BEFORE: Thank God, another weekend. I find I'm looking forward to them more and more, because if there's nothing going on at the theater (and I think they're still on winter break, and for some reason no Oscar-nominated movies have scheduled screenings) then it's my only chance to sleep in. I can also catch up on some laundry and some TV, like "True Detective: Night Country" and then do some grocery shopping. Maybe tomorrow I'll hit up the Polish pork store that's closing down, clean them out of liverwurst and head cheese, especially if they're desperate to clear out their stock. But that's tomorrow. I also need to fill up the beer fridge, because last night I drank my last Brooklyn Chocolate stout by making a beer float, pouring it over some chocolate ice cream - one of my favorite things to do. I'm just going to have to buy a six-pack for every beer I drink until the basement fridge is full again.
Don McManus carries over from "Under the Silver Lake", and this is another film that could easily have fit into a February chain, except that I made this year's chain already, and there was no place for it - it does link to ONE movie in this year's romance chain, but not two. OK, it's better to watch it in January then, and clear it off the books rather than wait another year, hoping it will link to something next time around.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Just Getting Started" (Movie 4,583)
THE PLOT: After drag-racing his vintage convertible around Palm Springs, a retired NASA test pilot loses his license. Forced to take public transportation, he meets Caroline and learns to navigate love and life again.
AFTER: Still in California for today's film, but Palm Springs seems like a very chill place, unlike downtown Los Angeles with its crazy billionaires and weird cults and actress hookers who have a bad habit of disappearing without warning. Also, nobody will notice you there unless you're part of a rock band with and underground following or you dance at a party covered in balloons. Yeah, it's a very stupid place, you can wander around for weeks following the map on a cereal box and never find what you're looking for, based on the secret code embedded in those song lyrics.
Palm Springs is more like a retirement village for artists, photographers and NASA test pilots, who drive fast cars because they want to feel young again, and try to date hot models because, well, you know. But age catches up with all of us, and there may come a point when it's time to slow down and learn new things, like how to take the bus to get your shopping done, or how to have a grown-up relationship for the very first time. Caroline is a veteran photographer who's settled there and now runs a cafe, her strudel is to die for and her fellow citizens seem to be hooked on it. Also she's growing some killer weed out in that herb garden, but that's legal now, right? But she needs help to save the local desert tortoise population, the profits from the cafe just aren't enough to accomplish that.
Enter Victor Martin, whose penchant for drag-racing at his advanced age gets his driver's license revoked, so while he's studying to take the driver's test and get it back, there's a chance to slow down and think about what he's missed all those years when he was chasing models around, and maybe a relationship with the cafe owner is just the thing for him, if he can not be so jealous and possessive, because not everybody is OK with that. You can still learn things in your 80's, whether it's arts and crafts at the senior center or how to repair a cuckoo clock, but the biggest lesson is how to do things for others and not expect anything in return. Also, they have this thing called rideshare apps, you can get across town using your phone, maybe learn how that works.
But you're never too old to meet the love of your life, or at least the next love of your life, and if you're mature enough you may learn that it's going to involve some compromise. You may have to give up some of the things you've gotten used to in order to make it work, but then your new partner may have to compromise too and learn to like some of the things you do, like driving in fast cars - no, wait, that's not safe - why not just get joint bus passes and explore California together? Go take a trip up to Wine Country or go south down to San Diego, it's beautiful there, too. Just stay out of downtown Los Angeles, it's a crazy place.
Look, I don't know how things work in Hollywood with regards to older actors and actresses. Casting directors may be under orders to focus on the younger, hotter actors, and that leaves a lot of veteran actors out of work - but they need to work in order to maintain their SAG memberships and collect their pension and benefits. So I guess there's some kind of tacit agreement among casting directors that the older actors who need work are going to fill up those background roles - the people dining in the cafe, the people doing arts & crafts at the senior center, the randos in the courthouse scene. So there must be a long list of older actors desperate for these small parts, and so actors who appeared in classic movies like "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "Being There" and "Serpico" turn up in these little background roles, and they must have great stories about being in movies during the 1960's and 1970's. Kaye Ballard? She used to sing on Spike Jones records and was a regular on the Perry Como Show and the Doris Day show. She died in 2019, but she's on the Palm Beach Walk of Stars, along with Bob Hope, Lauren Bacall, Ernest Borgnine, Mickey Rooney, Dinah Shore, Peter Fonda and Natalie Wood.
Some Easter eggs - the cuckoo clock is not working, and is stopped at the same time as the giant clock on the Hill Valley courthouse. Also, Christopher Lloyd played the lead Klingon villain in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", who faced off against Shatner as James T. Kirk. I almost forgot about that.
I'm going to be kind with the rating tonight, because this comedy wasn't trying to be anything other than what it was, and in a way that's refreshing. Why try harder when you don't have to?
Also starring William Shatner (last seen in "Belfast"), Jean Smart (last seen in "A Simple Favor"), Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "Framing John DeLorean"), Esai Morales (last seen in "Freejack"), Carlos Miranda (last seen in "The Bling Ring"), Beth Littleford (last seen in "Drillbit Taylor"), Katrina Bowden (last seen in "Movie 43"), Ephraim Lopez, Kaye Ballard, Denise DuBarry (last seen in "The Devil and Max Devlin"), Kal Smith, Joe Estevez, Maya Stojan, Melissa Greenspan, Valarie Pettiford, Jack Wallace (last seen in "Faster"), Kim Estes (last seen in "Kajillionaire"), Ron Gilbert, Luke Massy, LaDon Drummond, Ruta Lee (last seen in "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"), David Shatraw (last seen in "In Her Shoes"), Jilon VanOver, Bob Allen, Jack Topalian (last seen in "The Little Things"), David Goryl, Paige Smart, Rudy Martinez, Ken Arquelio, David Diamante (last seen in "Creed III"), Wesley Eure.
RATING: 6 out of 10 traffic cones
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