HIT THE ROAD, 2021.......A FAREWELL TO THE YEAR......HOPE THE NEXT ONE'S HAPPIER

               

                 Another year bites the dust.......and to quote the Stephen Sondheim song from "Follies",.....we're still here.....(and sad that we can't say the same for Sondheim.....who isn't.anymore...)

                   Terrible, terrible things are still here too, helping to make the year hell on earth......

                   Covid, Donald Trump, Anti-Vaxxers.......(but at least the latter do the world a great favor with their unceasing efforts to contract the virus and die as fast they can.....)

                    And to top it all off to make the year's final day extra miserable.....Betty White passed at age 99. A woman who lived every day as if she was in the prime of her life. The only way to live. 

                     2022 looms ever closer......and every day brings news of a host of traitors, idiots, and assorted truth-denying lovers of authoritarianism chipping away at American democracy like a horde of termites surrounding a wooden structure.

                     Or as they're more commonly known.....the GOP. 

                     So here's some resolutions we made simply to cheer ourselves up......

                     Read more books......because we realized we took more pleasurable entertainment from books this past year than any of the films we saw......

                      Stop watching all Cable TV news channel pundits.......because after all these years of everyone at each other's throats, we've now heard every pundit's blah-blah-blah a thousand times over......everyone's preaching to the choir and we're sick of the noise.....

                      Stop reading anything about woke-a-maniacs jumping on Twitter to take offense at some celebrity who offended their delicate sensibilities........Memo to the Twitter-verse : Why don't you all shut the **** up and read a book.

                       Most of all......laugh, smile, use kindness and courtesy in everyday interactions.......you know, like people use to do before the cancer of Trump poisoned public discourse and public behavior. 

                        And happy, happy and healthy new year to all BQ visitors......see you in '22!

'MIDNIGHT LACE'......DIAL 'D' FOR DORIS.......

 Midnight Lace (1960)   In the course of our  lifelong unabashed love of Doris Day and her films, , we came across one startling revelation.......

               With her long standing reputation as a consummate professional performer, we imagined her acting 'process' was as technically no-nonsense and precise as those British actors trained at the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Arts.........

               By that we mean she could bounce in and out her characters with the speed of a light switch flipping on and off.....or so we originally thought.......

               We were stunned with the knowledge that Day may have been more of a 'method' actress than Marlon Brando, James Dean and all those accumulated alumni of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio....

               'Midnight Lace', producer Ross Hunter's slickly crafted pseudo-Hitchcock thriller became Day's very last appearance in anything resembling drama or melodrama........she finished the rest of career in frothy comedies only.  Given her experience during 'Lace's  production, it's easy to see why.......

                Since this film required her to stay in a state of terrified hysteria through almost its entirety, she ended up having actual hysterical nervous breakdowns in the course of its production. 

               Hitchcock himself might've added some of his much needed nasty quirky touches to this London-set story, confined mostly to backlot Universal sets with only a few standard travelogue shots thrown in.  But in a Ross Hunter production, it's more about the high gloss and fashions on display rather than any thrills 'n chills......

                Day, an all-American sweetheart newly married to a busy, urbane British executive (Rex Harrison) is suddenly menaced  by an unseen stalker threatening to kill her. In the film's opening sequence, by far its best, the creep affects a Muppet-like voice to scare her while she walks through a completely fogbound Hyde Park.  Thereafter, the stalker's reign of terror continues with anonymous phone calls, leaving our poor gal Doris in an ever declining mental state......

                 As Day unravels, to the consternation of her beloved visiting aunt (Myrna Loy), a skeptical Scotland Yard detective can hardly hide his disbelief in her story  (he's played by the almost inevitable John Williams, who had the same exact function in Hitchcock's 'Dial M For Murder' )

              Then the film busies itself trotting out a wide variety of red herring, would-be suspects for an audience to pick and choose from.......Roddy McDowell as the sneering, sponging son of Day's put-upon housemaid,  Richard Ney, Herbert Marshall and Rhys Williams as various associates in Harrison's firm, each with separate agendas, Natasha Parry as Day's friendly neighbor........ and most importantly, John Gavin as a dashing young hunk  in charge of a construction project conveniently located adjacent to Day and Harrison's sumptuous apartment. 

               And if that's not enough suspicious people for you ,look, there's Anthony Dawson, the cadaverous villain of 'Dial M For Murder' and 'Dr. No' skulking around the neighborhood too........that can't bode well, right?

                As we've already pointed out, Day goes over the top and beyond in conveying fear. She apparently channeled real memories of her first abusive husband to hurl herself into such a state of distraught madness that she gives those scenes a literally unnerving power that lifts the movie far above its own modest intentions. 

                That's why, for us, 'Midnight Lace' still counts as a fun re-watch (and a prime example of the kind of polished Hollywood studio product that would soon disappear as the studios began to crumble throughout the 60's and 70's......)   And we do briefly get to enjoy Doris as her usual bubbly, cheerful self in a few scenes......at least until the Mad Muppet Creep shows up......4 stars (****).

                 

               

                

'TARZAN'S GREATEST ADVENTURE'.....THE ORIGINAL SWINGER'S RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE WITH BOND.....

Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959).....We  never really kept up much with Tarzan movies through the 50's and 60's.....never much of a fan and the quality of the movies ranged from okay to  cheesy to terrible...

             This particular  movie stands out among the rest in the character's filmography,, since it's widely acknowledged as one of the most well-made, well cast and a genuinely fine addition to the Tarzan canon........or as some reviewers have put it, 'a Tarzan movie for grown-ups'......

               We found it a remarkably quick, to-the-point and brutal little movie, practically minimalist in its storytelling. 

               Our Lord Of The Jungle here is Gordon Scott, yet another handsome body builder with enough camera-presence and verbal competence to speak in brief, but complete sentences......(so there's no fractured, "Me Tarzan, you Jane" monosyllables on display...)

               The big guy goes almost immediately on the hunt for a vile quartet of villains who've been murdering people left and and right in their violent quest for a hidden long lost diamond mine. 

                And what a top-notch rogue's gallery the film lined up.......Anthony Quayle as the ruthless soldier of fortune in charge, a young Sean Connery as his dumb punk minion-goon, Niall MacGinnis as an oily Peter-Lorre type who knows where the diamonds are and Al Mulock as the captain-driver of their getaway boat.........(all cinema buffs remember Mulock as the guy who threw himself out a window after his final appearance as one of the three gunslingers in the "Once Upon A Time In The West" opening)

                Also along for the ride - delectable Euro-babe Scilla Gabel as....uh...the gang's resident moll, we suppose......(though Connery's the only one among them with enough hot blood to take any interest in her....)

                 Tarzan himself ends up aided and abetted by a vivacious adventuress-pilot (Sara Shane), but that's one tough bunch they're up against and everybody, even the Big T, ends up a little worse for wear before it's all over. 

                  Grisly deaths aplenty ensue, regularly spaced out through the 88 minute running time and the movie delivers the expected brutal smackdown between Quayle and Scott.   (Scott comes off as such a well spoken, gentleman-ly Tarzan that it looks positively jarring when he starts vine-swinging and doing that signature triumphant yodel....)

                 If you plan to take in only a few of the old classic Tarzan movies, don't forget to include this one on the list......3 and 1/2 stars (***1/2).

              

                

BQ EXCLUSIVE! AT LONG LAST......THE 25,481ST OPINION ON WHY 'WEST SIDE STORY' TANKED.......

          

  Leave it us to make sure we're the very last blogger to offer opinions on why Steven Spielberg's universally praised remake of "West Side Story" slid down the tubes faster than Taco Bell slides out of a human colon........

               Let's start with the usual suspects......

               The Pandemic?   For older folks who don't belong to the GOP anit-vax, itching-to-die death cult, yeah, that reason seems valid enough.  . after you've put a few years on the odometer, you realize seeing a movie is not worth catching a virus that'll kill you.......(besides, it's easier to stay home and have your brain and soul sucked out of your head by binging "Emily In Paris".....)

               Anyone younger naturally thinks they'll live forever, so all aboard for "Spiderman"........

               Does anyone know or care about "West Side Story" anymore?    We thought that the music and original film were so built into American culture  that asking that question was foolish.......but then what the hell do we know ?  Or as master screenwriter William Goldman said of the film industry, "Nobody knows anything".......so we stand with Bill.

                We will say this much about the film's initial marketing.........it stunk beyond comprehension. The first ads skirted around even telling people it was a musical......and included not a single clip from any of the legendary songs. Nice job guys.....you really sold the movie......to nobody.

                Everybody would rather see "Spiderman: No Way Home"   True enough and therein lies the most depressing aspect of 'WSS's failure.......that multiplex audiences couldn't support anything but another Marvel Universe Behemoth......and nothing else.....

                We can still remember the Holiday week releases of decades gone by'(especially our personal favorite, the 1960's.........and the diversity of content, stories and genres was something  glorious to behold.....like a vast buffet of cinema artistry.   What we see offered at the multiplex today is a buffet alright, but all of it tastes and smells catered by McDonald's.........

                 So now let us bid a sad, fond farewell to the theatrical release of "West Side Story"......though it may have died an embarrassing death at the multiplex, it will no doubt shortly rise from the dead and live again......on streaming and blu-rays.  Long may it sing and dance......  

                

               

'JUNGLE CRUISE'......DWAYNE-DROPS KEEP FALLING ON OUR HEAD........

 Jungle Cruise (2021)    We're starting to lose count of how many movies we've encountered that make us surrender in pure exhaustion......and declare that reviewing them would be as futile as reviewing a theme park ride......

              If ever there was a movie that thought applied to, it's this one.......a movie based on one of Disneyland's most beloved theme park rides.......

               And given that the bulk of it consists of CGI effects swirling around a few flesh and blood actors, who else would it star but the reigning hulk of bloated junk movies, Dwayne Johnson, whose physical dimensions already appear crafted by digital artists.......making him a performer most perfectly suited to cavort in  exaggerated computer landscapes, 

              But surprise, surprise........this particular corporate Mouse House package ends up working well and delivering the fun it promises.........

               It's been so long since we took the Jungle Cruise as an Disney park attendee (don't ask), we'd forgotten about the steady stream of terrible jokes that the cruise 'skipper' spews out in the course of the ride, an effects-laden tour of a river that blends African and Amazonian wildlife with some animatronic thrills 'n chills...

              Those priceless 'dad jokes' are faithfully replicated here, and to his great credit, Johnson rapid-fires them with deadpan precision.......call us corny, call us old, but  we couldn't get enough of 'em.....

               As for the movie itself, its primary inspiration comes from writer-director Stephen Sommers two 'Mummy' adventures  with Brendan Fraser. (1999's 'The Mummy' and  2001's "The Mummy Returns;).....

                Instead of  Rachel Weisz and Fraser as a  plucky 'Indiana Jones' academic and devil-may-care, wisecracking hero, we now have Emily Blunt and Johnson as equivalent 1916 adventurers  trading quips as they cope with a host of CGI creatures and assorted calamitous dangers. 

               These include a horde of ancient cursed Spanish conquistadors led by no less than the actual Lope de Aguirre .....yes, the same guy played by cinema's resident madman Klaus Kinski in 'Aguiree, The Wrath Of God' (1972) and almost murdered by his director Werner Herzog. 

               Everyone, Blunt, Johnson, the walking dead  Aguirre and his merry zombies and an equally crazy German Prince ( Jesse Plemons) goes questing for a long lost tree whose leaves will cure all ills......(and won't need FDA and CDC approval either).

                Okay, we'd be lying if we didn't admit that we thoroughly enjoyed this wallow in Disney-fied corporate sausage-making. The pace, stays lightning-fast, James Newton Howard's thunderous score keeps up with it all the way and the film's stuffed to the rafters with  inventive gags, sights and sounds.  As a three-ring CGI circus, it hits all its expected goals........

                And unlike a worthless cash-grab with no reason to exist like 'Cruella', this movie at least had an entertaining source on which to to draw upon to show you a good time. 

               We say lay in a couple gallons of butter popcorn and take the cruise......it's as effective a way as any to forget the Winter Of Our Omicron Discontent.....3 stars (***).

               

              

HOLIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP......BABY ORANGE'S DEATH CULT BITES THE TINY HAND THAT FED THEM........

              Sorry to report that madness never takes off for the holidays.......

Baby Orange's Trumpanzees boo and jeer him for daring to recommend they get vaccinated...... We don't know how to react to this.......cackle with hysterical laughter?  Shake our head, bowed in resigned sadness?  Maybe both? 

             The irony here staggers the imagination.  As startled and surprised as he was by his own coronation as the most unfit U.S. President in history, he must find himself even more stunned by this truly insane turn of events......

               But in a way, his brainless MAGA-morons turning on him is a glowing tribute to his unholy,, satanic skill as a con-artist.........he trained them so well in spoon feeding them  his never ending stream of outright lies, misinformation and bullshit that he managed to wipe their minds clear of all rational thought......even the basic human instinct of self-preservation. 

                So they now boo him for daring to interfere with their 'personal liberty' and God-given right to decline vaccinations, infect themselves with COVID and die gasping for breath in ICU's already overcrowded with their fellow death-cultists. 

                 We can't even begin to comprehend this........the situation speaks for itself.......

                .......and leads us to this next episode of lunacy.......

Anti-Vaxx COVID-infected Trumpanzees torment and threaten exhausted medical personnel trying to save their lives in ICUs......We always knew Baby Orange himself could sink to infinite depths of cruelty, stupidity and corruption.....and now it appears his zombie-fied minions want to race him to the bottom.....screaming at heroic doctors and nurses to treat them with all of the unproven so-called "cures" they've heard about on Fox News, Facebook and QAnon, even to the point of death threats. 

            We previously expressed our opinion of these slugs in last week's Weekend Madness Wrap-Up.......they can't die fast enough for us. And in dropping dead before getting the chance to vote for Trump again in 2024, they'll do us a great service in preserving American democracy.....by being 6 feet under come election day. 

             Our valiant doctors and nurses will of course do everything in their power to save them because that's who they are and why we'll all stay forever in their debt......a concept that Trumpanzees will never wrap their miniscule minds around........

Joe Manchin claims 'Build Back Better' recipients would use child tax credits to buy drugs and will vote 'NO' on the bill........but assures his West Virginia Coal industry workers desperate for infrastructure funds that even if they stay unemployed as they die of Black Lung disease, he's kept their kids drug-free.........

                Now we'll take a much needed break from the madness to wish all BQ visitors a wonderful, healthy and happy holiday season.......joy to the world and all that good stuff......see you all after the weekend!

'IT'S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD'.....STILL A LITTLE MORE FUN TO THINK ABOUT THAN TO WATCH.........

 It's A Mad Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)      We've never encountered anybody who doesn't remember this movie with a certain degree of fondness.......

               And that includes us too.

               Yet every time we watch it again (around this time of year to rekindle memories of our Christmas moviegoing past) we can't help thinking......"Why did anyone ever think this was some kind of  spectacular, ultimate laugh riot?  Why did anyone think this movie was such a big deal?"

                 First thing that always strikes us........in a movie that features almost every single well known, beloved comedian who worked in films and TV at the time, there's not a single, solitary funny  or memorable line of dialogue in the entirety of William Rose's script. 

                 Producer-director Stanley Kramer, who exclusively made dead serious, grimly powerful dramas about hot button controversial issues, evidently believed that just the mere presence of this small army of comics thrown into a wild greedy chase for stolen money was hilarious all by itself. 

                  Kramer felt all he had to do was hurl them into elaborate slapstick-stunt sequences as they hysterically rant and scream at each other for close to 2 and half hours.  Hence, laughs would ensue.

                   Yes, the mere thought of that scenario makes us chuckle.  But watching it for 2 and half hours?

                   Exhausting. And by the time you get to the climax, you my fervently wish that the ever braying Ethel Merman was up there on the runaway fire ladder with the rest of the cast.......and hurled into the Pacific ocean, never to be heard from again.......

                  To be fair to Kramer and screenwriter Rose, even with  their blatant lack of comedy chops, they came up with enough sequences we never tire of watching again.......the ultra-manic Jonathon Winters (the Jim Carrey of his day), pummeling Marvin Kaplan and Arnold Stang as he demolishes their gas station.......Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett's lunatic attempts to pilot a private plane (with the jaw-dropping aerial stunts by Frank Tallman).....Sid Cesear and Edie Adams' escalating series of cartoon-worthy catastrophes while they're locked inside a hardware store basement.......and of course the fire ladder Armageddon awaiting all of them. 

                  And let's not forget to mention Spencer Tracy as the world-weary cop who finally succumbs to the rampant greed affecting the other characters. His mere iconic presence and deceptively quiet underplaying generates more smiles and laughs than any of the screaming, howling comics that surround him. 

                  Okay, we'll face the cold hard upcoming-holiday truth.......that we've become too much of a sentimental softie to practice tough love on a movie we first saw projected on a massive, awe-inspiring wrap-around Cinerama screen.....(think of it as as the prehistoric IMAX).......

                   Therefore.....3 nostalgic stars (***) for a film every true cinema buff should see at least once.   

                    (And should you end up, like us, strangely addicted to watching it once a year and humming Ernest Gold's earworm main title music out loud in the shower......well, that's on you, boo...)

'MIDNIGHT IN THE SWITCHGRASS'......A BURNED OUT EX A-LISTER WANDERS THROUGH A COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME

 Midnight In The Switchgrass (2021)    We'd rather not dwell on this one too much.....it's sad and depressing to waste any valuable time discussing it at length......

              A slapped together collection of  scenes and tropes left over from dozens of serial killer movies, it features yet another lifeless, half asleep, pick-up-my-paycheck appearance from Bruce Willis.......

               The time when Willis once sat atop the very peak of the Hollywood A-List now seems like a million years ago. These days, he's reduced to showing up in direct-to-video sludge......and his films, like those of Nicolas Cage and Steven Seagal, sit piled up in the Wal-Mart 3.99 bin.......where they so deservedly belong.

                If you're absolutely aching for a story in which a fierce, take-no-prisoners female cop takes on a serial killer, you'd be much better off catching up with old episodes of the ABC series "Big Sky"......(which features better actors and the added benefit of including a host of other creepy, vile villains as well.....)

                But if you can't resist subjecting yourself to this negligible little movie, a few pleasures, guilty or otherwise do pop up here and there.

                 That normally dead-eyed bimbo Megan Fox gives, believe it or not, does something approaching actual acting as she plays an FBI agent obsessed with nabbing a serial rapist-torturer-murderer. Is is possible there's the making of a real actress underneath all that mascara and vacant stares?  Who knows......maybe time will tell.

                 Willis glumly lumbers through the first half of the film, then drops out of sight for the rest of it......as if both he and the filmmakers simultaneously realized his presence was a waste of time.....(which pretty much sums up the current state of his career.....)

                 But the other two lead players acquit themselves well enough.......Emile Hirsch as an empathetic state police detective haunted by his traumatic visits to deliver terrible news to the relatives of the killer's victims........and as the scary psycho masquerading as a loving family man,  the forever baby-faced Lukas Haas certainly steps up to the plate with some chilling work. 

                  None of those positive factors ever add up to making "Midnight In the Switchgrass" worth your while. For hardcore thriller fans........but only if you absolutely, positively cannot find anything better to watch. 1 star (*).

'GETAWAY'......A TRIO OF WOMEN FACE 'DELIVERANCE' IN THE GRAND CANYON.....

 Getaway by Zoje Stage (2021)   We couldn't miss this author's latest thriller, since we held a few fond memories of her last book, the  killer child hair-raiser "Baby Teeth" (a fairly entertaining variation of all the 'Bad Seed' tropes. Fine nasty stuff but with a mundane finish - see our 8/27/18 post on it....)

              'Getaway's a much more ambitious exercise in nail-biting suspense, a big-as-all-outdoors adventure that feels like an updated, feminist take on James Dickey's harrowing novel 'Deliverance' (later made into the equally unsettling film we all know and love....)

                Three lifelong friends, each with deep, unresolved issues with each other and within themselves, embark on a back-packing camping hike through the Grand Canyon. The Blum sisters, Imogen and Beck are the experienced outdoorswomen here, and they've brought along their pal Tilda, a popular social influencer unprepared for the rigors of such an excursion. 

                 Imogen's the primary focus of the unfolding events.. A successful author, she's still dominated by her take-charge sister, a doctor.....and she's also still coping with the nightmares of no less than two terrible past traumas in her life, one going back to her teen years.  And yet for herself,  her sister and Tilda, the worst is yet to come.

                 In the course of their arduous trek through the stunning landscapes of the Canyon, the trio discover some person or persons unknown stealing their food and supplies. When they attempt to seek out and directly confront the culprit, a sustained, excruciating reign of terror befalls the women, pushing  them to the limits of what they're capable of, and who they really are to each other. 

                   As per our standard policy with thrillers like this, you'll hear no further details from us.... you just need to take the ride and hold on for dear life.  True, this kind of story's been done many times before  in novels and films, but Zoje Stage knows how to dial up the tension and dread so you'll race through the final chapters.  (Unlike "Baby Teeth", her finale here delivers a powerful, satisfying punch.)

                    Our one and only quibble was the author's tendency to indulge a little too much in that  literary fiction internal monologue blah-blah-blah which we so loathe and despise in suspense novels......we wish thriller writers would start to realize that's the kind of pace-slowing gunk we invariably skim through.

                    Fortunately, there's not enough of it to get in the way of "Getaway" being a well done page-turner.....3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2)

                  

'MOTHER/ANDROID'......ONE OF OUR FAVES TAKES ON A ROBOPOCALYPSE......

 Mother/Android (Hulu streaming 2021)   As much as we always love watching the gifted young actress Chloe Grace Moretz, we end up frustrated that she can't break out of off-the-rails, lower-tier fanboy stuff like "Shadow In The Cloud" and this movie.......a slow dreary re-hash of standard post-apocalypse tropes that everyone's suffered through before......(In 'The Terminator', its various sequels and endless imitators.)

           CGM, fiercely committed to her craft as any A-list star, never delivers anything less than a finely skilled 100 per cent commitment to whatever role she lands in......and her work here, as it usually does, furnishes the movie with a sheen of quality that it doesn't much deserve. 

           Playing Georgia, a girl who's been newly impregnated by her boyfriend Sam(Algree Smith) she faces the kickoff of an apocalypse begun when the the world's Androids (like the replicants of 'Blade Runner') go rogue and slaughter humans across the globe.  (Yep, this is the the near-distant future we're talkin' about here, where we're all using the humanoid Mr. Robotos  as handy-dandy servants....)

             But don't hold your breath waiting for Ridley Scott or James Cameron-type wham-bam action or any visual prowess.....this film settles down into a long, long depressing shlep for Sam and Georgia when they undertake a dangerous  quest on foot to reach Boston, supposedly a refuge and haven from the rampaging robotic hordes. 

             None of the grim proceedings that ensue here are particularly perceptive, exciting or entertaining, since everyone's seen them trotted out in other films, over and over again. But that doesn't stop Chloe Grace Moretz from giving a practically awards-worthy performance as a character pushed to the very limits of human endurance.  

              If a lesser actress had fronted this movie, we wouldn't ever waste this much space describing  it. So if you're a fan of CGM, you'll most surely want to check this out.  She's reliably awesome, but 'Mother/Android' itself reeks of warmed-over post-apocalyptic cliches and never rises above a 2 star (**) effort.

             And here's hoping Moretz eventually connects with a quality script and director so we can stop  wishing for a time when her projects and her talents finally synch up........

            

FRIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL 'WE'RE NOT HAVING THIS OMICRONVERSATION' EDITION.......

               Fasten your seatbelts and adjust your masks......here comes another week of insanity......

The Attempted Trump-Coup......Where do we even begin here.......with the new onslaught of revelations, is there any sane, rational human who doesn't yet realize that Baby Orange tried to overthrow U.S. democracy and declare himself the permanent Supreme Leader of the Kingdom Of Trumpsyvania?  Anyone?  Anyone?

The Fox News Clown Show.......how pathetic, how darkly hilarious......the reveal that the network's resident idiots, Hannity and Ingraham, sent desperate texts to Baby Orange, pleading with him to call off his rabid dog army of MAGA morons on Jan. 6th.......then, true to their hypocrite roots, returned to parroting the usual downplaying of the insurrection.......which tells you all you need to know about them...

Donald Trump Jr........and joining the Fox Kool-Aid drinkers, even this brainless Trump larva developed enough brain cells to text Daddykins to please, please call off the slobbering gibbering Jan. 6 mob.

Baby Orange watches his 'The Insurrection' show on TV......so he's too enraptured taking in all  the violent evil he's unleashed to pay attention to any texts begging him to put a stop to it........even as his nightmarish minions scream to put a rope around Mike Pence's head......and once again proving to the the country and the entire world that there's no bottom to the levels of his malignancy and cowardice......and never has been.  He's got nowhere to go but down.......and never disappoints in his ability to descend ever lower.......

Baby Orange proudly declares victory in his demented fantasy of  'The War On Christmas'.......and furthermore makes 2024 post election plans to use crop-dusting planes to spray bleach on Covid afflicted areas and drop grenades on windmills.......

Baby Orange spews the old "Jews control everything" bullshit in his latest loony rant......but he reassured his son-in--law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka that he'll exempt them and their kids from his list of Jews scheduled to be shipped off to 're-education' camps after he's re-elected.......

COVID deaths reach 800,000 as the unvaccinated fill up the ICU beds to the breaking point.....Memo to the anti-vaxxers now dropping like flies as heroic doctors and nurses work around the clock to save their worthless, miserable lives........

             Dear Un-vaccinated:

              With the onslaught of the Delta and Omicron variants and your steadfast refusal to protect yourselves, your families and anyone you come near from horrible deaths, congratulations to you.....

               Your allegiance to the avalanche of lies perpetuated by Trump, MAGA-world, Fox News and a host of Trumpanzee minions has lengthened and strengthened the pandemic and continues to make life a living hell for all of us......

               Some time ago, we did feel a measure of concerned sympathy for you.....including the poignant 'I see the light now'  entreaties made  by some of you as you lay dying on ICU beds......we hoped and prayed those gasping warnings would resonate with your fellow non-vaxxed and win them over.....

               It didn't.  Those "Oh shit, I'd wish I'd gotten the shot" numbnuts died in vain and their pleas for the rest of you to vaccinate went unheeded, ignored. 

               And we're now long past caring about the rest of you anti-vaxxers......

               Since you're too stupid to live, we say.....have at it. Live free. Die hard. Fill up those morgues like there's no tomorrow.....cause for you, there won't be......and most insanely, you wouldn't have it any other way.......

               The upside for the rest of us......a vast amount of you won't be around to vote in 2024 to try to put your messiah Trump back on his throne.  You'll be way too busy......... pushing up daisies, taking your forever dirt naps......

                So bye bye, farewell, best of luck in the afterlife should you encounter one......if your loved ones afford you an open casket viewing, don't forget to ask them to position your MAGA red hat clutched to your chest......Godspeed.

. 

'CHARADE'......A FAVORITE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST......

 Charade (1963)    Call us an overly sentimental softie, but around this time of year, we plan our own personal Christmas movie festival........

                   No, it doesn't automatically include 'White Christmas' and 'It's A Wonderful Life'.....though we own a DVD with both those films on it that's been sitting  on our 'Must Watch This Season' pile for the last five years......(sigh...) ok, maybe this year.....we promise.....hopefully.

                    What our holiday festival does include -  a list of our favorite movies that we first encountered as Christmas time releases.......back in the Jurassic days when theaters often didn't get their huge pile-up of movie goodies until December 25th itself. 

                      "Charade" opened in selected theaters for the holiday season of 1963.......and it's known primarily for two main factors.....

                       Factor # 1. -  Hailed and cherished as one of the most skillful imitations of an Alfred Hitchcock romantic thriller......complete with the Master of Suspense's blend of mystery, sexual chemistry and some creepy thrills and accompanying violence.

                       Factor # 2 -   Notorious for a massive mistake on the part of its studio, Universal - forgetting to include a copyright notice on the film's credits......which eventually led to the film's falling into the Public Domain, degraded and cheapened by its inclusion on who knows how many terrible transferred copies in ultra tacky, dollar store DVDs. 

                        Since we're reviewing 'Charade' strictly on the basis of a pristine, digitally remastered Universal Studios disc, we'll only concentrate on the movie itself and why we love it so. 

                        What a delight this movie is from start to finish...... watching it always makes us feel like we're gobbling a six course meal made up of nothing but sweet desserts.  Slickly directed by MGM musical master Stanley Donen, the only thing missing from its expert, sparkling mix of Hitchcockian elements is that extra bit of nasty perversity that Hitchcock brought to his projects.

                         (By the time "Charade" came around, Hitchcock had left behind frothy entertainments like "To Catch A Thief" and "North By Northwest".... he was busy indulging his  weird Tippi Hedren obsession with "The Birds" and "Marnie".....)

                          Though a planned Hitchcock project with her fell apart, here we can adore Audrey Hepburn in the next best best thing.......playing an ultra-fashionable, suddenly widowed woman in Paris who's menaced by three dangerous associates of her late, mysterious husband - one of whom might be the one who murdered him by throwing him off a speeding train. 

                          To her rescue come two separate men who couldn't be more different, a dashing suave stranger (Cary Grant) with multiple identities and hidden agendas,.....and a rumpled, avuncular CIA official (Walter Matthau) who enlists Hepburn's help in recovering a long lost boodle of cash stolen by her hubby and coveted by the trio of thugs threatening her. 

                           Everything's in place here for a delicious comedic thriller and the movie constantly delivers all the way through.  Even with Cary Grant's efforts to tamp down the romantic sparks because of the age difference between him and his co-star, the sparks still fly naturally. 

                           And was there ever a more perfect trifecta of three supporting villains than James Coburn (the drawling good ole boy Texan who delights in throwing lit matches into Hepburn's lap), the weasel-like gnomish Ned Glass, (using massive sneezes as his main weapon) and the hulking, physically powerful George Kenney (armed with a hook on one hand and a red hot temper).

                          Toppin all this off.....Henry Mancini's bouncy, sprightly score with its memorable main theme and when called upon, ominous strings and urgent percussion. What more could anyone ask for.......twists, surprises, a finale with multiple reveals?   They're all there.

                            Forever a top of the line effort, "Charade" made our 1963 Christmas a lot more fun.....and keeps on doing so every subsequent year......a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.

                          

'A CLUSTERFUNKE CHRISTMAS'......WRECK THE HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIES, TRA LA LA LA LA...LA LA LA LA.....

A Clusterfunke Christmas (Comedy Central)(2021)    This movie wasn't just long expected......it was inevitable.....

             And Hallmark sure had it coming..........turning its modest little Canadian produced holiday romances into a marketing, merchandising and pop culture behemoth.......which led to every  other streaming venue grinding out their own imitation Hallmark movies like assembly line sausages......

              Which is why you'd now have to sit in front of your TV around the clock for the next twenty years or so just to catch up on this year's batch of Christmas movies......

               So hats off to former SNL alums Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer for fashioning a letter perfect, on target satire of those movies everyone loves to mock......even though they're curled up on the couch every weekend to watch them. 

               The script by Dratch and Gasteyer manages to sling hilarious satirical arrows at every single Hallmark Christmas movie trope.......the harried 30-something exec sent to a quaint small town to buy them out to make way for condos and golf courses.......the hunky town handyman you know she'll fall for.......the lovable, eccentric seniors (played the screenwriters themselves)......the obnoxious ex-boyfriend showing up at the wrong time......the eternal 'plucking pizzicato' on the music score'......a town full of warm-hearted, semi-diverse residents......(including at least one actor who keeps letting their heavy Canadian accent slip into their lines.....)

               And if you can't figure out why all this sounds funny, you'd have to watch at least one genuine Hallmark movie to get the jokes here. 

                By all means, treat yourself to a double feature of a Hallmark offering, followed by 'A Clusterfunke Christmas'......(hint: it's the latter one that's intentionally hilarious.....4 stars (****).

                

'DID I SAY YOU COULD GO'......A MONSTROUS MOM AND TWISTS GALORE.....

 Did I Say You Could Go by Melanie Gideon (2021)......follows those two essential elements we required of psychological thriller novels.....(covered in our post on "My Sweet Girl" on 12/9/21...

             A fast breakneck pace? Check.

             Multiple twists that  turn progressively sicker and crazier?  Check.  (this also includes the extra zinger thrown in on the last page.....)

              So we have two moms and their teen daughters, friends since the two kids were in kindergarten together. 

               Mommy Ruth, a raging, all-controlling divorcee living on vast inherited family wealth, torments and verbally abuses her daughter Marley, who's insecure and chronically overweight.....

               Mommy Gemma's a widow struggling to make a living at prepping students for their SATs and her daughter Bee's a vivacious live wire who's always the most popular 

                Mommy Ruth, monster that she is, craves Gemma's friendship with obsessive mania.......and there's nothing she won't do to insure Gemma's joined at the hip with her......(and this starts to go way, way beyond just lending Gemma money and buying her a car.....

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

                 Even with its zippy pace, the book takes the time to indelibly paint a vivid and sometimes disturbing picture of the ups and downs and give and take between between mothers and their teen daughters.....

                 When the twists start to pop, you might begin to think you could easily spot one of the really big ones ahead of time......

                 Uh uh......you'll be wrong, just keep reading.

                 For anyone who can never get enough dysfunctional families heading for a crash of epic proportions, here's another fun read. 4 stars (****)

              

'CANDYMAN (2021)'......WHITE LIVES SPLATTER

 Candyman (2021)......a tough one to review, a tough one to contemplate......

                We couldn't help asking ourselves  if this film could  appeal to any demographic beyond appreciative black audiences.....(and white liberals gutsy enough to endure its carnage.....)

                 By all means, anyone who loves finely crafted cinema should consider this a must-see......even if it means they'll have to close their eyes during the scenes awash in grindhouse gore. (Shame on 'em if they do, because the expected slaughter sequences here are put together with as much style, imagination and genuine filmmaking talent as any of the more popular awards-nominated movies soon to take center stage....)

                  Therein lies our problem in approaching this most very up-to-date 'Candyman'.  It walks, prances ,and somersaults on a tightrope it's trying to walk across......balancing between a deadly serious indictment of institutionalized American racism that demands your close attention and a gorehound's carnival fever dream of shredded bodies and literal cascades of blood. 

                  Co-written by Jordan Peele ("Get Out", "Us") and directed by an African American woman Nia DaCosta ("Little Woods"), the film dutifully fulfills its slasher-movie requirements while pursuing its main objective - presenting the legendary monster Candyman as an metaphorical avenger for the hundreds of years of cruelty, brutality and horror visited upon people of color by an America that refuses to acknowledge them as human beings......even today.

                    But we could only wonder as we viewed the film.......will splatter-movie fans pick up and comprehend what this movie's actually saying to them?   Or are they only sitting through it to whoop and holler at the spectacle of Candyman eviscerating an entire pack of snotty, privileged teenage white girls?

                    In its unflinching, look at where we still stand today, 'Candyman' for all of the artistry poured into it, presents a gruesome, uncompromising and ultimately nihilistic house of horrors.......it succeeds so well on that level that we wouldn't label it as 'entertainment'........with the looming threat of Donald Trump running for the Presidency again, the film looks more like it's a harbinger of coming attractions.......

                     There's much to admire and savor here for viewers brave enough to revel at both the film's higher purposes (including a devastating takedown of urban 'gentrification' ) and its descent into bottomless horror....(with a heavy reliance, similar to David Cronenberg's films, on the gradual but certain  corruption of human flesh)

                      We say to all serious film buffs......take the challenge of seeing it......and take it in. It belongs among our list of 4 star (****) horror films.

'THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM'.......A SNARKY SPY POKES A NEO-NAZI NEST.....

 The Quiller Memorandum (1966)    Arriving in the very midst of the spy movie frenzy kicked off by the Bond films, this one fell into that parallel sub-genre of more realistic, down-to-earth spy adventures......populated by far more mortal, vulnerable and realistically flawed anti-heroes like Michael Caine's Harry Palmer.....(see our recent 12/2/21 post on Caine's "Funeral In Berlin" as a prime example....)

               Michael Anderson's mundane, mediocre direction exists here only in service to the dry sardonic screenplay crafted by famed playwright Harold Pinter. Pinter tosses out all the twists, turns and various machinations of the Adam Hall spy novel used as source material.  (So unlike the Caine-Palmer series, you won't need to wrack your brain to figure out what's going on.......)

              The spy vs. spy stuff couldn't be any simpler......In Berlin, .Quiller an American agent on assignment for stiff-upper-lip Brit spymasters is tasked with smoking out a cabal of Neo-Nazis deeply embedded in every strata of German society. The Brits want to know where they're hiding to round them up and the Nazis want exactly the same thing - where they can find the Brit spy HQ......

               That's about it, plot-wise, but the actors and the coldly remote, witty Pinteresque dialogue sets the film above the ordinary. George Segal, then at the height of his A-list leading man stardom, makes Quiller something of a bemused yet intelligently wary secret agent.......he doesn't come equipped with either a gun or snappy retorts, but in his repressed arrogance, you can detect the wry contempt he feels for the business he's in and the people he works for. 

             The head spy honchos are true Pinter creations, a couple of uppercrust, imperious snobs (George Sanders, Robert Flemyng) who blithely discuss the murders of their previous two agents while lunching on pheasant at their posh men's club.  Quiller's boss, Pol (Alec Guinness) radiates the same cool, stoic vibe as he and Quiller carefully contain their clear disdain for one another.

             With the help of a local schoolteacher (the radiantly stunning Senta Berger) it doesn't take long for Quiller and the Nazis to find each other. No goose-stepping slobberers, these guys..... the Nazis here come across more like the pod people in Phillip Kaufman's remake of "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers".......they look like everyday pedestrians with silent blank stares.  Only their leader, 'Oktober' stands out, a chatty aristocrat played by Max von Sydow with a Blofeld-ian cheerfulness. (and with more enthusiasm than when he actually was Blofeld in the 'rogue' Bond, "Never Say Never Again")

              From that point on, the film breaks down to a repetitive series of foot chases, interrogations, foot chases, more interrogations and.......you guessed it, more foot chases. 

               The tireless Quiller, unarmed and way outnumbered finally does employ some Bond-like ingenuity to outwit and outplay Oktober's army of seemingly mild mannered goons, but only at the cost of finding out that all along, he's been played himself.......and cleverly betrayed as well.  (We don't consider this much of a spoiler, since that's boilerplate stuff  for all spy movies in this  semi-realistic sub-genre...it comes with the territory......)

                 By the time we finished "The Quiller Memorandum", it dawned on us that we really did enjoy the film......for Segal's subtle but ever present cheekiness, Senta Berger just for being beyond scrumptious, for John Barry's melodic, mournful main theme and for those unforgettable Pinter dialogue exchanges. 

              (Our favorite by far - Segal's jovial but uneasy byplay with the hulking thug whom the Brits assigned as his 'minder', played with equal friendly threat by Peter Carsten, whom we forever remember as the odious Nazi mercenary from "Dark Of The Sun"  You won't hear dialogue as strangely funny and unsettling as this in any other equivalent spy film....)

                And especially for the film's casually bitter finale......implying that Quiller has barely skimmed a chip off the hidden iceberg of Neo Nazis hiding among the populace........(even more disturbing when we consider that state of America today, where the very presence of Donald Trump allowed these inhuman larva to emerge from the rocks they lived under.....)

                 A worthy addition to the 1960's spy movie filmography, we'd call it a fascinating 3 star (***) check-it-out for anybody who loves this genre.

                

                    

'MY SWEET GIRL'......ONE SWEET TWIST......

 My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa (2021)   Psychological thrillers live or die depending on two key factors.......

             Factor #1 - Their readability.......does the author make the story urgent and compelling enough to make you to flip the pages at supersonic speed, even if it means keeping you up til 3 in the morning? Or does the book bog down in endless overly descriptive internal monologues that have you roll your eyes and start skimming through that dense forest of verbiage to get to the good stuff......

             Factor #2 - The Big Twists (or multiple medium-sized twists)   Does the author astound you with his or her cleverness and guile by detonating twists that you never saw coming or even hoped to guess and leave your jaw dropping to floor level faster than a Warner Brothers cartoon character?

               We're more than happy to report that "My Sweet Girl"  checks off both those factors......and does so with a freakin' vengeance. 

                Our narrator here is Paloma Evans a young woman who was adopted from an orphanage in Sri Lanka by a wealthy San Francisco couple who live a globe trotting life as child welfare activist-benefactors.

                But not quite a fairy tale life that you'd imagine - Paloma's lost access to her parents' funds while they're off on another world tour.......and Arun an illegal Indian immigrant she befriended and took in as a roommate, stumbled across her deepest darkest secret that relates back to her days at the orphanage.

               Arun's blackmailing her with this explosive information........that is until Paloma finds his dead, murdered body in her apartment, along with a sighting of a dreaded ghostly woman who supposedly haunted the orphanage she came from. 

                And in true Hitchcockian style, after Paloma flees the apartment and brings in the police......there's no body to be found, or even a trace of one. 

                 That's as much detail as you'll get from us, other than the continued gaslighting of Paloma reaches ever maddening heights......with alternating chapters that slowly but inexorably reveal a host of creepy, dangerous and downright horrific things going on during Paloma's childhood as an orphan. 

                 All of these unsettling events finally tie together in what we can only describe as far and way the best thriller BIG TWIST we've read in this or any other year.  It's unquestionably a guaranteed pop-your-eyes-out, jaw-to-the-floor, what-the-hell-did-this-book-just-do humdinger of a reveal.  You'll literally gasp......

                 And for that cherry-on-top that all thriller authors love to deliver on the last page, a nasty ironic (but not altogether surprising) stinger wraps it all up to perfection. 

                 For any reader who can't resist losing sleep over a book like this one,  either strongly suggest that someone put it on their list of holiday gifts for you......or just gift it to yourself right away......cause BQ's giving it 4 and 1/2 stars (****1/2)

'THE POWER OF THE DOG'.....A SURE SIGN OF AWARDS SEASON - CULTURE-VULTURE CRAPOLA......

The Power Of The Dog (Netflix-2021)    How much do we despise this movie?

             Oh let us count the ways.........

              A film like this is the first sign of upcoming awards season frenzy that finally comes to a close with the Academy Awards telecast......like those gathering black clouds of a storm cell before a killer tornado begins forming.......

              It's a prime example of unwatchable, unfit-for-human-consumption culture-vulture sludge that exists solely for one reason and one reason alone........

              .......to suck up all variety of awards and mountainous amounts of undeserved, unwarranted praise for its 'artistry' and powerful insights into the 'human condition'.......

               What  a film like 'The Power Of The Dog' is not designed to do is engage an audience on any level.......no normal human being could sit through it for more than ten minutes without either falling asleep or paying bills on their phones.  

                 Film critics who get paid to write reviews will duly watch it in its entirety without having their eyes pinned open like Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange"......after all, it's their job.

                 The rest of us can feel free to doze and believe us, when it comes to lulling us into La La Land, this film worked faster than chug-a-lugging a family size bottle of Benadryl........

                 But in our mission to provide beloved BQ visitors with the best, most honest reviews possible, we cowboy'd up, rewound the damn thing again and kept our eyes pinned to it til the bitter end.......

                  So......a few brief (and we mean brief) impressions......

                 Seems to be a half-assed amalgam of "Brokeback Mountain" and "There Will Be Blood" with Benedict Cucumber-Head or whatever the hell his name is heaving around like he's channeling his inner Daniel Day Lewis......

                  We've viewed oil paintings that moved faster than this film.......

                  The plot?  Suppressed homosexuality, way out west in 1925 Montana. (You can pick up the actual dreary details in a thousand other reviews, that is if you haven't read them already....)

                   And the ridiculous kicker......after the film has finally lurched to its much prayed for conclusion, it's revealed to be nothing more than a low grade murder story with an ironic twist......the kind of nasty-twist melodrama that the old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV show use to achieve in 23 minutes......(as opposed to the glacial 126 minute torture-from-hell this film inflicts....)

                    Any redeeming qualities?  One - the Kirsten Dunst performance. Remarkable, quietly, effectively powerful and the one and only thing in this movie worth rewarding.......if only it were in a movie worthy of it. 

                    For Kirsten Dunst alone, we're tempted to hand out at least 1 star.......

                    Nah......but hopefully the awards she'll no doubt gather up for this film will open the door to roles in films equal to her talent. 

                      There's no way in this world or any other that we'd hand "The Power Of The Dog" even 1 single star.....

                     It's a gold plated, bona fide, full fledged AFH....,an Abomination From Hell.  Approach it only if you're a dedicated, die hard awards season completist.....

                     And keep that family-size Benadryl handy.....you'll need it.