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Searching for Bobby Fischer

Director: Steven Zaillian

Cast: Joan Allen, Ben Kingsley, Laurence Fishbourne, Joe Mantegna, Max Pomeranc

Released: August 11, 1993

Oscar nominations:

Best Cinematography - lost to Schindler's List 

In case you weren't sure, the title is NOT referring to trying to find the actual Bobby Fischer, but rather the NEXT Bobby Fischer. Good, glad we cleared that up! 

So I should probably preface this by saying I know nothing about chess. I have never played it, I don't know the rules (I probably wouldn't understand the rules!). Much like one Jon Snow, I know nothing (about chess)! That said, I quite enjoyed this movie (even though I had no idea what was going on when chess was being played). You'd think watching people play chess would be one of the most boring things (and I'm sure it is in real life!), but the movie does a good job of keeping it cinematic.

This movie sort of reminded me of The Wizard. You know, that movie was about a young boy who is a video game prodigy and this movie is about a young boy who is a chess prodigy. I will say that this movie is better, but let's be honest, pretty much any movie (within reason!) is better than that one! 

The chess prodigy in question is a seven-year-old boy named Josh Waitzkin (played by Max Pomeranc). I had no clue Josh was a real person and that this movie was based on a book of the same name written by Josh's dad, Fred Waitzkin. But to be fair, I don't follow the chess scene, so I'm not familiar with any big name chess players (and to be honest, I'm not sure how big a name Waitzkin was as he was really a child chess prodigy). Yeah, I've heard of Bobby Fischer, but I feel like he's one of those big names everybody's heard of. I didn't know anything about him except he was really good at chess. We get some small Bobby Fischer history lessons sprinkled into the movie and he seemed kind of like a jerk. I did a quick skim through his Wikipedia page and yikes! He allegedly idolized Hitler and was glad that the 9/11 attacks happened. I'm not sure why you would want to be compared to him! Yes, I realize that they're only comparing Josh's chess skills to Fischer's chess skills and they make it a point to say that personality wise, Josh is nothing like Bobby. At this point in time (1992/93), I'm not sure how much is known about Fischer's truly problematic view of the world. If we really were searching for Bobby Fischer, I don't think I'd want him to be found! We don't need to search for him anymore, though, because he died in 2008. 

Heh, one of my notes I wrote was, "Bobby Fischer seemed like a whiny baby". I can't remember exactly why I wrote that, but it seemed like he was always complaining about something as young Josh tells us in voice over. (BTW, this kid was not the best enunciator of words so it was sometimes difficult to understand what he was saying in voiceover). I swear he told us that he complained about his view of his hotel in Iceland was too nice. WTF? 

So when we meet Josh, he's a kid who's just turned seven and he lives in New York with his parents, Fred and Bonnie (Joe Mantegna and Joan Allen) and his little sister. He enjoys watching Vinnie, a presumed homeless man (played by Laurence Fishbourne) play chess in Washington Square with other men. This movie never states what year it's supposed to be, but the real Josh Waitzkin was born in late 1976, so it would have been 1984 around the time he got into chess. Funnily enough, that was the year his portrayer, Max Pomeranc, was born, so there is only an eight year difference between them. I did wonder if they got a kid who was a chess player to play Waitzskin since they'd probably want to cast somebody who knew what they were doing and sure enough, according to the Wiki, Pomeranc was was one of the country's top 20 chess players in his age group at that time. Like I said, this came from Wiki, so who knows how reliable it is. 

So I haven't read the book (obviously, or otherwise I would have known Josh Waitzkin is a real person), so I'm not exactly sure how Josh learned how to play chess. His parents didn't teach him and he didn't learn at a friend's house. The movie makes it seem like he learned just from watching Vinnie and the other men in the park. Can you just self-teach yourself to play chess? I would think you would need to know the rules. Bonnie notices that her son has been fascinated with the chess players in the park, so she takes Josh to one old man in the park who's supposedly some great chess player from the past. His table has a sign that says you can play a game with him or have your picture taken with him for five dollars. (We will later learn that you don't make a lot if you're a world renowned chess player). Josh plays the man and loses, but Vinnie is watching him play and is impressed with the young boy's chess skills. He tells Josh's mother, "Your boy used pieces in combination to attack." Whatever that means, but it certainly impressed Vinnie. He asks Josh his name and Josh tells him. When he asks him, "Josh what?" his mother tells him not to give out his last name, but of course he does and Vinnie writes it down. 

When Bonnie reveals to her husband that Josh played chess in the park, her husband replies with, "Josh doesn't know how to play chess." She answers with, "Yes, he does. Don't ask me how, but he does." Yeah...the movie really never explains HOW he learned how to play chess and the parents seem to accept it. I'm sure it's more expanded on in the book. Josh's dad works as a baseball analyst/sports writer (something like that!) and likes to bond with his son over baseball; Josh is even on a Little League team. This has nothing to do with the movie, but the actor who played him sounded so much like Ray Romano, that I kept expecting Doris Roberts to come out and exclaim, "Raymond!" 

After hearing this revelation that his son knows how to play chess, Fred decides to bring out the chessboard to play a game with Josh. The game ends fairly quickly and Fred wins. He confesses to his wife that he should have let Josh win and was even giving him an opportunity to win. Bonnie tells him that Josh wasn't trying to win. Fred decides to play again with Josh and this time he tells him to "really try."

This time they play seriously and it takes so long for Fred to decide how to move his pieces that each time it's his turn, we see Josh playing with his sister during one of his dad's turns, talking on the phone to his friend (who he tells that he'll be right back when his dad calls to him that it's his turn, he runs to the living room, moves his piece, then runs back to the phone), and most humorously, Josh is taking a bath after his dad his finished thinking over a move and when he tells Josh it's his turn, Josh tells him exactly what he wants moved and he ends up winning the game. While it seemingly takes his dad several minutes to make a move, it only takes Josh a few seconds and he knows exactly how to move the pieces to win the game. 

Fred takes Josh to the Metropolitan Chess Club that he knows about from a guy that writes the Chess Column at the same newspaper he also writes for. Um, excuse me, Chess Column?? What? Is this only found in big city papers? I have never heard of a Chess Column in a paper before; granted I've never actively looked for one before. I also don't read the newspaper, I mean, how archaic.  

Anyway, Fred is there to look for a man named Bruce Pandolfini (played by Ben Kingsley). Obviously, he is a real person and I looked up his stats on Wiki:

-He is still alive at the time of this review; he is 73.

-Wiki tells me "he is considered to be America's most experienced chess teacher."

-I thought this little tidbit was interesting; I haven't seen The Queen's Gambit; but now I'm interested to check it out:

In 1983, Pandolfini was the chess consultant to author Walter Tevis for the novel The Queen's Gambit, for which Pandolfini had also suggested the title. Decades later, Pandolfini returned as consultant for the 2020 Netflix miniseries of the same name.

- He looks nothing like Ben Kingsley. Okay, that wasn't in his Wikipedia page, but just thought I would throw it out there. 

Before Bruce accepts tutoring Josh in chess, he invites Fred to an adult chess tournament where all the national chess champs are gathered. This is where we find out that one of the great chess champs, Asa Hoffman (again, somebody I've never heard of), who grew up in a wealthy family and went to prestigious schools, plays 200 games a year and only makes $2,000 from doing it. I suppose if you come from a wealthy family, you can afford to immerse yourself in chess! Fred tells Bruce, "Clearly, you had me come here so I could see all this. But if you really wanted me to say no to letting my son play, you wouldn't have bothered. You want me to think you want me to say no, but you actually want me to say yes." Bruce just replies with, "I want back what Bobby Fischer took with him when he disappeared." I don't know if I was clear when I was talking about Fischer, but supposedly he would just disappear and nobody had any idea where he was. But then he would pop back up to play a game, then disappear again. 

Bruce has agreed to tutor Josh and during their first session they don't even talk about chess, let alone play it. Josh has a large selection of board games in his room and they play Clue. I did notice he had Stratego which is a game my brother also had. We used to play it and he would always beat me because I sucked so bad. That's probably the closest game to chess I've ever played. 

At their next session, Josh is at the Metropolitan Chess Club and Bruce has set up the board for him. He tells his new pupil, "The mate is four moves from the position in front of you." This absolutely means nothing to me! He wants Josh to figure out the moves in his head; Josh tells him he can't do it without moving the pieces. This prompts Bruce to knock the pieces off the board and they clatter onto the floor. A bit overdramatic if you ask me. But after staring at the board for several minutes he gives him the answer, "knight to C8" which pleases Bruce. It pleases him so much that he gives Josh a certificate that he deems is "very rare." It says "Master Chess Certificate awarded to ______ for highest achievement on ______ (date)." Bruce continues to oversell the certificate. He tells him it's only been given out a few times in history and "only to those who achieve a lot of master-class points." This is just a piece of paper; it can't be that significant, but he wants to encourage Josh to earn master class points because it will show that he's learning chess the way Bruce wants him to learn it. 

Speaking of which, Bruce tells Josh's parents that Josh shouldn't be playing chess with Vinnie and the other men in Washington Park. He tells them, "What I'm trying to teach him and what he's learning there are two very different things. Park hustlers play tactics, not position. They rely on wild, unpredictable moves meant to intimidate their opponents. ...It'll cost Josh dearly in real games." Fred was willing to agree to Bruce's terms, but Bonnie refuses because she knows how much it means to Josh and how much he loves playing chess there. Bruce tells her it will make his job harder and she just replies, "So your job's harder." This is the first hint we get where the mother has the kid's interest at heart while the father is more about honing the kid on his skill. 

Fred takes Josh to his first chess tournament (I missed where it was held) and while Josh was swimming at the hotel pool with the other kids who were also there for the tournament, another father asks Fred what his kid's rating is. I guess Fred has no idea what this means (I certainly have no idea what it means!) because he sees a sign that has the number 15 on it and tells him "fifteen" which the other father is amazed by the 1500 rating and tells him he doubts their sons will play against each other because his son, Morgan, isn't even rated 1000 yet. I looked up what a chess player with a rating of 1500 would look like. They would be an intermediate player with 5-6 years of playing the game under their belt. It said a bunch of things that didn't mean anything to me and added that they "will probably need a chess coach to improve further." I'd be curious to know what the rating he really was at that time; he certainly could have been close to 1500! I would definitely be rated a 0! 

At the actual competition, which takes place at a high school gym, the director of the tournament seems to be more concerned about the parents than the kids. He tells the parents they can watch, but he doesn't want any funny business - no throat noises, no comments, no eye contact, nothing where they might be giving a hint or a sign to their child on what to do.  

There's a funny moment where Fred is standing behind Josh, watching him play. Josh's opponent's dad is behind him and he's this big burly guy with his arms crossed, just glaring at Fred. I guess he's trying to intimidate him? Elsewhere, a fight breaks out when a father is accuses of pulling his ear and giving his kid a hint. The man claims he was just scratching it, but like the tournament director told them all, "Nobody cares if you're guilty or not" so all the parents are kicked out of the room and sent downstairs to the locker room (and locked in until the end of the tournament!) All the kids start clapping once the adults are gone and they can finally concentrate. I'm surprised they let the parents stay in the room in the first place. 

This movie is full of big name actors: Joan Allen, Laurence Fishbourne, Ben Kingsley....and we get another one when William H. Macy shows up as the father of the kid who is playing Josh in the final game. (A young Laura Linney will also show up later as Josh's teacher). A random kid keeps running back and forth to tell the parents what's going on in the game. When he finally comes to tell them the game is over, he just walks away and doesn't say who won (um, that's what they're waiting to hear, kid!) It is revealed that Josh won (of course) when he and Fred are on the train traveling back home and a sleeping Josh is clutching a trophy. This leads us to a montage where we see Josh collecting a bunch of trophies as he wins game after game. Their mantle is getting quite full! We also see him building a tower with all the chess pieces which seems kind of impossible. 

Trouble comes in the form of a new kid named Jonathan Poe who is deemed the new Bobby Fischer. Josh sees him playing the old man in the park and it appears that he's an even better player than Josh. I would hope he would be because he's been trained by his chess master, a stuffy elderly man with a beard, since he was four. It seems his parents just gave their son to this chess master (WTF?!) and he does nothing but play chess; he doesn't even go to school. (Again, WTF?!) Good Lord, I can't imagine anything more tedious than having to play chess all the time. All. The. Time! This kid is a chess robot; at least Josh is a normal kid who goes to school and as other interests like baseball and astronomy and building things out of Legos. Poe seems to have a uniform AND a catchphrase. In the three scenes or so we see him (all on different days, mind you) he's always wearing a white polo. He also says "Trick or treat" after he wins a game. I mean, he can't come up with a better or more relevant catchphrase? There's already one built in the game with "Check mate"! 

Seeing that he's not the best anymore and not wanting to disappoint his dad, Josh tells Fred he doesn't want to go to the State Finals. He reasons that if he wins, everyone will be expecting it since he's a top ranked player. And if he loses, he's afraid of what other people will think, especially his dad. (Though he doesn't tell his dad that part). He tells Fred, "Maybe it's better not to be the best. Then you can lose and it's okay." I totally get what he's saying. Being ranked the best at something has to put a lot of pressure on that person. But if nobody is expecting you to win, if you lose, nobody will care and if you DO happen to win, people will probably make a bigger deal because they weren't expecting it! If you're already the best at something, does anybody really care THAT much? Thank God I'm so mediocre so I don't have to worry about this! Josh does go to the State Finals but ends up losing in seven moves; he clearly lost on purpose. 

Bruce sets some new rules for Josh including no more speed chess or games in the park. He knows Josh likes it, but it isn't good for him. He tells Josh they're teaching him all the wrong things. He also asks Josh if he knows what "contempt" means and tells him, "You have to have contempt for your opponents". Josh says he doesn't even when Bruce insists that his opponents hate him, which I seriously doubt since there are seven/eight-year-olds. Josh has the best response when Bruce says, "Bobby Fischer held the world in contempt." (What a shock). He simply replies, "I'm not him." This is pretty much the thesis of the movie: This kid is NOT Bobby Fischer.

At another lesson (this one at Josh's home; I'm confused, sometimes they had lessons at the Waitzkin household and sometimes they had the at the Chess Club; they seemed to be wherever was more convenient for the scene), Josh wants to know how close he is to getting his so-called "very rare" certificate. A frustrated Bruce pulls one out of his briefcase and tells him it doesn't mean anything and starts pulling out many more copies he has and asks him if he wants those too. Geeze, what an a**! Bonnie thinks so too because she tells Bruce to get out of her house. On his way out, he tells her, "To put a child in a position to care about winning and not to prepare him is wrong."

Later that night, Bonnie and Fred get into a fight. Fred agrees with the chess coach and says Josh is in a slump and is afraid of losing. Bonnie retaliates with, "He's not afraid of losing; he's afraid of losing your love." Fred finally sees the light and tells Josh it's okay if he wants to stop playing chess, but Josh tells him he wants to play at the National Finals in Chicago, where, to become the champion, a player must win all seven games.

Even though Bruce was a total jerk to Josh, Fred still invites him to go to Chicago with them. He says he can't go so they end up taking Vinnie instead. It's kind of amusing they take a presumed homeless man with them. But it is kind of sweet and Vinnie was a much better coach to Josh than Bruce ever was. Bruce does end up coming to Chicago and he patches everything up between him and Josh when he gives Josh a framed certificate saying that he "obtained the rank of Grand Master in the eyes of his teacher". He tells Josh he's proud of him and is honored to be his teacher. Aww. 

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that Josh makes it to the seventh and final game and his opponent is Jonathan "Trick or Treat" Poe. Josh's parents, Vinnie, Bruce, and Poe's chess master are all watching the game on a monitor. Right away, Vinnie and Bruce have a disagreement when Bruce doesn't want Josh to bring out his Queen, but Vinnie thinks he should. As usually, I have no idea what's going on. Josh ends up getting Poe's Queen and tells him, "Trick or Treat." I'm sure Poe loved that! 

On the monitor, Bruce sees that Josh can win in 12 steps. (How?!?!  I mean, I guess it is possible to see your moves in advance). We see Josh concentrating on the chess board as we're hearing voiceover from Ben Kingsley telling us the moves he should make as though Josh is hearing what his teacher is telling him the moves he needs to make. Even before he makes a move, Bruce can tell that "he's got it". Being the nice and decent kid he is, Josh offers Poe a draw so they can share the championship. Poe just scoffs at this and Josh tells him, "You've lost; you just don't know it." Poe still doesn't believe him and tells him to look at the board and Josh replies, "I have." He insists on them sharing the title, but Poe still refuse to take his deal and tells him to move. He does and he wins. Yay. 

The movie ends and a few title cards show up, telling us that Josh "still" plays chess and he is "currently" the highest-ranked player in the U.S. under 18. Remember, this movie came out in 1993 so those key words are no longer relevant! And since Bobby Fischer's name is in the title, we get a title card with an "update" on him: "In September 1992, Fischer emerged from secession to challenge his old rival Boris Spassky. After winning, he promptly disappeared again." I guess Bobby Fischer was not a fan of this movie. What a shock.

American Gangster

American Gangster

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Denzel Washington, Russell Crowe, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Ruby Dee, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Hawkes, Carla Gugino, Idris Elba

Released: November 2, 2007

Viewed in theaters: November 7, 2007

Oscar nomination:

Best Supporting Actress - Ruby Dee (lost to Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton)

Best Achievement in Art Direction (lost to Sweeney Todd)

So after being nominated for Oscars in the same category (Best Actor) in two years (almost consecutive years; 1999 and 2001) and one being an extremely CLOSE race (I'm guessing!), Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe star in a movie together in 2007, this one. But wait! There's a couple of caveats! (That might not be the right word...) First of all, this was NOT their first movie together. No, film nerds (or Denzel and Crowe fans) know that they starred in the 1995 (and truly terrible) film Virtuosity. I caught the last five minutes of it on TV once and even watching that, I could tell it was a terrible movie. This was before anyone knew who Russell Crowe was in the States. I'm not sure how much screen time they share in that movie, but I'm guessing it's more than the screen time they share in American Gangster! That's my second caveat. Are they really in the movie together if all of their scenes (except one at the end) are separate? You have one story with Denzel's character and one story with Crowe's character. It's kind of like when Pacino and De Niro were in Heat together and only had one scene together in the middle. (Well, I guess technically they had a scene together at the end, but there was't much conversing as they were trying to run away from/kill each other!) I would say the ratio for screen time is 60/40 in favor of Denzel, which makes sense, as the story is really about his character. He plays Frank Lucas, a real-life man who smuggled heroin from Southeast Asia into New York and made a butt load of money. He was the bodyguard, driver, and collector for Harlem gangster Bumpy Johnson for fifteen years and after he died in the late '60s, Frank took over. He gets the idea for smuggling drugs when he's watching a news report about American troops becoming addicted to opium and heroin, which are "easily available and relatively cheap", that they get from Bangkok and Saigon. He learns that a "high purity of heroin is leading to an epidemic of heroin addiction among U.S. soldiers" and his eyes become dollar signs. He calls his cousin's husband who is in Bangkok and visits him there. He wants to take 100 kilos of heroin in the U.S. and wants to smuggle it in via helicopters. It's 100% pure heroin and Frank calls it Blue Magic (see, when I think of a drug with "blue" in the name, I think of meth! But maybe any drug that is of high quality appears blue? I really don't know anything about drugs or selling them!). Needless to say, business starts booming for Frank and he becomes even more powerful than he was before. One of the most well-known scenes in the movie is when he flat-out shoots Idris Elba in the head in broad daylight. Well, it was a dealer played by Idris Elba who owed Frank money, and Frank was sending a message to others when they don't give Frank what they owe.

Frank makes so much bank he is able to buy his mother (Ruby Dee) a mansion where they celebrate many holidays. Everything I learned about money laundering, I learned from Saul Goodman and Frank Lucas does not do a good job of laundering his money if he's flaunting it like this! He could probably take his own advice, which is what he tells his brother, Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor) when he wears a super gaudy suit at a club: "The loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room." There's a very Godfather Part II moment when he kisses him on the mouth and says, "If you weren't my brother, I'd kill you, you know that?" Oh, and if you happen to get blood all over his $25,000 alpaca rug, make sure you "blot that sh*t, don't rub it!"

At one of his clubs, he meets and falls in love with Eva, a young (much younger than him!) woman from Puerto Rico who won a beauty contest. When she meets Frank's mother, she calls Eva "an angel come down from heaven". Now that's a great mother-in-law to have. (Though of course they meet before she marries Frank.)

On the day of his wedding, right after the ceremony, corrupt cop Trupo (Josh Brolin) confronts Frank and his new bride to "congratulate" him. He tells them he wants "his share" of ten grand at the first of each month and threatens him that he's "special" because he's with the Special Investigation Unit. As you may have guessed, this does not make Frank happy and he responds by leaving him a live turkey at his front door on Thanksgiving, then blowing up his prized car.

In a later scene of the same day, Trupo pulls over Frank and Huey, who tells Frank they have drugs in the trunk. Not surprisingly, Trupo checks the trunks and takes the drugs. The whole interaction between them is great. He asks Frank, "What are we going to do about this?' To which Frank replies, "We don't do s**t about it. We close it up, throw it back in the trunk, everybody goes home, have some pumpkin pie, warm apple cider." Trupo tells him, "I got a better idea. Or would you rather me throw you and your brother in the f***ing  river?" Of course Frank gets the last word in when he says, "Or would you rather your house blows up next time?" Ooh, snap. Since Huey is the one who stupidly left the drugs in the trunk and since they lost a lot of money when Trupo took them, Frank smashes Huey's head against the car window after they both get back inside and breaks the window. Frank may not kill his brother, but he will beat the crap out of him. He has quite the violent streak and if I were his wife, I would be a little scared. 

Speaking of his wife, the most Denzeliest line is when he exclaims, "They tried to kill my wife!" to mafia boss, Dominic Catanno, who had guaranteed him "peace of mind", but he replies, "I don't feel so peaceful" after he and his wife go out one night to get some takeout and when she stays in the car when he goes to get it, he sees someone driving by really fast and realizes what they're going to do and is able to run to his car and grab Eva before she can get shot. He doesn't know who tried to kill her. Was it the mob or was it fellow mobster Nicky Barnes (Cuba Gooding Jr.)?  Understandably, his wife wants to leave (preferably the country), but Frank refuses. 

Russell Crowe plays Richie Roberts, the detective who is on the case to track down where the drugs are coming from. His story doesn't really become interesting until he figures out Frank Lucas is behind all of this. For instance, there's an ongoing story line where he and his wife (Carla Gugino) are going through a divorce, and, eh, I don't care. Every time he spoke, I could still hear a trace of his Australian accent, but when he was yelling his New York accent was quite good.

When we first meet him, he is a cop, but he's taking night classes because he wants to be a prosecutor even though he has a fear of public speaking. He and his parter find a million dollars in a trunk of an abandoned car which they got a tip about from a bookie. His partner doesn't want to turn the money in because they'll be pariahs and that, "Cops kill cops they can't trust." However, Richie does the right thing and turns in the money and is called a "f***ing Boy Scout (which is hilarious since it's Russell Crowe) and this becomes an ongoing storyline for him, how people can't believe he turned in the money. I have to wonder, would it be any better if he and his partner had kept the money?

When he is assigned to head the investigation of where the new drug is coming from, he meets his ragtag team which includes John Hawkes, who always seems to be chain-smoking (I think there's one scene where he isn't smoking!), and RZA from Wu-Tang Clan. He tells them their mandate is to make major arrests; they are looking for the suppliers and distributors, not just random "street guys." They discover the new drug called Blue Magic is twice the potency as the  regular stuff for only ten bucks on every street corner. Richie muses, "Who can afford to sell s**t twice as good for half as much?" Be patient, Richie. You'll meet this man soon. As Frank himself will say, he sells a product that's "better than the competition at a price that's lower than the competition."

Richie decides that the Narcotics Squad needs to start from scratch because they aren't getting anywhere. He "borrows" $20,000 from his boss where he pays someone at a Newark car wash to buy Blue Magic and he tells them it will be there tomorrow. When he and John Hawkes see the guy leave with the money, they follow him to see where he will take them. He's headed towards the city and John Hawkes isn't sure if they should follow him because the city is not in their jurisdiction, but Richie tells him to follow him because he wants to stay with the money that he's responsible for. Richie sees the guy enter some kind of fast food joint and just waits outside while he watches a group of men led by our corrupt cop, Trupo, take the bag with the money. He follows the men and stops them to tell them the money is registered and he needs it back. Trupo gives it back and says he can have the money "this time" and threatens him to never come into the city unannounced again.

Both Frank and Richie are at the Muhammad Ali/Joe Frazier fight on March 8, 1971 at Madison Square Garden. It was called the Fight of the Century so Richie figures anybody who's Anybody will be there. He notices Frank shaking Joe Frazier's hand and wearing a fur coat and sitting even closer than Dominic Cattano, the mafia boss, and takes picture of him, knowing that he's someone important. His team gets the plates of the limo he rode in. Frank is not only wearing a fur coat (a gift from his wife), but he's always wearing a fur cap that he doesn't take off. His wife was also wearing a fur coat, but at least she takes it off. Not only is this coat just the ugliest thing and makes him look ridiculous and stick out (maybe he should take his own advice that he told his brother!), but I don't know how he can stand being in a crowded arena with that thing on! Gah! The flashy coat is how Trupo found out about Frank and started exhorting him, so he angrily throws it into the fire with his wife watching him right there. I mean, honestly, I hope he would have thrown that hideous thing in the fire regardless, but it was a little rude to do it in front of the person who gave it to him!

Richie's group gathers intel about Frank. They learn about his connection to Bumpy Johnson and that he has his brothers and cousins working for him. They check out his brothers at their jobs which are spread out across Jersey and the five boroughs - one works at a dry cleaners, one makes custom furniture, one works at a hardware store, and one works at body shop (Frank has a lot of brothers!). All of those businesses are distribution and collection points for Frank's drugs and money. They track Frank's moves and note that he gets up at five every morning, has breakfast at a diner in Harlem by himself, takes a meeting with the accountant of his lawyer, usually stays home in the evenings, and if he does go out, it's to one of his two clubs or to a handful of restaurants with his wife. He takes his mother to church every Sunday. He is never seen hanging out with any organized crime guys. As Richie notes, "Everything about Frank's life seems unpretentious, orderly, and legitimate." He doesn't think they're going to get informants inside the family.

They are able to obtain one of Frank's cousins, Jimmy, when they see him attempt to kill his girlfriend when they're having a fight outside their home and he shoots her, but doesn't kill her. They bring him in and tell him they have him for attempted murder which could be fifteen years in jail unless he helps them bring down Frank. They tell him he can avoid that if he straps a tape recorder to his body under his shirt (and remember, this is the early '70s, so this is a bulky piece of equipment...I'm surprise nobody even noticed!). He ends up recording a conversation when he's nearby Huey who's at a payphone, calling Frank, who is in Bangkok at the time to set up more drug shipments. The only thing the Narcotics team hear Frank say is, "Newark, short term, parking lot three" and a plate number. They know whatever it is, it's where the drugs will be coming in. 

While all that is going on, Trupo and his men barge into the mansion where Frank's wife and mother are and while they watch helplessly, tear apart the house to look for his secret stash of money. Not only does he find and take the money, but he shoots Frank's German Shepard since the money was buried under the dog house and the dog (who was on a leash) was guarding it. 

So as I was watching this, I really didn't understand why Ruby Dee was nominated for an Oscar other than it was a career nomination, but there is a scene between her and Denzel when Frank comes home and finds out what has happened and is ready to go get revenge, and this is when I realized it was this scene that got her the nomination. She tells Frank to not kill any cops and that his brothers look up to him and that "Even they know you don't shoot cops." She tells him, "I never asked you where all this came from because I didn't want to hear you lie." She then proceeds to slap Frank (the only person in the world who could get away with slapping Frank Lucas across the face is his own mother!) and yells, "Don't lie to me!" She tells him that his wife will leave, and that "I will leave you." This is really the moment where she gets to shine. 

So Frank has a nephew named Steve (played by T.I.) who has a great arm for baseball and Frank knows the Yankees' manager or coach (of course he does) and sets up a meeting for Steve to meet with him, but Steve skips it and tells his uncle he would rather do what Frank does. Really, Steve? You'd rather be a drug dealer than a world-class athlete? I mean, sadly, he probably does get paid better as the drug dealer. Unfortunately, it also cuts his life short. You could say he did not live his life. 

With the information they have, Richie and the Narcotics Squad is able to find the apartment complex where the drugs are being made and there's a lot of shooting and running and chasing. Definitely the most action-packed and tense scene of the film. Richie chases and apprehends Huey. While this is going on, Frank was at church, so when he comes out with his mother, Richie and the others are waiting for him. More than two hours into the movie, this is the first scene we get with Denzel and Crowe.

There must have been some kind of time jump in the movie because one minute Richie Roberts is the detective who captured Frank Lucas and the next minute he's the prosecutor in Frank's case. It feels like there's a conflict of interest there, but I'm not a lawyer, so what do I know? Literally, everything I know about law I learned from The Practice or Legally Blonde and I'm dead serious. Oh, and maybe that one season of Law & Order (thud, thud) I watched.

This is when we get the first scene (and only) of dialogue between our two main actors. Frank tries to bribe Richie, but it doesn't work on him. In the end, they come to an agreement with Frank giving the names of the cops that took the bribes and there are a lot of names. As more and more cops are being arrested, Trupo shoots himself in the head.

At the end of the movie Richie asks Frank if he wants a drink for his "good work" to celebrate and Frank asks him, "You got any holy water?" and they both laugh like they're best friends now. Yeah, that was a little weird. The tone just seemed off for them to be buddies. We get some information about their characters written in text on the screen such as Frank Lucas was convicted of conspiracy to distribute narcotics and sentenced to 70 years, but for his cooperation his sentence was reduced to fifteen years and he was released in 1991. Now that is a good deal; he shaved 55 years off his sentence! Frank and Richie's collaboration led to the convictions of 3/4 of New York City's DEA and Richie quit being a prosecutor to become a defense attorney and his first client was Lucas. So first he was this guy's prosecutor, and now he's his defense lawyer? There's gotta be a conflict of interest with that! 

How To Get Away With Murder

Reversal of Fortune

Director: Barbet Schroeder

Cast: Jeremy Irons, Glenn Close, Ron Silver, Annabella Sciorra, Fisher Stevens, Christine Baranski

Released: November 9, 1990

Oscar nominations:

Best Direction - Barbet Schroeder (lost to Kevin Costner for Dances With Wolves)

Best Actor - Jeremy Irons (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Nicholas Kazan (lost to Michael Blake for Dances with Wolves)

While watching this movie, I found that pretending it's a sequel/spin off to The Lion King really heightens the movie experience and makes it much more enjoyable. I know what you're thinking: what does a movie based on the true story of a man accused of trying to murder his wife have to do with an animated Disney movie about safari animals? Absolutely nothing, except for the fact that Jeremy Irons is in both of them and every time he spoke, all I could hear was Scar! (Let's be honest, Jeremy Irons will always be Scar to me). It was especially prevalent when we don't see him, but can hear him in voiceover when he's about to tell a story in a flashback scene. All I could think of was that it sounded like Scar was narrating the story and that's when it hit me! What if, after Scar was eaten alive by his hyena minions (I know he killed his brother, but I always thought his death was a *tad* harsh!), he was reincarnated into a skinny Danish-born/British-raised man named Claus von Bulow? (The only thing that doesn't really work is that Claus von Bulow is a real person and obviously real people can't be reincarnated from dead animated villainous lions! That's the ONLY reason why this theory couldn't really work!) But seriously, watch this movie and pretend that Scar has been reincarnated as a human. It totally works too because Claus is a bit of a shady character, and, like I mentioned before, is accused of trying to kill his wife. If this doesn't scream Scar, I don't know what does! There's even a flashback scene where he's petting a baby tiger! And there's a scene where his lawyer tells him he's a strange man and he replies, "You have no idea." Isn't this the same reply he has to young Simba after the cub tells him, "You are so weird." Obviously this is probably a shout out to this movie. 

During the opening credits, I noticed that the movie was based on a book of the same name by Alan Dershowitz and I was thinking, Why does that name sound familiar to me? Then, a few scenes later, it is revealed that the author is in the movie and he is played by Ron Silver. There was something familiar looking about him and I knew he was supposed to be somebody famous and then it clicked. He was one of the lawyers on the OJ Simpson trial and honestly, if I hadn't watched the Ryan Murphy miniseries a couple years ago, I would not have remembered him at all.

This was a murder trial I was not familiar with. And speaking of the OJ Simpson trial, before that, THIS one was the first major criminal trial to be televised in the United States. I guess Alan Dershowitz likes the limelight.

There were two incidents that involved Claus's wife, Sunnny von Bulow (played by Glenn Close), both of which happened very close to Christmas. In 1979, she fell into a coma, but came out of it within twenty-four hours. The doctors were sure that she had suffered from hypoglycemia and told her not too eat too many sweets or go too long without eating. The same thing happened nearly a year later in 1980 and this time Claus was accused of trying to murder her. She was found unconscious in the bathroom in the morning and when taken to the hospital, they discovered she had suffered enough brain injury to keep her in a vegetative state.

Sunny's adult children from her previous marriage thought that their stepfather may have injected their mother with insulin and wanted to have him investigated. They were suspicious of him the first time Sunny fell into a coma. Sunny was an heiress with a lot (A LOT!) of money and they lived in this huge mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. The two had been having marital problems for awhile now and Claus was having an affair which he didn't even keep a secret. I'm not gonna lie; Claus von Bulow comes across as being super shady (and if you come from the school of thought where he's Scar reincarnated, then of course he has the means to kill his own wife if he's already murdered his own brother!) But, on the other hand, Sunny had her own demons and did not follow her doctor's strict orders of no alcohol or overindulging on sweets. She did not take care of herself at all and it is easy to see why she would have ended that way...of course, all the more reason for Claus to have a very good motive to try to kill her! It's understandable to see why Claus was acquitted at his second trial; there was a lot of evidence pointing to Sunny did this to herself, unintentionally. But personally? Eh, I think he probably did it. Even though the movie is based on Dershowitz's book, it doesn't paint Klaus as being innocent, it more or lets you decide if he's guilty or innocent. We're just given the facts they presented themselves in the case. I would have to do some more research on the case, but my instincts says he is guilty.

The movie starts after Sunny is in her permanent coma and we hear from her in voiceover as she explains what had happened to her the first time. The maid was concerned that Sunny had been sleeping all day (to which Claus told her she had been up all night) and insisted she was not sleeping, but rather unconscious. She pleads to Claus to call a doctor, but he only does this after he notices Sunny's not breathing right. A bag of insulin was found in his closet. Of course his lawyer is able to talk it away during the trial.

After he was tried and sentenced to thirty years, he appealed and hired Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz. In the scenes we see him in with his students (which include Annabella Sciorra and Felicity Huffman) it reminded me of the first season of How to Get Away with Murder. Felicity Huffman's character voices her concern about defending Claus since he is "obviously guilty", but Dershowitz tells her it's their job to defend him. One of his students says, "I agree von Bulow is guilty, but that's the fun; that's the challenge" to which Dershowtiz replies, "Now there is a lawyer." Claus doesn't help matters when he repeats jokes he's heard about him with the law students, asking them, "What do you get a wife who has everything? An injection of insulin."

When Sunny was found unconscious, she was facedown on the bathroom floor with her nightgown hiked up. We see scenarios from the defense team of how she could have gotten there with or without Claus's help. We first see the scenario where Claus injected her with the insulin in their bedroom, then dragged her to their bathroom, then we see the scenario where she had been drinking too much the night before and hit her head on the edge of the toilet when she got dizzy and fell while she was in the bathroom. One of the students ask how did her nightgown get hiked up (which would have been been the result of Claus sliding her across the floor if he had done it), and Dershowitz comes up with the possibility that she was about to use the toilet, but hit her head before she sat down.

The real Sunny von Bulow was in her coma for 28 years; she died at the age of 76 in December 2008. I don't know why her family kept her like that for almost thirty years; maybe they thought she would wake up and then be able to accuse Claus of killing her? I feel like after a couple of years, it might be time to pull the plug. It is a little weird to think that when this movie was released (in 1990), she had been in her coma for ten years by then...and would remain in it for another eighteen years. It is a little chilling when we hear Glenn Close's voiceover as the comatose Sunny say, "I never woke up from this coma and I never will." We see nurses in the hospital massage her fingers and give her sponge baths and roll her over so she won't get bed sores. I don't know anything about comas, but it almost seems like abuse to keep someone in one for so long.

While researching this case, (this wasn't mentioned in the movie), I discovered that the daughter Claus and Sunny had together (who was 13 when her mother was found unconscious the second time) stayed loyal to her father, while, of course, her older step siblings thought he was guilty. Awkward! I also read she was disowned by her maternal grandmother because of this, which is sad. At the time of this writing, Claus von Bulow is still alive at the age of 92. Who knows if he'll ever confess if he ever did it before his time on this earth is up.

Candidate for Best Worst Movie

The Disaster Artist
Director: James Franco
Cast: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Ari Graynor, Jacki Weaver, Josh Hutcherson, Zac Efron
Released: December 8, 2017

Oscar nominations:

Best Adapted Screenplay - Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (lost to James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name)

I have never seen The Room (not to be confused with Room!), but I am well aware of it from the many reviews (mainly the video one from the Nostalgia Critic) I've read about it. When it came out in 2003, I was not aware of it because it was a very small movie, but over the years it has gained a cult following and this is how I became aware of it. I've never seen it because it's more interesting to watch other people's interpretation of it (like the NC review and this movie). I've also never had any interest in watching Troll 2, but the documentary Best Worst Movie is absolutely fascinating. (And while The Room has terrible acting and a lot of things don't make sense, I think Troll 2 may have it beat as worst movie ever).

The Disaster Artist tells the story of the making of The Room. It begins in 1998 where aspiring actor Tommy Wiseau (played by James Franco) meets a fellow actor in his acting class, Greg Sestero (played by Dave Franco) and they become fast friends and move from San Francisco to L.A. to make their acting dreams come true. Tommy says he has an apartment they can both stay in. There are a few shady things about Tommy: he says he's from New Orleans, and while he has an accent, it's not a Southern one. Throughout the movie it's discovered he has a lot of money (hence the reason he's able to afford an apartment in San Francisco and Los Angeles, he drives a Mercedes, and he's able to finance the movie they will eventually produce which will cost about $5 million). He also tells Greg's mother (played by Megan Mulally) that he's nineteen, the same age as Greg and he is definitely way older than Greg!

It is a little weird that real-life brothers are playing friends because even though James Franco is made up to look like Wiseau, he still looks like himself and Dave Franco looks a lot like his brother.

When Tommy and Greg have a hard time succeeding in Los Angeles (did they think it would be easy?), Tommy decides that they should make their own movie. He writes a script which will become The Room (terrible name for a movie; but since I haven't seen the movie, I don't know why it's called that). The movie is about a guy named Johnny (who Tommy will play) who has a girlfriend named Lisa who he's madly in love with, but she sleeps with his best friend, Mark (to be played by Greg). Tommy makes the comment that Mark is named after "Mark Damon" from The Talented Mr. Ripley, ha! Johnny is so overcome with grief, that he kills himself. Oh, and Tommy's not sure if he's going to make Johnny a vampire or not. (What?) I'm assuming he didn't go down the vampire path.

Production begins in June 2002 and while Johnny and Greg cast the other parts for the movie (and let's just say the actors they got to play those actors in this movie are much more well known than the actors in The Room!), they also buy the filming equipment they need. Since they are buying instead of renting, they are allowed to use the studio. Tommy wants to shoot the movie on both digital and film which is unheard of as both are lit differently and there are other variables that don't make sense to shoot both. I didn't know if he wanted to shoot the movie twice; once on film, and once on digital; or if he wanted to shoot some scenes in film and others in digital. But from day one the movie is set up to be an odd one and it will only get stranger from there.

I noticed that Jason Mantzoukas plays one of the guys who sells them their equipment, Paul Scheer plays the first DP on the movie, and June Diane Raphael plays an actress within the movie. If you know all these names, you are probably familiar with the podcast, How Did This Get Made? where they take a terrible movie (like The Room; I'm sure they've done an episode of it, but I haven't listened to it, but now I really should!) and make fun of it. It's a very funny podcast; I highly recommend it. It can't be a coincidence that all three have parts in a movie based on one of the worst movies ever made when they have their own podcasts about terrible movies.

On the first day of filming, Tommy, the director (he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in The Room), insists on them shooting a scene that takes place in an alleyway on a set made up to look like an alleyway when there is an actual alleyway right outside they could use. He insists on shooting on the set because it's "a real Hollywood film". This is the kind of eccentric person Tommy is. Josh Hutcherson and Zac Efron play the two actors playing the characters (it's kind of weird that they're playing the actors who are playing the characters! It's almost like a double layer of acting - they have to be good as the actors, but terrible as the characters those actors are playing) and I did not recognize them at all until I saw that they were in the movie, then had to go back and re-watch this scene. I have no idea what is up with the character of Denny that Hutcherson is playing (within the movie's movie; God, this is so confusing!) As the actor, he is also confused and asks Tommy how old his character is supposed to be (since he acts very young and juvenile) and Tommy replies, "Fifteen, sixteen, your age" and he replies, "I'm twenty-six." Ha! Oh, please, tell me this is a true story and Tommy Wiseau thought a 26-year-old was a 15-year-old! Of course, most of the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 were almost in their thirties when they played high school students so it's not the craziest thing! Other humorous elements adding to the scene is that Denny has the worst haircut ever so Josh Hutcherson has to wear this hideous wig (I'm assuming it was a wig!) so that's probably why I didn't recognize him. Also, Efron's character's (character's!) name is Chris R. and Hutcherson is asking Tommy why he has to call him Chris R., why not just Chris?

Other problems with the filmmaking include Tommy making everyone wait for hours when he is late one day and it is so hot that an elderly actress playing Lisa's mother (played by Jacki Weaver) faints from heat stroke; Tommy makes everyone uncomfortable during a sex scene when he walks around the set wearing only a sock to cover himself, then starts berating the girl playing his girlfriend (played by Ari Graynor) because she has blemishes on her skin; and Tommy being such a terrible actor that it took him 68 takes to get his lines right the first day of shooting. Seth Rogen plays the script supervisor who has to keep feeding him his lines. In a funny scene we see the entire crew reciting the lines for him. This is the (completely terrible) line: "I did not hit her. It's not true. It's bulls***.  I did not hit her! Oh, hi, Mark." The "Oh, hi, Mark" cracked me up every time. Like I said, I've never seen The Room, so I have no idea what the context of this line is, but WHY does he say, "Oh, hi, Mark" at the end of this rant? Was he ranting and just then saw his friend? Oh, and I should also add that Tommy Wiseau is a terrible actor and has this weird, flat delivery. To be fair, everyone seems to deliver their lines flatly. He also keeps laughing during a scene when Mark is telling him about a girl he knew who got beat up. They try getting takes where he ISN'T laughing (since that's what they want to use), but he just laughs every time. When they film the scene where Johnny kills himself, he shoots himself in the head, falls back, but then keeps on moving and moaning even though that gunshot to the head should have killed him!

When they eventually premiere the movie and are watching the scene when Johnny goes into a flower shop and the woman who works there says (in a flat tone), "Oh, hi, Johnny. I didn't know it was you", Seth Rogen's character says out loud, "Who doesn't recognize that guy?" since Johnny has long black hair and is wearing sunglasses inside.

During a lunch break, after she's had her heat stroke, Jacki Weaver's character tells Greg and the other young actors, "Even the worse day on a movie set is better than the best day anywhere else." I don't know if I agree with this logic, but let me try my own examples using this template:

The worst Taylor Swift song is better than the best Ariana Grande song. (Yeah, not a fan of the Grande.) The worst Jurassic Park movie is better than the best Transformers movie. (At least JPIII is one hour shorter than the first Transformers movie!) That was fun. Try your own!

Soon after Greg moves to L.A., he starts dating another inspiring actress (played by Alison Brie) and they run into Bryan Cranston at a coffee shop. Now since this is 2002, Greg is awestruck because he recognizes him from Malcolm in the Middle. His girlfriend introduces them since she knows Cranston from her pilates class and he tells Mark he's directing an upcoming episode of MitM and they're still looking for someone to fill a guest role and that Greg would be perfect for it. However, when he tells Tommy this news, he tells Greg he can either do "the little TV show" or their movie and guilts Greg into forfeiting the guest spot. I was thinking, if Greg did MitM and did a really good job, Bryan Cranston might have remembered him when Breaking Bad was about to start and maybe, just maybe he would have recommended him to Vince Gilligan for the role of Jesse Pinkman (Greg Sestero and Aaron Paul are about the same age), and the rest, as they say, could have been history. But alas, this never happened; Greg was never offered a guest role on Malcolm in the Middle and never met Bryan Cranston. I read it on the IMDb.com trivia page for this movie.

Throughout the shooting of the movie within this movie, we see what day they are on out of the forty days they have for shooting and I laughed when they were on day 52 of 40! It was released in one theater in June 2003. Tommy paid to keep it there for two weeks to qualify for the Academy Awards. Is he really that delusional? Did he really think this piece of dreck could qualify for the freaking Oscars? It grossed $1800 on its opening weekend (and I'm surprised it even made that) and has since made seven million dollars due to its cult following. This movie doesn't really go into HOW it became to have a following which I felt was a missed opportunity.

Wanderlust

Adrift

Director: Balastar Kormakur

Cast: Shailene Woodley and Sam Clafin

Released: June 1, 2018

Viewed in theaters: June 7, 2018

I first saw a preview for this film when I saw Ready Player One and at first I thought it was the latest Nicholas Sparks novel to be adapted to film because it showed a young couple being all lovey-dovey and about to set sail and I was like, hard pass. But that was only the first thirty seconds and the rest of the trailer continued to show that it was NOT based on a Nicholas Sparks novel (or any fictional novel for that matter...it is based on a memoir called Red Sky in Mourning) and that it was based on a true story about a couple, Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp who go on a sailing expedition where there's a nasty storm and their boat capsizes. I love survival stories so I was sold on seeing it. 

I never did look up the story it was based on before watching it. I figured I would remember it once the movie got going because I just assumed it was a recent (like within the last ten years at least) thing that happened. However, when it is revealed that the movie takes place in 1983, I didn't feel so bad for not having any recollection of this event at all! 

The film opens up right after the storm (which we will learn was a Category 4 hurricane) and we see a banged-up Tami (Shailene Woodley) in the flooded cabin with debris all around her. She's screaming for Richard, who, at this point of the film, is her fiance. When she makes her way to the outside of the boat, she will find the sail has been completely torn. The film goes back and fourth from the characters being shipwrecked to five months earlier when they first met each other and how they found themselves going on a sailing expedition. 

Twenty-four-year-old Tami hasn't been home to San Diego since she left after graduating high school. She and a friend headed to Mexico where they made salsa and surfed. She thought she would only be there for six months, but it turned into seven years and now, in 1983, she finds herself in Tahiti after spending time working on a schooner. She meets Richard, who is nine years her senior and a sailor from England. Tami is very impressed that he made his own boat and he takes her out sailing. One thing leads to another and the two quickly fall in love. He asks her to sail around the world with him and both agree they've always wanted to sail to Japan. However, their plans are thwarted when an elderly rich British couple who know Richard ask him if he can sail their 44-foot yacht, the Hazana, to San Diego. They have also offered to pay him $10,000 and a first class ticket back to Tahiti. When Richard asks if they can make it two tickets, they don't even blink. Tami isn't too thrilled about this because she's not ready "to go home yet" and I'm thinking, girl, are you kidding me? You're going to be sailing halfway around the world in this luxury sailboat, the two of you are going to have plenty of money to take a year off and sail around the world, and they're giving you tickets back to Tahiti so you don't have to stay in San Diego. Just see your mom and say hello, then head back. Everything sounds great in theory, but of course, the voyage to sail the Hazana doesn't go as planned. But she does agree to go with Richard when he says he won't do the trip without her because he loves her. He makes her a ring and proposes to her. By this time they've known each other for five months, so they've fallen pretty hard for each other. Tami writes a letter to her mom to tell her she'll be in San Diego in a few weeks and she's bringing her boyfriend and that "he might be the one" (she wrote the letter before he proposed, btw!).

After Tami accesses the damage to the boat and starts fixing up it and herself up (she has a nasty gash on one of her temples), she sees Richard limply hanging from a lifeboat and screams to him that she's coming to get him. She falls off the boat as she's attempting to fix the sail and the boat is moving away at a scary pace (not to mention moving even further away from Richard), but she proves herself to be a strong swimmer and catches up to the boat, though she is panting and heaving. We see her fixing the damaged boat as best she can; good thing she's had experience! When it's good as can be under the circumstances, she sails toward him. It should be mentioned that all the radios to contact anyone have stopped working and she is unable to get any help. 

She swims out and rescues Richard whose leg is in pretty bad shape and he is unable to move, so Tami has to do all the work and steering of the ship. Math is not her strong suit so she is worried about getting the coordinates right. She knows they are in a search area way too big for them to be found and they aren't even in any flight zones or shipping zones. She believes her best best is to head toward Hawaii. 

She finds as many rations as she can which includes peanut butter and alcohol hidden under a seat (which she also uses on Richard's leg), but they don't last too long and soon realizes that she's going to have to use the spear to catch fish. Richard is adamant about this, but Tami is a vegetarian because she loves all living things and doesn't want to any creature to suffer. Girl, I hear you, but I think in cases like this, you need to think of yourself first and get the food so you don't die. She is unable to do it the first time, claiming it too hard, but eventually she gets the hang of it and forces herself to eat the fish. 

At one point she wakes up to find a huge barge baring down them and it looks like the thing is going to steamroll right over them. Tami is shooting her flare gun, but it just passes them and disappears into the night. Tami wonders if she actually saw the thing or if she was hallucinating and starts crying, wondering if they will ever be rescued. 

The movie keeps us update to date how many days adrift they've been (and it will be a total of 41 days). Richard tells Tami he wishes that she had never met him because then she would never be in this mess and she tells him she doesn't regret a single moment. 

All right, about to get in spoiler territory so continue at your own risk! 

SPOILERS AHOY! 

You guys are going to think I'm a total moron. Okay, so I was totally duped by the movie. I should have seen it coming. It should have been so obvious. Richard was dead the entire time. Well, not the ENTIRE time...he was certainly alive and real pre-storm, but was killed during the storm. Watching this, it suddenly made sense to me why the pre-storm scenes and the post-storm scenes alternated and why we didn't see the actual storm until near the end of the movie. When they realize they are in the path of a category 4 hurricane, they decide to alter their route, but it's not enough to diverge from the path of the storm. They are caught in the storm with 160 mph winds and 50 foot waves (I looked up some info on the incident). That has to be the scariest thing ever, even for the most experienced of sailers like Richard was. He tells Tami to go in the cabin as he's trying to steer the boat out of the storm...or something. I'm not sure what he's trying to do, but it seems like nothing would really help them at that point. A huge wave crashes over them and the boat just turns over and over and Tami is flung around in the cabin. Apparently she was unconscious for 27 hours, though we never get that from the movie; I found that out while doing research. It's amazing she wasn't even more banged up than she was or didn't have any broken bones. Richard is swept out to sea and we see him sinking in the ocean. At this point, I'm thinking, huh. We go back to Tami being adrift and at this part, she's probably nearing forty days of being lost at sea. We see a close up of her and she's crying and she says "It's time to let you go now" and the camera pans back to reveal the area behind her is empty, the area where Richard was. This whole time he was dead and she was imagining him there. Sure, we get that scene earlier where she thought she had hallucinated that barge, but I don't believe she was hallucinating that Richard was there, even though it seems that's what the movie wants us to believe. For one thing, the real person this is based knew right away her fiance was dead. This was just a detail they added to the movie to make it more compelling for those who weren't familiar with the story. Also, she never freaks out about him being "gone" all of a sudden. She seems to be well aware that he wasn't there the whole time and was just imagining that he was there to help her guide her to rescue, which she eventually does when a land bird flies to her boat and when it flies off again, she steers the boat towards that direction where she will eventually see a Japanese cargo ship and is rescued. It appears in the real story, she sailed to Hawaii and was rescued there. 

Despite the obvious clues, I really should have figured this love story was going to end tragically. You have one half of the couple from Me Before You and one half of the couple from The Fault In Our Stars - this is just asking for a calamitous ending. 

By the way, the poster for this movie (Google it) totally rips off Titanic...another love story that ends tragically! 

A Simple Plan

I, Tonya

Director: Craig Gillespie

Cast: Margot Robbie, Allison Janney, Sebastian Stan, Juliane Nicholson, Paul Walter Hauser, Bobby Cannavale

Released: December 8, 2017

Viewed in theaters: January 31, 2018

Oscar nominations:

Best Actress - Margot Robbie (lost to Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri)

Best Supporting Actress - Allison Janney (won)

Best Film Editing (lost to Dunkirk)

I remember the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding incident (as it is so referred to in the film), but I don't remember everything. This was a big deal when it happened and it was everywhere. But after it went away, I never really gave much thought about it (or Kerrigan and Harding as they both seemed to disappear, too) until this movie came out. Well, that's not true. I do remember watching a 30 For 30 documentary about this incident a few years ago on YouTube. I was trying to remember if I knew who Kerrigan or Harding were before the incident happened, but I honestly can't remember. I'm not a huge figure skating fan, but I do watch it at the Olympics and I'm sure I was familiar with their names prior to Lillehammer, especially Kerrigan's since she was the favorite that year. From this movie, I learned that Harding was at the 1992 Albertville Olympics, which I had no idea, but, I didn't watch those Olympics.

To be honest, if the incident had never happened, I don't think I would have remembered either Kerrigan or Harding or would have just vaguely remembered them. I looked up women's figure skating at the Olympics to see who medaled. This is what I remembered before I even looked at it: Kristi Yamaguchi got the gold in '92 (btw, I once wrote to her and got an autographed photo back); Tara Lipinski got the gold in '98, and Sarah Hughes got the gold in '02. If somebody asked me who the most famous figure skater of all time is, I would say Michelle Kwan, even though she never won an Olympic gold (damn you, Lipinski! (and that's really the only reason why I remember Tara!)). Kwan was huge in the late '90s and early '00 and I honestly don't know who really took her place when she retired...I really can't name you another famous skater since then.

Of course I remember Oksana Baiul got the gold in' 94 with Kerrigan getting the silver, but believe me, if KneeGate had never happened, I would not have remembered Baiul at all. While I was looking at the list, I saw that Sasha Cohen won the silver at the '06 and I had forgotten about her until I saw her name. I feel like this is how I would have reacted to being reminded that Kerrigan won the silver in '94 if the incident never happened: I would have recognized her name, but I wouldn't have remembered she won the silver. And as for Harding, I wouldn't have remembered her at all as she never even placed at the Olympics. Although, if the incident never happened, the Lillehammer Olympics may have been totally different...think about it, Tonya Harding (whether or not she deserved to be there) was under a lot of pressure and scrutiny from the press (whether or not she deserved it, and believe me, we'll touch on that later) so I think the broken lace (or whatever was wrong with her skate) was an element of that and she did have added pressure that I think contributed to her crappy Lillehammer Olympic performance. Who knows? If the incident had never happened and no more pressure than usual, maybe Harding could have been the Lipinski to Kerrigan's Kwan and gotten the gold medal. Okay, that's probably unlikely since she was not a darling on the ice (or off of it!) In fact, we learn from the film that the judges' were not too keen on Tonya. But I bet she would have placed better than eighth, although she definitely would have been forgotten.

When the attack happened, I was one hundred percent certain Harding was behind it and knew about it. Now, I'm not so sure. On the one hand, why would she be so stupid to go along with this plot? Her dream is to go to the Olympics and she would have to know if she got caught (which she most likely would), then she wouldn't be able to attend. You can call Tonya Harding a lot of things, but I just can't see anyone who is serious about going to the Olympics jeopardizing by doing something like bashing in her opponent's knee. It just doesn't make sense. On the other hand, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if she knew about it beforehand. There's a scene in the movie where she's at a competition and isn't happy with her scores and skates over to the judges to demand what she has to do to improve her scoring. I have no idea whether or not this really happened and if it did, I have no idea if she actually spoke to them the way she does in the movie!

The film is very interesting and stylistic in the way it is shot and we get the POVs of both Harding (Margot Robbie who plays Tonya from ages 15-44) and her boyfriend-turned husband-turned ex-husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) on how a certain moment occurred. For instance, Jeff tells the audience that Tonya once shot at him with a shotgun and Tonya tells the audience that never happened. There's a lot of fourth-wall breaking, mostly by Tonya, but her coach also does it during a training montage. Even with the seriousness of Tonya being in abusive relationships both with Gillooly and her mother, LaVona (Allison Janney), the movie is played as a comedy, albeit a dark comedy. You feel bad for Tonya for being so abused, both verbally and physically. At one point, her mother even throws a steak knife at her and it lodges into her arm and Tonya has to pull it out. I was in the theater with about five other people (I saw it on a Wednesday afternoon, a great time if you don't want too many other people in the theater with you!) and everyone gasped at that. So while the film does a good job of making Tonya look sympathetic, I don't think she helped with her attitude towards skating. Her coach, Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson) didn't want her skating to ZZ Top and gave her suggestions of things she should do rather than what she wanted to do, but Tonya didn't listen to her. I never knew the judges didn't like Tonya because she came from "the wrong side of the tracks" and one of them even told her they judge on style as well as the performance because Tonya is wearing this horrible pink outfit she had to make herself because she couldn't afford it. Tonya was not a figure skating darling that didn't get any sponsors or had any designers who wanted to make her costumes. It is highly unfair, but I think if she had taken her coach's advice she may have won them over and then maybe she would have been able to do what she wanted, but who knows. She does fire her coach (I think this was after her poor performance at the 1992 Olympics), even throwing her ice skate at her, but does rehire her when her coach comes back to tell her that the Olympics in Lillehammer is only two years away instead of four and wants to train her to get ready.

I don't know anything about figure skating and I don't know one jump from the next, but I do have a lot of respect for anyone who does it because I know it's not easy even though they all make it look effortless. I didn't know this until I saw the movie, but Tonya Harding is known as being the first American woman to land a triple axel in a competition, which I guess is a very complicated move, so you do have to give her props for that. They do explain what it is in the movie and how when you land you're landing on a very thin part of the blade so it's hard to keep your balance. She successfully attempts this move at a U.S. competition, but botches it in Albertville, blaming it on her blades not being properly attached to her skates.

Tonya has divorced Jeff by the time the she's training for Lillehammer, but tells the audience she still needs him, which I didn't get. There's a competition she's about to skate in, but she gets a warning from a security guard that someone phoned in a death threat to her, saying if she skated, she would get a "bullet in the back" and they can't protect her so she has to back out of it. We later learn that the phone message was sent in by her bodyguard, Shawn Eckhardt (Paul Walter Hauser). I have no idea why he would want to do that or if that's even true, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was because he was a bit of an odd character. Jeff gets the idea to do the same thing to Nancy Kerrigan, to call the arena she practices at in Boston and to scare her with a death threat or a bomb threat so she won't be able to practice and maybe she'll drop out of the Olympics. Well, as we all know, the plan doesn't go that way at all, in fact, it goes much worse, but not as bad as it could have been.

So I always just thought the guy who whacked her in the knee was either the ex or bodyguard, but it was actually a guy named Shane Stant. The movie has it so it's the bodyguard's idea to have him do that and the ex still thinks they're doing the scare Nancy with a phone call tactic. While Tonya does know that they were talking about that, she thinks it has been dropped and definitely doesn't know anything about physically hurting Nancy, but of course, who knows what really happens. The movie plays as a mockumentary at times and we see the major characters (Tonya, LaVerna, Jeff, Shawn and a reporter for Hard Copy played by Bobby Cannavale) all talking to the audience in the current day. It is amusing when they're about to get to the clubbing of Nancy's knee because they're all like, "Oh, here's the part you've all been waiting for" and keep calling it "the incident".

It happened a month before the Olympics and I say it wasn't as bad as it could have been because obviously Kerrigan went on to skate in Lillehammer and won the silver. He just gave her one good whack and left, but not before he broke the glass doors to get out because they were locked with a chain. It didn't take long for the police to catch him because they saw security footage of him moving his car every 30 minutes at the skating rink in Boston where he originally thought Nancy was (she was in Detroit when it happened) and they thought it was suspicious and tracked the car down. The entire thing is just insane! As we all know, Tonya also made it to the Olympics despite the media storm showering down upon her and the accusations that she was involved in it which she vehemently denied. I guess she threatened to sued the IOC if she was not allowed to compete and tells the audience that CBS (the network airing them that year) wanted her there for the ratings. Anyway, it's not a surprise she had such bad karma at the Games what with all that was going on. I had no idea when she was sentenced (she pleaded guilty for learning information about the attack after it happened and failing to report it to the police) that she was not allowed to compete in any more competitions. I felt that was a little harsh as she was also given community service and a fine. I just assumed she either aged out of ice skating by that time (she was only 23, so she was still pretty young) or was just ostracized by the skating community (which probably happened anyway).

One of my favorite things about the movie was the way they shot the skating scenes. It was very cinematic and exciting the way they did it; they should film all figure skating competitions this way! Although having another person skating on the ice with them with a camera might be a bit distracting! I found this clip on YouTube where the director explains how they shot the first scene of Margot Robbie (and other!) skating as Tonya at a competition the first time in the film: 

Miracle in the Andes

Alive

Director: Frank Marshall

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Josh Hamilton, Vincent Spano, Bruce Ramsay, Danny Nucci, Illeana Douglas, John Malkovich

Released: January 15, 1993

I was not familiar with this true story of a plane crash carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and their friends and family until the movie came out twenty years after it happened. My parents saw it and my mom told me about the cannibalism (oh, we'll get to that later!) I saw the movie a few years later and recently revisited it when I saw it was on Netflix Instant. 

When watching it the first time, when I was in middle school (or high school....I don't remember), it didn't even occur to me that the majority of the actors were caucasian Americans (there were a few Hispanic actors) playing Uruguayans. Now I didn't really have that much of a problem with that as I understand that this was an American production, but still, you're not fooling anyone that Ethan Hawke isn't from South America! I also understand why they're not speaking in Spanish because, again, this is intended for American audiences, but it is weird that this is a South American rugby team and they're all speaking in English...I thought the same thing when I saw that movie about the Chilean miners who were trapped underground and they were all speaking in English too. But seeing as that they had two survivors from the actual plane crash as technical advisors, if they didn't have a problem with it, then neither do I. But it's just so weird.

A small plane (Uruguayan Flight 571) is carrying 45 passengers across the Andes (though the movie was filmed in the Canadian Rockies) to Chile where they will have a rugby match. The 45 people include the rugby team, their family and associates, and five people made up the crew. The date is October 13, 1972, and yes, that just so happened to land on a Friday. (I only know that because Wikipedia told me). The weather is foggy, never a good mix with flying through the mountains on Friday the 13th! Because of the horrible visibility, the tail and the wings broke apart from the fuselage when the plane clips a mountain peak. The plane is still flying, though, with a huge hole, and the unfortunate people in the back are ripped out of the plane along with their seats. I can't even imagine what they were thinking, or the people who were sitting at the front who knew they were inevitably going to crash.

The plane crash lands hard and goes skidding very fast down the snowy mountain. In a way, they were lucky there was so much snow...that probably saved them. It's a bumpy and terrifying ride, but it eventually comes to a stop. Seven people died from falling from the aircraft and another five people died from the crash, including the team's physician, ironically, which would be nice to have one what with all the injuries the survivors have obtained...some much more worse than others. Two of the players are medical students and help assist the wounded. They are able to do this as they only have a few minor scrapes and bruises. The co-pilot is still alive, but has blood all over his face and begs for one of the men to get his gun for him, but he tells him he can't be a part of it. The pilot eventually dies during the first night as well as three other passengers, including a woman who had her foot caught under one of the seats and kept wailing in agony until one of the players told her to shut up or else he'll punch her face. When he learns that she died that night, he feels horrible for being so mean to her. The twenty-seven survivors have laid out the bodies in the snow and the team captain, Antonio (Vincent Spano) has taken charge. The captain's name was actually Marcelo Perez, but I learned that they changed all the names of the dead out of respect. I'll get to how he perishes later.

There is only wine and chocolate (for celebrating a victory when they win the match, I suppose?) for food and they ration it out to one capful of wine and a square of chocolate for all the survivors every so often. They sleep in the fuselage and huddle around each other for warmth and block the gaping hole by stuffing it with the luggage. I got so cold watching this movie! I had to turn my A/C off and put on my zip up hoodie and get my bedspread. There's a scene where we see one of the survivors has frostbite on their feet. This movie shows how Mother Nature (especially in the Andes!) is brutal.

Ethan Hawke plays Nando Parrado, a rugby player whose sister and mother were also on board. His mother died in the crash and his sister has horrible injuries. She is still alive, but not doing well. Nando is unconscious and doesn't wake up until the second or third day. He learns about his mother's death and does his best to keep his sister alive, but she will eventually die from her injuries a week later.

The first full day, they hear a plane but it is too cloudy and they know that if they can't see the plane, then it can't seem them. A couple days later, on a more clear day, they see another plane and start waving around brightly colored clothes. The plane dips one of its wings and they start celebrating, taking that as a sign that the plane saw them and is going to get help. I can't blame them for celebrating, I would also want to hope for the best too if I were out there, but there would also be a part of me wondering if the plane really saw the crash site. Everyone except for Antonio and Javier and Lilliana, a married couple with children back home (by the way, thank God there were no children on that flight!) are the only ones who don't eat the rest of the wine and the chocolates. In fact, Antonio doesn't know that they ate all their rations and is super pissed when he finds out. He tells them that the rescuers could be doing a land rescue and it could take days before they are reached. It turns out that the plane didn't even see them at all. I read on Wikipedia that the plane that crashed was white and it blended in with the snow, thus making it difficult for search planes to spot it.

At least a week has passed and there is no food left...or is there? This is the moment of the movie that everybody remembers. Not the horrific crash, not the dangers of being in the middle of the Andes, but the discussion of eating the dead. I can't blame them - the bodies, being in the snow are well-preserved and they do need to eat, because, what else are they going to eat? Remember, there are 27 people (maybe 26 at this time...it was hard to keep track) who need to eat. They do talk it over and how it will change them. Everyone reluctantly agrees they should do it except for Lilliana (played by Illeana Douglas). I would also say no. Not that I would feel like an evil person for eating another human beings; I do get that it's for survival, but my God! I just can't imagine humans tasting good (uh...maybe that's a good thing!) And they're eating them raw! Ughhhhhh! So disgusting! Eww! When we see the first person (Antonio, I think) cut into the rear end of one of the victims, the piece of flesh he eats looks like cold cuts. (I read that they used turkey jerky). It looks SO GROSS. I would seriously throw up. And the fact that they're eating people they know (and Nando specifically asks the others not to touch his mother or sister, which makes sense) makes it worse. If I absolutely was in this dire situation and had to eat a dead body to survive, I would want to eat someone I didn't know, for God's sake and wasn't a relative or close friend of mine. Guess I would have to eat one of the pilots! But then I would throw it up (I just know I would!) and would eventually die from starvation. I know I would die for a fact because they were stranded in the mountains for 72 days! From October 13 - December 23. A small transistor radio is found on the plane and they hear the news that the search effort has been called off, so it's up to them to get help.

The plane's mechanic survived the crash, but doesn't seem to be much help when he is asked about the radio. He says it needs batteries, which just so happen to be in the tail section. (You think the batteries would be in the cockpit). A few of the men decide to look for it and there's a scary scene where they are walking over a snow covered chasm and the snow falls and one of the men almost falls in the gaping hole, but he is grabbed by another and they form a human chain. Who knows if that really happened or if they added it in the movie. Something that really did happen was an avalanche that occurred in the middle of the night and killed eight people including the team captain, Lilliana (who eventually started eating the dead upon her husband's insistence) and the mechanic. It completely covered the fuselage and those lucky enough not to be completely covered by the snow, quickly started digging through the snow.

The search for the tail continues and this time it is found (along with a few dead bodies, still attached to their seats). The battery, however, is too heavy to carry back to the crash site, so it is decided they will return to the crash site and disconnect the radio and bring it back. Needless to say, it didn't work. Nando and Roberto Canessa (played by Josh Hamilton) decide they're going to trek down the mountains to get help. It took them ten days before they finally reached help. In the movie, it is very rushed. Before they leave to get help, Nando (or maybe it was Roberto, I don't remember) gives one of the other men one half of a pair of red baby shoes and tells him that when the shoes are united, then that means they will have been rescued. Um...why are there baby shoes on that plane? There were no babies on that flight! (And thank God!) No way this happened in real life and they were doing it to gloss up the movie a bit, but, again, I ask, why are there baby shoes on that flight? That made no sense at all!

So of course when the helicopters arrive, the baby shoes are reunited and everyone is rescued. Well, the remaining survivors are rescued. In the end, only sixteen out of the forty-five people who were on that flight survived the 72 day ordeal. It is pretty amazing that even that many people did survive!