BEFORE: Here you go, this film (running on cable) and tomorrow's film (streaming on Netflix) will serve the same linking purpose as "Killers of the Flower Moon", which will be re-scheduled for a later date, due to the fact that no footage of Robert De Niro appeared in yesterdays's film. I trusted Wikipedia to be right and IMDB was wrong, and that was my mistake. I have another link later this month that also relies on archive footage in a franchise film, so here's hoping that one goes in my favor, because if not, I may be unable to find a substitute path to pull myself back to the planned chain. I guess we'll find out.
Joaquin Phoenix carries over from "Joker: Folie à Deux". This is a safer path, just a slightly longer one.
David Lynch passed away, I don't really have a lot to add to all the tributes already popping up on the web, calling him a genius filmmaker and such. He really only directed 10 features, and I have seen 9 of them, but I hate-watched the more recent ones, like "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive". I guess there's some kind of balance in nature, because I loved "Blue Velvet" and I admired "Wild at Heart". I loved the original "Twin Peaks" series, but hated "Twin Peaks: The Return" which was just a complete waste of my time. Honestly, I didn't much care for "Eraserhead" either, but I watched it, and I will champion his right as an independent filmmaker to make whatever film he wanted to make, even a shitty one. Now comes the debate - should I put that 10th film, "Inland Empire" on my watchlist?
THE PLOT: Ex-con Leo tries to go straight, but his plans are derailed after reuniting with his old crew and a well-connected railway contractor.
AFTER: I'm only about 5% into the new Movie Year, but strong themes have been recurring, an emphasis on mothers, for one thing. I don't really know what the chain is trying to tell me here, other than this chain could have worked really well if I'd planned it for May. "Anatomy of a Fall", "The Zone of Interest", "Proxima", "Brothers", "The Creator", "Sun Dogs", "Lou", "To Leslie", "Queenpins", "Inside Out 2", "The Lost King" all had strong mother characters, and yes, even "Joker: Folie à Deux" had a nod to motherhood. But here's another running theme, prisons and ex-cons, seen in "Brothers", Queenpins", "Despicable Me 4", and of course half of the "Joker" film was set in a prison. I can total these up at the end of the year, but that process is somewhat unreliable, there's too great of a chance that I'll forget the plot points of January's movies by December, so I'm kind of keeping a running tally, only it's tough to know in advance what else is going to make the list of themes I've seen again and again each time around. I just have to keep good notes, that's all.
This is a rather simple film, really - Mark Wahlberg plays Leo, a man in Queens, NYC who just got out of jail for stealing a few cars. (Really, what's the harm?) His family is waiting to throw him a party, but his parole officer is also there, wondering why he hasn't checked in yet. Dude, he JUST got home... The important thing now is to find a job, a real job, a clean job, and NOT associate with any criminal element - which, given who's in his family, is sure not going to be easy - Sunday dinner itself probably constitutes a parole violation. He decides that the best thing to do it visit his cousin's stepfather, Frank, and inquire about a job with his company, which repairs NYC subway cars. Frank suggests he take a 2-year course to learn how to be a machinist, get the training he need for a job in the transit system. He even offers to pay for the course, but Leo needs money now.
Leo's cousin's boyfriend, Willie, once got the same run-around from Frank, but he offers Leo cash money NOW if he'll come with him to the subway yards and vandalize some trains. Willie apparently works for a company that bids on the repairs and supplies to fix the subway cars, and they vandalize the trains that the other companies work on, so that those companies lose money. I KNEW IT. This perfectly explains why the "L" train, which I take home from Manhattan, has so many service problems. I signed up to get alerts from the NYC Transit phone app every time this one subway line goes out, and it's several times a day, every day. I'm sure someone is committing vandalism and they've targeted the L train, really there can be no other explanation.
This all seems a bit backwards, though, wouldn't it make more sense to vandalize the trains that their company IS in charge of repairing, so there will constantly be work for them to do, and the city will always need their services? I'm just saying, but hey, no need to thank me, this is why I'm here. I see the flaws in logic in movies that other people just seem to overlook. Anyway, this trip to the subway train yards ends in disaster, the yard master trips the alarm and Willie stabs him, so he bleeds out and dies. Meanwhile Leo is spotted by a cop and if he gets caught doing crime, he'll go back in prison, so he knocks out the cop with a nightstick and puts him in a coma.
Later, Willie won't admit to the murder, so Leo is the prime suspect by default. Leo goes into hiding, which also is a parole violation (not checking in) and the cops raid his mother's apartment. They don't find him, but his mother has a heart attack, or a panic attack, or something. Leo gets convinced that if the cop wakes up, he'll be identified as the assailant, so now he's got to sneak into the hospital and kill the cop. OK, so not checking in with his parole officer is bad, but killing a cop is somehow OK? JK, it's not, but somehow that ends up being the potential solution here, and thus the lesser of two evils. Really, that's just going to make things worse, if he kills the cop he'll be forced to leave town and spend the rest of his life in Montana or something, and he can never come back to New York, which is a fate worse than death.
While Leo sneaks back to visit his sick mother, his cousin Erica learns that her boyfriend, Willie, is really the one that killed the yardmaster. This puts a bit of a damper on their relationship, of course. She calls off their marriage, which is probably for the best since her mother didn't approve of it, anyway. The Queens borough president calls a public meeting to address corruption in the transit system, because of course there is. Leo's only opportunity to clear his name is to work with one of his uncle's competitors, basically blackmailing Frank to help him and give up Willie to the police as the killer, which he is. Frank then blackmails the Queens borough President, because he's got copies of the checks he used to buy that guy a house. And Frank's competition blackmails HIM to get 20% of every subway repair contract going forward. Wow, it's a beautiful tapestry of corruption, isn't it? Everybody's got dirt on everybody else, and they're all willing to use it to get what they want. And you wonder why the subway fare keeps going up...THIS is why.
Meanwhile, Willie visits Erica, to try and reconcile with her, and he reveals what Frank told him, that Erica and Leo (cousins) were caught making out when they were fifteen. It's a bit unclear whether this is true or not, but hey, even if it is, that's really not as bad as it used to be, I think. Anyway Erica does not want to get back together with Willie, because it turns out that if you want to get back together with someone, threatening to blackmail them with their teenage secrets might not be the way to go. He ends up throwing her down the stairs and it doesn't end well - but you know, the police are already on their way to the house to arrest him for murder, so they really get a two-for-one deal. Leo ends up testifying about the corruption that's inherent to the transit system, so I guess after that everything in NYC was perfect and fine forever. Ha ha, JK.
This movie is now 25 years old, it was released in 2000. It features a bunch of actors who have played cops so many times they probably have their own uniforms at home. And also a bunch of NYC sports stars and NYC news anchors, mostly from the channel called NY1, which used to be the Time Warner Cable news channel, and is now the Spectrum news channel. Good gig, I think. This comes from James Grey, the director of "Armageddon Time" and "Ad Astra" and "The Lost City of Z". This just FEELS like it's somebody's 2nd or 3rd film, made when they've figured out how to tell a complete story and resolve everything in the end, no loose ends, but they haven't quite figured out how to make sure the whole story is compelling, start to finish.
Also starring Mark Wahlberg (last seen in "Sr."), Charlize Theron (last seen in "The School for Good and Evil"), James Caan (last seen in "The Program"), Ellen Burstyn (last seen in "Pieces of a Woman"), Faye Dunaway (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Steve Lawrence (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Andy Davoli (last seen in "Welcome to Collinwood"), Tony Musante (last seen in "The Pope of Greenwich Village"), Victor Argo (last seen in "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Tomas Milian (last seen in "Havana"), Robert Montano (last seen in "Shame"), Victor Arnold (last seen in "The Seven-Ups"), Chad Aaron, Louis Guss (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Domenick Lombardozzi (last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Teddy Coluca (ditto), Joe Lisi (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), David Zayas (last seen in "Forces of Nature"), Joseph Ragno (last seen in "Worth"), Teresa Yenque (last seen in "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee"), Jose Soto, John Tormey (last seen in "How Do You Know"), Jack O'Connell (last seen in "Hustlers"), Garry Pastore (last seen in "The Irishman"), Ron Brice (last seen in "Clockers"), Andi Shrem, Joe Dimare, Maximiliano Hernandez (last seen in "The Namesake"), Marc Romeo,
with cameos from Ernie Anastos (last seen in "Run All Night"), Keith Hernandez (last seen in "Knuckleball!"), Allan Houston (last seen in "Laws of Attraction"), Lewis Dodley (last seen in "Good Time"), Annika Pergament (last seen in "A Rainy Day in New York").
RATING: 5 out of 10 breakfast plates at the Sage Diner (I know EXACTLY where that diner is, only it's changed hands and names three times since this film was made. It's now called the Georgia Diner.)
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