MIDWEEK MADNESS WRAP-UP..........SINGERS, MINIONS, A THUG AND HIS EX-BOSS..........ALL UNMASKED......

               What a day......what a night.........as everybody had their masks ripped off, exposing them to us all.........with only the singers garnering love and respect......

                   Michael Cohen............the deepest irony of this testimony.......presenting himself as a cautionary tale to Republicans.......warning them that sacrificing their brains and souls to become Baby Orange minions will ruin them.  Any of 'em smart enough to take Cohen's words to heart?  Nah.

                   In any case, The hearing proved a spectacular showcase of Cohen's refurbished,  new persona......with the Mask Of Thuggery ripped off by looming prison time, we all got our first good look at Cohen 2.0......humbled, contrite, ready for his whuppin'.......Sincere?  Who cares.....as long as the documentation he presented hold us.....

                   The GOP  It's ridiculous to keep addressing them by their official titles (Senator, Congressman, etc, etc)  They serve neither the country nor the Constitution........they've reduced themselves to worms, minions in the service of one man only. Their Public Servant masks have melted right off their faces.

                     Baby Orange....... just couldn't leave the Hanoi summit without disgracing himself and the office he's entirely unfit for. B.O. takes Kim Jung Un at his word.......that the tubby little tyrant, murderer of his own family members, knew nothing about utter destruction of the imprisoned young American Otto Warmbier.   As if Baby Orange needed to remind anyone  any further of what a hellish, bottomless abyss of a human he is......that mask of International Statesman come sliding right off.....

                    But on a happier note, not all the unmaskings were toxic.......

                   The Masked Singer.   We normally despise the plague of network singing competitions, but who could resist this one?  Celebrities performing their hearts out while decked out in ornate, bizarre costumes that look left over from Fellini's "Satyricon".......they had us at hello. And we don't mind admitting we had as much fun as the celebrity panel in trying to guess their identities/  Mindless, cheesy fun......and we can't wait for Season 2......

ULTIMATE CAGE MATCH......THE ONLY NICOLAS CAGE MOVIE YOU'LL EVER NEED

Mandy (2018)    It was always a stupid idea to convert "Suspiria" into a 150 minute art house ultra-cultured festival entry.......

                  Now here's the guy who should have directed a new version of "Suspiria".....Panos Cosmatos......

                   No, never mind. He doesn't have to. "Mandy", his way over-the-top, demented collaboration with King Of Lunacy Nicolas Cage makes "Suspiria" look like 'Mama Mia 2'........

                   Talk about a visualist.......Cosmatos and Cage create a 2 hour delirious bad dream......and they're not about to let you wake up.

                    With this movie, it feels like Cage has finally reached the end of his long, long quest......his search to find a director whose anything-goes eye-popping stylings match Cage's own rabidly unleashed acting.......

                    For better or worse, it's marriage made in heaven for everyone who loves to indulge to true outlaw cinema.......or hell, depending on your point of view.

                    It's one hell of a sight to see, we'll tell you.   In fact, it's a fully loaded, guided tour of Hell itself.......with Nic as your faithful tour guide........

                    He's a burly lumberjack living in the woods with his lovely, ethereal artist wife Mandy (Andrea Riseborough).......until they're invaded by a travelling, nightmarish cult. They strap Cage to a tree and force him to watch them burn Mandy alive.

                     The entire film's shot like a Meth-fueled fever dream......the cult summons up a gang of demonic bikers, decked out like refugees from both 'Mad Max' and 'Hellraiser" movies.  They may or may not be supernatural........but in a movie this batshit crazy, does it even matter?

                     The whole odious group, as you might expect, foolishly leaves Cage alive.......with his life and mind destroyed, reducing him to a merciless avenging angel.

                      And oh boy, does he ever avenge.......testing the nausea level of anyone who can bare to sit through this........(this includes the movie's best, most outrageously funny sequence.....a chainsaw face-off between Cage and a cultist whose phallic power tool gives even Cage a moment's pause.

                     We've said enough.......we loved every insane moment of it........all hail Cage and Cosmatos, the new Emperors of Everything-But-The-Kitchen-Sink.......and their "Mandy", which brings the crazy like no other movie we've seen in years. 4 stars (****)

                 

'KHARTOUM'..........THE MIDDLE EAST, IN A NUTSHELL.......(OR NUTCASE)

Khartoum (1966)..........works on two levels for us......a comforting, nostalgic trip into old fashioned battle-epic filmmaking.......

               ........and surprisingly, a fairly prescient depiction of all our current misadventures in Middle East wars against Islamic fanatics.......

                   As historical films normally do, "Khartoum" freely warps the facts by staging, in 1884 Sudan, meetings between its two charismatic, clashing titans.  In reality, they never met each other.....

                    On the Western Civilization team we have British General Charles 'Chinese' Gordon (Charlton Heston, at his jaw-clenching best).........on the scary, creepy, murderous Middle East team, we have 'The Mahdi', the 'expected one'  (Sir Laurence Olivier in full blackface.......a comic book impersonation of Islamic mania.......ready to sweep across the desert and slaughter everyone...)

                     The script takes some pains to present these men as two sides of the same coin of religious zealotry.........'Onward Christian Soldiers' versus 'God Is Great'........

                     We couldn't help thinking.........take away the costumes, the pitched battles, the 'Rule Britannia' score by Frank Cordell and you might as well be watching a live CNN feed from Afghanistan..... nothing much has changed......the opponents, the mindset and the perpetual violence.

                     This is 1966 big budget filmmaking, however, so the politics remain good-'n-evil minimal, while what it's really about in presenting masses of extras sword-whacking each other in glorious Ultra Panavision 70.....(a cheaper, replacement process for the ungainly, impractical 3 projector Cinerama....)

                       Just to remind us that this bloody panorama was designed for a huge curved screen, flaming projectiles regularly come flying into the camera........(but for sheer spectacle, nothing beats the sight of Lord Olivier in full Halloween Shop Islamic Terrorist regalia......addressing his acolytes in an overripe theatrical sing-song delivery...."Oh my Beloveds.....", like outtakes from his filmed version of "Othello" also made in 1966)

                      Whichever way you choose to view "Khartoum" it's a fascinating chuck of time capsule cinema.......with a degree of wit and irony rarely seen in the 60's epics.......we flat out love the final penultimate moment - The Mahdi gazing in horror and revulsion at the sight of 'Chinese' Gordon's head paraded before him......

                        Now there's a moment no one will ever see in today's endless Middle East  conflicts....so we'll fondly remember this one with 3 stars (***)

OSCAR MIRE...........WRAP-UP THOUGHTS.........

           Well it's over......thank God........the last nail in the awards season coffin.......

           No Host?   Did anyone miss a host?    Raise your hands if you missed  Jimmy Kimmel marching hapless tourists into a theater to watch "A Wrinkle In Time"......No hands?   Bueller? Bueller?

             Glenn Close snatches defeat from the jaws of victory......we do feel sorry for Close, but we agree with another pundit who bemoaned that tiresome bleat........."after 7 failed nominations, her time has come, this is her year, blah, blah..."     Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock never got competitive Oscars either.....probably losing repeatedly to people whose...."time had come".  To hell with that whole 'give-'em-an-award-cause-they're-overdue bullshit......

              "Green Book" win enrages the woke Social Justice Warriors.......a perfect snapshot of the divisive, convulsive cultural/political landscape we now live in........decades ago, a film like this would be hugged and kissed by everybody........today, it's roasted as one of the worst Best Picture choices ever.....(depending on who you talk to)   Welcome to the Arts in the toxic age of Trump.....

              The " In Memoriam" fiasco........here's where the Academy Board really stepped up their game (if their game is provoking both their members and audiences into bitter anger)......by increasing the number of outrageous snubs in the death parade.......Dick Miller, Stanley Donen, Carol Channing, Gary Kurtz, R. Lee Ermey.........this year,, they really really really wanted to piss everybody off.  Mission Accomplished.

               That idiot who walked up the podium posting on his phone......... If there's Karma.....he'll drop it in the toilet while he's Instagramming one of his bowel movements........

RIP STANLEY DONEN

                              Sorry to have to post this obit on the eve of Oscars...…..a farewell to director Stanley Donen, master of Hollywood's classic musicals....("On The Town", "Singin' In The Rain", "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers", "Funny Face", "Damn Yankees", "The Pajama Game"....)

                           …….and equally masterful romantic dramas and thrillers.....("Two For The Road", "Charade", "Arabesque"...…..(regarding those last two, Donen was one of the few directors who could out-Hitchcock Hitchcock.....

                            Donen infused these films with a visual style and elegance that we sorely miss in today's films......and a seemingly effortless craft and professionalism.

                             It wouldn't hurt a lot of current film directors if they took some time to watch ( or re-watch) Donen's films.....many lessons to learn about the cinematography, the direction of actors and the fine art of cinematic storytelling.....

                            Rest In Peace......he'll be missed.

'JONATHAN'.........BANANAS SPLIT.......

Jonathan (2018)    And we thought our post on the insufferable "Damsel" would be our last word on pathetically untalented poseurs pretending they're filmmakers.......sucking up undeserved applause from equally egotistical film festival juries........

                    Here's one even worse. This stillborn, unwatchable piece of crap makes "Damsel" look like 'Citizen Kane'........

                    This is as much as we can surmise.....in between the constant mini-naps we took throughout the excruciating torture of this film's 100 minute running time.....

                      Ansel Elgort plays twins......living in the same body. They work it out in shifts, the introverted, quiet. nose-to-the-grindstone Jonathan lives in the daytime.........his outgoing, freewheeling 'other'. Jon comes out at night........

                      So Ansel #1 and Ansel #2 don't get much sleep altogether.........and what's even worse, they fall into a relationship with the same girl.

                       Naturally, the Ansels get their wires crossed......literally......since their doctor (Patricia Clarkson) stuck an actual wire in Double-Ansel to keep their lives straight........need we go on?

                      Who knows, in the hands of a real moviemaker, this premise might have made for a passable thriller or a goofy switch on a romantic comedy.

                       Not happenin' here.

                       Nothing but worst-of-the-worst film festival sludge.......suitable only for consumption by festival juries. Static scenes going nowhere, no pacing. absolutely nothing to engage anyone who might be engaged at the initial idea..

                      We doubt even the director's immediate family could sit through this all the way.

                       Enough time wasted on this tripe......an AFH  for sure....ABOMINATION FROM HELL........to hell with it.

'RAMPAGE'........FRIEDKIN WEIGHS THE SCALES........KILLER VS. VICTIMS..........

Rampage (1987)   For a while, director William Friedkin reigned supreme as Hollywood's prime purveyor of blistering, in-your-face, anything-for-a-thrill cinema......("The French Connection" and "The Exorcist".....)

                But his raw, grim "Wages Of Fear" remake, 'Sorcerer' was the kind of sour, gritty experience that audiences decided they'd had enough of.....(it opened in the '77 summer of "Star Wars")

                And Friedkin's films then wobbled from unfunny comedies ("The Brink's Job", "Deal Of The Century") to his gruesome, repugnant gay sex thriller "Cruising" with Al Pacino......

                "Rampage", his lurid, bloody mixture of serial killer violence combined with an angry capital punishment debate. fell directly into limbo as its releasing company went bankrupt.......

                 Five years after its 1987 production year, it resurfaced in 1992, newly re-cut by Friedkin, supposedly altering its draconian view of the death penalty.....

                  We've seen both versions.......and our reaction isn't much different from one to the other......other than Friedkin tinkering with the last 10 minutes to make the climax a little more more measured, meditative and....and....well, grown up.

                 Ever the visual sensationalist, Friedkin makes sure to rub your nose in the red meat before he pumps you up with outrage at the idea of a murderous sicko cheating death on an insanity plea.....

                 A boy-next-door sociopath (a superbly disturbing Alex McCarthur) slaughters members of two suburban families........and the liberal, anti-death penalty D.A. (Michael Biehn is uncomfortably tasked with getting a jury to fry the kid to a crisp......regardless of the creep's sanity, or lack thereof...

               Cue the usual cast of characters, including, for the defense, the wimpy shrink who thinks we'll just have to sacrifice our lives so he can continue to study the cat-scans of the guy who offed us......

                There's no question which side of this issue (to kill or not to kill the killer) that Friedkin comes down on........leading to the film's most powerful sequence - Biehn putting the jury through an enforced five minutes of silence equal to the amount of time it took one of McCarthur's mortally wounded, suffering victims to die.......

               The initial version concocted a simplistic deux-ex-machina fate for McCarthur........in its re-edit, a more thoughtful Friedkin imagines an incarcerated, crazy killer patiently waiting for his years-later eventual release from a psychiatric hospital.......entirely credible and maybe even more uneasy to think about.

                 Both films wisely close with the most sadly affecting scene.......a night at a carnival enjoyed by a young boy and his melancholic dad - their family's sole survivors of McCarthur's random bloodlust.

               We don't want to sound like we're giving this movie too much credit for addressing such a vital issue, one that still resonates today.........Friedkin's goal here isn't stimulating your mind.....he's out to grab you by back of your neck and stick you into the blood, gore, tragedy and anger.......(while still gobbling your butter popcorn)

                  It's lurid, ragged, brazen exploitation.........and will grip your attention, whichever version you end up viewing. 2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2)

             

               

'KEY WITNESS'..........GOOD DEEDS, SEVERELY PUNISHED.......BY RUBY DOOBY

Key Witness (1960)     Here's a fave we're way overdue getting around to.......

                   What a wonderful excursion into pulpy trash.......expertly guided by B-movie war-horse Phil Karlson.......(like fellow "B" maestro Don Siegel, it wasn't until the 1970's that Karlson's talent for lurid melodrama and stark violence came into full flower......)

                     But in 1960, something like "Key Witness" had to straddle the border between straight-laced 50's morality and the emergence of pure nihilistic mayhem as an audience gooser.

                      Coming from MGM and its veteran house producer Pandro Berman, "Key Witness"  features multiple angles of  hot button exploitation...........including Revenge-As-Catharsis, which became its very own genre in the 1970's.....at the hands of, you guessed it, Phil Karson and Don Siegel.

                        Its primary concern, with an actual quote from a California District Attorney to start out, is the ongoing apathy of citizens to help the cops catch criminals........the sorry state of a populace unwilling to "get involved" when they witness crime.......

                       Exhibit A:  Suburbanite Fred Morrow (Jeffrey Hunter), who faces endless woe when he does his civic duty by identifying a teen punk psycho (Dennis Hopper) as a knife-wielding murderer. 

                      Hopper does express some regret at knifing people......since it messes up his hair.....(honest).

                         Unlike the wonderfully scruffy strange delinquents that Pandro Berman featured in "Blackboard Jungle", his  'Key Witness gang looks ready for a beach party movie.......the clean cut young Hopper, 'Rebel Without A Cause' leftover Corey Allen, hyper-overacting 'Gidget' sidekick Joby Baker, songwriter Johnny Nash as the Poitier-Lite black member........as best of all, Susan Harrison as the gang's lethal Queen Bee, Ruby........

                          ...........or as the supposed drugged up Joby Baker calls her....Ruby Dooby Dooby.

                       Relatively unfettered and uncaptured by the impotent police, Hopper and Company wage terroristic war on Hunter, his darling wife and cute children.  When Hopper's finally picked up for trial, Ruby Dooby assumes command of the mission to intimidate Hunter out of testifying......

                      Susan Harrison, previously the innocent waif caught in the crossfire between Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in "Sweet Smell Of Success", makes a fearsome Ruby Dooby......assaulting Hunter's wife outside a courtroom, no less.....and engineering  the attempted kidnapping of Hunter's young son, which ends with the child seriously wounded by gunshot........

                     At this point, the movie briefly dips its toe in 'Death Wish' type of revenge.......with Hunter properly bug-eyed with rage as he and convert-to-redemption Johnny Nash take on the gang in Hunter's living room.......

                       But the ensuing fight is a disappointing, typical one-two-three-kick affair, no better or worse than a thousand other punch-ups from 1950's movies......(as all movie buffs know, Karlson's up-and-down career hit its very peak with his blood-soaked redneck revenge opera "Walking Tall" with Joe Don Baker......a perfect vehicle for a now unrestrained pulp fictioneer.....)

                      Phil Karlson's a total pro, though.......and he keeps 'Key Witness' hoppin' and poppin' even constrained by the limits of what he could accomplish in a standard MGM product. Still a lot of fun to watch.........3 stars (***)......what more could we ask.....Ruby Dooby even gets her own song. 

"NO EXIT".........AT LONG LAST......A BOOK KEEPS US UP ALL NIGHT

No Exit by Taylor Adams (2019)    We've rolled our eyes often enough at book reviews that trumpeted....."I read it in one sitting!........Kept me up into the wee hours!.......You won't get any sleep til you finish the last page!"...........

                Yeah, right.

                But here's the real deal. No kidding, this one kept us breathlessly flipping the pages.....deep, deep into the night........way past our bedtime.

                  The delicious premise.........college girl Darby finds her herself stranded at a highway rest stop during a raging Colorado blizzard........along with four other wayward travelers..........

                  Wandering outside in a useless attempt to pick up a cellphone signal, Darby discovers one of her fellow rest stop strangers harbors an abducted 9 year old girl in their vehicle.......imprisoned in a cage.

                    But which one of them?  The charming, handsome fellow college student? The bickering middle age couple? Or the decidedly weird creepy guy......described by Darby as...."a walking Amber Alert"?   

                   No more plot from us......like us, you'll want to tear through the pages to see what happens next.  From that point on, the book launches into a rollercoaster of outrageous, stunning twists, jaw dropping reversals of fortune..........and a punishing, grisly duel back-and-forth between Darby and...........(oh no no no........sealed lips here. Just grab the damn book and start reading)

                   What a pleasure to give out the BQ's ultimate rating of 5 stars (*****), a genuine stay-up-all-night FIND OF FINDS........

                    If you want to say hello when the movie opens, we'll be the first one in line at the box office.  In the meantime, clear your calendar and dive into the book.........and just like those book review cliches, don't expect to finish before the wee hours......

"LINDSAY LOHAN'S BEACH CLUB"........WHERE UNREALITY GOES TO DIE.......

Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club (MTV-2019)    Only Beloved Daughter could coerce us into watching episodes of this pop culture landfill..........

                  We weep and mourn for the precious minutes of our life we wasted on such a swirling mass of excrement........

                    Leave it to the lizards of MTV to assemble this perfect storm.........the collision of one of their all too typical reality show casts with the sad, wasted human wreckage that is Lindsay Lohan......

                    Lohan, the once promising, now washed up starlet continues her persona as a pitiable figure......the woeful result of upbringing by one of the world's worst set of parents - a fame hungry idiot mother and a criminal father.

                    After a film career undone by booze and drugs, the MTV series shows her literally washed up on a pristine beach in Mykonos, Greece......co owning and managing a bar, cabanas and lounge chairs with an obsequious, preening little worm named Panos.

                     Panos bills hiimself as "Creative Director".......and his greatest achievement in creativity is dubbing himself a 'creative director'........

                    Into the mix comes the standard MTV collection of 'reality' characters........the usual feckless, clueless, rootless bunch of Millennials gasping and grasping for their 15 minutes of reality-show fame. They accomplish this mainly by picking staged fights with each other........

                    Hilariously, these dopey, ex-bartenders and waitresses have been hired as "Ambassadors" for what Lohan constantly refers to as 'representing my Brand'......

                    Their great task?  No different than Bar Girls who've been working cheap dives since the dawn of liquor........shmooze customers into running up huge drink tabs.......

                     For a show that bears her name, Lohan herself appears only sporadically......used like a pop-up cardboard prop to ensure the show title's truth-in-advertising..........we see her and that genius of creativity Panos  expressing grave concern that their "Ambassadors" aren't pushing enough hooch and cabana rentals........

                     Not even guilty fun to view as a trainwreck, the show reeks like year-old garbage from beginning to end........a shitcake of worn out reality show tropes capped off by the exhausted Lohan, presiding over what's left her celebrity, babbling on about maintaining her 'brand'..........

                     Worthless sludge, unfit for anyone's consumption. Zero stars (0)

"SUSPIRIA" (2018 REMAKE).........CRAZIER.....ARTSY-SMARTSY-IER........BUT ANY BETTER?

Suspiria (2018)    Regardless of what anyone thinks of this film.........no one denies director Luca Guadagnin's visual creativity......

                ......and the fact that he somehow made his remake distinctly his own while still honoring the source.....Dario Argento's legendary 1977 gloriously unhinged bad dream horror film.

                       The Argento movie, which unfolds on the screen like a nightmare you've had after one too many slices of pepperoni pizza, really can't support the weight of all the art and exposition that Guadagnino piles on top of it........

                        There's political subtext, setting the remake in the midst of Germany's Baader-Meinhof uproars.......there's Nazi subtext, with characters tormented by the country's legacy of evil.....there's modern dance subtext in the ascendance of women through their fierce, dynamic choreography.......there's even witches' coven political subtext, with power-play elections between opposing witches.......

                         Jeez.....no wonder the goddamn thing takes 152 minutes to unfold......

                         Argento showed minimum interest in actual dancing at "Suspiria"s  witch-afflicted ballet school.....in that film,.the hordes of maggots dropping from the ceiling get more dance moves than the girls.......

                          Not so in the remake, where the witches cause one girl to dance herself into a literal bone-breaking, back-breaking trash-compacted human leftover............this bravura sequence, early on in the film, seems designed to keep you intrigued enough to hang on for the finale, which struggles like a son-of-a-bitch to out-do Argento in the batshit-crazy, loopy-doopy bloodspurt department.......

                          The overpowering artistic heft that Guadagnino layers all over Argento's simple little nightmare is duly impressive..........bur it doesn't make the film any more worthy or more entertaining than the original.

                          And it's a horror film, after all.  So even a critically-acclaimed auteur like Guadagnino, for all his meticulous skill, has to scream "Booga Booga!" to the audience and give 'em what they came for........rollin' heads, spewin' entrails, bitchin' witches and even the kitchen sink.....(this includes a cameo from Death itself and the Boss Witch, who looks like Pizza The Hut from Mel Brooks' "Spaceballs"......)

                         For movie buff's there's plenty of fascinating stuff to pick up on........Chloe Grace Moretz popping up briefly as a victimized dancer...... Tilda Swinton, in addition to her role as dance instructor, popping up as an elderly male German psychiatrist and that Pizza The Hut thing.......even Jessica Harper, the deer-in-the-headlights heroine of Argento's original, shows up as the long lost wife of Swinton's old German guy.......(at least she didn't end up smooching Pizza The Hut)

                        It comes down to this.........Argento's 1977 fever dream we'll always return to.....usually every Halloween. The 2018 heavily artistic remake? 

                         Once was more than enough for us......2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

                       

"ONE DAY IN DECEMBER".......BQ CRASHES REESE'S BOOK CLUB

One Day In December by Josie Silver (2018)   We normally don't go anywhere near books like this.......but not necessarily because we're way outside their target demographic.......

             We hardly feel the need to read romances.......since BD (Beloved Daughter) constantly screens her inexhaustible supply of rom-coms and doomed-lovers Blu-Rays and DVDS........

              This book, a selection of Reese Witherspoon's Book Club, tumbled into our hands from the pile of BD's Christmas presents......

               And BQ visitors know by now that we'll read or watch anything.........no matter how far afield it lies from all the stuff we're supposed to like.........(like red-blooded thrillers and distinguished  literary best sellers.....)

                So, Reese, save us some scones and sweet tea.....we crashed your club and read one of your prime picks.....

                What we've got here......an achy-breaky romantic triangle of epic proportions, with a movie-ready cast of London millennials......all cute, handsome, beautiful, witty....etc, etc....

                 Laurie and Jack make a soulmates-at-first-glance connection when they spot each other at a bus stop........but oh the agony.....she doesn't get off the bus to meet him and he doesn't get on.....

                After a year of searching and pining for him, Laurie's stunned when her glamorous, extroverted roomie Sarah brings home her hot new boyfriend........uh-oh......it's none other than Jack.

                 Unwilling to spill the beans and demolish her sister-like bond with Sarah, Laurie spends years in a gut-wrenching, uncomfortable platonic friendship with secret true love Jack........and the unspoken romantic triangle becomes a quadrangle when Laurie attempts to rebound with an uppercrust wealthy banker named Oscar........

                   Poor Oscar........anyone who's sat through or read even one single romance know this shmuck's fate..........and our immediate sympathy goes out to whatever luckless actor has to take this role in any film version.........

                  No, we won't go on with the painful ups and downs that plague our two destined-to-be-forever cutie-pies over the years........other than to say the book delivers the......uh, how do they put it..."all the feels" in its final pages........

                   If this isn't your cup of sweet tea 'n scones, then stay far away. But if it is, we'd air-kiss about 2 1/2 stars (**1/2)......(that's cause it takes one hell of a long, slow-paced time to get to its inevitable swoony climax....)

                   But thanks for letting us sneak into the club, Reese........we'll go right back to our suspense thrillers......hope you don't mind, we grabbed a few scones to go......

                 

               

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAPUP.........SPECIAL "NATIONAL EMERGENCY!!!!" EDITION

                      NO TIME TO TALK!  LOCK YOUR DOORS!  GRAB YOUR GUNS!  WE'RE IN A STATE OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY!!!  THE END OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE IS UPON US!   MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF SWARTHY-COLORED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS, DRUG DEALERS AND MURDERERS ARE STORMING OUR BORDERS AS WE SPEAK!!!

                       THANK THE LORD OUR EVER-VIGILANT PRESIDENT STAYS ON DUTY AT THE WHITE HOUSE AROUND THE CLOCK.......KEEPING A WATCHFUL EYE ON THE DIRE SITUATION EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY!!!!!!

                       Oh......wait a minute.

                        Baby Orange jetted down to Mar-A-Lago to play golf........

                      After he said about his make-believe, fake emergency...."I didn't need to do it...."

                       Okey-dokey..........

                        Never mind.

" 'BROADSWORD CALLING DANNY BOY' - WATCHING 'WHERE EAGLES DARE'...........WHERE A PUNDIT BORES'

Broadsword Calling Danny Boy-Watching 'Where Eagles Dare- by Geoff Dyer (2019)

                We salivated with anticipation when we heard about this book........we gobbled it up the day it came out........

                  What a great idea........a rabid fan, just like us, of the grandly over-the-top 1969 Alistair MacLaean World War 2 adventure movie, riffing on the movie.........(where Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood sneak into a castle and machine gun half the German Army.....)     

                   What a downer. What a disappointment. Nowhere near as much fun as we dreamed it'd be.....

                  Dyer details the entire 2 and a half hour movie from first to last scene........but he writes like a drunken college professor as much in love with his convoluted, impossible to read prose as he is with his booze.......

                   Yes, there's some amount of humor and wit hiding in here, but you've got to dig through his impenetrable sentences to find it........

                   By the time we worked our way through his piles of arcane references and writing that drifted aimlessly around in random directions, we could barely laugh if we came across a laughable moment..........

                     We did smile as he bounced across all the stuff we love in the movie.........like the German General arriving in a helicopter that wasn't in use until after the war.......("flying in from the future....")

                     But 98 per cent's of the book's a tiresome slog.......garbled verbiage from an academic having a love affair with his cleverness and degrees in literature.

                      So sorry to give this only 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2) when we ached to love it. Watch the movie instead and do your own commentary......



             

"DAMSEL"...........SUNDANCE BOTTOM-FEEDING

Damsel (2018)    In the immortal words of Will Smith........Aw HELL no.......

             If we didn't know better, we'd swear the legends-in-their-own-minds, film festival fakers who slapped this together made it just to piss us off..........having read all our posts about poseur filmmakers who pollute all the festivals with their grindingly awful movies, made strictly for the "ooo"s and "ahhhh"s of cinema culture-vultures who haunt such venues.

               "Damsel" is so studied in the egotism and self-satisfaction of its makers........we almost started to believe that maybe it was some kind of sly meta spoof of film festival movies........(but no, the film's dead serious in its fussy artistry.....0

                 The perps here are the Zellner brothers, who worked themselves into delusions of adequacy by watching Coen Brothers movies over and over again........

                 Imagine, if you will, the worst, most pathetic imitation of a Coen Brothers film......only slowed down to the pace of a still photograph.......

                As your eyes and mind wander through what appears to be a 'hip' and 'woke' western, you can practically hear the Zellners cackling and high-fiving each other at their gasping, futile attempts at wit and 'up-to-date' humor.........

                  Oh those clever boys.........sprinkling their 19th Century extended anecdote with anachronistic, 21st century blather......"it's a win-win situation"......"this is my personal boundry"......blah, blah, blah......

                  The odious pretensions of this film reek so badly, we fought our urge to throw tomatoes at the screen.  The punishing effect resembles watching a 1 hour and 50 minute improv sketch where all the actors perform still under sedation from their wisdom tooth extractions.

                   We won't smear the worthy actors who wander through this wreck by mentioning their names. They'll all go on to better things......except the Zellners, who also cling to the delusion that they can act.....yeh right. Triple-threats.......in reverse.

                    No trouble whatsoever rating this.......a monumental AFH......Abomination From Hell..........any copies of this should be melted down into something more useful, like potato-chip bag holders....

             

TRUMPIAN STUPIDITY INFECTS THE OSCARS...........

                It's like a plague, come to think of it.......

                The rampant stupidity of Trump and his Trumpanzees.........a disease of lies, hatred and simple, plain idiocy seems to have infected the country like a malignant virus........

                 How else could anyone explain the decision of the Oscar chiefs and ABC to consign the awards for best cinematography and editing to commercial breaks........in other words, exclude them and hide them from the ceremony.

                  There's no rational way to describe it........other than stupidity on an unimaginable scale.....

                  We understand ABC's part in this.......pathetic corporate greed, their futile attempt to shorten the broadcast in the hopes to attracting higher ratings.......

                    And given that these particular nominees don't involve films from ABC's parent company Disney, that makes them easy targets.......

                     Except for the fact that all of these corporate morons didn't muster enough brain cells to envision the whirlwind they'd reaped.......putting on a movie award show in which the people who photograph movies and the people who edit movies aren't seen winning their awards.

                    Whoever thought of this idea is in the wrong job.........for such a staggeringly block-headed imbecile, they should receive an honored place in Donald Trump's cabinet. They'd fit right in.

                     We can only look forward to the nominees and winners taking their time to rake the Oscars over the coals for this......during the live broadcast. 

                    Let 'em have it, folks.........nobody deserves it more.

"GOOSEBUMPS 2: HAUNTED HALLOWEEN"............VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED GUMMI BEARS.....

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018)   Since B.D. (Beloved Daughter) grew up gobbling the R.L. Stine books this movie's based on, there was no avoiding it........

                    So what can we say?   It's harmless dumb Halloween fun.

                    It moves along at a good clip ( a must for us) and does a fairly efficient job of creating a suburban Halloween gone amuck......in which all the decorations come to life to wreak havoc on hapless trick-or-treaters.......

                       Even better, it quickly skims over any attempts at duplicating 1980's Spielbergian sentiment......it's far too busy parading its overstuffed population of sentient skeletons, pumpkins and the main attraction - a giant spider made of purple balloons.......

                        We especially liked the teen sweetheart's boyfriend turning out to be a cheating shit.....and properly put into traction by Slappy, the latest in a long cinematic line of nasty, creepy ventriloquist dummies........

                      Wisely it carefully rations out portions of the exhausting Ken Jeong as a Halloween-crazy neighbor........(he's kind of like pepper in any comedy - you don't want to sprinkle too much on it....)

                         And there's genuine special effects creativity and wit shown in the onslaught of rampaging Halloween creatures........including Gummi Bears depicted as we always imagined them.......hot tempered little psychotics.

                         No it's not as good as the first "Goosebumps" film.......and when Jack Black returns for a cameo as R.L.Stine, he seems at a complete loss as to what to do.....

                         The film barrels along just fine with or without him and this movie will probably end up as a Halloween party staple for kids and arrested development adults (like us.....)  For an extra special bash, we suggest pairing this one up with 1987's "The Monster Squad".......

                       It's possible we're being too kind to this film, having watched it right after suffering through the catastrophic Disney trainwreck "Nutcracker And The Four Realms"........compared to the 'Nutcracker' atrocity, "Goosebumps 2" arrived like a minty burst of fresh air......

                        So be it. We still had a good time...... 3 stars (***)......Slappy for President in 2020....(we couldn't do much worse than the babbling dummy we have now......)

"TOOMORROW"......OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN ABDUCTED BY ALIENS.....(BET YOU THINK WE'RE MAKING THIS UP)

Toomorrow  (1970)    First.......we did NOT misspell "tomorrow"........

                It's the name of the pop group in this movie....."too" blended with "morrow".......get it? Get it?  Groovy, baby, groovy.

               And the group (and their movie) make the Golan-Globus "Electric Boogoloo" films look like Merchant-Ivory 'Masterpiece Theater' Henry James adaptations.........

                Imagine what kind of movie would emerge from an unholy alliance between James Bond Mogul Harry Saltzman and the legendary pop music producer/songwriter Don Kirschner......(the master puppeteer of pre-fab, manufactured bands like The Monkees and the cartoon Archies)

                 Even our nuttiest out-there dreams couldn't come close to the absolute lunacy of the movie these two show-biz lizards vomited out together.......

                 Fall in love at first sight with 22 year old Olivia Newton John in hot pants, lead singer of 'Toomorrow', along with three Kirschner-cloned imitation Monkees.......all of them students at a Performing Arts college in the throes of student protests against stuffy old-school administrators.....

                 In a sane film, this would serve as more than enough plot for an innocuous, bubbly pop musical.....Elvis pumped out dozens of these things working with even less storylines...........

                   But wait! There's more!

                   Aliens From A Dying Planet hover above Earth.......and think those 'electronic vibrations' emanating from Toomorrow will re-vitalize their crumbling civilization.....honest.

                   Olivia and the gang find themselves beamed up into the alien ship......(the craft and its flat-faced generic aliens look like leftovers from deleted scenes in "Barbarella"....)

                  Rather than spend an enforced eternity healing the aliens with their Kirschner-ized bubble-gum pop tunes, the kids scram back back to Earth in escape pods..........cause, they've got a gig to play tonight!

                   We swear on everything that's holy to us ((Hitchcock, Morricone and pork fried rice) that everything we've described here happens......

                    To nobody's surprise, Alpha-Moguls Saltzman and Kirschner engaged in a Clash Of The Cash-Stuffed Titans........and the film became nothing more than the painful, embarrassing aftermath of their squabbling.......dooming it to obscurity.......and so traumatizing to Newton John, she didn't try another movie until 8 years later in "Grease"

                      Kirschner, later to become famous (and roundly ridiculed ) for his droning, monotone emceeing of TV music specials, no doubt harbored dreams of turning the fictional Toomorrow quartet into a viable pop attraction......complete with even more movies, albums and concerts......

                      Ah well.......we can't fault Don for his big dreams.......and the movie's a demented hoot from beginning to end......it would take us forever to detail all the madness.......(including stuff like Olivia's college boyfriend nicknaming her "Bush-baby".....)

                        Written and directed by one of our all-time favorite British sci-fi masters Val Guest, it's a fab, fab one-of-kind Ultra Guilty Pleasure.......3 stars (***)........we know Olivia Newton John wants to forget this ever happened......but sorry, we're Hopelessly Devoted to "Toomorrow"......