He was a marvelous actor and a most charming man. I had the extreme pleasure of interviewing the late, great Alan Rickman on my VH1 show back in the 80s. The network had been running spots that promoted rock star tour dates. I asked Rickman, "If you could be any rock star in performance for a concert, who would it be? With that wonderfully throaty, majestic voice of his, he immediately drawled "Tina Turner." And he was serious.
Rickman had this sweet down-to-earth quality. You'd not be surprised to see him on a London or Broadway stage performing the classics. And, yet, you should not have been surprised to see him sit next to you at the counter in a diner and order a chicken salad sandwich and a cup o' tea. That was the warm vibe he gave us in the VH1 studio that day.
There's a new book available titled MADLY, DEEPLY: the diaries of ALAN RICKMAN. The book has the actor's personal musings on acting, politics and life. It has a foreword by Emma Thompson.
1988's DIE HARD put Rickman on our American entertainment radar. After that, he had film roles in ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY co-starring Emma Thompson, LOVE ACTUALLY also co-starring Emma Thompson, GALAXY QUEST and the HARRY POTTER movies.
I just wanted to mention my favorite Alan Rickman movie. It's a tender romantic comedy from 1990 called TRULY MADLY DEEPLY. It's rarely -- if ever -- shown on TV and it doesn't usually get listed in entertainment articles about his film career. However, this movie will touch your heart and make you laugh. If you liked GHOST, you will love TRULY MADLY DEEPLY. Alan Rickman plays the dead husband who appears to his widow. She's been in such a deep, immovable state of grief that she's unable to move on with her life. Here's a trailer.
TRULY MADLY DEEPLY is very original and beautifully played by everyone in it. If you were an Alan Rickman fan, and if you've never seen this film of his, please see if you can find it streaming somewhere. It's absolutely delightful. As was he.
"This ain't a war no more. It's mass murder." So says Zac Efron as Chickie Donohue, a New York guy who winds up in Vietnam on a civilian mission. Back in New York, he was another young, working class Irish Catholic guy who didn't do much work. He was a likeable dude who lacked ambition. But he does love his country and feels that the Vietnam war is a righteous one. About a half dozen young men from his neighborhood lost their lives fighting in it. In THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER, based on a true story, he gets fueled by patriotic talk from the fellows at his local bar hangout and decides to proof his friendship and loyalty to a friend serving in Vietnam. He'll hand-deliver beer from home. While in Vietnam, he'll learn the real deal about the war from a weary journalist and get caught in some serious enemy fire. He starts to question America's involvement. I thought the film was fair, but I felt that Zac Efron was fabulous and lifted the material he was given. There's a nice turn from Russell Crowe as the war-weary correspondent. This is a tale of friendship, loyalty and war. Here's a trailer.
The real-life Chickie Donohue appeared with Efron in a CBS morning news show feature to talk about the book that inspired the movie. Efron, brawnier than we've seen him in other films, does some mighty fine work especially in the film's final scenes. But the screenplay is not as smooth and substantial in dealing with this "coming to awareness" story focusing on patriotism vs the Vietnam war as GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM or COMING HOME or even the film version of the Broadway rock musical, HAIR are.
THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER was directed and co-written by Peter Farrelly. He directed the male-driven comedies DUMB AND DUMBER, THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, KINGPIN, STUCK ON YOU and HALL PASS. Then he went serious and directed GREEN BOOK, a male-driven race drama road trip that the Academy found prestigious. A bigoted working-class Italian American is hired to drive a celebrated Black classical pianist from New York to concert tour dates down South in the 1960s. This was based on a "true friendship" and won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2018. Nick Vallelonga took home Oscars for Producer and Best Original Screenplay. Farrelly took home Oscars in those same two categories.
GREEN BOOK had good performances. Mahershala Ali won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. But it made me think "Does Peter Farrelly have any Black friends? Has he ever spent time in Black neighborhoods? Has he ever stayed overnight in the home of a Black friend?" Except for Mahershala Ali in GREEN BOOK, the only other Black character I can vividly recall in a Farrelly movie is the well-endowed naked brother who makes Owen Wilson's character feel inadequate in a HALL PASS workout club sauna scene. GREEN BOOK was sort of a paint-by-the-numbers, opposites attract race drama that you just knew would have a happy ending.
THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER feels like Peter Farrelly's attempt to make another seemingly prestigious film. However, Zac Efron is very good and he's helped by two excellent supporting players. His biceps.
Although she was not a major star when my mother introduced me to her work, I could tell that Angela Lansbury was a significant talent by the way Mom responded to her. Ours was a drive-in movie family. If there was a movie playing that featured Angela Lansbury, we went to see it. That's how I was introduced to her work -- while I sat in the backseat of a Plymouth, behind my parents, as ALL FALL DOWN and THE LONG, HOT SUMMER played on the big screen. On television, Lansbury held my interest in GASLIGHT, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, NATIONAL VELVET, THE COURT JESTER and THE WORLD OF HENRY ORIENT, When I was older and on summer vacation, Mom invited me to stay up with her and watch 1960's THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS on the Late Show. Angela Lansbury's performance in that film as the earthy, independent, unmarried smalltown hairdresser in the 1920s is still one of my favorites -- among many. Of course, I marveled at Lansbury's two mom performances -- one as the wicked, politically corrupt and manipulative mother to Laurence Harvey's character in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and the other as the sweetly ditzy Southern mom to Elvis Presley's character in BLUE HAWAII. In both, she was no more than 10 years older than the actors playing her sons.
Young Angela Lansbury had the "mean girl" saloon singer role opposite good girl Judy Garland in the hit 1946 MGM musical, THE HARVEY GIRLS. For some reason, MGM dubbed her singing voice in that one, but the studio let her keep her voice when she did a number in its 1946 all-star musical revue, TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY.
Lansbury was a versatile, dependable talent. She got Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations for MGM's GASLIGHT (her 1944 film debut) and 1945's THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. She'd get a third for 1962's THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. But Hollywood never made her a big star like a Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck, Greer Garson or Judy Garland.
Then came Broadway. According to one national magazine, there was a long list of actresses under consideration to star in MAME, Jerry Hetman's musical version of the hit Broadway and film comedy, AUNTIE MAME. At the bottom of the list to play the glamorous, madcap, sophisticated aunt who shouted down bigotry and intolerance in her own way was Angela Lansbury. She got the part. The 1966 smash hit not only made her the Toast of Broadway, it put her on magazine covers, revitalized her career and made her the big star that Hollywood hadn't. My mother was ecstatic. She not only purchased a copy of the June 1966 LIFE magazinewith Lansbury on the cover as Mame, Mom took her copy to the beauty shop and asked her hairdresser to give her the same haircut Lansbury had on the cover.
In tribute to Dame Angela Lansbury, here are cuts from the original MAME cast album with songs she introduced. First up, Mame Dennis sings with her best friend, veteran Broadway star Vera Charles, played by Bea Arthur.
Next is a tune that went on to become a holiday favorite.
On the 1988 Tony Awards, she and Bea Arthur reprised their "Bosom Buddies" number.
Lansbury won a Tony Award for MAME, not the only one she'd win, and it did make you wonder why MGM -- the Tiffany of Hollywood Studios for Musicals -- did not funny utilize her musical talents. Did you see her in 1983's THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE? She steals that musical comedy from Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt.
Then came TV success on her very long-running CBS show MURDER, SHE WROTE. It ran for 12 seasons, starting in 1984. When Disney's animated BEAUTY AND THE BEAST opened in 1991 with Angela Lansbury singing the title tune and voicing one of the characters, there were probably lots of young TV viewers who saw the Disney feature and didn't know she could sing.
Films did give one opportunity to be sexy, sophisticated, glamorous and delightfully devious. She plays the widowed Countess in need of money in the twisted 1970 fairy tale satire, SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE. It co-starred Michael York as the ambitious new butler who's determined to live well in a castle.
In the 80s, I saw Angela Lansbury onstage as the wicked Mrs. Lovett in Stephen Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET. She was so magnificent that she made me gasp. She was magnificent for quite a long, long time. When I read that she'd passed away at age 96, I gasped again.
One more. Angela Lansbury racked up another triumph in a revival of GYPSY. Listen to "Rose's Turn" as she plays the mother of the now-famous Gypsy Rose Lee whom she selfishly pushed inro show business even though she felt her daughter had no talent.
It's part of the American legend that the late, great Josephine Baker was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Before her teen years, she witnessed racial violence. Before her teen years, she was working as a domestic for White people and physically abused because she was Black. In her teens, she was an entertainer and performing in vaudeville. She got to New York City, performed there and then sailed to France in 1925. She was 19. In Paris, she found instant success. She was not blocked by the thick wall of racism Black folks knew in America. Josephine Baker became a star in France's famous Follies Bergere. Baker attracted celebrated men such as Ernest Hemingway and Jean Cocteau.
Our local PBS station aired JOSEPHINE BAKER: THE STORY OF AN AWAKENING. I was stunned to learn of the constant racism she faced after she'd become a major cabaret and film star in France. This racism she encountered when she returned home to America to perform -- racism in hotel bookings, from critics who saw her guest appearance in the Ziegfeld Follies, from waiters at New York's famed The Stork Club, from newspaperman Walter Winchell and J. Edgar Hoover. What a revealing hour-long documentary. But the courageous and complicated Baker persevered and made history. In 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King asked her to speak at the March on Washington.
Here's a bit of news about some history she made:
In 1934, Hollywood gave moviegoers the first version of the race drama, IMITATION OF LIFE. Actresses Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers played single working mothers raising little girls. Colbert's character wants to open a pancake diner. Beavers' character talks her way into a job as her maid. Colbert's character gets the idea to box the pancake mix, the mix recipe which came from her maid, and the idea makes her wealthy. She uses her maid/friend as a corporate logo for the business. The two women stay together, unmarried, with their daughter's. But Delilah (Beavers) has a little girl who's so light-skinned that she can pass for white. As she grows up, she wants to pass and have the same freedoms and privileges White people do. Actress Fredi Washington gave a stunning performance as the sophisticated, racially conflicted grown daughter. Had the Best Supporting Actress category been established by then, she probably would have been nominated.
Ironically, Ms. Washington was a real-life light-skinned Black woman. Hollywood execs told her that, if she passed for White, she could get the kind of glamorous roles that went to Joan Crawford and Constance Bennett. Fredi Washington refused to deny her Blackness and headed back to New York to do stage work.
Louise Beavers was, once again, playing a maid -- which she did for most of her long film career. At that time, Black actors were traditionally cast as domestics in limiting supporting roles. IMITATION OF LIFE gave Beavers one of her best roles in that it had more dimension that her usual maid role. A stereotyped character? Yes. But, in the last act, Beavers got to show her dramatic depth. Here's a clip.
In that same year, 1934, Josephine Baker was a movie star in France. Paris gave the singer/dancer the kind of glamorous treatment Hollywood would not have given a Black woman in the 1930s. This is definitely not a maid role. It's' from the 1934 film, ZOU ZOU. And she's Zou Zou. (Pronounced ZooZoo.)
A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens. It's one of my favorite books and I've read it more than once. Always during the holiday season. We're coming up to the season where we will see film versions of the original story and spins on the story -- like SCROOGE starring Bill Murray, the animated MR. MAGOO'S CHRISTMAS CAROL, the gender bender MS. SCROOGE starring Cicely Tyson as Ebenita Scrooge and THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL.
I was invited to receive a screener for SCROOGE & MARLEY, a 90-minute modern day version of the Dickens fable that has made it to DVD and digital. This spin on the holiday tale has a gay sensibility. Apparently, SCROOGE & MARLEY had a very limited theatrical release in 2012. I'd never heard of it, so I decided to give it a look. It works! I was entertained and touched by its non-star cast. It's set in Chicago early in the AIDS crisis. Ebenezer is now a gay middle-aged man who has long called himself "Ben." David Pevsner is one of the meanest, angriest Scrooges I've ever seen -- and that's one key thing that makes it work. He commits to the character's soullessness and bitterness. There's no touch of sentimentality or comedy about his Scrooge. So, when he's redeemed, you really cheer for him. You feel that he's truly earned the hug he gets at the end. This adaptation opens with the Scrooge's late and equally mean business partner, in the Afterlife and up against three tough gay spirits. He's in non-leatherman bondage and has yet to learn that "..when you help others, it helps you." He will visit his earthly former business partner. Ben has yet to learn that "Business isn't life."
Not really a musical, SCROOGE & MARLEY has traditional Christmas songs and about a half dozen new tunes. Well...they were new to me. You see men kiss, but SCROOGE & MARLEY is a fairly PG feature I'd like to see on the Hallmark Channel. With the Ghost of Christmas Past, we see young and innocent Ben meet young Jacob Marley and hit the gay club scene. We also see how Ben's sexuality got him thrown out of his home by his father ("You're dead to me!"). We see his charitable first love and learn of the death of a relative. The festive Ghost of Christmas Present shows Ben how disliked he is in his gay community. Then there's the scary Ghost of Christmas Future. Here's a trailer.
Judith Light does the narration and Bruce Vilanch is good in a supporting role as a gay senior citizen businessman who takes young Ben under his wing. I was pleasantly surprised by this adaptation of the famous Charles Dickens novella. I loved how it dropped in quotes from THE WIZARD OF OZ, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and AUNTIE MAME. Most of all, I loved the performance of David Pevsner as Ben Scrooge and the journey he takes us on as his spirit leaves the dark and comes into the light. There's a nice heart to this simple, clever production. Look for it on Amazon.
To coincide with the 10th anniversary release of SCROOGE & MARLEY, actor David Pevsner wrote a book that was published this year. He's done movies, episodic TV shows, stage musicals and he's been a nude model for erotic photographs. His book is titled DAMN SHAME: A MEMOIR OF DESIRE, DEFIANCE, AND SHOW TUNES.
Yesterday, Wednesday, social media was sweetly lit up with birthday greetings for actress Glynis Johns. It was her 99th birthday. Earlier, during the weekend, I happened to watch the actress in a comedy/drama remake directed by British filmmaker Muriel Box. My mother loved Glynis Johns. When I was a kid, and Mom introduced me to some of Johns' work, I immediately loved her too. I fell for that voice that sounded like a crackling fire in the fireplace of a friendly, warm cottage. Glynis Johns delighted me in THE COURT JESTER with Danny Kaye, in NO HIGHWAY IN THE SKY with James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich, in THE SUNDOWNERS with Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum and Peter Ustinov and MARY POPPINS with Julie Andrews. Over the weekend, I watched her in 1954's THE BEACHCOMBER. She played a fiercely independent, intelligent and disciplined Christian missionary woman in the tropics. She holds classes for the islanders. She doesn't smoke or drink. Into her life comes a local resident. He fled England. He's called "Honorable Ted." He's a beach bum who's scraggly, loves to drink and has an eye for the island babes. In short, he's a mess. When these two opposites -- Honorable Ted and Martha the missionary -- collide into each other's lives, you just know that they will come to have affectionate feelings for each other by the end of the film. Cholera brings them together.
Is it a true classic like the 1951 Oscar winner, THE AFRICAN QUEEN, starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart? No. However, it does have verve, color, action and good performances. It's entertaining. 1954's THE BEACHCOMBER, directed by Muriel Box, is a remake of a black and white 1938 film of the same name starring Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester in the lead roles. It's a bit creaky now. Box did a good job with the remake, keeping faithful to the original and injecting the remake with some thrilling action. The business with the elephant is exciting and fun. In the original, young actor Robert Newton played the colonial governor on the island. In the remake, he takes on the Charles Laughton role.
Muriel Box's THE BEACHCOMBER is another of one her several films that was pretty much dismissed by British critics. I've written about director Muriel Box in previous blog posts every time I saw -- and reviewed -- films she'd made. Films of Box's I saw include 1953's BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW (aka STREET CORNER), 1954's CASH ON DELIVERY, 1955's SIMON AND LAURA, 1956's EYEWITNESS, 1959's SUBWAY IN THE SKY and 1964's RATTLE OF A SIMPLE MAN. I found some of the British reviews, all written by men in the 1950s. I firmly believe that the blanket dismissal of her films was rooted in misogyny. I am irritated by the fact that this female groundbreaker is never mentioned -- not even today -- in the conversation about women directors.
We have just about canonized actress/director Ida Lupino -- and rightly so -- for breaking a Hollywood glass ceiling in the 1950s. Lupino, an excellent actress who delivered some strong performances especially during her Warner Bros. years -- went behind the camera and directed about five black and white dramas in the 1950s that did well at the box office. Lupino was never nominated for an Oscar.
Muriel Box won an Oscar for her original screenplay in the 1946 release, THE SEVENTH VEIL, starring James Mason, Ann Todd and Herbert Lom. In the 1950s, she too went behind the camera and directed movies. She broke a glass ceiling in British filmmaking. She directed about 10 films during the 1950s -- British films that had top British and Hollywood stars -- Peter Finch, Kay Kendall, Sir Ralph Richardson, Peggy Cummins, Laurence Harvey, Van Johnson, Julie Harris and Shelley Winters. Box directed comedies and dramas. A trademark of her films is good roles for women and stories that give a woman's viewpoint. Muriel Box was also a screenwriter on some of the films she directed.
She was an Oscar winner and the most prolific female director of British films in the 1950s. She and her work deserve to be remembered. It's a shame that she's overlooked. Here's a bit more of Muriel Box's THE BEACHCOMBER.
I'm on Twitter and, in the last three weeks, there's been Oscar buzz from a few established movie critics. The buzz was that Cate Blanchett will be a Best Actress Oscar nominee for her new film, TAR. And Michelle Williams will be a Best Actress Oscar nominee for her performance as a character based on Steven Spielberg's mother in Spielberg's THE FABELMANS.
Then, over the weekend, there was a tidal wave of Best Actress Oscar nominee predictions for the female lead in the upcoming drama, TILL. This drama focuses on Mamie Till, mother of the teen who was lynched while visiting relatives down South. The racist men who killed the boy later admitted that they killed him. However, during the court trial, the all-male and all-White jury found them "not guilty." That travesty of justice, reportedly, inspired novelist Harper Lee to write TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Also, it's said that young Emmett Till's brutal murder -- and his mother making sure America was aware of what happened -- ignited the Civil Rights Movement.
The rave reviews came from journalists who saw TILL at the New York Film Festival. The actress is Danielle Deadwyler. I am not very familiar with her career and must do my homework in that regard. TILL was directed by Chinonye Chukwu. I still feel that her 2019 film, CLEMENCY, starring Alfre Woodard as a prison warden who deals with Death Row inmates, should have brought Woodard her second Oscar nomination. Here is a trailer for TILL with Danielle Deadwyler as Mamie Till.
Here's a featurette about the film.
If you've never seen CLEMENCY, you should. I highly recommend it. Especially if you're an Alfre Woodard fan. Here's a trailer.
Just like THE WOMAN KING starring Viola Davis, TILL has a Black actress in the lead female role in a current film directed by a Black woman. Wow. To me, that's thrilling.
She could act, sing and dance. She was born in Brooklyn. Her parents were Puerto Rican. She sang with Bing Crosby. She danced with Fred Astaire. She starred in a Lerner & Loewe Broadway musical. But she never gets a mention during Hispanic Heritage Month. Because I loved her movie work, I'm giving Olga San Juan a well-deserved shout-out here.
When I was a kid growing up in Los Angeles, local KTLA/Channel 5 was hooked up to the Parmount Pictures library and aired a lot of old Paramount movies, some of which I remember vividly but have yet to see on cable's TCM (Turner Classic Movies).
One such movie was 1947's VARIETY GIRL. It's basically a 90-minute promo for Paramount with its roster of stars appearing as themselves and letting their hair down in musical comedy sketches and songs. A top Paramount musical comedy star not in it is Betty Hutton and that's because Hutton was pregnant at the time. The fun movie has a paper-thin plot about a young Hollywood hopeful singer who winds up on the Paramount lot. She makes friends -- so she thinks -- with another Hollywood hopeful. This comically backstabbing blonde changed her named to "Amber LaVonne." To me, the main highlight of VARIETY GIRL is the very funny verbal sparring that Bob Hope and Bing Crosby do as themselves. It's their funniest appearance outside of their famous "Road" comedies -- plus it was shot after Crosby had huge box office success in GOING MY WAY and won the Oscar for Best Actor.
After Hope & Crosby, the funniest performance comes from vivacious Olga San Juan as the ambitious nitwit. As a kid -- and into my young adult years -- I'd watch her performance and belly laugh. She just tickled the heck out of me.
Then I saw Olga San Juan in Paramount's Technicolor musical jam-packed with Irving Berlin tunes, 1946's BLUE SKIES. It reteamed Bing Crosby with Fred Astaire. The two starred in Paramount's Oscar-winning 1942 black and white musical, HOLIDAY INN,with songs by Irving Berlin. "White Christmas" was introduced by Bing in that movie and Berlin took home the Oscar for Best Song.
Astaire, my favorite entertainer, had announced he was retiring from films after BLUE SKIES. He was always good. However, he's extra sensational in BLUE SKIES as he must have planned to leave moviegoers with some superb work. His "Puttin' on the Ritz" number in BLUE SKIES is a knockout. Olga San Juan has a supporting role in BLUE SKIES. She sings with Bing Crosby. She's Fred Astaire's dance partner in the "Heat Wave" rhythm number, his last one in the film.
When I was working and living in New York in the 90s, I discovered that my wonderful longtime commercial agent also loved Olga San Juan in VARIETY GIRL. It was from Linda, my agent, that I learned Olga San Juan was married to Oscar-winning actor Edmond O'Brien and they had three kids. Linda also told me that Olga San Juan was in the original Broadway cast of the Lerner & Loewe hit musical, PAINT YOUR WAGON. Here's one of Olga's numbers from that 1951 show.
See if you can find Paramount's VARIETY GIRL and BLUE SKIES. Also look for her in the 1948 musical comedy from Universal, ONE TOUCH OF VENUS. It's based on a Broadway musical that starred Mary Martin as Venus the goddess of love. A statue of Venus comes to life and she's eager to make love to a mortal. Ava Gardner took on the Venus role. Her singing was dubbed. Olga's was not. Blonde Olga was cast opposite singer/actor Dick Haymes. Venus had her eye on a department store employee played by Robert Walker. Here's a clip with a hit song from the Broadway show.
There you have it. Some of my love for Puerto Rican actress, singer and dancer Olga San Juan.
"...they're just words." So says a character in the twisted comedy, BAD WORDS, starring and directed by Jason Bateman. Remember insult comedian Don Rickles? He used to make me laugh so hard that my sides ached. Would Rickles have a career today now that we slipped into an era of "cancel culture" and people being "woke"? Even non-comedians like author Mark Twain would probably be forced to change copy in a manuscript so readers could refer to "Huckleberry Finn and Person of Color Jim." Guy Trilby, the character Jason Bateman plays in BAD WORDS goes Don Rickles on people big and small in the first ten minutes of the movie in a way that is politically incorrect, if you will, but really funny. You have to stay with it and you have to remember "...they're just words." The power of words is significant in this smart, brisk comedy which marked Bateman's directorial debut.
Back in 2013, I was working on a half-hour film review/interview show that aired on some Discovery channels, I believe. It was very good that, unfortunately, got no attention from TV columnists despite the fact that is was a groundbreaking show. The host/critic of the show and I saw BAD WORDS at a screening back in 2013 and we gave it a good review. But the film underperformed at the box office and folks missed a pretty good movie. It's now on Netflix. I revisited it last weekend. I liked it even more than when I saw it at the New York City screening.
Guy is 40 years old, unmarried and he lives alone. He works as a proofreader. He's no college grad but he's smart as a whip and admits that he often angers folks with his childlike behavior. He tells us that his feelings were hurt and that explains his often insulting behavior.
We meet him in Columbus, Ohio at a regional spelling bee. He's one of the contestants. How did that happen? He found a loophole in the rules of entry and he's obsessed with being in the spelling bee with all the over-achiever kids. Helping him with this is a newspaper reporter who wants to get at why he's so angry at the world and why he's taking it out legitimately on a spelling bee.
Guy advances to the national competition which will be broadcast on National Public Television. One of the judges is a pompous professor of linguistics who dislikes Guy but honors the rules of entry.
One of the other contestants is an overly chatty and chipper 10-year old that introduces himself to Guy. No matter how verbally insulting Guy is, not matter how many bad words he uses, the kid sticks around and tells his opponent that "Not everything is about winning." The kid is staying alone in a budget hotel room because his dad feels that will help him build character. Dad is in a nearby deluxe hotel.
Guy never knew his dad and his mother was an unhappy, irresponsible parent. He and little Chopra become an unlikely pair of buddies who will be opponents in the live TV telecast.
The power of words, how we use them, why we use them and the attention we pay to them. That, to me, is the heart and soul of this often rude and very surprising comedy It runs 90 minutes. If you get Netflix -- and don't mind some really raw adult language plus a few seconds of nudity -- give it chance. It stars Jason Bateman, Kathryn Hahn, Allison Janney and Philip Baker Hall.
