Small Town Saturday Night

Year 18, Day 73 - 3/14/26 - Movie #5,272

BEFORE: Hayley Seat carries over from "Wildflower", and Chris Pine's going to get me very close to the end of this year's romance chain. I don't specifically remember doing so, but I just must have planned this, to put this film with "Saturday" in the title here on a Saturday - I put the "Freaky Friday" films on a Friday, after all. If this wasn't planned (and come on, who remembers?) then it's another sign that I'm on the right track, maybe. 

And we're just one day away from the Oscar ceremony, so here's the line-up for Sunday, March 15, Day 31 of the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" programming, and the theme, of course, is "Oscar Goes Hollywood":

6:00 am "It's a Great Feeling" (1949)

7:45 am "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" (1962)

10:15 am "Singin' in the Rain" (1952)

12:15 pm "A Star Is Born" (1954)

3:30 pm "Sunset Boulevard" (1950)

5:30 pm "The Barefoot Contessa" (1954)

8:00 pm "The Oscar" (1966)

10:15 pm "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952)

12:30 am "Inside Daisy Clover" (1965)

2:45 am "The Player" (1992)

5:00 am "Susan Slept Here" (1954)

OK, last chance to score, I've definitely seen "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", plus "Singin' in the Rain" and "Sunset Boulevard". Pretty sure I saw THIS version of "A Star Is Born", just not the first one. And I know I watched "Inside Daily Clover" and "The Player" for sure. That's another 6 seen of the final 11, bringing me to an even 150 seen out of 352. I'll end with 42.6%, which is slightly better than last year's final tally of 42.4%.

THE PLOT: One day in the life of a small U.S. town: Donnie, newly released from jail; Tommy, the local cop separated from his wife; Rhett, preparing to leave to try his luck in Nashville. The story weaves these characters' stories. 

AFTER: What I find impossible to believe is how little happens during this film, which means that Saturday night in this town of Prospect is very boring indeed. I guess that says something about small-town America (in, umm, which state, exactly?) but then that hardly makes for a very exciting or interesting movie. I mean, stuff happens but it doesn't exactly all come together and add up to something. 

Donnie gets out of jail and goes looking for trouble - he gets in a couple of fights, he doesn't like the fact that his woman is seeing another man, and he kind of kidnaps his son just to go fishing with him. The sheriff, Tommy Carson, has the same last name, so maybe they're brothers, or cousins? Not sure - but their meeting never turns into a fight or a reconciliation, it's more like a standoff and then they go their separate ways. Tommy is separated from his wife, and they have a daughter that they're co-parenting, but his wife is sleeping with wanna-be singer Rhett Ryan, and they're planning on leaving for Nashville together. 

Rhett works as a mechanic at the gas station/garage with his brother, Les, and a couple other guys, but they take off to go swimming with some hot girls about halfway through, and the story doesn't seem fit to circle back to them, but it hardly matters. We've got the makings of a simple love triangle between Rhett, Samantha and Tommy Carson, however Samantha decides it would be better for her daughter if she didn't leave town and stayed behind, to try and make things work with her husband, so Rhett leaves town by himself. That's it, that's the story. There's like five minutes of narrative but the film is 94 minutes long, what a waste of everybody's time. I mean, you really should have enough story to fill up the movie, and this one just doesn't have it. 

I'm just going to take a mulligan on this one, I can't really trash it because there's nothing THERE to trash. I have to drive out to Long Island today, my wife has an appointment to get the car fixed, then we may go out to lunch, do some shopping, then I really have to clear some TV shows from my DVR and I have to get up super early tomorrow. So I can't even. I'll take one last look at the trivia and goofs section on IMDB, but I doubt that there's anything there worth talking about, then I'm closing up shop for the night. The Oscars are tomorrow, but with my work schedule I may not get a chance to watch them until Monday or maybe even Tuesday. If I don't post again before then, I'm rooting for "Sinners", which is I think the only nominee I've seen. 

Directed by Ryan Craig

Also starring Chris Pine (last heard in "Wish"), Shawn Christian (last seen in "Beautiful"), Bre Blair (last seen in "Last Vegas"), Kali Majors, John Hawkes (last seen in "Identity"), Lin Shaye (last seen in "Say It Isn't So"), Brent Briscoe (ditto), Adam Hendershott, Octavia Spencer (last seen in "Encounter"), Muse Watson (last seen in "The Handmaid's Tale"), Bill McKenzie, Damara Reilly (last heard in "Steve Jobs"), Mike Lutgen, Scott Michael Campbell (last seen in "Riff Raff"), Ryan Craig, Elina Madison, Martin Corcoran, Robert Pine (last seen in "Lakeview Terrace"), Joanne McGee (last seen in "Cedar Rapids"), David Kronenberg, Gigi Bannister, Perry Anzilotti, R.A. Mihailoff, Rachel Winfree (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), Robert Catrini (last seen in "Birds of Prey"), Sophia Marzocchi, Jessica Lieberman, Allayna Pantzazin, Reggie Bannister, Susan Chalfant, Winnie Schilling, Annemarie Pazmino, Phil Vassar, Seth Ayott (last seen in "Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit")

RATING: 4 out of 10 trailer homes