every thought i had while watching 80 for Brady
terrible movie, i am sorry to say, but a great time with the girlies
80 for a Brady is a major motion picture starring four of our greatest living actresses of a certain age (Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, and the incomparable Jane Fonda), coming to theaters this Friday, February 3. Maybe you’ve seen the innumerable, inescapable ads for it at some point during its unending, months-long press tour. Or maybe you’ve heard its stunningly-banal-but-regrettably-earwormy Diane Warren-penned theme song, “Gonna Be You”—featuring another Mount Rushmore comprised of Dolly Parton, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, Belinda Carlisle, and Debbie Harry—or, better, seen its deranged fever dream green screen music video. (When I said I wish movies had theme songs again, I did not mean like this.) Or maybe you’ve already seen it, as I have, at one of its numerous themed advance preview screenings.
You may be asking yourself: How does a movie in the Book Club Cinematic Universe (BCCU) have seemingly 40 times the advertising budget of any of its sleeper peers (which include, but are not limited to: Poms, Mack and Rita—really, anything Diane Keaton has made in the past 10 years—that Kathie Lee Gifford/Craig Ferguson straight-to-VOD romcom…)? Well, folks, it’s because THIS MOVIE IS NFL PROPAGANDA!!!! It is literally a longform commercial for the NFL Trojan horsed into theaters in the body of a “female friendship” buddy flick!!! THE NFL IS PAYING FOR THIS MOVIE!!!!
And, look, I’ll get into that, but listen. All that aside, I have never been more excited to see a movie in theaters. As an influencer and critical champion of the BCCU, my mental health for the past two months has been directly tied to the promise of sitting dead center at a Lincoln Square AMC screening with a crisp can of white wine for two glorious hours. This week, that day finally came. Here is every thought I had while watching 80 For Brady.
This is the “Ladies Night Out” preview event, but there are not nearly enough kooky older UWS ladies here. (Aside from the pair who asked us to take their photo with the lobby display—which we did happily and without judgment because I did it, too). Feels like a huge factor in the appeal of this film/this theater is missing :’( but I’m happy to see this film attract a diverse and cross-generational audience :’)
They’re really playing the music video before this, aren’t they!!! And people are clapping!!! And enjoying themselves!!! But also laughing at it!!! I lean over and tell my friend Caitlin that I like that Debbie Harry—featured on the track but absent from the lowkey demeaning video—clearly looked at this concept and was like “nah, I’m good.” She got in, got the money, and got the fuck out. Good for her!
It’s the very first scene and these women are drinking white wine with ice cubes. Perfect, no notes, this movie was made for me.
Bob Balaban is in this!? Okay, this movie REALLY was made for me.
It has been 20 minutes and we still do not have any explanation for why Jane Fonda is wearing Party City Hannah Montana wigs…………
It has been 30 minutes and we now see Jane Fonda’s WALL OF WIGS! But still no explanation for them other than a visual cue that she has grey hair??? Okay!? Also: Why did the production designer make her bedroom look like it was lifted from a Target floor display? Did they blow all their budget on wigs?
I’m pro-abolition, but…Jail for whoever was laying Jane’s wigs. I could maybe forgive them for being so inexplicably cheap if they at least sat nicely on her head. (Hello, I excuse it in Book Club!) I’m sorry to dwell on the wigs, but there’s literally a suitcase full of them and they are so distracting!
Not a single person in this Boston-set movie is bothering to commit to even a hint of a Boston accent, and I think that’s beautiful.
“Our flight is leaving in three hours and 23 minutes!” For a minute I thought the dialogue was gratingly unrealistic and bad, but they’ve won me back with that line.
Sweet timid Sally Field trying to flirt is me in [redacted] years.
Lily Tomlin commenting several times during this film about how cute these football players are without a single wink or ounce of irony is comedy.
This movie is elder abuse.
No movie has ever been made worse by a Hot Chocolate needle drop.Credit where credit is due: If there’s one thing a BCCU movie is gonna have, it’s a music supervision department with excellent taste in boomer bops and a disproportionally large budget.
Where the fuck has Sally Field been these past few years??? (Aside from that not-a-real-movie movie about the gay husband with cancer and a minor supporting role on Winning Time). We need a Sally Field-aissance!!!!!!
The reason why the snippets of fanfic sound so convincing is because that’s so obviously where the near-incompetent writers of this film got their start.
Every single beat of this movie is predictable and yet I am on the edge of my seat. I am enthralled. I am entertained. I am having the time of my life.
Jane Fonda putting a vocal trill on “Guy Fieri”…line reading of the year.
I would lie down in traffic for Rita Moreno.
Why does every movie about seniors need an accidental drug bender scene—where there’s some joke about how they haven’t done drugs since the 60s— written by people who have clearly never done drugs or done the bare minimum amount of research to make up for that? Weed is legal in multiple states and in the states where it isn’t, small possession—for white ladies, that is—is a slap n the wrist at most! Stop acting like it’s coke!! Or acid! Or even mushrooms—which are now on the up because psilocybin is actually good for you! Weed gummies are the Tylenol of drugs!! You would think a boomer movie would understand that! Also: Edibles do not hit that fast! If you want someone to be stoned out of their minds in 5 minutes, give them a high dosage sublingual strip, not a 5mg gummy. If someone like me, an uptight anxious little bitch who only enjoys a nice little microdose gummy now and then to be slightly-less-uptight-and-anxious, knows all of this, you’ve got a problem. I realize I’m begging for some realism in a movie that has a talking Tom Brady bobble head, but come on!
See, also: Why does every movie about seniors need a kooky dance scene? (This movie, regrettably, has two.)
This movie is elder abuse.
I hope Bob Balaban got paid well for what was clearly a single day’s worth of filming. A prince. He deserves it. :’)
Rita Moreno wears so many truly fabulous coats while chewing scenery with silly little bits. I’m starting to believe that the screenwriters and costume department are not simply selectively bad and favoring her on this front; Ms. Moreno is taking matters into her own hands and elevating her part to something she is (at least somewhat) worthy of. An icon!
Tom Brady is giving the comedic performance of the year. This man looks like a parched fish, his eyes are a blank Word doc with a blinking cursor. There’s not a single ounce of happiness in his life (he doesn’t eat nightshades) or a single operating brain cell bouncing around that big empty numerously-concussed skull of his, but he is committing to pretending to be a man of great wisdom and joy and giving it his sorry all.
THIS MOVIE IS ELDER ABUSE!!!
This movie is venue security propaganda.
They want football to seem mystical and romantic and all-American, but I still think it should be abolished on account of it literally physically and mentally ruining peoples lives.
It’s actually incredible that they can get away with this alternative narrative in which a few old ladies help determine the outcome of the 2017 Super Bowl simply because most of the target audience has no fucking clue how that game went.
They’re really asking me to take a heartfelt monologue seriously while there’s glaring Microsoft Surface product placement in the shot.
This movie is camp. And also elder abuse.
“LET’S FUCKING GOOOOO!!!!!” I’m crying. I’m laughing so hard—and the theater is laughing so hard—I may choke on my Twizzler. This movie is incredible.
It nice to see Harry Hamlin outside the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills ecosystem.
Actually, it makes me very sad that four Academy Award winning/nominated actresses are only getting mainstream work in movies that are loosely existing IP corporate NFL propaganda machinery. It’s lowkey disturbing how many mainstream “original” movies are really just advertorial content in disguise, some (like this) more obvious than others.
I feel for the poor editor who got the last minute notes to go back in and edit Gisele out of the final cut.
Tom Brady’s MAGA hat not visible in his locker…this movie is ahistorical.
Who would have thought we’d ever see Jane Fonda in a corporate propaganda movie?
I joke a lot about how I love the Book Club Cinematic Universe—and it’s true, I do—but it’s increasingly upsetting and offensive to me that this—gestures wildly—is all they get. We’re in a revival era of what are clearly hagsploitation films, and these brilliant and accomplished and talented women are out there trotting around the promo circuit talking about how much these garbage flicks mean to them, how “important” they are, how they “tell their stories with honesty and compassion” and are “representation” and whatever other bullshit buzzword language you want to use. Do they all have Stockholm Syndrome, or do they genuinely believe that? I hope it’s the former. Because I believe these women do have stories worth telling, honestly and with humor, but in a way that doesn’t constantly make them the butt of the joke, or forced to do stupid fucking gags in every scene. I grew up so impatient to be old; I still feel that way. I loved all the older women in my life and on my screen. I wanted to be them. They all seemed so fabulous and sure of themselves and worldly, like they were leading fascinating lives. It’s disappointing to see women-of-a-certain-age have to degrade themselves in trash like this because these are the only types of movies about their demographic Hollywood is allowing to be made. (Or, rather, the only types of midbudget/mainstream scripts with promised paychecks big enough to get past their money-hungry agents.) And it’s not the same for men—dudes like Pacino and De Niro are out there making forgettable airplane movies all the time, but they get to follow them up with prestige cable dramas or awards contenders. I’m down on my knees begging Scorsese to write these girlies their The Irishman. I feel like that’s not asking for much!!!! Sexism in Hollywood is just as prevalent as it ever was; it’s just packaged differently now. They deserve better. WE, the audience, deserve better.
That said I ate it all up, had a fantastic time, and I will absolutely be seeing this movie again, and I recommend everyone reading this go see it immediately.
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okay that's it that's the end thanks bye
Well this was delightful!
god bless u