The Last Stand

Year 13, Day 79 - 3/20/21 - Movie #3,782

BEFORE: Harry Dean Stanton carries over again from "Mr. North", and there's an actor who was in a LOT of films, six decades' worth, which is what allows me to jump between a film from 1988 and one from 2013.  I can't even get to them all right now, because of my Easter deadline, so even though "Paris, Texas" is running on HBO Max and his last film, "Lucky" is free (!!) on YouTube, they'll have to wait, I just don't have the time.  Who knows, maybe they'll get me out of another tough linking jam later this year.  That darn future is always in motion...

Right now, after watching three dull films in a row, I really need to get out of this funk.  Action movies could not have come along at a better time, what I want right now is to watch a bunch of stuff blow up real good.  Also, this film represents the "path not taken" out of the Ingmar Bergman chain, since Peter Stormare had a tiny role in "Fanny and Alexander".  But the chains following this film just didn't link up with the start of the February movies, so this got tabled in favor of Lena Olin in "Havana". C'est la vie. 

I can do a few more days of Women's History month milestones - today's the anniversary of the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852, and the anniversary of the first woman winning the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race in Alaska - Libby Riddles won in 1985.  Also Amanda Clement, the first woman paid to umpire a baseball game, was born March 20, 1888, Amelia Chopitea Villa, Bolivia's first female physician, was born March 20, 1900, and Pamela Harriman, U.S. ambassador to France, was born March 20, 1920. 

THE PLOT: The leader of a drug cartel busts out of a courthouse and speeds to the Mexican border, where the only thing in his path is a sheriff and his inexperienced staff. 

AFTER: Don't call it a comeback - OK, call it whatever you want, who cares?  This wasn't Schwarzenegger's first movie since leaving office as the Governator of Cawl-a-Fonya in 2011, but it was his first leading role, so that counts for something, I guess. First they announced he was planning to be in another "Terminator" movie and remakes/reboots of "Predator" and "The Running Man", but then he went through a very public ("consider it a...") divorce, one that took 6 years to be finalized. The "Terminator" film got made, but they went ahead and made the other two reboots without him, though the "Running Man" one is still in the works. Schwarzenegger made THIS one instead, and it got released in 2013. 

I have to say, and maybe this is due to the appalling lack of action in the last few movies I watched (in-action movies?) that this could have been a lot worse.  Sure, I've got a list of N.P.'s a mile long, and this basically follows a well-worn formula, with a rag-tag bunch of misfit heroes defending a town from a well-connected criminal while the Feds are basically useless, but the thing about formulas is that they often work. Maybe that's debatable, I don't know, because I was able to predict the big plot twists here, and largely that's just because I've seen so many damn movies by now.  But there's pretty much a reason for every little thing, so that implies that this was at least coherently put together, if still very predictable.

Ah-nold plays the sheriff of a small Arizona town on the Mexican border, which got selected as the crossing over point by a Mexican drug-lord (an "El Chappo" type) who gets broken out of prison, and had someone steal an experimental car for him so he can drive to the border at an impossible speed.  Also, the car apparently never needs to stop for gas, so there's that, while turning the film into a giant Chevrolet commercial, because the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a Corvette is a good guy with a Camaro.  So first NITPICK POINT is - if the villain's car can go 200 mph, how did the sheriff not only catch up with him, but get ahead of him?  Did he know a secret short-cut that wasn't on the GPS?  Also, how come the feds, with a PLANE, can't get there in time from Las Vegas?  

The simple answer, of course, is that this would ruin the story - but combined, these two things just defy the rules of time and space. Instead the Feds send a SWAT team, which started out much closer to the final destination, only somehow the villain takes out two armored vehicles with his Corvette.  That's N.P. #2.  To be fair, the drug lord has a ton of money, and managed to arrange a whole bunch of help on the outside, which explains how he was able to bust out of custody in the first place.  This escape is probably the best part of the film, an elaborate chase scene through North Las Vegas with body doubles, a change of clothing and an FBI agent taken hostage, plus explosives and a cool use of zip-lines.

Bottom line, the Federal government is nearly useless, and now I'm wondering if there's a larger political point being made here.  I'm probably reading too much into it, unless Republican Arnold got a dig in - this was filmed during the Obama Presidency after all, but I don't think Schwarzie feuded with Obama like he later did with Trump.  In the end, the small-town sheriff who just wanted a peaceful semi-retirement in Arizona has to fix the U.S. government's mistake, along with that rag-tag bunch of deputized misfits (including the one who's getting too old for this shit) and some cobbled-together A-Team-ish weaponry and supplies. You can just tell from the early interaction with the crazy weirdo who collects old military weapons that this is probably going to be important later on, right?  Johnny Knoxville, by the way, looks like he had the time of his life making this film - good for you, Mr. Jackass. 

You also don't have a team of criminals build THAT thing in the desert unless it's going to be important later on, so there's that to look forward to. And this is so by-the-numbers that you know it's going to come down to a one-on-one face-off between the lead bad guy and the lead good guy, right?  And this was still a few years before all the talk about building a wall on the border, and with so much talk about illegal aliens coming from Mexico into the U.S., what's the big deal about letting just one go back?  Ah, but that's not how we do things, we need to keep the drug-lord in U.S. prison, even while I.C.E. is deporting all the regular undesirables, right?  But is it worth losing so many decent cops and FBI agents along the way?  Apparently so.  

Standard action-movie NP's here, ones about firing many bullets without reloading, and (most) heroes taking gunshots manage to survive, while villains who get flesh wounds tend to die instantly, because the plot requires them to do so.  There are references to Arnold's previous films (that's a Conan-style sword one character picks up, right?) but no stand-out quotes from the Governator, nothing along the lines of "Get to the choppah!" or "Hasta la vista, baby!" or even "It's not a too-mah!"  He does say "I'll be right back!" at one point, ooh, and it's so close, but not a match, so the board goes back.  In the end there are enough cool stunts and expected plot points to satisfy the old lizard brain, so if, like me, you're coming off a string of inaction movies, it's close enough to count. 

Also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger (last seen in "The Rundown"), Johnny Knoxville (last seen in "Elvis & Nixon"), Forest Whitaker (last heard in "Sorry to Bother You"), Jaimie Alexander (last seen in "Thor: The Dark World"), Luis Guzman (last seen in "Still Waiting..."), Eduardo Noriega (last seen in "Vantage Point"), Rodrigo Santoro (last seen in "Rio, I Love You"), Peter Stormare (last seen in "Fanny and Alexander"), Zach Gilford (last seen in "Super"), Genesis Rodriguez (last seen in "Casa de mi Padre"), Daniel Henney (last heard in Big Hero 6"), Tait Fletcher (last seen in "The Kid"), John Patrick Amedori, Richard Dillard, Chris Browning, Christiana Leucas, Rio Alexander, David Midthunder, Kent Kirkpatrick, Mario Moreno (last seen in "Sicario: Day of the Soldado"), Kristen DeVore Rakes, Kevin Wiggins, Jermaine Washington. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 barricaded cars

Mr. North

Year 13, Day 78 - 3/19/21 - Movie #3,781

BEFORE: Harry Dean Stanton carries over from "This Must Be the Place", and I'll admit this film is a leftover bit from last year - I had to make some cuts in the closing days of 2020 to meet my deadline, while allowing for three Christmas-based films instead of two. Originally this was supposed to fit between "Seraphim Falls" with Anjelica Huston and "Dead Man" with Robert Mitchum. But since Michael Wincott appeared in both of those films, I was able to cut this film out of the mix, and the chain neatly closed up around the space.  Thus I could squeeze in "A Very Murray Christmas" and end the year on a high note, and "Mr. North" was rescheduled for the earliest possible return.  No harm done, except that Anjelica Huston then didn't make my year-end countdown, because she was only in two films, sorry.

Still a couple more weeks to celebrate Women's History month - today's the birthday of comedienne Moms Mabley (born March 19, 1894), Marjorie Linklater, Scottish campaigner for the arts and the environment (born in 1909), Glenn Close (born in 1947).  It's also the birthday of Harvey Weinstein (born in 1952) and I guess you could say that there wouldn't really be a #metoo movement without him.  Umm, that's not a good thing.

THE PLOT: Mr. North, a stranger to the small but wealthy town of Newport, RI, quickly has rumors started about him that he has the power to heal people's ailments. In his adventures he befriends an old man who is a shut-in and helps him rediscover the world. 

AFTER: This makes three films in a row that I just don't GET, so now I'm starting to wonder if there's something wrong with ME, instead of the films.  I mean, I understand what HAPPENS in this week's films, but I'm having trouble trying to understand WHY they were made, where is the relevance to the stories?  Weirdly I've been through all of society's classes in just three days - "Angela's Ashes" was about lower-class Americans moving back to become lower-class Irish, "This Must Be the Place" was about a Goth rocker touring America's middle-class workers, looking for a Nazi, and today it's a visit to the upper class living in Newport in the 1920's.  

Really, it's about Mr. (Theophilus) North, a visitor to Newport, he's not really upper class himself, but then what IS he?  A con man, a pretender, or just someone aimlessly moving through this society?  I can't really get a read on the character - people pay him to read books to them?  Can't they read the books themselves, or are they so rich that they feel this is beneath them?  When we first see him, he's reading books to children, which I get, but then he gets hired to read books to an older rich man, was this a thing back then?  Then he lives at the YMCA and teaches tennis to kids, this I understand.  But he pals around with the lower servant class, people who used to work at the rich mansions, but no longer do that, they just hang around and drink and play pool at dine at boarding houses, and you know what, that doesn't sound too bad.  Being a poor person in Newport sounds pretty nice, especially compared with pandemic life, where even those of us who GOT our vaccinations can't go out and play pool yet or visit all the restaurants, when so many of them are still closed. 

I'm fairly familiar with Newport, RI because I used to go to an annual Chowderfest there, in the before-times of course. My BFF and I started going there every summer because the Boston Chowderfest started to really suck, we watched it go from 12 entrants one year to 10 the next down to 8 and when it got to 5, we decided to seek greener pastures.  The Newport Chowderfests had THREE categories: Clam, Seafood and Variety chowders, with up to 10 entrants in each category, PLUS clam-cakes for sale and you got to vote for your favorite in each category, so democracy in action.  We'd taste each one with our keen palates and then vote with our hearts, factoring in such intangibles as "booth spirit", "free merchandise" and penalize the ones who didn't hand out proper oyster crackers or had too many uncooked potatoes.  Then after we'd hit a local diner for, of course, more chowder and more clam cakes, this was called the "victory lap", especially if we'd tried every chowder on the ballot. But then this event went downhill, too, when it was moved from the waterfront marina to a nearly state park, and the lines became too long and poorly managed.  This was roughly the same time Taylor Swift bought a house in town - coincidence? 

Anyway, Newport is known for its beautiful mansions, and that usually means there are rich people living in them.  Surprisingly, the rich people in this story aren't corrupt and evil, they're quite friendly, and for some narrative reason, they're besieged with ailments like rheumatism, possible brain tumors and male pattern baldness.  Mr. North has the freakish ability to retain and generate static electricity, and these citizens get this crazy idea in their heads that getting shocked by Mr. North is the miracle cure for everything that ails them, though there is never any hard evidence of such.  Most likely there is a city-wide placebo effect in play, they believe that being touched by him will cure them, and that belief causes relief when they are touched, which results in them all feeling better, if not actually being cured of whatever. 

The local doctor suddenly notices that his appointments are being cancelled across the board, and that means no income, so he has Mr. North arrested for practicing medicine without a license.  Only North has made no claims of having healing abilities, and has not charged any money for his services shocking people, and openly admits that the few pills he did dispense gratis were merely mints.  Therefore the judge finds that no crime has been committed, and the doctor gets locked up, as everyone who files a losing lawsuit should. It feels like this is an analogy for something that I can't quite put my finger on, is it supposed to be some spin on the Jesus story, suggesting that Jesus didn't really heal the sick or raise the dead or make blind men see, but if those things happened, it was just due to the faith of the sick people?  Something to think about, perhaps - this is based on a novel written by Thornton Wilder, but the plot summary on Wikipedia is woefully non-descript. 

Mr. North also seems attracted to Sally Boffin, a maid who works at the estate of his main patron, but even though they kiss under the July 4 fireworks, she's promised to another, Mr. Ennis, and so that's a bit of a romantic dead end.  There seemed to be a "spark", pun intended, between him and Elspeth Skeel, who was (mis-?)diagnosed with a brain tumor, but felt better after Mr. North touched her forehead.  Nope, she's much too young for her.  North here seems to end up with his patron's daughter, despite never really meeting her during the course of the film, she only turns up near the end to dance with him at the ball - really, at this point the whole thing's turned into some kind of gender-flipped Jane Austen story, right?  She really comes out of nowhere, but we're supposed to believe she and North are perfect for each other - well, he does have rather magic fingers, after all. 

I guess I'm supposed to be glad that Mr. North came to town, found himself and found a purpose, even found love in the end.  Did he change the lives of the wealthy residents, or did they change him?  But other than that, what was really achieved here?  It all feels like a watered-down version of "The Great Gatsby", only without any characters dying or any grander point being made.  So, it's really some weak sauce by comparison.  I feel like if I could go back and take high-school English class over, I'd really ace it this time - not that I didn't do well before, but the second time I'd really feel free to speak my mind.  Thornton Wilder was a HACK, and "Our Town" was corny and hackneyed when he wrote it, then it just got more so over time.  And "Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton is a boring, terrible book that nobody should be forced to read.  It also might be the START of that horrible trend where a narrative starts in one place, then flashes back to the past to detail all the events that led up to it, and this technique is now used in like one out of every three movies. 

The man who played the YMCA clerk here was playwright Christopher Durang, and I met him once when I was a P.A. on a shoot for an episode of "Alive from Off Center" that was called "Words on Fire", it was six short vignettes that each illustrated that title somehow, and Durang played a man who found it easy to be inactive concerning things he was passionate about, like being in love or solving global warming.  And this was back in 1990, before most people even considered global warming a problem, and in fact, some still do.  I just recorded an hour on PBS that explains how we fixed the hole in the Earth's ozone layer, I should probably watch that, because I'm curious about it. Anyway, I hope Mr. Durang is doing well (he never calls any more...) because he doesn't have any IMDB credits after 2001, but Wiki says he had a hit play in 2011, called "Vania and Sonia and Masha and Spike", which sounds like a spin on Chekhov. 

I'd love to find a copy of that "Alive from Off Center" episode, because it's one of the first things I ever worked on that aired on TV, unless you count music videos for Rick James ("Wonderful") and Apollonia ("Since I Fell for You").  The credits for this show seem to have not made it to the IMDB, but I remember one actor (Robert Joy) talking fondly about how to light a cigar and another actor reading a great passage from "The Tempest" the one that stars with "Our revels now are ended" and includes "We are such stuff as dreams are made on..."

Also, the actor who played Neidermeyer in "National Lampoon's Animal House" is in this film, just in case you were ever wondering if he ever co-starred with Lauren Bacall and Robert Mitchum. (Geez, it reminds me of that time Steve Guttenberg made a film with Laurence Olivier and Gregory Peck. Look it up, that happened.)  If you're a child of the 1990's and not the 1970's, he's also the villain/father in the Twisted Sister video for "We're Not Gonna Take It". 

Also starring Anthony Edwards (last seen in "Motherhood"), Robert Mitchum (last seen in "Dead Man"), Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Dogville"), Anjelica Huston (last seen in "Seraphim Falls"), Mary Stuart Masterson (last seen in "Some Kind of Wonderful"), Virginia Madsen (last seen in "Joy"), Tammy Grimes, David Warner (last seen in "Mary Poppins Returns"), Hunter Carson, Christopher Durang (last seen in "The Out-of-Towners"), Mark Metcalf (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Katherine Houghton (last seen in "Billy Bathgate"), Thomas H. Needham, Richard Woods (last seen in "I.Q."), Harriet Rogers, Layla Summers, Lucas Hall, Thomas-Laurence Hand, Linda Peterson, Cleveland Amory, Christopher Lawford (last seen in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines"), Ellen Latzen (last seen in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"), Marietta Tree (last seen in "The Misfits"), Richard Kneeland.

RATING: 4 out of 10 tennis rackets

This Must Be the Place

Year 13, Day 77 - 3/18/21 - Movie #3,780

BEFORE: Kerry Condon carries over from "Angela's Ashes". I really didn't have too many choices coming out of that film, there are no other films with either Emily Watson or Robert Carlyle on my list, and the rest of the cast seems to be made of obscure Irish actors, or at least ones who didn't make many other Hollywood movies.  I suppose I got lucky that there was ONE connection that gets me closer to "Wonder Woman 1984", and sometimes one connection is all I need. In fact that can make things easier, I don't have to make a tough decision or make a flow-chart with all the choices to see which one gets me where I ultimately want to go or might please me more.  This one ran on PBS a few months back, and I love checking the movies they run on PBS here in NYC on Saturday nights, and not just because they usually pair one classic movie with a newish indie film (plus a short, but who cares?) but because it's public television, so they don't run that signal that prevents me from copying the film to DVD for my archives.  That's legal, because I'm part of the public, and by definition their shows belong to me, to you, to all of us.  Months later, this film is now streaming on HBO Max, but I already have my copy, thanks but no thanks, HBO. (HBO is one of those channels that DOES run that signal, so anything they run, I can watch, but I can't dupe.)

I'm back on the Nazi beat today, well, sort of, so here's a look at today in history where Germany is concerned - on March 18, 1793, the first modern German republic, Mainz, was declared as formed. On March 18, 1848, the March Revolution took place in Berlin, a struggle between the military and the civilians that took 300 lives. And on March 18, 1940, Hitler and Mussolini met at the Brenner Pass in the Alps. to form their alliance against France and the U.K. - I wonder what ever became of that?  Fast-forward to March 18, 1990, when citizens in East Germany (GDR) voted in their first Democratic elections after being part of a Communist dictatorship. And still checking in with Women's History month, it's the birthday of Madame de la Fayette, author of France's first historical novel, "La Princess de Cleves", born in 1634. Born on March 18, 1927 was Lillian Vernon, businesswoman and philanthropist, and on March 18, 1933, Unita Blackwell, U.S. civil rights activist and the first woman elected mayor in Mississippi. Also, happy birthday to Irene Cara, Queen Latifah and Vanessa Williams. 

THE PLOT: Cheyenne, a retired rock start living off his royalties in Dublin, returns to the U.S. to find the man responsible for a humiliation suffered by his recently deceased father during World War II.

AFTER: I'm intrigued by this film for sure, but unfortunately, only up to a point.  I want to know more about the inspiration behind it, because I don't see how anyone just comes up with this sort of thing out of thin air.  It's a foreign film in that it comes from an Italian director, and it did well at Cannes before playing at Sundance - but those are two strikes against it when it comes to being accessible to American audiences, I think.  It seems like the director was fascinated by stories of people who track down former Nazis in their old age, so they can be prosecuted for war crimes, even though they're 80 or 90 years old by now.  Then he tried to think of who would be the most unlikely type of person to go on a quest to find a still-alive Nazi, because apparently in the U.S. we could have several nursing homes set aside just for them, and he landed on an aging former Goth rocker - so the plot here is sort of reverse-engineered to be as ridiculous as possible, and not make any sense.  This might explain why Sean Penn agreed to star in it. 

Penn's character here is Cheyenne, whose look is clearly based on Robert Smith of The Cure, but the name's probably derived from Siouxsie Sioux, lead singer of Siouxsie and the Banshees - don't get hung up on gender here, because they sure didn't back in the 80's. Penn decided to play the character with a gayish, disillusioned but also sort of damaged voice - and I'm not saying that was the wrong choice, because it may have been spot on.  However, it also made the character very hard to understand without subtitles - damn, maybe I should have watched this on HBO Max, because then I could have turned the subtitles on.  

Cheyenne spends his days hanging out with his daughter, Mary, (she claims to not be his daughter, this was very confusing) and trying to set her up with the guy who works at the food court at the mall, who wants to date her, only she's not that into him.  Cheyenne's got a wife, or maybe two, this was also very confusing - if he's got a wife at home, then who's the blond lady that's also Mary's mother - is that his ex-wife?  Long-time former live-in partner? What, exactly is the deal?  And what's with the giant stadium that looms in the background of every shot near where they live?  Am I supposed to know what or where this is?  (EDIT: It's Aviva Stadium in Dublin, but I had to look it up.  Yes, it is THAT big, and that close to residential homes.)  Cheyenne receives a call at the home of his not-wife that his father is dying, so he heads to America to be with him in his last days.

Only Cheyenne's got a lot of personal hang-ups, it seems.  He spends a lot of time hanging out in a cemetery, and later we find out that's where two of his fans are buried, and they committed suicide based on something they heard in his songs, so he feels very guilty about that.  He's also got a fear of flying (who doesn't?) so after a failed attempt to fly to the U.S., he ends up taking a cruise there instead, but wait, I thought he was in a rush to get there?  Surprise, he arrives too late to spend any time with the father who he's been estranged from for the last 30 years.  See, this is where things stop making sense, which coincidentally is also when he visits an old friend from the 1980's, with David Byrne playing a fictional (?) version of himself. (Hasn't he always?)

I'd say this film also feels like a big commercial for Byrne, only his Broadway show "American Utopia" didn't come along for another decade.  But we do get to see him perform here, on the Talking Heads song that inspired the film's title, and there are at least five different covers of that same song throughout the film.  I'm not sure if this counts as a motif, or was a cost-saving measure so that the filmmakers only had to license one song five times, in place of five different songs. As much as I love cover versions, this does seem like a bit too much, even if you happen to love that particular song. This film was made back when David Byrne had converted an abandoned ferry terminal in NYC into a giant, building-sized instrument, using the resonating frequencies of the giant room to create musical sounds via an organ-like interface. Which seems interesting, and I wish the film could have given us just a taste of what that sounded like, but I guess there was no time for that. 

The death of Cheyenne's father connects him with one of those Nazi hunters, and sends him off on a quest across America to find the very elderly man who once humiliated and persecuted his father at Auschwitz - and remember, Cheyenne doesn't like to fly, so it's road-trip time, thankfully as a former rock star Cheyenne has the money and the time to do this, though his family in Ireland just assumes he's gone off to find himself again.  What appear to be random actions on Cheyenne's part are really bits of detective work, or at least they're supposed to be, as he visits the Nazi's (alleged) widow and pretends to be one of her former students, in order to gain enough information to plan his next stop - only I think much of this was also quite unclear. 

Other interactions with the Nazi's grand-daughter and the owner of a gun shop also have a clear purpose, but honestly I think they've got more of a "Borat"-type feel to them, as Sean Penn dressed up like a Goth rocker basically interviews them while also extracting information about his target, and also American society in general.  "Angela's Ashes", I get it, somebody had a shitty childhood and wanted/needed to write a book about it - but this, I have NO idea what purpose this movie serves, or what point it's even trying to make.  And when he finally tracks down his target, there's so much random build-up to it, how could the ensuing confrontation be anything but a big let-down?

With Frances McDormand appearing here, it's very tempting to program "Nomadland" next, because that film's already on Hulu, and it would be great to get to a current Oscar nominee, but that's bit of a dead end for me right now, I could link out of that I suppose, but it would screw up the plan I have in place for the next two weeks.  So I suppose I'm going to follow the Harry Dean Stanton link as planned. Another quandary - which actor provided the narration here, the voice of Cheyenne's father?  The IMDB and Wikipedia can't seem to agree - it sure SOUNDED like Frank Langella, and I'm pretty good at identifying celebrity voices (I'm great at identifying narration in car commercials, and I'd do even better figuring out who's on "The Masked Singer" if they didn't scramble their speaking voices) but perhaps this was a Frank Langella sound-alike?

Also starring Sean Penn (last seen in "The Professor and the Madman"), Frances McDormand (last seen in "Promised Land"), Judd Hirsch (last seen in "Uncut Gems"), Eve Hewson (last seen in "Robin Hood" (2018)), Grant Goodman (last seen in "The Campaign"), Harry Dean Stanton (last seen in "You, Me and Dupree"), Joyce Van Patten (last seen in "Peace, Love & Misunderstanding"), David Byrne (last seen in "Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall"), Olwen Fouéré (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Shea Whigham (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer"), Liron Levo, Heinz Lieven, Simon Delaney (last seen in "Delivery Man"), Johnny Ward, Sam Keeley (last seen in "Burnt"), Bern Cohen (last seen in "Norman"), Gordon Michaels (last seen in "Out of the Furnace"), Madge Levinson (last seen in "Whip It"), Seth Adkins, Davis Gloff and the voice of Fritz Weaver (last seen in "The Big Fix") (or is it Frank Langella? (last seen in "House of D")) with archive footage of Jamie Oliver, Sarah Palin and the voice of Barack Obama (last seen in "Fyre Fraud").

RATING: 4 out of 10 games of handball in an unfilled swimming pool

Angela's Ashes

Year 13, Day 76 - 3/17/21 - Movie #3,779

BEFORE: Well, it seems that while I was away in Massachusetts, the Oscar nominations were announced - this happened two days ago, and it didn't even make the news in Boston, it seems - was there too much else going on in the world?  I'm usually on top of this sort of thing.  Anyway, I've done terribly so far this year in terms of seeing current films, movies released in 2020 that could possibly have been nominated - part of this I can attribute to my insistence on a linking-based schedule, but also I pandemically lost access to an annual stack of Academy screeners, neither of these is my fault.  I've tried to stay current, I swear - but so far with NYC theaters closed I've only been able to work in six films with 2020 release dates - and of those, only THREE got any nominations, "Emma" got two noms for Best Costume Design and Best Make-Up, and "The One and Only Ivan" got a nomination for Best Visual Effects. And last year I watched "Onward", nominated for Best Animated Feature. 

(Also, a song got nominated from "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga", but I don't. think that really counts...)

Honestly, I was sure that "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" might be a contender, and I went ahead and pre-borrowed "Wonder Woman 1984", thinking that would be a shoo-in in some technical categories, but, well, you'll hear my thoughts on that film next week.  OK, so here's the plan, try to catch a few of the nominated films on various streaming services before the ceremony on April 25.  I've been working on inching the schedule forward after Easter is over, and I've come up with a chain that can probably pass through the following films: "Soul", nominated for Best Animated Feature", "The Trial of the Chicago 7", nominated for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor, and then naturally after that, it makes sense to watch "Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm", linking via Sacha Baron Cohen, that film's up for Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.  I think that my path may also take me through "Da 5 Bloods", up for Best Original Score, but I'll have to check my notes. 

The problem, and I can see it coming already, is the cast list for the "Borat" sequel - it really gives me nowhere to go, except that I think it has footage of a lot of politicians in it, like Mike Pence and Rudy Giuliani.  I should be able to use that to transition to some political documentaries, and by mid-April I should be overdue for a documentary break.  But that itself produces a number of problems, because some docs don't list all their cameos and archive footage appearances on the IMDB, so I'd be taking a big chance that my chain could break if I stick too close to any regimented documentary schedule.  I guess I'll have to risk it, because these are the nominated films that I most want to see.               

                 

Emily Watson carries over from "The Dresser" (2015). On this date in Women's History, Golda Meir became the first female prime minister of Israel, March 17, 1969.  It's the birthday of English suffragette Edith Bessie New, born in 1877, also Cynthia Ann McKinney, who served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia, and also ran for President in 2008 (born in 1955) and soccer player and two-time Olympic gold medalist Mia Hamm, born in 1972, and Katie Ledecky, five-time Olympic gold medalist for swimming, born in 1997.

THE PLOT: Based on the best-selling novel by ex-patriate Frank McCourt, this film follows the experiences of young Frankie and his family as they try, against all odds, to escape the poverty endemic in the slums of pre-war Limerick, Ireland.

AFTER: Of course, it's also St. Patrick's Day today, and this is really the only Irish-based film on my list, so it made a perfect target to aim for as I set up my movie chain for March.  I ended up cutting the romance chain short by two films, just so I could get here from there, but hey, that's just how the Valentine's Day cookie crumbles.  My next target will be Easter, then Big Movie #3,800, then "Palm Springs", then those Oscar-nominated films I mentioned above.  The trick then will be linking from political documentaries to "Black Widow", or possibly a Mother's Day film, I haven't quite decided. But let me table that for now. 

It's hard to trace the origin of the phrase "Life sucks, then you die."  Some people quote Stephen King, others quote David Gerrold, who wrote "Life is hard. Then you die. Then they throw dirt in your face. Then the worms eat you. Be grateful it happens in that order."  All I know is, this film (and the novel it's based on) follow that as the driving engine of the story.  Life for the McCourt family sucks in New York, due to financial difficulties, some of which are caused by the alcoholic father, so they move back to Ireland, where the parents were from. All of their four children were born in Brooklyn, though, so it's a big change for NYC kids to suddenly have to get by in "the old country".  

The book apparently spends a little more time showing us the father's pattern - get a job, drink to celebrate, keep drinking, spend all the money, lose the job.  Repeat.  The film sort of keeps this a secret until he has just as much trouble finding employment, and staying employed, in Ireland.  Really, until his drinking habits change, then the family's just going to stay poor, so why doesn't anybody try to stop him from drinking.  OK, they do, but they don't have any real power to make him change, this was back when the man was automatically in charge of the family, and before going to rehab was a trendy thing to do. Even if his kids begged him to stop drinking and spend the money on food for the family instead, as the male head of household he didn't have to listen, and he could even hit his kids if he didn't like what they were saying.  It was a different time, for sure. 

Angela, with four sons, keeps trying for a daughter, and perhaps that's part of the problem here, too.  Finally she gives birth to a daughter, who only lives seven weeks, and this sends Angela into a deep depression and her husband Malachy on another alcoholic binge.  When the neighbors see how their four sons are being neglected, that's when they contact the relatives in Ireland to arrange for passage back, at a time when most Irish people were leaving for America, if they could. 

But the Depression hit hard in Ireland, too, the family is forced to go on the dole and Malachy can't find any work because of his Northern accent and his manner, and then of course we're back to the drinking problem.  He drinks when he's out of work, and then when he does find a job he drinks more to celebrate, loses the new job, and so on. Angela and her sons are forced to apply for charity from the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which has a rather humiliating application process, finally coming through with a voucher for a bed from a used furniture store, but then the whole family is bitten with "fleas" - more likely bedbugs, right? 

The younger sons die shortly thereafter, from pneumonia, only Malachy kept calling it "the damp", and I wasn't sure if that was a euphemism for a medical condition or just a realization that it rains a lot in Ireland, and their apartment complex was poorly made, and retained a lot of water in the walls.  Which is a thing, the molds that grow inside the walls can be quite toxic. Plus there's only one "lavatory" on their street, which is where every family empties their chamber pots, and of course that's right next to the McCourt's dwelling. 

The story keeps piling on the miseries - Frank gets typhoid at age 10, but manages to pull through, unlike his younger brothers, and the next year he gets chronic conjunctivitis after finally earning some money by helping shovel and deliver coal. Once World War II starts, Frank's father heads to England to work in the defense plants, but after a few weeks of sending money home, the payments stop coming, with no explanation.  The family has to tear down the inner walls of their flat for firewood, but after the landlord visits and sees what they'd down, they're evicted and forced to move in with Angela's bachelor cousin.  SPOILER ALERT, that's not a great situation either, and the family endures more misery as a result. 

Eventually Frank gets a job delivering telegrams by bicycle, which leads to him having his first sexual relationship, but it's with a young girl who's dying of consumption (TB).  But this also leads to him working for the local money-lender, a woman who hires him to write threatening letters to encourage people to pay back their loans.  In a round-about way, but one still touched by more misery, working for the money-lender finally gets Frank the money he needs to go back to America - where he eventually writes that memoir about growing up poor, and the circle is complete, I suppose. I just find it rather ironic that the author got rich thanks to being so poor when he was a boy.  Just me?  Do middle-class authors with writer's block sit around and wish they'd grown up poor, for inspiration? 

There's so much here about what it means to be Catholic, how all the little rules and by-laws and theology contradictions don't make any sense, I wish the story could have focused a bit more on that instead of just piling misery on top of misery. I know, to some extent that's just the way Ireland was at that time, leading up to the 2nd World War. But since I base my ratings on how much I enjoy each movie, honestly there's little here to be enjoyed, for that you have to have JOY and it's mostly absent here. I mean, I guess you can enjoy the fact that you didn't live in THAT place at THAT time and there may be some comfort there, but look around, we've got our own problems right now and we're looking for something to take our minds off of all that. 

I don't think I'm that far off base here, this film only brought in $13 million at the box office when released in 1999.  Best-selling book, for sure, but it's not what people wanted to see in the theaters to forget their troubles. 

Also starring Robert Carlyle (last seen in "T2 Trainspotting"), Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge, Kerry Condon (last heard in "Avengers: Endgame"), Ronnie Masterson, Pauline McLynn (last seen in "Johnny English Strikes Again"), Liam Carney (last seen in "The Boxer"), Eanna MacLiam (last seen in "My Left Foot"), Shane Murray-Corcoran (last seen in "King Arthur" (2004)), Devon Murray (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Peter Halpin, Frank Laverty (last seen in "Jimi: All Is by My Side"), Laurence Kinlan (ditto), James Mahon, Lucas Neville, Walter Mansfield, Johnny Murphy (last seen in "The Commitments"), Susan Fitzgerald, Brendan McNamara, Eileen Pollock (last seen in "Far and Away"), Eileen Colgan (ditto), Alvaro Lucchesi (last seen in "Ella Enchanted"), Gerard McSorley (last seen in "The Constant Gardener"), Eamonn Owens, Maggie McCarthy (last seen in "Leap Year"), Danny O'Carroll, Marcia DeBonis (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Martin Benson (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Alan Parker, Brendan O'Carroll, with the voice of Andrew Bennett and archive footage of James Cagney, Adolf Hitler (last seen in "Jojo Rabbit"), Boris Karloff (last seen in "Gilbert")

RATING: 4 out of 10 communion wafers

The Dresser (2015)

Year 13, Day 75 - 3/16/21 - Movie #3,778

BEFORE: Ian McKellen carries over from "All Is True", that's another actor who appears in "Cats", and still I'm refusing to watch it.  OK, passing instead of refusing, because maybe I will watch it one day, but mentally, I'm just not there.  Plus it's going to throw my count off if I watch it - I got everything lined up with St. Patrick's Day and Easter, and I don't want to mess with that. 

Today's Women's History milestones - Anna Atkins, considered to be the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographic images, was born on March 16, 1799.  Rosa Bonheur, French painter and sculptor, was born March 16, 1822.  Rebecca Cole, the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the U.S., was born March 16, 1846.  And First Lady Pat Nixon was born March 16, 1912.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Dresser" (1983) (Movie #3,530)

THE PLOT: A drama, based on a successful play, about an aging actor and his personal assistant. 

AFTER: There's very little point in reviewing the 2015 version of "The Dresser", because it's so damn similar to the 1983 version, which I watched almost a year ago.  Of course, they're both based on the same play, so why fix it if it's not broken?  But if you've seen the original with Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay, I'm not sure why you'd bother to watch the remake, except perhaps to watch Ian McKellan and Anthony Hopkins interact, like if you're a big fan of one of them, or both. That's the big selling point here, I suppose. 

For me it's a nice tie-in because I just watched "All Is True", which is about Shakespeare, and the Bard gets name-checked here quite a bit, as the famous actor (just called "Sir") is performing the lead in "King Lear", despite suffering from senility, dementia and perhaps irrelevance.  He constantly asks how the play begins, which is a bit worrisome since he's supposed to have the whole play memorized.  Once this play begins, he can't really stop to refresh his memory, now, can he?  But once his assistant reminds him how the play starts, it all starts to come back to him.  Mostly.  

Norman, the assistant, has to do many other tasks, besides dressing Sir, making sure he puts on the right make-up for the right play (when left unattended, Sir puts on the blackface required for "Othello", and it has to be removed so they can start again, properly).  Norman also runs the sound effects and wind machine for the storm scene, and then during the intermission he's got to cover up for Sir's wandering hands when visited by the young ingenue.  Of course, this is very timely because of all the sexual harassment charges made in the last few years, but this film is also timely because the NYC mayor just announced TODAY that "Shakespeare in the Park" performances will be returning this summer.  Another sign that we're making progress in fighting the pandemic, that some theater plans are being made - can Broadway shows be far behind?  

There are plenty of other behind-the-scenes problems to deal with - the actor playing the Fool is miscast, another won't assist with the storm sound effects, and Sir's wife (called Her Ladyship at times, but called "Pussy" by Sir) wants him to retire from the stage ideally right away, but she'll settle for the end of the week.  

There's particular unplanned relevance for me, watching such a film this week after spending three days at my parents' house.  They're both going to turn 80 this year, and like most people, they've been housebound for the last 12 months.  Not that they went too many places before the pandemic, but at least they had the option to do so. It's been tough on them, having to cancel Thanksgiving and Christmas and not physically going to church each Sunday, but watching it on TV instead.  My wife and I drove up to visit as soon as we were vaccinated, of course they got their shots in February, eligible in Massachusetts due to their age.  

For a while there, they were considering some kind of move to assisted living, but then of course nursing homes suddenly became not such a great place to be. So they hunkered down at home in their own bubble, my cousin also lives with them, so it's a great relief that all his comings and goings didn't bring COVID into their house.  We tried to help them out around the house, picking up take-out too - we're comfortable going back to restaurants, but they're not quite there yet.  And helping my mother with the newspaper crossword puzzle, it's plain that her mind is slowly starting to go - she kept returning to clues that she'd just read a minute ago, tried to move on when she didn't know the answer, I had to keep pointing out new clues to try, different parts of the puzzle she hadn't finished yet. And my father's had to take over her medication schedule, because she can't keep track of it all. Even worse, she couldn't remember if she'd seen all of the "Hobbit" movies, and those are her favorite recent films - I told her there were three "Hobbit" films, and she claimed there was only one.  

So now I'm worried, I had to come back to New York, as I can't stay and watch my parents and help them out 24/7.  They've got all their affairs in order, should they need to move into assisted living, it's already covered, but that would be a huge change for them, perhaps too abrupt for my mother to handle.  Plus, then what would happen to all the stuff they've acquired over the years?  That's probably going to be my problem to deal with, no matter what happens in the future.  But I'm at least glad that they're still comfortable together in their own house, for now.  I guess I'll worry about the future when it happens. 

As for this version of "The Dresser", meh, I'm not that excited about it, nothing really ticked me off either, it was just more of the same.  But I did need it for sure, for linking purposes - this gets me straight to where I need to be for an Ireland-based film for tomorrow. 

Also starring Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "RockNRolla"), Emily Watson (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Vanessa Kirby (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Fallout"), Sarah Lancashire, Edward Fox (last seen in "The Dresser" (1983)), Tom Brooke (last seen in "The Young Victoria"), Matthew Cottle, Ian Conningham, Helen Bradbury, John Ashton, Annalisa Rossi, Carl Sanderson

RATING: 5 out of 10 air raid sirens

All Is True

Year 13, Day 74 - 3/15/21 - Movie #3,777

BEFORE: Well, this chain presents me with something of a quandary - doing a chain based on Judi Dench is a fine idea, except that she was also in that horrible version of "Cats" that came out a year or two ago.  It's running on cable, and I've been avoiding recording it, because once I record it, then I'm bound to watch it, and I don't really want to.  Plus I'm sort of afraid to do so, I've heard so many bad things about it.  I already passed on it once, it could have fit in between the two Rebel Wilson movies I programmed last week.  I would like to take a pass on it again, but then I'm not facing my fear, so what's my justification?  I suppose I can fall back on the reasoning that I can't possibly fit "Cats" in this week, because adding a movie would throw me off my schedule, and then I won't hit my St. Patrick's Day film on time.  So let's go with that.  Plus, I'm visiting my parents in Massachusetts right now, I don't have access to my DVR to record it, or HBO Max via my home computer browser.  All very good excuses, I mean reasons, to pass on "Cats" again.  Someday, maybe, if it gets me out of a tough linking jam.  

Judi Dench carries over again from "Tulip Fever".  And in Women's History for March 15, it's the birthday of the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg (born in 1933), the second female U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and a champion of equal rights for women. Also born on March 15 were Isabella Anthony (Lady Gregory), co-founder of the Irish Literary Theater and Abbey Theater (1852) and Grace Chisholm Young, English mathematician (1868) and Marjorie Post, owner of General Foods and philanthropist (1887)

THE PLOT: A look at the final days in the life of renowned playwright William Shakespeare. 

AFTER: Today is also the Ides of March, the famous day where Julius Caesar was umm, removed from office, impeached quite violently by stabbing from multiple Roman senators.  And who wrote a very famous play about this incident?  William Shakespeare, of course.  Here I feel like I should probably read more about the WHY of Julius Caesar's assassination, but honestly, I don't have time here - I've got to focus on Shakespeare, not Caesar. 

This film takes a very curious tactic, starting to follow Billy Shakes immediately AFTER the big fire that destroyed the Globe Theater in 1613.  During a performance of Shakespeare's play "Henry VIII", a prop cannon misfired and ignited the thatching of the theater, which of course was all made of wood, so it burned to the ground. And old Will never wrote another play, so the movie (I suspect) conflates a few things and suggests that he was so distraught after watching the theater burn down that he gave up on writing and went home to his wife and kids, pretty much for the first time in years.  The truth is what's at stake here, because the theater was rebuilt the following year, but it is also true that "Henry VIII" was his last play.  ("All Is True" happens to be the working title for that same play, "Henry VIII".)

It's also true that the Bubonic Plague was ravaging the U.K. as late as 1609, so all London theaters were closed quite frequently for extended periods of time between 1603 to 1609 - so even before the fire, it wasn't a great time for public performances.  Shakespeare was possibly also disheartened with these frequent closures, perhaps the fire was the final straw, who's to say?  And hey, doesn't this situation seem very familiar, a plague closing down all public venues?  Sports arenas and movie theaters in the two biggest entertainment markets have been closed for a year, just starting to re-open now - I wonder what the time-frame will be for re-opening Broadway, that's probably the toughest challenge, as Broadway theaters have to be PACKED to turn a profit, and they're all accustomed to squeezing the most people possible into tiny seats that are too close together - and unlike a movie theater, a Broadway theater that's only half full can't financially support a major production. 

But back to Billy boy - he moves back home, re-connects with his wife and two adult daughters, and mourns the loss of his son, Hamnet, who died years ago. The rest of the family already made their peace with Hamnet's death, but Shakespeare's been so busy that he never took the time to do so. He decides to build a garden in honor of his departed son, then comes to realize how much work that will entail.  He also is shamed into going back to church, as it seems that his father was once kicked out of church for non-attendance. 

Plus he's got a few other fires to put out - his older daughter Susanna is accused of adultery, and Will meets with her accuser to threaten him with the story of a large black actor who's devoted to her and would do anything to protect her good name, even kill her accuser.  Great, so he uses racism and the threat of violence to protect his daughter's honor, but that doesn't really answer the question over whether she committed adultery in the first place. 

Meanwhile, Shakespeare's younger daughter, Judith, who was Hamnet's twin sister, refuses to get married because she's unhappy over the fact that women can't seem to play any role in 17th century society, other than wife and mother. She claims authorship of the poems that Hamnet wrote, saying that she dictated them because she was illiterate.  Umm, OK, but if she couldn't read or write, how did she know all those words in the poems?  She could rhyme words, but not write them down?  I'm not sure this makes sense, exactly. 

Then the family gets a visit from the Earl of Southampton, who served as Shakespeare's patron for many years.  Will wrote all of his 152 sonnets under his sponsorship, and this raises the question of whether he wrote these love sonnets FOR the Earl, or TO the Earl.  The film suggests the latter, which means that Shakespeare went both ways, loved women and men, and this may be shocking to some Shakespeare fans, and confirm the theories/fan-fictions of others. Considering all the controversies about who Shakespeare really was, or if there ever even WAS a William Shakespeare to begin with, and how little evidence the man left behind (outside of those plays and sonnets) perhaps this is a minor point, or who knows, maybe it's a big clue to who this man really was.  Or wasn't. 

We all know that William Shakespeare's will has that now-famous line about leaving his wife, Anne Hathaway (no, not that one) his "second-best bed". This film takes the time to sort of bend over backwards and explain how this wasn't really an insult to her, giving it some frame of reference and deeper meaning, when for all we know, there really wasn't one. 

There's also something of a mystery here, as Shakespeare has a little time to think, does some detective work and determines that perhaps his son Hamnet did NOT die from the plague.  OK, so then how DID he die?  And is any of THAT little plot point based on actual history, or is everything here just idle speculation?  And if so, what is served by speculating in THIS direction about Shakespeare's sexuality, his possible extra-marital relationships, and the exact manner of his son's death?  There are so many little threads here, I'm not really seeing how they could possibly come together to form the whole costume. 

Also starring Kenneth Branagh (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Ian McKellen (last seen in "The Good Liar"), Lydia Wilson (last seen in "Star Trek Beyond"), Kathryn Wilder, Jimmy Yuill (last seen in "The Raven"), Gerard Horan (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Harry Lister Smith (ditto), Kate Tydman (ditto), Hadley Fraser (last seen in "The Legend of Tarzan"), Alex Macqueen (last seen in "I Give It a Year"), Nonso Anozie (last seen in "RockNRolla"), John Dagleish (last seen in "The Gentlemen"), Jack Colgrave Hirst, Eleanor de Rohan, Clara Duczmal, Phil Dunster (also last seen in "The Good Liar"), Sean Foley, Sam Ellis, Matt Jessup, Michael Rouse (last seen in "1917"), Penny Ryder (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Darryl Clark. 

RATING: 3 out of 10 grave markers

Tulip Fever

Year 13, Day 73 - 3/14/21 - Movie #3,776       

BEFORE: This was the film that was originally supposed to be watched during the first week of February, only I had to drop "How to Build a Girl", and then this film along with it, in order to make the chain link up again - at one point Joanna Scanlan would have carried over from "How to Build a Girl", then Kevin McKidd would carry over to "Made of Honor", but look what happens when just ONE film from my plan isn't available. I'm just lucky I didn't have to scuttle the whole plan and re-work February, that has happened before - OK, so it was half of February, that one time, but you know what I mean.  And it's also lucky there was so much redundancy in February's casts that I didn't lose more than one film, and that "Tulip Fever" was easily re-scheduled for mid-March.  

Judi Dench carries over from "Victoria & Abdul". Today in Women's history, March 14, 1833 was the birthday of Lucy Hobbs Taylor, the first woman to graduate from dental school.  And on March 14, 1866, Emily Murphy was born - she was a Canadian women's rights activist and the first female magistrate in Canada. Also it's the birthday of photographer Diane Arbus (born in 1923) and Heidi Hammel, astronomer who studied Neptune, Uranus and Jupiter with the Hubble telescope (born in 1960), also Simone Biles, the most decorated American gymnast, born in 1997.

THE PLOT: An artists falls for a young married woman while he's commissioned to paint her portrait during the tulip mania of 17th century Amsterdam. 

AFTER: My European tour continues - this one's set in the Netherlands, where the culture revoloved prominently around shipping, portrait painting, and an national obsession with tulips.  Sounds about right. Oh, and prostitution - except for legal weed. you may find that not much has changed in Amsterdam in 400 years. But this is really a story where small decisions have large consequences, and situations tend to spiral out of control as a result.  

It begins when Sophia, an orphaned woma,n agrees to become the wife of a wealthy merchant - Cornelis Sandvoort, the king of imported spices, like peppercorns - in exchange for her sisters' passage to the New World, probably New Amsterdam (now New York).  She doesn't love the merchant, which may have something to do with her being unable to bear children for him - it's either a mental thing or perhaps the limited frequency of their sexual interactions has something to do with it.  

At the same time, her maid, Maria, is in love with Willem, the local fishmonger. Cornelis wonders why he has to eat fish for dinner every night, and it's because Willem is always there making deliveries to the maid, if you know what I mean.  Willem also has a side hustle, he's trading tulip bulbs in the underground auction, in order to raise money to marry Maria and start a family.  But after his big transaction, a female thief steals his money, and when he accuses her, he loses a bar fight and gets drafted into the Navy, against his will. 

At the same time, Cornelis hires an up-and-coming artist to paint a portrait of him and Sophia, his second wife. (His first wife died in childbirth, along with the baby.) Let's see, older husband, young wife, young hot male artist hired to hang around and paint the beautiful wife, what could possibly go wrong?  Sophia finally finds love, only it comes after she's been married to the peppercorn king.  Suddenly Sophia's interested in art, and the artist is very interested in her. 

At the same time, Maria learns that she's pregnant, only it seems that Willem has abandoned her.  And Sophia lands on a brilliant plan, to pass Maria's baby off as her own, with the help of a shady doctor and the fact that her husband, like most 17th century men, didn't really understand pregnancy and all the things that come along with it. They just have to hide Maria's pregnancy, keep Cornelis away from the birth, hand the baby over to Cornelis as if it's his own child, and what could be easier than that?  There are even more unlikely parts of the plan, but that's the basic gist of it. 

At the same time, Jan, the young painter, gets himself into the fancy tulip-trading trade, along with his screw-up assistant, Gerrit. He also needs to raise money, so that he can elope with Sophia, after the baby-swap swindle goes down.  But this means he's got to get help from these tulip-breeding nuns, who just happen to have the rare bulbs that Willem was trying to sell before he got Shanghaied.  Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch. Really, the whole plot is quite outrageous and nearly-impossible, which might explain why this film was completed in 2014 but not released until 2017.  It seems that many attempts were made to re-edit the film to make it more coherent.  But then again, maybe the collapse of the Weinstein Company due to allegations against Harvey Weinstein had something to do with the delays, too.

Also starring Alicia Vikander (last seen in "Seventh Son"), Dane DeHaan (last seen in "The Kid"), Christoph Waltz (last seen in "The Legend of Tarzan"), Jack O'Connell (last seen in "Money Monster"), Holliday Grainger (last seen in "The Finest Hours"), Zach Galifianakis (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Matthew Morrison (last seen in "Playing It Cool"), Cara Delevingne (last seen in "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets"), Joanna Scanlan (last seen in "Notes on a Scandal"), Tom Hollander (last seen in "Bird Box"), Cressida Bonas, Kevin McKidd (last seen in "Made of Honor"), Douglas Hodge (last seen in "Gemini Man"), Alexandra Gilbreath, Sebastian Armesto (last seen in "Bright Star"), Michael Nardone, Michael Smiley (last seen in "Birthmarked"), Johnny Vegas (last heard in "Early Man"), Simon Meacock (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), David Harewood (last seen in "Third Person"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 bidding paddles