How to Be Single

Year 9, Day 31 - 1/31/17 - Movie #2,531

BEFORE: Day 2 of the Romance Chain, and I don't feel all that prepared, since it's also Day 2 with this head cold that hit yesterday, but I'm diving in anyway.  Alison Brie carries over from "Sleeping With Other People", and Jason Mantzoukas does as well - this makes three films in a row for him.

THE PLOT: A group of young adults navigate love and relationships in New York City.

AFTER: This morning, I was running a little late, due to this cold, and the corner deli ran out of my usual Tuesday apple danish, so I had to buy one with cinnamon walnut filling.  It was OK, but once I tasted cinnamon, which is often paired with apple, then the apple was conspicuous in its absence.  Now I know what the absence of apples tastes like.  This film is a little like that, in that it feels like it comes close to making some grander point, but instead the moral lesson is notoriously absent in the end.

But I think it works as an examination of how some people tend to sabotage their relationships - the times when people are clearly doing some things wrong, but they're just not aware of what exactly they are.  The main character, Alice, realizes that she's never been truly single, so she doesn't know who she really is, without defining herself through her relationships.  This once happened to a co-worker of mine, about 10 or 12 years ago, when my boss pointed out to her that she went from living with her parents to living in the college dorm, to living with her boyfriend, therefore he said, "but you've never lived on your own..."  In that instant, I realized her relationship was doomed, and sure enough, a few months later she split with her boyfriend and was living in an apartment by herself.

Which is ridiculous - in New York City you need a roommate at the very least, if you're going to afford any apartment bigger than a closet.  It's a fallacy that you have to be single to truly discover "who you are" - what if you're a person who prefers to live with other people, and that's truly who you are?  I tried living by myself for a few months back in 1996, and I didn't much care for it.  Mostly I ended up in conversations with my cat, just to keep from going insane.  Humans are social animals, we need contact with other people on a daily basis, and women shouldn't be made to apologize for this fact.

It's also a fallacy, ladies, that if you've never hiked the Grand Canyon, or gone skydiving, or done something that's on your bucket list, that your current relationship is to blame.  Plenty of married or otherwise non-single people hike the Grand Canyon every year, or do those other activities they want to do, and it's not even an issue.  And if your partner doesn't want to hike the Grand Canyon with you, then, please, go do it alone.  Because if you stick with that partner and don't go on that hike, you're eventually going to blame that person for holding you back, and that causes resentment.  If your relationship is strong, it will survive the week off that you need to go on that hike, or make that documentary, or do whatever you need to do in the world.

But the main character in this film is young, she hasn't figured all this out yet.  So she falls into this logical trap that tells her she has to live alone for a while - essentially she breaks up with her boyfriend because she thinks that will be "better" for the relationship.  In what universe?  If you go through the pain of separation, it will be harder to get back together and stay together in the long run, not easier.  And too much time apart will only hurt the relationship, despite what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder - it also allows people to focus their love attention elsewhere.

Alice further has the problem of being indecisive - she keeps waffling between three men (her former live-in boyfriend, the casual bartender and the widowed father).  But she's only one kind of single woman, for good measure they dump in three other kinds - the professional woman who wants to be a single mother, the one's who's calculated her search for the perfect man down to all the percentages,  and the devil-may-care single woman who drinks too much and sleeps around. But none of them are really who they pretend to be to the world, and nobody's plan comes out the way they initially predict.

The soon-to-be mother happens to fall for a younger man (who digs older woman) at just the wrong time - after becoming pregnant through a sperm donor.  Before that, maximum irony was achieved by making her an obstetrician who claims she doesn't want to have a kid.  Then, 10 minutes later, she's decided to become a single mother - that's quite a change in her character, without much of an explanation.  Taking all of the stories in total, it seems to me that the screenwriters don't know the difference between "character change" and "character growth".  Someone suddenly changing their mind about something does not constitute logical development.

Lucy, the single woman who's taken the logical, mathematical approach to her search for a mate is also on the wrong track in a way, because she's too open and upfront with each prospective man who fits her parameters, and she's planning the wedding after the first date, which naturally scares each man away.  How is a character whose only defining feature is her search for a man still a viable character in a film made in this century?  Did the writers forget to give Lucy a job, outside of her volunteering at the bookstore, reading books for children?  How can she afford that apartment in the Meatpacking District without a source of income? At least the other three women are paralegals and an OB/GYN doctor....

The fourth character, Robin, may be a paralegal, but she's also something of a mess.  But this is fine for comic effect - at first we're supposed to celebrate the fact that she drinks too much, wakes up with a hangover and always has a plan to get a change of clothes, a free make-over and a quick pick-me-up before making it to the office - but the best bit of comedy comes when they reveal that her plan fails spectacularly, on a regular basis.  But there's inconsistency here as well - is her advice always terrible, or occasionally incredibly helpful?  Because she always acts as if she knows exactly what she's doing, but tons of confidence will only get you so far, if the life plan is flawed to begin with.  And Rebel Wilson has got to be careful with roles like this, because she's not going to become a respected actor if all her characters do is act obnoxious and fall down a lot.  She's become the female Chris Farley, I'm sad to report.

In the end, the film can't seem to decide if being single is a good thing, or a bad thing - gosh, could it possibly be both?  Me, I think it could easily have been called "Be Glad if You're Not Single".

Also starring Dakota Johnson (last seen in "Fifty Shades of Grey"), Rebel Wilson (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Leslie Mann (last heard in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman"), Damon Wayans Jr. (last heard in "Big Hero 6"), Anders Holm (last seen in "The Intern"), Nicholas Braun (last seen in "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"), Jake Lacy, Colin Jost, Sarah Ramos.

RATING: 4 out of 10 fire escapes

Sleeping With Other People

Year 9, Day 30 - 1/30/17 - Movie #2,530

BEFORE: There are still two days to go until February 1, but I've got more romance films this year than there are days in February, so I'm starting the romance topic a couple of days early.  Hey, it's not a hard and fast rule that I have to make the topic coincide exactly with the month that contains Valentine's Day.  I was really lucky to come up with a continuous chain that almost filled up January - and to think that if I had included those two Woody Allen films, I would have hit it right on the nose.  

Jason Mantzoukas carries over from "Dirty Grandpa".

THE PLOT: A good-natured womanizer and a serial cheater form a platonic relationship that helps reform them in ways, while a mutual attraction sets in.

AFTER: Also carrying over from "Dirty Grandpa" is the concept of bad behavior, the two main characters consistently misbehave here, particularly with regards to relationships.  Both keep getting involved again and again in dysfunctional relationships, or if one of them happens to be in a positive one, then they find a way to sabotage it.  Hey, at least they're aware of their shortcomings, which puts them ahead of most people, even if they're not sure WHY they're doing it.  

Of course, we in the audience have an advantage, we know why they can't succeed in relationships with other people, because we know they belong together.  That's the shorthand of romance movies, generally speaking, the two leads belong together, despite their differences or difficulties getting together.  As a trend, this goes all the way back to Tracy and Hepburn, or Bogart and Bacall, and probably even before that.  

But the classic romance film that's really evoked here, more than any other, is "When Harry Met Sally", which came out in 1989 - before text messages, before Tinder dates, before sex addiction was diagnosed.  So, it probably was time for some kind of update.  You could even call this film "When Jake Met Lainie", but for some reason that doesn't have the same ring to it.  (Seriously, they should have at least considered giving Nora Ephron a writing credit...). That isn't necessarily bad, because imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, or if you're going to steal, at least steal from the best. 

They really just swapped in a dumpling house in place of "Katz's Deli", and replaced lines like "the white man's overbite" with "the dirty DJ", but the main idea is the same - two friends who confide in each other over the years, and their relationship calls into question whether men and women can truly be friends, without the sex thing getting in the way.  OK, to be fair there are some major differences, like Harry and Sally started their relationship with a road trip, and the characters here start by spending a night together in the Columbia dorm, and then not seeing each other for 12 years.  

That's a bit of a narrative NITPICK POINT, I think - because when they bump into each other again, he says, "Hey, you kind of disappeared after that night..." and she says, "Yeah, I did..." and there's just NO follow-up question?  Wouldn't it be logical for him to say, "And where did you go, how did you go from medical school to becoming a teacher?"  I mean, we can sort of fill in the gaps, but why doesn't he even ask?  

The chemistry between these two is really good, but the downside to that is that we can see that they belong together long before THEY do, and yet we're still forced to watch them fail with other people before they come together themselves.  And like in "When Harry Met Sally", it almost doesn't make sense because they may know each other a bit TOO well, they know each other's hang-ups and faults and still that doesn't seem to get in the way, probably because they've spent so much time together that after all that they've said and done, the relationship is the logical next step.  

I think maybe the problem with screenplays about romance is that writers sometimes assume that there's only one path to romance - that burst of attraction that leads to interest, which leads to blazing passion, which leads to a stable, positive relationship.  That's only one way to get there - love can start with friendship, love can be encouraged by familiarity, love can function as a business relationship.  It's too limiting to think that it can only come from going on dates with strangers.  And just as important as being a good lover is being a good roommate - because if you can't share a space together, really, what chance have you got as romantic partners? 

Also starring Jason Sudeikis (last seen in "Horrible Bosses 2"), Alison Brie (last seen in "Get Hard"), Adam Scott (last seen in "Hot Tub Time Machine 2"), Amanda Peet (last seen in "The Way Way Back"),  Natasha Lyonne (last seen in "Heartburn"), Katherine Waterston (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Adam Brody (last seen in "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World"), Andrea Savage, Marc Blucas, with cameos from Jordan Carlos, Billy Eichner (last heard in "The Penguins of Madagascar").

RATING: 6 out of 10 safe words

Dirty Grandpa

Year 9, Day 29 - 1/29/17 - Movie #2,529

BEFORE: Today was something of an American holiday, even if you didn't know it.  It was unofficially "The Day to Go Grocery Shopping to Buy Snacks for Super-Bowl Sunday" Day.  I just have to shop a week early for a good selection, if I wait until the Thursday or Friday before, I'll get stuck with bargain-brand snacks, and that just won't do, it would be un-American.  So I got some potato chips, salsa, queso dip, tortilla chips, pretzels, cubed cheese, sliced salami, onion dip, and some frozen potato skins with bacon and cheese on them.  My wife will pick up some little smoked sausages and pepperoni, and we'll be all set.  It's a good thing we're not planning on having any guests over, or we'd need more food. 

Robert De Niro carries over again from "Joy", and this will be the last I see of him, at least for a while.  (I think, but then again, I never know)

THE PLOT: Right before his wedding, an uptight guy is tricked into driving his grandfather, a lecherous former Army Lieutenant-Colonel, to Florida for spring break.

AFTER: I'm a little embarrassed after the fact for watching this one, because it's so crude and so dumb, but since I need the link to tomorrow's film, I can't exactly claim that I didn't watch this.  I throw myself on the mercy of the court and beg for forgiveness.  

This film is part of that trend of "crude behavior" pictures, which got a boost from "The Hangover" and "Bridesmaids" and is still playing out - maybe it will never end, and just keep on going, but at some point, I figure enough has got to be enough.  Because a film that starts with a grandson walking in on his grandfather pleasuring himself while watching a porno, the day after his wife's funeral, where can it possibly go from there?  Straight into the gutter, mostly.  

The funniest bits are probably the gags about the Florida legal system, the way that Jason, the grandson, keeps getting arrested for one misunderstanding after another, and has to spend time in jail while the character who we know is a drug dealer gets to leave jail whenever he wants.  From everything we've heard about Florida over the last few years, this is almost too close to reality to be funny, though.  

The rest is the grandfather getting Jason into one mishap after another, under the auspices of getting down to Daytona and getting laid, for the first time in years.  But this premise doesn't even work, because even with the lies that he tells and his smooth personality, the Spring Break crowd isn't exactly full of girls looking to sleep with a 70-year-old.  So the script invents one, but that's really a cheat, because girls like that simply don't exist.  (Not unless that 70-year-old is a billionaire, but that's not the case here.)

And Jason's story is very cookie-cutter - like who can't tell that by pitching him as severely uptight at the start of the road trip, and someone who gave up on his artistic dreams to get a law degree, that interacting with the girl he went to school with (who's conveniently the best friend of the girl who wants to bed his grandfather) that this whole road trip is going to change his whole attitude about life and love?  I mean, come on, it's all just way too obvious, when it isn't all being way too crude.

On top of that, the character of the cousin who appears to have no social boundaries seemed thrown in, his storyline went nowhere, and this is also the film where De Niro raps, says the "N" word in that rap, and somehow knows all the names of the members of the Wu-Tang clan.  I'm not buying that. 

Also starring Zac Efron (last seen in "Neighbors"), Aubrey Plaza (last seen in "The To Do List"), Zoey Deutch, Julianne Hough (last seen in "Rock of Ages"), Dermot Mulroney (last seen in "The D Train"), Jason Mantzoukas (last seen in "The Night Before"), Adam Pally (also last seen in "The To Do List"), Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Michael Hudson, Jack Picking, Mo Collins, Henry Zebrowski (also last seen in "The D Train"), Brandon Mychal Smith, with a cameo from Danny Glover (last seen in "Maverick").

RATING: 3 out of 10 chugged beers

Joy

Year 9, Day 28 - 1/28/17 - Movie #2,528

BEFORE: My first post written on the new computer, with an updated browser - can you tell?  No, probably not.  I've been working with the new iMac for over a week, but most of that time has been spent transferring files over via an external drive, finding out if my old versions of Word and Excel would work (nope...) and finding a viable alternative that doesn't involve giving any money to the Microsoft Corp.  Then I had to re-program all of my iTunes playlists, and convince my phone to sync up with the new computer instead of the one at the office. The first synching went horribly wrong, I tried to do it all at once and songs were skipped, album artwork didn't transfer over, some songs ended up being duplicated - it was a mess.  I don't know why I can't just make a playlist, tell the computer to transfer that playlist to the phone, and that doesn't just WORK.  Instead, it seems to be buggy as all hell.  But removing all the playlists, then transferring them over one at a time, and syncing the phone after each one seemed to work better, though it was much more time-consuming. I know, white person problems, right?  But at least I'm back to where I can download music to replace my old audio-cassettes, and have a way again to get that music on to my phone, so I can listen to it on long subway rides, not have to listen to strangers' conversations, and then I won't get the urge to punch them in the face, so really, this is for the good of everyone.

Robert De Niro carries over from "The Intern", for another film about a woman succeeding in the workplace.

THE PLOT: The story of Joy Mangano, who rose to become founder and matriarch of a powerful family business dynasty.     

AFTER: First off, it's a little weird that they never say Joy's last name within the film, and I had to look it up online.  It's an odd detail to leave out - was it considered too ethnic?  Did some screenwriter feel that people wouldn't empathize with the lead character if I knew her last name, or that by leaving it out, I'd imagine her last name could be mine, or something?  Secondly, if you told me when I started this movie-watching project that I'd eventually watch the story of a woman who became famous for inventing a mop, I would have said you were crazy.  But that's where I find myself.  

Of course, we're talking about the Miracle Mop, a staple of the early days of Home Shopping Network and the infomercial circuit.  It's very tempting, being the cynical person that I am, to not believe that any product on TV is as good as it says it is.  I've seen too many empty promises, bought too many things that DON'T work for me to buy something on the advice of the exact same people who are also going to profit from that sale.  I'm probably the guy who confounds the marketing people, because I've peeked behind the curtain and worked in an advertising-adjacent line of work, plus I don't own a car, I only buy a new computer or phone when the old one crashes, and I tend to not own more than one pair of sneaker or two pairs of pants at one time.  I'm a simple man, and (generally speaking) money belongs in the bank, and I'm not eager to throw it away on a whim.  

But occasionally there is an item that does what its advertising says that it will.  In 2015, my mother asked for a MyPillow for Christmas, and from what I can tell, it's working well for her.  And after watching that infomercial for that square copper frying pan (you know the one, I bet) my wife and I took a chance on it at Christmas last month while shopping at the "As Seen on TV" outlet store, and so far so good, it really seems to be as non-stick and as easy-to-clean as Chef Eric said it would.  So since my umbrella gave up the ghost in a windstorm last week, hey, I may even give the Better Brella a try.  

This film takes place back in 1990, when "home shopping" was in its infancy, after convincing people that the term was not an oxymoron, before there were even web-sites to shop from.  Before that, it seems people would only shop at these things called "stores", where they could pick up and inspect the merchandise before buying, and walk out of the store with it THAT SAME DAY (I know, right?) and carry it home.  All shipping was "free shipping", because there was no shipping.  But I guess even back then there was the Sears catalog, and I don't know how that thing stayed in business for so long.  Why drive to a store and get your item right away when you can call a phone number and get it next week?  

But all this meant that there were only a few companies that controlled what products got on store shelves and which ones didn't, so even if you built a better mousetrap, there was no way to get people to find out about it, so that old saying about people beating a path to your door just wasn't the case.  Then along came TV and the internet, which I have to think leveled the playing field - but along with greater channels for promotion no doubt came new ways to rip people off.  For every invention that Ron Popeil came up with that delivered on its promise (ginsu knives, and let's assume that rotisserie oven) there were probably three that didn't (the Pocket Fisherman, that record-cleaning device) or broke after a few uses.  

Look, I don't know if the Miracle Mop was all that it was cracked up to be.  But I applaud the ingenuity of the person who designed it.  That said, I don't know if her story warrants making a movie about her, or depicting her terribly quirky family in such an obtuse way.  I don't even know if this portrayal of this American family is spot on, or if it was exaggerated in such a way to emphasize the hero-ness of Joy, being a working mother supporting family members who didn't seem able or willing to get jobs and pitch in.  I mean, sure, follow your dream, even if your dream is to sing in nightclubs or watch soap operas in bed, but you've got to have some balance in your life.  Maybe once you have a job and some income you can devote a few hours a day to your daytime dramas or whatever, but if that's all that you do, someone needs to call a family meeting. 

So I'd really prefer to call a mulligan here, because I can't say that this story didn't ring true, or took too many liberties, I just have to fall back on whether it entertained me or not - and I'm kind of neutral on this point because so many characters were so gratingly annoying, and I'm not sure that I buy this whole women's empowerment thing when it's just the same kind of success story that we see on "Shark Tank" every week.  I mean, let's keep some perspective here, this woman didn't cure a disease or become the first woman in space, or even champion civil rights, she just invented a better mop.  And I don't think she did it for the benefit of the world, as this story might lead you to believe. 
OK, so maybe the world's a little cleaner, but that's about it.

NITPICK POINT: Why does it seem like the only way a movie can show a woman getting "tough" is to show her cutting her hair?  I don't get the supposed "empowerment" that a scene like this is supposed to symbolize.  A woman can be tough or determined and have long hair - what's the alleged connection between the short hair and her demeanor?  I just see it as a cheap way for a movie to show what can't be shown, it's a shorthand cheat. 

NITPICK POINT: I don't know why anyone would wring a mop out with their bare hands - a mop head is obviously going to be dirty and something one wouldn't want to touch.  I believe that prior to 1990, a professional janitor would probably use a bucket with a wringer attached, and people at home had the option to use those sponge mops that either had a metal plate that you could squeeze the sponge with, or that handle that would compress the sponge together.  So I don't see how the Miracle Mop solved something that wasn't much of a problem to begin with. 

Also starring Jennifer Lawrence (last seen in "X-Men: Apocalypse"), Bradley Cooper (last seen in "Aloha"), Edgar Ramirez (last seen in "The Counsellor"), Virginia Madsen (last seen in "The Rainmaker"), Diane Ladd (last seen in "Wild at Heart"), Isabella Rossellini (last seen in "Wyatt Earp"), Elisabeth Rohm (last seen in "American Hustle"), Dascha Polanco, Jimmy Jean-Louis, with cameos from Ken Howard (last seen in "The Judge"), Susan Lucci, Donna Mills, Melissa Rivers.

RATING: 5 out of 10 royalty checks

The Intern

Year 9, Day 27 - 1/27/17 - Movie #2,527

BEFORE: I could have gone several different ways, linking out of "Sausage Party" - I love films with big casts, even animated ones, because they present me with so many options.  But sometimes this is maddening, too, if there are too many options - should I follow the Seth Rogen link to "Steve Jobs"?  Or the James Franco link to "Tristan & Isolde"?  And so on...

But I've set my sights on Feb. 1, and I already have a path there, so Anders Holm carries over from "Sausage Party", and this is the start of a three-film chain with Robert De Niro.  Then we'll hit the romance films on Monday, OK?

THE PLOT: 70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site.

AFTER: It's impossible to predict how much of any actor I'll see in a given year - after watching 5 films with De Niro in 2015, I went ALL of 2016 without an appearance from him.  For any given actor, there are ebbs and flows to all of this.  Anne Hathaway turned up three times in 2015, and I didn't see her at all last year, either.  

But I wonder if De Niro was miscast in this film - he's just so NICE, in every aspect of the word.  And is De Niro really at his best when he's being NICE?  Agreed, he was 72 when this film was released, and he's playing a guy who's 70, but it should be a scrappy 70, not an overly polite, neatly dressed 70.  There were times during this film when I was praying to see a little bit of the old Travis Bickle from "Taxi Driver" or Max Cady from "Cape Fear", just to shake things up a bit.  "Casino" or "Raging Bull" or "Godfather Part II" - heck, I would have settled for some of the meanness from his character in "Meet the Parents" here.  

Because he plays a guy here who keeps taking things in stride - the death of his wife, the solitude of being retired and directionless, and then when he does find his way back into the workforce, it's a tough go for him to learn about the new ways of doing business in an online world.  And even though he's very helpful to this dot-com's female founder, she doesn't want to accept or trust him at first, she even transfers him to another department for the crime of being "too observant", so he has to go on coffee runs for a bunch of spoiled millennials (I'm assuming...). 

"Come on!" I thought, "Get angry, fight back, stand up to these spoiled kids!  You don't have to smack them around, though that would probably be good for them, but let's see some push back!"  Of course, this is not THAT movie, instead he wins over most everyone in the company with his polite manners, his ability to tackle complex problems and his can-do spirit.  Ho-hum, how very boring!  If I wanted to see people pitching in and getting things done, I can just go to work!  I think if he had been more direct and forceful with the company's CEO, he could have straightened her out much quicker, and it wouldn't have taken the whole damn movie.  

NITPICK POINT: Ben spots a flyer that's looking for "Senior Internships", and it turns out that this dot-com company is really, genuinely looking for senior citizens to be interns at their company - but that's not even a real thing, is it?  This would have worked better in the film if the company was looking for COLLEGE seniors, and he thought they meant senior citizens, and then he's a real fish out of water, a 70-year-old guy applying for the same position as twenty-something millennial hipsters.  Now, THAT'S a solid premise.  So close, but they missed that opportunity here. 

I have a feeling this film may have seemed extra boring to me because I watched it right after "Sausage Party", which represented a flurry of manic activity.  The day-to-day operations of a clothing web-site are bound to seem dull by comparison, even though they manufactured a couple of shipping emergencies, and a mistakenly-sent e-mail that led to a heist-like operation to prevent the recipient from seeing something that would have been a personal disaster for the CEO.  Yeah, we all wish there was an "Unsend" button,  don't we?    

There is more to the story, but I'm going to avoid spoilers here, but much of it deals with the logistics of a woman running a company, and her inability (before De Niro's character, Ben, comes along, of course) to balance her job, her relationship, motherhood, and a decent sleeping schedule.   Ben finally convinces her that in this modern world, she shouldn't apologize for trying to have it all, or have to compromise any of those four things just to improve one of the others.  Which really should have gone without saying, so should a movie have to apologize for having its characters stating the patently obvious?   

So, what's the takeaway here, that a mommy can't be a CEO because she's always going to wonder if she's putting the company ahead of her husband and her daughter?  And a man can't be a house-husband, even if he says he's OK with it, because he's always going to secretly feel inferior because he's not the breadwinner in the family, and this will cause him to act out in other ways?  That's a horrible message.
 
Also starring Robert De Niro (last seen in "Grudge Match"), Anne Hathaway (last heard in "Rio 2"), Rene Russo (last seen in "Two for the Money"), Andrew Rannells, Adam Devine (last seen in "Pitch Perfect 2"), Zack Pearlman, Jason Orley, Christina Scherer, Linda Lavin (last seen in "Wanderlust"), C. J. Wilson, with cameos from Celia Weston (last seen in "The Invasion") and the voice of Mary Kay Place (last seen in "Starting Over") and archive footage from "Singin' in the Rain" featuring Gene Kelly (last seen in "Cover Girl") and Debbie Reynolds (last seen in "The Catered Affair").

RATING: 4 out of 10 flower pots 

Sausage Party

Year 9, Day 26 - 1/26/17 - Movie #2,526

BEFORE: I've done well so far in Year 9, if I do say so myself, I've kept to a regimen where I only add one film for every two I watch, so in 26 days the list has shrunk from 145 films to 133.  And I've managed to get to some relevant films, not only topically, but ones that I really wanted to watch last year, but couldn't find room for, like "Suicide Squad", "The Hateful Eight" and "The 33".  Those were all on my to-do list for 2016 and honestly, I just didn't have the time.  But in terms of quality, for every "Reds" there was an "Ishtar", for every "The Big Short" there was a "Concussion", for every "Anomalisa" there was a "By the Sea".  And I did watch two films with Seth Rogen there at the end of the year, so it killed me to fall one slot short, because this could have slipped in there so easily.  But these things have a funny way of working out, now it plays an integral role in helping me link to the start of the February Valentine's Day chain.

Unfortunately, my progress is about to come to a stop, because TCM's running a Debbie Reynolds marathon tomorrow - 12 films in 24 hours!  And I've only seen two of them before, "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Catered Affair".  I also want to add that HBO documentary "Bright Lights" about her relationship with her daughter, Carrie Fisher, and I don't know if I'd schedule these late in the year, with an obvious link to "Star Wars: Episode VIII", but I can at least keep my options open.  My dedication this year was to Carrie, so I think it would be nice.

But even if I ignore "The Singing Nun" and "How the West Was Won" (not in the mood...), that still leaves 8 films added to the list at once - that would undo most of the progress I've made so far this year, the list would be back up to 141, and I'm not sure my DVR can even hold that many HD movies at once.  What to do?  OK, first, relax.  Maybe I don't need to add ALL of them - I can focus on the ones that are most about love and relationships, even though I don't have room for them this February.  Do I really need to watch "Hit the Deck" or "I Love Melvin"?  And I was able to record "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" a couple of days early, so maybe I can trim this down to three more adds.  Adding three in the next two days, while taking two off the list, means it's only a slight setback, which I can overcome next week.  So in addition to "Molly Brown", I'll add "The Mating Game", "The Tender Trap" and "How Sweet It Is".  Then I just need two more films next week to complete this February's chain, then I can go back to my "every other day" rate of adding new films, and still get the watchlist close to 130 before the end of January.

Conrad Vernon carries over from "The Penguins of Madagascar" and voices several characters tonight.

THE PLOT: A sausage strives to discover the truth about his existence.

AFTER: First off, let me point out that I work in the realm of adult animation.  Not that all of it is graphically sexual (OK, some of it is) but I mean animation that's aimed at adults as movie-goers, not just films that they'll see when they're looking for something to occupy 90 minutes of their kids' day.  We know it's a tough struggle, because most Americans equate cartoons with children and child-like sensibilities, but when the entire animation market is only aimed at kids and their parents, then the market is not living up to its full potential.  Plus this puts a limit on the types of stories that can be told with animation - there can no cursing, no sex, and only limited violence.

But in other countries, like in France and Japan, adults watch animation that's not aimed at kids.  Who gave kids control over this segment of entertainment, anyway?  Kids don't have a lot of money, but their parents do.  I get it, you want to set the kids down in front of "Frozen" for an hour or so, just so you can have some time for yourself.  Or maybe you're an adult who digs movies aimed at kids, and if so, more power to you - but as I've seen, so many of these movies for kids are just bloody awful.

The tide has been turning - slowly.  More millennial young adults have kept watching animation well into their twenties, and shows like "Archer" and "South Park" and the Adult Swim line-up, and movies like "Team America" and "Anomalisa" and "Persepolis" have shown signs of promise.  Turns out that animators like Ralph Bakshi and Bill Plympton were maybe just a bit ahead of their time - and so regardless of the quality of "Sausage Party", I know a lot of people who were celebrating the fact that it was a financial success, because they've all been waiting for a breakthrough like that.

That being said, my feeling after watching "Sausage Party" is that it's wildly inventive, intensely creative, and crude (but in a way I don't mind), and I wish that I could just turn off my mind and really allow myself to enjoy it, but you just have to know that I'm about to nitpick the hell out of it.

Let's start with the concept, which is brilliant - a bunch of food characters that are alive, much like the toys in "Toy Story", only people can't see or hear them, and they live in a supermarket and worship the customers as "gods", and believe in the Great Beyond outside the supermarket, which is a promised land where all of their dreams will come true.  Meanwhile they fear the Dark Lord, who's really a supermarket employee that throws them in the trash can when they've reached their expiration dates.  It's not hard to draw the parallel between the foods and people believing in heaven and hell.  Who's to say that hell isn't essentially a dark, bottomless trash can?  And who's to say that our belief in heaven isn't just as misguided as the food's belief in the paradise outside the store?

But this leads me to NITPICK POINT #1.  The analogy between the clueless food characters and clueless religious people only goes so far - a great point is made here, especially if you're an atheist or an agnostic.  (But I bet religious people won't even see it...)  The food has the advantage of being able to SEE their gods, they KNOW that their gods exist, even if they don't quite understand them, or why the gods hear their songs (prayers).  Religious people in the real world are thereby at a disadvantage, they have to believe in gods that they can't see and can't prove, and you would think this would make people more skeptical in general and their beliefs more tenuous, but somehow the opposite seems to be the case.  People just say that "proof denies faith" and "God works in mysterious ways".  Umm, yeah, or maybe he just doesn't exist.  Isn't that simpler and more rational?

But the problem with the "Sausage Party" spin on religion - it's all over the place.  Heaven is outside the supermarket, but gods walk around inside?  Why would gods come down to "earth", and why can't they hear the food's prayers?  (Later, the people can, but it's due to a device/conceit...)  And it's a rude awakening when they find out that in heaven, God wants to eat them.  Suck on that, religious nuts.  Hey, why hasn't that idea taken root in comparative religion class - I mean, if you believe that God created the world and all the people, WHY did he do that?  Why didn't he just continue on, being all-powerful and all-knowing, but alone.  Does God NEED followers, and if so, for what purpose?  Is humanity just God's experiment or vanity project, because God needed some kind of ego boost?  If he exists, I think he gets off on all this worshipping, if you ask me.

And why do the foods have different religions - some are clearly Jewish (the bagel and the "juice") and others appear to be Muslim, but shouldn't they all have the same "heaven is outside" religion?  And where are the Christian foods?  This leads me to my next issue, which is that some of the foods are clearly ethnic, like the Mexican and Chinese condiments, and the box of grits both sounds and acts black, and then we get to the horribly stereotypical Indians, or Native Americans -actually I think the term "American Indian" is in vogue now, but that seems a bit like an oxymoron.  The character of Firewater is just unforgivably terrible, with the war paint and the feather on the head, and the very broken English and deadpan tone.  AND he's a bottle of alcohol?  Jeez, like there aren't enough struggles that Native Americans have to overcome, do we really need to remind everyone of the stereotype that they're heavy drinkers, too?

I think there's a big difference in casting Craig Robinson to voice a box of grits, or say, Stanley Tucci as the voice of Leonardo Da Vinci in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman", because he's of Italian descent, and hiring a white actor to do his best impression of "Tonto" to play Firewater.  Like, movies have a bad enough reputation for portraying Native Americans in Westerns (as Marlon Brando pointed out when he protested his Oscar...) do we need to keep all that going in a cartoon?  Native Americans are mystical, Native Americans talk funny, and they sit around a campfire and smoke-um peace pipe.  Give me a break, can't we get past all of this?

I'm just not sure that if you want to portray a supermarket full of foods, that falling back on these cheap stereotypes is the best way to do it.  Sure, it's easy, it's quick comedy, but is it really what's best for the story, what's best for our country?  It just highlights all of our differences, and it seemed for a minute like this film wanted to unite all the foods against the humans - but again, I question the methods.  There are moments of potential, like when the (Jewish) bagel and the (Muslim) lavash realize that they have some friends in common (and are both hot for each other, but more on that later) but these are counter-acted by the depiction of Nazi-like sauerkraut containers that want to "Kill the Juice!" (jews).  Do you really want to fill up your film with Nazi imagery like that?  It's too dangerous, some people will laugh at it, but others may take it seriously.

I mean, of COURSE a Mexican taco should have a Latina voice, and the bottle of tequila, the jars of salsa, I'm OK with them having Mexican accents, but do they ALL have to wear sombreros and have thick, swarthy mustaches?  That's some "Speedy Gonzalez"-style stereotyping right there, and I thought maybe we'd moved past this sort of thing.  And NITPICK POINT #2, a taco is a composed dish, you wouldn't normally find filled tacos sold in a supermarket - taco shells, sure, and the other ingredients, but a filled taco just wouldn't be there.  Even in a cartoon universe, there need to be rules, and they need to make sense.

Like, NITPICK POINT #3 would probably be something about how sometimes the character is the organic food, like the vegetables, but sometimes it's the container, like the jar of jelly or the juice box.  So how can a container be filled with food and self-aware, it's a cardboard box or plastic bottle with thoughts and feelings?  And in those cases the food is their internal organs, or blood or something?  That seems wholly inconsistent.  Also, a hot dog is processed meat, how can it be "alive"?  I can almost see favoring an ear of corn or a head of cabbage as a character, because those are living plants, but a hot dog is dead beef or turkey, ground up and mixed with fillers and other ingredients.  It can't possibly have a personality that doesn't acknowledge this, nor can a bread roll, which is flour and yeast and baking powder, somehow turned into a living, thinking talking creature with additional arms and legs?

Every possible dick joke you can make about a hot dog is here, of course, and some foods are naturally going to read as "male" and some, like the hot dog buns, are going to read as "female" - so the hot dog + bun thing is inherently suggestive, but it's nothing new.  Way back in 1927, a singing duo called Butterbeans & Susie released a record titled "I Want a Hot Dog For My Roll", with all the sexual suggestion that implied, and as you can imagine, it was quite a scandal.  But if we're going to take every food item and give it googly eyes and white gloves and little shoes, so that everything looks like the California Raisins or the m&m characters, is a hot dog really the best choice?  And she happens to talk out of her vagina-like lips, real classy there guys.  You reduced a woman to a talking vagina, whose sole purpose is to open up and accept the "hot dog".

I'm glad the film didn't get all preachy and uppity about vegetarian issues, it might have been easy to slip into that.  Also, they probably saved money but not using any genuine licensed brand characters, like Mrs. Butterworth or Charlie the Tuna.  Someone already made that film, it was called "Food Fight", and I'm guessing it was horrible.  In that film, the brand characters came to life in a supermarket, and probably half their budget was spent on licensing all the characters, and then they were probably hampered by the fact that you can't show Charlie the Tuna smoking, for example, even though there would be an obvious pun on "smoked salmon" or something.

But OK, let's say you don't want to think about the racist, sexist, religious overtones, and you just want to switch your mind off and try to enjoy the comedy here.  I mean, I couldn't do it, but maybe you can.  Is the story strong enough to carry the picture?  Apparently not, because they fall back on those old stand-bys, sex and violence.  Both have their place, but I'm just not sure that it's here.  The story's inconsistent because it pitches Frank (the hot dog) and Brenda (the bun) as a perfect fit (literally and figuratively) and they spend most of the film trying to get on the same page with regards to their, umm, union.  But the first time that they're alone together, out of their packages, why doesn't the hot dog slip into the bun, right then and there?  If it's SO important to them, why do they wait?  And then when the sex scene eventually happens, many other food stuffs join in (trust me, you'll never look at bagels and tacos the same way again...) so their monogamous relationship, the perfect fit of a hot dog and bun, one of the "goals" of the film, went out the window at the first possible chance to join the food orgy.  Romance is not really the strong suit of the filmmakers, I'm guessing.

The villain of the film is a giant douche - no, literally, he's a douche, and HIS goal is to, umm, get all up in that with one of the customers.  He seems to want to have sex with a god in heaven, if the analogy still holds.  But as we saw in another part of the film, if he loses the liquid inside of him, he'll die.  So he wants to have sex with God and then die?  Confusing things further seems to be the fact that when he loses the liquid inside of himself, he seems to be able to replace it with fruit juice?  And then late in the film, after giving a man (??) a fruit juice douche (enema?) he's able to control that man, much like Remy did in "Ratatouille".  Yeah, this is the part where the story was WAY out of control, and don't get me started on "bath salts", which - yep, NITPICK POINT #4 - as a psycho-active drug, are NOT the same as the bath salts one might buy in a store.  It's just the nickname for the drug, I know because I took five minutes and looked it up, back when that drug was prominent in the news.

I'll give credit for the dramatic irony that pervades the early part of the film, when we the audience know that the food items are destined to be eaten, but they don't.  (More clueless animated characters tonight, in the same vein as the Minions and the Penguins of Madagascar...) But NITPICK POINT #5 refers to the scene where the groceries are in the woman's kitchen, and there's the big reveal where she peels the potato and eats the (gasp) BABY carrots.  (Which, BTW, a little research would tell anyone are NOT immature or even "genetically bred to be small" carrots.  They're just the ugly, unusable carrots after being thrown into a cutter that makes small but uniform pieces. Sorry.)  My problem is that the woman opens the package of hot dogs and spreads the dogs out on the counter, obviously so the sausage characters can all stand up with space between them and witness the upcoming horror, but NOBODY opens a package of frankfurters like that!  Who wants a hot dog after it's been lying out on the dirty countertop?  Everybody either opens a little bit of the package and slides out a couple of weiners, or they open the WHOLE package and put all the dogs on the grill or into the boiling water.

The thing I hated most about the film was probably the cop-out ending.  Once again, it's a weird machine that saves the day, I won't say what the machine does, but it kind of negates the whole story, along with the new level of "self-awareness" that the food characters obtain.  Wild inconsistencies across the board, which is a major indicator of story problems.  I'd guess that after the wild scenes in the second half, nobody could really come up with an ending that would resolve everything.  I mean, a hot dog and a bun can't keep walking around a supermarket forever, aren't they going to spoil or get moldy at some point?

I don't know, something tells me that I'm WAY overthinking this.  But hey, that's what I do.

Also starring the voices of Seth Rogen (last heard in "Kung Fu Panda 3"), Kristen Wiig (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Michael Cera (last seen in "This Is the End"), Jonah Hill (last seen in "True Story"), Edward Norton (last seen in "Red Dragon"), Salma Hayek (last seen in "Savages"), James Franco (last seen in "The Night Before"), Paul Rudd (last seen in "Captain America: Civil War"), Bill Hader (last heard in "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2"), David Krumholtz (last seen in "The Mexican"), Nick Kroll (last seen in "Vacation"), Danny McBride (last seen in "Aloha"), Anders Holm (last seen in "Inherent Vice"), Craig Robinson (last seen in "Hot Tub Time Machine 2"), Harland Williams (last seen in "The Whole Nine Yards"), Scott Underwood, Greg Tiernan, Lauren Miller, Nicole Oliver, Michael Daingerfield, Vincent Tong.

RATING: 6 out of 10 toothpicks

The Penguins of Madagascar

Year 9, Day 25 - 1/25/17 - Movie #2,525

BEFORE: I often can't understand why certain films take so long to hit premium cable - is it because the film's DVD sales are doing well?  Or does the distribution company have some deal with Netflix or iTunes that prevents it from going to cable?  All I know is, this film was released in theaters in 2014, and now it's THREE years later, and it still hasn't shown up.  I always put each year's animated films on my wish list, and this one's been conspicuously absent for some time - I mean, I've watched almost 900 films since "Madagascar 3", how am I supposed to remember where the story left off?  

I got excited when I saw it on my DVR, listed on the On Demand channel, about 2 weeks ago for just $1.99.  Ah, they've cut the price, that usually means it will be on some premium channel in about a month, maybe two, right?  But then I really needed to use this film as a link, it's a perfect connection between "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" and tomorrow's film, which I really really want to get to.  But I had other films to add to the list, so I didn't take advantage of the $1.99 On Demand deal when I should have - those bastards at TW Cable (sorry, Spectrum) raised the price back up to $3.99.  But WHY?  The only reason to lower the price to $1.99 would have been that no one was buying it at $3.99, so the next logical step would be to play the film on HBO or Showtime for no additional cost, over the cost of the premium channels, that is.  

Then I thought, maybe it will be cheaper on iTunes or Amazon - nope, same price.  I even signed on to my wife's Amazon Prime to maybe watch it for free - no dice.  Amazon Prime is very helpful when it comes to offering you movies you don't want to see, it seems you can never get the movie you WANT as part of the deal.  OK, so I bit the bullet and paid the $3.99, just like I did for "The Big Short", another helpful linking film.  But at some point, I've got to give up on linking movies, because it's just getting too expensive. 

So, OK, I'll watch this film and that's one problem solved, but this isn't the only film that's taken a LONG time to show up on cable.  I should know, I've got a list of them.  Where is "Nightcrawler", and where is "Drive"?  Whatever happened to that film "Into the Wild"?  They're running "Burnt" now, but where's that other film about a chef, "Chef"? That Liam Neeson film "The Grey"? Where's that biopic about Jimi Hendrix, and the other one about Linda Lovelace?  And where are films that I saw at Sundance years ago, like "Regeneration", "Scotland PA" and "The Young Poisoner's Handbook"?  I only have those on VHS and my copies are not great, so I'd love to replace them.  I had hopes that the new year would bring a bunch of new films my way, and it did, but not these. 

Tom McGrath, who voiced Odysseus in "Mr. Peabody & Sherman", carries over to voice Skipper the penguin, and tomorrow I'll follow the voice of Rico the penguin to another film.

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" (Movie #1,603)

THE PLOT: Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private join forces with undercover organization The North Wind to stop the villainous Dr. Octavius Brine from destroying the world as we know it.

AFTER: The screenwriters here have to walk a really fine line with the Penguins - the stereotype of penguins is that they're cute, cuddly, they waddle around and are genuinely clueless.  But there's not much story potential there, so they go in the opposite direction with these four, who act like a military unit - very organized, resourceful, efficient.  But then, that's not inherently funny if they're good at what they do, is it?  So they have to act like a well-oiled machine, but they also have to be generally clueless at what they do and make mistakes, essentially failing upwards.  That sounds complicated, but it puts them in the same realm as Ace Ventura, Inspector Clouseau, and many other characters.  Confidence is the most important aspect of their personality, even if they don't always succeed, they have to believe that they will.  

This film is part prequel to the "Madagascar" series, and also part sequel.  We do get to see the origin story of the team, how three young penguins broke away from their flock to save a runaway egg, which hatched to become Private (which explains why he's the inferior member, he's slightly younger than the others) but in rescuing him, they got separated from Antarctica.  The action cuts forward to the end of "Madagascar 3" (I think) where they separate from the other circus animals on their own mission.  

In a roundabout way, this puts them in touch with the film's villain, an octopus who hates penguins because in every zoo or aquarium he's ever been in, the penguins are much cuter and he's eventually shuffled off to the next zoo or aquarium.  And then somewhere along the way, he gained the ability to talk like a human (all the other octopi in the film must be mute), disguise himself as a human, and gain the scientific knowledge to develop a serum that will turn cute animals into monsters.  Yeah, that's a bit of a stretch, all of it.  

Our four hero penguins have to figure out his next target, get there first and lay a trap for Dave, the evil octopus.  But there's another group of animals out to get Dave, and unlike the penguins from the South Pole, they're the animals from the north - a harbor seal, a snow owl, a polar bear and a gray wolf.  At some point, you'd think this would all get confusing, with all these characters.  And it does.  Hey, I thought the penguins were supposed to be the stars of this film, and here come four new animals to upstage them, just like in the "Madagascar" films.  The "North Wind" animals are cockier, better equipped, and generally better trained.  It would seem logical that they'd be more likely to succeed, right?  

But in the end, it's not what kind of animal you are, it's what you're willing to sacrifice.  It's not what you look like, but what's in your heart, right?  OK, but then how come so much emphasis is placed on being "cute" like a penguin is?  The worst thing that the villain can do to them is to take away their cuteness, but if looks don't matter, then why is it so important that the penguins get changed back? 

Speaking of the end, this is the 2nd (or maybe 3rd) animated film in a row where the end is brought about by a complicated gizmo, that just happens to work the way that the story needs it to work, physics and logic be damned.  Here it's this anti-cuteness beam thingy that is powered by a serum, and when the serum is removed and replaced by something else, the whole machine then just works a different way, because it needs to.  Sure, and you can replace your car's engine with a giant hamster wheel, or someone's heart with a baked potato, and everything will be fine.  

Also starring the voices of Chris Miller (last heard in "Turbo"), Christopher Knights (last heard in "Madagascar 3"), John Malkovich (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Benedict Cumberbatch (ditto), Ken Jeong (also last heard in "Turbo"), Peter Stormare (last seen in "Nacho Libre"), Annet Mahendru, Andy Richter (last heard in "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2"), Danny Jacobs, with vocal cameos from Werner Herzog (last seen in "Grizzly Man"), Billy Eichner.

RATING: 5 out of 10 snowglobes