'NIGHT OF THE LEPUS'.....JUST A HARE TOO MUCH FOR US.....

 Night Of the Lepus (1972)  Bunnies!  Blood-dripping, fang bearing, carnivorous......bunny rabbits!!!

               Anyone who never heard of this movie probably thinks we opened with that sentence for the sole purpose of getting everyone's attention......

                Well.....it worked, didn't it?   Which is what the executives at MGM must have thought when they greenlighted this sorry cheeseball to begin with.....

                Not even Notorious B.I.G. (Bert I. Gordon, the maestro of low-budget monster movies) would've thought to photographically enlarge bunnies and film them in slow motion as they loped across miniature replicas of desert roads.   (B.I.G. much preferred creatures that looked like credible threats, wuch enlarged, like grasshoppers, spiders, rats, ants, wasps and the Amazing Colossal Man,  bald guy in diaper.)

                 No hare-raising for B.I.G......he had to draw the line somewhere.......

                 Not the brave execs at MGM, though. Throwing caution to the wind, along with a few bucks for the bunnies, they hoped to get on the ecological horror bandwagon of nature-gone-awry screamers.

                  We're running the risk of making this movie sound like it's some outrageously entertaining guilty pleasure, so let's stop right here to say something......

                 Like MGM's other 1970's sci-fi atrocity "The Ice Pirates", (see our post from 4 days ago), 'Night Of The Lepus' is still nothing but unwatchable junk on every level, unfit for human consumption. 

                  But we can't fault the cast......they're a solid professional bunch, including Rory Calhoun as a rancher afflicted with a bunny plague and Stuart Whitman and Janet Leigh as the husband-wife team of eco-minded scientists trying to alleviate the onslaught with neutering serum. ('Star Trek's DeForest Kelly shows up briefly in a worthless supporting role...)

                    Wouldn't you know it, Whitman and Leigh's whiny little daughter switches around the test bunnies in their lab.  Somehow, in the movie's Never Neverland grasp of science, this results  in a matter of days, in hordes of bunnies the size of pickup trucks galloping ever so slowly through the Arizona countryside, gobbling up livestock and eviscerating the populace. 

                    The special effects deployed for these rabbit rampages, as anyone except an MGM executive could have predicted,  came out looking unintentionally hilarious......filled with desperate attempts to make all those slo-mo cuties appear threatening with close ups of their lettuce-chomping front teeth smeared with ketchup. Yikes....eek!

                     What really struck us as odd (other than the ballooned-up bunnies)........Whitman and Leigh's characters seem to suffer no guilt, no remorse,  no second thoughts or a moment's pause that their negligence and incompetence as scientists led to all this carnage, disaster and destruction. 

                     Come to think of it, that makes them no different than the MGM suited-lizards who okay'd this movie for production in the first place.  Just like the bunny-eaten victims, things didn't go well for them. Zero stars (0)......Halloween viewing only if your Halloween party features plenty of six packs and/or tequila shots beforehand.........

                   

'A GOOD DAY FOR CHARDONNAY'......BQ'S BEST 2021 BOOK SO FAR.....

 A Good Day For Chardonnay by Darynda Jones (2021)   We simply had to interrupt our usual Halloween Cheeseball Movie festival to clue you in on this book......

         It's the second book in author Darynda Jones' series about the romantic, dangerous, heartwarming and sometimes laugh-your-ass-off misadventures of small town New Mexico sheriff Sunshine Vicram and her equally irrepressible and unstoppable teen daughter Auri.

          If you check out our 5/21/20 post on the first book in this series, "A Bad Day For Sunshine", you'll see that we gave it a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS rating......and our post header was pretty much the same as today's for the new book.

           This is by far the most fun, most exciting, most tearful, most ultra-sexy, most twisty and most hilarious book we've read all year. 

            No surprise, this gem is another 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS. 

            We're telling you right now.......buy this book, download this book, borrow this book, listen to this book......get your hands on this book any way you can. 

            It's that damn good. 

             And the only thing we're bummed about is that we'll probably have to wait another year or so for the next one.

             "A Good Day For Chardonnay" once again hurls us into Sunshine's little nuthouse of a town, Del Sol, where everybody's either a lovable eccentric, or a potentially dangerous one. She has to navigate  her way through a tangled case that injured Levi Ravinder, the taciturn hunk whom she's been lusting after since childhood.  And it turns out there's way more  to the case than meets they eye.....

               Meanwhile, her flame-haired and adored Auri, a chip off the detecting block, takes it upon herself to prove that the town's most beloved, gentle-hearted little old lady is a serial killer.....

                That's all you'll get from us on the story, except to say that this book delivers a 12 course  meal of everything you might want to pick up a book for......multiple laugh-out-louds, a convoluted mystery to unravel, a smoking hot, practically nuclear powered romance, and even plenty of moments that could lead you to tear up a few times. 

                A true wow all around, this one. And in case we didn't make ourselves clear in this review.....once again, a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.  Get it now.

'STRAIGHT-JACKET'....MOMMIE FEAREST WITH AN AX TO GRIND....

 Straight-Jacket (1964 )    Now here's a perfect pre-Halloween treat for lovers of Krazy Kult Cinema.....(of which BQ is a card-carrying member.....)

              What could be a more perfect pairing than Joan Crawford, in full eye-bulging, ax-wielding rant teaming up with the King of shlock, gimmick-laden horror William Castle. ...

                 A true Slash Of The Titans.......and with Joan swingin' a mean blade to separate people from their heads, Castle didn't even find it necessary to prank the audience with a floating skeleton or goosing them with joy buzzers stuck under their seats.......

                   Armed with a script by "Psycho" author Robert Bloch, the movie  begins on the.....uh.....cutting edge, if you will,  with a flashback to the 1940's (or thereabouts). Crawford, all dolled up like a drag queen, comes upon her cheatin' young hubby  (the future 'Six Million Dollar Man' Lee Majors). 

                     He's fast asleep next to his latest young conquest.....and neither of 'em hear an insanely jealous Joan approach them with with ax, even though she's jangling enough wrist bracelets to re-stock the prize supply in a boardwalk claw machine....

                     Needless to say, off go their heads. Yahoooo........(Anyone worried about gore, rest easy.....anyone knows William Castle favors plastic dummies instead of real heads.....this is 1964 after all....)

                   Some twenty years later, Joan's released from the Funny Farm to reconnect with her now grown daughter (Diane Baker), whom we last saw as a little girl, watching in horror as Mommy Fearest divorced Daddy.....from the neck up. 

                  We should point out here that Crawford, always a tireless, perfectionist pro, generates real honest pathos and sympathy in the film's early scenes where she haltingly attempts to adjust to a world outside a padded cell and to forge a bond with her adult child.....(as far we know Baker doesn't incur Joan's formidable wrath by using wire hangers.....)

                 That drama stuff doesn't last long, though. Before you can ask 'Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?'. heads start to roll again, starting with Joan's shrink (played by a non-actor borrowed from the corporate board of Joan's then husband, the CEO of Pepsi Cola). 

                  By this time, Joan's in full hysterical histrionics, unwisely dressing up, at her daughter's foolish suggestion ,like her wack-a-doodle 1940's self.......which leads to scene even creepier than the beheadings, the sight of Joan groping her kid's straight-laced, properly disgusted fiance,

                  Next up on the 'heads you lose' body count comes that wonderfully reliable hulking young Character Villain (and future Oscar winner) George Kennedy. One look at Kennedy's leering snarl as he plays a nasty farm hand, you know he's not long for this world..... let's put this way, he really axed for it...heh, heh, heh...

                    Now at this point, we wouldn't dare discuss or expose the film's truly bonkers twist ending, with director Castle and writer Bloch attempting a clumsy 'Psycho' like finish, complete with a step-by-step explanatory de-briefing for whoever would still hold the slightest interest in the movie's plot mechanics........(knowledgeable  horror completists will no doubt chuckle, since this same climax gets copied in another Crawford  screamer several years later....)

                    Whatever you do, don't leave this film before the fade-out to the Columbia Pictures logo.....with its final and funny reminder that you've been watching a William Castle movie.....

                    For anyone who'd love at least one pre-Halloween night of campy fun, throw some candy corn in with your popcorn and put this one high on your chopping list. 3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)

                

                

'DRACULA 2000' & 'CURSED'.....THE WEINSTEINS' HOUSE OF HORRORS......

 Dracula 2000 (2000) & 'Cursed' (2005)    Not to worry, we're not about to start waxing nostalgic about the long gone toxic reign of Harvey Weinstein and his brother Bob (who ran Dimension Films, the brothers' designated label for faux-grindhouse movies)

               But in the spirit of Halloween, we thought it might tickle us to take quick deep dive into the horror quickies pumped out during the glory days of Dimension.

               We'll say this much in their favor......neither of these movies look cheap or slapdash. For low budget horrors, they benefit from slick, technically professional filmmaking.......and they're populated by casts of mostly young actors on the rise and at least one top-of-the-line A-List veteran.

                 "Dracula 2000" features no less than Christopher Plummer as that eternal vampire nemesis Van Helsing......and we do mean eternal, since he's found a way to hang around a century or two, right up to the year 2000. 

                  Plummer had the original Dracula (a young Gerard Butler, giving good glower) all sealed up until a team of thieves inadvertently sprung him out of the coffin, much to their woe and violent doom. 

                   And so off the two forever foes go to New Orleans....(well, why not? Mardi Gras!), where Drac longs to put the bite on his long time crush, Van Helsing's daughter Mary. (Justine Waddell)

                    We've not much to complain about here.......the movie zips right along, splashing R-rated gouts of gore and severed heads in every direction.  Amid the mayhem, red-blooded males (heh, heh) can enjoy the expected trio of vampire babes, played with proper hissing and fang-bearing by Jennifer Esposito, Jeri Ryan and Coleen Fitzpatrick (a.k.a. the pop singer Vitamin C).

                    And to our amused surprise, the movie unleashes a startling twist to Dracula's backstory, an off-the-rails idea that probably a lot of other screenwriters wish they'd thought of first......(for anyone who hates spoilers, we'll not reveal it here, since it's the film's one and only surprise)

                    Minor league stuff, to be sure, but it kept us continuously entertained and that's more than we can say for a thousand other vampire movies and TV shows we've suffered through.  3 stars (***)

                    "Cursed" (2005),  directed by horror maestro Wes Craven became notorious for the unprecedented amount of meddling, tinkering and re-shooting it was subjected to by Harvey and Bob,  the Weinstein gruesome twosome.

                     For some reason no one could ever quite figure out,(including Craven and his cast) the brothers went ballistic on this simple-simon little werewolf tale, ordering up enough re-writes, re-castings and re-shoots that forced the movie to literally start all over again with a different cast. 

                      Why?  Beats us. It's not like the film was offering some incredibly new take on all the standard werewolf crapola........(other than the fun fact that virtually every major character in the cast is either a full fledged werewolf or well on the way to joining the furry club.....)

                      Unlike the blood soaked "Dracula 2000", 'Cursed' was designed to function as a PG-13 more teen friendly romp, with an appealing, up-and-coming young cast in their demographic wheelhouse (Christina Ricci, Jesse  Jesse Eisenberg, Joshua Jackson, Milo Ventimiglia).

                      Nothing much new appears here, though we think it may be one of the first teen movies in which the brazenly herterosexual school bully is outed out of the closet.......(and pre-Spider-Man, bully-boy's also physically humiliated in the gym by a lovable nerd just realizing his superpowers.)

                       Craven keeps this flimsy little story tearing along, but we couldn't help wondering why the Weinsteins spent so much time, money and effort on revamping such an inconsequential film.......(maybe they had fever dreams about it winning the grand prize at Cannes, or being hung in the Louvre.......)

                      They ended up with a just okay Halloween  B-minus movie that's suitable mainly for teen girl slumber parties......or anyone else who might want to re-live or re-watch the rambunctious, lively junk left over in the Dimension catalog.....even if its two producers are best forgotten. 2 stars (**)

                        

'THE ICE PIRATES'......STAR BORES

 The Ice Pirates (1984)    We'll label this one a Guilty Displeasure.

               It looks and sounds like the kind of movie that people describe as "so stupid and awful, it's funny to watch....."

               Uh uh. Not in this universe or any other.

               It's so stupid and awful......that it's just stupid and awful. And nothing more.

               Back in the '80's, "The Ice Pirates" was one of those 'cable classics' that seemed to take up permanent residence as a staple in HBO and Cinemax's middle-of-the-night-wee-hours-of-the-morning schedule grid.

               So if you found yourself up and around, contemplating the dark night of the soul at 3 in the morning, you were never far from a viewing of 'Ice Pirates'......(which could plunge you into even deeper despair.....)

                And here's what you'd see unfold - a monumentally brain-dead 'Star Wars' spoof concocted by people to whom a genuine sense of humor was as far from them as the moons of Jupiter. .

                 Apparently, the film began its miserable life as a straight-ahead sci-fi swashbuckler......until MGM sliced the budget to next to nothing and decreed it become a comedy.

                  Not necessarily a bad idea.....and one which wouldn't reach full fruition until an actual funny guy, Mel Brooks, came up with 'Spaceballs' several years later. 

                    But the C-list talent in charge of "Ice Pirates", director Stewart Rafill and his co-writer Stanford Sherman possessed no comedic abilities whatsoever........

                  And their gasping, desperate attempts at a 'Star Wars' satire are beyond painful to watch. 

                  To preserve precious minutes of our life, we most certainly not will waste words on a plot description, other than to mention it involves a Han Solo-ish space stud (Robert Urich), a haughty princess (Mary Crosby) , hordes of slapstick robots and the worst special effects outside of a Roger  Corman quickie produced in 5 days.......

                  Among the lowlights that still stand out......a 'space herpe' that oozes around the floor, a repulsive jive-talkin' pimp robot (a stereotype later adopted by Michael Bay in one of his "Transformer" atrocities)......and most bizarre of all, a supporting role for Oscar show gagwriter Bruce Vilanch playing a sort of fussy, chatty Jabba the Hutt type.

                   At some point Vilanch literally loses his head......but still never shuts up.....(if only they'd recruited him to write some much needed laugh lines. )

                   Do NOT think of this film as a breezy Guilty Pleasure, something to enjoy with a six pack or a batch of whiskey sours......

                   Believe us on this.......no amount of alcohol or any other mind altering stimulant will make this movie anything more than what it is.......worthless junk and a total waste of time.

                    Zero stars (0).  You'll find more honest excitement and laughs in one of those infomercials about bathroom remodeling.......

FRIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP.....EXCLUSIVE! BQ'S VERY FIRST "WORST TUB OF S**T OF THE YEAR" AWARD!

              We faced a daunting task in deciding who would become the proud recipient of The Beached Quill's brand new, honorary award for singular achievement above all other competitors.......

              That achievement going to the individual who has proved without a doubt that he or she is.....

               THE WORST TUB OF SHIT OF THE YEAR.

               We don't know how hard it will be in future years to find a person worthy of such an honor.....we only know that it only took us half a micro-second to deliberate on this year's first honoree.

                Ladies and Gentlemen, we burst with pride in bestowing this coveted award on an individual who, year after year, has proven to America and the world how much he deserves this dazzling statue.....an aluminum plated bowel movement......

                 Among those who are repulsive in every possible way imaginable........intellectually, physically, politically......he has no equal. And sets a high bar indeed for next year's recipient.......(or should we say the lowest of the low bars.....)

                 With all the heartfelt hatred we can muster, we're thrilled to present "The World Tub Of Shit Of The Year" award to a man who's worked so hard, and consumed so many french fries to earn it. 

                   We can only be speaking of Donald Trump's very own personal Jabba The Hut.......so overwhelmingly evil and disgusting that the mere sight of him causes instant nausea.....

                   Steve Bannon. 

                   Where do we even begin with this oily blob's accomplishments.......Fascist, defrauder of Trump's own donors while he partied on a yacht, and podcast demagogue, revving up the brain-dead MAGA morons the day before they terrorized Congress and tried to destroy American democracy.

                    No wonder Trump pardoned him. 

                    In a race to the very bottom of humanity, no one has slithered faster than this bloated blowhard.....

                   And to this genuine traitor to his own country, we present the one and only award he owns above all other contenders......

                   Mr. Bannon........you're the shit. Truly.

                

'FANTASTIC VOYAGE'.....YOUR BODY IS A WONDERLAND.....

 Fantastic Voyage (1966)   Yep, we couldn't think of a better heading for this post than the title of the John Mayer song......

                As dated as it is, this theme park trip into some guy's internal organs still gets under our skin....literally....heh, heh, heh....

                 Who knew that a trip inside a human body would be more fun and educational than heaving your guts out on a Six Flags looping rollercoaster?

                   Not to mention all the colorful stuff you get to see as you cruise through arteries, veins and even the poor shlub's lungs, which are littered with chunks of dark gunk from smoking. (If the sight of that doesn't make you give up the cancer sticks, nothing will.....)

                    But let's back up to the beginning, where a brave team has been assembled by the super-secret CMDF.....the Combined Miniature Deterrent Forces......(we're not sure what shrinking people down to microscopic size deters against.....overcrowding at restaurants, maybe....)

                   Their mission - save the scientist who figured out  how to keep people shrunk for more than one hour..  Enemy agents (a.k.a. commie spies) put a hit out on him, leaving him in a coma with a brain blood clot than can only be laser-zapped from inside his head by a teeny-teeny-weeny surgical team. 

                   So after our stalwart bunch is shrunk smaller than a cotton sweater stuck in the dryer too long, off they go in the 'Proteus', their own little mini-sub for a cruise through the scientist's innards rendered stunningly hallucinogenic by the 20th Century Fox art department. 

                   Our sturdy crew consists of a taciturn Secret Service agent (Stephen Boyd), the sub's captain (William Redfield) two doctors (Arthur Kennedy, Donald Pleasance) and for good old fashioned hubba-hubba, va-va-voom sex appeal, Raquel Welch. 

                  (Among this bunch lurks a commie saboteur, dedicated to stopping anyone from zapping out that pesky blood clot......guessing the bad guy here is about as difficult as ascertaining who's buried in Grant's Tomb, but rest assured that the guilty party suffers the most gruesome fate this movie could come up with, given where it's taking place......)

                  On this bumpy, weird theme-park ride, multiple complications ensue, the legendary highlight of which consists of Raquel Welch attacked and ensnared by......antibodies!

                   Yes, you heard that right, those wonderful little thingies designed to defend us from viruses mistake Raquel for a foreign body (which she is, technically).  No doubt that all red-blooded heterosexual boys envied those antibodies as they put the serious squeeze on the 60's hottest starlet.

                  We found all kinds of interesting moments here......early in the film, that standard 1950's sci-fi trope of "This is no place for a woman!" is duly trotted out and to the film's credit, quickly dispensed with . During the voyage itself, Arthur Kennedy's surgeon character sometimes waxes poetic about the possibility of intelligent design in the many wonders of the human body........(but we can't tell if the screenwriters believe that or if they threw it in to insure healthy box office receipts in the heartland......)

                  An awesomely eye-catching ride altogether and unlike theme park attractions, you can stream it in the comfort of  home without watching your cotton candy wilt while you wait in a long long line.  We consider it required 4 star (****) viewing for all dedicated buffs of classic sci-fi, so book a trip real soon......

                 And let's hear it for those antibodies........they only resorted to groping Raquel Welch's infrastructure when they mistook her for a germ.  They're still making personal appearances right now inside your own body.......and pumped up like tiny Conans the Barbarians if you've been vaxxed......(if you haven't, even the micro-nauts of "Fantastic Voyage" can't save you.....)

                    

                    

                    

'NO TIME TO DIE'...TIME FOR CRAIG'S BYE-BYE....(WARNING: HUUUGGGGGGGE SPOILER EMBEDDED)

 No Time To Die (2021)   First off, before we start........there's no way to discuss this 25th Bond movie with any perceptive detail without REVEALING THE MASSIVE TURN OF PLOT AT THE FILM'S CLIMAX......

             When we get around to it, we will set off  SP0ILER ALERTS like  nuclear attack warning sirens.....so proceed at your own risk, cause before we before finish this post, you can bet your shaken-not-stirred martini that we're gonna get around to the THAT EFFIN' ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM.....

               So here goes.....overall impressions from a lifelong, obsessed Bond movie fan......

                THE 163 MINUTE RUNNING TIME.....that's why you won't read any attempts at a plot synopsis here (which you know we hate to do even with films that run 75 minutes).  Other than to say.....lots of stuff happens. There now. All done.

                 We don't really have that big a problem with the length (except for the stress on our aging prostate).  The history of the Bond series has always been about each film topping the previous one in spectacle and entertainment value.......and piling more and more thrills and storyline into the mix invariably lengthens the movie......so we're okay with it. 

                   We might object, though, if the next one features an overture and an intermission.....

                  DANIEL CRAIG......we were never all that comfortable with Craig's conception of Bond as a blunt instrument lethal weapon who gradually humanizes himself over the course of five films....maybe because we grew up with Sir Sean Connery's perfect blend of casual coolness, sly humor and when called upon, efficient brutality.  

                     Like most dedicated Bond fans, we learned to live with Craig, accept this kind of portrayal (which Timothy Dalton took a crack at in his two Bonds,  if anyone was paying attention) and even settled in to enjoy it.....(especially in 'Skyfall', where Craig's Bond finally reached his full potential.)  

                      With the sheer amount of angst and physical wear and tear that both Craig and his Bond have endured, we can well understand his insistence on how to properly conclude his tenure. We think he and Connery currently stand as the two most gifted actors who ever played Bond.......(at least until a new guy is selected and tries to prove himself worthy of the mantle......)

                        RAMI MALEK'S VILLIAN.......we strongly disagree with the critics (and other fans) who've judged him as bland and generic.  On the contrary, with his diminutive frame, bug-eyed stare, and slightly Phantom-Of-The-Opera make-up, he makes for a fine creepy adversary, almost suitable for a horror film. 

                        Our only quibble here is with his startlingly perfunctory demise......Memo to producers: give us a break will ya.....this is how you end this guy?   After you've had far less threatening villains sucked into jet engines and mashed up by industrial strength drills?  Aw, come on!

                         THE ACTION...... frankly.....not the best. And this continues (and relentlessly overdoes) a technique the films began using in the Pierce Brosnan Bonds......turning Bond into a video game 007, running around  and shooting dozens of pop-up assailants as there's a scoring kill-count on the bottom of the screen.   But we did love the terrific finish to his fight with the scary minion with a bulging bionic eyeball......and accompanying classic quip to go with it.

                           HANS ZIMMER'S MUSIC .......God knows we've suffered through enough Zimmer scores where he phones in droning nothingness, but when he's fully engaged with a film, as he was here, he delivers the goods.  We smiled broadly at his addition of  rich, loud symphonic heft to the gun barrel opening and in a stroke of brilliance (considering the storyline here), he cleverly samples and references John Barry's iconic 'We Have All The Time In The World' love theme from our all-time favorite Bond, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".  And in a change of pace from the usual sound design in today's action movies, Zimmer's pounding themes for the chases and fights are turned up as loud as the effects. Well done, all around. 

                            The score, we meant. That excludes the instantly forgettable dirge title song croaked out by Billie Eilish. What a waste. And wasted opportunity. This derives from the producers picking Bond song artists the same way Lorne Michaels picks guest hosts for Saturday Night Live.....in that it doesn't matter about the individual's actual suitability for the task as long as they're riding high as the Zeitgeist's  Flavor Of The Month.  That's why the 'No Time To Die' song is as useless as Kim Kardashian hosting SNL a few weeks ago.  Our recommendation......if they'd just hire Adele to be the Bond's new Shirley Bassey, the producers would stop catching hell about how rotten the songs are.....

                       

                             SUPPORTING CAST......of course features the usual reliable contributions from the MI6 Scooby-Doo gang (Ralph Fiennes, Naomi Harris, Ben Wishaw, Rory Kinnear)  along with fine work from the new inheritor of the 007 number (Lashana Lynch). The most welcome return:  Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter (the only actor with the chops and gravitas to turn this cardboard prop of a character into a real human being). As for Billy Magnussen's dopey CIA newbie......this guy easily has the most punchable face in the entire movie, so his story arc is hardly a surprise.

                            And as for David Dencik as the sniveling, malignant scientist, his fate is the most satisfying by far.   Christoph Waltz was always a lazy, bland, unimaginative choice to play Blofeld and  nothing's changed our mind. Lea Seydoux remains okay with us, but she's no Diana Rigg.....

                             The real fun player here turns out to be Ana de Armas in her brief, but showy role as Craig's mayhem buddy against a whole gang of minions in a Cuban bar. That entire sequence reminded us of watching audiences roar with cheers and laughter during the Connery films.

                           And now, beloved BQ visitors, we've come to the pivotal moment.....

BIG GIANT SPOILER COMING UP RIGHT NOW!  IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD ANYTHING ABOUT THE MOVIE, CLICK OFF NOW AND SWITCH OVER TO YOUTUBE TO WATCH PIANO PLAYING CATS!  YOUR VERY LAST CHANCE TO AVOID A MAJOR SPOILER.....

                            FAIR WARNING.......HERE IT COMES. 

                           WE REALLY, REALLY MEAN IT. 

                           FIVE...FOUR......THREE.....TWO....TWO AND A HALF.....ONE!

                          We speak of......the death of James Bond. Or to be more accurate, the death of the Daniel Craig James Bond..

                           Ya know what?  We're okay with it.

                         From the opening minutes of Craig's appearance in "Casino Royale" it was made crystal clear to audiences that this was a complete re-start of the Bond character, that this guy had no earthly connection or relations to the Bonds played by Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton or Pierce Brosnan.

                           And now, after a five film story arc of suffering betrayal and unspeakable heartbreak, he's dead.......but as the British cops said when they found Sean Connery sprawled in fake death on his bedsheets in "You Only Live Twice".....he'd have wanted it this way.....

                         Daniel Craig's Bond died as he lived......in perpetual anger and pain, with any kind of happy ending forever dangling just beyond his grasp. 

                         Okey-dokey.......fine with us.

                          As long as producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli remain true to those four words that finally turn up as the very last things you'll see on the credit crawl:

                           James Bond Will Return. 

                          We'll pay no attention to all that nonsense about the next Bond being a woman or Idris Elba. Even Idris Elba is sick of hearing it. 

                             Our best guess - whoever the new Bond will be, he's going to have an all new history......and will have absolutely nothing to do with the Craig-Bond, who will only exist in the five films he appeared in.  Right now, he's an unformed embryo, but we're sure he'll arrive fully grown in he person of......well, your guess is as good as ours. 

                           And that, for all life long  Bond-iacs like us, is something worth looking forward to. 

                          For James Bond (and Bond films, we say there's no time to die......ever.

                           For "No Time To Die.....4 stars (****).  Adios, Daniel. For everyone's sake, rest in piece.....even if your fate left you in pieces.

                           

               

'REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS'.......THE BLUE COLLAR BOND BEGINS AND ENDS......

 Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985)    Since we're only a couple of hours away from attending a matinee of "No Time To Die", we thought this film's  as good as any to use as our pre-'NTTD' post. .

            As much as we've always liked and enjoyed 'Remo Williams' , we can't help wishing that it had turned out much better than it did..........

             Its screenwriter and director came straight from the Bond Universe.....Guy Hamilton who helmed "Goldfinger", "Diamonds Are Forever", "Live And Let Die" and "The Man With The Golden Gun" and Christopher Wood, who penned the scripts for "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker"

              The cast assembled for this was also top drawer......Fred Ward as Remo Williams, the rough, tough New York cop unwillingly recruited to become a stealth assassin of uppercrusters whom the law can't touch, and veteran stage actor Joel Gray as Remo's ancient, wise (and wisecracking) superhuman Korean trainer-mentor. Chiun.

                (Please keep in mind that we realize this movie arrived decades before Joel Gray and the producers would be boiled in oil, crucified and burned alive for casting Gray as a Korean....)

                Also along for this 'origin' story - the always reliable, cracker barrel character actor Wilford Brimley as Remo's avuncular boss and Kate Mulgrew as an Army major nursing an serious crush on our hero. 

                  With the film kicking off with a wonderfully propulsive, exuberant theme by composer Craig Safan, you'd think you were in for a wild fun ride.

                  We wish......

                   Though it's loaded with humor and superb stuntwork, director Guy Hamilton never gets the film out of middle gear.  The action sequences, of which there's not nearly enough of, play out with proficiency but very little urgency.  And Hamilton's direction never rises above detached competence. It's as if he thinks he's phonfng in the 10th episode of a series instead of creating a sense of excitement necessary to push the first film off to a memorable start.

                  It also doesn't help that the movie only offers up a bland corporate villain as Remo's first official adversary, a conniving arms manufacturer played by Charles Cioffi.

                    And that may well be why this was the first and last of  the Remo Williams film adventures.

                   But whenever the film pops up on TV or streaming channels, we can't help sticking around for the scene where Remo takes on three thugs atop the Statue Of Liberty (at the time completely surrounded with towers of scaffolding as it underwent repairs.)  And we wouldn't miss the moment when our working-class 007 forcefully uses a villain's diamond tooth as a glass cutting tool to escape a death-by-gas trap.

                    We most definitely would've looked forward to seeing more better directed, further adventures of Remo Williams. But sadly this one's where it begins and ends. 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2) 

                     

'LADY IN WHITE'....."WHAT CAN THE KIDS WATCH ON HALLOWEEN?"

 Lady In White (1988)   That question  posed in the subtitle of today's post is one we heard thousands of times from parents  during our 30 years of toiling in the retail video movie business........

             Answering it became quite a challenge for video store clerks, managers, owners and corporate movie buyers.....(all jobs which BQ held at one time or another.....)

             The 'kids' we're talking about here were of the tween and teen age groups......(and not the little tykes whom parents could entertain with a "Strawberry Shortcake's Halloween"  VHS tape.....)

               For parents who didn't want their kids anywhere near R-rated, blood-dripping horror, the choices were few and far between.

             The go-to recommendations usually consisted of the Walt Disney company's two misbegotten, botched forays into family-friendly horror......1980's "Watcher In The Woods" (see our 10/21/17 post) and 1983's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (see our 10/14/17 post)........

               The other prime choice was 1987's 'The Monster Squad'.....to which our utter shock and surprise, we discovered we haven't yet covered in this blog.....a severe omission we swear to rectify  before the end of this month.

                 Today we'll turn our attention to writer-director-composer Frank LaLoggia's ambitious, entertaining and wildly uneven Spielbergian scare epic, "Lady In White"

                  Considering LaLoggia directed only two other horror films besides this one before dropping out of sight altogether, 'Lady In White' will stand as his magnum opus. a full fledged pull-the-stops-out ghost story,,,,,,, that throws in loving families, multiple vengeful ghosts, childhood nostalgia, cornball humor, a a serial killer of kids, and non stop thrills and scares cribbed from Spielberg and Hitchcock,

                   As if that isn't enough for you, the film clumsily attempts to also to shoehorn in vicious racism into its already boiling-over stew.

                   Little Frankie Scarlatti (the endearingly jug-eared Lukas Haas) endures one hell of long eventful night when his prankster schoolmates lock him in the class cloakroom. 

                   He's visited by the ghost of a murdered little girl (re-enacting her death at the hands of her unseen serial psycho assailant)......and later, who should stop in but the in-the-flesh psycho himself, who for some unknown reason, interrupts his attempt at making Frankie the next of his many child victims.......

                 Director LaLoggia, clearly inspired by Steven Spielberg's deft ability to touch base with every age group in a movie audience, works overtime to serve up a 12 course meal for everybody here......

                 Everything he feverishly tosses into the film  (floating ethereal spirits, a spooky reclusive old crone, warmhearted family fun 'n slapstick, a never ending Hitchcockian climax) never quite fits together as a whole. And he scores the film himself with overheated, insistent music that slavishly imitates John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith but lacks their unique melodic gifts

                All of this lumpy goulash is still fun watch......until LaLoggia unwisely jams in a subplot of  having the black janitor profiled by the casually racist community and falsely charged with the child killings. With all the other stuff going on, the film has barely any time to spend on this development.....it feels like it was dragged in from some other movie.....

                 Even worse,  LaLoggia resolves this plot offshoot with a surprise horrific and tragic scene that's far more disturbing than any of his movie's supernatural doings......(for us, it left  the film with a cruel aftertaste, especially in a story that sweats and strains to provide an overall feel good experience.)

                 Having vented on that moment, we'll still say that "Lady In White", with all its ungainly pieces cobbled together, remains a prime Halloween choice for older kids whose parents want their tween and teen's viewing to go no farther than PG-13.  (And way more chilling to watch than those two warmed-over Disney efforts)......3 stars (***).

                    

                 

                

                

'THE INTERPRETER'.......WHY WE MISS SYDNEY POLLACK

 The Interpreter (2005)   And here's why we miss director Sydney Pollack,  making this thriller his last full length feature film before passing away from cancer three years later in 2008......

            An actor turned TV director, turned top of the 'A' list filmmaker, Pollack swung for the fences every time up at bat. Big stars, big subject matter.......he could wrangle the most tempestuous of actors and guide them into multiple Academy Award nominations and wins.....

             No matter what genre he attempted - action-adventure, western, romantic drama, suspense, he worked (and sometimes struggled mightily) to make each film in its own way thoughtful, thought-provoking and above all, intelligently crafted for adults. 

               Let's put it bluntly.....  he never made stupid movies......the kind of mind-numbing, dumbed down films that now constitute  more than 80 per cent of TV shows and movies made today........

               No matter what genre he worked in, Pollack and his actors always searched for subtext in the scripts.....and unafraid to take the risk of overthinking the material.....(which at times, did happen in some of this films.....)

              That's why we think so many of his films still  hold  up today ("Absence Of Malice", "Three Days Of The Condor", "Jeremiah Johnson", "They Shoot Horses, Don't They").....maybe because  the pursuit and achievement of excellence in all aspects those films never ages. 

              "The Interpreter", his final ambitious project, doesn't quite attain the 'classic thriller' status of "Three Days Of The Condor". Its final screenplay, going through multiple writers and revisions, renders the film too overly busy, over plotted and complicated, trying to touch too many bases at once.

                But Pollack brings to it his usual professional sheen and craft and above all, his superb skill at exacting the best work out of his major stars (In this case, Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn)

                And  whenever it comes time to amp up the suspense and action in the story, Pollack's talent here far exceeds the paltry chaotic efforts of today's batch of so called 'action' specialists who grind out the current imbecilic multiplex fodder that appear edited with meat grinders.

                No wonder we miss him so much. 

              You've noticed by now we've hardly devoted any time at all to re-hashing a scene-by-scene synopsis of the movie. Ah, the hell with that.  We will say it involves an emotionally wrung out Secret Service agent (Penn), still grieving over the sudden accidental death of his estranged wife. His new assignment finds him protecting a U. N. interpreter (Kidman), who's overheard a death threat to the visiting leader of the African nation of her birth......and the man's already a pariah in the international community for his genocidal slaughters of his own people. 

                (As a bonus, you can spot director Pollack himself in the movie, in a few scenes playing Penn's worried boss.....)

                If you haven't seen the film yet, then that's all you need to know to dive into it and thrill to the twists and turns and the slow burn romance developing between the two very damaged main characters. 

               As with many Sydney Pollack films, "The Interpreter" remains a film we always love to re-visit, like stopping in to enjoy an old friend's company.  And when we lost Pollack, we mourned the loss of one of our favorite creators of major motion pictures.....4 stars (****)