Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry not because she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon because she won’t, but because we have an early rehearsal at eleven and I need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for it, although the combo platter of bright eyes on top of bushy tails is something to behold if not desire. If I want desire it will be on a streetcar or under the elms. I have no idea what the HELL I’m talking about, but neither did the motion picture I watched, which was entitled Unhinged, a movie so bad that it almost made me unhinged just watching it. Its claim to fame was that it was the first widely released movie when movie theaters reopened in 2020, late August to be exact. It’s a road rage motion picture which borrows from many other films, including Duel and Falling Down. Russell Crowe stars as the raging rager, cutely called Man in the credits – that’s about how subtle this film gets. We have a plucky young about to be divorced mom, her son, her brother and his girlfriend, her lawyer, and that’s really about it, cast-wise, although there are other small roles. The film begins with what Screenwriter 101 people call a prologue, in which we see a horrid act perpetrated by the rager of the road, because he’s seemingly at the end of his rope and wants to off anyone who caused it. From there, we have twenty minutes of plucky mom and son stuff, all of it by the numbers, and then we get to what the Screenwriting 101 pundits call the “inciting incident” when plucky mom is late getting her kid to school due to the worst traffic in history (until there’s suddenly none). She’s at a red light that turns green with a green arrow for the truck in front of her to turn so she can go. Only he doesn’t so – ready for the inciting incident – she honks at him. Not once but three times and still he doesn’t move so she goes around him and turns left. And thus beginneth the road rage. He pulls up beside her and asks for an apology, but she feels she has nothing to apologize for. And the rage turns lethal. She finally loses him, then drops the kid off and goes to fill up the car with gas. Guess who conveniently shows up at the gas station? Hmmm. While she’s inside paying, she sees the truck and tells the station cashier and a customer that he’s dangerous and following her. The customer walks her outside and gets the truck’s license plates and tells plucky mom what it is. This apparently angers Man and he drives his truck into the customer. This is shocking to plucky mom. Not only that, her cell phone, which she conveniently left in her car, is missing when she goes to find it to call the cops (presumably). Now, instead of going back in the store and calling the cops, she drives on. But he’s conveniently left her a cell phone and he calls her, she finds it, and he threatens everyone in her contact list. Plucky mom is real scared, but is supposed to be meeting her lawyer for breakfast. We see the lawyer waiting, then Man shows up and pretends he’s a friend of plucky mom and then the truth comes out, Man kills lawyer right there in front of everyone in the restaurant. A couple of people film it on their phones and we’re in the dark whether anyone actually called the police. But we soon find out, because as Man leaves restaurant and drives away, the sound effects people have thoughtfully put in the sound of police sirens.
It just gets sillier and sillier. She finally calls 911 about forty minutes into the movie and reports multiple emergencies and gives them the info. But because the police are apparently too busy to deal with such things as 911 calls, they conveniently show up late. Only one cop shows up to try and stop Man but by then he’s already killed the girlfriend of the brother and has set the brother on fire. The cop wounds Man, but apparently the Man is strong, he is invincible, he is Man. After many car chases and car carnage – conveniently there is never a police car anywhere, even though there would have been 900 911 calls by then – plucky mom and kid come up with a plan. However, the Invincible Man find where they are and thus ensues the finale where plucky mom and kid are almost offed by Invincible Man but thankfully, plucky mom has a pair of scissors with her so she stabs Man in the left eye and then stomps on the scissors to finish the job. Man is dead and life will go on. Even though the kid, upon arriving at the plan house triggers the silent alarm that goes right to the police for emergencies, we have several shots of police cars driving but not arriving. They do get there finally and tell plucky mom that brother will live. The credits roll and we hear a plucky song that has nothing to do with anything. The End.
Russell Crowe has put on even more weight than I have, but he’s fine. None of the other actors have a chance, with wafer thin characters. The score is exactly what you think it would be. Highly not recommended by the likes of me and a complete was of, well, not celluloid but digital files.
I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but this is the final day of September. How the HELL did that happen. And tomorrow will be October, and it is my fervent hope and prayer that October will be a month filled with health, wealth, happiness, creativity, and all things bright and beautiful.
Yesterday was okay. I did get eight hours of sleep, answered e-mails, had mac-and-cheese for food, did some work on the project with David Wechter, had several telephonic conversations regarding 70, Girls, 70, including an e-mail from one of our actresses saying she had to drop out. Thankfully, she was not doing anything important in the show, so we’ll either re-cast or have one less person in the cast. I’d like to recast, however. We shall see. Then I watched the movie and here we are.
Today, I’ll be up by nine-thirty, I’ll shave and be out the door by ten-fifteen and on my way to our eleven o’clock rehearsal. We finish at two and then I’ll stop at the mail place and hope that there are two important envelopes there, I’ll come home and relax until five, when I’ll be picked up by the Pearls and we’ll go dine and then see a show.
Tomorrow, which I was hoping would be a ME day, I have to meet with the set designer at noon-thirty, but once that’s done, I can have a damn ME day. Monday, too, although I’ll be writing, I’ll be sending in the new book files to the publisher, Tuesday, we start staging the show and that also happens on Wednesday and Thursday – and oh, it’s a new month.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by nine-thirty, shave, have our final music rehearsal, hopefully pick up important envelopes, eat, and see a play. Today’s topic of discussion: Have you ever been involved in a road rage situation and, if so, how did it play out? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, after which I shall greet the world bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.