A Saturday Filled With Gratitude

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Happy Saturday, all, and welcome to the many new subscribers who’ve joined in the past week. I can’t begin to tell you how overwhelming the response has been to the news that I have breast cancer. I’ve heard from so many people, some I’ve known for decades, some I’ve known for a little while, some I’ve never met but are a part of our wonderful Breakfast All Day community. It’s been a lot, and I mean that in a good way.

It’s also been head-spinning to realize how many women I know who also have had breast cancer — several who’ve received the same diagnosis as me of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), others who have undergone double mastectomies and lengthy chemotherapy treatments. I can name a half-dozen women among my Palos Verdes mom friends alone, and I’ve been thankful for their generosity in sharing their experiences and wisdom with me. Is breast cancer more prevalent now? Or is mammogram technology so much better that it can detect more cases, and do so earlier? It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.

Anyway, I promised I wouldn’t be 24/7 Cancer Girl, and I won’t be. But I wanted to thank you for your kindness and support. My lumpectomy is scheduled for May 5, with several appointments on the calendar before then: an MRI, another biopsy, meetings with various oncologists. Like I said, it’s been a lot, but it’s going to be OK.

Still, the movies go on, and we’re gong to get to them as best we can at our YouTube channel and podcast. It’s kind of a slow week, with “Snow White” expected to dominate the box office again, but we had a few reviews to offer you.

• THE WOMAN IN THE YARD. Danielle Deadwyler is always great, but she can only do so much with a script that feels half-baked and full of holes. Here, she plays a widowed mother of two trying to protect her kids, and her farm, from the titular woman who just … sits there. From Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, who’s made many lean, mean action movies we’ve enjoyed over the years (“Orphan,” “The Shallows,” “Carry-On”). In theaters.

• LOCKED. It’s a total coincidence that both movies we reviewed this week were about people trapped inside. Here, a desperate Bill Skarsgård gets stuck in the luxury SUV he tries to steal, with Anthony Hopkins as the voice of the car owner who torments him remotely. Lots of showy, muscular camerawork here. This was fun. In theaters.

• MOVIE NEWS LIVE! It had been a few weeks, but it was so nice to see our friends again and talk about everything that’s going on in the movie world. And there was a lot, between the attack on Oscar-winning “No Other Land” director Hamdan Ballal, the Sundance Film Festival leaving Park City, the “Avengers: Doomsday” cast announcement and more. No livestream for a few more weeks because of spring break, but join us at our channel at Noon Pacific on Friday, April 18.

And speaking of the assault and arrest of the Palestinian filmmaker and activist, I was proud that our Los Angeles Film Critics Association joined critics in New York, Boston and the National Society in issuing a statement supporting him and condemning the violence he endured. What happened to Ballal was a hideous and horrific act. You can read our statement here.

Over at our Patreon, we’ve started recapping “The Studio” on Apple TV+. The first two episodes came out this week, and they’re hilarious in their satirization of Hollywood. Seth Rogen co-created the series with Evan Goldberg and stars as a newly promoted studio head who’s struggling to balance art and commerce. Lots of industry inside baseball references here, but even if you don’t get everything, you’ll enjoy the chaotic energy, the cringe humor and the many celebrity cameos. I’m a sucker for a long tracking shot, and “The Studio” is full of them; episode 2 is titled “The Oner,” and that’s exactly what it is. The show may get a little too cute at times, but it feels dead-on in hitting its targets. We’ll recap on Fridays all season long.

And if you’re interested in reading about what inspired Rogen to create “The Studio,” Variety has a lengthy and entertaining interview with him.

For our March Off the Menu poll at our Patreon, we offered several movies starring the late, legendary Gene Hackman. The overwhelming winner was 1974’s “The Conversation,” Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoid thriller, which he made in between the first two “Godfather” movies. Hackman stars as a surveillance expert who gets sucked into his latest assignment; he doesn’t just listen, he inserts himself in these people’s lives and tries to alter their fates. Hackman’s performance is masterful in its understatement, and Walter Murch’s sound design is groundbreaking. The incredible supporting cast includes John Cazale, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams and Robert Duvall. I’d never seen “The Conversation,” so I was delighted to have a chance to catch up with it. What are your thoughts on the film? Alonso will post our April Off the Menu poll in the next few days, so keep an eye out for that.

Also this week, I had the pleasure of moderating a Q&A after an early screening of “Freaky Tales” at Vidiots, an essential movie destination in Eagle Rock. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (“Half Nelson,” “Captain Marvel”) wrote and directed this action comedy, inspired by Fleck’s childhood in the East Bay. It consists of four intertwined stories that take place in Oakland on the night of May 10, 1987 — an important date for Golden State Warriors fans, thanks to Sleepy Floyd’s dominant performance over the Lakers in the NBA Playoffs. Boden and Fleck were there along with co-stars Ben Mendelsohn and Too $hort, whose song “Freaky Tales” gives the movie its title. This was a total blast. I’ll have a review of the movie next week, so check back then.

Thank you so much for starting your weekend with me. I’m more thankful than ever that you’re here. If you’ve enjoyed my newsletter, please feel free to pass it along to the movie lovers in your life. Have a great week, and I’ll see you back here next Saturday.