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
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