'F9: THE FAST SAGA'......VIN THERE, DONE THAT....

 F9: The Fast Saga (2021)     How does anyone attempt a review of this movie?

              Seriously. How are we, an allegedly intelligent blogger, supposed to judge the artistic merit of a "Fast & Furious" movie?  

                This is like trying to write a coherent observation of a monster truck rally.....or a demolition derby.....or a rodeo.   Or maybe a fireworks display. 

                 Lots of loud noises. Gunfire. Explosions.  Car crashes. Truck crashes.  Punching. Kicking. More car crashes. 

                Lots of stuff gettin' blowed up...... gettin'.blowed up real good. 

               As in all modern action movies, laws of physics and gravity applied more like a guideline than a rule.......

                 And a car trip to outer space. 

                Now that we've given you a complete, comprehensive guide to the movie's content, let's move on to the actors. 

                 Vin Diesel.  Not much dialogue.....the very act of speaking seems to exhaust him, except to drawl out the word "family" almost stretched out to include an extra syllable.

                 John Cena......plays Vin's rogue brother. But if you can't see the plot twist coming from 200 miles away, you haven't watched enough 'Fast & Furious' movies. 

                  Paul Walker.....still dead, but lives an offscreen life in the franchise, which is starting to get borderline creepy. 

                   Charlize Theron.......back as the previous episode's villain, now encased in a clear transparent cell. But soon finds a way to think outside the box....literally.

                   But why go on?  Would anything we say either encourage anyone to rush out to a theater or prevent anyone from seeing this movie?   Hardly.

                     We'll say this much....."Fast & Furious 9: The Fast Saga" may serve as the best post-Pandemic movie to see in a theater right now. In its 2 hours and 25 minutes, it's a cartoon bubble of everything we longed for and missed when the multiplexes went dark.  As in, dark with no movies

                    A spectacle of calamitous sights and sounds.......you know, like a monster truck rally....or a demolition derby.....or a rodeo. Or a fireworks display.  No thought whatsoever required. Just spectating with appropriate "ooo"s and "aaahhh" s.

                   We came up with a simple standard to figure out a rating. Here goes:

                   Toward the end of the movie, Vin and company make use of massive electro-magnets to fling random objects at the villains.....mostly cars already in traffic, driven by innocent motorists.

                   If you're the type who'd find yourself thinking about the poor innocent souls inside those cars, who suddenly find themselves picked up and hurled into crushing oblivion in the service of the F9 crew, then the movie's a zero star (0) experience and you shouldn't go anywhere near it.

                   If, on the other hand, the sight of hapless people in cars deployed as grenades, boulders and speed bumps makes you chuckle in childish glee (letting out an a few "Woo-hoo!"s along the way), then F9's a 4 star (****) must see event.

                   Proceed accordingly.

                   

'LUNATICS: A LOVE STORY'......ROMANCE FOR 'EVIL DEAD' FANBOYS

Lunatics: A Love Story (1991)    As a movie buyer for video stores in the 80's and 90's, we thought we'd come across every single strange, off-the-wall and plain batshit-crazy little film produced throughout those eras.....

              Damned if we ever remember seeing or purchasing this one........

              And we're not sure if that's because we really never did see, purchase or hear of it.......or if it's because our mind is just so cluttered with movie memories, we forgot it altogether.

              We'll cut ourselves a break and say it's the former reason, not the latter......cause we're pretty sure there's no way in hell we'd ever forget this movie if we'd ever seen it or heard of it way back when..... (we'd certainly have ordered up at least one copy for the stores' inventory.)

              What we've got here is a fractured romantic comedy liberally peppered with the kind of frenzied fantasy sequences and crazed stop-motion special effects that juiced up the "Evil Dead" trilogy of 'Evil Dead', Evil Dead 2 and 'Army Of Darkness'.....

               Monstrous spiders!  Throbbing brains!  Rappers! Mad doctors equipped with industrial strength hypodermics and power drills!  And Mr. Evil Dead himself, the dean of cult movie actors, Bruce Campbell at his most manic!

               Oops, we almost forgot....it's a romance.

               Presenting our mis-matched couple.....Hank Stone (Ted Raimi), a former mental patient and would-be poet holed up like a hermit in an L.A. slum apartment he's decorated with wall to wall aluminum foil. The foil helps as a deterrent to Hank's periodic delusions that he's being assaulted by the hypo 'n power drill wielding medico.....(who else but Bruce Campbell)

              Not far from Hank, the sweetly naieve cutie Nancy (Deborah Foreman, the once reigning princess of  1980's starlets), cast aside and robbed by her creep boyfriend (who else but Bruce Campbell), hits the streets and quickly run afoul of a vicious street gang. 

                On the run from the gang, Nancy ends up taking refuge with Hank in his foil-wrapped man cave...... a meet-cute which doesn't last long, since Hank's just a tad too eccentric for Nancy, to say the least. 

               But true love at first sight cannot be denied and the painfully lonely Hank braves re-entering  the outside world to go on a search and rescue mission for Nancy as the street thugs close in on her.

              And as in every fanboy's wet dream, true love and lunacy triumph, giant spiders die, and evil punks meet the swift end of a baseball bat......

              There's no middle ground when we try to recommend a wired-up, nutball movie like this. Either you plug into its hyper wavelength and go along for ride or you shouldn't go anywhere near it. 

              For fantasy addicts adventurous enough to see all the off-the-rails tropes of an 'Evil Dead' movie applied to a romance, then by all means treat yourselves......

               We can safely guarantee you won't see anything like this in "When Harry Met Sally" or  "Sleepless In Seattle".

               After all, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks never had to fend off a giant stop motion spider. 

                3 stars (***) As always, beware Bruce Campbell.

STAR WARS PREQUELS......SO HOW MUCH DO THEY SUCK, ANYWAY?

             Hey, it's Monday, so we can't think of a better day to answer a burning question that nobody's asked in almost 20 years.......

               Are the 3 'Star Wars' prequels really that bad??? 

              To prove our full commitment to providing BQ visitors with a reasonable, well thought out consumer guide, we re-watched them.......

                Just saying "we re-watched them", made us heave and toss lunch......we're still in the recovery stage of PTPS   (Post Traumatic Prequel Syndrome).

                 Our PTPS therapist, Dr. J. J. Binks, says it would help if we talked it out.

                So here goes.......one by one......

Star Wars - The Phantom Menace (1999)

                First question - did  anyone besides George Lucas give an infinitely tiny rat's ass about Darth Vader's childhood?

                 Second question - with thousands upon thousands of child actors available for him to chose from (most whose moms would fellate George daily to score an audition for their kids), why did he go out of his way to choose the most inexpressive, untalented child he could possibly find? 

                  Third question - Jar Jar.  An existence still mysterious as the dark side of the moon. And yet, in a way, a singular achievement.....in the creation of a character simultaneously offensive to who knows how many minority groups........(we won't even get into those pseudo-Asian chamber of commerce creatures.....)

                   Fourth question - in response to crushed fanboys who felt their souls officially sucked dry, Lucas claimed he didn't make the prequel for them.......he made it for little kids all new to the franchise.

                    .....which begs the question......how interested did George think children would be in the nefarious intricacies of intergalactic trade agreements? Did he believe the kids regularly tuned in the Bloomberg business channel in between playdates?

                     Fifth question -  what's with the rickety-tickety loony toon robots who collapse into pieces if you even breathe on them?   Did the future evil emperor-to-be buy 'em all on E-Bay?

                   One plus.....we became rather fond of the big fat CGI toad who'd motorboat his jowls at the slightest provocation.....but that's not enough to push the needle past a Zero Rating (0).

Star Wars - Attack Of The Clones (2002)

                   If nothing else, 'Attack Of The Clones' could serve as an overall category titles for "The Force Awakens", "The Last Jedi" and "The Rise Of Skywalker".........

                   We can only come up with a few random impressions about this one.......

                    Christopher Lee's lightsabre smackdown with CGI Yoda......no doubt the best combat ever staged between a 90 year old guy and a computer animated puppet.....

                   Hayden Christenson -  refer to the "Second Question" from the previous "Phantom Menace" review above.....just take out the word "child" and replace it with "adult"

                    Annakin and Princess Ooompa-Loompa (or whatever her name was) squaring off with creatures inspired by Ray Harryhausen's beasties.......the one thing we liked. 

                     For that sequence we'll swoosh our lightsabre for 1/2 a star.

Star Wars - Revenge Of The Sith  (2005)   

                   Our recommendation......Disney could have edited the last 20 minutes or so of this one down to 2 or 3 minutes and insert it into "Return Of The Jedi" as a flashback.........

                     As long as we're on this brainstorm, they could have also digitally erased Hayden Christenson and replace him with....well, anybody other than Hayden Christenson. Anyone with a pulse and more than one facial expression......(feel free to pick your own favorite....)

                     We longed for a crucial missing scene......Yoda explaining himself to the parents who to came to pick up their toddlers from the Jedi day care center.....("One of our alumni, went a little cuckoo, he did. Your younglings, in pieces they are. Sorry.....but refunds on tuition, you will have not...")

                     Let's have moment of sorrow for the mostly robotic General Grievous.......this poor sucker looks like he could have been the next model off the corporate assembly line if there'd been a 'Robocop 4" or made one hell of a efficient expresso coffemaker........

                     Beyond that, we only remember a whole lotta molten lava.....and recall hoping and praying that this would be the last movie where any character would scream "Nooooooooooooo!" 

                     (Although "Noooooooooooo!" was a exactly our reaction when we first thought of doing a post that involved watching the prequels again.)

                      1/4 of star......for the lava.

                    

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....BRITNEY ENSLAVED, CHAUVIN IMPRISONED, WALLS CLOSE IN ON BABY ORANGE

                   Just when we thought we could take the weekend off.....the madness never stops....

                    James "Jamie" Spears, the world's most successful white slaver......

                    So now it's time for everyone to apologize to that sad, pathetic Twitter kid who wailed in anguish, "Leave Britney alone!"  as the pop culture hordes feasted on her public mental breakdowns....

                    Even the most dysfunctional of popular performers never suffered the bizarre punishment handed out to Spears.......total financial, personal and entirely legal enslavement by her father Jamie, who drains his daughter like she's a cash cow that pumps out millions instead of milk.

                   Republicans should probably embrace this guy, since he's found a whole new way to circumvent Roe Vs. Wade....use a conservatorship to stick an IUD in your daughter to stop any more of those pesky pregnancies. 

                    Jamie wins the "Vegas Trafficker Of The Year Award" for getting the law to set him up as a legally sanctioned pimp who only needs  the one girl in his stable to sing and dance for big payouts....no sex required. What a dad.

                    Derek Chauvin get 22 and 1/2 years for murdering George Floyd.......

                    Our question......what's the 1/2 year for?   Is there an extra 6 months for performing a slow torture public execution of a helpless man for the entire world to see?    How do you decide that the merciless, horrific act of squeezing the life out of a human being is worth only a couple of decades and not life imprisonment?  

                    Our "Sickest Comedian Of The Year" award goes to his defense attorney for asking for probation. 

                    As for Chauvin himself, the sociopathic slug provided a startling WTF moment with his promise of "new information" that will give the Floyd family closure.....

                   Here's what'll give us closure.......the delightful thought of how popular Chauvin's going to be among the prison population.  We wouldn't even hazard a guess as to how many very sharp improvised 'shivs' await him......but it's satisfying to think about. 

                   Indictments on the way for the Trump Organization.......

                  Watching this mob go down the drain may turn out way more entertaining than the CGI car crashes in 'Fast & Furious 9'.   Only the secret branch office in Moscow may be left when it's all over....

DARK ROADS....A BQ ADVANCE PEAK AT A THRILL-MASTER'S LATEST UP-ALL-NIGHT READ

 Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens (Publication date August 3, 2021)

   

Since we've been a fervent Chevy Stevens fan since reading "Still Missing" and all her subsequent thrillers. we leaped at the opportunity to read an advance copy of her upcoming thriller and we couldn't wait to inhale it at light speed.           And once again, she doesn't disappoint with this one, where she took her inspiration from British Columbia's infamous "Highway Of Tears", a long, long lonely stretch of road where many young women have disappeared and later found brutally raped and murdered.             Fictionalized into the 'Cold Creek' highway, the book concentrates on two very different young women , Hailey and Beth, whose paths cross in the Canadian wilderness landscape - and whose paths also cross with the homicidal deranged deviate responsible for abducting , assaulting and killing girls all along the length of the highway.             17 year old Hailey lost her beloved father in a car accident. With her mother long gone, she ends up in the care of her aunt and to Hailey's everlasting misery, her aunt's loathsome police officer husband, Vaughn.. Vaughn's an threatening, overbearing bully who seems to rule and control the town as if it's his own personal kingdom., and creepily dominates Hailey like she's his newly inherited piece of property.            Beth is a a grief stricken young woman who's arrived in the highway's isolated, forbidding town in search of answers about the horrific slaying of her sister Amber - the latest victim found on the Cold Creek highway. (and who'd been a loving girlfriend to Hailey. before disappearing).           That's all we would want to reveal here, since all the fun of reading a great suspense novel comes from investing in the characters as they plunge into all the twists and turns of the story.. And "Dark Roads" is one great thrill ride, especially if you want to read about fiercely strong and resourceful women up against some truly scary formidable threats to their lives.          As a constant Chevy Stevens reader, we knew sooner or later there'd be a nasty, surprise twist somewhere down the road, and once again, she absolutely came through with it. And we loved the way that the natural beauty of the Canadian woods, lakes and rivers becomes as ominous and frightening as any big city dark alley.         The danger factor and overall atmosphere of dread is top notch here, you'll worry yourself no end for the fate of the two girls and fearfully cringe every time that hateful, menacing Officer Vaughn pops up.. It's simply another 5 star (*****) Chevy Stevens winner, with the added bonus of a surprisingly heartfelt, affecting epilogue as well. You can never have enough stay-up-all-night thrillers, so here's one more that ought to go to top of your summertime ' Must Read' pile. A definite BQ FIND OF FINDS.

THURSDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP.......AT LAST, A SLOGAN WE CAN GET BEHIND.

                                     2024.....OR BEFORE!

     A terrific slogan. And we support it whole heartedly. Come on, New York District Attorneys......make the U.S. and the world a safer. saner place and make it happen. Soon.

           And in other wonderful news........

Rudy Giuliani's law license suspended for pushing The Big Lie about the election.....

Claimed Giuliani, "I was under the influence of Black Dye # 37.....it was the same toxic stuff that made me caress my own balls at the the sight of Borat's daughter...."

Jared Kushner and wife Ivanka Trump seek to distance themselves from Trump......

In a joint statement, the couple declared, "We had nothing whatsoever to do with President Whats-his-name....we served as coffee-boy and coffee-girl......and sometimes he sent us out for donuts...."

Trump attempted to get FCC and DOJ to harass 'Saturday Night Live" about Alec Baldwin's Trump skits......

"So unfair and biased!" Trump raged. "Not only that, when I was host, they wouldn't let me appear as a contestant on the "Black Jeopardy" sketch I wrote for them.......when they got to the clue 'He was the most deranged madman ever to be elected U.S. President, I was gonna buzz in and scream "Who was Martin Sheen in the 'The Dead Zone"!"

Trump rage-tweets on Father's Day...'Happy Father's Day to all losers...'........

Mar-A-Lago insiders disclose Trump was hurt and enraged by the Father's Day cards and gifts from his children......reportedly receiving a McDonald's Happy Meal coupon from Eric, a senior matinee ticket to 'In The Heights' from Don Jr., an original Toys 'R Us' speak 'n spell' from Tiffany.....and 500 a feet restraining order from Ivanka. 

BILLY JACK GROPES AMERICA'S BEACH BUNNY......THE STRANGE, SWEET PLEASURES OF "GIDGET"

 Gidget (1959)    We would never return to a movie like this to excoriate it for its wildly out-of-touch attitudes, treatment of sexuality, and everything else that defined American pop culture in 1959.

               Give us a break, will ya?  We only come back to "Gidget" to luxuriate in its 90 minutes of simple, straightforward sweet nostalgia for an age long gone, a era never to be seen again.

               If we tried applying tough critical standards here, we'd feel like we were slapping a kitten. An extra cute adorable kitten. 

               There are, however, any number of interesting things we picked up here in a film we'd consider as Hollywood's first official widescreen, technicolor Young Adult romance.......(Years earlier, in the 40's, the studios tried making a teen sweetheart out of Shirley Temple,but the film's tanked...too much 'Good Ship Lolliopop' baggage, we guess)

                For the new generation of teens, Sandra Dee hit 'em where they lived, whether suffering the angst of "A Summer Place" or frolicking on the beach like a new born colt. 

                 The pronounced androgyny of American's new teen sweetheart struck us first........in the first half of the film, she's presented as a rail-thin, flat chested, spaghetti-limbed child compared to her especially curvy bombshell  besties, including future 'Batgirl' Yvonne Craig. 

                Babbling like an ADD afflicted 12 year old, Dee's deliberately made to look like a transgender testing out the results of some freshly completed medical procedures.

               The preening, testosterone-heavy Malibu beach boys, including future TV star Doug McClure and none other than pre-'Billy Jack' Tom Laughlin, seem to scoff at any traces of her femininity, adopting her as a mascot as if she were a 12 year old boy.

                (This adoption hazing process involves an attempt to drown Dee in a floating bed of kelp, a fate she'd already barely survived a few scenes earlier)

               But before you can say 'Matt Gaetz', Laughlin's pretending to give Dee surfing lessons for the sole purpose of copping a feel.  Rest easy, this is still the 1950's and Laughlin's quickly thwarted by Dee's ultimate romantic soulmate, her very own 'Moondoggie'...(James Darren).

               Cliff Robertson, as the maturely cool surf bum "Big Kahuna" is the other interesting character to pop up here. An embittered Korean War veteran who's resigned from the workaday rat race, Robertson's 'Kahuna' swings back and forth from knowingly paternal to the young cast while he quietly broods about the emptiness of the rootless, free-spirited life he's chosen. 

              We sensed that an actor as subtle and skilled as Robertson could have done far more with this role than the material he's given. But then the movie's not really about him or his problems, so that's just wishful thinking on our part.  (And in true 1950's Hollywood style, a warm touchy-feely, audience pleasing fate is arranged for him.....)

               As for the rest of movie, we just sat back and smiled, taking it all in......the bouncy, jazzy music that accompanies the surfing shots, the toasty depiction of Dee's parents (Mary LaRoche as the calm, worldly wise Mom and Arthur O' Connell as the blustering, sputtering Dad)....and Sandra Dee herself, who in the second half of the film becomes re-feminized enough (with billowing poodle skirts and high heels) to land the ultimate prize.....officially 'pinned' as Moondoggie's girl-toy before he goes back to college. 

              At that moment, Dee squeals with delight as if she's won the teen equivalent of the Nobel Prize, which in effect, she has.......and all is right with the world. 3 stars (***)

'CASE 39'.....WHEN THE STARS GO SLUMMIN'

              We've got a busy 2 days coming up with doctors' visits and family business, so these next few posts will by necessity run brief.......

Case 39 (2009)  turned out to be a slightly above average booga-booga demonic child shockfest, raised up by the presence of Rene Zellweger, Bradley Cooper and Ian McShane.

           Obviously, this movie's way beneath their talents, but there's always guilty-pleasure fun watching above-the-line actors wallow a little in B-movie sludge.........

            Rene's a sweetly caring social worker who takes on the unenviable task of fostering a solemn little girl (Jodelle Ferland, effectively creepy) whose parents tried to go all Hansel-And-Gretel on her......popping her into the oven. Yowza!

             Turns out, Mom and Pop had the right idea, since Jodelle's an Omen straight from hell and enjoys arranging spectacular deaths for those who, for some reason or another, piss her off. 

              Great grisly death by hornets scene......and to its everlasting credit, the movie avoids the standard, cliche ending for a movie like this (although they did film that usual corny scene and it turns up on the DVD extras.)  3 stars (***)

'IN THE HEIGHTS'......WHICH SENT THE WOKE BRIGADE INTO THE DEPTHS.....

 In The Heights (2021)    Let's deal with the elephants in the room first......

           The over-hype - in the midst of the long, agonizing and not-yet-finished pandemic recovery, critics and social media nabobs pumped this movie up as the Second Coming of glorious big screen entertainment.  A desperately needed breath of fresh air from the likes of "Nomadland".......

             And we'll admit that the trailers for this film and "West Side Story", positioned in the middle of that ghastly, toxic Academy Awards show, looked like long cool tropical drinks in the middle of a desert oasis.

             So much singing.....so much dancing.....so much exuberance and energy....so much of everything. And no sign of Frances McDormand and her depressing little mobile home. Thank God.      

            And now here it is at last, fizzled out. Playing to empty theaters across America.....and maybe in some crowded living rooms that signed up for HBO Max. (which might account for the empty theatres.)

            Even worse, within a week of film's release, its principal creator, Lin-Manual Miranda found himself publicly apologizing to the Cancel Culture Woke Brigade. 

             Huh?

            In the sorriest pop culture social media spectacle we've witnessed this year, Miranda groveled before the Wokesters because his movie about the New York Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic community didn't have people whose skin was dark enough for them. 

            We're not going to discuss the sheer idiocy of that any further, since the Woke Nazis thrive on any public attention given to whatever the latest lunacy their feverish little fingers pound out on Twitter and Instagram. 

            Now having unloaded all that, let's deal with the movie itself. 

            We've always kinda loved musicals and we thoroughly enjoyed this one. We would have enjoyed it way more if some common sense and sanity ruled and at least 30 minutes was cut out of its way too long 143 minute running time. 

            But we're in the age of overkill now and this is the first musical produced exactly like a "Fast And Furious" movie. 

            By that we mean it's excessively loud and relentless, with every musical number staged like a raise-the-roof showstopper. And there's one hell of a lot of musical numbers that come at you.....well, fast and furious. This movie wants a standing ovation every three minutes.......which tends to come off as exhausting after a while.

            As in his masterwork "Hamilton", composer lyricist Miranda once again shows he has almost no equal as a clever gifted creator of rhymed raps. But he's not much a tunesmith. You may find yourself tapping your foot to the pounding rhythms of his songs but you won't remember a single one of them two seconds after they're over.  

            You won't have to.....a few minutes, there'll be another song popping up, a duplicate of the one you just heard.  But they are a joy to listen to and take in the spectacular dance numbers built around them.

            Director John M. Chu juices up the pace even further with rapid fire editing and a variety of camera tricks that try to match the musical numbers in pure frenzied enthusiasm.  We got the feeling Chu wasn't just directing the film,  sometimes we got the feeling he was actively competing with it for attention.

             "In The Heights" wants to entertain you with a vengeance and it won't stop until it demands you applaud as the closing credits appear. 

              We had a load of fun watching it and loved the the entire cast's marathon efforts to emotionally move us, even when the overproduction of the film barely gave them a chance to breathe.....so overall, for a musical fan like us, "In The Heights" took us to the 4 star (****) heights. 

              It's just a damn shame that the wacky, witless Woke trolls dragged Lin Manuel Miranda into the depths in which they dwell.......

            

WEEKEND MADNESS UPDATE......BABY ORANGE'S SECRET CALL TO PUTIN REVEALED! EXCLUSIVE TO BQ!

             Once again, we've got breaking news you can't read anywhere else but here......

             The Beached Quill's top correspondents in Russia (and former triple agents for the CIA, KGB and the Girl Scouts of America), Tantania Romanova and Boris Badenov managed to uncover a recording of a secret phone call made to Vladimir Putin right after he finished his summit meeting with President Biden. 

             Yes, you read our post's headline correctly, it was a highly illegal call from former President Donald "Baby Orange" Trump and we bring you an exclusive unedited transcript of the call.....(except for us taking out the  translator sitting next to Putin..

VP;  This is Vlad Putin speaking. Leave a message or I'll hunt you down and have you poisoned.

BO:  Vlad!  Vladmeister! It's me!  I know it's really you there pretending to be your answering machine.

VP:  Who is this and how did you get this number?

BO:  Don't you recognize my voice, buddy?  It's you soulmate....Donny!

VP:   Oh, it's you......the useful idiot. Only not so useful to me anymore, eh?

BO:  Hey that's what you think. I'm still plotting to overthrow the government.

VP:  What? You mean Iran?

BO:  No, silly.....I'm talkin' about my government! Haven't you heard? I'll be back in the White House by August.

VP:  You should be in the nut house by Tuesday .And in handcuffs by July.  How the hell did you get this number?  You have no more access to high security calls.

BO:  Found it on a site off the Dark Web, "Famous Scumbags Phone Numbers".  It's listed right next to my number!

VP:   What the hell do you want anyway?  I already told you, the condo we're decorating for you and the family when you defect to Moscow.....it's not done yet. You insisted on indoor plumbing and a urine shower for special visitors. These improvements take time.......

BO:  I was just curious about how your meeting with Sleepy Joe went. I bet you didn't have half as much fun as when you used to meet with me.

VP:   Ah, Trumpy, my little sock puppet.....of course it wasn't. After all, Biden's a f***ing grown up. An adult. With the best interests of his country at heart. With an IQ above the level of a carrot. In other words, nothing like you at all.

BO:  Hah! I knew it!  So you miss me, huh?

VP:  Naturally I miss you, you once useful idiot. Who else but you would stand in front the entire world at Helsinki and tell everyone I didn't meddle in U.S. elections, heh, heh.....and not crack up into hysterical laughter saying it.  Good times.......

BO:  Speaking of which, Vladdy, I got a bone to pick with you over that. You really let me down in that election.  What the hell happened? You let me lose!

VP:  What can I say, my little moron?  I did what I could. But you had too many millions of people who hate you over there in America. What you people call a majority.  And who could blame them?

BO:  Tell me about it. What a shitstorm......You dropped the ball and I had to resort to revving up those red hat MAGA imbeciles to storm Congress.  There simply weren't enough of those shmucks to get the job done. 

VP:  Yes, I feel for you, Donald. But I've got to hang up now. Things to do, people to assassinate.....you know, the usual day's work.

BO:   Hey, don't forget about your old pal, okay?  Don't be a stranger!

VP:   Tell you what......when you're sitting in Federal prison, I'll send you escape plans. Look for a gift basket with Russian nesting dolls.....but only if  you promise me a threesome with Ivanka and Melania....

BO:  Wait, Vlad, don't hang up!  Don't hang-

          (Sound of click and line going dead)

            

'RAMBO: LAST BLOOD'.....THE WORST 'GREATEST HITS' CONCERT EVER

 Rambo: Last Blood (2019)    If you subtract the opening credits and the interminable closing credit crawl from this worthless film's 89 minute running time, there's about 75 minutes still left.

            And it felt like the longest 75 minutes of our life.

            The aging, puffy-faced Sylvester Stallone, lumbers through his final adventure as John Rambo, the killing machine veteran of the Vietnam war.  Even when he's slaughtering mass quantities of people, he looks barely awake, like the very act of speaking exhausts him.

              Anyone who held any hopeful belief that Stallone would create a well thought out, well written and carefully crafted farewell to one of his signature characters.......you gotta be shittin' us.....

              This brief carnage-fest presents Stallone-Rambo as the equivalent of the later years Las Vegas incarnation of Elvis Presley......fat, bloated, semi-comatose, staggering on to the stage to deliver a 75 minute medley of his greatest hits.  

              And when Rambo left the building, nobody cared.  That means no more Rambo movies, proving even a toxic cloud has a silver lining. 

              Or to put it more accurately, watching this movie is like listening to one of Donald Trump's latest rambling rants on Fox News......a dreary recitation of all the tired one-liners and outright lies that even Trump's devoted morons are starting to yawn through.......

              That's who this movie seems specifically designed for........the brainless Trump Nazis who stormed the Capitol building on January 6th.  They'd most likely swallow Stallone's vision of Mexico as a hellscape of heavily armed bad hombres and sex traffickers.

              The film finds Rambo on an Arizona horse ranch, underneath which he's built an elaborate labyrinth of tunnels for the purpose of.......well, we can only assume it's for the purpose of the last 40 minutes of this movie.

              His adopted Mexican college age niece foolishly seeks out a reunion with her scummy Mexican biological father......and promptly gets betrayed by her scummy Mexican girlfriend who arranges for her to be drugged and turned over to a pair of scummy Mexican slavers and their host of scummy Mexican minions.

              Let the full Trumpian nightmare commence......

              The usual occurs. Rambo's mission to rescue the girl results in his enduring an obligatory  pulpy beating by the traffickers, followed by his overkill payback. 

               Which in turn is followed by the overkill payback of the traffickers who arrive at Rancho Rambo in one of those Bad Hombre caravans that Trump used to have orgasmic fever dreams about. 

               And this brings us to the Greatest Hits concert, a roaring, perpetual symphony of slaying as Stallone-Rambo blows up, stabs, shoots, slices, dices, decapitates,, bisects, tri-sects, bludgeons,  and otherwise arranges numerous agonizing grievous demises for the Hombres. 

              The showstopper moment, of course, belongs to the principal Hombre, on whom Rambo performs an autopsy and heart extraction, while the Hombre's still breathing.    After which our weary warrior, having made America Great Again, rests in a rocking chair. 

               At this point we can't imagine any further adventures for Rambo.....except maybe travelling back to Mexico and making them pay for the wall.

              We'll say no more, other than it's never been easier to rate a movie like this.  Like Trump himself,  "Rambo: Last Bood" is a true AFH, an ABOMINATION FROM HELL. 

               Totally unfit for human consumption. 

'SHIVERS'.....CRONENBERG'S NIGHT OF THE LIVING HORNY

 Shivers (1975) (a.k.a. They Came From Within)   Here's what's always tickled us silly about David Cronenberg's first full length feature film.........the storm of controversy it stirred up because the Canadian government helped finance it.

          Is it possible some Canadians didn't appreciate their hard earned tax dollars creating a gore-soaked horror movie about slimy, gooey parasites who infest their victims stomachs before turning them into rampaging rapists?

           Some folks just can't take a joke.....or a wormy slug crawling in and out of their mouths. Go figure.

            Cronenberg wanted to really put himself on the map here, so things get off to a roaring start at the deluxe high rise apartment building that's the film's main location.  A mad scientist tenant strangles a schoolgirl who's been moonlighting as the building's resident hooker.......prior to vivisecting her and cutting his own throat with a scalpel.  Woo-hoo!

            And then we're off and running to parasite hell, since the loony Prof was breeding them as organ replacements for sickies who couldn't wait for a donated liver or kidney. (Trust us, you don't want to pay too close attention to the wonky scientific rationale on display here.....)

             Parasite Central settles on a sullen young executive (Allan Kolman) who regularly regurgitates enough of the little buggers to infect all his neighbors. Once afflicted, the parasite-ians all become sex crazed zombies with only one mission - to seek out and rape the nearest warm body, be it man, woman or child. 

             Among the more notable among these horny afflicted is the beyond stunning Euro-trash scream queen Barbara Steele. Our fave gal Barb, she of the raven hair and enormous eyes,  suffers a parasite zippin' directly into her hoo-hah while taking a bath. Yabba dabba doo!

               The building's resident physician (Paul Hampton) and his devoted nurse/girlfriend (Lynn Lowry), who was already kind of hot-to-trot even before the parasites ran amuck, race through the high rise, dodging the slobbering, permanently aroused hordes. 

               Throughout these jolly festivities,  director Cronenberg inaugurates his film career with a raw, crudely staged 3 ring circus of deranged depravity......featuring children on leashes, gang rapes galore and a few slime 'n blood covered death-by-parasite scenes.....(in the movie's fractured mythology, the oozing worms burn you horribly on your skin's surface, but once inside your guts, rooting around in your innards, they only make you want to hump like a nympho rabbit...)

              (We did you warn you about the science here, right?)

              With his reputation for  "body horror" now firmly established ,Cronenberg was well on his way to a long celebrated career of showing twisted, corrupted human flesh in such beloved gems as "Scanners", "Rabid", "The Brood" and his modernized remake of "The Fly".

              Though "Shivers" lacks the polish and professionalism of his later films, you can see the pure enthusiastic directorial talent on display here.....a powerful mixture of sly social satire with literally gut-wrenching violence.  If you've yet to experience where the Cronenberg canon of carnage started out, don't miss checking this one out. 3 stars (***).

               If you're an apartment dweller, you're bound to install new deadbolt locks...... 

               

'WILLY'S WONDERLAND'.......THE KING OF KRAZY AT THE PEAK OF HIS GAME

 Willy's Wonderland (2021)   Was there ever a career trajectory stranger than Nicolas Cage's?

              Decades from now, when someone gets around to producing a "The Films Of Nicolas Cage" coffee table book, it might require a steel reinforced coffee table to support it.

             At the rate he's going, his filmography could hit close to a 1000 titles.

              It feels like a several centuries ago when Cage won a Best Actor Oscar and used to front big budget tentpoles like "The Rock" and the "National Treasure" movies. 

              Now he's the insanely prolific, reigning King Of Krazy Kult Krapola, a one man 42nd Street Grindhouse, cranking out a never ending stream of direct-to-video ultra low-budget demented, out of control thrillers and horror films.

              With each of these films, you enjoy the added attraction of watching Cage performances more unhinged than the movies that surround them. 

               And he's never looked back. By the time we're done writing this post, you might find 2 or 3 more Cage movies hitting the Wal-Mart shelves. 

              But who are we kidding?   We dove into the deep, dark and dank sludge pools of his previous mini-epics "Mandy" and "The Colour Out Of Space" with the same abandon that Cage did himself. We guilty-pleasured ourselves into near orgasmic heights by watching them. 

             (Which we think is the whole reason he makes these movies......we'd like to believe he's at least having as fun as we are....)

             But we digress. Now let us heap unadulterated praise on "Willy's Wonderland", which possibly may stand as the penultimate Cage-fest.  It features the  relentless Cage-inator as a non-speaking cool cat billed as "the janitor" who does mighty and gory battle with demonically possessed animatronic puppets.

               These jumbo creatures were star attractions at an extra cheesy 'Chuck-E-Cheese'-like kids' birthday party playground-restaurant.....operated by serial killers who offed themselves so they could live inside the puppets......

                Do we really need to explain anything further?  

                Blood flows freely, as well as quarts of oil from the creepy puppets foolish enough to engage the CageMeister in mortal combat. 

                As an added attraction, stupid teenagers left over from some 80's slasher movie also invade the Wonderland, so the puppets can properly eviscerate them.......(and you guessed it, especially two of the horny ones who get ripped to shreds in mid-boink. Poor shmucks probably never saw a "Friday The 13th" or "Halloween" movie......)

                Perhaps the funniest and most apt metaphor in the movie is Cage's single-minded devotion to the job he's given as the overnight cleaner of Willy's Wonderland.  In between his punching, pounding  and disemboweling of the puppets, he goes right back on the job, mopping the gore off the floors, patching himself up with duct tape and chug-a-luggin' can after can of energy soft drink. 

              It's a perfect symbol of the Nicolas Cage career......he's our very own, blood soaked Energizer Bunny, wipin' the slime off himself and marching on and on, through film after film.

             We're not sure if that's either sad or hilarious. Maybe both at the same time.

            We do know that as a longtime lover of nutso outlaw cinema, "Willy's Wonderland" is a kick and half to watch.......for better or worse, Nic's the Master Of His Own disasters......and nobody does it better. 3 stars (***)

'PROJECT HAIL MARY'....A MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER TASKED WITH SAVING THE WORLD.....

 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021_  Andy Weir is certainly the most unique of best-selling authors.......a science nerd (and we're talkin' deep, deep, Phd-level science) with a warm heart and a wicked sense of humor.....

             By combining all three of those qualities, he exploded on the publishing scene with the force  of a galactic big bang with "The Martian".....a hot book and later a hit movie with Matt Damon. 

              Weir's back and for those who both laughed and thrilled to "The Martian" he's better than ever with a far more epic, ambitious, heartrending and humor-laden story of desperate survival against impossible odds. 

             His very flawed hero, Ryland Grace, a loner possessed of a brilliant mind, fled the scientific community to become a beloved Junior High school science  teacher. 

              So how does he wake from an induced coma, afflicted with amnesia and inside a spaceship hurtling toward another star system.....with his only other two crew members already dead?

              Piece by piece (in flashback chapters) it all starts coming back to him. Grace and his fellow astronauts were tasked with nothing less than saving Planet Earth from a voracious micro-organism that's sucking up the sun's energy.

                The trip, a one-way suicide mission,  was designed by a world wide multi-national congregation of scientists led by an indomitable force of nature, Dr. Eva Stratt.  And if the "Hail Mary" crew, now reduced to a single man, doesn't figure out a way to thwart or defeat the sun-sucking microbes, it's Ice Age, End Of Days time for everyone on Earth. 

                Which leaves Ryland Grace, a wisecracking, most un-courageous science guy as our planet's sole hope for coming up with some genius solutions to save Earth from turning into a giant popsicle with nobody left alive on it.

                  And this is right where we'll stop describing anything further about what happens in this book, since Weir takes his story into a whole new fantastic territory you haven't seen in his previous books.  

                Like "The Martian", no end of harrowing, hairbreadth, life-or-death situations pile up one after the other on the good ship "Hail Mary" and you'll wonder how these many challenges, problems and outright catastrophes can ever be overcome.

                 But we should point out that you'll also smile, laugh out loud, and shed more than a few unlikely tears. When Grace is finally confronted with a decision that no human being could ever face or conceive of, his choice will tax your every attempt to read this book with dry eyes. 

                Fair warning though.......In addition to his wit and thrill-making, Andy Weir is all about the science......and from the first page to the last, the highly technical jargon and details are daunting, intimidating and take up pages and pages of stuff you'd need multiple Masters degrees to digest.

                 If you're willing to stay with it, (or dare we say, skim through the science blah-blah if you have to), Weir will take you on a wonderfully satisfying, emotional ride into outer space that you'll never find in any Disney theme park.  We stuck with and so glad we did.

                  And we've never a read a final sentence that so perfectly captured the heart, soul and imagination of the novel that precedes it. 4 stars (****)

CICADA MADNESS WRAP-UP....BQ INTERVIEWS AN ACTUAL CICADA!

              Once again, we've scored a coup.......a no-holds-barred, one-on-one interview with a real live cicada!  "Cecil", as he prefers to be called, just flew in (literally) from Washington D.C., where he's spent the last few days crawling through Mitch McConnel's hair.....

              Exclusively for BQ visitors, here's the transcript.....

BQ:   Cecil, is it?  So Cecil, what's it like incubating for 17 years and then suddenly coming out into the world?

CECIL:   I'll tell ya, BQ, it's damn weird stuck in the ground, in the dark and all curled up with my head stuck up my ass.  Kind of like a Trump supporter......

BQ:    You've made quite a splash in the news the last few week, Ceec. Millions of your friends clogged up a press plane, forcing it to turn around. You've freaked out reporters by crawling on them during their live appearances.

CECIL:   I know!  Are we awesomely annoying or what?  And no one can stop us anymore than they could stop the Trumpanzees from storming the Capitol to throw out democracy!

BQ:   I have to say, for someone who's been laying low for 17 years, you're very well informed about current events....

CECIL:     Yeah, I'm hooked on CNN.  But when the news gets too much to deal with, when I just want to put my feet up, relax and laugh my ass off, there's always Fox News.  Jeez, I'm really missing Trump's blog.....now that was some funny shit.

BQ:    Indeed. So what've you been up to these days?  Were you really in Mitch's hair?

CECIL:   Oh hell no.  That's another load of crap from  QANON. They also claimed all of us cicadas were under the personal command of Hilary Clinton with orders to swoop down on school children and carry them off to human traffickers in Guatemala.

BQ:  Then.....that's not true then.

CECIL:   I'll check in with the High Command at the pizza shop and get back to you on that....heh, heh, heh.  Kidding aside, I did in fact spend some time crawling around Mike Pence's head. 

BQ:    For real?

CECIL:  True dat!  That fly who was parked up there during the Vice Presidential debate.....he left a little sign on in Pence's hair..."This space for rent".   What a joker......

BQ:   What did you hear from Mike Pence's head?

CECIL:  What can I tell ya. The outside of his head is just like the inside......empty.  He was sittin' around watching an old Clint Eastwood movie...."Hang 'em High"......kept muttering to himself, 'why does this sound so familiar?'

BQ:   You've become quite the Washington D.C. celebrity, haven't you?

CECIL:   And lovin' every minute of it. Especially the GOP. They've all got the same brain size as me! I love those guys.

BQ:   Uh....Cecil, you insects possess tiny, tiny, almost microscopic brains.

CECIL:  That's why the ReTrumplikins and I are so simpatico! Especially that rocket scientist Louis Gohmert.

BQ:   You mean the congressman who asked the Forestry service if they could alter the trajectory of the moon.

CECIL:   Now there's guy I could sit down and crack open a Bud with. My peeps and I were thinkin' of throwing him a big luncheon and make him an honorary Cicada.....and the first annual "Brain Of A Bug" award.

BQ:  He'll be honored, I'm sure. What are your plans for this summer?

CECIL:  Oh, you know....the usual. Make enough noise to attract a girl of my species and jump her bones faster than Matt Gaetz slobbering over a 17 year old. 

BQ:  Well in that regard, Cecil, your goals do align with the GOP.  The ones who can't screw underage girls, prefer to screw over the entire country.

CECIL:  Listen, I hate to cut his short, but I gotta fly. I'm hoppin' a  plane for the big Summit.

BQ:   You mean.....the summit with Vladimir Putin?

CECIL:  I heard he's lonely......misses his boytoy Donald, his very own sock puppet.  So I figure I'd surprise him and crawl under this boxers.

BQ:   Very commendable. In other words, you plan to become a bug up his ass.....

CECIL: It's what I do, baby. And you're welcome, America!