Imagine you’ve spent a distinguished career as a respected journalist, and you finally get a shot to appear in a feature film alongside Bob Schieffer and Chris Matthews and HARRISON FORD!
You’d be thinking, I’m golden, I got me some cinematic gold dust to sprinkle on my career.
Unfortunately, the movie is a miserable mess called Morning Glory, the dreaded romantic comedy that has neither believable romance or laughable comedy. Yes, it’s that catnip called a date movie that every male attends knowing in the back of his mind that it will be disappointing, but holding optimistic hope that he may be fooled.
No such luck here. This sucker never gets airborne.
The plot is this: a perky producer played by Rachel McAdams is fired from her job working for a morning show in New Jersey. She’s down, she’s out, even her mom loses faith in her dream. Wah wah wahhhhhh.
But you can’t keep a dreamer down. No, she gets an interview with the lowest ranked morning show on a national network– staffed with a dysfunctional crew and egomaniacal anchors, including an ex-Miss Arizona beauty queen played by Diane Keaton. Rachel gets hired as executive producer by boss man Jeff Goldblum. Hooray for the goodness and dreaming!
The perky producer begins shaking things up. She fires one anchor (leaving Diane Keaton in her role) and hires a new anchor, a curmudgeonly legendary newsman who has a network contract that says he HAS to take any job offered. This guy is played by a sleepwalking Harrison Ford.
Now imagine what sort of wacky hijinks might ensue with a lightweight female anchor (Keaton) and a heavyweight newsman anchor (Ford) who despise each other. I guarantee anything you imagined is better and funnier than what writer Aline Brosh McKenna imagined in her screenplay.
The entire film is plodding, poorly directed and paced by Roger Michell, and ultimately as satisfying as having a popcorn kernel wedged between two teeth. I had that dreaded condition during my screening and it did distract me a bit from the pain of viewing this hateful little film.
The scene with Morley, Bob, Chris and Harrison is one in which the pompous newsman is on a bender and out with his newsmen pals, and his perky producer comes to make him behave.
A pity Morley Safer had to be a part of such an embarrassing mess. He may want to go to a war zone to make himself feel better and atone for appearing in Morning Glory.
As for you, considered yourself fairly warned.
I admire your bravery, Patrick, but also wonder if you’re sane. Every film critic in America wrote a stinko review of Morning Glory. But what do you do? You take your hard-earned money and go to the damned thing. And you probably sat there until the end of the credits. All I can say is, you must love Milk Duds and large bags of stale pre-popped movie popcorn. Because why else would you go see a Hollywood turkey on or around T-Day?
(P.S. Hope you got the popcorn kernel out from between your teeth.)
(P.P.S. Don’t worry about Morley. His paycheck probably cleared.)
I know, I know, Curvin.
Love is a strong emotion. My wife thought it would be a “fun” movie to see. “Something light,” she said.
Ebert gave the damn thing a B+ in his syndicated column. I usually like Ebert’s taste.
He was wrong. Dead wrong.
Yes, I knew I was walking into an ambush of bad celluloid, but I did it for love.
The good news is even my wife agreed it sucked horribly, meaning I have some chits to play on the next movie recommendation.
I did get the kernel cleared. Unfortunately, clearing the stench of “Morning Glory” from my mind may take longer.
Has anyone invented ‘mental floss’ yet?
Mental floss? Check with Sarah Palin. I think she owns the North American franchise.
You’re a good man, Patrick. Mental floss? Start signing “It’s a Small World.” I’ll get you started.
“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears. It’s a world of hope and a world of tears. There’s so much that we share that it’s time we’re aware it’s a small world after all…”
I know that song, Miss Kitty! But until you reminded me about it, I’d forgotten all about it. Now I’ll be humming the damn thing quietly for weeks and weeks. Arrghhh!
Lovely Miss K, you miss wish to have the nuns begin a series of novenas for what you have done.
Inflicting that song on others is the devil’s work. May God have mercy on your soul…
God did his work by making me the journeyman artist on the pink and green papier mache hippo on that ride at Disneyland.
I heard that song approximately eleventy squillion times, sung by the gurgling mermaids, while it was being installed by the imagineers (the rationale I use for my many signs of mental illness).
All together now. . .
Is this true? If so, Miss Kitty Kat-Kat, you may be eligible for combat pay and serious damages.
I once worked at a store where there was a display set up with an endless audio loop playing Ray Stevens song “The Streak” in hopes of selling albums of Ray’s hilarious recordings. Although I only swept the floor in the vicinity of that audio hell, I feel it did serious damage to me and may have been somewhat responsible for my unfortunate 8-year journey as a nudist in a clothed world.
Music is sometimes the enemy.
No purgatory for us, Patrick. We done did our time.
Amen, sister, amen!