Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) * * * *

Directed by:  Francis Ford Coppola

Starring:  Kathleen Turner, Nicolas Cage, Don Murray, Joan Allen, Jim Carrey, Barry Miller, Kevin J. O'Connor, Barbara Harris, Sofia Coppola

Peggy Sue Got Married takes a plot which could've been mired in sitcom treatment and instead plumbs it for all of its intelligence and sentiment.   At times, it nearly moved me to tears, because it is about the moments a teenager takes for granted which will be all the more meaningful years later. 
At seventeen, you have your whole life ahead of you.   Peggy Sue Kelcher Bodell (Turner) is privileged to be seventeen years old twice. 

We first meet Peggy Sue and her soon-to-be-ex husband Charlie (Cage) at their 25th high school reunion, where Peggy Sue passes out and wakes up in 1960 as a senior in high school.    Peggy doesn't know how or why, but she is a forty-plus-year old adult stuck in a teenage body.   Everyone else believes this is the same Peggy Sue they see every day, but they do notice she isn't herself.   
Peggy Sue comes home to find her parents and sister still alive and she is absolutely enthralled to be there.    These aren't simply memories.   She is actually there.    When her grandmother, who will die in two years, calls, Peggy Sue answers the phone and finds she can't speak to her.   Words escape her. 

This is one of many things Peggy Sue Got Married gets right.    It takes a few moments to reflect on the sheer awesomeness of suddenly being transported twenty-five years backward in time.   By the time of the reunion, Peggy Sue and Charlie are headed for divorce thanks to his affairs with multiple women.    But the 1960 version of Charlie, with his nasal voice and prominent teeth, adores Peggy Sue.   He knows he wants to marry her, so you would have to wonder where in the future it all goes wrong.    But does Peggy Sue, knowing how the future will turn out, want to marry Charlie?   Or even see him again?   Will she forge her own path which doesn't include Charlie? 

In an attempt to make sense of it all, Peggy Sue confides in the class nerd Richard (Miller), who in the future will be the toast of the reunion due to his financial success as an inventor, that she indeed time traveled.    The scene doesn't devolve into a sitcom argument, but Peggy Sue plainly convinces him of the truth, and because Richard loves science, he believes her.    But, there is the nagging issue of Charlie, who can't understand Peggy Sue's erratic behavior.    Last week, she apparently didn't want to have sex, but now that she has returned with a forty-year-old mindset, she wants to have sex with Charlie, which confounds him even more.    "That's a guy's line," he tells Peggy Sue, who is astonished at Charlie's reluctance to go all the way.

Charlie wants to be a singer ("I've got the hair, I've got the teeth"), but he doesn't have the talent.   In one of many humorous anachronisms, Peggy Sue gives him lyrics to a Beatles song which Charlie promptly changes and messes up.    The truth is, Peggy Sue knows abundantly what is forthcoming, but doesn't have the means or drive to take advantage of it.    She doesn't want to go to Liverpool to discover The Beatles, she only wants to ensure her future is happier the second time around.

Kathleen Turner gives her career-best and only Oscar-nominated performance to date.   Peggy Sue Got Married doesn't make the sense of trying to make Turner look seventeen.    She looks older than your average seventeen year old, but that doesn't matter, because in a way, she is already more mature than her peers because she has been through this already.    Turner nails it.   Nicolas Cage used to be quite an actor before he became a showbiz punchline.    Here he is appropriately gawky and awkward, and finds he is outmatched all of a sudden by Peggy Sue.    He never truly figures out what
has gotten into her.

Peggy Sue Got Married's 1960 scenes are almost dreamlike, and John Barry's moving score reminds us of another time travel romance, 1980's Somewhere in Time.    Director Francis Ford Coppola reminds us that the greatness of the director of The Godfather trilogy still resided in him.    Peggy Sue Got Married is about time travel, yes, but it is not science fiction, but instead a glorious tour of the human heart. 

Night Hunter (2019) * 1/2

Directed by:  David Raymond

Starring:  Henry Cavill, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci, Alexandra Daddario, Brendan Fletcher, Eliana Jones

The generically titled Night Hunter sounds like a B-movie I would bypass at my local video store many moons ago so I could rent something I'd at least heard of.    Video stores have been replaced by Video On Demand, and Night Hunter is the same type of movie I should've skipped over to watch another episode of 30 Rock.   This is a thoroughly unpleasant movie; as cold and unforgiving as the harsh Minnesota winter it is set in.    Fargo it is not.

We learn quickly what we're in for in the opening scenes, when a would-be sexual predator is lured to a hotel room by a seemingly naive teenage girl only to be whacked in the back of the head from behind with a baseball bat.   The blow alone should've killed the guy, but he wakes up handcuffed to a bed and finds he has been castrated.    The man who clocked the predator with the bat demands payment so he could use the money to pay restitution to the predator's past victims.    Night Hunter is off to an uneasy start and it only gets worse.

The man with the bat is a former judge named Cooper and is played by Ben Kingsley, who won on Oscar for playing Mahatma Gandhi and is now playing a vigilante who castrates predators.   Acting can be such an unforgiving profession.   You take the work where you can get it.   It is never fully explained how Lara (Jones) allows herself to be used as bait to catch sickos, but it appears Cooper has a grandfatherly type of relationship with Lara, and he is attempting to make up for past mistakes while serving on the bench. 

Lara is soon kidnapped and taken to a basement dungeon where several young girls are held captive in cells.   The police, led by Detective Marshall (Cavill), storms the place and arrests Simon (Fletcher), the creepy lunatic who held the girls hostage.   While being questioned by profiler Rachel (Daddario), Simon exhibits multiple personalities and drooling derangement while doing everything but banging his own head on the wall.   Rachel and Marshall are hostile towards each other and apparently had a Past, which we assume to mean they were once lovers.   This is just many aspects of the plot which aren't fully explained. 

Marshall instinctively believes Simon is somehow playing them, and is less inclined to be patient than Rachel, causing further Tension.    When six police officers are gassed to death while investigating the crime scene, the game is now afoot.    How can Simon perpetrate crimes while locked up?    Maybe Marshall should watch Law Abiding Citizen, which has similar plot elements.    Stanley Tucci is on hand as the police commissioner who is frothing at the mouth to send Simon to the electric chair and even pounds on him once or twice.    It appears Simon doesn't have a lawyer, and it's hard to believe one didn't volunteer to take Simon on as a client.

I won't spoil any surprises, except to say the Big Reveal is not totally out of left field, but it is not explained how exactly the deception was pulled off.    We end with apparently the only two cops working in all of Minnesota involved in a Mexican standoff with Simon and his accomplice on a frozen lake.    If you guess one or more of the people standing on the ice will fall through it, then congratulations, you have seen a movie before!

Fletcher overacts in a way Tom Hardy would find excessive.    Cavill, with his shaggy hair and scruffy beard, looks as if he would do just about anything to escape this movie, and doesn't even bother to wear a jacket in the middle of the Minnesota winter.    Daddario is in the role of the perky cop, but without the perk.    Night Hunter has straight-to-VOD written all over it.    It is gloomy, grim, and ultimately forgettable.

Capone (2020) * 1/2

Directed by:  Josh Trank

Starring:  Tom Hardy, Linda Cardellini, Matt Dillon, Kyle MacLachlan, Noah Fisher

It came as a shock to me to learn Al Capone was merely 48 years old when he died in 1947 following a near lifelong battle with syphilis.    He looked a lot older, and in Capone he looks downright ancient.  The dude had city miles on him.    What we get in Capone is a look at the final year of the gangster's life, when his health was in steady deterioration while living in exile in a garish mansion in Florida.  While battling incontinence, confusion, hallucinations, and paranoia, Capone's advisers tell him to sell some of the statues around his property since income has stopped pouring in.    If the advisers were even halfway decent at their jobs, they would tell him to sell the obscenely large property and find an apartment. 

Tom Hardy plays the title character.   His career has been a mixed bag for me, mostly due to his penchant for hamming it up shamelessly and taking on roles which guarantee he would have to dig into his bag of accents.    I remember when Tom Hardy used to be a mere actor, now he is this guy who threatens to chew not only the scenery, but the other actors.   It takes a special actor not to appear to be afraid of him.   In Capone, Hardy is heavily made up and looks appropriately sickly.   His health makes it difficult for him to be understood or to raise his voice to the level of audible speech, and that's just the way Hardy likes it. 

Hardy isn't the reason why Capone is unsuccessful.   The movie itself is pointless.   We are asked to witness Capone shit the bed, piss his pants, vomit, and wander off on hallucinatory journeys into his past before he was imprisoned for tax evasion.   He claims to his most trusted lieutenant (Dillon) that he hid ten million dollars somewhere for his family to live on after his death, but he can't recall where it is.    The feds have bugged his mansion, and use Capone's doctor (MacLachlan) as an infiltrator to pry Capone's secrets loose from his fevered brain.    Another very minor intrigue is Capone's illegitimate son Tony, whose existence is not known to Capone's long-suffering wife Mae (Cardellini) and son (Fisher), and who continually attempts to phone his old man to speak to him.

We know Capone was once a big deal because he is still infamous even today, and Capone touches on his homicidal reign of terror as the boss of the Chicago mafia.   But now, he is sad, pathetic, and dying.  We get to witness it for ourselves.   Lucky us.   Now, about the whole Dillon character, a mobster named Johnny.   He is introduced by receiving a phone call from Mae while he is banging some woman.   Johnny answers the phone, exchanges pleasantries, and agrees to head to Florida to visit the ailing Capone.   Now, once you learn exactly who or what Johnny is, why was there such a scene introducing him?   It makes zero logical sense.   Mae may not even know who Johnny is, let alone how to contact him, so this was thrown in simply to throw us off the scent and deliver an a-ha! moment when we discover his true nature. 

Capone adds up to very little.   Other than seeing Tom Hardy shuffle around and muttering to himself, which I'm sure will delight his fans, what exactly is Capone about?   We care as much about a post-gangster Al Capone as we do about a pre-war General Patton.

Bloodshot (2020) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Dave Wilson

Starring:  Vin Diesel, Eiza Gonzalez, Guy Pearce, Toby Kebbell, Sam Heughan, Lamorne Morris

I like Vin Diesel.   I've expressed this sentiment in previous reviews of his movies.    Bloodshot, however, is not a movie which should be included in any career retrospectives.    It is a hybrid of The Terminator, Memento, and with a dash of The Fast and the Furious series.    The trouble is: Bloodshot isn't as good as any of its influences.    It is lifeless and dreary, with action sequences edited so bizarrely that you can't make sense of them.    Say what you will about the physical impracticality of the stunts in the Fast and Furious series, at least you know what's going on.

Bloodshot opens with soldier Ray Garrison (Diesel) completing a mission of knocking off some terrorists in an unnamed county.   He returns home to his wife Gina (Riley), but their marital bliss is interrupted by thugs who kidnap Gina and take Ray hostage as revenge for Ray's killing of their brethren.   Gina is soon killed by a dancing creep (who dances to Talking Heads' Psycho Killer) and then Ray is executed as well, but no Ray is not dead.   He wakes up in a lab run by billionaire Dr. Emil Harting (Pearce), who informs Ray he has been reanimated in order to continue his chosen profession as a soldier.   Ray's memory is supposedly wiped out, but he is haunted by visions of his wife's murder, and after piecing together what happened, he ditches the lab to seek vengeance.  He offs the dancing creep and his henchmen in a tunnel so dark it is nearly impossible to see who is shooting whom.   Or what is being blown up.   It drags on, and there is still half a movie to go. 

But that's not all...because Ray soon starts having visions all over again of his wife's murder, but this time the dancing killer is a different man.    The seemingly affable Dr. Harting is actually hatching a dastardly plot using Ray as his hitman.    Harting implants the visions while changing the characters, so Ray can kill off Harting's enemies while believing he is seeking revenge for Gina's murder.  Brilliant!  And then Harting can weaponize Ray and others like him as a private army to the highest bidder.    Ray is nearly indestructible, because his body can repair itself quickly after being wounded (a la the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day) and the only thing which can hurt him is when his battery runs low and he needs to recharge. 

Where to begin?   If you consider the overhead costs of Harting's lab, employees, and the technology needed to create Ray and others with different powers, Harting's highest possible bidder would have to be Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates.   No one else could afford Ray or pay enough to allow Harting to turn any sort of a profit.   And if Harting has the funds to create a Ray prototype in the first place, wouldn't the creation of such a soldier eventually become a law of diminishing returns?

No matter.   Ray eventually figures out his situation and with the help of Harting's conscience-stricken right hand KT (Gonzalez), who can stay underwater indefinitely due to improvements in her lung function, Ray soon makes it his mission to eradicate Harding and his flunkies.    By then, we've been subjected to endless fight sequences which appear to have been edited while blindfolded, and Diesel occasionally rousing himself enough to care about the turkey he is appearing in.    Diesel was paid handsomely to give a hoot, and even that is tough for him.    What is our motivation? 

The Wrong Missy (2020) * 1/2

Directed by:  Tyler Spindel

Starring:  David Spade, Lauren Lapkus, Molly Sims, Nick Swardson, Geoff Pierson, Rob Schneider

You don't go into Happy Madison comedies expecting Oscar-caliber productions.   But, damn, could they at least try to be something other than phoned-in, gross-out movies which appeal to the lowest common denominator?    The Wrong Missy gives us one of the more unpleasant characters in recent years in the title character, an obnoxious boor of a woman who acts like a maniac in a hostile, over-the-top, aggressive way.    She is either insane, which is sad, or she knows exactly what she's doing, which makes her a sociopath.    Either way, asking us to spend ninety minutes with this woman is
truly overestimating our goodwill. 

David Spade stars as Tim, a regular guy who is a vice-president of some office in downtown Portland.  Portland?  Why Portland?   Who knows.   Tim meets the aforementioned Missy (Lapkus) on a blind date.    Shortly after meeting Missy, who doesn't even attempt to hide her, ahem, eccentricities, Tim escapes through a bathroom window and hopes never to see Missy again.   Tim falls to the cement, which is one of three falls from high places in the movie.

Fast forward to three months later:  Tim is about to take a business trip where, through a series of contrivances, he meets another woman named Missy (Sims) at the airport.   This one is sane, a former Miss Maryland, and she and Tim hit it off.   They exchange numbers, and Tim is now pumped up about hooking up with this hottie who is young enough to be his daughter.    One of the movie's more elaborate pretenses is trying to convince us that Spade isn't pushing sixty.    How else do you explain that rug he's wearing?

Soon, Tim is headed for a business retreat in Hawaii.   He invites Missy to accompany him, but through yet another contrivance, he texts blind date Missy and not hottie Missy, and he is aghast when the Wrong Missy takes the seat next to him in first class.   She slips Tim some dog tranquilizer and when he wakes up, she is jerking him off.    When she and Tim arrive at the hotel, Missy acts loud and rude, while trying to convince everyone that she is a free spirit and they are wrong for acting, well, civilized.  About this hotel, I don't know how much this retreat costs, but it seems Tim's company is doing quite well.   Whatever business they're in, sign me up.

Missy, by being Missy, embarrasses Tim at every turn while somehow ingratiating herself to his uptight boss (Pierson), who is considering Tim for a promotion.   The time to promote Tim was twenty years ago, when he wasn't an AARP member.   Missy nearly ruins Tim's promotion when she vomits into a shark cage while Tim and the boss are submerged beneath the water in it, causing a shark attack and pieces of chum floating everywhere.   But, then, like clockwork, Tim realizes he kind of, sort of likes this psychopath, and when the intended Missy shows up, we know what will happen.   And we scream at Tim that he's making the wrong choice.

Lapkus was much more likable on the HBO series Crashing as an up-and-coming stand up comic.
Then again, she could play Leona Helmsley or Marge Schott and be more likable than she is here.  Like the Jim Carrey of old, she cranks up the comic energy so high that you wish you had one of those tranquilizers nearby.  It's exhausting just to watch her.   What would have been funnier, and more endearing, is making Missy a lovable loony who wants to do the right thing by Tim instead of nearly destroying his chances of promotion at the company he will retire from in three years.

Spade mostly ditches his trademark snark, which is the only positive thing I can say.   He is so laid-back and passive that I wonder if Tim isn't suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, or hung over from the dog tranquilizers for the entire trip.   Spade behaves as if he would prefer a nap over a promotion or any raise it comes with.    A Happy Madison movie wouldn't be complete without cameos from washed-up celebrities, so we are treated to Vanilla Ice in the final few minutes of the film.   He doesn't take the stage to rap Ice, Ice Baby, but he may as well have.   It isn't like our watching experience is going to get much worse.

WWE Raw (5/11/20) Becky Lynch is Preggers!

On the May 11, 2020 edition of Monday Night Raw, one night after Asuka won the Money in the Bank Women's briefcase to secure a future title shot at a time and place of her choosing, Raw Women's Champion (for the past fifteen months) Becky Lynch opens the show with the Money in the Bank briefcase sitting on a table in center ring.   Becky has not been in the ring since her Wrestlemania win over Shayna Baszler, and soon breaks into a teary promo discussing her history with the company and how the fans have elevated her to the superstar she is today. 

Asuka roars out to interrupt the promo and confronts Becky about why she has the briefcase.   Becky explains the Money in the Bank ladder match wasn't for an opportunity at her championship, but it was for the championship itself.    Becky opens the briefcase and the Raw Women's Championship belt was inside.   Asuka realizes she is now the champion and proceeds to scream, run around the ringside area, and dance around with her newly won championship.    Lately, WWE has been having its Asian female wrestlers communicate by screaming incoherently and jumping around frantically at...no one since there is no audience.   It is grating to the nerves. 

But then Asuka returns to the ring and Becky, with tears flowing, says Asuka can "go be a warrior, and I'll go be a mother,"   The cat is out of the bag.   Becky is pregnant.   Asuka seems genuinely surprised at this news and hugs Becky before raising her fist and shouting "BECKY! BECKY!" repeatedly as Becky's theme song plays and she leaves the ring for the last time in a while.   Asuka is now a face, apparently, and the moment was touching, mostly because Asuka might not have been in on the discussion as to why Becky Lynch had to vacate her championship.

Becky is congratulated by many backstage, including Vince McMahon, who hugs Becky as if this were the first time he has ever hugged someone.   AWKWARD!  Becky's fiancee is Seth Rollins, who onscreen seems to have taken the news with considerably less enthusiasm than everyone else.    He responds by refusing to shake Rey Mysterio's hand after Mysterio congratulated him and then trying to blind poor Rey by jamming his eyeball into the metal ring steps later during a tag team match.    Yet, Rollins is posting Instagram photos with Becky a few days later and both are equally gaga over the pregnancy.    Rollins simply should've been turned face right away instead of trying to keep up the pretense that he is a heartless, vicious heel onscreen who is also the warm, loving father of Becky Lynch's child offscreen.   The reality of life and his character won't mesh, especially in the world of 24/7 news cycles and social media.

Lynch's vanquished Wrestlemania opponent Baszler is interviewed later on and makes some disparaging remarks which will surely bring her much needed heel heat from fans.   She questions Becky's intelligence in having a child while in the middle of the most lucrative push of her career. 
Baszler further expounds by saying how Lynch's career will never be the same and she won't be able to return to her present career height when she does return to the ring.   Baszler doesn't mention Rollins by name, but essentially calls him a loser and thus the child is doomed to be one as well.    I like how the cold, heartless pain-inflicting machine that is Shayna Baszler wasn't warmed up by Lynch's news, but instead offered an opposing and likely unpopular opinion.

Jim Cornette also echoed Baszler's opinion on his podcast, lamenting at how much money the Lynch and Rollins household will miss out on and how Mr. McMahon can't be happy about seeing one of this top draws taking a leave of absence at the height of her earning power.     Will McMahon continue to pay her during her time off?   Only Lynch and McMahon will know that.    Is Cornette, who is not performing a work like Baszler likely is, wrong in his assessment?    From a financial standpoint, absolutely not.    He sees the pregnancy as ill-timed to say the least in monetary terms, and potentially financially devastating to her career.    I'm sure the Twitter hate will follow. 

Lynch's and Rollins' decision is their own.  I'm sure they're aware of the financial implications, but  Becky seemed pretty darn happy to be an expectant mother, and to her, that is worth missing out on some paydays.   The Baszler storyline might get interesting going forward, as she is expected to be the next challenger to Asuka's title.   If the creative team doesn't blow it, an Asuka/Baszler matchup will be intriguing. 

WWE Smackdown (5/15/20)

I've been watching WWE wrestling more lately, and for those who don't know, the television programming and pay-per-view events have been taking place at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.   The center is where up-and-coming Superstars train to become pro wrestlers. 
Recently, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis deemed WWE as an essential business and allowed the company to continue holding events there, sans fans in the stands.    I've grown accustomed to watching these contests without a live audience, so this review will measure the merits of the plots and the action itself.    I will use wrestling lingo here, so hopefully you will know what I'm talking about.

Opening segment:   The Dirt Sheet (with hosts The Miz and John Morrison) and guest Otis.



Otis won last weekend's Money in the Bank pay-per-view by having the metal briefcase symbolizing a future title shot at any time or place of the briefcase holder's choosing.    On most occasions, the briefcase holder will wait until the champion he wants to face will be at his/her most vulnerable (after a beatdown or a grueling match) and then "cash in" the briefcase for an impromptu championship match.    In nearly every instance, a championship changes hands when this happens.   Only four times has the Money in the Bank briefcase holder failed to win the championship after cashing in.

Otis (who before recently was primarily a tag team wrestler with partner Tucker as Heavy Machinery) is the unlikely holder of the briefcase, as well as the onscreen boyfriend of smoking hot blonde wrestler Mandy Rose.    Their relationship is not particularly convincing since the limits of their affection for each other result in Mandy pecking Otis on the cheek.   Otis is a big lug with speech issues whom Miz and Morrison make fun of by flashing childhood pictures of him.   Otis confesses to having learning disabilities, but was still able to make something of himself through sports.    Miz and Morrison wonder aloud when Otis will be expecting (a shot at his giant belly).

The Miz (Mike Mizanin) is a reality television star turned pro wrestler who has had a long, distinguished career in WWE.   He has held numerous titles, including a recent Smackdown Tag Team Championship run with Morrison, which ended shortly after Wrestlemania in April.   He's a solid in-ring performer and a solid mic worker, but I get the feeling The Miz is an actor playing a heel wrestler whenever I watch him.    He can play the notes, but doesn't necessarily know the music.
Morrison is a terrific in-ring performer who has never failed to inspire a meh feeling in me.    So you have two okay heels picking on the swell babyface Otis and when Otis can stands no more, The Miz and Morrison challenge the big guy to a tag team match later on.   Otis will have to find a partner since Tucker is conveniently unavailable.    Otis will eventually talk Universal Champion Braun Strowman to be his partner, with Strowman understanding that Otis may indeed decide to cash in on him. 

First match:   Intercontinental Championship Tournament, First Round Matchup

Elias vs. King Corbin



The most recent Intercontinental Champion, Sami Zayn, was recently stripped of the championship for failure to defend, although Brock Lesnar can go months and months without even showing up on television, let alone defend any title he holds at that moment.   Nonetheless, an eight man tournament is being held to determine a new champion and the first match is between bitter enemies Elias (who brings a guitar to the ring and sings disparaging songs about his opponents) and King Corbin (a heel/personality vacuum).   Before Wrestlemania, Corbin threw Elias off of a raised platform, which would normally result in the death or paralysis of Elias, but Elias returned for Wrestlemania without missing a beat and defeated Corbin.   The uninteresting feud did not end there, and Corbin later smashed a guitar over Elias' head and stepped on his fingers.    Elias would respond by interfering in the Money in the Bank ladder match and costing Corbin the match.   This is after Corbin chucked not one, but two other wrestlers off the roof of Titan Tower.   Luckily, the two wrestlers landed on a scaffolding or something six feet below the roof.    Whew.

Back in the day, heel wrestlers would cheat throughout a match with an evenly matched babyface in order to gain an advantage.   Feet on the ropes, choking an opponent, low blows, you name it.   Elias and Corbin match each other move for move, but other than occasional trash talk and Corbin smashing Elias' guitar to pieces, you wouldn't know for sure that Corbin was the heel.    After the smashing, a pissed off Elias springs to life and defeats Corbin with a small package.    The lesser of the two personality vacuums wins, and my guess is Corbin will find a way to cost Elias the title and continue to force upon us this miserable feud. 

Next segment:  Charlotte Flair (NXT Women's Champion and daughter of Ric Flair) makes an appearance



Charlotte Flair won the NXT Women's title at Wrestlemania, and has appeared as often on Raw and Smackdown as she has on NXT.   She has defended the title only once and shows up on Smackdown to espouse her greatness in her usual monotone promo style.   Charlotte looks great and is a stellar worker, but she just doesn't have much charisma.   Enter Smackdown Women's Champion Bayley, who defeated Flair last year for the title after cashing in a Money in the Bank briefcase.    Bayley is accompanied by her best friend Sasha Banks, and the WWE has been teasing a feud between Bayley and Banks for what seems like eons.    Bayley has turned heel since the last time she faced Flair in the ring, which was shortly after Banks turned heel and had her push stalled with a defeat at the hands of then-Raw Women's Champion Becky Lynch.    Bayley taunts Flair about beating her last year, and Bayley is sufficiently annoying as a trash-talking baddie, but Flair instead confronts Sasha and asking why she chooses to be Bayley's flunky instead of a champion in her own right.    Fair enough question, especially since Sasha is spending the bulk of the segment staring at the ground.    Bayley and Flair will battle next week, and the Banks and Bayley breakup will continue to move at a glacial pace.   This is a blowup that should have come by Wrestlemania...in 2018.

Next:  Naomi vs. Dana Brooke



A couple of weeks back, underneath wrestler Dana Brooke upset former Smackdown Women's Champion Naomi to earn a spot in the Money in the Bank Women's ladder match.   Brooke not only did not win the briefcase, but she was placed in a spot in which she looked like a complete fool. 
Here is the rematch, and Brooke wins again after a few minutes of wrestling.   Naomi is pissed and will likely turn heel soon.    Eh, who cares?   Both are now in mid-card purgatory and I strongly doubt either woman will receive a main event push now.   Brooke has the look, but she has been a jobber to the stars for so long a push would be impossible to pull off. 

Next:  First Round Intercontinental Championship Tournament Match:  Daniel Bryan vs. Drew Gulak



Bryan and Gulak were enemies who battled at Elimination Chamber, the pay-per-view before Wrestlemania, and then became friends out of mutual respect.    They battled common enemies and are now matched up in the first round of the Intercontinental Championship Tournament.   After a drawn-out face vs. face scientific battle, Bryan wins via submission and advances.    Bryan explains how he wants to win back the title he held when he was forced to retire in 2015 due to medical complications from years of wrestling.    There will be no rematch, since Gulak's contract was not renewed and his release from the company was made official the following day. 

Finally:   Otis/Braun Strowman vs. The Miz and John Morrison




Otis arrives to the ring alone, but Strowman soon appears and we now have a tag team match with no heat or history between the teams.    Strowman and Otis beat up Miz and Morrison for the bulk of the match and then Strowman wins after a powerslam to Morrison, who is forced to eat another pin.    The Miz and Morrison call themselves the tag team of the century, or something like that, but this run has them losing matches as often as Lucha House Party.   Lucha House Party even upset them a few weeks back.   Miz and Morrison managed to secure a championship reign in between the losses, which was mercifully brought to an end by The New Day.   Otis' signature move is The Caterpillar, which both he and Strowman perform on a prone Morrison.    Following the near squash match, Mandy Rose struts her way to ringside and distracts Strowman long enough for Otis to tease a cash-in, but Strowman catches on and Otis pretends he was only kidding about a cash-in.   Strowman, Mandy, and Otis celebrate in the ring by holding up their respective trophies at the camera as Smackdown goes off the air.    What was to prevent Otis from bashing Strowman in the back of the head with the metal briefcase a few times before cashing in?   Nothing, since dopey Strowman stayed in the ring to celebrate even after Otis teased a betrayal.

School of Rock (2003) * *

Directed by:  Richard Linklater

Starring:   Jack Black, Mike White, Joan Cusack, Sarah Silverman, Miranda Cosgrove

School of Rock is an innocuous comedy about wannabe rocker Dewey Finn (Black) who fakes his way into a job as a substitute schoolteacher for a group of students at a prestigious charter school.    This isn't Welcome Back Kotter and the kids aren't the Sweathogs.   The students are actually pretty nice, but are just used to rigid adherence to the curriculum.    Dewey doesn't know much about anything except music, so after witnessing the group playing classical music, he decides this will not do and instead teaches them about rock while trying to avoid detection by the school's strict principal (Cusack). 

Dewey's motives are not altruistic.   He is at the age where his dreams of becoming a rock god are becoming more fleeting by the day, especially since he crashes rent free on his buddy's couch.    He is kicked out of his band weeks before a battle of the bands which he is convinced will take him places.  So, he forms a rock band with the students in hopes of winning the battle of the bands.  The kids are mere props in his scheme.   Along the way, not unpredictably, he grows fond of the kids and decides not to perform to enrich himself, but because the students find freedom and identity in belonging to a band.

School of Rock is cute, slight fare.   The plot is not going to win any points for originality, and it doesn't necessarily need to.   Some singers can make an old song sound new.   Jack Black delivers such a high energy performance compared to the subdued tone of the movie that you would think he was dropped in from a nearby film shoot.   As a rock guitarist himself, Black clearly loves this stuff.    He's like a kid in a candy store. 

So why did I not get much out of School of Rock?   It is a gentle comedy where everyone is mostly nice, even the snobbish students who at times look at Dewey like he's an alien.   The only character who we could classify as a villain is Dewey's girlfriend Patty (Silverman), who thinks Dewey is a pathetic bum and can't believe her henpecked boyfriend Ned (White) can stomach Dewey sponging off of him.   But, if you think about it, can you really blame her for her misgivings about Dewey?

School of Rock checks the boxes in terms of its plot development.   There are no surprises.   Dewey and the kids will start off rocky, form an icy truce, and then go all-in together.   Will Dewey's ruse be discovered that he isn't really a teacher?   Will the kids like him anyway?   Will he be arrested for fraud of some kind?    Two of those three answers will be yes, and it is baffling how the third scenario didn't play out.   Oh, and will the strict principal and Dewey become lovers?   And will she let her hair down?    Yes and no.   There is a rumor in the movie about the principal that one time, when drunk, she belted out a mean version of Stevie Nicks' Edge of Seventeen.   So Dewey fills her with beer and plays the song on the jukebox, but nothing really happens.   The entire movie feels that way.  There is a setup, but nothing eventful comes of it.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week-The Touring Years (2016) * * * *

Directed by:  Ron Howard

Ringo Starr will be 80 years old this year, and Paul McCartney only 78.   The Beatles have been in the public consciousness for so long it seems both men should be pushing 100.   The Beatles' introduction to American audiences occurred in February 1964, a mere fifty-six years ago, yet their shadow and influence has been cast so large it feels like it happened much earlier.    I cannot remember a time in which I didn't know of The Beatles.   Most people probably think the same way.

The Beatles would only be together for six more years following Ed Sullivan, yet their catalog of songs is so massive and enduring it remains a significant part of pop culture history, even all these years later.  2020 is the 40th anniversary of John Lennon's death, and this means he will be dead for as many years as he was alive.   It is a sad footnote, one which can't be dismissed as you witness Eight Days a Week, in which John Lennon was very much alive.

Ron Howard's Eight Days a Week understands how the rigors of touring and worldwide Beatlemania at first invigorated the band and later wore them down to the point that they stopped touring altogether.    We feel the excitement and sheer joy of being The Beatles at that time.   Restored footage of early concerts captured not just how amazing The Beatles were as a live band, but the pandemonium their presence caused in millions of people in the UK and the US, not to mention virtually every other country on Earth.    The Beatles themselves were gobsmacked that the reception to them in Australia might have even been greater than that of other countries, and that's saying something.

How awesome did it feel to be John, Paul, George, and Ringo to be welcomed with such unprecedented joy and fervor when they disembarked from their planes wherever they landed? Thousands of screaming fans were waiting to catch a glimpse of them.   There was nothing like Beatlemania before or since.   With such adulation eventually comes backlash, which would occur around 1965 and early 1966 when John's remark, "We are bigger than Jesus" was met with derision and scorn.   Some cities in the US were burning Beatles' records.   An unintentional snub of then-Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos caused them to be kicked out of the country.    By that time, The Beatles were happier in the studio creating groundbreaking music than out on tour playing all of their hits again. 

What separates The Beatles from any other musical act was their songwriting capabilities.   They could produce new music at an astonishing pace.   Other acts would continue to stick with what made them famous, but The Beatles pushed against the tide.   They wanted to experiment, create a whole new sound, and take risks.   They weren't content to rest on their laurels.   The evolution from Please, Please Me to Sgt. Pepper's is so distinct it is hard to believe the albums came from the same four guys from Liverpool.    Touring was what marked The Beatles' arrival on the scene, but it was their later work which would make them immortal.

Director Howard wisely chooses to focus on the four years or so in which The Beatles toured constantly, yet managed to make two movies (A Hard Day's Night and Help!) and their soundtracks, plus Rubber Soul and Revolver, which marked their departure from their earlier pop hits (which by the way were also transcendent).   Ringo tells stories of a typical day in the life of The Beatles at the time, and it had to be mentally and physically draining living that day after day.  They could have used eight days a week just to meet their obligations.   They also had families and children who needed them also, but would wind up as casualties to the demands of Beatlemania.

The Beatles' final tour ended on August 29, 1966 at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.   Once the show ended, The Beatles quit touring and this led to a freedom which would allow Sgt. Pepper's to be made.  Free from the constraints of touring, The Beatles poured their energy into the second half of their run as the greatest band ever.   This isn't an opinion.   For even if you may like other bands better, you know a group like The Beatles will never come again.   Their influence on the world is something which will never be felt from any other artist, actor, or musician in the same way. 

Howard also reflects on how other people or outside sources influenced The Beatles in subtle, but noticeable ways.   Their manager Brian Epstein isn't given enough credit for shaping the band's look and style.   He guided them to the top by taking a ragtag group of young men and putting them in suits and unique haircuts, a far cry from their early days as The Quarrymen.   Producer George Martin was the perfect fit to collaborate with them on their later albums.    He knew precisely how to handle them, and his experience working with comic actors like Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan prepared him for The Beatles' own eccentricities and creative vision.   He and Epstein could rein them in, and how many people can say that?

The early clean-cut twenty-something men with matching short haircuts soon grew their hair and beards out almost as a revolution against their image.   The band gave the world one more glimpse of their incredible live act with an impromptu concert atop the Apple Records building in London on January 30, 1969.   The crowds gathered below, not sure what to make of what they were seeing. 
Were these the real Beatles or impersonators?    They were the real thing alright, and their look and sound was night and day to their 1964 Sullivan appearance.    How many people who saw that concert would think they were seeing The Beatles performing together for the last time?   It's possible people were expecting a comeback which was never to be.

Maybe one reason why The Beatles' legacy continues to grow fifty years after they disbanded was because they did not reunite for another tour or album.   Ringo would play with Paul or George would play with John, but the four men would never occupy the same stage together again.   They were together as long as they needed to be, and when that was over, The Beatles were no more.   It's as if the men instinctively knew when enough was enough.    Eight Days a Week understands this too.  There is no mention of The Beatles' breakup and the external and internal pressures which caused it.  

The documentary ends just as Sgt. Pepper's was released, capping off a remarkable five-year period which started in 1962.   The evolution and reinvention of The Beatles in between is something we have the pleasure of witnessing like never before.   The rest is left to history.

Dead to Me (2019) * * * (First two seasons on Netflix)

Starring:  Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini, James Marsden, Luke Roessler, Sam McCarthy, Max Jenkins, Brandon Scott, Ed Asner, Valerie Mahaffey

Dead to Me is billed as a dark comedy, but it owes more of its inspiration to soap operas and 80's night time dramas.   This is not a criticism by any stretch.   One of the joys of watching such fare was the insane twists and turns which relied on startling coincidences we should have seen coming.   But, we were happily swerved and couldn't wait to tune in next week to see how it plays out.   With streaming, you only have to wait another few minutes.

Jen (Applegate) recently lost her husband Ted, who was hit by a car one dark and stormy night.  The car fled the scene, and the police have been unable to come up with any suspects.    Jen's response to Ted's death is one of seething anger.   That's her go-to emotion, which rears its ugly head numerous times throughout the show's two seasons.   As a real estate agent, having a short fuse doesn't bode well for future sales or employment.   Her business partner (Jenkins) can only stand by and witness this implosion for so long before having to step in for a Come to Jesus meeting with his temperamental friend and partner.

Jen reluctantly attends a grief therapy group session and crosses paths with Judy (Cardellini), another hurting soul who at first Jen cruelly dismisses with sarcasm and putdowns.   But then they become friends and share their grief.   Judy's fiancee recently passed from a heart attack in the prime of life.  Couple that with five miscarriages, and we see Judy in shambles desperately needing a friend.    I will say, without giving much away, that all is not what it seems with Judy, Jen, or anything else. 

Applegate and Cardellini have spot-on chemistry, and the more Jen tries to rid herself of Judy, the more she finds they need each other, and not simply emotionally.   You'll see what I mean.   Boy, will you see.   Dead to Me successfully relies on its cliffhanger formula most of the time.    What you think you know is turned upside down with a flashback which cleverly omits the truth until it doesn't or sheer happenstance involving one or several of the supporting players, including Judy's on-again, off-again slick lawyer boyfriend Steve (Marsden), who alternates between selfish prick and caring, doting romantic partner almost on a dime.   Steve plays heavily into future events, and even past ones.

Dead to Me is somehow fun with material you wouldn't expect to be the liftoff point for a good time.  There is a lot of pain and anger beneath the surface, or in Jen's case right out in front for the world to see.   The ending to season two pushes the idea of coincidental events between characters past plausible and into the absurd.    I had a theory involving Steve and his twin brother Ben (also played by Marsden) who is introduced in the second season which I thought would be the shocker.   It's darker and more macabre, owing a lot to The Prestige, but I think it would've been a more fitting cliffhanger considering how Ben was a 180 degree difference from Steve in nearly every way.   Or was he?  Hmmmm. 

Fleabag (2016-19) * * * (Seasons 1 and 2 on Amazon Prime)

Starring:  Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Andrew Scott, Sian Clifford, Bill Paterson, Olivia Colman, Brett Gelman, Hugh Skinner, Jenny Rainsford

Fleabag, the titular character of this BBC series, is a personal and professional mess as the series begins.    She awakens at two in the morning for a one-night stand with Arsehole Guy, who enjoys anal sex much more than Fleabag does.    The cafe she owns barely has any customers and she just broke up with her sensitive boyfriend Harry (Skinner), who should look elsewhere for a happily-ever-after love.    Then, there is her immediate family, which provides more drama than Fleabag needs in her life.   Or is it the other way around? 

It is fair to say Fleabag laughs and flashes looks of approval, disdain, shock, etc. at the camera (she breaks the fourth wall often) so that she may not cry.   Her best friend Boo (Rainsford), with whom she co-owned the cafe, was recently killed in a road accident (or committed suicide depending on whom you ask), and Fleabag carries searing guilt around about it, and her life choices only seem to feed into her self-sabotaging tendencies.    She falls for The Priest (Scott) in Season 2, knowing full well the moral and spiritual complications which would ensue.   Is falling for people she can't have simply another part of her subconscious campaign against her own happiness?

Waller-Bridge is never less than engaging as Fleabag.  I'll assume that is not her Christian name, but she is conspicuously never called by whatever her real name is.   She can easily navigate the character's contradictions and sexual eccentricities.   She isn't always likable, but she's human. Fleabag frequently breaks the fourth wall, mostly with her eyes, and while I got used to this, I am not sure why it is done as often as it is.   Most of it is not necessary or add much to the proceedings.    The supporting players are given proper space and attention to form their own quirks.    The Priest, however, is given the most dimension, mostly because he is a Catholic priest at war with his own desire for Fleabag and does that ever present complications.

While there are things to admire about Fleabag, I found myself liking it without loving it.   The show only lasted two seasons (by Waller-Bridge's choice) and twelve episodes is enough to establish the character and give us a peek into her world.    Anything more would be excessive.   Waller-Bridge did about all that could be done with Fleabag without us tiring of her. 

David Bowie: Finding Fame (2019) * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Francis Whately

I was going to take this documentary about David Bowie's early years to task for ending just as David Bowie's career was taking off and starting to get interesting.   Then, I found Finding Fame is only one part of a retrospective of the late Bowie's life.   I hope the subsequent parts are more engrossing than this documentary which features a litany of talking heads gushing over Bowie songs which he probably had to be reminded he wrote.  

Finding Fame tracks Bowie's early years as a talented songwriter/singer who failed to make a dent in the UK charts with his eclectic songs.    They told stories, they broke ground, but they didn't inspire audiences to buy them.    Was David Bowie a little too ahead of his time?    Perhaps.   Each failure drove Bowie to write and record.   His childhood with a doting father and a cold, loveless mother is touched upon, which instilled in Bowie the desire to be noticed.   He would accomplish that through his music, with his first chart hit being 1969's Space Oddity.    Soon after, Bowie would forge a new identity as the Ziggy Stardust character, and by 1973 he would become a worldwide superstar.   His albums released in the 70's and 80's would only add to his immortal musical legacy. 

However, Finding Fame is a slog.   Too much time is spent on the tracks which all but the most hearty Bowie fans would have trouble recalling.    David Bowie was surely not an overnight success.   He worked hard at his craft and finally recorded a song which clicked with the public.    Until that point, we see his early managers, producers, girlfriends, boyfriends, and family members interviewed, with only former lover Lindsay Kemp daring to suggest that a music/mime act Bowie created was hogwash. 

I am normally fascinated by a singer/songwriter's creative process.  Finding Fame makes me pay dearly for that fascination, mostly because it is at the service of songs practically no one knows or cares about.  Finding Fame would've been better served if the early songs weren't dissected so thoroughly, but instead glossed over in a few minutes to give us a taste of Bowie's evolution as an artist before moving on to the more famous albums and singles.    Finding Fame is for hardcore David Bowie fans only, and even they may wind up losing patience. 

Platoon (1986) * * *

Directed by:  Oliver Stone

Starring:  Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, John C. McGinley, Mark Moses, Johnny Depp, Corey Glover, Forest Whitaker, Keith David, Kevin Dillon

Platoon doesn't define the Vietnam War in any simplistic terms, because nothing about it was simple.  Ambivalence and confusion reigned supreme in enemy jungles thousands of miles away from home.
Platoon is at its best when it documents and observes the hell that went on there, and the mental and physical toll it took on the men on the front lines.    In between battles, the soldiers took refuge in drugs or drink.   It was rare to find someone who engaged in neither. 

Platoon is seen through the eyes of nineteen-year-old Chris Taylor (Sheen), a college dropout who idealistically joined the military to fight for his country.    It doesn't take long for Chris to realize he made a grave, possibly fatal mistake.   Chris is based on writer-director Oliver Stone himself, who served in Vietnam, and he narrates the proceedings in letters home to his family.   Is the narration necessary?   Not particularly.  Platoon would've been better served without it.   Chris is soon swept up in the internal power struggle between Sgt. Barnes (Berenger), who sports a long, nasty scar on his face and survived being shot seven times in the line of duty, and Sgt. Elias (Dafoe), who is trying his best to hold on to any shred of humanity he has left.   Barnes is not against shooting villagers he suspects might be harboring Viet Cong, while Elias opposes such actions.   It would be easy to label Barnes as a villain and Elias a hero, but Platoon doesn't see morality with such clarity or certitude.
Further interactions between the two men only muddy the waters.

We also meet the other soldiers, who find themselves entrenched in either Barnes' or Elias' camp, including Sgt. O'Neill (McGinley), a wormy Barnes brown noser, King (David), a short-timer counting the days until his tour is finished, Bunny (Dillon), a scared private who edges slowly towards derangement, and the feckless Lt. Wolfe (Moses), who is in way over his head.    Barnes and Elias are the most fleshed out supporting players, and the roles earned Berenger and Dafoe Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations.   It's easy to see why.  The actors take what look to be cookie cutter roles and provide dimensions which don't make it easy for us to judge them. 

There are battle scenes unlike most you've seen before.   Even the ones that take place in daylight are difficult to follow, and that's the idea.    Stone and cinematographer Robert Richardson create a whirlwind of heightened confusion as bullets whiz by, explosions erupt, and soldiers not knowing for sure who or what they're shooting at.  We aren't sure of our own footing, let alone the enemy's. 

Who wins these battles?   Those who manage to stay alive when the gunfire ceases.    Pretty soon, the soldiers' objective is to survive for another day, or even another hour.

Platoon won Best Picture in 1986, with Stone winning Best Director.   It is not a perfect film.   The ending confrontation between Chris and Barnes is a little too tidy.   The battle scenes are effective in the short run, but tend to drag on longer than needed.    What Stone makes clear, and further illustrates in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), is that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and cost thousands of lives on both sides in the name of ostensibly stopping the spread of Communism.    America indeed lost the war, as Elias predicts in one of the few quiet scenes in Platoon, and in the years following the war, Vietnam veterans continued to lose.   This isn't me saying it, this is Stone himself saying it, and he fought there.