21 Bridges

Year 13, Day 100 - 4/10/21 - Movie #3,804

BEFORE: Chadwick Boseman carries over from "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", and unfortunately this can only be a three-film tribute to the late actor.  That's all the films I have, unless I want to go back and find some obscure movie he was in before his breakout role as Jackie Robinson in "42".  Before that he'd made the rounds doing TV work, small roles on "ER" or "Law & Order", but most every actor goes through that.  I've already seen him as James Brown in "Get on Up" and as Thurgood Marshall in "Marshall", and he could have made more appearances as Black Panther if his time hadn't been cut so short, so unless I watch "Draft Day" (and why would I?) this is probably the end of the road. Working with Spike Lee and appearing in an August Wilson work were apparently his bucket list items, so it's good that he got to cross those items off.  Even after his cancer diagnosis, he was known for doing charity work, for the Boys & Girls Club of Harlem, the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and large donations of PPE to hospitals at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He's already got the Golden Globe for "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom", now we'll find out in two weeks if he gets a posthumous Oscar, too.  

Speaking of Oscars, here are tomorrow's Oscar-nominated films on TCM for Sunday, April 11, which is Day 11 of "31 Days of Oscar": 

7:30 am "I Vitelloni" (1953)

9:30 am "I Want to Live!" (1958)

11:45 am "I Want You" (1951)

1:30 pm "Ice Castles" (1978)

3:30 pm "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955)

5:45 pm "Imitation of Life" (1959)

8:00 pm "In Cold Blood" (1967) - SEEN IT

10:30 pm "In the Heat of the Night" (1967) - SEEN IT

12:30 pm "Inherit the Wind" (1960) - SEEN IT

2:45 am "Inside Daisy Clover" (1965) - SEEN IT

5:00 am "Interiors" (1978) - SEEN IT

Hmm, it seems somebody at TCM didn't get the memo about the Woody Allen boycott, because they're running "Interiors" - yet "Annie Hall" and "Hannah and Her Sisters" were noticeably absent from the countdown, so who knows.  They probably have to put a mix together based on which films they have the rights to, and then figure out how to get the most popular classics on during prime time, and there are probably other factors I'm not aware of.  But TCM and I are both programming films on racial topics, I've never seen "Imitation of Life", but I know it's about an African-American widow with a mixed-race daughter.  And "In the Heat of the Night" is about a black police detective investigating a murder in a racially hostile town.  It's not the film that Sidney Poitier won his Oscar for, but I'm still taking this as a good omen for Boseman. 

Anyway, I've got a little late-weekend rally coming, with the last 5 Sunday films seen, but 5 seen out of 11 is basically a push, so with 57 seen out of 124, I'm still holding at 46%. 

THE PLOT: An embattled NYPD detective is thrust into a citywide manhunt for a pair of cop killers after uncovering a massive and unexpected conspiracy.  

AFTER: There are really two stories being told here, and you might think that two for the price of one is a pretty good deal.  But I was more interested in the first story, where two cop-killers are on the loose in New York City, and the NYPD has to authorize a lockdown of the city by closing the 21 bridges (and tunnels...) leading out of Manhattan, and then narrow down the search by neighborhoods until they're found.  Oh, and there's a ticking time clock, because those bridges need to be opened again in time for the morning commute.  That's an interesting angle for a story - but the precinct-wide corruption that's accidentally exposed here, I found that to be a lot less compelling.  

There is probably corruption and definitely some injustice within the police, but this story is kind of asking me to be disappointed in the cops for the wrong reasons.  How could an entire precinct be involved in something like this, without anyone else finding out about it?  Surely people must have transferred in and out of the department over the years, and word would have spread.  Or perhaps if their scheme was working well then nobody would have ever transferred out, but then THAT would have been noticed, by IAB or some other agency.  Gee, the 85th precinct had no transfers last year, and every single officer bought a new house and a new car.  That probably means something, right?   

The lead character here has a track record of catching cop-killers (or is he a cop-killer-killer?) who JUST got out of an IAB investigation into his record.  (NP: Would he be back on duty so quickly after this investigation?)  So he's called into service when 7 cops are killed after checking out a robbery at a wine store. (NP: Why is he put in charge, when he doesn't outrank the captain of the precinct?)  It seems there was a drug theft gone bad, as the two thieves found 10 times the amount of coke they were expecting to steal.  (NP: How is this a problem?  Sounds like a success to me...)

But too many drugs means too much money, and the thieves then need help turning the drugs into money, and turning the money into something else.  Maybe they should have just left town ASAP, and just driven to Montana or something, because sticking around in town to broker a better deal gives the NYPD time to lock down the city.  Jeez, I feel like there's something to this story, but it's not quite perfect.  It takes years to develop, shoot and edit a movie, during which time we all encountered a real lockdown of NYC (and everywhere else) but for different reasons, and we all became aware of problems within the police ranks, but also for different reasons.  Calls to defund the police came because of deep-seated racial intolerance that led to civilian deaths, and not for the reasons depicted here.  

A few tweaks here and there, and this film could have been a prescient set of home runs - like if the black detective had to run his investigation but encountered problems from an all-white precinct, or if both thieves here were black, and killed by officers, anything along those lines could have made this feel more relevant, but it is what it is, this is the story we're presented with. So you can probably expect the good guys to win and the bad guys to die, and there are an awful lot more of the latter here.  What begins as very complicated finishes up just a bit too simply.  

Also starring Sienna Miller (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), J.K. Simmons (last heard in "Klaus"), Stephan James (last seen in "Selma"), Taylor Kitsch (last seen in "Only the Brave"), Keith David (last seen in "All About Steve"), Alexander Siddig (last seen in "The Fifth Estate"), Louis Cancelmi (last seen in "The Irishman"), Victoria Cartagena, Gary Carr, Morocco Omari, Chris Ghaffari (last seen in "The Report"), Darren Lipari, Adriane Lenox (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Jamie Neumann, Obi Abili, Andy Truschinski, Sarah Ellen Stephens, Dale Pavinski, Christian Isaiah, with a cameo from Pat Kiernan. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 traffic cameras

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

Year 13, Day 99 - 4/9/21 - Movie #3,803

BEFORE: Chadwick Boseman carries over from "Da 5 Bloods", and I go from a film nominated for 1 Oscar to one that's nominated for FIVE Oscars this year.  See, Spike, that's what can happen when you don't publicly complain about your last film not winning.  "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" is nominated for Best Actor (Chadwick Boseman), Best Actress (Viola Davis), plus Production Design, Best Costume Design, and Best Make-Up and Hairstyling.  How many will it win?  I'll be able to make a better guess after I watch it...

There are two other nominated films that fit in with my theme, Black History (April/May edition) that I don't think I'll be able to get to - one is "The United States vs. Billie Holiday", nominated for 1 Oscar, and "Judas and the Black Messiah", nominated for 6 Oscars.  That last one is still in theaters, but also aired on HBO Max in February, I think - only I didn't know that was just for a limited time, and I also didn't know I'd be doing this as a theme.  Neither film seems like something I could link to this month (though Robert Longstreet from "Judas and the Black Messiah" was also in "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", and Jonathan Higgins from "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" was also in "The Greatest Game Ever Played", so maybe...). Ah, but in that direction, madness lies.  I can't keep second-guessing my process, the only thing to do is put both films on the list, and look for future linking opportunities.  Maybe I'll focus on Black History again next April if it goes well this time around...

Let's check the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" schedule for tomorrow, Saturday, April 10, then we can get into it:

6:45 am "Hide Out" (1934)

8:30 am "High Society" (1956) - SEEN IT

10:30 am "Hold Back the Dawn" (1941)

12:45 pm "Honeysuckle Rose" (1980)

3:00 pm "Hope and Glory" (1987)

5:00 pm "How the West Was Won" (1962)

8:00 pm "Hud" (1963)

10:00 pm "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939)

12:15 am "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" (1932)

2:00 am "I Married a Witch" (1942)

3:30 am "I Never Sang for My Father" (1970)

5:15 am "I Remember Mama" (1948)

Ugh, I knew this was coming, I've only seen 1 out of 12 in tomorrow's line-up - and even that is just the remake of "The Philadelphia Story".  I meant to watch "How the West Was Won" before, just never got around to it - but as a Best Picture nominee, I really should make the time for it one day, if things ever slow down around here.  Same goes for "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang", I meant to watch it but I think maybe opted for "The Defiant Ones" instead.  "Hope and Glory" is one of just three Best Picture Nominees from the 1980's that I haven't seen, along with "A Soldier's Story" and "The Color Purple", but I'm finally going to watch that last one at the end of this month. (From the 1990's nominees, I'm only missing two, "Il Postino" and "Secrets & Lies".)  But my "31 Days of Oscar" record now drops to 52 seen out of 113, or 46%.

THE PLOT: During a recording session, tensions rise between Ma Rainey, her ambitious horn player and the white management determined to control the uncontrollable "Mother of the Blues". 

AFTER: My record of seeing all the Oscar nominees from the years 2000-2009 is pretty damn good, the only Best Picture nominee from that decade that I haven't seen is "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", so I should probably address that.  Things in the next decade got more difficult, because in 2009 they opened up the field to MORE than five nominees in the Best Picture category - still, between the years 2010-2019, the only Best Picture nominees that I haven't seen are 2012's "Amour" and 2018's "Roma" and "Bohemian Rhapsody".  That last one is on my DVR, I just haven't been able to link to it, so soon there will be only TWO nominees from the 2010's that I haven't seen.  

2020, however, is another story.  It looks like the only Best Picture nominee that I'll be able to work in will be "The Trial of the Chicago 7", and I'm kind of OK with that.  There are still 10 Best Picture WINNERS that I haven't seen, which range from 1928 to 1952, but maybe one day I can get there, just not under the current selection system.  Again, one day, if things ever quiet down, I'd love to just knock out those 10 films, just to say I've seen every year's Best Picture.  But watching "Wings", "Cimarron" and "The Greatest Show on Earth" could be a bit of a slog.  Someday, maybe.  This year I guess I'll watch one Best Picture nominee and hope for the best.  

"Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" is NOT nominated for Best Picture - now I kind of understand why.  First off, there hasn't been a Best Picture nominee with an ass joke in the title since, I don't know, "Forrest Rump"?  "Terms of En-rear-ment"?  "American Booty"?  "Ass-ablanca"?  Sorry, I couldn't resist. I get that "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" is the name of the play this is based on, and the play is named after a song that Ma Rainey recorded, which allegedly refers to a dance called the "Black Bottom", but come on, she's really singing about her ass, right?  It's a double entendre, a phrase with two meanings, one of them illicit.  

A lot of those early soul songs - which heavily influenced rock and roll three decades later, had heavy but well-disguised sexual content.  I remember episodes of the Dr. Demento show that tried to highlight songs from the 30's that were more scandalous than some people realized at the time.  The very phrase "rock and roll" came from songs that were really about sex, like "My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll", sung by Trixie Smith.  Bessie Smith recorded the song "I Need a Little Sugar for My Bowl" in 1931, then there was Bo Carter's "Banana in Your Fruitbasket", Clara Smith's "It's Tight Like That", and Blind Boy Fuller's "Sweet Honey Hole".

One vaudeville song from two black performers, Butter Beans & Susie, was called "I Want a Hot Dog for My Roll", and it's not too hard to see what that female singer might really have been looking for.  

(As blues evolved into rock and roll, the obscene lyrics sort of carried over.  If you have a moment, look up the original lyrics for "Tutti Frutti", not the ones that eventually made it to the recording that Little Richard made.  Umm, adults only, please...  See also "Long Tall Sally", "Willie and the Hand Jive", "My Ding-a-Ling" and "Big Ten Inch Record".)

But we're here tonight to talk about the movie, not just salacious records.  Will Chadwick Boseman win an Oscar for this?  Hmm, possibly, he did make the savvy career move of dying before the film was released, and that sure helped Heath Ledger out.  Also Peter Finch for "Network".  This film does (eventually) give him some great soliloquies, and that could help, too.  But I really didn't like how the film GOT to them, it really spent the whole first half hour (1/3 of the film!) wasting time.  After a stage performance of Ma Rainey singing "Deep Moaning Blues", the film then focuses on the recording of the titular song.  The problem is that the story then becomes about the band setting up and rehearsing, or failing to rehearse, or debating about which version they're going to record, also who's really in charge of the rehearsal, and this goes around and around for 30 freakin' minutes, with NOTHING being resolved.  Seriously, around and around, while we also see Ma Rainey leaving her hotel and driving to the studio.  So, basically, the first half-hour of the film is a total waste, nothing happens, it doesn't even need to be there.

Unfortunately, the pattern continues for most of the rest of the film.  There's a delay because the studio manager forgot to arrange to have a cold bottle of Coke for Ma.  There's another delay when the band members realize that Ma wants her nephew to introduce the song on the record, and he's got a bad stutter.  Then there's a problem with the microphone.  Delays, delays, delays.  Really, I think there's only ten minutes of story in this 90-minute film, and the rest is just stalling.  This is clearly not how you get a Best Picture nomination, and as proof, the film didn't get one. 

Sure, of course it's about the struggle of a powerful black recording artist, who finds herself at odds with her white manager, and also the white man in charge of the recording studio.  But did they have to waste so much of my time to tell this story this way?  Then after about 72 takes of the song, they finally get a recording that they can work with, but then everything falls to pieces as Levee, the trumpeter, pushes his weight around just a little too hard and gets fired on the spot.  Then he's forced to sell his songs for nearly nothing to the studio manager, who will eventually record them with white musicians years later, and probably never pay the black songwriter any royalties or even credit him on the album.  And then things sort of get even worse from there, and the recording session ends.  

This is based on a play by August Wilson, and if I'd paid money to see this play, where nearly nothing happens, man, I'd be really cheesed off, probably demand a refund.  I suppose it's fine to watch the film on Netflix, because you're not really paying by the film, so who cares?  Still, almost entirely a grand waste of time.  If there was a point made, beyond the fact that it was tough to be a black musician in the 1920's, then I must have missed it. 

Some specific things just plain didn't work - the band leader always started the band with "One, Two, You Know What to Do..."  Every. Single. Time.  If any band leader did that in real life, the other people in the band would rise up and smack him, like on their second day together.  And then, NITPICK POINT, after this lead-in, which is what dictates the tempo for the upcoming song, Levee complains that the other band members are playing at the wrong tempo.  Well, why didn't he realize from the lead-in that the tempo was wrong, why did he only realize it a few bars into the song?  Makes no sense. 

I do, however, marvel at the magic and mystery of making vinyl records - I think I've written about this at length in the past.  In the 1920's, how, exactly, did sound waves cut a groove into a master vinyl record in a way that somehow captured or portrayed that sound in the groove, so that when a similar needle would be run through a copy of that record, the shape of that groove would transmit similar sound waves through that needle, and then out into a speaker, which would then cause a sound similar to the one made by the musicians in the recording studio?  I've researched this many times, and I still don't understand it.  It's magic, or sorcery, maybe voodoo - Edison invented it, of course, but with wax cylinders at first.  How the hell did someone figure out that if you cut a groove into a wax cylinder, and that cutting device was somehow controlled by the sounds from a microphone, that the groove would physically reproduce the sound later, when you run a needle through it?  A camera, sure, I understand how that functions, light comes through a small hole into a tiny black box with a light-sensitive film in it, and the light changes chemicals on the film, and later other chemicals are used to turn that into a negative, and from the negative you can make a positive, but HOW THE HELL DO RECORDS WORK?

Also starring Viola Davis (last seen in "State of Play"), Glynn Turman (last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Colman Domingo (last seen in "Lucy in the Sky"), Michael Potts, Jonny Coyne (last seen in "Nightcrawler"), Taylour Paige (last seen in "White Boy Rick"), Jeremy Shamos (last seen in "Bad Education"), Dusan Brown (last seen in "42"), Joshua Harto (last seen in "Gold"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 signed release forms

Da 5 Bloods

Year 13, Day 98 - 4/8/21 - Movie #3,802

BEFORE: Veronica Ngo carries over from "The Old Guard", and in honor of Clarke Peters' birthday, I'll start watching this film late on April 7, instead of April 8.  You might have noticed that right after Easter, my film choices became more racially diverse - no, I'm not trying for a grant, it's somewhat random, based on my linking process, but I do support the trend in making major motion pictures, and organizations such as the Oscars and the Golden Globes less white overall. Movies and the companies that make them and promote them should reflect the audience, which means that Spike Lee should be set for a while.  For me personally, I never have time in February to really pay homage to Black History Month, because I'm always caught up in romances.  So here at the Movie Year, it looks like Black History Month begins just after Easter, and continues through to Mother's Day.  I hope this isn't too presumptuous of me to move it, but I figure that's better in the end than not paying any homage at all.  

I'll start with a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, a few of my upcoming political documentaries are going to focus on race, I'm finally going to watch "The Color Purple" and "Malcolm X", plus then there's a film about Harriet Tubman and a 5-film chain with Samuel L. Jackson.  I know it's not enough, but I'm doing what I can do. 

Speaking of the Oscars, here's a look at tomorrow's TCM line-up, Friday April 9's films from their "31 Days of Oscars" schedule:
6:15 am "Hallelujah" (1929)

8:00 am "The Hanging Tree" (1959)

10:00 am "Hangmen Also Die" (1943)

12:30 pm "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) - SEEN IT

2:00 pm "Harvey" (1950) - SEEN IT 

4:00 pm "The Harvey Girls" (1946)

5:45 pm "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" (1968)

8:00 pm "The Heiress" (1949)

10:15 pm "Hell's Angels" (1930)

12:45 am "Henry V" (1944) - SEEN IT

3:15 am "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941)

5:00 am "Here Comes the Navy" (1934)

Just 3 seen out of 12 brings me to 51 seen out of 101, which is unfortunately just 50.4% - I'm slipping for sure.  But here's where I tie it all together - "Da 5 Bloods" is nominated for an Oscar this year, for Best Original Score. (They changed the name of this category, but come on...)  This might be the first film I'm watching that's currently nominated, I'll have to check on that. (No, it's not, "Onward" is nominated for Best Animated Feature, and "Emma" for Best Costume Design and Best Makeup & Hair.  Plus "The One and Only Ivan" got a nom for Visual Effects.) But more nominated films are on the way, like "Soul", "The Trial of the Chicago 7", "Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm", "One Night in Miami", and tomorrow's film. 

THE PLOT: Four African-American veterans battle the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam seeking the remains of their fallen squad leader and the gold fortune he helped them hide. 

AFTER: It's time once again to discuss my ongoing love/hate relationship with Spike Lee...this started back in college, since he attended NYU about 3 or 4 years before I did, and when I was in film school there, the instructors were still raving about him and his college thesis film, "Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop, We Cut Heads". It's not a great film, by any measure, but I guess it showed enough promise that all the professors had a vision of who he would become.  To be fair, it sure beat MY thesis film, because I didn't have one - the school required that I submit a proposal for one at the start of my senior year, but since I had enough credits to graduate at the end of my junior year, I just got out a year early, and I skirted around the whole thesis film.  Am I proud of this?  Yes and no, I'm proud of saving my parents a year's tuition, I'm proud of having no college loans to repay, and I'm proud of getting to work in the industry a year earlier, but I do feel a little bad about skirting the rules, and having no thesis film to show for my efforts.  But by that time I'd already realized I wasn't cut out to be a film director, and had turned my sights toward producing and other tasks.  Point to Spike Lee, he stuck to his guns, he made a thesis film, and people regarded that film as "good", it's just that I didn't.  

I followed his career after that, when I could - "Do the Right Thing" is a very powerful film, but him inserting himself into every movie as a character, and an annoying character at that - well, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah to be a director, and it takes double that to direct a film AND star in it, and triple that to become an "auteur" with a singular style, and a voice and a message.  So the guy's got cojones, but still there was always something about the way he made movies that rubbed me the wrong way.  I did like "Inside Man", though, and I was really rooting for "BlacKkKlansman". I rated that last a "5", but that may have had a lot to do with the way he complained publicly about losing the Best Picture Oscar to "Green Book". This just isn't DONE with the Oscars, if you or your film is lucky enough to get a nomination, treat that alone as a win, because if you complain about not winning, forget any future nominations, Spike.  "Da 5 Bloods" is nominated for an Oscar, but just for Best Original Score, so that's my point.  

There ARE a few Spike Lee films out there that I haven't seen - like "Oldboy", "Red Hook Summer", "Chi-Raq" and "Da Sweet Blood of Jesus".  I didn't realize "Miracle at St. Anna" was his, too - I may consider adding these at some point in the future, but right now, Jeez, I'm swamped, sorry, Spike. Give me a call, admit that your thesis film wasn't all that great, and I'll add these right to my list. Look, I finally got to those Bergman films, so anything's possible - and I've got "Malcolm X" in my line-up for May.  That's the best I can offer right now.  

I think the other thing that bothers me is that he's always gotta push the issue, he's always got to make things about race, and he's always got to have people using the "N" word and other racial epithets as part of the film.  With all the Asian people saying the "N" word here, and all the African-American characters using derogatory terms for Asians, it feels like Spike hasn't really progressed all that far, in essence he's just re-making those "talk to the camera" moments in "Do the Right Thing", and that was released over 30 years ago!  OK, so he's been fighting racism in his own way all this time, but does he HAVE to keep resorting to all the racial epithets?  Somehow I don't feel like he's helping, he's just beating the same drum, and it's a confrontational drum.  Imagine if your neighbor plays very loud music every night, and it drives you mad, plus keeps you from falling asleep, and then when you knock on his door and complained about the music, instead of offering to turn the music down, he just keeps asserting his right to play music loudly, while claiming that YOU don't have the right to do the same, and he asks YOU to be more quiet.  That, to me, is what Spike Lee gets away with.  

But let me try to narrow the focus down to "Da 5 Bloods" (and the fact that he uses "Da" instead of "The" in the title also pisses me off, but for a different reason).  The film is about 4 Vietnam veterans who return to find the body of their commanding officer, and a buried cache of gold bars.  The first part seems quite noble, the second of course seems more mercenary.  Yes, of course, their mission can be both things, but also, umm, which one is it?  You hear from time to time about people looking for a lost comrade's body in Vietnam, and the first thing I usually think is, "Really?  Wasn't that like 50 years ago?  What makes you think you're going to be able to find a BODY after all this time?"  Factor in decomposition, jungle predators and the simple fact that the body hasn't been found YET, and the whole prospect sounds a bit far-fetched.  OK, but you never know, and maybe it's more about the people who are still living and looking for some closure, instead of finding remains that you can say definitely belong to THAT individual.  

But come on, it's really about the gold, isn't it?  If you predicted that this film would eventually follow the essential plot points of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", you'd be right.  One Vietnamese soldier even quotes the line about not needing any "stinking badges", just to drive that point home and be blatantly obvious about it.  These 4 men - no, wait, now it's 5 men - end up having very different ideas on what should be done with the money, if they can locate it.  (If they find the body, the plan is simple, their commander, "Stormin' Norman" is already approved for burial in Arlington Cemetery.)  But should they just split the money, donate the money to a good cause, use it for reparations, or something else?  

Well, without giving too much away, things get more complicated, as they tend to do.  Other people get involved, the soldiers' contact in Vietnam puts them in touch with a guide, and a fence for the gold, but then there are the Vietnamese soldiers, and also three people who work with an organization that locates and disarms land mines.  By the end, there are so many interested parties that the film started to remind me (just a bit) of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" - only without the comedic elements.  

There are a number of salient points to be made, I'll admit - such as black men serving in World War 2, then Korea, then Vietnam, and being told each time that it was to their benefit to do so, that they'd be given their due.  But then how come during the Vietnam Era African-Americans made up 11% of the U.S. population, but over 23% of the combat troops and nearly 25% of the causalties?  That sure seems unfair - but is it enough to justify repatriating a big box of gold bars?  That, of course, is the argument at hand.  It's clear that more white American were able to get deferments, avoiding the draft by entering college, serving in ROTC or the National Guard, or just by being well-connected to those in charge. Donald Trump here is called "President Bone Spurs", which is dead on - remember this is how he avoided serving, but years later he couldn't even remember which foot the fake bone spurs were allegedly in?  Another point for Spike Lee - hey, maybe Spike and I can finally agree on something, we both hate Trump. 

So why is there one black main character here who supports Trump?  What purpose does that serve?  His comrades joke about that one speech where Trump called out his "African-American", as if he only had one black supporter.  I guess we all have to acknowledge that Trump did manage to appeal to SOME black Americans, though I can't imagine why.  There are Black Republicans, though they may be as rare as albino elephants - ah, but the black Trump supporter here is not only old and stubborn, but also going through dementia or Alzheimer's, so perhaps that's the point being made.  Only a black man losing his mind would support Trump, OK, that tracks.  Yet another point for Spike. 

There's a technique used here, though, that I'm not sure I agree with.  During the flashbacks (which were shot or are just screened in a different ratio - I understand why, because it becomes part of the process through which we identify the flashback material) the younger soldier characters are played by the same actors, and they still look just as old, even when they're young.  This doesn't really work for me, even taking into account that memories are subjective, and the flashbacks are seen through the P.O.V. of the older men, so its OK that they look old when they're supposed to be young.  Umm, no, point of order, this is not really OK.  Not when there are three fairly easy standard work-arounds, namely 1) use make-up and hair coloring to make the same actors look younger or 2) use special effects to make them look younger, like they did with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall in "Coming 2 America", or 3) cast different actors who look very much like the young versions of the older actors.  Any or all of these would have worked better than doing nothing, which seems a lot like Spike shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Eh, it's good enough, maybe nobody will notice.  And even if they do, who cares, I'm Spike Lee and I can do whatever I want."

The film is a bit too long, at 2 1/2 hours - I'm guessing some trimming could have been made somewhere.  And the story works, as long as you take into account that Spike Lee's going to be beating on that same drum that he always beats on, and he also does so very loudly, and he doesn't care if you're trying to get to sleep next door. 

Also starring Delroy Lindo (last seen in "The Core"), Jonathan Majors (last seen in "Captive State"), Clarke Peters (last seen in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"), Norm Lewis (last heard in "Just Mercy"), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (last seen in "CHIPS"), Chadwick Boseman (last seen in "Marshall"), Johnny Tri Nguyen, Melanie Thierry (last seen in "The Zero Theorem"), Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Jasper Paakkonen (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Jean Reno (last seen in "Flyboys"), Le Y Lan, Nguyen Ngoc Lam, Sandy Huong Pham, Hawk Newsome, with archive footage of Muhammad Ali (last seen in "Hitsville: The Making of Motown"), Neil Armstrong (last seen in "Apollo 11"), Harry Belafonte (also last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davis, Aretha Franklin (last seen in "Muscle Shoals"), Lyndon Johnson (last seen in "Steal This Movie"), Martin Luther King (ditto),, Richard Nixon (ditto), Malcolm X (last seen in "13th"), Ho Chi Minh, Edwin Moses, Bobby Seale (last seen in "The U.S. vis John Lennon"), Donald Trump (last seen in "Fyre Fraud").

RATING: 5 out of 10 PTSD triggers

The Old Guard

Year 13, Day 97 - 4/7/21 - Movie #3,801

BEFORE: KiKi Layne carries over from "Coming 2 America", and passing another "century mark" means it's time for a bit of a check-in, as this means that Movie Year 13 is already 1/3 over. I've come so far since January 1, but there's still a long way to go - and I've only got my chain figured out up until Mother's Day, what happens after that, I have no idea.  It's too early to put my October chain together, so I sure can't figure out where it needs to start, so my next best plan is just to pick the next holiday, maybe Memorial Day, and set a target of something appropriate so I can finish putting May's schedule together.  

I've got a job interview tomorrow, something part-time at a retail store, right now I don't know if I'll get it or they're just wasting my time, but it's the first contact I've had from any of the employers I targeted - you know, movie theaters, museums, breweries, ice-cream shops, that sort of thing.  I'll take something part-time for the summer and see how that goes, something nights and/or weekends that I can do around my daytime job, so I can afford to keep my daytime job.  Who knows, maybe I'll burn out and not be able to handle a physical job, since my muscles have pretty much atrophied during the pandemic.  (Who am I kidding, it's not like I ever exercised before lockdown...)  If nothing else, maybe I can get out of the house more and meet some new people.  What good is being vaccinated if I don't do that?  It's taking so long for everyone else to get their shots that even though my wife and I can travel, there's really no place to go just yet.  But things are improving quickly, in another two months it could be a whole different story - but by then I might be too busy to travel.  It's much easier to take time off when you're not working two part-time, I'll bet - but we'll see.  

In the meantime, there are still movies that need to be watched - and here's TCM's schedule for tomorrow, Thursday, April 8, day 8 of "31 Days of Oscar": 

8:15 am "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936) 

11:15 am "Green Dolphin Street" (1947)

1:45 pm "The Green Years" (1946)

4:00 pm "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967) - SEEN IT

6:00 pm "Gunga Din" (1939)

8:00 pm "The Guns of Navarone" (1961) - SEEN IT

10:45 pm "A Guy Named Joe" (1943)

1:00 am "Guys and Dolls" (1955) - SEEN IT

3:45 am "Gypsy" (1962) - SEEN IT

Given that line-up, 4 seen out of 9 isn't too bad, but that takes me down just a bit from 55% seen to 54%.  And if you read the titles in order, it looks like Gunga Din is the one who's coming to dinner.  Or at least that was somebody's guess...I think a guy named Joe, Gypsy Rose Lee and a few guys and dolls might also be coming to dinner.  Is it just me? 

THE PLOT: A covert team of immortal mercenaries is suddenly exposed and must not fight to keep their identities secret, just as an unexpected new member is discovered. 

AFTER: When it comes to superhero movies, I usually say there are two kinds, Marvel and DC.  But that's not completely true, there are really THREE kinds, Marvel, DC and everything else - that's anything based on a comic book that wasn't published by one of the big two, such as "Hellboy", "300" or "Men in Black", or IS published by them but somehow outside the MCU or the DCU, like "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".  I'm also aware of several comic-book TV series that are all the rage right now, like "The Boys" and "Umbrella Academy", but I just don't have time to watch them, I haven't even started "The Queen's Gambit" yet - I've been trying, OK?

"The Old Guard" is based on a series from Image Comics, a company that's been in third place in the market for so long that some readers have probably forgotten that it's still in business. Image is known for the "Spawn" and "Witchblade" comics, among others, but those are the only ones that have been successfully turned into movies so far, except I think for "Mystery Men".  Wait, I think "Wanted" was also based on one of their comics.  Anyway, I'm a 90% Marvel and 10% D.C. man myself, so I wouldn't know.  But it does seem like a good time to strike, while the iron is hot, and there's such a potential market for superhero films, at least from the Big Two.  Honestly, I'm a bit surprised that Netflix didn't try to turn this into a series instead of a movie, they try to turn everything into a series these days.  

Anyway, it's a great idea, to have a team full of heroes who heal quickly and can't die.  Hey, do you like Wolverine? Deadpool?  Imagine a whole team of Wolverines and Deadpools, even a Lady Wolverine!  Wait, Marvel tried that in the comics. Lady Deadpool, too.  (It's complicated...)  OK, so none of these soldiers have claws, they can just recover from any injury and not die.  And the regeneration time isn't that long, so they can usually come back to life JUST after their opponent has confirmed the kill, relaxed, holstered their weapon and turned around.  Trust me, it happens a few times in this film, and a few calculations will tell you that a soldier gets tired of looking after a dead body he just killed in exactly 71 seconds, and The Old Guard takes advantage of this - and this bit probably works a lot better in a movie than in a comic book, I'm guessing.

You might think this is a really cool super-power, but as Wolverine and Deadpool are fond of telling people in the comics, it really HURTS. There's nothing about rapid healing or frequent resurrection that counters the pain of all the injuries, apparently.  Plus there's also the pain of living for a very long time, and having to watch all the people that you care about grow old and die, while you don't. Sure, you can make new friends and form new families, but eventually you're going to end up alone again, and over time that's a heavy emotional burden.

But here's what didn't work for me here, the motivations of Copley, played by Chiwetel Ejiofor - his character is hard to read, sure, because first he pretends to be a certain type of person, and then it's revealed that he's not that person, but then, who is he?  For a long time he's the person who's trying to expose the Old Guard, then he's the guy trying to capture them, and his motivation here has something to do with his deceased wife.  Like, why should his wife die but the Old Guard gets to keep on living?  I can get behind this, to a degree.  But then it's revealed that he's ALSO the guy who's studied their actions over the centuries, and he understands that when they save a person, and that person then goes on to cure a disease, or save ten other people from a fire or something, that the Old Guard's actions have a cumulative positive effect, one that's grown exponentially over time.  Huh?  How can this character embody both things, both an appreciation for the work that the heroes do AND also be the guy trying to bring them down?  This just created a conflict, and it didn't make any sense.  Lex Luthor hates Superman, and always works to kill him or discredit him, it wouldn't make any sense for Luthor to admit that Superman does a lot of good work and saves a bunch of people every year. Right? 

It also took WAY too long for the group to find their new member, and explain to Nile how she is immortal.  Andy shot her IN THE HEAD, she died and came back to life, and she somehow still didn't believe it. Jeezus, what's it going to take?  Apparently an extended fight sequence and two more crippling injuries, is she dim or something? I'd like to think that if somebody killed me, and I healed up and came back to life that quick, I'd believe that person when they told me I was immortal. 

Beyond that, I just don't think enough HAPPENED in this film, they could have used the two hours a bit more efficiently and got more accomplished.  Still, it's a solid start, and I'll say the same thing I said about "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", there needs to be a sequel, right away.  Don't wait too long, because people have short memories these days, after three years they've moved on to another franchise and forgotten all about you.  I'm still waiting for that sequel to "TLOEG", and now Sean Connery's deceased, but they can just use different characters from famous literature, after all, that's what the comic book did in Volume 2.  But I guess Charlize Theron's booked up for "Atomic Blonde 2" and the second animated "Addams Family" film.  Time's a-wasting!

Also starring Charlize Theron (last heard in "The Addams Family"), Matthias Schoenaerts (last seen in "A Little Chaos"), Marwan Kenzari (last seen in "Aladdin" (2019)), Luca Marinelli, Chiwetel Ejiofor (last heard in "The Lion King"), Harry Melling (last seen in "The Lost City of Z"), Veronica Ngo (last seen in "Bright"), Anamaria Marinca (last seen in "Ghost in the Shell"), Joey Ansah (also last seen in "Aladdin"), Micheal Ward, Natacha Karam, Mette Towley (last seen in "Hustlers"), Shala Nyx, Andrei Zayats, Olivia Ross, Orlando Seale, Simon Chandler (last seen in "Mr. Turner"). 

RATING: 6 out of 10 bullet holes

Coming 2 America

Year 13, Day 96 - 4/6/21 - Movie #3,800

BEFORE: James Earl Jones carries over from "The Lion King" as I hit another century mark - I do try my best to make sure that at least every hundredth film is one of some import, but really, I just never know. This film was originally supposed to be released in theaters in August 2020, but of course the pandemic made that impossible.  The films of 2020 seemed to take one of two possible release paths, they either went to streaming platforms (with or without a small theatrical release), or the studios delayed release for a year, as with "Black Widow" and "Top Gun: Maverick".  Thanks to the change in Oscar qualification rules, it's impossible to say that all of the "good" films got shelved and the "less good" ones went to streaming, because some studios jumped at the chance to get their films streamed into homes and still remain eligible for awards. 

Umm, since "Coming 2 America" wasn't likely to win any Oscars, it's very possible that this one isn't great, so I'll just have to see.  It found a home on Amazon Prime, but let's acknowledge that the entire movie release process is a big mess right now, especially when you throw in HBO Max streaming first-run films WHILE they're in theaters - this would have been unimaginable a year ago, and what this holds for the future is anyone's guess.  Theaters are re-opening in NYC and L.A., but do people feel safe leaving their homes?  Will "Godzilla vs. Kong" draw them out, or will the middle class spend their money on streaming services instead?  

Such questions are a bit above my pay grade - let me pimp for Turner Classic Movies, instead.  Here's tomorrow's "31 Days of Oscar" line-up for Day 7, Wednesday, April 7:

7:00 am "Gandhi" (1982) - SEEN IT

10:15 am "Gaslight" (1944) - SEEN IT

12:15 pm "Giant" (1956) - SEEN IT

3:45 pm "Gigi" (1958) - SEEN IT

6:00 pm "The Goodbye Girl" (1977) - SEEN IT

8:00 pm "Goodbye Mr. Chips" (1939) 

10:15 pm "Grand Hotel" (1932) - SEEN IT

12:15 am "Grand Prix" (1966)

3:30 am "The Great Lie" (1941)

5:30 am "The Great Race" (1965) - SEEN IT

I got a pretty good run going here with the letter "G" - I've seen 7 out of 10. I have seen the remake of "Goodbye Mr. Chips" with Peter O'Toole, but I never watched the 1939 version.  But still, I'm up to 44 seen out of 80, which is 55%.  But my stats will probably take another dip over the coming weekend. 

THE PLOT: The African monarch Akeem learns he has a long-lost son in the U.S. and must return to meet this unexpected heir and build a relationship with him.  

AFTER: Yeah, so maybe I should have tried harder to line up "The Lion King" with big number 3,800.  It's not that this film is BAD - again, you can't really say that just because it went straight to streaming that it's terrible, I really did give it every chance here, but it's just so much of the same from the 1988 film.  Which I suppose is good news if you regard "Coming to America" as a comedy classic, there are tons of references to that film, plus they repeat entire sequences, and they only had to shoot a couple new scenes using that "de-aging" technology on Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall.  

The time is apparently right to return to the fictional African nation of Zamunda, because in some ways, it's just Wakanda without all the fancy technology.  We're supposed to believe that a modern country can, despite TV and the internet, somehow still be out of touch with modern sensibilities in some ways.  Zamunda is still a patriarchy, and the monarchy still passes to the king's son and intentionally skips an older daughter.  OK, so they're modern but they're not modern, got it.  And the neighboring country, Nexdoria, is still a militant nation - also stuck in the past, but in a different way.  A marriage between the ruling families could bring peace, but King Akeem would rather seek out his long-lost son, because he believes the other country won't attack if there is a male heir to the throne.  This is another weird balance, the neighboring dictator is friendly, but only under certain conditions, and a threat under other conditions.  

There's a lot of this going around, where the plot tries to have things both ways.  Zamunda is a rich and progressive nation, but the king still has outdated sexist ideals.  It claims to be a forward society based on equality, but it's still a patriarchy and arranged marriages are still a thing. Akeem loves his wife unconditionally, but apparently not enough to listen to her advice.  He's been totally faithful to her, unless you count that one time.  We want to train Akeem's son how to be a prince, but you know what, he's got to choose his own road.  Nothing is simple, everything seems way too complicated, and this creates a feeling that the story is sort of firing in every direction at once, hoping to score some hits.  

One of the best sources of humor from the first film was the McDowell's restaurant chain, which the owner kept claiming was NOT a rip-off of McDonald's, but instead a black-owned burger franchise with a Scottish theme.  The NYC-based chain and the restaurant's owner got moved to Africa, along with all the staff and the McFlurby machines, so the king wouldn't have to travel as far to mop their floor and drive these comedy points into the ground.  Same goes for the scenes from the old film where Akeem and Sammi are meeting all those weird women in the club - if you liked all this, you get to see it again!  Much easier than grabbing that VHS tape off your shelf and looking for a machine to play it in...

Akeem's newfound son, Lavelle, is then brought to Zamunda, and finally we get something new, it's another "fish out of water" storyline, but in reverse this time.  In the first film Akeem traveled to Queens to learn about American society (this was way back, very pre-Borat, mind you) and in the sequel Akeem is the young Queens man brought to Africa to learn about his heritage and face the trials required to become part of the royal family.  But since Akeem's daughters are portrayed as already competent, and proficient in martial arts (very Dora Milaje...) it's not TOO hard to figure out what's going to happen in the end, especially when Lavelle has feelings for his hair-stylist and not the daughter of General Izzi.  (They could have been MORE progressive here, and portrayed Lavelle as gay, but I guess one small step at a time...)

Overall, it's a fun romp down memory lane, and there's so much of that going around - now they've started work on "Beverly Hills Cop IV", which was not unexpected. 

Also starring Eddie Murphy (last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Arsenio Hall (last seen in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), Jermaine Fowler (last seen in "Sorry to Bother You"), Leslie Jones (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Tracy Morgan (last seen in "Top Five"), KiKi Layne (last seen in "Captive State"), Shari Headley (last seen in "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween"), Wesley Snipes (also last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Teyana Taylor, Bella Murphy, Akiley Love, Paul Bates (last seen in "Hesher"), John Amos (last seen in "Uncut Gems"), Louie Anderson (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Rotimi, Vanessa Bell Calloway (last seen in "Cheaper by the Dozen"), Nomzano Mbatha, Clint Smith, Luenell (last seen in "All About Steve"), Michael Blackson, Garcelle Beauvais (last seen in "Spider-Man: Homecoming"), Colin Jost (last seen in "How to Be Single"), David Lengel (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), with cameos from Morgan Freeman (last seen in "Angel Has Fallen"), Trevor Noah (last seen in "Fyre Fraud"), Davido, En Vogue, Salt-N-Pepa, Gladys Knight, Dikembe Mutombo, Rick Ross, John Legend (last seen in "Hitsville: The Making of Motown"), and archive footage of Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Life Itself"), Madge Sinclair. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 scalped tickets 

The Lion King (2019)

Year 13, Day 95 - 4/5/21 - Movie #3,799

BEFORE: The day after Easter is, in one sense, even a greater holiday, because it's the day that Easter candy goes on sale at the drugstore, usually at 50% off.  Last year the pandemic hit during Easter season, and it looked like I was going to miss Easter candy completely, but then when I returned to work in Manhattan in early June, I found a bunch still being sold, because nearly everybody went into lockdown and stayed home before buying any, and the stores didn't have to clear the shelves to make room for Mother's Day candy, or Memorial Day candy, because there's no such thing.  So I scored big time last June.  This past week, I noticed much smaller selection at area drug-stores, probably because the buyers didn't want to get burned again, and be left holding a bunch of Peeps and Cadbury Creme eggs that didn't sell.  I got nearly everything I wanted last Friday, except for these Russell Stover medium-sized chocolate eggs that have different killer fillings, like Maple Creme or Raspberry Whip or Coconut Caramel - but today I tried a different drug-store and got a whole bunch of them at 50% off, or about 34 cents an egg. At that price, I don't care, I'll buy as many as I can - it'll be 11 months until Easter candy's available again, after all. (Jesus has risen, but the candy prices are dropping...)

The voice of Chiwetel Ejiofor carries over from "Mary Magdalene", and this is the remake of "The Lion King", which was released in theaters in 2019, aka the before-times, back when movies got released in theaters before appearing on your computers via streaming services.  That wasn't THAT long ago, and maybe it's because of the pandemic, but it sure FEELS like this film has been on my list for five years - that's just not possible.  I had it way on the bottom of my list for a long while, because I didn't want it to get lost in the vast middle of the list, and I was so sure that I'd find a way to link to it right away, when I'd move it closer to the top.  Well, it took over a year to get to it, that's for sure, but I finally got there. 

I watched the most recent episode of "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" right before this, and one actress from that Disney+ show is in "The Lion King" - only I don't count that as a link.  Another actor from this film was also in the Marvel movies, playing the father of Black Panther.  Marvel/Disney really has the whole African-themed movie thing sort of sewn up, don't they?  

Before proceeding, let's take a peek at the line-up for Day 6 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar". On  Tuesday, April 6 you can watch:

6:00 am "For Me and My Gal" (1942)

7:45 am "Forbidden Planet" (1956) - SEEN IT

9:30 am "Foreign Correspondent" (1940) - SEEN IT

11:45 am "The Fortune Cookie" (1966) - SEEN IT

2:00 pm "42nd Street" (1933)

3:45 pm "Four Days in November" (1964)

6:00 pm "The Four Feathers" (1939)

8:00 pm "The 400 Blows" (1959)

10:00 pm "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994) - SEEN IT

12:15 am "From Here to Eternity" (1953) - SEEN IT

2:30 am "Funny Girl" (1968) - SEEN IT

5:15 am "Fury" (1936)

Wow, a lot of "F" words today - I approve of the way they worked in the films beginning with numbers, they just treated them as if the numbers were written out, like "Forty second" or "Four hundred", then just filed those films accordingly, but I do NOT approve of putting "For Me and My Gal" ahead of "Forbidden Planet".  When I alphabetize my DVDs (and comic books), I prefer to ignore all the blank spaces in a title, just to resolve any conflicts about what goes where.  So, to me, something beginning with "Forb" would go ahead of a title beginning with "For M", because I don't count the space as part of the process.  Maybe I'm in the minority on this one. 

Anyway, it's almost another push for me, having seen 6 of tomorrow's 12 films.  That brings me up to 37 seen out of 70, but my percentage drops just a bit to 52.8% seen.  Tomorrow looks better, but I predict that I'll finish right around 50% seen, hopefully. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Lion King" (Movie #1,020)

THE PLOT: After the murder of his father, a young lion prince flees his kingdom, only to learn the true meaning of responsibility and bravery.  

AFTER: Ah, but this one is really tough for me to rate - I (finally) watched the original Disney cel-animated "Lion King" in 2012, which I'll admit was pretty late - 18 years after its release.  But hey, it's not like I work in the field of animation or anything - wait, I just remembered that I do. You have to factor in, though, this familiarity that arises when you're too close to something, like for many years I didn't want to mix my work life with my home life, so for a long time I wasn't watching many movies at home, because I was making movies at work.  This phenomenon worries me, because last week I submitted applications to work at a movie theater, a brewery and a candy store, and I don't want to end up hating any of those things.  I know a guy who worked for Penthouse magazine for a long time, and I often wondered what effect that job had on his personal life - there's also the old joke about the gynecologist who comes home to his wife, but you can look that one up.  

But I was also late getting to a lot of Disney movies, like "The Lion King", because I'm not a kid, and I don't have kids.  Parents have an excuse to enjoy animated films for kids, because they might watch them with their kids, or watch them in advance to see if they're OK for their kids (yeah, some cartoons have adult content, deal with it...) but if you don't have kids and you watch movies made for kids, that's weird.  I do it, and I'll admit it's weird.  Why did I watch "The Emoji Movie" or "The Angry Birds Movie"?  Regrets, I've had a few...

But then there's the curiosity factor - I already watched the "Dumbo" remake this year, and so why not follow up with the new "Lion King"?  I've had the Disney Plus subscription for 18 months now, and it still hasn't cost me anything, so I might as well use it.  (I got a free year after upgrading my iPhone, then my BFF gave me another year as a Christmas gift...)  I can watch any "Star Wars" movie now without reaching for a DVD, plus there was "WandaVision" and now "The Falcon and the Winter Soldier" is running, so I suppose this October I'll have to start paying for the service.  With luck, by then I'll have a second job...

But, you know, this new "Lion King" might be on to something - sure, I was skeptical, do we really need another remake?  And people called it the "live-action" version of the film, when it's clearly anything BUT live-action, it's mostly CGI, like the recent "Jungle Book" movies, right?  So why doesn't anyone call it the "CGI Lion King"?  Honestly, I don't know.  And my biggest problem, honestly, isn't with the film itself, but with the fact that I've already seen this story told TWICE, once in the cartoon form, and once on a Broadway stage.  Jeez, at least when they reboot Spider-Man or Batman, they don't keep telling the same exact story over and over.  The "Mary Magdalene" film yesterday did the same thing as this film, told the same story that we all know, just with a slightly different spin.  Can I PLEASE get a movie this week that isn't a remake or a reboot or a sequel?  (I just peeked at the schedule, the original films are coming, just give them a couple more days...)  "Palm Springs" is just a week away, thank God.

Anyway, so the story is the same old one, which hasn't changed since 1994, and that one managed to rip off both "Hamlet" and the Japanese film "Kimba the White Lion", but hey, every story's a rip-off of some other story, usually Shakespearean and/or Japanese.  And Disney's been one of the most recycling-friendly studios out there, spinning Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas and Edgar Rice Burroughs novels into box-office gold for decades, once they ran through all the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault fairy tales.  Greek myths of Hercules, tales of Sinbad, they're all grist for the mill in the end, and it's not technically illegal, just really sketchy, if you ask me.  

So I'm not here to judge the story tonight, it barely even registered because I was so familiar with it.  But DAMN, does this film look great!  I thought it might be really weird to see photo-realistic animals talking, or that this might look cheap, like those commercials for the flea and tick medicines where the dogs tell their owners how bad their itches are, but this was done so well that I got used to it really quickly!  Now I'll probably look at zoo footage and wonder why the animals aren't talking to each other...  The background plates are great, too - which makes me wonder if they're real, or also CGI, or what.  But this is what happens when a film's budgeted at over $260 million, they can really do it right - but should any film cost that much?  That's more than the GDP of most mid-sized countries, or that money could have been used to cure three diseases, so was it worth it?  Since I'm a Disney stockholder, I'm going to have to concede this point, I suppose.  And it brought in $543 million, over $1.6 Billion worldwide, and maybe this is why Disney didn't mind sitting on "Black Widow" for over a year, they were still counting the money that "Lion King" took in.  

I think that with a $260 million budget, the filmmakers had two options, they could either hire a bunch of professional animators and use top-notch CGI, or build a second Africa where real live animals can evolve to where they can think and speak English. Evolution takes time, though, so it was probably a smart move to go with Option "A".  Seriously, though, that scene with the giant gnu (wildebeest?) stampede, extremely impressive.  Two lion cubs running across the plains, surrounded by zebras?  Equally impressive.  And a dozen lions fighting about 20 hyenas in the climax - very, very impressive.  I'm blown away by all the technical stuff here, but remember that I'm old school, I've spent over 25 years working for an animator who draws by hand, and I wouldn't know the first thing about how to create a CGI image of any animal.  (CGI technology was in its infancy when I went to film school, basically you could use a formula to generate a sphere, put it on top of a cone shape, call it ice cream, and get a passing grade. I totally faked it, I'll admit.)

There's only one voice actor here who also appeared in the original Disney film, and that's James Earl Jones.  This was a good call, I support this, his voice just IS Mustafa's. I currently have a collection of over 120 "Star Wars" autographs, but James Earl Jones has always eluded me.  He was on Broadway a few years back, and I had a free night, and I was prepared to wait outside the show after (this was December, 2015, so the show might have been "The Gin Game").  But I turned up on a night that the show was dark (a Wednesday?) so I consoled myself by going to see an exhibition in Times Square called "Star Wars: The Power of Costume".  This was about a week before the release of "The Force Awakens".  But I should probably seriously start looking for a James Earl Jones autograph, the guy is like 88 now, and we've already lost some key "Star Wars" actors in the last few years - Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, Dave Prowse and Jeremy Bulloch.  

And now I'm all caught up on Disney's recent remakes of their classic animated films - I've seen all eight: "Maleficent", "Cinderella", "The Jungle Book", "Beauty and the Beast", "Christopher Robin", "Dumbo" and "Aladdin".  I mean, don't get me wrong, this has been great, but can I watch some political documentaries now?  Can Disney maybe get back to making some original stories again?  Oh, wait, they've never done that, they just rip off fairy tales and Greek myths and classic novels.  Never mind.  (EDIT: Damn, I forgot about "Mulan", which just came off of Disney Plus Premium and is now on Disney Plus Regular.  Gonna add it to my list now, but it may be a while before I can link to it...)

Also starring the voices of Donald Glover (last seen in "Solo: A Star Wars Story"), Seth Rogen (last seen in "Paper Heart"), Alfre Woodard (last seen in "The Core"), Billy Eichner (last seen in "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising"), John Kani (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), John Oliver (last heard in "The Smurfs 2"), Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (last seen in "Fyre Fraud"), James Earl Jones (last heard in "Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker"), Florence Kasumba (last seen in "Mute"), Keegan-Michael Key (last seen in "Dolemite Is My Name"), Eric André (last seen in "Rough Night"), Penny Johnson Jerald (last seen in "Swing Shift"), Amy Sedaris (last heard in "My Life as a Zucchini"), Chance the Rapper (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Josh McCrary, Phil LaMarr (last heard in "Incredibles 2"), J. Lee, JD McCrary, Shahadi Wright Joseph.  

RATING: 7 out of 10 tasty insects

Mary Magdalene

Year 13, Day 94 - 4/4/21 - Movie #3,798

BEFORE: I made it to Easter Sunday, and an Easter-themed film, as planned.  Rooney Mara carries over from "Ain't Them Bodies Saints".  When I visited my parents a couple weeks ago, I brought this film along, and set up the DVD player so my Mom could watch it, which then gave me a couple hours to go out shopping - Mom and Dad still weren't quite ready to leave the house. I knew I would probably have this film coming up on my schedule, so there was no need to watch it with her, I didn't want any spoilers. JK. 

I had a couple linking options here, like Ben Foster's also in this film called "Leave No Trace", and I really wanted to follow the Rami Malek path out of "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", because I really want to see "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the remake of "Papillon" that he's in, I'll just have to find another way to get there, preferably later this year. 

I finished watching the third season of "American Gods" earlier this week, and it wrapped up with a bunch of crucifixion stuff - if you've read the Neil Gaiman book, you may know what I'm talking about, but the 3-season show on Starz finally reached the point where a major god character dies, and then another character spends 9 days hanging on the giant tree Yggdrasil, which is as close as you can get to a crucifixion theme without being blatantly obvious.  The last two seasons of the show have been a real slog, because I could have re-read the book at least three times in the time it took for them to air the last 10 episodes.  They didn't even GET to the end of the book before cancelling the series, but now there's talk of finishing the story in a made-for-cable movie or filming Season 4 for another channel or streaming service. I'll keep hate-watching it if they decide to finish the story - but if they'd just moved a little faster narratively, they could have been DONE by now.  

Before I get bogged down in religious dogma, here's the TCM line-up for Monday, April 5, which is Day 5 of their "31 Days of Oscar":

6:00 am "Eskimo" (1933)

8:00 am "Executive Suite" (1954)

10:00 am "Experiment Perilous" (1944)

11:45 am "The Facts of Life" (1960)

1:30 pm "The Fallen Idol" (1948)

3:15 pm "Far From the Madding Crowd" (1967)

6:15 pm "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)
8:00 pm "Father of the Bride" (1950) - SEEN IT

10:00 pm "Five Easy Pieces" (1970) - SEEN IT

12:00 am "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T" (1953)

1:45 am "Flower Drum Song" (1961)

4:15 am "Flying Down to Rio" (1933) - SEEN IT

Damn, here's where my stats are going to start taking a dive - I've only seen 3 out of 12, and a few of these films, I've never even HEARD of them before!  This puts me at 31 out of 58, or 53.4%, and again I'm scratching my head over why the schedule was put together like this - maybe to get the famous Nicholson film, and two of the most popular films beginning with "F" into prime time?  But why push the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers film into the wee hours, when nobody is watching?  I guess I need to look at the big picture here, and figure out which films are bricks and which are mortar, according to this system, so they get through the alphabet at exactly the right rate. 

THE PLOT: Astonished by the charisma, personality and words of Jesus, Mary decides to follow him despite strong opposition from her family. 

AFTER: It's been over 30 years since I split from the Catholic Church, when I decided that I much preferred sleeping in on Sunday mornings then going to mass and being made to feel like I was less than if I didn't follow a bunch of rules that were set up five hundred years ago, while being read stories written a thousand years ago about events that supposedly happened a thousand years before that.  And the whole rituals about holy water, bread and wine turning into flesh and blood, holy relics, give me a break. Church felt to me like a theater production filled with all the trappings of magic tricks, only there were no payoffs, because the tricks only worked if you believed that they did, to me there was zero evidence that anything magical or holy was even taking place. You're free to disagree, of course, but then I'd call upon you to prove the magic, and you just can't.  

But the beliefs and the dogma got planted deep inside me, despite all the questions I would ask the priests and nuns about all the contradictions in the faith, and the parts of the Bible that didn't make any sense, and decades later, I'm still sorting through it all, trying to decide if any of it is worth keeping - the moral principles, sure, like "Love thy Neighbor" and "Thou Shalt Not Kill" are pretty helpful, but I can follow those without going to church or giving the diocese any money.  That last part always makes organized religion look like a big pyramid scheme, if you ask me.  But I digress.  

I'll admit that the church teachings have changed somewhat since I was a kid, but how much, exactly?  The bigger changes that I've seen have been reflected in the movies about Jesus & Co., because if you were to watch, say, "The Greatest Story Ever Told", followed by "Jesus Christ Superstar", followed by "The Last Temptation of Christ", followed by "The Passion of the Christ", those are all vastly different films.  The only thing I can compare it to is the way they keep re-booting Spider-Man or Batman every few years - I don't think this counts as heresy, because what are the superheroes, if not men with godly powers, or gods that walk among men?  Every few years the writers (of both comic-books and movies) feel the need to revamp the heroes, put a slightly different spin on the same stories, and hope that this, combined with the presence of a dynamic new actor, will make the stories more appealing to the next bunch of fans.  The Jesus character is really no different.  

They even got the actor from the latest Joker reboot to play Jesus here - even though this was released before "Joker", the point is still valid. Joaquin Phoenix plays Jesus as a troubled man here, someone who heals the sick and raises the dead, but these tasks sure seem to take a lot of the energy out of him, and he has to meditate alone to recover.  And his other super-power appears to be charisma, the type of man who could get 12 other men (and one woman) to follow him around, eventually spreading his messages to hundreds, then thousands.  I always felt that this was somehow a greater power than performing the miracles, the fact that Jesus and the apostles went on tour like a modern rock band would, and got so many followers, eventually and perhaps a little too late.  

The other connection that my brain wants to make, though, is likening the band of apostles and the way that Jesus wanted to tear down the temple in Jerusalem to the misguided numbnuts who stormed the Capitol this January. Now, hold on, stay with me, this analogy is certain to anger people on both sides of the political spectrum, but I'm not saying that the Proud Boys and the Q-Anoners were right to do what they did, because they were almost certainly in the wrong, being on the side of chaos and political upheaval, which is all technically illegal and unconstitutional.  I'm just saying that their GOALS seemed to be similar, which was to point out what they felt was wrong about the system, and take up arms to try to correct that.  The Bible says that Jesus didn't like the animal sacrifices being made at the temple, and the way that the rich people could buy a dove or a lamb to be slain, in order to have their sins forgiven, instead of doing the repentance themselves, and trying to change their ways.  Meanwhile, the temple priests would be dining on squab and roast lamb that night.  There's a very different long-term intent, however, Jesus tried to tear down the temple for the benefit of all, to make a better system, to force people to change internally rather than buy indulgences, while the rednecks who stormed the Capitol tried to change the system just to keep THEIR favorite guy in office, keep their taxes low and, long-term, make sure that white people could be more successful than dark-skinned people.  So, similar approach but not similar intent. 

The bigger change here is the reboot of Mary Magdalene's story, as this film is mainly told from her point of view, so here she's no longer a reformed prostitute, but instead they've given her a backstory where she was the weird woman who wanted to pray like the men did, not in temple sitting with the other women in the back, not in private, but at home, out loud, like a Hebrew man.  Then she found that she couldn't just go along with the marriage that was arranged for her, she had a feeling that this wasn't the life for her, she wanted to choose her own path in life.  Crazy, right?  But conveniently very in line with modern sensibilities - and oddly, this also jibes with current Catholic dogma, because in 2016 the church also rebuked the prostitute origin story, which had only been around since 1591, when Pope Gregory XIV apparently combined her story with that of Mary of Bethany, the "sinful woman" who anointed Jesus' feet in a different chapter of Luke.  Well, OK, there sure were a bunch of Mary's back then, who can keep them all straight?  

I guess every single village had a Mary or two, because (and this is perhaps why they invented last names) they resorted to everybody having to say where they were FROM as part of their name.  This Mary was from the village of Magdala, so now it's all starting to make sense.  There just weren't as many PEOPLE around back then, so hence there was "Jesus of Nazareth" so he wouldn't be confused with "Jesus of Corinth" or "Jesus of Capernaum", it was all very confusing, I bet.  Now there are billions of people in the world, and just look at how many people on Facebook have the same names - we should probably go back to this system, and people should list themselves as "Frank Smith of Hackensack" or "Martin Adams of Spokane".  Just a thought. 

Mary of Magdala is now considered a saint, according to the church, and Pope Francis raised her to the status of "Apostle of the apostles" back in 2016.  But let's get real, nobody really knows what went down back in 30 C.E., we're just relying on stories that were written hundreds of years after the fact, and have been filtered through re-telling after re-telling and reboot after reboot, people constantly re-adapting the stories for each age.  We can accept that this Mary, and Jesus, were real historical figures, but then if Mary wasn't allowed to write anything down, or spread the word openly, then how much of her story can be confirmed, in any way?  Was she possessed by a demon at some point, or did she have what we now call a mental disorder, and if so, what are the implications of that?  And has her rise to prominence in theology been done to correct a major injustice, or just to get the Bible to appeal to more of today's women?  

Then we get to the whole post-crucifixion stuff, which is another part of the story that sets off my B.S. meter, as you can imagine.  Mary Magdalene here is portrayed as the first witness to the resurrected Jesus, but it's hard to tell if they implied that she saw him in the flesh, or just dreamed about him walking around outside the tomb, and that somehow counted.  You can probably guess which interpretation I favor, but they chose to leave that very ambiguous.  Then Mary goes to tell the apostles that "Jesus came to her", but what, exactly, does that mean?  Then the apostles get all excited when Mary tells them that the kingdom they've been waiting for IS THERE, as long as they themselves believe it, that they should go ahead with their plan to keep spreading the word of Jesus, which seems like a "fake it 'til you make it" approach, and I can believe and get behind that.  Peter takes Mary's words to heart, and says the word will be spread by "every man in this room", so once again, as a woman, Mary's not included.

There's another very relevant section of this film, where Peter and Mary M. are traveling, spreading the words of Jesus, and they encounter a village that's been ravaged by plague, and Peter just wants to move on, saying there's nothing they can do for the people there, their job is to find the healthier people who can help them by joining their cause.  Mary stops, however, to bring water to the few villagers still alive, because she believes it's their moral responsibility to provide help, to do what they can, even if it conflicts with their long-term goals.  This couldn't be more timely, we've seen both approaches to the COVID pandemic in the past year - do we let the virus spread, build up herd immunity despite the cost of millions of lives, or do we stop what we're doing, help who we can, do the hard work necessary to change our habits, develop and distribute a vaccine, while donating to food banks and other charities?  Well, we tried the first approach, and it didn't work, so now we're working on the second - Mary Magdalene is clearly more right here, and Peter less so - he's focused on the big picture, but she's not willing to give up on saving the individuals.  

The other character that gets a reboot here is Judas, one of the most complicated characters in the Bible, the apostle that turned Jesus in to the authorities for money, then gave the money away and hung himself.  So many contradictions, and his motives aren't clear unless you really simplify things, which most people do.  This film portrays him as a man whose wife and daughter died because of the Roman Empire, and he's following Jesus because he believes in Jesus's prophecies, especially the ones where the meek inherit the earth and the balance of power shifts, and the dead rise up from their graves.  He just wants his wife and daughter to be alive again, and the other apostles don't seem to have the heart to tell him that this prophecy is just a metaphor, but he really seems to want zombies to rise up, because then at least he'll have his reunion.  His motive for turning in Jesus, the one who caused all that trouble at the temple, was to force the issue, once Jesus was in prison, he'd be forced to act and make that big change, snap his fingers and overthrow Rome and raise all the dead at once.  (OK, but how's he going to do that, without an Infinity Gauntlet?). Then Judas doesn't even stick around long enough to realize that the only dead person who'll be rising out of the grave is Jesus himself - which, if it did happen, is still a great magic trick, it's just not as good as the one that was advertised. 

I maintain that it's impossible to tell a Biblical story that's also historically accurate - in the end, filmmakers have to choose one over the other - but we can learn something about our society NOW when we see elements of it reflected in a current film based on the Bible.  Note that there are no "goofs" listed on the IMDB page - even though there were probably tons of super-religious people who disagreed with the way that certain things were portrayed.  But what can they claim, "That's not the way it happened!"?  Nobody, NOBODY really knows what happened back in 30 C.E., and anybody who says that they do is trying to sell you something.  

Also starring Joaquin Phoenix (last seen in "Joker"), Chiwetel Ejiofor (last seen in "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil"), Tahar Rahim (last seen in "The Eagle"), Ariane Labed (last seen in "Before Midnight"), Denis Menochet (last seen in "Assassin's Creed"), Lubna Azabal (last seen in "Body of Lies"), Tcheky Karyo (last seen in "The Core"), Charles Babalola (last seen in "The Legend of Tarzan"), Tawfeek Barhom, Ryan Corr (last seen in "Hacksaw Ridge"), Uri Gavriel, Shira Haas (last seen in "The Zookeeper's Wife"), Tsahi Halevi, Michael Moshonov, David Schofield (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Irit Sheleg, Jules Sitruk, Zohar Shtrauss, Lior Raz, Hadas Yaron, Roy Assaf, Valentina Camelutti, Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Theo Theodoridis, Sarah-Sofie Boussina

RATING: 5 out of 10 fishing nets