'HOW SWEET IT IS!'......BEACH BLANKET DEBBIE.....

How Sweet It Is! (1968)    We hadn't viewed this one since its original 1968 release...........surprisingly, it came off less grotesque and antiquated than the usual cinematic 1960's time capsules we unearth for this blog......

                Once again, a director and writers weaned on 1950's situation comedy make a woeful, clueless attempt to depict the youth rebellions of the late 60's.........but they keep everything moving along so fast, you hardly notice the museum-piece quality of the filmmaking. 

                 So the result here doesn't quite descend to the smarmy depths of something like '68's "The Impossible Years"   (see our post on 5/7/20).......

                 And ultimately, the movie isn't even all that interested in its half-hearted portrayal of teenage fledgling hippies........other than a few exhausted gags....(the hippies-in-training giving themselves groovy highs by watching horizontal and vertical static lines on TV)......

                  What it's really about, especially in its final third, is the mid-life crisis of a 40-something married couple (Debbie Reynolds, James Garner).......

                  They seem to enjoy a robust sex life, complete with fantasy role playing and a hula skirt for Debbie, but a trip to Europe upends them.......

                    They're chaperoning their teen son and a gaggle of teen girls....(the son's a simpering, whimpering hippie-in-training who needs a Dwayne Johnson-sized shot of testosterone.)  Garner's there to photo-shoot the girls for a magazine, while Debbie's parked in a Riviera villa owned by an overly amorous French lawyer (Maurice Ronet)

                     We're skipping the laborious plot machinations, which sends us to sleep just thinking about them.....except for Debbie's attack of Middle Age Crazy, which puts her in a raincoat and a blue bikini for almost the entire final half hour of the film........

                       Once in the bikini, she at first shyly hides behind shrubbery, but in no time at all, she's rockin' the outfit......and using the raincoat accessory to flash views of a her belly like a pre-1980's Times Square pervert........(so you can hardly blame a frenzied French chef, who when flashed by Debbie, immediately starts motorboating her midriff)

                         More rib-tickling riotous wreckage ensues, (that was sarcasm, by the way).....leading to the film's penultimate  sequence -  a full scale Bordello melee  featuring embarrassed customers fleeing with their pants on backwards and whores dressed up as Little Bo Beep......complete with sheep. 

                        Despite the tumultuous year of its release, "How Sweet It Is" remains steadfastly 1950's Hollywood product.......with Debbie and Jim happily reconciled and back on their way to all-American hula skirt humping in Suburbia......

                         The only way you'd know for sure it was made in 1968 is the tell-tale split-screen montage of Garner posing the teen girls in front of the Mona Lisa........accompanied by a typically overwrought, syrupy Jimmy Webb song......(don't blink and you'll spot a young Penny Marshall as one of the girls).......

                          And one moment truly startled us....... Garner's wormy son prattles on about how unafraid he is to tour Europe on his own, because Hippie Love will change life ''all around the world", 

                         .......to which Garner replies, "I've been around the world, son. Take a gun"

                       Wow........ for a few fleeing seconds a time capsule artifact like "How Sweet It Is!" stands ahead of its time......2 stars (**)

  

                   

 

C0RA THE VIRUS FACT CHECKS TRUMP TWEETS!

                                                                                                                                                                      

 BQ:  Cora The Coronavirus.....as always, the sight of you makes us ill and sick to our very

soul......much like the sight of Trump on TV......

CORA:   Whine, whine, whine. Lighten up, humanoid......I've got a new gig!  Twitter just put me in charge of fact checking Baby Orange's tweets!

BQ:  No way.

CORA:  Yes, way!  Twitter couldn't keep up with the tsunami of bullshit he spews out every day, so they asked me to step in and help out. They figured, who would know his diseased mind better than an actual disease!

BQ:  Makes sense, we guess. So how does this work exactly?

CORA:   Here's some of his tweets I checked in the last hour........you can read my fact-checks in italics right underneath them....

.

 Donald J.Trump(@realDonaldTrump

 Everyone knows that 90 per cent of mail in ballots end up stolen by a 300 pound guy   living in his parents' basement......Get smart, America!  Stand in line, even if you've got  high fever and coughing up a lung. With any luck, Never-Trumpers will drop dead before they make into the voting booth...... (! Too much Hydroxy poured on his morning Froot Loops and Egg McMuffins)

 Donald J. Trump(@realDonaldTrump)

 Where was Joe Scarborough when JFK, RFK and MLK were shot down?  Many people are saying it's very suspicious. He's older than he looks......investigate!

  (!  Someone didn't have their Depends changed this morning......cranky, cranky)\      

 Donald J. Trump(@realDonaldTrump)

  Only 102,000 dead so far.......that's not so bad, is it?  You're welcome, America! Anyway, 

  most of them were those ancient nursing home farts who would've used those phony

   mail-in ballots to vote against me. Screw 'em.....

   (!  Voted man of the year by Psychopaths United.....3 years in a row)

 Donald J. Trump(@realDonaldTrump)

 Why haven't the National Guard sprayed napalm on the rioters?  Time to get tough....I will 

 consider the nuclear option on street protests if they don't get their act together. Watch me 

  make angry black people glow in the dark!

  (!   Right on, Donny!  I'm with you all the way!)

BQ:  Hey, wait a minute. That last one you wrote was no fact check. You're agreeing with him!

CORA:  Oh damn.....I did, didn't I?  Well, what can I say.......whenever he's vomiting up mass death  and destruction, he's my kind of guy!

BQ:  Which is why you're hardly the one to be put in charge of fact checking him........Here, let me give you a little spritz of Clorox.......

CORA:    Arrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!  Human scum! Listen to your President.....you're supposed to swallow that stuff, not spray it on me....aarrrrggg...........

'I STILL BELIEVE'.........CRY HARD WITH A VENGEANCE......

I Still Believe (2020).......had the misfortune to open last mid-March, as the Pandemic was descending on America......

                 Maybe the Erwin brothers, the evangelical Christian duo who cranked this out, should have asked themselves if  God was weighing in with a movie review.........

                  We've posted on Christian movies before, detailing all their many failings, but we'll give this much to the Brothers Erwin.......

                    At the very least, they make 'I Still Believe' look like a real movie.......

                   Professional cinematography, smooth editing, recognizable, competent actors......(no more filling up the supporting cast with church volunteers, all those nice folks who'd usually make the potato salad for the Sunday picnic.......)

                    The end result compares to real films the way the Muzak in elevators vaguely resembled actual music........sounded just like real music, but deep down, you knew it wasn't.......merely a pale imitation.

                   The Erwin bros aspire to jerk tears out of you with this true story of Christian singer-songwriter Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa)  and his cancer-stricken soulmate/bride Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson).

                  Seems like an easy enough task to accomplish........except the Erwins lack every fundamental filmmaking and storytelling skill to engage an audience.....

                   For close to two  excruciating hours, they dutifully plot through all the expected tropes of a tearjerker.......as if they're working their way through a checklist of events listed on the church bulletin board....

                   The Erwins' complete ineptitude at attempting to rend your heart gives the film an unintentional sub-text of phoniness and insincerity.  They're straining themselves to make their audience weep......but they're like the pod people from 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'......

                     .......the best these guys can do is mimic human emotion, not portray it. 

                   Then again, it's possible the movie will find a receptive audience in the evangelicals.....life-long hypocrites who tossed out all the teachings of their Bible in order to embrace and worship Donald Trump, who mocks their supposed values with every breath he takes. 

                    'I Still Believe' must truly be meant for them, a film brimming with false piety and a paint-by-numbers approach to depicting human tragedy.......

                     For everyone else, Zero stars (0).

'THE STEEL HELMET'........A WARRIOR'S WAR MOVIE.....

The Steel Helmet (1951)    Writer-director Sam Fuller, celebrated as a master of low-budget pulp classics, once said there was only one way to convey the true experience of war to movie audience......

            ........by firing a machine gun over their heads.

             Armed with a rock-bottom budget, no stars and a less-than-30 days shooting schedule, Fuller delivered the next best thing to pulling off that machine gun stunt......

               In this legendary Korean war movie, delivered to theaters at the very start of the conflict, Fuller rubbed audience's faces in the carnage, nihilism and random cruelty of war like no other director could.

                Even with limited resources available to him, he poured a lifetime of his own World War II combat experience into "The Steel Helmet"......including his battle tours in North Africa, Sicily and Omaha Beach on D-Day......

                  Unlike the patriotic, flag-waving war films that Hollywood pumped out in WW 2, Fuller took an brutal, unflinching look at warfare and its dehumanizing effects on the men thrown into the perpetual meat grinder of combat........

                  Even more shocking, the director cast a cold, jaundiced eye on the American society and its values the soldier's were fighting to uphold.........a culture where black soldiers would still have to sit in the back of the bus when they came home.......and Asian G.I.'s  had their friends and family imprisoned in American interment camps for the duration of the war on Japan.

                   No wonder Fuller came under the investigative gaze of the infamous House On UnAmerican Activities and the FBI.....

                   Unafraid, Fuller packed all of his world view into the 90 minutes of "The Steel Helmet".....following the fortunes of  veteran infantry Sargent Zack (Gene Evans), whose endless blood-soaked combat experiences have drained the last drop of humanity out of him. 

                   The only survivor of his unit, Sgt.. Zack unwillingly puts up with  a Korean boy sidekick

and joins a bedraggled, lost platoon.......with all of them taking refuge in a deserted Buddhist temple and making a desperate stand against the vast North Korean army. 

                    By the time the last shot if fired, Zack is left even more demoralized and possibly close to total madness.......and you the viewer get a Fuller-ized view of war and what it does to people who fight it.....should they survive. 

                     An absolute must-see for all hardcore movie buffs, "The Steel Helmet"'s takes aim at

5 stars (*****). a most definite BQ FIND OF FINDS.

                    (and yes, if the Korean boy's name 'Short Round' sounds familiar to you, Steven Spielberg borrowed it for Indiana Jones's little sidekick in 'Temple Of Doom'.......  

                      

                   

                 

'MASQUERADE'..........CLIFF........HANGING

 

 

Masquerade (1965) BQ's always been a big fan of novelist-screenwriter William Goldman......and this movie marked his first screenwriting credit at the start of a long successful scripting career...("Marathon Man", "Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid", "All The President's Men")

 

              The movie, loaded with espionage double and triple crosses,  arrived in the thick of James Bond mania, but it maintains its own singular identity as a quirky British caper, overflowing with sly understated humor and multiple plot twists.......

              We can only presume all the snarky asides in the dialogue came from Goldman's contribution as a co-screenwriter with Michael Relph.  (Arab Princeling: "I'm practically divine"  Jack Hawkins  "Your Majesty, you're irresistible...")

 

                Once again, we have a plot built on a favorite spy novel trope........the mythical Arabian kingdom, overflowing with oil and treacherous leaders who don't have our best interests at heart.....(our best interests being gas aplenty for our big ass cars)

 

                 An MI6 spymaster (Jack Hawkins) recruits his wartime cohort, a retired American agent (Cliff Robertson) to spirit away a 12 year old Arab Prince from the mythical Kingdom. Cliff's mission - hold on to the kid til his upcoming ascension to the throne.....and out of the clutches of the child's evil pro-Soviet guardian, who's itching to bump off the young Prince and sell all the oil to Russia.

 

                 Well, we can't have that, can we?

 

                 Cliff faces a bumpy road ahead, what with almost everyone him around him constantly switching sides, allegiances and identities. This is one movie where you can't tell the spies without a scorecard.......and most of the time, a scorecard won't help much either. 

 

                   No matter, since director Basil Dearden keeps the whole thing moving at a breezy clip, with lines that sound like a smooth mixture of dry British wit and William Goldman's soon-to-be-trademarked sarcastic snark. 

 

                  And we couldn't help but love a movie that solidifies its status as a Cliffhanger........by having Cliff Robertson hanging.......by this thumbs on a collapsed rickety bridge overlooking a canyon.........(hence the sub-title of this post)

 

                    Pure fun for all.......and one our of our favorite long lost 1960's gems that everyone's forgotten about.  Don't forget it, we say......and  seize the opportunity, if presented, to check it out.  3 & 1/2 stars........(***1/2)

 

                  

 

'ACCION MUTANTE'.......THE UGLIES VS. THE PRETTIES.....

Accion Mutante (1993)   There's always a soft spot in our heart for outlaw cinema.......and movies don't get any more outlaw than this ripe Spanish oddity from cult director Alex de la Iglesia.......

                It's mad, mad, mad, mad mashup of sci-fi/horror nihilism......the kind of kill-everybody-for-the-hell-of-it carnival perfected by Paul Verhoven in 'Robocop' and 'Total Recall' and George Miller in all his Mad Max movies.......

                 Our 'heroes'....(and oh boy is that description stretching it) are a bunch of deformed , disabled and demented loons who wage terroristic war on rich pretty people........

                  .......in other words, they're the sworn enemies of those swells who wouldn't  give them more than a disgusted second glance before calling Security to have 'em removed from their sight.

                  To make their point, the Mutant Action members, who function as low-rent, pissed-off X-Men, strike a blow for rejected freaks everywhere by committing acts like machine gunning an ultra-toned, spandexed fitness class.....live on TV.

                    You get the idea, right?

                   For their ultimate coup, they massacre an entire uppercrust wedding party and kidnap the beautiful blonde bride, who's the heiress to a donut empire........(this would be the point where we swear we'll on the level about this...…

                    …….even the part where Boss Mutant sews the blonde's lips shut to cut down on her screaming and crying...)

                     Off our merry band goes to the Planet Axturiax, a barren rock populated by drunk, terminally horny 'Mad Max' rejects, who drool heartily at the sight of woman, since Axturiax doesn't have any.......

                    Even before they get there, the gang's mutant boss, preferring to ransom the babe off by himself, wipes out most of his own bunch, feeding some of them to his spaceship's pet monster....
.....woo-hoo!

                     The only survivor of this betrayal is one half of conjoined Siamese twins.......but you can't keep a good man down. He has his permanently attached dead brother stuffed......and since the still breathing bro nurses an unrequited crush on the smokin' hot kidnapee, he goes off in search of his double-crossing boss......

                     Does this sound crazy enough for you yet?

                     But wait!  There's more, as you knew there would be........including  the expected apocalyptic shootout at a bar frequented by all the horny, enraged, and insane Axturiaxians.....And do they all tote massive, video-game firepower such as jumbo guns with multiple barrels?

                      Do you even have to ask?  Kapooww!

                     Following the structure of all outlaw cinema, "Accion Mutante" only catches its breath when it takes time out to cast a searing, satiric eye at pop culture.....with those fake funny TV ads and newscasts so beloved by Verhoven in 'Robocop'.......

                      And you have to love an abandon-all-normalcy director who doesn't care who among his characters dies horribly......or how many.

                       So after reading this blog, you should know what you're getting into, should you decide to dip you toe into the olympic-sized pool of blood this film spills.  If you secretly ( or not so secretly) adore movie madness, it's a 4 star bash of bashes (****)

                      As for BQ, they had us at the sight of the lovesick twin lurching about with his conjoined, dead stuffed sibling. Now that's entertainment!

TRUMP-ANOIA! WE BREAK DOWN AND RATE TOP 10 CONSPIRACY THEORIES!

          Another day, another vast conspiracy........and so many to keep track of........

           Leave it to your trusty, ever vigilant BQ to organize, analyze and rate Baby Orange's never ending parade of paranoia........Let's get started, shall we?

            #10 - Birtherism  An oldie but a goodie, Baby Orange rode this one like a champion surfer on a 30 foot wave of pure bullshit....("I've got people in Hawaii looking into this.....they can't believe what they're finding!)   But so obviously stupid, even he had to give it up......our rating 1 star (*)

             #9  Millions Of People Voted Illegally  Hey, if they voted for Hilary they had to be illegal, right? How else could Baby Orange lose the popular vote.  B.O. even appointed a commission to investigate. Guess what came of it?  Same as our rating....Zero (0)

             #8  Obama Bugged The White House  We love spy thrillers, so this one's among our favorites. Although we don't know what Obama could have overheard, other than slurping of cokes, crunching of extra-crispy KFC and the sound of Fox News turned up loud.....3 stars (***)

              #7  Ted Cruz's father plotted to kill JFK    What a slam dunk this one was......so insane, it sounded ripped from the pages of the National Enquirer.  Oh, wait a minute.....that's where it was ripped from.  And the Enquirer wouldn't make up stuff up just like Baby Orange, would they? And he certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to believe it, would he?  A 4 star doozy (****)

              #6  The election's rigged  Lame. Hardly worth discussing.  And it only held water for Baby Orange before the election......of course  it dissolved once he realized the Electoral College did indeed override the popular vote and rig the election....for him. But wait!  Look for this conspiracy to make a huuuuuuge comeback in November....1 star (*)

              #5  The Deep State's Out To Get Me   Awesome! More spy stuff!  And so easy to keep going without a single shred of evidence.....4 stars (****)

              #4  New Jersey Muslims cheered on 9/11    No evidence here either, but for sheer audacity and imagination, it's spectacular.......3 stars (***)

                #3 That Wasn't My Voice On The 'Access Hollywood' Recording  We're almost tempted to put this one in the #1 spot, just on the basis of pure, unfettered way-out-there lunacy.......but that's part of the fun in Baby Orange conspiracies......wait a day or two and there's always an even better one comin' down the road.   But without a doubt, a 4 star(****) bellringer.

                 #2  Joe Scarborough Murdered One Of His Aides  So conflicted on this one, a veritable Mt. Everest of mania.......one the one hand, it's hilarious, with Baby Orange pumping out the tweets as fast his chubby little fingers will let him.......on the other hand, it's kinda scary, showing the depth of his desperation and psychosis.   This one makes us think it's about time to measure him for that long overdue straight-jacket....1 pathetic star (*) Or as he says in the tweets...'Sad'

                  #1 All The Coronavirus Theories ("It's a hoax", "It'll go away",  "Drinking Disinfectant Will Fight It"    The 5 star winners (*****) hands down.......all of these theories floated out while thousands of Americans gasped their breaths. Baby Orange's greatest achievement.....a level of heartless ignorance and evil that will stand forever in the country's history.......

                 We realize we've left out a load of others in compiling this list......(it hurt so much to leave out the 'Windmills Cause Cancer' goodie) but given time, we fear there'll be enough for a whole new list.......

                  But probably not this weekend. Baby Orange is too busy playing golf.......while the corpses of Covid-19 victims pile up.
             

'THE CHOCOLATE WAR'.......BANNED THERE, DONE THAT.....

The Chocolate War (1988)   We've never understood the concept of schools trying to ban books in a free society........

               ........it invariably leads to young people racing to bookstores and public libraries to take a big juicy bite out of that forbidden fruit......(bookstores especially dote on table displays of multiple banned books....)

                 Robert Cormier's 1974 soul-sucking, nihilistic novel about horrific life in a Catholic boys' school made the hit list........and naturally, it's a must-read for all teens who feel the dictatorial, all-controlling forces of the world arrayed against  them.......

                  Like the similarly banned "Lord Of  The Flies", Cormier's descent into adolescent hell reiterates that life sucks......and predatory pricks, not the meek, shall inherit the earth.

                  The little seen, almost unheard of film version adheres to Cormier's world view through 97 per cent of its running time........until it tampers with the novel's numbing conclusion.

                    The Catholic high school depicted in both book and film is an epic horror show......a school dominated by a near psychotic, tyrannical teacher and a creepy, malignant secret society of senior students, 'The Vigils'......a fearful collection of bullies preparing for their eventual careers as sadistic frat boy hazers.

                     Caught between these two overpowering forces of evil.......a gentle-hearted freshman who, in an act of unprecedented courage, defies them all by refusing to participate in the school's annual sale of chocolate boxes.

                      Let's just say that this poor kid discovers that life is not like a box of chocolates.....you do know what you're gonna get.......humiliated, beaten, destroyed.

                     Director Keith Gordon, who also wrote the script, chose to somewhat dilute and dampen Cormier's gut-punch conclusion.......softening it up with a sadder-but-wiser moral lesson.  But even with this watered down finale, the film still remains a watchable, compelling story to sit through, expertly crafted and acted.

                      And special kudos to veteran stage actor John Glover, whose portrayal of the near-Satanic teacher, Brother Leon, will leave you stunned.

                     Also if you want to see this Catholic-School-As-Hell genre taken to its ultimate, logical conclusion, check out our 11/10/19 post on Sidney Lumet's 1972 "Child's Play".....

                      As for "The Chocolate War", 3 stars (***).....and we might have gone for 4 if the film had stayed true to the book's bleak vision......(which could neatly be summed up in John Mellencamp's song, 'I fight authority....authority always wins...."

                       One last memo......to anyone who bans books......thanks for increasing the readership!

CORA THE VIRUS DOES OUR MADNESS WRAP-UP!

BQ:    Not that we enjoy inviting Cora The Coronavirus to this site........but the horrible little creature insisted on doing our Weekend Madness Wrap-Up.......

CORA:  And who better than me?  There's only two ghastly entities responsible for all this misery and madness.....me and Trump.  Since he's too busy tweeting to come here, you're stuck with me.

BQ:  Swell. Okay, I'll just prompt you and let you take it from there.

CORA:  Have at it, human-boy.......lay it on me.

BQ:   How  about Trump referring to over 94.000 dead as a 'badge of honor'

CORA:   Damn right it is!   For both of us together! I couldn't have racked up that kind of body count without Trumpy.  It's a badge I happily share with him......

BQ:   Next up......Trump touring a Ford plant with no mask on, just to spite reporters.....

CORA:  I'm lovin' it!  If his Trumpanzees follow his example, I can hit 100,000 dead before Father's day!   By the way, I heard he and Pence had masks custom made for themselves......each one features an arrow that points to the other, reading, "I'm with Stupid"......

BQ:   Where did you hear that?.

CORA:  Many people are saying it.....

BQ:  'Many people are saying'?  Isn't that Trump's line?  Speaking of 'many people are saying'.....what about Trump's taking that unproven, dangerous drug Hydroxychloroquine?

CORA:   God bless his tiny little overworked heart.......which the Hyrdroxy will screw up even more if I ever get to infect him.    Everyone should listen to him and sprinkle your frosted flakes with a few Hydroxy tabs every morning.......trust me on this, heh, heh, heh, heh

BQ:  Let's move on to Trump's crusade against voting by mail.....

CORA   Can you blame him?  All those poor dopes who voted for him, thinking, "What have I got to lose?"  You can bet your ass they know now!   So Trumpy certainly can't let those people vote again.

BQ:  Of course not.  Let's talk about Trump's demand that Churches open or he'll override the governors......

CORA:  Hallelujah!! Fling open those church doors and let EVERYBODY in! And sing out those hymns at the top of your lungs with plenty 'o spit-spray!  I'll be sittin' in the pew right next to you.....and who knows.....God willin', I can send you up to Jesus way earlier than you expected.

BQ:   Last topic, Cora.  Can you weigh in on Trump fleeing his press conference every time a woman asks him a touch question......

CORA:   That's a rude question and you're a rude person. Fake news! I'm leaving......

BQ:  Oh come on, Cora,  you're behaving like a whiny, cowardly little toddler.....

CORA:  Hey, I learned at the feet of the master......your President.

BQ:  This whole conversation's making us ill. Time for the Lysol.......(SOUND OF SPRAYING)

CORA:  Arrrrrggggghhhhhhhhhh!!  That stuff may rid you of me, but not Trumpy!

BQ:  If only.........


  

'SLIVER'........VOYEUR TO THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL......

Sliver (1993)     Never have filmmakers' original  intentions gone flying off the rail  as bad as this one......

                  The idea here (we think) was to duplicate Paul Verhoven's 1992 pube-revealing sex thriller "Basic Instinct"

                    You know the formula........slashed bloody corpses, incendiary sex, who's-the-killer mystery, a Joe Eszterhas script.... ..and most importantly............the ultimate 90's glacial blonde, Sharon Stone.

                    And all of this taken from an Ira Levin novel about a Manhattan high rise with spy cameras in everybody's apartment.......so whenever you floss your molars, take a dump or hump your partner, somebody's watching.......

                     How could this miss?

                    Oh my, where to begin........Stone's supposed to be a semi-sympathetic character, which is not in her skill set.  The director, Philip Noyce, an efficient enough manager of big budget action films, lacked Paul Verhoven's lurid instinct for over-the-top, operatic melodrama........he's just too classy for this movie.....

                    And then there's the insurmountable problem of the film's two scumbag murder suspects.......the loudmouth, obnoxious crime novelist (Tom Berenger) and the creepy Lothario (William Baldwin) who owns Stone's apartment building and watches all all the tenants from a hidden, vast bank of monitors......

                   An unforeseen accident forced Noyce to abandon the script's overheated finale, in a Hawaiian  volcano, no less.....and compelled him to make the plot's real murderer and red herring switch places......

                    Eszterhas's rickety screenplay, never much good to begin with, couldn't support such a major alteration......rendering the movie senseless and anti-climactic.

                   ........which the film desperately attempted to cover up with a laughable Hail Mary pass.....by having Stone cap the finale with a pathetic tossed off insult.......('Get a life!') a line that seemed more directed to anybody who'd just wasted an hour and 47 minutes watching this in a theater.

                     That's enough time wasted on this cinematic abortion........time for BQ to get a life......or at least watch a better movie.  Worthless from beginning to end, we can't even give a sliver of  star to "Sliver".......Zero stars (0).  No Basic Instinct here.....just stink.

                   

'A BAD DAY FOR SUNSHINE'......BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR

A Bad Day For Sunshine by Darynda Jones (2020)    No excess verbiage from us on this one......other than WE LOVE THIS BOOK TO PIECES!

             The only thing we hated about this book.......it had to end. Now we're stuck counting the days, hours and minutes until the next in this series comes out.......

               We can't remember a single book we've read this year that entertained us as thoroughly at this one.........

               It's an irresistible mixture of multiple mysteries, laugh out loud comedy, edgy suspense, smoldering romance, heartrending close-to-tears moments, quirky lovable characters you want to hug.......and did we mention it'll make burst into laughter more than few times?  Oh....we did?

                As other reviewers have noticed, you can think of it as a mashup of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series and TV's 'Gilmore Girls'......complete with rapid fire gags, dead bodies and a whole town full of bizarre characters.

                 Policewoman Sunshine Vicram arrives back in her odd little hometown  of Del Sol, New Mexico as the already elected sheriff, a win engineered for her by her meddling parents.  She returns with her her teen daughter Aurora , whose investigative detective skills eclipse her mom's.

                .Both mother and daughter plunge into the hunt for Aurora's missing best friend, who's been tormented by a premonition of her own abduction and murder since she was a small child.

                 And to add even more to the plot, Sunshine's agenda also includes  hunting down the man who kidnapped and raped her as a teen......and left her pregnant with Aurora......

                No more description from us.......GO ORDER THIS BOOK NOW!   Any single chapter of the book was loads more fun than all of those Coved-19 Quarantine concerts we've sat through in the last three months.......put together.

                  The rating?  No suspense here.....a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.

                   Grab it quick and have the time of your life with it. (And remember to tell your friends you heard about it from BQ.....)

'FOUR GIRLS IN TOWN'.......STARLET WARS - THE EMPIRE WANTS BABES

Four Girls In Town (1957)    It's a wonder you didn't hear our teeth gnashing at the thought of all the missed opportunities presented by this movie.......an obscure little B picture that rolled out of the Universal Studios assembly line like pre-packaged sausage......

                 But what an awesome premise for such a modest little nothing of a film.......big movie studio, planning a biblical epic about Esther, won't  give in to the outrageous demands of its female superstar...(60% of the profits, plus she owns the negative after 6 years!)

                 The fictitious studio honchos won't stand for it.....(even though 7 years earlier, the real Universal cut an unprecedented profit-participation deal with James Stewart for 'Winchester '73')

                 Hence.......a worldwide talent search! That's the ticket.......let's hunt down some international hotties, pick one and make a star out of her!

                  And here they come from around the world and New York City........the French girl (Gia Scala) hopes to restart her career, even if she's forced to leave behind her hubby and little boy. The Italian girl (Elsa Martinelli) hopes to latch on to a sugar-daddy. The German girl (Marianne Cook), just before  heading to Hollywood,survives a car crash that kills her fiance. And the American girl (Julie Adams) a stage actress, suffers from an overbearing, meddling mother.........

                  Off they go to potential fame 'n fortune.........and various romantic entanglements with a screen-test director (George Nader), a depressed film composer (Sydney Chaplin) and a playboy hotel-heir (Grant Williams)........(also randomly wandering around, a fledgling young studio contract player (John Gavin, more or less playing himself....)

                  The set-up here is loaded with untapped potential......this could have ended up as a brutal take-down of Hollywood as a promoter of phony dreams and flesh-peddler of young women......or on the flip side, it had all the makings of a racy, riotous romantic comedy, joyfully satirizing Hollywood while still celebrating it.......

                     Sorry. It's none of those things.

                    The film's too rooted in what it is.........low-grade, paint-by-numbers, machine-tooled mediocrity........peppered with dreary, unexceptional acting from a Junior Varsity cast......most of whom went on to much bigger and better things.

                     The only hint of what this movie could have been.......its one visual joke of seeing that preening,strutting studio diva only from behind......and always accompanied by a blue-sy noirish theme written especially for the character by Alex North..

                      On the plus side, it's a treat to see all these actors in their young prime.......Julie Adams, the Creature From The Black Lagoon's unrequited love.......the doomed-to-overdose-death Gia Scala, who went on to play a pivotal role in "The Guns Of Navarone"..... the impossibly adorable Elsa Martinelli, who so flustered John Wayne in "Hatari!", the 'Incredible Shrinking Man' himself, Grant Williams......the 'Psycho' stud and later Ambassador to Mexico John Gavin......and yes, that Marianne Cook is none other than Marianne Koch, whom Clint Eastwood rescued from sleazy bandidos in "A Fistful Of Dollars"........

                       (And fans of truly strange, off-the-beaten-track cinema would know George Nader from his role as FBI Agent Jerry Cotton in a series of bizarre  West German crime thrillers)

                       So we're not complaining about killing time watching "Four Girls In Town"s eclectic collection of cuties and the boys who woo 'em..........even as we were imaging a far, far cooler movie from this material...... something along the lines of either "The Bad And The Beautiful".....or maybe "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"

                      For the movie as it exists, 2 stars (**)    (And by the way, eventually Hollywood did make an Esther Bible epic. 3 years later in 1960.....'Esther And The King'........sorry Gia, Elsa , Julie and Marianne......you lost the role to.......Joan Collins.. That's showbiz, kids......)

                   

                 

'BARRY SONNENFELD, CALL YOUR MOTHER'.......IF THIS GUY CAN BE A MOVIE DIRECTOR........

Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs Of A Neurotic Filmmaker by Barry Sonnenfeld (2020)

 

                 Will Smith, whom Barry Sonnenfeld directed in 3 "Men In Black" movies and "Wild Wild West" wanted to use Barry as a 'show and tell' project for schoolkids with big dreams........

                  Smith hoped to point to Sonnenfeld and tell the kids, "Look at this character.....if THIS guy could become a major movie director of big budget films.......you can do anything!"

                   After reading Sonnenfeld's freewheeling memoir of his alternately comical, bizarre and sometimes horrific life........we get it. 

                   This may stand as the only filmmaker autobiography that made us laugh out loud, cringe in disgust and shake our heads in disbelief......at times, simultaneously......

                    If you want a cohesive, detailed comprehensive description of a film director's life experience and his artistic process........this is not the book for you.

                     Sonnenfeld's story swings wildly back and forth in all directions........ his love-hate relationship with his monstrous mother ......his entry into the film world via pornography......the childhood sexual assaults he suffered at the hands of his loathsome cousin and his insane encounters with the legendarily volcanic Scott Rudin, producer of his two "Addams Family" movies......

                    And yes, there's stuff in there about his cinematography career, including his memorable collaborations with the Coen brothers ("Raising Arizona", "Blood Simple", etc, etc.)........but not nearly enough for us.

                      Do we wish Sonnenfeld had organized the story of his life a little better?  Sure do. But then again, the chaotic, messy life he led spills over into the best of his work, combining anarchic comedy with a distinctive, uniquely warped visual style.......(which made us somehow understand his preference for wide angle lenses......)

                     Sorry to disappoint film buffs among you (and that includes us), but you'll find no film-by-film breakdown of Sonnenfeld's work.........there are juicy tidbits aplenty, but you'll have to read patiently and pluck them out of the author's wandering narrative.....

                     Sonnenfeld's all-controlling mom did indeed mightily embarrass young Barry by having a 'call your mother' announcement blasted on the PA speakers of a massive rock concert he was attending........the same mom who turned a blind eye to his child molesting cousin. 

                       So not much filmmaking info to dive into......but a fair measure of laughter and cringes.

                       Personally, we can't help but loving any film director who responded to Scott Rudin's screaming tirades by building a protective fort from the couch cushions in Rudin's office. 

                        Why, that almost sounds like something from a Barry Sonnenfeld film.......

                      2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

QUARANTEEN-ANGST! BQ CRINGES AND BINGES!

            Even in the Pandemic age, we've never been big on marathon binges of TV series.......we'll take a  movie over TV episodes every time.......

            But when you share home sheltering with our librarian BD (Beloved Daughter) who adores adaptations of popular Young Adult novels.......what are ya gonna do?  We found ourselves as a....uh....captive audience......

             Looking For Alaska (2019) comes from a novel by the anointed Prince Of All Troubled Teens, John Green ('The Fault In Our Stars')  Green takes on nothing less than what-happens-when-we-die philosophical musings mixed in with huge heapings of coming-of-age heartbreak.........

              A prep school innocent falls hard for a wild ' n deeply broken Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, whose backstory is designed to shatter everybody's hearts in 10 million pieces. Please don't ask us to go on with the plot......we'll lose the will to live if we continue any further.......

             Not that we're complaining all that much, it's all well acted by the young cast and smartly written and directed........but 8 hours worth of this stuff can wear you out.....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

               Zac And Mia (2017)  falls under that ever-popular Young Adult genre.....Cancer Porn.
Nothing entrances young people and the authors who write for them than Lovebirds with life-threatening diseases.

                Cancer Porn Young Adult always boils down to one key element.........as to which one of these cutie-patooties is gonna get sicker quicker.......and how well they can balance out the suffering with the smooching.......

               Also federally mandated are scenes in which our doomed lovers defy their all their doctors strict orders to sneak out of their confinements in search of hormonal teen normality.......and later pay dearly for it......

              This goes on and on for a 2 season total  of 24 half hour episodes.  And that's way, way too much chemo-woe in a genre that's as rigid as Kabuki theater and Hallmark Channel movies......
1 * 1/2 stars) (*1/2)

               And finally, BD and I plunged into the show with by far the highest pedigree.....

              Normal People (2020)  is not technically Young Adult, even though its two lovers begin their tortuous romantic saga as high school students. Taken from a highly praised mainstream novel, it follows the long, up 'n down, off 'n on relationship between two Irish college students - Connell (the sensitive hunk) and Marianne (the quirky, broken iconoclast)

              Pardon us if we choose not to follow the crowd here, who've fallen all over themselves to grovel and bow before the supposed greatness of this show.

               Through 12 long episodes that move at the speed of a terrarium turtle, our dysfunctional duo manage to enjoy marathon sex bouts in between their various break-aparts that stretch out over their college careers.......

                And these neurotic kids look like they'll be in college til they're 60 or older........

               We didn't quite swallow the conception of the boy's character here........you're asked to believe he's some kind of brilliant writer........while most of his dialogue consists of 'What do ya mean?' .....which usually prefaces the beginning of an earth-shattering argument that will send him and his sweetie on separate paths........

                But not for that long.  Until it's time for the next 'What do ya mean/'.........

                 God, we're starting to yawn just thinking about this again.....1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2).....we're not down with all the raving praise showering this one........

                 Fortunately for BQ, Beloved Daughter has not dragged us into any further co-binges....not since she's happily watching, by herself, all the accumulated episodes of 'The Brady Bunch'.......

                 For that madness, we told her she's utterly on her own.......

           

'IT CRAWLED OUT OF THE WOODWORK'........REVIEWED BY CORA THE VIRUS!!

BQ:  Cora the Coronavirus.....just when we thought we were rid you.....

CORA:   Fat chance, Fleshy!  I'm here for the long haul.....ain't goin' nowhere til a vaccine chases me out.....

BQ:   Well, the President dubbed his vaccine program 'Operation Warp Speed'.....

CORA:  (HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER)  Oh right.....it's movin' at the same warp speed he uses to show you his tax returns.....heh, heh, heh, heh.......

BQ:  So why are you still hanging around?  We doused the room with Lysol....

CORA:  Isn't this a blog for movie and book reviews?  I stopped in to contribute a guest review!

BQ:   I'm afraid to even ask what you plan on reviewing.....

CORA:  My all time fave 'Outer Limits' episode, "It Crawled Out Of The Woodwork".  It's like someone did my biography!

BQ:  I thought your life story was pretty well covered  in "Contagion" and "Outbreak"

CORA:   Hell no. This one's the real deal. A cleaning lady in some science lab finds an industrial-strength dust ball in a corner........when she tries the vacuum on it, it turns into a giant energy sucking blob...... a mindless monster who drains the life out of anyone who comes near it......

BQ:  Hmmm.....that 's a fair description of both you and Donald Trump.

CORA:  I know!  Coincidence?  Who's to say?   Anyhoo......the jumbo blob, my hero, goes about its business just like me.......knocking off a whole bunch of poor suckers who die horribly, gaspin' for their last breath......

BQ:    I well remember that episode . Horrifying.

CORA:  Maybe to you, flesh-puddle, but that's what I call Feel Good television!

BQ:    As if this review wasn't disturbing enough, dare I ask how you would rate it?

CORA:  5 Blazing Microbes, baby! (*****) If they want to re-make it in color and widescreen, I'm available!  At least through next year........

BQ:    We've had enough of you for one weekend. Have some Lysol.......

CORA    Arrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhh!  I'm headed back to Texas anyway....the Trumpanzees love me there!  I'll be baaaaaaaaccccckkkkkkk.......

CORA THE VIRUS BLOWS IN ON A SNEEZE!

Thank God we threw on our mask minutes before our least favorite entity in the world, Cora The Coronavirus, came floating in through an open window.......

BQ:   Cora, is that a T-shirt you're wearing instead of your usual MAGA red hat?  What does that say....'Super Duper Missile?'

CORA  Don't you keep up with the news, fleshhead?  Trumpy's got a new weapon in his arsenal!

BQ:  You mean, something besides overwhelming stupidity and narcissism?

CORA   Even better!  A super duper missile. He actually called it that. Really.

BQ:  Oh joy. But we always thought YOU were his super duper weapon.

CORA:  Oh trust me I am, I am. But he's too dumb to realize the people I'm killin' off  faster than anybody are all his little Trump-tards.......all those poor slugs runnin' around with no masks.

BQ:  Uh....you do know the President's not wearing a mask either, right?

CORA;  You've no idea how many times me and my buddies have tried to infect him. But so far, we can't make it into his heart and lungs.......he's got a 8 layers of protective fat and a force field of McDonald's Special Sauce floating around his entire body. Goddamn, we just can't break through.

BQ:    That's a real shame, cause we know there's millions around the country and the world rooting for you to take him down......

CORA   But I'm so conflicted, ya know?   Making people sick enough to die is my whole life. But if I make Trumpy sick, I'll lose the best, most invaluable assistant I've ever had. Nobody, but nobody has helped me on my road to wiping out the USA more than Baby Orange!  He's a Godsend.

BQ:   These conversations with you always drain me of the will to live.......

CORA:   Pretty much the same effect of watching Trumpy on TV, right?

BQ:   Exactly.

CORA:  Then my work is done here.  Toodles, BQ, .....I'm on my way to Texas......if I hurry I can hit the crowded bars just in time for Happy Hour!

'NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT'.....MORE BRIT KIDDIES OF THE DAMNED............

Nothing But The Night (1973).....was derived from a book by one of BQ's favorite long-lost authors.......the unsung, long out of print (until recently) John Blackburn.

                 How do we describe a Blackburn novel.......sci-fi mystery? Suspenseful horror?  A mad, mad mixture of Agatha Christie, Stephen King and Michael Crichton?

                 All of the above.

                 "Nothing But The Night" is the one and only film adapted from a Blackburn novel, his first written in 1958.  To its credit, it gamely attempts to combine all the Blackburnian elements and genres we listed.....

                Sadly, it's directed flatly with no imagination, no style and no sense of dread from the fantastically perverse, gruesome yarn it spins......the footage lays there like the director was checking his watch for quittin' time.

                 Doubly tragic when you consider the powerhouse cast assembled for this.....including horror titans Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.......and Diana Dors, who started her career as the British Marilyn Monroe and finished it as the British Shelly Winters......

                  Dors is in full Shelly Winters mode here, playing the wayward, outraged mother of a strange, possibly evil little girl.......who's being raised in an equally strange 'orphans' academy' run by a group of elderly, wealthy trustees.

                   Some of the trustees are mysteriously committing suicide and Dors, already a convicted murderess, is on the lam for trying to throttle her creepy kid, .....and Creepy Kid herself herself may or may not have killed a bus driver while transporting her and her fellow orphans on a field trip.

                  Enough weirdness and mystery for you so far?

                 It's certainly enough for a Police Colonel (Lee) and a doctor (Cushing) to investigate all this bizarre stuff.........and even they can hardly comprehend how bizarre it all turns out......

                  We don't want to blow the whole story for you, but the startling, horrifying truth of what's going on in "Nothing But The Night" is almost identical, 44 years later, to the primary idea of 2017's most popular horror movie.......

                   If you should come across 'Nothing But The Night',along with its over-the-top climax, you'll know exactly which movie we're speaking of........

                    We strongly recommend, however, seeking out John Blackburn's book first......(yes, it's in print......and unless you're a hardcore British horror/Chris Lee/Peter Cushing fan, you can pass on the movie...….it's not even a fraction horrific as the book...….

                     Therefore, 1 & 1/2 stars for the film (*1/2) 4 stars for the book (****) (And if you get you jollies from the book like we did, check out other Blackburn goodies like "A Scent Of New Mown Hay" and "Children Of The Night".....chills guaranteed indeed.)

'WOMAN OF STRAW'.....EVIL BOND MEETS GINA LOLLAPALOOZA

Woman Of Straw (1964)   In between his Bond gigs, Sean Connery always tried to squeeze in a non-Bond film........to avoid being forever type cast as Agent 007......

               Yeh...good luck with that......

               The problem is.......in this film, as well as "Marnie", he still looks, sounds, walks and talks like Bond.......only with much murkier motives......

                "Woman Of Straw" comes off like a British technicolored noir, populated with two scheming, money-hungry plotters........played by Connery and international bombshell Gina Lollobrigida.....

                 And you can bet, just like the Rolling Stones song tell us.....,somebody's not gonna get what they want.....

                  Connery and Lollo lust for the vast fortune of Connery's cantankerous, obnoxious invalid uncle (Ralph Richardson). Old Ralphie's a repulsive tycoon who enjoys making his black servants hopscotch over each other in order to teach a new trick to his dogs........(honest)

                   This doesn't sit well with uncle's fresh-off-the-boat nurse, (the Lollo), but hey, the girl works hard for her money........and Connery concocts a plan for her end up as Ralphie's bride and inheritor of his estate......with a million dollar payout as Connery's fee for helping her.

                  So you know right away that Nasty Old Fart Ralphie is the equivalent of Mr. Boddy in the "Clue" board game.......and nephew Sean and nurse Lollo put their plan into motion.......

                 .......until things go horribly awry and multiple twists erupt right on schedule.......

                The only reason to make a movie like this or spend time watching it hinges solely on its cleverness and execution. In that regard, this is no "Sleuth".......the dialogue is functional and there's not drop of wit or humor in it........

                   .........unless you count the unintentional laughs generated by Lollo's peculiar plight in the last third of the film..........(which we won't discuss since the movie's final twists are really the only thing it has going for it......

                  Then again if you'd get a kick out of seeing Connery playing an immoral dick as he teams up with the Va-Va-Voom Lollo-palooza, the film's not a bad way to kill a rainy afternoon////

                   The only other item worth mentioning here is the eye-catching interior of Uncle Ralphie's palatial mansion, courtesy of master production designer Ken Adam.......(who gets the job of cleaning those 50 foot high windows? Just wonderin')

                     2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)......and that's primarily for the two stars......whom we wish had starred in something a little better.....and a little more worthy of their stardom.