'THE WHEELER DEALERS'......THE '63 WOLF OF WALL STREET.....

The Wheeler Dealers (1963)    BQ visitors, bless you all, know well our great affinity for 1960's cinema.......

                Not only is it the decade BQ became a seriously avid moviegoer, it's the calamitous era when massive shifts and upheavals in the culture and society collided with traditional Hollywood moviemaking........this clash of revolutionary change and Old Hollywood, still rooted in the 1930's, 40's and 50's was something to see, alright......

                And the resulting films were a sight to behold.........sometimes crazy, bizarre,wildly uneven........and at times, like "The Wheeler Dealers", a Nostradamus-like preview of coming attractions......

                  This film functions on multiple levels......like many 60's films, it attempts a cartoonishly exaggerated satire of big business, with a veritable army of reliable comedy actors hamming it up to the max......(similar to the gentle satire practiced by Al Capp in his 'Li'l Abner comic strip)

                   It hangs its jokes on the primary structure of a typical Doris Day-like romantic comedy......with a Texas wheeler-dealer Henry Tyroon (James Garner) romancing security analyst Molly Thatcher (Lee Remick) while he tries to hustle up the million he lost on his latest bone-dry oil well.  (one of the film's best gags.....the well sounds like a dying tubercular patient)

                    Molly, a savvy stocks 'n bonds wiz, has her own agenda........having hit the very low glass ceiling for 1960's Wall Street women, her boss, Bullard Bear (heh, heh, heh...Jim Backus) gives her a mission-impossible designed to end her career as an uppity girl exec......jump starting an ancient moribund company, Consolidated Widget.........(yes, you guessed the joke - nobody knows what a widget is....)

                    What's weird and fun here.........Garner's the actual sex object of the movie, frequently drooled over by Remick and whatever women he passes by.........Remick battles for workplace respect and equality against a horde of misogynistic, condescending buffoons....(at one point, a simpering Wall Street bigwig insults and degrades Remick and her fellow women security analysts, speaking to them like toddlers. When they stand up and ask him cold, hard questions, he flees in a shamed panic.)

                     Garner gives you a spot-on sneak preview of the kind of business bucaneering that led of all of the subsequent Wall Street crashes, especially the 2008 apocalypse........playing with other people's money like real-life monopoly, he's supremely confident he'll make a fortune and stiff the government for whatever losses occur if the deal goes south,,,,,

                     He's even got his very own kickstarter funding group, three loud drawling Texans (Chill Wills, Charles Watts , Phil Harris) who show up like a Three Stooges team of speculators.....(Watts and Wills look like they stepped right off the set of "Giant" where they played pretty much the same roles)  Little do any of these characters know that Garner's Tyroon the faux tycoon is a self-invented Boston-bred Yale graduate.......whose Texas twang is pure facade.....much like his deals......

                    You can have tons 'o fun watching this film dally with issues that still painfully ring true today. But it still remains mired in 60's comedy tropes........(the story takes time out for a standard Hollywood satirical swipe at modern art, complete with culture-vulture phonies mooning over abstract paintings created by equally phony 'artists', creating their canvases by riding on them with paint-splattered tricycles..... Naturally, the greedy Garner sees a chance to make another windfall from these hapless suckers)

                       Not to worry........everything (the convoluted business stuff, the budding romance) gets properly sorted out in a courtroom presided over by that Cranky Old Guy Of 1000 Movies, Charles Lane, much to the misery of the SEC bloodhound played by John Astin (who's earlier seen gazing out at Wall Street pedestrians, firing a make-believe machine gun......we kid you not)

                        BQ lives to re-discover movies like this.....3 stars (***) try it out and enjoy it on all its many levels........and one of the last major feature films that hit theaters only days before JFK's assassination in Dallas.......after that, you didn't see too many movies that used Texans for a source of comedy........

             
               

             

HAPPY 50TH, 'O.H.M.S.S.'!........."THIS NEVER HAPPENED TO THE OTHER FELLOW"

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)     Since we were way late with a 50th Anniversary post on "Once Upon A Time In The West", we might as well arrive a about a month early
with a 50th greeting for our favorite Bond movie........

                 It stands apart from all other Bond films in multiple regards...... it's the only one directed by Peter Hunt, who as the film editor of the previous Bonds, created the visually unique rapid cutting style that set the films apart from any other action movie......

                 'OHMSS', is the absolute pinnacle of Hunt's 'cut-to-the-chase' cutting techniques which turn all of the film's fights and chases in unforgettable, bravura sequences.........for anyone who doesn't think there's a difference, compare the action scenes in this film to the exhausted, lame oil rig battle in the next in the series, "Diamonds Are Forever".....

                 The other singularity, of course, is the one-shot Bond.....George Lazenby.  The young Australian model earned the role because he looked good beating up people.  So in a bizarre casting decision that could only take place in the unpredictable 1960's, he ends up inheriting a role that the entire moviegoing world associates only with Sean Connery........

                 And herein lies the deepest irony........Connery abandoned the series, weary and unhappy with the tinker-toy, special effects, gadget-happy direction the films were taking.........and leaves the role to an amateur who gets exactly the kind of Bond movie Connery would have excelled in, with minimal gadgets, no sci-fi hardware and a stunning dramatic arc involving Bond's encounters with true love.marriage and gut-wrenching tragedy. Go figure........

                .......and even better, the film provided the rookie Bond with the series most awesome leading lady, Diana Rigg, fresh off 'The Avengers' TV series.......and also one its most implacable, intimidating villains ina Ilsa Steppat's Fraulein Irma Bunt.........(another star-crossed part of 'OHMSS', since Steppat, due to return in 'Diamonds Are Forever', died a few weeks after her one and only English language role hit the theaters.......

                     We know many other Bond-0-maniacs would differ, but we always thought Lazenby did just fine as 007 and the film took full advantage of his youth and muscularity........and he proved a perfect match for Telly Savalas's thuggish and equally physical Ernst Blofeld......making it the only film in the series where Bond and Blofeld engage in an all-out brawl.......(on a speeding bobsled, no less...)

                       Another reason we so love the film.......it's richly steeped in the glamorous, dangerous international world that Ian Fleming created for James Bond, evoking the flavor and atmosphere of the books........(and it's the last of the Bond films that made any attempt to stick the source material of Fleming, until the Daniel Craig version of "Casino Royale" in 2006.

                      So BQ wishes a happy, Piz Glorious 50th to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".....(only hardcore fans of the film know the pun reference we just dropped...).....and no question, a perfect
5 star (*****)  FIND OF FINDS........(and it's Christmas-y......so enjoy it for the holidays.....)

                     

               

WHAT WE'RE THANKFUL FOR.........

             And here's the quick rundown of what we're thankful for.......(in absolutely no particular order)

              BD 'n BW.....Beloved Daughter, Beloved Wife..........

              Colgate Sensitivity Toothpaste........for obvious reasons......

              Chocolate Animal Crackers.......as guilt-free a dessert as you'll ever find......(as long as you don't eat the whole bag.....)

             The music of Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein.......for the soundtracks of our life.....

             Living to an overripe age.........sometimes a pain in the ass (or back, or knee) but still better than the alternative......

             Our college buddies who've also managed to survive all the ups 'n downs that life threw at us.....

              Crispy hot eggrolls.........in moderation

              James Bond movies........except "Man With The Golden Gun" which just sucks so bad, it's impossible to include......

               Every single truth teller......journalists, diplomats, military leaders, assorted Democrats.....everyone who's done their part to expose the most unfit, lying, pseudo-fascist President in American History.......who've made themselves the front-line troops in the battle to save Democracy and the United States Of America.

                All our blog visitors......bless your hearts for stopping in.........wishing you all good things, good health, good friends, good books, good films........and much love.

                 

'ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST'.....HAPPY 50TH TO THE LEONE RANGER'S MASTERPIECE.....

Once Upon A Time In The West (1969)  We were more than happy to re-visit this film after immersing ourselves in Sir Christopher Frayling's ultimate 'making of' book, Once Upon A Time In The West: Shooting A Masterpiece.

 

            If you adore and cherish the film like BQ, you don't want to be without this book.......give it to yourself as a Christmas present or strongly hint to your favorite family member or friend that it's your number one gift wish........

             Though we're sorely tempted, we'll not fill up this post with loads of rhapsodic praise for Leone's masterwork........a grand opera of a western with quartest of iconic performances and the most glorious of Ennio Morricone's many brilliant scores.......

            Delving into Frayling's exhaustive history of the film, we couldn't help feeling both sadness and anger........on behalf of writer director Sergio Leone, who never quite found the respect and honor that he now holds in the annals of cinema......

             Most critics either mocked or dismissed Leone and his films........and 'Once Upon A Time In The West', upon reaching the United States in the summer of 1969, was brutally butchered by Paramount, its American distributor.......

               The passage of time and the restoration of the film to its full 165 minute director's cut, have finally brought the film all the accolades and admiration it always deserved.......including a who's who of film director fans, including Quentin Tarantino.....

               With its dazzling cinematography and Morricone's sweeping score, there's never been a film like it........and for both the book and movie, 5 stars (*****), each a FIND OF FINDS.  

                BQ says don't dare miss either.

'ELEVATOR PTICH'........NEW YORK GETS FLOORED........

Elevator Pitch by Linwood Barclay (2019)    Amazing as it seems, this is very first time BQ sampled a Linwood Barclay book.........even though we're aware he pumps 'em out like Big Macs.......

                We gave Barclay a try 'cause our main man, Stephen King thinks the world of this guy......and Uncle Stevie's blurbs are among the only ones we trust........

                Yep, we had a good enough time with this and it zipped along nicely (a HUGE plus with us, since BQ hates dawdling thrillers with a vengeance.....)

                  But, oh sweet Lord, it's all over the place.........with a far-fetched plot that wanders through soap opera complications, dabbles with domestic terrorism, and finishes up with a grand finale that evokes those old Irwin Allen disaster movies like "Towering Inferno".......

                  Entertaining but hardly believable, it reads like it's patched together from bits and pieces of old 1990's Bruce Willis/Arnold Schwarzenegger movies........(even throwing in an absurd chunk of comic relief involving a homegrown terrorist, his clueless wife and his homophobic minion....)

                 The basic premise........a villain who's taken the phrase 'you're goin' down!' literally figures out a way to hack some of NYC's skyscraper elevators, making them, as we say, go horribly awry......

                 If you're already shivering at the thought of what happens to those poor innocent suckers unlucky enough to take the hacked elevators.......you should be.  Grisly gore ensues......and how.

                 Naturally this plays hell with the Mayor's standing in the city....... and.he's already a douchebag who regularly humiliates and browbeats his P.R. flunky who's also his son. Mr. Mayor attempts handling the problem by shutting down all the city's elevators until they're inspected.........which promptly leads to the expected montage of the misery and chaos that results in the world's most high-rise city...........(wanna guess what happens when the first 86 year old starts climbing 20 flights to his apartment?)

                 Meanwhile, two dogged detectives methodically track down whoever brutally killed a guy who happened to work as.....aha!.....an elevator repairman.......

                   You won't find this boring for even for a second, even as it wobbles around from TV-style drama to black humor to police procedural. And Barclay clearly enjoys his sideways swipe at heartland-based domestic terrorists, with an absurd, dark comedy scene that unfolds in a motel men's room.......

                 By all means, take it on a long airplane trip as an okay time-killer.........but whatever you do, do NOT read this standing in a skyscraper elevator on its way down....down....down....
3 stars (***)

FRIDAY NIGHT MADNESS WRAP-UP...... SPECIAL 'RAMPAGE OF THE MINIONS' EDITION.....

              Couldn't finish out the week without weighing in (along with everybody else in the world)....on this week's pre-impeachment festivities.......

              Baby Orange trolls the witnesses as they testify........like an alternate-universe horror movie version of  an "American Idol" judge.........

              GOP minions sneer 'n snipe at truth-tellers........imagine the gall of those terrifying testifiers......presenting cold hard facts to fantasy-fictioneers like Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan....the Repub shlubs looked like vampires when someone holds a crucifix in front of them.....

               Baby Orange grasps his jumbo-sized notes as he wails that he didn't ask Ukraine for anything..........which just so happened only after the Whistleblower blew the whistle on him.....

               GOP buys up loads of Don Jr's "book".......but absolutely refused the White House request to spend 10 million to get Oprah and Reese Witherspoon to endorse it.......

               Baby Orange calls Nancy Pelosi "crazy as a bedbug"..........in fact, he later claimed Pelosi is crazier than the millions of bedbugs that infest his Florida resort........

                Stephen Miller, Baby Orange's very own dollar-store Himmler, is revealed as a neo-Nazi lover......which officially becomes the least surprising breaking news of 2019.......

BQ BACK IN ACTION........WITH 3 NEW REVIEWS......

            Sorry to stay away so long.......as we were plagued and worried by various medical conditions, which a battery of tests resolved in our favor........

             In between all these procedures and doc visits, we chose the most mindless movies we could think of to distract us.........and by and large, they did the job fairly well.......so here goes......

                "I'm a equal opportunity ass whooper..

Shaft (2019).......so says John Shaft II (Samuel L. Jackson) playing, for the second time, the second generation of Shafts......(the first being Shaft The First, of course, in the person of Richard Roundtree)

                    3rd generation Shaft (Jessie T. Usher), is a millennial FBI data analyst forced to seek Dad's help to finding out who killed his best bud, the recovering drug addict army vet.

                     As you might expect,it's mostly played for generational-clash laughs, with Jackson giving you the full Samuel L........more than living up to the legendary Shaft reputation.....or as the song says...."they say that Shaft is one bad mother-"

                      No great shakes, but delivers the fun......3 stars (***)

...

                    "I'm what you call an ice-cold can of whoop-ass...."

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019.........hmmmm, we're detecting a theme in these movies, right?  That line's uttered by the blisteringly tough shady criminal Shaw (Jason Statham), once again in an insult-laden alliance with professional world-saver Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson).....both on leave from their Fast & Furious crew, and tasked with rescuing humanity from a supervirus and a superbad, super-powered villain. (Idris Elba)......

                      We're starting to believe these "Fast & Furious" things aren't even written and directed by humans.......more likely meticulously assembled from pre-programmed chunks of the other films in the series. This film's more of a calculated marketing strategy, with the movie as its aftermath.......and for us, that kind of takes the fun out it.....

                       You can "oooo" and "ahhhh" and "wft!" over the action sequences, all them digitally animated by 1000's of CGI artists.......but for BQ, the only scene that ever comes alive is a riotous verbal joust on an airplane........Statham and Johnson swap an escalating series of withering put-downs, until they're interrupted by an Air Marshall(?)played by Kevin Hart.....who ups the scene into an even more frenzied 3-player verbal ping pong game.  There should have been way more of this stuff and less CGI........

                       Mildly amusing, but mostly exhausting.......2 & 1/2 stars. (**1/2)

                      "I have served. I will be of service....."

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019).......so says John Wick,(Keanu Reeves) the outcast assassin hunted by the 'High Table', a worldwide fraternity of hit-people with really, really strict rules of conduct........(killing a fellow assassin in one of their plush luxury hotels is a jumbo no-no....and guess what Wick did to piss them off.....)

                        This movie gives a whole new, literal meaning to 'Overkill'...........and some of visual jokery actually lands......(the High Table's operation center looks like a mini Wall Street stock exchange floor, exclusively staffed by heavily tattooed women.....)

                         The action sequences are perpetual, ferocious, even dazzling once or twice........but they don't know when to stop. The deliberately tedious length of the fights becomes sort of an in-joke.....after a while, you start laughing at the sheer, endless repetition of these scenes that threaten to have no stopping point.

                             By the end of the movie, we felt as weary and beat up as John Wick.

                             Sadly though, all the bloated action takes the movie out of the mainstream and makes it only palatable for its hardcore fan base and gamers who love first-person shooter games....

                             But hell, we laughed and cheered at more than a few moments through this, even as it dearly tested our patience........(and God knows it brightened the evening before we had to endure an indescribable urological procedure....)    3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)


                             And that wraps up our medical madess movie marathon.......as Wilford Brimley once said in John Carpenter's "The Thing"........"I'm feeling much better now...."

'GOOD BOYS'........GOOD GRIEF.....

Good Boys (2019)   Anyone who's been paying the slightest attention to the steady degradation of culture, civility and society and civilization couldn't possibly be shocked or surprised by this movie.....

                     Like global warming, it was inevitable.

                     "Good Boys" functions not so much as entertainment, but more as snapshot of Where We Are Now........like the flooding of Venice and toxicity of Donald Trump, it's a signpost of how far we've fallen.......and how quickly we're falling apart......

                      Here's what we've arrived at.....a low-grade raunch-fest, overstuffed with lame sex jokes and non-stop variations of f*** in the dialogue........performed by 12 year old boys.

                       And that completely sums up everything this movie has to offer.........a gimmick freakshow powered by the sight of children behaving as if they were in "Animal House"..

                       So basically it's nothing more than a bottom-of-the-dumpster variation of the old musical "Bugsy Malone", which dressed up kids to look and sound  like 1920's adult gangsters.

                      Once you get over the initial shock of hearing little Jacob Tremblay mutter "fuck" to himself in the opening scene, it dawns on you that this movie has 88 more minutes to go..........and this movie's got nothing else on its mind except its single joke of foul-mouthed kids.....

                       And those remaining 88 minutes are without a doubt the most excruciating, soul-sucking, and ultimately the saddest we've ever endured......sad in that it's another crumbling piece of a declining pop culture, vomited up by filmmakers with no moral compass whatsoever.......

                       In the 3 years  the BQ blog has been  up 'n running, we've never come across a movie that so quickly and easily earned the worst rating we could bestow upon it......

                    The worst  of the worst of the worst.......an A.F. H.....an ABOMINATION FROM HELL.

                     Our deepest hopes and prayers that no one involved in the creation of this atrocity every finds work again.......

                     

'LONG SHOT'......THE GEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH....

Long Shot (2019)........and this movie's not kidding with that title........

                  In the great, timeless tradition of Hollywood providing wish fulfillment to the masses, "Long Shot" unashamedly presents every shlubby bachelor's dream.........hooking up with Charlize Theron.......

                  And not just Charlize Theron as a garden variety Venus......oh no, we' talkin' Charlize as the Secretary Of State and imminent Presidential candidate.......

                  Who snags such a package of drop-dead beauty and brains?  Who else but the prince of drug-addled, masturbating shlubs himself, Seth Rogan?

                    As a crusading and recently fired journalist Fred Flarsky (talk about character name overkill), Rogan ends up speechwriting for the unattainable Madame Secretary Charlotte Field (Theron).......who happened to be his teen babysitter and generator of his most embarrassing adolescent hard-on.......

                     A ludicrous, unbelievable premise.......but you don't hear us complaining, do you?

                     Rogan and Theron make a rom-com dream with enough of that ever elusive 'chemistry' to fuel at least 2 or 3 more movies........(we had less trouble believing them as a couple than we did believing "You've Got Mail"s Meg Ryan would fall for Tom Hanks even after he put her beloved book store out of business)

                     Culturally, the film's all over the place,. It waves its female-empowerment flag in dealing with Theron having to work twice as hard to achieve the same goals as her male counter parts..........but also proudly displays it low grade raunch credentials......with Theron matching Rogan in the F-bombs and getting high as a kite before forced to defuse a global hostage crisis.

                    The film also takes an odd, sideways swipe at Trump with its conception of the President......here presented as an ego-fueled, idiot ex-TV actor (Bob Odenkirk) who wants a one term bail out so he pursue every TV actor's real dream - transitioning to movie star.

                    We can almost swallow the unlikely Rogan-Theron coupling, but imagining Trumpty-Dumpty would cease his cancerous assault on America to go back to showbiz?  Sorry......too much of a wild daydream......

                    Rom-coms work on a simple rule. Either they make you laugh or they don't........either they make you root like hell for the boy and girl to finish up happily ever after or they don't.......

                     We laughed. And we cheered on the Shlub and the Secretary Of State to end up kissing to spontaneous applause. Mission accomplished with 4 stars (****)........and a special shout-out to Andy Serkis, nearly unrecognizable under pounds of make-up as the film's slimeball villain, a tabloid magnate......he's like a slightly more inflated Gollum......

DISNEY PLUS ARRIVES........THE VAULT IN THEIR STARS....

Disney Plus Streaming......finally arrived yesterday, after a torrent of hype......in which the Mouse House opened up its well-sealed vaults, unleashing  a treasure trove of its current and past films and TV shows, as well as original programming custom-made for the new service..........all of it available for you and yours to stream for 6.99 per month.........

                 Deep irony on the first day........Disney, the mega-corporation that's spent untold gazillions to buy up Marvel, Star Wars and most of 20th Century Fox, couldn't muster up enough technical expertise to launch the site without crashes and glitches......

                  Is that possible?  You mean to tell us that Disney's vast pockets couldn't cough up enough cash to hire some I.T. guys who could get the site up and running properly?  Really?

                 Naturally, the first thing BQ rushed to check out was "Davy Crockett, the King Of the Wild Frontier"........(but unlike millions of other 1950's kids around the country, we wouldn't have been caught dead wearing one of those  Disney merchandised coonskin caps......)   And Fess Parker, as Davy,  was as funny and charming as when he was explaining his encounter with the giant ants in "Them!"...…(which led Uncle Walt to hire him....)

                  How could we possibly resist returning to "Sammy The Way Out Seal", "The Castaway Cowboy", "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes", "The Million Dollar Duck" and "Old Yeller"......to name a few.......

                  Glitches aside, we'd advise joining up now and go binge-crazy quickly.......once the Disney accounting department feels they've accumulated enough subscribers, you can expect that 6.99 monthly fee to rise up until it equals your monthly mortgage payments.......

                   So we'll let the millennials and their kids binge on the Marvel catalog.....(much to Martin Scorcese's horror....).......as for BQ, you'll find us deeply entranced with "The Sign Of Zorro" and "Those Calloways".......

                      For Disney's launch of the site, 1 star (*)....(get your act together, Mouse techies).....for the site itself, for the content alone, 4 stars (****).

WHO PUT 'DOCTOR SLEEP' TO SLEEP?.....AND A LOOK BACK AT "THE SHINING"

The Shining (1980)   BQ doesn't make any great claims here about box-office prognosticating...(is that a word?)......but it doesn't take a marketing genius to figure out why the World War 2 via CGI "Midway" mopped up last weekend's receipts.........leaving the Stephen King "Shining" sequel.....well, un-illuminated........

                  "Midway" arrived at its perfect time, the Veteran's Day weekend......."Doctor Sleep" wandered into theaters the week after Halloween.... (say whaaaa?).......and sadly now, by the last week of October, poor little Halloween's getting nudged out of existence by the Christmas marketing juggernaut.......(studios will have to start rolling out their booga-booga movies by Oct. Ist)

                    Which brings us to a long overdue re-visit to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining".....famously unloved by Stephen King, but over the years, establishing itself as a horror movie monument.......

                    Yeah, we get why King hated it. The novel was a slow build-up of two very ordinary normal people driven to madness and terror by the assorted ghosts running rampant through the Overlook Hotel.......

                     No slow buildup for Kubrick......Jack Nicholson behaves like a snarky psychopath from the first scene on, his ever-arching eyebrows silently mocking the hotel execs and sneering at the  simple innocence of his gentle, intimidated wife. (Shelly Duval). Once he and his family are left alone in the hotel, he's on full wack-a-doodle duty......

                     And it's an ongoing mystery why generations of moviegoers find "The Shining" frightening........personally, we spent the the film's 2 & 1/2 hours too busy being dazzled by Kubrick's visual splendors........the wonderfully floating steadicam, the spectacular production design, the scientific calibration of the camerawork.......(and of course, Nicholson's all-out mega-madman performance, a grand opera of loony tune overacting....)

                      As expansive and sprawling as the Overlook appears, in its own Kubrick-ian way, it's as arid, alien and claustrophobic as Keir Dullea's '2001' 17th century bedroom.  And just as strange.

                   Stephen King finally got the "Shining" he wanted when he produced his own scrupulously faithful TV movie version in 1997.......we defy anyone to remember a single thing about it......or any actor in it.

                    King may not like it, but it's Stanley Kubrick's film, which warped, twisted and bent the novel to its director's will and whims, that stayed forever in everyone's minds and memories.  And that's show biz, kids......

                     We still can't stay it scared us, but that 150 minutes of Kubrick's unique, meticulous cinema genius fills us with a sense of dread and unease like no other film can.  And still remains a
3 star (***) horror movie milestone.......

                 

WHERE'S THE MOVIE OF "THE STARS MY DESTINATION"?

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (1956)  We hadn't picked this up since our early teen years, when we gobbled up science fictions novels as fast as we could tear through them.......

                It blew us away then and it blew us away now.

               So where the hell is the movie version?   In our Marvel-driven CGI age, where studios spend unimaginable millions on superhero movies, why has no studio, screenwriter or director worked up enough creativity, ambition and balls to bring this to the screen.......one of the most stunning, adventurous and outrageous sci-fi books ever written........

                 If you believe Hollywood industry stories, Paramount took a stab at it back in 2015, but nothing came of it......

                  Granted, this book's no picnic to adapt into a coherent screenplay.........it's a sprawling epic, powered by one of sci-fi literature's most spectacular anti-heroes.....Gulliver "Gully" Foyle.

                  Foyle's partially modeled after 'The Count Of Monte Cristo' but he's also a blend of both Jean Valjean and Javert from 'Les Miserables'.  A crude, brutal toiler on spaceship crews,, Foyle embarks on a furious quest  to find out who left him abandoned in deep space after his ship was  attacked and left adrift.

                   An unrepentant thug and rapist, Foyle moves through author Bester's fantastically imagined universe, where humans have learned to 'jaunt', self-teleport themselves to wherever they put their mind to.......and civil war rages throughout the solar system between Earth and the colonized planets

                     To hide in plain sight among government and industrial enemies who pursue him, Foyle having stolen a fortune, re-invents himself as a witty, preening socialite-celebrity..........as he steadily continues his relentless hunt for the one who left him to die.

                   Filled with non-stop, breathless action (and even passionate love) and finishing with a wild, '2001'-like trip through space and time, this tale was made for the movies........

                   We're realistic enough to know this material would require......no, demand  a masterful, multi-tasking film director......someone with an uncanny gift for visual storytelling and the ability to mount an uncompromising adaptation of the novel's world......and find the right actor to embody that singular, tiger-faced avenger, Gully Foyle......(read the book to understand the 'tiger-faced' reference)

                    Come on, filmmakers........how ' bout it? It's a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS book.

                    How come it's not on the big screen?  (And if you've the read the book and love it as much BQ, who'd you like to see play Gully Foyle?)


               

'CHILD'S PLAY'......NO, NOT CHUCKY....EVEN SCARIER - SCHOOLBOY MINIONS!

Child's Play (1972)    Critics and audiences didn't know what to make of this oddball item, based on hit Broadway play........

                   A dark drama?   A satanic horror film?  A creepy swipe at Catholicism?

                   Feel free to pick one, since the movie, a high toned studio release from the master of New York based melodrama Sidney Lumet, remains, remote, ambiguous and mysteriously coy to the very end.........

                    But watching again, 47 years later, we found something in it that resonates more than ever today......

                    Beau Bridges plays Paul Reis,  a young gym instructor returning to teach at his alma mater, a Catholic boys' high school. And what a dark mess he steps into........the boys have been randomly (it seems) targeting some classmates for brutal assaults and torture......

                   Amidst these escalating bloody incidents, a civil war rages between two of the school's lay teachers, the popular, much beloved Joe Dobbs (Robert Preston) and the strict, unforgiving, thoroughly despised Latin teacher Malley (James Mason)

                  The priests in charge are at a loss at to what's turning the boys into a skulking wolf pack but the movie drops clues along the way.......leading to the least surprising twist that you could practically guess from the first scene......

                   What's fun to watch here: the stark contrast in acting styles........Preston, playing to the upper balcony, as as boisterous and bombastic as his Prof. Harold Hill character from "The Music Man".....you expect him to start singing at any moment.  Mason delivers a less showy, but intense portrait of a wounded, heartsick soul, dealing with a terminally ill mother and a campaign of ugly harassment from persons unknown...........(or is he just paranoid?)

                   Here's what grabbed us.......the schoolboys, as we'd already guessed, have been weaponized as mindless, soulless minions, slaves to a cult of personality.  In that regard, they reminded us at once of the red hats at Trump rallies......blind to all reason.

                  It's clear that Sidney Lumet wanted to have it every which way.......a mish-mash of mystery, horror and drama that never once figures out what it's supposed to be.  So he ended up with  a who-knows-what-it-is that nobody liked or understood.   (The composer, Michael Small, obviously voted for horror, scoring the film with ominous church chants)

                But we didn't mind taking another look, after all these years......and enjoyed the performances and the unsettling ambiance.....(and the weird similarity to that's going on today in current events....) 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

FRIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP........SPECIAL 'JELLYFISH STRIKE BACK!' EDITION........

                Jeff Sessions grovels to Baby Orange as he plans to run again for the Senate.......in related news, specialists at the Mayo Clinic announce that Sessions' spine transplant procedure failed......which means the former Attorney General will continue to live life as an oversized jellyfish.........

                  Baby Orange and his attack minions continue raging against the Whistleblower.......even after a host of officials already gave first-hand accounts of his Ukraine call in sworn testimony......Baby Orange also threatend the Whistleblower with a new tweet: "....And I'll get your little dog, too....".

                     Don Jr. compares his family sacrifices to make daddy president to sacrifices made by soldiers and military families......thereby proving the old adage....'the larva doesn't fall far from the the rotted apple it dropped out of..'

                    Lindsay Graham's new defense of Baby Orange: The Baby Orange administration is too chaotic to ever come up with quid pro quo........in breaking news, the Iowa State fair offers  Graham, Jeff Sessions, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz $1000 each to star as next summer's biggest carnival attraction "The Amazing Human Jellyfish! All together!"

                     Baby Orange considers accepting Putin's invitation to attend Russia's May Day military parade....Putin promises Baby Orange that even with bone spurs, he'll still be made an honorary general in the Russian army........for services to Russia above and beyond the call of duty....

WAR OF THE CHRISTMAS MOVIES! LET THE ONSLAUGHT COMMENCE!

Christmas Reservations (2019)    To hell with peace on earth and good will toward men........it's a UFC-worthy holiday smackdown between the Hallmark and Lifetime channels.........

                Now that ultra cozy TV Christmas movies have been officially anointed as a Pop Culture Thing, this season brings together literally hundreds of Christmas movies competing with each other on completing networks.......

                 And to our everlasting horror, BD (Beloved Daughter) may very well force us to watch all of them.......well, maybe most ot them.......okay, maybe a lot of them......

                   Here's a few handy BQ tips if any of you plan to indulge.......

                   Settle in, calm down.......they're all slow.....minus the 30 minutes worth of commercials, all TV Christmas movies run about 90 minutes. And we're talkin' 90 very, very, very slow minutes.
So don't get antsy waiting for the pace to pick up. It won't.  Doze if you must, but try to wake up for the last ten minutes......when the plot's resolved, the lovers kiss, and the fake snow starts lightly falling.......

                    Everybody's super nice.......get over it.......Unlike real life, where mean-spirited people run rampant and everybody's stressed and pissed off from spending too much for gifts on Amazon, Christmas movie characters appear unfailingly upbeat, happy and brimming with holiday cheer. No, of course they don't  resemble real human beings......not even close.  That's why you only come across these relentlessly angelic men, women and children in Christmas movies.  You want real human beings?  Go watch 'Silence Of The Lambs'.......

                   But they do run into.......uh.....complications.....Christmas movie people usually face some sort of travail ......a mortgage due, a fractured romance, a nefarious corporation scheming to tear down  their Currier  & Ives little town and replace it with condos and office buildings......(in Hallmark movies, this bump-in-the-road plot detail almost always leads to a misunderstanding  that temporarily splits apart our boy-girl cutie couple.)..........Take heart, have no fear.  Always remember you're watching a friggin' Christmas movie......so all will be well......

                  Oops, we almost forget this post is about a Christmas movie.....to kick off our coverage, we defected from Hallmark and wandered over to the Lifetime Channel for "Christmas Reservations".......starring Lifetime's own Holiday star, Melissa Joan Hart......

                  We kind of liked that Lifetime allowed this movie to more freely play around with the traditional tropes of the genre......which over at Hallmark, are carved in stone. ...(as in: NO kissy-kissy between the leads until 2 minutes before the movies ends......)

                   This one's a little more ambitious, with multiple romantic storylines unfolding  at a ski-resort lodge........somewhere toward the end, they even throw in a Bollywood dance number......

                   Does everyone end up with a Happy Holiday at the end? What do you think?

                   We don't know if it makes sense to rate these films......it's like rating a Big Mac every time you eat one.......unlike Forrest Gump's box of chocolates, in a TV Christmas movie you always know what you're gonna to get......

                   Still, we'll get into the spirit, with 3 stars (***) for this one.......(that Bollywood dance definitely tipped the scales.....)

                    If you should try one of these movies and find it impossibly slow, cliched and unreal, then bail out altogether.......cause they're pretty much all the same, like a tray of freshly baked gingerbread men.......

                    Should you find yourself sucked in and warmly comforted........then grab your warmest blanket and 37 boxes of microwave popcorn........consider yourself hooked.

                   





                   

'THE LITTLE MERMAID LIVE!'........DISNEY CREATIVITY....DEAD

The Little Mermaid - Live! (2019)    We're going to spend about as much time on this televised monstrosity as Disney Corporate did when they thought it up...…

                  Only about a couple of minutes...……

                  It's a joke to review something like this...…..its one and only purpose was to serve as a marketing tool to beat the drums for the new Disney streaming service......and the theatrical release of  "Frozen II"...…

                   We might as well review the latest Disney Report to the Stockholders...….

                   But it's truly fitting that this what-the-hell-is-it mish-mash of the original "Little Mermaid" film and labored exhausting attempts at live action musical simulation arrived on the same day of the video release of its CGI'd  "Lion King"......another dead-on-arrival exhumation of one of the studio's  animated classics...…

                   Don't even ask us to describe this noisy, garbled, chaotic mess...…...other then to say we felt deeply sorry for fledgling Disney Princess Auli'i Cravalho ("Moana"), forced to sit stationary in a Halloween Shop red wig and fishtail...…..which gave a nationwide audience plenty of time to notice she ought to cut down on the cheeseburgers and milkshakes...….

                    Nothing more than the usual strip-mining by the Disney suits...…..an utter waste of time, talent and effort. Zero stars (0).  Send it to the bottom of sea......how 'bout the Mariana Trench......

'LOOKING FOR MR. GOODBAR'........DICK GERE AND HIS MAGIC SWITCHBLADE.......

Looking For Mr. Goodbar (1977)   Leave it to writer-director Richard Brooks, the straight-arrow, uncompromising books-into-movies guy to to excoriate the 70's .....with 3 years of the Me Decade still to go.......

             Take that, you self-absorbed, sex-drenched yuppies!  See what happens when you use your new found freedom to boff any stranger you bump into in a bar.......ha!

              There's no mistaking the purpose of Brooks' adaptation of Judth Rossner's best selling novel.......it's a fire-and-brimstone sermon, delivered straight from the director's bully pulpit (a major studio release, that is).......populated with a horrorshow parade of neurotic sluts, borderline psychopaths, crippled, love-starved children and ego-fueled dickheads who think with their dicks.......

             With such a crew in place, you know this can't end well......

             ......especially for Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) who leads a daringly reckless double life .....by day, a caring, committed teacher of deaf children and by night, a drunk and drugged bar hopoer looking for love.....or maybe the next one night stand of fireworks sex......

                No Mr. Goodbars turn up here for Theresa (whom author Rossner based on a real person).......but plenty of assorted nuts.......including an eogtistical pseudo-intellectual adulterer (Alan Feinstein), a coked-to-the-gills, live wire street stud (Richard Gere, in his breakout role), a too-good-to-be-true boyfriend-in-waiting (William Atherton)..........and finally the joker in the deck, a bi-sexual hustler (Tom Berenger) with a wounded psyche and a violent short fuse.

              The film bluntly traces back Theresa's fragmented, adult life to her literally tortured childhood.......in which she suffered both a polio-twisted spine and a monstrous, unloving father (a bravura role for Richard Kiley), whom she still lives with. Her dad an unfunny Archie Bunker,   continues to rule  her with dictatorial coldness, while he remains oblivious to the blatant dysfunction of Theresa's sister (the awesome Tuesday Weld giving it the full Tuesday), who's forever on the prowl for a new boytoy and a  reliable abortionist.

                  And so it goes on and on, this disco-fueled inferno, dominated in its middle section by Gere's look-at-me-look-at-me one man circus, highlighted by his frenzied kung-fu dance with his favorite  toy......a glow-in-the-dark switchblade.........(makes him look like a grungy 1977 New York City Jedi warrior....)

                   In an unusual move for Richard Brooks, never known as a flashy visual stylist,, he clumsily inserts himself into the film with abrupt, awkward and poorly staged depictions of Theresa'a worst fantasies, some sexual, some paranoid.  These supposedly clever touches just come off as dopey, crude and way beyond this director's skill set..........

                    The cast is game, though and Keaton, in case we forgot to mention, goes all in with this character's unhinged, uninhibited, anything-goes lifestyle.......a heroic piece of acting for sure.

                   Of all the "life sucks and then you die" dramas that ruled the 1970's, this one ends with the most blunt force of them all.......in an appropriate strobe-light bloodbath.  As the last strobe blinks out, you can also thinks of it as the switch-off for grim, studio-financed dramas like this one........'Star Wars' had opened a few months earlier, ushering in the era of the feel-good blockbuster......

                    The only 'goodbars' moviegoers wanted from now on were at the snack bar......

                  But the film's still buoyed, after all these years, by Keaton and the rest of the equally powerful cast. For them alone, we're looking for 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2) for "Looking For Mr. Goodbar"

'YOU CAN SUCCEED TOO'......JAPAN-A-MUSICAL!

You Can Succeed Too (1964)    This one comes under the heading of.....holy crap, now we've seen everything.......\

 

                    Singing! Dancing! Romance!  Comedy!

                     All coming your way from.....(wait for it)......Japan.

                     Yes, it's an all-out attempt by Japanese filmmakers to duplicate a typical 1950 MGM musical, filled with masses of choreographed dancers and two sets of squabbling couples destined to end the movie realizing their love.......while they waltz across the screen. 

                      We could barely follow the storyline......something about competing tourism companies who squire around Americans to sites like Mount Fuji. 

                       We did recognize Frankie Sakai, the chunky ball of energy who supplied the comedy relief in "Mothra" and the gorgeous Mie Hama, who cavorted with Sean Connery in "You Only Live Twice"........always nice to see them again.

                       As for the songs and dances.........well, let's just say there was more than enough enthusiasm on display to make it all fun to watch.

                        We don't regret spending time with it........and for anyone who loves uncovering bizarre, long lost cinema curios (like us)......it's a wacky little treasure chest. 2 stars (**)