BEFORE: Lily Tomlin carries over from "Nashville", and she'll be here tomorrow also. TCM ran "Nashville" and today's film in conjuction with Tomlin receiving a special honor at the SAG Awards this year, so that must have been around January 29. At least I seem to be able to watch films more quickly these days, after adding them to the watchlist. It's a matter of months, not years - of course in some cases a film might only stay on the list for a couple of weeks, or I've been known lately to drop something in at the last minute, avoiding the watchlist altogether.
The film that's been on my watchlist the longest is "Grand Illusion", which I recorded in February, 2014. There are 6 films that were added in 2015, and I'm planning to watch three of those before the end of this year. Everything else was added in 2016 or 2017, so I don't think I'm that far behind, all things considered. Having access to the Netflix library, as well as a large pile of Academy screeners has been very helpful this year not only for the linking, but for keeping my viewing current. But the clock is ticking, because in a couple of months this year's screeners are going to start being mailed out to Academy members, so I've got to make as much progress on 2016's movies as possible, before the 2017 films start arriving.
In a couple days I can get back to some films from 2015 and 2016, I can get about 8 or 9 of those in before I take a break in September and then switch over to classic horror films for October.
AFTER: Robert Altman did not direct this film, but he did produce it - which kind of puts it in step with Altman's film "The Long Goodbye", which had Elliott Gould playing Philip Marlowe in an updated 1970's version of L.A. I can only assume that both films were part of that 50's nostalgia wave that took place in the 1970's, which brought us "Happy Days" and "American Graffiti" and such. There seemed to be this fascination with those hard-boiled detective stories from the 1950's, and a sense that they needed to be dragged into modern times and updated somewhat.
The difference being, when they updated Philip Marlowe, they kept him relatively young, but the protagonist here, Ira Wells, is a senior citizen. That greatly impacts his detective skills, if he's not willing to chase a suspect or constantly keeling over due to his perforated ulcer. He still calls women "Dollies" and even suggests that Lily Tomlin's character should wear a dress once in a while, which only serves to show how out of touch he is with the times. Her character also sells pot on the side, so he refers to her as a "pusher", a term that fell out of favor in the 1960's, replaced by the softer-sounding "dealer".
But the biggest problem here is that, like many noir-ish detective films, it's mostly talking over action, when it should be "show" over "tell". The old 1950's films did this via voice-over narration (a cost-cutting measure if ever there was one...) but here it's mainly that the entire crime gets explained in words after the fact, when it would have been so much more interesting to watch even a portion of that taking place.
Once again, I fell asleep about 5 minutes before the film's climax, but this time it wasn't because the film was so long, as "Nashville" was - it was because the film was so boring, all talk and very little action. Sure, there's a gunfight every 20 minutes or so, probably to make sure the audience is still awake, but most of them don't amount to much, it's just an old guy firing off into the distance, so he doesn't have to chase someone - after all, he might break a hip or something.
I've seen this film described online as both a tribute to the great detectives of Hollywood films, and as a spoof of those films. Well, which is it? Because I don't think it can be both.
Also starring Art Carney (last seen in "The Muppets Take Manhattan"), Bill Macy (last seen in "The Holiday"), Eugene Roche (last seen in "When a Man Loves a Woman"), Joanna Cassidy (last seen in "Drew: The Man Behind the Poster"), John Considine (last seen in "Fat Man and Little Boy"), Ruth Nelson, John Davey, Howard Duff.
RATING: 4 out of 10 stolen dress shirts
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