BEFORE: Well, we had the confluence of February, the romance month, with SuperBowl weekend (and also Black History month), and today is Valentine's Day, but it's ALSO somehow Ash Wednesday, the first day of lent. I don't see how anyone is supposed to enjoy their holiday box of fancy chocolates on a day made for fasting and giving up enjoyable things. How, exactly is that supposed to WORK? But maybe we can find some kind of metaphor for today's confluence, something about love and forgiveness coming together. Like, if your life partner is asking for your forgiveness for some reason, well, today might be the day to consider granting it. Or not, whatever, it's up to you. But these two holidays rarely come together, I think. I'm not a calendar expert, I have to look up when Easter is every year well in advance, especially if I have a movie that can tie in with it, but then I also have to look up Mother's Day and Father's Day every year, too - I greatly prefer the holidays that don't move around and have the decency to occur on the same day, year after year.
Whoopi Goldberg carries over from "Made in America". And I swear, when I blocked out the month I wasn't even paying attention to the titles, I just realized this film would land on February 14, read the quick synopsis and said, "Yeah, OK, that works." Then just about a week ago I realized the connection between "Valentine" and "Valentino" and thought, "Geez, why didn't I notice that before, I mean, it makes perfect sense only I just didn't SEE it that way." Yup.
EDIT: I forgot that Turner Classic Movies was starting their "31 Days of Oscar" programming on February 9, so I'm going back and dropping them in post facto. They're dividing up the movies by category this year, so today is Day 6, devoted to:
Best Adapted Screenplay Nominees: (and romance films)
6:00 am "Pygmalion" (1938)
7:45 am "Random Harvest" (1942)
10:00 am "Kitty Foyle" (1940)
12:00 pm "A Foreign Affair" (1948)
2:00 pm "Brief Encounter" (1945)
3:45 pm "Rebecca" (1940)
6:00 pm "Wuthering Heights" (1939)
Best Original Screenplay Winners: (and romance films)
8:00 pm "The Philadelphia Story" (1940)
10:00 pm "Doctor Zhivago" (1965)
1:30 am "From Here to Eternity" (1953)
3:45 am "Little Women" (1933)
I'm going to say I've seen 4 out of these 11, "Rebecca", "The Philadelphia Story", "Doctor Zhivago" and "From Here to Eternity". I have seen "Wuthering Heights", but the 1992 version, not this one - and I have seen "Little Women", but the 1994 and 2019 versions, not this one. So I'm falling to 30 seen out of 67 overall, or 44.7%.
THE PLOT: A young widow still grieving over the death of her husband finds herself being comforted by a local housepainter.
AFTER: OK, so there's no real connection to Ash Wednesday here, because this film is mostly about a woman's reaction to losing her husband, and going through all the stages of grief, which famously has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Then she sees fit to add a sixth stage, which is called "Having a fling with the guy painting your house." Well, OK, sure, we all are looking for signs that we're doing OK, and that might qualify.
AFTER: OK, so there's no real connection to Ash Wednesday here, because this film is mostly about a woman's reaction to losing her husband, and going through all the stages of grief, which famously has five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Then she sees fit to add a sixth stage, which is called "Having a fling with the guy painting your house." Well, OK, sure, we all are looking for signs that we're doing OK, and that might qualify.
This is based on a true story, it was written by Ellen Simon, daughter of playwright Neil Simon, who lost her husband the same way, he was struck by a car while jogging, only that happened in New York City proper, not out in the suburbs. She had a similar support system and was visited by her sister, best friend and stepmother (Marsha Mason) who stayed with her for her first two weeks as a widow, and made sure she was emotionally OK, or as OK as possible. The names were changed, of course, to protect the screenwriter, but the story is similar to the actual events, just the stepmother was changed from an actress to a Wall Street executive.
These are four women at different stages in their lives, Rebecca is the widow and her younger sister, Lucy, is just starting to date and has many awkward questions about sex, so naturally Rebecca sets her up with one of her poetry students, so she won't have to answer any of them. Let her find out for herself! Rebecca's best friend, Sylvie, has been married for many years but keeps thinking that her husband doesn't want sex, or is thinking of leaving her, she's always envisioning a doom and gloom scenario and thinking the marriage is about to end - but it's possible that she's just projecting her own unhappiness on to the relationship, and the more troubling thing is that she can't recognize that. And then there's Alberta, Rebecca's step-mother, who's been there for Rebecca and Lucy since their mother died of cancer 14 years ago. Alberta and their father are no longer together, they got divorced a few years ago, but Alberta still comes back after Ben's death to, well, help in her own very forceful, rigid way.
There's a lot here that feels kind of important, but there's also a lot here that feels really dumb. Why does the housepainter work at night? Just so the movie could have a cool (semi-cool?) title? Wouldn't it be better to paint during the day so he could, you know, actually see what he was doing? I mean, yeah, he admits that, but yet he still continues to paint in the dark for no discernible reason. Did I read this wrong, like was he trying to peep in her windows to see her undressing or something, and he just brought the paint can and brush with him as a cover story? Look, I get it, he's hot but if he's painting houses at night he just can't be very bright.
But I guess this is what women do, they come together for emotional support when one of them is going through a tough time. Guys just get together and drink and maybe go to clubs together, that's the stereotype, right? Women talk about their feelings, but men just talk about women? I guess that's what people thought back in the 1990's, but I think we could have maybe moved past some of these gender roles by now, men could support each other, wasn't there that primal "drum circle" movement a few years back where men were getting together and beating drums and primal screaming or something, getting in touch with their emotional inner cavemen? Was that a thing for a while? And there's nothing that says women can't get together and drink and talk about men, I'm sure it happens all the time. But the film wants to make a clear separation between the genders, of course, because stereotypes are just narrative shortcuts, after all.
Then there's the housepainter, who the women confuse with the OTHER housepainter who apparently only speaks Italian, this is probably the best gag in the film, when they all talk about the hot guy like he can't understand them, only he totally does. Ha ha, joke over, back to the serious mourning stuff. Look, I can't imagine how terrible it feels when your spouse dies, they say it's the number one most stressful thing in the world, because you then question your life, your marriage, your future, it was all tied in to that one person for however long, and now you wonder how you can possibly move forward when you just want to shut the door, turn off the lights and curl up in a fetal position. I guess the goal is to get through those five stages of grief as soon as you can, so you can get to stage 6.
OK, so today's film is something of a bummer, sorry about that - but I don't write them, I just organize them and watch them. But I guess you have to take the bad with the good, love comes with some risks and if you get married you might find yourself the last one standing, and that's going to suck, obvi, but hey, at least you get to re-connect with your friends and family when that happens?
I had the opportunity a couple weeks ago to meet Kathleen Turner, she came to the theater where I work to interview Annette Bening on a panel after a screening of "Nyad". Both actresses were very nice, and Ms. Turner had an injured foot, so the Netflix staff asked me if there was a railing that she could hold on to when she climbed the stairs to the stage. There wasn't, so I offered to take both actresses up in our theater elevator, which we use to bring people with wheelchairs or walkers in to the theater to avoid the stairs - the elevator also can go up one more level, taking them right to the stage. So I got to explain to them how that lift works, and that I would be there to open the door so they could exit and sit in the chairs on the stage for the Q&A session. Then when it was over, I operated the elevator to take them back down to the main floor, and the security guards got them to their car. Pretty cool, right?
Also starring Elizabeth Perkins (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Gwyneth Paltrow (last heard in "She Said"), Kathleen Turner (last seen in "Another Kind of Wedding"), Shadia Simmons, Erica Lutrell, Matthew Koller, Scott Wickware (last seen in "Trapped in Paradise"), Kelli Fox, Harrison Liu, Wayne Lam, Ken Wong, Carlton Watson, Jack Jessop (last seen in "Loser"), Josef Sommer (last seen in "The Family Man"), Jon Bon Jovi, Trim, Jeremy Sisto (last seen in "Adrienne"), Alan Clifton, Judah Katz (last seen in "Owning Mahowny"), Julian Richings (last seen in "The Witch"), Peter Coyote (last seen in "Spielberg")
RATING: 5 out of 10 impossible poetry assignments
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