Coach Carter

Year 17, Day 97 - 4/7/25 - Movie #4,989

BEFORE: With movies about sports, I'm usually lucky if I can watch the movie during the appropriate season - like baseball movies should be watched during the summer, football movies during the fall or maybe close to the Super Bowl, and I got really lucky with this one, placing it during the Final Four weekend was unintentional or perhaps intentional on a subconscious level.  Really, it's only right here because it links, and sure, why not skip a viewing day so it lines up with the NCAA Mens basketball championship, which is TONIGHT. Just lucky, right?  Over and over and over. I don't even follow the sport, though it's fun to pretend that I do and claim on Twitter that I was all in on some team that didn't make it out of the first round and complain that my bracket is now shot. Honestly, the only bracket sport we follow in our house is "Tournament of Champions" on Food Network, which echoes the NCAA tournament by putting 32 chefs against each other in paired battles, then 16, 8, 4 and so on down to a champion. And they air this in March/April but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. 

And sure, I know this film is about high-school basketball, not college ball, but still, it's the best I could do without doing any actual planning. I know that Houston beat Duke, and Duke was favored to win it all, but they still have to play the games and all that. Who else is in tonight's game?  Florida?  Well that's a garbage state so I would be rooting for Houston if I were a betting man, but I'm not. I've been to Houston TX and had some good times there. 

Samuel L. Jackson carries over from "The Garfield Movie".  I'm going to be focused on him for the next few days, then he may pop up one more time, and I think after that he could be tied with Liam Neeson for the most appearances this year. 

THE PLOT: Controversy surrounds high school basketball coach Ken Carter after he benches his entire team for breaking their academic contract with him. 

AFTER: Despite watching "Hoop Dreams" just a couple years ago, basketball might be the one of the top four U.S. sports that I know the least about. I probably understand more about curling than basketball, that's just shuffleboard on ice, after all.  This isn't really the best film to watch if you want to learn about techniques and plays and stuff like that, even that film "Champions" from last year got more into alley-oops and passing games and man-on-man defense, because in that film, Woody Harrelson's character was trying to teach these things to some developmentally-challenged - I mean, special needs - teens. So maybe I picked up a little there because the instructions were kind of simplified.  

This film focuses more on push-ups and "suicides", because so much of the film involves the coach levying penalties on his inner-city teen players, because they show up late or they talk back or they just have an attitude problem, and we all know (?) that laps and push-ups are the answer to every discipline problem. And they serve a dual purpose, they not only demonstrate that the coach has dominance over the players, but they're also making the team members stronger.  So the more they talk back, the more they get punished, the more exercise they have to do, and ultimately then they become better athletes, or at least better runners, and half of the game of basketball is running, right?  If I played basketball I'd just wait by one basket and say, "No, no, you guys run down the other end and try to get the ball, I'm just going to wait here so you can pass it to me." You know, trying to conserve my energy, I can only run in short bursts after all. 

This is really just "Welcome Back, Kotter" but for basketball, with a former player returning to his old high school so he can coach the team and maybe also relive some of his glory days.  Ken Carter also runs a sporting goods store, so he really has to take time off from his business or hire someone else to run that while he coaches the team, in exchange for $1500 for four months work, which sounds like low pay, unless this is set back in the 1970s or something. Wait, it takes place in 1997?  Then that pay is really low, that's just above being a volunteer at a high school - the secretaries at the school probably get paid better than the basketball coach, that seems a bit out of whack. 

To instill discipline, Coach Carter makes all his players sign a contract, in which they promise to attend all their classes AND sit in the front row, maintain a certain GPA and a code of conduct, and dress in a tie and jacket on the way to away games.  The school didn't make him do this, he just figured it was best for the team, and anyone who didn't sign it was clearly not a team player, so they were kicked out.  Notoriously when Coach Carter found out some of his players were not going to every class and were not maintaining the right GPA, he locked up the gym and forfeited a game, sending all the players to the library, because he felt that their academic record was just as important as their participation in a sport, if not more.  And he was right, doing well in a sport might get a player into a college, but then they'll still have to take courses at that college, you can't major in basketball.  And what if they don't get into a college, they're going to need other skills and other knowledge then if their basketball career is over. 

Coach Carter's son, Damian, attends a private school, but he opts out of their program and instead chooses to transfer to the public school where his father is coaching, against his own father's advice. Yeah, there might have been some issues there, though perhaps this was the only way he felt Damian felt he could spend more time with his father, or the only way to get his attention. You might think he would be looking for special treatment, but he was actually choosing the harder road, as the coach's son he would probably have to play twice as hard just to prove that he wasn't getting preferential treatment.  While I was in school, my mother was an elementary school music teacher two towns over, and I thank God she didn't teach in our home town, I would have died from embarrassment, and probably would have been LESS likely to participate in chorus or orchestra, not more. 

Naturally, there are problems among the various players, ranging beyond poor attendance and bad grades.  One player's girlfriend is pregnant, but he wants to go to college and continue to play basketball and feels that being a parent might interfere with that.  Another one is suspended and his mother needs to plead for his reinstatement, and another teen who gets cut starts hanging out in a gang, but when his cousin is killed he tries to go back to the team, even though it means doing an impossible number of push-ups.  

There's a great turn-around when, after a few wins, the Richmond team is invited to participate in the BayHill basketball tournament, and things go really well for them.  However, the team chooses to celebrate by going to a house party and indulging in alcohol and sex, as one might expect teens to do. The coach can't believe how quickly the teens got so proud of themselves that they turned to debauchery overnight. Well, technically the contract he made them sign said nothing about sex or alcohol, it was mainly focused on their academic performances.  I guess you can't legislate everything. 

Will this ragtag team made up of formerly undisciplined truants get it together in time to qualify for the state championships?  Well, it's a sports movie so yeah, probably - they don't make true-life sports movies about losing teams, after all.  There are definitely some common formulas used here, it's not too hard to figure out which direction the story's going to be heading in.  Still, we like feel-good stories about underdogs winning, right? 

Directed by Thomas Carter

Also starring Rob Brown (last seen in "Don Jon"), Robert Ri'chard (last seen in "The Comebacks"), Rick Gonzalez (last seen in "The Guilt Trip"), Nana Gbewonyo (last seen in "Gran Torino"), Antwon Tanner, Channing Tatum (last seen in "Dear John"), Ashanti (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Texas Battle (last seen in "Hard Kill"), Denise Dowse (last seen in "Fatale"), Debbi Morgan (last seen in "She's All That"), Mel Winkler (last seen in "A Life Less Ordinary"), Vincent Laresca (last seen in "Devil"), Sidney Faison, Octavia Spencer (last seen in "Allegiant"), Sonya Eddy (last seen in "Year of the Dog"), Gwen McGee (last seen in "Bulletproof"), Ausanta, Adam Clark (last seen in "Domino"), Paul Rae (last seen in "Some Kind of Beautiful"), Adrienne Houghton, Dana Davis (last heard in "Nerdland"), Ray Baker (last seen in "Places in the Heart"), Lacey Beeman (last seen in "Legally Blonde"), Marc McClure (last seen in "Justice League"), Kara Houston, Carl Gilliard (last seen in "Red Eye"), Taryn Myers, Carolina Garcia, Jenny Gago (last seen in "Under Fire"), Ben Weber (last seen in "Gun Shy"), Sylva Kelegian, Derrelle Owens, Terrell Byrd, Floyd Levine (last seen in "Ready to Rumble"), Gregg McMullin, Andy Umberger (last seen in "Dark Skies"), Leonard L. Thomas (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Darin Rossi (last seen in "Superman Returns"), Deon Lewis, Roger Lim, Clara Soyoung with a cameo from Bob Costas (last seen in "Mike Wallace Is Here").

RATING: 6 out of 10 rooms at the Safari Inn

The Garfield Movie

Year 17, Day 95 - 4/5/25 - Movie #4,988

BEFORE: So I've fallen into a routine of enjoying a couple of beers from the beer fridge on Friday nights, usually to take the edge off of a busy stressful week. BUT I've also been working on weekends at the theater here and there, so on some weekends I've had to alter my drinking plans, as oversleeping and not showing up would probably be very bad for keeping that job. This weekend my wife wanted to drive out to Long Island to buy cigarettes and then have lunch and do a bit of shopping, so I moved my beer night from Friday to Saturday, which was fine because I didn't work on Friday and I wasn't on the schedule until Sunday afternoon. So on Saturday, with nothing at stake, I enjoyed a couple strong beers from the Brooklyn Brewery, one was a can of their Black Ops stout, which I purchased during an event there in January, and that beer is 12.4% ABV.  So I knew there was a good chance that beer would knock me out, and possibly interfere with my ability to watch "The Garfield Movie". Or, you know, maybe it would make the film watchable, there was really no way to know except to try it and see what happens...

Ving Rhames carries over from "The Wild Robot". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties" (Movie #1,003)

THE PLOT: After Garfield's unexpected reunion with his long-lost father, ragged alley cat Vic, he and his canine friend Odie are forced from their perfectly pampered lives to join Vic on a risky heist.

AFTER: OK, so I did fall asleep about 30 minutes in to this film, I put only partial blame on the strong beer, an Imperial stout.  I must have been asleep for about 15 minutes, but then I woke up and felt fine, I did have to rewind the film on Netflix and try to determine the last plot point that I remembered, but then I was awake for the rest of the film, and even a few hours after that. (Man, if you thought my sleeping schedule was bad before, just wait, with only the one part-time job and an irregular schedule, it's probably about to get a lot worse.)

I speak tonight as (probably) the only adult male with no kids who has watched BOTH of the previous Garfield films - go ahead, try to find another person who will admit that, I dare you.  Really, I had no problem with Bill Murray as the voice of Garfield, it just FIT somehow, because the character is noted for his sarcastic, detached, above-it-all yet constantly annoyed by everything attitude, and I think Mr. Murray's voice just worked fine for that.  Chris Pratt, I'm really not sold on - he made some kind of push to do a few animated films, I think some actors just want to do voice-work because they perceive it as an easy payday, or maybe they just want to impress their kids, I don't know. But I also wonder if professional voice actors who have spent the majority of their careers in that arena resent the intrusion by top-name Hollywood types who were probably cast just to get an A-list name attached to help sell the film. Look, I've done voice work in movies (that I produced) and almost nobody knows who I am, and honestly, I think I prefer it that way.  Sure I could be putting a reel together and trying to get more jobs doing voice-acting, but man, it sure seems like a lot of work. Maybe it's time to just close that door, I had some success at it and that's fine. Recently I was asked to do commentary on two new Blu-Ray releases for animated features I produced back in 1998 and 2001, still waiting for the recognition for that, however. 

(Meanwhile, I'm getting job notices from Indeed about hotel management jobs and also catering manager jobs, so I get the feeling that Indeed's matrix just doesn't understand my career goals at all...)

Here's the real problem when making a "Garfield" movie - Garfield's personality was designed to appeal to adults, he's fat and lazy and enjoys Italian food and hates Mondays.  He's condescening and rude and hates going to the doctor, these all feel like very adult things. How do you translate that into something that interests kids?  They took the tactic here of depicting him as a small kitten in flashbacks, so yeah, I guess kids might identify more with a kitten than an adult cat, plus he's a kitten who feels like his father abandoned him. OK, that's a bit sad, but maybe a bunch of kids out there can relate, they might either have absent fathers or be afraid of being separated from their parents, or they have foster parents, step-parents and maybe they see themselves in Garfield's situation just a bit.  

But also Garfield is very active in this film, he leaves the house and he goes on a heist, he does a lot of action-oriented stunts and flies drones, he solves problems and takes action, in ways similar to Tom Cruise's character in "Mission: Impossible".  This all kind of goes against his traditional image of being fat, lazy and uninterested in most things - but it does make for a more action-packed movie, I'll concede that point.  Still, it's not the Garfield that many of us grew up with, this is like a whole new character in many ways, and it leads to a story that is so far-fetched and unlikely that it starts out at unbelievable and just continues to get more ridiculous as it wears on.  Honestly I'm more willing to believe in a future robot that gets stranded on an island and learns to communicate with animals than I am to believe in a Garfield who goes on a mission to steal milk from a dairy farm and then battle a gang of stray dogs and cats on a fast-moving train.  

First, though, Garfield manages to connect with that stray cat father of his, and I don't think that the comic strip has depicted a father for Garfield in all the 87 years that the strip has been published on a daily basis.  OK, but the strip has probably explored every other possible thing for Garfield to do or say, so I'm guessing the cartoonist ran out of ideas about 20 years ago, or longer.  That's really the best thing I can say about this film, somebody really thought outside the (litter) box and said, we need to get this cat out of the house and up on his feet, and turn him into an action hero, as unlikely as that sounds.  Vic seems to be the leader of this weird gang of stray cats and dogs at first, but then the real leader is revealed, a female cat named Jinx, who wants Vic and his son to steal milk from that dairy farm, in return for the years she spent in the animal shelter after she got caught during a previous heist. 

So Garfield, Vic, and for some reason the mute dog, Odie, jump on a train and head out to the dairy, and the next morning Jon, Garfield's owner, notices that his two pets are gone, so he checks the whole house (but not outside?) and then calls Find-a-Pet and proceeds to spend the next three days on hold. Is this believable? Like, if I lost my cat I wouldn't call some service, I would run outside and start checking the neighborhood. Just saying.  But the writer didn't seem interested in doing anything with this character at all, so sure, by all means, let's have him on the phone for almost the rest of the film. 

The heist crew gets more than they bargained for when they learn how difficult it's going to be to break in to the super-high-tech dairy, but outside they meet Otto, the dairy's bull mascot, who has been separated from his wife, a cow named Ethel.  Their plans dovetail rather neatly, as Otto knows the dairy farm inside out, so the plans are made to break in, rescue Ethel and also leave with a truck full of milk to deliver to Jinx.  This is where the film starts to resemble a "Mission: Impossible" mission, and Ving Rhames as the voice of the planner sending instructions by acorn radio to the agents inside really drives that point home.  

NITPICK POINT: Meanwhile the screenwriters prove that they have ZERO idea how a dairy works, because it's all cartoon-like high-tech conveyor belts and moving platforms. Really, a dairy might make cheese and butter, but it would not make fondue in giant crocks, that makes no sense.  Fondue is something that a restaurant makes or a person might make at home with cheese.  Also I'm pretty sure that a dairy wouldn't slice its cheese with an array of cleavers held by robotic hands, that's all very "Looney Tunes" and just seems very weird.  The whole interior of the dairy looks like some kind of nuclear reactor or a missile command center, not believable at all.  Giant six-foot blocks of cheese on hooks, moving from room to room.  Believe me, I've seen how cheese is made, and guaranteed it doesn't involve this much action. Curdling and fermenting are very non-cinematic processes, though, still you can't just make a dairy work however you need it to work. Stupid animators and their lack of knowledge about mechanical devices...

The whole film just feels like it's firing in all directions, hoping to get lucky and score a hit, or at least come close.  Probably a whole team of screenwriters with no idea about how anything works in the real world just made a bunch of stuff up, with the goal of making kids want to work in a cool high-tech dairy one day?  I guess the world really needs dairy farmers or something?  

Still, I guess you can't argue with success, this film cost $60 million to make and took in $257 million worldwide, so that probably means that more Garfield films are on the way.  It would be great if they made a little more sense, but apparently kids aren't that picky about such things. Stupid plot points may bother adult people more easily.  

Directed by Mark Dindal (director of "The Emperor's New Groove" and "Chicken Little")

Also starring the voices of Chris Pratt (last seen in "Jennifer's Body"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Basic"), Hannah Waddingham (last seen in "The Hustle"), Nicholas Hoult (last seen in "The Menu"), Cecily Strong (last seen in "The Bronze"), Harvey Guillen (last heard in "Wish"), Brett Goldstein (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder"), Bowen Yang (last seen in "Bros"), Snoop Dogg (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Janelle James, Angus Cloud, Jeff Foxworthy (last heard in "The Fox and the Hound 2"), Eugenia Caruso (last seen in "The Witches"), Luke Cinque-White, Dev Joshi, Chana Keefer, Mark Keefer, Edward Montgomery, Mark Dindal (last heard in "The Emperor's New Groove"), Cameron Bernard Jones, Darren Foreman, Timothy Quinlan, Matt Rippy (last seen in "American Assassin"), Alicia Grace Turrell, Eric Loren (last seen in "Memphis Belle"), Melli Bond, Lynsey Murrell, Hannah Felix. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 squares of lasagna in a to-go box

The Wild Robot

Year 17, Day 94 - 4/4/25 - Movie #4,987

BEFORE: I almost never do this - I think I've maybe done this once or twice in almost 5,000 reviews, but tonight I'm going to watch a short film before the main feature.  This used to be common practice in the world of cinema, any film, even the most serious ones, was likely preceded by animated or slapstick short, in order to maximize perceived entertainment value during tough economic times.  So, since we're reportedly on the verge of another recession (or even a Depression) thanks to you-know-who and his unexplainable obsession with tariffs, I'm going to double-up my review of "The Wild Robot" by first watching "Strange Way of Life", a short that's somehow made it to Netflix (although, it's marked as "leaving soon"), and it also stars Pedro Pascal, who's carrying over from "Gladiator II" and will also be in tonight's main feature. Ethan Hawke is also in the short, but I need not mention the rest of the cast, because as per the rules of the blog, appearing in a short film will NOT count in the year-end stats - so Mr. Pascal would still need a third appearance in a FEATURE film to chart for the year.  Mr. Hawke was in "Maudie", sure, but would still need TWO more features to chart. 

But the director of the short film is Pedro Almovodar, last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and I've only seen one other film to date directed by him, "Volver".  However, I've got two mother-based films directed by him that would make a GREAT double-feature for Mother's Day, if I can swing my chain that way. We'll see. 

"Strange Way of Life" is just 30 minutes long, and in that time a couple of cowboys reunite after one rides across the desert.  They were lovers once, and they become lovers again, but this one still gets filed in the "It's Complicated" section. For starters, it's a bit tough to say whether this film is set in modern times, or the 1800's. Based on the outer fashions, I'd say it's a modern film, but based on what I know about men's underwear, I'd say the 1800's.  And then there are parts of the film where clothing's not involved at all, if you take my meaning.  

Jake is now the sheriff of a small Western town, and what makes his relationship with ex-lover Silva even more complicated is that Silva's son is a suspect in the murder of Jake's brother's widow.  So Jake is personally invested in catching his sister-in-law's killer, only he's being protected by Silva.  This leads to a Tarantino-like Mexican stand-off, and each man has conflicting motives, to say the least. Plus, whatever happened to their dream of owning a ranch together and just living quietly together?  More to the point, if one of them shoots the other, what happens to that dream, is it still possible?  

I'd say 30 minutes is just about right for this one, any longer and there just wouldn't have been enough story to fill up the space, and if it were any shorter, well then we wouldn't get to feel all the feels and fully understand the conflicts when your lover is also the father of your murder suspect.  Most of the questions are answered by the end, except maybe the one about "what the hell do we do with this short film about gay cowboys, now that we made it"?  Yeah, I know that can be a terrible conundrum, and I speak from personal experience in the world of animated shorts. 

It's a shame, really, because I do usually have a "Best Western" category at the end of the year, only last year there were NO qualifying entries - it appears I may have watched them all?  That can't be possible. Anyway, shorts are not eligible for my annual awards ceremony, sorry about that. OK, now Pedro Pascal carries over again to my main feature, speaking of animation.  If I have more time in the future, I can include more shorts to precede other features, provided they don't interrupt my chain. 

THE PLOT: After a shipwreck, an intelligent robot called Roz is stranded on an uninhabited island. To survive the harsh environment, Roz bonds with the island's animals and cares for an orphaned baby goose. 

AFTER: Hey, remember in January when I watched three movies with Catherine O'Hara, but I didn't have room for four?  I was bummed because the Oscars were coming up and I could have squeezed in one more contender for Best Animated Feature, only I chose not to.  Well, that was the right decision because if I'd done that then, I wouldn't be able to use that film to link out of "Gladiator II" and continue on my way. Good call. 

I will admit I avoided this "Wild Robot" film at first, because I thought it sounded too much like a clone of "WALL-E", I mean, stranded robot, maybe no dialogue, challenging problems, set in the future, you get that, right?  But this is its own film, maybe there's a similar starting point but then it goes into a VERY different direction, it's mostly about animals and how they might interact with a robot, or regard it as a "monster" when it's anything but.  It would be very easy here to regard the robot as a stand-in for a human, but it's not that at all - unfortunately it also falls into the Disney trap of giving animals the power of human speech, and I just think we're never really going to understand animals at all if this is our go-to.  They are NOT humans and we probably shouldn't make them talk like humans, because in doing so we're simultaneously giving them too much credit and also somehow selling them short, they know a lot about surviving outdoors and we humans, not so much. 

I think the robot here (and the world it comes from) represents artificial intelligence, and it's clear that animators HATE A.I. - probably because they know it's coming for their jobs, we're really not that far away from somebody at Disney or Pixar being able to say, "Movie about tiger cubs lost in the wild and the monsoon season is approaching, also there are tiger hunters and story has to resonate emotionally with both kids and parents" and then in no time at all, the A.I. has written a script, replicated the voices of Emma Stone and Leonardo DiCaprio, and the whole thing will be animated by lunchtime.  There, if any animators read this paragraph, good luck getting to sleep tonight, your whole career is coming to an end. 

In this futuristic movie, humans live in giant cities under geodesic domes, so we can assume that maybe climate change was a thing and the earth's environment is broken.  But each family of five gets a robot that does all the menial chores like watching the kids and getting groceries from the hydroponic farms, probably in the future everyone is vegetarian after all because there's no space for cattle farms or chicken ranches. Nobody goes "outside" because it's too dangerous, and certain no humans travel to this remote island where the shipment of robots washes ashore. I'm down with all this, it could happen.  The water level on Earth is eventually revealed to be OVER the roadway of the Golden Gate Bridge, so yeah, that's probably due to the melting of the icecaps. 

Anyway, if there were people in this film, then the robot would have its regular tasks to do for human clients, but bereft of them, it creates tasks to do while it tries its best to understand the natural world around it, keeping busy until it can transmit a message to home base for pick-up. Quickly learning the language of animals is a bit of a cheat here, but it's the only thing that could advance the plot and allow Roz to communicate with the other characters.  Roz watches a gosling hatch and a helpful fox tells her that the chick needs to learn to eat, swim and fly away before winter comes. (Yes, as summers get hotter due to climate change, the winters also get more severe, I think we've seen that taking place already.)

But by "mothering" the gosling, Roz also prevents it from developing normally, she is also unable to detach her protective instincts to allow the gosling to truly learn to swim or fly on its own.  Yes, there are lessons here for parents - in teaching your child to swim, you can either use the "throw the kid in the water" method, which is cruel but perhaps effective, however there is a chance your kid may drown if you're too detached.  Or you can try baby steps, getting that kid in the water and teaching them to blow bubbles, swim with floaties, and if their progress is slow, that's OK, champ, there's no rush, you can try again next summer.  While I disagree with method #1, I'm a victim of method #2 in that I was given freedom to learn swimming at my own pace, which means I never really succeeded at it. So I don't know, I don't think either method works well, probably the secret is parental support and positive reinforcement, which probably explains why I can't swim - my father was probably a "throw them in the water and whatever happens, happens" type, only my mother was in charge of me learning to swim, hence the failure, as she never learned either. 

Flying is another issue, and Roz enlists the help of an owl who lives on the island, he also has shorter wings so he can advise the gosling better, and OK, great, practice makes perfect and success is eventually achieved, Brightwing is eventually accepted into the goose community, but not before a fair amount of bullying from other geese and THANK GOD for once the answer to combat bullying is not to fight back, but to keep being yourself and keep taking the high road, prove yourself by being above it all and don't stoop to the bullies' level.  

Another lesson comes during a winter storm, when Roz works with Fink, her fox friend, to find the freezing animals across the island and bring them to the shelter she built, convincing them to put aside their differences and their proclivities to eat each other so they can ALL survive until springtime.  This defies the natural order of things, certainly, but a message of peace is certainly welcome during these troubled times, as unlikely as it might seem.  

NITPICK POINT: The robot's I.D. number is 7134, which is a number that forms a word on calculators, and that word (upside-down) is "Heil". Supposedly meaning "whole" here, there's an obvious Nazi reference here, too, I would have avoided that just to be on the safe side.  

Directed by Chris Sanders (director of "The Call of the Wild" and "The Croods")

Also starring the voices of Lupita Nyong'o (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Kit Connor (last seen in "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"), Bill Nighy (last seen in "Their Finest"), Stephanie Hsu (last heard in "Leo"), Matt Berry (last seen in "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn"), Ving Rhames (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One"), Mark Hamill (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Game 6"), Boone Storm, Alexandra Novelle, Raphael Alejandro (last seen in "Jungle Cruise"), Paul-Mikel Williams (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Eddie Park, Dee Bradley Baker (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3"), Randy Thom (last heard in "Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken"), Avrielle Corti, Keston John (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Max Mittelman (last heard in "The Sea Beast"), Piotr Michael (last heard in "Bill & Ted Face the Music"), Tiago Martinez, Collin Erker

RATING: 7 out of 10 things that a baby opossum can pretend to die from

Gladiator II

Year 17, Day 93 - 4/3/25 - Movie #4,986

BEFORE: I've fallen a bit behind on posting because I had to work TWO late nights at the theater already this week, on tent watch, which means standing outside and keeping an eye on the press tent as it's being built, or being taken down, or when it's full of stars walking the red carpet. We had one TV series premiere on Monday and another on Wednesday, which meant I was just feet away from stars like Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, Michelle Williams and Jenny Slate.  Umm, those are the stars of both series, those people are not all on the same show - the shows were "Mobland" and "Dying for Sex".  Last night I had to stay while the whole big press tent came down, and it's held in place by these big concrete blocks that also needed to be loaded in a truck after the event, and then all these metal barricades had to be stacked up. But I didn't have to DO any of this work, just watch other people do it and make sure that the barricades keep passersby out of the work zone, so it's fairly easy work over long hours, which is exactly what I need right now.  Time to stand around and watch things happen and think about choices I've made...

Connie Nielsen carries over from "Basic" and I COULD drop this film and the next one, and the chain would close up the gap, but that would throw off my numbering system and a different film would then be Big Movie 5,000 - plus, I really want to SEE "Gladiator II", so dropping it and tomorrow's film wouldn't make much sense. So let's stay up late on a Thursday night and knock this one out. Damn, I wish I could have sent a Birthday SHOUT-out to Pedro Pascal, born April 2, 1975 - but I'm one day late. Well, if you see him, please send him my best wishes anyway. 

THE PLOT: After his homeland is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum and must look to his past to find strength to return the glory of Rome to its people. 

AFTER: OK, I'm determined to catch up this weekend - I don't have to work again until Sunday afternoon. Normally I'd drink a couple beers after coming home on Friday, but I want to stay up tonight and watch TWO animated movies, and that should bring me back up to speed. Right now it's Friday and I still haven't posted my Thursday review, that's no bueno.  I throw myself on the mercy of the court, as I was out late TWICE this week on tent duty, and today I had to go in for my last (?) day at the animation studio.  That's it, 31 years in, here's your hat, thanks for balancing the checkbook and cutting payroll checks one more time. They'll be lucky to stay in business six more months without me, I think - that place is a sinking ship. 

SPOILER ALERT - turn back NOW if you haven't seen "Gladiator II" just yet.

Speaking of ships, this movie's got them - Roman warships, ones that can attack a walled city from the sea. Ships with towers on them, so soldiers can climb up and get over the walls of a city and then get inside. For the glory of the Empire!  Also, ships that can sail INSIDE the Colosseum, and re-enact famous naval battles from the first century A.D. - which is great, because those who forget about history are condemned to repeat it. And isn't THAT what sequels are all about, repeating what came before?  If you remember the acclaimed movie "Gladiator" from the year 2000, well, this is more of that.  You may want to re-watch that one so you know who the players are in this film, set 16 years later.  But the only actors that carry over are Connie Nielsen as minor Empress Lucilla and Derek Jacobi as Senator Gracchus.  Jacobi was also famously in the PBS miniseries "I, Claudius" years ago, and has also done many Shakespeare plays, so at this point he probably shows up on set with his own togas. 

But that first "Gladiator" film was all about a disgraced general who had a falling-out with Rome's Emperor, and as a result he became a slave and then a gladiator, but one who tried to work his way out of the Colosseum and buy or win his freedom back. I guess there's a way to do this, if you stay alive long enough, or maybe it's just a line of B.S. they gave the slaves to keep them motivated.  But this is a totally different film, because it's about a disgraced son of the empress who had a falling-out with Rome's emperor, and as a result became a slave and then a gladiator, but one who tried to work his way up and buy or win his freedom back. See? Totally different. 

We actually don't know Hanno's background when we first meet him, in the faraway province of Numidia - or is it Humidia? It looks humid there. The Roman ships, led by General Acacius, attack Humidia and kill almost everyone, including Hanno's sort-of wife, who's a prominent archer.  Hanno and the rest of the survivors are shipped back to Rome to become slaves or gladiators or maybe extras in a gladiator film.  It's good honest work if you can get it. The Romans make them fight baboons in Ostia to see if they're ready for the big leagues, and I guess those that aren't ready get consumed by the baboons. Hanno bites the baboon, so the stable master Macrinus buys him for the gladiator games, and offers him the opportunity to kill General Acacius if he plays his cards right. 

The General just wants some time off, man, maybe a quick vacay with his wife, Lucilla (who again, is Marcus Aurelius' daughter and one of the only characters carrying over from the first film) but no, the two Emperors, Geta and Caracalla want to send him RIGHT back out to conquer Persia and India, right after the gladiator games held to celebrate his conquering Numidia, of course. Hanno wins a warm-up bout at a party and recites a verse from Virgil, the poet, which reveals that he has an educated background.  Hmmmmmm.......

Meanwhile, General Acacius and his wife, Lucilla, are conspiring with Senators to overthrow the two emperors (who look like Ron Weasley's older brothers if they got really sick) and I guess give the throne to Lucilla.  Great, good luck with that, let me know how that goes.  And meanwhile, Hanno is doing great in the gladiator fights, calling to mind another gladiator who did really well there, right up until he died, now what was his name again... Maximus, right?  Hmmmmmm.........

Lucilla watches Hanno fight and also recite that poetry again, and realizes that Hanno is really her lost son, Lucius, which surprises absolutely nobody, and for once, not even me.  But what's more surprising is that Maximus is really his father, who once had a thing going with Lucilla - but everyone naturally assumed that the father of Lucilla's son was her brother, the Emperor Commodus.  Yeah, you read that right.  Ewwww.....what a relief to learn that she had a relationship with someone other than her brother.  Well, it was a different time. 

Hanno/Lucius finds a shrine with Maximus' armor and shield in it, and now he really starts to look like his father.  Macrinus, who's kind of like the "Don King" of ancient Rome, sets up the match between Lucius and Acacius, who's kind of like his stepfather. How ironic that the man Lucius came to Rome to kill would turn out to be sleeping with his mother.  They have a gladiator fight and Lucius wins, but he can't bring himself to kill Acacius, so the Emperors do it for him.  

Macrinus also turns the emperor brothers against each other, he convinces the smaller, weaker one to kill the larger, stronger one, but honestly neither of them look like they'd be very good in a fight.  Too much inbreeding I guess, they both looked pale and sickly, better to let them kill each other with a couple plans within plans.  This is Rome, there aren't really elections but the throne tends to go to those bold enough to take it.  Geta becomes the Emperor and names his pet monkey as his VP, and Macrinus as the secretary of state or something. 

Macrinus isn't done yet, not by a long shot - he convinces the Senate to put him in charge of the Praetorian Guard, then arranges the public execution of Lucilla, hoping that this will start a riot in the streets, which would be enough for the Senate to depose the Emperor, and if Lucilla's also out of the way, then Macrinus becomes the best candidate to sit on the throne. Oh, there's a riot all right, but it's a riot of gladiators revolting against their keepers, I mean, come on, there's a lot of weapons just lying around, this feels a bit like a no-brainer, right? 

Lucius sends word for General Acacius's legions to approach from the port of Ostia, and the Praetorian Guard heads out from the city, and so the armies meet just in time to see Lucius and Macrinus battle to the death.  This gives Lucius the perfect opportunity to reveal his lineage and unite all the armies behind him.  Sure it's a bit corny, but this movie really swung big to try to tell an epic story.  

Hey, remember when this movie got released last year, on the same weekend as "Wicked"? People were hoping for another "Barbie/Oppenheimer" thing but it just didn't really come together.  I think maybe the two movies were so different that it would be hard to find people who wanted to see both the musical fantasy AND the gladiator film together.  Maybe there were a few people interested in both, but then they couldn't decide whether to call that "Gla-Dicked" or "Wadiator", so they really just called the whole thing off.  Then "Gladiator II" got nominated for just one Oscar, which it did not win, and "Wicked" won at least two of them.

Directed by Ridley Scott (director of "Napoleon")

Also starring Paul Mescal (last seen in "The Last Daughter"), Denzel Washington (last seen in "The Little Things"), Pedro Pascal (last seen in "Drive-Away Dolls"), Joseph Quinn (last seen in "Overlord"), Fred Hechinger (last seen in "News of the World"), Lior Raz (last seen in "Operation Finale"), Derek Jacobi (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Peter Mensah (last seen in "300: Rise of an Empire"), Matt Lucas (last seen in "Wonka"), Alexander Karim (last seen in "Dying of the Light"), Yuval Gonen, Richard McCabe (last seen in "Napoleon"), Riana Duce (ditto), Tim McInnerny (last seen in "The Aeronauts"), Alec Utgoff (last seen in "Mortdecai"), Rory McCann (last seen in "Slow West"), Yann Gael, Alfie Tempest (last heard in "Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio"), Amira Ghazalla (last seen in "The Rhythm Section"), Richard Katz (last seen in "Guardians of the Galaxy"), David Ganly (last seen in "Body of Lies"), Hadrian Howard, Lee Charles, Chris Hallaways, Chi Lewis-Parry, Angel Gomez de la Torre, Tom Moutchi (last seen in "The Hustle"), Dean Fagan, May Calamawy (last seen in "Together Together")

with archive footage of Russell Crowe (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder"), Spencer Treat Clark (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story")

RATING: 7 out of 10 tiger sharks (yeah, that happened)

Basic

Year 17, Day 92 - 4/2/25 - Movie #4,985

BEFORE: John Travolta carries over again from "Gotti", and there are a lot of Samuel L. Jackson movies coming up - one now, and the rest to follow shortly.  But my reason for separating this one from the herd will make more sense tomorrow, a chance to work in a VERY big movie from late last year.  

This one looked like it was on AmazonPrime, and so that was the plan for last night, but I signed on only to find out that it was only available there for an extra fee, and that's no bueno, I'm not giving Amazon any more money than they get from my wife's Prime subscription. OK, it's not airing on cable either, so it's back upstairs to find out if it's streaming anywhere, which it apparently is not.  So I could rent it from YouTube, but I don't really want to give that corporation any more money, either - AND my fave pirate site is down, maybe the copyright police finally caught up with them.  OK, let me give iTunes another try, it didn't connect last time I tried, and I got the feeling maybe Apple shut down movie rentals on iTunes, probably because I was the last person using that service. Well, it worked, and I think I'd rather give my $4 to Apple than to YouTube/Google or Amazon.  I really have to think about which mega-corporation I fund, because that should make a difference in the long run, what with the looming recession and all. I guess iTunes is my safety net once again, if all else fails and I can't find a specific movie anywhere else, there's always iTunes, as long as my outdated computer will connect with it. 

Oh, and there's an accidental Birthday SHOUT-out today, going out to actress Roselyn Sanchez, born April 2, 1973, she plays a soldier named Nuñez in today's film. 

THE PLOT: D.E.A. Agent Tom Hardy investigates the disappearance of Army Ranger drill sergeant Nathan West and several of his cadets during a training exercise gone severely awry at Fort Clayton. 

AFTER: It's a bit of a "Pulp Fiction" reunion tonight, with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson working together again. Just last night on TMZ, I saw the recent footage of Travolta eating at a fancy steakhouse that serves their wagyu steak in a briefcase with a glowing light emanating from it, just like the mystery case in the film. So you know somebody worked very hard to set up that photo op with Mr. Travolta - I guess "Pulp Fiction" will just always be in vogue.  

I had a lot of trouble staying awake for this one - never a good sign.  And I was at my desk upstairs, watching it on iTunes - it SHOULD be harder for me to fall asleep sitting at a desk than it is while laying on a couch or on a bed.  But this is where we find ourselves, maybe because I worked in the same office for 31 years, I developed a tendency to fall asleep at a desk? That sounds bad. But perhaps I'm only partly to blame this time, this film was VERY hard to follow, because as the movie went on, there were several different re-enactments of the events being investigated, and the actions and perpetrators changed slightly each time.  Look, I get it, somebody loves "Rashomon", but still, we're re-hashing the same thing over and over again here, sure it's a little different each time, based on who's telling the story, but still, this is how boredom creeps in.  

I can't even really get into the details here, because that would give too much away, plus as I just stated, the details keep changing every time, so it's kind of like "A Few Good Men" crossed with "The Usual Suspects", and we're just not going to find out what REALLY went down until the very end. So, umm, why are we wasting everyone's time with five different versions of things, why can't we just skip right to the end?  Please?  

The best number of twist endings to have in a movie is probably ONE, provided it's a good one.  To keep having twists throughout the film, or letting five of them build up close to the end, that's not a good idea because the audience is then going to feel tricked, or perhaps that nothing is real after all once every little element of the story they were told before then turns out to not be true by the end. So there's very little chance to find footing here, and then after the biggest reveal at all, if you go back and think about some of the smaller plot points made in the beginning, well they don't really make sense at all, considering what got revealed at the end.  And then the plot is at crossed purposes with itself, and what the hell is reality, anyway, is ANYTHING really real?  

All we really know at first is that there was a military training exercise in the Panama jungle, a team of future army rangers led by master sergeant Nathan West, and somehow nearly everyone on the mission died or disappeared, except for Sgt. Dunbar, who came back to the base carrying the wounded Lt. Kendall.  A third man, Sgt. Mueller, follows them out of the jungle, but Dunbar kills him in self-defense.  

Military police investigator Capt. Julia Osborne interviews Dunbar, but he refuses to reveal anything about what happened, and will only talk to a fellow Army Ranger from outside the base. So the post commander calls in a DEA agent, Tom Hardy, who used to be an Army Ranger, and also trained under the missing Sergeant West.  Together Hardy and Osborne interview both the un-talkative Sgt. Dunbar and also the very talkative injured Lt. Kendall. From these men's stories, they start to piece together a chain of events that might explain why the men in these units might have killed their Master Sergeant (who was a tough bastard, sure, but aren't all military drill instructors?) or killed each other.  However, things just don't have a tendency to line up, and the story keeps changing every time someone tells or re-tells it. 

What does it all have to do with shipments of cocaine out of Panama, drug cocktails being given to soldiers who are exhausted from training exercises, and how far up the chain of command does the conspiracy go?  No spoilers here, but be prepared for a bunch of twists and turns in this story, and don't believe anything you see at first, especially in the flashbacks, which could turn out to contain false information, intentional or not. Me, I don't really like being "tricked" by a movie, so I have to factor that in to my scoring system.  

Directed by John McTiernan (director of "Medicine Man" and "Rollerball" (2002))

Also starring Connie Nielsen (last seen in "3 Days to Kill"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "The Marvels"), Tim Daly (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Giovanni Ribisi (last seen in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Brian Van Holt (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Taye Diggs (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Dash Mihok (last seen in "A Million Little Pieces"), Cristian de la Fuente, Roselyn Sanchez, Harry Connick Jr. (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Georgia Hausserman, Margaret Travolta (last seen in "Mercury Rising"), Nick Loren (also carrying over from "Gotti"), Cliff Fleming (last seen in "Jupiter Ascending"), Tait Ruppert, Timothy S. Wester. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 bullet holes in the roof

Gotti

Year 17, Day 91 - 4/1/25 - Movie #4,984

BEFORE: John Travolta carries over from "From Paris with Love" and here are the links that will get me to Easter: Connie Nielsen, Pedro Pascal, Ving Rhames, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Rapaport, Kevin Carroll, Roger Guenveur Smith, Carol Sutton, Jason Davis, and Tiffany Haddish.  That's only enough to reach 4/20, which is Easter, but I WILL reach Big Movie 5,000 sometime before that. I'll have to take some time in a week or so and figure out some connections to get to something for Mother's Day. 

THE PLOT: The story of crime boss John Gotti and his son. 

AFTER: The days are longer now, I'm at home more often because I'm skipping out on one job, I won't exactly say I'm doing the trendy "revenge quitting" thing, but at least I know what it feels like.  And hopefully the old boss knows now how valuable I was, even if he didn't realize it at the time, he might be starting to get some idea.  Soon payroll deposits will be late, insurance policies could be cancelled, and fines and penalties will start to increase, those are the sort of things I was keeping an eye on.  Oh, sure, sometimes I paid the withholding taxes late, but at least I made sure they were all paid eventually, and nobody left at the studio knows how to do that.  He asked me to teach "accounting" to someone else before I left, but that stuff took me YEARS to learn, especially payroll, and I told him I simply could not teach it to someone else in an afternoon, such a thing was impossible.  Am I a bad person for not training my replacement?  With 31 years at that job, with me taking on new responsibilities again and again, I thought I was making myself irreplaceable, and maybe I was doing that, my mistake appears to be not telling the boss how irreplaceable I was.  Eh, he never listens to me anyway, so really, not my fault, because it's not my company - I was just a hired hand for 31 years. Do we blame the navigator when the ship runs aground, or the captain for not listening to him? 

Anyway, it's a bit weird that this film falls on today's schedule, not because it's April Fool's Day but because today I was also dubbing "Oppenheimer" to DVD, so I'll always have a back-up copy if I should want to watch it and it's not available on cable or streaming. I know, it's silly because maybe 98% of all movies ever made are streaming or being broadcast somewhere, somehow, but still, I like the security of having a copy if I want to re-watch it, which I probably never will. Who even has time to watch a movie a second time if so many new movies are always being released?  Maybe when I'm officially retired and have even more free time (if that ever happens) I can re-watch all the movies I have on DVD before the final curtain. But let me try to stop being morose for a second. 

The connection between "Oppenheimer" is that they both use the same non-linear storytelling format, or "time-jumping" in laymen's terms.  What's odd is that "Oppenheimer" is generally regarded as a "good" movie, it did win the Best Picture Oscar after all, while "Gotti" did not win that award, and was instead nominated for several Golden Raspberry rewards, making it a "bad" movie, though I realize these terms are subjective and open to interpretation, and if you prefer "Gotti" over "Oppenheimer", well, who am I to judge, except that you're very wrong and I'm very right.  Now I will admit that there may have been some kind of point to letting Mr. Oppenheimer's bio-pic spool out in three different eras, and then jumping between the eras as they each advanced forward, so it wasn't completely random, the film was just portraying three different parts of his life mixed together, and the scenes from each era were in proper narrative order, only mixed with the other two timelines in order to create some kind of deeper meaning through juxtapositioning. (OK, OK, at some point I will re-watch "Oppenheimer", it's just not even my favorite Christopher Nolan film, both "Tenet" and his Dark Knight trilogy are way better, IMHO.). "Gotti", on the other hand, seems to prefer to present all of its scenes in random order, which suggests that the film just wasn't working as a linear narrative, and the director or editor instead decided to just cut the raw footage into scene-long strips, throw them all up in the air and then edit the segments together as they were picked up off the floor. Don't say it isn't possible...

But as a result, there is no deeper meaning created here, you will not gain any particular insight, intended or unintended, by viewing this movie's scenes in the order they are presented to us.  There's a scene from Gotti's later life, when he's incarcerated and stricken with cancer, and this could be followed by a scene from earlier in his mob career, when he's in jail for three years and being waited on hand and foot by corrupt prison guards.  One minute he's uniting the five families, the next he's grieving the loss of his 12-year old son after a car accident.  A lot of things happen, but given the randomness of it all, it's impossible to create a workable timeline to organize them all, or determine any reason for THIS event to be seen after THAT event, and before THAT OTHER one.  Why, why, why?  What information was I supposed to learn about the man that I missed because somebody else couldn't be counted on to organize it all properly?  

I knew I was in trouble as soon as I saw the opening vanity logo from EFO, that's Emmett Furia Oasis Films, and this production company made a whole bunch of those cheapo Bruce Willis action movies I watched a few years ago, like "First Kill" and "Hard Kill" and "Reprisal" and "Extraction".  The company made a few non-Bruce Willis films like "Empire State", "The Frozen Ground" and "Force of Nature", but before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2018, they seemed to follow a business plan focused on quantity rather than quality, because why make one "Escape Plan" movie when you can make three?  I guess I shouldn't be too hard on them, because they did release "16 Blocks" and "End of Watch", but those will only get you so far, and their company should be judged by its entire output, which is probably 75% schlocky action movies. 

What's worse about "Gotti" is that it fills the movie with mobster characters that did exist and we have heard about - like Vincent "The Chin" Gigante, Paul Castellano and Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.  However, there's no time spent getting to know any of these real-life characters, obviously they wanted to focus on John Gotti, but then why mention all those other people at all?  Gigante was known for wandering around Greenwich Village in his bathrobe and slipper, in an apparent attempt to make everyone believe he was mentally impaired, and thus not mentally fit to stand trial for racketeering charges in 1990.  It wasn't until 2003 that he admitted he was only pretending to be crazy - but damn it, THERE'S a movie, right there, did anyone even try to make a movie about him?  Just call it "The OddFather" and it practically writes itself.  Oh, well, I just looked it up, I guess he's been portrayed in a few mob-based miniseries, like "The Deuce" and "Godfather of Harlem", and also in the recent theatrical film "The Alto Knights", still playing at your local AMC or Regal Cinema. 

The most helpful thing in understanding "Gotti" might be the film's Wikipedia page, which breaks down the different years portrayed in the film, and from there you might be able to assemble a working timeline for most of the scenes.  The earliest year shown is 1973, when Gotti, part of the Gambino crime family, is given the assignment of killing gangster James McBratney, who was thought to have kidnapped and killed Carlo Gambino's nephew.  Gotti is seen murdering McBratney at a bar, and a year later is identified as the killer and sentenced to four years in Green Haven.  However, during this time he is allowed to have "medical furloughs" and pretended to visit a dentist for long oral surgery sessions, and apparently would slip out the back door, commit another murder and then return to the dentist's office in time for his return to prison.   

He was released from prison in 1977, which was only awkward because he had to figure out where his wife Victoria and their children had moved to, but after some effort he found their house in Howard Beach, Queens.  At this point he rejoined his old crime associates and was declared a "made man".  Fast forward a bit to 1979, when he and his former childhood friend Angele Ruggiero were operating out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club, and his oldest son, John "Junior" Gotti entered a military academy.  In 1980, his middle son Frank was struck by a car and killed, and a couple months later the driver disappeared and the only witness to his abduction from a diner suddenly remembered that he didn't see anything happen. 

Skip ahead to 1985, when Junior decides he doesn't want to go to military school any more, but instead wants to join the family business, however he started a bar brawl that resulted in a man's death. Gotti senior also decides that boss Paul Castellano is too old and frail to lead the family, however at the same time FBI wiretaps of Gambino family meetings reveal Gotti's involvement in labor racketeering.  Gotti goes on trial but avoids conviction, however he also learns that his associate "Willy Boy" Johnson has been an informant since 1966, Gotti says he forgives Johnson for betraying the family, but a few months later, Johnson also goes missing. 

Then comes the big shoot-out at Sparks Steak House in Manhattan, during which Paul Castellano is killed before he could reorganize the family and disband Gotti's crew.  Gotti takes over the Gambino family, and a rival boss, Vincent Gigante tries to take him out, but fails and Gigante's associate, Casso, also survives a hit and tracks down and kills the hitman. 

Moving ahead again, in 1987 Gotti is prosecuted for the third time, and earns the nickname "The Teflon Don" when he skates yet again.  Also Junior Gotti joins the Gambino family. Then in 1992 Gotti goes on trial for the fourth time, charged with Castellano's murder, and this time Sammy Gravano testifies against him, and he's convicted and sentenced to life without parole. In Gotti's absence, his son Junior assumes control and but he's arrested in 1998, then during his prosecution he's offered a plea deal, and that's when he visits his father at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, which is very nearly the first scene of the film, even though it takes place chronologically last.  (Except for Gotti dying from throat cancer, that should be the end of the film only it takes place about 80% of the way through, and that makes no sense.)

John Gotti should have been the focus of the film the whole way through, but by the end it kind of feels like Junior was the lead character, and really, who cares about him?  Sure, the FBI put him through five trials between 2002 and 2009, but again, so what? This film is pretty much a hot mess throughout, so who is really surprised that it ends in a very confusing way?  I could not make heads nor tails of it at all, not until working out the timeline as listed above, with the assistance of Wikipedia.  Sure, the movie puts the dates up on the bottom of the screen, which is slightly helpful, however the whole film just needed to be organized better, or I'd settle for even organized at all. Glorifying John Gotti and his actions isn't this movie's worst problem, the worst problem is being so damn hard to follow. 

Directed by Kevin Connolly (last seen in "The Ugly Truth")

Also starring Spencer Lofranco (last seen in "Unbroken"), Kelly Preston (also carrying over from "From Paris with Love"), Pruitt Taylor Vince (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), William DeMeo (last seen in "First Kill"), Leo Rossi (last seen in "Narrowsburg"), Chris Kerson, Stacy Keach, Chris Mulkey (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), Nico Bustamante, Sal Rendino (lastr seen in "Dumb Money"), Tyler Jon Olson (last seen in "Force of Nature"), Luis Da Silva Jr. (last seen in "Paterson"), Victor Gojcaj (last seen in "Ambulance"), Michael Cipiti, Ashley Drew Fisher, Jordan Trovillion (last seen in "Setup"), Nik Pajic (last seen in "Carol"), Greg Procaccino, Donald John Volpenhein, Andrew Fiscella (last seen in "After the Sunset"), Megan Leonard (last seen in "Arsenal"), Rhys Coiro (last seen in "Finding Steve McQueen"), Carter Anderson, Silas Mayers, Kealy Welage, Grace Sena, Lydia Hull (last seen in "Precious Cargo"), Jonathan Rau (last seen in "The Taking of Pelham 123"), Michael Spagnoli, Robert Pavlovich, Charles Carnesi, Jordan Jacinto, Michael Woods (last seen in "Omen IV: The Awakening"), Jay Seals, Ashley Cusato (last seen in "Escape Plan 2: Hades"), Shea Buckner (last seen in "Arsenal"), Brett Wyman, Joe Gelchion (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Joseph T. Deters, Ruthy Froch, Tony Luke Jr., Connor Cadek, Cristina Carone, Richard Doone (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Jeff Ruby, Kevin W. Shiveley, Nick Stanner (last seen in "Goosebumps"), Kyle Stefanski (last seen in "Acts of Violence"), Ken Strunk (last seen in "Reprisal"), with archive footage of John Gotti (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?"), John Miller

RATING: 3 out of 10 anachronistic Pitbull songs

From Paris with Love

Year 17, Day 90 - 3/31/25 - Movie #4,983

BEFORE: OK, last day of March, so let's check the format stats - it's a different situation now that I have a new DVR, I can record more stuff to DVD. Maybe I always could, maybe I just had a really unusually janky DVR, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not giving up on cable until I've seen every movie ever and have a copy of everything on DVD. 

MARCH

14 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Long Weekend, Priscilla, The Assistant, Bottoms, Retribution, Ordinary Love, Honest Thief, In the Land of Saints and Sinners, Marlowe, Mechanic: Resurrection, Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Transporter 3, From Paris with Love

1 Movie watched on cable (not saved): Shining Through

5 watched on Netflix: Love Guaranteed, Players, The Kissing Booth, The Kissing Booth 2, The Kissing Booth 3

1 watched on Amazon Prime: Memory
1 watched on Hulu: Blacklight

1 watched on Roku: My Love Affair with Marriage

1 watched on a random site: Made in Italy

24 TOTAL

The month kind of got bookended by "Love" - first film of March was "Love, Guaranteed" and now it ends with "From Paris with Love".  Tomorrow I'll post the actor links that will get me through to Easter. Today, Farid Elouardi carries over from "Transporter 3". 

THE PLOT: In Paris, a young employee in the office of the U.S. Ambassador hooks up with an American spy looking to stop a terrorist attack in the city. 

AFTER: This is a bit of a weird film - it's honestly hard to tell if Travolta is serious about playing a very wild character, or maybe wildly playing a very serious character.  There might be a very fine distinction between those two things, but I kind of want to know which it is. Like one minute he's poking fun at "Pulp Fiction" by eating that burger called the "royale with cheese", like how can you possibly take that seriously, and then the next minute he's shooting two guys in the head and acting like a Jason Statham character.  Can the same guy do both things, or does the "Pulp Fiction" reference break through the fourth wall and remind us that none of this is real, which subverts the process of suspending our disbelief?  It's almost like a "Deadpool"-ish moment, the character is letting us know that he's being played by an actor that was in another movie, just like Deadpool might make a joke about Van Wilder or Green Lantern, also played by Ryan Reynolds. Right? 

The central character is James Reese, a low-level U.S. diplomat in France, but he's got a secret ambition to be working for the CIA.  Or he already works for the CIA, but he hasn't proven himself worthy of a mission just yet - as a test, the agency gets him to place a microphone in the French foreign minister's office, despite the fact that the U.S. and France are allies, but hey, maybe it's not that important, and it was just a test, after all. He nearly botches it, but eventually finds a way to secure the mike to the underside of a desk.  The completion of this means he can be assigned to a real mission, which involves picking up his new partner, Charlie Wax, at the airport.  Charlie is fighting with customs, who will not let him bring cans of his energy drink into the country - jeez, you'd think that the TSA would have confiscated cans of mysterious liquid before the flight.  

But the cans hold something else, and it's not too hard to figure out what. Reese uses his diplomatic authority to declare the bag international mail or something, it's some weird customs technicality which then prevents James from needing to bribe the guy, which is what Charlie wanted him to do. You get the feeling right off that these two partners are very different people, and they're going to disagree a lot.  Charlie takes James out for Chinese food, but he's very specific about where they need to eat.  While James tries to impress with his extensive knowledge on the origin of egg foo yung, Charlie starts shooting up the place, revealing that it's a front for a Triad drug warehouse - but he only kills the waiters and chefs who shoot back at him.  Again, it's all just kind of odd.

James ends up carrying around a big vase full of cocaine, which Charlie samples quite often.  Nah, that doesn't call attention to them one bit while they're visiting the Eiffel Tower.  Charlie seems to be running a very random operation/investigation across all the ethnic neighborhoods in Paris, but he's really tracing the drug money back to a bunch of Pakistani terrorists, who are maybe planning to infiltrate the U.S. embassy.  In one abandoned apartment, they find photos of James pinned to the walls, which means someone may be either targeting him, or using him to gain access to the embassy.  OK, enough undercover work for one day, James invites Charlie over for dinner with his girlfriend and her roommate, what could POSSIBLY go wrong there? 

Again, I just can't quite figure out how seriously I'm supposed to take this film - when Travolta's character is hanging out of a car speeding down the highway and he's holding a giant rocket launcher, it feels kind of bonkers, like we're in Road Runner & Coyote cartoon territory.  Can Charlie Wax blow up the terrorist car with his rocket launcher before the terrorist blows up the motorcade full of diplomats?  Not if the car keeps swerving wildly like that.  Can James pull the trigger and kill the suicide bomber before they activate the explosive vest?  I guess we'll find out...

This film made some money back in 2010 but comparing the gross to the budget caused it to be regarded as a disaster. Well, sure, if you define a success as taking in more money than it cost to make, but isn't that old-school economics?  The real success comes from franchising your film, and writer Luc Besson talked about making sequels, however 15 years have now gone by and there's no sign of one yet. 

I didn't pick up on the James Bond reference, the title seems a bit based on the Bond classic "From Russia with Love".  It's a bit of an odd coincidence that tonight I worked at the theater at a premiere event for the new show "Mobland" and former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan was there.  I was a few feet away from him as he signed autographs for a group of fans.  

Directed by Pierre Morel (director of "The Gunman")

Also starring John Travolta (last seen in 'Die Hart"), Jonathan Rhys Meyers (last seen in "Albert Nobbs"), Kasia Smutniak (last seen in "Dolittle"), Richard Durden (last seen in "The Reckoning"), Yin Bing, Amber Rose Revah (last seen in "The Devil's Double"), Eric Godon (last seen in "In Bruges"), Francois Bredon (last seen in "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets"), Chems Dahmani, Sami Darr, Julien Hagnery, Mostefa Stiti, Rebecca Dayan (last seen in "Tesla"), Michael Vander-Meiren (last seen in "3 Days to Kill"), Didier Constant, Alexandra Boyd (last heard in "The Wild Thornberrys"), Stephen Shagov (also carrying over from "Transporter 3"), Mike Powers, Nick Loren (last seen in "Lucky Numbers"), Melissa Mars, Hang Yin, David Gasman (last seen in "The Sisters Brothers"), Frederic Chau (last seen in "Lucy"), Tam Solo, with cameos from Luc Besson, John Kiriakou, Kelly Preston (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale").

RATING: 4 out of 10 chess pieces

Transporter 3

Year 17, Day 89 - 3/30/25 - Movie #4,982

BEFORE: OK, I am back from Bermuda, we had a great time aboard a cruise ship for 5 days. Sightseeing, drinking and especially eating - the food on the ship was top-notch, we had access to the main restaurants, a specialty restaurant based on our suite class, and then we had vouchers for two specialty restaurants, one was French and one was a churrascaria.  Then we also had access to the ship's buffet (which was not 24/7, but pretty darn close) so I was able to squeeze in a few meals between our other meals. Prime rib, coq au vin, lobster deviled eggs, scallops, crab cakes, shrimp fettucine alfredo, and then at the buffet I found ribs, fried chicken on waffles, and infinite breakfasts.  So yeah, I definitely gained a few pounds, and now I'm going to have to work it off at the job I have left. Being on vacation took some of the sting out of losing one job, but I know that life on a cruise ship is not reality, and that in a few days I'd have to come back and try to put my career back on track somehow - it's a work in progress.  

Bermuda was fine, we took a bus tour and got some sun (and sunburn), went to one beach, but there was no time to swim and anyway I don't do that. The bumpy bus took us up to St. George's and then ended in Hamilton for some shopping, only the ship had delayed our excursion day and we ended up leaving the boat an hour later than planned, so by the time we were released for shopping, there was no time for shopping, a line was already starting to gather for the ferry that would return us to the cruise ship pier, so we figured we'd better get in it, or we'd miss that ferry and possibly the next one as well.  Sure, we still had another half day in Bermuda, but we used that time to explore the port and a nearby pub, then again make our way back to the ship two hours before the boarding cut-off, because why take any chances with that?  

There were some entertaining things to do on the ship, I won both beer trivia and superhero trivia, which got me signatures on my activity card that I could trade in for a free souvenir deck of cards at the end of the cruise.  And we saw one show at the theater on Deck 8, a jukebox musical called "The Choir of Man" - it was fine, but I think that some people are mainly drawn to it for the free beer offered from the pub set before the show begins.  But mostly we just enjoyed being spoiled, we had a butler who helped us get the show tickets and also brought us more snacks to the room, which is a bit like giving your kids sugar and then wondering why they can't settle down to go to sleep.  But we earned a vacation and we deserved a vacation, and we hadn't been on a cruise since 2013. 

Jason Statham carries over from "Crank: High Voltage", and I'll have to cap the Statham movies at four, because I don't have time to get to the theaters this weekend and watch "Working Man", plus that would throw off my count - I'm going to just make it to my Easter movie as it is - maybe I've got one day's leeway in case I get very busy in early April.  

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Transporter 2" (Movie #4,831)

THE PLOT: Frank Martin is forced to deliver Valentina, the kidnapped daughter of a Ukrainian government official, from Marseilles to Odessa. En route, he has to contend with thugs who want to intercept Valentina's safe delivery. 

AFTER: I knew last year that there was a third "Transporter" movie, however it wasn't running on cable at the time. Sure, I could have watched it some other way (pirate site) but I was already watching so many Statham movies, I even crammed in a double feature on Labor Day weekend just to get to the ones that I did watch. Something told me to hold off on the third one, and that turned out to be the right call, because it happens to link me to the next section of films, which is going to get me to Easter Sunday.  In two days I'll print the links to Easter, but I just won't have the links to the end of April yet, because at some point in April when I get a minute I need to work out the chain to Mother's Day, that's just how this works. 

Ah, yes, Frank Martin, the guy who delivers packages and has three simple rules to follow, which I think he then proceeds to break in every film, right?  Then he gets to talk about the fact that he's breaking his own rules, which is good for a few beats in every movie, too.  I feel you, Frank, I lived by some simple rules, too - like "Don't teach your co-workers how you do what you do." Yep, I broke that one, and it cost me. Maybe the second one was "Don't ever call the boss stupid." Yep, I broke that one, too, and it cost me big-time. I can't really think of a third rule I had, maybe it should have been "Don't stay in the same job for over thirty years."  Hey, I just don't like job-hunting, it's a pain in the ass. That job helped pay for a condominium and then a house, so at least there was some benefit in staying in the same place for way too long.  Now I just have to figure out what to do next, because I'm still too young to retire. Keep the other job while I look for another one, I guess. 

But let's focus on the movie here.  This one kind of has it all, from toxic waste disposal to blackmailing a Ukrainian official by kidnapping his daughter.  And way back in 2008 none of us even really knew about Ukraine, right?  Except that it was a territory in the board game Risk...I mean, it was ONE of the Soviet Socialist Republics on the old map, but there were like 47 of them, so except for liking Chicken Kiev, nobody really gave Ukrainian culture a second thought, except for the Ukrainians, I guess.  But that official's daughter needed to be transported back to Odessa, do you see where this is going?  Frank had that rule about transporting people, so he apparently referred the kidnappers to his colleague, Malcolm, who managed to get shot somewhere along the way, so instead of Budapest, he could only drive as far as Frank Martin's house. Well, Frank did say Malcolm could "crash" there any time, but I don't think he meant that literally. 

This is a different spin on the "bomb in a car" trope, technically the bomb is in the car, but it's in the form of two metal bracelets on the wrists of the passenger and the transporter. If they get too far from the car, the bracelets blow up. If they try to dismantle the bracelets, they blow up. And if they disobey any orders from the kidnappers, well, you get the idea. Still, bomb in a vehicle, so it's yet another variation on the "Speed" formula.  If only Malcolm could have explained to Frank what the bracelet rules were, but no, he had to be unconscious, and the kidnapped girl was asleep in the back seat, so the poor EMTs pulled Malcolm from the car, and their ambulance blew up as they were driving him to the hospital.  Frank gets knocked unconscious, only to find that HE is now wearing one of the bracelets, and he's got to complete the transporter job, getting Valentina to Budapest.  Even worse, they rigged up that great car that Frank had with the revolving license plates, I mean, you just don't mess with a man's ride, or so I've heard. 

Now Frank has an ax to grind, revenge is on his mind, and there's nothing more exciting than a Jason Statham character motivated to get stuff done.  Once he hits Budapest, one of the bad guys steals the car with Valentina in it, which basically means Frank's got a limited amount of time before he blows up, so he gets on a BICYCLE and chases after the car. After a few bike stunts and a shortcut through a warehouse, he manages to catch up (??) with his Audi and dive into the car, simultaneously pushing the henchman out the other door, and not missing a damn beat, he's back on the road in his own car doing 80 mph without blowing himself up. 

Then he maneuvers the car of henchmen chasing him off a cliff, so THEY blow up real good, and gains the trust of Valentina by stripping for her and having sex with her. Hey, it's a rough job but somebody's got to do it. She finally spills her backstory, how she was partying in Ibiza and somebody slipped her a roofie, then ended up with the explosive jewelry to blackmail her father into accepting that cargo ship with all the toxic waste into his country, or something. I don't know, that part's a bit unclear, but I assume the bad guys are PRO toxic waste dumping and the Ukrainian minister is against it, hence the need for the kidnapping and blackmail. Look, I'm sure Valentina's a special girl and all that, but she's very difficult to work with and also closed off emotionally, still it's better than being Russian. Right? 

OF COURSE Frank delivers Valentina as promised - and OF COURSE the bad guys double-cross him and try to kill him.  That's why he doesn't get much repeat business, there's a big problem with client relations here - if you run jobs for dishonest people, you should pretty much expect they'll try to screw you in the end.  And if they kill you, well, then they don't have to pay you. That's a free pro tip to keep in mind.  Both ends of the bridge are blocked (one end with the dumpster full of toxic waste, nice touch...) so Frank chooses to do the unexpected and drive his car off the bridge and into the lake.  How he survives under water when his detective friend is over 10 minutes away is pure genius - further proof that Jason Statham could be and should be the next James Bond. (Supposedly he is kind of suggesting himself for the part.)

Whew, Frank survives and more importantly, his Audi survives, he's going to need it to catch up with the villains and Valentina on that train.  I'm willing to bet you haven't seen anyone board a train the way Frank does either.  We can only hope that after the bad guys die and the good guys live that the car is going to be all right. 

This was the most successful film in the "Transporter" franchise, as it did take in $109 million worldwide - but reviews were mixed, ranging from "a perfectly acceptable brainless action thriller" to "terrifically stupid fun" and "it's enough to pass the time."  Yes, this will pass 104 minutes of your time, but critics were also split on lead actress Natalya Rudakova, some noting that her romantic scenes were "not particularly charming or sexy" and others noting the delivery of her lines as "phonetic readings", meaning she technically was making the correct sounds, only maybe she was lacking in understanding them or the emotions behind them. Roger Ebert even said, "Well, she's no Bonnie Hunt."  Nope, I'm afraid not, only would you want to see Bonnie Hunt having sex with Jason Statham in a field close to a bomb-rigged car?  Maybe you would, you sicko. 

Directed by Olivier Megaton (director of "Colombiana")

Also starring Natalya Rudakova, Francois Berléand (last seen in "Transporter 2"), Robert Knepper (last seen in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"), Jeroen Krabbé (last seen in "An Ideal Husband"), Alex Kobold, David Atrakchi, Yann Sundberg, Eriq Ebouaney (last seen in "3 Days to Kill"), David Kammenos, Silvio Simac (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Oscar Relier, Timo Dierkes, Paul Barrett (last seen in "The Queen"), Katia Tchenko, Michel Neugarten, Farid Elouardi, Julien Muller (last seen in "Colombiana"), Arnaud Gibey, Guillaume Nail, Venugopal Balakrishnan, Semmy Schilt

RATING: 6 out of 10 55-gallon drums