On Chesil Beach

Year 18, Day 167 - 6/16/26 - Movie #5,347 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #8

BEFORE: See, what did I tell you, finding Father's Day films is a snap, I just linked a bunch of movies and I let the chips fall where they wanted, and now I'm going to hit 10 or 11 films on that theme before I'm done, at least. The ones that I did plan aren't going to even start until Saturday, and then there's at least one more waiting at the end of the month. Easy and peasy. 

I've also got the Doc Block that is approaching fast, the target start date is still July 1, so I've got one last push to add a few films because while 37 is great, 40 might be better. What I have now is 37 films locked in place, and what I DO NOT want to do right now is to tear down that framework and rebuild it, there just isn't time for that. So if something can't find a place in that sequence, I'm just not going to add it, it might have to wait for next year. Already this year I'm doing clean-up and I've programmed a few films that didn't make the cut LAST year. Thematically it looks like I'm going to bounce around a bit, like from a bio-doc on a movie star I'm going to a band, then to a film director, then to a politician or sports figure, I think I can say, however, that the subjects are like 95% American, which seems appropriate for this semiquincentennial year. OK, there are a couple Canadians and one Italian in the mix, but you know, this country is a melting pot and I think I can sell this as a mostly Amurrican line-up. What could be more patriotic than movies, rock and roll, politics and baseball?

Today, Saoirse Ronan carries over again, and I'm in a UK-themed mini-chain that started with "Agent Cody Banks 2" - it seems appropriate to have the UK films lead into the very American ones - it's another metaphor for the founding of our country that I totally deliberately planned and it's not accidental in any way. 

THE PLOT: In 1962 England, a young couple find their idyllic romance colliding with issues of sexual freedom and societal pressure, leading to an awkward and fateful wedding night. 

AFTER: Well it's definitely been a veddy British week so far here at the Movie Year, but what else have these last three films had in common, besides the presence of Saoirse Ronan? All three films were based on books, that's something, and they've all had pretty complicated relationships - in "How I Live Now" we had cousins falling in love during a future war, in "The Outrun" we had an interracial relationship further complicated by alcoholism, and tonight, well we've got a lot to unpack, I'll get to it in a bit. Two of the three films have also been very flash-backy aka non-linear, so yeah, a lot of jumping around in time, today we also have an extensive flash-FORWARD, and then we spring back to 1962. And then there's parents, since we're coming up on Father's Day it's worth keeping all this in mind, in all three films the relationships with parents have been strained, I guess that's just a part of life, but when you put it all together it feels like I kind of hit something here and programmed three films set in different years, but they share so much of the same DNA that it would be uncanny if some of these things weren't so basic an universal to, well, all stories. 

I had TWO of these films on the romance/relationship list, meaning they would have been possibly appropriate to program in February, I was at the very least keeping myself open to that, except they didn't link up to any of the other romance films on my list - OK, fair game then to program them in another month. Also, I needed them for linking HERE and NOW, so that kind of takes priority now and then over programming solely based on themes. Hell, I've had nine films already this year where characters were seen celebrating Thanksgiving or Christmas, and that's all been off-season - meaning I had no idea that was going to happen, and simply nobody considers those films to be holiday films, primarliy they're all something else. 

But let's stop dancing around what happens - or doesn't happen - in this film, which is about two young Brits, Edward and Florence, getting married in 1962, and they go on holiday for the honeymoon, and we see them on their first night together. Get it? They're British so it turns out that neither one has had sex before, not with each other and not with other people - so neither one really has any idea what that entails. Again, it's 1962 so it was a different time. The swinging 60's and the free-love 70's haven't happened yet, plus they've been at university, they had finals, you know, they've been busy. Well, what better time to flashback through the memorable moments of their relationship so far, in anticipation of the big event, which I'm sure will go swimmingly, nope, can't imagine anything going wrong when two people who never had a sex education class come together for the first time.  I mean, they've kissed, they've held hands, what could POSSIBLY go wrong at this point? 

Through the flashbacks we see them both attending college, he's got a history degree from University College in London and he loves rock music, she's a music major and violinist at Oxford who performs in a classical string quartet. On paper it shouldn't work, but they meet at a rally against nuclear weapons, I suspect they're there for different reasons, she's probably against nukes for moral reasons and the preservation of life but he just wants to rebel against anything that the government suggests. We all know that when people come together romantically they focus on the things that they have in common, and then later when they break up it's often because they've been focusing on the things that they don't - let's put a pin in that for the moment and get back to it later. 

They come from different backgrounds, different social levels - Florence's is more upper class and her father runs some kind of electronics firm, her mother is more concerned with society parties and such. Their concern is that Edward went to college in London, which makes him more of a commoner in their eyes. Edward's family is a little more down-to-earth and crazier, literally crazier - his mother had been struck by a train at some point and got brain damage, before that she ran an art gallery and after that she'd spend her day finger-painting or standing nude in the garden, talking to birds. Edward has some kind of job maintaining a cricket field and at some point Florence comes to visit him there and while they have a nice afternoon together, she can't believe he has to mow the grass and paint the lines on the field, it seems like so much back-breaking WORK. 

Well, they get married and they go to the resort at Chesil Beach - they have a really nice roast beef dinner served by two bumbling waiters and then they have their first fight, which is about whether they should go take a walk on the beach. It's the same sort of argument anybody might have about ordering dinner, do you feel like Chinese? Wait, we ordered Chinese last week, what about Mexican? Wait, I wanted Chinese, why don't we ever order what I want? Well, why did you bring up Mexican, you know I can't eat spicy things or cilantro. Indian? It takes too long, you know that, we should have ordered an hour ago if you wanted Indian. I know that, but I was busy doing something and you said you weren't hungry yet. It's not really a fight, it's bickering or maybe it's just two people trying to get on the same page and failing. 

Well, because the food would get cold and the waiters took all the time of setting the table in their room, and also it's one more thing to do on their honeymoon AND it's going to fill the space between now and their first time having sex, they finish dinner - but now probably neither one is going to enjoy it, because one person wanted to take a walk on the beach and now they're disappointed, the other one won the fight but it's a pyrrhic victory because now they're both in a mood, and anyway it's British food, so really they both lose. They also realize that their relationship is now no longer what it once was, where they would just DO stuff, anything really, it doesn't matter if they're seeing a movie or bird-watching or painting lines on a cricket field, they're together and that's all that matters. But that's a dating thing, you can tell it's early in the relationship when it doesn't matter what you do - later on people tend to get very specific about what they will and won't do together. If one person wants to go bowling or drinking or axe-throwing and the other person isn't into it, they kind of learn to just go do those things alone, it's just easier that way, and forcing your mate to join you in an activity they don't like gets you nowhere, really. 

Anyway, the sex - it doesn't go well. We've established that they're both British, they're both inexperienced and they're both unlikely to work on their communication skills, so yeah, it's not going to go well the first time. Then you add on the pressure of it being their wedding night, they've both mentally built this thing up to be much more important than it needs to be, and it turns into a learn-as-you-go situation. Or "fake it till you make it", maybe. This is a strong argument for pre-marital sex, preferably with each other so that if this day comes, it's not going to be as much of a big deal. Anybody these days who doesn't practice "try before you buy" is kind of out of their minds, but again, this was 1962. 

Now the WHY of it all, why it doesn't go well, has a lot to do with the lack of sex education back then - the book apparently also suggested that Florence had maybe been sexually abused by her father, and that could explain a lot, but I didn't pick up on that in the movie. Without going into the mechanics of the sex fail, the bottom line is that she's not all that into it, and also maybe not very good at it. This would be a great time for some understanding and compassion, maybe listening to what the other person has to say, and trying to see things their way. But instead he accuses her of being frigid, also dishonest and manipulative. Anyway, he doesn't really DO compassionate and understanding, he's more of a "fly off the handle" and get angry kind of guy, not a great combination. 

Florence does offer him a deal, they can stay together and whatever happens (or doesn't happen) in the bedroom can stay between them. Like, maybe over time she can come to enjoy sex, you never know, but again, British, so it's not likely to happen. She offers him a deal, since he has sexual desire and needs and she doesn't, if they stay together he can go have flings with other women because, you know, the 1970's are coming up and all, and she would understand and even encourage that. DUDE, take that deal, you'll never get a better one, you get all the benefits of marriage (companionship, someone to share the housework with, second income, tax breaks, and maybe sex some time down the road) and none of the problematic bits (jealousy, infidelity, etc.). 

But, he doesn't take the deal, and at this point the movie flashes forward to show Edward in the future, because walking away from the marriage also means not taking the job in her father's company, and it's not like the 1970's and 1980's is going to be the time where devices like home stereos, VCRs and car phones are really going to catch on or anything like that. So we see his life as a swinging single, running a struggling record shop at a time just before vinyl records go the way of the dinosaur, but hey, don't worry, they'll be cool again, just give it another 30 years or so. He's got a girlfriend, heck, maybe two but you know, it's probably casual and every day he's probably reminded about what he gave up on because he didn't compromise or settle. 

One day a young girl comes to the shop and asks for a Chuck Berry record, Edward remembers that was the one rock artist that Florence liked, she called him "merry" and so does this little girl. The girl is also named Chloe, and he remembers that Florence once said that if she had a little girl that was what she would be named. It couldn't be her daughter, because Florence said she didn't like sex - but still, maybe? Years after that, Edward finally tracks her down, she's still working that string quartet and he goes to see her perform - it seems like she married that guy who played the cello in her group and either she learned to enjoy sex over time thanks to an understanding partner, or she cut that guy the same deal and he took it, it's unclear but it doesn't really matter, something got worked out. They recognize each other and they both cry over what might have been. (Excuse me, but isn't this the same ending as "La La Land"? Or it's very similar...)

After this, thanks to the magic of non-linear editing, we flash back to that honeymoon day on the beach, right after the failed sex and the big argument. Maybe this time Edward will show some compassion and understanding and they can work things out, know that we know the bleak future (at least for him) that lies ahead if he continues to be small-minded and quick-tempered. Nope. 

Look, I can see how that first night after getting married is supposed to be special, but these days I think there's much less pressure put on it - but still, how many honeymoons is the average person going to have in their life, maybe two or three if they're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it?). I remember my first honeymoon, it was certainly not our first time having sex, but we did drive up to Cape Cod and stay in a little cabin near the beach. But she got sick on some bad seafood so she was throwing up that night, well, guess what, nothing kills the romantic vibe like vomit breath, really neither one of us was in the mood. The second time I got married I think after the ceremony, the dinner and the partying we were just tired, I think we did change clothes and go hang out with friends to watch a baseball game. Well, it was game 6 of the 2001 World Series, and the Yankees were playing. Thank God that Arizona won that game, I couldn't fathom being married on a day where the Yankees won - but by then it hardly even felt like the same day. 

The only other thing I can say here is that life is long, times change and people change - and where relationships are concerned, you may not be in the situation you want to be in at the moment, but you could always work to make things better, I guess Edward just didn't get that memo. But I think we can agree that when we get older, we can look back on things that went down 30 or 40 years later and maybe wish we'd handled things differently. My mother wanted me to get my first marriage annulled, I guess to maybe counter-act the stigma of divorce, plus it's what she thought the church would want if I wanted to receive communion in the future. I told her that I didn't care what the church thought about my marital status, and if I tried to pretend like the marriage didn't exist, then I might not learn anything from it. Hey, a lot of people these days have what they call "starter marriages", you try it and if it's not for you, you walk away but it's important that maybe you learn a thing or two from the experience, and maybe then you try a little harder next time. 

Billy Howle had a small role in "Star Wars: Episode 9" as Rey's father (seen only in flashback) but I think I'm going to add him to my autographs wish list, you know, just in case.

Directed by Dominic Cooke (director of "The Courier")

Also starring Billy Howle (last seen in "Infinite Storm"), Emily Watson (last seen in "The Water Horse"), Anne-Marie Duff (last seen in "Notes on a Scandal"), Samuel West (last seen in "Carrington"), Adrian Scarborough (last seen in "The Last Vermeer"), Bebe Cave (last seen in "Tale of Tales"), Anton Lesser (last seen in "The Exception"), Mark Donald, Tamara Lawrence, Anna Burgess, Mia Burgess, Andy Burse (last seen in "Napoleon"), Rasmus Hardiker (last seen in "Cockneys vs Zombies"), John Ramm (last seen in "The Love Punch"), Barney Iley, Imogen Daines, Molly Miles, Victoria Hamnett, Marianne Cecil, Martin Bassindale (last seen in "Black Bag"), Daniel Boyd, Oliver Johnstone (last seen in "The Courier"), Philip Labey (last seen in "The People We Hate at the Wedding"), Tony Lucken (last seen in "Love Actually"), Esther Coles (last seen in "Enola Holmes"), Christopher Bowen (last seen in "Tomorrow Never Dies"), Toby Dantzic, Bronte Carmichael (last seen in "Darkest Hour"), Terenia Edwards (last seen in "Peter Rabbit"), Roseanna Leathley, Jonjo O'Neill (last seen in "All the Old Knives"), Claudia Jolly,

RATING: 5 out of 10 bowls of rabbit stew

The Outrun

Year 18, Day 166 - 6/15/26 - Movie #5,346 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #7

BEFORE: Another day off - so I should be able to post pretty quickly on this one, then I've got some time to either go through the list of movies that are new to streaming in June, or I can quick-scan through a couple of docs to see if I can add them to the Doc Block. With luck, maybe I can start re-alphabetizing my DVDs, but that's really a process that takes a full day, so I think I might have to put that off until Wednesday or Thursday. Jeez, the month is half over already and it feels like it just started, doesn't it? It's no wonder I don't have time for other things in my life besides movies and work, and the fact that I need to sleep all morning now if I can. 

Saoirse Ronan carries over from "How I Live Now". 

THE PLOT: After living life on the edge in London, Rona attempts to come to terms with her troubled past. Hoping to heal, she returns to the beauty of Scotland's Orkney Islands where she grew up. 

AFTER: This film is clearly designed to be the middle film in a chain of three that star Saoirse Ronan, because it links to almost nothing else on my list - so I'm really hiding it here, just to burn it off. Yesterday's film and tomorrow's film just have WAY more linking opportunities, tomorrow's film could get me to Father's Day weekend straight-away, but that's too quick, as it turns out. I had to find three more films to insert into the chain just to delay things a bit, we don't want to get there too fast after all. 

This is one of those films where the story is kind of fragmented, with the scenes out of order - yeah, I usually hate films that use this format because it's a lot of work as an audience member if I have to not only keep track of what's happening, but WHEN it's happening. Ideally no matter what order they show the scenes in, it should all come together in my brain, but if time is not a constant and we go jumping around all over through this person's life, it can be hard to sort it all out - and I believe that filmmakers only do this when they've put the film together in the normal narrative order and realized how boring it all turned out to be. I think maybe when the story got fragmented, that's meant to be symbolic somehow of how her life is in pieces, and she's trying to put it back together? 

Question - because I know that for films that start in the beginning of a story and end at the end, sometimes they shoot the film in order, but more often they do not. For reasons of location availability, weather, the availability of the actors and also convenience, most films are shot OUT of order, I mean once in a while you find one that tries to evoke reality or get the proper emotion out of its actors by shooting in order, but I think that's a rarity. So when the film is designed to be arranged like this, jumping around liberally through different time periods, my question is, do they shoot the film in narrative order and then mix it up, or does it just not matter, even during the shooting process?  Either way, I think the director and the crew need to be super organized if they don't want to miss something, unless they're just hoping that it all comes together somehow in the editing process. 

The key, I think, to figuring out what goes where is her changing hair color - it's an easy cheat, not only toward figuring out WHEN each scene is taking place, but also what point she's in during her journey toward recovery. WAY too often in movies I think this is used as a crutch, when they want to show that a woman has transformed, they just have her color her hair or cut her hair real short - oh, she's a changed person now! Umm, no, she's the same person with a different hair color, if you want to prove to me that she has changed, you need to do that in a more effective fashion. Consider that if the story could tell me in some other way that someone is different now, then they wouldn't NEED to change the color of her hair. 

When we do put the story back together in our heads, like if we were to think of her story from past to present, you know, the way that most people really live their lives, in a straightforward narrative way, we learn that Rona was born, which coincided with her dad having some kind of health issue, and then she was a little girl for a time, she moved to London and studied biology, became a grad student but also she did a lot of clubbing and met this guy, Daynin. Being on the club scene, however, led to excessive drinking and becoming an alcoholic, and this led to a series of accidents and incidents, after which Daynin broke up with her. One night she got into some stranger's car because he claimed to know where Daynin was and he was going to take her there, only he attacked her and she ended up in the hospital. This led to her entering rehab and completing a 90-day sober program before deciding to return home to the Orkney Islands. 

Once she settles in she begins a job for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and is tasked with tracking a rare bird called a corn crake. This involves spending the night driving slowly through farmland in a grid-like fashion, listening for the call of the corn crake - this is apparently a real bird and a real job if you want to know how many corn crakes there are left in the world. If you don't even hear the call of one, the answer might be zero. At some point after this, she moves to the even more remote Papa Westray island and becomes part of their tiny and tight-knit community and during the winter she develops an interest in the seaweed industry, so OK, maybe that's her calling? At least it's another avenue to pursue that makes use of her college degree. 

That tiny island is home to the annual Gyro Festival - a low-rent version of "Burning Man" during which artists come from all over the place to celebrate, and first I have to question if this is really the best place for Rona to be if she's trying to stay sober, don't they take a lot of psychedelic drugs and party during these sort of things? Great, so she's not drinking any more, but now she's hooked on mushrooms and LSD...

I'm going to just get into the rather complicated relationship Rona has with her father, and then call it t a day. Her dad has some kind of bipolar disorder, so he's got periods of hyperactivity and ambition, and then long periods of depression and spending the day in bed. When he's active he's got these grand plans like profiting from finding ambergris in the ocean, somehow monetizing the caves below the island for geothermal energy, and such. But also at one point he becomes institutionalized and accuses Rona of calling the cops on him and putting him in the mental hospital, only she didn't do that, somebody else in town did. When he is released, he goes back to living in the camper van outside the house, because Rona's mother can't really handle him any more, plus she's so busy with her Bible group that she can't be bothered to try and deal with him. 

This is all based on a memoir of the same name written by Amy Liptrot, so I can't really say this is far-fetched, because it all did happen to someone. Living in London for ten years led to alcoholism, I think we can all see that, and she lost her job, her home and her boyfriend as a result. Moving back to Scotland, counting the birds, getting clean and relatively sane again, and then partying with the artists, who's to say it couldn't happen if it all did?  Maybe not everybody's life and experiences is worthy of becoming a film that screens at Sundance and Edinburgh, but some of us do have these semi-wild lives that are movie-worthy. Hey, Hollywood, I go to a bunch of beer festivals and I've had a bunch of wild experiences in the world of animation production, so, umm, where's my movie? 

Directed by Nora Fingscheidt

Also starring Saskia Reeves (last seen in "Me and Orson Welles"), Stephen Dillane (last seen in "The Greatest Game Ever Played"), Lauren Lyle, Paapa Essiedu (last seen in "Murder on the Orient Express"), Izuka Hoyle (last seen in "Mary Queen of Scots"), Eilidh Fisher, Naomi Wirthner, Danyal Ismail, Posy Sterling, Nabil Elouahabi (last seen in "Zero Dark Thirty"), Jack Rooke, Seamus Dillane, Conrad Williamson, Tony Hamilton-Croft (last seen in "War Machine"), Ammar Younis, Louise McMenemy, Scott Miller, Freya Evans, David Garrick, Aniya Sekkanu, Liam Smith, Jacqui Hirst, Nicola Kilpatrick, Dawn Johnson, Alexandre Afjool, Gillian Dearness, Tim Dodman, Jamie Crew, Isabelle Roux, Kevin Shaw, Kristen Norquoy, Kyle Mackay, Ellis Tait, Sweyn Hunter, Paul Rendall, Linn Johansson, Matthew Coulton, Martin Gray, Paul Kulik, Aidan Smith

RATING: 5 out of 10 readings of the Serenity Prayer at A.A. meetings

How I Live Now

Year 18, Day 165 - 6/14/26 - Movie #5,345

BEFORE: Just a daytime game for the New York Liberty today, that's all and I should be home in time for dinner. Anything is easier right now than working five days at the Tribeca Festival, that took a lot out of me. I've got another day off tomorrow before I'm scheduled at the theater again on Tuesday. Today should have been the last day of the Tribeca Fest, so somebody got stuck with breakdown and resetting the theater, and for once it wasn't me. It's technically a holiday today, just Flag Day, which is not really a holiday too many people still celebrate, and it's not one I tend to program a film for. 

Anna Chancellor carries over from "Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London". I'm staying in the same country, too, with this World War III film set in rural England, I think. 

THE PLOT: An American girl, sent to the English countryside to stay with relatives, finds love and purpose while fighting for her survival as war envelops the world around her. 

AFTER: The end of the world is rather a nebulous thing, we've been seeing movies about it for quite some time, different spins on how it's going to happen, or more to the point, when. And what form will it take, will it be a nuclear war or environmental disaster or the most ironic of all, a new Ice Age after we get a handle on global warming? My cat thinks it's the end of the world every time she hears fireworks or thunder outside, and with the Knicks winning and a storm tonight, we've had both and I probably won't see her until morning again, she's hiding in the basement. For her, it's a perfectly reasonable response to the perceived threat, so I'm allowing her to hide, clearly she's been triggered due to something that happened to her before she moved in. And to a certain degree, this is how we all live, we remember our past traumas and they guide our responses to things in the present. 

Our generation made it through the pandemic - well, most of us did, I suppose - and that colors our responses to things now. We hear about an outbreak of Ebola or monkey pox and we wonder if this is the next thing that's going to spread across the globe and make us all miss work for the next 2 years without, you know, really MISSING work. I rebuilt my whole career again from the ground up after COVID, I only lost one of my animation jobs directly as a result, but let's say I lost the other one indirectly, even though one studio re-opened it was never quite the same after that. So I got jobs in movie theaters when they re-opened and there was a hiring wave of sorts, they really couldn't turn me down because they needed people desperately or they could not re-open for business and make that sweet sweet cheddar. Sure I kind of miss my old life, running Comic-Con booths and arranging complicated director travel and festival traffic, but I'm an events guy now, responsible for managing complicated screenings with a lot of moving parts, also selling beer to basketball fans. I contain multitudes, and I didn't know for sure I could do either thing until I started doing them. 

This is probably a roundabout way of coming at "How I Live Now", a film about a teenage girl visiting family in the U.K. during a tense political time, and just as she's starting to feel a bit comfortable there, and she's fallen into a relationship with her oldest cousin (umm, eww, but we'll have to deal with this in a bit...) her whole world gets turned upside-down with the start of the war. Nobody SAYS "World War III" outright, but come on. It's based on a book from 2004 and the film came out in 2013, set in the future, so, umm, now-ish? Things start with news reports of a bombing in Paris and then a bit later terrorists set off a nuke in London, killing tens of thousands. Well, keep calm and carry on, as they say over there, or institute martial law, whatever you think is best. Someone from the American consulate visits the family farm and offers Elisabeth safe passage back home, but, well, she's been fighting with her dad back in the U.S. and also, as previously stated, she's fallen in love with her cousin. (Again, ewww...)

The three cousins, Elisabeth/Daisy and a family friend are left alone, because Aunt Peg is some kind of government adviser and has been called into service, the kids determine that if the order comes to evacuate, they'll just move into their barn up on the hillside and there, that should do it. But the soldiers come and they find the barn and they separate the boys and girls, sending them to different parts of the country. Eddie tries to fight back and tells Daisy to return to the farm as soon as she can. 

Daisy and her cousin Piper are sent to live in the home of a military officer and his wife - their son has gone off to fight in the war and probably isn't coming back, but hey, who knows. Daisy and Piper work on a farm harvesting vegetables and they find that family friend, Joe, working on the same farm. But Joe gets killed when he stands up to the terrorists, which was probably not a good idea. Harvesting vegetables isn't really Daisy's cup of tea, so she plans an escape with Piper and they spend the next few days walking back home, during which time they witness soldiers mistreating (enemy?) prisoners and also find the results of a massacre at the camp where the boys were taken. Or maybe the boys were taken there to be killed, that's a bit unclear - I don't know why the soldiers would kill their own countrymen, but maybe there's a food shortage or something and they can only feed the girls? Cousin Isaac is found among the bodies, but not cousin Eddie, so they keep heading toward the old family farm. 

Just as they're ready to give up, they see Eddie's pet hawk and realize they're close. Once they find the family home again, they learn the troops that stationed themselves there have also been killed, and only their pet dog remains. But the next morning Daisy follows the dog into the woods and they find Eddie there, he's unconscious and scarred, but they take him home and nurse him back to health - sort of, he'll probably have PTSD for the rest of his life, which is another case of past trauma coloring our future responses to things. That's it, that's the film, though it's really a bit of a bummer. But at least the war is over (umm, who won?) and a new UK government forms, the country starts to recover but the radiation will probably be around for a few thousand years. And then maybe a couple decades after that, they start up the Hunger Games, so they've got that to look forward to...

Directed by Kevin Macdonald (director of "The Mauritanian" and "Whitney")

Also starring Saoirse Ronan (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman"), George MacKay (last seen in "Ophelia"), Tom Holland (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Harley Bird, Danny McEvoy, Corey Johnson (last seen in "September 5"), Darren Morfitt (last seen in "Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi"), Jonathan Rugman, Stella Gonet (last seen in "Spencer"), Des McAleer (last seen in "Angela's Ashes"), Sophie Stanton (last seen in "Shadowlands"), Natasha Jonas (last seen in "Attack the Block"), Nav Sidhu, Amy Dawson (last seen in "Mr. Turner"), Mark Stanley (last seen in "Hellboy"), Paul Ronan (last seen in "The Boxer"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 fighter jets flying overhead

Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London

Year 18, Day 164 - 6/13/26 - Movie #5,344

BEFORE: I had to use my other skip day on Friday, since I was called in early on Friday to be at the theater for some repair work, somebody had to get the sprinkler maintenance guy the key to unlock the sprinkiers so they could get their annual check. Thankfully this did not mean turning on the sprinklers and getting all the festival stuff wet, he could do the check without that. Look, I don't have to understand how these works, I only need to show up and get these guys what they need and sign their paperwork on behalf of the theater. But then I was there four hours early for a long festival day, six screenings in three blocks, starting at 2 pm. But this was my last day at the festival, and I should get some good money for this in about a month. I'm hurting right now because a month ago I was off for a week which turned into two weeks off when my mom passed. I don't get much family leave with my two jobs, I think the stadium paid me for one day I missed to attend the wake. C'est la vie -

I could have stayed up late on Thursday and watched this movie, but I wanted to ensure I would be there at 10 am and could then work a 12-hour-plus shift. Guests on Friday included Matthew Broderick and Ben Stiller for an anniversary screening of "The Cable Guy", then we had George Whipple appearing at a screening of a documentary about his career, and then Carmelo Anthony for the same reason. In between there was Joseph Fiennes doing a Q&A after a soccer film (timely), and I spotted Norm Lewis entering a screening, and also NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan, who has done almost as many movie cameos as Radio Man. So no movie Friday, but I'll have to watch one every day until Father's Day, and then keep that up until the end of the month. I can do it, if not I'll just have to double up somewhere. 

Frankie Muniz carries over from "Agent Cody Banks" and so do four or five other people. (Sorry, Angie Harmon, you got replaced...)

THE PLOT: With his new CIA handler, Derek, Cody has to retrieve a mind-control device before the world's leaders fall under the control of a diabolical villain. 

AFTER: The first "Cody Banks" film must have made a lot of money, because they RUSHED the sequel into production, they didn't want to wait for all of the stars or even the director of the first film to be available, they wanted to get the sequel out the following year, and that's really not what's best for a sequel. Like the "Star Wars" films used to come out every THREE years, and of course they were a lot more work, but they also had more people working hard to make the films gooder. I don't think anyone like that was working hard like that on this one, the goal was to get this done fast. Why they didn't even take time to write a new story, they just stole the plot of the first "Naked Gun" movie and made the villain commission a mind-control device and similarly included a Queen Elizabeth look-alike. Hell, that movie had come out 16 years before, and nobody who was a teenager in 2004 was likely to have seen it. 

They also borrowed the TONE of the "Naked Gun" movies, where it's just so ridiculous that you couldn't possibly take it seriously, even if you tried. The first "Cody Banks" film played like some kind of James Bond Jr. but somebody here pictured him more like a teenage Frank Drebbin. It's not really what kids wanted to see, I think. Then there's a ton of bad acting here, like Frankie Muniz is fine, and so are the other actors who carried over from the first film, but then all of the kids who play in the international youth orchestra, woof, they're all terrible, not one of them can act believably. It's almost painful when actors are trying TOO hard to be sincere, when really all they have to do is just stop trying and be themselves. "Big Fat Liar" came from the studio and director that made a lot of those horrible Nickelodeon shows in the 1990s, but this one FEELS like it, and that's worse. 

Nothing's really funny here, nor is it fun. Why would anyone make a comedy that is neither fun or funny?  Sending Cody Banks back to spy camp at the beginning makes no sense, he already completed his training, why does he have to go back to camp? It's bad enough that he's been lying to his parents about his training, his "scholarship" to different schools to cover his assignments, why are we continuing the lie if his parents won't even let him have a pocket-knife at home? And now they're going to just let him go off to London on some kind of fake musical scholarship? I'm not even sure that's legal, for a teenager to go to another country and be enrolled in a school if his parents don't live there. 

This is another film that takes place during a G7 summit, I've seen already quite a few of them this year. But this was back in 2004, apparently before the G7 summit had any security at all, because the villains just kind of walk right in, don't they?  And then there's a big inconsistency about how the microchips are implanted, one of the villains is this mad dentist who drills a hole in people's teeth to insert the chip - but how the hell did they get those world leaders to agree to have dental work done DURING A COCKTAIL PARTY? This makes zero sense, it almost appears like the world leaders are ingesting the chips as they're eating snacks, but that would have been even harder to set up, assuming there would be some kind of security on the snacks being served during an international summit. Also, which is it, are the chips consumed with the snacks or drilled into people's teeth?

Also, big problem with trying to use mind control on the U.S. President. For that to work, the President would have to have a mind to control in the first place. HEY-yo!

NITPICK POINT: Cody is given a pack of explosive Mentos mints - they blow up without even adding the Diet Coke to them (this must have been trending at the time, or was this before people knew about Mentos in Diet Coke?). But they use this explosive to get the mind control chip out of Cody's tooth, but they only need a fraction of one mint - wouldn't cutting into the Mentos with a knife make it explode? 

NITPICK POINT #2: Cody's new handler, Derek Bowman, is rewarded for the successful mission by being put in charge of the CIA summer camp. Great, but what about Kumar, the other agent who drove Cody around London and turned his taxi cab into a communications office when needed? Everybody just kind of forgot about him, I guess. Not cool. 

Notice there was never a "Cody Banks 3" movie made, that should tell you something right there. I rarely regret my choices here at the Movie Year, but this may be one of those rare times. Well, at least this is GONE from my list now, maybe I can have a few drinks and forget this ever happened. Did anyone else know that Madonna (yes, that one) and Jason Alexander worked together to produce the films in this franchise? It seems like an odd pairing, unless Madonna just didn't think that enough family films were being made for her own kids to watch, or something. 

Directed by Kevin Allen

Also starring Anthony Anderson (last seen in "G20"), Hannah Spearritt, Cynthia Stevenson (last seen in "Agent Cody Banks"), Daniel Roebuck (ditto), Keith David (ditto), Connor Widdows (ditto), Anna Chancellor (last seen in "Hysteria"), Keith Allen (last seen in "The Others"), James Faulkner (last seen in "Wake Up Dead Man"), David Kelly (last seen in "The Wrong Man"), Santiago Segura (last seen in "Jack and Jill"), Rod Silvers, Jack Stanley, Joshua Brody, Sarah McNicholas, Philip Pedersen, Paul Kaye (last seen in "Pan"), Harry Burton, Julian Firth (last seen in "The Lost King"), Martyn Ellis, Damien Hirst, Mark Williams (last seen in "Tristram Shandy"), James Dreyfus (last seen in "Notting Hill"), Henry Miller, Masato Kamo (last seen in "United 93"), Patti Love (last seen in "The Long Good Friday"), Sam Douglas (last seen in "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre"), Alfie Allen (last seen in "Boogie Woogie"), Leilah Isaac, Keiron Nelson, Theora Toumazi, Keshini Misha, Atim Laber, Carly Minsky, Chris Bodell, Javkhaa Chuluunbaatar, Sammy Razack, Leonard C. Jones (last seen in "Homefront")

RATING: 2 out of 10 bowls of "chocolate surprise"

Agent Cody Banks

Year 18, Day 162 - 6/11/26 - Movie #5,343 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #6

BEFORE: I suppose it was inevitable, like once I put both "Big Fat Liar" and this film on my list there was a good chance that I'd find a way to knock them both out in the same week, along with this film's sequel, the next one on the list, of course. But I wanted to save them for when they served some kind of purpose, and I suppose getting me three steps closer to Father's Day and the start of the Doc Block is about the best function I could have hoped for.  This still leaves the "Spy Kids" movies unwatched, of course, I thought last year I might be able to link to them as a lead-in to my October horror movies, but it turned out to not be necessary, based on the horror chain I put together, I guess there was an easier way to get to the start, and/or I just ran out of slots and had to take a shortcut. Anyway, that was last year, who even remembers? I've really got one more chance in 2026 to get to the "Spy Kids" films, maybe between Doc Block and the Shock Block, but I can't even predict that with any certainty right now, I'm just focused on getting through June. 

Frankie Muniz carries over from "Big Fat Liar".

THE PLOT: A government agency trains Cody Banks in covert operations that require younger participants. 

AFTER: Well, sure, this was never going to be as serious as a James Bond film, which aren't even all that serious themselves. You can't really think that the CIA would institute a program where they recruit teenage agents (that should be "teenagents", I know) just in case they needed to somehow infiltrate a high school or get close to the daughter of some famous scientist who might be doing freelance work for America's enemies, right? Yet this is where we find ourselves tonight, at the junction of teen romance and international intrigue. One day you get selected for a special summer camp due to your high grades and superior video-game puzzle solving skills, and the next thing you know, you're a secret junior CIA agent. (again, "CIAgent", I'm aware.)

Really, in tone this fits in somewhere between the James Bond films, which we're meant to take semi-seriously, and the Austin Powers films, which we're not meant to take seriously at all - so sure, this is ridiculous, but maybe not as ridiculous as it could have been, as in not an outright parody of spy movies, we still want to thrill the 10-18 year olds in the audience, but also maybe most of them are in on the joke. The whole last act of this film, which is set in the villain's lair inside a mountain, looks like it could have been filmed on the set of one of the Austin Powers movies, as if it were decorated by Dr. Evil himself or his henchmen. 

When you give a 15-year old kid a pair of X-ray glasses, sure, he's going to use them to look at women in their underwear. That tracks - but the CIA also finds that if they want him to have time to study up on the background of the girl that he needs to get information from, by maybe getting an invitation to her birthday party, then they'll have to send agents to his house to do his chores and also his homework. Well, I guess that's the price you pay for setting up the TeenAgent program. They also find it's hard to convince their own security guards that a 15-year-old needs to be admitted to the headquarters. Cody also gets a bankroll of money and a bunch of other cool gadgets so he can walk on ceilings and use lasers to cut through ropes and hatchway doors.  

I get it, the movie "Mission: Impossible" was a big hit in 1996, and in 2003 we were all dealing with the fallout - we had lady spies in "Salt" and "Atomic Blonde", older spies in "RED", and the franchises with Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan, The A-Team and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. all came along or came back since Tom Cruise did that wire-hanging thing in that first film, and countless others. We even had one film where a spy turned into a pigeon, and still had to complete his mission, but the less said about that film, the better. So we probably wouldn't have the "Cody Banks" movies without Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt making a billion damn dollars, or any of the thousand other movies glorifying the spy game. 

The MacGuffin here is a bunch of nanobots that can be trained to "eat" anything, their inventor wanted to use them to clean up oil spills, but his financial backer who is also bent on world domination and/or chaos would prefer to re-purpose them to destroy America's nuclear arsenal, I mean, just imagine a world without nuclear weapons, that would be terrible, right?  Wait, would it, though? I mean, as long as they ate up our enemy's missiles, too, we'd have mutual total disarmament and I think maybe that might not be such a bad thing, except we might have more old-fashioned wars where people died in the old-fashioned way. Honestly, there's no way to be sure, but let's assume that the guy who has a mountain-top secret base and wants to disarm only America might have some evil intent. 

The biggest problem that Cody Banks has is that he's shy and self-conscious around girls, and it seems the CIA trained him how to drive a car, how to disarm a bomb and how to fight off 12 attackers as a one-man army, but they forgot to teach him how to flirt. Guys, this is James Bond 101 here, you stop the villain, you disarm the bomb, and you CHARM THE GIRL, even if she used to be the villain's girlfriend, you try not to think about that and you say something mildly (or very) suggestive and then you sleep with her. The pattern WORKS and you don't mess with success, OK? So they try to give him a crash course in the art of seduction, or at least making conversation, and it all goes horribly wrong, because it turns out the CIA is full of weird nerds who don't even know the first thing about romance or even casual conversation. The army guy has bad advice, the tech expert has bad advice, and the "relationship expert" they bring in is even worse. 

Narratively speaking, there's a lost opportunity here - when Cody wasn't getting any good advice from ALL of the different weirdos who work at the CIA about how to talk to girls, this is where a better writer could have brought in some heart, just by having Cody talk to his own dad. Sure, I realize Cody and his parents were kind of VERY different people, he was in the CIA so he kind of grew out of needing them already, but then he DOES need advice at a critical time. A simple conversation here with his father would have gone a long way. It doesn't even matter what the advice is - "Just be yourself" or "Talk to a girl just like she's a normal person, because she is." Anything like that would have worked here and solved a narrative problem and also brightened up the story. 

But really, there's no time because the villain kidnaps the scientist's daughter in order to make him comply with the instructions to program the nanobots a certain way. Cody is off the case because he got too emotionally involved, also he beat up like ten bullies at that birthday party, the villain recognized his martial arts moves and essentially, his cover was blown. He then disobeyed orders and took Natalie out for ice cream to explain, and that's when she got kidnapped. So he takes it upon himself to sneak into CIA headquarters and get the equipment he needs to track down the base and rescue her, but ends up stuck in a tree, thanks to his rocket-powered skateboard. 

His handler, Agent Ronica, finds him, though, and she at least applauds his initiative - they sneak into the secret base together and work on rescuing Natalie before the villain can release his frozen ice-cube nanobots on the world. Well, as James Bond probably said, when in doubt just kill the villain with his own evil device and blow up the base, that should set everything right. Then you run off with the girl and kiss her by a lake just before sunset - again, the formula works and if it ain't broke, then don't fix it. 

Directed by Harald Zwart (director of "The Pink Panther 2")

Also starring Hilary Duff (last seen in "Cheaper by the Dozen 2"), Angie Harmon (last seen in "Seraphim Falls"), Keith David (last heard in "Free Birds"), Cynthia Stevenson (last seen in "Jennifer's Body"), Arnold Vosloo (last seen in "Blood Diamond"), Daniel Roebuck (last seen in "The Munsters"), Ian McShane (last seen in "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina"), Darrell Hammond (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Martin Donovan (last seen in "The United States of Leland"), Marc Shelton, Chris Gauthier (last seen in "The Butterfly Effect 2"), Harry Van Gorkum (last seen in "Our Brand Is Crisis"), Connor Widdows (last seen in "Say It Isn't So"), Eliza Norbury (last seen in "Saving Silverman"), Justin Kalvari, Saul Kalvari, Andy Thompson (last seen in "Woman of the Hour"), Andrew Johnston (last seen in "Miracle"), Ben Immanuel (last seen in "A Guy Thing"), Miriam Smith (ditto), Jared Van Snellenberg (ditto), Noel Fisher (ditto), Tseng Chang (ditto), Lisa Calder (ditto), Stephen E. Miller (last seen in "Cousins"), Lorena Gale (ditto), Alexandra Purvis, Chad Krowchuk (last seen in "She's the Man"), Jeffrey Ballard (ditto), Shayn Solberg, Anthony Quao, Dee Jay Jackson (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Peter New (last seen in "Playdate"), Natalie Sellers, Andrew Francis (last seen in "Frankie & Alice"), Alex Diakun (ditto), Branden Nadon, Jessica Harmon (last seen in "Black Christmas"), Hayley Bouey, Michael Cromien, Dan Zukovic (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Fiona Hogan (last seen in "The Show"), Eric Keenleyside (last seen in "How It Ends"), Scott Swanson (last seen in "3000 Miles to Graceland"), Terence Kelly (last seen in "Walking Tall"), Gary Peterman, Dennis Caughlan, Xantha Radley (last seen in "The Fog" (2005)), Prevail, A.C. Peterson (last seen in "Shooter"), Moneca Delain (last seen in "Trick 'r Treat"), Sonja Bakker, Ty Olsson (last seen in "Cut Bank"), Forbes Angus (last seen in "Big Eyes"), Gail Worobets,

RATING: 6 out of 10 surveillance vans disguised as cable installers or florists' vehicles

Big Fat Liar

Year 18, Day 161 - 6/10/26 - Movie #5,342 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #5

BEFORE: OK, I've got a couple days off now before I have to return to the very crowded, very busy festival. Which is fine, I can't hog all the shifts, and I need the break, physically and mentally. I may sneak into Manhattan today on a stealth mission to watch a certain big-budget sci-fi franchise movie before it disappears from theaters, but I'm not paying for popcorn, I'm going to sneak in some from home. I'm on a budget - but that film will play a crucial linking purpose for me at the end of the month. 

Sandra Oh carries over again from "Over the Moon". One other actor also carries over, but I only needed one. 

THE PLOT: Fourteen-year-old Jason Shepherd has a reputation for stretching the truth. So when abig-time Hollywood producer steals his class paper and turns it into a smash hit movie, no one believes Jason's latest tall tale. 

AFTER: Yeah, I figured that once I hit June and started looking for movies about fathers, and people's relationships with their fathers, some would turn up. It's inevitable, and it's not just the chain or my subconscious working stuff out, it's just such a common theme - school films, too, they keep turning up everywhere because everyone goes to school, duh, and if I can keep most of those films contained to May/June or September, then I'm fine with it. Summer break is for documentaries and movies about going to camp or going on vacation. I have spoken. 

The reason I'm counting this as a Father's Day film is that young Jason kept stressing that the most important thing for him to do was to win back his father's trust, after telling so many lies about homework and chores and whatever else. So apparently he doesn't give a crap about what his mother thinks of him, he's really focused on how his father perceives him. His teacher, either, though if he could get his teacher to believe in him he might not have to finish summer school, and that would ALSO solve his current problems, but OK, keep focusing on Dad, I guess. I think having your teachers believe in you is important, I spent years being a straight-A student who almost never got in trouble, and this paid off when I got to high school and my teachers and the school staff completely trusted me, to the point where I could skip the last couple periods and walk right out of the building, past the office, and everyone just assumed I had a valid reason to do so. Now, I never skipped a class, I only left early if I had a study hall period at the end of the day, but my point is that nobody ever checked to see if that was the case, they just let me go home early. People with straight-arrow reputations can actually get away with more...

But let's focus on Jason Shepherd, who is forced to do a homework assignment FOR ONCE or he would lose 1/3 of his grade in English class, so he buckles down and writes a story as required. But then after getting a lift in a limo from a Hollywood director and accidentally leaving his essay behind, he learns that Hollywood is filled with the worst kind of people, who will steal your ideas (if they're good) and make sure you don't get credit for them. Yeah, that tracks. I mean, if filmmakers weren't required to list the people who worked on the film in the credits, or face prosecution by not telling you that Charles Dickens wrote "David Copperfield", I bet they just wouldn't. "Wait, we don't have to PAY Dickens? He's dead? Well, then why should he get a writing credit?"

I learned what kind of a director I was working for early on, when I began working for this notable animator in 1993 he was working on a live-action film in between cartoons, and we got this whole feature finished and we were working on the credits - I found a document in our files that was a signed agreement between him and an actor who demanded that his name appear in the credits a certain way - it had to be the only name on the screen at the time and be visible for no less than 30 seconds. My boss had signed the piece of paper, agreeing to these conditions in exchange for the actor playing the role, signing a release and (I assume) getting paid. But when it came time to create the "scroll" for the credits, suddenly the director found these terms unacceptable, because it would make the credits take up too much time, slightly - plus there were like 40 or 50 other actors we had to list. So the director said, "Well, we're not doing THAT even though I was holding a piece of paper that said he was legally bound to do so." That's what you call a red flag, and that kind of prepared me for the next 30 years of working for the man, always struggling to get him to do things the "right" way. Eventually he stopped listening to me, so I stopped working there - wait, that might not be in the right order.

Filmmaking is a collaborative effort, and you would think there would be room for everyone to get the credit they deserve for their work, but if you look at any film on the IMDB there are actors listed as "uncredited", meaning they only wanted to recognize the efforts of SOME people, and really, that's across the board. The guilds will only award two or three of the writers on a film, even if 37 people contributed to a screenplay - and the visual FX companies employ dozens, hundreds of people even who never make it to the final credits. Why, it's almost like there are two or three people at the top of the food chain who want to take credit for everybody else's work...

So really, who would be surprised if a director took a story written by a kid and made it into a movie, while giving himself or his assistant the writing credit? I sure wouldn't. There's a guy on Instagram who makes songs out of stories his young daughter writes, and he's way more honest about it than a Hollywood director or producer would be. Marty Wolf is the director of a film called "Whitaker and Fowl", where a cop's partner turns out to be a chicken (named Whitaker, duh). It's a nod to films like "Turner and Hooch", maybe, only much stupider. So when the "Big Fat Liar" drops into his lap, it's a chance to make something that has much more depth, even if a kid wrote it, and something more imaginative as well. 

One day after summer school (which Jason was forced to take because he didn't hand in that essay) he and his platonic girlfriend Kaylee go to the movies and see a teaser trailer for "Big Fat Liar", and now he's convinced he knows what happened to his essay, thanks to the rat-fink director who obviously stole his story. So Jason risks everything when his parents go on vacation (thankfully his adult sister would rather hang out with her new boyfriend then spend 5 minutes keeping track of him) to somehow get plane tickets to L.A. for him AND Kaylee (umm, NITPICK POINT, I think you have to be an adult to buy a plane ticket) and go and confront the director in person. SURELY once he's confronted face-to-face, the horrible director will see the error of his ways, give credit where credit is due, and call Jason's father to straighten the whole thing out. 

Yeah, that doesn't happen - the horrible person continues being horrible and in fact BURNS the original draft of the screenplay. So Jason and Kaylee prank him by figuring out his daily routine of swimming and showering before going to work, and they chemically turn his skin blue and his hair orange. (umm, go Knicks? Mets?). Then they prank call his office and tell him the location of his meeting with the head of the studio has been changed, so he ends up at a kid's birthday party instead, and everyone assumes he's a clown and the kids beat him up. Look, I hate clowns as much as everyone else does (except for Puddles Pity Party) but this is a bit of a narrative short-cut in addition to being NITPICK POINT #2: there are no clowns with blue skin, really white is the only acceptable color for clown make-up, also it's not a given that kids are definitely going to beat up a clown at a party, there might be a couple good kids out there who could resist the temptation to give a clown the proper beat-down they deserve. 

(You might think there would be a NITPICK POINT about Jason and Kaylee working and sleeping in the studio's prop house, making all their plans to get revenge work with the help of the studio's costumes and equipment, and they're never spotted on camera as intruders or kicked out by security guards. But we know this is possible, because it's how Steven Spielberg started his career, he got off the Universal studio tour in the very same way and just helped himself to an office. Anybody can do it, go ahead, give it a try, just go to a movie studio and don't ever leave, you could be the next Spielberg.)

Life gets worse for Marty Wolf when Jason messes with his car, causing all of the controls to go weird and random, leading to a fender-bender with a monster truck that leaves Marty's car crushed by the Masher. And STILL he won't make the phone call - though at this point he pretends to, he's really calling his own security, though, and making sure that the two kids are not only removed from his office, but taken to the airport the next morning and sent back to Michigan. 

Before that can happen, though, Marty's overworked, under-paid and pissed-off (relatable!) assistant, Monty, steps in and prevents the kids from being shipped back to the Midwest or turned into L.A. landfill - and they hook up with the limo driver/aspiring actor that Marty had fired, as well as many other tormented or unfairly dismissed (and possibly sexually harassed) former employees who also bear grudges against Marty Wolf. After Marty went out of his way to get the financing to make his movie, the studio head did warn him that if only made ONE mistake, he'd be fired and cancelled. So all of those ex-employees team up on the first day of the shoot to give Marty the WORST day of his life, to not only ensure that he shows up late on the set, but also reveals on camera that he stole the movie plot from a kid. As a bonus, Jason's parents were told by him to fly to L.A. and get driven to the set, so they also get to hear Marty's confession, and Jason's father's faith in him is restored. Umm, NITPICK POINT #3, he probably should STILL be in trouble for ditching summer school, flying across the U.S. with no permission or adult supervision, and spending a fair amount of time making an adult man's life a living hell. Nah, I guess we're going to sweep all that under the carpet, because Jason's getting credit for writing the movie! He's 14 and he's got a screenwriting credit!  Unfortunately now he's probably going to go to film school and become just another asshole writer/director himself. Sorry, that's just how I see it.  

Marty is unable to work in Hollywood any more, and is forced to work as a birthday clown for real this time, so more beat-downs from kids are coming his way. Years later, of course, he would go on to direct a puff-piece documentary about the First Lady of the U.S. and move to Israel to attempt a show-biz comeback. Don't say it couldn't happen...  Look, I know this is a silly, stupid little fantasy film, and really I put off watching it for the LONGEST possible time, but it's still watchable thanks to Paul Giamatti, who is so wonderfully over-the-top here with his aggressive nature. He's calmed down a lot in the last couple decades, so this is really PEAK angry, boiling-over Giamatti. 

What doesn't really work here is the structure of the film - in the early parts of the film we see Jason being bullied, beat up by bigger teens, they take his skateboard. Jason learns exactly the wrong lesson from this, because when somebody else (Marty Wolf) has something that he wants, something that could save him from summer school, he becomes a bully HIMSELF in order to try and get Marty Wolf to call his father and explain things. Then when that doesn't work, he becomes an even BIGGER bully and gets a hundred other people to become bullies to get Marty kicked out of show business. This is a terrible message, especially in a film made for kids - if you don't get what you want, just make someone's life miserable until you do, and then if that doesn't work, just go ahead and destroy them.

I will tell you a much better way to get back at a film director, if you find that you are working for one and you are overworked, underpaid or mistreated overall. My recommendation is that you DO NOT quit, that would be too easy for them - instead, you must keep working for them, and do your job well, really gain their trust and not let on that you have an axe to grind. Keep this up for, I don't know, let's say 31 years and during this time, make sure that all of the payroll reports and tax returned are properly filed, the studio rent gets paid, the unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and property insurance policies are maintained. It's not going to be easy, especially when money gets tight and the director goes into a bit of debt, you can expect to not get a raise for a very long time, no Christmas bonuses, and you may have to work nights and weekends and even go on an occasional business trip, run some booths at conventions, you know, REALLY put in the extra effort. Fund-raising might also be required to keep the company going while you plot your revenge, but eventually there will come a time when you get fired or let go because he can't afford your salary any more. Don't worry, this is when your plan comes to fruition, because you can move on to another job or collect unemployment for a while, and he will be stuck there, he can't fire himself. And let me stress that up until this point, you have done NOTHING wrong, you've followed the letter of the law with regards to taxes and insurance. Then you can watch from afar as his entire business collapses because he's deep in debt, and eventually won't be able to pay the rent or cover the insurance or know how to run a Kickstarter campaign, and his whole business will implode. NOW you will have your revenge - of course, I'm still waiting on this but I'll let you know how it goes. 

Directed by Shawn Levy (director of "Deadpool & Wolverine")

Also starring Frankie Muniz (last seen in "Stuck on You"), Paul Giamatti (last seen in "The Holdovers"), Amanda Bynes (last seen in "She's the Man"), Amanda Detmer (last seen in "Drop Dead Gorgeous"), Donald Faison (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale"), Russell Hornsby (last seen in "After the Sunset"), Michael Bryan French (last seen in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer"), Christine Tucci, Lee Majors (last seen in "The Fall Guy"), Sean O'Bryan (last seen in "Get a Job"), Amy Hill (last seen in "Let's Go to Prison"), John Cho (also carrying over from "Over the Moon"), Matthew Frauman (last seen in "Bounce"), Don Yesso (last seen in "I Love You Phillip Morris"), Rebecca Corry, Sparkle (last seen in "Man on Fire"), Taran Killam (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Alex Breckenridge (also last seen in "She's the Man"), Ned Brower (last seen in "Not Another Teen Movie"), John Gatins (last seen in "Varsity Blues"), Andre Rosey Brown (last seen in "Space Jam"), Steven Shenbaum (last seen in "Edtv"), Jake Miner, Ted Rooney (last seen in "Somebody I Used to Know"), Marisa Petroro (last seen in "Ford v Ferrari"), Randall Newsome (last seen in "Geostorm"), Michelle Griffin (last seen in "Boomerang"), Mike Smith (last seen in "Equilibrium"), Andrea Sevilla, Tracey Cherelle Jones (last seen in "Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood"), Pat O'Brien (last seen in "Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed"), Brian Turk (last seen in "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles"), Patrick Falls, Timmy Fitzpatrick (last seen in "Just Married"), Corinne Reilly (last seen in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde"), Kyle Swann

with cameos from Dustin Diamond (last seen in "Made"), Martin Klebba (last seen in "The Electric State"), Shawn Levy (last seen in "Made in America"), Kenan Thompson (last heard in "Trolls Band Together"), Jaleel White (last seen in "I Could Never Be Your Woman")

RATING: 5 out of 10 famous props in the prop house

Over the Moon

Year 18, Day 160 - 6/9/26 - Movie #5,341 - FATHER'S DAY FILM #4

BEFORE: My fourth day this week at the Tribeca Festival was also very star-studded, starting with a new comedy titled "Never Change!" featuring a bunch of current comedy all-stars, with Joe Pera and Susan Sarandon in the audience. Then came a documentary about the Burning Man festival, with a bunch of the fashionable elite in attendance - I'm not naming names, mostly because I didn't know them. This was followed by a documentary about cable TV legend Robin Byrd, and the theatre was packed, with stars like Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker, also Andy Cohen. Finally a live reading/performance from Laurie Anderson, avant-garde music legend. Whew, I'm exhausted and I need a few days off just to recover. Tomorrow I think I'll go to the movies, but you know, just for fun. Not for work stuff.

Sandra Oh carries over from "Good Fortune". 

THE PLOT: A girl blasts off in a homemade rocket ship in hopes of meeting a mythical moon goddess. 

AFTER: Yeah, this film is not really my bag, either - but in a different way from how "47 Ronin" is not really my bag. This is a children's movie made for children, and as an adult there's not really much for me to grab on to. Like I know that there's just NO WAY that a girl's homemade rocket would make it to the moon. She might have been a genius at rocketry, but the technical part would have involved math that, if done correctly, would have proven that she didn't have enough power to overcome gravity, that her rocket was too heavy, plus what was she using for fuel, exactly? The idea to use magnetic levitation to go fast enough was a good one, perhaps, but not even the mag-lev trains go fast enough to slip the bonds of earth - do you think if the maglev rail systems were pointing UP then those trains would be able to break orbit? I don't think so...You can't just make a rocket go really fast down a rail system and then suddenly point it UP and get it into orbit, that's just not how things work. I think. 

Just because Fei Fei didn't get the memo that says a homemade rocket wouldn't have enough lift OR thrust to get into orbit, let alone the moon, that doesn't mean that her belief is enough to MAKE it work, at some point the reality of physics would settle in and take over. Having her new little stepbrother tag along only added more weight and made it more un-possible. But then, we're not meant to believe she flew her rocket to the moon, because at some point the moon goddess grabs the rocket in a beam and takes it the rest of the way there, which of course only takes a few minutes of screen time and NITPICK POINT, it took the Artemis astronauts six DAYS to get to the moon, not six minutes. But I realize this film is a fantasy film, in more ways than one. 

People have been making movies about going to the moon almost as long as they've been making movies. The French short "A Trip to the Moon" by George Mélies came out in 1902!  And there were several others, from Fritz Lang's "Woman in the Moon" to 1964's "First Men in the Moon", and then once we actually DID land people on the moon, there was no stopping all the sci-fi films that used that historical event as a jumping-off point. But this one might be the first to work in Chinese myths and legends with a trip to the moon. PLUS, it's a musical, AND also I'm counting this as a Father's Day movie, because the whole reason for Fei Fei's trip to the moon is that she misses her dead mother and she's having trouble dealing with the fact that her father is dating another woman, they're probably going to get married and then she'll have to deal with a step-mother AND a step-brother. 

The situation of the father here is mirrored in the legend of the Chinese moon goddess Chang'e, who took an immortality potion which caused her to become a goddess and ascend to the moon, leaving her lover Houyi on the earth. She's still waiting for him there, despite the fact that he's earthbound and not a god, so therefore quite dead. There are a number of narrative problems with the legend of Chang'e, like you'll notice that each member of Fei Fei's extended family tells her story a little bit differently, or focuses on a different aspect or meaning. Chang'e only has her Jade Rabbit for company on the moon, supposedly, but when Fei Fei gets there, the moon seems quite populated with Luminarians, and Chang'e performs for them in concert, like a K-Pop stadium star. (NOTE: This film is not from the same studio that made "K-Pop Demon Hunters", and it shares no cast members with that film except for Ken Jeung. The only reason I'm not watching that film next, with Ken Jeung carrying over, is that I don't want to.)

After Fei Fei and her stowaway stepbrother Chin land on the moon, thanks to Chang'e's beam of energy, two winged guardian lions appear to carry them off to Luminaria, where Chang'e is performing a song about being "Ultraluminary" and Fei Fei can't believe she's meeting the real moon goddess from the stories, so she takes a selfie with her to prove she's real. But Chang'e grabs the photo and won't give it back until Fei Fei returns with the "gift" she was supposed to bring with her, the gift that would bring Houyi back.  Fei Fei has no idea what the gift is, but she sets out on a journey across the moon's surface to find it anyway, hitching a ride with the Biker Chicks. Meanwhile Chin challenges Chang'e to a game of Ping Pong in order to either get back the photo or learn the location of the gift - but when Chen wins, Chang'e gets bored so she traps Chin in a chamber. Meanwhile Fei Fei's bunny, Bungee, is making friends with Change's Jack Rabbit, if you know what I mean.  

Over at the crash site with the Biker Chicks, Fei Fei meets an exiled Lunarian named Gobi, and also finds her Chang'e doll, which she thinks is the "gift" except that it isn't.  So she and Gobi head back to Lunaria on the backs of giant toads (OK, start smoking the weed...NOW) and Gobi reveals that he was exiled after writing a song about moving on, which the whole movie is kind of about - only it seems Chang'e wasn't ready to move on at the time Gobi wrote the song.  Fei Fei finds a broken half of a jade circle inside one of her mooncakes (NITPICK POINT #2, how the HELL did that get in there?) and realizes that it matches the half-circle that Chang'e wears around her neck, so it simply MUST be the gift that completes the circle. Once the two parts of the necklace are put together, Chang'e and Houyi are briefly reunited, but unfortunately it's only for a moment, and Houyi tells her to move on before he fades away.  But Chang'e can't accept this and slips into a state of depression, plunging the moon into total darkness. 

Fei Fei and Chang'e have to encourage each other to move on past their, umm, pasts and focus on the love all around them now, plus the memory of their loved ones, which they'll always have. Fei Fei and Chin are allowed to return home (umm, NITPICK POINT #3, how?) except for Bungee, who has found true love with Jade Rabbit and is probably knocked up already, you know those rabbits and as a bonus, Gobi is no longer banished from Luminaria. Once they're back on Earth, Fei Fei accepts Mrs. Zhong as her new step-mother and acknowledges that her father is a sexual being with needs of his own. JK. Another year goes by and we see them celebrating the Moon Festival again, only as a connected family now. 

Overall the message is really muddled, though. Like, if Fei Fei can prove that the moon goddess is REAL, logically therefore that means that her father should NOT marry Mrs. Zhong, because her mother might come back? That doesn't make any sense, and also it's not a good way for Fei Fei to react to her father's new relationship. Plus, in a time when we have actual astronauts going to the moon again, should we be teaching kids they can fly there with a rocket they built in the backyard? Not a good idea. 

Directed by John Kahrs & Glen Keane (writer of "Pocahontas" and producer of "Tangled")

Also starring Cathy Ang, Robert G. Chiu, Phillipa Soo (last seen in "Tick, Tick...BOOM!"), Ken Jeong (last seen in "My Spy: The Eternal City"), John Cho (last seen in "Get a Job"), Ruthie Ann Miles (last seen in "I Am Michael"), Margaret Cho (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Kimiko Glenn (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Artt Butler (last heard in "Her"), Irene Tsu (last seen in "Cleopatra"), Clem Cheung (last seen in "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere"), Conrad Ricamora, Glen Keane, Brycen Hall, Edie Ichioka, Elizabeth Pan (last heard in "Penguins of Madagascar"), James Taku Leung (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 4"), Josiah D. Lee (last seen in "Olympus Has Fallen"), Lucy Lin (last seen in "Scream 2"), Brittany Ishibashi (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Janice Kawaye, Trisha Vo, Esther K. Chae (last heard in "Soul")

RATING: 3 out of 10 useless facts about hairy crabs