Watching Movies More than Once: My Traditions

When I was first getting into cinema, I will admit that I re-watched movies quite often.  It was kind of what you did.  I was a teenager, and movies were not exactly plentiful in my house, and my parents had kind of instilled in me the idea of watching movies more than once.  Plus, TV was less plentiful then, with less original content on cable (it was a simpler time), so my entertainment options were limited.  Now that I'm older, and have a list of movies, TV, books, and the like that I need to experience before I die that keeps getting longer and longer (no matter how much time I have to devote to it), I thought it would be fun to explore what traditions I still have when it comes to re-watching, re-reading, and re-experiencing my favorite entertainment. (John's Editor's Note: Upon rereading this, I realize how insanely Type A I am, which I knew, but you might not, so proceed at your own risk)

1. Sleepless in Seattle

While I probably end up watching some movies like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and Clue at least once a year, the only movie that I'm guaranteed to see every year is Sleepless in Seattle, and it is all part of a very specific tradition that I started probably when I was living in my first apartment in St. Paul.  Prior to watching the movie I will have spent the day at the Mall of America, my annual sojourn to Minnesota's gaudiest tourist trap (and will have watched a movie, walked every floor & done zilch shopping as I was already done by then).  Once home, I'll clean my entire apartment from top-to-bottom, particularly my bedroom, and make some popcorn.  I will then shut off all of the lights in the apartment, and turn on the movie.  It is one of my favorite movies, and at this point in my life I'm roughly the same age that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks are at the movie (I'm officially in the in-between years of Ryan and Hanks at this point).  The crucial moment is when Nat King Cole starts singing "Stardust" and it is so dark in the entire apartment because it's night in the movie and it's pitch black in my empty apartment, I will switch on the lights of my tree, so that it's just Nat King Cole and beautiful, dark green-and-red lights.  It's always romantic and lovely and I can't quite put into words for you how much I love this, but it is perhaps my favorite tradition I have with myself every single year.

2. Lost

If you know me at all, you will know that I love the TV show Lost.  I actually went to Hawaii to just see sites from Lost (I also did other Hawaii-related stuff, but honestly-it was just for Lost, and I saw 11 places from the show so I am beyond happy).  Anyway, I have seen every episode multiple times, but I'm only allowed to rewatch the series once every three years.  Other shows I'm not as picky about (I will rewatch Community or Modern Family in the background of my life all the time), but I need to experience my most beloved TV show, so I only get to catch up with Sawyer, Kate, Jack, and the like once every three years.  In a few months, though, I'm pumped as I get to take a trip back to the island as 2018 is when I'm on-track to get to watch all 114 episodes once again, so expect another Lost week in your future around April.

3. Pushing Daisies

The other show that I get to experience once every two years in this case (because it's a comedy and it's heartbreakingly shorter, so it doesn't have to be as occasional), is the 22 episodes of Pushing Daisies.  For this, I also have to clean my apartment; I think this all hearkens back to the first time I experienced these shows, but I tend to appreciate my favorite things more when I see them in a pristine apartment (which is a rare occurrence, hence me underlining this), and I devote an entire weekend to the show.  In the process, I find a recipe for one of the pies that are on the show (my next one might end up being persimmon, as I've always wanted to try but never gone there), and I eat it almost entirely during the 22 episodes.  I also sing along with Olive and Vivian (hence why I don't watch with other people), and I usually try to start at night, though here I'm a little less picky about which episodes I end up watching at what time, though I tend to like snow on the ground as it makes the world outside a little more magical.

4. The Twilight Zone

The only show that I watch, at least in part, every single year is The Twilight Zone, and this tradition is coming up in a few weeks.  As a single person who works hundreds of miles away from where his family lives, I do find that I don't always spend all of my holidays with family members.  Other than Easter and Christmas, there's no guarantee that I won't be spending my holiday by myself, and so I have created my own traditions around these holidays, with New Year's Eve probably being my favorite.  On New Year's Eve Day, I will wake up super early, and I will turn on the SyFy channel, tuning in for their annual Twilight Zone marathon (they apparently run this marathon on other major holidays, but for me it's only a NYE sort of thing).  I usually get a massage on New Year's Eve (I like to ring in the year relaxed and calm, as January is always a tough month at work and in general once the haze of the holiday season is gone and you realize that you still have the same problems you did before Turkey Day), so this isn't a continual, park-in-front-of-the-couch sort of marathon, but I love it.  I have seen pretty much every episode at this point (I've never double-checked this, but after doing this for nearly a decade I have to be close), and I don't care.  The episodes are so well-made, and so well-constructed it's hard to argue with catching them again and again (you can see my favorite episodes of the series here), and instead of watching Ryan Seacrest or Anderson Cooper, my New Year's Eve is brought in with Robert Keith tricking his horrible family into smiting their faces for his money and continues on the next day as I do the last bits of my annual Christmas season cleaning around the apartment.  It's stress free, and it's a tradition I love so I don't have to worry about finding a party or someone to kiss at New Year's.

5. On Chesil Beach and The Alligators

I know there are people who read the same book every single year.  For years my mom would read the same love story once a year and my buddy John will read Harry Potter again about once a year.  For me, the only book that I read, consistently, every single year is Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach.  It's a beautiful (and blessedly for me, the slow reader that I am), short book and while I don't typically do this in its entirety, I have taken to finishing the book (which always makes me cry) very early in the morning on a cold beach by myself.  I usually read this in the spring, which is arguably my lowest time of the year, so that I can just have a lovely cry before the newness of the year starts (and I feel like I have to date again), and it's just terribly romantic.

My only other reading tradition is The Alligators by John Updike, a story that I will read before embarking on a new writing project.  John Updike is probably my favorite writer in terms of actual sentence structure, and The Alligators (which also makes me cry) is my all-time favorite short story, and I just find it inspires me to try and create something beautiful.  So as I will begin NaNoWriMo two days after I write this article (or a few weeks before this goes live), I will surely have enjoyed this once again.

6. Random Traditions

In terms of annual or recurring traditions, these are about it.  I do have traditions, though, when I decide to watch most movies again.  I can only watch most of my favorite movies, but particularly The Hours, Titanic, Casablanca, Lost in Translation, and lately Brokeback Mountain when it is dark out and on a Saturday.  When I watch The Godfather, it starts on a Friday night and turns into a weekend of the movie, with me forcing myself to stay awake throughout the first movie, and then pushing onward through the sequel on Saturday, and if I'm up for it going to the third (depending on my mood); I also always make a big tub of spaghetti and buy cannoli, which I wait to eat for the line. Despite its length, generally any of my actual favorite movies I have to watch from start-to-finish at night, which is a big deal for me as it is a rare occurrence that I'm out-of-bed after 9 PM.  The only holiday movies other than Sleepless I tend to find myself watching regularly are the Charlie Brown specials, the animated Grinch, It's a Wonderful Life, and lately Meet Me in St. Louis on Christmas Eve.  I tend to, whenever I rewatch Sex and the City drink pink champagne and listen to Edith Piaf after the episode where Carrie goes to the Paris theater (I went to this theater on my final Saturday living in NYC).  Oh, and this is an odd one, but whenever I get dumped, I will always, always, reach for The English Patient, which is bizarre because it's like the saddest movie and possibly my favorite film, but I tend to only enjoy it when I want to wallow.  I've seen it a lot, so you may understand my love life there.

Those are all of the ones that I can think of offhand (I'm sure there are more-TV, movies, and books are a large part of my life), but if you have some of your own, I'd love to hear them.  Please share in the comments!

OVP: Deepwater Horizon (2016)

Film: Deepwater Horizon (2016)
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez, Dylan O'Brien, Kate Hudson
Director: Peter Berg
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Sound Editing, Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

One of the crucial aspects of an action movie is that you root for the main character.  The film can't really function without it, in fact.  The whole point is you are out there, cheering on the men or women (but too often just men) that are trying to prevent the city/planet/solar system from being destroyed.  Then when they do, or don't, you have a vested interest in their success or defeat.  Normally, even in movies I don't like, I don't struggle with this, but Deepwater Horizon was different.  I am not naive about where my oil comes from, but I also am not going to sit around and celebrate literally anyone involved with this disaster, and so I struggled to get through this picture without yelling vigorously at the television like I did when the initial catastrophe happened.

(Spoilers Ahead) The reality is that offshore drilling should be a last-ditch resort to get oil (and we need to be doing more to get electric cars and non-petrochemical solutions to our energy needs), so I'm already at a disadvantage because I don't view these sorts of positions with the same sort of esteem you'd expect for, say, the military or the police or firefighters or any other profession that Mark Wahlberg decides to play onscreen (he used to be such an interesting actor, and then he turned into Clint Eastwood without the occasional artistry, which is such a disappointment because his movies are too big of hits for me not to end up seeing them time-and-again).  There is little forgiveness to be had here, and knowing that everyone was at fault here-not just the crew, but BP and Transocean were cutting corners to meet deadlines that ultimately polluted the entire Gulf of Mexico, killing marine life (and wiping out populations that could take decades to recuperate), as well as harm the well-being and livelihoods of people living in coastal Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Louisiana.

I will admit, therefore, that no amount of Michael Bay-esque blame on John Malkovich is going to allow me to forgive anyone involved here.  Everyone should have been shouting "NO!" at the top of their lungs, and the rest of the film I checked out of what was happening.  It never approaches the level of propaganda that 13 Hours achieved, but I still checked out every time I remembered this was a real story, and the overall acting in the movie is too wooden.  I am hesitant to name a "best of" in the cast, since it was probably no one (I'm a big fan of Russell and Rodriguez in general, so it'd surely be one of them but not really based on their work here but general adoration), but I have to say Kate Hudson's role in this makes me once again question how she won an Oscar nomination, and Malkovich at some point has to try again and not just play yet another version of the same creepy-John-Malkovich style character.

The film won two Oscar nominations, and this feels okay.  The sound work is a combination of loud and louder, but doesn't have the precision of something like Wahlberg's Lone Survivor a few years back, and feels like it was nominated because Sound Editing is a sucker for underwater work.  It's fun to see a movie with practical special effects nominated here, as I actually like that they mix it up (there's an enormous amount of skill required to succeed on that front today, and it shows onscreen).  I don't know that there's a lot of differentiation in the special effects, with the biggest moment being Rodriguez's giant jump with Wahlberg (which is the only action moment in the film I was truly impressed by, but I didn't love the idea of Wahlberg having to help rescue the only woman on the rig like we're in an Errol Flynn picture), but when they are creating CGI for the film, it doesn't blend well and I think this is more a nod to the technical achievement of undertaking the film than whether or not it actually succeeded in looking believable.

We're going to leave it there because there isn't much more to say about Deepwater Horizon.  For those of you who saw it (which is probably a lot of you-Wahlberg movies tend to make bank), what were your thoughts?  Were you like me where you couldn't put your real-life opinions behind you and invest in these characters, or were you rooting for Wahlberg the whole time?  And what do you think of the film's two Oscar nominations-deserved, undeserved, or perhaps you're still mad that it lost?  Share below!

5 Theoretical Character Sequels to Classic Movies

The entire concept of a character sequel (not sure if this is the correct term for such a film, but I first heard it used by Nathaniel over at The Film Experience, so giving credit where it's due) is a breath-of-fresh-air in a world where I feel like everything has to have a sequel (seriously-I don't want a follow-up to Big Little Lies!).  While a sequel seems to just be a continuation of the story, a character sequel checks in on a specific character instead, much like how Victoria & Abdul did this year, not focusing on what happened to Queen Victoria immediately after Mrs. Brown, but waiting decades to tell the tale.  It made me wonder about some of my favorite movies, and whether or not they had sequels that could have (or still could!) be situated in their tales.  Below I list out five of the characters I wish had had sequels, roughly when I would have wanted the movies, and what I hoped they would have entailed. (Spoilers Ahead if you haven't seen these movies)

Midge in Vertigo (1983)

Set 25 years after the events of Vertigo, Midge is a widow who is on the cusp of selling her lingerie empire, and contemplating what to do next in her life.  She meets a young man who inspires her into a brief affair, all-the-while being haunted by her late husband Scotty, who died of liver failure years earlier, and whether or not he ever loved her.

Laura Hunt in Laura (1974)

Laura Hunt, once the darling of the New York social set, lives a rather lonely life in Queens, with her gruff soon-to-be-retired ex-cop husband.  She begins to write a romantic mystery inspired by real-life events in her youth, and watches as her life is torn asunder when she once again becomes the suspect in a death that eerily mirrors the events that took place in her life thirty years previously.

Sandy in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1999)

Technically this is cheating, as in the book we see Sandy quite often in the future (the movie and the novel differ greatly on that front), but as Sandy is one of my favorite complicated villains, it makes sense to show a movie of her as a nun, a writer of some renown but largely reclusive, still under the spell of Miss Jean Brodie.

Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard (2000)

I actually quite like this idea, of Schaefer's life being chronicled by a reporter.  We learn that after the events of Norma Desmond's life, she ended up writing what would largely become the script for Sunset Boulevard, and then became a feminist pioneer and the first female Hollywood studio head  This becomes a look at how Hollywood treated women behind-the-camera in the 1970's and 1980's.

Nina in Nightcrawler (2026)

Set in the future, Nina is the producer of a trashy low-budget cable talk show, similar to Sally Jesse Raphael but with a vapid, coked-out young woman as the lead.  Broke and in-need of money, she sets out to blackmail Lou Bloom, who is about to become the CEO of a major news network.

Okay, I'm aware that some of these toe the line into being a straight sequel, rather than a character one, but I'm still playing with the concept.  Below, let me know some of your favorite characters from the movies you want follow-ups regarding!

The 5 Stages of Grief: Prince Harry's Engagement

As you may have heard, my crush of 22 years (we're the same age, it's fine), Prince Henry Charles Albert David has announced his engagement to Meghan Markle.  Yes, yes, I'm sure she's a nice person and pretty, but I have had my designs on him for 22 years, so I figured it was appropriate I still go through the five stages of grief as I wonder what might have been:

1. Denial

"I mean, can you really believe anything on the internet anymore?  Can't Fake News work in my favor just once?"

2. Anger

"Maybe I dumped him!  Did you ever think of that?!?"

3. Bargaining

"Perhaps the marriage only counts in England, and he's still single in the states."

4. Depression

"How do you change the background on you computer again?!?"

5. Acceptance

"Oscar Isaac's still single, right?"

OVP: Loving Vincent (2017)

Film: Loving Vincent (2017)
Stars: Douglas Booth, Jerome Flynn, Saoirse Ronan, Helen McCrory, Chris O'Dowd, Eleanor Tomlinson
Director: Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Firsts in film are rarer and rarer to come by, and almost always end up feeling a teensy bit gimmicky.  When I first heard about Loving Vincent, I was intrigued to see what it would look like, but wondering if perhaps the film itself might feel a little stilted.  For those unfamiliar, the picture is the first movie ever to be completely hand-painted.  Funded in part by a Kickstarter, the film itself is literally made up of 65,000 actual canvasses painted by 125 oil-painters, an unfathomably large task that comes across as impressive, but oftentimes stilted onscreen.  The movie itself never quite feels worth that effort, I'm sorry to say, though the ambition should at least be rewarded with you checking out Loving Vincent, or at least some of the opening scenes.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers upon a young man Armand Roulin (Booth), who is trying to deliver a letter that Vincent van Gogh wanted to send to his brother Theo before he died.  Armand is largely unimpressed with van Gogh, thinking him a bit of a fool and a madman, but is compelled to do so based on the friendship van Gogh had with his father, van Gogh's Postman (O'Dowd).  After learning of Theo's death, Armand goes to the town where van Gogh died in search of Vincent's psychiatrist, Dr. Gachet (Flynn), whom he believes is the secret to understanding why van Gogh killed himself, and perhaps learning something about the genius behind the beautiful paintings.  The film spends most of its time here, with Armand meeting with a bunch of witnesses to van Gogh's final days, and along the way changing his opinion of van Gogh, and in particular about his death.

The film's central story is really compelling, in my opinion.  While I have studied a touch of art history, I wasn't aware of the recent speculation that van Gogh did not, in fact, kill himself (as has been assumed for years), but instead that he may have been murdered, perhaps by a drunken young man who tormented van Gogh (the artist was regularly bullied by the young men of the village, particularly over his removed ear).  The movie, as a result, is really interesting even if it isn't always successfully executed.  We leave not really knowing much about the actual characters onscreen, or what drives them.  Armand as our narrator, for example, may have changed his opinion of van Gogh but we know relatively little about the man himself.  This lack of character development wouldn't fly in a live-action film, and we should probably hold an animated film to the same standards.  Still, though, it's a riveting theory even if it's hard to prove true at this point, and I'm glad that it allowed me to pore over a dozen articles or so after the picture to help me better know the artist behind all of the beautiful paintings.

Of course, no one is really planning on seeing Loving Vincent for the story (well, except me, apparently), but to see whether the paintings themselves come alive onscreen.  There's a fascinating touch of reality meeting the magic of van Gogh's creations with all of the actors being outfitted in the costumes of van Gogh's most famous portraits.  You see, for example, Douglas Booth's face on the famed yellow coat and black fedora of the real-life Armand Roulin or Saoirse Ronan donning the high-necked white dress of Marguerite Gachet.  There were several times during the film where I said "wow" audibly, though the audience only agreed with me when it came to our first closeup of Dr. Gachet, people gasping in the theater as we saw Jerome Flynn's face so eerily matching the Portrait of Dr. Gachet, once famously the most expensive painting in the world.  The movie is beautiful in the way they incorporate these actors into van Gogh's world, but it still feels rather stilted and uneven in the way that they try to impress van Gogh into cinema.  The inevitable and iconic use of his classic The Starry Night comes across as a bit forced, and like you're squinting more than anything else.  All-in-all, it's a very impressive failure, but I don't think it ended up approaching anything truly landmark-we won't be seeing films like this in the future, even if perhaps it's a cool enough concept for us to want a look at Monet or Renoir in such a manner.

All-in-all, I'm giving this three stars because that's sort of my threshold into whether or not I would recommend a movie.  I don't know if it's worth that, but the story is compelling, the artistry intriguing if not always successful, and that feels like enough to want from a picture, particularly in a year that has been notoriously weak when it comes to animated films.  Check it out, particularly on a big screen if you can, as you want as large of canvas to peruse as possible.

OVP: Wonder (2017)

Film: Wonder (2017)
Stars: Jacob Tremblay, Julia Roberts, Owen Wilson, Izabela Vidovic, Noah Jupe, Danielle Rose Russell
Director: Stephen Chbosky
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Makeup & Hairstyling)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

In 2012, I remember being in a dingy dollar theater and having my world shook.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower had not been a movie I'd anticipated liking.  The only reason I saw it, in fact, was its stray WGA nomination, and I felt like I needed to catch it or risk not having seen all of the Top 8 Oscar nominees come Oscar morning (I like to be as complete as possible by that day).  By the end of the movie, I was a sobbing, emotional mess, startled by how much I adored the picture, and just four weeks later would give it my personal Best Picture, Director, and Lead Actor trophies.  I loved it so much that I felt I must catch Chbosky's follow-up, even though I still had my doubts.  After all, this wasn't his own words in a movie-this wasn't a story that he knew by heart, but instead was a book by RJ Palacio.  Could he somehow find a similar magic?

(Spoilers Ahead) Thankfully for me (and for audiences everywhere-this has the feel of a serious word-of-mouth hit this year), Chbosky was able to find a humanity even in words he didn't know from creation.  The film, centered around a middle-school boy named Auggie (Tremblay) who suffers from Treacher Collins syndrome, is a beautiful and moving tale of the human spirit.  We follow him as he learns to accept himself and his situation in life, making friends for the first time, and we also smartly look away from Auggie to those in the world around him, getting a more human perspective of side characters than we'd normally get in such a film.

This is where the actual magic of Wonder takes place.  Though it does have group sequences, it is broken out into side chapters with these different characters, not just Auggie but his sister Via (Vidovic), his best friend Jack Will (Jupe), and his sister's former best friend Miranda (Russell).  While Tremblay is very good in the central role, Auggie is always going to demand your attention, for the good or the bad, but watching these side characters, you get a sense of how we don't really know what happens in the minds of the people around us.  We see Jack Will, for example, struggle with his need to be included and his self-consciousness about being a scholarship kid, while also really liking Auggie as a person even though it makes him something of a pariah.  We see Via become uncomfortable with how neglected she feels with her parents' adoration of Auggie, even though she knows that he has a harder surface-level lot in life than she does.  And perhaps most effectively, we see Miranda, a character with a broken home who desperately wants to have her best friend's loving family, to the point where she lies at camp and pretends that she's Via.  Chbosky finds the same sense of daring honesty in Palacio's pages as he did in his own, showing us not good or bad people, but people with faults who occasionally must confront them.  Watching Jack Will struggle in vain, for example, to undo his cruelty to Auggie was startling and a lot rawer than you'd typically expect from a family movie.

It must be said that the movie isn't quite as good as Perks.  The parents, though funny and charming (Wilson and Roberts rely heavily on what made them movie stars to begin with), are too idealistic and not really complete performances.  You truly wish that, perhaps in an epilogue, they would have followed their chapters to see what their insecurities and lives were like.  Instead, we are given a schmaltzy ending that undoes all of the previous chapters and the way that they gave a less sugar-coated version of life, showing that even when it's unfair there's wonder in the world.  Having Auggie win a medal with everyone, including his bully for most of the film, thunderously applauding feels like a flight too-far into fantasy.  But up until that point, the movie is one of the best films about the high school experience I've seen since Perks, and well worth your time.

Those are my thoughts on this delightful (I loved it, even if I can see the seams-it's a far better movie than The Blind Side to which it is being compared), and genuinely think I'll be seeing it again.  I can't quite go to five stars here, mostly because the ending doesn't work well and there are too many moments that feel a bit opaque, but it's easily one of the best times I have had in a theater this year, and I suspect it could grow into a five-star "heart" movie, even if I have to stick with it being a four-star "head" movie.  Share your thoughts on the picture below!

The 8 Living Women (and 2 Men) Who Have Starred in an Alfred Hitchcock Movie

In the past month, while prepping for NaNoWriMo, I was thinking a lot about my relationship with classic film, and in particular how few links we still have to the Golden Age of Hollywood.  It feels like at this point it's more of a scrounge to find living actors from this era rather than the multitudes that were still alive even only twenty years ago, and in the process, I began to wonder how many of Alfred Hitchcock's leading ladies were still alive.

Focusing on Hitchcock in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations feels a bit seedy, considering that he had famously complicated relationships with his leading ladies, including allegedly sexually assaulting Tippi Hedren and exerting enormous control over women like Grace Kelly.  However, this isn't celebrating Hitch, but the women who made his films special, and specifically the eight leading ladies in his movies that are still with us.  Without further adieu (I'm imagining you're trying to guess in your head who they are anyway), here are the eight living women who have headlined an Alfred Hitchcock picture (listed chronologically by film):

Editor's Note: Since the publication of this Barbara Harris passed away on August 21, 2018.  I've maintained Ms. Harris's profile below, however.

Shirley MacLaine

Film: The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Age: 83 (Born April 24, 1934)

Career: This was actually MacLaine's screen debut, though she's not really known for her work with Hitchcock.  She'd get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Newcomer in the film, and would be an Oscar nominee three years later for Some Came Running (and soon a screen legend).

Doris Day

Film: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Age: 95 (Born April 3, 1922)

Career: Day was enjoying the "dramatic" period of her film career when she partnered with Hitchcock (an odd pairing in hindsight, though her iconic "Que Sera, Sera" would become a signature tune).  She'd be getting her sole Oscar nomination a few years later when she made Pillow Talk and kicked off the most successful period of her career.

Vera Miles

Film: The Wrong Man (1956)

Age: 88 (Born August 23, 1929)

Career: Miles is a strange case of an actress that made a lot of classic films in a brief period of time (she also starred in the John Ford classic The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), who is best remembered by modern audiences for her supporting work in Psycho.  She was originally intended to be Hitch's leading lady in Vertigo, but due to a pregnancy he had to replace her with...

Kim Novak

Film: Vertigo (1958)

Age: 84 (Born February 13, 1933)

Career: Novak's eternally known as Madeline in Vertigo, her most iconic role, but the reality is that the film was a turning point in her career, and not in the right direction.  Though considered today to be one of the greatest films ever made, Vertigo was a box office disappointment at the time, and Novak (coming off of hits like Picnic, Pal Joey, and Bell, Book, and Candle) watched her career dissipate after this, with her brief period as a leading woman soon over.

Eva Marie Saint

Film: North by Northwest (1959)

Age: 93 (Born July 4, 1924)

Career: Saint had made a name for herself at this point in her career playing downtrodden women in black-and-white dramas (winning an Oscar for On the Waterfront), so this was a very atypical movie for the actress, and one that sort of would signal the end of her short career as a leading woman.  Saint made surprisingly few pictures in her very long career, and would soon be playing third fiddle to Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor in The Sandpiper.

Tippi Hedren

Film: The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964)

Age: 87 (Born January 19, 1930)

Career: Hedren has the distinction on this list of being the only woman to headline two Hitchcock films (while Miles starred in multiple Hitch projects, she only got top billing in one).  Hedren's career  was, well, bizarre after Hitchcock with her most notable film being the troubled production Roar, and she famously hated her filming experiences on Hitch's pictures, but it cannot be denied that these aren't an iconic legacy for her as an actress.

Julie Andrews

Film: Torn Curtain (1966)

Age: 82 (Born October 1, 1935)

Career: Andrews had just two years earlier made her screen debut, but at this point was a major leading lady in Hollywood, and was enjoying what would be the biggest period of success in her career with back-to-back mammoth hits that scored her Oscar nominations (and her one win).  Still, she's hardly what you'd consider an obvious choice to headline a Hitchcock picture considering her well-noted warm and kind characters.

Barbara Harris

Film: Family Plot (1976)

Age: 82 (Born July 25, 1935)

Career: Despite being a decade after Andrews, she's slightly older than the Torn Curtain star, and appeared in the lead of Hitch's last picture.  She was enjoying a peak moment in her career at this point, having just been a part of the classic Nahsville and would receive TWO Golden Globe nominations this year, for her work here as well as in Freaky Friday (she'd lose to Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born).

Initially I thought that I'd do a sequel with the leading men of Hitchcock's career, but unfortunately only two of Hitch's leading men are still with us, so let's also list them right now...

Sean Connery

Film: Marnie (1964)

Age: 87 (August 25, 1930)

Career: Connery at this point had found his most iconic role at this point in his career, James Bond, and would later this same year give his best 007 performance in Goldfinger.  Still, Connery's debonair charm and sex appeal seem like a natural fit for a Hitchcockian film, and I'm surprised he didn't end up starring with him again later in his career.

Bruce Dern

Film: Family Plot (1976)

Age: 81 (June 4, 1936)

Career: Dern is the youngest-living person to have headlined an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  At this point in his career he'd been a character actor for over a decade, and had actually appeared in a small part in Marnie, but was most well-known for his villainous work in The Cowboys opposite John Wayne.  Two years after this he'd win his first of two Academy Award nominations for Coming Home.

There you have it-the eight women (and two men) who are still with us who have headlined a Hitchcock picture.  Share your favorite memories of these women and which of these nine performances are your favorites?

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Film: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins
Director: Taika Waititi
Oscar History: Marvel's not their favorite, so I'm guessing no even if VFX is theoretically a possibility.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Movies are supposed to be fun.  Like, genuinely a good time at the cinema, and I think that comic book movies have by-and-large forgotten that.  Think of the nauseating seriousness of some of the more recent Batman entries, with Christopher Nolan getting too bloated and with his inventiveness gone, the DC universe going largely to shit.  The Marvel movies have also struggled on this front, creating lighter heroes but ones still burdened by the world around them.  This occasionally can make for fine movies (Captain America: Winter Soldier still being the high-point of the Marvel universe), but it's also why people have responded so ferociously to Guardians of the Galaxy, a comic book franchise that doesn't take itself too seriously.  That was clearly what Taika Waititi had in mind with the latest installment in the Thor franchise, though I'm not entirely sold on the end result.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Thor franchise is arguably the least artistically interesting one of Marvel's universe.  One could argue that had Thor not been one of the original hits that eventually led to the Avengers movie taking over the globe, he probably wouldn't still be getting these stand-alone movies, but since he was and since Marvel essentially can print money with the Avengers franchise at this point, it's not hard to see why he's still getting his due.  Still, though, Thor as a solo character doesn't really work unless you can juxtapose him against other characters to show how preposterous he is, and Waititi certainly does that in this picture.

The film starts off with Thor (Hemsworth) returning to his home of Asgard after unsuccessfully searching for the Infinity Stones that have constantly peppered this franchise for the better part of a decade now.  We see that he no longer is with Jane, and that shockingly his brother Loki (Hiddleston) is still alive (albeit his father Odin (Hopkins) isn't long for this world).  He soon learns of Hela (Blanchett), his Goddess of Death sister, who destroys his hammer with her bare hands early in the film and slowly we watch as Thor is stripped off all of his iconography, with the hair and one eye soon to follow.   He inevitably ends up in a showdown with Hela, and proving that he has learned some humility, finally realizes that he cannot destroy her, only another demon can do so, and flees rather than stand to fight her.

The movie, though, will focus less on the fight for Asgard and more on the silly side distractions of Thor on Sakaar, a garbage dump of a planet (literally), where the Grandmaster (Goldblum) puts on massive battles that pit his Grand Champion, later revealed to be the Hulk (Ruffalo) against fighters such as Thor.  The movie stays extremely light and frothy in these parts, but I honestly wasn't feeling it.  Whereas Guardians was meant to be light, Thor has some very serious issues going on, and the Hulk in particular is played mostly for laughs but this is a deeply tragic figure.  Plus, Goldblum has used this schtick for so many years it's hard not to assume he's just playing himself onscreen.  Blanchett is better at delivering the camp as a woman who sports antlers for ears and can throw off a deadly bon mot better than pretty much anyone, but she's not central to the story-Goldblum is.  The entire movie is predicated on you just enjoying all of the silliness of Thor's compatriots, but it feels excessive.  Combined with unnecessary cameos (of course we see Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, because that reminds people he's still around) and shocking, but then eye-rolling cameos (Matt Damon as Loki in a play...at some point we need to address that Damon has largely graduated from movie star to celebrity thanks to his string of middling movies & over-reliance on Jimmy Kimmel), the movie is reliant on societal pressure for you to love the Marvel brand so much that you're willing to dismiss the fact that the plotting here is bordering on garbage.  Chris Hemsworth has graduated into a movie star through these pictures, something we should be thankful for, and is arguably giving the best performance (give-or-take Blanchett), but movie star charisma and the face/body of an alien creature (seriously-how is it that one human being can be that attractive?) can't save this movie from being just, well, dull and pointless.  Marvel can have fun, but they need a plot and a point too.

Those are my (admittedly unpopular) thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok.  How about yours?  Anyone else find the movie to be over dull and forcing the fun, rather than seeming at ease?  Or am I just the spoil sport?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

How I Learned to Embrace Being Unique

I am not, and will likely never be, cool.  When I was in high school, I think this was something that I desperately craved, but couldn't really find the right recipe to accomplish.  I was cute, but not beautiful in the way you're expected to be by your peers (my haircut wasn't stylish, my clothes weren't designer), I was not good at ANY athletics, I was smart but in a mildly off-putting way, and I was not into anything particularly popular.  I wasn't the sort of Avril Lavigne-style (good lord, I'm old), rocker kid who was rebelling against others, but instead was just kind of nerdy, sweet-but-a-loner, and just hoping-and-praying that I'd get through the day without being bullied or even really being visible.  I look back on this with a jovial nature now, thinking how ridiculous the entire experience was and how it was an ancient memory, but I would be lying if I pretended that it didn't hurt a lot at the time that I didn't fit in, and that it wasn't a gut punch when I couldn't relate to my peers.

I do, however, remember the moment in my life when I saw a light at the end of that tunnel.  I was on a class trip to France & England when I was 17, and I was with two girls from my high school, as well as about 15 students from neighboring high schools of varying ages.  I had just finished my sophomore year, and unlike some urban environments, neighboring high school kids were not necessarily ones that I knew because they lived 50-70 miles away.  As a result, this was a chance for me to be meeting people who hadn't known me since I was six, and knew little about me except for what I put forth in those circumstances.  During this time, in terms of high school hierarchy, I was certainly the bottom of the food chain of the people I was with, as the two other girls on the trip were the "popular" girls, but of course the people there didn't know that they were "above my station," and slowly as the trip continued, I became fast friends with everyone from neighboring schools.  Whereas my love of movies and books and mild aloofness was off-putting in my small rural town, against the backdrop of Paris and London, where I could appreciate things that the two popular girls couldn't because, well, I'd read Shakespeare and knew what the Venus de Milo was, I was considered unique and a fun travel companion.  The penultimate night of the experience, I had just gotten all of my food, and while the two girls from my high school, who at this point were having a miserable time and were sulking because no one was paying attention to them, were sitting alone, I got invited to four different tables by people on the trip.  It was one of the first moments of my life that I got to feel special, and not just be told that by my mother, and it taught me a valuable lesson-that as you age, certain things become more valuable than just arbitrary popularity.

You may be wondering "John, where is this going?" and I'm about to tell you.  While money, looks, and position never really go away as calling cards (they are always assets, sometimes to an unusually harsh degree), personality and intelligence do become a lot more attractive as you get older, particularly when it comes to dating.  I occasionally rag on myself when it comes to dating, and admittedly there are things that I wish I could change about myself, but there is something that I do bring to dates that even by guys who don't like me will admit they found attractive-I have interests, and I'm not boring.

Everyone has interests, but I will say that most people don't really actually do anything with them.  In the same way that "everyone likes music" and "everyone likes hanging with friends," it doesn't make you unique or out-of-the-ordinary if you do something literally everyone else does.  I used to think of having hobbies or interests, truly ones that set you apart from other people, was a given, something that everyone has, but it's not true.  In the same way that everyone can have abs, but not everyone does have abs, the same is said for passions.  You have to work for them, you have to nurture them-they can't just happen, you have to actually take the time investment to make them an important part of your identity.  And you can't really fake it-you can say you like movies, but then it's revealed that you have only seen two in the last year.  You can say you like television, but you only have watched the most basic shows on Netflix, HGTV, and Bravo.

This is probably the best advice I can give someone who is going on a lot of dates, but doesn't know why they aren't being successful (that, and never bring up money, complain about anything, or self-depricate on your first couple of dates as they don't know you well enough to be able to tell if you're kidding & they're just going to assume you're always like that).  I've been on a lot of first dates, and I generally know the moment I've won the second date, and it's not at the car-it's before the food has gotten there and I've mentioned something interesting about myself, and they're genuinely impressed; when they do this to me is also when I know I want a second date with this person.  This is a double-edged sword, on occasion, as sometimes people get self-conscious when they realize they don't have a "thing," in the same way those girls in high school realize that they don't have a "thing," but people respect passion for a hobby, they are attracted to a passion for a hobby.  People who invest time in themselves, not just at the gym or in the kitchen, but also in the library or the theater or the museum, and find something that they love and distinguishes them, usually are more interesting, better conversationalists, and are more fun to be around.  If you're finding yourself on a lot of first dates and aren't sure why you aren't getting second ones, it may be because you aren't setting yourself apart.  Find the thing that is most unique about yourself, and talk about what you do to nurture that in your personal lives.  Don't play the high school game of hiding your refurbishing of classic cars or lifelong love of comic books or your secret crafting YouTube channel hide under a bushel, because it may be what eventually lands you that special someone, and it will surely make you a richer, fuller person.

OVP: The Salesman (2016)

Film: The Salesman (2016)
Stars: Shahab Hosseini, Taraneh Alidoosti, Babak Karimi, Farid Sajadhosseini
Director: Asghar Farhadi
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Foreign Language Film-Iran*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The Trump administration at this point feels like an eternity, doesn't it?  Somehow we're not even a year into his reign of terror, and as a result certain indignities that would have marred an entire administration in the past have become "oh yeah" types of situations.  But remember, if you will, that in the height of Trump's first attempt at a travel ban back in January, one of the results was that Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi was not allowed to attend the Academy Awards, where he was nominated for directing one of the Foreign Language Film contenders, The Salesman.  While The Salesman was definitely toward the top of the list of movies that might make a play for the Oscar, up until that moment, I had expected the more lauded Toni Erdmann to grab the trophy.  Afterwards, though, it felt like Hollywood had the perfect chance to send a message to a president they despised by voting for a director he'd literally banned from the country, and so The Salesman ended up winning in one of the night's most political moments.  I've thought for months now about whether or not this win was actually warranted as it was truly the best movie of the five, or whether it was more a win in the way of sending Trump an "F-U" from the Academy.  So I went into this movie with a lot more questions than I normally would a recently released picture whose plot/stars I know very little regarding.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around an affluent acting couple who are putting on a production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.  The movie alternates between the play, occasionally feeling like we're actually watching Death of a Salesman (there are scenes that open on the play already in progress, without the veil of them being the characters), and real-life, where they are struggling to find a place to live after their apartment building collapses.  They move into an apartment, which they later learn previously housed a prostitute, and one night the wife Rana (Alidoosti) is assaulted by an unknown man, one whom we are left to assume was a client of the prostitute's.

The film unfolds as a type of psychological drama after this, as Rana becomes increasingly reliant on her husband Emad (Hosseini) for everything in her life, while Emad, who is frustrated at his once independent wife becomes afraid of the world, tries to find the man who assaulted her.  Eventually he finds him, and to the shock of most of the audience he's not a young criminal, but a senior citizen who claims that he simply startled Rana, not actually assaults her.  Things escalate with Emad locking the old man in an abandoned apartment room and trying to out his crimes to his family, and then the old man has a heart attack of sorts and nearly dies.  The film ends with Rana forcing Emad to not make the man confess, threatening him with divorce if he does, but Emad cannot help himself to strike the old man, who then goes into another heart episode as the film closes, with Rana and Emad wordlessly leaving the theater.

The film in a lot of ways recalls Farhadi's magnum opus A Separation, though it so liberally borrows from it that occasionally the shock of that original picture doesn't come across quite as well here.  The frustrations between Emad and Rana, for example, don't come to much of a head and feel underplayed more out of an under-developed script than out of cinematic ambience.  Still, Farhadi is a master of mood, and there are moments that are terribly gripping in the picture, particularly in some of the climactic scenes where you realize that Emad is so far under the spell of his rage and scorned masculinity that you think he's willing to sacrifice his marriage to defend his wife.  The movie needs more of this bizarre pull, and less of the meandering push to shove the parallels between Miller's play and our onscreen drama together.  All-in-all, it's the best movie I've seen nominated that year so far, but I have to believe they might have gone in a different direction without Trump, as Farhadi had made a similar (and better) movie five years previously.

Those are my thoughts on The Salesman-how about you?  I will confess it doesn't age as well in my mind (I saw it a few weeks ago), so for those who have had a lot of time to percolate with the picture, what did you think?  And what film would you have voted for in the 2016 Foreign Film Oscar lineup?  Share below!

My Experiences with Undercover Homophobia

Coming out of the closet is a strange experience, but one of the things that I remember about this experience is that, by-and-large, most of the interactions I had were far better than I could have imagined.  It was thirteen years ago, of course, so time tends to gloss over the worst moments of the experience, but people were supportive.  Friends I'd had wanted to know about my crushes and dating life, and were proud of me finally coming out of the closet.  But in the process, I remember losing one of my best friends, and as I'm trying to get a bit more personal (in prep for NaNoWriMo, a mention I'm sure you're all sick of hearing at this point, but I feel like if I write it enough times I'll actually do it so this is a bit of self-actualizing), I figured I'd tell that story as it still feels resonant today, as it's something that sneaks up on my own experience.

The first person I came out of the closet to I did in a letter.  It went well (it was the fastest that friend, whom I still adore, ever responded to an email in her life), and I moved on relatively quickly to coming out to people by actually talking to them in person.  One of the first people I did this with was a friend whom I lived in the same dormitory hall with.  We'd been friends for about six months, and were part of the same circle.  I really liked her a lot, and considered her one of the closest people to me, and I knew she'd be supportive as she was one of the more progressive of our friends when it came to her politics.  She was predictably supportive, and excited to learn more about this secret life I'd been living.

We started to, because it was still a popular show on television at the time, refer to ourselves by Will & Grace type names, and went shopping and discussed boys and guys we thought were cute.  It was really exhilarating, something that I had never experienced before.  When you're in the closet you spend so much of your life hiding from the world that, quite frankly, you never really feel open.  It's a crippling sort of internal loneliness, and to be able to burst your full self forward is such a release, such a joy, that that unhindered openness changes who you are in some ways.  Honestly, this seems a weird thing to say, but at this point in my life I'm not nearly as good of a liar as I was when I was a teenager, as lying becomes so hard to do after you were forced to do it for twenty years.  Suffice it to say, I was happy.

I was also, admittedly, not dating any guys at the time.  I had no way to meet men, as this was largely pre-dating app (the only ways to meet men online were extremely seedy, not the highly-catered Match.com world we live in now by comparison), and I was still, with the exception of a handful of friends, not out of the closet.  The thought of going up to a man, asking if he was gay, and then seeing if he also wanted to go on a date with me was petrifying, particularly without support. But I knew this was the next step, and one I was desperate to start taking, so I decided to ask two of my friends if they would come with me to a gay bar, so that I'd at least wouldn't have to ask if the guy was gay, and I'd have some support while I was doing it.

One of the friends was raring to go, excited about me going from a "theoretical" gay to an actual one (I literally had never even been kissed at this point), but my other friend, the Will & Grace friend, kept dragging her feet.  She still wanted to go out shopping and talk about the guys she was trying to date, but I could tell that she didn't like the gay part of me going from theoretical to reality.  Finally, I confronted her about it, and she said "I'm not comfortable going to a gay bar."  This confused me, as we went to bars together, and had gone out dancing, and then it occurred to me-she wanted Will Truman, the character on a broadcast network who doted on Grace but largely was only gay in terms of quips and sighs about fashion & George Clooney, not an actual gay man who wanted to date (and more) with other gay men.  She wanted an asexual gay man, one who could mirror her and make her look trendy, not a real true person who was going to date gay men.

Suffice it to say, we didn't go to the gay bar.  I met a gay couple through a random dating website who agreed to be my "sponsors" at the gay club so I wouldn't be scared (a story for a different day), and eventually got less scared about dating men.  In the process, though, I could never look at that friend the same way again, and it scarred me a bit when it came to most of my coming out process later.  I began to judge friends not on the scale of whether they accepted me as a gay person, but whether they accepted gay culture itself.  The ones who stuck took me as someone who had to be himself, and not just be a caricature of a man from TV.  I learned that it was easier to take homophobia that was obvious and base than sneaky like what my friend showed, one who would like to treat me as something to augment her own self than be a genuine friend with whom to spend time.  When people ask me if I had any bad experiences coming out, I usually say no, but this is the one that sticks out in my mind when I hear that phrase, as it was the first time I felt prejudice as an openly gay man, and it was from a place I had felt was a safe place.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Film: Spider-Man Homecoming (2017)
Stars: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey, Jr.
Director: Jon Watts
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There are few movies I really wanted less than another Spider-Man picture.  I'm well-aware that Disney/Marvel/whatever else they own by now (I'm writing this in mid-October for NaNoWriMo, so if we've renamed the country after them, I wouldn't be that surprised), needed a way to fold Peter Parker into the Avengers saga, but my thoughts going into this were that the movie seemed so unnecessary.  After a very fine first two films with Tobey Maguire, a third movie with him that was wholly unnecessary, and then a pair of completely misguided pictures with Andrew Garfield (who is too cerebral of an actor to ever be a proper matinee idol), I just didn't need to see them attempt it again.  Unlike Fantastic Four, they got it right the first time, and I just didn't require them to try for a third helping after doing it well to start with.  I even vowed to skip the next movie on principle, but then the previews looked good and the reviews were solid and Tom Holland is so cute...and, well, I'm weak, so I slipped into a theater and caught yet another attempt at trying to revive the Spider-Man franchise.

(Spoilers Ahead) The good news is that the movie itself is actually worth the ticket price.  Gone are the over-indulgences of the Andrew Garfield years (the villains-blech), and for the most part we don't have to relive the origin story for Spider-Man this time, which is so great.  I don't need to see poor Uncle Ben die yet again, with Aunt May mourning and Peter vowing revenge.  I don't need to live through the Green Goblin story once more.  It's nice to see a new villain (in this case, Michael Keaton as the Vulture) enter the picture and for them to skip over this aspect of the story because we know it by heart (note-Batman, you can do this too going forward).  By freeing itself from previous iterations and the shackles that come with them, you actually get a fresher movie, one that seems more attuned to actual teenage life, and not just telling the stories of a decades-old comic book.

The film lives and dies on whether or not Tom Holland's Peter Parker is likable, and honestly-he's my favorite Spider-Man, actually by quite a long-shot.  While Spider-Man 2 is arguably the best of the series so far, Holland is a better superhero than Tobey Maguire.  He's far more age appropriate for the role (Maguire was 27 when he first became Peter, Garfield was nearly 30), and actually seems attuned to Peter as a person and not just a means-to-an-end into becoming Spider-Man.  He's also got a movie star charisma that I hadn't seen before from him as an actor, and connects well with the material.  Holland is the sort of actor who should have followed Maguire, someone who could bring a different, lighter energy to one of the comic book characters who is generally the "most fun."  Holland stands as the main reason to see this film, and why a sequel is likely in my viewing future.

That being said, the rest of the film is somewhat middling.  The plot is easy to catch, even the shock of Michael Keaton's daughter being Peter's prom date (Keaton continues his strong streak of downtrodden, menacing men as the Vulture, the other main reason to see this picture), and the jokes are pretty predictable.  Robert Downey, Jr., is actually the best he's been as Iron Man in a long time, but the in-jokes of the Avengers start to lose their spark a bit as they continue, and even the "wow" of celebrity cameos (particularly Gwyneth Paltrow returning to her role as Pepper Potts), can't quite sustain the film on their own merits as it progresses.  I didn't care for the entire "WINK" (all caps on purpose there) that Zendaya was doing to being Peter's future love interest as MJ (also, why couldn't MJ have been a guy this time around-when are we going to get a gay superhero?!?), and I would be fine if they dropped Jon Favreau's character entirely from the remainder of the Avengers films as his gruff, charmless routine went out-of-style years ago.  But with Holland & Keaton at the center, it's difficult not to like this film, and honestly it's probably my favorite installment in the Marvel Universe since Guardians of the Galaxy, if not Captain America: Winter Soldier.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Don't pretend you haven't seen the movie, so get your opinion on in the comments.  Who is your favorite Spider-Man?  Where do you hope this franchise goes with the sequel?  And what should Tom Holland's next non-superhero career move be?  Share below!

The State of the Senate

Well, I will admit I didn't expect quite as much movement in the Senate rankings so far out from the actual elections, but perhaps more so I didn't anticipate one of the 2017 races (and yes, there's only one of them), getting to the point where it's now one of the ten most likely Senate races to switch hands for the Senate, but here we are.  Alabama is coming onto our "State of the Senate" roundup for the first time (ever-in all of the years I've done this I've never included the state of Alabama), and with that we've hit an historic first: if the Democrats were to sweep all of the Top 10 here (and of course hold every seat they have off of the list), they would win the majority come 2019.

This is an historic moment that, quite frankly, I didn't think could happen.  It never occurred to me that Roy Moore might (stress on might) actually lose in 2017, thus giving Democrats a chance at the elusive third seat, but in light of the multiple women who have come forward describing Moore's predatory behavior in his thirties toward teenage girls, there's no denying this is a possibility.  Admittedly, the Democrats still have steep odds-they'd have to hold seven of the below ten seats (and it's worth noting that there are competitive races not on this list), as well as pick up two states in addition to Alabama.  But the math isn't "impossible" anymore like I would have claimed it was nearly six months ago.  The Democrats needed a miracle, and Doug Jones winning would qualify as that.  Without further adieu, here's your Top 10 list (most likely to switch parties at #1):

Honorable Mention: I'm still waiting to see if Gov. Phil Bredesen A) will run for the Senate in Tennessee and B) if he can cash in on his once immense popularity in a way that Evan Bayh, Russ Feingold, and Ted Strickland couldn't (but Heidi Heitkamp in 2012, for the record, could).  Still, in light of Alabama it's not without question that Bredesen could be a player if he runs a smart campaign and Marsha Blackburn makes some fouls.  I feel like Bob Casey and Debbie Stabenow have both solidified their standings a bit since our last write-up, but Tammy Baldwin only makes it onto the Honorable Mentions because of Roy Moore-her race still feels the most vulnerable of the three "states Hillary needed."  Finally, the amount of ultra red state legislative districts that have swung hard to the Democrats makes me curious if perhaps Rep. Beto O'Rourke might be in a better position than we'd assume in Texas than a Democrat should be against a Republican (if admittedly unlikable) incumbent.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT)

10. Montana

I really can't believe how far Montana has fallen in my estimation, but you hardly hear a wink out of this race.  Perhaps I'm underestimating State Auditor Matt Rosendale, but after the Republicans couldn't get the candidates they actually wanted (he was at best third choice, perhaps even 4th or 5th), and Tester's faced far tougher opponents in the past, so I'm thinking that the Democrats may end up having lucked out here.  The NRSC could be cash-strapped, particularly if they can't pass tax reform (many donors have stated they're going to withhold donations if it isn't passed, and I kind of wonder if there's credence to that claim after they also couldn't reform healthcare), and there's a lot fresher or easier targets than Tester on the table.  If Rosendale doesn't make a stronger claim here this might become Florida Senate 2012-a race that was competitive on-paper, but never actually materialized and a theoretically vulnerable incumbent does just fine. (Previous Ranking: 6)

State Treasurer Josh Mandel (R-OH)

9. Ohio

Florida is arguably the hardest race on this list to get a read on, primarily because it's the only race where the competitiveness of the contest hinges on one man getting in (Tennessee, to a lesser degree, but Bredesen doesn't take it from Safe to Tossup, just Safe to Lean).  Ohio, though, is the state where all of the dynamics are out there, but I can't figure out what is most important.  On the one hand you have Sen. Sherrod Brown in an advantageous environment, an incumbent who has won statewide twice (including against his likely 2018 opponent), who will have an enormous amount of cash at his disposal, and is undeniably the better campaigner in this race.  On the other hand, however, is Donald Trump, who proved in 2016 that the Buckeye State may be going harder right than its bellwether state has historically allowed.  If that's the case, it might not matter that Brown is a better campaigner than State Treasurer Josh Mandel-he could fall in the same way that Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, and Gordon Smith have done before him.  But I'm not counting him out yet, and I think that Brown may be able to take it even if Ohio has turned into Missouri circa 2012. (Previous Ranking: 9)

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND)

8. North Dakota

The North Dakota Senate race remains a bit of a question mark in part because Rep. Kevin Cramer has not yet decided whether he's going to run for the Senate or for reelection.  While Cramer would surely become the frontrunner were he to take a jump into the race against first-term Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, his past comments (about women, in particular) could be a gold mine for Heitkamp in terms of campaign research, and she remains very popular with North Dakota voters.  If he doesn't run, it seems probable that Heitkamp will face State Sen. Tom Campbell, but again-Heitkamp is a very good fit for the seat, and perhaps better than any other Democrat has found a sweet spot between the letter behind her name and the voters in her state (she has video of Trump praising her, after all), and the Peace Garden State has a long history of reelecting Democrats to Congress while they send Republicans to the White House-might Heitkamp simply make it on likability/personal popularity in one of the few states that such attributes continue to hold water? (Previous Ranking: 4)

Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL)

7. Florida

Rick Scott.  Those are the only two words that matter in the Florida Senate race right now-will incumbent Gov. Rick Scott run for the seat?  Were he to run, this would be an instant tossup, probably moving ahead of a few of these seats, quite frankly, as Scott is a famously ruthless campaigner with near unlimited personal cash and has dispatched two very formidable challengers.  Admittedly, Sen. Bill Nelson is an institution in the race as well, but in his mid-70's one wonders if Nelson is running more so just to deter Scott from getting into the race rather than actually wanting to stick around for another term (the Democratic bench in the state is anemic, and there's always the risk Charlie Crist decides to run for yet another failed statewide contest).  But that being said, Scott still hasn't announced yet, and I'm curious to see what the impact of thousands of displaced Puerto Rican voters will do to this contest and to the governor's race.  At this point, Scott not running arguably takes this race off the list, as Nelson has a major head start over whichever member of the House delegation would try and dispatch him (the last two who attempted it failed miserably).  Until Scott enters the race, I'm keeping this right in the middle. (Previous Ranking: 7)

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV)

6. West Virginia

Sen. Joe Manchin is the last of his kind.  West Virginia was one of the most Democratic states in the country a decade ago, at least statewide, but at this point it's hard to imagine them ever recovering in the Mountain State, and Manchin, conservative as he may be, is likely to be the most progressive senator from West Virginia for the next couple of decades.  The strong prevalence in recent years for straight-ticket voting could surely have an impact on Joe Manchin, and he'll be called a "Hillary Liberal" in this race quite frequently, but part of me wonders if he's such an established brand it won't matter.  It'll be difficult to tar Manchin as a Nancy Pelosi Democrat since his brand-game is strong in West Virginia, and his close friendship with Gov. Jim Justice (and his cosiness with President Trump) could be valuable assets as long as the Senate contest doesn't become too nationalized.  All-in-all, it's hard to imagine Manchin being in a better position at this point, and while that's not high praise, it might well be enough to get him another term.  (Previous Ranking: 5)

State Sen. Kelli Ward (R-AZ)

5. Arizona

Rep. Krysten Sinema suffered a potential blow when Sen. Jeff Flake retired, rather than going off on what was going to be a near-certain loss in either the primary or the general thanks to his immense unpopularity.  She will now face an open seat election, but the Republicans could still shoot themselves in the foot.  I'd argue that if Rep. Martha McSally wins the primary, this race moves toward about 10th place on this list, as she's the better campaigner of the two and fits Arizona's (increasingly) light red tint.  However, State Sen. Kelli Ward is trying to portray McSally as "Jeff Flake: The Sequel," and polls show this could take.  Arizona is a state where the R behind your name matters a lot, so Ward could win even if she runs from the far right (and it's worth noting she's far better on the stump than her infamous John McCain comment would suggest), but I'd say that Sinema becomes the favorite if she makes it through, particularly if Democratic turnout is as strong in 2018 as it was in 2017.  Still, I want to see how well McSally does in the primary before I move this to the Top 3 (which I would have done had Flake still been a candidate).  (Previous Ranking: 7)

 

US Attorney Doug Jones (D-AL)

4. Alabama

The polls probably make this the #2 race on this list considering how close we are to the actual election, but I can't quite get there, and honestly I'm not sure I'll be there until there's a checkmark next to Doug Jones's name.  While Alabama is not even close to the longest current losing streak for a state with Senate Democrats, it is one of the few states where Roy Moore would still be able to win an election even with the very concrete allegations against him right now (it's quite possible in this highly polarized environment that someone with Moore's beliefs could win a primary in a place like Ohio or Missouri, but even in light red states Jones would be a surefire winner in the face of Moore's scandals).  That being said, the polls have clearly headed in Jones's favor, and Democrats in the state are going to be coming out in droves, while Republican turnout will surely be dampened.  Moore could win (pretty much anyone with an R behind their name could win in Alabama), surely, but Jones has the momentum and could provide the Democrats with an extraordinary moment in a few short weeks.  (Previous Ranking: N/A)

Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-IN)

3. Indiana

Seats #2 and 3, in my opinion, pose arguably the hardest challenge of the Democratic path to the Senate.  Sometimes these rankings are a bit hard to suss out or feel a tiny bit arbitrary (it's not an exact science).  It feels weird in a cycle this heavily against the Democrats for me to assume that the Top 3 seats should be Republican-held, and objectively I think it's more likely that the Democrats win both Arizona and Alabama than they hold both Indiana and Missouri.  That's because the dynamics in both of these races six years ago were largely dependent on scandals.  In Indiana, that meant that Rep. Joe Donnelly (who basically only ran here because he'd been gerrymandered out of his current district and was throwing a Hail Mary that connected in a grand way), got extraordinarily lucky when Richard Lugar was hammered in the primary and when Richard Mourdock made offensive comments about rape.  Without those two incidents, it's hard to picture him being in Congress today.  He'll have (presumably) a more favorable environment in 2018 compared to 2012, and incumbency, but it's hard to picture he and McCaskill both catching a break again this cycle, and they represent very red states.  If Evan Bayh couldn't win last cycle, can Joe Donnelly? (Previous Ranking: 3)

Attorney General Josh Hawley (R-MO)

2. Missouri

It's worth noting that pundits have historically underestimated Claire McCaskill at their own peril.  Having dispatched a sitting governor, sitting senator, and sitting congressman in her last three elections, only a fool would assume that she's doomed in 2018.  That being said, McCaskill has the toughest race of any incumbent this cycle, and will need more than just environment as a break here.  The Republicans have a very good candidate in Attorney General Josh Hawley, albeit not as good as Ann Wagner would have been, and he's already running hard after McCaskill in hopes of framing her as out-of-touch and too liberal (a path that Donald Trump pulled on a different blonde, female politician last year to much success in the Show-Me State).  McCaskill will probably have more money and the better climate, but she's going to need people to dislike Hawley to make up for her bad negatives with the states swing voters.  She's done it before, but it'll be tough. (Previous Ranking: 2)

Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV)

1. Nevada

With 11 months still left in the Senate race, anything can happen, but when you're an incumbent looking at a laundry list of issues with your candidacy and campaign, "anything can happen" is more about self-reassurance than facts, and right now Dean Heller is probably the underdog to win this race.  He's associated with a wildly unpopular president, is a Republican running in what's looking like a very Democratic field, and his opponent is a scandal-free congresswoman who was able to avoid a primary.  Heller is the incumbent, but honestly the death knell for his campaign may be that he is the only Republican senator in a state that Hillary Clinton won last year.  Republicans who fit his profile got CRUSHED in Virginia a few weeks ago, and Heller has not been voting well to insulate himself from attacks associating him with Trump (particularly when it comes to healthcare).  Unless something shocking happens here, it feels like Jacky Rosen will be Nevada's senator-elect a year from now.  (Previous Ranking: 1)