Notes from a "Wheel of Fortune" Taping

If there is a club for game show geeks who have attended a taping of the Big Three, we are in that.  We attended a "Price is Right" taping in the final weeks of Bob Barker's reign back in the mid-2000s and shortly thereafter, we attended a taping of "Jeopardy" when Alex Trebek was the host.  On our recent trip to Los Angeles this spring, we got tickets to "Wheel of Fortune."  We're definitely more hardcore "Price Is Right" and "Jeopardy" fans, but one cannot deny the longevity and appeal of "Wheel of Fortune."

1. This was what we were most excited about... when the contestants glance off camera during the game, what exactly are they looking at?  Well, there's two giant flatscreen TVs on the wall just to the left of the puzzle board.  On the top vertical screen, all three contestants are listed by their corresponding wheel "pointer" color.  This tracks their cumulative winnings throughout the game, plus also the money they have in the bank during the current game.  The bottom horizontal flatscreen provides a list of all the available letters.  When someone calls a "C," for example, then that letter disappears off the list.  Vowels are grouped together below the consonants.  That bottom screen also reminds the contestants of the puzzle category.  "What Are You Doing?" seems to be pretty popular right now.  
2. So during the game if someone flubs a line or there's a technical problem, after the episode ends, they'll go back and do retakes as if it were a scripted show.  That was a big surprise to us.  There was a microphone problem when Ryan Seacrest hugged a contestant goodbye, so the two of them had to totally recreate that spontaneous moment for a retake.  The best moment came when there was a problem with the overhead shot of the wheel (should that be capitalized Wheel?) when it landed on a specific wedge.  After the episode ended, the prop guy - there is apparently one guy who is charge of the wheel - had to spin the wheel just right so that it would land on that specific wedge for the camera.  It took him about eight tries to nail it.  The audience cheered.
3. They do pipe in the sound effects you hear on the show, like the slide whistle bankrupt sound and the "doo-doo-do-do" chimes for a new puzzle.
4. No, the audience doesn't shout "Wheel!... of!... Fortune!..."  That's recorded.
5. We saw three episodes taped.  Each one took about an hour.  Not just for the redos, but there's also a lot of adjustments to be made to the wheel - replacing the prize amount wedges - during the commercial breaks.  The biggest delay came when a flashing plastic wedge wasn't flashing.  They had to take it apart and repair some wiring.  Also fun was to watch the one guy whose sole job during the breaks was to come wipe down the padded vinyl contestant railing.  He did it every time.
6. There's apparently a very active alumni group of past contestants who seem pretty obsessed with the show and also very impressed that they were on it.  We stood in line with a couple of them and then later had the misfortune of sitting behind them in the bleachers.  They were shameless in making sure everyone around knew they'd been on the show.  One of them even wore her game day name badge.  "Look at me!"  It might be interesting to talk to a contestant, but not these obnoxious characters.  They were pretty loud and abrasive in the bleachers, almost acting like they were special guests - the stage manager had to ask them to knock it off at one point.  There are no repeat contestants (we think), so these two are essentially milking a single 30-minute appearance.
7. Before each game, the contestants all shoot short promos for their hometown station.  That's when we were reminded by the stage director that it's "Wheel of Fortune" not "The Wheel of Fortune."
8. We can't be 100% sure, but there was a stagehand near our section of the bleachers holding up laminated sheets for Ryan.  We think this was to help cue him which contestant was due to spin next so he doesn't have to keep track of that.
9. Vanna came out and talked to the audience, of course.  She told us that she's worn thousand of outfits over the years, but never the same thing twice.  They're all loaners from designers.  Vanna does repeat the shoes, though.
10. Apparently, they're looser with solving the puzzle these days.  Seems like in the Pat era you had one shot and God forbid if you fumbled your words.  But now you have a set amount of time to solve, phrasing and rephrasing as needed until time runs out.  But that timer failed on one of the puzzles we saw, so they threw that whole puzzle out and did that segment over again with a new one.
11. There's a whole other set-up during the final prize puzzle what with that little prize wheel.  It gets wheeled out from backstage on a special cart and three guys then slide it into position next to the larger wheel.  After the show is over, they load it back into the cart - securing it with several bolts - and wheel it backstage.
12. The stage is pretty wide but not very deep.  In that familiar wide shot you see of Vanna standing at the puzzle board, there's about three cameras crammed together just out of the shot to the left, all pointing at the contestants.  They've framed it perfectly.  One inch to the left and you'd see them all.
13. Vanna no longer has to even touch the puzzle board.  Apparently, there are lasers that sense her hand and reveal the letters.
14. It may be blasphemous, but we think Ryan is better at this than Pat Sajak.  He's smoother and more genuine.  Pat could sometimes seem a little above all of that gameplay nonsense.  Like he just sort of tolerated all of this.
15. The show can control the height of the riser the contestants stand on - if you're too short to reach over that railing (sanitized during every commerical break!) to spin the wheel, they'll lift the platform for you.
16. If you're in the audience, you're doing a lot of clapping.  We never noticed this watching the show, but you clap when the contestants spin, you clap when they get a letter, you clap when they solve.  The show told everyone that when Vanna claps, you clap.  Plus there's one of those old-school flashing "Applause" signs hanging over the bleachers.
17. As you might imagine, there's a camera on a ceiling mount pointing down at the wheel.  Pretty cool.
18. At no time did the wheel spin by itself.  Those "beauty shots" (as they call them) of the spinning wheel was initiated with a hard yank by that prop guy in charge of the wheel.  By the way, unlike "The Price Is Right" there is no penalty for not spinning the wheel all the way around.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Novacaine"

1. Maybe this is the old man perspective, but it sure seems like there was lot more of these kinds of entertaining, highly-polished B-movie actoiners back before streaming took over the world and people used to actually go to theaters every weekend.
2. We were pleasantly surprised that the filmmakers took so long to establish the main characters and their relationship before the shooting started.  If audiences care about the characters, they'll be more emotionally invested in what happens to them.  Screenwriting 101.  The dialogue in that first act sets up the entire movie.  Lean and sharp.  Plot comes from character wants and needs.
3. We really, really should have seen that plot twist coming.  We've gotten so rusty.
4. Gruesome.  We didn't understand at first how the bad guy died at the end, but then suddenly we realized and it was completely insane.  Gross.
5. Jack Quaid has definitely got the gawky, stammering geek thing down.
6. Imagine slurping down a shot of ghost pepper sauce.
7. We love movies that take a high-concept premise like "imagine a guy who feels no pain tangling with ruthless bank robbers" and then explore it in every possible way.
8. We can take take most movie violence no problem since we know it's all fake, but there's something about breaking bones that crosses the line for us.  Maybe it's just the sound effect that adds that extra level of squeamish realism.
9. By now doesn't everyone know that the bad guy is never really dead the first time he's "killed"?
10. Poor Nigel.
11. Everyone is hiding something.

Tweet

Ranking Wait Lines at the Airport

In order of increasing irritation and aggravation --

6. The line to board the plane, part one - At least at the gate you have room to sort of stretch out on on those fake leather chairs, charge your phone if you're lucky to find a working outlet, grab some overpriced food and drink, ignore the background noise of whatever toothless pseudo-news program is running in the background (even vanilla-flavored CNN seems to trigger certain folks), and study the strange assortment of people walking by in all kinds of clothing, hairdos, ages, and body types.  It can be a long wait, but at least you have amenities.
5. The line to check your bags - Like so many businesses now, customers are asked to do extra work that used to be handled by airline employees.  And so we dutifully use kiosk touchscreens to print boarding passes and luggage tags.  This free labor, of course, provides no cost savings.  The good news is that this line usually moves pretty quick, both at the kiosks and then also dropping off your bag at the counter.  We imagine this step will soon be eliminated somehow and we'll end up being the ones to toss our bags onto that conveyor belt.  What service do those clerks provide other than asking about lithium batteries? 
4. The TSA security line, part one - These lines to confirm your identity to bored TSA agents (digression: notice how suddenly they're taking your picture now? a very sly, quiet further eroding of our privacy) are extremely long and snake around like you're about to get on a Disneyland ride.  Thankfully, most of the time these lines move much faster than they look.  Most of the time.
3. The line to board the plane, part two - Showing your boarding pass goes pretty quick with the agent at the gate, but then you hit the rush hour traffic jam of the jetway as people you can't see are undoubtedly up there in the plane moving like blind, slothful turtles as they creep along the aisle, wedging their enormous bags into the overhead bins, then hunting for their seat.  It's a jarring transition from the spacious comfort of the gate seating area.  If we ruled the world, we would 100% ban all carry-ons that won't fit under the seat in front of you.  No joke - we'd rip those overhead bins right out.  They're a cancer.  If you're one of those annoying people who insist on wasting everyone's time cramming a too-big suitcase into the overhead bin, you are part of our national nightmare.  Do better.  Check your bag like a civilized human.

2. The TSA security line, part two - Aside from our old man gripe that most of this is just empty theater to make everyone feel safer, the main irritation here is that every airport seems to have different rules.  Shoes on or off?  Laptop in or our?  Out bag goes on the belt or in a tray?  Does the TSA even realize they there's no uniformity?  Sometimes they seem annoyed that you're confused.  Bonus points for the glassy-eyed TSA agents who don't even really try to communicate what we need to know because they're just muttering their canned lines over and over like a robot slowly dying inside.
1. The line to get off the plane - You're tired and grumpy, shoehorned into that tiny little seat.  You're ready to go.  But instead, you're stuck for what seems like an eternity, staring into oblivion as dozens of rows of people in front of you move in super-slow motion to deplane.  Zero urgency.  What's most frustrating is the time it takes to actually see something, anything happening in those first few rows.  Again, the biggest culprit involves having to reclaim the overhead bin suitcases.  Cancer.

For more fun Cheese Fry rants about air travel, check out this 2016 post.

Tweet

Fourteen Observations from a Club Volleyball Tournament

1. There's something overwhelming when you first arrive at a club volleyball tournament in the morning before any games have started.  Dozens of courts - and if you're at a big tournament in a convention center, if could be well over a hundred courts - filled wall to wall with players warming up.  As far as the eye can see, there are balls popping into the air.
2. We regret to inform you that volleyball tournaments are big business.  Playing the games can often feel secondary to the larger goal of separating parents from their money.  There's the fee to get in, of course.  Then there's also the obligatory overpriced tournament sweatshirt (if it's $50, consider yourself lucky).  Then there's also the endless food options - we'd never before heard of an acai bowl until we started going to tournaments - that are of course A) ridiculously overpriced and B) much more appealing than the trail mix, fruit, and salami sticks you packed for your daughter.
3. There's always one player on every team who seems to take it upon herself to always go running after a ball that's sailed off the court.
4. The possible severity of an on-court player injury often feels inversely proportional to the amount of time it takes for a trainer to mosey over to provide aid.  The girl is crying on the court, holding her knee, but you take your time, bro.  No rush.
5. If you don't pay attention, you will get hit with a ball.  Guaranteed.  Most dangerous scenario: you're facing the team as they're warming up with serves coming right at you.
6. The timing of pool play "waves" is a mixed bag.  The morning wave typically starts at 8:00am, which means you have to get up very early to arrive early for warmups... but it also means you're done by 1pm and thus have the rest of the day to do what you want.  On the other hand, an afternoon 3:00pm wave of pool play lets you sleep in, sure, but it can make for a very late evening.  The worst combination, of course, is an afternoon wave (figure you'll back in the hotel by 9:30pm) followed by a morning wave the next day.  Brutal.
7. There's always one player on every team who is the master hair braider.
8. There is an etiquette to spectator seating that, unfortunately, isn't always followed.  Parents of the teams actually playing on the court get first dibs.  Then, after they're settled and only after they're settled, the rest of the seats are available to the general public.  A corollary to this: once your team is finished, get your slow ass up out of those chairs as expeditiously as possible so parents of the next team up can sit down.
9. There's always at least one set of parents who sit far apart from the other parents.  Reasons may vary.
10. Some referees just aren't good.  It had to be said.
11. We still don't understand the "in the net" rule.  But it's okay... you don't need to try and explain it to us.
12. We have learned the hard way that every club team has drama among players, parents, or both.  The only question is what form that drama will take.  It's not "if" but "when."  Usually it involves the emotional monster that is known as Lack of Playing Time.
13. We need a sociologist to study the subculture of dads responsible for recording the team games.  It's an intricate ritual of setting up the spindly tripod, arranging the camera just so, keeping track of the score via some kind of app, delivering encouraging shouts and cheers, and - eventually - taking it all apart again and uploading the footage into a pricey game management system.  Bonus points for those inevitable moments when an errant ball sends the whole thing flying.  Odds are even that any given dad can move fast enough to rescue the tripod before it hits the ground.
14. Here's the deal: while it's nice to play teams from other cities and states, do volleyball families really have to get on a plane (and spend all of that money) to accomplish that?  Cars can drive pretty far and for a lot less money.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "The Substance"

1. We've been trying to limit these "knee jerk" posts solely to theatrical releases we see in a darkened theater, but, more and more, Hollywood makes distribution deals with streamers that limits traditional releases just long enough to make movies eligible for awards.  We had to rent this one from something called Mubi even though Demi Moore just won a high profile Golden Globes award for her performance.  
2. We hate streamers.  Netflix, Prime, Hulu, Disney+... they all ruined Hollywood with the lure of quick bucks that in the end has completely undermined the box office model for movies and the syndication/rerun model for television and, along with it, killed most of the traditional entertainment economy in Southern California.
3. So here's the deal with The Substance.  The first 3/4 is mostly a masterpiece of unsettled dread, queasy satire, and icky body horror about the absurd lengths women go to in chasing youth and popularity because of cruel social pressures.
4. We won't spoil how exactly this all plays out.  There's a black market experimental drug that does something to Demi Moore's character.  That's all you need to know.
5. We learned after the fact that the writer-director is French, which makes sense.  This is a movie with a dark, cynical European sensibility.  And a lot of full frontal female nudity that an uptight American director would never dare include.
6. What also makes sense is that the director apparently calls David Cronenberg and David Lynch among her inspirations.  If you know anything about those two filmmakers, then you know what kind of movie The Substance is.  Everything's a little off and weird like Lynch - it looks like our world, but it's a generic sort of simulacrum.  And then things also get gross and squeamish like Cronenberg - bodies are abused and mutated and transformed in gross ways.
7. To offer an example for how this movie is Lynchian, two locations feature ridiculously long narrow hallways that are completely impractical and totally weird.  But the characters treat them as perfectly ordinary.
8. It's that last 30 minutes or so that really spoils the whole thing.  Our best comparison is Danny Boyle's sci-fi movie Sunshine (2007), which we found to be a brilliant and masterful movie for the first 90 minutes before the wheels totally came off in the last act.  With The Substance, writer-director Coralie Fargeat goes way over the top for ending, then decides to go even further in pushing her premise to extremes.  Audacious without a doubt.  But also completely off-putting.  Which, admittedly, is probably her point.
9. Not much dialogue, really.  This is a very visual movie.  The art direction is top notch.
10. And considering it's a movie about Hollywood and show business, the cast is pretty small too.  There's a claustrophobic, lonely vibe to it all that works.
11. The horror elements of the movie are getting all the attention, but the most powerful sequence comes when we see Demi Moore struggle with debilitating anxiety and self-doubt as she prepares to go on a date.  As objectively beautiful as she may seem, she only sees an old ugly woman in the mirror.  It's tragic.
12. Dennis Quaid chewing the scenery.  Good for him.
13. If a scary organization tells you that the weird drug they supplied you is for a single use only, believe them.
14. We are suckers for movies like this about secret underground companies with hidden entrances and mysterious leadership.  One of our favorite movies is The Parallax View, which features a secret company that recruits assasins.  Other favorites: The Game which offers customized experiences for the wealthy, and Old which involves an unethical clandestine lab seeking medical cures.  Another variation of this is the entire community (complete with rules and bureaucracies) of killers in the John Wick universe.
15. The yellow coat is a symbol for an egg yolk, right?
16. "What has been used on one side, is lost on the other side. There's no going back."  Scary.
17. Special recognition to the opening sequence that uses a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to chart the familiar rise and fall of the lead character.  Brilliant.
18. Demi Moore probably deserved that Golden Globe.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Wicked Part 1"

1. We saw Wicked on stage in Los Angeles years ago.  It was a pleasant experience, yes, but we barely remember it.  The songs didn't seem to be at all catchy or earwormy.  (We couldn't believe folks were in the lobby buying soundtrack CDs.)
2. So watching the movie adaptation was like experiencing the story for the first time.  Engaging, but maybe a little too forgettable?
3. Songs still aren't catchy.  Fun at the time but then gone from our memory banks.  (We had a similar problem with the otherwise fantastic La La Land.)  Where are the hooks?  Our four favorite movie musicals (don't laugh) are Grease, Chicago, The Greatest Showman, and Annie.  All with very sticky, very hummable songs.  Even the melancholic Billie Eilish Barbie song is at least memorable.
4. As an addendum, too often the lyrics in Wicked are hard to understand.  If it's not Ariana's high register, it's a goopy sound mix that buries the vocals.  Are our ears too old?
5. Pretty genius idea to take a infamous villain from pop culture and find ways to make her sympathetic and likable.
6. Until recently we mostly disliked pop star/tabloid darling Ariana Grande - despite her one banger radio hit "No Tears Left to Cry" - but a recent appearance on "Saturday Night Live" changed our mind.  She really does have a good sense of comic timing, self deprecation, and a killer voice.  And in Wicked, she's perfectly cast as a shallow, spoiled, boy-crazy, slightly ditzy Galinda.
7. Obviously, though, it's Cynthia Erivo who steals the movie as Elpheba.  Erivo seems like a bit of an weirdo oddball in real life, but as an actor she's a slam dunk in everything we've ever seen her in.  Don't judge a book.
8. Presumably, Shiz University is supposed to be a sort of college-style boarding school.  But every student there is in their 30s, which is kind of funny.
9. Michelle Yeoh cashing a paycheck and little more.
10. The production design, as expected, is fantastic, packed with layers of lush details.  Dig those golden gears that power the Emerald City express train.  How much time and money went into that for maybe five minutes of screen time?  This is Hollywood craftsmanship operating at very high levels.
11. Bonus points for invoking the 1939 Wizard of Oz title font.
12. Curious that in this polarized day and age, a box office smash like this deals in themes of dictatorships and disinformation.
13. At this point, Jeff Goldblum just sort of does his thing no matter the role.
14. Like most big movies, it's probably 30 minutes too long.  We appreciate getting original Galinda and Elpheba (Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel) in the movie, but we totally checked out during their convoluted number explaining the complicated history of Oz.
15. Amusing that the movie works so hard to reference as many Wizard of Oz elements as possible, the more obscure the better.
16. Always satisfying - and right out of Screenwriting 101 - for the protagonist to finally at long last get what they want... but realize that they no longer want it.
17. Yes, the animal rights business was part of the stage musical as well.  We were surprised as well.
18. Two standout sequences: the library dance (the circular book stacks!) and the cave club sequence where everyone laughs at Elpheba (we're not crying, you're crying).
19. Very good but... ultimately not great.  But, honestly?  That may well be good enough.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Smile 2"

1. Too long perhaps, but fantastic.
2. You might chuckle at this notion, but actress Naomi Scott knocks her performance out of the park.  It's practically award-caliber.
3. The first Smile (2022) was a clever rip-off of scary "cursed chain" movies like The Ring and It Follows.  As they say, audiences want the same but different.  Smile checked those boxes.
4. Like so many high-concept horror movies, however, Smile didn't really know where to go or how to wrap it all up.  The explanation for the creepy, inexplicable weirdness is almost always a letdown.
5. The sequel is a huge improvement on every level... but the ending is still kind of a mess.
6. We had to go to Reddit discussion boards to figure out what exactly happened in the last 15 minutes or so.  What we found there makes sense.  We somehow overlooked a pretty clear explanation of the movie's internal logic.
7. Jump scares on top of jump scares.  You may or may not like that sort of thing.  They are cheats, yes, but they're also very effective.
8. The movie is so layered and well-developed that if you took the scary stuff out, you'd still have a very compelling drama about a tortured, recovering addict pop star unwisely trying to make a huge stadium tour comeback she's not ready for.  The pressure she feels from her icy stage mom, the tour's pushy financier, all of those hundreds of people depending on her tour for their jobs, is palpable.
9. We don't get out much, but it's been a while since we saw a movie this gory.
10. The peppy, obsequious personal assistant - who provided no value or skill beyond running around fetching things - was a fun character to hate.
11. Writer-director Parker Finn packs in a lot of glossy style.  Horror movies don't usually look this good.
12. The scene at the fancy socialite charity is something else.  Ditto the car crash at the end.  And the backup dancers in her apartment.  And the sequence with the stalker fan.  If you can string together four or five truly memorable scenes, you've pretty much done your job as a filmmaker.
13. Despite this, the 15-year-old Fry and her friend fell asleep for, like, 30 minutes during the first hour.  How is this possible?  We know why.  Because they go to the movies in slippers and pajamas and wrap themselves in fleece blankets like they're at a sleepover.
14. We have mixed feelings about movies like this that blur the line between fantasy and reality so that the hero (and the audience) can't ever be sure what's real.  But it mostly works here so we will allow it.
15. Naomi Scott.  Wow.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Alien Romulus"

1. Without a doubt, it's the best one since 1986's Aliens.  And we liked Alien Resurrection (1997) more than most.
2. It's the ninth movie in the Alien franchise - if you count the Alien Versus Predator movies - so along the way, as is so often the case now with sci-fi, the mythology and backstory behind both the origin of the alien species and also the machinations of the evil Weyland-Yutani company has gotten way complicated and shaggy.
3. It's a lot to keep track of, especially at the end when the story connects to the self-important, overwrought Prometheus and Covenant sequels.  The movies probably worked better when Weyland-Yutani was a powerful faceless behemoth.  The air of mystery helped.  The more we learn about what they're trying to do with the aliens, the more ho-hum familiar they seem.
4. Cailee Spaeny is decent, if a little dull, in the lead.  The same, frankly, goes for the whole cast.  Just fine all around, but no one really pops.
5. Spaeny at times gives off Natalie Portman vibes.
6. Spoiler alert: the decision to use CGI technology to make 1979-era Ian Holm one of the supporting characters is a huge misfire.  We can understand the desperation to do as much as possible to connect this movie to the other Alien movies, but it's a gimmick that is not needed here.  The movie crackles just fine on its own.
7. Aside from the creep factor of animating a dead actor and creating a performance from scratch without his involvement, the CGI that reproduces Holm just... isn't good.  Big time uncanny valley. 
8. And from a story point of view, Holm isn't playing the character he played in Alien.  This is a different character with a different name.  But they're both androids, so the suggestion seems to be that there's this whole line of androids out there that all look like Ian Holm.  That sort of makes sense, but it's way too distracting and needlessly meta for it's own good.
9. Script-wise, the opening ten minutes are lean and mean.  We meet the main character, see her terrible predicament, then watch her grapple with a crazy, dangerous choice that might be her only way out.
10. The "big bad" alien at the very end is wild.  The filmmakers really went for it.
11. The Swiss-watch plotting of James Cameron's Aliens is second to none.  Anything that can go wrong for our heroes goes horribly wrong, again and again, but always in completely plausible ways.  Nothing feels forced.  Romulus has that same sort of feel.  Nothing is easy for the characters.
12. Zero gravity clouds of acid alien blood?  Check.
13. There's plenty of scary action set pieces here, which is really all any of us need in a sci-fi horror movie.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Trap"

1. Fifteen-year-old Lil Fry assessment of Josh Hartnett: "He's so fine."
2. The first 45 minutes or so unfold about as we expected based on the trailer.  Then the story takes an unexpected detour - a variation perhaps on that trademark M. Night twist? - that turns everything around.  One critic called it a Psycho-style shifting of protagonists, a clever observation we wish we'd been clever enough to have made.
3. It's a lot of fun so long as you don't peer too closely at the creaky wheels of the plot, especially in the way these supposedly crack FBI profilers make some really dumb choices that benefit the villain.  (No spoiler here if you've seen the trailer, but if the idea is to set a surprise trap at a pop concert for a notorious murderer, it makes no sense to stack the arena with cops before the show even starts.  Why risk tipping off your prey?  Bring in the SWAT after the house lights go down.)
4. The movie may not work as well as it thinks, but there's no denying the audaciousness of a major studio movie building a premise around a vicious and insane serial killer, played by a famous Hollywood heartthrob no less, living a double life as a normal suburban dad.
5. The filmmakers did not skimp on trying to accurately portray the huge pomp and circumstance of a Taylor Swift-style concert.  We've seen countless low-budget versions of this sort of thing that never ring true.  Here it feels genuine.
6. Will a secret password really help explain away an unauthorized visit to an arena roof?
7. Alison Pill is always good, but to us the real gem here is Ariel Donoghue who plays Hartnett's daughter with heartbreaking earnestness.
8. Sure can't hurt your music career if dad is a famous movie director.
9. Bonus points for a subplot involving the casual - and sometimes unintentional - cruelty among teenage girls.  The struggle is real.

Ranking M. Night's movies (not counting his first two, pre-Sixth Sense films)
1. The Sixth Sense (1999), obviously
2. Unbreakable (2000) still feels somehow underrated
3. The Visit (2015)
4. Old (2021) is a guilty pleasure for us
5. Signs (2002), despite a very cheesy ending
6. Split (2016)
7. Trap (2024)
8. Knock at the Cabin (2023)
9. The Village (2004)
10 (tied). Lady in the Water (2006) and The Happening (2008) are total misfires

We never saw The Last Airbender, After Earth, or Glass.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Longlegs"

1. The unsettled creepiness of the trailer for this movie did the trick.
2. Nicolas Cage is over the top as usual.  They hid his face - heavy with strange prosthetics - from all the promotional material, which certainly upped the curiosity factor, but what we imagined turned out to be far scarier than what he really looks like.
3. Definite echoes of Silence of the Lambs, of course (newbie female FBI agent brought in on a disturbing serial killer case) but if you're going to steal, steal from the best.
4. The tone of the whole thing just feels... off-kilter.  Eerie.  A low hum of dread. 
5. That doesn't mean the filmmakers are above employing a few traditional jump scares accompanied by a screeching music cue.
6. Lot of long takes and wide angles that makes one anticipate something's about to happen.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it's a fake out.
7. In other words, it's the kind of movie where a character sits alone at night researching scary things (our heroine apparently can't work on this case during the daytime) and the camera's pointed at them in a way that you can see an open window or door behind them.  So you're crawling out of your skin expecting something awful to appear in that window or door.
8. We've never seen Blair Underwood this gritty and terse.  Isn't he usually playing some variation of the suave charmer?
9. Things get stranger and stranger as the story unfolds.  The final reveal about what's exactly been happening with these serial murders is completely nuts.  But that's usually the case with these kinds of things (see also: most of Stephen King's novels).  The set-up is so weird and scary that there's no way to plausibly explain it all away.
10. We discussed the ending with the 15-year-old Fry on the drive home, trying to puzzle out some of the character choices at the end.  We thought we understood the rules of what was happening.  But then maybe not?  We finally decided this sort of movie is about mood more than plot.
11. For us, there's nothing scarier than someone knocking on your front door in the middle of the night.
12. The odd "longlegs" name we think is explained in a quick line of dialogue during the first encounter with the Longlegs character, but we didn't make it out.  He says something about how he didn't bring his long legs.  What the heck.  (UPDATE: apparently, the gag is that he's towering over the little girl he's talking to - using long legs - so he squats down to better communicate.)
13. The film geek in us 100% loved the gimmick of using a square aspect ratio to signal the flashbacks.
14. Obligatory scene of characters exploring a dark, scary place with flashlights.
15. A couple of allusions to T. Rex's "Bang a Gong."  No idea why.
16. If nothing else, it was a memorable experience.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Twisters"

1. Traditional summer popcorn movie.  Whether or not you take that as a recommendation is up to you.
2. Glen Powell is a movie star.  Full stop.  Effortless charm, charisma, and cool.
3. A big sequence midway through depends on the audience believing that a small town in Oklahoma - surely as weather-aware as they come - can be caught totally off guard by the sudden arrival of a tornado.  Textbook definition of "suspension of disbelief."  Tornados don't appear out of nowhere like a boogeyman in the woods.  Forecasters usually know 2 or 3 days in advance that trouble is brewing.
4. We were unfamiliar with director Lee Isaac Chung, but this movie is as polished and slick as they come.
5. Never hide from a tornado under a highway overpass.
6. "If you feel it, chase it!"  If you think about it, that makes no sense.  Better is a line delivered later: "If you're afraid of it, ride it."
7. Is this ragtag community of nomadic screwball tornado chasers really a thing?
8. The most interesting element of the movie - unscrupulous land barons swooping in to take advantage of raw emotions to buy destroyed property at a discount - is so glossed over if you blink you might miss it.
9. Every amateur scientist surely has a giant laboratory in a rural barn, right?
10. Is it me or does Daisy Edgar-Jones look like should could be Anne Hathaway's little sister?
11. We remember seeing the original Twister back in the summer 1996 and liking it a lot, but aside from the crazy ending where (overrated) Helen Hunt and (always underrated) Bill Paxton are inexplicably able to ride out a tornado by hanging on to a standpipe, we don't recall many details.  And, of course, also the flying cow.  Oh, and also the terrifying prologue where Helen's dad gets sucked out of the storm cellar.
12. As a kid, we visited a relative's farm in rural Texas many times that had a storm cellar.  Like something out of The Wizard of Oz, just this set of metal doors set into ground right in the middle of the yard with a little ventilation pipe sticking up.
13. Are there really meteorologists who can just look at the clouds and figure it all out?
14. Some online chatter about whether or Twisters should have featured a character from Twister to make it an official, traditional sequel.  Not necessary.  It's not like these movies are offering some complex narrative tapestry.  (The metal Dorothy gizmos from Twister are featured.)
15. In sum, if you're looking for a movie with lots of tornados causing lots of damage, this is that movie.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: Netflix's "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"

1. Historically, the film snob cinepile is us has avoided commenting on streaming movies.  The local multiplex is where "real" movies belong.  But we're making an exception here.  We get why Netflix would want this sequel, but we can't help but wonder what the box office might have been if it had gone into theaters this July 4 weekend.
2. We were probably too young (12) to see the original Beverly Hills Cop, which was a pretty hard R, despite the humor: bloody violence (the cold-blooded execution of Axel's buddy that kicks the whole movie off was particularly shocking to a young Cheese Fry), extreme profanity, and as a final kicker, a lengthy scene in a strip club.
3. In many ways, the filmmakers have created an 80s action comedy in 2024.  It's all stunts and fights and jokes and cool moments with the barest thread of a plot to string everything together.  They have our respect.
4. Eddie Murphy, of course, has effortless charm and presence.  What has he been doing with himself all these many years?  A quick look at IMDB tells us he's mostly been toiling in streaming titles aside from his work as Donkey in the Shrek movies.  His last theatrical movie may have been Tower Heist all the way back in 2011, which was a pretty good caper movie if you haven't seen it.
5. Aside from Bob Seger's "Shakedown" and Brigitte Neilsen, we have zero recollection of what happened in 1987's Beverly Hills Cop 2.
6. We really didn't fully understand all of the convoluted plot nonsense here with drug smuggling and cargo trucks and nefarious activity at dark, seedy shipping docks.  It's not an 80s cop movie without nefarious activity at dark, seedy shipping docks.  But the mechanics of the plot aren't really what's important in a movie like this.  Everyone wants the Macguffin SD card that will prove the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good.  How and why wasn't completely clear.  But we went with it.
7. Kevin Bacon is in 100% mustache-twirling villain mode.  It suits him.  This is no spoiler.  As soon as he shows up, you'll know he's the Big Bad.  This isn't a movie of subtlety.
8. It's not a Beverly Hills Cop movie unless Axel has to bullshit his way into some exclusive location.  Good stuff.
9. While we appreciate bringing back Billy Rosewood and John Taggart, the actors playing them show their age (Judge Reinhold is 67, John Ashton is 76) in a way that unexpectedly made us face our own mortality.
10. This movie didn't really require a dramatic throughline, but the business with Axel trying to reconcile with his very estranged daughter definitely helped add substance.  Bonus points for really making it seem like their split was Axel's fault.
11. We suppose it was inevitable to bring back Bronson Pinchot's Serge character.  We honestly could have done without.
12. We remember ever less about 1994's Beverly Hills Cop III aside from the fact that it for some reason ended in an amusement park.  Not sure we even saw it in a theater. 
13. It's almost distracting how many different ways the movie arranges and rearranges and orchestrates the famous "Axel F" theme. 
14. Gold star for a pretty solid - and brutal - Beverly Hills street shootout, but we have deduct points for staging the climax in a fancy mansion that is a totally ripoff of the original movie's ending.
15. Way, way more fun than we were expecting.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "A Quiet Place: Day One"

1. It's not exactly what the trailer sold. The question is whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.
2. Rather than an apocalyptic sci-fi horror movie with chases and jump scares, which is what we were expecting (people-eating aliens attack Manhattan!), it's more of a moody character piece about two lost souls finding each other in a time of tragedy (a dying woman finds a reason to live!).  It's not bad for what it ends up being... but it's not the traditional horror movie audiences might be expecting.
3. Even so, there are effective sequences of what might happen if all of Manhattan had to be cut off from the rest of the world.  And the aliens do attack our human heroes more than once, so that box does get checked.
4. We've never encountered a cat that obedient or that interested in helping/paying attention to humans.
5. Djimon Hounsou is always fascinating , no matter what he does.  Apparently, he's reprising his voiceover role from the second movie.
6. We're just not sure if these monsters can sustain a franchise.  Characters try hard to be quiet, then a character makes a noise, then monsters attack.  Is that enough? 
7. The first movie, of course, was top-notch on every level.  A modern classic.
8. There's still something chilling about a New York City scene involving an explosion that covers everyone in white ash.
9. Whatever weirdness was happening in that construction site with the aliens and the eggs and whatnot, it's surely laying the groundwork for A Quiet Place: Week One.

10. Wikipedia tells us that Patsy's Pizza is a real place.  
11. Is the presence of a clickwheel iPod suggesting an early 2000s setting?  We're too lazy to work out the timeline of the original movie to estimate when the original attack was supposed to have happened.  Cool detail, though.

Tweet

Potentially Better Ideas for a "Star Wars" TV Show

We don't hate "The Acolyte," the new Star Wars show that's running now on Disney+.  But we're not exactly excited by it, either.  It's... perfectly fine.  We suspect most fans will admit that only "The Mandalorian" (first season) and "Andor" have truly delivered the goods.  More often, the shows have ranged from "meh" ("Obi-Wan Kenobi") to embarrassing ("The Book of Boba Fett").  We would argue that part of the problem is that Star Wars producers and filmmakers mistakenly assume that the only interesting thing about Star Wars is the Force and the Jedi.  Ugly truth: we barely tolerated the goofy mysticism and pseudo-religious doublespeak of the Force in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

We've proposed this sort of thing in passing before, but now we want to devote a full blog post to it.  Why not transplant traditional TV genres that have proven the test of time into the Star Wars universe?  Don't dismiss this as a joke.  We are 100% serious.  Best of all, these premises will limit Jedi characters and Force usage to limited guest star moments in very special episodes.  And another thing: no more serialized seasons that drag out simple storylines across endless episodes.  Let's get back to the old school stand-alone episodes of yore.

* Blue collar workplace dramedy in an X-wing mechanic shop
* "Law and Order"-style police procedural in Cloud City (we thought "Rangers of the New Republic" might follow this idea before star Gina Carano went off the rails and the show got cancelled)
* Medical drama on the Death Star
* 20-something coming of age romantic comedy in the Rebel base on Hoth
* "Yellowstone"-style family melodrama on an Imperial Star Destroyer
* "West Wing" or "Game of Thrones"-style political intrigue in the Galactic Senate
* Underworld crime thriller set in that Mos Eisley cantina

You're welcome, Disney.

Tweet

1990s Cultural Signifiers

We've read a few books by Chuck Klosterman (Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Chuck Klosterman IV).  He's an interesting author.  He reminds us of that friend we've all had who - often over drinks at a too-hip bar that they, of course, suggested - seems way smarter and erudite than the menial dead-end job they always seem to be working.  Klosterman has an opinion about everything and states those opinions with steely conviction, but his sentences can be so unwieldy and pretzel-twisty that we often feel like he's talking over our head.  And so we have no choice but to nod sagely as if we agree lest we admit we're rubes who can't follow him.  That said, it's a rare thing indeed to find an author who's so clearly thought this long and hard and deep about a subject that might seem trivial to other historians and essayists: pop culture.

In his book The Nineties Klosterman notes that marking decades can't be done on the calendar - they should be bookended through how the culture perceives that decade.  He argues that the 1990s started with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 (although he suggests that the 80s vibe may not have truly faded until 1991 or so) and ended with the September 11 attacks in 2001.  He further suggests that the Bush-Gore election in 2000 and that first year of the Bush presidency in 2001 were essentially an extension 1990s "so what?" ambivalence.  Times were pretty good and life was dull, the internet and smartphones hadn't yet turned everything upside down.

More interesting, though, is the idea Klosterman threads through the book that there will always be a disconnect between how you remember something happening and how it really was when it was actually happening.  That is, when you look back at the more dramatic turns of history from the vantage point of the present day, it can be easy to wonder how could that have possibly happened when at the time what happened seemed perfectly logical and wholly unsurprising.

Aside from all of this fancy philosophizing about the 1990s, why they were the way they were, and how we now remember them, we found pleasure simply following Klosterman as he wound his way through the decade ruminating on a number of people, places, and things that we'd forgotten about (or almost forgotten about).  We experienced a great many fizzy and nostalgic "oh yeah! we remember that!" moments. 

Here's a list of 1990s signifiers in no particular order.

* Political correctness
* Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill
* Clarence Thomas' 1991 Supreme Court confirmation
* Reality Bites
* Prozac Nation
* Grunge
* Ross Perot running for president
* The Gulf War - broadcast live on CNN
* Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction
* Star 69
* Windows 95
* Michael Jordan playing baseball
* Zima
* Dolly the cloned sheep
* Biosphere 2
* MTV's "The Real World"
* The Matrix
* Oprah Winfrey
* Titanic
* The all-purple "alternative" adjective
* The Blair Witch Project
* Eminem
* "The X Files"
* Generation X
* The long cardboard boxes CD used to come in
* George H.W. Bush
* The Unabomber
* Broadway's Rent
* 70s nostalgia ("That 70s Show," Dazed and Confused)
* Napster
* The rise of the internet (AOL and dial-up modems)
* Kurt Cobain suicide
* The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal and impeachment
* Pauly Shore
* Jurassic Park
* "Achy Breaky Heart"
* Oklahoma City bombing
* Rodney King video
* Falling Down
* The Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home run chase in 1998
* Y2K hysteria
* VHS tapes and Blockbuster Video
* Nirvana's Nevermind
* Tiger Woods
* The OJ murder trial
* American Beauty
* NBC's Thursday night "Must See TV" lineup
* The Columbine school shooting
* The Matrix
* The word "queer"
* Kids
* 1994 baseball strike and cancelled World Series

A word about that cover photo.  We had that clear Princess-style phone in our college bedroom.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "The Fall Guy"

1. What a mess.
2. There's a couple of mildly amusing twists at the end (that we really should have seen coming), but overall we pretty much hated it.  Constantly rolling our eyes and checking our watch.  We thought it might never end.
3. And then the 12-year-old looked at us as the credits rolled - eyes sparkling - "That was really good."  We're such a grumpy ogre.
4. Pretty much every element of the movie felt misguided and/or inept.
5. What worked was Ryan Gosling's charm as he fumbled through the mystery plot.  The movie toyed with a "fish out of water" vibe as this kind of goofy Hollywood stunt man wandered into a pretty dark criminal underworld.  But the movie never really committed to it.  Instead, we kept having to go back to the romance subplot and the movie set where Emily Blunt was directing a big action movie.  That was a big problem because...
6. The scenes with Blunt were deadly, dragging everything to a dead stop.  We'd have never guessed she could be this dull and unlikable.  At times we were wondering why Gosling had any interest in her.  There's one especially awkward sequence where she cruelly tortures and humiliates him on the set in front of everyone just to get back at him for some pretty typical bad-boyfriend-type behavior.
7. It some ways The Fall Guy seemed to want to be a romantic comedy as these two estranged lovers figured out how to get back together.  But for that to work you need laughs.  All of those endlessly talky scenes with Gosling and Blunt were completely humorless.  Those moments played more like an overcooked Lifetime drama, totally out of whack with the screwball lunacy of the action scenes.
8. There's also a weird moment when Gosling shows he can fight, but it's completely undercut because he'd just been drugged by the bad guys and so the movie adds in this weird "I'm hallucinating!" animation stuff as it's happening so we weren't sure if he was really this good at fighting (it could have been funny if the stunt guy didn't know how to really fight) or if he was just imagining it.  This is a perfect example of how the movie likes to go for the fun gag at the expense of a clear and coherent story.
9. Like we said.  A mess. 
10. Then there's this painfully convoluted bit where the plot of the movie Blunt's making has parallels to what really happened with Blunt and Gosling's characters (did Blunt's character write the script?).  It doesn't work at all, but they keep going back to it and using the movie plot to work out their own romance. Clearly, the filmmakers think this element is very clever.  
11. All they really kept from the old 1980s TV show was the name Colt Seavers (which is pretty badass), his big pickup truck, his stunt man job, and the theme song.
12. We saw the negative reviews.  But we went anyway.  A lot of critics really don't like director David Leitch (who used to be a stunt man), but we thought 2017's Atomic Blonde and 2022's Bullet Train were a lot of fun.  The issue may be that he knows how to handle hard-boiled action (Atomic Blonde) and/or snarky action (Bullet Train) but is still figuring out more "realistic" romantic elements.
13. We don't want to get too inside baseball, but most of the Hollywood stuff felt completely phony and forced on multiple levels.  Most glaring: in the middle of a multi-million dollar action movie production, the director and the crew unwind with drinks at a karaoke bar?  It's not even dark outside when they go.  Another example: the swanky hotel suite where the lead actor is staying is full of props and posters from his past movies.  So he had all of that shipped to Australia for a three-month shoot?  Little things like that can make one go crazy.
14. Bonus points for the Lee Majors cameo at the end.  We didn't even recognize Heather Thomas in her cameo in the same scene.
15. It's hard to fathom that all of the talented filmmakers and seasoned studio executives saw how this movie was shaping up and didn't step in to fix it.  Or maybe this is the improved version of the original idea?
16. Avoid.

Tweet

Ten Musical Artists We've Been Obsessed with at One Point *

* In alphabetical order.  Cringe factor is in the red on the some of these.  Please don't judge us.

1. Kelly Clarkson
2. The (Dixie) Chicks
3. The Doors
4. Explosions in the Sky
5. Heart
6. Don Henley
7. Ivy
8. Madonna
9. Alanis Morissette
10. Van Halen

Tweet

Notes on Watching the "Alien" Rerelease with a 14-Year-Old

This year marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Alien.  To commemorate the occasion, last weekend the movie was re-released in theaters.  We were surprised that the 14-year-old seemed interested in watching it.

* Teen girls in our part of town treat moviegoing like a sleepover.  Slippers, baggy hoodies, sweatpants, a fuzzy blanket.  When you're all cuddled up like that in a plush leather Cinemark chair - that's heated, no less - in a cold movie theater, it's not surprising that you might get a little drowsy.  Fifteen minutes into the movie, we get a whispered "I'm getting sleepy."

* Concessions report: Diet Dr Pepper with cherry and vanilla for us, blue Icee for the 14-year-old.  No popcorn, no candy.

* The folks behind this re-release clearly assumed that anyone buying a ticket has already seen the movie.  And so before the movie they screen a 15-minute featurette with Alien director Ridley Scott talking to the director of this summer's new Alien sequel.  And of course, we get lots of Alien clips that spoils good chunks of the movie.  Cue exasperated sighs and groans from the 14-year-old.

* Was the 14-year-old the youngest audience member?  Probably.  There was a family there and the boy may have been 12.

* We agree that the first act of Alien - pretty much everything until the alien gets into the ship - is slow.  We tried to warn the 14-year-old.  We found that chunk of movie slow when we first watched it thirty years ago.  That measured build-up, however, is no match for Zoomers raised on endless scrolls of bite-sized TikTok videos.

* After John Hurt has his big moment at the dining table, 14-year-old asks "Is that guy dead?"  Yes.  Yes, he is.

* We did not go full geek and wear our Nostromo T-shirt.

* The movie got the 14-year-old good on the jump scare when Tom Skeritt's in the dark air vent trying to figure out where the alien is - we know it's closing in but we're not sure from where - and he swings his flashlight around behind him... and the alien is right there!  Eek!

* The 14-year-old's assessment in the hallway outside the theater: "It was okay."  That's pretty high praise actually from someone who often thinks anything made before 2010 is dusty ancient history.

* The next day, when asked what were her favorite parts, the 14-year-old could think of two: when Sigourney Weaver blew the alien into space and when android Ian Holm's creepy white sweat first appeared.

* For the record, the 14-year-old loved James Cameron's Aliens sequel.  As any decent American would.

Tweet

Knee-jerk review: "Civil War"

1. Fantastic.
2. There are reports out there suggesting that this movie is apolitical, that it's focus is on the challenges journalists face covering a war zone rather than explaining which side in the war is "right."  That's true up to a point.  The third act definitely draws some parallels to real world politics as the action converges on Washington DC.
3. The "What kind of American are you?" sequence is absolutely chilling.  That alone is worth the price of admission.  Aren't we all just one kind of American?
4. Kirsten Dunst is probably underrated as an actress.  She looks more haggard and worldly here than we can remember ever seeing her.  It suits her.
5. We're glad there are people who want to go (unarmed!) into dangerous situations like this to record and report on what's really going on in the trenches.  But to do this sort of work, you have to have a screw loose.  It's just not normal to stand passively by and record and report on horrible crimes and violence as they happen right in front of you.  To its credit, the movie doesn't shy away from that fact.  There's an adrenaline junkie vibe to some of this; it's not all altruistic All the President's Men truth-seeking.
6. It's hard to screw up a road movie structure.  They almost always work.  You have a third act destination to work towards, which then provides a second act framework for all these little moments and vignettes along the way to ramp up the conflict and develop character.
7. Likewise, you really can't ever go wrong with a story that tells a variation of the seasoned mentor teaching (and also learning from) the inexperienced newcomer.
8. If you don't think this sort of chaotic, lawless conflict can happen here, you're pretty naive.
9. We understand why Kirsten Dunst's character had to finish the story the way she did, but how it happens felt very phony.  Which was disappointing in a movie that otherwise worked so hard to seem plausible.  This moment may be our only real criticism.
10. Ms. Cheese Fry really wanted more explanation for how and why this civil war started, but we very much liked the "fog of war" ambiguity.  Does it matter who started the war when you're in the thick of it just trying to survive?  This was also another interesting way to explore the mercenary nature of war zone journalism.  They don't care who did what to who or why.  The point is the story and the photos.  Covering a gunfight in Middle America is the same covering one in Haiti or Ukraine.
11. Writer-director Alex Garland's 2014 film Ex Machina is pretty much a sci-fi masterpiece.  Go find it and watch it if you haven't seen it.  This one may not be as polished as Ex Machina but it's a very close second.  
12. For the record, last night we watched Garland's 2018 film Annihilation for the first time.  We cannot recommend it.  Visually interesting we'd have to admit, but a slow slog that really doesn't go anywhere.
13. As we sit here and type, there are so many other angles and layers from Civil War to be discussed.  That's a sign of true art.
14. No matter your politics, you may queasy like we did watching American soldiers hunting the President.
15. It must have been quite the negotiation for real-world culture enemies Texas and California to team up and form the film's Western Forces. Their flag has two stars alongside the red and white stripes, which was a nice visual touch.
16. Another great sequence: "Who are you taking orders from?"
17. Not many films can be considered Important with a capital I.  This one feels like it is.

Tweet

Twenty Things We Love

The Cheese Fry has been at times labeled a cynical, negative, pessimistic misanthrope.  Often, that's totally fair.  But just because we like to complain doesn't mean we hate everything.  We do occasionally feel happy.  Submitted, then, for your approval are twenty things we absolutely love.

1. Richard Linklater's 1993 movie Dazed and Confused
2. Ice cold Dr Pepper in a glass bottle
3. Having the local broadcast of the hometown baseball game playing in the background on a weekend afternoon (runner up: playing the broadcast of golf in the background)
4. Being at the very back of a long left-turn line but still getting through the intersection before the green arrow turns yellow
5. Neneh Cherry's 1988 song "Buffalo Stance"
6. Cheddar fries from Snuffer's (bacon, chives, jalapenos on the side)
7. CBS' "The Price Is Right"
8. That cozy stretch of autumn from Halloween to Christmas
9. Film director Steven Soderbergh
10. Seeing a 90% or more battery change on our iPhone
11. The look and smell of a freshly mowed yard
12. The Hollywood and Vermont episodes of "I Love Lucy"
13. Larry McMurtry's 1985 novel Lonesome Dove
14. Playing Madden football on a PlayStation console
15. Wandering the aisles of a bookstore with money to spend
16. Our old second-floor apartment on La Brea Avenue
17. NBC's original recipe "Law and Order"
18. Our subscription to SiriusXM satellite radio
19. Disneyland
20. Watching a new movie opening weekend in a cold, mostly empty multiplex auditorium

Tweet