BEFORE: Nicole Kidman carries over from "Being the Ricardos", that's three in a row - but last year I watched SIX Nicole Kidman films (not all in a row) so three's not really such a big deal, is it? Now the end of the romance/relationship chain is truly in sight, I've got just three left after this one. I really can't wait to watch some action movies again - I may even reward myself with a trip to the movie theater to watch "The Batman", I already see a way I can work that one in, I just hope it's still playing in early April.
(Yes, John Turturro is in tonight's film, and also in "The Batman". But that's not how I want to get there, I want to finish the romance chain first. There may very well be some romance between Batman and Catwoman, but I'm discounting that. Trust me, I've got another way to get there. By the same token, I could watch "Belfast" after this one, linking there via Ciaran Hinds - but I've got not outro there either, I think it's better to stay the course and complete the plan I have on deck, which I know gets me at least to Easter, thematically.)
We're halfway through March, and halfway through TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, here's the line-up for tomorrow, March 16, featuring winners from the 1950's:
5:45 am "The Plymouth Adventure" (1952)
7:45 am "The Great Caruso" (1951)
9:45 am "Interrupted Melody" (1955)
11:45 am "Julius Caesar" (1953)
2:00 pm "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955)
4:00 pm "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956)
4:00 pm "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956)
6:00 pm "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950)
8:00 pm "Marty" (1955)
9:45 pm "Born Yesterday" (1950)
11:45 pm "Some Like It Hot" (1959)
2:00 am "Mon Oncle" (1958)
4:15 am "Rashomon" (1950)
Damn, only five of these, and I thought I'd do a lot better as they cover the later decades. "Born Yesterday" has been on my watch list for a LONG time, I just can't seem to link that far back any more - so maybe someday. But I have seen "Julius Caesar", "Somebody Up There Likes Me", "Annie Get Your Gun", "Marty" and of course, "Some Like It Hot". With 70 seen out of 176, I'm holding fast at 39.7% seen.
THE PLOT: Margot and her son Claude decide to visit her sister, Pauline, after she announces that she is marrying less-than-impressive Malcolm. In short order, the storm the sisters create leaves behind a mess of thrashed relationships and exposed family secrets.
AFTER: This one was directed by Noah Baumbach, I went on a bit of a Baumbach tear these last couple of years, after "Marriage Story" I sought out "The Squid and the Whale" and "Frances Ha", now after tonight I think I've seen every well-known Baumbach-directed movie, but there are still two minor ones I haven't seen, "Mistress America" and "Mr. Jealousy". I think I'm good, though, having covered "Greenberg" and "The Meyerowitz Stories" and even his first film "Kicking and Screaming" (the one about college students, not the Will Ferrell soccer comedy).
I remember that "The Squid and the Whale" was a very personal film, and it was semi-autobiographical, based partially on the break-up of Baumbach's parents. So with these auteurs like Baumbach, Cameron Crowe and Wes Anderson (among others) I'm always left to wonder whether these stories originated in their own personal lives - and if so, which character is the stand-in for the writer/director in question? There are some very specific events taking place here, like the teen boy who spies on the gay neighbors, one of whom has Bell's Palsy. Why is any of that in this film, unless it really happened to somebody? And I know that Baumbach used to be married to Jennifer Jason Leigh, who stars in the film, so that alone gets my suspicious mind working. But they were married for five years, and so they don't really resemble any of the married couples seen in this film, so now I'm a bit lost.
You know what, I'm a bit lost, anyway, like with the overall intent of this film - I watched the whole damn thing and then afterwards I was sort of hard-pressed to state what it actually was ABOUT. Margot brings her son out to Long Island for the wedding of her sister, Pauline, but Margot doesn't really care for her sister's fiancé, obviously she thinks that her sister could do better. But you're not supposed to SAY those things, even if you're thinking them. Margot's a bit of a tough nut to crack, she's obviously very close to her son, but you can't spell "smother" without "mother", I always say - and I should know. She's apparently raised him non-traditionally, he's got longish hair and he's never been taught to swim (I never learned, myself...). Margot is also an author and she's having some kind of an affair with Dick, another writer, one who interviews her during her book signings. Wait, is that legal?
She's clearly at a crossroads, she doesn't know whether to stay with her husband (son's father) or somehow move forward with the other author, who is also married. But is Margot just projecting her own dissatisfaction with marriage on to her sister, or is her concern coming more from a genuine place? As it turns out, her presence at the wedding is rather disruptive, but there are so many weird things that happen here, from the croquet game to Margot climbing a tree and not being able to climb back down, that it's rather hard to find a coherent through-line that connects all these random events.
Meanwhile, Pauline is upset that her sister Margot has published novels featuring thinly-veiled stories about their family, especially Pauline herself. This feels sort of straight out of a Woody Allen film, I think this was a plot point in "Hannah and Her Sisters", after Dianne Wiest's character, Holly, wrote stories that came a little too close to things occurring in Hannah's marriage. If you're going to steal, steal from the best, I suppose. Other things take place that lead Pauline to fight with Margot, Malcolm to fight with Pauline, and then Dick to fight with Malcolm. Yeah, OK, it gets a bit complicated. Somewhere in the midst of all this, Claude's father visits and tries to reconcile with Margot, even though they both agreed that they needed to spend some time apart. Umm, I think.
By the end of things, after way too many reversals on every point, Margot decides that she needs to spend more time with her sister, because that reconciliation plan hasn't worked out so good, maybe it needs another try. So she puts Claude on a bus to Vermont, to go live with his father, but then, of course, doubts her choices. Well, every character here is at LEAST neurotic enough to be in a Woody Allen movie, so there's that. But I think this one still qualifies as a bit of a head-scratcher - whenever it goes into too much detail about something, from somebody losing their dog to a character having an accident in their pants, there's that feeling of "Why is THAT in the movie, unless it really happened to somebody?"
My main NITPICK POINT tonight concerns Margot and Claude on the train, going out to the wedding on Long Island. If they were coming from Manhattan, they would take the Long Island Rail Road - but come on, I recognize the interior of a pre-Acela Amtrak train when I see one. Those big metal sliding doors with that big square "Push to Open" button? That's an Amtrak. MAYBE they're taking the train down from Vermont to New York, but it sure seems like they're on their way to L.I. - anyway, they'd have to switch from an Amtrak Northeast Corridor train to the L.I.R.R. to get out there - there's just no place to get off an Amtrak where you can also get on a ferry for Shelter Island.
Also starring Jennifer Jason Leigh (last seen in "The Woman in the Window"), Jack Black (last seen in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer"), John Turturro (last seen in "Romance & Cigarettes"), Ciaran Hinds (last seen in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"), Zane Pais, Flora Cross (last seen in "Bee Season"), Seth Barrish (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Matthew Arkin, Brian Kelley, Michael Cullen (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Enid Graham (last seen in "The Rewrite"), Halley Feiffer (last seen in "You Can Count on Me"), Sophie Nyweide, Justin Roth, Ashlie Atkinson (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman").
RATING: 4 out of 10 hand-made bracelets
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