'WIND RIVER'.........NOIR AS WHITE AS SNOW.......

Wind River (2017)   After plowing through a slew of movies either artistically defective or downright abysmal.........what a bracing breath of fresh ice cold  air!

            Grim, tragic, and laced throughout with sudden brutal violence, this Great Outdoors noir can seep into your bones like the sub-zero Wyoming weather that both hardens and warps the film's characters into extreme behavior.......

            A Fish And Wildlife officer (Jeremy Renner, outstanding in the role), stumbles upon the body of a Native American teenage girl, who apparently ran six miles barefoot across the unforgiving snowy landscape, trying to escape one of the men who gang raped her.

            This gruesome death further haunts Renner's character, already coping with the mysterious disappearance of his own teenage daughter, who was the dead girl's best friend. Both girls were Native Americans......Renner's daughter coming from his now destroyed marriage to a Native American woman.

             Into this frigid, forbidding murder investigation comes a fish-out-of-water FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen, also excellent), ill equipped for the lethal Wyoming winter, but nevertheless possessing a core of steel when it's time to draw weapons and open fire.

             Along with the Wind River Indian Reservation's sheriff (Graham Greene) it doesn't take them all that long to get to the heart of the matter........amid the sparse collection of men and boys who've been driven to drugs, rage, depravity and murder while eking out a stark, lonely existence in the endless snowy tundra.

              A movie like this is why we fell in love with movies in the first place......beautifully crafted dramatic scenes by screenwriter-director Taylor Sheridan (who also wrote "Sicario" and "Hell And High Water".......an eye-popping visual sense of the environment, which is as much a character in the film as the human actors.......and a strong command of narrative drive that holds you to your seat until the very last shot.

                 Our only quibble here involves Sheridan taking a daring risk by going full Tarantino in the film's finale, laying himself open to potential ridicule.  No question it's way over the top, but remains in keeping with film's depiction of people pushed to their limits by the inhumanly harsh landscape.

                 BQ says to seek this one out right away......4 frozen stars (****)......don't forget to bundle up and turn on the space heater while you watch.......

'CHIPS'..........DIRECT FROM THE WB ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT.....

CHIPS (2017)   There's one great luxury bloggers enjoy not afforded to paid movie critics........

             When faced with a movie like "CHIPS", we don't have to slavishly go through the motions of itemizing and explaining what passes for the movie's plot and characters......

              To put it more bluntly, we don't have to pretend we're reviewing an actual movie.......

               The studio that slapped this together didn't pretend that, so why should we?

               This isn't anything close to a movie........it's nothing but a calculated marketing strategy concocted by a bunch of business-suited executives in a board room. The closest these guys ever came to making a movie was maybe making a cellphone video of their dates at a pool party......

               But let's get back to the boardroom, where these lizards came up with their big brainstorm.....to commit millions to making yet another re-invention reboot of some long forgotten crappy TV show...

              Clearly, visions of the Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill "21 Jump Street"  danced in their greedy little heads. Not the movie itself........but the box office cash.

               So essentially, we now have a movie created not by filmmakers, but marketing sharks in the studio's upper echelons.

                While this does require the services of actors, writers, technicians and a director to construct images to run through the Multiplex digital projectors, in no way, shape or form could anyone remotely label this a creative work requiring committed artistry from its makers.

               What you're watching........the visual residue of a business proposition. If you listen carefully, you can hear the the sound of the studio accounting zombies pressing their manicured fingers on their phones' calculators, imagining the first weekend's big grosses.......

               In more innocent times, studio business deal movies were assembled with enough slick skill to make them tolerable, even halfway watchable......

               Long long gone, those days.  Now we have the likes of "CHIPS".......unfit for human consumption on any level.

               The BQ's deepest sympathies go out to all the film critics who had to pound out lengthy descriptive reviews of this thing.

                No thanks. We'll pass on that Herculean task. To hell with it.

                And we'll pass on rating it too.......since we're not discussing a movie at all here. But we feel we've given everyone a pretty good idea of what we would rate it.....

                What might have made a far more hilarious little film.......a quick peek in the studio boardroom to see the bean counters faces when the deservedly minuscule  "CHIPS" grosses trickled in........even the mouth-breathing, Trump-lovin', tub 'o butter popcorn gobblers couldn't tolerate it.

                Now THAT would have been worth reviewing.......

'THE LAST HUNTER'........DAWSON'S SHRIEK......ANTONIO'S PASTA APOCALYPSE...

The Last Hunter (1980)   Oh my, how a movie like this sets us to pine for those early, seat-of-our-pants days of videocassettes and Mom 'n Pop video stores.......

          ..........when watching a videocassette movie in your own home was such a fresh, exciting novelty, that you'd even sit down and watch a batshit crazy bottom-of-the-barrel Italian Grindhouse bucket 'o sludge like this one.......

             First, let us salute the Roger Corman of Italian shlock, the amazingly prolific director Antonio Margheriti, who tirelessly pumped out exploitation trash of every genre.......sword and sandal epics, giallo slashers, sci-fi swashbucklers, sword and sorcery fantasies.......and his ultimate specialty, cheesy knockoffs of whatever blockbuster movie played in theaters last month.....

              Antonio's gloriously sleazy filmography finally invaded the United States via direct-to-cassette release under his American-ized name, 'Anthony M. Dawson'. 

              And for all of us lovers of deeply guilty pleasure cinematic garbage, he and his films were a dream come true......

             For the BQ, Margheriti-Dawson achieved the very heights of delirium with "The Last Hunter", his off-the-rails, lunatic mish-mash of both "The Deer Hunter" with "Apocalypse Now".......which you can think of the earliest attempt to fashion the kind of blatantly imitative "mockbuster" that Asylum Films became famous for......

              No, you won't find any political sub-text in this Vietnam tale of an Army Captain (David Warbeck) whose mission to seek out and destroy a "Hanoi Hannah" propaganda DJ descends into rivers of battle gore.

               Margheriti's got only two agendas on his mind here......plucking out any usable plot ideas he can rip off from "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now".....and presenting a non-stop orgy of lip-smackin' Vietnam carnage......booby trap impalings, machine gunnings, flamethrower immolations, disembowelings.....all liberally spiced with extreme close-ups of ripped intestines and destroyed, wounded blood-oozing flesh.

              As the infamous Little Rascals cannibal might say....."Yum Yum...Eat 'em up..."

              Halfway through the movie, Warbeck's tortuous jungle mission lands him among a lost platoon of soldiers living out a drug and booze-addled existence in a what we guess are supposed to be abandoned Cambodian cave temples, complete with statues carved into the walls.  This constitutes the film's loopy mash-up of both the Robert Duvall and Marlon Brando sequences in "Apocalypse Now", with actor John Steiner playing an amalgam of both characters.

               The Viet Cong, no doubt functioning as outraged film critics, promptly overrun the place, instigating a spectacular, Margheriti-ized display of death and destruction.

               Never fear......Warbeck manages to reach his objective at long last, along with the only other survivor of his merry band, a vacant-eyed, barely awake photo journalist played by Tisa Farrow, the barely awake, vacant-eyed sister of Mia.  (Tisa hardly registers a pulse or a recognizable emotion......even when the Cave Temple soldiers get ready to gang rape her.....)

                And at this point, the movie springs its one WTF plot twist......as Warbeck comes face to face with the radio propagandist who's been cooing suggested surrender to our boys, poisoning the airwaves with Communist shmooze.  Take it from us, it's a doozy........

              So we humbly ask your forgiveness if we fondly remember our Jurassic-era video store days.......when, if we'd rented out all our copies of "The Natural" and "Sixteen Candles", customers would settle for "The Last Hunter" and still walk out of the store satisfied........at least they'd have something to stick in that marvelous new suitcase-sized VCR that night.

              We took it home one night too......and as connoisseurs of the signature craziness of Antonio 'Anthony M. Dawson' Margheriti, we savored every idiotic minute of it. 3 stars (***).....and that rating's strictly judged on its Grindhouse goodness.......(if we applied any sane criteria to rate this movie, it would probably land in the high minus numbers......so proceed at your own risk......)

             

             

OSS 117: PANIC IN BANGKOK..........THE FRENCH-FRIED BOND STRIKES AGAIN.......

OSS 117: Panic In Bangkok (1964)   Couldn't think of a better way to wile away a lazy rainy Sunday than taking in another moderately thrilling mission with Hubert Bonssiseur de La Bath.....a.k.a. the French Bond, OSS 117.......

             No wonder he takes on a simple last name when he goes on missions.......otherwise it would take him twenty minutes to sign in at the hotel front desk.......

              Lazy is the operative word here, since the director of these OSS opuses, Andre Hunnebelle, helms these movies like he's just swallowed his 90 day Valium supply......

             But it's always nice to see a familiar face and once again we have our favorite opponent of Ray Harryhausen creatures, Kerwin Matthews, donning a secret-agent suit and tie......standard requirement if you're off to Bangkok to kiss the babes and karate the bad guys......

             Praise the Movie Gods, widescreen and color this time.......(still have no clue as to why the first one of these was shot in black and white...)

              This time Hubie the hero has to track down a secret society who plans to wipe out large swaths of the world's population with Bubonic plague. Hubes is forced to beat up a few nefarious thugs here and there on his way to tracking down the Evil Mastermind.......

              In case you couldn't guess the identity of Evil Mastermind.......well, there's a character named Dr. Sinn skulking about.  Oh wait.......could it be......him?? 

              In the course of romancing Dr. Sinn's lovely sister (the impossibly beautiful Pier Angeli), the Hube-Meister gets to shoot and machine gun hordes of Dr. Sinn's armed guards.......(somebody should really have woken up director Hunnebelle during these slack firefight scenes, since some of the minions drop dead even before they've been shot.....)

              What else can we say?  Colorful location filming.......and Kerwin Matthews nimbly mixes it up it his hand-to-hand brawling..... (once again, the only scenes where Hunnebelle directs with his eyes open...)

               We know a movie like this isn't for everybody, but we're well known for our Eurospy-Completist addiction, so we could never, ever resist.......which is why we promise  to cover the 3 other 1960's OSS outings. For this one.....2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2).....the 1/2 extra star for Kerwin, Pier, the scenery and the fight scenes.....

'THE CIRCLE.........HERMIONE VERSUS DARTH JOBS

The Circle (2017)  What a maddening film.  So many fascinating ideas and smartly done sequences........but all them awash in a senseless, stupid mess of a movie.....

           We never did get around to reading the book this was based on, but we can almost 100% guarantee it had to automatically be better than this nonsensical whats-it.

            What the filmmakers cobbled together here......some sort of half-assed mutation of a drama and sort of a thriller.....(a thrama?)

            Wherever you think it falls, it does start out with a great premise and setting.......a vast social media empire, a blending of Apple, Facebook, Instagram.  Populated by fresh-out-of-college 20 somethings, the place has the vaguely sinister feel of a brainwashed cult.

             The 'Circlers', as they call themselves, behave like slightly more cheerful "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" pod people.....or Scientology true believers. This peppy bunch happily pursue the corporation's goal of digitally linking every human soul on the planet......along with every minute of everyone's personal and private life......(feeling a little uneasy yet?)

            Another brilliant move.......casting Tom Hanks, American's Everyman, as The Circle's warm 'n cuddly avuncular guru. Like Steve Jobs, he loves to regularly convene his worshiping minions in an auditorium to unveil his newest technological wonders.......

            Sucked into this cult-like corporation comes innocent Millennial Emma Watson and she gazes in wonder at Hanks' performance art assemblies as if she's still at Hogwarts watching Dumbledore wave his wand to turn shit into shinola.......

             And here's where the movie goes flying off the rails, indulging in one ludicrous, unbelievable plot turn after the other.....

             Watson's character is completely at the mercy of the script's idiotic flights of fancy. From an entry level position in customer service, she almost instantly ascends to the company's most accomplished spokesperson and formulator of overwhelming ambitious world dominating plans for The Circle....ideas that leave even Hanks impressed. (Huh? Say what now? How does this happen?)

             Her big brainstorm blows up in her face, leading to a tragedy that's as ridiculous as her own sudden conversion to Circle-Mania.

            Now suddenly realizing the error of guzzling the Circle kool-aid, Watson effortlessly takes her revenge on Hanks.......in a scene that's as imbecilic and unbelievable as the wild back-and-forth swings of her character.

            Along the way, there's plenty of fine, vicious and funny satire of a global population consumed with social media, a world full of hypnotized souls living a vicarious life on their IPhones and laptops, a populace who'd rather spend every waking minute digitally observing life.....rather than living it.

             As skillful as those sequences are, they can't compete with the overall stupidity of the storyline.  There's never any logical reason for Watson's 360 degree swings from clueless patsy to knowledgeable corporate tactician and there's never any logical explanation of whatever evil endgame that Hanks is up to.

               An wobbly grab bag that tries to seize the zeitgeist while spinning a dopey fairy tale. 1 star (*)(and that's only for the swipes of social media).....if this was a Facebook post, we'd throw in that emoji that's throwing up.......



           

'SHIN GODZILLA'...........MEET THE PRESS MEETS GODZILLA.......

Shin Godzilla (2016)  Deep down, we know we're supposed to get in line and admire the hell out this Toho Company reboot of their very own,  most iconic monster........

                Bold choice here, turning a Godzilla movie into a verbose, slightly witty depiction of both Japanese and global machinations..........basically, Godzilla versus a befuddled, argumentative army of bureaucrats, gabbing away like they're all on an endless live feed from C-Span......

                 Skillful stuff indeed, with what looks like a cast of hundreds engaging in political maneuvering and white-knuckle decision making......blah-blah-blahing themselves into a coma.....

                  Just one little problem we have........it's BORING. Not just ordinary check-your-watch boring. We're talkin' check your e-mails and your 20 favorite blogs boring.....

                 Which is something we never thought we'd write about any Godzilla movie.

                 Big G himself?   Some good, some bad, some goddamned weird.   The reboot has him as a constantly evolving organism........and boy does this movie bring the crazy with G's first incarnation........he looks like a rampaging Muppet character parade float.  Were we supposed to LOL or what?  Dunno. Ask the filmmakers.

                 Fear not. G finally turns himself into that big, scaly badass that the world adores. And he doesn't merely possess radioactive breath........this new improved G is a walking, roaring Chernobyl/Fukushima/3 Mile Island Death Star all by himself.

                 The government needs to kick this G's ass because his ass may be the only hole in him that doesn't shoot out nuclear death rays.

                 There's massive CGI destruction and devastation on display, but as in the American superhero smackdowns, little or no sense of the horrific human cost in lives.  It's limited to one brief stunning shot of some poor doomed woman shrieking as G pushes over her apartment building....

                 But the Big Guy's sequences get rationed out in tiny bits and pieces. Then we're right back to those long, long, LONG scenes of government guys, military guys and science guys hashing out what to do next.

                 And we went right back to checking out e-mails and blogs.......

                One big plus we will mention.......the soundtrack liberally laced with Akira Ifukube's original classic Godzilla themes. Always fun to hear again.

                 The rest of it?  Like we said.......admirable, we suppose. But sorry........a huge drag to sit and watch. We'll roar out only 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2). This G can sink back in the ocean.



.

'FOREVER MY GIRL'.........SPARKSIAN......TO THE MAX......

Forever My Girl (2018)   You may well ask......how in the world did the BQ end up attending this one?

             The usual.........all Beloved Daughter needed to hear was the tagline "If you love Nicholas Sparks movies...."  and off we zipped to the Multiplex, which properly installed this movie in its tiniest auditorium........a 50 seater, but sporting a huge curved screen........sit in the second row and it's almost your own little IMAX den.......

               Let's state at the outset that we admire the jumbo brass balls of this movie's distributor........footing the bill for a nationwide theatrical opening of what's basically a slightly spiffier Hallmark Channel movie.......

               The producers evidently decided that the audiences who once flocked to the film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks' tortured romance novels hungered for more.......

               Hmm......questionable. The Sparks movie empire crumbled from ever decreasing box office and ever decreasing quality.........the films rolling off the Sparks assembly line had a tired, formulaic stench about them.  And besides, audiences could wallow in loads of this type of stuff on the Lifetime and Hallmark channels......without buying a ticket.

               So we salute the "Forever My Girl" bunch for plunging ahead anyway into the fiercely competitive shark tank of theatrical films.....

                 Story?  That all-time favorite of romance books and films......the Second Chance Redemption.

                  Due for heavy atonement.......Liam Page (Alex Roe) an overnight country music hearthrob who deserted his teen bride Josie (Jessica Rothe) at the alter, running off to become a guitar-twangin' superstar.

                  Returning home to his little Hallmark-y everybody-knows-everybody town, Liam embarks on a slow steady path to win back Josie's hurtin' heart.....

                   Oh, did we forget to mention that Country Stud has to also bond with Josie's painfully precocious 7 year old daughter, the spawn of the seed he left in Josie just before he skipped town?
Well, now you know........

                    And it's a hard, bumpy road for our remorseful hometown hottie, since the film implies that his years of celebrity have left him as socially infantile as a kid raised by wolves.....

                   No need to go on any further here.........anyone who cares enough to watch this film knows exactly how it's going to sort out, even before the corporate logos appear at the very start.

                    What else can we say? The cast didn't annoy us much, the country songs were pleasantly okay, and the film looks slickly put together. And to its everlasting credit, it doesn't necessarily follow the carved-in-stone, untouchable plot progression of a Hallmark movie......(it's allowed to breathe a little, you know.....like a real movie....)

                   Beloved Daughter adored it (also a forgone conclusion).......we merely.....survived it....if ever a movie defined the phrase "it is what it is".....it's this one. 2 stars (**).

OSCAR NOMINATIONS 2018.........THE VERY BEST OF WHO-THE-HELL-SAW-THIS-MOVIE??

"And the Academy Awards goes to........jeez, I've been meaning to see this....."

              Pardon our nostalgic musings for a sec........come on, it's one the reasons we started this blog to begin with.......

               Once upon a time, as we grew up, the Academy Awards were a joint celebration between the Motion Picture Academy and millions of avid moviegoers who thrilled, cried and laughed to the best of what the major studios offered them........

               The biggest most popular films in the country (and world ) were nominated and honored, movies that most of us had lined up to see the previous year.  A global audience assembled in front of their televisions sat riveted,  filled with anticipation and suspense as to which of their favorites would take home the Golden statuettes.......

                Yeah....we know. Nothing stays the same. Everything evolves.

                 Starting with the 1960's........the Oscars began to look like a generational artistic war......bold new cutting edge movies competing with lumbering, arthritic studio product that looked increasingly out of touch with the upheavals in the culture and society.  So you had the bizarre spectacle of films like "Bonnie And Clyde" and "The Graduate" vying for awards next to the likes of  "Doctor Dolitlle".

                This gap got progressively worse.......and took a new wrinkle with the arrival of the Blockbuster Kids, Spielberg, Lucas and others........who could not only craft Big Tent attractions that sucked in everybody, but make them artistically worthy as well.....

                 The ancient mariners who ran the Academy, however, weren't havin' any of that new-fangled kid stuff, no matter how many people bought tickets. As an alternative, they turned their loving gaze toward 'Coffee Table' movies........exquisitely crafted, high toned films that were the cinematic equivalent of those 75 dollar, 10 pound books of sunset photos you bought to lay on your coffee table for guests to absently flip through.

                  Coffee Table movies possessed all the necessary requirements for awards gathering......even if most of them were pretty much unwatchable and instantly forgettable. Best example of this....."Gandhi" triumphing over "E.T.",  Anybody ever feel a burning desire to re-watch "Gandhi" lately? Or "Chariots Of Fire"?

                  And soon we arrived at the most insidious turn of events of all time......the rise of Harvey Weinstein's Miramax and the Independent coffee table movie........low budget little items that celebrated the human spirit, played in a smattering of 200 seat art house theaters to audiences of duly appreciative culture vultures and snatched Academy Awards away from any big budget crowd pleasers.

                 And Harvey, when he wasn't parading his shriveled penis and bloated body in front of the actresses who worked for him, waged superb, Machiavellian war on behalf of his coffee table movies.......collecting countless Oscars for movies that could put you to sleep in 2 minutes or less.....

                   Complete topsy-turvy now existed.....the Academy judged the most popular films as proletariat junk unworthy of recognition......(cue the entrance of the MTV movie awards to lavish praise and 'Moon Men' statues for such movies)

                  With extremely rare exceptions such as "Titanic", the Academy Awards functions at an almost complete disconnect from the thousands of folks who still line up at the MultiPlex to buy exorbitantly priced tickets and robber-baron priced popcorn. Other than "Get Out" and maybe "Dunkirk", the chances that they saw any of this year's nominated films are slim to none. And that's the way it's been for a while.....

                   We'll still gather 'round the TV.......not to celebrate the movies anymore, but for the embarrassing reality show circus of watching celebs shamelessly kiss their own pampered asses for 3 hours plus.........the gaffes, the garish ugly gowns, the gushing egotism, the off-the-cuff political rants.....and hilarious errors like last year's accidental awarding of Best Picture to the wrong movie.

                   The chances we'll have seen the Best Picture winner at this year's ceremony?   You gotta be kiddin'.........

                     One more random thought before we head off down the beach........

                      #MeToo and Hollywood   So strange and problematical that it begs for derisive laughter.  Jabba the Weinstein is erased, Kevin Spacey has been morphed into Christopher Plummer, like in the old Michael Jackson videos.........and James Franco's been tossed on to the pavement like a drunk who got too mouthy with the club bouncer....(thereby depriving us of another goofy cameo from Tommy Wiseau)

                      And yet Bill Cosby, with over 60 accusers, remains an Academy member in good standing.......which means piles and piles of Academy screener DVDs and Blu-Rays were sent to a guy who's a way more ambitiously prolific, predatory sleaze than Harvey Weinstein....and legally blind.  (Although with some of these film, watching them legally blind might improve them.....)

                    Go figure. Hooray for Hollywood. See you at the Awards........

'OSS 117 IS UNLEASHED'.........."THE NAME'S BATH..........HUBERT...BATH."

OSS 117 Is Unleashed (1963)    Sure, we had a good enough time with the two updated spoofs of  France's very own homegrown James Bond,  comically deadpanned by Jean Dujardin in "OSS 117:Cairo, Nest Of Spies" (2006) and "OSS 117: Lost In Rio" (2009).

               But we long hungered to see the original 5 films that popped up internationally throughout the 1960's without ever making it over to the United States.  (You regular BQ visitors know of our grand passion for extra cheesy Eurospy co-productions....)

                 Best news ever......we got 'em all in a Blu-Ray boxed set.......so let's start at the beginning...

                  First impression:    Why the *$&%^$* is this in black and white?  It's a frickin' dopey spy movie set in sun-drenched Malta,,,,,,, about 20,000 leagues away from Film Noir.  And yet the mighty Gaumont film company couldn't scrape together a few extra francs for some color film?   Just askin'...

                 Kerwin Matthews?  Interesting choice to introduce Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath to the cinema.......yes, it's none other than that personable young American guy who normally uses swords and spears to battle Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monsters........dubbed into French, no less. Not that we're complaining........Kerwin wears a business suit well enough and and enthusiastically hurls himself around the furniture in his fight scenes......

                 Speaking of which.......

                 Our boy Hubie de La Bath does engage in a fair amount of hand-to-hand tussles with assorted thugs. As in the Bond films, the fighting's a mashup of judo, karate, kung fu and good old fashioned drunken-brawl roundhouse punching.  Nobody appears to ever get seriously hurt, which could be why the fights here seem to last longer than the Bond rumbles.......

                 Big problemo........the pacing, or lack thereof. The director, Andre Hunebelle, has no sense of forward momentum whatsoever. Other than in those lengthy fight scenes, the film pokes along at about 20 miles an hour.......a lethal speed for a Eurospy movie.  And the dull black-and-white just adds to the overall monotonous slowness......

                 Crazy Save-The-World plotline?   Not bad for a start......with Our Man Hubie thwarting villains who plan to submerge an underwater detection device to track NATO nuclear subs. A little bout of shooting and punching wraps them up nicely........

                No widescreen photography either......which is just as well, since the producers wouldn't have a wide enough frame to post the tagline......"Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath will return in OSS 117: Panic In Bangkok".....

                Return he does, though......and so will the BQ to tell you all about it.  For Hubie-Baby's first adventure.......2 stars (**)......but things are lookin' up.....the next one's in ripe color and Franscope!

'TOPKAPI'............JULES STEALS THE JEWELS.........

Topkapi (1964)   The BQ desperately needed pure escapism this weekend and nothing filled that need better then this bubbly, brightly colored confection.......2 hours of cinematic cotton candy.....

            Director Jules Dassin, while in exile from the Hollywood blacklist, made the world sit up and take notice in 1955 with his gritty black-and-white heist classic "Rififi", as close to an instant classic as any director could get.

             Heist-wise, he topped himself with "Topkapi" 9 years later, in which a motley crew of international thieves plot to swipe of jewel-encrusted dagger off a glass-encased mannequin in Istanbul's heavily alarmed Topkapi Palace museum.

             The big difference........Dassin turned this caper into a dazzlingly Technicolored comedic party, set to the insanely catchy music of Manos Hadjidakis.

              You can immediately sense Dassin's exuberant joy in shooting his first film in color......the movie's opening sequence wallows in a riot of primary hues......and further propelled by the infectious laughter of Dassin's wife Melina Mercouri, playing an ebullient jewel thief. Mercouri sails through the film as if it's one big party (which it is) and invites the audience to join her.

               Mercouri and her fellow suave criminal mastermind (Maximillian Schell) take a calculated risk in adding a woeful, sad sack patsy to their den of thieves, in order to sneak their caper gear across the Turkish border.......

              And this cues the arrival of the film's MVP and Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actor, Peter Ustinov. Playing the perplexed patsy, Ustinov unleashes a non-stop stream of under-his-breath asides guaranteed to keep you laughing and smiling throughout the movie's entirety.

              The big caper itself, as in "Rififi" is an extended, silent, stunningly staged and edited piece of work.......which you'll immediately recognize as the inspiration for all future clever heist movies, including Tom Cruises's acrobatic contortions in "Mission Impossible".

               You simply can't have a better time at the movies then kicking back with this one......(and before we forget to mention them, there's bonus laughs generated by those larger than life hams,Robert Morley and Akim Tamiroff.)

               This one stole our hearts back in '64 and still captures us today.  5 stars (*****), a FIND OF FINDS.....and still a shinier jewel than the ones on that dagger.

LEAST FAVORITE THING......SPECIAL MADNESS OF AMERICA EDITION.......

               Though we bow to no one in our overwhelming hatred of the colossally unfit Baby Orange........there's more than enough blame to spread around to everyone......

                 Congress  If this was a fair and just world, every single one of you assholes would should be thrown out of office........you're all the equivalent of a McDonald's employee who falls asleep at the counter. The shift manager would have canned your worthless butts by now......

                  Democrats   You hapless dipshits need to go back and read "The Art Of War".  Shutting down the government over DACA?  Bonehead  move......you gave the GOP ample ammunition, making you the villain against the military, veterans and for all we know, starving kittens. If you can't learn where and when to wage your battles, Baby Orange will sit on you with his so-called svelte 239 pound ass......and you'll deserve it. Get smart, get a clue.

                   Baby Orange    What happened to "The Art Of The Deal"?  ("I'm gonna make great deals.....")  Further proof (as if any more was needed) that Baby Orange not only never read his own book, he never wrote it either.......

                   The Unpaid By Mexico Wall   Maybe all the MAGA redhats should hold their collective breaths until Mexico writes out the first jumbo check for the Wall.  Memo to Baby Orange:.....you can save some bucks by just posting some of those TSA airport officers at the Rio Grande.....you know, the ones who spend 20 minutes patting down seven year old girls and eighty year old great grandmothers......

                   Republicans who lie for Baby Orange  ("I don't recall hearing him say that....")  Holy crap, the worst auditions we've ever seen for another remake of "The Manchurian Candidate". These guys play the most unconvincing zombies since Tor Johnson in "Plan 9 From Outer Space".  They should catch up on those old James Bond movies......remind themselves that Blofeld tosses away his loyal minions like used tissue paper....

                    The State Of The Union, after one year of Baby Orange......Make no mistake.....this is the most severe testing of the United States since the Civil War......with the country afflicted with a demented moron (as described by the people who work with him).....a creature who, in his own total self-obsession, embraces chaos and division across the land.  How much of this is survivable or repairable remains to be seen.    We can only pray......

                     And resist like hell.

                 

'CACTUS FLOWER'............GOLDIE GUSHES, BERGMAN BOOGALOOS.......

Cactus Flower (1969)    Besides its status as a delightful artifact of the late 60's, this one resonated even more with us today........in light of its firmly standard, old Hollywood attitude toward romantic pairings with severe age differences...........just try making this movie in today's climate, with Woody Allen currently being sliced up like a Deli salami in the maelstrom of the #MeToo movement.....

             But in 1969, nobody seemed to mind that the film starts out with a middle-aged dentist,(Walter Matthau), a lecherous lothario, stringing along his barely-out-of-her-teens,  helium-brained Manic Pixie Dreamgirl (Goldie Hawn, charming enough Academy voters into giving her an Oscar.)

              Matthau's character, terrified of commitment as a vampire is to daylight, has concocted a fictitious wife and 3 children in order to hoodwink Hawn and maintain her status as a marriage-free sex toy.  After a failed, comedic suicide attempt, interrupted by an blatantly age-appropriate match-up neighbor,(Rick Lenz), Hawn demands a meeting with Matthau's make-believe spouse.

              That bubbling, congealing sound you hear?  The plot thickening.

              In desperation, Matthau appeals to his prickly, ultra efficient nurse-receptionist (Ingrid Bergman) to play his wife for Hawn's benefit........an insane plot point, if you think about it for more than 20 seconds, but then this movie's an adaptation of an Abe Burrows long-running Broadway hit.....it's one and only function was to keep you laughing with a steady barrage of quips....(about one gag every 5 seconds or so, like a baseball pitching machine that never runs out of balls....)

               Bergman, whom you know right away is a warm, loving person underneath her hard shell, impulsively goes along with it. We won't describe the further laborious complications that arise from this, other than mentioning it throws her in the path of two of Matthau's patients. (Jack Weston, Vito Scotti). Both these guys, like their dentist, are also sleazy, wisecracking skirt chasers, more than worthy of Bergman's withering put-downs.

               One unforgettable sight you don't want to miss........the entire cast ends up in the movie's idea of a nightclub/disco...(all the sets in this supposedly major film are amazingly cheap....Matthau's office looks left over from a "Honeymooners" episode). Not surprisingly, only Hawn can frug with youthful abandon.......while the scene treats us to the bizarre, once-in-a-lifetime sight of Ingrid Bergman inventing her own disco dance, 'The Dentist'.....which involves pretending you have a toothache. (Did you have to ask?)

                 You'll never see another movie that offers you the spectacle of the Icon of "Casablanca" and "Gaslight" gettin' down on the dance floor. We hold up a "10" for the Dancing With The Stars leaderboard.

                 Getting back to the age discrepancy views on display here.....you know you're back in the 60's as you watch Matthau express his disgust and revulsion at the sight of Bergman intentionally slow dance canoodling with young Rick Lenz.

                  No need to worry.......remember this material came from a play that safely entertained legions of matinee theater-party matrons......so everybody ends up with exactly the person you thought they'd end up with.....

                 And pardon the BQ for thinking that the very idea of a long term Matthau-Bergman relationship would have made a rib-splitting Mel Brooks movie.....or a raucous Norman Lear sitcom.......we can only dream. For their unique, one time pairing and their equally nutty romantic triangle with Goldie Hawn .....3 stars (***). Name any other movie where you'd see a cast like this frolicking together......

           

           

           

'THE MUSIC SHOP'.........VINYL, ACTUALLY.....

The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce (2018)    "I'm a sucker for love...."  - Burt Lancaster in "The Professionals" (1966)......

           And so is the BQ........so how could we (or anyone) ever resist this new novel about damaged souls finding love, solace and redemption in the rapturous appreciation of music......every kind of music, from Vivaldi to Aretha Franklin, from punk rock to Puccini, from the Beatles to Beethoven....

          Specifically, vinyl music......music on those black discs with the little hole in the middle, music unleashed when a needle rides the grooves pressed into them......

           In 1988, in his little record shop on a crumbling, gone-to-seed English street, vinyl LPs are the only kind of music Frank sells.  He abhors and refuses to join in the coming CD revolution, even if it means the record companies will stop selling him product.

          Frank and his shop are beloved by the neighborhood and his small, quirky bunch of fellow store owners.......especially for his uncanny ability to select the perfect music for every customer's needs, moods and emotional wants. He comes by this talent at great cost.......his eccentric mother taught him the joys of all music, but little else.......leaving him as an emotionally stunted, remote adult, incapable of ever committing to a loving relationship.

          Love finds Frank anyway, in the person of Ilse Brachmann, a mysterious, beautiful young German woman who faints in front of his shop one day. Enigmatic in the extreme, a keeper of sad secrets, Ilse captivates Frank and asks him to introduce her to music......

           And that's as far we'll go in plot description........this book sucked us into it, seduced us with its gentle humor and love of every variety of music, then smashed our heart to pieces before painstakingly re-assembling it for the story's grand, satisfying finale.

            Yes, we're well aware that the template for this book has already gotten a thorough workout from numerous romance writers (the shop owner, usually of a bookshop or a bakery, who attends to everyone's needs till they find love themselves).   And we credit author Rachel Joyce for showing no shame whatsoever in creating her own spin (no LP album pun intended)  on this well worn story.......

            Jaded, cynical and sarcastic as we normally behave, we really should mock the last third of the book.......in which Joyce concocts a combination funny/suspenseful/tear-inducing climax that rivals and far outdoes the most heart-tugging finishes of Richard Curtis romcoms like "Notting Hill" and "Love, Actually".   The manipulative corn factor here flies off the charts.......but we devoured every last sentence.

             No better way to warm yourself up on these cold winter nights then to curl up with this one. BQ says pick up a copy now......4 tuneful stars (****) for this music shop.

         

'NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY'..........A THEATRICAL HAM LEAVES 'EM ALL CHOKED UP....

No Way To Treat A Lady (1968)  Long before we cringed at Anthony Hopkins sucking in his teeth at the thought of human liver with fava beans and a nice chianti,  that raging hambone Rod Steiger gave us a belly laugh serial killer.......

              Afforded a viruoso opportunity usually only given to Peter Sellers, Steiger, an actor whose over-the-top dial always went up to 11, chewed the scenery and everything else as Christopher Gill, a Broadway theater impresario obsessed with his deceased, beloved actress mother.

               What the script, taken from a William Goldman novel, never explains is why the 40ish Gill, after a presumed sane lifetime,  suddenly decides to raid his own theater's prop closet, take on multiple disguises and identities and strangle lonely little old ladies, smearing their dead foreheads with a caricature of his dead mom's lips.

               Well.....who cares?  What this film's all about is the dark fun of watching Steiger worm his way into his victims' apartments by playing a jolly Irish priest, a homesick German janitor, a weepy middle aged woman and his Standing O showstopper, a a swishing, mincing wig fitter. Before he drops the mask and gets down to the business of choking these women to death, we get treated to a few funny minutes with each of Steiger's unique creations........(out of all of them,we're partial to the sweet Stuttgart handyman....... practically having an orgasm as he chomps down on the homemade crumbcake offered to him by the soon-to-be-throttled German widow....)

              Remember, however, that this is 1968......so Steiger's impressive cartoon cast of characters aren't the only stereotypes on view here. Hot on his trail comes sad sack Jewish detective Morris Brummel (George Segal, at the peak of his young film career), nagged and babied to the point of madness by his monstrously caricatured mother (Eileen Heckart, a worthy rival to Steiger when it came to gobbling up a scene like it was her last meal). Their scenes together play like the anything-for-a-joke stuff you'd see in the early Woody Allen films.......

              In the course of his hapless investigation, Segal falls into an impossibly sweet romance with a manic-Pixie-Holly-Golightly dreamgirl played with witty spunk by Lee Remick. There isn't one minute of this unlikely coupling that doesn't smack of a screenwriter's romantic fantasy, but Segal and Remick turn on enough charm and chemistry to make it work.

              As it swings back and forth between the sick laughs and the genuine menace of Steiger's psychosis, you shouldn't wait for any sub-text.......the movie has nothing much on its mind beyond the surface pleasures of viewing Steiger's hydra-headed collection of grotesques.....and scoring easy, cheap giggles from his preening gay wig guy and dwarf actor Michael Dunn's bit as furious midget who demands his own arrest for the murders.

                Artistically, none of it should hang together, this bumpy mixture of skit-spoof type comedy and dead bodies, but in the cinema of the 60's, a 'we'll-try-anything-once'  kind of vibe prevailed......which resulted in a steady stream of quirky little movies like this one.

               And the BQ does miss them. So we'll get a stranglehold grip on 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2) for odd Rod and his entertaining circus of multiple mania......maybe one of the last tongue-in-cheek takes on serial killers......

             

             

'SCARAMOUCHE' & 'SWORDSMAN OF SIENA'......EN GARDE! REMEMBERING A MASTER SWASHBUCKLER

Scaramouche (1952) & Swordsman Of Siena (1962)  may be 10 years and continents apart, but they both share the same dashing leading man, Stewart Granger...........an actor who excelled in costumed, romantic swordplay adventures. He could deftly wield charming quips with his leading ladies while nimbly dueling to the death with the smirking, way-too-confident villains.....

             That isn't as easy as it looks and not every Hollywood actor could step up to the plate in a swashbuckler and not look ridiculous.......

              Granger, who became a Jedi master of fencing long before lightsabres, had few compatriots in this field, other than Errol Flynn, Cornel Wilde and on the villains' team, Basil Rathbone.  But he remained forever unhappy with his pigeonholing as a standard beefcake hero, never considered for serious dramatic roles. (True enough, Granger sadly never met up with a script or a director that would push him past his competent but limited range.....)

             As a devil-may-care swashbuckler though, he was pure joy to watch as he parried and slashed his way through opponents, stopping only for a big smooch with whatever lady-in-waiting waited for him.....

            "Scaramouche", set in an ultra high gloss MGM version of pre-revolution France, serves as the gold standard for both Granger and studio swashbucklers in general.

              Essentially, it's a breathtakingly designed MGM musical.........director George Sidney has fencing swordplay erupt every ten minutes or so like song-and-dance numbers and it's all scored to Victor Young's typically overripe, heart-on-its-sleeve music.

              But in the grand Hollywood tradition of 'you-ain't-seen-nothin'-yet', Sidney saves the monumental showstopper for the end - a wildly acrobatic 10 minute fencing duel between Granger and Mel Ferrer that spreads out across every nook and cranny of a vast, ornate theater. It's the fencing equivalent of Gene Kelly's finale number in "An American In Paris".........and it's glorious, capped off with a plot twist to rival anything in "Star Wars".

             With Hollywood work drying up, Granger followed others in the now washed up Beefcake Brigade who migrated across the Pond to find plentiful work in Euro-Trash co-productions........(and you BQ visitors know by now how much we cherish these wacky films......)

              In addition to the usual pseudo-Bond EuroSpy movies, Granger found himself his own weird little franchise series......playing frontier scout Old Shatterhand in a series of West German westerns produced in Yugoslavia.....(yes, those films are hilariously strange as they sound and we promise future coverage of them....)

              The French-Italian "Swordsman Of Siena" became Granger's farewell to swashbucklers and though it's no "Scaramouche" by any comparison, it functions as a mildly entertaining sendoff for Granger's signature role as a romantic swordsman.....

                He's a have-sword-will-travel mercenary for hire in 16th century Italy, working for some noble Spanish tyrant who's oppressing the populace. As the hero of the piece, you know it won't be long before Granger joins the Resistance and romances two Princesses....(the drop dead gorgeous duo of Sylva Koscina and Christine Kaufmann)

               Some well played swordplay happens early on, but oddly, the movie's premiere set piece is not the expected duel between Granger and the villain (which never occurs) but a brutal horse race through the countryside, liberally decorated with booby-trap blades to impale the riders.........if they ever do this during the Triple Crown races,who knows,  we might tune in.....

              Through it all, Stewart Granger never loses his sense of panache and always gives the impression he's having a damn good time out-fencing the bad guys......

               And that's as much a part of movie magic as the most serious classic films......for "Scaramouche", 4 stars (****), for "Swordsman Of Siena" 3 stars (***).  Maybe Stewart Granger never got the best of roles.....but with a sword in his hand, he gave you his best.....




       

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING.........DIGGING OUT THE GEMS IN THE CGI MANURE PILE......

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)   You've already heard the BQ rage and rant enough about CGI.......we no longer have the stamina to bring up the subject again, even dealing with a movie that's clogged with it......

             Instead, we thought we'd go CGI Dumpster Diving and see if we could pluck out any glimmering treasures from the mountains of digital sludge that comprise a typical studio superhero movie......

             And in no order whatsoever........

              Zendaya......somebody needs to get this girl her own movie to star in. Like yesterday.  They stingily ration out her appearances in this "Spider-Man".....only seconds at a time. And yet, with pure old fashioned movie-star charisma, she manages to steal every little scene she pops up in.  The movie ends up as a colossal waste of her time and talent. Don't believe us?  Check out "The Greatest Showman"........

              Michael Keaton  Brilliant casting here.......the most human and yet at the same time, the most profoundly menacing villain ever seen in any Spider-Man movie.  Keaton hardly even needs the up-to-date backstory the script gives him, making him a working stiff screwed over by the government......all he needs to raise your goosebumps is a close up of the bottomless rage in his eyes. The brief quiet car conversation between Keaton and Tom Holland's Spider-Man carries more unnerving dread and potential danger than all the previous Spider-Man villains gnashing their teeth while they toss cars into buildings...........

              Jacob Batalon......a young actor who takes on the most worthless, annoying role any actor can get stuck with in a superhero movie, the sidekick Nerd......and makes it his own.....and puts a smile on your face every time you see him......

               Tom Holland......Stan Lee's right on the money in his assessment of Holland.......this limber-limbed actor-dancer nails the live-wire energy and chaotic teen mindset of Lee's original comic book hero......far more than Tobey Maguire and poor Andrew Garfield (stuck in the two no-reason-to-exist-alternate-universe Spider-Mans, produced by Sony for other reason than to contractually hold on to their rights to the character.....)   Holland comes precariously close to wearing out his welcome with all the twitchy whining, but that's more the screenplay's fault than his......

               The home-made costume  By far, the film's most inventive idea.....having Spider-Man engage in his climactic battle wearing a baggy outfit that looks like something the Halloween Adventure Shops would have to get rid of at 75% off on Novermber 1st. Genius.

               And a final tip of the cowl to.......to Chris Evans' Captain America, who turns that post-credits teaser that fanboys patiently wait and salivate for into an up-yours meta gag......nice goin', Cap....

                 For everybody and everything we mentioned in this post, 4 stars (****)

                For the movie itself.......we don't see the point in rating these superhero movies anymore.  It's like sitting at the airport and rating 727s as they land......they're big, they're noisy, lots of people in them, they landed okay.....and oh, there goes another one taking off.......



           

'THE END OF THE F***ING WORLD'.......A NATURAL BORN PULP TRUE ROMANCE.....

The End Of The F***ing World (2017)   We strained our paltry brain to come up with any rational judgement of this wacky,  swift little British mini-series that recently landed on Netflix......

          Based on a graphic novel, it's a Teen Angst mad mashup of John Hughes, Quentin Tarantino, "Bonnie and Clyde", "Badlands", and who the hell knows how many other pop culture references we're too f***ing tired to research right now......

          Know this, though, if you're as wary as we are about committing yourself to a series binge......the whole crazy little thing consists of 8 episodes averaging 22 minutes each. 

           Whatever you may think of it.......it sure won't try your patience.

           Our deeply dysfunctional duo, a would be psychopath (Alex Lawther) and a too-cool-for-school fed up rebel (Jessica Barden) hit the road, in search of rebel-girl's itinerant, long gone dad.....

           Together (or sometimes apart) they endure the most ridiculously unlucky, blood drenched, gone-awry road trip that runaway teen lovers have ever faced inside a bunch of 22 minute chunks......

            The show randomly careens like a video-game shooter from black comedy to sick horror to genuine honest romantic heartbreak..........if it lasted any longer than it did, maybe we'd start to resent how it revels in its own hipness, smug in its ability to swing from distanced cool to heartfelt romance on the flip of a coin.

             But it doesn't last long and it flew by quick enough to leave us stunned and entertained before wearing out its welcome. 

              Somebody involved in this production must have scientifically calculated the exact amounts of snark, gore and sweet romance to put in the blender for 22 minutes. We salute them. 

               A word about the actors: superb......especially Bardem, who breaks your heart as she lets you watch the protective hard shell gradually peel away from her character.

               We finally did arrive at what we consider a rational judgement for this show.......

               Batshit crazy.......but we came to realize we kinda loved it. 4 stars (****).......now if every TV show would follow suit and limit itself to 8 episodes of 22 minutes.......hey, it wouldn't be the end of the f***ing world........

                

             

'KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD'............A CG-EYESORE.....

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (2017)   No way we'll spend any long amount of time discussing this one........we're already in mourning for the 2 hours of precious life that we wasted watching it.......

                Not one single sentence will we waste on the writing, acting or direction......it's another film produced mainly in a warehouse covered with green walls......some flesh-and-blood actors in costumes.....the rest of it......digital garbage added later. Enough said.

                In other words a punishment from hell, another 150 million dollars or thereabouts flushed down the drain, swirling around in the bowl along with the feces that constitutes the film it financed......

                This movie does serve one purpose:   It's the ground zero of the nuclear devastation from all of the overpriced 'comic-book-franchise-tentpole-blockbuster' abortions disgorged by major studios.

                 It doesn't get any worse than this. Graduate film school students can study "King Arthur" the same way that medical school students dissect corpses.

                 Everything's laid out on the table to examine.......mincemeat editing, dopey sound-bite dialogue.......and acres and acres of CGI.

                Of course, the inevitable CGI......a movie not so much made by its supposed writers and director.......more like a movie entirely mouse-clicked together by hundreds of people sitting in front of hundreds of computer terminals......

                 The computer mob briefly captured everyone's attention by throwing in elephants the size of construction cranes. Whoop-dee-doo.

                 Okay, we already frittered away more time than we wanted to on this dung heap. Zero stars....The Big "O".  To paraphrase one of the final lines of "The Haunting".....this should be buried.......and the ground sowed with salt.

               

               


         

'THE KRAKEN WAKES (OUT OF THE DEEPS'.......AN INCONVENIENT INVASION......

The Kraken Wakes (a.k.a. Out Of The Deeps) by John Wyndham (1953)   We don't know why it took us so long to get around to this one, we should have made it our premier post.........sci-fi novelist Wyndham has always been an all-time favorite.........his books are among the very few we re-read for the pure enjoyment of it.....

           While Wyndham's books regularly go out of print, millions know him from the film adaptations of his novels "The Midwich Cuckoos" (the basis for "Village Of The Damned", filmed twice) and "The Day Of The Triffids" (done as both a feature film and a BBC mini-series)......

            Like TV and film writer Nigel Kneale (whose biography we covered a week or so ago) Wyndham excelled at coming up with stunning new apocalyptic threats to planet Earth.......(and like Kneale, he tended to zero in on the breakdowns of British society, government and scientific communities in dealing these attacks.....whether from alien-spawned, mentally powerful children or ambulatory plants with a taste for human flesh.....)

             "The Kraken Wakes", alternately titled "Out Of The Deeps", is a Wyndham variation on H.G.Wells' "The War Of The Worlds" that resonates even more today........his invading aliens, unseen beings who must exist in high-pressurized environments, plummet to earth in fireballs and take up residence in the deepest trenches of our oceans.

              It takes a while for disbelieving world leaders to comprehend that the 'Bathies" as Wyndham names them, have declared war and claimed the seas as their own, sinking all worldwide shipping with an underwater death ray. (The one lone scientist who's figured it out suffers ridicule and ostracizing from a world of invasion-deniers.......poor guy's like Al Gore explaining global warming to a room full of Trumpanzees)

             Everyone finally realizes they're in some serious trouble when those deep-in-the-deeps alien war Marshalls (jokingly referred to as "the Low Command") launch amphibious raids on coastal towns and cities.......

              These horrific raids, as created by Wyndham, take up the middle section of the novel and they're the stuff of nightmares.......the aliens roll up the beaches in impenetrable egg-shaped 'sea tanks' and spew out super-glue tentacles that they use to capture and drag off screaming, agonized masses of humans back into the sea. Essentially, they're shrimping and crabbing.......and we're the Catch Of The Day......

              But even as we successfully beat back their raids, the Bathies, undeterred, respond by  converting the planet into a more hospitable home for them........melting the Polar Ice Caps to completely flood the earth.

              As in all Wyndham books, his protagonists confront these fantastic catastrophes with British reserve, understated humor and stiff  upper lips. (Some may find his style overly pedantic and slow, but personally, we took it in as part of the unique charm of his storytelling.....)

             For anyone who hasn't encountered this book, we'll not reveal how this struggle for survival between land-earthlings and sea-aliens finishes up.  Give it a read to find out........we do, about every couple of years.  Which should tell you right away that this fave or ours earns an immediate 5 stars (*****), a FIND OF FINDS. All sci-fi fans will want to dive into these 'deeps'.

           

LEAST FAVORITE THINGS.......EXTRA SPECIAL S***HOLE EDITION......

The Id Stays In The Picture......

               So.......2 days after Baby Orange puts on a reality TV conference where he pretends he's a real President and relatively normal human being.........yesterday, unable to control his dementia-addled mind, he unleashes the real Baby Orange.......and once again, the Inner Id comes roaring out, in all its foul glory.....

                Even funnier.......this morning Baby Orange tweets that he never referred to Haiti and the continent of Africa as shitholes, even though an entire roomful of people heard him.......

                 This is more "Alice In Wonderland" than both of Tim Burton's movies put together....

                 One crystal clear fact comes out of all this:   There does indeed exist an unspeakably ghastly, festering, rotten shithole in the world today.

                 The mind of Baby Orange.

                 We'd rather not waste any more words on this monstrous creature.....so moving on.....

The Pop-Culture-ing of Tonya Harding......Truth in the eye of the beholder.....

                 In a 2 hour ABC news special, America's Un-Sweetheart revealed she overheard her abusive, scumbag husband and his coterie of fellow idiots plotting an assault on one of her rivals......weeks before their infamous kneecapping of Nancy Kerrigan......

                 Tonya promptly put it out of her thoughts.......until it happened.

                 Bullshit.

                 While we do maintain a limited level of sympathy for Harding.....(nobody deserved to end up with both a mother and a husband who crawled up from the depths of hell) , no amount of accolades handed out to "I, Tonya", no amount of strutting appearances at awards shows will change our basic opinion.......

                 She was in on it. From the get go

                 We're all for redemption.......but sorry, the current pop culture re-write of Harding as a totally put-upon victim has a weird smell about it. And it doesn't smell like truth.

                 Having said that, we don't begrudge Harding getting a fresh new 15 minutes of fame and enjoying a peaceful, happy life with a loving family by her side. (No vindictive judge could have come up with a better punishment for her than her own woeful career move into boxing.........which she managed to survive without a face re-arrangement like Mickey Roarke's.....)

                 In a way, she's a living example of the maxim given to novelists and screenwriters......every villain considers themselves the hero of their own story.....