'THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME'.....KILLBILLIES KNOCK 'EM DEAD IN KNOCKEMSTIFF.....

 The Devil All The Time  (Netflix -2020)    Maybe fate decreed we ended up watching this right after the 'Ratched' mini-series........

                One similarity struck us......

                 Both shows feature a large gallery of grotesques.......a dysfunctional buffet of psychotics, fanatics, physical abusers, rapists, necrophiles, and all sorts of folks with some serious anger management issues.......

                 The main difference : while the 'Ratched; loons mostly cavort inside a posh asylum, the country-fied crazies of "The Devil All The Time" shuffle back and forth between two tiny rustic towns.....Coal Creek, Ohio and....(wait for it)........Knockemstiff,  West Virginia. 

                  Needless to say, any number of these hayseeds get knocked out stiff.....or get throbbing stiffies.......or end up as slab stiffs. Sometimes all three. 

                  If nothing else,the film trumpets its ambitious, epic scope, telling a backwoods gothic tale that sprawls from post-World War 2 to Vietnam..But this film really hasn't much on its mind, other than unfolding its extensive catalog of horrors

                 And it drags on for 2 hours and 20 minutes with its collection of woeful bumpkins committing no end of atrocities on each other.

                   This is like someone telling you the endless backstory of all those creepy, inbred shitkickers that the vacationing college students encounter in all those 'backwoods' chainsaw massacre movies. 

                  It moves at the rate of a quarter-mile an hour and it's deeply in love with its own presentation of its doomed, star-crossed characters and their various miseries and misfortunes. 

                   Some of you might feel tempted to try it just for the sight of Robert Pattinson as a sanctimonious preacher who's into impregnating as many teen girls as he can get his hands on.  Pattinson himself seems to have fun with it........but trust us, you won't. 

                 We can't even refer to this film as guilty pleasure......since there's absolutely no pleasure whatsoever in sitting through it. 

                  Yuck, overall. An unholy mess, unfit for human consumption. Zero stars. (0)

'THE RETURN'.....WEEP ALONG WITH NICK......

 The Return by Nicholas Sparks (2020)    Can hardly believe it......here comes a BQ first.....

             We actually get to review a destined-for-bestsellerdom  new book on the day its release. 

             We fully realize that nothing we say, pro or con, would affect the guaranteed massive sales of this book one way or the other.........

              What the hell, as long we got our book-hungry fingers on an advanced copy of this, we might as well weigh in along with hundred of thousands of other reviewers, bloggers and God knows how many readers who'll post a review right after they finish reading it within the next couple of hours...........

               Applying criticism to a Nicholas Sparks book is a little like critiquing a pizza from your favorite neighborhood pizza place........

                You ordered it cause you like your neighborhood restaurant's pizza and you know it's going to satisfy you just like the dozens of other pizzas you ordered there........

                 Same pizza.......but maybe with different toppings. 

               So off we go to Sparks-land, where a damaged soul, a Navy doctor recovering from terrible wounds sustained in Afghanistan, retreats to a solitary location.......(in the reliable Sparksian kingdom of North Carolina).

                 True love finds him in the person of an impossibly beautiful woman working as a Sheriff's deputy........and mystery finds him in the person of a sullen, enigmatic teenage girl he attempts to befriend......(not to mention the added mystery of his beloved late grandfather's dying words...)

                 By now, if you know anything about Spark's long catalog of heartfelt, tearjerking novels, you've correctly guessed that the doctor's budding romance and the teen's backstory reveal wrenching, gut-punching tragedies........and lessons in the unyielding power of love and family ties......and a finale guaranteed to warm your soul like a comfy blanket on a cold winter night.

                  In other words........batten down the hatches, position the box of tissues nearby and prepare to tear up.......(or weep out loud, depending on how susceptible  you are to having your heartstrings pulled by a virtuoso who plays on your emotions as if zipping though a Rachmaninoff concerto)

                  Not that we would ever succumb to such shameless manipulation......

                  Not that we'd ever admit it if we did.........

                  (Allright, the last third of the book did get to us a little.......we'll deny having said that if you breathe a word of it to anyone else.....)

                   (Oh, wait a sec......this is going out all over the world, isn't it.....)

                 Damn.  

                  As long we've blown our secret that we're a sucker to stuff like "The Return",,,,,ah well.....might as well give it 4 stars (****). 

                 Please forget we ever mentioned boxes of tissues.

'RATCHED'.......CRACKED LIVES SPLATTER......

 Ratched (2020 series - Netflix)    Uh uh.......in no way are we going to dignify this show's ridiculous attempt to claim it's an 'origin' story of Louis Fletcher's toweringly malignant villain from "One Few Over The Cuckoo's Nest".......

                Bullshit.

                For all the sense it makes, this show might as well bill itself as the origin story of "From Russia With Love"s Rosa Klebb, played by Lotte Lenya as the poison-shoe toad who kicked at Sean Connery's shins.....

               Ryan Murphy, the impresario of over-the-top mini-series like 'American Horror Story" simply slaps the 'Ratched' name on another one of his primary colored comic book Grand Guignol  spectacles......populated entirely by more gargoyles than you'd find at the top of the Notre Dame cathedral.......

                But on a sheer Guilty Pleasure level, you can't get any guiltier than 'Ratched'.

               If you love wallowing in crazed performances, grindhouse gore and deliriously eye-popping production design, costumes and cinematography.........then watching this show is like polishing off a full box of Dunkin Donuts.......by yourself. 

                 We don't know if it's even worth singling out individual actors here.......they're all fully in the nutso zone and clearly having a ball.  For sheer 'can-you-hear-me-in-the-upper-balcony' bravado we will mention Sophie Okonedo's split personality tour-de-force........she's doing 'The Three Faces Of Eve' as a three ring circus.

               You know it's not good for you........but who cares?

                 And we couldn't get enough of the gloriously exaggerated Ken Adam-like sets, which create a loony bin with 40 foot ceilings and mile long panoramic windows......one dreamscape after another.

                 We can only hope that Mac Quayle, the composer of the Bernard Herrmann-esque score received official permission from the Herrmann estate, since he chose to toss in actual themes from "Cape Fear", "Psycho", "Vertigo", and "North By Northwest"........

                Okay, let's get down to it........worth a look or not?

                If you groove on glossy, deliberately pulpy junk, you shouldn't miss it.  We'd like to think we got into the spirit of this series by laughing out loud all the way through it. 

               But if Crazy's not your cup of tea, and you'd quickly tire of spending 8 hours with a cast of characters who all belong in a straight jacket and do unspeakably violent things to one another.......give this a wide berth......

               For BQ it's a 2 & 1/2 star hoot..(**1/2), but screw that nonsense about it being in any remote way connected to 'Cuckoo's Nest'..........it's just plain cuckoo.

'CALL -ME'......DIAL-A-PERV IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF VESTRON........

 Call Me (1988)       We didn't come back to this movie, a connect-the-dots sex thriller, out of any great love for it.......or any burning desire to sit through it again.

                  We simply couldn't resist the urge to return to the Golden age of the film's distributor, the once mighty Vestron company........        

                    For a little over a decade (the 80's), Vestron rode the VCR/VHS home video tidal wave.......(as did the BQ, who happily toiled through over 30 years of movie-buying for various video chains......)

                    At its very height, Vestron produced and distributed "Dirty Dancing" and kept video stores well stocked with a never ending flow of Grace C-minus, direct-to-VHS junk like "Chopping Mall", "Slaughter High", "Wishmaster" and "Little Monsters".........

                     The key to their success (and that of Mom 'n Pop video stores everywhere) was the pure excitement of  entertainment consumers playing with their new toy.....the VCR. 

                   And the novelty factor of watching an uncut, commercial free movie in their own homes trumped the quality of what they were watching.  So for a while, it didn't matter at all if they rented a copy of Robert Redford's "The Natural" or "Revenge Of the Bloodsucking Barbarians"......

                   .........until eventually, the novelty wore off and it did matter what tape they were shoving into the VCR for the night....

                 Which meant the Vestron's vast catalog  of slapped-together junk began to gather dust on video store shelves........customers wanted the good stuff.'

                 Bye bye Vestron.......

                 But it was fun while they lasted. In fact, they got so busy, at one point they started their own sub-label, Lightning Video.......specializing in even junkier movies than the parent company......(you'd  think that wasn't possible, but trust us, they achieved their goal....)

                  Which brings us back to "Call Me", a prime example of the kind of stuff they rolled off their video assembly line faster than a McDonald's drive-thru bagged up fries 'n burgers.......

                  On the mean streets of New York, a neighborhood  journalist (Patricia Charbonneau) mistakenly thinks it's her dorky boyfriend who's made a phone sex call to her, enticing her to dress extra skimpy (and panty-less)  to meet him at a bar.

                  As you no doubt already figured out, it's not the boyfriend. (and the big reveal as to who made the call is no great shakes anyway.)

                  Off she goes to the watering hole, where she only meets a creepy hood (Stephen McHattie) and witnesses a tranny hooker beaten to death by a corrupt cop expecting a big graft payoff.

                  Not Patricia's best night. And it gets even worse as creepy McHattie and his even creepier sidekick 'Switchblade' (who else but a knife-wielding Steve Buscemi) stalk and torment her, since they're partners-in-crime with the corrupt cops......

                   We don't want to make this sludge sound too interesting........it isn't really. The film's indifferently acted (except for Buscemi, who's his usual manic self) and afflicted with so many shots of subways you'd think the film was produced by the New York Transit Authority......

                    Then again, Patricia Charbonneau's got a pair of truly spectacular legs, which seemed to be the film's one and only selling point......

                    But as we explained, by the time "Call Me" made its way into video stores, Vestron's glory days were  already fading fast. In 1988, customers clamored for "Die Hard", "Beetlejuice" and "Big"........Patricia's long, long legs just weren't gonna do it for 'em anymore.

                   Feel free to skip this one, it's a 1 star (*) waste of time........but if our tales of Vestron intrigue you, by all means, you can seek out their far more wild 'n crazy (and far more fun) films on DVD and Blu-Ray.   You may never see mass-produced crapola like this again......

               

                  

                  

'CRAWL'........DROWNING IN GATOR-AID.......

 Crawl (2019)    Rest easy........we promise you will NOT read a post that rages on about how idiotic, far-fetched and unintentionally funny this movie is.......

                   Duh.   Of course it's all those things. It's a friggin' carnival fun-house ride........with stuff to pop out at you and make  you go, "Ahhh!"

                   Applying artistic standards to a movie like this would be akin to discussing the finer metaphorical points of a loop-de-loop rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Nausea or whatever......

                   So let's get right to it......

                   "Crawl" made us cringe, jump, laugh, shake our heads.......and do all of those things repeatedly throughout its swift 90 minutes.......

                    It's damn fun. Yes, fun, fun, fun. 

                    Okay, it's also stupid, stupid, stupid, if that makes anyone feel any better. 

                   But if you give yourself an imaginary lobotomy before you start to watch it....(please remember that work ' imaginary')you could have a mindless, popcorn gobblin' blast......

                  How can you not love a movie that starts with a Florida university swim meet taking place on the eve of a Category 5 hurricane.?

                    While our plucky, championship swimmer heroine (Kaya Scoldelario) prepares to hurl herself into the pool, through the gym's huge panoramic window you can see what looks like a storm cell left over from 'The Wizard Of Oz' looming ever closer.........Ay, caramba.....

                   Our dauntless darling soon finds herself stuck in a flooded basement with her estranged father (Barry Pepper)......dodging two jumbo CGI alligators.......(with even more swirling around in the flooded streets outside the house....)

                     Let the chomping begin.......woo hoo!

                     Yes, we've heard all the quipping and carping and snickering about all the scenes of the gators clamping down on Scoldelario's various limbs........only to have her escape with all her appendages intact.

                      Here's  our theory about that........clearly all the chlorinated water Kaya's been cavorting in has rendered her arms and legs extra rubbery and self-sealing.  Plus the fact that these Florida gators might well be the elderly equivalents of the state's nursing home residents.  

                   .........so their teeth might have seen better days........hey, it happens to all of us.

                  That would also explain why Kaya can superhumanly swim faster than they can. It's a wonder these geriatric gators aren't making use of those foam noodles that Floridians of a certain age cling to in their pools.....(we've been known to clutch one ourselves......)

                   The next thing you might scream about is the flimsy glass doors on the bathroom shower, which apparently stand impervious and unbreakable against repeated slammings from 700 pound reptiles......

                   Our theory:  this obviously must be a house built Tsunami-proof,  so residents can take relaxing shower knowing that the doors will withstand tidal waves, ground zero nuclear blasts, death star rays......and alligators.

                    There now.  With this new information we've provided, feel free to fully savor every lunatic moment of this movie......you're welcome!

                   For the good time we had watching this......3 stars (***).......for those who turn their noses up at guilty pleasures and demand only Nobel Peace Prize-worthy cinema.........aw hell, you should have just skipped this review altogether..........

'THE WRONG BOX'.......SMELLS LIKE TONTINE SPIRIT.....

The Wrong Box (1966)    Any hardcore Anglophile or lover of cozy, quirky British comedy (that's us in both categories) can't help but loving this little jewel box of a movie.......

               And go figure.........this near perfect depiction of darkly funny Victorian era mischief  was co written by two veteran American comedy writers, Larry Gelbart and Bert Shevelove (the collaborators who concocted the Broadway musical and film "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum")

              These USA gagsters took their inspiration from a Robert Louis Stevenson tale about a 'Tontine', which was sort of a 19th century betting pool where everyone kicked in a load of money on behalf of their children and the last adult child  who outlived the others inherited all the jointly contributed cash.....which after investments, had swelled to a fortune.

               You know right off from the hilarious opening that this romp will fall in the same genre as the classic British films like 'Kind Hearts And Coronets',.......where death is merely used as a punchline for the jokes......

               One by one, the now grown Tontine kids meet their ends in various spectacular, or accidental or just plain stupid ways......(one poor soul gets cleaved by Queen Victoria when she tries knighting him with a sword too heavy for her.....).  

                 The two remaining survivors, brothers Masterman and Joseph Finsbury (John Mills, Ralph Richardson) are two cantankerous codgers cared for by their various young relatives...(Michael Caine, Nanette Newman and the bickering Abbott & Costello-like team of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook)

                 We'll not even try to describe the absurd, dryly witty, dark slapstick antics that ensue as the oddball brothers either disappear entirely or are wrongly presumed dead or mistaken for a serial strangler killed in a train wreck.

                  As all of this finely orchestrated madness goes on, Caine and Newman engage in an impossibly chaste Victorian romance. Meanwhile, Cook and Moore's schemes to seize the Tontine boodle  for their own involve the help of an addled, cat-ridden nefarious doctor. (Peter Sellers doing one of his showstopping, side-splitting cameos that you don't dare miss).

                 In case you haven't figured it out yet, we LOVE this movie........with the added bonuses of a sweet, lilting John Barry score and colorful designer Maurice Binder main titles.  It's a terrific 4 star (****) spirit lifter to escape the ongoing nightmare days of 2020......

                Best of all, you don't have to work hard to seek  it out......enjoy it free on YouTube. So go enjoy!

            

'THE BOY AND THE PIRATES'......NOTORIOUS B.I.G. AMUSES THE KIDDIES.......

 The Boy And The Pirates (1960)     The 'B.I.G.' we refer to in this post could only be the one and only Bert I.Gordon, the tireless producer-writer-director of many, many low budget horror-sci-fi shlockers like "The Spider", "King Dinosaur", "Attack Of The Puppet People" and "The Amazing Colossal Man".....

             B.I.G. also fancied himself a special effects maestro, but when it came to engineering his films' effects........well, let's just say that Bert had delusions of adequacy.......

             "The Boy And The Pirates" was quite a change of pace for him, an ambitious attempt to craft a family-friendly, kiddie matinee movie, chasing after the same audience that adored the Ray Harryhausen fantasies like "7th Voyage Of Sinbad" and "The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver".

               After a string of black-and-white cheapies, Gordon wisely chose to go full color, having the film shot by veteran cinematographer Ernest Haller (the D.P. on "Gone With The Wiind")  \

               And for a pirate epic, it looks colorfully ripe enough and even the ever prolific Grace C movie composter Albert Glasser rose to the occasion, writing a loud, raucous imitation of an Erich Wolfgang Korngold swashbucking score.

                And we can't fault the screenplay, which cleverly taps into every kid's backyard imaginary  adventures......using a mischievous genie-in-a-bottle to propel an modern day little boy (Charles Herbert) back in time and smack on on to Blackbeard The Pirate's ship.......(complete with scurvy crew, including Hollywood's reigning crazyman, Timothy Carey).

                Surprisingly, Gordon's special effects (almost always the most embarrassing parts of his films) don't look too bad either.......the miniature genie smoothly matches into the live action and there's a rising volcano that looks as good as anything in other effects films of the 60's.

                 The problem, as always, is the director's all too typical slack, pedestrian direction and editing. B.I.G. was never anything but barely functional as a film director and this movie really cried out for somebody with aggressive spunk and an imaginative flair for melodrama and action.  

                 Gordon was none of those things and much of the film just lies there inert, like a indifferently performed skit on a local live Saturday morning kids TV show..

                 Kind of shame too, since the film boasted having Herbert, the most in-demand kid actor of his day ("13 Ghosts", "The Fly", "Houseboat") and the added attraction of Gordon's own daughter Susan, a genuinely talented child whose career went beyond appearing in her father's films. including "The Five Pennies" and "The Twilight Zone".

                But then  neither kids nor their parents demanded much from a film like this and it settled into theaters as a reliable staple of the 1 PM Saturday 'kiddie matinees', usually on a double feature with a sci-fi or monster movies (maybe one of Gordon's ).  Baby boomer kids roared with laughter as  Blackbeard (a fine, snarling Murvyn Vye) and his scalawags blew bubbles after eating stew peppered with Herbert's bubble gum.

                  We wish we could say the movie was a wonderful bit of nostalgia to return to.......and for a while, it was, until the overwhelming  mediocrity of Bert I. Gordon came back to us........and started to drain the fun out of it........

                    2 stars (**)  Boomers might enjoy some of it as a trip down memory lane.......but we can't blame you if you want to bail out early.  But stick around for volcano......it's....uh.....hot!   (And don't miss don't miss the sight of raging loon Timothy Carey pushing around Herbert so roughly, it got him kicked off the film.....)

JOIN BQ FOR OUR FIRST LIVE STREAMING EVENT!! SAVE THE DATE AND DON'T MISS OUT!

              We're thrilled to announce that BQ will go live this Tuesday 9/22/20 at 2 PM Eastern Standard Time (USA)......we'll be moderating a a discussion of one of our all time favorite films, Billy Wilder's "The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes".......with loads of little known fascinating info to enjoy and chime in on. 

               You can check out our own review of the film on this blog's archive date of 11/29/17......and with your library card, you can sign up with Hoopla Digital and watch the film for free.  Registration for the event is required, but that's free too...at https://delawarelibraries.libcal.com/event/7099823?hs=a

               We're calling it "Tuesday Matinee At The Popcorn Palace"........if you can make it, cook up some corn of your own and join in. Hope to see you this Tuesday!

               

WEEKEND MADNESS UPDATE.....CORA THE VIRUS DODGES BILL BARR'S HEAT RAY!

 BQ:  Cora the Coronavirus......you must be celebrating like crazy......closing in on 200,000 Americans dead.......

CORA:   Don't you know it!  All due to my co-virus and right hand man......

BQ:  You mean Donald Trump.

CORA:  Who else?  He's my dream come true!   Fighting with all the scientists and doctors, holding superspeader rallies just for me, like a free, all-you-can-kill buffet......telling people that I'll just go away, sneering at people for wearing masks,.....lying to everybody even when he found out what a badass I was!  He's my very own Trumpy-Wumpy.  

BQ:  So terrifying....and so true. And he doesn't seem to mind so much about the folks you wiped out in the Blue states......like, if it wasn't for them  inconveniently dropping dead, the body count would seem lower......

CORA:  Red, Blue......what the hell do I know from colors?  I told you over and over again, I don't discriminate......I just wanna kill everybody!  Aren't you flesh-tards all Americans, no matter what state you live in?

BQ:       We are, but Trump's incapable of understanding that.

CORA:   Honeypie, you could fill 10 million complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica with stuff Trumpy doesn't understand.  

BQ:   Including climate change. He thinks science doesn't know.......he promises it'll get cooler.

CORA:  Oh you betcha. Take my word and Trumpy's word for it.......it's gonna get cooler and I'm gonna go away soon......and later on blueberries'll fly out of our ass........heh, heh, heh, heh, did I remember to say that with a straight face?  Cause Trumpanzees will believe anything!

BQ:  Very authentic......except for the snickering.  Moving on, did you hear Attorney General and Mob Lawyer Bill Barr refer to lockdowns as slavery

CORA:   I adore Trumpy's ass-kissing bullfrog!   He's the best minion since Fraulein Irma Bunt in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"!  And by all means listen to him.......escape the lockdown!  Be free! Breathe deep......especially near other people.....with no masks! I'll be right by your side to see you through it all!

BQ:  Somehow, that hardly feels comforting.  What about Barr stockpiling all sorts of armaments to use against peaceful protesters.......such as the heat ray thing that'll make you feel like you're on fire.

CORA:   So cool!   Well, not so cool, I guess, for whoever they point it at.....heh, heh, heh.  I can't wait till Billy gets his chubby little hands on a disintegrator ray, like in 'War Of The Worlds'.......then we can literally dissolve 'em in the streets!  Less work for me......

BQ:  You're talking about the end of American democracy as we know it........

CORA:  Hey, flesh-nut, that's your problem. What the **** to I know from 'democracy'? I'm only here to kill people,  the same way Trumpy's only here to make money and install himself as President For Life.

BQ:  And that's exactly why you've been able to kill so many people.

CORA:  So it's a win-win for me and Trumpy both. Once he installs himself as King Of America, I can really get down to business and wipe all of you fleshbags off the face of the earth!

BQ:  Not if we have something to say about it on Nov. 3rd.

CORA:   No, no don't any of you dare vote for Biden......that crazy old coot says he's gonna listen to the doctors and scientists.......he'll try to end me!  He doesn't love me like Trumpy.

BQ:  Precisely.  By the way, Joe left a little gift for you......

CORA:  For moi?   I love presents.

BQ:  A real collector item, this one.  This'll do to you what the voters'll do to your BFF Trumpy.  A personally autographed can of Lysol spray.  Take a whiff.....

CORA:   Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!

'THE FURIES'........IF YOU THINK THE MURDER HORNETS ARE SCARY........

 The Furies by Keith  Roberts (1966)     Eons ago, when the young BQ devoured science fiction paperbacks, this book scared the living crap out of us........

                 Reading it again, eons later.......it still scared the living crap out of us......

                 The book's very comparable  to the 'cozy catastrophes' dreamed up by our favorite sci-fi novelist John Wyndham ("Day Of The Triffids", "Out Of The Deeps", "The Midwich Cuckoos" turned into the 'Village Of The Damned' films.)

                 Keith Roberts envisioned a U.K. ripped asunder, literally, by simultaneous nukes set off by the U. S. and Russia......(much like the film "The Day The Earth Caught Fire").

                 As earthquakes tear apart Britain, from out of nowhere emerge giant man-sized killer wasps with bayonet-like stingers and a intelligence driven mission to wipe out most humans except the ones they enslave to do their bidding. 

                Just imagine those Giant Asian Hornets (you know, those evil looking little bastards the news dubbed 'murder hornets') if they were your size.

                  Double yikes!  

                  This book wastes no time in plunging you into a horrific landscape where the last remaining men and women on England are either on the run from the droning, myriad insect hordes or turning the tables on the monsters by waging guerrilla warfare against them. 

                   These perpetual thrilling and gory battles come at you almost non stop and the book only stops to take a breath when our tormented band of heroes find themselves prisoners of the wasps, who've taken to herding around humans like ants do to aphids.

                   We were raised on Hollywood's 'big bug' movies of the 1950's, so "The Furies", for us, was like a nightmare come true.......these wasps make the Triffids look like daffodils........

                    By the time we were reaching the end, we couldn't help wondering when Roberts was going to answer the two vital questions about  this story......

                    First question:  What the hell were the Furies anyway?  Where did they come from? How did they come to show up jumbo-sized?

                    Second question:  How in the hell could humankind ever defeat them?

                    Here's the one aspect of the book that took us by surprise. Roberts waits almost until the last few pages to detonate the BIG TWISTS that answer those two questions.  And take it from us, they're whoppers.

                     Since 99% of the book is taken up with pure breathless action-adventure, the sudden, abrupt turn into way-out-there fantastic science fiction may strike you as jarring..........or even a cheating  cop-out, a fanciful deus-ex-machina   used by the author to write his way out of the corner he painted himself into........  

                     On the other hand, if you've read a ton of sci-fi already, the climax might strike you as inevitable, clever and deeply ironic.        

                     Whatever you think of the wrap-up, "The Furies" remains one of our favorite sci-fi adventure reads.........and if you love stuff like this, we say go for it.......we're buzzin' out 4 stars   (****).  

                    Let's all pray those  Murder Hornets don't get any bigger. But in this ghastly year of 2020.......who knows?

'THE TWO JAKES'......FROM THE DEPT.OF "HEY-IT-DOESN'T-SUCK-THAT-BAD-AFTER-ALL"

The Two Jakes ( 1990)    Believe it or not  (as Ripley says).....it.took us 30 years to catch up to this movie....

                Simple explanation:  In 1990, when this famously disastrous "Chinatown" sequel made its way into the world, BQ hardly had a single moment to watch a movie......any movie.

                 Why?  Simple. In the middle of our long career in the video industry, we found ourselves in the belly of the beast.......toiling in the hellish corporation that was Blockbuster Video. 

                  Populated with backstabbing reptiles who existed within an organization similar to James Bond's nemesis S.P. E.C.T.R.E.., working at Blockbuster became a literal hell on earth...... we still cringe and recoil at the memory of our one miserable year there.....which still stands as the longest and very worst year of our adult life........

                  We escaped in the nick of time, with our sanity and moral compass still intact (which is more than we can say about the people who ran the company)........and as for the BB execs we suffered under there,  we can only hope for a future of rotting in hell for the ones who aren't dead already.......

                    Which explains the irony of never having time to watch a movie while enduring  18 hour days in enslavement to America's prime purveyors of......movies.

                    Which movie were we talking about again?  .....oh right....."The Two Jakes"......

                    We could spend another 5 hours describing the tortured, unbelievable backstory of how this film finally made it to the screen........and promptly crashed and burned, because it couldn't possibly reach the high bar set by the original movie.

                       Some it's downright bizarre.......such as the film's legendary young Paramount mogul Robert Evans wanting to play the 'other Jake' opposite Jack Nicholson's sardonic private eye J.J. 'Jake' Gittes......a role ultimately given to Harvey Keitel. 

                       Never much of an actor even when he was an actor, Evans lost his chance due to his ruinous plastic surgery, and 'Chinatown' writer Robert Towne, who'd planned to direct the sequel himself, lost his chance when the project fell apart. Jack Nicholson determined to salvage the wayward film, managed to re-assemble all the broken pieces and took over directing it. 

                       So....bottom line time........does it really suck that bad?

                      Bottom line:   It's no 'Chinatown', that's for sure.  Trying to create a sequel to a film that's an acknowledged modern classic is doomed to disappoint.  Great films come together, more often than not, by the unique circumstances and the unique convergence of particular people who create them......just at the right time and the right place. 

                      But to answer the question.......no, by all means "The Two Jakes" does not suck. Taken on its own terms, you can think of it as "Chinatown-Lite".......less filling, but with a tang all its own.

                     Once again, Robert Towne spins a labyrinth of Los Angeles corruption that once again ensnares Jake Gittes in a murder conspiracy this time involving two distinctly dangerous and unstable women (played this time by Madeline Stowe and Meg Tilly). 

                      As a director, Jack Nicholson lets the tale unfold at a slower pace than "Chinatown" and without the growing sense of dread that was Roman Polanski's specialty. Taking place  a little over a decade after the first film's events, 1948 L.A. finds Jake Gittes older, heavier and still haunted by those corrosive final moments we all remember so well...........with Faye Dunaway's character shot dead and her 'daughter-sister' in the evil hands of her incestuous father.

                       Towne's intricate screenplay, meant to be the second of a trilogy details the new frontier of greed and corruption that L.A.'s robber barons have stuck their tentacles into.....oil. (In the first film, it was water.....). And somehow the case leads Gittes right back that long lost 'sister-daughter'  he'd hoped to save and protect. 

                       Though we can't jump up and down with wild praise for "The Two Jakes", we found it fascinating, ambitiously done and no surprise.given it's directed by an actor......filled to the brim with memorable performances. 

                      It's certainly not the movie's fault that we avoided it all these years because its mere existence reminded us of the most terrible time in our life we ever experienced.......

                      Blockbuster Video is long gone, forgotten and in this media-crammed age of instant streaming of films, missed by no one. Good riddance. We'll never say that cursed name again.

                      As for "The Two Jakes"......don't avoid it. We give it a solid 3 stars (***) and say it's more than worth your time to check it out.......(but only after you've seen "Chinatown" first.)

'THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE'........JODIE'S FOSTER CARE.....

 The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane (1976)     We don't know if it's fate or coincidence that we stumbled upon this strange little '70's oddity while Netflix weathered a firestorm of disgust over their marketing of the French-Senegalese film "Cuties"........

               Is that possible?  44 years after 14 year old Jodie Foster supposedly strips naked for a murderous child thriller, we still get another movie that sexualizes little girls?

                Uhhh......okey doke.

                We'll post on "Cuties" eventually (maybe after swallowing half a bottle of anti-nausea medication) but for now, we'll deal with "The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane", a mild, but defiantly perverse little suspenser slapped together by French-Canadian filmmakers fishing for a fast buck.

                  No wonder the movie got picked up for distribution by shlock-shleppers American International......who sold it as a kind of 'Bad Seed'-Lite, featuring America's most precocious teen, fresh off her controversial triumph as the baby-faced hooker rescued by Robert DeNiro  in "Taxi Driver".....

                  But when it came to portraying lethal children, gone were the days of Patty McCormack's Bad Seed, loudly overplaying her psychotic tantrums to reach the upper balcony. 

                  The new breed of monstrous kids, like Linda Blair in "The Exorcist"  and Foster in this film, played naturally and easily to the camera, looking and sounding like the little girls next door........

                  Until, of course, they didn't look and sound like the little girls next door.......heh, heh, heh.....

                 Foster, by her innate talent, elevates this negligible movie, which can't wait to open a can of worms involving pedophilia and implied teen sex. 

                   Playing her signature role, a child older and wiser than her years, Foster's mother is long gone, her Jewish poet father had died but left her with resources to live independent of any adult supervision........as long as she can successfully maintain the ruse that her father's still alive and well.

                   To pull this off, she's forced to fend off a tag team of intrusive, formidable foes. These include the notorious town pedophile (an appropriately odious Martin Sheen) and his enabling, imperious mother (Alexis Smith), a vicious harpy who fires off a few anti-Semitic  cracks at Foster,.

                    But an ally appears in the form of a polio-stricken amateur teen magician (Scott Jacoby) and it's a credit to Foster and Jacoby that they make you instantly root for these two terribly vulnerable lost young souls........(except for the fact that one of 'em isn't quite so vulnerable.....or lost)

                    There's good work all around from the actors (Sheen preens and snickers through his appearances as if waiting for a live audience ovation).......but ultimately this movie's got nothing on its mind but throwing out the WTF moments........such as having Foster's 20 year old sister stand in for her to perform the infamous stripdown before Foster herself hops  into bed with Jacoby.....

                   And since the filmmakers seem to express little or no interest in the deaths and/or murder part of their story, you wonder why they bothered at all.......

                    Oh right.......the exploitation bucks. 

                    On behalf of Foster, Sheen, Jacoby, and Smith, we're tempted to rate this movie way higher than it deserves........but we decided to stick with our gal Jodie, who publicly despised the movie.

                    Ultimately, we're with her. 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2)........

'WANDA'.......LONG GONE IN AMERICA

 Wanda (1970)       In a galaxy long long ago, my kiddies, independent films were as independent as they could possibly be........

                           They were few and far between.  Exhibition of them usually was limited to one tiny art-house theater in New York and one in L.A.......if any.

                             Filmmakers would scrape together enough cash to buy some raw stock and lease a camera for a couple of weeks........and then hit the streets and start shooting, devoid of  almost any excess equipment or crew members. 

                           The results?  Raw as you could possibly imagine. These filmmakers dared you to take an adventurous leap and view their work. 

                             The early 'indies' don't come any more raw than Barbara Loden's 'Wanda' the first of these independent groundbreakers to be written, directed and acted in by a woman.

                            Fair warning:  Loden's movie more than earns its reputation as one of the most bleak, desolate, heartbreaking experiences you'll ever sit through. 

                            It's challenging, uncompromising in its American wasteland imagery and not at all easy to sit through.   It's an unvarnished study of one individual who's living in her own self-induced private hell.

                          Loden based her role in the film on a real woman. Her 'Wanda Goronski' is a barely educated housewife and mother, eking out a lifeless existence in a Pennsylvania mining town.  Wanda, it's made brutally clear, has no affinity, aptitude or the slightest interest in the standard roles society assigned to her - wife and mother to 2 toddlers.

                         After abandoning her husband and kids like a piece of gum she tired of chewing, Wanda hits the road......

                           She's a human tumbleweed, with no other purpose than to keep moving aimlessly. When forced to, she'll deploy without much enthusiasm, her two primary assets - being blonde, and vaguely pretty: she resembles an exhausted Hollywood starlet gone to seed. 

                            So she'll fascinate some lonely, horny guy long enough to secure a cigarette, a beer, a meal, a roll in the hay, a couple of bucks and a ride out of town.  

                           As depressing as this is to describe, it's even more dire and sad to watch.

                         Fate puts Wanda in the path of Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins) a foul tempered, cigar chomping thief who robs banks, bars and convenience stores.  This doomed odd couple, hits the highway together, with the abusive, creepy Higgins slowly displaying glimmers of humanity and something akin to affection for dim bulb Wanda's loyalty to him.

                           And that's about it for the storyline........other than Higgins' enlisting Wanda in a  foolish elaborate bank caper that sounds like he cribbed it from a movie he saw on the late, late show.  

                         Somehow the film's final shot seems inevitable.........Wanda surrounded by people but completely cut off from them........unable to find a purpose, unable to figure out her place in the world or what she's supposed to do in the meantime.

                          If you treasure and celebrate independent film as we do, "Wanda" is 4 star (****) essential viewing.......

                          But remember we warned you.......this isn't some slick culture-vulture, navel gazing, self absorbed  Sundance wanna-be, shot on some graduate film student's I Phone and financed by charging it to his daddy's credit card. 

                         This is crude, ragged, messy creativity on display.......and maybe the saddest film you'll ever see.  Try it, if you dare........

                            

WEEKEND MADNESS UPDATE.......CORA THE VIRUS BLAMES BOB WOODWARD!

BQ:   Cora the Coronavirus.....so miserable to see you again. What is that, another new T-shirt?

CORA:  This one's the best yet. I'm sellin' them on E-Bay.

BQ:   ''Trump-Pence 2020.....Drop Dead, America!" ??  That's a little obvious and harsh, don't you think?

CORA:  No sense in hiding things anymore.....not .since Trumpy spilled the beans to Woodward. 

BQ:    You mean how Trump lied to the American people about the severity of the pandemic......which  led to him cause thousands of deaths of people who thought he was being honest with them.......

CORA:   Righto, Fleshy!  Haven't you been listening to me ever since we started these little talks?  I told you over and over again.......Trumpy's the best friend a virus ever had!   With his help, I bumped up the body count to record numbers!  He's my BFF forever.

BQ:  At least the truth is out now, though I doubt it'll make any difference to the Trumpanzees who attend his rallies.......

CORA:  Heh, heh, heh.....oh HELL no!  And I LOVE those Trumpy rallies......with all his little Trumptards squished together and not wearing masks......

BQ:   So you enjoy infecting and killing the Trump supporters too?

CORA:   Hey, I'm an equal opportunity slaughterer.  And besides, who cares who many of those sorry-ass Trumpy worshipping shmucks I wipe out?  Come on, they're already dead from the neck up anyway.  I'm just finishing off whatever's left.

BQ:   Cora, we realize you're nothing but a virus and can't help doing the things you do. But what on earth is Trump's excuse?   With his ignorance, incompetence and his plain evil nature, he's got the deaths of thousands of people on his hands. 

CORA:   But it's not his fault.!

BQ:  Say what now?

CORA:    It's Bob Woodward's fault!   Didn't you hear Trumpy?   Bob's the one who should've warned you all......

BQ:   Bob Woodward's not the President of the United States!

CORA: Well, neither is Trumpy when you get right down to it.  He just pretends to be President on TV.....you know, like he used to pretend he was some kind of big savvy businessman on "The Apprentice"?    Not my fault you suckers fell for it and now you're all gonna die.......

BQ:   But Cora, no person with at least 2 or 3 functioning brain cells is going to believe his ridiculous story about 'not wanting to cause a panic'.........

CORA:   That's exactly why all his fans, sycophants and minions WILL believe it!  Cause they haven't got a functioning brain cell between 'em!  Gotta break it off our little chat.....places to go, people to kill.

BQ:  How about one for the road?

CORA:  Don't mind if I do.....how 'bout a scotch and soda?

BQ:   How 'bout a shot of Lysol?

CORA:    Arrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  Damn it, one day I'll catch you without your mask on!

'THE BIG PICTURE - THE FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE OF MOVIES'.......HOW CHINA AND SUPERHEROES UPENDED HOLLYWOOD.....

 The Big Picture - The Fight For The Future Of Movies by Ben Fritz (2018)

             Though this book's already 2 years old (the same time it took us to get around to it), it's still as immediate and relevant as ever.......

               The only real update missing is the further upheaval and decimation of the theater chains from  Covid-19.

               To create this incisive, fascinating look into the mechanics of the current film business, author Fritz performed a task equivalent to Hercules cleaning the Augean stables......

              He plowed through thousands upon thousands of Sony corporate e-mails hacked by North Korean cyber-bandits, as revenge for the studio's release of "The Interview". You know, the movie the dared to lampoon their Dear Leader and Trump BFF,, Kim Jung Loony-Tune.

               Fritz didn't go dumpster diving into Sony's dirty laundry just to hunt down mere juicy gossip. True to his book's title, he organized this pile of company in-fighting, Machiavellian maneuvering, and financial angst into......a big picture.

                ........a big picture of how comic book superhero movies and the Chinese audiences who gobble them up like hot crisp eggrolls became the engines that drive all the major Hollywood studios......as well as the multiplexes that take up almost all their screens showing them. 

             For any film buff who treasures low to mid-budget dramas, films that rely on creativity, imagination and skilled writing, directing and acting, what unfolds here can sound nightmarish. 

              Those kind of films have been all but ejected out of theaters, to make room for the IMAX brigade of Marvel and D.C.Comics spandexers......and whose primary box office dollars flow out of the exploding China market, hungry for big, dopey special effects heavy spectacles.

               Much of the book centers around the travails and tribulations of  former Sony production chief Amy Pascal.  Unlike the other studio chiefs, she championed mid-budget dramas and comedies with her powerhouse stars, Will Smith and Adam Sandler.

                 But Smith and Sandler ran out of box-office gas eventually and Pascal's woeful attempt to reboot her studio's one big comic book franchise "Spiderman'  proved her undoing........(just try sitting through either of those ghastly 'Amazing Spiderman' movies with Andrew Garfield)

                There's even more incredible stuff to uncover here, including some producer-writers setting up their own creative 'campuses' for the sole purpose of trying to inject fresh new ideas into all the superhero comic book franchises before audience get sick and tired of them.

               But don't despair, cinema lovers. This story offers some light at the end of the tunnel, with the arrival of the major players Amazon, Netflix and all the subsequent streaming services who need constant content even more than we Covid- quarantined folk need toilet paper.,

             The streamers need tons of content to throw at you........and that means the drama-driven, lower budget, independent films will still thrive and multiply.......but you'll have get used to watching them on your TVs, tablets, laptops or phones.......and not the multiplex, now the permanent resting place for the Marvel and DC CGI circuses.

               For anyone who follows the up and down upheavals of the movie business, 'The Big Picture' should to the top of your TBR list.....4 stars (****).

FAREWELL MRS. PEEL AND MRS. JAMES BOND.....R.I.P. DAME DIANA RIGG

 Dame Diana Rigg - 1938-2020     

                 To paraphrase the opening song in "South Pacific".....there was nothing like a Dame.

                 She was Mrs. Peel, the karate-chopping, judo-hurling, jumpsuited goddess of our high school dreams in "The Avengers"

                  She was the Contessa Tracy di Vincenzo in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service, so alluring and extraordinary, she became the one and only woman who make James Bond embrace monogamy and marry her.

                   Essentially she was the first empowered woman superhero of the mid 20th century........stunningly beautiful and supremely gifted as an actress.

                    So many memorable roles followed.....on stage, in films and TV.......a lifetime of a legendary career in everything from "The Great Muppet Caper" to "Game Of Thrones"

                      A unique talent who in her youth re-defined what it meant to be "the girl" in action-adventure projects......her fierce intelligence served to make her a thousand times more desirable than any mere babe-of-the-week. 

                  And as her career progressed, she quickly established herself as pure royalty in the field of acting.......(and eventually awarded the title that went with it)

                   Rest in piece, Dame Diana.......from a lifelong admirer.....and big, big fanboy.

'SPELLBOUND'....DOCTOR, DOCTOR, GIMME THE NEWS....i GOTTA BAD CASE.....OF LOVIN' YOU.....

 Spellbound (1945)    So sorry to miss posting yesterday, but medical issues consumed our day......(strong advice to one and all:  avoid getting old at at all costs, it sucks.  Even stronger advice: ignore  previous advice and stay alive, happy and healthy as long as you humanly can.....until someone conclusively proves otherwise, it's more fun than dropping dead......or so they say.....)

              As long as we're on a health kick......and as long as we just defended Hitchcock's Grand Opera psychological thriller 'Marnie', let's deal with "Spellbound",  Hitch's very first swing at psycho-sexual shennanigans.......so everyone out of the pool and back on the couch!

              Mega Mogul and infamous Mega Micro Manager David O. Selznick instigated this plunge into psychoanalytical suspense.......(using Freudian technique to unlock the mysteries of the human mind swept over Hollywood faster than yoga, pilates, Tai Chi, frisbees and hula hoops.....)

              And the material seemed pitch perfect for Hitchcock, with his galleries of mentally dysfunctional villains and heroes........and let's face it for filmmakers,, nothing's scarier and creepier than loonies on the loose......

              So off we go, after the gorgeously romantic theme music by Miklos Rosza, to 'Green Meadows' the film's posh Funny Farm. Comely, shy and empathetic Dr. Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) skillfully copes with a sexually harassing colleague and her unstable patients, a raging nympho (Rhonda Fleming) and a suicidal knife-lover (long time Hitchcock associate Norman Lloyd, who's still with us at age 105!)

               Into this cauldron of crazies comes the new head man, young Dr. Edwardes (Gregory Peck) who's there to replace the retiring Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll), deemed unfit from his own recent nervous breakdown.  

               It's literally love at first sight for Peck and Bergman...... (in case you don't get it, the music heaves over a symbolic shot of opening doors).......but it's also clear that Doc Edwardes is something of a wack-a-doodle himself, going bonkers whenever he spots dark lines against a white background (cue maestro Rosza to rev up the ever woo-wooing Theramin. that electronic announcer of oncoming weirdness.....)

                And it isn't long before Bergman discovers Peck's an amnesiac who may well have offed the real Dr. Edwardes before showing up at the loony bin to replace him.  Trusting her undying, almost evangelical faith in both psychoanalysis and Peck's innocence, Bergman goes on the run with him before the cops close in.

                 What's startles here are Peck's angry eruptions at the endlessly patient Bergman's attempts to head-shrink his deeply hidden psychoses ("If there's anything I hate, it's a smug woman!")   But even more arresting, intentionally so, is the film's most famous touchstone, the bizarre dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali........loaded with hidden clues as to who did what to whom......

                  Speaking of arresting, the cops pin Dr. Edwardes murder on Peck and it's up to the plucky Bergman to do a dramatic face-off with the real killer, ending in one of Hitchcock' most obvious but memorable special effects shots......

                  Quite a package overall and still enormously entertaining, even with its facile, overly glossed-over depictions of psychology, which were in indeed mocked and derided at the time the film's release........(and 19 years later in 1964, Hitchcock would suffer the same roasting over "Marnie"s use of mental illness as a plot engine......see our post of a few days ago....)

                  If you haven't yet delved into the mysteries of 'Spellbound' then by all means schedule yourself a therapy session soon.....it's essential 4 star (****) viewing for all movie buffs.......and for some extra fun, if you've the time for a double feature, pair it up with Mel Brooks' loving, spoofing tribute to it, "High Anxiety.". In both films, the inmates run the asylum......

MARNIE, YOU'RE ACHIN' MY LEG......DEFENDING HITCHCOCK'S LAST GRANDLY STRANGE ROMANCE.......

Marnie (1964)     Yep, you read the the title of this post correctly.....

                    We stand proudly with the "Marnie" lovers, even though the film's taken a beating over the years from film critics, bloggers and even many Hitchcock purists........

                    As strange and vexing as it is, we've been seduced and entranced by "Marnie" ever since we laid eyes on it as a teenager in 1964.

                     All these years later, we still never tire of watching it, even with all its perceived (and loudly trumpeted) faults, flaws and quirks.......

                    Maybe because we always fully embraced the film's deliberate (and in some instances, unintended) artificiality.......the obvious painted backdrop at the end of the matte-painted Baltimore street, Tippie Hedren's mechanical horse, the red flashing to signify the story's heavy reliance on psychological dysfunction and the insulated snow-globe world created by the almost exclusive use of studio-bound sets.....

                   All those things combine to make 'Marnie' what it is......the very last of Hitchcock's Grand Operatic fever dreams of sexual desire, sexual repression.......and sexual obsession.....(for both Hitchcock and his main characters)

                   'Marnie' stands as the last Hitchcock film done with the director's greatest collaborators, editor George Thomasini, cinematographer Robert Burks.....and most importantly (and sadly, given their legendary toxic split), master composer Bernard Herrmann. 

                     After 'Marnie', came the excruciating downward slide......the exhausted, dreary 'Torn Curtain', the woeful 'Topaz' populated with an entire cast of non-entities........and then finally a measure of redemption with "Frenzy" (in which Hitchcock's return to Britain re-stirred his long dormant creative juices)......finishing his career with the relatively sedate but still playful and clever "Family Plot"

                    So maybe that's why we treasure 'Marnie'. For us, it's the last of the all-out Hitchcock spectaculars, where his devotion to 'pure cinema', and his unmatched precise control of all the filmmaking arts reached its full flowering pinnacle. 

                    Let the pundits rage on......we forever deem 'Marnie' a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.

                    Agree?  Disagree?   We invite everyone to chime in with a comment or use our e-mail at thebeachedquill@gmail.com.  

                     (To paraphrase Marnie's mother....."we don't talk smart about Marnie in this house....."

WEEKEND MADNESS UPDATE.......CORA THE VIRUS REFUSES MILITARY SERVICE

 BQ:    Cora the Coronavirus, how can wear such a T-Shirt...."Dead Vets Are Suckers And Losers"

CORA:   Isn't it cool?!  I thought I'd wear it to get in good with the boss.

BQ:   You mean Trump.

CORA:  My one and only hero!  The guy who lets me bump off fleshies like you by the 1000's every week!  Just like him, I like heroes who don't get captured......so they can come back home to let me infect and kill 'em. 

BQ:  Honestly, Cora, we don't know who's more disgusting and vile, you or Trump.

CORA:  Oh, I think he's got me beat by miles. After all, I'm just  a f***in' virus so I don't know any better. But he's supposed to be a human being,for Christ's sake.......and yet he's ten times the virus that I am!

BQ:  You speak the truth, you miserable little germ.

CORA:  And here's the best part......all those brain dead zombies who follow Trumpy like he's the Second Coming......they'll still love 'em anyway!  Didn't you hear them boo when somebody asked them to wear masks?  I love, love LOVE those Trumpanzees!  I'll have 'em on ventilators before the end of the month!

BQ:  We suppose you've heard he's encouraging them to vote twice.

CORA:   Hey, I don't blame him for that. You gotta understand, skinturd.......he's gotta screw up the election and keep himself in power as long as he can.......otherwise he's on his way to jail, and there ain't no Big Macs and nuggets on the prison menus, heh, heh, heh........

BQ:  Cora, aren't you a little concerned that he's pushing for a vaccine to come out a few days before the election?

CORA:  Nah.......that's never gonna happen, but saying it makes him look like a savior to the TrumpTards.......and you know already that they'll literally believe any idiotic thing he tells them.....which is why I'll get to wipe out whole bunches more of 'em before the end of year!

BQ:  Cora, it dawned on us that you and Trump are the two greatest threats to destroy the United States  in its entire history.

CORA:  You know it, baby. Trumpy and I, we're the dream team from Hell itself..

BQ:  Okay, we've officially reached our throw-up point. Here comes the Clorox spray-

CORA:   Arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh! Keep America sicker than ever! Bye.......

'NOBODY MOVE'......PULP FICTIONEERING......

 Nobody Move by Denis Johnson (2009)    Picked this obscurity up at a library book sale some time ago.....and having finally read it, we don't want to spend any more time blogging about it than Johnson spent writing it..........

                  At some point, this author must have watched 'Pulp Fiction' thinking, "Jeez, I could write shit like this in an hour or less."

                   Which evidently, he did. 

                 You can tell from the first paragraph on that this is a serious novelist of literary fiction who's slumming, enjoying the private joke of pumping out a pseudo-noir about violent thugs and dames doing violent things to each other......

                  And naturally, top loaded with pithy, toughter-than-tough one liners that sound nothing like real speech but would make for catchy sound bites in a movie trailer.....(that is, if a movie deal happened.)

                   The book's mercifully brief length becomes its only saving grace.....by the time you've come to the end of it, at least you're grateful you haven't wasted too much of your time.

                    Speaking of time, we'll waste no more of it on this book. Zero stars. (0).  Should you see it in the book sale piles, give it a hard pass. 

'KALEIDOSCOPE'.......BEATTY SWINGS LIKE A PENDULUM DO.......'

Kaleidoscope (1996)   How could we not fall hopelessly in love with this movie?

               It's got Swingin' England at the the height of its pop culture dominance of the entire world......the home of James Bond, the Beatles, and Carnaby Street mini-skirts and go go boots......

                It's got Warren Beatty at the very peak of his young rakish charm.

               It's got world-class British starlet Susannah York playing the most impossibly adorable Manic Pixie Dreamgirl.......

                It's got a teeming roster of virtually every working British character actor available at the time.....including Eric Porter as 'Dominion' a reptilian Bond-ish baddie with a literal Napoleonic complex....(he's coiffed exactly like his favorite emperor......)

                 And finally, the movie slickly ties all these elements together with an incredulous but fun gimmick......with adventurous playboy Beatty finding a unique way to clean up at Baccarat games in all the posh European casinos......

                 How?  He breaks into the warehouse of Kaleidoscope Playing Cards and marks the master plates used to print the decks.  Hence with a powerful enough set of glasses to see  the markings, he knows everybody's cards as they're about to play them........woo-hoo.

                 Manic Pixie York, however, is doing a favor for her Scotland Yard daddy (Clive Revill) by recruiting an unwitting Beatty into bankrupting the evil Porter via a high stakes poker game......(yes, kiddies, a genuine 'Casino Royale' showdown).....)

                After all, with Beatty's pre-marked cards, how could he lose?    And then the pseudo-Bond fun really begins, cause Porter's 'Dominion' is no one to mess with.......earlier in the film, he wipes out a betraying minion with a flamethrower......ouch.

                 We do realize that this movie's a trifling bauble and a relic of its time, but what an entertaining bauble it is, a perfect snapshot of the kind of  fluffy, light than air stuff that permeated the swingin' 60's.  It existed only to provide pure fun and did the job well.

                 Everything's in place here, the dazzling Maurice Binder main titles, a sprightly music score from Stanley Myers, and that killer British cast......(even First Official Bond Villain Anthony Dawson turns up for minute.....)

                 And when Susannah York goes dreamily starry-eyed when she suddenly realizes she and Beatty are love.......well, you had us at hello.

                 If you need to take a breather from this troubled world, you couldn't ask for a better escape. 4 stars (****)......a full house of capering hijinks.