Matinee

Year 12, Day 235 - 8/22/20 - Movie #3,636

BEFORE: It feels like this movie's been on my list forever, but that can't be true - if it had been on my list in January, I would have watched it after "The Borrowers" or next to "You Don't Know Jack", right?  I've stored this film on a DVD with "Captive State", so that means it probably hasn't been in my possession much longer than that one - so maybe it's just that I avoided putting this film on my list for such a long time, so it feels like it's been sitting on the list much longer than it actually has.

Plus, this film came out in 1993, so on some level, I've been avoiding it for 27 years.  It seems only moderately interesting, if you know what I mean.  I'm finally curious enough to watch it, but that sort of thing only goes so far - by now it's more like I'm watching it just to get rid of it, in other words, I'm not expecting that much today.  With a very eclectic cast, actors who just don't appear in any other places on my list, the only way I can watch this is to sandwich it betwen two other movies with John Goodman, who carries over from "The Gambler".

THE PLOT: A small-time film promoter releases a kitschy horror filkm during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

AFTER: How about this one, a movie about going out to the movies, accidentally being scheduled during a time when we still can't go out to the movies - but we're talking about it, thinking about it.  There are rumors of people going out to drive-ins, suddenly that's a thing again, for the first time since really the 1960's.  I guess they never fully went away, there were always a few throwback holdouts around the country, but since right now that's the only way to see a movie live, suddenly they're back, though I haven't been to one.

We're very close now to the alleged opening dates for movies like "The New Mutants" (August 28) and "Bill & Ted Face the Music" (same) and "Tenet" (September 3) - yet I can't seem to purchase a ticket for any of these shows, so what is really going on?  Are movie theaters in New York City going to open in a week, or not?  Just tell me yes or no, so I can make some plans, or cancel them - I don't like this feeling of being in an endless limbo.  I've made these plans before, and cancelled them before, so many times that I'm just about ready to write off all of Hollywood's 2020 releases, except of course for "Black Widow" in November.  If I give Hollywood and theater owners another two months, do I think they might be able to work something out?  Or am I going to get burned yet again by this pandemic?

We're at a delicate juncture for the film industry - we're being told that in order for this industry to survive, theaters need to open.  What happens if they don't?  Does everything just go to streaming at $20 PPV, like "Mulan"?  That created a LOT of backlash from people who don't have Disney+ and are now being told they'll have to pay $7 per month and then ANOTHER $20 in order to see this.  Still, if you have two or three kids, going out to see "Mulan" in a movie theater would probably cost $30 just for the tickets, then there's parking, popcorn, drinks - so picking $20 as a price point was very well calculated, because even if you have to join Disney+ and then drop another double sawbuck, you'll still come out ahead over driving the kids to the cineplex.

It's asking a lot to get somebody out to the cinema right now - in some states, it's just not worth it, because if you catch the Covid-19 then you could pay for that theater experience with your life.  But New York City's not in one of those states - I can see keeping the theaters closed in Florida, Texas, even California, but what's the damn hold-up in New York?  Same goes for indoor dining, our infection rates have been stellar for a few months now, yet dining out still means either sitting outside, or delivery/takeout.  Restaurants are still hurting - and some that couldn't or wouldn't retool themselves for takeout are still closed in the NYC area - but if you just cross over the border to Yonkers or Long Island, indoor dining is available.  The same is going to hold true for schools and movie theaters, apparently, where you can go is going to depend largely on where you are, and still nobody is sure which tactic is going to protect people better.  And what's going to happen in the fall when the weather gets colder, and outdoor dining is no longer possible?  Right now, it seems nobody knows.

So, bottom line in the next few days, I'll have to make a decision about "Bill & Ted Face the Music" - is it opening, and if so, is it safe to go?  At this point, I've written off "New Mutants" and "Wonder Woman 1984", so maybe I just need to postpone my attendance at a theater until November - and ultimately this would end with me knocking off two Christmas movies in December instead of one, and I'm OK with that.  In a year full of disappointments, right now it's all about making the best of whatever 2020 sees fit to give us, right?  And I heard last week there was a promotion at AMC theaters where they were selling tickets at just 15 cents to encourage people to come back to the movies.  Yeah, I think I need a few more months - this is the golden age of streaming, right?  So between all the streaming services we've joined, and my stockpile of movies on my DVR, I'm still booked solid while I wait to hear about "Black Widow".

But speaking of movie theater promotions, let's get to "Matinee".  John Goodman is the best character here, the movie producer in 1962 who's following the rules of P.T. Barnum, get the rubes in the seats, collect their money, and tell them the show is great, even if it's not.  Especially if it's not.  The cheap monster movies of the 1950's and 1960's were all hype, and it's been a scam to get our popcorn money all along, right?  I mean, movie tickets are one thing, but the mark-up on popcorn and soda is incredible - a theater concession stand can make $7.00 off of a bucket of popcorn that cost them 10 cents to make.  Maybe I should have stayed in the theater business when I had the chance - I could have been a theater manager by now for sure, and made a nice little salary each year from popcorn sales (plus they now sell hot dogs, chicken fingers and pizza too) but no, I jumped back into independent filmmaking when I had the chance.  What a dope - theater managers work nights and weekends and don't have to get up early.

Lawrence Woolsey (loosely based on real-life producer William Castle) clearly has the best of both worlds, too - as a producer of these B-movies, he gets to keep one foot behind the scenes, in a creative world where if he thinks a movie with a half-man, half-ant creature ("Mant!") will sell, then he gets that movie made.  Is it art?  Does it matter?  The only thing that matters is whether that's weird or different enough to sell tickets.  Then he's got another foot in the world of marketing, where he'll supply a theater with equipment to produce "Rumble-rama" or "Atomo-Vision" effects, or hire a guy to put on a big phony ant costume and roam around in the aisles, terrorizing the viewers.  Did anything like this really happen in the early 1960's? I'm not sure.

Woolsey also hires a couple out-of-work actors to be his advance team in Key West, they show up in town about a week before he does, and they start protesting the film, saying it's immoral and perverse and will lead to juvenile delinquency - it's a play on the old "Music Man" band scheme, only in reverse.  Getting people riled up about the indecent movie that's about to open is a trick to get people to want to see it - some because they like perverse, indecent movies, and others will go and see it just to see HOW perverse it is because they want to complain about it.  We humans are so gullible, like remember when you were a kid and you went to an amusement park or carnival and there was a Haunted House or a Chamber of Horrors thrill ride?  You'd pay to go on that ride, either because you wanted to be scared, or because you didn't want to be scared, or because you literally had nothing better to do.  I didn't like being scared as a kid, the only way I could endure something like that was to keep noticing how cheap and fake it all seemed, which helped remind me that none of it was real, then maybe I wouldn't get nightmares.

Nothing's really changed - I'm grown up but there are still movies that work on the same principle.  Some people watch them because they like being scared (which, according to Woolsey's theory, helps people appreciate going back to their regular, boring lives) and still others might watch horror movies because they disapprove of them and want to complain about them.  But for me, the only way I can endure them is to figure out how they're done, how cheap and fake some of them are, which help remind me that none of it is real.  Some movies are just magic tricks, and once you know how a magic trick is done, it doesn't seem so amazing to you.

1962 was a very different time, but as we see in "Matinee", it was also dangerous to go out to the movies, but for vastly different reasons.  Pay attention when the theater manager talks about the safety restrictions in the balcony, there's a weight limit because Florida is the land of humidity, and also termites.  This all becomes important later when the greedy promoter seats too many people in the balcony.  OK, that's not the same as catching Covid-19 from sitting next to somebody, but it's just as dangerous if you think about it.

Another reason that this film is suddenly relevant is that it's set in Key West, Florida during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and part of Florida is just 100 miles away from Cuba.  The two young boys at the center of the story have a father who's been deployed on a ship that's part of a blockade, and other kids at school have parents who work at the nearby Navy base.  And part of the daily routine at school, in addition to learning about the benefits of eating red meat three times a day (outdated food pyramid alert!!) is the practice of "Duck and Cover" during nuclear bomb drills.  Movies tend to show this a lot, as a form of nostalgia - my, how uninformed everyone was back then, thinking that teaching kids to get under their desks and put their hands over their heads would actually DO anything as a form of protection.  Umm, it wouldn't.  One smart little girl here raises a form of protest, she refuses to duck and cover, because she knows enough about nuclear explosions to realize that if one happens, everybody's dead anyway, whether they're sitting at their desks or hiding under them.

It's very tempting here to draw a connection between this little girl and the people who are refusing to wear their face coverings in public these days (Florida Mask-holes).  But remember, there's a key difference.  Science tells us that wearing the right masks (bandannas are OK, but surgical or cloth masks are better) actually does something to prevent the spread of Covid-19, and are most effective if everyone wears them correctly (covering the nose AND mouth) - while science tells us the opposite about "Duck and cover".  That strategy was completely ineffective against a nuclear explosion, at best it would just tell people which pile of ashes was which, based on what desk it was under.  So whatever you do, do NOT make an analogy between this smart pre-teen girl and the people who falsely believe that they have the right to walk around in a public place without a proper face covering.

The rest of the story here, about Simon going on a date with Sandra to the movies, and Stan trying to. hook up with Sherry, whose former boyfriend Harvey is still pining over their breakup, and Harvey getting hired as the guy in the Mant costume, is just pointless and terrible.  It's so hokey and fake-nostalic that it feels a bit like "A Christmas Story", only with less believable child actors - and that's saying really saying something, I don't watch "A Christmas Story" for the great acting.  I say it again, though I've said it many times before, nearly all kid actors are terrible, with only a few rare exceptions.  Every character here is a blatant stereotype, every character is clearly designed to make adults sort of remember how it was when they were kids, what it was like to go to the movies on a first date.  It's all obvious manipulation, and I'm just not buying it.

Appropriately, this movie is all about getting a look at how movies are made (really, add movies to the list of things you don't really want to see made, like laws and sausages) and I can see right through it, I see how "Matinee" was made, and why it was made the way it was, and outside the false nostalgia, I just don't think there's much there.  Sorry.  Apparently between the casting and the names of the characters there were a ton of in-jokes for fans of classic monster movies, and I'll admit I missed most of them (or "Them!").

Also starring Cathy Moriarty (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Lisa Jakub (last seen in "Mrs. Doubtfire"), Kellie Martin, Jesse Lee Soffer (last seen in "A Very Brady Sequel"), Lucinda Jenney (last seen in "We Don't Belong Here"), James Villemaire, Robert Picardo (last seen in "The Meddler"), Jesse White (last seen in "Harvey"), Dick Miller (last seen in "Swing Shift"), John Sayles, David Clennon (last seen in "Grace of My Heart"), Lucy Butler (last seen in "Lost Highway"), Georgie Cranford, Nick Bronson, Belinda Balaski (last seen in "Gremlins 2: The New Batch"), Charles S. Haas (ditto), Mark McCracken, Kevin McCarthy (last seen in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"), William Schallert (last seen in "Them!"), with cameos from Naomi Watts (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Joey Fatone, and archive footage of John F. Kennedy (last heard in "A Single Man"), Art Linkletter, Adlai Stevenson.

RATING: 4 out of 10 fallout shelters

The Gambler

Year 12, Day 234 - 8/21/20 - Movie #3,635

BEFORE: I don't really have a solid tie-in here, except that it's Kenny Rogers' birthday, and he was the original "Gambler", right?  Or at least he had a song about knowing when to hold 'em and when to  fold 'em, if memory serves. Kenny passed away in March, so this one's for you, big guy.

John Goodman carries over from "Captive State", and since I already used John Goodman as a link back in January (that's totally legal by my rules, to use somebody twice in one year) he's going to be well-represented at the end of the year.  He won't win the arbitrary contest, but six films will be a nice showing for him.

THE PLOT: Literature professor and gambler Jim Bennett's debt causes him to borrow money from his mother and a loan shark.  Further complicating his situation is his relationship with one of his students.  Will Bennett risk his life for a second chance?

AFTER: Wow, remember casinos?  I mean, sure, concerts and movie theaters and beer & BBQ festivals, but does anyone remember casinos?  In a typical year my wife and probably would have been on two 3-day trips to Atlantic City by now, or maybe one to A.C. and one to Foxwoods, but as it stands now, I haven't been to a casino since Christmas Eve last year, when we stopped in Foxwoods on our way to my parents' house. (They had recently re-opened the buffet in 2019, too, because it was being renovated when we were there on Christmas Eve 2018.).  Sure, we COULD go to Atlantic City now, probably get a great deal on a room at whatever casino we want, but is that a great idea?  Even if they practice all the new Covid safety protocols, you have to figure that the casinos were closed for months, and they have to make up for lost time, so there's no way those slots are going to pay out a jackpot, they're probably all rigged to pay out as little as possible.  (Yes, they can adjust the payout odds on slot machines.) The best bet right now is probably the table games, because the odds of winning at blackjack or craps are the same as they've always been, the only problem there is, I don't play table games, I play quarter slots.  Quarter slots often end up being cheaper than penny slots, because those penny machines make you bet like 100 or 200 pennies at a time, so, really, they're dollar slots.

I'm too chicken to play blackjack, I'd rather lose $40 in a couple slot machines and then make up for it at the buffet - only there are NO BUFFETS right now, so what's the goddamn point?  This time a year ago my wife and I were planning out the itinerary for our Vegas Casino Crawl that took place in October.  Because we stayed at three different hotels, we were able to carve up the city into little sections and hit 3 or 4 casinos in each section per day - so overall we gambled in 23 different casinos, and I ate at five different buffets (she only made it to four, she was sick the last two days so I had to hit the last one solo.).  OK, so my "Ocean's 11" plan to bankrupt the casinos by eating all of their food seems pretty impossible in retrospect, but I gave it the old college try.  And I was actually up $100 on the second day, but I lost money overall, because that's how Vegas works, that's how gambling works.  One casino let me win $100, but I had six more days in town, what was I supposed to do, stop gambling?  I would have been ahead in money but then also way behind on fun.

Plus, there's human nature involved - if you win $50 or $100 after just a little bit of gambling, then by extension if you play some more, you're going to win some more!  The more you play, the more chances you have to win!  Let's keep going until I see a jackpot!  That small win is like a drug, you feel elated for a short period of time, and you want to feel that again, only bigger.  Only it's going to cost you if you keep playing, though right after the small win, you're playing with the casino's money, so who cares?  Then that goes away and very soon, you're back where you started, but that's OK, because another win will put you back on top, right?  Just give me another minute, no, wait, it's probably that machine, I used up all the good spins, let me move over to this machine over here, this one looks like it wants to give me money and....no?  Nothing?  That's OK, that's OK, I'm just getting warmed up, I need a drink, that'll help and maybe let me change another $100, get some fresh money in the game, that'll do it.  There, I just won a dollar, though it cost me $20 to get that, it's a sign my luck is turning around. Yes, honey, I know we have show tickets, but I just need to play a little longer and win back the money I just lost, will you just give me a damn minute already?

Once you step away from the slot machine or the blackjack table, you may have that moment of clarity - this is always how it was going to end, because you didn't stop when you had the chance.  Actually the first mistake was starting to play, thinking you were going to win.  Then the second mistake happened when you were up over where you started, and you didn't stop.  Then the third mistake was putting down more money to try to get back to where you started, and that didn't work either.  Sure, you're smarter now, you know to walk away when you're up, only you're not up any more.  So the fourth mistake was then when you did walk away, you came back later when you were feeling luckier, and you figured things would be different.  Do I need to go on?

A smarter strategy would be to only put money at risk that you're willing to lose - I put $20 in a slot machine and I'm prepared to lose it, so if my total starts drifting down towards $5, I'll play that money until it's gone.  But if my total gets higher than $20, even by a dollar or a quarter, I'll cash out. Because any win, even a small win, is a win.  And if I can do that three or four times in a row, then three or four small wins might total a large win.  I'd had large wins, but those are rare, few and far-between.  So overall after 8 days in Vegas I was way down, but we did do other things around town - the Mob Museum, the Neon Museum, great restaurants (Hell's Kitchen and Oscar's at the Plaza on my birthday!), went up in the fake Eiffel Tower, the giant Ferris wheel, saw the Bellagio fountains, an exhibit of recovered Titanic artifacts, saw Legends in Concert.  The only thing we did that was a repeat of our 2003 Vegas trip was going to the m&m's store.

Anyway, I was very excited about the trip before and (mostly) during, but it started wearing me down around day 6.  The food was phenomenal throughout, including one night where we took a nap in the evening, woke up too late for a proper dinner, and found ourselves at Wahlburgers in the Bally complex.  Yep, same day, we ate at Hell's Kitchen and Wahlburgers, which seems like opposite ends of the spectrum.  Despite being owned by actor Mark Wahlberg and family, the chain still puts out a quality product - I got the SuperMelt, which was a burger on thick-cut bread, bacon, onions, pickles, and "government cheese".  For some reason, the chain features the same cheese that used to be given out as surplus by the Feds in the Reagan era, to families on welfare.  Well, since the Wahlberg clan had 9 kids being raised in a small house in Dorchester, MA, I guess they have fond memories of eating this particular sliced yellow cheese.  But then, why make your customers have to eat it too? Surely there must be better cheeses available, so why not give the customers the option to improve their burgers?  (I'll admit, the burger and tots were delicious, but really, any food in Vegas available after 10 pm is going to be appreciated and consumed with vigor.  Sorry, I mean viggah.)

That cheese is its own form of gambling, if you think about it.  But Wahlberg's character here is the worst kind of gambler, he won't stop, even when he's up.  Everybody knows that you shouldn't always "Let it ride" because then you're always just one bad card away from losing your whole stake. Is it impressive that he wins three hands of blackjack in a row, turning $10,000 into $80,000?  Well, sure, but losing on the fourth hand then wipes out all of his progress, so I would only have been impressed with him winning $79,000 if he had STOPPED.  And therein lies the key to making money in a casino (an underground one here, but the principle is the same everywhere) - knowing when to walk away from the table.  Nobody can predict the next hand, sure, so knowing when to walk away seems like a tricky thing, but here's my advice: if you're up $79,000, it's time to walk away.  It's probably past time, you pushed your luck with that last hand, and it's a miracle that you haven't lost it all yet, therefore, it's the perfect time to quit while you're ahead.  But Jim Bennett doesn't seem all that familiar with that phrase.

Sure, he's been through some stuff, his grandfather just died, he's on the outs with his mother, and he's got a dead-end job teaching literature at a college, where his students can't even stop texting long enough to listen to him, and even though his novel enjoyed some success and he was named one of the most promising young novelists of 2007, that was a while ago, and it seems inspiration has not struck twice.  So this is where he finds himself, letting his winnings ride in an underground casino, just to, what, be able to feel something, anything?  Even if that something is the terror that comes with owing one loanshark $200,000 and another one $50,000?  And then visiting a third loanshark just to consolidate the debt, realizing that would put him even in more danger?

Even when he gets a hold of some money - his mother clears out one of her bank accounts just to get him off the hook - for some reason he doesn't take that money straight to one of the loan sharks to save his own life.  Why?  Because he's a gambler - he sees the potential in that bag of money, if he just takes it to a casino and puts it on the line, it could be so much more, like the solution to take care of all of his debts, not just one of them.  So, that's what he does, and of course, he blows through it.  Sure, he probably feels more alive, but meanwhile he's getting closer and closer to the opposite of that.  The film is framed in a "countdown" sort of fashion, we're constantly reminded that there are "7 days to go" and then "6 days to go".  Umm, until what, exactly?  It's easy to fear the worst here, with the gambler playing all sides off against each other.

Earlier this year, "Uncut Gems" sort of used a similar format, with the lead character always thinking that one more bet would do the trick, if you keep increasing the size of the bets, there's the greater potential to wipe the slate clean.  Sure, but there's also the potential for falling deeper and deeper into the hole.  And like "Uncut Gems", the plot depends on the outcome of a sporting event - here the loansharks have realized the connection between Bennett and one of his students, who's the star player on the college's basketball team, and that suggests the possibility of fixing the game, which could help Bennett get rid of at least SOME of his debt.  Totally illegal, but it's the risk he has to take, otherwise the loansharks will start going after his family, and also that talented student that he's started a relationship with.  (Wow, this guy really does like to live dangerously - a relationship between a teacher and a student is like an automatic dismissal these days, right?)

This is the second film in a week to feature a relationship between a college professor and a student - the other one was "A Single Man".  But it's the only film this month (probably this year) to be an adaptation of a Dostoevsky novella.  This is true, but I'm not familiar with Dostoevsky's "The Gambler" - did Fyodor Dostoevsky know to not hit on 14?  Actually, the first adaptation of this story was in the 1974 movie "The Gambler", written by James Toback and starring James Caan.  So today's film is both an adaptation and a remake, and was directed by Rupert Wyatt, who also directed yesterday's film "Captive State".  See what I mean, man?  Everything is connected....  John Goodman was also in "Everybody's All American" with co-star Jessica Lange, and later in "Kong: Skull Island" with another co-star, Brie Larson.

Also starring Mark Wahlberg (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Brie Larson (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Michael Kenneth Williams (last seen in "Motherless Brooklyn"), Jessica Lange (last seen in "The Postman Always Rings Twice"), Anthony Kelley, Alvin Ing (last seen in "Smilla's Sense of Snow"), Domenick Lombardozzi (last seen in "Cold Pursuit"), Emory Cohen (last seen in "The Place Beyond the Pines"), Steve Park (last seen in "State of Play"), George Kennedy (last seen in "Bandolero!"), Richard Schiff (last seen in "Grace of My Heart"), Andre Braugher (last heard in "Standing in the Shadows of Motown"), Lauren Weedman (last seen in "The Little Hours"), Josiah Blount, Griffin Cleveland, Da'Vone McDonald (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor").

RATING: 6 out of 10 cheerleaders

Captive State

Year 12, Day 233 - 8/20/20 - Movie #3,634

BEFORE: I'm not really locked in to any particular theme right now, in fact I'm all over the thematic map since transitioning out of music-based documentaries.  A satire about rich people, a slow drama about a gay teacher, a kid-based drama about running away to NYC, a family-based comedy about a reclusive architect, a fantasy romance about growing up too fast, a standard Western and a vigilante action film.  It's a cobbled-together chain that merely gets me closer to September and October.  If I'm really reaching, there might be something there about people questioning and finding their place in the world, or in the case of "The Equalizer", helping others find their places - but that feels like a description of all films, everywhere.

This might be the plan, to have a format-less format, more or less, right up until October 1, which is just over 30 films away, believe it or not.  There will be a couple back-to-school films, but the main focus is to preserve that chain, it's my lifeline to the end of the year.  This one sort of seems like it borders on horror, as alien invasion films tend to ride that fine line between horror and sci-fi, but it just doesn't connect into my horror chain this year.  OK, I'm lying because now I see a connection in, one cast member here is also in "It: Chapter Two", but I can't work with one connection, I need two - anyway, "It: Chapter Two" is already linked on both ends to other films, so that's not a valid connection.  So it ends up here, in August, traditional dumping ground for Hollywood films that nobody's expecting much from - at least that was the case when theaters were open.  We don't know what's the new normal now where Hollywood box office is concerned - I just want to get through the rest of 2020 and then we can all re-assess.

Ashton Sanders carries over from "The Equalizer 2".

THE PLOT: Set in a Chicago neighborhood nearly a decade after an occupation by an extraterrestrial force, "Captive State" explores the lives on both sides of the conflict - the collaborators and dissidents.

AFTER: Be honest, with all that 2020 has thrown our way so far, from a global pandemic to post office scandals and election tampering, no restaurants, no movies, no concerts, unemployment, protests, riots, in addition to the usual annual tropical storms, wildfires and global warming, if you woke up tomorrow and saw news of an alien invasion, how surprised would you be, on a scale from 1 (President misspells "Florida") to 10 (fire tornado full of plague squirrels).  And if you learned that it was already over, our government had already made contact and sold out the whole human race, wouldn't that just be par for the course for this year?  In my mind at least, this film is set in 2029, nine years after first contact, and at some point, humans working for the aliens had become the new normal.  It seems all the aliens wanted was for people to build them a few underground bases, and in exchange they've offered to take selected humans off of Earth, which, come on, let's face facts, is growing less and less habitable every year.

Nope, nothing suspicious about that at all, in fact it's kind of comforting to know that our new alien overlords are rescuing humanity in the nick of time, because when left to our own devices we humans had developed a bad habit of mistreating spaceship Earth, using up its natural resources like fossil fuels while ignoring the big ball of light that blankets our planet with ample energy every day.  Thinking arrogantly that we're somehow in charge of all the other species just because a 5,000-year-old book told us so, and being distracted by TV and social media instead of trying to fix anything.  We're a horrible species, and in need of guidance from beyond our solar system, if you think about it. And the Legislators (interesting species name, but OK) are happy to provide support and instruction, and all they ask is that when we speak to them face-to-face, we coat ourselves with BBQ sauce.  It's an odd request, maybe even a little kinky, but OK, whatever saves the planet.

To be fair, there's no depiction here of the aliens eating humans, but come on.  It's strongly implied, unless they're taking humans off-planet to be in an alien zoo.  (Which common alien trope is being used here?  Very cagey to not nail this down, but there are only so many options.).  There's still a small fraction of humanity that doesn't trust the aliens, the smart people, but it's such a small minority, what voice do they have?  They're named Legislators, which makes them sound like politicians, and whenever politicians tell you they have your best interests at heart, that means they're lying, right?  It's what politicians DO, so I strongly suspect these Legislators did some market research to determine what humans wanted to hear - and if that's "We're taking you away to an alien paradise where you'll be protected and well cared for, and all your dreams will come true.", then that's what they're going to say.  And it's a bunch of B.S., right?

I'm not sure if it was intentional to present this as a political metaphor, but that's where we find ourselves.  Though the aliens (the few times we see them) look a bit like Groot from the "Guardians of the Galaxy" if he were covered in porcupine quills, there's just no denying that they act like fascist dictators.  And right now, with the news of the last few years, it's not hard to make a connection to you-know-who.  What's happening in the spaceships, what's happening below ground?  What's being talked about in the cabinet meetings?  Same answer - we have no idea, but in the pit of our stomachs, we all know that it's not good.  Same result - the common people are not important, they're just statistics on a balance sheet, another resource to exploit.

Am I overreaching?  Drawing a connection that isn't there?  Maybe - but there's a big scene of a "Unity Rally" here, where the supporters of the aliens get tickets to a big meet-up at Soldier Field, where the Legislators themselves might put in a "surprise" appearance.  Geez, what does THAT remind me of?  At a time when it's not even safe to be walking around on the streets, somebody wants to hold a rally in public where all the supporters could be exposed to danger.  These aliens are so Trump-like and they don't even know it.

Thankfully these aliens have never seen "Independence Day" or "The Host" or "Operation: Los Angeles" or even picked up a newspaper from 2020, because if they had, they would know that it's not in the American people's nature to be subjugated for an extended period of time.  When businesses are all boarded up, and squads of military-like personnel come on the scene to throw dissidents into unmarked vans, then on some level, we all know there's something very wrong with the country, whether that takes place in a movie or in real life.  Just because aliens have landed, or there's a virus going around, that's no reason to subvert the rule of law or violate the amendments in the Constitution that protect the populace.  And once there's a working resistance, you can drive that resistance underground, but that's not the same as stopping it.

This film shares something with the Western "The Ballad of Lefty Brown", in that at first it seems like there's nothing new here, it's the same elements of an alien invasion film that we've seen dozens of times before.  But if you stop and think about it, you may see something new in the way that it's presented, the heroes are just regular people, nobodies for the most part, yet when they work together they're capable of accomplishing great things.  One person can't take down the alien oppressors, but a whole bunch of people across the country just might have an outside chance.

Which is my way of saying - get out there and vote, or mail your ballot in early, just to be on the safe side.  The evil aliens are crafty and for humanity and decency to survive, everyone has to stand up and resist to a fascist, oppressive, non-inclusive regime that sees itself as better than the average human somehow.  If you don't vote, you might as well cover yourself in BBQ sauce to make yourself tastier.

Also starring John Goodman (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Jonathan Majors (last seen in "White Boy Rick"), Colson "Machine Gun Kelly" Baker (last seen in "Bird Box"), Vera Farmiga (last seen in "Godzilla: King of the Monsters"), Alan Ruck (last seen in "Dreamland"), Kevin Dunn (last seen in "I Heart Huckabees"), Madeline Brewer (last seen in "Hustlers"), James Ransone (last seen in "The Next Three Days"), Yasen Peyankov (last seen in "Novocaine"), Rene L. Moreno, Avery Lee, Caitlin Ewald, Ben Daniels (last seen in "Doom"), Lawrence Grimm, Guy Van Swearingen (last seen in "The Weather Man"), Elena Marisa Flores, Ta'Rhonda Jones, Shannon Cochran, D.B. Sweeney (last seen in "Heist"), Kevin J. O'Connor (last seen in "Widows"), Eric C. Lynch (ditto), Patrese McClain (ditto), Kiki Layne (last seen in "If Beale Street Could Talk"), Chronicle Ganawah, Alex Henderson, David J. Height, Bries Vannon, Marc Grapey (last seen in "Keeping Up With the Joneses"), Michael Christopher Collins.

RATING: 5 out of 10 subdermal tracking devices

The Equalizer 2

Year 12, Day 231 - 8/18/20 - Movie #3,633

BEFORE: When it comes to getting things done, either at work or around the house, I often feel like I'm my own worst enemy.  I love making "to-do" lists, to be sure, but then I start to have problems when it's time "to do" them - which means I'm something of a scam artist, making my lists and then not getting those things done.  I made a list of things to get done during the pandemic, like organizing my comics, updating my iTunes, clearing my e-mail - and those things are all still outstanding.  I got SOME things done, that's for sure, like filing for unemployment benefits, cancelling our May vacation and getting credit for future flights, and looking up some old friends, but it's all been rather hit or miss since I started going back to work three days a week.  I followed through with getting a hearing aid, but I still need to get some new glasses, for example.

Into this mix I decided that instead of seriously looking for a new job or even a second job, I'd take the opportunity to write something, maybe it could turn out to be a book about my experiences at Comic-Con, because I believe there are some great stories there.  But I've written about four chapters in the last two weeks, and already I'm starting to lose steam, and look for excuses why I can't write a new chapter each day.  I couldn't possibly do it today, because I decided to stock up on some groceries at the supermarket, I had to scan the cable listings for any new movies on Demand that I've seen but don't have physical copies of, and then of course there was "The Equalizer 2" to watch, and write about.

This is so stupid, how come I can make the time nearly every day to write a short essay about a movie I just watched, why can't I just write a little longer and knock off another chapter about some aspect of Comic-Con?  I think it has something to do with one being a pastime, a hobby, and the other seeming too much like actual work - and a pastime always seems more fun than working, right?  It's like I have to trick myself into working on the book, by reminding myself that I can either work on the book, or start looking for another job, and that makes writing the book seem more attractive.  I'll have to start implementing the "carrot and stick" mentality, like no playing games on my phone or watching more episodes of "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" until I finish another chapter.

This is the sort of thing that prevented me from writing a full screenplay years ago, I got through the outline stage several times, but whenever it came time to write dialogue, I'd lose my incentive, tell myself I was wasting my time, this was never going to be a good screenplay, I'm not a great writer anyway, and isn't there something else I'd rather be doing?  Then I'd go and find that thing to do, and drop the screenplay idea for another couple years before picking it up again.  I've got to find a way to break that cycle with this book.  Or maybe I just need to take the few chapters I've written and concentrate instead on a book proposal, which is an entirely different thing (it turns out) from writing the book itself.  OK, bargaining time, I'll write one more chapter this week, then change gears and try to figure out how to write a book proposal instead, with the few sample chapters I have - otherwise I think I may end up getting discouraged again with writing, like I have in the past.

It's not fair, on some level, that I can write over 3,600 short essays about movies over the last 12 years, but I can't bring myself to write 10 chapters of a book, even if I treat them the same way, like short, daily essays.  I have to figure out why this is the case - if I can, then I could knock this thing out in about two weeks, and I have a window of opportunity, with some days off from movies coming up in August and September.

Bill Pullman carries over from "The Ballad of Lefty Brown"

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Equalizer" (Movie #2,335)

THE PLOT: Robert McCall serves an unflinching justice for the exploited and oppressed, but how far will he go when that is someone he loves?

AFTER: I had to take a minute and remind myself what happened in the first "Equalizer" film, to be fair it's been over four years since I saw that.  Robert McCall was working at a hardware store in that film, and he went up against the Russian mafia while helping out a teen prostitute.  I do remember a lot of booby traps being set up in that hardware store... and there was a big trend that year with action movies that involved people with that ability to "read the room" and use whatever materials are at hand to get an advantage over their enemies in that space, like Jack Reacher and Batman do.  OK, standard SPOILER ALERT for this one, if you haven't seen "The Equalizer 2" yet, please proceed no further.

When we catch up with McCall again, he's on a train headed to Turkey, in disguise (somewhat) and looking for a man who's kidnapped his own daughter away from her American mother, and taking down four Turkish thugs is a quick reminder of who McCall is and what he's about, he'll go anywhere and do just about anything to balance those scales, punish or even kill the criminals if that will set things right, according to his set of rules.

After returning the girl to her mother (who runs the bookstore he frequents), we learn he's still living in Boston, but working as a Lyft driver now, which puts him in touch with a diverse bunch of people who are in trouble and need his help, even if they don't know it, plus he's got a number of regular customers who have long-term problems, and so McCall's had to learn how to prioritize.  There's an old Jewish man who was separated from his sister (and his valuable art) by Nazis during World War II, and also a black teen living in McCall's apartment building who has artistic talent, but is also involved with selling drugs for a local gang.

He'll get to them all, eventually, one way or another, but first he makes contact with Susan, his old colleague from the Defense Intelligence Agency, one of the few people from the past that knows that McCall is still alive.  She's called to Belgium, along with McCall's old partner, Dave York, to check out the murder of two undercover DIA agents, and well, let's just say she doesn't make it back.  McCall then has to drop everything else and figure out what case she was working on, and who took her out - you might think this would involve traveling to Belgium, but he's such a great investigator, and so good with technology, that he can review all of the relevant security footage remotely by computer.  Umm, OK, I guess he's a total next-level hacker, in addition to all of his other skills.

This also puts him back into contact with his ex-partner, who believed McCall to be dead after a building explosion.  Then of course there are implications of revealing his status to another person, it's always dangerous to let another person in on the secret, apparently.  Shortly after this, McCall is attacked by one of his Lyft passengers, which probably means that he's already gotten too close to whoever's calling the shots.  Fortunately this ability of McCall's enables him to see any attack coming, and (for the most part, anyway) always stay one step ahead of the people who are out to get him.

Facing his own past means returning to the seaside village where McCall once shared a house with his late wife, and she apparently worked at a bakery while he toiled for the DIA. We still haven't heard the full story of McCall's wife, I think, perhaps they're saving that for "Equalizer 3"...it's kind of like the "John Wick" and "Jack Reacher" franchises, we only get little bits of information about the past with each new film, they all really know how to drag this process out.  Anyway, it's a showdown between McCall and a whole squad of assassins in this quaint little Massachusetts coastal town, right in the middle of a hurricane that's made its way up the East Coast.  I suppose this is meant to be symbolic somehow in addition to dangerous, complicated and visually interesting.  Still, it would be pretty foolish to not bet on the Equalizer coming out on top.

It turns out that this is the only time in his career that Denzel Washington has appeared in a sequel - it's also the first time that Antoine Fuqua has directed one.  Well, if you have to be part of a franchise, this is a pretty darn good one to be in.  I'd watch "Equalizer 3" for sure, I'll save a slot for it some time in 2024, perhaps.

Also starring Denzel Washington (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Pedro Pascal (last seen in "If Beale Street Could Talk"), Ashton Sanders (last seen in "Straight Outta Compton"), Melissa Leo (last seen in "Everybody's Fine"), Sakina Jaffrey (last seen in "Late Night"), Jonathan Scarfe, Adam Karst, Kazy Tauginas (last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Garrett Golden, Orson Bean, Tamara Hickey (last seen in "We Don't Belong Here"), Rhys Olivia Cote, Antoine de Lartigue, Abigail Marlowe, Kevin Chapman (last seen in "In Good Company").

RATING: 7 out of 10 bags of flour

The Ballad of Lefty Brown

Year 12, Day 230 - 8/17/20 - Movie #3,632

BEFORE: We're more than halfway through August, and I still have no idea if movie theaters are going to open up according to the latest plan, which would put new movie releases out in late August and early September.  The IMDB is still saying that "The New Mutants" is going to be in theaters on August 28, but will it?  And even if if is, is anybody going to want to go?  This movie was part of my plans, once upon a time, but I've had to keep moving forward, and in doing so, it might be too late for me to watch "The New Mutants" now, even if it gets released on time.  I've still got an option to maybe see "Bill & Ted Face the Music", but the same questions apply.  Will it happen, and if it does, do I want to go?  Or will both movies get postponed yet again?

I've sort of become used to my chain without these movies, and I've been putting all my chips on "Black Widow" in November.  If that movie gets released, I'm definitely going, because of all my three plans to get me to the end of the year, the one I like best is the one with "Black Widow" in it, and that then gets me to two Christmas movies, including the one I could have included last year, if only I'd had one more slot.  But this means that I won't go into a movie theater until November, and that might be too long.  So, which appeals to me more, "Bill & Ted Face the Music", or "Klaus"?  That's a tough call.  I've got about 10 more days to make a decision on this.

One thing that's off the table now is New York Comic-Con, the event organizers finally pulled the plug on the event, though they'll be running a virtual version, like the San Diego Con did.  Well, at least I'll have my whole October free now, I can watch as many horror movies as I need to, or I can space them out as I see fit since I'm a little bit shy of 30 films in that part of the chain.

In the meantime, Kathy Baker carries over from "13 Going on 30".

THE PLOT: A Western story about loyalty, friendship and the relentless pursuit of justice.

AFTER: Eh, I'm not really feeling this one today, maybe I've just seen too many Westerns over the last 12 years, and they're essentially all the same.  Guns, posses, ranchers and rustlers, plus corrupt politicians scheming over where the railroad's going to go.  Yawn, there really doesn't seem to be much new here - or is there?

A couple online reviews pointed out that the hero here isn't the kind you'd see in a typical Western, with the white hat and the rugged jawline and the inability to do wrong.  Lefty Brown's more of a screw-up, and he's sort of been riding the coattails of his "partner", Edward Johnson, who's just been elected as the new Senator from Montana, and is planning to go to Washington DC with his wife.  He's asked Lefty to look after his ranch while he's serving in the Senate, Lefty's reluctantly agreed to do so, but Mrs. Johnson doesn't think this is a hot idea.

But then Edward and Lefty ride out to check out some horse thieves who've made off with three colts, and well, looks like Montana's gonna need a new Senator.  Lefty feels responsible and insists on heading back out to deal with the horse thieves/killers himself, then Marshall Tom Harrah arrives on the scene, and rides out himself, figuring that Lefty's either lost in the desert or in need of some kind of rescue at that point.  Lefty, meanwhile, has picked up a young sidekick named Jeremiah, and when Harrah arrives on the scene, Jeremiah recognizes him from his pulp Western novels, the kind that glorify the heroes of the Wild West, only Lefty's not mentioned in any of them.

Together they manage to catch one of the killers, and try to figure out who paid them to take out Ed Johnson.  Well, there really aren't that many characters here, so it's probably a very short list. Big surprise, it has a lot to do with the fact that Ed didn't support the plan to bring the railroad to Bannack, which is now on its way to becoming a ghost town.  Thankfully this is still the time and place where nearly everything can be solved by either an unfair gunfight or a gold old-fashioned hanging.  Why wait for an election?

I'd never even heard of this film until I spotted it on Netflix, and I'm thinking there's a good reason for that, except for Lefty's atypical underdog nature, there's not much here to distinguish this from every other damn Western.  Bill Pullman does his best to make this Gabby Hayes-like character the most important part of the story, but perhaps they were right to exclude him from the dime novels in the first place.

Also starring Bill Pullman (last seen in "Battle of the Sexes"), Jim Caviezel (last seen in "The Passion of the Christ"), Joe Anderson (last seen in "Love Happens"), Tommy Flanagan (last seen in "Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball"), Peter Fonda (last seen in "David Crosby: Remember My Name"), Michael Spears, Diego Josef, Joseph Lee Anderson (last seen in "The D Train"), Lewis Pullman (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Adam O'Byrne, Tyson Gerhardt, Stephen Alan Seder, Dillinger Steele, Seth Carlin, Emily Jones.

RATING: 5 out of 10 hoof prints

13 Going on 30

Year 12, Day 229 - 8/16/20 - Movie #3,631

BEFORE: I had to pull another film from future February romance chains, and sort of re-purpose it for linking use, to get me through August.  I'll have to re-assess next year's romance chain, hopefully there are enough extra linking opportunities to allow me to reorganize it and still make it through that month somehow.

I sort of had an unspoken moratorium on body-switching comedies, no "Freaky Friday", no "Vice Versa", no "17 Again" and it should go without saying, no "The Change-Up" or "The Hot Chick".  But never say never, I guess, and what good are rules if I can't break them here and there?  Besides, I once said I would never watch "The Hunger Games" or the "Twilight" movies, and when I needed to, I caved on "The Hunger Games" and I'm planning on hitting the "Twilight" series this October, if plans stay the same.

But at this point, what movies or franchises remain unwatched for me?  I've still never watched any of the "Rambo" movies, and so far I've stayed away from the "Fast and the Furious" and "Transformers" franchises.  I know there are plenty of horror franchises I've never watched, like "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, never seen any of the "Child's Play" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" films, either.  That's really what I'm intentionally staying away from, everything else is more or less fair game, unless it seems stupid like "The Boss Baby" or just randomly doesn't interest me at all.  I'm still avoiding "Cats" but eventually I may be curious enough to watch that, just to see how terrible it is.

Judy Greer carries over from "Where'd You Go, Bernadette".  It doesn't really matter if today's film is good or bad, at the moment it's necessary to keep the chain alive.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (Movie #3,131)

THE PLOT: A girl makes a wish on her thirteenth birthday, and wakes up the next day as a thirty-year-old woman.

AFTER: OK, technically this is a body-switching movie, but thankfully it's also a time-travel movie.  A 13-year old girl travels forward to when she is 30, and sees her future, as a projection of her life if it stays on its current course.  But the only reason for someone to see their future would rightfully be to make them aware of their ability to change it, based on what they see as being "wrong" in the future.

(You may notice I posted no movie for Friday, August 14 - that's because I was watching the 2-hour series finale of "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", and their team has been time-traveling all season, visiting the 1950's, 60's, 70's and 80's, trying to keep the timeline intact, but of course accidentally altering it for the apparent worse, and then futilely trying to fix it, only to find out that in the Marvel Universe, changing the timeline just creates an alternate timeline, and they didn't even have to go back to the point of divergence to fix things, they merely just side-stepped back to the original timeline they belonged in.)

So what Jenna sees is just a projected future, like a very long dream or something, but it's based on her subconscious fears about the person that she wants to become, but also is afraid of becoming, and the divergent point is when she befriends Tom-Tom and rejects her male friend Matt as a potential love interest.  Deep down, she must know that these are the wrong moves to make, because in the vision of the future, she's still best friends and co-workers with Tom-Tom (now Lucy) and Matt's not even in the picture.  The next hour is spent figuring out who the adult Jenna is, and it's painfully slow, and she ignores many of the available clues.  30-year old Jenna is a designer for that magazine that she liked when she was 13, she's got a boyfriend who plays hockey for the NY Rangers, and at the office she's a ruthless bitch who might be having an affair with another staffer's husband.  She doesn't even take phone calls from her parents, for God's sake, and she skipped last Christmas with them!

Obviously she's very naive, since she's got the mind of a teenager in an adult's body - so it's a long road toward figuring out how to succeed in an adult world - or is it?  She quickly reads a book called "Magazine Editing for Dummies", that's got to be a joke, right?  Because if it was that easy, then wouldn't everyone do that?  But I guess anything can happen in a dream, if that's in fact what this is.  But it feels so disjointed here, is that just because it takes Jenna so damn long to figure out why she's been given this glimpse of her future?

In a way, this is just a reversed and gender-swapped version of "A Christmas Carol", right?  (Five years later, Jennifer Garner was also in another take on the classic Dickens tale, called "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", and the same actress playing her character as a 13-year-old here played her character there as a teen.). The difference, of course, is that Scrooge was shown visions of his past to learn how he got to be the way he was, and essentially he had no future.  Here Jenna sees her future, to learn how she might end up, and was able to use that knowledge to go back to the divergent point and change it.  But at its essence, it's the same story - introspection about mistakes made, ways that things could have been done better, in order to make the most of whatever time is left.

(I know, it's more likely that somebody was doing a riff on "Big", but there's a key difference - it that film, Tom Hanks' character became an adult overnight, but the timestream was unaffected by whatever magic took place, only he aged.  This film uses a different format, where everyone gets older, the timestream/dream has skipped ahead 17 years, so it's along the same lines as "Big", but really, it's a whole different game here.)

But that's also a bit simplistic, because like many Hollywood romances, there's the suggestion that there's only ONE perfect mate for each person, and if you miss the boat on that one, man, you're screwed.  How can this be true for an every-woman character, when it's so often not the case in real life?  Most people have, or are at least capable of having, several meaningful romantic relationships over the course of a lifetime.  There are more favorable pairings, sure, but to reduce someone's life to "There's just ONE perfect match out there" seems ridiculous.  With most people it's a clumsy process of trial and error, you find somebody, try to live with them, it doesn't work for any of a number of reasons (his fault, her fault, does it even really matter?) and then you take what you've learned, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again.  And maybe next time you're smarter about things, or you've lowered your expectations, whatever makes the new relationship work, or seem to work.

It's a lot like having a career - some people have just one career for their whole lives, others have several, or they bounce around from job to job.  Whatever gets you through the night, it's all right, it's all right.  It's not like you get to the end of your life, and when you get to the afterlife (if there is one), you can say, "OK, I give up, who was my ideal mate and what was the job I was supposed to have?"  And then whoever's in control of reality (assuming anyone is) will say, "Oh, you would have been the happiest if you'd become a plumber and married Jessica.  Sorry, you messed up and you don't get to play again."  It just doesn't work like that (umm, probably) and I think the vast majority of people would be better served if they just learned how to make the most out of the opportunities that come their way.  Or some combination of making things happen and letting things happen to them, whatever feels comfortable and seems to lead to happiness, or at least contentment.

Anyway, I think about who I was when I was 13 - 8th grade?  There's no way that kid could have been shown a glimpse of my life when I was 30, not without his head exploding.  I don't want to misquote Patton Oswalt here, but I remember he had a funny bit about being an adult, and having a conversation with his younger self, and all the kid Patton could focus on in the conversation was finding out that in the future, he got to have sex with a woman.  People have different priorities at different ages, and as we see here, 13-year-old Jenna has a different set of hopes and dreams then future Jenna does.  Why can't we just let her be a normal 13-year-old, and not put so much pressure on teen Jenna to start forming that permanent bond with her best friend and eventual soul-mate?  Is she even equipped to handle that sort of thing, because when she's rocketed into her future, it really doesn't seem that way.

I also don't think that many people would know the whole "Thriller" dance 17 years later - some of those people would have been too young to have learned it at the time, right?  Wouldn't they have been infants when the "Thriller" album came out?  Guess that's a NITPICK POINT.  I don't know, it's a cute little piece of fluff but I don't think I could possibly take this movie seriously at all.  No regrets, but it's just not my cup of tea - it's mortar between the bricks.

Also starring Jennifer Garner (last seen in "Love, Simon"), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "Just Like Heaven"), Andy Serkis (last seen in "Long Shot"), Christa B. Allen (last seen in "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past"), Sean Marquette, Alexandra Kyle, Kathy Baker (last seen in "The Age of Adeline"), Phil Reeves (last seen in "Central Intelligence"), Lynn Collins, Samuel Ball (last seen in "The Last Castle"), Marcia DeBonis (last seen in "Uncut Gems"), Kiersten Warren, Susan Egan, Alex Black, Ashley Benson (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Brittany Curran, Brie Larson (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Megan Lusk, Julia Roth (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Renee Olstead, Maz Jobrani, with cameos from Jim Gaffigan (last seen in "Going the Distance"), Mary Pat Gleason (also last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Joe Grifasi and archive footage of Pat Benatar, Michael Jackson (last seen in "Whitney"), Rick Springfield (last seen in "Sound City"), Burt Lancaster (last seen in "Life Itself").

RATING 5 out of 10 yearbook photos