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...
Directed by: Nia Vardalos (director of "I Hate Valentine's Day")
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?)
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