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.
Directed by: Luis Mandoki (director of "When a Man Loves a Woman")
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
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