How Bad Can Movies Be?: “The Open House” and “The Circle”

         I just finished watching the Netflix film “The Open House.” One thing good to report is that it is only an hour and thirty-seven minutes long. The plot: There's this financially strapped family made up of dad, mom and son. Dad gets run down by a car that is speeding in an alley. Mom now can’t afford the mortgage. Mom’s rather odd sister says use our house in the California mountains, but remember it is for sale so you’ll have to leave during open houses. They move there and meet a weird old woman at the local store. What crap might she be foretelling?  Got me.  They get to the house. Weird things happen. No reason. Uninteresting. Idiotic. Things get bad for mom, son.  There one friend gets his throat slit Then things get really bad for mom and son. I mean really bad. The Awful Ending all because of the open house?  I don't know.  There's no purpose. No reason. Dare I say, no logical motivation. It is a movie that shouts out “why was I ever made?” Why did you watch it, Greg? Because I am a sucker for scary movies. They can even be bad scary movies. But they must be bad/good! This was just plain bad/bad!

       Now “The Circle,” available on Amazon Prime, stars A-list talents Tom Hanks and Emma Watson. When those two watched the finished film they helped create, they must have run screaming from the screening.  It is the embarrassingly terrible tale of a sweet, bright young woman (Emma) who takes a job at vast tech/social media company run by a Steve Jobs-like, super-cool CEO (Tom).  The company (The Circle) is manufacturing a mini-cam system which will keep an eye on every single person in the world. No more bad people because everyone is traceable with facial recognition in the mini-cams. Pretty soon governments are requiring their citizens to wear these cams. No more crime. Everyone votes. Yada! Yada! And sweet, bright Emma, rather than being the hero that brings this ridiculous idea down, champions it. Ludicrously she goes from data enterer to the new CEO of the company. Two characters who were introduced early seem to be the ones that will show her the error of her ways. Nope! They both just disappear. Emma and the Circle take over the world.  There are two embarrassingly bad scenes. One when Emma’s mom and dad are caught in a sad sex scene involving a pump that is seen by the whole world, and two, the final scene, which made me want to shout, “Emma, fall out of that kayak and sink!"  When I finished watching "The Circle," I considered going back and watching the last half hour, thinking I had missed something that would give some logic to this blundering, tiny brained, stegosaurus of a movie. But I couldn’t stand the thought of it.

Doughnuts and Slavery

A couple years ago I did a post about a time many years gone by when I was teaching, and the student council was having a home room competition for something or other. The poster advertising the competition said that whatever homeroom won would receive "Three Dozen Dognuts." It's a great, funny memory. I saw another interesting and somehow wonderful poster last weekend when we went to watch a basketball game at a local high school. Not Chittenango. As I was walking through the gym area lobby, I saw a small poster which had a little picture of a cupcake and read "Bake Sale to Raise Money to Combat Human Trafficking." Talk about a challenge. Kind of like "Pea Shooters Needed to Take Down Rogue Elephants." Still it seemed so sincere and nice. Here are some safe, protected kids trying to do something about an unbelievably heinous crime. When you can't hire Liam Neeson, you go with the baked goods. I loved that poster. Dognuts for all!

Archie Andrews, Child of the Dark Side!

When I was a kid I loved comic books.  The market wasn’t flooded with superheroes then, so my favorites were the Dell Mickey Mouse/Bugs Bunny comics based on movie cartoons, Dennis the Menace comics based on the newspaper comic strip, and Archie Comics, an eponymous label about teenager Archie Andrews and the innocent, fun-loving denizens of the town of Riverdale.  When I heard last year that the CW, the network that aims at the youthful demographics, (18-49 years old), was airing a series called RIVERDALE based on the Archie comics, I just had to watch.    Even if I was out of the age range.  I have watched.  Let me tell you the CW’s RIVERDALE isn’t like any Archie comic you read in your well-spent or misspent youth.

In the new RIVERDALE,the characters, although physically resembling those of the past, are nothing like their cartoon predecessors.  Archie played by KJ Apa is a bulked up, 21st century version of the cartoon character with an up-to-date hairstyle.  Remember how cartoon Archie had those weird curls atop his head. No more.  And, not only does the beautiful, raven-haired Veronica Lodge, played by Camila Mendes, have wealthy parents, but her father Hiram made that wealth as a cold-blooded crime boss.  In the comics, Jughead was only concerned about pursuing a hamburger.  On RIVERDALE, Jughead is a fearless laptop-wielding student journalist writing for a school that apparently has no editorial taboos and is also a member of a motorcycle gang for which his often imprisoned father was once president.  He still wears the weird beanie, though.  Now, I think the TV Betty is my favorite character.  Lili Reinhart really looks like Betty, especially when she has her tied back in the signature ponytail.  She’s sweet, cute, and vulnerable as a good Betty should be.  Still, she is a tough young woman, a journalist like Jughead, and she’s not afraid to do battle with the psycho killer who stalks the Riverdale streets. She also often crosses pens with her nasty mother who is the editor of the local Riverdale paper as well as having a lot of nasty words with her at home.  As to some of the other characters of import in the comics, Reggie Mantle has a limited role in the show but is the go-to-guy if you need steroids.  Dilton Doily, comic book nerd, is now a potential serial killer.  And Miss Grundy, the old maid school teacher of years gone by, is now a hot, 20-something music teacher who teaches Archie a lot more than chords on his guitar.  (Miss Grundy was a short-term character in the show.  She got murdered already.)

Comic book Betty and Veronica were both always trying for romance with Archie.  Usually Veronica was successful.  That’s the case in the TV show, too.  Archie and new-girl-in-town Veronica fall for each other and go, as they used to say in the 50‘s, all-the-way!  (They probably still say it.) In the TV show Betty also has an in-depth relationship, really in-depth, with Jughead. . . although there’s still that sense that Betty would rather be with the red-headed kid.  Poor Betty.

The producers pulled some actors from 90’s kid-oriented TV shows to play the grown-ups in RIVERDALE.  BEVERLY HILLS 90210’s Luke Perry is Fred Andrews, Archie’s hard-working dad, Molly Ringwald of SIXTEEN CANDLES and PRETTY IN PINK is Archie’ ginger-topped mom, Skeet Ulrich, one of the two killers in SCREAM plays Jughead’s dad, and Madchen Amick of TWIN PEAKS is Betty’s mom, Alice Cooper.  (Was Mrs. Cooper really named Alice in the comics?)

I happily admit that I usually enjoy this show.  The young actors are great looking and fun to watch and just serious enough in their portrayals not to make the characters seem silly.  A scandal in the old Archie comics might have involved gold fish in the punchbowl at the prom.  On the CW, Season 1 dealt with, among other dark things, sexual abuse and football players, and Season 2 with an vengeance-seeking killer bent on murdering everyone in Riverdale who ever sinned.  Now that’s a big job no matter what town you are talking about.  Does this sound silly?  Does it sound like too much of a stretch?  Maybe. . . still I recommend RIVERDALE.  Watch it once, and if you hate it, never come back to this comic town again, but you very well might like it.  Care to try?  Season 1 is on Netflix and Season 2 is probably still on demand.--Greg Ellstrom