Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Year 8, Day 54 - 2/23/16 - Movie #2,255

BEFORE: Rosamund Pike carries over from "Gone Girl", and, see, I told you I'd circle back to Jane Austen.  But I'm really ashamed it took me so long to get to "Pride & Prejudice", and not just because I managed to watch "Bridget Jones's Diary" first - but because I waited so long that the sequel film is now in theaters, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies", though I don't know why Jane Austen waited so long to write that one.

I'm kidding, I know Jane Austen didn't write that film - but maybe zombie Jane Austen did...  Anyway, I'm done with Austen after tonight.

Here's the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" line-up for tomorrow, February 24:

Peter Whitney carries over from "Mr. Skeffington" to:
"Blues in the Night" with Priscilla Lane carrying over to:
"Four Daughters" with Dick Foran carrying over to:
"Dangerous" with Margaret Lindsay carrying over to:
"G-Men" with Robert Armstrong carrying over to:
"Mighty Joe Young" with Ben Johnson carrying over to:
"She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" with Joanne Dru carrying over to:
"All the King's Men" with Broderick Crawford carrying over to:
"A Little Romance" with Sally Kellerman carrying over to"
"M*A*S*H" with Robert Duvall carrying over to:
"Network" with Faye Dunaway carrying over to:
"Bonnie and Clyde" with Warren Beatty carrying over to:
"McCabe and Mrs. Miller"

Another day, another 4 films I've seen already - "All the King's Men", "M*A*S*H", "Network" and "Bonnie and Clyde".  Totals rise to 86 films seen, 190 unseen, with 6 on the list.  One more week to go.

THE PLOT:  Sparks fly when spirited Elizabeth Bennet meets single, rich, and proud Mr. Darcy and he reluctantly finds himself falling in love with a woman beneath his class.

AFTER:  I think I've figured out why I don't like Jane Austen - and I think it's got everything to do with the women.  They're just shy of useless, I mean I realize it was a different time and all that, and nobody expected women to be barristers or blacksmiths, but they just didn't seem to DO anything, not anything useful.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there were women who ran farms and raised children and did important work, but we never see those women in the Jane Austen stories.  These novels focus on the idle rich, so they don't do much but sit around looking pretty, waiting for gentlemen to call, and maybe propose.  OK, so maybe they gossip and titter and look forward to the next dance, but that's hardly a job.  

That's why someone took the opportunity to write a mash-up novel and turn the Bennet sisters into zombie hunters, that just shows what a giant gap there was in the book to insert an occupation - or does zombie killing count as more of a hobby?  By the time that Austen got to "Emma", she realized she had to make something out of the character, so she gave her the matchmaking job - not to say she was any good at it, but at least it got her out of the house.  

Why should I care whether this Bennet sister or that one marries Mr. Wickham or Mr. Collins, or if Jane's fancied by Mr. Bingley?  It affects me not at all.  I know that there are still a lot of Jane Austen fans, but I don't quite understand why - why are women enamored of a time when they had no right to vote, no say in business matters and were treated like property?  What's so appealing about the early 1800's, there were no movies, no TV shows, all they had was poetry, dancing and the piano.  How boring!

The other main problem I had with the film was in understanding many of the lines - it couldn't just have been because of the accents, because I've seen many British films, and it's not usually a concern. (Though, admittedly if I watch something with heavy cockney accents, like "Snatch" or "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels", it takes a few minutes for my ear to adjust.)  But I had a similar problem with "Gone Girl" last night, which I forgot to mention - about a dozen times I had to rewind and increase the volume, just to tell what people were saying.  I'm not that old yet, I shouldn't have to turn on the subtitling - I think these actors just needed to be instructed to not mumble!  And directors need to pay more attention to times when their readings are not clear.  

Also starring Keira Knightley (last seen in "The Imitation Game"), Matthew Macfayden (last seen in "The Three Musketeers" (2001)), Talulah Riley (last seen in "In a World..."), Donald Sutherland (last seen in "Disclosure"), Brenda Blethyn, Jena Malone (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Carey Mulligan (last seen in "Inside Llewyn Davis"), Judi Dench (last seen in "The Importance of Being Earnest"), Simon Woods, Kelly Reilly (last seen in "Flight"), Claudie Blakley, Rupert Friend, Tom Hollander (last seen in "Muppets Most Wanted"), Pip Torrens (last seen in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"), Penelope Wilton (last seen in "The Girl"), Peter Wight (last seen in "My Week With Marilyn"), Tamzin Merchant, Sinead Matthews.

RATING: 4 out of 10 marble statues

Gone Girl

Year 8, Day 53 - 2/22/16 - Movie #2,254

BEFORE: Ben Affleck carries over from "Bounce" and perhaps this selection is going to shock some people.  How can I include this film in a romance chain?  IMDB lists it under "Drama, Crime, Mystery" and isn't it about a guy suspected of killing his wife?  Ah, but it qualifies under "relationship drama", even if it's about a relationship that's gone south.  OK, so maybe I really just need to link back to "Pride and Prejudice", and this film allows me to do that - but I've had questionable material under previous romance chains before, right?  Like, um, "My Own Private Idaho", "Young Adult" or "Blue Valentine"?

Here's the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" line-up for tomorrow, February 23:

Max Baer carries over from "The Prizefighter and the Lady" to:
"The Navy Comes Through" with George Murphy carrying over to:
"Tom, Dick and Harry" with Burgess Meredith carrying over to:
"That Uncertain Feeling" with Eve Arden carrying over to:
"Comrade X" with Oscar Homolka carrying over to:
"I Remember Mama" with Rudy Vallee carrying over to:
"The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" with Don Beddoe carrying over to:
"Cyrano de Bergerac" with Jose Ferrer carrying over to:
"The Caine Mutiny" with Jerry Paris carrying over to:
"Marty" with Betsy Blair carrying over to:
"Kind Lady" with Doris Lloyd carrying over to:
"The Constant Nymph" with Brenda Marshall carrying over to:
"The Sea Hawk"with Claude Rains carrying over to:
"Mr. Skeffington"        

I'm hitting with another 4 today, since I watched "The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer" in the Cary Grant chain last year, and I saw "The Sea Hawk" 3 or 4 years ago.  "Marty" and "The Caine Mutiny" are two classics that I saw before starting the project, so check those out if you haven't seen them before.  I'm up to 82 films seen, 182 unseen, with 6 on the list.

THE PLOT:  With his wife's disappearance having become the focus of an intense media circus, a man sees the spotlight turned on him when it's suspected that he may not be innocent.

AFTER: This is one of those cases where a film has a plot twist, as much as I tried to avoid knowing what that was before seeing the film, I was unsuccessful.  The trouble with plot twists is that people talk about them and journalists write about them, and sometimes just even knowing that there is a twist coming is knowing too much.  This one was part of a quiz in some magazine where you had to match each film, like "The Sixth Sense" or "Fight Club" to its twist, and I'd seen 9 out of the 10 films.  Damn, that meant by the process of elimination, I was left with this film and its twist.  Thanks.

Plus, I put the film on DVD and during the process of checking to see if the dub was successful, sometimes I see something that I'm not supposed to see yet, and that's another way that a plot twist can be ruined for me.  But since this is based on a very popular novel, and a lot of people have seen this film already, I could be in the clear.  Still, I'm going to choose my words very carefully.  Just reading the plotline and knowing that a twist is coming is possibly giving away too much already.

It's like someone who's never seen the "Star Wars" films, but who might be familiar with the facts surrounding Luke Skywalker's parentage, and if they asked me to confirm that, as easy as it might be to talk about the basic facts, that's still a major plot twist from Episode 5.  But besides that, in order to fully understand it, you have to get into why Obi-Wan lied to Luke, what midichlorians are, how much influence Senator Palpatine had in the Imperial Senate, and jeez, did you even READ my thesis paper about how Jar-Jar Binks is single-handedly responsible for the downfall of the Old Republic?  That's kind of like "Gone Girl", as it turns out that knowing the twist (or knowing ABOUT the twist) is just the tip of the iceberg.  

This film jumps very liberally around within the timeline, and on an ordinary day, that would drive me absolutely bonkers.  But this serves a purpose here, so that the audience doesn't learn anything before they're supposed to.  I'm not sure if the book does this or not, but at least it's a valid storytelling technique here - yet also a form of manipulation, because juxtaposing various scenes of the husband dealing with his wife's disappearance with scenes of his wife writing very specific entries in her diary is clearly meant to lead me to make certain assumptions, and if I don't make those assumptions, then they can't be confirmed or denied later on.  But at least they always put "Day One" or "Day Five" in the bottom corner of the screen so we'd all know the timeline wasn't linear.

There's a lot of good stuff here about marriage, about how two people can be right for each other, and then very wrong, and what happens over time when people want different things, and then self-doubt starts to creep in.  Negative thoughts have a way of building up if they're not dealt with, and then sometimes unless those people get the proper counseling, they can be a danger to themselves or others.  People lose their jobs, couples argue over money, they have different opinions about whether to have children, people have affairs, and before long, maybe they don't even recognize themselves or their spouse or even understand how they got to where they are.  

Plus there's a condemnation of the 24-hour news cycle and the position that gossip shows and rumor-mongering magazines have with regards to our legal process.  Spot on, if you ask me, since everyone seems to be tried in the court of public opinion these days before they even go to trial.  If "All Good Things" was a fictionalized version of Robert Durst's marriage, this one seems to borrow heavily from the Scott Peterson story.  But then obviously there's a diversion into fiction at some point.   The way that the media jumps all over a high-profile murder case tends to do more harm than good, just ask the guy who was falsely accused of setting that bomb at the Olympics in Atlanta, or check to see if they ever solved the JonBenet Ramsey case.  By reporting everything they learn, with no filter, in a few weeks nobody knows which end is up any more.  

There's a quote I saw the other day, which gets attributed to Dr. Seuss, and it says, "We are all a little weird, and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."  That's true for any relationship story, and it's what ultimately allows me to include "Gone Girl" in the middle of a bunch of romance films.  You'll never really 100% know what's going on inside your spouse's head, and that not knowing can potentially drive you crazy until you finally ask, and even then, you may be sorry that you asked.  

After a week of silly 80's romantic dramas like "About Last Night" and "St. Elmo's Fire", then some more complicated modern films like "Secretary" and "Trainwreck", and some stuffy period pieces like "Emma" and "Sense and Sensibility", it turns out that maybe "Gone Girl" was just what I needed to watch.  Maybe you're burned out on romantic comedy too and you need to check this one out (go ahead, I'll wait right here...) Like "Interstellar", which has a similarly long running time, I was invested in the whole thing, I stayed awake for the whole thing, and I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next.  And isn't that high praise, in the end?

I'm withholding all NITPICK POINTS tonight because, let's face it, it would be impossible for me to make references to certain things without including spoilers.  Not gonna do it - but I do have them.  Is this film plot possible?  I suppose so.  Is it probable?  Hell, no.  But a point is made when a film goes to the extreme, and rides right up to the point of being unbelievable.  You might see the twist coming, but not the ending, which to me seemed brilliant.  As always, your mileage may vary. 

Also starring Rosamund Pike (last seen in "The Big Year"), Neil Patrick Harris (last seen in "A Million Ways to Die in the West"), Tyler Perry (last seen in "Alex Cross"), Kim Dickens (last seen in "Mercury Rising"), Patrick Fugit (last seen in "We Bought a Zoo"), Carrie Coon, David Clennon (last seen in "The Thing"), Lisa Banes (last seen in "Dragonfly"), Missi Pyle (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters"), Casey Wilson (last seen in "The Guilt Trip") , Emily Ratajkowski, Scoot McNairy (last seen in "12 Years a Slave"), Sela Ward (last seen in "Hello Again"), Lola Kirke, Boyd Holbrook (last seen in "The Skeleton Twins").

RATING: 7 out of 10 board games

Bounce

Year 8, Day 52 - 2/21/16 - Movie #2,253

BEFORE:  Gwyneth Paltrow carries over from "Emma", and I'll circle back to watch "Pride and Prejudice" in a couple days. Now there's just over a week left in February and the romance chain, so I've got to get to everything, which is impossible.  I'm going to have to extend the topic a few days into March, and even then, there will be a few romance films left over.  I'll just have to work those in during the course of the year, which seems quite possible.

Here's the TCM line-up with actor links for tomorrow, February 22:

Dorothy McGuire carries over from "Friendly Persuasion" to:
"The Enchanted Cottage" with Robert Young carrying over to:
"The Sin of Madeline Claudet" with Lewis Stone carrying over to:
"Romance" with Great Garbo carrying over to:
"Grand Hotel" with Lionel Barrymore carrying over to:
"Captains Courageous" with Mickey Rooney carrying over to:
"The Strip" with Louis Armstrong carrying over to:
"High Society" with John Lund carrying over to:
"A Foreign Affair" with Jean Arthur carrying over to:
"The More the Merrier" with Joel McCrea carrying over to:
"Foreign Correspondent" with Robert Benchley carrying over to:
"The Sky's the Limit" with Elizabeth Patterson carrying over to:
"Hide-Out" with Muriel Evans carrying over to:
"The Prizefighter and the Lady"

Damn, I've only seen two of these, "Grand Hotel" and "Foreign Correspondent".  I've avoided "High Society" because it's just a remake of "The Philadelphia Story", but if I'd known they were going to run more Fred Astaire, I might have recorded that and also "Top Hat".  Anyway, 2 for 13 brings me up to 78 films seen, 173 unseen, with 6 on the list.  Eh, Monday's films seem like mostly filler material anyway.

THE PLOT:  A man switches plane tickets with another man who dies in that plane in a crash. The man falls in love with the deceased one's wife.

AFTER:  This is a bit like "Random Hearts", only in reverse - the love affair here comes about as a result of the plane crash, and in that other film, the plane crash revealed one love affair, and led to another.  

But this is a topic I think about sometimes, usually when flying to or coming back from San Diego, preparing to board an overbooked plane, and the airline personnel start offering incentives for people to give up their seats.  Since I need to be there on the first day of Comic-Con to set up the booth, but on the way back, I could be persuaded to take a later flight, if they make it worth my while.  So they start offering vouchers for future travel (if they offered me an upgrade to first class, one day I just might take it...) but I think, no, what if I change my flight and then the new flight crashes and I die?  Then I'll feel really stupid, at least for a short time before I die.  So I stick with my original flight - but then I think, what if the new flight arrives fine, and my original flight crashes?  Then I'll feel extra stupid, but just as dead.  

I once missed a flight to Portland and had to reschedule - and it's not that I wished ill on the flight that took off without me, but if any flight is going to crash, you want it to be the one that you missed, right? The important thing to remember here, however, is that plane crashes happen, and they're not the passengers' fault - not usually, anyway.  Until they somehow devise plane travel that's 100% safe, which, let's admit it, seems to be impossible, it's safest to avoid all plane travel unless it's a business trip, family emergency, or someplace you really, really want to go.  I won't get on board a plane to go to someplace relatively nearby, like Boston or Baltimore, because that feels like I'm pushing my luck.

The main character here is an advertising executive, and we all know those are terrible people, right?  Rich, arrogant, self-righteous - hey, I don't write these stereotypes, I only notice them - and his life gets turned upside-down when most flights aren't leaving Chicago, and he gives his boarding pass to a man with his family trying to get home to L.A.  Our man works for an agency that has the airline's account, so he figures he can always get a free trip the next day, plus there's this blonde in the airport lounge who's got a hotel voucher.  This act of "kindness", however, becomes anything but when the plane goes down.  

It was very nearly a NITPICK POINT that you can't swap boarding passes, even if this film was made before 9/11 there were still terrorism concerns and I.D. requirements, but they do deal with this issue later in the film.  The reason that they check your I.D. again right before boarding is to make sure people don't check explosive baggage, and then not show up for the flight - that's a big red flag. 

But it is interesting to see a film made in 2000 that deals with a plane crash, and the airline decides to do full-on publicity that celebrates the lives of the crash victims, against the advice of our man at the agency, who finds himself in an alcoholic downward spiral after his brush with death.  Once his rehab is complete, he feels obligated to track down the people affected by his decision, which is perhaps one of the twelve steps.  (However, I wouldn't say that the other man died because of his drinking, unless the step applies to all decisions made while drinking, which would then cover the boarding pass swap.)

This is another example of a movie plot stalling for time - the main character has one simple piece of information to relate to the dead man's widow, and he just can't bring himself to do it.  At first it's because he doesn't know her well enough, and then later it's because he knows her too well, and is starting to have feelings for her.  OK, well, I guess he's just never going to talk about it - what was his plan here, or did he just not have an exit strategy?  

There's very little insight here into what makes two people fall in love, even two people drawn together by similar tragedies.  Are they both thinking that love will make up for the losses that they've suffered, or is their love just a by-product of spending time together?  It's difficult to tell, because it didn't feel like much of an attempt was made to get inside these characters' heads.  Maybe I'm just picking up on the undoubtable barriers between the two actors, who had dated previously but were no longer a couple when this was filmed.  

Also starring Ben Affleck (last seen in "Argo"), Tony Goldwyn (last heard in "Someone Like You"), Jennifer Grey, Joe Morton (last seen in "Dragonfly"), Johnny Galecki (last seen in "CBGB"), Caroline Aaron (last seen in "22 Jump Street"), Sam Robards, Natasha Henstridge (last seen in "The Whole Ten Yards"), David Dorfman, Alex D. Linz, with cameos from Jeff Garlin (last seen in "In a World..."), David Paymer (last seen in "Unforgettable")

RATING: 4 out of 10 acid-free mattes