Morbius

Year 14, Day 266 - 9/23/22 - Movie #4,251

BEFORE: OK, another Marvel movie, that's, I don't know, a dozen this year?  "Spider-Man: No Way Home", "Shang-Chi", "Venom: Let There Be Carnage", "Eternals, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", and "Thor: Love and Thunder".  Is that it?  Well, there's "Black Panther 2" coming out later this year, but I just can't. There's no time, no space, and no way to work that one into the chain.  Seven Marvel movies this year, compared to just ONE for DC, "The Batman". It hardly seems fair.  

Matt Smith carries over again from "Last Night in Soho", and since this is a film about a vampire, there's no denying it, thematically I'm definitely into the Countdown to the Countdown to Halloween. 

THE PLOT: Biochemist Michael Morbius tries to cure himself of a rare blood disease, but he inadvertently infects himself with a form of vampirism instead. 

AFTER: Well, I don't think this movie is the pile of hot garbage that some of the reviews made it out to be. It's dumb, sure, and very misguided, but a lot of that comes from the set-up, which just can't possibly work.  If you're going to do a vampire movie, you've got to really go for it, because vampires are truly evil.  They're undead, they kill humans for their blood, either for sustenance or just for the hell of it, and they're so evil that they'll turn to dust if exposed to sunlight or burn at the touch of holy water.  Evil, evil, evil.  

But Marvel's always hedged its bets with Morbius - he's not dead or undead, he's "The Living Vampire".  And he's fought Spider-Man many times in the comic books, but that's only because he's misunderstood and he's got this medical condition where he needs to drink blood to survive.  So, a sort of vampire, but not a REAL vampire, not like Dracula, who's also a character in the Marvel comic-book universe.  Usually it's Blade who fights the vampires, but Spider-Man has fought Morbius more times than anyone else, and there's always some kind of "miracle" cure that stops Morbius from draining blood from everyone on his block.  Then Morbius will team up with Spider-Man and together they can defeat the evil power, whatever it is.  

The reason that Marvel Comics hero-fies Morbius, periodically, but also nearly every time he appears, is that most people want to read a comic book about a hero, someone who does good things, but a vampire normally wouldn't qualify - so the comics have to make him a well-intentioned doctor and scientist who was in a lab accident or something, and it's just not his fault that drinking blood makes him feel better and more alive.  Why IS that, anyway, I mean blood is just like anything else a human might eat, it would get digested just like any other organic food material, so why does drinking blood give vampires special powers and abilities?  It's going down their food-hole to the stomach, right?  People in Europe eat blood sausage and blood pudding, and it doesn't give them an unquenchable thirst for more blood, right? 

Here they also had to make Michael Morbius a scientific genius, not only in organic science - he invented artificial blood - but also in technical engineering (because later in the film he has only minutes to turn a counterfeiting operation into a medical lab, for some reason) and he's frantically searching for a cure for the blood disease that affects him and his childhood best friend.  He's a giver, but he needs to hurry if he wants to save his friend's life AND win a second Nobel Prize.  The only thing that could stop him now would be if the treatment he's discovered has some bizarre, unforeseen side effects. 

Actually, there's a point to be made here about animal testing - I don't know if the medical industry still does this, or if they had to stop like the cosmetics industry - Morbius tests his latest serum on a laboratory rat, and then when it works on the rodent, he can't wait to jab himself with the needle and try the process out on himself.  Umm, I think there's a reason why. most medical companies test monkeys next, they don't just go straight from mice to clinical trials on humans. 

Anyway, Morbius infects himself with the serum, and immediately feels the most alive he's ever felt.  But, umm, don't do drugs, OK kids?  Even if they make you feel awesome!  Then Morbius has to deal with the fact that every six hours the abilities wear off, and he's got to find blood yet AGAIN.  I'm already feeling less than sympathetic towards Morbius, and now my opinion is getting worse by the minute.  Sure, he's got a rare disease, sure, he's kind of handicapped - but as soon as he gets that taste of blood, look out, he's got a lot of LIVIN he missed out on over the years.  

The same goes for Morbius' friend, Milo, he can't wait to get to the serum either, and he does so while Michael's being interrogated by the police about the blood-draining murders that seem to happen anywhere near him.  And that's when I realized that "Morbius" follows (almost) the exact same structure as the "Venom" films - take a normal, unassuming guy, get him mixed up with some kind of alien or non-human infection, which creates an unusual hunger inside him (brains, blood) and then make another character just like that, so he'll have somebody to fight. Then have just ONE big fight, run the closing credits and collect the cash. It's the SAME DAMN story, this and both of the "Venom" films. And if Morbius has to fight against someone just like him, only slightly more evil, really, aren't we splitting hairs then?  Why can't I have a real hero to root for, one who's not a vampire at all? 

Then there's the whole Michael Keaton as Vulture thing - what is the deal with this?  I told you when they started explaining that the Spider-Man movies take place in three different timelines, that things were about to get super-confusing.  WHY do we need three DIFFERENT Spider-Men in three parallel universes, why can't we first learn to tell one GOOD Spider-Man story in ONE timeline, before we expand the franchise, HMMM?  There, I said it. 

Sure, we know that in the last "Spider-Man" movie he asked Dr. Strange for help and accidentally caused every villain who knew Spider-Man's identity, across all the timelines, ended up in the same timeline, and that included Venom for some reason, thanks to all the Klyntar symbiotes sharing their knowledge with each other across the different dimensions, or so we've been told.  But now, what about Vulture?  Didn't Michael Keaton's Vulture character learn Peter Parker was Spider-Man, in one of the movies?  No?  Well, then, how does he teleport into the timeline with Morbius in it, which might also be the Venom-verse?  Vulture just appears in a prison cell one day, and at the tail end of this movie, he tracks down Morbius and says they have to team up together to take down Spider-Man - but if that's the Venom-verse, there's no Spider-Man in it to take down!  The Tom Hardy Venom has never met Spider-Man, not ANY of them, so how is this going to work?  Is Vulture going to form the Sinister Six villain team, recruit Morbius and maybe Doctor Octopus, and Electro again, and really, really make an effort this time around?  And if so, how are they going to get all those villains into the right universe with the Spider-Man they want to kill in it?  Stay tuned, I guess. 

Also starring Jared Leto (last seen in "The Little Things"), Adria Arjona (last seen in "6 Underground"), Jared Harris (last seen in "Igby Goes Down"), Tyrese Gibson (last seen in "Flight of the Phoenix"), Al Madrigal (last seen in "The Way Back"), Michael Keaton (last seen in "Clear History"), Zaris-Angel Hator, Charlie Shotwell (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Joseph Esson, Corey Johnson (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Joanna Burnett, Archie Renaux (last seen in "Voyagers"), Jojo Macari, Abraham Popoola (last seen in "Cruella"), Chris Ryman (ditto). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 fractured phalanges

Last Night in Soho

Year 14, Day 265 - 9/22/22 - Movie #4,250

BEFORE: Another small milestone, film #250 for the year, which means that Movie Year 14 is 5/6 over, just fifty films to go, covering Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Then I'll have to spend a week crunching the numbers for 2022, and then give out some awards - I've got all those real awards shows beat, they have to wait for the year to end, ask all their members to fill out ballots, then they have to hire an accounting firm, count everything, recount the ballots, dispute the hanging chads, and then like THREE MONTHS LATER, hand out trophies.  I get all of that done in the last week of December, so take that.  Anyway, it's coming, I can feel it, cold weather and hot cider, snow days and sick days, first we just all have to make it through hurricane season and horror films. 

Every Movie Year is different, obviously, every year kind of finds its own rhythm - last year's 250th film was "A Cure for Wellness", and it was October 7 by then, and I was already six films deep into the official horror chain.  But in 2021 I think I kind of slowed things down even more in September, and this year I didn't do that, mostly because I'll be on vacation for a week in October. This time I've got to get my films in now, so I can relax for a week then.  But in early October I did watch a few films with Anya Taylor-Joy, which were "The Witch", "New Mutants" and "Marrowbone", and now I've circled back to her at just about the same time of year. 

Matt Smith carries over from "Charlie Says". 

THE PLOT: An aspiring fashion designer is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s, where she encounters a dazzling wanna-be singer. But the glamour is not all it appears to be, and the dreams of the past start to crack and splinter into something darker. 

AFTER: You know, I just realized I didn't program any "back-to-school" films this year - I've still got "Eighth Grade" on my list, also "Dear Evan Hansen", "Boys and Girls", "The Wolfpack", "Apollo 10 1/2", "Senior Year", any of those would have worked, but the linking rules didn't allow me to get to them.  So I suppose tonight's film will have to do, as Eloise Turner moves to London to study fashion design at college. (The London College of Fashion is part of the University of the Arts London, I assume it's like the British version of F.I.T.).  But looking back on the other films this month, I could make a case for "King Richard", where Richard Williams made sure that Venus and Serena focused on their schoolwork, and not just tennis, and maybe even "Concrete Cowboy", which took place on a high-schooler's summer vacation, and I don't know, "Minions: The Rise of Gru"?  Gru was seen going to school, before studying to be a super-villain.  OK, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but I like to stay topical, according to the calendar. 

I'm a bit of a late-comer to the films of Edgar Wright, I was like the last person in my social circle to watch "Shaun of the Dead", and if it hadn't been for my Halloween programming, maybe I never would have gotten to it.  But then I did watch "Hot Fuzz" and "The World's End", but still I dragged my feet on getting to "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World", it looked kind of stupid and exploitative of the comic book thing, and it is, of course, but maybe that's OK.  But "Baby Driver" was just fine, and then of course earlier this year I watched "The Sparks Brothers", but not because I was a big fan of the band, mostly because I know people who were interviewed in it. SO, there you go, now, just like with Wes Anderson, I have to be a bit of a Edgar Wright completist, going forward. 

But I think what some of his movies have in common is that they cross a lot of genres, like how "Shaun of the Dead" is both comedy and horror, hell, throw in action as well and it's a triple-threat movie. "Scott Pilgrim" is comedy, romance and comic-book, and "The World's End" isn't really locked into being one thing either.  It's a bit weird, but at least it's not one-note.  And so maybe that's why "Last Night in Soho" is many things at once, too - it's a coming-of-age drama, it's a murder mystery, it's a horror film... Hey, life is rich and complicated, and nobody likes to be pigeon-holed, so why should we do that to our movies?  I mean, you can't go TOO crazy or a movie then feels like it's all-over-the-place, but tonight it's a slow descent into...horror?  I don't know, where does this one feel like it wants to land and live? 

Eloise sees ghosts, let's get that one out of the way - or at least one ghost, that of her dead mother, who committed suicide when Eloise was very young, and so Eloise was raised by her Gran, and when it's time for Eloise to go off to university, that means saying good-bye to her mother's ghost, who obviously is location-specific to that house.  Whether this is just a metaphor for her memories of her mother, I suppose that's up to the viewer...

Only it's not, because once Eloise moves out of the dorm, due to a bad roomate situation, she finds a flat on the upper floor of an older lady's house, and suddenly starts having dreams of the 1960's.  Somehow she can see scenarios from the swinging go-go club days, and even inhabit the body of Sandie, an aspiring nightclub singer who wants desperately to be the next Cilla Black or Dusty Springfield.

At first, this all seems like a lark for Eloise, she also gets caught up in the romantic side of the Soho nightclub scene, and eventually realizes that Sandie's manager/boyfriend is content to just get her gigs in burlesque shows, and then pimp her out to seedy men from the entertainment industry, supposedly to further her career, but it's probably just to line his own pockets.  With everything we now know about the Harvey Weinsteins and Matt Lauers and Charlie Roses of the world, all that shit had to start somewhere, and so naturally it's rooted back in the 1950's and 1960's, the casting couch was a real thing at so many levels of the entertainment industry, so this feels quite believable, that fame came at a cost for so many women, because if they didn't sleep their way to success, there were other women who were willing to do so. It was just how things were done, which is a damn shame, but some female singers and actresses who went along with it also bear a bit of the responsibility...not a lot, mostly it's the horrible men, but a bit.

Anyway, at first there's a benefit, because Eloise is getting a first-hand look at some killer fashions from the 1960's, and wouldn't you know, it's high time to bring them back.  So she's doing well at school, but then she has to get a bartending job in a pub to afford those antique clothes, and this puts her on the radar of a mysterious older man, who's been hanging around the scene ever since those old days, and he starts asking questions about Eloise, who she is, where she came from, who her mother was.  I'll admit it, my mind started connecting the dots here, because naturally I figured maybe Sandie would turn out to be Eloise's mother, and then maybe this creepy guy in the pub would be her father, but no, I was WAY off base.  No spoilers here, but just maybe the film was trying to lead me in this direction as a red herring, but no, that wasn't to be.  Maybe I just read the clues wrong. 

The dreams (visions?) become longer and more vivid, also more dangerous as Sandie's descent into madness continues, and it seems like Eloise is being brought along for the ride.  They're both tormented by an endless parade of faceless gray men, Sandie's "clients" who are horrificly anonymous figures, but may also be lost souls themselves.  Finally, at the worst possible time, just as her relationship in the real world with John, a fellow fashion student (who is somehow straight?), is going well, she has her most horrible vision yet, and that spills over into the real world as she tries to solve a 50-year old murder after the fact, with only her dreams to guide her.  She's in over her head, that's for sure.  But this all kind of reminds me of a film called "Dead Again", which pulled a similar rug out from under the viewers at the last minute.  We all made some assumptions, based on the information we got from the flashbacks, and we were all wrong.  Or the director tricked us, it's all in how you look at it - but I don't usually like it when a director intentionally tricks me. 

But dreams are funny things, and even memories are unreliable.  So maybe I have to give this one a pass and be kind in my ratings, and just move on.  So far, this makes TWO Halloween parties seen on film, and it isn't even October yet.  Yeah, I know I'm rushing things, but the giant bags of candy are already being sold in the drug stores, so the season is here, like it or not.  My next film is about a vampire, and then I'm going to watch the "Purge" films, and by then it should be October 1 and we'll start the horror chain for reals. 

Also starring Thomasin McKenzie (last seen in "The Power of the Dog"), Anya Taylor-Joy (last seen in "Barry"), Diana Rigg (last seen in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"), Michael Ajao, Terence Stamp (last seen in "Murder Mystery"), Sam Claflin (last seen in "Their Finest"), Rita Tushingham (last seen in "Doctor Zhivago"), Synnove Karlsen, Jessie Mei Li, Kassius Nelson, Rebecca Harrod (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga'), Elizabeth Berrington (last seen in "Nanny McPhee"), Pauline McLynn (last seen in "Iris"), Michael Jibson (last seen in "Hunter Killer"), Lisa McGrillis, Aimee Cassettari, Beth Singh, Margaret Nolan (last seen in "Goldfinger"), James Phelps (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Oliver Phelps (ditto), Paul Brightwell (last seen in "The Voices"), Will Rogers, Terence Frisch, Andrew Bicknell, with a cameo from Mark Gatiss (last seen in Operation Mincemeat")

RATING: 6 out of 10 images of deserted London streets (filmed during the pandemic, clever!)

Charlie Says

 Year 14, Day 263 - 9/20/22 - Movie #4,249

BEFORE: Another year, another film about Charles Manson... I put this film on a DVD with "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood", that's how long it's been on my list.  It's quite difficult to link to it, which prevented me from watching it last year close that that OTHER film about Manson.  This one seems to focus mainly on the strange pull that he had over young women, but ones that were estranged from their families, or the hippie chicks who were otherwise lost and looking for some direction in their lives. You can make a dozen movies about this and we still probably won't fully understand this. 

Annabeth Gish carries over from "Term Life". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Manson Family Vacation" (Movie #3,983)

THE PLOT: The tragic tale of an all-American girl who was transformed into a cold-blooded killer in the summer of 1969. 

AFTER: 1969 was a long time ago - in movie terms, it's become the time of legends. I was under a year old for most of that calendar year, and now I'm 53. One of the Manson Family members, Leslie Louise van Houten, is still alive and incarcerated, having initially received the death penalty in 1971, and she was the youngest woman ever condemned to death in California. BUT, the next year the California Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty was unconstitutional, so her sentence was commuted to life in prison, and she didn't become recommended for parole until 2021, but Governor Newsom overruled the parole board in February of THIS YEAR, for a 72-year old inmate who's been in prison over 50 years. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, it is what it is, but probably if she hadn't been so closely associated with Charles Manson, she'd be free by now, and able to enjoy her golden years outside of a cell.  Just saying. 

The other two "Family" members in this story are Susan "Sadie" Atkins, who died in prison in 2009, and Patricia "Katie" Krenwinkel, who's also been incarcerated in California for over 50 years. Krenwinkel has been granted parole, as of May 2022, but the governor could still step in and reverse it, he has until next month. All three women have been portrayed in TV series like "Aquarius" and "American Horror Story" and in movies like this one, and "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood".  There's a whole little side industry in TV shows and movies about Manson and his followers.  And of course they pop up in documentaries about the Beatles (because of the accidental inspiration Manson got from "Helter Skelter") and the Beach Boys (because Dennis Wilson lobbied to have one of Manson's songs placed on a Beach Boys album.)

This film re-creates the audition Dennis Wilson arranged for Manson with record producer Terry Melcher, and this may lead us to wonder what might have happened if Manson had landed a recording contract, just as we wonder whether Hitler's path might have been different if someone had put his paintings in a gallery show before he got involved with politics.  Support indie artists, because you never know...I mean, nobody thinks of "dictator" or "cult leader" as their fallback career, so I guess it just kind of happens. 

Was it a sudden incident, like blowing an audition by having his female followers perform an impromptu striptease while singing back-up, is that what pushed Manson over the edge?  Or was it a gradual deterioration of his mental condition, pressure that formed from the looming threat of an imagined approaching race war, which is what he called "Helter Skelter"?  Clearly he thought a lot about this, because he rationed out that American white people would be split into two factions, the racist white people who couldn't accept minorities as their equals and the non-racist white people who would, I don't know, encourage the Black rebellion?  Look, he's not wrong, necessarily, this schism does exist today, but it doesn't mean that the whole of society is going to collapse because of it - Manson was sort of a "worst case scenario" kind of guy. 

The other theory has everything to do with Bobby Beausoleil, and I kind of missed this point that might have been made in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Beausoleil tortured and murdered an associate named Gary Hinman, and while Bobby was in prison, the Manson Family's goal was to go out and kill some people in exactly the same way Bobby killed Gary, to make it appear as if Bobby's killer was a serial killer who was still on the loose. But then, I wouldn't expect a Tarantino film to get every detail right, because at some point that film deviated from reality, while the director spent his time focusing on Margot Robbie's feet. (I personally don't find ANYONE's feet attractive, but to each his own, I guess.)

(Speaking of Sharon Tate, I thought the actress who played Sharon Tate here looked a bit familiar, so I checked out her IMDB credits, as I do for nearly everyone...Grace Van Dien. Yeah, I saw her recently in Season 4 of "Stranger Things", where she played cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham.  So she's got a "type", but WOW, her characters really can't seem to catch a break, can they?  It's a bit odd that 6 years after playing Sharon Tate, who died at age 26, she played a high-school cheerleader, though she was herself 26.  Somebody made a joke during the Emmys about actresses in their mid-20s being young enough to play high-school girls, but too old to date Leonardo DiCaprio...)

Anyway, "Charlie Says" toggles between two timelines, one set back in 1968-69 at the infamous Spahn Ranch, and the other one set after the Manson Family trials, with the three women on never-ending death row, kept away from the general prison population in their own cell block, either for their own protection, or perhaps for the protection of the other inmates.  The women took college-level classes from a social worker, Karlene Faith, who helped them re-establish their identities, separate from the "Family" and maybe de-programmed them a bit. The fear, however, was once they were able to release themselves from Manson's teachings, then they'd have to come to terms with their involvement in the murders, and take some responsibility for their crimes.  But, isn't that the whole point of prison in the first place? 

The social worker later wrote a book, "The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten", about her work with the Manson women, and that was the basis for half of the film.  But there are plenty of flashbacks to their time spent at the ranch with Manson, which are apparently based on another book "The Family", by Ed Sanders, who also served as an executive producer on "Charlie Says". Debate may always rage over whether Manson was a controlling genius or a paranoid lunatic - what if he was both? - but really, any screenplay has to eventually point out that he was willing to wander around the California desert, looking for a giant underground cavern that he and his followers could live in, and somehow survive. 

But after being fed fruit from the crazy tree for so long, apparently it took a couple of decades for Manson's close followers to realize that committing murders in affluent L.A. neighborhoods just wasn't ever going to bring about that race war that Manson believed was coming.  So, then, umm, what were they for?  Were they intended to make Bobby Beausoleil look innocent, or were they just commands from an insane leader?  More to the point, we learn that Manson unintentionally jump-started the "Freegan" movement, so think about that when you see people rescuing discarded food from a grocery-store dumpster, they're one step away from being in a psycho murder cult. 

Also starring Hannah Murray (last seen in "Dark Shadows"), Matt Smith (last seen in "Official Secrets"), Sosie Bacon, Marianne Rendon, Merritt Wever (last seen in "Marriage Story"), Suki Waterhouse (last seen in "A Rainy Day in New York"), Chace Crawford (last seen in "Peace Love & Misunderstanding"), Kayli Carter (last seen in "Bad Education"), Grace Van Dien, Bridger Zadina (last seen in "Pacific Rim: Uprising"), Julia Schlaepfer, Dayle McLeod, Morgan Melton, India Ennenga (last seen in "The Irishman"), Aria Taylor, Cameron Gellman (last seen in "20th Century Women"), Christopher Frontiero, Jeremy Lawson, James Trevena Brown, John Gowans, Dillon Lane, Bryan Adrian, Lindsay Farris (last seen in "Gods of Egypt"), Nathan Sutton, Tony Armatrading, Christopher Gerse (last seen in "My Dinner with Hervé"), Jackie Joyner (last seen in "The Hero"), Dan Olivo, Darien Sills-Evans, Matt Riedy (last seen in "Book Club"), Anthony Traina (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Tracy Perez, Kim Yarbrough, Kimberly Gikas, Kimmy Shields (last seen in "Ad Astra"), Sol Rodriguez (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in Venice"), Danya LaBelle (last seen in "King Richard"), Adria Baratta, John Frank Rosenblum, Marion Braccia, Trevor Brunsink, Mitch Cleaver, Laura Denton, Sophia Rose. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 fairy costumes

Term Life

Year 14, Day 262 - 9/19/22 - Movie #4,248

BEFORE: OK, so we're not REALLY in the horror chain yet, it's something of a soft opening.  There will be a couple more horror films in September, sure, but the OFFICIAL start is still October 1. Sort of.  As with last year's Shocktober line-up, there might also be a couple non-horror films sneaking into October, just because it's getting harder and harder to keep the chain alive - sometimes I have to program a movie JUST for the linking, and it may not fit with the theme. It's OK, breathe, everything's going to work out. There's a clear path to Christmas, which is only 50 movies away, as of this writing. OK, 96 days, but only 50 movies - I've got to get through New York Comic-Con, a vacation, Halloween and Thankgiving first.

But there are 11 days left in September after today, and 8 movies - no problem. Taraji P. Henson carries over again from "Muppets Haunted Mansion". 

THE PLOT: A guy wanted around town by various hitmen hopes to stay alive long enough for his life insurance policy to kick in and pay out for his estranged daughter. 

AFTER: I was sort of dreading this one, because the title and the plot synopsis on IMDB led me to believe that the insurance policy bought by the lead character was going to be a MUCH bigger part of the plot, when in fact it turned out to only be a thing that happened, at one point early in the film, professional heist-planner Nick Barrow realizes that his life is in danger, and so he goes to an insurance office and purchases a policy, one which will provide for his daughter in the event that he gets killed.  Well, geez, I thought, I think I know how this is going to play out, now, this character's a goner for sure.  Then when the insurance agent mentioned that it could take two weeks for the company to review his policy and approve it, I figured, that confirms it, he's dead for sure, and the film will end with the insurance company agreeing that the policy really kicked in the moment that he signed the policy, not after they reviewed and approved it. Yeah, that's not the way the plot went, which means that the world is STILL waiting for the breakthrough insurance policy-based Hollywood action movie.  WHEN, I ask you?

This is really about family, about a father dealing with his daughter after he basically kidnaps her to save her life, and they have to go on the run together.  It's a chance for her, once she gets over the shock of being abducted, to maybe get to know her father for the first time, and learn valuable life lessons, like how to plan an exit strategy when planning to pull off a heist at a suburban bakery shop.  Hey, when you really need pastries, they're not going to steal themselves.  But also, her father knows valuable things like how to blend into a crowd and not get noticed, when to change hotels when you're on the run, and how to beat the carnival games at a fair.  I'm not kidding, that's some valuable stuff, those games are rigged six ways to Sunday.

However, arguing with the carnies brings him to the attention of the local sheriff, at a time when they're supposed to be staying OFF the radar of the police in Georgia.  It all goes back to a bunch of dirty cops in Atlanta who took some protection money, and in order to make the case go away, they hired Nick through a third party to plan a heist of the dirty money from the police evidence locker, because if there's no money, there's no case.  Nick sub-contracted the work out to a couple of up-and-coming thieves, who were then promptly killed by the dirty cops, just so they could burn the money.  Jeez, why didn't they just steal the money themselves?  Ah, because they're not a master planner like Nick is.  

There was a whole bunch of these movies a few years back, movies about people who could "read the room" and calculate the best way to take down multiple enemies, use the geography of their surroundings to their advantage, and usually end up shooting one bad guy with another bad guy's gun.  "John Wick" was one of those movies that used this as a plot device, and "Batman v Superman" was another. "Term Life" was released in 2016, the same year as "Batman v Superman", so yeah, that was definitely a trend.  

But Nick's been at this heist thing for a long time - what's a lot less believable is that a few quick life lessons from him would turn his daughter into ANOTHER master planner type, over the course of just a few weeks in hiding with her dad.  Maybe she's got that hyper-focus thing, whatever the opposite of ADD is, and she learns super-fast, I don't know.  All I know is that when she was in the "Hawkeye" TV show they had to make sure her character already had a background in archery, because no way can you pick up a skill like that over the course of just a few episodes. Since Kate Bishop grew up in a wealthy family, of course she'd have studied gymnastics, fencing and archery, so boom, there you go, instant superhero, almost. 

This is not a terrible film, I've seen much, much worse - but "Term Life" is notorious for receiving a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which seems a bit misguided and spiteful.  The most negative thing I can say about is that Jon Favreau wasn't in the film long enough for this to count as a true "Swingers" reunion. (Yeah, if you want to feel old, go back and watch "Swingers" again and think about how young Favreau and Vaughn were.). The director of this film was Peter Billingsley, who you probably know from "A Christmas Story" and cameos in Marvel movies, but that in itself does not a bad movie make. It's also a bit of a waste just to cast Taraji P. Henson as an insurance agent for two minutes, but whatever - that's not an unforgivable sin, either.  Clearly America was demanding more insurance-based plot points, right?  That must be it. 

For me, I really wanted to get to two other Vince Vaughn films, "Freaky" - which kind of would work on the Halloween theme since it's about someone switching bodies with a serial killer - and "Dragged Through Concrete", but unfortunately, there's no time.  I've got to move on in a different direction if I'm going to complete the chain this year, and so any movie not currently programmed has to wait until 2023, at least.  This is a terrible time of year for me, because I'm locked in and I can't deviate from the program, like I could drop in films at whim in January or April, and the chain would recover - man, those were the days....

Also starring Vince Vaughn (last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), Hailee Steinfeld (last seen in "Charlie's Angels" (2019)), Bill Paxton (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G"), Jonathan Banks (last seen in "Freejack"), Jordi Molla (last seen in "Colombiana"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "Movie 43"), Shea Whigham (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Jon Favreau (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), William Levy (last seen in "Girls Trip"), Mike Epps (last een in "Acts of Violence"), Cain Velasquez, Rio Hackford (also last seen in "Lay the Favorite"), Annabeth Gish (last seen in "Mystic Pizza"), Brian F. Durkin (last seen in "The Highwaymen"), James Paxton (last seen in "The Greatest Game Ever Played"), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (last seen in "6 Underground"), Brent Briscoe (last seen in "The Killer Inside Me"), Peggy Sheffield, Javier Carrasquillo (last seen in "Freelancers"), Jose Miguel Vasquez (last seen in "Black Widow"), Fernando Martinez, Aerli Austen, Joshua Mikel (last seen in "Greenland"), Morganna Bridgers (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), Griffin Freeman (last seen in "The Birth of a Nation"), Ian Gregg (last seen in "Zombieland: Double Tap"), Terri Abney (last seen in "Loving"), Danna Maret, Derek Roberts (last seen in "Geostorm"), Kate Forbes, Tracye Hutchins, Rebekka Schramm Moorer, Matthew Willig (last seen in "Birds of Prey"), Tait Fletcher (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Travis Johns, Daniel Bernhardt (last seen in "Red Notice"), Cécile de France (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), Bryan Basil, Carlos Aviles (last seen in "Boss Level"), Georgy Fontanals.

RATING: 6 out of 10 car alarms going off at once

Muppets Haunted Mansion

Year 14, Day 261 - 9/18/22 - Movie #4,247

BEFORE: Taraji P. Henson carries over from "Minions: The Rise of Gru". Actually, two other actors do, too - Will Arnett in a lead role and Danny Trejo in a cameo.  So that's great, multiple connections to the last film.  But wait, before I get into the film, I have to debate whether this constitutes a "movie".  The IMDB lists this as a TV special, what's the difference?  What makes a movie a movie?

Is it length?  Because this one's only 52 minutes long -  that's a very short movie, so maybe it's NOT a movie.  But I know from reading the Academy rules for Oscar qualifications, and the general rules for film festivals, that anything under 40 minutes (including credits) is considered a short film, so this is longer than a short film, which makes it "feature-length", and if it's a feature, then maybe it's a movie.

Is it where the material aired?  Because this streamed on the Disney Plus service, which shows a mix of movies and TV shows - but on a streaming service, is there even a difference any more?  Sure, anything with multiple episodes is a "series", but is a streaming series the same as a "TV series"?  Something would have to be on broadcast TV to be a TV show or a TV series or, by extension, a TV movie, right?  But I've allowed in TV movies before, like "Salem's Lot" and the original "It" miniseries, and this year's double dose of Winston Churchill, "The Gathering Storm" and "Into the Storm".  Those were made for the BBC, had no theatrical release, and are now airing on HBO Max as "movies", so none of that should disqualify "Muppets Haunted Mansion" from being considered a movie, right?  

I still have to cut ONE movie from my list, in order to hit the target number of 300 films for the year, and not go over - it's going to come down to either this one, "The U.S. vs. Billie Holiday" or "A Shock to the System", I think.  I could easily disqualify this one as a TV Special, not a "movie" and be done with it.  Taraji P. Henson is in tomorrow's film, too, so it's an easy drop and the chain would still survive.  

But, as soon as I think about cutting this one, then I don't want to do it. It's the perfect link between last week's kiddie movies, "Tom & Jerry", "Sing 2" and "Minions: The Rise of Gru" and my Halloween programming, which has decided, against all better judgement, to start itself early.  Don't blame me, it's the chain's decision, not mine!  I'm all for waiting until October 1 to start the scary movies, but the chain's got a mind of its own sometimes.  Looking at what's been programmed for the next 2 weeks, I've got a movie about Charles Manson, a film based on a Marvel comic about a vampire, and a mystery film that the IMDB also places in the "horror" category, then after that come the "Purge" films, all this BEFORE OCTOBER 1, this is madness!  

OK, I'll level with you.  I put a horror chain together, months ago, and it's always started with the "Purge" films, that's always been the plan.  But then I realized I have to work at New York Comic-Con, and then my wife and I planned an 8-day vacation in October, and all told, that's 12 days of October that are just not conducive to watching movies.  Now, I could allow the horror chain to stretch into November, that's one option - but that means two weeks of downtime here in September, I can't just sit around doing nothing when there are movies to watch!  Anyway, there's a chill in the air (maybe one day a week, but it's there) and they're serving pumpkin-based donuts and coffee at both Starbucks AND Dunkin, so it looks like my annual horror chain is starting early, just like the "unofficial" end of summer is Labor Day, but the "official" start of fall is September 22.  We're still in the between-time, but screw it, the horror chain is "unofficially" starting here, tonight.  Yah, we're going to ease into it, like a swimming pool... that will chill you to the BONE!  No one can prepare you for the horror that is...THE MUPPETS!

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (Movie #2,199), "The Haunted Mansion" (Movie #2,457)

THE PLOT: On Halloween night, Gonzo is challenged to spend one night in the Haunted Mansion.

AFTER: The other big plus for watching this one last night - I had to get up early and work at that animation art sale again today, not AS early, because we didn't have to do set up on Day Two, we just left the tables as they were at the end of Day 1.  But still, I didn't want to oversleep on a day where there's money to be made for the company - so a 52 minute special, I mean MOVIE, was just perfect. I could knock it out on the computer, hit the hay early and try very hard not to sleep in, even though it was SUNDAY.  I have to start my training for New York Comic-Con somewhere, after all.  And we were pretty successful, we sold a bunch of art, made about half of what we usually make at NYCC - it makes sense, that's a four-day event, and this was a two-day event. Good news, our bake sale saved the rec center, now the kids can have a sock hop.

But now I still have to review "Muppets Haunted Mansion". Please save me from this nightmare, now I have to debate the finer points of a plot where we STILL DON'T KNOW if Kermit and Miss Piggy are still married, or divorced, or separated, or what.  I suspect they were never officially married, I think it was all a big publicity stunt - I think we learned from "Sing 2" that animals should only date animals of the same species, after all, so the thought of a frog and a pig living together and, you know, the other thing, it's unnatural, right?  And a bit disgusting, but I digress. 

Kermit's not the star here, thank GOD, he had his time in the limelight, right?  We've moved on, and that whole pig-marrying scandal nearly cancelled his career, anyway. Just me?  The star here is GONZO, believe it or not. (Anyway, you probably can't even tell me who performs the voice of Kermit, who took over after Jim Henson died?  You don't even know, do you? Kermit is so over.)  Anyway, Gonzo has to spend the night in a haunted mansion, because it's a challenge from, umm, somebody (?) and it's 100 years exactly since the magician the Great MacGuffin died, and they say he haunts the mansion, and so do a bunch of dead folk who look an awful lot like the other Muppets.  The haunted mansion is picking up the sympathetic vibrations from Gonzo, and the dead spirits have eerily taken on the looks of his close friends, or words to that effect. Really, it's just a cheap way to get all the characters into the show twice over.

His companion is Pepe the Prawn, who's always been a bit of an underused character, I think he just looks weird, and I prefer my shrimps to be not talking, fried in batter and silent on my plate. And he's got a Spanish accent and says a lot of things incorrectly, shouldn't this character also be cancelled for being a negative stereotype of Hispanic seafood?  They made a reference to Pepe's horrible luck dating women in the limo ride over, which perfectly (?) sets up why he falls so hard for a beautiful ghost named Constance who's married and killed six husbands and is looking for number 7.  Point of order - can a ghost get married, to a living person?  Geez, I guess if a frog can marry a pig, anything can happen, but come on, is that legally binding?  Like, he's a shrimp, and he's alive, how is she going to kill him, and then what happens, they stay married forever in the afterlife?  But she's not currently married to the other six guys?  People, it's right there in the vows - "till death do we part".  Once somebody dies, or if they're already dead, then the marriage contract is null and void, they are officially "parted".  So no, if Pepe gets married to a ghost, he does not have to stay with her forever, uh uh. 

But the haunted mansion is tricky that way - you can leave the mansion, sure, but only after you face your fears.  And in order to face your fears, first you have to articulate what your fears ARE, which is tough for a daredevil like Gonzo. (Remember the stunts he used to do on "The Muppet Show"? Gonzo was the puppet version of Super Dave Osborne...who was the comedy version of Evel Knievel.). Gonzo is told to visit Room 999, which is difficult to find - I'd try the ninth floor, but what do I know?  Haunted house physics seem really weird, what with the hallways that keep getting longer and the foyer that somehow gets taller.  In order to get OUT of Room 999 (which is really Room 666, duh) Gonzo has to come to terms with the fear that nobody will like him UNLESS he keeps doing the dangerous stunts.  Ah, the price of fame. He also has the fear of getting older, the fear of getting trapped in a haunted mansion (obvi) and the fear that his friends are having a great time at the Halloween party without him.  The greatest fear in the world, it turns out, is FOMO.  That's "Fear of Missing Out", not "Fear of Muppet Oligarchs". 

Once he faces his fears, Gonzo has succeeded, he's mentally beaten the Haunted Mansion, which peeks into your SOUL and uses your greatest fears against you, to keep you there forever.  And he's congratulated by his host, the butler, who is really...well, I don't want to spoil it. But Pepe the Prawn is still in the mansion, about to be married to a ghost.  Gonzo risks his freedom to save Pepe, and that's the real accomplishment.  When the butler lets them go, and it's because Gonzo faced his fears, there's a missed opportunity here.  He SHOULD have said, "Sure, you faced your fear, but you also risked your freedom to save a friend, and that's the greatest act of all."  Just saying, it would have been more powerful that way. 

Wow, some screenwriter REALLY doesn't like marriage. (Who hurt you?). And I'm kind of questioning if any of this is really appropriate for a kids special - I mean MOVIE, jeez, why do I keep doing that?  There's a bunch of cameos, stars appearing as ghosts, and one is Ed Asner - MAN, it's just WAY too soon for that. It may not be the last film or TV project he appeared in, but still, he died in August 2021 and this came out what, two months later?  Not cool. Sure, this is all in fun and it's all meant to be quite silly, but there's a harsh reality here that kids shouldn't have to face when we talk about ghosts and stuff.  Ghosts are dead people (umm, except ghosts don't exist) and vampires are undead people who drink blood zombies are dead people who eat brains and mummies are dead Egyptian people and doesn't this really call into question the "fun" nature of Halloween?  What the hell are we even doing, treating all the Halloween stuff like it's a fun time for the kids?  

I think the bigger takeaway, though, and watching the documentary "Street Gang" a couple months ago just confirmed it - puppeteers are very weird people, they make specials - er, movies - like this one.  When I think about the fact that I've spent thirty years in the world of independent film, and directors have big egos and independent filmmakers are a cheap, cowardly, cutthroat lot (I'm generalizing, here, but I stand by this) I realize that my station in life could be much, much, worse after all - I was sort of puppetry-adjacent for a few years, I knew a few people who worked for CTW and even smaller outfits.  Let me tell you first-hand, THOSE are the real freaks. 

Also starring Yvette Nicole Brown (last seen in "Lady and the Tramp" (2019)), Darren Criss (last seen in "Midway"), John Stamos (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Kim Irvine, Quinn McPherson, with cameos from Alfonso Ribeiro, Edward Asner (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Chrissy Metz (last seen in "The Onion Movie"), Jeannie Mai, Sasheer Zamata (last heard in "The Mitchells vs the Machines"), Skai Jackson, Geoff Keighley, Pat Sajak, Justina Machado (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Craig Robinson (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop")

and the voices of Dave Goelz (last seen in "I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story"), Eric Jacobson (ditto), Matt Vogel (ditto), Bill Barretta (last heard in "The Happytime Murders"), Peter Linz (last heard in "Muppets Most Wanted"), David Rudman (last heard in "The Muppets Christmas Carol"), Julianne Buescher, Alice Dinnean (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Bruce Lanoil, Brian Henson (last seen in "Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street"), Nicolette Santino, Alex Villa.

RATING: 5 out of 10 ghostly ballroom dancers