This episode, we digress with guest host Andy about the future, careers, Hunger Games, discipline, The Exes vs. Scrubs, Timberlake, romantic comedies and other genre movies, John Carter, movie marketing and more…

Direct Download: But, I Digress…Episode 309: Next Time, You Lose a Finger

Links to Digressions in this episode: 

N’Sync 2000 VMAs

A few years back I resurrected this conversation on the Hollywood Saloon forums, and it turned into quite the lively discussion. It was a trivia question I heard in college, and back in the 1990s there was quite the specific answer because there were so few actors who qualified.

The question is this: What actors or actresses have played two different characters at least three times each?

The example we give is the most obvious answer: Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford was Indiana Jones and Han Solo. Two differrent characters the actor has played at least three times each. Two different movies series.

With the sequel explosion in Hollywood in the 1990s and 2000s, this list has almost quadrupled.

The conversation on the Saloon forums was terrific and resulted in additions to the list that should have been counted back in college, but our movie knowledge wasn’t vast enough then. And new additions were  pointed out and fun was had batting back and forth actors who qualified for inclusion.

Below is the list of elite actors who now qualify for this unique distinction. And for the fun of it, we are keeping a tally of the actors who are on the cusp – one movie away from being included on this exclusive list.

The reason I resurrected this conversation, and am posting it here on But, I Digress…, is to keep the conversation going because there is a new member to this exclusive club!

While not AS exclusive as it once was, it is still quite the short list -

Here is the updated list:

*Stuart Little 3 was not a theatrical release, but it is still him playing the same character
**Saruman appears in the extended edition of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, not the original theatrical release. With the Hobbit, Christopher Lee will become the second member of the 3 and 3 club. Hugo Weaving became the first thanks to the Michael Bay Transformers movies. I will make a separate post on that some other time…

On the cusp: Actors one movie away from getting on the board
Robert Downey, Jr., Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Ralph Fiennes, Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, John Ratzenberger

On the cusp part 2: Actors one movie away from getting on the board yet highly unlikely to make it
Cameron Diaz, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Guttenberg, Sean Connery, William Shatner, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, Tommy Lee Jones***, Chevy Chase, Gene Hackman, Christopher Lloyd, Emilio Estevez, Christopher Lloyd, Jackie Chan, Burt Reynolds, Robert DeNiro, Ice Cube, John Travolta, Burgess Meredith (deceased), Jim Varney (deceased)

***With the release of Men in Black 3

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this list is that it includes only one woman. And she has been on the list from the beginning of this trivia question, and was usually the one that EVERYONE missed. Congratulations, Talia Shire!

And through the conversation, we learned that Eastwood’s Man With No Name is more than likely not the same character in all three movies, but since we aren’t 100% sure, and the court of public opinion usually names him as one of the actors – I know I did when I heard the question the first time! – we include him on the list.

Here is a link to the current discussion on the Hollywood Saloon forums: Movie Trilogy Challenge. We are also discussing this topic in the Hollywood Saloon Facebook Group, where some of the more recent additions were brought to my attention.

Here is a link to the original resurrected discussion on the old Hollywood Saloon forums: Fun Movie Trivia Question

I will post updates to this list as they come about. Perhaps I will even find a better way to organize the list, too. Right now it seems so random. If you have any suggestions for additions for the list or of actors who are on the cusp of making this list, please let me know.

FRIENDS WITH KIDS director, writer, co-producer and star Jennifer Westfeldt does not have kids. This fact will not surprise any viewers who actually are parents. She does have a long- time boyfriend, Jon Hamm, star of Mad Men and Bridesmaids, which may explain why Bridesmaids stars Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Chris O’Dowd joined Mr Hamm in his girlfriend’s film. Our lead man is Adam Scott of Party Down and Parks and Recreation, and you might remember Westfeldt from the title role in Kissing Jessica Stein.

Platonic BFFs Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Scott) see how their friend’s marriages are nearly destroyed after the kids come along, and they want to avoid the same fate. Both are single, with apartments in the same building. They agree that once they find The One, they want to maintain a strong connection with this person. But how is it possible, if babies tear you apart? (For some reason, non- parenthood is not an option.) Their solution: have a baby together and co- parent while continuing to search for their life partners. This will keep parenthood neatly separated from romantic love. An awkward sex scene is immediately followed by labor, and their little social experiment, Joe, is born.

It seems like the script was written decades ago and hadn’t been dusted off. There’s a strange absence of cell phones, tablets, and email. The main characters are stereotypes from the last century: he’s a bed- hopping horndog, she’s a desperate career girl. The co-parenting plot already happened on the TV show Friends. We already met these characters in When Harry Met Sally. No one actually says “ugh, Brooklyn” anymore. Jokes about exercising your vaginal muscles went out with Sex and The City.

However, the movie’s biggest problem isn’t that it’s dated, but that it’s absurdly improbable. There are certain rules a screenwriter must follow. One is to be at least minimally realistic. Roger Ebert said we can believe it if the thief opens the safe with magic, but not if he opens the safe by correctly guessing the combination. Likewise, a screenwriter must be at least minimally consistent. Don’t tell us the wizard can throw a mountain in the first act and then expect us to believe he’s foiled by a locked door in the third act.

One big violation of reality, early in the film, is that the beautiful and successful Julie is unhappily single. We’re supposed to think she’s funny and smart, with a dark edge. (Hers and Jason’s favorite game is “How would you rather die, A or B?”) Yet she just can’t find the Mr. Right and needs her friends to arrange blind dates. (Yes, blind dates. Here’s more evidence for the dusty script theory– why hasn’t she tried online dating? Even Jessica Stein used the classifieds.) When she considers going on a date with a white- collar criminal, we can see her standards are rapidly dropping. “She’s running out of time” is emphasized twice. There’s no possible reason for Julie’s continued singleness– unless it is because this character is an anxious and twitchy cultural relic, riddled with doubt and low self-esteem.

Later, there’s more unreality when convenient financial problems appear without warning. Julie is professional, dresses well, has her own sunny apartment, and takes cabs to swanky restaurants, so we can assume she’s financially stable. At the very least, she presumably has an income somewhat similar to Jason’s, since they live in the same apartment building. However, since she can’t afford to send Joe to private school, she has to move to Brooklyn (“ugh”) to be near a good public school. Even if that’s true, don’t tell us money problems forced her out of Manhattan and then show us her brownstone duplex in a fancy neighborhood. Someone must have realized the implausibility of this, because Jason is forced to comment “Wow, you get a lot of square footage in Brooklyn.”

Inconsistency rears its ugly head when we compare the kids. A disastrous brunch, hosted by Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd’s characters, is packed with awkward strollers, screaming kids, and bickering parents. Over the top but still somewhat realistic, this experience is the source of Julie and Jason’s theories about parenthood and ultimately, the start of their co- parenting process. In comparison, Julie’s and Jason’s brunch, with the silent infant strapped to Jason’s chest in Julie’s spotless apartment, is ridiculous. Everyone eats quiche and discusses Julie’s vaginal tightness and dating plans, not the baby or parenthood or the co-parenting experiment. Joe is an unusually convenient baby, sitting silently in his stroller while Jason uses him to pick up Megan Fox. Throughout the entire film, baby Joe needs exactly one diaper change (when the plot demands it), throws exactly one tantrum (when the plot demands it) and cries exactly once (when the plot demands it). Otherwise, we don’t see him. Joe never interferes with their careers, dating lives, or finances. Ok, let’s just ignore the fact that some pets demand more maintenance than this baby. The most glaring problem to me: how come the other kids are brats but Joe is perfect? It’s not just because their parents are married. If you’re going to show life with kids, warts and all, then you have to show ALL the characters’ lives with their kids, warts and all.

The experiment seems to work. They do manage to fit Joe into their dating schedules and even find perfect partners. When the big confrontation finally happens, it’s just as ridiculous as the rest of the film: “What are you going to tell Joe,” slurs Jon Hamm, “when he eventually asks why his parents weren’t in love when they conceived him?” We’re expected to pretend that thousands of adoptive parents, gay parents, and parents who use sperm donation, egg donation, or surrogates have never had to answer that question. Furthermore, we’re expected to pretend that there’s no reasonable response to this question and Joe is going to need some heavy- duty therapy.

This is all the more insulting because it ignores all the legitimate reasons to scream at Julie and Jason. What happens when you disagree about raising him? What if Joe were a special needs kid? What if your financial situations become drastically different? What if one of you just decides to hit the road, which happens even in married couples? What if one of you moves away? Gets married? Becomes a born- again Christian? Gets sick? Dies? What if you decide you want another kid? What if the in-laws want to see the kid more? Julie and Jason haven’t eliminated complications by avoiding romantic entanglement. Complications will happen regardless. They’ve just made complications harder to deal with by not having that solid base of teamwork to start from.

Things fall apart, and the only way to finish off this mess is with an ending as cliched as it is crude. Liberal use of the F-bomb doesn’t make the tedious conclusion fresh or edgy. But at least at that point the movie is over.

Sociopaths are real. Someone had to give birth to them. In  We Need To Talk About Kevin, based on the incredible book by Lionel Shriver, we watch as Kevin grows from a screaming infant, to a hate-filled child, to a sarcastic and destructive teenager. Through the years we witness his spiteful refusal to talk or be toilet trained, his calculated manipulation of everyone around him, and his cold defiance of any of the usual social niceties and mores. He deliberately destroys treasured collections. Pets disappear around him. His computer virus collection wreaks havoc at his mom’s company. He may or may not have caused his little sister’s horrific injury.

Actually, the character of Kevin is so unambiguously, unrelentingly evil that his motivations are basically moot. He’s almost a cardboard cutout– less complex than a stock villain, completely unrealistic, but still definitely fun to watch. His parents are the ones to really watch. They brought him into the world, sincerely did their best, but now have to live through the horror. The dad, Franklin (John C. Reilly), copes by putting on blinders and insisting they’re a happy family with a normal son. (After learning about the colicky baby’s eight solid hours of screaming, he says ”Come on, all babies cry sometimes.”) Kevin’s mother is left to live through this nightmare alone.

But we’re not watching this movie to wallow in Kevin’s malevolence. That’s just a bonus. No, we get to watch the magnificent Tilda Swinton’s performance as Eva, his mother. Her agony in the face of baby Kevin’s relentless squalling is relieved only by taking in his stroller to construction sites, where the jackhammer can drown him out for a few blessed moments. Tortuous scenes where Eva tries to teach ABCs and numbers to a glowering toddler are echoed years later, after Kevin’s biggest stunt makes her the target of hatred in her small town. But Eva wasn’t a perfect mom, either. Her ambivalence and resentment are evident as early as the pregnancy, making the character realistic and complex. She’s harsh and cold to Kevin at times– you would be, too. This denies the audience any easy answers to the nature/ nurture question, but you still have to ask yourself: if you know your own child is capable of heinous crimes, what would you do?

This episode, we digress with guest Katie Kazimir about introducing Katie, her podcast Hey You Know It, airport security, recognizing celebrities and actors, Facebook etiquette, sketch vs improv, celebrity couples we root for, Wicked and inappropriate theater audience behavior, Pitfall, Chasing Ghosts and more…

Direct Download: But, I Digress…Episode 308: The Wonky Resolution of 1824

Links to Digressions in this episode: 

Hey, You Know It Podcast

Atari Pitfall 

This episode, we digress with guest host Brian about reintroducing Brian, dad bands, drum technology, homebrewing revisited, Scientology, cults vs. colts, Animaniacs, classics on a Kindle, Dickens, and more…

Direct Download: But, I Digress…Episode 307: The Great Yes And

Links to Digressions in this episode: 

Inside Scientology

South Park Studios

I am not a man of many theories. But now and then I come to some conclusions that I put to the test that time and again rewarded me with the satisfaction of being right.

One of these is my Podcasting’s Brock Theory of Movie Trailers.

Theory: You can always tell a movie is not going to be very good just from the trailer anytime they use footage in that trailer of someone being cut off from using a curse word – usually by a quick edit, often to an explosion or something being destroyed.

Latest example I have seen is the latest trailer for the movie Battleship. I am getting a desperate vibe off this trailer as it is, but this cutting off a curse word is the nail in the coffin for me.

Another example is The Men Who Stare At Goats trailer: The cut-off curse word in here was a tell-tale sign

Prove me wrong – find me a trailer for a good movie that uses footage of a person being cut off from using a curse word

There is a second part to this theory involving trailers that reference a non-related movie.  As you may have noticed, the trailer for The Men Who Stare At Goats commits both offenses.

More on this second part of the theory another time.

This episode, we digress with guest host Adam about street cred movies, cool to be a nerd, movies so bad you have to watch them, Kathleen the drunk, Halo CE Anniversary, editing, Portillo’s, Chicago dogs, vegetarian life and more…

Direct Download: But, I Digress…Episode 306: Hot Italian Beef

Links to Digressions in this episode: 

The Regular Guy – Chicago Movie Reviewer

Fiasco: A History of Hollywood’s Biggest Flops

RiffTrax

Now Playing’s Tron Legacy Review

Robot Warrior Network

Portillo’s 

ABC Gotham Podcast

With this cast, and this premise, I thought I was in for a comedy. And as it begins, it certainly feels like I am being set up for one. But not only are there not enough laughs, there are hardly any. This movie becomes sad as these couples start their therapy.There is nothing funny about these couples problems or how they are portrayed. It is more like a light drama in that regard, but you don’t find yourself invested behind any of these characters.

A misfire all around and a waste of the talent involved.  Not recommend.