BEFORE: I've reached the first half-century mark for the year, and really it feels like 2026 JUST started. My work on arranging this year's Doc Block is coming together, at least in some places. David Lynch appeared in a couple of the cast lists for the docs I'm adding, so I MIGHT be able to include "David Lynch: The Art Life", which is very tough to link to because he's really the only person in it. There are some other films I may NOT be able to include - even though I really want to watch "Secret Mall Apartment", it has zero famous people in it, so there's just no way. Maybe I can review it as an extra film, outside of the regular count, if it fits thematically. If not, it's just going to take up space on my watchlists beside a few other docs that can't be linked to, like "Made You Look" and "Jedi Junior High". At some point I may need to just delete the ones that don't fit, but that's a very difficult thing for me to do. Hey, I linked to "A Disturbance in the Force" last year, I didn't think I'd ever get THERE, and same goes for "Casa Bonita Mi Amor". Often the solution is just to add more films to the list and hope some connection will present itself. This also worked for "Claydream", "Animation Outlaws" and "Trainwreck: Poop Cruise" last year...
Zac Efron carries over from "We Are Your Friends".
Here's the line-up for Friday, 2/20 - Day 8 of TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming. Tomorrow's themes are "Oscar Goes to the Laboratory" and "Oscar Goes for a Drive":
6:45 am "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1931)
8:30 am "Dr. Cyclops" (1940)
10:00 am "The Time Machine" (1960)
12:00 pm "Dr. Erlich's Magic Bullet" (1940)
2:00 pm "The Story of Louis Pasteur" (1936)
3:45 pm "Madame Curie" (1943)
6:00 pm "Edison, the Man" (1940)
8:00 pm "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989)
10:00 pm "Rain Man" (1988)
12:30 am "Bullitt" (1968)
2:30 am "Grand Prix" (1966)
5:30 am "Wild Strawberries" (1957)
Of course I've seen "The Time Machine", plus "Driving Miss Daisy", "Rain Man", "Bullitt" and "Wild Strawberries", I kind of lucked out today with 5 seen out of 12, but I could be doing better. Now I'm up to. 39 seen out of 94, which is still only 41%. I'm in a holding pattern but I should kill on Saturday's movies.
THE PLOT: A surprising romance kicks off comic consequences for a young woman, her mother and her movie-star boss as they face the complications of love, sex and identity.
AFTER: I had to start a new year-end category because of some of the films that made this year's romance chain, it's called "Best #MeToo or H.R. Violation Film. This covers films like "The Tale" and also the THREE films so far this year in which people have dated or slept with their bosses. Look, they KNEW it wasn't right, but they did it anyway - we should all know this is a terrible idea, whether you're the boss or the employee, it is just NOT going to end well. Even the big CEO's like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk know this is not the way we do things any more, not if you want to keep control of your companies. The power dynamic is just ALWAYS going to come into play, but this month I saw it happening in "Roger Dodger", "Babygirl" and "Spin Me Round".
But in tonight's film, a personal assistant's mother dates her boss, and that's, well, legal I suppose. There's an age difference between them, sure, but that can be overcome if two people really care about each other. Still, the film is all about the impact on Zara when her famous actor boss starts dating her semi-famous writer mother. Why, it's almost like the two of them didn't take her feelings into consideration when they decided to act on their mutual attraction - but really that's only because they didn't. Zara spends the whole movie complaining about how selfish and self-indulgent Chris Cole is (weird, Zac Efron also played "Cole" in yesterday's film...) and how he doesn't think or care about anyone else. To be fair, he does date a lot of women and break up with a lot of women, and he makes Zara buy the same break-up gift for all of those women, which calls to mind the "gift baskets" that Derek Jeter used to send to women after they spent the night together. Well, love 'em and leave 'em, it's kind of nice that they get a parting gift when he's tired of them, right?
But then, ironically, Zara realizes near the end of the film that she is guilty of the same crime, she's only complained for every single minute since her mother started dating her boss, and always it's been about the effect on HER, and how this makes HER feel, and that it's not fair to HER. She was so focused on herself that she didn't even notice when her best friend, Eugenie, broke up with Malcolm and she was RIGHT THERE in their house while they were being all awkward and stuff. Look, if two seemingly mismatched people manage to come together in this crazy world, we should always encourage that and not be haters, right? Zara's really upset because she's not the focus of her mother's attention any more, now that she's an adult she has to take care of herself, and her mother can do whatever she wants, she always could, except that she put parts of her life on hold to raise her daughter. Jeez, let her date a younger man, who cares, and also, don't just settle for that Associate Producer credit, get whatever else you can out of this situation!
I say this as someone with several A.P. credits to his name - now, a producer credit can mean a lot of different things, it could mean you helped raise money, it could mean you donated money, it could mean you weighed in on some trivial matter you happen to be an expert on, like what computer a writer would use or how much a barista might earn. Or in my case, it means you did just about every little thing in the production of an animated film from typing up the script to booking the sound studio to hours and hours of promotion and entering festivals to then making sure the release of the film followed the Academy rules so it would be eligible for Oscar consideration. But you know, it's just an honorary title as a sort of catch-all, no big deal really.
For Zara it also means buying Cole's dogs special food for their birthdays, picking up whatever clothes or random items he might have left at a girlfriend's house, and of course doing his grocery shopping and tracking down the exact whey protein he thinks he needs to make smoothies with. But no, she's the entitled one, it turns out - after all he PAYS her to do all these things, by accepting the job and the money you would think she'd be giving up her rights to complain about it. But come on, that's not where we find ourselves. I have to believe that people like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and Chris Hemsworth all have teams of personal assistants, and then support staff for those assistants, in addition to trainers and meal planners and drivers and probably personal shoppers as well. And if those people don't feel properly compensated, well, they're free to quit and move on and take better gigs if they can find them, it's called the free market system.
At one point Zara quits, which she has every right to do, and before long Chris shows up at her house to try and get her to come back, with the promise of that A.P. title, and that's when he meets her mother. AHA, it's all her fault, because if she hadn't quit, then they might never have met and begun their little romance. Zara can't even own up to that. It comes as no surprise to the audience, then, when Chris refuses to hire Zara's friend to do the rewrites on his next film, and he wants to hire Zara's mother, Brooke instead. Well, probably the codicil to not dating your employee should extend to not dating the writer you just hired, or rather not hiring the woman you just started dating, but I guess we're just going to have to let that one slide.
Why? Because it's Christmas, and Zara goes over to complain to her grandmother (her dead father's mother) about her mother STILL dating Chris, even though she asked her not to. Grandma urges forgiveness at this special time of year, and reminds Zara that her mother is also a woman, and her dating again after so many years is a positive thing, and also that IT'S NOT ABOUT HER. Jeezus, the whole damn generation is so entitled, they all want to be stars on social media and tell everybody what they ate for lunch and where the best place to get a taco is and how they apply their make-up. We've not just created a monster, we've created a whole generation of them that thing the world revolves around them. Did you know there are like six billion people in the world and there's only ONE of you? The world is big and you are really just very small and I'll pay you $5 if you would just SHUT UP for five minutes, and I make this offer because I know deep down in my heart that you just can't.
Yes, I realize I'm part of the problem now, I want to post on Instagram about what movie I watched yesterday and what beer I drank on Friday and a really nice meal I had 15 years ago in Williamburg. But unlike those Gen Z'ers, I KNOW that I'm part of the problem, and I take responsibility for it. If you don't like what I'm putting out, then don't follow and don't like, I don't care. There should really be a "don't care" button on most social media apps, like not a thumbs up or a thumbs down, just something that says this is not relevant to me, and I don't want to see any more posts like this one, can we arrange that?
Anyway, Zara eventually realizes how self-centered she is, and she manages to get Chris and her mother back together again. Sure, things might continue to be awkward, but at least her mother didn't move to the East Coast to teach and she still has her producing job. Now that she realizes other people have needs and feelings, maybe she can work on getting into a relationship herself. Or are we saving that for the sequel? Well, I can honestly say I've seen plenty of films worse than this one, including a few this month. I can afford to go a little easy on scoring this one.
Directed by Richard LaGravenese (director of "The Last Five Years")
Also starring Nicole Kidman (last seen in "Babygirl"), Joey King (last seen in "The Kissing Booth 3"), Kathy Bates (last seen in "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret."), Liza Koshy (last seen in "The Naked Gun"), Wes Jetton (last seen in "The Eyes of Tammy Faye"), Ian Gregg (last seen in "Term Life"), Sarah Baskin (last seen in "The Friend"), Zele Avradopoulos (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Vince Pisani (last seen in "The Electric State"), Sherry Cola (last seen in "Freakier Friday"), Olivia Macklin, Vee Bhakta (last seen in "Senior Year"), Maxel Amador, Seoum Tylor Aun (last seen in "We Have a Ghost"), Gissette Valentin (last seen in "The Tomorrow War"), Brooks Ashmanskas (last seen in "Julie & Julia"), Lily LaGravenese (last seen in "The Last Five Years"), Robin Skye (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures"), Irene Kim, J. Boone Smith Jr., Sean Evans (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Kannon Omachi, Hannah Hleap, Carrie Solomon, Reno Reyes
RATING: 6 out of 10 bottles of hot sauce sampled on "Hot Ones" (it's a quick, easy way for a film to show how famous somebody is...)
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