#but maybe that was on me for anticipating a dramedy to be more drama than comedy

[jollysunflora]

#this episode was fun#it was goofier than I expected#but maybe that was on me for anticipating a dramedy to be more drama than comedy#Stella was delightfully evil#Andrealphus's first appearance was both welcome and slightly disturbing#and good Christ that ending#you just have to see it for yourself

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 10/13/20: FREAKY, THE CLIMB, MANK, HILLBILLY ELEGY, AMMONITE, DREAMLAND, DOC-NYC and MUCH MORE!

It’s a pretty crazy week for new releases as I mentioned a few times over the past couple weeks, but it’s bound to happen as we get closer to the holiday movie season, which this year won’t include many movies in theaters, even though movie theaters are still open in many areas of the country… and closing in others. Sigh. Besides a few high-profile Netflix theatrical release, we also get movies starring Vince Vaughn, Margot Robbie, Kate Winslet, Saoirse Ronan, Mel Gibson and more offerings. In fact, I’ve somehow managed to write 12 (!!!!) reviews this week… yikes.

Before we get to the new movies, let’s look at a few series/festivals starting this week, including the always great documentary festival, DOC-NYC, which runs from November 11 through 19. A few of the docs I’ve already seen are (probably not surprisingly, if you know me) some of the music docs in the “Sonic Cinema” section, including Oliver Murray’s Ronnie’s, a film about legendary jazz musician and tenor sax player Ronnie Scott, whose London club Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club has been one of the central cores for British jazz fans for many decades.

Alex Winter’s Zappa is a much more satisfying portrait of the avant-garde rocker than the doc Frank Zappa: In His Own Words from a few years back, but I was even more surprised by how much I enjoyed Julien Temple’s Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, because I’ve never really been a Pogues fan, but it’s highly entertaining as we learn about the chronically-soused frontman of the popular Irish band.

I haven’t seen Robert Yapkowitz and Richard Peete’s in My Own Time: A Portrait of Karen Dalton, a portrait of the blues and folk singer, yet, nor have I watched Marcia Jarmel and Ken Schneider’s Los Hermanos/The Brothers about two brother musicians separated from childhood after leaving their native Cuba, but I’ll try to get to both of them soon enough.

Outside of the realm of music docs is Ilinca Calugareanu’s A Cops and Robbers Story, which follows Corey Pegues from being a drug dealer and gang member to a celebrated deputy inspector within the NYPD. There’s also Nancy (The Loving Story) Buirski’s A Crime on the Bayou, the third part of the filmmaker’s trilogy about brave individuals in the Civil Rights era, this one about 19-year-old New Orleans fisherman Gary Duncan who tries to break up a fight between white and black teens at an integrated school and is arrested for assaulting a minor when merely touching a white boy’s arm.

Hao Wu’s 76 Days covers the length of Wuhan, China’s lockdown due to COVID-19, a very timely doc that will be released by MTV Documentary Films via virtual cinema on December 4. It’s one of DOC-NYC’s features on its annual Short List, which includes Boys State, Collective, The Fight, On the Record, and ten others that will vie for juried categories.

IFC Films’ Dear Santa, the new film from Dana Nachman, director of the wonderful Pick of the Litter, will follow its Heartland Film Festival debut with a run at COD-NYC before its own December 4 release. The latter is about the USPS’s “Operation Santa” program that receives hundreds of thousands of letters to Santa every year and employees thousands of volunteers to help make the wishes of these kids come true.

Basically, there’s a LOT of stuff to see at DOC-NYC, and while most of the movies haven’t been released publicly outside festivals yet, a lot of these movies will be part of the doc conversations of 2020. DOC-NYC gives the chance for people across the United States to see a lot of great docs months before anyone else, so take advantage of some of their ticket packs to save some money over the normal $12 per ticket price. The $199 price for an All Access Film Pass also isn’t a bad deal if you have enough time to watch the hundreds of DOC-NYC offerings. (Sadly, I never do, yet I’m still a little bummed to miss the 10Am press screenings at IFC Center that keeps me off the streets… or in this case, sitting on my ass at home.)

Not to be outdone by the presence of DOC-NYC, Film at Lincoln Center is kicking off its OWN seventh annual “Art of the Real” doc series, which has a bit of overlap by running from November 13 to 26. I really don’t know a lot about the documentaries being shown as part of this program, presented with Mubi and The New York Times, but check this out. For just 50 bucks, you can get an all-access pass to all 17 films, which you can casually watch at home over the two weeks of the fest.

Okay, let’s get to some theatrical releases, and the one I’ve been anticipating the most (also the one getting the widest release) is Christopher Landon’s FREAKY from Blumhouse and Universal Pictures. It stars Kathryn Newton as Millie Kessler, a high school outcast who is constantly picked on, but one night, she ends up encountering the serial killer known as the “Blissfield Butcher” (Vince Vaughn), but instead of dying when she’s stabbed with a ritual blade. The next morning Millie and the Butcher wake up to discover that they’ve been transported into the body of the other. Oh, it’s Friday the 13th… oh, now I get it… Freaky Friday!

Landon is best known for writing many of the Paranormal Activity sequels and directing Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. Msore importantly, he directed Happy Death Day and its sequel Happy Death Day 2 U, two of my favorite Blumhouse movies, because they so successfully mix horror with comedy, which is so hard to do. That’s what Freaky is all about, too, and it’s even harder this time even though Freaky has way more gruesome and gory kills than anything in Landon’s other films. Heck, many of the kills are gorier than the most recent Halloween from Blumhouse, and it’s a little shocking when you’re laughing so hard at times.

Landon does some clever things with what’s essentially a one-joke premise of a killer in a teen girl’s body and vice versa, but like the Lindsay Lohan-Jamie Lee Curtis remake from 2003, it’s all about the talent of the two main actors to pull off the rather intricate nature of playing humor without losing the seriousness of the horror element.

It may not be too surprising with Vaughn, who made a ton of dramas and thrillers before turning to comedy. (Does everyone remember that he played Norman Bates in Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho and also starred in thrillers The Cell and Domestic Disturbance?) Newton is a bit more of an unknown quantity, but as soon as Tillie dawns the red leather jacket, you know that she can use her newly found homicidal attitude to get some revenge on those who have been terrible to her.

In some ways, the comedy aspects of Freaky win out over the horror but no horror fan will be disappointed by the amount of gory kills and how well the laughs emerge from a decent horror flick. Freaky seems like the kind of movie that Wes Craven would have loved.

I’m delighted to say that this week’s “Featured Flick” is Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin’s indie comedy THE CLIMB (Sony Pictures Classics), a movie that I have seen no less than three times this year, first when it was playing Sundance, a few months later when it was supposed to open in March… and then again last week! And you know what? I enjoyed it just as much every single time. It’s an amazing two-hander that stars Covino and Marvin as best friends Mike and Kyle, who have a falling out over the former sleeping with the latter’s fianc��, and it just gets funnier and funnier as the friends fight and Kyle gets engaged to Marisa (Gayle Rankin from GLOW) who hates Mike. Can this friendship possibly survive?

I really had no idea what to expect the first time I saw The Climb at the Sony Screening Room, but it was obviously going to be a very different movie for Sony Pictures Classics, who had started out the year with so many great films before theaters shut down. (Unfortunately, they may have waited too long on this one as theaters seem to be shutting down again even while NYC and L.A. have yet to reopen them. Still, I think this would be just as much fun in a drive-in.)

The movie starts with a long, extended scene of the two leads riding bikes on a steep mountain in France, talking to each other as Kyle (once the athlete of the duo) has fallen out of shape. During the conversation, Mike admits to having slept with Kyle’s fiancé Ava (Judith Godréche) and things turn hostile between the two. We then get the first big jump in time as we’re now at the funeral for Ava, who actually had been married to Mike. Kyle eventually moves on and begins a relationship with his high school sweetheart Marisa, who we meet at the Thanksgiving gathering for Kyle’s extended family. In both these cases, we see how the relationship between Mike and Kyle has changed/evolved as Mike has now fallen on hard times.

It's a little hard to explain why what’s essentially a “slice of life” movie can be so funny. On one hand, The Climb might be the type of movie we might see from Mike Leigh, but Covino and Marvin find a way to make everything funny and also quite eccentric in terms of how some of the segments begin and end.  Technically, it’s also an impressive feat with the number of amazing single shot sequences and how smooth some of the transitions work. It’s actually interesting to see when and how the filmmakers decide to return to the lives of their subjects – think of it a bit like Michael Apted’s “Up” series of docs but covering a lot shorter span in time.

Most importantly, The Climb has such a unique tone and feel to other indie dramedies we’ve seen, as the duo seem to be influenced more by European cinema than American indies. Personally, I think a better title for The Climb might have been “Frenemied,” but even with the movie’s fairly innocuous title, you will not forget the experience watching this entertaining film anytime soon.

Maybe this should be called “Netflix week,” because the streamer is releasing a number of high-profile movies into theaters and on the streaming service. Definitely one of the more anticipated movies of the year is David Fincher’s MANK, which will get a theatrical release this week and then stream on Netflix starting December 4.

It stars Gary Oldman as Herman Mankiewicz, the Hollywood screenwriter who has allowed himself to succumb to alcoholism but has been hired by Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to write his next movie, Citizen Kane, working with a personal secretary Rita Alexander (played by Lily Collins). His story is told through his interactions with media mogul William Hearst (Charles Dance) and relationship with actress and Hearst ingenue and mistress, Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried).

It I were asked to pick one director who is my absolute favorite, Fincher would probably be in my top 5 because he’s had such an illustrious and varied career of movie styles, and Mank continues that tradition as Fincher pays tribute to old Hollywood and specifically the work of Orson Welles in every frame of this biopic that’s actually more about the troubled writer of Citizen Kane who was able to absorb everything happening in his own Hollywood circles and apply them to the script.

More than anything, Mank feels like a movie for people who love old Hollywood and inside Hollywood stories, and maybe even those who may already know about the making of Welles’ highly-regarded film might find a few new things to appreciate. I particularly enjoyed Mankiewicz’s relationships with the women around him, including his wife “Poor Sarah,” played by Tuppence Middleton, Collins’ Rita, and of course, Seyfried’s absolutely radiant performance as Davies.  Maybe I would have appreciated the line-up of known names and characters like studio head Louis B Mayer and others, if more of them had any sort of effect on the story and weren’t just

The film perfectly captures the dynamic of the time and place as Mank is frequently the only honest voice in a sea of brown nosers and yes-men. Maybe I would have enjoyed Oldman’s performance more if everything that comes out of Mankiewicz’s mouth wasn’t an all-too-clever quip.

The film really hits a high point after a friend of Mank’s commits suicide and how that adds to the writer’s woes about not being able to save him. The film’s last act involves Mank dealing with the repercussions after the word gets out that Citizen Kane is indeed about Hearst.

Overall, Mank is a movie that’s hard to really dig into, and like some of Fincher’s previous work, it tends to be devoid of emotion. Even Fincher’s decision to be clever by including cigarette burns to represent Mank’s “reels” – something explained by Brad Pitt in Fight Club – just drives home the point that Mank is deliberately Fincher’s most meta movie to date.

You can also read my technical/crafts review of Mank over at Below the Line.

Ron Howard’s adaptation of JD Vance’s bestselling memoir HILLBILLY ELEGY will be released by Netflix into theaters ahead of its streaming debut on November 24. It stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close, but in honesty, it’s about JD Vance, you know, the guy who wrote the memoir.  The film follows his younger years (as played by Owen Asztalos) while dealing with a dysfunctional white trash family in Middletown, Ohio, dealing with his headstrong Mamaw (Close) and abusive mother dealing with drug addiction (Adams).  Later in life, while studying at Yale (and played by Gabriel Basso), he has to return to his Ohio roots to deal with his mother’s growing addiction that forces him to come to terms with his past.

I’m a bit of a Ron Howard stan – some might even say “an apologist” – and there’s no denying that Hillbilly Elegy puts him the closest to A Beautiful Mind territory than he’s been in quite some time. That doesn’t mean that this movie is perfect, nor that I would consider it one of his better movies, though. I went into the movie not knowing a thing about JD Vance or his memoir but after the first reviews came out, I was a little shocked how many of them immediately went political, because there’s absolutely nothing resembling politics in the film.

It is essentially an adaptation of a memoir, dealing with JD Vance’s childhood but then also the past that led his mother and grandmother down the paths that made his family so dysfunctional. I particularly enjoyed the relationship between the older Vance and his future wife Usha (as played by Freida Pinto) earlier in their relationship as they’re both going to Yale and Vance is trying to move past his family history to succeed in the realm of law.

It might be a no-brainer why Adams and Close are being given so much of the attention for their performances. They are two of the best. Close is particularly amusing as the cantankerous Mamaw, who veers between cussing and crying, but also has some great scenes both with Adams and the younger Vance. The amazing special make-up FX used to change her appearance often makes you forget you’re watching Close. I wish I could say the same for Adams, who gives such an overwrought and over-the-top performance that it’s very hard to feel much emotionally for her character as she goes down a seemingly endless vortex of drug addiction. It’s a performance that leads to some absolute craziness. (It’s also odd seeing Adams in basically the Christian Bale role in The Fighter, although Basso should get more credit about what he brings out in their scenes together.)

Hillbilly Elegy does have a number of duller moments, and I’m not quite sure anyone not already a fan of Vance’s book would really have much interest in these characters. I certainly have had issues with movies about people some may consider “Southern White Trash,” but it’s something I’ve worked on myself to overcome. It’s actually quite respectable for a movie to try to show characters outside the normal circles of those who tend to write reviews, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie might be able to connect with people in rural areas that rarely get to see themselves on screen.

Hillbilly Elegy has its issues, but it feels like a successful adaptation of a novel that may have been difficult to keep an audience invested in with all its flashbacks and jumps in time.

Netflix is also streaming the Italian drama THE LIFE AHEAD, directed by Edoardo Ponti, starring Oscar-winning actress Sophia Loren, who happens to also be the filmmaker’s mother. She plays Madame Rosa, a Holocaust survivor in Italy who takes a stubborn young street kid named Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), much to both their chagrin.

I’ll be shocked if Italy doesn’t submit Ponti’s film as their choice for the Oscar’s International Film category, because it has all of the elements that would appeal to Oscar voters. In that sense, I also found it to be quite traditional and formulaic.  Loren is quite amazing, as to be expected, and I was just as impressed with young Ibrahima Gueye who seems to be able to hold his own in what’s apparently his first movie. There’s others in the cast that also add to the experience including a trans hooker named Lola, but it’s really the relationship between the two main characters that keeps you invested in the movie. I only wish I didn’t spend much of the movie feeling like I knew exactly where it’s going in terms of Rosa doing something to save the young boy and giving him a chance at a good life.

I hate to be cynical, but at times, this is so by the books, as if Ponti watched every Oscar movie and made one that had all the right elements to appeal to Oscar voters and wokesters alike. That aside, it does such a good job tugging at heartstrings that you might forgive how obviously formulaic it is.

Netflix is also premiering the fourth season of The Crown this week, starring Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and bringing on board Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher, Emma Corin, Helena Bonham Carter, Tobis Menzies, Marion Bailey and Charles Dancer. Quite a week for the streamer, indeed.

Another movie that may be in the conversation for Awards season is AMMONITE (NEON), the new film from Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), a drama set in 1840s England where Kate Winslet plays Mary Anning, a fossil hunter,  tasked to look after melancholic young bride, Charlotte Murcheson (Saoirse Ronan), sent to the sea to get better only for them to get into a far more intimate relationship.

I had been looking forward to this film, having heard almost unanimous raves from out of Toronto a few months back. Maybe my expectations were too high, because while this is a well-made film with two strong actors, it’s also rather dreary and not something I necessarily would watch for pleasure. The comparisons to last year’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (also released by NEON) are so spot-on that it’s almost impossible to watch this movie without knowing exactly where it’s going from the very minute that the two main characters meet.

Winslet isn’t bad in another glammed-down role where she can be particularly cantankerous, but knowing that the film would eventually take a sapphic turn made it somewhat predictable. Ronan seems to be playing her first outright adult role ever, and it’s a little strange to see her all grown-up after playing a teenager in so many movies.

The movie is just so contained to the one setting right up until the last 20 minutes when it actually lives the Lyme setting and lets us see the world outside Mary’s secluded lifestyle.  As much as I wanted to love Ammonite, it just comes off as so obvious and predictable – and certainly not helped by coming out so soon after Portrait of a Lady. There’s also something about Ammonite that just feels so drab and dreary and not something I’d necessarily need to sit through a second time.

The animated film WOLFWALKERS (GKIds) is the latest from Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, directors of the Oscar-nominated Secret of the Kells (Moore’s Song of the Sea also received an Oscar nomination a few years later.) It’s about a young Irish girl named Robyn (voiced Honor Kneafsey) who is learning to be hunter from her father (voiced by Sean Bean) to help him wipe out the last wolf pack. Roby then meets another girl (voiced by Eva Whittaker) who is part of a tribe rumored to transform into wolves by night.

I have to be honest that by the time I got around to start watching this, I was really burnt out and not in any mood to watch what I considered to look like a kiddie movie. It looks nice, but I’m sure I’d be able to enjoy it more in a different head (like watching first thing on a Saturday morning).

Regardless, Wolfwalkers will be in theaters nationwide this Friday and over the weekend via Fathom Events as well as get full theatrical runs at drive-ins sponsored by the Landmark, Angelika and L.A.’s Vineland before it debuts on Apple TV+ on December 11. Maybe I’ll write a proper review for that column. You can get tickets for the Fathom Events at  WolfwalkersMovie.com.

Next up is Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s DREAMLAND (Paramount), starring Margot Robbie as Allison Wells, a bank-robbing criminal on the loose who encounters young man named Eugene Evans (Finn Cole) in rural Dust Bowl era North Dakota and convinces him to hide her and help her escape the authorities by taking her to Mexico.

Another movie where I wasn’t expecting much, more due to the generic title and genre than anything else, but it’s a pretty basic story of a young man in a small town who dreams of leaving and also glamorizes the crime stories he read in pulps. Because of the Great Depression in the late ’20, the crime wave was spreading out across the land and affecting everyone, even in more remote locations like the one at the center of Dreamland.

The sad truth is that there have been so many better movies about this era, including Warren Beatty’s Bonnie and Clyde, Lawless and many others. Because of that, this might not be bad but it’s definitely trying to follow movies that leave quite a long shadow. The innocent relationship between Eugene and Allison does add another level to the typical gangster story, but maybe that isn’t enough for Dreamland to really get past the fact that the romantic part of their relationship isn’t particularly believable.

As much as this might have been fine as a two-hander, you two have Travis Fimmel as Eugene’s stepfather and another generic white guy in Garrett Hedlund playing Allison’s Clyde Barrow-like partner in crime in the flashbacks. Cole has enough trouble keeping on pace with Robbie but then you have Fimmel, who was just grossly miscast. The film’s score ended up being so overpowering and annoying I wasn’t even remotely surprised when I saw that Joris-Peyrafitte is credited with co-writing the film’s score.

Dreamland is fine, though it really needed to have a stronger and more original vision to stand out. It’s another classic case of an actor being far better than the material she’s been given. This is being given a very limited theatrical release before being on digital next Tuesday.

This might have been Netflix week, but maybe it could have been “Saban Films Week,” since the distributor also has three new movies. Actually, only two, because I screwed up, and I missed the fact that André Øvredal’s MORTAL was released by Saban Films LAST week. Not entirely my fault because for some reason, I had it opening this week, and I only realized that I was wrong last Wednesday. Oh, well.  It stars Nate Wolff as Eric Bergeland, an American in Norway who seems to have some enigmatic powers, but after killing a young lad, he ends up on the lam with federal agent Christine (Iben Akerlie from Victoria).

This is another movie I really wanted to like since I’ve been such a fan of Øvredal from back to his movie Trollhunter. Certainly the idea of him taking a dark look at superpowers through the lends of Norse mythology should be right up my alley. Even so, this darker and more serious take on superpowers – while it might be something relatively unique and new in movies – it’s something anyone who has read comics has seen many times before and often quite better.

Wolff’s character is deliberately kept a mystery about where he comes from, and all we know is that he survived a fire at his farm, and we watched him kill a young man that’s part of a group of young bullies.  From there, it kind of turns into a procedural as the authorities and Akerlie’s character tries to find out where Eric came from and got his powers. It’s not necessarily a slow or talkie movie, because there are some impressive set pieces for sure, but it definitely feels more like Autopsy of Jane Doe than Trollhunters. Maybe my biggest is that this is a relatively drab and lifeless performance by Wolff, who I’ve seen be better in other films.

Despite my issues, it doesn’t lessen my feelings about Øvredal as a filmmaker, because there’s good music and use of visual FX -- no surprise if you’ve seen Trollhunters -- but there’s still a really bad underlying feeling that you’re watching a lower budget version of an “X-Men” movie, and not necessarily one of the better ones.  Despite a decent (and kinda crazy) ending, Mortal never really pays off, and it’s such a slog to get to that ending that people might feel slightly underwhelmed.

Seth Savoy’s ECHO BOOMERS (Saban Films) is a crime thriller based on a “true story if you believe in such things,” starring Patrick Schwarzenegger as Lance, a young art major, who falls in with a group of youths who break into rich people’s homes and trash them, also stealing some of the more valuable items for their leader Mel (Michael Shannon).

There’s a lot about Echo Boomers that’s going to feel familiar if you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring or the heist movie American Animals from a few years back, but even with those similarities, Seth Savoy has a strong cast and vision to make more out of the fairly weak writing than another director might manage. Schwarzenegger, who seems to be pulling in quite a wide range of roles for basically being another generic white actor is only part of a decent ensemble that includes Alex Pettyfer as the group’s ersatz alpha male Ellis and Hayley Law (also great in the recent Spontaneous) as his girlfriend Allie, the only girl taking part in the heists and destruction. Those three actors alone are great, but then you add Shannon just doing typically fantastic work as more of a catalyst than an antagonist.

You can probably expect there will be some dissension in the ranks, especially when the group’s “Fagan” Mel puts Lance in charge of keeping them in line and Allie forms a friendship with Lance. What holds the movie back is the decision to use a very traditional testimonial storytelling style where Lance and Allie narrate the story by relaying what happened to the authorities after their capture obviously. This doesn’t help take away from the general predictability of where the story goes either, because we’ve seen this type of thing going all the way back to The Usual Suspects.

While Echo Boomers might be fairly derivative of far better movies at times, it also has a strong directorial vision and a compelling story that makes up enough for that fact.

In theaters this Friday and then On Demand and Digital on November 24 is Eshom and Ian Nelms’ action-comedy FATMAN (Saban Films/Paramount), starring Mel Gibson as Santa Claus and Walton Goggins as the hired assassin sent to kill him by a spoiled rich boy named  Billy (Chance Hurstfield) who unhappy with the presents he’s being brought for Christmas.

While we seem to be surrounded by high concept movies of all shapes and sizes, you can’t get much more high concept than having Mel Gibson playing a tough and cantankerous* Kris Kringle (*Is this the week’s actual theme?) who is struggling to survive with Mrs. Klaus (played by the wonderful Marianne Jean-Baptiste from In Fabric) when they’re given the opportunity to produce military grade items for the army using his speedy elf workshop. Unbeknownst to the Kringles, the disgruntled hitman who also feels he’s been let down by Santa is on his way to the North Pole to fulfill his assignment.

You’ll probably know whether you’ll like this movie or not since its snarkier comedic tone is introduced almost from the very beginning. This is actually a pretty decent role for Gibson that really plays up to his strengths, and it’s a shame that there wasn’t more to it than just a fairly obvious action movie that leads to a shoot-out. I probably should have enjoyed Goggins more in a full-on villainous role but having been watching a lot of him on CBS’ The Unicorn, it’s kind of hard to adjust to him playing this kind of role.  I did absolutely love Marianne Jean-Baptiste and the warmth she brought to a relatively snarky movie.

I’m not sure if Fatman is the best showing of Eshom and Ian Nelms’ abilities as filmmakers, because they certainly have some, but any chance of being entertaining is tamped down by a feeling the filmmakers are constantly trying to play it safe. Because of this, Fatman has a few fun moments but a generally weak premise that never fully delivers. It would have thrived by being much crazier, but instead, it’s just far too mild.

Malin Åkerman stars in Paul Leyden’s CHICK FIGHT (Quiver Distribution) as Anna, a woman unhappy with her life and inability to survive on the little money she makes at her failing coffee shop. When Anna’s lesbian traffic cop friend Charleen (Dulcé Sloan) takes her to an underground fight club, Anna her trepidation about joining in, because she has never been in a fight in her life.  Learning that her mother has a legacy at the club, Anna agrees to be trained by Alec Baldwin’s always-drunk Murphy in order to take on the challenges of the likes of Bella Thorne’s Olivia.

Another movie where I’m not sure where to begin other than the fact that I’m not sure I’ve seen a movie trying so hard to be fun and funny and failing miserably at both. Listen, I generally love Akerman, and I’m always hoping for her to get stronger material to match her talents, but this tries its best to be edgy without ever really delivering on the most important thing for any comedy: Laughs.  Sure, the filmmakers try their best and even shoehorn a bit of romance for Anna in the form of the ring doctor played by Kevin Connolly from Entourage, but it does little to help distinguish the movie’s identity.

Listen, I’m not going to apologize for being a heterosexual male that finds Bella Thorne to be quite hot when she’s kicking ass in the ring. (I’m presuming that a lot of what we see in her scenes in the ring involves talented stuntwomen, but whoa! If that’s not the case.) Alec Baldwin seems to be in this movie merely as a favor to someone, possibly one of the producers, and when he disappears with no mention midway through the movie, you’re not particularly surprised. Another of trying too hard is having Anna’s father Ed (played by wrestler Kevin Nash) come out as gay and then use his every appearance to talk about his sex acts.  Others in the cast like Fortune Feimster seem to be there mainly for their bulk and believability as fighters.

Ultimately, Chick Fight is a fairly lame and bland girl power movie written, directed and mostly produced by men. I’m not sure why anyone might be expecting more from it than being a poorly-executed comedy lacking laughs.

And yet, that wasn’t the worst movie of the weekend. That would be Andrzej Bartkowiak’s DEAD RECKONING (Shout! Studios). Yes, the Polish cinematographer and filmmaker who once made the amazing Romeo is Bleeding, starring Gary Oldman and Lena Olin, has returned with a movie with the onus of a premise that reads “a thriller inspired by the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.” No, I did not make that up. It mostly takes place in Nantucket, Massachusetts, which I guess is sort of close to Boston, but instead it focuses on the relationship between teens Niko (K.J. Apa) and Tillie (India Eisley), the latter whose parents died in a plane crash that might have been caused by a terrorist. It just so happens that Niko’s brother Marco (Scott Adkins) is an Albanian terrorist. Coincidence? I think not!

Once you get past the most generic title ever, Dead Reckoning is just plain awful. I probably should have known what to expect when the movie opens with Eric “Never Turned Down a Job” Roberts, but also, I strong feel that Scott Adkins, better known for his martial arts skills, is easily one of the worst actors ever to be given lines to say in a movie. And yet, somehow, there are even worse actors in this movie. How is that even possible?

Although this presumed action movie opens with one of three or four fight sequences, we’re soon hanging out on the beach with a bunch of annoying teenagers, including Tillie, who is drowning the sorrow of recently losing her parents by literally drinking constantly in almost every single scene. When she meets the handsome Eastern European Niko, we think there’s some chance of Tillie being saved, but it isn’t meant to be.

Part of what’s so weird is that Dead Reckoning begins in territory familiar to fans of Barkowiak’s movies like Exit Wounds, Cradle 2 the Grave and Maximum Impact but then quickly shifts gears to a soppy teen romance. It’s weird enough to throw you off when at a certain point, it returns to the main plot, which involves Adkins’ terrorist plot and the search by FBI Agent Cantrell (played by James Remar) to find the culprit who killed Tillie’s parents. Oh, the FBI agent is also Tillie’s godfather. Of course, he is.

Beyond the fact that I spent much of the movie wondering what these teens in Nantucket have to do with the opening scene or the overall premise, this is a movie that anything that could be resembling talent or skill in Barkowiak’s filmmaking is long gone. Going past the horrendous writing – at one point, the exasperated and quite xenophobic Cantrell exclaims, “It’s been a nightmare since 9/11... who knows what's next?” -- or the inability of much of the cast to make it seem like anyone involved cares about making a good movie, the film is strangled by a score that wants to remind you it’s a thriller even as you watch people having fun on the beach on a sunny day.

Eventually, it does get back to the action with a fight between Cantrell and Marco… and then Marco gets into a fight with Tillie’s nice aunt nurse Jennifer where she has a surprisingly amount of fighting skills. There’s also Nico’s best friend who is either British or gay or both, but he spends every one of his scenes acting so pretentious and annoying, you kind of hope he’ll be blown up by terrorists. Sadly, you have to wait until the last act before the surfboards are pulled out.  (Incidentally, filmmakers, please don’t call a character in your movie “Marco,” especially if that character’s name is going to be yelled out repeatedly, because it will just lead to someone in the audience to yell out “Polo!” This is Uwe Boll School of Bad Filmmaking 101!)

The point is that the movie is just all over the place yet in a place that’s even remotely watchable. There even was a point when Tillie was watching the video of her parents dying in a car crash for the third or fourth time, and I just started laughing, since it’s such a slipshod scene.

It’s very likely that Dead Reckoning will claim the honor of being the worst movie I’ve seen this year. Really, the only way to have any fun watching this disaster is to play a drinking game where you take a drink every time Eisley’s character takes a drink. Or better yet, just bail on the movie and hit the bottle, because I’m sure whoever funded this piece of crap is.

Opening at New York’s Film Forum on Wednesday is Manfred Kirchheimer’s FREE TIME (Grasshopper/Cinema Conservancy), another wonderful doc from one of the kings of old school cinema verité documentary filmmaking, consisting of footage of New York City from 1960 that’s pieced together with a wonderful jazz score. Let me tell you that Kirschheimer’s work is very relaxing to watch and Free Time is no exception. Plus the hour-long movie will premiere in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema, accompanied by Rudy Burckhardt’s 1953 film Under the Brooklyn Bridge which captures Brooklyn in the ‘50s.

Also opening in Film Forum’s Virtual Cinema Friday is Hong Khaou’s MONSOON (Strand Releasing) starring Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) as Kit, who returns to Ho Chi Minh City for the first time since his family fled after the Vietnam War when he was six. As he tries to make sense of it, he ends in a romance with Parker Sawyers’ American ex-pat and forms a friendship with a local student (Molly Harris). Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to watch this one before finishing up this column but hope to catch soon, because I do like Golding as an actor.

I shared my thoughts on Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s FIREBALL: VISITORS FROM DARK WORLDS, when it played at TIFF in September, but this weekend, it will debut on Apple TV+.  It’s another interesting and educational science doc from Herr Herzog, this time teaming with the younger Cambridge geoscientist and “volcanologist” to look at the evidence left behind by meteors that have arrived within the earth’s atmosphere, including the races that worship the falling space objects.

Opening at the Metrograph this week (or rather on its website) is Shalini Kantayya’s documentary CODED BIAS, about the widespread bias in facial recognition and the algorithms that affect us all, which debuted Weds night and will be available on a PPV basis and will be available through November 17. The French New Wave anthology Six In Paris will also be available as a ticketed movie ($8 for members/$12 for non-members) through April 13. Starting Thursday as part of the Metrograph’s “Live Screenings” is Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher’s Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists from 1980. Fischler’s earlier doc Frame Up! The imprisonment of Martin Sostre from 1974 will also be available through Thursday night.

Sadly, there are just way too many movies out this week, and some of the ones I just wasn’t able to get to include:

Dating Amber (Samuel Goldwyn) The Giant (Vertical) I Am Greta (Hulu) Dirty God (Dark Star Pictures) Where She Lies (Gravitas Ventures) Maybe Next Year (Wavelength Productions) Come Away (Relativity) Habitual (National Amusements) The Ride (Roadside Attractions, Forest, ESX) Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (Netflix) Transference: A Love Story (1091) Sasquatch Among the Wildmen (Uncork’d) All Joking Aside (Quiver Distribution) Secret Zoo (MPI Medi Group/Capelight Pictures)

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, I think you’re very special and quite good-looking. Feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[remainseatedatalltimes]

The year that almost never was...

I know what you’re thinking. How on earth do you do a “best of 2020” movie list when a) there were very few movies to review, and b) it’s not possible to use the word “best” to describe 2020.  

Both very valid points. But the way I look at it, is in a year where change was thrust upon us, it might be nice for a little bit of normalcy. And normalcy is the key here. Because in an “unprecedented” year, when so many of us have been forced to “pivot”, this movie list will be doing no such thing.  

Sure, I could have changed up the plan by including direct to steaming movies in this year’s list.  But as a fan of cinema and the actual experience of going to a movie theatre, I decided to keep the list as it has been in years past, only taking into consideration the new release movies I saw in cinemas, including those designed for streaming services but had a limited cinema release nonetheless (i.e., The Prom).

Of course, this does mean that several of the movies that likely would have made it onto this list such as Disney-Pixar’s phenomenal Soul, the latest live action remake of an animated classic Mulan, and the quirky and brilliant Palm Springs, will not feature.  Which is a shame, because two of these would have likely shaken up the top three spots (hint: the awful Mulan adaptation would not be anywhere near the top of the list).  But the decision to release these films direct to streaming has such excluded them from this list.  As much like Ross’s sofa, I refuse to “pivot”, particularly when cinema releases for these movies were possible in Australia given most theatres only closed for approximately 3-4 months.  Either way, I am sure the studios must be devastated over this exclusion. It will be up there with the delay/cancellation of the Academy Awards in terms of disappointment for them, I bet.

But enough about that. Let’s get to the movies – all 17 of them.  Talk about depressing.

Even with only 17 films though, there were some shining lights – and one unmitigated disaster. On the positive front, of the far fewer films released in 2020, the overall quality was, well, quite good. In fact, almost all were at least entertaining enough to keep this humble reviewer transfixed for a couple of hours.  Some surprises included the Clea DuVall directed Christmas flick, Happiest Season; the Judd Apatow dramedy The King of Staten Island; and the Ryan Murphy Netflix produced movie musical, The Prom.  The latter providing a glossy, polished, and amicable adaptation of the Broadway musical it was based on in-spite of its mediocre lead cast (honestly, James Corden and Meryl Streep really need to stop being cast in every movie musical ever made).

At the top of the list however were three films that could not be further removed from one another if they tried (actually, two of them do share one very notable theme, but that’s about where the similarities end).  

In third place, was the latest adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s literary classic, Little Women. Greta Gerwig’s adaptation brought a renewed and timely retelling of this all too familiar tale via an extraordinary cast led by the brilliant Saoirse Ronan and a cleverly rearranged order of events.  In doing so, Gerwig managed to bring to the forefront some of the timelier themes and storylines to make this well-told story fresh again.  Which in and of itself is no easy accomplishment.

In second place was Taika Waititi’s charming, original, joyous, and heartbreaking story of acceptance in even the darkest of settings, JoJo Rabbit.  This bold attempt to combine drama, comedy, coming-of-age romance, as well as a billion other themes into a satirical war film could only be conceived, and more importantly, executed successfully, by the deft hands and mind of the brilliant Taika Waititi.  Like many of Waititi’s films, the characters are the real standouts here.  They are charming, colourful, and quirky, and juxtapose the dark storyline and historical setting so perfectly, that it somehow makes sense to be shocked and disarmed in one moment, and then in fits of giggles the next.  This really was an extraordinary film that deserved every accolade it received.

But it was another war epic that pipped JoJo Rabbit to the number one spot.  Sam Mendes visually stunning, utterly mesmerising and ferociously intense 1917 rocketed to my number one spot when I saw it in January.  I’m not normally a fan of war epics – and I’m even less a fan of movies that focus on visuals and fancy schmancy in your face direction over storytelling – but in 1917, Mendes used these techniques to actually enhance the story and create well-rounded characters and a level of suspense I’ve not encountered in a cinema since 2019′s Hotel Mumbai.  Maybe I’m a sucker for suspense (who knew?), because much like Hotel Mumbai, this well crafted suspense was more than enough to earn this film my number one spot of 2020.  I guess it truly was an unprecedented year after all.

And let’s leave it at that. Normally I’d go on to explain some of the weaker entries from the year that was, but let’s just say the less said about The New Mutants, the better.  

So, like much of 2020, let’s close the book on it quickly and hope that 2021 brings with it not just a return to cinemas in general, but that the long-anticipated string of movies delayed from 2020 live up to an extra year of hype and anticipation.  

To be honest though, who really cares?  Just get me back to cinema escapism and away from streaming movies – stat.

[poetrybooksya]

BLITZ TOUR POST: Discovering April by Sheena Hutchinson | Xpresso Book Tours

I'm so excited to share this re-release of Discovering April by Sheena Hutchinson! I talk about this book non-stop, probably in every list post I have, and it's mostly because this story is so cute! I've done a full review back in 2014, even interviewed Hutchinson in 2016; and I'll tell you, she's the real deal.  If you've never heard of Discovering April, it's a contemporary dramedy about a young girl who's trying to figure her life out, living in a house she can't afford, going to school undecided, and has a huge crush on the Boy Next Door, who she used to be best friends with. I must have read this at least several times; it's also the first in Hutchinson's Discovering Trilogy, so if you like this one, pick up some of Hutchinson's other works.  Also, Hutchinson recently got married, so I'd like to congratulate her on her nuptials! 

In the blitz tour post below, see the synopsis, social graphics, and ENTER AN INTERNATIONAL GIVEWAY for $15 Amazon Gift Card! 

Discovering April Sheena Hutchinson (Discovering Trilogy #1) Publication date: April 27th 2015 Genres: New Adult, Romance

April Landau thinks she has everything she’s ever wanted. Her high school sweetheart, a house she can’t afford, her bipolar tabby cat, and she’s all set to begin her Junior year of college. Just when she least expects it, her life gets thrown for a loop. When things between her and her long time boyfriend unravel, she becomes stuck in a downward spiral of emotion. Finally, opening her eyes to the fact that she may have given up more than she ever could have imagined in this relationship. She finds herself struggling to keep her head above water. Enter April’s next door neighbor— Jared Hoffman. He’s her complete opposite. A high school drop out who was forced to take over his parent’s business after their untimely death. It’s no surprise this tragedy affected him greatly, causing him to recede almost completely from society. But he has one secret. A secret he’s been carrying around for years. What happens when their worlds collide? Can an old friendship be the one thing that brings these two back to life? A New Adult love story filled with drama, sex, death, and the complications of all the above. * This is the first book in the Discovering Trilogy (chronologically). Each can be read as their own novels with individual stories. But, the cast of characters will overlap throughout each book. *

Goodreads / Amazon

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On sale for 99¢ for a limited time only!

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EXCERPT:

My head is still pounding when my eyes flutter open the next day. My brain is throbbing inside my skull and I punch the pillow underneath me, scaring Jinx out of his slumber. He meows in protest before hopping off the bed. Looking around, I’m in my bed. How did I get here? I groan in pain as I prop my pillows up and lean my head back against them. It’s then that I feel the eyes on me. Tilting my head straight again, I glance out my window. My eyes lock with those big brown eyes of Jared’s across the way. He looks down to his phone and back up again. My phone chimes with an incoming text. “UGHHH!” I moan, blindly reaching for it. It slips a few times before I grasp it between my fingers and look down to read. How are you feeling? Closing one eye, I text back, Like someone ran over me with a truck, then backed up and ran me over again. Lowering my phone, I watch as he smiles from my text and disappears from view. I’m trying to piece last night back together; it’s like a fragmented mirror that has shattered all over the corners of my mind. I remember laughing with Ro about her sexual conquests and then I remember red and blue lights and… Jared. Starting to feel hot, I throw the covers off of me and lay like a starfish, trying to get my mind to focus. Glancing down, I notice I’m wearing my pajamas. Before I can process any further, the door to my room creaks open. Jared walks in with a cup of water and a closed fist. “How did you get in?!” I yelp, trying to sit up in bed, and pulling the covers back over my braless tank top. “I left the back door open when I left last night,” he informs me as he opens his fist to show me he brought a hand full of Advil. “You brought me home last night?” I rub my head before reaching for the pills and water. “Yup, after you called me to pick you up from the police station.” “I WAS WHERE?!” I scream as water comes spraying out of my mouth. “Police station. Apparently, you popped a guy in the face.” He smirks. I squint my eyes, vaguely remembering the heavyset guy that tried grabbing my ass in front of the bar. “Whoa!” I have to lean my head back against my pillows when the information begins to become too much for me. “If you took me home, how did I get into pajamas?!” The smile that crosses Jared’s face is a mixture of a blush and a sly smirk that makes my insides twist with anticipation and excitement. “Jared…” “That… you did on your own. I had nothing to do with that!” He holds his hands up in surrender. “What? I just stripped in front of you!” “Well, once you got your shirt off, there was really no stopping you…” he teases and my eyes widen in embarrassment. “Oh my God!” I slump down, pulling the covers back up to my face. “Did we… ya know…” I mutter, completely mortified now. “Uh, that would be a no.” “Oh, thank God!” I sigh. “Thanks a lot!” He comes to his feet now, turning to look out the window. “Not like that, it’s just … I don’t like to do things I’m not conscious for.” “Yea, completely plastered girls that get arrested and throw up in bushes are really sexy!” His voice drips with sarcasm. “I threw up?!” This just gets better and better. “Twice.” “Twice?” I’m mortified, staring at his amused face. “Well, after the first time I thought maybe you needed something to eat.” “Oh no…” “Yeah… I’ve never seen someone eat a Big Mac that fast before…” He stares at the wall as if remembering my weak moment. “Oh my God!” I groan, throwing the covers over my entire body. I curl up in a fetal position, planning to never come out again. The room grows silent. It’s starting to get hard to breathe under the sheets when I feel the mattress by my feet cave slightly. “Come on, it’s not that bad. We all have our moments.” He pats my feet through the sheets. “Just when I think I’ve reached rock bottom, things just seem to drops out from under me and I’m at an all new low!” I roll over, trying to pull the covers with me, but Jared’s weight prevents it. My head comes peeking out as I roll over, facing away from him. “April, I think I just determined your major.” “What?” I curiously twist to look at him again. “Drama. You’re such an actress. Now, put your big girl panties on and get up!” I stare at him for a second; did he just say what I think he said? He waits about two seconds before getting up and opening a drawer to my dresser. “Are they in here? Nope!” He closes it and opens another. “STOP!” I scream, stumbling out of bed, horrified. “How ‘bout this one?” “Okay! Okay! I’m up!” I slam the drawer closed just in time to save myself further embarrassment when Jared eyes my plain old undergarments. I sigh when the pounding in my head launches my stomach into action and I collapse onto the corner of the bed. “You okay?” “I refuse to puke again!” I respond, taking another deep breath. “Jared…” “Yea…” “I could use some donuts.” “Okay.” He pauses for a few seconds, looking down at his feet before adding, “I’ll be outside then.” And he leaves me in my room, alone.

Author Bio: Sheena is a born and raised New Yorker, who followed her happily ever after to a much more rural town in Maine. When she’s not driving an hour to find a Starbucks or running from bugs that are way to big for her taste, she’s focusing on writing stories that empower and inspire. Sheena always roots for the underdog, believes in love at first sight, and that everyone should have their happily ever after. For more on Sheena and her books visit her website: www.SheenaHutchinson.com. 

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[eichy815]

Network Upfronts 2017: Swattable, Not-So-Great News, and An Unholy Gospel

With the threat of a writers’ strike averted, TV fans everywhere breathed a sigh of relief that the fall season would proceed uninterrupted.  The Big Five – ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and The CW – finalized their renewals and cancellations while making the final call as to which television newcomers would be on-deck for the 2017-18 season.

At the beginning of April, I engaged in my traditional week of constructing “fantasy” schedules, network-by-network, as part of my annual “Fall Fusion” series – unveiling one for ABC, one for CBS, one for NBC, one for Fox, and one for The CW.

As usual, the networks declined to follow a majority of my suggestions.  In fact, they seemed to go out of their way to make scheduling tweaks that were, in many cases, just plain mind-boggling.  Thus, as a whole, the 2017-18 season appears to be much weaker, strategically speaking, than its scheduling for this past season was.

Here are the lineups that the Big Five apparently believe will make them more competitive with the cable and premium-pay networks:

NBC

The surprise renewal of Blindspot – and the surprise cancellation of Chicago Justice – threw me, a little bit.  Overall, though, NBC is in the best position to build on whatever successes it experiences during the next year.   Another pleasant surprise was the underperforming Trial & Error being given a reprieve, slated to return midseason along with Little Big Shots, Timeless (another surprise renewal!), Shades of Blue, and probably The Carmichael Show.

The good:  Superstore and The Good Place remain paired together, shifting to Tuesday nights right after The Voice.  Will & Grace is paired with the modestly-performing Great News to lead off Thursday night until football arrives in November.  I still think moving This is Us is a bit of a gamble, but if it had to be moved then I’m glad it ended up on Thursday rather than leading off Wednesday.

Also, The Brave receives the plumb lead-out time slot following Monday’s edition of The Voice.  Whether this is a good move or not depends on how well The Brave resonates with viewers – but, if the quality is there, it could become NBC’s next long-running hit.

The bad:

NBC refuses to take my advice and do an “all-Chicago” Wednesday night lineup.  The latest series to be “thrown to the wolves” by leading off Wednesdays is veteran The Blacklist.  However, in contrast to the previous cannon fodder that’s been thrown into that position – Blindspot, Heartbeat, The Mysteries of Laura, Revolution, Guys with Kids, Whitney – the difference is that The Blacklist is going into its fifth season; so it might be better-suited to endure that storm than its predecessors have been.  Maybe.

The questionable:  Blindspot and Taken are both being shunted to the sleepy catacombs of Friday.  Since this is a conscious decision on NBC’s part, I assume The Peacock Network has low expectations for these two – sort of like that to which Fox and The CW seemed to have resigned themselves, on the same night.

Grade:   B

Predictions:  The programs that are at highest risk for cancellation are The Blacklist, Blindspot, and Taken.  Whether they survive to see sixth, fourth, and third seasons, respectively, will depend entirely upon how low their numbers drop...combined with how many episodes’ worth of a syndication package NBC sees potential in each of them to maximize.

Fox

This network has been struggling with developing new sitcoms, as The Mick was its only bright spot (and a sleeper hit, at that) from last season.  On the dramatic front:  Lethal Weapon packed a punch in terms of dramas, Star did well enough to get another chance to shine even brighter, and what The Exorcist lacked in ratings it made up for in critical acclaim.  But with New Girl entering its announced final season, Fox still needs to solve its comedy problem.

The good:  the much-anticipated paranormal sitcom Ghosted (starring Adam Scott and Craig Robinson) will have its best shot of bewitching eyeballs snugly ensconced between The Simpsons and Family Guy on Sundays.  I also am glad that Fox finally paired up Empire and Star (although I would have kept Empire at 9pm and tasked Star with leading off Wednesday night).

The bad:  sending Gotham to an intentional death by shipping it off to Thursdays...although, if this is indeed its final go-around, four seasons isn’t a bad run.  However, it’s unlikely that Fox has done any favors to incoming space dramedy The Orville by sending it up against Arrow, Scandal, This is Us, and Mom...with Gotham as a tenuous lead-in.

The questionable:  Lucifer will probably do okay leading off Mondays; but as observers have pointed out – it creates an odd match-up where the DC Comics-originated Lucifer is paired with Marvel-produced The Gifted.  On the other hand, if The Gifted matches Lucifer in quality, its holdover audience probably won’t care that the two of them come from different comic franchises.

Leading off Tuesday isn’t the worst time slot to which Lethal Weapon could have been relocated; although I would have given it better counterprogramming odds than Gotham if Lethal Weapon had been allowed to lead off Thursdays, instead.  I’m guessing that Fox will have low expectations for The Exorcist on Friday, possibly content to see it maintain a niche audience there – similar to that enjoyed by Fringe for two-and-a-half-seasons.

Grade:  C+

Predictions:  The Orville will become this decade’s Firefly:  a loyal, hard-core cult audience forced to bid adieu the object of their affection as a result of bad scheduling.  The Gifted has a much better shot of breaking out.  With the exception of Gotham, everything else on Fox’s schedule will probably be fine (unless The Exorcist somehow manages to dip to new ratings lows).

ABC

Most notable here is the weird game of “musical chairs” the network seems to be playing with its Tuesday and Wednesday night sitcoms.  The abrupt cancellations of Last Man Standing and Dr. Ken on Fridays (and then replacing them with sci-fi/fantasy dramas) might also prove to further degrade its foothold on the increasingly-dwindling audience of the night that serves as a gateway to the weekend.

The good:  with the acquisition of American Idol for the spring, placing reality programming on Sunday (from the fall until after award season) is a practical move, as is keeping the Thursday night ShondaLand TGIT lineup intact.  The same can be said for giving Freddie Highmore’s medical drama, The Good Doctor, the coveted post-Dancing with the Stars time slot on Mondays.

The bad:  plunking down dramatic newcomer The Gospel of Kevin into the Tuesday-at-10pm “death slot.”  Also, when giving Once Upon a Time a controversial (with fans) “reset” following the departure of Jennifer Morrison and much of the main cast, moving it to Fridays (and allowing it to be a lead-in for newcomer Inhumans) isn’t exactly the best idea, either.

The questionable:  on the comedy front, the biggest risk is Blackish moving to Tuesday, pushing Fresh Off the Boat ahead by half-an-hour.  Fresh will probably be okay after The Middle, but Blackish would have been a natural successor to the Modern Family time slot on Wednesdays.  ABC seems to want Blackish to become an “anchor” so it can lead into the new Brandon Michael Hall comedy The Mayor (and, possibly, recycled episodes of Yara Shahidi’s spinoff college comedy, Collegeish, which will air original first-run episodes on Freeform).

Meanwhile, the creatively-disappointing Speechless retains its post-Goldbergs slot on Wednesday, when it should have moved over to Tuesday nights to follow The Middle.  The new anointed successor to Modern Family appears to be American Housewife, which moves into Blackish’s time slot – poised to become the new eventual successor to Modern Family (even though American Housewife was holding its own just fine on ABCs newly-calibrated Tuesday).  Political thriller Designated Survivor stays put, which is also a game of Russian roulette given its recent ratings tumble.

Within a year or two, we should have a better idea if these gambles actually pay off.

Grade:  D+

Predictions:  I don’t think Once Upon a Time will make it to a Season 8.  The success of the sooner-than-expected American Idol reboot will hinge upon the quality of its contestants, its new panel of judges, and the voting process for the public.

I fully expect The Gospel of Kevin to be the first cancellation of the season – regardless of its quality (or lack thereof), because that time slot is just a killer.  On the flip side, if The Good Doctor is, you know, *good* – then it could be this season’s sleeper hit.  And unless Blackish and Designated Survivor stabilize themselves early in the season, ABC could be left with bigger future scheduling dilemmas on its hands.

The CW

Much like ABC and CBS, there seems to be some monkey at The CW randomly mixing-and-matching incompatible shows together on the schedule just for the sake of “being creative.”  Someone needs to tell that simian how even creativity only works when infused with a dash of common sense.

The good:   it’s being held in reserve until midseason – but if they eventually pair Black Lightning with Supergirl on Mondays, then ratings lightning should strike again.  By that same token, The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow work well together on Tuesdays.

The bad:   swapping Riverdale and Arrow, where the former is forced to lead off Wednesdays and the latter is buried on Thursdays.  First, Arrow doesn’t need Supernatural as a lead-in – so why waste prime real estate on a CW entry that’s already a proven winner?  Meanwhile, Riverdale has not shown that it’s strong enough on its own to lead off an entire night, yet; I really love this one, so I hope that going up against Survivor, The Goldbergs, The Blacklist, and Empire doesn’t result in the death knell for Riverdale.

Now I understand that the Dynasty remake has at least some compatibility potential being paired with Riverdale.  However, this new incarnation of Dynasty better be pretty damn good – or else it will most likely perish in the shadows of Modern Family, Law & Order: SVU, and Star.

The questionable:  military thriller Valor gets the fantastic post-Supergirl time slot for the fall; but, again, are the two of them very compatible?  If Valor is well-written and its cast members prove to have star power, then this gamble will have paid off.  If not, then it’s another Frequency-, No Tomorrow-, or Containment-style situation.  While I like seeing Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin paired together on Fridays, I would have swapped their placements...letting Jane lead off the night, instead of Crazy.

Grade:  D

Predictions:  I’ll be praying for Riverdale.  Dynasty and Valor are both iffy.  Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are both probably on their way out (if not this season, then the season after that).

If the fall numbers are too disappointing for advertisers, look for The CW to eventually do a midseason reshuffle:  pairing Supergirl with Black Lightning, Riverdale with iZombie, and Jane the Virgin with the new Lucy Hale-led dramedy Life Sentence (possibly taking over for Crazy Ex-Girlfriend on Friday).  The netlet will also need to find spots for both The 100 and The Originals.

CBS

The Eye Network has taken up the mind-boggling “strategy” of mixing-and-matching multi-camera comedies with single-camera comedies on both Mondays and Thursdays.  In addition, it’s renewed some subpar players such as Man with a Plan, Elementary, and Code Black (all of which are presumably being held back to serve as midseason “spackle”).  Its biggest offense:  being unwilling to give 2 Broke Girls an official farewell season – not even 13 episodes’ worth of one!

The good:  CBS’s Friday night lineup is working, and they aren’t messing with it.  MacGyver, Hawaii Five-0, and Blue Bloods continue to keep Fridays stable.  Kevin Can Wait, NCIS, Survivor, and The Big Bang Theory continue to serve as “anchors” on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, respectively. And if Young Sheldon is going to have any shot of success, placing it after the show it’s spun off from is its best chance of accomplishing that (despite the fact that Young Sheldon is multi-cam and The Big Bang Theory is single-cam).

The bad:  refusing to separate Life in Pieces from Mom on Thursdays.  CBS missed a valuable opportunity here to pair together Life in Pieces with new single-cam peer Me, Myself, & I.  The latter inexplicably gets sandwiched on Mondays between newcomer 9JKL and sophomore returnee Superior Donuts (which really should have been given the post-Mom time slot).  In fact, Life and Myself would have made a great natural pair together in a single-camera comedy hour of their own.

Also, I truly believe that Michael Weatherly’s Bull was already a viable power player to have its chord cut from NCIS and emerge elsewhere in the week to cushion a new show.  And, once again, CBS’s Thursday-at-10pm “death slot” receives another new one-hour sacrificial lamb in the form of the Shemar Moore-led remake of S.W.A.T. (which really needed to be subbed in for MacGyver at midseason to keep up the nostalgic feel of that night).

The questionable:  why is Code Black even coming back at all? (Elementary, I can at least understand – due to syndication revenue).  On Sundays, Wisdom of the Crowd may either sink or swim leading off the night (as Madam Secretary was forced to, three seasons ago)...its quality (or lack thereof) will be the clincher.  David Boreanaz’s SEAL Team feels like it would have been a better fit wedged between NCIS and NCIS: New Orleans...although the post-Survivor time slot isn’t too shabby, either.

Still, so many missed opportunities.

Grade:  D-

Predictions:  aside from Kevin Can Wait and The Big Bang Theory, I think the comedy ratings numbers on Monday and Thursday will see a steep downslide.  Tuesdays and Fridays, on the other hand, will continue to flourish – but is that enough to compensate for CBS’s nights that don’t?   Unless Moore’s star power helps S.W.A.T. break out, CBS’s Thursday-at-10pm problem needs to be dealt with...much the same way ABC’s Tuesday-at-10pm problem does.

Man with a Plan, The Amazing Race, and Elementary should prove to be valuable commodities to fill holes, come midseason – still scratching my head about the Code Black renewal, though.

In summary, no network individually produced an exceptional schedule.  NBC’s was the best – which is ironic, since The Peacock Network has churned out some pretty shotty schedules in the past several years.  But, it seems NBC is gradually learning its lesson and turning things around.   Fox trotted out the most mediocre schedule – while ABC, CBS, and The CW all cobbled together heavily-flawed rosters.  I’d have to give the biggest failing grade to CBS, though:  it had the most to work with going in; yet, it managed to miss the mark on nearly every night of the week.

None of these broadcast networks should be surprised if they see ratings on any night plummet, this fall.  If everything tanks across-the-board...they’re really going to need to use their midseason replacements more strategically to have any hope of salvaging the season.  They’ll also need to intricately reevaluate their approaches to schedule once the 2018 Upfronts roll around.