DEMS' DEBATES EXPERTLY ANALYZED!.......BY BQ CONTRIBUTORS GODZILLA & KING GHIDORAH.......

              Even as I post this, pundits from 24/7 cable news networks are still blah-blah-bla-ing about the two nights of Democratic Candidates debates........

               Turn off that noise.......BQ has all the analysis you'll ever need......from two debaters who know what it's like to go....uh.....head-to-3-heads against each other........Godzilla, King Of the Monsters....and King Ghidorah, notorious 3-headed flying dragon from another planet and rabid Fox News viewer........

                Per the last interview I conducted with these two, King Ghidorah's three independent heads are referred to as KG #1, #2, # 3.......

BQ:       Good to see you again, boys.  So you watched both debates?

G:           Holy hot breath, I haven't seen so much hot air and hot tempers flyin' around since we
                filmed "Destroy All Monsters" back in the  60's.   

KG# 1:   And did you notice how badly Hilary did?  Not a word out of her!

G:           Maybe it's cause she wasn't there, you imbecile.....

KG# 2:   Lock her up!  Lock her up!  Lock her up!

G:          (MUTTERING)   Jesus......three heads and he's still got a combined I.Q. the same as
               Trump's.....in the low 20's.......

BQ:         So tell me, what did you think of Kamala Harris going after Joe Biden on the whole
                racial  thing?

KG# 3     She's not even black!  And she was born in Norway!  I've got investigators all over the
                world looking into this. Let me tell you, they can't believe what they're finding!

G:             And neither can anyone else with at least a few functioning brain cells......which leaves
                  you out. Where did you get all this bullshit info anyway?

KG# 3      From unimpeachable sources... Straight from Don Trump Jr. and Sarah Huckabee
                  And everyone knows they wouldn't lie about a thing like this!

G:            Unimpeachable huh?  Well, there's an adjective you can't apply to Trump......snap!
                 KG, you Tri-Moron, you've been served!

BQ:         Boys, boys.....let's get back to the debates.

G:            Listen, I know how hard it is to make yourself heard in a crowded field. Usually, I
                gotta be extra obnoxious, swish my tail into a few buildings for attention,.....
                out scream everybody in the room.
          
BQ:          You mean like Bill De Blasio, the New York Mayor?

G:             Yeah, exactly. He reminds me of Kong. Big chest pounder. Less hair, though.

BQ:          So who do you think came out well in these debates?  Who do you think bombed?

KG# 1:     Clown car!  Except......I did love that Marianne Williamson. She sounds like she came
                  from my home planet.......

G:             Yeah, right out of Uranus......(SNICKERS TO HIMSELF....)......I don't know what kind
                  of a President she'd be, but she'd do a hell of job at singing Mothra awake.....

KG# 2:      Hey,  I just got this off of Don Jr.'s Twitter! Kamala Harris is secretly an albino Swede
                  with a spray tan! 

KG# 3:      I knew it!  I knew it!  What'd I tell ya!

G:              Let's put it this way.......it doesn't make any difference how well or badly any of 'em
                  did at the debates. Even a sticky,slimy piece of Mothra's leftover larva cocoon would
                  make a better President than Trump.

KG #1,2,3: (ALL YELLING AT ONCE....)  Socialist! Immigrant hugger! Snowflake!

G:             Excuse me??? Snowflake????  Suck on these snowflakes, you brainless, 3 headed
                 Trumpanzees;......(SOUND OF GODZILLA SPEWING RADIOACTIVE FIERY 
                 BREATH .....)

BQ:          Whoa.....easy guys......I love a spirited debate, but setting your opponent on fire tends
                   to cheapen our national discourse.....and King Ghidorah do all three of you have to
                  wear the red MAGA hats all at once? One would make enough of a statement.

KG#1:        Haven't you checked Facebook this morning?!  True story.......how come you never
                   see Kamala Harris and Taylor Swift together at the same time! Think about it!

BQ:           Seriously, King, I wouldn't trust a Facebook account from someone named
                  "Vlad The Impaler".........anyway, thanks so much for stopping by with analysis, guys.

G:               Anybody up for a 'Toy Story 4' matinee?

KG # 1:      How 'bout 'Annabelle Comes Home'  ?  What a little sweetheart....... 






         
     

    

NONE OF OUR BUSINESS, BUT BQ'S GOT THE SECRET TRUMP-PUTIN TRANSCRIPT!!!!!

                 After shouting it was "none our our business" what he and Putin discussed, BQ spared no expense to sneak a bug into Baby Orange's top secret meeting with the ex-KGB thug.....whose original spy code name was Rat-Face 001 & 1/2.......

                 My deepest thanks to gorgeous, resourceful  MI6 double-agent 008 (Code name:           Pee-Onya) for translating Putin's end of the conversation..........

Trump:   Remember what I said, you hairless little borscht-bastard......no more meddling in our election.......(SOUND OF BOTH MEN GIGGLING.....)

Putin:     Okay, Donnie, whatever you say. No meddling.......I promise. I swear on the graves of the last five people I had killed.

Trump:   Journalists?  Oh please tell me it was news guys.  Make my day, Vladdy.

Putin:      Heh, heh, heh........I never kill and tell. What's the problem, pee-boy?  You don't like the....eh,what do you call it again?  'Fake' news?   See what freedom of the press gets you?  With you, everyone knows the fake news isn't fake, right?

Trump:     I know, I know. The press is killin' me, let me tell ya........I thought the least they could do is give me a prize when I hit 10,000 lies.......you know, like when you win 50 bucks if you're the 6th caller on the radio station trivia quiz

Putin:        I always win those.......they know if they don't judge me the 5th caller, a snoot full of nerve gas comes out of their microphone.....

Trump:       Vladinator, you the man!   (SOUND OF 'HIGH FIVE' SLAP.....)

Putin:         Enough chit-chat. Down to business.  Next year, I got 20,000 phony Facebook posts lined up for you, plus 45,000 fake Instagrams........top-notch stuff - Bernie and Biden having their diapers changed, Pete Buttigieg cheating on his husband with Rupaul, Elizabeth Warren dressed up as Geronimo for Halloween.......

Trump:        I love it!

Putin:            Shhhh!  Don't yell that out loud like your idiot son did the last time around.......you got the FBI under control yet?

Trump:         Not to worry. My personal lawyer, Bill Barr's on their ass. Trust me, he'll keep those boy scouts on a short leash.....

Putin:           Personal lawyer?  Isn't that toad supposed to be the Attorney General?

Trump:        (SOUND OF GIGGLING) Technically,  yeah......hee, hee, hee, hee.......

Putin:            Trumpkin, you're the best agent I've ever fielded. Tell you what.......if things don't work out, you can defect to Russia, hang out with me here........we'll ride horses naked, take vodka intravenously, torture a few prisoners in the KGB basement just to stay sharp.......I'll build you your own little Trump tower to live in......with onion domes on the top.....and a 24/7 McDonald's......

Trump:         Sounds incredible. You'll save that special girl for me?

Putin:            Ah, you mean Pee-Onya. I'll have her ready...… I'll make her drink 3 quarts of ice tea before she shows up.......with no underwear.....

Trump:         Oh, Vlad-o-rama, she's so my type! Not like all those ugly bitches I pussy-grab on planes and dressing rooms. Look at how hard I'm getting........I swear, you'd think Ivanka walked into the room......

Putin:         Listen, before we wrap things up here, I send regards......your little boy-toy Kim says hello, sends hugs and kisses.....

Trump:       Did he?  Awwww, that cute little eggroll.......I just wanna wrap him up,  take 'im home with me and put 'im on the shelf.........does me miss me?

Putin:         Does he ever. Remember that waitress who put down the wrong fork in front of you at the summit lunch?  Kim had her and her whole family shot.

Trump:         Aw, what a protective little huggy bear.  I gotta roll, Vladski, See ya at the 2020 inauguration......cause ya know, it can't happen without you.

Putin:            Believe me, I know. ..

Trump:         We'll get it done, you and I. Don't forget, I'm a stable genius.

Putin:           (SPOKEN IN RUSSIAN:)  Das Vadanya, you Useful Idiot.

Trump:         (TO INTERPRETER)  What'd he say?

Interpreter:   Toodle-Ooo.

TIM TORCHES DISNEY - LITERALLY.....IN "DUMBO"

Dumbo (2019)     There's so much weird crap going on in this movie, I may forget to mention it all.......

                 To the Disney corporate lizards, this must have felt like a no-brainer decision......

                 With the sweet little 1941 'Dumbo' on their hit-list for CGI strip mining, why not turn the assassination over to cinema's premier fantasist, Tim Burton.........

                  ("Yeah!  Burton'll make those popcorn gobblers and their rugrats cry twice as hard as those 1941 rubes!")

                    Wrong.  The whole weepy-weepy part of 'Dumbo' - the little elephant cruelly separated from his mom - was the one part of the story that interested Burton the least. Oh it's in there, alright.
But Tim's got way bigger fish to fry.......

                     Digitally drawn by the usual vast armies of CGI elves, Burton presents a grungy, grey post World War I panorama of  tacky, gaudy show-biz........with its vaguely cruel, creepy circus and massive art-deco theme park, it's designed to overwhelm and wow you..........

                     There's so much dazzling production design to take in, this movie's too busy to stop and make you shed a tear or two for little Dumbo.....

                      The poor little pachyderm ends up whisked away to that grandly conceived theme park, dubbed 'Dreamland' ......CGI-rendered as a mad mixture of TomorrowLand, a 1960's 'World Of The Future' Expo and a county State Fair....

                     Presiding over this unholy Amusement mecca:   the film's official big-business villain, V.A. Vandevere.......unevenly and uncomfortably played by Michael Keaton.  V.A.'s nothing but a venal cartoon, a Greed Goblin........whom Tim Burton uses as a metaphor for Disney Corporate......

                      How so?   Just like the Disney honchos, V.A., a heartless moneygrubber, wants nothing more than to exploit Dumbo for big bucks......similar to the way Disney spends all its effort and treasure to plunder the company's original classic catalog, converting the films  into bloated, top heavy computer animated behemoths........dead and cold at their very core.

                      Here comes the only fun part........

                      Talk about biting the hand that fed him millions to make the movie.........Burton turns
V.A.Vandavere's 'Dreamland' into an apocalyptic bonfire.........Vandavere, the would-be Disney, watches his glorious would-be Disneyland consumed with flames to equal the burning of Atlanta in "Gone With The Wind".......or more to the point,  the forest in "Bambi".

                       Good news indeed, since that would prevent any sequels where Vandavere tries exhibiting CGI replicas of Bambi, Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog or Charlie The Lonesome Couger......

                      As I said at the start.......weird as hell. And I wonder if the suited-up Disney Lizards bargained for how this one came out.........Burton squandering their money on his dark, moody landscapes in which Dumbo's a relatively minor component......and gleefully torching a theme park meant to imitate you-know-where..........

                       Don't hold your breath waiting for any Disney World rides based on this one......
Zero stars (0).........

                     



                   

WAY OUT WEST IN VIETNAM............. WIPING THE BLOOD OFF "SOLDIER BLUE"

Soldier Blue (1970)    Curious how feature filmmakers found a backdoor way to express their outrage and disgust over the war in Vietnam.........especially the My Lai massacre......

              The western. Yep, the old, old, old horse opera became the new political cartoon venue.......

               Egged on by Sam Peckinpah's blood-soaked 1969 "The Wild Bunch", the 70's ushered in the 'revisionist' western.......where traditional heroes (Cavalry Officers, cowboys, etc) now became racist, bigoted sociopaths and slaughterers of innocents.......

                And the Native Americans?  In Hollywood parlance, they became the new Vietnamese.....

               "Soldier Blue", which finishes up with a horrorshow recreation of the the infamous 1864 Sand Creek massacre of a Cheyenne village by the U.S. Cavalry, was so clumsy and amateurish in its execution, it barely generated the controversy it so craved.

                Director Ralph Nelson built a successful film career by blatant emotion pandering....("Lilies Of The Field", "Charly", "Tick...Tick...Tick")......he knew how to play to a crowd with melodrama and pathos.......he even did a warmup to 'Soldier Blue' in his trim, brutal little western "Duel At Diablo", another Indians Vs. Cavalry smackdown.....

                But all the worn out Hollywood shtick he used in "Soldier Blue" went awry, blew up in his face and sank the film.  85 per cent of it wasn't even about the massacre......the bulk of the script concentrated on the long tedious trek of two Opposites-Bound-To-Fall-Love......a naif-like soldier (Peter Strauss) and a rescued  white captive of the Cheyenne chief (Candice Bergen).

                Even skilled, talented actors would have struggled to bring these cardboard characters to life, and young Strauss and Bergen were far, far from skilled and talented. To make things even worse, the woeful script gave Bergen dialogue that made her sound like a pissed off, 1970 New Yorker who just stepped off the plane in a bad mood.

                At the film's start, they 'meet cute' (I'm not kidding about this) as the sole survivors of a smaller massacre of Strauss's troop by the Cheyenne.......from that point, their squabbling wanderings are often played for comedy, which forces the film's composer, Roy Budd, to jarringly switch back and forth from sprightly romance noodling to faux-Elmer Bernstein propulsive western brass.

                 Halfway through the film,for red-blooded guys in the audience,  Nelson even stoops to putting Bergen in a cheesecake Halloween Shop Pocahontas costume.........(when Bergen and Strauss get tied up by an evil gun-runner (Donald Pleasance), the film begs for yocks by having  Strauss nuzzle Bergen's ass while trying to bite through her bound wrists.....)

                  All this rampant stupidity comes to an end when the film finally arrives at its sole reason for being.......to regale the viewers with the spectacular grisly sights of grinning, giggling U.S. soldiers shooting, mutilating and raping Indian women and children.  For anyone slow to pick up the metaphor here, there's a shot of the Cavalry stampeding over an American flag........

                   Since Ralph Nelson never had a moment's interest in making a realistic film about this tragic, shameful episode, he presents it like the last, showstopping dance number at the tail end of an MGM musical.  He pretends to wrap himself in righteous. liberal anger.......but you realize he's no better  than the lowest Drive-In Movie huckster, lopping off heads to scoop up some box-office cash.

                   It's a gross understatement to say this movie's aged badly.  Doesn't matter how old it is......."Soldier Blue" was garbage from the moment it saw the the light of a projector bulb.

                   Zero stars (0).

KUBRICK'S CHRISTMAS HALLMARK MOVIE........HAPPY 20TH TO "EYES WIDE SHUT"

Eyes Wide Shut (2019)    Yes, there's Christmas trees sprinkled all over this movie, but Stanley Kubrick might as well have set it on Jack Nicholson's birthday............you won't get the holiday vibe from this one.......in Kubrick-World, it's anything but The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year......

               So what's the effect of watching it 20 years later?

                I'll say this much:  it's definitely the most interesting movie ever made by a director allowed the artistic freedom to crawl so far into his own head, his movies emerged as his own little snow globes..........only vaguely resembling real life.........sort of like the last dream you had after a pepperoni pizza........

                 Supposedly taking place in New York City, it's a New York re-created, like "Full Metal Jacket"s Vietnam. completely in England, which Kubrick never strayed from throughout his hermetic adult career.........

                 In this regard, Kubrick's become just like his Monolith-wielding aliens from "2001".......he fashions his very own New York for Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman to frolic in..... much in the same way the aliens conjured up that 18th century bedroom for Keir Dullea to age, die and convert to a jumbo embryo.....

                 Sex lies at the heart of this movie, even though in Kubrick's snow-globe New York, sex is either imaginary (for Kidman's would-be nympho), or non-existent (for Cruise's would-be adulterer) or as mechanical as farm machinery (for Kubrick's creepy costumed orgy-of-the-week club.....)

                 Kidman's wet dream about boffing a Navy officer sends a repressed, frustrated Cruise out into the fake NYC streets...........where he ends up crashing a strictly One-Percenter sex club, where the crowd behaves like heavily disguised extras waiting  for Vincent Price and Roger Corman to show up and tell 'em what do do.

                 But who they get is Kubrick......who has them joylessly hump like feral dogs and then threaten Cruise with the pretty much the same rules that govern Brad Pitt and Fight Club........

                   Kubrick toys with the idea of making this part of the film a half-assed paranoid thriller.....implying that these uppercrust Halloweenies are murderous, all-knowing and all-powerful........"toys" becomes the operative verb here.....given this whole movie takes place deep, deep in Kubrick's psyche, even he's not entirely sure what's going on......

                   And fittingly, the film winds up in a Christmas-festooned toy store, where a chastened, sadder but wiser Cruise and Kidman resolve to calm their anxieties with a good solid roll in the hay.......which come to think of it, isn't much different from how a Hallmark Christmas movie ends.......minus the roll in the hay......

                 I deliberately didn't elaborate on the joys of watching the supporting actors who benefit from Kubrick stretching out their sequences into practically self-contained mini-movies........I'll let you savor this bunch yourselves........including Sky du Mont (Kidman's slimy dance partner), Sydney Pollack (the Big Wheel Who Knows All, if you believe him), Rade Serbedzija (the bonkers costume shop owner) and Alan Cumming ( the fey hotel clerk).........so much fun to watch, you don't mind Kubrick using them like the nutball creatures who pop up in "Alice In Wonderland"....

                   Very very few directors ever got the chance to indulge themselves like Stanley Kubrick, to make movies so completely untethered from reality......in essence, waking dreams......

                   Which makes it pointless to rate the individual merits of "Eyes Wide Shut".....to try to establish what's good or bad about it.  You might as well try to review your own dreams. Of course they're crazy.......they're dreams.

                    For wide-awake dreamer Stanley Kubrick, 3 stars (***) at the very least. Cause even if I've no idea if it's any good, I know you can't do anything but watch it with your eyes wide open, mesmerized.......and damn, that makes it good enough for BQ.

            

             

             

ROM-COM-ISHNESS MOCKED............."ISN'T IT ROMANTIC"

Isn't It Romantic (2019)     The question is.........does this movie mark the end of rom-coms as we know them........and if it does.......what replaces them?

           Usually, a movie like this, one that mocks a well-worn genre without mercy, signals the beginning of the end of that genre.

             But relax, rom-com fans. Even a sly spoof like "Isn't It Romantic"  can't kill romance. Boy Meets Girl has been a storytelling staple since Neanderthals carved out an early version of "When Harry Met Sally" on the side of  caves.

              You can make fun of these movies from now until forever but it'll never change our craving for love 'n happy endings......it's built into our DNA.

               Not that rom-coms didn't have it coming.......the most blatant tropes take a colossal  beating here......the flagrantly gay next-door-neighbor-best-friend, the impromptu musical numbers  where total strangers suddenly all  lock-step into intricate choreography......and best of all, the pristine, Architectural Digest design of the Rom-Com universe - spotless, precious boutique shops and grandly specious homes that only fictitious Rom-Com-ites could afford.......

               Rebel Wilson's trip to this fantasy world, as carefully laid out as Oz, Neverland and Wonderland, comes courtesy of a coma-inducing subway mugging.....(instead of tornado or a fall down the rabbit hole....)

              And just like Dorothy Gale, she's alternately outraged and frustrated by the fairly lunatic behavior of Rom-ComWorld denizens......the dazzling hunk (a good sport performance by Liam Hemsworth, very similar to brother Chris's work in the all-girl "Ghostbusters"), the too-gorgeous-to-live romantic rival (Priyanka Chopra)......and as previously mentioned, that wildly un-woke, politically incorrect Froot Loop gay gay (Brandon Scott Jones, channeling decades worth of gay steroptypes).......Like Dorothy, Rebel just want to go home.

                Two things make this film work well......Number One - Rebel Wilson's lethal, laser-focused comedic timing........ as she perfectly nails every moment, she's literally poetry in motion.......I can't even imagine how excruciating this movie would be without her......

                Number Two - director Todd Strauss-Schulson's full comprehension that this is the flimsiest premise on which to base an entire feature film.  He keeps it moving super-fast and brings it in under 90 minutes.  Wilson and Strauss-Schulson are the true power couple of this movie.

                  But fear not, Rom-Com-istas......."Isn't It Romantic" won't cause any lasting damage to the genre......your favorite kind of movies currently flourishe on Netflix.....(and, if you can live with the carved-on-stone-tablets, Kabuki-Haiku structure of them, Hallmark movies....).

                  So lighten up and have some silly fun with this one. It's a hoot. 3 stars (***).

MY GEEKLY BOOK REPORT........... RATING "THIS BOOK IS NOT YET RATED"..........

This Book Is Not Yet Rated by Peter Bognanni (2019)   BQ visitors know that from time to time,I dip my toe in the Young Adult book waters......

                This can hardly be helped, since BD (Beloved Daughter) is not only a librarian, but an avid buyer and reader of YA.......so these books pile up in every nook and cranny of the BQ abode......

                  This one caught my eye instantly.......all about Ethan Ashby,  a teen film geek and his collection of fellow lovable, film-obsessed oddballs.......how could I resist?

                   Together, this motley crew is running a severely rundown decrepit classic movie house, the Green Street Cinema........but scheduled for demolition to make way for apartment buildings.......

                   Ethan, who dearly misses his late, film-professor father, rallies his oddball staff  into an ill-fated, Save-Our-Theater protest that leaves them even worse off........and their theater shut down, condemned and headed for its date with the wrecking ball........

                   To the rescue, (and fleeing Hollywood) comes Ethan's childhood crush Raina Allen, now the unhappy movie star of her own CGI-laden franchise, "Time Zap"......(which sounds frighteningly similar to the actual comic-book garbage films the BQ often rants about...)

                   Yes, I'm aware.......describing this plot, it sounds cloyingly precious and far-fetched.......but, hey, man, it's all about those afflicted,like yours truly, with a lifelong love of MOVIES......

                   Plus, it's all about love in general.....the love that bonds a father and son, the love of an art form that defines your life.......and that prickly, tentative, but all powerful first love that forever holds you in its grip.

                   So what can I say?  It reads like an American teen version of 'Cinema Paradiso'........and it had me at hello. 

                   Funny, said, thoughtful and right on-target with the movies it references.....including, naturally, "The Last Picture Show".....it's a 4 star (****)  summer treat for film buffs.  Any movie that provides you with a wise life lesson from the history of Steve McQueen and "The Blob" deserves a read.......

                    

                 

THEY'RE BAAAAAAAAAAACK!.........A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH "EARTH VS.THE FLYING SAUCERS"

Earth Vs.The Flying Saucers (1956)    Here we go again......

             Fresh from the 'Everything Old Is New" department.......UFO's!!!!!

             They're back in the news again, hot-rodding through the skies and confounding pilots in the air and scaring observers on the ground........

               So sad though........chances are, none of 'em look as cool as Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion saucers, with their own madly spinning mid-sections, death rays, and metal-encased ancient aliens......

                How can those newly sighted UFOs ever hope to compete with Harryhausen's?  I bet those sorry suckers don't come equipped with the INFINITELY INDEXED MEMORY BANK like Ray's do......which looks like a glowing white rose and can suck the brain right out of your head in seconds flat........leaving you only fit to become a Trump supporter........

                 And the new UFOs don't even have a cool spokes-voice to threaten the earth with........as opposed to Harryhausen's, who rely heavily on voice-over master Paul Frees.......since the aliens prefer to hang out in a kind of jello force field, Frees delivers all his ominous threats sounding like he's working through 4 mouthfuls of vodka jello shots......

                 I'm not waiting for these new UFOs to do us all a favor like Ray's fleet......by crashing into the Capitol building...........but hope springs eternal. Who wouldn't dream of seeing Mitch McConnell's inert limbs sticking out underneath a saucer that just landed on top of him.......the Wicked Wizard of Kentucky finally crushed.........ding dong, the douchebag's dead.......

                 If these new alien invaders expect to stay relevant, they'd better get a Facebook page.....and Twitter......and Instagram......maybe do carpool karaoke with James Corden.....

                  Ray Harryhausen's old school aliens needed none of that crap........they preferred to blow shit up, crash into national monuments and disintegrate our vast military forces......(which, due to the extreme low budget, mostly consisted of three guys with rifles, stretched out on stomachs.....)

                   BQ memo to aliens: check this movie out.........and don't let your spokes-alien open his big fat mouth without those jello shots..........4 stars (****)

BUUUUUGGGGGGGGSS!.........FUMIGATING "THE DEADLY MANTIS"

The Deadly Mantis (1957)    Couldn't resist borrowing the title of this post from one of the immortal lines in "Starship Troopers"........

            As a kid in summer camp, I remember coming across two Preying Mantises (Manti?) locked in a mating embrace.......

            Even then, I knew this didn't bode well for the male mantis, who'd soon have his head bitten off by the female as soon as she felt properly impregnated.......

           Well, that's the way it goes sometimes in relationships......

              And now you know why male mantises don't go on dating websites and avoid singles bars.....

              But enough modern frivolity. Let's return to the fabulous 50's when hordes of giant mutated insects came crawling out who-knows-where.........some of 'em super-sized by Atomic bomb testing, some of 'em just waiting for defrosting.......

                These movies deployed a full range of special effects techniques to create their monsters......everything from full scale, ambulatory models, ("Them!"), stop motion animation ("The Black Scorpion") and photo-enlarging the real bugs into  behemoths ("Tarantula", "The Beginning Of The End")

                 "The Deadly Mantis", however chose to use a meticulously creepy,  miniature model of a mantis, complete with its own guttural roar, as if it came fully equipped with a pair of lungs to rival Pavarotti's.........

                  In flight, it's a stately thing of beauty.........essentially one big-ass drone.....and boy does it drone. (In fact, it's probably about the same shape and size as the drone recently shot down the by Iranians....)

                   Not for long, though. This is the 50's, after all......where the U.S. government, military and all their attendant bureaucracies are still the good guys, worthy of rousing cheers.  Compare that attitude to today.....heh, heh, heh......

                   The Big M goes down hard, crashing into a New York traffic tunnel right in the middle of rush hour.......the poor sucker ends up looking like just another auto wreck, with extra large headlights.........but not before he stops off, like any tourist, to crawl up the Washington Monument and and snack on an all-night buffet of bus and train passengers.......

                  So let's hear it for our brave jet pilots along with the civilian observer corps, who have no trouble spotting an insect the size of a 727...…..

                   All things considered, the Mantis got off easy......he could have suffered a far worse demise......

                    He could have run into a horny female mantis.........and she'd give 'im something to drone about. Now there's a sequel BQ would have prayed for......

                     Or preyed for.  3 stars for "The Deadly Mantis" (***).  Drone on, big guy......you forever want to make me scream B  U U U U U G G G G!!!!!!!!

             

ODDZ 'N ENDZ........BQ LOOKS IN ON BIZARRO WORLD....THE WAY WE LIVE NOW....

               Starting to grow nostalgic for when real life........was a lot closer to sanity than today's real life........

                 The MTV Movie Awards.......Seems a decade ago since it was loads of fun to watch.......all about the stupid categories....(best kiss, best fight, best WTF moment, best scream...) But now?  A few  goofy awards remain, but now it's all about handing out "You're F***ing Wonderful!" awards to celebs who prattle on with gasbag speeches about how wonderful it is to receive a "You're F***king Wonderful!" award.  God, what a snoozer.......

                   Baby Orange obsesses over Hilary Clinton at his re-election kickoff rally......and completely oblivious to what year it is..........the Trumpanzees eat it up, but then they're only about 5 brain cells away from life support.....

                     "X-Men: Dark Phoenix" and "Men In Black International" tank in the U.S........good riddance to worn-out franchises........buh-bye.......don't let the multi-plex doors hit your asses on the way out......see ya in the $3.74 Wal-Mart bin.....next week, maybe?.

                    Hope Hicks.........claimed Executive Privilege when asked by the Dems if the sky was blue.......good for you, Hope......I know a perjury trap when I smell one.............

                     Bella Thorne strikes at back at Whoopi Goldberg for shaming her about nude cellphone photos......Call me a baby boomer dinosaur, but I'm totally with the Whoopster on this one........let's be clear.....in this day and age, actresses who put nakey pics of themselves on their easily hacked phones are workin' with even less brain cells than the rally Trumpanzees......and that's dangerously close to life-support-vegetable status........

                    "We so miss Sarah Huckabee Sanders"........says absolutely no one......

                     Iran provoking war....with a Hey Nonny Nonny And A Hot Cha Cha......the expert BQ analysis......the fanatic Whackadoodles who control Iran aren't trying to provoke Trump himself.....they already know he's an idiot with a 2nd Grade mind.......the one they really hope to poke is Trump's war-crazy Dr. Seuss-drawn sabre-rattler John Bolton, who's hiding at least one or two automatic weapons inside his mustache in case of emergencies..........Bolton can't wait to start his very own Middle East war, where he gets to put even more young American soldiers into a meat grinder......so the question remains......is Trumpty-Dumpty really dopey enough let Bolton push him off the wall?

                       Joe Biden proud of getting along with the ancient racist senators.......scary stuff indeed......if old Uncle Joe's tongue is wandering this far from his brain......can a vote-killing "deplorables" remark be far behind?   Stay tuned.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN TAHOE.............TARANTINO'D TO DEATH IN "BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE"....

Bad Times At The El Royale (2018)     Wow, did this one ever bring back the mid 1990's.........

             I don't necessarily mean that in a good way..........

             What I'm remembering is the onslaught of dreadful, fake-Tarantino movies that arrived in the wake of "Pulp Fiction"...........

                Endless movies with ensemble casts, spewing out snappy one-liners about pop-culture garbage......prior to the inevitable moment when they all stop gabbing and pull out guns to shoot each other to smithereens.............

              Give me a break.........(and break me off a piece of that Kit Kat Bar.....which is something one of the characters in these movies would say, prior to having their brains blown out at close range.....)

             Which brings us to "Bad Times At The El Royale", which you could consider a warm-up to Quentin Tarantino's upcoming 1960-ish epic, "Once Upon A Time....In Hollywood"

               I'll say this much for writer-director Drew Goddard.......no crappy little barely-there indie filmmaking for this guy.......             

               He swung for the fences........putting together an overblown mixture of vintage Tarantino and a host of other directors he admires.......you can spot the homages to Sergio Leone, Terence Malick, and Francis Ford Coppola, among others..........

                 Goddard might have come up with a real barnburner had he stuck to Tarantino's nervous, in-your-face scenes and dialogue.......but he ruins the film's watchability by affecting Sergio Leone's stately, glacial pacing..........when the film should be gripping you, all it does it test your patience......

                For a film that's incredibly ambitious in its storytelling, production design .and characterization........the only thing it achieves by the end of its punishing  140 minute running time.....a sigh of relief that it's over.

               It's a 1969 and an oddball crew of strangers converge on a near-deserted, practically defunct Lake Tahoe resort.......in search of stashed money from an armored car robbery. Hours and dead bodies later, they're joined by a loathsome cult leader and his minions......and the long overdue carnage erupts......

                I can hardly describe how much I'd wanted to like this movie........the superb actors (Jon Hamm, Jeff Bridges, Cynthis Erivo), the stunning creation of the El Royale itself,.....(built with the California-Nevada border running right through it)......and some of the startling set pieces....(including the Vietnam War, I kid you not....)

               But Drew Goddard remains too stubbornly self-absorbed in his own homages to engage an audience.......his work looks more like a beautifully drawn painting than a film.  You can stand back and admire the sheer amount of craft and creativity that went into it........but that's about all the movie will allow you to do.

                A damn, damn shame. What a waste. It settles into nothing more than an extra-bloated version of a late 90's phony-Tarartino knockoff......even worse, paced like it's taking place underwater.
2 stars (**)

             

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YOUR FRIENDLY _______FROM HELL..........FILLING IN THE BLANK WITH "GRETA".......

Greta (2018)   When it comes to skill and talent, horror thrillers are the great equalizers...........

             Doesn't matter whether the movie was carefully assembled by high class, grade A cinema artistes or slapped together by hacks sniffing after a few fast pre-Halloween bucks.......

             As Uncle Stevie King oft declares........sooner or later they all gotta go "Booga Booga!"

              BQ always had a soft spot for the genre that the "Greta" crew chose to revive.......it flourished throughout the 1990's, kicked off by 92's "The Hand That Rocks The Cradle"...... a genre.which I dubbed in this post's headline as "Your Friendly________From Hell"......

                It's simple, really. You fill in the blank space with  a profession (or a personage).......as in, Nanny, Landlord, Cop, Neighbor,Roommate, Mother, Father, Uncle, Brother-In-Law......etc, etc....

                And there's your movie right there. It takes some time, but the poor, hapless, unsuspecting dodos who function as the protagonists in this genre finally realize, way too late, that.....OH MY GOD.....I THOUGHT HE/SHE WAS SO NICE....BUT THEY'RE THE _________FROM HELL!!

              I had a slight glimmer of hope that given the caliber of the folks involved here (director-writer Neil Jordan, Chloe Grace Moretz, Isabelle Huppert,).....that they might find a way put a fresh new spin on this all too familiar material......

               Ultimately.....they don't.  But even though they settle for all the usual horror-thriller tropes, it's still a slick, entertaining first class job.  Too bad, though.......that with Neil Jordan regular Stephen Rea on board, all Jordan could find for him was the most worthless, thankless role an actor can have in a movie like this.................

                  No use quibbling, since "Greta" does deliver the goods 'n scares you expect ......pulling off a few cheesy, shameless twists, including one involving Maika Monroe, stuck in the other most thankless, worthless role in thrillers......

                  And a nice, flip-the-script, change of pace for Moretz, who established her busy career by normally playing the "Booga Booga!" role in horror films.("Carrie", "Let Me In")

                  3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)......and you can safely avoid the inevitable direct-to-video sequel that I can safely guarantee will never feature Moretz or Huppert.  Let that one just lay there untouched in the bargain bin, right next to the Steven Seagal movies......