WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "THE WAR IS OVER' DECLARATION # 385)" EDITION.........

 

BQ visitors, have a great, long and safe holiday weekend!  See you next week.

To all Trumpanzees.....best of luck to those of you who try to vote by mail. But take comfort in knowing that your glorious Fuhrer, your very own Marmalade Mussolini (who always votes by mail) will make sure that his vote is counted....while your ballot will more than likely end up fed into a USPS shredder before it gets anywhere....Having fun yet, Numbnuts?

DEATH TO THE FUNKO POP DOLLS.....DESTROYERS OF HOME ENTERTAINMENT STORES.....

 

     Whenever we watch films and TV shows set in the 1990's and earlier decades, there's one moment that might occur guaranteed to stab us deep in our heart....

      The sight of record stores....stores that sold us Vinyl albums, cassettes, CDs, VHS tapes, DVDs, Blu-Rays, even books, comic books, graphic novels......a universe of home entertainment.....

       Stores that have vanished off the face of earth as sure as the dinosaurs waddled into the tar pits....

        Yes, we know the usual reasons......how rapid technology advancements forever changed how we consume our entertainment......

         But the first harbingers of doom, the first sign of the coming apocalypse for our beloved entertainment emporiums, the first curse put upon these wonderful venues....

           .....were these m*****f***in' dolls. May they rot in the deepest, darkest recesses of Hades.

          Deceptively harmless at first, they'd show up with one shelf display in our favorite stores.....

           Little did we know they were the equivalent of a cancerous tumor......a malignant growth that would slowly but surely metastasize until it engulfed and devoured all other the merchandise around it, that it would push the albums and movies to a small back corner of the store.

         We came to realize that an array of these dolls in a display window was the store's way of announcing to us....."This is the beginning of the  end for us. You'll see these little bastards from hell multiply like leukemia in our bloodstream and bones and eventually they'll choke us and kill us and you'll never see the likes of us again...."

        And so it came to be. 

        Now and forever we lay our own curse upon Funko Pop dolls.....these instruments of the devil. They should be blowtorched into puddles of plastic and the gooey plastic remnants buried with the  ground above them sown with salt. 

        And the manufacturers of these hell spawned creatures...we say to them.....go Funko yourselves.

         

'JET PILOT'.....HOWARD HUGHES AND JOHN WAYNE'S LOONY 'SPY WHO LOVED ME FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE'........

 Jet Pilot (1957)

       We always thought Howard Hughes and John Wayne had hit the heights of cinematic lunacy with their 1956 epic "The Conqueror".....(which BQ enjoyed a jolly time reviewing on 6/2/17 along with 1965's equally ludicrous "Genghis Khan"....)

       Who could ever forget that doomed star-crossed tsunami of madness,  "The Conqueror"?  With Wayne, his eyes pinned back to play Genghis Khan and filmed downwind of an atomic testing sight, so Wayne, the cast and crew sucked in plenty of unhealthy whiffs of radioactive dust, later fatal to many of them, including Wayne. 

        Could anything be crazier than that?

        We give you 'Jet Pilot'.....filmed between 1949 and 1950, when jet planes were truly groundbreaking and world shaking technology. The obsessive micro-managing Hughes tinkered with the film for seven years before finally releasing it. 

         By that time, jets were a permanent part of the world landscape and the Russians were shooting Sputnik into outer space.....rendering 'Jet Pilot' as stale and out of date as Prohibition. 

        And it didn't help that the script and story were gloriously absurd and as unintentionally funny as "The Conqueror". But anyone would enjoy an infinitely better time watching John Wayne struggling with indigestible dialogue as Genghis Khan, then suffering through the mad, mad convoluted plotting of 'Jet Pilot'.

          The lunacy kicks off with a cutesy-wootsy Russian cupcake and ace fighter pilot (Janet Leigh) piloting her jet out of Siberia to seek asylum in a U.S. Air Force base in Alaska.

           We can only assume Leigh's character Anna Marladovna, was trained at that infamous KGB imitation American small town......designed like the suburbs of a TV sitcom, meant to train deep cover commie spies to pose as God-fearing Americans while sapping our precious bodily fluids.....(pardon us for channeling 'Dr. Strangelove's Jack D. Ripper)

          With no trace whatsoever of a Russian accent, Leigh looks and sounds like she wandered in from an MGM musical. She wants asylum but won't spill any of Mother Russia's top secrets to the Air Force brass. So she's turned over to Col. Jim Shannon (Wayne) who's supposed to do his duty and woo her into the bosom of democracy.....or something like that. No problem there, since big lug Shannon' fallen hard for her ever since he caught sight of her stepping out of the shower.

          Off they go, our lovebirds, into the wild blue yonder, as they take their jets on loop-de-loop flights into the stratosphere...... and aviation obsessed Howard Hughes fills the screen with  endless shots of Wayne and Leigh's stunt pilots soaring through the clouds on their airborne playdates. (With much of the hair raising precision flying done by 'The Right Stuff' legendary pilot Chuck Yaeger.)

          By now, we understand the movie's trying to function as some kind of cockeyed romcom, except with a total lack of humor in either the dialogue or the performances.  It's painful to watch this film attempt comedy......but then it takes another bonkers turn into......who knows what.

          Leigh turns out to be a actual spy up to no good, but now she's got a real thing for Wayne...and vice versa. Telling Leigh she's on the verge of imprisonment and deportation, Wayne takes the bold, risky step of marrying her to keep her in the U.S.......and then, brace yourselves, the newlyweds, conflicted as hell by their romance and each deceiving each other on behalf of their countries,  fake-defect back to Russia and end up turning the tables on Leigh's Soviet spymasters by stealing their sooper-dooper new jet. 

        (At one point, still loyal USSR patriot Leigh pistol whips Wayne when she discovers she's been played by him.....but love means never having to say you're sorry if you're out to screw each other both in bed and war at the same time.....)

          If all of this sounds completely nuts and beyond all rational comprehension......well, yeah.....it is. And a punishment from hell to sit through. But that's why BQ stays on the job, to save everyone the agony....

           'Jet Pilot' does offer a hefty dose of jet planes doing almost balletic sky choreography, but then so do the 'Top Gun' movies, which are way more fun to experience. 

           Strictly for dedicated Wayne and Leigh completists and collectors of the world's most strange and misbegotten movie curios.  

            For everyone else....Zero stars (the big 0). Pass it by. 

          

            

'BEFORE YOU WERE ANNE'....GENERATIONS OF MYSTERY, MURDER AND DEEPLY EMOTIONAL DRAMA.....FROM TOKYO TO SEATTLE....

  Before You Were Anne by Emiko Jean  (2026)

     My reaction to this book felt like the same reaction I had to "The Return of Ellie Black, the first of author Emiko Jean's 'Chelsey Calhoun' mysteries. I could practically post the same review all over again.......because my take on this book is identical. (which you check out in my post on 'Ellie' from 5/7/24....)

     In other words......blown away. Completely awestruck. With "wow" as the first operative description I can think of, just as in the first of this series....

     Once again, Asian-American Detective Calhoun probes a murder and kidnapping that reveals the heartrending backstories of victims and the overwhelming evil that entraps them. And this time it's a case that spans decades, generations and the misfortunes of young Japanese women who sought a path to America. But it's a path strewn with deceptions, betrayals, tragedy and ultimately violence. A journey requiring monumental courage and determination to survive......which some do not.

     Among those who didn't - Seattle single mom Rika Takahashi, found stabbed to death and her teenage daughter Naomi missing. Chelsey Calhoun's investigation into Rika's life and death uncovers secrets and crimes that stretch across Pacific ocean......from the bright lights and sleazy nightclubs of Tokyo to the seemingly peaceful suburbs of Seattle. Chelsey, herself an adoptee, recalls her own childhood memories as she races to locate and rescue Naomi, who may have stumbled into the worst parts of her mother's tortuous past.

     It's rare that I come across a book that works so brilliantly to combine its mysteries with the insightful view of its characters that you'd expect in literary fiction. By the time "Before You Were Anne" reaches the finale,, there's satisfaction in the closing of the case, with answers revealed, but with the lingering sadness of the emotional trauma and heartbreak left behind.....that's what stays with you.

      And for me, that's what pushes this one all the way to 5 stars. (*****).

'UNTAMED COAST'.....ALASKAN ADVENTURES AND MYSTERIES.....SPANNING DECADES AND GENERATIONS......

  Untamed Coast by Kevin C. Morris (2026)

     What an ambitiously grand debut for an author this is. A book that functions on multiple levels......and does them all well, drawing you into three seemingly unrelated stories and timelines that all take place along the stunning rugged coast of Alaska. There's heartfelt drama, mystery, suspense and the high adventures of navigating those treacherous waters surrounding some of the world's most striking natural wonders.

     In 2017, lonely widower Marconi Franco takes his boat wandering through that rough, frequently storm-tossed coastline........ breathtaking voyages he'd hope to take with the late wife he still pines for. A mayday call, a plea for help from a lost desperate woman sends Marconi on an obsessive but fruitless search for her. In 1938, Joe Baxter works his job of receiving and sending out radio messages at a remote coastal outpost. But he's also busy, along with two conspiring partners, skimming and stashing away the gold from a corporate mine. In 1982, Anya Baron struggles to help her husband operate their fishing boat. Not an easy task as she suffers through the agonies of her drunken husband's frequent beatings.

     Author Kevin C. Morris completely enthralled and fascinated me with all three of these storylines, their characters, and the unpredictable reversals-of-fortune they encounter and endure. And as the book moves toward its final chapters, there's a cascade of twists and reveals as these timelines begin to connect into one multi-generational saga. Also, for armchair travelers, you can practically sit back and lose yourself amid the crashing surf, rocky shores and spectacular wildlife of Alaska.......but you might want to put on a life-jacket first.

     An impressive, immersive start for a new storyteller and I for one can hardly wait to see what he comes up with next. One of the all around best reads of this Fall season.

     5 Stars (*****).

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "DOLLY'S LEFT US....YET HE STILL LIVES ON" EDITION.......

 Further proof that life is cruel and unfair......Dolly Parton and Tim Curry are gone....but he is with us still....

BQ visitors, have a great weekend! Back with you next week....

Trumpanzees: Make plans to visit Lake 'America' real soon. Consider taking a nice long swim across the length of the lake.....without life jackets.....