The Oath

Year 13, Day 328 - 11/24/21 - Movie #3,984

BEFORE: I could not have timed this better - but hey, this is what I do. I've arrived at my Thanksgiving film right on schedule, just as I've arrived at my parents' house in Massachusetts to get some kind of holiday dinner ready for them. They've made the move over to assisted living, at least for the winter, and they'll make some kind of decision in the spring about whether to move back to the house or to somewhere else, based mostly on my mother's health and/or mental condition. I've got a cousin who sleeps at their house a few days a week, when he's working in the area and not taking care of his kids, so he's sort of a caretaker for the house, this way we don't have to fully shut it down yet.

I could cook the usual big holiday dinner myself, with a big frozen turkey and making the sides from scratch, but that's SO much work - instead, I opted for a pre-cooked turkey breast dinner package from the local grocery store, with all the sides like potatoes and stuffing and green bean casserole, all just have heat-and-eat instructions. My wife and I picked that up today along with some cheese & crackers and an extra dessert, and all I have to do tomorrow is put some dinner plates together for my parents, and we'll deliver that to them around 5 pm, they're having Thanksgiving lunch provided by their facility.  It should all go pretty smoothly, and then we get to eat a holiday meal ourselves after that - the facility has rules in place right now that forbid us from eating the meal WITH them, but we can join them on Zoom and eat the meal together, sort of.

Jay Duplass carries over from "Manson Family Vacation".

THE PLOT: In a politically divided America, a man struggles to make it through the Thanksgiving holiday without destroying his family.

AFTER: I think years from now, people will be able to view this movie and be very aware of what year it was released, which was 2018, midway between the elections and the halfway point of the first (and hopefully ONLY) Trump administration. At the time we thought U.S. politics couldn't have been more divisive, only that was before mask mandates and vaccine mandates, Black Lives Matter protests and a failed insurrection. So now, three years later, the country's even MORE divided than it was then, to the point where "facts" tend to take on two different meanings, depending on which channel is reporting them.  

And that's exactly where this film lives, in a country where two different people watching two different news channels walk away with exactly opposite spins on the same events. Sound familiar? On one channel the insurrectionists are misguided morons supporting a lying loser, and on the other channel, they're our last defense against election fraud and a failed system. How can both things be true? What is "truth" now, anyway? Should the news be true or is it enough for it to be entertaining - while also pandering to people's more basic instincts?  And if this is wrong, what can be done to change it?      

This may be the perfect film for me to watch this week, because the story starts on Thanksgiving of one year, then skips forward to three days before Thanksgiving the NEXT year, and then ends on Black Friday. The President proposes that all Americans swear an oath of loyalty to the country, and many sign that oath right away, but then just as many Americans decide to either NOT sign the oath because of laziness or dissatisfaction with the opposing political party, while a very small, very vocal groups decides that such an oath seems to be in conflict with the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees citizens things like freedom of speech, and therefore also the power of dissent.  We've seen debates like this over the Pledge of Allegiance, because if kids in school are FORCED to recite it every morning, doesn't that seem to be in conflict with free speech?  Yes, of course we should love our flag, and the country for which it stands, but that also should be an individual decision that every citizen needs to make for themselves, and other answers should be possible.  

We have the right to protest every decision made by the government, however once a law is enacted, then not following that law has consequences, even if that's an imperfect law, or one we don't like. I might hate the law that says I can't smoke or drink alcohol in public, but that in itself is not enough to justify breaking the law. If I disagree, my time would be better spent trying to get the law revoked or changed.  Therefore, logically, if people in blue states disagree with mask or vaccine mandates, or people in red states disagree with the lack thereof, they're free to protest, but still must pay the penalty if caught not complying with local laws. 

And this brings me to Chris, the lead character in "The Oath", who has defiantly refused to sign said oath, and the deadline is fast approaching. And as his family starts showing up for Thanksgiving, he finds one reason after another to disagree with his brother, his brother's girlfriend and even his parents, who all apparently get their news from different sources as he does. They've all signed the oath, but he hasn't, as a sign of defiance - and around the country protests are turning violent, and certain celebrities who also took a stand against the government policies have begun disappearing. This sounds a lot like the situation with that missing Chinese tennis star who spoke out against a government official recently, so yeah, it could happen. 

When government agents open fire into a crowd of protestors, this news is reported in two very different ways, which calls to mind some of the BLM protests from last year. If you disagree with their cause, then those protestors deserve what's coming to them - but if you agree with them, then they're martyrs whose rights should have been protected. Right? 

But when Black Friday hits, two agents show up at Chris' house - his family lets them in, because he's really been a dick to them for the last few days - and they want to know why he hasn't signed the oath. Liberal (one assumes) Chris points out that the agents have no warrant, and have no cause to be there, so he asks them to leave. Again, he COULD just sign the oath, on paper or the e-version online, but he decides that he needs to make his point - hmm, how did taking a knee during the anthem work out for Colin Kaepernick?  

Everything from this point on sort of falls into the "What else can go wrong?" category, and the standoff between the family and the agents devolves into an illogical situation, and almost feels near the end like the screenwriter painted himself into a corner, however there IS a resolution after the "darkest before the dawn" climax.  I won't spoil it, but again, since this was written in 2018 it feels like a bit of fictional wish fulfillment based on what was happening in the news at that time.

This film may not be perfect, but it's got a lot going for it - like the portrayal of an interracial couple that doesn't keep sticking that fact in our faces, it just sort of is what it is, which makes it feel all right.  And disagreeing with family over politics during Thanksgiving, well, that may not be universal but I think many people would be familiar with this, especially when butting heads with older relatives who are set in their ways and still living according to the social mores of decades past. And it's important to depict the proper way to act as part of the resistance when you disagree with the government - remember, you still have to follow the laws, even the ones you don't like. 

That's it for me this week - tomorrow I'm cooking, delivering food and eating and then setting up my parent's printer on Friday. Back with a new film on Sunday.

Also starring Ike Barinholtz (last seen in "The Hunt"), Tiffany Haddish (last seen in "Like a Boss"), Nora Dunn (last seen in "Tag"), Chris Ellis (last seen in "October Sky"), Jon Barinholtz, Meredith Hagner (last seen in "Horse Girl"), Carrie Brownstein (last seen in "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"), Billy Magnussen (last seen in "Aladdin" (2019)), John Cho (last seen in "Between Two Ferns: The Movie"), Max Greenfield (last seen in "I'm Not Here"), Jon Lovett, Brian Guest, Kevin Rahm, Josh Meyers (last seen in "Fighting With My Family"), Beth Dover, John Ducey, Bruce Boxleitner (last seen in "Tron: Legacy"), Matt Corboy, Priah Ferguson, Henry Kaufman, with cameos from Richard Herd (last seen in "The Mule"), Seth Rogen (last seen in "Zeroville")

RATING: 6 out of 10 slashed tires

Manson Family Vacation

Year 13, Day 325 - 11/21/21 - Movie #3,983

BEFORE: Well, I really wanted to bookend last week with the two films about serial killers, but my work schedule kind of got in the way - I got called in for extra shifts at the movie theater, which is a good thing, because after today, I've got the holiday week off.  So, I've got to get those shifts in when I can, pretty much if somebody gets sick, I'll take their shift, or somebody has a family emergency, ditto, or if there's a screening arranged at the last minute, they know to give me a call.  I'm a married guy with zero social life, so I'll probably be available.  Yesterday it was a school screening, computer animation from the last two years of alumni, and today, well, it was a guild screening so I can't really talk about it. (film is not yet released, but the audience had a Ball, hint hint)

Jay Duplass carries over from "Horse Girl". 

THE PLOT: Two brothers tour Charles Manson murder sites. One is a devoted family man. One is devoted to The Family. 

AFTER: I get the feeling with this one that some writer started off with the title, and then maybe worked backwards from there. They could have riffed off of any phrase, like "Manson Family Planning" or "Manson Family Affair" or "Manson Family-Owned Business". I guess the Addams Family movies wrecked any possibility of making "Manson Family Values", but other answers were of course possible.  

Of course, it's everything you imagine a film like this would be, since it's about a trip taken to tour all the famous sites in Los Angeles, like the Tate Mansion, the Lobianco house, and that Mexican cafe where Sharon Tate ate her last meal.  And it's a whole lot less, too, because the movie doesn't really take things as far as it could take them, honestly it's a bit of a half-hearted attempt to showcase people who've got an unhealthy obsession with serial killers and the places that they, umm, you know. 

Yes, there are people out there fascinated with this sort of thing - but do we need a film that gives them a name and a voice?  There must be literally hundreds of better ways for people to spend their time rather than go on murder-cations to tour these places, even if it brings them closer to the people they need to drive them there. Me, I'd suggest taking a tour of all the places they filmed scenes for "Return of the Jedi", the Star Wars fan magazine just printed a handy list, and you don't even have to go to Tunisia because they mostly filmed in California and Arizona, you could probably see all the exteriors used for Endor and Tatooine within a week.  But that's just my preference, I know some people would prefer to go to New Zealand and take the "Lord of the Rings" tour - that's fine, you do you. 

But unless you're Quentin Tarantino, I don't know what could possibly be gained by visiting the Manson Family murder sites, but that's what Conrad here keeps suckering his brother Nick into. And Nick keeps falling for it, again and again, because he realizes that's the only way to satisfy Conrad, who's sold all his earthly possessions and moved out to California to work for some kind of "environmental group".  It's also a bit hard to believe that there are still Manson followers out there, because Manson was locked up in prison for SO LONG, his trial took place in 1970, and you'd think that in the 50 years that followed, most of his acolytes would have had to find something better to do. Right? 

It's worth noting that when this film was released in 2015, Charles Manson was still alive - but he died on November 19 in 2017 (DAMN, I missed the anniversary by just TWO DAYS!).  The month of November seems to play a number of important roles in his story - he was born on November 12, 1934, his first parole hearing was on November 16, 1978, and of course, the Beatles released their "White Album" on November 22, 1968.  Yep, that's the album with the song "Helter Skelter" on it. 

It's also worth noting that Charles Manson did champion ecological causes, and a belief system known as ATWA (Air, Trees, Water, Animals) - and those things are important, as we're all sort of re-finding out now that climate change is out of control. And some of Manson's followers engaged in eco-terrorism against those that would pollute the planet - so it kind of pains me to say this, but maybe Charles Manson made a few good points. However, remembering the man for his pro-ecology philosophies is a bit like admiring Hitler as an artist - you're kind of ignoring a lot of important stuff if that's what you choose to focus on. 

This is the second film I've watched this year that mentioned the Sharon Tate murders, the other film was "Zeroville".  And it was last year that I watched "Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood".  I've got one more Manson-related film on my list, "Charlie Says", but I haven't been able to work it in.  I suppose there's always next year - but it would have been great to watch these films a bit closer together, of course. 

Also starring Linas Phillips (last seen in "Lucky Them"), Leonora Pitts, Adam Chernick (last seen in "The Angriest Man in Brooklyn"), Tobin Bell (last seen in "The Quick and the Dead"), Davie-Blue, Suzanne Ford (last seen in "You, Me and Dupree"), Ray Laska, Brent Alan Henry, Matt Bennett (last seen in "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot"), Justin M. Rasch, Jonathan Brooks, Isaac Reardon Berger, Orson Chaplin, Amy Adair, Larry Duplass, with archive footage of Charles Manson (last seen in "Zappa"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 Polaroids (was this set before they invented camera phones?)

Horse Girl

Year 13, Day 323 - 11/19/21 - Movie #3,982

BEFORE: After tonight, just two more films until the Thanksgiving break - then I'll really need to start thinking about getting Christmas cards out and buying some gifts, though from what I've heard about the mail system, there's going to be another slowdown - so between that and the supply chain problems left over from the pandemic, I'm thinking it already might be too late. Time to start shopping for Christmas 2022 if you want the gifts to arrive in time, I guess. 

John Ortiz carries over again from "Jack Goes Boating". 

THE PLOT: Sarah, a socially isolated woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life. 

AFTER: Well, it's been another year of weird movies, I can say that now, even if it's not over yet.  What could I possibly see in the last 18 movies that's weirder than what I've seen so far?  I feel like Rutger Hauer's character in "Blade Runner" talking about all the things he'd seen, like the attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.  Don't forget I started this year with "Parasite" and "Okja", two strong contenders on the weirdness scale.  Then all that Bergman, from "The Seventh Seal" to "Hour of the Wolf" and "Cries and Whispers". "I'm Thinking of Ending Things", I'm still not sure what I watched there. Talking animals in "The One and Only Ivan" and "Dolittle" barely move the weird needle, given some of the things I saw this year. "The One I Love" - the weird highlight of the romance chain. 

Time travel movies are inherently weird - and I'll do a full breakdown after Christmas, probably, but "Tenet"? Come on, that one was totally weird, but also very great. Unlike "Fantasy Island" and "Wonder Woman 1984", which were weird and terrible. "Palm Springs", "Soul", "Mortdecai", "Zeroville", all very weird in their own ways. And that's all BEFORE getting to horror movies, many of which are inherently weird, but they follow their own rules. A film where everyone somehow forgets the Beatles music is weird, but it's practically quaint and charming compared to some the other films I've seen.  

OK, I've got to narrow it down, the five weirdest films (good and bad) so far in 2021 are, in some order: "Brightburn", "Soul", "Tenet", "Cats" and I've got to say "Horse Girl".  Ooh, but there was also "The Suicide Squad", "A Cure for Wellness", "Scooby-Doo 2" and "Filth", do you see how hard this is to choose?  "Hellboy" and "Monster Hunter", what about them?  Any way you slice it, I've got to think about "Horse Girl" as a contender because it starts out so normal, and then (Umm, big SPOILER ALERT for what's to follow) by the end it's completely bonkers.  To the point where I don't know whether to take the last half hour seriously at all, whether it's all a dream or the lead character has gone insane or died or what. 

At the onset, it's a lot like "Jack Goes Boating", in that the lead character is single, socially awkward and perhaps something of a loser, but come on, we've seen that situation turn itself around many times before.  Sarah binge-watches old episodes of an X-Files like cop show called "Purgatory", and it's a bit of a problem when the storylines start mixing with real life.  She connects with her roommate's boyfriend's roommate, named Darren, just like the main character in her show, and it's downhill from there.  One morning she thinks her car is stolen, but it's found miles from her home and towed to an impound lot.  Sarah also starts waking up in strange places, so the simplest answer is that she sleep-drove the car somewhere herself, and then walked home.  But there aren't really many more simple answers here after that. 

Sarah has a friend who's not mentally all there, I think we see in the flashbacks that she fell off a horse when they were kids, and well, let's just say she leads an active fantasy life.  Sarah cares for a horse that she used to own, but no longer does, and it seems like the stable owners just wish she'd get the hint and stop coming around to visit. She also has photos of her grandmother, whom she greatly resembles, and starts to wonder if she might somehow be her grandmother's clone, even though cloning wasn't even a thing back then.  But there's no good way to have your doctor test to see if you're a clone, without the original to compare DNA to.  

There's so many dropped threads, though, that the facts here are very elusive - Sarah takes a DNA profile test, but we never see the results. There's a tarot card reader in the crafts store at the start of the film who offers her a reading, but Sarah never takes her up on the offer - so I wonder what she might have learned?  Sarah gets a post-birthday visit from Gary, her dead mother's husband, who gives her a pile of cash as a gift, but Sarah for some reason spends the money on replacing the pipes in her kitchen, which is a bit weird because it's a rental apartment.  Like, who DOES that?  

There is a reason for that, though - Sarah has lucid dreams where she's lying in a giant white space, with a man lying on one side and a woman on the other. She recognizes the man the next day, out in the real world, and he manages a plumbing service. Sure, it all makes sense now.  Sarah bounces between theories about cloning, alien abductions and time travel before she goes completely off the rails (umm, I think) and has to be put in an asylum.  It's POSSIBLE that everything in the film after this point takes place in her mind, but I can't really be sure.  

You have to decide for yourself here, I can't help any further - is this an engrossing portrayal of someone who's mentally ill and trying to make sense of the world, or are aliens abducting people and moving them through time, and if so, for what purpose?  Considering the news of the last week, is this really any weirder than crowds of people showing up in Dallas to welcome JFK Jr. back from the dead, so he could become Donald Trump's running mate?  I know, I know, I'm pretty sure that dead people aren't eligible to hold public office, but people showed up just the same.

Also starring Alison Brie (last seen in "Scream 4"), Debby Ryan (last seen in "Life of the Party"), John Reynolds, Molly Shannon (last seen in "The Layover"), Jay Duplass (last seen in "Duck Butter"), Robin Tunney (last seen in "Supernova"), Paul Reiser (last seen in "The Spy Who Dumped Me"), Matthew Gray Gubler (last heard in "All-Star Superman"), Meredith Hagner (last seen in "Brightburn"), Jake Picking (last seen in "Sicario: Day of the Soldado"), Dylan Gelula, Toby Huss (last seen in "Equals"), Angela Trimbur, David Paymer (last seen in "Where'd You Go, Bernadette"), Aaron Stanford (last seen in "25th Hour"), Dendrie Taylor (last seen in "Cinema Verite"), Lauren Weedman (last seen in "The Gambler"), Luis Fernandez-Gil, Sharae Nikai, Victoria Clare, Zoe Saltz, Stella Chestnut, Hazel Armenante, Mary Apick, Bonnie Burroughs (last seen in "Easy A"). 

RATING: 4 out of 10 Zumba classes

Jack Goes Boating

Year 13, Day 322 - 11/18/21 - Movie #3,981

BEFORE: This is that film I was talking about a few weeks ago, it seems kind of relationship-ey, so logically it should be saved for February - but it doesn't seem to link to much of anything else in that category that's on my list, certainly not to any of the 41 or 42 films I've linked together for February 2022, and not to the 9 (so far) that could link together for the year after that.  So, do I really want to wait two years to MAYBE watch this in February, when I've got a chance to link to it tonight?  Well, not every horror film ends up in October, a few this year got watched in August because they linked to "Black Widow", so maybe not every romance/relationship film needs to be watched in February.  I'm putting it here and that's the last I want to hear about it. 

John Ortiz carries over from "Peppermint". And tonight I'm issuing an ever-rarer Birthday SHOUT-OUT to Daphne Rubin-Vega, born on November 18, 1968. She's also in "In the Heights", which is on my list, but I'm not going to follow that path tomorrow, I've got other plans. 

THE PLOT: A limo driver's blind date sparks a tale of love, betrayal, friendship, and grace centered around two working-class New York City couples. 

AFTER: See, I've learned that I need to follow my instincts - yesterday part of "Peppermint" was set at a winter carnival, clearly during the pre-holiday season.  "Jack Goes Boating" is also set sometime in late fall or early winter, everybody's wearing coats and wool hats and talking about maybe going boating some time in the summer, which is months away.  So if I just don't think too much about it, and let the linking lead me where it may, sometimes these films just find their way to the right month, I can't really explain my process any better than that.  It just works out. 

Jack is a NYC limo driver, and since he's being played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, he's a bit of a schlump, a loser, a f*ck-up.  Hoffman planted his flag long ago in this territory with films like "Next Stop Wonderland", "Boogie Nights" and "Happiness", and then, really came to own that space with appearances in "Love Liza", "Owning Mahowny" and "God's Pocket". Once in a while he got to play somebody understated but powerful, but mostly he lived in the "lovable (?) loser" character spot, and I can't name any actor who's taken up residence there since he passed on. 

He also had an affinity for stage work, and plays that got turned into movies, like this one - "Jack Goes Boating" started out as a play, and you can kind of feel that since it mostly takes place in one apartment, with just four central characters. It's the apartment of married couple Clyde and Lucy, after they set up their friends Jack and Connie on a dinner date, which doesn't go THAT well at first. But Jack resolves to better himself, and takes swimming lessons so that he can take Connie boating in the summer, and also cooking lessons so he can cook a nice meal for her, something she says nobody has done for her before.  

But the cooking lessons come from a chef nicknamed Cannoli, and it turns out that Cannoli had an affair with Lucy, which Clyde says he's gotten over, only he clearly hasn't. Clyde keeps telling Jack about what's it's like to be married for a long period of time, how it changes you and allows you to grow as a person by overlooking your mate's faults, or that time she cheated on you. Yeah, that seems to be going just fine.  There's that play-like structure again, I guess we're supposed to be impressed that one couple is coming together while the other couple is falling apart. Dude, that's just life. Ah, but that's exactly the point, I see what you did there.  Still, it all seems a bit obvious. 

That's it, there's really not much more to discuss here, it's great that Jack's trying to better himself, I suppose.  Cooking lessons are great, it's a fine skill to acquire, but I've never been able to learn how to swim, and I've been on boats with no incidents (so far, anyway).  See, they have these things called lifejackets, so I just wear one if I'm on anything smaller than a cruise ship, just to be safe - because I doubt I'm ever going to learn to swim at this point. With the aid of lifejackets, I've been in rowboats and even canoes when I was a teen, I was just extra careful to not let the boat tip over.  Now I just don't go camping or boating, so it's not really an issue. 

Some scenes in this film were shot at the Clinton Diner in Maspeth, Queens (close to where I live) - this diner has also appeared in "Goodfellas", "The Irishman", "Going in Style" and "Chuck" (the movie, not the TV show) along with a whole host of CBS shows.  I swear this diner closed after a fire in 2018, but I guess nobody's ever going to tear it down if it still makes such a great set piece for movies and TV shows. "Jack Goes Boating" might have filmed there in its prime, but I think maybe after "The Irishman" the diner's career in movies is probably done. 

Also starring Philip Seymour Hoffman (last seen in "God's Pocket"), Amy Ryan (last seen in "Spielberg"), Daphne Rubin-Vega (last seen in "Rachel Getting Married"), Tom McCarthy (last seen in "Fair Game"), Salvatore Inzerillo, Richard Petrocelli, Lola Glaudini, Stephen Adly Guirgis (last seen in "Motherless Brooklyn"), Elizabeth Rodriguez (last seen in "Logan"), Isaac Schinazi, Mason Pettit (last seen in "You Don't Know Jack"), Trevor Long, Count Stovall

RATING: 5 out of 10 reggae songs

Peppermint

Year 13, Day 321 - 11/17/21 - Movie #3,980

BEFORE: OK, it's done, I've ordered a complete heat-and-eat Thanksgiving meal from a grocery store in my hometown, near where my parents live.  Perhaps I could have gone all out and bought the frozen turkey, made the stuffing in the bird, peeled the squash myself and added the crispy onions to the green bean casserole, I have all of those skills from cooking the same holiday meal over and over as my mother's sous chef.  But that's SO much work, and spending a full day cooking this meal (we used to shoot for 1 pm with prep-work beginning at 7 am) means less time spent with my parents, so screw it. Let the grocery store make the stuffing and the mashed potatoes, I'll heat everything up on the stovetop or in the microwave.  I'll still need to pick up some extras, like butter for the rolls and milk for the coffee, plus it might be nice to have some cheese and crackers before hand, maybe even those mini cocktail franks, but that can all be purchased when we pick up the whole meal next Wednesday.  And we'll hang around in town a few days after, just to eat the leftovers.  

Oh, also the dinner comes with cranberry sauce, but it might be that weird stuff that's not in the shape of a tin can, for some reason.  So I should probably have one of those on hand, plus an extra jar of gravy, because who doesn't love a little more gravy?  I just need to keep a list of these little extras, and we'll be all set.  With the supply chain problems of late, and news of an impending turkey shortage, I'm glad I got the bulk of this lined up today.  

John Gallagher Jr. carries over from "The Best of Enemies". 

THE PLOT: Five years after her husband and daughter are killed in a senseless act of violence, a woman comes back from self-imposed exile to seek revenge against those responsible and the system that let them go free.

AFTER: The title of this film comes from the last thing the lead character's daughter ate at the winter carnival before getting caught in a drive-by shooting, it was some peppermint ice cream.  While this doesn't really seem to be a great reflection of the holiday spirit, it does hammer home an important point - that you never know if this will be your last holiday with a loved one. So, really, it's extra important to spend time with them and let them know you care.  (This message brought to you by the Council of Churches and the Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Stay safe, buckle up, and get your damn vaccine.)

But I'm being presented with a conundrum here, because of two films I've already watched in the past week, one depicted a teen torturing a family because he believed that the father of that family was (directly or indirectly) the cause of his own father's death. So he believed that the scales needed to be balanced, and someone from the doctor's father needed to die. Grief turned into a need for revenge, or justice, or karma, whichever you want to call it. But did that make his horrible actions right?  This film's premise hits some of the same notes, with a woman seeking out the killers of her husband and daughter and killing them (most of the time, anyway).  Again, it's her inner grief turned outward and manifesting itself in more violence in order to bring about some kind of perceived balance, or justice, or revenge.  And then WAY on the far side we've got Jeffrey Dahmer, and we may never know what type of balance he was hoping to achieve with his horrid actions, because nothing that could have happened to him could justify all that, and under no circumstances can we call murder and cannibalism right.  But, then, why DID he do it, and was his killing spree the outward representation of SOMETHING within him, or something that happened TO him? 

In one of the flashback/before scenes, we even hear Riley North telling her daughter about right and wrong, how you can't just punch everyone you don't like in the face, even if you feel they deserve it.  Even if you're being bullied or hurt by a bad person, if you fight back or get revenge then you become just as bad as the other person.  So, umm, what happened, Riley, why did you change your mind about this? Oh, right, your family was shot, so I guess there are different rules now?  But don't you dishonor your husband and daughter's memory if you hunt down and kill their killers?  Maybe she's so close to the situation that she can't see how hypocritical her actions are, or else she just doesn't care. Either way, it's a problem. 

I can't draw the line between the two characters in question (from this film and "The Killing of a Sacred Deer") so what am I supposed to do?  I have to either forgive both characters or point out that they're both imperfect, and they're both at fault.  If killing is wrong, then even killing the killers is wrong - I think this is the argument against capital punishment in a nutshell, but even then, there are people willing to make exceptions for the Ted Bundys and Jeff Dahmers of this world.  

But then again, Riley North's origin seems mighty close to Batman's - after seeing family members gunned down, both characters traveled around the world for years, under false identities, to learn the martial arts and gadget skills they'd need to become proper vigilantes.  (Bruce Wayne was already rich, but Riley had to rob a bank to pull this off...). And if Batman's a hero, then Riley North is a hero, right?  Not exactly - Batman famously doesn't kill, and he doesn't use guns. (Maybe a grappling gun, but not a regular bullet-firing gun.). It makes sense, a guy with a gun killed his parents, how could he pick up a gun and not think about that EVERY time he did so?  Riley doesn't seem to have that problem, but it feels like she's not thinking clearly, or hasn't thought the whole plan through, even though she has.

In addition, by killing the men who killed her husband and daughter, then they don't get redeemed, they don't pay for their crimes with time spent incarcerated, and in a way, killing's too good for them.  Once she kills them, their suffering is over, but if she could get them arrested, spending thirty years or more behind bars could be a lot more painful for them.  In other words, why would Riley learn all these shooting and fighting skills, just to track down her family's killers and then end their pain, along with their lives, so quickly?  Again, it just feels like she hasn't thought the whole thing through, or from the right angle. 

When the police figure out WHO'S taking down the South American drug gangs, then they try to figure out WHERE Riley's base is, and to do this, they use a computer that displays a big map of the city, with all the crimes marked with small colored squares.  They find a large area with NO reported crime, and assume that's where Riley is hanging out, because she'd take down all the criminals in that general area.  But does this make sense, or can I call a NITPICK POINT on this?  Anything she would do to a criminal near her home base would, itself, probably constitute a criminal act - a killing, a wounding, a beat down of a criminal could be reported as a crime and then show up marked with a little colored square - so I suspect this method of finding Riley just plain wouldn't work. 

BUT, I like the intent here - I suppose Riley also calls to mind the Punisher, not just Batman, and there is some degree of difference between those two, also.  Social media puts regular people on Riley's side, once they all hear her story - but just having a lot of followers and supporters online shouldn't make her actions more "right", either.  And yeah, I know that the real person responsible for the death of Riley's husband and daughter is - Peg.  Peg was the woman who didn't like Riley's daughter Carly selling cookies in her claimed primo territory, so she held a better holiday party on the night of Carly's birthday party, which meant that nobody came to the party, and Riley and Chris then had to take her to the winter carnival, and we all know how THAT turned out.  Peg might as well have been named "Karen", and just like a "Karen", she never took any responsibility for her own actions, never admitted she did anything wrong in that passive-aggressive way of hers.  Maybe she didn't pull the trigger, but Peg killed those people - why can't Riley see that?  If anybody deserves to die, it's clearly Peg. 

Also starring Jennifer Garner (last seen in "13 Going on 30"), John Ortiz (last seen in "Replicas"), Juan Pablo Raba (last seen in "The 33"), Annie Ilonzeh, Jeff Hephner (last seen in "Maid in Manhattan"), Pell James (last seen in "The Lincoln Lawyer'), Cliff "Method Man" Smith (last seen in "Shaft" (2019)), Cailey Fleming (last seen in "Supercon"), Tyson Ritter, Ian Casselberry (last seen in "Contraband"), Richard Cabral (last seen in "End of Watch"), Johnny Ortiz, Michael Reventar, Gustavo Quiroz (last seen in "Instant Family"), Eddie Shin (last seen in "Dumb and Dumber To"), John Boyd (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Michael Mosley (last seen in "The Proposal"), Jeff Harlan, Chris Johnson, Caspar Brun, Kyla-Drew Simmons, Michael Adler, Samantha Edelstein, YaYa Gosselin, Mario Cortez (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Emma Thoraval, Hunter Wright. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 boxes of Firefly Scout cookies

The Best of Enemies

Year 13, Day 320 - 11/16/21 - Movie #3,979

BEFORE: Well, November's already been a challenging month, there have been at least three sociopathic teens, one of whom was Jeffrey Dahmer, and also a kid claiming to be a wife's dead husband, so that happened.  But on the plus side, teen Barack Obama grew up to be President, I hear. Plus we had a Russian bride and her scamming Russian friends, a corrupt NYC mayor (aren't they all?), and tons of bad luck down on a cotton farm.  Dakota Johnson tried to cut it as a record producer, and Mark Wahlberg tried to cut it as a drug-free smuggler.  And it's not over yet, tonight I'm back on the never-ending civil rights struggle, but just five films to go after this before Thanksgiving.  I should reach my next mark before we drive up to Massachusetts, but if not, the last film's on Hulu so I can watch that remotely. Then I'll try to squeeze in one or two more films before December starts. 

Anne Heche carries over from "My Friend Dahmer". 

THE PLOT: Civil rights activist Ann Atwater faces off against C.P. Ellis, Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan, over the issue of school integration in 1971 Durham, North Carolina. 

AFTER: I guess all of the civil rights battles were important, from Rosa Parks refusing to give up her bus seat, to MLK's marches on Selma and Washington, and the "I have a dream" speech to Malcolm X's umm, moments, which I can't really remember right now.  I guess this film wants me to realize that there were lots of little moments along the way, too, like integrating Durham, NC schools, which in 1971 were still separated by race.  They apparently didn't get the memo in the 1950's and were still very set in their ways, until a fire closed down the black school and integration became necessary to provide all students with an education.  Because there were simply no other buildings in the Durham area that could have been turned into a school, I guess?  

I mean, I know you can't build a building overnight, but there must have been some other option, like turning a warehouse or an old shopping center into a school, instead of having a 6-month legal battle over what to do.  Look, I'm pro-integration, I'm glad it happened, every cloud has a silver lining, so the fire was a disaster that was also an opportunity to integrate, but if there's a segment of the community that's dead-set against it, and you want to get the kids back into school and learning as soon as possible, I'm not sure that a protracted debate is the quickest solution, that's all I'm saying.  Yes, now we have computers and tablets and Zoom and remote learning, we're blessed with technology that wasn't available in 1971 - but back then, was this REALLY the quickest option, to get black people and white people on a committee to determine the best course of action to present to the council?  While a suggestion like "Hey, let's convert that sports stadium or that deserted molasses factory into a makeshift school..." could be acted on much more quickly.  I'm just saying. This way the African-American kids could be learning again before they're three grades behind.  

Change takes time, I was just listening to a Q&A the other day after a documentary about boycotts, and they referenced how long the anti-apartheid boycott took, after other countries divested in South Africa it took a few years before the economic impact of the boycott had an impact and forced the issue.  Now the same process is going on with Israel, and there are companies that have divested from Israel, and then there are boycotts against those companies, and then there's another movement to have THOSE boycotts declared illegal, which is a bunch of B.S. because capitalism states that money talks, and a boycott is a form of protected speech, in a way, as everyone's free to spend (or not spend) money in support of whatever cause they choose (umm, except supporting Nazis or racism, I guess).  Besides, if you run a company that boycotts Israel, how can you be against a boycott of the boycotters, aka an anti-anti-Israel boycott?  It seems hypocritical to only support the boycott when it isn't against YOU.  

I bring this up because one of the lead characters here runs a gas station, but is also a leader of the local KKK chapter, which means that he won't sell gas to black people, on principle.  He hates black people so much that he refuses to acknowledge them as potential customers, though doing so hurts his business, he could be making twice as much money as he does, and the trouble there is that you can't spend your pride.  He's got this completely backwards, if he hates black people he should be even MORE eager to take their money, hell, if he hates black people he should jump at the chance to sell to them, and try to charge them double, right?  That would make more sense, this is like cutting off his own legs and then complaining about not being able to walk around. It's one thing to be ignorant, but as they say, you can't fix stupid. 

Remember a few years ago, during the before-times, when gay marriage became a thing?  A few states were ahead of the curve, and then some lawsuits were filed against gay marriage, which pushed the whole thing up to the Supreme Court - and that kind of backfired, because the ruling was that marriage for straights only was a form of discrimination, so suddenly it had to be available to everyone, across the whole country?  That should have been an economic boon for banquet halls, tux & gown rentals, caterers and wedding planners because suddenly TWICE as many people getting married (theoretically, OK, maybe it was just like 1/3 more people...). But there were some people who didn't get the memo, like that county clerk who wouldn't approve gay marriages, even though that was now her JOB, and several bakers who wouldn't make cakes for gay weddings. WHAT?  Why are you suddenly against making more money?  The gays are getting married, you should be jumping at the change to make more cakes at exorbitant prices than you were before? You can stand on principles, but you just won't get rich that way - AND you'll get so much backlash for being homophobic you could then get boycotted and go out of business entirely. Well, at least you'll still have your principles. 

Back in 1971, the Durhamites brought in a mediation expert, who formed a charrette to discuss the issue and come up with the best solution.  This was like a two-week think tank with white people and black people divided into discussion groups, and forced to sit next to each other and realize that the people with differently colored skin are also, duh, people. The black people ask to hold Gospel music sessions at the end of every day, but in exchange for that, the white people ask for the right to distribute KKK literature. Yeah, this should go well. 

Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis are on opposite sides of this issue, two of the more vocal and active members, but one's a black-tivist and the other's a Klan Cyclops.  When forced to become lunch partners during the charrette, will they each be able to see the other side of the argument, to see the other person as a human, can they work together to achieve some kind of common goal, or if not, at least an understanding?  Well, we know the school eventually got integrated, so it's not much of a mystery, but at least it's nice to see people change their thinking, or at least accept change after being set in their ways for so long.  I guess maybe even the small victories are important, too, if they lead to progress.  Obviously, Jared Kushner was never going to bring peace to the Middle East, but maybe, someday, someone competent will. 

Also starring Taraji P. Henson (last seen in "Smokin' Aces"), Sam Rockwell (last heard in "Trolls World Tour"), Wes Bentley (last seen in "Beloved"), Babou Ceesay (last seen in "Eye in the Sky"), Bruce McGill (last seen in "The Lookout"), John Gallagher Jr. (last seen in "10 Cloverfield Lane"), Nick Searcy (last seen in "The Ugly Truth"), Sope Aluko (last seen in "Venom"), Carson Holmes (last seen in "Instant Family"), Nicholas Logan (last seen in "I Care a Lot"), Gilbert Glenn Brown, Caitlin Mehner (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), Dolan Wilson (last seen in "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"), Kendall Ryan Sanders, Chris Cavalier (last seen in "Life of the Party"), Ryan Dinning (last seen in "Just Mercy"), Tim Ware (ditto), David Plunkett, Al Hamacher, McKenzie Applegate, Brody Rose (last seen in "Gifted"), Kevin Iannucci, Nadej K. Bailey, Susan Williams (last seen in "The Accountant"), Jessica Miesel (last seen in "Hillbilly Elegy"), Ned Vaughn, Dawntavia Bullard (last seen in "Den of Thieves"), Elizabeth Omilami, Arin Logan, Kameron Kierce, Charles A. Black, Aaron K Smalls, Bart Hansard, Jeremy Daniel Madden (last seen in "The Founder"), Morgan Brown, Robert Harvey (last seen in "Stuber"), Cranston Johnson, Afemo Omilami, Jack Montague, Chanté Bowser, Rhoda Griffis (last seen in "The Rage: Carrie 2"), Shane Jackson, Michael H. Cole (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), Annie Cook (last seen in "Irresistible"), Rae Olivier. 

RATING: 6 out of 10 glasses of sweet tea

My Friend Dahmer

Year 13, Day 319 - 11/15/21 - Movie #3,978

BEFORE: I'm back from DocFest, which was taking place at four theaters around Manhattan, only one of which I work at. But yesterday was a full day for me, from 9 am to 10:30 pm, with 8 documentaries playing on two screens. That's unusual for a theater that usually only shows one film per day, sometimes two - and I was exhausted after, which is strange because I used to work at a 7-screen theater that usually had five shows per day per screen, so that usually meant 35 screenings total in a day, you'd think that eight wouldn't seem like much by comparison.  I guess maybe I'm out of shape now, not doing as much physical activity in the theater now that I'm a part-time manager.  There were documentaries about Julia Child, Roberto Rossellini, Dean Martin, slain actress Adrienne Shelley, birth control, boycotts, a gospel choir and a school shooting, and Ricki Lake was there for a Q&A, she produced one of those docs.  I didn't get to watch any of the documentaries, but I nabbed the program guide so I can start planning for a documentary chain of my own in 2022, or maybe I'll just have to work those films in one by one. I want to (eventually) see that "Roadrunner" documentary about Anthony Bourdain, and there was one about Kurt Vonnegut in the festival, too.  There were also new docs about Jacques Cousteau and Arthur Ashe, but eh, I don't know, oceanography and tennis aren't my bag. I'd probably give the docs on Dionne Warwick, Kenny G or the Velvet Underground a spin before either of those. 

Anne Heche carries over from "Birth", and since this is the middle film of three in a row with her in them, I COULD drop this film - there are several films between here and Christmas that I could drop, but then I'd have to replace each one with something, and right now my numbers are spot on, my 2nd Christmas film will be Movie #300 for the year and #4,000 overall, why would I want to mess with that?  I suppose I could maybe try to work in that "Shang-Chi" film, there's one place where it could replace a film in the line-up, but if there's a choice between two films, I'd maybe like to get a rough plan for January before deciding between them, to see if one film fits in the January chain and the other doesn't, that would make the decision a whole lot easier. 

But I'm keeping this film in the line-up, because I've got another serial killer film coming up at the end of this week, and I'd like to bookend the weekend with two films on a similar topic.  Makes sense? 

THE PLOT: A young Jeffrey Dahmer struggles to belong in high school. 

AFTER: Now for a film that's not a documentary, because that might be TOO disturbing, and more of a "Based on a true story" type of film, it's "My Friend Dahmer".  I know there's also a film out there called "My Friend Rockefeller", about a con artist and murderer, now I want to know if there's any connection, or how many films there are in this series. "My Friend Hitler"?  "My Friend Saddam Hussein"?  "My Friend Pol Pot"?  This could be a series that goes on and on, until eventually the fans of whatever this is start to complain that they're eating a dead horse.  Sorry, BEATING. The expression is "beating a dead horse".  

This film only works, of course, if you know the history of Jeffrey Dahmer, which is in our past but in the future of the high-school kids depicted here.  The film is based on a book by "Derf" Backderf, which is an unfortunate name to have in high-school, kids would probably never stop making fun of it, because that's what kids do.  The author's name is John Backderf, but it looks like at some point he just decided to lean into the nickname that people were calling him anyway.  Trust me, if you've got a weird last name, you might as well get used to it, and learn to laugh at the mispronunciations, misspellings, and horrible nicknames that people are going to come up with.  I saw a book ONE TIME in a bookstore, it was called "What NOT to Name Your Baby" and it just listed all the things that kids in junior high are going to call your son or daughter, based on what first name you assign them at birth.  I thought that would be VERY helpful in choosing (or not choosing) certain first names for your kids, but since I haven't seen the book in years, I'm not sure how helpful or handy that book was in the first place.  

It's rather daring to go make a movie about Dahmer's teen years, but then again, it also feels very exploitative, too, considering how he ended up. I've dabbled in dramatizations of the lives of killers like Ted Bundy, but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the one about John Lennon's killer - though I may have to go there eventually.  They've made a few films about Ronald Reagan getting shot, but I don't think they've made one that focused on his intended assassin, John Hinckley - but somewhere, somebody's probably working on one.  For any and all of these films, just making them, or planning them, seems to involve walking on a very thin line, like if you go too far over in any direction, people are bound to complain.  You can't really glorify an assassin or a serial killer without getting into some kind of trouble, and you can't really explain away or justify their behavior either, for similar reasons.  

Anything you show here in the teen life of Dahmer COULD be construed as an explanation as to how he came to be what he was, which was a serial killer who targeted men and boys, preserved their body parts, and engaged in some form of necrophilia and/or cannibalism.  But as a teen he was collecting roadkill and preserving the bodies of animals because he enjoyed watching them decompose. There's obviously some through-line there, one hobby could be said to lead to another, fascination with the dead and decomposing escalating somehow to actual murders.  But is there more to that equation?  What roles, if any, did being a social outcast, drinking, being attracted to men, have to do with his 13-year killing spree that followed high school?  What about his parents divorce, what effect did that have on him?  His father was a chemist and his mother was a part-time insane person, according to this film.  

And so we have a film that can't really make a direct connection between THIS incident or inclination in his teen years and THAT vile, disgusting action years later, without getting itself into trouble. I can just hear the PC crowd saying, "So all gay men are serial killers, is that it?  Or is just alcoholic, socially awkward gay men?"  It's a slippery slope, as they say, so they had to really punch up the fact that Dahmer was bullied - but plenty of people are bullied in school and grow up to be fine, decent members of their communities who DON'T kill people and have sex with their corpses.  So how, then do you explain why Dahmer became who he became and did what he did?  Unfortunately, it's all still something of a mystery this way, except to imagine that this guy just wasn't wired right.  We all become the sum total of our experiences, though, and these impulses didn't just come from nowhere, though. 

This film takes us just up to Dahmer's first murder, because, well, it has to stop there. If you read the details of his killings, which I actually do NOT recommend doing, you'll see that the encounters he had with his victims are basically unfilmable.  But, at one point they said that about the book "American Psycho", too, and yet somebody found a way to film it.  If, however, you're not familiar with Dahmer's future history and his desires to have men over for dinner, then you might be very confused with this film, it would probably then resemble your average, everyday Gus Van Sant film, set amidst the social dynamics of any high school.  And perhaps that's the point, somewhere there's somebody who befriended/bullied a future serial killer as a teen, and lived to tell the tale.  Somewhere there's somebody who went to PROM with Jeffrey Dahmer, just as somebody was once Hitler's art teacher, and somebody once taught Ivan the Terrible his A-B-C's. OK, so it was a Cyrillic "C", but you know what I mean.  

I read a quote a few weeks ago, it was used as the solution in a puzzle magazine, about how we each breathe in and out so many molecules of air and so much water passes through our bodies over our lifetimes, that stastically, because there are only so many molecules of matter surrounding Spaceship Earth, and all of them have been recycled again and again, with every breath, every drink of water, we're ingesting molecules that were breathed out or passed through historical figures like Leonardo Da Vinci, or Julius Caesar, or yeah, even Hitler and Jeffrey Dahmer. We're all connected, therefore, on a molecular level, to everyone in human history, which all feels just a bit odd.  

Of course, you might increase your odds of sharing molecules with Julius Caesar if you go breathe some air in Rome, or drink the water in Florence if you want to consume some water that passed through Leonardo - it's simultaneously gross and scientifically fascinating, right? In sort of the same vein, they filmed part of this movie in Dahmer's childhood home in Bath, Ohio. They filmed the mall scene in Euclid, Ohio, which is weird to me because I've probably BEEN there, my ex-wife grew up in Euclid and I used to visit a few times a year - but now that mall is an Amazon fulfillment center, it seems. 

My only other thought tonight is that the actor who plays Jeffrey Dahmer's father, Dallas Roberts, really needs to be cast in some version of "The Paul Lynde Story", but I'm sure he hears that all the time. Alternately, if you put a helmet-head 70's wig on him, I bet he could get cast in a John Ritter biopic - if somebody ever makes one, and he has an interest in doing so, that is.  I'm apparently not the first person to make the John Ritter suggestion, and it seems like Billy Eichner's going to be starring in a possible Paul Lynde bio-pic instead of him. 

Also starring Ross Lynch (last seen in "Muppets Most Wanted"), Alex Wolff (last seen in "Jumanji: The Next Level"), Vincent Kartheiser (last seen in "The Most Hated Woman in America"), Dallas Roberts (last seen in "Motherless Brooklyn"), Tommy Nelson (last seen in "Barry"), Harrison Holzer (last seen in "Sex Tape"), Cameron McKendry, Miles Robbins, Liam Koeth, Lily Kozub, Dave Sorboro, Adam Kroloff (last seen in "Smart People"), Brady M.K. Dunn, Michael Ryan Boehm, Jake Ingrassia, Ben Zgorecki, Kris Smith, Jack DeVillers, Gabriela Novogratz, Joey Vee, Tom Lepera (last seen in "The Old Man & the Gun"), Christopher Mele (last seen in "Marshall"), Maryanne Nagel, Katie Stottlemire, Dontez James (last seen in "Last Flag Flying"), Tom Luce, Sydney Jane Meyer, Nancy Telzerow, C.J. Rush. 

RATING: 4 out of 10 yearbook photos