Capone

Year 13, Day 9 - 1/9/21 - Movie #3,709

BEFORE: Closing out the Tom Hardy category tonight, at least for now.  I'll admit there are still a few minor films on his IMDB page that I haven't seen, but nothing major, at least until the "Venom" sequel gets released, or another "Mad Max" movie.  After tonight I think I've done all the required research. 

THE PLOT: The 47-year-old Al Capone, after 10 years in prison, starts suffering from dementia and comes to be haunted by his violent past. 

AFTER: I feel like I got sucker-punched for the second night in a row.  Naturally when I saw that Tom Hardy was cast as Al Capone, I got excited.  De Niro did such a great job playing the legendary Chicago mobster in "The Untouchables", what other great things can I expect from Tom Hardy's version?  Honestly, I should have kept my expectations VERY low.  

Patton Oswalt had a routine in his "No Reason to Complain" comedy special that was in reaction to Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ", that only focused on the last day of Jesus' life, when the Bible says he was being tortured and crucified.  Removed from the context of the miracles he (allegedly) performed and other good works, Oswalt compared this to a film being pitched about Albert Einstein, but the filmmaker only wanted to portray a day in the famous scientist's life when he had bad stomach flu and was just sitting on the toilet with a bad case of diarrhea.  

THAT is what "Capone" reminds me of, because it's all about the final year of Capone's life, after being released from prison, but his mind and body have been badly damaged by years of syphilis and gonorrhea, causing reduced mental capacity and dementia.  At this point in his life, Capone had the IQ of a child, and his wife had petitioned for his release based on his reduced mental state. So he only served 8 years in prison (in both Atlanta Federal Penitentiary and Alcatraz, though this film makes no mention of Alcatraz) and then was released for medical treatment in Baltimore.  Johns Hopkins turned him down, but he received care at Union Memorial Hospital in 1939.  In 1940 he retired to an estate in Palm Island, Florida, and was one of the first patients treated with penicillin in 1942 once it was approved for mass production - but it was too late to reverse the damage to his brain.  

And so I find myself watching a movie from Capone's POV, but the obvious problem with that is that of the unreliable narrator, we can't be sure what (or who) is real under this scenario, and what (or who) is a hallucination.  From a filmmaker's perspective, this is a great opportunity to pull a "Fight Club" or "Sixth Sense" scenario, and I was all ready for that sort of thing.  I think they only did it once, but I could be wrong, because the plotline here was so hard to follow.  One particular character simply could not have been a hallucination through the ENTIRE film, because at one point another character calls him on the phone and asks him to come down to Florida to visit - he had to be REAL at that point, right? 

But there are other extended fantasy sequences as well - if I'm reading this right, and I'm not sure that I am.  The whole scene where Capone (wearing a bathrobe and an adult diaper, and a carrot in his mouth in place of a cigar) carries a gold tommy-gun and wanders through his Florida estate, killing his own men - that never happened, right?  I think we would have heard about it if it had.  Other scenes where Capone soils himself or has an "accident" in the bed overnight are more believable, yet quite unnecessary and also disgusting.  Look, many people get older and lose control of their bowels, it's a sad fact of life, but that doesn't mean I want to see it happen in a movie.  

All of the subplots, about the FBI watching Capone and his family, the money that he claims to have stashed away but can't seem to recall where, and the illegitimate son back in Chicago that he can't seem to connect with - they all go exactly nowhere. 

This brings up the fact that "Capone" was directed by Josh Trank, the man who figuratively crapped the bed with the release of the 2015 "Fantastic Four" movie.  (Yeah, I probably should have checked that before watching...).  Well, he's done it again, now he's ruined the Al Capone story - what would have been the harm in casting Tom Hardy and then doing a film about the more significant moments in Capone's career, when he was a younger, scrappier, up-and-coming mobster?  Why not SHOW the St. Valentine's Day Massacre actually happening, rather than just hearing about it in a radio teleplay that the older Capone happens to be listening to?  (The general rule is "show, don't tell", Josh...). What point is made by depicting a notorious historical figure as a sad, old, babbling, incompetent shell of a man?  

That's it, Josh Trank is banned from my blog.  If they can ban Trump from Facebook and Twitter, then I can ban Trank from the Movie Year.  (Enjoy spending time with "He Who Shall Not Be Named".). If there's any silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, as a result this film was kept out of theaters. "Capone" was the #2 film on iTunes during the first few days of release, and made $2.5 million from digital sales in 10 days, but then it seems the word got out, because those sales figures dropped very quickly.  I caught it on AmazonPrime, but I don't think there's much buzz about this film circulating now that it's awards season.  

There's one last chance for relevance, however - it's story about an older, mentally-challenged former criminal who's retired to his Florida estate after prison.  He roams the halls of his mansion and sits outside looking at gaudy Greek statues, surrounded by his wife and sons and other family, who have to change his diaper while he rants incoherently and threatens the staff.  With any luck, this is the future for Donald Trump.  This, and the depiction of Al Capone singing along (horribly off-key) with the Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz" are the only reasons I'm awarding any points at all today.  

Also starring Linda Cardellini (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), Matt Dillon (last seen in "The House That Jack Built"), Al Sapienza (last seen in "xXx: Return of Xander Cage"), Kathrine Narducci (last seen in "Bad Education"), Gino Cafarelli (ditto), Noel Fisher (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Mason Guccione (last seen in "Night School"), Jack Lowden (last seen in "Fighting with My Family"), Kyle MacLachlan (last seen in "The House with a Clock in Its Walls"), Josh Trank, Neal Brennan (last seen in "Get Him to the Greek"), Edgar Arreola, Manuel Fajardo Jr., Rose Bianco (last seen in "Bad Boys for Life"), Tilda Del Toro, Wayne Pére (last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), and archive footage of Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr and Margaret Hamilton. 

RATING: 2 out of 10 hungry crocodiles

Locke

Year 13, Day 8 - 1/8/21 - Movie #3,708

BEFORE: Update on the part-time job search, I handed in my resumé over at the comic-book shop I frequent in Manhattan. Have not heard anything back, which could mean that my file is working its way up the management chain - or possibly there's no interest in hiring a 52-year old with high blood pressure and a hearing aid as a trainee...  Now I'm once again waiting to hear when movie theaters might open up again in NYC, that's my next best shot, as there could be a wave of people hired at that time.  Great job, working in a movie theater, I did it about 30 years ago, nights and weekends, which could work nicely around my day job.  

Tom Hardy carries over from "RocknRolla", and I don't know very much about this film, but from the description on the cable guide it sounds like a gripping crime thriller...

THE PLOT: A dedicated family man and successful construction manager receives a phone call on the eve of the biggest challenge of his career that sets in motion a series of events that threaten his carefully cultivated existence. 

AFTER: Well, I feel pretty ripped off by this one.  The listing on the cable guide made it sound so exciting, like an action film - "A construction expert dashes off the job and races to London!".  SPOILER ALERT, here's the whole plot: Tom Hardy drives a car, and talks on his cell phone with several people during the drive.   That's it. Seriously. Are you kidding me? 

To be fair, there's some drama involved, once you learn WHY he's driving to London.  And WHY he left his post, the night before the biggest concrete pour in U.K. history.  Not to give away too much, but he's about to become a father, for the third time.  So he's in touch with the mother of the child, who's already in the maternity ward in London.  Umm, yeah, so during the drive he's ALSO got to make a pretty awkward call to his wife.

There is more to the story, he's also missing a very important soccer match, which his sons have been looking forward to, and also leaving when he did, HOW he did, probably means that he's about to be fired as well.  BUT, he is in touch with the, umm, assistant construction manager (?) to make sure that everything related to the concrete pour doesn't go tits up, as the Brits say.  

But by and large, this is NOT an action movie, it's a drama set in a confined space, just a car, and it may actually be set in real time, during a drive to London that's about an hour and 20 minutes long.  Oh, wait, sorry, I forgot, metric system.  The drive is...let's see, double it and add 30... 190 metric minutes long, right?  I don't know, I forgot how to convert from U.S. minutes to U.K. kilometers, can you blame me?  

My point is, I'm not sure if Tom Hardy is your guy for this sort of movie.  This guy should be cage-fighting, or trying to blow up Gotham City while fighting Batman, or dealing with an alien symbiote that's trying to take over his body.  If he's got to be driving, it should be across the Australian Outback with a bunch of crazy renegade warriors like Immortan Joe and The Organic Mechanic, not just regular driving on a U.K. highway.  BORING!  I'm just not sure who it was that said, "We need a dramatic actor who can really get into the subtleties of this guy's complicated life - get me Tom Hardy!"

If I'd paid money to see this in a theater, I would be well within my rights to demand a refund.  Things are supposed to HAPPEN in movies, crazy stunts and impossible feats of strength and daring, taking down opposing armies with a RPG, not just following the directions on the car's GPS!  

I thought, maybe there's something more to the story - maybe he's never going to get to London, just like Godot never shows up in "Waiting for Godot" (the play is referenced during the film).  What if he's not really on a highway, maybe he's in purgatory because he cheated on his wife, and he's just going to drive and drive until he eventually forgives himself or finds some form of redemption?  Nope, that's not it, it's just a guy driving to London, and I'm probably overthinking. 

It's mildly interesting, though, that Tom Holland provides the voice of Locke's son, Eddie, one of the many callers that Ivan Locke talks to while driving to London. Holland portrays Spider-Man in the MCU, and Hardy, of course, played Eddie Brock in "Venom", who gets infected with an alien symbiote and becomes Venom, a main enemy of Spider-Man in the comics.  If they ever work out all the legal challenges and get aroudn to making a movie where Spider-Man battles Venom, it could mean these actors would work together in the same movie again. But that very idea is, in itself, more interesting than the entire film "Locke".  

Also starring the voices of Olivia Colman (last seen in "The Favourite"), Ruth Wilson (last seen in "Anna Karenina"), Andrew Scott (last seen in "1917"), Ben Daniels (last seen in "Captive State"), Tom Holland (last heard in "Spies in Disguise"), Bill Milner (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Danny Webb (last seen in "Churchill"), Alice Lowe (last seen in "Paddington"), Silas Carson (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Lee Ross, Kirsty Dillon.

RATING: 4 out of 10 cans of cider

RocknRolla

Year 13, Day 7 - 1/7/21 - Movie #3,707

BEFORE: When in doubt, revert to chronological order, right?  I didn't know very much about these four films with Tom Hardy in them, so I'm watching them in the order they were released. Umm, except for "Warrior", which was my lead-in - but the REST are in order, going back to 2002 for "The Reckoning" and then 2008 for today's film.  It's a great chance to get a little insight on an actor's experience arc over the years, to realize which films he made before he bulked up for "Warrior" and "The Dark Knight Rises", and which came after. 

I wish I could say the same for Guy Ritchie's filmography, that I was able to watch them in something close to chronological order, but obviously that wasn't an option.  Still, I can go look at the list on the IMDB and see how he started out with "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels", but then took a real detour with "Swept Away" after he met Madonna, so I suspect that "RocknRolla" represented a return to form after they split up.  Then of course he went all big-budget Hollywood with "Sherlock Holmes" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", and then came the disaster that was "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword".  He also directed two films I saw last year, "Aladdin" and "The Gentlemen", and one of those was ANOTHER return to form, the other makes no sense. 

Tom Hardy carries over again from "The Reckoning". 

THE PLOT: When a Russian mobster orchestrates a crooked land deal, millions of dollars are up for grabs, drawing the entire London underworld into a feeding frenzy at a time when the old criminal regime is losing turf to a wealthy foreign mob.  

AFTER: I think it was watching "The Gentlemen" last year that made me realize that I still hadn't seen one key Guy Ritchie crime film set in the London underworld (Lunderworld?) but now that I've seen them all it sort of feels like there's a definite formula, and it's wearing thin.  There's always some kind of MacGuffin, whether that's a diamond or a van full of pot or, in this case, a painting that we never get to see.  There will be big, burly Russian mobsters, and a wide array of thieves, gamblers and ne'er-do-wells with nicknames like "One Two" and "Mumbles", and everybody will be very, very hard to understand due to their thick Cockney accents.  

Also, everybody wants to be rich, whether that comes from thievery or performing the biggest hit for somebody else, or just plain being famous, like a rock star.  Really, though, if you just replace "rock star" with "You Tube star", the painting with pot, and Gerard Butler with Matthew McConnaughey, then doesn't "RocknRolla" just become "The Gentlemen"?  Discuss. 

This is also supposedly about real estate somehow, as the two lead characters want to buy a London warehouse, because the UK real estate market is only going up up up, except it's apparently very complicated to buy property in the UK, you have to get or arrange something called "planning", and you also have to borrow money from a loanshark, and most likely that loanshark has the councillor in his back pocket, so you won't get the planning, but he will, and by that time even if he cancels your debt you still owe him money for some reason, so you're basically screwed.  Umm, I think.  Meanwhile he's negotiating with a Russian oligarch to build a new stadium, and he's promising to fast-track all that planning in exchange for seven million euros - pounds?  Wait, this is a few years old so probably euros.  

The only way to get ahead, it seems, is for One-Two and Mumbles to steal that seven million - twice - to pay off their debt, and also to give one of those seven millions back to the Russian's own female accountant, who surely must have her own reasons to want this money and discredit her employer at the same time, only I'm not sure if we ever find out what those reasons are.  I get that everybody wants to get with Stella - OK, everybody except for her husband, and maybe also Handsome Bob - but she just didn't feel like a fully fleshed-out character.  Explaining WHY she's doing what she's doing could have been a big help here. I don't think we ever find out what happens to her in the end, either, it just feels like Guy Ritchie forgot about her. 

Meanwhile, that painting that the rich Russian loaned to the loanshark gets stolen by the loanshark's junkie (step?) son, who's also the rock star.  His motivations are unclear, too, I mean, I guess he likes the painting and also wants to get back at his (step?) dad, but how would he even know that taking the painting would get his father in trouble with the Russian guy who (eventually) wants his painting back?  

Also meanwhile, there's some kind of informant in the Lunderworld, who's been giving up information on everybody's crimes for years, and nobody can quite figure out who it is.  Stella's husband claims to know, so that means everybody's got to go to this sort of wild sex party thing so that Handsome Bob can put his moves on the guy and see if he can get him to give up the info.  

Not meanwhile, there's a big flashback chase sequence detailing how sideways things went when One-Two, Mumbles and Handsome Bob stole the seven million for the second (?) time and had to battle a pair of Russian mobsters.  They eventually prevail, but those Russian mobsters have a way of coming back later and even more pissed-off.  

It's a safe bet that everyone's going to betray everyone in the end, because really, it's every man for himself, almost all the time.  But annoyingly it doesn't feel like everything really connects here, so that even after we learn who the informer is, even after the painting maybe makes its way back to the original owner, even after the bad guys we like prevail and the bad guys we don't like get their come-uppance, there are still so many questions, so many missing pieces. And then they tease a sequel at the end, and so far, 12 years later, that story has not been told.  I'm sure there's a very long list of films that promised sequels ("Forrest Gump 2", "Roger Rabbit 2") that never happened, but it's still annoying.  

Also starring Gerard Butler (last seen in "Angel Has Fallen"), Mark Strong (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), Tom Wilkinson (last seen in "Selma"), Toby Kebbell (last seen in "Destroyer"), Idris Elba (last seen in "The Dark Tower"), Karel Roden (last seen in "The Bourne Supremacy"), Thandie Newton (last seen in "Solo: A Star Wars Story"), Dragan Micanovic (last seen in "Layer Cake"), David Bark-Jones, Matt King (last seen in "Paddington"), Geoff Bell (last seen in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"), Jeremy Piven (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Ludacris (last seen in "Hustle & Flow"), Gemma Arterton (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Jimi Mistry (last seen in "Blood Diamond"), Nonso Anozie (last seen in "The Laundromat"), David Leon, Bronson Webb (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), Michael Ryan (last seen in "Pan"), Robert Stone, Jamie Campbell Bower (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Kelly George, Roland Manookian, Tiffany Mulheron, Johnny Harris, with archive footage of Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "The Human Stain") and a cameo from Guy RItchie.  

RATING: 5 out of 10 hungry crayfish

The Reckoning

Year 13, Day 6 - 1/6/21 - Movie #3,706

BEFORE: OK, a word before I get going today, here in the "before" section, about the concept of "before". Usually I write this section before I watch the day's movie, but just as often, I start the movie late in the night of the day before I count it on, so often I do watch the movie before writing the "before".  Often this means I've got nothing to say, because whatever happened to me that day (before) I managed to write about on that day, and I may wait to see what happens to be on the day of before writing the "before".  In other words, I'm admitting that sometimes my "before" was really written "after".  Such is the case today. 

Today a group of armed militants, spurred on by our PRESIDENT, attacked and broke into the U.S. Capitol building, not-so-coincidentally on the day of the certification of the Electoral College results.  In fact, this disgusting act took place most likely BECAUSE the Electoral College results were being certified, and this was the last act of a desperate man who can't seem to acknowledge his own defeat, and who refuses to give up the power he has obtained, so he's been lying to the American people for months about the election being rigged, filing dozens of frivolous and unwarranted lawsuits in multiple states to reverse or discredit election results, and then strongly implying that his Vice President should violate the Constitution and not certify but instead CHALLENGE the results of the Electoral College, which in turn represent the votes and collective will of the American people.  

So I want to instead use this "before", which is really an "after", I admit, to point out that my schedule was worked out weeks ago, and there's no meaning implied by the choice of a film called "The Reckoning", and any resemblance between this film and the day's events is pure coincidence, but I've seen so many coincidences in my 13 years of doing this that I sometimes feel that an unseen hand is influencing my movie choices.  It's not true, but it just sometimes feels that way.  

Tom Hardy carries over from "Warrior". I had much debate last night over putting this one here, because it's not really a "Tom Hardy movie", not in the way that "Warrior" is, or that an upcoming film like "Capone" might be.  Tom Hardy has a small role here, it's from before he really became a star actor or a Batman villain - so technically it's probably more of a Willem Dafoe movie or a Paul Bettany movie.  Therefore I thought, "Maybe I should save it, for a Willem Dafoe chain later on, it may have more meaning that way."  Eh, I've got a few Willem Dafoe films, and a few other Paul Bettany films, but I'm no rush to get to them.  So for my purposes, regardless of the size of his role here, I'm going to proceed and treat this like a Tom Hardy movie, and I hope I don't regret this, like if I could have used this one to get out of a linking jam later this year.

(The other WIllem Dafoe movies and the other Paul Bettany movies are on streaming, I think, and this one I dubbed off of cable and I have the DVD in hand - watching this one therefore opens up a slot on the main list, instead of removing a film from the subsidiary list of films that are currently streaming somewhere...)

THE PLOT: A priest on the lam takes up with a traveling band of actors, who then discover a murder has occurred and try to solve it by recreating the crime in a play. 

AFTER: Well, I don't want to give anything away about the ending, but it's another case where divine providence won out.  Watching this film today, of all days, which again was purely accidental on my part, now seems very appropriate.  The plot concerns a person of power who (eventually) gets accused of serious misdeeds, and is (again, eventually) taken down by a mob of concerned and angry citizens.  Any resemblance to the Donald Trump story is quite coincidental, but also will be celebrated by me, ex post facto.  Also, this is set during a time when the Plague was a valid concern, and we've still got our own pandemic raging in the world right now. 

The crime is different, though, here it's murder combined with a number of "unspeakable" acts, and since this story takes place back in the 1300's that's probably code for gay stuff.  Pedophilia most likely, and it only comes to light after a traveling troupe of actors desperately turns to the news and rumors floating around a town in order to create a new play, as the crowds have grown very tired of Biblical re-enactments as moral fables.  I'm not exactly sure that this is how improv theater was born - or that you can trace a connection between events like this and the "ripped from the headlines" tactics used by "Law & Order: SVU".  

(I've always noticed the discrepancy in the practices of the "Law & Order" makers - they promote the show's plot as being "ripped from the headlines", but then they also have to run a disclaimer, for legal reasons, that the story is NOT based on any specific actual events.  Well, which is it, Dick Wolf?). 

This story begins with a priest who is disgraced after a dalliance with a married woman, and forced to escape from his parish to avoid prosecution.  One night in the woods he happens upon a group of people killing someone, and in his haste to run away, he makes noise and is discovered and captured.  The group turns out to be a troupe of actors who killed one of their members who was very sick, so it was a mercy killing. The priest is relieved to find he hasn't joined a band of murderers, but then probably just as disappointed when he finds out they're actors.  (Great, so they're without morals AND extremely poor...)

He joins their band because he believes their Bible plays serve a purpose, and also agrees to give last rites to their departed member once they reach the next town.  This is where the troupe's terrible ticket sales lead them to invent this new kind of storytelling, with a play based on the events of a local boy's murder.  A mute woman is being charged with murder, and because she's mute she's also unable to defend herself, so the lead actor/playwright becomes a sort of amateur detective after talking to the accused via rudimentary sign language.  The ex-priest even digs up the body of the boy to try to determine the cause of death. (Some liberties are taken here, because this was set hundreds of years before any organized concept of forensics, although people back then perhaps understand what rigor mortis was, and how long it lasts...)

The King's Justice appears on the scene, and he's willing to overlook a bit of corpse exhumation, as he's also noticed that wherever the town's Lord travels, young boys seem to disappear there to.  This also sort of resembles modern crime-solving techniques like establishing a pattern among a large number of cases, and then cross-referencing those cases against the travel history of a suspect. But here's where the Trump-related stuff comes into play, because the Lord believes he's invulnerable under the feudal system for any crimes.  (Remember, Trump stated he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue in NYC and not be prosecuted for it.  We'll see, some of that could change after he's out of office...)

I'm reminded of two other stories here, one is the 1986 movie "The Name of the Rose", which similarly depicted the solving of a murder in a medieval abbey (it's been too long since I've seen it, perhaps I'm due for a re-watch) and the other, of course, is "Hamlet", in which a troupe of actors performs a play that depicts a murder that is very similar to the events around the death of Hamlet's father, by which the king's brother killed the king, then married the queen to become the new king.  (This storyline was also depicted, albeit in comic form, in the movie "Strange Brew", where Claude Elsinore killed his brother and married Pam's mother, Gertrude, to become the owner of Elsinore Brewery.  And who played Brewmeister Smith in that movie?  Max von Sydow - I'm getting closer to his movies...)

For a real historical reference, however, you can look up Gilles de Rais, a real nobleman from the 1400's who did perform a number of "unspeakable acts".  There are some notable flaws here in this film, however, largely resulting from characters in the 1300's somehow having advance knowledge of how theater would work in the future, in addition to forensics.  And also the fact that Tom Hardy's character had to play all the female roles in the plays, it seems.  (Cannot unsee!)

Also starring Paul Bettany (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Willem Dafoe (last seen in "The Last Thing He Wanted"), Brian Cox (last seen in "Churchill"), Gina McKee (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Simon McBurney (last seen in "The Duchess"), Stuart Wells (last seen in "Billy Elliot"), Vincent Cassel (last seen in "Tale of Tales"), Ewen Bremner (last seen in "Fool's Gold"), Mark Benton (last seen in "Eddie the Eagle"), Hamish McColl (last seen in "Paddington"), Matthew Macfadyen (last seen in "Anna Karenina"), Marian Aguilera, Trevor Steedman, Elvira Minguez, Luke de Woolfson, with cameos from Simon Pegg (last heard in "The Cloverfield Paradox"), James Cosmo (last seen in "Outlaw King"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 crude masks

Warrior

Year 13, Day 5 - 1/5/21 - Movie #3,705

BEFORE: Well, it was a bit of a struggle getting here - I became aware of this film several years ago, after watching so many boxing movies.  All of them, maybe.  But I somehow missed it the first time around on cable, and probably the second time, too - these things sort of go in cycles, only some films NEVER air on cable, I've noticed.  Or some air in one rotation and then never come back.  Maybe I just didn't the slots for this at the time, or maybe since there's also a TV series with the same title, I thought it was still airing and it wasn't, and I missed the expiration date.  Anyway, I keep track of movies I missed, because then they tend to turn up on streaming somewhere, all of them except "Breakfast of Champions", I guess. But then I caught this one on its third or fourth rotation on cable, and now it's available again on Cable on Demand, so I don't even have to put the DVD that I burned into the DVD player, I can just watch this on TV by pushing a few buttons.  Very handy - and a symbol that maybe it's the right time to watch it. 

I'm not sure what it says about me, that I've put so many restrictions on myself - when I allow myself to add a movie to my list, under what conditions I can or can't watch a particular movie - that even though I make progress every day, I also always feel like I'm missing out on things, and thus also failing every day, too.  

Frank Grillo carries over from "End of Watch", and after a few Tom Hardy movies, I'll be ready for Max von Sydow and Ingmar Bergman. That's a bit weird, that a film about MMA fighting gets me closer to the artsy Bergman films, but that's where I find myself today.  

THE PLOT: The youngest son of an alcoholic former boxer returns home, where he's trained by his father for competition in a mixed martial arts tournament - a path that puts the fighter on a collision course with his estranged older brother. 

AFTER: I think this was probably a better choice than watching "Chips" or anything with Anna Kendrick, like "Trolls World Tour".  "Hellboy", I'm not really sure about - but that connects to "Black Widow" so I think I'm going to wait and see if Marvel movies start coming out on time, under the new revised schedule for 2021. That's all I can do, make the best possible choice each day and then see how it pans out.  Speaking of that, this is the second film this week - after "Wildlife" - that highlights a man undertaking a dangerous job, to earn money for his family.  It's not lost on me that I'm considering applying for a new job, and leaving the house at this point in time, working in a store, interacting with customers - that's all potential risk since the virus is spiking up again in NYC.  Are these movies telling me, in a subtle message, that I should go ahead, take that leap, assume a little more risk, and that things will all work out somehow?  I'm not sure.  I'm not talking about taking part in an MMA match, I realize - or fighting wildfires, but doing anything besides staying home right now is risky on some level.  

Anyway, today's film is a textbook example of parallel editing - that's when a film appears to be following two separate storylines, cutting between the two, and the implication is (usually) that the two storylines are going to link up later on, or at the very least, some connection between them will be revealed ("Wonderstruck" is another recent example of this technique, dealing with two timelines that eventually connect with each other in a fashion).  "Warrior" only bends the rules of space, not time, but that's fairly standard.  Within the first half hour, we're presented with all the characters and we've got a pretty good idea how they're all connected.  It takes a while to piece together the whole family history here - a family broke up years ago, due to the father's alcoholism and abuse, and one brother, Tommy, left for the West Coast with the mother, while the other brother, Brendan, stayed in Pittsburgh with the father and his new girlfriend, now his wife.  

Tommy comes back to Pittsburgh, after serving in the military and the death of his mother, and wants to train again with his father for boxing and/or this new MMA fighting competition.  At the same time, Brendan is now a high-school physics teacher who's participating in underground MMA fighting matches in order to win enough money to keep his house.  (There's some kind of mix-up at the bank, Brendan followed the advice of a loan officer and his mortgage is now "upside-down" somehow.)  The two brothers have different last names (this gets explained and becomes important later) but it all gets pieced together when the (now-sober) father of Tommy goes to visit Brendan's family, but is not invited in, due to some unexplained previous incidents.  Maybe it's better that we don't know.  I'm not sure if this just represents a typical, messed-up family or just really highlights all the possible negative stereotypes about people or Irish descent, from excessive drinking and fighting to being unable to express love for family members and bottling up all negative emotions until they get released in fits of rage.  

Anyway, both brothers see the upcoming Sparta round-robin single-elimination MMA competition as their ticket, since the event is held in Atlantic City ("The War By the Shore") and awards a purse of $5 million.  Brendan could win enough money to keep his house, though he's a thousand-to-one long shot, and Tommy could make a name for himself, prove his worth for his family, make up for his shame from almost deserting his military post, and also have a positive (?) outlet for all of his rage.  And there's apparently a lot of that.  

Parallel editing comes back into play during the separate training montages (sort of reminiscent of "Rocky III" here - with Rocky training in the Russian woods and Ivan Drago in that computer-heavy lab) since Brendan's trainer focuses on keeping him relaxed in the ring, running with other fighters and listening to Beethoven for some reason, and Tommy trains alone, runs alone and focuses on taking opponents down with one punch.  Which strategy will ultimately prove more successful?  A video of Tommy knocking out "Mad Dog" Grimes goes viral, and then another one surfaces of members of his old military unit praising his heroism under pressure, rescuing several military men from an overturned tank.  Heroism is subjective in this case, however, because apparently he also deserted his unit, so while this gains Tommy new fans among the Marines, some of those same Marines are interested in arresting him once the tournament is over. 

Parallel editing continues during the tournament - though by now, the storylines have converged, and the technique becomes important in contrasting the two fighters, their methods and their attitudes.  Tommy faces off against his old rival, "Mad Dog" Grimes, while Brendan is forced to fight the top-ranked Russian entry, Koba (perhaps another nod to "Rocky IV").  I won't say any more about how these fights turn out, but it doesn't take too much effort to figure out who's going to make it to the all-important finals.  There are no real details here about whether the non-winning entrants win any money for their efforts, or if only the top finisher gets the $5 million, and everyone else gets squat.   

For that matter, I'm a little unsure how to regard a film that uses SO MANY contrivances and stereotypical boxing movie clichés in order to get where it's going - does it therefore become just another competitive sports film like so many others before it, or does it somehow become the ultimate version of a sports film, distilling all the typical sports-film elements into their most concentrated form, a super-charged boxing film that only breaks new ground by putting together pieces and parts of every other boxing film before it?  I'm willing to discuss both viewpoints.  

I realized from the tournament's establishing shots that I really miss Atlantic City - my wife and I made a habit of driving down there two or three times a year, pre-pandemic, and we haven't been there since, for safety reasons.  This film was released in 2011, which was only a couple years before we started our travels there. When we started we regularly stayed at Resorts (where Tommy and his father stayed) and avoided the nearby Trump Taj Mahal (which is now the Hard Rock Casino), but I liked the buffet at the Showboat next door (now closed).  I think on our second or third trip we found the Boardwalk Hall (where the Sparta tournament was held, and also the annual Miss America pageant) and saw a laser light show projected on it.  

As things stand now, we haven't been back to Atlantic City since June 2019 - partially that's because we took a trip to Vegas instead in October 2019, and then after that we didn't go on any road trips because of COVID.  But between 2014 and 2019 we managed to visit every buffet and steakhouse in town, plus every casino that didn't have "Trump" in its name (Donald was no longer affiliated with any of them, but we stayed away on principle.)  I don't know what shape Atlantic City is in these days - probably bad, because everything outside the casinos always looked sketchy to begin with - but I'm hoping things get better soon so we can visit again.  On our most recent trip we stayed at the Ocean Casino (formerly Revel), ate BBQ at the appropriately-named "Pit Boss" restaurant, saw Pentatonix perform at the Hard Rock, and discovered a little shop called Rocket Fizz that sold a wide variety of nostalgic candy and oddly-flavored sodas (pickle soda, carrot cake soda, buffalo wing soda, etc.).  Good times. 

Also starring Joel Edgerton (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Tom Hardy (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Nick Nolte (last seen in "Breakfast of Champions"), Jennifer Morrison (last seen in "The Report"), Kevin Dunn (last seen in "Captive State"), Vanessa Martinez, Noah Emmerich (last seen in "The Wilde Wedding"), Denzel Whitaker (last seen in "Black Panther"), Carlos Miranda, Maximiliano Hernandez (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Fernando Chien (last seen in "The Accountant"), Kurt Angle, Erik Apple, Nate Marquardt, Anthony Johnson, Roan Carmiero, Gavin O'Connor, Dan Caldwell, Timothy Katz, Bryan Callen (last seen in "Joker"), Sam Sheridan, Josh Rosenthal, Jake McLaughlin (last seen in "Savages"), Nick Lehane, Laura Chinn, Daniel Stevens, Hans Marrero, with a cameo from Don Lemon (last seen in "Whitney"). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 choke holds

End of Watch

Year 13, Day 4 - 1/4/21 - Movie #3,704

BEFORE: Well, once I got those two Korean films out of the way, my film choices seem to be about getting to films that I almost programmed last year.  This one's got so many connections to films like "Extraction" or "The Lincoln Lawyer" and even to the "Twilight" saga, it's really curious why this one didn't make the cut during 2020.  That's just a reminder that a film has to fit somewhere on both sides - there needs to be an intro link AND an outro link, even if that turns out to be the same person.  So it must mean that there were many ways to link TO this film, but none of the outgoing links from it got me to where I needed to be.  The same goes for tomorrow's film, only this time these films ARE pointing me in the right direction, which means toward the films of Ingmar Bergman, albeit in a roundabout way. 

Jake Gyllenhaal carries over again from "Wildlife". 

THE PLOT: Shot documentary-style, this film follows the daily grind of two young police officers in L.A. who are partners and friends, and what happens when they meet criminal forces greater than themselves. 

AFTER: It's an interesting notion, to attempt to tell the story (or stories) of two officers on patrol in L.A. in a P.O.V. sort of style, after all, bodycams are currently a fixture in many cities, and that footage can often be very enlightening whenever questionable incidents occur.  Also, shows like "COPS" and other found-footage shows have been around for a while, and we've gotten used to them.  For extra measure, the screenwriters made one of these two cops a bit of a videographer himself, so in addition to the bodycams, there's his personal camcorder footage.  

Which is fine, except for a few things - there's just NO WAY that the L.A.P.D. would allow an officer to have his own personal video camera active and running on an average day.  Of course that would be a distraction, and a liability, and there's just too great of a chance that the camera would record something that the public shouldn't see, like, I don't know, maybe an officer putting down his gun to have a bare-knuckle brawl with a suspect?  Fair fight, perhaps, but probably against the rules of engagement for a police officer.  

Also, the combination of the bodycams and the camcorder footage could not, in any way, result in the amount of multi-camera sequences seen in this film. Mostly, it's just presented like a typical Hollywood film, where the camera is wherever it's supposed to be to get the best shot, even though it's technically impossible for it to be there.  For example, when the cops are kicking down a door, the camera is somehow inside the house, to get footage of the door falling to the floor on the inside - how did the camera get in there, if the door was locked?  It's movie magic, and usually the audience doesn't even think about this, only this time I WAS thinking about it, because the film used the bodycams and camcorder so many times.  The gimmick really hurt the film in this way, because if you're going to use this gimmick, I think you really have to stick with it - it's all or nothing.  

Similarly, there's camcorder footage from the bad guys, too - the gang members who are driving around, looking for our LAPD heroes, or in some cases even tailing them, trying to figure out how best to get them in an ambush.  OK, maybe they're vain or really into social media, but something else tells me that if they're up to no good, they probably wouldn't have been recording their actions for the sake of posterity.  Either way, I was aware of the unlikeliness of this, and that made me doubt the reality of the film, and that's never a good thing.  

Beyond that, it's moderately interesting to see these two officers during the course of several days (weeks?) and their reputations sort of rise and fall with their successes and failures.  When we first meet them, they've been cleared to return duty after a shooting incident, so they get a bunch of ribbing from their fellow officers.  Later on, they rescue three small children from a burning building, and receive medals for bravery.  Even later, they investigate a house connected to an arrested suspect and accidentally find a room full of human trafficking victims - which seems great at first, only their discovery upsets a bunch of federal agents who were working this case, and who then warn them that there could be reprisals against them from a Mexican cartel.  

Along the way, the two officers bond and exchange relationship advice - of course one of them married his high-school girlfriend and has a child on the way, while the other one is single and looking for a woman who's intelligent, not just one of the "badge bunnies" who apparently are women really into dating police officers.  It's a little cornball how the differences between the two members of this duo is what enables each to give advice to and gain understanding from the other, though.  

Speaking of cornball, I've got a couple possible paths I can take from here, such as following the Michael Peña link to "CHiPS", or the David Harbour link to "Hellboy".  "CHiPS" seems thematically on point, and "Hellboy" doesn't, but neither of those films gets me closer to where I need to be in a few days.  For that matter, neither do the four films with Anna Kendrick on my list - so I'm going to follow the link that not only gets me to another film that I tried very hard to watch last year, but somehow missed out on, and happens to be only five steps away from a film with Max Von Sydow in it. 

Also starring Michael Peña (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), David Harbour (last seen in "Extraction"), Frank Grillo (last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), Jaime Fitzsimons (last seen in "Stronger"), America Ferrera (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Cody Horn, Kristy Wu, Natalie Martinez (last seen in "Self/Less"), Anna Kendrick (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Cle Sloan (last seen in "Bright"), Shondrella Avery, Maurice Compte (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in Venice"), Flakiss, Richard Cabral (last seen in "The Counselor"), Diamonique, Candace Smith, Kevin Vance, David Fernandez Jr., Nelly Castillo, McKinley Freeman 

RATING: 5 out of 10 shell casings

Wildlife

Year 13, Day 3 - 1/3/21 - Movie #3,703

BEFORE: I'm not sure, from the description this one sort of feels like it might belong in the February romance section - which can also include films about complicated relationship issues - instead of here.  But I've already worked out my February chain, and there's no obvious way for me to fit this one into that, so I'm going to sort of burn it off here. 

Jake Gyllenhaal carries over from "Okja". 

THE PLOT: A teenage boy must deal with his mother's complicated response after his father temporarily abandons them to take a menial and dangerous job. 

AFTER: Yeah, this one's sort of a slow burner.  Complicated relationship issues abound when a family living in Montana in 1960 goes through a rough patch.  Everything is (relatively?) idyllic until the father loses his job working at a golf club.  I thought perhaps he was the groundskeeper, but the Wikipedia plot summary says he was a golf pro.  Did his performance suffer?  We're not really sure because the audience doesn't get to hear the conversation with his boss when he's let go.  But perhaps within my misunderstanding lies the first takeaway - golf pros come and go, but the club will ALWAYS need a groundskeeper.  So in some way it's safer to have the lesser job and perform menial labor, right?  I mean, if worst comes to worst the world is always going to need people to sweep floors, cut grass, rake leaves and shovel snow. 

He receives a phone call to return to his job - I'm not sure if management reconsidered, or made some kind of mistake, or the club members raised a fuss after he was gone.  But it doesn't matter, he chooses not to return to his position and instead decides to take a dollar-an-hour job fighting wildfires.  Naturally this puts a strain on his family, because this requires him to be away from them for several months, planning to return only after the snowy season starts. It kind of feels like he's trying to beat the system a bit here, taking a job that he knows he can handle, and though it's hard work, he believes it will be only for a limited time.  Only, what if it doesn't snow that year?  I guess it almost always snows in Montana during the winter.

His wife, however, decides to act as if he's abandoned her and his teenage son.  I suppose this is something of a coping mechanism, perhaps to deal with the fact that her husband's life is in jeopardy, to prepare herself for the worst she starts acting as if he's already gone and not coming back.  She takes a job teaching swimming lessons, and forms a burgeoning relationship with one of her students, an older man who owns a car dealership and several other businesses. Technically he's married, only his wife has left him for parts unknown.  

We see much of what develops through the eyes of the teen son, Joe, who has to cope with his mother developing an independent nature and re-discovering her sexuality, and this is a difficult situation to say the least.  Nobody really wants to think of their own mother as a sexual being, despite what Freud theorized, and Joe also has a front row seat to view events that he believes will cause the end of his parents' marriage.  I'd like to learn where this story came from, because it feels so personal that it must have been written by someone who experienced this situation, or something very similar. Ah, it's based on a 1990 novel by Richard Ford, only that doesn't tell me much.  This film was directed by Paul Dano (who appeared yesterday in "Okja") and he co-wrote the screenplay with his girlfriend, Zoe Kazan, but I'm not gaining much insight from that either. 

What I am feeling is some empathy with the father character, who makes that difficult decision to take a low-paying job, doing hard labor, and spend time apart from his family.  I'm under-employed myself right now, and while months ago I was combing through ads for full-time positions at CBS or Discovery Networks, by December I was applying for part-time holiday work at Barnes & Noble and the Lego Store.  I'm guessing this holiday season was a rough one for retail, because I never got one call back from any of my many applications.  Or maybe they're all looking for college-age part-timers and not an old worn-out trooper like me.  Anyway, the extra money I tucked away from my unemployment checks is all gone, and I'm starting to have to dip into savings again.  So I'm about at the stage where I'll take any part-time job, even menial labor, just to have a bit more spending money.  I'd apply at movie theaters, only the NYC theaters still haven't made plans to re-open.  There's a sign up at my local comic-book store looking for part-time workers, and I'm seriously considering it.  Who knows more about comic books than me?  Plus, how different could that be from working at a Comic-Con booth?  I have lots of experience with that.

It's a difficult choice, not only because it would be hard work and maybe long hours, but I'd also be out there in the world more, and right now that means potential exposure to COVID.  I think that's been holding me back - plus I'm trying to have some standards, taking a job at a fast food restaurant or at a coffee place kind of feels like giving up.  But i should remember that people are always going to need people to sweep floors, I'm just trying to not let it come to that. 

The father here felt an urgency to go fight wildfires - if I take that as a metaphor, the world is burning right now because of the pandemic.  Part of me thinks I should be out there doing something positive, like working as a contact tracer or volunteering at a food bank.  But again, that would put me at risk myself, so my solution so far has just been to hunker down at home four days a week and ride this out, hoping that my savings account can last a few more months and that the infection rates will start to go down sometime soon.  But then the news broke that even with the vaccine, Americans are getting vaccinated so slowly that at this rate it would take ten years to get it to 80% of the population so we can develop herd immunity.  That's unacceptable, I can't hide out at home for another year, let alone ten.  I've already gone stir crazy and grown frustrated with myself. 

Also starring Carey Mulligan (last seen in "Brothers"), Ed Oxenbould, Bill Camp (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Zoe Margaret Colletti, Darryl Cox (last seen in "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"), Travis Bruyer, Mollie Milligan (last seen in "Super"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 family portraits