TFG's 5 Flicks To Reduce Stress During COVID-19 Isolation

Social distancing to avoid the Novel Coronavirus?

Keeping a 6-feet-plus distance from others while out can be hard, so I've been been staying mostly inside during the pandemic. I'm really good at being an introvert, so I don't miss being around people too much. But, I get bored easily, and my to-do list is complete.

1. Stock the fridge - check
2. Spring cleaning the house - check (somewhat. . .  mostly. . .  better than it was)
3. Organize my comic collection by title - check
4. Mow the lawn - check
5. Re-organize my comic collection by character - check

All the important stuff is done! Now what?

Movies, baby.

Here are TFG's picks for the 5 Flicks To Reduce Stress During COVID-19 Isolation:

1988's The Naked Gun is comedy-dense, so you're gonna find new funny every time you watch it. Leslie Nielsen's  Frank Drebin is one of the best comedy characters of all time.

Period.

Watch this one with your kids (and don't be a downer and tell them the OJ story).

X  

Sorry, not recommended. Not sure how that got there.

Skip this.

Move on.

Sure, you think Will Ferrell is hit or miss. And he has been. But 2008's Stepbrothers is comedy gold, Ferrell's best. And John C. Reilly is even better in this film than Ferrell.

Get lost in the hijinks.

We can't do the time warp and go back to months-ago Wuhan, China to stop this pandemic.

Do the next best thing and re-watch 1975's The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Throw rice and toast, and dance with your kids. But, take extra time to explain to them the character of Eddie, and that  Meatloaf was once a legit rock star.

I betcha a lot of things going on in Riley's mind are currently going on in yours.

You know them all -- Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. You've cycled through them each time you've seen an empty shelf where the toilet paper used to be at Wal-Mart.

Re-watch 2015's Inside Out for  tips on how to recognize and control those emotions! And laugh while you watch.

Tom Hanks announced a few weeks ago he and his wife Rita Wilson tested positive for COVID-19.

What better way to honor Hanks, and also distract yourself from all the stress, than to re-watch 1988's Big?

You've seen him eat the tiny corn 50 times, I know. You'll still laugh at the 51st.

Just Mercy

Simply stated, some human beings are better than others. It's true. Compare real-life attorney Bryan Stevenson to the average American.

To me, for example.

• Harvard-educated attorney Stevenson chose a career defending citizens vulnerable to a biased legal system. 

• I spend most Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons reading comic books. 

• Over a 25 year period, Stevenson's Equal Justice Initiative saved more than 116 men from the death penalty. 

• During that same quarter century, I've laughed at five different hosts of America's Funniest Home Videos. 

• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, authored by Stevenson, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

• My blogpost, "Whatever Happened to Bowzer from Sha Na Na," has been read nearly 5,000 times. 

See?

Just Mercy is a good movie, I suppose. Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Fox are fine, although two dimensional, as Stevenson and his client, "Johnny D" McMillian.  Brie Larson is forgettable as Eva Ansley. Tim Blake Nelson -- as is often the case -- steals the film in a supporting role as angst-ridden inmate Ralph Myers. 

Nelson should have been on all the "best supporting actor nominee" lists for this role. 

Although it's an OK movie, Just Mercy can't fully illustrate all the good Bryan Stevenson has delivered in his career. It's my hope the movie inspires people to read more about him.

He's an American hero.

Luce

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On The Basis Of Sex

On The Basis of Sex is a good movie that's well produced and has a solid cast. Felicity Jones performs just fine as the future supreme court justice.

But, my first thought as the end-of-movie-credits rolled wasn't about the movie. And it wasn't specifically about the accomplishments of Justice Ginsburg. My thought was:

"There will never be a biopic of Justice Brett Kavanaugh. "

And that's truth, there won't be.

Because RBG is the real legal deal.

Stan & Ollie

I grew up on a healthy dose of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.

You know, Laurel & Hardy. Stan and Ollie. The "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into!" guys. (By the way, it is "nice," and not "fine," as some mistakenly quote.)

It wasn't that I wanted to watch the comedy duo. I mean, they're fine and all, but I wouldn't have scheduled my day around one of their films. Mostly I watched them because I had to. Where I grew up in the 1970s -- in south-central West Virginia -- I could pick up only a couple of channels with our TV antenna. So, I know it was either the local PBS station or WOAY that fed me fed me a healthy helping of Laurel & Hardy shorts, hours of The Three Stooges, episodes of the Little Rascals, and a bunch of western serials.

I liked the Stooges best. But Laurel & Hardy were a close second.

Most interesting to me about Laurel & Hardy was the absurdity of their symmetry. The two characters are strikingly different, especially in their physical presentation, yet they often mirrored each other in movement. And they did this with impeccable timing and precision.

Watching them was like watching a ballet (but without the tutus.)

Directed by Jon S. Baird and starring Steve Coogan (Stan) and John C. Reilly (Ollie), Stan & Ollie tells the dramatic story of legends coming to understand their careers are ending. It's difficult for both men to process, and for most of the film they refuse to try. The duo go out on a playhouse tour and push themselves physically and emotionally day after day; not for vanity, it seems, but to remain relevant.

Coogan and Reilly are terrific in their roles. Each seems to channel his character, and both show a wide emotional range during the story arc.

You don't have to know about or even like Laurel & Hardy to enjoy this flick. It is poignant without being sentimental.

Oliver Hardy: "I'll miss us when we're gone."
Stan Laurel: "So will you."

Flashback! Bad Movies That Haunt Me: Halloween III: Season Of The Witch

Through 1983, nearly every movie I saw was watched at Groves Theater, in Summersville, West Virginia. Sure, I saw a flick now and again in nearby Beckley or at the Craigsville Drive-In, but Groves' was the place against which I measured all other silver screens.

It felt like home. 

My movie-going experience then was as much about the social experience as it was about the movie I paid to see. There were no ads or commercials in those days -- can you believe that, kids?!?-- so we spent pre-trailer time going seat-to-seat talking with friends or flirting. Or, we'd hang out at the small concession corner before buying a bucket of buttered popcorn. 

And Groves Theater sold the biggest, hottest, butteriest bucket of popcorn around. 

As soon as the trailers started we settled in, hoping to be entertained. Sometimes we were, sometimes we weren't. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) was, for me, a weren't. 

It wasn't just that this sans-Mike Myers installment was poorly produced, even though it was. (Seriously, how is a movie that combines Halloween, Stonehenge, androids, and a plan to sacrifice children supposed to make any cash at the box office?) No, what made this film a horrible experience for me is the scene where insects and snakes come out of the pumpkin-head mask worn by Buddy Junior as he died watching TV.  

It was horrifying. I clutched my girlfriend's hand tighter and closed my eyes. 

Years later I can't get the music from that scene out of my head. Nor can I exorcise the poor script and terrible acting witnessed that night, too. 

I loved the popcorn. But that damn movie still haunts me. 

Whatever Happened To... Peter Ostrum

Willy Wonka: "But Charlie, don't forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he always wanted."

Charlie: "What happened?"

Willy Wonka: "He lived happily ever after."

Peter Ostrum appeared in only one movie. But, the Dallas, Texas-born child actor wins the golden ticket for his one-hit-wonder work as Charlie in Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.

Dr. Peter Ostrum is now a large animal veterinarian in Lowville, New York.

Dark Waters

Some of my early memories involve playing outdoors in the 1970s on our family farm in south-central West Virginia. A kid could get lost in his imagination in a place like that: I was a cowboy while riding my pony, Robin Hood hiding out in the forest, and Evel Knieval while doing stupid stunts on my dirt bike.

I lived, although I don't know how.

I often played in our backyard creek. There, no matter who I imagined I was, I was really just a typical West Virginia kid playing in sludge and sloshing through water made colorful by oil leaking downstream from a coal mine.  And because I was a just a kid from West By God, my safety was less important to The Man than was the cost of creating systems that protect me from their pollution.

In the 1970s the government had to step in and make that decision for them.

Directed by Todd Haynes and starring Mark Ruffalo, Dark Waters tells the story of what happens when The Man decides his profit is more important than the health and safety of his neighbors. The legal mystery, based on a true story that spanned over 20 years, follows unassuming hero Robert Bilott in his David vs. Goliath fight to prove The Man wrong.

Dark Waters tells an honest and mostly accurate story, and Ruffalo is good at playing the understated hero. Some characters -- Ann Hathaway's Sarah Bilott, particularly -- are two dimensional and underdeveloped. I suspect that's to allow focus on the conspiracy, but it is a flaw in the film. What does work, however, is the depiction of West Virginians allowing ourselves to be exploited by big business in return for a job that will feed our families.

"Go ahead and test it, you won't find anything," says a woman having blood drawn to determine if she's contaminated by C-8.  Although she unknowingly drinks poisoned water every day from her tap, the woman adds: "DuPont is good people."

It's the West Virginia way.

Bombshell

Blonde hair, legs that shine

So-so plot and storyline

That's Charlize Theron!?!