The Comeback Trail

Year 18, Day 118 - 4/28/26 - Movie #5,315

BEFORE: I finally figured out what the chain was trying to tell me, I think - why so many films about fathers showed up here, a bit out of turn. The continuing pattern was about the need to let go, like Knox in "Knox Goes Away" was trying to get out of the hit-man life and clear his accounts, and Andy Goodrich in "Goodrich" was dealing with the closing of his art gallery, again trying to get out of his job and lifestyle and balance that with his life, as best as he could. During that same weekend, my boss of 30 years was part of a celebration of his career and the fact that he's turning 80 (and still not retiring, despite my rejected sane advice to do so) so like those characters, I need to be comfortable with MY decision to get out of that life, just about a year ago I "got clean" and I refused to participate in the birthday celebration/roast/tribute or whatever it was. 

Oh, oh, and Frank Costello was seen trying to retire and get out of the mob, which most people are unable to do while they're still breathing. So that's THREE films in a row with main characters deciding to get clear of their job/lifestyle, and move forward. OK, chain, the message has been received. I made the right move when I did, now it would be great to get that one last sign from the universe that I managed to get off the sinking ship before it sank. So now would be a really good time to learn that the ship did indeed sink, just saying. Robert De Niro carries over from "The Alto Knights". 

THE PLOT: A film producer who owes money to a mobster tries to "accidentally" kill his aging movie star for an insurance scam to pay off his debt, but he begins to realize that the movie they're shooting is a masterpiece in the making. 

AFTER: As I mentioned yesterday, I'm in the process of previewing docs for my summer (?) Doc Block, and one of the docs I took a spin through yesterday was about Roger Corman, the producer of over 450 films in his career, some very famous ones and really, a lot of low-budget flops. Mr. Corman also reminds me of the animator I worked for, somebody with "artist brain" who sees themselves like a shark, as if they'll die if they don't keep swimming forward. Which is not true, a filmmaker CAN retire if they want to, it's just practically unheard of because of their giant egos (they'll somehow cease to exist if their name's not on a marquee somewhere) also they HAVE to keep working because they're so far in debt that they need to make another film that isn't going to do well to help pay for the last one they made that didn't do well. It's a form of madness, I know - but that perfectly sets up De Niro's character in "The Comeback Trail", Max Barber, who is similarly deep in debt, but also just ONE successful film away from clearing his debt and also being relevant again. Yeah, I'm going to get the stress dreams again tonight, for sure - I've lived this exact situation for a long time. 

To be fair, I worked mostly in animation, and that's a whole different animal - umm, except when it isn't. When I started working for the studio my boss had finished an animated feature two years before, and was working on two live-action features, despite having a reputation for cartoons, he for some reason wanted to work in the regular film medium (one feature did have a little animation in it) so for the first two or three years of my animation career, I wasn't working on animation at all, instead the company was employing an editor, an assistant editor and a sound editor, with a weekly rent on an editing suite uptown. My job involved not only running the office but also sending boxes of VHS collections of my boss's short films to distributors, but also getting weekly bank checks to a payroll service so those editors and I could get properly, legally paid every Friday. Now, one of those features turned out to be a mockumentary (this was after "Spinal Tap" but before "Waiting for Guffman") about the making of a Western movie, and everything during the production of the film-within-the-film went horribly wrong, like several cast members died due to faulty equipment or bad catering...so yeah, I may know a thing or two about the subject matter here. 

This film is also kind of a riff on "The Producers", where two stage producers try to make a play so bad that it will close after opening night, and they won't have to return any profits to the investors and can keep all the money. In "The Comeback Trail", Max Barber learns that when a famous Hollywood actor/stuntman died on set, the producer collected on a $5 million insurance policy - so that's when he hatches his own scheme, to hire a very old (and suicidal) actor as his lead, and then look for ways to make the stunts go wrong on the set, and when he dies, that's $5 million he didn't have before, which is even more than the $1 million he's offered for that magic screenplay that he's sitting on. With $5 million he could clear all of his debts, get ahead of things, maybe even retire. Umm, who are we kidding, he's only going to blow that money on making more terrible movies, and/or keeping the studio open for another three years, at which point he'll be RIGHT back in the same situation, and in debt once again. Trust me, I understand exactly how that "artist brain" works. Max Barber, just like Max Bialystock, can't stop making more productions, because he would then cease to exist. 

So once Barber has his leading man cast, first he learns all the commands for the stunt-horse. One code word makes the horse run away very fast, another makes the horse rear up, and still another word makes the horse go completely crazy. But somebody spills water on the list of code words, so Max gets them all mixed up, of course, True to form, whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and here there's another dimension, since Max is TRYING to make an accident happen, naturally nothing works out as it should, so all attempts to cause disaster and kill Duke Montana fail, and then this starts to resemble a Road Runner / Wile. E. Coyote situation. 

Next Max suggests filming the most dangerous stunt first, which means setting the wagons on fire and having Duke and the horse jump right through it. Then there's the rope bridge over the canyon, and Max monkeys with the ropes the night before so that Duke will fall to his death. Then there's the scene with the wild bull, when Duke fails to wear the red hat and decides to stick with his regular one, you know, for continuity purposes. But in all cases, two fails means that things start going WELL, and despite Max's best efforts, they start making an actual movie.

NITPICK POINT: I thought it could have been a great gag if Max had neglected to actually take out that insurance policy on Duke, but I guess I'm the only person who thinks that would have been funny. You know, the producer's got a scheme to pull the insurance scam, but also he's too cheap to lay out the money for the policy, or he's too stupid to realize that he'd have to do the paperwork to set all that up. From my experience, that's exactly how that should have gone down, I can't tell you how many times I had to get a replacement policy for workmen's compensation or disability insurance, both of which are legally required to operate a business with employees, only the boss couldn't understand that the monthly bills need to be paid, err, monthly. 

Against all reasonable expectations, "The Oldest Gun in the West" turns out to be a hit movie, so I guess the lesson for us all is that if you plan to fail, and your plans don't work out, you might succeed?  Wait, I thought that nobody plans to fail, they only fail to plan... Nah, let's go with the first one, it makes much more sense than that stupid line about how "If you shoot for the moon, and you miss, you still land in the stars." Umm, no, you don't, if you shoot for the moon and you miss, you get stranded in empty space and you die. Just saying.  

Directed by George Gallo (director of "Middle Men" and writer of "Bad Boys: Ride or Die")

Also starring Tommy Lee Jones (last seen in "Faye"), Morgan Freeman (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Zach Braff (last seen in "The Last Kiss"), Emile Hirsch (last seen in "The Girl Next Door"), Sheryl Lee Ralph (last seen in "Just Getting Started"), Kate Katzman (last seen in "Walt Before Mickey"), Eddie Griffin (last seen in "The New Guy"), Chris Mullinax, Patrick Muldoon (last seen in "Marlowe"), Julie Lott (last seen in "Middle Men"), Aighleann McKiernan (ditto), Blerim Destani, Vincent Spano (last seen in "The Black Stallion Returns"), Paul Witten, Melissa Greenspan (last seen in "Senior Moment"), Joel Michaely (last seen in "The Card Counter"), Jermaine Washington (last seen in "Fast Color"), Desiree Geraldine, Morse Bicknell (last seen in "The Space Between Us"), Michael Davis, Robert Benedetti (last seen in "Legal Eagles"), Danno Hanks, Ray Bouderau (last seen in "The Clapper"), Dylan Flashner (last seen in "Bandit"), Leslie Stratton (ditto), Leroy Morgan, Garrison Cahill Griffith, Malcolm Barret (last seen in "My Best Friend's Girl"), Frances Lee McCain (last seen in "Brats"), Bill Luckett, Jake Hunter, Chelsea Newman, Dobromir Mashukov, Kyron Bonner, Christina Ann Sweeney, Michelle Maylene, Natalie Burn (last seen in "Mechanic: Resurrection"), Josefine Lindegaard (last seen in "Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver"), Kiersten Dolbec, Ekaterina Baker (last seen in "Fatman"), Emily Casazza, Nick Vallelonga (last seen in "The Many Saints of Newark"), Hansel Ramirez, Erik Sahlein, Leonard Waldner

RATING: 6 out of 10 old people desperate to get out of the nursing home (was this supposed to be funny? I'm not seeing it...)

The Alto Knights

Year 18, Day 117 - 4/27/26 - Movie #5,314

BEFORE: It's still April, but all of a sudden, I've got a plan for the Doc Block. I'd been working on it here and there, whenever I had the time, mostly I go by the cast lists on the IMDB, but those can be unreliable, so sometimes I feel the need to scan through each doc at maybe double-speed, not slow enough that I learn about everything the doc, but not so fast that I miss seeing who appears in it. I had 7 slots open on my streaming/maybe list, so I decided to fill those up with docs, and that brought me to a place where I had everything in three clumps, one with 10 films, one with 11 and one with 12. A little bit of monkeying around with the order, and suddenly I connected everything into ONE big doc chain of 33 films. That's certainly enough for a month of programming this summer - OK, so they're not in a circle, they're just in a line, but that gives me a tentative entry point and an exit point, all I have to do in June (or July) is get to that entry point, at which point the IMF team will cut a hole in the ice and revive me with a special depressurization tent. No, wait...

It's early, I know it's early, but I'm not just stumbling in the dark, guessing which docs I'm going to watch this year, I've got a framework, and if some new docs come along, or I go through some more cast lists, I can try to find a place for each new one somewhere in the mix. So the planning isn't over, not by a long shot, and with each new film I might need to shuffle things around, and you know, too much of that and I'll probably end up scrapping the whole order and start over again, re-grouping the films by subject matter, all the film stars first, then the comic actors, then the rock bands. It's been known to happen, but maybe, just maybe, this order will hold up, I can add 5 or 6 more and call it a chain, because the first doc is SUPER easy to link to, there are about 30 possible people to link to, I guess first I'll have to see where I'm going to be on Fathers Day, and then I can finalize my decisions then. It's cool, I don't want to lock anything down just yet, but there's a plan in place that could work if I have no time between now and then to re-organize everything. And you know from the end of the Doc Block it's usually just one long stretch to Halloween, and then another short one to Christmas movies, and then, well, the year's basically over, innit? 

Sydney Miles carries over from "Goodrich". 

THE PLOT: Two of New York City's most notorious crime bosses vie for control of the city's streets. Once best friends, petty jealousies and a series of betrayals set them on a deadly collision course. 

AFTER: Yes, tonight's film is THAT movie from 2025, the one where Robert De Niro played two different notable mobsters, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, and sometimes those two characters interacted with each other, at some points they were the only two characters on screen. It was all done with make-up and split screen work, or they used a body double for one guy when they filmed De Niro as Costello, and then put De Niro's face on the body double playing Genovese. Or maybe it was the other way round - but this is simultaneously somehow both the best thing about the movie and also the worst, because De Niro didn't do much to change his voice, so obviously both characters sound like him, and that ruins the illusion, so you're really aware at all times that he's both of them, even when they're talking to each other. 

It's a gimmick, and the thing about gimmick is that they stick out, they may be memorable but sometimes they are also annoying. Was I supposed to pretend like I didn't KNOW both characters are Bobby D, just wearing different prosthetics and make-up? It would be impossible not to know, also this messes with my suspension of disbelief, in addition to being confusing as all hell. Do you mean to imply that all Italians sound exactly alike? That's a little disturbing if not flat-out racist. I suppose another implication is that all Italians are gangsters, because I don't think we see any Italian people in this film who are NOT mobbed up, so really, that IS what somebody is trying to say, isn't it?  

The film also starts with a hitman, sent by Genovese, shooting Costello as he enters the elevator in his apartment building. Is this an occurence meant to take place early in the relationship, or are we starting the film in media res, meaning "somewhere in the middle, but the most important part" and then is the film going to flashback to the mobsters' teen years and friendship, during Prohibition when gangsters could make a killing just getting to the "hospitality" business. Are we going to flash back and then catch up to the hit on Costello, which really belongs in the MIDDLE of the film, but is seen at the very beginning?  I'm genuinely asking, because I'm not really sure. That seems to make the most sense to me, I mean, Vito wouldn't have any reason to put a hit on Frank at the start of the film, and flashing back would be very helpful to explain the WHY of the hit, not just the HOW. But Costello survives the hit, the bullet bounced off his skull but did not go inside, and then Costello is more motivated to try to get out of this life and retire. Ah, but the mob doesn't really LET people retire, right? So was the hit personal payback, or just the mob tying up some loose ends, by not letting anyone out alive? 

Again, I'm not sure. There's a scene where Frank Costello testifies to some kind of government committee about organized crime (led by Estes Kefauver), and he spills secrets where most of the other mobsters evoked their Fifth Amendment rights, which is basically just like saying they were guilty, just unwilling to say they were guilty, and the burden of proof would be back on the government.  So was the hit on Costello taken out as retaliation for speaking to the committee?  I don't know because the answer would be NO if the scenes here are being shown in chronological order, but maybe YES if the film was jumping around a bit in time. 

Let me see if I can reorganize a few things here with some actual dates - in 1936, boss Lucky Luciano was convicted of running a prostitution ring, sentenced to at least 30 years. He tried to run the family from prison with the help of Frank Costello, but it was too difficult, so Genovese became acting boss of the Luciano crime family. But then in 1937 Genovese fled to Italy to avoid prosecution for a murder in 1934, so Costello was appointed acting boss, until Genovese came back to the U.S. in 1945, after the murder charges were dismissed due to the death of two witnesses (what are the odds?). Rather than be allowed to run everything again, Genovese was given some territory, but Costello remained acting boss. Most of this is shown in tonight's film, just not necessarily in that order. 

The Kefauver Hearings were held in 1950 and 1951, that's when most other mobsters pled the fifth, but Costello started offering up actual information, when the questions got too close, Costello walked out, saying he had a sore throat. Several days later he returned but would not answer every question (what a shock!) and he was found in contempt of Congress and sentenced to 18 months. Then Costello was indicted in 1952 for tax evasion, and he was sentenced to five years, plus the government started proceedings to strip him of his citizenship, BUT in 1954 Costello appealed and was released on bail, THEN came the Genovese hit on Costello in May of 1957. So yes, the movie kind of started in the middle of the story and then flashed back to the beginning, and the hit was likely retaliation for testifying before Congress, plus maybe not giving Vito Genovese back his territory or position, plus maybe also Vito just didn't like him any more. Either way, the hit persuaded Costello to relinquish power and retire. 

In November of 1957 was the famous Apalachin meeting, this was the big nationwide meeting held in upstate New York, with bosses from all over the country getting together to discuss new ways to divide up the territory, plus I think there were seminars on loan-sharking and this new thing (at the time) called narcotics. Over 100 Mafiosi attended, and really the whole thing was put together to maybe make Vito Genovese the capo di tutti capi, or "boss of bosses". But somebody tipped off the police about the meeting in this sleepy little town, and the place got raided. The movie depicts Frank Costello as being late for the meeting, suddenly deciding to stop at a farm and pick some apples, which strongly suggests that he might have been the one who dropped a dime on the other mobsters. But you didn't hear this from me...

The state police started taking down plate numbers, from all the luxury cars from around the country that were parked outside a farm for some reason, and when they ran the plates and learned many cars were registered to known criminals, well, suddenly J. Edgar Hoover's claim that there was no national crime syndicate started to seem a bit short-sighted. This was kind of like the Woodstock Festival, only 10 years earlier and the focus was crime, not rock music, but you get the idea. The police set up a roadblock, and when the mobsters spotted it, they all bolted, maybe 50 got away and 60 others were apprehended, including Vito Genovese, and they were all charged with "conspiring to obstruct justice by lying about the nature of the meeting", and fined up to $10,000 each. So they served time for NOT telling the cops what the meeting was about, but I bet they would have served more time if they HAD told the cops what the meeting was about. Oh, and Frank Costello showed up too late to get arrested, imagine that. 

Costello did get to retire after that, but he also had to serve 15 years at the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta for dealing heroin, and for at least part of that time, Vito Genovese was also a prisoner there. That must have been awkward - but Costello did get out, and managed to outlive Genovese by 4 years. 

Directed by Barry Levinson (director of "Here Today" and "Sphere")

Also starring Robert De Niro (last seen in "Killer Elite"), Debra Messing (last seen in "Bros"), Kathrine Narducci (last seen in "Capone"), Cosmo Jarvis (last seen in "Hunter Killer"), Michael Rispoli (last seen in "Nonnas"), Robert Uricola (last seen in "Raging Bull"), Frank Piccirillo, Matt Servitto (last seen in "Disenchanted"), Louis Mustillo (last seen in "One for the Money"), Anthony J. Gallo (last seen in "The Irishman"), James Ciccone (last seen in "Somewhere in Queens"), Joe Bacino (last seen in "Kick-Ass"), Luke Stanton Eddy, Antonio Cipriano, Brian Scolaro, Wallace Langham (last seen in "Draft Day"), Ed Amatrudo (last seen in "Till"), Mike Seely (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Todd Covert (ditto), Abi Van Andel (ditto), Jeffrey Grover (ditto), Wynn Reichert (ditto), Amadeo Fusca, Bob Glouberman (last seen in "Queenpins"), Kimeron Collins, Peyton Stockdale, John Dinello (last seen in "Saturday Night"), Jocelyn Sluka, Bryant Carroll (last seen in "Nutcrackers"), Robert Arce (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Brian Spangler, Alex Safi (last seen in "Set Up"), Christine McBurney, Rich Williams (last seen in "Tammy"), Ashton Wolf, Josh Innerst, Mark Axelowitz (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Glenn Cunningham (ditto), James P. Harkins (last seen in "The Accountant 2"), Zach Meiser, Louie Lawless, Andy Knode, Mark Tierno, J. Barrett Cooper, Liam Cronin, Robert DiDonato (last seen in "Striking Distance"), Michael Patrick Trimm, Jeremy Dubin (last seen in "Miles Ahead"), Michael Adler (last seen in "Peppermint"), Itala Sona Ennor, Jean Zarzour, Tino Roncone, Nick Ferraro, Mike Dennis (last seen in "The Old Man & the Gun"), Belmont Cameli, Ed Formica, Seve Esposito (last seen in "Green Book"), Noan Bain Garret, Shantel Routt,

with archive footage of James Cagney, Benny Goodman, J. Edgar Hoover (last seen in "I Am MLK Jr.") and Little Richard (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself")

RATING: 4 out of 10 patrons at the Copa club

Goodrich

Year 18, Day 116 - 4/26/26 - Movie #5,313

BEFORE: The chain has seen fit to throw another film about a father into late April - that's three in the last week, meaning that this week COULD have, maybe SHOULD have, been programmed into June, the home of Father's Day. Sure, films about fathers are all over the place, and I've got a little separate list of them that did NOT include "One Battle After Another" or "Knox Goes Away". If I had known this week would have been so father-centric, I might have worked harder to find another way to get from, say, "Honk for Jesus" to tomorrow's film, saving this little part of the chain for later, June would have been great. But you know, there's a chance that I would not have been able to link to it then, plus I was in such a rush to watch the film that won Best Picture, nothing else really mattered. Look, if it turns out I can't find any appropriate material for Fathers Day, then I'll just look back on what I've already watched this year, and say, "Well, at least I had the topic covered, even if I didn't hit the holiday spot on."  But again, films about fathers are all over the place, surely something else will pop up at the right time. 

Michael Keaton carries over from "Knox Goes Away". 

THE PLOT: Andy Goodrich's life is upended when his wife enters a rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Goodrich leans on Grace, his daughter from his first marriage, as he ultimately evolves into the father she never had. 

AFTER: We're ushered in to Andy Goodrich's life at a time of great turmoil, his second (and current) wife calls him from a rehab facility where she's just checked herself in, and her addiction comes as something of a shock to Goodrich, he hadn't noticed that she was overworked and strung out and needed to take pills to go to sleep, and then other pills to stay awake during the day, in addition to being tired all the time because she was taking care of their twins, and just maybe he'd been spending just a bit too much time running his art gallery, because he didn't even notice that his wife wasn't sleeping next to him. Oh, and in addition to checking into rehab, his wife wants to check out of their marriage. Goodrich drives to the rehab facility, but of course he's unable to visit her, and then he's got to rush back because there's nobody to pick the kids up from school. He's also late in getting them to school the next day, because he didn't even know somebody had to pack lunches for them. Do you get the feeling that this guy's been a little out of touch? 

He also can't seem to find a way to tell his kids what "rehab" is, so he makes up a story about his wife spending time with her mother in St. Louis. I'm sure there will be no repercussions over him lying to his own kids, right?  Suddenly Goodrich has to learn how to be a father, with only the help from their nanny, who came straight from the Israeli military - so he also enlists the help of Grace, his adult daughter from his first marriage, but she's eight months pregnant and also very resentful that her younger half-siblings are getting the attention from their father that SHE never got when she was a child. Oh, there will be something to unpack there, eventually. Andy's only friend seems to be Terry, the single father of his kids' classmate, who also can't seem to get a kid to school on time, and he's a part-time actor whose husband left HIM three years ago. Everybody's got some issues, it seems. 

Meanwhile Goodrich's art gallery has fallen on tough times, their artists aren't selling enough paintings to bring in enough revenue to off-set rising rents and labor costs. Yeah, I worked for an animation studio like that, the owner just kept getting into more and more debt from making films and refused to get a proper agent, so that meant we were constantly struggling to sell more signed art and the schemes to raise money were getting wackier and wackier, like I sold $11,000 worth of animation art to a French museum, it took an extra month for the money to arrive, so when it finally did, it was all spent in three days just to pay enough bills to stay in business another month, that's when I knew the writing was on the wall. So I understand the position Goodrich is in here, he makes a desperate play by befriending the daughter of an artist who has recently died, to try to get exclusive rights to her mother's paintings, as we know an artist's work is likely to go up in value after their death. 

Goodrich has a lot to do in a short period of time, and to do it all, he kind of has to become a different sort of person than he's been in the past - to repair the relationship with his pregnant daughter, save his business and take care of his kids, he's got to actually, you know, CARE and start paying attention to what he's maybe been doing wrong, it's time to give a shit. It's time to realize that the world doesn't necessarily revolve around HIM, and it's time to maybe sacrifice a few things before everything in his life is completely gone or past saving - and even then, things may not work out, but he's got to try. Or learn the art of letting go, that would be another way to deal with the inevitable failure of all things. Maybe both skills are going to be necessary here, try to fix what can be fixed and learn to let go of the things that can't. 

He keeps promising things to his daughter, they'll go out for ice cream and talk or he'll take her to her last pre-natal exam, but things keep coming up, and bottom line, he keeps missing those chances to help her out. I don't know, maybe try using a calendar? Maybe try an app that will give you alerts about your appointments or the places that you said you'd be? It's not hard for most people, but Goodrich has a form of "artist brain" where he can sort of run his business, but he can't run his own personal life, not without several assistants. So yeah, it all comes to a head when Grace chews him out for not being there for her, both in the present and really, for her whole life. Perhaps Goodrich has a chance to be a better grandfather than he was as a father, I know I saw that happen with my own dad. Well, when you have kids you're always working, and therefore always tired, I get it - but when you're a grandfather, you're more likely to be retired and have some extra time on your hands. 

This explains why Goodrich doesn't quite get along with his son-in-law, Pete. Grace chose to be with someone completely unlike her father - dependable, in other words. But at least Goodrich is aware of his faults now, and he's trying to do better. But his art gallery might be beyond saving, and perhaps his second marriage, too, even after Naomi finishes her 90 days in rehab. 

Everyone is way too entitled these days, and this film showcases a lot of people like that. I think just a few generations ago kids were working in factories or mines and there was a Depression going on, and then somebody said that was a bad idea, kids shouldn't be working in factories and mines, at least not until they're 16, and by then World War II ended and things were "great" but also somehow the pendulum swung maybe a bit too far in the other direction. So now we have this generation Z or Gen Alpha or whatever, and they're completely used to getting whatever they want. Cel phones, computers, and ChatGPT and AI have made it so they don't even have to do homework if they can just Google everything they need to know. And they all have peanut allergies or need to be gluten-free and this enables an entire culture of super-picky eaters, if their lunchbox doesn't include 3-inch diameter cucumber slices with the centers removed then they just can't deal with anything that day. 

These kids grow into adults who will BAIL on a relationship if it's not 100% perfect and meeting their outrageous expectations in every way. Just saying. If you can't choke down a lunch that isn't 100% what you wanted it to be, then you can't work a difficult job or navigate a troubled relationship, and you're going to spend your whole life running away from things that you deem too tough to handle. I'm sorry, but life is struggle and life is dealing with the hard things sometimes and you're going to have to get a job and make some money and it's NOT going to be easy. Look, I don't know if this is an L.A. thing or a rich person thing, but everybody's got to come together and use what we used to call "tough love" and STOP babying their kids, because not everything is going to go their way down the road, and they need to be prepared for that. 

Directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer (director of "Home Again")

Also starring Mila Kunis (last seen in "Luckiest Girl Alive"), Carmen Ejogo (last seen in "The Purge: Anarchy"), Michael Urie (last seen in "Maestro"), Kevin Pollak (last seen in "Three Christs"), Laura Benanti (last seen in "Worth"), Andie MacDowell (last seen in "Ready or Not"), Viviena Lyra Blair (last seen in "Bird Box"), Nico Hiraga (last seen in "Moxie"), Jacob Kopera, Danny Deferrari (last seen in "Oppenheimer"), Poorna Jagannathan (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Andrew Leeds (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Kimberly Condict, Noa Fisher (las seen in "Uncut Gems"), Jessica Heller, Monique Moses, Carlos Solorzano, Chloe Troast (last seen in "Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain"), Liza Treyger (last seen in "Nope"), Lois Shih, Carlos Ragas, Sydney Miles (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Miles Anderson (last seen in "Cry Freedom"), Michael Chieffo (last seen in "The Ring Two"), Roshni Shukla, Crosby Fitzgerald, Maria Bata, Shannon Bengston, Susan Thomas Walker

RATING: 5 out of 10 deep breathing exercises

Knox Goes Away

Year 18, Day 115 - 4/25/26 - Movie #5,312

BEFORE: I'm going to skip Friday, as I have to work late on Friday night, so my next movie counts for Saturday. I'm going out on Saturday, too, there's a beer festival in the afternoon so when I get home from that I won't be in any condition to watch a movie. Moving my review to Saturday accomplishes the following and I can still get to Mother's Day movie on time: 

John Hoogenakker carries over again from "G20" and today we've got a special Birthday SHOUT-out to Al Pacino, born on 4/25/1940. That's right, he's turning 86 today, but he's a very young 86, to be sure. 

THE PLOT: When a contract killer is diagnosed with a rapidly evolving form of dementia, he is offered an opportunity to redeem himself by saving the life of his estranged adult son. 

AFTER: Al Pacino is OLD, sure - his character here claims to be pushing 90, and so we don't see him running around or shooting anybody, his role in "Knox Goes Away" is to be a mentor to the main character and give him advice over the phone. We do see him, but he's usually sitting in a chair, or once in a bathtub I think, but there's nothing physical he has to do, just talk on the phone. He's done a LOT of movies, man, I think he's earned his break - he hasn't retired from acting like Jack Nicholson or Robert Duvall did, but clearly what he can do in a movie is limited due to his age. 

I've seen a fair number of Michael Keaton movies over the years, and I think I finally figured out what "type" of character he prefers to play, and I think if you see most of his movies like I have, you start to put it together. He either plays really smart characters or really stupid ones, and maybe sometimes both at the same time. Seeing him in February in "Much Ado About Nothing" kind of cemented that, his Dogberry was very dumb, to the point of serving as comic relief, yet he figured out the scheme of Don John and saved the wedding day for Hero and Claudio. Sure, he arrested Borachio without fully knowing what treasonous act he had done, but he knew he was guilty of SOMETHING and took him to a town official when he couldn't figure it out himself. In other films ("American Assasin", "Protege") he's played master assassins, and those people have to be pretty smart, and then in the Spider-Man movies he played the Vulture, and was able to figure out that Peter Parker had a secret. And while "Batman" is called the world's greatest detective (smart) he also played Bruce Wayne as a clueless playboy (dumb) - and I think "Beetlejuice" is another great example of a character who's somehow smart and stupid at the same time. His character in "Birdman" was a smart playwright who was maybe also going insane, that counts, too, right? 

So here he plays a contract killer who used to be a college professor - so we're back on "smart", I mean he's killed a lot of guys and never got caught, so he's got to be both book-smart and street-smart. BUT, he learns that he's got a fast-developing form of dementia, so as time goes on he's going to be less and less lucid, and he may start forgetting names and details, so he's going to end up "dumb", in a sense, very soon. He can't reveal his diagnosis to his handlers, his only plan is to get out of this lifestyle before his brain stops working right, I mean what good is a hit-man who might forget who he's supposed to kill, in the middle of doing a job? Sure, you can write a bunch of stuff down, but that only works if you read it, plus then he's leaving a paper trail. 

So this plays out a little bit like "Memento" did - a guy who's got a job to do, only he knows his memory is shot, so he's got to leave himself little notes if he wants to get out of this life and have some time left when he's not tracking down people and killing them before he dies. I still have to re-watch "Memento", I'm overdue but I've been pretty busy.  Knox can't officially quit, with his knowledge of all his hits then his boss might have to take him out, but he can cash out the money he's earned and invested, launder it, and divide it into thirds, leaving it to his ex-wife, his estranged son, and the woman he spends Tuesdays with, who I assume is a hooker. 

The whole plan is complicated when his son, Miles, shows up at his door, covered in blood and with a bad cut on his hand, he's killed someone, but he had a very good reason, and he needs his father's help to cover it up. Knox does know a thing or two about disposing of bodies, however, that's not what he does here. He helps his son calm down, gets him cleaned up and then he goes to look at the scene. The victim was a total scumbag, a low-level criminal who got Miles' daughter pregnant, and instead of dealing with that some other way, Miles lost control and stabbed the guy 17 times. 

Rather than clean up the crime scene, which would eventually raise suspicion, Knox does something totally different, he gets rid of the actual evidence, and then plants a bogus knife with Miles' fingerprints in a place where the cops can find it easily, also he gets rid of Miles' real bloody clothing and then plants a bogus bloody shirt in his son's trash. Man, it took a while for me to figure out what Knox was doing here, but it actually was pretty brilliant. He assumed that Miles would not be able to keep his cool, and eventually he would be arrested for the murder, and there was enough evidence (the cut on his hand, the motive) for the cops to detain Miles, however when they REALLY examined the evidence, it would tell a different tale. 

God, this was so smart. I'm blown away by it and I'm left wondering how somebody came up with it. For the majority of the movie, it sure looked like Knox was framing his son while pretending to help him, and then I was also wondering if the dementia had already kicked into high gear, and if he knew what he was doing, or just going through the motions of some past hit, and his actions didn't seem to make much sense, but then of course they did. "M'wah", chef's kiss. No notes. 

Except, of course, for the notes that Knox had to make this plan, but he burned those. Also he knew that by the time the cops fully investigated the murder scene, he himself might be completely incoherent and therefore unable to stand trial or adequately defend himself. Meanwhile Knox also was taking those last steps to acquire his stash, get that money laundered and split three ways - no, wait, two but that's another story.  So in the end this turned out to be a very smart, touching story about a father making a sacrifice to save his son, and damn, this would have been a great thing to save for Father's Day, if only I had known to do that. 

What's weird is that this film is the opposite of a murder mystery, here we all KNOW who did the murder, and the question becomes, can the evidence be made so confusing that the police can NOT properly solve the crime? I don't think I've seen this before, although maybe "Memento" did come kind of close....

Directed by Michael Keaton (producer of "Worth")

Also starring Michael Keaton (last seen in "Much Ado About Nothing"), James Marsden (last seen in "The Best of Me"), Suzy Nakamura (last seen in "Horrible Bosses 2"), Joanna Kulig (last seen in "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters"), Ray McKinnon (last seen in "News of the World"), Lela Loren (last seen in "Bruised"), Marcia Gay Harden (last seen in "Get a Job"), Al Pacino (last seen in "Hangman"), Dennis Dugan (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Jay Paulson (last seen in "Killers of the Flower Moon"), Paul Perri (last seen in "Vice" (2018)), Edwin Garcia II (last seen in "Holes"), Nicole Reddinger, Charles Bisset, Martin Garcia (last seen in "Ingrid Goes West"), Morgan Bastin, Natasha Galano, Rena Bobbs, Chad Donella (last seen in "Shattered Glass"), Marisa Echeverria, Gugun Deep Singh, Cassie Moronez, Kristofer Gordon, Jimmy Ortega (last seen in "Crank: High Voltage"), Sasha Neboga, Benita Krista Nall (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Anthony Molinari (last seen in "The Rental"), Zedric Harris (last seen in "Triple Frontier"), Lee Dawson, Dan Ringey

RATING: 6 out of 10 storage units (at different locations, of course)

G20

Year 18, Day 113 - 4/23/26 - Movie #5,311

BEFORE: I moved up the films by a day, now that I can't watch the movie "Little" anywhere - but you know, I think the chain made the right call there. John Hoogenakker carries over from "One Battle After Another", a film that really didn't link to as many other movies as I expected. But I still get to issue a Birthday SHOUT-out to Mr. Hoogenakker, born 4/23/1977, and I really had to DIG into his bio on IMDB to learn his birthday. Why can't this be easier to find, for everyone? Anyway, this is the middle film in a 3-film series linked by Hoogenakker.  Remember when I once linked four high-school romance films that all had Wolfgang Novogratz in them? That guy's only been in seven feature films, and I watched FOUR of them in a row!  

Too late, I noticed there was a way to link from "One Battle After Another" to "Marty Supreme", which just debuted on cable. Paul Grimstad appears in both films - and I could have dropped in just one more film to get back to HERE, but then I would have missed Hoogenakker's birthday. So I'm going to figure I can get back to Marty Supreme soon, somehow, some other way. 

THE PLOT: Terrorists take over the G20 summit and President Sutton has to bring her governing and military experience together to defend her family, country and the world. 

AFTER: Somehow, implausibly, against all reasonable expectations, this is the THIRD movie this year on the theme of world leaders getting together at summit meetings. And amazingly, something goes very wrong each time, but you know, we've already proven that almost EVERY movie is about what goes wrong. Back in January I watched "Rumours", which had Charles Dance playing the U.S. President, and the world coming to an end while the world leaders at the G7, umm, drafted a statement about it. That was a weird movie, for sure. Then the next week I watched "Heads of State", which had John Cena playing the U.S. President, and he had to team up with Idris Elba as the British Prime Minister while someone was trying to derail a NATO summit meeting. Now in this THIRD action film about summits, Viola Davis plays the U.S. President at the G20 meeting, which is hijacked by terrorists. These are three VERY different movies, only one is a comedy, really and only one of them is severely weird, but they're all kind of drawing from the same source material, which is "Let's imagine an international summit, and then think about what can go horribly wrong there."

Today's film is more serious action, as the female President is ex-military, so she can handle a gun and she can fight hand-to-hand, also she's got leadership qualities, which come in handy when she has to rally a team that includes the UK Prime Minister, the head of the International Monetary Fund and the First Lady of South Korea, none of whom are known for their fighting skills. Thankfully she's also got her primary Secret Service bodyguard with her, and her teenage daughter, who happens to be an expert hacker and electronics expert. Now the First Gentleman isn't great in a fight, but her family might not even BE with her at the G20 meeting in South Africa if her daughter hadn't managed to sneak out of the White House one night, disabling security to do so. This is kind of a "burned toast" plot point, because young Serena was being punished and made to go to the summit, also because President Sutton didn't want to leave her at home in D.C. with no parental supervision. So OF COURSE the teenage girl holds the key to making contact with the outside world, uploading a video that shows what's really going on during the hostage crisis. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. 

President Sutton is going to the G20 in Cape Town with her Treasury Secretary (and bestie) to present a plan to empower struggling sub-Saharan farmers by giving them access to digital currency. NITPICK POINT: I think that due to the instability of the crypto market, that plan is just as likely to bankrupt them as it is to grant them financial freedom. But what the heck do I know? But the conference is attacked by Edward Rutledge, a former Australian special forces soldier who also works in security. After taking control of the hotel and holding most of the world leaders hostage, he accuses the U.S. President of corruption, urging citizens around the world to withdraw their money from banks and buy crypto immediately, because there's about to be worldwide financial collapse. Well, he's right, in a way, because if everyone around the world did just that, it WOULD bring financial collapse, essentially most of the paper money in the world would decrease in value. Theoretically, at least. 

But President Sutton and a few world leaders evade the mercenaries and avoid capture, so Rutledge executes a few of the world leaders to try to convince her to come back. He's also recording world leaders saying pangram phrases so he can create deepfakes of them saying whatever he wants, which should help him destabilize the world's economies quicker, and prompt people to buy more crypto WHICH he owns a lot of, of course, and the sudden interest in it should make the value go up, according to that economics class I never took. Meanwhile Derek, the First Gentleman, rescues his two children and tries to keep them safe, but eventually he is captured by a rogue Secret Service agent, while his children get away. 

The President's team makes it to "the Beast", the presidential armored limo, in the parking garage. The team starts to drive away, but President Sutton stays behind in order to try and save her husband from the terrorists. She surrenders herself to the deepfake process, and the video Rutledge makes of her confessing to crimes crashes the U.S. economy, and gains him $150 billion in crypto coin sales. Even as an international strike team finally breaches the hotel, Rutledge continues to torment the President by shooting her husband and trying to escape with her daughter as a hostage. I won't say how it ends, but come on, never count out the star action hero, the female President is really the John McClane hero here. 

Given the time-frame necessary to make a movie these days, I'd guess that some screenwriter figured that the winner of the 2024 election would be a woman of color - and then once Trump got re-elected of course it was too late to change the script here, plus it wouldn't make any sense if they did, so they just stuck to the script. I know, I know, President Sutton here does not seem to be directly based on Kamala Harris, but I still suspect someone was trying to draw inspiration from future events that just never ended up happening. The Treasury Secretary is a middle-aged blonde woman who herself had an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency, so she's clearly based on Hillary Clinton. Maybe. 

The movie was announced in November 2022, and then production was put on hold in July 2023 because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, so it didn't begin filming until January 2024 - yeah, my timeline holds up, even though Biden was still President in November 2022, and nobody was yet calling for him to retire, nobody was thinking at that point that Trump could come back, so Kamala was a valid possibility for the next President, whether Biden served a second term, or died or stepped down, in late 2022 it probably seemed that all roads led to President Harris. 

You know, I still need to figure out my whole summer line-up, which will include the Doc Block. But this is a special year, this July 4 will mark the 250th birthday of the U.S.A., the semiquincentennial, or whatever they're calling it. I don't know if I could possibly pick a film special enough to watch on such a day, I've watched docs about the American government befor on July 4, even a doc called "American Symphony", but damn, what do I choose for America's 250th Anniversary? Do I even have anything on theme on my list? Damn, if only I hadn't watched all the action movies where the U.S. President was a main character...

Directed by Patricia Riggen (director of "The 33")

Also starring Viola Davis (last seen in "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes"), Anthony Anderson (last seen in "The Back-up Plan"), Ramon Rodriguez (last seen in "Ira & Abby"), Marsai Martin, Antony Starr, Douglas Hodge (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), Elizabeth Marvel (last heard in "Dark Waters"), Christopher Farrar, Sabrina Impacciatore (last seen in "The Passion of the Christ"), MeeWha Alana Lee, Gideon Emery (last heard in "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay"), Conrad Kemp (last seen in "The Girl"), Joseph Steven Yang, Emmanuel Castis, David James, Clark Gregg (last seen in "Moxie"), Julius Tennon (last seen in "The Woman King"), Theo Bongani Ndyalvane, Noxolo Dlamini, Ali Suliman (last seen in "Body of Lies"), Angela Sarafyan (last seen in "Superman" (2025)), Stephen Jennings (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Colin Moss (ditto), Caitlin Mehner (last seen in "The Best of Enemies"), Heike Brunner, Jacques Theron, Anthony C. Hyde, Riaz Solker, Tshamano Sebe, Jose Domingos, Jandre le Roux (last seen in "Tomb Raider"), Adrian Collins (ditto), Tendaiishe Chitima, Robert Hobbs (last seen in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom"), Alexander Maniatis, Terence Bridgett, Carolyn Forword, Chris van Rensburg, Jason K. Ralph, Schelaine Bennett (last seen in "Monster Hunter").

RATING: 6 out of 10 tied-up servers in the kitchen

One Battle After Another

Year 18, Day 112 - 4/22/26 - Movie #5,310

BEFORE: I was going to feature the body-swap film "Little" here, with Regina Hall carrying over and getting me to this year's Best Picture winner, but that film was available on Netflix when I made this chain - just a couple weeks ago - and is not available anywhere now. It happens, that's become a fairly typical part of my process, and I'll tend to do a double-check on IMDB right before starting a new segment of the chain, just to make sure everything is still where I left it, and there will be no bumps in the road. But just like I have un-linkables and one-linkables, I also have droppables, and that film was a droppable, the middle film in a chain of three, if it suddenly becomes unavailable or I have too many movies and not enough slots, I can drop it and just move on, the chain should close up around the hole. 

Honestly, I was on the fence about watching that film anyway, because it links to another body-swap comedy, plus IMDB lists "Little" as a romance, or at least that's one of its tags, so I was starting to wonder if it was in the right place to begin with. Also I need to drop SOMETHING in order to make it to Mothers Day on time, that film being suddenly unavailable then makes the decision to drop it that much easier. If it hadn't been a middle film of three then I might have taken steps to actually PAY to watch the film, on YouTube or something, but now I don't have to, I can save a few bucks and just skip it.  

So now that's designated as "burned toast" and we're not going to worry about it, because it can only good happen, down the road a bit. "Little" could be needed come Christmas time or next year or something to make the linking happen and keep the chain alive, there's no way to know that now, of course, but that could be the case, so this was the chain's way of telling me that it's time to watch the film that won Best Picture. Regina Hall carries over from "Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul." and I can still keep films lined up with two more birthdays this week.

THE PLOT: When their enemy resurfaces after 16 years, a group of ex-revolutionaries reunite to rescue the daughter of one of their own. 

AFTER: I "met" Paul Thomas Anderson on his last tour of the country, when he was promoting "Licorice Pizza" and there were screenings on 35mm. Well, I work for one of the last theaters in NYC that can still screen on film, so a number of screenings were booked, and for one I got to speak with him (briefly) to tell him when, and how, to walk on stage to the panelist chairs. Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman were there, too, and of course I had no idea I was addressing someone who would go on to win the Best Director Oscar with his next film, and it was still a few months after that when I watched "Licorice Pizza", but you know, everything at the right time, not all at once. 

Obviously, with Mr. Anderson winning Best Director and this film winning Best Picture, I made the goal of getting to it as soon as possible, and I did - while still respecting the necessary nods to Easter, and Mother's Day coming up. Not that this film is related to either of those, but if this could be worked in between and scheduled for late April rather than, say, May or June, then all the better. Come to think of it, there's a bit here that's mother-related, it's just way too early, the holiday is still about 18 days away. But also, today is Earth Day, and though this movie was initially planned for tomorrow, maybe it fits better here, a day that's all about activism, and activism is at the start of this film. Well, revolutionaries, activism, whatever, it's all the same, right? The initial issue is immigration, and we see part of the infamous Trump border wall from his first Presidential term, along with a detention camp somewhere on the Mexican border where immigrants are being held, and the "French 75" group is there to break them out. 

Two of the group's members become lovers, Pat Calhoun and Perfidia Beverly Hills, however during the course of the break-out, Perfidia sexually humiliates the commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw, but he kind of digs it, and later becomes obsessed with her. This becomes important later during another operation when he catches her planting a bomb at another installation, and he agrees to not turn her in, provided she agrees to have sex with him. Later she becomes pregnant, and we the audience know that either man could be the baby's father. Perfidia gives birth to a baby girl but does not settle down and play the nurturing mother, she goes right back to her revolutionary cause, and is arrested after shooting a guard during a bank robbery. Lockjaw is still obsessed with her, and arranges for her to turn evidence on the other revolutionaries and avoid prison. She enters witness protection, and after using her information to arrest and/or execute members of French 75, he goes to visit her at her safe house, trying to make a booty call, only she's fled for Mexico. Pat Calhoun moves upstate to a sanctuary city and raises his (?) daughter under a new name, Bob Ferguson. 

Fast-forward sixteen years and the country has become more conservative, the anti-immigration movement is out of control, and the national guard and armored troopers are marching in the liberal cities, and DAMN, if this film didn't predict TO A TEE the I.C.E. actions of last year, right? Lockjaw has risen to the rank of colonel and has become a prominent anti-immigrant figure in the government agencies, and also has been invited to become a member in a high-profile secret society of white supremacists. He'll be fine, as long as they never find out he had sex with a black woman... Meanwhile "Bob Ferguson" has been living off the grid, raising his daughter and is now a paranoid stoner. He won't let his teen daughter have a cell phone, because he knows they can be hacked and tracked, and he's suspicious of all of her friends. 

Lockjaw hires a bounty hunter to capture Somerville, aka "Billy Goat", another one of the French 75 members, one who knows where the others are all hiding. So it's only a matter of time before the troops are sent to the sanctuary city, while another ex-French 75 member, Deandra, rescues WIlla from her school before the troops arrive, and Bob is also warned about the upcoming raid, so he escapes via a tunnel under his house, and heads for Willa's karate studio, where her sensei, Sergio, runs the operation that saves undocumented immigrants. Together they get the information that Willa has been taken to a convent of revolutionary nuns (they take care of retired bears in the off-season, I think). Unfortunately Bob gets arrested during the raid after falling off a rooftop (parkour is for the young, it turns out) and so that's going to take some time to break him out. 

Lockjaw has a head start at getting to the convent out in the California desert, he's got a DNA kit and wants to confirm that Willa is his daughter, and if she is he needs to kill her, or he'll never get in to the secret white supremacist society, which is call the Christmas Adventurers. The supremacists have also received evidence that Lockjaw might have a bi-racial child, so they send their own assassin out to kill both Lockjaw and Willa. In third place in this weird race is Bob himself, who gets sprung from prison by being sent to the hospital, then friendly agents at the hospital arrange his escape, and he hooks up again with sensei Sergio and they also head out to the desert. Bob's got a rifle and he catches up with Lockjaw, but he misses the kill shot. Lockjaw's already been to the convent and kidnapped Willa, but he's handed her off to the bounty hunter, who won't kill her because she's just a teen girl - but he will bring her to the compound of a far-right militia group, then he changes his mind and helps break her free, so like everyone else in this film, she steals a car and tries to get out of there. 

The last quarter of the film is just a giant chase scene, unfortunately - I wish it didn't just devolve into that, but sometimes there's just nothing you can do about it. I've seen it happen many times with animated features, it's not exactly high drama when you just put every character in a car and make them all drive through the desert really fast. I think a screenwriter just writes down "chase scene", and then that can be five minutes long or half an hour, it just depends how complicated you want to make it, and how long you want it to be, and I guess maybe how much film you have. Here we have Lockjaw in one vehicle, Willa in another, the supremacist assassin in a third car and Bob in the fourth. Who lives and who dies all kind of depends on who's following who and whose car is faster. And really, you can work this sequence to produce any outcome you want - I just maintain there were loftier, less pedantic ways to get the story where it needed to go. But sure, it's an action film and who doesn't love an action-packed chase scene? 

I still think "Sinners" was a better movie, in a few different ways. But "One Battle After Another" seemed to tap into more of the current cultural zeitgeist, whether that was by accident or by design remains to be seen. It's based on a Thomas Pynchon story, but clearly it was heavily tinkered with to represent current events regarding immigration, racial issues, the overreaching power of government to maintain order at the civic level. So the political climate created those problems or let them get out of control, and then this movie came along and beefed them up a bit, sort of taking advantage of them to make this story more relevant. I suppose that's one way to win an Oscar, I'm not going to say outright that's a bad thing, like you can't get mad at "Schindler's List" for riding a wave of interest in the Holocaust, ultimately that's a good thing. But we've called other Holocaust movies "Oscar bait", so I think maybe there's a fine balance that needs to be maintained. 

Still, a lot of work went into this, and it found a way to be relevant, which not all movies manage to do. Pynchon wrote "Vineland" during the Reagan years, and so you can probably draw a lot of connections between Reagan and Trump, really the more things change, the more they stay the same, and history doesn't always repeat but it sometimes does rhyme. But that's only part of how you win a Best Picture Oscar, this film had a $70 million marketing campaign and another $14 million just for the awards campaign. It's not really fair if there are independent movies out there that don't have that kind of publicity budget, is it?  And even if you consider it a masterpiece, does it make sense that a masterpiece would gross $213 million worldwide and still not be profitable? I know Hollywood accounting is a little fast and loose, but how can a movie make that much and still be considered a financial failure - like, what's the point? 

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (director of "Hard Eight" and "Licorice Pizza")

Also starring Leonardo DiCaprio (last seen in "Killers of the Flower Moon"), Sean Penn (last seen in "Brats"), Benicio Del Toro (last seen in "The Phoenician Scheme"), Teyana Taylor (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Chase Infiniti, Wood Harris (last seen in "Creed III"), Alana Haim (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Paul Grimstad, Shayna McHayle, Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "Ezra"), John Hoogenakker (last seen in "A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas"), Starletta DuPois (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale"), Eric Schweig (last seen in "The Scarlet Letter"), D.W. Moffett (last seen in "The Year of Spectacular Men"), Kevin Tighe (last seen in "School Ties"), James Downey (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), James Raterman, Dijon Duenas, Dan Chariton (last seen in "Licorice Pizza"), Jon Beavers (ditto), Ted McCarthy (ditto), Pearl Minnie Anderson (ditto), April Grace (last seen in "Don't Let Go"), Tisha Sloan, 

Brooklyn Demme (last seen in "Ricki and the Flash"), Sachi Diserafino, Melissa Duenas, Vanessa Ganter, Otillia Gupta, Nia Leon, Joe Silva, Jeffrey Massagli, Nicole J. Sunseri, Jeremy Ekalo, Alberto Garcia, Antonio Tadeo Garcia, Patricia Ridgely Storm, Jeremy Boone (last seen in "Joker: Folie a Deux"), Bryan Pickens, Carlos McFarland, Colton Gantt, Elisabeth Pease, Autumn Crosswhite, Mickey Giacomazzi, Omar Khattab, Sandra Iturbe, Marisela Borjas Ramirez, Derrick J. Saenz, Esperanza Rodarte De Santoyo, Hadasa Genesaret Palomares, Gilbert Martinez Jr., Luis Trejo, Julian Corral, Elijah Joseph Sambrano, Sherron Gassoway, Robert Sherock, Lynette M. Telles, Ann Limbaugh-Brouhard, Antonio Garcia, Emilio Carranza, Juan V. Ramirez, Ron Bermudez Perea, Edith Ascencion, David Reynoso, Timothy Kravitz, 

and the voices of Jena Malone (last seen in "The United States of Leland"), Anthony Weise,

RATING: 7 out of 10 tear gas canisters

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

Year 18, Day 111 - 4/21/26 - Movie #5,309

BEFORE: I've been on Netflix a lot this month, which has reduced my Netflix watch-list to a more manageable level, and that's a good thing, only it doesn't open up any slots on the main list, only on the "streaming and someday/maybe" list, which is now also noticeably smaller. That's about to change because I need to go through the list of films which start streaming in April, plus I have a number of documentaries I want to put on that list so I'll be ready when the Doc Block time rolls around. The rest of April will be more cable/DVD heavy, which will start opening up slots on that list, which will then enable me to record some more movies from cable. 

I think that the Netflix algorithm has finally figured me out, though, which took a number of years because my viewing patterns are so erratic. Netflix is now a channel on my cable system, so I don't know, the algorithm somehow tapped into my DVR preferences or my Google calendar or something in its A.I.-fueled goal to take my life over and, I don't know, maybe recommend so many movies I want to watch that I'll be too busy to notice when the robots take over society? How else do I explain that when I signed on to Netflix last night, the first two movies it recommended were the film I was planning to watch - which was NOT saved in my Netflix list, because I already had it on DVD, but I prefer to watch it with captions - and "Plastic Detox", which was the screening that I worked at last night at the theater. How the hell did it know? 

Sterling K. Brown carries over from "Atlas". 

THE PLOT: In the aftermath of a huge scandal, Trinitie Childs, the first lady of a prominent Southern Baptist Mega Church, attempts to help her pastor-husband, Lee-Curtis Childs, rebuild their organization. 

AFTER: This feature was apparently based on a short film, and I saw some photos of that short while I was calling up the feature on the IMDB. It's funny, though, because usually when someone turns a short film into a feature, they add a lot more plot points to develop the story further, and here the choice was made to NOT do that, essentially just make the short longer. So there's still the same amount of story, meaning that a whole lot of nothing happens in the feature. It's a choice, maybe, but I don't know. Obviously I haven't seen the short, but it seems to tell the exact same story, right down to the worship-miming, which as far as I can tell, is not a real thing. 

There's the pastor of a mega-church and his wife, or "First Lady", and their attendance is way down because of some scandal that broke a year or so ago, and you don't really have to take too many guesses to figure out what the scandal is. The pastor, who spoke out against same-sex relationship, was having a few of those of his own, with younger men. There were other egregious things, like spending money donated to the church on fast cars and designer clothing, but that's probably acceptable compared to the sex scandal. Either way, it's hard to see how they've managed to keep the property AND keep it maintained during the lapse in attendance, of course, church property isn't taxed, that may have something to do with it. Still, if money's not coming in, we've got two people who can't maintain the lifestyle they've become accustomed to, the simpler thing to do would be to sell some of their stuff, clothing or property or what have you, or just give up the whole church idea and go find another line of work. 

But no, they're planning to re-open their mega-church, on Easter Sunday no less, and other than re-open, they don't seem to be planning much else - no plea for forgiveness, no admission of guilt, no explanation or press forgiveness tour. So sure, let's just keep doing what hasn't worked in the past, because maybe it will work THIS time. Most of their frequent attendees are now members of other parishes, like Heaven's Home, which is run by another couple who USED to be congregants at Wander to Greater Paths. So Pastor Lee-Curtis Childs comes up with a great idea to get the jump on the crowd at Heaven's Home by moving up the opening date of W.T.G.P. by two weeks, which would have been a great idea, of only the pastor of Heaven's Home hadn't decided to do the Christian thing and leave Easter to the Childses, by similarly moving up the opening date of Heaven's Home by two weeks. 

Meanwhile, the documentary filmmaker who is profiling the Childses (that's how we're able to see behind the scenes of Wander to Greater Paths, through the lens of a fictitious doc maker) catches footage of the couple getting a phone call from their lawyer, informing them they will have to make payments to the young men accusing Lee-Curtis, it's all set except there's one hold-out who will not accept the settlement. We also see Lee-Curtis having a conversation with the sound recorder for the documentary film, offering him the opportunity to do A.V. work for the church, but also making a sexual advance toward him. 

Things are so desperate that Lee-Curtis has Trinitie working out on the street holding up a sign, to let everyone know about when Wander to Greater Paths is going to open again. This causes a traffic jam when a car's passenger blocks the street, and it's the victim who won't settle the case. Other passersby berate Trinitie for the actions of her husband and mock his attempts to overcome the scandal. This is when Trinitie reverts to wearing mime make-up, which again, I'm pretty sure has nothing to do with any known religion, so it's just weird that it's a thing here. 

Other than that, not much happens here, the Childs have five devout parishioners, but I'm pretty sure they're going to need more than that to stay in business - so, you know, maybe it's time to pack it in, and maybe that's the point here, but honestly it's tough to say with so little happening or being stated outright. Mostly things don't really go anywhere and therefore seem rather boring. Nothing offensive here, but nothing really stands out as great either - and it's not funny enough to be a comedy, not dark enough to be a drama, I guess you can call it satire on the state of religion in America, but did we really need that? 

Directed by Adamma Ebo

Also starring Regina Hall (last seen in "Me Time"), Nicole Beharie (last seen in "42"), Conphidance, Austin Crute (last seen in "Booksmart"), Devere Rogers (last seen in "My Spy: The Eternal City"), Avis-Marie Barnes (last seen in "Pain Hustlers"), Andrea Laing (ditto), Robert Yatta, Greta Marable Glenn (last seen in "Just Mercy"), Selah Kimbro Jones (last seen in "Dear Santa"), Crystal Alicia Garrett, Perris Drew (last seen in "Blue Beetle"), Nastashia Fuller, Dhane Ross, Elle Young, Mike Dyl Anthony, Olivia D. Dawson, Shante DeLoach, Tiyanna Taplin, Jerome Beazer (last seen in "Senior Year"), Lance Avery Brown, Verlenzo Hawk, Mike Ray, Fatima Garba

RATING: 4 out of 10 donuts in the parking lot