Auteur Watch - Darwood Grace

Oh good!  Another short one.  Not that I don't love auteurs, mind you.  But I think our next auteur, Darwood Grace, has some room to grow.  For what does make an auteur?  What separates the wheat from the chaff, the Nick Chapmans from the Jonathan Tristan-Bennets of the world?  How many critically acclaimed films does it take to make an auteur?  The answer, my friends, is It's a Lot... a film co-directed by Grace!  And that's another issue as well.  It's not "co"-auteurs yet.  An auteur is still a lone wolf... okay, supported by cast and crew, if they're lucky.  You gotta be careful not to, as Chris Rock says, a-hole your way out of the biz.  It's even more unpopular these days, what with all the powerful men getting kicked off their various pedestals left and right and what not.
But let's try to focus on the banner headline here.  From what little information I can find on It's a Lot, it seems to be a variation on the House Party movies.  Boy, those were the days.  Someone's made a mint off that series, and it's probably not Kid 'n Play.  But that seems to be the story of Darwood's professional life.  Each movie sounds like another movie.  Darwood is still struggling with the acting bug, and has three credits to his online résumé.  Anuvahood sounds a bit like Ali G Indahouse.  Cab Hustle seems to be a variation on Taxi Driver.  And then we have Limelight... sorry, that's the 1952 Charlie Chaplin classic, recently played on Turner Classic Movies.  No, the one I mean is called The Limelight.  Totally different, completely opposite.  Darwood plays "Mugger" in that one... notice how the IMDb will number a person's link in the cast list.  Darwood is eighth in this particular list, but is second in Anuvahood!  He's third in Cab Hustle, so thank God he's always near the top in whatever project he's in.  No, The Limelight centers on the life of an aging comedian, whose name is Garry Shandling... I'm sorry, it's actually Gary Shand.  Totally opposite, completely different.  And like Chaplin's Limelight, Glen Maney and John Robson's The Limelight clocks in at two hours and 13 minutes... are you guys TRYING to bore people to death?  Well, ARE you?!!!

The Low Spark of Well-Heeled Boys

...miss me yet?  Well, I'll be the first to admit: I'm not the biggest Will Ferrell fan.  But maybe I was just in a good mood a few nights ago.  Did they say he crushed it on "SNL" as the kids abbreviate it these days?  Because I think he did.  Keepin' it ironic, of course, for the all-important Jaded Hipster demographic.  And like me, he's got a thing about all this reality TV, the massive flood of it, which has left all of TV-dom standing in three inches of standing water.  Especially the part where people do interviews about what's about to be shown.  My favourite of course is on "Pawn Stars" when the main guy always says "If this is what I think it is, then it is going to be worth a ton of money."  This was before a 'ton' was called a 's... ton'.  Hard to keep the internet clean, I tells you.
But what else is in the news?  Well, of course Steve Wynn is the latest loser in the "Who's a Sexual Predator Now" sweepstakes.  They only kicked him off the RNC, of course.  It's more of an honorary title, really.  I tells you darlings, if enough of these billionaires get publicly humiliated like this, on Trump's watch... maybe those all-secretive tax returns will finally see the light of day!  I know it's asking a lot.  Silly me, for some reason I thought the recent revelation that Mitch McConnell was able to force Obama into not revealing that Trump is actually a Russian agent would get more traction, but whatever.  I know his constituents don't care.  They like Russia now!  Sure it's cold, and sure, only Putin gets to enjoy the Russian equivalent of the Second Amendment over there, but what's not to like?  There's hardly any black people in Russia!  They like that!  I know that, because Chelsea Handler went over there to look into it.
Anyway, the #1 movie this week is the latest installment of The Maze Runner saga.  They can make a saga out of anything these days, as long as it's selling a lot in paperback.  Is the Divergent series over yet?  Do they have the Blu-Rays for it at Costco yet?  I know they're still limping along to get the C. S. Lewis series of six books turned into, as David Letterman might have quipped sometime in the past, "your genuine Hollywood blockbusters."  I'm still trying to decide which still pic to go with: something from Pan's Labyrinth or from Jim Henson's Labyrinth.  I swear I have the former someplace, if only on external hard drive.  I can still do something with it thanks to Windows 10, if I can find it.  I'm on vacation next week, so this will have to wait for a while.
...and I'm back!  Well, as you can see, I've skipped over the labyrinth debate rather completely, and maybe side-stepped it as well.  For you see, in my travels I stumbled quite across an old copy of 2003's Dreamcatcher.  Stephen King has had many successes in his career, as have Lawrence Kasdan and Castle Rock Entertainment... this is not one of them.  But really, what is the definition of success?  Dictionary.reference.com defines it as ... well, it has many definitions, really.  There's of course the usual American stuff: the attainment of wealth and honors... but really, it's all about the wealth.  More generally, it's the completing of goals, and having them turn out as you'd prefer them to.  Well, one of the achievements that moviemakers hope to achieve is when a person says to their friends, "You remember that one scene in that movie where..."  Or, more generally, to be remembered at all.  Like the movie The Spitfire Grill.  Whatever happened to that movie?  Did it vanish from the face of the earth or what?  Or what about Off Beat?  Thankfully, the movie Dreamcatcher hasn't totally vanished... okay, I'll tell you where I was.  And, incidentally, you can triangulate my location at the time from my credit card records.  I stumbled across it in the DVD section of my local Goodwill(TM) store.  Sure, it was a STANDARD copy, not widescreen, but hey!  American consumers about two or three steps above outright beggars can't be choosers, right?  The scene I remembered from Dreamcatcher was this one somewhere in the middle, where there's a flashback to the main characters' collective youth.  You can sense they were going for sort of a Stand By Me vibe... only different.  The difference in the case of Dreamcatcher is that the heroes stumble across a couple of jocks trying to get a wimpy kid to eat a dog turd.  As you can see, the jock is wearing a glove to protect his hand from the dog turd.  Make a note of that, as you just might find yourselves in a similar situation someday.  But like everyone else who strives to make an impression on the Internet these days, I had to try and do something different.  Brought to you by Dairy Queen.  D.Q. something different!  I had to go and be different and digitally change the dog turd in the jock's be-gloved hand.  I went ahead and turned it orange... I forget why.  Okay, I've said enough... but I could probably keep typing for hours!

Auteur Watch - Louis Gossett Jr.

That's right, time for Sgt. Foley himself, and he's not in a van down by the river either!  Welp, as usual, a man's IMDb Top 4 doesn't tell the whole story... or does it?  I do know for a fact that one of the projects that Gossett Jr. was particularly fond of didn't make it into his IMDb Top 4, and that one's called Aces: Iron Eagle III.  I haven't seen many interviews with him, but I believe he went on Dennis Miller's first TV show.  This was the first show after Dennis got the idea that, hey!  People know me from "Saturday Night Live," why not make the move to replace Johnny Carson?  How hard could that be?  Long story short: harder than he thought.  And of course the cast and crew involved with Aces: Iron Eagle III took a long, hard look at the changing late-night landscape of post-Carson times, and said "Hmm!  Dennis Miller!  That's the show we should go for!  Not the ruthless Kushnick-fueled new guy taking over for Carson.  That won't last.  That's going nowhere."  I didn't do my research, I guess is what I'm trying to say.  But if you have some free time, this might be a good place to start!  YouTube's got everything.  Having a working server farm doesn't hurt, either.
But when you've been in the business of show as long as a Louis Gossett Jr. has, you're bound to look about the desolate landscape around you and think to yourself, "There's GOT to be a better way."  And sometimes you've just got to be your own Bill McKay.  No bus driving for Gossett Jr.!  No sir.  No, the director's chair is the chair to sit in.  Took a while to build up to it; took a few night courses and correspondence courses... the nosey noses out there keep track of such things, you know.  Who's taking what class, who's trying to better themselves.  They keep an eye out, and they don't like it, because they want things to stay the way they are, those Nosey Noses.  But Gossett Jr... I'll just stick with Gossett for short... Gossett hung in there, and the right opportunity came along.  A little show called "The Powers of Matthew Star," and... no?  No one?  Well, it was just before Steven E. de Souza struck gold by doing movies instead of bad television.  And Gossett got used to these Bagger Vance-type roles a long time ago; he could do them in his sleep, with the occasional An Officer and a Gentleman to put a little sadistic twist on them, so he figured, hey!  A 22 episode commitment... SOMEONE'S gotta direct this garbage!  And he was off and running... sure, it would become the lowest-rated episode in the Internet age, but STILL!  He could now add "Director" to his pile of hats.
Well, that first foray into directing was so rewarding, such a learning experience, so much to learn about dealing with cast and crew in that way, as well as the producers, those... those many, many levels of producers above everyone's heads.  They're like the choir of angels, they are, with their many powers and wings, and their specialized names and specialities... it was all a little too much, actually.  Most people, present company included, when trying to learn certain subjects, whether it's math, underwater basket weaving, or directing for film and television, need time to step back and let the mind stew and do its thing... IN PEACE.  Most of us don't have photographic memories that can be organized like closet space.  Weird, weird, weird.  But eventually that second opportunity to direct came.  Time had passed, it was the late 90s and millennium fever was at an all time high.  He wasn't recognized on the street as much as he used to be, and "Love Songs" came across his desk.  Most people had passed on it, and all of Gossett's agents advised him to pass as well... but, let's think a minute!  Maybe working with Robert Townsend wouldn't be so bad.  Sure, the rumors were true that he'd always fall behind schedule, spending too much time reminiscing about how much fun Hollywood Shuffle was to make, how none of the Wayans family would return his calls anymore, the usual stuff.  But Gossett was feeling lucky, and he would take control of this project by co-directing it.  A little less pressure than full-on directing by one's self.  Eventually, it all came together, and Andre Braugher also came on as a director.  Now, I know what you're thinking... the nerd from that Civil War movie?  Really?  Seriously?  Well, first of all.. stop that, for one.  Stop saying "really" and "seriously" together like that.  It's not powerful anymore.  It's supposed to disarm your opponent in conversation.  Second, this kid's got chops.  Sure, his actor friends still give him sh... grief about his work in... what's it called?  Striking Distance, that's it.  You know, crap like "What did you say when they offered you that part?  Did you say 'Oh, YES, Massa!  I act real good!'"  But I've said too much already.

Cinema Strong

Not by much, but ONCE AGAIN the Jumanji reboot is Top of the Heap this weekend!  I haven't seen anything like it since... well, Home Alone, Titanic and the first Avatar went the distance.  Fourteen weeks seems to be about how long the American people can tolerate a blockbuster these days.  You'd probably have to go back to Jaws or the first Star Wars to see how many weeks it was at #1.  Sadly, I can't sing that Queen song anymore with any believability.  Anyway, maybe it's too early to call it... People's Choice Award?  Oscar for Special Effects?  Fresh contract negotiations for Tenacious D?  Budget information may be gone from the IMDb, but they still have an Awards section!  Apparently, however, no Golden Globe for Jumanji... maybe the sequel.  There has to be at this point.  The ship has sailed on Polar Express 2, I think.  Besides, that MoCap studio got shut down, right?  After Mars Needs Moms, everyone involved was just too humiliated to continue.  But you would think that reconstituting a MoCap studio wouldn't be too hard.  What do you got?  One giant green screen room, and you got a bunch of nerds and geeks together and... oh, right.  That could be a problem.  You get a bunch of computer programmers and a bunch of computer network specialists in a room together, look out.  No work will get done, of course.  The first day it's nothing but Dr. Who discussions, maybe some of that "Han Solo Shot First" crap.  These people think they're God's gifts, but don't have the stock options to prove it yet.
Anyway, back to the national stories that the video-jaded public deigned to step out of the house for this weekend.  First up, the latest post 9-11 sausage fest, fresh from the "Recently Declassified" bin called 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers.  Well, that's a bit of a mouthful... 12 Strong it is.  'Tis based on a book, but it's not boring like one!  Where's the visual delights?  Where's the New Mexico filling in for Afghanistan?  And is it really going to spill the beans on why George W. Bush suddenly lost interest in getting Bin Laden, and instead turned his attention towards Saddam's Iraq?  To be fair, Saddam did try to kill Dubya's daddy.  He told me so!  Okay, and the rest of the world, but just the one time... he doesn't like to talk about it.  Now Mother Nature's havin' a go at it.  Anyway, Michael Peña is just happy to be back in the Top 10 again, especially after a big stinky bomb like CHiPs.  He's happy to be back, but not in a supporting role, though.  What's a guy gotta do to get a lead role UP IN THIS BITCH?  Maybe it's too early to say it, but... a Spike Award for Peña?  Oh, the work's just that good this go-round.
Coming in at #3 is the latest Luc Besson-ish Now You See Me-type deal and it's called Den of Thieves.  And despite Bill Maher's occasional protestations, Gerard Butler is indeed the star of this star vehicle.  Yes, the Machine Gun Preacher is back and... too late for another Spike award?  But really, it would be a retroactive award for that one scene in 300, you know... well, I've said too much.  Try as I might, I just can't keep my weekly brain dump family-friendly.  Can't fight it... oh!  But I did notice the running time of this opus.  Two hours twenty minutes?  What, are they going for the Best Picture Oscar or something?  They're not trying to waste people's time, are they?  Bore-ring.  Well, as long as they got Closed Captioning in the theatre, and a separate chair I can put my tea on.  Man, I made the mistake of buying a plastic bottle of tea... TWO of them, yesterday!  So sugary.  I prefer to add my own sugar while I'm drinking, thank you very much... preferably a mouthful of Jelly Belly jelly beans.  That's my new go-to favourite, seeing as how I've got to lay off the chocolate for a while.  How long before new kidney stones start to form, anyway?
Damn, looks like a nice day outside.  But before I go to get some fresh air and exercise, Star Wars just limped over the 600 million barrier state-side, and The Greatest Showman limped over the 100 million barrier, so the Award-winning lyricists of La La Land can rest a little easier as their next project gets the green light.  Which reminds me!  Debbie Reynolds tended to stick to her career highlights, but on TCM I caught a little bit of Three Little Words where she was dressed like Jackie Kennedy and doing an impression of Betty Boop.  Only tangentially related as usual, I know, but hey!  Someday... what a story that would make.  Three Little Words is the story of famous lyricists Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby who, among other things, worked with the Marx Brothers on more than a few occasions.  Could a Three Little Words-type deal be in the legacy of the lyricists of La La Land?  Might be fun.  But let's get to that last debut this week.  Debuting at the wrong end of the Top 10 is a Nicholas Sparks-type pic called Forever My Girl.  All you need is the title and the thumbnail picture to see that.  I mean, two white people, the sunset behind them... God bless that bedrock of American Consumerism(TM) family tax breaks.  A young man and young woman believing in that crazy, stupid institution called love... but WAIT!  Nicholas Sparks' name is nowhere to be found!  Surely he was a producer or an assistant producer here?  Production assistant?  No?
No.  Nowhere to be found.  I mean, there's a Nicholas Fitzgerald of the Music Department, but no sparks flying anywhere.  Except on that screen, of course.  Gotta have that.  Gotta as a bare minimum.  No, the novelist behind this latest opus is named Heidi McLaughlin.  And it's not all wine and roses, mind you.  Check out the plot description on this film's main IMDb main page.  It says, "After being gone for a decade a country star returns home to the love he left behind."  No, that may be a little too nuanced for Nicholas Sparks, frankly.  But this theme does sound vaguely familiar.  Doesn't that sound a bit like Sweet Home Alabama for one?  The movie, not the Lynyrd Skynyrd song that's been heavily re-edited for radio.  Mind you, this Forever My Girl is just a PG affair.  Gone are the days of the gritty country star bio-pic.  Like... Tender Mercies!  And... Tender Mercies!  Okay, Coal Miner's Daughter.  I mean, can a PG movie answer this question for me?  How are you supposed to rekindle an adolescent love affair after a decade of being on the road with country music groupies?  And would you really want to?  Would the "she" involved really want to?  I mean, she's probably already married with kids.  That's a given.

Auteur Watch - Jason Gosbee

Now, I know what you're thinking, but I'm a forgive and forget Atheist, and why should the sins of the father be visited so harshly upon the son?  And... oh, Gosbee!  Phew.  Thank God.  Never mind.  Well, this will be fun, because stunt men want to be directors too.  I mean, take Richard Rush's 1980 masterpiece, The Stunt Man.  Am I right?  They get to hang out with certain stars because they're the same height and what not.  And they get to go to a few of the parties after the film opens, and if you're smart and not get hurt, you'll get to be in a documentary and say you've been someone's stunt double for 20, 30 years.  Well, this Gosbee's a newbie, so there's still time to change careers.  If there's such a thing as a hot stunt double, surely this guy is it.  I mean, look at these credits!  Okay, maybe not the new RoboCop, but still!  Suicide Squad made money, right?  And Man of Steel did pretty well too, yes?  Or at least recouped the important parts of the budget?

I Am Neeson

More happiness in the Kasdan household!  What on Earth is it about this Jumanji reboot that has it doing so well at the box office?  I almost want to find out for myself.  But whatever lessons Jake learned from his previous efforts such as Bad Teacher and Walk Hard, well... most of those were put aside in favor of this more audience-friendly PG-13 rated effort.  Of course... if the budget's large enough, PG-13 has been known to drift into R territory.  And, for audiences, maybe that's part of the fun.  Maybe they feel like they're getting away with something... oh my God.  He's trying to look like J. J. Abrams, isn't he?  Well, more power to him.  He can do that this weekend, but God help him if he starts a production company that's either a) not good, or b) has anything to do with mechanical contraptions attempting to do the things that humans do much more quickly and fluidly.  True, they haven't unionized yet, but they don't need to, frankly.  People need weekends and vacations, and time to spend that wonderful money they work for.  Speaking of which... I don't know exactly why Mark Wahlberg has to donate his salary to charity for his work on that Ridley Scott film called All the Money in the World.  Alas, it's not in the Top 10 this week, and I can't seem to find on Variety's website where exactly it fits in the Top 100, or the global Top 1000.  Wahlberg is apparently only donating the money he made off the Spacey-free reshoots of said pic, but frankly everyone's probably going to have to declare this a loss on their taxes.  I mean, God bless Ridley Scott and all that.  But I think the Variety reviewer is giving Scott and his latest pic faint praise when he compares this to other Marky Mark pics like Patriots Day, which Peter Debruge referred to as "a modestly budgeted movie " that "needs to attach a star like Wahlberg in order to get made."  First of all... any collaboration between ultra-manly movie star Mark Wahlberg, and ultra-manly movie director Peter Berg is nothing but a labor of love.  Sure, Wahlberg gets millions for it, but it's all about the love.  The love of movies in a strictly heterosexual way.  And second, this is a Ridley Scott picture we're talking about.  It's like a Martin Scorsese picture, post Gangs of New York.  Sure, Ridley's picture may have a modest budget, but the prestige is through the roof.  Scott's the star here, not Wahlberg.  Scorsese's pictures, post Gangs of New York, are not modestly budgeted.  Didn't Hugo cost, like, 170 million?  Well, we don't know... because the IMDb DOESN'T HAVE BUDGET INFORMATION ANYMORE!!!!!!  I have to go to Wikipedia like a shnook to find it!  WIKIPEDIA... which reminds me.  I need to donate to them, don't I?  I believe I said I would, and they did fix that bug they were talking about... nah, not now.
But, then again, this is a writer for Variety we're talking about, and I am just a shnook on the fringes of showbiz, so what do I know?  I'll tell you one thing I know.  Spielberg's The Post came in second this week.  It's been out four weeks and it's only made 23 million dollars domestic... I mean, what can we do about this guy?  Doesn't this guy need to have a hit at some point?  How have his last five or six pictures done?  Have they done well?  I mean, let's leave aside his monstrous hits for a second... and Jurassic World.  That did pretty well.  Any producer would be happy with that one.  But isn't that how the industry used to work?  Don't you have to have a hit again at some point?  I mean, I was browsing around the internets here not too long ago, and I came across this sad anecdote.  Submitted for your approval: the biography of one Rob Cohen.  Now, normally you'd read that and be hatin' on a guy who went to an Ivy League school, at least until you get to what happened to him in 1973.  It says, and I quote, "In 1973, Cohen became Fox's Vice President of TV Movies..."  No one knows what happened to him after that, but before it became your favorite news station, Fox was a movie studio, believe it or not.
Anyway, it's all wine and roses... until you get to the part about a movie called Stealth.  Apparently, he bet the farm on Stealth, and, well... it didn't work out well for him.  He ended up in something called "Hollywood jail."  Now, I've been reading about Hollywood on and off for a long time, and I'm pretty sure they're like any other municipality, with public utilities and roads and yes, some sort of law enforcement facilities.  But Hollywood jail?  Oh well, shows you what I know.  But apparently he got some cool tats out of the deal.  Maybe he'll try playing for the NBA.  If you want to do that these days, you gotta have tats on both arms, minimum.  Basically, you need to look like you've got an ink spider on your naked body these days, if you want to be at all cool.  You need to be ready to either a) go to jail, or b) join the circus with the tats you get.  Sorry... I'm using that construct way too much lately.  Anyway, here's some more hyperbole, and this is on the Stealth IMDb Trivia page.  I'll copy and paste this one: "The film made $76.9 million, against a budget of $135 million.The $58.1 million loss made it one of the biggest box office bombs of all time."  (Fun fact: I copied it from the web site, then pasted it into Notepad, before copying and pasting it into my blog entry!  This way, I lose all the messy formatting that can typically come from copying and pasting web text.)  Now... first of all, I didn't realize that these trivia sections could be so hyperbolic.  Just the facts, please.  I mean, don't talk to me about the biggest box office bombs.  I know my bombs.  Last Action Hero... okay, maybe not a huge bomb, but when it opened in the shadow of the first Jurassic Park, it maybe underperformed a bit.  How about The Adventures of Pluto Nash?  Huge bomb!  100 million budget, opened in ninth place, something like that.  And again, Wikipedia's got the numbers!  So, Rob, do the math on this one.  100 million budget, 7.1 million box office.  Who's biggest now, b'atch?  Or, take Heaven's Gate, for a more classical example.  Again, Wikipedia for the numbers.  Budget: 44 million.  Box Office: 3.5.... million, that is.  And this was 1980, when a dollar was actually worth something.  Sure, Bezos is worth 105 billion now... but how much of that is stock?  And does he do that douche-y thing where he makes only one dollar a year as the CEO of Amazon?  Well, DOES he?
Now I'm curious about what they say about Ishtar.  Wikipedia says: budget: $51 million, box office $14 million.  Apparently, it was #1 the week it opened.  Different time.  Oh, the things Dustin got away with back then.  But you know what?  Ishtar was fun to make.  Warren was going out with Isabelle Adjani, life was sweet, and it certainly helped them out on their next projects: an Oscar for Dustin for Rain Man, and Warren ended up making Dick Tracy soon after, with Ishtar's lighting cameraman Vittorio Storaro, no less!  I think what I'm trying to say to Rob is: whatever lessons you were supposed to learn from your experiences on the movie Stealth, well... you didn't learn them.  Just take any royalty checks you get from any and all future installments of Fast and the Furious and BE HAPPY.  The people who actually buy tickets to your movies seem to be!
But now it's time to take some time and bemoan my station in life.  Oh why oh why can't I be blogging for Huffington Post about the opening bit for this weekend's "Saturday Night Live"?  If I were, I'd get to type something like "Bill Murray Appeared as Steve Bannon, And I Was Happy.  Click Link to Read."  But I will admit that some of the old anger bubbled up a bit!  But only briefly, and then I sat back to just soak it all in.  I will say this, however: whoever gets credit for starting the whole Rosie O'Donnell as Steve Bannon movement must not have been happy!  And if they were, well... THEY DON'T DESERVE TO BE!  That's my big complaint about the movie Julie & Julia, because Julie was watching that SNL bit where Dan Aykroyd does an impression of Julia Child... AND SHE WAS LAUGHING!!!!  No.  You don't get to laugh at that.  Contrast that with that scene from Billy Crystal's Mr. Saturday Night that I believe I've referenced at least once already.  Again, well on my way to becoming a dottering old fool.  But we see Buddy Young's brother and wife watching TV.  They're watching Sid Caesar, and they're laughing.  I mean, that's Sid Caesar for you.  He was the man back then!  He was on TV and he was actually funny... not like Milton Berle, who was just on TV because he knew it was important.  No, Sid was and still is a comic genius, and Buddy Young's brother and wife are watching and laughing... and then we pan over to Buddy Young himself (Billy Crystal) NOT laughing.  A lot.  Quite the opposite.  If there's a more honest scene about showbiz rivalries, I don't want to know about it... actually, I do, because I'm still pretty sure that one doesn't exist.
...man, something's going on with me!  I must feel like typing again!  No, I know what it is.  Well, we're going through some changes here in the household, and I'm finally out of my mother's basement and I've got a desktop computer in my room now!  With internet access!  However... and this is a big however... the modem is in the other room, a bedroom, and it's apparently on 24 hours a day.  Now one of these is going to get tired at some point: either a) the modem, or b) the resident who has to look at those blinking lights all night.  One of them is going to file a complaint soon, and I hope it's not the modem.  Fortunately, it seems to be well ventilated.  When you're addicted to the internet, you need it as uncut as possible.
Anyway, back to the movies.  I actually did want to say something about Liam Neeson.  I don't get to watch all his stuff... frankly, there's too much of it.  But he did drop a bombshell recently on Colbert: he's going to be in "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs"!  In a bowler hat, no less!  The IMDb ain't got it yet, tee hee hee... Of course, through the first Darkman he was already tangentially connected to the Coens, and they were probably thinking about a project for him.  They always say that about certain actors, that they had a project in mind for them.  Not Marlon Brando, though.  Too temperamental, to put it kindly.  Hence their corner of the sandbox, with its rigidly defined borders.  Did anyone else notice this?  Take a look at the poster for Liam's latest and greatest, The Commuter.  Now look at the poster for the first Taken movie.  Similar much?  I'm telling you, for those two posters alone he ought to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  But I will say this about this new movie called The Commuter, which I believe reunites Liam with director Jaume Collet-Serra on a little movie called Unknown... hmm!  Now look at the poster for that!  Third one's a spanking, if memory serves.  But I will still try to say this about that Commuter movie, and it's about the part where the train's going around a corner and almost comes off the track.  CGI much?  Bear in mind, National Imagemakers, I live near where that train recently plummeted to Earth in Olympia, Washington.  I can still see the bridge graffiti in my mind even now... what did it say?  Lab rat, maybe?  Memory's not serving now.  Better get to bed.  But before I do, there's a gentle rapping at my door.  Probably the cat.
The only other debuts this week are Paddington 2 and something called Proud Mary, which is about Taraji P. Henson doing a project in between seasons of "Empire."  I mean... she's still on that show, right?  Keep on boinin', grrlfriend!  Stay ahead of that big wheel.

Auteur Watch - Berry Gordy

Can't do it, Firefox... still too slow.  Anyway, back on topic.  Every once in a while, a personality comes along, and you know it.  Maybe not Stephen King-level or Tyler Perry-level fame, but up there.  I mean, everyone knows Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon.  (update: just saw it for sale in Best Buy!  Honest to God!  Hand to God... I think it's even on the rays that are blue)  Yes, The Last Dragon.  No one can tell you exactly why it's called that... maybe it's a Milton Berle type deal.  If only it were the last dragon.  Sadly, on the radio station at work, we'll be forced to hear "Lightning and Thunder" by Imagine Dragons for what could be the rest of our lives!  Along with obscure 80s hits that dream of being '70s hits that get played to death.  Too bad real dragons can't be summoned into existence to eat the members of Imagine Dragons and all the catchy records they produce.  Well, just that "Lightning and Thunder" one, for starters.  First of all, it's the wrong order.  Technically, yes, first there's lightning, with thunder usually following soon after.  But lyrically, everyone generally sings about thunder and lightning.  I believe even Jethro Tull says "Thunder and lightning, couldn't be bolder" in one of their big hits that they don't like anymore.  I mean, hey!  Even Warren Zevon tried to get Larry Sanders to not request "Werewolves of London."  A fool's dream, to be sure.
...did I get off track again?  Oops.  Well, that's the kind of thing that didn't happen to our next auteur, Berry Gordy, that's for sure.  Somehow he's managed to escape the Purge of Powerful Men of 2017... note to self: idea for next installment of that douche-y Purge series.  Well, it's not too late.  He's only 89 years old and must be guilty of some hanky panky.  Powerful men typically are, especially those even tangentially connected to the music industry.  And even though the IMDb has dropped their very useful feature of displaying the budget of some films, there's always celebritynetworth.com to keep a close eye on the individual people involved.  And Berry's apparently north of $300 million!  God bless those Jackson 5 royalties.  But, as with The Last Dragon, Berry's as human as the next man, wanting to conquer new worlds.  After all, feature films give you a better opportunity to tell longer stories.  A song is typically 3 to 4 minutes tops.  And yes, yes, we know... concept albums are 45 minutes; 22.5 per one side of an album, or up to 80 minutes if you burn a CD right.
And a blog post ain't too shabby, either!  Shucks, with a guy like Gordy, you could devote a couple pages to all his songs at least!  One success story after another.  Some guys are just lucky that way.  Some are born to sweet delight, others to endless night.  I'm thinkin' Gordy's a sweet delight-kinda guy... wow.  They don't have that one?  That's, like... the best passage in that movie.  Rick Ducommun and Rick Overton in the bowling alley with Bill Murray?  Sorry, still taking too long to get to my point.  But I did mention Stephen King earlier, and he and Berry Gordy do indeed have this one thing in common, I just realized.  And this is where the IMDb once again comes in handy.  No wonder its CEO is a billionaire.  Anyway, you go to Stephen King's IMDb online résumé under "Director" and you will find one entry.  I've provided the link for you.  Now go to Berry Gordy's IMDb online résumé under "Director" and what do you find?  That's right!  Well, as of this writing (1/14/'18), just the one entry!  Nothing in development on the horizon, no hint of a second stab at it... just the one.  In Berry's case, a thinly veiled autobiography called Mahogany... the blackest wood there is.  Oops... my bad.  Now I'm going to lose my corporate sponsors, if I had any.  Does that ever happen?  Do corporate sponsors ever invest in something just so they can then pull out of it and publicly say they made a huge mistake?  Must be the lack of sleep typing or something.  I just assumed that "Mahogany" was a code name for... for an  African American secret agent!  You know, like Shaft!  Alas, no, the title's not so easily explainable, it just sounds enigmatic.  What we got here is the basic rags to riches Horatio Alger-type story, but through the lens of the fashion industry... okay, this will be the thing I learned today.  Maybe I forgot it when I first heard of Horatio Alger in public school.  That's the author's name!  And he was born in 1832... and apparently Horatio was still a very popular name back then.  Seems a bit archaic now, stuck very snugly in the works of Shakespeare.
But the point I'm taking much longer than usual to get to is that Berry Gordy conquered his corner of the music industry and was looking around for another hobby to try.  Why not film directing?  That seems like fun.  Long story short: it wasn't.  He was more comfortable producing Diana Ross, not directing her.  Hold on a sec... note to self: Taraji P. Henson in The Diana Ross Story.  Okay, I'm back.  And if it's true, that Tony Richardson was involved with this turkey but dropped out, well... oh, he was fired?  Two Oscars?  Director of The Loved One and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner?  THAT guy got fired?  How'd that work out for you long term, Berry?  Just curious.  Boy, Hollywood can be cruel.  Gotta especially be careful these days.  Well, I guess they keep a close eye on the kids of the rich and powerful, anyway.  The Hollywood child molesters apparently know who's who: for example, who just came in off the bus, and the cast of "Girls," for example.  But I did want to ... because I am in the process of becoming an old man, and this is the only story I know about a director getting replaced on a movie.  It's a movie I'm embarrassed to say we actually tried to watch as a family on VHS once upon a time, and it's called Venom.  It's basically like Jaws, except it's a poisonous snake, and not a shark, and it takes place inside one house, and not at the beach.  Apparently, Tobe Hooper was the original director.  You know, the original Poltergeist, the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  What a lemon.  So they replaced him with Piers Haggard.  No, not the Secret Agent.  He's a director!  Of films!  And British TV.  Sure, his résumé lacks the polish and clarity of, say, Michael Winner, or a J. Lee Thompson, but still.  So he takes over the direction.  And he gets to watch Susan George undress... one of the perks of directing, I suppose.  Apparently, that scene took, like, six weeks to get right.  But you gotta like some of the crew working on Venom.  You got Martin Bregman before he got into the Al Pacino business on an almost exclusive basis.  You got music by Michael Kamen!  He was trapped for a while in that circle near Monty Python and the Beatles for a while.  And for you fans of cinematographers, there's Gilbert Taylor.  His IMDb Top 4 doesn't quite tell the whole story.  Sure, the first installment of Star Wars ain't too shabby... and we probably have to skip Repulsion because of Roman Polanski.  But what about Dr. Strangelove and A Hard Day's Night?  Are these chopped liver all of a sudden?  The D.P. who was fired, along with original director Tobe Hooper, was Anthony Richmond.  His IMDb Top 4 tells the story of a British D.P. who's clearly in hell.  If he's a drinker, I'll bet there's a lot of it just before the next installment of Diary of a Wimpy Kid starts principal.  And yet, somehow, his work on Let It Be isn't Top Four-worthy.  I guess because there was so much of it, not just the rooftop concert it all culminates in.  Paul never did get that big, unbroken crane shot he wanted, did he?  That's why it's left out.  Anyway, somehow the story of all these people getting together to make this piece of sh... oe leather movie about a black mamba loose in a house.  Well, there was a lot of cocaine in Hollywood back then, and apparently the head honchos over at Paramount and Thorn EMI got way too much of it when this property came across their desks.  Maybe someday the making of Mahogany will be as interesting.  For now, neither film seems to be on TCM's roster.

Insidious: The First Box Office

...of 2018, that is!  And I could theoretically keep it short this week.  Man, did I have a day today.  Not my typical day; had to do that last big push before you move someone out of a house, you know?  Guess my back doesn't hurt too bad; ought to be able to do the day job tomorrow.
But back to the reason I should keep this blog post short.  There was only one debut this week!  The latest installment of a Blair-Witch type franchise deal called Insidious.  According to its IMDb "Connections" page, this is the fourth installment.  But like most sequels these days, they're ashamed of the dreadful Roman numeral that used to accompany sequels once upon a time back in the day, a mere stone's throw ago.  Instead it's called, full disclosure... Insidious: The Last Key.  Of course, with a performance like it had this weekend (edging out the latest Star Wars, no less!) it probably won't be the last installment of this franchise.  They could probably squeeze out a prequel or two.  Guess they're too proud to go Netflix or Amazon Prime with it... I know, I know, it's just called "Prime" now, with that little smirk.  Maybe they should call it "Smug, 90 Billion Dollar Smirk Prime."  They could team up with DreamWorks Animation and call it The DreamWorks Amazon Prime Smug Smirk Happy Hour, and premier it on HBO!  You know, just to stick it to the doubters out there.  Reclaim the dominion that TV once held not so long ago.
...where was I?  Oh, right.  One last thought about the Insidious franchise.  The star of this franchise apparently is no less than Lin Shaye... that's right, a close relation to big shot and former head of New Line Cinema Bob Shaye.  I think she's just relieved that 2001 Maniacs is no longer in her IMDb Top 4.  Man, that was getting old.  It's good, but not THAT good!
No, the big story this week is the rise, then fall, then rise again of that Jumanji reboot.  Whatever you'd call it.  It's making so much bank that they're thinking of doing author Chris Van Allsburg's The Z was Zapped... Might have a hard time padding the alphabet out to feature length, though.  Maybe they could get the brains behind Paris, Je T'Aime to whip something together, get 26 international directors together.  You know, get Catherine Breillat to change it to "The R was raped."  Or maybe make it a Disney attraction where you go into a room with ten screens in a circle around your head, and you watch a movie.  You know, cinema in the round.  And then, when the camera pans down, everyone gets sea sick and throws up.  Lucky they have one of those floors made of wire mesh, right?  Tee hee hee.  But back to Jake Kasdan, director of said Jumanji.  He still gets to thumb his nose at brother Jon at the Thanksgiving table in the Kasdan household.  But Jake won't get to sing "Are you Bombing, Are you Bombing, Brother Jon?  Brother Jon?" much longer, because... why, look!  Brother Jon is getting into the Star Wars business!  Lock, stock and two smoking Tie Fighter barrels!  Time for another Star Wars prequel, my friends!  Now, sure, Jake could be cruel and look at that credits list and say "An assist from dad, eh?  AGAIN?"  Oh, but he wouldn't stoop to that.  Father Lawrence has to break them up yet again and say "I'm proud of both of you... just don't make me watch your movies, please."

Short Reviews - January 2018

"A 2nd Chance" - With Frank Starkenberg as Frank

Acqua In Bocca - Con Frank Piazza come Frank

"The Adventures of Lano & Woodley" - With Frank Woodley as Frank (13 episodes)

"The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" "Sundown Valley" - With Frank Christi as Frank

Africa Shakes - With Frank Fenter as Frank

Aiden - With Frank Otis as Frank

AIDS: The Coming Danger - With Frank Garbo as Frank

Albany Street - With Frank Brescia as Frank

"Alice" "Mel Spins his Wheels" - With Frank Schuller as Frank

"All My Children" "Episode #1.12" - With Frank Moran as Frank

The Amateur... or, Revenge of the Quadricorn - With Frank Divanna as Frank

Amberes - With Frank Merkx as Frank

American Grandmaster: The Life and Death of Mr. Parker - With Frank Trejo as Frank

Amor ou Ódio - With Frank Moreira as Frank

Angels Hard as They Come - With Frank Charolla as Frank

Anna - With Frank Jicha as Frank

The Appointment - With Frank Rogers as Frank

"Armchair Theatre" "Always Something Hot" - With Frank Thornton as Frank

"Arty Farty" - With Frank Stead as Frank (2 episodes)

At Ellen's Age - Mitt Frank de Witt als Frank

Baby Let Your Hair Hang Down - With Frank Sobrio as Frank

Backed Up - With Frank Rosenberg as Frank

"The Bakery" - With Frank Buxton as Frank

"Baretta" "The Mansion" - With Frank Christi as Frank

Battle - With Frank Williams as Frank

"Baywatch" "Forbidden Paradise: Part 1" - With Frank Moran as Frank

"Baywatch: Forbidden Paradise" - With Frank Moran as Frank

Beautiful Joe - With Frank C. Turner as Frank

The Better Half - With Frank Velasco as Frank

"Beyond the Bermuda Triangle" - With Frank Schuller as Frank

Black & White - With Frank Adonis as Frank

Blue Streak - With Frank Medrano as Frank

Boogievision - With Frank Millen as Frank

"(The) Boys From the Bush" "Mateship" - With Frank Bren as Frank

Break - With Frank Krueger as Freddy Frank

"The Bride of Frank" - With Frank Meyer as Frank... also with Charley Wolinsky as Young Frank

"Bunch of Five" "Blue Heaven" - With Frank Skinner as Frank

Bungalow - Mitt Frank Breitenreiter als Frank

Caitlyn Plays Herself - With Frank V. Ross as Frank

The Cake Maker - With Frank Scantori as Frank

Cass - With Frank Bruno as Frank

Chained for Life - With Frank Mosley as Frank

Changing Face of Harlem - With Frank Anderson as Frank

"The Channel X News Team & The Battle for the Future" "The Origin" - With Frank Coralluzzo as Frank

Chicago After Midnight - With Frank Mills as Frank

"CHiPs" - With Frank Farmer as Frank (2 episodes)

Closing Numbers - With Frank Mills as Frank

Closing Time - With Frank Kasy as Frank

Corn Chip Feet - With Frank Halbiger as Frank

"Cracked" - With Frank Gallagher as Frank (6 episodes)

"Crime Strike" "Pool Party Pandemonium" - With Frank Krueger as Frank

"Crossing the Mob" - With Frank Sivero as Frank

The Crossroads of Fate - With Frank Lambert as Frank

Cruce - With Frank Mendez as Frank

"Customer Diss-Service" - With Frank Noon as Frank (17 episodes)

Danny Boy - With Frank Schiellerup as Frank

Daredevils of the Clouds - With Frank Melton as Frank

Dead End - With Frank Maier as Frank

Dead Man's Hand - With Frank Dudley as Frank

Deal - With Frank Sheppard as Frank

The Definition of Insanity - With Frank Krias as Frank... also featuring Robert Nassau as Frank Matter.  Co-written and co-directed by Frank Matter.  Sorry... just felt the need to point all that other stuff out for some reason.

Diaries - With Frank Juchniewicz as Frank

Die Wolken - Mitt Frank Arend als Frank

"The Diner" - With Frank Gachelin as Frank

Distant Light - With Frank Wong as Frank

Do Laugh - With Frank Gangarossa as Frank

Donovan Slacks - With Frank Tucker as Frank

"Dragnet" "Housewife Hustler" - With Frank Fowler as Frank

Ella - With Frank Califano as Frank

"Emergency!" "An Ounce of Prevention" - With Frank Farmer as Frank

En kveld på Bodils - Wik Frank Dåbu as Frank and a Moose ... Yumpin' Yiminy!

Events - With Frank Cavestani as Frank

"Every Second Counts" - With Frank Cassini as Frank

Evil Deeds 2 - With Frank Merlino as Frank

"Familie" - Avec Frank Coosemans son Frank (5 episodes)

Fearing Aid - With Frank Vohs as Frank

Fire Island Fever - With Frank Schmitt as Frank (non-sexual role) .................. ............

Fish Bait: The Movie - With Frank Murphy as Frank

Flaugstad - Wik Frank Dåbu as Frank and a Moose ... Yumpin' Yiminy!

Flowers for the Man in the Moon - Mitt Frank Mettchen als Frank

For Those We Love - With Frank Campeau as Frank

"Fortune Teller" - With Frank Erdman as Frank

Fourhand - With Frank Lévy as Frank

Frank - With Frank Handman as Frank

Frank's Dream - With Frank Stead as Frank

Frank's Nightmare - With Frank Moore as Frank

"Frank's Song" - With Frank Pinocchio as Frank

A Friend in Need - With Frank Borzage as Frank

Full of Regret - With Frank Drank as Frank ... this just might be my new favourite!

The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini - With Frank Alesia as Frank

Ghostbite - Avec Frank Bosson son Frank

Give Frank a Break - With Frank Woodley as Frank... and with just Frank in the cast, hmm!  Must be quite a break!

Gloria - With Frank Budelman as Frank

Go With Le Flo - With Frank Kallinowski as Frank

Going Nowhere - With Frank Thomas as Frank

Guns of the Trees - With Frank Kuenstler as Frank

Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench - With Frank Garvin as Male Prostitute Frank

Had Enough - With Frank Drank as Frank

Haneda hatsu 7 ji 50 pun - With Frank Nagai as Frank

Hard Drive - With Frank Ornowski as Frank

Hard Luck Bill - With Frank Tempest as Frank

Harley - With Frank Kuntz as Frank... also with Frank Kuntz Sr. as Hungarian Truck Driver.  Also, careful how you pronounce the name.

"Heartbeat" - With Frank Lauder as Frank (2 episodes)

Heat Lightning - With Frank McHugh as Frank

Hello Au Revoir - With Frank Fazio as Frank... also with Lampros Kalfuntzos as Frank.  Also with Jean-Pierre Yerma as Frank!!  ALSO with Nick Dispensa as Frank the A.D. !!!!!!  And to a lesser extent, with Daniel Keen as Frankie.  Also with Frankie Mileto as Frankie!!!  Also with Frankie Storm!  This is the greatest film ever.  I can probably retire now.

High Lonesome - With Frank Cordell as Frank

High Times Potluck - With Frank Adonis as Frank

Higher and Higher - With Frank Sinatra as Frank

"Highway Patrol" "Trojan Horse" - With Frank Marlowe as Frank

Hollywood Varieties - With Frank Rio as Frank

Home Sweet Home - With Frank Randle as Frank

How to Get a Date - With Frank Carrijo as Frank

"How to Not" "How to Not: Give Up" - With Frank D'Arrigo as Frank.  Also with Frank D'Arrigo Jr. as Frank Jr.

I Love You, I Love You Not - With Frank Millen as Frank

I Think Bad Thoughts - With Frank Drank as Frank

I.Q. - With Frank Whaley as Frank

Inside Fighter - With Frank lo Porto as Frank

The Interval - With Frank Williams as Frank

Italian Stallion - With Frank Micelli as Frank

Ivan Shade, Undead P. I. - With Frank Nicosia as Frank

Jews N the Hood - With Frank Goldstein as Frank... also with Ben Goldstein as Frank.  Wonder if they're related.  Hmmm.....................

Jogger's Road - With Frank Tedesco as Frank

Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey - With Frank Miller as Frank

"Julie Lescaut" "Contre la Montre" - Avec Frank Geney son Frank

Junkie Heaven - With Frank Fileti as Frank

Keep 'Em Slugging - With Frank Albertson as Frank

Kiriko No Tango - With Frank Nagai as Frank

The Kitchen - With Frank Pettitt as Frank

"Klasgeheimen" "Episode #2.7" - Mitt Frank Molnar als Frank

"Klovn" - Med Frank Hvam som Frank (60 episodes)

Klown - Med Frank Hvam som Frank

L. A. Streetfighters - With Frank Marmolejo as Frank

L'Ariamara - With Frank Gigante as Frank

"La Femme Nikita" "Not Was" - With Frank Bishun as Frank

The Labyrinth & The Long Road - With Frank Genniro as Frank

"Lano & Woodley: Goodbye" - With Frank Woodley as Frank

"Lano & Woodley: The Island" - With Frank Woodley as Frank

Last Day - With Frank Nickel as Frank

The Last Stop Café - With Frank Sharp as Frank

Leave It to Beaver - With Frank Bank as Frank

The Legacy - With Frank Whitaker as Frank

Lethal Weapon Cowboy - With ... yup, you guessed it... Frank Stallone as Frank

The Lights of Benjela - With Frank Joseph as Frank... also with Arnaldo Santos as Parceiro de Frank

"Likely Stories, Vol. 2" - With Frank Sivero as Frank

Lions' Den - With Frank Mosley as Frank... incidentally, for those of you who are keeping score of such things, as well you should... this is another one of those films with a small cast, and everyone plays a character that has the same first name.  100%.  Who knows?  Maybe it's a documentary actually!

"Little Mosque on the Prairie" "Rules R Rules" - With Frank Deluca as Frank

Lowball - With Frank Toscano as Frank

Lucky Dip - With Frank Boyce as Frank

"M54 Epidemic" - With Frank Hernandez as Frank

Ma!  He's Making Eyes at Me - With Frank Mitchell as Frank

Maca - With Frank Emeka as Frank

The MacGruffin - With Frank Gonzalez as Frank

Made in Dagenham - With Frank Baker as Frank

"Make Room for Daddy" "Danny and the Little Men" - With Frank Delfino as Frank

Mala Noche - With Frank Euward as Frank

Mamma's Heart - With Frank Gigante as Frank

Mammy's Rose - With Frank Borzage as Frank

"Man Life Crisis" - With Frank Pesce as Frank (5 episodes).  Also with James Zimbardi as James... Young Frank (5 episodes)

The Mandala Maker - With Frank D'Amato as Frank

The Marine - With Frank Carlopio as Frank

The Master - With Frank Bettag as Frank

"Matrioshki" "Episode #2.4" - With Frank Lammers as Frank

Maybe I'm Fine - With Frank Diaz as Frank

Melocotones - With Frank Perozo as Frank

Metropole - With Frank Mazzeo as Frank

Miami Vice Los Angeles - With Frank Tesoro as Frank

Montreal Main - With Frank Vitale as Frank

Movie-Town - With Frank Eastman as Frank

"My New Best Friend" - With Frank Rincon as Frank

"Mystery Science Theater 3000" - With Frank Conniff as Frank (37 episodes, the rest as "TV's Frank")

National Treasure: Book of Secrets - With Frank Herzog as Frank

Never Hesitate - With Frank Szabados as Frank

"The NEW Mike Hammer" "A Face in the Night" - With Frank Collison as Washington Bartholomew Hogwallop Amor(e) Fidelis Frank

"The New Neighborhood" "Bagels on Me" - With Frank Ritorto as Frank

Night Magic - With Frank Augustyn as Frank... also with James Zeller as Frank (voice).  And, uh... co-written by Leonard Cohen!  No external reviews?  Will no one step up and post a review of this titled "When Good Celebrities Make Terrible Movies" or "Reason #15 why Leonard Cohen Isn't As Loved and As Celebrated As Bob Dylan: 1985's Night Magic"

The Nightingale - With Frank Dudley as Frank

"The Nobody's Watching Show" "Episode #1.1" - With Frank Toner as Frank

Oasis - With Frank Munoz as Frank

"Open Huis in Sesamstraat" - Med Frank Groothof som Frank

Opname AKA In For Treatment - Med Frank Groothof som Frank

Orson West - With Frank Feys as Frank

The Overlookers - With Frank Bianco as Frank

"Packet of Three" "Episode #1.1" - With Frank Skinner as Frank

"Packing Them In" - With Frank Skinner as Frank (2 episodes)

Pals of the Saddle - With Frank Milan as Frank

"Paradise Drive" "The Brokedback Episode" - With Frank Maharajh as Frank

Party Girl - With Frank Seales as Frank

Paulo Coelho's Best Story - With Frank Rogalla as Frank

Petite Blanche - Avec Frank Verdejo son Frank

The Pink Conspiracy - With Frank Krueger as Frank

"Plattenküche" - Mitt Frank Zander als Frank (17 episoden)

"The Playroom" - With Frank Humphries as Frank

"Police Story" "Eamon Kinsella Royce" - With Frank Pesce as Frank

Portal: The Movie - With Frank Mastrangelo as Frank.  Also with Tom Parr as Big Frank.

Pushed to the Limit - With Frank Trejo as Frank

"Quico" "Conte de Nadal" - With Frank Capdet as Frank

The Raft: La Balsa - With Frank Spano as Frank

"Rain" - With Frank Rosati as Frank (9 episodes... well, 5 as Frank, 4 as "TV Guy")... okay, okay.  Also with James Petrozzo as Frank (1 episode)

"Rescue 8" "Fools [sic] Gold" - With Frank Dana as Frank

The Restaurant - With Frank Santorelli as Frank

Restless - With Frank Etxaniz as Frank

Retrocausal - With Frank Schuler as Frank

Roar - With Frank Tom as Frank

Robot & Frank - With Frank Langella as Frank

Rodeo Day - With Frank Luther as Frank

Román Boxera - With Frank Rose-Ruzicka as Frank... also with J. Fiser as Little Frank

"Roommates" "Five Guys and a Dog" - With Frank Jones as Frank

Rub Out - With Frank Hundley as Frank

Runaway Dream - With Frank Dennis as Frank

Sa Mère - Avec Frank Christian Marx son Frank

Sangria - With Frank Ludwig as Frank

"Scare" - With Frank Ingargiola as Frank (15 episodes)

Second Best - With Frank McCombs as Frank

Secret Hiding Place - With Frank Campbell as Frank

A Sedução do Garimpo - With Frank Mazzone as Frank

Sense of Need - With Frank Ditto as Frank

Seven in the Sun - With Frank Latimore as Frank

Shadow Run - With Frank Jarvey as Frank

Shake, Rattle & Rock! - With Frank Jenks as Frank

"Shannon's Deal" - With Frank Sivero as Frank

Shock Television - With Frank Medrano as Frank

Short Fuse - With Frank Acosta as Frank

"Shower of Stars" "Jack Benny Celebrates His 40th Birthday" - With Frank Nelson AND Frank Parker as Frank... also with Frank Remley as Frankie.  But why gild the lily?

"Softly Softly: Task Force" "The Hermit" - With Frank Singuineau as Frank

"Soldier Soldier" "Love Not Money" - With Frank Coda as Frank

"Someone Was Watching" - With Frank Gerrish as Frank

South Loop - Oh no!  They killed Kenny... I mean, with Frank Platis as Frank

"Spectrum of Fear: Ninja Cartel" - With Frank Grimaldi as Frank

Stars on Parade - With Frank Hubert as Frank

Stateless - With Frank Hooker as Frank

Steel Crossings - With Frank Anello as Frank

The Stick - With Frank Opperman as Frank

"Stolen: One Husband" - With Frank Reilly as Frank

Storming the Trenches - With Frank Butterworth as Frank

"Street Legal" "A Matter of Honour" - With Frank Pellegrino as Frank

A Streit - With Frank Cadillac as Frank

"Sullivan & Son" "Lyle & Son" - With Frank Kramer as Sanford Frank.  Also with Frank Kramer as Frank.

Sunnyside - With Frank Palermo as Frank

Taffin - With Frank O'Sullivan as Frank

"Tales From the Dark" "Number Nine" - With Frank Socci as Frank

"Tales of Tomorrow" "Discovered Heart" - With Frank Milan as Frank

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby - With Frank Hoyt Taylor as Frank

Taxi nach Cairo - Mitt Frank Ripploh als Frank

Teenage Graffiti - With Frank Roberts as Frank

Tell - With Frank Drank as Frank

The Tenement - With Frank Catalanotto as Frank

This Is Not an Exit - With Frank Hruby as Frank

Tilt - With Frank Hozi as Frank

A Tiro Limpio - With Frank Perozo as Frank

"Top of the Heap" "The Marrying Guy" - With Frank Lloyd as Frank

Torment - With Frank Merlino as Frank

Transit - Avec Frank Baylis son Frank

"True Story" "Episode Dated 11 January 1958" - With Frank Overton as Frank

"The Twilight Zone" "The Dummy" - With Frank Sutton as Frank

Two of a Kind - With Frank Murphy as Frank

The Ultimate Ultimate - With Frank Aguirre as Wrath of God Frank

Upside Down - With Frank Gugliotta as Frank

Varroa - With Frank Hoyt Taylor as Frank

"Village Hall" "Old Scores" - With Frank Mills as Frank

"Webseries: The Webseries" - With Frank Harts as Frank

Westfjord - With Frank Zanghini as Gunslinger Frank

What About American History - With Frank Merkx as Frank

When You Come Home - With Frank Randle as Frank

Where's Angelo? - With Frank Pesce as Frank

Whiskey Tango Forest - With Frank Fu as Frank

White Lines - With Frank Williams as Frank

Winery - With Frank Borcich as Frank

The Wise Kids - With Frank Stennett as Frank

"Woodley" - With Frank Woodley as Frank (8 episodes)

World of Death - With Frank Friedl as Frank... okay, I'm a little curious.  There's no running time, but they call this a "short."  My question is: what kind of short film has FORTY-FIVE DIRECTORS???!!!!!!!!!

The Young Sleuths - With Frank Butterworth as Frank

"Zombie Night" - With Frank Nardi as Frank

...holy crap!  This category ran out!  Doesn't usually happen before the month's out.  Plan B time...

"Average Joe" "The Birthday Blow-Out" - With Franklin Ruehl as Frank

Daddy's Girl - With Artus Frank as Frank

End of the Harvest - With Franklin Neely as Frank

Guiltrip - With Frankie McCafferty as Frank

Home - With Edward Franklin as Frank

"Hotel Erotica Cabo" "Last Tango in Cabo" - With Noah Frank as Frank

Jacob - With Scott Frank as Frank

"The Link Men" "The Quiet One" - With Frankie Davidson as Frank

Little Brother is Watching You - With Johannes Franke as Frank

"New York Undercover" - With Robinson Frank Adu as Frank (2 episodes)

"No Place Like Home" - With Frankie Guadagni as Frank

Paranoïde: een Bezwering - Mitt Franky Van Dorst als Frank

Road to Yesterday - With Lord Frank as Frank

"Royal Pains" "Can of Worms" - With Franklin Ojeda Smith as Frank

Sexually Frank - With Frankie Frain as Frank.  Also with Adam Karofsky as Young Frank... Age 9.  Also with Jacob Moon as Young Frank... 13.

"The $#!t" "Ted's juleball" - With Frank-Thore Nilssen as Frank

Su Majestad La Risa - With Francisco Díaz 'Frank' as Frank

Sunny Side Up - With Craig Frank as Frank

"Tim and Eric's Bedtime Stories" "Angel Boy" - With Frankie Aragon as Frank

"Trip" - With Franklin Summers as Frank

'Voyeur' - With Robert Frank Telfer as Frank

Waiting for the Sun - With Frankie Delanore as Frank

Wingman - With Ajaye Franklin as Frank

The Wrong Guys - With Franklyn Ajaye as Franklyn

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3rd Shift: Michael's Lament - With Franz Strassmann as Frank

Amateur - Mitt Avec Franck Lorrain als son Frank

Atrás Hay Relámpagos - With Francisco Matamoros as Frank

Bros. - With Franco Lipari as Frank.  Also with Margaret Ball as Frank's Mom.

The Call of the Waves - With Francis Ford as Frank

The Client - With Frans de Vocht as Frank

Compiling.tv - With François St-Maurice as Frank (34 episodes)

My Guys - With Francois Bryon as Frank

No Love for Johnnie - With Derek Francis as Frank

One Night Stand - With Juan Francisco Villa as Frank

Drinking Buddies - With Frank V. Ross as Frank

Hide - With Frank W. Dice III as Frank

Town Business - With Frank H. Cutler as Frank

What Do Men Want? - With J. Frank Glendon as Frank