Cry Macho

Year 16, Day 335 - 11/30/24 - Movie #4,890

BEFORE: OK, so it really wasn't No-Movie November, but it was pretty close - just four movies this month, and the breakdown is simple: 

3 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Champions, Free Birds, The Minus Man

1 Movies watched on cable (not saved): Cry Macho

4 Total

It's been quite a week already, but I'm going to fit this last one in because that will leave me with just 10 films to watch in December, and I'm going to be VERY busy for the first two weeks of the month, a few long shifts at the theater including TWO tent-watches that could run very late, and then, in the third week, my schedule's going to clear right up. Which works out great for me, I'm fairly sure I can get those last 10 movies watched in the next 25 days, and that third week's going to be doing all the heavy lifting there.  The last two movies are Christmas movies, anyway, so they can wait until Week 4. I can watch just two movies next week and another two the week after and still get it all done in time.  

It's still only Day 3 of a four-day holiday weekend, so I got the rest of the weeds cut down in the backyard, I got the air conditioner cover on and we've moved our furniture back into place after that electrical problem, so tomorrow will be just for resting up before going back to work for a solidly packed, very busy week.  

Dwight Yoakam carries over from "The Minus Man". I can't use Clint Eastwood as a link any more, because I've seen just about every film he's been in over the years.  As a result, this film's been taking up space on my DVR since May of 2022, and I really need to get rid of it. 

THE PLOT: A one-time rodeo star and washed-up horse breeder takes a job to bring a man's son home and away from his alcoholic mom.  On their journey, the horseman finds redemption through teaching the boy what it means to be a good man. 

AFTER: Ugh, it's another disappointing movie tonight - you see what can happen when I let just the LINKING pick the movie?  There are SO many better films I could be watching - well, OK, I don't know if they're any BETTER because I haven't seen them yet, but they're the movies that I really WANT to be watching now, like "Dune: Part Two" and "Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga", and "Civil War' and "5-25-77" and "The Hunger Games; Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes" and hell, I'd settle for "Dream Scenario" or "The Iron Claw" or the "Mean Girls" remake at this point.  The film "Ambulance", I've been waiting a long time to see what that's about, why couldn't THAT pop up in my linking feed today?  Even if it's not a great movie, it could be better than this. "Love in the Time of Cholera", that's also taking up space on my DVR, why couldn't I just watch that one? 

Ugh again, let's get this over with.  This could be the last film that Clint Eastwood ever appears in, because he's like 94 years old now and I don't think he can be properly insured to make another film.  Like he had to throw ONE punch in this movie, and I can remember a time when that's all he'd do in a movie, punch out bad guys in back alleys as Dirty Harry, or maybe in a saloon in some spaghetti Western, and now he's down to like ONE punch per movie - and he probably needed to take a nap after doing it.  Jesus, he looks like the Cryptkeeper in this movie, why not just retire and take comfort in the fact that people will be watching your classic movies until the end of time, there's no need to gild the lily at this point.  Gene Hackman, Clint's co-star from "Unforgiven", retired, and I'm guessing that was the right move.  Once you pass 80, really, people want to see some fresh faces in their movies, even in Westerns you never really saw an old gunslinger, because they either drew too slow and died or their hands were shaking too much to hold the gun. Give it a rest, Clint. 

This film bombed, it didn't even make back half its budget, and I'm guessing that means that nobody under 30 (you know, the people who go stream movies) even knows who Clint Eastwood is.  My boss keeps telling that story about how he is more popular in France, so he's the "Jerry Lewis" of animation and I have to break it to him that the college kids he's giving that lecture to have now idea who Jerry Lewis even was, let alone the fact that he was more popular in France.  Time to update your reference points, I say.  

Anyway, I can't dispute the fact that Eastwood is perfectly cast here, because his character is a former rodeo star who is very old, and had a career-ending injury which led to prescription drug abuse and/or alcoholism, and his family has all passed away, so he's just an old loner, and gets fired from his job training horses on a ranch because he's, well, just too old.  Ageism can't get you fired, however if you're just too darn old to do your very physical job any more, well, there must be an out for some bosses, right?  I'm only 56 and if I do 2 hours of yard work, then I need a nap and a hot shower, in some order.  The time clock is running out for all of us, really, and if my legs keep hurting I'm going to have to seriously find another job where I'm not setting up tables and chairs and carrying things up and down the stairs. I'll hate to lose the gig, because the money's good, but I am the oldest one there, and I'm feeling it. 

The movie, right, the movie. Ex-rodeo star Mike Milo gets contacted by his old boss, who wants him to drive down to Mexico and find his 15-year old son, and bring him back to Texas. After he finds the boy, he may need to convince the boy to live with his father instead of his mother, and then Mike might also have to deal with that mother, who might be crazy or abusive, at least if you believe the boy's father.  Then getting the kid into the United States might be another problem, especially with the anti-immigrant political climate we've got now.  Driving down to Mexico City, sure, no problem, but it's getting back that proves to be the problem. 

First problem, the mother, who doesn't want to let the kid go - it turns out both parents want to treat the kid like a pawn because of the business dealings they have.  Does either one even WANT to take care of the kid, or is this just a family squabble with the kid stuck in the middle?  Second problem is the kid himself, who's taken up drinking and doing drugs and cockfights, and why would he want to go to Texas, where those things are illegal?  The Mexico underground is basically his playground, but Mike is eventually able to convince the kid that his father cares about him, and that Texas is a pretty neat place if your dad owns a horse ranch.  

Further problems develop when the mother's henchmen follow the pair in Mike's truck as they dodge both local cops and federal officials, and eventually those henchmen steal the truck, leaving Mike and Rafo to find another way to get north.  After jacking an abandoned car, they hole up in a cantina and decide to wait until the police checkpoints cease, or they can find some other way around them.  Also, their car needs repairs and they need to wait things out, so Mike finds work training horses at a nearby ranch, and also dispensing veterinary advice to the locals.  He also starts a relationship with Marta, the owner of the cantina, and decides that there are probably worse places to be in the world.  Meanwhile, Rafo's father is wondering why this four day road-trip is taking two weeks.  

That's basically the whole film, it's a real sleeper and I'm not quite sure why it's set in the year 1979, but the book it's based on came out in 1975, and producers have been trying to make a movie out of this ever since then, so maybe that's why it's set back then?  Really, if your screenplay has been on the back burner for almost 50 years, maybe there's a good reason for that - I mean, kudos for being persistent, but sometimes it's better to cut your losses. Clint Eastwood turned down this role in 1988, then at various times Robert Mitchum, Roy Scheider and Arnold Schwarzenegger were considered, and then at long last it circled back to Clint.  I guess maybe this completes the "old man" trilogy that was started by "Gran Torino" and "The Mule"? 

Really, this feels like it could have been a 10-minute short film, that's how simple the story is.  That's how much NOTHING happens in the big, overblown middle of the film.  Which means that the film is at LEAST one hour too long.  Sure, it sells the point that Mike has stayed in Mexico much too long, but that point could have been made much more easily, and without wasting 105 minutes of my time. 

Also starring Clint Eastwood (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Eduardo Minett, Natalia Traven, Fernanda Urrejola, Horacio Garcia Rojas, Daniel V .Graulau, Amber Lynn Ashley, Brytnee Atkinson (last seen in "Only the Brave"), Alexandra Ruddy (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Ivan Hernandez (last seen in "Vengeance"), Lincoln A. Castellanos, Marco Rodriguez (last seen in "Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood"), Jorge-Luis Pallo (last seen in "Father Stu"), Ana Rey (last seen in "Please Stand By"), Rocko Reyes, Paul Lincoln Alayo (last seen in "The Mule").

RATING: 4 out of 10 wild horses (they're a metaphor for the kid, I guess)

The Minus Man

Year 16, Day 334 - 11/29/24 - Movie #4,889

BEFORE: Well, now that December is almost here and there are 11 films left after tonight, it's no time for changes, it's nearly last call on Movie Year 16.  If anyone's going to qualify for the year-end countdown who hasn't had three appearances yet, now would be the time.  Owen Wilson's already in, and so is Brian Cox, but they can both climb one notch higher tonight - one moves up from 3 appearances to 4, and the other from 4 to 5. Let's see if anyone else makes the countdown based on tonight's film.  

Owen Wilson carries over from "Free Birds".  It may seem a little strange to follow a silly kids' animated film about time-traveling turkeys with a dark film about a serial killer, but the linking is what it is at this point, I can't program by subject matter right now, here at the tail end of the year.  It was just about this time last year, two or three films after Halloween, when I watched "The Mean Season", another film about a serial killer - and neither film seemed really scary enough to qualify as horror. 

THE PLOT: Aimless Vann SIegert takes a bizarre turn in life and becomes a serial killer, tracking down the miserable, the self-destructive and those who otherwise seem willing to die. 

AFTER: My first thought was that I don't really buy Owen Wilson as a serial killer, he seems too chill, too unassuming, too West Coast "good vibes" to kill someone.  Sure, this was made back in 1999, when he hadn't slipped into that "cool Dad" mode, maybe he was still a little rough around the edges and could fit the profile.  Nope, he's really chill in this movie, too, almost at a McConnaughey level of West Coast surfer dude - but maybe that's the point here, anybody could be a serial killer, and this is a killer who drives around looking for people who are unhappy, to learn more about them and help them "transition" to a more peaceful state.  Yeah, that tracks and it feels very California, doesn't it?  

It's a weird coincidence that my wife has been watching some streaming series about FBI cases all week, like the Oklahoma City bombing and the McDonald's Monopoly game investigation, but somewhere in the middle of it was an episode about the Golden State Killer, and I'd already watched a whole HBO series about that one, called "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" so I already knew how that one ended, how they tracked down the killer based on DNA that had been submitted to genetic testing sites by his family members.  Also, they figured that the long gap in his killing spree meant that he spent time in prison, and from the torture methods they'd determined that he had police training at some point.  That's how they do it, they keep narrowing down the field until there's just a handful of suspects to investigate.  

But as I said, Vann Siegert, the serial killer depicted here, is really chill and unassuming, you just wouldn't suspect him of being a killer - so when he gets an apartment in this small California (?) town, and just seems so darn NICE, nobody makes the connection that the town's residents started disappearing shortly after he showed up.  You'd think, logically, somebody would make that connection, he moved in in November, and by December 1 several people are missing and presumed dead. Hell, a high-school football star who's about to get scholarships just isn't going to vanish, he's got a lot to live for.  

His landlords, the Durwins, don't suspect a thing either, but then, they're careful to not form a friendship with their tenant, well, Jane is, anyway, she wants to keep him at a distance, while her husband Doug wants to take Vann to high-school football games and then go out drinking with him, and before long he offers to get him a job at the post office.  Well, it is November and there are flyers and catalogues and Christmas cards coming, and also nobody has invented Amazon just yet, so there should be a LOT of mail to deliver.  Well, actually they start people on the mail trucks while they learn the intricacies of sorting and, umm, all the other stuff they do at the post office. I'm sure it's much more complicated than we think.  Doug doesn't get his own route until old Joe La Moine has a heart attack - and surprisingly, Vann had nothing to do with THAT. 

Vann prefers poison, anyway - and he doesn't kill just anyone, he's very selective - but at the same time he's so prolific, it's hard to keep track of all the people he kills, it's actually easier to discuss the people he DOESN'T kill.  Vann has an interior monologue so we can pick up on his attitude and methods and general outlook on life, and I wish I could say that all of that is very interesting, but it's just not.  Vann seems totally normal, and therein lies the problem, we as an audience want to believe that there's something WRONG with a serial killer, that his thoughts are dark and confusing or at least twisted or muddled, and that doesn't seem to be the case here.  So, umm, WHY does he kill people, then, exactly?  The movie doesn't only not answer this, but it never even gets around to asking the question.  

Instead Vann learns how to sort mail quickly, he develops a relationship with Ferrin, the sarcastic-enough 90's woman who also works at the post office, and before long they're going on day trips to the beach where Ferrin drinks too much, and then hanging out in her cabin, where she also drinks too much.  Meanwhile we're all probably wondering where the line is, can he have a working relationship with a woman and keep that separate from all the killing, or are the worlds bound to overlap?  So many of his encounters with lonely women end badly, is there any way to avoid that with Ferrin?  These are things for him to ponder while he volunteers to help with the search for that missing football player, and then later also attends his memorial service.  

Yet Vann is always conscious of the fact that if he says the wrong thing or he happens to be the person in the search party who finds the body, the police will be on him like THAT.  Then one day his landlady disappears, and that was also the same day that her husband borrowed Vann's truck, so if Doug was involved, the cops are going to be ALL OVER that truck, and God only knows what they'll find.  What will his excuse be then, that he couldn't have beaten her to death because he's more of a poison guy?  In both Vann and Doug we see this weird dichotomy of relationships, where people can simultaneously love someone and also hate them enough to kill them - and don't say it can't happen because it clearly can.  

All through this, Vann has imaginary conversations with two cops (the "Dream Police" from that Cheap Trick song?) and they harass him and ask him questions, and honestly I don't know if they represent cops who arrested him or if they're two of his past victims or BOTH of those things, or if he's imagining conversations that may take place in the future if he slips up someone and gets arrested for his murders.  It's all a bit unclear, all we know is that these guys aren't willing to help him dig any more unmarked graves.  

NITPICK POINT: Back in 1999, if you wanted to send something to your friend who worked at the post office, you didn't have to buy stamps, you could just put that thing in an envelope with her name on it and drop it in a mailbox?  I mean, I guess that works if you know she works in the dead letter department, but I'm not convinced.  

By no means does this count as a Christmas movie - however, Vann moves into this town in November, and the increase in holiday mail is mentioned when he's offered that post office job.  Also, we do see the Durwins putting up Christmas decorations and offering Vann cookies, however he doesn't really want to be part of their holiday celebration. Maybe he just expects that he'll be leaving town after New Year's, just in case the cops are getting too close to solving any of his murders by then.  I guess that's the lonely life of a serial killer for you, never getting too close to anybody, which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing. Right? 

Also starring Dwight Yoakam (last seen in "Logan Lucky"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale"), Alex Warren (last seen in "Bad Boys II"), Mercedes Ruehl (last seen in "Hustlers"), Brian Cox (last seen in "The Ring"), Janeane Garofalo (last seen in "Steal This Movie"), Meg Foster (last seen in "Overlord"), John Vargas (last seen in "Miami Rhapsody"), Eric Mabius (last seen in "I Shot Andy Warhol"), Larry Miller (last seen in "Second Act"), Sheryl Crow (last seen in "Sheryl"), John Carroll Lynch (last seen in "Things We Lost in the Fire"), Chloe Black, Lois Gerace, Erik Holland (last seen in "The Outlaw Josey Wales"), Danny "Big Black" Rey (last seen in "When We Were Kings"), Axel Ovregaard, Brent Briscoe (last seen in "Beautiful"), Lew McCreary, Shannon Kies, Madeleine Ignon, David Warshofsky (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Mark Derwin (last seen in. "Everest"), Matt Gerald (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water")

RATING: 4 out of 10 hair samples

Free Birds

Year 16, Day 333 - 11/28/24 - Movie #4,888

BEFORE: Happy Thanksgiving!  We left the city and drove further out to Long Island for a buffet lunch at a mansion in a town called Glen Cove, we tried it out last year and all the food was great, so we came back with better buffet strategies to try to make the most of it.  For me that meant getting a plate full of shrimp from the cold seafood bar, and making sure to get both white AND dark meat turkey, and this time saving room for all the pies - apple, pumpkin and pecan.  The cakes I had no need for, this holiday is really all about the pies, am I right?  

This is the time when we all think about what we're thankful for - and we just got power restored to our home office, it had been out since Election Day when my wife plugged in a space heater.  We didn't have time to get it fixed because we were leaving for a week in North Carolina, so when we got back she had an electrician look at our wiring to figure out what went wrong, and their proposed fix was to re-wire the whole room, without breaking into the walls, which meant creating new molding to hide the new wires, and the price tag came to a few thousand bucks.  Too rich for my blood, I just don't have that kind of money set aside for home repairs right now.  She wanted to dip into our savings, but I suggested getting a second opinion from an electrician that she trusts, and she knows a guy who used to work for her company.  He was able to find the real problem, which was a short in an outlet in the room that holds my comic books, and as soon as he turned off that outlet, the power in the office came back on.  It was a cheap fix that the other electrician couldn't find, and was willing to charge four figures to work around.

So sure, I'm thankful for my wife and what we have together, I'm thankful for family in N.C. and I'm thankful that I'm overworked and not under-employed, but also I'm thankful for honest, capable electricians and second opinions.  I'm thankful that the outlet never caused a spark that would ignite my very flammable comic-book collection, and I'm thankful that we don't have to pay a large repair bill for one faulty outlet. And I"m thankful that the power's back on in my office and I don't have to run a long extension cord to turn my computer on. That's a lot to be thankful for. 

Woody Harrelson carries over from "Champions". 

THE PLOT: A pair of turkeys discover a time machine and decide to use it to travel to the first Thanksgiving, to take turkeys off the menu forever. 

AFTER: Well, I'm not really thankful for confusing, pointless animated films that are aimed at kids and don't make much sense.  Damn, and I usually like time-travel movies, too, but no matter which angle I look at this film from, it just disappoints me. I made it through an hour of this film last night and then fell asleep, and damn, but it was difficult today after the big Thanksgiving lunch to turn it back on, figure out the last thing I remember and finish the damn movie.  

This just feels like a bad idea, and in the movie business, bad ideas usually get killed at the development stage, or MAYBE somebody can step in and change them around and turn them into a good idea, or a passable idea, but it feels like that just didn't happen here.  Somebody somewhere said, "Hey, let's make a movie about time-traveling turkeys, going back to the first Thanksgiving and fighting Pilgrims" and then somebody else said, "Wow, that's a great idea!" instead of properly saying, "Umm, what else can we do instead?"  I just don't get how anyone could sign off on this, it doesn't work as a story, it's not funny, and I don't even see how any young kids would enjoy this.  It doesn't resemble any reality we know, so, umm, how does this even happen?  Can we get someone to show their work here, and explain how they felt this was a good idea?  

OK, so the turkeys are going to talk.  Can the humans understand them?  No?  OK, fine, so the turkeys can only talk to each other, but then, umm, how?  And how do they understand so much about human culture, like how to open doors and how to launch pumpkins with catapults and the big one, how to operate a time machine?  There are massive fundamental issues here that just get ignored in favor of telling a story, in a sense it's like "Godzilla vs. Kong" that just throws all science and reason and logic to the side to tell a story about giant apes living in the center of the Earth. Sure, I get it, reality is boring and fantasy is exciting, and that's the age we live in where something doesn't have to be true to tip the scales in an election, it just has to be said often and loudly to turn public opinion. I live in a nation of dumb people who don't know how to research something or fact-check.  

Case in point - our best historians and scholars tell us that turkey was NOT eaten at the first Thanksgiving, so there goes the whole premise of this movie, out the window.  Instead they ate venison, seafood, corn, beans, squash, nuts and fruits, and sure, "wildfowl".  And who knows, maybe that included turkey, but it wasn't like flipping a switch, like nobody had ever eaten turkeys before, and then suddenly when they wanted to celebrate their harvest they suddenly realized how delicious turkey legs were and they proclaimed that from now on, every November everybody would suddenly have an appetite for turkey breasts.  Things just aren't that simple.  So even if turkeys could talk, even if those talking turkeys could time travel, and even if they could sabotage that first Thanksgiving feast to get turkeys off the table, it's just as likely that the tradition would come back by developing over time.  It's like pointing out that if you could travel back in time and kill baby Hitler, you wouldn't necessarily change anything, because all you'd really do is create a power vacuum in Germany in 1936 that another aspiring dictator-type would fill.  

But still, OK, let's follow the thought through, it still doesn't work because of the paradox involved in time travel.  Reggie the turkey travels back in time and stops that Thanksgiving feast in 1621, and in doing that, he changes the timeline - creating a new reality where turkeys are NOT held in captivity and bred and grown to have enormous breasts and thick, chunky legs.  Mission accomplished, only it's the Reggie FROM that timeline where his whole species is slaughtered who did that, and now the situation that created that Reggie is no longer a problem, so now Reggie DOES NOT travel back in time and fix things, because they don't need to be fixed.  So he did it, but then he didn't do it.  Paradox.  He just created a time loop where the problem is fixed, then not fixed, then fixed, then not.  

I admire the sentiment here, and the attempt to show kids that there's a better way of doing things, and maybe there are a few caring vegetarian kids out there, but then there are probably better ways to entertain those kids than by throwing time-travel into the mix.  Instead of pointing out how bad meat is for you, which those kids CAN understand, the solution here is to create a world of talking time-traveling turkeys who all deserve to live and roam free and not be slaughtered by humans.  That doesn't really track either, because there wouldn't BE so many turkeys alive if humans didn't farm them and breed them and fatten them up.  Same goes for cows and chickens and pigs, if you could snap your fingers and turn 90% of Americans into vegans or vegetarians, the market for cows and pigs and chickens and turkeys would almost disappear, and there would be no need for all those animals to even be born.  Am I crazy about the fact that humans enslave entire species of animals and eat them?  Of course not, but what's the alternative?  I'm not in any position to change Americans' desire to eat meat, that's not my purpose, but it would be a better way to go about things.  I may not support that cause directly, but activists have every right to try to convince people there's a better way to eat.  What most Americans will not respond to, however, is other people telling them what to do.

Some other things that fundamentally don't work here - the fact that America has secret time-machine technology, and a very Bill Clinton-like President is just starting to figure out what to do with it is one thing.  The jump-off for the story here is the annual tradition of the President "pardoning" a turkey, which someone recently pointed out is also a flawed process, because tha turkey didn't do anything wrong, so the term "pardoning" shouldn't even apply.  But sure, it's a fun P.R. opportunity every year - now I once believed that it was completely meaningless, and that the pardoned turkey from each year would probably be consumed the following year, but it turns out they're serious about this, the pardoned turkeys get to go live on a farm or petting zoo in Virginia or Minnesota, and they get to live out the rest of their natural life-span. 

"Free Birds" depicts Reggie, the pardoned turkey, as getting to go live with the President, which is, umm, just not how this process works.  Yes, he's got a young daughter here, and she tries to keep the turkey as a pet, but again, very unrealistic.  Does he live in the White House or at Camp David or something?  And he somehow figures out how to watch TV and order pizzas?  Seriously, WTF?  I guess that's the dream life for a pardoned turkey?  And what's up with the President's daughter?  She just falls asleep at random times, and it feels like the screenwriter just didn't know what to do with her, or was unable to come up with dialogue for her.  OK, let's make her narcoleptic, that will solve all of our problems with her character.

Also, what does it say about Reggie's character, when he was on a crusade to convince all of his fellow turkeys that they were going to be slaughtered, like he was going to lead the Great Turkey Rebellion or something and take down the humans, but then as soon as he got pardoned by the President, screw all of that "change society" crap and just take it easy, right?  How am I supposed to like a self-serving main character like that?  But Reggie's dream life gets spoiled when Jake, a bigger, stronger turkey, kidnaps him and says that he needs his help to save all turkeys, everywhere, by traveling back in time.  Jeez, it's just some weird twisted version of "The Terminator", only for turkeys. The Turk-inator? 

Once these two turkeys team up, it's a lot like "BIll & Ted's Excellent Adventure", at least in some ways.  Near the ending is one of those "Hey, don't forget to leave the keys!" moments, which I saw coming like a mile away.  "The Great Turkey" is the entity who first appeared to Jake and gave him the time-travel mission in the first place, and it's not too hard to figure out the real identity of the Great Turkey.  

It's also a bit confusing that the turkeys from 1621 are depicted in the style of Native Americans - that's a weird bit of cultural appropriation, at the very least.  Other things are just not explained at all, like why are some turkeys colored red and other ones are blue?  Different breeds? Evolution?  Not sure.  And why are the turkey chicks different colors, like pink and yellow and blue?  Nothing here really makes any sense at all.  Are turkeys smart or dumb?  Sometimes they're smart here and sometimes they're dumb, there's no consistency.  Overall this isn't funny, it's not cute, and it doesn't really get to the heart of the problem, which is that the American tradition of celebrating the harvest means that another species gets slaughtered as a result.  I agree that maybe one day we can do better, but the current solutions like tofurkey just aren't going to get us there.  This movie is very much like tofurkey.

I wish I could fit in "Inside Out 2" with Amy Poehler or "Fly Me to the Moon" with Woody Harrelson here, but there are only 12 movie slots left this year, and I know how i need to fill them.  I've reached the part of Movie Year 16 where all of the choices I've made since January are really driving the bus, it's just too late to pick any different roads right now. 

Also starring the voices of Owen Wilson (last seen in "Paint"), Amy Poehler (last seen in "Moxie"), George Takei (last seen in "Butterfly in the Sky"), Colm Meaney (last seen in "Alan Partridge"), Keith David (last seen in "Transporter 2"), Dan Fogler (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Jimmy Hayward (last seen in "Jonah Hex"), Kaitlyn Maher, Carlos Alazraqui (last heard in "Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe"), Jeff Biancalana, Danny Carey (last seen in "Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage"), Carlos Ponce (last seen in "Blue Beetle"), Robert Beltran (last seen in "Eating Raoul"), Lesley Nicol (last seen in "Ghostbusters" (2016)), Jason Finazzo, Scott Mosier (last seen in "Clerks III"), Lauren Bowles (last seen in "Hall Pass"), Dwight Howard.

RATING: 3 out of 10 Spanish soap opera episodes

Champions

Year 16, Day 329 - 11/24/24 - Movie #4,887

BEFORE: I'm back after a 3 and 1/2 week break, and it feels like the whole world changed while I was away. Just me? I've been working a lot, but also we took a week off and drove down to North Carolina so I could see my parents, as we won't see them on Thanksgiving or Christmas.  So a pre-holiday holiday for us before the holidays.  Then when I came back I recorded an audio commentary track for an animated feature I produced that was released in 1998. And now of course it feels very weird that I have NOT watched a movie in three weeks, but if I don't get back on that horse now, then I won't make it to Thanksgiving on time, because I also have to work a screening for a NEW animated feature tomorrow night.  

Did it seem like we went from Halloween RIGHT into the holiday season?  Because there were Christmas commercials airing like the DAY after - like, come on, give me a chance to recover from October before we start with all the gift ideas for mixed-race and gay couples on the TV.  But you know what, my movie linking also agreed that the season is here, because there was ONE film that could get me from my Halloween movie to my Thanksgiving movie in two steps, and that movie is "Champions", as Ernie Hudson carries over from "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire".

Since November is here, I'll post the format breakdown for October: 

12 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Knock at the Cabin, The Forever Purge, The Night House, The Ring, The Ring Two, Black Christmas (2006), Scream (2022), Scream VI, X, Pearl, Ready or Not, Freaky

4 Movies watched on cable (not saved): Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Dorian Gray, The Water Horse, Jennifer's Body

8 watched on Netflix: We Have a Ghost, Army of the Dead, Army of Thieves, The Rental, The Sea Beast, How It Ends (2018), Madame Web, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

2 watched on Hulu: Quasi, Infinity Pool

1 watched in theaters: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

27 TOTAL

And here's the linking that will get me through November AND December - that's right, we're in the final stage now: Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Dwight Yoakam, Frank Whaley, Kevin Dillon, Mel Gibson, Emile Hirsch, Paul Rudd and Paul Giamatti.  There are 13 films left in Movie Year 16 after tonight, but I don't know exactly how many will be in November and how many in December, but you should be able to figure out my three (or four?) Christmas movies from this.  

It's been hard to get back into my normally terrible sleeping rhythm, with the time off from work and also the time ON work, then of course there was an election and let's just say there was some post-election anxiety, drinking and stress-eating.  Since tonight's film is called "Champions" let me take a minute to think about what it means for the future since Trump won a second term.  Naturally, since our country is so divided, no matter who won half of the populace was bound to be disappointed, count me in that half.  But in the days that followed, talking to people and looking for some kind of silver lining, the best I could come up with - and it's not much, I grant you - is that the chances of some kind of Civil War in the U.S. have now been drastically reduced. For the moment, anyway.  I understand the concerns about the economy and immigration and that many people may have been unhappy with the state of the union, however in my book that doesn't justify electing a mad dictator, we've seen what happened in 2016 and in other countries.  You may not be totally happy with the car you're driving, but then by all means, look into buying a new one, however that doesn't justify burning down the entire used car lot. 

Look, I for one blame the media, which gave Trump SO much coverage over the last four years that it felt like he never really went away, and VP Harris only had 101 days to counter with her own campaign. (Then she faced the difficult task of taking credit for Biden's successes, while at the same time pointing out what she would do better, and no doubt she had difficulty threading that needle.  But let me get back to blaming the media.). Covering Trump over the last four years in the news was a CHOICE, the only way to make someone like him go away would be to ignore him, yet there was no cable TV news network willing to do that.  I get it, would you rather lead your newscast with "Biden meets with the premier of Japan to discuss trade agreements" or "Trump claims at rally that windmills in ocean are killing whales".  It doesn't have to be TRUE, it only has to be shocking to get ratings, and while the news constantly reported all of his crazy lies, they were not always reported AS lies. So the lies got repeated and reposted and at some point it didn't matter if things were true or not, and that's how we all got to "The immigrants are eating the pets in Springfield, Ohio" and by then things were just too far gone.  

I spent two hours today clearing weeds from my overgrown city backyard - let me point out that when we bought the house, it had a dirt backyard full of weeds, and also a grape vine and a peach tree.  We had most of the backyard paved over, but we left the peach tree in the back planter alone, and we left a patch of dirt for the grape vine to grow in, because what could possibly go wrong there?  Maybe we'd become the type of people who would give peaches out to our friends and neighbors, or make our own wine or grape jelly or something (it didn't happen).  Instead the grape vine grew and grew each year until it wound its way around the backyard four times over, and every year the ground was full of peaches, grapes and grape seeds, also leaves that clogged the back drain.  Then the vine somehow grew over or under (or possibly through) the house and invaded the planter in the front.  I already spent four hours earlier this month just chopping down the vines in front of the house so the tulips and lovely pink bush will stand a chance next spring.  And every two years or so my cable goes out, and a guy from the cable company has to fight his way through the vines in the backyard to learn that the connection box is covered in vines, and he'll say something like, "Hmm, if I didn't know better, I'd say that it almost looks like the vine was TRYING to disconnect your cable service."  Yeah, that's it exactly, and it's not trying to watch HGTV, it's trying to take over the world, that's what vines DO.  So I have to chop it back every fall or it's lights out for my cable, plus it will cover the house and prevent us from leaving, and we will become servants of The Vine.  

So while I was chopping down vines today, I had some time to think - I'm not one for metaphor, but Trump's influence is a lot like those vines, it was more wide-spread and deep-rooted than almost anyone realized.  Lies also spread and take root unless enough clarity is granted through proper research that proves that they ARE lies, whenever they are spoken.  Again, sometimes the media fact-checked and sometimes they didn't, and as a result we've gone from George Washington, who "could not tell a lie" to Trump, who has done almost nothing but that.  Things don't have to be true, or real, if they're the things you need to say to win an election - and it wasn't always this way, and it doesn't have to be this way.  If a candidate tells a lie, just don't report on it, I know this sounds counter-productive for ratings, but it's really the only answer.  Too late now, I suppose, also nobody tends to listen to me.  

I'm not leaving the country, like where would I even go?  I'll stay and act as part of the silent resistance, which is another way to take down a dictator, undermine him on a daily basis.  And I know we maybe collectively averted a Civil War, but still, there are probably dark days ahead. Time to winterize the house, stock up on canned goods and prepare for what IS to come, whether that's mass deportations or the eventual collapse of the economy, or possibly the next pandemic, all things are possible if the next "basket of deplorables" all make it to cabinet-level positions.  And for all the Trump supporters out there, I want you to be aware that whatever disaster comes in the next four years, you were part of making that happen, and you'll get no sympathy from me when you finally develop buyer's remorse. 

THE PLOT: A former minor-league basketball coach is ordered by the court to manage a team of players with intellectual disabilities.  He soon realizes that despite his doubts, together this team can go further than they ever imagined.  

AFTER: Speaking of threading the needle, tonight's comedy film had a similarly difficult task, which was to find humor in a basketball team full of young adults with learning disabilities, or do we know say "neuro-divergent", because I know you can't say "mentally challenged" any more and that other word is REALLY non-PC, like I don't even say it any more unless I'm making fun of people with Boston accents who are also insensitive and behind the times.  That's the only time it's funny at all, and I know it probably shouldn't be.  The main character here uses the word when he's being sentenced for a DUI, and then of course he finds out the hard way that the judge doesn't appreciate that word at all.  

It's a bit weird that this film was directed by Bobby Farrelly, who got called out for the movie "There's Something About Mary" years ago, and that film had a mentally disabled character that was played by a non-disabled actor (W. Earl Brown).  It also had a physically disabled character that wasn't REALLY disabled, he was just pretending to get sympathy from Mary, and honestly that shouldn't be funny either, but that was back in 1998 and it was kind of a different time, the P.C. culture was just getting started and you could still find humor in disabilities, I guess.  Then in 2005 Johnny Knoxville starred in the movie "The Ringer", in which a non-disabled character pretended to pose as a Special Olympics track star so that he could win money.  While that film featured several actors who had Down syndrome, it also had a couple of non-disabled actors Jed Rees, Geoffrey Arend) playing disabled roles, and well, that probably could have been handled better, too.  But progress happens in stages, perhaps.  

(EDIT: I don't think I'm far off the mark here, in calling out Bobby Farrelly.  A quick trip through his filmography also brings to mind Randy Quaid's simpleton character in "Kingpin", the mentally challenged stars of "Dumb & Dumber", and Jim Carrey's split-personality character in "Me, Myself & Irene".  Throw in "Shallow Hal" and "Stuck on You" and if there's another director who made more comedy out of mental or physical disabilities, I'd be hard-pressed to name one.)

So now it's 20 years after "The Ringer" and it appears that more care was taken this time to cast real actors with intellectual disabilities in the roles of Special Olympians, and look, I don't know whether that made the shoot easier or harder or more authentic or more P.C., it's not for me to say.  I have enough trouble trying to figure out if straight actors playing gay roles (or vice versa) is still OK.  I'm not a casting director, I'm not the P.C. police, I'm not calling for anyone to be cancelled over this, but just maybe Bobby Farrelly learned something since "There's Something About Mary" and if so, that's great.  But also there are so many instances of non-disabled actors playing disabled roles, from Daniel Day-Lewis to Sean Penn to Eddie Redmayne, that really, it's not for me to say.  

Should there be some kind of affirmative action program for disabled people?  I think hiring quotas have kind of fallen out of favor, too, except some films like "Wish" seem to have no problem with them. I'd champion the extra-diverse casting, except for the fact that then I'd wonder why the BEST person for a role can't just be cast, black or white, gay or straight, disabled or not.  I know that some casting directors are just trying to do the right thing.  Years ago I worked hard to get an independent animated feature approved with SAG actors, and realized once all the paperwork was done that we had only hired white actors for the cast - it wasn't intentional or done with malice, it just turned out that all the actors we had contact with were Caucasian.  But then the SAG forms asked me what efforts were taken to foster diversity, and instead of admitting that there were none, I punted and wrote on the form that all of the actors were cast based on the quality of their voice acting skills, and not based on their race. Well, it was true, and the paperwork DID go through, so I felt justified and a little less racist.  These days SAG-AFTRA won't even consider an animated feature for their "low-budget" category, it's just not done any more - so again, that was a different time.  

This is all my way of saying that casting actors with disabilities here is probably the right move, in this culture now it's probably the ONLY move, however, what other problems did this create, because these actors are not necessarily the best in terms of acting ability - BUT on the other hand, some people say that the best acting anyone can do is to not DO any acting at all, but instead to just BE, and acting by definition is being something that you're not.  So whatever else they are here, they are genuine, except for the fact that they are being given lines to say, and they are not improvising, and perhaps therein lies a different problem, because they ONLY know how to be themselves, so to speak, and reading another person's words and pretending is easier for an actor and less easy for a non-actor trying to act instead of trying to just BE.  Does that make sense?  Look, you're in trouble either way, whether or not you cast a disabled actor to play a disabled character, it's just a different kind of trouble.  

Honestly, I'm a little more concerned that this is almost the exact same story-arc as "Next Goal Wins", only soccer is replaced here with basketball and being Samoan is replaced with being intellectually disabled.  Both films feature a disgraced coach who is sent to revitalize a losing team, so really, both films end up following the "Bad News Bears" playbook, if I'm being honest. Hollywood just loves making the same movie over and over again, don't they?  The coach who's famous for his bad manners or bad temper has to go down to the minor leagues, or Little League, or finds himself in Des Moines or American Samoa, whichever.  But it's not until he learns to take the time to treat his team as individuals and come to CARE about them that he can be shown to have success and start to work his way back.  And in both cases, the coach is successful in that he is able to turn this ragtag group of individuals, all with their own problems into a team that has at least a chance to win a game, even though the result may not be what he intended in the first place.  

The American Samoan team got to go to the FIFA World Cup, where they beat Tonga in the qualification match. And here in "Champions" the Friends team gets to go the Special Olympics in Winnipeg, where they face off against a team called the Beasts.  In both cases, success is relative, and in both cases, just making it as far as they did could be counted as a great accomplishment, considering where they started.  Also, both films are considered remakes of other films with the same name, "Next Goal Wins" was adapted from a documentary with the same name, and "Champions" is a remake of a Spanish film from 2018.  So there's a universal sports language at play here, the underdog story is the same all around, so "Champions" and "Next Goal Wins" are not twins, more like identical cousins.  

"Champions" has the advantage here of also depicting a non-romance when the coach finds out that one of his many Tinder hook-ups is also the big sister of one of his players, and even though their initial romantic encounter ended badly, Alex sees Coach Marcus differently when she learns he's been coaching her brother in a helpful and non-judgmental way.  

The film's a little bit too careful, probably because of the P.C. culture, and it's clear that there were script meetings where someone decided that the disabled players could be portrayed as inept, but not stupid, and also that the audience could be made to laugh with them, but not at them.  But then, aren't movies inherently designed to exploit actors?  Other people tell them what to wear, where to stand, what to say and how to say it, and if they don't comply, they don't get paid.  It probably comes from a well-intentioned place, but this movie erred a little too much on the side of letting the actors be themselves and not trying to force them to be something that they're not. But that's what acting is.

Well, the other good news is that the NBA season has started, so watching a basketball movie now is at least seasonally appropriate. I'll be back on Thursday with my Thanksgiving movie. 

Also starring Woody Harrelson (last seen in "Triangle of Sadness"), Kaitlin Olson (last seen in "Leap Year"), Matt Cook (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Cheech Marin (last seen in "Shotgun Wedding"), Madison Tevlin, Joshua Felder, Kevin Iannucci (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Ashton Gunning, Matthew Von Der Ahe, Tom Sinclair, James Day Keith, Alex Hintz, Casey Metcalfe, Bradley Edens, Barbara Pollard, Alexandra Castillo (last seen in "Miss Sloane"), Mike Smith (last seen in "Goon"), Scott Van Pelt (last seen in "Creed II"), Jalen Rose (last seen in "Hoop Dreams"), Alicia Johnston (last seen in "The Ice Road"), Lauren Cochrane (ditto), Seán Cullen (last heard in "The Willoughbys"), Jacob Blair (last seen in "Midway"), Ryan DeLong (last seen in "Flag Day"), Lois Brothers (ditto), Cory Wojcik, Stephanie Sy (last seen in "Nobody"), Joanne Rodriguez (ditto), Alex Hannah, Champ Pederson, Jean-Jacques Javier, Aaron Hughes (last seen in "How It Ends" (2018)), Joanny Zahaiko, Malik Irwin, Heath Vermette, Clint Allen (last seen in "Dumb and Dumber"), Matthew Fletcher, Brian Dobson (last heard in "The Layover")

RATING: 6 out of 10 signature celebration moves