The Tender Bar

Year 15, Day 161 - 6/10/23 - Movie #4,462

BEFORE: Spent most of today working at the Tribeca Film Festival, or, rather, for one of the movie theaters that hosts the festival - I wasn't working directly for the Festival itself, just indirectly.  But I stayed up the night before and watched this as a Saturday movie - but now I think I need to skip Sunday by not starting a movie on Saturday night, and then I'll watch a movie on Sunday night, but it will count as my Monday movie.  Makes sense?  Still, it's about one week until Father's Day, so here's another example of a film about fathers, or absent fathers, or surrogate fathers, they call count toward my total.  Just like I had two films that were appropriate for Memorial Day, I've had a number of films planned for my chain that are father-based, that just increases my chances of landing one on the holiday itself. I'm still right on track.

Ben Affleck carries over from "Air" and pulls even with Matt Damon in the number of appearances for the year so far.  But it seems that the chain really wants me to focus on DC Comics movies this year, rather than Marvel ones, I've watched the "Shazam" sequel and I have two more DC movies coming up before June ends.  Then, if I decide to go see "The Flash" in a movie theater in July (which I think the chain will allow), Ben Affleck would take the lead over Matt Damon.  Meanwhile, tonight's film stars one actor who played Batman and was directed by another, George Clooney. 

THE PLOT: A boy growing up on Long Island seeks out father figures among the patrons at his uncle's bar. 

AFTER: This film's a bit like "Senior Year", in that it fulfills both June themes - "Dads and grads."  The main character is raised by his mother and doesn't really know his father, not at first, anyway, but looks up to his uncle LIKE a father, and also finds more paternal figures to idolize at the local bar.  At the same time, he's encouraged by his mother all through high school to apply to Yale, and so therefore at some point he becomes a high-school graduate, then later in the film, a college graduate.  This movie is so appropriate for June, it's not even funny. 

This is based on a memoir by John "JR" Moehringer, so it makes sense that the young man at the center of the story grows up to be a writer, a memorist, yeah, sure, that tracks but I also tend to hate movies where the central character is a writer who writes about his life and that novel became...the movie you're watching now!  It's all just a bit too self-referential, isn't it?  And when did it become acceptable to write your memoirs before becoming famous?  Or to be famous FOR writing your memoirs, that almost feels like cheating, because if you didn't lead a truly extraordinary life up to that point, then why bother writing about it?  If George Clooney wrote a memoir, sure, turn that into a movie.  Charles Dickens wrote "David Copperfield" as an almost-memoir, but I think he certainly had enough interesting things happen to him that he could pull that off, but does sitting around in a bar and pining for your absent father constitute an interesting or extraordinary life?  I'm just not sure.  

Moehringer's personal memoir connected with enough people that Andre Agassi hired him to co-write his memoir, and then he also ghost-wrote "Shoe Dog", the memoir of Phil Knight, seen in yesterday's film "Air", and more recently he worked on Prince Harry's memoir, "Spare".  So yeah, I get it, but writing your own memoir and not already being famous still feels like cheating - it's apparently a short-cut to recognition, especially if the industry is "trending toward memoirs" - so if everybody else does it, it's OK?  Still not following.  Sure, I tried to turn my first marriage into a screenplay and I didn't have the time or the balls to finish it - so kudos for getting something published, I guess, but still, you used a short-cut.  People have also written novels about fictional characters, and some of those are quite popular - and those authors didn't just rely on the things that happened to them IRL.  Just saying. 

Moehringer grew up in Manhasset, just like JR Maguire in the movie - but he finished high school in Scottsdale, Arizona before attending Yale - but where is that in the film?  JR in the film just stays in Long Island, so, umm, where does reality stop and the fictional stuff start?  Jr in the film listens to his father, "The Voice" as he bounces around stations on the FM radio dial - and Moehringer's father was a DJ in NYC's WOR-FM who went by the name "Johnny Michaels".  JR Maguire in the movie works at the New York Times, which Moehringer also did, but the real writer also worked at the Rocky Mountain News in Colorado and for the L.A. Times in Orange County.  Would the film have been too complicated if JR had moved across the country like the author did?  Now I really don't know what to believe about this story....

There are a lot of loose ends here - JR's mother has her thyroid removed because of a tumor, but it turns out to be benign, not malignant.  OK, so why is that a big deal, then?  JR has his grandfather go with him to a father-and-son breakfast at school.  Well, sure, because his father's not in the picture, it makes sense.  But how does doing word puzzles at the bar get JR a spot on his uncle's bowling team?  That doesn't make logical sense.  These narrative threads might all be based on real events, but they just don't tie together in any way, nothing forms a larger picture here, instead they just all feel like flashes of memory from one person's recollections, but what the heck does it all mean to an outsider?  And why should I care?  

Right, the father stuff - that's why we're all here, right?  I mean, this film came on AmazonPrime in January of LAST year, 2022, and it took me that long to link to it - I'm glad I waited for the week before Father's Day, because in the end that kind of feels like where it belongs, but I'm still not sure what the film has to say about fathers, exactly.  OK, that some of them suck, that much is clear.  After a few visits from his Dad earlier in the film, JR is content to live his life looking up to his uncle instead, but Uncle Charlie encourages JR to track down his father in North Carolina, where he lives with his girlfriend and her (their?) daughter.  But Dad is still an abusive alcoholic, so JR has him arrested for beating up that girlfriend.  There's a lesson in there somewhere, I guess - don't go looking for somebody unless you're prepared to deal with them when you find them.  Or a leopard can't change his spots, make of it what you will. 

The majority of the film is set on Long Island, but as someone who was raised in New England, I can see it clearly wasn't shot there - because only New England states have the candlepin (small ball) bowling.  Yup, IMDB confirms the bowling scene was shot in Wakefield, Mass, and other scenes filmed in Beverly, Fitchburg, Wakefield, Ashby and Ipswich, all in the Bay State.  Sorry, Manhasset - but only little Massachusetts towns look crappy enough to pass for 1973-1986.  You can probably find little parts of those towns that haven't changed a bit since then.

Also starring Tye Sheridan (last seen in "The Card Counter"), Daniel Ranieri, Lily Rabe (last seen in "Finding Steve McQueen"), Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "The Postman Always Rings Twice"), Max Martini (last seen in "Columbiana"), Sondra James (last seen in "Going the Distance"), Michael Braun, Matthew Delamater (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Max Casella (last seen in "The Rhythm Section"), Rhenzy Feliz (last heard in "Encanto"), Ivan Leung, Briana Middleton, Danielle Ranieri, Kate Avallone, Mark Boyett, Quincy Tyler Bernstine (last seen in "White Noise"), Ezra Knight, David Carl, Shannon Collis (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Keira Jo Lassor, Jennifer C. Johnson, Michael Steven Costello (last seen in "Ted 2"), Kate Middleton (last seen in "Set It Up"), Jackson Damon (also carrying over from "Air"), Caroline Bergwall (last seen in "Don't Look Up"), Jeff MacKinnon (ditto), Daniel Washington (last seen in "I Care a Lot"), Jenny Eagan, Billy Meleady (last seen in "Black Mass"), Mellanie Hubert, Jo-anne Lee, Leslie Luke, Melanie Blake Roth and the voice of Ron Livingston (last seen in "Lucky"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 packs of cigarettes (purchased by a minor, those were the days...)

Air

Year 15, Day 160 - 6/9/23 - Movie #4,461

BEFORE: It was just a three-day trip, but I'm already having trouble getting back in the swing of things in NYC - though we did miss the three days where the city was filled with smoke from burning Canadian wildfires, so that's something.  Gee, and I was kind of looking forward to finding out what BBQ flavored air tasted like.  Oh, well, maybe next time.  

Ben Affleck AND Matt Damon carry over from "School Ties".  

THE PLOT: Follows the history of shoe salesman Sonny Vaccaro, and how he led Nike in its pursuit of the greatest athlete in the history of basketball, Michael Jordan. 

AFTER: It's not that this is a terrible movie, it's just a terrible IDEA for a movie, and then for some reason somebody followed through and actually made it.  There should have been some check in the system that prevented things from ever getting that far.  Like didn't anybody have the nerve to speak up and say, "Why would anybody be interested in this story?" very early in the process, and then when there was no constructive answer, the meeting would be over and everybody would go home, or maybe they'd move on to the next project to consider.  

This is really who we want to make a movie about, the low-level managers at Nike Inc. who worked on endorsements from college players and were largely unsung for their efforts.  There was a valid reason why we never knew who these people were, because in the grand scheme of things, their work just wasn't that important, 99% of the time.  I'm still not sure it was even that important for the 1% of the time, which is when they signed Michael Jordan to a contract.  So what? Who cares?  Are we going to make a movie about that time that they changed the formula for Coke, then brought back the original as "Coke Classic" a few months later?  Or the invention of the Egg McMuffin?  Actually, I'd probably be MORE interested in a movie about the guy who invented the Egg McMuffin, over the guy who signed Jordan to a shoe contract. 

Admittedly, there are one or two small details about the deal that I find moderately interesting - like the fact that the NBA didn't allow sneakers to have THAT much color, they had to be mostly white or the player would end up paying a fine - and Nike paid the fines for Jordan to wear his very red sneakers, which was a great publicity stunt.  And...well, no, really that's it, it's the only thing I found interesting about the whole movie.  Think about it - if you had to name the notable or interesting moments in Michael Jordan's life, would the signing of his Nike contract even crack the top ten?

I did like that the film poked fun at Phil Knight, because the guy is a right bastard, from everything that I've heard about him.  I used to work for an animation company in Portland, which was headed by Will Vinton, a pioneer in the claymation technique - when Vinton's company was in need of money, Phil Knight stepped in and offered financing, but also a board to oversee the company, and that board ended up voting Will Vinton out of his own company.  Who's in charge of that company right now?  Well, it's Phil Knight's son, what an amazing coincidence... You don't suppose Phil Knight kicked a respected animation director out of his own company just so his own son could have an executive position, do you?  Hmmmm......

Knight is portrayed here as an ambitious businessman, but also as someone who doesn't know how to take his company to the next level, because it turns out that Buddhist philosophy and a 10-point plan of useless sayings like "Always be on offense" didn't seem to drag his sneaker company out of fifth place in the market.  No, apparently it took a mid-level executive thinking outside the box, breaking the rules and letting the player put his own name on the sneaker to turn Nike into a billion-dollar sneaker company - and somehow that guy, Sonny Vaccaro, could see the future because he not only predicted that Michael Jordan would be the most successful player of all time, he also correctly predicted that once on top, the world would try to bring Jordan down, and he'd have to re-invent himself as a baseball player and then an NBA team owner just to survive in this tough modern world.  Man, what a visionary, but isn't it impossible that anyone could have predicted all that in montage form, before it happened?

Give me a break - it was one contract that got signed, and Vaccaro and Nike got incredibly lucky.  Though I suppose "lucky" depends on your point of view - even though Nike sold billions of dollars worth of Air Jordans, they had to concede that MJ would get a royalty on every paid sold, and that alone added up to a few hundred million over the years.  Now this is quite common, as anybody who does endorsement deals or watches "Shark Tank" knows, royalties are where it's at - but apparently it wasn't always that way.  

Still, I have to judge this film as "mostly useless" - wasn't it just in theaters two months ago, in April?  It must have done terrible to already be streaming on AmazonPrime, or maybe that was always part of the plan.  These days it's so hard to tell. Looks like it fell just short of breaking even at the box office, it grossed $89 million but it cost $90 million to make.  I suppose that counts as a failure these days, if your movie doesn't make a billion and be declared the latest film to "save Hollywood" then you might just as well not bother, and stream it for free two months later.  I mean, come on, what's the freaking point?  (EDIT: Ah, it looks like streaming on Amazon Prime was always part of the plan, it was the theatrical release that got added at the last minute because the film tested higher than anticipated.)

The film opens with a montage of the most ridiculous things about the 1980's, from Cabbage Patch dolls to "Knight Rider" to Jane Fonda's workout videos.  Sure, they nailed it, I know because I was there for all of it, but I just wonder why anybody would want to relive all of that. It was an extremely silly time. 

Also starring Jason Bateman (last seen in "Hit and Run"), Chris Messina (last seen in "Zeroville"), Viola Davis (last seen in "The Unforgivable"), Julius Tennon (last seen in "Faster"), Damian Delano Young, Chris Tucker (last seen in "Silver Linings Playbook"), Matthew Maher (last heard in "My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea"), Gustaf Skarsgard (last seen in "The Way Back"), Barbara Sukowa (last seen in "White Noise"), Jay Mohr (last seen in "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone"), Joel Gretsch (last seen in "Are You Here"), Michael O'Neill (last seen in "Ghost Story"), Marlon Wayans (last seen in "Venus and Serena"), Asanté Deshon, Billy Smith (last seen in "Flag Day"), Al Madrigal (last seen in "Unplugging"), Jackson Damon (last seen in "Thoroughbreds"), Dan Bucatinsky (last seen in "Under the Tuscan Sun"), Jessica Green, Gabrielle Bourne, Joshua Funk (last seen in "The Starling"), Andy Hirsch, Tami Jordan, Jeff Cook, Albert Stroth, Mackenzie Rayne, Jerry Plummer.

with archive footage of Arthur Ashe (last seen in "McEnroe"), Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer"), Prince Charles (ditto), Princess Diana (ditto), Larry Bird, Bono (last heard in "Sing 2"), Geraldine Ferraro (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?"), Nancy Reagan (ditto), Ronald Reagan (ditto), Jane Fonda (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), David Hasselhoff (last seen in "Downhill"), Hulk Hogan, Magic Johnson (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Deloris Jordan, Michael Jordan (last seen in "Say Hey, Willie Mays"), Simon Le Bon (last seen in "Under the Volcano"), Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, George Michael (last seen in "Last Christmas"), Andrew Ridgeley (ditto), Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell, Walter Mondale (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Eddie Murphy (last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Bill Murray (last seen in "Space Jam: A New Legacy"), Barack Obama (last seen in "Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away"), Dolly Parton (last seen in "Tina"), Clara Peller, Harold Ramis (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Mary Lou Retton, Joseph "Run" Simmons, Sylvester Stallone (last seen in "The Queen of Versailles"), Sting (last seen in "Count Me In"), Mr. T (last seen in "The Super Bob Einstein Movie")

RATING: 4 out of 10 boxes of Wheaties

School Ties

Year 15, Day 159 - 6/8/23 - Movie #4,460

BEFORE: I'm back in New York, our quick trip up to Massachusetts is done, and I'm appalled at the state of physical rehabilitation facilites near my hometown, but there's not much I can do about it, except encourage my mother to do her physical therapy every day, and meet the benchmarks so she can move back into her apartment.  It's tough because every day she doesn't understand where she is or why my father isn't there when she wakes up, but I know he visits her every day.  She's just very confused, and today when we visited we found her in the activity room where the staff was having a "cookout" for the residents, and my Mom asked me what kind of trick we were playing on her.  I had to tell her that my sister would be working on getting her out of that facility as soon as possible, maybe within a week if she kept up her physical therapy and if we could get her evaluated by the right person on the right day.  I can't do much to improve her situation during a 48-hour trip, and I sure can't move up there to take care of her on a daily basis, so the situation is what it is. 

Ben Affleck carries over from "Clerks III". Got some more films coming up here with Affleck and Damon, after tonight there will be four appearances by Matt Damon this year, and three with Affleck, but I think the score willl even out in the end.  Still, there's a lot of Movie Year 15 left, anything could happen. Another film set in a school today, I think this is the last one for a while. 

THE PLOT: In 1959, a star quarterback from a working-class family is given an opportunity to attend an elite New England preparatory school, but he is conflicted about whether or not to tell his Evangelical classmates that he is Jewish. 

AFTER: Tonight's movie is set somewhere in New England, though they don't exactly say where - with Damon and Affleck involved it's probably Massachusetts, though, and it looks like they shot the film in towns like Concord, Framingham, Lowell and Worcester, and most likely you could still find locations in those towns in 1992 that hadn't changed that much since the 1950's. Probably less so today.  

Maybe it's the combination of the film being made 30 years ago and being set over 60 years ago, but the whole anti-semitism storyline seems like old hat - I know that we haven't completely eliminated prejudice, far from it probably, but still it all seems fairly outdated.  Yeah, I know there's a joke to be made somewhere here about the lack of Jewish sports stars, but I'm not going to make it.  I'm sure plenty of Jews are good at playing football, but I don't have any data to support this.  

Just a few years later, the bigger scandal would be about all-white schools giving scholarships to black quarterbacks, and if you were going to make a movie like "School Ties" today, the quarterback's big secret would probably be that he was born female and transitioned to male.  Can I make this comparison?  I think I just did.  In 1959 was it just as scandalous to be Jewish as it is now to be trans?  Honestly, I'm not sure, but it demonstrates that there will always be prejudiced people and haters, the only thing that seems to change over time is why they hate other people.  

The ethical question here was, should David Greene have informed his teammates that he was Jewish?  One argument says yes, of course, because only then would he truly break down the barriers of prejudice and only then could the other students have their perceptions changed over what Jewish people are all about.  But then, of course, he either didn't feel it was the right time, or after hearing what the other players thought about Jewish people, he didn't want to be a target or the butt of their jokes.  Fair point, but not telling them, even if they didn't ask, is also a lie, it's a lie of omission.

The school also has an "honor code", all the students take an oath to not cheat, and also to not cover up for any cheating classmates.  So the whole movie David Greene is at odds with Charlie Dillon, because he stole his quarterback position and then his girlfriend - and the last half of the film concerns David seeing Charlie using a crib sheet, and when there's an inquiry into who cheated, David turns in Charlie, but Charlie also accuses David.  So the whole class is threatened with a failing grade unless the cheater comes forward, but when he doesn't, it comes down to a vote.  Who do the students believe, the quarterback who lied about his religion or the halfback with a personal ax to grind?  

It's a rather simple film, and it maybe didn't do that well at the box office, but over time it became one of those sleeper hits, something people remembered years later as an OK film, and now it's just one step away from being a classic.  It's kind of weird how that happens over time to some films, but not to others.  I guess I'm always trying to find those classic films that I never watched when they first came out, then I kind of missed them on VHS and DVD, too - but thanks to streaming and cable I'll eventually get to see everything, if I just keep checking the lists every month of what's new to Netflix and AmazonPrime and I keep scanning the cable guide.  

Also starring Brendan Fraser (last seen in "No Sudden Move"), Matt Damon (last seen in "Stillwater"), Chris O'Donnell (last seen in "Cookie's Fortune"), Randall Batinkoff (last seen in "Walking and Talking"), Andrew Lowery (last seen in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"), Cole Hauser (last seen in "Running with the Devil"), Anthony Rapp (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Amy Locane (last seen in "Secretary"), Peter Donat (last seen in "The China Syndrome"), Zeljko Ivanek (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Kevin Tighe (last seen in "Fat Man and Little Boy"), Michael Higgins (last seen in "Swimfan"), Ed Lauter (last seen in "Lassiter"), Peter McRobbie (last seen in "Shaft" (2000)), John Cunningham (last seen in "For Love or Money"), Elizabeth Franz (last seen in "The Pallbearer"), Matt Hofherr, Jeff Hochendoner (last seen in "Warrior"), R.E. Rodgers (last seen in "Bad Boys II"), John Speredakos, Edward Seamon, Dan Desmond (last seen in "Rules Don't Apply"), Claudia Everest, Leon B. Stevens, Cody Conklin, Benari Poulten, Stanton Denman, Sean Kent, Luke Jorgensen, Kent Osborne, Jayce Bartok (last seen in "Cop Out"), Jeff Nichols, Will Lyman (last seen in "A Perfect Murder"), Susan Johnston, Sandra Landers (last seen in "The Report"), Ken Garito (last seen in "BlacKkKlansman"), Karen Shallo (last seen in "Once Upon a Time in America"), Gregory Chase.

RATING: 5 out of 10 essay questions

Clerks III

Year 15, Day 158 - 6/7/23 - Movie #4,459

BEFORE: Still up in Massachusetts, I got to visit my mother today in the physical rehab facility she's in, then we took my father out for lunch, and after that went back and spent more time with my mother. She's got dementia, so sometimes she doesn't know where she is or how she got there or even what month it is (she asked me if it was February yet) but this is her cycle, every few months she needs to go to the hospital, then it's a few weeks in rehab once they get her swelling down, then she goes back to the senior living apartment with my father, then they've got four or five months before her health problems flare up again. This is just how it's going to be for the rest of her life, it seems, however long that is.  I come up and visit her when I can, but usually that's just two or three times a year, I'm sad to report.  It brings me down to see her like this, but there's just not much I can do for her but visit - and keep in contact with my sister so that we coordinate our visits for different months, so collectively we can check in on her more times. 

Ethan Suplee carries over from "Dog".

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Clerks II" (Movie #4), "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" (Movie #3,663)

THE PLOT: Dante, Elias, Jay and Silent Bob are enlisted by Randall, after his heart attack, to make a movie about the convenience store that started it all.

AFTER: Well, I'm torn on this one - because look how eager I was to watch "Clerks II", it was the FOURTH movie I watched when I started this blog. The only movies that took priority included "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". That's how I roll - er, rolled, back in 2009.  I couldn't WAIT to watch the sequel to "Clerks", one of the all-time classics.  A lot has changed since then, and I got burned so badly by "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot", not to mention "Yoga Hosers", that I went in this time with some trepidation.  Oh, I still programmed it, first chance I got, because Kevin Smith is a must-watch, but I just was not expecting a fantastic movie. Hell, I didn't even remember what happened in "Clerks II", it was either that long ago or that non-memorable. (Maybe both.)

But watching (or remembering) what happened in "Clerks II" isn't exactly required - I figured I'd catch up on whatever I didn't remember, and I was right.  Dante almost got married in that film, but then he found out that the co-worker he had an affair with was pregnant, so he ditched the marriage to the rich but mean lady in favor of the nice and poor one.  Did he make the right choice, in the end?  Well, nobody can really say, but this film felt the need pretty early to catch us up on Dante's current situation. No spoilers here. 

What this film makes clear (and really, maybe it should have been clear from the start) is that Kevin Smith might PLAY Silent Bob, but that doesn't mean he IS Silent Bob, or that Silent Bob is based on him.  If anything, since we all know that Smith once worked at a convenience store, it's more likely that the character of Dante is based on him.  Or maybe Randall - hell, maybe every character is based on him, in the same way that you are all the characters in your dreams at night, and they are all you. So when Randall has a heart attack early in the film, it makes sense, because Kevin Smith also had a heart attack a few years ago.  Randall's brush with death makes him think about his life, what he has, and hasn't, accomplished so far. 

But then, this creates a very meta problem - Randall decides that he wants to become a filmmaker (just like Kevin Smith did) and make a film about the weird and funny things that have happened at the Quick Stop over the years (just like Kevin Smith did).  And you guessed it, Randall, with the help of Dante and others, ends up making a black-and-white film that looks almost exactly like "Clerks".  Hell, it IS "Clerks", only a version of "Clerks" that exists within the world of "Clerks", and this reminds me of how in the Marvel Comic-book universe, there are also comic books that are made about Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.  This shouldn't be the case, because in a world where there ARE real super-heroes, there should be no need for comic books with them, because people can just look outside the window and see them.  Stan Lee and the other Marvel writers and artists couldn't resist writing themselves into the storyline, though, so it was explained that within the comic-book world, the heroes licensed their likenesses to an alternate version of Marvel Comics, though one assumes that they left out important information like Spider-Man's secret identity.

My point is, this SHOULDN'T work - there should be no need for the movie "Clerks" within the storyline of "Clerks", but now it's been added, after the fact.  It doesn't work because Smith re-used some of the actual footage from the first "Clerks" movie, and the characters were thirty years younger then, so the old footage is just never going to look quite right.  I get the sentiment, but then we've got a case where the art is now going to imitate life, rather than the other way around, and it's all just a bit too self-referential.  The tone is a big difference, too, because Smith was serious about the storyline of "Clerks", and there were NO in-jokes in that first movie, but now the third movie is almost nothing BUT in-jokes.  Characters frequently break the fourth wall and the movie seems always conscious that it IS a movie, so it becomes impossible to take it seriously as a narrative. Right?

I also didn't remember the "Ethan" character from "Clerks II" - I now realize he was there, but he was so forgettable in the second film that I really had to start from scratch again with him here in the third film.  Then to suddenly meet him again for the first time, be reminded that he's Super-Christian religious, but then five minutes later he converts to Satanism, well, it's all a bit much.  Everything here is a bit much, for that matter.  I got SOME of the in-jokes, like when Randall was talking to his doctor about the "Star Wars" show "The Mandalorian", and she's not already aware of the show BUT the actress playing the doctor has a recurring role on that same show, I get that, it's quite funny.  But then every character here having a bad reaction to how they're portrayed in the movie-within-a-movie, well, that's just the same joke over and over again, isn't it?

My other point is, there's already a documentary that was made about the making of "Clerks", did we also need to see a fictionalized version of that same process in "Clerks III"?  I'm going to say that we did not. I'm glad that we could check in with SOME of the characters here, like it makes perfect sense that Jay and Silent Bob would be running a weed store, because there's like one on every corner now in some states. But I still just with Kevin Smith would stop making the same damn movie, over and over. 

Also starring Brian O'Halloran (last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Jeff Anderson (last seen in "Zack and Miri Make a Porno"), Jason Mewes (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Kevin Smith (last seen in "Jagged"), Trevor Fehrman (last seen in "Clerks II"), Austin Zajur (last seen in "Fist Fight"), Rosario Dawson (last heard in "Space Jam: A New Legacy"), Amy Sedaris (last seen in "Adrienne"), Marilyn Ghigliotti (also last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Jennifer Schwalbach Smith (ditto), Harley Quinn Smith (ditto), Marc Bernardin (ditto), Michelle Buteau (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Kate Micucci (last seen in "When in Rome"), Justin Long (last seen in "For a Good Time, Call..."), John Willyung (also last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Mike Zapcic (ditto), Bryan Johnson (ditto), Walter Flanagan( ditto), Ming Chen (ditto), Ernest O'Donnell (ditto), Jordan Monsanto (ditto), Logan Mewes (ditto), Schott Schiaffo (ditto), Scott Mosier, Vincent Pereira, Michael Belicose, Yassir Lester, Gail Stanley (also last seen in "Clerks II"), Byron Stanley (ditto), Robert Hawk, Joe Bagnole, Uncle Wayne, Scott Purcell, Betsy Broussard, Virginia Smith, Frances Cresci, Donna Jeanne Bagnold, Thomas Burke, Thomas Burke Jr., Kimberly Gharbi, Christian Cordes, Derek Berry, Nate Gonzales, AnnaMarie Brown, Liz Priestley (last seen in "Concrete Cowboy"), Anthony Perry, Shane Kalman, with cameos from Ben Affleck (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Fred Armisen (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Sarah Michelle Gellar (last seen in "She's All That"), Freddie Prinze Jr. (last seen in "Down to You"), Bobby Moynihan (also last seen in "When in Rome"), Melissa Benoist (also last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Chris Wood (ditto), Ralph Garman (ditto), Grace Smith (ditto), Anthony Michael Hall (last seen in "Results"), Danny Trejo (last seen in "Muppets Haunted Mansion"), Brian Quinn, Sal Vulcano, James Murray, Joe Gatto, Donnell Rawlings (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Jake Richardson (last seen in "Cinema Verite").

RATING: 6 out of 10 hockey sticks

Dog

Year 15, Day 157 - 6/6/23 - Movie #4,458

BEFORE: Well, at one point this was going to be my Memorial Day film, and who's to say if I made the right choice, swapping in "Top Gun: Maverick" instead?  Either one probably would have worked out - but then this put both films into the chain, now it's kind of hard to switch gears and save this one for next year, when there's no guarantee that I'll be able to circle back to this one then.  So, it remains part of the chain...

Channing Tatum carries over again from "Side Effects". 

THE PLOT: Two former Army Rangers are paired against their will on the road trip of a lifetime. Briggs and Lulu (a Belgian Malinois) race down the Pacific Coast to get to a fellow soldier's funeral on time. 

AFTER: OK, so this is not like "Top Gun: Maverick" at all - that film had a big, important military mission, and this one's just about a veteran delivering a dog to an Army funeral.  But oddly, this film resembles another recently-watched film, "News of the World", only that film was about a Civil War veteran, and he was escorting a girl raised by Native Americans, not a dog, but essentially both films are the same.  There's a distance to be covered, there are obstacles along the way, and the two protagonists have a meeting of the minds and grow accustomed to each other, forming a new family unit by the end. 

I described the film to my wife today as we were driving to Massachusetts - I only had to describe the first half, really, and she correctly predicted the ending, so I guess really there were no surprises here.  Not if you've seen a movie before, that is. On the one hand, no new ground was really broken here, but then on the other hand, if feels like a very classic tale. The new angle is the PTSD that both the soldier and the dog suffer from, and it doesn't really unite them as quickly as you might think, but since they're more alike than different, they're sort of destined to help each other. 

At the start of the film, Jackson Briggs is desperate to get back into rotation and serve in...Pakistan, is it?  But he's suffered some head trauma in the past and takes medication for migraines - still, he's hoping to get a clean bill of health so he can do another tour.  This should be the classic "Catch-22" situation where he needs to prove that he's mentally fit to serve, however if he wants to serve, isn't that proof, on some level, that he's not mentally fit?  Just saying... But he makes a deal with his unit's captain, if he can deliver his squad's dog to the funeral of the dog's trainer, then he can get a recommendation to serve again, and stop making sandwiches for a living.. And one more thing, after the funeral his instructions are to deliver the dog to another facility, where she'll be euthanized.  

I'm honestly not sure whether the army would just destroy an asset that they created and trained, it seems like a waste of materials, and obviously there's an adoption program for some dogs that bond with soldiers, but I'm not in a position to say for sure that they all get adopted or get to live out their full lives, who knows?  Can the U.S. Army be that heartless, to kill service dogs once they get old or start showing signs of PTSD?  I just want to know, or then again, maybe I don't. 

But what this film lacks in the originality department is more than made up for with all of the feels, from overall caring about pets and the bond they have with their humans to a military funeral where the dog's actions will bring a tear to your eye. If you could watch this without tearing up, don't even talk to me about it.

Also starring Jane Adams (last seen in "Brigsby Bear"), Kevin Nash (last seen in "John Wick"), Q'orianka Kilcher (last seen in "The Vault"), Ethan Suplee (last seen in "Walk of Shame"), Emmy Raver-Lampman, Nicole LaLiberte (last seen in "In a World..."), Luke Forbes, Ronnie Gene Blevins (last seen in "Death Wish"), Aqueela Zoll (last seen in "Fighting With My Family"), Junes Zahdi, Amanda Booth, Cayden Boyd, Bill Burr (last seen in "The Guilty"), Devin White, Luke Jones, Skyler Joy (last seen in "Ma"), Cole Walliser, Tory Freeth, Patricia Isaac, Timothy Eulich (last seen in "Everything Everywhere All At Once"), Joy Sunday, Terri Hoyos, Rene Raymond Rivera (last seen in "Disturbia"), Vincent Puente, Eric Urbiztondo, Zan Gomes-Headley, Lorraine Lerner. 

 

RATING: 6 out of 10 shooting range targets

Side Effects

Year 15, Day 156 - 6/5/23 - Movie #4,457

BEFORE: OK, I'm pulling a short work week, but it's intentional - I need to get away for a couple of days, between two major film festivals at the theater, both with long shifts.  At the same time, I said I would go visit my parents in May, but we didn't want to deal with all the Memorial Day traffic, so we're doing a mid-week road trip to Massachusetts.  I'm really only losing one day of work, but with a day of driving on each side, it's a 3-day trip.  I'll watch this movie and one more, then I'll have to pack.  I think I can just bring 1 DVD with me, and watch another on my phone, so I won't fall behind.  And I can afford this because I have been pulling long shifts and made some larger paychecks, but I was going to save that money to get me through July and August.  Now I really will have to find that summer job after the theater closes in mid-June, or else I'll have to go back on partial unemployment.  Something to think about tomorrow during that long car ride...

Channing Tatum carries over from "Bullet Train".  

THE PLOT: A young woman's world unravels when a drug prescribed by her psychiatrist has unexpected side effects.  

AFTER: Well, this one started as a quirky little film about a woman trying to overcome her depression with various medications, and then it ended like a super-serious and complicated "Law & Order" episode.  Even from reading the description, I thought maybe this might have been a comedy, but it's just not.  Not to give anything away here, but I thought for quite a while that this was just going to be social commentary about our country's dependence on mood-altering medications, and the fallout from that.  Remember a few years ago, when people were sleep-eating and sleep-cooking while on Ambien?  Yeah, something like that, only a bit more deadly....

Jude Law is back, this is a film that (it turns out) could have been included a few weeks ago in the main Jude Law chain, but then I would have been one over, and I wouldn't have hit Memorial Day's "Top Gun" film on time.  So now it's here, between two Channing Tatum films, and I guess that's a better place for it, because now it's part of the chain that's going to get me to Father's Day and July 4, and I'm still right on track for both of those.  

Jude Law plays a psychiatrist here, and bonus, his character is a father, but he get so obsessed with his patient's case that he drives his wife and son away.  But then later on he gets them back, so that's OK.  But getting there takes a lot of doing, because he's got to prove something very unlikely, that his patient conspired with her previous psychiatrist to murder her husband, and make it look like she was unconscious and under the influence of her medication at the time.  Hey, if you can cook a meal or eat a cake while you're essentially sleep-walking, what else can you do, without being held accountable for your actions?  

This was directed by Steven Soderbergh, and reviewers at the time described it as "Hitchcockian", but I don't think Hitchcock would have dabbled with a storyline that invoved taking various drugs and displaying side effects, or pretending to.  That all seems a bit too "internal" for Alfred to deal with, I think he preferred simple shootings and stabbings over pharmaceuticals and depression.  The husband had been in prison for insider trading, another plot point Hitchcock wouldn't have touched, and then when he got released it seemed like he was going to right back to his old tricks, also he was going to take a job in another city, and I guess maybe his wife just didn't want to move?  Jeez, he didn't even ASK her first, he just decided for both of them that they were going to move to St. Louis or something. What a dick. 

What's weird is that there are probably much, much easier ways to kill someone and not get charged with murder.  But then, people don't always take the easiest path when they do things.  Still, I bet if you really wanted to kill somebody, and you took some time to come up with the best way or most efficient way to do that and not get caught, this method would probably not be at the top of the list.  It's a lot of work for the payoff, so I question whether anybody in real life would go to all this trouble.  Just saying.  What's probably the greater sin, however, is the fact that depression is a very real condition for many people, and using it as a motive in a murder-mystery relationship thriller kind of sells that whole condition just a bit short, I think.  So there's probably a good film to be made about depression and the actions taken by depressed people, only this ain't it, it's kind of a bait-and-switch.  

Still, some good twists here, better than the usual ones seen on "Law & Order" classic.  I'm not even going to get into the possible connection to Pride Month, because it's possibly not a positive one...

My wife and I had an argument last month that was pharmaceutical-based, and it was over this drug, Skyrizi - maybe you've seen the commercials for it, but that was part of the problem.  I knew this medication was for plaque psoriasis, because I listen to this parody lounge singer, Richard Cheese, and on one of his albums he sang the Skyrizi jingle ("Things are getting clearer...now...") but my wife was convinced that the drug treated Crohn's disease, and I felt I had to correct her - she sang the Skyrizi jingle SHE knew, and it was totally different.  So we got involved in a dispute similar to the old "Tastes great...Less filling" battle from the old Miller Lite beer commercials.  Because it turns out the medication has TWO functions, it simultaneously fights TWO conditions, and they've got TWO completely different commercials and jingles for this medication, and we had been watching different TV shows with different target audiences.  I don't know how this is possible - maybe it's like how Viagra was created to treat male pattern baldness, then they found it had another, more popular use - so we were somehow BOTH right?  There's probably a relationship-based life lesson in there somewhere. 

Also starring Jude Law (last seen in "The Rhythm Section"), Rooney Mara (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), Catherine Zeta-Jones (last seen in "Broken City"), Vinessa Shaw (last seen in "The Weight of Water"), Ann Dowd (last seen in "Green Card"), Polly Draper (last seen in "Obvious Child"), David Costabile (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Mamie Gummer (last seen in "The End of the Tour"), Vladimir Versailles, Michelle Vergara Moore, Victor Cruz (last seen in "West Side Story" (2021)), Elizabeth Rodriguez, Marin Ireland (last seen in "The Phenom"), Carmin Pelaez, Andrea Bogart, Mitchell Michaliszyn, Timothy Klein, Sheila Tapia (last seen in "Tick, Tick...Boom!"), Russell G. Jones (last seen in "Touched with Fire"), Susan Gross, J. Claude Deering.

RATING: 5 out of 10 clinical trials

Bullet Train

Year 15, Day 155 - 6/4/23 - Movie #4,456

BEFORE: Working at the Newfest Pride Festival today, that's two days out of the five-day festival. After this just three more shifts at the Tribeca Festival, then I've got two months off from that job.  Really, the last thing I should be doing is staying up late the night before, watching a long action movie.  But if I don't, then I'll fall behind. 

Zazie Beetz carries over from "Slice". 

THE PLOT: Five assassins aboard a swiftly-moving bullet train find out that their missions have something in common.  

AFTER: Normally I'd pick apart an action film, and point out how it doesn't make much sense, how everyone's motivations are terribly unclear and how people seem to end up working at cross purposes with themselves - but when a film is this much just plain fun, who cares?  

Brad Pitt plays a hitman/assassin, or maybe he's a secret agent, it doesn't really matter much, he's filling in for another guy named Carver, who's got a stomach thing - and the assignment is to get on board the Japanese "bullet train", find a briefcase full of ransom money, and get off at the first stop.  But who's the ransom for, who's the kidnapper and who's being kidnapped?  It's not important, at least not until it is important.  All he needs to know, and all we need to know at first, is that the train's going to stop every ten minutes, and each stop will last exactly one minute before the doors close and the train's back in super fast-motion.  Does the real bullet train work this way, down to the second?  Does it matter?  Did the screenwriter do any research at all, or did he just set the action on a train that works the way he wants it to work?  Again, best not to spend a lot of time thinking about it, you'll only open the door to disappointment - wouldn't you rather just go on the thrill ride and not worry about reality for a couple of hours? 

Brad - sorry if I'm being informal here - Mr. Pitt's character is code-named Ladybug, and he finds the briefcase fairly quickly, not being watched by two other agents, Lemon and Tangerine.  But his quick exit off the train at the next stop is blocked by Wolf, who seems to have a grudge against him, and if only there were a flashback to explain why.  Oh, right, there's ample time for that, because time is relative and memories can come flying in at any time, and as long as those flashbacks are action-packed, again, who cares when they happen?  This all traces back to an earlier incident in Mexico that Ladybug can't seem to recall right away, but don't worry, it'll all come in due time. 

Meanwhile Lemon and Tangerine discover their briefcase is missing, so it becomes imperative for them to find it RIGHT AWAY, this instant, only right after this brief flashback that explains the criminal gang structure in Japan, and also how a ganglord named White Death came on the scene ten years ago and changed the whole game.  (Honestly, this is the only time that it was noticeable that the flashbacks were slowing down the action.  For the most part, they were really helpful, just not right here.  Shouldn't you guys be heading off looking for your briefcase?)

More players keep getting added to the mix - there's a teen girl named Prince, and she sets her sights on Kimura, the Japanese father of a boy who got thrown off a roof and is in the hospital, and somehow this explains why Kimura is on the train, and later we learn who his father is and how this all links back to that White Death guy.  So yeah, at first we all just get pieces of the big picture tossed our way, gradually we've got to assemble all these pieces into a larger framework, it's just going to take a while.  There's another assassin called the Hornet, and there's a snake that escaped from a zoo, Every. Little. Bit. Is. Important. or if not now, it will be soon.  Pay attention, would you?  Don't miss anything, or you'll have to go back and watch it again!  

Honestly, this feels like the kind of film Tarantino would make, if he could just get out of his own way, stop using the "N" word so much and looking at women's feet, and just try to have some damn fun for once in his life.  Seriously, Quentin, stop taking yourself so seriously.  Your dialog is great, but just look what you could accomplish if you just focused on the action first and the words second!  Just saying...the director here is David Leitch, and he also directed "Atomic Blonde" and "Deadpool 2".  Yeah, that seems like a natural progression that landed him here, and here is a lot of fun and violence blended together. 

Are there NITPICK POINTS?  Hells, yeah, like how come the train conductors are there to check Ladybug's ticket, or lack thereof, but then disappear and aren't around whenever somebody is getting shot or stabbed?  How come there are people aboard the quiet car who similarly don't mind the shooting or the stabbing, as long as it doesn't make much noise?  Why are there "regular" passengers on the train at first, and then later we find out that somebody bought up all the tickets to make sure that every single person on board was an assassin of some kind?  And who the hell was inside that anime character mascot costume?  So yeah, I've got unresolved questions that the movie just didn't care about answering, but if everything were crystal clear, it might not be as much fun.  

Anyway, let's focus on the shooting and the stabbing and people being thrown off the train, this only happens in the movies, right?  Some people die very quickly, but those people are unimportant - the main characters seem to be able to survive just about anything.  Mostly.  The bigger star you are IRL, the greater your character's chance of walking away alive, right?  I don't think one review called this movie a "train wreck", so mission accomplished.  This all could have gone horribly wrong, and become the next "Snakes on a Plane", thankfully it didn't.

Also starring Brad Pitt (last seen in "Sheryl"), Joey King (last seen in "Zeroville"), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (last seen in "The King's Man"), Brian Tyree Henry (last seen in "Person to Person"), Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), Michael Shannon (last seen in "Amsterdam"), Sandra Bullock (last seen in "Gun Shy"), Benito A. Martinez Ocasio (Bad Bunny), Logan Lerman (last seen in "Gamer"), Masi Oka (last seen in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde"), Karen Fukuhara (last seen in "Suicide Squad"), Kevin Akiyoshu Ching, Minchi Murakami, Kaori Taketani, Jim Garrity (last seen in "I Love You Phillip Morris"), Emelina Adams, Nobuaki Shimamoto (last seen in "Hacksaw Ridge"), Johanna Watts, Ian Gabriel Martinez, Tania Verafield, Julio Gabay, Andrea Munoz, Nancy Daly, Arnold Chun, Benmio McCrea, Pasha D. Lychnikoff, Joshua Johnson-Payne, Miles Marz, Parker Lin, Zooey Miyoshi, David Leitch, with cameos from Channing Tatum (also last seen in "The Lost City"), Ryan Reynolds (last seen in "The Nines"). 

RATING: 8 out of 10 "Thomas the Tank Engine" stickers