OK, 7 seen out of 12 today. That still counts as progress, I've seen all of these except "The Front Page" (I watched the 1974 remake), "Watch on the Rhine", "Sounder", "A Double Life" and "Boys Town". But that brings me up to 104 seen out of 274, up to 38%. Just seven days to go, but if I can keep climbing a percentage point a day, I'll be all right.
THE PLOT: Music superstars Kat Valdez and Bastian are getting married before a global audience of fans, but when Kat learns that Bastian has been unfaithful, she instead decides to marry Charlie, a stranger in the crowd.
AFTER: Well, all throughout February I watched as love triangles got resolved by people realizing that they were better off getting romantically involved with their best friends, rather than that super-hot guy (or gal) who's like totally going to cheat on you the first chance they get, well, just because they can. Or they realize that the love of their life was standing beside them all along as they chased after unattainable people, or maybe just that love is best when it starts with friendship, and grows from there. These movies aren't wrong, per se, but I'm just not sure that the message needs to be beaten into us by nearly EVERY damn rom-com out there.
That process continues tonight, but with a bit of a twist, as a pop superstar realizes that she's been making the same mistake, over and over, by marrying for love and not thinking about friendship first - she's had three marriages so far (similar to the actress playing her) and before she gets married to future-cheating husband #4, she finds out from the tabloids and gossip web-sites that her fiancé has been caught on camera making out with her own assistant. Well, that would make sense, her assistant would know better than anyone else when she's busy, in a meeting or working in the recording studio, and might then take advantage of those opportunities to put the moves on Bastian.
So, on the night of the big public wedding in a concert broadcast around the world, Kat suddenly calls the wedding off, what else can she do if the world is making fun of her, and she wants to win back the respect of her fans? Sure, the simplest thing to do would be to then marry NOBODY, but instead she chooses a simple-looking man in the crowd, who's been holding up a sign with name of her new single, "Marry Me". And she takes the message on the sign as, you know, some kind of sign. Hey, when she's been married three times already and marriage number four is also a bust, what has she got to lose?
The man consents, and the marriage isn't legal, of course, because they didn't have a marriage license, no paperwork has been filed, it's all one big publicity stunt - or is it? Ah, it's Kat's attempt to get back at the cheating Bastian and make him jealous - or is it? Maybe she took the leap of faith, as she described it during a press conference, and now genuinely wants to get to know this regular guy and math teacher, and they can appear in public on dates, maybe keep this going for three months or so until the internet finds something else to talk about, and then just go their separate ways.
But, since this is a movie, this situationship that the two find themselves in starts to resemble a real relationship, of course because they spend some time together and they have fun and realize they enjoy each other's company. Oh, so THAT'S how you do it, you meet and become friends and spend time together and then fall in love and then get married. Well, unless you're a famous person concerned about your image, in which case you get married, then spend time together, become friends and then, well, who knows? Maybe fall in love for real, since it is a movie and that's what the audience wants?
Charlie is also a divorced father, and of course his daughter is a fan of Kat's, but she's also at that awkward teen phase, where she wants nothing to do with her father - but him dating a pop superstar just made him more interesting! Ugh, but she also goes to the same high school where he teaches math, and he keeps urging her to join the math team, instead of giving her the space that she needs, and letting her choose her own activities to become the person she needs to be. (Also, this is like the third movie this year where a parent teaches or works at the same school their kid goes to - while in real life, this situation needs to be avoided at all costs. My mother was an elementary school music teacher, but thankfully she taught in a different town from the one where we lived. Thank you, Mom, and I mean that, sincerely.)
Look, I was on the Math team in high school, and sure, it was fun - but it was never, NEVER as much fun as it is depicted here. Why? Because it's math, duh. (There was also quiz bowl, but I didn't catch on to that in high school, that came later for me, in college.). Mostly in our math team meets we figured out ways to cheat by running a four-person team instead of a five-person team when we were missing a player - we created a fake name and three different people would take those three-question tests under that fake name, because each person only needed to compete in three rounds out of five. And nobody in the next town ever bothered to check to see if a student with that name was enrolled in our school, why would they?
NITPICK POINT: According to this film, the best way to study math is to dance, because if your body is moving rhythmically, you can trick your mind into getting out of its own way, not getting stuck on the problem, and the answer will come to you. Well, this just isn't the way math works, and the best way to solve a math problem in the real world is to LEARN MATH.
Anyway, this is a growth opportunity for all involved, as Kat learns to date down and not chase after other superstars with wandering eyes, instead she dates a math teacher who would never EVER cheat on her in a million years. Charlie also gets to be in a relationship with a pop superstar, and eventually that comes with benefits, and Charlie's daughter gets to meet and spend time with her favorite pop-star, so it's a win all around! Well, that's show biz, right? There couldn't possibly be any negative effects or complications arising from dating the most famous female singer in the world. I'm glad we settled that issue, I've always wondered about that sort of thing.
Also starring Owen Wilson (last seen in "Secret Headquarters"), Maluma (last heard in "Encanto"), John Bradley (last seen in "Moonfall"), Sarah Silverman (last seen in "Maestro"), Chloe Coleman (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Michelle Buteau (last seen in "Clerks III"), Khalil Middleton, Kat Cunning, Taliyah Whitaker (last seen in "The Dead Don't Die"), Diego Lucano, Brady Noon (last seen in "Good Boys"), Connor Noon, Ryan Foust (last seen in "The Goldfinch"), Leah Jimenez Zelaya, Tristan-Lee Edwards, Scarlett Earls, Olivia Chun, Jim Kaplan, Jameela Jamil (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Nicole Suarez, Sydney Blackburn, Stephen Wallem, Justin Sylvester, Utkarsh Ambudkar (last heard in "Tom & Jerry"), Jack Chiaravalle, Lucie Lopez-Goldfried, Charles Jacob Smith Jr., Molly Sullivan Smith, Tyrone Mitchell, Haj, Nic Novicki (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Teale Sperling, Adam Cation, Rachel Morgan Singer, Leslie Woo, Marritt Cafarchia,
with cameos from Jimmy Fallon (last seen in "Eighth Grade"), Hoda Kotb (last seen in "Everything Is Copy"), Kelly Ripa (last seen in "Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It"), Ryan Seacrest (ditto).
RATING: 6 out of the first 10 digits in pi
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