'THE SIMP'........A STRIVING ACTOR FROM INDIA.....SWIMMING AMID THE HOLLYWOOD SHARKS....

 The Simp: A Novel Without A Hero by Roshan Sethi (2026) 

     Disturbing, cringe inducing, vicious and unforgiving in its satire.......and ultimately, a sad depressing commentary on its lead character and the shark infested waters of the toxic ocean he chose to swim in.

     But once I started "The Simp", I couldn't turn away from it. Readable to the max, the book felt like I'd spent time rubbernecking a horrendous one car traffic accident happening in slow motion.

     Flawed as he is, I felt compelled to follow the calamitous journey of struggling actor from India Raj Ladlani. Raj is but one of multitudes of aspiring (and perspiring) actors trying to break into L.A.'s film and TV industry......where actors have a better chance of hitting the PowerBall Lottery than snagging even a small role. Raj tries to persevere, knowing that if ever given the opportunity, he's capable of gifted work. And he's encouraged by Anthony, his beloved mentor and acting coach.

     With the goal of a flourishing acting career more likely out of his reach than ever, Raj takes on a different kind of performative work...... ..getting hired as an administrative assistant to a married Hollywood power couple, an impossible job that's a combination of secretary and indentured slave. Raj plays the role of a groveling, simpering, always solicitous toady so well that he actually annoys and confounds his employers. Film director Jim and his wife Anna,, both working on scripts, treat Raj with a mixture of entitled contempt alternating with surprising moments of friendship and dependency.

     But through all his time spent with Jim and Anna, Raj struggles to contain the simmering anger boiling within him and the urge to break away from the 'Simp' role he's playing in real life all to0 well. And when he finally does.......the chain reaction of events becomes nothing like anyone would expect.

     Author Roshan Sethi creates a truly one-of-a-kind character in Raj, whose efforts to become the hero of his own story keep you in a state of constant wincing on his behalf. The book's cleverly set in the early post-COVID years, with film industry's oncoming embrace of diversity and representation. The knowing, witty evisceration of Hollywood power players and the pampered bubble they live is brutal......(and given their behavior and the general quality of their creative output, well deserved..)

     Fascinating from beginning to end and not kidding about its declaration as 'a novel without a hero'. But I still couldn't stop reading to the very last bittersweet moment.

      4 stars (****).

'PRETTY DEAD THINGS'....CONTESTANT BEAUTIES AND MOMS....DEEP IN THE DARK HEART OF TEXAS.....

  Pretty Dead Things by Kelsey Cox (2026)

     Nothing promises more nasty fun than a Heartland beauty pageant packed with past murderous secrets, overbearing pageant moms, teen contestant rivalries, an unsolved missing girl case, an oncoming dark 'n stormy night..........and dead bodies poppin' up here and there, just to make things interesting........

     Kelsey Cox delivers all of the above in "Pretty Dead Things"", so welcome to the Lone Star Princess Pageant of Anhalt Texas, where staying alive is the key to make it to the end of the show..

     It takes a chapter or two to sort out the moms and their contestant daughters. Pageant organizer and all around ruthless force-t0-be-reckoned with Kennedy Claire thinks daughter Sara Lynn is a shoo-in for the crown, just as Mom was 25 years ago. Melanie, still wounded from Kennedy Claire's adolescent Mean Girl bullying, has high hopes for her own daughter Hannah. Recovering alcoholic Cat worries that her daughter Olivia's chances (and life) are threatened by Kennedy Claire, The cutthroat KC wasn't above dirty tricks sabotage to assure her own win and now appears willing to do the same for Sara Lynn.

     Adding to this bubbling stew comes the return to town of Ingrid, whose beloved twin sister Isabelle was the girl who went missing just before that pageant of 25 years past. Ingrid always blamed Izzy's then boyfriend Ben, who was deeply suspected but never charged.......and wouldn't you know it.....he's back in town too, just as literal storm clouds gather around pageant night. As the saying goes......none of this stuff bodes well for anybody.

     As you could imagine, everything that transpires next makes for fast addictive reading. And for those of us who positively live for final chapters that uncork all manner of outrageous twists......you'll not go away disappointed. "Pretty Dead Things" continues the time honored tradition that no good beauty pageant should go unpunished.

     4 stars (****).

'SUPERGIRL'......A WORTHY ENOUGH SUPERGIRL STUCK IN A MOVIE UNWORTHY OF HER.....

Supergirl (2026) 

     As we always do when we're the very last blogger on Planet Earth to review a mainstream film, we'll stick to the point-by-point-basics.

        Milly Alcock as Supergirl

    We're fine with her. She did great, displayed solid acting chops and a charismatic presence we enjoyed watching. 

       And memo to those slugs who disparaged her appearance with cruel stupid memes (including washed up Superman and current tubby ICE Trumpanzee Dean Cain).....get an effin' life, will ya? You're truly a collection of sad little dateless incel souls who've spent too much time living in your parents' basements. Grow up. Try finding a real girl who'd consider spending more than 10 seconds in your company......since in your deepest heart of hearts, you know Milly Alcock is light years out of your league.....

    The visuals

    Dark, grungy, grimy, bottom-the-barrel, like the film was processed through a tub of Donald Trump's used diapers. Imagine if the entirety of 'Star Wars' took place inside the Cantina. What a rotten idea this was, no doubt created to serve the equally dark, grungy, bottom-of-the-barrel storyline.......which we're about to get to.....

    The script

     Oh sweet Lord, where do we even begin?  Vomitous chunks of Mad Max: Fury Road mixed in with a storyline swiped from 'True Grit'.  And an weird, cruel obsession with murdering entire families, shown not just once but twice. Most of it taking place on sets barely lit by the director of photography.  Speaking of story, let's move on to the most criticized aspect of the film....

   The Villain

    Fanboys found him lacking, not a big enough threat for a mega-budget comic book movie.  Oddly enough, we didn't have that big a problem with him. Considering the low bar this film already set for itself, he's a perfect minor-league creep for the minor league storyline he's a part of. 

    Krypto the superdog

    We can well understand the movie keeping this CGI pest out of the bulk of the running time by poisoning him. Cause let's be honest, the dog's funny for about 15 seconds before you're sick of him. (In that regard he's about as tolerable as one of those jabbering yellow Minions and you can see how badly summer ticket buyers reacted to them this summer....)

     The Supporting Cast

     Jason Momoa at least has fun here, wandering through the film as Lobo, some kind of intergalactic rogue biker. (And to fanboys pissed about us not mentioning Lobo's place in the DC universe....uh, do we sound like someone who gives a flying **** about the DC Universe?)

     Most thankless role goes to poor little Eve Ridley, saddled with the part of the 'True Grit' kid out for revenge. But this film's sorry script gives her none of the snappy, sassy dialogue that Kim Darby and Hailee Steinfeld were gifted with in the original 'Grit' and its remake.  Even the fake dog makes an overall better impression than Ridley.

       What we'd hoped to see in a "Supergirl" movie instead of what we got.......

        How about a brightly lit (with primary colors), exciting and funny adventure, with story that makes full witty use of Milly Alcock's whip smart timing? How about filling the film up with some soaring, inspiring action sequences with Supergirl pitted against a host of quirky villains who underestimate her?  How about a movie that makes a wide array of demographic audiences leave with a smile on their faces and actually looking forward to the next Supergirl movie?  How about a filmmaking team not interested in spending two hours inside alien dive bars lit with one 25 watt bulb and even less interested in wholesale slaughter of entire families?

     (No wonder this film has no end credits teaser attached to it.....as if Warner Brothers and DC already knew there's nobody in holy hell who wants to see a continuation of this Supergirl movie.....)

        Enough said. For Milly Alcock, 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2).

         For the film itself, 1 star (*).

        

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.......SPECIAL "THE 4RTH IS ALL ABOUT ME!" EDITION.........

 

Happy Holiday weekend to all BQ visitors!

To Stephen Miller and all Trumpanzees:  May your life unfold like an endless visit to the Great American State Fair and the Reflecting Pool......empty, falling apart and covered in slime. Have fun!

'THE FIRST DEADLY SIN'.....SINATRA BOWS OUT WITH A DEAD-ON-ARRIVAL COP FLOP.....

 The First Deadly Sin (1980)

     A sad case, this one. 

     After a decade off the big screen, Frank Sinatra returned to cinema for one last lead performance. 

     Why he bothered is anyone's guess, since he wanders through this film either terminally bored or distracted with this mind on something else. 

      All the elements did look promising......a script by Mann Rubin taken from Lawrence Sanders pulpy and perverse New York police thriller. Though Roman Polanski had to flee the U.S. before he was scheduled to direct the film, that chore fell to Brian Hutton, the director of those wild, propulsive World War II crowd-pleasers, "Where Eagles Dare" and "Kelly's Heroes". 

        And top-of-the-line star Faye Dunaway joined the cast as Sinatra's desperately ill, dying wife. 

         So what went wrong?  Just about everything and the resulting film is one of the most dreary, depressing slogs we've ever had to struggle to stay awake through. 

         Mann Rubin's bare-bones script disembowels the Sanders novel, leaving nothing left of it but the makings of a connect-the-dots, made-for-TV cop movie. 

          Dunaway's confined to a hospital room for the entire film, mumbling and whispering as she slips in and out of a coma.....which was pretty much the same effect the movie's pace was having on us.

          A barely awake Sinatra trudges through the story, trying to catch a serial killer psycho (David Dukes) who wacks random people on the back of their heads with a curved, mountaineering ice pick.

         There's a few mild perks along the way to give the movie a pulse every so often. It's always nice to see veteran character actors James Whitmore and Martin Gabel as, respectively, a helpful coroner and armor expert who help out Sinatra with the clues. The always watchable Anthony Zerbe turns up as an officious, blustery new captain of Sinatra's precinct and you can also spot cult actor Joe Spinell as a sleazy lobby doorman at the killer's apartment building. 

        But it's Sinatra's overall disinterest and torpor that keep the film in low gear from beginning to end. And director Hutton does nothing whatsoever to bring any visual or dramatic excitement to gloomy ennui that settles over the film like a dark cloud. 

      After close to two excruciating hours, the film at last lurches into its final confrontation between Sinatra and madman Dukes.  And in keeping with the rest of the film, it's an abrupt, dumb and nihilistic finish to an altogether worthless waste of time. 

      Strictly for hardcore Sinatra completists who need to view every title on his IMDB list of credits. 

       Everyone else should steer clear.

        1 star (*).  

'AMERICANA'.......RE-HEATED TARANTINO/COEN BROS. LEFTOVERS, BUT NOT WITHOUT ITS OWN CURIOUS CHARMS.......

 Americana (2023)

        We still well remember, and not with any great fondness, the sheer avalanche of 'Pulp Fiction' knockoffs that flooded film festivals, theaters and video stores throughout the second half of the 1990's and into the 2000's.....

        You know the drill......quirky hit-men, goons and assorted weirdos firing off snappy repartee filled with pop culture references.....until they all pull out guns and wipe each other out in a cloud of blood squibs. Feel free to yawn deeply......

        Writer-director Tony Tost draws deeply from that shallow well of tropes, also throwing in a liberal helping of subversive Coen Brothers dry humor.

         Normally, every instinct would lead us to hate this movie for its derivative origins....

         But we didn't. 

         In his feature film debut, Tost proves he has the unflinching eye of a visualist director, coupled with a firm grasp of character development. 

         Even more surprising, we found a warm, humanist streak of sentimentality that you'd never, ever catch sight of in the unforgiving universes of Quentin and the Coens.

         Tost fills his wide screen with the expansive landscapes of South Dakota...(actually New Mexico). Abused and fed up Mandy (pop singer Halsey, not bad at all) knocks out her petty crook boyfriend Dillon(Eric Dane) and takes off in his muscle car......but not with her strange young son Cal (Gavin Maddox Bergman), obsessed with Native American culture and convinced he's Sitting Bull reincarnated.  Rolling back the timeline a few days, we see Dillon had previously stolen a highly valued Lakota tribal 'ghost shirt' and stuffed it in the trunk of that muscle car, unbeknownst to Mandy. 

         Naturally there's a parallel storyline, involving gentle soft spoken Lefty Ledbetter (Paul Walter Hauser, one this film's MVPs). A lonely war veteran, Lefty repeatedly makes awkward marriage proposals to his first dates, including shy stuttering waitress Penny Jo (Sydney Sweeney, achingly sweet, a forever deer-in-the-headlights).

         Lefty and Penny Jo get wind of the stolen ghost shirt, so they follow Mandy, who as a last resort, has taken refuge with her estranged father Hiram (Christopher Kriesa). And here's where the film ups its voyage into Krazy Tarantino-land... with Hiram living like a quietly demented cult leader, surrounded by gun-toting minions and ruling over his enslaved wife and daughters like a 19th century frontier Patriarch,  dressing them up like the cast of 'Little House on the Prairie'. 

        And then a host of characters converge on Hiram's compound......Lakota tribal members who've heard from Cal about the stolen ghost shirt, Lefty and Penny Jo, and lethal thug Roy Lee Dean (Simon Rex) whom Dillan had enlisted in the theft and sale of that priceless Native artifact. 

        Bullets fly freely and very few cast members are left standing......

        What kept us constantly glued to this movie, as opposed to those dreary, unwatchable 1990's fake Tarantino copycats, was creator Tost's obvious care and affection for his characters. And his ability to slow the movie down to spend some quality time with them. (He's enormously aided by the expert playing of odd couple Hauser and Sweeney, who know to make a scene both heartbreaking and funny at the same time.)

       Okay, maybe all of it doesn't quite hold together the way it should, and sure, the tone's wildly uneven, but anybody who savors adventurous independent cinema will find plenty to enjoy here. And find it well worth a viewing. 

        BQ did. And we damn well look forward to whatever Tony Tost comes up with next.

        3 stars (***).

        

         

'THORNBIRD'......THE TOWN'S NEW GIRL KEEPS HER REAL NAME A DEEP, DARK SECRET......

  Thornbird by E. Kennedy (2026)

     You can't help but being swept up in the story of this New-Girl-In-School YA thriller. Because no new girl in school ever faced as many disturbing challenges as Ryan Shipley. The first of them being that her real name's actually Gabrielle Thorn, the daughter of infamous serial killer Gabriel Thorn. Currently awaiting execution 10 years after his crimes, Thorn murdered and buried his female victims in as yet undiscovered locations. Little Gabrielle survived the slaughter but her mother did not. Taken in and cared for by her grandmother until the aged woman's passing, Gabrielle (now Ryan) must now move back to her original home town. to live with her aunt and uncle and teen cousins Jasmine and Connor.

     Living in the the little town of Starling under a pseudonym proves a necessity for Ryan. The murders. the mystery of the victims' remains and and impending execution of her father have stirred up a bonfire of anger among to the residents and a renewed mass media/social media feeding frenzy.. There's no telling what chaos and harassment might erupt around Ryan if her identity was revealed.

     But even as she struggles to keep her deepest secret, Ryan still finds her life upended in multiple ways. Anonymous messages threaten to expose her real name. To her increasing worry, her new school's star quarterback/golden boy has quite taken to her, a boy whose late mother was Gabriel Thorn's final victim. And the FBI now presses her to search her darkest childhood memories for any clues that could lead to the bodies of the murdered women and at last closure for their grieving families.

     Holy teen angst.....and you thought YOU had it tough in high school......

Author E. Kennedy keeps this book moving at a breakneck, one-day-read pace and as the dread and suspense pile up on Ryan, all manner of stunning twists and surprises reveal themselves, some of them unspeakably horrific and heartbreaking. 'Thornbird' definitely goes on my list of 'Top YA Page-turners' for this year. and that should sum up this review as best I can.

       4 stars (****).