13 Hours

Year 11, Day 7 - 1/7/19 - Movie #3,107

BEFORE: I just sped my way through the Golden Globes - once an awards show is on my DVR, I prefer to zip through the vast majority of the acceptance speeches, and most of the silly montages (although, since the Globes had to work in both TV and movies, they seemed to keep the useless montages to a minimum) and I don't really watch the clip packages, either - just get me to the next set of presenters, list the nominees and tell me who won.  I can usually get through a three-hour awards show in under an hour this way, and get on to my next movie.  Look, do we really need a clip package from "Black Panther"?  Everyone in the world who was going to see "Black Panther" has already seen it, and the few people who haven't probably aren't going to consider it.  I may watch "Crazy Rich Asians" in the future, or I may not, but a series of clips isn't going to factor into that decision.

As it stands, I've got a limited amount of time before the Oscars, which are on February 24, just 48 days away.  But on February 1, I switch my focus over to romance films for at least a month, so really, I've got just until the end of January to watch any potential Oscar-worthy films - this is probably why I'm always playing catch-up, because I have such a tight window between the end of the year and the date of the Oscar presentation - and this year, I've already made up my mind which screeners I can fit in between now and January 31 - and the only other 2018 films I have room for between now and then are "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", "Vice" and "Welcome to Marwen".  Only one of those is now a real contender, but hey, maybe the action film will win some technical awards, you never know.

My point is, it's too late for me to work in some of the big winners and nominees from the Golden Globes, they're all in the category of "I would like to see that, but not at this time, probably later" - and that covers "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Green Book", "A Star Is Born", "BlacKkKlansman", "Mary Poppins Returns", "Stan & Ollie", "First Man", and even "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse".  They're all on my radar, I would like to see all of these films, but just not at this time, probably later. Tomorrow I can make a list of the screeners that I'll have access to, and start making some kind of plan.  And once I start making the links, things should come together, I can imagine a John C. Reilly chain that contains "Stan & Ollie", "Holmes & Watson", "Ralph Breaks the Internet", along with "The Sisters Brothers" and "The Little Hours", with that last one on Netflix.  See how easy that is?  And I'm probably going to need SOME way to link to Episode IX in December, I'm already thinking about Adam Driver in "BlacKkKlansman" or John Boyega in "Pacific Rim: Uprising", but that's still a long ways off.  Still, it's good to know that if I use up all my Oscar Isaac or Domhnall Gleeson films in January, I'll still have some options.  Mark Hamill was in "Brigsby Bear", and that's on my list, just saying - it's never too early to think about the linking options.

Tonight, John Krasinski carries over from "Promised Land" and I'm kicking off an action-packed week that SHOULD end with "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", if all goes well.

THE PLOT: During an attack on a U.S. compound in Libya, a security team struggles to make sense out of the chaos.

AFTER: OK, so I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but even though it didn't happen very long ago, just over six years ago, I could not remember what went down in Benghazi.  To be fair, those events got turned into a total political football during the 2016 election, blame got cast all around and especially on a certain Democratic candidate, until "Benghazi" just sort of became shorthand for "I want to end this debate very quickly, so let me go to my slam-dunk, all-purpose burn."  But what really happened in Benghazi?  Something to do with the Syrian Civil War - no, that was Aleppo.  Russia invaded - no, that was Crimea.  Ugh, too many military operations to keep track of in the past few years, plus we never finished the ones that George W. Bush started!

Yeah, you can say I really needed to watch this film to get it straight, and that's assuming that the filmmakers didn't get everything 100% accurate - because who does, really?  Benghazi was in Libya, and back in 2011 Gaddafi (or Khadafy, or Qaddafy, or whatever) was asked to remove himself from his palace of residence, and that request came from the insurgency.  Umm, they didn't ask nicely.  The U.S. sent a new ambassador to be the liasion to the new Libyan opposition, and also the CIA had been building a covert presence in Libya for months, monitoring groups like Al-Qaeda and also Ansar al-Sharia, from a secret base.  To say that the area was politically unstable would be a huge understatement, and things came to a head when Libyans attacked the U.S. embassy on Sept. 11, 2012.

Yes, the U.S. had people gathering intelligence in Libya.  And the conclusion drawn from that intelligence was that the area was an unstable powder-keg, so you might think that the logical response to that conclusion would be to withdraw from the area.  But hey, hindsight is always 20/20.  Live and learn.

The CIA Annex in Benghazi was just one mile from the embassy, so the terrible decision facing the members of the GRS (Global Response Staff) who were technically contractors working for the CIA, was whether to respond to the embassy attack, and risk revealing the location of the CIA Annex.  If this film is to be believed, their CIA chief ordered them not to go, but 6 members of the GRS went to the embassy to secure the location and try to save the ambassador.  By this time, the building had been ransacked and set on fire, so they were unable to locate him in the burning building, then to make matters worse, they were followed back to the Annex.

The Annex then was hit with wave after wave of Libyan militants, while a response team tried to get authorization to launch from Tripoli, and then encountered difficulty getting out of the airport, then MORE difficulty trying to find the CIA base.  Well, to be fair, it was a secret base - but you'd think they would have been able to send proper directions to the rescue team, right?  Look, I'm not the one who's going to complain about whether or not this film was completely accurate in the details of this event - I'm more likely to be the guy to complain about the fact that when you cast a bunch of white men with similar looking faces, then cover those up with similar-looking beards and a whole bunch of grime and blood, it becomes impossible to tell one soldier from another.

And I don't think they were trying to make some kind of grander point about soldiers losing their individuality, I think someone just cast a bunch of guys with similar features.  Maybe mix it up a bit, that's all I'm saying.  "OK, sorry, we already cast one guy with a scruffy beard, blue eyes and wiry curls - NEXT, please."  Just saying.

And I'm not one for "boo-RAH" patriotism, either.  But I can still be glad that I'll most likely never be in a firefight myself, and that the closest I'll ever come will be watching one in a movie.  For that, I'm thankful to others for their military service.  I don't know how much action should be in a movie and how much downtime there should be between firefights where the soldiers think about their families and what it all means, but this ratio seems about right.

Also starring James Badge Dale (last seen in "The Grey"), Max Martini (last seen in "Fifty Shades of Grey"), Dominic Fumusa (last seen in "Focus"), Pablo Schreiber (last seen in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), David Denman (last seen in "Fair Game"), Matt Letscher (last seen in "Her"), Toby Stephens (last seen in "Die Another Day"), Alexia Barlier, Freddie Stroma (last seen in "Pitch Perfect"), David Costabile (last seen in "The Post"), Payman Maadi, David Giuntoli, Demetrius Grosse (last seen in "Saving Mr. Banks"), David Furr, Kevin Kent, Christopher Dingli, Davide Tucci, Shane Rowe, Gabor Bodis, Wrenn Schmidt (last seen in "I Saw the Light"), Kenny Sheard.

RATING: 5 out of 10 Tangos

Promised Land

Year 11, Day 6 - 1/6/19 - Movie #3,106

BEFORE: I think I've proven by now that I'll watch just about anything, except for franchises like "Transformers" and "The Fast and the Furious", but I've also learned to never say "never".  I probably passed on this film when it was on premium cable, but now it's popped up on Netflix and I'm staring down a watchlist of over 100 titles there, and that needs to be addressed.  Sure, Academy screeners seem more pressing, but they're always going to be there, it's a safer bet, while Netflix films could disappear at any moment.  I've already noticed one title from my proposed January chain has been removed, so I'll have to catch that one on iTunes.   But today the Netflix list goes down by one, only it's a new month so there are probably new titles there and after a quick spin around I'll probably find another dozen to add.  Negative progress once again.

Matt Damon carries over from "Suburbicon", and thematically it seems OK to follow Friday's film about home heating oil with one about drilling for natural gas.  Again, I'll watch just about anything these days.

THE PLOT: A salesman for a natural gas company experiences life-changing events after arriving in a small town, where his corporation wants to tap into the available resources.

AFTER: This film came out in 2012 and sort of rode the wave of anti-fracking activism, once people took a minute to learn what fracking is, and what it does to the earth, and admittedly it doesn't sound ideal, but the gas companies have been doing it since 1940, and so far the earth doesn't seem the worse for wear because of THAT, I mean, nothing on the level of the hole in the ozone layer or the greenhouse gas build-up due to bovine flatulence. (Yes, look it up... my question then becomes, if cows are farting too much, and that's bad for the environment, why can't we capture that methane before it gets into the atmosphere, and use THAT energy to power stuff?  Yes, I'm proposing we heat our homes with cow farts.  Somebody make it happen, because it would solve two problems at the same time.)

The first problem with fracking is, of course, the name.  It just SOUNDS evil, the word has very rough consonant sounds and it seems like it should mean someone having sex in public while high on crack. (think about it...). The industry couldn't come up with a gentler-sounding name, like, I don't know, "gas whispering"?  Too bad "glamping" is taken by the activity of glamourous camping, because that could have worked, like short for "gas-lamping" or "gas-pumping".  Maybe "gumping"? Or get an acronym or something, jeez even "hydro-stimulation" would be a more appealing name than "fracking".  Go frack yourself, frack you, you mother-fracker.  See what I mean?

The second problem is the drilling rights.  When someone buys a piece of land, they're not usually thinking about what's under it, in fact, how far down do a propertly owner's rights extend?  Do we assume that a person owns everything under his house, right down to the center of the earth?  Of course not, that would be ridiculous.  Next thing you know, people would be able to charge airlines for the rights to fly planes over their land, which would be equally ridiculous.  In New York City, where smaller 6-story buildings are constantly being replaced by 40-story skyscrapers, it was a thing a couple decades ago for companies to start buying up "air rights", which is the space ABOVE a particular building, I guess in case somebody wants to build a building on top of another building - and you know space is at a premium in a city when this starts to happen.  (EDIT: I just tried to understand this law, where NYC air rights can be transferred to another property across the street, or down the block, and once the law gets into "maximum density restrictions", my eyes sort of glaze over and I become less interested.)

Secondly, you just can't have it both ways - I suspect some of the same people complaining about fracking are also complaining about America's dependence on foreign oil, and if we want to stop sending our money to Arab sheiks, and nuclear power isn't safe, just what the heck are we supposed to do, STOP driving cars and heating our homes?  Reduce consumption?  Like Americans even know what that means.  Look, it's not like there's a giant ball of energy in the sky that radiates ample energy every day to meet all our needs and all we have to do is build a big enough receptor to absorb it all.  Oh, wait...

Things seem to be going fine in this small town, as GlobalCorp representative Steve Butler brings his Harold Hill-like brand of salesmanship to town, under- or over-estimating the value of the natural gas under the town as need be.  Again, this might be "standard industry practices", but as we learned in "A Most Violent Year", that's corporate code for "Buy low, sell high, screw the little guy".  In the meantime they interact with the locals by drinking and flirting, and singing foolishly on open mic night at Buddy's Bar.  But a grass-roots activist shows up to rile up the locals, and throw a monkey wrench into the machine by calling the effects of fracking on the local water supply into question.  He also seems to have designs on the same woman that Steve's been flirting with, which seems like a large coincidence for a love triangle, except the town's not that big, so there are probably only a few eligible women of that age in the first place.

But I have to talk about the ending, without really talking about the ending.  I would have been fine if the lead character had a gradual crisis of conscience, brought on by guilt over screwing people out of the drilling rights for their land and paying them much less than that's worth, combined with slowly developing an appreciation for the quaint rhythm of country life found in THIS particular town.  But it seems that some writer didn't feel that would have been enough, so they threw another element in there that's way on the far side of being unbelievable, just in case we didn't get it by the end that the energy company was ruthless enough to do ANYTHING to secure the drilling rights they wanted.  And to prove this little development was unwarranted, you just have to think about the scenes with the activist character in the middle, knowing what you find out at the end - then that whole sequence doesn't work, because if that person was really (X), then he wouldn't have done actions (Y) and (Z).  I stand by that.

NITPICK POINT: Though I wasn't sure if anyone ever mentioned what state the depicted small town is in, according to the Wiki this is set in Pennsylvania.  Filming was done outside Pittsburgh, according to the IMDB, so this supports that.  But then why do so many residents wear cowboy hats and have southern accents?  Not all of rural America is the same, though it may look the same - but farmers in Pennsylvania just wouldn't talk like farmers in Georgia.

Also starring John Krasinski (last seen in "The Hollars"), Frances McDormand (last heard in "Isle of Dogs"), Rosemarie DeWitt (last seen in "Kill the Messenger"), Titus Welliver (last seen in "Live by Night"), Terry Kinney (last seen in "Body Snatchers"), Hal Holbrook (last seen in "The Bachelor"), Scoot McNairy (last seen in "War Machine"), Tim Guinee, Lucas Black (last seen in "Jarhead"), Sara Lindsey (last seen in "Concussion"), Ken Strunk (last seen in "Hidden Figures").

RATING: 4 out of 10 miniature horses

Suburbicon

Year 11, Day 5 - 1/5/19 - Movie #3,105

BEFORE: Oscar Isaac carries over again from "A Most Violent Year", and now that I've tabled "W.E." for later, and realized that he also voices a character in "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", it's a fair bet I'll see - or hear - him again later this year.  But I've got to keep moving on...

THE PLOT: As a 1950's suburban community self-destructs, a home invasion has sinister consequences for one seemingly normal family.

AFTER: This was pitched as a sort of a dark comedy, and that's often a really vague description, what exactly does that mean?  Is it going to be more "dark" or more "comic"?  But as the story played out, it started to have something of a "Fargo"-like vibe to it, so when the closing credits said the story was written by Joel and Ethan Coen, I wasn't really surprised at all, things then started to make more sense.  Those guys have really found the middle ground between comedy and tragedy over the years, even if sometimes it leans a little more toward comedy, like in "Raising Arizona", and sometimes a little more toward tragedy, like in "No Country for Old Men".  In fact, they wrote part of this screenplay way back in 1986, right after "Blood Simple" came out.  Jeez, do those guys have many more 30-year old screenplays lying around, just waiting to be turned into movies?

I should say that's half the story here, because that old screenplay contained the "family crime" story, which got mixed with another screenplay about the black family moving in to an all-white neighborhood, and what that led to.  So two scripts got Frankenstein-ed together here, which maybe explains why the structure here feels a bit off.  The separate tales are made to run concurrently here, and they mix together just a little bit, but that's not how either story was initially designed.  It's a bit like cooking two meals in the same pot, inevitably they're going to mix together and that's probably going to affect the taste of both in the end.  Whether that resulting taste is good or bad is ultimately up to the diners, or the audience.

But though half of the screenplay was written in the 1980's, it really hearkens back to the 1950's, and it reminds me of the stories of John M. Cain, who wrote "Double Indemnity" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice".  Even though some think of the 1950's as the Best Decade Ever, with the poodle skirts and the jukeboxes and the leather jackets, Elvis and Buddy Holly and Eisenhower's era of good feelings, there was a lot going on that wasn't so great, like spousal abuse and child abuse and so much racism.  And if you believe Cain, then part of that American Dream was figuring out how to kill your family members and collect the sweet insurance money.  But was that really a widespread practice, or just another pulp fiction convention, which then became a Hollywood movie staple?

And that brings me back to the mixing of the two screenplays, because the film opens with people finding out that they've got an African-American family living in their suburban idyll, and not reacting very well.  Then the story shifts to the home invasion plot, and since something just didn't feel right about the home invasion, I incorrectly assumed that the whole thing was being staged in order to frame the black neighbors for a crime.  It seemed a bit crazy that someone should go to that much trouble to get rid of their neighbors, but since I misread a cause and effect relationship due to the timing of the events, you can kind of see how I jumped to that conclusion.  But, it turned out that there was something hinky going on, so I was wrong, but for the right reasons.

Which is fine, but I strongly suspect that once everything is revealed, and everyone's motivation for doing what they did is out in the open, if you were to go back and watch the beginning again with that knowledge in mind, something's just not going to add up.  You just don't get to the goal you want with a plan like that, that's all I'm saying.  Not now, not then.  So this is a throwback to an alternate past that I'm hoping never existed, or else the good old days weren't really all that good to begin with.

Also starring Matt Damon (last seen in "Deadpool 2"), Julianne Moore (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Noah Jupe, Glenn Fleshler (also carrying over from "A Most Violent Year"), Alex Hassell (last seen in "Cold Mountain"), Megan Ferguson (last seen in "The Disaster Artist"), Jack Conley (last seen in "Gangster Squad"), Gary Basaraba (last seen in "The Accountant"), Michael D. Cohen, Karimah Westbrook, Leith Burke, Tony Espinosa (last seen in "The Birth of a Nation"), James Handy (last seen in "Logan"), Steven Shaw, Don Baldaramos, Nancy Daly, Richard Kind (last heard in "Inside Out").

RATING: 5 out of 10 archival news interviews

A Most Violent Year

Year 11, Day 4 - 1/4/19 - Movie #3,104

BEFORE: OK, so I'd worked out a little 4-film Oscar Isaac chain, and I was going to dip back into the Academy screeners from years past to watch "W.E.", a film about King Edward VIII giving up the throne of England for the woman he loved, but then as the day neared, I wondered if it would be too jarring to go from an action-packed sci-fi thriller to a period romance.  I mean, a film's a film, but too many quick genre changes can be confusing.  Another problem is that I've planned a Steve Carell chain for late January, and in the new pile of screeners two films came in that I was hoping for, both "Vice" with Carell and "Mission: Impossible - Fallout", which doesn't star Steve Carell but is key to completing my January chain.  But then "Welcome to Marwen" also arrived, and I want to see that one too - but that makes 32 films for January, not 31, so something's got to go.  Now the thing about the chain, if I need to drop something, I can only drop something from a chain of 3 or more without affecting the flow.  So it came down to "Welcome to Marwen", "W.E." or "Absolute Beginners" on Netflix, I could only program two out of the three. What to do?

At the studio yesterday, I realized that my boss was letting a neighbor store some boxes in her studio while the neighbor is moving, and of course those boxes are stacked RIGHT in front of the shelf where I was keeping the dozen or so screeners from pre-2018 that I want to watch.  So there you go, fate made the decision for me about which film to drop.  Look, I'm not going to move a bunch of heavy boxes containing fragile art stuff that belongs to someone else - that's madness.  And if you think about it, I should give priority to the films on Netflix, because they should disappear at any time.  I can still watch "Welcome to Marwen" in late January, because the pile of CURRENT Academy screeners isn't blocked, just the older ones.  I couldn't have asked for a clearer sign from the universe that "W.E." just isn't in the cards right now, but since I've got a bunch of films set during the World War II era on my list, like "Churchill" and "Darkest Hour" - and "W.E." shares an actor with "Dunkirk", so it could be handy for linking later on - I'll have to just keep it on the list and try to get to it later in the year.

For now, Oscar Isaac carries over from "Annihilation", and it will just be a 3-film chain instead of a 4-film one.  That's how it goes - tonight's film is also on Netflix, and since my list there has grown way too large (115 titles, but that includes comedy specials...) I've got to start chipping away at it.

THE PLOT: In New York City 1981, an ambitious immigrant fights to protect his business and family during the most dangerous year in the city's history.

AFTER: Look, I'm not saying that a drama about corruption in the heating oil industry in NYC thematically follows after a sci-fi thriller either, but it's a bit easier to take.  And I had such a nice little theme going about perceptions and reality, like "Game Night" (are the kidnappers real or actors?) and "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" (is the store alive, and can toys really move on their own?) and even "Annihilation" (umm, what is really happening here?)  Though it's a bit of a stretch, I GUESS you could say there's a bit of reality-mystery here, like "Who's behind the oil truck heists?" and "Is everyone in this business corrupt?" and "What is legal, anyway?".  No?  Ehh, I didn't think so, but you can't blame a guy for trying.

But I have to be honest here, and say that I don't find the ins and outs of the heating oil industry to be particularly fascinating, and if I did, then I would probably get a job in that field, rather than watch a movie about that.  I can think of about a hundred other professions I would rather see a movie character have that would be more interesting than running a heating oil delivery business, even in crime-ridden 1981 NYC.  And if you ask me, there's still a lot of crime in NYC, probably just as much as there was back then, only now it gets under-reported so the NYPD and the Mayor's office can say the city is "safer than ever", only they're not telling you about the murders that were classified as "traffic accidents" or a dead body being pulled from the river called "accidental drowning", despite the four obvious bullet holes.  A safer city gets more money from tourism, after all.  And now that they're not arresting people for pot possession any more, the crime statistics will be even lower - see, it's not the crime that's gone down, it's just a conscious choice to ignore more of it. 

But there is an argument here almost made for gun control, and how bogus it is to say things like "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."  When criminals start robbing the tanker trucks here, the best advice offered to the drivers is to just give up the truck - when one driver arms himself and shoots back at the robbers, he ends up in just as much trouble as the thieves, if not more.  So there you go.

I knew something was bogus about the central characters, because every time Abel Morales is asked about how legit his company is, he answers with "We follow the standard industry practices..."  Umm, that's not a "No" answer, now, is it?  It's like if you ask your phone or cable company if they're overcharging you, what do you THINK they're going to say?  "Oh, right, we were screwing you and we didn't realize it.  Here's half your monthly payment back."  As if. 

Abel wants his own fuel terminal on the East River, so that he can have better access to oil, and sell it to his competitors, set his own prices when the need is greater, and not rely on his suppliers who probably do the same to him.  Is that really the goal, the American Dream, "Screw the other guy before he can do it to you?"  And he's supposed to be the good one, the noble one?  I'm not buying it.  After going to great lengths to beg and borrow financing from here and there to put the deal together, his lawyer keeps asking him, "Why does it have to be THIS deal, why THIS terminal?" and I'm not sure we ever get a clear answer.

NITPICK POINT: When asked how much money he needs to make the deal, Abel says, "A million and a half dollars".  Who would ever phrase it like that?  He wouldn't need to say "dollars", that would be implied, because most deals in NYC wouldn't be in francs or pesos or pounds, or even bagels.  And why say "A million and a half" when you can say "One point five million", which would be more common and a lot clearer? 

Also starring Jessica Chastain (last seen in "Crimson Peak"), Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "Junebug"), David Oyelowo (last seen in "Interstellar"), Albert Brooks (last seen in "Drive"), Catalina Sandino Marino (last seen in "Fast Food Nation"), Elyes Gabel (last seen in "MI-5"), Ashley Williams, Jerry Adler (last seen in "Prime"), Christopher Abbott (last seen in "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"), Elizabeth Marvel (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)"), Robert Clohessy (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), Peter Gerety (last seen in "God's Pocket"), Glenn Fleshler (last seen in "Rock the Kasbah"), David Margulies (last seen in "Ishtar"), Annie Funke, Patrick Breen (last seen in "One True Thing"), Kathleen Doyle (last seen in "Body Snatchers"), Pico Alexander (last seen in "War Machine"), William Hill (last seen in "Chuck"), Matthew Maher, Jason Ralph, Taylor Richardson, Giselle Eisenberg.

RATING: 4 out of 10 tollbooths on the Queensboro bridge

Annihilation

Year 11, Day 3 - 1/3/19 - Movie #3,103

BEFORE: Well, I had two things go my way today - first off, I found my little flash drive with all my movie lists on it.  For the last week I thought that maybe I'd lost it, that it fell out of my pocket while I was taking my wallet out to pay for something or get my Metrocard.  But I just left it at one of my offices, the one I go to on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I hadn't been there in a week because of the New Year's holiday.  I mean, I've got printed out lists of what movie to watch next, but the drive also has my cast breakdowns, so I couldn't go any further past mid-March without that.  It's a big 36-page document that I would hate to have to retype, so getting the drive back is a real plus.  I also use the drive to carry home digital music files from the one computer that I have access to that can still rip CDs, but the movie lists are hard to replace, so I'm going to back up the lists to every computer at home and the offices, just in case I really do lose the drive someday.

Secondly, the news broke today that the "L" subway train is not going to go out of service for 15 months starting in April - without this train in service I was looking at either a 15-minute walk each day to another, probably more crowded train, or a combination of train, bus and ferry that could have potentially doubled my commuting time, so this is great, I can continue to lead the lifestyle I've become accustomed to, which involves staying up late, oversleeping and getting to work a little late every day instead of forcing myself to get up earlier to arrive even later than usual.  Governor Cuomo toured the tunnels under the Hudson that still need to be repaired after Superstorm Sandy, which was like 6 years ago, and he had some university think tank come up with a way to repair the tunnels without affecting my daily commute.  So thank heaven for small favors, and thankfully I stayed the course and didn't panic by doing something crazy like moving or buying my own car.  (Once again, I'm rewarded for inaction, it's kind of my thing...)

Natalie Portman carries over from "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium", and I think this is just the way my chain is going to run for a while - the bulk of what constitutes my list are relatively new films, like over 1/3 of the films were released in 2016-2018.  But I can still dip back for a film like last night's, which came out in 2007, if I need to make a connection.  Perhaps I should look at it the other way, that I need to use recent films to connect the older ones.  But it's really all the same thing.

THE PLOT: A biologist signs up for a dangerous secret expedition into a mysterious zone where the laws of nature don't apply.

AFTER: I'm going to be a little generous tonight, because there's some good stuff here, plotlines that I haven't seen before in a movie - and this movie did get some attention for having so many strong female characters, right about the time that the #metoo movement was really going full steam, about a year ago.  But now I've read that some people didn't like the way the director changed the ending of the book, and added some plot elements that are somewhat reminiscent of other movies - but they're movies I've never heard of, so that makes no difference to me.  And it's also being referred to as one of the big box office bombs of 2018, but that's neither here nor there to me - hey, if you want a movie to make money, maybe don't release it while everyone's rushing out to see "Black Panther".

It's good and twisty, too, and for once I didn't see the twists coming, which isn't easy considering I dubbed it to DVD and tried VERY hard not to see anything important, but sometimes I can't help it.  Still, I can't help but feel even though the story is strong and feels very original (to me, again, your mileage may vary) once I start listing a few NITPICK POINTS I may have a different opinion.

My first bone of contention is my most common complaint about films, the non-linear time-jumping. The story starts with Lena, noting that her husband's been gone for a year, though we don't know at first if this means he left, or he died, or what.  Eventually we learn that he's been on a military mission and presumed dead, only then he shows up.  Before this, he's seen a few times in flashbacks, so here's where the confusion starts - when he comes home, is that just another flashback?  See, this is where I find myself with two differing opinions, because when you jump around like this, it only sows confusion, but here the jumping around also slowly reveals the information we need to know, like the details of the mission.  We didn't need to know them at first, because neither did Lena, so we're right there in her shoes - but still, I maintain that the story could have been told in the proper order, and dramatic tension still could have been maintained.

This occurs again because we see bits of Lena's debrief after HER mission, before we even get to the point where she BEGINS the mission.  So, way too early in my opinion, we learn a few things we DON'T need to know, namely that Lena's going to go on a mission, and that she's going to survive.  This seems to be working against maintaining tension, because the mission, when it comes around, would be a little scarier if we hadn't already gotten a peek at her debrief.  Obviously this is a common practice, to use an interrogation as a sort of framing device, and then show all the action as someone is relating their story.  But then the real meat of the movie is essentially a flashback, and then I think here as a result there's flashbacks within flashbacks, which shouldn't happen as per the rules of film language.  Come on, just find a better way.

(Like, later on, the team finds a video camera and gets a glimpse of what went down with the last team - that's a sneaky way to accomplish the same thing as a flashback, only it's motivated by the plot, and it just works better.)

I don't think I'm spoiling anything by revealing that her husband's not in great shape after his experiences within the zone they call "The Shimmer", which is also expanding in size.  Several missions of military men have entered the zone and not come back at all, so the assumption is that they all either died, went crazy or both.  I guess another assumption is that testosterone or male ego was somehow the downfall of those men, so the next thing to try is to send in a team of women.  Umm, sure, that makes perfect logical sense.  The film tries to make a clear distinction that this is NOT a suicidal mission, merely a "self-destructive" one, but I think that's putting too fine a point on things.  There's a big difference between being a drinker, an addict and a person willing to enter a contaminated zone.

Which brings me to my biggest NITPICK POINT, which is, if you know, or even suspect, that there's something in this area that is toxic, dangerous or hallucinogenic, or something that killed the last team by being eaten or breathed, then the next team should go in wearing full hazmat gear, right?  Like oxygen tanks and bullet-proof vests, or those suits that people wear when they defuse bombs.  But no, the women are sent in with only guns, their wits, and a week's supply of food.  Whatever happened to being prepared?

I'm not going to talk too much about what the new team finds in the Shimmer - just that the proper technical term would be some weird, freaky-ass shit.  Like, think of the last 10 minutes of "2001: A Space Odyssey" mixed with "Interstellar" and "Arrival", maybe throw in "War of the Worlds" and "The Thing" to be on the safe side.  I hope I haven't given anything away here.

The film also tries to make some kind of point about life, from a scientific point of view - we look at the way that cells reproduce, the way that a human embryo develops into a fetus, and that process also bears some resemblance to the way that cancer cells grow and form a tumor.  I guess that's like the yin and yang of biology right there.  But it only leads to more questions, in my opinion - like, if you trace that process back billions of years, does that mean that all life on earth came from one cell? But then where did THAT cell come from?  Was it an accident, a mutation, a random bunch of chemicals and materials that got struck by lightning?  Of course, we could never know - some people say the first cell on earth might have arrived on a meteorite, but then where did it come from before that?  That doesn't answer the question, it just moves its location.

Also, the process of cells reproducing doesn't really completely explain a few things, like humans start out as a fertilized egg, which is two cells coming together, a sperm cell and an egg cell.  Together they each have half the genetic material to form a new full cell, which splits to become two and then four cells, eight and so on.  But at some point those cells have to specialize, like THIS cell is going to end up in the fetus's heart, and this one's going to be a tiny bit of a hair follicle, and so on.  How does THAT happen?  Some theories have suggested that what we now know as human organs were once organisms on their own, and somehow they came together to form more complex biological systems that worked together - like some organisms were better at processing food, and others could see and others had chemicals that could fight infections.  And over billions of years of interactions both good and bad, somehow we ended up with things like reptiles and mammals with internal organs that did different things.  I don't know, a planet full of eyeballs and hearts and lungs floating around, trying to figure out how to work together is just way too weird.

I think it's also a huge stretch that someone with so much knowledge in biology would also have a military background, but what do I know?  I'll have to withhold my other N.P.'s because I don't want to even come close to giving away the film's ending.  Just know that they're there.

Also starring Jennifer Jason Leigh (last seen in "Dolores Claiborne"), Tessa Thompson (last seen in "Thor: Ragnarok"), Gina Rodriguez (last seen in "Deepwater Horizon"), Tuva Novotny, Oscar Isaac (last seen in "Star Wars: The Last Jedi"), Benedict Wong (last seen in "Avengers: Infinity War"), Sonoya Mizuno, David Gyasi (last seen in "Interstellar")

RATING: 6 out of 10 combat boots

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Year 11, Day 2 - 1/2/19 - Movie #3,102

BEFORE: OK, that's one film down for 2019, only 299 more to go...

If you're wondering why I didn't make any New Year's Resolutions yet, it's because I took care of most of the things I wanted to do last January, like catch up on TV (easy to do over the holiday break) and get my hearing checked.  I didn't manage to get my hearing FIXED, but I did get it checked, that should count for something.  My other resolution last year was to watch more films on Netflix - that definitely got done.

Beyond that, I think I've got leftover resolutions from 2017 that weren't attended to, like taking a look at my modest retirement account to figure out if I should be making additional contributions to it, and beyond THAT, I've got to finish re-alphabetizing my comic books (I only got to the letter "D" in December) and take some more longboxes to my storage unit.  There's other work that needs to be done at home, like hiring someone to fix the hole in the basement ceiling and maybe get a plumber to figure out how to get my wedding ring out from behind the bathroom vanity, where it fell sometime last summer.  I can't move the vanity because the sink is in it, and the pipes are in place - so I'll have to call in a professional at some point.

All the others are standard "good idea" sort of resolutions - try to lose some weight, think about getting a better job somehow, etc.  I suppose I should finish replacing all my music cassettes with digital files, because I stopped a couple months ago after hitting the letter "W", and I think I should probably look into dropping some cable channels to try to save some money.  When my last DVR got replaced I lost the ability to dub movies from HBO and Cinemax to DVD, because those channels run some kind of signal that prevents dubbing - and it's been 6 months since I tried figuring out a workable solution, so those channels now are just streaming services to me.  Whatever - but I haven't recorded anything good off the Encore channels in months, so maybe I can drop those.  As I said yesterday, I'd love it if there were ONE service that could stream every movie, any time, without them ever going away, for one low fee - but even as I type that, it sounds impossible.  Maybe in a couple years....

Jason Bateman carries over from "Game Night", and now I realize that I could have put that film and tonight's film right after "Office Christmas Party" - why didn't I do that?  Then my post-christmas films would have been all about games and toys, and thematically that fits right in with Christmas.  What the hell was I thinking?  But then again, if I hadn't saved these two films for January, I might not have had a clear linking path between Jan. 1 and Feb. 1 - so you see, most of the time everything works out for the best.  Umm, sure, let's go with that.

THE PLOT: Molly Mahoney is the awkward and insecure manager of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, the strangest, most fantastic toy store in the world.  But when Mr. Magorium, the 243-year-old eccentric who owns the store, bequeaths the store to her, a dark and ominous change begins to take over the once-remarkable emporium. 

AFTER: This might seem like an odd direction for me to go, because I think this film has a bit of a reputation as a bomb, either critically or financially, so why waste a slot on it?  Well, I was trying to clear the DVR a bit, and I needed another movie to go with tomorrow's film, and as I mentioned before, I'm limited now by which channels will allow their programming to be dubbed, so this fit the bill.  I admit I was curious about this film, like if it's bad, how bad is it?  And more importantly, WHY is it bad?  Like is it stupid, or did it just fail to connect with the audience somehow?

After watching it, it's tough to say.  It almost feels like it was trying too hard, or maybe it aimed a little too high in its attempts to generate a sense of wonder, does that make sense?  Like it was a little too obvious in stating what it was trying to do, which was to entertain.  I think a movie needs to tell a good story first, and not be all in-your-face with its goals, as if it's saying, "Hey, everybody, look over here, look how dazzling I am?  Are you not entertained?  Come on, I'm trying really hard!" In other words, stop talking about it and start being about it - and all this film wants to do is talk about how magical everything is.

I mean, I get it, it's a toy store where everything seems to be alive and move on its own, and the usual rules of gravity and time/space don't apply.  But is that really magical?  I feel the need to break down the concept of "magic" into three distinct things - there's magician magic, there's real life magic, and then there's movie magic.  Magician magic is the stuff magicians do, like making playing cards disappear and then re-appear inside a sealed box, or appearing to saw a lady in half, or pretending to make the Statue of Liberty disappear.  Magician magic is not real, there's a simple enough explanation for every trick, most of which can be found on the internet, and if I can't guess how a trick is done, I look it up immediately, because I constantly need to reassure myself what is real and what is not.  And magicians are liars, if they say "I'm about to do magic", they're not, and if they say, "I'm going to saw this lady in half", then I know for sure that's not what they're about to do.  The only non-lying magicians are people like Penn & Teller, who are at least honest about the fact that they're about to lie to you, and that all magicians are liars.

Next there's real-life magic, and this is the sort of thing that happens when you meet the love of your life, or someone makes a large donation to charity, or gives someone their kidney or something.  These are real, possible, tangible things, but they have enormous effects on our outlook and well-being, plus they're not always logical, and so because they can't always be explained, their effects are considered a form of magic.  Then there's movie magic, which is all about special effects, and making the unreal appear to be real - and since most people don't get enough real-life magic in their lives, watching movies can sometimes work as a sort of stand-in.  Personally, since I no longer believed in magician magic, I think I set out on a career in movies because it was magic that I did believe in.  But just as a magician knows how to do his tricks, going to film school taught me how the magic was made, so for a while I didn't believe in this magic either.  It took me years after film school to get back my love for movies, can you imagine that?

Now, as I see it, here's the problem with "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium" - you can't just fill the screen with movie magic in an attempt to create real-life magic.  That, in itself, is just not enough.  There comes a point where "more" isn't more at all, it becomes too much.  If everything within the walls of the toy store is magical, then doesn't that cheapen magic in some way?  Compare that to a film like "Big" where there was ONE magical fortune-telling device that did something incredible.  It's a little more believable, right?  And then a kid has an encounter with it, and later needs to find that one magical machine to put things right again.  Or take "Field of Dreams", where there's ONE magical ball-field in Iowa where the ghosts of the old ball-players appear.  If the ghosts appeared at every baseball field in the country, then that wouldn't be special, you could see them every time you bought a ticket to a game, and then you'd grow tired of that, as special as it might be.

So here we have a store where the owner is magical, and the paper airplanes are magical and the finger-paints are magical and the books are magical, and damn, but isn't all this magic exhausting?  And then whenever the movie lags, it's "Hey, look, there's something magical over THERE" and that's when I feel it's just trying to hard to get my attention and win me over.  Now, I should state that I don't have any children, so I've never gone through that period of adulthood where I have to play with kids, read stories to kids, and get to re-connect with that childlike belief that everything is possible, including the things we can think of that probably aren't.  I do watch movies aimed at kids, but I do so from an adult non-breeder perspective, so they affect me differently, and as always, your mileage may vary.

The cynical part of me is cynical enough to say that someone just set out to do a gender-swapped "Mary Poppins" with the Mr. Magorium character, or riff on Willy Wonka, because weird adult characters who both entertain kids and teach people lessons have a solid cinema history, but I'd like to think there's more to this film than that.  But I'm JUST not seeing it.  The main lesson here seems to be if you've lost your way creatively in your career, just hold on and surround yourself with friends who are more talented, and eventually you'll get your mojo back.  But it's also possible that there's nothing really there, that the film just functions like a big, dark mirror, and different people are going to see different things in it, depending on what they bring to the table.

So I think this definitely belongs in the category of "OK, all of this is probably a big metaphor for something, but for WHAT?"  The death of a parent of loved one?  The fact that adults work too hard and forget how to play?  The fact that the only limits people have are self-imposed?  Honestly, I don't have a clue, I'm just grasping at straws.

My sole NITPICK POINT tonight is about that age-old question that Mr. Magorium asks, which is why hot dogs are sold in 10-pack but the buns are sold in 8-packs.  Umm, sorry but this was covered years ago, like in the 2nd year of the internet people finally got to the bottom of it.  It's no longer a mystery, that's all I'm saying.  First off, if you're having a big party, just buy 4 packs of hot dogs and 5 packs of buns.  Boom, 40 hot dogs, 40 buns, no more problems, thanks to math.  Secondly, you CAN find hot dogs sold in 8-packs, you just have to look a little harder on the store shelves and pick the right brand.  (I've heard you can also find hot dog rolls sold in 10-packs, but I have not personally looked for them.) 

Finally, the "reason" this happens is not (as this film posits) in case you drop a couple of hot dogs, nor is it because some people like eating their hot dog without a bun.  Going gluten-free is a recent development, after all.  The reason this occurs is because butchers and bakers package their foods separately and differently.  Often (I won't say "always", that's how you get into trouble) 10 hot dogs together weigh one pound (though again, if you buy the larger hot dogs, it can be 8) and bakers, for whatever reason, determined that 8 buns stack the best on store shelves.  Or some people say since they're baked in 4-roll pans, that's how they ended up getting packaged.  Yes, it would be a perfect world if butchers and bakers got together and worked this all out before going to market, but they just didn't, because it's not a perfect world, OK?  Back in the day you had butcher shops and bakeries, and nobody bought their sausages and rolls at the same time.  It's only since the invention of the supermarket that anybody even thought of this as a problem - both butchers and bakers then stated that the other fellow had to change the way they were selling things, and anyway, people had more important things to worry about, like World War I and fighting cholera.   So there you go, it's no longer one of life's unanswerable lingering questions.  Plus, if you really wanted to investigate this, you wouldn't go to ask a hot dog vendor like Mr. Magorium did.  Why would a hot dog vendor even care, much less know the answer? Wasn't there some Oscar Mayer company hotline he could call?

Also starring Dustin Hoffman (last seen in "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)", Natalie Portman (last seen in "Brothers"), Zach Mills (last seen in "Super 8"), Ted Ludzik (last seen in "Owning Mahowny"), Rebecca Northan, Kiele Sanchez, Jonathan Potts, Mike Realba, David Collins, Marcia Bennett, Quancetia Hamilton, with a cameo from Steve Whitmire as Kermit the Frog (last heard in "The Muppet Christmas Carol").

RATING: 3 out of 10 integers in the Fibonacci sequence

Game Night

Year 11, Day 1 - 1/1/19 - Movie #3,101

BEFORE: Out with the old, in with the new.  It's January 1, all the digit counters are re-set and we prepare for another year that we all hope will be better, in some way, though we know deep down, in many ways it will just be more of the same.  But that's "stinking thinking" and I won't have it taint the new year.  There will be plenty of bad movies willing to take care of that.

When I'm looking for a film to start off the new year, I have to start by looking at February.  The romance chain for February is all figured out, so I'm looking to link to one of its two ends in something close to 30 or 31 steps.  Unfortunately, it's almost as hard to link backwards as it is to link forwards, so there's a large document with all the cast lists of the films available to me, and it's color-coded, anyone whose name appears more than once is in light blue, all the other names are in black.  And when I put two films next to each other and they share an actor, I turn that person's name from blue to red, so I can see the connection better.  There's some trial and error involved, as each film probably has at least three or four blue names, representing the different paths I can choose.

Some films are unlinkables, though, and others are "one-linkables", meaning they currently connect to only one other film on the list.  When I start with my February 1 film and develop a chain of about 30 films that then ends with a one-linkable, that chain could be the one.  So I do want to hit a dead end, but it's all about hitting it at the right time.  So when I reverse that, I know that if I start HERE, with "Game Night", I'll make it to Feb. 1 right on schedule.  Then I can review those 30 or 31 films and ask myself, "Do these films seem important, are they the ones that I want to make a priority?" and if the answer is "Yes", I can proceed.  Admittedly, it's an inexact science, but it's a process that keeps me going.

The romance chain extends into mid-March, and I've got some ideas for the next 10 or so films, but that's as far as I can go, because by then there will be new films on the list, and therefore different linking opportunities.

Before we dive in, it's time for my annual long-distance dedication to someone who's no longer with us - Carrie Fisher and Tom Petty were the recipients for the last two years.  The obvious choice would be Stan Lee, who left this mortal plane in the closing weeks of 2018, and that's someone who created a large body of work with a wide variety of characters, a story-teller beloved for his craft who was very popular, and also someone I got to meet in person several times, because I've been to so many Marvel stockholder meetings and Comic-Cons.  But then there's also Will Vinton, who died in October, and he also created a large body of work, just in clay animation instead of comics, and he was also a popular story-teller known as a giant in his field, and he's also someone I met several times, in fact I sort of worked for him for a number of years.  I can't possibly choose, so they're going to have to share the honor.  Well, I'm entering my second decade of doing this, and it's the start of Year 11, and what's an "11" but two ones, so for the first time I dedicate this Movie Year to two people.

THE PLOT: A group of friends who meet regularly for game nights find themselves entangled in a real-life mystery when one's shady brother is seemingly kidnapped by dangerous gangsters.

AFTER: The safest bet here was to assume that an innocent game night would soon spiral out of control, because who would want to go to the movies and watch as people play completely normal games of Pictionary, Charades and Taboo?  That would be the worst movie ever.  Plus, "things spiral out of control" is the exact plot of, like, the last 8 Jason Bateman movies, right?  ("Office Christmas Party", "The Family Fang", "The Gift", "Bad Words", "Horrible Bosses", "Identity Thief" - yeah, I stand by that.)

It turns out I was right on the money, because on the first game night the lead couple (Max & Annie) hosts, the biggest challenge is to get all the guests into the house without alerting their neighbor, who they're trying to avoid.  He's a policeman who use to be invited to game nights, but since his wife left him, the other gamers have decided they don't want to deal with his strange mannerisms and creepy vibe.  But he still suspects the others are having game night without him, because he sees the snacks in their grocery bags, and anyway, Max's brother Brooks shows up and parks RIGHT outside, thereby blowing any efforts to conceal the night's activity.  (Everything's kind of important here, because the neighbor's job, creepy vibe and even his dog become part of the story later on...)

The short-term solution to this problem seems simple - have game night at someone else's house.  And that's what they do, since Brooks is in town for a while, and renting a McMansion across town.
When the guests (Max & Annie, plus two other couples) come over, Brooks - who's been overshadowing his little brother for years, with a better job, fast cars, and a personality that's always cutting Max down to size - has something besides board games planned, one of those interactive murder-mystery games that you hire an outside company to stage.  (Is that really a thing?  I'll have to remember to check...).

In an astounding coincidence that could only happen in the movies, the staged kidnapping is interrupted by what could be a real one, because as I saw in "Rough Night", the average Americans are just one knock on the door away from interacting with random jewel thieves or gangsters who are just roaming the streets of Miami, or in this case Atlanta.  But thanks to bad timing and comic misunderstanding, the couples set off in their own directions, trying to solve Brooks' kidnapping, which they think is all part of a game.  Ha ha, the average American can't tell the difference between a real gun and a fake one, or a real car chase and a staged one.

Once again, I feel like some screenwriters have created some reality here that bears little resemblance to the real world, so recently I've seen an office christmas party, a bachelorette party and now a murder-mystery party that don't follow regular rules, but are clearly just designed to spread the maximum amount of chaos over the movie screen.  And really, aren't these three movies that are dipping into the same subject matter, with slightly different details in each one?  Coming next year is "Easter Party", where a kids' egg hunt is interrupted by a bunch of jewel thieves who have hidden their diamonds inside plastic eggs, and they need to find them before the kids do, but they're foiled by Jason Bateman in a bunny suit.  OK, probably not, but there are only so many types of parties left to make movies about.  In other news, it looks like that movie called "Supercon", about a heist set at a comic convention got released last April, only I missed it.  It got terrible reviews, but since I thought up the idea for a movie like that years ago (after carrying about $1500 in cash across the convention center to put down a deposit for the next year's booth), I'd probably give it a look.

Let's get to the NITPICK POINTS, though.  I did like how the lead couple met, as captains of rival pub trivia teams.  I lived in that world for a long time, since I spent 8 years on a trivia team, and I know those people are very competitive.  A romance between two trivia "alphas" might play out sort of like it does here.  But trivia is kind of its own animal, just because you're good at pub trivia, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll also be good at Jenga, or Dance Dance Revolution, or Pictionary, for that matter.  Those all require different skill sets - I also played Dungeons & Dragons for a five-year stretch, and those players are a different type of nerd, too.  If a D&D player moved into gaming, he'd probably play strategy games like Settlers of Catan.  So someone skilled at trivia would probably prefer games like Trivial Pursuit (duh) over other fare.  And murder-mysteries are their own thing, probably enjoyed most by fans of detective novels, not hardcore gamers.  The payoffs are different, if you're a competive person just out to WIN, a murder mystery might not scratch that itch, because the goal there is to SOLVE and be correct.  Think about the different goals in playing Monopoly and Clue, they require different strategies.

And of course, the coincidences and conveniences here represent a very far stretch, though I don't want to get too deep into them here.  Reality is subjective, and it changes several times here as the true nature of the game is slowly revealed, and the players get deeper and deeper into the world of organized crime and underground fight clubs.  I kind of want to watch this one again, just to find all the little Easter eggs - like the "tilt-shift" effect that's used in the aerial long-shots, which make the houses look like the famous Life board game.  Then there are subtle references to Simon Says, Charades, Monopoly and even Operation peppered throughout the film.  Something about the car chases seemed a little bit off, but now I realize that the camera often took the overhead POV shot of the couple's car, and the car seemed to remain static, with the rest of the world rotating around it when it swerved - that could easily be the POV shot from a video-game like "Grand Theft Auto 3".

And the movie itself nearly gets stolen by Jesse Plemons as the neighbor cop - who comes off as creepy because he speaks about things with no emotion.  That's got to be difficult for an actor, to play someone who's depressed and speaks in a monotone, but to also give the impression that there's a lot going on inside, like one wrong move and this guy could spring into action, and you're just not sure what he's capable of.  Remember what they always say after tragedies, how someone was a very quiet guy and kept to himself, and nobody could have predicted what that guy was going to do.  THIS is that guy.

Starring Jason Bateman (last seen in "Office Christmas Party"), Rachel McAdams (last heard in "The Little Prince"), Kyle Chandler (last seen in "Manchester by the Sea"), Billy Magnussen (last seen in "Happy Tears"), Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris (last seen in "Sandy Wexler"), Kylie Bunbury (last seen in "The Sitter"), Jesse Plemons (last seen in "Hostiles"), Michael C. Hall (last seen in "David Bowie: The Last Five Years"), Danny Huston (last seen in "Wonder Woman"), Jeffrey Wright (last seen in "Shaft"), Chelsea Peretti (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping"), Camille Chen, Zerrick Williams, Joshua Mikel (last seen in "Office Christmas Party"), R.F. Daley, Michael Cyril Creighton (last seen in "The Post"), Brooke Jaye Taylor, Natasha Hall, Malcolm Hughes, Jessica Lee, with cameos from directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein.

RATING: 5 out of 10 Jenga pieces