tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61969892699045513732024-03-18T20:51:13.584-07:00Honky's Movie YearI watch silly movies so you don't have to... Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.comBlogger4696125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-23559436015268880962024-03-18T20:50:00.000-07:002024-03-18T20:50:17.848-07:00Song of the Sea<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 78 - 3/18/24 - Movie #4,677</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: I made it through a 12-hour shift at the New York International Children's Film Festival. Dealing with kids can be the absolute worst, which is one reason why I don't have any of my own - it's bad enough I have to deal with OTHER people's children once in a while. They cry, they scream, they make other noises, they run around and make messes everywhere - what's the upside of having them, again? I'm sure not seeing it. OK, so they take care of you when you're old and sick, maybe, if you're lucky, if you haven't driven them crazy or made them hate you enough to move away and not visit. Uh uh, it's not worth the chance.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, I got home Sunday night around 9 and we watched the latest "Tournament of Champions" battles on Food Network - by then I was completely worn out and I figured I should probably go to bed early as I was up so damn early Sunday morning, but then I realized I still had to watch another short (thankfully short) animated film or I'll fall behind and I won't get to my Easter film on time. So can I do it, can I make it through another Irish-based film before my eyes close involuntarily? Let's find out....</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Brendan Gleeson and at least one other voice actor carries over from "The Secret of Kells". </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6rgB5Z_Z73ZFgZ-BOLiOleSMlxqLVwsuG5M2SGGSXRmv1PI7j8X7KrZZYA9foxKUjhUaMEagKVGhaldZvTRIwg-DhoOa_aMGBun17kFFyt799HNrW1DI-pvQ-96P-ADOALVUXcggZT5rCxj5s3loel9i9UuJi08eJEyjh0nnR2k8RfL4xsvYl1ce62A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="580" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6rgB5Z_Z73ZFgZ-BOLiOleSMlxqLVwsuG5M2SGGSXRmv1PI7j8X7KrZZYA9foxKUjhUaMEagKVGhaldZvTRIwg-DhoOa_aMGBun17kFFyt799HNrW1DI-pvQ-96P-ADOALVUXcggZT5rCxj5s3loel9i9UuJi08eJEyjh0nnR2k8RfL4xsvYl1ce62A=w273-h400" width="273" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: Ben, a young Irish boy, and his little sister Saoirse, a girl who can turn into a seal, go on an adventure to free the fairies and save the sprit world. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: These "Irish legends" films from Cartoon Saloon have such a great reputation in the animation industry, but I don't know, I'm just not feeling it. Maybe I'm just too exhausted this weekend to relax and enjoy these, maybe they're a bit too complicated, maybe I just don't know all this Irish mythology about selkies and fairies and witches and sages, they don't call to me the same way that mutants and Skrulls and Asgardian frost giants do.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But OK, yeah, there's this lighthouse keeper, Conor, who fell in love with a selkie, which is a bit like a mermaid, so right off I'm thinking this movie stole that part of the plot from "Aquaman", except this was released in 2014, which was four years BEFORE "Aquaman" happened, so who really stole from who? Together they had one human son and one daughter, except Bronagh, the selkie mother, disappeared right after her daughter Saoirse was born. Here I thought she died in childbirth, but I guess things aren't that simple. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Six years later, the kids' grandmother comes to visit, and the kids fight over a seashell flute that Bronagh gave to Ben - but when Saoirse plays it, she finds a white coat that allows her to turn into a seal. When the girl turns up on the seashore in the morning, Conor throws the coat into the ocean and Granny decides to take the kids away from the lighthouse, only for some reason they can't bring their dog along, and of course Conor needs to stay and work in the lighthouse, or all the ships will crash during the night. The kids decide to try and find their way back from Granny's house to the lighthouse, but only to get their dog.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But Saoirse gets kidnapped by fairies who can't return to their homeworld unless she wears her coat and sings them the Song of the Sea. But then they're attacked by owls that belong to a witch, who kidnaps fairies and keeps them in glass jars for some reason. So now the kids have to go find that coat, which isn't easy because their father threw it in the ocean. They hide in a hut and Saoirse falls down a well (there sure is a lot of falling in these movies...) and when Ben and the dog go after her, they find a cave inhabited by an old wise man with an extreme amount of hair, and every hair is a story somehow? There's a story here about a giant who tried to flood the whole world, but I just couldn't understand how THAT story tied in with the main story, it was all so very unclear. But following a different strand of hair allows Ben to learn that Saoirse was kidnapped by Macha and then another strand of the beard lead him to Macha's lair, where the witch turns the fairies she kidnaps to stone. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But Macha's doing this for the fairies own good, so they won't suffer or be sad any more? Her motivations didn't really make sense, either. And Macha HERSELF was partly turned to stone, which makes about as much sense as a giant snake eating its own tail and then disappearing, if I'm being honest. But just before Saoirse is fully turned into a stone statue, Ben has her play the seashell flute, which breaks the jars, saves all the fairies, and also turns Macha from a bad witch into a good witch again, and then they all get back to the lighthouse with the help of two magic dogs, not their own dog. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Back home with their father, Ben dives into the ocean and gets the chest with the coat in it, with the help of some seals, and then the girl can finally sing the Song of the Sea properly and free all the magical beings from their stone prisons, and the kids' mother even shows up again, but it's only so she can return to her homeworld and leave her annoying human family behind. She wants to bring her daughter with her, but Saoirse gives up her magical abilities so she can be human and live with her father and brother, and that part of the story seems to be a bit like Ariel's story from "The Little Mermaid", maybe. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Whew, it's all very complicated, because it's a hard life in Ireland, even for the magical folks. I know I'm exhausted, just from trying to figure this all out. I should get some sleep, but maybe just one more movie so I can clear this damn non-trilogy from the books. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring the voices of </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">David Rawle, Lisa Hannigan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Fionnula Flanagan (last seen in "Birthmarked"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Lucy O'Connell, Jon Kenny (last seen in "Angela's Ashes"), Pat Shortt, Colm O Snodaigh, Liam Hourican (last heard in "The Secret of Kells"), Kevin Swierszcz</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 birthday candles</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-24291020559709016942024-03-17T20:56:00.000-07:002024-03-18T15:50:46.008-07:00The Secret of Kells<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 77 - 3/17/24 - Movie #4,676</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Michael McGrath carries over from "Ira & Abby", at least I think he does. The IMDB, my primary source for cast information, is a little unclear on this point - according to the IMDB there are multiple people with movie credits who have that name, and the Michael McGrath listed for "Ira & Abby" does not also have "The Secret of Kells" on his filmography - BUT the IMDB lists him as doing a voice for "Wolfwalkers", which is a sequel to "The Secret of Kells". SO I strongly suspect that the IMDB has an error, and perhaps the voice-work for tonight's film was credited to the wrong Michael McGrath. I can't prove it for sure, however I've seen this sort of thing before. There is a director named Mike Mills, who made the films "Beginners" and "20th Century Women", and he shares his name with a band member from R.E.M., who also happens to compose music for many movies - so their credits were all mixed up together for a long while, and I stepped in to try to straighten the whole thing out. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Fortunately, this actor also has a page on Wikipedia, and it confirmed that the Michael McGrath who played that Irish doorman in yesterday's film is the SAME Michael McGrath who did a voice in "The Secret of Kells" - so I feel a lot more confident about not breaking the chain, but now I have to somehow convince the IMDB that their listing is incorrect, which is often not easy. I suggest additions and corrections all the time, but I'll go on a good run where they just approve every suggestion I make, and then for a week or two they'll reject everything - like I noticed that they didn't list Patton Oswalt in their credits for "Nostalgia", but I've submitted the addition twice and they won't believe me. But, come on, he's listed in the credits on Wikipedia, and on-screen at the end of the film, plus, I SAW HIM in the movie. So why not believe me? Why would I lie? You trusted me about 10 corrections last week, why suddenly think I"m trying to pull a fast one here? How would it benefit me if I were to get Patton Oswalt credited for a movie that he's not really in? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAXkG2Kl9-DMvP2_hGQLpSZffzDTc_I_WMZLawqIN3WhdwNPC6TViq4nALVDPpTS1_A8lxEvzBY5Md9NfNp52WhcN8hO7nmXSHqFEN8WRZaEnKxvhRx2l9w08BlNtHvRPJlCL7vE6mir4UJcdTVI_OG8RGpxRnojxVJHteN4U8sOhn9Wa_BCeTJ00OYA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="848" data-original-width="580" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAXkG2Kl9-DMvP2_hGQLpSZffzDTc_I_WMZLawqIN3WhdwNPC6TViq4nALVDPpTS1_A8lxEvzBY5Md9NfNp52WhcN8hO7nmXSHqFEN8WRZaEnKxvhRx2l9w08BlNtHvRPJlCL7vE6mir4UJcdTVI_OG8RGpxRnojxVJHteN4U8sOhn9Wa_BCeTJ00OYA=w273-h400" width="273" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A young boy in a remote medieval outpost under siege from barbarian raids is beckoned to adventure when a celebrated master illustrator arrives with an ancient book, brimming with secret wisdom and powers. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Of course, it's St. Patrick's Day, and my original plan was to land "The Banshees of Inisherin" on the holiday, but that didn't really work out, because of where my romance chain ended, coupled with the fact that the next film in my chain was going to be "Calvary", and then that one started to feel like a better fit for Easter. So I stretched my chain out just a little bit, and I found some bridging material - two weeks worth - to fit between the two films with Brendan Gleeson in them, and then it started to make sense to watch THIS film instead on March 17, thus figuring that this film might even be more Irish than that other one - but really, they can both be Irish, I don't need to worry so much over which one lands on 3/17. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Then I realized that I'd be working at the New York International Childrens Film Festival today, so yeah, sure, an animated film with kids in it seemed to tie in with that. Once I got to work, I saw that one of the screenings today is "Puffin Rock and Friends", based on a Netflix animated series, but produced by Cartoon Saloon, which is the studio that made, you guessed it, "The Secret of Kells". Two of the animators spoke on a panel after the film, and yeah, I looked them up, at least one worked on "The Secret of Kells" which came out 15 years ago. (I think I remember meeting this film's director, Tomm Moore, at a party in NYC in maybe 2010, when he was traveling to promote the film.). So there you have it, another fantastic coincidence, that I would avoid watching "The Secret of Kells" for 15 years and then finally watch it the day before a special St. Patrick's Day event at my job, promoting a different film from the same studio. I'm kidding, there are no coincidences, just confluences that are all around, and at times we are lucky enough to witness and acknowledge. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I didn't have much time to focus on this film last night, just enough time to watch it quickly and then try to get some sleep, because I had to be up at 6:30 am in order to leave the house at 7:00 and open up the theater by 8:00. So I'm exhausted right now, 3/4 of the way through the festival's workday with just two screenings to go after "Puffin Rock and Friends". And oh, great, it's a theater full of screaming kids (whether from happiness or crankiness, does it even matter?) and I'm on my fourth dose of caffeine hoping that I won't crash until I'm safe at home at 8:00 pm. Weekend shifts are the longest, and festival shifts can be the toughest. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Unfortunately I didn't really understand most of what occured in "The Secret of Kells". Part of the problem could have been that the film isn't streaming anywhere, not for free or even "for free", so I was forced to watch it on my favorite pirate site, and that meant that no working captions were available, and thus the combination of my bad hearing and some strong Irish accents meant that I was frequently confused about what was happening in the film. I get that young Brendan lives in an abbey and cannot leave for his own safety, but a visit from a famed illustrator of religious books who needs materials for his inks means that Brendan is tasked with entering the forest for the first time to obtain berries that he needs to make a special green ink. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's a contrivance for sure - why did the visiting Brother Aidan only need GREEN ink, did he bring all the other colors with him, but forget one color? If the berries produce the best, brightest green ink, why not plant those berries somewhere else, more convenient to the island where he works on his illustrations? Why does this forest supply berries that make great ink that is green, but not other plant-based materials that are other colors? Is it because we're in Ireland and green is the national color, or is green the national color BECAUSE of those super berries? It's all maybe a bit unclear, the only thing that's clear is that the story needs to push Brendan out into the larger, more dangerous world. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Abbot Cellach is obsessed with building a wall around the Abbey to prevent attacks from the Vikings - I think this plot point can be taken at face value, more or less, it's not some big metaphor for the anti-immigration policies of certain politicians, for example - anyway this film came out years before U.S. Republicans started to drum up xenophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric to get elected. So I'm inclined to take this at face value, the abbot just wants to protect the illustration work being done by the monks (friars?) inside because it has so much religious importance. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Speaking of religion, I need to point out that the real Book of Kells is a fancy decorated Bible, or the Gospels at least, and that fact is never even mentioned in this movie. I suppose I should be happy that a film isn't promoting the Catholic religion as a tangential part of its story, but then again it just seems like an odd thing to fail to mention. Sure, the art is very pretty and the calligraphy is ornate, but isn't it a bunch of important words first and a decorative relic second? Focusing on the art in the Book of Kells is a bit like reading the Dead Sea Scrolls for the recipes. When the book is said to "turn darkness into light" I naturally assumed this was a metaphor, that the book sheds the light of knowledge on the world, dispelling the darkness of ignorance - but there are some points in the film where someone opens the book and beams of light come out, so perhaps that was meant to be literal? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Brendan meets a fairy (?) named Aisling in the forest, or she's a nymph or a druid or maybe just a regular person who lives outside, all that was unclear too. Jesus, don't be afraid to spell it out, because I'm kind of ignorant that way, just tell me what's happening, PLEASE. I had to look the plot up on Wikipedia to figure out what happened - they go deep into the forest and find a deity of death named Crom Cruach, which calls Brendan dangerously closer and AIsling knocks down a statue to prevent him from entering the demon's (?) inner chamber. But when Brendan gets back to the monastery, Brother Aidan talks about a special magnifying lens that will assist in creating the art for the book, and it's called "The Eye of Colm Cilie", and wouldn't you know it, Brendan has seen that lens before, on the eye of that forest demon. So it's BACK out into the deadly forest to get this lens - couldn't Brother Aidan have mentioned it before Brendan went to get the berries, so he'd only have to make ONE trip? </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But Brendan goes back, he battles the dark deity to get the eye/lens, and tricks the blind snake/demon into eating itself, forming an ouroboros and then ceasing to exist. I've got to call this into question, maybe, like would a snake eating its own tail just blink out of existence, or would it just die at some point, leaving a half-eaten snake with its body filling its own mouth? Discus</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Later, after young Brendan (somehow) uses the Eye of Colm Cilie to become a masterful illustrator almost overnight (oh, if only it were THAT easy...) the Vikings attack the Abbey - well, I guess the Abbot was right after all, but his timing was absolutely terrible, I'm guessing that wall wasn't even CLOSE to being finished. The Abbot is stabbed and the village is burned, but Brendan and Aidan escape through the forest, where the Vikings destroy the book and steal the jewels from it, but the pages are saved, and Brendan spends the next twenty years finishing it, finally returning to show it to the aged Abbot Cellach. So, umm, hooray? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's a beautiful-looking film, although I thought some of the characters were too stylized, they had weird body shapes or features that were too cartoony, but my main problem was the story, that I never really knew what was happening or what it all meant in the long run. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Also starring the voices of Evan McGuire, Brendan Gleeson (last seen in "Kingdom of Heaven"), Christen Mooney, Mick Lally (last seen in "Circle of Friends"), Liam Hourican, Paul Tylak, Paul Young.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 quill feathers</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-57947427811068050512024-03-15T22:07:00.000-07:002024-03-15T22:07:37.761-07:00Ira & Abby<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 75 - 3/15/24 - Movie #4,675</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Maddie Corman carries over from "Begin Again", and this is it, the LAST film in my romance chain for 2024, which I started on February 1. That was 44 days ago, and this themed section of the chain was 43 films that were (mostly) relevant to this topic. Sure, films about love and relationships are all around, and they may pop up again later this year, like in a film related to Mother's Day or if I have a really tough linking jam to get out of - it's not a hard and fast rule that ALL films about relationships need to be watched in February or the first half of March, because there are some films that just don't link to others well, so for those it's catch-as-catch-can. Me, I'm just happy to watch a movie about anything else right now, and knowing that "Oppenheimer" is on the horizon is a big help. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Watching 43 films about love and relationship IN A ROW is for sure not medically recommended, I see the world right now through rosy-colored glasses and care must be taken to not let that affect my own relationship, because life's very often not like the movies, or the flip-side of that is that rom-com movies may not be an accurate representation of real-life love. As always, your mileage may vary. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I've had my eye on birthdays, every night there seem to be people in each cast with March birthdays, but they never seem to quite match up right. Maybe I should just do the whole month at once, it would be easier. Happy Birthday to Lake Bell from "Man Up" (March 24), Paul Reiser from "I Do...Until I Don't" (March 30), Harley Cross from "Stanley & Iris" (March 31), Mykelti Williamson from "Waiting to Exhale" (March 4), Leon from "Waiting to Exhale" (March 8), Sharon Stone from "Beauty" and "All I Wish" (March 10), Alfred Lutter from "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (March 21), Valerie Curtin from the same film (March 31), Jon Hamm from "Nostalgia" (March 10), Catherine Keener from "Nostalgia" and "Begin Again" (March 26), Mikey Madison from "Nostalgia" (March 25), Arye Gross from "Nostalgia" (March 17), Keira Knightley from "Begin Again" (March 26), Adam Levine from "Begin Again" (March 18), and TODAY, March 15 is the birthday of Frances Conroy, who's in today's movie, so a special SHOUT-out to her! But also, Malachy McCourt is in this film, and he died four days ago, on March 11 - so you've got to take the bad with the good, I guess. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwzdGeuP1WIPngemOrDMR1UBAy-V2fSTu-Rv2XeYZoh4ju-jLfPSjCc_SQHTqOWNWuH1EcrrIvXOQCHYc-14bPq74MCLsXIazq6VuNOZMxFAyYwj5tlvWTaEOrhZ4NKH066LGADJ_4nzV_KyPq17gin-cfUM8S14vwPswqzvajZlnjs4k1YUG4u1gz-w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="501" data-original-width="355" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwzdGeuP1WIPngemOrDMR1UBAy-V2fSTu-Rv2XeYZoh4ju-jLfPSjCc_SQHTqOWNWuH1EcrrIvXOQCHYc-14bPq74MCLsXIazq6VuNOZMxFAyYwj5tlvWTaEOrhZ4NKH066LGADJ_4nzV_KyPq17gin-cfUM8S14vwPswqzvajZlnjs4k1YUG4u1gz-w=w283-h400" width="283" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A hastily married couple quickly devolve into a life of affairs, meddling parents, and therapy. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Well, since it's the last film in the 2024 romance chain, let's go over what we've learned in the past 44 days, OK? Surely there MUST be some over-arching takeaways that we can all share, so much insight into the state of relationships today and by extension, the human condition. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LESSON 1: Don't get married in Vegas ("Think Like a Man Too"), don't have your bachelor party in Vegas ("You People"), and for that matter, don't have a destination wedding on a beautiful island ("Shotgun Wedding"). Your guests will hate you, and your wedding will be ruined by pirates, strippers or both. Don't say I didn't warn you. For that matter, don't have a bachelor party at all ("A Guy Thing") because there's a non-zero chance that you'll wake up in bed with one of the dancers who may turn out to be your fiancée's cousin. Then again, maybe at your bachelor party you will form a better relationship with one of the dancers then you have with your fiancée ("The Wedding Ringer") but come on, that's a real longshot. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LESSON 2: Any time spent pursuing the hot, seemingly unattainable person at your school or work or whatever is wasted effort, because even if you take them to the carnival and make progress in wooing them, you will eventually realized that the more perfect partner was/is your best friend, who's been right there for you, all along, only you weren't thinking of them that way, were you? ("Whatever It Takes", "Your Place or Mine", "Boys and Girls", "LOL")</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LESSON 3: If you're widowed or divorced, your life is not over. Life will give you a second chance or even a third ("I Could Never Be Your Woman", "Moonlight and Valentino", "Stanley & Iris") only you must try to date a different sort of person, or you'll just end up back where you were ("Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore"). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LESSON 4: Marriage is a social construct, and perhaps an outdated concept, if you believe filmmakers ("I Do...Until I Don't) and perhaps it's time to re-think it, only people are still getting married, it still seems to be quite popular. You can also get back together with your ex, it might not be too late ("Begin Again") or even your anonymous sperm donor ("Made in America"), stranger things have happened. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LESSON 5: Sometimes the best thing to do is just act on impulse, like who's to say how long two people need to spend together before they get married or commit to something? It could be as little as a day ("Man Up") or you could just marry someone from the crowd at your concert ("Marry Me") - the reasoning being, half of marriages end in divorce anyway, so what's the big deal if you don't look before you leap, you can always just get a do-over, right? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">A lot of that plays into the themes explored in "Ira & Abby", where the two main characters meet when Ira (recently cut free from his therapist for not making progress) tries to join a gym, and instead falls for the sales agent for the gym, who, after spending just a few short hours with him, proposes that they have sex and get married, in some order. What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Seriously, though, they make a cute couple, and when you know, you know, you don't really need to overthink it, because maybe it's time to just GO FOR IT, whatever that "IT" turns out to be. Just maybe make a call and break up with your on-again, off-again, long-time girlfriend of nine years before the wedding. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There will be time for second thoughts (and third, and fourth...) later - but perhaps if you don't act on impulse and faith, then nothing will ever happen. Neither Ira or Abby could possibly have seen so many moves ahead in this game of relationships, what twists and turns their quickie relationship would take. Meeting your fiancées parents is a big step, but you know what, get it over with, rip off that band-aid, come on, the clock's ticking. If you guys aren't compatible or your families don't get along, isn't it best to find that out early? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The problem here is, the couple's families get along a little TOO well - to the point where HIS mother starts having an affair with HER father, and that has a domino effect that throws THREE relationships into question. Also, it doesn't help that Abby had been married one (or two...) times before, and neglected to tell Ira that before they tied the knot. It shouldn't matter, no, not at all, but then again, it's a lie of omission and surely there must be a REASON that nobody mentioned this. And there is...</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Suddenly Ira is unsure of his relationship with Abby (Gee, and they had such a great three weeks together...) and they get an annulment, and then he's back in therapy, trying to figure out what it all means. Surprise, it's got everything to do with his overbearing mother and his doormat father, because the mistakes our parents made in their relationship have a tendency to come back and haunt the next generation. That's just the way it is, and the fact that Ira's parents are BOTH analysts (not therapists, there's a difference, apparently) might also have something to do with it. Ira doesn't just have emotional baggage, he's got the full matching luggage set. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Things get really out of control during a roundtable meeting with Ira, Abby, their four parents, and an additional six therapists - it seems like that opera mentioned in "Amadeus" when Mozart keeps wanting to add more and more characters on stage, all singing at the same time. What happens when you get 12 people in a room to work out all of these relationship issues, and 9 of them are therapists or analysts? It's a very comic moment, but also there's a lot to unpack in terms of psychology and the way adult humans interact with each other, and why they can't help having affairs when the road gets a little rocky or they feel old and unattractive. Sure, it may not be the BEST approach, but at least it feels good for a time. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Good news, Ira and Abby get re-married, to each other, but then that's not the end of the story, either, they've still got some jealousy issues and self-confidence issues to work out. Oh, well, back to therapy, I guess. It's too bad, because as the characters said during their first day together, they learned more about each other and their feelings on relationships in ONE DAY then most people do in four years of dating someone. Maybe it's not worth taking a leap of faith into a new relationship if you're going to spend the next few years second-guessing yourself. Except you're going to do that anyway, aren't you? So then maybe just going for it is the best plan after all. At least you'll be having sex regularly and a permanent date every Saturday night and on holidays. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">LESSON #6: I saw Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern in successive movies ("Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" and "Nostalgia") and tonight's film had Jennifer Westfeldt starring with her then-partner Jon Hamm in a supporting role (playing, ironically, one of her ex-husbands). Westfeldt and Hamm were together for 18 years, but split up in 2015. Sometimes I wonder, if the famous and beautiful people can't make things work out, what chance do the rest of us really have? Or am I looking at things from the wrong angle? </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Chris Messina (last seen in "Devil"), Jennifer Westfeldt (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Frances Conroy (last seen in "The Power of the Dog"), Judith Light (last seen in "The Menu"), Jason Alexander (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"), Robert Klein (last seen in "The Back-Up Plan"), Fred Willard (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), David Margulies (last seen in "A Most Violent Year"), Kali Rocha (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Brad Bellamy, Marylouise Burke (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Michael McGrath (last seen in "The Interpreter"), Malachy McCourt (last seen in "Green Card"), Ramon Rodriguez (last seen in "The One and Only Ivan"), Ed Blank, Matthew del Negro (last seen in "Wind River"), Chris Parnell (last seen in "The Ladies Man"), Jon Hamm (last seen in "Nostalgia"), Asa Somers, Peter Hirsch, Ilana Levine (last seen in "Failure to Launch"), Darrell Hammond (last seen in "The Accidental President"), Donna Murphy (last seen in "The Astronaut's Wife"), Modi, Ken Barnett (last seen in "People Like Us"), Gregory Jbara (last seen in "Broken City"), Robert Bagnell (last seen in "We Were Soldiers")</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">with cameos from Joe Buck (last seen in "Tom & Jerry"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Kevin Sussman (last seen in "Made of Honor"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">BD Wong (last seen in "Jurassic World Dominion")</span></span></div><div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;">and archive footage of Richard Burton (last seen in "Becoming Mike Nichols"), Ron Howard (last seen in "Dean Martin: King of Cool"), Robert Preston (last seen in "Narrowsburg"), James Stewart (last seen in "De Palma") and Elizabeth Taylor (last seen in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom")</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 7 out of 10 marriage couseling sessions with Dr. Saperstein</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-27416045323183047922024-03-14T18:57:00.000-07:002024-03-14T18:57:50.187-07:00Begin Again<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 74 - 3/14/24 - Movie #4,674</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Trying to get back into my groove, but that would require catching up on sleep, and for some reason I scheduled my annual physical/check-up today, since I was due in the city at 5:30 pm anyway, to manage a screening of "Dune: Part Two". So I figured I'd get my check-up at 1 pm, and if anything was really wrong with me I would have time to get it checked, if not I could go out to lunch at Sarge's Deli and then hit the comic-book shop before making my way to the theater. I still had to get up at 10 am, shower and get dressed before leaving the house, so really with just two things on my calendar I managed to fill up the whole day, and therefore I had no time at home to catch up on any TV, like this week's "Survivor" episode. Well, at least I'll have Saturday - no, wait, that's when we're getting our taxes done - OK, at least I'll have half of Saturday to catch up on some TV. <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Catherine Keener carries over from "Nostalgia" and just one more romance-based film left in this year's chain after this one. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihK9w4zgx1Illlxd2xTWNhJSwRgIswVDT6B0_zx7QtN6oZR2CCAEZmdvCy2mXyyocZyoiQDtt7yhgAwQhGuts1Occg3OjKQPD5Vvhv6iJCdqYNneEDvnYQdfDQaobvSVtqnSPBXkHdXlz1PSLLLG4i5vNTQHB-QpkBjxo9KRwGRKnr_6Geu3H2lO_teg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="845" data-original-width="563" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEihK9w4zgx1Illlxd2xTWNhJSwRgIswVDT6B0_zx7QtN6oZR2CCAEZmdvCy2mXyyocZyoiQDtt7yhgAwQhGuts1Occg3OjKQPD5Vvhv6iJCdqYNneEDvnYQdfDQaobvSVtqnSPBXkHdXlz1PSLLLG4i5vNTQHB-QpkBjxo9KRwGRKnr_6Geu3H2lO_teg=w267-h400" width="267" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A chance encounter between a down-and-out music business executive and a young singer/songwriter new to Manhattan turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: It's a very sneaky romance-based film, like some maybe wouldn't consider this a romance at all, because the two main characters are together because they're working together on making an album, and they both have relationship problems. Music producer Dan is separated from his wife and doesn't have much of a relationship with his teenage daughter, while Gretta has recently broken up with her musician/singer boyfriend, only we don't know that about her at first, but it's why she's in NYC and why she's single. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The two meet by chance when Dan goes to an open mic night where Gretta performs her song, and (because he's drunk) he can HEAR how that song needs to be produced - even though she's performing solo on acoustic guitar, Dan imagines the drums, the violin and the piano playing themselves, and he knows exactly how he would mix it so it would be a hit - probably my favorite scene in the film with the animated instruments playing themselves. Now Dan just needs to persuade HER to let him produce the song. Oh, and wouldn't you know it, he just got fired from the record company that he co-founded, so he's kind of looking for the next big breaking artist to produce so he can work his way back into the biz. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">They need each other, even if Gretta doesn't believe it at first, Dan somehow has enough self-confidence for the two of them. Gretta has strong opinions, however, about how songs need to sound and she doesn't like it when they sound all over-produced. OK, Dan can work with that, what about recording all the songs live, with the city's ambient sound, in different locations around New York, like on a rooftop near the Empire State building or in an alley near a schoolyard, or while riding on paddle-boats in Central Park? Hey, whatever works, I guess, and if there are sirens in the background or traffic noises, all the better - who needs to record in a studio, anyway, who needs their music to sound all polished and professional? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Surprisingly, the film never tries to get Dan and Gretta together, romantically - perhaps that would have been a mistake, or perhaps that would have followed the standard rom-com formula just a bit too closely, it's hard to say. But I like the restraint, we've all been conditioned by these fateful chance encounters to think that they're going to solve the romantic problems of the main characters, but what if they're just not right for each other, or not into each other for some reason, or maybe they made a choice to keep things professional if they're going to be working together on this album. It would be a conflict of interest, anyway, if Dan pitched her demo to the record company AND he was also sleeping with her - so maybe it's for the best that the film never went in that direction. <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But working together on the album does, of course, help to solve most of their other problems - Gretta's going to get royalties from the song she wrote for her ex-boyfriend, anyway, so maybe that factors into her decision to sell her own album on the web for $1 per download. Hey, it's the internet age, maybe all music SHOULD be free, or close to it, anyway the real money is in touring and t-shirt sales, not albums like in the old days. It's possible that the Rolling Stones made more money over the last 20 years from t-shirts than from albums, so at the end of the day, are they musicians who sell music, or just t-shirt salesmen? If you're hoping that Gretta will get back together with her ex, Dave Kohl, well, the movie doesn't specifically say that they DON'T get back together - so it's possible, it's just not likely, because now Gretta has more self-confidence and she doesn't mind being on her own. Getting back with Dave might be seen as a step backwards where personal growth is concerned. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Dan seems to get back with his wife, though, and that's fine - having a job again and also spending more time with his daughter are all positive things. But there's still the new age of record company business to deal with, are we just going to keep giving away music or are we still looking for a way to monetize digital music, in an age when Gen Z can just find the music they wanted posted somewhere on the web and download it for nothing? When was the last time you saw CDs for sale in a store somewhere, anyway? I think for me it was about a year ago in a mall on Long Island, we saw CDs for sale at an F.Y.E. and vinyl albums (!) for sale at a Newbury Comics. I don't think I've bought a vinyl record since ZZ Top's "Afterburner". </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The film is pretty well put-together, though - and the songs all seem well-made, I'll have to check those out as music files maybe and see if I want to download any of them. I'd give this a "7" for the most part, maybe that just comes from the relief of knowing that the romance chain is coming to an end and I can move on to other things. However, I may have to take a point off for containing too much James Corden, I'm just not a fan. This film was directed by John Carney, who also directed "Once" and "Sing Street", and I'm a big fan of the latter, though I don't think a lot of people have seen it. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Keira Knightley (last seen in "Colette"), Mark Ruffalo (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Adam Levine (last seen in "The Clapper"), Hailee Steinfeld (last seen in "The Homesman"), James Corden (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), CeeLo Green (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania"), Yasiin Bey (last seen in "Life of Crime") Rob Morrow (last seen in "Adam"), Maddie Corman (last seen in "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood"), Aya Cash (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Jennifer Li Jackson (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Marco Assante (last seen in "Matchstick Men"), Mary Catherine Garrison (last seen in "The Land of Steady Habits"), Ian Brodsky, Shannon Walsh, David Abeles, Kena Onyenjekwe, Harvey Morris, Terry Lewis, Jimmy Palumbo (last seen in "Something Borrowed"), Simon Delaney (last seen in "This Must Be the Place"), Danielle Brisebois, Keen Ruffalo, Melissa Maria Gonzalez, Nicholas Daniel Gonzalez, David Pendleton, Nicole Neuman (last seen "The Disappearance of Eleanor RIgbyL Them"). </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 6 out of 10 subway stations</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-61283307537216083342024-03-13T21:18:00.000-07:002024-03-13T21:18:12.975-07:00Nostalgia<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 73 - 3/13/24 - Movie #4,673</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Ellen Burstyn carries over from "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore". and I've just got to get back into a normal sleeping rhythm. I know, I know, why start now? But I stayed up late while we were in Atlantic City, watching some TV shows on my phone and desperately trying to clear some shows off of my DVR, it's been filling up faster than usual lately because suddenly all of my shows are finally back on the air - "Masked Singer", "Survivor", "The Amazing Race", 3 different "Law & Order" series, and now a third late-night show every day, "After Midnight", and I'm falling further and further behind. There are like 5 eps of "Shark Tank" and 3 of "CSI" that are taking up space, but I can't seem to make any progress, because as soon as I watch "The Daily Show" and Colbert and Meyers each night, it's time to start on my movie.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'd say I could catch up this weekend, but Saturday we're getting our taxes done and Sunday I'm working at the NY International Children's Film Festival, so there goes that idea. I've been staying up until 4 am just so I can clear another show or two from the board, but I just can't keep up, it's all coming in too fast. This is why I watched the Oscars on Hulu in the hotel room, just so I could remotely clear a four-hour Oscars broadcast from the DVR. Before you know it, there will be 27 episodes of "Chopped" stored up again, and 12 episodes of "Bar Rescue", which is now a very low-priority show for me. I wish somebody would cancel it so I could stop. I know, I know...</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvvFEpC0o-pdHxr2UxtvhA8cniY8_LyTVDSRJ1aGb2dPRcbDdBZ3otR92KExIin1hEOtn5BvBSkRNN1s_0vihJxSKq7N3jSxDohVZtCbbkp5ighOuBwioioPvn7d3_-4q5YjrCOcQouU-ZwsNl2RDtRNpKF5ndSnAmNbKpDAIutm2rShmgOimuylfzHQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="845" data-original-width="571" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgvvFEpC0o-pdHxr2UxtvhA8cniY8_LyTVDSRJ1aGb2dPRcbDdBZ3otR92KExIin1hEOtn5BvBSkRNN1s_0vihJxSKq7N3jSxDohVZtCbbkp5ighOuBwioioPvn7d3_-4q5YjrCOcQouU-ZwsNl2RDtRNpKF5ndSnAmNbKpDAIutm2rShmgOimuylfzHQ=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A mosaic of stories about love and loss, exploring our relationship to the objects, artifacts and memories that shape our lives. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Well, this is a real bummer of a movie - I know how it ended up on my romance list, but it's just not one, not by any stretch of the imagination. I don't find someone pining for their dead spouse as very romantic, not when in "Moonlight & Valentino" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" the widowed people managed to get on with their lives and love again - sure, not right away, but eventually. You know we're in the tail end of my romance chain (just two more to go!) when I find myself watching a movie about dead spouses and divorced people. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(Speaking of which, it's a bit odd that Diane Ladd played Flo in "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", which was yesterday's film, and her ex-husband, Bruce Dern, turns up in the next movie today. Well, I enjoy little coincidences like that, for sure.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The real plot of this movie centers around the fact that when someone dies, the people who loved that person have to decide what to do with all their stuff. And sometimes people put that off for years, other times people fight over the stuff, and then other times people just throw it all away or donate it to a Goodwill store. That's really not much of a plot to build a movie around, is it? Nope, didn't think so. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But the stories are interconnecting - the guy that checks out the insurance claims when people file after an accident moves from place to place and story to story, and then the guy who Helen sells her dead husband's baseball to is seen in the next story, finally getting around to clearing out his parents' old house, and going through stuff with his sister, when tragedy strikes his sister's family. In the case of the young girl, her parents come to realize that she was the family photographer and in charge of the computer that held all their music, so without her there, they can't seem to figure out how to find her favorites songs or gather pictures of her for the funeral because they can't unlock her phone. Sorry, boomers, but you might have to ask for help with these fancy tech devices, maybe go to a library and look it up on the internet, or maybe just ask somebody under the age of 25?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The really most tedious part of all is the scene where Helen sells that autographed baseball, and the conversation between her and Will, the sports memorabilia dealer, is about ten times longer than it needs to be - they keep going over the SAME points over and over, over-explaining the process of selling something to a dealer. What's funny to me is that the dealer doesn't see the need to verify Ted Williams' autograph, he KNOWS that it's real because people who sell signed items that have been in their family for decades "rarely" forge the signatures. Then he ends up over-paying Helen for the autograph that he's "sure" is authentic. I can almost guarantee that this is NOT the way most baseball memorabilia sales go - I think you're much more likely to have a dealer offer below market rate for a signed baseball, just because the seller doesn't have a C.O.A. and therefore she can't prove that the signature is authentic - then he'll turn around and sell it to a collector for top dollar, because he's going to create a phony hologram authentifying certificate, or doctor up a photo of Ted Williams signing THIS ball, or more likely seal it in plastic so the next buyer can't really get a good look at it, and then double the price.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But that's it, that's the movie - people die, and then their families have to go through their old photo albums, record albums, clothes and all that junk up in the attic and decide what to do with it. Geez, if I'd known that was all there was to see here I probably would have skipped it. I know that someday I'm going to have to go through everything in my parents' old house in Massachusetts, and I'm not looking forward to it - there's hardly anything collectible there, we stupidly lost pieces from our old board games and jigsaw puzzles, and who needs a giant pile of VHS tapes. BUT there is a large pile of old National Geographic magazines, those might be worth something, but my mother's cookbooks, probably not. The greatest thing of value in the house might be my mom's piano, and a large collection of sheet music - the trick would be finding someone for whom those things might have some value. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jon Hamm (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Catherine Keener (last seen in "Lovely & Amazing"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Bruce Dern (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), John Ortiz (last seen in "Horse Girl"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Nick Offerman (last heard in "Sing 2"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">James Le Gros (last seen in "The Myth of Fingerprints"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Amber Tamblyn (last seen in "127 Hours"), Patton Oswalt (last seen in "80 for Brady"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Annalise Basso (last seen in "Captain Fantastic"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Mikey Madison (last seen in "Monster"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jennifer Mudge (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Chris Marquette (last seen in "Race to Witch Mountain"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Joanna Going (last seen in "The Tree of Life"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Shinelle Azoroh (last seen in "Don't Let Go"), Romy Rosemont (last seen in "Whatever It Takes"), Hugo Armstrong (last seen in "Lucky"), Beth Grant (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Arye Gross (last seen in "Gone in 60 Seconds"), Lindsey Kraft (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Ashlyn Faith Williams, Bella Pellington.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 3 out of 10 jazz records (first printings, hopefully)</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-66976395793706045982024-03-12T17:54:00.000-07:002024-03-14T21:06:44.292-07:00Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 72 - 3/12/24 - Movie #4,672</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: After 48 hours in Atlantic City, I'm back home and I only missed one movie-watching day, because I was able to watch this movie on Netflix while traveling. This one was suggested by the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" programming, I saw that it would be airing on TCM and so I recorded it, knowing exactly where it could fit into the romance chain - but now I can delete it and cross another classic movie (from 1974!) off the list. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">While in Atlantic City, we stayed at the Tropicana, and I don't think we stayed there before on any of our many trips there - and we stay from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning, because that ends up being cheaper than staying Friday through Sunday like most people do. Room rates are better, but unfortunately many restaurants in the casinos close on Mondays and Tuesdays, but we were lucky that our favorite buffet at the Borgata stays open on Monday mornings in case the weekend's departing guests want to eat one more meal. Sunday night we had dinner at the new Hell's Kitchen restaurant at Caesar's, and I have to imagine that we were lucky enough to get a table just because most people were watching the Oscars broadcast. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The last time we were in A.C. was June 2022, and the city was still recovering from the pandemic, so many of the restaurants we'd come to know over the years were closed, there was an entire upscale mall out on a pier that was deserted (except for a candy store at the Boardwalk level) so the empty Apple Store and closed fancy restaurants like Buddokan made the place look like a ghost town. Well, things are better, and the city seems to have recovered because they're back to making money, any way they can. We parked in Harrah's lot after breakfast at the Borgata, and though it only cost us $5 to park at the Borgata, Harrah's charged us $20 on the way out, and although they said the rates were posted, it must have been on a very small sign, because we sure didn't see it on the way in. But at that point, they're basically holding your car hostage, you can't drive it out of there unless you pay the $20, which seems like highway robbery. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Our dining choices on Monday night were very limited, since it was still pre-season anything that was even open on the Boardwalk, like the BierGarten, closed up at 4 pm. T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">here was a new BBQ restaurant at the Tropicana but it seemed way too expensive - they had a late-night combo meal discount that started at 11 pm, but who wants to wait until then for dinner, and also since the restaurant closed at 10 pm, I didn't see how it was possible to order after that. So, yeah, thanks for offering discounted food after the restaurant closes - were they selling their leftovers at that point? No thanks. So our choices were either deli sandwiches, eating at Hooters, or some place called Chickie & Pete's that served mostly seafood (which my wife doesn't eat) but also burgers and chicken sandwiches or fries, so we chose that over Hooters. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Also yesterday I watched the Oscars on Hulu, which took a day to post the telecast, but hey, no commercials, so I whipped through the whole thing in about 90 minutes, since I just watched the comedy bits and the award presentations, and I skipped over the acceptance speeches and also the musical performances, and that saved a lot of time. Also I skipped those tedious montages that over explain what stunt-work is or how a musical score is written. We know all this, because we're movie fans that already know how films are made! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, I've got plans to watch "Oppenheimer" ASAP - should be in the first few days of April, and I'm putting "Barbie" and "Poor Things" on the watch list, all the other films I'l have to get to whenever I can, as they start streaming I'll add them. I think the only nominated films that I had already seen were "Maestro" and "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" and the Indiana Jones film that got a couple technical nominations. Oh, and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3", which was nominated for visual effects - but nothing that I had seen won anything, so I kind of struck out this year. That's OK, it happens, and I'll spend the next few months watching these films that were (allegedly) better than the ones I happened to catch, and I'll go from there. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Tonight's film is also really connected to this year's nominations, since it was directed by Martin Scorsese, who was nominated for "Killers of the Flower Moon", and has Jodie Foster in it, she was nominated for "Nyad", but neither won. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjY2RdnNCBXVuI5LBIDf2ydsB5tD6rCluNSKCl43AlgS9ZkZRa6Ah_iL23T6brUh1rwCfL7nIlmNhCgLjlTygWCB7fNj8agTVPf_2CYvJuExlGPlJGmFZ066M48WLTShqc_iWofRY83uwfXpWvu4D776TNmT8BOfcrL6mf8ShdI9csVM6mVG4ZqEE-MQA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="552" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjY2RdnNCBXVuI5LBIDf2ydsB5tD6rCluNSKCl43AlgS9ZkZRa6Ah_iL23T6brUh1rwCfL7nIlmNhCgLjlTygWCB7fNj8agTVPf_2CYvJuExlGPlJGmFZ066M48WLTShqc_iWofRY83uwfXpWvu4D776TNmT8BOfcrL6mf8ShdI9csVM6mVG4ZqEE-MQA=w263-h400" width="263" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A recently widowed woman is on the road with her precocious young son, determined to make a new life for herself as a singer. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: When I was a kid I watched the TV sit-com "Alice" without ever really learning about where it came from - what did I know about Martin Scorsese movies? The show ran from 1976 to 1985 and of course I had no clue, in the same way I watched "M*A*S*H" around the same time without knowing much about the Korean War. But it seems that some TV executive really loved this movie and wanted to turn it into a weekly comedy, only they didn't want to focus on the relationship ups and downs of a single mother, they only wanted to focus on what happened in the diner, the waitresses and the cook and the weird clientele - in a way that show was "Cheers" before we had "Cheers", only instead of a Boston bar it was set in an Arizona diner. Gee, I can't imagine why Martin Scorsese didn't want to direct that - apparently there's a whole book written about how the movie got turned into a TV show, and what got changed in that process, but I'd hoped all of that would sort of be front-and-center on Wikipedia, I'm not curious enough to buy a book.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The movie's about the diner, sure, but not to the same extent - in the movie the focus is squarely on Alice, and her life after her abusive husband dies in a trucking accident. She's got no money left after paying for the funeral, so she and her son pack everything into the station wagon and leave New Mexico heading for a better life in Monterey, where she once worked as a singer. But their first stop is in Phoenix, Arizona, where she does find some work as a singer in a piano bar. She's constantly hit on by the men who frequent the bar, and she turns them all down except for a man named Ben, but then learns that not only is Ben married with a sick child, but he's also been abusive to his wife, and Alice really has found herself right back in a situation similar to the one she was in before, so she packs up the station wagon again and moves on.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">She only gets as far as Tucson, where she looks for a job again so they'll have money to complete the journey to California. She takes that job at Mel & Ruby's Diner (which was the template for the famous Mel's Diner in the TV show) alongside waitresses Flo & Vera. Flo is the sassy Southern one and Vera is the quiet and incompetent one. Hey, I had breakfast at a diner this morning, what a coincidence. Alice develops feelings for one of the customers at the diner, a divorced horse rancher named David, however as they spend more time together she also realizes that David has a short temper where her son is concerned, and it appears that Alice does really have a "type", doesn't it? But let's face it, her son is very annoying and would probably get under anyone's skin eventually. Also, this was a different time, back when adults were still allowed to discipline kids with physical violence if they felt the situation called for it, so Alice does decide to stay in Tucson and move in with David at his ranch. Hey, it's not for me to judge. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Is this the greatest movie romance? Not by any means - but at least Alice ends up in a mostly positive relationship and she's learned that she has to put her safety first and also keep her singing aspirations alive, and all of that is important. It's actually one of the better relationship lessons in this year's chain, along with "never plan a bachelor party or wedding in Las Vegas".</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Alfred Lutter (last seen in "Love and Death"), Kris Kristofferson (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Harvey Keitel (last seen in "De Palma"), Lane Bradbury, Diane Ladd (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), Valerie Curtin (last seen in "Best Friends"), Lelia Goldoni (last seen in "The Italian Job" (1969)), Vic Tayback (last seen in "The Cheap Detective"), Jodie Foster (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Billy Green Bush (last seen in "The River"), Harry Northup (last seen in "Beloved"), Mia Bendixsen, Marty Brinton, Dean Casper, Murray Moston (last seen in "The Front"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">with cameos from Laura Dern (last seen in "Sheryl"), Martin Scorsese (last seen in "De Palma") with archive footage of Johnny Carson (last seen in "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"). </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 Mott the Hoople records</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-69835920184868761262024-03-12T16:23:00.000-07:002024-03-15T20:28:42.946-07:00All I Wish<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 70 - 3/10/24 - Movie #4,671</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Sharon Stone carries over from "Beauty" and t</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his year's Oscars ceremony airs tonight, but I won't be able to watch since I'm in Atlantic City, and on vacation - if we watch any TV tonight it will be the new episodes of "Tournament of Champions" on Food Network, that takes priority because it's a show we watch together - so I'll have to watch the Oscars telecast when I get back home. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm late posting, but here's the final line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 31: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:30 am "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "Dark Victory" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 pm "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Gone with the Wind" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:15 pm "Wings" (1927)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:45 am "You Can't Take It with You" (1938)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 am "The Broadway Melody" (1929)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's the final 9 films, and I think I've seen another 6 of them today - all of the films except for "A Farewell to Arms" (though I watched the 1957 remake), "Wings" and "The Broadway Melody". T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 147 seen out of 350, which is 42%, my final score. I suppose I've done better in previous years but I'm just happy that I finished over 40%.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This year's Oscars airs tonight, but I won't be able to watch since I'm in Atlantic City, and on vacation - if we watch any TV tonight it will be the new episodes of "Tournament of Champions" on Food Network, that takes priority because it's a show we watch together - so I'll have to watch the Oscars telecast when I get back home. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(EDIT: March 10 is also Sharon Stone's birthday, which I failed to realize, maybe because I was traveling and I was in a rush. Anyway, a special belated Birthday SHOUT-out to her.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi34WUPaOFZtfELDswODC6S6fQpQpnOTFxGqMvtj_sYv2ZyxquHN6v6UMnAEY-4b_38xaUdl3N505bjluLAffVW2wF0L_jv6ZmDDnnWwSiELtcmuBMA8xzMhY2RLa-ye2mzOiLdiTXPikqDZnM66OL_IpyBOBiyxitUGdv7jTGyr1lk3CM95sPb4mmEnQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="583" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi34WUPaOFZtfELDswODC6S6fQpQpnOTFxGqMvtj_sYv2ZyxquHN6v6UMnAEY-4b_38xaUdl3N505bjluLAffVW2wF0L_jv6ZmDDnnWwSiELtcmuBMA8xzMhY2RLa-ye2mzOiLdiTXPikqDZnM66OL_IpyBOBiyxitUGdv7jTGyr1lk3CM95sPb4mmEnQ=w280-h400" width="280" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: An aspiring fashion designer struggles to find success and love. The story cuts into her life once a year, on the same date: her birthday.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: I'm going to go a little easy on this one today, I think, because well, I don't have as much time as usual to get into what might be wrong with it. Also, I'm happy to see that Sharon Stone is still working - although I think I saw something on "60 Minutes" about her focusing on painting in the last couple of years - and I think I can say I've never seen a story told in this format, where the story keeps jumping ahead in one-year increments. There's some cleverness there, the idea's got some merit if you wanted to check in on, say, a family on successive Christmases, or a couple on New Year's Eve, again and again. Something tells me those stories would tend to get tedious, but here we're charting a woman's personal growth and relationship status and wouldn't you know it, all the big important moments we need to see to track that end up happening on her birthday. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">We first meet Senna on her 45th (?) birthday, and she's a serial dater of mostly younger men, though the relationships don't seem to last long, and she's working for a fashion house as some kind of buyer, but she longs to be a clothing designer with her own line or her own store. It seems that maybe she knows where she wants to be, but doesn't know how to get there, or perhaps she lacks the drive or the motivation, it's a bit tough to day. After all, we only have one day each year to learn about her and where she is in life. There are some consistencies, of course, like her mother always calls her very early on her birthday, and then they usually also have lunch together that day. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I think on the second year we see, perhaps, her friend Darla sets her up by inviting Adam, a visiting lawyer she knows from Boston, to Senna's birthday party, It does not go well, because he doesn't like being set-up either, so he arrives late and meets Senna at the bar without knowing who she is - so he accidentally says some terrible things that he assumes to be true about Senna. But he is very apologetic, and on the following birthday he tries to make it up to her, even though he's with another woman, there are party mishaps that occur which maybe start to indicate that these two people belong together. However, they have very different attitudes about relationships at first, Senna believes in the concept of soulmates, while Adam beleves that with six billion people in the world, surely he's a good match for at least five of them, so that's a case for serial monogamy, I guess. Adam also believes in marriage as a concept, but Senna is determined to never get married and continue playing the field, but remember, doing this has also left her unfulfilled to some degree. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Yeah, so they end up in a situationship by the next birthday, since Adam's no longer seeing that other woman, and Senna learns that he's not as predictable as he seems to be, he did kiss her spontaneously on the previous birthday, and sure, he's easy on the eyes. Fast-forward another year and they're in a full-fledged relationship, for once she doesn't wake up in bed alone on her special day. However, there are more twists and turns to come, as she spots a ring case in his gym bag, and makes an assumption that he's going to propose, however bear in mind that she did not OPEN the ring case, and it possibly contains something else. Unfortunately, the damage is done and by this point the woman who swore she'd never get marriage had already wrapped her brain around a proposal, so now Adam's got to go in to damage control mode, and either find a way out of the situation, or just lean into it and move ahead with a proposal.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Across the board, there are communication errors that maybe should never have happened, and therefore as a result they tend to feel like contrivances, but really, the whole film is rather contrived because remember, everything that drives the plot forward or represents where the characters stand RIGHT NOW has to squeezed into the events of only one day per year. So there's a fair amount of manipulation here, and coming up with justifications for why certain characters see fit to change their opinions on things, making it seem at times that people change their attitudes very quickly, on a whim, to bring about these changes. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And it's an on-again, off-again relationship for Senna and Adam over the course of these five (or is it six?) years, and her career rises and falls, too, she opens her own boutique, but doesn't manage her money very well, borrows money from her mother, but then, well you'll just have to watch it and ride out all the changes in Senna's life and Adam's comings and goings. Will these crazy kids realize that they need to be together, or will their petty differences and imagined conflicts keep them apart? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There are a lot of rom-coms made about women trying to balance relationships and careers when they're in their twenties or thirties, but I don't think I've seen one that focused on a woman in her late forties or early fifties, not in this way at least. Probably not the best decision to make for a successful box office, as this film earned less than $200,000 - but it took some cojones to make it, for sure. You're bound to get sick of hearing the "Happy Birthday" song, don't say I didn't warn you. I know my goal now is to always get through my birthday without hearing the song, I've bribed my co-workers with doughnuts if they agree to not sing - sure, we can still have cake and candles, just please don't sing the damn song. The song is something of a reminder on how dangerous birthdays really are - I've heard that having too many of them is bad for your health, after all. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "The People We Hate at the Wedding"), Ellen Burstyn (last seen in "The Calling"), Famke Janssen (last seen in "Eulogy"), Liza Lapira (last seen in "Domino"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Erica Ash, Caitlin FitzGerald (last seen in "The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot"), Gilles Marini, Jason Gibson, Leonor Varela (last seen in "Alpha"), Yvonne Jung, D.G. Guyer, Ryan Lochte, Matthew Broussard (last seen in "Here Today"), Jose Navarro, Parvesh Cheena (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), David Atkinson (last seen in "Hillbilly Elegy"), Selah Victor (last seen in "Bad Santa 2"), Zach Lutsky, Tom Paolino (last seen in "The Purge: Election Year"), Kailen Jude, Harry Zinn.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 6 out of 10 items from the gumball machine</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-70707299502594400292024-03-09T17:01:00.000-08:002024-03-09T17:01:16.503-08:00Beauty<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 69 - 3/9/24 - Movie #4,670</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Giancarlo Esposito carries over from "Waiting to Exhale" and I just got back from the NYC Craft Brew Festival, held in the fashionable West Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, to call it a beerfest would really be underselling it, there were also spirits like root beer flavored whisky, hard tea and some alcoholic beverage from Finland that I don't recall the name of. Actually I don't remember a lot of what went down during this three 1/2 hour festival, because I did two laps around the serving tables and sampled 57 different beers and spirits - so yeah, after the event was over and they kicked me out it took me a few hours to get home, but part of that was just remembering how to do that. I stopped at Barcade and played a few games of Q*Bert to sober up, also it was raining so I got very soaking wet and kind of failed to notice that. Anyway, I'm back home and ready for a nap, but I think I can knock out a blog post first. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 30: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:30 am "The Champ" (1931)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:00 am "Top Hat" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:00 am "The Maltese Falcon" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:00 pm "The Last Emperor" (1987)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Ben-Hur" (1959)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 am "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:30 am "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:15 am "Cimarron" (1931)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">HA HA! Another 7 seen out of 9 today - all of the films except for "The Champ" and "Cimarron". T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 141 seen out of 341, which is 41.3%. Just as I predicted, I'm going to finish strong at the end. I'm going out of town tomorrow but I'll print my final results on Tuesday, I expect to finish over 42% with a little luck. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgz41S63wTVC52Ebjb55XtgUL2d7bCLMGEVnSsOoWaPGVxdXGrSZ13S5Wc-z9rF3_Wj2kwHY64PYAh5-INNXbM0am7eqMsqFegyU4MuhRUBcv_M2dlReQn51acwNZtMX1uyVCBCUj4UL0mhtCkGjTny7yJ8bla8is9HlrjA0JxO9vaiA4QUw4ybdbaUcw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="824" data-original-width="568" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgz41S63wTVC52Ebjb55XtgUL2d7bCLMGEVnSsOoWaPGVxdXGrSZ13S5Wc-z9rF3_Wj2kwHY64PYAh5-INNXbM0am7eqMsqFegyU4MuhRUBcv_M2dlReQn51acwNZtMX1uyVCBCUj4UL0mhtCkGjTny7yJ8bla8is9HlrjA0JxO9vaiA4QUw4ybdbaUcw=w275-h400" width="275" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A gifted young black woman struggles to maintain her voice and identity after she's offered a lucrative recording contract. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: This movie played at the theater where I work, I don't recall if it was a special guild screening or part of some larger festival like the Tribeca Festival, but either way it would probably have been during calendar year 2022, and that means it took me about two years to fit it somewhere in my chain - I guess I'm lucky that it's stayed on Netflix all this time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But it took me WAY too long to figure out that this was an allegory for the Whitney Houston story, which obviously somebody did NOT have the rights to, so they just went ahead with what they knew (or imagined) took place in Whitney's life and just changed the name of the main character to "Beauty", which is weird because nobody anywhere has that as a first name. So clearly we're supposed to kind of FEEL Whitney in "Beauty" without it really being stated as such. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But the IMDB listed this under "romance" so that's where I programmed it, sure, there's a lesbian romance between Beauty and Jasmine, and sure, it fits into that category fine, but really, come on, it's a biopic about Whitney Houston. It's another random coincidence that I ended up programming it one day after a film with the REAL Whitney Houston in it, but honestly, there are no coincidences, or at least I've come to expect them as part of this whole process, there are just happenstances that lead me to greater truths. And what we know NOW about Whitney is that she was most likely bisexual and had an ongoing relationship with Robyn Crawford, however this supposedly stopped when she signed her recording contract. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Something finally clicked for me when Beauty finally made her television debut, on a talk show where the host sounded amazingly like Dick Cavett, only under a different name, and then suddenly I realized this whole thing was an allegory, a thinly-veiled biopic of Whitney made by people who had no rights to Ms. Houston's life story, so they just borrowed every element that they could and changed the names to make this (barely) legal. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, given that, there are still two major problems here with the way that the story is told - first of all (and this also took me way too long to realize), we don't EVER hear Beauty sing. Nope, not at all, go back and watch the film again with this in mind if you don't believe me. The film either shows her in a recording studio with the headphones on, and she's either about to sing or she JUST finished singing, or in the few shots where she is depicted singing, there is NO SOUND of her on those shots. It's just all weird and awkward, like how do you make a whole movie about an amazing famous singer, or a woman who is about to sign a recording contract and therefore become an amazing famous singer, and we never hear her sing in the movie, not even once? That's bizarre, and also it feels like cheating. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I don't know WHY anybody would choose to make a film this way - maybe they cast an actress to play Beauty and then realized she couldn't sing worth a damn? You'd think that somebody would check that first. Maybe they meant to have her lip-synch to someone else's vocals, and then realized that looked very fake-y and not realistic? Again, you'd think that doing some screen tests during the casting process would have highlighted this problem early on and then they would have made some kind of adjustment. It's possible, sure, that somebody felt that NOT showing the lead character singing would create some kind of air of mystery about it, but then I think I might be giving the director of this film a bit too much credit, like I'm covering up for them or something. No, I've got to just shrug my shoulders here and say that as a narrative choice, to NOT show the lead character singing is decidedly a very questionable decision, and one that I just can't agree on. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Beauty's mother is famous for being a singer herself, although largely as a dependable back-up singer for other artists, and not a star herself, and yeah, sure, that's Cissy Houston, no doubt. That's what really sealed the deal for me, that Beauty's mother was also known as a recording artist, but mainly as a back-up singer. There's one other narrative choice made here that's very questionable, which is when Beauty's father sends her two brothers out to "take care" of her girlfriend, namely to either beat her up or maybe even kill her, but instead they end up fighting with each other and beating each other unconscious, and really, that makes zero sense at all. It's bizarre on top of bizarre. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Perhaps there was a larger point to be made about Whitney Houston, or her family's expectations for her or what she had to do to conform to society's definition of a famous pop singer, but unfortunately it's buried under so much nonsense and conflicting information that ultimalely there's no point to this movie at all. Either make a movie about Whitney Houston or don't, but PLEASE don't half-ass it. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Gracie Marie Bradley, Niecy Nash (last seen in 'Trust Me"), Aleyse Shannon, Kyle Bary, Micheal Ward (last seen in "Empire of Light"), Sharon Stone (last seen in "Here Today"), Sarah Stavrou, James Urbaniak (last seen in "Tesla"), Andre Ozim (last seen in "Uncut Gems"), Joey Bada$$, Alan R. Walker, with archive footage of Ella Fitzgerald (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Judy Garland (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"), Mahalia Jackson, Patti Labelle, Nancy Reagan (last seen in "The Special Relationship"), Donna Summer (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Mr. T (last seen in "Air")</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 3 out of 10 gold records on the wall</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-44439578217214078772024-03-08T21:36:00.000-08:002024-03-08T21:36:00.304-08:00Waiting to Exhale<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 68 - 3/8/24 - Movie #4,669</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Loretta Devine carries over from "Stanley & Iris" and I'm on vacation as of tonight, not a full week or anything crazy like that, just four days off in a row, and three days of that will be spent in Atlantic City. It's a long drive there, but worth it if we get 48 hours to ourselves with no work in sight. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 29: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:15 am "Our Town" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:45 am "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:15 am Johnny Belinda" (1948)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:00 am "The Yearling" (1946)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:15 pm "Father of the Bride" (1950)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:00 pm "The Music Man" (1962)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:45 pm "Mister Roberts" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Rain Man" (1988)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:30 pm "Annie Hall" (1977)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:15 am "The Apartment" (1960)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:30 am "Gigi" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:30 am "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another 7 seen out of 12 today - all of the films between "Father of the Bride" and "Gigi", inclusive. T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 134 seen out of 332, which is BOOM 40.3%. I made it over the hump, now I just need to maintain that for the next two days. The biggest, most popular Best Picture nominees are still coming, so I've got a shot at this. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWZh9j5oTtas4S_I2xTouDcFh4_PvtE1-o77O9iF93Mc-1BfQKv7ClODV-6AfiByaWzELti9lYuPuhVYDRB76xCQc0DUc_Oxt3l-_oQ_1lL8EMt2FBnpbC70Y0dWqUuX-c6fNIJW56vMuCRaThK1Vc-3ApFr8yCo8dBri7h4WComqkdvqmZQtVZaV6Nw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="745" data-original-width="499" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiWZh9j5oTtas4S_I2xTouDcFh4_PvtE1-o77O9iF93Mc-1BfQKv7ClODV-6AfiByaWzELti9lYuPuhVYDRB76xCQc0DUc_Oxt3l-_oQ_1lL8EMt2FBnpbC70Y0dWqUuX-c6fNIJW56vMuCRaThK1Vc-3ApFr8yCo8dBri7h4WComqkdvqmZQtVZaV6Nw=w268-h400" width="268" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">FOLLOW-UP TO: "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" (Movie #4,042)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: Based on Terry McMillan's novel, this film follows four very different African-American women and their relationships with men. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Yeah, that was TWO years ago, February 2022, when I watched that other African-American female-oriented romance film, and I tend to pair movies when I make my lists, because it makes the linking job twice as easy - or is it half as difficult? But sometimes this process strands one of the films, like I could link TO "How Stella Got Her Groove Back", but if I watched "Waiting to Exhale" next, it really cut down my linking possibilities at the time, and I couldn't move forward with the chain I wanted unless I dropped that film. So it took me over 600 films to be able to circle back, sometimes that's what it takes. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So I'm crossing this one off the list tonight, which is great, but I'm in the same situation again, this film links to "Men, Women & Children" via Dennis Haysbert, and I'm not watching that one next, even though I dropped it from last year's Adam Sandler chain and swore I'd re-program it ASAP. Not gonna do it, because that would not link up with the path I have in mind, but you see how frequently this happens? With just six films to go in the romance chain I wouldn't want to add anything else at this point anyway, I've got to start on the path to Irish films and an Easter tie-in. I realize I'm going to be leaving the list of romance films in a big mess, but hey, I've got 10 months to sort it out again. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Oh, I just want to call a mulligan tonight because I'm way outside this film's demographic and probably anything I say about it is going to sound racist. I'll try to muddle through - but I've seen so many romance films already this season, like BOTH "Think Like a Man" movies, and I'm having trouble caring about the relationship problems of four black women living in the greater metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona. I didn't even know there WERE four black women living in the greater metropolitan area of Phoenix, Arizona. See, even that sounds like a racist thing for me to say, of course black people live there, but I'm just saying I didn't know that fact directly, because I've never been there. Ask me about San Diego or Portland, Oregon, I've been to those cities several times each. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The film's synopsis says these stories are about four "very different" women, but are they that different? I don't mean because they're all black American women, but because three of their stories end up sounding like the exact same stories, three of them are dating married men who never seem to get around to leaving their wives, and then when they come to realize this, they have difficulty finding a new romantic partner. If I can play Dr. Phil for just a minute, what did they THINK was going to happen when they were dating a married man, that he'd just dump his wife and then fall madly in love with his side-piece and then marry her? Even if that WERE going to happen (and it's not) then how could anybody trust that man going forward, because if he did that to his first wife, he'll do that to his second wife, once he gets tired of her. That's the behavior of a man acting like a serial cheater, which is the opposite of a monogamist - he's ALWAYS going to have another girl on the side, and he's ALWAYS going to be looking to "trade up", and betting on him to stay faithful is, well, a losing bet. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, the three women maybe get to this point in different ways, but three of them end up in the same place, and that just feels like lazy storytelling - or at least you shouldn't say they have "very different" stories when they're not. There's Savannah Jackson, who's a TV producer with a married lover, who believes that he will leave his wife for her - and when she finally realizes that he won't, she starts dating an old friend from her hometown who is, and you'll never believe it, married, but he says that he and his wife are getting ready to split up (they aren't) and he's only staying married for the sake of his young daughter. And Savannah falls for this line, just like she did the last time. Robin is a high-powered executive and the mistress of a man named Russell, who keeps saying he's going to leave his wife, but he never seems to get around to doing it, and then starts hanging out with a new lover, and I'm not sure but I think he's a drug dealer (oh, why couldn't he just be a married man?). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Then there's Bernadine, who's married at the start of the film, but one night before a party he asks if she wouldn't mind not going to the party - which seems romantic, they can stay in and just spend time together, sounds great. Only he still wants to go to the party, with another woman, oh and by the way, he's breaking up with Bernadine. I see what the screenwriter tried to do there, but it just wasn't funny, and also, nobody breaks up with somebody like that. Anyway he's leaving her for a white woman, which I guess is an insult to black women everywhere, but Bernie retaliates by putting all his clothes in his car and setting the car on fire, which is known colloquially as a "car-beque". </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Revenge is best served cold, however, and when she calms down she can do better for herself by getting a good divorce lawyer and getting a large settlement. Umm, why wasn't that Plan A and the carbeque Plan B? Then she has to face dating again, but she meets a new man in a bar who she starts a relationship with, only he's married (SEE? Same story!) but the difference here is that his wife has a terminal illness, and he's up-front about the fact that he can't leave her, although he seems to be fine with loving two women at once. Statistically, though, I'm bothered by the fact here that 3 out of 4 black women depicted made that same choice, to date a married man. Is this anything close to accurate, depicting the real world? I mean, why do 75% of this movie's characters make this decision and expect some kind of better result that never comes? For starters, maybe make better choices and date single men, then at least you've got something to work with, right? Is it just me?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The fourth story is different, of course - salon owner Gloria is divorced, but still hopeful that she can get back together with her ex-husband, who comes by occasionally to visit their son. However on the next time he visits, he declares that he's not just bisexual, which she knew already, but now identifies as gay. Which is fine, at least we cleared that up and Gloria can now have some closure and move forward, which she does when a widowed neighbor moves in next door. Well, that was very convenient, and they bond, but then have some difficulty when Gloria's son wants to go on tour in Spain with a musical group. Gloria's against it, because she's an overprotective mother, but her neighbor points out that he's got to grow up and leave the house at some point, also when he's gone they can have more alone time. OK, problem solved, at least for one of our four women. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This film was something of a social phenomenon back in the mid-1990's, and not just because it had an all-black cast - the characters all had large houses, owned businesses or had executive-level jobs, and extravagant wardrobes, it sure looked like they were all doing well. It must have been the booming job-market and low real-estate taxes in the greater metropolitan Phoenix area, which is why so many affluent African-American single women and so many unfaithful married African-American men chose to settle there. But did they?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Look, I get it, men are dogs (or pigs, whatever) but if you take in a dog and you KNOW it's a dog, you don't treat it like it's something else. So if you know that men tend to be dogs, then why keep dating those men? Making the same mistake again and again and expecting different results is part of the problem here. Just saying. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Oh, and there's a carnival (or state fair, whichever) in a romance film, AGAIN. This has got to be the 5th or 6th romance film this year where characters go on carnival rides. But here it's not romantic partners going on a ferris wheel or the spinning cups ride, it's two of the female characters who go on a carnival ride to discuss their relationship problems. Only nobody does that on a carnival ride, do they? That just felt all kinds of awkward. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Whitney Houston (last seen in "Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer"), Angela Bassett (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Lela Rochon (last seen in "Brooklyn's Finest"), Gregory Hines (last seen in "Sammy Davis Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Mykelti Williamson (last seen in "Species II"), Michael Beach (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Leon (last seen in "Cliffhanger"), Wendell Pierce (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Giancarlo Esposito (ditto), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Donald Faison (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jeffrey D. Sams, Jazz Raycole, Brandon Hammond (last seen in "The Fan"), Kenya Moore, Lamont Johnson (last seen in "The Great White Hype"), Starletta DuPois (last seen in "The Notebook"), Kelly Preston (last seen in "The Last Song"), Wesley Snipes (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Wren T. Brown, Graham Galloway (last seen in "Higher Learning"), Delaina Hlavin (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Luis Sharpe, Ezra Swerdlow, </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 weekly phone calls to Mom</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-31025784338081553722024-03-07T13:10:00.000-08:002024-03-07T13:10:51.663-08:00Stanley & Iris<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 67 - 3/7/24 - Movie #4,668</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Jane Fonda carries over from "Book Club: The Next Chapter" and I've got a day off today, they're getting a little bit rarer and further apart, which is OK because that means I'm working more, and I've got a chance to catch up on some record-keeping, go through the lists of what's new on the streaming platforms, maybe add a few films to my watchlist and look for some new connections. I've scheduled some time off starting on Saturday, when I go to my first beer festival in a while and then the next day we're driving to Atlantic City for 48 hours at the casinos, and we haven't done that in over a year and a half. Time for some fun if the weather holds out - and I just jinxed it, didn't I? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 28: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:45 am "Madame Curie" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "Captains Courageous" (1937)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "42nd Street" (1933)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:45 am "Foreign Correspondent" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 pm "The Letter" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Libeled Lady" (1936)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "Ninotchka" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Casablanca" (1942)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "Out of Africa" (1985)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:00 am "My Fair Lady" (1964)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 am "Tom Jones" (1963)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another 5 seen out of 12 today - just "Foreign Correspondent" and the last four after 8 pm. T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 127 seen out of 320, which is still 39.6%. I'm stuck in the standings, but tomorrow looks like a better day, I think I can still make it over 40%.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0DgVv2KqZzvVhfQsZfC6ouwWslM6DF5EiFQQyod2_bZOyJSJqMgdwxjKANm4GprW37bcBDzJ1KeDX6d0ZLx8S5Ixh3X61yURMGgOVhM7q0rlxtKRxwlDouyJQFhAc7Np3E231c0JJg2f3EfJH-I1E-entryR_wFnY7vTsUXt6-X3AapH2dDdKxUQaKg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="551" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0DgVv2KqZzvVhfQsZfC6ouwWslM6DF5EiFQQyod2_bZOyJSJqMgdwxjKANm4GprW37bcBDzJ1KeDX6d0ZLx8S5Ixh3X61yURMGgOVhM7q0rlxtKRxwlDouyJQFhAc7Np3E231c0JJg2f3EfJH-I1E-entryR_wFnY7vTsUXt6-X3AapH2dDdKxUQaKg=w263-h400" width="263" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A struggling widow falls in love with an illiterate short-order cook whom she teaches to read and write in her kitchen each night. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Haven't seen anything with De Niro in a while - last year I started with him and it was all De Niro all the time, or so it seemed. This year I haven't seen him at all yet, but that could be just because I've seen nearly every film he's been in, except for "1900" and "The Last Tycoon", but he may turn up here again around Father's Day, we'll have to see, I've only blocked out the path to Easter. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Yesterday I talked about book clubs and baking during the pandemic, and this fillm is more about illiteracy and baking in a high-yield commercial setting in Connecticut, a bread and cake factory, in other words. The place looks terrible, so industrial and it's a shame to see delicious baked goods on an assembly line, when we prefer to think of bakeries as clean, spotless kitchens where master bakers lovingly frost cakes and make decorative flowers on them by hand, which surely must increase the price ten-fold. I've seen shows like "Unwrapped" and "How It's Made" so of course I knew what a big baking factory looks like, but then we also watch shows like "Spring Baking Championship" which showcase the more artisanal side of things. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">My father trained as a baker, and he's got stories that i've heard a thousand times about baking in the 1960's for Boston-area department stores like Jordan Marsh, but then he got sidetracked into the army and then the family trucking business, so baking commercially was never his career, until later in his 50's the trucking business went under so he tried to work for Continental Baking (aka Hostess) but found he was allergic to their flour. Oh, well, back to trucking for him. And my wife's been baking at home since before everybody else tried it during the pandemic, she's made cakes and cookies and cinnamon rolls but has found baking a solid loaf of bread to be very elusive, it's never turned out quite right until last night, when she definitely produced something that had risen, baked into a round shape, had a decent crust and could be sliced, so that fit the definition of bread all around. I kept telling her to give up on bread, because we can just buy loaves of it at the store, but she persisted. I think there's some secret to the recipe that Big Baking doesn't tell anyone, they want home bakers to fail so they can keep selling them flour and yeast to create near-bread that gets thrown away before consumption. It's a big conspiracy that simply nobody is talking about. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">In much the same way, "Stanley & Iris" qualifies as a romance, but really only technically. Iris is a mess because her husband died eight months ago, and she's still grieving, her sister and brother-in-law are unemployed and moved in with her, but they're always bickering with each other and it's starting to get violent. Meanwhile her daughter has some kind of mystery illness that turns out to be another human growing inside of her, which nobody saw coming, and she won't tell her mother who the father is, because apparently the whole thing comes from her acting out. Well, we all have to learn some lessons the hard way, I guess. Money's tight because Iris works in that commercial bakery and I guess they don't pay very well, everyone in town seems to be either unemployed or living paycheck-to-paycheck. We all know now that Reaganomics didn't really work, right? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">She keeps meeting Stanley out in the world, he helps her when someone on the bus steals her purse, they go to the same laundromat, and he works in the cafeteria at the bakery - hey, even the factory workers need to eat a square meal for lunch, they can't just scarf down the imperfect muffins or buy the imperfect loaves of bread in the company store, they need a meat-and-two-sides lunch if they're going to frost cakes (with their hands, apparently, and NO GLOVES) for 8 hours a shift. She asks Stanley for a Tylenol and he offers her a bottle of Rolaids, so she determines that he can't read, which is a bit of a problem for the plant manager, because he can't risk having a cook who can't read the labels on products and might easily confuse a container of rat poison for salt or sugar. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the main point of the film, that things are very difficult for a man in his late 40's who can't read or write - as a result he can't open a bank account, he can't get a driver's license, or read a map, and he can only qualify for a certain level of jobs, like cleaning bathrooms or other menial labor tasks, but even for those jobs, it would be preferable that he would be able to read labels on cleaning products so he doesn't mix ammonia and bleach, for example. A bigger question might be how he got so far in life without trying to solve this problem at some point, I guess he was too busy hanging out in the Grand Canyon feeding white-tailed deer and not talking to other people for a week at a time. OK, but then how did he travel back to Connecticut if he couldn't buy a bus ticket or drive a car, or even know the difference between a $1 bill and a $10 bill? I still have questions, let's say. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But Iris helps Stanley out, or at least tries to, with learning his A-B-C's and forming simple words, he's reluctant to do his homework, though, and she gets frustrated with him very easily - but eventually he's in a place where he can read a whole letter and then study for his driver's test. This was the only thing holding him back for decades, and now he can have a real job and an adult relationship with Iris, still I just wonder what took him so long. I guess the real moral is to help out whoever you can, because you never know when that person can become successful and then (ideally) come back and rescue you from your drab existence, and you can then move from the industrial ass-end of Connecticut to beautiful Detroit, Michigan. Wait a minute, that can't be right...</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">De Niro is nominated for the Oscars this year, in the Best Supporting Actor category for "Killers of the Flower Moon". He already has two oscars, for "The Godfather Part II" and "Raging Bull", and I haven't seen any of the films nominated in this category, so I really have no idea what his chances are. The IMDB says that the front-runner is Robert Downey Jr. for "Oppenheimer", but Ryan Gosling's a "could win" for "Barbie". OK, sorry, Bobby D. I'm going to be out of town on Sunday, but this is a good reminder today that I want to record the broadcast of the ceremony and I'll try to watch it on Tuesday, as soon as I'm back home. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Robert De Niro (last seen in "De Palma"), Swoosie Kurtz (last seen in "A Shock to the System"), Martha Plimpton (last seen in "Adrienne"), Harley Cross (last seen in "Kinsey"), Jamey Sheridan (last seen in "Lizzie"), Feodor Chaliapin Jr. (last seen in "Lost in a Harem"), Zohra Lampert (last seen in "Splendor in the Grass"), Loretta Devine (last seen in "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge"), Julie Garfield (last seen in "Ishtar"), Karen Ludwig (last seen in "Thirteen Days"), Kathy Kinney (last seen in "This Boy's Life"), Stephen Root (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Laurel Lyle, Mary Testa (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), Katherine Cortez, Eddie Jones (last seen in "The Grifters"), Fred J. Scollay, Dortha Duckworth (last seen in "The Man with One Red Shoe"), Jack Gill, Bob Aaron, Gordon Masten (last seen in "The Words"), Conrad Bergschneider (last seen in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio").</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 street signs</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-973950811495747242024-03-06T21:13:00.000-08:002024-03-06T21:24:55.524-08:00Book Club: The Next Chapter<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 66 - 3/6/24 - Movie #4,667</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Mary Steenburgen carries over from "I Do... Until I Don't", and j</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ust seven more romance films to go, and I can then FINALLY move on to another topic. I think I've locked down the path from St. Patrick's Day to my Easter film, it's the right number of steps, anyway, and the goes through "The Marvels" and "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom", so I just have to be happy about that, knocking off two recent superhero films, one Marvel and one DC. I have to maintain a balance, after all. It seems like mostly action movies, which is fine, but I have to toss a loose romance film in there to make the connections. Well, it was either that or program a horror film in March, which is a bit out of season. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 27: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:30 am "The Big House" (1930)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "The Private Life of Henry the VIII" (1933)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:45 am "Captain Blood" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "Ivanhoe" (1952)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 pm "The Alamo" (1960)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:00 pm "America, America" (1963)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "All About Eve" (1950)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:30 pm "Gentleman's Agreement" (1947)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:45 am "Going My Way" (1944)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:00 am "Hamlet" (1948)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another 4 seen out of 10 today - just "The Private Life of Henry the VIII", "Captain Blood", "All About Eve" and "Hamlet" and t</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me up to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 122 seen out of 308, which is still 39.6%. Today's a push with just four days left, so I have to hope for more films that I've crossed off already. </span></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6f2KzOlx7rpSuTwdFSDT14Hfqkgw2QrfBob6lmogCqDY2LgXLT21yRkb3z7yPkxGhQh1E_5DX4av2YdTFcbUzZfe5bnOMYQY69Ag5FionLXDIn7GodhkTklAXuDPVvIaG50JZGPWs4Ewb5D2RE_WvaHQQRkS6_8Y7ox5TBh7gJ8nmD2ONtmg9JuDMRA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="565" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6f2KzOlx7rpSuTwdFSDT14Hfqkgw2QrfBob6lmogCqDY2LgXLT21yRkb3z7yPkxGhQh1E_5DX4av2YdTFcbUzZfe5bnOMYQY69Ag5FionLXDIn7GodhkTklAXuDPVvIaG50JZGPWs4Ewb5D2RE_WvaHQQRkS6_8Y7ox5TBh7gJ8nmD2ONtmg9JuDMRA=w270-h400" width="270" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />FOLLOW-UP TO: "Book Club" (Movie #3,472)</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: It hasn't been EXACTLY four years since I watched "Book Club", I'm about four days shy of that - but it was in early March of 2020, and so much has changed since then. I was carrying on a March Marriage Madness Tournament back then, and Wallace Shawn carried over from "Marriage Story". Also, Max von Sydow had just passed away, and the women in the movie "Book Club" were all reading "50 Shades of Grey", those horny old ladies. <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This film takes the characters through the pandemic, and there's a hint that they got together online by zoom calls to discuss the books they were all reading at the same time. But come on, by now it's not really about the books any more, it's about these older women trying to live their best lives - we also see some of the activities and hobbies they picked up during lockdown, like one learned to play the accordion (like the kid in "Whatever it Takes", that instrument is HOT this year...) and another adopted a rescue parrot, which I don't think is really a thing, and they probably drank a lot, I'm honestly surprised we didn't see them all baking sourdough bread. But one banged her pans every night for the health care workers, remember that? Too bad the health care workers were all too busy working to hear it.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Oh, the first 10 minutes of this film were absolutely painful, as these four women get back together and then discuss whether they should all take a trip to Italy together, now that the travel restrictions are lifted. One can't go because she just got engaged, so would that be right? Another can't go because she's worried about her cat, this one has some other lame excuse - look, can we move this film along, please? At this point I don't care whether you all go to Italy or not just PLEASE stop debating it back and forth - go or don't go, just SHUT UP. Why did some screenwriter sit down and say, "I know, I'll make a movie about four women who can't decide whether to take a trip or not..." We KNOW they're going to go, so let's just get there, for the love of God. Thankfully Sharon's cat dies and we can move on - the poor cat probably just really wanted to get out of this movie so it committed suicide.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, the four women have all recently read "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho, and that ties in to their trip somehow, but nobody really gives a damn so they never explain how, thanks for that. It would have only slowed things down further, and we're already running late, so let's get on the damn plane already. Three of the women say goodbye to their husbands or boyfriends, the retired judge buries the cat and finally, we're off. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">(It has, however, been exactly one year since I watched "When in Rome", another romance film that was set in Italy.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It's a destination bachelorette party that starts in Rome and is supposed to end a week later in Tuscany - only Vivian hears great things about Venice from a street artist and so she impulsively decides they should go there because it's a great "walking city". Umm, swimming, maybe, but really, is it that great for walking? And even so, is that really the BEST reason to go there? Canals, gondolas, cathedrals, museums, sure, but WALKING? Old people are weird like that, I guess. Problems ensue when the four women give their luggage to porters at the Rome train station, and those porters turn out to be not employees of the train station, but thieves who stand around in uniforms collecting luggage from people who THINK they are porters. You might think that the train station might take steps to discourage these thieves from hanging around and stealing stuff, but then we wouldn't have such an unlikely travel complication in this movie, would we? So the girls are left with no changes of clothes, just VIvian's wedding dress and the money in Sharon's fanny-pack. And somehow magically nobody got their passport or other IDs stolen, or their wallets or credit cards. Really, was this plot point even necessary then, or was it just put here to justify why these women needed to do so much shopping in Italy? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There's some romance along the way, as the four encounter a dashing man in a bar who takes them to a cooking school for an elegant dinner, the chef recognizes Carol as the woman he loved many years ago when she studied the culinary arts there, and also Sharon fools around with the dashing man they met in the bar. Seniors having sex on vacation, not sure how to feel about that, they really seem a bit old for this, they could break a hip, after all. Actually Carol doesn't cheat on her husband with Chef Gianni, what they do together all night is a bit more humorous, I won't spoil it here - but there was definitely an attraction between them, and since Carol's husband Bruce was recovering from a heart attack, I wondered if he'd make it to the end of the movie, possibly freeing Carol to get back with her Italian chef ex. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The four women rent a car and then finally head out for Tuscany, there's a reason why the three other women demand that they stick to the original plan, and it's not too hard to figure out what it is. Diane's horrible at keeping a secret anyway and just blurts it out, they've arranged for the Destination Bachelorette Party to turn into a Destination Wedding, and all the characters are reunited there, after the requisite trip to jail first, which follows the hilarious (?) misunderstanding with the Italian police. Like all Hollywood wedding films, there's drama over whether the couple will actually get married or not, but at least here this is not regarded as a failure if they don't, it's more of a celebration that they didn't conform to society's overly rigid demand that wedding is a permanent social construct, and more true to the characters if they're allowed to make their own relationship rules, which is fine. But then another couple gets married on the spot, with no paperwork, no license and in a foreign country, so there's just no way that marriage is legal, either. Why do screenwriters, across the board, have such poor understanding about how weddings work?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I might have enjoyed this film more if the dialogue didn't belabor EVERY. SINGLE. POINT. Plot progress was definitely slow, and there was vacillation at every possible opportunity - or is that just what happens when you get four older women together and they can't decide on anything, so they look for "signs" about whether they're on the "right track" or not in their lives? God, there's really nothing more laborious then old women trying to figure out what every little thing MEANS. Gee-zus, you're on vacation, did you ever consider just trying to relax and have fun at some point? What a bunch of buzz-kills. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Coming up in a few more years will be "Book Club: The Appendix" as these four women break out of the nursing home and drive across America, looking for the original pieces of Jane Fonda's character's face. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Also starring </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Diane Keaton (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Jane Fonda (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Candice Bergen (last seen in "Book Club"), </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Andy Garcia (last seen in "The Mean Season"),</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Don Johnson (last seen in "Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool"),</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Craig T. Nelson (last seen in "The Company Men"),</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Giancarlo Giannini (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"),</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Hugh Quarshie (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Vincent Riotta (last seen in "T</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ár</span><span style="font-family: arial;">"), Giovanni Esposito (last seen in "To Rome with Love"), Giampiero Judica (last seen in "All the Money in the World"), Vera Dragone, Ugo Dighero, Brice Martinet, Francesco Serpico, Robert Steiner, Grace Truly, Andrea Beruatto.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 naked marble statues</span></p>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-42182519749055597192024-03-05T10:52:00.000-08:002024-03-05T10:52:39.808-08:00I Do... Until I Don't<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 65 - 3/5/24 - Movie #4,666</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: Lake Bell carries over from "Man Up" and now there are just 9 films left until I can get off this topic. Four films until I can take a break and we can go on a road trip for a couple of days. NO MOVIES while on holiday, if I have extra time there's plenty of TV to watch on my phone. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 26: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:30 am "The Racket" (1928)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "A Tale of Two Cities" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:15 am "The Nun's Story" (1959)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:00 pm "Anchors Aweigh" (1945)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:30 pm "Battleground" (1949)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:45 pm "Citizen Kane" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "In the Heat of the Night" (1967)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "Platoon" (1988)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:15 am "No Country for Old Men" (2007)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:30 am "Midnight Cowboy" (1969)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:30 am "All the King's Men" (1949)</span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">AND another 7 seen out of 12 today and t</span><span style="font-family: arial;">his </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me up to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 118 seen out of 298, which is 39.6%. I've seen "The Nun's Story", "Anchors Aweigh", "Citizen Kane", "In the Heat of the Night", "Platoon", "No Country for Old Men", "Midnight Cowboy" and "All the King's Men". Great to see TCM calling a film from 2007 a "classic", because that doesn't make me feel old at all.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYC6o6FMhe7exj6YLg8_ffrDRhZ2KmmVaFx9ARhqUqtdFAYmKZ-GIrOvDobp8M0t6vwvWyYmzeETGCMuon3q2wDZXX4ULBkIuLA7P9clCGOktuxUZia1MAfpg1Mb-lsIGhOo-5TS2Kx0gqfqrsqsMPKP7YckAQvu7Jcsy2Y36rCQbUPweFZbmGLgDSqQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="563" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjYC6o6FMhe7exj6YLg8_ffrDRhZ2KmmVaFx9ARhqUqtdFAYmKZ-GIrOvDobp8M0t6vwvWyYmzeETGCMuon3q2wDZXX4ULBkIuLA7P9clCGOktuxUZia1MAfpg1Mb-lsIGhOo-5TS2Kx0gqfqrsqsMPKP7YckAQvu7Jcsy2Y36rCQbUPweFZbmGLgDSqQ=w270-h400" width="270" /></span></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: An ensemble comedy about the meaning of matrimony.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Lake Bell was also the writer and director of this film, and it kind of has the feeling of a film directed by an actor, which is to say that she came up with a few interesting things for the actors to do, she put the characters in some situations that I have not seen before in movies, which is somewhat commendable, but overall I'm not sure what the point of this little exercise was. The synopsis says it's about the meaning of marriage, and OK, sure, let's explore that, but what are you really saying about it, in the end? Is it a good thing, a bad thing, or is it all too complex to come to a conclusion? Owen Wilson's character in "Marry Me" pointed out that centuries ago marriage was more of a business transaction, as in "I will marry your daughter if you give me a parcel of land and some horses" and sure, it's come a long way since then as an institution - however, it's still a business transaction in some ways if you think about it in terms of things like pre-nups and divorce settlements, co-owning real estate and that sort of thing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There's a documentary filmmaker that ties the different storylines together, coincidentally making a film about marriage (is she a stand in for the real-life writer/director?) and whether it needs to be abolished as a practice, with an eye on the upcoming "Emancipation Day" that sure seems like a made-up holiday. (We had engaged characters literally shackled together in "Shotgun Wedding" and the doc filmmaker also uses handcuffs as a symbol here). So OK, the director is clearly against marriage, but that could just mean she's been through a divorce or two, that's been known to color people's feelings about marriage. So the director of the film-within-a-film proposes a new system, where people should get married for seven years, and then they can decide whether to renew the contract. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But then the experiences of the couples depicted here show us some mixed results - there's an older couple (his first marriage, her second) with an adult daughter (from her first marriage) and they bicker quite a bit - he rides his motorcycle a lot and then for their anniversary she gives him a gift certificate to a seedy massage place because she'll be too busy to do "sex stuff". He uses it as a bookmark at first, but then one day decides to check the place out. Meanwhile Alice and Noah are trying to get pregnant, but also close to bankruotcy due to their struggling window blinds business that he inherited from his father. They agree to appear in the documentary with the idea of making some money, however the filmmaker doesn't want to pay them much, as she's more interested in Alice's sister, who's in an open relationship with a fellow Bohemian, and together they run some kind of hippie commune retreat. This all takes place in Florida, or does that kind of go without saying? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The filmmaker is willing to pay extra for the couples whose marriage is in trouble and who may be close to splitting up, as she needs to prove that marriage is an outdated concept that just doesn't work. However, by paying extra to the couples who get separated or planning divorce, she's actually influencing her subjects, which is a big documentary no-no. There were nature documentaries made back in the 1950's where the filmmakers allowed animals to be killed or harmed, and honestly this sounds just as bad. Once the three couples manage to intersect and find each other, compare notes, they're able to turn the tables on her by publicly proclaiming their love for each other instead of separating on this made-up "Emancipation Day". Well, really, that's what marriage is all about, staying together in order to prove to everyone else that you can do it - sure, there are other benefits but nothing feels better than being successful at something that logically should not work out, according to everyone else. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Other than that, I'm really scratching my head today trying to find the reasons for presenting THIS story exactly THIS way, and pretty much coming up empty. Again, is marriage good or is marriage bad? Is there a difference between bickering and fighting? And what happens when a polyamorous couple realizes that they've actually been exclusive for the last six years - what happened to that swinging lifestyle they used to have? If the three couples have anything in common, it's a reluctance to admit that they and their partners have some very big differences that are worth separating over, which would be tantamount to admitting that the last few years of their life have been some kind of wasted effort. Well, sure, that does sound like modern marriage I suppose. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The first title for this film was "What's the Point?" and I could easily ask the same question about the re-titled film in its final state. Often it was hard to understand what was going on, like the character of Egon, I couldn't determine who he was or what he was doing or even what he brought to the story at all, he could have been cut from the film and it wouldn't have made any difference. Cybil's daughter, Millie, same thing, she was there, she was pregnant, her boyfriend was in jail, she had a home birth, it was awkward, but SO WHAT? All of this was just an aside, with no real effect on the other characters, just another dangling plot point that didn't have a resolution. All six of the main characters being interviewed for the same film, was that enough to tie everything together? I'm just not sure. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">It turns out that nearly nobody saw this film when it was released in 2017, and I think it's easy to see why - it's all just awkward and goes nowhere. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Ed Helms (last seen in "Together Together"), Mary Steenburgen (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), Paul Reiser (last seen in "George Carlin's American Dream"), Amber Heard (last seen in "The Rum Diary"), Wyatt Cenac, Dolly Wells (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Chace Crawford (last seen in "Charlie Says"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Chauntae Pink,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Rae Gray (last seen in "Slice"), Susan Berger (last seen in "Kajillionaire"), Sky Elobar (last seen in "An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Hannah Friedman,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Kelsey Graham, Shane Graham, Dan Gruenberg, Pamela Keith, Gregory Nalbandian, Marcanthonee Reis (last seen in "Snowpiercer"), Bob Rumnock (last seen in "The Greatest Showman"), Zac Scheinbaum, Conner Shin</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 3 out of 10 release forms</span></p>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-55062908103871227352024-03-04T21:03:00.000-08:002024-03-04T21:03:41.117-08:00Man Up<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 64 - 3/4/24 - Movie #4,665</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, no more J. Lo - I'm done with her, I can't watch another film with her, who knows maybe I'll be desperate enough to watch "Gigli" in the future, but I can't do it now. I've decided to take a break this weekend and not watch any movies after Saturday, I've got a beer festival to go to and then we're headed to Atlantic City for a couple days, I'll finish the romance chain when I get back. This means that a DIFFERENT movie is going to land on St. Patrick's Day than I'd initially planned, but I've got another one that's just as Irish, if not more so, to watch on 3/17. It's all going to work out, once I nail the pathway to Easter. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">John Bradley carries over from "Marry Me" instead.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 25: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 am "Five Star Final" (1931)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "The Human Comedy" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "The Little Foxes" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "Stagecoach" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:45 pm "The Caine Mutiny" (1965)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Picnic" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Picture Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "An American in Paris" (1952)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "It Happened One Night" (1934)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 am "Mrs. Miniver" (1942)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:30 am "Cavalcade" (1933)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:30 am "Grand Hotel" (1932)</span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, another 7 seen out of 12 today. I've seen all of these except "Five Star Final", "The Human Comedy", "The Little Foxes", "Picnic" and "Cavalcade". "Picnic" is on my list, but I just haven't been able to link back that far and cross it off. This </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me up to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 111 seen out of 286, up to 38.8%. Still making a little progress every day. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgucrKb2Erd4FIsX57j4sTrZPkwuaTnQC9wbePQilkqeOz83JvRjWTzOl-Ey1--mQ6bJ6QOXvvms_c6qJWjwM--9vambtoJwR5Rd1wGootczpXY4u07zgop9thLNaWUMfl1Yb37MDqaOW-aUpZii8BGhB3aXD2haC7bAzkMDB5jAJAqZUO1XflG1AwyXw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="564" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgucrKb2Erd4FIsX57j4sTrZPkwuaTnQC9wbePQilkqeOz83JvRjWTzOl-Ey1--mQ6bJ6QOXvvms_c6qJWjwM--9vambtoJwR5Rd1wGootczpXY4u07zgop9thLNaWUMfl1Yb37MDqaOW-aUpZii8BGhB3aXD2haC7bAzkMDB5jAJAqZUO1XflG1AwyXw=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />THE PLOT: A single woman takes the place of a stranger's blind date and accidentally finds the perfect man for her. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: So many of the situations (and situationships) seen in this year's chain have resulted due to a lack of communication - for example in "Shotgun Wedding" where the bride told the groom she didn't want a big wedding, but he didn't listen, and then he was so into preparing the ideal destination wedding, she was afraid to remind him that it wasn't what she wanted. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Or in "Your Place or Mine" where both halves of the couple were afraid to tell each other that they wanted more than friendship, and also that they were both complete idiots. The ultimate example was probably in "Over Her Dead Body", where a woman's ghost tried to prevent her husband from dating again, and she found it difficult to communicate with them, because she was super dead. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Here we have a woman who gets mistaken for a man's blind date, and she finds it difficult to correct him, that she's not really Jessica, so instead she just plays along, at least for a while, until she's forced to admit that her name is really Nancy, and she was only holding the self-help book that would identify her as Jack's date because it was given to her by a woman on the train, the real Jessica. How was Nancy to know that by holding THAT book and standing in THAT spot at the train station that she would give off such high-energy Jessica vibes? Besides, the self-help book was all about being daring, taking chances, going for it in this crazy mixed-up world of six billion people, also Nancy had been challenging herself with daily mantras along the same lines. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So, she takes the bold move, the daring move, she pretends to be Jessica, and maybe hiding as another person gives her the confidence she needed to open up to someone, who can say? They go out for drinks, they talk, they connect, they go bowling, then things start to go wrong when they encounter an old school-mate of Nancy's, and he can't help but wonder why she's going by Jessica now. When he figures out the scheme, he blackmails Nancy for a kiss in the rest room, and wouldn't you it, Jack walks in and sees them, so she's got to confess to the even worse sin of not being who she's pretending to be, to explain why she's kissing another man on their date. And also why that man was almost naked. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm reminded of what John Cleese's character said in "A Fish Called Wanda" about what it's like being English, having to be correct all of the time, being stifled by a dread of doing or saying the wrong thing. Perhaps this is universal, but sure, it's also very British, and could explain why Nancy is so hesitant to own up to being Not Jessica, because doing so would not only expose her lie, but also because she felt good, and ending their date probably also felt like the wrong thing to do if she was having a good time. Still a lie, though, but I get why she'd want the lie to continue if Jack was the first man she'd dated in a long time that she made a connection with. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There are further complications and mix-ups, Jack doesn't take the truth well when she finally spills it, and then he makes Nancy keep up another charade and pretend to be his girlfriend after they bump into his ex-wife in the pub, along with the man she left Jack for. They mix up their journals, which would only be a problem if the speech Nancy wrote for her parents' anniversary party was inside, and then Jack leaves his satchel behind in the pub, which would only be a problem if his signed divorce papers were in it. Now all of a sudden this is feeling very familiar, and I'm wondering if a film I watched near the start of this year's romance chain, "The Wrong Missy" stole quite a bit from this film. Come to think of it, "The Wrong Missy" had two characters with identical luggage, "LOL" had two characters with identical handbags, and now this film has two characters with identical journals. Wow, these movies just keep repeating the same things over and over, don't they? Even though none of these are really earth-shattering plot points, I can't ignore the coincidence involved. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Nancy proceeds to her parents' party, while Jack finally has a date with the real Jessica - only to find that not only does he not share much in common with her, but also, she's a dud personality-wise, at least compared to the more manic BUT also more fun Nancy. So he races to find her parents house with the help of some local partying teens, to tell her that somehow even though she was the wrong girl for the date they went on, she's the right girl for him. Yeah, that's almost exactly how "The Wrong Missy" ended, so I'm thinking that film was somehow sort of a gender-swapped remake of this earlier one? Or else all of these films are just drawing from the same playbook, which is also quite possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Lake Bell (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Simon Pegg (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Sharon Horgan (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), Rory Kinnear (last seen in "No Time to Die"), Ken Stott (last seen in "The Dig"), Robert Wilfort (ditto), Harriet Walter (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Ophelia Lovibond (last seen in "Rocketman"), Olivia Williams (last seen in "The Last Days on Mars"), Stephen Campbell Moore (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), Phoebe Waller-Bridge (last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"), Henry Lloyd-Hughes (last seen in "Now You See Me 2"), Dean-Charles Chapman (last seen in "Breathe"), Keir Charles (last seen in "Love Actually"), Paul Thornley (last seen in "The Brothers Grimsby"), Simona Brown, Maya Henson with archive footage of Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder")</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 6 out of 10 bowling pins (I didn't even know they had bowling alleys in the U.K.)</span></p>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-46728840454260237742024-03-03T22:02:00.000-08:002024-03-03T22:09:22.911-08:00Marry Me<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 63 - 3/3/24 - Movie #4,664</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Jennifer Lopez carries over again from "Shotgun Wedding" and I've taken another look at March, there's just no way to fit my schedule in as planned - I've found a good Catholic-themed film for Easter, but the problem is that it links DIRECTLY to my St. Patrick's Day film, while the two holidays are two weeks apart on the calendar. Now, one solution to this problem would be to just go dark, stop watching movies for two weeks, and let the calendar catch up with my theme. Sure, it's tempting, I could catch up on some TV, and there's a ton of good TV coming my way in the next couple of weeks, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OR I could find some movies that would fit in-between those two films, and spread the current chain out, so the film I was going to watch on March 18 would then be moved forward to March 31. I've got to make sure that there's a longer path between the two movies that would be about 10 to 13 links, that could work. I could also find 4 or 5 more films with Brendan Gleeson in them, he sure has been prolific over the years - but let me explore option #2 before I resort to that. Either way, one thing's clear, I've got to slow things down a bit, we're going to drive out of town for a couple days next weekend, and maybe I'll just not watch movies for two days, as I'm still ahead on the count. If I don't take more days off, then I'll have the same old problem again when November and December roll around. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 24: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actor Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 am "The Front Page" (1931)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:45 am "Penny Serenade" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "Watch on the Rhine" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "Sounder" (1972)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 pm "Cat Ballou" (1965)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "The Lost Weekend" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "The Goodbye Girl" (1977)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actor Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "A Double Life" (1947)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "To Kill a Mockingbird" (1962)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:30 am "On Golden Pond" (1981)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:30 am "Lilies of the Field" (1963)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:15 am "Boys Town" (1938)</span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, 7 seen out of 12 today. That still counts as progress, I've seen all of these except "The Front Page" (I watched the 1974 remake), "Watch on the Rhine", "Sounder", "A Double Life" and "Boys Town". But that brings me up to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 104 seen out of 274, up to 38%. Just seven days to go, but if I can keep climbing a percentage point a day, I'll be all right. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlRfM8vGzXDzqEJIWLT1IJsvpBq1_W8GEvmrEMM5gMEzax9SjhxxIwJ_DAD04qdcy2jyVLr8P5k7SO3Ii-5lABjzP9VQE-ZuMluxbGqV4YYSX_gOtUG9j3lCC1fxmdLw5D0LEoE7VxV51mnL0eOfRg2AfYRk2P4n422hzKUWCB8bqt6oCQXCx6T0lFcQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="528" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlRfM8vGzXDzqEJIWLT1IJsvpBq1_W8GEvmrEMM5gMEzax9SjhxxIwJ_DAD04qdcy2jyVLr8P5k7SO3Ii-5lABjzP9VQE-ZuMluxbGqV4YYSX_gOtUG9j3lCC1fxmdLw5D0LEoE7VxV51mnL0eOfRg2AfYRk2P4n422hzKUWCB8bqt6oCQXCx6T0lFcQ=w253-h400" width="253" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />THE PLOT: Music superstars Kat Valdez and Bastian are getting married before a global audience of fans, but when Kat learns that Bastian has been unfaithful, she instead decides to marry Charlie, a stranger in the crowd. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Well, all throughout February I watched as love triangles got resolved by people realizing that they were better off getting romantically involved with their best friends, rather than that super-hot guy (or gal) who's like totally going to cheat on you the first chance they get, well, just because they can. Or they realize that the love of their life was standing beside them all along as they chased after unattainable people, or maybe just that love is best when it starts with friendship, and grows from there. These movies aren't wrong, per se, but I'm just not sure that the message needs to be beaten into us by nearly EVERY damn rom-com out there. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">That process continues tonight, but with a bit of a twist, as a pop superstar realizes that she's been making the same mistake, over and over, by marrying for love and not thinking about friendship first - she's had three marriages so far (similar to the actress playing her) and before she gets married to future-cheating husband #4, she finds out from the tabloids and gossip web-sites that her fiancé has been caught on camera making out with her own assistant. Well, that would make sense, her assistant would know better than anyone else when she's busy, in a meeting or working in the recording studio, and might then take advantage of those opportunities to put the moves on Bastian. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">So, on the night of the big public wedding in a concert broadcast around the world, Kat suddenly calls the wedding off, what else can she do if the world is making fun of her, and she wants to win back the respect of her fans? Sure, the simplest thing to do would be to then marry NOBODY, but instead she chooses a simple-looking man in the crowd, who's been holding up a sign with name of her new single, "Marry Me". And she takes the message on the sign as, you know, some kind of sign. Hey, when she's been married three times already and marriage number four is also a bust, what has she got to lose? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The man consents, and the marriage isn't legal, of course, because they didn't have a marriage license, no paperwork has been filed, it's all one big publicity stunt - or is it? Ah, it's Kat's attempt to get back at the cheating Bastian and make him jealous - or is it? Maybe she took the leap of faith, as she described it during a press conference, and now genuinely wants to get to know this regular guy and math teacher, and they can appear in public on dates, maybe keep this going for three months or so until the internet finds something else to talk about, and then just go their separate ways. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But, since this is a movie, this situationship that the two find themselves in starts to resemble a real relationship, of course because they spend some time together and they have fun and realize they enjoy each other's company. Oh, so THAT'S how you do it, you meet and become friends and spend time together and then fall in love and then get married. Well, unless you're a famous person concerned about your image, in which case you get married, then spend time together, become friends and then, well, who knows? Maybe fall in love for real, since it is a movie and that's what the audience wants?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Charlie is also a divorced father, and of course his daughter is a fan of Kat's, but she's also at that awkward teen phase, where she wants nothing to do with her father - but him dating a pop superstar just made him more interesting! Ugh, but she also goes to the same high school where he teaches math, and he keeps urging her to join the math team, instead of giving her the space that she needs, and letting her choose her own activities to become the person she needs to be. (Also, this is like the third movie this year where a parent teaches or works at the same school their kid goes to - while in real life, this situation needs to be avoided at all costs. My mother was an elementary school music teacher, but thankfully she taught in a different town from the one where we lived. Thank you, Mom, and I mean that, sincerely.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Look, I was on the Math team in high school, and sure, it was fun - but it was never, NEVER as much fun as it is depicted here. Why? Because it's math, duh. (There was also quiz bowl, but I didn't catch on to that in high school, that came later for me, in college.). Mostly in our math team meets we figured out ways to cheat by running a four-person team instead of a five-person team when we were missing a player - we created a fake name and three different people would take those three-question tests under that fake name, because each person only needed to compete in three rounds out of five. And nobody in the next town ever bothered to check to see if a student with that name was enrolled in our school, why would they? </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">NITPICK POINT: According to this film, the best way to study math is to dance, because if your body is moving rhythmically, you can trick your mind into getting out of its own way, not getting stuck on the problem, and the answer will come to you. Well, this just isn't the way math works, and the best way to solve a math problem in the real world is to LEARN MATH. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, this is a growth opportunity for all involved, as Kat learns to date down and not chase after other superstars with wandering eyes, instead she dates a math teacher who would never EVER cheat on her in a million years. Charlie also gets to be in a relationship with a pop superstar, and eventually that comes with benefits, and Charlie's daughter gets to meet and spend time with her favorite pop-star, so it's a win all around! Well, that's show biz, right? There couldn't possibly be any negative effects or complications arising from dating the most famous female singer in the world. I'm glad we settled that issue, I've always wondered about that sort of thing. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Owen Wilson (last seen in "Secret Headquarters"), Maluma (last heard in "Encanto"), John Bradley (last seen in "Moonfall"), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "Maestro"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Chloe Coleman (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Michelle Buteau (last seen in "Clerks III"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Khalil Middleton, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Kat Cunning,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Taliyah Whitaker (last seen in "The Dead Don't Die"), Diego Lucano, Brady Noon (last seen in "Good Boys"), Connor Noon, Ryan Foust (last seen in "The Goldfinch"), Leah Jimenez Zelaya, Tristan-Lee Edwards, Scarlett Earls, Olivia Chun, Jim Kaplan, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jameela Jamil (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Nicole Suarez,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Sydney Blackburn, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Stephen Wallem,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Justin Sylvester, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Utkarsh Ambudkar (last heard in "Tom & Jerry"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Jack Chiaravalle, Lucie Lopez-Goldfried, Charles Jacob Smith Jr., Molly Sullivan Smith, Tyrone Mitchell, Haj, Nic Novicki (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Teale Sperling, Adam Cation, Rachel Morgan Singer, Leslie Woo, Marritt Cafarchia, </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">with cameos from </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "Eighth Grade"), Hoda Kotb (last seen in "Everything Is Copy"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Kelly Ripa (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Ryan Seacrest (ditto).</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 6 out of the first 10 digits in pi</span></p>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-88537436041291741142024-03-02T22:11:00.000-08:002024-03-02T22:11:20.426-08:00Shotgun Wedding<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 62 - 3/2/24 - Movie #4,663</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Jennifer Lopez carries over from "Second Act" and in a few days she'll be tied with Toni Collette for most appearances this year, both will have five. Not a lot by last year's standards, but quite enough J.Lo for one year, for sure. She might pop up in archive footage in some documentaries, you never know. Once I hit the docs all bets are off, because somebody like David Letterman or Paul McCartney could appear 8 or more times very easily, or Nixon or Reagan could make another comeback. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 23: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actor Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 am "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1932)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 am "The Great Dictator" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:15 am "The Thin Man" (1934)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:00 pm "Elmer Gantry" (1960)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:45 pm "East of Eden" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actor Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Lincoln" (2012)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:45 pm "A Man for All Seasons" (1966)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:00 am "Sergeant York" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:30 am "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, 8 seen out of 11 today. Same problem as before, I've seen the later remakes of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", but not these earlier versions. And maybe as a kid I might have seen "Yankee Doodle Dandy", only I can't really prove it. So I'm only confident about 8 of these, but that brings me up to</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 97 seen out of 262, up to 37%. Hoping for a few more last-minute surges like this so I can finish over 40%.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIZA72QtiyUYEQc9OfPF4sTrCtX4gp0NAyMZS33HLSgdx2WKj6ioAZRLf4Jlz8v0c6qn2_7oXABjBvYbdjzJsQw_c05tgEYf4ROdWUTatJygxDZqKV3Wvo59-iuctwoqAxdHShhyWW3HZYiTWwy9PrPKvT4KRez7fjbn92leZa0cTzk9wPPW0rheFOgQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="563" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjIZA72QtiyUYEQc9OfPF4sTrCtX4gp0NAyMZS33HLSgdx2WKj6ioAZRLf4Jlz8v0c6qn2_7oXABjBvYbdjzJsQw_c05tgEYf4ROdWUTatJygxDZqKV3Wvo59-iuctwoqAxdHShhyWW3HZYiTWwy9PrPKvT4KRez7fjbn92leZa0cTzk9wPPW0rheFOgQ=w268-h400" width="268" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />THE PLOT: Darcy and Tom gather their families for the ultimate destination wedding but when the entire wedding party is taken hostage the bride and groom must save their loved ones - if they don't kill each other first. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: I've already started to break down my romance films watched this year into categories, for the end of year wrap-up. It's just never too early. One category will probably be "Movies where the wedding didn't happen, or almost didn't" and this fits right in with that theme. I have to point out, though, that the movie is a bit misnamed, because a "Shotgun Wedding", traditionally has been slang reserved for a case where the bride is pregnant, and/or the groom does not want to get married, so the bride's father has to use a shotgun to ensure that he goes through with it. Am I wrong? Some film production company kind of co-opted the term, because none of those conditions apply in this story. There simply must have been a better title to use - also I didn't see any of the pirates in this film using a shotgun, so that's another strike against it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">(Speaking of shotguns, though, I just started playing "Red Dead Redemption", which is an Old West-themed video game from 10 or 11 years ago, from the same company that made the "Grand Theft Auto" games, which I started re-playing during the pandemic, only I didn't get very far. But last week we saw a used copy of this game in a Gamestop, only it was too busy there to stand in line and buy it, so she got it for me from Amazon for like $14. Well, two sessions in and I can't stop playing it, and YES there are shotguns in the game, also revolvers and knives and lassos, horses and wagons, duels and hidden gold bars. If my blog goes dark for the next week, you'll know what happened to me, I'm back in the old west shooting coyotes and skinning deer. Damn, it's a lot of fun and I'm two sessions in but already about 30% through the game. It's got elements of GTA combined with the giant explorable world of the last 2 "Zelda" games, so I think I'm hooked, I didn't even want to stop playing to eat dinner.)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, I didn't watch "Shotgun Wedding" under the best conditions, I came home on Friday night and had two beers, which is pretty normal, except these were STRONG beers, one was an Allagash Tripel, and then hours later I kind of fell asleep 30 minutes into this movie. Woke up, rewound back to where I fell asleep, tried again, and fell asleep again. I then slept until NOON and had to finish the movie after that. Now, was it the beer or was it the movie? The movie's got a fair amount of action in it, as you'd expect from a comedy-romance-action hybrid, so let's say it was the beer. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">However, I could make a case for the movie putting me to sleep, because it's one of those deals where there's about a 30 minute story in a 90-minute movie, so the characters have to say everything three times, to stretch out the plot to feature-length. There's a point where the two mains have to do something dangerous and they can't agree on HOW to count down to do it, groom TOM wants to count down from 10, and then bride Darcy says, "No, we don't count down from 10, what is this, a rocket launch? We count down from FOUR!" and then Tom disagrees, saying they should count down from THREE, like everyone does, Darcy argues back that when you count down from three, you really GO on four, so really, when you count down from three, you're really counting from four, and this discussion goes on for another two minutes, perhaps, but it's just WAY longer than it needs to be, and really, the whole movie's like this. Other long-winded discussions are over how to not let go of a live grenade, whether to disable a pirate with a net or a bottle of hairspray lit on fire, and most importantly, whether Tom and Darcy should get married in the first place. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Put the Indonesian pirate story on hold for a second, because the real meat of the story is whether these two should get married, and I've seen this already this month, several times. But in a neat gender-swap TOM is the perfectionist here, the "Groom-zilla" who is obsessing over every little element, when DARCY is the one who wanted a very simple wedding, or better yet, just to elope with her pro-baseball player husband. Tom made the problem worse by not listening to Darcy when she expressed her desire for a small wedding, and then made things EVEN WORSE by inviting both of their families to this private island in the Philippines for the elaborate ceremony. But to be fair, Darcy is somewhat responsible, too, for not raising her concerns earlier about the wedding being too extravagant, also turning down the money from her rich father to pay for the wedding, which ensured that this new couple would be in over their heads trying to pay for it. So they've both made mistakes, and finally they hash the whole thing out just before the ceremony, the argument gets a little heated, and the wedding is off.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">But wait, because while they were arguing the aforementioned South Pacific pirates take all the wedding guests hostage, and they make them all sit in the swimming pool for some reason while they seek out the bride and groom, who are conveniently elsewhere. Now the first assumption would be, hey, Tom's an MLB player, so he must be famous, and the pirates are going to hold him for ransom because he's an American sports star. Well, that's not the right back-story, there's a different reason for who wants to kidnap them, but they do still want ransom from Darcy's rich father. No spoilers here, part of the fun is figuring out who's really the villain here. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The rest of the fun comes from watching Darcy and Tom have to transform themselves into warriors to take down the pirates, one by one, and then overcome their fears, obstacles and lack of true fighting skills to find a way to either call for help, or rescue the hostages on their own and maybe take some of the main pirate gang out of the picture. It really shouldn't be possible for two normal people to become Rambo-level soldiers in a matter of hours, but hey, come on, it's a movie, just not a very believable one. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The family members are probably the best part of the movie, this was a huge missed opportunity, when you cast people like Jennifer Coolidge and Cheech Marin and then for the vast majority of the movie, they're not DOING anything, just sitting in a swimming pool. What a waste, and I wonder how many actors spent a week of their life sitting in water up to their necks and ended up questioning their choice to be in this movie. That could not have been comfortable for them - but hey, it could have been worse, originally Armie Hammer was supposed to be the male lead, only he got cancelled and his role when to Josh Duhamel, who I think did a much better job in the role than Hammer ever could have. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Josh Duhamel (last seen in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Lenny Kravitz (last seen in "Count Me In"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Jennifer Coolidge (last seen in "Promising Young Woman"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Sonia Braga (last seen in "The Jesus Rolls"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Cheech Marin (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Steve Coulter (last seen in "A.C.O.D."),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">D'Arcy Carden (last seen in "The People We Hate at the Wedding"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Callie Hernandez (last seen in "Under the Silver Lake"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Desmin Borges (last seen in "Carrie Pilby"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> Selena Tan (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> Alberto Isaac, Melissa Hunter, Pancho Cardena (last seen in "Bullet Train"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Alex Mallari Jr. (last seen in "The Adam Project"), Tharoth Sam,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;"> Worapojd Thautanon, Zachary Wood, Vladimir Acevedo, Powpong Kopholrat, Hector Anibal (last seen in "The Lost City"), Asia Munma, Ray Raymundo, Iana Ramirez, Vlad Sosa, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="color: #111111; font-family: arial;">Maria del Mar Fernandez Gonzalez, Jose Mota Prestol, Joey Ciotti </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 weird-looking cocktail napkins (what a poor editing job, I had to freeze-frame to see those napkins, why cut away after a nano-second from a sight gag that you've been building up to?)</span></p>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-9103147578137112972024-03-01T21:54:00.000-08:002024-03-01T21:54:14.434-08:00Second Act<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 61 - 3/1/24 - Movie #4,662</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Jennifer Lopez carries over from "The Back-Up Plan" and this is how the month begins, but honestly right now I have no idea how it's going to end. I've only programmed up until St. Patrick's Day, which will be on March 17 this year. This weekend I've got to start figuring out where I'm going to go from there, but here are the links that will get me to some very Irish movies: After J. Lo, John Bradley, Lake Bell, Mary Steenburgen, Jane Fonda, Loretta Devine, Giancarlo Esposito, Sharon Stone, Ellen Burstyn, Catherine Keener, Maddie Corman, Michael McGrath, Brendon Gleeson, Jon Kenny, and Brendon Gleeson again. Yep, see, very Irish there at the end. One option would be to go next to "A Haunting in Venice" followed by "Oppenheimer", but let me wait and see if some better chain presents itself - I can probably watch whatever I want for a while before I have to link to something for Mother's Day, but let me add in whatever's freshly streaming in March before I decide. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 22: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Director Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:15 am "The Informer" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "The Crowd" (1928)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:45 am "Great Expectations" (1946)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "The Heiress" (1949)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 pm "I Want to Live!" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:15 pm "12 Angry Men" (1957)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Director Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" (1936)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:15 pm "A Letter to Three Wives" (1949)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:15 am "Marty" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 am "The Awful Truth" (1937)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, 5 seen out of 11 today. "12 Angry Men", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", "Marty" and "The Awful Truth". That's nearly half, that's got to improve my score? </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to 89 seen out of 251, up to 35.4%. Just nine more days to go until the countdown is over, but TCM saved some of the most popular films for the last week.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCZPjXQhZcF8JCrxosp2CR5tT5cnsYRsLybp8ZRz1l9D9zGGtlZVfjBh1uAge5YiNxvwyZQmE_31MioGUwlLC-5hVI3licIfjm5xZRadEriIw3CYG9CYwtaNufqTRXHDimDxhHbTvBTSs7AAS3c5DSD8moRQERqdpoiYM2g39aYr7-kApDDf2oxw-JCA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="565" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjCZPjXQhZcF8JCrxosp2CR5tT5cnsYRsLybp8ZRz1l9D9zGGtlZVfjBh1uAge5YiNxvwyZQmE_31MioGUwlLC-5hVI3licIfjm5xZRadEriIw3CYG9CYwtaNufqTRXHDimDxhHbTvBTSs7AAS3c5DSD8moRQERqdpoiYM2g39aYr7-kApDDf2oxw-JCA=w272-h400" width="272" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A big-box store worker reinvents her life and her life-story and shows Madison Avenue what street smarts can do.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: I've already proven that watching a month's worth of romance movies WILL mess with your head - I'm pretty sure I've seen more break-ups and weddings that got called off at the last second in 2024 alone than I have in real life, that's a little odd but yeah, the math checks out. I determined that I've definitely spent more time driving cars in video games than I have in real life, in a way that's nearly the same thing. In both cases it's a heightened experience, for sure - would you rather drive safely and carefully both ways on your commute for the next 40 years, or play a video-game like "Grand Theft Auto" where you can smash up your car and run over pedestrians without any repercussions. The choice is clear - I just started playing "Red Dead Redemption" for the first time and already I've ridden a video-game horse more than I ever, ever will ride a real horse in the real world. Not my thing. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But you get what I'm trying to say? The stuff in rom-coms is highly exaggerated, each one has to show a bigger break-up (or break down) than the last film did, because the writers figure it's oh-so-more exciting that way, either the couple will get back together, which is great, or they won't, but they'll both move on to some new bigger, better, more perfect relationship. I know down deep that NONE of this relationship stuff is real (except once in a while, like surely some things from screenwriter's relationships must creep in here and there, there's stuff in "Loser" and "You People" and "Somebody I Used to Know" that simply MUST be based on somebody's real romantic relationships, because things are just so darn specific - why would somebody write about these things this way unless they really happened? OR maybe that's just a dodge, the writer WANTS us to think things could happen this way between two people so they add specific details so we figure that it must have. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Second Act" is really kind of the opposite, I feel like I can state with certainty that this situation would NEVER happen to anyone, not ever, so the specific details here don't really help plead her case, we know this just isn't the way the business world WORKS, damn it! People don't go from grocery store assistant manager to cosmetics company consultant overnight, even if they DO fudge a few details on their resume. There's a word for that, it's umm, FRAUD, even if it was done by her nephew hacker on her behalf, it's still not right that she ACCEPTS the job in the company's executive offices, with an assistant and an apartment nearby that is both fancy AND schmancy. Yeah, you don't just quit your job one day because you got passed over for store manager and then send out five resumes the next week and land a job at this major, major company that makes shampoo and make-up and, umm, some other stuff I guess. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Maya is also some kind of "expert" on Franklin & Clark's whole product line, just because she used to re-stock aisles #4 and #5 at the supermarket. That doesn't logically follow, OK, so she may now the product names and how much each one casts, I'll give you that, but she wouldn't be able to interpret the data from a focus group, or, more importantly, know which type of people are buying the company's "organic" shampoos and WHY the other people are not. Nope, gotta call a few NITPICK POINTS on this one, Maya may be fast talker and a smooth operator, but there's just no way she could learn all this stuff in one week - it should take her about a week just to figure out what the questions are, let alone come up with the answers. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I wasn't even sure this was a "romance" per se, or if the IMDB just lists it that way out of some kind of default. Maya breaks up with her soccer coach boyfriend sort of early on, because he wants to get married and start a family, but she's not ready. Possibly because she never told Trey about the baby she had as a teenager, which she gave up for adoption. (Gee, I wonder if that plot point will be important later - you can count on it!)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">That's just one example of the things this film gets bogged down in - there's barely any room for romance, what with Maya's long-lost daughter, the race to make cheap truly organic shampoos and the customer research for months just to find out there's no tangerine-scented ones out there already? Also the catered events for JUST the executives, the back-stabbing that takes place in board meetings and the "Working Girl"-like rise of a bit player to a real mover and shaker in the company. But you know sometimes "MORE" is not a good thing, remember the sub-plot in the movie "Striptease" about the plight of American farm laborers? No, of course you don't, because it was there but it just wasn't necessary, and there's a lot here that is similarly unnecessary. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's a work movie, it's a relationship movie, it's a Christmas movie, and a few other things as well. Please focus on just a few things, please, because we don't have much time together and if you can't focus then it's going to feel by the end that we just didn't accomplish much here, but the reason it feels that way is because, well, we just didn't. And the whole thing's kind of moot because Maya would never have been hired at that company in the first place, because she lied about her resume and her experiences, and never saw fit to correct things during her initial interview or, really, any time after that easier. No, no, just tell HR what days you're available and then they can take it from there. And no, you don't get to file for unemployment now!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;">Vanessa Hudgens (last seen in "Tick...Tick...BOOM!"), Leah Remini (last seen in "Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie"), Treat Williams (last seen in "The Eagle Has Landed"), Milo Ventimiglia (last seen in "That's My Boy"), Annaleigh Ashford (last seen in "Unicorn Store"), Charlyne Yi (last heard in "The Mitchells vs. the Machines"), Alan Aisenberg (last seen in "Irresistible"), Freddie Stroma (last seen in "13 Hours"), Dave Foley (last heard in "Revengeance'), Larry Miller (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Dierdre Friel (last seen in "Here Today"), Lacretta, Dan Bucatinsky (last seen in "Air"), Dalton Harrod, John James Cronin, Phil Nee (last seen in. "Sabrina" (1995)), Meng Ai, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;">Elizabeth Masucci (last seen in "Shame"), Michael Boatman (last seen in "The Peacemaker"), Ed Jewett (last seen in "What's Your Number?"), Anna Suzuki (last seen in "Set It Up"), Ellen Cleghorne (last seen in "Grown Ups 2"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-family: arial;">Brianda Agramonte, </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 ginkgo leaves</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-25023156428751901802024-02-29T13:13:00.000-08:002024-02-29T13:13:43.093-08:00The Back-Up Plan<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 60 - 2/29/24 - Movie #4,661</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Jennifer Lopez carries over from "The Boy Next Door" and it's Leap Day - an extra day, something a bit unexpected and un-planned for maybe is in store, originally I thought maybe that should be "Gigli", but I've decided against watching that one, because i need to cut the list down. Again. This one still feels like it might be on theme for the "extra and unplanned" day, though. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's the format breakdown for movies watched in February:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Boys and Girls, I Could Never Be Your Woman, The Wedding Ringer, A Guy Thing, I Don't Know How She Does It</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6 Movies watched on cable (not saved): Over Her Dead Body, Loser, Moonlight and Valentino, Sex Drive, The Answer Man, The Boy Next Door</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5 watched on Netflix: The Wrong Missy, You People, A Walk to Remember, She's the Man, Your Place or Mine</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1 watched on iTunes: An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn<br />4 watched on Amazon Prime: People Places Things, Think Like a Man, Think Like a Man Too, Somebody I Used to Know<br />2 watched on Hulu: Together Together, The Last Song</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1 watched on Paramount+: The Back-up Plan</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1 watched on Peacock: Bros<br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1 watched on Pluto TV: LOL</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1 watched on Roku: Alex & Emma</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2 watched on a random site: Made in America, Whatever It Takes</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">29 TOTAL</span></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 21: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Director Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:30 am "Anna Christie" (1930)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:00 am "Lady for a Day" (1933)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:45 am "The Southerner" (1945)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:30 am "Bad Day at Black Rock" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:15 pm "Never on Sunday" (1960)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:15 pm "Midnight in Paris" (2011)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Director Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "The Quiet Man" (1952)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:30 pm "Giant" (1956)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 am "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:30 am "The Divine Lady" (1929)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, 5 seen out of 12 today. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", "Witness for the Prosecution", "Midnight in Paris", "Giant" and "All Quiet on the Western Front". That's something, right? </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to 84 seen out of 240, up to 35%. I'm not sure how my percentage can go up at this point if I've seen less than half of today's films, but that's how math works, I guess. Still with just 10 days left in the countdown I don't see how I'm going to get back to 40%.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOVXYVv2K5UXXXSWcetHllDngRKTOEomaIlJ_W3wH_u-N7dfOacCeaiV6flHhZx6e8XnQZBEVCYHmX-Xf_-Hk5SoW_mcXGgC4MMjjyD2y4ztD6bstLPqxCnXGaU4gNJqrfxJzSrEwNDMSidD59j4kO3tSww7c5mdL3yu_RqVT7fx7TfFYa350EASy1Lw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="336" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiOVXYVv2K5UXXXSWcetHllDngRKTOEomaIlJ_W3wH_u-N7dfOacCeaiV6flHhZx6e8XnQZBEVCYHmX-Xf_-Hk5SoW_mcXGgC4MMjjyD2y4ztD6bstLPqxCnXGaU4gNJqrfxJzSrEwNDMSidD59j4kO3tSww7c5mdL3yu_RqVT7fx7TfFYa350EASy1Lw=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A woman conceives twins through artificial insemination, then meets the man of her dreams later that same day. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: There's been some debate raging in our country about when life begins, and for many years it seemed like maybe we'd settled this, landing on the notion that life begins with birth, but then others saying life begins at conception, and now things are all fuzzy again. (We still count how old someone is from the day they were born, and we still have birthdays and not conception-days, so I still have hope that this planet won't get over-populated and good sense can prevail in the cases of rape, incest and protecting the health of at risk pregnant mothers). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The latest wrinkle concerns frozen embryos in Alabama, which the state courts have decided are children and therefore alive, despite being frozen and incapable of breathing, thinking or functioning in their current state. Because they're embryos. Somebody has confused the potential for life with life itself, it seems, and now the whole process of in-vitro fertilization, in which the extra embryos are destroyed at some point, is tantamount to murder, and any clinic that was helpful in creating life is now, in the eyes of the court, equivalent to a death camp. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So here's a wacky thought, maybe take a look at the science involved and learn what an embryo really is, instead of letting God, or your notion of God, or someone who says they speak for God (which is ridiculous if you just think about it) determine what an embryo is and whether it's allive, or just has the potential to be alive in the future, because those two states are different. We don't look at a ball of dough, a can of tomato sauce and a package of mozzarella cheese and say, "Look, it's a pizza!" No, those things are just the ingredients, together they have the POTENTIAL to be a pizza, but it's going to take some time and some work and an oven before you can truly call that a pizza - until then, if the cheese was moldy you'd probably want to throw it out, and sure, then maybe you're not eating pizza for dinner, because you've thrown away a vital pizza ingredient, but you didn't throw away a pizza, you just threw out some bad cheese. Can we get some clarity on this point, please? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">My point is that you can't have it both ways - if you don't like abortion and you want to outlaw that, we've got a conflict there between living in a free society where we have a separation of church and state and a group of people thinking that they have to regulate a process because it's what God wants, allegedly. But if you want to regulate abortion, then you also have to regulate IVF, which is only fair, because you've decided that messing with reproduction is messing with God's plan for us. We're either living in a free country or in "The Handmaid's Tale", and I have hopes that the legal system will eventually work this all out, only it may take an election year or two, and right now it could still go either way. Look, I don't have kids and I'm not likely to have kids, so I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'd like very much for humans as a species to not have so many kids that we break the planet any more than we already have. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, rant over, let's get to the romance movie. Really what we're dealing with here is bad timing, put to use for comic effect in a rom-com. Zoe has dated "many, many" guys over the last five years, but for some reason has never found "the one" that she wants to marry and/or have a family with. Umm, look, I kind of see the problem here, it's probably not a LACK of male partners, probably exactly the opposite. I saw Albert Brooks interviewed on the Bill Maher show, promoting the documentary made about his life and career, and they ran what he said about how he found the love of his life. Very simply, he stopped looking - and I love this quote, it's SO Albert Brooks. So I think the problem here is that Zoe just never stopped looking, so maybe she found the "right guy" three or four times, she just never stopped looking. Or she's secretly afraid of commitment, who can say but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she just forgot to settle, and settling is very important, because then you stop looking and you can maybe accomplish something. Marriage is like a job, and at some point you need to stop job-hunting and actually, you know, maybe do some work. <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So she decides to have a baby on her own - fortunately she had a few jobs in the tech industry or something, before she left that career to own and run a pet store. But she's apparently got some money saved up, enough to pay for the sperm bank and the IVF treatments, the doctor bills, pregnancy clothes, baby supplies, child-care and schools, hopefully. I know, I know it's fiction and we shouldn't be concerned about this, but fiction still needs to reflect the real world and all of its challenges. I still need to believe that these characters can pay their bills on a monthly basis and afford the NYC apartments that I see them living in, otherwise, what exactly are we doing, Hollywood? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, she meets an attractive man as they fight over a cab on a rainy day, as you do, and then she sees him again, selling his cheese at a Farmer's Market. Seems like fate or kismet that they run into each other again and again, but it happens, especially if you hang out in the same Manhattan neighborhoods each day or ride the same subway trains or hail cabs from the same corner, again and again. So let's assume that the Farmer's Market is somewhere near her pet store and we'll work forward from there, OK? And then once you notice somebody and you recognize their face, you're more likely to notice them again if you see them again. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">They meet cute and they start dating, but she doesn't QUITE know how to tell him that she might be pregnant. Then things get overly confused when her dog breaks the pregnancy tester and for some reason eats the test strip with the plus sign on it - this was all very wonky, and the plot of a movie really shouldn't depend on whether a handicapped dog in one of those little doggie wheelchairs throws up or not. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But there's a lot of vomiting in this movie, again, hardly ideal, but that's how we know Zoe is pregnant for sure, she throws up, because isn't that what pregnant women do? J. Lo's character throws up when she smells seafood, she throws up when she's nervous, she throws up at the drop of a hat - so if watching a beautiful woman is somehow your kink, man, are you in luck here. The bigger problem, of course, is how do you tell the man you're dating that you're pregnant, by anonymous sperm donor, and then what are the consequences of that? I would say that of course, honesty is the best policy and she should of course tell him sooner rather than later, but really, what's the harm? It's not like he's going to figure out that she's pregnant in a few months, maybe he'll just think she's gaining weight and throwing up a lot. JK. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Seriously, though, there was perhaps a temptation to go down the road of, "Well, just don't tell him, allow him to think that it's HIS baby, and she got pregnant right after they slept together for the first time." Well, that would be wrong, so thankfully the movie doesn't even flirt with going down that road. She does tell him the truth, and sure, there's fall-out from that, they split up briefly but then they decide they'd rather be together than apart, and Stan has to decide if he wants to be along on this crazy ride. Besides, he lied to her, too, he didn't mention that he's still in night school and trying to make something of himself - after he'd been married, opened up a Vermont inn with his wife, and then the business failed and he got divorced too. He now runs his parents' farm and he's making the best of that by crafting artisanal cheese, which is NOT a terrible plan. But he wants to run his own cheese and produce shop, unfortunately he's more a of a planner than a doer - well, you do have to dream it before you can do it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The rest of the film is just more weird complications that have to be endured and dealt with - like the Single Moms group invites them to a live at-home birth that involves a swimming pool (this was apparently a trend back around 2010) and what they witness SHOULD have been enough to convince anyone to give birth in a more reasonable hospital-like setting. Zoe tries to buy a double-stroller for the twins and more baby clothes than they would ever need, but then the stroller was too big or something, so Stan went to the stroller store, and all of THOSE strollers were too big, too - I don't know, this part was really unclear and he ended up commissioning a custom-made stroller from the sales clerk, and that stroller was somehow better? Again, very unclear, if there was a better way to make strollers, why didn't the stroller store sell them that way? Similarly, if there was a benefit to Zoe sleeping with the special pillow, then why did Stan throw it in the dumpster? I get that he was jealous that she was snuggling with the pillow instead of him, but it's either "sleep pillow is good" or "sleep pillow is bad", the film needed to pick one. Is it "home birth good" or "home birth bad"? Again, pick one.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I don't really care for all the pregnancy stuff - I'm not in this film's target market. I came here just for the romance part of the story, all the rest is just mindless noise. I'm glad these two were able to work things out and find a way to overcome bad timing and stay together, but really, how's this going to work if we've calculated out how much two babies cost to raise and the film freely admits there's just not enough money in the world to get that done? So, therefore, it's impossible to pay for two kids and I'm wondering why anybody in the world would even attempt it. Thanks, you're justifying my lifestyle and my decision to stay out of that demographic. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Alex O'Loughlin (last seen in "The Holiday"), Michaela Watkins (last seen in "Ibiza: Love Drunk"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Eric Christian Olsen (last seen in "Cellular")</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Anthony Anderson (last seen in "You People"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Noureen DeWulf (last seen in "Endings, Beginnings"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Melissa McCarthy (last seen in "The Little Mermaid" (2023)),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Linda Lavin (last seen in "Betty White: First Lady of Television"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tom Bosley (last seen in "Divorce American Style"), Maribeth Monroe (last seen in "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Danneel Harris Ackles (last seen in "Still Waiting..."),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Robert Klein (last seen in "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie"), Carlease Burke (last seen in "Save the Date"), Amy Block (last seen in "Keeping Up with the Joneses"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jennifer Elise Cox (last seen in "A Very Brady Sequel"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Adam Rose (last seen in "The Bounty Hunter"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Peggy Miley (last seen in "Just Before I Go"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Sadie May Beebe, Logan Lauriston, Barbara Perry (last seen in "I Was a Male War Bride"), Art Frankel, Anslem King, Manos Gavras, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Rowan Blanchard (last seen in "A Wrinkle in Time"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Riley B. Smith, Samantha Hall, Jared Gilmore, Peyton Lucas, Marlowe Peyton, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">with a cameo from Cesar Millan, archive footage of Ron Howard and the voice of Frank Welker (last heard in "Species"). </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 sea urchins on a server's tray</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-83874189904212495982024-02-28T22:44:00.000-08:002024-02-28T22:44:03.565-08:00The Boy Next Door<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 59 - 2/28/24 - Movie #4,660</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Kristin Chenoweth carries over from "Bros" and all types of romance films are being considered this year, including tales of obsessive love gone wrong - hey, I included "Swimfan" last year, or was that the year before? If that one counts then this one does, too. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 20: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Sound Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:00 am "Gold Diggers of 1933" (1933)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:00 am "Naughty Marietta" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:00 am "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:00 pm "This Land Is Mine" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:45 pm "The Last Metro" (1980)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:00 pm "The Brave One" (1956)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:00 pm "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Sound Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Grand Prix" (1966)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:15 pm "The Hurricane" (1937)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:15 am "Strike Up the Band" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:30 am "The Great Caruso" (1951)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Damn, only 1 seen out of 11 today. But a good one, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" is one of my favorite films of all time, and maybe the first film where I learned about what cameos were, as I watched the film to see The Three Stooges and also learned who Buster Keaton was. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to 79 seen out of 228, down to 34.6%. We've still got three categories left, though, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Picture, where I hope to do better. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNUw-rAivzaMznFvwvrGDDtHS-yXhQU5rQxHPvs_oNojFKK12d643SRV9llylCMnnkfHuOnj-Aq5stjjNvTOYfcCT-92mVI6jQ_4FR-zJa6P46m_XPZ5Fy0QsblV6yzJ2CeXLMH9djANap6BhMi4O5GffbyhDlsVifo-BzYRJfIxrbVivxJ5D4Gj5X-w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="258" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiNUw-rAivzaMznFvwvrGDDtHS-yXhQU5rQxHPvs_oNojFKK12d643SRV9llylCMnnkfHuOnj-Aq5stjjNvTOYfcCT-92mVI6jQ_4FR-zJa6P46m_XPZ5Fy0QsblV6yzJ2CeXLMH9djANap6BhMi4O5GffbyhDlsVifo-BzYRJfIxrbVivxJ5D4Gj5X-w=w268-h400" width="268" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A woman, separated from her unfaithful husband, falls for a younger man who has moved in next door, but their torrid affair soon takes a dangerous turn.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Kicking off an almost-week of Jennifer Lopez movies, I was going to watch six but I think I'm going to cut it down to 5, because I've just heard such terrible things about "Gigli", so I'm in no rush to watch it - someday, maybe. But I've added "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", which is an Oscar-winning film, and that trumps a Razzie-winning film, right? OK, so I need to drop something to make space. We should have a tie for first, then, once the romance chain is over - at the moment Toni Collette still leads with five appearances in 2024. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">When I saw this film come out, it sure sounded like a film she's made before - "Enough", where she was on the run, hiding from an abusive husband and then I think she fought back by learning martial arts or something and, quite literally, fighting back. So at first I thought maybe Ms. Lopez had been in so many films that she was starting to repeat herself, or remake films that she was in before. No, this one's a bit different, it's not her ex-husband who's out to harm her, it's the attractive high-school student next door who transfers into her English class after sleeping with her. SO many things wrong with that, the first of which is that the guy is like 28 or something but never finished high school, so sure, put him in a class with the 16-year-olds, what could POSSIBLY go wrong? He forges the transfer paperwork and also sends an e-mail from her address to the principal, requesting that he be added to her literature class. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">First of course, he shows up and charms her after moving into his grandfather's house to help out while Gramps gets a kidney transplant. He helps fix her automatic garage door, then he, well, he takes care of some other equipment around the house that needs attention, if you know what I mean. And here it looked like Claire Peterson might get back together with her ex-husband after some friendly co-parenting, however since his next business trip is to San Francisco, that reminded her that he cheated with a woman from there, so she suspects that maybe he's still seeing that woman, what a turn-off. It's too bad, her soon-to-be-ex, Garrett is very apologetic, he swears the affair is over, but how can she be sure? This is probably enough to justify Claire sleeping with Noah, but remember she does this BEFORE he's a student in her class, so technically she didn't sleep with a student. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">She realizes her mistake, though, and she tries to end things, but it's too late, Noah has become obsessed with her, to the point where he threatens her family if she doesn't continue to date him or at least sleep with him, and really, that's the mark of a true romantic, isn't it? "I will kill your family unless you keep acting like you love me." Nope, no red flags there at all, just go on about your business. When the brakes go out on Garrett's sportscar, nobody really puts two and two together, except Claire knows Noah did it, and possibly that's how his parents died, too. Again, nothing to see here, please move along. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile, Noah befriends Claire's son, takes him under his wing and convinces him to take up boxing (N.P.: what high school has a BOXING team? Wrestling, sure, but boxing?) and then starts to turn him against his own father. Noah takes out the kid who's bullying Claire's son and fractures his skull, which gets him expelled. Ah, the things we do for love. Noah may be down, but he's not out, he takes his shot by kidnapping the vice-principal and then Claire's husband and son. Well, he didn't have much of an endgame plan, sure, but you've maybe got to admire his tenacity, right? Sure, he had pictures and video of himself sleeping with his teacher, but I suppose just getting her fired wouldn't have gone far towards winning her over - no, you've got to think big, like triple kidnapping big, I get it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">This was all pretty predictable, in the same vein as "Fatal Attraction" and "Swimfan", only the obsessed person is male here, for a change. Hey, it's J. Lo, maybe the guy just couldn't control himself. Can you imagine having her as your English teacher? Maybe you'd obsess over her too - I hate to victim-blame here, but she may just have that effect on teenagers, especially 28-year-old ones. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "The Mother"), Ryan Guzman (last seen in "Everybody Wants Some!"), Ian Nelson (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), John Corbett (last seen in "Street Kings"), Lexi Atkins (last seen in "Ted 2"), Hill Harper (last seen in "Beloved"), Jack Wallace (last seen in "Senior Moment"), </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">Adam Hicks,</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Francois Chau (last heard in "Raya and the Last Dragon"),</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Bailey Chase, Kent Avenido (last seen in "The Gambler"), </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Travis Schuldt (last seen in "The Giant Mechanical Man"), Brian Mahoney (last seen in "The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day"), Raquel Gardner (last seen in "Species II"), Kari Perdue, Chad Bullard, Forrest Hoffman, Alex Geschwind.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 trips to the hardware store </span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-83477419660906349562024-02-27T11:31:00.000-08:002024-03-03T22:04:33.771-08:00Bros<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 58 - 2/27/24 - Movie #4,659</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Seth Meyers carries over from "I Don't Know How She Does It" and we're trying to be more inclusive here at the Movie Year, so I've programmed a gay rom-com, with the assumption that it will fall into place here, I mean a romance film is a romance film, right? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 19: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Foreign Language Film Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 am "Woman in the Dunes" (1964)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:30 am "The Shop on Main Street" (1965)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:45 am "The Fireman's Ball" (1967)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "The Virgin Spring" (1960)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:45 pm "The Last Metro" (1980)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Mon Oncle" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (1987)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Special Effects Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "8 1/2" (1963)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:30 pm "Babette's Feast" (1987)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:30 am "Indochine" (1992)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:15 am "Sundays and Cybele" (1962)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:15 am "Closely Watched Trains" (1967)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Wow, another goose egg for me today - I probably should have watched some of these by now, like "8 1/2", a true classic - but I watched the English language remake, "9", but that doesn't count for much on today's tally. And "Babette's Feast" has been recommended to me, by an actor who was starring in a stage version of the same story, but as you may know, I don't take recommendations for my blog, except very rarely - in fact, somebody recommending a movie might make me LESS likely to want to watch it. But foreign films in general don't really fly with American audiences, so that kind of works the same way. By all means, if you don't want anybody watching your classic movies channel today, program a bunch of foreign language films. This </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to 78 seen out of 217, down to 35.9%</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiw-7PpQ2JwsUCgFBr4HYO_vDnbXFQOSERS3Fb4goq7o0d6F5X2syjo0De0RLMrG-iDf29IAXmQKWXubT8eA0f2lQdCKT9CyuYqh9hxjlbCmU5iYu1zj5AAJZ-SjvzL161C_Ry7cYnEzmO2o9ZQrYl0mYwFkZdwLaH2Bv-R0Bmy3Bl4b2TYc_mnp08YXQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="674" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiw-7PpQ2JwsUCgFBr4HYO_vDnbXFQOSERS3Fb4goq7o0d6F5X2syjo0De0RLMrG-iDf29IAXmQKWXubT8eA0f2lQdCKT9CyuYqh9hxjlbCmU5iYu1zj5AAJZ-SjvzL161C_Ry7cYnEzmO2o9ZQrYl0mYwFkZdwLaH2Bv-R0Bmy3Bl4b2TYc_mnp08YXQ=w323-h400" width="323" /></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: Two men with commitment problems attempt a relationship. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Well, I sit here day after day, complaining about how THIS romance movie is almost exactly like THAT one, because they all have carnivals in them for the high-school kids to double-date at, and why can't somebody do something different? I sure got what I asked for today, in fact I got way more than I expected. I keep almost apologizing for movies made in 2003 or 2004 by saying, "Well, it was a different time..." and it was - because here's a movie that reflects how much has changed - it's full of gay men, but also features lesbian, bisexual and trans actors, in fact straight actors might be in the minority on this cast. So you have to think that dating and relationships have gotten much more complex, because nothing's as simple as generic rom-coms make them out to be, there's a whole wide spectrum of options out there, if you're young and into it. I'm not, but I try very hard not to be all judgy about it, I'm a bit fascinated by this world even though I'm not a part of it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">For starters, there's the whole pronouns thing - people wanted to be called by the pronouns they want, reflecting who they feel like on the inside and not be defined by their genetics or their body parts, so some people still go be "He/Him" and "She/Her" and that may not be the same pronouns they were assigned at birth, while other people want to be called "They/Them" and for the most part, people at large have been willing to accommodate. The whole English language changed so that people would feel better about themselves, and that's an amazing thing. Language is mutable, of course, so naturally it should change, to reflect the changing times and the changes in attitude. "Marriage" was once a word that had a very specific meaning, and that has changed, too, first because we put the word "gay" before it, and now you don't even have to do that any more, "marriage" now just means a commitment between any two people, then can be a man and a woman or two men or two women or some other combination. And despite the conservatives complaining about the "slippery slope", so far changing the definition of that word has not led to people marrying animals, and they warned us that would be the next illogical step. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">"Thrupple" (or "throuple") is a commonplace word now, even though we already had "threesome", that word just wasn't doing the job, so a new one was coined. You probably know it's a couple that involves three people in a (somewhat) committed relationship - but other new words have come along, like "polyamorous" and the new words are always just a bit behind, by that I mean they reflect things that have been part of the culture for years, but we just weren't discussing them openly, maybe because we didn't have the right words yet, which help us gain some understanding maybe. But then even using words like "tops" and "bottoms" to help define and understand relationships maybe tells us just a little bit too much, but they're there now, so what was once a very private thing has become less so, but the words do help us understand a bit about what's going on behind closed doors - whether that's good or bad I don't really know.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">We don't have specific words for a man who transitioned into a woman who still dates women, or the reverse, a women who transitions into a man and dates men, but I think over time as the situations become more normalized maybe there will be specific words for all the spaces in-between the traditional man-woman thing that everybody was so comfortable with for thousands of years. But again, all the new words and definitions are there to help us understand situations that have always been there, in some fashion, but we weren't talking about. All of this is really just my way of saying that I don't usually watch movies with so many gay male sex scenes, because that's not the world I frequent, but it is the world we all live in. OK? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I went into this thinking that it doesn't matter, gay or straight, a rom-com is a rom-com, but that's not the case at all, in fact the main message of the film debunks the standard "love is love is love" myth that it's all the same, no matter the orientation or gender or self-identification. So perhaps that's just what the cis people tell themselves to make it easier for them to accept gay and trans people. But there's now just a new language that's developed, there are new cultural norms, new practices, new ways of BEING when you let people decide for themselves who they want to be and who they want to love. The gay people from the 1970's and the 1990's would probably be completely blown away to see what's going down today, but that's human evolution for you. To be "conservative" and ignorant of what's happening in people's everyday lives therefore seems really short-sighted, and I'm saying this as a straight man. Very few of the people I work with who are in their 20's are completely straight, everyone's on the scale somewhere, and I have to respect that. To be on the safe side, I just assume all of my co-workers are gay or at least bi, and I'm usually right - I can claim to have well-functioning gaydar, at least. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, the details - Bobby is a 40-year old gay man who claims to have never been in love, or at least he's never found somebody to love exclusively. He frequents Grindr dates, where the small talk usually amounts to "Hey, what's up?" before they get naked, then he walks around the city for a while or hangs out with friends, and combined that's a romantic single life, if that can somehow not be a contradiction in terms. He meets Aaron in a club, of course, but Aaron keeps ditching him for hotter guys, Aaron's not on Grindr or any of the other apps, plus he's got a regular-hookup with a gay couple, so he doesn't get with Bobby right away, but the more time they spend together, the more they envision maybe getting over their commitment-phobias and slowly they unlock the secrets of hooking up with each other. It involves some pushing, shoving and slapping before they make out, but I'm trying hard not to judge what I don't really understand. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile, Bobby gets an opportunity to work at NYC's first queer-based museum (I'm not sure if there really is one IRL, besides the Stonewall Inn, but I'm going to Google that) and he encounters difficulties working with the bi- and trans- people who are also the curators on some kind of board, because of course everyone has a different opinion on what should be in the museum, based on their own experiences. Even a proposed exhibit about whether Abraham Lincoln was gay is a matter of some controversy - some members feel that just because he was into wrestling and lived with several male roommates over the years, that's not enough proof to say he was gay or even bi. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Things progress between Bobby and Aaron, and they take a trip together to Provincetown, they have to work out whether they want to be monogamous or allow each other the freedom of an open relationship, and then when Aaron introduces Bobby to his parents, it's a bit of a disaster because Bobby is so outspoken about teaching a gay friendly curriculum in elementary schools, and Aaron's mom is a second grade teacher who disagrees, at least at first. Aaron makes the mistake of asking Bobby to "tone it down", which is maybe the worst thing you can ask a gay person to do, to not be themselves. Eventually, despite the interference of Debra Messing, they work something out, which is to have their own form of commitment, namely to stay together for the next three months and then re-assess things. Well, considering how complicated things in today's world, maybe something like that is the best you can hope for. Sure, gay marriage has been legal across the country for a while now, but that's not the end-all and be-all for all relationships, because if you have gay marriage then you also have to have gay divorce, and gay "almost getting married and somebody changing their mind right before the ceremony". </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I really want to get to the film "Fire Island", too, because I worked at the big gala premiere of that film, Bowen Yang was there, John Cameron Mitchell was there (though I recognized him and my gay co-worker did not) and the line stretched down the block and around the corner. We filled up the large theater, had a screening, then filled up the large theater AGAIN for a second screening, which leads me to conclude that America is not only ready for movies like that, they are desperate for more of them, there's clearly an underserved portion of the populace where LGBTQ+ based movies are concerned. For years there were only a few art-house movies, like "The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love", "The Crying Game" and such. Then of course "Brokeback Mountain" came along, but when there's money to made, eventually Hollywood is going to figure out how to make gay movies mainstream without being all condescending about it, and "Bros" is a big step in that direction. The main complaint here seems to be that the film tried too hard to be relatable, and thus failed to do so.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Billy Eichner (last heard in "The Lion King" (2019)), Luke Macfarlane (last seen in "Kinsey"), Guy Branum (last seen in "No Strings Attached"), Miss Lawrence (last seen in "The United States vs. Billie Holliday"), TS Madison (last seen in "Zola"), Dot-Marie Jones (last seen in "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story"), Jim Rash (last seen in "The Nines"), Eve Lindley, Monica Raymund (last seen in "Arbitrage"), Guillermo Diaz (last seen in "The Terminal"), Jai Rodriguez (last seen in "The New Guy"), Amanda Bearse, Debra Messing (last seen in "Irresistible"), Peter Kim, Justin Covington, Symone, Ryan Faucett, Becca Blackwell, D'Lo, Harvey Fierstein (last heard in "Mulan II"), Bowen Yang (last heard in "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again"), Dahlia Rodriguez, Derrick Delgado (last seen in "Tick...Tick...BOOM!"), George Dvorsky, Jamyl Dobson, Brock Ciarlelli, Jillian Gottlieb, Everett Quinton (last seen in "Hello Again"), Thomas Vorsteg, Julia Scotti, Feliziano Flores, Ryan Daly, Brayden Morgan, William Popp, Joey Taranto, Courtney Bassett, Doug Trapp (last seen in "Irresistible"), Shannon O'Neill, Matthew Wilkas (last seen in "Top Five"), Chris Henry Coffey, Alexandra Lopez Galan (last seen in "West Side Story")</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">with cameos from Kenan Thompson (last seen in "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), Amy Schumer (last seen in "I Feel Pretty"), Kristin Chenoweth (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Ben Stiller (last seen in "Hubie Halloween") and archive footage of Meg Ryan (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), Tom Hanks (last seen in "De Palma"), Brad Paisley.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 Christmas films on the "HallHeart" channel with token gay characters. </span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-48106525223810317182024-02-26T20:54:00.000-08:002024-02-27T08:12:12.354-08:00I Don't Know How She Does It<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 57 - 2/26/24 - Movie #4,658</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Greg Kinnear carries over from "The Last Song" and should this one count as a romance film or as a Mother's Day film? I've been on the fence about this one, but I guess since I need it here to help link my February chain together, I'm treating it as a film about a marriage, not about how hard it is to be a mother. Maybe it's both things, that's OK, but I need it here as a film about a marriage where there are kids, and OK, what effect parenting has on the relationship. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 18: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Special Effects Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:30 am "Green Dolphin Street" (1947)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:00 am "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" (1944)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:30 am "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:45 pm "Forbidden Planet" (1956)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:30 pm "Topper Returns" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:15 pm "Them!" (1954)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Special Effects Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Fantastic Voyage" (1966)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "Blithe Spirit" (1945)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:45 pm "2001" (1968)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:30 am "Destination Moon" (1950)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:15 am "Tom Thumb" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 6 seen out of these 11 ("Mutiny on the Bounty", "Forbidden Planet", "Topper Returns", "Them!", "Fantastic Voyage" and "2001") </span><span style="font-family: arial;">brings me to 78 seen out of 205, or 38%. It's a little weird that a classic movie channel is celebrating special effects from the 1940's and 50's, because they were all terrible by todays' standards. The technology of special effects, by its very nature, got better as time went on. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghWl0lRVUjJyTCTZvYvBMAcu0tLq3tzN3Gy8nTSFvJA5InHf3j8GfhJaq9wESojP8X_mNaE5G355SXq5Fd0f_cuKjfbSRX8Lnm9TNgBEX8cuJ6arldGCCXYCRrocmX8iFv1TFEAsUNjesZOaEKdCCYIn8w5GW-QPyfMlcB873DNaYtC0fSAVt4neVmaQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="839" data-original-width="567" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghWl0lRVUjJyTCTZvYvBMAcu0tLq3tzN3Gy8nTSFvJA5InHf3j8GfhJaq9wESojP8X_mNaE5G355SXq5Fd0f_cuKjfbSRX8Lnm9TNgBEX8cuJ6arldGCCXYCRrocmX8iFv1TFEAsUNjesZOaEKdCCYIn8w5GW-QPyfMlcB873DNaYtC0fSAVt4neVmaQ=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A comedy centered on the life of Kate Reddy, a finance executive who is the breadwinner for her husband and two kids. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: I think this could have worked as EITHER a romance film or as a Mother's Day film, but I just needed it here to make the chain that I wanted, this film ended up serving as a connector between the Miley Cyrus films and the Jennifer Lopez films, but that's OK, that's still a vital purpose. There's the standard love triangle here as Kate Reddy's new business partner has some type of romantic feelings for her, and this grows the more time they spend together, but really, that's a red herring here, she was never going to leave her husband for this guy. However, her spending more time with the rich business partner and less time with her husband and two kids is a source of some concern, and sure, there's a strain on her marriage, but this was maybe going to happen no matter what. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">As the movie so enjoys pointing out, there's still a terrible double standard, as women are expected to somehow juggle a career, a marriage, and child care, while also maintaining her sanity, and stereotypically men aren't expected to do this, not as often anyway, and still not as a matter of course. I think things have changed over the last 20-30 years, and caregiving fathers are more commonplace now, women who earn more than their spouses are also more common now. It's just this traditional "male as breadwinner" thing is partially being phased out, and I"m fine with that. Who wants to work hard at a soul-crushing career for a pile of money, anyway. JK, I would if I could but I haven't really had the same opportunities, nobody's hiring white males now because all the HR departments are trying to make their companies "more diverse" so hiring another white guy is counter-productive. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">People keep constantly saying the movie's tagline when referring to Kate, they simply don't know how she "does it." </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The problem here is that she DOESN'T do it, not successfully, anyway - the movie keeps reminding us that she's breaking one promise after another to her husband and kids. Plus the family uses a nanny, and so that's cheating, right? The nanny is a surfer (in BOSTON?) so she's constantly late, but I guess she's helpful in the long run. Maybe there are some beach areas in Massachusetts where people do surf, but come on, isn't it too cold for that like six months out of the year? Kate also resorts to cheats like buying a store-made pie for the school bake sale, then smushing it up a little so it looks homemade. Again, that's cheating! </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Her best friend, Allison, is another working mother, only a single one. Their nemeses are the "Momsters", these are the mothers of other kids at the same school who do NOT have jobs, they take care of their children full-time </span><span style="font-family: arial;">(or at least pretend to, they seem to have nannies too)</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> and then act all opinionated and look down on the mothers who are trying to have careers, too. Hey it's fine if your husband is a well-paid lawyer or something, but if he's just a carpenter or remodeler or something, who can blame Kate for traveling for her higher-paying job in the financial industry? Should one type of mom REALLY be looking down on the other type of mom just because they're not full-time moms? Why not a little solidarity, why can't these women band together and collectively demand a little more parenting be done by men? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">For example, we see Kate and her husband Richard working hard to control the wild birthday party for their son, and then they have to do all the clean-up after, too. Meanwhile, Wendy, one of the momsters tells the camera that she knows how to throw a perfect birthday party, too, she just calls up Ernesto at Party Services and they handle the whole thing. Man, this movie really want us to hate rich moms, they keep making them look all judgmental and spoiled. Why do this if it's going to alienate even a portion of the moms in the audience? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Kate is stretched thin, between the proposal for a new type of retirement accounts, flying to Cleveland to meet with the investors, bouncing back and forth between Boston and New York, while still trying to be a parent and also have a loving relationship with her husband, even though she's been traveling off and on for two months. And this is just the proposal for the new accounts, once she gets the job there will be more work in setting the whole thing up and maintaining the new accounts, so I'll guess she'll see her kids over the holidays, at least. NO, but wait, she's got an emergency meeting on Thanksgiving weekend, it's the only time that the CEO can meet with them! (NITPICK POINT: Nobody, simply nobody works on Thanksgiving weekend, not even the top top most successful executives. This is why Manhattan always looks like a ghost town during the Macy's parade, all the real New Yorkers have flown off or driven off to somewhere else.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ironically, the movie also tries to do too much - it can't fix love triangles, give parental advice, and show women how to juggle their careers and family, keep their bosses from falling in love with them and not make their husbands feel "less than" if their jobs don't bring in as much of a salary. Then there's the business of</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> also trying to convince single pregnant women to carry their babies to term (because even if they say they "don't want kids", they're really just misunderstanding what a wonderful process it all is. Give me a freakin' break, if somebody says they don't want to be a parent, just let them not be a parent!). Really overstepping here, if Kate's assistant wanted to get an abortion, she really should have stayed out of it and let her make her own decision. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Of course, the plotlines go a bit to the extreme, like when the entire class gets lice, and Kate is affected too. But another NITPICK POINT, I don't think there are businesses that exist JUST to help people rid themselves of head lice. This is not a thing in Massachusetts, not anywhere - have you ever seen a "Lice Enders" shop? What a terrible business model, just sitting around the converted hair salon, just waiting for the kids in your town to get infected with head lice. How does that place even stay in business? That would be like opening a clothing store and only selling shirts that have one arm, or pants that are missing a leg, and just waiting for people who are amputees to move to your town and discover your very speclalized shop. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And the big revelation at the end? Kate realizes that her husband and kids are feeling neglected, so she vows to cut back on her business trips and spend more time with them. Oops, sorry, should have said SPOILER ALERT, but that's the big banner headline? Couldn't she have just figured that out from the start and done more telecommuting? Worked from home on her computer? I guess maybe that just wasn't done as commonly in 2011 as it is now, and we have the pandemic to thank for it. More parents these days are finding ways to work from home so they CAN have it all, they can have a hand in raising their kids AND also get their work done - I mean, sure, thank God for computers and all that, but I wonder just how many people working at home now are working as hard as they would have if they were still commuting to an office. At least when you're in an office you're not likely to be distracted by your TV, your music and yes, your kids. Just saying. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Sarah Jessica Parker (last seen in "Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Black Adam"), Christina Hendricks (last heard in "Scoob!"), Kelsey Grammer (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "The Last Blockbuster"), Olivia Munn (last seen in "Love Wedding Repeat"), Jane Curtin (last seen in "Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time"), Mark Blum (last seen in "Human Capital"), Busy Philipps (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Sarah Shahi (also last seen in "Black Adam"), Jessica Szohr (last seen in "Ted 2"), Emma Rayne Lyle, Julius Goldberg, Theodore Goldberg, James Murtaugh (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Eugenia Yuan (last seen in "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny"), Beth Fowler, Michael Hogan (last seen in "Coffee and Cigarettes"), Marceline Hugot (last seen in "She Said"), Steve Routman (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Raymond McAnally, Timothy Finch (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer")</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">with a cameo from Mika Brzezinski (last seen in "Running with Beto") and archive footage of Cary Grant (last seen in "De Palma"), Rosalind Russell (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 PowerPoint slides</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-68463143373389141402024-02-25T14:01:00.000-08:002024-02-25T14:10:23.120-08:00The Last Song<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 56 - 2/25/24 - Movie #4,657</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Miley Cyrus carries over from "LOL", obvi. And Greg Kinnear was in one of the first romance films this year, I said that I'd circle back to him, and now is that time. There was so much cross-over between the romance films that I simply couldn't follow every link, there was an embarrassment of riches in that regard, which can make it tough to land on an order - knowing that film #2 in the chain links to #25 is great, but it's also useless and ultimately confusing if putting those two films together doesn't make for a "better" order, whatever that is. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm trying to get back into playing some video-games, but as soon as I start, I realize I just don't have the time. Plus I remember having a lot of fun playing "Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories", and suggesting to my wife that she play it too, but she skipped that one and moved on to GTA 4 and 5, and I haven't played either of those. I never finished "GTA: San Andreas", I reached a point where the missions were too difficult for me, so I stopped. But I did play some of these games over during the pandemic, then I went back to work and didn't have time to keep going - movies, TV, comic books and work all pull me in different directions, and something's got to give. Mostly I play games on my phone now, that I seem to have time for, but I'm even falling behind on those. I've still got another week before my next shift at the theater, so maybe I can fit in some more video-games, but last night I stayed up until 5 am playing GTA and I really shouldn't do that often, then I sleep until noon and my sleep schedule is already terrible, I don't need to make it any worse. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 17: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actress Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:30 am "Camille" (1937)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:30 am "I'll Cry Tomorrow" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:30 am "Baby Doll" (1956)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:45 pm "A Star Is Born" (1954)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Far From Heaven" (2002)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "Gaslight" (1944)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actress Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:15 pm "Moonstruck" (1987)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:15 am "The Country Girl" (1954)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:15 am "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:45 am "Dangerous" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 6 seen out of these 11 ("A Star Is Born", "Far From Heaven", "Gaslight", "A Streetcar Named Desire", "Moonstruck" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") </span><span style="font-family: arial;">This brings me to 72 seen out of 194, or 37.1%. Finally my score is improving, only now it's so late in the game that all progress will be slow. I'll do well on Special Effects but then probably terrible on Foreign Language Films. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTJFiT8Jf4NbugMxsP3EnHoAJ4xWahuXRok3L5SeQlrPolNtmxhtiNlMSjc0BrlaqsruQmh3JylpZEgKkfRiqTuJZ8tKbi-eSz93R3hNSYX7VZ7wW0wV59PLCqivdvoooKD9L7sOhDiWGzMUMdbiwWmqU5leNMqWB0l8XZdaor0JCyda9YIsikC87iGw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="567" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiTJFiT8Jf4NbugMxsP3EnHoAJ4xWahuXRok3L5SeQlrPolNtmxhtiNlMSjc0BrlaqsruQmh3JylpZEgKkfRiqTuJZ8tKbi-eSz93R3hNSYX7VZ7wW0wV59PLCqivdvoooKD9L7sOhDiWGzMUMdbiwWmqU5leNMqWB0l8XZdaor0JCyda9YIsikC87iGw=w272-h400" width="272" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A rebellious girl is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: This is another movie based on a Nicholas Sparks book, like "The Notebook" and "A Walk to Remember". There are a few more of those out there but the films ended up quite below the radar, so I have to decide if I want to add them in the future. Probably next year's brick films need some mortar to join them together, so I really should take a look - but there will be plenty of time for that. I won't need to land on a viewing order for next February until December of this year, and the landscape could be completely different by then. It's hard to do a chain AND stay within a genre, sure, but if there are enough films from that genre on the list, and enough connections, then certain things are possible. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But with a story from Nicholas Sparks, you can expect things to fall into the "It's Complicated" arena, and it won't just be that somebody thought she saw her boyfriend making out with someone at the bathroom stall in school, and made an assumption based on the purse she saw on the floor. We've got some serious issues tonight, like the fact that Ronnie's parents are divorced and she got in some kind of trouble up north for shoplifting, plus she got accepted into Juilliard and seems to have no intention of going. And then when she arrives in Georgia, she gets caught up in the plight of the sea turtles on the beach, and the fact that a very hungry raccoon wants to eat the eggs before they hatch. OK, I have no idea how a city girl knows so much about sea turtles, but since she's a vegetarian we can also assume she's big on animal rights, or something? She's got PETA on speed-dial, I don't know, but aren't raccoons also part of the natural order, and don't those little trash pandas have a right to flourish, too? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ronnie's father also has problems, he's helping to rebuild the local church that burned down, because he was the last one seen inside, so naturally everyone in town assumes it's his fault, either he's a secret arsonist or he was careless with some candles, either way he's to blame. He seems to agree, because he was on some kind of medication last year that maybe clouded his judgment (umm, yeah, remember that, it might be important later). </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile Ronnie keeps bumping into local hottie Will, who first spills her shake when she walks too close to his beach volleyball game, so she hates him from the start. (Therefore, they're destined to be together?). Later the aquarium sends over a volunteer to help watch the turtle eggs, and what do you know, it's him. That's a small beach town for you. They bond, sort of, only her father says they have to sit 6 feet apart while watching the turtle eggs - HA! - doesn't he know that if he forbids them to get together then that's exactly what they'll want to do? Or maybe that was his plan all along, so his daughter would at least be happy or distracted and not be just moping around the house and getting into trouble at the carnival. Oh, yeah, there's a carnival in town, for like the fourth or fifth movie this year - it seems to be the go-to for this year's rom-coms, where should we send the teens on a date? Oh, just say there's a carnival in town, because isn't there always?</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Will lets Ronnie into his world, which involves working at the aquarium - but then one of his exes tracks Ronnie down and tells her, "Oh, he does that with ALL his girlfriends..." so she cools on him for a while, but come on, what's the big deal? If you went to a movie or out to dinner with your previous lover, does that mean you can NEVER do that with your next partner? Let's be real here, the partners change frequently but the things that you DO with your partners tend to not change, because fun things are still fun things no matter who you're with. Right? Don't let the haters make you think you're not special, Ronnie. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ronnie also gets caught up in the situation of Blaze, a local girl who's dating the very abusive dirtbag, Marcus. Things get so bad that Marcus interrupts Will's sister's wedding while Blaze is working there and Ronnie's a guest, forcing Will to engage in a fist fight - and who gets blamed for this? Ronnie and Blaze! It's just not fair, how is the male dirtbag's behavior somehow the fault of the girl he's been abusing? Calling shenanigan on this one, and Will's Rich parents needed to put the blame where it belongs. But that's really what this film is about, people feeling guilty for things that are just NOT their fault, while the real guilty parties go unpunished. Hey, life's not fair, sometimes you take the blame for burning down a church when you didn't do it, and sometimes a raccoon eats your eggs while you're off somewhere else, just being a turtle.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Ronnie eventually learns to lighten up, play music again and spend some quality time with her father before his illness is revealed, and her little brother pitches in to get the stained-glass window done for the church, which might be against child labor laws, but that's where we find ourselves. So then the only remaining question is, can Ronnie forgive Will for not telling the truth about her father's innocence, and can these crazy kids transfer to colleges in the same city and maybe get back on track to have some kind of life together? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Co-starring in this film led to a real-life relationship for Liam Hemsworth and Miley Cyrus, though they were on-again and off-again they got engaged in 2016, married in 2018, and divorced in 2020. There's no real record of the exact cause of the break-up, but Miley had been dating both men and women before that, and also, well, she's Miley Cyrus, so I think we can read between the lines there and understand what "irreconcilable differences" means. As one character says in this movie, "Well, sometimes love just isn't enough." Or we can go with "it's complicated." </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Liam Hemsworth (last seen in "Empire State"), Greg Kinnear (last seen in "Loser"), Kelly Preston (last seen in "Eulogy"), Bobby Coleman (last seen in "Friends With Money"), Nick Lashaway (last seen in "In Time"), Carly Chaikin (last seen in "In a World..."), Adam Barnett, Kate Vernon (last seen in "Malcolm X"), Nick Searcy (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Melissa Ordway (last seen in "The Incredible Burt Wonderstone"), Carrie Malabre, Rhoda Griffis (last seen in "One Missed Call"), Lance E. Nichols (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Hallock Beals, Stephanie Leigh Schlund (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"), Michael Jamorski, Phil Parham, Bonnie Johnson.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 service shops in the Blakelee Brakes franchise</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-27538217009941499002024-02-24T15:30:00.000-08:002024-02-24T15:30:15.310-08:00LOL<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 55 - 2/24/24 - Movie #4,656</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Nora Dunn carries over again from "The Answer Man", and I'm back on track, just 2 films with Miley Cyrus and then 17 more romance films and I'm done with the topic for another year. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 16: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actress Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:45 am "The Valley of Decision" (1945)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "Alice Adams" (1935)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:45 am "Suspicion" (1941)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:30 pm "Wait Until Dark" (1967)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:30 pm "Born Yesterday" (1950)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:30 pm "Auntie Mame" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Actress Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "Funny Girl" (1968)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:45 am "Mildred Pierce" (1945)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:45 am "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" (1974)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:45 am "Two Women" (1960)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 5 (?) seen out of these 11 ("Suspicion", "Wait Until Dark", "Driving Miss Daisy", "Funny Girl" and "Mildred Pierce") brings me to 66 seen out of 183, or 36%. "Born Yesterday" is on my list, though, it's a film that just fell through the cracks again and again for years, and then once I finally figured out how to get through a whole year with a linked chain, I haven't been able to find a way back to it. I probably should take this opportunity to watch "Two Women" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", but again, I've just got too much - wait, you know what, I'm going to record that last film, because it is a romance film, it's a super classic film I should have seen by now and I CAN work it into my chain in early March, right between two other Ellen Burstyn films. We're going to make that one happen, I might have to double up on animated films leading up to St. Patrick's Day, but I can make that happen too.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPzdIJInYJ9pOqUiYRownXacTRDH_rxcw3r7mtGWxCRty_B79ICutOdYjlU3jmsM52JDLypjK4v6NWGW5mUTggSIHju0M3B1CcbgsmeeGVQJUdQp8xKxe1bKkQoh02cG12t3ki1rI9n1AsiZOqbqieZIh5KR5FFh9Ic6DuoPaYl_caVfOi814tereQgw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="573" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjPzdIJInYJ9pOqUiYRownXacTRDH_rxcw3r7mtGWxCRty_B79ICutOdYjlU3jmsM52JDLypjK4v6NWGW5mUTggSIHju0M3B1CcbgsmeeGVQJUdQp8xKxe1bKkQoh02cG12t3ki1rI9n1AsiZOqbqieZIh5KR5FFh9Ic6DuoPaYl_caVfOi814tereQgw=w273-h400" width="273" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: As a new school year begins, Lola's heart is broken by her boyfriend, though soon she's surprised by her best friend, musician Kyle, who reveals his feelings for her. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: Yeah, I really need to watch more films like "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore", films wiith adults in them, having adult relationships. If I watch one more film with a high-school kid who wants to date the really unattainable attractive popular person, and doesn't realize that they really should be dating their best friend, I'm going to lose it. Really, I just don't care if Lola dates Kyle after Chad breaks her heart, who even cares? That's it, no more high-school films for me, I've aged out of that program a few decades ago, I don't know why I even bother. Plus, haven't I seen all the high-school films by now? It's getting so tired. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">OK, I checked through my list, it looks like I'm in the clear, no more high-school romances in this year's chain. There might be a few left on the list, like "Blockers", "Bottoms" and "The Girl Next Door", but I can worry about them next year, and make a decision then about whether to screen them or ban them, depending on how I feel. Je-SUS, why are high-school kids so dramatic? They break up with a partner or two and it's like the end of the WORLD or something, kids, realize that your life is (ideally) long and you're going to have multiple partners over the next few decades, maybe a few marriages, and that means that you could find yourself alone at ANY stage in your life, either by divorce or death or just plain "we're not right for each other". Sorry to be a Debbie Downer here, just being realistic, though. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">At least this film dispenses with the classic love triangle in the first 10 minutes, Lola breaks up with Chad and decides that maybe dating the guy she's kept in the friend zone isn't such a bad idea after all. Hey, in "Sex Drive" and "A Guy Thing" and "Your Place or Mine" and "Whatever It Takes" it took those characters nearly the whole MOVIE to figure out that solution to the puzzle. Lola's ahead of the game if she decides that Kyle is "The One". </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There are still hurdles to overcome, of course. Kyle's in a band with Chad, so they have to work out this whole "who should be with Lola" thing and become bros again, or they're never going to win the Battle of the Bands. And Kyle's also got trouble with his father, who doesn't want him playing music at all, and is threatening to ship him off to military school if his grades don't improve. (Well how the hell is he suppose to concentrate on schoolwork if every girl in school won't leave him alone in the courtyard? Just asking...). He also needs time to write those great lyrics, "To let you know how I'm feelin' / I'm high on hope, I'm reelin'". Yeah, the professional rock bands don't really need to worry about these guys. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Lola's family life is a mess, too, because her mother and dad are sleeping together again, and they think they're being covert about it, but they're not. Lola knows about it, and her mother is very hypocritical, since she wants to know everything about Lola's sex life, but she's not telling anybody about her own. Plus, sleeping with your ex is a terrible idea, because eventually you're going to remember why you broke up in the first place, those issues simply have not gone away. Lola's Mom goes away for a weekend with Lola's dad, and Lola's grandmother is in charge of the house, which is just a terrible idea, because she lets Lola have three friends over, then three turns into five and five turns into thirty, and before long it's a rager, and everyone knows if you give grandma a few classes of scotch and coke she'll be down for the count, then everyone can just do drugs and have sex and forget to clean up after the party. Ugh, teenagers are just the worst, I see that now. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">More hypocrisy abounds as Lola's Mom and their friends smoke pot when they get together, so how can they tell their kids to NOT do this when they're getting high themselves? But this was back in 2012 and pot wasn't legal yet, so it was a very different time. So really, I'm blaming the parents here for Lola's messed-up situation. You just can't tell your daughter to stay away from drugs and not sleep around if you're doing exactly that yourself. Of course, that's still no reason for Lola to lie about her life to her mother, but teens have been doing that for thousands of years, it's not going to stop now. But communication is a two-way street, after all. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Things get worse for Lola when she thinks Kyle cheated on her with a girl in the bathroom - the film went out of its way to make sure we knew that TWO girls had exactly the same purse, which was the reason for the mix-up. And then there was another much more contrived reason why Emily wouldn't tell Lola why it was HER in the bathroom, because she was embarrassed about who she was having sex with in the stall. Really, Emily, WE DON'T CARE. Emily's only got eyes for her math teacher, honestly it seems like all the girls only took trigonometry to get closer to Mr. Ross, but you know, I can understand this, because there's simply no reason to take trigonometry in the first place. I passed that course in high school but I don't think I ever understood what exactly we were studying. The area under curves or something? Nope, I'm wrong, it was the specific functions of angles, whatever that means. No, we don't need this, nobody needs this. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Look, I don't know what Emily sees in Wen, or why anybody would even be named "Wen" in the first place - but if they're happy together, it's fine by me. Even if their whole relationship is based on some random chat room where they both get naked anonymously, it's fine. He's not as handsome as the math teacher, but then again, who is? Ugh, this is all such stupid nonsense, but really, that describes all high school relationships, doesn't it? Was that the point here, that high-school relationships are all just meaningless, because very few of them are going to make it past the college years, and even fewer will result in marriage or life-long relationships? So don't worry about it, Lola, it's not your fault that your relationships with Chad or Kyle or whoever won't last, they're just not meant to last. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And if you think American high-school life is weird, things get even weirder on the class trip to Paris, where the kids have to eat snails and brains, or stay with French people who are obsessed with Joan of Arc for some reason. Yeah, that's all there is to French culture, after all. But the high-school kids can legally drink wine, so there's that. Anyway, the trip to France totally fixes everything for everybody, even Kyle's dad somehow realizes that having a son who's a rock star is a good thing. How did that happen, again? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">NITPICK POINT: Lola says at the beginning of the film that her nickname is "LOL", as in the famous internet acronym, but then over the next 90 minutes of movie, nobody ever calls her that. Umm, nice try? </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Miley Cyrus (last seen in "Dolly Parton: Here I Am"), Demi Moore (last seen in "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Ashley Greene (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Douglas Booth (last seen in "The Dirt"), Adam Sevani, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Thomas Jane (last seen in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jay Hernandez (last seen in "Lakeview Terrace"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Marlo Thomas (last seen in "Lucy and Desi"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Gina Gershon (last seen in "P.S. I Love You"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Fisher Stevens (last seen in "Asteroid City"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">George Finn (last seen in "Just Before I Go"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Lina Esco, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Ashley Hinshaw (last seen in "Chronicle"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tanz Watson, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Austin Nichols (last seen in "Wimbledon"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jean-Luc Bilodeau (last seen in "Trick 'r Treat"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Brady Tutton,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Vivian Le Borgne, Bridget Brown, Sam Derence, Trevor Fahnstrom, Rebecca Finnegan, Lynnette Gaza, Loretta Higgins, Vichaan Kue, Madelyn Lasky, Emma Nolan, Dennis North (last seen in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"), Delphine Ponyvieux, Leisa Pulido (last seen in "Cedar Rapids"), Barbara Robertson, Russell Steinberg, Michelle Burke Thomas, </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 4 out of 10 phones ringing during French class (oh, if ONLY there were a way to stop that!)</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-31459058264688691072024-02-23T17:54:00.000-08:002024-02-23T17:54:55.156-08:00The Answer Man<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 54 - 2/23/24 - Movie #4,655</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Nora Dunn carries over from "Together Together", and I debated about including this one, it's a last-minute addition and the middle film of three with Nora Dunn, so I COULD drop it, and save it for next year. It links here, but it also links to films that didn't make the cut and so I could make a case for saving it, but nah, let's get rid of it now so it doesn't take up space on the DVR. I'll worry about next year next year. Anyway one of the films it links to might be a better Mother's Day film than a romance film, we'll have to see where it lands. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 14: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Cinematography Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 am "Captains of the Clouds" (1942)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "Million Dollar Mermaid" (1952)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "Northwest Passage" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:15 pm "Lassie Come Home" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 pm "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Blackboard Jungle" (1955)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "Strangers on a Train" (1951)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Cinematography Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "Laura" (1944)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:45 pm "The Defiant Ones" (1958)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:30 pm "MIssissippi Burning" (1988)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:45 am "Ryan's Daughter" (1970)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">5:15 am "The Good Earth" (1937)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Another</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 4 seen out of these 12 ("Somebody Up There Likes Me", "Strangers on a Train", "THe Defiant Ones", "Mississippi Burning") brings me to 61 seen out of 172, or 35.4%, thankfully I've seen every Hitchcock film ever and also a lot of boxing movies and prison movies. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8vIdo-kj14HxgKQzszhjLKzYuYWGRDxP2xvQoiJxSSHJxTqyzHh5MkqBxo6hqJalDB-C15xPFCZOYcFt_wu78WlvhvzQ7bTaNZomp3PjlOc6mBq2NRNXVxOYBa6cBos_gRWfBqhewWq2zLhM-xK0t0BVKsMUnXSALg_ZZPeDkNXejh03NzVEQH2J4-A" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="566" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi8vIdo-kj14HxgKQzszhjLKzYuYWGRDxP2xvQoiJxSSHJxTqyzHh5MkqBxo6hqJalDB-C15xPFCZOYcFt_wu78WlvhvzQ7bTaNZomp3PjlOc6mBq2NRNXVxOYBa6cBos_gRWfBqhewWq2zLhM-xK0t0BVKsMUnXSALg_ZZPeDkNXejh03NzVEQH2J4-A=w270-h400" width="270" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: A reclusive author of spiritual books is pursued for advice by a single mother and a bookstore owner fresh out of rehab.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: There's a lot of stuff going on in this one, and most of it is pretty solid - so no matter how the linking shakes down, I'm glad I dropped this one into the chain at the last minute. I've kind of reached the "romance AND" stage of things, where a film sort of doesn't have to JUST be about romance, it can be a romance and a comedy, or a romance and a historical drama, or a romance and a sci-fi film (could happen), well you get the idea. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm also falling back on that theory I mentioned the other day about screenwriters, they don't want to highlight a character who's got their act together, because people who don't have it together, or whose lives are falling apart, are much more interesting in the long run. And so we have reclusive author Arlen Faber, whose "Me and God" books have been publishing staples for almost 20 years, and there's a whole franchise built around them, kind of like those "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books from a few years back. Other people have written books ABOUT Faber's books, there's the "Me and God" cookbooks, and his publisher reminds him that he's manage to corner 10% of the "God Market" in the self-help section.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So he's doing OK financially, successful in his career, but he lives alone, and even when the mailman comes to the door he pretends to be his own employee, not the author himself - and every day he throws a bag full of mail into a pile in a spare room of his Philadelphia brownstone. Successful in his career, but not necessarily in the romance department, at least not until he has terrible back problems and visits a very attractive chiropractor. There is a certain percentage of people who do fall in love with their doctors or therapists, I've heard. Part of that comes about because someone is paying attention to them and also making them feel good and healthy, so the love thing is sometimes an added side effect to all that. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile, there's Kris, a young man who runs a nearby independent bookstore who's just gotten out of rehab, and he's going through the 12 steps, trying to change the things that he can and also deal with the things that he can't change, like the fact that his father drinks all the time. It's also hard for him to go to A.A. meetings, and this might have something to do with the fact that they demand that you surrender yourself to a higher power, not necessarily God but you have to pick something, even like a tree or a rock to surrender to, and admit that you yourself have no control over your drinking, but maybe the tree does? I'm not sure how that all works. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Kris' bookstore is in trouble, because he left it in the care of Dahlia, who lost her keys and couldn't open the store while he was in rehab. For a month. So the bookstore couldn't make any income if it couldn't open, I've got to call a NITPICK POINT here, though, because couldn't Dahlia have worked this out somehow? Broken a window or called a locksmith? We all know a business can't make any money if it doesn't open to customers, she had like 28 days to figure something out, and she just didn't - really, Kris should fire her for this, but he doesn't for some reason. The characters all come together when Arlen, the reclusive author, tries to sell some of his excess books on religion to the store, only the store can't afford to buy any books because there's no budget for that. Arlen even offers the books FOR FREE to the store, but Kris still refuses. (That's N.P. #2, if you run an independent business and somebody offers you stock for FREE, you should always say YES to that.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But this sets up an exchange, once Kris learns the identity of the man who's been coming in to his store trying to unload books. Kris will ask questions about life and God to Arlen, and after each set of questions, he'll also take five books for his store. This is really quite contrived, because I saw right away that there were better ways that this best-selling author could help out his store, which happens to sell his books. Why not a book signing, despite the fact that this author has not appeared in public for 20 years and almost nobody knows what he looks like? Still, that would be a great idea, and a public relations event beyond compare! OK, the film eventually gets there, but it takes a long time - so I guess I can say I saw this plot point coming a mile away, I was way out in front of the plot for once. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile Arlen and Elizabeth, his chiropractor, keep growing closer, however Arlen doesn't seem to know much about how relationships work, maybe he just hasn't had much experience. Every time they grow a bit closer, like they go for a walk or he shows her his collection of movie monster figurines, there's also two steps back, like Arlen will try to tell her how to parent her son or freak out when his monster figurines aren't put back in exactly the right way. (I feel you, Arlen, but you've got to learn how to relax, and not show your girlfriend just how bad your OCD is...)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">There's a lot this couple needs to work out, and part of why Arlen is the way he is goes back to taking care of his father, who had dementia, and he's still processing the loss - also he's spent two decades hiding from the world and his fans, and so he may be a little rusty when it comes to interacting with other humans and showing empathy for them. But that's not to say that Elizabeth isn't over-protective of her son, of course she is - but there's a reason for that, too, and it's going to take her time and patience to both accept the criticism and try to change her ways. (It's a somewhat similar situation to "Your Place or Mine", with the helicopter mom and the new man in her life, who just wants to be her son's friend and have fun with him, even if that means breaking Mom's rules...)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Finally, there's the big book signing at the independent bookstore, and Arlen also uses the opportunity to admit to the crowd that God never really spoke to him (DUH!) but he used that as a narrative technique to get his ideas about the answers to life's questions into a format that people would be willing to listen to. I see what you did there - make everyone buy the book BEFORE you admit that you're a complete fraud. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Elizabeth, however, is disappointed that he's been lying to his fans for 20 years (again, DUH!) but shouldn't she also be proud that he's finally chosen to reveal the truth, and stop living the lie? They agree to start over from scratch, but that just kind of leaves things open, we still don't really know if this relationship is going to work out. But this all feels very real, like it could happen, I'd just love to know what the inspiration was for this tale. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jeff Daniels (last seen in "2 Days in the Valley"), Lauren Graham (last seen in "Sweet November"), Lou Taylor Pucci (last seen in "The Chumscrubber"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Olivia Thirlby (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Kat Dennings (last seen in "Friendsgiving"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Tony Hale (last seen in "Quiz Lady"), Annie Corley (last seen in "Malcolm X"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Max Antisell (last seen in "The Music Never Stopped"), T</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">homas Roy (last seen in "Game Change"), Peter Patrikos (last seen in "21 Bridges"), Richard Lyntton (last seen in "Creed"), Richard Barlow (last seen in "Where'd You Go Bernadette"), Charlie Corrado, Sylvia Kauders (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Sandra Landers (last seen in "School Ties"), Ginny Graham (last seen in "Up Close & Personal"), Conor O'Brien (last seen in "Serenity"), Morgan Turner (last seen in "Jumanji: The Next Level"), Brandon Hanson, Steven Pasquale (last seen in "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem"). </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 6 out of 10 pieces of soy protein bacon ("FACON!")</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-69418987444300539582024-02-22T12:10:00.000-08:002024-02-22T12:10:03.690-08:00Together Together<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 53 - 2/22/24 - Movie #4,654</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Tig Notaro carries over from "Your Place or Mine", and I'm hoping for a film that makes a little more sense than yesterday's - so, really, any logical sense at all would be greatly appreciated. I'm home today and that means chores like emptying the dishwasher, laundry and going out to get lunch, but I'm happy to do all that if if means I get to sleep until almost noon and then spend some time later catching up on some TV. Hey, the snow's really melting so maybe some weather that's not so cold is in our future. A good day for a walk to go get lunch, and there's a film crew set up two blocks away, they took over the bar on the corner so I wonder what they're shooting. </span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 13: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Cinematography Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 am "Algiers" (1938)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 am "Waterloo Bridge" (1940)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 am "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 pm "Kismet" (1944)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:45 pm "National Velvet" (1944)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 pm "Jungle Book" (1942)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:00 pm "King Solomon's Mines" (1950)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Cinematography Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">10:00 pm "The Black Swan" (1942)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">12:00 am "Phantom of the Opera" (1943)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 am "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:00 am "Cries and Whispers" (1972)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Wow, it feels like TCM dumped a bunch of random movies on us today, this is a category where movies ended up that just couldn't fit into the other day's schedules, it seems. Maybe I'm just bitter because I've seen only one of these, the Bergman film "Cries and Whispers" - and if I hadn't chosen to focus on Bergman films back in 2021, I wouldn't even have THAT. You know my story, I've seen versions of "The Jungle Book", but not this one. I've seen "Kismet", but I watched the 1955 version, not the 1944 one. And so it goes...</span><span style="font-family: arial;">Another</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> 1 out of these 12 brings me to 57 seen out of 160, or 35.6%, I have a feeling it hasn't been my month, or even my year. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvmgOvWVEaJi1khc0t2K0xZmRt-GK3e-DfgHGSi2PBuOSnmUEjpv1YxtRDHf1Jsr0Qa6SDh8y8ByiRenVnUmq-HT7c1-_c36Z-aXSFn0IVkSVA7MfvcmNO11utbksSyDVZdHkkbTMJxv9lgQ49Sr2ehHrst66UE6EdfFAB2oOo32Ho1nqskMMaR1ZXGw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="568" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjvmgOvWVEaJi1khc0t2K0xZmRt-GK3e-DfgHGSi2PBuOSnmUEjpv1YxtRDHf1Jsr0Qa6SDh8y8ByiRenVnUmq-HT7c1-_c36Z-aXSFn0IVkSVA7MfvcmNO11utbksSyDVZdHkkbTMJxv9lgQ49Sr2ehHrst66UE6EdfFAB2oOo32Ho1nqskMMaR1ZXGw=w272-h400" width="272" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: When a young loner becomes the gestational surrogate for a single man in his 40s, two strangers come to realize this unexpected relationship will challenge their notions of connection, boundaries and the particulars of love. <br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: OK, so it's not a traditional romance, it may not even count as a romance at all, but the synopsis seemed very ambiguous so I dropped this one into the chain to make the required connections. Maybe if I'd known more about the plot I would have found another way to get where I needed to go, but then the downside would be that this film would have stayed on the list, when the goal is to get films OFF the list and make room for new things, or old things I never got around to before. 2021 was the last year I had access to Academy screener DVDs, and I know this because I have a separate list of films from that year that I was trying to get to - it started out at like 100 films and now it's down to just 24. Sure it's stupid and I could just STOP maintaining that list, but that list has "Coda" on it, also "Cry Macho", "Old", "Army of the Dead" and "Red Rocket", so maybe when I watch all of those films I can retire that list? It's got a few films from a couple years before, but I don't think I'll ever get around to watching "Roma" from 2018, there's just no way to get there, and anyway it's been 6 years now. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">(BTW, when is the next edition of "1,001 Films to See Before You Die" coming out? There was one every two years, and I got in the habit of updating my progress on that list, but there's been no sign of the 2023 edition, and it's already 2024. Maybe someone stopped updating that list? Or they got tired of adding 10 films to the end of the list every year and then having to remove those ten, instead of removing the shitty films from the 1920's? Just wondering.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Anyway, tonight's film is about modern relationships, which, thanks to modern science, don't even have to involve love any more. This story is about Matt, who's a tech guy who designs apps, some of which help other people meet and/or fall in love, and he's got so much money that he can pay for a woman to be a surrogate mother, or more correctly, a gestational surrogate. It's his, umm, genetic material combined with that of an egg donor, and he hires Anna to just bring the baby to term, as she's got a "womb to rent" (it's funny if you say it out loud). This is a business transaction, but after the interview process they have to spend time together, he goes to her pre-natal check-ups with her, she helps pick the colors for the baby's future bedroom, that sort of thing.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">It's an unlikely friendship, perhaps, because the two people are so vastly different, he's in his forties and she's in her twenties, he's successful in business and she's trying to raise the money to finish school, that sort of thing. Since they're united for this common cause, of gestating this baby, there's the chance here for some kind of situationship, possibly romance, but it's just as likely that she'll fulfill the terms of her surrogate contract and then they'll go their separate ways, especially if Anna's going to use the money she earns to focus on school. So they spend time together but they're not TOGETHER together, get it? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So many decisions to make, do they want to know the gender of the baby before it's born, and if not, what do they call it, (or do they just call it "it"?), should they talk to the baby, play music for the baby, is it OK if Anna spends the night in Matt's house, that sort of thing. Everything becomes something of a negotiation, and they are forced to establish boundaries, but in many ways, that's true for ANY relationship. Even when two people are in love they have to work out who does what when, and how to live together without driving each other crazy - hey, if it were easy then simply anybody could do it, and we know that some people can't. All of life and all of love and all of romantic movies is based on the simple fact that some combinations of people work better together than others, and some don't work at all. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Matt and Anna see a therapist together (or maybe it's his, I don't know) and they work on their issues, even though they're not really a couple, plus they also go to group therapy, but separately, not together, because that would be weird. Then there are birthing classes in addition to all those check-ups, Anna still works in the coffee shop, so really, there's a lot to do, all day every day, while that nine-month clock is slowly advancing. Then of course the movie ends with the big birthing day itself, and unfortunately we don't really know what comes after that, or do we? It's a bit of a copout that we the audience have to try and tell the future for these characters, but hey, every movie has to end somewhere, and not everything can be summed up neatly with "And they lived happily ever after." Chop off those last three words and you'll see something more like most of the endings we get, but perhaps rightly so. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">I heard a comedy routine last week, I think in a Taylor Tomlinson Netflix special, where she pointed out that nobody has both their work life AND their personal life in order. If you're focusing on your career, then your personal life is probably a mess, and vice versa. And if somebody does somehow have both their work life and their relationship going well, then at least their parents need to be divorced, or something like that. I think that's kind of how screenwriters work, they feel the need to create characters whose lives are in shambles, and once they figure out how their characters are damaged, then they put the wheels in motion. Matt had some relationship fails and is now alone BUT his career seems to be going well, while Anna dropped out of college and is floundering there, BUT she finds boyfriends fairly easily AND also she's not in touch with her family because she got pregnant during high school and gave up the baby for adoption. Meanwhile Matt's parents are divorced, but they each have new partners, so they function as sort of a foursome. It's great to know you can find love at any age, or have a baby at any stage in this modern world, but naturally, there's also a potential down side to every move you make.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Ed Helms (last seen in "Jeff, Who Lives at Home"), Patti Harrison (last seen in "A Simple Favor"), Rosalind Chao (last seen in "The Starling"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Nora Dunn (last seen in "The Oath"), Fred Melamed (last seen in "Some Kind of Beautiful"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Timm Sharp (last seen in "Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie"), Bianca Lopez (last seen in "The High Note"), Vivian Gil, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Julio Torres,</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Evan Jonigkeit (last seen in "Somebody I Used to Know"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Sufe Bradshaw (last seen in "Murder Mystery"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> Travis Coles, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Jo Firestone (last seen in "Don't Think Twice"),</span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> David Chattam (last seen in "Almost Friends"), Heidi Mendez, </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">May Calamawy, Greta Titelman, Tucker Smallwood (last seen in "Girlfriend's Day"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Terri Hoyos (last seen in "Clockwatchers"), </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Anna Konkle, Ithamar Enriquez (last seen in "Unicorn Store"), Gail Rastorfer (last seen in "Being the Ricardos"), Caitlin Kimball, Lucy Kaminsky, Ayla Rose Barreau, Johnathan Fernandez (last seen in "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them"), Alicia Roca and the voice of Ellen Dubin. </span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 5 out of 10 color samples</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6196989269904551373.post-53017213614228818202024-02-21T21:01:00.000-08:002024-02-21T21:01:43.892-08:00Your Place or Mine<span style="font-family: arial;">Year 16, Day 52 - 2/21/24 - Movie #4,653</span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">BEFORE: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Zoë Chao carries over from "Somebody I Used to Know", and I'm 21 films into the romance chain, so you know what that means? We've reached the halfway point - that's right, the old February groundhog saw his shadow, so that means three more weeks of romance-based entertainment. I'm clearing as MUCH of them off of my list as I possibly can, we're going almost all the way up to St. Patrick's Day, I think I can stop like on March 13 and still get to something Irish in time. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's todays' line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", Day 13: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Documentary Nominees:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:15 am "The Sea Around Us" (1952)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">7:30 am "The Secret Land" (1949)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:00 am "Freedom on my Mind" (1993)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:00 am "Four Days in November" (1964)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">1:15 pm "Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt" (1989)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">3:00 pm "For All Mankind" (1989)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">4:30 pm "When We Were Kings" (1996)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">6:15 pm "Winged Migration" (2003)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Best Original Score Winners:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">8:00 pm "The Man Who Skied Down Everest" (1975)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">9:45 pm "Harlan County USA" (1976)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">11:45 pm "Anne Frank Remembered" (1995)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">2:00 am "Woodstock" (1970)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Damn, I didn't realize they were going to focus on documentaries, I've only seen 3 out of these 12 today, "When We Were Kings", "Winged Migration" and "Woodstock". So I haven't seen so many documentaries about politics and Holocaust stuff, I tend to lean more toward docs about comedic actors and rock stars. So now I'm at 56 seen out of 148, or 37.8%, still falling.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0WUtA1VctVnrsE7A-2j0emAHyWio19cv7S8HuA64-1fpY1mZpSnkGIgNFGQuzUuO7gstoLIcxUPzPZ9C_dvKuswUEeX-on19go773eXYFWqkYINKyI0kn6_IeWFv14nj55yTacxQgeY3ZvFkzJdo9lA8S5xY-OKplNSDqL5rT2d7cBxvVFgPlfw2qEQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="566" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh0WUtA1VctVnrsE7A-2j0emAHyWio19cv7S8HuA64-1fpY1mZpSnkGIgNFGQuzUuO7gstoLIcxUPzPZ9C_dvKuswUEeX-on19go773eXYFWqkYINKyI0kn6_IeWFv14nj55yTacxQgeY3ZvFkzJdo9lA8S5xY-OKplNSDqL5rT2d7cBxvVFgPlfw2qEQ=w272-h400" width="272" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">THE PLOT: Two long-distance best friends change each other's lives when she decides to pursue a lifelong dream and he volunteers to keep an eye on her teenage son.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">AFTER: There's really just one rule here at the Movie Year: Don't be a stupid movie. Tonight's film has a stupid premise, it progresses forward in a stupid way, and then it executes all this in a stupid way, so it's three times the stupid. I shall explain.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The original idea, and I'll grant that it may BE an original idea, is only original because it's so stupid that no other film has chosen to tell this story, because it just. wouldn't. happen. Two people who are "best friends" and have been for 20 years since they hooked up once and then put each other in the friend zone. But then late in the film they still have to get together, because this is still aiming to be a rom-com, and you can't have that without the rom. So it's got to follow that nonsensible pattern where the relationship's not possible, then it continues to be not possible, then it becomes downright very impossible, the chances of romance are practically nil or non-existent about 3/4 of the way through, and then something changes and suddenly it's all "Oh, we love each other now, and the relationship is very possible." Nothing works this way, nothing in the world does. It's like making a movie about a dog trying to be President, and he's not eligible, he's not eligible, he continues to be a dog so he's not eligible, and then all of a sudden near the end, something unlikely happens and dogs can suddenly serve as President - but that wouldn't work, because we were led to believe during 95% of the film that a dog couldn't become President.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">You either put somebody in the friend-zone and they stay there, and you both remain friends, sure, that could happen - OR you lose touch after life takes you in two different directions and then years later you look that person up and OK, maybe you could try to date again, I would allow that after several decades of non-contact have elapsed, two people could start over. But these two people have been ACTIVE best friends every day for 20 years, there's just no way to turn that into a romantic relationship, too much time has been spent in the friend zone, it's like living in New York City for 30 years, you just can't pick up all your stuff and move to another city, like Boise, Idaho, because you've put down roots and you've grown accustomed to NYC and you'll go absolutely bonkers in Boise. Twenty years as friends, you're just not going to convert that to a romantic relationship at that point, because the two people probably know EVERYTHING about each other, all their hopes and aspirations but also their faults and failures, nope, better to start fresh with a new person.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">But Debbie and Peter's lives are about to change, because SHE decides to follow her dream and take a 2nd level accounting course or something, which would qualify her for better accounting jobs, not just one at a middle school (umm, I just don't think middle schools need accountants, as a rule?), and for some reason she HAS TO go to New York to take this course for two weeks. I'm going to stop the screenwriter right there, because why can't she take the class online, or study the material by Zoom? Doesn't the University of Phoenix offer this course, and if so, then why does she have to go all the way to New York? See, it's stupid and it doesn't work. Then when her usual babysitter has her first successful audition and gets her first ever movie role, after YEARS of trying, Peter (who's some kind of independent rich corporate person) volunteers to fly to L.A. and stay with Debbie's son while she's staying at HIS apartment in Brooklyn and taking this course. Again, more stupid, nobody would do this, not even for their best friend. And no mother would leave her son in the charge of someone with ZERO child care experience, it just wouldn't happen, not even if that person were her best friend. I'm calling "shenanigans" on ALL of this stupid plotline. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">So once the main characters have switched places, it gets stupider, because Debbie has left Peter a bunch of rules to follow, and he proceeds to throw the rulebook (and the casseroles) right into the trash. Well, that's just not something a friend would do, not even a male one. Sure, Debbie may be a smothering helicopter mother who won't let her son do anything dangerous like play sports or ride in a convertible (I seem to recall I had a mother like that...) but she has these rules in place for a reason, even if her reason is self-serving, because she doesn't want to worry about her son - but THAT'S EXACTLY WHY Peter should follow these rules and respect her parental authority, so that she can relax knowing that her son is properly supervised for these two weeks. First rule of babysitting is that you're not there to get the kid to like you, you're there to maintain the parental structure that the now-absent parent set in place. Not following the rules is teaching the kid that it's OK to be defiant and break rules, and then they will continue to DO THAT once their parent comes home. So, naturally Peter takes Jack for a ride in a convertible, then gets him on the hockey team so he can make friends - but come on, the people who will only be his friends if he can play hockey, aren't really his true friends then. AND of course Jack goes right into playing hockey with NO practice or instructions on how to play, like what the HELL was Peter thinking - so yeah, of course he's going to get injured, it's hockey!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">Meanwhile, Debbie is living in Peter's apartment and she meets a few of his NYC exes, and she's starting to get in trouble herself, she meets a famous publisher at a random bar and she just HAPPENS to have read every book this publisher has published - this is pretty darn stupid, too, and beyond any rational working of coincidence. Then also she learns that Peter once tried to be a novelist and still has his manuscript lying around in his apartment, and she now just HAPPENS to know a publisher, so she works on getting his book published, which is NOT why she's there, and she even works on this while she's supposed to be studying for that accounting course, which is stupidly beyond stupid. I mean, isn't that the reason for the whole trip in the first place? </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">My point is that when left to their own devices, these so-called "best friends" lie to each other, these may be lies of omission but those are still lies. And then when the lies are revealed, the friends meet at the airport and are very angry with each other, as they should be, but then next logical step would be for them to just go their separate ways and never speak again, because they have betrayed each other, after all. The fact that this doesn't happen means that the story that was stupid in the first place is now getting even stupider, and sure, this is all designed to bring them closer together somehow, only that's not what should logically happen between two people who have lied to each other and betrayed each other. That's not love, that's not friendship, that's all something else. They SHOULD NOT be allowed to fall in love with each other at this point, but of course that's why someone set this story in motion in the first place. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">And then on top of this there are huge execution problems, like there's probably five times as much dialogue here as would be needed to properly explain things, every single little point that anyone makes in this film is completely belabored to the point where I just didn't care about that THING any more. Like at the end when they hold hands, they say, "Oh, look, we're holding hands! Never been much of a hand-holder before, but look, we're holding hands and it feels good! I guess we're both hand-holders now!" Simply NOBODY talks like this, they didn't have to say anything at all, they could have just held hands and given each other a look and that would have been so much more effective, and quieter. Everything else like this was similarly stupidly stupid, across the board. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">All right, let's move on and start the back half of the romance chain, if the movies are going to be like THIS then I can't wait to get them all over with. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><span>Also starring </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif">Reese Witherspoon (last heard in "Sing 2"), Ashton Kutcher (last seen in "Vengeance"), Jesse Williams (last seen in "Secret Headquarters"), Wesley Kimmel, Tig Notaro (last seen in "Walk of Shame"), Steve Zahn (last heard in "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again"), Rachel Bloom (last seen in "The School for Good and Evil"), Griffin Matthews, Vella Lovell (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles"), Shiri Appleby (last seen in "Swimfan"), Tanner Swagger, Mystic inscho, Michael Hitchcock (last seen in "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar"), Rene Gube (last seen in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"), Ted Griffin (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), Gloria Calderon Kellett (last seen in "Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"), Tom Yi (last seen in "The Purge"), Britney Young, Katie Hyde (last seen in "Morning Glory"), Christopher V. Nelson, Duncan Calladine, Kelsey Flynn.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">RATING: 3 out of 10 ever-present coffee cups</span></div>Honky275http://www.blogger.com/profile/16878251683962575134noreply@blogger.com0