Beauty

Year 16, Day 69 - 3/9/24 - Movie #4,670

BEFORE: Giancarlo Esposito carries over from "Waiting to Exhale" and I just got back from the NYC Craft Brew Festival, held in the fashionable West Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, to call it a beerfest would really be underselling it, there were also spirits like root beer flavored whisky, hard tea and some alcoholic beverage from Finland that I don't recall the name of.  Actually I don't remember a lot of what went down during this three 1/2 hour festival, because I did two laps around the serving tables and sampled 57 different beers and spirits - so yeah, after the event was over and they kicked me out it took me a few hours to get home, but part of that was just remembering how to do that.   I stopped at Barcade and played a few games of Q*Bert to sober up, also it was raining so I got very soaking wet and kind of failed to notice that.  Anyway, I'm back home and ready for a nap, but I think I can knock out a blog post first. 

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 30: 

Best Picture Nominees:

7:30 am "The Champ" (1931)

9:00 am "Top Hat" (1935)

11:00 am "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)

1:00 pm "The Last Emperor" (1987)

4:00 pm "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962)

Best Picture Winners:

8:00 pm "Ben-Hur" (1959)

12:00 am "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)

3:30 am "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935)

5:15 am "Cimarron" (1931)

HA HA!  Another 7 seen out of 9 today - all of the films except for "The Champ" and "Cimarron". This brings me to 141 seen out of 341, which is 41.3%. Just as I predicted, I'm going to finish strong at the end.  I'm going out of town tomorrow but I'll print my final results on Tuesday, I expect to finish over 42% with a little luck. 

THE PLOT: A gifted young black woman struggles to maintain her voice and identity after she's offered a lucrative recording contract. 

AFTER: This movie played at the theater where I work, I don't recall if it was a special guild screening or part of some larger festival like the Tribeca Festival, but either way it would probably have been during calendar year 2022, and that means it took me about two years to fit it somewhere in my chain - I guess I'm lucky that it's stayed on Netflix all this time.

But it took me WAY too long to figure out that this was an allegory for the Whitney Houston story, which obviously somebody did NOT have the rights to, so they just went ahead with what they knew (or imagined) took place in Whitney's life and just changed the name of the main character to "Beauty", which is weird because nobody anywhere has that as a first name.  So clearly we're supposed to kind of FEEL Whitney in "Beauty" without it really being stated as such.  

But the IMDB listed this under "romance" so that's where I programmed it, sure, there's a lesbian romance between Beauty and Jasmine, and sure, it fits into that category fine, but really, come on, it's a biopic about Whitney Houston.  It's another random coincidence that I ended up programming it one day after a film with the REAL Whitney Houston in it, but honestly, there are no coincidences, or at least I've come to expect them as part of this whole process, there are just happenstances that lead me to greater truths.  And what we know NOW about Whitney is that she was most likely bisexual and had an ongoing relationship with Robyn Crawford, however this supposedly stopped when she signed her recording contract.  

Something finally clicked for me when Beauty finally made her television debut, on a talk show where the host sounded amazingly like Dick Cavett, only under a different name, and then suddenly I realized this whole thing was an allegory, a thinly-veiled biopic of Whitney made by people who had no rights to Ms. Houston's life story, so they just borrowed every element that they could and changed the names to make this (barely) legal. 

OK, given that, there are still two major problems here with the way that the story is told - first of all (and this also took me way too long to realize), we don't EVER hear Beauty sing.  Nope, not at all, go back and watch the film again with this in mind if you don't believe me.  The film either shows her in a recording studio with the headphones on, and she's either about to sing or she JUST finished singing, or in the few shots where she is depicted singing, there is NO SOUND of her on those shots.  It's just all weird and awkward, like how do you make a whole movie about an amazing famous singer, or a woman who is about to sign a recording contract and therefore become an amazing famous singer, and we never hear her sing in the movie, not even once?  That's bizarre, and also it feels like cheating.  

I don't know WHY anybody would choose to make a film this way - maybe they cast an actress to play Beauty and then realized she couldn't sing worth a damn?  You'd think that somebody would check that first.  Maybe they meant to have her lip-synch to someone else's vocals, and then realized that looked very fake-y and not realistic?  Again, you'd think that doing some screen tests during the casting process would have highlighted this problem early on and then they would have made some kind of adjustment.  It's possible, sure, that somebody felt that NOT showing the lead character singing would create some kind of air of mystery about it, but then I think I might be giving the director of this film a bit too much credit, like I'm covering up for them or something.  No, I've got to just shrug my shoulders here and say that as a narrative choice, to NOT show the lead character singing is decidedly a very questionable decision, and one that I just can't agree on.  

Beauty's mother is famous for being a singer herself, although largely as a dependable back-up singer for other artists, and not a star herself, and yeah, sure, that's Cissy Houston, no doubt.  That's what really sealed the deal for me, that Beauty's mother was also known as a recording artist, but mainly as a back-up singer.  There's one other narrative choice made here that's very questionable, which is when Beauty's father sends her two brothers out to "take care" of her girlfriend, namely to either beat her up or maybe even kill her, but instead they end up fighting with each other and beating each other unconscious, and really, that makes zero sense at all.  It's bizarre on top of bizarre.   

Perhaps there was a larger point to be made about Whitney Houston, or her family's expectations for her or what she had to do to conform to society's definition of a famous pop singer, but unfortunately it's buried under so much nonsense and conflicting information that ultimalely there's no point to this movie at all.  Either make a movie about Whitney Houston or don't, but PLEASE don't half-ass it. 

Also starring Gracie Marie Bradley, Niecy Nash (last seen in 'Trust Me"), Aleyse Shannon, Kyle Bary, Micheal Ward (last seen in "Empire of Light"), Sharon Stone (last seen in "Here Today"), Sarah Stavrou, James Urbaniak (last seen in "Tesla"), Andre Ozim (last seen in "Uncut Gems"), Joey Bada$$, Alan R. Walker, with archive footage of Ella Fitzgerald (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Judy Garland (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"), Mahalia Jackson, Patti Labelle, Nancy Reagan (last seen in "Framing John DeLorean"), Donna Summer (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Mr. T (last seen in "Air")

RATING: 3 out of 10 gold records on the wall

Waiting to Exhale

Year 16, Day 68 - 3/8/24 - Movie #4,669

BEFORE: Loretta Devine carries over from "Stanley & Iris" and I'm on vacation as of tonight, not a full week or anything crazy like that, just four days off in a row, and three days of that will be spent in Atlantic City.  It's a long drive there, but worth it if we get 48 hours to ourselves with no work in sight. 

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 29: 

Best Picture Nominees:

6:15 am "Our Town" (1940)

7:45 am "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936)

9:15 am Johnny Belinda" (1948)

11:00 am "The Yearling" (1946)

1:15 pm "Father of the Bride" (1950)

3:00 pm "The Music Man" (1962)

5:45 pm "Mister Roberts" (1955)

Best Picture Winners:

8:00 pm "Rain Man" (1988)

10:30 pm "Annie Hall" (1977)

12:15 am "The Apartment" (1960)

2:30 am "Gigi" (1958)

4:30 am "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936)

Another 7 seen out of 12 today - all of the films between "Father of the Bride" and "Gigi", inclusive. This brings me to 134 seen out of 332, which is BOOM 40.3%. I made it over the hump, now I just need to maintain that for the next two days. The biggest, most popular Best Picture nominees are still coming, so I've got a shot at this. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" (Movie #4,042)

THE PLOT: Based on Terry McMillan's novel, this film follows four very different African-American women and their relationships with men. 

AFTER: Yeah, that was TWO years ago, February 2022, when I watched that other African-American female-oriented romance film, and I tend to pair movies when I make my lists, because it makes the linking job twice as easy - or is it half as difficult?  But sometimes this process strands one of the films, like I could link TO "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", but if I watched "Waiting to Exhale" next, it really cut down my linking possibilities at the time, and I couldn't move forward with the chain I wanted unless I dropped that film.  So it took me over 600 films to be able to circle back, sometimes that's what it takes.  

So I'm crossing this one off the list tonight, which is great, but I'm in the same situation again, this film links to "Men, Women & Children" via Dennis Haysbert, and I'm not watching that one next, even though I dropped it from last year's Adam Sandler chain and swore I'd re-program it ASAP.  Not gonna do it, because that would not link up with the path I have in mind, but you see how frequently this happens?  With just six films to go in the romance chain I wouldn't want to add anything else at this point anyway, I've got to start on the path to Irish films and an Easter tie-in. I realize I'm going to be leaving the list of romance films in a big mess, but hey, I've got 10 months to sort it out again. 

Oh, I just want to call a mulligan tonight because I'm way outside this film's demographic and probably anything I say about it is going to sound racist.  I'll try to muddle through - but I've seen so many romance films already this season, like BOTH "Think Like a Man" movies, and I'm having trouble caring about the relationship problems of four black women living in the greater metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona.  I didn't even know there WERE four black women living in the greater metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona.  See, even that sounds like a racist thing for me to say, of course black people live there, but I'm just saying I didn't know that fact directly, because I've never been there.  Ask me about San Diego or Portland, Oregon, I've been to those cities several times each. 

The film's synopsis says these stories are about four "very different" women, but are they that different?  I don't mean because they're all black American women, but because three of their stories end up sounding like the exact same stories, three of them are dating married men who never seem to get around to leaving their wives, and then when they come to realize this, they have difficulty finding a new romantic partner.  If I can play Dr. Phil for just a minute, what did they THINK was going to happen when they were dating a married man, that he'd just dump his wife and then fall madly in love with his side-piece and then marry her?  Even if that WERE going to happen (and it's not) then how could anybody trust that man going forward, because if he did that to his first wife, he'll do that to his second wife, once he gets tired of her.  That's the behavior of a man acting like a serial cheater, which is the opposite of a monogamist - he's ALWAYS going to have another girl on the side, and he's ALWAYS going to be looking to "trade up", and betting on him to stay faithful is, well, a losing bet.  

OK, the three women maybe get to this point in different ways, but three of them end up in the same place, and that just feels like lazy storytelling - or at least you shouldn't say they have "very different" stories when they're not.  There's Savannah Jackson, who's a TV producer with a married lover, who believes that he will leave his wife for her - and when she finally realizes that he won't, she starts dating an old friend from her hometown who is, and you'll never believe it, married, but he says that he and his wife are getting ready to split up (they aren't) and he's only staying married for the sake of his young daughter.  And Savannah falls for this line, just like she did the last time.  Robin is a high-powered executive and the mistress of a man named Russell, who keeps saying he's going to leave his wife, but he never seems to get around to doing it, and then starts hanging out with a new lover, and I'm not sure but I think he's a drug dealer (oh, why couldn't he just be a married man?).  

Then there's Bernadine, who's married at the start of the film, but one night before a party he asks if she wouldn't mind not going to the party - which seems romantic, they can stay in and just spend time together, sounds great.  Only he still wants to go to the party, with another woman, oh and by the way, he's breaking up with Bernadine.  I see what the screenwriter tried to do there, but it just wasn't funny, and also, nobody breaks up with somebody like that.  Anyway he's leaving her for a white woman, which I guess is an insult to black women everywhere, but Bernie retaliates by putting all his clothes in his car and setting the car on fire, which is known colloquially as a "car-beque". 

Revenge is best served cold, however, and when she calms down she can do better for herself by getting a good divorce lawyer and getting a large settlement.  Umm, why wasn't that Plan A and the carbeque Plan B?  Then she has to face dating again, but she meets a new man in a bar who she starts a relationship with, only he's married (SEE? Same story!) but the difference here is that his wife has a terminal illness, and he's up-front about the fact that he can't leave her, although he seems to be fine with loving two women at once.  Statistically, though, I'm bothered by the fact here that 3 out of 4 black women depicted made that same choice, to date a married man.  Is this anything close to accurate, depicting the real world?  I mean, why do 75% of this movie's characters make this decision and expect some kind of better result that never comes?  For starters, maybe make better choices and date single men, then at least you've got something to work with, right?  Is it just me?

The fourth story is different, of course - salon owner Gloria is divorced, but still hopeful that she can get back together with her ex-husband, who comes by occasionally to visit their son.  However on the next time he visits, he declares that he's not just bisexual, which she knew already, but now identifies as gay.  Which is fine, at least we cleared that up and Gloria can now have some closure and move forward, which she does when a widowed neighbor moves in next door.  Well, that was very convenient, and they bond, but then have some difficulty when Gloria's son wants to go on tour in Spain with a musical group.  Gloria's against it, because she's an overprotective mother, but her neighbor points out that he's got to grow up and leave the house at some point, also when he's gone they can have more alone time.  OK, problem solved, at least for one of our four women.  

This film was something of a social phenomenon back in the mid-1990's, and not just because it had an all-black cast - the characters all had large houses, owned businesses or had executive-level jobs, and extravagant wardrobes, it sure looked like they were all doing well. It must have been the booming job-market and low real-estate taxes in the greater metropolitan Phoenix area, which is why so many affluent African-American single women and so many unfaithful married African-American men chose to settle there. But did they?

Look, I get it, men are dogs (or pigs, whatever) but if you take in a dog and you KNOW it's a dog, you don't treat it like it's something else.  So if you know that men tend to be dogs, then why keep dating those men?  Making the same mistake again and again and expecting different results is part of the problem here. Just saying.  

Oh, and there's a carnival (or state fair, whichever) in a romance film, AGAIN.  This has got to be the 5th or 6th romance film this year where characters go on carnival rides.  But here it's not romantic partners going on a ferris wheel or the spinning cups ride, it's two of the female characters who go on a carnival ride to discuss their relationship problems.  Only nobody does that on a carnival ride, do they?  That just felt all kinds of awkward. 

Also starring Whitney Houston (last seen in "Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer"), Angela Bassett (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Lela Rochon (last seen in "Brooklyn's Finest"), Gregory Hines (last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Mykelti Williamson (last seen in "Species II"), Michael Beach (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Leon (last seen in "Cliffhanger"), Wendell Pierce (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Giancarlo Esposito (ditto), Donald Faison (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Jeffrey D. Sams, Jazz Raycole, Brandon Hammond (last seen in "The Fan"), Kenya Moore, Lamont Johnson (last seen in "The Great White Hype"), Starletta DuPois (last seen in "The Notebook"), Kelly Preston (last seen in "The Last Song"), Wesley Snipes (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Wren T. Brown, Graham Galloway (last seen in "Higher Learning"), Delaina Hlavin (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Luis Sharpe, Ezra Swerdlow, 

RATING: 4 out of 10 weekly phone calls to Mom

Stanley & Iris

Year 16, Day 67 - 3/7/24 - Movie #4,668

BEFORE: Jane Fonda carries over from "Book Club: The Next Chapter" and I've got a day off today, they're getting a little bit rarer and further apart, which is OK because that means I'm working more, and I've got a chance to catch up on some record-keeping, go through the lists of what's new on the streaming platforms, maybe add a few films to my watchlist and look for some new connections.  I've scheduled some time off starting on Saturday, when I go to my first beer festival in a while and then the next day we're driving to Atlantic City for 48 hours at the casinos, and we haven't done that in over a year and a half.  Time for some fun if the weather holds out - and I just jinxed it, didn't I? 

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 28: 

Best Picture Nominees:

5:45 am "Madame Curie" (1943)

8:00 am "Captains Courageous" (1937)

10:00 am "42nd Street" (1933)

11:45 am "Foreign Correspondent" (1940)

2:00 pm "The Letter" (1940)

4:00 pm "Libeled Lady" (1936)

6:00 pm "Ninotchka" (1939)

Best Picture Winners:

8:00 pm "Casablanca" (1942)

10:00 pm "Out of Africa" (1985)

1:00 am "My Fair Lady" (1964)

4:00 am "Tom Jones" (1963)

Another 5 seen out of 12 today - just "Foreign Correspondent" and the last four after 8 pm. This brings me to 127 seen out of 320, which is still 39.6%. I'm stuck in the standings, but tomorrow looks like a better day, I think I can still make it over 40%.

THE PLOT: A struggling widow falls in love with an illiterate short-order cook whom she teaches to read and write in her kitchen each night. 

AFTER: Haven't seen anything with De Niro in a while - last year I started with him and it was all De Niro all the time, or so it seemed. This year I haven't seen him at all yet, but that could be just because I've seen nearly every film he's been in, except for "1900" and "The Last Tycoon", but he may turn up here again around Father's Day, we'll have to see, I've only blocked out the path to Easter. 

Yesterday I talked about book clubs and baking during the pandemic, and this fillm is more about illiteracy and baking in a high-yield commercial setting in Connecticut, a bread and cake factory, in other words. The place looks terrible, so industrial and it's a shame to see delicious baked goods on an assembly line, when we prefer to think of bakeries as clean, spotless kitchens where master bakers lovingly frost cakes and make decorative flowers on them by hand, which surely must increase the price ten-fold.  I've seen shows like "Unwrapped" and "How It's Made" so of course I knew what a big baking factory looks like, but then we also watch shows like "Spring Baking Championship" which showcase the more artisanal side of things.  

My father trained as a baker, and he's got stories that i've heard a thousand times about baking in the 1960's for Boston-area department stores like Jordan Marsh, but then he got sidetracked into the army and then the family trucking business, so baking commercially was never his career, until later in his 50's the trucking business went under so he tried to work for Continental Baking (aka Hostess) but found he was allergic to their flour.  Oh, well, back to trucking for him.  And my wife's been baking at home since before everybody else tried it during the pandemic, she's made cakes and cookies and cinnamon rolls but has found baking a solid loaf of bread to be very elusive, it's never turned out quite right until last night, when she definitely produced something that had risen, baked into a round shape, had a decent crust and could be sliced, so that fit the definition of bread all around.  I kept telling her to give up on bread, because we can just buy loaves of it at the store, but she persisted.  I think there's some secret to the recipe that Big Baking doesn't tell anyone, they want home bakers to fail so they can keep selling them flour and yeast to create near-bread that gets thrown away before consumption.  It's a big conspiracy that simply nobody is talking about. 

In much the same way, "Stanley & Iris" qualifies as a romance, but really only technically.  Iris is a mess because her husband died eight months ago, and she's still grieving, her sister and brother-in-law are unemployed and moved in with her, but they're always bickering with each other and it's starting to get violent.  Meanwhile her daughter has some kind of mystery illness that turns out to be another human growing inside of her, which nobody saw coming, and she won't tell her mother who the father is, because apparently the whole thing comes from her acting out.  Well, we all have to learn some lessons the hard way, I guess.  Money's tight because Iris works in that commercial bakery and I guess they don't pay very well, everyone in town seems to be either unemployed or living paycheck-to-paycheck.  We all know now that Reaganomics didn't really work, right? 

She keeps meeting Stanley out in the world, he helps her when someone on the bus steals her purse, they go to the same laundromat, and he works in the cafeteria at the bakery - hey, even the factory workers need to eat a square meal for lunch, they can't just scarf down the imperfect muffins or buy the imperfect loaves of bread in the company store, they need a meat-and-two-sides lunch if they're going to frost cakes (with their hands, apparently, and NO GLOVES) for 8 hours a shift.  She asks Stanley for a Tylenol and he offers her a bottle of Rolaids, so she determines that he can't read, which is a bit of a problem for the plant manager, because he can't risk having a cook who can't read the labels on products and might easily confuse a container of rat poison for salt or sugar.  

This is the main point of the film, that things are very difficult for a man in his late 40's who can't read or write - as a result he can't open a bank account, he can't get a driver's license, or read a map, and he can only qualify for a certain level of jobs, like cleaning bathrooms or other menial labor tasks, but even for those jobs, it would be preferable that he would be able to read labels on cleaning products so he doesn't mix ammonia and bleach, for example.  A bigger question might be how he got so far in life without trying to solve this problem at some point, I guess he was too busy hanging out in the Grand Canyon feeding white-tailed deer and not talking to other people for a week at a time. OK, but then how did he travel back to Connecticut if he couldn't buy a bus ticket or drive a car, or even know the difference between a $1 bill and a $10 bill?  I still have questions, let's say. 

But Iris helps Stanley out, or at least tries to, with learning his A-B-C's and forming simple words, he's reluctant to do his homework, though, and she gets frustrated with him very easily - but eventually he's in a place where he can read a whole letter and then study for his driver's test.  This was the only thing holding him back for decades, and now he can have a real job and an adult relationship with Iris, still I just wonder what took him so long.  I guess the real moral is to help out whoever you can, because you never know when that person can become successful and then (ideally) come back and rescue you from your drab existence, and you can then move from the industrial ass-end of Connecticut to beautiful Detroit, Michigan. Wait a minute, that can't be right...

De Niro is nominated for the Oscars this year, in the Best Supporting Actor category for "Killers of the Flower Moon".  He already has two oscars, for "The Godfather Part II" and "Raging Bull", and I haven't seen any of the films nominated in this category, so I really have no idea what his chances are.  The IMDB says that the front-runner is Robert Downey Jr. for "Oppenheimer", but Ryan Gosling's a "could win" for "Barbie".  OK, sorry, Bobby D.  I'm going to be out of town on Sunday, but this is a good reminder today that I want to record the broadcast of the ceremony and I'll try to watch it on Tuesday, as soon as I'm back home.  

Also starring Robert De Niro (last seen in "De Palma"), Swoosie Kurtz (last seen in "A Shock to the System"), Martha Plimpton (last seen in "Adrienne"), Harley Cross (last seen in "Kinsey"), Jamey Sheridan (last seen in "Lizzie"), Feodor Chaliapin Jr. (last seen in "Lost in a Harem"), Zohra Lampert (last seen in "Splendor in the Grass"), Loretta Devine (last seen in "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge"), Julie Garfield (last seen in "Ishtar"), Karen Ludwig (last seen in "Thirteen Days"), Kathy Kinney (last seen in "This Boy's Life"), Stephen Root (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Laurel Lyle, Mary Testa (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Katherine Cortez, Eddie Jones (last seen in "The Grifters"), Fred J. Scollay, Dortha Duckworth (last seen in "The Man with One Red Shoe"), Jack Gill, Bob Aaron, Gordon Masten (last seen in "The Words"), Conrad Bergschneider (last seen in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio").

RATING: 5 out of 10 street signs

Book Club: The Next Chapter

Year 16, Day 66 - 3/6/24 - Movie #4,667

BEFORE: Mary Steenburgen carries over from "I Do... Until I Don't", and just seven more romance films to go, and I can then FINALLY move on to another topic.  I think I've locked down the path from St. Patrick's Day to my Easter film, it's the right number of steps, anyway, and the goes through "The Marvels" and "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom", so I just have to be happy about that, knocking off two recent superhero films, one Marvel and one DC. I have to maintain a balance, after all. It seems like mostly action movies, which is fine, but I have to toss a loose romance film in there to make the connections.  Well, it was either that or program a horror film in March, which is a bit out of season.  

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 27: 

Best Picture Nominees:

6:30 am "The Big House" (1930)

8:00 am "The Private Life of Henry the VIII" (1933)

9:45 am "Captain Blood" (1935)

12:00 pm "Ivanhoe" (1952)

2:00 pm "The Alamo" (1960)

5:00 pm "America, America" (1963)

Best Picture Winners:

8:00 pm "All About Eve" (1950)

10:30 pm "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947)

12:45 am "Going My Way" (1944)

3:00 am "Hamlet" (1948)

Another 4 seen out of 10 today - just "The Private Life of Henry the VIII", "Captain Blood", "All About Eve" and "Hamlet" and this brings me up to 122 seen out of 308, which is still 39.6%. Today's a push with just four days left, so I have to hope for more films that I've crossed off already. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Book Club" (Movie #3,472)

AFTER: It hasn't been EXACTLY four years since I watched "Book Club", I'm about four days shy of that - but it was in early March of 2020, and so much has changed since then.  I was carrying on a March Marriage Madness Tournament back then, and Wallace Shawn carried over from "Marriage Story".  Also, Max von Sydow had just passed away, and the women in the movie "Book Club" were all reading "50 Shades of Grey", those horny old ladies. 

This film takes the characters through the pandemic, and there's a hint that they got together online by zoom calls to discuss the books they were all reading at the same time.  But come on, by now it's not really about the books any more, it's about these older women trying to live their best lives - we also see some of the activities and hobbies they picked up during lockdown, like one learned to play the accordion (like the kid in "Whatever it Takes", that instrument is HOT this year...) and another adopted a rescue parrot, which I don't think is really a thing, and they probably drank a lot, I'm honestly surprised we didn't see them all baking sourdough bread.  But one banged her pans every night for the health care workers, remember that?  Too bad the health care workers were all too busy working to hear it.

Oh, the first 10 minutes of this film were absolutely painful, as these four women get back together and then discuss whether they should all take a trip to Italy together, now that the travel restrictions are lifted.  One can't go because she just got engaged, so would that be right?  Another can't go because she's worried about her cat, this one has some other lame excuse - look, can we move this film along, please?  At this point I don't care whether you all go to Italy or not just PLEASE stop debating it back and forth - go or don't go, just SHUT UP.  Why did some screenwriter sit down and say, "I know, I'll make a movie about four women who can't decide whether to take a trip or not..."  We KNOW they're going to go, so let's just get there, for the love of God.  Thankfully Sharon's cat dies and we can move on - the poor cat probably just really wanted to get out of this movie so it committed suicide.

Anyway, the four women have all recently read "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho, and that ties in to their trip somehow, but nobody really gives a damn so they never explain how, thanks for that.  It would have only slowed things down further, and we're already running late, so let's get on the damn plane already.  Three of the women say goodbye to their husbands or boyfriends, the retired judge buries the cat and finally, we're off.  (It has, however, been exactly one year since I watched "When in Rome", another romance film that was set in Italy.)

It's a destination bachelorette party that starts in Rome and is supposed to end a week later in Tuscany - only Vivian hears great things about Venice from a street artist and so she impulsively decides they should go there because it's a great "walking city".  Umm, swimming, maybe, but really, is it that great for walking?  And even so, is that really the BEST reason to go there?  Canals, gondolas, cathedrals, museums, sure, but WALKING?  Old people are weird like that, I guess. Problems ensue when the four women give their luggage to porters at the Rome train station, and those porters turn out to be not employees of the train station, but thieves who stand around in uniforms collecting luggage from people who THINK they are porters.  You might think that the train station might take steps to discourage these thieves from hanging around and stealing stuff, but then we wouldn't have such an unlikely travel complication in this movie, would we?  So the girls are left with no changes of clothes, just VIvian's wedding dress and the money in Sharon's fanny-pack.  And somehow magically nobody got their passport or other IDs stolen, or their wallets or credit cards.  Really, was this plot point even necessary then, or was it just put here to justify why these women needed to do so much shopping in Italy?  

There's some romance along the way, as the four encounter a dashing man in a bar who takes them to a cooking school for an elegant dinner, the chef recognizes Carol as the woman he loved many years ago when she studied the culinary arts there, and also Sharon fools around with the dashing man they met in the bar.  Seniors having sex on vacation, not sure how to feel about that, they really seem a bit old for this, they could break a hip, after all. Actually Carol doesn't cheat on her husband with Chef Gianni, what they do together all night is a bit more humorous, I won't spoil it here - but there was definitely an attraction between them, and since Carol's husband Bruce was recovering from a heart attack, I wondered if he'd make it to the end of the movie, possibly freeing Carol to get back with her Italian chef ex. 

The four women rent a car and then finally head out for Tuscany, there's a reason why the three other women demand that they stick to the original plan, and it's not too hard to figure out what it is.  Diane's horrible at keeping a secret anyway and just blurts it out, they've arranged for the Destination Bachelorette Party to turn into a Destination Wedding, and all the characters are reunited there, after the requisite trip to jail first, which follows the hilarious (?) misunderstanding with the Italian police. Like all Hollywood wedding films, there's drama over whether the couple will actually get married or not, but at least here this is not regarded as a failure if they don't, it's more of a celebration that they didn't conform to society's overly rigid demand that wedding is a permanent social construct, and more true to the characters if they're allowed to make their own relationship rules, which is fine.  But then another couple gets married on the spot, with no paperwork, no license and in a foreign country, so there's just no way that marriage is legal, either.  Why do screenwriters, across the board, have such poor understanding about how weddings work?

I might have enjoyed this film more if the dialogue didn't belabor EVERY. SINGLE. POINT.  Plot progress was definitely slow, and there was vacillation at every possible opportunity - or is that just what happens when you get four older women together and they can't decide on anything, so they look for "signs" about whether they're on the "right track" or not in their lives?  God, there's really nothing more laborious then old women trying to figure out what every little thing MEANS.  Gee-zus, you're on vacation, did you ever consider just trying to relax and have fun at some point?  What a bunch of buzz-kills. 

Coming up in a few more years will be "Book Club: The Appendix" as these four women break out of the nursing home and drive across America, looking for the original pieces of Jane Fonda's character's face. 

Also starring Diane Keaton (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Candice Bergen (last seen in "Book Club"), Andy Garcia (last seen in "The Mean Season"), Don Johnson (last seen in "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool"), Craig T. Nelson (last seen in "The Company Men"), Giancarlo Giannini (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), Hugh Quarshie (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Vincent Riotta (last seen in "Tár"), Giovanni Esposito (last seen in "To Rome with Love"), Giampiero Judica (last seen in "All the Money in the World"), Vera Dragone, Ugo Dighero, Brice Martinet, Francesco Serpico, Robert Steiner, Grace Truly, Andrea Beruatto.

RATING: 4 out of 10 naked marble statues

I Do... Until I Don't

Year 16, Day 65 - 3/5/24 - Movie #4,666

BEFORE: Lake Bell carries over from "Man Up" and now there are just 9 films left until I can get off this topic.  Four films until I can take a break and we can go on a road trip for a couple of days.  NO MOVIES while on holiday, if I have extra time there's plenty of TV to watch on my phone.  

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 26: 

Best Picture Nominees:

6:30 am "The Racket" (1928)

8:00 am "A Tale of Two Cities" (1935)

10:15 am "The Nun's Story" (1959)

1:00 pm "Anchors Aweigh" (1945)

3:30 pm "Battleground" (1949)

5:45 pm "Citizen Kane" (1941)

Best Picture Winners:

8:00 pm "In the Heat of the Night" (1967)

10:00 pm "Platoon" (1988)

12:15 am "No Country for Old Men" (2007)

2:30 am "Midnight Cowboy" (1969)

4:30 am "All the King's Men" (1949)

AND another 7 seen out of 12 today and this brings me up to 118 seen out of 298, which is 39.6%. I've seen "The Nun's Story", "Anchors Aweigh", "Citizen Kane", "In the Heat of the Night", "Platoon", "No Country for Old Men", "Midnight Cowboy" and "All the King's Men".  Great to see TCM calling a film from 2007 a "classic", because that doesn't make me feel old at all.

THE PLOT: An ensemble comedy about the meaning of matrimony.

AFTER: Lake Bell was also the writer and director of this film, and it kind of has the feeling of a film directed by an actor, which is to say that she came up with a few interesting things for the actors to do, she put the characters in some situations that I have not seen before in movies, which is somewhat commendable, but overall I'm not sure what the point of this little exercise was.  The synopsis says it's about the meaning of marriage, and OK, sure, let's explore that, but what are you really saying about it, in the end?  Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or is it all too complex to come to a conclusion?  Owen Wilson's character in "Marry Me" pointed out that centuries ago marriage was more of a business transaction, as in "I will marry your daughter if you give me a parcel of land and some horses" and sure, it's come a long way since then as an institution - however, it's still a business transaction in some ways if you think about it in terms of things like pre-nups and divorce settlements, co-owning real estate and that sort of thing. 

There's a documentary filmmaker that ties the different storylines together, coincidentally making a film about marriage (is she a stand in for the real-life writer/director?) and whether it needs to be abolished as a practice, with an eye on the upcoming "Emancipation Day" that sure seems like a made-up holiday.  (We had engaged characters literally shackled together in "Shotgun Wedding" and the doc filmmaker also uses handcuffs as a symbol here). So OK, the director is clearly against marriage, but that could just mean she's been through a divorce or two, that's been known to color people's feelings about marriage. So the director of the film-within-a-film proposes a new system, where people should get married for seven years, and then they can decide whether to renew the contract. 

But then the experiences of the couples depicted here show us some mixed results - there's an older couple (his first marriage, her second) with an adult daughter (from her first marriage) and they bicker quite a bit - he rides his motorcycle a lot and then for their anniversary she gives him a gift certificate to a seedy massage place because she'll be too busy to do "sex stuff".  He uses it as a bookmark at first, but then one day decides to check the place out.  Meanwhile Alice and Noah are trying to get pregnant, but also close to bankruotcy due to their struggling window blinds business that he inherited from his father.  They agree to appear in the documentary with the idea of making some money, however the filmmaker doesn't want to pay them much, as she's more interested in Alice's sister, who's in an open relationship with a fellow Bohemian, and together they run some kind of hippie commune retreat.  This all takes place in Florida, or does that kind of go without saying?  

The filmmaker is willing to pay extra for the couples whose marriage is in trouble and who may be close to splitting up, as she needs to prove that marriage is an outdated concept that just doesn't work.  However, by paying extra to the couples who get separated or planning divorce, she's actually influencing her subjects, which is a big documentary no-no.  There were nature documentaries made back in the 1950's where the filmmakers allowed animals to be killed or harmed, and honestly this sounds just as bad.  Once the three couples manage to intersect and find each other, compare notes, they're able to turn the tables on her by publicly proclaiming their love for each other instead of separating on this made-up "Emancipation Day".  Well, really, that's what marriage is all about, staying together in order to prove to everyone else that you can do it - sure, there are other benefits but nothing feels better than being successful at something that logically should not work out, according to everyone else. 

Other than that, I'm really scratching my head today trying to find the reasons for presenting THIS story exactly THIS way, and pretty much coming up empty.  Again, is marriage good or is marriage bad?  Is there a difference between bickering and fighting?  And what happens when a polyamorous couple realizes that they've actually been exclusive for the last six years - what happened to that swinging lifestyle they used to have?  If the three couples have anything in common, it's a reluctance to admit that they and their partners have some very big differences that are worth separating over, which would be tantamount to admitting that the last few years of their life have been some kind of wasted effort.  Well, sure, that does sound like modern marriage I suppose. 

The first title for this film was "What's the Point?" and I could easily ask the same question about the re-titled film in its final state.  Often it was hard to understand what was going on, like the character of Egon, I couldn't determine who he was or what he was doing or even what he brought to the story at all, he could have been cut from the film and it wouldn't have made any difference.  Cybil's daughter, Millie, same thing, she was there, she was pregnant, her boyfriend was in jail, she had a home birth, it was awkward, but SO WHAT?  All of this was just an aside, with no real effect on the other characters, just another dangling plot point that didn't have a resolution. All six of the main characters being interviewed for the same film, was that enough to tie everything together?  I'm just not sure. 

It turns out that nearly nobody saw this film when it was released in 2017, and I think it's easy to see why - it's all just awkward and goes nowhere. 

Also starring Ed Helms (last seen in "Together Together"), Mary Steenburgen (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), Paul Reiser (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Amber Heard (last seen in "The Rum Diary"), Wyatt Cenac, Dolly Wells (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Chace Crawford (last seen in "Charlie Says"), Chauntae Pink, Rae Gray (last seen in "Slice"), Susan Berger (last seen in "Kajillionaire"), Sky Elobar (last seen in "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn"), Hannah Friedman, Kelsey Graham, Shane Graham, Dan Gruenberg, Pamela Keith, Gregory Nalbandian, Marcanthonee Reis (last seen in "Snowpiercer"), Bob Rumnock (last seen in "The Greatest Showman"), Zac Scheinbaum, Conner Shin

RATING: 3 out of 10 release forms

Man Up

Year 16, Day 64 - 3/4/24 - Movie #4,665

BEFORE: OK, no more J. Lo - I'm done with her, I can't watch another film with her, who knows maybe I'll be desperate enough to watch "Gigli" in the future, but I can't do it now.  I've decided to take a break this weekend and not watch any movies after Saturday, I've got a beer festival to go to and then we're headed to Atlantic City for a couple days, I'll finish the romance chain when I get back.  This means that a DIFFERENT movie is going to land on St. Patrick's Day than I'd initially planned, but I've got another one that's just as Irish, if not more so, to watch on 3/17.  It's all going to work out, once I nail the pathway to Easter. 

John Bradley carries over from "Marry Me" instead.

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 25: 

Best Picture Nominees:

6:00 am "Five Star Final" (1931)

8:00 am "The Human Comedy" (1943)

10:00 am "The Little Foxes" (1941)

12:00 pm "Stagecoach" (1939)

1:45 pm "The Caine Mutiny" (1965)

4:00 pm "Picnic" (1955)

6:00 pm "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954)

Best Picture Winners:

8:00 pm "An American in Paris" (1952)

10:00 pm "It Happened One Night" (1934)

12:00 am "Mrs. Miniver" (1942)

2:30 am "Cavalcade" (1933)

4:30 am "Grand Hotel" (1932)

OK, another 7 seen out of 12 today. I've seen all of these except "Five Star Final", "The Human Comedy", "The Little Foxes", "Picnic" and "Cavalcade". "Picnic" is on my list, but I just haven't been able to link back that far and cross it off. This brings me up to 111 seen out of 286, up to 38.8%. Still making a little progress every day. 

THE PLOT: A single woman takes the place of a stranger's blind date and accidentally finds the perfect man for her. 

AFTER: So many of the situations (and situationships) seen in this year's chain have resulted due to a lack of communication - for example in "Shotgun Wedding" where the bride told the groom she didn't want a big wedding, but he didn't listen, and then he was so into preparing the ideal destination wedding, she was afraid to remind him that it wasn't what she wanted. Or in "Your Place or Mine" where both halves of the couple were afraid to tell each other that they wanted more than friendship, and also that they were both complete idiots.  The ultimate example was probably in "Over Her Dead Body", where a woman's ghost tried to prevent her husband from dating again, and she found it difficult to communicate with them, because she was super dead. 

Here we have a woman who gets mistaken for a man's blind date, and she finds it difficult to correct him, that she's not really Jessica, so instead she just plays along, at least for a while, until she's forced to admit that her name is really Nancy, and she was only holding the self-help book that would identify her as Jack's date because it was given to her by a woman on the train, the real Jessica.  How was Nancy to know that by holding THAT book and standing in THAT spot at the train station that she would give off such high-energy Jessica vibes?  Besides, the self-help book was all about being daring, taking chances, going for it in this crazy mixed-up world of six billion people, also Nancy had been challenging herself with daily mantras along the same lines.  

So, she takes the bold move, the daring move, she pretends to be Jessica, and maybe hiding as another person gives her the confidence she needed to open up to someone, who can say?  They go out for drinks, they talk, they connect, they go bowling, then things start to go wrong when they encounter an old school-mate of Nancy's, and he can't help but wonder why she's going by Jessica now.  When he figures out the scheme, he blackmails Nancy for a kiss in the rest room, and wouldn't you it, Jack walks in and sees them, so she's got to confess to the even worse sin of not being who she's pretending to be, to explain why she's kissing another man on their date. And also why that man was almost naked. 

I'm reminded of what John Cleese's character said in "A Fish Called Wanda" about what it's like being English, having to be correct all of the time, being stifled by a dread of doing or saying the wrong thing.  Perhaps this is universal, but sure, it's also very British, and could explain why Nancy is so hesitant to own up to being Not Jessica, because doing so would not only expose her lie, but also because she felt good, and ending their date probably also felt like the wrong thing to do if she was having a good time.  Still a lie, though, but I get why she'd want the lie to continue if Jack was the first man she'd dated in a long time that she made a connection with. 

There are further complications and mix-ups, Jack doesn't take the truth well when she finally spills it, and then he makes Nancy keep up another charade and pretend to be his girlfriend after they bump into his ex-wife in the pub, along with the man she left Jack for.  They mix up their journals, which would only be a problem if the speech Nancy wrote for her parents' anniversary party was inside, and then Jack leaves his satchel behind in the pub, which would only be a problem if his signed divorce papers were in it.  Now all of a sudden this is feeling very familiar, and I'm wondering if a film I watched near the start of this year's romance chain, "The Wrong Missy" stole quite a bit from this film.  Come to think of it, "The Wrong Missy" had two characters with identical luggage, "LOL" had two characters with identical handbags, and now this film has two characters with identical journals.  Wow, these movies just keep repeating the same things over and over, don't they?  Even though none of these are really earth-shattering plot points, I can't ignore the coincidence involved. 

Nancy proceeds to her parents' party, while Jack finally has a date with the real Jessica - only to find that not only does he not share much in common with her, but also, she's a dud personality-wise, at least compared to the more manic BUT also more fun Nancy.  So he races to find her parents house with the help of some local partying teens, to tell her that somehow even though she was the wrong girl for the date they went on, she's the right girl for him.  Yeah, that's almost exactly how "The Wrong Missy" ended, so I'm thinking that film was somehow sort of a gender-swapped remake of this earlier one?  Or else all of these films are just drawing from the same playbook, which is also quite possible. 

Also starring Lake Bell (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Simon Pegg (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Sharon Horgan (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), Rory Kinnear (last seen in "No Time to Die"), Ken Stott (last seen in "The Dig"), Robert Wilfort (ditto), Harriet Walter (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Ophelia Lovibond (last seen in "Rocketman"), Olivia Williams (last seen in "The Last Days on Mars"), Stephen Campbell Moore (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"), Henry Lloyd-Hughes (last seen in "Now You See Me 2"), Dean-Charles Chapman (last seen in "Breathe"), Keir Charles (last seen in "Love Actually"), Paul Thornley (last seen in "The Brothers Grimsby"), Simona Brown, Maya Henson with archive footage of Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder")

RATING: 6 out of 10 bowling pins (I didn't even know they had bowling alleys in the U.K.)

Marry Me

Year 16, Day 63 - 3/3/24 - Movie #4,664

BEFORE: Jennifer Lopez carries over again from "Shotgun Wedding" and I've taken another look at March, there's just no way to fit my schedule in as planned - I've found a good Catholic-themed film for Easter, but the problem is that it links DIRECTLY to my St. Patrick's Day film, while the two holidays are two weeks apart on the calendar.  Now, one solution to this problem would be to just go dark, stop watching movies for two weeks, and let the calendar catch up with my theme.  Sure, it's tempting, I could catch up on some TV, and there's a ton of good TV coming my way in the next couple of weeks, 

OR I could find some movies that would fit in-between those two films, and spread the current chain out, so the film I was going to watch on March 18 would then be moved forward to March 31.  I've got to make sure that there's a longer path between the two movies that would be about 10 to 13 links, that could work.  I could also find 4 or 5 more films with Brendan Gleeson in them, he sure has been prolific over the years - but let me explore option #2 before I resort to that.  Either way, one thing's clear, I've got to slow things down a bit, we're going to drive out of town for a couple days next weekend, and maybe I'll just not watch movies for two days, as I'm still ahead on the count.  If I don't take more days off, then I'll have the same old problem again when November and December roll around. 

Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 24: 

Best Actor Nominees:

6:00 am "The Front Page" (1931)

7:45 am "Penny Serenade" (1941)

10:00 am "Watch on the Rhine" (1943)

12:00 pm "Sounder" (1972)

2:00 pm "Cat Ballou" (1965)

4:00 pm "The Lost Weekend" (1940)

6:00 pm "The Goodbye Girl" (1977)

Best Actor Winners:

8:00 pm "A Double Life" (1947)

10:00 pm "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962)

12:30 am "On Golden Pond" (1981)

2:30 am "Lilies of the Field" (1963)

4:15 am "Boys Town" (1938)

OK, 7 seen out of 12 today. That still counts as progress, I've seen all of these except "The Front Page" (I watched the 1974 remake), "Watch on the Rhine", "Sounder", "A Double Life" and "Boys Town".  But that brings me up to 104 seen out of 274, up to 38%. Just seven days to go, but if I can keep climbing a percentage point a day, I'll be all right. 

THE PLOT: Music superstars Kat Valdez and Bastian are getting married before a global audience of fans, but when Kat learns that Bastian has been unfaithful, she instead decides to marry Charlie, a stranger in the crowd. 

AFTER: Well, all throughout February I watched as love triangles got resolved by people realizing that they were better off getting romantically involved with their best friends, rather than that super-hot guy (or gal) who's like totally going to cheat on you the first chance they get, well, just because they can.  Or they realize that the love of their life was standing beside them all along as they chased after unattainable people, or maybe just that love is best when it starts with friendship, and grows from there.  These movies aren't wrong, per se, but I'm just not sure that the message needs to be beaten into us by nearly EVERY damn rom-com out there. 

That process continues tonight, but with a bit of a twist, as a pop superstar realizes that she's been making the same mistake, over and over, by marrying for love and not thinking about friendship first - she's had three marriages so far (similar to the actress playing her) and before she gets married to future-cheating husband #4, she finds out from the tabloids and gossip web-sites that her fiancé has been caught on camera making out with her own assistant.  Well, that would make sense, her assistant would know better than anyone else when she's busy, in a meeting or working in the recording studio, and might then take advantage of those opportunities to put the moves on Bastian. 

So, on the night of the big public wedding in a concert broadcast around the world, Kat suddenly calls the wedding off, what else can she do if the world is making fun of her, and she wants to win back the respect of her fans?  Sure, the simplest thing to do would be to then marry NOBODY, but instead she chooses a simple-looking man in the crowd, who's been holding up a sign with name of her new single, "Marry Me".  And she takes the message on the sign as, you know, some kind of sign.  Hey, when she's been married three times already and marriage number four is also a bust, what has she got to lose? 

The man consents, and the marriage isn't legal, of course, because they didn't have a marriage license, no paperwork has been filed, it's all one big publicity stunt - or is it?  Ah, it's Kat's attempt to get back at the cheating Bastian and make him jealous - or is it?  Maybe she took the leap of faith, as she described it during a press conference, and now genuinely wants to get to know this regular guy and math teacher, and they can appear in public on dates, maybe keep this going for three months or so until the internet finds something else to talk about, and then just go their separate ways. 

But, since this is a movie, this situationship that the two find themselves in starts to resemble a real relationship, of course because they spend some time together and they have fun and realize they enjoy each other's company.  Oh, so THAT'S how you do it, you meet and become friends and spend time together and then fall in love and then get married.  Well, unless you're a famous person concerned about your image, in which case you get married, then spend time together, become friends and then, well, who knows?  Maybe fall in love for real, since it is a movie and that's what the audience wants?

Charlie is also a divorced father, and of course his daughter is a fan of Kat's, but she's also at that awkward teen phase, where she wants nothing to do with her father - but him dating a pop superstar just made him more interesting!  Ugh, but she also goes to the same high school where he teaches math, and he keeps urging her to join the math team, instead of giving her the space that she needs, and letting her choose her own activities to become the person she needs to be.  (Also, this is like the third movie this year where a parent teaches or works at the same school their kid goes to - while in real life, this situation needs to be avoided at all costs.  My mother was an elementary school music teacher, but thankfully she taught in a different town from the one where we lived. Thank you, Mom, and I mean that, sincerely.)

Look, I was on the Math team in high school, and sure, it was fun - but it was never, NEVER as much fun as it is depicted here.  Why?  Because it's math, duh. (There was also quiz bowl, but I didn't catch on to that in high school, that came later for me, in college.). Mostly in our math team meets we figured out ways to cheat by running a four-person team instead of a five-person team when we were missing a player - we created a fake name and three different people would take those three-question tests under that fake name, because each person only needed to compete in three rounds out of five.  And nobody in the next town ever bothered to check to see if a student with that name was enrolled in our school, why would they? 

NITPICK POINT: According to this film, the best way to study math is to dance, because if your body is moving rhythmically, you can trick your mind into getting out of its own way, not getting stuck on the problem, and the answer will come to you.  Well, this just isn't the way math works, and the best way to solve a math problem in the real world is to LEARN MATH. 

Anyway, this is a growth opportunity for all involved, as Kat learns to date down and not chase after other superstars with wandering eyes, instead she dates a math teacher who would never EVER cheat on her in a million years.  Charlie also gets to be in a relationship with a pop superstar, and eventually that comes with benefits, and Charlie's daughter gets to meet and spend time with her favorite pop-star, so it's a win all around!  Well, that's show biz, right?  There couldn't possibly be any negative effects or complications arising from dating the most famous female singer in the world.  I'm glad we settled that issue, I've always wondered about that sort of thing. 

Also starring Owen Wilson (last seen in "Secret Headquarters"), Maluma (last heard in "Encanto"), John Bradley (last seen in "Moonfall"), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "Maestro"), Chloe Coleman (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Michelle Buteau (last seen in "Clerks III"), Khalil Middleton, Kat Cunning, Taliyah Whitaker (last seen in "The Dead Don't Die"), Diego Lucano, Brady Noon (last seen in "Good Boys"), Connor Noon, Ryan Foust (last seen in "The Goldfinch"), Leah Jimenez Zelaya, Tristan-Lee Edwards, Scarlett Earls, Olivia Chun, Jim Kaplan, Jameela Jamil (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Nicole Suarez, Sydney Blackburn, Stephen Wallem, Justin Sylvester, Utkarsh Ambudkar (last heard in "Tom & Jerry"), Jack Chiaravalle, Lucie Lopez-Goldfried, Charles Jacob Smith Jr., Molly Sullivan Smith, Tyrone Mitchell, Haj, Nic Novicki (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Teale Sperling, Adam Cation, Rachel Morgan Singer, Leslie Woo, Marritt Cafarchia, 

with cameos from Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "Eighth Grade"), Hoda Kotb (last seen in "Everything Is Copy"), Kelly Ripa (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Ryan Seacrest (ditto).

RATING: 6 out of the first 10 digits in pi