If These Walls Could Sing

Year 16, Day 188 - 7/6/24 - Movie #4,778

BEFORE: I'm going to declare that Phase 1 of the Doc Block is over, and today I'lm kicking off Phase 2, which is going to be primarily films about classic rock and pop, which is a common thread around here this time of year.  I'll never match the doc chain from 2018 which was over 40 films long and ALL about classic rock, and that's where I first learned how easily these docs all can link together, but that doesn't mean I should stop trying, there are new rock docs coming out every year, like that one about Blood, Sweay & Tears that still isn't streaming anywhere for some reason. Somebody at Netflix or Hulu, can you please work on this?  Thanks. 

Of course, I should start with the Beatles, because everything started with the Beatles, right?  It's not like anybody released records or topped the charts before they came along.  JK. So let's take a look at what happened on this day in rock history.  Hmm, nothing majoir, it's just the anniversary of the premiere of "A Hard Day's Night" movie, and somehow also the anniversary of the day in 1957 that Paul & John met at that church party where the Quarry Men were performing, where Paul played "Be-Bop-a-Lula" for John and showed his band how to tune their guitars.  I stand by my contention that the chain not only has a mind of its own, but also knows what it's doing. 

Kanye West (or "Ye" or "Yeezy" or whatever he's calling himself this week) carries over from "Money Shot: The Pornhub Story". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Under the Volcano" (Movie #4,192), "Muscle Shoals" (Movie #3,624), "Sound City" (Movie #3,617)

THE PLOT: The untold story of the Abbey Road studio, all-star interviews, and intimage access to the premises. 

AFTER: As Yogi once said, you can observe a lot by watching, and I presume that extends to watching docs.  Today I learned a bunch of things, like the fact that the first thing ever recorded at Abbey Road was a recording of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance", conducted by Elgar himself.  Also that an early version of Elton John named Reginald Dwight was the session musician who played piano on the Hollies song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", and another session musician named Jimmy Page played on the recording of the Bond theme to "Goldfinger", sung by Shirley Bassey.  Page would have had a stellar career as a studio musician if he hadn't foolishly started his own band, which people predicted would be as successful as some kind of balloon or zeppelin made of a metal such as lead.  I also learned that British people do not know how to properly pronounce the word "zebra", which should have a long "E" sound in it, not a short one.  (the famous crosswalk outside Abbey Road that appears on the cover of the Beatles' album is called either a level crossing or a zeh-bra crossing, why can't they just call it a crosswalk?)

This doc isn't ALL about the Beatles, it's only maybe half-focused on the Fab Four, but come on, they spent more time there than any other band, except maybe Oasis, who essentially moved into Studio 1 for months at a time.  This probably was a heavy financial burden on Oasis, because they had to pay for studio time, and the Beatles did not.  Wait, the Beatles had an infinite amount of recording time there at NO CHARGE, which might explain why the studio had financial difficulties later on.  Nobody recorded for free, except the Beatles - look, I'm sure that Abbey Road got paid somehow, as the Beatles were taking in millions of dollars every month, the British national economy was 95% driven by record sales at one point.  The studio must have taken their cut, they just hid it somewhere on the below-the-line costs.  Or they double-charged the other acts that followed in the Beatles' wake, as there were dozens of those.  

I still haven't watched that 17-hour Peter Jackson doc about the "Get Back" sessions, because I decided to count that as a mini-series rather than a movie, so it's not part of my chain.  "Let it Be" is also now streaming on Disney, but I'm fairly sure I saw that at some point, I had a bootleg VHS of it at one point, so I must have watched it.  Maybe I'm overdue for a re-watch, but I can't count that as part of the chain, that would also be against the rules.  So today's doc will have to suffice for now.  But since this is both a love-letter and a tribute to Abbey Road and the Beatles, there are some things it notoriously leaves out.  

For example, if you JUST watched this doc, you might think that McCartney (or Wings) never recorded anywhere else, and I know that's not true.  "Under the Volcano" was a film about George Martin splitting from EMI in 1965 and opening his own recording studios chain called AIR Studios.  He had three locations in the UK and one in the Caribbean, and McCartney recorded a couple Wings albums there, the Police and Dire Straits came there in the 1980's to record as well, because who wouldn't want to record their album in a tropical paradise next to an active volcano. (What could POSSIBLY go wrong?). Anyway, George Martin retired a rich man and also had his own super-villain lair, so there's that. 

Other notable recordings made at Abbey Road include the theme from "Alfie", recorded by Cilla Black, who was also from Liverpool.  Apparently at some point every citizen from Liverpool had their own recording contract, and that tracks.  Cliff Richard recorded there in the 1950's, before anyone ever knew what a Beatle was. Also a cellist named Jacqueline Du Pré made notable recordings there before she fell ill from MS, but she apparently had ticked off all of her bucket list items, according to the studio's notes.  But hard times were ahead, once the Beatles broke up and George Martin moved to his island lair and there was talk about converting Studio 1 into some kind of parking garage, because nobody would ever show up again with enough money to rent the space that was able to hold a full orchestra.

Enter George Lucas and John Williams, who had this little indie film (Sorry, Indy film) called "Raiders of the Lost Ark".  Then came "Return of the Jedi" and 15 years later, "The Phantom Menace".  Hooray, the studio is saved, as long as we don't give George Lucas the "Beatles deal" and forget to invoice him.  Naw, we're gonna TRIPLE-charge Lucas and 20th Century Fox, because we gots bills to pay.  I know how that works.  Let's buy some used film projectors and set up a screen because we've got soundtracks to record!  Oh, to be a fly on the wall or a canteen worker at Abbey Road, and cook up some bangers and mash for George Lucas, that sounds like a very cool job.  Hell, I'd be a janitor at Abbey Road if it meant I got to see "Star Wars" footage before anybody else.  

(Again, I'm wondering what information the doc left out here, because there were SIX main "Star Wars" movies and this movie mentions TWO of them.  The London Symphony Orchestra was always involved but the music for Episodes 4 and 5 was recorded at Anvil Studios in Denham, so John Williams' claim that Abbey Road is the "only" place to record a "Star Wars" soundtrack rings a little hollow.  Sony Pictures Studios got all the other SW soundtracks except "Solo")

But I get it, promotion these days involves getting your brand out there on social media (or Disney-funded cross-promotional docs) and claiming to be the BEST there is at what you do.  Well, if you don't do that, who will?  So yeah, by all means, hire the ultimate nepo baby whose father happens to be a Beatle (did you think that was a COINCIDENCE?) and who's been visiting Abbey Road since she was zero years old, and don't include anything negative about the studio or the strained relationship between the Beatles or the fact that oops, we probably over-charged George Lucas.  Then it's just a matter of tracking down some of the musicians from the Hollies and Pink Floyd who are still alive and get them to say glowing things about their recording sessions - 

Let's be real, though, "Dark Side of the Moon" was a brilliant album, and it probably would have been a brilliant album no matter WHERE it was recorded, Abbey Road can only take so much of the credit for that just because they have good techs there and the "microphones work".  Well, microphones work in other studios, too, and if they don't then they'll buy other ones that do.  I'm not saying Abbey Road doesn't have a great resumé and a stellar record, but it's simply not the only game in town. The studio didn't MAKE the Beatles or Pink Floyd or Kanye West, at the end of the day it's just the building that a lot of famous people rented out for a few months at a time. It's clear that after "Sound City" and "Muscle Shoals" were hit docs then somebody at Disney/Lucasfilm/Fox/Marvel needed to complete in the same marketplace, to keep the cachet alive and try to convince some of the younger artists to record there, because the old generation (Burt Bacharach, Tony Bennett) has this bad habit of dying.

Also starring Celeste, Bobby Elliott, Liam Gallagher (last seen in "Exit Through the Gift Shop"), Noel Gallagher (last seen in "The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"), David Gilmour, Suvi Raj Grubb, Tony Hicks, Elton John (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), George Lucas (last seen in "De Palma"), Giles Martin (last seen in "Under the Volcano"), Roger Waters (ditto), Nick Mason (last seen in "Count Me In"), Jimmy Page (ditto), Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Mary McCartney, Paul McCartney (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Cliff Richard, Nile Rodgers (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Ringo Starr (last seen in "Elvis"), John Williams (last seen in "Spielberg"), 

with archive footage of Adele, Karen Allen (last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"), Burt Bacharach (also last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Ginger Baker (also last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Brian Epstein (ditto), Syd Barrett (also last seen in "Under the Volcano"), Kate Bush (ditto), George Martin (ditto), John Barry, Shirley Bassey, Tony Bennett (last seen in "Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists"), Cilla Black, Jacqueline Du Pré, Carrie Fisher (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Harrison Ford (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Mark Hamill (ditto), Allen Ginsberg (last seen in "The Velvet Underground"), George Harrison (also last seen in "Elvis"), John Lennon (ditto), Mick Jagger (last seen in "Belushi"), Fela Kuti, John Legend (last heard in "The Mitchells vs. the Machines"), Joseph Lockwood, Linda McCartney (last seen in "Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road"), the Spice Girls (last seen in "Pavarotti"), Amy Winehouse (last seen in "Amy"), Richard Wright, 

RATING: 6 out of 10 photos on the walls (but none of Nile Rodgers?)

Money Shot: The Pornhub Story

Year 16, Day 187 - 7/5/24 - Movie #4,777

BEFORE: This was probably the hardest film in this year's doc chain to link to, or so it seemed.  I still feel like if the chain holds here, if the link to tomorrow's film is good, then it should be smooth sailing for the rest of the month.  And I probably just jinxed it, didn't I?  

Stephen Colbert and Trevor Noah carry over from "American Symphony".  One was listed in the IMDB as appearing archive footage here, and the other one wasn't. As always, I'm trying to suggest edits to IMDB as I go, leaving my trail of films a little more well-documented than when I passed through. 

THE PLOT: Follow the rise of the most famous adult entertainment platform and the recent backlash it has received. 

AFTER: Well, I can't help but feel ripped off just a bit today, I came here because the subject matter seemed very enticing, and also very American, capping off a week of very American topics, from Donald Trump to baseball to Burt Reynolds and American classical music.  Porn just seemed a logical next step. No? Just me?  Anyway, America is about freedom, and that's what we have in the new internet age, a lot more freedom, maybe even too much freedom online sometimes. 

So the movie starts by explaining not only what Pornhub is (as if you didn't know) but also a history of what porn is, and isn't, and mansplaining how we came to be where we are.  Porn used to be in the form of little Tijuana bibles, they were like very adult little comic books, and I guess before that porn was in book form and maybe even on scrolls before that.  (The Vatican supposedly has a big stash of biblical porn, but I have been unable to verify this to date.). Then Hugh Hefner came along in the 1950's and printed nude photos of Marilyn Monroe in Playboy, and the whole world changed. But it was at least tasteful, until Bob Guccione and Larry Flynt came along in the 1970's.  The 1980's brought VHS tapes and this thing called cable, and if you tuned in to certain UHF stations that were scrambled, you could ruin your eyesight and give yourself a headache trying to catch sight of a nibble by playing with the vertical hold. 

And that's what porn was for the next 20 years or so, magazines and VHS tapes, then DVDs.  When the internet came along, you could connect to a modem and maybe download a picture of a centerfold in about 6 hours, provided nobody in your house picked up the phone to make a call and broke your connection.  You know what, just go down to the store and buy a Penthouse magazine, you cheap bastard, you could probably use the exercise anyway.  I learned in high school that I looked very old for my age, and most newsstand vendors didn't really care who they sold magazines to, and if I went into Boston and found a "vintage" store, they didn't care at all. Those weren't just nude magazines, after all, they were "collector's items" and if some movie star like Joan Collins or Bo Derek posed in the buff, that was another one I needed for the collection.  

It took the internet a while to catch on, because the porn industry was still making money from DVDs, but porn eventually finds its way into every new medium - still I'm sure that the Hollywood companies preferred it when you bought an hour-long DVD for $25 instead of signing on to a web-site and just downloading movies for $5 or cheaper.  Even worse, when file-sharing sites came along it was the same problem that the music industry had with Napster and LimeWire, where one person bought a CD, ripped the tracks and then posted them, and then everyone who was internet savvy had them and didn't need to buy their own copy. But the music industry had to adapt and (eventually) embrace digital music, because even if someone didn't want to pay $10 for a whole album, they might buy individual tracks for 99 cents each, if the process was easy enough and they could then listen to those tracks on their Walkman. No, wait, Discman.  No, wait, iPod?  Yeah, let's go with that. 

The porn industry's first attempts to stream porn files were disastrous, because everybody was doing something different - do you want to join THIS web-site for $19.99 a month, and perhaps in two weeks you will have watched every porn clip they have (you dirty animal) or do you want to find some site that will charge you by the download, will that be cheaper in the long run?  Or do you just want to chance going on some pirate site and download a bunch of files you can't see, any of which could be infected with malware or ransomware or worse, just regular movies with no nudity at all?  

And then an even worse problem popped up, with Pornhub allowing people to upload their own home-made pornos came the possibility that some of the acts in those clips were not consensual, either the sex was coerced or forced or recorded by a hidden camera, and all of that is illegal, although perhaps difficult to identify and prove.  And this film also doc-splains that porn by definition has to be consensual where all participants are concerned, and if not, then that's not porn, it's rape.  Instances kept happening where women would notify Pornhub that there was footage of them posted that they did not consent to (either the act or the posting thereof) but if they complained and Pornhub (eventually) agreed to take down that clip, there was nothing preventing the original poster or someone else from posting it again.  So the victims could be victimized again and again by the same clip, or copies of that clip.  Welcome to the digital age.  

Is this an important issue?  Of course it is, and of course nobody should see themselves in porn on the interwebs if they did not consent to making it AND allowing it to be posted.  We never had "revenge porn" until there were sites like this.  So it took a few years, but eventually Pornhub and sites like it had to come up with a process for verification, that the people seen in the clips were over 18, willing participants and OK with the footage being shared with the world.  But this may not be why you came here to watch this movie, to learn about the legal processes that are now in place to protect people and (ideally) minimize victimization and potential sex trafficking.  Maybe you just tuned in to see some nekkid people or learn about what the hot porn search terms are in each state across this vast country of ours.  (What's up, Arkansas?  Why is "divorced" the hot sex term that floats your boat?  Do you need to talk about it?)

We do learn that Pornhub is owned by MindGeek, which is a Canadian company based in Montreal.  Whoops, I guess maybe American doesn't have a lock on making porn after all.  What the hell do Canadians know about porn, anyway?  Isn't the whole industry based in L.A. for a reason, that being that the women (and OK, men) are way hotter out there, and it's much too cold in Canada for people to get all naked and stuff?   Also, congratulations (?) for finding a way to make talking about porn boring as hell. 

The world of porn is vast, potentially endless, and in the new and improved internet age, there's something for everyone (you sickos).  Some sex workers now prefer the term "social influencer" and there's a change for women to control the narrative now as well as generate a positive income stream, and they can "go it alone" if you know what I mean and they don't have to perform with anyone else on camera, unless they're, you know, into that.  It's not just a bunch of male directors telling women what to do or a select few writers (wait, porn has writers?) deciding who should do what to whom on camera.  

We're also reaching a point where AI is getting involved, and so someday people may not need to be involved at all, we're already at a point where porn can be deepfaked or face-swapped, so you can see what your favorite actor, actress or cartoon character would look like if they made a pprn movie - and really, there are no limits except the ones on your imagination.  Of course, there are legal issues, you can't make a XXX film where Marilyn Monroe has graphic sex with James Dean, for example, without hearing from the attorneys who represent their estates.  But (and this is key) you CAN STILL make that film with the tech we have now, you just can't post it somewhere without maybe getting in trouble.  But films like that are already out there.  To me, that's a much more interesting topic than getting bogged down in the legal issues behind people uploading their own sex tapes.  But your mileage, of course, may vary.  

(Still, if you want to invest in some software and make your own AI or deepfaked parody porn, whether that's "Star Trek: the Next Penetration" or "Rodzilla vs. Dong", for PERSONAL use only, jeez, as a society we're already there.  Just remember you can't get sued unless you share it with the world.)

Also starring Gwen Adora, Asa Akira, Michael Bowe, Whitney Burgoyne, Siri Dahl, Cherie DeVille, Natassia Dreams, Wolf Hudson, Allie Knox, Nicholas Kristof, Bree Mills, Martin Patriquin, Noelle Perdue, Dani Pinter, Yiota Souras, Michael Stabile, 

with archive footage of Charlie Angus, Feras Antoon, Allie Awesome, Ginger Banks, Baby Girl Bella, Benrd Bergmair, Sam Butler, Serenity Ccx, Han Dong, DreamL0ver, Serena Fleites, Jade Jordan, Jimmy Kimmel (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G"), Lisa LaFlamme, Lalia Mickelwait, Mary Moody, Kumail Nanjani (last seen in "Eternals"), Benjamin Nolot, Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Brenda Shanahan, Shannon Stubbs, David Tasslio, Fabian Thylmann, Corey Urman, Arnold Viersen, Chris Warkentin, Ye/Kanye West (also last seen in "Listening to Kenny G")

RATING: 3 out of 10 members of Canadian Parliament.  (heh, heh, members...)

American Symphony

Year 16, Day 186 - 7/4/24 - Movie #4,776

BEFORE: I made it to July 4, and the chain is still holding, more than halfway through the year, almost 2/3 even.  I worked very hard to get to THIS movie on THIS date, but of course there's always room for second guessing.  I have "Famous Nathan" on the documentary list this year, and today's the day of the annual hot dog eating championship out at Coney Island, which I always watch.  Could I have worked a bit harder and got the film about the company's founder to land on July 4?  Would that have been more appropriate?  

I'm not sure I could have made that work, the linking maybe just wasn't there - or perhaps that's just an excuse to not tear apart the rest of the chain and put it back together in a different order.  That's just not how I want to spend my holiday, today should be about eating some American foods and thinking about our country, celebrating its birthday.  If I say that a film with "American" in the title is a good enough tribute, then that's what it is.  Anyway, I'll get to that hot dog movie, it's just going to take three more weeks or so.  That film now serves a purpose, creating a link so I can watch the last movie in the Doc Block, and as far as I can tell, that's a good film to end with, because it gives me so many options for moving forward.  So that's that, the die is cast. I'll save my comments on this year's hot dog competition for then, they're quite controversial. 

Stephen Colbert carries over from "Yogi Berra: It Ain't Over". 

THE PLOT: In this deeply intimate documentary, musician Jon Batiste attempts to compose a symphony as his wife, writer Suleika Jaouad, undergoes cancer treatment. 

AFTER: What I've noticed about actors (and musicians) from watching movies is that there's often a time where you just don't see an actor any more, at a certain age they seem to drop out of the public eye, and whether this is because the casting directors don't call them any more, or they chose to leave the business, or they're having some kind of health problems, I just can't say.  Not every actor is like Donald Sutherland or Robert De Niro, who just keep working and getting cast well into their 70's or 80's, and have no retirement plan, they just want to keep working. I'm sure there's some form of age-ism going on perhaps, actresses have sometimes been known to speak out when they reach 40 or 50 and they don't get cast in romantic movies any more and they start getting calls to play younger actresses' overbearing mothers.  I'm sure this is why so many actors want to transition to producing or directing, because they can see a time when the business might decide they can't play lead roles any more - I'm not saying it's right, but obviously it's what happens.

It's also possible that some people choose to leave show business, maybe they took a lead role and earned a big enough paycheck that they can retire early, who can say?  Maybe they set aside just enough money to buy a little beach house on a tropical island and open up a bar, and they just want to disappear from the rat race.  Or perhaps they have so much going on in their personal life that they need to step away from the hustle for six months or a year.  This documentary follows a number of months in the life of Jon Batiste, who for a stretch seemed to be the busiest man in show business, he had a steady gig as the band leader for "Late Show ith Stephen Colbert", but also had released an album that proved to be very popular and was nominated for multiple Grammys, worked on a few movies like "Soul", and then made ambitious plans to compose and perform his own symphony.  This sounds like a work schedule that would put anyone to the test, and then on top of that, his girlfriend's leukemia came back, which turned everything in his life upside-down and sideways. 

All I really saw from my perspective at the time was that he wasn't showing up for the talk show any more, and then the announcement came he was leaving the show, and band member Louis Cato would take over the "Paul Shaffer" role, which is a combination of band leader and sidekick.  I didn't even think to research the reasons why, I just assumed that his career was going well on multiple fronts, and he outgrew the show.  Which would have been fine, once he got his fingers into movies, albums, awards, who needs the daytime job any more?  I totally understand how one job leads into the next, and that one leads into the next, and then you can drop some of the old ones, it's how I built my career in animation.  (And a night-time job at a movie theater is a great one to have, because you can keep your days free for job-hunting and going on interviews.)

But there was more to the story, Batiste needed time to spend with his girlfriend while she battled cancer, and he still had to maintain the appearances at award shows and other events that he had committed to before her diagnosis.  A lot of jobs offer PTO now, in addition to sick leave, but if you're a freelance musician, you probably have to just block this out yourself, nobody can do it for you, and something has to give somewhere.  We're all looking for that balance between work, family and free time and maybe nobody gets it 100% right, but to each his own, really, that doesn't mean we should stop trying.  My parents are down in North Carolina and I have to figure out how many times a year we can make the trip down there, and whether that's enough so that years from now I won't feel like I didn't take the chance to be part of their "golden years" when I had it. 

Once he pulls back from his other gigs, and after the Grammy Awards, Batiste keeps moving forward with his composing efforts - here my knowledge really falls short, because there's a whole world there of music production that I know next to nothing about, even though I've arranged music for a cappella singers and I've sung on a couple movie soundtracks.  Putting chords together, making an original melody, lyrics, getting performers to work together, all of that is completely beyond me - it may even be beyond Batiste, who seems to favor both improvisation and breaking the typical rules of composition in favor of giving input to the people who are on stage at the moment. 

So I'm not really qualified to judge the final resulting music, which ended up being influenced on the spot by a power outage at Carnegie Hall, but rather than subject the audience to ten minutes of silence, suddenly included an impromptu piano piece by Batiste in place of whatever the orchestra was supposed to play.  And this performance was always meant to be a one-off, since it was partially being written on the spot - but it seems the intent was to weave together some Native American singers and instruments with Negro spirituals, and create a new musical synthesis out of the many voices from American history, and that seems like a lofty goal to have, but that's also America in a way, putting together something new from the many different cultures and different experiences of immigrants and various tribes.  

An "American" symphony wouldn't have to follow the traditional rules of European composers, and those are old hat, anyway.  What would modern American classical music sound like, anyway?  If I can compare it to food for just a minute, what is American food?  Well, sure, it's not French or Italian or even Mexican, but it might involve some of those techniques.  We've got California cuisine, Southern cuisine, New England cuisine, Gulf Coast cuisine, and they're all different.  I'm personally aware that Texas BBQ isn't the same as Carolina BBQ, then there's Memphis BBQ and they're all different, I wish there was a NYC BBQ style, because pastrami is just a form of brisket, after all.  Then there's pizza, NY pizza and Chicago pizza and Detroit pizza, California pizza, all different. So what is American food, and what is American music?  

In both cases, it really should be "all of the above", this country being the giant melting pot that it is.  But for some people it's so easy to forget that we're a nation of immigrants, people who have been kicked out of every other country on the planet.  So your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, so what?  It's only because they got kicked out of England, and just because your family's been here longer, or came here under their own power, that doesn't make you any better than anyone else. Traditional American values?  What the hell are those, anyway?  Just what YOU have been taught to believe?  Get off your damn high horse.  American values are whatever Americans say they are, and I've got this piece of paper here to back me up.  We the people are trying to form a "more perfect" union, and everybody gets a voice. If there's something you don't like, gay marriage or abortion or whatever, you can't just retroactively make it illegal by paying off four Supreme Court justices.  We're going to have to have a serious discussion about this someday soon.

Anyway, that's where my head is at on this Independence Day, now I have to go and mentally deal with the results of the hot dog eating contest. 

Also starring Jon Batiste, Lindsey Byrnes, Jonathan Dinklage, Billie Eilish (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Suleika Jaouad, Lenny Kravitz (last seen in "Shotgun Wedding"), Joe Saylor, 

with archive footage of Louis Cato, Simon Helberg (last seen in "Space Oddity"), Trevor Noah (last seen in "Butterfly in the Sky"), Questlove (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), James Taylor (last seen in "Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street"), Scott Tixier, Stevie Wonder (last seen in "Scandalous: The True Story of the National Enquirer")

RATING: 6 out of 10 nominees in each category

Yogi Berra: It Ain't Over

Year 16, Day 185 - 7/3/24 - Movie #4,775

BEFORE: My unintentional exploration of American culture continues, and what's more American than baseball?  It's great, this is going to lead me right into my July 4 film with an appropriate title. 

Johnny Carson carries over from "I Am Burt Reynolds". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Say Hey, Willie Mays!" (Movie #4,407)

THE PLOT: The illustrious life and career of the baseball great, Yogi Berra.

AFTER: I'm really down to just one baseball film per year, if even that.  Last year I hit tennis and boxing with a bunch of films about Venus and Serena Williams, Arthur Ashe, McEnroe and Muhammad Ali, which cleared off MOST of the sports films from my list.  Then this one came around, and there's also one out now about Reggie Jackson, but I just could not link to it and also away from it.  It might kill me to review two films about famous Yankees, anyway, having been raised as a Red Sox fan.  I can justify the film about Yogi, though, because he also managed the NY Mets for a couple years.  OK, so I'll table the Reggie Jackson and really, if I don't get to it next year, it's probably not a big loss there, I mean, what did HE ever do in the playoffs?

But everybody loved Yogi Berra, right?  He was just so dang lovable to all, because of what he said (or didn't say) and how he said it. He came off as a lovable loser, especially after being fired by the Mets twice and the Yankees once (or is that backwards?) but the truth is, the guy had TEN World Series rings as a player and at least one as a coach (for the 1969 Mets). He was like the Tom Brady of baseball, just not as good looking.  And he caught the Don Larsen perfect World Series game, really, a lot of that credit should go to him, because who tells the pitcher what to pitch?  The catcher, that's who.  

Really, if you came here for the funny sayings (and they get their own chapter in the doc), stick around for the baseball, because I learned a lot, and I haven't watched a full game in a while, not since the last World Series the BoSox won.  Yogi had so few strikeouts during his career because he swung at nearly everything AND usually managed to connect.  As one teammate says, "He wasn't really a bad-pitch hitter, he just hit everything, good and bad."  That's almost a Yogi-ism itself, but the definition is quite clear, the phrase needs to appear to not make any sense, and then upon further reflection, make some glorious sense that unearths a new truth.

"Nobody goes there any more, it's too crowded."  See, it seems impossible at first, even self-contradictory, because if it's crowded, everybody's there, but nobody's GOING there, so then, like, who's there? Nobody or everybody?  Maybe it's best not to think too much about it, just try to enjoy it and admit that Yogi was right most of the time, even when he wasn't trying.  Especially when he wasn't trying.  "When you get to a fork in the road, take it." 'You can observe a lot by watching."  "The future ain't what it used to be." "Always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise, they won't come to yours." and just in case he ever got misquoted, "I really didn't say everything I said."  There are more, but those are my favorites. 

Once he was done with baseball (and then after baseball was done with him) he had a whole other career as a commercial spokesman, pimping everything from AFLAC to Yoo-Hoo.  The AFLAC commercial where he described in his own style why you might need extra insurance was a hoot, maybe one of his best.  He even confused the AFLAC duck, who was left speechless for perhaps the first time. 

But it was the way he was fired by George Steinbrenner, only 16 games into the 1985 season, that really hurt, because he'd just been assured that his job was safe, and then Steinbrenner sent an assistant executive to drop the hammer.  This led to a famous 14-year feud during which Yogi refused to attend Old-Timers Day or go to Yankee Stadium for any reason. It was up to sports writers and booth personnel to risk their job and keep asking Steinbrenner to apologize and reconcile.   

Yogi also had friends and family who would stand up for him - the film kicks off with a story from his granddaughter who was watching the 2015 World Series with him, and they introduced the four greatest living baseball players, or words to that effect - Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax and Willie Mays. She correctly points out that Yogi had better stats in his career than they did, certainly more World Series wins and more years played, but that's the funny thing about "Top XX" lists in any given field, it's largely subjective.  And these four were determined by 25 million fan votes.  Look, I can't say for certain, but maybe staying away from baseball for so long knocked Yogi off of everyone's radar.  Maybe most people didn't realize he was still alive?  Anyway, as the granddaughter correctly states, she can't possibly be subjective here, because she's related to the guy who got left out.  Anyway, did she forget to vote herself? 

I get it, though, Yogi played for 19 seasons and he was an All-Star 18 times.  And MVP 3 times, the other statistics are nothing to sneeze at, either.  For five years he had more home runs than strikeouts, that seems quite impossible.  But everything seems impossible until somebody does it, I guess. 

Also starring Yogi Berra (last seen in "Say Hey, Willie Mays!"), Bob Costas (ditto), Vin Scully (ditto), Andy Andres, Roger Angell, Marty Appel, Carmen Berra, Dale Berra, Lindsay Berra, Larry Berra, Tim Berra, Bobby Brown, Douglas Chadwick, Billy Crystal (last seen in "Narrowsburg"), Larry Doby Jr., Al Downing, Joe Garagiola (last seen in "Catch Me If You Can"), Joe Girardi, Ron Guidry, Whitey Herzog, Taylor Hudson, Vicki Janik, Derek Jeter (last seen in "Knuckleball!"), Joe Torre (ditto), Dave Kaplan, Tony Kubek, Don Larsen, Carol Holland Lifshitz, Hector Lopez, Joe Maddon, Don Mattingly, Willie Randolph, Bobby Richardson, Mariano Rivera, Russ Salzberg, Art Shamsky, Claire Smith, Hal Steinbrenner, Nick Swisher, Ralph Terry, John Thorn, Suzyn Waldman, 

with archive footage of Hank Aaron, Jason Alexander (last seen in "Ira & Abby"), Mel Allen (last heard in "Murder in the First"), Johnny Bench, Len Berman, George W. Bush (last seen in "Butterfly in the Sky"), Connie Chung (ditto), Bill Clinton (last seen in "The Special Relationship"), Stephen Colbert (last seen in "Good Night Oppy"), David Cone, Walter Cronkite (last heard in "We Blew It"), Doris Day (also carrying over from "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Joe DiMaggio (also last seen in "Say Hey, Willie Mays!"), Willie Mays (ditto), Branch Rickey (ditto), Whitey Ford, Bob Gibson, Cary Grant (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Bryant Gumbel (last seen in 'Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"), Reggie Jackson (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Alicia Keys (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Larry King (last seen in "Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer"), Robert Klein (last seen in "Belushi"), Sandy Koufax, Spike Lee (last seen in "When We Were Kings"), Mickey Mantle (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Billy Martin, Yao Ming, Edward R. Murrow (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Barack Obama (last seen in "Respect"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Frank Robinson, Jackie Robinson (last seen in "Citizen Ashe"), Tim Russert (last seen in "Shock and Awe"), Diane Sawyer (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Chuck Scarborough (last seen in "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2"), Chuck Schumer (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Sue Simmons (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Bob Simon (last seen in "Rosewater"), George Steinbrenner (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?"), Casey Stengel, Ed Sullivan (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Ron Swoboda, Robin Williams (also carrying over from "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Ted Williams and the voice of Gilbert Gottfried (last seen in "Can We Take a Joke?")

RATING: 6 out of 10 (what else?) World Series rings

I Am Burt Reynolds

Year 16, Day 184 - 7/2/24 - Movie #4,774

BEFORE: That last film was supposedly about the films and culture of the 1970's, but what do you think of when you think of 1970's America?  Well, there was nobody bigger in movies than Burt Reynolds, so it's time for another tribute documentary, cobbled together from archive footage. Peter Bogdanovich carries over from "We Blew It". 

THE PLOT: The ups and downs of Burt Reynolds' career and private life. 

AFTER: Oddly, this one ties back to the two films last week, the tributes to Chris Farley and John Belushi.  All three men played football in high school or college (common enough) and then found their way into theater in college or shortly thereafter, all three then became best known for comedy, but had trouble transitioning to more dramatic roles.  Burt was probably the biggest star of the three because he also made action films, and his movies dominated the box office for five solid years in the 1970's. All three men had issues with drugs, with Burt it wasn't so much recreational but started out as a way to deal with the pain from injuries due to movie stunts.  And let's assume that all three men enjoyed being famous, and all that came along with it, like the attention from women.  

Burt Reynolds had a number of high-profile long-term (2 years or more) relationships with famous women, the starter marriage was to Judy Carne from "Laugh-In" (she's not mentioned in this doc) and then spent several years with Dinah Shore, who was, well, older. But then had a lthing with Sally Field, after they co-starred in several movies - hey, that was Gene Wilder's trick, right?  I can only imagine why things didn't work out, probably had something to do with the "line of women" outside his door, as she joked about during a celebrity roast.  For years he regarded her as the love of his life, but also the "one that got away", and it's probably safe to assume that was his own fault. But then tabloids followed every minute of his relationship and eventual marriage to Loni Anderson. If you're wondering why the tabloid magazines tend to pick a famous couple and predict their break-up every other week, hoping to be right, that process might have started with Burt & Loni.  

Anyway, back to football for a moment - Burt got a football scholarship to Florida State and had a great freshman year, but then injured his knee early in his sophomore year, and also hurt the other knee in a car accident.  So he took time off from Florida State and enrolled at Palm Beach Junior College, where his teacher in an English class urged him to try out for a play he was producing, based on his ability to recite Shakespeare in class. When he returned to Florida State, he won some kind of drama award that included a scholarship to a summer stock theater, the Hyde Park Playhouse, and this led him to Broadway and acting classes. But he couldn't get cast in movies, and after waiting tables, washing dishes and driving a truck, he got offered acting roles and stunt work on TV shows in the 1950s. 

What helped him out was the effect he had on the secretaries at casting agents, but what held him back was the fact that he looked too much like Marlon Brando.  But much like Mary Tyler Moore, he played heavies on every crime show he could book.  Finally he landed a regular role on "Gunsmoke" in 1962 and stayed on the show until 1965.  The next year he had his own show, "Hawk" and appeared in a Spaghetti Western titled "Navajo Joe".  A few minor film roles then, before the next western, "Sam Whiskey", followed quickly by "100 Rifles". (Hey, I've seen those!)

While waiting for the next big opportunity, he hit the TV talk-show circuit and became a favorite guest on Merv Griffin's show, because he made jokes about how poorly his career was going, when most guests would come on and say only glowing things about themselves.  Then Carson started inviting him on, and he even guest-hosted for Johnny a couple times. Some network even offered him his own talk-show, but he turned it down because he still wanted to be a movie star.  That finally happened with "Deliverance" in 1972, and it only took him 15 years to become an overnight success. 

Around the same time, there was scandal when he posed nude for Cosmopolitan magazine, on a dare from editor Helen Gurley Brown.  It's debatable now whether Burt did this as a joke, as a social commentary, or just a way to increase his profile, perhaps all three at once.  For years Burt claimed that posing nude hurt his career, maybe even cost him an Oscar, but I bet he got even more attention from women than before, and he was doing all right before. 

This doc then kind of skips over "The Longest Yard", "White Lightning" and "Gator", but it's only so it can spend more time on "Smokey and the Bandit".  There's also no mention of "Semi-Tough", '"Starting Over", or "The End", in fact Dom DeLuise is really nowhere to be seen for some reason.  They also needed time, no doubt, to promote Burt's feature at the time, "The Last Movie Star", which would turn out to be his last starring role.  Then there's time to show clips from "Stroker Ace", because they did interview Loni Anderson, but once again, something had to be cut, so no mention of "The Man Who Loved Women", "Cannonball Run" or "Stick" - all of the omissions really ended up making this doc tribute feel very incomplete. 

At some point his relationship with Loni became sort of on-again, off-again, but still they tied the knot and adopted a son, Quinton.  Loni goes into great detail, however, about how Burt didn't really know how to express love as an emotion, probably because his parents couldn't do that with him.  Or because he was taking so many painkillers at this point.  Either way, the film work sort of dried up, so he transitioned to TV with "Evening Shade" and when that ended, had sort of a career revival with "Boogie Nights".  

Reynolds was also a part owner of a USFL team, the Tampa Bay Bandits, sponsored an auto-racing team, owned and operated a horse ranch, had a dinner theatre in Jupiter, Florida, and a restaurant in Atlanta at the Omni Hotel, and another restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. However, by all accounts he wasn't a very good businessman, at one point he made up to $10 million a year, but lost $20 million just on those restaurants alone. Having $6 million in assets doesn't mean much when you also have $11 million in debt.  So of course, he had to sell that ranch. 

I don't know, there's a cautionary tale in there somewhere, maybe even a couple of them. 

Also starring Loni Anderson (last heard in "All Dogs Go to Heaven"), Bobby Bowden, Bruce Dern (last seen in "Nostalgia"), Logan Fleming, Marilu Henner (last seen in "Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond"), Nancy Lee Hess, Mo Mustaine, Joe Namath (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"), Quinton Reynolds, Adam Rifkin, Ann Scurry, Jon Voight (last seen in "De Palma"), Ariel Winter (last seen in "One Missed Call"), Alfie Wise

with archive footage of Burt Reynolds (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Paul Thomas Anderson (last seen in "Sr."), Ned Beatty (last seen in "Shooter"), John Boorman, James L. Brooks (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Johnny Carson (ditto), Helen Gurley Brown, Carol Burnett (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Rock Hudson (ditto), James Lipton (ditto), Ronny Cox (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Ossie Davis (last seen in "What's My Name; Muhammad Ali"), Doris Day (last seen in "The Automat"), Kirk Douglas (last seen in "De Palma"), Charles Durning (ditto), Paul Williams (ditto), Clark Duke (last seen in "Sex Drive"), Clint Eastwood (last seen in "The Marksman"), Sally Field (last seen in "80 for Brady"), David Frost (last seen in "Sammy Davis: I've Gotta Be Me"), Merv Griffin (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Gene Hackman (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder), John Hillerman (last seen in "Paper Moon"), Hal Holbrook (last seen in "Creepshow"), Michael Jeter (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), Lee Majors (last seen in "Spielberg"), Pat McCormick (last seen in "Smokey and the Bandit II"), Liza Minnelli (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Jerry Reed (ditto), Darren McGavin (last seen in "The Man with the Golden Arm"), Ricardo Montalban (last seen in "Battle of the Sexes"), Jim Nabors (last seen in "Mr. Warmth - The Don Rickles Project"), Hal Needham, Jack Nicholson (last seen in "The Last Tycoon"), Brad Pitt (last seen in "Babylon"), Charles Nelson Reilly (last heard in "All Dogs Go to Heaven"), Burt Reynolds Sr., Fern Reynolds, Tom Selleck (last seen in "Coma"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain"), Ann Wedgeworth (last seen in "Green Card"), Robin Williams (last seen in "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 roles he allegedly turned down (including "M*A*S*H" and "Star Wars")

We Blew It

Year 16, Day 183 - 7/1/24 - Movie #4,773

BEFORE: Wow, this was a close one.  I meant to quick-scan through this one in advance, to make sure that my plan was solid and the chain wouldn't be broken.  But this film wasn't streaming anywhere for "free" so I couldn't do that.  I'd have to pay $1.99 to watch this on YouTube, that was really the only way to see it, even the one pirate site I trust let me down. (The film was there, it just wouldn't play...). I couldn't drop this film, I need one particular film director who was interviewed in it to carry over to the next film. But I was concerned that there might be no link from "You've Been Trumped" to make the connection, and if not, then I'd really be sunk here. 

But I've been doing this for a long while now, I don't mean to brag but my instincts are usually good, and so my programming choice turned out to be solid, since this film was made shortly after the 2016 election there was archive footage (OK, sound) of Donald Trump, and that's what I was counting on.  So thankfully (and I never thought I'd say this) Donald Trump carries over from "You've Been Trumped Too" with a back-up as well.

Before I get to the film, here are the links that will get me to the end of the documentary chain: Peter Bogdanovich, Johnny Carson, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Kanye West, John Lennon, Elton John, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger & Keith Richards, Little Richard, David Bowie, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Tom Brokaw, Elizabeth Taylor, Charlie Chaplin, Bill & Hillary Clinton, Martin Luther King, Morley Safer, Dick Cavett, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnell and Angela Lansbury.  Note this is a rough list of confirmed carry-overs, there will be tons of other people connecting the films because there's really a lot of overlap. 

THE PLOT: How did America change from "Easy Rider" into Donald Trump?  What became of the dreams and utopias of the 1960's and 1970's?  What do the people who lived in that golden age think about it today? Did they really blow it? 

AFTER: I've found that it's best to not think TOO much about the calendar when I'm putting my chains together, but still, there's something that takes over, whether it's subconscious or just random chance, I still don't know.  I picked a specific film for July 4, sure, but then I didn't really think at all about the week leading up to July 4.  Still, look what happened, I included (again, without really thinking about it) one film about American corporations making musicals, two films about a former American President, and now a film about the zeitgeist of America, from the 1960's to today.  Really, if I'd TRIED to program a very American week of films, I don't think I would have done as well as this, just trusting that the chain knows what it's doing and will find a way to make some sense.  (Tomorrow's film is about a VERY American actor, and the film after that is about baseball, the national pastime.)

The idea here was to interview some very prominent people in American culture, mainly filmmakers, about the culture of America now, and contrast that with the culture of the 1960's and 1970's, and try to examine what has changed since then.  Sure, sounds like a great idea, I mean we can pretty much guess that times have changed, but how?  And why?  They start off with a clip from the movie "Easy Rider", in which bikers Wyatt and Billy take the proceeds from a cocaine deal and decide to travel to New Orleans in time for Mardi Gras - and after a number of wild adventures, during which the square hitchhiker they picked up along the way is killed, they're out in the desert and they take LSD and Wyatt sadly proclaims, "We blew it..." even though they DID make it to Mardi Gras on time.  Perhaps the film never explains what Wyatt meant, perhaps it was just the drugs talking or perhaps he felt guilty over George's death, or perhaps life is a journey and not a destination and any fulfillment that can expect to find has to come from within, I don't know. Anyway the movie doesn't end well for our anti-heroes, so it's really kind of a bummer.

What I doubt, however, is that Wyatt was somehow expressing the belief that the two men had failed to uphold the values of the 1960's decade in their quest, and that he was pining over the fact that the 1960's were coming to an end and the decade of peace and love was also the decade of protests and war and greed and government eroding our freedoms.  But OK, it's possible. That would have required Wyatt to step outside himself and see the big picture, put things in perspective, hey, maybe that's what LSD can do for you, allow you to see things from a distance or in a new light, and then you might realize you haven't lived up to your potential, if the biggest goal you can think of is to drive to New Orleans and party, instead of using your voice and your talents to make the world a better place.  But whatever, you can see in that movie's ending whatever you choose to see. 

But this documentary all seems rather thrown together - some people were interviewed and there's no subtitles to tell us who they are - I mean, I KNOW that's Michael Lang, one of the organizers of the Woodstock Festival, but it would be nice if everyone else could know it, too.  They also misspelled Ronee Blakley's name as "Ronnee Blackley", or something like that. Not cool. Also, it was directed by a French person, and what could he possibly know about the spirit of America, then or now?  Well, I guess maybe he started from a clean slate and then decided to come to America and ask a bunch of Americans about it.  

Also, many of the interviewed people don't seem to make much sense, I guess it's a tricky thing to try to remember what things were like 45-50 years ago and maybe even tricker to define what, exactly has changed since then.  The one thing they can agree on is that things HAVE changed, but damn, it's just so difficult to put it into words, right?  Maybe it's a feeling, not a set of words, but then how do you describe that feeling?  You can try and timeline it - we had the decade of peace & love, then we had the "me" decade, then we had the millennials screwing things up, then we had the internet - but that really doesn't tell us WHY, does it? 

People have theories, sure.  Watergate, Vietnam, protestors got in the way.  Reaganomics changed everything, the Berlin wall came down, Bill Clinton screwed an intern.  But these are just the headlines, they don't get into the WHY either.  Maybe it's got something to do with the hippies finding out that at some point they had to grow up and get jobs, and people who roamed the country going to music festivals at some point figured out that buying a house might be a good idea, but that takes money and hard work and cleaning yourself up a bit.  Ideals are great, but they don't pay the bills or put food on your table.  

Also, I think we're dealing with a phenomenon in which everyone believes that the times of their youth were the "good old days". It's a method of dealing with the present that involved romanticizing the past.  Hey, remember when we just drove around the country and we lived out of a van and we shared food with strangers and had free love?  Yeah, those were good times.  Well, the people who grew up during the Great Depression would have called that "being a hobo".  Hey, remember when we rode for free on boxcars and slept in shanty towns and we stood in bread lines and didn't have to work because there were no jobs?  Yeah, those were good times, I guess?  Look, I was born in 1968 and I was a teenager during the 1980's so my inclination is to say, "Hey, remember when we hung out at the arcade and played Pac-Man all day and didn't have to work yet but just listened to great music while we did our homework and we stood in line for "Star Wars" movies"?  Yeah, those were good times.  

No matter what generation you come from, the good times just can't last forever, because everybody has to grow up and get a job, buy a house and settle in for the next few decades, preferably with somebody you love who is also willing to put up with you. Have kids if you want to be short on money the rest of your life, I don't quite get that but some people do it.  I say have cats, they eat less and they're replaceable.  Try and put some money aside for retirement, because if you're lucky and live long enough, you're going to need it, but if you die young, well you probably won't care.  But if you're lucky and you live long, you get to watch your parents and then your friends pass away, while your health goes downhill.  It's a NO-WIN situation a zero-sum game, and that's another reason why everyone tends to romanticize the past, especially the times before you were young enough to not realize that someday you're going to die.  

Honestly, I thought this film might have been a brutal examination of the Trump years, and that the title referred to America collectively electing the worst President ever.  No, there are some sound bites from Trump and Hillary and Bernie to try to focus attention on how divisive politics are now, and the vast difference economically between the classes in the U.S., but that's not the main focus of the fillm, which is the fact that film directors all seem to agree that we've lost something along the way, the ideals of the 1960's for one.  But were they ever really attainable in the first place?  I mean, you can say you're going to base the new society on peace and love once we all enter the Age of Aquarius, but how can that possibly result in a society where things, you know, work?  Somebody will still need to run things and enforce laws and empty trash cans and make movies and TV shows and work at hospitals and libraries, we can't all just pack up into vans with mattresses in them and ride around the country depending on the kindness of strangers for food. 

The people who had those dreams in the 1960's of a better society were, perhaps, setting their sights a bit too high.  Sure, things are different now, because at some point, reality set in. We have a divisive two-party system that can't get anything done, we have an convicted felon running for President and he may win and replace the one with dementia, and there's still racism and sexism and ageism and homophobia and transphobia and xenophobia.  Not to mention climate change, plastics in the ocean and forest fires raging out of control.  So maybe instead of pausing to reflect on what we might have lost since the 1960's, how about taking some steps to improve things now?  Just a thought. 

I'll admit that it doesn't make much sense, but people can believe different things at different points in life, like some of the people who stood up for peace and love in the 1960's might be Republicans now, that's a possible side effect of getting a job and a house and saving up some money, suddenly those same people are voting for people who want to take freedoms away, like abortions and gay rights and the right to practice any religion.  By the same token, I read that some people who are immigrants themselves support Trump because he's strong on border control, this doesn't really track, unless they're afraid that the new immigrants will come in and take the jobs that they currently have.  Or they realize that America can only support so many people, and they don't want MORE immigrants here using up all the social services and benefits.  I can't really fathom why people support Trump, so it's a real head-scratcher for me.

But yeah, I wish this film had a few more answers for the questions it raised, sure. It's also a bit weird that the film used archive sound from the movie "The Company You Keep", and I recently watched that film on June 10.  What are the odds?

Also starring Ronee Blakley (last seen in "Rolling Thunder Revue"), Peter Bogdanovich (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Charles Burnett, Tobe Hooper, Peter Hyams (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Stanton Kaye, Michael Lang (last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation"), Jeff Lieberman, Bob Mankoff (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Michael Mann, Bob Rafelson, Stephanie Rothman, Jerry Schatzberg, Paul Schrader (last seen in "De Palma"), James Toback (last seen in "An Imperfect Murder"), Fred Williamson (last seen in "Starsky & Hutch"),

with archive footage of Joan Baez (also last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation"), Peter Fonda (last seen in "Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time"), Wavy Gravy (last seen in "Tiny Tim: King for a Day"), Dennis Hopper (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Rustin"), Charles Manson (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Richard Nixon (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), 

and the voices of Julie Christie (last seen in "The Company You Keep"), Robert Redford (ditto), Hillary Clinton (also carrying over from "You've Been Trumped Too"), Bernie Sanders (ditto). Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), 

RATING: 4 out of 10 unaffordable apartments in Watts

You've Been Trumped Too

Year 16, Day 182 - 6/30/24 - Movie #4,772

BEFORE: OK, June is over after tonight, but I'm going to squeeze one more into June and double-up on Trump films today.  I need to do this so I can land the right film on July 4 - this will get me back on track after I added too many documentaries at the last minute, like "Butterfly in the Sky" and "Remembering Gene Wilder".  My bad. 

Donald Trump carries over from "You've Been Trumped".  And here's the format breakdown for June: 

7 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Project Almanac, Yours Mine & Ours, About My Father, 1900, The Last Tycoon, I Am Chris Farley, Belushi

7 Movies watched on cable (not saved): Balls of Fury, The Company You Keep, Blue Beetle, Wonka, Great Expectations (1998), Being Mary Tyler Moore, Albert Brooks: Defending My Life

6 watched on Netflix: Lift, Unfrosted, Sly, Butterfly in the Sky, Sr., Remembering Gene Wilder

3 watched on Amazon Prime: Die Hart, Strays, Good Night Oppy
3 watched on Hulu: I Love My Dad, Paint, Somewhere in Queens

2 watched on YouTube: You've Been Trumped, You've Been Trumped Too
1 watched on Disney+: Wish

1 watched on Paramount+: Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe

1 watched on a random site: Bathtubs Over Broadway

31 TOTAL

Wow, it's been a month, hasn't it?  I took a couple days off because of the Tribeca Film Festival, but then I made up for it at the end.  Now, if you want to play along tonight, the makers of this film have made it available for FREE on YouTube.  You know, because it's kind of important to get to know this Donald Trump fellow, decide if this is really the kind of guy you want to vote for.  Note that there is a version on YouTube that will cost a few dollars to rent, but look for the one posted by the JourneyMan TV account, it's FREE, you just have to watch a couple of ad breaks. 

THE PLOT: A chronicle of the confrontation between billionaire Donald Trump and feisty 92-year-old Scottish widow, Molly Forbes. 

AFTER: This is (more or less) a follow-up to yesterday's film, really an update on what happened to Molly Forbes, who went five years without running water in her house after the disputes with Trump over his golf course in Scotland, and Donald Trump, who was running for President in 2016.  The documentary director Anthony Baxter was riding kind of high after his first Trump film got noticed, and was able to secure two more sit-down interviews with Trump, probably because Trump was taking any and all interview opportunities while running for office.  But once Trump realized who Baxter was, he got a lot more reticent to talk about the disputes in Scotland.  Oh, he built that golf course, but there was so much bad publicity around its construction that hardly anybody golfed there.  

Baxter also met with Don Jr., interviewed him about his hunting in Africa, and then also had a meeting with him regarding the situation with Molly Forbes, how her well water ran dry after the road to the golf course was built, and he promised to look into it, and that her situation would be resolved as soon as possible. But of course, that was another lie.  In the end Michael Forbes, Molly's son, had to get some construction equipment out there and restore the pipe that brought water from the underground spring to Molly's well, which had been quite obviously blocked by Trump personnel.  Then once he did fix the pipeline, the Trump organization sent him a bill for the work that he did himself.  Yeah.  

Baxter clearly improved as a director, because there are some rather good juxtapositions here, like Trump talking about how much he loved his mother on one side of the screen, and the suffering Molly Forbes on the other side, after Trump had stated that she reminded him of his mother.  Molly's water crisis is also shown in comparison to the one in Flint, Michigan (there he goes, borrowing from Michael Moore again) and noting that Trump was holding one of his first rallies just a few miles away from Flint, and never visited that city or inquired about the water situation there, or really showed any concern at all for the suffering U.S. citizens (and voters) who lived in Flint.  

Then Baxter went to the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, and brought Michael Forbes along to see the madness there.  Michael spoke with likely Trump voters about what Trump did to him and his mother during the golf course construction, and it would be nice to think that he changed a few minds, but the problem there is, once a MAGA voter makes up their mind to vote for Trump, it's very hard to persuade them that Trump is not fit to be President.  In fact, he never was qualified, either by his experience or by his morals, he never even really wanted the job, he just ran to increase his brand and his popularity, and it was the fluke of the Electoral College that won him the job.

Surprisingly, it's eight years later and we're right back in the same place - only he's up against Biden again, not Hillary, and Biden is supposedly the only person who beat him in a Presidential Election, which isn't completely true because Trump never won the popular vote, not once. It's just our wacky system that gave him the job, and only because he was more popular in certain states.  Now, thanks to last week's debate performance by Biden, suddenly everyone's determined that he's too old and should maybe not run again - no, this would be a bad idea, because Trump might easily beat Kamala Harris, there are still too many sexist old men who could never bring themselves to vote for a female President, that's part of the reason Hillary Clinton lost.  Biden should stay on the ticket, and after the election, if he's not up to the job, he can step down then, and we'd finally have a female President.  

OK, let's assume for the moment that age is a deciding factor here, and Biden's demeanor during the debate wasn't a fluke.  That's one strike against him, and OK, maybe having a son who had a drug problem and also bought a gun is a second strike.  So it's age and Hunter Biden, I'll go one more level in and say that the way Biden touches women and smells their hair sometimes is very cringey.  OK, three reasons to not vote for Biden.  But come on, I've got at least a HUNDRED reasons to not vote for Trump.  Don't believe me?  Here we go...

1. 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records in conjunction with paying off a porn star. 91 criminal charges overall.

2. Paying off a porn star, who he definitely slept with, even though he's denied doing so since.

3. The election interference that resulted from paying off that porn star and trying to keep that story from being published.

4. The additional fraud convictions in the state of New York for increasing the values of his properties to obtain business loans and decreasing them when filing tax records. 

5. Claiming to know nothing about that fraud and throwing his accountants under the bus.

6. Calling the attorney general of Georgia and asking him to "find" 12,000 more votes. This was code for creating false votes, thereby admitting he lost, because if he really thought he'd won the state, he would have just asked for a recount. 

7. Never admitting that he lost the 2020 election, or even that Biden got more votes.

8. Blaming election workers for tampering with the votes and opening them up to harassment from his followers. 

9. Trying to replace the electors from certain states with fake electors hand-selected to submit false electoral ballots for him. 

10. Continuing court cases in several states to try to reverse the 2020 election results, when there was zero evidence of tampering with voting machines or ballots. 

11. Pressuring the vice-President to interfere with the ceremonial counting of the electoral votes in the 2020 election.

12. The January 6 insurrection, inciting his followers to march on the Capitol. 

13. Watching the results of the insurrection from afar, and waiting hours to act in any way or ask his followers to stand down. 

14. Keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and failing to reply to requests from the FBI to return them.  (Whoops, forgot, Biden did this too, OK, let's call this one a wash.)

15. Being found liable for sexual abuse in the Jean Carroll case. 

16. Defaming Jean Carroll during and after his trial for sexual abuse. 

17. The other 2 dozen women who have claimed sexual misconduct or harassment on his part.  I won't list names here, but you can look up the list online.  Even if you allow that some of them might possibly lying or over-reacting, which I doubt, it's still TWO DOZEN charges. 

18. Connections to Jeffrey Epstein, not just being photographed with him, but also being on that list of people who flew on his jet and went to his island, where bad things probably happened.

19. Admitting in an interview that he would never allow the "Epstein List" to be released, but no, sure, release the JFK files and the UFO files. 

20. Clearly being sexually attracted to his own daughter, calling her "gorgeous" in interviews and claiming that if he weren't her father, he'd want to date her. Ewwwww....

21. Making fun of a handicapped reporter and doing a horrible impression of him on camera. 

22. Hanging out with Kanye West or Ye or Yeezy or whatever he's calling himself this week. 

23. Appointing THREE Supreme Court justices during his term, all of whom were clearly conservatives, while claiming that they weren't chosen because of that. 

24. Appointing one of those justices just days before the 2020 election, when four years previous, the possibility of Obama appointing a replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg was nixed because it was "too close to the election".

25. The overturning of Roe v. Wade, a direct result from appointing those clearly conservative judges. 

26. Dismantling the U.S. pandemic response team months before an actual pandemic.  Sure, nobody saw it coming, but keeping the response team active would still have been the better move, even if there were no pandemic. 

27. Disputing the scientific advice about masks and social distancing during the pandemic, which included hosting "Super-spreader" events in the Rose Garden during lockdown. 

28. Suggesting that people could fight COVID using either light, bleach, Ivermectin or Hydroxy-chloroquine, when there was no medical evidence that any of that would help. 

29. Claiming that the COVID pandemic would disappear "like magic" once spring came.  Then when spring came and COVID was still here, claiming it would disappear "like magic" after the election.  It didn't even start to disappear until months after the vaccines came out in early 2021.

30. Allowing cities and businesses to open in April 2020, ignoring all medical and scientific advice, and this turned out to be before the second and third waves hit. 

31. Taking credit during the recent debate that he "got us through COVID", when, let's be honest, he didn't do a damn thing. 

32. Halting U.S. funding to the World Health Organization, yep, just when everybody needed the W.H.O. more than ever. 

33. Speaking of that, golfing nearly every day while he was in office, when he had previously taken Obama to task for golfing once a week instead of working.

34. While we're at it, the whole "birther" debate that he started, suggesting that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and was perhaps born in Kenya instead of Hawaii. 

35. Way back, suggesting that the Central Park Five be put on death row for raping a woman in Central Park, when it turned out years later that they were innocent. 

36. Saying he would build a wall to keep Mexicans and other immigrants out, and that he'd make Mexico pay for it. Didn't happen. 

37. Saying in 2015 that Mexico was sending criminals like rapists and drug dealers across the border. 

38. Having kids put in cages and separating them from their parents after crossing the border. Remember that one? The parents were deported but not their children, and there are still hundreds of children who have not been reunited. 

39. After a neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville, claiming there were "good people on both sides". Nope, Nazis are just not good people, by definition. 

40. Proud Boys "Stand back and stand by".  Basically, refusing to condemn white supremacists. 

41. Having BLM protesters who were U.S. citizens SHOT AT with rubber bullets because he wanted to cross the street and hold up a Bible for a photo op. 

42. The 2016 travel ban he implemented, which just happened to focus on countries that had Islamic majorities. 

43. Failing to end the war in Afghanistan - he had no right to say during the debate that Biden botched our retreat from Afghanistan when he had made no attempt at all to end our country's longest-running war during his own term. 

44. Falsely claiming that thousands of Arabic people in New Jersey were cheering on 9/11 when the World Trade Center was collapsing. 

45. Claiming in 2016 that he had been against the war in Iraq, when he had in fact supported it in 2002. 

46. Getting out of the Vietnam War draft by claiming to have "bone spurs". Remember, years later he couldn't even tell a reporter which foot they were in.  

47. Refusing for years to release his tax returns, as most Presidents or presidential candidates had done in the past. Well, thanks to the fraud trials, at least we now know why. 

48. Claiming that global warming was a Chinese hoax. 

49. Claiming that COVID-19 came from a Chinese lab instead of a market. 

50. Fabricating the original story about Hunter Biden's laptop. 

51. "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the missing 30,000 e-mails..."

52. Having close business ties to Russia and Putin.

53. Allowing his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to be put in charge of domestic affairs, international affairs, and the pandemic response when we wasn't qualified to handle any of those things. 

54. All of the shady business deals that resulted from Jared Kushner being in charge of international affairs. 

55. Supporting fossil fuels and coal over renewable energy sources like solar power and wind power, making up stories about dead birds seen around windmills. 

56. Having the U.S. surgeon general and his doctor falsify his weight. Vanity, thy name is Trump.

57. Drawing on a map of a hurricane's path with a Sharpie to match the prediction that he made about which states were in danger of getting hit with bad weather. He just couldn't admit that he was wrong, not even by one little bit.  So, when in doubt, just change the data!

58. Tossing paper towels at hurricane victims in Puerto Rico. Yeah, that'll fix it, because the hurricane was "very wet, in terms of water". 

59. That very phony press conference in December 2017 where he claimed his administration was being successful in cutting government red tape and he had that massive stack of paperwork on stage with him, supposedly symbolizing the unneeded regulations that we would eliminate.  Come on, you know all of that paper was blank, right? 

60. Delaying aid to Ukraine unless they committed to investigating his chief political rival, Joe Biden.  Remember quid pro quo?  This is what got him impeached the first time. 

61. Hiring Robert DeJoy, the worst postmaster general ever, and nearly defunding the post office to prevent mail-in voting. 

62. Being the ultimate "nepo baby", being born on third base and then taking credit for the run. He wouldn't be anywhere without his father securing loans for him to start him off in business, of course he also claims to be a "self-made" man, which is blatantly untrue. 

63. Being so against Obamacare and how successful it was, he kept making claims that under his administration he would abolish ObamaCare and replace with a better system that would benefit everyone, people could keep their doctors, and it would be wonderful. We're still waiting. 

64. Claiming that when he was President, there would be "so much winning" that we'd get tired of winning, whatever that means, it just didn't happen either. 

65. Trump Steaks. It was a scam.

66. Trump Air. It was a scam. 

67. Trump Water. It was a scam. 

68. Trump Vodka. It was a scam.

69. Trump University. It was a scam. 

70. Trump Bibles & Trump NFTs.  Yep, you guessed it. 

71. Hating on John McCain, someone beloved by both parties. "I like heroes who don't get captured..."

72. Threatening to withdraw from NATO.

73. Actually withdrawing from the Paris climate accords. 

74. Trying to abolish the EPA. 

75. Complaining about too many imported goods from China, while his line of clothing and his daughter's line of clothing and jewelry were all made there. 

76. Calling Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas" when she claimed a small amount of Native American heritage. 

77. Belittling all of his political opponents in 2016 with nicknames, from "Lyin' Ted" to "Little Marco". Throw in "Crooked Hillary" while you're at it. 

78. Hiring Steve Bannon to run his campaign, and then continuing to listen to his advice. 

79. Hiring Paul Manafort as a campaign chairman, then he served two years in jail for tax fraud, foreign lobbying and witness tampering. 

80. Overcharging the government for members of the Secret Service to stay in his hotels while they protected HIM. 

81. Spending so much time outside the White House at resorts that are owned by him, which means that the U.S. government paid for trips that cost an estimated $142 million in four years, and most of that money went to Trump properties. 

82, Allowing foreign governments and organizations, like the Kuwaiti Embassy, the Turkish government and a PR firm hired by Saudi Arabia to book events at his hotels and resorts, which is probably a repeated violation of the Emoluments Clause. 

83. Diverting other money from his campaign into his own personal family businesses.

84. Pretending to sign over his companies to his sons when he became President. Yeah, right. 

85. Claiming to have given millions of dollars to charity, but a Washington Post reporter could only find one donation made over the course of years, somewhere between $5K and $10K. 

86. Using his Trump Foundation (an alleged charity) to bid $20,000 at an auction to obtain a 6-foot portrait of himself. Well, at least it was a charity auction, but essentially he just took $20K from his charity and gave it to another, that's not really how charitable donations are supposed to work. 

87. Firing FBI James Comey and then blaming Dept. of Justice officials for it. Comey was the one investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election. 

88. Hiring Michael Flynn as his national security advisor, he only lasted 24 days before reports came that he'd lied about meeting with a Russian ambassador. 

89. Over 18,000 documented lies while in office. 

90. Another classic - blatant discrimination against minority tenants in housing complexes he owned in New York City, which were supposed to have a certain percentage of units set aside for low-income housing, but whenever those families showed up, the units were "unavailable". 

91. Tax cuts for the super-wealthy and for corporations, while telling the middle class that he cares about them and that they'll be better off with him in the White House.  Just saying it doesn't make it true. 

92. Going way back to the inauguration - claiming that the crowd of his supporters on Inauguration Day was the biggest turn-out for any President's inauguration, when the news had clear photos of a light turnout, and quickly found examples of larger crowds for previous Presidents.  Still, he refused to admit it was a light turn-out, and he never will. 

93. Promising in November 2023 to root out the communists, Marxists and fascists in the U.S. and the "radical thugs that live like vermin". This was a tactic commonly used by Hitler and Mussolini back in the day. 

94. Declaring in an interview in December 2023 that he would be a dictator only on "Day One" if he were re-elected, that he'd close the border, start to "drill, drill, drill", then he'd probably go play golf for the next four years. 

95. On the age issue, Trump isn't even that far behind Biden, he just turned 78, is that really so much younger than 81?  And we keep hearing again and again that Trump took a cognitive test, so what?  It was the kind that just confirms that a person can think in the most basic terms, it's about as difficult a test as solving a maze on a placemat at a Chuck E. Cheese's. 

96. His name isn't even Trump, the family name was "Drumpf" in Germany and his great-great-great-grandfather changed his name. 

97. Cheating on his first wife with the woman who became his second wife.  

98. Burying his first wife on his golf course in Bedminster, NJ. It's clearly not what she would have wanted, he either did this to try and get the property a tax break as a burial ground, or so he could piss on her grave after playing a round of golf. Perhaps both. 

99. Taking a hard stance on immigration, when his own wife is an immigrant from Slovenia. Convince me that she didn't marry him just to get a green card. 

100. Let's call the last one (for now) the treatment of the Scottish people living around the property he bought to create his "world-class" golf course, as related in this film.  He cut off a 91-year-old woman's water supply and she had to live without running water for FIVE YEARS. Is that the kind of person you want to re-elect as your President?  

OK, so even if I'm being super-hard on Biden, that means the score is 100 reasons to not vote for Trump, and only FOUR reasons to not vote for Biden.  Well, my mind's made up, how about you?

Also starring Donald Trump Jr., Anthony Baxter, Michael Forbes, Molly Forbes, Sarah Malone Bates, David Milne, Susan Munro, Alex Salmond, George Sorial (all carrying over from "You've Been Trumped"), Rohan Beyts, Sheila Forbes, Tom Vineyard, Andy Wightman

with archive footage of Wolf Blitzer (last seen in "Shazam! Fury of the Gods"), HIllary Clinton (last seen in "Rosewater"), Vera Coking, Ted Cruz (last seen in "Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer"), Mike Pence (ditto), Melania Trump (ditto), Rudy Giuliani (last seen in "The Queen of Versailles"), John McCain (last seen in "The Report"), Michelle Obama (last seen in "Respect"), Bill O'Reilly (last seen in "She Said"), Bernie Sanders (last seen in "Mayor Pete"), Eric Trump (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Ivanka Trump (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Tiffany Trump.

RATING: 5 out of 10 Mexican flags