Angel Eyes

Year 17, Day 48 - 2/17/25 - Movie #4,948

BEFORE: Happy Presidents' Day, I hope you enjoyed the long weekend if you had today off, I had to go to work, no rest for the weary - so I spent my Monday putting out virtual fires as per usual, trying to track down a missing bank transfer from France that was supposedly sent two weeks ago only it hasn't arrived, and then finally coming through with a streaming link for some Kickstarter backers that were expecting to watch the film they backed in July 2022, only we're very very late, of course. So I had to e-mail this link to 450 people with a note explaining why it's two and a half years overdue, that we couldn't show anyone the film online for fear they would download it and re-post it, which would nix the film's chances for any distribution or Oscar-nomination qualification, you're not supposed to post any feature on-line before you have a week's worth of screenings in NY or LA, I can't believe this rule is still in play in this age of digital streaming, but apparently it's still a thing. 

Then I get a couple e-mails from backers who of course are glad we're finally giving them this reward, only one slams me for sending everyone an "automatic response".  Dude, I'm not going to sit there and type out 450 individual e-mails to everyone on the list, I copied and pasted the same e-mail message over and over, and if I put you on the "bcc" part, it's only because I don't want the other people getting the same e-mail to see your e-mail address, that's just proper netiquette so you don't get anyone putting you on spam lists.  Hey, if you think you can do my job better than me, spend 30 years humping for an independent animator only to be working late sending out hundreds of e-mails on a holiday that you did NOT get to take off.  Really, come take my job, you can have it, I'm so over it. You wouldn't last a week, you little twerp. 

So, yeah, I was in a mood when I got home, I just wanted to have a coffee, turn my brain off and watch the 50th Anniversary celebration show for "SNL" - you know, it was much better than the regular weekly show, which yes, I still watch, even though it's never funny after Weekend Update and in all the time the show's been on, they've never learned how to end a skit with anything close to a punchline. Why bother?  Anyway, I found myself laughing out loud at a number of things, which thankfully overwrote my job frustration to some degree.  And man, did they get big stars to show up - Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney and Paul Simon and Miley Cyrus performing.  Sure, there were expected montages of the best fake ads and the best pratfalls, but they did do some NEW skits, so I can't believe I'm saying this, but check out the new 3-hour episode of "SNL" because it's something close to watchable.  Maybe it just looked so good in comparison to the first half of my day.

Jennifer Lopez carries over from "Gigli" and here's the line-up for Tuesday, 2/18, Day 18 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar":

Best Adapted Winners and Nominees:

8:30 am "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931)

10:15 am "Pygmalion" (1938)

12:00 pm "Room at the Top" (1959)

2:00 pm "Blackboard Jungle" (1955)

3:45 pm "Father of the Bride" (1950)

5:30 pm "Friendly Persuasion" (1956)

Oscar Worthy Shakespearean Characters: 

8:00 pm "Hamlet" (1948)

10:45 pm "Henry V" (1989)

1:15 am "Romeo and Juliet" (1936)

3:30 am "Julius Caesar" (1953)

I was at 83 seen out of 198, and I'm only claiming 3 out of Tuesday's 10: "Father of the Bride", "Hamlet" and "Julius Caesar". SO now 86 seen out of 208 takes me down just a bit to 41.3%.  

THE PLOT: A mysterious man is drawn to a feisty female police officer and an unusual relationship ensues, as not everything is as it seems. 

AFTER: In much the same manner as comparing "SNL" to my workday, really, whatever film I program right after "Gigli" is going to look like "Citizen Kane" or "Gone With the Wind", that's how this crazy juxtaposition thing works.  So this is a weird little romance with J. Lo in it, you would think it should fare pretty well by comparison to the previous film. There will always be ups and downs, I'm always just hoping for a few more ups to help me overcome the downs. 

But it's weird - I'm supposed to take Jennifer Lopez seriously as a cop?  That's almost worse than trying to believe she could pass for a low-level mobster - she's too beautiful for that, sorry.  Look, I know that in real life she could be a real diva, maybe she's very difficult to work for or live with, it's not for me to say. But she's easy on the eyes, and in Hollywood that goes a long way.  The poster (as seen above) is really whited out, they really went out their way back in 2001 to hide the fact that she's Latina.  Did they keep her out of the sun for six months, or just use Photoshop to whiten up her photo for the poster?  

The movie starts with a few POV shots at accident scenes, since she's a first responder she's seen comforting the injured people, and so maybe the last thing they see before they pass out or die is her face, and that's a really weird plot point, but it does become kind of important later on.  After a drive-by shooting that she survives, she and another officer chase down the culprits, and just as one is about to shoot her, the guy is knocked down by a street person who saw her through the diner window a few minutes before, and he felt like he recognized her from somewhere.  

So she (Sharon) starts hanging out with this guy, Catch. And he lives on the top floor of a building, but in a very spartan fashion, no furniture, no possessions, just a bed and a few changes of clothes in a very large, empty space. He claims to have no memory of his past, not even his real name, and honestly there are so many red flags there, it's not easy to see why she's interested in him, except that maybe he's a broken person who needs help to integrate back into society.  

Sharon's kind of on the outs with her family, because of some incident with her father, who was beating up her mother or something.  She arrested her own father (which probably shouldn't be allowed, it's some kind of conflict of interest, right?) and it drove a wedge between her and her parents, and now they're preparing to have some kind of renewal of their wedding vows, and she really isn't sure if she should attend.  Also, her brother is apparently following suit and beating up his own wife, so she gets kind of upset about that, too.  This all seems maybe like the wrong way to approach a romance-based film, as it all feels more like an episode of "Law & Order: SVU". 

Of course, her detective skills eventually kick in and she follows Catch, then one night when they're out in a jazz club he suddenly remembers how to play the trumpet, and someone at the club recognizes him and calls him by his real name. OK, I guess that really doesn't count as detective work, and from a narrative standpoint it's really cheating, but hey, whatever moves the plot forward, I guess.  Sharon looks up the name and learns about the accident, and visiting his old house gives her more clues about who he is and why he lives such a spartan lifestyle and wanders the streets, doing good deeds. Sure, it's a stretch, like who has a house and doesn't live in it?  Just Sally Field's character in "Kiss Me Goodbye", I thought.  

But honestly, there's not really much more here than that, it's a quick one tonight that starts in an odd place and then really just doesn't go anywhere, just around in circles a few times and once the secrets are revealed, the film is over.  Sharon does decide to go to her parent's vow renewal ceremony, but she leaves early. There you go, make a statement.  Anyway she's got more work to do with Catch to get him out of his funk and back to some kind of life in the real world. But maybe there's no one way to get over a big loss, you can try to get comfortable spending time by yourself, but that could also drive you insane.  Plus, you're going to have to get out there and interact with other people at some point, but, you know, go at your own pace.  Don't force it. 

I think I cleared the J. Lo category, I had just "Gigli" left from last year and then "Angel Eyes" came on cable after last February, so I've run out of her films.  New link to tomorrow. 

Also starring Jim Caviezel (last seen in "Paul, Apostle of Christ"), Jeremy Sisto (last seen in "Moonlight and Valentino"), Terrence Howard (last seen in "The Company You Keep"), Sonia Braga (last seen in "Shotgun Wedding"), Victor Argo (last seen in "The Yards"), Monet Mazur (last seen in "Monster-in-Law"), Shirley Knight (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Daniel Magder, Guylaine St-Onge, Connor McAuley, Jeremy Ratchford (last seen in "The Way Back"), Peter MacNeill (last seen in "Nightmare Alley"), Eldridge Hyndman, Kari Matchett, Michael Cameron, Marcello Thedford (last seen in "Employee of the Month"), Dave Cox, Ron Payne (last seen in "Serendipity"), Paul A. MacFarlane, Dan Petronijevic (last seen in "Suicide Squad"), Stephen Kay, Grant Nickalls, Jim Feather (last seen in "Welcome to Mooseport"), Chuck Campbell (last seen in "Superstar"), J.J. Authors, John Shepard (last seen in "Fathers & Daughters"), Stephanie Moore (last seen in "John Q"), Neil Brathwaite.  

RATING: 4 out of 10 bulletproof vests

Gigli

Year 17, Day 47 - 2/16/25 - Movie #4,947

BEFORE: I was out late last night, working a screening of "Captain America: Brave New World".  It's probably the first big Marvel movie in a while, if you don't count the third "Venom" film and also "Kraven the Hunter" - I'm waiting for both to make it to some streaming platform, really, I'm in no rush, I already did my Tom Hardy chain for this year.  For the new Cap movie, I'm willing to wait to see it too, since I'm deep into this romance chain - like, who releases the new Marvel joint in February?  Look, it's gonna be on Disney in 3 months, so maybe I'll catch up with it around Memorial Day, or July 4 or even Veterans Day, those all seem thematically appropriate.  Or as soon as I can, once I know when it will be streaming.  I've got bigger fish to fry.

Lainie Kazan carries over from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3", and I know, I know, everyone ever has only ever said this is a terrible movie, but that's kind of made me very curious about it - I knew it was on Amazon Prime so I put it on my list, and then I dropped it from the J. Lo chain I did last February, because I got spooked. Or maybe I had a feeling that I would need it for better linking down the road, in which case I was totally right.  However horrible this film is, it's serving a function now, it's connecting other films and therefore making this year's chain more possible.  Oh, and the film's no longer on Amazon Prime, it moved to Peacock, just like "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3" did. This is happening more and more, a film will be on one streaming service when I program it, and then it's on another when I go to watch it.  It's very annoying because some services I access through the Playstation, which is downstairs, and others I connect to through my computer, which is upstairs.  So I can get my drinks, get settled in the recliner, fire up the PS3 and then load Netflix or Amazon, only to find that the film's no longer available.  Then I have to de-camp and climb the stairs and move all my supplies with me, snacks AND drinks, it's a whole process - and it's better for my legs to be in the recliner with my feet up.  Just saying. 

Here's the line-up for Monday, 2/17, Day 17 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar":

Best Foreign Film Winners and Nominees:

7:00 am "Loves of a Blonde" (1966)

8:30 am "The Virgin Spring" (1960)

10:00 am "Kapo" (1960)

12:00 pm "The Burmese Harp" (1956)

2:00 pm "Babette's Feast" (1987)

4:00 pm "Mon Oncle" (1958)

6:00 pm "La Strada" (1954)

Oscar Worthy Politicians (and First Ladies): 

8:00 pm "All the King's Men" (1949)

10:00 pm "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939)

12:15 am "The Best Man" (1964)

2:15 am "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940)

4:15 am "Sunrise at Campobello" (1960)

6:45 am "The Gorgeous Hussy" (1936)

I was at 80 seen out of 185, and I had a VERY productive Sunday for my stats, but I've only seen 3 out of Monday's 13: "All the King's Men", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" - duh, it's President's Day tomorrow, I just got it.  SO now 83 seen out of 198 takes me back down to 41.9%.  It looks like I'll be lucky to end up with 42% again, when all is said and done. 

THE PLOT: Larry Gigli is assigned by a crime boss to kidnap the brother of a prominent district attorney, and a beautiful woman known only as Ricki is sent to stay with him to make sure he doesn't mess up the job.  

AFTER: Now, usually about this time of year, I'd be very burned out on typical Hollywood rom-coms, so anything with a hit-man or a cowboy or a space alien would be welcome indeed, because if nothing else, it represents a change of pace.  While I sure could use something different around here, God, not like this. Somehow this is like a weird combination of "Chasing Amy" and "Midnight Run", only without any of the comedy of the first or any action of the latter. So don't say I didn't warn you, this is terrible. 

The director is the man behind "Midnight Run", which is one of my favorite films - I don't quite understand how somebody can make that great film and also make this POS, which tries to find its humor in making fun of lesbians, people with mental disabilities, and the misplaced machismo that is Ben Affleck and all the characters he played. You know when he was good?  As Batman, because Batman didn't have to talk much. I already miss Batfleck, of course Christian Bale was on point as both Batman and Bruce Wayne, but I don't think Ben was too far behind. Robert Pattinson as Emo Batman I can kind of do without, but the film would still have been pretty good with just about anybody under the cowl. Daredevil didn't say much either, so maybe Ben should get back into superhero movies, just saying. 

When I scheduled this film for last year, Affleck and J. Lo were still a couple, for the second time, if I remember right they were engaged in 2003 but called it off, and then she moved on to Marc Anthony and Alex Rodriguez, and he moved on to another Jennifer. But then 20 years after they met while making "Gigli", Bennifer 1 was back on, and they got married in 2022 and divorced in 2024. I really kind of missed that window, didn't I?  I had like one chance to watch this film while they were married and I blew it. The relationship in the film is therefore maybe a microcosm of Bennifer's relationship, perhaps both of them - they came together under weird circumstances, they argued a lot before they fell in love, and then perhaps they knew this thing was never going to last.  

OK, so the reasons why this film is terrible: 

1. Horrible treatment of a gay character. I know it was 2003, and things were different then, but still, COME ON. It's an all-too-common practice of blaming a woman for being a lesbian or bi, because somehow this is an affront to white males, that there are women who don't fawn over them or consider them attractive. You can't hold someone responsible for this, while also saying that it's OK to be gay. You also shouldn't act like this is just a phase, or a temporary thing because she just hasn't met the right man yet, one who can satisfy her.  Sure, I know being gay is a complex combination of past history, experiences, opportunities and maybe genetics, but the party line now is that it's not just preference, it's an identity and state of being, not state of mind. So sure, you can try to get somebody to switch, but it's not as easy as the movies suggest. 

2. Horrible treatment of a character with a mental disability. For many of the same reasons, you shouldn't have an actor playing someone with Tourette's or autism or whatever this kidnapped brother has. They never really define it, which of course means that the director didn't want to name it or didn't fully understand it, and how can you treat this properly if you don't understand it?  No, let's just make a regular actor play it dumb and say a lot of things like he's stupid, while also throwing in a bunch of swear words, those are always funny, right?  Hmm, not so much. The actor here does a lot with what little he was given to work with, but this whole part of the plot is very, very unfortunately handled. Basically the other characters just treat Brian like a child, and I know that's not right. 

3. The director also didn't want to define Affleck's character, like is he a hit-man or a loan-shark or just a low-level guy who takes orders from the mobbed-up guy he works for?  Again, very poorly defined - the thing about organized crime is that it's organized, people have clear roles and it would be great here to know exactly what Mr. Gigli DOES do on a daily basis, I mean he's got to pay the rent somehow, is he getting a cut of the money he shakes down people for?  Does he work long hours, are there benefits?  Nah, let's just leave it all open and up in the air because putting labels on this sounds a bit like too much work.  

4. It's really unclear what the point of all of this is, we know that Brian's brother is somebody, a federal prosecutor of note, but what exactly is kidnapping the brother intended to accomplish?  We had a clear goal in "Midnight Run", get the mob accountant to L.A. within a certain period of time, but there's really no goal here, just kidnap the mentally-impaired brother, bring him back to the apartment and...await further instructions?  That's not a plan, not a good plot for a movie, that just feels like lack of effort and creativity.  OK, it creates a set of circumstances where two people have to share a bed and not have sex, which admittedly is a metaphor for marriage, but it's not helping to advance the movie story to have all this down-time where the characters never GO anywhere. 

I know I'm just scratching the surface here, and I'll think of many more reasons why this is terrible and not worth two hours of anyone's time, but really I just want to move on and forget about this.  My bonus is that I never, ever, ever have to watch this again or even think about it, I'm done.  Note that the director has not made another movie since, maybe he knows what he did and cancelled himself, which would be appropriate punishment.  OK, I'll admit there's a few exciting minutes in the film, when Al Pacino shows up, that's the only reason I don't score this any lower.  Still, turning a mob movie into a rom-com is like putting chocolate sauce on an onion - just don't do it.

Also starring Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Marry Me"), Ben Affleck (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Justin Bartha (last seen in "Sweet Girl"), Al Pacino (last seen in "Next Goal Wins"), Lenny Venito (last seen in "The Kitchen"), Missy Crider (last seen in "Frailty"), Christopher Walken (last seen in "Dune: Part Two"), Terrence Camilleri (last seen in "Superman III"), Peter Van Norden (last seen in "The Best of Times"), Alexandra Fatovich (last seen in "All Is Bright"), David Pressman (last heard in "DC League of Super-Pets"), Shelby Fenner (last seen in "Vantage Point"), Robert Silver, David Backus, Luis Alberto Martinez, Todd Giebenhain (last seen in "Babylon"), Brian Sites (last seen in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines").

RATING: 2 out of 10 ingredients in Tabasco sauce

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

Year 17, Day 46 - 2/15/25 - Movie #4,946

BEFORE: Yesterday's film was another one of those giant portals, from there I could have gone just about anywhere, but I'm focused on getting through to the end of the romance chain as planned. No more additions, no more distractions.  Today's film links to a bunch of other movies, too, but I have to stay on target, eyes on the prize. Elena Kampouris carries over from "Men, Women & Children". 

Here's the line-up for Sunday, 2/16, Day 16 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" - we're halfway there....

Best Picture Winners and Nominees:

5:30 am "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935)

8:00 am "Alice Adams" (1935)

10:00 am "Watch on the Rhine" (1943)

12:00 pm "Top Hat" (1935)

2:00 pm "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938)

4:00 pm "Ben-Hur" (1959)

Oscar Worthy New Yorkers: 

8:00 pm "West Side Story" (1961)

10:45 pm "Annie Hall" (1977)

12:30 am "Working Girl" (1988)

2:30 am "The Apartment" (1960)

4:45 am "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975)

Oh, man, we got a good one tomorrow, just do yourself a favor and park yourself on the couch tomorrow like maybe at 4 pm and DO NOT get up. Get food delivered, stay up late, it's OK, treat yourself.  Especially if you've never seen "Ben-Hur" before, like TCM only ever runs it every single year on Easter, but why wait?  (Speaking of Easter, I really need to start figuring out which movie I'm going to watch, but I think I only have two good candidates...). Then stick around for the grand tour of the greatest city in the world, the one so nice they named it twice. I wish I could join in the fun, but my film tomorrow is set in stupid Los Angeles.

I was at 72 seen out of 174, I've seen 8 out of Sunday's 11, covering everything but the first three. SO now 80 seen out of 185 takes me way up to 43.2%.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" (Movie #2,862)

THE PLOT: After the death of the family's patriarch, Toula attempts to locate her father's childhood friends in Greece for a family reunion. 

AFTER: Well, this was the original film I selected to watch on Valentine's Day, before I added an extra Sally Field film and things got pushed back a day.  Did I make the right call?  Well, I guess I won't know until I can see the end of the year and I have just enough slots to get to Christmas. So, time will tell. 

Some sad news to report, actor Michael Constantine passed away in 2021, but this gave the franchise an opportunity to write a whole film about the family after their patriarch died, they all have to go to Greece for a reunion and track down his family and friends, to deliver a journal he kept about his immigration to America and starting his new big family there.  Also missing from this sequel is Ian Gomez, who got divorced from Nia Vardalos in real life, so now Ian (the character) is missing his best friend, I guess they had some kind of falling out.  Also, since the rise of Ozempic in Hollywood it seems that maybe the word "fat" in the title no longer applies.  Other than that, everything's pretty much the same for the Portokalos family, who all go on vacation together in this sequel to give the franchise a much-needed change in scenery.

Time marches on, people pass away, we're also missing the father of the groom, Rodney, from the first film, played by Bruce Gray. But this is all kind of a blessing in disguise, because there were WAY too many family members for me to keep track of in the second film - and I only check in with them every 7 years or so, because that's how long it takes to make a sequel, apparently. But now they've gone to Greece and met MORE relatives, so we're kind of back to the same problem, there's Toula and Voula and Nick AND Nikki and Taki, Maria and Frieda and Angelo and Athena, and now we're adding Aristotle and Alexandra, Peter, Christos and cousin Victory, maybe even Qamar down the line, even though she's not Greek.  

You can tell they really wanted to marry off Paris, because every one of these films needs a wedding, it's right there in the title, or else the fans are going to want their money back on the way out of the theater.  But Paris is still too young, she was only in high school in the last film, and now she's failed out of her first year at NYU, because she partied too much. Yeah, I been there, it's not really a party school per se but it's in the middle of Manhattan and nobody checks your ID, trust me. So her family sets her up with Aristotle, who's one of her exes but he also gets suckered in by Aunt Voula to be her unnecessary assistant on this trip. As long as Paris spends a couple weeks with him in Greece, they should be fine and on the road to getting married in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 4". We're glad they're taking it slow.  Instead there are more family secrets revealed here, and it turns out Gus had a whole life before he married Maria, so there's a whole other side to the Portokalos family living in the old country.  

Gus's hometown turns out to be a ghost town, a village full of empty houses, no running water and most everyone now lives somewhere else, which is going to make it difficult to track down his childhood friends.  Don't worry, Nikki and Angelo are on the case, they couldn't make the first flight full of Greek people but they're willing to make the trip to try and track down Thanos, Demos and Georgios or whatever.  I couldn't really figure out what Ian was up to at first, but he apparently found a monk who kept a list of everyone who moved out of the village, Ian really is a good guy and we hope he'll stick with Toula for one more movie. 

The promised reunion turns out to be a scheme of the mayor, distant cousin Victory, to try and get people to come back and live in the village, but only the dumb Greek-American Portokalos family was dumb enough to believe in it.  OK, so instead of a reunion we'll have a wedding, we just need to get everybody on board, but hey, it's a great excuse to have a big meal and a party so the whole trip isn't a waste of everyone's time.  And Toula finally learns that she doesn't have to plan everything, she can let other people help out, and so maybe have a little vacation from her vacation.  Well earned. 

Victory turns out to be the number one best mayor, there is a wedding because there has to be, and Gus's ashes get scattered near the oldest tree in the village.  All is forgiven at least until next time, and the older people learn not to get too involved in the lives of the young people, but you know they'll just do it again, right?  Man, a lot went down here, it was a very busy vacation but you know you can always sleep on the plane on the way home. 

I'm going to look into the future and predict the plot of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 4", when Paris gets her degree from NYU and then she and Aristotle plan their destination wedding in Greece, only it's all happening just a bit too fast and Paris gets cold feet.  She's comforted by Victory, one thing leads to another and so there's a wedding, sure, but not the one you were expecting. This is assuming that lesbian weddings are still in vogue seven years from now, who can tell?  Maybe they'll be really bold and there can be a thrupple wedding, and Aristotle and Paris can move to Greece and run an olive farm.  Whether Toula and Ian are still together depends on how much of Nia Vardalos' personal life will spill into her character - so 50/50 on that, but if they do split up then the franchise can maybe come full circle and Toula can get re-married in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 5".   

That's two weeks down on the romance chain, about three more weeks to go...

Also starring Nia Vardalos (last seen in "For a Good Time, Call..."), John Corbett (last seen in "The Boy Next Door"), Louis Mandylor (last seen in "The Game of Their Lives"), Lainie Kazan (last seen in "The Big Hit"), Andrea Martin (last seen in "Black Christmas"), Maria Vacratsis (last seen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"), Gia Carides (last seen in "Penguin Bloom"), Joey Fatone (last heard in "Trolls Band Together"), Elias Kacavas, Melina Kotselou, Alexis Georgoulis (last seen in "My Life in Ruins"), Stephanie Nur, Giannis Vasilottos, Anthi Andreopoulou, Spyros Kasfiks, Menelaos Daflos, Ektoras Kaloudis, Dimosthenis Filippas, Stavroula Logothettis (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"), Peter Tharos (ditto), Kathryn Greenwood (ditto), Jayne Eastwood (ditto), Chrissy Paraskevopoulos (ditto), Gerry Mendicino (also last seen in "The Big Hit"), Jeanie Calleja (last seen in "Get Over It"), Kathryn Haggis (last seen in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio"), Tannis Burnett (last seen in "Owning Mahowny"), Nikolas Papadomixelakis, Jerome Kaluta, Daphne Alexander (last seen in "Beckett"), Abe Cohen (ditto), Dimos Mamaloudis, Idra Kayne, Christoforos Barbagiannis, Rasmi Tsopela, Panagiotis Margetis. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 cots in one big family bedroom (seriously, if there's a whole village of empty houses, why do they all have to sleep in the same room?)

Men, Women & Children

Year 17, Day 45 - 2/14/25 - Movie #4,945

BEFORE: OK, a banner day today because I passed on this film several times before - I'm thinking I didn't watch it during my Adam Sandler chains because it seemed more like a ensemble romance film, and then when February rolled around, maybe I didn't watch it because it was an Adam Sandler film?  Or maybe I just ran out of space several times OR maybe I saw how much linking potential this film has, and thought I should save it for a rainy day to get myself out of a linking jam.  Well, I'm tired of passing on this film, it's past the time to get rid of it.  

Now, this film does connect to several other romances on my list, such as "Good Luck to You, Leo Grande" and "New in Town", but I can't concern myself with that.  I'm stranding some other films about love tonight, but I'll just have to deal with that next year - maybe some new films will be added to the list that connect to those stragglers, there's no way to predict that.  

We've got another increasingly rare Birthday SHOUT-out today - Jason Douglas, born February 14 of some year, but the IMDB won't tell me WHAT year. Well that's odd. Also I've become an expert on various character actors of all sorts and I have no idea who this man is, despite 322 acting credits - he was on "The Walking Dead" but I don't watch that show. Ah, he played the town sheriff in "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" and the infamous "Wayne" in the movie "Snitch". Nope, still doesn't help. Ah, well, I hope you enjoy your birthday, Jason Douglas, however old you're turning today, and I hope you get to spend time with your wife, Jessica, and your three kids.  

Kaitlyn Dever carries over from "Ticket to Paradise", and here's the line-up for Saturday, 2/15, Day 15 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar":

Best Picture Winners and Nominees:

5:30 am "The Racket" (1928)

7:00 am "The Big House" (1930)

8:30 am "A Farewell to Arms" (1932)

10:15 am "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (1934)

12:15 pm "Mister Roberts" (1955)

2:30 pm "The Yearling" (1946)

4:45 pm "Around the World in 80 Days" (1956)

Oscar Worthy Cowboys: 

8:00 pm "True Grit" (1969)

10:15 pm "Cat Ballou" (1965)

12:00 am "Giant" (1956)

3:30 am "The Westerner" (1940)

I was at 68 seen out of 163, I've seen 4 out of Saturday's 11: "Mister Roberts", "Around the World in 80 Days", "Cat Ballou" and "Giant".  They played "Giant" as the closing film of the Tribeca Festival two years ago, and it was a last-minute addition to the line-up that meant I couldn't lock up the theater for another 3 1/2 hours, so thanks for the extra pay, guys!  SO now 72 seen out of 174 takes me down just a bit to 41.3%.

THE PLOT: A group of high school teenagers and their parents attempt to navigate the many ways the internet has changed their relationships, their communications, their self-images and their love lives.  

AFTER: I forgot yesterday to mention my preferred mental metaphor for marriage - I think of it like a minefield. You know in a war movie when someone wanders off into a minefield, then they have to walk very carefully through it, or else one wrong step will blow off a limb, or several bad moves in sequence will blow them to little bits?  Yeah, that's marriage, but maybe I'm coming at the concept like a formerly divorced person would, of course your experience might vary.  If you say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing where your spouse is concerned, then you might have to tread very carefully, and be very aware of your actions while you retrace your steps and back out of the danger zone.  Or your actions could be so wild and egregious and against the rules of common decency that you blow up the whole damn deal, and then you're alone again and you'll feel like a pile of warm body parts that used to be a soldier.  The two leads in last night's film had felt that way for years, because they walked through the minefield of marriage and they each set off a few mines, I'll bet, and so neither had much interest in walking back into that danger zone, at least not at first. 

Now, tonight's film happens to not be a very romantic one, so maybe it's not the best film for the big holiday itself, but, you know, those are the breaks. I think there might be a wedding featured in every film these week EXCEPT the one that landed on V-Day, so maybe I shouldn't have added that extra Sally Field film, but I work with what I have, the chain still knows best.  Last year's film on Feb. 14 was "Moonlight and Valentino", and it was about a wife dealing with her husband's sudden death from an accident, and again, not exactly the most joyous of films, but with movies as with relationships you have to take the bad news with the good, I guess. Anyway we're here tonight to learn about modern relationships (OK, so the film's 10 years old, whatever) and how they've been affected by the internet and smart phones and social media.  

Teens especially, but adults also to a lesser extent, have had their lives changed by technology - how they communicate with each other, how they see themselves and how they represent themselves online, and then there's the matter of relationships.  There are no wrong answers in this discussion because really, they're all wrong answers.  Grammar and spelling have gone completely out the window when people talk with as few letters as possible, LOL, BRB, WTF or sometimes by only using images and no letters at all. Time was that you could send somebody a picture of an eggplant or a peach and you would just be suggesting what to eat for dinner and maybe dessert. Well, that ship sure sailed. 

We start with the average American (Texas, but OK) family - Donald Truby is a man addicted to porn, and it's so bad that his laptop has become infected with malware and the videos won't even load any more, so he has to use his son Chris's computer just to be able to see the porn now, and a search through his son's browser history reveals that his son has the same addiction.  Twinsies!  Also, umm, yuck. The time-honored tradition of sneaking a peek at your dad's Playboy or Penthouse magazines is long gone when you realize your son's been watching even dirtier stuff on YouPorn than you do.  Chris is a football player who finally makes a move on one of the cheerleaders, but he's watched so many porn clips that he has no idea how regular people have sex in the real world, or perhaps he can now only get aroused by the porn, that can happen when you limit your diet like that. Like there are people who only eat mashed potatoes or one simliar food, because they are comforted by it and they can't leave that comfort zone to try something else. Porn rewards the viewer with the dopamine they get through sexual release, and then they don't have to go through all the trouble of having a conversation with someone and then trying to convince that person to have sex with them, porn is the instant hit, the sure thing, every time. 

Donald's wife is unsatisfied in the relationship (gee, maybe it has something to do with all the porn her husband watches) so she turns to Ashley Madison, which was a site back then that many people, married or single, used to hook up with other horny people on the D.L. Her first few affairs are satisfying, so she's not really inclined to stop that, either, while her husband uses the SAME internet to find paid escorts, so yeah, these two really deserve each other.  The funny thing is that they relate to each other better when they're both having sex with people outside the marriage. And here I thought they were going to pull an updated version of "The Pina Colada Song" and get these two to accidentally date each other, but nope, they're using different web-sites for their hook-ups so that's not likely to happen. 

That cheerleader Chris tried to have sex with was Hannah, and she's one of those influencers, always posing in provocative outfits because that's what brings in the likes and the followers, and her mother is taking the photos and promoting her daughter as a "model", but in that case, how far is too far?  Unless you can get her sponsors or advertisers that still isn't going to pay for her college, and Hannah's audition for a TV series doesn't go well once the TV people see her web-site with the almost-nudie pics. Yeah, they were looking for a more wholesome type, and posting too many swimsuit pics just makes her look, umm, non-wholesome.

Hannah's mother, Donna, starts dating Kent, whose wife abandoned him several years ago, so he's raising his son Tim solo after the divorce. Kent wants his son to keep playing football, but Tim wants to quit because he doesn't see the point, plus he wants to have more time for online gaming, so he's depressed all the time - until he meets Brandy, an introverted girl who has to deal with her over-protective mother who monitors all of her texts, keeps adult men out of her Facebook contacts, and obsessively tracks her phone so she'll know where Brandy is at all times. Well, she's not wrong, exactly, there are a lot of creepos out there on the Facebook, but there needs to come a point where you trust your kids to act properly, or not, because at some point it does become THEIR decision who to see and who to sleep with, but Brandy's mother is just not ready to surrender that power.  When she learns that Brandy has a secret Tumblr account where she can "be someone else" and also that she's been sneaking off to make out with Tim, she shuts that down by sending Tim break-up texts from Brandy's phone. (What could POSSIBLY go wrong there?)

Then there's one more cheerleader, Allison, who starved herself all summer so she'd look better in her selfies. Football player Brandon finally notices her as a result, and after they share a kiss he suggests they have sex so she can get her first time over with, sure it might hurt a bit but then it's done, right?  No consequences unless she has an ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage caused by her malnutrition, but really, what are the odds of THAT?

Wow, that's a lot of dysfunction and miscommunication and messed-up relationship stuff for one high school in one little town in Texas, right?  And if this is just one town, imagine what's going on all day, every day, across this great nation of ours. So if you came here today for a happy film about love on Valentine's Day, I'm sorry, but you came to the wrong place. My imperfect process has sent us a message today, we need to be kinder to each other, and also respect the Earth because it's just a little blue dot in an enormous universe of nothingness, and when it's gone, nobody out there will even notice.  But the good news is that we've identified the culprit for all of these social problems - it's football, and cheerleading!  Nothing good can come from either of those two things. Boys get injured playing football and also it causes friction between them and their parents when they lose games or decide they don't want to play any more.  Meanwhile girls who go out for cheerleading have to wear those short skirts and put themselves on display, while maintaining an impossible standard where beauty and fitness are concerned, some starve themselves and others get injured doing stunts, so remind me again, what's the upside?  Plus they all end up with those horrible stuck-up attitudes and get impregnated by the jocks, so really, why do we even bother with this?  

I'm just kidding, the internet is at fault here, it's the source of all the modern problems, from non-censored hate speech to easier access to degrading pornography to web-sites that make it much too easy to cheat on your spouse.  Sure, the internet has made it easier to order food, look up crossword puzzle answers and play games on your phone until 4 am, but with all that has come a lot of downsides, too.  There's neck pain and sore fingers and blurred vision, not to mention all the things that Instagram does to people's minds. But good news, soon A.I.'s going to take over the whole store, and it's going to be able to figure out what images we want to see, based on our most secret inner fantasies, and then show them to us, so real people won't be exploited any more, and then everything's going to be just fine.  And then one day soon that Voyager spacecraft's going to reach some alien race, and they'll be so intrigued by the message of hope we sent to them that they'll head over to our solar system and find us, then either eat us or enslave us, so problem solved. 

If you're not having the best of Valentine Days, if you're divorced and lonely or single and lonely, I wish you some kind of solace and remind you that it's not your fault, it's the internet's. Get out there and meet some new people, fall in love, get your heart broken but don't stop playing the game, just remember to STAY OFF the internet. No good can come from it.

Also starring Adam Sandler (last heard in "Leo"), Jennifer Garner (last seen in "Deadpool & Wolverine"), Rosemarie DeWitt (last seen in "Your Sister's Sister"), Judy Greer (last seen in "Jeff, Who Lives at Home"), Dean Norris (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Timothée Chalamet (last seen in "Dune: Part Two"), Olivia Crocicchia, Ansel Elgort (last seen in "Allegiant"), Katharine Hughes (last seen in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"), Elena Kampouris (last seen in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2"), Will Peltz (last seen in "Sierra Burgess Is a Loser"), Travis Tope (last seen in "Independence Day: Resurgence"), David Denman (last seen in "The Nines"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "The Minus Man"), J.K. Simmons (last seen in "Jennifer's Body"), Colby Arps, Shane Lynch (last seen in "A Very Murray Christmas"), Jason Douglas (last seen in "Snitch"), Phil LaMarr (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 4"), Kaleb King (last seen in "Everybody Wants Some!!"), Christina Burdette (ditto), Richard Dillard (last seen in "The Last Stand"), Tina Parker (last seen in "Minari"), David Jahn, Jake McDermott, Kathrine Herzer (last seen in "Barely Lethal"), Helen Estabrook, Jeff Witzke (last seen in "The Front Runner"), Jillian Nicole Jackson, Dan Gozhansky, Tori Black (last seen in "Don Jon"), Irene White (last seen in "The 15;17 to Paris"), Luci Christian, Jaren Lewison (last seen in "Tag"), Craig Nigh, Candace Lantz, Jon Michael Davis (last seen in "Green Book"), Nick W. Nicholson, Kristin McKenzie Rice and the voice of Emma Thompson (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures")

RATING: 4 out of 10 hours spent playing "Guild Wars"

Ticket to Paradise

Year 17, Day 44 - 2/13/25 - Movie #4,944

BEFORE: Julia Roberts carries over from "Love, Wedding, Marriage", because OF COURSE she does, and remember it's still Wedding Week here at the Movie Year, in addition to Valentine's Week.  Sometimes I even amaze myself...

I'm starting the second third of the romance chain, and here's the line-up for Friday, 2/14, Day 14 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar", no doubt they're aware it's Valentine's Day:

Best Original Song Winners and Nominees:

5:15 am "A Star Is Born" (1954)

8:15 am "The Sandpiper" (1965)

10:15 am "Dear Heart" (1964)

12:15 pm "Swing Time" (1936)

2:00 pm "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1964)

4:00 pm "The Tender Trap" (1955)

6:00 pm "High Society" (1956)

Oscar Worthy Lovers: 

8:00 pm "Casablanca" (1942) 

10:00 pm "Marty" (1955)

12:00 am "Pillow Talk" (1959)

2:00 am "Now, Voyager" (1942)

4:00 am "Brief Encounter" (1945)

I was at 59 seen out of 151, but here's where I start to improve my stats, because I've seen a full 9 out of Friday's 12: everything BUT "Dear Heart", "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" and "Brief Encounter". SO now 68 seen out of 163 takes me back up to 41.7%.

THE PLOT: A divorced couple teams up and travels to Bali to stop their daughter from making the same mistake they think they made 25 years ago. 

AFTER: This is the third time George Clooney and Julia Roberts have played a divorced couple, two of them were in the "Ocean's Eleven" movies.  But if you can't predict the ending of tonight's film after watching the first five minutes of it, you really need to get out more or just watch more romantic comedies. You don't PUT these two together unless you want to see all of the chemistry, the good and the bad, only not in that order.  At the start of this film they declare that they can't even be in the same time zone with each other, and I feel that, but then they both attend their daughter's graduation from law school, and they support her decision to take a vacation to Bali before she starts practicing law. (This brings me to my first NITPICK POINT, which is that I know law school takes a long time, and Kaitlyn Dever still does not look old enough to have finished both undergrad college AND law school.  She may BE old enough - 26 at the time of this film's release - but she doesn't look it.)

Her parents did not expect her to fall in love with a Bali native who rescued her and her friend after their boat left them swimming in the Pacific, too far from shore.  The guy farms seaweed for a living, and she decides to stay in Bali because she's found a new sense of balance there, living in harmony with nature and the local people.  Now at least her parents are united in their desire to fly to Bali and convince her to not get married early and make the same mistake they did. Well, technically she's NOT doing that, because when we find out how and why David and Georgia got divorced, it sounds NOTHING like going to Bali and farming seaweed, they just bought a house too early or something. It's a little unclear to me because I couldn't watch this film with captions, and my hearing is still getting worse, I think. 

This film got me in some trouble - because I had to turn up the sound so I could hear what the characters were saying, and that woke up my wife who was sleeping upstairs. Things were sort of fine until I fell asleep myself, and then 10 minutes later there was a scene where the Cotton family was playing beer pong (something you do with your parents? I doubt it...), with very loud music playing in this Balinese club. Thanks a lot guys.  But then I kept waking up and rewinding back to the same spot and falling asleep again, so I had to finish the film this morning before heading to the movie theater at noon for some Adobe product launch, they're trying to win AI or something. 

Ah, isn't it hilarious that the two divorced parents end up on the same plane, and then even in the same ROW?  Well, no, not THAT funny really, plus it strains the bounds of credulity that they took the same plane from the same airline on the same day at the same time.  But then again, maybe not every airline services Bali and even then, there might be only a few direct flights a week, so who knows, I have no way of calculating the odds against this.  But at least the long flight gives them a chance to form a united strategy for dealing with their daughter and trying to convince her to not get married so young. They're looking at her life through the (shattered) lens of their own experiences, of course they don't want her to get married young because that's what THEY did and it didn't last.  But they can't say the whole marriage was a mistake, because that implies that their daughter was a mistake, and they both like her, just not her rash decisions.

I'm glad that this wasn't just a typical "destination wedding" movie, because then their daughter would have come off as too entitled, making her parents pay to fly all the way around the world just to see her get married.  Instead they come with a purpose, to pretend to be on her side while working to change her mind, and maybe convince her to come back to the U.S. and be a lawyer because, you know, that's a potentially lucrative career.  But showing the audience that Lily found something more meaningful than money, that's important, because now we want to root for her, and we want to see her parents proven wrong. 

Georgia has a boyfriend who's a pilot, I'd say it would be another far-fetched convenience that he's piloting their plane to Bali, but the line saying he switched routes with another pilot, in order to spend time with his girlfriend while she's in Bali, that's almost enough to dispel the coincidental nature of this plot point. Paul intends to propose to Georgia while they're together in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, however it never seems to be the right time, then he gets bitten by a snake, and then when he finally gets to propose, Georgia says no and it probably has NOTHING to do with her seeing her ex-husband again, but you never know...

Whatever else can go wrong seems to go wrong, of course.  Georgia steals the wedding rings from the little girl who's supposed to be holding them, but their daughter's boyfriend figures out what they're up to.  There's that snakebite that Paul gets, but maybe they really should have learned a bit more about the cursed temple they were visiting, I mean, COME ON.  And then of course after viewing the world's most beautiful sunset they realize that David didn't properly secure the boat, so it drifts away and they're forced to spend the night on a small island and resort to cannibalism. JK. Then the film would be called "Eat, Prey, Love".

There's a meaningful message at the end of the film, the same one as "Queen Bees", which stated that "It's never too late."  This film's addendum is that "it's never too late to get back together with your ex, after you've developed a new trust and friendship while working together toward a common goal."  There you go, today's mantra, for anyone out there who's divorced or newly single, also remember that your kids are NOT you and you don't need to stop them from making the same relationship mistakes as you - just let them make all new relationship mistakes they can call their own. 

Also starring George Clooney (last heard in "IF"), Kaitlyn Dever (last heard in "Next Goal Wins"), Maxime Bouttier, Billie Lourd (last seen in "Booksmart"), Lucas Bravo, Agung Pindha, Ifa Barry, Cintya Dharmayanti, Sean Lynch (last seen in "Hacksaw Ridge"), Arielle Carver O'Neill, Charles Allen (last seen in "Elvis"), Genevieve Lemon (last seen in "The Power of the Dog"), Romy Poulier, Dorian Djoudi (last seen in "Godzilla vs. Kong"), Ling Cooper Tang, Ilma Nurfauziah, Nom Gunadi, Inaya Servais, Ida Pandita Putu Wirata, Eduard Alexander Waloni, Joshua Chan, Mia Amrisyanda, Anto Widjaja, Casey Wright, Rowan Chapman, Kyoko Yates, Eric Gletzlaf. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 upper class auction bidders

Love, Wedding, Marriage

Year 17, Day 43 - 2/12/25 - Movie #4,943

BEFORE: This one's not streaming anywhere, which usually is a bad sign - if a film was great and in demand and everyone loved it, you'd imagine it would be streaming everywhere, or at least somewhere.  But hey, I understand how possessive every movie company has become, if a studio owns a movie they want it to be only on THEIR streaming service - so then, umm, what gives with this one?  

Still, I added this one to the chain for a simple reason, for the linking.  The way the romance chain came together this year, I had two smaller chains, one that started with "Alright Now" and went through "Queen Bees" (obviously an abundance of Sally Field, Heather Graham and Amanda Seyfried was in play) and the other one started with tomorrow's film and progressed for 26 films, similarly easy to put together, only with very few actors appearing more than twice in a row. Now, to link those two chains together, you need a film like this one, that connects to a LOT of other films - it was really a simple matter of using the Oracle of Bacon with a few actors from each film until only one link popped up, and that link sounded like a romance film. I won't reveal tomorrow's film just yet, but I could have connected to other romances via Mandy Moore, Jane Seymour, Joe Chrest and at least three other people - but the goal was to connect one end of the first half-chain with one end of the other half-chain, and this movie does that quite nicely. 

Christopher Lloyd carries over from "Queen Bees". Now, the downside is that using this film as a connection tonight renders it useless for other connections in the future, so I'm actually stranding a few films on the romance list that will now not connect to anything at all, but I can't worry about that now, it's a problem I can maybe fix before next year, because the answer is always to just add more films to the list.  

here's the line-up for Thursday, 2/13, Day 13 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar":

Best Cinematography Winners and Nominees:

4:15 am "Cries and Whispers" (1972)

6:15 am "White Shadows in the South Seas" (1928)

8:00 am "The Naked City" (1948)

10:00 am "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1945)

12:00 pm "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex" (1939)

2:00 pm "Meet Me in St. Louis" (1944)

4:00 pm "National Velvet" (1944)

6:15 pm "Black Narcissus" (1947)

Oscar Worthy Prostitutes: 

8:00 pm "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" (1931) 

9:30 pm "BUtterfield 8" (1960)

11:30 pm "Klute" (1971)

1:30 am "Primrose Path" (1940)

3:30 am "Anna Christie" (1930)

I was at 55 seen out of 138, and I've seen another 4 out of today's 13: "Cries and Whispers", "Meet Me in St. Louis", "BUtterfield 8" and "Klute". SO now 59 seen out of 151 takes me down just a bit to 39%.

THE PLOT: A newlywed marriage counselor's views on wedded bliss get thrown for a loop when she finds out her parents are getting divorced. 

AFTER: Over twenty years ago, I was a producer on an animated feature named "Hair High", which was set in a high-school and featured a budding romance between two teenagers, the nerdy newcomer and the stuck-up cheerleader.  Come to think of it, there was a love triangle since initially the cheerleader was dating the football team's quarterback, Rod. There was another romance in the framing device, as the man who ran the ice cream shop narrated the story in flashback to two young customers who were also on their way to their prom. By some odd coincidence, TWO of the actors who voiced characters in that film went on to direct movies appearing in my current romance chain.  Michael Showalter, the director of "Spoiler Alert", voiced Wally, one of the teens in the ice cream shop that the story was being told to, and Dermot Mulroney, the director of today's film, voiced Rod, the quarterback who enjoyed beating up Spud, the nerdy newcomer.  Sure, it sounds like one of those countless high-school romance films that all follow the same formula, but the twist was that Spud and Cheri (voiced by Sarah Silverman) died in a car accident, and came back as zombies the next year to reign as undead prom king and queen. 

That really doesn't affect my rating at all, but I will say that even with the HUGE continuity mistake that appears in "Hair High" (sorry, I tried to fix it, but the director wouldn't let me...) that film still makes a heck of a lot more sense than "Love, Wedding, Marriage" does. This film's plot points seem constantly at odds with each other, the film manages to contradict itself, over and over again. And every single point that anyone raises about ANYTHING is belabored over, repeated five or six times - jeez, we GET IT, already, you don't need repeat every little thing.  I would wager that the dialogue here was largely improvised, because it feels like the actors are constantly reminding themselves what happened just before this scene, so they can devise the appropriate responses to follow up.  

I noticed about a zillion contradictions, but I'll mention just a few - Ava is a marriage counselor, and she mentions that it would be completely unethical to counsel her own parents who are having marital disagreements, and she says this AFTER a counseling session.  Why wouldn't she say this before the session, and therefore not go through with it?  Ah, but then we, the audience wouldn't know exactly what their problems are, however the situation now, with her pointing out the wrongness after the fact, makes no sense.  Right after this, Ava catches her sister, Shelby, who she hired as an office assistant, which is probably also unethical, doing drugs in the office, in the middle of a workday.  Shelby confirms this is why she took the job, to gain access to drugs, and, well, that's it, no reprisal from her sister/employer, no suggestion to NOT do drugs in the office during a workday, we just kind of...move on. Ridiculous. 

Ava then can't help herself, she keeps interfering in her parents' lives to try to bring them back together, even though that may not be what's best for them.  Even after she realizes that they can't be her clients, that would be unprofessional, she still persists - so I guess she's interfering freelance, as their daughter, not as a professional therapist.  BUT SHE IS ONE and she should therefore know better, even if they're contemplating separation or divorce, and she doesn't like that idea, she needs to give them time to work out their issues together, and enough space so that if divorce turns out to be the right next step for them, so be it.  Nope, she keeps meddling in their lives, trying to either force them back together or convince them to change their minds, but really, this is for HER benefit, not theirs, because she just doesn't want to deal with the idea that her parents no longer work together as a couple.  

And again, she is (allegedly) a professional marriage counselor, yet she does not realize that spending so much time trying to force her parents back together is having a negative impact on her own marriage. So is she just blinded by the situation, or very non-self-aware, or is she just not very good at relationship counseling?  Moving her father into her own house just weeks after getting married, and she doesn't realize that this could affect her own marriage?  Pretty dumb.  

She tries sending her parents to another counselor who is not herself, and this doesn't really work either, because the guy's a total nut-job who thinks they should exercise before their therapy session, but these are OLD people, they shouldn't exert themselves, they could break something very easily.  Again, since this scene feels very improvised, it calls into question whether the director or any of the actors have any idea what goes on in a marriage counseling session. I'm pretty sure it's not THIS.  Another contradiction, after their therapist suggests that his patients have NO contact with each other outside of their sessions, as sort of a trial separation, perhaps, Ava takes them to a combination bowling and rock climbing immersive marriage encounter, which is probably not even a thing, and also a direct violation of their therapists order against spending time together.  

Meanwhile, Ava and Shelby keep planning for their parents' upcoming anniversary party, despite the fact that their mother is planning a trip to China and Thailand, and also keeps saying she wants a divorce, so WHY on Earth don't they cancel the party once they find out their mother probably will be out of town?  Because they believe in their hearts that their parents will get back together in time, or is it because the screenwriter knows what's coming up, so nobody bothered to have a scene where the daughters realize they're probably not getting their deposit back?

Ava's new husband, Charlie, is all poised to come out on top here, as the wronged party - he just got married a few weeks ago and now he barely sees his new wife because he's always working at the vineyard (he crafts a special vintage just for him and his wife, which is a very sweet thing to do) and his wife is always running around trying to get her parents back together - probably to the complete detriment of her counseling practice, since she's never in the office.  But Charlie's not blameless, either, because he "forgot" to tell Ava that technically he was married once, before, briefly, to a Vegas stripper or something and he was drunk at the time.  Why didn't he tell her?  Well, probably because he knew she would overreact to it - and BOY does she - but that doesn't make it OK, it's still a lie of omission. Plus, she's not just mad about the thing, she's more mad that he didn't tell her about the thing.   

More horrible things happen when Shelby takes her mother speed dating - surprise, every man is horrible in a different way - and meanwhile Ava is at home with her father who's having trouble sleeping, so he takes three sleeping pills instead of the recommended two, and Ava takes the opportunity to call 911 as if he's overdosed (which he hasn't) and have him treated at the hospital (which is unnecessary) and to cover her tracks, she flushes the sleeping pills that he didn't take down the toilet (which is absurd, plus they're her husband's pills and probably very expensive).  Yes, she LIES to everyone AND the paramedics in another attempt to get her parents back together - and how much was the hospital bill and the ambulance services?  Even if that plan worked, which it SHOULD NOT, no good should come from a fake 9/11 call and the distribution and destruction of another person's medication.

To top it all off, the best advice about accepting and forgiving your spouse comes from Gerber, the slacker best friend (and best man) of Charlie, who married the woman from Poland on a whim, and now he's enjoying regular sex but most likely Kasia just married him for a green card, and now he'll have to sponsor her whole family from Poland as they move over.  Well, he's clueless now but he'll find out somewhere down the road that he's totally being used. 

So yeah, this is a pretty terrible film.  The only use this film I have for it AT ALL is as a connector, it takes me to tomorrow's film, which starts the next phase in the romance chain, numerically let's call it the second third of the chain. This film is ALMOST as bad as "Say It Isn't So", just in a different way.  Once again, there's no way to go from here but UP.

Also starring Mandy Moore (last seen in "Because I Said So"), Kellan Lutz (last seen in "Extraction"), James Brolin (last seen in "Being Rose"), Jane Seymour (last seen in "Just Getting Started'), Jessica Szohr (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Michael Weston (last seen in "Gamer"), Marta Zmuda Trzebiatowska, Richard Alan Reid (last seen in "Tulip Fever"), Alexis Denisof (last heard in "Tarzan & Jane"), Alyson Hannigan (last seen in "Boys and Girls"), Colleen Camp (last seen in "Father Stu"), Andrew Keegan (last seen in "O"), Gabrielle Shuff, Bob Edes, Joe Chrest (last seen in "Fly Me to the Moon"), Kim Vu, Kenneth Brown Jr., Brandi Gerard (last seen in "Battle Los Angeles"), Michael Arata, Marwa Bernstein, John McConnell (last seen in "The Mechanic"), Elizabeth Primm, Autumn Federici, Sarah Lieving (last seen in "Lakeview Terrace"), Carol Sutton (last seen in "Poms"), Ron Flagge (last seen in "Where the Crawdads Sing"), Victor Eli Hugo, Michael Showers (last seen in "Columbiana"), Douglas M. Griffin (last seen in "Snitch"), Dean J. West (last seen in "The Hunt"), Geri Teasley and the voice of Julia Roberts (last seen in "Wolfgang")

RATING: 3 out of 10 annual viewings of "Gone With the Wind" over Thanksgiving weekend

Queen Bees

Year 17, Day 42 - 2/11/25 - Movie #4,942

BEFORE: OK, so I was kidding the other day about celebrating Carole King's birthday - I knew what day it was, but my Super Bowl Sunday is probably vastly different from yours. We tend to watch half of the Puppy Bowl and focus on some snackage, then I take a break and wait for the football game.  But if I don't care about either team (like this year) then I'll fast-forward through the game and just watch the commercials, I was paid to do that for so many years that it became a habit. I'll even fast forward through the half-time concert if I don't care about the musical act, which is now a given since they book acts that appeal to the younger crowd, and I'm no longer a member.  

Speaking of old people, if you do want to celebrate Burt Reynolds' or Leslie Nielsen's birthday in heaven, feel free to do that. Tina Louise turns 91 today, and she's still above ground.  James Caan, who passed away in 2022 at age 82, carries over from "Kiss Me Goodbye". 

And speaking of dead people who live on in movies, here's the line-up for Wednesday, 2/12, Day 12 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar":

Best Original Score Winners and Nominees:

6:45 am "Summer of '42" (1971)

8:30 am "Easter Parade" (1948)

10:15 am "Camelot" (1967)

1:15 pm "Anchors Aweigh" (1945)

3:45 pm "On the Town" (1949)

5:30 pm "Oklahoma!" (1955)

Oscar Worthy Boxers: 

8:00 pm "The Champ" (1931) 

9:45 pm "The Fighter" (2010)

12:00 am "Raging Bull" (1980)

2:15 am "Somebody Up There Likes Me" (1956)

Well, TCM, I don't know when your "day" begins, but usually it's about 4 am, and that last film DID win Best Cinematography, but it's also a film about a boxer, so since it starts BEFORE 4:00 am, I'm counting it as part of Day 12, not Day 13.  Wait, does the last film of the day dictate the next day's category? I might have to check that out, there may be more linking going on here than I thought...

I was at 49 seen out of 128, and I've seen another 6 out of today's 10: "Easter Parade", "Camelot", "On the Town", "The Fighter", "Raging Bull" and "Somebody Up There Likes Me" - because I've done Fred Astaire chains and also focused on boxing film in the past. SO now 55 seen out of 138 takes me up to 39.8%, I'm still in this.

THE PLOT: After reluctantly agreeing to move into a home for seniors, a woman encounters a clique of mean-spirited women and an amorous widower. 

AFTER: There's no question that films with older actors have a place in the market, I'm thinking about "Poms" and "Senior Moment" and "Cry Macho" and "Expend4bles" from last year.  Tommy Lee Jones and Robert De Niro are still working, Harrison Ford and Robert Redford can still make a movie, Jane Fonda retired for like 20 years and then came back and was in "80 for Brady" with Rita Moreno and Lily Tomlin and "Book Club: The Next Chapter" with Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen - I just can't believe that so many actors didn't put ANY money aside for retirement, so instead I can assume that they love what they do, or else they're following their doctors' advice to "stay active". Once they stop being cast, what are they going to do with their time? 

And I'm sure these actors are treated well during the shoots - they're fed well, even if they're on special diets, they get to take breaks and hopefully not work TOO many hours each day, and they're surrounded by crew and medical personnel if they should fall and break a hip or something. But still, I'm not sure at what point putting James Caan on a set and making him pretend to learn how to dance constituted some form of elder abuse. Ellen Burstyn's had a 65-year long career in TV shows and movies, but I watched her for three seasons on "Law & Order: Organized Crime" playing Stabler's mother with dementia, so that's how I think of her now, admittedly I have no clue about her mental health in real life, but here she is again, playing Helen Wilson, a woman who keeps locking herself out of her own home because she can't remember to bring the keys with her.  One time she's got a pot on the stove when she does this, and that causes a fire that takes out the whole kitchen, and she's got to seek accommodations elsewhere. 

(NITPICK POINT: OK, so they can't put a key outside in a fake rock, because Helen will never remember which rock has the key in it. But can't her grandson fix her door so it doesn't automatically lock when she closes it?)

She can't live with her adult daughter because they're at odds with each other, plus the daughter has a job, and her grandson's headed off to college soon, so that's out. She agrees to spend a month at the Pine Grove retirement community while her house is being repaired, however the contractors keep finding more and more things that need repair - the foundation, termites, etc. - so her time in senior living keeps getting extended.  Why, it's almost like her daughter is paying the contractors to keep finding more stuff so Helen will live longer in a place where she's under supervision and closer to medical care.  Say, you don't suppose that Helen, the fish out of water in this tale, will learn to make friends at the retirement home, maybe even find love (or at least sex) and eventually reverse her feelings about elder care?  Well, sure, we're going to get there, but we've got 100 minutes of movie to fill, so it's going to take some time. 

The Queen Bees are really just the Mean Girls from high school, only 50 or 60 years older. They're the four women at Pine Grove who run the bridge club and morning exercises and they've got their own table in the cafeteria. Helen is advised at first to stay away from them, however the movie's a bit inconsistent here because she needs to start hanging out with them to cause some drama and advance the plot. There's one Queen Bee who kind of disappears (maybe her character died, and I missed it...) so there's an opening for a fourth in bridge, but then even when Helen's accepted by two members, she still butts heads with Janet Poindexter, and we don't find out until later why Janet's always so cranky, but it's not because she smells like cheese. 

Old people, they're just like us!  They watch movies, gossip, they try to stay in shape, drink too much, fight with their families, plus they have access to marijuana!  They also enjoy bingo, massages, water aerobics, strip poker, complaining, and once a month the home organizes the lucky dip medication switching night. Helen also works in the flower shop, and it's maybe a bit unclear whether this is a hobby or a job, but either way, it keeps her busy, and her older neighbor who helps her also watches her dance through her window, so no, nothing creepy or troubling about that at all. Just bring her a bottle of cheap wine and she'll forget all about him being a peeping tom and then consider him a viable life-mate, for however much life she's got left. 

Meanwhile, Sally's cancer is back but the upside is getting better access to stronger weed, Margot decides she wants to be exclusive with BMOC Arthur, and it's OK if he can't remember her name and calls her by the name of his dead wife, and we learn that Janet has basically been abandoned by her family but hey, everything will be OK if we throw her a surprise birthday party.  Why is this not an ongoing daytime drama (or reality show) focused on the daily lives of people in a senior retirement community?  It could go on for YEARS as long as you keep replacing the actors when they die IRL and you just bring on new ones. How many older actors need the work to keep their SAG membership active and therefore get their pensions?  And any personal problems those actors are having, you just write them into the show.  If their kids come to visit, that's a show.  If their kids DON'T come to visit, that's a show.  What's for lunch, and how does it affect their diet?  Too much fiber? Not enough?  Medical issues?  It's all grist for the mill...

There is a wedding at the end of this film, because the message here is that "it's never too late".  Of course there are bumps in the road on the way to the wedding, but with open communication and forgiveness, we can deal with those issues, the important thing is to be married so that you don't die alone. Umm, right?  Wait, if you think about it, only one person gets to die married and the other person gets to find them, and honestly it's hard to say which of those is worse.  But hey, then at least the survivor gets to get married again, because "it's never too late".  Until it is, I guess. 

Also starring Ellen Burstyn (last seen in "The Yards"), Jane Curtin (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Ann-Margret (ditto), Loretta Devine (last seen in "Waiting to Exhale"), Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "Self Reliance"), Alec Mapa (last seen in "The Year of Spectacular Men"), French Stewart (last seen in "Dick"), Matthew Barnes (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Ricky Russert (last seen in "Ride Along 2"), Elizabeth Mitchell (last seen in"The Purge: Election Year"), Matt Lewis (last seen in "Brothers"), Marianne Muellerleile (last seen in "Sex Drive"), Bob Amaral, Courtney Gains (last seen in "Faster"), Cindy Hogan (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Armani McNulty

RATING: 6 out of 10 wedding photos from random elderly couples

Kiss Me Goodbye

Year 17, Day 41 - 2/10/25 - Movie #4,941

BEFORE: Sally Field carries over again from "Murphy's Romance", and she's now passed Allison Janney, with her 5 appearances she's currently in first place for the year - but there's still a lot of year to go.  I've got a couple more films with her that won't fit into February, so who knows, maybe I'll circle back later this year. 

This film's been on my list for a long time, maybe three or four years, maybe even longer. While it's a stretch to say that I engineered this whole month of programming to cross it off my list, that certainly was a goal of mine during this annual trip through films about affairs of the heart. I kept an eye out for other films that had either Sally Field or James Caan in them, and eventually I got enough material to work with.  I figured "Say It Isn't So" was going to provide the link to another romance film, and it did, then "Spoiler Alert" was right there to fit in-between. "Murphy's Romance" was added on a whim and "Places in the Heart" turned up on TCM by accident - but the main goal was to finally watch "Kiss Me Goodbye", at long last. 

Here's the line-up for Tuesday, 2/11, Day 11 of 31 Days of Oscar:

Best Original Screenplay Winners and Nominees:

6:00 am "The Seventh Veil" (1945)

8:00 am "Monsieur Hulot's Holiday" (1953)

9:30 am "I Vitelloni" (1953)

11:30 am "The 400 Blows" (1959)

1:15 pm "Splendor in the Grass" (1961)

3:30 pm "The Candidate" (1972)

5:30 pm "North by Northwest" (1959)

Oscar Worthy Drama Queens: 

8:00 pm "Jezebel" (1938) 

10:00 pm "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951)

12:15 am "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" (1966)

2:45 am "Johnny Belinda" (1948)

4:45 am "Possessed" (1947)

I was at 44 seen out of 116, and I've seen another 5 out of today's 12: "Splendor in the Grass", "The Candidate", "North by Northwest", "A Streetcar Named Desire", and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?". SO now 49 seen out of 128 takes me to 38.2%. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Over Her Dead Body" (Movie #4,634)

THE PLOT: The ghost of a dead husband haunts his wife after she moves back to their house in NYC - she's about to marry an egyptologist there. 

AFTER: I might be making a mistake here, because just like with "Murphy's Romance", there are a bunch of older actors and actresses here who have credits from classic movies from the 1940's and 1950', so there could have been a path back to older romance films via Charles Lane, and then this film could have been the way BACK to the 1980's, via Mildred Natwick or Claire Trevor. And then James Caan's my link back to more modern movies tomorrow.  I just fooled around a little bit with the Oracle of Bacon, and I couldn't really find some older classic movies about love that would link those people, which I also wanted to watch, so hey, maybe there aren't any.  But I definitely gravitate toward actors with LONG careers, like Jeff Bridges and James Caan, if I have to bounce between the decades. 

Here's a twist on the omnipresent "love triangle" idea, when 1/3 of the triangle is a ghost who has decided to haunt his widow. He's so into her that he doesn't let the fact that he's dead get in the way here, he still wants his wife to be faithful to him, even if he wasn't faithful to her when HE was alive.  Again, there's a fine line between being in love and being overly possessive - we want what we have, we want to KEEP what we have, plus we all want just a bit more, the double standard is "I should get to cheat, but I want my partner to not be able to."  We are, at heart, very petty people. 

The film kind of tries to have it both ways - is Jolly an ACTUAL ghost, or merely a figment of his widow's imagination, caused by her moving back into the house they shared together, and being reminded of the parties they used to host, the meals they ate in the dining room, etc.  This is almost a NITPICK POINT to me, like who keeps a house for three years and lives somewhere else during that time?  Sure, her husband died there and she needed time to deal with that, but really, you can rent the place out or sublet it or sell it, all better solutions than letting it be empty while you still make mortgage payments and pay real estate tax, utilities and general upkeep. Must be nice to have money...it's a NICE big Manhattan residence, three floors but a walk-up and the top floor's a dance studio that probably can be converted to any kind of rehearsal space. As a choreographer Jolly probably got a tax credit for a home office, part of the cost of the house was deductible, or could be balanced as a work expense against the income from a successful Broadway show if needed. 

From a relationship standpoint, I don't know if it's a good idea to invite her fiancé to live with her in the SAME NYC property after they get married, there are probably figurative ghosts there in addition to the literal one.  Even if ghost Jolly isn't real but only imagined by Kay, the fact that she's imagining him is a sign that something's not right with the relationship, Rupert is very different from Jolly, so maybe she just hasn't made that mental adjustment yet, and getting married again (plus living in the same house) is reminding her of what went down in her first marriage, so boom, ghost Jolly. So whether this is more of a "Sixth Sense" thing or a "Fight Club" thing is a topic for some debate.  Ghost Jolly somehow knows details about Rupert's childhood trauma, which he would have no way of knowing unless he had some kind of contact through the spirit realm with either God or Santa Claus. 

The movie "Ghost" pulled something similar, and now we have the TV show "Ghosts" on CBS that draws from a similar playbook, the ghosts can only be seen and heard by one person who is sensitive to the vibrations from the spirit world, or whatever BS reason the writers come up with. You might think that a ghost would haunt a building and therefore be kind of location specific, but here ghost Jolly goes on a road-trip with his ex-wife and her fiancé, and it does not go well.  Jolly keeps forgetting that he's a ghost and he can't EAT the cheeseburger that he ordered, and well, that's a good metaphor for wanting to keep his relationship with his ex-wife, even though he can't kiss her or touch her, and even THEN when he realizes this, he still doesn't want to see her date anybody else. Why can't he just watch her having sex with her fiancé and enjoy that?  Too creepy?

Instead Jolly shows Kay how to break into a Broadway theater after hours so he can - what, practice dancing?  That's a misdemeanor, breaking and entering.  Ahh, Jesus, why not just tell us what your unresolved beef is so we can settle it and you can move on to the afterlife?  His presence is so disruptive that it causes Rupert and Kay to fight all the time, and also the other couple staying at the quaint country inn, who can't quite understand why Rupert is so into saying he can see ghosts too, even though he can't, and they don't know the whole back-story here, so there's nearly a double-break-up at the motel, and it's all Jolly's fault.  Rupert's so used to dealing with Egyptian mummies who are usually very quiet, he's not prepared to deal with a chatty ghost who's got strong opinions about the validity of "Till death do us part."  

I know they WANT us to root for the very alive Rupert over the rather dead Jolly, but James Caan is so charming and debonair that he almost makes the choice difficult.  And Rupert loses his cool in the second half, and kind of undoes any good will he fostered with the audience by being the nicer guy and trying to understand why his future wife insists she's seeing a ghost.  You can't just learn to be cool by tap-dancing one night with the museum cleaning staff, after all. But ultimately Kay's just got to choose the live husband over the dead one, because come on, logistically, how is the relationship with the ghost going to WORK?

With the rising cost of Manhattan real estate, why not just all share the building together?  Just let Jolly keep his top floor dance studio and you can carry on just fine living as a married couple on the other two floors. Then they can make some money when they invent the "Ghost Hunters" TV show, just a suggestion. 

I know I see the resemblance to a film I watched last year, "Over Her Dead Body", but that film was made years after this one, so if there's any connection, it's the other way around. This also evokes other classic films like "Blithe Spirit", but really it's based on a 1976 Brazilian film called "Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands", which is based on a book of the same name. 

Anyway, onward and upward to other romance films - it looks like I've got at least three other wedding films coming up in the next week, which really is just where you want to be, with Valentine's Day on the horizon.  OF COURSE it's peak romance week here at the Movie Year. 

Also starring James Caan (last seen in "The Yards"), Jeff Bridges (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Paul Dooley (last seen in "Clockwatchers"), Claire Trevor (last seen in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Mildred Natwick (last seen in "Becoming Mike Nichols"), Dorothy Fielding (last seen in "The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper"), William Prince (last seen in "Destination Tokyo"), Maryedith Burrell, Alan Haufrect (last seen in "Coma"), Stephen Elliott (last seen in "Arthur 2: On the Rocks"), Michael Ensign (last seen in "Not Another Teen Movie"), Edith Fields (last seen in "Over Her Dead Body"), Lee Weaver (last seen in "How Stella Got Her Groove Back"), Lyla Graham, Chris Graver, Bernadette Birkett (last seen in "St. Elmo's Fire"), Barret Oliver (last seen in "Cocoon"), Robert Miano (last seen in "Loser"), Wolf Muser, Norman Alexander Gibbs, Adam Wade.

RATING: 5 out of 10 crates full of... mummies?