'TERMINATOR DARK FATE'.........COME WITH US IF YOU WANT TO LIVE WITHOUT THIS MOVIE......

Terminator Dark Fate (2019   Here are the fundamental questions we pondered while watching this......

                   Why does this movie exist?

                    Who thought this movie was a good idea?  

                    Why would hundreds of millions of dollars and who knows how much time and technical expertise be spent on this?  Who believed in this movie that much in order to waste the time creating it?

                      We recall these imponderables floating through our head a few weeks ago as we endured Disney's 'Artemus Fowl'........and years ago, when we suffered through those two alternate-universe 'Amazing Spiderman' movies with Andrew Garfield........

                       Being innocent and naive at heart, we'd rather not believe that James Cameron trashed the mythology of his two classic 'Terminator' movies just so he could milk more cash out of rabid, Comic-Con refugee fanboys. Seriously, how much more money does this guy need?

                       We refuse to dignify or legitimize this movie by discussing its plot or characters in any detail.

                       Take our word for it........it's 2 excruciating hours of CGI garbage.......like a glum, stupid Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoon with live actors. Or at least they're live some of the time. 

                        We apologize to Warner Brothers for slandering Road Runner cartoons by comparing them to this movie. The cartoons are funnier, better written and any one of them is infinitely more watchable than 'Terminator Dark Fate'.......

                         No more precious time should be wasted on this........an AFH, Abomination From Hell.

                         And we'll also bestow a  new additional rating,.....the first film awarded with BQ's

N.R.T.E. rating.....(the 'Nerty'_)

                          ......which stands for.....(drum roll) No Reason To Exist.  Our deepest congratulations to the filmmakers for more than earning this coveted award.

                         'Nerty' recipients will receive a boxed set of Steven Seagal direct-to-video movies and a free pass to the Republican Convention in Jacksonville, Florida.  

                         Have a ball there, guys......you so deserve it.

'YOU'LL FIND OUT'.......ISH KABIBBLE AND THE KOLLEGE OF MUSICAL KNOWLEDGE

You'll Find Out (1940).......we sure did. We found out this rickety, riotous low comedy vaudeville show was way ahead of the 1940's curve.......

             In combing boilerplate horror movie tropes with cornball slapstick, it arrived 8 years before  'Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein' established that sort of  mash-up as a genre all to itself......

              And in the oddest twist of Hollywood casting fate, it stands as the one and only movie that featured the mighty horror Triumvirate, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre.....all together. 

             You can only sigh wistfully and wish someone could have found a better, more suitable movie for these three icons to join forces in.......but that's showbiz.

              The 3 Amigos of fright function only as window dressing for actual stars of the movie......a spindly, bespectacled band leader named Kay Kyser and his jazz-swing orchestra.  Kay's shtick involved dressing up in a cap and gown and hitting audience members with questions like "what a measle, a weasel and an easel?"

              Hey, back in 1940, these were the jokes, folks.

              Kyser mostly served as straight man to several of his goofy band members, including  the prime comedy relief, a Jerry Lewis precursor who billed himself as Ish Kabibble........you know at once you're supposed to laugh at Ish, cause he's got a bowl haircut with severe bangs and makes funny faces like he's the Friendly Neighborhood Village Idiot. 

              Kay and the gang take on a gig playing at  a huge spooky mansion where  our favorite unholy trio of Karloff, Lugosi and Lorre try their damndest to bump off an innocent young heiress to gain control of her estate.

              Bring on the seances loaded up with phony ghosts, floating crockery and plunging chandeliers........and after that, it's on to the secret passages, near misses with blowdarts  and stuffed gorillas in creepy underground lairs......

              As Ish Kabibble strains to look stupid, Kay gets into a furious smackdown with Lugosi and the band breaks into musical numbers like "The Bad Humor Man".........which features the Korny Kabibble as pissed off ice cream peddler.......(get it? He's the bad humor man....yuk, yuk)

              Is any of this as unintentionally funny as it sounds?  Maybe, if you're at all seduced by the innocent nostalgia of 1940's cinema.........but fair warning......if you're not, this movie comes off as a bizarre freakshow that might have best been left in  a permanently buried time capsule......

              Since BQ falls in that first, seducible  category, we'll freely admit to smiling at all the ancient hi-jink  on display here.  We only found fault in its overlength.......if only they'd held it down to 75 minutes, it wouldn't have tried our patience so much.

              One thing in this movie you do not want to miss - the band putting on a display of the wild and unearthly 'Sonovox' technique (think of it as  a prehistoric warm-up to AutoTune).....the sound of the band's instruments filtered through a voice box wrapped around a singer's vocal cords.......so it sounds like the  trombone's doing the singing...........

               For Kay Kyser's  boundless enthusiasm and the immortal Ish Kabibble (whose name we love saying over and over again), 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).

                And for you archivists of actors......yes, that young guy laboring over Kay's Kollege Kwiz is none other than veteran character Jeff Corey.

'MIDWAY' & 'CHARLIE'S ANGELS'......FROM THE DEPT. OF 'NOT AS BAD AS YOU THINK'

Midway (2019) and Charlie's Angels' (2019)     We grouped these two together because they've got one major thing in common.......

                Everyone expected them to suck......and we mean, suck to the moon and back.

                Just the mere thought of the coming of these movies could induce nausea.......

                'Midway' came courtesy of Roland Emmerich, that three-ring-circus  purveyor of CGI cheese ("Independence Day", "The Day After Tomorrow", "2012".....

                 'Charlie's Angels'  arrived as the latest blockbuster testimony to the new emerging cinematic Girl Power.......along the lines of the much ridiculed and derided all-female 'Ghostbusters'

                  Both these movies seemed pre-destined to show up dead on arrival.  The idea of Emmerich, premier panderer to the butter popcorn gobblers, tacking a pivotal World War 2 battle was enough to make anyone's eyes roll.

                   And 'Charlie's Angels' toplined that Mistress of Mope, that Diva of Depression.....Kristen Stewart.......a massively overrated actress with low energy and even lower emotional range.

                   We dreaded sitting through either film.......until we did.

                   Surprise, surprise, surprise.  Considering the potential for embarrassing disaster, they're not that bad. Entirely watchable, even.  More often than not.......entertaining. 

                    'Midway' is naturally top-heavy with CGI depicting astoundingly brave American pilots dive bombing Japanese battleships........(as opposed to the cheeseball Universal Studios' 1976 'Midway' which relied on grainy stock footage and clips from a Japanese war movie)

                    Director Emmerich, to our astonishment, avoids any of his usual corny silliness, keeping the movie on an semi-documentary, respectful course. He never adds any of his typical idiotic flourishes to make him or the movie come off as Hollywood Stupid.   For him, that's 10 steps up.....

                     'Charlie's Angels', directed with exuberant girl-power enthusiasm by Elizabeth Banks offers a couple of revelations of its own.

                     Kristen Stewart ditches her perpetual ennui and delivers a fast 'n furiously funny performance. She's a stunning live wire in this one and more than provides all the lightning bolts of energy and fun that a movie like this desperately requires. 

                      And Elizabeth Banks, also starring in the film, orchestrates action sequences as exciting and well-staged as anything you'd see in a Marvel superhero movie. 

                      We even forgave the movie for shamelessly stealing one of Sean Connery's Bond quips from "Thunderball"........(must be a sign we're getting soft in our old age......)

                      So as the hot summer nights roll in (and since, the way things are going, we're all likely to end up self-quarantined again).....here's a couple of frosty cinematic coolers to pass the time with. 

                     Maybe they should have used the 'NOT AS BAD YOU THINK' tagline on the  posters.........3 stars (***) to each of them.

TRUMP'S FAVORITE ASIANS.......SPECIAL 'KUNG-FLU' INTERVIEW!

                  

 Here's a red hot exclusive dropped in BQ's lap by none other than the unseen recluse Bobby 'Blubber' Beluga, hacker extraordinaire, and Dark Web Master......(pictured above in a rare candid moment)

                     Yes, 'BBB', as he's known on the web, is the actual 500 pound cyber-whiz who sabotaged American polling places for Putin and Trump, dreamed up the 'Deep State' and is currently, on behalf of the White House, spreading the rumor that wearing protective masks will give you cancer.......

                     And more than that, he's a personal e-mail buddy of the President........after coming up with the racist 'Kung Flu' term for the Coronavirus, Blubber engaged in a long e-mail back-and-forth with our Dear Leader.........just for giggles, he sent this transcript to us.....

TRUMP:  Blubber, you're a genius, giving me that 'Kung Flu' gag. No a stable genius like me, but you come close.

BBB:   Thanks boss. Anything I can do to hurry up the apocalypse for you. Speaking of Asians, are there any of those rice-chuggin' midgets you do like?

TRUMP:  Hey, I love the gooks as much as the blacks. I'll give ya an example......how 'bout Mr. Yunioshi, that gibbering little slant from 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'.....I'll bet that poor little sucker had wet dreams about getting into Audrey Hepburn's pants......well, she's no Ivanka, but she's okay.....

BBB:  Uh...Donald, that wasn't a real Asian.......that was Mickey Rooney in a shitload of makeup...

TRUMP:   No, that's gotta be a real guy. I'm never wrong about these things, believe me......what about Dr. No?  Now there's an Asian I can really get behind. He wants world domination and kills anybody who gets in his way.......and he doesn't put up with any of this oversight committee crap.....

BBB:   Not a real person, Donald.  He's just a James Bond villain.......and he's played by a Jewish actor, Joseph Wiseman.....

TRUMP:  Are you f***in' kidding me?!  You mean Dr. No's related to my son-in-law Jared? Ha! Wait'll I tell the little weasel......

BBB: You really shouldn't do that- ......never mind. Any other Asian you like?

TRUMP:  I'm a huge fan of that ace detective......what's his name, Charlie Chopstick?  No wait....it's Charlie Chan!  Awesome law-and-order guy.....I'm thinkin' of making him Assistant Attorney General.

 BBB:  Hate to break it to you, Don, but Charlie's another fictitious character. Doesn't exist.

TRUMP:   Yeh, well I'm hearing from many people that he's real. Many people are saying that.

BBB:    Trust me, Don, Charlie's as made up as the 'many people' you're always quoting..

TRUMP:  Wise guy, stop behaving like such a Debbie Downer.  Okay, I'll pick a real life historical figure from Asian history. Fu Manchu!  What a guy....another rule-the-world guy and I heard he had a 5 foot shlong like me.....

BBB:   Nope. Sorry, baby. Another made up guy from books and movies. And on screen he was played by Sir Christopher Lee......who's white and British.

TRUMP: You're killin' me here, Blubber. But I got one you can't deny!  Bruce Lee!

BBB:   Yep, you got me there..... he's absolutely real.....the inspiration for my 'Kung Flu' gag.

TRUMP:  And I'm hearing from any people that he's planning to endorse me in the upcoming election.....I'm hearing many good things about this......

BBB:   That's highly unlikely, Donald......considering he's been dead for 47 years.

 

TRUMP: Dead?  Really?  I thought that was just another conspiracy theory you put out there. Shit! 

Can't you start a rumor that he's back.....yeh, that's it. He spent the last 47 years meditating with the Dali Lama and he's come out of retirement to Make American Great Again!  

BBB:  I dunno, Mr. Prez.....that's kind of a stretch, even for me. And you.

TRUMP:   Those idiots who come to my rallies will believe anything I sell 'em!  We'll hire some hot young actor to play Bruce Lee.....like that guy from 'Crazy Rich Asians'....

BBB:  Um.....listen.....you do know that Bruce Lee would be pushing 80 years old by this time.

TRUMP: So what?    We'll say he had some work done, a little nip 'n tuck. You can never tell how the hell old Asians are anyway.  Come on, Blubber, spin it, spin it.  You gotta get me back in office before all the indictments come down......so then I can pardon myself. 

BBB: I'll do what I can, Don. Once we get Bruce Lee to reappear at your rallies, you can use the gag line....'well here comes the Chink in my armor!'

TRUMP: Huh? I don't get it.

'THE GIANT MECHANICAL MAN'......DEPT. OF INDIE LOST SOULS......

The Giant Mechanical Man (2012)......is exactly the kind of tiny, inconsequential independent film you'd expect us to stomp on.......with both feet.

                 What can we say?  Call us crazy, but.......the damn thing charmed us, seduced us with its simple sweetness......totally revealed us as a born sucker for romance........

                  The spark here is the gentle chemistry between actors Chris Messina and Jenna Fischer, playing those standard indie tropes, the two lost souls buffeted by a cold, hard world that they can't seem to find their place in. 

                    Messina's a unique street mime, outfitting himself in stilts and silver paint as a towering silent robot. Fischer's an emotionally adrift introvert whose disconnect from people renders her unable to hold even temp jobs. 

                    Shouldn't these ultra-sensitive oddballs find each other and fall into a romance? Of course they should......and that's all this movie really has on its mind......

                     And maybe that's what won us over to this movie.....its complete lack of pretension, as well as the undeniable chemistry between Messina and Fischer. You're rooting for them every step of the way and for any romantic comedy, that 99% of the battle. 

                    It made us smile and in its subtle probing of what makes its boy and girl tick, it even made us think........how do you go about finding your place in the world when you don't have the first clue?

                     Though long forgotten among the mountainous piles of independent romances, BQ says 'The Giant Mechanical Man' is worth remembering.......and seeing. 3 stars (***)

'ZARDOZ'.......THE FUTURE IS BOND IN A DIAPER.......

Zardoz (1974)......serves as a cautionary tale of what happens when a film director is indulged to make anything he wants after his previous movie became a huge success.....

                John Boorman set the cinema world on fire with 'Deliverence'..........hence his given a blank check to vomit up this thing.....which we gag when making any attempt to describe it......

                 We barely remembered anything about it since we last saw it at its original unveling.....other than it was about some typically horrifying future dystopia that featured Sean Connery as a barbarian in a red diaper and a giant floating stone head......

                  12 hours after seeing it again, those are still the only things that stick out about it.

                  As far as we know, no critic ever accused John Boorman or his movies of having a sense of humor........but we' not so sure anymore. This movie's so grindingly, in-your-face weird and awful, it feels like it should be titled, "National Lampoon's Really Bad Sci Fi Movie"..........

                   We do remember, back in '74, the theaters showing 'Zardoz' posted placards on the sidewalk, explaining the movie's tortuous mythology to anyone brave enough to buy a ticket and endure it......

                   Since we don't have access to that placard, we'll have to wing it.........

                  Sir Sean's a hunka-hunka burnin' Barbarian who doesn't understand why the Giant Floating Stone Head keeps telling him to hunt down poor shlubs who procreate.......(evidently the only ones allowed to screw are the hunka-hunka gang who're allowed to rape any of shlubettes they don't kill )

                    Off he goes in search of answers, which leads him to the uppercrust, high falutin' bunch who rule the world.......sexless immortals who wear skimpy outfits and have lots of funhouse mirrors that function as the movie's special effects......

                    But why go on........the film remains self-indulgent, pretentious gibberish from beginning to end......and only becomes close to watchable when it exceeds itself in pure lunacy......(Connery's in a wedding dress at one point......and screams hysterically when he finds out his messed up world was derived from a classic children's book....)

                     We deeply sympathized with Connery in that scene.......we felt like screaming tool

                   And we knew how to rate this movie after watching the first five minutes of it, let alone the punishing 1 hour, 55 minute remainder......a perfect AFH, an ABOMINATION FROM HELL.  

                   Only people in Hell should be forced to watch it. 

                   

'THE WARPED ONES'......JAPAN-A-JAZZY JUVENILE DELINQUENT......

The Warped Ones (1960).........features our two of our most momentous exports to Japan......

                  American jazz........and restless Rebels Without a Clue........

                  These cultural touchstones collide with a vengeance as a smirking, nihilistic punk named Akira goes on a rape 'n revenge rampage tour, all it set to the nervous rhythms of Japanese imitations of be- bop jazz......yeahhhhh, baby.......the coolest, Daddy-O......

                     75 minutes of New Wave noirish filmmaking  may slightly exceed the amount of time you'd ever want to spend watching this smug cretin steal cars, assault women and live in a jazz-infused state of delirium......

                    But the film's so propulsive in its pacing and unpredictability of its lead, you hold on for dear life and keep watching......cause there's no telling what this pure-force-of-nature idiot will do next. .

                      Oblivious to human contact or any real emotion except instant gratification, he barely minds at all when a group of guys he pushed his way through turn around and pound him. But all of this comes across so fast and stylish in black-and-white widescreen,  you find yourself taking it in stride....just like Akira......

                      The combination of the hot jazz and the hot-tempered 'hero' keep this film at a boil until it settles for ending with a lame jokey twist.....as if the movie realized it ran out of gas and stopped cold..

                     But while it's zippin' along, it's an odd, strangely fun ride.......and a stunning example of cultural cross-pollination........

                     So if you dig world cinema the most, Daddy-O, try groovin' on this one......3 stars (***).

                    

WEEKLY MADNESS WRAP-UP.....ASSISTED, OF COURSE, BY CORA THE VIRUS

BQ:    Cora, that "Trump 2020" T-Shirt is kind of loose on you......we guess they don't make 'em in sizes for Coronavirus?

CORA:   No prob, Flesh-Nerd, I'm goin' to the Tulsa rally incognito, so it's the perfect disguise......

BQ:   You're really planning to attend?

CORA:  With bells on, Bud!  Trumpy doesn't want to think about me anymore and his Trumpanzees don't want to wear masks.......so you can bet your ventilator I'm gonna run wild and infect the whole ****in' crowd!  Like Miley Cyrus says....it's a Party In The USA!

BQ:  Let's move on the the Weekly Madness, shall we?  How about John Bolton and Trump?

CORA:  Oh, you mean the remake of 'King Kong Vs. Godzilla'?  I thought that wasn't out til next year....

BQ:  Personally, we can't think of two people who deserve each other more.....an insane warmonger and an insane draft dodging coward......

CORA:  Now you know why I never accepted a job in the White House......cause when you get fed up enough and leave, Trump ends up calling you a Wacko or a Coffee Boy.....

BQ:   Wait.....YOU were offered a job in the administration?

CORA:   Yep.....Homeland Security.....he wanted me to work the border and infect all the Bad Hombres tryin' to sneak into the country.....

BQ:   Moving on........let's cover the this week's looney-tune tweets......Trump says the Supreme Court and people who wear masks don't like him......

CORA:   I got breaking news for Trumpy.......with the exception of those dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks redhats goin' to his rallies.....NOBODY likes him.....and I'm gonna be thinning out the redhats once they suck me into their lungs tonight......just remember...to me, ALL lives don't matter!

BQ:  Good to know. By the way, did you celebrate June Nineteenth?  According to Trump, it never existed until he mentioned it.....

CORA:  I wouldn't dream of missing it.......to honor the day, I infected an extra amount of minorities!

BQ:  You've been doing that all along, haven't you?

CORA:   Shhhh! Trumpy doesn't want you to know that. Classified info!

BQ:   Like the the supposed classified info in Bolton's book?  That's already in 100,000 copies in circulation that people have quoted from? 

CORA: You're never any fun to talk to. Gotta go, I'm gonna be late for the rally tailgate parties......lotsa beer and hardly any mask wearers....

BQ:   Always a displeasure to work with you, Cora. Here's a splash of hand sanitizer to send you on your way.....

CORA:    Arrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!  You ruined my shirt......but that's okay.....I bought a new one that's much better for the rally....Check it out.....Trumpy and Ivanka designed it especially for mass gatherings...

BQ:  Wow....'Only Trump's Life Matters'......how appropriate.

'TOTAL RECALL'....HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY TO THE MARS-INATOR

Total Recall (1990)    We're a couple weeks late by not posting this on the film's actual June 1st 1990 release date........but that's the joy of running your own blog.......skipping self-imposed deadlines to take a nap or catch up with a good book or film....

                 And we LOVE catching up with this one........we consider it one of the most perfectly conceived blending of non-stop brutal action and mind bending sci fi......

                   So on its 30th Anniversary, let's salute the film's MVPs......

                  Paul Verhoeven   American directors may have dabbled in nihilistic violence from time to time, but no one fervently embraced it more than Verhoeven,  In 'Total Recall','Robocop' , 'Flesh + Blood'and 'Starship Troopers', Verhoven constructs worlds where agonizing death is random, plentiful, merciless........and yes, on a certain level......outrageously funny in its excess.

                   Arnold    Do we even need to spell out his last name?  The most telling thing about the Governator is the way we loved him as an Everyman hero......even when he was about the farthest thing from an 'Everyman' as anyone could get....(did any of us look like him....ever?)  But when he ponders in exasperation, "If I'm not me.....then who da hell am I?", he tapped into a universal anxiety we all share.

   

                    Sharon Stone   Our only deep regret........she....uh....how do we put it.....exits the film too early.   A remorseless Iron Goddess, Stone's brief 'marriage' to Arnold erupts like a dark parody of  the husband-and-wife dynamic.......with the wife functioning alternately as a sex toy and castrating nemesis.  (Verhoeven and Stone would then take that concept to delirious heights in 'Basic Instinct')

                  Michael Ironside  Did any movie hero ever have a more implacable foe than Ironside, a grim reaper in a leather jacket. But in a career filled with such roles, Ironside finds a way to put an individual stamp on each of his villains and psychos. His final punch-up with Arnold on the industrial elevator remains one of cinema's greatest battles.....

                    Mel Johnson Jr. as Benny the mutant cab driver with "five kids to feed"......and a prime example of why you should never trust someone who appears to be the comic relief in a Verhoeven movie

                    Jerry Goldsmith  The film composer genius whose driving, perpetual motion score becomes the literal beating heart of the movie........with a theme set to what sounds like pounding metal-on-metal.......a beyond perfect accompaniment to the unfolding carnage

                     Old School Effects  Call us old fashioned......or just plain old....but we adore those elaborate meticulous miniatures......making this one of the last films that wouldn't require a 15 minute credit crawl of 1,000 CGI artists......

                    "Total Recall" remains one of those films that's a treat every time we watch it.......its 2 hours fly by and we have to fight the urge to restart it all over gain.  Forever and always, a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS. BQ says follow the advice given to Arnold ....get your ass to Mars. 

                 

'COLD TURKEY'.....NICOTINE-AGERS GONE WILD

Cold Turkey (1971)  Shortly before he launched his groundbreaking TV sitcom empire ("All In The Family", "Good Times", "Maude"), comedy king Norman Lear wrote and directed this expansive, ambitious satire........a surprisingly cruel and edgy attack on corporate greed, religious hypocrisy and good old fashioned American political stupidity...........

                     Heavily populated with instantly recognizable comedic actors, the film turns them loose on a premise that allows all of them to go crazy, each in their own way.........they make the casts of "It's A Mad, Mad, Mad,Mad World" and "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" look sedate and sane in comparison.......

                      They play the chain-smoking residents of Eagle Rock, Iowa, a depressed, decrepit, dying dump, hopin' and prayin' for a U.S. Military contract to build a missile manufacturing plant.........a pipe dream unless they get the cash to spiff up the town enough to attract the Army......

                        Salvation comes from a conniving tobacco exec (Bob Newhart) who, in a brilliant flash of public relations chutzpah, offers the town 25 million if they'll give up smoking for 30 days.......(Bob's betting his job that he'll never have to pay them a dime....)

                        Both energized and terrified at the prospect of no butts for a month, the town turns to their sanctimonious minister (Dick Van Dyke) to lead them to the promised land of tobacco cash. Van Dyke's Rev. Brooks, like everyone else in the cast, is working on his own agenda - scoring a bigger and better ministry in Dearborn, Michigan.

                         And so the ordeal commences for the nicotine-deprived Eagle Rockers, who take the loss of their favorite addiction with ever escalating levels of hysteria, violence and increased dependence on sex as a release........(this humping-instead-of-smoking therapy especially helps the good Reverend, and his cowed, emotionally abused wife (Pippa Scott).

                          Here's where the movie truly takes flight........with Lear's lengthy montages of the unbridled madness that grips the townsfolk, all of these sequences put to rousing, slyly funny music  in  Randy Newman's first film score.  Adults and kids slap each other with abandon and even a puppy get kicked like a football by someone deranged by forced non-smoking. 

                           Beyond the slapstick stuff, the film casts a farcical cold eye on everything it touches upon, right wing fanatics who warp American values,  the Machiavellian tobacco companies, and pompous celebrity media figures (lampooned here by the comedy team Bob and Ray,  master portrayers of  puffed-up 'Boobus Americanus' types)

                           Though it's never once mentioned in the film, you can easily see the frenzy of Eagle Rock as a metaphor for a nation ripped apart by Vietnam, youth revolution and the divisive Nixon Presidency........all it took to set this town on fire was taking away their only legal addiction.......you can only wonder what they'd be like when they see their young sons shipped home to them in flag-draped coffins.....

                              Lear doesn't resist the urge to apply a Hollywood candy-coating to his finale.......the film wraps up with a riot worthy of Nathanael West's 'Day Of The Locust'........with three of the film's leads presumably dying of gunshot wounds while the crowd grabs at thousands of cigarettes air-dropped on them at the stroke of midnight. 

                           Finishing up with a perfect, almost inevitable visual gag, "Cold Turkey" is a long lost, unsung gem.....and BQ's coughing up 4 stars (****)........it's only hazardous to your funny bone, which it will tickle without mercy.......

                         

                         

                        

'GOD'S LITTLE ACRE'.......INBRED AND BREAKFAST

God's Little Acre (1958)     We've posted often enough about how 1950's movies continued to  stay locked in their iron-clad genres......with no straying outside the lines.......

                 That kind of revolutionary genre-bending didn't really get going until the swingin' 60's.....

                  But every so often........a wild card popped up out of nowhere......

                  "God's Little Acre", based on a novel that gave censors heart failure and got readers hot 'n bothered, was the wildest card ever..........freely mixing low comedy with overheated melodrama, liberally peppered with sexual suggestiveness...... 

                   Way down Georgia way, obsessed, frenzied cotton farmer Ty Ty Walden (Robert Ryan) has given up plownin' 'n plantin'  to dig up enormous holes on his property......in search of gold treasure supposedly buried by his Grandpappy.......

                    Helped in the digging by two of his idiot sons, Buck and Shaw (Jack Lord, Vic Morrow), Ty Ty's only managed to make his farm look like a bomb blasted no man's land at the Battle Of The Bulge.

                     Along comes town bumpkin and candidate for Sheriff. Pluto Swint (comedian Buddy Hackett), who informs the Waldens they'll be needin' an Albino to act as a diviner to the gold. Wasting no time, the gang promptly kidnaps a blindingly blonde teenager (Michael Landon) who, out of sheer terror, points a diving stick at the side of the house........which of course results in a new huge hole that threatens to topple the house into it.

                      But this movie's more about lust than greed........specifically centered around Ty Ty's voluptuous daughter-in law Griselda, played by Tina Louise way before she marooned herself on 'Gilligin's Island'.......

                       Virtually everybody's slobbering over Griselda, including Ty Ty's son in law Will (Aldo Ray), who's married to another of Ty Ty's daughters the.shy retiring Rosamund (Hellen Wescott And if that isn't enough sexual combustion for you, lurkin's around the farm is the youngest daughter, the resident steamy Lolita, Darlin' Jill (Fay Spain).........who's being wooed by, of all people, the bulbous, lovesick Pluto. 

                        From this description, you may think the movie's strictly kidding around, presenting this entire Southern Fried Klown Kollege as objects of satiric ridicule.......especially since Ryan and the cast rip into their roles as if they're doing a Saturday Night Live skit,....'Ma and Pa Kettle On Meth and Viagra'

                      No, we think distinguished director Anthony Mann directed this with as much serious intent as his 'El Cid' or 'Fall Of The Roman Empire'........and the fall of Ty Ty's empire makes for a far more entertaining show than either of those 3 hour epics, even as the film's tone swings crazily from pseudo Tennessee Williams to cornpone Abbott and Costello.....

                    A huge Guilty Pleasure awaits you, with so much to enjoy.........Elmer Bernstein's bouncy Americana score complete with a title song.......the stupifyin' sight of TV icons Tina Louise, Jack Lord and Michael Landon like you've never seen them before......

                    And no cinema buff should miss seeing a film that features Buddy Hackett simulating sex with a water pump while he salivates over Fay Spain lolling around in an outdoor bath tub.......for BQ, that makes "God's Little Acre" a 4 star (****) Georgia peach.

BAD MANAGERS - 'THE OFFICE'S MICHAEL SCOTT AND TRUMP

        

          We're about halfway through a total binge of "The Office", having never had the time to watch a single episode when it originally aired.......

               Beyond its superb, excruciating depiction of every human foible imaginable (plus a few unimaginable), we're struck by similarities between Steve Carell's Michael Scott and Baby Orange.....

               The difference being that the show sometimes shows pity and sympathy for the blundering, blustering, profoundly imbecilic office manager. At times, Michael Scott can be deeply humbled and humiliated into moments of self-awareness.  

                 .......and we feel for him, as do his beleaguered employees who mostly suffer silently through the outrageous slings and arrows of his non-stop idiocy.

                  Baby Orange, on the other hand, could never inspire any such emotions.......unlike Michael Scott, he proudly waves his bigotry, cruelty and overwhelming stupidity like one of the American flags he loves to hug for the camera. 

                  And no self-awareness, vulnerability or empathy for others ever reaches his warped, diseased mind.  He remains a hellish, impregnable force, driven only the one great love of his life.......himself. 

                  Part of the fun of the "The Office" comes from watching Michael Scott duck and weave and somehow worm his way out of whatever chaos his foolishness has generated.  Through it all, he's never less than human.........he's a collection of every bad choice we've ever made in our lives........and we all, at one time or another, experienced that same haunted look on his face.......when he knows he's landed in deep shit of his own making. 

                  Baby Orange, a disturbed sociopath with no moral compass, will never display that kind of humanity........he doesn't have it in him. And never did. There's simply nobody home.......

                   Which is why we laugh out loud at Michael Scott, who thinks he's the best manger, but is actually the worst (and at times, he knows it).......and cringe at Baby Orange, the worst manager with biggest management job in the world......who, unlike Micheal Scott,  will never recognize and acknowledge how unfit he is for his position.....

                     And that, we guess, marks the difference between comedy and tragedy........

'ARTEMIS FOWL'......DISNEY'S ARTLESS FOUL

Artemis Fowl (2020)    We'd need a 30 pound thesaurus to come up with enough withering adjectives to properly describe this atrocity.........

                 We watched this mostly with a slack-jawed gape of disbelief.........

                  In its own way, though, it's an achievement of some kind.......it plays like a 90 minute highlights reel of every rotten, mind-numbing, achingly lousy YA fantasy franchise movie ever perpetrated........the ones you've already suffered through, the ones yet to be made and the imaginary ones that could only exist in your worst nightmares.......

                   It's all here for you in one ghastly trainwrecked package.....a toxic tsunami of fluttering fairies, trolls, gremlins, all it swirling over an indigestible mythical history......

                    The fans of the books this aborted mess was derived from are howling in rage.........and even if we've never read the books (we haven't), we deeply sympathize.........cause the books couldn't possibly approach the level of abysmal chaos on display in the film........

                     We won't exhaust ourselves wondering if this nuclear-level disaster  was intentional or due to massive studio second-guessing and artistic interference......

                    Who cares at this point........the good news: the instant self destruction of this movie will insure a relieved world that no one will ever have to endure any more 'Artemis Fowl' sequels.....whew....

                     BQ was more than prepared to award this cinematic turd a richly deserved AFH,an Abomination From Hell.......

                       But there's one small gem struggling along in this steaming mountain of manure......a sparkly little teen actress name Lara McDonnell, playing a feisty fairy named Holly Short.......well named since she makes short work of every other actor in the movie, all of whom will likely purge this movie from their resumes and pretend they never heard of it, let alone appeared in it.....

                      For Lara McDonnell, who's now 16, we'll give out 1/16th of a star........Kenneth Branagh who, to his everlasting shame, directed 'Artemis Fowl' is giving Lara a break by  putting her in his remake of "Death On The Nile"......

                       As well he should.......he's owes her one.... big time.  She's the only good thing anyone will remember about the utterly foul 'Fowl'.  And Disney execs should extract their heads out of their asses and make this kid a star.......

CORA THE VIRUS INFECTS THE WEEKLY MADNESS WRAP-UP!

BQ:  Cora The Coronavirus.....please tell us you won't stay long. It's very uncomfortable wearing this full Hazmat Containment suit......

CORA:  Cool your jets, Fleshpod. I thought you'd need some help wrappin' up this week's pile of crap....and who better than me?

BQ:  What's with the big floppy straw hat and sunglasses?  Are those flip-flops stuck on your tendrils?

CORA: Just enjoyin' the summer in all my favorite vacation spots.....Florida, Texas, Arizona......catchin' some rays and killin' off all those idiots who thought it was safe to party hearty!

BQ:  You leave us speechless, as always. Let's move on......what do you think about Trump's upcoming rally in Tulsa?

CORA:  Bring it on, I say. Fresh meat!  You should be thanking me, actually......when I get done with that rally, I'll have really thinned out the Trumpanzee population......less people to vote for him....

BQ:  Every cloud has a silver lining.......let's move on to Trump wanting to hold on to Confederate monuments and Army Base names.......

CORA:  Hey, I'm just a lethal virus with no knowledge of history.......which, come to think of it , is a pretty good description of your President.  Maybe I'm wrong, but......weren't all those Confederate guys traitors to the United States......just so they could keep black people enslaved?

BQ:  Yep.

CORA:  Ah, no wonder Trump wants to keep 'em forever enshrined. They're his kind of guys.

BQ:   Moving on......how about your take on his Tweet in all caps......about 'those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it'......

CORA:   (CHOKING ON LAUGHTER)  Hoo boy, did that one ever backfire on him or what?  All he did was make people remember voting for him in 2016, thinking 'what have I got to lose?'

BQ:  Now they know, don't they?

CORA:  And they're sure as shit doomed if they repeat history.....heh, heh, heh. What's next?

BQ:   How about Melania re-negotiating her Pre-Nup?

CORA:   I had me a peek at that Prenup while I was floating around the White House.......jeez, it's thicker than "Gone With The Wind"  and basically the same story, since it's about a cold-hearted bitch who can't stand her husband.......I love the part in the prenup where she demands 60 minutes in a decontamination chamber anytime he touches her.......not that I blame her.... 

BQ:  Speaking of decontamination, Cora, I've got a disinfectant spray crew coming in here in 5 minutes..... 

CORA:  Gotta go.......don't forget you can order online my "Keep America Sick As A Dog" hats.....order 2 and I throw in photo of me and Trump together, arm in arm....Partners forever!

BQ:  Have a dash of sanitizer for the road.....

CORA:     Arrrrrrrrrgghhhhhhhhhhh.......

'7 FACES OF DR. LAO'......EXTREMELY LAO AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE......

7 Faces Of Dr. Lao (1964)     We can't help but go a little easy on Hollywood's first premier fantasist, George Pal.......

               Not particularly talented as director (his efforts there lack pace and visual style) he made up for his deficiencies with a soaring imagination.....

                 And as we've pointed out in other posts, Pal worked his cinematic miracles ("War Of The Worlds", "The Time Machine", "When Worlds Collide") with impoverished budgets........

                  '7 Faces Of Dr.Lao' may be as close to a personal statement as you'll ever find in a Pal film.....a gentle-hearted fable in which an immortal, Chinese circus magician teaches moral lessons to a Western town filled with vain, greedy, foolish citizens........all of them on the verge of selling their homes and property over to a manipulative, bullying land baron. 

                      Dr. Lao, played in a bravura display of theatrical versatility by Tony Randall. imparts nuggets of wisdom to the townsfolk while he appears as all his circus's attractions......the Abominable Snowman, Merlin The Magician, the Greek God Pan, a talking serpent, a blind seer,  and even Medusa, complete with hair snakes.

                     The life altering lessons doled out by Lao in his multiple identities play out in the same way Rod Serling cleverly implanted his opinions in his 'Twilight Zone' episodes........but you don't mind that you're being preached to when there's so much fun stuff to gaze at goggle-eyed.......Medusa turning the town harridan into stone, Pan driving the town's prim schoolmarm into a literal hot 'n bothered frenzy, and the villainous land baron seeing his own face on the wisecracking serpent......

                       After all these mini-morality tales unfold, Pal rewards you with some simple, plain old fashioned  fairy-tale fun......when the land baron's scuzzy minions open fire on Dr. Lao's goldfish, not realizing it's the Loch Ness Monster in disguise.......

                        A word of caution here, especially to Asian viewers who come across this film.......its 1964 origins become apparent in Randall's schizophrenic performance as Dr. Lao.....he swings back and forth from sounding cultured and erudite to that godawful low comedy oriental shtick that Mickey Rooney inflicted on "Breakfast At Tiffanty's"   Don't say we didn't warn you.....

                         As for BQ, whenever we unearth a 60's time capsule like this one, we consider the era it came from. '7 Faces Of Dr Lao' serves at the epitome of George Pal's artistry.......flights of fantasy combined with a love of ancient myths, held up as mirrors to our own souls. 

                         Clumsy and clunky at times, it still finds a way to charm........and Tony Randall's clearly having the time of his life playing an actor's dream role, with great help from MGM's makeup master William Tuttle. And tip of the musical hat to Leigh Harline for his catchy theme.  3 stars (***)

'LOVE WEDDING REPEAT'.........TWO WEDDINGS AND NO FUNERAL

Love Wedding Repeat (2020)   What is it with rom-com writers and weddings?

                Ever since 'Four Weddings And A Funeral',  they've been strip-mining weddings for material......in a never ending pageant of dysfunctional bridal parties, heavy drinking, awkward romances, both unrequited and the other kind.......and cake ending up in every possible place  except in people's mouths......

                This one strains mightily to stand out from the pack, kicking off with with a brief trip to the Cosmos, narrated by some woman who does a damn good Dame Judi Dench impersonation. Sooner or later, faux-Judi intones, all romantic plans will go down the crapper........

                 To prove that theory,  we have a carload of wedding guests at a sumptuous Rome reception , including the  the bride herself, in various stages of desperation, panic and overall love-sickness.....

                  The bride's brother (Sam Claflin) sees a golden opportunity to re-connect with the Girl Who Got Away, a beautiful war journalist (Olivia Munn).......

                  The bride (Elenor Tomlinson) panics at the sight of her coke-addled ex (Jack Farthing) crashing the reception in an effort to win her back. She enlists her brother to drug his champagne before the doped-up doofus publicly reveals he boffed the bride only 3 weeks before the wedding.......which won't sit well with her spiffy new Italian hubby.

                   And if you can't figure how how this is going to go, you're suffering from acute' rom-com deprivation......cue the so-called hilarity.

                    Adding to the general chaos, slapstick and ever-growing pile  of dick jokes,.... Clalfin's best bud  ( Joel Fry), an idiot actor hoping to butter up a famed film director who's also a wedding guest.......Claflin's caustic, bitchy ex (Frida Pinto), toting around her latest boytoy (Alan Mustafa) who's terminally afflicted with enraged penis envy........and a woebegone dateless single (Tim Key), a

non-Scottish dork wearing a kilt  that makes him itch his balls at all the most inappropriate moments.....

                   What could possibly go wrong......heh, heh......

                    After everything predictably does go wrong for almost everybody, the movie pulls out its great big Twist-o-roony..........by restarting the entire story, alternate-universe style.........with almost the same stuff happening, except to different people.......with decidedly different outcomes.......

                     Clever, no?

                     Nah, not really.......if you consider that the second half alternate universe version isn't anywhere near as funny as the first half's........and that the first half  wasn't all that funny to begin with.

                     The cast almost saves it even though the script gives them little to work with but grimacing, sweating and looking humiliated. Claflin, Munn, Tomlinson and Pinto possess superb comic timing and they sweat bullets to wring a few laughs of out the proceedings. 

                      We only wish this movie didn't force them to work so hard......1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2)

                      Don't invite yourself to these nuptials, stick with the original 'Four Weddings'.....or 'My Best Friend's Wedding' .......or maybe even that famous wedding from 'Game Of Thrones'..........

'365 DNI'......50 SHADES OF POLISH SAUSAGE

365 DNI (2020)    You can bet we'll be super-brief on this one.........since we already deeply, deeply regret the precious 2 hours of our life we wasted watching it.........

                  It's some kind of stupifyingly rotten, Euro-trash rip-off of "50 Shades Of Gray"......with most of its running time devoted hard pumpin' fellatio and Olympic Pentathlon-worthy bouts of sex.......

                   We'll say this much........the two leads at least appear enthusiastic and invested in their roles, as opposed to their USA counterparts Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, who glumly traipsed through the '50 Shades' trilogy like they were enduring a tandem colonoscopy......

                  The characters here are both repulsive and unbelievable.........the guy is a heavily tattooed, hot tempered  Mafioso studmuffin who kidnaps a high powered Polish woman executive.......to keep her captive for a year until she falls in love with him.........

 

                    Uh.....yeah, sure. Right. 

                   She's feisty at first, but it only takes a plethora of softcore humping to bring her around..... where's the Law And Order SVU team when we really need them?

                   Even more sex ensues, followed by the expected shopping montages underscored with a never ending supply of generic Euro-pop tunes. 

                   And then finally the film comes to an abrupt stop that's as random and stupid as the rest of it.......as if the filmmakers are giving you the middle finger, sneering, "look what you suckers just threw away 2 hours on...."

                    Okay, that's all the time we want to spend with this. The sex scenes, we suppose, could be put to some productive use if they're downloaded on PornHub......

                    The movie.....let's just say....  Landfill. Toxic waste. An automatic AFH, Abomination From Hell..   A cinematic Cornonavirus........worthy of cremation. 

                     For any Trumpanzees reading this, we'll put it simply.....No likey.

                  

                     

                     

'EYES WITHOUT A FACE'........THIN-SKINNED....TO SAY THE LEAST......

Eyes Without A Face (1960)     We've dated ourselves often enough in these posts........so we might as well admit we first laid eyes on this one when it wandered over to the U.S. on the top half of a  fast-buck horror double feature......

            The distributor, thinking us stateside slobbering popcorn-gobblers wouldn't get sufficiently aroused by the  subtler, original French title, dubbed it "The Horror Chamber Of Dr. Faustus".....and then badly dubbed it in English......

               Who the hell's Dr. Faustus?  Cause whoever he is, he doesn't appear in the movie......

               There is a doctor, however. An ego-puffed, arrogant prick who caused his daughter's horrible facial  disfigurement by driving like an ego-puffed, arrogant prick......

               Self-important turd that he is, he tries to heal his kid's ruined face by kidnapping equivalent young girls and literally de-facing them........lifting off and grafting their entire mugs on to his daughter's ravaged head.

               Things don't go well for Doc Douchebag, even with the loyal help of his creepy woman assistant, who's in charge to abducting the girls and looks like she's auditioning for a future part as a Bond villainess.

                First of all, you can tell the emotionally and physically destroyed daughter is coming unglued in a hurry,  nursing bottomless rage and resentment against Daddy. And you just  know that garage kennel full of snarling dogs whom Doc Dickweed experiments on will sooner or later figure into the finale.......

                In 1962, when we viewed this in a neighborhood theater packed with rowdy teens and pre-teens,  all of us, along with the entire world cinema audience, went bonkers watching the film's signature moment.........one of Doc's victims getting her face extracted off her like a rubbery mask. 

                  Ewwwwwwww.........went the whole world simultaneously.  And 60 years after the film's release, our reaction hasn't changed.......

                What has changed, watching the uncut original French language version, is a deep appreciation for the dark artistry of film's director, Georges Franju.......

                  Franju suffered the same ridicule and  derision for "Eyes Without A Face" that celebrated British director Michael Powell went through for his "Peeping Tom" released the same year.

High-toned, cinema culture-vultures sneered at horror films as a rule.........and any quality director who dared to make them was forced to run through a critical gauntlet.....and risk their careers.

                  But in America, we rubes dearly loved our scary movies........and we elevated Hitchcock to a Movie God for "Psycho".......

                    It took the passage of decades for Franju's film to achieve classic status......and everything that made it so........the deliberate, dreamlike atmosphere of the filmmaking, the jaunty but eerie score by Maurice Jarre.......and the film's iconic player Edith Scob as the terribly scarred daughter, practically floating through the film wearing a white plastic mask shaped to the delicate contours of her face........a sight to inspire both pity and fear........

                    Still requiring a strong stomach, "Eyes Without A Face" will stay with you forever.....to  BQ, that makes it a 4 star (****) movie buff must.

                     Oh, we  forgot to mention........that 2nd movie on the double feature bill was "The Manster".......about a guy visiting Japan who grows a second head.  We promise to review that one eventually.......but only after three or four whiskey sours.......