'CASTLE KEEP'.....WITTY, WACKY, WAY AHEAD OF THE CURVE....

 Castle Keep (1969)    Director Sydney Pollack's ultra-arch, madness-of-war allegory that positively reveled in its battle scenes arrived ahead of the pack.......

              By 'the pack', we mean the onslaught of anti-establishment films that rolled out of Hollywood in 1970......a slew of angry, satirical, violent movies made in reaction to the catastrophic events of 1968, the year that left Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King dead on the concrete and rest of us stuck with  Vietnam warmonger and  Crook-In-Chief, Richard Nixon.........

              Supposedly taking place in an Ardennes forest sumptuous Medieval castle in the midst of World War 2, it's a warped dreamscape of a movie, with its bedraggled, battle weary American soldiers speaking in pithy, metaphorical bon mots. They sound like they're already auditioning for Mike Nichols' version of "Catch 22", which would arrive one year later after this film's release.

             Their commanding officer, Major Falconer (a deadpan, eye-patched Burt Lancaster) has the men take refuge in the castle. The place is stuffed to its ceilings with precious, rare artwork, much to the rapture of the troupe's Captain Beckman, a former art historian. It also houses an impotent Count (Jean-Pierre Aumont) who pimps out his ravishing young Countess (Astrid Hereen) to Falconer for impregnation to supply the Count with an heir.

              The ragtag collection of enlisted men, meanwhile, wax poetic on the insanity of the war, especially Sgt. Rossi (Peter Falk, out dead-panning even Lancaster with dry zingers).  And it's a tribute to the film's defiant bohemianism that the most literate, eloquent and perceptive  of these men is Private Benjamin (Al Freeman Jr.) the group's only African American. and the film's narrator.

              No real story transpires here, but the film treats you to some bizarre set-pieces, including the a Fellini-esque visit to the village whorehouse and the always welcome appearance of over-the-top Bruce Dern, dropped in as a mad, mad deserter leading a chorus of conscientious objectors.   (The hippie-like Dern character pre-dates the arrival of Donald Sutherland's loony-toon from "Kelly's Heroes")

             And let's not forget the "Catch 22" and "MASH"-like episode where Corporal Clearboy (Scott Wilson) falls madly in love with a Volkswagon and its ability to withstand a dip in the castle moat and an armed assault by his comrades.  Yes, all that's as strange and funny as it sounds.......

               Eventually all this artsy-smartsy byplay has to give way to actual war, as the Germans invade in force and Falconer's determined to defend the castle with fiercer determination than King Arthur.

               And here's where Sydney Pollack (or the studio chiefs) wanted to have it both ways.......because their insanity-of-war pontificating gives way to sensationally staged battle sequences that are the equal of anything seen in "The Longest Day", "Battle Of The Bulge" or "Where Eagles Dare". 

               It's as if they're saying....."Hey, war may be utter madness but wow is it fun to watch with hot buttered popcorn!"

                As you could well predict, nobody felt quite ready for a film this genre-twisting and upside down in its funhouse mirror depiction of warfare......it died a quick death. 

                Watching it again in today's era of meta-snark and distrust of all authority, the film seems right at home in 2021.  The only thing that dates it is Pollacks resorting to the annoying, current-at-the-time technique of using subliminal, spilt-second cuts to throw flash forwards and flashbacks on the screen like sptiballs.  (Boy, did that get old fast......)

                Still fascinating to watch and for film buffs who love to discover movies that took the temperature of the times in a their own unique way, "Castle Keep" remains a 3 star (***) keeper. 

              

               

'MUSIC'....SIA FLIPS HER WIG....(NOT IN A GOOD WAY)....

 Music (2021)    A perfect example of what happens when a celebrity's bubble of fantasy is pierced and shredded by cold, cold reality.......

               You can think of 'Music' as the debris left over from the piercing......

                Like most rational people, we had no plans to ever subject ourselves to this film.......on the basis that, ya know.....life is short.  Why waste it on a worthless movie.

                 Then again, how could we pass it up, what with the all the controversy and animosity swirling around it?   After all, don't we maintain a blog for our film and book reviews?

                So in the interest of our never ending pursuit of oddball movies....(and they don't get any more oddball than this one), we steeled ourselves for a viewing of 'Music'.....God help us.

                 Let's not blah-blah-blah before handing out the rating. Yes, it more than lives up to its reputation as a cringe-inducing festival of humiliation and embarrassment for everyone connected to it, especially its writer-director, the one and only be-wigged popstar Sia. 

                  It's a bona fide, unquestionable AFH......an ABOMINATION FROM HELL.

                  Where do we even begin with this atrocity?   Okay, we've got to start somewhere so we'll start with a head-shaved Kate Hudson as a free-spirited, recovering booze 'n drug addict. She looks and sounds like a 14 year old boy who's been chuggin' too many Red Bulls.

                   Kate's grandmom (Mary Kay Place) drops dead, leaving Kate with custody of Kate's severely autistic half-sister, 'played'  (or we really should say 'performed') by young dancer Maddie Ziegler, the star of Sia's bizarre music videos, some of which uncomfortably sexualized Ziegler.

                  Under Sia's utterly insensitive direction,  Ziegler plays the role with the same goofy, loony facial expressions she affects for the the director's videos.  It's a spectacularly stupid, clueless thing to do.......and earned Sia the well deserved outrage and disgust she received from people on the autism scale. 

                   Perhaps she thought that the cartoonish, energetic musical sequences that the film frequently breaks into would somehow charm and delight audiences into forgiving and forgetting the overall repulsiveness of the rest of it.

                  Taken away from the context of the film itself, those numbers might have provided some entertainment for YouTube surfers of music videos.  They're typical Sia concoctions, with lots of herky-jerky dancers in nutty costumes and centered around Ziegler and her funny faces. 

                   And that's exactly where they belong.......isolated from the dumb, toxic film that currently surrounds them. 

                    We'll not torture ourselves (and you, dear BQ visitors) by describing the film in any detail.....only to say it's clearly the work of someone who has no connection to real life as we know it. 

                   For fans of Sia and Maddie Ziegler, the musical sequences are worth a look.......as long as you can stream 'em on a free venue.  

                    As for the whole disasterpiece of the film.......refer to our rating in the middle of this post.

 

'NOMADLAND'....THE LONLINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE AMERICANS.....

 Nomadland (2020)     Watching Terence Malick's 1973 "Badlands" and last years "Let Him Go" led us to dreamily, fondly look back on 1970's cinema.......when creative, daring, fresh young filmmakers challenged audiences with films that defied categorization.

                Here's another such movie........subtle, contemplative, gorgeous to look  and guaranteed to make to you remember and think about it long after you've seen it. 

                Its subject couldn't be more immediate.......the crumbling of the institutions and structures of American society that were once thought of as inviolate  Home, family, a lifetime of rewarding work.....all of those things, for many people and for many reasons, gone forever.  And leaving those affected, those who've fallen through the economic and social cracks, to wander the country like frontier explorers, searching for what's over the next hill, what's next down the road.

              Joining these sad homegrown American nomads is Fern (the always amazing Frances McDormand), a widowed resident of a once thriving corporate town that's closed up and disappeared, even its zip code discontinued.

               With no husband, job, friends or community left to for support, Fran takes to the road, living out of her van and picking up wages wherever there's temporary work, such a vast Amazon warehouse during the Christmas season. 

               It's a staggeringly spartan, solitary existence, except for the moments when Fern can bond with the ragtag community of fellow wanderers.

               We almost can't find the words to describe how haunting and hurtful this film is to watch. It's a story told in long silences, stunning landscapes and individual scenes of quiet grace. 

               There's only one other professional actor in the cast with McDormand, David Strathairn.....they seamlessly interact with the real life cast of actual nomadic travelers. .

               And it's a tribute to the skill of these actors that not once do you ever catch them 'acting'......they blend right in to the documentary-style storytelling.

                McDormand especially creates a character so carved out of reality that you can only marvel at her work here. Hands down, it's the best performance you'll see from an actress in this or any other year. 

                 Make sure to catch up with this one soon. A five star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.  

'PEOPLE LIKE HER'.......INSTA-MUM GETS THE FAN SHE DESERVES.....

People Like Her by Ellery Lloyd (2021)    Here's some helpful advice for novelists who want to write this particular type of thriller.....

                We mean the type of book where you don't know who you're supposed to dislike more.....the so-called protagonists or the the so-called villain of the piece. 

                 We mean the the type of book where everybody, in some way or other, gets the reversal of fortune they've been more than asking for. 

                 First off, if you've introduced characters that we don't give a rat's ass about, you'd damn well better make the story fly by at top speed......and never never grind things to a halt with pages and pages of their internal ruminations. 

                 Cause remember......We. Don't. Care.

                 In this case, we especially don't care about Emmy Jackson, a social media superstar with millions upon millions of devoted followers who dote on her product endorsements and slavishly follow the photo chronicles of her family life. 

                  She's known as "Mamabare" an 'Insta-Mum' who shares online, via instagram and twitter, every waking moment of life with her husband and her two children, Coco, a toddler girl and her newborn son, Bear.

                   Except everything in her carefully calibrated lifestyle is nothing but fake, staged photo ops designed to earn her lots of internet clicks, corporate sponsorship and piles of free stuff. 

                 To put it simply......what's not to dislike about her?

                  With a life lived so publicly, it's inevitable that in a world teeming with revolting internet trolls, Emmy acquires an extra special stalker amid the usual suspects in Cyber geek-world.

                   This one grips a genuine ax to grind......holding Emmy responsible for the sad and terrible destruction of their family. And they've cooked up quite a horrible punishment to fit the perceived crime. 

                   The book takes you on a deep dive into the world of social media "influencers" and to us, it's a fairly appalling tour through a hashtag universe of cynical hucksters faking a warped version of their lives to entertain an audience of suckers. 

                     In fact, that's one of the main problems of this book.......it goes so far down the social media rabbit hole, it forgets it's supposed to be a thriller. It seems to work better as a nasty takedown of the influencers, even without the added attraction of that deeply damaged stalker. 

                      Which brings us back to the advice we offered to other thriller novelists. "People Like Her" lacks the required compelling urgency to make us keep turning the pages. We could only read it in drips and drabs and couldn't have cared less what became of Emmy and her stalker.

                      So take note, cause we're only clicking out 2 stars (**).  It's a bore from start to finish......and that goes for the lame, over used twist tacked on at the end. 

                     Hashtag 'Wait-For-The-Movie'.  We bet it'll move faster. 

                 

'WELCOME HOME SOLDIER BOYS'.... .PTSD-RANGED

Welcome Home Soldier Boys (1971)  We stand absolutely amazed that there's not a single review of this film posted on either MRQE or Rotten Tomatoes.......

               Talk about a movie that flew under the radar......even though it held the dubious distinction of being one of the first feature films to deal with the disconnect and mistreatment of returning Viet Nam war veterans. 

                That's probably because this particular film was most definitely not a major studio release, like the Jon Voight/Jane Fonda "Coming Home" or the Henry Winkler/Sally Field/Harrison Ford "Heroes". (on that one, check out our post from  5/9/18......)

                 "Welcome Home Soldier Boys" was designed as quick, fast-buck exploitation trash for the  Drive-In trade and the all night "3 Big Hits!" grindhouses......promising a wham-bam shitload of violence to keep the rubes happy as they grazed on their tubs of hot buttered corn. 

                 What's interesting here are all the little true and honest moments the film manages to pile up during its random, wandering build-up to that all too expected apocalyptic finale. 

                 Before we get to that......and for the benefit of any history-impaired young 'uns here, let's remind everyone how Viet Nam vets were treated upon their arrival back in the U.S. of A.........

                 Unlike today's volunteer armed forces, they didn't come back to a country lionizing them as 'Hometown Heroes'.  Vietnam vets returned to a country deeply divided over the way we ended up in the war and how we fought it.....a nation with a growing majority of people sick and disgusted with this endless war and its tragic destruction of young American draftees forced unwillingly to fight it. 

                   These vets didn't get to ride in Hometown Hero parades......to an unsettled public, they were embarrassing collateral damage, something to be ignored, shunned, belittled.....even insulted and ridiculed for their part in waging an unpopular war.

                   Given that history, you know things will not go well for four Green Beret buddies just back from the war....Danny (Joe Don Baker), Shooter (Paul Koslo), Kid (Allan Vint) and Fatback (Elliot Street).  Their big dream:  a cross country trip to start a cattle ranch on land supposedly owned by Ki

                 That dream starts to crumble piece by piece as their trek begins in a used limo the boys refurbish themselves with spare parts.  They pick up a blowsy, stranded whore (Jennifer Billingsley) who comes to a startling end that fazes our crew only briefly.... before they move on a dispiriting visit to Danny's hometown and family..

                  In one telling barroom scene, the boys are sneered at and taunted by some Korean war veterans, who can't conceive of fighting in a never ending war that soldiers can leave when their tour of duty's finished. 

                  All of these disappointments, slights and psychic wounds finally take their toll on Danny's slow burning rage when they reach a tiny Texas town whose only gas pump is locked up till the proprietor's good and ready to open for business.

                  And hence we come to this movie's entire reason for existence, a hellacious, Sam Peckinpah 'Wild Bunch' shootout between the four ex-soldiers and the sparse populations of this one block long flyspeck town. 

                  We found ourselves asking two primary questions watching this mini-Armageddon in progress....(which the movie never bothers to answer....)

                 First, why are our boys toting along what looks like a full arsenal of Vietnam war weaponry.....automatic weapons, grenades and rocket launchers?  We wouldn't think they'd need all that stuff on a cattle ranch, unless maybe they thought the livestock might turn combative.....

                  Second, why would the 80 or so people eking out their arid existence in this middle-of-nowhere gas stop suddenly seize up with the urge to engage in a raging firefight equal to Iwo Jima in its ferocity and body count?

                   There are, of course, no reasonable answers to these questions. The filmmakers set their threadbare story up as an excuse to let the vets work off their anger and frustration by bringing the war right back to the heart of America.......with good old fashioned American-as-apple-pie carnage. 

                   Other films would follow in this same mold, but none of them would hit the zeitgeist with such precision as Sylvester Stallone did in the "Rambo" films.  You could think of "Welcome Home Soldier Boys" as the first rough draft sketch of all the rage-fueled Vietnam Vet movies that followed in its wake. 

                  We'll say this much concerning two thirds of the movie before it reaches that big nihilistic showstopper of a finale......you will see a full compliment of the best character actors working at the time.....Lonny Chapman (a sharp role as Joe Don Baker's estranged father), Geoffrey Lewis,( a funny bizarre turn as a strange motel owner) and  Billy Green Bush (as a friendly, sympathetic Sheriff, a change of pace from the way this character's usually written).

                    For those of you who might savor a long lost, little remembered chunk of early 70's, pulpy Viet-sploitation, by all means, check it out. That last 10 minutes is a sight to see. 2 stars (**).

                 

                   

FRIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP!.......FLYIN' TED! RUSH REMAINS DEAD! ROYALS FLUSHED! MITCH QUITS AS TRUMP'S BITCH!

                 Anyone really believe 2021 would turn out less insane than last year?   Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh..

                 Ted Cruz......We stand in awe of Tedsay-Wedsy.......now that Trumpty stands de-twittered and exiled to Florida, who would replace him as the most repulsive, cowardly, obnoxious immoral shithead in the public eye?

                  Leave it to the Cruz-inator to step up to the plate, doubling down on sleaze, slime and proving there's no bottom to his empty soul.  He made Trump's pitching paper towels at suffering Puerto Ricans look like small change.  How could any Senator top flying off to Cancun while the people of his state brush icicles off their ceilings and boil snow for fresh water?  Genius!

                  Could the mighty Teddy top himself after that?   Could he sink even lower?  No, no, no....he wouldn't, would  he?  Would he actually put the blame on his own young daughters for forcing him to jet to the beach?  No human being would sink so low as to throw his own children under the bus, would they?  Would they? 

                  You da man, Ted-meister! When all else fails, drop a dime on those little brats......

                Rush Limbaugh    Pardon us......we need a moment to compose ourselves......such overwhelming grief we feel at the passing of a monument to truth, justice, compassion....a tireless defender of the weak, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden........

                 Oh how we dearly mourn.....Abraham Lincoln.

                 Oh wait......did you think we were referring to Rush?  Rush, the racist, misogynist, Neo Nazi fat, forever lying,  drug addicted bully?   You thought we meant Rush, the polluter and poisoner of political conversation, the stupid, acid-tongued asshole who paved the way for Trump and his Kool-Aid drinking cultists? 

                 We can only hope and pray that his last breath was a desperate, labored, wheezing whine, as he clutched his Trump-awarded Medal Of Freedom in his chubby little digits.  

                 Rest in Hell,  Rushy.

                 Mitch McConnell.......so reminds us of the Daleks, those rolling mechanical salt shakers that constantly menaced Dr. Who........They bark out a lot of pronouncements, but deep inside the metal casing, there's nothing but a gooey, squishy creature.....completely devoid of a spine.

                  In a breathtaking Profile In Un-Courage, Mitchy oozed out of his shell to condemn Trump......after voting to acquit him.  What a guy.....what a hero....what a.....Republican. That says it all.

                   The Queen de-royals Prince Harry and Meghan......said the Queen, "Take that you f***ing ingrates!  You're fired!  You can still attend my next birthday, when I turn 142, but no fruit cup! And don't think I won't catch you if you try to sneak one out of the palace."

                   Trump whines he got a smaller steak at his own D.C. hotel..... While still serving as our nation's Toddler-In-Chief, Baby Orange threw a tantrum when he thought his steak was smaller than the one served to his dinner guest.    Stormy Daniels was heard to remark......"....well, that makes sense....everything about Trump is kinda small.....if you get my drift....."

                 Great weekend to one and all.....stay safe, stay warm, stay sane........

             

'THE MOONSHINE WAR'.....MITCH MCCONNELL'S VOTERS GET ALL LIKKERED UP.....

 The Moonshine War (1970).....takes us back to 1932 Depression-Era Kentucky, so we assume any of the  dumb-as-a-rock hillbilly characters in this movie who'd be still alive would rush to vote for a double talking slimeball like their Senator Mitch McConnell.......

                  It was only a few days ago that we fondly reminisced about all the exiting and daring new films that came out of 1970's cinema......

                  Then again, watching "The Moonshine War", we also recalled it was an era when floundering studios like MGM lost their ability to effectively track ever shifting audience tastes amid a turmoil ridden nation. 

                   The result were movies that tried to have it every which way in their genres, tones and purpose. These movies crawled into theaters as complete head scratchers.  What the hell were they about, really?  Whoever wanted to make them....or see them....and why?   Who were they for?  Were they comedies?  Dramas?   Who in God's name thought this movies would find an audience?

                   All those questions could apply to "The Moonshine War", scripted by prolific crime-western writer Elmore Leonard from his own novel.....

                    We'll now take a wild guess here and assume that the idea was to make a freewheeling, careening, violent action-comedy in the style of 1967's runaway hit "Bonnie And Clyde"

                     This would have required a director with the particular skill set to pull that off......a Sam Peckinpah, an Arthur Penn, a Robert Aldrich, a Robert Altman......or even one of the new kids on the block like John Milius or Martin Scorcese.

                      What they got was Richard Quine, a long time veteran journeyman director of slick romantic comedies and musicals ("Bell Book And Candle", "Paris When It Sizzles") and every so often, pulpy melodramas ("Hotel", "The World Of Suzie Wong", "Strangers When We Meet")

                        Quine obviously had no idea how to put together a bizarre genre bending thing like this movie.......and oh boy does it show in his flat direction of it.   Devoid of any style or imagination, Quine makes the movie look like a rogue prequel to "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV show.

                       There is some fun though in the ridiculous miscasting of the two lead roles.......with Patrick McGoohan, of all people, as a corrupt Federal agent and Alan Alda as a country boy moonshiner hiding a huge secret stash of highly illegal corn liquor.

                        They're both waiting for the imminent election of Franklin Roosevelt and the repeal of Prohibition, once again legalizing booze. McGoohan tries putting pressure on Alda to sell him that treasure trove of hooch so he can market it himself, but Alda says nothin' doin'......

                       To further put the screws to Alda, McGoohan calls in a vicious gangster (and former dentist!)  (Richard Widmark) who arrives with a cute dumb blonde and his own pet psycho henchman played by songwriter Lee Hazelwood (yes, the "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" guy)

                      As you would expect, gunfights erupt and explosions detonate.

                       Here's a few startling moments we didn't expect........the movie's complete detachment to the one and only black man in the cast played by Joe Williams.  McGoohan, Widmark and Hazelwood regularly sneer the n-word at him, which the movie makes nothing of.  And later in the film, Hazelwood tortures him with a  noose, half-hanging him to extract information. 

                        As chilling at this scene plays now in the context of today's events and culture, Quine and his direction of this sequence make no comment on it one way or the other........as if nobody involved was aware of the implications......

                       In the midst of the bland filmmaking on display, there exists at least one scene that's pure Elmore Leonard.....( and probably the only thing anyone who saw this film remembers.....)

                        We speak of a cringe-worthy episode where Hazelwood threatens and intimidates an innocent young couple into stripping off their clothes for him.   It plays out as lengthy and ugly as it sounds.......

                        The only other asset this film provides:  its large cast of instantly familiar character actors, including Will Geer, Max Showalter, Harry Carey Jr., Bo Hopkins, John Schuck, Charles Tyner, Teri Garr and Tom Skerrit. 

                         Richard Widmark has a fine old time as the avuncular, yet lecherous kingpin, while Alda blandly wanders through the movie as if wondering how he got there.  We felt the most sorry for McGoohan, whose character seems to start off as a dangerous man to be reckoned with.  But as the film progresses, he's gradually reduced to a sputtering, ineffectual  and fairly spineless figure. 

                        By the film's end, poor Pat's reduced to wearily sitting down, dejected and defeated......

                        And we're not entirely sure if that was him still playing the part or expressing how he felt about his casting.......for this oddball confluence of performers and the great supporting cast, we'll hoist a 2 star (**) jar 'o hard likker for "The Moonshine War"...

                        (If you'd like to see what a movie like this would look like in the hands of an absolute master of such material, check out Robert Aldrich's 1971 "The Grissom Gang" and read our take on it, posted on 5/30/19)

                         

'MANK'....HE RAISED 'KANE' IN HOLLYWOOD....

 Mank (2020)   We thought we'd end up with  raving enthusiasm for this film, given its irresistible  subject matter......the account of how legendarily acerbic, dissolute screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz wrote "Citizen Kane" for the genius young director Orson Welles.

              Not quite raving enthusiasm. While there's loads of stuff to love, admire and delve into here, the film's problematic on multiple levels. 

               No one's denying that Gary Oldman's portrayal of Mankiewicz is the kind of bravura piece of work you'd expect from Oldman.  He never disappoints.

               And David Fincher's meticulous recreation of 1930's Hollywood - the stars, the moguls, the costumes, the sets - are richly imagined, a recreation of a long gone never never land. 

                So what, you may ask. is the problem?

                 First off, it dawdles. In his efforts to present both the sumptuous splendor and moral squalor of the era, director David Fincher forgets to impart any immediacy or real drama to this story.  At 131 minutes, it's a leisurely tour through Old Hollywood, with frequent side trips to flashbacks.

                 Some of these scenes left us fascinated......especially Mankiewicz's encounters with the studio titans of the era, Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, David O. Selznick. And especially his ups and downs with the two people who'd provide the templates for"Citizen Kane"s principle characters, Charles Foster Kane and his poor, pathetic would be opera star wife Susan Alexander. 

                 One of the best (and wickedly funniest)  sequences has 'Mank' and a stable of now fabled screenwriters, Ben Hecht, S.J. Perelman, and Charles Macarthur pitching mega-producer Selznick with a deliberately awful horror movie idea.....just to amuse themelves at his reaction.

                  As all college freshman know, Citizen Kane was a thinly fictionalized version of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, played here with icy reserve by Charles Dance.  But it's to 'Mank's credit that it accurately portrays Hearst's real life starlet lover Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried) as nothing much like the hapless, unhappy version of her that Dorothy Comingore so vividly played in 'Kane'.

                  We stayed fully absorbed in all the scenes dealing with Mankiewicz pounding out the 'Kane' script. Laid up with a broken leg, he's been parked by Welles (Tom Burke) and producer  John Houseman (Sam Troughton)  in a remote desert house with his alcohol supply replaced with sedatives. 

                  Too bad these scenes get constantly interrupted with too many of the repetitive flashbacks......most of which involve Mankiewicz crossing swords (and wits) with all the Hollywood higher powers.  After five or six of such scenes, we wanted to cry out, "stop...please.....we get it already."

                  Where the film really lost us totally came its last minute episode which unfairly and, according to film historians, inaccurately paints Orson Welles as a villain, finally showing up and announcing to Mankiewicz that the writer won't receive any credit for his voluminous script. 

                 The way this scene is tacked on to the tail end of film renders it ridiculous and unbelievable, cheapening everything that's come before it. 

                  You can pluck out performances and moments that will resonate with any film buff, but we're giving you fair warning.......large chunks of it are simply a chore to get through and the the falsely conceived Orson Welles appearance throws a stain on the whole effort 

                 A tough one to call, but there's enough fine filmmaking and acting on display here for give out 2 & 1/2 stars.  (** 1/2).....just don't expect a masterpiece.

'LET HIM GO'......ONE OF BQ'S "BEST OF 2020"

 Let Him Go (2020)  We know we might run the risk of overpraising this film since it was such a wonderful breath of fresh air after enduring the endless gobbledegook of "Tenet".....(see yesterday's post...)

              Don't care. We effin' loved this movie and we don't care how many critics who get way more web traffic than we do think otherwise. 

              As far as we're concerned, this goes on BQ's list of favorite movies released last year.

              We think we know why we took to "Let Him Go" so much. 

              To us, it looks and sounds like a movie from the early to mid 1970's, which is now considered as a golden decade for American cinema.......a time when the exciting, gifted new generation of young filmmakers began to make their reputations.....Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsece, George Lucas, Brian DePalma, John Milius, Terence Malick, Steven Spielberg. 

                These filmmakers made movies because they loved movies.......and they loved using the medium to tell great stories.  The collapsing movie studios didn't know what audiences wanted so these blazing talents received free reign.

                  True, sometimes they fell on their faces. But they delivered some brilliant, iconic movies, now thought of today as classics.

                  "Let Him Go" has that kind of free spirited tone that isn't afraid to mix different genres to spin a compelling tale.  Unlike most films released today, it's doesn't smell like a marketing project.

                   Beginning as a somber drama, it sucks you in as it inexorably turns into a harrowing thriller with a gut-wrenching climax fit for a Greek tragedy.

                    With spare dialogue, it's a story that depends as much on the silences as much as the speeches. And the cast here pulls it off with performances that range from the subtly heartbreaking to the spectacularly scary.

                    Kevin Costner and Diane Lane play characters not far removed the 'Ma and Pa Kent' characters they played in "Man Of Steel."  They're retired Montana horse ranchers, living with their only son, daughter-in-law and their newly born infant grandson. 

                    After their son dies an accidental death, several years later their daughter-in-law remarries.......to an abusive creep who's part of a large clan of equally violent, sinister creeps. 

                     When the abuser wisks away his wife and five year old stepson to his family home in North Dakota, Costner and Lane embark on a dangerous quest to rescue their grandson and his cowed, terrified mother. 

                      This is exactly where we'll stop explaining anything else......except to be on the lookout for British actress Lesley Manville as the malignant matriarch of  that horrible clan.  She's our top candidate for best supporting actress of 2020. She'll scare the living crap out of you.

                       Like the great 1970's movies we remember, this film isn't afraid to take time to tell its story.....carefully, sometimes silently and always with perfectly thought out cinematography and production design. 

                     It was obviously made by people who love movies.

                     And that's why BQ gives it an unconditional 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.

                     We say see it ASAP.  Don't let "Let Him Go" go anywhere but on the top of your "must see" list. 

                    

        

'TENET'......BOND FOR QUANTUM PHYSICS PhD's.......

 Tenet (2020)    So Warner Brothers and movie theatre chains thought we'd all risk death by COVID to rush into the multiplexes to watch this pretentious, overpraised, overhyped and  overstuffed gibberish.......

            Screw them. And screw this movie too, now that we've finally had a look at it. 

            What a colossal waste of time, money, resources and anyone's time spent watching it. 

            Oh and speaking of time, that's what the movie seems to be all about.  We think. 

             In a nutshell (and oh how we'd like to stuff this stinker in an actual nutshell and then step on it).......folks from the future want to wipe out the present (in other words, all of us), so we'll stop messing the world up for the folks in the future. We think. 

             You may well ask, as does someone in the film, isn't the future folks' plan to destroy the present inherently self-defeating, since it would be their world that would ultimately get destroyed too?

              Ah. A paradox. (Feel free to start singing the 'Paradox' song from "Pirates Of Penzance"....a paradox, a paradox, ha ha ha ha, a paradox....it's far more entertaining than anything you'll experience in "Tenet")

              And now we come to the movie itself, in which the dastardly plot from the future is overseen  by a vile Bond-ish villain, the snarling mad Russian oligarch Sator. (Kenneth Branagh). The only thing this guy's missing is a fluffy white kitten to stroke while he's scheming to end the world as we know it. 

            With no pussy to pet, Sator works out his aggressions by punching and kicking his estranged wife (Elizabeth Debicki).

              Lucky for us, we have not one but two imitation Bonds, 'the Protagonist'  (John David Washington) and a Brit named Neil (Robert Pattinson).

              The boys have their hands full, since all the guns. cars, goons and assorted stuff Sator imports from the the future all move backwards......in reverse.  Cause....ya know, they're from the future.....uh, so.....they'd...uh....move the opposite way in the present.    We think. 

              Don't ask us for a rational explanation for any of this. Just writing about it is giving us a blinding headache all over again. 

               And since we're talking multiple overlapping timelines here, everybody gets to meet each other coming and going........we think. 

               The main reason, Warner Brothers hoped, that audiences would subject themselves to this impenetrable rubbish, was writer-director Christopher Nolan's talent for creating spectacular action sequences that rival and surpass anything you might see in a Daniel Craig Bond film. 

                Nolan, a lifelong Bond fanboy, does not disappoint in this regard. The firefights, hand to hand combats and furious vehicle demolition derbies are all jawdroppers.

                  But to what purpose?  If we can't possibly figure out what's at stake here, then what difference does it make how many bullets fly, cars crash or bones crunch?

                   We should point out that we began this film by immediately circumventing Nolan's ruinous sound design......which in theatres, rendered most of the dialogue unintelligible. 

                   Yes, we watched the film with the hard-of-hearing subtitles turned on, so that contrary to Nolan's self-destructive sound mixing, we could hear what the actors were saying. 

                   It didn't help.  Even if you could hear the cast snapping out the script's rapid fire exposition, you'd still be scratching your head for 2 and a half hours. 

                   Bottom line......we don't care how many reviewers fell over themselves for the action wham-bams  and the unsolvable Rubik's cube plot mechanics. 'Tenet's an self-indulgent, self satisfied mess. It's a higher-tech version of Michael Cimino's infamous "Heaven's Gate", in that you could pluck out individual brilliant sequences to enjoy while rolling your eyes upward as you suffer through the rest of it. 

                 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2)  And contrary to what you've heard, watching it multiple times won't make it any clearer. Forget the popcorn. Load up on aspirin. 

                   

                

FRIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP.....TRUMP! BRITNEY! MANDALORIAN! MELANIA! BUFFY!

                  Taking a quick spin over this week's assorted lunacy....

                   Impeachment  It's probably time for pundits to stop wringing their hands over the monstrous, mindless GOP cabal.....(Cruz, Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, etc, etc....) Stop waiting for these zombies to come to their senses or grow spines. Deal with them as they are.......mindless cult-of-Trump Kool Aid drinkers who'd rather have had a Trump Monarchy-For-Life. 

                    In other words, call them what they are. Traitors. 

                    Baby Orange will no doubt celebrate his certain acquittal at the hands of these subhuman invertebrates. But he'll never wash the all blood off his hands...... from those who died at the Capitol and the hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 victims, gasping their last breaths while he recommended they drink bleach and promised them it would all just go away........

                    Freeing Britney Spears    We don't know whether to feel amused or sorrowful about this new spectacle touched off by a New York Times TV documentary.  The amused part comes from watching the new woke culture put Spears' many exploiters in their crosshairs.......(they should concentrate their aim on that slimeball who runs TMZ...)

                    The sorrowful part, to quote Disney, is a tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme.......that of an incandescent performer who lacked the streetwise smarts to cope with the brutal business of Show Business, and all its assorted reptiles, leeches and moneygrubbers......including her own father.

                  The above photo, by the way, shows Spears consulting with a newly appointed conservator of her finances.....

                    Gina Carano fired off "The Mandalorian"   Well, maybe as a martial arts fighter, she took one too many shots to the head.  That's the only rational explanation we can think of as to why she  exposed her Trumpist brain farts to the world at large, sabotaging her career. He next stead gig should be in Steven Seagal movies......available in your Wal Mart $3.00 DVD bin......

                    Melania Trump.......as newly appointed First Lady Of Mar-A-Lago, supposedly seething about the media attention given to Dr. Jill Biden.  We don't know if she's started work yet on a White House tell-all, but may we suggest a title?   "#BeComplicit"

                     The "Buffy The Vampire" actresses reveal creator-writer-director Joss Whedon as an abusive. bullying asshole.    Once again.....tale as old as time. It's debatable though,  whether Cancel Culture will be able to put a crimp in Whedon's career, unless someone accuses him of an actual physical assault. Take it from us, if they start weeding out all the douchebags in showbiz, we're not sure there'll be anyone left to produce shows.........(the first to go would be televangelists and that Sham-wow guy....)

                   BQ visitors, thanks so much for stopping in and have a wonderful weekend!

'BADLANDS'......NATURAL BORN MALICK

 Badlands (1973)........competed with two other films that dealt with the same basic story......young lovers who become partners in crime, with the long arm of the law hot on their heels.

               We barely remember a single thing about Robert Altman's 1974 Thieves Like Us, so we'll keep out mouth shut on that one until we find a venue to re-watch it.  Steven Spielberg's first theatrical film, 1974's The Sugarland Express still remains vividly in our memory. It served as a rapid-fire, dazzling showcase for the then young director's superb craftsmanship and his perfect framing of every camera shot for maximum impact. 

                 Terence Malick's Badlands, which went into general release around the same time as these two competitors, was a different animal altogether. 

                  It slowly seduced you. It snuck up on you.  And by the time it finished, you'd realize you'd been enthralled by a bizarre, disturbing story, told like a slowly enfolding broad daylight nightmare.

                If ever there was a film that defined the well worn phrase 'the banality of evil', it was this one. Malick scripted his directorial debut as a thinly fictionalized account of the infamous Charles Starkweather and sweetheart Caril Fugate.  In 1957 the two midwestern teen sociopaths went on a random cross country killing spree that left 11 people dead.

                 When finally caught, Starkweather took a fast track to the electric chair wile Fugate, who claimed to be his unwilling innocent hostage, stayed in prison for over 17 years before freed on parole.

                Nobody really believed Fugate's story, but evidently Malick  swallowed some of it......he has the film narrated by 'Holly', his version of Fugate (Sissy Spacek), depicting her as a mostly emotionless blank slate who lives inside her own head.

                 Given her naivete and wide eyed innocence, it's easy to see how Holly falls under the spell of 'Kit', the Starkweather character scarily embodied by Martin Sheen in one of his finest first roles.

                With a hair trigger temper and a resemblance to James Dean, Kit beguiles the easily impressed Holly. And after shooting Holly's disapproving father (Warren Oates), the two are off and running, with the bodies piling up along the way. 

                 What's truly haunting and stays with you forever is Malick's dispassionate direction (similar to Kubrick's), as Kit and Holly move across barren, flat American landscapes, barely registering the destroyed lives they leave in their wake. 

                 And Sheen and Spacek bring these characters to life with a documentary-like precision that's truly unnerving to behold. 

                 Unlike the real Starkweather, who murdered savagely, Sheen's Kit shoots people down with a quick ruthless efficiency, as if he can't wait to get it over with. And unlike Fugate, Spacek's Holly is neither a terrified hostage nor (as Starkweather claimed) an active participant. She's just a not very bright teenage girl along for ride, her fantasies fueled by movie magazines and Nat King Cole love songs. 

                  After awhile, you realize you're not watching the Starkweather-Fugate story, but rather a cold, remote vision of 1950's America as seen through a warped mirror that displays what nobody wants to look at very long....the dark heart of the American dream gone astray.

                  It's brilliant, 4 star (****)  filmmaking and a a rare chance to enjoy Terence Malick's talent from long before he crawled deep into his own ego to crank out unseen, unwatchable movies.   

                  We say no movie buff should miss it.