Let's Talk About Flags.
And license plates.
Welcome back, everybody!
Just a quick breakdown of the blog for any new readers:
I ramble for a bit and give an update on my life and what I’m thinking about this week
I talk about the movies I watched recently (usually in the last week but I’m still catching up)
I do some rankings, ask some hypothetical questions (ex: what are the chances my dad cries while watching this movie?), and then I give my no frills, no jokes review
We ignore grammar errors here at the blog. Give me a break.
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What’s up, everybody? How is everyone’s Tuesday going?
We’ve got a short intro today because I really don’t have much to talk about. I’ll try to do more interesting stuff this week.
As you are reading this I will most likely be embarking on yet another journey to the LADOT. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while then you may have read about my last expedition to this foreign and treacherous land.
If you haven’t you can read about it here.
Since then, I’ve managed to avoid those ferocious beasts. Outside of a couple of bullshit parking tickets that I’ll be attempting to contest today if I can get past the LADOT’s Medusa-like stares, I haven’t run into any issues with the Los Angeles Department of Traffic.
I did, however, take another step towards “living” in LA that required their assistance.
My car now has California license plates. Which feels and looks wrong. They’ve been on there a week now, and every time I see it or drive it I feel like I’m playing Grand Theft Auto and stealing someone else’s car. Something that I’ve always had a hard time dealing with in my life is change. I’ve gotten a lot better at it since high school, and thank god I have because so much in my life has changed. It’s safe to say that there’s been a lot of change in my life in the last 6 months alone, you know, moving across the country and everything. And as I spend more time in LA and attempt to establish a life here (the jury is still out on how well I’m doing at that by the way) one of the things that kept me tied to home was my license plates.
I will always be a Marylander. It doesn’t matter how long I may live in Los Angeles, or any other state for that matter, Maryland will always be home. My family is there, my sports teams are there, and a lot of my friends are still there post-college. So it’s gonna be impossible to cut those ties, no matter how much the changes in my life may want me to. So to the changes in my life, I say “Fuck you. It doesn't matter where I am. I’ll make it work and Maryland will always be there for me if I need it.”
You know what I’m gonna miss most about those plates though?
In case you’ve been living under a rock since 1904 (when it was first officially adopted) or since 1632 when the Calvert family established Maryland, we’ve got the best flag in the country. I’m not gonna lie, my current state, California, might be 2nd place, but nothing is topping the old red, white, black, and yellow. There’s just something about it man. My friends from other states don’t get it. They roasted me for having a Maryland flag hanging in my room for the first 2 years of college. I switched to the Ireland flag for Junior and Senior year by the way. I couldn’t tell you how the flag pride started, but if you talk shit about the Maryland flag around a group of proud Marylanders, I pray for you and your ears.
So yeah, I’m gonna miss my plates because they’ve got the Maryland state flag on them. Although they’ll be gone and have been replaced by California plates, I’ll never stop considering Maryland home.
Fun fact: Did you know that Maryland has the most license plate designs? I guarantee that you’ll never be able to guess the number.
The only reason I know this is because of a trivia night at school last year. They asked the question: Which state has the most license plate designs and how many are there?
My team talked it out; going through different states and the designs we knew from each of them. I think we decided to go with California, New York, or Texas. I can’t remember exactly which one we went with, but, regardless, it was a crapshoot and we figured a big state with a lot of cars would be our best bet.
We could not have been more wrong.
That night I found out that the drivers in Maryland are psychotic compared to other states. Not because they’re bad drivers necessarily, but because they have a weird obsession with license plates. Look at these numbers:
For those of you with bad eyesight, that number next to Maryland is 989. That’s more than Texas and Pennsylvania (#2 and #3) combined! What are we doing? No one needs almost 1,000 license plate options. I’m glad to see that our priorities are in the right place.
I’ll get a state flag ranking out soon. Look out for that.
On to the blog.
Mea Culpa. Translation: I Fucked Up
The section where I hold myself accountable.
What I messed up last week: Since my slip-ups a couple of blogs back, I’ve been perfect.
Alright, let’s do this thing.
I’ve never really plugged this before, but go check out the Master Index Sheet blog. It’s a tracker of all of the movies I’ve written about on the blog and has hyperlinks directly to the entries. So if you watch something and you think I may have written about it, take a look here!
And as always, go check out The Vault if you need something to watch. It’s got everything I’ve watched since 2018 on there with my reviews. This is the last week to go check it out though, since the site I used to make it is nerfing me.
I’ve got a new website that I’ve been working like hell on coming later this week though, so get ready for that.
Alright, on to the blog.
Movies count for the year: 27
Doc count for the year: 3
Movies at Home
Inching ever closer to having no life. We’re teetering on the edge at this point.
We’re also inching ever closer to finally talking about all the movies I watched in 2024. Almost there. I also tried to hold myself to under 250 words per entry today. I don’t think I did it once, but they’re all under 400. Hopefully, they’ll make more sense now. Probably not though.
Belfast (2021)
AKA: Family = Home.
We've got a couple airplane movies to start today's blog.
I remember when Belfast came out. It had a ton of Oscar buzz around it (it got nominated for 7 Oscars and won 1 for Best Original Screenplay) but I avoided it because, honestly, it looked boring. Maybe it was the black-and-white aspect of it (it definitely was because of the black-and-white aspect of it) but I put it off. I can be really stupid sometimes.
*A PSA from a film guy to casual movie watchers: Don’t let black-and-white movies scare you. I swear they’re not all boring. You’re missing out.*
Enter: an inescapable plane flight with a limited selection of movies available to watch, especially good ones that I haven’t seen.
Safe to say that this was a pretty great option!
Was it as good as the hype it got when it came out? Probably not, but of the movies I've watched on planes recently, this was far and away the best one. What can I say? Kenneth Branagh is a pretty great writer of dialogue. You know, Kenneth Branagh? Of Gilderoy Lockhart and Hercule Poirot fame? (Also Shakespeare, but that stuff is boring).
He also directed this movie, which is especially cool, because this story is semi-autobiographical, based on his own experience growing up in Belfast during the beginnings of The Troubles. I know it's probably not in good taste to joke about this, especially being Irish myself and all, but The Troubles is a pretty cool name for what was something of a civil war in Ireland. I guess they couldn't call it the Irish Civil War though, because that name was already taken by the one that happened in 1922. The original name was gonna be:
Irish Civil War 2: Electric Bugaloo
But it didn’t stick.
Editor’s note: I'm so sorry you had to read that. I’ll be talking with the author this week about being better in the future.
Despite my bad jokes, this movie is really heartwarming and made me appreciate my family even more than I already do. Not that I've had to go through anything as bad as The Troubles, but it's good to know that I've got my family by my side if something bad does happen like that. Go hug your mom or dad today. Or anyone in your family for that matter. And if you can't hug them, just give them a call to check up on them. You'd never know how much that means to them.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: I may be Mandela effecting myself but I think they say it a bunch.
Is This Movie Hornier Than Nosferatu?: Not even close.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 77%
No, But Really: Don’t let the black and white scare you away from this. While I don’t think it lives up to the expectations around it, I thought this movie was very, very good and touches a wide range of emotions. The story, while unique to Ireland, is still relatable, mostly due to the family-centric nature of the film as a whole. This movie feels like a stageplay, not in a bad way, and is a great snapshot of a chaotic time in a specific country on one particular street.
Horrible Bosses 2 (2014)
AKA: They don’t make em like they used to.
It was a pretty big genre (and quality) jump from our first plane movie to the next.
All the way back in 2022 B.B. (Before Blog), I watched Horrible Bosses on a plane. So it was only right that I watched the second one on a plane as well. And let me just say: perfect plane movie. I talk about it a lot, but when you're watching a movie on a plane, it can't be too good or too bad. It can't be something that deserves to be seen on a big screen and it can't be an all-time classic that deserves more respect. On a rewatch all of these rules go out the window, of course. But if you sit down in your cramped seat next to a mom with her crying baby and a guy with bad BO wedged in between you to watch a movie like Silence of the Lambs for the first time then shame on you.
Except if that person is me of course. Which…it is. I'm sorry. I was young and I've changed (it was 2023 BB). It's not like I did the same thing with a spectacle of a movie like Interstellar, right?
Right?
...
Anyway...what can I say about this movie? Honestly, what I took away from it most is that I miss these types of movies. The mid-budget comedy with big names and raunchy jokes. They used to be a dime a dozen but they've become critically endangered. They haven't gone the way of the dodo just yet, but with these movies being thrown straight to streaming services (did anyone even notice the new Will Ferrell/Reese Witherspoon comedy that went to Prime last week?) things are looking dire.
But it's not all bad. They're still being made, they just look different. I for one am still holding out hope that they'll be back someday. They'll never be back to the same level they once were, in the glory days of the 2000s, but maybe, just maybe, (and if people actually go watch movies in theaters again) they'll be back like the Takahe: a NZ bird thought to have gone extinct multiple times in the 1800s but now has a thriving population in the wild. Not a population as robust as it once was, but thriving nonetheless.
No, I don’t think we’ve seen the end of the mid-budget comedy just yet.
Ranking of Extinct Animals I Hope We Can Bring Back:
All of them
Even the bad, nasty ones I guess.
Ok, seriously though.
Dodo
Polly the Dodo Bird from Pirates! Band of Misfits Easy #1. The most famous extinct animal of all time, 363 years running. It went extinct in 1662 and it’s still the go-to animal when it comes to talking about extinction. Talk about a legacy.
Tasmanian Tiger
The last one died in 1936. Not as famous as #1 but still a top choice in my book. People think there’s still a chance these guys are still out there and I hope they’re right.
Stellar’s Sea Cow
They were discovered in 1741 and extinct by 1768. What can I say? I love me a manatee.
Dinosaurs/Wooly Mammoth/Saber Tooth Tiger
Fuck it. Life is already crazy and messed up. Why not have some fun while that happens? Take me to Jurassic Park.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: This is a hard one to slip into a script, unfortunately.
Is This Movie Hornier Than Nosferatu?: Jennifer Aniston might be the horniest character ever put to screen. But overall? No.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 0%
No, But Really: This movie is a ton of fun. I think the first Horrible Bosses is a hair better, but when it comes to movies like this, I’m not expecting a cinematic masterpiece. As long as it makes me laugh (which this one did) and the cast is good (this one is) it’s a success in my book. I miss movies like this and I wish more of them came out and had theatrical runs. This is a great plane movie by the way. Turn your brain off for 90 minutes and have a laugh.
Along Came Polly (2004)
AKA: Come for Ben Stiller, stay for Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I'm not even gonna pretend and give some made-up reason for why I watched this movie. To be clear, I've never done that on the blog, but I wanted to clear the air just in case. I only watched this movie because there was a Rewatchabled episode on it. That, and the fact that it was my second movie of the night, it's 90 minutes long, and it was already midnight. Now that we've cleared that up, I would like to talk about 4 things, each with varying levels of detail.
1. Ben Stiller: I'm a big Ben Stiller fan. I've loved him since Night at the Museum and I've loved him basically every movie I've seen him in since. I still haven't gotten to Severance, but it's next up after I finish Breaking Bad, I swear. But I didn't really care about his character in this movie at all. It's just a carbon copy of his character from There's Something About Mary and Meet the Fockers but watered down.
2. Jennifer Aniston: Also a big fan. She's gorgeous, I've had a crush on her for as long as I can remember, and Friends was the first show I truly binged. But I didn't really care about her character in this movie at all. If we're being honest, she plays similar roles in almost every movie she's been in, and this one isn't much different.
3. Alec Baldwin: Woof. It's been a tough few years for the guy, but man, is he fucking hilarious when he gets the chance. Jack Donaghy is one of the funniest TV characters ever, full stop.
And don't even get me started on his role in Thomas and the Magic Railroad as Mr. Conductor.
That was my absolute jam back in the day. He’s had a rough few years, but for this movie, he's in maybe 5 scenes and he's lights out in every single one of them. I was laughing my ass off, but he was only the 2nd best part of this movie. Because the best part of this movie is...
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman: If I'm being honest, I've never really understood it. Hoffman (RIP), is considered the best actor of his generation and one the best actors of all time by a lot of people, mainly Gen Xers and older Millenials. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with him, but I've never understood this take. He certainly elevates stuff he's in, like this movie and Mission: Impossible III where he plays a truly evil and one of the best villains in spy movies. And I guess he is pretty chameleonic and definitely isn't afraid to get weird. Maybe I just need to do a PSH marathon and reassess my opinion.
Look, I'm not saying he's a bad actor, he's objectively one of the best of the late 90s to his death in 2014, I guess I just don't see him as number 1. He is the best part of this movie, however. I laughed out loud every single time he was on screen. I'd seen the clips of him playing basketball on the internet before, but I had no idea they were from this movie. Again, if I'm being completely honest, his game is not much worse than mine at the moment. I'm currently trying to get better and I try to shoot around every day, but I'm afraid to play with other people for fear that I'll turn into Sandy Lyle.
Watch this if you want to laugh.
Looks just like me.
Raindance!
Ranking of people I know who own or have owned a ferret:
My Uncle Devin
He had a white ferret back in college and I think that is hilarious. If I had a picture of it I’d put it right here.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: Another tough one to slip in naturally. So no.
Is This Movie Hornier Than Nosferatu?: Nope. But Hank Azaria’s character bumps it up a bit.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 1%
No, But Really: I wasn’t the biggest fan of this as a movie, but as a collection of YouTube clips it works great. I think my issue is that the plot of this movie simply doesn’t exist. But that doesn’t really matter, because while the story is lacking, the side characters are here in spades. Philip Seymour Hoffman is hysterical, Alec Baldwin is lights out, and Hank Azaria is funny as hell. Overall, this movie is a perfectly good romcom but isn’t gonna be in my rotation going forward. It is totally worth watching this movie for the Hoffman, Baldwin, and Azaria scenes though.
Con Air (1997)
AKA: The best idea for a movie of all time.
I'm aware that I use hyperbole a lot in the blog. I say things are "the best" or "the worst" or "the most" or "the least" a lot.
HOWEVER, that being said:
This is the best idea for a movie of all time.
Full stop. End of argument. In the words of Kenny "The Jet" Smith:
Because you simply cannot beat this premise. It's a jail plane that gets taken over by the convicts. That's a first-ballot Hall of Fame premise right there. Is it insane and outrageous? Absolutely. Does it make any sense at all if you stop and think about it for more than 30 seconds? Probably not. But goddammit is it not entertaining as all hell.
Here's a few things that you get in this movie:
1. Nic Cage doing an over-the-top Alabama accent and buying all the way in.
2. John Malkovich playing a psychotic criminal and buying all the way in.
3. Steve Buscemi playing a serial killer and buying all the way in.
4. John Cusack being out-acted left and right and still buying all the way in.
Because that's what matters most. These people saw this asinine premise and said fuck it let's do it right.
Side note: Maybe I'll do it in the future, but I could write an entire section on the memes that Nic Cage has provided the world over the years. As I've watched more of his movies (he's been in a ton of them so it takes a while) I've finally learned where some of these memes have come from. Like this one, which I never knew was from Con Air:
This man is a National Treasure.
Do They Say the Title of the Movie In the Movie: They do and I couldn’t believe it. It was said with such sincerity that I laughed out loud and applauded.
Is This Movie Hornier Than Nosferatu?: Nope.
Chance My Dad Cries While Watching This: 5%
No, But Really: I mean, this movie rocks. I know I talk about “turn your brain off” movies a lot, but this is a Hall of Famer in that category. The cast is pretty stacked, the action is great, and it’s a great watch the whole way through. The plot is batshit crazy, but don’t think about it and you’ll be fine. The best part about it is that the main cast (especially Nic Cage and John Malkovich) is totally bought in and gives legit great performances. This is a fantastic action movie that is ripe for a rewatch. Highly recommend it for action fans.
-Comment a movie recommendation if you’ve got one
—I don’t know what to talk about
—-I miss my friends
——
