Slice

Year 15, Day 154 - 6/3/23 - Movie #4,455

BEFORE: This seems like the type of film that I would normally save for October, but some exceptions have to be made when a film just doesn't seem to link up with ANY other horror films on my list, and also, I really need it to be here, to make a particular actor connection to tomorrow's film.  Sure, there might be another way to get there, but I don't have time right now to find it, and if that other path is any longer than one film, I don't have room for it.  Every slot between now and Father's Day is spoken for, though I may end up dropping a film or two before then.  Still, I'm booked up so I can't go hunting around for another path right now, let's just put this one here, it gets where I need to be for tomorrow, and let's just move on, OK?  This will also free up about 90 minutes on the Movie DVR, it's starting to get full again. 

Chris Parnell carries over again from "Senior Year". Let me use this film as a reminder that I really, really, need to get a horror movie plan together for October, STAT.  I've got 117 horror film cast lists to work from, that should be at least twice what I'll need to put together a 25-30 film chain. I just need to sit down and do the linking work, and if the chain doesn't link itself together, I'll need to start figuring out what bridging material I'm going to need to put two or three smaller chains together.  But the chances are good that this film's actors won't be needed for that process.

THE PLOT: When a pizza delivery driver is murdered on the job, the city searches for someone to blame: ghosts? Drug dealers? A disgraced werewolf?

AFTER: This just feels like a film that didn't know what it wanted to be, a comedy or a slasher film or just a weird little thing - it's the director's first film but he has made some music videos before, though those aren't usually known for their strong narratives.  You might compare this to "Thriller", another music video that had horror elements to it, but even that didn't have much of a plot. (Michael Jackson turns into a werewolf, then a zombie, everybody dances, Vincent Price raps, that's it.)

Maybe this should have been something like "Thriller", a long-format music video for Chance the Rapper, though then I suppose he would have been accused of ripping off the King of Pop.  But it sure doesn't work as a 90-minute movie, because it's all over the place.  Kingfisher is a town in an unnamed U.S. state that has a large ghost population, due to the previous accident at the asylum, or something.  The obviously corrupt mayor has stayed in office because he managed to move the deceased spirits over to "Ghost Town", so they'll stop haunting the living citizens.  But something is still going wrong in town, because now pizza delivery guys are being murdered by having their throats cut.  Who's responsible?

When the town's former werewolf starts showing up again, naturally the police focus on him, but a werewolf wouldn't need to use a knife to kill people, would he?  Maybe the activist group that seem to be in league with the mayor are more likely to be responsible, but then why kill pizza guys and make more ghosts in the process?  The group wants justice for the 40,000 souls amd they think if the Halcyon Shopping Center can be demolished, maybe the city's ghosts will be laid to rest and they'll move on to the afterlife. In the middle of it all, Astrid gets her old job at Perfect Pizza Base back, only to learn that her boyfriend Sean was delivering drugs for Big Cheese along with the pizzas.  But in the process, she becomes a ghost herself, whoopsie.

Perfect Pizza turns out to be in the center of it all, the owner refuses to close the shop even after his delivery staff get murdered, and he learns that the shop, former home of Yummy Yummy Chinese, is also on the location of the old asylum, which had a gateway to Hell in the basement. 

Even after this was explained, I'm still not sure if it made any sense. For that matter, why are pizza guys delivering to Ghost Town, anyway?  Surely the ghosts can't eat pizza, can they even use the phone or a delivery app?  The Pizza shop also employs a ghost for some reason, he seems to be full of wisdom about what's going on, only nobody seems to take him seriously.  Can they even see him?  I'm not sure, everything is so unclear. 

Finally the werewolf does get involved, after trying to stay out of it for the whole movie - guys, he just wants to use his powers to deliver quality Chinese food to people at a decent price, is that really so wrong?  And the pizza place re-opens in a new location that is NOT over the gateway to Hell, which honestly seems like a marketing mistake.  Remember when brick oven pizza became a thing?  Then wood-fired ovens?  What about pizza that's cooked from the heat of Hell itself?  That seems trendy as Hell, so to speak - it just needs a really catchy name.  I used to frequent a bar/restaurant in the East Village called Hop Devil Grill, their logo was a devil drinking a beer with a burger on his pitchfork.  I realize that "Hell's Kitchen" is already taken, but "Satan's Pizza", "Underworld Pizza", there's got to be something catchy in their somewhere.  Jeez, even "Ghost Pepper Pizza" would work, just have one really spicy pizza on the menu and the hipsters will flock there. 

Didn't "Stranger Things" do a whole pizza-place thing in the most recent season?  Sure, I realize that the pizza place in the show was called "Surfer Boy Pizza" (the ice cream shop, "Scoops Ahoy!" had a much better name...) but why doesn't someone open up a "Stranger Wings" tie-in restaurant?  You can get chicken wings in all kinds of heat levels, with the hottest one called "The Mind Flayer".  And all kind of dipping sauces, including "Demo-Gorgonzola cheese".  (See, this is what I do, i design all kinds of restaurants that I'm never going to open...)  You can also get fried chicken wings with "Eleven" herbs and spices served over Eggo waffles, and don't forget to order a round of jalapeno "Hoppers" for the table. OK, nobody steal this idea, I have to go make a couple of phone calls...

The real crime here is wasting the talents of Joe Keery (Steve from "Stranger Things") and also Hannibal Buress, who's in the diner scene but only for about 10 seconds. Since this movie was originally planned as the pilot for a TV series that didn't happen, maybe they would have had larger roles in future episodes.  Yeah, this does make some sense now, this is the kind of show somebody would pitch about two years after "Stranger Things" first became a Netflix sensation.  You might as well watch this one after getting stoned and ordering pizza, it couldn't hurt. 

Also starring Zazie Beetz (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Chance Bennett (Chance the Rapper) (last heard in "The Lion King"), Rae Gray, Marilyn Dodds Frank (last seen in "The Game of Their Lives"), Katherine Cunningham, Will Brill (last seen in "Not Fade Away"), Y'lan Noel (last seen in "The First Purge"), Hannibal Buress (last seen in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"), Lakin Valdez (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Rudy Galvan, Tim Decker, Kelli Simpkins (last seen in "Chasing Amy"), Joe Keery (last seen in "Free Guy"), Elijah Alvarado, Paul Scheer (last seen in "How It Ends"), Hanna Dworkin, Rebecca Spence (last seen in "Candyman"), Allison Latta, Gary Houston (last seen in "Proof"), Larry Neumann Jr. (last seen in "Let's Go to Prison"), Austin Vesely, Michael Brunlieb (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), David Ruhe, Liz Sharpe, AC Smith, Bishop Stevens, David Temple.

RATING: 3 out of 10 press conferences

Senior Year

Year 15, Day 153 - 6/2/23 - Movie #4,454

BEFORE: Chris Parnell carries over from "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again".  Mr. Parnell plays the "Dad" role in today's film, while Rebel Wilson plays the "Grad", it's a double salute to June's themes.  And if there are some gay characters, it could be the perfect June film. Also, happy Celeb-birthday to Jeremy Ray Taylor, seen in both the "It" films and the "Goosebumps" franchise, and appearing in today's film.  Geez, haven't had an actor's birthday line up with my films in quite a while, I must have done something right when I added the "Shazam!" sequel...

THE PLOT: A cheerleading stunt gone wrong landed her in a 20-year coma.  Now she's 37, newly awake and ready to live out her high school dream: becoming prom queen. 

AFTER: Damn, but the casting in this film is darn near perfect, they had to cast a pair of actors for just about every role, and those actors needed to look like the same person, just 20 years different in age.  Sure, the Australian accent and sharing a wardrobe helps, but there's never any doubt that both Rebel Wilson and Angourie Rice are playing the same character. The last time I saw the double casting technique work this well, it was in the "It" movies, I think.  It's also a bit of luck that Rebel Wilson lost a lot of weight, very publicly, and now she looks so much more fit than she did in the "Pitch Perfect" films, or even that "Night at the Museum" film.  But when she takes over the character of Stephanie Conway from the younger actress, it's after 20 years in a coma, and those are 20 years where she wouldn't have worked out, being bedridden and unconscious and all.  I think for someone in a coma they have to move their arms and legs every once in a while as a form of exercise, otherwise their muscles would just be useless, right?  But still, she's not super-thin, and that works for the character here. 

Her character was a cheerleading captain who was thrown up in the air and then didn't get caught, and so it was lights out with just one month to go before graduation.  Twenty years later when she wakes up, she's 37 but she still has the mental age of a teen, and she's got the same goals in life - become prom queen, graduate high school, marry her boyfriend and have a perfect life.  This would only be a problem if her boyfriend (who she stole from another girl) went back and married his ex, and they had a daughter who is now a high-school senior.  

Stephanie's former best friend Martha is now the high-school principal, and the boy she SHOULD have dated is now the school librarian, and what a coincidence, there's just one month left in the school year, so Stephanie sees this as a sign, she convinces Martha the principal to let her come back and attend school for one month, get her diploma and have the prom of her dreams.  Uh, wait, there's another problem, the school no longer has an election for prom queen, it got eliminated years ago because the school decided to foster inclusion, not competition, also the whole queen/king thing was a reference to royalty and that's no longer fashionable since we live in a democracy, plus really, it's better this way since everyone gets to enjoy the prom without it turning into a giant popularity contest.  

This is exactly where the film should find its comedy - the social differences between 2002 and 2022.  Stephanie wants to re-join the cheerleading squad, but she learns that sexy dancing has been forbidden, the cheer squad is now gender-diverse and inclusive, short skirts have been replaced by long pants, and there's no cheer captain because every member is a cheer captain, with a rotating bi-partisan membership with veto power distributed in equal shares.  Yeah, I'm maybe starting to agree with the Republicans who think that "wokeness" has taken all the sense out of our schools.  

It also means something different to be "popular" in high school - in 2002 for Stephanie that mean being the cheer captain, getting it on with a jock and being accepted by all her fake friends, then ditching her real ones (though whether Stephanie was actually popular in 2002 is a matter for some debate, the character has extended fantasy sequences that don't necessarily seem to reflect other people's reality...).  But in 2022, the "popular" kids are the ones with the most followers on Instagram, who don't even have to follow anyone back, and are getting endorsement money from brands to be "influencers" - the most successful in the school is Bri Loves (or is it "Luvs"?) and she really wants to spend the summer in Tibet while leaving daily messages about how bad racism and ageism are, you guys!  Also, Gucci!

It shoudl come as no surprise that Bri Loves is the daughter of Stephanie's old rival, Tiffany, who's married to Blaine, her ex-boyfriend who now sells used Hummers on local TV.  Stephanie thinks she can still get Blaine back - after all, he wouldn't have married Tiffany if she hadn't gone into her coma, right?  So really, it should be Stephanie living in that house with Blaine, she should be married to Blaine and therefore be her...classmate's step-mother?  OK, that's all a bit weird, but of course it takes Stephanie the whole film to realize that her high-school goals need to be adjusted, and she doesn't need to get Blaine back, not when she can form a better connection with Seth, who she probably should have dated in the first place.  Well, we all live and learn...

Bri does petition to get the Prom Queen reinstated, so honestly the film is a bit unclear overall about whether the new ways are better than the old ways, or if the old ways should be brought back...I don't think you can bring the Prom Queen back without also bringing back sexism, racism, mean girls and corruption, so why not just leave it alone?  Tiffany, Bri's mother, ends up rigging the whole election anyway (and who does THAT remind you of?) so somehow Bri gets 150% of the vote, and Stephanie gets nothing?  But we SAW at least one person vote for Stephanie...Did this high school use the Dominion voting machines?  Nah, can't be.  Must have been the Jewish space lasers...  Surprisingly, Bri does the right thing and withdraws from the race (as one SHOULD, are you listening, Donnie?) leaving Stephanie with the crown - only to find out that maybe this was another high-school dream that doesn't make sense for a 37-year old to pursue.  

It's hardly a perfect film because the life lessons are so scatter-shot, and also it seems like maybe nobody has a great life after high school, which mathematically can't be possible.  What happened to "It gets better?", are you telling me that was a load of malarkey?  And even the people who do reach their goals here then promptly discover that there's no real feeling of accomplishment, they'd all built their castles out of sand, and the tide's coming in.  So if you reach your goals and you're not happy, time to find new goals, I guess?  But it all just seems so exhausting...  Still, the film has a lot of heart and ultimately the life lessons are worth it, even if they took too long to be learned. 

Also starring Rebel Wilson (last seen in "Cats"), Angourie Rice (last seen in "Spider-Man: Now Way Home"), Mary Holland (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Molly Brown, Sam Richardson (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), Zoe Chao (last seen in "The High Note"), Justin Hartley (last seen in "The Hunt"), Jade Bender, Avantika (last seen in "Moxie"), Joshua Colley, Jeremy Ray Taylor (last seen in "Geostorm"), Michael Cimino, Brandon Scott Jones (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Tiffany Denise Hobbs (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Alicia Silverstone (last seen in "The Killing of a Sacred Deer"), Lucy Taylor, Merrick McCartha, Zaire Adams, Ana Yi Puig, Tyler Barnhardt, Vee Bhakta, Leonard R. Butler, James Millar, Alyssa Mae Clark, with a cameo from Steve Aoki.

RATING: 6 out of 10 uncancelled magazine subscriptions

Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again

Year 15, Day 152 - 6/1/23 - Movie #4,453

BEFORE: Zachary Levi carries over again from "Shazam! Fury of the Gods", and here are the links that I think will get me through the month of June:  Chris Parnell, Zazie Beetz, Channing Tatum, Ethan Suplee, Ben Affleck, Christopher Lloyd, Audra McDonald, Forest Whitaker, Terry Crews, Adam Sandler, Adeel Akhtar, Henry Cavill, Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Woody Harrelson, Harris Dickinson, Garret Dillahunt, and Seann William Scott. That's only 18 people, I know, but it's still going to be a full month of films, and by the end of it I hope to have some idea of how I'm going to get from July 4 to October 1.  

I have to work at two major film festivals this month, starting today, but once I hit the middle of the month, my schedule's going to clear up because the movie theater's going to shut down for repairs - I built up a cushion in my bank account with all the hours I worked in May, but I still think I should find a temp job for late summer, or else maybe I need to go back on the dole.  We'll see, but I can't just sit around at home again for four days a week, I'll go nuts.  

It's the first day of Pride Month, and also Asian-American/Pacific Islander Heritage month - I think I maybe covered that yesterday with the "Shazam!" sequel, one character in the foster family came out and another one was Asian, so there you go.  I may not have anything else that fits in thematically, because this month was designed to be mostly about dads and grads.  Tonight's film has a teen taking over his father's job and also he's a high-school student, so it fits both of those themes.  Tomorrow, another high-school set film, and of course, several more father-oriented films are on the docket between now and June 18. 

THE PLOT: Nick Daley hesitates becoming a museum night guard and Kahmunrah returns to conquer the world. 

AFTER: I'd like to figure out how this one came to be, because it's an animated knock-off of a very popular live-action (with effects, of course) franchise.  WHY? and HOW?  WTF?  Did some production company try to turn this into a Disney series, and create this as a pilot, only to discover that it didn't really work?  Or was this a proposed script for "Night at the Museum 4" that couldn't be made during the pandemic, so somebody figured, "Eh, we'll just hire a bunch of animators and they can all work from home..."  Did they plan this and then find out later that Ben Stiller wasn't available, neither was Owen Wilson or Steve Coogan, plus Robin Williams is dead, so they figured, "OK, we'll just pivot and make this an animated film, and we'll cast a bunch of sound-alikes..."  Very curious, indeed.  

So I wonder what the casting process was like. Of course, if you can get Tom Lennon, you get Tom Lennon, because he's got a great voice and he also co-wrote the screenplay for the original "Night at the Museum" film.  But are they saying that if you can't get Owen Wilson, then Steve Zahn is an acceptable substitute?  Does Zachary Levi sound enough like Ben Stiller to be an acceptable stand-in?  It's all very suspect in the world of animation voice-overs, I think. 

Ah, the IMDB trivia section gives me some insight - this was rumored to be a potential pilot for an animated series, but also the franchise is something that Disney acquired from Fox, they bought 20th Century Studios in 2019 and this came along for the ride, so I guess it's "Hey, we're Disney, how do we turn this into an animated movie or series that we can then someday do a live-action re-boot of?" Regardless of how you feel about Disney, they are a giant mega-corp that will someday own everything, the acquisition of Fox Studios is just one example, before that it was Marvel and all of its properties and subsidiaries, that sort of worked out very well, but here with "Night at the Museum", not so much, because this film is just terrible. 

I mean, I get it, if you want the action to move to ancient Egypt, then animation is probably the way to go - this way you don't have to build a whole ancient city, you can just have artists draw it, and the cartoony style is OK, because that's just a way to go.  But story-wise, this film doesn't even come CLOSE to having the same sense of wonder and charm that the other films in the franchise had.  Instead they chose to focus on Nick Daley, the high-school age son of Ben Stiller's character, who is wracked with self-doubt and teen angst and second guesses himself at every turn.  Don't get me wrong, he fits in quite well with all the self-sabotaging main characters seen here at the Movie Year in the past few weeks, but I'm getting pretty sick of screenwriters falling back on this as a quick way to connect with the audience.  And it's very specific, too, Nick can chat up a female classmate, but he can't quite ask for a date.  He's willing to audition for jazz band, even if they DON'T really need a D.J., but he'll find a way to blow the audition by either being clumsy or too unsure of himself to press the right buttons.  

And don't get me STARTED on how he can't use chopsticks - this is like 5 minutes of the film, eating sushi with his father and completely blowing the chopstick usage.  Well, it's not exactly like you can just ASK somebody how to use them.  Oh wait, of course you can. Or since you're a millennial teen, I guess you could just watch a YouTube or TikTok video about the proper way to hold them?  But no, instead he holds them perpendicular to each other, and the piece of sushi goes flying over to the next table and lands in somebody's water glass.  The next piece ends up on the floor and a waiter slips on it - you know, even a capuchin monkey would figure out pretty quickly that you could just spear the piece of sushi with one chopstick and get it into your mouth that way.  Or, you could also ask the waiter for a fork, or here's a crazy idea if you can't master chopsticks, maybe just pick up the sushi with your fingers?  It's not hard, so why does the movie waste five minutes on this?  Because that's five less minutes of story that someone has to write.

It's another narrative shortcut that the non-living (undead?) historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt and Sacagawea explicitly suggest that Nick take over for his father - and this also conveniently explains why they set out to scare and torture every new security guard who ISN'T Nick, I guess because they think that eventually if they scare every new candidate for the job, then they'll get to see Nick again? Lazy writing, that's all it is.  And then they bring back Kahmunrah, who we all saw get banished to the underworld in the 2nd film, how is he back again?

While we're on the subject of continuity, the second film in the franchise, "Battle of the Smithsonian" had Larry Daley extending the visiting hours at the Natural History Museum to nighttime, so that guests could interact with the living exhibits - of course, they assumed the moving figures were hired actors, and the moving dinosaur skeleton was animatronic.  And then in the third film, Tilly from the British Museum brought the magic Egyptian tablet back to New York, and showed Dr. McPhee, Larry's boss, how it brought the exhibits to life.  So in this film, how does McPhee NOT KNOW the secret, when he learned it in the previous film?  They just threw all this aside and told a new story that doesn't link up with the other episodes, unless this is somehow set between the second film and "Secret of the Tomb", but then of course, that doesn't really make any sense, either. 

Then the story is essentially one big chase scene, as Nick teams up with Roosevelt, Sacajawea, Joan of Arc, Laaa the Neanderthal and the tiny cowboy and tiny Roman soldier to follow Kahmunrah through ancient Egypt - and they got there because the tablet was brought to the Metropolis Art Museum, and somehow turned every painting there into a potential portal, which wasn't even on record as being a thing the tablet could do.  But hey, I guess the Tablet of Akhmenrah can do whatever the screenwriter says it can do...

Also starring the voices of Joshua Bassett, Jamie Demetriou (last seen in "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain"), Gillian Jacobs (last seen in "Life Partners"), Shelby Simmons, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Lidia Porto (last seen in "Horrible Bosses 2"), Bowen Yang (last seen in "The Lost City"), Thomas Lennon (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), Alice Isaaz, Jack Whitehall (last seen in "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms"), Steve Zahn (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Joseph Kamal, Alexander Salamat, Kieran Sequoia, Akmal Saleh, Chris Parnell (last seen in "Val"), Dee Bradley Baker (last heard in "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"), Kelemete Misipeka, Jonathan Roumie, Zeeko Zaki, Jim Conroy (last heard in "Rio 2"), Christie Bahna, Stoney Emshwiller

RATING: 4 out of 10 candy bars in the vending machine

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Year 15, Day 151 - 5/31/23 - Movie #4,452

BEFORE: It's the last day of May (jeez, what happened? May 1 feels like it was about two weeks ago, is it just me?) so here's the format breakdown for the month:

14 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Nothing Compares, Fled, Minari, The November Man, The Misfits, Eighth Grade, News of the World, The Last Duel, Stillwater, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, The Rhythm Section, A Simple Favor, Cyrano, Top Gun: Maverick

4 Movies watched on cable (not saved): 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, Dom Hemingway, Shazam! Fury of the Gods

6 watched on Netflix: No Escape, Moxie, The Pale Blue Eye, The Land of Steady Habits, White Noise, Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood

1 watched on Amazon Prime: Annette

1 watched on YouTube: King of Thieves 
2 watched on Tubi: A Shock to the System, Lovely & Amazing

3 watched on HBO MAX: Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer, The Long Good Friday, Secrets & Lies

31 TOTAL

Zachary Levi carries over from "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood" and tomorrow I'll post the proposed actor links for June. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Shazam!" (Movie #3,428)

THE PLOT: Continues the story of teenage Billy Batson who, upon reciting the magic word "SHAZAM" is transformed into his adult superhero alter ego. 

AFTER: Well, speaking of things that were a while ago, but feel like they weren't, I watched the first "Shazam!" movie a little over three years ago, in January of 2020.  Three years is about as fast as Hollywood can produce a sequel to a blockbuster, assuming they green light the sequel as soon as the first film is a proven hit.  I watched "Knives Out" in 2020, and "Glass Onion" this year, I also watched "John Wick: Chapter 3" that year, and Chapter 4 came out right on schedule, also "Murder Mystery" was a Netflix hit in 2020, and I've got the sequel planned for June.  Well, according to that formula, we should get "The Equalizer 3" and "It: Chapter Three" released sometime this year, unless I've mis-calculated.  JK. (What, no "Secret Life of Pets 3" either?)

The first "Shazam!" movie was a whole lot of fun, once Billy Batson finally got powers - it took a while, let's be honest - and started to play around with them.  But he also ended up sharing them with his adoptive family of foster kids, and so that's where this one starts, all six kids growing up in that house have a portion of the power derived from the Wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the something something of Atlas, and Zeus, Achilles and Mercury.  Speed!  The speed of Mercury, that's important. But the first thing we see the family do here is rescue people from a bridge collapsing in Philadelphia, and even though nobody died, the team is unable to save the bridge, so they get labelled the "Philly Fiascoes" in the press.  Oh, if only they all knew how to access that Wisdom of Solomon (or "Saruman" as Billy Batson says it), maybe they could have figured out a better way to save the property AND the people?  Or you know, maybe worked together, as a team?  Get Maverick in here and let's teach them how to play beach football, it's worth a shot. 

But let's go back to that acronym for a second, because one of the SHAZAM powers comes from Atlas, the stamina of Atlas.  Atlas was the Titan in Greek mythology who held up the sky, or often he's depicted as carrying the world - so, umm, which was it, and if he was holding up the earth, then where was he standing?  And who built this broke-ass planet where if somebody wasn't holding up the sky then the sky would crush the earth?  What a poor design.  In the story of Heracles (or Hercules), when he needed to obtain a few golden apples from the garden guarded by Atlas's daughters, Heracles offered to hold up the sky while Atlas got the apples, and then when Atlas got back, he didn't want his old job back.  Heracles had to trick him to hold up the sky again so he could make off with the apples.  So let's just assume that Atlas didn't really possess the wisdom of Solomon, either. 

But those daughters of Atlas were called the Hesperides, or sometimes the Atlantides, and in some myths there were three of them, but in others there were four, or seven, with various names.  In the movie here there are two at first, Hespera and Kalypso, but then a third comes along. (Not really a spoiler, she's right there ON THE POSTER.). The daughters of Atlas obtain the magic staff from the wizard, seen in the first film, which was broken in the previous film, only they make the wizard fix it again.  Then they get one of those golden apples, but instead of using it to recreate their world in another realm, they decide to recreate their world right on Earth.  Well, that does seem like it will save a lot of time, plus we humans are pretty much destroying the planet anyway, so maybe this next one will be better?  Sure there will be Cyclopses and Harpies and Minotaurs mucking about, but if they can fix climate change, it could be worth it.

Oh, and the daughters of Atlas have a really cool dragon too, named Ladon, and he's totally different from all the other dragons seen in movies like "Harry Potter" and "The Hobbit".  Well, OK, forget that, he looks pretty much the same, except he's made of wood?  But otherwise fairly identical, they wouldn't want to blow your minds with an ice dragon or a water dragon or anything else cool from D&D lore.  And who cares that the battle scenes basically take up the whole second half of the movie?  They're so cool and so exciting and so much fun, really if this is your biggest complaint then you've really got nothing to complain about. 

Also, Billy finally learns his superhero name (or DOES he?) - I can't help but think that all the joking in both movies about using names like "Captain Thundercrack" or "Mister Everypower" is a subtle dig at the lawsuits over the years between DC, Marvel and other comic book companies.  You see, the character now called "Shazam" used to be called "Captain Marvel" back in the day, but the name became problematic when Marvel Comics came on the scene, and Marvel's had at LEAST three different heroes who have used that name, probably more.  Plus then DC was almost advertising for their biggest rival every time they put out a "Captain Marvel" comic - imagine Marvel printing a comic where the main character was named "Mister DC". (OK, they had the Squadron Supreme, all those characters were ripoffs of Justice Leaguers, but that's neither here nor there...)

The Billy Batson/Captain Marvel character was first published by Fawcett Comics in 1940, and they folded in 1953, partly due to a copyright lawsuit that claimed their character was a copy of Superman.  Which couldn't be true, because Superman didn't turn into a kid when he wasn't using his powers, he just put on glasses and pretended to be a regular guy.  But Fawcett licensed the character rights to DC in 1972, and he and the whole Shazamily got integrated into the DC universe of heroes - but they've called him "Shazam" in the DC comics, to avoid confusion with the Captains Marvel over at Marvel. 

It was the 2011 "New 52" re-boot of the DC comics that created the new Shazam family, made up of six kids in total, which has carried over into the films.  I think before that there were two main "siblings" to Captain Marvel, just Mary Marvel (she got the powers of Selene, Hippolyte, Ariadne, Zephyrus, Aurora and Minerva) and Captain Marvel Jr., aka Freddy Freeman.  But then there were always others, like Lt. Fat Marvel and Lt. Tall Marvel (not joking here...) and Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. 

So I maintain that this film could have been much, much worse.  Heck, the live-action TV show called "Shazam!" that I watched as a kid just had Billy Batson traveling across the country with his guardian "Mentor" in an RV, just looking for injustices to fight in America's national parks system.  I think they cleaned up a lot of litter, or something.  

Also starring Asher Angel (last seen in "Shazam!"), Jack Dylan Grazer (last heard in "Luca"), Adam Brody (last seen in "Life Partners"), Rachel Zegler (last seen in "West Side Story" (2021)), Ross Butler (last heard in "Raya and the Last Dragon"), Ian Chen (also last seen in "Shazam!"), D.J. Cotrona (ditto), Jovan Armand (ditto), Grace Caroline Currey (ditto), Faithe Herman (ditto), Marta Milans (ditto), Meagan Good (last seen in "Monster Hunter"), Lucy Liu (last seen in "Domino"), Djimon Hounsou (last seen in "The King's Man"), Helen Mirren (last seen in "The Long Good Friday"), Cooper Andrews (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Gal Gadot (last seen in "Death on the Nile"), Jennifer Holland (last seen in "Brightburn"), Steve Agee (last seen in "Hit and Run"), Mark Strong (last seen in "Welcome to the Punch"), Rizwan Manji (last seen in "The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot"), P.J. Byrne (last seen in "True Memoirs of an International Assassin"), Diedrich Bader (last heard in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), Carson MacCormac (also last seen in "Shazam!"), Evan Marsh (ditto), Lotta Losten (ditto), Michael Beasley (last seen in "Contraband"), Michael Gray, Natalia Safran, Wolf Blitzer (last seen in "Running With Beto") and the voice of David F. Sandberg (last heard in, you guessed it, "Shazam!")

RATING: 8 out of 10 packs of Skittles (Taste the Rainbow!)

Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood

Year 15, Day 150 - 5/30/23 - Movie #4,451

BEFORE: Glen Powell carries over from "Top Gun: Maverick".  He also played John Glenn in "Hidden Figures", and of course a Navy pilot in yesterday's film. Here he plays a NASA guy, so he's either been typecast or he's just drawn to roles that involve aviation or aerospace, maybe? 

THE PLOT: A coming-of-age story set in the suburbs of Houston, Texas in the summer of 1969, centered around the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. 

AFTER: We are all the sum of our experiences, but a funny thing happens as we get older, we often remember things differently - and "differently" in this case means "incorrectly".  That's what I think is going on here, in this obviously autobiographical film by Richard Linklater, in which a kid looks back on the year 1969, and he remembers being approached during a game of kickball by two well-dressed agents from NASA, and is told that somehow, the measurements for the Apollo 11 lunar capsule were off, and they made it too small, so they need a kid-sized astronaut to help test it.  OK, that would never happen, because thousands of people worked on the Apollo program and after the deaths of three Apollo astronauts on the launch platform, you would think they would be double- and triple-checking every little thing to ensure there were no more mistakes.  So, umm, what's really going on here?  

My guess is that as a kid, Linklater saw so much footage on TV of the astronauts training that he incorporated it into his memories, then when he watched the first moon landing in July 1969, he was tired from a day at the amusement park, and watched it in a semi-conscious state, and his dreams took over from there, and he worked himself right into the story.  If that dream was powerful, it may have taken over for his real memories, and supplanted them - let's face it, any kid's real life couldn't possibly compare with the imagined thrill of being an astronaut in the space program.  I have a vague memory myself of watching the first moon landing, but I was under one year old, so that couldn't possibly be right - perhaps I watched the 2nd or 3rd moon landing when I was slightly older and got my mental wires crossed.  Memory is unreliable, that's the point.  Anyway, any kid who's been to space camp can probably tell you that they don't put kids through the same rigorous training as the adult astronauts, I bet they don't spin them around in that giant device to create g-forces or test their equilibrium or whatever that does. 

But since Linklater was born in Houston, and maybe his father did have an office job at NASA, I'll grant that it's possible, and that the admiration of the Gemini and then Apollo astronauts was perhaps more pervasive there than in other parts of the country.  But Linklater is primarily concerned with pop culture, and that goes beyond the NASA fandom and most of the film is filled with other tales from his fourth-grade childhood, from kickball infractions to what board games he played with his siblings, to a list of every TV show that was popular at the time.  The lead character hear, Stan, is also obsessed with the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" and also films like "Destination Moon" and "Countdown", there's kind of no way that kid doesn't grow up to become a filmmaker, if not an astronaut.  

But so many of these stories fall into the "Who cares?" category - who cares which of Linklater's siblings listened to which albums, one was a Beatles fan, I hear there were a lot of those back then.  And one time they saw the teen who played the Abominable Snowman at an amusement park with his costume head off, smoking a cigarette.  So what?  And the family next door had more kids, and were forced to sit out on the lawn while their mother cleaned the house. How is this a big deal?  There was some kind of game the kids in his family played where they pretended to be statues of different things - man, it's so annoying that this story doesn't go anywhere or lead to anything that connects it to the bigger picture.

Some things are somewhat universal, of course - making and eating crappy school bagged lunches.  Seeing your father find your brother's hidden stack of Playboy magazines and throwing them out.  Going to an amusement park with your siblings and figuring out how to "game" the system by racing to the most popular ride first, and getting two or three rides in before the crowd shows up.  But the importance of these moments, of course, depends on YOUR experiences, and whether you grew up in a large family or not.  These resonate with me because of the time my parents found MY stack of Playboys, and because of the time we went to Disney World in Florida and sat in the hotel with a map of the park the night before and we figured out the quickest route to Space Mountain.  

But so many other things - the change in the kickball rules, the weird punishments that teachers gave out, the over-chlorinated pool - it all falls into the "Who gives a crap?" category for me.  Maybe you'll find understanding or nostalgia in different parts of the film that I did.  But I have to also consider that the filmmaker might be mis-remembering things here.  That time that the popsicles were "made wrong" and they stuck to their tongues?  Umm, no, that's probably just because they were super-cold, there wasn't anything chemically wrong with them.  Or maybe the kids just didn't know the right way to eat a popsicle?  Look, if it's really cold, your tongue is going to stick to it, just like a metal pole.  

And the story about riding bicycles behind the DDT truck as it sprayed the trees to stop mosquitoes?  I don't really believe it, because then there would be a bunch of dead kids and a big scandal.  Although, right after this film I watched the latest Wanda Sykes stand-up special on Netflix, and I have to admit that she told a very similar story from HER childhood.  (EDIT: I looked it up, apparently in the 1950's and 1960's it was common in parts of the U.S. for DDT to be sprayed by a truck and for kids to run or bike after the truck, breathing in the insecticide. Clearly, it was a different time, before the substance was banned in the U.S. in 1972.  Now the public opinion is still split, with some people saying that cancer and Parkinson's are more prevalent in people who chased the trucks, and others saying that there was no harm done to kids, and we should bring DDT back.  I think I'm in the first camp, because riding a bike in a cloud of poison just does not sound like a great idea, it's so typical for American municipal government to act first and worry about the consequences later - like years later they sprayed malathion in New York to fight mosquitoes, and the chemical run-off went into Long Island Sound and killed off the majority of the lobster industry there, because mosquitoes and lobsters are closely related as species can be.  Then there was the time that NYC had a push to plant thousands of trees around town, without first checking to see if the trees were male or female (yes, that's a thing) and as a result, the amount of pollen in the city skyrocketed.  There appears now to be just as much debate over DDT as there was over COVID statistics, masks, vaccinations and such.  Please, somebody show me some actual statistics about this, but you have to figure with today's overprotective helicopter parents, there would 

And why does anyone remember that the Monkees appeared on the Johnny Cash show, only it wasn't all four band members, and Peter Tork was missing?  That's a very specific thing to focus on, but ultimately this plot point is like every other one, it goes absolutely nowhere.  So then, why mention it at all?  I was a Monkees fan and I always knew that while he might have been the most musically talented in the group, personality-wise, he brought very little to the table.  Sorry, but it's true.  Most everyone was a Davy fan or a Mickey fan, hardly anybody was a Peter fan. But come on, even the biggest Monkees fans knew at the time that they weren't a real group, they didn't write their own songs or play their own instruments on the records, like the Beach Boys they only had enough musical ability to pretend to play music in concert, they were actors first and musicians second.  

I work for a filmmaker who made an animated feature about his high-school years, and one day I noticed there was a problem with the script, that there was a football game scene, followed by a prom sequence.  Then there was a "passing of time" montage that went through winter, spring and summer, and back to fall. I approached him one day and told him that the timeline was incorrect, because proms take place in May, near the end of the school year.  But he insisted that proms take place in fall, and that's when I realized he was confusing the prom with homecoming, which traditionally takes place near a school's bigger football games in the fall. Jeez, I'm not even a sports guy, and I know this - but he wouldn't budge, he told me HIS prom took place in fall and that's when all proms take place.  I begged him to confirm this online, or with anybody else who went to high school, but he wouldn't do that, so the mistake is still in the film.  It just goes to show you that people are going to remember their youth the way they want to, and they don't want to hear anyone tell them it didn't happen that way, or it wasn't important.  It was important TO THEM, and I guess that's what matters, even if it never did happen.  Maybe in Oregon they do have proms in October, but I'm guessing they don't. 

There are a few flashes of brilliance here - for example, the children in class counting down before the launch of Apollo 11 is mirrored in the neighborhood party on New Year's Eve.  Wow, as a society we just love counting down from 10 to zero, don't we?  But then this is immediately followed by a non sequitur about the local pyromaniac graduating from launching rockets to using a mortar pipe to launch a flaming tennis ball - but the ball, and the story, like most of the small stories here, never connects to the big picture, is never given any relevance, and ultimately goes nowhere. Same goes for jell-o molds, pinball machines, chasing down foul balls, it's all very Seinfeldian how much there is here, and how it all fails to add up to anything.

Everything is just another random Linklater memory that serves no larger purpose, and the movie is filled with them.  The anticipation of the moon landing itself takes so long that by the time Armstrong and Aldrin leave the capsule, it's very nearly a non-event, and the kids in the family can barely stay awake. I have to say, I understand that feeling very well.

NITPICK POINTS #234, 235 and 236 - Even if after watching the film you still maybe think that it suggests that a kid WOULD be sent by NASA to the moon, which they just WOULD NOT do, for a whole host of liability and feasability reasons, bear in mind that it took the Apollo 11 three days to get there, and three days to travel back.  How could you possibly expect a 10-year-old kid to spend three days in a tiny capsule, with nobody to talk to, nothing to read, nothing to do.  Plus, by himself?  Armstrong and Aldrin needed Mike Collins in the other stage of the rocket to keep orbiting the moon, and link up with the part of the lunar module that took off from the moon.  Stan is shown doing this all by himself, with nobody manning the other part of the spacecraft to help him get home?  This just wouldn't WORK, it violates the whole Apollo 11 plan - so even if it WERE possible, which it's NOT, it wouldn't BE possible.  So I shouldn't even need to point this out, but this part of the film was pure fantasy.  

Also starring the voices of Milo Coy, Jack Black (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), Zachary Levi (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Josh Wiggins (last seen in "I Used to Go Here"), Lee Eddy, Bill Wise (last seen in "Results"), Natalie L'Amoureaux, Jessica Brynn Cohen, Sam Chipman, Danielle Guilbot, Larry Jack Dotson, Mona Lee Fultz (last seen in "Bernie"), Jennifer Griffin (last seen in "Boyhood"), Holt Boggs, Reese Armstrong, Natalie Joy, Chris Olson (last seen in "Rudy"), Brian Villalobos, Chris Zurcher, David DeLao (last seen in "The Marksman"), Athena Wintle, Xavier Patterson, Nick Stevenson, Avery Joy Davis,

with archive footage or voices of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong (last seen in "A Walk on the Moon"), Johnny Cash (last seen in "Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street"), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"), Arthur C. Clarke, Mike Collins, Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?"), Micky Dolenz (last seen in "Bad Reputation"), Davy Jones, Janis Joplin (last seen in "Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Joni Mitchell (ditto), Michael Nesmith, Richard Nixon (last seen in "Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer"), Eric Sevareid.

RATING: 6 out of 10 free one-scoop cones at Baskin-Robbins (you can't hate on someone for liking vanilla, it's simultaneously the most boring flavor and the most popular, I think, go figure.)

Top Gun: Maverick

Year 15, Day 149 - 5/29/23 - Movie #4,450

BEFORE: Bashir Salahuddin carries over again from "Cyrano" - because I was never going to get here via Tom Cruise, ya know?  He appears in MAYBE one film every year, sometimes it's more like one new film every two years, so if I'm going to be less than a year behind on my movies, I have to get there through somebody else - yeah, I could have gotten here through Jon Hamm or Ed Harris, but then I'd miss the military tie-in for Memorial Day.  (There were war scenes in "Cyrano", so really, it can't be that jarring to go from a 16th century romance to a modern aerial combat film.  And hey, maybe there's some romance in this one, and we find some common ground between any random two movies...).  I've already passed on TWO linking opportunities to watch this film this year, just to hold open the possibility of placing it right on the holiday. 

Still, I kind of feel like maybe I'm the only person who would watch "A Simple Favor", "Cyrano" and this one all in a row.  Maybe Bashir Salahuddin would?  Not sure.  Anyway, it's Memorial Day so something that celebrates our armed forces (in addition to the recent military-themed episodes of "Chopped") is called for.  And I'm halfway through Movie Year 15 as of today, plus it's the unofficial start of summer, and the start of grilling/BBQ season.  Which also brings me back to "Top Gun", in a round-about way, because I worked a booth at San Diego Comic-Con for about 15 years, made a trip out there every July, and I'd always have dinner one night at the Kansas City BBQ restaurant (yeah, I know, but the name referred to the style of BBQ, not the actual location) and that joint was known as the filming location for the "sleazy bar" scenes in the original 1986 film.  The restaurant's owners decided to lean into it at one point, and put a bunch of "Top Gun" photos on the wall, sold "Top Gun" t-shirts and such.  

One year there was a bad grease fire, and their whole "Wall of Fame" got wiped out, doing literally tens of dollars of damage to the memorabilia collection - so one year I couldn't eat there, but they rebuilt the place and got new photos and started selling t-shirts again.  It's still there, or so Yelp tells me, so if you're in the area for Comic-Con or another convention, it's worth walking a few extra blocks away from the Gaslamp district to get a "Works Plate" with three meats and two sides, or ask for my Comic-Con special, aka "Whatever You've Got Left in the Kitchen".  Just tell 'em Honky sent you, and also he's sorry for flirting with the owner's daughter.  Or was I sorry for not flirting with the owner's daughter?  I forget.  

Anyway, the original "Top Gun" also has footage from around San Diego, motorcycle riding and beach volleyball scenes in addition to all the aerial combat, so can we just call it a great summer movie?  Let's see how the sequel holds up, 

THE PLOT: After thirty years, Maverick is still pushing the envelope as a top naval aviator, but must confront ghosts of his past when he leads TOP GUN's elite graduates on a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those chosen to fly it. 

AFTER: Wow, I just checked the release date on this one - May 27, 2022, that means I (accidentally) watched it almost EXACTLY one year after theatrical release.  I was just trying to find a good Memorial Day film, but remember this was also the film that "saved" theaters in 2022, by bringing people back outside after the pandemic and making almost $1.5 billion worldwide. Even with a budget of $170 million, it still took in almost nine times that amount as a gross.  It's a winner, no matter how you look at it, and Hollywood didn't need "saving" again until "Avatar 2" came out six months later.  I think we've bailed out Hollywood more times than the government has bailed out the banks.

Wow, it's been 36 years since the first "Top Gun" movie came out - is this a world record for longest time between the first two films in a franchise?  Well, one source on the internet says yes, because this was longer than the 35-year gap between "Blade Runner" and "Blade Runner 2049", and longer than the 33-year gap between "Coming to America" and "Coming 2 America", but then another source says that if you count animated films, the record-holder is the 64-year gap between "Bambi" and "Bambi II".  "Fantasia" also had a 59-year wait before "Fantasia 2" was released - maybe the "Top Gun" franchise has the record for longest wait for a live-action sequel?  Not sure, I guess it all depends on who's doing the counting. 

There's a 32-year gap in the "Star Wars" francise between "Episode VI" and "Episode VII", but I don't think that one should count because of the PRE-quels.  They should really only count the gaps between installments, no matter where they occur in the timeline.  I'm going to mention "Star Wars" here because I couldn't help but notice the similarities between the flight mission seen in "Top Gun: Maverick" and the rebel assault on the first Death Star.  Sure, the fighter planes have to fly through a long, winding canyon to get to their target, but then it just reminds me of flying through Beggars Canyon to get to the Death Star trench, which means they just copied the mission from two Star Wars storylines, not just one.  Well, hey, I guess if you're going to steal you might as well steal from the best.  OK, maybe not steal, but at least let's say "borrow"? 

The mission seems impossible, but then when the mission is impossible, you get Tom Cruise, right?  Sorry, I know he's Pete "Maverick" Mitchell here, but the concept is the same.  Maverick is called upon to train 12 pilots who all were the best in their classes at the Navy's "Top Gun" flight school, which each year trained only the elite pilots, the top 1%, so these 12 candidates are all "The best of the best", which sure, seems possible but it also seems like a contradiction - they can't ALL be "The best of the best", surely only one or two of them can be that. (Hint: the best pilot's call-sign rhymes with "Schmaverick").  Here the 12 "BotB" have to be trimmed down to the six that are going to go on the mission - which presents Maverick with a conundrum, he has to pix the six best pilots and train them, when quite honestly he wants to just jump in an F-18 and do the damn mission himself. 

This really should be humbling for anybody who's successful in any career - sports, business, acting, whatever - you can be your class valedictorian, you can win an Oscar, you can be named the MVP in the World Championship of whatever, but no matter what you do, there's somebody who's also at the top of their game who's just one year younger or one year older.  There's a new valedictorian in every school every year, there's a new SuperBowl MVP each year, and you're probably not going to win an Oscar twice in a row (though it has happened...).  The next man or woman to come along is just as likely to be as successful as you, or more successful, but also have an advantage over you by being younger, having more energy, a higher jump shot, or whatever.  So whatever you succeed at, enjoy it but realize that any victory is short-lived.  

There's another conundrum for Maverick, one of the 12 elite pilots is "Rooster" Bradshaw, son of "Goose" Bradshaw, who was a character in the first "Top Gun" movie.  (No spoilers here, but really, you should have seen this film at some point...). At some point in the past, Maverick denied Rooster's application to the Top Gun program, as per the request of Rooster's mother - but Rooster eventually made it into the program, it just took him a few more years, so he's holding a grudge against Maverick for sure.  But now, how can Maverick choose him for this incredibly dangerous mission, putting his life in danger, when he promised to help keep him safe?  Also, how can he NOT pick him for the mission, especially if he is the great pilot he seems to be, because that would be yet another setback in his career caused by Maverick.  It sure seems like there's no way around this problem, yet of course the movie ultimately has to find one.  Really, though, this decision is only a problem if Maverick MAKES it one, but of course that's exactly what he does.  

Maverick is certainly a more well-rounded character here, except for the fact that he's failed to succeed or get promoted for the last thirty years.  He's probably been stationed all over, he had a girl in every port, as they say, probably thirty failed relationships to match the number of years that he's failed to be promoted.  When he comes back to North Island in San Diego, he tries to pick up where he left off with local bar owner Penny Benjamin.  NITPICK POINT: I realize it's been thirty years, but come on, there's not even a mention of what happened between him and Charlie?  Or do we have to fill in that gap ourselves?

Also, whenever Maverick acted carelessly, or disobeyed orders, or bent or broke the rules, there was always "Iceman" to bail him out, or to get him reassigned somewhere, or to just put in a good word at the next assignment.  This is how you fail upwards for three decades, I guess, you've got to have friends in high places.  At this point, 30 years after the events of the first film, Thomas "Iceman" Kazansky" is an admiral, overseeing the whole Pacific fleet or something. Must be nice.  

Anyway, it's not long before Maverick is once again defying authority at his new post - Adm. Solomon Bates seems to be in his corner, but Adm. Beau "Cyclone" Simpson sure isn't.  He doesn't believe for a second that Maverick's impromptu game of football is a team-building exercise, even if that's exactly what it is.  And then when the weeks of training have done nothing but prove that the mission parameters are impossible to meet, naturally Maverick flies an unauthorized simulation of the course to prove that the mission is indeed possible, even if he's the only one who can do it without blacking out. Come on, his NAME is "Maverick", what the hell did you expect him to do, follow the rules? 

No spoilers beyond this point, but the whole last act is edge-of-your-seat stuff, so God damn it, I think this might actually be a great movie?  Well, it did save Hollywood after all, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.  If I've got any more NITPICK POINTS, it's just that they never mention the name of the country where the target is - which seems like an odd choice, you'd think that would come up in conversation (it's Russia, right?) - and sure, I don't know very much about military planes, but I didn't quite understand why some F-18s had one pilot in them and others had two pilots.  But I guess those things aren't really that important?  Did they explain that and I just missed it somehow?  There were six pilots and four jets, did the people in the back seats just operate the laser sight devices, was that it? 

Also, wouldn't that scene with Maverick flashing back to the past, after seeing Rooster playing the piano in the bar, have been much more powerful if the film crew had gone back to the real, original sleazy bar from the first film?  I mean, come on, even I know EXACTLY where it is...

Also starring Tom Cruise (last seen in "Val"), Miles Teller (last seen in "The Spectacular Now"), Jennifer Connelly (last seen in "Reservation Road"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "No Sudden Move"), Glen Powell (last seen in "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"), Lewis Pullman (last seen in "Aftermath"), Ed Harris (last seen in "The Lost Daughter"), Val Kilmer (also last seen in "Val"), Monica Barbaro, Charles Parnell (last seen in "A Million Little Pieces"), Jay Ellis (last seen in "Movie 43"), Danny Ramirez, Greg Tarzan Davis, Manny Jacinto (last seen in "Bad Times at the El Royale"), Raymond Lee (last seen in "The Lost City"), Jake Picking (last seen in "Horse Girl"), Jack Schumacher, Kara Wang, Lyliana Wray, Jean Louisa Kelly (last seen in "The Call of the Wild"), James Handy (last seen in "Suburbicon"), Chelsea Harris, Tommy Kijas with archive footage of Anthony Edwards (also last seen in "Val"), Meg Ryan (last seen in "Prelude to a Kiss"), Kelly McGillis (last seen in "Val")

RATING: 8 out of 10 pairs of aviator sunglasses

Cyrano

Year 15, Day 148 - 5/28/23 - Movie #4,449

BEFORE: I had an extra slot before Memorial Day, so I saw the opportunity to drop this one in, right between two other films with Bashir Salahuddin.  I know, this is a classic romance tale so it really belongs in a February chain, according to my own rules.  But I couldn't work it in during this year's annual tribute to romance, and instead there were two modern riffs on the "Cyrano" story, both set in high schools (and both had Wolfgang Novogratz in them, look it up).  So how could I watch two rip-offs of "Cyrano" this year and not also watch the reboot/remake? 

I worked at the red-carpet premiere of this film, back in February (of course) 2022.  Sure, I worked outside the whole time, on crowd control and ramp duty, but that's typical for one of these big events. They bring their own personnel to handle check-in and security, so that leaves very little for me to do - instead I tend to get stationed outside, but at least then I get to see all the limos pull up and the celebrities getting into the press tent, which is what happened with this one.  The other down-side is then I have to stay there until midnight or 1 am to supervise the dismantling of the tents, but hey, longer shift means more hours and more money in the next paycheck.

Naturally when the film became available on premium cable, I recorded it and slapped it on a DVD, figuring I'd work it in somehow to the next romance chain in 2023.  That didn't happen, so I have to try to make up for that now.  This links to maybe one other romance film on my list, so it's fairly unlikely that I'll even get to it next February - so I'm comfortable in taking it off the list today.  I've got maybe 90 romance films I haven't seen on DVD and streaming, so making a 30-film chain without this one should still be very possible.  Theoretically, at least. 

Bashir Salahuddin carries over from "A Simple Favor". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Half of It" (Movie #4,344), "Sierra Burgess Is a Loser" (Movie #4,347)

THE PLOT: Too self-conscious to woo Roxanne himself, wordsmith Cyrano de Bergerac helps young Christian nab her heart through love letters. 

AFTER: Those two knock-off "Cyrano" films I watched in February - both had the classic love triangles at their hearts, but one was a gender-flipped version where the central character played in the marching band but was secretly in love with the school's star quarterback, and in the other one, the Cyrano character was also female, and Asian-American, but she was secretly in love with a girl, the same girl she was helping the school jock to impress.  So yeah, I see how both of those tried to move the storyline to incorporate some 21st century sensibilities, but sometimes, at the end of the the day you've got to go old school.

Mostly, that is - this is another "sing-through" movie, like "Annette" was, so the vast majority of the dialogue here is sung rather than spoken, and at one point when Cyrano confronts the stage actor he doesn't like, it practically turns into a rap battle.  Then Cyrano gets in a duel with someone who calls him a freak, and this set of scenes is probably the highlight of the entire film.  The love triangle stuff we've all seen before, in various forms of course, just the twist here is that Cyrano is a dwarf and not just a guy with a big nose.  

Cyrano's friend since childhood is Roxanne, and he's unable to profess his love for her because of his condition.  Actually he seems like he's just about to finally tell her, of course Roxanne spoils it by confiding in her that's she's in love with the new palace guard rookie, Christian.  She implores Cyrano, the captain of the guard, to make sure Christian doesn't get hazed, to protect him, and also wants Christian to write her a letter.  Of course this sets up Cyrano with the opportunity to write love letters to Roxanne through Christian, if he can't love her directly then he can express his love for her indirectly.  (What could POSSIBLY go wrong?)

The deception works for a while, but the problem here is that there's another person interested in Roxanne, the Duke de Guiche.  The Duke grows tired of pursuing Roxanne without her loving him back, so he informs her by letter that when he gets back to town from the war, he's arranged for a priest to marry them, and if she's not into that, then he'll take her love by force without the marriage. Classy guy.  Roxanne ignores the content of the letter and tells everyone that the priest is there to marry her and Christian.  When the Duke arrives and finds that Roxanne has wed another man, he sends the whole guard unit to the front lines.  

While at war, Cyrano writes a letter every day to Roxanne "from Christian", and also does his best to keep him from getting killed.  There's another powerful song here as all of the soldiers dictate letters to their lovers or families, because they all believe they will die soon, and they don't want their loved ones to cry for them.  Before their doomed mission, Christian sees the final letter that Cyrano has written to Roxanne, and together they debate whether Roxanne really loves Christian or the author of the letters and poems.  Christian demands that Cyrano tell Roxanne the truth before he runs over the hill and into the enemy's line of fire. 

Three years later, Cyrano is poor and still suffering from his war wounds, and he visits Roxanne at her nunnery, one last time.  He reveals that he is the author of the letters, but only just before he dies.  And Roxanne expresses her love for Cyrano, better late than never, I guess? 

All of this is remarkably faithful to the original five-act play by Edmond Rostand, based on what I just read on Wikipedia.  The only plot points that seem to be missing from the original are Roxanne's visit to the front lines in Act IV, and in the play Cyrano didn't die from war wounds, instead he died because someone dropped a log on his head from a tall building.  You know, having a woman visit Cyrano at war doesn't really make much sense, so I think these two changes are for the better.  It's very rare when someone changes a piece of classic literature and actually improves it, I think. 

Also starring Peter Dinklage (last seen in "Three Christs"), Haley Bennett (last seen in "Swallow"), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (last seen in "Monster"), Ben Mendelsohn (last seen in "The Land of Steady Habits"), Monica Dolan (last seen in "Never Let Me Go"), Joshua James (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Anjana Vasan (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far from Home"), Ruth Sheen (last seen in "Secrets & Lies"), Peter Wight (ditto), Glen Hansard (last seen in "Once"), Sam Amidon, Scott Folan, Mark Benton (last seen in "The Reckoning"), Richard McCabe (last seen in "Einstein and Eddington"), Tim McMullan (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Mark Bagnall, Mike Shepherd (last seen in "Pan"), Paul Biddiss (last seen in "Criminal"), Katy Owen, Ray Strachan.

RATING: 7 out of 10 master bakers