'TRIGGER WARNING'.....MIDDLE-OF-NOWHERE SCUMBAGS NEED SOME ALBA-SIZING......

 Trigger Warning (2024.....answers the long simmering question we've always longed to ask.....

        ......how bad does a movie have to be for Netflix to sit on it for two years before finally deciding to spew it out for all to see?

          Answer.....this bad.

          Fortunately for Netflix stockholders, this one's not one of their 300 million dollar pale imitations of a 1990's action-adventure blow-em-up, cobbled together from leftover algorithms borrowed from the Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Willis era. 

           On the contrary, it's a grungy, dirt-cheap looking imitation of leftover algorithms borrowed from the Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Willis era.

           Jessica Alba assumes commando-black-ops-ass-kicking duties previously held by J-Lo and Gal Gadot.  But not to worry, even when she's clobbering, kung-fuing. and Jason Bourne-ing a generic load of scummy combatants, she's still cute as a button. 

           The storyline, exhumed from one of those Shane Black-ish action-adventure scripts, relies on that old, old Western movie trope.....the hero returns to the homestead, only to find out the town's infected with villainous corruption. 

           So welcome to middle of effin' nowhere New Mexico, where our gal Jessie does battle with a foul family whose rotten partriach (Anthony Michael Hall) is running for the Senate as a Trumpian wanna-be.  The fam's side hustle is swiping high tech arms from a nearby Army depot and selling it to terrorists. 

           What little entertainment value one can extract from this is the sight of Alba pounding into oblivion any number of look-alike lugs twice her size and weight.  But after the 8th of 9th such sequence, the film becomes a long, slow snooze.

           And don't waste your time or eyes hoping to feast on spectacular scenery or settings.  Daddy Netflix most definitely decided to not lay out that kind of money.....a major chunk of it takes place in a cave. 

           Blatantly connect-the-dots and paint-by-numbers, a viewer could literally forget about this movie while they're still watching it. 

          We know we did. 1 star (*).

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL 'IS IT WARM OUT HERE OR IS IT JUST ME?' EDITION......

Supreme Court make bump stocks legal again, paving the way for more psychotic mass shooters to slaughter high numbers of innocent people with a few bursts from their automatic weapons.....but in a gesture of humanity, extended their thoughts and prayers to the families of all future victims, and cautioned American to learn how to duck while at theaters, concerts and supermarkets.....

Putin visits his BFF Kim Jung Un.....from a secretly recorded conversation between them - Putin: "Love you more than the sight of pile of dead Ukrainians! You worst person in world, yes?"  Kim: "No, you!"  Putin: "You!"  Kim: "You my favorite worst person in world besides me! " Putin: "And don't forget useful idiot from America."  Kim: "Oh, you mean my pudgy-wudgy love-toy Trumpy! What can I say? We fell in love...

Climate deniers swelter under the 'heat dome', while wildfires burn and floods continue to wipe out entire neighborhoods.......while claiming global warming is a deep fake theory that was found on Hunter Biden's laptop........

Louisiana requires the Ten Commandments to be posted in all schools.....with the state legislators conveniently forgetting that their favorite Presidential candidate Trump has violated at least 9 of them, with the exception of 'Thou Shall Not Kill'...declared the Governor, "Oh don't worry....come next year, he'll execute all those disloyal Generals.....and Jimmy Kimmel too..."

Trump accuses Biden of cognitive decline, then can't remember the name of his own doctor who gave him a cognitive test....said the Ex President, "I remember I passed my test, my doctor can tell you....Dr...uh....Gray, the anatomy guy,what a great show he's on....no wait it was...uh....Strangelove, wasn't it.....now I remember! Dr. Lector....he gave me the test while we were on an electric boat surrounded by sharks....."

'I SAW THE TV GLOW'.....TRANSITIONING TEENS TUMBLE DOWN A BUFFY-ISH RABBIT HOLE.......

 I Saw the TV Glow (2024)   'Elevated Horror' may or may not be the right category for this one......

        True, it's populated with monsters, most of them accomplished with impressive practical make-up effects.

          But it's clear from the first frame that scaring us is far from what's on the mind of writer-director Jane Schoenbrun. 

           At a moody, measured slow pace, sometimes interrupted by startling visuals, the film focuses on two disaffected teens, each quietly afflicted by a miserable family life and their own gender upheavals.

         7th grader Owen (Justice Smith) stumbles upon 9th grader Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), who's obsessed with 'The Pink Opaque', a young adult supernatural TV series. In the show, a clever knockoff of 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer', two teen girls with psychic powers hunt down monsters-of-the-week, especially their 'Big Bad' Mr. Melancholy, a literally moon-faced entity. 

         Maddy's realization she's gay has already made her an outcast in the suburban community, while the painfully shy, physically slight Owen can't yet figure out if he belongs with girls or boys.  But together, they escape their individual agonies by immersing themselves in the Pink Opaque universe.   

        But the show has a far more serious grip on Maddy than Owen. Fleeing her cruel home life, she reappears years later, explaining to a stunned Owen that she's found a way to live inside the bizarre world of 'The Pink Opaque'. When she asks him to join her, the still timid, conflicted Owen can't bring himself to surrender his ties to the real world. 

          If any of you reading this feel like saying things like 'Huh?' or 'Say what now?'....well, welcome to 'I Saw the TV Glow'.....

          Even if you've enjoyed the excursions into artistic, 'elevated' horror, might find this film testing your patience to its very limits.  But for those willing to accept director Schoenbrun using the genre as a metaphor for the inner torment of gender transitioning, there's much eye-popping imagery and subtext to savor here. 

          What did BQ get out of it?  Maybe this wasn't on the film's agenda, but in a way, it functions as a cautionary tale for Fanboys and Fangirls who use fantasy films and TV shows to escape what they view as their own life's deficiencies. (Take note of the scene where Owen re-watches 'The Pink Opaque', saddened by how crude and amateurish the series now looks to him...)

           Having sat through enough tired, derivative horror films, we still found this one, odd, slow and obtuse as it is, brimming with fresh ideas and the cinematic chops to pull them off.  And let's not end this without mentioning the two lead actors are beyond superb. 

          And chances are, you won't see a horror film this year as creatively off the beaten track as this one.....3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2).

       

         

'THE WATCHERS'.....THE NEPO APPLE BARELY FALLS OFF THE TREE.......

 The Watchers (2024)    So here we have a fantasy-supernatural-semi horror thriller concocted by Nepo Baby Ishana Shyamalan, daughter of the erratic purveyor of such movies, M. Night Shyamalan.....

         Is she a chip off the old block? Had she got cinematic chops to glue us to our seats with dazzling twists and otherworldly, 'Twliight Zone' type plots?

        Or did she choose, for her debut film, to slavishly imitate the worst elements of her father's films.....a devotion to laborious mythologies that cross the line into silliness and a reliance on Hail Mary twists to defibrillate the comatose storyline?

        Sorry to report.......the latter.

        Not that Shyamalan the younger doesn't possess cinematic craftsmanship. The scenes are skillfully photographed, staged and edited for whatever effect she was hoping to achieve.  We don't doubt that if she ever comes up with a script to match her skills, she could knock our socks off. 

         But not this time. She chose to serve up a pale generic version of some of her dad's most ridiculed films...(particularly 'Lady In The Water')

         Off we go now to a creepy Irish forest, inhabited by  combination Monster-Fairy hybrids who can shape-shift to imitate humans. (Yes, there's an elaborate backstory to this bunch, that we wouldn't even begin to explain lest we put ourselves to sleep....)

          Unlucky folks who stumble into Monster-Fairyland either get offed or forced to stay in a one room house, one of whose walls is a 2 way mirror. At night, these poor suckers must present themselves in front of the mirror side and let the beasties watch them from the clear glass side.....hence, 'The Watchers'.

            Trapped with the human detainees is Mina (Dakota Fanning), an American girl who'd exiled herself to Ireland, the better to suffer her inner torment from a traumatic childhood event.   (Which explains, we suppose, why Fanning wanders through the movie in a low gear depressed daze....)

              By the time the film lurches to its conclusion, unloading a few paltry twists, we're only left pondering why we bothered to sit through it at all.  By that time, director Shyamalan is so tangled up in myth exposition, she's too distracted to give the film any genuine emotional high points. 

              For horror-fantasy completists, wait until it hits either a free streaming service or one you already subscribe to for other content. 

              For everyone else......make it a hard pass. 1 star (*).

'THE CALCULATION OF YOU AND ME'...AN AUTISTIC MATH STAR TRIES ROMANCE TO WIN BACK HER EX....

  The Calculation of You and Me by Serena Kaylor (2024)

       Serena Kaylor pulls off what I think is a remarkable achievement - to fashion a story comprised of every familiar, unsurprising YA romantic trope and still keep readers fully engaged with its lead characters, anxiously cheering them on through every speed bump on their ride to an HEA.

        Your heart aches right away for autistic calculus whiz Marlowe, dumped by her boyfriend Josh in a particularly cruel way. Marlowe's crushed by him telling her she's simply not wired to comprehend and respond to romance and love. Though it's pretty much clear that Josh's charming popularity masks an abysmal human being, Marlowe's determined prove him wrong and w00 him back with flowery prose......as soon as she figures out how.

      This daunting task leads her to make a 'Cyrano' bargain with her new unlikely partner in a required English Lit class project on romance novels., the black-clad, moody Ashton. Though seething at Josh's treatment of Marlowe, he reluctantly agrees to help her in exchange for her applying her savvy marketing skills to boost his talented garage band.. Naturally (as if you didn't know), this puts Marlowe and Ash in close proximity to each other. Hamm....what could possibly come from that?

         I hardly need to describe how the rest of this plays out, but I don't think anyone picks up a book like this for outrageous twists and reveals. The very familiarity of what happens won't stop any reader from quickly turning those pages to reach that warm hug of a satisfying ending. The bonuses along the way are the ample helpings of wit and wisdom that the author provides (I especially liked Odette and Poppy, the usual BFF Greek Chorus to all the proceedings and I'm guessing readers will wish they had that romance-only bookstore in their neighborhood.)

        As well worn as these tropes were, it didn't make the calculated plot turns of 'Calculation' any less fun to read. And a perfect poolside or beachside companion, or just cozy up to it any time at all.

       4 stars (****) Romance fans shouldn't miss putting this one on their list to enjoy.

THE 2024 TONY AWARDS......OH, THE DRAMA.....THE DRAMA.....

The 2024 Tony Awards (2024)   We never miss this show every year, even though we never get to see any of the nominated plays or musicals unless someone eventually makes a movie out of them.....

         How could we not?  Film and TV awards shows, because they all pile up between January and March, start to all look the same.....the same people from the same lists of films and shows reveling in self congratulation and Uriah Heep-ish false modesty.

        After all that dust clears, the Tony awards for Broadway shows and performances pops up at the start of summer. And for sheer ego-driven spectacle and...uh....theatricality, no other show equals it. 

       Liberally peppered with staged excepts from nominated musicals, the show drips in tearful sweat to perpetuate a grand illusion.  We're supposed to believe that the Broadway community is one enormous, generous happy family, whose members dote on each other and cheer themselves on as if each one's a loving parent of the other......

          Bullshit. We spent our younger years writing plays for theater companies so we know whereof we speak.....

          In cold hard reality, theater folk are insecure, ego-driven and addicted to their own personal dramas worse than any opioids. And as they publicly clap their hands bloody in praise of their colleagues, privately, they pray for their failure.

            All of this behavior goes on full display at the Tonys.....and even as the musical casts sing and dance themselves into an exhaustive frenzy, for sheer melodramatic pageantry, they can't compete with the groveling self-aggrandizement of the winners' acceptance speeches. 

           Almost all the winners come fully prepared with a carefully composed, solo one act play.  This lengthy brain fart usually begins with their Oliver Twist-Little Orphan Annie childhoods and ends with their redemption and deliverance by the lure of the stage.....plus the laundry list of thanks for everyone they ever met in their life.  

             We're not denying that this stuff is fun to watch, but here's the elephant in the room.....the ridiculously overpriced elephant in the room. 

             These Broadway babies babble on about how they're bringing the illumination and perception of the theater arts to the world at large and doing their bit to make us all better people in a better world to live in. 

              What none of them ever speak of......the cheapest tickets to their shows are in the neighborhood of 70 bucks and prime orchestra seats can run up $300 a seat or more.

              Broadway box office is primarily fueled by travel agencies throwing in show tickets as part of their 5 days-6 nights in New York packages. And tourists prefer a couple hours of singing and dancing before moving on the Statue Of Liberty tour. 

                Like everyone else, we'd love the chance to see these shows in their entirety.....but that would require taking out a second mortgage on our house, and existing solely on pizza crusts plucked out the dumpster behind Domino's....

                In a way, the opening of this year's Tonys was the most perfect encapsulation of the entire show. Host Ariana DeBose kicked things off with a generic song and dance number that had absolutely nothing to do with Broadway theater, but did a good job celebrating.....Ariana DeBose.  A legend in her own mind. 

              Then the audience, nominees and winners duly followed after in the same spirit of fake brotherhood and preening pride in themselves. 

              And that's showbiz, folks!  But if you love musicals, by all means stream it for a box-o-chocolates sampler of the current hits......you'll save yourself at least $800,000 in ticket money.....

             The Tonys itself?  When they stop talking about how their shows improve the world and start talking about how to lower the astronomic costs to see their shows, we'll give them more than....1 star (*).

         

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "BUT HUNTER BIDEN!" EDITION.....

 

Maga Morons conflicted over Hunter Biden's conviction, not knowing whether to celebrate, or claim he wasn't indicted on enough charges, or worry about the government coming for their guns.....or part of a deep state conspiracy to generate sympathy for Joe Biden for not wanting to pardon Hunter......("They planned this all along to sabotage Jesus's only choice for President!")

Tapes made public reveal Supreme Court Justice Alito prattling on about returning to 'Godliness', while Justice Thomas is found to not have declared additional gifts given to him......both their names pop up on recent category on 'Jeopardy' -'Can You Believe They Made It To The Supreme Court?'

Trump returns to Washington to meet GOP leaders....Mitch McConnell, who once blamed him for Jan. 6th and Ted Cruz, who once called him a sniveling coward, now shake hands and applaud him.....and then immediately gargled with Listerine to erase the odor of Trump's leftover feces still lingering on their tongues........

Trump trashes Milwaukee, the city hosting the GOP convention that will nominate the first felon Presidential candidate in history....prompting the Schlitz Brewing Company ('the beer that made Milwaukee famous') to send the ex President specially brewed Commemorative sixpacks - Premium beer laced with scrapings from used colostomy bags.......