The Last Five Years

Year 18, Day 37 - 2/6/26 - Movie #5,237

BEFORE: Yesterday's film was kind of on the edge, I mean it's a little questionable whether that one really belonged in February or not - it was by no means a "romance" film, it was more about the inherent danger involved in dating. You could find the person of your dreams, or you could date a psycho killer, that's the game, unfortunately. But it was kind of like a film that fits into a few places, I could just as easily have put it in October and treated it like a serial killer film - I have a similar problem with Christmas-themed romances, should they be watched in February or December? Well, it depends on the linking, really, in which month will they fit in, where is there a space for that one?  But then sometimes February will roll around and I'll think, "Nah, that's a Christmas film..." and then December comes and I'll think, "Nah, that's a February romance..." and as a result, the film does not get watched. Look, it's got to go in one place or the other, full stop. But now as a result, I've been all over the place, genre-wise, and it's still only the first week of the romance chain - I've had a rom-com, a family drama, a period drama, a serial killer movie, and today it's a musical. Makes perfect sense. 

Anna Kendrick carries over from "Woman of the Hour". Yes, I do have a third Anna Kendrick film on the romance/relationship sub-list, but working that one in seems just a bit counter-productive as I currently have it linking two other films that did NOT make the countdown, and if I should want to go in that direction next year, I will need that film as mortar - maybe that film is really a "brick", I don't know, and maybe I should work it in here and another linking path may be generated in the next few months, there's no way to tell. I have to play the cards I'm dealt and try to leave open the right linking opportunities for the future, though. My mantra is always "Don't worry, this will make more sense tomorrow..." but will it? WILL IT? 

THE PLOT: A struggling actress and her novelist husband each illustrate the struggles and deconstruction of their love affair through song. 

AFTER: Well, let's hear it for Tubi, which is essentially like the safety school of streaming services. If there's a film that premium cable is ignoring (and there are a lot of those), it could be on Netflix - however some films are only on Netflix for two years, then the contract expires and they go to Hulu. But what happens after that? Exactly. It's really a mixed bag, some films are on AmazonPrime and others get bought up by Apple, but when all else fails, they go to Tubi. Guys, it's FREE with a few ads, why doesn't anybody talk about Tubi? Oh, sorry, it's not COOL like YouTube, and nobody ever invites you over to "Tubi and chill", it's probably more like "Tubi and eat some stale pretzels and let me complain to you about my last few boyfriends" but still, there's an opportunity there, you're going to watch a movie for free, and whatever else the night turns into, that's up to you. Again, safety school, you didn't get into Yale, but hey, you took your shot, and now you're still going to college, and your parents can afford this, try to make the most of it, OK? At least you won't have a crippling student loan burden that will take ten years or more to overcome. 

What ended up on Tubi here is a film with exactly ONE star in it, Anna Kendrick - and this came out between "Pitch Perfect" and "Pitch Perfect 2", before that, sure, she had a small role in the "Twilight" movies and that break-out part in "Up in the Air", small roles in "End of Watch" and "Scott Pilgrim", but she wasn't a mega-star yet. This might have even been filmed before "Pitch Perfect", there's no way to tell, it's more like an indie film and it could have spent years in production while somebody tinkered with it, then realized that Kendrick's career was blowing up and they needed to get this out there. But it also illustrates the difference between character actors and background actors - character actors are at least recognizable, they usually have lines and you've seen them in a thousand movies, like Margot Martindale or Stephen Tobolowsky, and they probably get paid better than the people who play "Dancer #4" or "Woman at book signing". Well, the casting director who worked on "The Last Five Years" probably had zero budget, because there aren't even any character actors here, just background ones - as a result the film's credits feel very incomplete, there are a lot of spelling errors in the names and nobody could even be bothered to submit the information to IMDB. Don't worry, it's not like there's some idiot out there who's tracking all the actors for his blog and trying to figure out where he last saw that ukulele player before. And even if there were, eff that guy. 

This is based on a stage musical, OF COURSE, and the structure is somewhat unique, at least. On stage the characters always sang separately, and HIS timeline started at the beginning and moved forward while HER timeline started with their spoiler-ish break-up and moved in reverse, and the two timelines meet in the middle when he proposes in Central Park. I think the film shows this event twice so we get it, it's part of both timelines. And then his timeline keeps moving forward toward the break-up and hers keeps moving backwards toward their first date, and this could be easily confused with a film that's just jumping around randomly, so probably on the second viewing if you pay attention you can really figure out what's happening, or rather WHEN it's all happening. Sure, if they started at the beginning, they meet, they move in together, they meet her parents, they deal with all their old relationship issues, his writing career takes off, she does summer stock in Ohio while he's tempted by other women in NYC, they have problems in their marriage (shocker!) and then he moves out, well, we've all seen that a thousand times, right? And some of us lived it two or three times, too. So that would be boring. 

But crossing the time-streams after reversing one, well, sure, it's confusing but also more interesting at the same time. The whole things ends rather awkwardly when they sing something like a duet, and hers is more hopeful because she can't wait until she can see him again, and clearly this is the sign of something big, while (?) he's walking out of their apartment with his last packed bag and he's left a note for her inside with all the reasons, claiming that he really really tried but at this point there's no chance of fixing things. The symmetry is absolutely beautiful, because at the start he was the hopeful one, thinking things might be moving a bit too fast but also throwing himself into this new relationship because it's THE ONE, while she's sitting in the dark with the break-up note in front of her, singing "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone, Jamie's decided it's time to move on."

But I don't know, you could end up feeling like you're very tossed around by the whole time thing, and at the end, you could be saying, "What the hell just happened? God, what a relief, it's over." Exactly. That is the feeling one could get right after a break-up - what the hell just happened? Then eventually, it might take a few months, but you might get to "God, what a relief, it's over." and then you're going to replay those road-trips you took and those parties you went to and those fights you had, and guess what? They're not going to be in the right order, inside your head, they're going to be all jumbled up! So, you know, the film gets this exactly right. Moving forward, on your good days maybe you're going to remember the good times, and on your bad days, well, you know, you're going to see those photos in a different light. I have a memory of getting socked in the head with a loaf of white bread on the way to a camping trip with friends, and that was kind of the beginning of the end of that marriage. The camping trip itself was the rest of the end, but that's a whole other story. 

This whole story was inspired by the playwright's marriage, and you know, that's what writers do, spin straw into gold, or try to polish a turd, and therefore everything they do becomes grist for the mill. But, funny thing, his ex-wife sued him because she felt that the musical violated the non-disclosure terms of their divorce, and then HE sued HER for interfering with his creative process. There you go, every marriage starts with a contract and ends with a lawsuit. Some elements of the play were therefore changed so that Cathy would not resemble the playwright's ex so much. Now I really want to hear the song that got removed, because I bet there's some real dirt there. 

As a stage musical, "The Last Five Years" only ran for two months off-Broadway, but it did get two Drama Desk Awards, so it was at least popular enough to warrant being turned into a film, but clearly there was no budget for more than one professional actor (yes, I said one, not two, name one other movie Jeremy Jordan was in) and I'm willing to bet they spent more money on catering than on the casting. Well, food is expensive and you do have to feed both the cast and the crew. Seriously, though, the entire budget is estimated at $3.5 million and the film grossed under $300,000 - that's not good. I guess it's easy to see how the film ended up on Tubi. 

If you really wanted to, there's a list of the songs in the IMDB section in chronological order, so if you were watching on DVD, you could chapter skip and watch everything the way it would be if it were a normal movie, which I would support. I think the only real reason to arrange scenes in a non-chronological order would be to gain some insight by juxtaposing THAT scene with THAT OTHER one, and honestly I don't think that theory applies here. The formation and dissolution of a relationship is so universal that our minds can essentially understand what came before what, I mean if he's cheating on her, the cheating scene obviously took place before the break-up scene, because if it came after, then that wouldn't be cheating. But you can go around and around on this one if you're looking for the reason why they broke up - and you'll probably land on the fact that HIS career was successful and HERS was not. 

Look, life is long and if you live long enough, you may find yourself in some situation like this - you could be the one driving the bus or you could be the one riding in the bus, or you may have different roles in different relationships. This BY ITSELF, the fact that one of the two people is more successful - I can see how this could cause tension but it doesn't always break people up, there are a lot of lifelong relationships where one person makes more money, or is further along in their career, but you know, time goes by and things change and every relationship ultimately ends, it just becomes a question of how. For these two crazy kids, maybe they were young and they just couldn't deal with one of them being more successful than the other. It happens, but we all have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and maybe try again once we're ready. 

This is kind of what we're looking for, here at the Movie Year, when we put together a romance chain. Universal truths - things in a tiny not-often-seen movie that we can all connect with, lessons we can apply to our daily lives that might make it easier for us to endure. Check it out if you can endure the whole non-linear thing and the Jewish song about the tailor that is rather cringe-y.

Directed by Richard LaGravenese (director of "Beautiful Creatures" and "P.S. I Love You")

Also starring Jeremy Jordan, Tamara Mintz, Cassandra Inman, Kate Meltzer, Emma Meltzer, Bettina Bresnan, Charly Bivona, Alex Stebbins (last seen in "The Other Woman"), Lily LaGravenese, Betina Joly, I. Ginzburg, Lisa Herring, Nina Ordman, Robert Immerman, Michael Fawcett, Jerome Schwartz, Bill Hunter, Anna Ackerman, Susan Moses, Marcy Orloff Prastos, Maia Bliskovski, Chelsea Chrostowski, Leah Shapiro, Natalie Knepp (last seen in "Going the Distance"), Marceline Hugot (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Wade Dooley, Ashley Spencer, Nic Novicki (last seen in "Marry Me"), Rafael Sardina (last heard in "The Assistant"), Laura Harrier (last seen in "The Starling"), Luis Castro de Leon, Jason Robert Brown (last seen in "tick, tick...BOOM!"), Georgia Stitt (ditto), Meg Carriero (last seen in "The Night Before"), Stephanie Corbett, Kurt Deutsch, Sam Gilroy (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures" (2013)), Randy Redd (ditto), Linda Hendrick, Cat Lynch, Allison Macri, Will MacAdam (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Sherie Rene Scott (last seen in "P.S. I Love You"), Alan Simpson, Betsy Wolfe, Williemgc (last seen in "Lucky Them")

RATING: 6 out of 10 Shapiros in Washington Heights

Woman of the Hour

Year 18, Day 36 - 2/5/26 - Movie #5,236

BEFORE: OK, we got our power restored - our house is oddly connected to the house next door, like the power on the block comes through THEIR house to reach OUR house - perhaps this is common here in NYC where there are like 20 houses on a single block, minimum. Since none of our breakers had been tripped (I flipped a few just to make sure, it didn't help) I figured that the problem was beyond our house, it was a block problem. I knocked on one neighbor's door and his power was fine, we also texted the couple that bought the house next door, and they reported no problems, but still we just decided to report the problem to Con Edison and wait it out. Well, funny story, the neighbors DID have problems, they just weren't aware of them when we checked in.  So Con Ed sent a crew, two guys that just got a tour of my Star Wars autograph collection in the basement, and they were rather impressed. Well, it is a large collection, over 120 signed photos, and while the tour didn't speed up the power restoration, I at least gave a couple of Star Wars fans a free gallery tour for their efforts. Now we'll be fine as long as there are no more winter storm events - is what I would say if I really wanted to jinx things. 

Marc Gaudet carries over from "Puppy Love". 

THE PLOT: A single woman looking for a suitor on a hit 1970's TV show chooses charming bachelor Rodney Alcala, unaware that the man's gentle facade hides a deadly secret. 

AFTER: This is based on a true story, a serial killer DID appear on the game show "The Dating Game" back in 1978 - of course, nobody knew it at the time, as he chose not to list that under "occupation" on his form. And we know for a fact that there have been a few very dynamic, charming serials out there, like Ted Bundy leaps to mind. Women found Bundy attractive, even after he was arrested and charged and sentenced to die by execution, there were STILL women who wanted to date Ted Bundy. This maybe is part of the problem, but it's not the main part of the problem, like I get that there are lonely ladies out there and they all probably feel like they could be the ones who could "change" him, but still, not a good idea. Maybe those women had a bigger plans, like they wanted to write a book or make a movie about Bundy, but I don't know, I think the world is just made up of a bunch of lonely people who run around and bump into each other and home that the romance magic sets in. 

This is the serial killer's playground, the lonely women and the serial daters, and in some cases the women who needed help moving furniture up a flight of stairs, and sure, Rodney's your man for that sort of thing, but in addition to being quite charming, Rodney wasn't wired right, he wasn't straight in the head, and eventually he would turn on women as soon as they were alone together, sometimes out in the desert after he arranged a photo shoot and told these girls how beautiful they were, or he needed a model to enter and win a photo contest, something like that. Rodney would say whatever he thought the girls needed to hear, or whatever would get them to go for that long ride out to the desert where the good scenery is. Rodney had a collection of more than 1,000 photos of women, teenage girls and a few boys, and so you wonder how many of those people also had their photos on milk cartons back in the day. 

After high school, Rodney Alcala joined the U.S. Army to become a paratrooper, but served as a clerk. He was disciplined on several occasions for assaulting women, and was regarded as manipulative, vindictive and insubordinate, then in 1964 he had a nervous breakdown and went AWOL from Fort Bragg in N.C. and hitchhiked to his mother's house in California. After that he was discharged from the army, for medical reasons like BPD and narcissistic psychopathy. He later graduated from the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, however he told people that he studied film at NYU under Roman Polanski, but that's the kind of thing that nobody would ever check. Anyway, NYU film school churns out egotists like Woody Allen, Spike Lee and Brett Ratner but not necessarily serial killers. 

The incidents seen here in "Woman of the Hour" (although the flashbacks are a bit jumbled, and it's a bit tough to tell which are in the past and which are in the future) are based on actual events, like Alcala did help a flight attendant with moving furniture into her apartment on 83rd St. in Manhattan, and then strangle her, this was in 1971. Alcala was on his way up to New Hampshire to be an arts camp counselor for children, using an alias, but by this point, his photo was on FBI wanted posters in post offices, and someone in New Hampshire recognized him, which led to him being extradited to California. However, witnesses from his past crimes were either unavailable or unwilling to testify against him, so he was convicted of lesser charges rather than rape and murder, and got sentenced to three years, and paroled after 34 months. 

For the next few years, we can assume that his murder spree continued, however he was probably getting good at ensuring there would be no witnesses, and no evidence to process - though later in 1978, remains of Ellen Hover, who disappeared in1977, were found on the Rockefeller estate, about 40 miles north of NYC, overlooking the Hudson River. But Alcala had already moved back to Los Angeles, was working for the L.A. Times as a typesetter, and although he was interviewed by police working on the Hillside Strangler case, he was ruled out and only arrested for marijuana possession. But in 1978 he applied for "The Dating Game", listing himself as a photographer who also enjoyed skydiving and motorcycles. Another bachelor contestant on the show later described him as "very obnoxious and creepy", though perhaps they really hated him because he was articulate and the best at answering the questions of that episode's bachelorette, Cheryl Bradshaw. 

The show's prize for the winning bachelor was a week's vacation in Carmel, California. The other bachelors were awarded runner-up prizes, which were probably two week vacations in Carmel, California. The intent of the show was that the woman would select her ideal mate from the three contestants and they would go on vacation together, but Bradshaw refused to go out with Rodney later, and the vacation was a no-go because of how creepy he was, and this probably saved Bradshaw's life, on day three of that vacation Rodney probably would have reverted to type. The film depicts her getting a bad vibe from him after they went out to a diner following the taping, and Rodney suggests they exchange phone numbers so they can plan that trip together, however she gave him a bogus phone number, and he picked up on that - we don't really know if he did then follow her back to her car, or if the parking lot was too crowded for him to strike, or what happened after that. 

But we do know that the killings continued, I won't list them here but you can look them up on Wikipedia, Rodney started targeting younger girls, some who were teenage hitchhikers and runaways, for obvious reasons. Girls who were not in touch with their families or on the run, and remember back then they didn't have smart phones or even cell phones, so there were a lot of miles of highway between gas stations and diners with pay phones, just saying. There was one hitchhiker who managed to get away from Alcala when he stopped to use a gas station restroom, but it's unclear if she really testified at his parole hearing like the closing credits suggest. But this incident took place in February of 1979, so that's 47 years ago. Thankfully there was enough evidence against him at this point to keep him in prison, for five murders in California, and then he finally died in prison in 2021 - but it's estimated that the true number of his victims could be as high as 130. 

So yeah, I'm sorry that because of a few people like this, that dating is a nightmare for women - it sucks not knowing if the next person you date is going to be the love of your life, or the cause of your death. It sucks when you assume that the casting directors of a dating show properly vetted the other contestants, and then you find out they didn't. And it sucks when you form a connection with somebody, have a nice meal together and discuss some plays or books or music you both like, then you find out that person is a total creep who was leading you on to some degree. But unfortunately, that's part of playing the dating game (not just the show, the real human game of dating) so please, be careful out there. Smartphones and the internet have perhaps made dating easier, but not necessarily less dangerous. 

"The Dating Game" did inadvertently cast one serial killer, but to be fair, they did also cast future stars Sally Field, Don Johnson and Burt Reynolds. Also, Tom Selleck, Steve Martin, Farrah Fawcett, Suzanne Somers, John Ritter, Mark Harmon, Gregory Hines, Bob Saget and Arnold Schwarzenegger, before they were famous. 

Directed by Anna Kendrick (producer of "Alice, Darling" and "Stowaway")

Also starring Anna Kendrick (last seen in "Get a Job"), Daniel Zovatto (last seen in "The Pope's Exorcist"), Tony Hale (last heard in "Inside Out 2"), Nicolette Robinson (last seen in "One Night in Miami..."), Pete Holmes (last seen in "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever"), Autumn Best, Kathryn Gallagher, Kelley Jakle (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 3"), Matt Visser, Jedidiah Goodacre (last seen in "Monster Trucks"), Rob Morton, Dylan Schmid (last seen in "Horns"), Karen Holness (last seen in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed"), Denalda Williams (last seen in "Cousins"), Jessie Fraser, Matty Finochio (last seen in "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb"), Geoff Gustafson (last seen in "The Interview"), Max Lloyd-Jones (last seen in "War for the Planet of the Apes"), Andy Thompson (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Nancy Kerr, James Yi (last seen in "Colossal"), Jessica Chaffin (last seen in "Desperados"), Matthew Kevin Anderson (last seen in "The Show"), Taylor Hastings, David Beairsto, Darcy Laurie (last seen in "Walking Tall"), Bonnie Hay, Michael Adamthwaite (last seen in "Black Christmas" (2006)), Jacob Woike, Jason Simpson (last heard in "The Layover"), Hannah Henney, Tighe Gill, Michael Jonsson (last seen in "Easter Sunday"), Vonnie Bennetto, Thomas Strumpski, John Herkenrath, Jeremy Radin (last seen in "The Accountant 2"), John Gillich, Cody Heller.

RATING: 5 out of 10 quarters (stolen from a laundromat)

Puppy Love

Year 18, Day 35 - 2/4/26 - Movie #5,235

BEFORE: I do have another film with Isabella Rossellini in it, and it IS a romance film - but it's needed somewhere else in the countdown, like February 20 or so. Therefore it has been relocated to THERE so it will connect two other films that need to be connected in a different way. I've found that it often makes sense to watch ALMOST all of an actor's films together, moving one to another spot is not uncommon, I even sort of expect it to happen now. 

Tonight's film in the romance chain is optional, that means that if I don't watch it, "Cousins" will connect to the next film via a different link, and things will continue. But I'm caught up, I'm not behind so I'm going to just watch it so it's off the list. Little tweaks like this to the chain are often needed, in this case so I'll land the exact right film on Valentine's Day. So instead of Ms. Rossellini, Dolores Drake carries over from "Cousins". 

We have a partial loss of power in our house, just two rooms upstairs and a couple rooms in the basement. We flipped the breakers and that didn't restore power, so it must be part of an outage on the block, which we reported. This would only be a problem if one of the rooms was where my computer is - I'm working around the problem by plugging in to a power strip which is getting power from the bathroom via extension cord. My wife moved her home office down to the dining room last week, because of the lack of heat upstairs, but damn if that wasn't a good idea, it's like she knew this might happen or something. Anyway if you don't hear from me for a couple of days, it means the situation got worse and we've lost all our electricity for a bit. 

THE PLOT: After a disastrous date, Nicole and Max vow to lose each other's numbers, but their dogs turn out to be a love match. The mismatched pair are forced to become responsible doggy co-parents, but end up finding love themselves. 

AFTER: Before I start, I just want to remind everyone that this Sunday is like the biggest day for TV in the whole year, the event we all tune in for, the one we gather together for and build whole parties around, of course I'm talking about Puppy Bowl XXII, which airs on Animal Planet on February 8 starting at 2 pm ET. There are a couple dozen rescue dogs who run up and down a mock sports stadium field and if one should happen to carry a toy into the end-zone, that's called a touchdown. And if some puppy should pee or poop on the field during the game, that's called an offensive foul. But we also tune in to watch the commercials, of course - then there's a halftime show that usually features kittens but I have a feeling that this year there will also be a rabbit involved, maybe a "Good Bunny", from what I've heard. Anyway, you don't want to miss that, but even if you do, they replay the whole event a few times, so you can watch it again and again, don't worry because I don't think there's anything else important airing on Sunday, just keep watching the Puppy Bowl over and over, you won't miss anything else. There's a chance I might need to work for a few hours on Sunday, but I'm recording the Puppy Bowl because I don't want to miss a minute of the action - I wonder, should I bet on Team Ruff or Team Fluff? 

Of course, today's rom-com is going to feel very formulaic, no matter how is constructed, we basically know how it's going to end, therefore certain things HAVE to happen, the man and the woman need to meet in some way, they need to be at odds with each other in some way, and then they have to come together in the end and somehow realize that they're perfect for each other, despite all the evidence presented so far that might contradict that. In this case both Nicole and Max become dog owners, Nicole because there's a stray dog hanging around near her apartment building that eats from the garbage, and Max because his therapist believes that it might be helpful for his social anxiety to start interacting with a dog and then work his way up to humans so he can go back and work in his office instead of just trying to do the company's IT work from home. Apparently he started working from home during COVID and then just never went back, and his boss has maybe been a little too understanding about this. 

So Max adopts a dog from the animal shelter, that's great, no notes there, plus he chooses the one that isn't barking at him and triggering his anxiety, sure, fine, that makes sense. Chloe is an ideal, non-barking, sweetheart of a dog, perfect for him to interact with, as long as he remembers to bring her back to get spayed a week later, everything's going to work out fine. Umm, yeah, about that. Well, Max has a lot going on and is apparently very forgetful in addition to having social anxiety and claustrophobia and germophobia and dating problems and career issues. This is all very relatable to a modern audience, because if you have any social problems yourself you can see yourself reflected in Max, he has them all in one total package. What is quite unbelievable, therefore, is him agreeing to get together with Nicole after meeting her on a dating site - WTF? This goes against everything we know about Max, why would he suddenly agree to meet a woman for a date just because they both have dogs? The dog is the test, he's supposed to succeed with raising the dog BEFORE he moves on to interacting with humans. 

But, I suppose it's necessary to move the plot forward - Nicole believes that her stray dog, Channing Tatum, has been neutered, the vet even confirmed this. BUT, when Nicole and Max and their dogs meet up, the dogs disappear from sight (well, they're both new at keeping track of them) and are found gettin' it on behind a carefully placed tree in the park. Well, we have to maintain a PG rating, after all. Max is HORRIFIED that Nicole's dog would violate his sweet Chloe in such a way, Channing didn't even buy her dinner first. Plus, how irresponsible is it that Nicole wouldn't neuter her dog? Well, back at you, who forgot to spay Chloe? The humans lose their cool and part ways, but a few weeks later Chloe is apparently pregnant, which was theoretically impossible, and they're drawn back together at the vet's office to learn how this could possibly happen. It seems Channing's balls are inside his body, which I guess is a thing, but the vet is really responsible here, for declaring that he was neutered when he was not. And yes, this is the SECOND film of the new year where neutering dogs is a key plot point, I'm not really happy about it, either. 

But guys, this feels a LOT like one of those Lifetime or Hallmark channel movies where two people are drawn together by circumstances out of their control, like HE's the English teacher at the high school in a small town and SHE's the head of the PTA and a single mother, and they're at odds with each other until they have to work together to run the bake sale, and it's called "Making the Grade" or something like that. There are also Christmas themed rom-coms that everyone agrees are horrible, like "A Gingerbread Romance" or "Fir Crazy" that are equal parts predictable and unlikely and are filled with hollow characters and weak storytelling, but are guaranteed to fill up two hours of network time during the holidays once commercials are added. 

So yeah, we really know at the start how "Puppy Love" is going to end, so does it really matter HOW they get there? In addition to testicular confusion and all that social anxiety this film is filled with Doggy Lamaze classes, real estate stagings for very demanding clients, Nicole's mother who is very critical of her life choices, WAY overly spicy hot chicken (in Seattle? This is not Nashville...) and some very nerdy collectibles. Some are from "Star Wars", so really, I've got no problem with this as a plot point. I'm personally in an interfaith marriage, I'm "Star Wars" and she's "Star Trek" and we respect each other's franchises to some degree, and we make it work.

Nicole and Max are forced to spend time together because, just like in "The Friend", her apartment won't let her have a dog, if she keeps Channing there she could be evicted. Oh, if only she knew someone with a house who had plenty of space and was also dog-friendly and didn't mind being a doggie co-parent with her... But he's more of the Felix Unger-type here, and somehow SHE'S the messier Oscar Madison, can they meet somewhere in the middle?  I'm thinking that they can, over time. Her walking in on him coming out of the shower is really going to move this thing forward, it turns out - but they'll both have to open up about their past dating histories and they'll have to be ready to take a chance on love, also Max is going to have to learn what it means to leave the house once in a while and Nicole has to deal with her fear of commitment. Career-wise, we know that she's really supposed to be in graphic design and he's supposed to be making music, because if they're both avoiding a career path, sure, that's the one they're supposed to be following. Well, good luck, neither one of you is ever going to get rich, are you sure you don't want to hang on to your jobs in real estate and IT? Because it kind of seems like that's where the money is, and raising dogs is expensive. 

Sure, there's stuff to like here - it's the Cesar Millan of rom-coms, because if you're not the alpha in your own life, then what exactly are you doing? They say if you're not the lead dog, then the view never changes - well if you don't take that chance and put yourself out there, leave the house once in a while and go on first dates, then the same thing applies, you're just always going to be alone. So come on, you know what you have to do, even if that person drives you crazy, it's better than living alone. It's cheaper to move in together, too, plus your doggos will be happier spending time together. 

Directed by Nick Fabiano + Richard Alan Reid (neither of these men have ever directed another movie? I'm genuinely fake shocked, I swear...)

Also starring Lucy Hale (last seen in "Scream 4"), Grant Gustin, Nore Davis, Christine Lee (last seen in "Colossal"), Alessandro Miro, Jane Seymour (last seen in "Love, Wedding, Marriage"), Corey Woods, Michael Hitchcock (last seen in "Jackpot!"), Sarah Pequero, Ali Karr, Marc Gaudet, Santa Tom Kliner, Carlos Rodriguez, Henrietta Johnson, Nimet Kanji, Lyndsey Wong, Frank Sikunzuri, Brody Wellmaker, Cam Woodman, Dan Tait, Rachel Risen, D.J. Mausner, Kendra Hesketh, Summer Testawich, Britney Mocca, Mia Harris, Melanie Chan, Stephen Chandler Whitehead, Douglas Mpindiwa, Nathaniel Lee-Ran

RATING: 4 out of 10 visual references to "Lady & the Tramp".

Cousins

Year 18, Day 34 - 2/3/26 - Movie #5,234

BEFORE: Isabella Rossellini carries over from "Vita & Virginia" and to say this has been on my list for a long time is an understatement, I'm sure. I had watched "Made in America" and sort of made this film impossible to link to as part of the romance sub-set. Because of the way the linking works, it was impossible to also watch this film at the same time as that one. 

So instead I split this one off from the herd of romance films because of a couple of documentaries, one about David Lynch that still eludes me, and another one called "The Rossellinis" that aired at Doc NYC (or maybe Tribeca) back in 2020. Now, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, because I know that Isabella was once married to David Lynch, and so there's a fair chance that she might appear in the doc about him, or he might appear in the doc about her family. However, five years have gone by now and the doc about the Rossellinis isn't streaming anywhere, it has not been part of PBS's "American Masters" show or aired on CNN in the midnight hours like that doc about Dionne Warwick did. So "Cousins" was put on hold because I felt it might provide a potential lead-in to the Doc Block one year if some channel should air the doc on the Rossellinis. 

It's a strange strategy, sure, let's get our film into some festivals and then not come up with a proper plan for distribution - but I watched this plan not work for an animator who still somehow managed to stay in business while his films weren't streaming anywhere. It's a tougher road, though. But I'm just not willing to wait any more, let's get "Cousins" off the list during February, where it belongs, so we can clear up a spot on the list for something else. And let's do this before I realize that Ted Danson is interviewed in the documentary about Dick Van Dyke, and this film would make a great lead-in to that. 

THE PLOT: Two couples go to a family wedding and end up swapping partners. 

AFTER: We're going WAY back to 1989 for this one - so I suspect many of this film's stars are. no longer alive, starting with Lloyd Bridges. And this had William Petersen from BEFORE there was a show called "CSI" and Sean Young BEFORE Hollywood realized that she was impossible to work with. That's a long time ago - I was just getting out of college that year, too. I probably have a good contender here for "Oldest Movie Watched This Year" at the end of December. 

Let's deal with the "ick" factor right off, because I think going into this, knowing that two people who are cousins decide to have a romance, that might keep some people away. The lead characters are cousins BY MARRIAGE, Larry's uncle Phil marries Maris's mother at the start of the film, so it's not like they are blood relatives, not at all. I'm not even sure if we recognize cousins by marriage as a thing, it's a little misleading here because there's no shared grandparent here, nothing that would make society prevent them from having a relationship. I always get confused about second cousins and that whole "once removed" thing, but legally in the U.S. second cousins can get married, because they don't share much genetic material and thus are less likely to have a kid born with two heads or something. I just Googled the laws on first cousins getting married (I hope that doesn't flag me somewhere) and it turns out that HALF of the states in the U.S. are now OK with first cousins getting married - others have restrictions and about 25 states still are against it. (But if you read between the lines, the laws only apply to marriage - dating your first cousin and NOT getting married, well they can't really legislate that, can they?)

This is based on a French film titled "Cousin Cousine" and I don't know where the French stand on this issue, but I'm guessing their attitude is probably, "Sure, why not?" or "Hell, go for it."

That would be "pourquoi pas" or "allez-y", but maybe "saisir le jour" or "tout ce qui vous permet de passer la nuit" is more appropriate. You get the feeling that maybe this was all written by someone who noticed there were a lot of films about people cheating on their spouses, but not so many about the people who were being cheated on. What would happen if two of them got to talking, and then decided to have a romance themselves? Clearly this was a thought experiment before it was a movie. They also could have called this "Three Weddings and a Funeral", but they didn't, so the door was left open for that other film to use that title, and up the ante from three weddings to four. 

The first wedding here is, as stated, Larry's uncle Phil marrying Maria's mother, Edie. This is where the cheating spouses, Larry's wife Tish and Maria's husband, Tom, hook up for the first time (though who knows, maybe it's been going on for a while, it seems like maybe it's a small town) when Tom allegedly takes Tish out for a test-drive in his BMW (he sells cars) and they're gone for a really long time. Well, you reap what you sow, really, because this gives Larry and Maria a chance to meet, as everyone else has left the wedding and they're still there, wondering where their spouses went. This was made before everybody had smart phones and could just text each other, or track somebody's phone if they didn't answer. But we see Tom breaking off all of his OTHER extra-marital relationships, because he thinks he's going to get caught, or perhaps he just wants to focus on Tish - he's found the ONE woman that he wants to cheat on his wife with, exclusively, so, umm, congratulations? You would think, though, that if he was such a great lover and these women were so upset that he won't be seeing them any more that one of them would probably drop a dime on him and reveal his true nature to his wife. 

But Maria's not stupid, nor is Larry - they get together for lunch to discuss whether they think their spouses are sleeping together, and if so, what they should do about it. They determine that if they confront them, they'll only deny it, and if they issue some kind of ultimatum, they'll just find themselves both single again - so they decide to wait it out, maybe it's a temporary thing. Then there's another family gathering, and it's so much fun that uncle Phil dies, which means that everyone gets together again for his funeral, including Larry's father from out of town. It's fairly obvious that they're going to hook him up with Phil's widow, because that keeps the story going and also keeps generating more reasons for the two cross-coupling couples to be in the same place, creating maximum drama. 

There's another wedding, but it's a lesser character and I couldn't figure out exactly who they were or how they were connected to the family. Really it's just another excuse to check in with everybody again and see how the affairs are going. By this point Larry and Maria are spending more time together, talking about their kids and making some vague plans for the future, but they both agree that their relationship needs to stay platonic, because if not then in the third act of the film the writers would have no place to go. 

Finally, you guessed it, Larry's father gets together with Edie - I mean, she's a widow and he's a widower and they're also family sort of, so that makes it just salacious enough to be interesting - I mean, there's no law against marrying your brother's widow, it's not like they're cousins or something. By this time the illicit relationship between Tish and Tom has heated up AND cooled down, so they're on the outs, so Tom's probably wishing he hadn't ended all of his other affairs. But he's back with Maria, for the sake of their daughter, probably, but anything romantic between them is kind of long gone now. Tish, meanwhile, has moved out so that Larry can decide what he really wants, she's giving him space because she knows she can't just go back into that relationship after what happened, it's just never going to be the same. It could be something else, but Larry has to want that to happen - I have to say, mostly everybody here is really acting mature about the whole thing, why it's almost like this sort of thing happens all the time and you just don't hear about it. It's almost Bergman-like in its complexity, only without all the moping and Swedish seasonal depression. 

At the final wedding, Larry's got nothing to lose, so he takes one more shot at romance with Maria - he asks her to dance, knowing that this will piss off Tom to no end. Maria had broken things off with Larry for the sake of her daughter, who was acting out at school. But Larry ups the ante and says forget the dance, will you run away with me and spend the rest of your life being happy?  Oh, sure, "pourquoi pas"? We don't really need to see what happens after that, but we can assume they relocated to someplace tropical and found a restaurant to run together, because that's what you do - and they never had any problems ever again. Really, it's all about karma in the end, and what goes around tends to come around. If only...

This probably works best as a cautionary tale - human nature dictates that you'll always want what you have, but also want what you don't have. If you're not satisfied and you want what you don't have, you could lose what you have, and then when you lose what you have, you want it back even though you didn't want it before. But it's too late now, you lost what you had because you wanted what you didn't have. So maybe it's better to have what you want and want what you have and not want what you don't have. We've all been there, right? 

Directed by Joel Schumacher (director of "The Lost Boys" and "St. Elmo's Fire")

Also starring Ted Danson (last seen in "Made in America"), Sean Young (last seen in "Once Upon a Crime..."), William Petersen (last seen in "Fear"), Lloyd Bridges (last seen in "David Crosby: Remember My Name"), Norma Aleandro, Keith Coogan (last seen in "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot"), Gina DeAngeles (last seen in "Broadway Danny Rose"), George Coe (last seen in "The Automat"), Katherine Isabelle (last seen in "Frankie & Alice"), Alex Bruhanski (last seen in "The Fog" (2005)), Stephen E. Miller (last seen in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed"), Gerry Bean (also last seen in "Fear"), Gordon Currie (last seen in "The Sentinel"), Saffron Henderson (last seen in "The Fly II"), Michele Goodger (last seen in "Little Women" (1994)), Andrea Mann (last seen in "Omen IV: The Awakening"), Sheila Paterson (ditto), Mark Frank (last seen in "Falling Down"), LeRoy Schulz, Gloria Harris, John Civitarese, Kate Danson, David Robert Moore, John Hurwitz, Babs Chula (last seen in "Connie and Carla"), Bernadette Leonard, Denalda Williams (last seen in "The Professor"), Margot Pinvidic, Tom McBeath (last seen in "Nick Fury: Agent of Shield"), Dolores Drake (last seen in "Say It Isn't So"), Michael Naxos, Lorraine Butler, Ann Leong, Harold McDonald, Lorena Gale (last seen in "Things We Lost in the Fire"), Monica Marko (last seen in "Love Happens"), Wes Tritter (last seen in "Bird on a Wire"), David W. Rose, Sharon Wahl, George Goodman, Tom Heaton (last seen in "Bandolero!"), Cathy Bayer, John Paterson, Antony Holland (last seen in "McCabe & Mrs. Miller")

RATING: 5 out of 10 adult magazines (a gift from Grandpa!)

Vita & Virginia

Year 18, Day 33 - 2/2/26 - Movie #5,233

BEFORE: Happy Groundhog Day! Apparently Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow this morning, so that means six more weeks of romance movies. Yeah, sorry about that, but what can I do? We have to abide by the groundhog, both he and Bill Murray would have wanted it that way. 

Isabella Rossellini carries over from "Roger Dodger", and thanks to yesterday's film being a day LATE from the original plan, I get to issue a Birthday SHOUT out to Gemma Arterton, one of today's stars, who was born 2/2/86. See, that's how I know we're on the right track and everything's going to be fine - with movies, at least. But talk to me again after six more weeks of romance films, I'll probably be going insane. 

THE PLOT: The fascinating true story of the love affair between socialite and popular author Vita Sackville-West and literary icon Virginia Woolf. 

AFTER: People today seem to think that lesbians were invented some time in the late 1960's, like it was a hippie Woodstock thing - which would make some kind of sense because, well, it was a very experimental time with drugs and sex and people were trying to get back at their parents and reject everything that the 1950's stood for. Then you see a picture of Janis Joplin from back then and sure, it tracks. But the truth is that they've been around a lot longer than that, but you know, trends come and go and being gay or lesbian probably fell in and out of fashion, along with corsets and hoop skirts, and probably some women were wearing men's cut jeans and Doc Martens under those hoop skirts, but honestly we can't be sure. But we do know that actors had to dress up as women during Shakespeare's time, because women were NOT allowed on the stage, except one got away with it and then "Saving Private Ryan" lost the Best Picture Oscar as a result. 

Guys, this is not good - I'm two films into the romance chain and already I feel attacked. First off "Roger Dodger" reminds me of my time in film school and how I got screwed over by a future famous/infamous director who never crewed for me and was always hitting on ladies he didn't know. Now tonight I'm reminded of my first marriage, because I was married to someone who developed an attraction to someone in our D&D group and came out as a result. She swore to me there was not ONE specific woman she was attracted to, that it was more about identity, but that turned out to be B.S., there of course was one woman she had her eye on, so, umm, more confessions were imminent. I don't think it was a full-on affair, but the damage to our relationship was probably the same, more or less, plus the bond of trust had been broken. 

So naturally I tried to shut things down, say that clearly they couldn't see each other any more, communications had to be cut off - this is not anti-gay, of course, just self-preservation. How the hell was I supposed to react? Was I supposed to say, "No, it's fine, go out and explore things with her, and if you decide it's not for you, well then I'll still be here. No, you know what, I'll be here for you either way, go be a lesbian and this changes nothing between us, because I'm a confident person and I believe our bond is still strong, even if you go sleep with a dozen women, I don't care."  Well that's not the way things went down at all, over the next year we tried to put the pieces back together and had some intense break-up experiences, but no, ultimately I had to ask her to move out in addition to coming out. I did that FOR ME, I'm a selfish petty person in the end and it seemed to be the only way to improve my life in the long-term. Think of me what you will, because the chain is clearly into revealing all of my past shortcomings. 

Surprisingly, that's exactly what the people in this film are all about - staying married because society dictates that they have to, but also being understanding about the fact that their wife has a girlfriend or their husband has a few boyfriends, and somehow it's all OK. There's a futility factor, perhaps, because it's 1925 and feminism is still a growing movement, like women just got the right to vote and have actual jobs a few years before - but because the Great War and the Spanish Flu and whatever other illnesses were, life expectancy wasn't what it is today, so people had to live, live, live while they could and I guess life was too short for not trying to experience everything in a short period of time. The theory now is that Virginia Woolf had some form of bipolar disorder, but also she was subject to sexual abuse from her half-brother, and she had a breakdown after mother's death. Well, this is the cauldron that produces intense authors, perhaps, but also stress, depression and suicide attempts. Reportedly the adult Virginia was so fragile that any physical or mental exertion would give her a headache, followed by anxiety, insomnia, racing thoughts and irritability. This is represented in the film by her getting excited and losing the ability to speak coherently, frequently retiring to that dark room in the basement, which was the only thing that alleviated her symptoms. 

If you want to apply the psychoanalysis here, you can draw a crooked line between the sexual abuse and the death of her mother indirectly to her sexual preference to women over men, but even I know we're not supposed to try to "explain away" the gay. Still she apparently loved her husband/publisher, Leonard Woolf, who she considered to be the love of her life, and the relationships with women are still referred to as "affairs", which does seem a little bit belittling. Did she just never meet "the right woman" or did society at the time place define these relationships as something "less than" a fulfilling marriage. Either way, Woolf began a little gathering of intellectuals at Bloomsbury, where her sister Vanessa lived once they sold the family house in South Kensington. Other authors such as E.M. Forster and John Maynard Keynes gathered there, while Virginia began teaching at Morley College and working on the novel that would one day be titled "Mrs. Dalloway". They had the Friday Club to discuss fine arts, and also the Thursday Club with more progressive ideas, including open discussions of sexuality. Apparently if you didn't consider yourself at least bi-, there was no real point in showing up. 

After World War I, the group got back together, though Virginia was now married to Leonard and they'd moved several times - the Thursday club was now called the Memoir Club, with a focus on self-writing. Inspired by Proust, the "Bloomsberries" gathered to discuss and debate their own work, and author Vita Sackville-West joined up in 1922. Post-war depression, open sexuality and honest reviews of each other's novels-in-progress, what could POSSIBLY go wrong? Vita and Virginia were on-and-off lovers for about a decade, but stayed friends for longer than that - and yes, of course this all gets filed under the "It's complicated" heading, because they both had husbands, and it's implied here that Vita's husband, Harold, had several boyfriends, and honestly this sounds a lot more like a 2025 relationship than a 1925 one. Right? Yet history still tells us that Leonard Woolf was the true love of Virginia - maybe not? Who are we to say?

We also learn here that Vita was supposedly the inspiration for Virginia's novel "Orlando", about an English nobleman who lives a very long time and turns into a woman at age 100, with no real explanation offered for HOW or WHY this happens, but he/she goes on to have various romantic adventures and dresses non-gender-conformingly for the rest of their life. Obviously there's a leap in logic here, with someone who dated both genders suddenly being able to change genders, but if you want to point to a watershed moment in literature, this is defintely one - Woolf wrote about it before medical science could accomplish it, and debate over trans issues is probably the most divisive issue in our society today. 

A big irony here is that Vita Sackville-West was a more popular author at that time, while nowadays of course Virginia Woolf is regarded as a feminist icon and Vita is largely remembered for her gardening skills. But her status then, combined with her more aggressive, outgoing personality seems to suggest that she was in control of the relationship with Virginia Woolf. According to this film Vita decided when the relationship should start and what it should entail, then when she was ready for a new girlfriend, that meant the sexual relationship with Virginia was over. And wait, they stayed friends after that? I don't know how anybody can stay friends with the lover that broke their heart, and Ms. Woolf was already in a fragile state to begin with. Well, I guess that's any relationship really, gay or straight, one person has to drive the bus and the other one, man or woman, is kind of the passenger. Gender's just a social construct anyway, it just comes down to who has the more dominant personality, but even that can be fluid and change over time. Marriage is another social construct, obviously, and some people clearly think that they can both follow its rules and break them at the same time, but how exactly is that supposed to work? Clearly there are exceptions made for famous people, but if everyone is special, then really nobody is special.

Directed by Chanya Button

Also starring Gemma Arterton (last seen in "The King's Man"), Elizabeth Debicki (last seen in "Macbeth"), Rupert Penry-Jones (last seen in "The Four Feathers"), Peter Ferdinando (last seen in "Lost in London"), Emerald Fennell (last seen in "Barbie"), Gethin Anthony (last seen in "Into the Storm"), Rory Fleck Byrne, Karla Crome, Adam Gillen, Brenock O'Connor, Amelie Metcalfe, Darren Dixon, Sam Hardy, Jane McGrath, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (last seen in "Dom Hemingway"), Thalia Heffernan, Bryan Murray (last seen in "The Professor and the Madman"), Evelyn Lockley

RATING: 5 out of 10 diplomatic postings abroad

Roger Dodger

Year 18, Day 32 - 2/1/26 - Movie #5,232

BEFORE: Here we go again, new month and the start of this year's Romance and Relationship chain - I'm giving the whole month of February and half of March over to this topic, by choice - you might think this is limiting, and it is to some degree, however keeping the romance films (mostly) separate from the main list creates some unique linking opportunities, as there are actors out there who specialize in this genre, not just rom-coms of course but also romantic dramas, and maybe there will be one or two films in this chain that seem off-topic, but there are relationships in every film, so pretty much anything COULD fit in here, the challenge is in figuring out what SHOULD qualify a film for inclusion and which films might be considered tangential.

Jesse Eisenberg carries over again from "A Real Pain" and here are the links that should get me to the end of February: Isabella Rossellini, Dolores Drake, Marc Gaudet, Anna Kendrick, Rafael Sardina, Paul Dano, Michelle Williams, Laura Dern, Frances Conroy, Renee Zellweger, Dolly Wells, Maxwell Whittington-Cooper, Lil Rel Howery, Ayden Mayeri, Zac Efron, Liza Koshy, Geraldine Viswanathan, Nick Jonas, Celia Imrie, Emma Thompson, Gerard Horan, Ben Miles, Elizabeth McGovern and Terry Kinney. That's 24 people and 28 films, so some actors will be doing three films in a row. 

I'll be honest, this was a tough romance chain to put together, I had to think a bit outside the usual box because the number of romance-based films that I have NOT YET seen is dwindling - and as the list gets a bit smaller I find I have to do more with less, linking-wise. I don't have the luxury of moving from film to film in a carefree fashion any more, this all has to be planned out months in advance. I have to think about leaving enough films to work with next year, should I be able to continue this process, and that means sometimes not watching ALL of the Anna Kendrick films on the list, for example - there's a benefit to saving a film like, say, "Another Simple Favor" if there's a slot for it next year, to link another film with Blake Lively to something else.  

There's also the temptation to put the Nicole Kidman films together, or all the films with Isabella Rossellini in a mini-chain, but that may make the overall linking harder, instead of easier - splitting one of her films off from the herd could provide a linking opportunity that I accidentally ignored, and that could allow the romance chain to be longer than if I just took the easy way out every time. So it's a delicate balance, and sometimes I have to consider the bigger picture. Since I've got 47 films queued up and ready to go, I would like to think this is the maximum number I can link together before I mentally will need to move on to another topic. We'll see, I could always cut bait earlier if I really can't stand it - but seeing as I've built up a tolerance from years of doing this, I'm going to go for it. There's a chance to make some real progress on this part of the list, and then I can re-assess what's possible for next year from what remains. 

THE PLOT: After breaking up with his lover and boss, a smooth-talking man takes his teenaged nephew out on the town in search of sex. 

AFTER: This was initially supposed to be the last film in January instead of the first film in February, but those few empty days I left in January, well, I filled those up and then some, as I tend to do. I added one more film than I had empty slots for, so that pushed "Roger Dodger" into February - it's fine, there's enough on the "romance" topic here for this one to qualify, so once again I state that the chain knows what needs to happen, even if I don't completely understand. With a bit of luck, this will all make sense once the month is over and I look back on it. 

This is also a movie I meant to watch, umm, I think, like 20 years ago and then I never got around to it and basically forgot about it for the next 15 or so. Mea culpa, I was a little busy. I think one day maybe I saw it in the cable listings again and thought, "Oh, yeah, I was going to watch that movie and maybe I never got around to it..." and then I promptly forgot about it AGAIN and maybe 2 years after that, I remembered that I'm keeping a watchlist with a section called "Someday/maybe" so why not add it to that? Then two or three times I was maybe close to watching it - or perhaps I could have programmed it, but then it wasn't on cable any more and I didn't feel like paying $2.99 to rent it, because it would have been a middle film out of 3 and the chain could just continue on without it. FINALLY, maybe 20 years after the fact, it's come up again, kind of as the perfect lead-in to the whole romance chain, and it's on Tubi for FREE, umm, with ads but who cares about that. I can at long last move it from the "Movies to watch - streaming" list to the "Movies watched - but I don't have on DVD" list. Really, it's the small victories that make life worth living. 

My point is that it's almost 25 years now since this film won an award at Tribeca and was nominated for several Independent Spirit awards, and a lot has changed. When we look at the subject matter we're forced to say, "Well, it was a different time..." only, was it? There were no smart phones, no text messages, no SnapGrams or InstaChats and yet people still found a way to meet each other and come together. I know it sounds weird now, but people used to go to bars or clubs, get each other's attention and somehow have sex and propagate the species - we look back now on a time where nobody went to a bar or club for maybe two or three years, every human interaction was by Zoom or FaceTime and if you didn't have someone to shelter in place with, well, then you had to provide proof of vaccination before you could even start a conversation about maybe interacting remotely with the option of someday meeting face-to-face, just please let me check your forehead temperature first, you just can't be too careful about this.

But it's the old world we want to talk about tonight, the pre-COVID world of Manhattan bars and lounges, the men who went out on the prowl every night, and the women who for some reason let them. Even back then this was not really a good idea because the odds of finding a diamond in the rough were really low, the kind of person you want to settle down with and marry is not the same kind of person who goes to bars every night looking for a good time. Right? Those are two distinctly different groups of people. Maybe the guy you're looking for is at the library or the opera tonight, but he is probably NOT at the bar. Just saying. Hey, it's 2002 and this internet thing is really blowing up, maybe the potentially most successful person who you might want to think about as a long-term partner is teaching a class on HTML or he's working in the IT department, and maybe he's too socially awkward to ask anybody out. Nah, that's crazy, let's just go to the bar where all the sleazy drunks are. 

Roger is forced back into this world when his boss/girlfriend breaks up with him - he maybe has a hard time dealing with this because clearly he invested some time in choosing the lover who could help him advance in the company - sure, most successful long-term relationships probably began as an HR violation. Well, it worked for Walt Disney, but again, that was a different time. Roger invested a lot of time into that relationship, we assume, and now SHE wants to end it. Well, it happens, and maybe he has to take that hit because making any fuss over this would probably just highlight that he used sex to get ahead, maybe he got a promotion or a corner office out of it, so I don't know, just take the win and don't draw too much attention to yourself, since nobody knows you were sleeping with the boss - but everybody probably has their suspicions. 

Meanwhile, Roger's nephew Nick turns up in his office, unexpected, he says he had a college interview at Columbia and his mother said he should look up Uncle Roger while in town. They haven't seen each other since Roger's mother's funeral, so things are a bit awkward, but Roger uses this opportunity to teach Nick some of the finer points of hitting on women - it's basically a numbers game and you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and other sports analogies are also applicable, like Michael Jordan used to save some of his energy for "winning time" late in the game, he was apparently the G.O.A.T. because of his endurance, not his ability to score baskets or the fact that he was taller than 99% of the other people in the world. But as a 16-year old Nick knows very little of the world and also has an appalling lack of tolerance for alcohol, don't worry we'll get working on that straight away. 

After teaching Nick a few things about how to use the late-day Manhattan sunset to see through women's dresses (umm, ick, but again, remember there was very little internet porn back then) and how looking up women's dresses is all about finding a low position and the right angle (umm, ick again but he's not really wrong here) Roger stresses the importance of having a great opening line, you score more often when you score early. And lying is fine, because the most important thing is having a hook, because you can't catch fish without a hook. Roger picks the hottest woman in the bar and loads the dice, telling her that his nephew has something really important to tell her, as soon as he can think of something. Nick makes up a story about having a $1,000 bet with his uncle that he can make a woman fall in love with him before the end of the night. OK, it's not great but maybe it is original. 

Andrea and her friend Sophie spend the evening with Nick and Roger, and after the bar they drink privately in a park (illegal in NYC, but whatever) and Roger tries to set Nick up for success, only he can't close the deal - come on, he's 16! Roger even tries being horrible to the women to make Nick look better by comparison, or you know, maybe he's just horrible naturally, it's tough to say. Still, Nick can't wrangle going home with the girls, but hey, at least he took a swing, right? Remember when you said it was more important to take the shot because you miss 100% of the shots you don't take? I guess you only miss 50% of the shots you DO take, and somehow that's better, but a strike-out is still a strike-out. Hey, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. 

Roger's not done, though, because he knows his ex-lover/boss is having a party that night, one which he was NOT invited to, obviously.  But Roger knows how to sneak past the doorman, so he and Nick are now in a party full of drunk, desperate women and this is now "winning time". Roger sets Nick up with Donna, who's about to pass out, and also tries with Joyce's bestie Patricia, saying she'd be a good fit for Nick because a teenage boy and an older woman have roughly the same sex drive. Classy to the end, right? But Nick's already in the bedroom with Donna and since she's passed out, he's finally got an opportunity to score - however he does NOT have sex with her because he's a decent human being, and those seem to be in really short supply, don't they? But rather than congratulate Nick for doing the right thing, Nick instead takes him to his "fail safe", an underground brothel, and sets him up for success with a prostitute. Right, winning time, this one's a slam dunk, sure, but Nick still isn't ready and instead gets very angry with his uncle, because this was NOT what he had in mind when he asked for advice about how to score with women. Roger changes his mind at the last minute and they get out of there, but that's probably as close to redemption as Roger is going to get. 

What this calls to mind for me, personally, is my freshman-level class in film school, which was all the basics of Super 8 film production. I've told this story before, how I was on a rotating crew of 4 people, each person would take a turn at being the director, or crew member, or editor over a 4-day span, so after a day directing you would spend 2 days on crew and then a day in the editing suite, working on your own footage. I was on a crew with my Norwegian friend Hakon, someone else who would later become very famous, and a girl whose name I can't remember, however she was a great help to me when I was directing, because that was the day Hakon was in editing and my crew was supposed to be her and the famous guy. She always showed up, the famous guy NEVER did, so I learned to make films with a crew of two people, not three. I won't give his name here but he's back in the news for making a propaganda documentary about the First Lady. 

While he was directing and I was crewing for him, he was CONSTANTLY on the prowl, trying to pick up women. We walked around Washington Square Park together so he could approach women and offer them gum and ask them if they wanted to be in a movie. Yes, that was the move. Again, when he was supposed to crew for ME, he never showed up, not once. OK, I knew who I was dealing with at least, somebody who would prioritize trying to get laid over his responsibility to my projects. Once you know, you can adjust and count on the fact that you can't count on him. I saw him once a few years after NYU, chatting outside a steakhouse, and honestly I should have just decked him then, I regret not doing so. But that's petty - and anyway he got cancelled a few years after that, I'm sure he had money saved up but suddenly nobody would hire him because there were at least six charges against him of violence toward women or using his position of power to ask for sex. Allegedly. The #metoo movement hurt him bad, and as of 2023 he had to move to Israel, where he now makes propaganda films for that country as well as for the U.S. I'm sure part of his salary for making "Melania" will be a presidential pardon, because if he's not all over the Epstein Files, I'll eat my shoe. 

The director of "Roger Dodger" graduated from NYU in 1991, which was two years after me, and I got paroled a year early, so it's POSSIBLE that maybe the main character here was also based on my nemesis, however I can't find any conclusive proof that the two men knew each other or crossed paths ever. Dylan Kidd has said that he based the character on someone he knew in college who had the ability to go up to strangers and take their psychology apart in minute detail, which was disturbing but also compelling. He works in advertising because that's a business designed to create insecurity in other people, as a way of trying to sell product, or himself. 

I just know that Roger's moves here feel very familiar and sparked a memory of film school class - I'm a very petty person, it turns out, and if someone crosses me I'm not above enjoying their misery, even if that takes 10 or 20 years. Sure, I languished in independent film production for three decades, and I don't have a lot of money on hand, but you know, I've still got a house. I've been married for 24 years (29 if you count both times) to somebody I care about. I also wasn't forced to leave the country to become a puppet of two fascist regimes AND there are no outstanding charges against me for harassment or assault. So, you know, life is good, and I can't wait for he-who-shall-not-be-named to get cancelled a second or third time. 

"Roger Dodger" got his name because he was always able to talk his way out of trouble. Yeah, that tracks, so come on, I think I know who this film is really about. The film hasn't really aged well, or at least the parts of it that encourage underage drinking and hostility and mistreatment of women, up to and almost including date rape. But hey, there are people like that in the world, it's part of this complex relationship salad that I'll be exploring over the next month and a half.

Directed by Dylan Kidd (director of "Get a Job")

Also starring Campbell Scott (last seen in "Manhattan Night"), Jennifer Beals (ditto), Isabella Rossellini (last seen in "Conclave"), Elizabeth Berkley (last seen in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion"), Ben Shenkman (last seen in "The Trial of the Chicago 7"), Mina Badie (last seen in "The Anniversary Party"), Chris Stack, Morena Baccarin (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Lisa Emery (last seen in "Margot at the Wedding"), Flora Diaz, Stephanie Gatschet, Colin Fickes (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Tommy Savas, Gabriel Millman (last seen in "Being Flynn"), Libby Larson, Courtney Simon, Peter Appel (last seen in "Bad Education"), Ato Essandoh (last seen in "Reptile"), Michelle Six, Juliet Morgan

RATING: 5 out of 10 cigarettes smoked inside (boy, those were the days, huh?)

A Real Pain

Year 18, Day 31 - 1/31/26 - Movie #5,231

BEFORE: Last movie for January - I hesitate to call that a "perfect month" for movies, but really there's no such thing. Still, 31 days, 31 movies and they got me exactly where I need to be right now. Here's the format check:

12 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): The Games Maker, Rumours, Borderlands, The Naked Gun, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Friend, Black Death, Cleanskin, Living, Mickey 17, The Double, The Art of Self-Defense

7 watched on Netflix: Society of the Snow, The Penguin Lessons, The Thursday Murder Club, The Out-Laws, Fixed, A House of Dynamite, The Saint of Second Chances

6 watched on Amazon Prime: Black Bag, My Spy: The Eternal City, Walt Before Mickey, Heads of State, The Phoenician Scheme, Deep Cover
2 watched on Hulu: The Last Showgirl, Riff Raff

2 watched on YouTube: Daddy's Little Girls, A Real Pain
2 watched on Disney+: Freaky Friday (2003), Freakier Friday

31 TOTAL

It would have been one more for Hulu if they had JUST kept this film there, what the hell? It was on Hulu when I put it on the watchlist, why is it not there any more? Just keep everything where it is so I can find it again!  Now I had to pay a couple bucks to watch this on YouTube, what freakin' year is this? I'm paying for like three streaming services and you're going to pull my movies away from me before I can watch them? Son of a bitch. Sure, I could have just NOT watched this and moved on, but a plan is a plan and I have $3.99 in my budget. God damn it. 

Jesse Eisenberg carries over again from "The Art of Self-Defense". I'll post the February links tomorrow because Jesse's going to be with me for one more movie...

THE PLOT: Mismatched cousins reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother, but their old tensions resurface against the backdrop of their family history. 

AFTER: It was Holocaust Remembrance Day a few days ago (Jan. 27) so I maintain that the chain DOES know what it's doing, sure I could have swapped this one with "The Art of Self-Defense" and gotten it one day closer, but I was just never going to land it on the day itself. That's OK, points are awarded for at least getting close. This film tells the story of two cousins who visit their grandmother's homeland shortly after her death - she left them money for the trip, otherwise it's doubtful that Benji would have been able to cover the cost. This is called a heritage tour, one that visits concentration camps and noted sites commemorating the Warsaw Uprising and such. Hey, if that's how you want to spend your vacation time then no judgement here, but I think I'd rather go to the Caribbean, just saying - Grandma's not going to know if you go somewhere else, just saying. Really, they should pay YOU to go to Poland and visit the remnants of a concentration camp. 

But of course we're dealing with polar opposites represented in the two cousins, it's the "Odd Couple" formula, because two people of similar mind-sets doing something together is quite boring, there's room for conflict if you introduce opposing viewpoints and personalities and make them have to work together. Eisenberg originally wrote this story about two characters traveling to East Asia together, then saw the opportunity to re-write it and deal with his own family history and his own feelings about the Holocaust. How do we compare the depression and anxiety felt by today's millennials against the backdrop of a generation that dealt with so much more, war and horror and the attempted extinction of entire cultures? It's like comparing a hangnail to losing your entire hand - but does knowing that make people feel better or worse about their own petty hang-ups? I guess it's more like comparing your own hangnail against somebody else losing a hand.

So Benji is the free-spirited drifter, the burn-out, the wash-out, but also the artist and the one ruled by his emotions, while David is the pragmatic one, the married one, the one who has a job and some kind of life direction, however he's also riddled with anxiety and self-doubt and keeps his emotions on the inside. These are the two types of people, and they're going on this heritage tour together, what could POSSIBLY go wrong? I kind of thought that they'd get locked out on the hotel roof that first night they stepped out to smoke a joint, and then get stuck there and miss the whole tour - no, this isn't "The Hangover", so they did make the bus and they did go on the tour. 

They did, however, miss their stop on a train, and it was largely due exactly to the difference in their personalities - Benji didn't feel right sitting in first class, because his Jewish ancestors would have been unable to do so, also they would have been in the BACK of the train, crammed in on the way to the camps. Well, he's not wrong, he's just got Survivor's Guilt and it hits when it hits. So he leaves the first-class section, and David brings him food because that's who David is. Then David falls asleep and they miss their stop, because Benji wanted to let his cousin sleep, and that's who Benji is. David was very mad when he woke up, as they got off at the wrong stop and their luggage was still on the train - this forced the cousins to work together to find a solution to get back to the right stop, and thankfully the other tourists had kept track of their luggage. But they still made the tour wait several hours for them to catch up - didn't anyone have a cell phone that worked in Poland? 

The tour also includes an older couple from Ohio, a recent divorcee from California who just moved back to Brooklyn, and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who converted to Judaism, and it's led by James, a mild-mannered guide who's full of facts and figures and has maybe forgotten that history is about people, not facts. Benji at one point criticizes him for his coldness and inability to socialize, and you have to wonder if Benji's really mad at him because he's mad at his own cousin, or himself. That night Benji acts up during the group's communal dinner, and as a kind of apology, David reveals the complex nature of the relationship between the cousins. Benji was Grandma's favorite, but she was also extra hard on him because she knew he needed tough love - Benji also suffered an overdose after their grandmother's death, and David still hasn't forgiven him for this. It might be tough to say if that was a suicide attempt or not, but it doesn't matter, he can still be mad at him for taking drugs though. 

More perspective is gained by visiting the Majdanek camp, and then their grandmother's old house in Krasnystaw. Well, sort of, they tried, anyway. What's important is that the cousins got everything out in the open, dealt with how they've changed over time and the fact that David's always busy with his wife and son and they barely ever visit each other any more, and David had to get it out there, that he couldn't bear the thought of losing somebody with Benji's passion and charm to something as stupid as a drug overdose. We're not really sure what the long-term effect of this trip on the cousins is going to be, since Benji remained at the airport, surrounded by strangers. That's kind of an appalling lack of a resolution, isn't it? 

Most likely both characters here represent aspects of writer/director Eisenberg, with his internal conflict just split into two characters for the convenience of the audience - if this is true, then the film is kind of in the same category as "The Double", two people with opposing personalities, but essentially they are identical, or at least related and coming from the same place. But my guess is that Eisenberg contains both natures, the anxious and introspective one, and the outgoing and emotional artistic one. We all do, to some extent - and the setting was just a place for him to explore his own complicated thoughts and feelings about the Holocaust and being descended from immigrants. The first-gen Americans were hard workers so that the second-gen Americans could become doctors or lawyers, which enabled the third-gen Americans to become artists and live in their parents basements and smoke weed. Well, he's not wrong. 

Directed by Jesse Eisenberg

Also starring Kieran Culkin (last seen in "No Sudden Move"), Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey (last seen in "Bounce"), Kurt Egyiawan (last seen in "Beasts of No Nation"), Liza Sadovy (last seen in "Disobedience"), Daniel Oreskes (last seen in "Mountainhead"), Ellora Torchia (last seen in "Midsommer"), Banner Eisenberg, Jakub Gasowski, Krzysztof Jaszczak, Marek Kasprzyk

RATING: 6 out of 10 visitation stones