BEFORE: At home today, nothing to do and nowhere to go, but it's too cold to go anywhere, anyway. It hasn't been THAT cold all winter long in NYC, and so far none of the you-know-what falling from the sky, so our shovels remain stored in the basement. I know this is not normal, because other parts of the country have been slammed with winter weather, for some reason we've been lucky. But in previous years when we've been THIS lucky, then we get massive blizzards in March, so I'm not celebrating just yet. There's word of some possible snow for Tuesday next week, that's a day I'm scheduled to be home again, so I could deal with it if it happens and not lose any work. Though, honestly at this point I wouldn't mind a snowstorm if it kept me out of the office for a day or three.
Liam Aiken carries over from "Sweet November".
THE PLOT: A pregnant New York City social worker begins to develop romantic feelings for her gay best friend and decides she'd rather raise her child with him, much to the dismay of her overbearing boyfriend.
AFTER: I've had this on the list for a while, but it's time to clean house, get some of these films that have been outstanding for a long while OFF the damn list, even if I have to resort to extreme measures to FIND them. This one is NOT running on cable, it's not on Netflix or Hulu or Tubi or Roku - it's on Amazon Prime, but at a prime cost. Sure, there's always iTunes to fall back on, but the film is 25 years old and iTunes is still charging $3.99 for rental? When exactly is the price going to come down? An old film from the previous century should be $1.99 to rent, tops. If I start paying $3.99 per film on top of all the monthly subscriptions we have, I'll go broke really fast - or probably not, but I'm going to FEEL like I'm spending money I don't have. SO, I kept looking and I found the film on DailyMotion, in two parts, for FREE. OK, gotta do what I gotta do to save $1.99...
This was kind of a mistake, because there was a 2-commercial ad break every 5 minutes. Really? I started to feel like maybe I should have paid the damn $3.99 just to avoid the ads for Botox Cosmetic - with people so self-absorbed they can't stand to have a couple wrinkles on their forehead, I simply hated them for that. 3-second ads for pet treats I can stomach, but not the damn "WAAH, I don't want crow's feet or frown lines!" commercials. Anyway, I put up with it because at least it was a break from the movie every 5 minutes, but COME ON, even Tubi doesn't have that many commercials for its "free" movies. "The Object of My Affection" should be on YouTube for FREE by now.
But, I have to wonder, WHY isn't this film available on any streaming platforms right now? Maybe it's been on all of them already at various times and I just didn't watch it. Maybe it aged out of the Netflix and Hulu programs - watch, with my luck this movie will probably pop up on HBO Max next month. (Speaking of which, there are three movies on HBO Max that are crucial to my March and April chains, and it looks like they're disappearing from the platform on February 28. So now I have to hustle this weekend and dub them to VHS just so I'll be able to watch them when I get to them in the chain. Naturally, HBO movies on VHS won't dub to DVD, so it seems my only choice will be to watch them on VHS tape, very old school. I can't just hope that these three films will pop up on Tubi or Roku, because they may not. I'll admit it, I took too long to watch them, but why can't all films just stay available where they are? And two of these films are definitely NOT on iTunes, so it's HBO Max to VHS or nothing at all.)
I'm getting off track - I'm forced to conclude here that there's SOMETHING about this plot that was kind of OK in 1993, but just isn't P.C. any more? Something about a straight woman choosing to live with her new gay friend instead of the straight father of her baby? I have a feeling this was new plot territory back then, but maybe it's weak sauce now that there are more gay couples with children, so it's not exactly groundbreaking any more? OR perhaps this is offensive to liberals because it implies that a woman might try to "change" a gay man into a suitable companion, AND it's also offensive to conservatives because it she's going to be living with a man, it should be the baby's father, not the gay friend. Wow, if these are both true, then congratulations for pissing off people on both ends of the political spectrum, I guess?
This was a really fine line to walk, even back THEN, I can't imagine this kind of story plays well on TV now, unless it's on a wacky sit-com, but I somehow doubt CBS would air this kind of thing now, after "Ghosts" and "The Neighborhood". FOX, maybe, because they have that "Call Me Kat" show that featured a number of prominent gay actors in it, at least until Leslie Jordan died. (Huh, that show is still on, and new episodes are airing this month. FOX must be desperate. The CBS crowd skews older, anyway, but their clocks are ticking...). Again, straight woman, pregnant, chooses to raise the baby with her gay best friend instead of the straight boyfriend. Clearly she doesn't have any confidence in her boyfriend as her soulmate, call it a hunch, but she turns out to be right when he doesn't react well to her choices. Well, it's probably better to get off the Titanic before there are icebergs in the water.
Eventually, her gay friend George finds a new boyfriend, because getting back together with his ex didn't really work out, so what if the new boyfriend has a much older, live-in mentor and boyfriend? Gays aren't big on monogamy, or at least that was the stereotype back in 1993. (Seriously, it was, the "common wisdom" among straights then was that gay people were incapable of forming long-lasting committed relationships, which is B.S. for two reasons - some of them obviously ARE capable of that, and meanwhile straight people don't really have a great track record with monogamy, either.). Anyway, Nina feels betrayed when George gets a boyfriend, but what did she THINK was going to happen? He'd suddenly turn straight while helping to raise a child that wasn't his?
If I were inclined to end the romance chain early, this would have been a great place to drop in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania". But I'm not really excited enough about that film to drop everything and rush out to see it. It'll be on Disney Plus in three or four months, probably, and I'll work it in then. I know, last year I worked in "House of Gucci" and "The Power of the Dog", but that was different, those movies were more relationship-themed, and they fit right in between other movies, I didn't have to change a thing. I could link to the latest Marvel movie via Paul Rudd, but then I would have no link back to the chain I've designed, which constitutes a sure path to St. Patrick's Day, Easter and Mother's Day. So I've gotta stay the course, I've still got 16 more romance/relationship films to watch!
Also starring Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "Dumplin'"), Paul Rudd (last heard in "The Bob's Burgers Movie"), John Pankow (last seen in "Life as a House"), Allison Janney (last seen in "Ma"), Alan Alda (last seen in "Marriage Story"), Tim Daly (last heard in "Superman: Braniac Attacks"), Joan Copeland (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Steve Zahn (last seen in "Shattered Glass"), Amo Gulinello, Kevin Carroll (last seen in "Velvet Buzzsaw"), Nigel Hawthorne (last seen in "Amistad"), Kali Rocha (last seen in "The Crucible"), Gabriel Macht (last seen in "Middle Men"), Bradley White (last seen in "The Night We Never Met"), Sarah Hyland, Hayden Panettiere (last seen in "Scream 4"), Bruce Altman (last seen in "Irresistible"), Daniel Cosgrove, Damian Young (last seen in "Hello I Must Be Going"), Samia Shoaib, Audra McDonald (last heard in "Beauty and the Beast" (2017)), Lauren Pratt, Paz de la Huerta (last seen in "The Limits of Control"), Marilyn Dobrin, Kate Jennings Grant (last seen in "United 93"), Salem Ludwig, Antonia Rey, Edward James Hyland (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), John Roland, Rosanna Scotto (last seen in "Ghostbusters" (2016)), Miguel Maldonado, Peter Maloney (last seen in "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Bette Henritze (last seen in "Far from Heaven"), Iraida Polanco, Sarah Knowlton, Kia Goodwin (last seen in "Swimfan"), with archive footage of Gene Kelly (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Debbie Reynolds (ditto).
RATING: 5 out of 10 ballroom dance lessons
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