The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Year 16, Day 230 - 8/17/24 - Movie #4,816

BEFORE: OK, I've done some work on blocking out the rest of the year.  I'm still in a place where I don't know how many slots I'll need for September, so I'm still thinking that whenever I can skip a day in August, that's only going to help.  My second job kicks back in on August 22 with some VERY long shifts coming up, so I'm thinking I'll need to skip at least two days in the next two weeks, that just leaves more slots to play with in November and December. 

If September's the same way, where it's better or easier for me to watch 6 movies in a week instead of 7, that's all good, too, more slots in December that will (theoretically, at least) make it easier to link to Christmas movies.  So the "Divergent" movies are now being pushed from August to September, again, all good as long as I can get from there to horror films in maybe 20 to 25 steps. That could be the tricky part.

I mapped out all the films that are two steps away from the "Divergent" trilogy, and also labelled all of the films that are two steps away from where I would like start October, so really I just need to find a chain that goes in-between and connects the dots.  However, there are over 100 movies on my list that are qualify as being two steps away from something, so that just makes it harder to choose.  I'm just going to have to pick another goal, maybe more back-to-school movies, and just run with it. 

That being said, I'm adding a movie tonight because I like Guy Pearce and I want him to make it to the year-end countdown, and for that he needs three films. So I scrolled through his filmography and found this one, it's been on the back-burner for a long time, like I was in no rush to get to it, but it does kind of qualify as a significant movie, so it's coming off the list tonight as Guy Pearce carries over from "The Last Vermeer".

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Kinky Boots" (Movie #4,711)

THE PLOT: Two drag performers and a transgender woman travel across the desert to perform their unique style of cabaret. 

AFTER: Sure, there were other Guy Pearce movies that I could have dropped in here to make a triptych, but only one was on my list - way down on my list, but still on the list. In the someday/maybe section, but that still counts as getting me one step closer to my never-ending goal, and this can only be regarded as a mistake if I come up one slot short at the end of the year - until then, it's a brilliant happy accident.  But there was an incident yesterday that signalled this was the right film to drop in - I saw three trans people on the subway, not together but separately, and one transphobic person who came into the subway car, yelling at full volume about how he JUST saw a "tranny" doing something horrible to indoctrinate a child.  Now, this was a potentially deranged individual, and someone full of hatred, so I don't take what he said at face value, plus he was getting right up in some peoples faces while yelling at full volume about this incident he witnessed that probably never happened.  The only thing I could do was not make eye contact, however when I saw the second trans person and they were VISIBLY upset over something, I can only imagine what this yelling person must have put them through because of just some raging phobia, or perhaps just blind ignorance.  OK, so for the trans people on the subway who have to deal with screaming nutcases just for being who they are and living their truth, tonight's film goes out to you in solidarity.  

I'm going to try to keep my comments short, though, partially because the air conditioner in the office, where my computer lives, is busted and only putting out hot air, not cold.  So I'm sweating the whole time I'm typing this, perhaps appropriate considering the movie is mostly set in the Australian desert.  It's about three drag queens, two of them gay and one transgender, who set out in a bus named Priscilla to go do their lip-synching routines on tour.  The toughest part is apparently getting from Sydney to Alice Springs, without knowing anything about Australian geography I'm guessing that's a long distance to go by bus, which then gives them ample time to encounter bigotry in various backwater towns, yet they persist in wearing drag and doing drag shows where bigots live, now again I'm not an expert but I must ask, why do they want to perform drag shows for people who don't want to see them?  Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until they get to the booked cities, where the people WANT to see drag shows?  Call me crazy, though, but I think maybe I cracked the code here, do the shows for the audience that wants to see them.  No need to thank me, but you're welcome.

This story might have been groundbreaking in 1994, but it's thirty years later now, and drag shows are still around, still upsetting the Republicans who won't even let drag queens read stories to their children, and me, I'm not even sure why that's a thing.  But from a narrative standpoint, things were much simpler back in 1994, these men were gay, they do drag shows, because that's what gay men do, right?  They all want to dress like women and lip-synch to disco songs.  It's a very narrow view of what it means to be gay, that's all I'm saying, but again, I'm not an expert. And most people then were really for this sort of thing, or very very against it, there's really no middle ground, is there?  All the characters here are either very queer or very bigoted, but somehow I think this is a bit too simplistic, what about the millions of people who are neither for nor against drag queens, they're not bigoted or intolerant, but also it's not really their thing, they're just sort of passively non-committed or it's just not a topic that they focus on at all?  

Anyway, the really shocking thing is that one of the gay drag queens (and yes, I know that not all drag queens are gay and not all gay men are drag queens, but somehow this film conflates the two things) has a wife, and later we learn that he also has a son.  Shocking!  But again, this is seen through a 1994 lens when someone was either one thing or the other and nobody realized that it's possible to be many things, or different things at different points in life.  Everything these days is more complicated because society now frowns on phrases like "sexual preference" or "sexual orientation", because those imply that queerness is a choice, and many don't believe that it is.  But now we have "gender identity" and there are more points on the spectrum and more colors on the flag, and people can use whatever pronouns they want and whatever bathrooms they want, and if you watch certain news channels that all adds up to the end of the world as we know it, but it's clearly not.  

NITPICK POINT: If it's really THAT much trouble to get from Sydney to Alice Springs by bus, why didn't they just fly there?  Because it was too expensive?  Adam bought the bus for $10,000, surely three plane tickets couldn't have cost more than THAT?  This makes no sense, though of course they kind of HAD to go by bus or it wouldn't have been a road-trip movie, plus Tick had that dream of climbing Kings Canyon in drag, sure.  But the finances don't make any sense, why didn't they take the $10,000 and NOT buy a bus, instead buy three first-class plane tickets and pocket the difference?  

This wasn't planned, but I still kind of get the last laugh tonight because this movie is on that list of "1,001 Movies to See Before You Die", which hasn't been updated since 2021, and I'm not quite sure why there wasn't a 2023 edition, but I don't think there was.  Anyway watching this raises my score to 439 seen, which I think isn't bad at all, and I may make it to 450 with a little more effort, but there are SO many films on the list that I don't care about.  I've realized that I'm just never, ever going to watch "Amarcord" or "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie", and if I can just keep moving forward with watching the films on my list, and occasionally crossing another film of that 1001 Movies list, I'm OK with that. 

There are Australian jokes in this film, and more American jokes too, I didn't do so well on getting the Aussie jokes, like the kid plays charades and acts out "Lindy Chamberlain" and I had to look up who that was.  It also took me way too long to get the punny meaning of Adam's drag name, Felicia Jollygoodfellow.  I must be slipping.  

Also starring Hugo Weaving (last seen in "Mortal Engines"), Terence Stamp (last seen in "Last Night in Soho"), Bill Hunter (last seen in "Muriel's Wedding"), Sarah Chadwick, Mark Holmes, Julia Cortez, Ken Radley (last seen in "The Power of the Dog"), Daniel Kellie, Leighton Picken, Margaret Pomeranz, Stephan Elliott (last seen in "Easy Virtue"), Rebel Penfold-Russell (ditto), June Marie Bennett, Murray Davies, Maria Kmet, Joseph Kmet, Hannah Corbett, Trevor Barrie, Andrew Saw, John Casey, Frank Cornelius, Alan Dargin.

RATING: 4 out of 10 ping pong balls

The Last Vermeer

Year 16, Day 229 - 8/16/24 - Movie #4,815

BEFORE: I'm back on the beat after my first ever colonoscopy - probably the less said about it the better, but really the hardest part for me was the prep-work, like for a week before the exam I couldn't eat any seeds, nuts, corn or beans, and I realized I love all those things, so giving up sesame bagels and rice & beans was tough, and corn's like the go-to vegetable, right?  Then for a whole day before the exam I couldn't eat ANYTHING, I could only drink clear liquids like black coffee, apple juice, ginger ale and chicken broth - which just wasn't exciting at all, and I don't like my coffee black, so I got sick of ginger ale very quickly, what a boring liquid it is.  My sleeping schedule got even more messed up than usual - and my usual is pretty messed up - when I had to. get up at 6 am and finish taking the laxative drink to, well, you know.  

Everyone at the hospital exam floor was very friendly and helpful, I was just cranky and out of it because I hadn't had any solid food in a day and a half, and I'm just not used to fasting.  My wife came to pick me up because after anesthesia they just don't release you on your own, and we went to a Cuban chain I spotted down the block, and I went crazy on some pork chops, rice and beans and some beets (another thing I couldn't eat for a week, because they're purple).  Man, food sure tastes good when you haven't had it in a while. 

I have managed to catch up on some TV shows - I finished season 2 of Marvel's "What If?" and I moved on to DC's "Pennyworth" season 3 (with Richard Dillane, who appears in tonight's movie, guest-starring as Batman's grandfather).  This last season of the show came out in 2022, but I was kind of busy that year, I guess, or it was streaming on HBO.Max and I couldn't be bothered - but now if I can watch 2 episodes a night, I'll knock out the whole of Season 3 in about five days. 

Claes Bang carries over from 'The Square". I don't know much about this Danish actor, if I'm being honest, but I've seen him in THREE different movies about art...the first was "The Burnt Orange Heresy" and the second was yesterday's film.  I guess he's gotten typecast as art experts, or else he's drawn to the subject matter for some reason, who can say? 

THE PLOT: An artist is suspected of selling a valuable painting to the Nazis, but there is more to the story than meets the eye. 

AFTER: This film is set shortly after the end of World War II in Europe, and centers on Captain Joseph Piller, a Jewish Dutch man who served in the Resistance during the War, and works for the Canadian military, in the capacity of sorting through the artworks collected by the Nazis and trying, perhaps in vain, to return them to their rightful owners, if possible.  Piller is focused on one painting in particular, a Vermeer that was found in Hermann Goering's private art collection, which was found stashed in a train car, because if you're a Nazi, that's what you do, you keep your valuable art on a train so you can move it around as needed, I guess. Goering had paid an astronomical price for it, because really, there were only like 30 recognized Vermeer paintings in the world. 

Piller and his assistant, Dekker, meet with Han van Meegeren, an art dealer and wanna-be painter who sold the Vermeer to Goering, and they arrest him for collaborating with the Nazis, and profiting immensely from the sale.  However, oddly, van Meegeren has seemingly given away all of his assets to his ex-wife, and maintains a simple studio in the Netherlands.  He's got a new girlfriend who also serves as his assistant, agent, model and muse, and she's married to another man but who cares, the war is over and everybody who's still alive just wants to try and be happy again, whatever that takes. 

A group of Dutch authorities want to take van Meegeren into their custody, and it's a bit unclear whether they want to interrogate him, make him disappear or put him in front of a firing squad, so Piller hides him away in a secret apartment, with Dekker guarding him.  The artist makes a couple of feeble attempts to escape, then just asks Dekker to bring him whiskey from the storage celler in his house.  That's all he wants, whiskey and some painting supplies.  Van Meegeren claims that he did not collaborate with the Nazis, but instead sold Goering a fake Vermeer which he painted himself, and he'd found a way to age the painting so it would pass the chemical tests and be certified as coming from Vermeer's time.  Piller doesn't believe him at first, but by the time he receives proof, it's too late, van Meegeren has been found by the Dutch authorities and put on trial for conspiracy.  

Piller works with the attorneys to defend van Meegeren, because Piller has seen the process by which he can age a painting, and believes that van Meegeren cheated the Nazis out of millions by charging them full price for an authentic Vermeer.  Would a collaborator due that?  Meanwhile, the prosecution calls witnesses that don't believe that the paintings are forgeries, they're THAT good and they look THAT old.  Even though van Meegeren proves his innocence by painting Piller's likeness directly into one of the Vermeers as a background character, he's stil found gulty by the judge, who is more inclined to believe the art critics who originally authenticated the paintings, because they've got no reason to lie.  This whole debate goes back and forth a few times before Piller takes matters into his own hands.  

The trick here is that we kind of get fooled by the trial into thinking only one of two absolutes is true, either van Meegeren is guilty and collaborated with the Nazis to steal paintings from Jewish people with no intention of giving them back, or he's innocent because he tricked the Nazis and sold them a forgery, depleting their war chest of valuable funds.  It's all a bit ironic because if he's guilty of being a forger, then he's innocent of another crime, one that was perceived to be much worse at that time.  But what if the truth actually was somewhere in the middle?  I mean, there's nothing that says he couldn't be collaborating with the Nazis AND also selling them a forged painting, right?  Those two things would seem to be somewhat at odds with each other, but they could have theoretically both happened at the same time.  

The weird ending to van Meegeren's story (spoiler alert, stop now if you don't want to know) is that he did get charged with the lesser offense of forgery and fraud, he only got a sentence of one year in jail BUT he died a few weeks after the trial, so I guess the joke was on the court system of the Netherlands.  He was the most popular man in that country after the trial, the man who allegedly put one over on the Nazis, and is now considered one of the most successful art forgers of all time.  Piller, on the other hand, got awarded the Medal of Freedom by the U.S. government and made a member of the British Empire in the U.K., this led him to start a successful wholesale dressmaking business, because that seems logical. Anyway it was post-World War II Europe, and everyone was just trying to figure out what to do with their lives and how to be happy again.  

I think it's a fascinating film, the problem is that it did well on the festival circuit, with screenings at the Telluride Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, but then after getting picked up by Sony Pictures Classics, it was scheduled for release in May 2020, however COVID-19 got a wide release two months before, so all the movie theaters shut down and hardly anyone saw this in the theaters. It finally got released again in November 2020 with a new distributor.

Also starring Guy Pearce (last seen in "Without Remorse"), Vicky Krieps (last seen in "Bergman Island"), Roland Moller (last seen in "Papillon" (2017)), August Diehl (last seen in "The King's Man"), Karl Johnson (last seen in "Dream Horse"), Andrew Havill (last seen in "Into the Storm"), Paul Bentall (last seen in "Bridget Jones's Baby"), Olivia Grant (last seen in "All the Money in the World"), Adrian Scarborough (last seen in "Dirty Pretty Things"), Marie Bach Hansen, Tom Mulheron (last seen in "The Lost City of Z"), Cameron Jack (last seen in "What Happened to Monday"), Susannah Doyle (last seen in "About a Boy"), Richard Dillane (last seen in "Tristan + Isolde"), Oliver Ryan (last seen in "Dune: Part One"), Simon Paisley Day (last seen in "Victoria & Abdul"), Jason Farries (last seen in "Breathe"), Diane Halling (last seen in "The Courier"), Joakim Skarli (last seen in "The Son"), Mark Winstanley.

RATING: 6 out of 10 sacks of wheat

The Square

Year 16, Day 227 - 8/14/24 - Movie #4,814

BEFORE: I thought that maybe I could squeeze in the new "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" sequel here, because it has Eka Darville in it, and she was also in "Her Smell" - as I was typing up the cast list yesterday I recognized that name.  And tonight's film has Terry Notary in it, I know he's worked on the last couple "Planet of the Apes" movies as a model for the CGI simians, so I thought, great, let me sandwich in another summer blockbuster here, so it's not really on theme, so what?  But then oddly, I could NOT find Notary's name in the IMDB credits, though his character was mentioned on the Wikipedia page as being in the prologue of "Kingdom".  Hmm, that's odd, Rocket is there but the actor's not credited with an appearance.  I can't take the chance, if the voice of Terry Notary isn't in the film, that would be a break in the chain.  I can't take that chance after coming 214 films in to this year.  It reminds me of how I wanted to use Nicolas Cage as a link from "The Flash" to "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse", but then I found out that they put his Spider-Man Noir character in the sequel, only they didn't give that character any dialogue, so therefore they didn't have to pay Nicolas Cage. Very sneaky, and this is the kind of thing that can easily trip me up if I'm not careful.  So I'll have to find another way to link to "K.O.T.P.O.T.A.", it stays on the list but I'm not watching it this week. 

Elisabeth Moss carries over from "Her Smell".

THE PLOT: A prestigious Stockholm museum's chief art curator finds himself in times of both professional and personal crisis as he attempts to set up a controversial new exhibit. 

AFTER: I don't want to forget that I kicked off this Movie Year with a film set in Sweden, that was "The Worst Person in the World", now since then I've been all over the world, from Ireland ("The Secret of Kells", "The Banshees of Inisherin") to Italy ("Mafia Mamma", "Book Club: the Next Chapter", "A Haunting in Venice", "1900") and Africa ("The Woman King", "Beast"), under the ocean ("The Little Mermaid" and "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom") and then to outer space ("Stowaway", "The Marvels", "Rebel Moon") and even some lands that don't exist ("Slumberland", "Peter Pan & Wendy", "Disenchanted').  But now it seems I've circled back to Sweden, where this trip began.

I get the reason why Terry Notary popped up, he plays a performance artist who acts like a monkey, a savage predator though, one that moves around a room full of fancy museum donators and guests, treating them like his playthings and then like other primates that he needs to exert his dominance over.  (Yes, but is it ART?). The inspiration for this came from a real performance artist, Oleg Kulik, who performs as a dog, and apparently got in some trouble for biting one of a museum's guests.  

Well, that's the question, isn't it?  The lead character is the curator for a MOCA, a museum of contemporary art, and the interview he gives at the start of the film clues us in on some of the challanges involved in running a modern museum, always trying to stay current or even ahead of the curve, despite never having the funds to compete with millionaire or billionaire collectors who don't have the expenses of, you know, running a museum.  Sure, I get it, especially now that people can look up any piece of art on their computer or phone, why pay admission to a museum when the internet is free?  It's just like running a restaurant, what are you offering to diners that they can't get at home?  (Or at Mom's house, she charges nothing and serves up the food she knows you like.)

So the museums have to change with the times, offer something that no other museum has, whether it's the best collection of dinosaur skeletons, or the most Rodin sculptures in one place, or they have to do something original or slightly shocking that has a chance of going viral.  Here in NYC the big new thing is these "experiential" exhibits, where they project Van Gogh night skies or Monet's water lilies all over the walls and ceiling of a room, so you feel like you're somehow IN the painting rather than just looking at it on a wall.  

I'm stalling here, because this was a really tough film to figure out - like, is it a drama or a comedy? Is it meant to be taken seriously, or is this just a bunch of random events strung together in a semi-serious way?  Like, are the funny parts just funny or is it trying just a bit too hard to find some comedy in this man's life?  What about the commentary on relationships?  Curator Christian gets involved with that woman who interviewed him, they have very awkward sex and an even more awkward conversation about it, and they're just really not on the same page.  Is this just more comedy, or is this a serious comment on how two people can view the same encounter very differently. 

NITPICK POINT: He doesn't even ASK her about the chimpanzee?  LIke, that would be my first question, like "Hey, did you just see a chimpanzee walk through your apartment?" Or maybe, "Hey, is that YOUR chimp? Just asking." or even "Wait, do you see it too?"  Yes, I'm open to the idea that the monkey is not really there, because that's only slightly weirder than the monkey being there.  Perhaps this is a figment of Christian's imaginaiton, but if that's the case, I have no idea what it symbolizes.  Obviously the Big Monkey Energy runs strong through this movie, so it's too bad I couldn't pair it with "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes", we could have had another Hot Monkey Summer instead of Ratboy Summer or whatever the hell that weird trend was a couple months ago. 

I do kind of dig how the small events in this film spiral out of control, like when the marketing team has come up with an idea for a great viral video, or so they think.  Christian has so much going on in his life that he basically approves the idea without really LOOKING at it, and then later in the film he ends up paying the price for this.  Also another plot point is that Christian gets scammed out in the streets, classic dstraction move by a team of pickpockets, they create an emergency situation and when Christian steps in to help, he loses his phone, his wallet and even his cufflinks.  

There's no situation that Christian can't make worse, it seems, by trying to solve things.  His friend (roommate? partner?) Michael is able to track his stolen phone to a particular building, but the pair have no idea which apartment the thieves might live in, so they come up with a great plan, write a threatening letter demanding the delivery of the stolen items to the local 7-Eleven, and slide a copy of the letter under each door in the buildilng.  Sure, 37 apartments will get this letter and be very confused, but 1 will get it and think they've been caught, so they'll return the items or face prosecution.  What could possibly go wrong with this plan?  

That's pretty much the engine driving the whole plot of this movie - or really, almost every movie - what could possibly go wrong?  For example, there's an art exhibit which is just large piles of colored sand on the floor of a gallery.  (Yeah, but is it ART?). Imagine what could happen at the museum if the janitor hadn't been properly told about the exhibit, and you get the idea.  Hey, let's have a performance artist act like a gorilla when he interacts with a crowd of well-dressed benefactors? Again, WCPGW?  A museum curator is pitched an idea about an interactive exhibit that makes a statement about homeless people, WCPGW?  Two people have sex after a party and one is in a position of power and the other one isn't?  Well, you get the idea. 

Some things are very confusing, like who is the woman that Christian interacts with near the end of the film, is that his ex-wife, or his boss, or a publicist?  I couldn't figure it out, and the subtitles were no help (Yes, most of the film is in Swedish, I did not know that going in, but never fear, there are English captions.).  Also, the movie did not need to be two and a half hours long, I'm sure with a little effort some editor could have found a way to speed a few things up and some small details could have been dropped to get this down to 190 minutes - 2 hours 10 is a much more accessible run time than 2 hours 30.  

But if this film is about anything, it might be about where the inspiration for art comes from - like Christian getting his wallet stolen leads to an exhibit where museum guests are asked to leave their wallet on the floor before they walk into the next space, to test whether they trust other people or not (or I guess, whether they SHOULD) and then of course, the random monkey appearance precedes the performance art piece where a man acts like a monkey.  So I guess we can connect the dots and see that the events in Christian's life sort of inspire these museum exhibits.  OK, so where's the exhibit depicting two people having very awkward sex? 

If this review is posting late, I apologize, I had scheduled a colonoscopy for Thursday (my first, I opted to do a diffferent testing method 6 years ago) so my whole sleeping and eating schedule has been upended - and my sleeping schedule was terrible to being with, thanks to my second job that often has me working irregular hours.  Anyway, "The Square" counts as my Wednesday movie and I'll probably skip Thursday and report back here on Friday, OK?  Thanks for understanding. Really, any excuse to skip a day I should probably take, because at this point that could just shift more movies into November or December, if my estimated count is correct. 

Also starrning Claes Bang (last seen in "The Northman"), Dominic West (last seen in "Colette"), Terry Notary (last seen in "Nope"), Christopher Laesso, Lise Stephenson Engstrom, Lilianne Mardon, Marina Schiptjenko, Annica Liljeblad, Elijnadro Edouard, Daniel Hallberg, Martin Sööder, John Nordling, Maja Gödicke, Nicki Dar, Sofie Hamilton, Robert Hjelm, Jonas Dahlborn, Sofica Ciuranu, Stefan Gödicke (last seen in "Triangle of Sadness"), Mia Svenheimer, Per Magnus Johansson, Copos Pardaliam, Pierre Elmqvist, Madeleine Barwen Trollvik, Kolya Hardy, Janet Leon and the voice of Pauline Hansson.

RATING: 6 out of 10 curses shouted by a man with Tourette's syndrome

Her Smell

Year 16, Day 226 - 8/13/24 - Movie #4,813

BEFORE: I want to get to a section about art, like paintings in museums art, that should get me closer to a few more summer blockbusters like the latest "Mission: Impossible" film that is airing on premium cable now.  Plus I see a way to work in some Joaquin Phoenix films, like that "Napoleon" film that was Oscar-nominated, I think I can get to that one too before August is over. Tonight's film is a last-minute drop-in, I made the basic framework for a chain that should end with the "Divergent" series, but if I see an opportunity to add some mortar between the bricks, and clear another film off the secondary (streaming) list, I'm going to take it.  What could possibly go wrong?  This one was on Netflix when I first put it on the streaming list, but apparently it's scrolled off of that platform (it happens if I take too long) and now it's on Tubi.

Elisabeth Moss carries over from "Next Goal Wins". 

THE PLOT: A self-destructive punk rocker struggles with sobriety while trying to recapture the creative inspiration that led her band to success.  

AFTER: Yeah, I'm just not feeling this one today.  How is this a movie? Why is this a movie?  Who cares about these characters, because I sure don't. A female punk rocker, who gives a damn?  Oh, did the rock star drink too much?  Did the rock star have a bad marriage?  Oh, I really feel sorry for her, if only she had been smarter or learned a few things along the way about what being a rock star can do to your personal life. We've had rock stars for decades, why didn't she know these things that everyone else understands?  

Am I supposed to find this innovative or groundbreaking just because this happens to be a female rock star?  Well, the rules are the same, we have gender equality now, at least in this regard, so she really should have paid more attention, and figured out that if she wanted to be a female Mick Jagger or a female Bowie or the next Joan Jett, well there was always going to be a price to pay.  And when you mix fame with ego and addiction, well that's a combination that never ends well. Somehow we're not getting smarter as a species, because some people are just making the same mistakes over and over again, or at least making the same mistakes that other people who went before them did, so we all need to start paying more attention.  Look, I'm not signing up to go fight in a foreign war or be part of an invasion force, because other people have done that and died.  I'm not trying to climb Mount Everest or go skydiving, for the same reasons.  And I don't aspire to be a rock star, because show me one who lived that life and managed to be successful and keep their personal life together AND also not develop a big ego about it.  Yeah, I thought so. 

But this just feels like a dumb, pointless movie all around.  The name of the band (Something She) is really dumb.  The stage name of the lead character is similarly stupid.  The songs are forgettable, and I didn't even grasp what the title of the film meant, I thought it meant that the rock star smelled bad, but then I found out it referred to her liking the smell of her baby daughter.  Nope, that's still dumb and not even a whole lot better than my first thought. 

Is punk rock even a thing any more?  I don't know and I don't care. I can't name one punk band that's still around, all the Ramones are dead except one and I never cared for the Clash or the Sex Pistols.  Female punk, OK, maybe that's a little different, because it was trendy for a while to have the Riot Grrls and Avril Lavigne, I think, plus Joan Jett is immortal I'm pretty sure, but is punk a thing right now?  Only if Pussy Riot counts, if not then even female punk bands are old hat, but what do I know, I'm old and I haven't been out to the music clubs since Air Supply swung through town back when B.B. King's was still open.  

Part of me just wants to skip this review and not admit I even watched this, it's the middle film in a 3-movie mini-chain with Elisabeth Moss, so it would be easy to just scrap it from the books, but no, that's not playing fairly, and I only did that once before, with that documentary about Woodstock 1999. (I still posted the review, I just didn't count it in my stats, I was so upset.). No, I've got to learn to take the bad with the good, and this is just a bad film, but things are bound to get better, they just have to. 

Like, MAYBE I could see it if this Becky Something character were intended as a thinly-veiled Courtney Love, because Courtney considered herself "punk" and sure, I didn't like her at all but I know other people found something in her music, or else she was the music act that everyone loved to hate, I'm not sure. She seems to have dropped off the radar completely, I don't know if she had an epiphany like the rock star here, who realizes that she can't BE a rock star without also drinking and taking drugs and putting herself at risk, and that there are more important things in life than being famous, like spending time with your daughter I guess. 

But no, the director has said that the character is more inspired by Axl Rose than Courtney Love, and the "Phantom of the Opera" t-shirt she wears is another clue, that she's supposed to be this creature that metaphorically lives in the basement underworld and comes up and wreaks havoc in everyone else's life while she's backstage. Still seems like weak sauce to me, even with this layer of symbolism included.  

Remember that I love movies about rock, documentaries especially, and I love docs that show famous bands recording in sound studios, like "Muscle Shoals", "Sound City" and "The Wrecking Crew" - but this just wasn't in a league with those films.  This was five scenes from a fictional character's life, one in the sound studio and four that were backstage arguments, and to me what happens backstage before a show is probably the part of being a rocker that I am least interested in, just saying.  Like who cares about the dressing room drama, or whether the band members got the right color of m&m's at the craft table?  Not me, sorry. 

Also starring Cara Delevingne (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Dan Stevens (last seen in "Blithe Spirit"), Agyness Deyn (last seen in "Hail, Caesar!"), Gayle Rankin (last seen in "Worth"), Ashley Benson (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), Dylan Gelula (last seen in "Horse Girl"), Eka Darville, Lindsay Burdge (last seen in "Duck Butter"), Hannah Gross (last seen in "Tesla"), Virginia Madsen (last seen in "Candyman"), Eric Stoltz (last seen in "2 Days in the Valley"), Amber Heard (last seen in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom"), Daisy Pugh-Weiss, Jessie Pinnick, Yusef Bulos (last seen in "The Thomas Crown Affair"), Keith Poulson (last heard in "My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea"), Kentucker Audley (last seen in "Ain't Them Bodies Saints"), Alexis Krauss (last seen in "Premium Rush"), Craig Butta (last seen in "Person to Person"), David Godlis, Stephen Gurewitz, Andrew Nunziata.

RATING: 3 out of 10 gold records - and I really don't think we should give them to artists who are just going to smash them five minutes later.  If you can't appreciate them and take care of them you don't deserve them.

Next Goal Wins

Year 16, Day 225 - 8/12/24 - Movie #4,812

BEFORE: Well, the Olympics are over, but honestly I barely noticed that they were on, EXCEPT for the fact that my late night talk shows were on hiatus, one because its network was running the Olympics and the other because, well, who wants to compete with that ratings juggernaut?  Look, if I had more time then I might have just scrolled late at night through several channels, looking for an interesting sport like archery or, I don't know, water polo?  Table tennis?  Most of the Olympics sports just aren't my thing, anything with running, swimming, diving, nope, nope, nope. Wrestling? Meh, not for me.  Shot-put, javelin, maybe, there's at least chance of a serious injury on the javelin field, but I don't care about gymnastics, no matter how many other people seem to like it.  I know basketball's really popular with U.S. fans because our country both invented and perfected the game, but still, really, yawn city.  

Really, the only two movie nods to sports I've been able to come up with over the last few weeks were the documentary about Billie Jean King (who coached the U.S. tennis team at some point) and now this one about soccer - but yeah, I realize it's about a country trying to qualify for the World Cup, not the Olympics.  But the World Cup is two (?) years away, and I don't want to wait that long to watch this one, it looks funny.  And yeah, it was screened at the theater where I work during one of the Tuesday night film appreciation classes, and yeah, I worked that screening.  So I'm still playing catch up by watching this, "The Son" and "Rebel Moon: Part One".  Other films I worked screenings for might still be on my list, I'm not sure.  I can't use that as a standard for selecting my movies for much longer, it's driving me a bit crazy not knowing whether I'll be able to link up with my horror chain or not. I can drift for a little while longer, like I have a chain that should get me to the end of August, but after that I'll really have to put in some time making sure I WILL be able to link to the October movies.  It takes time to figure this stuff out. Yesterday's movie also reminded me that Christmas is just 88 movies away, so it's time to start going through cast lists and adding some more possible Christmas movies to the list. 

Kaitlyn Dever carries over from "Good Grief".  

THE PLOT: The story of the infamously terrible American Samoa soccer team, known for a brutal 2001 FIFA match that they lost 31-0.

AFTER: There's a lot to like here, like many Americans I'm a bit fascinated with Taika Waititi, he's great as Korg in the Marvel movies, and I love the way he talks, all dead-pan and such, but still he's very very funny.  He directed "Next Goal Wins" and gave himself a cameo as a preacher on the very religious island of American Samoa (and I learned tonight that the emphasis really needs to be on the "Sam" syllable, good to know).  Yes, I know that Waititi comes from New Zealand, and that's a different island, but he's got this Pacific Islander humor, and that carries over into this film and makes it very entertaining.  The Samoans are never portrayed as dumb or ignorant, but instead as simple people who believe in being happy and following your truth, and that if you enjoy what you do, then it's not really work, or something to that effect.  

(This movie was not filmed in American SAM-oa, or even New Zealand, from the cast list I'd say it was filmed in Hawaii.  OK, that's another place on Earth that's known for being a vacation wonderland and also relatively stress-free, as long as you don't count the volcanoes or that big fire they had a year ago, or apparently a bunch of billionaires buying up all the land from the native people as I've learned tonight from the John Oliver show, also a homeless problem, but hey, if you're going to be homeless, Hawaii might be a pretty nice place to be homeless, then again who knows?)

The story is true, there was even a documentary, also titled "Next Goal Wins", made about the team from American Samoa that hired coach Thomas Rongen to help them in their effort to qualify for the 2014 World Cup, despite being regarded as one of the worst national soccer teams in the world, having suffered a 31-0 loss to the Australian team in 2001, and another humiliating defeat in the 2011 Pacific Games.  I can't really watch the documentary, because there's no way for me to link out of it - I didn't realize we'd see the real coach Rongen near the end of this film, but he's there, so I could link TO that film, I just can't link away from it. 

The American Samoan team at the time also featured a transgender player, or I guess the right term is a player who was transitioning at the time, who was born male but identified as female. In Samoa they treat such people as something akin to a third gender, called a fa'afafine, which translates as "in the manner of female", so a male acting as a female, who is attracted to men.  And this is generally more accepted in some countries, like American Samoa and I think Thailand.  Coach Rongen doesn't really understand it at first, he mistaked Jaiyah for a woman, and wonders why "she" shows up for practice with the men's team.  But over time he comes to understand Jaiyah a little more, or at least is confused a little less.  

But Coach Rongen really has his work cut out for him, trying to bring discipline and athleticism to a ragtag team of players who don't really have much of either one.  It's a different society, sure, and in addition to them learning from him, he ends up learning from them, he becomes a better teacher and motivator after he learns more about their islander ways.  And it's a simple goal, just one goal, and that is to have the team score one goal, which for them is just not as easy as it sounds.  In the qualifying match against Tonga, the team appears to have forgotten everything he taught them and they revert to their previous "team that can't shoot straight" ways, so after quitting as their coach during half-time, Rongen realizes that the team just can't handle stress, and once he tells them to just go out and have fun, be themselves and enjoy the game, then they actually might have a chance.  

He also has to realize that he hasn't fully opened up to the team, and thus the match against Tonga becomes part of his healing process, too - we learn that the voice messages from his daughter that the coach listens to are actually old saved messages, and that his daughter died in an accident two years ago.  But he's finally ready to talk about it, which is great news for him but also very bad timing, because there's a soccer match going on.  Great timing for me, though, because yesterday's film also had the same plot point, with a loved one dying in a car accident, so the theme week just got extended one more day.  

There's a lot of tension in the second half of the game against Tonga, the score is tied when a major character comes down with heatstroke, so we all learn about the end of the game when he does, and honestly we're all probably just as curious about whether these Bad News Bears of soccer managed to finally win a game, and if so, how did they do it?  And can their goalie keep it together, or does that 31-0 loss still haunt him, every time he steps into the net?  And will Coach Rongen stay in American Samoa or look for another coaching gig elsewhere?  No spoilers here, but I recommend tracking this one down on Hulu or On Demand and finding out for yourself. 

Also starring Michael Fassbender (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Oscar Kightley (last seen in "Hunt for the Wilderpeople"), Rhys Darby (ditto), Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House (last seen in "Penguin Bloom"), Beulah Koale, Taika Waititi (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Will Arnett (last seen in "When In Rome"), Elisabeth Moss (last seen in "Us"), Uli Latukefu (last seen in "Black Adam"), Sisa Grey (last seen in "The Descendents"), Semu Filipo, Chris Alosio, Lehi Makisi Falepapalangi, Ioane Goodhue, Hio Pelesasa, Wil Kahele, Luke Hemsworth (last seen in "Thor: Love and Thunder"), Angus Sampson (last seen in "Mad Max; Fury Road"), Levy Tuiala, Jonathan J.I. Knox, Loretta Ables Sayre, Don Nahaku (last seen in "A Very Brady Sequel"), Armani Makaiwa, David Tu'itupou, Frankie Adams (last seen in "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets") with archive footage of Al Pacino (last seen in "Sly"), Thomas Rongen.

RATING: 7 out of 10 dreamcatchers sold at the convenience store

Good Grief

Year 16, Day 224 - 8/11/24 - Movie #4,811

BEFORE: Where do I even GO after "Deadpool & Wolverine"?  There's just too many paths radiating out from it, like it's some big transportation hub, such as the Atlanta airport.  There are flights to everywhere, once you get to an airport you can go anywhere in the world, even if it's not a non-stop flight, that's probably the best analogy I've come up with so far for the linking system.  The best thing to do right now is think about where I WANT to go and then ask how many layovers it's going to take to get there.  

I had no more Hugh Jackman on the list, but the most obvious next stop would be "IF", a movie with Ryan Reynolds AND Blake Lively so that would be two links, which doesn't matter but I kind of like when there's more than one link.  But the movie looks very silly and it also has a big cast list, so that means it's another big transportation hub, and maybe I don't want to waste those.  It's almost a sure thing I'm going to get there one way or another.  My next thought was to pick up on the Jennifer Garner path and that would lead me to "Family Switch" or "Men, Women & Children", the latter is a film about how the internet and phones have changed relationships, and I passed on this one last year, so I've been meaning to try again, PLUS that could lead me to "Next Goal Wins" after that, via Kaitlyn Dever. BUT, it looks like this film could be useful next February in connecting a couple other films, so I want to pass on this one again, I think.  Sometimes a film can pop up in the travel recommendations a few times before I visit it. 

Out of respect for the IMDB (and as a method of narrowing down my choices) I decided to not follow any link that involved an actor from the "20th Century Fox tribute" during the closing credits of yesterday's film.  Sure, I believe an appearance is an appearance, and the closing credits are PART of the film (though the footage in the opening Marvel logo is not) so I've declared a bunch of links today to be insufficient or at least unpreferred, so I went a different way with it, really one of the more unobvious links I could find, but the benefit here is two-fold, I can stay on the theme of death and loss for one more film, and also, I can still get to "Next Goal Wins", and I think I see a way to also work in the new "Mission: Impossible" film and also "Napoleon" before the summer's over.  Now I've bought myself about two weeks before I need to find a connection between the end of the "Divergent" movies to the start of my horror chain.

This is all a long way of saying that Emma Corrin carries over from "Deadpool & Wolverine".

THE PLOT: When his husband unexpectedly dies, Marc's world shatters, sending him and his two friends on a soul-searching trip to Paris that reveals some hard truths they each need to face. 

AFTER: Hindsight is always 20/20, of course, so now I'm regretting including the "Rebel Moon" movies among all these dramas about dying and losing family members or pets. Or really, if I'd known I would have flipped the order and put "Armageddon Time" after "Rebel Moon", because it seems like maybe "Armadeggon Time" has more in common with "The Son".  But then I would have gone from the documentary about Katharine Hepburn straight into sci-fi, and that felt like it would have been too much of a jolt.  Anyway, in the last week I've seen the dead grandfather movie, the dead son movie, the dead dog movie, and the dead classmate movie, but I think the trend ends tonight with the dead husband movie. Oh, and the dead superhero/dead timeline movie, of course. Grief Week ends with a movie called "Good Grief", I'm OK with that. 

It's really a new world where we can HAVE this kind of movie, one where a man is grieving his dead husband, I mean, sure, there were gay relationships depicted on film back in the 1970's, but those were films like "Cruising" and "Dog Day Afternoon", nothing really about regular couples who just happened to be two gay men.  Gradually things changed and of course gay marriage became legal at some point, nationwide in the U.S. in 2015, I want to say.  So I think a movie like this would have been ground-breaking 10 years ago and probably impossible 20 years ago, but now seems just about right on time. 

Losing your spouse CAN feel like your whole world has ended. Maybe you built part of your world around theirs, you got used to doing certain things together, eating some meals together and others apart, taking vacations together or watching some TV shows together. What do you do, who can you be when that's no longer possible?  Marc had managed to escape dealing with the pain of his mother's death by marrying his older, richer boyfriend, Oliver.  But once Oliver dies, too, right after a Christmas party, how can he deal with this?  Well, with the support of his two closest friends, Thomas (also his ex) and Sophie.  After a year of grieving (which we don't see), the holiday season comes around again, and Marc learns from Oliver's accountant that some expenses need to be dealt with, like the cost of the apartment in Paris that Marc knew nothing about.  This leads Marc to finally (?) read the last letter that Oliver wrote him, in which he mentioned meeting someone else, and feeling the need to explore that new relationship.  At the apartment in Paris, perhaps.

So Marc offers to take his two best friends from London to Paris for both Christmas and the anniversary of Oliver's death.  Also, he feels the need to check out that apartment, you know, just to see what it might be worth, and if there's any evidence of his husband's infidelity, which he only just learned about.  Paris brings a chance encounter with a stranger at a wine bar, and a possible new relationship for Marc, and Sophie and Thomas also manage to find new Mr. Rights, or at least Mr. Right Nows.  But the three also bounce off each other after their nights on the town and it seems they've all got some issues to address. 

Marc meets Theo again, and admits that he stopped painting after his mother died, and that he possibly never really went through the stages of grief properly, instead he just dived into the marriage with Oliver that turned into an open marriage, at least for Oliver.  Theo brings Marc to a museum with some giant Monet water-lily art, and explains that Claude Monet painted them after the death of his wife and son, and that was his own method of dealing with loss.  Then one day a young dancer turns up at the apartment, and this apparently was Oliver's new boyfriend, he had been the winner of an art scholarship, and one thing led to another.  Thus Marc's real reason for planning the trip is revealed, and the friends argue once again. 

Thomas is afraid of never being "the one" to his boyfriends, and Sophie admits to having commitment issues too, so maybe in the end nobody really ever has their shit together.  Marc decides to sell the house he shared with Oliver and takes up painting again, having finally come to some form of acceptance, Sophie gets back together with Terrance and Thomas finds a new beau.  The biggest obvious metaphor here is the giant ferris wheel in Paris that the three friends ride, and they stay on to go around one more time.  That's what we all do in life, we're all riding on a giant ferris wheel of sorts, and if we're lucky, we get to keep going around in circles, until the ride is over. 

Also starring Daniel Levy (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Ruth Negga (last seen in "Passing"), Himesh Patel (last seen in "Enola Holmes 2"), Luke Evans (last seen in "Pinocchio" (2022)), Celia Imrie (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Arnaud Valois (last seen in "Paradise Hills"), David Bradley (last heard in "Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget"), Medhi Baki, Jamael Westman, Kaitlyn Dever (last seen in "Outside In"), Yoli Fuller, Noé Besin, Cyrielle Debreuil (last seen in "War Machine"), Nigel Lilley, Gabriel Marc, Zoe Bruneau (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Siu-See Hung, Régis Vallée, Nay Murphy, Félix Dumant, Gérald Jean.

RATING: 5 out of 10 karaoke songs (Elton John, of course)