Ophelia

Year 16, Day 258 - 9/14/24 - Movie #4,843

BEFORE: It's 2 days after the "Divergent" trilogy, and I've made my choice, I've picked my path to October 1, so I can now un-mark all the films on my list that were possible choices for today, and there were 118 of them.  Now I can focus on the films that represent potential paths AFTER the horror chain, because very soon I'm going to have to choose that path, and make sure that it's one that gets me to Christmas.  Also, I need to decide which Christmas-based films I"ll be watching this year, and then link to them - I was kind of hoping the chain would give me a clue here, like maybe a path would just present itself, but unfortunately it may not be that easy.  I may just have to choose two or three Christmas films that link together or have a little mortar in-between, and then force the linking to comply.  That's a bit harder but I've done it before, I can probably do it again.  

Naomi Watts AND Clive Owen carry over from "The International".  Originally this film was part of this chain, then I cut it, but without it, the next back-to-school film was scheduled for Sunday.  Monday would make a little more sense, because kids go to school on Mondays - so "Ophelia" is back in, but the other film I cut is still out.  It looked boring, anyway.

THE PLOT: A re-imagining of "Hamlet", told from Ophelia's perspective.  

AFTER: I know I'm posting very very late tonight (or rather, tomorrow morning) because this is my Saturday film, to push that back-to-school film to Monday (also, bonus, to get Clive Owen his third film for the year, qualifying him for the year-end countdown) but sure, I've got two reasons.  First, I went to the theater today, not to work, but to catch a screening of a certain horror comedy that's going to slide RIGHT into my October horror chain. It was only playing today, a special screening for the college kids, so it was either watch it today or pay like $9 later, so considering I spent $5 on the subway and $7.50 on snacks, I may have come out on the losing end of that deal. BUT I'll get to post once in October having already seen the movie, and that could save me some valuable time right around NY Comic-Con. 

So that was half the day gone, then when I came back and started typing the post for "Ophelia", i accidentally hit control-Z too many times and deleted the entire post where I keep track of who's been in multiple movies for the year.  Like, months and months of typing, gone in a flash.  Sure, I have a back-up, but it was from the middle of July, so I had to spend three hours adding all the information for the multiples since the Rock Hudson documentary, that was like 55 movies ago, so it took some time, especially for those docs that had ENORMOUS casts. I couldn't call up a version of that document from earlier today, because Blogger had already auto-saved the blank file. Umm, yeah, thanks, Blogger for not letting me load an earlier version of a post.  Sure, this is why I keep back-ups, but usually no more than three or four back-ups in a calendar year.  OK, so I've done two months worth of typing today, so I'll try to keep this concise. 

This is a re-telling of "Hamlet", and if you don't know that story backwards and forwards by now, well, then maybe skip this one.  Tom Stoppard wrote a play called "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", which was the Hamlet story re-told from the point of view of two minor characters who pop in and out of the action in Shakespeare's play.  So (I assume) he had to write a bunch of new stuff that told the audience what they were doing when Shakespeare wasn't using them, they go off on a boat or something, they have instructions from the King to kill Hamlet, but then of course, they can't because he's needed in Act III.  

This is the same idea, only it's based on a book where another author, Lisa Klein, wrote from the P.O.V. of Ophelia, Hamlet's love interest and a lady-in-waiting at Elsinore who eventually drowns herself, and is at various times thought to be mad, or in love, which are really sort of the same thing, as in they both make you not think clearly and they both may make you want to kill yourself.  So obviously that author set out to give us a new take on that character, maybe she wasn't crazy, maybe she was just in love.  Or vice versa, take your pick, maybe. But there's a chance to give a more modern take on the character, and maybe Shakespeare didn't have the best angles when it came to writing female characters, right? 

To do this, though, the movie kind of has to bend the familiar play over, backwards and sideways, to accommodate some new elements.  For starters, there's a secret wedding between Hamlet and Ophelia (this seems a little borrowed from "Romeo & Juliet" and Ophelia here gains knowledge of a potion that can help someone pretend to be dead (also borrowed from "Romeo & Juliet", if I remember correctly).  To bring that potion stuff into play, this story adds a twin sister for Queen Gertrude, called Mechtild, and she lives in a cave down under the castle, she was persecuted for having a miscarriage (clearly the work of the devil) and guess who the father was, yep, Hamlet's uncle, Claudius, the new king.  So he slept with both sisters, maybe this explains why he was attracted to his brother's wife but this does NOT excuse his behavior. 

So there's a good half-hour of new material where we learn Ophelia's backstory, how her mother died and Polonius didn't really know how to raise a daughter, so Gertrude took her as a lady-in-waiting, but this way she got to learn girl stuff and how to dress like a proper royal servant, also how to deal with bullying and how to get ahead in the royal court, by kissing up. Later, as an adult, the Queen sends Ophelia to get her healing tonic from Mechtild, and she's passed by a mysterious cloaked figure who is also visiting the healer for a potion, then she sees an apparent ghost or spectre on the castle parapets.  The next day, King Hamlet is dead from some poison, and the word is sent for Hamlet to return home, and basically then we're all caught up at the start of the familiar play.  

Ophelia is obviously given a lot more to do here than usual, like she figures out where Claudius got the potion from, and she clues in Hamlet, who might not have been able to figure that out otherwise.  And she probably spends more time with Hamlet in this version than she does in the original, so there's more time for them to make wedding plans.  Ophelia seems to be everywhere and knows all, which represents a different take.  Also, since here she married Hamlet it's a much bigger blow when she finds out that Hamlet accidentally killed Polonius, her father, thinking he was the king.  Her husband killed her father, yeah, I don't know how you justify that one, but it so much more noticeable here.  

Horatio then breaks the news to her that Hamlet has been banished to England, also that the king instructed his guards, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to make sure he's thrown off the boat before he even gets there.  Again, Ophelia just happens to be in the right place at the right time to learn all the important details of the plot.  A little too convenient.  

After she confronts King Claudius with her knowledge of his prior relationship with the Queen's twin sister, the King locks her up, but she escapes and then pretends to be crazy, but it's just a cover so that she can take the potion, pretend to drown herself and then have Horatio dig up her grave, and she's FINE, really.  A quick haircut so nobody will recognize her, and then she can be hanging around in the background during the rest of the play.  After her resurrection, she meets up with Hamlet again and proposes that they run away together, but Hamlet is too single-minded on getting revenge against Claudius for the death of his father.  So this kind of explains why Hamlet let himself get drawn into a duel with Laertes, who was not his equal in fencing at all, but as we all know, the King poisoned Laertes' sword so he only had to scratch Hamlet, and that would be the end of the prince. 

At some point before the whole cast dies from either poisoned swords or non-poisoned swords or suicide, Ophelia leaves.  Smart girl, who wants to be caught up in all the madness of the rest of the cast killing each other?  It's almost like she KNEW what was going to happen, that everyone would die and King Fortinbras from the next country over would invade at the worst possible time, here he enters along with the new character, Mechtild, so maybe they were in league with each other all along?  It's tough to say.  

Anyway, if you dig Ophelia and you think maybe she wasn't represented very well in Shakespeare's play and left the world a bit too soon, then this may be the story for you.  But that sound you hear is probably Shakespeare scholars who won't stop complaining about the liberties taken here.  I think perhaps the language was affected the most, with everything here said in plain, modern English, so we're missing the big Hamlet soliloquies, and even Polonius' best advice to his son, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend" turns into, "oh, right, don't borrow money, or lend it."  Somehow, that's just not the same. 

And apparently there was some kind of minor scandal when the publicist for this film was paying people to write positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.  

Also starring Daisy Ridley (last seen in "The Bubble"), George MacKay (last seen in "Marrowbone"), Tom Felton (last seen in "Message from the King"), Devon Terrell (last seen in "Barry"), Nathaniel Parker (last seen in "The Last Duel"), Dominic Mafham (last seen in "The English Patient"), Rupesh Tillu, Daisy Head (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Sebastian De Souza (last seen in "Fair Play"), Noel Czuczor, Martin Angerbauer (last seen in "Atomic Blonde"), Mia Quiney, Anna Rust (last seen in "The Brothers Grimm"), Jack Cunningham-Nuttall, Calum O'Rourke, Angela Nwagbo, William Ray Roberts (last seen in "The Catcher Was a Spy"), Stewart Kenneth Moore (last seen in 'Unlocked"), Ivo Hanel, Talia Brizman

RATING: 5 out of 10 flower petals for the Queen's bath

The International

Year 16, Day 257 - 9/13/24 - Movie #4,842

BEFORE: OK, it's not even funny how little is left in this year.  I'm 58 movies away from finishing, and despite my best efforts to cut back, I've still got half of September and all of October to get through, and the new estimate is that I'll have just 15 slots for November and December, can I get to a Thanksgiving movie and a couple Christmas movies?  I'm not sure, I might have to take Thanksgiving off this year, I think I only have 1 potential appropriate movie anyway. If I can't figure out soon what to watch, then maybe 5 movies in November and 10 in December?  Or the other way around?  I don't know, but I really have to get cracking on this. 

Naomi Watts carries over from "Allegiant". 

THE PLOT: An Interpol agent attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring. 

AFTER: This one seemingly has it all - international intrigue, a banking scandal being actively investigated jointly by NYPD and Interpol, and a hit-man traveling around the world, taking out anyone who dares to investigate the scandal or tries to supply the authorities with evidence abou it.  But now I wonder if it tried to do TOO much, like would this even be the way that a scandal would break or would be investigated?  Honestly, I have no idea. AND it's also got my second-favorte Turkish actor in it - come on, I know you know which one is still my favorite.

But my point is that this is a BANKING film that wants really badly to be a SPY film, and, well, it's just not.  There's only so much that you can do to make detective work interesting, and it's darn near impossible to make it thrilling, while spies get to have all the fun, they get to travel around the world, confront viillains in their volcano-based lairs and then once they work their way out of the clever killing device that the villain strapped them to before they walked away because they had a previous engagement, they get to have sex with the beautiful girl who was being held hostage or was the villain's side-piece before the much more attractive secret agent came along.  Or so I've heard. 

Instead here, we've got people meeting in cabs near the train station in Berlin, and making phone calls to next of kin once people turn up dead, but somebody's got to do that, darn it.  Going through airport security footage to try to find the assassin catching his flight, that's a really tedious task that would probably take DAYS or even weeks if they hadn't caught a break and realized that the guy was wearing an orthopedic thing on his leg.  Well, I guess you take your lucky breaks where you find them.  And it's Friday the 13th today, I wish I could have found a film with more of a tie-in, but OK, sure, luck helps them break the case and track down the assassin in New York.  

Anyway, the film is about a powerful bank (IBBC) that has decided to branch out from its usual business of savings accounts and loans to get into arms dealing and money laundering and the destabilization of certain governments.  Why?  Because it benefits them to do so, and if you think countries spend a lot of money, just wait until they're at war, then they REALLY start spending to buy arms, and they're willing to go into debt.  And the bank makes money when they go into debt, it's diabolical but there are people in this world who make more profit during wartime, and in the months that follow when they can charge a country interest on their debt. 

The bank also takes a hand to the Italian election process, by assassinating a candidate who is also an arms manufacturer - so, he's their competition?  Honestly I wasn't clear exactly why the bank had this guy rubbed out, or was it just to cause chaos?  Or did they have a candidate they liked better?  As America found out a couple months ago, you can't just kill the candidate you don't like, because if anything, that's going to unite his party behind him if he survives and make him a martyr if he doesn't.  Either way, it's not going to bring about the change you want to see in the world if you kill one of the candidates. 

The combined team of Interpol agents and NYPD undercover detectives follows him to the Guggenheim Museum, for (FINALLY) an action scene.  A big shootout, which is really not a great idea when there's so much valuable art on display.  I'm pretty sure that painting didn't have a bullet hole in it before.  I was just reading on Wikipedia, though, about how they only filmed in the lobby of the famous NYC museum, not anywhere near the art.  They built a replica of the inside of the Guggenheim inside a giant warehouse in Germany.  Wow, that's a nice trick, I would not have guessed it, but sure, it makes sense.  There's no way that museum staff is going to let a shoot-out scene take place during daylight hours, even if no real bullets were used.  At one point a giant art chandelier is shot on purpose and goes crashing several stories to the floor, and that was totally CGI, not real at all.  They deep-faked it, finally we're using CGI for things that matter, and it's so good now that if you didn't know, you wouldn't be able to tell. 

During the shoot-out, another NYPD detective takes the bank's security advisor, Wexler, into custody, and Salinger, the Interpol agent, interrogates him about what the bank is up to.  Wexler says that the bank is so well connected to drug cartels and terrorist operations that it's essentially untouchable.  So Salinger instead goes back to Italy and tells the assassinated candidate's sons about who ordered the hit on their father.  Well, if Salinger can't take down the bankers himself, maybe he can persuade someone else to do it for him.  And after a failed attempt to wiretap and record the banker buying missile guidance systems in Istanbul, that's exactly what happens, the Italians hire a guy.  So, really, he should have taken the deal, because it's better to be in prison and alive, right?  

But the bank's just going to hire someone else, and continue on with its shady business, right? Only now going forward they're being watched a bit more closely, will that change anything, though?  

Also starring Clive Owen (last seen in "The Song of Names"), Armin Mueller-Stahl (last seen in "Eastern Promises"), Ulrich Thomsen (last seen in "The Weight of Water"), Brian F. O'Byrne (last seen in "The Wonder"), Jack McGee (last seen in "Just Before I Go"), Felix Solis (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Nilaja Sun (last seen in "The Bourne Legacy"), Haluk Bilginer (last seen in "The Reluctant Fundamentalist"), James Rebhorn (last seen in "The Box"), Alessandro Fabrizi (last seen in "The Burnt Orange Heresy"), Luca Barbareschi, Patrick Baladi (last seen in "Rush" (2013)), Jay Villiers (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Michel Voletti (last seen in 'Down and Out in Beverly Hills"), Fabrice Scott (last seen in "Marie Antoinette"), Axel Milberg (last seen in "The Fifth Estate"), Steven Randazzo (last seen in "For Love or Money"), Tibor Feldman (last seen in "Arbitrage"), Remy Auberjonois (last seen in "The Normal Heart"), Ian Burfield (last seen in "Criminal"), Ben Whishaw (last seen in "Women Talking"), Ty Jones (last seen in "Clifford the Big Red Dog"), Thomas Morris (last seen in "Tristan + Isolde"), Oliver Trautwein, Luigi Di Fiore, Verena Schonlau, Laurent Spielvogel (last seen in "Midnight in Paris'), Giorgio Lupano, Loris Loddi (last seen in "House of Gucci"), Lucian Msamati (last seen in "See How They Run"), Benjamin Wandschneider, Marco Gambino, Luca Calvani (last seen in "When In Rome"), Gerolamo Fancellu, Darren Pettie (last seen in "Taking Woodstock"), Georges Bigot, Robert Salerno, Amy Kwolek (last seen in "Anonymous"), Elizabeth Watson. 

RATING: 5 out of 10 petient records at the orthopedist's office

Allegiant

Year 16, Day 256 - 9/12/24 - Movie #4,841

BEFORE: Wrapping up another franchise - I read that there was supposed to be a fourth film, called "Ascendant" but this third film in the series didn't perform as well at the box office as someone hoped it would, so plans for one more film were scrapped.  Yeah, that's not a good sign.  

The good news is that I've caught up with my planned schedule, by not taking a skip day on Tuesday, so I'm exactly where I wanted to be.  Today I was supposed to figure out that last bit of movie year, to make sure I can get from Halloween to Christmas, but I kind of ran out of time, I spent part of today walking to the German pork store to get cold cuts and also pick up a sandwich for my wife from a place near there.  She works from home, so really, anything I can do on my day off to get her a bagel or a sandwich or some donuts, I'm happy to do, and of course get something for myself, I have to eat lunch too.  

Shailene Woodley and another 18 people carry over from "Insurgent".  

THE PLOT: After earth-shattering revelations, Tris must escape with Four beyond the wall that encircles Chicago, to finally discover the shocking truth of the world around them.  

AFTER: Yeah, I kind of see the problem here, every film in this series has plenty of action, but not so much as to be overwhelming, just kind of a whelming amount.  And each film kind of tears down the whole story parameters from the last film and comes up with all new ones, so there's a bit of a "What's the point?" feeling to it all.  Why set up a bunch of conflicts and challenges and then one film later, present such a completely new situation that the challenges from the last film are quickly forgotten and almost seem pointless.  We've come a long way together, Divergent series, but you keep changing your mind about everything and it's a little bit annoying.  It's like your friend or life partner that doesn't want to hang out with you at any of the old places, but you were just sort of getting used to them as part of your routine. 

What happened at the end of the previous film was that the residents of future Chicago learned that they may not be the only city that survived after World War 3, the mystery box contained a message that indicated that they were only led to believe that, and that Chicago with its factions was some kind of grand social experiment, to see if dividing people into forced social classes would be a better way to live than before, when people just chose random paths in life on whims or based on what they were GOOD at, because, you know, some people are just WRONG about what they're supposed to be doing with their lives, and the world needs farm workers and janitors and ditch-diggers, too, hell sometimes there's a drop in police or firefighter enrollment rates and some cities don't have enough people to do important municipal tasks, and then everyone isn't as safe.  Hell, in the future they don't even have enough city workers to drive the subways, they just made the trains all automatic and you have to jump on.  So clearly somebody realized they had to assign people to worker classes to keep people fed and safe and happy.

Except it DIDN'T work, did it, it just created resentment and anger between the classes, and other problems within the class, like people joining Dauntless when they're no good at hand-to-hand combat, hell, Tris couldn't even TAKE a punch when she joined, let alone throw one.  How is that helping the overly-militarized de facto police force?  And if she can't punch someone else, how do you expect her to shoot them?  Wait - no, I stand by that.  You have to walk before you can run, so maybe you have to punch before you can shoot.  She got tougher, but it took a lot of time, almost all of that first movie, and like I said, nothing from that movie even matters anymore.

The old corrupt female villain leader is dead, and the new corrupt female villain leader is in charge, and the first order of business is killing anybody who was loyal to the old regime.  They've proven they can't be trusted, they can't be retrained, and it's not like there's some miracle drug that can be inhaled that would make them forget their old lives so they can start again.  (Not yet, anyway, but hey, give it a minute.). So they have to die, but that includes Tris' brother, Caleb, who started helping out Jeanine at the end of the second movie, and even though everything has changed, Caleb still ended up on the wrong side of history so he has to be executed.  

Not so fast, because Tris and Four manage to sneak him out of his cell and take him to a FAKE execution, in front of some Dauntless guards, while Evelyn and other Factionless & Candor people are executing everyone alphabetically, and what luck, they're still only on "B".  Christina arrives with some phony documents and they make it look like a prison transfer, but really, all of them, plus Peter for some reason, are really headed out over the wall. Whatever's out there in the wastelands - people, no people, radiation, scary monsters, it's just got to be better than Chicago after the fall.  Or not, but hey, whatever, it's good to take a road trip regardless. 

They do find a bunch of soldiers, in a hidden city, and they're taken to the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, and I'm sure everything from that point is going to be absolutely fine, no problems, clear skies ahead, welcome to the wonderful New Frontier.  JK.  But they do get confirmation that Chicago was one big social experiment, and people have been watching them for the last 100 years, like they were on Big Brother or The Truman Show, so the five of them that got out are kind of like celebrities.  

Caleb and Peter get new jobs in the surveillance department, and they get to monitor the events taking place in Chicago with hundreds of camera drones or something, almost like another form of V.R.  Four and Christina join the new military, and they go on missions to villages in the wasteland and they rescue children, taking them away from their terrible lives surrounded by toxic radiation and well, just what ARE they doing with the children they bring back?  Probably not important, only Four's getting a bad vibe from the missions they send him on. 

Meanwhile, Tris, who's now being told that her being Divergent is GOOD, is meeting with David, the man in charge of it all, who explains that the Chicago experiment was designed to bring someone like her into being, someone who's "Pure" and capable of doing so many things, when the rest of the Chicago residents, hell, maybe all of the other people on earth are then by extension "Damaged", and maybe by studying her, they can help more damaged people become purified.  Yeah, that language isn't very concerning at all, it sounds very noble, right? 

Also meanwhile, back in Chicago the group formerly known as Amity is tired of being farmers and pacifists, and they've changed their name to Allegiant, and they're not happy with the fact that now that Erudite's been overthrown, the Factionless have taken over, and they're even worse.  Four's mother Evelyn is just the next Jeanine, and I think there's kind of a metaphor there that may have some relevance to our current election year.  You can change the person in charge, but if you don't improve the SYSTEM at the same time, the next leader's just as likely to become corrupt as the last one.  But no, by all means, keep supporting Trump, even though you KNOW what he's capable of.  That makes it worse, like I can see people voting for him back in 2016 when they maybe just didn't know what a terrible, corrupt person he was, but now they've SEEN that he's a racist, narcissist, egotist, sexist and yes, LAZY person who is incapable of getting anything done, and they're still supporting him.  It's a form of madness, there's no other explanation. 

Something's brewing here in NYC, too - there are no details yet but some agencies have been investigating the mayor and his close associates, phones were confiscated, which means that somebody's looking for SOMETHING, and today the NYC Police Commissioner resigned - a sign that somebody's also getting close to some corruption.  Now, it may just be that commissioner's twin brother acting as a sort of "fixer" for nightclubs, showing them ways they can bend or break the rules and not get prosecuted, but who knows, it may go a lot deeper than that.  The thing about being the NYC Mayor is that you can elect someone who doesn't seem corrupt in any way (Koch, Dinkins, De Blasio) but you know, just give it a couple years, they'll figure out ways to get some action on the side.  De Blasio was putting his own wife on every commission and committee there was, and she had no qualifications for public service.  Now Eric Adams seemed like a very honest guy when he started, but it's two years later and maybe it's a different story now - look what happened to Giuliani over time, now he's bankrupt and one step away from prison.  The only mayor who maybe couldn't be corrupted was Bloomberg, he had so much money that he didn't need to take bribes, I don't think he even took a salary as mayor because it would have been a cut in pay for him.  Anyway, it's possible that Chicago kind of works the same way, but I wouldn't know about that.  

Anyway, back in future Chicago, just as the Allegiant are set to attack the Factionless, Evelyn wants to use the amnesia gas provided by David and delivered by Peter to make everyone forget their old lives, and she's going to create a new society where she's in charge, and then everyone will just think she's always been in charge and she was elected fairly and is not corrupt in any way. Jeez, this sounds like something the Joker would do in Gotham City, doesn't it?  Just saying. But Tris, Caleb and Christina arrive to free Four from his cell so he can go all Jason Statham on the guards, and they can all try to stop Evelyn and Peter from gassing everyone.  Then all they have to do is change the Bureau of Genetic Welfare to the Bureau of Nothing to See Here, close down Chicago again to the outside world and then figure out how to move society forward again, what with everybody being so Damaged and all.  Yeah, good luck with all that, but I'm out. 

If they never make that follow-up TV series, it's fine by me.  If I really wanted to know how the story's supposed to end, I'd read the plot summary for the book.  But it seems that for "Insurgent" and "Allegiant" the filmmakers changed SO MUCH from the book when they made those movies, there's really no point.  I'm just going to take their advice, just close down the gate, shut out the world and try to move on.  Remember, this is one of those cases where I've got at least 20 different paths I can take out of here, I just have to pick the one that I know will get me to horror movies in 16 or 17 steps and hope for the best. 

Also starring Theo James, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, Ray Stevenson, Mekhi Pfifer, Daniel Dae Kim, Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Kelynan Lonsdale, Ashley Judd, Janet McTeer, Jonny Weston, Leonardo Santaiti, Konrad Howard, Lucella Costa, Rebecca Ray (all 18 carrying over from "Insurgent"), Jeff Daniels (last seen in "The Answer Man"), Bill Skarsgard (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 4"), Rebecca Pidgeon (last seen in "Phil Spector"), Xander Berkeley (last seen in "Proud Mary"), Nadia Hilker, Andy Bean (last seen in "King Richard"), Zeeko Zaki (last heard in "Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again"), Joseph David-Jones (last seen in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."), Josh Duvendeck, Parisa Johnston (last seen in "A Merry Friggin' Christmas"), Theo Howard, Amy Parrish (last seen in "Hillbilly Elegy"), Ken DuBois, Gary Weeks (last seen in "Project Almanac"), Ian Belgard, Toshi Calderon, Anna Stevenson, Bari Suzuki

RATING: 4 out of 10 decontamination showers

Insurgent

Year 16, Day 255 - 9/11/24 - Movie #4,840

BEFORE: I've got a big problem tonight, what do I CALL this movie?  It's another case where the marketing department was in charge of naming a franchise film, which, frankly is never a good idea.  The film was originally called "Insurgent", but then I'm guessing maybe it didn't perform as well at the box office as the first film did - which is NATURAL and NORMAL, most films don't carry their whole audience over to a sequel, because there may be a portion of people who went to see the first film and were underwhelmed, or even just plain whelmed.  But of course then the marketing department needs an excuse, so they blame the title.

Sure, perhaps some people didn't realize from the title "Insurgent" that the film was part of the "Divergent" franchise, but the most important people, the fans of the book, they knew.  Screw everybody else, we shouldn't have to spoon-feed all these Gen Z'ers who are too dumb to understand that THIS movie is a sequel to THAT movie.  Can't they just Google it?  No, we can't take that chance, so the film has to be re-branded as "The Divergent Series: Insurgent" which is just plain terrible. This was the "Twilight" form of nomenclature, right?  We can't just call the film "Eclipse" because Americans will be too stupid to figure out what franchise it's a part of?  So it has to be "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" which is so very clunky, plus it's inconsistent with the FIRST film, which was just "Twilight".  Why not re-title the first film "The Twilight Saga: Twilight" and be just as moronic as you can be?  

Sure, they could have tried "Divergent 2: Insurgent", but apparently the marketing departments all believe that people hate numbers in the title, then they won't go and see "Divergent 2" because they didn't see the first film.  So, really, you're counting on a certain segment of the populace to just wander in to your movie accidentally, unaware that they're seeing a sequel?  They'll be more confused than ever, and that's no bueno.  Really, guys, it's not complicated, look at the most successful franchises, like "Rocky" and "Rambo" and "Nightmare on Elm Street", they were just fine with numbering systems, at least until they needed to reboot.  What's really too much work is trying to figure out if "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" came before "Transformers: Age of Extinction" - when there's a very simple way to distinguish the order of things, we already HAVE numbers available to us!

Really, I blame the Star Wars franchise, because in the old days we just called the second movie "The Empire Strikes Back", everybody knew what it was a sequel to, and then "Return of the Jedi", that was all the title we needed.  Who can't keep track of three movies, and which order to watch them in?  But then the marketing department took over and rebranded it all, so it was "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi" and then a few years later "Raiders of the Lost Ark" got rebranded so that "Indiana Jones" would be in the title, in case we all forgot which character was central to that movie.  Give me a break!  Either brand it properly from the beginning, or don't bother and let us figure it out, don't treat us like we're morons, even if some of us are.  We don't have "Chinatown II: The Two Jakes" or "The Shining 2: Dr. Sleep" or "Romancing the Stone 2: The Jewel of the Nile", that's all just way too complicated. 

I don't want to type out this long title every time, so I'm just going to revert to using this film's original title, which is "Insurgent".  We all know it's part of the "Divergent" series, I don't need to keep saying it. And you know some idiot wanted to call this "Divergent 2: More Divergent-ier".  Same guy who named "Expend-4-bles" probably. 

Shailene Woodley and nearly everyone else carries over from "Divergent". 

THE PLOT: Tris Prior must confront her inner demons and continue her fight against a powerful alliance which threatens to tear her society apart with the help from others on her side. 

AFTER: The story picks up right where the first film left off, which Tris, Four, Caleb and for some reason, Peter, exiled from Dauntless and on the run, they're hiding out with Amity, the simple farming folk who don't believe in violence.  But, but, you told us in the first film that once you're assigned to a faction, you can't just CHANGE who you are, which determines where you live.  Three Dauntless and one Erudite are going to live as simple farming folks?  No way, I can't believe it - and sure enough, before long Peter's acting like a tool and says the wrong thing and Tris snaps and almost kills him.  Yeah, I'm with Tris on this one, Peter's a jerk. 

The situation is dire, with Erudite having wiped out Abnegation, and still in control of Dauntless, with the evil Jeanine trying to take over everything just because her faction is the smart one, and therefore should be in charge.  Before long squads of Dauntless soldiers are sent on "routine" inspections of the other regions, including Amity.  They're still looking for Divergents, with orders to destroy them, and they've got new scanning devices to help them find them.  Our heroes take off (without Peter) and grab the next non-stopping train back into the city, only to find a train full of Factionless who are delivering stolen goods or something, well, it's good that they found work, isn't it?  We were told that the Factionless were also Directionless, though, so something clearly has changed in future ChicagoLand. The faction system appears to be crumbling, so Tris and Four can't go back to Dauntless, as that faction is teamed up with Erudite or being controlled by Erudite, whichever.

So they hang with the Factionless for a while, and they appear to have a leader now, who's got a family connection to Four, aka Tobias Eaton, who might be Divergent himself.  Well, his father might have been too, so it makes sense.  But then they're off to Candor, the home of honest lawyers, because some of their Dauntless pals have taken refuge there.  But Candor has been told that Tris and Four are criminals, responsible for the attack on Abnegation, which is fake news.  So they agree to take truth serum and stand on trial so Candor can get to the bottom of things.  

Meanwhile Jeanine has an artifact that she found in the home of Tris' parents, and it's a box with all the faction symbols on it, but the data within from the city's founders can only be opened by a Divergent, so now instead of killing Divergents, she needs one to help her open the box, so now they're meant to be captured alive.  But all the Divergents that get plugged into the box can't survive the VR simulations that it puts them through, so she needs the really, really, special Divergent, and what a shock, that turns out to be Tris.  She's like SUPER-Divergent, she can do anything for any faction.  

So this is where the film stops ripping off "The Hunger Games" and starts ripping off "The Matrix", Tris has to survive FIVE virtual-reality sims, each one meant for a different faction, so she needs those Dauntless skills to survive one, but Abnegation sensibilities for the next one, and so on.  Jeanine pushes her too hard, though, and doesn't give her a chance to rest, so she appears to die, just like all the other Divergents were killed by the Box, but hey, maybe there's a twist and she's only MOSTLY dead. 

Will they get the box open?  WIll Tris beat all five VR tests?  What important data does the box contain?  Well, you either know already or you don't, if you already know then you don't need me to tell you, and if you don't, it may not mean anything to you anyway.  All that really matters is that the factions teamed up a certain way, but now everything's going to change again, and so in the next film it will be a whole new ball game.  Only they don't have ball games any more in the future, I guess - at least the Cubs got to win one before World War III shut everything down. 

Also starring Theo James, Kate Winslet, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Jai Courtney, Mekhi Pfifer, Ray Stevenson, Zoe Kravitz, Maggie Q, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Tony Goldwyn, Ashley Judd, Justine Wachsberger (all 13 carrying over from "Divergent"), Octavia Spencer (last seen in "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!"), Janet McTeer (last seen in "The Exception"), Daniel Dae Kim (last seen in "Stowaway"), Naomi Watts (last seen in "Penguin Bloom"), Emjay Anthony (last seen in "Replicas"), Kelynan Lonsdale (last seen in "Love, Simon"), Rosa Salazar (last seen in "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"), Suki Waterhouse (last seen in "Assassination Nation"), Jonny Weston (last seen in "Project Almanac"), Konrad Howard, Lucella Costa, Leonardo Santaiti, Kendrick Cross (last seen in "The War with Grandpa"), Phil Cappadora (last seen in "Good Time")

RATING: 5 out of 10 Candorian billable hours

Divergent

Year 16, Day 254 - 9/10/24 - Movie #4,839

BEFORE: Well, I guess I was always going to end up HERE this September - initially I would have started this series a week ago, but then I decided to add that Jason Statham block, and that pushed everything back - or forward, I guess, forward in time.  Today was also going to be the first of three September skip-days, but then I added "Transporter" and "Transporter 2" to the Statham block, and that set me back - er, forward, another day, but just one because I doubled up on Labor Day.  SO no skip day this week, maybe next week and the week after that - though I might have a chance to see a new film called "Hangdog" which is going to slide RIGHT into the chain I'm already watching.  If I do that, then really just one September skip-day coming up. 

Jeez, now I really need to check the path from Halloween to Christmas, because anything I add just takes away another film from the end of the year.  I need to know before this Saturday how many steps it's going to take me to get from the end of the horror chain to something Christmas-ey, and plan that out accordingly, so at some point, seriously, no more last-minute adds. I mean it this time, I was only kidding all those other times. 

Working late at the theater tonight, a panel event called "Nicer Tuesday", one of the people being interviewed was a famous letterer, and I didn't know that was a job outside of making comic books.  But apparently she designed the lettering for the title logo on the poster for "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret." and I just watched that movie three days ago, so that's an odd coincidence. I didn't get the chance to eat dinner, but my wife got a delivery from Seamless that was a mistake, she ordered Burger King but instead got two Mexican bowls from someplace else, so she got a refund and I got to eat 2 free dinners.  Yes, two, because I had a small lunch and then a donut and so far today, that was it.  

Jai Courtney carries over from "The Exception".  

THE PLOT: In a world divided by factions based on virtues, Tris learns she's Divergent and won't fit in.  When she discovers a plot to destroy Divergents, Tris and the mysterious Four must find out what makes Divergents dangerous before it's too late. 

AFTER: I know, I know, there was a debate tonight but I was busy working, that's my excuse. Gotta keep earning so I can pay that mortgage. Anyway I'm counting on the late-night talk show hosts and the comedy news to break it down for me, what happened.  Some may not do that until tomorrow because they tape their shows at like 5 pm, I think.  So I'm not behind, I just couldn't be bothered, because how would I even work the debate into a review of THIS movie?  Something like, "OK, last night's film was about World War II and tonight's film is set 100 years after World War III.  Hey, speaking of that, if you're undecided why not vote this year for the candidate that's less likely to make World War III happen?  And you know which crazy orange-haired lunatic would be more likely to do that..."  I don't know, it feels forced somehow. Totally valid and correct, but still forced. 

But it's also a fine time to watch this series, it turns out, because it's on Netflix and getting kicked OFF of Netflix at the end of the month. Geez, has it been two years already? Sure, that's enough motivation for me to finally watch it, but I'm guessing once it's off Netflix it's going to pop up on either Hulu or cable.  That's how this works, right?  I mean, if they run this on cable I'll totally put it on DVD for the archive, but I'll watch it now, because nothing's for sure, maybe it won't be available again for two years, who can say?  

I'd heard a few things about this film series over the years, but somehow managed to avoid actually, you know, watching the films.  I was waiting for the right time, I guess, but that time is here if I say it is. Sure, there are parts of this film that are completely ridiculous, but any time you set a film a few hundred years in the future, well, that's the time to be ridiculous, you have to make that film stand out from all the other future utopian or dystopian films, like "The Giver" and "The Hunger Games" and "Blade Runner" and "12 Monkeys" and "City of Ember" and "Children of Men" and "I Am Legend" and "Ender's Game" and even "Demolition Man".  So you need a hook, something to distinguish your story from that big pack. 

Here, it's the fact that people are "tested" to determine which virtue they best embody, and then they are placed in that faction, where they work and live and eat and play with only other people from that faction, and once you find your tribe, that's it, you can't change it, you have to keep living in future Chicago according to a lengthy set of rules that go along with that virtue.  The factions are: Erudite (the scholars & ruling class), Dauntless (the military & de facto police squad), Candor (the honest tribe, this apparently includes lawyers, and I can't tell if this is a joke or ironic or what), Amity (the kind people who farm) and Abnegation (the selfless people who take excess food and distribute it to the hungry and faction-less).

Really, it seems like a perfect system, because nobody in the future needs actors or talk-show hosts or influencers or writers or comic-book artists or sports stars or Amazon delivery drivers who don't ring your doorbell for some reason I can't possibly comprehend. They worked a lot of stuff out, OK, and got rid of some very unnecessary jobs, I get it, they want to focus on just what's important in life, and they trimmed that down to five essential things.  And then by dividing people into these factions with very rigid rules and very different mandated outlooks on life, there couldn't POSSIBLY be any contention between the factions, right?  No people thinking their faction is so much better than the others, I'm sure everyone got beyond that ages ago, right? RIGHT?

So there's a testing system that tells people at age 16 which faction they're best suited for, and most people then join those factions, even if that means leaving their family's home to do that, however at the Choosing Ceremony, each person is free to choose a different faction if they think for some reason that the test got it wrong.  So, OK, still some personal choice, if you feel drawn to a profession you're still free to go that way, it all sounds quite fair and rational.  Beatrice finds out, however, that's she's a fit for THREE different factions, and her tester is clearly weirded out by her results, because that's not normal, it's what they call Divergent.  So she recommends that Beatrice join the Abnegation faction, which is what her parents are in, but during the ceremony she makes a bold move and chooses one of the other factions, Dauntless.  

It's not going to be easy, sure it looks like fun to run everywhere at top speed and hop on moving trains without waiting for them to slow down, and doing all that cool parkour shit (sorry, everyone, that parkour shit sticks around in the future, it hasn't gone away as we all hoped it would have...).  But somehow Beatrice (who changes her name to Tris after the ceremony) didn't realize that she would miss her parents so much (umm, even thought they TOLD her this would happen) and also she didn't realize that she'd have to learn to fight hand-to-hand combat, learn to fire guns and also there would be brutal choices to be made in the near future.  Duh, did she not realize that joining a military police-like faction would involve violence and gunplay?  So, umm, WHY did she choose this lifestyle again, what was the rationale there if she's a pacifist at heart?  

Look, I get it, I caught the theater and film-making bug when I was in high-school, and when I realized that I could choose filmmaking as a career (George Lucas was my idealized hero) then I went for it.  But there was an aptitude test I took in high school that basically told me I wasn't suited for such a career, because it would take a lot of networking and social skills that I apparently didn't have. This kind of made me MORE determined to succeed, I was going to prove that aptitude test wrong - but mostly that test wasn't wrong, even though I've been working in independent filmmaking for over 30 years, I still have problems relating to other people, I don't have great social skills, and who knows, maybe I would have been more successful than I am if I'd followed a different path.  But I'm stuck now, it's almost too late to change course.  

Almost, but I still can - in the future ChicagoLand of "Divergent", there are no backsies, if you choose a faction and you can't make that work, then you go live outside the city like a homeless person as one of the Factionless.  There's no back-up career, no pension plan, no re-training for you, if you fail at what you choose that's it, you're out. Yeah, that's a bit harsh perhaps, but you know what?  Maybe the future is harsh, maybe World War III hardened everyone, as it might. Resources are scarce and some poor guy has to drive an oil tanker across the desert and some other guy has to hunt down Replicants and some other people need to represent their districts in a series of trials JUST so their families can eat.  It's true what they say, the future just ain't what it used to be, and that's OUR fault.  So, you know, vote accordingly.  Hey, that one didn't feel forced at all...

So yeah, Tris trains with Dauntless and has the hots for Four, who somehow helps her pass her dream-based tests without revealing to the world that she's Divergent, no mean feat.  But then the leader of the Erudite clan plans to overthrow the Abnegation faction, and she uses mind control on the Dauntless soldiers to do it.  And the REASON that they were hunting Divergents is because they're immune to the mind control, they can still think for themselves, and that's very very dangerous, it would upset the plan. But eventually they can't hide her Divergent nature any more, and the other Dauntless start hunting Tris during the middle of the take-over, but her mother comes to her rescue, and starts to take her out of the city.  But wait, first they have to find a way to shut down this whole mind-control thing, which isn't going to be easy, either.  

That's it, that's the movie, I don't know why I avoided it for so long, it's a basic story all wrapped up except that there are two sequels that are getting kicked off Netflix too, so that's my life for the next two days, we'll see where this story goes and how it wraps up and basically, everyone in this series is going to make my year-end countdown if they're in all three movies.  So we'll break it all down tomorrow and add it all up in December, I guess. 

Also starring Shailene Woodley (last seen in "Dumb Money"), Theo James (last seen in "Mr. Malcolm's List"), Ashley Judd (last seen in "She Said"), Ray Stevenson (last seen in 'Thor: Love and Thunder"), Zoë Kravitz (last seen in "Dope"), Miles Teller (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "Plane"), Ansel Elgort (last seen in "The Fault in Our Stars"), Maggie Q (last seen in "Balls of Fury"), Mekhi Pfifer (last seen in "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer"), Kate Winslet (last heard in "Avatar: The Way of Water"), Ben Lloyd-Hughes (last seen in "Breathe"), Christian Madsen (last seen in "In Time"), Amy Newbold, Ben Lamb (last seen in "Now You See Me 2"), Janet Ulrich Brooks, Clara Burger, Rotimi (last seen in "Acts of Violence"), Justine Wachsberger (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Lukas Burger, Elyse Cole, Blythe Baird, Parker Mack

RATING: 5 out of 10 skyscrapers to zip-line through

The Exception

Year 16, Day 253 - 9/9/24 - Movie #4,838

BEFORE: It's Monday, and I'm already exhausted, I wish cooler weather would hurry up and get here, because being hot all the time is so incredibly tiring. Maybe I didn't get enough sleep this weekend, I ended up working both Saturday AND Sunday, because I needed to cover someone else's shift at the theater, which I'm happy to do, really, but there's an effect on my sleep cycle if I work too many late nights and I don't catch up on sleep when the weekend comes.  I'll try to look at the bright side, I got the extra shift and my co-workers maybe think of me as the person to call when their plans change or they get sick and they need someone to cover, so I've got that going for me, which is a plus. I was looking at seven shifts this month, but now it's up to eight. 

Last night was a pretty quick shift, though - just one screening of a filmed version of a stage musical in Russian, and it was a "jukebox" musical based on the songs of a band called Sekret, or really it was spelled in that weird Russian alphabet, but it meant "Secret" and they were a Russian band in the 1980's that was a clone of the Beatles, like so many British bands were in the 1960's, but I guess because of the Iron Curtain they were lagging a couple decades behind.  I remember Paul McCartney did a big concert in Moscow in the 1990's, so that tracks.  The Russians probably thought his music was a rip-off of their local band, Sekret.  Who knows? 

Anyway, it was a chance for me to learn a little bit about the Russian "Fab Four", and come on, you know I'm talking about Maxim, Nikolai, Andrey and Aleksey, not John, Paul, George & Ringo.  Nikolai played bass so he was clearly the "Paul" of the group, Maxim therefore was the "John", because they worked as co-writers and co-leaders.  Andrey, clearly the "George", the quiet one who played obscure instruments, and Alexsey, the drummer, so he's a "Ringo" if ever there was one.  And that means there was a Russian Yoko Ono, too and I guess that would be Maxim's second wife, actress Anne Banshchikova.  But come on, you knew that, right?  I'm just finding out about this band so late, I don't know if I can get over missing their ripped off music for like four decades.  Maybe it's too late and I should just stick with the originals. 

Anton Lesser carries over from "Disobedience". 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "The Aftermath" (Movie #4,060)

THE PLOT: A German soldier tries to determine if the Dutch resistance has planted a spy to infiltrate the home of Kaiser Wilhelm in Holland during the onset of World War II, but falls for a young Jewish Dutch woman during his investigation. 

AFTER: This is the third film in a row where someone being Jewish was an important part of the plot - Margaret's dad and grandmother in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.", almost every character in "Disobedience" and here it's a young woman who works as a servant in the estate of Kaiser Wilhelm. This was not planned, it just kind of happened - and I wish I could say this was timed to some kind of Jewish holiday or something, but I don't think there are any major ones this month, and Rosh Hashanah doesn't start for another three weeks - October 2, for the record, but I should be on horror movies by then, so we'll just call this an early theme half-week. 

But another thing these last couple films have in common is that they screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, which IS taking place right now, I believe. "Disobedience" had its world premiere at T.I.F.F. in September 2017, and tonight's film played at the 2016 edition of the same festival, in the Special Presentations section.  Look, it's just NOT an easy festival to get into, OK?  I mean, they screen a lot of films, and I went there in 1997 with a film I produced, but it's only gotten tougher to get selected because the major studios ALL have connections there and premiering there is a badge of honor and also a HUGE publicity coup, so every major film tries to get in there.  But really, your film has to really be ABOUT something, they're quite picky about that. 

Today's film is about Nazis in the early days of World War II, Captain Brandt is sent to take command of the security forces in the Netherlands that are protecting the deposed Kaiser Wilhelm II - honestly, I didn't realize that he was still alive during any part of World War II, but that's why I'm here, to learn these things.  At this point he was in exile following Hitler's rise to power, but he apparently still had some symbolic importance to the people of Germany.  When Nazi intelligence learns there may be an Allied spy nearby, or even an assassin, Brandt is sent to learn what he can about the situation and protect the former Emperor.

Brandt takes his duties seriously, but also immediately begins a sexual relationship with one of the female servants.  And that's what made me remember another movie, "The Aftermath", one which also had a woman falling in love with a German soldier, but that was set just AFTER World War II, and this one is set during. A major difference, perhaps, because it's maybe easier to imagine a woman falling in love with a former Nazi rather than with a current one.  Did I say "falling in love"?  I'm not sure that applies because Brandt sort of forces himself on the servant girl, it may not be a violent rape but it's still someone in power forcing someone to have sex with him, and that ain't love.  It shouldn't work, in other words, but then Mieke considers herself in a relationship with Brandt, ignoring, I guess, how the relationship started.  I don't know, maybe just DON'T have sex with the Nazi?  I guess she was afraid of being killed, but that doesn't make it right. 

Things get more complicated when Brandt learns he's sleeping with a Jewish woman, and then they're bound to get even more complicated when he figures out who the undercover agent is.  And then things get REALLY complicated when Hitler's main man Heinrich Himmler announces he is coming to visit the estate.  The Kaiser naturally assumes that he's about to be welcomed back to Berlin to be part of the government, but come on, can you trust Hitler?  Really, nothing could be further from the truth, if anything Himmler WANTS the Kaiser to believe this, but again, you just can't trust those Nazis.  

For some reason, the Kaiser's wife, Hermine, exposes the affair between Captain Brandt and servant Mieke, perhaps she believes that the house should have strict rules, or she doesn't think that Nazis should be sleeping with her servants, or dating outside their class or religion or something.  Germans, am I right?  Very strict people, they like order and despise chaos.  But the Kaiser doesn't care, he's in charge of his own house and he thinks the affair should continue, they just need to be more discreet about it.  It turns out he fooled around quite a bit when he was young, and even fathered a couple illegitimate children before he settled down, so he gets it. 

As the Gestapo closes in on the undercover agent, Brandt has a difficult decision to make - does he save the life of the woman he's in "love" with, or does he serve his country and allow her to be caught?  Come on, is there ever any doubt about how this is going to play out?  Love conquers all, or at least having a sexual relationship with a Jewish servant girl conquers all - and the fact that she's Jewish and out of his league and ALSO a spy?  Damn, that just makes the whole thing hotter, doesn't it?  Nah, he helps her escape and comes up with an alibi for why the Gestapo couldn't catch her, and figures he'll catch up with her in a few years when the war is over and things have settled a bit.  And if not, well, they'll always have Utrecht and a shared love for the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, right? 

Also starring Lily James (last seen in "Rebecca"), Jai Courtney (last seen in "The Suicide Squad"), Janet McTeer (last seen in "The Menu"), Christopher Plummer (last seen in "The Man Who Invented Christmas"), Eddie Marsan (last seen in "Fair Play"), Ben Daniels (last seen in "Conspiracy"), Mark Dexter (last seen in "The Invisible Woman"), Kris Cuppens, Lucas Tavernier (last seen in "The Pink Panther" (2006)), Aubeline Barbieux, Stephane Auberghen, Martin Swabey (last seen in "Mr. Nobody"), Martin Savage (last seen in "Judy"), Kurt Standaert, Stephanie Van Vyve, Daisy Boulton, Tom Magnus.

RATING: 6 out of 10 Wehrmacht soldiers

Disobedience

Year 16, Day 252 - 9/8/24 - Movie #4,837

BEFORE: With three extended chains every year - romance, horror and documentary - I do what I can to maintain one BIG list for everything, but also smaller lists on those three topics.  Generally speaking, I try to not let things cross over between those topics, because they're far apart on the calendar now that I try to watch documentaries somewhere in the summer months.  Now, anyone can turn up in documentaries, but if there's an actor who's appeared in both romances and horror films, I tend to just ignore those connections, they're of no use to me.  Other than that, I'm free to work a romance or a horror film back into the main chain, it doesn't HAVE to appear in the specialty months of February or October, especially if I need to make certain links to keep the chain alive.  So I'm going to re-purpose a couple of the romance films - because there sure are a lot of them - to make my connections here, and I just have to hope that I haven't removed a critical link that I'll need in February.  The genre is so large that I can probably remove a couple films and putting a month-plus together next year SHOULD still be possible. I have to believe the chain knows what it's doing. 

Rachel McAdams carries over from "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."

THE PLOT: A woman returns to her Orthodox Jewish community that shunned her for her attraction to a female childhood friend. Once back, their passions reignite as they explore the boundaries of faith and sexuality. 

AFTER: It's kind of funny how this all worked out, because I didn't know this was a school-based film, but one of he main characters teaches at a Hebrew school, so it fits right in with September programming as a "back to shul" film.  Really, this ties together a few themes from the past week, namely the school angle ("Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken"), questions about the nature of religion, specifically Judaism ("Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.") and also lesbians ("Drive-Away Dolls"). Sure, it's not a complete amalgam of the previous three movies, but it is great when there are recurring themes, it makes me feel like I'm on the right track or something.

This film depicts a world I know very little about, a community of Orthodox Jews that's in London.  We have a similar community in WIlliamsburg, Brooklyn, sometimes I ride a bus through there on the way to a beer festival at the Navy Yard - I remember during COVID there were some controversies about the Brooklyn Hasidim because they did not want to share any information about COVID cases or infection rates in their community, I think they also refused to stop meeting in groups when the pandemic first hit, which was a violation of COVID rules, and I get it, their religious meetings are very important to them, but not getting sick and not spreading the coronavirus are also important things to consider. Instead there were orthodox Jews who were gathering together to protest COVID restrictions in NYC, and one of those restrictions was, umm, against people gathering together.  As a result, this Jewish community in Brooklyn was one of the groups most affected by the pandemic, it's almost like their disregard for the rules, which were put in place for a reason, caused more people to get sick - and then when the city tried to enforce the rules, they claimed anti-Semitism, which wasn't really the case, because NYC was trying to get ALL groups to comply with the COVID protocols, not just Jewish people.

In other words, the Orthodox community did NOT practice social distancing, they continued to hold large-scale weddings and funerals during the pandemic years, and these then became super-spreader events, which then led to MORE cases and one assumes more funerals, and so on.  The Hasidim also tended to have larger families and extended families living together in dense neighborhoods, and that was another thing that put them at risk in the COVID years.  In addition to THAT, the community viewed the government's imposing of lockdowns and restrictions as an assault on their religion, but come on, the government was just trying to keep as many people safe as possible.  Perhaps when a society has faced religious oppression of different kinds for so long, they perceive it more often, even when it's not really there. 

Anyway, "Disobedience" is about Ronit, a successful photographer in New York, who gets a phone call informing her that her father, the head rabbi in this London community of Orthodox Jews, has died.  So she returns home for the funeral, despite being banned from the community, years before, and she reunites with her ex-boyfriend Dovid, who was also her father's protegé, and learns that he is now married to their mutual childhood friend, Esti. We sort of start to realize at this point why Ronit was banned from the community, possibly because she was attracted to Esti.  And this tracks, because when you see your ex after a long period of time, you're likely to find out that either they're with someone exactly like you, or they're with someone who is your polar opposite.  In this case I think it's the former.  The three were all chldhood friends together, and it seems Esti married Dovid simply because Ronit disappeared. 

After learning that her father has left all his possessions to the synagogue, Ronit is staying over at the house of Dovid and Esti, and soon starts to feel attracted to Esti all over again.  Esti also confesses that it was she who called to tell Ronit about her father's death, because she hoped to see Ronit again and has been questioning her life choices, which were made based on the advice of Ront's father.  Before long Ronit and Esti are kissing each other, then doing a lot more than that.  Esti is called into the school headmistress's office because someone saw her kissing Ronit in a park, and then things come to a head when Dovid is nominated to take over the deceased Rabbi's place as head of the congregation. It all becomes a very confusing situation, will Esti choose to stay married to Dovid and deny her attraction to Ronit, or will she ask for the equivalent of a divorce and try to run away with Ronit? 

Look, I'm not going to say I've LIVED this situation before, because I'm not Jewish and not even religious, but I was married once before and my first wife did come out, she was attracted to a female friend of hers, and ultimately we broke up over this.  I can confirm that once this sort of thing comes about, it's very very difficult to go back to the way things were before, it's inevitable that this marriage will be changed forever.  It's just a question of where everything's going to land - the odds are really against the marriage staying together, I'd bet.  Here it kind of seems like a shame that they couldn't arrange some kind of thrupple situation, I mean everyone seems to get along with someone else, but their religion probably has some rule against letting your wife have a girlfriend on the side.  Again questions are raised about what it means to be born into a religion, and what happens when the rules of that religion conflict with the way we want to live our lives. Modern life can be a lot more complicated than the Torah said it would be, really. 

Also starring Rachel Weisz (last seen in "Black Widow"), Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "Amsterdam"), Anton Lesser (last seen in "The Courier"), Bernice Stegers (last seen in 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society"), Allan Corduner (last seen in "Tár"), Nicholas Woodeson (last seen in "Conspiracy"), Liza Sadovy (last seen in "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"), Clara Francis, Mark Stobbart, Caroline Gruber (last seen in "Einstein and Eddington"), Alexis Zegerman (last seen in "Happy-Go-Lucky"), David Fleeshman, Steve Furst, Trevor Allan Davies (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Sophia Brown (last seen in "Genius"), Lia Cohen, Cara Horgan (last seen in "The Death of Stalin"), Benjamin Tuttlebee, Rose Walker, Adam Lazarus, Bernardo Santos, Jonathan Schey, David Stoller (last seen in "Papillon" (2017))

RATING: 6 out of 10 Shabbat dinners