'THE RIGHT SIDE'.......WHICH YOU NEED TO READ.....RIGHT NOW......

The Right Side by Spencer Quinn (2017)   Let's not quibble......BQ says bump this one up to the top of your "must read before the end of the year" list.....

             Any time we come across a book that upends every predictable expectation and freely bends and warps the genre it's supposed to inhabit.....that's a book worth diving into....

             And the author of this one, like all great storytellers, kept us turning the pages way, way past our bedtime....

            We'll take a brief stab at categorizing it......you might call "The Right Side" a gut-wrenching cross-country drama that concludes with a half a pint of thriller, one quart of alternately funny and heartwarming dog-bonding and a tablespoon of romance......

            LeAnne Hogan an Army sergeant recovering at Walter Reed hospital from an Afghan terrorist's grenade attack, is a wounded warrior in body, heart and soul. The attack has destroyed her right eye and ravaged that side of her face with scars........afflicted with PTSD, her traumatic past and present constantly collide to the point where she can't separate them. As she struggles to reconnect the jigsaw puzzle of her memories,  she's consumed with guilt that her own moment of negligence may have led to the deaths of her fellow soldiers.....including the Captain she fell in love with.....

             The last straw for LeAnne comes when her beloved hospital roommate Marci, a fellow wounded vet, dies suddenly.  LeAnne, taking little with her than her Bronze Star and a carton of replacement eyeballs,  escapes Walter Reed and hits the road westward, heading for her home in Arizona. .....

              This incredible character created by author Spencer Quinn, a lost, vulnerable soul with a core of steel, a slashing wit and zero tolerance for bullshit of any kind (real or imagined) will grip you on every page.....

              Quinn veers LeAnne into thriller territory as she gravitates to Marci's small hometown in Washington State.....and involves herself in the search for Marci's 8 year old daughter, who's gone missing right after attending Marci's funeral.   Barely keeping her rage under control, LeAnne ends up with an unlikely ally and companion:  a huge stray dog who has saved LeAnne from a suicide attempt....

              None of these plot threads go in any direction you thought they would......and Quinn sentimentalizes nothing here, especially LeAnne, whose flaws and agony are served up with raw honesty.  (Which only serves to endear her to us more..........)

              So remember the name "The Right Side" (which you won't forget once you start reading, since it's LeAnne's blind side...)  LeAnne's got one Bronze Star.......and we give her and and her story 5 stars (*****), a FIND OF FINDS....another one of our favorite 2017 reads.....

'MODESTY BLAISE'.......A LITTLE BIT OF MONICA IN MY LIFE.......

Modesty Blaise (1966)   This one falls into that peculiar specialized category.....Movies That Are More Fun To Think About Than Actually Watch.....

                1960's secret agent spoofs tended not to attract top-tier directors......but 'Modesty' came under the supervision of Hollywood blacklist exile turned European auteur Joseph Losey......and for his va-va-voom leading lady, along came none other than Antonioni's morose Princess, Monica Vitti.......

                 Sounds like an odd combination to make a tongue-in-cheek, spoofy Pop-Art spy caper......and it was.

                Nobody ever accused Losey of having a sense of humor...but he must have thought posing the actors in spiffy outfits against sun-drenched backdrops was funny enough. Supposedly directing an action-adventure, Losey studiously arranges his actors like they're in a still photo magazine cover instead of a movie....

                 A few minor pleasures pop up here and there......Dirk Bogarde camping it up as the patrician villain, sporting a blonde wig that looks like it came from a David Bowie Halloween shop costume.......Rossella Falk as Bogarde's insane lady assassin, who provides wish fulfillment for all of us when she strangles a mime with her thighs......Jack HIldyard's picture-postcard camerawork......Vitti's gorgeous legs, which she frequently dangles in front of the camera even when the rest of her's hidden behind a door.....

                But really, this film, as fun as it sounds, is a slow tortuous thing to get through......even when, in its most inspired gag, it has Vitti and her boytoy cohort, Terence Stamp breaking into faux-Broadway duets with other while in the middle of gunfights.  Losey's content to cast a distant, jaundiced eye on the film's little comic book world........deep down, you sense he's not that interested....

               A beautiful poster illustration, though......in which you can lose yourself and imagine a far more entertaining movie than the real one.....1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2)

             

LEAST FAVORITE THINGS; SPECIAL 'BABY ORANGE'S WORST WEEK EVER' EDITION......

               We had a movie post lined up for today.....but watching Baby Orange's catastrophic week far eclipsed any fictional entertainment experience.......

                Baby Orange and Sessions    Starting to remind us of Gaston and his little buddy LaFou from "Beauty And Beast"

                Boy Scout Jamboree   Scout honchos apologize for exposing impressionable young Scouts to Baby Orange......watch for Child Abuse lawsuits piling up......as for Baby Orange, he practiced good scouting.....rubbing Jeff Sessions and Reince Priebus together to see if he could start a fire.....

                 Transgender Ban  Baby Orange, who tirelessly spent his youth dodging both the Draft and Syphilis, worries about transgender medical costs......which would still be less than the psychiatrist bills for Baby Orange's much needed therapy.  Quick comparison......a fingernail scraping from any transgender serving in the military is worth more than a million Baby Oranges......

                  The Mooch   Only in a Baby Orange presidency could such a scuttling cockroach like this infect the White House......think of all the giants who walked those halls in the history of America.......we can hear them weeping, their heads bowed.....

                  Reince Priebus   The Deer In The Headlights finally made contact with the front bumper at last......If we never have to hear this walking, talking marshmellow start every sentence with "Look,...." ever again....oh joy unconfined.....

                  Rough Up The Usual Suspects.... Baby Orange, dreaming he's Dirty Harry, encourages cops to manhandle the perps......the police department tells him otherwise.  Well, maybe Baby Orange can get some Boy Scouts to beat the crap out of suspects and protesters at his rallies......

                  John McCain does Roger Ebert.... Two years after "I like people who weren't captured..", Baby Orange says hello to Karma.......and McCain's thumb......

                   North Korea  American, sleep tight.....if Kim lobs a Nuke at us.....we've got Baby Orange, Ivanka, Jared "In Charge Of The World" Kushner, Don Jr., Kellyanne Conway, The Mooch, Sarah "I Haven't Talked To The President" Huckabee Sanders and host of other worthies to protect and defend us in a crisis........pass the Opioids and duck and cover......  

                 



               

'VERTIGO' & 'OBSESSION'......... A DEJA VIEW....SIDE BY SIDE......

Vertigo (1958), Obsession (1976)    Brian DePalma certainly found a unique way to stand apart from the burgeoning, brilliant pack of young directors in the 70's (Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola, Milius, Scorcese, Bogdonovich ).......with his elaborate, studied homages to Alfred Hitchcock, grandly scored by no less than Hitchcock's most celebrated composer, Bernard Herrmann........

              No doubt obsessed with "Vertigo" (and who among us movie buffs aren't?), DePalma and screenwriter Paul Schrader constructed "Obsession", their own loving tribute to the film.......duplicating its story of a tormented man who attempts redemption by resurrecting a lost love.

               Since the BQ recently indulged in and thoroughly enjoyed a throwback double feature of the Hitchcock's masterwork and DePalma's copycat......a few side by side impressions.....

               The Tortured Soul   Years later, in retrospect, Hitchcock bemoaned James Stewart's advanced age as part of the reason for the film's initial failure (he was over 20 years older than the two women in the cast, including Barbra Bel Geddes' character, supposedly a former college classmate).

               Stewart's age never bothered us for one second......in fact, it's his very presence and persona in the film that' a key to why it still resonates today. Though afflicted with a fear of heights, he starts the film as good old, drawling, friendly-guy-next-door Jimmy Stewart that we all know and love......... so when he succumbs to obsessive infatuation and shocking loss, the destruction of his heart and mind  become all the more powerful.........and while you ache for him, you tend not to examine the overall craziness of the villainous scheme in which he's been ensnared.

                Cliff Robertson's soft spoken Southern real estate mogul in "Obsession" is another animal altogether. In keeping with the dreamlike atmosphere that DePalma creates, Robertson's performance stays at low boil....introverted, quiet, contemplative. While Stewart edges toward hysterical mania in "Vertigo", DePalma has Robertson communicate his character's torment mostly through close ups of his saddened, stunned blue eyes. Playing men who've been horribly victimized, Stewart radiates his pain outward for us, Robertson internalizes it.

                 The Girl  Presumably DePalma picked the actress he preferred in Geniveve Bujold while Hitchcock unhappily wound up with Kim Novak only after his own choice, Vera Miles, became pregnant........

                In the case of "Vertigo", we don't mind speculation about Novak's suitability.......she had severely limited range as an actress and her typical 1950's full-figured frame, noticed and criticized by Hitchcock's wife, had the director clothing her heavily from head to foot.  Her reappearance in the film's second half (as working class 'Judy Barton') has always looked to us like a garish Halloween costume....,,not helped by her barely competent performance. But in profile, she fulfilled the film's (and Hitchcock's) main requirement......portray an unattainable goddess.....

                DePalma takes full advantage of the young Bujold's elfin quality in "Obsession"......it's actually vital in accomplishing the script's major plot twist.  She's remarkably both worldly wise and childlike......and DePalma even takes a wild leap of faith with the actress.......in a traumatic flashback sequence, he forgoes the use of a child performer and films Bujold as her ten year old self. A nutty, daring move, but in the context of the film, it works.....

                 The Villain   "Vertigo" may be the only Hitchcock film where the villain himself functioned as the 'MacGuffin'.......nothing more than a convenient prop to set the main story in motion. Hitchcock displayed an unusual indifference to the villain.....extraordinary, since this guy's grand plot staggers the imagination in its pure evil and cruelty.  (Supposedly the script threw in a final scene describing his offscreen fate, but never made it into the movie itself.)

                 "Obsession"s villain, fully equipped with armed minions, positions himself front and center throughout the film. Like the "Vertigo" schemer, his plot hinges on a ridiculous level of contrivance and fanciful optimism about its outcome.........with a 1970's addition of unsettling sexual deviancy. .  But unlike Hitchcock, who forgets about his villain, DePalma metes out stern justice, as if he still worked under the crime-must-not-pay guidelines of the old Hollywood Production Code (which Hitchcock frequently skirted around)..

                The Bernard Herrmann Scores  The deep irony: due to a musicians' strike, Herrmann's most achingly romantic score had to be recorded in England and conducted by Muir Mathieson instead of Herrrmann. Mathieson's lyrical, lighter conducting touch definitely lacks Herrmann's aggressive power.........which, in "Obsession", you can hear with full, thunderous force throughout the entire film.....recorded in an English church and employing pounding organ notes and a wailing angelic chorus, the composer's last great symphonic score before the jazzy "Taxi Driver" theme....

                 The Visuals  No contest at all.......we will always choose to immerse ourselves in "Vertigo"s gorgeously ripe VistaVision Technicolor.......especially when Hitchcock chooses to drench the palette to make a point....(as in Stewart's nightmare and  Novak emerging from Stewart's makeover in a soft greenish haze)  "Obsession"s hazy, soft focus imagery, courtesy of Vilmos Zsigmond, covers the whole film like a gauzy, translucent curtain. Combined with Herrmann's score, it does successfully keep the film in a dreamy state.......(and keeps us from paying any real attention to the irrational plot)

                  Truly, a one-a-kind double feature......for "Vertigo", naturally 5 stars (*****)....for "Obsession", Brian DePalma's  own 'haven't I see this somewhere before?' version, 4 stars (****)

'FIFTY SHADES DARKER'.........DO YOU REALLY WANT TO HURT ME?.....

Fifty Shades Darker (2017)    No......not even under the influence of six rum-and-cokes would we attempt any serious analysis of this film.......

                It would be akin to reviewing a Trump tweet........it exists in its own self-contained, warped little universe........divorced from normal human behavior and interaction, drained of anything resembling humanity....

                We watched this under what the BQ considered the only acceptable terms for putting ourselves through the experience.......as a free rental from the library.....

                 Our random thoughts:

                 Christian Gray (Jamie Dornan)  Wow, they really let the air out of Mr. Spank-You, With A Fleet Of Audis......having his girlfriend run away from his B & D rumpus room practically turned him into another squishy, lovesick, 'please take me back' guy.  We get the idea of the trilogy's mission to gradually humanize him......but to us, he was way funnier and more entertaining  when he'd threaten a still clueless Dakota Johnson with not being able to sit down for a week........

                  Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson)  Johnson is the closest thing this franchise has to an MVP......and we'd readily award her an actor's equivalent of a Purple Heart for soldiering on through these movies, taking on what has to be the most thankless, humiliating role ever written for a woman.....(although, when discussing E.L.James and her screenwriter husband, Niall Leonard....'written' seems too strong a word.....'scrawled' 'scribbled', maybe...'vomited', possibly....)

                   Elena Lincoln (aka 'Mrs.Robinson) (Kim Basinger)   A moment of memorial silence please.....for Kim's career.  You could tell she wished she was back sitting on a kitchen floor, blindfolded while Mickey Roarke stuffed her mouth with everything in the fridge except an uncut pineapple......

                  Dakota Johnson's vagina balls   What a missed opportunity for rib-tickling (or genital tickling) comedy.......not anywhere near as funny as that Katherine Heigl movie where some kid gets a hold of the remote that controls her vibrating panties.....

                 Spankin' new sex scenes.....in the spirit of bi-partisan cooperation,  Anastasia now allows Christian to practice some modified rough stuff, as long as it doesn't leave her looking like Ronda Rousey after losing a bout.  But seriously......what a wimpy exercise.....little Patty McCormack received a rougher ass-paddling at the end of "The Bad Seed".....

                  Enough of this.....time to cry out our 'safe' word to end the torture. The safe word.....Zero.......as in 0 stars for this misbegotten movie.......note to filmmakers for "Fifty Shades Freed"......if you can't make this tripe more unintentionally funny, why even watch it?

                 

'WHITE FUR'.......STAR-CROSSED LOVERS VS. EVIL IN TRUMP TOWER

White Fur by Jardine Libaire (2017)   BQ found this a can't-stay-away-from-it, compelling read.......even though the constant clash between the white-hot story and the overly studied, ostentatious prose wore us out.

             By the time we reached the last page, we did breathe a slight sigh of relief that the author had finally reached some sort of conclusion for her bedeviled characters......assigning a fate for them and bringing a merciful end to all the tortured similes and metaphors used to to describe their nuclear powered, mismatched love affair.

             The impossible, improbable young love coupling involves scrappy streetwise survivor Elise Perez and fabulously wealthy Yale student  Jamey Hyde, scion and heir of an investment banking dynasty. This toughened, urban Juliet and her uppercrust Romeo wind up in l980's New York City, jumping each other's bones to the utter horror and disgust of the Masters of the Universe who comprise Jamey's family.

              And the boiling haves-and-have-nots stew that makes up 80's NYC serves to mirror the gulf between Elise and Jamey........Midas-rich one percenters sharing the city with rats, roaches, and the grindingly poor......with only the price and quality of the available drugs separating them.

              Author Libaire brings to life this seemingly doomed pair with painful precision......the street hardened Elise who's surrendered to her overpowering infatuation......and the lost soul Jamey, struggling to escape the all-powerful, controlling grasp of his family.

              On the downside, Libaire frequently stumbles over her often poetic verbiage in describing both the characters and the city. This show-offy, creative writing graduate student stuff only slows down the narrative.......beautifully composed prose, but we'd rather get back to Jamey and Elise......(although we did enjoy Libaire's frequent, detailed person-by-person lists of the city denizens, itemized as if they're guidelines for a movie casting director.....)

               Throughout the book, we fear terribly for the mental and physical well-being of this star-crossed pair.......and sure enough, Libaire arranges an earth shaking plot development for them at that monolithic monument to mindless greed and indulgence......Trump Tower. (We dare not say more....)

                Faults it may have, but we still found most of "White Fur" an exhilarating read.......we had to know what happens to these people.....and that's the definition of a good story.....3 stars (***)

           

LEAST FAVORITE THINGS: SPECIAL BABY ORANGE BOY SCOUT JAMBOREE EDITION....

              We haven't done too many posts on horror films.......doesn't seem necessary, since we awake each morning to a spectacular real life horrorshow.........the hijacking of an entire country by a dangerous lunatic........

                Baby Orange & The Boy Scouts......Silly pundits, making futile efforts to decipher the meaning of Baby Orange's random political rants to a yuuuuuge assembled crowd of kids.  Come on, fellas.....don't you get it?   It must have seemed like a dream come true for Baby Orange......gazing out into the crowd, he must have hallucinated that he was addressing his very own army of young brownshirts, just like his role model Adolph back in the day.   We're only surprised he didn't try to organize them into roving bands to break newspaper office windows and beat up reporters in the street......while wearing armbands with the Trump insignia - two golf clubs criss-crossed over a field of laundered Russian money......

                Jeff Sessions  Almost too priceless for words......this little racist, crackerbarrel weasel who couldn't wait to jump on the Trump train last year........and now enjoying life under the wheels of a bus. Oh, Jeffy....Jeffy.....you haven't watched enough James Bond movies, have you?  Don't you realize what happens to minions who fail?  Jeffy, just be thankful that Baby Orange didn't have Ivanka sneak up behind you and stab you with a poisoned knife concealed in her Made-In-China strappy high heel......

               "The Mooch"  Ba-da-bing....Ba-da-boom......no wonder "House Of Cards" now looks so mundane and ordinary......who could make up characters like this?  We have some bad breaking news for Moochie, though.......Moochie-Woochie, you may think Baby Orange's kidding about your calling him a 'political hack' is all in good-natured, let-bygones-be-bygones fun.....and you may think Baby Orange has forgotten about those unflattering tweets you raced to hit 'delete' on. Oh, poor Moochie......don't you realize, sooner or later, Baby Orange never, ever forgets a slight.....or forgives one.  Just ask the Great Beached Whale of New Jersey........or little Jeffy, who's frantically running around looking for his old KKK sheet to hide under.......It may take a while for your number to come up, Moochie, but trust us.....your appointment to join Jeffy under the bus is only a matter of time......and watch out for Ivanka's strappy heels......

 

'BILLY LYNN'S LONG HALFTIME WALK'.......BEYONCE CAN YOU SEE, BY THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016)    In case anyone forgot.....about ten years ago, Hollywood, catching up with the country's growing revulsion and disillusionment with W's Middle East wars, rolled out a whole bunch of hot-button anti-war editorials masquerading as movies....."In The Valley Of Elah", "Lions For Lambs", "Rendition", "Redacted", etc, etc. .....

              They all sank like a stone.....a few of them just plain stank.....

               Last year director Ang Lee unveiled his exquisitely crafted film version of the celebrated Ben Fountain novel.......all about a young soldier whose impulsive act of heroism in the Iraqi war envelops him and his fellow soldiers in a garish public relations circus held at the 2004 Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game halftime.......not merely an anti-war polemic, the book cast a sardonic, rueful eye on American society's compartmentalizing  the war and those who fought it into pop culture nuggets to be trotted out at sporting events, then quickly forgotten.

              It sank like a stone.......but perhaps for different reasons than those clumsy movies from a decade ago.....

               Fountain's novel was a dazzling effort, deeply felt in its treatment of the war-shocked Billy and blisteringly witty in its satire of a careless, greedy, consumer oriented homeland that embraced Billy only for a quick feel-good moment of comfort before the next quarter of the game starts.....

               Ang Lee remains dutifully faithful to all these elements in the book and he's an extraordinary visual artist. But directing in subdued, measured tones, he lacks the sheer energy and anger and hot blood to replicate the effect  of the book.  This movie needed a live wire social satirist for a director........not a painter of pretty pictures.

               In a way, it took us all the way back to l970 and the release of Mike Nichols anxiously awaited film version of Joseph Heller's "Catch 22"......which we all dreamed would be the funniest, most excoriating anti-war film ever made.  It was not.......Nichols' visually fussy, carefully posed and calculated direction drained the film of any humor or anger......juiceless and proud of itself, the film looked ready for a magazine cover, not a movie screen.   (Ironically, the movie "Catch 22" should been had already gone into release a few months earlier.....the raggedy, slapdash, improvised "MASH" from Robert Altman...)

              And that's our theory on "Billy Lynn's" downfall.......it needed the equivalent of a Robert Altman to direct it with go-to-hell abandon.......instead, in Ang Lee, it got the equivalent of Mike Nichols.......meticulous craft, but no real moxie....and not much of movie.    

               Specialist Billy Lynn and his fellow Bravo company soldiers,  forever changed and matured beyond their years by the horrors of battle, wander through Dallas stadium bemused, entertained and ultimately outraged by the galactic gulf that separates them from civilian America.  They're lionized like temporary movie stars in a country that's wrapped itself in patriotism like a comforting snuggie, but holds little or no interest, empathy or  understanding for the young men tossed by George Bush into the Middle East meat grinder.

                 Billy and the Bravos have been reduced to convenient, extra window dressing while Beyonce and Destiny's Child belt out their hits at the halftime.......and after the show and the game, the crowds can feel good about themselves and hit the shopping malls.....and not think about the war until the next sporting event.....

                 Lee's studied direction never engages you like it should and its grounded, stately style only serves to make the more fanciful satire of Ben Fountain's prose fall flat. (In the book, the Bravos are regularly assaulted by the stadium maintenance goons with more ferocity than the Iraqi insurgents....in the film, it comes off as weird and random...)

                The film also suffers from serious miscasting errors.......as Billy's physically and emotionally damaged older sister, Lee lazily cast the overrated Kristen Stewart, no doubt thinking the one and only emotion in her skill set, morose irritation, would suffice for the role. But the worst bit of stunt-casting involves Steve Martin as Norm Oglesby, the gladhanding, greedy lizard who owns the Cowboys. In years gone by, this would be a role tailor made for the late Pat Hingle, Ed Begley, Burl Ives, or even Orson Welles........Martin skims across the character like he would in a 'Saturday Night Live' skit, catching the friendly phoniness, but never digging deep enough to bring out the ruthless creep lurking behind the mask.

               Billy himself is ably embodied by Joe Alwyn with just the right mixture of wonderstruck naivete and melancholic, battle-hardened experience. The true actor MVP here: Garret Hedlund methodically stealing every scene he's in playing Billy's Sergeant Dime, expertly skewering any clueless red-state boobs who dare to patronize him and his men. (It's a damn shame his and Alwyn's face-off with Steve Martin gets weakened and undercut by Martin's uninteresting, low-wattage performance.)

               Having unloaded all that off our chest, we'd still declare "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" worth at least one viewing......and no, we've no intention of blah-blah-blahing about Ang Lee's shooting the film in that super-dooper fast frame technique that nobody except film festival invitees ever got to see. We base our musings strictly on the regular old DVD......as such, the BQ stands at attention with 2 salutes for 'Billy Lynn' (**)........we don't mind if you skip the movie, but do NOT skip Ben Fountain's book.....for the book, we fire off 4 stars...(****)

             

'THE YELLOW ROLLS ROYCE'.........PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHT...

The Yellow Rolls Royce (1965)   The oh so British, stiff upper lip-ness of this movie, a trilogy of compact tales written by Terrence Rattigan and directed by Anthony Asquith,  becomes both its blessing and its curse......

            Civilized and dryly witty, we can think of few 1960's films that rival this one in sheer high polish and gloss. Like the vehicle of the title, this movie's not only been washed, waxed and buffed to a dazzling gleam, it looks like its also been detail-cleaned with toothbrushes in all its nooks and crannies.....

            That's the blessing part of it.........and the curse?  It doggedly maintains its classy poise throughout, almost never shifting out of its 'Masterpiece Theater' low gear.  Director Asquith holds the reins steady and firm, even during the film's middle segment, when he's wrangling three champion American scenery-chewers, George C.Scott, Shirley MacLaine and Art Carney.

              Travelling through the lives of the Rolls' three owners, the first segment unfolds like a long, unpleasant deleted subplot from "My Fair Lady". Rex Harrison, in full self-absorbed, self-satisfied Henry Higgins mode, deflates into gloom when he catches his gorgeous French wife (Jeanne Moreau) and her lover having a roll in the Rolls' back seat. Everybody's dressed to the max and looks miserable.....pretty much end of story.

              The middle tale has Chicago gangster Scott, henchman Carney and gum cracking moll MacClaine using the Rolls to tool around scenic Italy........where MacClaine falls under the spell of a beautifully sculpted gigolo (the inevitable Alain Delon, emanating his best soulful stares).......not much happens and the segment gives you plenty of time to contemplate what a waste of time this is for Scott, MacClaine and Carney.......

              Finally we arrive at what the movie considers its signature, finale piece......in the early days of World War 2, the Rolls falls into the hands of a feisty widowed heiress (Ingrid Bergman) who helps a Yugoslav resistance fighter (Omar Sharif) battle the Nazis......

             Sharif and Bergman make a decidedly odd but compelling romantic duo......and we wish Rattigan and Asquith had jettisoned the trilogy and simply made this story the whole movie......unlike the other two segments, it's got some heat, passion and romantic wit. A sad, missed opportunity.....they might have made a real movie here instead of a glossy travelogue......

              But just as we would in a an automobile showroom, we'll admire "The Yellow Rolls Royce" for its various spiffy parts......including, before we forget, Riz Ortolani's jaunty theme music for the car.......we'll flash our headlights 2 & 1/2 times.........we only wish this vehicle gave us something a little more than a smooth ride.....

'DESCENDANTS 2' & THE TRUMP CHILDREN......SPAWN OF VILLAINY.....

Descendants 2 (2017)      As ever, the BQ  helplessly succumbed to Beloved Daughter's request that we join her to watch some piece of Disney delirium that no sane, rational human being would subject themselves to......

             And so we duly endured 2 and 1/2 hours (interrupted every 7 minutes by 587 commercials) of this anxiously awaited (by its target demographic, not us) musical sequel to the Disney Channel's "Descendants".......an overly busy concoction about the young sons and daughters of classic Disney animated villains.

              Without the emotional guilt of  Beloved Daughter's entreaties, we'd normally only watch this movie strapped down like Malcolm McDowell in "Clockwork Orange", with our eyes pinned open by metal clamps. But as we gaped at the supposed offspring of Malificent, Jafar, Cruella DeVille and Ursula sing and dance, we couldn't help comparing them to another set of children, also sired by a creepy, cartoonish villain......Don Jr., Eric and Ivanka Trump.....

             The movie? We make no attempt to analyze or review it.......it would be like reviewing a box of Cocoa Puffs cereal, or any other mass produced, overly sweetened, slickly packaged product.  Consider it just another example of the Disney corporate machine strip mining their existing product instead of working to create new original projects.  Walt Disney, as has been thoroughly chronicled, was as much of a ruthless, cruel cutthroat as his fellow Big Studio peers.......but however heartless his soul, the man was a creative visionary, willing to take daring risks on his big dreams

               The only visions and dreams of the reptiles who currently run Disney are of floods of money pouring in from their re-booted versions of Uncle Walt's old movies.....

                But enough of them.......we'll wait until they get around to a politically correct remake of "Song Of The South" with Whoopi Goldberg and a CGI Bre'r Rabbit beating the crap out of Jeff Sessions.....

               Getting back to those 'Descendants' kids........three of them, unlike the Trump children, have renounced the evil ways of their nefarious parents. But not Mal, the conflicted daughter of 'Sleeping Beauty's Malificent,  She's the Ivanka of this group..........attempting to embrace sanity and decency while fighting off the urge to transform, like her vile parent, into a fire breathing dragon. But unlike Ivanka, Mal worries about her ability to assume the role of Kingdom Princess........Ivanka, on the other hand , has no such qualms about functioning as an un-elected Royal Advisor, that much favored position in third world banana republics.

                The movie even throws in its equivalent to Don Jr.....in a big dumb guy who's the son of Gaston, the narcissistic bully of "Beauty And The Beast".  Just like their dads, Gaston Jr. (or whatever the hell his name is) and Don Jr. are clueless and stupid beyond description.  Teen Gaston doesn't get to commit any serious offences here.....as opposed to his real life counterpart, so moronic that he can't comprehend that he betrayed his own country.

                 In the Disney film, as you might expect, all ends well.....the kids are allright, finishing up with an energetic song and dance......and the promise of yet another sequel....

                As for real children of all too real Baby Orange,  the only singing they might get to do is in front of congressional committees and special prosecutors....... and the only sequel they might star in: a remake of "All The President's Men".....or possibly "Village Of The Damned"

               For "Descendants 2", 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)...(we didn't mind the snappy songs and the one witty idea that 'Little Mermaid's Ursula runs a Fish 'N Chips joint...)......for those other kids, the Trumplings and their bright orange, barely animated father.......forever and always, 0 stars.

             

'FREE FIRE'........RESERVOIR DOG DROPPINGS.....

Free Fire (2016)    "We all know that craft is King...."  - Don Henley from 'Dirty Laundry'......

                 Never a more truer statement than at film festivals, where young, hungry fledgling filmmakers hope to wow the crowds (and potential distributors) with movies that may be pointless, plotless and mindless....but look damn good.

                  Here's a prime example.....a movie that appears liberated from a vault after 20 years, since it resembles one of the avalanche of dreary fake-Tarantino snarky shoot-em-ups that infected video stores after the explosive success of 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction'......

                 Chatty, sarcastic gangsters? Check. Everybody armed to the teeth? Check. Every character ready to stop hurling witty lines and start blasting away at each other, even if it makes no sense? Check.  Generous amounts of screaming , bleeding and more insult-hurling, even as  the bullets fly? Double-check.

                  We'll give "Free Fire" a passing nod for bringing back that long lost lost cinema Holy Grail....the High Concept screenplay......(remember those glory days when studios shelled out unheard of amounts, bidding on scripts with one attention-getting gimmick-y idea....."It's 'The Graduate' meets 'Out of Africa'!"....)

                   "Free Fire"s High Concept gimmick: take that well-worn 'shootout in the abandoned warehouse' sequence, which would normally take up the last four minutes of a low budget action film ........and stretch it out to the entire 90 minute running time.  In other words......a feature length Abandoned Warehouse shootout.

                   Sounds like crazy fun, no?

                   No.....not really.  Two opposing forces meet to conclude an arms deal.......Irish gun-buyers, led by Cillian Murphy and gun-runners, led by Sharito Copley. Mediating these groups. each with its own set of ill-tempered thugs, are a subdued Brie Larson and Armie Hammer, quipping like a game show host.  Unfortunately for all concerned, a minion from each side have brawled the night before, touching off the film's endless gun battle.

                   You remember that 'look damn good' line we used earlier in this post?  Yes it does. Director-screenwriter Ben Wheatley expertly orchestrates his warehouse war, staging it like a third-world guerrilla conflict......sloppy, bloody, with hundreds of gunshots actually finding their targets every so often, yielding painful flesh wounds....or worse. Just like a war, the combatants identify key objectives (a suitcase of cash, a phone to call for help) and mount foolhardy sieges to obtain them. Nothing goes well for anybody....

                   Breaking news......this all gets downright tedious in a hurry, even with the actors taking time to throw Tarantino-esque one-liners at each other while they re-load.  Since this film is a director's exercise in pure technique and we don't give a rat's ass about the sleazebag characters.....the movie devolves into nothing more than a geek show, trying to goose us awake with increasingly violent deaths. (John Denver songs infect the soundtrack while actors burn alive or get their heads squished like melons......ho ho, ha ha...so clever)

                  They can cheer all they want for this at film festivals.....to BQ, it's still a one-joke, much-ado-about-nothing  movie that wears out its welcome in about 15 minutes or less.  1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2).....the half-star goes strictly to Larson and Hammer, who are fairly entertaining until they're forced to crawl around on the concrete with everybody else......

'THE TALK FUNNY GIRL'.....ANOTHER GEM FROM BQ'S BOOK SALE BAG...

The Talk Funny Girl by Roland Merullo (2012)    Once again, dug up a priceless diamond out of the many crumpled brown paper bags lying around the BQ lair.....left over from our tireless shopping sprees at library book sales.......

            This one got to us like no other book we've read this year.....a beautifully written tale of inherent good struggling and triumphing over bottomless evil. Before we even reach the end of this review, we'll say it right now......seek this one out without any delay.....

            Taking place in rural New Hampshire, it's a grown woman, Marjorie Richards, retelling the story of her iron-willed survival of a horrific adolescence. Her parents, two mean-spirited backwoods outcasts, regularly subject 17 year old Marjorie to physical abuse and humiliation.  Like her parents, Marjorie has fallen into using their incomprehensible speech pattern.....a bastardization of English in which reversed nouns and verbs are further convoluted with excess prepositions, hence the ridicule Marjorie endures from classmates, dubbing her the 'talk funny' girl.

             When she's ordered by her parents to find employment to help support them, she finds work as an apprentice to a shy young man who's building a stone cathedral on the site of a burned out church. Blossoming under his tutelage, she learns the craft of stonework and finds the courage she needs to break out of the cruel yoke of her parents' oppression......which also includes brutal, ritual beatings in the so-called 'church' her parents attend, overseen by a bible-thumping sadist.

             As if the misery inflicted on her by her family isn't enough, the constant threat of abduction and murder hover over Marjorie......from a serial killer of young girls still at large.....

             Author Merullo uses the narrative of the grown Marjorie to view these events, both heartwarming and scary, with an adult's distanced perception.....with even a measure of insightful compassion for the heinous mother and father. The story's conclusion is everything you thought it might be.......a satisfying, yet sadly bittersweet mixture of all the book's swirling elements.... bloody violence, tragedy and ultimate self-discovery.  Fair warning: the final pages will keep you up all night until you finish them.....

           We're all done talking up "The Talk Funny Girl".....time for you wonderful BQ visitors to please,  by all means, check it out, give it a read......5 stars (*****), a FIND OF FINDS.

'KONG: SKULL ISLAND'.....THEY DID THE MASH...THEY DID THE MONSTER MASH.....

Kong: Skull Island (2017)   In the classic 'Twilight Zone' episode "It's A Good Life", little Anthony (Billy Mumy), a capricious tyke with godlike powers, rules and terrorizes his family and neighbors.......with the sheer force of his will, he creates his own TV programs, compelling the adults to join him in watching endless footage of dinosaur battles. The grown ups subserviently gush with compliments, not daring to offend Anthony. lest he......'wish them away to the cornfield'......

                To the BQ, it's starting to feel like the people who run Hollywood studios have all become little Anthonys........force feeding us monster battles and superheroes.....

               And since Warner Brothers, Universal, Sony, Fox and Disney can't wish us away to the cornfield...(not yet anyway)......we can feel free to honestly assess their various, computer-generated franchise entries.....

                This one, we understand, is part of the Warner Brothers Monster-verse......a calculated mashup of King Kong, the entire stable (circus? zoo?) of Toho monsters from Japan, with a little bit of Lovecraftian mythos thrown in. The Warners monster corral should not be confused with Universal's Monster-verse, a threatened exhumation of their 1930's classic, creepy coterie, Frankenstein, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, yada yada.....(they've already badly stumbled out of the gate with their woeful, reviled Tom Cruise-ified "The Mummy")
 
                 We'll say this much for "Kong: Skull Island"....we were never bored. It moves like an express train and unlike the studio's 2014 "Godzilla", which played peek-a-boo with its monsters, 'Kong' serves up a full course meal of what its target audience came for.......big-ass creatures bashing each other's little brains out.

                  A few quick observations.....

                  Homages   The movie is so steeped in references to "Apocalypse Now", "Heart Of Darkness" countless other movies and video games that it never truly finds its own identity. Not so much a movie......more a collection of references in search of a movie.....

                  Samuel L. Jackson  Tiresomely employed as a one man homage to himself and all his previous films, even to the point of repeating his lines from "Jurassic Park".......it's a wonder they didn't have him scream, "I want all the mother$&%^#% monsters off this mother*#&$^$ island!"  Even worse, the script senselessly turns him into a third act villain.....

                  Kong  No longer the slightly over-sized gorilla.....now he's a stand-up guy, literally and enlarged to the size of an upended aircraft carrier.........vitally necessary, since Warners, functioning like Don King, has Kong lined up for more pay-per-view smackdowns with the big 'n tall Toho bunch.....next up, Godzilla.....(well, neither of them exactly floats like a butterfly or stings like a bee, but we'll watch anyway...)

                  Brie Larson....trying to lift a crashed helicopter off a giant water buffalo. We couldn't decide what's crazier or funnier......Brie attempting to go all Wonder Woman on the copter or the idea of a giant water buffalo.....

                   John C.Reilly  The MVP of this movie and boy, does he know it.......given the role of  'Mr. Heart and Soul Amid All the Carnage', he works overtime at it and invaluably adds to the film's watchability........

                   The Island Monsters  We kind of admire the nonsensical randomness of them......unlike the 1933 Skull Island's strictly prehistoric eco-system, this 2017 island supports mainly video game monsters........nightmarish creations improbably designed to inflict maximum damage and look awesome doing it. We've no idea why a giant octopus would choose to hang out in a shallow lake, but it makes for a great shot of Kong snacking on its tentacles like a calamari appetizer.....

                   The Post-Credits Teaser......promising us a future stampede of  those Tokyo behemoths Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah......Ghidorah's no doubt relieved that CGI will allow its bobbing three heads to movie freely instead of pulled on wires......and we hope and pray that Warners can convince Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen to return to movies and play the peanut twins who sing to Mothra.......

                  Mercifully, the movie runs a tad under two hours.........and we forever thank director Jordan Vogt-Roberts for not deluding himself into thinking he's David Lean making "Lawrence Of Arabia" with monsters. So we'll roar out 2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2) for "Kong: Skull Island".....a passable time waster for us fantasy/sci-fi/action fans.........and unlike the grovelling adults in the 'Twilight Zone' episode, at least we didn't have to falsely whimper to Warner Brothers how much we loved it.......











             

               

'MACKENNA'S GOLD'..........OLD TURKEY BUZZARDS...EVEN OLDER SPECIAL EFFECTS.....

Mackenna's Gold (1969)    Alternately grandiose and laughably cheapjack, the BQ lists this bloated over-and-underproduced western as one the strangest of our countless guilty pleasures.....

           It arrived with a high pedigree and high intentions, produced and written by equally high-minded Carl Foreman ("High Noon", "The Bridge On The River Kwai", "Guns Of Navarone").

          We're speculating here, but we're guessing that Foreman, ever message-intensive, envisioned this as a blending of grand high adventure and a blistering treatise on human greed.........with the entire cast of characters on an avaricious quest to find a legendary lost canyon of gold, zealously guarded by the Apaches.....

            Not a bad idea for an epic horse opera, but in execution by Foreman and his 'Navarone' director J.Lee Thompson, the film invited nothing but ridicule.......featuring a huge roster of icons in cameo roles, the film resembled a pretentious way-out-West version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World."  Half of it is visually stunning.......the other half looks like outtakes from an Ed Wood Jr. aborted western, filled with some of the worst special effects ever committed to celluloid......

            The fatal problem......... these two competing halves of the movie, the splendid, scenic outdoor stuff and the blatantly fake, 1930's-level soundstage shots are intercut throughout the entire running time......one moment you're gazing wide-eyed at sun-drenched Arizona landscapes, the next moment you're groaning at the sight of actors posed in front of paper-mache rocks and galloping their fake hobby horses in front of fuzzy rear-projection images. It's a visually jarring experience to watch....a constant back-and-forth between the gorgeous location footage and the embarrassing Hollywood fakery.

           Vultures glide over Monument Valley while Jose Feliciano wails out 'Old Turkey Buzzard'....a ludicrous song, but just try getting it out of your head after you've heard it. Our hero, Marshall Mackenna (a bemused Gregory Peck, barely containing his boredom with the role), views a map to the mythical gold canyon taken off a dying old Apache who took a shot at him.....(this ancient wheezing Native American, played by Eduardo Cianelli,  presumably comes from the Italian Apache branch)

           Mackenna's promptly kidnapped by his longtime bandido nemesis Colorado (a grossly miscast Omar Sharif, doing a pale, lame imitation of Eli Wallach's "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly" character......ironic, considering Wallach himself turns up later in the movie).  Forcing Mackenna to lead him to the canyon, Colorado launches a punishing trek across the real and fake scenery, along with his gang and another hostage (Camilla Sparv, one of many bland, blonde starlets who wandered through 60's movies, to no effect whatsoever...)

            A swift pace might have helped here (and possibly make you forget the rickety wooden bridge sequence where Peck and his horse are replaced by toy miniatures....), but Carl Foreman needs to instruct us on the perils of greed........so crashing the party (and stopping the film cold)  come the 'men from Hadleyburg', formerly upstanding citizens now salivating for their share of the gold. Incredibly, this bunch is played by a Hollywood dream team, Wallach, Burgess Meredith, Lee J. Cobb, Raymond Massey, Anthony Quayle, and Edward G.Robinson.

              Only Massey and Robinson get to briefly strut their acting chops before both a cavalry troop and the Apaches take turns decimating this collection of sleazeballs.  That frees the way for our leading cast members to keep on gold-trekkin', stopping only for a picturesque pond swim......(Peck, Lincoln-esque to a fault, bathes with his clothes on, Sharif strips and demurely poses like a l950's porn actor hiding his privates, Sparv survives an attempted drowning murder by one of Sharif's two mute Cigar Store Indians (statuesque, black bewigged Julie Newmar......the other one's played by the 'Addams Family' Lurch himself, Ted Cassidy)

               After close to two hours, we finally arrive at the promised gold canyon, once again rendered with a combination of vivid location footage and ridiculously phony models and matte shots.  Supposedly a young George Lucas was part of the 'Making of..' documentary crew for this movie....and may have gotten 'Indiana Jones' inspirations from the climax in which the canyon, annoyed at the intrusion of gold-hunters,  decides to conveniently self-destruct and crumble during an earthquake. Cut to the miniature shots that looked borrowed from 'Land Of The Lost' episodes.......

                The visual schizophrenia of "Mackenna's Gold" is still remarkable......because amid all the cringe-worthy special effects, the film will suddenly throw in some truly astonishing location shots taken from a galloping horse point-of-view......as if  'Mackenna'  had been planned for a wrap-around Cinerama presentation.  (God only knows how those tinker-toy model shots would have appeared blown up on a huge curved screen)

               Since we found more guilt than pleasure in this guilty pleasure, we'll dig up just two small gold nuggets for 'Mackenna's Gold'  (**)......now if we could only stop singing 'Old Turkey Buzzard' in the shower......        

         

ONE TERRIBLE WEEKEND.....R.I.P. GEORGE ROMERO & MARTIN LANDAU.....

This is the worst kind of entry for any lifelong movie-buff blogger to write......when we lose, in multiples, masterful artists whose work has made them cultural touchstones.....

George A. Romero (1940-2017)    The creator and Godfather of the modern day Zombie Apocalypse.....which has become such a omnipresent cultural mainstay, some people have made Civil Defense preparations for the expected hordes of undead flesh-chompers.....

             In 1968, he shook the movie world to its core with "Night Of The Living Dead".....a perfect year to depict a dystopian America steeped in wanton mutilation and self-destruction. In Romero's fractured zombie-infected universe, he held up a social satirist's mirror to a society gone mad, where law enforcement, government and the military are no less lethal than the zombies.....(they end up mistakenly killing the film's groundbreaking leading hero.....a black man.)

              Romero continued his zombie saga in more films, to mixed results......but for many, including the BQ, his masterwork remains 1978's "Dawn Of The Dead", where he wickedly placed his shuffling zombies in the one comfort zone their dead brains still held on to......a shopping mall. You could almost picture Romero taking a delicious, zombie-sized bite out of the country's rampant consumerism and self-absorbtion.....

               And a special shout-out for his 1981 epic "Knightriders", a modern-day deconstruction of the Arthurian-Camelot legends, with Ed Harris as the leader of Renaissance Fair motorcycle jousters....one of the first movies we gobbled up when we finally moved into an apartment with cable and HBO.....

            From "Night Of The Living Dead" through the rest of his filmography, Romero foresaw a world in which all institutions, the bedrocks of civilized society, would fail us miserably as we descended into savagery.  Look no further than current events to know what a visionary he was.....and one who'll be missed.

Martin Landau (1928-2017)   This actor's actor leaves us a lifetime of unforgettable performances.....including an iconic supporting role in one of Hitchcock's masterworks, "North By Northwest".   Landau, in something of a subtle but daring move for conservative 1959, turned Leonard, the creepy minion of villain James Mason, into a barely closeted, jealous lover.....of Mason. ("Call it my woman's intuition," he warns Mason, suspecting Eva Marie Saint of not only being a double agent, but even worse..... keeping Mason a heterosexual....)

               Like all journeyman actors, he struggled through the years in films and TV shows of varying quality.......and fanboys and fangirls forever admire him for his starring roles in the original "Mission Impossible" TV series and the sci-fi "Space 1999"

              But it took him until 1994 to encounter every actor's dream come true.....the role of a lifetime in which to pour his entire lifetime of experience, craft and talent. Landau found it playing the drug addled, melancholic and close to dying Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's underappreciated "Ed Wood".  His mesmerizing work earned him a well deserved Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

             A brilliant talent, Landau's presence and acting skill automatically lifted the quality of whatever project he found himself in...and someone that gifted, will always be missed.....

             Rest in peace, gentlemen.........

             In case you needed any more proof that life is horribly unfair.....we endure a weekend where we've lost these two creative giants, these gems........and yet Donald Trump lives on.  Sad.

'AROUND THE WORLD UNDER THE SEA'......WITH LOTS OF GUYS YOU'VE SEEN ON TV

Around The World Under The Sea (1966)   What a refreshing plunge......into the deepest and bluest of oceans, into a more sane world of 51 years ago......when we didn't have to wake up in a country under the thumb of a psychotic clown......

             This benevolent G-rated excursion into.....I guess we could call it 'low adventure' .....always comforts the BQ on hot summer nights. Populated with a host of immediately familiar faces from TV shows and movies of the period, we know the film plays fast and loose with modern oceanographic science.......but it all looks cool and fun.....and hey, isn't that whats-his-face from that show.....whats-it-called?

               A host of underwater heroes get called upon to warn the world in advance about upcoming earthquakes and tsumanis by touring the oceanic trenches and dropping off seismic sensors.  And just like the Beatles......they all live in a Yellow Submarine....a yellow submarine.....a yellow submarine.

             And what a great cast the movie recruits to make up this Scuba-Doo gang:  Lloyd Bridges, TV's official king of glub-glub heroics from countless "Sea Hunt" TV episodes......Brian Kelly, the beach Ranger dad of TV's "Flipper"......David McCallum, one of the Men from U.N.C.L.E. (since he's British, he's allowed to play the arrogant, sarcastic, self-absorbed asshole in this pool of All-American goodness...).......also on board, Marshall Thompson, TV's jungle veterinarian of 'Daktari' and in the familiar template role of Cranky Irascible Guy Who Knows How To Fix Everything (think George Kennedy in the "Airport" movies), Keenan Wynn.

              Too much testosterone, not enough pulchritude?  Wait!  Bravely hurling herself into this pool of Alpha males comes too-stunning-for-us-mere-mortals Shirley Eaton.....with Goldfinger's paint freshly scrubbed off and causing the guys to breathe heavier inside the sub then outside with their oxygen tanks strapped on.  (But there's no question here that Brian Kelly has the inside track on first firm grasp of Shirley's formidable bod.......since he spends most of the movie testily disapproving of her gender....boy, doth he protest too much......)

              Off they go, under the sea, our merry bunch, dodging undersea volcanoes and nasty jumbo eels, photographically enlarged to the size of the fish swimming in Dr.No's aquarium.  What little down time they have is spent playing chess, searching for treasure, avoiding death-defying incidents and chastely salivating over Shirley.  For comedy relief, you have the sight of Shirley's lab guinea pigs sliding into each other during the sub's more bumpy rides.  Busy voyage and all good clean fun....

               Even in the far more forgiving l966, some critics jokingly dismissed the movie as quaint, old fashioned and downright silly.........it's all those things, true....but the BQ still likes it for its forthright innocence and determination to give us our money's worth in breathless (when the air runs out) adventure.....and lots of TV guys.....and Shirley Eaton swimming in her bikini....what more could you ask for?   So we'll fill 3 full tanks of oxygen for "Around The World Under The Sea" (***).......and beware the photo-shopped eel...



             

'ICE STATION ZEBRA'......BABY, IT'S COLD WAR OUTSIDE.........

Ice Station Zebra (1968)   We've heard all the stories about this one being the all time fave of eccentric zillionaire Howard Hughes.....of Hughes countless viewings of the film while his growing beard and fingernails turned him creepier than James Hong's 'Lo Pan' in "Big Trouble In Little China"....

              Well, surprise, the BQ damn well likes it too.......(although we maintain acceptable hygiene and only watch the movie maybe once every two years, on an especially hot July night....)

               It's a lengthy, but sturdily well built adaptation of yet another Alistair MacLean military/suspense high adventure.......this one pitting a U.S. nuclear submarine crew against a horde of Russian paratroopers as they race to an arctic weather station to retrieve an invaluable roll of film out of a crashed Russian spy satellite. (The presumed good guys in this tale (the U.S.), feel justified in grabbing this espionage McGuffin since the camera and film inside the Russian spy-in-the-sky was stolen American technology...)

               Hitching a ride on the sub's perilous cruise underneath the arctic ice pack:  a hair-trigger, high strung British operative (the fabulous Patrick McGoohan, behaving like a PTSD Bond on uppers), a garrulous, pro-West Russian (Ernest Borgnine) and a mysteriously sullen Marine sergeant (Jim Brown). The submarine's quietly competent captain (Rock Hudson) finds himself an exasperated wrangler of this enigmatic group, struggling to keep his temper since none of them will reveal their true purpose and clue him in and what the hell's going on.......

                Even if you only have a vague familiarity with Alistair MacLean's films and books, you know that one or more of these characters is a treacherous, murderous double agent.  And sure enough, all is revealed and a sardonic, yet satisfying climax unfolds as everybody, Americans, Russians and  assorted spies, face off at the blizzard-blown Ice Station Zebra....

                 The BQ normally mocks Hollywood studio films that attempt to replicate wild outdoor locations in soundstages, but we hold a fond spot in our heart for MGM's studio-bound arctic in this movie.......it's beautifully designed and constructed, the epitome of decades of Hollywood craftsmanship, and for an indoor studio frozen tundra, it comes off as real as it has to.  (Besides that, by the time the cast romps around in this MGM Snow Globe, you're too busy figuring out who's doing what to whom to pay any attention to the glistening styrofoam ice...)

                 So we're with old Howie Hughes in thoroughly enjoying all the fun stuff here.......the adventurous, yet somehow romantic main theme composed by Michel LeGrand (an odd choice to score such a high testosterone adventure, but he more than delivers)....the tense and razor-witty  McGoohan (especially in his scenes with Hudson, both of them benefiting from some of the script's startlingly clever exchanges).

                    For a chill out classic movie experience on a sultry summer night, there's nothing like a tour of Hollywood sculpted icebergs and watchable actors scrambling to take cover behind them....we'll freeze 4 stars for "Ice Station Zebra" (****)......and you won't even need a parka and gloves to stop in......

'PREHISTORIC WOMEN' & 'CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT'.....GET JURASSIC IN GEAR, IT'S HAMMER-TIME!

Prehistoric Women (1967) & Creatures The World Forgot (1971)    As the temperature at our coastal retreat climbed toward 100 degrees, the BQ fled to our natural habitat.......where else, the beach.....

               We lolled in the sand with our two books (reviews to come)......and enviously drooled over fellow beach-mates digging in to their enormous paper buckets of  Thrasher's Boardwalk Fries, freshly extracted from bubbling vats of peanut oil.......(the fries, that is, not the beach-mates.....well, not all of them, anyway....)

                 Since the only thing we get to munch on these days is baby aspirin and Lipitor, we watched the waves crash in and fondly recalled the hot summer nights of our misspent youth at drive in movie theaters, beloved wellsprings of teenage hormones, jumbo buckets of popcorn slathered with enough unidentifiable yellow goo to give us five more heart attacks.......and some of the gloriously worst movies known to mankind.....

                  Return with us, as we did last night, to a deliciously ludicrous drive-in double feature, courtesy of the loincloth-and-spear department of Hammer films, Britain's beloved purveyor of horror,sci-fi.....and ugga-ugga Cave-men and Cave-Babe epics like these two gems. Guilty pleasures don't get any guiltier than this.....

                In a rare expansive mood, the Hammer High Command laid out the cash for Ray Harryhausen dinosaurs to go stomping after fur-biknini'd Raquel Welch in their 1966 remake of "One Million Years B.C."   But why spend the extra time and money on animation models, when they could make one of these wild primitive all-night parties fast and cheap......with no dinos, but with plenty of really cute starlets in really skimpy outfits?

                  Hence our dopey double feature.......let's start with "Prehistoric Women", the far nuttier of the two, which even Hammer disowned and orphaned, slicing 20 minutes out of its brief 90 minute running time.  (Having seen the DVD of the full version, we'd say the cut footage must have come from the endless native dancing scenes.....this movie had more choreography than the two hour season finale of "Dancing With The Stars"....)

                   We kick off with a  morose, foul tempered Great White Hunter (Michael Latimer, very white and morose...) traipsing  through an indoor Hammer studio African jungle that looks like somebody's unattended greenhouse......(referring to one of our previous posts, this is how Africa might appear in a Roger Moore "The Saint" tv episode...)

                  We beg of you, don't ask us to explain how Latimer gets magically transported to another part of this plastic jungle where raven-haired Cave-Babes rule and abuse kinder, gentler platinum-haired Cave-Babes......just accept that he does...please.

                  These dictatorial hotties are led by their equally sadistic queen (Martine Beswick, famous as one of the wrestling gypsies in "From Russia With Love").  Queenie's a nasty piece of work, allright......keeping a bunch of cave-guys enslaved for occasional procreation, and amusing herself by impaling the poor blonde cuties and leading worship dances around a life-sized statue of a white rhino.  You can't say this girl doesn't know how to show you a good time.....

                  But Great White Hunter won't put with her crap, having fallen head over heels for one of the put upon blondies (Edina Ronay). So it isn't long before we have a full revolt, jungle free-for-all....... with African natives, dark-haired Imperial breast-troopers, the Blonde brigade and the escaped cave-guys all running around through the prop foliage, bashing each other with spears and rocks. Yippeee.

                  The showstopper comes with the arrival of a supposedly a real white rhinoceros (to save money, it's actually the statue rhino....rolling on wheels). For those of us who dote on blatant sexual symbolism, Mr. Rhino, motoring like an SUV  that someone forget to put in "park",  uses his horn to teach Evil Prehistoric Queen what real penetration feels like. Ouch.......

                  Madness, you say?  Then let's sing together 'Let's all go the lobby....and have ourselves a snack'.....and move on to, as the newspaper ads might refer to it, the "2nd Big Hit!"....."Creatures The World Forget".....

                  Unlike "Prehistoric Women", where everyone speaks perfect plummy English or  "One Million Years BC", where they communicate in made up gibberish ("Akeeta!"), in this movie, they don't talk at all, preferring to grunt, groan, snarl, bark, gasp and shriek loudly when they stab each other......which happens about every three minutes.

                 No dinos in sight here either, but these cave-folk don't have the luxury of cavorting in a nice artificial, climate controlled Hammer soundstage.......Hammer plopped this hardy bunch into actual South African deserts, cliffs and shrublands, where they enthusiastically go about the business of snarling, barking , gasping and regularly killing each other off.  What's worse, amid all the carnage, the movie rarely affords you a chance to ogle its starring cave-girl. (Julie Ege)

                 Not much to report or enjoy with this one, other than the surprise cameo appearance of a monster bear....an effect accomplished by, yes, a stuntman in a ridiculous Halloween bear costume....a close rival in unintentional laughter to the strawberry bear in "Prophecy" (see our previous post) or the Rhino on furniture wheels in "Prehistoric Women"

                At the conclusion of this woeful, but fun to watch double feature, the BQ chomped on the last remaining crumbs in our 100 calorie mini-popcorn bag (the only kind our cardiologist allows us)......remembering how much we wallowed in these movies when we viewed them under the stars, we generously gave them each 2 stars (**)........we would have given 'em  one extra star each if they'd coughed up at least one or two dinosaurs.....or maybe had the Bear Costume guy wrestle with the skateboard Rhino......

'THE FURY'........IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS.......

The Fury (1978)       Director Brian DePalma doesn't much care for this film.......we can only assume his disdain must come from the tribulations of its production......(it certainly looks like it could been a bitch to film)......cause the BQ is more than happy with the end result......quintessential DePalma: calculated, cruel humor, self-absorbed, ostentatious visuals designed to simultaneously punch up the story and celebrate DePalma's own cleverness, a la Hitchcock.

             Taken from a John Farris novel, DePalma uses the material to further dial up the premise of his adaptation of Stephen King's "Carrie" to stratospheric heights,  The screenplay, also by Farris, gives us not one but two teenagers gifted with telekinetic superpower.  Gillian (Amy Irving), sweetly innocent, regularly succumbs to eye-bulging hysteria whenever her mind-over-matter skills inadvertently touch off heavy bleeding in those who upset her. Naturally, this bodes not well for the cafeteria mean girls who lunch with her.....(DePalma saves Gillian's premier trick for the film's legendary final ten seconds......in which she makes Sissy Spacek's Carrie look like Strawberry Shortcake....)

             Her psychic soulmate and fellow telekinetic terminator Robin (Andrew Stevens) has already been kidnapped by a shadowy government agency, drugged and experimented on to the point of turning him into a permanently enraged, violent psychotic. This doesn't sit well with Robin's father Peter (an aging but physically game Kirk Douglas), a renegade operative for the creepy agency......determined to reclaim his son and exact furious vengeance on his satanically evil former boss Childress (John Cassavetes, no doubt picking up more extra cash for his independent films....)

            That's more than enough plot to send Brian DePalma off the races with a series of vividly staged and photographed set pieces.......Douglas's  James Bondish fights and flights from Cassavetes' goons, Stevens' spectacular telekinetic destruction of an amusement park ride, and liberally blood splattered scenes of the two teens wreaking psychic havoc on any foolish humans attempting to use and abuse them.

            Put all this stuff together and you've got yourself one pumped-up package of horror, high melodrama, action movie chases and shootouts and Hollywood's favorite post-Nixon villains, rogue Feds with bad intentions.......all of it richly, ominously scored by John Williams, filling in for the composer DePalma would have most certainly hired, had he lived a few years longer....Bernard Herrmann.

              Williams cleverly channels Herrmann into his main title theme, which serves as a synopsis for the entire movie, with the orchestra swelling into an operatic crescendo. It's a superb harbinger of DePalma's visual crescendo for the movie's final sequence.......a few seconds so beyond rational description, we wouldn't make any attempt at it........other than to mention how DePalma used multiple cameras and rapid cutting to make the finale of "The Fury" take its place as one of the great, Grand Opera fever dream climaxes in modern cinema.

               And yet amid the sweeping Williams music and fountains of spilled blood, DePalma periodically inserts his patented oddball comedy moments, a few scenes that could have easily been lifted out of his early, raggedy independent comedies, "Greetings" and "Hi Mom".....Douglas's encounters with a feisty grandma and two cops he's hijacked.

               So even if it isn't one of Brian DePalma's favorites, the BQ still furiously digs "The Fury" and we'll telekinetically hover 4 stars over the movie (****)......(you'll just have to take our word for it that they're hovering.....)

'THE SAINT' TV EPISODES........EVIL THWARTED.....ROGER THAT.......

The Saint (1962-1969)    While Bond-mania swept the world throughout the 1960's, Roger Moore, the actor who seemed like the next most Bondian contender, steadfastly soldiered on as 'The Saint' on television. Based on the slightly rogue-ish, globe-trotting do-gooder created by novelist Leslie Charteris, the series had the smooth, impossibly suave Simon Templar (Moore) conveniently popping up in exotic locations, just in time to foil murderers, kidnappers, blackmailers, third world dictators......and even, we swear, a mutated giant ant.

               The BQ can't describe how much an all night binge on these episodes gave us a comfy cozy feeling. Comfy cozy for international swashbuckling?  Absolutely.....and here's why.  A typical episode opens with a stock footage shot of some gorgeously far flung locale where it's going to take place......but the episode itself entirely unfolds on the cramped little indoor sets of Britain's Elstree studios. (Outdoor scenes, like the Scottish Highlands, feature cardboard mountains and painted skies)

              Call us crazy, but those cheapjack sets, dictated by the demands of fast, volume-oriented TV production schedules, make the "Saint" episodes, to us, adorably quaint and soothing. And since these episodes, unlike shot on location movies, couldn't dwell on their hastily slapped together versions of foreign streets and buildings, the actors involved held your full attention........they were the only things interesting to watch.....

               And what actors! Like so many British TV series, the cream of British, Canadian and international acting talent show up in supporting roles. Unlike Hollywood, which still enforced an unofficial actors caste system, separating film and TV actors, European actors freely moved about from theater to TV to feature films.  Sooner or later, all of them show up in "The Saint".......and it's a no end of fun spotting them....(Hey, isn't that 'Miss Moneypenny' herself, Lois Maxwell?)

              Episodes usually begin with Moore arriving in a sparsely populated, room-sized foreign airport (only the wall posters change, so you know which city he arrived in)  In about a minute or so, for reasons linked to the plot, somebody take a swing at Roger, provoking him into a roundhouse right cross to the guy's jaw. After that, it's time to squire around the episode's too-cute-for-words ingenue, almost always a virginal little blonde with a severe 1960's hair style.  Before the 50 minutes wind up, a few dead bodies hit the floor and a bunch more thugs need their jaws massaged by Roger's fists. The Saint cocks one eyebrow upward as the catchy theme song swells up.....

             Call it old-fashioned cheese, but we're all in with "The Saint".....with its Community Theater sets and props and decidedly old-school brawling....(we smile every time we watch the show's stuntmen hurl themselves over tables, chairs and couches)   For the BQ, it's like munching a box of year old cookies......stale and soft, but still sweet and addictive.   After a whole night of watching the dear departed Sir Roger Moore roll his eyes up to view the cartoon halo above his head, we cock 4 eyebrows upward for "The Saint" (****)....a pure guilt-free pleasure.

MINION OF THE WEEK! EXCLUSIVE BQ INTERVIEW WITH DON JR.!!

We spared nothing to bring you this hot scoop......the BQ managed to track down Donald Trump Jr....we found him repeatedly riding the elevator in Trump Tower up and down while watching  "The Spy Who Loved Me" on his cellphone.....

BQ:  Don, could we talk to you a minute?

DON JR:  Will you look at this hot Russian babe in the movie.......jeez, I'd help that hottie overthrow the US any day of the week......

BQ: Don, you do realize that's treason, right?

DON JR: Different strokes, pal.....treason to you, fake news to me....

BQ:  Are you aware you could be in some serious trouble here?  Collusion with a foreign power?

DON JR:  Oh you heard about that?  The fender-bender with some guy in a Fiat?  A                           nothingburger....we both have insurance.....I got Geico, how 'bout you?

BQ: No , Don, I didn't say collision with a foreign car......Collusion with a foreign power.  You dad hasn't said much about your...uh...little meeting with the Russian lawyer....

DON JR.  Not a bad lookin' bowl of borscht, that woman, but she's no Barbara Bach, believe me.Dad was a little disappointed when I told him I didn't grab her pussy even once......he said something like, "Sorry, kid, we're gonna have to throw you on a bus...."  I said, "Dad, come on, that's ridiculous, I have a limo...."

BQ:          Don, I think you heard him wrong.....what your Dad probably told you was about having to throw you under a bus......It's a figure of speech, Don....not good.

DON JR:   You snowballs.....always makin' up lies about my dad. When he works so hard for the country, trying to make Moscow great again.....wait, I mean....

BQ:           I think you meant snowflakes.....You know, Don, some pundits compare you to Fredo from the "The Godfather"

DON JR:   Frito?  I don't remember any Mexican rapists in that movie.

BQ:           No, Don, not Frito.... Fredo, the middle brother in the Corleone clan......the weak, stupid spineless one who betrays his family.

DON JR:    Nah.....actually, Dad says I'm more like Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies.....only taller, dumber and with greasier hair......

BQ:             Hmmm.....fairly accurate.

DON JR:     Damn, the movie on my phone's over....I'm switchin' to Spotify......you ever heard this one, "Back In The USSR"?  Love it, man....'Moscow girls really knock me out, they leave the West behind...."

BQ:              Ah,  we're back on the ground floor......well, Don, thanks for taking the time to chat. We appreciate it....aren't you a tiny bit worried about all this controversy?

DON JR:      Hell no.....I just got lawyered up...... and he gave some great advice.

BQ:                What does he advise? Plead the Fifth? Take a deal?

DON JR:        He recommended I stay on this elevator for the next three years.  No problem.....I want to hear the rest of this song anyway,  so I'll take the elevator up again....

BQ:               It's not an Express car, though, Don.

DON JR:       Yeh, I'm aware.....my elevator doesn't go all the way to the top....

BQ:                We know, Don......we know.

DON JR:     (Singing, as the elevator doors close)  "Back in The USSR....."

'SUSPIRIA'..........STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.....

Suspiria (1977)   As it fast approaches its 50th anniversary, we still think of "Suspiria" as horror director Dario Argento's 'Citizen Kane'.......when he boldly switched from the sex-and-slashing 'giallo' mysteries that made his international reputation and plunged into dreamlike, hallucinatory horror, the likes of which, in widescreen, primal colors and ear splitting Dolby stereo, nobody had ever quite experienced before.

             50 years later, it's still a full fledged assault on the senses, a delirious waking nightmare with one unnerving, bravura sequence after another, all of it underscored with its legendary relentless music by Argento and his very own horror rock band, Goblin. (Unlike his Giallos, Argento doesn't abruptly stop the music for his gore-drenched kill scenes......in this movie, he pumps up the volume while a knife-wielding assailant goes about stabbing a victim's exposed, beating heart....)

             Plot? In a movie this demented, who needs it, really. A naive young American dancer (Jessica Harper) unwisely enrolls in a Munich dance academy run by a coven of witches......and ruled by the ghostly, evil Mother Suspiriorum.......a mostly invisible, wheezing, crumbling hag who torments, terrifies and sometimes shreds the student body with knives, maggots and barbed wire. It's a wonder this place, drenched in a melted paintbox color scheme, can find anyone left alive to pay tuition.......

             Argento populates his comic book horrorshow with precision casting choices.......the saucer-eyed Jessica Harper, plucked out of De Palma's "Phantom Of The Paradise", gives a thorough workout to her one signature facial expression.....a deer caught in the headlights.  And heading up the witch contingent......two aging cinema icons from America and Europe, Joan Bennett, alternately icy and maternal, and Alida Valli, with a permanent rictus grin more severe than Heath Ledger's Joker.

             Designed as the first film in a trilogy about three witches who run the world, Argento kept his crazy on for the followup film "Inferno" (about the witch triumvirate's  New York branch office).....but sadly, Argento's career in the last few decades found him increasingly drained of imagination and invention. He didn't just lose his Mojo......he buried it six feet under. By the time he got around to the trilogy's finale, "Mother Of Tears" in 2007, Argento was a pale, weak shadow of the wild 'n wacky young visualist  who directed "Suspiria". It made the film a painful horror to watch....and not because of its gore.

            But we'll always have the insanely loud, drippingly bloody, squishingly maggot-infested and gloriously technicolored asylum of "Suspiria", one of the greatest of directorial fever dreams in modern cinema...... (and we promise to deal with, in future posts, "Inferno", "Mother Of Tears", and God help us all, the expected "Suspiria" remake with Dakota Johnson and Chloe Grace Moretz....) We award a full 4 juicy squirming maggots....(****)......and don't forget to turn up the sound......