Heads of State

Year 18, Day 17 - 1/17/26 - Movie #5,217

BEFORE: Well, I've got a busy weekend ahead - I'm working both Saturday and Sunday at the Video Game Awards at the theater, and then Monday I'm back on a Nets game. So really there's not much time for movies, I really shouldn't stay up late watching movies if I have to get up early on both weekend days - but that's probably what I'm going to do, anyway, because I don't want to fall behind in the count. What makes things worse is that the "L" train is shut down all weekend for track repairs, so I have to take a shuttlebus early and then once in the city, the C and E trains are also skipping stops, so that means I'll have to walk like 7 blocks on the far end. So I'll have to leave early just to get in on time, and probably get home later than expected. 

But these are movies I want to get to, so there are no skip days in January now. Carla Gugino carries over from "The Friend". 

THE PLOT: When the U.K. Prime Minister and U.S. President become the targets of a foreign adversary, they are forced to rely on each other to thwart a global conspiracy. 

AFTER: I think I can buy Idris Elba as the U.K. prime minister, but John Cena as the U.S. President is a bit more of a stretch. They had to give him a ridiculous back-story, that he became popular as an action-movie star and decided to run for office as a publicity stunt or something, just to make this believable. This also seems like it was an attempt to explain why a President would be doing fighting moves, firing weapons and such later in the film, supposedly he knows how to do all this stuff from acting in movies. They also mention quite a bit that the prime minister did serve in the army, and possibly was involved in spy stuff, too - as if this makes anything in the film close to believable. These guys manage to do all the stuff we've seen in action films recently, like shoot one bad guy with another bad guy's gun, skydive out of Air Force One before it crashes, and engage in a fistfight with a Polish family of tough guys because they need to steal their car. 

So there's plenty of action here, maybe almost too much? Once the terrorists attack Air Force One (which happens to be containing both world leaders, on their way to the NATO summit meeting), the film just never takes its foot off the throttle. Which I guess is a good thing - and I never knew Priyanka Chopra Jonas was such a bad-ass, either, that's another good thing, really. 

The initial attack on CIA and MI-6 agents takes place during that festival in Spain called La Tomatina, where everybody throws tomatoes at each other and makes a huge mess. A team chasing a Russian arms dealer is ambushed and we're left kind of not knowing where the tomato juice leaves off and the blood starts, if that makes sense. The arms dealer uses the distraction to get a link to ECHELON, which is a global surveillance program that can track anybody around the world, using the cameras that are already in place, everywhere these days. 

The arms dealer is presumably also behind the attack on Air Force One, but who else would know that the leaders from two countries were going to be on the same plane? So there must be an insider in one of their administrations that is feeding travel information to the bad guys. Let's see, who would benefit if the President was killed, it couldn't be that obvious, could it? Even acknowledging how obvious that would be doesn't go far in making up for how obvious that would be. 

The President and Prime Minister land in Belarus, with instructions to head to Poland and meet up with an undercover agent in a safe house there. But assassins soon attack the safe house, thanks to the use of that surveillance program, the world leaders must have turned up on a traffic camera somewhere. But since the President is presumed dead, and the Prime Minister has disabled their phones, the Vice President takes command of the U.S. and goes to represent he country at the NATO summit. There's a twist here, she really HATES NATO and wants to dissolve it, and that all sounds just a bit familiar, based on current events. Meanwhile the arms dealer's hacker has used ECHELON to leak national security files to the public, and it turns out that several NATO countries have been secretly working to undermine their allies, so now nearly every country wants to pull out of NATO, because it just turns out to be a bunch of "Mean Girls" who have been keeping a "Burn Book" for countries. 

President Derringer and Prime Minister Clarke meet up with Bisset, who somehow survived the tomato festival attack, and also happens to be an ex-lover of Clarke. She gets them on a train to Italy, where the NATO summit is, but assassins attack again, and the arms dealer's hacker shows up, to tell them they really need to head for Croatia, because a computer station there will reveal the name of the insider who's really working for the arms dealer. Of course, he couldn't just TELL them who it is, that would be way too easy. Can they get to Croatia in time, and then stll get to Italy to expose the traitor, put fractured NATO back together again and also defeat the Russian arms dealer and all of his many henchmen? I'm guessing that they probably can...

Directed by Ilya Naishuller (director of "Nobody" and "Hardcore Henry")

Also starring Idris Elba (last seen in "Three Thousand Years of Longing"), John Cena (last seen in "Superman" (2025)), Priyanka Chopra Jonas (last seen in "The Matrix Resurrections"), Paddy Considine (last seen in "Macbeth" (2015)), Stephen Root (last seen in "Imagine That"), Jack Quaid (last seen in "Scream" (2022)), Sarah Niles (last seen in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps"), Richard Coyle (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore"), Alexander Kuznetsov (ditto), Katrina Durden (last seen in "Doctor Strange"), Wade Briggs, Clare Foster (last seen in "Holmes & Watson"), Robyn Pennington, Adrian Lukis (last seen in "The Boys in the Boat"), Ingeborga Dapkunaite (last seen in "Red Sparrow"), Sharlto Copley (last seen in "Beast"), Steven Cree Last seen in "Terminator: Dark Fate"), Huw Novelli, Ald Ilyr Thomas, Arthur Lee (last seen in "The Batman"), Peter Guiney, Shaq B. Grant, Darya Charusha (last seen in "Nobody"), Peter De Jersey (last seen in "The Bank Job"), Carlotta Banat, Brendan Howley, Jon Tarcy, James Alper, Julianna Kurokawa (last seen in "The Union"), Cal-I Jonel, Mark Rhino Smith (last seen in "No Good Deed" (2014)), Daniel Emilio Baldock, Chuck Todd, Mario Lopez, Dan Abrams, Will Rickard, Anne Sophy Schleicher, Mark Sloan, Johnny Holan

RATING: 6 out of 10 sheep packed into a farmer's delivery truck

The Friend

Year 18, Day 16 - 1/16/26 - Movie #5,216

BEFORE: One of the things that my 17-plus year deep dive into movies has taught me is that there are only so many stories out there to be told, and only so many ways to tell those stories. So if you watch enough movies, you'll find at some point that you're coming full circle, again and again. This movie over here and that movie over there are essentially identical, or at least identical enough for me to take notice. So "Walt Before Mickey" and "The Apprentice" are really the same story - a man has some failures in his chosen field, but learns from them to be a ruthless, unforgiving businessman and this ultimately leads to success and being a dictatorial land-owner. See, same ideas! Often I will put two films that seem similar (again, to me) on a DVD together, even if they don't share any actors, because in my mind, they are somehow linked - I did that this week with "The Games Maker" and "The Little Prince" because to me they are essentially the same - a young child is orphaned and alone, meets an older man who tells him how the world works, plus there are a lot of fantastical elements that don't seem to make narrative sense. Yeah, I watched "The Little Prince" and I still have no idea what it was about or what it was trying to say.

There are dozens of examples - like "Bullet Train" and "The Machine", same movie, really.  I put today's film on a DVD with "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile", because both films have Constance Wu in them, and they both feature a large animal who lives with people in NYC and causes a lot of problems. Very different movies, probably, but also essentially the same. Again, maybe only in my mind. I could just as easily think of today's film as being essentially the same as "The Penguin Lessons" - umm, probably?

Owen Teague carries over from "Walt Before Mickey". Really I had a choice between "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" and "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile", either film would have fit there and led me here, however only one allowed me to drop another Owen Teague film in the middle, so I think I made the right choice there. I'm in no rush to watch "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile" because it looks quite stupid, but maybe it will help me out of a linking jam in the future. 

THE PLOT: When a solitary writer adopts a Great Dane that belonged to her late friend, she begins to come to terms with her past and her own creative inner life. 

AFTER: I keep my iTunes on shuffle play, unless I want to hear one of my mixes in the proper order - and sometimes I hear a line of lyrics that sticks in my mind and seems applicable to a movie. I thought at one point this should be a regular part of my reviews, but it's too much work and relies too much on chance. But tonight I've got one, from a They Might Be Giants song called "Don't Let's Start" that I listened to a couple days ago:

"No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful.

Everybody dies frustrated and sad, and that is beautiful." 

Now I don't know if one of the Johns from TMBG was just having a bad day or going through a rough patch, or what - but those are lyrics that catch my attention. How is that beautiful? Is there another meaning to beautiful that I'm not aware of? Does someone really view the world this way, and should I be thinking of the world this way, or is this song just meant to represent the opinions of a suicidal person?  Later in the song is the lyric "I don't want to live in this world anymore" so perhaps that's what's taking place. It's too bad the rest of the song is essentially nonsense, like the line "Don't try to stop the tail that wags the hound" which might have some meaning here, if it had any meaning at all.

I worked at a screening of this film, during SVA's "Filmmakers Dialogue" class, back in March of 2025. Three weeks later, the class screened "The Penguin Lessons", only I didn't work that shift. These screenings do bring quality films to my attention, and I can't watch them because I'm on the clock, but I do try to catch up with them later, like I did with "Society of the Snow" and so many others. But this is just one of the methods that puts film on my radar - film festivals is another source, and of course scrolling through new releases on Netflix and Amazon. I've gotten to know some of the attendees of the class (it's an older crowd) and sometimes they ask me what I thought of the film, and I have to remind them that their movie time is my dinner time, but I will watch the film when it's on cable or available to stream.

There's not much story to speak of here, except that this writer, Iris, has to take care of a very big dog after Walter, her mentor dies, nobody else will do it. Also she's writing a book but is creatively blocked (not a very exciting plot point for a film, but I keep seeing it...) and working with her mentor's daughter proves to be a challenge. Like I can't tell if she's writing the book ABOUT her mentor or maybe it's a thinly veiled fictional version of him, that part is all very unclear. The thing is that Walter seems like the most interesting character here, he had three wives over time and then a secret daughter outside of marriage, plus too many girlfriends to count, so really it's a shame they had to kill him off so early, everyone else feels really boring by comparison, except maybe the dog. 

Iris has a typical NYC apartment, which means no pets allowed - the super keeps reminding her and she keeps saying she's "working on it", but she's not finding a solution, so how hard is she working on it? Not at all, really, so is there any shock that the landlord company finds out and wants to evict her?  Instead of going to see a therapist about what it would mean if she got rid of the dog, it might be better to actually work on finding a better home for the dog, or boarding the dog, or taking it to a no-kill shelter. Look, I'm not saying those are the best solutions, but they are solutions, instead of just avoiding the problem and hoping it will fix itself. Yes, there is a solution here but I'm not sure how legal it is. 

They do include flashbacks of Walter, which is good, and then there's a sequence near the end where Iris visits him and I can't tell if this was a flashback or an imaginary sequence or the plot of Iris' book being re-enacted by the same actors. It's unclear, but if you're willing to accept it as a metaphor rather than reality I guess it's what we have to work with. 

Because this film deals with suicide, it kind of raises more questions than it answers, and the suicide itself doesn't solve anything, it just makes everyone sad and creates problems for Iris and probably Walter's ex-wives too. Please, if you're thinking that this is a solution to your own problems, call a hotline or get some professional help, you might need to get out of your circular thinking and develop some positive affirmations in your life if you're short on reasons to live. You can volunteer, you can take time off from work, you can travel, you can watch a great movie or eat some ice cream, do whatever you can to feel better about yourself - I know it's a terrible time to be alive and things can easily feel hopeless, so it's more important that we get together and stay active, get out and meet new people and do fun things once in a while. Sure, write a book but if you have trouble writing that book, then please abandon that book - the one thing you MUST not do is fail to write that book and then beat yourself up for not writing that book. 

I refuse to believe that everyone dies frustrated and sad - surely some people somewhere must pass peacefully out of this life, surrounded by family and friends and the knowledge that they made a difference, accomplished some things, traveled a bit and saw the beauty of the world and made the most of the chances they were given or the opportunities that came along. We've got to rage, rage against the dying of the light, remember? And if you can't improve your situation, maybe you can at least improve how you feel about it, and that can be enough. OK?

I could follow the Bill Murray link out of here, and skip about four movies - and maybe if I get really busy in the second half of January I might wish that I had, but I think I'll follow a different link out of here and squeeze a couple more action films, and then we'll catch up with Mr. Murray again next week, OK? 

Directed by Scott MeGehee (director of "Bee Season") and David Siegel (ditto)

Also starring Naomi Watts (last seen in "The Ring Two"), Bill Murray (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Noma Dumezweni (last seen in "Retribution"), Sarah Pidgeon, Carla Gugino (last seen in "Gunpowder Milkshake"), Sarah Baskin (last seen in "Thanks for Sharing"), Constance Wu (last seen in "Hustlers"), Juliet Brett, Ann Dowd (last seen in "Bachelorette"), Sue Jean Kim (ditto), Felix Solis (last seen in "The International"), Gina Costigan (last seen in "Brittany Runs a Marathon"), Josh Pais (last seen in "You Hurt My Feelings"), Tom McCarthy (last seen in "Year of the Dog"), Bruce Norris (last seen in "The Sea of Trees"), Cloe Xhauflaire, Susan Lynskey (last seen in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets"), Annie Fox, Carrie Vu, Joe Castle Baker, Gary Littman (last heard in "Ernest & Celestine"), Jess Gabor (last seen in "The Machine"), Anna Fikhman (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Amy Warren, Gabe Castillo, Afsheen Misaghi, Seth Barrish (last seen in "Spoiler Alert"), Ian Lithgow (last seen in "Tesla"), Matt Leisy, Myrna Cabello (last seen in "Puzzle"), Gregory Abbey (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), John Leone, with archive footage of James Stewart (last seen in "Love the Coopers"), Donna Reed.

RATING: 6 out of 10 e-mails on the hard drive (like, are these e-mails intended to prove that Walter had sex with a bunch of his students, and that was a terrible thing? Is THAT what the book is going to be about? Again, it's unclear.)

Walt Before Mickey

Year 18, Day 15 - 1/15/26 - Movie #5,215

BEFORE: OK, thematically this one may not belong here, but really, what movie belongs anywhere? It's all up to me, so if it links, it fits. But this film has been on my lists since it came out in 2015, probably, or at least 8 years or since whenever it was listed on AmazonPrime. The cast has no major stars, so I'd kind of relegated myself to the fact that it was just going to be taking up space on the list until the end of time, and I'd never be able to link to it. But then I saw an opportunity to put it between two films with the same actor, as the middle of a loose trilogy, and really that can be the best way to get rid of a stubborn, unlinkable film. And since a certain sequel about magician bank robbers is still not streaming for less than $10, I don't think I can fit that one in at the end of the month, so that frees up a slot. I had tried to under-program this month and leave two or three slots in case I was busy working, but then, you know, the "Freaky Friday" movies happened and now this, and two other films I saw similar opportunities for, so OF COURSE the month filled up and I can't take a day off from movies now. OF COURSE.

Owen Teague carries over from "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes".

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Walt: The Man Behind the Myth" (Movie #3,821)

THE PLOT: Based on the book covering the early years of Walt Disney's career. 

AFTER: When I was in grade school I read a library book about Walt Disney - this and George Lucas's bio, which I read in high school, kind of set the tone for my work aspirations. So I knew that Walt Disney grew up on a farm. How do you know when someone grew up on a farm? Don't worry, they'll tell you all about it. But my mother had taken me to see just about every Disney film, not only the current ones, but in those pre-Star Wars and pre-VHS days they'd bring the old Disney films like "Snow White" and "Fantasia" back to theaters on a regular basis, so even if it was "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" if Disney was playing at the cinema, we were there. And then later I got one of those hand-held viewers with cartridges that played key scenes from Disney movies, like ViewMasters that moved, and I would sit there and watch Mickey Mouse shorts frame by frame just to see how images moved. So yeah, all that developed a fascination for animation years before I ever worked in that medium - once I got to NYU and saw the opportunity to MAKE movies, it was like a drug habit, although the high kind of wore off and instead of kicking the habit I just looked for more intense experiences, until I ended up producing a few animated features, then running the business end of a studio for a couple decades. 

So I might know a few things about this - but that part of my life is over, I'm looking back on it with a different perspective, and the knowledge that if somebody wants to make another documentary about independent animation, they might want to talk to me. I watched "Claydream" and "Animation Outlaws" last year in the Doc Block, but I'd already had a front-row seat for the demise of Will Vinton Studios in real life, and I knew the filmmaker of the other doc and several of its subjects. Imagine if you were a roadie on rock tours for most of your career, watching a film about the concerts you served at would probably not interest you, because you were there. Been there, done that. So today I learned about the early days of Disney Studios (or Laugh-o-Grams, or whatever) and essentially, it's not something I didn't already know. 

In the days before he had his empire, the young Walter Elias Disney just loved drawing, mostly animals on the side of his father's barn, which earned him a proper whipping - because that was parenting in the early 1900's. Walt was also a failed actor, which I think is how many filmmakers start out - you just keep failing upwards, really. Animation as a medium was in its infancy, even film hadn't been around for very long, so there was a chance for Disney to get in on the ground floor. He started out making animated shorts that nobody wanted to see (based on newspaper headlines, a terrible idea) and not charging enough for them, so he didn't make any profit. That's a rookie mistake that he never made again. But he was in deep and owed money all over town, he couldn't pay his staff with checks that wouldn't bounce, and owed back rent on his apartment AND his studio. Wait, this part feels very familiar to me, being the one who had to move negatives and furniture out of several NYC studio spaces over the years once the landlords learned the hard way not to rent to animators....

After his studio in Kansas City closed down, Disney moved out to Los Angeles, where his brother Roy was being treated for tuberculosis (I'm not sure why that disease had such a stigma to it, that Roy and his wife wouldn't talk about it) and found that there was a whole new city full of people who hadn't learned yet not to invest their money in animated films. Disney was making half-animated films with live actors in a series called "Alice's Wonderland" and after several shorts made for a NYC distributor named Margaret Winkler, he found out the hard way that he didn't OWN the shorts, his arrangement turned out to be work-for-hire and Winkler and her husband Charles Mintz had filed copyright on them, so he couldn't sell them to anyone else. This means Disney had been PLANNING to sell them to multiple parties, he was trying to game the distribution system and then learned the law wasn't on his side. Another rookie mistake, but he never made it again (he just found new mistakes to make, apparently...). So he went from making cartoons nobody wanted to see for no profit to making cartoons that people DID want to see, but again for no money. Once Disney finally hit on the idea of making cartoons that people did want to see for profit, well, then there was just no stopping him. Jesus, that only took him TEN YEARS of bounced checks to figure it all out. 

While finishing the "Alice" films, distributor Charles Mintz sent his brother-in-law, George Winkler, to L.A. to supervise the studio, and also sabotage (intentionally or perhaps by accident, this is a bit unclear) the productions and also undermine Disney's authority and steal his best talent for other studios. Yep, the animation industry is a fun one, isn't it? Walt and his indentured artists get hired by Universal to create films starring Oswald, the Lucky Rabbit, and again, it's a work for hire, the character is owned by Universal so (eventually) Disney gets the bright idea to create a NEW character that he would own himself, and have complete creative control over. Well, as I often say, if you can't get smarter over time, at least try to get a little less dumb. That's Disney in a nutshell, it only took him another decade to be the complete control freak we now know him to be, with bottom line profits driving the bus, stealing the stories from fairy tales and then copyrighting films like "Snow White" because the original authors neglected to do that. 

Once the company decides to hire women to do ink & paint, and pay them much less than men (because that's what you did back then), we see Roy Disney telling Walt there would be no time for romance, so CLEARLY that was a problem for Walt, that he was infamous for office-based romances (because that's what you did back then, too). There's no getting around it, I mean of course it was a different time, but it was before there were HR violations and decades before #MeToo was a thing, and while I'm not putting Disney in the same category as Harvey Weinstein, obviously there was something of a problem there. The animation industry is a bit infamous for this, I mean John Lasseter lost his job at Pixar because he hugged people without consent - I'm assuming this was all rather innocent but who knows - and then read up on John Krisfaluci from "Ren & Stimpy" sometime when you get a chance. Other male animators have been known for "grooming" young female animators trying to break into the business, just saying. 

Yes, Walt Disney did marry Lillian Bounds, who worked for him inking and painting - that still does NOT make it OK by today's standards. He was her boss, therefore in a position of power and therefore this would have been frowned upon in current society - they had kids together, they were together a long time, still you have to question how it started. 

While I was working in animation, I found myself working for an animator who wanted to make a mockumentary about Hitler, and since Hitler was a failed art student there was a comparison to be made there between Hitler and Disney, I'm not saying it's accurate because it was done for comic effect, but you can draw some parallels, in terms of motivation to succeed, a thirst for power and maybe if Hitler had gone into animation they would have been on the same path - Disney also annexed a bunch of land in Florida and California for his theme park "kingdoms", is that really any different from taking over France and Poland? Or Venezuela and Greenland? Just saying - there's a Hitler/Trump/Disney path to money and power, sure they seem like three very different people, but are they? Or is it all the same, just men taking advantage of the public by swindling them out of their money and rights. Maybe the only difference is that nobody reads a book about Hitler and thinks, "Yeah, that's going to be me someday..." or at least we hope they don't. 

According to this logic, today's film and last year's film "The Apprentice" are essentially the same film - and yeah, that tracks. Two powerful businessmen are seen as they learn the ins and outs of business, often the hard way, and they fail upward to positions of power. And let's just gloss over the mistreatment of women and massive debts incurred along the way...

What I have learned about the mental process of film directors I know call "artist brain", a phrase I learned from a current co-worker. This delusion occurs after someone has had success in the filmmaking genre, and symptoms include being terrible at business affairs, not listening to others about the "right" way to do things, and generally ignoring advice about cutting costs and being prudent with money. Because the next deal is right around the corner, and it's going to pay all of the back rent and the back salaries and then the studio's going to be right as rain, at least for the next two or possibly three months. So there's no question in my mind, Disney had "artist brain" which meant that HE was right and everybody else was wrong, he was always looking for the next big thing, he just happened to hit it big with Mickey Mouse and then built his empire around that and "Snow White" and everything that came after that. But you never hear about the decade before that, the lean years where he screwed up and failed to learn from his mistakes. Meanwhile all the other animators from the early days, like Friz Freleng and Rudy Ising and Hugh Harman went to work for other companies, because they DID learn from their mistake, which was to work for deadbeat Disney. 

But the biggest problem with this movie is how DRY it is - it almost feels like somebody read that exact same book about Disney that I did back in grade school, made a list of all the different facts about him and then made sure each one appeared in the film's dialogue at least three times. They also found a way to make animation production boring, and I can tell you after 31 years of working in animation studios that it's NOT usually like that. It was stressful and exhausting and a pain in the ass and often a whole lot of fun, but it was never boring. 

Directed by Khoa Le

Also starring Thomas Ian Nicholas (last seen in "The Rules of Attraction"), Jon Heder (last seen in "When in Rome"), Armando Gutierrez, David Henrie (last seen in "Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2"), Jodie Sweetin, Taylor Gray (last seen in "Saturday Night"), Kate Katzman, Conor Dubin, Hunter Gomez (last seen in "Middle Men"), Timothy Neil Williams, Ayla Kell, Arthur L. Bernstein (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Frank Licari, Flora Bonfanti, Natasha Sherritt, Sheena Colette, Haley Swindal, Randy Molnar, Nicolas D'Amico, Justin Bowen, Tamela D'Amico (last seen in "Jupiter Ascending"), Donn Lamkin (last seen in "The Men Who Stare at Goats"), Brian Brightman (last seen in "Richard Jewell"), Lee Broda (last seen in "The Vault"), Noah Forgione, Beatrice Taveras, Demitri Vardoulias, Maralee Thompson, Evan Huit, Briana Colman, Alex Higgins, Guy Morgan, J-C Roy, Alexander Leaty, Michael Rubino, Grace Flatscher, Christopher Dosen, Nancy Barber, Tara Dane, Jamie Suraci.

RATING: 4 out of 10 packs of cigarettes (again, it was a different time, back then you could smoke indoors or on a train, next to children - but since Disney died of lung cancer I have to point this out, maybe he wouldn't have been so far in debt if he had just stopped spending the studio's money on ciggies)

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Year 18, Day 14 - 1/14/26 - Movie #5,214

BEFORE: We have our first Birthday SHOUT-out of 2026, this one goes out to Kevin Durand, born 1/14/74 and Mr. Durand also carries over from "The Naked Gun", so that means I had two chances to land a film on his birthday, and hey, one of them worked out. I'm not sure if it's just his voice in this film, or if he was the motion-capture model for an ape, but it doesn't really matter these days, whether the monkey looks like him or not, acting is acting. We've only got about two more years until all movies are made by AI anyway, and we won't even need human actors and my linking system will no longer be of any use. 

I know, in a typical year I would have followed up "The Naked Gun" with a bunch of other Liam Neeson movies - I did watch 10 of those in a row last year - but I kind of used them all up, I only have TWO other films with him on the list right now, one is a horror film and the other is "Ice Road: Vengeance", which does sounds seasonally appropriate for January, but it just doesn't get me where I want to go this month. I've got other fish to fry right now. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "War for the Planet of the Apes" (Movie #2,943)

THE PLOT: Many years after the reign of Caesar, a young ape goes on a journey that will lead him to question everything he's been taught about the past and make choices that will define a future for apes and humans alike. 

AFTER: Well, it's been a while since the last "Planet of the Apes" movie - that was more than 2,200 movies ago, or 7 1/2 years of human time - Woody Harrelson carried over from "Solo: A Star Wars Story" to the last POTA movie. And sure, a lot has changed since 2018. Say, you don't suppose this film was influenced by the political events of the last eight years, do you? 

Back then Caesar was the only ape that openly spoke English, though a few older apes could also do it and the rest used ASL (ape sign language) to communicate. The simian flu (monkey pox) was making humans dumber and apes smarter, so mankind was making a sort of last-ditch effort to strike back against the monkeys, ironically using "guerrilla" warfare. Umm, if you hate monkey-based puns you're probably going to want to close your browser now, because I can literally do this all day long. 

Noa is a chimpanzee in the Eagle clan, which is cut off from the rest of ape society, and trains eagles to catch fish for them, in a variation on falconry. Noa's father is "Master of the Birds", and he's about to go through some coming-of-age ceremony, after climbing some very high structures that were probably once human skyscrapers back in the day to obtain an eagle's egg. But the night before the ceremony, his egg is smashed by a human (he calls her an "Echo") that followed him home. His entire city is then targeted by the Primate National Guard, troops that were sent in to their Sanctuary City without cause (sound familiar?) and whoever wasn't killed was deported by ICE (Immigration and Chimpanzee Enforcement). So Noa sets out on horseback to find the captured members of his tribe and try to bring them back home before they're sent to South America or something. 

Along the way he meets an older orangutan named Raka who conveniently recaps the last few movies and tells him who Caesar was, and that there was a time when humans and apes lived side-by-side and also that there were things called "books" and "magazines" which is where ideas were stored, however printed material eventually fell out of favor (relatable) and everyone forgot what the symbols in the books mean (oh, it's coming...). Also there's that human woman who is still following Noa, Raka says they should take pity on the lesser species and make sure it has food and clothing, because it's not as hairy as they are, so it gets cold. It also smells bad but they should still add it to their party. They call her "Nova" which would only be confusing if every woman in every Planet of the Apes movie was called "Nova".

After they follow the tracks of the hunting party, they eventually reach the Kingdom, which is ruled by Proxima Caesar, who has taken over many different monkey territories (let's say from Greenland down to Venezuela) and enslaved many monkeys which are now being tasked with opening up a large human vault, because he believes that whatever is in the vault holds the key to him maintaining power and defeating what remains of the humans. Also he'll find the proof that the voting machines in the last election were rigged - plus keeping all the other monkeys busy and distracts them from the news about the release of the Ape-Stein files (well, I did warn you...). Proxima is coming off of a win, having recently changed the name of the nearby body of water from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of Monkey. Anyway, they try brute strength and fire, but nothing works when it comes to opening the vault - why, it's almost like the leader of the apes has zero idea about how to accomplish things successfully.  

The message here is probably that when a leader goes rogue, and invades places that he shouldn't, and exerts too much power over the country by, say, imprisoning other monkeys without cause or enacting personal vendettas against other monkeys while acquiring vast amounts of wealth for himself, it's up to the other monkeys to maybe NOT follow his irrational orders, and they would do well to remember that there are millions of THEM and only one of HIM, so I don't know, he could be impeached or removed from power or forced to obey the laws of society or common decency, maybe? Or, you know, thrown off a cliff, whatever works. Just putting that out there. If I get shut down or disappeared for saying that, so be it. 

I don't know what I was expecting them to find in the vault - a nuclear device, the KFC secret spices recipe, or the Holy Grail - but the MacGuffin they find really didn't seem like that big of a deal. Maybe that will be important in the next PTOA film, if there is another one, I don't know. Well, it's clear to me now what we need to do to fix our country in these crazy and uncertain political times - we need a diverse group of ragtag misfits to go on a quest across a great distance and determine what's going on. I'm not exactly sure how that's going to fix things, but if their hearts are true and they believe in the cause they should perservere, Hollywood tells me so. 

There's an internet meme that made the rounds a few years ago, detailing exactly where we are on the futuristic movie timeline - it's sort of a "doomsday clock" based on the years in which certain famous sci-fi movies were SET (not made). We're obviously well past "1984" and "2001", but think about the fact that "Robocop" was set in 2015, the original version of "The Running Man" was set in 2017, and the original "Blade Runner" in 2019. Hell, even "Soylent Green" was set in 2022 - so coming up next for us all, theoretically, is "Children of Men" in 2027, "12 Monkeys" in 2028 and "Demolition Man" in 2032. Again, don't act like you haven't been warned when bits and pieces from these movies start coming true - there's a meal-replacement beverage brand now called "Soylent" and it's probably made from soybeans, but still, I ain't gonna drink it. You first. 

Right exactly now, IRL, we're at the point where RFK Jr. and the Trump administration have reduced the number of vaccines required to be given to children - so be prepared for more outbreaks of flu, hepatitis and COVID, and you can't tell me for sure that we're not headed straight for simian flu or a monkeypox outbreak at this point. Just saying. 

Directed by Wes Ball

Also starring Freya Allen (last seen in "Gunpowder Milkshake"), William H. Macy (last seen in "Murder in the First"), Dichen Lachman (last seen in "Jurassic World: Dominion"), and voices/mo-cap performances by Owen Teague (last seen in "You Hurt My Feelings"), Peter Macon, Eka Darville (last seen in "Her Smell"), Travis Jeffery, Lydia Peckham, Neil Sandilands (last seen in "News of the World"), Ras-Samuel, Sara Wiseman, Kaden Hartcher, Andy McPhee (last seen in "Animal Kingdom"), Karin Konoval (last seen in "Black Christmas"), Frances Berry, with archive footage of Terry Notary (not mentioned in IMDB, there may have been a falling-out)

RATING: 6 out of 10 zebras (they must be descendants of ones from the San Diego Zoo - you can ride a zebra like a horse, probably, but you just never see anybody doing that)

The Naked Gun (2025)

Year 18, Day 13 - 1/13/26 - Movie #5,213

BEFORE: I worked at the NY premiere of this film last year, July 28, it was so nice of Hollywood to bring it to the theater where I work, since I'm a fan of "Star Wars" and seeing Liam Neeson in person on the blue carpet (yeah) was another nice addition to my life list. Pamela Anderson was there too, of course, also Busta Rhymes, CCH Pounder, Kevin Durand and producer Seth McFarlane. I'm not supposed to interact with the famous people, because at that time they're busy promoting the film and being interviewed, but I did e-mail some photos from the event to Weird Al later on, he was there but of course I'd met him before and I played a small part in making three of his animated music videos in the past. Clerical work for the animator, some social media promotion, stuff like that. And I got to meet him up close after a show at the Beacon Theater back in 2010.

So really this film moved to the TOP of my must-see list, I just couldn't work it in last year because I was out of Liam Neeson films, and the Doc Block had already passed, or I would have just put it between the two films with Weird Al. So Mr. Yankovic didn't make the year-end breakdown last year, sorry about that. But I made it my goal to get to this film ASAP, like in January once all the Christmas movies were out of the way. Really, if I get to this film, "The Phoenician Scheme" and "Spinal Tap II" in 2026 I will consider the year a success - that's just how I roll. 

Hey, who could have figured that I would watch "Gladiator II", "Five Nights at Freddy's" and "Landscape with Invisible Hand" all in the same year? Plus films that had been hanging around on my list for YEARS, like "Norma Rae", "Deep Blue Sea" and "Monster Trucks", I was happy just to cross those off and clear up some space!

THE PLOT: Following in his father's footsteps, a detective works to solve a murder case and save his police department from closure. 

AFTER: I fast-forwarded through the whole Golden Globes award show last night, and there wasn't even a MENTION of "The Naked Gun" - nominated for zero awards, really?  Sometimes I think the majority of the audience and I just aren't on the same page. When it came to TV series, I don't think I'd seen ANYTHING that was nominated, not "The Bear" or "Severance" or "Adolescence" or whatever "Plur1bus" is. I don't have time for "The Studio" or "Hacks" or "The Pitt", I'm too busy still watching "Law & Order: SVU" and "Shark Tank", because when I start a show, I hang with it until the bitter end - except for "Bar Rescue", I finally realized it was wasting my time. But I'll stick with "The Simpsons" and "Bob's Burgers" until they stop making them. 

Did you WATCH "The Naked Gun"? And if so, did it make you laugh? If it did, then it should be nominated for best comedy, it's as simple as that. I'll give it a score that should put it near the TOP of my comedy list, because that's all I ask for from a comedy, just be funny. And respect the movies of the past, that's not required but it's a plus. There are plenty of references here to the original three "Naked Gun" movies, which of course are based on the TV show "Police Squad" - they can't make more of those movies like they used to, but they can do something new and different that sort of feels like it's in the same vein. 

Liam Neeson is not Leslie Nielsen, he never will be, but he can be similarly deadpan serious, which is hilarious in its own way, while also poking fun at the 75 action movies he's made where he played a cop or a special agent with special skills or just a guy whose car is rigged to explode if he steps out of it or takes his foot off the gas pedal. Then also remember he was in "Cold Pursuit", a film where he played a snowplow driver fighting the drug dealers who killed his son, really he got caught up in the "Mad Libs" crime films, where it was the same screenplay, again and again, they just inserted a different type of vehicle and a different dead relative in each one. Remember that he did comedy in "A Million Ways to Die in the West", the same way, being funny by playing it 100% straight. Pamela Anderson is the same way here, just keeping it cool all the way and never breaking character, somehow being totally serious goes so far it loops around and becomes funny again, as it did in the previous "Naked Gun" films. 

Frank Drebin Jr. is also accident-prone, completely clueless and unaware of his surroundings at all times, how else can you have someone drive off in an electric vehicle that's still plugged in? And OF COURSE that pulls out all the charging stations, and breaks a hole in a prison wall so that convicts can escape. OF COURSE it does. Everything's for laughs, so this film is (more or less) NITPICK POINT-proof, I can't complain about things that make no sense because it won't do any good, this whole world is always on the verge of falling apart, and if things progressed logically that just wouldn't happen. This is also a world of new technologies, like facial recognition, and impossible disguises that somehow make a six-foot tall man look like a little girl. We don't have to explain it, we only have to laugh at it. Then there's the P.L.O.T. device, which turns everyone in the area into a neanderthal-like savage, this might be a nod to the device from the original film that turned Reggie Jackson into a deadly assassin. 

The new Frank Drebin also has that ability to turn anything into a weapon, like a lollipop or a gun cartridge, and that fighting skill where he gets the bad guys to shoot each other with their own guns, very helpful. But it's amplified to the point of parody, we can't really take this seriously, but also we're not supposed to. All we have to do is laugh at it, making this the kind of film we really need right now. As a bonus the villain here, played also very over-the-top by Danny Huston, is a clear reference to Elon Musk and the other tech-billionaires who are running our country or at least watching it burn while they make a profit. Self-driving electric vehicles that can be controlled remotely are turned into killing machines here, because you just KNOW they can override the GPS instructions and send your car off a bridge or something. 

I don't want to give away all the jokes, because to analyze comedy is to destroy it, plus there are so many that I just don't have the space. But there are easily a thousand little gags, I had to put my phone down and actually pay attention to them all, but I'm sure I still missed a few. Consider how bad the original "Pink Panther" films got after Peter Sellers died, because Ted Wass and Roberto Benigni just weren't up to the task - things didn't get better until Steve Martin took over. They were going to reboot the "Naked Gun" franchise with Ed Helms, and I like the guy, but aiming higher with Liam Neeson proved to be a smarter move, I think. 

I kind of wish they didn't need to steal gags from both "Airplane!" and the Austin Powers movies, but that's where we find ourselves these days, I guess, making a parody of the parody films is quite a bit too meta. Still it's a great effort, I laughed a lot and paid full attention, though I probably missed some of the hundred or so Easter eggs. 

Directed by Akiva Schaffer (director of "Hot Rod" and "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping")

Also starring Liam Neeson (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Pamela Anderson (last seen in "The Last Showgirl"), Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "The Fantastic Four: First Steps"), Danny Huston (last seen in "Boogie Woogie"), CCH Pounder (last seen in "Rustin"), Kevin Durand (last seen in "Walking Tall"), Liza Koshy (last seen in "Players"), Eddie Yu, Michael Beasley (last seen in "Reptile"), Moses Jones (last seen in "The Hate U Give"), Chase Steven Anderson (last seen in "Ride Along"), Cody Rhodes, Busta Rhymes (last seen in "Higher Learning"), Eddie DuPriest, Carl Gilliard (last seen in "Coach Carter"), Elliott Grey (last seen in "Welcome to the Rileys"), Wilbur Fitzgerald (last seen in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."), Justin Gaethje, Kamaru Usman, Sailor Luna Bunch, Judd Lormand (last seen in "Big George Foreman"), John Santiago (last seen in "Jackpot!"), Jennifer Bowles, Sean Freeland (last seen in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), Doug Mand, Gavin Cloy, Jesse Santoyo, Lydia Castro (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Ulisses Gonsalves, Marc Farley (last seen in "Doctor Sleep"), Dan Black, Princess Elmore (last seen in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"), Ian Kincaid, Matthew Stubstad, Vincent Lascoumes, Jason MacDonald (last seen in "The Man from Toronto"), Douglas Wittse, Danny Bonacci, Sergio Duque (last seen in "Saturday Night"), David Lengel (last seen in "Secret Headquarters"), Jordan Scott, Constance A.C. West

with cameos from Jon Anik, Michael Bisping, Bruce Buffer (last seen in "Hot Tub Time Machine 2"), John McCarthy, "Weird Al" Yankovic (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force") and Priscilla Presley (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything")

RATING: 7 out of 10 chili dogs (eaten in the same day, with terrible repercussions)

My Spy: The Eternal City

Year 18, Day 12 - 1/12/26 - Movie #5,212

BEFORE: I could have sworn this was going to be MLK Day,  but I guess I'm off by a week. Oh, well, I didn't have anything specially programmed for that day, so it doesn't matter if it's today or next Monday, when I won't have anything special programmed for it either.  

Dave Bautista carries over from "The Last Showgirl". I could have gone straight to "The Naked Gun" via Pamela Anderson, but I can squeeze in one more here before that. I have to fill up the month, after all, and there are 31 days. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "My Spy" (Movie #4,030)

THE PLOT: JJ, a veteran CIA agent, reunites with his protégé, Sophie, in order to prevent a catastrophic nuclear scheme threatening Vatican City, which disrupts her high school choir's trip to Italy. 

AFTER: Essentially this is a "buddy cop" movie, even though it's about spies, and you know how these "buddy cop" films work, the greater the differences between the two cops, the funnier they think it's going to be - so while one "cop" is a big adult who works out and takes things way too seriously, the other "cop" is a small high-school girl who doesn't take things seriously enough. And then they've got to get the tone just right, it can't be all goofy like a "Naked Gun" movie, but it can't be all serious like a Jason Bourne movie either, because a comedy will seem a lot more accessible, so it's a fine line that the film has to walk. The main character has to be somewhat smart, you know, because he's an intelligence expert, but he has to be a bit dumb too, because that's supposedly funny and if he doesn't screw up once in a while, then the plot doesn't move forward because he would think of everything put out all the fires before they start. The director of this film also directed "Naked Gun 33 1/3" and the "Get Smart" movie, so it might have been hard for him to hold back and not fall into outright slapstick comedy. 

But you also know what happens when a movie tries to be all things to all people, it's a comedy, it's an action film, there's a bit of romance along with the danger, and something can't be both a floor wax and a dessert topping without failing at both, if you know what I mean. Can we find the comedy in gun battles, stabbings and defusing nuclear bombs before they explode? That's all supposed to be some "Mission: Impossible" stuff, and I don't remember laughing a lot during those Tom Cruise movies.  Just saying. 

It's only been four years since the release of "My Spy", so they probably went RIGHT into making a sequel when they knew they had a hit on their hands - sure, let's turn it into a franchise before this kid gets too old. She's a teenager now and JJ is officially her step-father, so I guess that relationship with Kate worked out, but she's written out of the story here because she's doing charity work in Africa, also she's played by a different actress now, and the less we see her, the less likely we are to notice that. Sophie is thinking about boys for the first time, and she asks her geeky best friend how to ask out the other guy - yeah, we know where that's going to end up, but let's not get ahead of things, don't worry, they'll catch up and figure it out. Thank God Sophie doesn't have to spend any time in class, being a high-schooler and all, otherwise how would she have time for spy training and choir?

That geeky best friend, Colin, happens to be the son of JJ's boss at the CIA, and they just HAPPEN to go to the same school, I guess it's the one where all the CIA kids go - because THAT'S safe - and coincidentally they're both in choir and coincidentally the choir gets to go sing at the Vatican, and super-coincidentally that's also the site of the G7 conference and it's where the terrorists are most likely to strike. So JJ has to become a coincidental chaperone for both his stepdaughter AND his boss's son, only his boss's son has NO IDEA that his dad works for the CIA, so he doesn't know why he's being kidnapped by the bad guys. 

Anyway, it's a chance to get the comedy band back together again, most of the supporting cast from the first film is here again, and there's satellite trackers and weird neuro-toxins and plenty of car chases, one involving the old Pope-mobile with the bullet-proof glass and all of that leads me to a few NITPICK POINTS that will probably unravel the likeliness of everything very quickly: 

NITPICK POINT: When they store vehicles in a museum (I've been to Graceland and I saw every car Elvis ever owned) those vehicles are NOT functional, for safety reasons. They 100% for sure would not have gas and oil in them, for starters, that's a hazard if you're going to have museum guests walking around them.  

NITPICK POINT 2: Assuming that there is a mobile device that could disable the nuclear bomb, that device would most likely have a limited range, and if you get it that far away from the bomb, I"m guessing it would be quite useless. Also if that device should say, fall into a river and get wet, it would probably short out and also become quite useless. But OF COURSE we need to have a ticking countdown on a bomb, and it needs to stop a few seconds shy of zero, so I get it. But we've seen this way too many times in movies. Also, the bomb expert doesn't know which wire to cut to achieve the same dramatic effect? 

NITPICK POINT 3: If you're CIA, they just let you into any military base, anywhere in the world, even one controlled by another foreign government. Unlikely, they might let in Interpol but the CIA doesn't have that much of a reach. 

NITPICK POINT 4: Would they schedule the G7 conference to take place at the Vatican? Seems like way too many world leaders in one place at one time, in front of a capacity crowd, with very limited security. I would think that the G7 would be held in private, it's not a public event, and security would be the tightest possible, coordinated by the country where the conference is being held, and the CIA would have no influence or access. 

NITPICK POINT 5: There was something about 100 Soviet nuclear bombs that disappeared years ago, but have suddenly re-surfaced?  That's not really something that the CIA would have back-burnered, if there are 100 bombs missing in the world, it sounds like you should really focus on that project until you get some kind of a result. We only see ONE of them during this movie, so you'd best get to work, that means there are still 99 of them out there?  Will we be looking for them in "My Spy 3: From Russia with Like Like"?

I'm sure there's more but that's what leaps to my mind first - they'll probably try to squeeze out another sequel before the teenage actress stops being a teenager. 

Directed by Peter Segal (director of "Second Act" and "My Spy")

Also starring Chloe Coleman (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Kristen Schaal (last seen in "When in Rome"), Ken Jeong (last seen in "The DUFF"), Anna Faris (last seen in "Take Me Home Tonight"), Flula Borg (last seen in "The Suicide Squad"), Taeho K, Billy Barratt (last seen in "Kraven the Hunter"), Craig Robinson (last seen in "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn"), Tamer Burjaq (last seen in "Bloodshot"), Paul du Toit, Kyra Janse van Rensburg, Peter Butler (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Arin Goncalves, Nicola Correia-Damude (last seen in "My Spy"), Devere Rogers (ditto), Noah Dalton Danby (last seen in "Loser"), Richard Wright-Firth, Dylan Viljoen, Lara Babalola, Michal Kostrzewski, Mo Mjamba, Gabe Gabriel (last seen in "The Dark Tower"), Adam Neill (last seen in "Breathe"), Barbara Abbondanza, Peter Segal. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 wrestling moves that got worked into the fight scenes

The Last Showgirl

Year 18, Day 11 - 1/11/26 - Movie #5,211

BEFORE: OK, I survived the great double-shift fiasco of January. I worked the Nets game on Friday night, then I got home and was really too wound up to get any good sleep, I was afraid that if I went to bed I would most likely oversleep on Saturday morning. So basically I stayed up, even though I had no sugar or caffeine on Friday night. At 5:00 am on Saturday I was getting dressed and I made it to the theater by 6:30 am (OK, 6:40) and worked a 10-hour shift like a zombie. Thank God the event was a cake-walk, it was just a guild of VFX workers watching clips for their annual awards nomination. I didn't have to do much, and also there were donuts left from the day before and pizza handed out for lunch. By 4:30 pm I was headed home again by bus (because the infamous L train is shut down for track work AGAIN) and finally I could get some sleep in a bed. I slept for three hours (OK, 4) woke up, had dinner, had a beer float, watched this movie, then back to sleep for another eight. Finally I was feeling close to normal again, well, as close as I get. This is why I doubled up on movies Friday (and also slept extra late) in case I needed to skip Saturday. It's Sunday now (I think) and the chain moves on - it's fine, as long as I keep an eye on the count and don't fall behind. 

Jamie Lee Curtis carries over from "Freakier Friday". Four appearances this year puts her at the top of the leader board, but you know, it's still way early. This Movie Year has just started and a lead like that just won't survive through the Doc Block - the late Johnny Carson won last year with like 12 appearances, all via archive footage. 

THE PLOT: A seasoned showgirl must plan for her future when her show abruptly closes after a 30-year run. 

AFTER: Guess what just popped up on my shuffle play - "Like a Rolling Stone", only covered by the Rolling Stones. Still, I think maybe Nobel laureate Bob Dylan said it best - 

Once upon a time, you dressed so fine, threw the bums a dime, in your prime, didn't you?

Now you don't talk so loud, now you don't seem so proud about having to be scrounging your next meal. How does it feel, how does it feel?

That's exactly what this film delves into - how it feels to be on your own, with no direction home, a complete unknown, so to speak. The central character maybe stayed in one place for too long while the whole world changed around her. I've spent some time lately going through old photos, looking for pics of the good times to post on Instagram (because nobody really posts pics of the bad times, do they? it's all about pumping yourself up and making your life look enviable...) and yeah, things really have changed - I don't remember much about the whole decade of the 2010s, so it's really good that I took pictures and kept good notes. The Sundance Film Festival, the San Diego Comic Con, BBQ crawls across the south, and cruises to the Caribbean. I've been all over, really the trick is remembering it all as my mind slowly turns to mush. Maybe at some point everything I did will feel like stuff that happened to somebody else - I have to pre-reminisce about it all now before I'm disconnected from it all. 

I've been to Vegas, twice now, but I never went to a showgirl revue. We were in Sin City in late 2019, a few months before the pandemic, and our goal was to visit as many casinos as possible, gamble just a little in all of them, and take meal breaks at the ones with the best buffets. My wife got sick at some point, I can't say it was COVID because at that time nobody knew what that was - but just maybe it was here before we knew it was here. I had to hit the last buffet without her because she just wanted to sleep in our room at the Luxor. Five buffets in 7 days is a LOT, plus we ate at other places too, like Oscar's and Hell's Kitchen and Hash House a Go Go. We also went to the Mob Museum and the Neon Sign Museum - it's going to be a while before I start posting those photos, I'm still sorting through 2010. The only real show that we went to in Vegas was the Legends in Concert at the Luxor, this is the one with people performing as Freddie Mercury, Tina Turner, Elvis, Lady Gaga and Pat Benatar - hosted by a Joan Rivers drag queen. There were some showgirls in the back, according to my photos. 

But I'm more connected to this film because it features someone who had the same job for 30 years, and then found out that the show was closing, because attendance was way down and that time of performance was no longer marketable. The same sort of thing happened to me, I was in independent animation production for 31 years, and during that time the whole market changed, to the point where the company was always struggling, deep in dept, and more to the point, my boss refused to change with the times, would not listen to my advice to get a proper agent and market his body of work properly. So I was always working hard to come up with new revenue sources, like monetizing his YouTube channel or selling art from his past films to museums and collectors. This took a toll on my mental health because I was unable to sleep, always in panic mode over how to keep the company going for another couple of months. 

So, long story short, I left. I got fired, got asked back and then quit, if you want to know exactly how it went down. Then, what comes next? An unemployment check, at least for a while. But the NYS Dept. of Labor kept asking me to go IN PERSON to check with them and update them on my job search. This could have been an e-mail. What's worse, they expected me to meet with them at 8:45 am, and their office was all the way across Queens - well, there goes THAT day of job-hunting - I really wanted to tell them I'd have better luck finding a job if I didn't have to go meet with THEM all the time. But they finally believed me that I had a temp job with irregular hours and I was able to collect partial unemployment for a few months - then the second part-time job kicked in, and combined I'm still not making as much as I was before, but I'm getting by. 

What also happens after losing your job is the second-guessing. Should I have tried to save my job? Should I have quit earlier, which would have given me more time to set something else up? How can I possibly be too old to start something else and also be too young to retire? Should I have studied something different in film school, like computer animation or advanced writing? And more importantly, what comes next?  

For Shelly, a whole bunch of other questions about her own life arise. Should she have developed some other skills, besides dancing topless? Should she have married Eddie, or tried harder to make it work with the other guy that she DID marry? Is it too late to make things right with her daughter? Should she have spent more time working on being a mother when she had the chance? And more importantly, what comes next?  

If you had the same job for 30 years straight, probably you stayed there five years too long, maybe ten - because if you're not thinking about your next move, then you're falling behind. But certainly there must be revenue streams available to her now that didn't exist before - she could go on Cameo or OnlyFans, that's just for starters. She could write a book about her career, or become a dance instructor, maybe move out of Vegas because it's probably pretty expensive to keep living there. Annette needs a place to live, maybe she can move in and one day start paying rent, if she can manage to quit gambling. In exchange, maybe Annette can get her a job as a cocktail waitress, it's not the worst thing to work in the service industry. Defiantly, maddeningly, the movie ends before we can get any ideas about what's in Shelly's future, but maybe that's for the best, we're forced to imagine what that could be. Anything and everything is possible, but then in a natural limiting fashion, not everything is going to happen to her. Just like my old boss, she's going to have to rise or fall based on her own ideas and work ethic, nobody can save her but herself. 

I'm awarding an extra point tonight for the relevance of this film's story, job loss and uncertainty can befall anyone in any career, it's more universal than it set out to be. But then I have to take away a point because across the board (with one or two exceptions) the acting is just so horrible. I couldn't take that actress when she played Don Draper's daughter on "Mad Men", and I can't stand her now, nothing has improved there. 

Directed by Gia Coppola

Also starring Pamela Anderson (last seen in "Scooby-Doo"), Brenda Song (last seen in "The Social Network"), Kiernan Shipka (last seen in "Twisters"), Dave Bautista (last seen in "Dune: Part Two"), Billie Lourd (last seen in "Ticket to Paradise"), Linda Montana, John Clofine, Giovani L. DiCandilo, Gypsy Wood, Jason Schwartzman (last seen in "Mountainhead"), Melina Blitz, Eliseo Duque, Patrick Hilgart

RATING: 5 out of 10 dwindling paychecks