Reggie

Year 18, Day 226 - 8/14/26 - Movie #5,402 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #41

BEFORE: I've got my BFF Andy staying with us for a couple of days, so we took him out to Long Island on Friday to show him how we do a cigarette run, from the Poospatuck reservation, most often that also includes a nice lunch at a restaurant from my Yelp! lists and usually shopping, although today I really also needed to find a post office (ideally, one with a much smaller line than the one by my house, where the wait for service can be two hours long) and right next to the post office, a very convenient beer store where I was able to start stocking up interesting fall and winter beers. After lunch at a place that specializes in French Dip sandwiches, it was a bit too late for shopping, so we headed home, but I think he got the idea of what Long Island is all about. 

Andy wanted to watch the "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie" doc, so I was willing to watch it again, but that end part where they're really genuinely actively fighting was still tough. Then we latched on to a Jack Lemmon marathon on TCM, caught the tail end of "The Out of Towners" and the whole remake of "The Front Page" (which was better the 2nd time around, and shared with a friend), but I had to bow out once "Some Like It Hot" came on, despite the fact that I JUST watched the doc about Marilyn Monroe and that would have been totally appropriate. No, I went upstairs and watched "Reggie", I would not force my fellow former Masshole to have to watch a doc about a famous NY Yankee, it's bad enough that I need to watch it for my chain to continue. 

Despite playing for a number of different teams, it was difficult to attach a state to the life or career of Reggie Jackson, most of his MLB years were spent playing for the Oakland A's or the Yankees, and I've covered both California and New York already, of course. But since there are a lot of Yankees fans in Connecticut (as well as Red Sox fans), today's "Get to Know a State" state is going to be CONNECTICUT. I've been to Connecticut many times, so I'm up to 25 states visited out of 41, I should finish above 50% for sure. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: January 9, 1788 (the 5th state)

Claim to fame: TWO major casinos, we've been to them both, and Mystic Seaport, a fun place to visit. Some pretty good rest stops, too. 

Nickname: The Constitution State or the Nutmeg State, or the Land of Steady Habits (that last one isn't really the flex you think it is)

State Motto: Qui transtulit sustinet, which is Latin for "stop here between New York and Boston"

State Flower: Mountain laurel

State Bird: American robin

State Fish: American shad

State Animal: Sperm whale

State Insect: Praying mantis

State Tree: Charter Oak

State Dog: Siberian Husky (go, U.Conn Huskies!)

State Shellfish: Eastern oyster

State Mineral: Garnet

Notable Sports Teams: Well, there's a WNBA team, the Sun, which is based near the Mohegan Sun casino. The rest is all college teams and minor-league stuff, due to being right between two VERY big sports cities. 

Fun Facts: I'm familiar with the fact that the state is split, perhaps right down the middle, between Yankees fans and Red Sox fans. On our trips up to Massachusetts we have a favorite rest stop that sells souvenirs from both teams, as well as candy, beverages, fried chicken and fireworks. One-stop shopping, right? But I've learned that the imaginary dividing line between the two fan bases is called the "Munson-Nixon" like, a play on Mason-Dixon based on Yankees player Thurman Munson and Red Sox player Trot Nixon. Connecticut is claiming to be the birthplace of the American hamburger, which is a bit contentious, and is now trying to position itself as the best state for pizza, which is even more contentious. 

Joe Dimaggio carries over from "The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes" and we'll send out another Birthday SHOUT-out to Magic Johnson, born 8/14/1959.

THE PLOT: Follows the story of baseball megastar Reggie Jackson as he contemplates his legacy as one of the first iconic black athletes, a pioneer in the fight for dignity, respect, and a seat at the table. 

AFTER: Again, I was raised in Red Sox territory, but I live in Yankee territory, however if I'm going to root for any NY baseball team, it's going to be the Queens-based Mets. Yankees fans are not allowed to have it both ways, they can't brag about how many championships their team has won and also complain about how long it's been since they had one. Pick one, be proud of your team or complain about how much they suck. By the same token, Reggie Jackson can't really complain about not having the same opportunities as other players if there's footage of him counting his World Series rings and then rotating the very expensive cars in his multi-car garage. I mean, sure, he owned a chain of car dealerships, and it appears he invested his baseball money wisely but then I don't want to hear about the struggles, because it seems like he's done very well for himself. 

Did he encounter racism? Sure, most likely. Is the system still inequitable if there aren't many black managers or owners in baseball? Yeah, probably. But I can't agree with the portrayal of Reggie Jackson as a trailblazer when there were so many black players that came before him, who didn't have the same opportunities that HE did. Those are the history makers, Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, and so many others. Reggie got into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, was a member of FIVE World Series championship teams, and was a 14-time All-Star. I just don't think the deck was stacked against him the same way it was for, say, Jackie Robinson or Hank Aaron. I agree that Hank Aaron got a bad deal because of the hatred he encountered while breaking Babe Ruth's HR record, as if he was out to diminish a white man's accomplishments, which was not true at all. But where, exactly, does Reggie Jackson feel that he didn't get the respect or attention that he deserved? 

The NY Yankees is an evil, evil, entity, this was drilled into me at a very young age, and I still believe it. If you want to say that Steinbrenner or Billy Martin were unreasonable or even racist, I'm willing to listen. But show me some proof first, that's all I ask. By the same token, you can't imply that Robert F. Kennedy killed Marilyn unless you've got some proof in your pocket. If anything, Reggie Jackson broke the facial hair barrier in baseball, not the race barrier. Before Reggie players needed to be clean-shaven, and when he showed up for spring training in 1972 with a mustache and refused to shave it off, that was huge. OK, so the Oakland Athletics were a fairly loosey-goosey team, but I know that Steinbrenner was dead-set against mustaches and beards, if Reggie played with facial hair he was probably fined PER GAME, and that takes some cojones. We wouldn't have had that great period in the 1980's and 90's when some pitchers had throwback handlebar mustaches or mutton chops without Reggie Jackson. We need to band together and stand against facial hair harassment by employers, I'm pretty sure it's unconstitutional somehow. 

Reggie Jackson also benefited from free agency, I know it seems crazy now, but players in baseball used to have very tight, almost lifetime contracts, and it took a court case to determine that this was tantamount to slavery. Free agency was a game-changer, and it re-shuffled the entire league, but the best players saw salary increases, and that I think was a good thing. Hey, if you're not making the money you think you deserve, you should have the right to other options, find a team out there that could use your talents and also has some more money to spare. It seems more in line with American capitalism, we have a free-market in this country and every man (or woman) should get a salary in line with their talents and experience - in an ideal world, of course, and I know it's not, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. 

Reggie didn't rub everyone the right way, of course, that much is clear, and the conflicts with Yankees manager Billy Martin are probably the most famous. I mean, the team was on top and had a winning record, everything should have been coming up roses, and here's the manager arguing with whether Reggie is hustling to catch balls in the outfield. The flip-side of that, of course, is Reggie being arrogant enough to think he doesn't have to hustle, or should definitely be batting clean-up to have a chance to improve his RBI stats. Of course, there's no questioning the stats during the World Series games, which is why Jackson became known as "Mr. October". 

I'm only crediting Jackson with the fact that in 2021 he finally came around and determined what an evil, evil organization the New York Yankees is. Better late than never, I guess. He spent a long time after retiring from playing baseball with the Yankees as a special advisor, but eventually determined they weren't doing enough community work for people of color or making things more equitable overall. Well, he's probably not wrong, I just wonder why it took him three decades to figure that out - was he letting them slide on certain issues or just not paying close enough attention? 

Directed by Alex Stapleton

Also starring Reggie Jackson (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Hank Aaron (last seen in "Yogi Berra: It Ain't Over"), Derek Jeter (ditto), Jose Altuve, Vida Blue, Dolores Jackson Burton, JIm Crane, Julius Erving (last seen in "Hustle"), Rollie Fingers, Franco Harris, Rick Hendrick, Joe Jackson, Aaron Judge, Joe Rudi, Hal Steinbrenner, Dave Stewart 

with archive footage of Muhammad Ali (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Tom Brokaw (last seen in "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story"), Jim Brown (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "Audrey"), Howard Cosell (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Dave Duncan, Charles Finley, Curt Flood, Lou Gehrig, Bob Gibson, Rickey Henderson, Martinez Jackson, LeBron James (last seen in "Citizen Ashe"), Lyndon Johnson (also carrying over from "The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes"), Magic Johnson, Mickey Mantle (also last seen in "Yogi Berra: It Ain't Over"), Willie Mays (ditto), George Steinbrenner III (ditto), Billy Martin (last seen in "Lorne"), Willie McCovey, Thurman Munson, Joe Namath (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), Pat Nixon (last seen in "Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black"), Richard Nixon (last seen in "Film Geek"), Satchel Paige (last seen in "The Saint of Second Chances"), Dan Rather (last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Frank Robinson, Jackie Robinson (last seen in "Join or Die"), Pete Rose (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Bill Russell (last seen in "Citizen Ashe"), Babe Ruth (last seen in "Famous Nathan"), Bud Selig, Giancarlo Stanton, Bob Uecker, 

and the voice of Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke")

RATING: 5 out of 10 Reggie! bars, which of course weren't "bars" at all, they were discs.

The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes

Year 18, Day 225 - 8/13/26 - Movie #5,401 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #40

BEFORE: Now I'm getting down to it, after tonight this year's Doc Block will be 80% over, so I just have to stave off Documentary Burn-Out for a few more days, then I can watch fiction films again, hurray!  I'm in the "classic Hollywood" section right now, and after one baseball film I'll be in the 1950's and 1960's for a couple more films, then the path goes back through rock & roll for one last film about SNL/SCTV stars, and then I'm done. Really running out of days I have to figure out what I'm going to watch in September, but I've got a few free days next week to give that a whirl. And I've skipped a calendar day in order to make tonight's film line up with a birthday, see below. 

This may seem like an unlikely choice for a U.S. state to associate with Marilyn Monroe, because I don't know if she ever went there, but through Google I found out that the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming has an archive of rare photographs and documents from her life and classic portrait sessions. Also, the ART 321 center in Casper, Wyoming has a 6-foot tall painted portrait of Marilyn created via a community fund-raising campaign. Marilyn also appeared as an extra in a square dance scene in a film titled "Green Grass of Wyoming", but I doubt the film was shot in Wyoming. Anyway, tonight's "Get to Know a State" state is WYOMING! 

Date admitted to the U.S.: July 10, 1890 (44th state)

Claim to fame: Women's suffrage, I guess. First state to allow women to vote. 

Nickname: Equality State, or Cowboy State

State Motto: "Equal Rights" 

State Flower: Wyoming paintbrush

State Bird: Western meadowlark

State Fish: Cutthroat trout 

State Animal: American bison

State Reptile: Horned toad

State Insect: Sheridan's green hairstreak butterfly 

State Tree: Plains cottonwood

State Dinosaur: Triceratops

State Gemstone: Jade

Notable Sports Teams: None I can find, it's another place the state sport is rodeo. 

Fun Facts: Despite being the tenth largest state in area, it's the least populated of all. Even teeny tiny Rhode Island has more people living in it than big old Wyoming. And the population there is kind of declining, workers have been leaving in droves for North Dakoka. The federal government owns over half of the land in Wyoming, which raises questions, like what are they even DOING with it? National parks, I guess? Less people, less available land, so I don't think it's a fun place to be unless you're really into mineral extraction. And I've never been to Wyoming, so I'm still at 24 states visited out of 40 profiled. 

Marilyn Monroe carries over from "Audrey" and I've got another posthumous Birthday SHOUT-out to Fidel Castro, born 8/13/26. Well he would have been 100 years old today if he hadn't died in 2016 or any year after that. 

THE PLOT: Explores the mystery surrounding the death of movie icon Marilyn Monroe through previously unheard interviews with her inner circle. 

AFTER: This feels like I've been tricked into watching a typical documentary about Marilyn that really adds nothing new to what we already knew about her and her mysterious death. They teased me at the beginning as if they were going to reveal her killer at the end, and then of course they did not, they're still left with the conclusion that it was a suicide or an accidental overdose. Of course, there's the possibility that somebody just WANTED it to look that way, but come on, guys, that was 64 years ago, if you don't have proof of foul play and you're bringing nothing new to the table, why even bother? Just let it be, we're all over it by now, don't you think? 

I'll go ahead and tell you what they DO suggest, and that's the evidence based on a very wonky timeline of her last night, that she overdosed and was found alive, and brought via ambulance to a hospital, however she may have died in the ambulance, and then somebody thought it would be a great idea to bring her BACK home and stage her death there. If this is true, there's no real reason given for WHY it went down that way, what someone would have gained from doing this. There's an implication that the Kennedys, particularly Robert, might have been behind this, but again, no evidence so they can't just come right out and say that. 

The rest of the doc, beyond this "revelation" that she might have died in an ambulance and not at home, is pretty basic stuff, based on recorded tapes of people interviewed by Anthony Summers (20 years or so after the fact) and also sessions Marilyn had with a psychotherapist, Ralph Greenson. A lot of Summers' research for his book was done by phone, so the recorded phone conversations are played here, with actors portraying the people talking on the phone and lip-syncing with what they said. If not for this, half of this movie would just be images of those tape recorder reels going around and around, like they did in "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes". Anyway, you're hearing the right words from the interviews, even if you're not seeing the people who said them. I suppose it's a way to go. 

But being basic stuff, like going over the details of Marilyn's marriages to Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller, and then the break-ups with Joe Dimaggio and Arthur Miller, really places this in the same ballpark as my last two docs watched, about Liz Taylor and Audrey Hepburn. All of them were married at least twice, Marilyn actually three times (one was before she was famous) and of course Taylor had seven marriages to six men. It's not a competition by any means, but somehow Liz Taylor won, but also lost at the same time. 

They don't go into much of Marilyn's pre-fame backstory, like that first marriage and working in a munitions factory during the war, which led a photographer to take some "Rosie the Riveter" style photos of her, and that led to her quitting the factory and taking more modeling work, and all that that entails. Pin-up work, magazine work, sometimes under her real name and sometimes under made-up names. And the modeling work led to acting work, as an extra in the background at first, but according to the interviewed casting director, there were ways to advance in the movie industry which mostly involved having sex with the casting directors. She got a contract with Fox and divorced her first husband, who was against her having a career. 

She spent six months learning acting and dancing and singing, and observing the whole filmmaking process and the ways to get ahead. There were screen-tests and bit parts in films like "Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hey!" (whatever that means) but nothing succeeded like having sex with Joseph Schenck, a Fox executive who then got his friend, head of Columbia Pictures to sign her, but that only led to more screen-tests and more auditions that went nowhere. One assumes that if she did succeed in films, it meant she could STOP having casting directors, so really I can see how nobody was therefore eager to cast her. Finally she tried nude modeling, artistic ones at first, and this got her to become the mistress of someone more important, Johnny Hyde, the VP of talent agency William Morris. Hyde got her a small role in "All About Eve", and then John Huston's film "The Asphalt Jungle". 

Shortly after that, Hyde died of a heart attack, but things were already in motion - Marilyn was getting thousands of fan letters a week, and thousands of men were trying to figure out how to become casting directors. And Marilyn started sleeping with more influential men, like Elia Kazan, Yul Brynner and Peter Lawford. Eventually she began the romance with Joe Dimaggio, but scandal erupted when her nude calendar photos from three years before re-surfaced, and thousands of men were so shocked and disappointed that their favorite actress had posed nude, but they also were determined to research the photos for themselves and then probably decide to forgive her. 

It's the same old story, again and again, isn't it? Fall in love, get married, spend time together, spend time apart, work on a movie, spend more time apart, realize that you've both changed and want different things now, separate because it's easier than compromising or working things out, and start the whole damn cycle over again. Taylor, Hepburn, Monroe, the names and other details change but really, it's the same story, it's everyone's story, to some degree. Except that everyone doesn't then go on to have affairs with both the President of the U.S. and also his brother who happens to be his Attorney General as well. 

The documentary also has to take a departure to show us the filming of "The Seven Year Itch", even though it's got nothing to do with Marilyn's death or any of the taped interviews. Except that we learn here that Joe Dimaggio was on set during the infamous shot of Marilyn's white dress being blown upwards by the air from a subway grate, and, well, Joe wasn't happy that all of the movie fans got a peep at his wife. He didn't have to be jealous, except that it was the 1950's so yeah, he kind of did. He also didn't like the fact that she would go on U.S.O. tours, and thousands of horny sex-deprived soldiers were having fantasies about Marilyn as well. Dude, you've got a smoking hot wife who gets paid well for being in movies, take the damn win!  But no, their marriage was over after just nine months, so she started the eternal cycle over again. 

Of course there's also footage here from "The Prince and the Showgirl" and "Some Like It Hot", but of course neither of those have anything to do with the mystery surrounding her death either, they're here because everyone knows those films, and everyone likes "Some Like It Hot", it's a great movie. However, we were promised a solution to the mystery, and the film does not chart a direct course there, it's all over the place and keeps acting more like a career retrospective than a murder mystery. Let's keep in mind that the Los Angeles County D.A. John Van de Kamp re-opened the investigation into Marilyn's death in 1982, and officially, no evidence of any foul play was ever found - so on that level, this doc is kind of misleading and a waste of time.

Directed by Emma Cooper

Also starring Anthony Summers, Ray Bull, James Croft, David Erdos, Linzi Hateley, CJ Johnson, Sorel Johnson, Andre Lillis, Sion Lloyd, Michael Matus, Shelagh McLeod, Mauro Montuschi, Jason Mulhearn, Jason Rudenskaya, Victoria Scowcroft, Heather Sherry, Daniel Stockton, Wayne Swan, Brian James Twiddy, Ben Watson, Edmond Wells,  

with archive footage of Fred Astaire (also carrying over from "Audrey"), Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Film Geek"), Tony Curtis (ditto), Cary Grant (ditto), Gladys Baker, Joey Bishop (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Dean Martin (ditto), Fidel Castro (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), George Cukor, Sammy Davis Jr. (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Jack Lemmon (ditto), Marlene Dietrich (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (ditto), Ginger Rogers (ditto), Joe Dimaggio (last seen in "Yogi Berrra: It Ain't Over"), Tom Ewell (last seen in "My Mom Jayne"), Clark Gable (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), Greta Garbo, Ralph Greenson, Jean Harlow (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), Jimmy Hoffa, Johnny Hyde, Arthur Jacobs, Lyndon Johnson (last seen in "Rather"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Joseph P. Kennedy, Patricia Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy (last seen in "Join or Die"), Nikita Khrushchev (last seen in "What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?"), Peter Lawford (last seen in "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes"), Edward R. Murrow (ditto), Arthur Miller, Thelma Ritter (last seen in "Daddy Long Legs"), Jane Russell, Joseph M. Schenck, Frank Sinatra (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Billy Wilder (also carrying over from "Audrey")

and the voices of John Danoff, Jim Doyle, Peggy Feury, Milton Greene, Danny Greenson, Hildi Greenson, Joan Greenson, Sydney Guilaroff, Harry Hall, Gary Hubbard, Ken Hunter, John Huston, Natalie Jacobs, Arthur James, Eunice Murray, Patricia Newcomb, Angie Novello, Fred Otash, Gloria Romanoff, Al Rosen, Henry Rosenfeld, Walt Schaefer, John Sherlock, Robin Thorne, Natalie Trundy, Reed Wilson, Gladys Witten, Billy Woodfield,

RATING: 4 out of 10 foster homes and orphanages during her childhood

Audrey

Year 18, Day 223 - 8/11/26 - Movie #5,400 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #39

BEFORE: I find myself unable to think clearly if I post after working a shift - it doesn't matter if I've been at the theater or at the stadium, there's something about working next to a big crowd of people that focuses me on the task at hand, but also robs me of my thought process that's in charge of writing reviews. So once I'm home I have to take a while and decompress before I write my thoughts on last night's movie, which is another thing that is making me post later and later - I'm a full day behind on posting now, but I catch up very easily just by calling for another skip day, I'm trying to put this off as long as possible, perhaps the birthdays of famous people will signal the need to skip a day and make the chain line up with them, and that could work out in my favor. We'll see. 

Tonight's "Get to Know a State" profile, #39 in a series, will focus on COLORADO - because of Audrey Hepburn's final film, "Always", which was a 1989 movie about pilots in Colorado who were aerial forest-fire fighters. She played an angel or a ghost or a spirit-guide of some kind, and I'm not sure that she ever went to Colorado for this film or any other reason, but it's honestly the only film on my list I could make a Colorado connection to. So here we go: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: August 1, 1876 (Happy 150th Birthday, Colorado, a bit late)

Claim to fame: Rocky Mountains, Coors beer and the future home of the Sundance Film Festival

Nickname: "The Centennial State", right, I see that. 

State Motto: "Nil sine Numine", which means "Nothing without providence"

State Flower: Rocky mountain columbine

State Bird: Lark bunting

State Fish: Greenback cutthroat trout

State Animal: Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep

State Reptile: Western painted turtle

State Amphibian: Western tiger salamander

State Mushroom: The Emperor

State Cactus: Claret cup cactus

State Tree: Colorado blue spruce

State Gemstone: Aquamarine

Notable Sports Teams: Denver Broncos in the NFL and the Rockies in the MLB, also the Denver Nuggets in the NBA and the Colorado Avalanche in the NHL. I guess they have a soccer team too, the Rapids, but we've already proven nobody cares. 

Fun Facts: The U.S. acquired Colorado in the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803, but in 1806 Colonel Zebulon Pike led a U.S. Army expedition into the region, and he and his troops were arrested by Spanish Cavalrymen the following year and were taken to Mexico. The Spanish apparently did not get the memo about who bought Colorado three years before. Colorado spent 33 years as an unorganized territory just because of the slavery issue, I guess 50% of the people didn't want it to be a slave state and 50% of the people didn't want it to be a free state, so they were at an impasse. But it's kind of funny how when gold or silver gets discovered somewhere then there's a sudden rush to make that territory a state, right? 

I've never been to Colorado, so I'm still at 24 states visited out of 39 profiled. Rex Harrison carries over from "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes" and so do 2 other people.

THE PLOT: Examines the remarkable life and career of actress, fashion icon and humanitarian Audrey Hepburn. 

AFTER: There are so many other things to talk about, I forgot to note that this is another "Century" film, film #5,400 since I started this crazy thing. That means Movie Year 18 is officially 2/3 over, so I really really need to start thinking about what horror films I'm going to watch in October and how I'm going to wrap up this crazy, wonderful but also occasionally horrible and no-good year. Let me get through all these 11 remaining docs and I'll figure it out. 

I definitely have Documentary Burn-out though, which makes it very easy to adopt a "Who Cares?" attitude about a number of things. OK, sorry you had seven marriages that didn't work out, Liz Taylor, but I suspect that just maybe your actions and/or personality had something to do with that. It is possible to look inside yourself or maybe have a talk with the mirror and admit that you have faults and that you're maybe not the easiest person to be in a relationship with. Audrey Hepburn was married twice, to Mel Ferrer and Andrea Dotti, and then in a long-term relationship with actor Robert Wolders, and she had two children, one with Ferrer and one with Dotti. I mean, she seemed like a very nice person so sometimes we just have to shrug and say, you know, it happens, people tire of each other or change over time, or sometimes they just NEED a change in their lives. These days it's very hard to find someone who's 60 or 70 that hasn't been married at least twice, I mean you can't beat the power of entropy over time. 

"Hepburn" isn't even her real last name, like many Hollywood stars she changed it when she got cast in a film, what many people don't know about her is that she came from an aristocratic family in Belgium, but then World War II happened and being an aristocrat kind of fell out of favor, especially when Nazis invaded and started killing them. Her original last name was Ruston, and during World War II she hid out in the Netherlands and went by the name of "Edda van Heemstra" which sounded a little less English than "Audrey". Her original first name wasn't "Audrey" either, it was "Adriaantje", so now I don't even know how she even knew who she was anymore when she became a ballet dancer and then an actress. A couple of her uncles were executed by Germans, but then her father supported the Nazis for some reason and not just because they were in power, because when he moved to Britain he supported the Fascist Party there, too. Anyway he kind of abandoned the family, so I guess good riddance to bad Nazis. 

Adriaatie, or Edda, or Audrey or whoever, endured famine and malnutrition and several illnesses during World War II, and she survived by delivering messages, volunteering at a hospital and performing in "underground concerts" to raise money for the Dutch resistance. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Marcel Marceau was working with the French resistance to save Jewish children from going to concentration camps, it's true. After D-Day things kind of got worse, because as the Germans started losing the living conditions got worse in occupied countries, hence the Dutch Famine of 1944-45. This led to widespread malnutrition, which led to diseases like jaundice and anemia. 

But eventually the war did end, and Audrey was able to resume her studies of ballet in Holland and then London. She did get a small role in a movie, playing a stewardess in an educational travel film, but did not consider herself an actress until she was cast in minor roles in films like "The Lavender Hill Mob" and "Secret People", in the latter she played a ballerina, then her big break came while making a movie in a Paris Hotel, where she was spotted by Colette, the infamous French novelist and sexual freedom advocate, who right away wanted to cast her in the Broadway version of "Gigi". Even though critics said the stage play was much worse than the French film version of "Gigi", Audrey still stood out and won a Theatre World Award, then went on tour with the play in 1951-52. 

The next year she was noticed by William Wyler and cast in "Roman Holiday" with Gregory Peck, and by then the giant snowball was really rolling down the mountain and picking up speed. She won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the Academy Award for that role, and was signed to a seven-picture contract with Paramount, that included the films "Sabrina", "War and Peace", "Funny Face" and "Love in the Afternoon". All that AND "The Nun's Story" led up to her starring in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", really her most successful and perhaps career-defining film. That was also the start of her collaborations with Hubert Givenchy, the French designer who made that "little black dress" she wore at the start of that film, and for years she and Givenchy were synonymous, much like Bob Mackie and Cher, later on. 

"The Children's Hour", "Charade", "Paris When It Sizzles", leading up to "My Fair Lady", she never really made a BAD film, they were all very different of course, but she had like a 100% success rate for a very long time. Sure, only John Cazale had a perfect record - five films, five films nominated for Best Picture", but Audrey Hepburn also did better than all right. And she was so bankable when it came time to film "My Fair Lady" that Julie Andrews, who had played the character on stage and was considered a shoo-in for the movie, was bumped in favor of Audrey getting cast as the movie's Eliza Doolittle. How many career-defining movies can one actress have? I guess as many as it takes, right? 

"How to Steal a Million" with Peter O'Toole, "Two for the Road" with Albert Finney and then "Wait Until Dark", which we saw clips of in "Film Geek". "Robin and Marian" with Sean Connery, and then after that, honestly, a bunch of quite forgettable movies, until that cameo in "Always". But sure, she's an EGOT winner, the Emmy for "Gardens of the World", the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album in 1994, the Oscar for "Roman Holiday" and the Tony for "Ondine". Since she's got BAFTAs too I guess that makes her a BEGOT winner. 

Lucky in awards, unlucky in love, I guess - she was married to Mel Ferrer and they co-starred in "War and Peace", they were together 14 years and had a son, but Ferrer was allegedly "too controlling" and so she moved to Switzerland in 1960 to raise their son. She married an Italian psychiatrist, Andrea Dotti, in 1968, and they had a son, too, but Dotti apparently liked the club life and had numerous affairs, while Audrey had an affair with Ben Gazzara while working on the film "Bloodline". She and Dotti were together 12 years, and then Audrey was in a long-term relationship with a Dutch actor, Robert Wolders, and though she was retired from acting at that point, she spent her time working as an ambassador for UNICEF in war-torn and impoverished nations. Good for her. 

I didn't really care for all the ballet dancing here, they cast three actresses to play Hepburn at different ages, and then filmed them all doing ballet. I mean, it's fine if you like ballet, I just don't see the point of it, and then all three of the actresses danced together at the end of the film, like what the heck did that even mean? You can't dance with your younger or older self, it's just not possible, and if it's a metaphor, what for? Also the last 10 minutes of the film is due to making the same points over and over about Audrey's life, really really stretching things out, as if the editor was getting paid by the minute. 

Directed by Helena Coan

Also starring Robin Ager, Michael Avedon, Peter Bogdanovich (last seen in "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Clemence Boulouque, Anna Cataldi, Richard Dreyfuss (last seen in "Film Geek"), Emma Hepburn Ferrer, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, Alessandra Ferri, Molly Haskell, Francesca Hayward, Clare Waight Keller, Edith Lederer, John Loring, Keira Moore, Pierluigi Christophe Oronesu, Marlena Pilat, Mita Ungaro, Lucia Valentini-Terrani, Andrew Wald,

with archive footage of Audrey Hepburn (also last seen in "Film Geek"), Julie Andrews (ditto), Fred Astaire (ditto), Truman Capote (ditto), Alec Guinness (ditto), Richard Avedon, Johnny Carson (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Colette, Doris Day (also carrying over from "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes"), Marilyn Monroe (ditto), Andrea Dotti, Mel Ferrer (last seen in "Paris When It Sizzles"), Hubert Givenchy, Adolf Hitler (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), William Holden (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), George Peppard (ditto), Wilfrid Hyde-White (last seen in "Ten Little Indians"), Merle Oberon, Gregory Peck (also last seen in "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, Jack L. Warner (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Billy Wilder (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Robert Wolders, William Wyler,

RATING: 5 out of 10 romantic films made with older male co-stars

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes

Year 18, Day 222 - 8/10/26 - Movie #5,399 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #38

BEFORE: Well, I've fallen behind with posting again, because two jobs. I'm not complaining, because it's good to be busy, being busy means I might make a little more money this month, and I've just GOT to make a credit card payment mid-month. There are shifts to be had in April, because the theater is down a few house managers and the NY Liberty is in town, but September is a bit of a question mark - the Liberty will be on the road but also at the college there will be orientation shifts, all the various departments use the theater for welcome lectures for incoming students, oddly this means there could be a giant ostrich statue in my future. It's a long story that I can't tell here. But I love it when orientation rolls around, it means I get more shifts. Last night I worked a meeting of Manhattan Democrats voting to nominate candidates for state Supreme Court - no film, no presentation except they needed the large theater to hold a big public crowd, plus candidates, plus delegates, plus organizers and such. I was in charge of maintaining order during check-in, and trying to keep a crowd from rushing in once the rain started, that was NOT easy. 

After tonight, just 12 documentaries left, and 13 states to profile, because one day my "Get to Know a State" feature was devoted to Washington, DC which is, it turns out, not a state. So I've got to deal with having an extra state left over, but I think I have a plan. Tonight's state is NOT where Elizabeth Taylor is from, because she was born in the U.K., but her parents were an art dealer and an actress, originally from Arkansas City in KANSAS. So sure, it's a bit of a stretch, she's got dual US + UK citizenship, but her roots go back to KANSAS, there you go. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: January 29, 1961

Claim to fame: as my t-shirt map says, it's "Where Dorothy's Not Anymore"

Nickname: "The Sunflower State" or "The Wheat State" or "America's Heartland"

State Motto: Ad astra per Aspera, which is Latin for "We couldn't choose just one Nickname" 

State Flower: wild native sunflower

State Bird: Western meadowlark

State Fish: Channel catfish

State Animal: American buffalo

State Reptile: Ornate box turtle

State Amphibian: Barred tiger salamander

State Mineral: Galena

State Fruit: Sandhill plum

State Tree: Cottonwood

Notable Sports Teams: This is where I always get confused, because there are two Kansas Citys, and one is in Missouri. Really, if Kansas City is in Missouri, then Missouri City should be in Kansas. So yeah, there are the Chiefs in the NFL and the Royals in the MLB, but I think they both play in Missouri, they just have fans in Kansas. There are mens and womens soccer teams that play in Kansas, but who cares about soccer? At the college level there are the Jayhawks and the Wildcats, but I'm not familiar. 

Fun Facts: Most of modern Kansas came to the U.S. via the Louisiana Purchase, but there's a small part in the Southwest that was part of Spain, Mexico and the Republic of Texas at different times. The Santa Fe Trail ran right through it for years, but in 1827 Fort Leavenworth became the first permanent settlement of Americans who didn't want to travel any further, and said, "You know what, I'm tired, this is fine."  Kansas banned all alcoholic beverages in 1881, well in advance of Prohibition, and then suffered the damage of the Dust Bowl in the 1930's and I have to believe there's a connection there. Karma's a bitch, so if you wanted a "dry state", you'd better be ready for one. 

I have NOT been to Kansas, but perhaps if I can wrangle a BBQ Crawl through Missouri, maybe we can take a pass through Kansas as well. Because why not, and I don't want to have to wait until I'm retired to get the RV and drive through all the states I haven't been to yet, God willing. So I'm holding again at 24 states visited, out of 38 profiled. 

I'm also sending out another posthumous Birthday SHOUT-out to Eddie Fisher, born August 10, 1928. He died in 2010, and of course he was married to both Debbie Reynolds and Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens at different times, he was the father of Eddie Fisher and Todd Fisher with Reynolds, and then Joely Fisher and her sister with Stevens. Carrie Fisher once explained her very complicated family of step-siblings, but she needed a whiteboard to do it. 

Elizabeth Taylor and I think 10 other people carry over from "Film Geek", including Debbie Reynolds.

THE PLOT: Newly discovered interviews with Elizabeth Taylor and access to the star's personal archive reveal the complex inner life and vulnerability of the groundbreaking icon. 

AFTER: There are connections all over my chain this year, "Film Geek" just might have been the epicenter - like I only needed ONE person to carry over from "Film Geek", and I got 10. Thank God that film used archive footage from 1970's films, with stars who were seen in the Roger Corman films, and also footage from classic films, allowing me to transition to a few films about older Hollywood people, stars from the 1950's and 1960's, of course some people had very long careers, and Dennis Hopper has managed to be in the last THREE films, since he was in "Giant" and "Easy Rider" and of course "Apocalypse Now", and also the David Lynch film "Blue Velvet", with a clip seen in "Roy Orbison Forever". I mean, it's hardly a record and he's not going to win the year, but six appearances for a man who died in 2010 is a darn good showing. John Belushi has 8 so far, though, and Johnny Carson has 9, just saying. 

So I see connections to a lot of films I watched in the last 40 or so days - some of these people were last seen in the Bob Mackie doc or the Paul Anka one, or the one about Eddie Murphy. But thematically, I'm seeing the connection to the doc about Pamela Anderson, another person who seems to get married at the drop of a hat, and really, wasn't she, in her own way, kind of like the Elizabeth Taylor of the 1990's? Sure, Liz Taylor never put on a skimpy red bathing suit and went running in slow motion down a beach, but they're both really the marrying kind, eternal optimists who must have convinced themselves each time that it's really going to stick this kind, THIS is the one that's going to last. Look, I know I haven't had much luck with actors/rock musicians, but something's different about THIS actor/rock musician. Why are they all such duds? I know it simply can't be ME who's the problematic one, that would be un-possible. 

I don't want to oversimplify things, for sure, because there are perhaps other complex issues at work, starting of course with fame and living in the public eye - the word "paparazzi" was allegedly first used as the name for groups of photographers trying to get photos of Liz Taylor cheating on her current husband - and then there are parenting or co-parenting stress problems, substance abuse and tales of domestic violence, as well as disillusionment caused by finding out the person you married has faults themself, or they're not really the person you thought they were. Or, you know, you've changed, you've both changed, and you want different things now than you did three years ago, that's bound to happen, so sure, don't work on the problems or try to fix them, it's best to just wipe the slate clean and try again for the fourth, fifth or sixth time. Hope springs eternal, after all. 

Since Liz Taylor started out as a child star, like following in Judy Garland's footsteps, I see a lot of similarities in their backstories, Judy had "The Wizard of Oz" and Liz had a "Lassie" movie and "National Velvet", but they both became part of the studio system and the studio controlled what they wore, when they went to school and ultimately who they dated, or at least who they got photographed with and pretended to date. And they both preferred the company of gay men, either consciously or unconsciously. Judy married a few gay men, and of course whether they were gay all along or she drove them to it is a topic for some debate. Liz Taylor hung out with Roddy McDowall and Montgomery Clift because she felt safer around them, and I think we probably all know why. So here in these "lost" tapes she claims to have been a virgin when she got married the first time, to Conrad "Nicky" Hilton at the age of 18. They went on a honeymoon cruise and while we don't have all the details, apparently she was extremely terrified about sleeping with him. Sure, men all say they want to marry virgins, but they don't really consider the logistics of all that. Anyway, she claimed he was a heavy drinker, abusive and caused her to have a miscarriage, so thank you, NEXT!

Next she married an older actor, Michael Wilding, and she was looking more for friendship, while he was looking to advance his career by marrying her. They had two sons, so I guess they worked something out, for a while anyway. His career was on the skids, though, and gossip magazines said he had strippers come to their home while she was away. NEXT! She married Mike Todd, the producer of the blockbuster hit "Around the World in 80 Days", and here she called him the love of her life, but he died in a plane crash just a year after they wed, and in her grief she turned to Eddie Fisher, the husband of her friend, Debbie Reynolds. Well, we know how all THAT turned out, Eddie left Debbie for Liz and eventually Liz left Eddie for Richard Burton. When you spend three years-plus filming "Cleopatra" with someone, you run the risk of falling for them, because you're away from home and spending more time with your co-stars than with your spouse. It's understandable, I guess. 

Liz and Dick made 11 films together while married, and co-parenting their kids and other people's kids and whatnot, and sure, it seemed like they had it all worked out, they even got divorced in 1974 and re-married in 1975, but then that second marriage only lasted a year. At that point I'm guessing they didn't know which way was up, like was the divorce a mistake or was the whole relationship a mistake, or were they just not the same people they were 11 years before? It's all too complicated to try and unravel, so this doc just presents us with the dates and hopes that we can all figure it out from what Liz said during these reel-to-reel recorded interviews. 

Her sixth husband was Senator John Warner, a Republican from Virginia. They were together five years, but Taylor found she didn't really enjoy the life of a politician's wife, spending time in Washington, DC instead of Hollywood. Yeah, who could have seen THAT one coming? And then her seventh husband isn't mentioned here at all, that construction worker she met in rehab. Well, he was sort of semi-famous for a while, but he had OCD and she had hip operations and back problems, and I don't know, I guess there was a lot to unpack, maybe it was just a co-dependency thing, they only made it five years. After some bouts with pneumonia and skin cancer and a diagnosis of congestive heart failure in 2004, she kind of devoted the rest of her time to AIDS charities and AIDS research, due to her friendship with Rock Hudson. That was a really positive way for her to spend her last few years, it seems she finally learned that she didn't need to be married to be complete, and she could accomplish great things on her own. 

Directed by Nanette Burnstein (director of "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and "Going the Distance")

Also starring Elizabeth Cuzzupoli, Rob Gill,

with archive footage of Don Adams (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Carroll Baker (last seen in "Giant"), Yul Brynner (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Richard Burton (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Cantinflas (last seen in "Around the World in 80 Days"), Cher (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Marilyn Monroe (ditto), Montgomery Clift (last seen in "Frank Sinatra: One More for the Road"), Perry Como (last seen in "Dionne Warwick: Don't Make Me Over"), Doris Day (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Rock Hudson (ditto), James Dean (last seen in "Landscape with Invisible Hand"), Dominick Dunne (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Eddie Fisher (last seen in "The Automat"), George Hamilton (also carrying over from "Film Geek"), Charlton Heston (ditto), Dennis Hopper (ditto), Gene Kelly (ditto), Roddy McDowall (ditto), Ricardo Montalban (ditto), Paul Newman (ditto), David Niven (ditto), Donald O'Connor (ditto), Debbie Reynolds (ditto), Rex Harrison (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Laurence Harvey (last seen in "F for Fake"), Katharine Hepburn (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Mickey Rooney (ditto), Conrad Hilton Jr., Bob Hope (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Burl Ives (last seen in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Angela Lansbury (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Peter Lawford (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Rouben Mamoulian, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Tim Mendelson, Edward R. Murrow (last seen in "Rather"), George Segal (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Jane Seymour (last seen in "Austenland"), Simone Signoret (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"), Tom Snyder (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Mike Wallace (ditto), George Stevens, Francis Taylor, Robert Taylor (last seen in "The Real Charlie Chaplin"), Sara Taylor, Michael Todd Jr., John Warner (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Michael Wilding (last seen in "Stage Fright"), Stevie Wonder (also last seen in "Being Eddie"),

and the voices of Doris Brynner, John Heyman, Samuel Marx, Tim Mendelson, Marion Rosenberg

RATING: 6 out of 10 unnecessary shots of a reel-to-reel tape recorder (I mean, jeesh, we GET IT already!)

Film Geek

Year 18, Day 221 - 8/9/26 - Movie #5,398 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #37

BEFORE: All right, now I've stepped in it - this film is going to take me DAYS to figure out who exactly appears, all told. I've already fallen behind because I worked on Saturday night at one job and Sunday morning at the other, with just maybe three hours of sleep in between. I don't set my schedule, not the hours anyway, that's perhaps something I should really work on by getting a better job, or a couple of better jobs. To be continued - but I'm going to go ahead with posting review and I'll figure out all the appearances later, I'll work on it a bit at a time and then update the post throughout the week, most likely. 

I went ahead and linked up all of the remaining movies with the remaining U.S. states for my "Get to Know a State" feature. So this is the LAST link-up, not the last post, I've got 12 more to go, but since this film has so much footage and so many actors in that footage, I figured I could link it to just about anywhere. The last state left after I linked everything else happened to be VERMONT, so now all I have to do is find a connection to this film. No problem, there's footage here from "The Sound of Music" and I know that when the Von Trapp family made it to America, they settled in Vermont, and I know this because the family ran a hotel there, plus a brewery. Another connection is that there's footage here of Treat Williams from "Prince of the City", and he lived his last few decades in Vermont, before he died in a motorcycle crash in 2023. Anyway, tonight's state is VERMONT: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: March 4, 1791 (14th state)

Claim to fame: IDK, maple syrup? Lake Champlain? It's all a bit vague.

Nickname: The Green Mountain State

State Motto: "Stella quarta decima fulgeat" or May the fourteenth star shine bright, and take that, thirteenth star!

State Flower: Red Clover

State Bird: Hermit thrush

State Fish: Brook trout

State Mammal: Morgan horse

State Insect: Western honey bee

State Mushroom: Bear's head tooth mushroom

State Gemstone: Grossular garnet

State Food: Apple pie

State Tree: Sugar maple

Notable Sports Teams: Few and far between. There's college teams like the U. of Vermont Catamounts, and a collegiate baseball team called the Vermont Lake Monsters, but that's about it, except for a lot of skiing. 

Fun Facts: Lake Champlain has 80 islands and a bunch of lighthouses, and connects to both the Erie Canal and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Allegedly there's a Nessie-like sea monster there named "Champy" but reports are sketchy at best. Bridges across the lake connect New York and Vermont, which is probably great for tourism from New Yorkers who want to go skiing. For a while, thanks to President Clinton, Champlain was designated to be the sixth "Great Lake" but the people in the Midwest rallied and revolted and that status was rescinded. Unless you really really dig maple syrup, the lake area seems to be the most happening thing about Vermont. Women were allowed to vote in Vermont way before it became the law nationwide, so I guess that's cool. 

I've almost certainly been to Vermont, I want to say it was a ski trip in 1997 or 1998, but of course I don't ski. I also grew up in New England, so probably at least passed through Vermont at some point. I'm going to say I've been, and that raises me to 24 states visited out of 37. I'm almost certainly going to pass 50%.

Dennis Hopper (et. al.) carries over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema".

There's just GOT to be a Birthday SHOUT-out I can deliver today, there's a cast of like 200-plus people in the archive footage here - a quick check on the IMDB and sure, OK, of course, it's a posthumous one, though. SHOUT-out to Robert Shaw, born August 9, 1927.

THE PLOT: A filmmaker explores his movie obsession and his father's influence through film clips and personal archives, seeking to understand his cinematic roots.

AFTER: Sure, this is technically a movie, but it's a movie made up of a bunch of other movies, over 200 films in total, ones that Richard Shepard watched when he really got into movies as a teenager in the late 1970's and the early 1980's. Some were good, some were bad, some were foreign dramas and others were cheap horror films, but collectively they instilled a love of movies - and of New York City movie theaters, good ones and bad ones and dangerous ones. He works in the film business now, so really it's an examination of what he saw that made him want to go into filmmaking. Of course I feel a kinship with him, we didn't follow the exact same path, but you know, we saw a lot of the same movies and we felt a similar call to get into film school, then get out there are work on making movies so we could just somehow be closer, be on the INSIDE of movies and not just a spectator in the theater seats. 

What Shepard and I have in common, we got our minds blown by "Star Wars" in May 1977 and nothing was ever quite the same after that. We both felt the need to read books about the making of certain movies, (I read George Lucas's autobiography and he read Coppola's) and we both found our way to NYU film school, the alma mater of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee - Shepard doesn't mention Spike, but when I went to NYU he'd graduated a year or two before, and he was all the teachers could talk about. Shepard and I both enjoyed going to see movies with our parents, and then at some point we broke out on our own and went to films with friends from school, or even alone. Because movies are another drug, you get that hit of dopamine from them and you simply want more, and bigger and louder next time. We also oddly both have stories about waiting in line for autographs from James "Scotty" Doohan of "Star Trek" fame. 

Where we differ is that Shepard is three years older than I am, so he was much closer to college age when "Raiders of the Lost Ark" came out and I hadn't yet caught the idea that I could somehow make a career out of movies, I was still having fun, and I never made home movies as a teen, unlike Shepard and Spielberg and Lucas. I was focused on academics, always got good grades in school, plus studied two foreign languages and had time for both orchestra AND chorus, and then when the SAT came along I aced it, plus I took as many advanced placement classes as I could, so as a result I don't think I had ANY trouble getting into college, and I even had enough AP credits to skip a whole year of college. What people couldn't understand at the time was how I could be so good at math and English and biology and still want to make movies. Umm, duh, because that looks like so much fun? I worked hard to succeed in high school so that I could do whatever I wanted in college, and I wanted to be the next Lucas or Spielberg, but what I lacked was talent and motivation. 

I also had stable parents, and Shepard had a very shady father, who was into antiques dealing and gambling and possibly also loansharking, he had several aliases and fake IDs, what exactly he was up to is really anybody's guess - while my parents were steadfast churchgoers, my Mom was a music teacher and my father was a truck driver, and both had the same jobs for a very long time. They managed to put two kids through NYU, which was another reason I was glad to graduate after three years, so they didn't have to pay for four. (I had some scholarship money as a National Merit Scholar, which I think came in a roundabout way from my PSAT score, I mean I really aced that thing. But that didn't go too far with NYU tuition being what it was.)

The question here is, can you tell a coherent story about a teenager's life JUST by using clips from the movies he watched, plus a few home movies and personal photos?  Well, no, of course not, except maybe also yes? It's tough because Shepard's narration is a bit all over the place, there's no solid through-line because he goes off on so many tangents, like instead of telling little stories it's all one BIG story that changes and pulses and mentions this movie and then THAT one, oh, and here's one more thing about "Willy Wonka" that I want to say. I think I might be a little more interested if somebody didn't make this about their own life but instead tried to tell a real narrative story just using clips from other films, that would really be something. Like could you take five films that all starred Jeff Bridges and edit the scenes together so they made something completely new and original that wasn't in essence any of those five films, like could you use those five to make a sixth?  

Of course, that's not what "Film Geek" is - like there's a montage of people from different movies entering stores, when Richard is talking about going to various stores with film labs and pulling the "You ruined my movie, how about a free roll of film" scam. And there's a montage of people from different movies all answering the telephone, sure it's a fun guessing game to try and identify where each clip came from, but that wears thin after a while, doesn't it?  I don't know if I could be friends with fellow Film Geek Shepard because I feel like I would never get a word in edgewise. And some of the stories, like how his mother dragged him to a store to meet Paul Newman, don't really go anywhere in the end. OK, so one time at sleepaway camp the counselors ran a prison break movie on a rainy day, and the kids got to see some woman's naked ass, then they stopped the movie. Umm, sure, great story, please never tell it again because there's no point to it. 

The vast majority of those NYC movie theaters are no longer in business, I'm pretty sure - hell, even the theater I worked at in 1989 as an usher has been torn down, and nothing's been built in its place. It's a whole new scene now, really, but I'm working in a movie theater now which used to be like one of the grand theaters with a big balcony, but it's owned and run by an arts college now, and the balcony was turned into a second, smaller theater so we can host festivals and events of all sizes, as long as they don't want more than two screens. 

My own experiences with movies followed a similar, but also different arc - for a time all of the movies that I was allowed to watch were Disney animated films, plus "Mary Poppins" and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Then my mother allowed me to watch "The Sound of Music", her favorite film of all time, and she tried to get me to watch all of the other Rodgers and Hammerstein films, too, but I wasn't interested in "Oklahoma" and "Carousel" and all that. But on the weekends I had my "Creature Feature" movies on TV, the Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe films, plus everything that had Godzilla, Mothra and/or Rodan in it. Like Shepard I'd seen the older version of "King Kong" and then my grandfather brought me to my first PG-rated movie, which was the "King Kong" remake of 1976. My mother nearly had a heart attack because I'd seen a film that wasn't recommended by the Catholic diocese newspaper, The Pilot. Then "Star Wars" was the game-changer, of course. With my Dad I also watched all of the Abbott & Costello films on Sunday afternoons, and if there was a Hitchcock film like "The Birds" or "Vertigo" running, I was allowed to see that, and my mother pointed out where Hitchcock appeared in all of his movies. I think I was really into "The Twilight Zone" on TV, and from there it wasn't a large leap to Hitchcock movies. Anything scarier, like "The Exorcist" or "Halloween" or "The Shining", fuggedaboutit.

I mean, I can go on and on like Shepard did, about all the movies I've ever seen - but that's what the BLOG is for, right? I mean, you're already soaking in it. And I've got my own personal list of all the famous people I've met or seen at the theater, I don't really go around bragging about all of that. Just kidding, I totally do. Like in the last five years, I've encountered a HUGE list of celebrities appearing at the screenings, to do Q&A's or pose on the red carpet or whatever. Just to name a few - Kathleen Turner, Robert De Niro, Pierce Brosnan, Whoopi Goldberg, Judd Apatow, the casts of "Hamnet", "The Naked Gun", the latest "Karate Kid" movie, "Glass Onion", Guillermo del Toro, both Duplass brothers, Darren Aronofsky, Paul Thomas Anderson, most recently Nicole Kidman, the list goes on and on, during a big festival like Tribeca it's really the place to be. Add that to the actors I've worked with over the years and everyone I've seen at Comic-Cons on both coasts, and my life list is pretty extensive. It's good to have the list because I'm starting to forget things, like who I saw at Sundance back in 1998 and 2001, but come on, that was a long time ago and before the age of digital photos even. 

Anyway, this is one of those films full of archive footage, which makes it a massive, massive portal for me - like I could have gone ANYWHERE from here, I could have dropped this film in anywhere in the chain, just about, or used it to connect two parts of the chain that otherwise would not have been able to be connected. But I think I'm not really using it for that purpose, I didn't need to, which is almost a damn shame. Instead it really just means that everyone I'm tracking for mentioning at the end of the year is getting one more appearance, so really, almost everyone's tally just increases, everyone moves up a notch, and if everyone scores, then really the points don't matter. So yeah, I'm going to track everyone's new tally, but it's going to take a really LONG time, at least I'll be up to 5 am listing the "last seen in" credits below. Thankfully I don't have to work at either job tomorrow, as a true Film Geek I can just stay at home and spend hours updating the IMDB, because that's what we do. 

There are thousands of film geeks out there, working in the film industry or dreaming about doing so, going to film festivals or running film festivals, watching movie marathons at home or out in public, it doesn't matter. Or just talking about the new DC or Marvel movie for hours on end, which is a socially acceptable thing to do now. Proud to be one of the film geeks of NYC.

Directed by Richard Shepard (director of "Dom Hemingway")

Also starring Richard Shepard

with archive footage of Bud Abbott (last seen in "The Automat"), Lou Costello (ditto), Jack Albertson (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Karen Allen (last seen in "If These Walls Could Sing"), Nancy Allen (last seen in "De Palma"), Keith Gordon (ditto), Julie Andrews (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Fred Astaire (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), James Caan (ditto), Judy Garland (ditto), Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Being Eddie"), Marlon Brando (ditto), Charles Bronson (ditto), Mel Gibson (ditto), Martin Balsam (last seen in "Catch-22"), Belinda Bauer (last seen in "Flashdance"), Ingrid Bergman (last seen in "Whatever It Takes"), Sandra Bernhard (last seen in "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story"), Linda Blair (last seen in "Scream"), Humphrey Bogart (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Mel Brooks (ditto), Michael Caine (ditto), Charlie Chaplin (ditto), Roger Ebert (ditto), Ray Bolger (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Michael Bollner, David Bowie (last seen in "Flipside"), Peter Boyle (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Marty Feldman (ditto), Teri Garr (ditto), Jeff Bridges (last heard in "Travelin' Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall"), Adrien Brody (last seen in "Bullet Head"), James Brolin (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Shelley Duvall (ditto), Albert Brooks (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Richard Dreyfuss (ditto), Lorraine Gary (ditto), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in ABBA: Super Troupe"), Bryan Brown (last seen in "The Light Between Oceans"), Phil Brown, Logan Browning, Nicolas Cage (last seen in "Renfield"), Truman Capote (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), John Cazale (last seen in "The Conversation"), Frederic Forrest (ditto), Richard Chamberlain (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Dennis Christopher (last seen in "Breaking Away"), Jill Clayburgh (last seen in "Fools Rush In"), Julie Dawn Cole, Francis Ford Coppola (also carrying over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Angie Dickinson (ditto), Joseph Cotten (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Ben Cross (last seen in "A Bridge Too Far"), Scatman Crothers (last seen in "Stay Hungry"), Tony Curtis (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Anthony Daniels (last heard in "Star Wars; The Mandalorian and Grogu"), Daniel Day-Lewis (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Alec Guinness (ditto), Catherine Deneuve (last seen in "The Kid Stays in the Picture"), Errol Flynn (ditto), Robert De Niro (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Nora Denney, Matt Dillon (last seen in "Brats"), James Doohan (last seen in "Boomerang"), Keir Dullea (last seen in "Infinitely Polar Bear"), Faye Dunaway (last seen in "Valerie"), Dominique Dunne (last seen in "Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold"), Griffin Dunne (last seen in "Caught Stealing"), Robert Duvall (last seen in "Faye"), Hector Elizondo (last seen in "Georgia Rule"), Denholm Elliott (last seen in "An Accidental Studio"), Peter Falk (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), America Ferrera (last seen in "It's a Disaster"), Albert Finney (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Carrie Fisher (last seen in "Cat Person"), Harrison Ford (ditto), Richard Gere (last seen in "Bob Fosse: It's Showtime!"), John Gielgud (last seen in "Shining Through"), Cary Grant (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Lorne Greene (last seen in "Earthquake"), Sydney Greenstreet (last seen in "Casablanca"), Andre Gregory (last seen in "The Bonfire of the Vanities"), 

Gene Hackman (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Dustin Hoffman (ditto), Jessica Lange (ditto), Jerry Lewis (ditto), Cleavon Little (ditto), Zero Mostel (ditto), Paul Newman (ditto), Peter O'Toole (ditto), Jack Haley (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Bert Lahr (ditto), James Mason (ditto), Jackie Earle Haley (last seen in "A Nightmare on Elm Street" (2010)), Mark Hamill (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), George Hamilton (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Margaret Hamilton (last seen in "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like"), Tippi Hedren (last seen in "Citizen Ruth"), Levon Helm (last seen in "Shooter"), Justin Henry (last seen in "Kramer vs. Kramer"), Audrey Hepburn (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), Charlton Heston (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Bruce Lee (ditto), Judd Hirsch (last seen in "The Fabelmans"), Alfred Hitchcock (also last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Hal Holbrook (last seen in "I Am Burt Reynolds"), William Hootkins (last seen in "Town & Country"), Edward Everett Horton (last seen in "Shall We Dance"), Sally Ann Howes (also last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Groucho Marx (ditto), Mary Tyler Moore (ditto), William Hurt (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), David Prowse (ditto), John Huston (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), Fred MacMurray (ditto), Timothy Hutton (also last seen in "Brats"), Jill Ireland, Jeremy Irons (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), Jude Law (ditto), Carol Kane (also last seen in "Caught Stealing"), Boris Karloff (also carrying over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Jack Nicholson (ditto), Danny Kaye (last seen in "Groucho & Cavett"), Diane Keaton (also last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Gene Kelly (also last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Bernadette Peters (ditto), Stephen King (last seen in "Creepshow 2"), Roy Kinnear (last seen in "Taste the Blood of Dracula"), Terry Kinney (last seen in "Save the Last Dance"), Kevin Kline (also last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Steve Martin (ditto), Richard Nixon (ditto), Richard Pryor (ditto), Kris Kristofferson (also last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Burt Lancaster (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Mark Linn-Baker (last seen in "How Do You Know"), Danny Lloyd, Peter Lorre (last seen in "Priscilla"), Peter MacNicol (last seen in "Child Star"), Karl Malden (last seen in "Billion Dollar Brain"), Walter Matthau (last seen in "Famous Nathan"), Roddy McDowall, Malcolm McDowell (last seen in "Thelma"), Elizabeth McGovern, Steve McQueen (last seen in "Faye"), Burgess Meredith (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Barry Miller (last seen in "Mr. Saturday Night"), Donna Pescow (ditto), Helen Mirren (last seen in "Golda"), Alfred Molina (last seen in "Love Is Strange"), Ricardo Montalban (last seen in "Casa Bonita Mi Amor!"), Roger Moore (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Frank Morgan (last seen in "Broadway Melody of 1940"), Cathy Moriarty (last seen in "The Double"), Elisabeth Moss (last seen in "The Square"), Michael Murphy (last seen in "Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story")

David Naughton (last seen in "An American Werewolf in London"), James Naughton (last seen in "For the Love of Spock"), Barry Nelson (last seen in "Room 237"), Denise Nickerson, Leonard Nimoy (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Ryan O'Neal (ditto), Christopher Reeve (ditto), David Niven (last seen in "Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind"), Donald O'Connor (last seen in "Babylon"), Tatum O'Neal (last seen in "McEnroe"), Heather O'Rourke, Peter Ostrum (also last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Al Pacino (last seen in "Knox Goes Away"), Sean Penn (last seen in "Madonna: Goddess of Pop"), Anthony Perkins (last seen in "Lorne"), Joe Pesci (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Sidney Poitier (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Dennis Quaid (last seen in "Strays"), Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "The Wings of the Dove"), Basil Rathbone, Robert Redford (last seen in "The Discovery"), Debbie Reynolds (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Peter Riegert (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Jason Robards (last seen in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Robbie Robertson (last seen in "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind"), Edward G. Robinson, Richard Roundtree (also last seen in "Thelma"),  

Roy Scheider (also last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Robert Shaw (ditto), Martin Scorsese (also carrying over from "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), William Shatner (ditto), Sylvester Stallone (ditto), Peter Sellers (also last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Meryl Streep (ditto), Sigourney Weaver (ditto), Orson Welles (ditto), Wallace Shawn (last seen in "The Double"), Martin Sheen (last seen in "The Luckiest Man in America"), Talia Shire (last seen in "Faye"), O.J. Simpson (also last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Gene Siskel (also last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Diana Sowle (last seen in "Guarding Tess"), Harry Dean Stanton (also last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Barbara Stanwyck (last seen in "Meet John Doe"), Daniel Stern (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), James Stewart (also last seen in "Being Eddie"), Elizabeth Taylor (ditto), Paul Stewart (also last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Leonard Stone (last seen in "Soylent Green"), Jerry Stiller (also last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Gene Wilder (ditto), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "The Mechanic"), Buddy Swan, Mr. T (last seen in "Sly"), Burt Young (ditto),  Rod Taylor (last seen in "The V.I.P.s"), Paris Themmen, Maura Tierney (last seen in "The Iron Claw"), John Travolta (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Kathleen Turner (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Dick Van Dyke ("last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Robert Vaughn (also last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Jon Voight (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Christopher Walken (last seen in "At Close Range"), Jack Warden (last seen in "The Champ"), Emily Watson (last seen in "Hamnet"), Carl Weathers (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Allison Williams (last seen in "Get Out"), Billy Dee Williams (last seen in "The Ladies Man"), JoBeth Williams (last seen in "The Big Year"), Treat Williams (last seen in "Second Act"), Debra Winger (last seen in "Eulogy"), Fay Wray, Sean Young (also last seen in "Cat Person")

RATING: 5 out of 10 members of the "Bad News Bears" team