WANT TO KNOW HOW TRUMP'S NEW WAR ENDS? EXHIBIT A: 'BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN'.....

     Here at BQ HQ, we don't need to rely on cable news pundits to predict how Trump's spankin' new war, Operation Epstein Fury  will turn out......

      We know already from the source by which all prescient wisdom emanates......

          Movies.

     We direct your attention to Billion Dollar Brain (1967) the third theatrical film about the adventures of novelist Len Deighton's dryly witty, slightly rogue MI6 secret agent Harry Palmer......as perfectly embodied as a kind of grown-up delinquent anti-Bond by Michael Caine. 

       Britain's resident anything-goes, madman director Ken Russell ("Tommy", "Altered States", "The Music Lovers") given the film's loony, nutso plot, predictably went wild with it......and the film's climax will provide you with a telling metaphor for Trump's latest, most insane attempt to take our minds off the Epstein files.....his Middle East war, which he swore to his mouth breathing, red-hatted Trumpanzees he'd never wage.

        'Billion's Megalomaniac is mad, mad, mad Texas gazillionaire General Midwinter (played with eye-bulging, foam-at-the-mouth gusto by Ed Begley). An All-American patriot, General M deploys his private army to invade Latvia and touch off a revolution that will no doubt cause the populace to rise up and overthrow communist Russia.

       Yeah....right. 

       Driving  minion-filled tankers and armed snowmobiles across a frozen lake, Midwinter's crusade literally sinks in mid winter......when the ice cracks and he and his army go glub, glub, glub into the ice cold drink.

        (And yes, if this sounds vaguely familiar to cinema buffs, of course it's a direct homage to the iconic drowning of the Teutonic Knights in Sergei Eisenstein's medieval war epic "Alexander Nevsky".)

          Midwinter's bubble-brained ideas of instant regime change bear a striking similarity to our own homegrown would-be conqueror, Donald Trump. But while Midwinter believes fervently in his cause, Trump believes in nothing but the greater glorification  of Trump and doesn't think much past that......meaning there's no endgame or carefully laid strategy on his mind, other than the fun of watching his missiles and bombs reigning down on the Iranians......combine that with a Filet O' Fish sandwich, fries and a coke -  it's Trump's recipe for a narcissist's orgasm. 

      Midwinter's army is nothing but a horde of faceless, fictional cultists who've swallowed his bullshit while five-time draft dodger Trump now risks the very real lives of American men and women of the U.S. armed forces......brave people he privately thinks of as 'suckers and losers'.

         Our final glimpse of Midwinter practically serves as a political cartoon of Trump......trapped in a flooded glass capsule, a prisoner of his own delusions, gasping for his last breaths as the water rises over his head. 

       Tragically, we've yet to see our last glimpse of Trump, with his toddler tantrums, decaying mind and desperate fear of his inevitable exposure as a pedophile. Because he's drowning all of us in that cracked open lake and determined to take us all to the bottom with him......

          

          

    

'200 MONAS'.....A MED THAT'LL MAKE THE EARTH MOVE FOR YOU.....WHEN ALL BY YOURSELF.....

200 Monas by Jan Saenz (2026)

     What a wild, laugh-out-loud blast to read. Explosively funny, well armed with wit sharp enough to draw blood and two memorable lead characters thrown into enough raunchy adventures to fill a dozen extra-spicy romcoms.

     Bio Chemistry major Arvy Keening's only a few finals away from graduation and on to a Big Pharma internship and a future to bright, she's gotta wear shades...........except her grieving process for her recently passed unconventional mom has left her attached to the urn with mom's ashes like a security blanket.

     Major troubles befall Arvy upon her discovery of a stash of pills left over from mom's part time   dabbling as a drug dealer. Worse than that......the arrival of two seriously creepy professional drug dealers right out of 'The Addams Family'" and 'Pulp Fiction' and from whom her mom got the 200 pills. Not Molly, as Arvy first thought, but 'Mona' with each pill promising a mind blowing, earth-moving orgasm. And Arvy's been given 2 days to sell 10,000 dollars worth of them or the dealers will return to kill her in all manner of slow, unspeakable ways.

     In desperation, Arvy's compelled to join forces with Wolf, the campus's resident, smokin' hot drug dealer to peddle the Monas and from that point on, the book's a mad, mad mapcap series of riotous misadventures and crazy confrontations........not to mention dangerously stratospheric orgasms at the worst possible times and worst possible places.

     I had the best time reading this one and amid all the chaos, author Jan Saenz casts a knowing, satiric eye on romance, sex, grief, female empowerment, the obsession with virginity and the scourge of Big Pharma. I'd recommend it right away, because there's no telling if the inevitable movie made from this loony romp will be anywhere near as entertaining and outrageous.. Read the book first.

      5 aroused stars (*****).

'TURN OFF THE LIGHT'.....A CURSED, HAUNTED HOUSE.....IN THE 17TH AND 21ST CENTURIES......

 Turn Off the Light by Jacquie Walters (2026)

     Quite a clever, intricately constructed haunted house novel........where things that go bump in the night cut right through the fabric of space and time itself......across the gulf of over 400 years to go "boo!" in the same cursed, bedeviled house.

     On the Eastern Shore of 17th century Virginia, Edith, a young wife of hardworking famer David Harris, generates, through no fault of her own, fears and suspicions of witchcraft. . She's a dedicated skilled herbalist, using plants and such to fashion healing, natural remedies for whatever might ail her neighbors. But her benevolent talents foster vicious gossip that her powers are supernatural and surely the work of the devil. Speaking of the devil, Edith's lately been tormented by all sorts of paranormal phenomena throughout her house......as if there's something in the house with her.....watching her.....maybe even manhandling her.

     Centuries later in the very same house, single mom Claire has returned to her childhood home with her four year old daughter Julia. She's come to help her sister Tilly and brother in law Peter with the care of her and Tilly's father. Their dad's in the final stages of dementia with only a matter of a few days left until he passes. And it seems that every spooky, scary, unexplainable incident that terrified Edith all those centuries ago has come back to haunt Claire.....but why?

     As these two parallel timelines exist in the book in alternating chapters, the growing suspense and horror start to multiply in both centuries leading up to a truly staggering twist.......and puts both Edith and Claire directly in the path of evil......and death.

     The 17th century sequences are so rich in atmosphere and steeped in heartbreak, I think readers will find themselves gravitating to them more than the modern day scenes. To be honest, Edith's a much more sympathetic and finely conceived character than Claire, with the odds way more stacked against her., given the general ignorance of the era.

     But once the twists, jump scares and some startling violent surprises slam into you, the book then keeps you equally riveted to what's going on in both the 17th and 21st centuries.

     Best read on a dark, stormy night, with all the lights turned off except the one trained on the book......that one light you WON'T want to turn off until you've finished the last page.

      4 stars (****).

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.......SPECIAL 'THE STATE OF DELUSION SPEECH' EDITION.......

 Just another week of dementia and demolishing of the U.S.A.....

Wishing all BQ visitors a fun, relaxing weekend....wishing all "But I didn't vote for this!" Trump voters a colonoscopy with a rusty chainsaw.....just to give you an idea of the world you've plunged us into.....

'WHO KILLED TEDDY BEAR?' ......NO ONE'S HAVIN' BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S IN THIS MOVIE'S NYC....

Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965) 

     Often we've grown nostalgic and soft hearted remembering how Hollywood depicted New York City, especially in the romantic films of the 1960's.

    Ah....New York....the Big Apple....Central Park....the Plaza Hotel....the skating at Rockefeller Center.....and that towering Christmas tree....

      What a place for comedy and romance.....and audiences delighted in movies like 'Breakfast At Tiffany's', 'Barefoot In The Park', 'Sunday In New York' and 'The World of Henry Orient',"Lover Come Back", "Boys Night Out", "That Touch of Mink"

      All that came to an end at the start of the 70's, with the release of "The French Connection" and the slew of action-crime thrillers that followed in its wake.  NYC, financially crumbling, riddled with rampant street crime and an entire populace working on their last nerve, became the East Coat version of a wild west frontier....gritty, gory and gruesome.

        But this was no breaking news to the city's community of actors, writers and independent filmmakers. 

         Smack in the middle of the 1960's, when Hollywood had turned the city into a technicolor rom-com playground, the hardy bunch who concocted "Who Killed Teddy Bear?" showed the cinema world a side of New York that big studios wouldn't exploit for another  6 years or so.....

       In short, a violent hellhole.

       In this trim and grim little black-and-white psycho-sexual tale, Norah, a young dance club DJ (Juliet Prowse, of "G.I.Blues" and "Can Can") is relentlessly stalked on the phone by a cuckoo-for-coco-puffs pervert.....and who's actually the club's young waiter Larry (Sal Mineo, really embracing the crazy.)

        Norah gets some help from her tough-as-nails boss Marian (veteran stage actress Elaine Stritch) until Marian's hugging becomes....uh..a little too up close and personal. Our poor girl's main protection comes from single-dad vice cop Dave (a rare dramatic turn from comedian and game show host Jan Murray).

           But Lt. Dave's got problems of his own. His single minded obsession with hunting down sexual predators has him literally taking his work home with him......playing back recordings of victims' experiences where his little daughter can hear them while she's trying to fall asleep....wow, some bedtimes stories.....

           And meanwhile the mad, mad Larry's trying  to find a release for his desires as he tours 42nd street, the city's now long gone Mecca of sleaze and porn......(which you'd never catch sight of in the Hollywood NYC movies). His home life offers no comfort either, as he copes with his 19 year old sister Edie (Margot Bennet), afflicted with the mind of a 7 year old. 

        Sorry to report that all of this dysfunction and and dread offers no real surprises or shocks in the film's conclusion but that didn't stop 'Teddy' from developing a cult reputation over the years, even finally a DVD and Blu-Ray release. (Though its startling presentation of a grimy, hellish NYC marked the film as well ahead of its time.)

     (Some film pundits think of 'Teddy' as a gateway to the ever more graphic psychological thrillers of the 70's and beyond, even the Italian Giallos which took audiences in their grip five years later with Dario Argento's "Bird With the Crystal Plumage".)

      Sadly, the star-crossed career of Sal Mineo was cut short 12 years later when he was randomly stabbed to death in the street. The charismatic and strikingly beautiful Juliet Prowse, a talented singer and spectacular dancer, could find only moderate success in her brief TV sitcom, Mona McLusky and in nightclub and theater appearances. We couldn't take our eyes off her in any scene she appeared in and wished she could've gone on to bigger and better projects. 'Teddy Bear' was one of her last film credits. 

        Seekers of oddball cinema and fans of the two leads might want to hunt this one down.......but don't expect too much. 2 stars (**). 

       

        

         

'BREAKHEART PASS'.....THE ART OF ALISTAIR MACLEAN AND YAKIMA CANUTT

 Breakheart Pass (1975)

       Though probably remembered as just another Charles Bronson action-packed shoot-'em'-up vehicle, we always found Bronson merely one of many interesting participants in this movie. 

      Charlie fans, don't get upset with us....we like him just fine and he gets to scowl and Bronson-ize lotsa bad guys......but we're here to talk about the folks who made this film two or three steps above the usual stuff he was grinding out every 6 months of so.

       Let's start with a rip roaring Jerry Goldsmith score, filled with Wild West fervor and the promise of high adventure comin' down the tracks.....(for almost the entire film, we're aboard an 1870's train chugging through snowy landscapes...). Leave it to Jerry to immediately put us in the right frame of mind.....

        And now to the plot.....way above average for a medium-budgeted western and courtesy of the acknowledged master of high adventure himself, Alistair MacLean ("The Guns of Navarone", "Where Eagles Dare").

        Taking a rare excursion from his usual stories of European espionage and World War 2 derring-do, MacLean's trip into America's Wild West still bears all his signature trademarks.......a large cast of characters concealing two or more of them who are villainous traitors and a dauntless, determined hero whose steely understated courage brings about their undoing.......

       'Supposedly' a notorious wanted outlaw, Bronson's taken aboard a train loaded with an Agatha Christie-like coterie of suspects racing to deliver medical supplies to a diphtheria-stricken frontier outpost......or so they say....(heh, heh, heh)

       But in true MacLean fashion, absolutely nobody and nothing are what they seem and the perilous trip ends up littered with plot twists and dead bodies tossed around (and sometimes off)  the train) with equal abandon.

      Then about halfway through the film, MacLean throws in one of his favorite tropes....in which his utterly fearless hero engages in a nail biting mano e mano death struggle....(a la Richard Burton's brutal duel with two double agents atop a mid-air cable car in "Where Eagles Dare")

       Therefore, on top of the 'Breakheart' train as it chugs across an impossibly towering bridge, Bronson squares off with the train's duplicitous cook (former boxer Archie Moore) with both men hanging off the side, each only some slippery fingers away from oblivion. It's thrilling to the max, with seamless blending of Bronson, Moore and their stuntmen so we can hardly tell the difference between them. 

      Which brings us to the next legendary cinema icon who propels this film far above the mere routine.....the masterful veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt, who'd been leaving audiences gasping in awe since the silent film era. 

      You can thank Canutt for the astounding action-stunt sequences in "Ben Hur", "Spartacus", "Where Eagles Dare", "A Man Called Horse", "El Cid", "Khartoum" and many many more.  He finished his long celebrated career with 'Breakheart Pass' and his hold-your-breath train fight and the furious satisfying final battle (featuring cowboys, indians, cavalry and exploding train cars) provided a worthy finish to a legendary career. 

       And we don't want to wrap up this review without mentioning, the sturdy, muscular, no nonsense direction of Tom Gries who passed away too young at only 54 just a few years the release ot this film. Gries graduated up from directing episodic TV to become a talented craftsman equally capable of handling drama and action with credits such as Bronson's "Breakout", "100 Rifles", "Will Penny" "The Hawaiians", "Number One" (the last three with Charlton Heston. 

      All together, Gries, MacLean, Goldsmith, Canutt, and Bronson made 'Breakheart Pass' a richly entertaining B-Plus western that's always worth returning to from time to time.....(and by the way, that to-die-for supporting cast!.....Ben Johnson, Richard Crenna, Charles Durning,  Ed Lauter, David Huddleston Bill McKinney and those all too familiar bad guys, Roy Jenson and Robert Tessier......what a lineup.

         A fun watch anytime....4 & 1/2 stars (****1/2).

        

      

         

'THE FALL OF IRIS HENLEY'.....A CHEERLEADER BESIEGED, FALSELY ACCUSED....AND IN DANGER....

 The Fall of Iris Henley by Jennifer Graham (2026)

     Everything you could possibly want in a speedy, twisty one-sitting YA thriller comes together here like a revved-up race car. Of course you'd expect it to move fast in our current social media world where rumors, lies and vicious slander fly like heat seeking missiles that hit their targets only seconds after they launched.

     The current target is high school cheerleader Iris Henley. This poor girl is about to endure an avalanche of false accusations designed to leave her despised, emotionally demolished and under fresh suspicion of murder.. Not just any random killing but the murders of her boyfriend Rocky and her best friend Lynette......found slain along side Rocky in what was at first thought of as a homicide/suicide pact between the two of them;

     In a matter of seconds, an anonymous post on her high school's subreddit thread sends Iris's life careening out of control. The post viciously implies she killed the victims in a jealous rage and Iris's troubles (and potential danger) only multiply from there. Because someone's clearly out to get her......maybe a person (or persons) who have a lot more than just character assassination on their mind.

     All manner of outrageous twists and turns pile up in Iris's path and readers will find themselves racing through the pages to reach the final surprises.. Is any of it remotely believable? I'm tempted to say probably not, but who cares when the book's as much fun and quick to inhale as this one? Like a Friday night treat, this one goes down like your favorite pizza and an ice cold drink......and a great palate cleanser if you've just finished reading something heavy, dense and dark.

      4 stars (****).