The Wings of the Dove

Year 18, Day 58 - 2/27/26 - Movie #5,258

BEFORE: It was a bit of a long road getting here, and I'm not even talking about this year's chain. This is one of the films that was on my old DVR, the one that crashed that I had to turn back in to the cable company, even though it was 75% full of movies. I lost over 45 movies that way, and some were easy to replace because they were still running on premium channels, but others were a bit rare and don't run very often, I think now there are maybe just 17 or 18 of those that I'm hoping get re-aired at some point. So I've been keeping an eye out for this one in the on-screen guide, but it hasn't popped up in the last year. I programmed it anyway, because it turned out this February to be one of those films that can serve as a valuable link to keep the chain going and make the connections between other films. So Ben Miles carries over from "Imagine Me & You" and this gets me one step closer to the end of the month. 

I got lucky with "Much Ado About Nothing", PBS aired it on a Saturday night about five days before I had it programmed - but I couldn't expect to get lucky like that twice this month. So I relegated myself to watching this on YouTube or iTunes and paying $1.99 or $2.99 for that, but I did get "lucky" of a sort in that this was available on Pluto TV, so I could watch it without paying for it, I just had to endure a few commercials and the occasional unexplained sudden jump to the middle of the movie "Mo' Money" or an episode of "NCIS". (Jeez, this movie is really hard to follow, this Victorian romance has suddenly turned into a crime show...). Anyway, I soldiered through and now I can move this film from the list of films I lost that need to be replaced to the list of films I've seen, but don't have a digital copy of. So I'm still on the hunt for it, but there's no pressure or urgency to find it. 

Let's get to the Day 16 line-up for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, this is for Saturday, February 28 and the theme is "Oscar Goes West". Well, I've seen a lot of Westerns, so here's hoping: 

5:15 am "Cimarron" (1931)

7:30 am "How the West Was Won" (1962)

10:30 am "Calamity Jane" (1953)

12:15 pm "Stagecoach" (1939)

2:00 pm "Red River" (1948)

4:30 pm "The Naked Spur" (1953)

6:15 pm "Broken Arrow" (1950)

8:00 pm "Shane" (1953)

10:15 pm "Hondo" (1953)

11:45 pm "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971)

2:00 am "The Wild Bunch" (1969)

4:30 am "Billy the Kid" (1941)

I think I've only seen four of these - "Stagecoach", "Shane", "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "The Wild Bunch", I guess that makes me a poser, I haven't seen most of the older ones. But I think I need to record "How the West Was Won", I've been putting it off for years and it's overdue. Now I just have to remember to set the DVR. This brings me up to 71 seen out of 178, which is 39.8% and I'm back down below the 40% benchmark. 

THE PLOT: A woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover befriends an American heiress. When she learns the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without. 

AFTER: The topic of relationships and romances is a hefty one - February is coming to an end but my chain is scheduled to drag into March, past St. Patrick's Day even. That's fine, the list of romance-themed films is so long that the more movies I can take off the list, the better. At the same time, I need to leave enough films ON the list, and the RIGHT films, so I can still put a chain together next year, God willing. Hey, if I can't, I can just do a short one and devote half of February to Black History films, there's always that option. But usually enough films that fit the theme come on the list between April and December, giving me enough to work with. But this year I also took care to choose some films that have been taking up space for a LONG time, like "Cousins", "Roger Dodger", and today's film. Films from the 1990's, they've got to GO, I can't put them off another year, this is like clearance sale time.  

With "The Wings of the Dove", there was this bit of a feeling, and it's not uncommon for me, to think, "Well, this film came out in 1997, surely I must have seen it then, or shortly thereafter, right? Well, I had no proof of that, because I only started rating films on IMDB in 2009, and so anything that's rated there when I sign in, I can confirm I've seen. Before that some things get a little hazy, because I'm 57 now, I can't be expected to remember every film I saw when I was in my 20's or 30's - my memory can't really be trusted, but you know, I might have seen "Much Ado About Nothing" before, but if I did, the plot sure didn't stick in my memory, and when I started watching it this week, I did NOT get that feeling of "Oh, wait, I've seen this one..." and I have to trust my gut sometimes. I also bought a lot of DVDs in the 1990's and a bunch of VHS tapes before that, so if I don't OWN a copy, that's another good sign that I haven't seen that film. Then once I started burning my own DVDs in 2004, I kept a database of everything I dubbed and burned, so if a film's not on that spreadsheet, chances are I haven't seen it.  

I double-checked and triple-checked, so I'm 99% sure I have not seen "The Wings of the Dove" before. I didn't know one thing about the plot, I didn't get that deja vu feeling when I started watching it, and it's not in the database, it's not rated on IMDB, and I don't have a copy on the shelf. Great, because it's exactly the film I need to connect to the next film and close out the month. What a relief, I don't have to scramble at the last minute and find something to replace it. Also, it kind of fits in with the other films this week, going back to "Love Again" there's been a bit of a common thread about deception, like Rob not telling Mira he's been getting the texts she was sending to her dead boyfriend, or the couple in "Love Punch" pretending to be Texan-Americans in order to steal a diamond. Don John causing Claudio to think that Hero was being unfaithful, or Rachel not telling her husband that she had feelings for Luce. That all works for me, having a theme for the week is always great. I mean, it can't be "Classics Week" if we only have one Shakespeare play and one Henry James novel, even if tomorrow is based on another classic book, that doesn't fill up the week. 

Anyway, the deception here in today's film involves Kate Croy setting up a rich American heiress with her own boyfriend, with the idea that if they should marry, he will inherit her money when she dies, and apparently she's got some kind of fatal illness that they couldn't cure back then. The film is set in 1910, when apparently everyone in London was hurting for money and desperate to not lose their castles or estates. To be fair, the wartime economy wouldn't hit for another couple of years, and larger families were still the norm, so if you weren't the first-born son you probably didn't inherit much, and you had to live in the smaller castle or (god forbid) the guest house on the manor. And that's it you were a man, for women it was even tougher, because it's not like a woman could hold a JOB or anything, heaven forbid, they were much too fragile then. JK, down with the patriarchy. 

Kate lives with her aunt Maud, who controls the family fortune, so Kate can't marry her lover Merton, a lowly journalist, because he doesn't meet Maud's standards. Maud would rather set Kate up with Lord Mark. Kate keeps seeing Merton secretly, however, and Merton begs her to leave her aunt and move in with him, but then she'd be cut off and they'd both be poor. Kate also learns that Maud is supporting her father by sending him a few shillings each week, and if she were to run off with Merton, Maud would also stop doing that, so for the sake of her father and to not be poor herself, Kate breaks up with Merton. 

A few months later, American heiress Milly comes through town, and forms a friendship with Kate, she even suggests that Kate come with her to her next stop, Venice. Lord Mark turns his attention to Milly because he's also running out of money, and if he were to marry Milly, that would vastly improve his situation. Lord Mark also reveals to Kate that Milly is very sick, and at this point Kate's gotten back together with Merton, so she hatches a plan to go to Venice with Milly, and since Milly seems to enjoy Merton's company, bring him along so that Milly will fall in love with him and leave her money to him when she passes. 

However, Kate didn't plan on becoming jealous when watching Milly and Merton together. Kate lures Merton away one night to have sex with him, but Milly somehow suspects something, so Kate decides she needs to leave them together in Venice but return to London herself. The plan is going well until Lord Mark shows up and reveals the scheme to Milly - Kate must have told Lord Mark, but why? Milly still prefers Merton to Lord Mark, even after she knows about the plan, so it seems that without Kate around, the love between Merton and Milly became much more real, and you know, that can happen. But still Milly dies and leaves her money to Merton, so the plan worked, at least at first glance. 

It all gets wrecked after the funeral, when Kate comes back to Merton's apartment and confirms that Milly did leave him a large amount of money. But Merton says he won't take the money, and if Kate wants to be with him, she must marry him without the money. Kate agrees to this, but only if Merton can tell her that he's not still in love with the memory of Milly. Which of course he is, the fake love became real love and so Kate learns that her scheme has completely backfired. Now she can't have the money and she can't have Merton, not the way she wants him, anyway. I think we can assume Kate thought that once Milly died and Merton had some money, either he'd be a more respectable husband that Maud would approve of, or at least he could support Kate if Maud didn't approve. 

This is sort of reminiscent of that O. Henry story where the man buys his wife beautiful combs and she busy him a beautiful chain for his watch - only he sold his watch to buy her the combs and she sold her hair to buy him the chain. Nobody gets what they want - but at least here this happens to people who deserve it, it's bad karma coming back at them for trying to swindle Milly out of her money. 

Well, I guess it's not a total loss, I mean Merton still has his newspaper job, he'll probably be very busy once World War I breaks out - and Kate has still got a chance at getting money from her Aunt Maud, if she's willing to marry the right man and make his life miserable and very long. And maybe they both learned a lesson about not swindling Americans out of their money, it only leads to everybody being unhappy. 

Directed by Iain Softley (director of "Hackers" and "Inkheart")

Also starring Helena Bonham Carter (last seen in "Enola Holmes 2"), Alison Elliott (last seen in "The Phenom"), Linus Roache (last seen in "The Namesake"), Elizabeth McGovern (last seen in "A Shock to the System"), Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "Cleanskin"), Michael Gambon (last seen in "King of Thieves"), Alex Jennings (last seen in "The Phoenician Scheme"), Philip Wright, Alexander John (last seen in "Sense and Sensibility"), Shirley Chantrell (last seen in "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life"), Diana Kent (last seen in "Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker"), Georgio Serafini, Rachele Crisafulli,

RATING: 6 out of 10 pornographic etchings in the back of the bookstore

Imagine Me & You

Year 18, Day 57 - 2/26/26 - Movie #5,257

BEFORE: Another storm, another cable/internet outage, another two Nets games and another two difficult treks home late at night. I've got the day off tomorrow so I plan to sleep until noon, I've got a big weekend coming up with the New York International Children's Film Festival starting up on Saturday. Maybe tomorrow, Friday, I'll watch a double-feature to finish off the month because I'll be working all day Saturday.  

Gerard Horan carries over from "Much Ado About Nothing". And here's the line-up for Day 15 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", tomorrow we'll be past the halfway point. The themes for Friday, February 27 are "Oscar Goes to Sea" and "Oscar Goes to Court": 

6:30 am "Captains Courageous" (1937)

8:30 am "One Way Passage" (1932)

9:45 am "Romance on the High Seas" (1948)

11:30 am "Now, Voyager" (1942)

1:30 pm "The Last Voyage" (1960)

3:15 pm "Billy Budd" (1962)

5:30 pm "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935)

8:00 pm "12 Angry Men" (1957)

9:45 pm "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957)

12:00 am "Judgment at Nuremberg" (1961)

3:15 am "Adam's Rib" (1949)

I think I'm hitting for 5 today, "Now, Voyager", "Mutiny on the Bounty", "12 Angry Men ", "Witness for the Prosecution" and "Adam's Rib".  So 5 seen out of 11 is almost half, and brings me up to 67 seen out of 166, or 40.3% - yeah I didn't expect a big increase. 

THE PLOT: A newlywed bride becomes infatuated with another woman who questions her sexual orientation, promoting a stir among the bride's family and friends. 

AFTER: This movie is bound to be triggering for me to some degree - I almost don't have to watch this because I kind of LIVED it, my first wife came out of the closet after we'd been married for four years, and at first it seemed like maybe we could make something work, like she swore up and down that realizing this about herself wasn't going to change anything, but that's pretty ridiculous because that itself represented a very big change, so you know, too late. We tried to hold it together for another year (OK, I tried) but then it just wasn't going to work, was it? To continue to be with me would mean denying that new part of herself that she was just getting in touch with, and you know, the cat's out of the bag or the bird's out of the cage or the toothpaste is out of the tube, and really there's no going back. 

I know, I know, we're supposed to celebrate when people come out, or finally realize their sexual identity or whatever you want to call it, and generally I agree with that, I support people coming out and being their true selves or finding unconventional love and all that, but it's a bit different when you're the straight husband being left behind, or essentially being told by the person who wanted you as a lover now has a new plan and you're not part of it. If you think it's tough to be the person in the middle of the love triangle, try being just one of the corners and the losing one at that. The married woman who suddenly realizes she's gay, or bi-sexual, or bi-curious is in a difficult spot, of course, she has to think about what other people are going to say if she leaves her husband in order to have a girlfriend or a wife. If she's lucky she'll have support from family and friends, advice from a therapist or what have you, just don't expect support from the husband, that's all. 

Heck, the husband here, knows he's lost the battle and steps aside, because he doesn't want to stand in the way of Rachel following her heart, realizing her true nature or at least exploring this new opportunity - and really, that's the only way this story could proceed, if Rachel acted on her attraction to Luce and then suddenly had to STOP feeling that way about her, then she'd be denying herself with every day she continues to stay with Heck, and the balance of power has already shifted, it's too late for Heck to fix things, because Rachel's going to regret staying with Heck, for sure, and if she doesn't pursue Luce, she will always question whether she should have. 

Sure, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Sure, the path not taken always seems a bit more attractive than the safe, boring one you took, get it? There's also the possibility that getting married WAS the trigger, as soon as Rachel took those vows and said "forsake all others" and "until death do we part", that's a bit too final for some people. Rachel maybe felt the walls closing in on the day of the ceremony, and Luce the florist was RIGHT THERE, looking like she looks, right around the time she was forced to wear a white dress and state publicly that she was never going to have sex with anyone else. An impossible situation has been created, as this film describes the conundrum about an unstoppable force meeting with an unmovable object.  Well, that's a contradictory thing, because something has to give, either the object is going to move or the force is going to be stopped. 

Still, this movie was released in 2005, it's twenty years old and I think it's already antiquated in the simplicity of the situation. The solutions here are binary, Rachel either stays with Heck or runs off with Luce. Why are those the only two options? These days we have people who are bi-sexual, trans-sexual, a-sexual, and poly-sexual. There are thrupples and presumably quadrupples too, there's no longer just one way to live, it used to be you're either married or you're single, gay or straight, and there was no in-between. These days you can make your own  in-between if you want, or just not play the game at all - figuring out what works for you can be part of the process. What if Rachel decided she wanted to live 6 months out of the year with Heck and then 6 months with Luce, would that be so outrageous? It probably wouldn't be fair to either Heck or Luce, but still, saying that she has to choose between one or the other seems like it maybe needs to go in the trash-bin with "gays can't get married". 

I was for gay marriage when it was a hot-button issue, I know some people might be surprised by that, but only on the condition that there also be gay divorce. Just like it wasn't fair when straight people could get married and gay people couldn't, it wouldn't be fair if gay people didn't have to suffer the same consequences as straights when things didn't work out. Hell, that was probably a whole new cottage industry for divorce lawyers, gay separations and gay custody battles and gay alimony, presumably. Fair is fair. 

Anyway, I knew how this one was going to end pretty soon after it started. Luce was acting as "the fun one" and Heck was always working. Once Rachel and Luce went out to the footy match and played "Dance Dance Revolution" together, there was no going back. But Luce said she didn't believe in breaking up a marriage to get a woman, but I guess that went right out the window because she sure seemed like she was eager to take that opportunity if she could. I know, I know, it's complicated and we all have to weigh our own happiness against the rules as we see them. But we also all have to live with ourselves and the consequences of our own actions, just saying. If someone's sexual orientation truly doesn't matter, just ask yourself if you're rooting for Rachel to leave her husband for a woman harder than you would if she were leaving her husband for another man. 

Directed by Ol Parker (director of "Ticket to Paradise" and "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again")

Also starring Piper Perabo (last seen in "Because I Said So"), Lena Headey (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Matthew Goode (last seen in "Stoker"), Celia Imrie (last seen in "The Love Punch"), Anthony Head (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters"), Darren Boyd (last seen in "Alan Partridge"), Sue Johnston, Boo Jackson, Sharon Horgan (last seen in "Man Up"), Eva Birthistle (last seen in "Brooklyn"), Vinette Robinson (last seen in Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker"), Ben Miles (last seen in "Speed Racer"), John Thompson, Mona Hammond (last seen in "Kinky Boots"), Kellie Bright (ditto), Rick Warden (last seen in "Death on the Nile"), Ruth Sheen (last seen in "The Thursday Murder Club"), Philip Bird (last seen in "Napoleon"), Justine Mitchell (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Angel Coulby, Ben Willbond (last seen in "King of Thieves"), Krishan Naidoo, Sharon Duncan-Brewster (last seen in "Enola Holmes 2"), James Thorne, Tom McKay, Andrew Dunford (last seen in "The Borrowers" (1997)), Carl M. Smith, Carolyn Morrison,

RATING: 5 out of 10 adult films in the video rental section

Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Year 18, Day 56 - 2/25/26 - Movie #5,256

BEFORE: How about this for timing, I had put this film on my list at the start of the year, because it seemed to be a film that could serve a function, I already had two films with Emma Thompson on the romance list (OK, 3, but it looked like I couldn't put them all together in a row) so I needed another film to serve as the outro for "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande". At the time this film was only on streaming, on a couple services like Pluto and Roku, easy enough for me to watch it. But THEN it got programmed for the WNET/13 "Saturday Night at the Movies" block for LAST WEEKEND, just in time for me to record it and then have it handy on the DVR, which meant I could watch it in the comfort of the recliner in the living room, and not at my desk upstairs, where the computer is. I mean I was going to watch it today either way, but it's very nice of the universe to make it easier for me. So Emma Thompson carries over again from "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande". 

By no means is this a last-minute drop-in, this is just one of those films that you keep on the "someday/maybe" list not because you're in a hurry to watch it, but because you never know, there could be a need to quickly connect the ends of two smaller chains in order to make a larger one and complete the month. It would have been a bigger coincidence if TCM were showing something written by The Bard today, only that wasn't in the cards. 

But here's the schedule for day 14 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, the themes for Thursday, February 26 are "Oscar Goes on Strike" and "Oscar Goes to Italy":  

10:00 am "Black Fury" (1935)

11:45 am "The Organizer" (1963)

2:00 pm "The Valley of Decision" (1945)

4:00 pm "Harlan County U.S.A." (1976)

6:00 pm "On the Waterfront" (1954)

8:00 pm "Roman Holiday" (1953)

10:15 pm "A Room With a View" (1985)

12:30 am "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999)

3:00 am "Death in Venice" (1971)

5:15 am "Indiscretion of an American Wife" (1953)

Jeez, I've never even HEARD of some of these films. How am I supposed to have watched these films if they're totally off the radar. Not for nothing, but who plans a program of films about people going on strike and leaves out "Norma Rae"? This is some B.S. because I've only seen 5 of these, and I'm counting "Death in Venice" because they made me watch that in junior high. I've also seen "On the Waterfront", "Roman Holiday", "A Room With a View" and "The Talented Mr. Ripley". So 5 seen out of 10 brings me up to 62 seen out of 155, which is exactly 40%.

THE PLOT: Young lovers Claudio and Hero, soon to wed, conspire to get verbal sparring partners and confirmed singles, Benedick and Beatrice, to wed as well. 

AFTER: Some more coincidental timing - Emma Thompson was on "Late Show" Monday night answering the Colbert Questionert, but our cable was out, so I didn't get to see that until tonight, right after "Much Ado About Nothing". Even MORE coincidental timing, the same day I'm reviewing a Shakespeare film, I had to work a screening of "Hamnet" at the theater. Sure, I know one is based on a play and the other is based on Shakespeare's life, but still, I'll take it as a sign that I'm in the right place, watching the right movie. Sure, I'd love to watch "Hamnet" but it doesn't fit into my chain right now and anyway, I'll be working during the screening. 

Of course, this film was made back when Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson were married to each other, they were kind of the "it" couple of British indie films back in the 1990's. What's weird to me is that hardly anyone seems to remember this - of course, they've both moved on and they've both had long careers in the film business, but separately after making a bunch of films together. Another weird thing is that both of them came to the theater where I work, separately but within a couple months of each other - Branagh was there to promote his film "Belfast" and after that, Ms. Thompson showed up at a screening of "Matilda", the remake film which was based on the stage musical, which in turn was based on the movie which was based on a book. I think I was the only one who worked both of those shifts, and again, nobody else seemed to notice or care about this, it was just another gift from the universe to me. 

Anyway, let's get on to "Much Ado About Nothing", whose title may be a play on words, with the now-archaic word "noting" which meant gossip or rumor - there is a wedding that becomes undone due to a false rumor, which means an accusation that turned out to be nothing, but before it was proven to be nothing there was a lot of ado, or fuss about it. At the start of the play, a group of soldiers return to Messina, Italy (Tuscany in the film) and immediately all of the men bathe and the women shower, you know, as you do. It's a little weird that then men all bathe together in a pool and the women shower in a big collective shower, but you know, it was a different time. Individual shower stalls came along much later, so really it was all a big naked fun-fest and nobody cared - except PBS, who apparently felt the need to blur all the butts, and there were a LOT, just as many butts as there are characters, all bathing together, nothing weird about that at all. I suppose today if you saw a bunch of naked men together in a pool or a large group of women in a big shower you might draw some different conclusions. I imagine in the 1990's there might have been some big fuss over screening this film for junior high students, what with all the bathing nudity. Much Ado About Butt-things?

But once everyone's all cleaned up, romantic possibilities emerge. One of the soldiers, Claudio, is attracted to Hero, the daughter of the governor (mayor?) of the town. Don Pedro, the prince just back from the war, thinks they'd make a great couple, while Benedick, a lord and soldier, is against all marriages, they're not for him. Anyway, Don Pedro suggests a masked ball, during which he will woo the young lady Hero, disguised as Claudio, and then step back and let the couple get married. Evil Don Jon, Don Pedro's brother, gets inside Claudio's head, however, and suggests that Don Pedro's really going to woo Hero for himself, and suddenly everything is in doubt. Never fear, Don Pedro is true to his word, Hero doesn't mind that one man danced with her and now she gets to marry a different man. Wow, Pedro must have REALLY talked up Claudio, or Hero must be that desperate. 

Meanwhile, Benedick endures sarcastic comments during the masked ball from Beatrice, who is Leonato's niece and therefore Hero's cousin. One might suspect that even though Benedick was in disguise, she really knew who she was talking to, and she probably found it funny to insult Benedick right to his face. Anyway, these two have had a war of words going on for years, so they either genuinely hate each other or are secretly in love, or, you know, maybe a bit of both. Since it's a few days to the wedding, everyone decides to have a bit of fun and so the guys go where they know Benedick can hear them and start talking about how Beatrice secretly loves him, and the female characters do the same thing, they go where Beatrice can hear them and talk about how madly in love with her Benedick is. This is just crazy enough to work, both people enjoy hearing about how another person loves them, and they resolve to stop arguing and get together to see if they can get along and love each other. Wow, that was pretty easy!

But then comes the nasty stuff, Don John has his associate, Borachio, go to Hero's bedroom and start making out with Hero's chambermaid, who he sees on the regular. Don John tells Don Pedro and Claudio that Hero has been "disloyal" and when they check it out, they see Borachio making out with the maid (who happens to be Hero's size and have the same hair color) with Borachio screaming out Hero's name. So Claudio's pretty sure that Hero's no longer a virgin and also not really worthy of marrying. 

It's a scene at the wedding the next day, because Claudio calls Hero unfaithful in front of absolutely everyone, and he storms off with Don Pedro. Hero faints and her father, Leonato, expresses his disappointment, wishing her dead. But the friar still believes that Hero is innocent, and suggests that the family fake Hero's death from shame so that Claudio will be remorseful and, I don't know, change his mind or something.  Meanwhile, the stress of the wedding causes Benedick and Beatrice to declare their love for each other, however Beatrice asks Benedick to prove his love by killing Claudio, the man who she says has disgraced her cousin with a lie about her morals before calling off the wedding. 

Meanwhile, the local Watch who are a bit inept, and led by the even more inept constable, Dogberry) overhear Borachio and his buddy bragging about the "treason" and "deception" that they pulled off, without really getting into details. So the Watch arrest them, with the goal of figuring out exactly what they did at a later time - but really, they need to arrest them while they can, and they'll never get a better chance. Through use of a town official asking the right questions, they (eventually) determine what these two did that was so wrong and report their findings to Leonato - well, their confession does prove Hero's innocence and Claudio's understandable misunderstanding over what he saw, so Leonato sees a way to move forward with the wedding, after Claudio expresses his regret over accusing Hero and causing her death from shame, Leonato says Claudio can marry his niece, who is nearly Hero's "identical cousin". 

Claudio agrees, but of course that isn't Hero's cousin, it's the very alive Hero herself. Everybody wins out, except the evil Don John who left town. They send some soldiers out to catch him, but they've got a wedding to get back to!  Actually two weddings, because Benedick and Beatrice now want to get married, too, and Benedick no longer has to kill Claudio for causing Hero's death because she's back alive again, or really never died in the first place. Hooray and hey, nonny nonny, whatever that means. 

I remember that back in the 1990's, Mr. Branagh was kind of working his way through making films of all the Shakespeare plays, I know he got to "Hamlet", "Othello" and "Henry V" but I don't think he got around to ALL of them, that would be quite impossible. But he made a few with Ms. Thompson while they were together. Emma Thompson's mum also had a role here, it was kind of a family thing, I guess.  Maybe when the couple split up or Branagh realized how many plays Shakespeare wrote, his attention turned to making different kinds of films.  I guess after "Macbeth" in 2013 he needed a new muse and turned his talents toward filming Agatha Christie novels instead. Well, it's all good work if you can get it. 

Directed by Kenneth Branagh (director of "A Haunting in Venice" and "Belfast")

Also starring Kenneth Branagh (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Robert Sean Leonard (last seen in "The Age of Innocence"), Kate Beckinsale (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Denzel Washington (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Keanu Reeves (last seen in "A Scanner Darkly"), Richard Briers (last seen in "The V.I.P.s"), Michael Keaton (last seen in "Game 6"), Gerard Horan (last seen in "Belfast"), Imelda Staunton (last heard in "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget"), Brian Blessed (last seen in "Alexander"), Ben Elton, Jimmy Yuill (last seen in "Artemis Fowl"), Richard Clifford (last seen in "Carrington"), Phyllida Law (last heard in "Nanny McPhee"), Patrick Doyle (last seen in "Effie Gray"), Andy Hockley, Chris Barnes, Conrad Nelson, Alex Lowe (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Alex Scott, Edward Jewesbury (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons").

RATING: 7 out of 10 white dressing gowns (this is apparently what all the women wore while they were trying to decide what to wear, but then everybody gave up and just wore that same gown, all the time)

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Year 18, Day 55 - 2/24/26 - Movie #5,255

BEFORE: After the previous snowstorm that hit the tri-state area, we lost power in several rooms for a few days - now we've been hit with an even bigger storm and so far we've kept our power, but we lost our internet and cable. Whose bright idea was it to have those two things come from the same provider?  I can't continue to do this without both cable AND internet, I mean I could watch the movies that are already in my possession and on the non-popular DVD format, but the chain often needs streaming if it's going to continue. Also, the DVR I have won't even access the movies that it already recorded unless the entire system is working, someone really should be fired for designing a system that bad. I mean the movie is THERE, recorded on THIS device right in front of me, and I can't watch it because of an outage?  That's an epic design flaw, right? I should at least be able to turn the unit on and watch the digital files on it while the main system is down, but that's not where we find ourselves. If my internet is down, I can still listen to all my music via iTunes, because all the files live on my computer. Just saying. 

Emma Thompson carries over from "The Love Punch", and she'll be here tomorrow, too, at which point we're going to be faced with an 8-way tie of actors with four appearances, so that means there's no clear leader this year, we'll have to wait to see if any of them pop up frequently during the Doc Block - probably Bill Murray, given the way things are going with my documentary field tests.

Here's the line-up for Day 13 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", for Wednesday, 2/25. The two themes are "Oscar Goes Back for Even More (Remakes)" and "Oscar Goes to Church". Oh, great...

7:00 am "The Merry Widow" (1952)

9:00 am "Cimarron" (1960)

11:30 am "The Sea Hawk" (1940)

1:45 pm "Little Women" (1949)
4:00 pm "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1941)

6:00 pm "Waterloo Bridge" (1940)

8:00 pm "Going My Way" (1944)

10:15 pm "Elmer Gantry" (1960)

1:00 am "A Man for All Seasons" (1966)
3:15 am "The Shoes of the Fisherman" (1968)

6:00 am "Hallelujah" (1929)

8:00 am "One Foot in Heaven" (1941)

Damn again, I've only seen two of these, "Elmer Gantry" and "A Man for All Seasons". That's not great, now I stand at 57 seen out of 145, and I've ducked down below 40% to 39.3%.  These are the only versions of "Little Women" and "Dr. Jekyll" that I have not watched, but one of those is on my list.  

THE PLOT: A retired school teacher is yearning for some adventure, and some sex. She has a plan, which involves hiring a young sex worker named Leo Grande. 

AFTER: Well, this is a twist on the typical person-hires-sex-worker or "hooker with a heart of gold" movies, because it features a woman hiring the services of a male prostitute. (Is "sex worker" really better than "prostitute"? I'm not sure...) The circumstances dictate that this is an older woman, someone who has not had sex in a long while, not since her husband died, anyway, and even before that, the sex wasn't that great, you know, because they were married a long time ago, things were different back then, also, they were British, so that's like a triple whammy of bad sex, I guess. 

"Nancy" (not her real name) is very nervous in her first encounter with Leo, and then the second time they get together, she's more clinical, as in she's got a checklist of sexual things she's never done that she wants to get to. Well, sure, if you take away the romantic part then it's just a series of specific actions, positions to try and boxes to tick, err, so to speak. But that's taking all the fun out of it, isn't it? Leo understands this and tries to get Nancy where she wants to go, but by using dancing to music, and touching, and asking questions about her life, not just letting her try oral sex on a guy with no build-up. 

If it's a bit cliché to depict an older British woman who never had an orgasm during sex with her husband, it's even more cliché to assume that someone is doing sex work because they failed at everything else, or because they were screwed up sexually in the past and are working through some things. Yet the latter is also where we find ourselves, obviously "Leo Grande" isn't this guy's real name either, but when Nancy does a little cyber-sleuthing in-between their encounters and figures out his real name, that's like a betrayal, a definite no-no in this relationship, which was supposed to be somewhat professional and also completely anonymous. 

The tables get turned during their final meeting, because Becky, the waitress in the hotel cafe, recognizes Nancy as her former R.E. teacher back in high school. I had to look that one up - "R.E." stands for "Religious Education" and apparently that's a part of the curriculum in the U.K., since they don't have the same separation of church and state as we do, the government runs the Anglican church and so it's worked right into the school system. Parents can apparently opt their students out of R.E. but probably very few people do. Anyway the waitress obviously knows Nancy's real name, and then Nancy feels the need to apologize to Becky, for telling her that it was wrong for girls to dress like sluts and to behave morally upright at all times. Well, Nancy never really knew that she was going to hire a sex worker in the future, did she? 

Despite a few bumps in the road, these encounters do change both participants for the better - Nancy still has some way to go on her sexual journey, but Leo has proven that the journey is worth taking - and even though Leo didn't want Nancy's help or advice when it came to re-connecting with his family, he does reveal at the end that he has been in touch with his brother, although not his mother, who basically has disowned him. This turned out to be a very simple story, but you know, sometimes all you need to make a movie is two actors and a hotel room.

This film premiered at Sundance in 2022, which of course is a January thing, and then it was nominated for four BAFTAs, which I think is a February thing - so very seasonally timely. A couple of the later sex scenes reminded me of the one Emma Thompson did in a movie called "The Tall Guy" with Jeff Goldblum back in the day - of course, in that one an upright piano was involved. I guess maybe it was just that the same actress held her arms above her head the same way while she was having a certain kind of sex...

Directed by Sophie Hyde

Also starring Daryl McCormack (last seen in "Twisters"), Isabella Laughland (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Les Mabaleka, Lennie Beare, Carina Lopes, Charlotte Ware.

RATING: 6 out of 10 school essays copied from Wikipedia

The Love Punch

Year 18, Day 54 - 2/23/26 - Movie #5,254

BEFORE: Well, I was going to record "Das Boot" but then of course I went downstairs to record it on the DVR, and I promptly forgot. So I'll have to catch it next time around - I'm a little more focused right now on scanning through some documentaries so that when it comes time to put that chain together, I'll know exactly what order to put all the films in. I guess my brain can only handle one thing at a time these days. Celia Imrie carries over from "Love Again".

Here's the line-up for Day 12 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", and we'll be at the halfway point very soon - the themes for tomorrow, Tuesday 2/24 are "Oscar Goes Down in History" and "Oscar Goes Back for More (Remakes)":

5:00 am "Disraeli" (1929)

6:30 am "Viva Villa!" (1934)

8:30 am "Rasputin and the Empress" (1932)

10:45 am "The Private Life of Henry VIII" (1933)
12:30 pm "Marie Antoinette" (1938)

3:15 pm "Julius Caesar" (1953)

5:30 pm "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960)

8:00 pm "Gaslight" (1944)

10:00 pm "Imitation of Life" (1959)

12:15 am "The Magnificent Seven" (1960)
2:30 am "A Star Is Born" (1976)

5:00 am "Showboat" (1951)

I've seen the movies about Henry VIII and Julius Caesar, plus I've seen "Gaslight" and the final three here, so that's 6 seen out of 12, which I think counts as a "push" - so that brings me up to 55 seen out of 133, which still raises me up a bit to 41.3%.

THE PLOT: A divorced couple scheme to recover the retirement money that was stolen from them. 

AFTER: Well, this wanted to be both a romance film and a heist film AND a comedy, and just maybe that's a few too many things to try to be at once, if you know what I mean. The lead characters are a divorced couple, so they already know each other a bit TOO well, and it kind of feels like they come together both for the heist and because all of their other options with other lovers have come to naught, but is that really enough of a reason to get back together? Don't get me wrong, I like both of them and they're very cute together, but they're already in the post-marriage era of familiarity, so lying to each other is sort of like the default position, and well, that's not cool.  Part of the reason that Kate agrees to go with her ex-husband Richard to the south of France is that she's been texting with a Frenchman, a potential suitor who just happens to live near where they're going. 

The other reasons for her to go include the fact that she speaks a little French (very little, it turns out...) and also it's HER retirement money too that's at risk, her husband's pension is one of many that got stolen, but his income pays for their house, where she lives, so she's got a vested interest there in terms of not being homeless. The pension thing I don't really understand - hell, I don't understand my own pension, and I've got like three retirement accounts from companies I worked for over the years, and overall I don't know how much money is in them or how to access them when I need to. I should probably look into that at some point. But Richard's company got bought and shut down, and therefore he and his co-workers lose their pensions? I'm not sure how that worked, I figure the pension funds are usually held by a separate company that everyone invested in, and even if they company changed hands those pension funds should still be safe, right?  

But I guess they pointed out here that the French businessman who bought the company may have been corrupt and stolen the funds somehow, along with closing down the company legally and liquidizing all of the assets for himself. It seems like it all should be illegal, but according to him, it's not. Then again, the Supreme Court just told our President that he has no rights to levy tariffs on international business at 10% across the board, and his response was to increase all the tariffs to 15%. Well, I guess it's all in the wording, if SCOTUS said that his tariff rate was illegal, he did change the rate, so he's in the clear?  Anyway, we're all going to find out at some point that Trump and Musk stole all the money set aside for Social Security, plus all the gold from Fort Knox, so really, none of us are going to be able to retire, we'll all be in the same boat as Richard and Kate here. 

But while they're in France, they learn that this corrupt businessman, Vincent, is about to get married to his girlfriend, Manon AND they figure he's also the mystery buyer who just bought this giant diamond at an auction as a wedding gift. So they put aside the fact that they're not criminal masterminds of any kind and they hatch a plan to attend the wedding, steal the diamond and either ransom it back for the retirement fund money, or just fence it on the black market for a possible greater value.  They enlist the help of another couple, Penelope and Jerry, and together they're going to kidnap these two businessmen from Texas who are guests at the wedding and impersonate them - all you really need to look like a Texan is a cowboy hat, right? And so now we're talking about possible kidnapping charges, on top of diamond theft, breaking and entering, in addition to crashing the wedding, which is probably some form of trespassing. It's a lot of crime for four normal people to do, even if one of them used to be James Bond. 

Even with their son doing some "hacking" for them (probably best not to dive too deep into this) is this believable? Not in the slightest. These are regular older people who probably have trouble charging their phones, or figuring out Zoom calls, really what chance do they have of pulling this off? Kate first infiltrates the bride's "hen party", pretending to be a second cousin of the groom who she's never met - and she learns a lot about how the reception is going to work, especially when Manon is going to change clothes and put the big diamond on for the reception.  Things go south when Manon enters the room and breaks down crying before they can steal the diamond and replace it with the fake one (Umm, how and when did they get a copy of the world's biggest diamond? NITPICK POINT.) 

It's a chance for the couple to confide in the bride about why they're really there, and what kind of a terrible man she's about to marry. Really all they want is the diamond, but in addition the bride calls off the wedding, and Vincent is so upset that he shuts down the affair and has security search everyone for the missing diamond before they're allowed to leave. This is where the other couple comes in, because Jerry's ability to smuggle contraband out inside his body turned out to be really handy (no, not like THAT, he swallows it) and the evil businessman sends Richard and Kate away in a van to be killed, but the bride again comes to their rescue before the van can be driven off a cliff. 

It's just a bit of fun tonight, the film's not going to win any Best Screenplay Awards, but a heist is always a great example of the "What Can Possibly Go Wrong?" writing mantra, with the answer being absolutely everything. And it's being allowed to stay in the romance chain because of the possible re-kindling of the romance between the divorced people. But it's definitely "save the pension funds" first and then worry about the rekindled romance later. Still, getting back together wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for these two people.

Directed by Joel Hopkins (director of "Hampstead" and "Last Chance Harvey")

Also starring Emma Thompson (last seen in "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "Black Bag"), Timothy Spall (last seen in "The Pale Blue Eye"), Louise Bourgoin, Laurent Lafitte (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Marisa Berenson (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Olivier Chantreau, Ellen Thomas (last seen in "Johnny English Reborn"), Tuppence Middleton (last seen in "Cleanskin"), Jack Wilkinson, Adam Byron, John Ramm (last seen in "6 Days"), Eleanor Matsuura (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), Bruce MacEwen (last seen in "The Brothers Grimm"), Christophe Prevost (last seen in "Life" (1999)), Sabine Crossen (last seen in "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald"), Liz Coke, Max Hayter, Anna Brooke, Linda Hardy, Tom Morton, Sinan Bertrand, Jordan Jones, Spencer Kayden, Samantha Kelly

RATING: 5 out of 10 cans of champagne

Love Again

Year 18, Day 53 - 2/22/26 - Movie #5,253

BEFORE: It's Sunday and the blizzard has hit, so I'm housebound again - but this allows me to watch a rare DAYTIME movie and then catch up again, as Nick Jonas carries over from "You're Cordially Invited". 

Over on TCM, it's day 10 of "31 Days of Oscar", but let's look at the line-up for Day 11, Monday, 2/23, and the two themes are "Oscar Goes to the Islands" and then "Oscar Goes to the Dogs": 

7:30 am "White Shadows in the South Seas" (1928)

9:15 am "All the Brothers Were Valiant" (1953)

11:15 am "Gulliver's Travels" (1939)

12:45 pm "Robinson Crusoe" (1954)

2:30 pm "Hawaii" (1966)

5:15 pm "South Pacific" (1958)

8:00 pm "Lassie Come Home" (1943)

9:45 pm "Come Back, Little Sheba" (1952)

11:30 pm "The Awful Truth" (1937)

1:15 am "Umberto D." (1952)

3:00 am "Sounder" (1972)

OK, I suppose if you get snowed in tomorrow you can do a lot worse than watch a few films set in Hawaii or the South Pacific. But really, who picked these movies, because most of them are ones I wouldn't even want to watch. That means I'm only hitting with one today, I've seen "South Pacific" and now my stats will drop again. 1 seen out of 11 brings me to 49 seen out of 121, and that's just over 40%. I should do a bit better on Tuesday. I have not recorded any of TCM's films yet, but I think I will record "Das Boot", one of the "Oscar Goes to War" films, because I've never been able to cross that film off my list, and maybe this is my chance. 

THE PLOT: A young woman tries to ease the pain of her fiancé's death by sending texts to his old cell phone number, and forms a connection with the man the number has been reassigned to.

AFTER: It's a new world out there, technologically speaking, and I think in the last couple of weeks I've seen a lot of that reflected in the romance films that are only a year or two old - the bar pick-up scene of "Roger Dodger" is essentially gone, replaced by the online dating and text flirting seen in "Puppy Love" and "Cat Person". Man, and things are SO easy for screenwriters now, if they want to get two people to meet all they have to do is have them join an app, or have another character who is their friend do that for them, and boom, we're off to the races. No more writer's block over questions like "How are these two characters going to meet?"  Well, duh, they just joined the same app and one swiped right on the other one's picture, or the software's parameters said they'd be a good match. By comparison, yesterday's chance meeting that came about through an accidental double-booking at a wedding venue seems like such a total stretch - to say nothing of meeting somebody when he's the union rep at the Minnesota yogurt factory that you just got put in charge of...

But in that vein, I now have to take a look at "Love Again", which allows two people who no longer believe in romantic love meet by chance when he's assigned a new company cell phone, and right after that, the girlfriend of the dead boyfriend who USED to have that phone number starts texting it as a form of therapy. Right. Mira didn't do this for two whole years, and then as soon as Rob gets that phone number, she starts texting it? I have to call B.S. on this - if she'd done this before, texting a "dead" number the texts wouldn't have gone through - but this leads me to a NITPICK POINT, wouldn't she see that the texts are being marked as "delivered" or "read", and wouldn't that seem a little odd, that the texts sent to a dead person are being read? 

Mira's obviously still grieving, after two years, but come on, she did watch as her boyfriend was hit by a car, two years doesn't even seem like enough time to get over that, which it clearly isn't. But Rob's been through another kind of grief, where he was engaged and his fiancée called off the wedding, very publicly, and so he's also determined that love is a delusion that is shared by two people who are using it so they don't have to face the reality that everyone dies and every relationship ends at some point. Well, he's not exactly wrong, but this is a rather bleak way to view the world of the hoo-mans. Rob gleans enough information from Mira's texts about her upcoming date to determine where she's going to be, and he even GOES there so he can figure out who's been sending him these texts, and find out if they're just spam or a catfishing exercise or what. To his credit, he never answered any of her texts, but maybe he should have?  You know, just say, "Excuse me, wrong number, clearly you're hurting and trying to talk to your dead boyfriend, but I'm not him, so please update your list of contacts. 

Instead, he's intrigued and also he finds Mira beautiful, so when he learns that one of her texts is a reference to the opera about Orpheus, he goes to that opera every night in the hopes that she will show up, and eventually he does. This is very stalker-y, sure, but he does at least gain an appreciation for opera from doing this, and he DOES meet Mira in the real world, and they do form a connection, however it all goes back to that phone and those texts, and him not telling her about that is still a lie of omission, so their whole relationship is kind of based on a lie. But of course he waits too long to tell her, and then when they seem to have a good thing going, it's kind of too late to tell her, because he doesn't want to spoil it. There really shouldn't be a window on telling the truth, but sure, I get it. In the case of "Fake it 'till you make it", once somebody makes it, it's very rare for them to admit that they faked it.  Why would they? 

In the meantime, Rob's career as a music journalist puts him in a position to interview Celine Dion, who's got a concert coming up at the Barclay's Center (hey, I know that place) in Brooklyn. Celine Dion, of course, in addition to being a known popular recording artist, is also apparently an expert on all things romantic - and I don't know how I feel about that. My wife watched that documentary about her, and I'm sure that maybe she thinks this about herself, but she did marry her manager, who was a few years older than her, and their relationship was completely professional until it wasn't, and well, no judgments here but I don't think any of that makes her an expert on finding love or maintaining relationships. I probably need some more information - but in addition to being a recording artist AND a love expert, Ms. Dion is also an executive producer on this film. There's a conflict of interest in there somewhere, I'm sure. 

So I really should HATE this film because it feels so manipulative - the storyline feels very forced, the way that Celine Dion is written into the film feels very contrived, and then there's the dialogue, which is often horrible. Every single plot point is belabored and mentioned at least three times, so it feels like the director thought the audience was full of idiots, and if we don't make this extremely simple for everyone to follow, we're going to be in serious trouble. But then naturally it takes three times longer to GET anywhere, and each time it's the emotional state of Mira that seems to be to blame. Everytime there's a new milestone in her new relationship with Rob, she pushes him away and he's got to find another way to try and reach her. Sure, she's fragile, sure, she's been through some bad stuff, but also she's A LOT and that's going to be a hard shell to crack.  

And then once she spends the night and "accidentally" sees her own text chain to her dead boyfriend on his computer, well, geez, the whole thing blows up, as it inevitably had to. She breaks things off and Rob's back to square one, but still he thinks this relationship can be fixed, if he could just explain himself a little better and then have another private conversation with Celine Dion, then everything will be fine. Ugh, again I should hate that Celine Dion is the "deux es machina" who can improve Mira's outlook on life just by offering her a job designing the poster for her current tour. (Sorry, another NITPICK POINT here, Ms. Dion is already out on tour, and she started her tour without a poster? No way, this is definitely something that her record company would have taken care of before she'd be doing her sound-check at Barclay's. Prove me wrong, I dare you.)

I want to root for these crazy kids, I want them to build on the fact that they both put their fries in their cheeseburgers and they both like basketball and build on that, and I know you don't have to like all the same things to be in a relationship, but they've got the opera and they've got Central Park and neither one can cook worth a darn, isn't that enough?  Anyway, Rob has to do a publishing "Hail Mary" play and make the Celine Dion article all about himself, how he got love advice from her and how he believes that "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" is his new mantra, because he didn't believe he'd find love again until he got Mira's texts and then got to know her after cyber-stalking her. I know that sounds wrong and so maybe this relationship can't be saved, unless he takes this whole dilemma public and writes about it in the newspaper, where millions of people can then weigh in on it.  

You might remember a couple of weeks ago, there was this Norwegian skier who got a bronze medal in the Olympics - when the news interviewed him after he got his medal, all he could talk about was what a mess he made out of his life, because he met this great girlfriend four months ago, but cheated on her two months ago. Now he's filled with regret, and this had basically ruined his whole Olympic Games - so he used the interview to go public, thinking that if millions of people could just hear his story, this would somehow put pressure on the ex-girlfriend and then solve his little romantic problem, umm, which he caused. Well, the journalists tracked down his ex, and basically asked her if she would take him back, and she replied with a "HELL, no." Her reasoning was that he did what he did, and then added insult to injury by telling the whole world about it during the Olympic broadcast. 

Realistically, this is what maybe SHOULD have happened to Rob here - I would imagine that presenting his situation with Mira to the public could easily have had a negative effect. Mira was already a noted author of children's books, and now Rob basically embarrassed her in print by telling a story about her grief, and sending texts to her dead boyfriend's phone, and then his own misdeeds by not telling her about the phone thing, using the texts to stalk her in real life and then going to the opera obsessively (sorry, another quick NITPICK POINT, a journalist would probably not be able to afford opera tickets in NYC for 30 days straight, or however long it took) until she showed up. But, you know, this is a rom-com movie so it needs to have a happy ending of sorts, and so somehow his article breaks through and Mira forgives him, and they get back together, with conditions, of course. 

I don't hate the ending, it's just that this film is very clunky and also has no basis in reality, in addition to relying on Celine Dion, relationship expert, to fix everyone's problems everywhere. Jeez, if Rob had to interview a therapist or a counselor it might have made sense. I do appreciate the casting of Nick Jonas as one of Mira's "bad dates", which is only funny because the actress is married to him in real life. He probably wasn't a good enough actor to play the lead here, and it might have killed the film if he had - but a smaller part and a comedic role was probably better. 

Directed by Jim Strouse (director of "People Places Things")

Also starring Priyanka Chopra Jonas (last seen in "Heads of State"), Sam Heughan (last seen in "Bloodshot"), Celine Dion (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Sofia Barclay (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Russell Tovey (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), Lydia West, Steve Oram (last seen in "Man Up"), Omid Djalili (last seen in "Deep Cover"), Celia Imrie (last seen in "Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy"), Arinzé Kene (last seen in "How to Build a Girl"), Tom Blake, Laurence Varda, Harry Attwell (last seen in "Breathe"), Amanda Blake, Daniel Barry, Camille Hatcher, Nisha Chadha with archive footage of Julia Roberts (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"). 

RATING: 5 out of 10 "Would you rather?" questions (it's great that they connect over these, but can you really base a whole podcast on them?)

You're Cordially Invited

Year 18, Day 52 - 2/21/26 - Movie #5,252

BEFORE: If I'm posting late, it's because I was working at the theater ALL DAY Saturday, two events, and that means a double-shift, more than 12 hours, which is great because I need the money. One was an animation event that was showcasing work from the teachers at SVA, their recent films shown to the students. Well, I know a lot of animators but only one friend who had her work showcased - still, that's always nice when a friend drops by while I'm working. Yes, I made it about me, that's what all the films this week have had in common, characters who made everything about themselves. So there, and Geraldine Viswanathan carries over from "Cat Person". 

Now here's the line-up of films from Day 10 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming, for Sunday, February 22. So after this day I'll be about 1/3 of the way through that chain, and meanwhile in my own Feb. romance chain I'm approaching the halfway point - they SHOULD both end at about the same time. Sunday's theme is "Oscar Goes to War": 

6:30 am "Captains of the Clouds" (1942)

8:30 am "Battleground" (1949)

10:30 am "Sergeant York" (1941)

1:00 pm "Story of G.I. Joe" (1945)

3:00 pm "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949)

5:00 pm "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957
8:00 pm "Patton" (1970)

11:00 pm "The Deer Hunter" (1978)

2:15 am "Das Boot" (1981)

5:00 am "They Were Expendable" (1945)

Well, I know I've seen "Sergeant York" and of course "The Bridge on the River Kwai", then I can claim both "Patton" and "The Deer Hunter" so that's another 4 out of 10, which brings me up to 48 seen out of 110, and that's 43.6% - I'm still moving in the wrong direction. Just wait until they get to "Oscar Goes to Space" or "Oscar Goes to a Boxing Ring", that's when I might be able to gain some ground.

THE PLOT: When two weddings are double-booked at the same venue, the father of one bride and the sister of the other try to preserve the wedding weekend. 

AFTER: How is this not just "Bride Wars" re-packaged? I mean I guess the whole point of "Bride Wars" was a rivalry between two families that had known each other for a long time and therefore hated each other.  This film has the same starting point - two families book the same venue for their weddings, and things spiral out of control from there, only the two families do NOT know each other here.  They are very different families, so there may be some biases due to income level and state of origin, which are both all too common in the U.S. these days, sad to say. The location of the wedding venue is Palmetto Island, Georgia which is weird because when I hear "palmetto" I naturally think of South Carolina first, don't you? But I guess Will Ferrell's "Father of the Bride" character lives in Atlanta, so OK, I guess Georgia works. Ferrell's character got married on Palmetto Island years ago, but he's a widower now.  Meanwhile, the older sister of the other bride chooses that venue because her grandmother used to live on that island, and Margot remembers spending good times with her grandmother. 

The whole mishap comes about because Jim Caldwell calls to book the resort first, and they can only handle ONE wedding per weekend, the owner of the resort is very clear about that - unfortunately the owner is also elderly, and she forgot to write the name down. Just kidding, that would be very ageist - instead her pen has run out of ink, and as she goes to get another one, she dies of a heart attack. So she never added the name on the reservation IN INK, and even though there are scratches of the Caldwell name made with that inkless pen, the booking goes to the one made by Margot Buckley, the TV producer. Also Margot put down the deposit, and Caldwell gave money to the maid of honor, who did NOT remit the money to the resort. Probably because there was nothing on their books that told them who to bill, but still, that's another story. 

Margot has misgivings about turning away the Caldwell wedding, I mean, the father's wife is dead and he's a legacy, so Margot agrees to share the resort's grounds for a double wedding, only the two parties will not intersect, this won't be a joint wedding, they're just going to SHARE the sunset and the other amenities, so one wedding will be in a holding pattern while the other one wraps up its sunset ceremony on the docks, and then the second ceremony can happen when the first party is having their reception, and so on.  Everything might have worked out fine if Jim didn't happen to overhear Margot talking smack about his daughter, I mean you just don't GO THERE, at least not until the entire weekend is in the rear-view and you're back home in L.A. or producing the show "Is It Dead?" or however you spend your time.

I can't really say that people act here in predictable ways, or in ways that accurately reflect how people might act in real life. There are a number of instances where two characters simply hate each other and then they might be working together or at least having a friendly conversation in the next scene - so sometimes it feels like this movie's scenes are in the wrong order, or at least were edited together at random, more or less. Like Jim Campbell repays the generosity of the Buckley family (who was willing to SHARE the resort on Neve's big wedding day) by asking the local boat driver to swing by the Buckley wedding and splash the dock with their wake, which ends up putting the entire Buckley wedding party into the drink.  Then in the very next scene, he admits what he did just to clear his conscience, but come on, who DOES THAT? 

This film shares a number of other things with yesterday's film - both movies have their main female character singing at a party (birthday party in one, wedding party in the other) performing a duet that implies some kind of sexual connection with her father or stepfather. Ooh, classy. Stepfather porn is VERY in right now.  Seriously, this is an odd coincidence and is also very gross, in "Cat Person" Margot had to sing "My Heart Belongs to Daddy" in a duet with her mother, but directed at her step-father on his birthday. Ewwww...... And in tonight's film, Jenni Caldwell performs "Islands in the Stream" as a duet with her father, and they talk about being lovers and such. Double ewwww.....

Ooh, ooh, another weird connection, both "Cat Person" and today's film have characters named Margot, and that is just NOT a common name - in America, anyway. But since they introduce one lead character from one family who is single and then in the other family, the father of the bride is a widower, well if you can't tell who's going to get matched up together at the end of this film, well then you just ain't paying attention. I saw this coming from like a MILE away. 

And of course, the big one - both films follow that principle of "reductio ad absurdium", which means that first the screenwriters envisioned the set-up scenario, namely two couples get booked for the same wedding venue, and then started listing all of the things that COULD go wrong after that, from losing the sunset to a sudden downpour to the groom being accused of cheating with a bridesmaid, and it all gets thrown into the pot, so ideally what we'll end up with here is a whole stew full of mistaken identities, misspoken thoughts and just blind blunders done in spite to complete the required menu full of "Things That Can Go Wrong".  When the bride's sister gets bitten by an alligator, which was brought into the hotel by her nemesis/fremeny/future lover who was mad at her at first, but is also falling for her at the same time, well then that's when you know this scenario has gone just COMPLETELY off the rails. Sure, there are miscommunications that will happen at a wedding, often because someone is too embarrassed to mention the elephant in the room or they're trying to be polite or to not re-hash their childhood traumas as an adult, but come on, it's all inevitable.  We need to create the ultimate "everything goes wrong at the wedding" storyline because the last film that did this, years ago, just didn't take things far enough.  

I'd love to see the suggestions that the writers made which got turned down, like were they proposing "OK, and then terrorists invade Georgia" or "And then thermonuclear war breaks out" or were they struggling to keep things within the realm of possibility, for dramatic purposes if for now other reason? I guess we'll never know.

Directed by Nicholas Stoller (director of "Bros" and "Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising")

Also starring Will Ferrell (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Reese Witherspoon (last heard in "Being Mary Tyler Moore"), Meredith Hagner (last seen in "Ingrid Goes West"), Jimmy Tatro (last heard in Strays"), Stony Blyden, Leanne Morgan, Rory Scovel (last seen in "Old Dads"), Keyla Monterroso Mejia, Ramona Young (last seen in "Blockers"), Jack McBrayer (last seen in "Cooties"), Fortune Feimster (last seen in "Family Switch"), Celia Weston (last seen in "The Extra Man"), Martha B. Knighton (last seen in "Civil War"), Bobby Moynihan (last heard in "Fixed"), Ava Hill (last seen in "Captain America: Brave New World"), Wyatt Russell (last seen in "Thunderbolts"), Vinny Thomas, Peyton Manning (last heard in "Ferdinand"), Josué Charles, Matt Mercurio (last seen in "Hangman"), Lauren Holt (last seen in "Barbie"), Zamani Wilder (last seen in "Bottoms"), Kermit Rolison (last seen in "First Man"), Wesley Mann (last seen in "The Shadow"), Lion Way, Wyatt Hunt, Krishna Sistia Ward, Sydney Wease, Samantha Binkerd (last seen in "Brothers"), Jack Caron, Lauren Halperin (last seen in "Senior Year"), Nick Jonas (last seen in "Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road"), Ginny MacColl, Sofia Palmero, Marc Inniss, Art Newkirk

RATING: 5 out of 10 white Chevy Suburbans