BEFORE: OK, just a quick pandemic check and then it's on to the romance films for February. After a slow start, New York's managed to hand out almost 80% of the vaccines it was given, which isn't that close to 100%, but I guess it's something. I got my boss an appointment for March 31 at the Javits Convention Center, which seemed like a great idea, then a terrible idea, and now with all the cancellations and other delays, it's kind of back to being a great idea, because perhaps by then they'll be shipping enough doses to actually meet the ambitious schedule that they created in the first place. My parents in Massachusetts are supposed to get their first shots tomorrow, February 2, because that state is opening up eligibility to people over 65 today, which New York did a few weeks ago, because not enough first responders were coming forward to get the vaccine for some reason, and doses were expiring. But now there's a ginormous nor'easter blizzard, so we're back to appointments being cancelled again, all down the Eastern seaboard, because of the weather. It figures, we're finally making some headway against this damn thing, they were starting to say that it might take less than a year to vaccinate everybody, instead of ten years at the pre-Biden rate, and boom, a snowstorm shuts the whole process down. I'm really starting to think that the Earth is upping its game in trying to get rid of the humans, and I'm thinking of not betting against Planet Earth on this one.
The other news out of the pandemic is that the expected "baby boom" that some people predicted would happen, with nearly everybody either working from home or quarantined at home, just didn't happen. Sure, you're at home with your sweetie all the time, it's natural to think that there will be more opportunities for romance, and then consequences from that will follow nine months later. But if you're home with your sweetie ALL THE TIME, and maybe for some people that's too much - plus people are unemployed, depressed, stressed out from watching the news (just me?), and that logically leads to letting personal hygiene slip maybe a bit, even the working people might wonder if they really have to take a shower before that Zoom meeting... So, maybe we can just say that it's not really a great time for romance - no baby boom, if anything births are declining rapidly, as they were before. Which honestly is fine, there are already still too many people on this planet, and maybe if there were fewer, the Earth wouldn't be trying so hard to kill us. Just a thought. We should still vaccinate and fight the good fight, try to save as many lives as we can, but in the end maybe the pandemic ends up being some kind of course correction.
That being said, it's time for me to transition from movies about war, terrorism, gangsters, messed-up Swedish people and zoo animals to the topic of romance - both the upsides and downsides, the benefits and costs of relationships. Maybe what the world needs now is (movies about) love, sweet love. I hear it's the only thing that there's just too little of. Now, a bit of explanation about this year's chain, which has been in the works since, well, just after last year's romance chain. I maintain a separate list of romance films, because I spend some of my downtime shuffling them around and trying to find the best possible order, maximizing the focus on the romance films I have either on DVD or on my cable DVR. Those are first priority, because they're tangible or taking up too much hard-drive space. I then have to also be aware of romance films that are on streaming platforms, because they help me link together the ones already in my possession - so it's a constant process of trying to be aware of all the romance films available everywhere, even ones I'm not really that into watching, because any link is a good link when I'm stuck and can't move forward.
Last year I had to rewrite the order on the fly, I saw new connections and better ways of organizing them mid-month, and that's too nerve-wracking. I scrambled and changed things around but basically ended up in the same place, still I'd like to avoid that again if I can. So the other night I not only went through the IMDB to make sure all my connections were solid, I also checked every film I was planning to watch on streaming services, just to make sure they were all still available. They all were, though some are now on DIFFERENT platforms that they were when I made the list - no worries, even if one was no longer available on Netflix or Hule, there's always iTunes as a safety net, right?
Umm, wrong. There's one film that isn't available, perhaps it wasn't available in the first place, and I was hoping that by now it would air on cable, or at least Netflix - that film is "How To Build a Girl", and it's still at a purchase price of $12.99 on Amazon and YouTube. I'm not spending that much - it's at a similar price on iTunes, too, so when does it become available for rental? Probably not in time for this Friday, so it's got to be jettisoned. But how can I remove one film from the chain and still make the linking happen? Ah, that's where keeping a close eye on all the cast lists comes in handy - there are so many actors in more than one romance film this year that there are extra links - connections I wasn't taking advantage of, which are color-coded green on my lists. This is what enabled me to flip around portions of the list last year at the last second - so it turns out if I delete "How to Build a Girl" and two other films next to it, then the chain will just close up around it, a new link connects Romance Film #4 with Romance Film #8. Of the three films jettisoned, one was easily re-scheduled for later in February, fitting neatly between two other films with Martin Starr, and another got moved to March, the week after the romance chain ends, but also slipping in neatly between two other films with Judi Dench. That still left me one film short, which is fine, but that was also another opportunity to check all my other links, and it wasn't too hard to find another sort-of-romance film with one of those actors to pick up the slack. The schedule's full again, I double-checked my plan, and the balance is restored.
Taylor John Smith carries over from "Hunter Killer".
THE PLOT: Charlie is an unmotivated man in his mid 20's still living at home with his mother and stepfather when he falls for a young woman who has a serious boyfriend.
AFTER: OK, I'm apparently going to ease my way into the romance chain, which is fine - it's a bit like a swimming pool, you don't just want to dive right in, that's too much of a shock to the system. You've got to go down those little steps into the shallow end, get your body used to the temperature of the water, whatever it may be, maybe paddle around a bit before you start doing laps. I don't swim, but I imagine this is good advice. Today's film is about two people in their 20's who circle each other for a while, but various forces, external and internal, keep them from sealing the deal. It's OK, I'm sure we're gonna get there, even if they don't.
Charlie still lives with his mother, who has remarried, works as the assistant manager of a small movie theater in Mobile, Alabama. Everybody keeps asking him if he's depressed (no, that's just his acting style...) and he's apparently very good at cooking dinner, but unwilling to make that leap to working in a restaurant, and the movie strongly wants us to believe that this is where his true talent lies.
(But I'm going to make a case for working in a movie theater - a job I had when I was 19, and again at 21, just after college. The first time I worked concessions, the second time (in NYC) I was an usher - the pay wasn't TOO bad and I worked mostly nights and weekends, so I still had my days free for job-hunting. One day, two directors that I knew came to see a movie and saw me tearing tickets, and they hired me to work in their office - so part of me has always wondered what would have happened if I'd stuck with that job, would I be a theater manager by now? Sure, I'd have fewer producing credits in the IMDB, but think how much free popcorn I could have eaten over the years! Seriously, though, if this pandemic ever ends and they open up theaters again, I'm seriously considering re-applying for this kind of work. Even if I have to sweep theater floors and disinfect seats, that's still noble work that SOMEBODY will have to do, why not me? Then maybe in a year or two I could work my way up to assistant manager or something.)
Charlie also keeps trying to work up the nerve to talk to that girl who mops floors in the local coffee shop - mostly because she ends up spilling coffee or tea every time she serves the customers. Like Charlie, her head is usually elsewhere, she's out of high school and she'll be leaving for college in the fall, her parents moved away for work-related reasons and she stayed behind, living with her cousin, to finish high school and because she's dating Brad, the track star. Charlie doesn't know about Brad, he only wants to make the connection with Amber - why, though? I guess it's supposed to be symbolic of how he's "stuck" and looking for some small way to move something forward in his life.
There are a lot of "friend" characters in this film, I'd almost say too many. Charlie has Ben, his best male friend, and Heather, his platonic girl friend. Amber has Brad, her cousin Jack, and her co-workers in her circle of secondary hangers-on. But for a film to carry this many minor people, the lead couple really needs to be very dynamic, and they're...just not. OK, we eventually find out WHY Charlie is stuck in second gear, and this really hasn't been his day, his week or even his year, but that really doesn't make up for how flat and listless both he and Amber seem. Sure, we've all had our down days, in what's now the tenth (eleventh?) month of pandemic lockdown some of us wonder if it's even worth getting out of bed sometimes. But this took place in 2016, so what's Charlie's excuse for being down all the time?
Freddie Highmore is currently appearing on a network show called "The Good Doctor", where he plays a medical professional who is also autistic or has Asperger's or something - I don't watch it, but that seems like a good fit for him, here he's similarly detached from showing emotions, or something, but then how do you work a romance film where nearly everyone seems incapable of feeling anything? The side relationship that occurs late in the film, between Amber's cousin Jack and Charlie's platonic friend Heather, seems WAY more interesting, despite Jack being an asshole and only recently figuring out that this is not the way to be with women, that they'd rather get chocolate and flowers and hear you say something from your heart, even if you're not usually good at that.
The adults come off much better here - they do have more acting experience, after all. Flat Charlie's divorced parents are also more interesting characters than he is (again, it seems like a simple proposition, but try to make sure your lead characters are also the most interesting ones...) and I think a lot of that comes from years of experience being in movies and TV shows like "CSI" and "Law & Order: SVU" where directors are always saying "give me more emotion". I imagine the director here comes from the George Lucas school of directing, always telling his actors "You've just got to give me less here" or "Right now you're at a 4, but I really need you at a 1, or better yet, a 0.5..." Rewatch "Attack of the Clones" and focus on Natalie Portman and Hayden Christensen, you'll see what I mean.
All is not lost here, Charlie eventually makes that call and gets a job working in a Manhattan restaurant - because it's just THAT easy. And Amber's going to attend NYU, so there's a chance that they'll see each other in the big city, but then if you think about it, Charlie's going to lose that restaurant job during the 2020 pandemic, when all the high-end restaurants are forced to close. Maybe we don't even want to go there - this film is more of a celebration of that time in your life when you could move across the country on a whim, and everything you own (plus everything your best friend owns) would fit into a hatchback car for the big drive. Remember that? My father used to make the trip between Boston and New York twice a year for his 2 kids going to NYU, and our combined possessions didn't even fill up one van. After just a few years of adulting, though, most people end up with a real bed and a couch and a giant collection of books and they find that as they move forward in life, it becomes harder and harder to change residences or relocate to another city. My comic book collection alone makes this nearly impossible.
Bottom line, though, this is primarily about two characters that I didn't really care about, and showcasing characters who are firmly stuck in their current situations and can't seem to break out of them. And then when they finally do, when the right time arrives, the film is over. That's a very questionable choice to make. Since the worldwide box-office gross for this film is just over $46,000 I think that proves my point.
Also starring Freddie Highmore (last seen in "The Spiderwick Chronicles"), Odeya Rush (last seen in "Goosebumps"), Haley Joel Osment (last seen in "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile"), Christopher Meloni (last seen in "Snatched"), Marg Helgenberger (last seen in "In Good Company"), Rita Volk, Jake Abel (last seen in "The Host"), Lonnie Knight, Gary Ray Moore, Jon Hayden, Christie McNab, David Chattam, Grant Springate.
RATING: 5 out of 10 futile Candy Crane attempts
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