The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Year 13, Day 30 - 1/30/21 - Movie #3,732

BEFORE: Yesterday's film was the only one in the Millennium trilogy that retained its original title after being translated from Swedish, the first book & film, which we Americans know as "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", was called "Män som hatar kvinnor" in Swedish, and the real translation of that should be "Men Who Hate Women".  Obviously somebody felt that title wouldn't play well in the States, maybe it hit a bit too close to home?  So, sure, by all means, let's focus on that tattoo.  

"Flickan som letke med elden" was the original Swedish title of the second book, and obviously that one passed the test and stayed the same - see, I told you I would be learning Swedish before the month was over!  But the third book, which became "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" in English-speaking countries, was titled "Luftslottet som sprängdes", which translates to "The Castle in the Sky that Blew Up".  Well, OK, sure.  I guess somebody figured that was a bit too fantastical for readers in the U.S. - but kicking a hornet's nest, that something we can all relate to, right?  We were all once kids who were afraid of getting stung by bees, right? 

Noomi Rapace and at least 17 other actors carry over from "The Girl Who Played with Fire". 

THE PLOT: Lisbeth is recovering in a hospital and awaiting trial for three murders when she is released. Mikael must prove her innocence, but Lisbeth must be willing to share the details of her sordid experiences with the court.  

AFTER: It's really a case of diminishing returns - each movie in the series is a little more boring than the previous one.  Really, all this last film does is tie up the loose ends from the second film, via a lengthy court case where Lisbeth has to face the doctor from the mental institution where she was sent as a child, because he wants to commit her back to the same asylum, because of her previous diagnosis as a paranoid schizophrenic. That psychological condition is pretty much shorthand for "We don't know WHAT to do with this person, we just know they need to be locked up."

The problem is (or, rather, one of the many problems here is) that this doctor molested and raped Lisbeth back when she was a teenager, so facing off against him in court means confronting all her old traumas and demons again.  She doesn't have the power to say, "Hey, this guy raped me." so instead she has to rely on other entities to get the dirt on this guy, both through proving that he forged reports back in the day, he's lying about how many days he kept her in restraints as a patient, and then there's the matter of not finding anything incriminating on his computer - but you just know he's got a stash of child porn somewhere, right?  

It's also comforting to know that Mikael Blomkvist is on the case, working two different angles at the same time.  He's got his whole magazine staff working on a special issue that will tell the world Lisbeth's backstory and exonerate her, plus he's working with a team of special government agents to take down something called "The Section", a part of the Swedish Security Services that's been responsible for everything from the protection of Russian defector Zalachenko to framing Lisbeth for murder, and possibly committing her to the asylum in the first place.  Hey, at least the two concurrent stories are working well together again, but with Mikael publishing a magazine and also trying to gather evidence to take down the Section, one sort of has to wonder when he sleeps.  Maybe he doesn't. 

The relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth is obviously a complicated one, they slept together like once during a tense investigation, since then Mikael's maintained an on-again, off-again thing with his magazine co-editor, and Lisbeth had that girlfriend staying in her apartment, so going forward it's clearly not romantic, but they're internet friends, formerly with benefits I guess.  And they'd clearly do anything for each other, as long as it also means taking down the big bad government or the evil sex trafficking murderers.  And selling a few thousand magazine copies along the way, too.  But it's dangerous to publish a magazine these days that exposes corruption, no matter which side you're on, you're bound to keep getting death threats from somebody who doesn't want the truth to come out.  

I think we're seeing this now taking place in America, just look at what's going on in Congress to the men and women just trying to do their jobs, represent their constituents and pass legislation that's in the country's best interests, but we're so damn divided now that taking any kind of political stand (Liz Cheney is just one recent example), even if that person feels they're doing what's right according to the law, starts to draw calls for removal and most likely threats from citizens on the far right who still think Trump is our shadow president right now.  But meanwhile a woman who thinks that Jewish lasers from space started the California wildfires is somehow allowed to keep her position in Congress, so we're in a weird place.  

This whole Millennium Trilogy seems kind of Trumpian to me, in fact.  The first film was action-packed, but also full of horrible actions, like a serial killer who mostly tortured Jewish women.  The second film had fewer atrocities, but it also represented the climax of the battle between the scrappy underdog journalists and hackers against the big evil mastermind, and then the third film is really just the ensuing court case and the public figuring out who exactly did what and who needs to be punished as a result.  So symbolically it's like the four years of Trump in power (full of atrocities, horrifying but also interesting on some level), then the 2020 election and now we're in the third phase, which is the impeachment and other pending trials to determine long-term liability.  Both the third phase and the third film in the trilogy are rather boring, but I guess they're also similarly inevitable. 

I've got one more day left in a month that turned out to be full of pandemically-appropriate films.  Today's film, with someone recuperating in a hospital room, then transferred to a prison to await a court case, was just the latest example.  Remember, I started the month with "Parasite", which was all about Korean people in tiny basement apartments, some of whom could not leave those spaces.  Then both "The Reckoning" and "The Seventh Seal" took on the Black Plague, and Tom Hardy's characters were basically confined to a Florida resort in "Capone" and a car in "Locke", and so was that professor in "Wild Strawberries", all went a little mad as a result.  Bergman characters also went a little nuts in "Through a Glass Darkly", "Hour of the Wolf" and "Persona", despite being on a beautiful secluded island, or perhaps because of that.  Reality itself got upended after people in "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" got snowed in while visiting parents, the parents in "Birthmarked" had trouble while experimentally home-schooling their three kids, and even zoo animals felt the need to escape the circus in "Dumbo" and "The One and Only Ivan". 

Meanwhile big corporations, police corruption and government conspiracies were on display in "Okja", "Spenser Confidential" and "Unlocked".  There was a coup attempt (in Cuba) in "Havana", characters battled unemployment in "Wildlife", "Warrior" and "Muriel's Wedding", and crimes were running rampant in "RockNRolla", "A Kiss Before Dying" and this "Millennium" trilogy, and also "Connie and Carla", but at least in that last one there were plenty of drag performers on hand to entertain us with show tunes.  So let's just say it's been quite a month.  

I'm still not any closer to determining WHY Swedish people are so messed up, why they are such cold people, incapable of loving or being loved, why they are so cruel to their children across the board, and can't seem to break the cycle.  Best theory is that it's some kind of seasonal affective disorder that lasts only 12 months out of the year, but I'm not an expert on this. But now I won't have to watch another film in Swedish for a very long time, maybe never again.

Also starring Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Annika Hallin, Jacob Ericksson, Sofia Ledarp, Georgi Staykov, Micke Spreitz, Anders Ahlborn Rosendahl, Niklas Hjulström, Per Oscarsson, Michalis Koutsogiannakis, Johan Kylen, Tanya Lorentzon, Donald Högberg, Magnus Krepper, Pelle Bolander, Tehilla Blad (all carrying over from "The Girl Who Played with Fire"), Aksel Morisse, Hans Alfredson, Lennart Hjulström, Carl-Ake Eriksson, Mirja Turestedt, Niklas Falk, Jan Holmquist, Jacob Nordenson, Sanna Krepper, Tomas Köhler (last seen in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), Johan Holmberg, Rolf Degerlund, Yiva Loof, Nicklas Gustavsson, Ismet Sabaredzovic, Hamidja Causevic.  

RATING: 5 out of 10 burning documents

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Year 13, Day 29 - 1/29/21 - Movie #3,731

BEFORE: Noomi Rapace carries over from "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", and so do a bunch of other actors - it seems that once these Swedish directors get an ensemble together that they like, they try to keep that cast intact.  All three of these "Millennium Trilogy" films have 2009 release dates, so I think they pretty much cranked them out, back-to-back.  Guess there was a market for them and they didn't want to wait - in Hollywood it's usually at least two or three years between a film and its sequel.  

A rare Birthday SHOUT-OUT today to actor Per Oscarsson - actually, it was yesterday, 1/28, but since I started watching this one late on Thursday night but counting it as my Friday movie, I'm taking the birthday tie-in where I can. I don't think he'll mind, since he died back in 2010 - he'd been in a ton of Swedish movies going back to the 1940's, co-starred with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann, I'm just surprised was never in an Ingmar Bergman film. 

THE PLOT: As computer hacker Lisbeth and journalist Mikael investigate a sex-trafficking ring, Lisbeth is accused of three murders, causing her to go on the run while Mikael works to clear her name.  

AFTER: Well, I guess I can see why Hollywood never made a movie out of the second book in the trilogy, it's just not as interesting.  The first movie had the missing woman, the serial killer investigation, Nazis, and lots of sex (both consensual and, umm, not so much).  What does this one have, by comparison?  OK, a couple murders, but the big magazine story is about a sex-trafficking ring, and it's all after-the-fact reporting work.  BO-RING!  And the first film had two concurrently-running stories that dovetailed together, here the two main storylines barely intersect, and honestly, they only intersect because they both have Lisbeth in them - that almost feels like cheating.  

The main heavy from one story does kill two reporters working on the magazine investigation, but that's a tenuous link, also.  He's only doing that to frame Lisbeth for the killings, what a cheap way to try to tie everything together.  It feels really forced.  Before dying, one of those reporters drops the name "Zala" as somebody who may be very important to his research, but that's a fake-out.  "Zala" is important to the story, but not in the way that we're initially led to believe.  It's very cheap the way they dropped that in there, making sure the audience notice it, because it's going to be important later...

LIsbeth moves back to Sweden, because her habit of taking over other people's computers reveals that her guardian has an appointment to have a tattoo removed, and that the tattoo she carved into his stomach to tell everyone that he's a "Sadist and a sexist pig".  She ended up making enough money at the end of the first film that she can come and go as she pleases, set herself up in a new city, and buy two apartments so she can live in one and have her mail sent to the other one.  She even lets Miriam, her girlfriend/part-time lover, live there for free - it almost seemed like she was using her friend as bait, putting her in danger in case anybody tried to track down Lisbeth, but this didn't seem very cool.  What if somebody breaks in and kills Miriam, or shoots her through the window, not taking the time to see if they killed the right brunette woman?

Sure enough, Miriam gets kidnapped by a strong dude who has a rare medical condition, he can't feel any pain.  So even though Miriam's kickboxing trainer, Paolo Roberto (played by ex-boxer Paolo Roberto) goes to rescue her, he can't defeat the strong man (Ronald).  The best they can do is escape from the barn they were held in before it burns down.  Meanwhile, Michael and Lisbeth communicate via e-mailed messages (or perhaps he just leaves messages on his own computer for her to hack) and even though he always seems to be one step behind her, he still manages to find her secret apartment and pick up her mail for her.  

Lisbeth is off on the other side of Sweden, tracking the strongman by following the guy who's picking up HIS mail. (Lots of post office boxes in this one, seems to be a theme...)  This leads her to the big boss, the one who framed her for the murders and then tried to have her killed. But it's just business to him, it's nothing personal - except of course, it's also very personal.  And it all might have something to do with that flashback from her childhood...

I think part of the problem here is that the book this was based on is about 700 pages long, and the movie's just a bit over 2 hours long.  Clearly some plot elements needed to be jettisoned, not just for length but the filmmakers needed to move on to production of the third film, in order to get it finished and released in the same calendar year.  Maybe that's why the story seems a little rushed and perhaps even incomplete in some places.  I don't even want to say one key plot element that could have been explained a little better, because I think that would give too much away. 

Also starring Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Peter Andersson, Georgi Staykov, Sofia Ledarp, Yasmine Garbi, Annika Hallin, Tehilla Blad, Michalis Koutsogiannakis, Jacob Ericksson, Reuben Sallmander (all carrying over from "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"), Per Oscarsson, Tanja Lorentzon, Paolo Roberto, Johan Kylen, Magnus Krepper, Ralph Carlsson, Micke Spreitz, Anders Ahlborn Rosendahl, Hans Christian Thulin, Jennie Silfverhjelm, Sunil Munshi, Niklas Hjulstrom, Ola Wahlström, Donald Högberg, David Druid, Daniel Gustavsson, Pelle Bolander, Thomas Lindblad, Dennis Önder. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 WANTED posters

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

Year 13, Day 28 - 1/28/21 - Movie #3,730

BEFORE: I've hit the second round of Swedish films for this month, the three "Millennium" films based on the books of Stieg Larsson, released in Swedish.  For some reason, Hollywood kind of missed the ball on these, they only made a film based on the first book in the trilogy, and then waited too long to make a sequel, and instead followed up years later with a book based on another author's sequel to the trilogy.  It's bizarre, and I'd like to know why Hollywood didn't make the whole trilogy, because that's left my knowledge of the series incomplete.  (Sure, I could just go read the books, but who has that kind of time?)  So now I'm re-watching the first film, in Swedish this time, just so I can then watch the two sequels.  Honestly, I don't remember much about the plot of the English version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", that was like eight years ago that I watched it.  But I watched "The Girl in the Spider's Web" just last year, that one's a little fresher in my memory.

I realized too late that I could have connected directly from the Ingmar Bergman chain to here, the actress who played Fanny and Alexander's mother in the last film in that chain also appears here.  Another actress, Gunnel Lindblom, was in several Bergman films like "Scenes from a Marriage", and she's in this film, too.  I guess there are only so many Swedish actors, after all.  Lindblom passed away a few days ago, at the age of 89.  

Noomi Rapace carries over from "Unlocked".  And just yesterday, I said there was no way to watch both an Irish-themed film for St. Patrick's Day and also "Wonder Woman 1984" in March, I would have to choose one or the other.  This is now not true, as I've discovered that if I cut my romance chain short by two days, I can link from the new last film to "Angela's Ashes" in time for St. Patrick's Day, and from there I can see a way to get to "Wonder Woman" about five days later.  Drawing up these charts on scrap paper really helps sometimes.  And just for fun, I picked one of my two Easter movies and I've already proven I can get there by Easter, which is April 4.  So now I kind of have to do this - I've got a path that will hit three big benchmarks in March and April.  

But first I have to finish this month, that's the three Swedish films from Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy and then one more action film, then I'll total up the stats for January.   

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2011) (Movie #1,441), "The Girl in the Spider's Web" (Movie #3,558)

THE PLOT: A journalist is aided by a young female hacker in his search for the killer of a woman who has been missing for forty years. 

AFTER: Wow, I really forgot a LOT about the first version of this film.  But then, there was a lot to forget!  It's a very rich story, full of ex-Nazis, missing people, serial killers, rapists, all that juicy stuff. Or maybe there's some stuff in the Swedish version that didn't make it into the American version, or got really toned down. I'll have to do a side-by-side comparison of the plots listed on Wikipedia to be sure.  But here's the basic plot outline: 

Disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist has been sued for libel, after an article ran in his magazine about a corrupt billionaire financier - so he's scheduled to spend six months in prison, and takes time off from his job. At the same time, hacker Lisbeth Salander is hired by a security firm to get the dirt on him, and she clones/hijacks his computer to do so.  This results in him getting hired by the patriarch of the Vanger family to spend the next few months on their remote island, investigating the disappearance of his niece, which happened in 1966, during a holiday called Children's Day, when the entire extended Vanger family was on the island, so Henrik Vanger suspects that one of his family members killed Harriet, but he doesn't know which one. The killer's been taunting him every year by mailing him a pressed flower, like Harriet used to make for him.  

OK, a couple of things. Why wait so long to hire an investigator?  Doesn't this cold evidence trail get a little colder, and therefore harder to investigate, every year?  Why NOW, just because an experienced journalist got laid off, and suddenly has a lot of free time?  On top of that, why hire a really good hacker to investigate the investigator, why not skip a step and put the really good hacker to work on solving the case?  I mean, we're going to get there anyway, why not get there sooner?  Just putting that out there.  

I guess Lisbeth's got her own problems, her guardian has just passed away and the court has issued her a new one, and he's a sexist rapist who won't give her access to her own money, which she needs to buy a new computer, unless he gets sexual favors in return from her.  And so here's the connection to the Bergman films, because this rapidly turns into another installment of "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with Swedish people?"  Oh, sure, some of them seem very nice on the surface level, but even the rich ones live out on these isolated islands where they've managed to go slowly mad over the years.  And a lot of these Swedes have torture basements or murder sheds, so what is going on?  Just to be safe, I'd avoid eating any of those delicious Swedish meatballs until we get to the bottom of this, because you just never know.  

I saw this again and again in the Bergman films - everybody's got a story about a strict father or stepfather, or a family member that was abusive or short-tempered or even incestuous, and then there's a negative on the next generation, or even the one after that. Wasn't that nice old professor in "Wild Strawberries" in love with his cousin?  Yeah, that's not good - that probably messed him up, and then he had a terrible marriage after that, he was estranged from his son, and he probably had the hots for his daughter-in-law when they went on that long car trip together.  That woman in "Through a Glass Darkly" had weird visions and fooled around with her brother, and then the artist character in "Hour of the Wolf" went mad and shot his wife, then ran off into the woods.  I think the whole population of Sweden needs some therapy, maybe it's the six months of Seasonal Affected Disorder every winter, or living in isolation on those remote islands, away from decent human society.  Just a theory.  

Anyway, Lisbeth gets her revenge on her guardian, gains access to her own money, and then I guess because she's shared a computer with Blomkvist, she tracks him down again (wait, I think he tracks her down...) and they work on the investigation together. They do find evidence that a serial killer has been at work for decades, taking his inspiration from the Book of Leviticus, and enacting biblical-style punishments on who he perceives to be the biggest sinners across Sweden.  How he FOUND these sinners is another question, but thankfully the Vanger Group saved all their receipts going back to the 1940's, so it's forensic accounting to the rescue as they try to figure out which family member took a bunch of business trips to certain cities on certain dates.  

Finally, after the mystery is solved - actually, two mysteries because the crimes that Blomkvist and Salander uncovered were sort of just tangential to the one they were hired to solve - hacker Lisbeth ends up giving Mikael the evidence he needed in the first place, proving that the billionaire financier was indeed corrupt in the first place. This is great, our hero turned out to be right after all, but this happens after the fact - couldn't he have been given this evidence before he spent six months in a minimum-security prison?  I mean, great, his reputation is restored, but that conviction and prison time is still on his permanent record. 

Also starring Michael Nyqvist (last seen in "John Wick"), Lena Endre (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Björn Granath (ditto), Sven-Bertil Taube, Peter Haber, Peter Andersson (last seen in "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit"), Marika Lagercrantz, Ingvar Hirdwall, Ewa Fröling (last seen in "Fanny and Alexander"), Michalis Koutsogiannakis, Annika Hallin, Tomas Köhler, Gunnel Lindblom (last seen in "Scenes from a Marriage"), Gösta Bredefeldt, Stefan Sauk, Jacob Ericksson, Julia Sporre, Tehilla Blad, Sofia Ledarp, David Dencik (last seen in "The Snowman"), Reuben Sallmander, Alexandra Hummingson, Fredrik Ohlsson, Georgi Staykov, Yasmine Garbi, Willie Andréason, Nina Norén.

RATING: 7 out of 10 pieces of Nazi memorabilia

Unlocked

Year 13, Day 27 - 1/27/21 - Movie #3,729

BEFORE: We're getting very close to the start of February now, which means I'll transition over to romance-based films, from Feb. 1 until, uhh, the middle of March.  This topic tends to run long, the last two years I've allowed the chain to play itself out until there are no more connections to be made among the films on my list - both times I ended up with a perfect chain for the year, so I can't really argue with the process if it ends in success like that.  So the chain tells me when it's over, if that makes any sense.  Approximately March 14 or 15 this year, I haven't resorted to using a calendar page to block it all out. 

But what then?  A quick diagram of the possible paths branching off from that last film quickly devolves into chaos, or more specifically, too many paths, too many choices.  Each film links to three or four (or more) others, so once I get a few steps from any starting point, the choices have grown exponentially, how do I decide?  My trick the last couple of years (again, perfect chains, at least after the fact) has been to set benchmarks, picking a holiday (Easter's always good, so are Mother's Day or July 4) and then assigning a film that's on topic to that day, and then seeing if I can get there.  

I've got one Irish-themed film, so St. Patrick's Day is a possible benchmark, but the film I want to program has a fairly obscure cast, so it doesn't look like it's going to happen.  Perhaps it's better to pick a film I really want to see, like "Wonder Woman 1984", and see if I can get there. I placed the last film in the romance chain up in one corner of a blank piece of paper, and "Wonder Woman" down in the opposite corner, and then mapped out connections with circles and arrows until I found a path that worked.  It turned out to be just three steps - that's the short route.  I could get there via a longer method, but why would I want to do that?  The year isn't close to being filled up, plus since there's more than one way to get there, I can circle back after "Wonder Woman" and pick up some of the films that were part of the longer route.  It's like a car trip when I want to be in a certain city on a certain day - best to head directly there, and then take the more scenic route on the way home.  Or to the next benchmark, whatever.  So that's the plan right now, unless something changes - and I've learned that the longer I program ahead, the greater the chance of me needing to tear it down and change it all around.  Best to stick to two months at a time, it seems.  

Toni Collette carries over from "I'm Thinking of Ending Things", for the last time this time, but this makes five in a row for her.  I think she may be back in early March for one romance-based film. 

THE PLOT: A CIA interrogator is lured into a ruse that puts London at risk of a biological attack.  

AFTER: Have you noticed more virus-based and pandemic-based movies running on the cable premium channels?  I keep catching bits of "12 Monkeys" late at night, one of my favorite movies and I think over the last two weeks I've basically re-watched it in pieces, usually I come in somewhere in the middle and then watch it until the end, or at least until the part I came in it again a couple nights before.  Though stopping a pandemic through time travel now feels a bit like cheating.  I'm sure some channel's running "Contagion" and "Outbreak" in high rotation, and you don't need to rewatch "I Am Legend" when you can walk through midtown Manhattan and basically get the same exact feeling.  There's probably a dozen other minor pandemic films running on cable, and you'd better believe that a hundred more are in development right now.  I think CBS All Access has a new version of "The Stand" as a mini-series, that seems a bit prophetic too.  

"Unlocked" is a thriller about a weaponized virus, the screenwriters made a mental projection into the future after the Ebola scare of 2014-2016 and naturally assumed that the next big virus might come hand-in-hand with Islamic terrorism.  Oh, sorry, so close.  No screenwriters really bet on "exotic meat market in Wuhan, China" in the pool - though I think now even the meat market story is under review, but still nobody has suggested an alternate origin. 

You might need a scorecard here to keep track of all the different factions, the CIA. (operating on British soil somehow), the MI5 (UK Intelligence), the Islamic terrorists, and then there are the people who say they're one thing, but actually they're something else.  (No spoilers here.) Our heroine here, Alice Racine, is caught in the middle - she's a Brit who previously worked for the CIA, but she also has contacts in MI5, and she's been working at a community center in London ever since she collected intel about a terrorist attack in Paris, but it wasn't delivered in enough time to prevent the attack.  But is she still CIA and working undercover in the community center, or did she leave the agency after her failure and take a job where she could help people on a different level?  This is a tiny bit unclear. 

But it's still a good twisty story as she bounces between contacts with the various agencies, and each one seems to send agents to her location to bring her in. Even her (presumed) allies want to bring her in by force, because they're not sure if she's gone rogue or been turned to the other side, so it's probably best not to take any chances, given what she's capable of.  She's another one of those characters that have become popular lately, like Batman or The Equalizer, who can "read the room" and then take on ten guys in a row, using her enemies as human shields in a melée battle, or turning one enemy's gun around to shoot three others.  This was a noted trend in the action genre that probably peaked with the Ben Affleck Batman and has been sort of on the decline lately.  Then again, "John Wick 3" was pretty recent.  

The climax is set at Wembley Stadium, where an exhibition game of American football is set to take place, between the Portland football team and the Oklahoma team.  Right, only those aren't actual NFL teams, so what gives?  Was this movie's production company too cheap to pay the NFL for the use of two real team names?  Or was this arena football or some other kind?  Expansion teams that haven't been created yet?  Did somebody think we wouldn't notice this?  The plan was to set off the virus bombs, and then the fans from Portland and Oklahoma would travel back to the U.S. and infect others.  Umm, OK, but NITPICK POINT, wouldn't the point of having an American exhibition football game in the U.K. be to expose the BRITISH fans to American football?  Why would a fan of the Portland unnamed football team travel all the way to the U.K. to watch a game, when they could see one just by remaining in Portland?  This really made no sense, if you stop and think about it.  

Also, the goal of the evil mastermind here wasn't just to infect and kill people, it was to cause a political reaction so that the U.S. government would take the NEXT biological threat seriously.  That's a little bit of clunky reasoning, like a thief stealing money from a bank so they'll increase security in the future, making it harder to steal from the bank.  It's counter-productive, plus it's like doing the wrong thing for the right reason - but doing the thing itself is still wrong.  Also, DO NOT let Donald Trump see this movie, or he'll claim that he did nothing to fight the COVID-19 pandemic because he wanted people to die so the survivors would take the next virus threat more seriously. 

Also starring Noomi Rapace (last seen in "Stockholm"), Orlando Bloom (last seen in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales"), Michael Douglas (last seen in "You, Me and Dupree"), John Malkovich (last seen in "The Wilde Wedding"), Brian Caspe (last seen in "Jojo Rabbit"), Matthew Marsh (last seen in "Smilla's Sense of Snow"), Michael Epp, Philip Brodie, Tosin Cole (last seen in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"), Jessica Boone, Adelayo Adedayo, Makram Khoury, Raffaello Degruttola, Kevin Shen, Aymen Hamdouchi (last seen in "War Machine"), Rami Nasr (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 Farsi translators

I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Year 13, Day 26 - 1/26/21 - Movie #3,728

BEFORE: We're expecting a bit of snow today, which hardly matters if it's a day I'm not working, because I can't exactly stay home from work because of the snow if I was already scheduled to stay home.  Maybe it's double stay home day?  I'll be expected to go out and shovel if there's any kind of accumulation, or else risk being ostracized by my neighbors, who already think I'm weird because I just do the minimum amount of shoveling possible, clear a quick path on the sidewalk and ice the steps, which takes about 30 minutes.  Somehow I'm a freak because I don't spend hours outside like they do, obsessively scraping every flake of snow from their entire property into the street, which is hazardous to traffic in the long run.  Think about it, the snowplow just came by to clear the streets, as a matter of public safety, and then my neighbors rush to fill it up again with the snow from THEIR driveways.  Everyone who does this should be fined, if not arrested, in my opinion.  One day some car's going to spin out of control and injure someone, because it slid on snow or ice that someone shoveled into the street, and there will be a lawsuit at that point.  More importantly, my method of shoveling will be proven to be far superior and I'll gain the respect I deserve.  

Toni Collette carries over again from "Connie and Carla", this makes four in a row (quatt-row) - she may not win the month because of all the Bergman repeaters, but this is still a good showing for her. 

THE PLOT: Full of misgivings, a young woman travels with her new boyfriend to his parents' secluded farm.  Upon arriving, she comes to question everything she thought she knew about him, and herself.  

AFTER: This one's about getting snowed in (OK, partially...) during a bad storm, so maybe it's a good choice for today, especially if you're in a part of the country that got slammed.  So far on my block it hasn't amounted to much, which is fine by me.  We're down to about one big storm per season (knock on wood) thanks to climate change, but we should probably start working on that little problem anyway.  

A quick glance at the credits before getting into this movie is potentially very helpful, because it was directed by Charlie Kaufman, the director of "Anomalisa" and "Synecdoche, New York", also the screenwriter of "Adaptation", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Being John Malkovich".  So it's a safe bet that I'm going to be dealing with one of those high-minded think pieces, where reality itself is going to be called into question.  Sure enough, before long in this situation you kind of get the feeling that something's not right. At first it's just a couple characters acting in odd ways, like not going directly into the parents' house when they first arrive, or the parents upstairs saying "We'll be right down!" and then taking seemingly forever to actually come downstairs.  These are the first clues, then things start to get blatantly obvious in being out of whack. 

Little inconsistencies, if you notice them, are like the first cracks in the dam that's preventing the weirdness from flooding the town - somebody tells a story during dinner that seems to contradict an earlier story, or a character gets called by a name that's different from what they were called before.  Jake's girlfriend sees a picture of young Jake on the wall of the living room, but believes (or convinces herself) that it's somehow a picture of herself as a young girl.  A couple little WTF? moments are one thing, but a few more and we start questioning reality itself, or wondering exactly what's going on here.  

I've sort of trained for this, even a few weeks back during the film "Locke", which featured a man on a long car drive for London, my mind couldn't help but run through the checklist - maybe this is a dream, maybe the man is dead and his afterlife purgatory situation is to be on an eternal drive to London and never get there, maybe the aliens attacked and he's in the Matrix, and none of this is really happening.  Nope, it was just a movie about a long car ride and some cell phone conversations, but if it had been something more, I was ready for it.  

So tonight I was on my toes and ready for something, and I went through much of the same checklist - especially because the first segment of the film is a very long car ride through Oklahoma to get to Jake's parents' farm.  Maybe this is someone's dream, maybe these people. are dead and their afterlife purgatory is to be constantly driving to Jake's parents' house and they never get there, maybe the aliens attacked they're in the Matrix or an alien zoo and none of this is real.  (OK, so it's never an alien zoo, but I'm kind of always hopeful that one day it will be.)

Finally, they do arrive at Jake's parents house, where time doesn't seem to work in the traditional sense - besides that long 10-minute trip from "upstairs" to come down and greet their guests, and a dinner with very awkward, embarrassing conversations mixed with some of those narrative inconsistencies over how Jake and Lucy met, and how long they've been dating, and for that matter, what Lucy does for a living (is she a painter, or a poet, what?) the parents seem to develop a peculiar fondness for getting older or younger as the very odd evening continues.  One minute Jake's father has white hair and dementia, the next he's got brown hair again and seems very spry.  Jake's mother is bedridden for a while and unable to feed herself, and a bit later she's bouncing around and wearing fashions from the 1970's.  

(Look, I'm not really going to get into this here, but if you really want to know what's behind this all, there's an IndieWire interview with Charlie Kaufman that details the theories behind it and basically spoils it all, there's nothing preventing you from going to read that if you want.  Also, this is based on a 2016 novel by Iain Reid, and the plot of that novel is also readily available on Wikipedia.)

Without giving things away, there is a lot going on here, despite initial appearances.  Part of the puzzle is figuring out who or what is most important, and it may not be your first guess. Lots of lingering questions, like who the heck wants to stop for ice cream during the winter?  Some people, I guess. Life on a farm can be particularly cruel, but we kind of knew that going in, but what are we going to do, all stop eating meat?  Also, the best thing about dementia or Alzheimer's is that eventually you reach a point where you'll be unaware of the fact that you're losing your faculties - so we've got that to look forward to.  And on some level, you are all of the characters in your dream scenario, to some extent.  If that is what's really going on here, and I'm not saying it is.  

Many of us are now in some kind of situation where every day is much like the next, and it's getting a little difficult to remember details from our lives in the before-times.  I'm becoming more open to the possibility that I was somehow beamed to an alien zoo at some point, and they managed to recreate my home and office scenarios via some form of holodeck - assuming this is what happened, how would I even know that this has occurred?  I'm just saying.  I'm honored to represent the human race in the Pan-Galactic alien zoo. Maybe in their Matrix-like they'll allow me to receive the Nobel Prize as I perform selections from "Oklahoma" (a plot point carrying over from "Connie and Carla", oddly enough), or some equivalent of that. Or do I not get to make requests?  The alien zookeepers should be able to read my brain engrams and determine scenarios that will make me happy.  Unless I'm really in purgatory and that's not part of the process.  Perhaps I'm just going insane instead, that's perhaps a bit more reasonable. 

Still, this is where we find ourselves, the trendiest movies these days are a bit like puzzles that the viewers have to figure out.  This film is probably going to catch on with the nerdy intellectual film festival set while alienating the casual Netflix viewer.  

Several actors here have been in various seasons of "Fargo", and I've watched all of those.  Jesse Plemons was in Season 2, David Thewlis was in Season 3, and Jessie Buckley was in the most recent season.  Coincidence, I guess, only there's really no such thing, is there?  That's the only other thing I've seen Buckley in, I think she's fairly new to the acting scene.  I confused her with another actress at first, and now for the life of me, I can't remember who that was.  I can't really search on "who does THAT actress remind me of?"  And in the film-within-the-film, there's an actress who had a role in "Jessica Jones", another series I binged-watched last year.  

Also starring Jesse Plemons (last seen in "Other People"), Jessie Buckley, David Thewlis (last seen in "Justice League"), Guy Boyd, Hadley Robinson (last seen in "Little Women"), Abby Quinn (ditto), Gus Birney, Colby Minifie (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"), Anthony Grasso, Teddy Coluca (last seen in "Top Five"), Jason Ralph (last seen in "A Most Violent Year"), Ryan Steele, Unity Phelan (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Frederick E. Wodin, and the voice of Oliver Platt (last seen in "Frank and Cindy"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 janitor uniforms

Connie and Carla

Year 13, Day 25 - 1/25/21 - Movie #3,727

BEFORE: I went somewhere today!  Some place that wasn't my home or my office!  Can you tell that lately it's just been one or the other?  But I met my friend Victoria after work at a bar down in the East Village, one with partially-enclosed outdoor seating and heaters, and I had two highly-priced beers!  (Seriously, for the price of two draft beers, I could have bought an entire 6-pack to drink at home. I've never understood that.  How did bars stay in business during the before-times by overcharging so much?)  

Since the famous Katz's Delicatessen was just two blocks away, I saw people inside ordering take-out as I passed by, so I figured I'd grab a sandwich on the way home and eat a late dinner.  Texted my wife, she wanted a sandwich, too, plus an order of fries, so it turned into a rather expensive evening, but so worth it to be out and about again, sort of.  Plus I saved half the corned beef sandwich for lunch tomorrow, because it was too good to devour all at once - really, I just wanted to unhinge my jaw and swallow it whole, that's how much I love a good proper deli sandwich.  Also a bit high-priced, but so worth it.  

Also, Victoria was the last person I hung out with, besides my wife, before the lockdown began last March. We went to a beer dinner a couple weeks before restaurants started closing. So logically, due to the rules of symmetry, that means they may be opening up again, in just a few weeks. Right?  RIGHT?  I guess our governor is dead-set against NYC restaurants re-opening for anything but take-out, despite the data that shows that about 75% of COVID-19 transmissions are happening in private homes and at family gatherings.  Only about 2% have been traced back to NYC restaurants, which makes sense because all the restaurants that DID open up for indoor dining over the last few months went through massive overhauls to install plastic barriers, trained their staffs to clean and disinfect tables and counters often, and blocked off half their tables to keep diners properly spaced. Sure, let's keep the restaurants that WERE following all the guidelines closed, and let people congregate in private homes and keep infecting beloved family members.  I know this sounds weird, but based on the science, maybe we should be shutting down private homes and making people live in restaurants, it would be safer in the long run!

Toni Collette carries over again from "Muriel's Wedding".

THE PLOT: A mob mix-up sends two chanteuses screaming for L.A., where they score a perfect gig: posing as drag queens on the cabaret circuit.  Things get extra weird when a guy falls for one of the girls.  

AFTER: Naturally, the first thing this should make you think of is the 1959 classic "Some Like It Hot", where two male musicians who witnessed the St. Valentine's Day Massacre had to similarly hide from the mob, and they dressed up like women to join an all-girl traveling band, and Tony Curtis's character fell for Marilyn Monroe's singer, while Jack Lemmon's character was pursued by an interested man who thought he was a woman ("Well, nobody's perfect..."),

45 years later, the same story re-surfaced, only a LOT had changed in the world of sexual politics, there was certainly more fluidity by 2004, more openly gay people and drag queens were finally coming in to their own, after decades of being part of the counter-culture.  I have to pause for just a moment here and try to make a distinction between transvestites and gay people, I mean OF COURSE there's a lot of overlap, but it's not 100% - not all transvestite people are gay, and not all gay men dress up like women or want to be women.  But I think even in 2004 it was perceived by some as a bit of a slippery slope, like cross-dressing is a stop on the road to being gay, or perhaps vice versa.  

There's been so much happening in the LGBTQ? world that it might be almost time for another update, like what if you through transgender into this equation, and you had somebody hiding from the mob in plain sight by changing their gender?  OK, I guess that wouldn't work, but I think there are whole new storytelling avenues out there created by transgender issues that haven't even been explored yet.  A couple reality TV shows, sure, but not mainstream Hollywood fiction films, except for "Boys Don't Cry" and "The Danish Girl", that's about it. OK, "Albert Nobbs", "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" and "The World According to Garp", but that's still not a lot. Still, hardly anyone's tapped into the complicated romantic possibilities that become possible when you have a character changing genders.  I have, like, maybe a few dozen questions about the logistics that I'd be way too embarrassed to inquire about - it doesn't really matter because I don't live in that world.  

The other film that comes to mind, of course, is 'Victor/Victoria", which starred Julie Andrews as a woman pretending to be a man who then could dress as a woman to perform on stage.  Debate still continues over whether this is a terrible idea for a stage act, or a particularly genius one.  And no doubt an acting challenge for anyone willing to take on this role.  I mean, you've got to be either SUPER comfortable in your own identity, or perhaps the exact opposite, just really open to ideas and really in touch with the way each gender tends to act.  Right?  Anyway, this film also has women pretending to be men dressing up like women.  

Really, who's to say that drag queens have to be men, am I right?  Isn't the gay culture and/or the drag culture all about being who you are on the inside, regardless of society's norms, and then being able to dress the way you want to dress, and feel the way you feel, and love who you love?  Why should that only apply to gay men?  If things should be opened up to all people, of all genders, all orientations, all sensibilities on the scale, then women can be drag queens - I know, there are "drag kings", too, but they're different.  Or are they?  Why can't the rainbow have a few more colors in it?  Surely there must be at least one person on the record somewhere who had a sex change and then later had it reversed, or at least tried to?  This should be just like that, a couple women living as men who dress like women.  But I guess a woman would need to have a certain "look" about her to pull this off, and one of these actresses does, and the other, not so much.  

It's probably most confusing for Jeff, played by David Duchovny in the "Marilyn Monroe" role here, as weird as that sounds.  (Duchovny, of course, previously played one of the first real transvestite/transgender role in series television history, that of Special Agent Denise - formerly Dennis - on "Twin Peaks".  I'm discounting Flip Wilson's "Geraldine" character, because that was all played for comic effect...)  Jeff's brother, Robert, also goes by "Peaches", as part of a drag duo with "N Cream", and Jeff's been estranged from him for some time.  When he gets back in touch with his brother, he not only has to deal with the fact that his brother's gay and a cross-dresser (again, those could be separate issues in real life, but not in this film) but also that Jeff himself feels some attraction to Connie, despite falsley believing that Connie is a man in drag. 

We never really find out if Jeff enjoyed kissing Connie (as a man) because the ruse is dispelled before it ever gets that far. Jeff is, however, the last to find out that Connie is really a woman, so we'll never know if he was going to give dating a man in drag a shot.  It thus becomes one of those unanswerable questions, like "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"  Hey, just follow the advice of Debbie Reynolds, which is, "Who cares?  If you like somebody, go for it."  Again, nobody's perfect.  

What's harder to believe is that a mob drug dealer would work so hard to track down just ONE missing kilo of product, that he'd send his henchman around to every dinner theater in the U.S. just to maybe find the one that Connie and Carla are performing in.  That guy must have covered thousands of miles in a dozen states, and that means gas, hotel rooms, Broadway show tickets, to get back what, a couple thousand dollars worth of money and drugs?  It doesn't make sense, that guy's time is worth money, too, why spend $5,000 in travel expenses to get back $3,000 in drugs?  That's not a good way to run a business, even an illegal one.  Why not check the internet for cast listings of dinner theaters around the country?  That would have probably been both cheaper AND faster, and every show needs to use the internet to promote itself.  This guy never heard of Facebook?  

Then has has to bankroll Connie and Carla's ex-boyfriends, send them out to L.A. to track down Connie and Carla, then buy a last-minute plane ticket for himself when they do.  Jeez, man, at some point you've got to let that kilo go.  Another NITPICK POINT, the big knockdown fight at the end that takes place on stage is thought by the entire audience to be just part of the act, they dismiss it as a "tribute to Guys and Dolls", and I just don't see how that's possible.  

Also starring Nia Vardalos (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"), David Duchovny (last seen in "House of D"), Stephen Spinella (last seen in "Bad Education"), Alec Mapa (last seen in "You Don't Mess with the Zohan"), Christopher Logan (last seen in "Cold Pursuit"), Robert Kaiser, Ian Gomez (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Robert John Burke (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Boris McGiver (last seen in "The Pink Panther"), Nick Sandow, Dash Mihok (last seen in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"), Chelah Horsdal (last seen in "The Cabin in the Woods"), Debbie Reynolds (last seen in "One for the Money"), Veena Sood (last seen in "Welcome to Marwen"), Babs Chula, Linda Darlow, Gary Jones, with a cameo from Greg Grunberg (last heard in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay"). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 local productions of "Mame". 

Muriel's Wedding

Year 13, Day 24 - 1/24/21 - Movie #3,726

BEFORE: Here we go, starting the last week of the first month of the New Year, and I'm headed straight for the February romance chain now, which I think will last until mid-March.  I haven't put it on any kind of physical calendar yet, but I should do that over the next few weeks and figure out where I'm going to go next, given the end-point of that romance chain.  What will things be like in mid-March?  Where do I go next?  My whole life over the last 10 months has been like that, wondering what's going to happen two months from now, pandemically speaking.  But this is really the first time that there's been the chance for real improvement, if not on the job front, then at least on the vaccination front.

It's kind of a good news/bad news thing, though.  Good news - people are getting vaccinated, and it's the most vulnerable people first.  Bad news - NYC and New York state have run out of doses, though, and are waiting for more to arrive next week.  Good news, we're on a positive path and there's a way out of this.  Bad news - at the current rate, it could be FALL 2021 before life gets back to normal, and people are allowed to dine in restaurants, go to movie theaters and concerts and shows.  Good news - most people are doing there best to stay healthy, follow the recommended guidelines and quarantine when needed.  Bad news - in many ways, it's too late, especially when you look at how many people have died, and it just didn't have to be that way.  Good news - better days lie ahead, we're told.  Bad news - the physical and psychological effects of the last year are going to be with us for a long, long time.  

I can't really think about all that right now, the goal is just to get through each day, wait for better news and better stats, and keep trying to get a part-time job when some become available.  Toni Collette carries over from "Birthmarked".  

THE PLOT: A young social outcast in Australia steals money from her parents in order to finance a vacation where she hopes to find happiness, and perhaps love. 

AFTER: I had this one scheduled for later this week, but given that I've got several Toni Collette films to get to here, I'm going to change things up - when in doubt, I'm going chronologically, and this film's from very early in her career.  I've set the WAYBAC machine for 1994 today, and I can only do that when I've got a clear path back to the present, which Collette's long career makes possible.  I had this in the romance category for a long time, but the linking didn't allow for it to be in this year's romance chain, so it ended up here in January instead - which I think was probably for the best, because this film isn't really about love or romance, not in the traditional way at least.  Oh, there is a wedding, as the title makes clear, but it's anything but typical.  

Look, I'll just say it, this is a weird film - not at all what I was expecting, but then again, what movie does turn out to be exactly what I was expecting?  How much fun would THAT be?  I've read reviews of this film over the years, and it's even on that list of "1,001 Movies to See Before You Die" (my current total is now 438, not too shabby...).  But no amount of reading about a film is a substitute for watching it, you've got to immerse yourself in a movie to really understand it - but I'm kind of left scratching my head after this one, either I just didn't get it, or Australian people are just weird.  Let's go with the latter - after seeing this month how weird Swedish people are, I'll believe anything about the Aussies.  

Muriel Heslop comes from a large family (so many that we only learn the details about a select few of them) but they all seem to be screw-ups.  And their toxically masculine father loves taking them out for Chinese food so he can pontificate about how badly they've all screwed up over the course of their lives.  The whole family, including Muriel's mother, seem like passive doormats compared to the father, and yet none of them seem to be able to leave, perhaps because it's been drilled into their heads over and over how badly they've all screwed everything up.  While he brags about his own accomplishments (and somehow his own personal set-backs are never his fault, who does THIS remind you of?) he relishes verbally beating down his whole family - is this one of those Aussie things?  

As for Muriel, perhaps all of this parental berating, and constantly being reminded of how she went to secretarial school yet still can't type, has led her to also seek out toxic friends.  Even in a group of horrible Aussie women, she's the outcast in the group, which almost seems like a contradiction.  I guess the group just keeps her around to make fun of her?  Or is she just good to have on hand when they need another bridesmaid for a wedding?  Muriel catches the bouquet at Tania's wedding, after seeing the groom cheating on Tania with Nicole, and then Muriel's arrested at the wedding for stealing the dress that she's wearing.  Very bad luck that the department store detective was a cousin of the groom, and recognized her. 

None of Muriel's friends seem happy, either, they just complain about their boyfriends' affairs while they plan the next group outing or wedding.  Muriel, meanwhile, dreams about her own wedding, someday, without taking any real steps to make such a thing happen - but her goal is to get married, get out of the town of Porpoise Spit (really?) and away from her family. 

Muriel's toxic friends turn a cancelled honeymoon into a group outing to a resort island, and since they nearly kicked Muriel out of the group for being too poor to go on holiday, Muriel instead steals money from her own family - her father had gotten her involved with a multi-level marketing make-up company, and her mother gave her a blank check to buy the first round of kits to sell.  Instead Muriel makes the check out for $12,000 and goes on holiday.  Not cool.  

But while on holiday she happens to meet Rhonda, an old friend from high school - Muriel and Rhonda lip-sync to "Waterloo" in a talent contest and Rhonda manages to tell off Muriel's other friends, fracturing the group at the same time.  It's Australia, so fisticuffs are involved.  Upon returning home, Muriel's family confronts her about the money missing from their account, but instead of dealing with the situation, she moves to Sydney, gets a flat with Rhonda and a job in a video-rental store.  She goes on a date with a very nice parking attendant, but it ends disastrously.  

Rhonda gets sick and needs an operation, then is confined to a wheelchair - while Rhonda's father gets investigated for taking bribes.  Maybe he's truly guilty, but also maybe he wouldn't have had to take bribes if his daughter hadn't stolen $12,000 from him.  This film seems to be all about the consequences of actions, and how nobody, especially Muriel, seems able to face them.  She just runs away any time things get difficult, never admits doing anything wrong (kind of like her father) and nothing ever seems to be her fault.  Instead she lives in a fantasy world, going around to dress shops and trying on wedding gowns, claiming that she's doing this for her sick friend, who really likes looking at the pictures.  And she never owns up to her web of lies until she's forced to.  

Even then, she's still looking for the quick and easy solution - she answers a personal ad only to find out that the man who wants to get married is an Olympic swimmer from South Africa, who can't compete as an Australian unless he marries an Aussie woman.  Muriel (now going by the name of Mariel for some reason) agrees to marry the man for $10,000.  Well, she does get her wedding, even though it's a sham wedding, and she lives with her husband but they don't share a bedroom.  And Rhonda has to move back to Porpoise Spit and live with her mother, because she can't afford to live alone.  Meanwhile, nobody in the whole useless Heslop family seems willing or able to go out and get a job - is there anybody in this movie with even an ounce of personal responsibility?  

I don't know, maybe that's why this whole film didn't seem to come together for me, because I didn't really like any of the characters.  Maybe I'm not supposed to, maybe that's the point, but Muriel seems like the most delusional character since Napoleon Dynamite.  She never seems able to take any steps to make her life better, she just keeps finding new deceptions to make money to pay off the old debts, it's almost Trumpian in a way.  Finally, near the end, she realizes that she's got to burn her whole life to the ground to build it back up, hopefully in a more honest way.  But I'm still not sold on the premise, or maybe I just don't know enough about Aussie culture to truly appreciate this, I'm not sure.  

A little research on IMDB tells me that the director based the story on his real-life sister, who stole $15,000 from their father.  This situation did seem a little too specific to be made-up.  But one review called this "a glorious celebration of freedom", and I just don't see it that way.  It's great that by the end Muriel is a strong woman with the power to change her life, but was it necessary for so many people to get hurt or damaged along the way?  

Also starring Bill Hunter (last seen in "Australia"), Rachel Griffiths (last seen in "Hacksaw Ridge"), Sophie Lee, Jeanie Drynan, Gennie Nevinson, Daniel Lapaine (last seen in "Jack the Giant Slayer"), Matt Day (last seen in "Scoop"), Roz Hammond, Belinda Jarrett, Pippa Grandison, Daniel Wyllie (last seen in "War Machine"), Gabby Millgate, Chris Haywood, Nathan Kaye, Genevieve Picot, Richard Sutherland, Barry Crocker.

RATING: 4 out of 10 visits from the constables