Mad Money

Year 18, Day 241 - 8/29/26 - Movie #5,415

BEFORE: All right, I've got a path to Halloween, as weird as that is to say. I mean, September 1 i just two days away, so really, it's time to think about scary movies and pumpkin ales and maybe a couple beer and/or BBQ events that I have tickets for - one in September and one in October, and I'm just going to have to work around them. 

It's a tight September schedule, and that's partially because I took skip days in August due to celebrity birthdays and also a couple VERY long documentaries. Thanks, Billy Joel. There's just not room for skip days any more, or if I have to skip then I'll have to double up. A quick count tells me that I have only 85 slots left in the year after tonight, two in August and 30 in September will leave 53, now if I go with the 24-film horror chain in October then that leaves just 29 slots, which could be 14 movies in November and 15 in December, or vice versa. Totally do-able, even if I wait until the last minute to find a path to some Christmas movies. OK, so in a couple days I'll do the August breakdown and post the September actor links, but I think I'm in good shape. I'll double-check my links in the meantime and make sure everything streaming is on the platforms I think. 

Diane Keaton carries over from "Summer Camp" and this is another film I thought I would never get to, like "Cousins" or "Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves", it's just been on the list for what feels like forever, and this year I've managed to cross off a bunch of those, making some room for newer films. I had this film set up to link to a Jim Gaffigan mini-chain, but another path has become available, so I'm going to just back-burner those films and I've got another plan to get to some back-to-school films and then an animation block, almost clearing that category, and at some point in September I'll get to "Spider-Man: Brand New Day". I kind of used that as a focal point, it was too hard to link to October 1, but linking from September 1 to that was easier, and then I linked backwards from horror films to kind of meet in the middle. 

More good news, I went to have an x-ray at the urgent care walk-in (more like a hobble-in, but whatever) and I don't have a break or fracture in my ankle, it's just a sprain. So I just need to stay off it a bit for a couple more days and hopefully I'll be able to go back to work Monday. 

THE PLOT: Three female employees of the Federal Reserve plot to steal money that is about to be destroyed. 

AFTER: When I was a teenager there was a movie titled "How to Beat the High Cost of Living" and from it I learned some life lessons about the economy, and how inflation and job layoffs were making it difficult for some people in the Pacific Northwest to get by financially. In the film three women got together and pulled a heist from a shopping mall, one of those giant plastic promotional balls with a bunch of cash being blown around in it. So in order to distract the cops during the robbery, the character played by Jane Curtin got up on stage and stripped, so as a by-product I also learned that many respectable actresses, who appeared on my TV in other shows on a regular basis, had done nude scenes in movies. Then later I learned about body doubles and the fact that if you don't see an actress' face and nude breasts in the same shot, most likely a body double was used - but it was too late, I was already turned on by Jane Curtin stripping on a stage. This was just a taste, though, and I'd soon seek out the harder stuff, from actresses who did their own nude scenes, like Joan Collins and Morgan Fairchild. 

Anyway, this film kind of reminds me of "How to Beat the High Cost of Living", except that Jane Curtin isn't stripping in it, and in fact nobody is stripping in it at all. I feel like movies kind of lost their way somehow, if that makes any sense. Why didn't Tina Fey ever do a stripping scene, or Amy Poehler or Cecily Strong or jeez, even Vanessa Bayer? I think it was considered gauche for quite some time, but guys, it's OK again, now it's considered female empowerment and being proud of your body, you can control the scene and feel comfortable about it, really it's very freeing and you'll thank me later, I promise. But I digress. 

So much has changed since the 1970's, yet we find ourselves back in the same spot, with inflation kicking our asses, gas prices are higher than ever before and whole industries are laying off a bunch of people because they're shutting down factories or robots and A.I. are taking jobs away from humans. So what are people supposed to do, especially if they stupidly bought houses when they were employed and now there are still mortgage payments to make? Well, have you thought about taking a job as a janitor at a bank?  Stay with me here, once you get in there and empty the trash and clean the bathrooms for a few months maybe you'll see some kind of flaw in the plans of how they move money around, and you can take advantage of that. 

It's amazing the twisted mental logic that some people might create to justify their taking things that don't belong to them, commonly called "stealing". Well, I found it there, tracking down its rightful owner would be too difficult, "finders keepers" etc. - this story involves taking money from the federal reserve bank that has been removed from circulation and scheduled to be shredded. So these three women get together, one who moves it, one who's supposed to shred it and one who takes out the trash, because she figures that none of the higher-ups bother to even LOOK at the trash. You know, because it's trash. In fact these criminals justify their actions by stating that they're "recycling" the money, as if by using it again instead of burning it, that's somehow better for the environment, less greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or something. What a crock, they just want the money. 

So you might think that the scheme is simple, remove a few stacks of bills, stash them in a trash can, and then grab them from the dumpster outside later on - no, no, that would make too much sense. Here these women still have to stash the stacks of bills inside their clothing and hope they don't get searched too thoroughly on the way out. Sometimes this involves flirting with the security jobs (and therefore keeping them from doing their jobs AND making them complicit in the crime) or causing distractions so that the people manning the security cameras are looking at something else. 

Maybe the bank incinerates their trash or something, but now I'm really doing the screenwriter's job FOR them, and I shouldn't have to do that. I just wonder, what's the point of putting the money in the trash if they still have to remove it from the trash and smuggle it out? Why not just skip a step and hide the money in their clothing right after taking it off of the cart, is that too obvious? More importantly, why is there no strip-search scene in this film, like logically that's the danger that they're afraid of, so we should get to see that. Oh, sure, Diane Keaton finally did a nude scene, but it wasn't in THIS film, it was in "Something's Got to Give". (Boy, I sure seem to know a lot about on-screen nudity, don't I?)

It's also worth noting that they COULD have stopped at any time - they even discuss with Bridget and Jackie's husbands that being greedy and continuing these thefts is putting them all in danger, of course the husbands are also complicit by not turning their wives in, they're accessories after the fact. What's worse is that Nina points out that they can't change their spending habits, because that would draw too much attention if they all worked in a reserve bank and started suddenly driving expensive cars and going on frequent vacations. Well, then what is the fricking point of stealing if you can't even spend the money, what are we even DOING here? 

Of course, they eventually get caught, because they had that discussion and were very obviously in front of God and the audience, given the opportunity to stop, or at least they discussed it and rejected the idea. But still they all wanted MORE for some reason even if they couldn't spend it. Oh, yeah, right, they're recycling and saving the planet. Once they're caught, a really good lawyer who is also their neighbor points out that having a lot of cash hidden in their houses is NOT illegal in itself, and also nobody can prove that the money came from the very "secure" Reserve Bank, in fact the head of the bank is in the unique position of having to admit that the bank is NOT secure if he wants them prosecuted for stealing from it. It's a catch-22.

Maybe they'll make another version of this same storyline again in the future, but it will be about selling cryptocurrency to people and then cashing out their own fortunes before their crypto-coin becomes worthless. I mean, those are the real criminals who need to be prosecuted these days. Anybody who's selling crypto and watching their coins rise in value and then converts their coins to cash at the highest possible price, devaluing the currency for the rest of the investors, those are really the lowest form of scum on the planet. Anybody who's done that should be immediately prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and removed from office if necessary.

I've been lucky enough over the last five years to work in a movie theater which is also an events space, it's rented out to various festivals and organizations, and every month there are a few catered events. Occasionally there's leftover food, but before I bring any home, I make sure that the food is scheduled to be thrown out if I don't take it. I also make sure to offer food to everyone working in the theater that night before I pack up any food to take home - but still, I've ended up with bags of prosciutto and other expensive cold cuts, and I'll eat them over a week's time. One time I was offered leftover beer, but I only took it because it was about to be poured down the drain, and I figured I could give it a better home. I do not consider this stealing, but perhaps I'm doing a bit of mental gymnastics myself to justify my actions. At the other stadium gig, if I were to take food home, I would be fired for sure. 

Directed by Callie Khouri (producer of "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind" and "Thelma & Louise")

Also starring Ted Danson (last seen in "Marty, Life Is Short"), Katie Holmes (last seen in "The Extra Man"), Queen Latifah (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Adam Rothenberg (last seen in "The Mauritanian"), Peyton Smith, Meagan Fay (last seen in "That's My Boy"), Christopher McDonald (last seen in "Awake"), Denise Lee, Sylvia Castro Galan, Morgana Shaw (last seen in "Hit Man"), Roger Cross (last seen in "War for the Planet of the Apes"), Stephen Root (last seen in "Playdate"), Marc Macaulay (last seen in "Transporter 2"), Finesse Mitchell (last seen in "Barley Lethal"), Maliek Golden, Khari King, Mathew Greer (last seen in "The Last Stand"), John McIntosh, Bill Jenkins (last seen in "Get Hard"), Ginnie Randall (last seen in "Something to Talk About"), Joe Nemmers (last seen in "Snitch"), Julius Gregory, J.C. MacKenzie (last seen in "Killers of the Flower Moon"), Jennifer Wilkerson, Bryan McMahon, Richard Folmer (last seen in "Cleaner"), Duke W. Scott Jr., Bryan Massey (last seen in "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge"), Sterling Blackmon, Charlie Caldwell, Richard F Law with a cameo from Jim Cramer (last seen in "Dumb Money").

RATING:5 out of 10 clogged toilets

Summer Camp

Year 18, Day 240 - 8/28/26 - Movie #5,414

BEFORE: Well, the chain ends tonight unless I stay up late and do a bit of linking - this is really as far as I've linked, this is where I wanted to go right after the Doc Block, I figured it would give me a few possible places to go and also it seemed thematically seasonal to get in a summer film before the end of August. 

I really will have to hustle, though - first I need to pick out part of the horror chain, thankfully I keep working on this all year round, moving films here and there so as to make the longest possible chain. There's one chain that's 29 films long and there's another one that's 16, and a third that's 14 films long. The easiest thing to do would be to go with the 29-film chain, because there are 31 days in October, but I'm going to be away for a week, so that may not work, unless I want to extend the chain into November. And the 16-film chain just isn't enough, so if I go that way I'll have to see if I can extend it on both ends or maybe in the middle. If that's not an option, I can take the 14-film chain and tack on 10 films from the end of the 29-film chain, just do one chain and then link right to the last third of the other, that would give me 24, that sounds pretty do-able. But then I have to see if I can get from HERE to the start of THAT, in a number of steps that's roughly equal to the number of days in September plus the end of August. Well, sure, I'll be up late tonight trying to figure all that out, but I can't lose a day, I've got to keep inching forward without knowing if I'm making the hook-up to horror movies possible or impossible. 

Eugene Levy carries over from "Marty, Life Is Short".

THE PLOT: After years apart, three childhood best friends who used to spend every summer together at a sleep-away camp have an opportunity to get back together for a summer camp reunion. 

AFTER: Ugh, this film was a struggle to get through, and it was only 95 minutes long!  Compared to, say, the Billy Joel two-part documentary, this should have been a walk in the park, but it was just SO inconsistent and all-over-the-place that it ended up being very close to nonsense. This is just not a thing that people do, go to camp reunions when they're senior citizens, for very good reasons. Seniors don't go white-water rafting, they don't go zip-lining and they don't ride horses, especially if it's been 50 years since they last rode one. Look, I'm all for the senior set being active, like I'm glad that Dick Van Dyke works out even though he's wasting part of his platinum years in the gym. But then again, without regular work-outs maybe he never would have made it to 100 years old, so I guess there's a trade-off there. You can live longer, however a large portion of your extra time gets sucked up by exercise - I don't think it's worth it. I may not be here for a long time, but I'll be here for a good time. A shorter good time. 

You know what seniors like, what they'd probably do if they went back to camp? Movie night. Watching CBS shows together. Having a nice meal that they didn't have to cook which is NOT like camp food or prison food in any way. Paint and sip events, book clubs, the only thing that rings true here is that one of the three friends grew up to be a motivational speaker, and the camp has hired her to give a motivational speech about aging - sure, throw in wine and cheese and that's a big night out for seniors, just make sure their hearing aids have fresh batteries. They do NOT, I repeat, do NOT want to go white-water rafting. Anyway, the camp probably couldn't get insurance coverage if they were dumping 70-year olds into rafts with life-jackets and oars and saying, "Go nuts, have fun, see you on the other side, maybe."

Of course, there's some romance here, because everyone's at the age where their spouse has passed away and their kids have moved out, so they have their work and their e-mails and their Facebooks and that's their life. Getting a hook-up at senior camp seems a bit logical, until you realize they're not insured for any activities except pottery class (and even that's got a big spinning potter's wheel, I don't think we should let the seniors have access to that...) and things like horse riding where they're sure to break a hip or archery where they'll probably shoot someone with an arrow, in fact, it happened before on this very spot to this very same group of girls. They should NOT be allowed back on the archery range. 

So yeah, there's not a lot here that makes sense - there are plenty of bad ideas, though, that seem like they might be trendy and would naturally occur, but if you think about them, you realize it just couldn't go down this way. At check-in the camp personnel require all the seniors to hand in their phones, however this would make sense to do with teenagers, who spend all their time on their phone and their parents probably sent them to camp to get fresh air and physical activity and so taking away their smartphones and iPads makes sense. But these are seniors, they probably still have flip-phones and they need to check in with their children every 10 minutes, so they're just not going to survive without that. Anyway, I think two of the three characters sneak their phones in anyway, so narratively, what was the point then of trying to take them away? 

The WHOLE FILM is like that, one person says something and then the next person says the opposite is true, and then the plot reveals they're both wrong or it's a meaningless argument that ends up going nowhere. Well, to be fair that does kind of replicate the way seniors tend to talk, they'll say something incorrect (or racist) and then get corrected by their friend, who is also wrong, and then the argument goes nowhere or they both forget what they were talking about and they go have lunch. Or in this case, a food-fight in the camp mess hall. But seniors just wouldn't DO THAT, these are the people who were born during the Depression who then went on to tell their children to eat their food and not waste it, because people are starving in China or Africa or something. To have a food fight and throw dinner all over the place would be incredibly hypocritical, also these older people probably couldn't even pick up their plate of food, let alone throw it and expect to hit something. 

Furthermore, in a film like this where there are three main characters, consistency is key - it would be most helpful if each character could have just ONE personal flaw, for each of them to have three or four is confusing and also unlikely. THIS one should be the workaholic, THAT one should be the busybody and the THIRD one can be the doormat. That's it, stick with that and stop trying to make them each have another two or three personal problems that they can't quite solve. We've only got 90 minutes for them to have some kind of change of heart or growth from insight that results in a course correction, the credits are coming up soon (hopefully) and we really need to wrap some of this up. If one wants to leave her deadpan, boring husband for the more exciting, debonair guy she knew as a hot teenager, I'm there for it, but PLEASE be quick about it, what's going to kill us all here is the endless indecision process. 

Sure, we can hook up the workaholic one with the guy she was attracted to years ago, who is retired now and has a new, less stressed outlook on life. I love that for her, again, just please hurry the process along because I can't take all the back-and-forth. Too many reversals!  And then there's the "Mean Girls" trio, who of course are now seniors themselves, but again they can't really decide if these Plastics (because they had plastic surgery, get it?) are truly evil or just slightly obnoxious or decent people who are just a bit screwed up and misguided themselves. Screenwriters, you have to pick one!  Any of them, I don't care, just be consistent. 

Oh, and of course these three older women don't have to sleep in a rundown cabin, somehow they have a luxury suite with giant beds and full bathroom and I think room service too - so you might ask, what is the freakin' point of going back to camp, then? I mean, there's an in-universe answer but in reality it's all just somebody's fantasy, so it's camp without any of the inconveniences of camp, which I'm pretty sure isn't a thing. Oh, wait, there's glamping but this isn't really that either. It's more like ma'am-ping. 

If this had been the first fiction film after watching like 50 documentaries, maybe I would have appreciated it more - but I guess that was "Spinal Tap II", so this one really didn't hit as hard. 

Directed by Castille Landon

Also starring Diane Keaton (also carrying over from "Marty, Life Is Short"), Kathy Bates (last seen in "A Family Affair"), Alfre Woodard (last seen in "Space Oddity"), Dennis Haysbert (last seen in "Men, Women & Children"), Beverly D'Angelo (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Nicole Richie, Josh Peck (last seen in "Havoc" (2005)), Betsy Sodaro (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Tom Wright (last seen in "Creepshow 2"), Victoria Rowell (last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke"), Maria Howell (last seen in "Daddy's Little Girls"), Raymond Santiago (last seen in "In Time"), Castille Landon, Eugenie Bondurant (last seen in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2"), Tyler Weaks (last seen in "A Rainy Day in New York"), Ashley Padilla, Lindsay Lamb (last seen in "Haunted Mansion" (2023)), Stephanie Hong (last seen in "Hit Man"), Arielle Kebbel (last seen in "Think Like a Man"), Taylor Madeline Hand, Kensington Tallman (last heard in "Inside Out 2"), Audrianna Lico, Gabe Sklar, Zachary Connor, Lindsey Blanchard, Artemis Vibria Davis, Gabrielle Days, Jerry O'Donnell, Billy Jack Harlow, Ashley Abrams, Jacob Berger, Ray Lewis Jr.,

RATING: 4 out of 10 camp activity coordinators - no, wait, it's just the same guy over and over again. 

Marty, Life Is Short

Year 18, Day 239 - 8/27/26 - Movie #5,413 - SQC DOC BLOCK #50

BEFORE: Finally, I've arrived at the LAST documentary of the Doc Block. I took a little break from docs so I could work in the "Spinal Tap" sequel and the horrible old-and-improv'ed "Cracking Up", but here at the almost-end of August, I can wrap things up. It's another all-star affair, I've had docs about people from the cast of "SNL" and one person from the cast of "SCTV", and tonight it's a doc about the one man who was officially part of BOTH casts, Martin Short. 

I'm also going to wrap up my "Get to Know a State" feature, and I saved this state because it didn't line up with anything else, and based on my sources, most of the movie "Three Amigos" was filmed there (admittedly, some of it was shot in Arizona and some scenes in California...). Still, my next-to-last state is NEW MEXICO. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: January 6, 1912 (47th state)

Claim to fame: I just said it, "Three Amigos" was filmed there, isn't that enough? 

Nickname: The Land of Enchantment

State Motto: "crescit eundo" which means "it grows as it goes". Umm, that's what she said. 

State Flower: Yucca flower

State Bird: Greater roadrunner

State Animal: Well then it SHOULD be the wily coyote, but it's not, it's the black bear. 

State Fish: Rio Grande cutthroat trout

State Gem: Turquoise 

State Insect: Tarantula hawk wasp

State Reptile: New Mexico whiptail lizard

State Tie: Bolo tie

Notable Sports Teams: Just college teams and minor-league affiliates, like the "Simpsons" inspired Albuquerque Isotopes, a minor-league baseball team affiliated with the Rockies, and the New Mexico Goatheads, a minor league hockey team in the ECHL. I guess there is one pro team, a soccer team named New Mexico United. 

Fun Facts: It's the southeastern state of the "Four Corners" states, where it meets with Utah, Colorado and Arizona, though geometrically it can only be adjacent to two of those, there apparently is a spot where you can stand in one spot and take up space in four states. I heard that maybe the marker isn't really in the right spot, though. During the years of World War II, New Mexico was home to three U.S. Air Force bases, the White Sands Missile Range, and of course the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the atomic bomb was developed. In addition to the State symbols above, New Mexico also has an official question, which is "Red or green?" that refers to ordering chile sauce on local foods. 

I have never been to New Mexico, so I'm still at 29 states visited out of 50. But wait, I hear you wondering out there, because I did profile the District of Columbia, which is NOT a state, and that means that after 50 documentaries, there is still one state that remains un-profiled. I'll give you a minute if you want to go back and figure out which state I skipped.  

AHA, I skipped MINNESOTA - or did I? If you remember, I watched one documentary back in January, because I wasn't sure if I'd have a chance to work that film into the chain, it only had one star in it, and that was Bill Murray. Well, Bill Murray then turned up in EIGHT other docs, often uncredited, but you can see why I was a little worried. I COULD have watched that film, "The Saint of Second Chances" between "Being Eddie" and "Lorne", making a Bill Murray three-peat, only I DID NOT KNOW that back in January. If I had, that film would have become the 51st doc, and the baseball team in it, the St. Paul Saints, is based in, you guessed it, MINNESOTA. So I'm going to go back and edit the review from January to include a profile of the last state. Yeah, I maybe cheated a little, but I did cover all 51 states and districts, one was just separate from the others. I've never been to Minnesota, either, so the final stats are just slightly different, 29 out of 51.

Harry Shearer carries over from "Cracking Up".

THE PLOT: The definitive documentary on comedian Martin Short, exploring his career across film, television, theater and comedy. 

AFTER: We seem to be riding a wave of celebrity deaths, it's been a big year for them - our national bank of celebrities is rapidly aging, it's true. However, we also have more celebrities than ever before, and the reporting of their deaths, thanks to the internet and social media, is more prevalent than ever before, so it may only seem like a lot because - ah, who am I kidding, it's a lot to deal with. Dolly Parton, Hayden Panettiere, Tim Curry, and now songstress and "Gong Show" judge Jaye P. Morgan. And that's just in the last week or so - anybody have eyes on Jo Anne Worley? I mean, Dick Van Dyke turned 100 and then Mel Brooks turned 100, we treasure whatever time they're able to stick around, but then at the same time, we figure they're not buying any green bananas, if you know what I mean. 

Somebody pointed out that we lost FOUR people from the film "Home Alone 2" in this calendar year, that would be Catherine O'Hara, Brenda Flicker, Jaye P. Morgan (seen on a TV screen in the film) and Tim Curry. There's a certain business mogul and President who made a cameo in the film, and some people are just hoping he's next...not me, of course. That would be wrong. (But it maybe would feel OH SO right...)

Really, I think we're just dealing with the aging of America, and by America I mean Canada too. The cast of SCTV has been getting older, as have we all, and John Candy has passed away, Joe Flaherty too, and now Catherine O'Hara this year. Martin Short was the "baby" of the group, and he's now 76 himself. Of course, we wish him well and we hope he's around for a long time, but at the same time, we hope he's taking care of himself, medically speaking. I think, that based on what I've seen here in tonight's documentary, #50 in a 50-part series, that he is one of the FEW people profiled this Doc Block that I can deem "Artist Brain"-free. You should know what I'm talking about by now, it's a condition where certain filmmakers or musicians or athletes just simply refuse to retire, because they can't imagine movies or concerts or games taking place without THEM being involved. Symptoms include an aggravated sense of self, an inability to admit failures and varying symptoms including pettiness and jealousy and constant demand for attention. It happens, fame is an addictive drug and the more some people get of it, the more they want. 

I mean, Chevy Chase had a BAD case - he thinks he never said anything inappropriate and can't understand why he has a reputation for being an a-hole. Really, it has everything to do with him being an a-hole. Cheech & Chong have bad cases, too, though it only manifests itself when they get together and argue over who played the bigger role in their success. Reggie Jackson, Elvis Presley, Billy Joel, David Lynch, Mel Brooks - artist brain, artist brain, artist brain. Jesus, I was very disappointed to learn that even Dick Van Dyke had a (rather mild) case of it too - it drives him to stay in shape and dance, he still wants to entertain America, and that's great, but you know what, admitting that it's past time to retire would also be great. 

No, I think I'm only going to declare three people free of the condition this year, and unfortunately two of them are deceased, Fred Rogers and John McCain. I mean, Fred Rogers is top-of-the-line, selfless and giving, all he wanted to do was to talk to kids through the TV and educate them about the world and help them through the tough times. John McCain also had a lifetime of service to America, in the military and then the U.S. Senate, maybe there was a touch of overblown self-esteem when he ran for President twice, but the point here is that he DID NOT get elected, he had setbacks and failures, and really that's a great cure for the A.B. condition. So with that in mind, I'm declaring Martin Short as only the THIRD documentary subject this year that I can call "artist brain free". 

Again, this has everything to do with attitude, and how a person deals with failures and setbacks. I mean, Billy Joel had a BUNCH of them, albums that didn't sell and managers who stole his money and failed song ideas (I'm guessing) but still he won't retire and still he's got an overarching ego, so that means he maybe hasn't learned anything from his down moments. Sure, it's not how many times you get knocked down, it's how many times you get up after, but then once you do get up again, you need to know when to stop fighting overall. Martin Short had a long string of failure movies, I mean real stinkers like "Pure Luck" and "Clifford" and "Mumford" and "Jungle 2 Jungle". But he kept making movies, because not every film is going to be "Father of the Bride" or "The Three Amigos" or "The Prince of Egypt". Hell, some films are just going to be average, like "Innerspace" or "Mars Attacks!" or "Madagascar 3". It's OK, you're working in a very fun industry and you're getting paid, there's still a lot to be thankful for. 

Plus, you have your reputation, and you have your family and hopefully, your health too. Now of course there have been personal losses, his wife Nancy passed away in 2010, and one of their children died this year. But he still seems to be in good spirits, and able to deal with the losses, having lost both his parents and an older brother over the span of 8 years when he was younger. I think I'd be worried about him if he were doing weird things like buying part of a Canadian Football team and flying around to all of their away games. He's been working on "Only Murders in the Building" for five seasons with friend and co-star Steve Martin, with people wondering if he's dating his other co-star, Meryl Streep. It's fine if he is, it's fine if he isn't. 

Short's been active in the industry since 1972, of course it was that Toronto production of "Godspell" where he and SO MANY other people made their theatrical debuts, we saw this in the John Candy doc and in other docs, most of the future cast of "SCTV" was in that play, plus Gilda Radner, plus Victor Garber - it's the stuff of legends. Short caught up with some of the others in 1977 by joining the Toronto outlet of the Second City improv group, and then later the TV show they produced began in 1976, though he didn't join until 1982, because he still was trying to have a singing career, while playing bit parts in shows like "Taxi". But then after he joined the cast of "SCTV" in 1982, it got cancelled in 1984 BUT he got the call to move on over to Saturday Night Live, which was clearing house for the third or maybe fourth time and there were a bunch of openings. This created an "All-Star" season of SNL, with Billy Crystal, Julia-Louis Dreyfus, Christopher Guest, Jim Belushi, Mary Gross and Harry Shearer, but then there was a writer's strike, so an episode that was going to be hosted by Eugene Levy and John Candy was cancelled, and the following year Lorne Michaels came back and there was, essentially, another purge. Still, it's better to have been on SNL for one season than to have not been on it at all. 

I think by now he kind of knows where he stands, he's a pop culture icon but he hasn't let it go to his head, he still feels humble, although there's home movie footage of his family hobnobbing with the Hanks-Wilsons, the Spielberg-Capshaws, and the Kasdans, but ostensibly this came about because their families all had kids of similar ages, and therefore at holidays there could be group interactions for everyone of all ages. OK, sure, so he's had very famous friends, that's just a by-product of being in movies and finding cool people to hang out with. I stand by my analysis, this guy's been on TV sketch shows, he's been in (a couple) great movies, he's been on Broadway and he's done voice-over work, so I don't think he's got artist brain. And I'm sticking with that until I find out when he's 87 that he's refusing to retire. 

Look, he's been on the scene for over 50 years now and the documentary about him is just an hour and 40 minutes long, it's very concise. Need I remind you that Billy's Joel's 2-part HBO documentary ran almost FIVE HOURS? Of course, maybe it just feels like a masterpiece because I watched it the day after watching "Cracking Up"? 

Directed by Lawrence Kasdan (director of "Spielberg" and "Darling Companion")

Also starring Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Catherine O'Hara, Steven Spielberg (all last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), 

Kate Capshaw (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Lawrence Kasdan (ditto), Deborah Devine, Tom Hanks (last seen in "The Ventures: Stars on Guitars"), Ron Howard (last seen in "Roger Corman: The Pope of Pop Cinema"), Laurie MacDonald, Steve Martin (last seen in "Film Geek"), John Mulaney (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Walter F. Parkes, Paul Shaffer (last seen in "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues"), Michael Short, Oliver Short, Rita Wilson (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"),

with archive footage of Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, John Candy, Robin Duke, Joe Flaherty, David Letterman, Rick Moranis, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Dave Thomas (all last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"),

Kevin Bacon, Jack Lemmon (both last seen in "Beyond 'JFK': The Question of Conspiracy"),

Mel Brooks, Roger Ebert, Carrie Fisher, Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Bernadette Peters, Dennis Quaid, Robert Redford, Gene Siskel, Meryl Streep (all last seen in "Film Geek"), 

Carol Burnett, Lorne Michaels (both last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"),

Steve Carell, Chevy Chase, Jimmy Fallon, Larry King, Jerry Seinfeld, Ringo Starr (all last seen in "Billy Joel: And So It Goes"),

Johnny Carson, Goldie Hawn, Joan Rivers, Tina Turner (all last seen in "Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan")

Billy Crystal, Jeff Goldblum (both last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!")

Ted Danson, Jimmy Kimmel (both last seen in "Starring Dick Van Dyke")

Tina Fey, Bill Hader, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig (all last seen in "Lorne"), 

Sally Field, Sean Hayes (both last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"),

Jodie Foster, Scarlett Johansson (both last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine")

Danny Glover, Nick Nolte (both last seen in "Being Eddie"),

Selena Gomez, Christopher Lloyd, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (all last seen in "Child Star"),

Christopher Guest, Paul McCartney (both last seen in "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues"),

Melissa McCarthy, Paul Rudd (both last seen in "When We Went MAD!"),

Nancy Dolman, Tim Allen (last heard in "Claydream"), Peter Aykroyd, Glenn Close (last seen in "Back in Action"), Bob Costas (last seen in "Coach Carter"), Phil Donahue (last seen in "Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story"), Jayne Eastwood, Dick Ebersol, Paul Flaherty, Glenn Frey, Charles Grodin (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Tony Hale (last seen in "Woman of the Hour"), Ice Cube (last seen in "Playdate"), Meg Kasdan, John Leguizamo (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), James Lipton, Lucy Liu (last heard in "The Tiger's Apprentice"), Paul Newman (last seen in "Reinventing Elvis: The '68 Comeback"), Olivia Newton-John (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley"), Annette O'Toole (last seen in "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Kurt Russell (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Brian Short, Charles Short, David Short, Nora Short, Olive Short, Jimmy Smits (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Tom Snyder (last seen in "Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes"), Justin Timberlake (last seen in "Madonna: Goddess of Pop"), Kimberly Williams-Paisley (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two"), BD Wong (last heard in "The Monkey King"), 

RATING: 7 out of 10 (at least) animated features he's done voices for.

Cracking Up

Year 18, Day 238 - 8/26/26 - Movie #5,412

BEFORE: The whole linking system I use is a bit touch-and-go, I mean I have to both live by it and die by it. I noticed that a few people who were in the Billy Joel documentary were also in the original "Spinal Tap" film, like Artie Ripp and Danny Kortchmar, but knowing that gains me absolutely nothing, in the end it's just something I noticed which has no value. But since I've seen "This Is Spinal Tap" like 1,000 times at least, it's still mildly interesting, you can still learn something very minor about a film that you've seen so many times you can say every line as you view it. So instead I had to look at who was in the documentary that was also in the SECOND Spinal Tap movie, a couple of unknowns named Paul McCartney and Elton John. 

I recorded tonight's film because I put that second "Spinal Tap" film on DVD, and I wanted to put something else in the empty space to fill up the disc more, that's my excuse. It's a little-seen, little-known film from the mid 1970's featuring mostly improv comics, some of whom went on to become very famous and others, well, not so much. It honestly looks terrible and maybe like a film that nobody knows what to do with, even the IMDB has confused it with a Jerry Lewis comedy with the same title that came out six years later and on THIS film's page, it runs clips of the Jerry Lewis film, which is just a bit bizarre. 

But anyway, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer carry over from "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" and this is something of a weird relic of a film, but let's clear it off the board tonight and see what we're dealing with, then tomorrow will be the FINAL film of the Doc Block, finally.

THE PLOT: California is devastated by a big earthquake and, in a series of hilarious vignettes, a television station conducts interviews with the survivors. 

AFTER: Oh, how I wish this were a better movie - I thought maybe I'd stumbled on a little-seen comedy from the 70's with some hilarious gems on it, and that's just not the case. It turns out when you take three different improvisation troupes and put them together in the same film, the result is not greater than the sum of its parts, in fact I think it's much less than that. 

There's a loose framework about a devastating California earthquake, and well, that sounds all well and good but it's just not very FUNNY, now, is it? And this is used to allow flashbacks where each group of players can perform one of their better skits, like in flashback, but then if we keep flashing back to funny-ish scenes, then we've lost the throughline about the earthquake, haven't we? What's even worse is that the comedy is deeply rooted in the novel things about the 1970's, so there's a whole segment designed to call out Polish people or Polish-Americans as being very stupid, the fact that the person being interviewed is half-Polish and half-Irish doesn't help much, it's still from a time when you could make sweeping generalizations along ethnic or gender or sexual preference lines, and nowadays that just wouldn't fly. There's a news reporter who is clearly a man in drag, and like, that's the joke, that a man is wearing a dress and trying to look like a woman, and he's not really succeeding at it. 

In the meantime, injured people are stumbling around after emerging from the rubble of the disaster, and other people are wandering around and taking off their clothes for no reason, mostly women, duh. I mean, sure, it's set in California in the decade after free love and hippies, but people just didn't take off their clothes in the street for no reason, did they? I'm not sure, I mean there were nudist colonies, but they were separate from most people and not found in urban areas.  

There's a sketch about a job interview where the interviewer and his boss and HIS boss all have various random seizure-like tics, and sure, let's make fun of disabled people while we're at it. That might play well on stage with an improv group, but in a movie watched by modern audiences, it's a non-starter, and not funny at all. Later there's a diner sketch where a man trying to get a hamburger is unable to do so, because the waiters are over-complicating the order, the tiny ratty diner suddenly becomes the place for a casino-like floor show and a giveaway raffle and the diner manager is suddenly like an emcee talking to a non-existent audience, and I don't think the customer ever gets his burger. 

In another sketch, a mailman delivers a dead man's body to his brother, with no coffin, and that's not really a thing that could happen, the concept comes from nothing and goes nowhere. Another couple is having an intimate evening but the woman doesn't want to have sex unless the Tom Snyder show is on, I guess she just needs the sounds of an interview to either get her in the mood or distract her, I'm not sure which. The couple ends up hiding under the bed for no reason, except to explain why the woman was found emerging from a bed after the earthquake which happened before. No, wait, after?  And a woman dressed as a cowboy appears in a window in a men's room so she can compliment them on their genitals while they're using the urinal - again, it's just a weird idea that comes out of nowhere and then goes nowhere. 

There's really just one sketch I liked, but I've heard it before, it's from the group called the Credibility Gap and it has Harry Shearer playing a rock concert promoter, buying ad space in a newspaper from a salesman played by David L. Lander, and their conversation is a take on the old Abbott & Costello routine "Who's on First" about oddly-named baseball players. Here there's much confusion over the names of the three headliners in the concert, one of which is The Who, and well, you can imagine the confusion over the band's name, and it gets worse because the band Yes is also on the bill. I recommend tracking down the routine, it's really great, and I knew it as a kid but it became so much funnier when I grew up and liked more rock music. 

Speaking of rock bands, the only one in the movie is The Tubes, and lead singer Fee Waybill also plays a weird seismologist with a German accent who explains that earthquakes are caused by a sort of jam that is found within the earth, as if the planet were a giant Uncrustable or something. Like most everything else here, that conversation serves no purpose overall and is also not funny. 

I don't even understand the image on the movie's poster, it has a guy whose head seems to be in the shape of California all bandaged up, holding a crutch, and sitting on a bit of land surrounded by water while various California landmarks are drowning or in a flood, and that's about as confusing as the rest of the movie. How can the state of California be smaller than the buildings found in some of its cities? If those buildings are no longer in the state of California, then where are they? And isn't the film about an earthquake, not a flood? Did the whole state fall into the ocean?  And if it did, how is it sitting on an island afterwards, all bandaged up? That whole image needed to be rejected and the artist should have been made to start over. But you kind of get the feeling that the whole movie was made on the cheap and there were no second takes or even rewrites. 

I guess it's the kind of film that got approved two years after "Saturday Night Live" hit the scene, and suddenly comedians were in demand, and every improv theater group got the feeling they could be famous, all they needed was the right vehicle to appear in to show everyone how funny they were. Well, two of the comedians here did become mega-stars of comedy, but it took being in "Spinal Tap" and then joining the cast of "SNL" to get there. 

Directed by Rowby Goren & Chuck Staley

Also starring Michael Mislove, Fred Willard (last seen in "Devo"), Paul Zegler (last seen in "Popeye"), Steve Bluestein, David L. Lander (last seen in "Say It Isn't So"), Jim Staahl (last seen in "Spies Like Us"), Tino Insana (last heard in "Belushi"), Phil Proctor (last heard in "The Lion King" (2019)), Peter Bergman, Bob McClurg (last seen in "Cheech and Chong's Next Movie"), Leslie Ackerman, Rowby Goren, Neal Israel (last seen in "The Wedding Ringer"), Rickey Murray (last seen in "The Mating Game"), C.D. Taylor, Edie McClurg (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Mary McCusker (last seen in "The Incredible Shrinking Woman"), Christopher Pray (last seen in "The Candidate"), Ron Prince, Lynne Marie Stewart (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Stephen Stucker, Kurt Taylor (last seen in "Semi-Tough"), Fee Waybill (last seen in "Brats"), Dody Dorn, Jim Fisher (also last heard in "Belushi"), Joe Roth (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Paul Willson (last seen in "Alex & Emma") and The Tubes.

RATING: 3 out of 10 raffle tickets

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues

Year 18, Day 237 - 8/25/26 - Movie #5,411

BEFORE: I suppose this requires a bit of explanation, because obviously today's film is NOT a documentary, it's a comedy that's made in the style of one, we all know the term for that by now. I was looking for a way to work it in with fiction films, and the links just weren't there, BUT there are famous rock musicians IN this film, so the most obvious way to get HERE would be to link from a documentary, 90% of all documentaries have Paul McCartney in them, or Elton John if they somehow don't have footage of the Beatles. So it seemed ideal, after the Doc Block ended, just come here, and then this naturally leads to tomorrow's film, which is nearly impossible to link to if I don't go from HERE to THERE. But, umm, then what?  

The original plan was to end the Doc Block with Billy Joel, then come here, but then after tomorrow the chain just dies, UNLESS I withheld one documentary, move it all the way to the end, like a musical coda, and that documentary has some good linking possiblities to it, lots of actors who are in other things, and one of those stood out as a good place to go before the summer ends, you'll see when we get there. But this means dropping a couple of comedies into the Doc Block, or rather dropping the documentary format for a couple of days, and then finishing strong. Again this is NOT a true documentary, I know this so they don't get a state to profile and there's not a ton of archive footage (although, there is some...)

So the target date for finishing the Doc Block is in just two days, I may still be in recovery due to my ankle injury, so right now I don't know when I can go back to work, at either the theater or the stadium, I might have to cash in some sick hours and stay home and watch movies, oh darn. Well, I don't want to injure the ankle any worse, I need to stay put and elevate it and go from there. 

So, yeah, Paul McCartney and Elton John carry over from "Billy Joel: And So It Goes", and this is not a bad place to be, except that Rob Reiner died and therefore tonight's comedy is also a bit sad, but I can't do anything about that. Sorry. 

THE PLOT: After a 15-year break, the band reunites for one final concert. 

AFTER: It's been over 40 years since the original "This Is Spinal Tap" film came out, which introduced the concept of the mockumentary to a lot of people - wait, what do you mean, it's not REAL? It all seemed ridiculous enough to be real, and afterwards there were a lot of rock bands who swore that they were the ones who got lost backstage trying to find the stage in Cleveland. Before "This one goes to 11" became a household phrase and back when you could still make fun of really short people. I think maybe eventually we all had to determine that the people involved were clearly actors, mainly because we recognized Rob Reiner from "All in the Family", though he looked older than he did before, and wait, isn't that the guy who used to be on "Laverne & Shirley", and isn't that guy playing the more famous rock star also the guy who was Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati"?  

Yeah, we had to burst that bubble, though it might have been more fun to keep living in a world where Spinal Tap was a real band and those guys didn't all turn up in the cast of "SNL" a few years down the road, and Fran Drescher became super-famous for starring in "The Nanny" after playing press agent Bobbi Flekman. (There were many other future stars in there who made cameos, like Bruno Kirby and Dana Carvey, but I digress...). We shouldn't have had to wait so long for a sequel, I mean we had "A Mighty Wind" but that really isn't the same thing. 40 years may not be a record number of years between a film and its sequel, but it's still far too long. Maybe they were all afraid of ruining a classic comedy, but that shouldn't hold people back - perhaps everyone was just busy with other projects and it took 40 years for everyone's availability to sync up.  (The internet tells me that three Disney films took even longer to produce a sequel, "Bambi" (64 years), "Fantasia" (59 years) and "Mary Poppins" (54 years))

Anyway, 40 years down the road, in the fictional Spinal Tap-verse, filmmaker Marty DeBergi has checked in with the members of "Tap" and the other people he interviewed back then. Only David St. Hubbins is still working in the music industry, however he's crafting background tunes for crime podcasts and customer service systems that play music when callers are on hold. Nigel Tufnel has been running a cheese shop in the UK with his new life and/or business partner, and Harry Shearer runs a Museum of Glue (it should be a Glue-seum, but what do I know?) after losing his fortune and money from his bandmates in an ill-fated cryptocurrency scheme. That tracks. Meanwhile David's ex-wife (the source of friction in the previous film) is now a nun, promoter Artie Fufkin sells those inflatable car-dealer waving men and Bobbi Flekman is still a press agent, however she's too busy and not interested enough to work with Spinal Tap ever again. 

The band's old manager, Ian Faith, passed away (which means the actor, Tony Hendra, did) but his daughter, Hope, has somehow inherited the band's contract and she has the right to have them perform one more show, which seems kind of illegal as well as ill-advised. But they'll need to find a new drummer and also work around a concert promoter who has no idea what he's doing, also the band members are older, out of shape, and prone to fighting over past events that went bad, much like Cheech and Chong IRL. Yeah, there's a lot here that kind of holds up a mirror to not only the nostalgia rock tour thing but also the social media trends and also the ridiculousness of making documentaries and having Artist Brain in general, like the band is certainly old enough to retire, two-thirds of them are semi-retired or on their third ridiculous career, kind of like Billy Joel, right? But still they can't imagine a world where there isn't an upcoming concert to look forward to and rehearse for. 

Supposedly Garth Brooks has gone viral after singing a cover of "Big Bottom" with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, and that creates a trend and a motivation to get the band back together. Nigel is still mad at David for sleeping with his wife and causing their break-up, and David swears that never happened, but they're the heart of the band, they're Tap's Lennon & McCartney or Billy Joel and Jon Small, without them working together, there's no band. Anyway that was 15 or 25 years ago when that thing happened or didn't happen, so who cares? If Fleetwood Mac can still play together after all of their affairs and band-cestual encounters, why can't Spinal Tap work together for one more show? 

So they gather together in New Orleans and start rehearsals, plus they call a bunch of famous rock drummers, none of which want to take their lives into their hands by risking a gig with a band that's had so many drummers die over the years. The last auditioner is the best, and she's a woman, maybe that can break the curse, besides it's the 2020's now, women have been in various bands for a long time now, it's only the aging Tap core members who have a little bit of trouble with a female drummer, at first, anyway. Paul McCartney drops by to play "Cups & Cakes" with the band and then Elton John pops by to sing "Listen to the Flower People", funny how Elton's been on the road for decades and never met Spinal Tap in person before. But they invite him to play "Stonehenge" at the big concert with them, what could possibly go wrong?

Ah, it turns out in real life that one reason no sequel was made was that the stars and creators of the first film were involved in a long legal battle over not being properly compensated for the film's success, thanks to "Hollywood accounting" they had not received proper royalties from music sales, royalties and the case took four years to settle, after which the trademarks and licensing would be owned by the four creators of the film going forward, meaning the film and the band were now their intellectual property again and they could profit from making a sequel, so sure, let's do that now. 

The sequel film doesn't repeat the same jokes, not exactly, but it does have new versions of the same jokes. Like in the first film the joke was that the "Stonehenge" prop was made too small, here they've gone in the opposite direction and accidentally made the prop much too big. instead of giving the doc film director a tour of his guitars, Nigel here shows him an overly complicated set of foot pedals, most of which he doesn't even use on stage. The concert promoter thinks it would be great publicity if one or more members of the band were to die on stage, which is a terrible thing to suggest, and also be careful what you wish for.  The drummer manages to survive and breaks the curse - or does she? 

A few months ago I would have said this was exactly the sequel we needed right now, something light to entertain us that we wouldn't have to think too hard about and we could forget about the constant floodings and the still-rising gas prices and the war in Iran, but then Rob Reiner had to go and get himself murdered by his own son, so now it's hardly the laugh-fest that it could have been. Maybe it was if you went to the movie theater to see this last year, but I waited until it was on HBO, who knew that would turn out to be a mistake? 

Directed by Rob Reiner

Also starring Christopher Guest (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Michael McKean (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Harry Shearer (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Rob Reiner (last seen in "Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan"), Valerie Franco, CJ Vanston (last seen in "Danny Collins"), Jean Cromie, Kerry Godliman (last seen in "Mascots"), June Chadwick, Griffin Matthews (last seen in "Your Place or Mine"), David Furnish (last seen in "Elton John: Never Too Late"), Chris Addison, Kathreen Khavari (also last seen in "Mascots"), Brad Williams (ditto), Nina Conti (last seen in "For Your Consideration"), Robert Walker Branchaud (last seen in "Queen & Slim"), Annie Gordenier, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, Josh Ford, Don Lake (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Derrick Rossi, Justin Miles (last seen in "Old Dads"), Rajeev Jacob (last seen in "The Big Short"), Dorothea Taylor, Matthew Ramsey, Andrew McLean, Steve Hickman, Quintron, Scott Allen Perry (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Thom Lowry, Soroush Rajabnik, Greta Pasqua, Bart St. Germain and the voices of Ryan Farris, Judith Owen.

with cameos from Garth Brooks (also carrying over from "Billy Joel: And So It Goes"), Fran Drescher (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), John Michael Higgins (also last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Questlove (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Paul Shaffer (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Chad Smith (last seen in "Count Me In"), Lars Ulrich (last seen in "Sound City"), Trisha Yearwood (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Henry Diltz (last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation"), Lucy Faust (last seen in "Renfield"), 

and archive footage of Ed Begley Jr. (last seen in "Strange Darling"), Tony Hendra (last heard in "Belushi"), Russ Kunkel (Last seen in "Funny People")

RATING: 6 out of 10 tourists on the New Orleans "ghost house" tour (Hey, I've been on that tour!)

Billy Joel: And So It Goes

Year 18, Day 236 - 8/24/26 - Movie #5,410 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #49

BEFORE: I'm probably very late in posting this one, I had to take another skip day, however I have three very good excuses for doing so. First, we had another downpour thunderstorm on Sunday morning, thankfully I was awake at 6 am, having not gone to sleep yet, and I was able to start bailing out the backyard basement steps, where the drain backs up, before my wife woke up. We have sandbags and a trashbag covering the door, however if the water gets high enough, it will start to come into the basement. A tiny bit of water did come in, but barely enough to even mop. Second excuse, I somehow sprained my ankle, not sure if it was from working Saturday night or bailing water Sunday morning, or if I just slept on it wrong, but it prevented me from getting back upstairs to my computer until very late on Monday. 

But the main reason to take another skip day is the fact that this documentary on Billy Joel, the next-to-last one in my chain (of course) is in two parts, and each is almost 2 and a half hours long, meaning that if I count this as ONE two-part film, instead of a two-part doc series like HBO does, the total running time is almost FIVE HOURS. I've had to split that into two viewing days for my own sanity, however with all the skip days the Doc Block has gone on longer than I planned, math tells me that it's been 55 days since the start of the Block and I've watched 49 films in that time-frame, so yeah, somehow I almost took a week off from movies during an 8-week span. Well, it's almost over and then I won't have to watch docs for a long while. 

Now for the 49th installment of my "Get to Know a State (or District)" featurette, there are just three states left to choose from, so even though Billy Joel is a Long Islander and therefore a New Yorker, that was the first state to go, so he's going to have to cover RHODE ISLAND. No worries, I found out that when he kicked off his "An Innocent Man" tour in 1984, Providence RI was the first stop, despite a major snowstorm. He came back there in June of 1990 on the "Storm Front" tour, playing there in summer was much smarter. Anyway, RHODE ISLAND!

Date admitted to the U.S.: May 29, 1790 (lucky 13th state)

Claim to fame: Smallest state in area, though not the least populated

Nickname: The Ocean State or "Little Rhody" (nobody calls it that...)

State Motto: Hope

State Flower: Violet   

State Bird: Rhode Island Red (chicken)

State Insect: American Burying Beetle

State Tree: Red maple

State Fish: Striped bass

State Mineral: Bowenite (OK, now you're just making stuff up)

State Fruit: Rhode Island Greening Apple

State Drink: Coffee milkl

Notable Sports Teams: Providence Bruins, a minor-league affiliate of the Boston NHL teams, and they used to have the Pawtucket Red Sox, I wonder what happened to them. Ah, they moved to Worcester, MA. 

Fun Facts: Rhode Island borders only two states, Massachusetts and Connecticut - or does it? There's apparently a small maritime border with New York, like the easternmost part of Long Island. The state was founded by Roger Williams who fled religious persecution in Massachusetts, which is ironic because that's the same principle the Pilgrims founded Mass. on, what a bunch of hypocritical Massholes. Little Rhode Island was actually the first colony to renounce the British crown, but since the state contested the Articles of Confederation and then boycotted the Constitution convention, it did not become the first state of the U.S., it took so long to ratify the Constitution that it became the LAST of the 13 colonies to be declared a state. Well, they're stubborn up there I guess. I know they also have some unique cuisine items up there, like their own kind of hot dogs and that weird coffee milk drink and unique calamari, also clam cakes, stuffies and a drink called the Awful Awful. 

And I have been to Rhode Island, many times. I think I saw my first concert in Warwick, RI but it wasn't Billy Joel, it was Weird Al Yankovic. And I've been to the Chowderfest in Newport, RI many times over the years. Mostly I just visit the rest stops now, because once we hit Rhode Island I'm so close to my hometown that we might as well wait to eat, and Rhode Island food is so weird anyhow. So that makes 29 states visited by me, out of 49. That's probably where I'll land, 29. Jimmy Page carries over from "The Ventures: Stars on Guitars" - unexpectedly, somehow so does Billy Joel. 

THE PLOT: Showcases an extensive look at Billy Joel's life and music career, featuring exclusive interviews, performances, home movies and personal photographs. 

AFTER: Like I said above, this documentary is almost FIVE HOURS long if you manage to watch both parts. Now I have, so I can attest that they were very very thorough in making it, I now know a lot about Billy Joel - SO MUCH! I probably know more about Billy Joel than Billy Joel does, well, I mean he's 77 years old now so he's probably getting quite forgetful. I wonder if he agreed to make the documentary so he could always just watch it again if he forgets to remember any aspects of his life.  

They cover the early years of course, taking piano lessons and being smacked around by his father if he should try to play something like "The Moonlight Sonata" with a boogie-woogie beat. It turns out some adults back then did NOT foster creativity in children, and his father Howard (formerly Helmut) Joel took music very seriously and he met Billy's mother, Rosalind Nyman, while they were both in a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" at the City College of New York. Well, he was an accomplished classical pianist, born in Germany, but he was also the son of a textile manufacturer there, who was Jewish and forced by the Nazis to sell his company to a Gentile for almost nothing. Billy's grandfather and father left for Switzerland, and Howard came to the U.S. via Cuba and became an engineer, but still remained a musician. Billy's parents split up in 1957 when he was 15 or so, and he did not see his father again for maybe 30 years, when he tracked him down in Vienna, Austria. (When he did, Billy learned his father had re-married and had another son, his half-brother, Alexander, who became a classical music conductor.)

Billy Joel, of course, grew up on Long Island (we go to this rest stop that has a "Long Island Walk of Fame" so I'm pretty familiar now with all the famous people born out there) and his family called Hicksville home during his youth, Billy didn't graduate with his class because he went off to make music, but later in 1992 he wrote some essays and his old high school gave him his degree, just 25 years late. He played in local bands like the Echoes, which became the Emeralds, which became the Lost Souls. But he left the Lost Souls to join the Hassles when they offered him a Hammond organ to switch over - that's where he met Jon Small, the drummer and the only other serious musician in the Hassles. Jon Small and Billy tried to start a heavy metal ground named Attila because they wanted to be the next Led Zeppelin, but that didn't work out. 

Billy moved in with Jon Small and his wife, Elizabeth Weber, however he and Elizabeth spent a lot of time together and were attracted to each other, and well, we all know what happens when there's a love triangle, somebody gets shut out because nobody back then had invented thrupples yet, so Elizabeth and Jon broke up and Elizabeth and Billy got together, and were married for quite a time, 1973 to 1982. Billy became very famous during that time, and at some point Elizabeth also became his manager, since she knew more about what his career could be or needed to be than some random person with more experience, but less know-how. And she also served as his creative muse, too, being his wife and inspiration for songs like "Just the Way You Are" and "She's Always a Woman" and for a while they lived in Los Angeles and he worked in a piano bar, where she was a waitress, and all that played out in "Piano Man". 

It's amazing how much of Billy's personal life turned up in his songs, I mean it probably shouldn't be that surprising but not every songwriter ends up putting so much of themselves out there, I guess they're all trying to write songs for everybody which means a lot of generic situations or random veiled thoughts about love and relationships, but no, everything that happened to Billy Joel seemed to end up in a song, and they play all the song cues here to drive that point home. When he and Elizabeth were having relationship issues, that played out in "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" and "Stiletto" and ultimately "You May Be Right", which detailed a wild motorcycle ride home that Billy took with no headlights, in the rain, and possibly drunk, leading his wife to say, "You must be crazy..." and then that inspired the song. 

However, just when the career was really going well, with the success of the "Turnstiles" album and the commercial breakthrough of "The Stranger", Billy had an accident on his motorcycle, and was in the hospital for a while, and Elizabeth, who had warned him repeatedly about the dangers of motorcycles and the possibilities of having an accident, had realized she'd had enough. By then she already had an apartment in Manhattan, so I guess it was a good time to split. Billy took it hard, of course, and started drinking again and nobody saw him for a while, but he came back with new music, as he always did, and that was "Glass Houses", really the kind of album you make when you're divorced and angry and ready to show the world you have a new bad attitude. 

(THIS is about where Part One ends, after the motorcycle accident and the divorce from Elizabeth - meaning we're only about halfway through the story, so sure, cue up Part Two)

"Songs in the Attic" was next, but of course those were mainly the correct versions of older songs, ones that were improperly sped up on his first album, "Cold Spring Harbor". Then came the "Nylon Curtain" album, with songs like "Allentown" and "Pressure" and "Goodnight Saigon", so he was still going through his angry stage, I think...or the point was being made that the American Dream was dying because of Reaganomics or something. 

But then of course he met Christie Brinkley, on the island of St. Bart's, where she was doing a modeling shoot, and life was good again, meaning American music fans got more uplifting songs like "Tell Her About It" and "Uptown Girl" and "The Longest Time". Well, inspiration is where you find it, I guess. For a while they were the hottest celebrity mismatched couple on the planet, he's a rocker and she's a model and this was never going to work out, except that it did for a time, and then of course it didn't. What happened was they went on long road trips together, and everywhere they went, like all over Maine, they met people who claimed that Billy had bought property in town, or they'd bought their cousin's horse or car or something. This meant that Billy's manager, his ex-brother-in-law, had been traveling around and spending Billy's money buying a bunch of properties and things, meaning that Billy was nearly broke as a result. 

Well, actions have consequences, and not keeping an eye on what your business manager is doing has very bad consequences, but rather than keep a $90 million lawsuit going forever, Billy decided to get back out on the road and tour, more often and harder than ever before, to try and make that money back, build up his fortune again. But then he was spending so much time away from Christie, again, actions have consequences, that he was touring and she was home and they weren't spending any time together, and you know how that story ends. 

Part Two also covers the big concert Joel did in the Soviet Union, after his album "The Bridge", which had the songs "A Matter of Trust" and "This Is the Time" on it. I remember the concert album from the U.S.S.R., that was a big deal to me because he covered the Beatles song "Back in the U.S.S.R., and also Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'". Back in the U.S. to release "Storm Front" in 1988 and do a few other things, like getting divorced from Christie Brinkley in 1994 but also starting to tour with Elton John around the same time. Those joint concerts took place, off and on for 16 years, despite the fact that Billy tried to retire in 1999, after the New Year's Eve pre-millennial concert at Madison Square Garden, except, you know, he was really bad at retiring, I think. 

He also tried to just focus on writing classical music for a while, and somehow had the number one Classical album, but then it was Superstorm Sandy that got him back into touring again, he did a benefit concert in 2012 for people on Long Island affected by the hurricane and that led to going back to MSG, and that led to a long residency there that went to 100 nights between 2014 and 2025.  Well, they had to end this documentary somehow, somewhere, so finally after five hours they managed to stop telling me about stuff Billy Joel has done. But he defiantly claims that he's "not finished", so in the end, there's a diagnosis of "artist brain" to be made. Dude, you're 77, if you want to retire, YOU CAN. You worked very hard for a long time, you tried to retire before, you were just too early - maybe now is a better time? Just take a break, stay at home with your fourth wife and your new toddler children and take it easy before you break a hip or something. You've got the memoir, you've got the five-hour documentary about all of your accomplishments, now maybe let some younger people have arena concerts, whaddaya say? People will still listen to your music, that's never going to change, so why isn't that enough? Oh, right, your toddlers will still need to go to college someday - but don't you think you can leave them money in your will? Just saying. 

Directed by Susan Lacy (director of "Spielberg" and "Jane Fonda in Five Acts") & Jessica Levin (producer of "LennoNYC" and "Spielberg")

Also starring Billy Joel (also carrying over from "The Ventures: Stars on Guitars"), Dennis Arfa, Christie Brinkley (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Garth Brooks, Jackson Browne (last seen in "Roy Orbison Forever"), Tommy Byrnes, Richie Cannata, Rhys Clark, Steve Cohen, Clive Davis (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Anthony DeCurtis, Liberty DeVitto, Larry Franke, Bunny Freidus, Sandy Gibson, Wendy Greguski, Edna Gundersen, Don Henley (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Steven Hyden, Russell Javors, Alexa Ray Joel (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Alexander Joel, Hyung-Ki Joo, Danny Kortchmar, Katie Lee, Bradshaw Leigh, Paul McCartney (last seen in "Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley"), John Mellencamp (last seen in "Devo"), Bertha Miller, Judy Molinari, Nas (last seen in "De Palma"), Nick Paumgarten, Pink (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Mark Rivera (last seen in "Billy Joel: The 100th Live at Madison Square Garden"), Crystal Taliefero (ditto), John Rockwell, Alexis Roderick, David Rosenthal, Brian Ruggles, Denny Seiwell, Jon Small, Bruce Springsteen (last seen in "Bruce Springsteen: Born to Rock"), Sting (ditto), Elizabeth Weber, Sean Weber-Small, Arlyne Wilcox, 

with archive footage of Tony Bennett (last seen in "Reinventing Elvis: The '68 Comeback"), John Bonham (last seen in "Becoming Led Zeppelin"), John Paul Jones (ditto), John Lennon (ditto), Marilyn Monroe (ditto), Robert Plant (ditto), Luke Bryan, Steve Carell (last seen in "John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls"), Ray Charles (last seen in "Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan"), Stephen Colbert (ditto), Jimmy Fallon (ditto), Janis Joplin (ditto), Barbra Streisand (ditto), Chevy Chase (last seen in "The Ventures: Stars on Guitars"), Jimi Hendrix (ditto), Elton John (ditto), Miley Cyrus (also last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Whitney Houston (ditto), Roger Daltrey (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Aretha Franklin (ditto), Pete Townshend (ditto), Rodney Dangerfield (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Paul Simon (ditto), Bob Dylan (also last seen in "Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley"), Frank Sinatra (ditto), Ringo Starr (ditto), Tom Ewell (last seen in "The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes"), Andy Gibb, Barry Gibb (also last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), George Martin (ditto), Joni Mitchell (ditto), Lionel Richie (ditto), Mark Goodman (also last seen in "Devo"), Jimmy Guercio, Bryant Gumbel (last seen in "Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins"), Daryl Hall (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Larry King (ditto), Shirley MacLaine (ditto), Adolf Hitler (last seen in "Audrey"), Thomas Hoving, Howard Joel, Mick Jones, Michael Lang (last seen in "What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?"), Jay Leno (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), Elle Macpherson, Barry Manilow (last seen in "Bang My Box; The Robin Byrd Story"), John Malkovich (last seen in "Mile 22"), Linda McCartney (last seen in "The Beatles: In the Life"), Philip Nyman, Rosalind Nyman, Rosie O'Donnell (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Diane Sawyer (ditto), Scott Pelley, Itzhak Perlman (last seen in "Mister Rogers: It's You I Like"), Katy Perry, Phil Ramone, Lou Reed (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Keith Richards (last seen in "Cheech & Chong's Last Movie"), Artie Ripp, Linda Ronstadt (last seen in "Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon"), James Taylor (ditto), Ed Sciaky, Jerry Seinfeld (last seen in "Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!"), Joel Siegel, Phoebe Snow, Doug Stegmeyer, Howard Stern (last seen in "When We Went MAD!"), Donald Trump (ditto), Cat Stevens, Julius Streicher, Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "Lorne"), John Tesh (ditto), Lily Tomlin (ditto), Frank Weber, Terry Wogan, Walter Yetnikoff

The Beach Boys (also last seen in "Reinventing Elvis: The '68 Comeback"), Talking Heads

RATING: 7 out of 10 music videos played on MTV (some directed by Jon Small)