BEFORE: Burt Reynolds carries over from "Citizen Ruth", and I'm doing what I call clean-up work, I watched "I Am Burt Reynolds" last year as part of my summer Doc Bloc, but that left a few films with Burt unwatched, including this one. Clips from this movie were shown throughout that doc, and a few of this movie's stars were interviewed about Burt, so it seemed a shame to NOT use this movie as an outro to the Doc Bloc - but it just wasn't in the cards, it all came together in a different way than I'd planned. But since then a couple more Burt-centric films came into my possession, and one of them was "Citizen Ruth", so it's a great chance to pick up what was leftover from previous plans and use those movies to get to the next holiday.
At the same time, I got to some Sally Field films during February - "Spoiler Alert" and "Kiss Me Goodbye, plus two I added at the last minute, and that similarly left a few behind, so I'm going to piece the leftover Burt movies and the leftover Sally films together, which collectively is like a full week of programming, and that will close the gap between here and Mother's Day. Remember that I have re-classified "Norma Rae" as a film about a mother, so that will finally get it off the list, it's just never going to work as a Labor Day film, though that was a cool idea.
And it's Star Wars Day once again, May the 4th. I've got two film ideas that would be perfect, one is "5-25-77", a movie set on the premiere date of the original film, and "A Disturbance in the Force", a doc about the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. Well, the linking has kind of spoken, there's no way to get to either of those today, so they remain unwatched, for now. Also remember that I was GOING to watch "5-25-77" last September as part of a Steve Coulter chain, only the Steve Coulter in "5-25-77" wasn't the RIGHT Steve Coulter, he was a different guy with the same name. So I had to pull the film and I hope to still re-schedule it some other time.
So I've got nothing special for Star Wars Day, sad but true. But I did a whole Samuel L. Jackson thing about a month ago, and Garrick "Biggs" Hagon turned up in "Conclave" recently, so Star Wars actors are all over the place, at least. And hey, Laura Dern was a "Star Wars" actor, too, she was in Episode...8, I want to say. Admiral Holdo was JUST here for a 2-day stint, so that's good enough for me. And we're going to send out an early birthday SHOUT-out to Clark Duke, born on May 5. Hell, it will probably be May 5 by the time I post this, as I'm working all day Sunday.
THE PLOT: An aging former movie star invited to receive a lifetime achievement award at a film festival is forced to face the reality that his glory days are behind him.
AFTER: Well, this is a topic that I know quite a bit about, film festivals. I've been entering films in festivals for over 30 years, and there have been some festivals that I've worked with again and again, and developed some kind of relationships with the people who work at them, for purposes of promotion and delivery of materials and such. And I get that if one film festival is very successful, there will be other festivals that pop up with very similar names, trying to ride on the coattails of their success. Like we had the "Dance" suffix phenomenon years ago, after Sundance became the big dog there was Slamdance, Moondance, Dances with Films and so forth. Then you have festivals like "Cannes Shorts Festival" and "Global Short Film Awards in Cannes" that probably have nothing to do with the real Cannes Film Festival.
For every big city like, say, San Francisco there can be a San Francisco Film Fest, also an International San Francisco Film Festival, San Francisco Short Film Festival, etc. But I can tell you that if somebody tried to create the "International Nashville Film Festival", then before long the Nashville International Film Festival would find a way to shut them down because they're sowing confusion in the marketplace. This festival also sends out an invitation with confusing wording implying that Clint Eastwood attended a ceremony to accept his lifetime achievement award, when in fact he was technically invited but did not attend. Since the pandemic there have been a number of festivals scams pop up so filmmakers have to read the details of each festival very carefully, some don't have live screenings or even online screenings at all, they just exist to charge an entry fee from each filmmakers and then that's it, no screenings means the festival organizers get to pocket all the cash, maybe they'll select some "winners" and mail out a few award certificates if they're feeling ambitious.
But former stunt-man/action film star Vic Edwards takes the bait, he agrees to fly from L.A. to Nashville (COACH class?) and be put up in motel-like accommodations because his friend convinces him that it will be a classy affair, fans will be lining up to meet him, and he'll get a much-needed ego boost from it. Things do not go well once Vic's driver almost misses him at the airport, and almost gets him killed on the way to the hotel. Then he learns that the "festival" is held in a barn-like setting behind a bar, there's no real movie screen, just the kind that your grade-school teacher used to show you movies on when he had a hangover and just couldn't deal with class that day. Despite the enthusiasm of the festival director, Vic realizes that this is a third-rate festival at best, and the thought of spending the weekend interacting with a barnful of his fans asking stupid questions after every screening is suddenly not such a great idea. Vic drinks a lot of whiskey and passes out, then he doesn't want to take questions, disappointing his tens of loyal Nashville-area fans.
Vic bails on the rest of the festival, and directs Lil, his driver, to take him to Knoxville instead, where he grew up. He decides to visit his boyhood home (when you're a star, they let you do it) and breaks into the college football stadium where he had his greatest success. Being a movie star is one thing, but being a college football star is another level up from there, it seems. Vic had scored the winning touchdown in the last game of an undefeated season, but also got injured and wasn't able to play any more, thus the shift to a stuntman/actor career. Well, ever forward, right?
Vic also wants to visit his first wife (out of five) who's still in Knoxville, only visiting hours at the nursing home end at 7 pm. So Vic and Lil need to stay over in one of Knoxville's finest hotels, and I'm not kidding this time. Like WOW, they get a super suite for the price of a single, just by pretending that the hotel lost their reservation, but really it's because Vic Edwards is a super-star and the hotel manager knows it. Lil posts photos on Instagram of her night with him in a very swanky hotel (separate beds, of course, he's old enough to be her grandfather...) and this ends up being good for him and for the festival, but maybe not great for her relationship with her sleazy, cheating and still somehow jealous boyfriend. Well, ever forward, right?
The next Day, Vic gets to visit his first wife, and she's got dementia, so there's no point in apologizing to someone who doesn't even remember you. Anyway, he busts her out of stir and takes her to re-enact his marriage proposal from years ago, and they have a fleeting moment of happiness, then Vic returns to the second-rate film festival a changed man. He accepts his award and realizes that even though the road ahead is shorter than the one behind, you have to accept the brief moments of praise that come into your life, because well, that's better than nothing.
During a couple of fantasy/dream sequences, Vic Edwards (the older Burt Reynolds) is inserted into footage from "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Deliverance" so he can interact with the younger, hotter Burt Reynolds. On one level this is genius, because we have the technology to do this now, the screenwriter just needs to treat the lines delivered by Bandit and Lewis as "answers", and then tailor some questions for the older Burt to ask his younger, hotter selves. But on another level, this makes no sense at all because Burt is playing Vic Edwards, and Vic was not in "Smokey and the Bandit" and "Deliverance", Burt was. So they're really blurring the lines here between Vic and Burt, they're essentially one and the same, but now this interaction between old Vic and young Burt causes something of a conundrum. Why not just re-name Vic as Burt just to resolve the paradox?
Directed by Adam Rifkin (producer of "Willy's Wonderland")
Also starring Ariel Winter (last seen in "Speed Racer"), Clark Duke (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Ellar Coltrane (last seen in "The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot"), Chevy Chase (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Nikki Blonsky (last seen in "Hairspray" (2007)), Kathleen Nolan, Al-Jaleel Knox (last seen in "Fist Fight"), Juston Street (last seen in "Everybody Wants Some!!"), Shelley Waggener (last seen in "Winter's Bone"), Todd Vittum, Amy Hoerler, Cody Longo (last seen in "Fame" (2009)), Jena Sims (last seen in "Kill the Messenger"), Kennedy Summers, Macy Whitener, Molly Whitener, Amberleigh West, Anna Price, Brittany Bell, Saundra Dunson-Franks (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Rose Bianco (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), Monika Tilling, Cylk Cozart (last seen in "Eraser"), Kyle McKeever, Will Buie Jr. (last seen in "Gifted"), Becky Wolf with archive footage of Johnny Carson (last seen in "Priscilla")
RATING: 6 out of 10 fish caught with a bow and arrow
No comments:
Post a Comment