'PRETTY LETHAL'......WELL, AT LEAST THERE'S MORE LAUGHS IN IT THAN JOHN WICK'S' 'BALLERINA'.......(MORE BALLET TOO).....

 Pretty Lethal (Amazon Prime 2026)

       As action fans well know, this is not the first movie to point out that ballerinas are, physically, some tough cookies......called upon to exhibit more strength and endurance than Tom Brady....put together. 

        Their training, exact, demanding and never ending, takes a punishing toll on their bodies, especially their feet. (Even Quentin Tarantino, that great admirer of women's feet,  would hurl if he ever tried to gaze at a ballerina's brutalized, bloodied tootsies. 

         So no wonder more than one filmmaker thought showing  delicate dancing divas kicking ass could pump up the carnage level to delirious heights. 

        But director Vicky Jenson and writer Kate Freund may be the first to put the tutu-tiara corps into take-no-prisoners action while they're actually dancing....

         Oh yeah, baby.....there's a reason these Red Shoes are a deeper shade of red......

         You heard that right. If you've ever dreamed of seeing the 'Nutcracker Suite' performed  with actual guys' nuts getting cracked, here's your vision come true. Not to mention assorted throat cuttings delivered by the ballerinas via blades stuck into their toe shoes.  And you don't even have to wait til Christmas to savor every lip-smackin', splattering kill.  Think of it as Ballet-Fu, or TaekwonTutu.......

         Our five lovely girls (Maddie Ziegler, Lana Condor, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, Iris Apatow) were on their way to strut their stuff in Budapest when their bus breaks down. They end up at a castle-like, middle-of-nowhere Inn run by a former legendary Prima Ballerina (Uma Thurman, reveling in villainy, sounding like she's also looking for payback on Moose and Squirrel.)

        But the place is also a major hangout for the world's worst Euro-gangsters, one of whom murders the girls' coach right in front of them. Ooops, time for  Madame Uma and her unsavory customers to dispose of the witnesses......

        But they didn't the reckon on the ferocity and survival instincts of the girls' unofficial Alpha (Ziegler), who rallies the troupe into extended 'Kill Bill' slaughterfests against the equally determined Euro-Goons. Leotarded feet fly in perfect choreographed unison as these Sugar Plum Fairies knock 'em dead.....literally. 

        Okay, we'll admit we laughed and cheered through all the lunacy. And the film's clever enough to include a scene where powerhouse Ziegler confounds the gangsters' on-call torturer by laughing as he pulls out one of her toenails. For her, it's just another painful day at the office, since as a battle hardened dancer,  she's more than used to pulling out her own toenails..... 

        One of the best Guilty Pleasures we've enjoyed this year so far...indefensible on any level, but as BQ always says, you can never have enough sweet, pretty girls decimating thugs until their ballet costumes are decorated with arterial spray. 

          3 stars (***). 

          

'THE OMEN REBORN- PART 2'.....JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE.....HE'S BAAAAAAAACCCCCCK.....

 

Welcome to 24 hours a day of Maga Madness.....

The actual caption reads:

     Jesus:  "I'm sorry, Donald, but you've hurt so many people, committed so many sins, done so many stupid things......I tried to plead your case with Dad, but His decision is final. You're going straight to hell, with no chance of a pardon....bring comfortable clothing, summer stuff, know what I mean?  Oh and by the way, that 'I was a doctor in that picture' excuse you tried? Nobody but Lindsay Graham bought it....."

CORMANIA! BQ TOURS THE MAD, MAD, CHEAP, CHEAP WORLD OF EARLY ROGER CORMAN.....

 

The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955), Five Guns West (1955), Teenage Doll (1957)

         God Bless You, Turner Classic Movies for this April's Friday Night festivals of  films from the oeuvre of the late Roger Corman.....the tireless producer-director of hundreds of low budget exploitation movies and unlikely mentor of some of cinema's most brilliant talents along the way....(Scorsese, Cameron, Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson, Francis Coppola and so many more....)

         There aren't enough hours in the day to cover Corman's voluminous output, but we took the time to sample three of  his earliest films.  No one's going to mistake them for timeless epics, but each one was bore the classic Corman stamp.....make 'em fast, cheap, fun to watch, then move on to the next two or three....

      The Beast With A Million Eyes (1955) is, until the film's last few minutes, an unseen alien invader who remotely controls birds and animals to wreak lethal havoc on the few cast members Corman could afford. 

        Maybe that's why the alien, ensconced in a metallic teapot with blinky lights, picks a lonely date farm in the middle of a desert to set up shop. Its primary victims, a farm family and their creepy mute handyman run afoul of  pre-Hitchcockian bird attacks, a mad dog and madder cow and more blinky lights and woo-woo sci-fi sound effects. 

All of this is riotously scored to the most bombastic public domain classical music that Corman could get his hands on....in case you're wondering how in the world a film this cheap could afford a pounding symphonic soundscape.....

         The acting falls one level below Ed Wood Jr. (with the exception of reliable busy character actor Paul Birch)  but the alien monster reveal's a hoot......a floating eyeball superimposed over a toothy booga-booga puppet. And the earth family learns staying together makes them stronger, along with what doesn't kill them.....2 stars (**).

Five Guns West (1955), if nothing else, boasts a kickass western title and not a bad storyline set-up either. As the Civil War rages in the Southwest, the Confederate army pardons five due-for-hanging prisoners, sending them out to grab a traitor and a chest of stolen gold. Naturally, they're all out to double-cross each other at a moment's notice.....

       The take-charge leading man (John Lund) has to somehow wrangle two trigger happy brothers, a snaky card shark, and an old cattleman to complete their mission. Showdown time arrives at an abandoned mining town still populated by a drunken old Stagecoach agent and his lonely niece (played by Oscar winner Dorothy Malone). You can also spot able Corman regulars Jonathon Haze ("Little Shop of Horrors") and once again, Paul Birch ("Not of This Earth") And yes, that's Michael 'Touch' Connors (of the long running "Mannix" TV show) as the no good gambler.

        Very standard western stuff, but we couldn't help wondering what a blistering little shoot 'em up like this would have been in the hands of James Stewart directed by Anthony Mann......2 stars (**).

        Teenage Doll (1957) plunges right in to that ripe recipe for making big bucks from the drive-in theaters and their teen customers.....delinquents!

         The girls and guys in the gangs are equally dangerous here, especially wild-eyed, hot tempered 'Hel' (Fay Spain). Hel hath plenty 'o fury as she and her gang girls go on the hunt for harmless Barbara (June Kenney) whom they blame for the death of one of their members. 

          Spain clearly takes command as this little movie's fierce MVP and the pace and plot suffer when she's not there on camera to pepper the bubbling melodramatic stew. Both delinquent genders finally rumble amid an auto junkyard before the cops show up to calm down all the nasty doings, spoil sports that they are. 

      Not by any means one of the best of the teens-gone-wild 1950's cheapies, but it serves as a good enough example of Corman's cut-print-moving-on filmmaking. .....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).

        (And stay in touch with the BQ as we continue to cover the onslaught of the vast Corman inventory.....we wouldn't dare miss it and either should you!)

    

'THE OMEN REBORN'......JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO CHECK THE MORNING NEWS.......

 

            Yes, Trump did post this early this morning....around the same time he launched his attack on the Pope.....

        Welcome to the world given to us by Trump voters.....in which we're all extras in a global Saturday Night Live skit.

         Isn't it past time for the men in white coats to show up at the White House......with a an extra large butterfly net and straight-jacket?

          Just askin'........

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL 'ME NEVER HEAR OF JEFFREY EPI-PEN OR WHATEVER YOU CALL HIM" EDITION.......

 Melania shocks us all with sudden appearance to claim her ties of Jeffrey Epstein are false.....

....and promptly attempts dissolving her marriage by racing across the Strait of Hormuz..

Nothing to do with Epstein, Melenoma?  You wouldn't lie to us, would you? Would you?

And finally.....Trump contemplates reinstating the military draft.....the same draft he himself avoided five times.....All Trump voters (kool-aid drinkers and 'But I didn't vote for this!' whiners who absolutely DID vote for this....demand your Dear Leader announce this First Official Draftee to lay his life on the line for Operation Epstein Distraction......

Sunny weekend to BQ visitors....see you next week.

'THE DRAMA'.......THE FEEL-BAD CRINGE ORDEAL OF THE YEAR....

 The Drama (2026)

     How much do we despise this movie with every fiber of our being?

       Let us count the ways.....

       Malignant, malicious, cynical and stupid in its conception.....a vomitorium using an incendiary American issue as a cheap, exploitive gimmick to goose up the box-office. 

         To hell with so-called writer-director Kristoffer Borgli, a film festival poseur who concocted this swirling stew of unbelievable characters trapped in equally noxious situations.

         Let's stop right here for a moment......

         There's no way to post a comprehensive review of this atrocity without discussing its Giant Outrageous Twist that has the entire pop culture community abuzz.

          So.....STOP HERE (SPOILER ALERT) if you prefer to see the film without knowing what it's going to spring on you.  

           Onward.....

           Handsome and too pretty-for-words Yuppies Charlie and Emma (Robert Pattinson, Zendaya) meet cute in a coffee shop. Awkwardly, of course. He pretends he read a book she's reading, at first not realizing she's deaf in one ear. 

           But she's adorable and he's a stuttering, stammering Brit puppy dog, (like a cartoony Hugh Grant), so true love takes hold and grows serious. 

           At a dinner with friends Mike and Rachel (Mamoudou Athie, Alana Heim) they play 'what's the worst thing you've ever done?' Mike and Charlie's secrets come out duly embarrassing and nasty while Rachel's ugly, cruel childhood reveal involves locking a mentally impaired young friend in a closet and abandoning him.....but she's such a self-satisfied, opinionated harpy, she's already pardoned herself for all past faults.

           Emma tops them all. As a bullied teen, she prepared to enter her school with her Army father's rifle and commit a mass shooting massacre.......but changed her mind when some other school shooter elsewhere grabbed all the headlines. 

           Her confession makes an instant implacable enemy out of Rachel, whose cousin's a school shooting survivor, now permanently wheelchair stricken. 

            And if you think matters couldn't get any worse, Charlie, a simpering whimpering spineless weakling and all-around snowflake, descends into a slow-motion nervous breakdown over Emma's admission.  All of this happens in the weeks leading up to Charlie and Emma's impending marriage. 

           Along the way to the expected cringe-worthy nuptials, the film tosses in a few other scenes and characters designed to make you sink lower in your chair and pray for the movie to end. It's the one and only talent that Kristoffer Borgli possesses - ....keeping an audience squirming in uncomfortable disbelief throughout the film's running time. 

           But here's what else we could detect about Borgli......his only thoughts about gun violence and the slaughter of innocent children in their classrooms come strictly from how much the plot twist could pump up his bottom line so he'd get lots of press and  more films to direct. 

            So nobody should mistake 'The Drama' for a serious movie or a movie with the slightest interest in dealing with the horrific issues it raises. At its foul, corrupted heart, this film's no different than the cheapie grindhouse sludge that fueled those all-night theaters that lined both sides of New York's 42nd Street. 

              That's it.....we've said more than enough about this worthless piece of steaming excrement. 

               Never was a rating easier to arrive at. An easy win of BQ's dreaded AFH Award.....

                To "The Drama"....the ABOMINATION FROM HELL rating.  Richly deserved for a film unfit for human consumption.

'HARMLESS WOMEN......THE ODDEST COUPLE EVER WHO END UP ON THE RUN T0GETHER......(****)

  Harmless Women by Rebecca Sharpe (2026)

     By the time I finished this book, I felt like taking the same deep breaths as the two women lead characters. What a long long, exhausting, treacherous, perilous odyssey these girls embark on.......with the book re-inventing itself into some new unexpected genres right along with its characters.

     I can't say all of it was swift or fast paced, but by the halfway mark, I became engrossed and utterly enthralled with Avalon and Prim's frantic adventures, especially their suspense crammed finale that dabbles with elements of tragic horror.

     The opening promises sort of a nasty, smooth criminal thriller. Avalon, master of disguises, cons and thievery has just left her latest victim Primrose drugged, physically made over and with her considerable bank account cleaned out. What Avalon didn't count on - Prim's husband already dead on the floor and Prim ending up on the run with Avalon, both fugitives from justice together.

     Sociopathic loner Avalon and sympathetic emotional Prim actively despise each other as they go on an endless hike through the English countryside, in hopes of reaching the coast....and boats. But disturbing, heart wrenching reversals-of-fortune along the way forever change the two women in ways both they (and we readers) could never imagine.

     Avalon and Prim's points-of=view are at times interrupted by the seemingly unrelated story of Bianca. She's a tragic, middle aged widow, her mind coming undone by haunted memories of an abusive husband and a beloved adult daughter who fled the house, not to be seen again. Even when these stories inevitably collide, I'd credit author Rebecca Sharpe with still managing to make it all fresh, startling.......and compulsively page turning.

     It took patience for me to stay with this book as it would slowly execute its plot lurches and character arcs from one trope to the next. But eventually it drew me fully into Prim and Avalon's tortuous trek, their small triumphs, their physical and emotional agonies and unnerving encounters with people who cross their path......where everyone's a potential threat.
    
     Since,, "Harmless Women" did finally capture me in full "I gotta know what happens next" fury, I'd decided to round up my 3.5 rating to a full 4 stars. A long but ultimately rewarding and entertaining read....perfect material for one of those 10 episode streaming series.

     4 stars (****).