Alone Together

Year 15, Day 42 - 2/11/23 - Movie #4,343

BEFORE: I'm headed back to my theater job today, for the first time in about two weeks.  I enjoy working there, but during winter time the shifts are few and far-between, so there are less chances for me to make money - of course I can work my normal hours at the job that's driving me crazy, but where does that get me?  I don't even care what's screening, I just want to get out of the house, have a breakfast sandwich and a coffee, work a shift and do whatever needs to be done for the screening, reset the theater and go home feeling like I accomplished something, even if that something isn't much, it's something. I'll even get up early on a Saturday to do it, it's fine because I haven't been able to sleep late over these past few weeks, and I've never really had trouble sleeping before.  So that's how I know I'm stressed out and anxious most of the time. Too much uncertainty, too much weighing on my mind, from my boss' debt to my parents' health. 

Getting closer to the big romantic holiday now - it's time to kick this romance chain into high gear, maybe. It's been something of a slow build so far. Melissa Leo carries over from "Welcome to the Rileys". 

THE PLOT: Two strangers embroiled in bad relationships end up in the same upstate New York AirBnB at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

AFTER: Speaking of anxiety, remember the first few months of the pandemic?  When we were told to stay home from work, not leave our "bubble" of the family home and get all our groceries delivered so we could wipe them all down after they arrived?  That's the time period covered in this unlikely romance film, set in March and April of 2020.  What happens here is, anyone who could leave New York City left, headed for upstate or the Hamptons or even New Jersey if they could, because Queens, NYC - in fact a neighborhood coincidentally named "Corona" - was the epicenter for the coronavirus cases.  Those people who could afford it - a.k.a. rich assholes - left for places where they thought the pandemic wouldn't reach, though of course it eventually did.

So the lead character here is a rich asshole who booked an AirBnB somewhere upstate or in Connecticut, for a prolonged period of time.  Remember, people in March 2020 didn't know how long the shutdown was going to last, some were saying two weeks, but for all anybody knew, it could be two months or two years. So booking an AirBnB until "whenever" - well, it must be nice if you can afford that, but you're still a rich asshole, so own that, please. The problem is that June's boyfriend changed his mind about the plan, and decided to stay in the city to look after his parents - so she heads upstate alone, only to find that somebody else is booked into the same rental, only that person has paperwork, an e-mail confirmation at least.  

NITPICK POINT: I'm fairly sure that AirBnB has protocols in place that prevent this sort of double-booking error.  It might have made more sense for June's boyfriend, John, to have unbooked the house once he knew he wasn't going to leave the city, but then I suppose we'd have another set of problems relating to that.  So, umm, what happened?  Was her boyfriend lying about booking the house?  Did he cancel the booking and not tell her?  Was he trying to get rid of her for a couple months?  This is all fairly unclear - and so is the question over whether he was dating his new assistant - there was a photo online that showed him out on the town with another woman, presumably that assistant, but then the film never follows up on this point. 

Still, it gives June enough doubt over her relationship that when she starts to have feelings for the other guest at the house, she acts on that impulse, fairly quickly.  Like within just a few days. This brings me to another NITPICK POINT: In those early days of the pandemic, from what I remember, nobody really felt like having fun - playing cards or singing karaoke?  Nah, that would have been extremely crass, trying to have a good time while people were dying in hospitals or struggling on ventilators. What kind of a person would do that, or even be in the mood to have fun?  That's just not how it went down, but then again, I was in the city, I don't know what people did upstate.  But anyone who would use the pandemic as an excuse to do fun things with a new partner seems like a real super asshole. 

Sure, we heard stories about people finding their "quarantine partners" and hunkering down with them for a possibly long period of co-habitation.  Much like how AIDS changed some people's sexual habits (maybe?) during the 1980's because it was safer to just have one committed sexual partner.  Which it generally is, even if that's not the way some people WANT to live their lives, but then again, all life is a calculated risk, and everyone has to decide for themself what steps they want to take to reduce risks, across the board.  BUT I think we heard just as many stories about couples who broke up at the start of the pandemic because they were NOT ready or willing to co-habitate with their prospective partners.  I don't know, maybe both things happened, because the pandemic really changed everybody's lives somehow, in different ways. It's not for me to say, especially since I don't have all the data. 

The other thing at play here is the link between romance and familiarity, a lot of us are caught up in this cycle of serial monogamy where we meet somebody new, become familiar with them, and when that feels good and we're rewarded by the good feelings and the drugs produced in our brains as a result, we make commitments, because we want those good feelings to continue.  But then over time the feelings subside, we maybe get a little bored or we grow apart from our partners in some ways, and then we start to feel distant and disconnected, so we try to meet somebody new, and the cycle begins all over again.  Once you're aware of it, you can either accept this as your routine or you can try to fight against it - but if you're NOT aware of it, you're just going to keep going around the cycle. 

SO, this is what happens, June spends time with a new partner, she learns information about him, they get familiar with each other, they help each other through some tough times, and all the while, she's growing distant from her boyfriend, so she comes to view that previous relationship in a different way, it's not rewarding her with good feelings or good brain drugs because they're not sharing space, or sharing experiences.  She's starting to get those feelings from the new partner, just because they ARE sharing space and sharing experiences - it may or may not be "love" but it's the first phase of a relationship that could contain love down the road. 

But then things get confusing when her boyfriend does track her down, he finally manages to get out of the city and visit that AirBnB house, which is still somehow being rented by the same people, after two months?  Really, I didn't know you could rent an AirBnB for that long without filing for personal bankruptcy because of the huge bill.  Either way, even if the original rental was just for two weeks, they obviously overstayed, and I think that's against the rules.  Remember, nobody in March 2020 knew how long the situation would last. 

While I'm at it: 

NITPICK POINT: A house of that size only has one bedroom?  And one bathroom?  I find that really hard to believe. 

NITPICK POINT: Most AirBnBs have rules against smoking, as least from my experience. But we see Charlie smoking in the living room.  OK, what are they going to do, throw him out?  It's a pandemic so now he's got squatter's rights?  I don't think so...

NITPICK POINT: Who starts taking a shower without first making sure they have a towel ready, you know, for after? 

NITPICK POINT: Nobody calls it a "wine opener", I believe the proper term is "corkscrew". 

NITPICK POINT: Also, I remember that in the early days of the pandemic, when the word came out through the news that we all needed to start wearing masks, that's what we did when we went outside. Now, funny story, the initial advice about masks turned out to be completely backwards, people wore them outside and then took them off when they got back home - but then we learned that COVID spread more easily in close quarters, so we learned that wearing masks indoors was even more important, and the virus was less likely to spread when we were outside surrounded by fresh air.  But in "Alone Together", we see the two main characters hearing about the mask advice, making some homemade masks and then NEVER WEARING THEM AGAIN in the rest of the movie.  This just was NOT how people acted at the start of the pandemic, sorry. We wore our masks because we were scared shitless over the possibility of catching COVID and dying. 

NITPICK POINT: The synopsis says the house is either in New York City or upstate, but neither seems correct.  At one point Charlie leaves the house and goes for a drive, passing a sign that says "Welcome to New York State" - so Connecticut would make a bit more sense, I think. 

Other than the NPs and the mistakes made in the portrayal of the pandemic, there's really not much here to talk about.  Just rich boring people falling in love with each other, or thinking that they are, I'm not sure if they're even capable of love, they're just confusing it with familiarity, it feels like. Just me? 

Before I go, here's today's "Love Tip" - don't confuse love with familiarity, though they are tied together, and one can lead to the other, but it doesn't always. 

Also starring Katie Holmes (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Jim Sturgess (last seen in "Geostorm"), Derek Luke (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe"), Zosia Mamet (last seen in "Greenberg"), Ed Dixon, Neal Benari, Spenser Granese (last seen in "The Many Saints of Newark"), Mike Iveson (last seen in "West Side Story" (2021)), Laura Austin, Becky Ann Baker (last seen in "After Class"), and the voice of Andrew Cuomo

RATING: 5 out of 10 bottles of hand sanitizer

Welcome to the Rileys

Year 15, Day 41 - 2/10/23 - Movie #4,342

BEFORE: Ten films into the romance chain after tonight, but that's only about a quarter of the way through, though it is more than 1/3 of the way through February.  I may add one more film next week at the last minute, I haven't been all that crazy about which film is scheduled to end up on Valentine's Day, so I might be for a slight adjustment - nothing crazy, just adding one more film with an actor that was going to appear in three films, now it may be four.  I should still hit my St. Patrick's Day film right on the nose, I'll just take away the free day in March that I had planned. I should always leave a free day, really, in case something like this pops up. 

Kristen Stewart carries over from "Spencer". 

THE PLOT: On a business trip to New Orleans, a damaged man seeks salvation by caring for a wayward young woman. 

AFTER: This is not really a big romantic film - though the tagline on the DVR guide was different, it might have led me to think so.  Saying that the lead character "gets involved with a stripper" might lead to you to think so too, but really, he just gets involved IN HER LIFE, not involved with her romantically or sexually.  But in a roundabout way, this brings him back to his wife, so maybe I was justified after all, placing this one in February.  

At the start of the film, it sure seems like the Rileys are on the verge of divorce, they can't stand each other, which leads Doug Riley to have a pancake house waitress as a girlfriend on the side. For four years. But there's a valid reason why the relationship is on the rocks, the couple's daughter is dead, and they're both still grieving, in their own ways.  Doug's wife, Lois, has chosen to never leave the house, and to do fatalistic things like pre-plan their funerals and buy their gravestone in advance.  So clearly there's not much in life for her to look forward to.  

Well, at least Doug has his plumbing supply business, and the big plumbing supply convention to look forward to.  Who knew that Plumb-Con was such a big deal?  I'm kidding, but this apparently is a real thing, the next big one coming up is the Kitchen & Bath Expo in Las Vegas starting January 31, and great news, the National Hardware Show and the NAHB International Builder's Show are happening in the same city at the same time, so you can hit them all!  But I wonder why Doug Riley didn't just stay in Indianapolis, because in February that city hosts the WWETT (Water & Wastewater Equipment, Treatment & Transport) Show.  Now, if you ask me, I'd tell you to hold out for the Flow Show in Pomona, CA in March, but that's just my personal preference. If you want to go to Vegas, go to Vegas, I recommend the buffet at the Paris because it's separated into FIVE sections representing the cuisines of different regions in France. 

Anyway, it's clear that Doug Riley sees something of his daughter in this stripper who comes on to him at the club.  At first he agrees to go into a private room with her, I think just because his friends came into the strip club and he didn't want to be seen there.  But then he fell for the old "buy the stripper a bottle of champagne in the VIP room" trick, which probably cost him about $200, but only $60 of that goes to the stripper.  And he didn't even get a BJ or an HJ out of the deal!  Before long he's made Mallory (or whichever name she's going by at the time) his personal project, and he goes home with her, but only so he can start cleaning up the place.  He calls his wife and tells her that he's not coming home, at least not for a while, and then starts in on the home renovation projects, from unclogging the toilet to getting her electricity turned back on.  I can't even imagine how much this all cost him. (I've got to get an extra tank added to our heater, and I've been avoiding it for months, because it's not an emergency - I finally called the plumbing repair company again yesterday, and they should be here next Thursday. It will be nice to not have to empty the bucket by the boiler every few days.)

Meanwhile, Lois is taking gradual steps to leave the house, because she wants to find out why her husband didn't come home from the convention.  The first day she packs a lunch, gets the car ready, checks the oil, cleans off the seats, adjusts the mirror, and then falls asleep before backing out of the garage.  Yeah, this may take a while.  The second day, she makes it out of the garage but then runs over the garbage can and hits the basketball net.  Ok, try again tomorrow, I guess. 

Soon, Doug's paying Mallory $100 a night to sleep in her house because he "doesn't like hotels".  Who the hell doesn't like hotels, with their pools, exercise rooms, unlimited ice and free breakfasts?  Why, sometimes I'll hit up a hotel for a free breakfast when I'm not even staying there!  (The key is too look like you belong, with luck the front desk people will just assume you're a guest that they didn't see sign in, because nobody can work the desk all of the time and check everybody in...). Surely this must be a lie, an excuse for him to give Mallory more money so she doesn't have to have sex with her clients at the club.  

Eventually Lois makes it to New Orleans, and for some reason she's OK with the fact that her husband is sleeping at a stripper's house and paying her for that privilege, also he's cleaned, painted and redecorated the whole place.  Not only is Lois OK, but she starts helping Mallory get her act together, too - it's not stated, but perhaps Mallory closely resembles their late daughter or something, why else would they be so eager to help out a stranger like this?  Anyway, they can only do so much to "fix" Mallory, because at the end of the day she's simply NOT their daughter, and she's also a very stubborn person, so they have no choice but to drive back to Indiana and hope that they made a difference in somebody's life.  It's noble, I suppose that they stayed as long as they did, but as I said before, it somehow brought them closer together and got Lois out of the house, so that's not nothing. 

Also starring James Gandolfini (last seen in "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"), Melissa Leo (last seen in "Thunder Force"), Joe Chrest (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Ally Sheedy (last seen in "Adrienne"), Tiffany Coty, Elsa Davis, Lance E. Nichols (last seen in "Contraband"), Peggy Walton-Walker (last seen in "Two Weeks"), Sharon Landry (last seen in "Green Book"), Kathy Lamkin, Ken Hixon, Elliott Grey, David Jensen (last seen in "Geostorm"), Greg DiLeo, Jack Moore, Chris Kuttruff. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 cigarettes smoked in the garage

Spencer

Year 15, Day 40 - 2/9/23 - Movie #4,341

BEFORE: OK, maybe considering all that we know now, all that's come to light over the past two decades about the royal family, maybe you don't associate Princess Diana and Prince Charles with "romance" any more, but their relationship was considered as some kind of "storybook" romance back in the day.  It's been over 25 years now since the death of Diana, and for some reason, they made a movie about her starring Kristen Stewart - the curiosity level is very high for this, if nothing else. 

Jack Farthing carries over from "Love Wedding Repeat" to play Prince Charies today. 

THE PLOT: Diana Spencer, struggling with mental health problems during her Christmas holidays with the Royal Family at their Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Prince Charles.  

AFTER: On so many levels, this film just doesn't work, because it requires the viewer to feel sorry for Princess Diana, and I'm sorry, but that's just not going to happen, not for me, anyway.  She lived nothing but a life of privilege, born into a wealthy family and despite any unhappiness she may have had in childhood due to her parents' divorce, she still was able to have anything she ever wanted.  The news media made a big deal at the time, something about her being a "commoner" who got engaged to Prince Charles, but just because she had a job as a teacher's assistant, that didn't make her a commoner, not by a long shot.  Her father was an Earl, for chrissakes. She grew up in a house that was very close to the royal family's Sandringham Estate, the house was leased from Queen Elizabeth!  She grew up calling the queen her "aunt", even if it wasn't true.  

Did she have an easy time of things?  OK, probably not.  Was she caught up in a toxic marriage and a difficult situation?  Yeah, probably, but there were things she could have DONE about that, rather than internalize everything and become a nervous wreck, with bulimia and feelings of inadequacy and suicidal thoughts.  I mean, I've been depressed lately but at least I'm not as mentally unstable as she was - I don't mean to belittle her problems, but come on, she had all the money she ever needed, why couldn't she afford some therapy?  And if you can't handle being in the Royal Family, then maybe don't marry into the Royal Family?  Just a thought. 

Were there problems in the marriage to Prince Charles (now King Charles) - well, of course, he had a long ongoing affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, who was married to somebody else.  So he treated his wife like a second-class citizen, we have to wonder now if he ever was in any kind of love with her, but let's not forget, Diana had affairs, also - like with her riding instructor, and I don't think in this situation that two wrongs make a right.  They got married in 1981, but by 1986 both of them were sleeping with other people while trying to maintain appearences - that's just not a formula for success.  Sure, I'm Monday-morning quarterbacking here, but explain to me how two married people having affairs is going to play out over the long run.  It's just not. 

Some of the key players are deceased now, Diana and Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip, Charles recently ascended to King, so sure, let's take a look back at the "good old days", just bear in mind they were probably never as good as anybody pretended they were. Hindsight is 20/20, and so this film pretty much confirms that nobody in the family was ever really that happy - they were all just going through the motions based on traditions over what a monarch and her family are supposed to do.  Like announcing what everyone's going to be dining on at each meal, having dressers and servants seeing to everything, not having any close personal friends or being able to even open the curtains for fear of photographers catching a glimpse of the princess changing her clothes.  

The film is set at Christmas, and nobody seems very festive, what with a tough schedule of posing for the royal family photos, changing clothes 12 times a day, and then having to listen to the entire menu being announced before tucking in to Christmas lunch.  God, everything seems so tedious, is that the point here?  And then Diana freaked out because Charles was planning to take their sons hunting to shoot pheasants, and she didn't care for guns, or knowing that her sons would be shooting them, so she complained, to no avail, then finally took a stand and burst in to the hunting grounds to take her sons away.  I suppose that's to be seen as some kind of watershed moment, because she finally couldn't take it any more, and this anti-hunting stance led to her driving away with Princes William and Harry, and eventually the divorce.  

Did she ever consider that maybe her sons might WANT to learn how to shoot pheasants?  Not every tradition is automatically bad just because it's an old tradition.  Look, I'm against hunting myself, I don't quite see the need for it when you can just buy meat at the supermarket - but on the other hand, pheasants are very dumb birds, and as the Royal Head Chef points out to Diana, the birds were raised to be hunted, if not for the hunt then those birds wouldn't be alive at all, plus they're so dumb that if you don't shoot them, they'll probably all get run over by cars driving through the estate.  OK, if that's the hill you want to take a stand on, by all means, go ahead. But a person can only eat so many organic jams and jellies on scones.  Plus, NITPICK POINT, the film shows Diana and her sons driving away from the pheasant hunt and then getting KFC from a drive-thru - how is that any better?  Didn't those chickens deserve to live out their natural lives without getting coated in 11 herbs and spices and deep-fried? 

I get it, Diana wasn't cut out to be a member of the royal family, she couldn't follow all the rules or observe all of their stupid traditions - and the monarchy in the UK is so powerful that whatever the Queen says goes, just because "that's the way it's always been done".  But things can change over time, one could say that things HAVE to change over time, even if it's at an extremely slow pace.  Diana could have taken a stand and negotiated for change, she was a very powerful figure in terms of doing charity work - which was a great use of her time and energy.  Why couldn't she also have devoted some time and energy to changing the system slowly from within?  I realize the answer's probably tied up with a bunch of personal issues and mental health problems, but running away from every conflict just isn't going to help over time, hiding in the bathroom and throwing up doesn't seem like a viable solution, either.  

Sure, the Royal Family put a lot of pressure on her to lose weight - they had her weighed constantly, they made her feel ashamed for eating desserts, but at the same time, the family had a head chef that would cook her anything she wanted, so those are some mixed signals, right?  Then Prince Charles would point out that the farmers worked hard to make the produce, the bees worked hard to make the honey, and she was showing disrespect for them by puking up her meal.  He's right in a way, but he was also being an asshole. Plus, the family wants her to not gain weight, but also wants her to feel guilty for NOT eating?  What a whole bunch of assholes, those mixed signals are bound to screw anybody up.  

According to the film, Diana confided in certain servants, like her dresser and the head chef, even though she knew that anything she said to them was likely to not remain confidential.  The servants naturally might gossip about the Royal Family or even report things to the news, but that didn't stop Diana from having the servants get her a pair of wirecutters so she could break into her old house near the Royal Family's estate and consider throwing herself down the stairs.  Also, she apparently had visions of Anne Boleyn, the wife of Henry VIII who was beheaded after the King accused her of having an affair, when it was actually HIM who was having affairs. Did somebody place the book about Anne Boleyn in Diana's room to warn her about what could happen to her, or to help drive her insane?  

We may never know for sure, or if that even happened, because so much of this film is probably just idle speculation.  Much like "Blonde", there were no doubt liberties taken here over what really took place between members of the Royal Family, but I suppose that's inevitable.  The film did win praise for Kristen Stewart being able to adapt the look and mannerisms of Princess Diana, and let's not forget that she was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress just one year ago, but I think in the end that only gets you so far. For me, it was a real struggle to get through. 

Also starring Kristen Stewart (last seen in "Underwater"), Timothy Spall (last heard in "Early Man"), Sally Hawkins (last seen in "Never Let Me Go"), Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry, Sean Harris (last seen in "The King"), Stella Gonet (last seen in "Nicholas Nickleby"), Richard Sammel (last seen in "Casino Royale"), Elizabeth Berrington (last seen in "Last Night in Soho"), Lore Stefanek, Amy Manson, James Harkness (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Laura Benson, Wendy Patterson, Libby Rodliffe, John Keogh, Marianne Graffam (last seen in "The Ghost Writer"), Ben Plunkett-Reynolds, Ryan Wichert, Michael Epp (last seen in "Unlocked"), Tom Hudson (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), James Gerard, Thomas Douglas, Emma Darwall-Smith, Kimia Schmidt, Greta Bücker, Henry Castello, Niklas Kohrt, Oriana Gordon, Olga Hellsing, Matthias Wolkowski, 

RATING: 4 out of 10 red billiard balls

Love Wedding Repeat

Year 15, Day 39 - 2/8/23 - Movie #4,340

BEFORE: Well, I'm good for a couple wacky wedding movies every year - last time it was "Margot at the Wedding" and "Love, Weddings & Other Disasters". The year before that, it was "Destination Wedding" and "Muriel's Wedding". Before that, "The Wilde Wedding" and "Jenny's Wedding". Kind of comes with the territory if I'm going to focus on romance for a month, you have to figure. 

Eleanor Tomlinson carries over from "Colette". 

THE PLOT: While trying to make his sister's wedding day go smoothly, Jack finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend, an uninvited guest with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative and the girl who got away in alternate versions of the same day. 

AFTER: Well, the description in the tagline made me think this was a film about time travel, that bit about alternate versions of the same day.  But it's not, really, so I'm glad I didn't place this next to "Needle in a Timestack", which I watched in January.  That film was also a romance, but based much more heavily in the logistics of time travel, while THIS film merely rewinds back to a certain point in the film to show several different ways of how this disastrous wedding scenario could have played out.  It's much closer to this episode of "Community" in which the cast members were playing a board game, and when the food they ordered arrived, they rolled a die to see who should answer the door, and the episode then featured six possible comedic scenarios, each more outrageous than the last.  Which one really "happened" was then up to the viewer.  There was an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" with a similar time-loop, and then of course there are the multiple possible endings for the film "Clue".  This one's kind of in that ballpark. 

I've seen disaster wedding films before, as I mentioned above, but not one with so many difficult things that the main character (bride's brother) has to overcome.  I wonder if the screenwriters just had so many ideas for ways that a wedding could run off the rails that they had to devise the proper vehicle to showcase them all - even though some are only seen very briefly before the rewind, and they just feature the characters fighting or someone taking off their pants, or falling into the big cake, and we kind of have to envision what possibly could have brought such circumstances into being.  Others were saved for the "blooper reel" during the closing credits, it must be nice to have so many possible plot points that you can't even fit them all into the main film....

This falls a little short of the multi-verse ideas seen in "Everything Everywhere All at Once", though, but maybe that's a good thing, as that film was so complicated I don't think even the actors or directors understood how the whole multiverse thing was supposed to work.  This is a little more clear, that the different scenarios are caused by the fact that there are eight people assigned to the one "English table" at the wedding, and before anyone gets seated, some kids run around the table and mix up the placecards.  (The first of today's tips, never bring kids to a wedding. Never. Yes, NEVER.). The narrator asks us if we know how many different seating combinations there are for 8 people at a table, but never gives us the answer, because that's way too hard to figure out.  Umm, no, it's not.  It just depends if you're talking about combinations or permutations - in other words, does the order matter, or are duplicate seating arrangements that are rotations of others counted as the same?

Since there's ONE spiked drink at the table, we have to consider that position DOES matter, it's important to each possible scenario who drank the ruffied champagne.  So that seat is position 1, the next seat is position 2, and so on.  There are 8 possible people who could sit down in seat 1, and then for each of those people, there are 7 possible people who could sit in seat 2, 6 for seat 3, and so on.  So the number of permutations is 8 times 7 times 6 times 5 times 4 times 3 times 2 times 1, also called "8 factorial", and the answer is 40,320.  Duh. Like, who doesn't know that? Thankfully the movie only shows us about 4 or 5 different results, theoretically there could have been so many more.  (NOTE: The IMDB states that the number of seating combinations is 7 factorial, or 5,040 - this is because for each combination of 8 people, there are 7 identical seating arrangements, just rotated by one, so yeah, 40,320 divided by 8 is 5,040.  But for the ways you could arrange the 8 people around the table with one spiked drink in a fixed position, I stand by my number of 40,320 - because it matters who gets the drink.)

Finally, after several nightmare scenarios where certain people are drugged and fall asleep, certain other people get out of control or get into fights, and times when the bride's ex interrupts the reception to claim that he slept with the bride recently, there is finally a depiction of how things might have gone rather well in the end.  Well, they go tits up, and then a number of things manage to work themselves out.  Bryan, the "maid" of honor, gives a successful toast and this manages to impress the important Italian film director, so he may have an acting career after all. and Jack, the bride's brother, finally gets a chance to connect with Dina, someone he spent a weekend with three years ago but never got the chance to kiss, thanks to an old college friend showing up at exactly the wrong time.  

NITPICK POINT: The bride is British, the groom is Italian - so, umm, where is the wedding being held?  The IMDB says this was filmed in Rome, Italy, so we can assume that the film is set there, the beautiful Italian castle/villa setting sure seems to back that up.  But then doesn't that make it much more unlikely that the bride's coked-up ex would be able to crash the wedding?  He didn't just drive or walk across town, he would have had to take a plane, and that would have been difficult in his condition, also expensive, right?  

The film really wants today's "Love Tip" to be that in life, you have to take chances when the opportunities come your way.  But MY "Love Tip" for the day is that if you're getting married, be aware that during the ceremony and reception, some things are going to go well, some things may go wrong, but you have to try to relax and have a good time, no matter what, because at the end of the day, you'll be married and anything that went wrong, you can laugh about later. This advice came from MY best man (I can't remember which wedding, though) and it was solid words of wisdom. 

Also starring Sam Claflin (last seen in "Last Night in Soho"), Olivia Munn (last seen in "Mortdecai"), Freida Pinto (last seen in "Needle in a Timestack"), Joel Fry (last seen in "Cruella"), Jack Farthing (last seen in "The Lost Daughter"), Tim Key (last seen in "See How They Run"), Allan Mustafa, Aisling Bea, Paolo Mazzarelli, Simonetta Solder, Tiziano Caputo, Stefano Patti, Giusi Merli, Francesca Rocco, Achille Brugnini (last seen in "The Two Popes"), Alexander Forsyth, Christian Hillborg, and the voice of Penny Ryder (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul", but she's worked a lot as Judi Dench's stand-in - I guess they couldn't get Judi Dench to narrate this film, so they hired her look-alike, hoping that she'd also be a sound-alike?)

RATING: 7 out of 10 pointless stories about Jim and Jeff

Colette

Year 15, Day 38 - 2/7/23 - Movie #4,339

BEFORE: It's annual check-up time here at the Movie Year, I mean like I'm going to the doctor today.  It's only been 11 months since my last check-up, but I've been on daily antacids for a year and I still get nauseous in the mornings, so they're working, just not well enough.  I've tried sleeping sitting up whenever possible (falling asleep right after a movie helps, because I'm usually watching my movie from the recliner).  But, I've noticed that I get these dry heaves more often on the days I have to work at the animation studio, which could mean that's it's not a physical problem, it's anxiety from thinking about what I have to do later that day.  I don't have this problem on the days where I go work at the movie theater, because that job is less stressful, almost fun in some ways.  The problem is that the theater's been mostly closed this winter while the college was on break, so I haven't been earning money there, I'm dependent on both jobs so I can't quit the one that might be making me feel sick in the mornings.  Also, too many days spent at home makes me feel like I'm not making any progress, so I've been hit with the double whammy of anxiety and depression, just on alternating days. 

The good news is that my blood pressure is down, so's my weight, but I ticked off too many boxes on the questionnaire about depression - I'm toggling between not being hungry and overeating, for example.  So after my physical and a referral to a gastro-enterologist, I've got to start thinking of a mental health solution, or a career change, or both. 

Keira Knightley carries over from "Last Night", which I watched last night. 

THE PLOT: Colette is pushed by her husband to write novels under his name. Upon their success, she fights to make her talents known, challenging gender norms. 

AFTER: What do you know, frustration over working hard and not getting anywhere is sort of a central theme of today's movie.  Sidonie-Gabriello Colette was a real person, who had the bad fortune of living during the late 18th and early 19th century, when women were apparently not taken seriously as authors, and obviously the patriarchal system was against her success.  She married Henry Gauthier-Villars, who wrote under the pen name "Willy" and according to this, was a real hustler, having other people write stories so he could take the credit.  

Don't hate the player, hate the game - OK, maybe in this case, hate the player, too.  Colette catches him cheating with Parisian whores, and his excuse is that "all men do it". Lame.  Then he says, "Oh, it meant nothing..." - well, then, why do it?  We all know WHY he did it, but he's got one excuse after another, he'll try anything to have it both ways, kind of like having someone else write a book so he can put his name on it.  He not only encourages his wife to write erotic fiction, he locked her in a room until she got something down on paper - classy guy. The first four books Colette wrote about Claudine, the young school girl who goes on a series of sexual escapades, were published with Willy as the author. For whatever reason, Colette went along with this, as she was made to think that nobody would buy the books if they were written by an unknown female author.  

According to this film, anyway, Colette was more upset about her husband's lying about his affairs than him actually having them, which seems quite forward-thinking for a woman in the late 1800's.  Then she supposedly agreed to some kind of open marriage, I guess because it was more honest than the alternative, and then began (or was encouraged to begin) romantic relationships with women.  Maybe it started out as research for the novels, and then she found that she liked it, it's not for me to say.  The problem with most biopics is that some poor screenwriter often has to read between the lines and write some dialogue based on assumptions of what everyone's motivations were.  Facts are facts, but they don't always tell us WHY people did things the way they did.  

Anyway, the film suggests that at one point Colette and her husband were both having affairs with the same woman, a debutante from Louisiana.  Colette got with her first, and then perhaps out of jealousy, Willy had sex with her too - based on the length of this montage, that was one busy debutante.  I wonder if she got her kicks out of knowing that she was sleeping with both halves of a married couple.  Whatever puts a pep in your step, I guess.  This seems to have inspired a whole "Claudine" book of its own, but when Colette finds out that her husband was ALSO sleeping with the same woman she was, naturally she's upset.  Again, for her it wasn't about the infidelity, but the fact that he wasn't truthful about it. 

After further success with the books, a stage adaptation of "Claudine" becomes a hit, and then Colette not only takes up pantomime acting herself, but gets into a long-term relationship with a woman who dressed and acted as a man.  The timeline of the film is a little different, in real life Colette didn't take to the stage until after she divorced her husband - but here the couple still works together for a while, despite the fact they both have relationships with women. Colette falls in love with Missy, and their kiss on stage at the Moulin Rouge draws cries of outrage and scandal from the audience.  I guess the French weren't as progressive back then as they became later? 

Eventually, Willy screws over Colette one too many times, by selling off the rights to all the Colette novels, without telling his wife. Well, it's not like she wrote them - oh, wait, she did. This is the last straw for her, and she runs off to make more horrible stage pantomime shows, and he tries to burn the early manuscripts that were written by Colette's hand.  Thankfully, there's only ONE shot here of Willy trying in vain to type up a new Claudine story and failing because he's got writer's block - I'm honestly surprised there weren't ten more scenes just like that. 

Colette has the last laugh here, because she ends up writing a new novel, "La Vagabonde", about her years working on stage plays in music halls, and it became a big hit.  And then in the 1920's she wrote more original novels AND was recognized as the true author of the "Claudine" books, she even married a couple more men, Henry de Jouvenel and Maurice Goudeket. (The marriage to de Jouvenel didn't work out because they were both unfaithful, she apparently had an affair with her stepson...)

In the decades that followed, she came to be known as France's greatest female writer, and her novel "Gigi" got turned into a play and a movie. She also was known as a journalist and photographer, then of course World War II came along and changed everything.  She had a few articles appear in Pro-Nazi publications during the German occupation, and that will really just kill anybody's career.  But the movie "Colette" only takes us up to the music hall days and the publication of "La Vagabond", and I think we all know why it stopped there.

But the relationship stuff here, with the lesbian affairs, the open marriage, the transgender actors, is really ahead of its time - and so naturally I wonder if it all really went down that way, or if that's a modern interpretation of the way things might have been. So today's "Love Tip" is: Never work with your wife, or marry a co-worker, because these marriages rarely work out in the long term.  For example, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman - we all thought at one point they'd be together forever, right? 

Also starring Dominic West (last seen in "Genius"), Eleanor Tomlinson (last seen in "Einstein and Eddington"), Aiysha Hart (last seen in "Hope Gap"), Fiona Shaw (last seen in "Lizzie"), Denise Gough (last seen in "The Kid Who Would Be King"), Robert Pugh (last seen in "Into the Storm"), Rebecca Root (last seen in "Last Christmas"), Jake Graf (last seen in "The Danish Girl"), Julian Wadham (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Polina Litvak, Caroline Boulton, Sloan Thompson, Arabella Weir, Máté Haumann, Ray Panthaki (last seen in "Official Secrets"), Al Weaver (last seen in "Doom"), Virág Bárány, Dickie Beau (last seen in "Bohemian Rhapsody"), Janine Harouni (last seen in "The Batman"), Johnny K. Palmer, Shannon Tarbet, Dorcas Coppin.

RATING: 6 out of 10 pieces of repossessed furniture

Last Night

Year 15, Day 37 - 2/6/23 - Movie #4,338

BEFORE: OK, now I'm getting into it, with divorce and flings with large age differences, let's hit one with some more affairs in it while I'm at it. Daniel Eric Gold carries over from "Hello I Must Be Going". 

THE PLOT: The story follows a married couple, apart for one night while the husband takes a business trip with a colleague to whom he's attracted.  While he's resisting temptation, his wife encounters her past love. 

AFTER: There's just not a lot here, it's a pretty simple film about two married people who happen to get tempted to cheat at the same time.  People often talk about the "seven year itch" but this couple's only been married for three - perhaps they were together for four years before that?  It's a bit unclear.  But it's a bit of a contrivance that the husband goes on a business trip with an attractive co-worker, and the wife just HAPPENS to bump into her old boyfriend on the street the same day her husband leaves.  What are the odds of that?  Consider that her old boyfriend is from France, so he just HAPPENS to be visiting NYC that same day?  And he bumps into her within hours of her husband going on this trip?  It's possible that maybe he was stalking her, or watching and waiting for the husband to go out of town?  Just looking for an explanation here that explains the coincidence.

This business trip is in Philadelphia, which is less than 100 miles away from NYC.  It's a short drive or train trip - and the husband is out of town for just ONE night.  So you have to figure, if they're both tempted to cheat during just one night apart, maybe that marriage isn't on very solid ground to begin with. Right?  And it's just a day after Joanna, the wife, first meets Laura, her husband's co-worker at a party.  Joanna wonders why her husband never mentioned that he had such an attractive co-worker - well, that's a question that really answers itself.  Either he just didn't see his co-worker that way, or he didn't want his wife flipping out over the fact that he has such an attractive co-worker, duh.  

It's tough to say whether Joanna's jealousy played a part in her deciding to go to dinner with her ex - let's assume that it did. And it's also tough to say whether Joanna's jealousy ended up driving Michael closer to his co-worker, but again, let's assume that it did.  So one thing leads to another, and before long they're both hanging out with other partners, wondering what the implications are if they cheat.  Can they cheat and get away with it?  Should they?  Joanna's kind of got the advantage here, because I think she got with the French guy while she and Michael were "on a break".  That's not cheating, but if she never told Michael about her feelings for Alex, it's a lie of omission. And clearly Joanna has emotional feelings for Alex still, which is worse than having sex with him, in some way. Sort of. 

Joanna and Alex have dinner with his friends, they walk a friend's dog, they get locked out, and they kiss each other.  Meanwhile Michael and Laura share a drink at a bar, kiss and then decide to go swimming in the hotel pool.  I won't get into whether either partner has sex, because that's really the crux of the film.  But by getting intimate with other partners, sharing their feelings, their stories, and kissing or embracing, isn't that all a form of cheating?  Sex is sex, of course, but they've made emotional connections with other people, so it almost doesn't matter. 

But for the most part, this is very boring stuff - who knew that affairs could be so boring?  The married people are so hung up on all the implications that I don't think they could even enjoy the best part of the affairs, if you know what I mean.  And then just when it looks like there's going to be a confrontation brewing over the whole thing, the film just ends, which is a choice, but maybe a really bad one.  Imagine a film about a war that details all the build-up and then ends before the first shot gets fired.  What a let-down.  

One part that was very confusing was the fact that while Joanna was hanging out with Alex, after dinner they were in a very different apartment than the one she shares with Michael - I kept thinking, that's not the same kitchen we saw before!  What the hell?  Does their apartment have two kitchens?  It took me a while to realize that was someone else's apartment, and they were just there to walk Joanna's friend's dog.  

Anyway, this one is short, not-so-sweet and ends before it gets to the point - don't say I didn't warn you about that. This film had the bad fortune to be set for release in March 2010, which was right around the time that Miramax was closing down (not because of the accusations against Harvey Weinstein, this was 7 years before that...).  This was Miramax going bankrupt after screwing up distribution on several pictures, and then other companies got to bid on all their unreleased projects and take them over. 

Also starring Keira Knightley (last seen in "Domino"), Sam Worthington (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Eva Mendes (last seen in "Clear History"), Guillaume Canet (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Anson Mount (last seen in "City by the Sea"), Griffin Dunne (last seen in "Adrienne"), Stephanie Romanov (last seen in "The Final Cut"), Scott Adsit (last seen in "Town & Country"), Justine Cotsonas, Karen Pittman (last seen in "The Rewrite"), Rae Ritke, Chriselle Almeida, Zach Poole, Christian Lorentzen, William Clemente, Cheryl Sarkaria. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 nights sleeping on the sofa 

Hello I Must Be Going

Year 15, Day 36 - 2/5/23 - Movie #4,337

BEFORE: OK, after today it's five romance films down, just 35 to go.  And I'm counting down to the big day in February that's coming up - of course, I'm talking about the premiere of "The Masked Singer", on February 15.  That's it, that's the only big thing coming up on the agenda, except maybe the Puppy Bowl next weekend. I need to think about getting some snacks for the big game...I bet you think I'm kidding, but if I don't care about the two teams in the Super Bowl then I'd rather watch puppies run around a fake stadium and commit "offensive fouls" on the astroturf. 

Wait, Valentine's Day, of course.  How convenient that day pops up right in the middle of my romance chain...  Well, I can't promise that I've got the most appropriate film lined up for that day - I tried "Romance & Cigarettes" last year and that turned out to be a bust.  The year before that I watched "Destination Wedding" on 2/14, that was a better fit, but the year before that, it was "Mermaids".  OK, so the process is a bit hit or miss - I've learned it's better to not over-think this, and kind of let the chips fall where they may.  Which film this year is going to land on the most romantic holiday? 

Julie White carries over from "Life Partners", 

THE PLOT: Circumstances force a young divorcée to move back in with her parents in suburban Connecticut, where an affair with a younger guy rejuvenates her passion for life. 

AFTER: There are only so many romantic plots, after all - so if "Life Partners" is this year's "Duck Butter", than today's film is this year's "Elizabethtown", or maybe this year's "The Last Kiss". I'll just keep going around until I get it right, I guess.  This movie is about a recently-divorced woman who moves back in with her parents and tries to start over - she'll also keep going around until she gets it right, I guess. 

Divorce sucks, but today's "Love Tip" is to always maybe have some plan to fall back on, don't just define yourself through your marriage or relationship, because that can go away, and without something to do, you may feel lost.  OK, you're going to be depressed one way or the other, but at least with a job you've got somewhere to go and maybe a sense of purpose.  Did the screenwriter here just forget to give Amy a job, or was part of her character that she tried several different majors and careers and nothing worked out?  She's 35 here and doesn't have any kind of profession, no way to make money?  OK, now she's got TWO reasons to be all depressed, so yeah, moving back in with Mom & Dad makes perfect sense, especially if they live in Westport, Connecticut.  Must be nice.  

Her parents have had some financial problems, though - something about the market crashing, but they seem to have recovered and they're renovating the house and investing in artworks, so they can't be doing TOO badly.  They're one deal away from financing their retirement and then taking a trip around the world, as long as their daughter doesn't screw things up by sleeping with the teenage stepson of their potential business partner... (WCPGW?)

When we first meet Amy, she supposedly hasn't left the house in three months. (Geez, that's nothing, during the pandemic some of us didn't leave the house for close to a year. I guess it's all relative.)   So naturally she's anxious about having no relationship, no career and no plan, and then once she meets this 19-year old actor and starts fooling around with him, it's a whole different story - suddenly she's anxious about people finding out about her fling and this ruining her parents' business deal and retirement plan.  Wow, some people just really can't figure out how to be happy. If the genders were reversed, and a 35-year old man started a relationship with a 19-year old girl, we'd kind of understand that, right?  I mean, come on, what's a 16-year age difference, he's a millennial and she's Gen X, what's the big deal?  So they don't listen to the same music, they can get past that. 

The actor's mother thinks he's gay, though, just because he played a gay character in a play.  So even when she comes home early and finds them together, naked in the pool, she still doesn't realize what's going on, she thinks it's some kind of post-divorce naked scream therapy, or that her gay son was just bonding in the pool with some naked woman. Umm, sure.  (Another film that was released in 2012, back when the lines were clearer, people were either gay or straight and there was less gray area in-between, back before sexual orientation got replaced by gender identity...)

You know what, it's fine, bring on the complicated relationship stuff, because I haven't even seen one love triangle situation yet this year.  This is a simple problem, Amy just needs to learn how to relax and just enjoy the relationship she's in, or call it a fling or a rebound or whatever.  Maybe smoke some weed for the anxiety and try to enjoy the ride. It's a little unclear at the end if this relationship has a future, what with Jeremy going off to college and all, but that's cool too, if you want them to get back together in the future, then they will, and if you're against that happening, well then they've both moved on to other things.  It's open-ended so the filmmakers figured out how to have it both ways.  Amy needs to get a job first and then take things from there, OK? 

Also starring Melanie Lynskey (last seen in "Don't Look Up"), Blythe Danner (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Christopher Abbott (last seen in "First Man"), John Rubinstein (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Dan Futterman (last seen in "Kill the Messenger"), Sara Chase, Daniel Eric Gold (last seen in "Definitely, Maybe"), Meera Simhan, Damian Young (last seen in "I Care a Lot"), Tori Feinstein, Jimmi Simpson (last seen in "Breaking News in Yuba County"), Dave T. Koenig, Kate Arrington (last seen in "Brittany Runs a Marathon"), Darcy Hicks, Greta Lee (last seen in "Top Five"), Andrea Bordeaux with archive footage of Groucho Marx (last seen in "Can We Take a Joke?"), Chico Marx (ditto) and Harpo Marx (last seen in "Lucy and Desi". 

RATING: 6 out of 10 t-shirts from the Gap