…or work for the first third or first half, but don’t work as an overall story — an HE riff if I ever devised one!

I recently happened to re-watch Sydney Pollack‘s Random Hearts (’99), a forlorn adult romance that flopped financially and totally tanked in terms of critic and ticket buyer opinions.

It’s about a tentative, uncertain love affair between a D.C. cop (Harrison Ford) and a New Hampshire Congressperson (Kristin Scott Thomas) who meet because their spouses (Susanna Thompson and Peter Coyote, respectively) were having an affair before dying in a plane crash.

Random Hearts doesn’t work because it can’t — you can’t launch a loving, adult, non-obsessive relationship with the shattered spouse of the person your husband or your wife was having an affair with. The thing that Ford and Thomas have (they fall for each other and make love in a woodsy cabin) will always be a weird menage a quatre between two living and two dead people. It’s just not in the cards for things to work out, but Pollack and screenwriter Kurt Luedtke try their best to make it work anyway.

And to a certain extent, they succeed. There are several scenes during the first half that work quite well — they really do. Carefully written, well acted, appropriately steady and somber.

And because of the more or less successful first half Random Hearts doesn’t deserve a 15% Rotten Tomatoes rating — that’s ridiculous!

What other films are at least reasonably good during the first third or first half, only to steadily crack and shatter and fall apart during the second half?

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert‘s Everything Everywhere All At Once (A24) opened on 3.25.22. It took me nearly six months to finally watch this sucker and get my royal HE hate on — “Frequent Agonies of Everything Everywhere” appeared on 8.6.22. And now, two-thirds of a year after opening, Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman has seen it and shat on it.

Quote #1: “Indeed, just by accident, I wound up discussing [Everything Everywhere] with two pretty solid Academy voters. Their response? ‘We turned it off, and there was good stuff there.'”

Quote #2: The visuals are dazzling, but are put together with some form of ADHD. If there’s a story in the alternate universe, I couldn’t figure it out. This is a comic book movie pretending to be something else — maybe Cloud Atlas, but that movie didn’t work either.”

Quote #3: “So how did this adventure in tediousness make $60 million? It is really a big cult film. The comic book stuff is what sold it to a certain audience, which is fine.”

If Everything Everywhere All At Once was a person napping on a couch in a living room, I would take off my shoes, sneak up and suffocate it with a throw pillow.

[Initially posted on 9.24.20] A couple of days ago screenwriter Daniel Waters asked followers to post four or five films that they deeply admire or feel guilty-pleasure pangs for, but which are generally regarded as insufficiently loved.

Five films, in short, that the hoi polloi never seemed to care very much for (or never knew much about or have forgotten) but which you privately swear by.

Five years ago I posted a list of HE’s 160 greatest all-time films , but none apply here because each is loved and respected. We’re talking lone-wolf, off-in-the-corner films. So here are five…make it six picks:

Sandra Nettlebeck‘s Mostly Martha (’01). Probably the greatest sensual foodie + unlikely love affair flick I’ve ever seen. Martina Gedeck and Sergio Castellitto‘s lead performances are perfection. Scott Hicks‘ No Reservations, an American remake costarring Catherine Zeta Jones and Aaron Eckhart, missed the mark.

John Flynn‘s The Outfit (’73). A classic hard-boiled revenge film, lean and blunt and crafted in the tradition of Point Blank. Outside of noir cultists and film bums, few have paid much attention. Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Joanna Cassidy and Robert Ryan.

Bob Rafelson‘s Stay Hungry (’76). Love, character, destiny, Southern culture and body-building. Charming, low-key, funny. Arguably contains the most winning Arnold Schwarzenegger performance ever. Definitely my all-time favorite Jeff Bridges film. Sally Field, R.G. Armstrong, Robert Englund, Helena Kallianiotes.

Frank Perry and Thomas McGuane‘s Rancho Deluxe (’75). Another Jeff Bridges film about destiny and character, this time by way of Montana cattle rustling. Harry Dean Stanton and Richard Bright played Curt and Burt, and of course their names are a running gag. Not a lot of narrative urgency, but that’s also the charm of it.

Lamont Johnson‘s The Last American Hero (’73). One of the best redneck flicks ever. Yes, Bridges again. The story of racecar driver Junior Johnson, called Elroy Jackson in the film. Based on Tom Wolfe‘s Esquire piece titled “The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson…Yes!”.

Susanne Bier‘s Things We Lost In The Fire (’07). My all-time favorite film about drug addiction, containing my favorite Benicio del Toro performance. Fans were few and far between when it opened in ’07, but I was instantly sold. Alone but hooked,

I half-liked the first John Wick flick, but I hated the two that followed. I might watch John Wick: Chapter 4 (Lionsgate, 3.24.23) because of the locations — Paris, Berlin (including Studio Babelsburg sound stage interiors), osaka and Lawrence of Arabia‘s Wadi Rum.

I thought that Rep. Lauren Boebert, the Trump-embracing, pistol-packing Colorado reptile, was down for the count. Alas, she might squeak through.

From Vox’s Li Zhou, posted on 11.9:

Julia Butters, 13, is going to luck into something momentous. A feature, I hope. She’s got it. Unfortunately The Fabelmans doesn’t let her do all that much, but that’s not a tragedy. I’m just sensing that something exceptional will come her way within four or five years.