

Year 12, Day 189 - 7/7/20 - Movie #3,596

BEFORE: This is another last-minute drop-in, which feels like I'm taking a bit of a chance.  I still need to figure out a chain that's going to get me from "Wonder Woman '84" to the start of October's movies, and until I do that, I can't really be sure which films are going to be essential for that linking. So by dropping in this film here that only JUST started airing on cable, and focusing on just the one actor who's in it that is also the star of several movies this week, I'm ignoring the other connections I could make with this film.  Kristen Stewart, for example, but I already know that I'm not going to be starting October off with the "Twilight" series, I've got a different lead-in for that planned, so no real worries there.  One other actor links to a romance film on my list, and two others link to horror movies on my list, so I THINK I'm OK by adding this one here.  I'll have to flip two films with McConaughey around to get the "right" one to land in the #3,600 slot, but that's easily done.

The justification is that right now the July chain is a little short, which really shouldn't be a big deal since I've watched an extra movie each month so far in 2020.  This is the first month where my plan is a couple days short, of course I COULD take a day off, but again, since I don't know the August/September chain just yet, it's hard to know how many slots I'm going to need.  I've got to fill in the rest of the late summer schedule ASAP, I think. However, if I find out later that in order to make my chain work out in September, I'll need to find a film that somehow, impossibly has both Patrick Stewart and Michael Strahan in it, then I'm going to be bummed, because I wasted it here.

Djimon Hounsou carries over again from "Seventh Son" to play one of several "Bosleys".

THE PLOT: When a young systems engineer blows the whistle on a dangerous technology, Charlie's Angels are called into action, putting their lives on the line to protect us all.

AFTER: I know, I know, but honestly I was JUST curious enough to watch this to find out how bad it really was, the suspense was killing me.  This film got released in November of last year, and didn't seem to break any box office records, so that leads me to wonder why.  Did they not respect the franchise?  Was it just so far-fetched as to be completely unbelievable, or what?  Or did it just get killed by Oscar-worthy (as opposed to Oscar-eligible) films like "Ford v Ferrari"?

Well, yes, yes and yes.  This film IS that bad, and it represents a strange left turn for the franchise, but also, it did get killed by "Ford v Ferrari" at the box office.  They spent about $48 million making this, and just think about what could have been accomplished if that money had instead gone to cure some disease, or champion some noble cause - but it only took in $17 million in the U.S.  Worldwide it made $73 million, so at least there are some countries out there where it succeeded, places where it's still something of a novelty to see women driving cars and shooting guns and kicking ass, but I'm afraid in the U.S. this might be old hat, or simply one reboot too many.

If you go back to the origins of "Charlie's Angels" as a franchise, it's sort of easy to see where they took an odd turn.  The original TV show was about a detective agency, three women (at first) who'd done well at the police academy, but felt their talents were being wasted writing parking tickets or being asked to file thing or make coffee down at the local precinct.  Charlie Townsend "took them away from all that" and put them to work on glamorous jobs, like, umm, going undercover in jail and getting deloused, then escaping while in chains through a muddy swamp.  But hey, that was just for sweeps week.

The two films starring the trio of Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu took the simple concept to a new level, made the three agents into something more like spies, dealing with higher-level crimes and working for the Department of Justice, this meant traveling around the world, wearing more elaborate costumes, doing more elaborate stunts, and kicking ass more elaborately overall.  I approve the "leveling up", but it seems that now things have gone just a bit too far.  This film takes the new Angels to Germany and Turkey and pits them against an elaborate scheme to transform a new method of generating power into some form of killing machine.  See, we're in James Bond territory now, and we're so far away from the original detective agency that it's hard to see how we got from THERE to HERE.

Most likely, though, I suspect the fault lies with the screenwriting, and somebody who's probably seen so many cool spy movies that she forgot that Charlie's Angels are NOT spies, they're detectives. Cool, beautiful, talented detectives, but that's not the same thing as spies.  In a way, this film suffers from the same problem that "Smokin' Aces" and "Faster" displayed last week - namely, a writer dropped in a whole bunch of cool things that they've seen in other movies in the same genre, without paying much attention to whether those pieces, when stitched together, form a new coherent whole.  "Faster" had all the cool pieces of several other heist movies, the getaway driver with the fast reaction skills, the guy released from prison tracking down all the people who done him wrong, the dirty cop, and the hired killer, and then the story just resulted from putting all these toys in the same sandbox and making them play together.  "Smokin' Aces" borrowed the false-face bit from "Mission: Impossible", and threw that together with a bunch of other stereotypes from hit-man movies, and tried to do the same thing.

"Charlie's Angels" does that with elements from spy films - the tracking devices, the evil genius who wants to destroy the world, the cool tech devices that knock enemies out or allow them to communicate with each other - only remember, these women aren't spies!  So, then, umm, what are they?  They don't seem to be working for the U.S. government, or the United Nations, they're still an "agency" with more cool tech than the CIA, but what's their agenda?  They do what's right, but who's deciding what that is?  It must be a very thin line that distinguishes them from a private military contractor, and those are usually portrayed as the villains in movies, so what gives?  And I guarantee you I've now put more thought into this than the screenwriter/director did, or the companies that produced and distributed this.

For the entire first segment, these Angels are portrayed as giant screw-ups, and this seems counter-productive to maintaining the image of the franchise.  For example, Sabina was at the top of a staircase doing surveillance, and then when the action started, suddenly realized that she had to run back down all those stairs, which made her miss a crucial bit of the action.  Did she forget to plan for this?  Even if she was caught unaware, why not quickly rappel down the open middle of the staircase, or parachute down from the outside of the building?  Anything would be quicker than running down 20 flights of stairs.  And Jane, when in a car that was being shot at by a car that was chasing her car, decided to stand up and stick half her body out of the sun roof to get a better shot at the car behind her, which exposed her to the bullets being shot in her direction.  Seriously?  I thought she was supposed to be the smart one?

On the scale of competency and confidence, with James Bond (Daniel Craig) a "10" and Johnny English as a "1", these girls are unfortunately somewhere in the middle, and that's not very inspiring.  In fact Johnny English has these girls beat, because although he's quite incompetent, he's got more than enough confidence to get the job done, and the two lead Angels here manage to be both very unconfident AND incompetent in the opening mission.  That's a strange choice, unless it was done to suggest that they really needed to work together, and also recruit a third member who would round out their team, which is what happens.  Still, even with that in mind, it's an odd narrative choice.

Now, let's talk about "Bosleys".  Sure, it's unfortunate that Bill Murray chose not to reprise his role as Bosley in the "Full Throttle" movie.  That's his choice, and he got replaced by Bernie Mac, who passed away.  It's a terrible turn of events, but I don't think all that justifies turning "Bosley" into some kind of rank, an honorific equivalent to a lieutenant in the organization, something like a team leader for every set of Angels, or someone in charge of recruitment.  There are three prominent Bosleys in this film, and I'm not sure I agree with the decision.  The more Bosleys they have, the less exclusive the club seems.  If everyone's special, then nobody is special.  And then this film kicks off with the retirement of the "main Bosley", played by Patrick Stewart, and then they digitally altered still photos of scenes from the other two films to put this Bosley in place of Bill Murray and Bernie Mac's Bosleys.  Terrible idea, you can't just re-write the past like that, this isn't a comic-book movie or the final shot of "Return of the Jedi"!  If you're going to say there are multiple Bosleys, we all saw which Bosleys worked with Dylan, Natalie and Alex, and it wasn't THAT one!

Regarding gender politics, I think I get where they were going with this one, but the message is very much muddled.  If you want to depict famous sports stars as "Angels", or at least people who train the Angels, that's fine.  But at some point it just turns into "these are the people we love", and they're all affiliated with this organization somehow.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a former Angel just doesn't work (though based on that movie "On the Basis of Sex", she had the looks, back in the day) but her time to shine would have been before the 1970's, so that really prevented her from qualifying.  Sorry, try again.  Besides, as I said above, if every famous woman was once an Angel, then it's not really all that special, is it?  This status gets bestowed on female celebrities here in a manner similar to "Men In Black" which suggested that every weird celebrity (Michael Jackson, Elon Musk) is or was an alien.  That was funny the first few times, then it just became repetitive.

The previous cinematic Angels did a lot of martial arts, drove racecars, saved the world, and these new Angels shoot guns, like to try on fashions, and swear by kombucha tea and various cheeses - I'm not sure if these are improvements, or just things that are trendy and serve as window dressing.  I'm not feeling the feminism, really, or even any political activism at all.  If this film really had its finger on the pulse of today's woman, wouldn't the Angels be supportive of new, theoretical, clean energy sources instead of trying to tear down the billionaire's company that's trying to manufacture it?  For that matter, shouldn't they be supporting "Black Lives Matter" or gay rights or abortion rights or something, wouldn't that be more meaningful in the long run?  OK, so casting Kristen Stewart probably counts as a step toward gay rights, but though this is somewhat alluded to, it's never really followed up on.

Look, women today are complicated creatures, they're forward thinking and competitive, and they want to redefine the power structure and what constitutes "women's work" (like, all the stuff that people used to say only men can do) but sometimes they also want to be vulnerable and sensitive and buy lots of clothes, and that's all right too.  Let them run the world, I say, they can probably take it to a better place than the patriarchy has done - plus I'm too tired to be competitive.  But multi-faceted characters in movies, that's a different story because it's so easy to let them slip into being contradictory and very all-over-the-place.  And then the movie just ends up as a big muddle.  We need clearly focused characters with well-defined goals, other than to "spread the love".  How does that message even fit into the world of secret agents, or even detectives?  How do you stand for the cause of love when you've got high-tech guns in your hands?  It's all very confusing.

I just don't think you can take a bunch of action-movie bits that you've seen in other action movies and stick them all together, more or less randomly, and create a viable all-new narrative out of that. The end result is something that doesn't feel organic at all, just incredibly forced and trite, like the last few Connery/Moore Bond films that just kept repeating the same old clichés.  When you reboot a franchise with new characters, try adding some new story elements, too.

Also starring Kristen Stewart (last seen in "On the Road"), Naomi Scott (last seen in "Aladdin"), Ella Balinska, Elizabeth Banks (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Patrick Stewart (last seen in "The Kid Who Would Be King"), Sam Clafin (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), Jonathan Tucker (also last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Nat Faxon (last seen in "Life of the Party"), Chris Pang (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"), Luis Gerardo Mendez (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Noah Centineo, David Schutter, Hanna Hoekstra, Marie-Lou Seller, the voice of Robert Clotworthy (last heard in "Incredibles 2"), and cameos from Hailee Steinfeld (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Lili Reinhart (last seen in "Hustlers"), Aly Raisman, Ronda Rousey (last seen in "The Expendables 3", Danica Patrick, Laverne Cox, Michael Strahan (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"), and (redacted).  OK, so I want to preserve the one little secret cameo that I thought sort of worked, so sue me.

RATING: 4 out of 10 tins of Altoids

Seventh Son

Year 12, Day 188 - 7/6/20 - Movie #3,595

BEFORE: I was thinking today about our cats, who have to be locked away during the day while we're having our new bathroom built.  They're well taken care of, one gets shut in our bedroom while our new resident just stays in the basement, and she's more comfortable there anyway, it's been her safe place since November.  They both have water, litter boxes and comfortable places to sleep, but just as we got the two of them integrated, we were forced to separate them again.  But what do they think about all the construction noise?  You certainly can't explain to a cat that it's just construction workers tearing apart the old bathroom and building a new one, instead they probably think it's some monster making noise - and for the upstairs cat, it's in the room next door, so she's been hiding under the bed for eight hours each day. (I can't say as I blame her, after watching the news these days I wish I could hide under the bed for eight hours myself.)

And then over the weekend, on the two days where there wasn't construction noise going on, there were knuckleheads in our neighborhood setting off fireworks, closer and louder and more often than on prior July 4ths, so if you put yourself in the mind of a cat (or dog) for just a moment you may conclude that the world outside definitely SOUNDS like a dangerous place, therefore it probably is one.  And they're not wrong, it's just a shame that our beloved family pets have to endure this - sure, it's only one or two days out of the year (or 30 days if it's 2020) but can't we find some way to put an end to all of this?  When I was a kid I was afraid of fireworks, too, so my heart goes out to them.  I wish we lived in a world where "illegal" fireworks were also unavailable to most people in regions where they are, in fact, illegal.

Djimon Hounsou carries over again from "Blood Diamond".

THE PLOT: When the queen of evil witches escapes the pit she was imprisoned in decades ago by professional monster hunter Spook and kills his apprentice, he recruits young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, to help him.

AFTER: From "Blood Diamond" to blood moon - the type of lunar eclipse where the moon appears to be tinted red figures prominently in this film, it's the time when the witches are the most powerful.  Just on a whim, I looked up when the most recent blood moon was scheduled to appear in real life - and it turns out it was two nights ago!  How about that, another freaky coincidence - I couldn't have planned it much better.  For that matter, I couldn't have planned it at all, because I had no idea that this was a prominent plot element.  The July 4 Blood moon (Western hemisphere only, sorry, Europe) also coincided with the "Buck Moon" or "Thunder Moon" of July, named for the frequent thunderstorms of summer - so it's a great time to name your new band "Blood Thunder Moon" if you're so inclined.

If I'd known that witches featured prominently in this film, I might also have been inclined to watch it during October, but that's OK - I don't think it linked to any of my horror movies, and it's OK if a few horror/fantasy films slip into the other months.  Anyway this is more like one of those "Lord of the Rings" rip-offs, and after watching this and "Onward", I'm convinced that we're now living in this "post-Tolkien" (some might also say "post-Harry Potter") world of movies that unfortunately just aren't as good as Tolkien's stuff, and will never quite live up to the challenge.  It's like trying to make a new science-fiction movie after "Star Wars" - why bother?  I remember that wave of films in the early 1980's like "Battlestar Galactica" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century", whenever I saw an ad for them it was just so blatant that they were trying to cash in and ride the coattails of the most successful movie franchise ever.  I never got around to seeing the "Battlestar Galactica" films, and then "Buck Rogers" worked better as a TV series, where images of Erin Gray in a skin-tight spacesuit fueled my adolescent fantasies in a way that even Lynda Carter as "Wonder Woman" couldn't.

Sorry, I got a bit off-topic there, it happens.  Where were we - ah, yes, "Lord of the Rings" knock-offs.  We've had "Percy Jackson" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" and other worlds filled with magical creatures, monsters and fantastic beasts, but do any of them measure up to the status of the Hobbit/LOTR franchise?  The latest I think is "Artemis Fowl", which they've been threatening to make and release for at least the last 10 years, and it immediately became one of the least successful films on Disney Plus.  They released "The Golden Compass" in 2007 and that failed spectacularly, so they tried again to make that story into the series "His Dark Materials" on HBO, and I think that failed, too.  I don't know anybody who watched that, do you?  Admittedly, there's been a LOT of new TV in the past year, and more streaming services means more series in addition to all the ones on cable, so mathematically speaking, even if you just stuck to Geek TV, you'd have to be three people to watch everything that's out there.

(It's probably obvious that I'm omitting "Game of Thrones" - but I've never watched it.  There, I said it.  I didn't get in on it at the beginning, so I missed my chance.  I probably could/should have spent a portion of this pandemic lockdown catching up on that show, but I chose to binge "Arrested Development" instead.  To be fair, I didn't know how long the lockdown was going to last - I was betting on two weeks, maybe a month, and I lost that bet.  Now I'm blaming all the yahoos in Texas and Florida who just HAD to go to water parks and the beach for why I'm not as caught up on my fantasy TV as I could be.  They should have at least told me they were going to disobey social distancing rules, then I would have known how much free time I was going to have.)

But I ask you, how am I supposed to take "Seventh Son" seriously when it represents, essentially, a "Big Lebowski" reunion set in a magical world?  Sorry, but if you cast Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore as the lead hero and lead villain in a film, that's where my mind is going to go.  Then I started imagining Steve Buscemi as the young recruit who was the first apprentice to the Dude/Spook, and the large, strong Tusk character being played by John Goodman, saying that he won't fight witches on Shabbos.  Maybe that's as far as my analogy will go, but it's more than enough, the damage has been done.  (The first apprentice gets caught up in the fire used to fight the witch, and Donnie in "The Big Lebowski died and got cremated.  Once you see the connection, it's hard to un-see it.)

I'm not saying that Master Gregory (aka The Spook) has a lot in common with Jeffrey Lebowski, but inevitably there's going to be SOME crossover - both men like their alcohol, for starters.  There's just as much Gandalf in him, honestly, and Jeff Bridges is kind of getting on in years (he was 65 when this film came out in 2014).  Doing an entire film without putting your dentures in, however, is a conscious choice that I don't think I can support - it makes him very difficult to understand.  I mean, due to my hearing problems I keep the subtitles option turned on all the time these days on my TVs, so they're almost always there if I need them, but it would be nice to not need them.

Anyway, the Spook gets himself a new apprentice, someone who is the seventh son in a large family and whose father was also the seventh son in his family (I'm not sure what the odds are on this, but remember, people back in the magical times tended to have more children, because they had all kinds of spells and potions and amulets, but no birth control) and this is somehow a very magical thing, though this wasn't explained very well, and I'd like to see the paperwork on this.  I recognized the actor who played Tom Ward as the actor who played Jigsaw on the Marvel/Netflix show "The Punisher", but going back through his filmography, he also was in two of the "Chronicles of Narnia" films as Prince Caspian.  I may have to go back and re-watch those during my November break this year, they're so foggy to me now, because of all the other films I've watched since.  But the Narnia film series sort of proves my point about the diminishing returns lately in the fantasy genre - Walden Media only made it through three of the seven books, but they were very successful at the time.  Why not finish the series?  (Ah, it appears that the rights expired in 2011, plus the third film "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" didn't bring in as much money as the previous films.). So now another company has to either pick up the pieces of that franchise, or wait another ten years and then start over.  What a mess - but, to be fair, the entire franchise is a bit of a mess once you get past the first book - nobody's really sure what order to read the books in now, and the popular characters from Book 1 disappear after Book 3 and don't come back until Book 7.  And Book 6 is the origin story?  How confusing for kids...

I'm getting off track again, but that's really because there's just so LITTLE to talk about regarding "The Seventh Son".  The Spook and Tom Ward battle the bad witches, but at the same time, Tom finds himself falling for a young girl who's also a witch, but a good one?  Umm, you can't have it both ways, or can you?  It turns out the Spook once had a thing going with the lead witch, Mother Malkin.  We can only assume it ended badly - but is that what this is really about, an old man dealing with his jealous ex-lover?  We come to find out that once it was over and he married someone younger (and probably prettier) Mother Malkin killed his wife, which then led him to imprison her inside a mountain for a few decades.  So file this relationship under "It's complicated" I guess.

Turns out there are good witches and bad witches?  Umm, OK I guess because this has been a running theme in certain areas of pop culture.  "Bewitched", "Sabrina", any others?  But then how are we supposed to tell the good ones from the bad ones?  Isn't it easier to burn them all and let God sort it out?  If a witch is pretty and willing to get it on, does that make her a good witch?  That seems rather arbitrary.  What if we only think she looks pretty because of an illusion spell?  How do you know she's not going to turn into a dragon while you're making out with her, then she bites your head off?  It's a difficult proposition, that's all I'm saying.  Tom Ward ends up taking over the Spook's job as the Dude rides off into the sunset, but his final advice is "Oh, by the way, forget everything I taught you, make up your own rules and live your life."  Umm, thanks, I guess?  I'll bet the first thing Tom does is track down that hot young witch again, and he ends up making the same mistakes that the Spook did.  Because, you know, she's a hot young witch.

But I ask you, at the end of "The Hobbit", would Gandalf ride off and say to Bilbo Baggins, "Forget everything I told you!  Do whatever you want with the ring!  Make your own rules, live your own life, because really, Sauron's not that bad!"  Hmm, I think not.

Also starring Jeff Bridges (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Ben Barnes (last seen in "The Big Wedding"), Julianne Moore (last seen in "Suburbicon"), Alicia Vikander (last seen in "Tomb Raider"), Antje Traue (last seen in "Criminal"), Olivia Williams (last seen in "Hanna"), John DeSantis, Kit Harington (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Gerard Plunkett (last seen in "Snakes on a Plane"), Jason Scott Lee, Kandyse McClure, Luc Roderique (last seen in "Godzilla").

RATING: 4 out of 10 fermented liquids

Blood Diamond

Year 12, Day 187 - 7/5/20 - Movie #3,594

BEFORE: OK, I got to July 4 as I planned, I only had to fudge things by one day.  The next marker will come at Movie #3,600, and it will come in the middle of 6-film McConaughey chain, so I can place whichever film I want on the milestone, like an explorer on a mountaintop.  That will be my 2/3 completion marker for the year, in just a few days, and then I chart my course for the Summer Music Concerts (& Docs) Series.  Still waiting to find out if movie theaters in NYC are going to open up this summer, it's kind of important to my chain.  We're entering Phase 3 of re-opening today, but that only applies to gyms, nail salons and tattoo parlors, and I frequent none of those places.  What I need to know about, restaurants and movie theaters, is apparently all in Phase 4.

Djimon Hounsou carries over from "In America".  I've know I've passed on this film before, I added it to my list when it was on Netflix or Hulu, and then of course I took too long and it was no longer available.  But I kept it on the list anyway, figuring I'd rent it on iTunes for $3.99 if I could link to it.  Well, that day finally came, but before watching it on iTunes I checked on cable, where it's currently available on the On Demand channel, also for $3.99 - but if I tape it off cable I can burn it to a DVD and keep a copy, that's a better deal for me than watching it once and having my access to it disappear 30 days later.  And now I can also rent "Uncut Gems" the same way (previously watched on an Academy screener) and make a double-feature out of it on a disc.

THE PLOT: A fisherman, a smuggler and a syndicate of businessmen match wits over the possession of a priceless diamond.

AFTER: There's a fair amount of action in this film, and that's a good thing - any time you put DiCaprio in an action film, it's a good move, like with "The Revenant" or "The Departed" or "Django Unchained", and let's not forget that half of "Titanic" was an action film, of sorts, anyway.  But it also feels a bit like this film didn't know what it wanted to be, or rather, which social issue it wanted us to focus on.  Obviously there was the call to action for people buying diamonds to be responsible and find out what country they came from, and whether there's currently a war going on there (some people say "conflict diamonds" instead of "blood diamonds", because perhaps if people see that their diamond isn't colored red like blood, then they're in the clear).  But then there's the struggles of the Sierra Leone Civil War, the way that wars are waged in Africa, turning young boys into rebel armies and killing most older men, though in this case they saved a few to work harvesting diamonds, which may have happened in real life, but here that just seems like a convenient way to tie all the social problems together.  Then there's the way that the (fictional) Van de Kaap company hoards those diamonds, squirreling most of them away in their vaults in order to drive up the prices.  (And here I thought that company only made frozen fish sticks...). So let me get this straight, you want me to be outraged that diamonds are being harvested, but then also outraged that those diamonds aren't making it to market?  That all feels contradictory, can you please make up your mind about which thing I'm supposed to be the most mad about?

The problems start when Solomon Vandy is separated from his family and made to harvest diamonds to fund the rebels.  The rebel leader is violently opposed to slavery and oppression by the white man, but, and you may find this somewhat ironic, has no problem enslaving and oppressing African men himself if that aids his revolution.  This might even seem funny if it weren't so tragic.  What other zany contradictions can we find in the realm of global politics?   Things get worse when Solomon finds the biggest diamond anyone has seen, and it's a pink one, and it's cloudy, and apparently those things are supposed to be really good.  But he doesn't turn it over to his rebel captors, instead he buries next to a fallen tree trunk, and plans to come back later to get it.  God knows there can't be many fallen tree trunks in Africa, right?  Way to go.

Thanks to coincidence, the opposition forces attack the rebel camp JUST as Solomon is caught burying the diamond, and the rebel leader demands it.  And another wacky coincidence places them both in jail at the same time, so disreputable diamond smuggler Danny Archer (who'd just been caught for smuggling diamonds, so I guess nearly everyone in this film is terrible at what they do...) overhears the rebel leader accusing Solomon of stealing a huge diamond - so after Archer gets bailed out of jail, he bails out Solomon so they can buddy up and.... damn, I want to say they go back and get the diamond, but that's just not what happens, not for a long while, anyway.

Instead they travel ALL the way down to Cape Town, South Africa, so they can meet with Danny's boss, Colonel Coetzee, a former member of the South African Defence Force, who now runs a private military company.  And surprise, he also wants the diamond.  (Umm, let's make this easy, everyone in this film wants that diamond.). Archer also takes time to flirt with a woman who turns out to be a journalist (there's been a lot of that around here lately, from "State of Play" to "The Last Thing He Wanted"...) who's also conveniently looking for a story she can break.  A loose partnership is formed between the smuggler who wants the diamond, the man who knows where it is, and the woman who wants to write about it and expose those diamond dealers for the corrupt, money-loving businessmen that we all know they are.

So it's BACK up to Sierra Leone, where they all pretend to be journalists (umm, except for the woman who really is one...) and they find Solomon's wife and daughters living in a refugee camp.  His son, however, has been indoctrinated into the rebel army, and this part of the film greatly resembles what I saw earlier this year in "Beasts of No Nation", only this film came first, so if one film was copying the other, it's the other way around.  Archer gives the journalist everything, all the names, dates, places that he knows so she can expose them, while he and Solomon sneak off to find the diamond.  Solomon just can't resist looking for his son among the young rebel soldiers, and this endangers the whole mission - hey, remember the diamond?  The one that everyone wants?

The rebel army shows up, the private military army shows up, and it's a free-for-all as everybody shoots at everybody.  What's the opposite of a Mexican stand-off?  I guess it's an African shoot-out.  Whether you agree in the end with who gets the diamond and how they get it might say a lot about you, I suppose.  Perhaps you'll find the ending fulfilling and satisfying, or perhaps not.  But we're told at the end that 40 countries eventually signed an agreement to restrict the sale of "conflict diamonds". However, it's still up to the buyers to determine if their diamonds are responsibly sourced.  Great, more work for me to do - I promise to get right on this as soon as I prove there's no dolphin in my tuna, and no coronavirus in my packaged meats.

Still, I'm glad I was finally able to cross this one off the list, because (like "Proof of Life" and countless others) it just sort of proves that there's a rhythm to my movie-watching process, which at times resembles a purpose.  This movie was available to me, but I wasn't ready for it.  Then I was ready for it, but it was no longer available.  Eventually things worked out, I was ready for the movie and it was available, so if I'm frequently open to letting the universe decide when it's a good time to watch each movie, as this could be a sign that things have a funny way of working themselves out.  I just have to be patient, and then take advantage of the opportunities as I become aware of them.

Also starring Leonardo DiCaprio (last seen in "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"), Jennifer Connelly (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in America"), Kagiso Kuypers, Arnold Vosloo (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), Antony Coleman, Benu Mabhena, Anointing Lukola, David Harewood (last seen in "MI-5"), Basil Wallace, Jimi Mistry (last seen in "Ella Enchanted"), Michael Sheen (last seen in "Home Again"), Marius Weyers (last seen in "Gandhi"), Stephen Collins (last seen in "The Big Picture"), Ntare Mwine, Ato Essandoh (last seen in "X-Men: Dark Phoenix"), Percy Matsemela, Gaurav Chopra, Clare Holman, with archive footage of Bill Clinton (last seen in "Richard Jewell")

RATING: 6 out of 10 border guards

In America

Year 12, Day 186 - 7/4/20 - Movie #3,593

BEFORE: Happy birthday, United States!  I'd offer you cake, but you look like you could stand to lose a few pounds, America, if I'm being honest.  OK, have some cake, I know it's been a tough year so far, and it's not over yet.  We're just past the halfway mark on the calendar, but since I've been putting in the extra time with movies, in just one week Movie Year 12 will be 2/3 over, believe it or not.  So I've got to get working on finding those connections to get me to the end of the year.

It's birthday #244 for America, and she doesn't look a day over 235.  Geez, if I hang in there just 6 more years I'll get to see big Birthday #250, which is called a semiquincentennial, I think that means halfway to a 500 year anniversary.  What do you get the country that has everything?  (Maybe a new president, that would be nice...). Hang in there, America, don't quit now when the semiquincentennial is so darn close!  Geez, I'm so old I remember the bicentennial in 1976, and I was just 7 years old!

Adrian Martinez carries over from "Lady and the Tramp".

THE PLOT: A family of Irish immigrants adjust to life on the mean streets of Hell's Kitchen while also grieving the death of a child.

AFTER: This one's set back in the early 1980's, I think - back when the movie "E.T." was popular, the family goes to see the movie and also there's a plot point about trying to win an E.T. doll as a prize in a street fair.  So you have to remember, the 80's were a very different time - for starters, we had a Republican President who was very old and many people thought he was senile or just plain crazy, and during the course of his Presidency he made an ally of the Russian premier.  Also in that decade there was a mysterious illness going around that seemed to target urban populations and minorities the hardest, and at first many people didn't know how to protect themselves from it.  Plus we had a lot of crazy music, and certain musicians became prominent in the culture for being gay or transvestite - very different, right?

Actually, the writer/director's original goal here was to set this back in 1982, but according to the trivia page on IMDB, that would have cost too much to pull off (hey, those 80's fashions were expensive, I guess.  What, they couldn't have found a lot of them in thrift stores or something?). So they ended up setting this in the current day - 2002 - and by coincidence, the 20th anniversary re-release of "E.T." was playing in theaters, so that's what the family went to see on the big screen.  I guess that makes sense, because I don't remember plush dolls of the E.T. character being a big deal when the film first came out, I think they came along much later.

So this is about immigrants coming to New York City from Ireland (they sneak in through Canada, and lie about being on holiday) and living in a terrible apartment building in Hell's Kitchen, one with a lot of junkies and squatters and stereotypical NYC troublemakers (like, say, artists) and really poor living conditions, at least at first.  It's great that the family took the initiative and fixed up this living space, however this situation contains a number of contradictions - like, are they squatting in an abandoned building, or paying rent?  Neither situation makes much sense - first off, squatting is not safe, especially when you consider the type of person they'd be living next to.  It just wouldn't be safe to raise two daughters in an abandoned building, those other tenants would kidnap them and sell them for drug money at the first opportunity.  So, then they must be renting - only what landlord would rent out such a decrepit space, with holes in the ceiling, pigeons living in the apartment, no running water, etc.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the director has somehow conflated two different experiences, because NYC had building codes, even back then, and while I know some people may have terrible apartments, or have some things in need of repair, I'd like to think that an apartment building just COULD NOT get this bad and still be considered rentable.

But I guess maybe that's the point, this family just in from Ireland has very little money, they're here illegally so their options were perhaps very limited, and thus they end up in the absolute worst apartment that NYC has to offer.  But here, again, I find another set of contradictions - over time, they fix the place up, get an air conditioner (essential for NYC summers), paint the walls, get some nice furniture - but Mam works in an ice cream parlor, and Da's a struggling actor, so how exactly can they afford to feed the family, pay the rent AND have money left to do home improvements?  It just doesn't add up.  Later on, Dad works as a taxi driver, but he still seems to spend more time going on auditions than he does picking up fares.  Then later still, the mother (Sarah) becomes pregnant, and it's a difficult pregnancy, so there goes the income from the ice cream parlor.  This is a tough town, it's no place for people who mistakenly think they can do it all, like working one crappy job AND spending time with their kids.

What's worse is that the family is Irish, so they say "the girls HAVE to go to Catholic school".  Umm, no, they don't HAVE to do that, that's a choice, plus, how are they going to afford the tuition on top of everything else?  Now we're really straining the boundaries of credulity, because if they were that hard up, and Dad's acting career was tanking that badly, wouldn't the kids just end up in public school?

The family bonds with artist Mateo (aka "The Man Who Yells") who also lives in the building, when he's the only person who will open the door for the daughters on Halloween when they're trick-or-treating.  Eventually they learn that Mateo is HIV-positive, and not doing well, he ends up in the hospital around the same time that Sarah's baby is due, and that's about the time when things got really confusing for me.  I couldn't tell if this was some sort of circle-of-life observation, or if they were trying to imply that something magical or mystical was happening.  I was also confused why a family who was already having trouble making ends meet would then try to have ANOTHER child, which would only make things worse, also then there would be an enormous hospital bill following the birth, plus it's a difficult pregnancy, so more bills.  Why would they do this?  Oh, right, silly Catholics don't believe in using birth control.

Some of this story is undoubtedly autobiographical, director Jim Sheridan has two daughters who share screenwriting credits with him, and he moved from Canada to NYC's Hell's Kitchen area in, you guessed it, the 1980's.  So then why do so many elements here feel so hard to believe?  Like there's a mistake when the father brings home an air conditioner with the wrong kind of plug, and he just goes and buys a new plug at the store and rewires it.  But anyone who's ever bought an appliance should know that if a machine's plug doesn't fit in your outlet, that probably means that the device isn't wired for that voltage.  Changing the plug won't change the voltage that the device needs - you might be able to find a converter that would connect THAT plug to THAT outlet, but you can't just cut off the old plug and splice another one on in its place.

Another NITPICK POINT is the depiction of a street fair game where each ball thrown to win the prize costs twice as much as the one before it - even in the toughest NYC neighborhood, this isn't how any carnival game would work.  Even the worst-paying out carnival game would let you keep playing and build up wins to get a larger prize, but the price would never go up exponentially like this.  What's more likely in a carny game is that you'd have almost NO chance of winning - like that game where you have to shoot out the red star with a BB gun, it's impossible unless you shoot out a circle around the whole star, but at that point the operator would probably invalidate your play.  I've read enough about carnival games to know to NOT play them - even if you know the tricks involved, you're better off paying full price in a toy store for a stuffed animal, instead of ultimately paying three times that much in a fair booth.

The other thought I had was that part of the reason the father had such trouble finding work as an actor was simply that the family came here illegally - any legit stage production in NYC would be unionized, and in order to pay the actors, they'd need to see his paperwork.  Without a work visa or a green card, any theater company could get in trouble for hiring him, and that's just not worth the risk. The animation companies I work for can't hire immigrants unless they have a work visa or a student visa, so I'm thinking this might have been part of his problem - and if not, then the story missed another point.  I think there are exceptions made for some of the really top-name actors from other countries, but the whole point here is that this guy has no credentials, just a dream.

The immigration thing is such a divisive issue now, even more so than it was in 2002.  So this is either about a naive family chasing their dream of living in America and raising their family in our great nation, or it's about a bunch of freeloaders who snuck in from Canada, took jobs driving a taxi and serving ice cream away from hard-working Americans, and then proceeded to have an anchor baby with no health insurance.  I guess how you feel about this movie might depend on where you are on the political spectrum, then.  I tend to side with those who say that "immigrants get the job done" (as per "Hamilton") but I also realize that the overall situation is very complex and that others have strong feelings about jobs going to immigrants - especially the ones they want to have.  So it's tricky, I've had to take a hard line against anyone without papers working at either studio.

Also starring Paddy Considine (last seen in "The Death of Stalin"), Samantha Morton (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them"), Sarah Bolger (last seen in "The Spiderwick Chronicles"), Emma Bolger, Djimon Hounsou (last seen in "Shazam!"), Juan Carlos Hernandez (last seen in "Against the Ropes"), Jason Salkey, Rene Millan, Merrina Millsapp, David Wike, Nick Dunning (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Frank Wood (last seen in "Joker"), Michael Tighe, Jennifer Seifert, Jer O'Leary.

RATING: 5 out of 10 summer thunderstorms