'BETRAYED'.......TRUMPS 'GOOD PEOPLE' GET WINGER'D........

Betrayed (1988) was the first of two collaborations between incendiary, controversial screenwriter Joe Esterhas ("Basic Instinct", "Showgirls") and director Costa-Gavras, world-famous for his powerful take-downs of fascistic thugs, conspirators and dictators ("Z", "State Of Siege", "Missing")

               Their other film "Music Box" followed one year after this one.......and as much as we'd love to post on that one too, we're having one hell of time tracking down a copy or finding any streaming service that carries it.......

                 "Betrayed" was red hot stuff when released and we found it resonates even more today.......since the ghastly neo-Nazi slugs depicted here came crawling out of their holes like cockroaches in 2016, thinking their bigotry and hatred were at last legitimized by the election of Donald Trump........who famously referred to them as 'good people' after one of them murdered a woman in Charlottesville........

                 Joe Esterhas, more than any other screenwriter at the time, knew how to grab an audience by their collective balls in the very first scene......and he more than gets the job done here with the execution-style murder of a notorious 'shock-jock' radio gabber by right-wing cultists......(modeled off of the murder of radio rabble rouser Alan Berg)......

                 The Feds are itching to nail the assassins, a bunch of heartland farmer-terrorists led by a Vietnam vet (Tom Berenger).......and to do so, they've placed an woman agent (Debra Winger) among them, posing as a harvest season combine operator.

                 The story requires you to swallow the idea of Winger at first falling hard for Berenger's aw-shucks, country-guy charm (along with his two cute kids)......even though he drops plenty of clues along the way that deep down, when his mask comes off,  he's an angry,dangerous, hate fueled individual

                  Winger, bless her gifted little heart, somehow makes you believe this far-fetched love affair..........and when Berenger and his coterie of creeps reveal themselves to her as the lethal monsters they are (hunting and killing a black man for sport),she makes you feel her shock, revulsion and horror at the nest of vipers she stumbled into......

                  The film moves on to further jaw-dropping outrages, such as the unnerving sight of Berenger's little daughter mouthing her dad's foulest racist rhetoric......if nothing else, Esterhas and Costa-Gavras know how to raise your eyebrows......and goosebumps.

                   But in its final minute, the film badly fumbles its sendoff.........after the inevitable climactic moment between Winger and Berenger, the film literally and figuratively wanders about until finishing with a ludicrous, unbelievable last moment that we'd like to believe the writer and director had nothing to do with..........it smacks of a phony, studio mandated 'alternate ending'....utterly wrong, out of place and smells like nothing at all that Esterhas and Costa-Gavras would come up with. Ever.

                   So we'll give them the benefit of the doubt,  since 99% of the film remains compelling and impactful.......even more so today, since Trump's brutal damage to the nation includes letting alt-right, Nazi vermin to scurry around in broad daylight.without an exterminator in sight. Not till election day, anyway.......3 stars (***) Disturbing in '88......even worse in 2020.

                 

'THE DAMNED'.......THIS DYNASTY CAN'T TELL REICH FROM WRONG.......

The Damned (1969)   Some 50 years ago, BQ became obsessed with films and books about destroyed dynasties........

              And nobody did those kind of movies better than director Luchino Visconti, who himself came from a family of Italian aristocratic nobles.......

               Visconti favored Grand Opera-style epic sweep and found no better fit for this style than his wildly fictionalized version of the Krupp family of German industrialists..........who favored slave labor in their steel mills that cranked out armaments for Hitler and the Nazis......

                 To Marice Jarre's noisy, insistent title theme, the fiery shots of boiling, bubbling steel furnaces perfectly prepare you for what comes next........a grotesque, gruesome trip into hell itself.

                  After a contentious family dinner,the mighty Von Essenbeck dynasty doesn't take long to crumble. especially during the Nazi rise to power........its Baroness (Ingrid Thulin) is an ambitious Lady Macbeth, who plans to seize control of the company along with her lover and co-schemer (Dirk Bogarde).

                  After bumping off old Granpa Von E. and framing a anti-Nazi relative for the crime, Ingrid and Dirk also make sure to cozy up to the family's cousin in the S.S.(Helmut Griem, the perfect blonde Aryan supercreep).

                    What nobody counts on is the family's wild card, the Baroness's depraved son Martin (Helmut Berger, carrying on like he's in the Nazi Rocky Horror Picture Show)......

                     And what a piece of work is Martin.......a transvestite chanteuse who molests little girls (including his own young cousin)  in his spare time.  All this loathsome little worm needs for icing on his cake is to become a Nazi......and as Christophe Waltz put it in "Inglorious Basterds".....Der Bingo!

                   No need to describe any more plot.......take our word for it, depravity reigns supreme.....Helmut Griem's smiling S.S. monster puts it well, describing a Nazi society where morality's obsolete, anything's permissible and the slaughter of Jews isn't even a crime.

                   Visconti vividly illustrates this with the film's lengthy signature showpiece, the gory recreation of the "Night Of The Long Knives"......., Griem's S.S. in a bold move to consolidate and reinforce Hitler's power, stage a surprise massacre of the S.A.,their rival paramilitary group......which happens to include another blustery member of the rapidly diminishing Von Essenbeck clan.

                  As for Thulin and Bogarde, the would-be Macbeths........well they stand no chance against Berger, now flourishing amidst the Third Reich.......the only society that could embrace a cross-dressing pedophile with open arms.

                   With its stylish sets and costumes, rich color photography and over-the-top melodramatics, "The Damned" is one damned luxurious ride through hell.   And one of our forever 1960's favorites. 4 stars (****).

'ANY WEDNESDAY'........IF IT AIN'T WOKE, DON'T FIX IT......

Any Wednesday (1966)   By now, you BQ visitors know of our obsession with 1960's cinema.....especially the romantic comedies that attempted, awkwardly, to straddle the transition from the chaste puritanism of the 40's and 50's to the oncoming anything-goes of the 60's Sexual Revolution....

             We could claim that we look upon these films only as historical artifacts of a long-ago bygone era of political incorrectness, female objectification and dominating male entitlement......

               But to be honest with you, sometimes we find ourselves laughing at the stuff in these movies that was supposed to be funny.........and still is.

             "Any Wednesday", first conceived as a hit Broadway show, contains all sorts of tropes and situations now considered way beyond toxic.......about as un-woke as you can get.......

               Consider the archetypes of our two leads......the High Powered Wealthy Lothario (Jason Robards, suavely overpowering) and his quarry and latest conquest, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl (Jane Fonda, relentlessly bubbly and sweet).

               Robards, whose rapacious, serial philandering tycoon resembles the late unlamented Jeffrey Epstein, manages to wear down Fonda's resistance while she's recovering from hepatitis.......

                Since he's a married, professional adulterer,  Fonda allows him to buy her spiffy 60's romcom apartment and turn it into a once-every-Wednesday love nest......funded by his company as a corporate lodging.

                We're supposed to swallow all this like a candy cane because.....A:. Robards, for all his swaggering tycoon-ery, is a witty charmer (he's like an greedy, upscale version of the quirky comedy writer he played in "A Thousand Clowns").....and B:.....Fonda plays the cutest, most adorable kept mistress in film history, a male fantasy of a kewpie-doll whore.)

                  But wait!  Complications ensue. Robards ditsy secretary reveals the Love Nest location to a young entrepreneur looking for a place to stay while pitching a new product to the boss...(loudly overplayed by Disney Guy-Next-Door, Dean Jones). Even worse, the secretary also gives the address to Robards' wife (Rosemary Murphy), who has no idea what Robards uses the apartment for......

                   When both these characters show up, Fonda goes into a panicked swoon and starts guzzling wine  as if Prohibition's making an imminent comeback......

                     This gives Rosemary Murphy, the only holdover from the original show,a chance  to strut her stuff playing the typical Wealthy-Wife-Hostess-With-The Mostest........she gets the bulk of the film wittiest gags, and tosses them off with a seemingly knowing wink.....as if she already knows how this all ends..

                       Being the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, Fonda immediately falls head over heels for Jones and once Robards pops in to the Love Nest, it's all about hiding the truth from Murphy........which means Jones and Fonda launch into a labored ruse of pretending they're a happily newlywed couple.....(sending Robards into a simmering jealous fit)

                        Holy crap, was that ever exhausting to describe........and we'll go no further with any more turns of plot.......except to mention the film does something fascinating in its middle section.....

                      When all four characters get crammed into a traffic jammed cab, the storyline reveals the true nature of Robards' tycoon. The suave mask gets stripped off, starkly revealing him  as a petty, bullying obnoxious control freak.........and more than deserving of the expected climax awaiting him in the film's Third Act.....

                        We'll just confess that "Any Wednesday"s one of our 60's Guilty Pleasures......loaded with the typically smooth patter and double-entendres of the era........it even makes a creative effort to disguise its one-set play origins, spicing up the talky scenes with split screen conversations that glide in and out of the frame according to the actors' movements.

                          But you know times have changed.......if they remade this film today, Robards' character would probably suffer multiple indictments.......and begging the jury's mercy by showing up at his trial with a walker, crutches, or a cane.....maybe all three....

                         In the still relatively innocent 1966 however, "Any Wednesday" remains a fluffy Technicolored bauble......3 stars (***)



             

FRIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL 'RIGHT MATTERS' EDITION.......

             For uproarious comedy, BQ can't possibly compete with Baby Orange's lawyers.......

              Especially the one who publicly claimed Baby Orange is, and we quote...."a man of his word"

              Let's see anyone try to top that for a show-stopping laugh. We double-dog dare you.

              In reality, Baby Orange is a man of many words. The best words, he calls them.  And it does take a whole lotta words to comprise  the 16,000 lies he's told since taking office.......

              And so the impeachment proceeds.........until the Dark Lord Of The Senate, Yertle The Turtle, declares Baby Orange exonerated.......with no further evidence or witnesses allowed........just like a trial in Russia.......except the difference is we're the ones who get punished......

             No surprises here. We always thought impeachment was a monumental waste of time........you can't possibly conduct a fair trial when the majority of the jurors are as soulless and spineless as a mass of beached jellyfish.......

               Come November, the real jurors will get to weigh in.......the millions upon millions of people who, unlike the GOP senators, don't spend their every waking hour grovelling before Baby Orange, smooching his cheeseburger-inflated ass........

                We speak, of course, of American voters. And after they've delivered their final verdict, it will probably fall to the military to forcibly drag Baby Orange out of the White House..........his fingernails still clawing at the Oval Office desk he thought he'd occupy until the last Bic Mac and supersized fries finally stopped his already cold, dead heart.

               After days and days of deliberations, presentations and debate (with more to come), it fell to Rep. Adam Schiff to sum the whole thing up in two simple words........

                That in the simple, primal, common sense task of discerning the difference between wrong and right.........right matters.

                 It bears repeating.  Right matters.

               That's what everything comes down to........the challenge hurled at the USA and the entire world since Baby Orange crawled out of the depths of hell to ascend to his reign of chaos hate and human suffering.......

                 Do we know the difference between right and wrong?

                 And if we do, do we conduct ourselves accordingly?

                 Come November 3rd, 2020........we'll all find out.

                 Stay tuned. . Right matters.

'STAGECOACH' (1966).........DON'T WAYNE ON THIS PARADE.......

Stagecoach (1966)  Cinema purists were quick to lob nuclear-powered insults at this one, crying "Sacrilege!" at the idea of re-making John Ford's classic 1939 western.........the film in which Ford forever established the western as a legitimate movie art form.......and made a star out of the young John Wayne, playing the heart-of-gold outlaw, The Ringo Kid.......

                  Okay, maybe it wasn't the best of ideas........but 20th Century Fox put this CinemaScope and Color re-do in the capable hands of that hard working jouneyman (and a BQ fave) Gordon Dougas, who started his career directing Laurel And Hardy and Little Rascals shorts...........

                   Remember, this is the guy who plowed ahead making Warner Brothers' "Them!" an immortal sci fi classic, even though studio sultan Jack L. Warner declared his disgust and hatred of the film.......(even after it became Warner Brothers top grossing titles of 1954)

                 So Douglas, ever the professional Hollywood workin' stiff, jumped right in and deftly handled a large cast with varying degrees of talent along with more than a few ambitiously brutal action sequences.......

                  We guess we're trying to say that we found a lot to like in this movie.......apart from its perceived blasphemy of re-making the John Ford.film, it's still a slickly crafted, entertaining adventure, the epitome of the Saturday Night Buttered Popcorn movies of it era.......

                   The good stuff includes.....

                   The Motley Crew Cast.........a stereotypical but oddly comforting collection of the movie western's most familiar 'characters'......the Crusty Sheriff (Van Heflin), the misunderstood outlaw (Alex Cord), the sweet whore (Ann-Margaret), the gentlemanly, lethal gambler (Mike Conners), the still virginal but somehow pregnant Cavalry bride (Stephanie Powers)the boozing disgraced doctor and his new best friend, the timid liquor salesman (Bing Crosby, Red Buttons)the nervous, cowardly embezzler (Robert Cummings) the boisterous stagecoach driver ( Slim Pickens) and waiting back in town, the ruthless villain (Keenen Wynn)accompanied by his equally murderous sons.....

                    Packed into the stagecoach or riding atop it, off they all go for a picturesque trip through some scenic midwest locations, interrupted by a howling , relentless group of bloodthirsty Indians. ...

                      And speaking of those Indians, early on, Gordon Douglas stages a vividly gory sequence where they massacre a U.S. Cavalry troupe.........(needless to say, through all the violence, some of our stagecoach passengers don't make it to the end of the film.......but not to worry, it's none of he ones we really come to root for......)

                     While "Stagecoach" is nowhere near the propulsive level of director Douglas's previous tough-as-nails western "Rio Conchos" (see our post on that one), it rolls along just fine.......and never misses a single corny, cliched  moment for each of its cast members.........this film was plainly designed for family viewing as opposed to the raw, rugged take-no-prisoners "Rio Conchos"....

                     The Jerry Goldsmith score.......no surprise here, it's brilliant, catchy, thrilling when required and as usual with Goldsmith scores, makes the movie seem much better than it actually is....

                     Norman Rockwell .......say what?  The beloved American illustrator-artist has something to do with this movie?  Sure does. He turns up in a bit role and whatever you do, don't miss the closing credits, which feature a gorgeous Rockwell portrait gallery of each of the cast members.....

                      As far as we're concerned it's another fine feather in the cap of Gordon Douglas, who spent a lifetime accepting big, daunting studio assignments and turning them into solid popcorn entertainment........Not the John Ford classic, but hugely enjoyable. 3 & 1/2 stars. (*** 1/2)

                    

'MIDSOMMAR'.........CULTURE VULTURE HORROR

Midsommar (2019)  Who the hell's this movie for, anyway?

                Oh right, we forgot........it was made for that ultra-specialized demographic of about 8 or 9 people.........film festival Culture Vultures who'll tolerate a horror film as long as it's rendered by an
artiste.......

                 Personally, we'd rather sit through any Friday night crapola Blumhouse slasher flick than endure the excruciating 2 & 1/2 hours it takes to wade through this one.......

                  How do we hate this movie......let us count the ways.......

                  Let's start with its shameless ripping off of "The Wicker Man", pumping up the 'luckless suckers meet Pagan assholes' plotline with pretentious dead-in-the-water pacing .......and a host of useless, poorly written characters slowly moving toward their expected deaths.......

                    We started yawning immediately as the bunch of clueless 20-somethings decide to spend their summer with an insufferable back-to-nature Swedish cult.........of course not realizing that despite their flowery clothes and attitudes, these phony sunbeams are nothing but a collection of murderous creeps.

                       End of story, basically.  Except that this story threatens to never end.

                       All we could wish for........that Nicolas Cage's avenging husband from "Mandy" would show up with his trusty chainsaw and make Swedish meatballs out of theses.....well....Swedish meatballs......

                        Life's too short and there's far better movies and books to post on than this ego-fueled, barely watchable mess........

                        To hell with it. It wins our lowest honor....an AFH......an ABOMINATION FROM HELL.  Congratulation to the filmmakers who cooked up this misbegotten misery.......for earning the award you so richly deserve.

                          The AFH comes with a coupon for 8% off the upcoming Blu Rays of "Cats" and "Dolittle" and a 1 Dollar Gift Card.....for the Dollar Store. To everyone involved in the making of "Midsommar"....enjoy!

                        

'THE CHOSEN' ('HOLOCAUST 2000')...........THE OMEN, ITALIANO......

The Chosen (a.k.a. 'Holocaust 2000') 1977.........stars the No.1 breathrough sensation of 1970's cinema....

             The devil.

               After making a huge splash in "The Exorcist" and later, "The Omen" that fabulous, fork-tailed, firebreathin', foulmouthed funster was big, big Box Office........

               So it was only a matter of time (actually, minutes) until Italian movie trash-meisters jumped on the Beelzebub Bandwagon with their own cheapo knockoffs........

                And as far as these things go, here's the very best of them..... an Italo-British co-production fronted by a huge star (Kirk Douglas at his intensive best) and backed up by a solid cast recruited from the top ranks of actors of both countries.....(Alexander Knox, Anthony Quayle, Adolpho Celi, Romolo Valli)

                Wildly uneven, the film alternates from a slavish imitation of "The Omen" to its own rather clever update on the genre........(the smooth Devil here plans to wipe out the earth with a nuclear power plant, which in design, vaguely resembles a multi-headed monster foretold in biblical prophecies......)

                 Kirk Douglas, as the CEO of the Nuke Power company is all gung ho about building the thing, until he starts noticing that everyone opposed to it meets grisly ends in gruesome 'Omen'-like ways.....(usually freak accidents ending in gory mutilation.....yum, yum)

                    The question remains.......who the devil's the Devil????

                    Your choices.....Kirk's second-in-command and apple-of-his-eye son, the suave blonde Simon War..... Of is it the yet unborn child of Kirk's much younger current girl-toy....(Agostina Belli)?

                    Nobody with more than two brain cells would strain themselves guessing this, but Kirk, to be on the safe side, arranges a surprise abortion for his baby-mama........what a thoughtful guy.....(he bases this rather drastic decision after noticing her skittishness about entering a church...….heh, heh, heh.....when's the last time anyone saw Trump within spitting distance of a church?)

                     The movie wastes some time using one of those two options as a red herring until it finally spills the beans and gets down to its apocalyptic business......the Devil wants his holocaust cause he thinks it'll make for a fresh start........(and given the state of the world, he's got a point there....)

                       Douglas, never less than fully committed to whatever film he's in, endures all sorts of wear and tear, including a naked meltdown inside a Middle East cave and periodic beatdowns with roomfuls of asylum crazies.......he does have a spiffy, glass encased computer office though, even if that mean ole Debbil sometimes turns the glass panels into an instant plus-sized kitchen slicer.....)

                         The splatter stuff is practically subliminal, but the film takes particular pride in a
sequence where our slick El Diablo engineers the death of an entire maternity ward's worth of babies.......a great way to rack up a high body count in less than one minute......Bravo, Beelzy......

                        It's all Guilty Pleasure fun most of the way, until the movie stumbles into its mismanaged, clumsily edited finale......a cobbled-together last minute attempt to concoct a positive outcome........and far different from the film's original European ending, which left the monstrous power plant in the hands of........well, you-know-who.......

                         3 stars (***), but that's strictly for those of you who enjoyed all those 70's  Devil movies, both the big budget originals and the extra-cheesy imitators.......if you're among 'em (as is BQ), you'll can have yourself a Hell of a good time........so to speak......and this one pours on the Cheese Whiz extra high...…..



                   

'WATERLOO'.......BONAPARTE-Y HEARTY!

Waterloo (1970)   We decided to jump ahead a few months to post on this one......since it's only a few months away from hitting its 50th Anniversary, why not?

                 You'd better believe you'll never see another movie like "Waterloo" for all sorts of reasons.......

                  Mega-budgets epics like this one.......with giant sweep, all star casts, 1000's of extras ......were lumbering into oblivion, dropping deader than dinosaurs tumbling into the tar pits......

                 Another oddity that you're likely to never see again......'Waterloo' was one of three co-productions between a Western studio and Russia........the other two being 1971's "The Red Tent" and the embarrassing atrocity "The Blue Bird" in 1976......(that's if you don't include the Trump-Russia co-production of the 2016 Presidential election.....)

                   We sincerely promise we'll get around to "The Red Tent" and "The Blue Bird", but for now, let's talk "Waterloo"......traffic-managed by Russian director Sergei Bonderchuck, who'd impressed the hell out of the cinema world with his 7 hour gargantuan version of "War And Peace".....

                    So once again, Bonderchuk, armed with multiple cameras, an ample budget and what looks like the entire Red Army at his disposal, puts on a spectacular, panoramic display of 19th century combat.......with Rod Steiger's Napoleon Bonaparte facing off against Christopher Plummer's Duke Of Wellington.......

                    SPOILER ALERT for those of you who fell asleep in European History class.......Nappy goes down for the count........

                    Continuing our list of things you'll never see again.......

                    Rod Steiger......a one-man special effect.......Steiger's eye-bulging, dialed-up-to-11 performance, (his specialty) was a sight to behold........in Zero to Sixty, he could go from a barely audible whisper to a raging air-raid-siren tantrum.....and back again. We're not entirely sure this qualifies as good acting, but we defy you to take your eyes off Steiger when he shifts into full
Steiger-licious madness at the top of his lungs.....

                    Poor Christopher Plummer couldn't possibly compete with Steiger's self-contained, theatrical fireworks......he's reduced to holding a stiff upper life while his soldiers get blown to smithereens all around him.......(in fact, Plummer made a far more formidable, commanding figure as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound Of Music".....maybe in the heat of "Waterloo"s carnage, he should have broken out into a few bars of "Eidleweiss"...)

                     Strangely enough, considering the massive logistics deployed here, the film comes in at  a trim 123 minutes. There's no real visual power to the battle scenes, though......Bonderchuk films pitched warfare as if he's a TV news cameraman covering a live re-enactment.

                     The film does throw in a brief anti-war moment, as some poor sucker faces the camera screaming out  "Why are we killing each other?!!" or some such thing......(he's later seen piled up with the dead, no doubt cut down in mid-rant........nice try, pal......except the few ticket-buyers who showed up for "Waterloo" came strictly for the falling bodies and cannon fire.....)

                     And speaking of those battles, there's something you definitely will NEVER. see again.......thousands upon thousands of real men and horses charging at each other......as opposed to the computerized, pixel-ated crowds you see in today's films...….

                    Outside of Rod Steiger's hammy histrionics, "Waterloo" finally comes across as a distanced, generic impersonal spectacle...….the language barrier between Bonderchuck and his mostly English speaking cast didn't help matters much. At best, the film aspires to …...efficiency.

                   But for classic movie lovers, it remains a fascinating artifact of a long gone era of filmmaking......and in that regard, not to be missed  2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2)



                 
                 

'MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN'........EVERY STITCH WAY BUT LOOSE.......

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)    Bet you forgot all about this one, right?

               So did we........until, at the request of BLD (Beloved Librarian Daughter), we dutifully viewed a DVD copy that one of her  patrons graciously donated to  the library's video collection.

                 Hey, it 's  a tough job checking out these movies to see if they play without skipping before they're put out for rental......but somebody's gotta do it........who better than BQ?

                  Director-actor Kenneth Branagh was already well established as the Crown Prince of Theatricality when he took this one on.........and if nothing else, the movie maintains a Grand Opera fever pitch from beginning to end.......

                   Watching it again, it reminded us of the glory days of  Ken Russell's 1970's reign as official Cinema Madman.........with it's over-the-top acting, frenzied camerawork and downright bizarre production design......everything thrown into the mix with delirious abandon. 

                   A kick to watch, without a doubt........but after awhile, it starts to wear you out.......though you're bound to perk up and gaze open-mouthed at the film's penultimate scene.......in which Doc Frankenstein (Branagh) ends up in a doomed romantic triangle between his Creature (Robert De Niro) and his recently murdered childhood soulmate (Helena Bonham Carter)......whom he had to stitch back together and re-animate in a hurry after the Creature ripped her heart out.......

                   What can we say......love hurts in the Frankenstein household.......for real. 

                  Everyone on the creative team stepped up to the plate as well.  We adored production designer Tim Harvey's massive winding staircase for the Frankenstein mansion, literally the only dominant furnishing of the first floor....(very, very William Cameron Menzies)......and composer Patrick Doyle scored every single scene with blaring, symphonic bombast.

                  And as you'd expect, De Niro gives his all to the monster, making hairpin turns as he goes from pathetic to frightening......and improving his speech patterns from monosyllabic growls to eloquent dialogue that even exceed's Branagh's. 

                     None of this is remotely believable for 3 seconds, but the whole thing moves like an off-the-rails freight train.......and Branagh piles on the striking imagery.......(our personal favorites being  Branagh and the naked De Niro slipping and sliding through the slimy muck Branagh used to incubate and birth his creation.........and the juicy sight of the back-from-the-dead Bonham-Carter, who still appears crudely cobbled together even though Branagh neatly severed her head for easy placement on another girl's body.......this guy so needs to go back to medical school.....)

                      Since this movie goes all in for craziness, we'd advise potential viewers to either go with the flow or avoid it altogether.  We admire that Branagh really swung for the fences here, not caring much that his movie came out way more operatic than horrific.

                        You won't be scared, that's for sure. But with enough beers, vodka and hot buttered popcorn, you might have a goofy good time with it.......2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).........

                        And doesn't anybody worry about that nutty staircase not having a bannister??

'JOKER'........'You laughin' at ME?, You laughin' at ME?"

Joker (2019)    Let's start out by declaring that we don't believe for one minute in this film's commitment to its up-to-the-minute social commentary........

                 It's just show-biz, folks.........

                 And writer-director Todd Phillips (of the "Hangover" trilogy) is clever enough to turn the bottomless rage of the disenfranchised and the tormented, untreated mentally ill into prime popcorn fodder......

                  As they say in TV news.....if it bleeds, it leads.

                   Philips plays this tune like a master pianist.......though he's been lauded for making the film a blatant mash-up of "Taxi Driver" and "The King Of Comedy", the film he's referencing here more than any other is Michael Winner's 1974 groundbreaker, "Death Wish".......with Charles Bronson pushed past his civilized veneer and turning vigilante executioner of New York street punks.

                    'Joker' flips and bends the 'Death Wish' premise in service of what's happening now......envisioning an actual civil war between the frustrated, impoverished 'have-nots' and the ultra wealthy, cocooned one-per-centers...........

                      In the film, mobs of Have-Nots, inspired and energized by the Joker's slaying of three entitled young Wall Street assholes, don their clown masks and rampage through the streets, wielding 'Kill The Rich' signs......

                      It's a typically Hollywood facile conceit......and we have to wonder if Phillips is smart enough to realize that if his imagined Poor-Vs.-Rich revolution ever came about,  those clownfaced hordes would lay bloody siege to the film community's swimmin' pool mansions......

                     But we're not even close to that happening.......cause in reality, the Have-Nots got suckered and conned into electing the very greediest, foul and immoral of the One-Percenters they claim to hate...... making him their Savior President, worshiping him like a deity while he lines his own pockets and massages them with thousands of lies......

                    And in the real world,  the mentally ill Have Nots don't storm the homes of the rich. They storm Wal-Marts, Schools and churches........with AK-47s.  And they don't check people's bank accounts before opening fire....

                     Now there's a movie for ya, Mr. Phillips......

                     Putting aside the movie's slick pandering, there's one thing that cannot be denied.....Joaquin Phoenix's Joker may well be the the greatest, most spectacular film performance
of this young century or any other.  .

                    He's literally lightning in a bottle, crafting an unforgettable piece of work in which he pulls off the feat of breaking your heart while scaring the crap out of you......

                    There's only a handful of actors who've ever accomplished that singular, amazing task........to freeze your blood in one scene, and almost bring you to tears in the next. We're guessing that acting students who haven't even been born yet will study Phoenix's 'Joker' for decades to come.

                   We could go on and on about his work in this film........but let's sum it up by saying the Academy Award for Best Actor belongs to no one but Joaquin Phoenix.....no contest, it's simply his....end of story.

                   So we'll end this post with a 4 star (****) rating for "Joker"........though we're deeply suspicious of this film's true motives, there's no denying it as a showcase for the  most breathtaking piece of acting you'll ever see. Unmissable by any standard..