'THE GO GO BOYS : THE INSIDE STORY OF CANNON FILMS'.....THE BOYS TELL THEIR OWN STORY, MINUS THE SNARK.....

 The Go Go Boys: The Inside Story Of Cannon Films (2014)   Before I finish out the 2022 posts, I thought I'd fulfill the promise I made yesterday.......to review the official, authorized documentary bio of Israeli producer-director Menahem Golan and his cousin and financial partner Yoram Globus.

             Known with both affection and mockery as 'The Go Go Boys', the tireless Cannon Films moguls famously (and notoriously) pumped out countless junk movies throughout the 1980's.....(and even a few prestigious films with major directors and stars) 

            Golan and Globus neither cooperated nor appeared in what they considered an unauthorized account of their career, the sharply boisterous and funny "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story Of Cannon Films" (which BQ covered in yesterday's post....)

            I'd say about 85 per cent of each competing doc covers the same ground.....and all of the familiar well known (and well derided) filmography .....this misbegotten musical "The Apple" and on to the 'Breakin' movies, the 'Ninja' action-packers, the woeful costly flops "Superman IV" and "Over The Top",  the onslaught of Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson and Jean Claude Van Damme. So there's no need to cover them again. (For example, both films draw heavily on Ed Bradley's "60 Minutes" story on Cannon and its founders)

           What 'The Go Go Boys' does offer as a plus -  a much deeper dive into the cousins' origin story in Israel, where they began as  youngsters besotted with movies who went on to make their own......(including a brief rare clip from Golan's slapdash, bootleg version of "Fiddler On The Roof") Sprinkled in are fascinating, entertaining interviews with the Israeli stars of their first films.....as well as much more candid revelations from their own children and wives. 

            Once the American/Hollywood part of their saga begins, the film treats all of the Canon shlocky output with a far more kinder, gentler attitude than "Electric Boogaloo" which was constantly peppered with bemused, snarky soundbites from a large assortment of former stars and crew.  'The Go Go Boys' only features a few such remembrances from Cannon folk, but there's a riotous corker of an anecdote from Van Damme about his first encounter with Golan. 

              The other advantage 'Go Go' has, of course, are the exclusive interviews and narration of Golan and Globus themselves.  Even as you smile and shake your head at their wild, crazy and profitable glory days, you can pick up invaluable insights on every aspect of the film industry.....the deal-making, the marketing, the light-speed pace of crafting and making low budget exploitation movies.  And sadly and finally, the film offers a tutorial on all the bad decisions that led to the collapse of the Cannon empire...and the estrangement of the two cousins, who devoted more of their lives to making movies and raising the cash for them than to their own wives and children. 

             I'd like to believe that the film's final poignant moment is genuine  - a fleeting reunion between the cousins who hadn't spoken to each other for years. But even if it's a calculated, staged, reality-show fiction, it's a perfect summing up of the two men and what made them such a formidable force as a duo.  Apart from each other for decades, they're still the same guys.......Globus remains a film business wheeler dealer and Golan still only lives for making movies and more movies, always dreaming his Academy Award winner waits around the corner in the next script to hit his desk.  (He passed away not long after 'The Go Go Boys' and 'Electric Boogaloo' were released.

              All cinema history buffs and Cannon fanatics will want to watch both these films, each spinning out an incredible epic of art and commerce combined.....only told from two very different viewpoints. "The Go Go Boys" (4 stars ****) overall celebrates the successes of Golan and Globus  while "Electric Boogaloo" enjoys a good amount of rueful fun at the expense of their obvious failures.   BQ says check 'em out as a double feature whenever you've got the time.

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "PINOCCHIO OF THE YEAR" EDITION

             As we all prepare to launch ourselves into the unknown turbulence of 2023, here's one last swim through the shark-infested waters of 2022......

Liar-In-Chief George Santos.......As everyone tries to figure out how this whatzit managed to get into Congress, I'd like to ask......is George Santos even this guy's real name?  Didn't anyone notice when he campaigned, he'd glance down at the floor and mumble, "I seemed to have dropped my Congressional Medal Of Honor and Nobel Peace Prize around here somewhere....." 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ships off more migrants into freezing temperatures......Answering to charges of pulling a cruel stunt, Abbott remarked, "How can you call this inhumane?  We used a bus to ship 'em out, my original plan was to just bubble-wrap them and mail 'em out in large zip-loc bags...so a bus is nicer, right?....."

Trump's tax returns at long last revealed.......several items stood out, including claiming Lindsay Graham and Rudy Giuliani as 'child dependents', declaring 2.7 million in McDonald's takeout orders as 'entertainment expenses' and sessions with Stormy Daniels as 'genital physical therapy'.....

A happy, healthy and madness free new year to all BQ visitors.......as for the world itself, there's no escaping the madness......it's built into human DNA. But you know this blog will always  stay on top of it. See you all next year!!!

'ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS....THE RISE OF FALL OF A SHLOCK EMPIRE...

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story Of Cannon Films (2014)   As a movie buyer for video stores throughout the VHS boom of the 1980's, what would I ever do without the Go Go Boys......

            Go Go Boys?  No, not a male version of the famous girl group.  I speak of the tireless shlockmeisters of Cannon Films....the Israeli cousins, producer-director Menahem Golan and his business partner Yoram Globus. 

             The cousins fell in love with movies as boys and they couldn't wait to hurl themselves into pumping out low budget, crowd-pleasers for their country's audiences. Their biggest hit, "Lemon Popsicle" was a horny-teen comedy as dumb and crude as any equivalent American exploitation junk pumped out by Roger Corman and American International.

            But the Go Go boys, as they came to be called (probably in derision), held bigger dreams for themselves and their films. After purchasing Cannon, a minor league distributor of softcore porn, the duo took the USA by storm, cranking out junk movies at a furious pace. 

            Where and how do I even begin to describe the Cannon films output?   This documentary finds a good place to start with Golan's own personally directed pop musical, "The Apple" - a beyond awful, lunatic attempt to duplicate the indulgent insanity of a Ken Russell movie. 

            From there, it's off for a hilarious, almost unbelievable rollercoaster ride through the rest of Cannon's 1980's output. Film critics rolled their eyes and the Hollywood community snickered at the 'Breakin' breakdancing epics, the Charles Bronson 'Death Wish' sequels, the mad, mad, mad mad Ninja movies, the sci-fi horror atrocities like "Lifeforce" and Tobe Hoopers woeful remake of the classic 'Invaders From Mars'. and the discovery of their kick ass Kung Fu superstars, Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme. 

             And for connoisseurs of junk cinema, the Golan-Globus company was a goldmine, the mother load of dreck. The boys were born exploiters.....they mixed, matched and Frankenstein-spliced different genres together in each film, and never forgot the golden rule of "Lemon Popsicle" - boobs, boobs and even more boobs. 

             Yet even as the garbage flowed out into theaters and video stores, the boys frequently strained for legitimacy.....working with directors like Jean Luc Godard, John Cassavetes, and John Frankenheimer.  Invariably, major directors and stars who crossed paths with the Go Go''s came to deeply regret it.

             The interviews with many of the actors, filmmakers and technicians who worked with Cannon make the film both insightful and great fun. Golan, especially, carried on like an overbearing tyrannical old school big studio blowhard, channeling Jack Warner or Harry Cohn. And the stories of his cantankerous rants are priceless. 

              In many ways, Golan and Globus were comparable to the similarly aggressive Mirimax gruesome twosome, Harvey and Bob Weinstein.  But with a key difference......the Weinsteins, for all their crudity and foul behavior, knew at heart the value of producing quality cinema. The Go Go boys could never get beyond chasing after the next fast buck......and their output of ludicrous, laughable cinematic tripe eventually led to their undoing.....and dissolving into separate companies. 

              I myself could see the end of the Cannon reign of rubbish coming to a close......when customers marveled at their first VHS recorder, they'd settle for any movie to pop into their machines and if the big studio A-List hits were all rented out, any piece of Cannon crapola might suffice. 

             But once the initial novelty of watching uncut movies at home wore off, customers no longer would waste time with 'Ninja III; The Domination".  They demanded real movies.....in other words, not Cannon movies. They wanted the good stuff.   Hence the end of the Golden Age Of the Go Go Boys. 

           Devoted buffs and all curators of oddball cinema shouldn't miss this fascinating, strange story......a once in a lifetime saga of guys who loved movies as much as life itself.....but never quite figured out how to make good ones. 4 stars (****).

             (P.S. BQ vows to also review Golan and Globus's very own version of their lives, "The Go Go Boys".....so stay tuned!)

            

'RRR'....HEROES! TIGERS! BATTLES! RIOTS! ....AND DANCING!

 RRR (2022)   Cinema purists may barf at the idea, but it tickles me to death that this movie is India's entry into the Oscar race for Best Foreign Film of the year. 

               It's a Bollywood epic on steroids.......and if I started writing a detailed description of this film and its perpetual, 3 hour onslaught of non-stop, way over-the-top spectacle, I'm not sure you'd believe me. 

                Oh, did I use the phrase 'over the top'?  Scratch that. There is no ceiling to the insane degree this movie goes to in order to knock your eyeballs out of your head.  There's no 'top' for it to go over.....the movie's already floating around in its own delirious galaxy.

                 Over the years, I've watched and enjoyed the furiously bouncy dance numbers from Bollywood films, but honestly, I've rarely found the time (or the patience) to sit through the entire films themselves, which almost always run anywhere from 2 & 1/2 to 3 hours. 

                 But 'RRR' (standing for Rise, Roar, Revolt), pinned me to the screen for its full length.....and I watched it with alternating bouts of awe, wonder, disbelief, derisive laughter, genuine laughter, eye, rolling, head shaking, and yes.....impressed jaw-dropping. 

                 And here's why. The film goes all out to stagger you with so much action, adventure, feverish melodrama, foot stomping music and show stopping dance numbers that it makes Marvel and DC comic book movies look like 'My Dinner With Andre'.....(or Merchant-Ivory 'tempest-in-a-teacup' snoozers)

                While the film doubles down on the amount of frenzied action it hurls at you, it maintains a wonderful, irony-free aura of shameless audacity. Maybe that explains why I got such a kick out of it.....there's literally nothing too crazy, corny and embarrassing this movie isn't afraid to throw into the mix.....(as opposed to the Marvel movies constant, weary efforts to make their superheroes always hip, witty and meta.....which lately has begun to wear us all out)

                 Based on two real heroic rebels from India's history, 'RRR' plunges you into the 1920's, with the country colonized and occupied by its oppressive British rulers, who view the native population as little more than subservient children to be disciplined with an iron hand. 

                  By all means, feel free to hiss, boo and throw popcorn at the screen every time you see the loathsome British Governor Buxton (Ray Stevenson) and his imperiously vile wife Catherine (Alison Doody)....these two make Star Wars villains look like Teletubbies. 

                 Catherine's abducted a little village girl to amuse her as a household pet, so it falls to the village's fearless, near invincible protector Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rau Jr.) to find and rescue the child.

                And boy is this ever the guy for the job......right at the start, we see him go mano e mano with a tiger and an entire menagerie of CGI beasties. (I kid you not...)

                But the dastardly Brits have just the guy to hunt him down and thwart him, the equally fearless, near invincible Rama Raju (Ram Charan Teja). Supposedly an ultra-loyal Indian army officer, he's secretly a deep cover revolutionary leader. 

                And the virtually superhuman Rama Raju has already more than proved his worth to his evil overlords. In a sequence you can only see to believe, he wades into an angry, rebellious mob of thousands, armed only with a wooden baton.......and soundly beats up the crowd of thousands...  (Again, I kid you not).

                Now comes the titanic Clash Of Titans as these two men, each capable of boundless feats of near suicidal heroism, at first become fast friends, unware of each other's hidden agendas. Together, they outrage and astound an entire luncheon soiree of British uppercrusts with a mind blowing Bollywood dance-off....(by now you know, I'm kidding you not.)

                Need I describe any more?  All you need to know is that our two super-rebels endure endless battles, betrayals, hairbreadth escapes, beatings, tortures.....and let me think, if I left out anything else. Oh right.....more battles and a final infinitely satisfying showdown with those despicable, hiss-worthy Buxtons.

               And I shouldn't even have to mention the film finishes up with another elaborate frenetic dance number designed to look like a propagandized pep rally....(with everyone proudly showing off their biceps while dancing.......)

              I guess I'm trying to tell you there's no way to approach 'RRR' from a remote, distant viewpoint. It's a movie so unabashedly primal in its intentions and presentation that you either go with it, embrace the epic mythmaking and wild exaggerations of it all.......or just stay away from it.

               As for the BQ.......what more can I say. I had a blast. 4 stars (****).........call it ridiculous, call it nonsense....but at its heart, it's the kind of stuff that made people fall in love with movies in the first place....

                 

                

'THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF LONGING'.....SHE AIN'T NEVER HAD A FRIEND LIKE DJINN......

 Three Thousand Years Of Longing (2022)   I wasn't even halfway through this film when I realized that by the time it finished, I'd be among the few who'd enjoyed it and would stand very much alone in defending it in a review.....

                I also knew that I'd  join a very small group of people who could actually claim they watched it.....

                 How come?  My take on why it sank without a trace..... I think the previous towering filmography of its director George Miller led to the wrong expectations.....and the movie's failure to find even a scant audience. 

                  To cinema lovers, Miller's name conjured up instant visions of fabulously spectacular action sequences coupled with over the top characters, each role performed by actors pitching themselves into a state of hysteria to match the film around them.....

                   As in, ...."Holy crap! The 'Mad Max' guy makin' a movie about a Genie from the a lamp! It's gotta be...like, like....."Aladdin Hits Fury Road!"

                   Spoiler alert for all you Mad Max adrenalin junkies:   this movie is as far from 'Aladdin Hits Fury Road'  as we all are from the dark side of the moon......

                    True, it features spectacularly designed special effects sequences and some breathtaking visual storytelling that's a gaudy banquet for your eyes.

                    But for once, Miller uses his formidable cinematic gifts in service of a story about how overpowering loneliness is healed by love, you're seduced and lost inside in this bittersweet tale that makes you ache in sympathy for its star-crossed players. 

                     Dr. Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) leads a solitary life as a curator and anthropologist of civilization's fables, myths and legendary stories.....fiction that began as a way to explain the natural world around us until the steady progress of science dispelled the fantasy with cold, hard truths.

                      Nobody, however, broke this news to the giant magical Djinn (Idris Elba) that Alithea unleashed from an antique bottle she bought at an Istanbul  shop. Knowing the world's myths all too well the skeptical, hard-shelled Alithea is wary and distrustful of the Djinn's traditional offer of three wishes.

                      In all the tales of innocents offered three wishes by all-powerful supernatural entities, things always go terribly awry for the wishmakers.......as their requests, invariably taken all too literally, lead to sad and terrible consequences for them.

                      But the emotionally agonized Djinn desperately needs her wishes made and brought to life or he faces thousands more years of an ordained confinement to non-existence. To prove his point he regales her with his three previous encounters that led to the downfall of both himself and those who unwisely chose to take advantage of his infinite powers.......with these ancient tales each stunningly brought to life by the patented George Miller cinematic magic we all know and love. 

                      Alithea absorbs these stories, the kind of tales she's spent a lonely lifetime devoted to, filled with violence, lust, and even a doomed tender romance that affected the Djinn himself. The fables finally lead her to make the most startling wish request the Djinn ever faced.......forcing the film's audience to realize what this movie was about all along. (Which, at his point, you'll hear no more from me....)

                     ....other than to tell you it turns out as something far, far superior to 'Aladdin Hits Fury Road'.....and well worth anyone's time.

                      Call me crazy, call me odd, call me whatever you want, but I savored every minute of "Three Thousand Years...", even if almost nobody else did......and BQ counts it as one of the best, most surprising movie experiences this blog's encountered in 2022. Elba, Swinton and George Miller make a dream team to cast a spell on you......  And I'm wishing it a most magical 4 stars (****)

                     

    

                     

HOLIDAY MADNESS WRAP-UP........MR. JANUARY 6TH FINALLY GETS HIS REPORT CARD.....

 The January 6th committee releases its final report, holding Trump responsible for the insurrection.....also in astounding, surprising breaking news.....Christmas will arrive in a few days, and the Earth will continue to rotate around the sun......

Trump's tax returns finally revealed, along with his lying about being audited and having his hand-picked IRS chief make sure he was NOT audited.......and also claimed exemptions for all January 6th rioting thugs, claiming they're all 'adopted children'......

The January 6th committee sends criminal referrals for Trump to the DOJ.....anonymous Mar-A-Lago employees report the delivery of a heavy carton of Russian travel brochures......

Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson reveals Trump lawyer told her to say "I can't recall" to the Jan. 6th committee, as many times as necessary......in related news, 387 Trump lawyers formed a new firm together, 'Dial-A-Shyster' and put their first commercial on the air ("Did you slip and fall in a front of your own home? Drag yourself to the front of your neighbor's house and we'll sue him!")

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL BQ VISITORS!  SEE YOU NEXT WEEK!

'O. HENRY'S FULL HOUSE'....5 TWISTS,...NO WAITING! (NO SPOILERS, EITHER)

 O. Henry's Full House (1952)   Weeks ago, I gave up keeping track of  the avalanche of Christmas movies that now flood every streaming service and channel like an apocalyptic tsunami.....

         I'd almost forgotten about this one, which I don't think I've laid eyes on since I was riding my dinosaur to attend 8th grade in the Jurassic age...

         Any buff who treasures Golden Age Hollywood studio films along with holiday related stuff shouldn't miss this one. It fills the bill on classic old school movies lightly tinged with snow and caroling.

         It's a rare genre for 20th Century Fox in the early 1950's, an anthology of five short stories, each one from a different director....

         The stories come  from William Sydney Porter, a prolific short story writer who specialized in heartfelt, sentimental tales, each topped off with an ironic twist. (and written under one of his pen names, O. Henry)

         Fox went all out for 'O.Henry', which features practically the studio's entire roster of star players along with a host of familiar character actors. And as narrator they recruited no less than author John Steinbeck to introduce them. 

         And in the Christmas spirit, and for those who never heard of or never picked up an O Henry story, I'll make these plot summaries SPOILER FREE. (Honest)......so here we go....return with me now to the late 19th, early 20th century......

"The Cop And The Anthem"  Cute way to start.....Charles Laughton hamming it to the max as a erudite , loquacious hobo who avoids spending cold winters out on the streets by getting himself arrested and jailed for at least 3 months.  But this time around, bad luck. No matter how hard he tries, he can't get the law to park him in the slam,,,,,This one struck me as little bit sad, since O Henry devises a real double whammy of twists for this guy.... don't blink and you'll catch sight of Fox's pretty new starlet, Marilyn Monroe......

"The Clarion Call"  A bit of nasty fun here, with director Henry Hathaway reuniting with Richard Widmark his "Kiss Of Death" star.....and with Widmark reviving the same kind of loony, madly giggling psychotic creep he played in "Kiss".  He doesn't get to push any wheelchair-bound old ladies down the stairs, but he does cackle insanely as he torments a boyhood friend turned police officer (Dale Robertson). An okay twist, but it's Widmark's unbridled mania that makes the show here......

"The Last Leaf"  Probably the most well-known of the O. Henry stories, even by people who never read it. A young woman (Anne Baxter), slowly expiring from pneumonia, thinks she'll die when the winter winds blow the last leaf off some vines she can see from her window. This catches the attention of her crusty upstairs neighbor (Gregory Ratoff) an aging artist who struggles to sell his way, way ahead-of-their-time abstract paintings.   A  classic O.Henry heart-clutcher, guaranteed to make an audience sigh out a collective "Awwwwwwww......"

"The Ransom Of Red Chief"  I simply don't understand the behind-the-scenes backstory surrounding this one. Fox didn't like it initially.....so much so that the segment was cut out of the theatrical prints. Why,  you ask?  Beats me. It's the only all-out comedic story, featuring two of show business's most acerbic wits - radio star Fred Allen and musician-pianist and all round curmudgeonly crank Oscar Levant. They play travelling con-men who wander into the deep South, with a plan to randomly kidnap some rube's child and collect a handsome ransom.  The poor dopes unwisely snatch little J.B. Dorset (Lee Aaker) a 10 year old terror who easily turns the tables on them. True enough, the kid loves playing an Indian chief in that standard racist derogatory attitude toward Native Americans, but this is still 1952 we're talking about, decades away from the death of such stererotypes.  Allen and Levant make a dryly funny team, so I've no real idea why the studio axed it.....and didn't put it back until its TV airings in the early 1960's.  Because of the story's central idea (the kid's feared and unwanted by even his own parents), you should have no trouble seeing the twist from the very beginning.

"The Gift Of The Magi"   A blatant, too insistent heart-tugger, begging for its tears.....and features the weakest of all the twist endings on display. An impoverished young couple (Farley Granger, Jeanne Crain) can barely scrape together enough money to buy each other Christmas presents.......but hubby's happy for the free things in life.... like marveling at his beloved's luxurious, waist-length head of hair. I'll go no further to spoil things, but you've gotta get a load of Granger's workplace-from-hell.....a Dickens-ian  nightmare presided over by a scumbag Scrooge who demands maximum output for the 0.37 cents an hour he's laying out......and no Christmas bonus either.  Forget the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future....this guy needs a visit from Freddy Kruger....

Still in the holiday spirit and love the classics?  BQ highly recommends this full house of O Henry...4 stars (****),

'EMILY THE CRIMINAL'.....THE ULTIMATE AUBREY PLAZA....(SO FAR)

 Emily The Criminal (2022)    At this moment in time, until she breaks out of the public persona she's so carefully cultivated, this film now stands as the quintessential Aubrey Plaza movie........

          A modestly produced but nevertheless riveting thriller, it more than confirms what anyone can detect in Plaza's withering, deadpan sarcastic performances.....(both on film, TV and talk shows)

           .......that underneath her blank, dead-eyed snark, there's a seething, bubbling rage, ready to show itself at a moment's notice. 

            "Emily The Criminal", which Plaza co-produced, seems specifically designed not only as a showcase for her "smartest, most subtle mother****** in the room" image but as an outlet for her inner killer to come out and play. 

             And it's a sight you cannot look away from.

             Plaza's Emily is a millennial whose youthful  missteps (a DUI and and an assault charge) have left her toxic to mainstream employers. The constant rejections barely keep her hair-trigger temper at bay;  her job interviews, where a resentful Emily is confronted with her bad choices, invariably turn combative and ugly in a hurry.  Saddled with punishing student loan debt, she's reduced to life in minimum wage service industry hell, delivering food orders to offices.

             A co-worker's tip leads her to a quick-cash scam operation run by Lebanese immigrant, Yousef (Theo Rossi) - which requires a nervy, fake 'shopper to purchase big ticket items with stolen credit card numbers for later resale by Yousef on the black market.  

             Emily, to both her own surprise and ours, comes to fully embrace her new illegal lifestyle, becoming Yousef's most productive, profit-making 'dummy shopper'.  Predictably, some of her thefts go south, with her victims exacting violent payback on her. But Emily, also drawing on her newly discovered supply of rage, picks herself right up off the floor and strikes back with a vengeance. 

             Plaza seizes this role as if she was waiting her entire life for it, at long last finding a story and character worthy of her unflinching, wide-eyed glare. 

              Given the gritty, painful realism of the bulk of the film the fate dished out to Emily at first struck me as a little too neat, tidy and self-congratulatory.  But thinking about it now, it's a perfect conclusion, a witty, slap-in-the-face summing up of the warped morality of the current world we all live in.

            Unlike every other soul on the internet, I've yet to come up with any kind of "Best Movies Of 2022" list......but as long as we're on the subject, I'll place "Emily The Criminal" among my 10 best of the year. A 4 star (****) must-see for all cinema lovers.

              (And keep a close watch on your credit cards.......and enjoy the holidays!)

            

            

'FALL'....IN THE HEIGHTS....FOR REAL

 Fall (2022)......belongs to that curious little sub-genre I refer to as High Concept Primal Peril.....

              All it takes is two people thrown into an easy-to-describe, life threatening danger. Bam, that's your movie for you right there. With little or no subplots to get in its way.

              High Concept Primal Peril movies (or HCPP I'll call 'em for short) operate on one simple rule....whatever grimace-invoking situation the filmmakers devise for their two characters, they've got to stand them there.  Trap them. No escape.  As in, they ain't goin' nowhere, no how, no way.

              "Open Water" was one of the first these to...uh....make a splash, sticking its people in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by sharks. Others included "Frozen" (2 poor suckers stuck on a ski lift) and the surprise sleeper hit "47 Meters Down" (2 girls stuck inside a sunk, snapped shark cage, surrounded by.....well, you can figure it out.)

              And now, hold on to your vertigo, cause here comes "Fall".....stranding two athletic young women atop a spindly, rickety, rusty 2000 foot high abandoned TV tower. Where else but in the most remote patch of Southwest desert.   So don't look down....ooops, too late......

             The girls are Gen Z adrenalin junkies who climbed the tower for instagram and twitter clicks, so pardon me if I didn't start the movie by gnawing on my fingernails worrying about them. 

             But worry you will, cause Becky (Grace Caroline Currey and Shiloh ( Virginia Gardner) are so darn cute and every bit as ballsy as Tom Cruise when he's hanging by his thumbs to a skyscraper.

              Gaze upon the poster above, a perfect summing up of the entire film......the running time eaten up by the girls' increasingly desperate attempts to save themselves.......(you might already have guessed that these self-preservation ideas involve ever more nausea-spewing insanely dangerous stunts. 

            "Fall" takes some of its inspiration from '47 Meters Down' in that it pulls off a little plot twist in the midst of already making you sweat up a storm on behalf of its two beleaguered  heroines.....and even doubles down with another "gotcha" trick I'll dare not reveal.

             I realize many people wouldn't waste their time watching HCPPs  since by their very nature, they're so singularly manipulative and gimmicky.....the equivalent of a carnival geek show ("Step right up folks and see the bodacious babes defying death from above!")

              Then again, if you don't mind succumbing to a guilty pleasure thrill ride, you could do a lot worse than "Fall"......3 stars (***)....for those who wanna get high....ah....legally.

              

               

'AMSTERDAM'....THE D.O.A. MOVIE FROM D.O.R.......

Amsterdam (2022)    Contrary to what anyone might think, I don't enjoy being the last blogger to throw a sympathetic flower on the casket of this movie.....which instantly self-detonated into oblivion as soon as it hit theaters. 

                 No one's denying that David O. Russell possesses talent and cinematic craft to burn, as does his cast here.  But his results in "Amsterdam" look like he never had a clue about what kind of movie he was making, what it would look like or how his cast should perform in it

                 Russell appeared to just plow ahead, throw everything against the wall and wait to see if anything stuck.

                 Let's deal with first half of its 2 hour and 15 minute run time. The film draws on a notorious, absolutely true incident from 1930's America and starkly, scarily prescient, given today's political chaos.

               Two severely wounded World War 1 vets (Christian Bale, John David Washington), stumble upon a fascist plot to overturn FDR's Presidency, throw out U.S. democracy and replace it with a permanent dictatorship.

                Whew.......thank my sweet Lord that nothing like that could ever happen here in this day and age,  right? Right? Oh, wait a sec.......oops. 

                 Sounds like a great starting premise for a kick-ass thriller.....or maybe a quietly grim reflective drama a la "Chinatown."

                The movie turns out as neither one of those. It's first half rollicks along like some kind of half-assed, preciously overbaked Wes Anderson/Coen Brothers movie......with the all the actors leaning toward wink-wink performances......(as in "look at us....aren't we the wittiest, cutest things you ever did see?") 

              Somewhere halfway in, it's as if the gravity of the plot and how it relates to today's cancerous rise of Trumpism and Trumpists finally dawned on Russell and his actors.  But not soon enough. 

              That revelation comes too late to save the rest of the movie from becoming a slow, tedious slog. No more wink-wink.....no more pseudo Wes Anderson crapola....once drained of its semi-comedic energy, the film sinks into an uninvolving morass of pretensions......and lacking any forceful dramatic backbone to hammer home its main points......that the vicious assaults on democracy are nothing new. 

              By the time "Amsterdam" finishes, it hits you hard at how it frittered away a superbly assembled eclectic cast and potentially powerhouse premise. I should have known what was coming with the surfacing of Taylor Swift, making one of her unmemorable brief appearances that guarantee the film she's in is barreling toward train-wreck territory. 

             I won't lie......I smiled and maybe even LOL'd once or twice during some of the laborious faux-Wes Anderson stuff. But once the film gave up being cutesy-wutsey and descended into a void, it started to put me to sleep. 

            1 sad star. (*). Consider this the last flower placed on the grave of a missed opportunity.

                 

                 

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....TRUMP TRADING CARDS - THE GRIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING.....

                  My major question......

                  How can Saturday Night Live top this?  Or Jimmy Kimmel? Or Stephen Colbert? Or Seth Meyers? 

                   I'll admit it......I couldn't come up with anything more batshit crazier or funnier than this even if I burst a blood vessel trying. 

                   Maybe he really doesn't seek the Presidency in 2024.......maybe his great ambition is to become the next Andy Kaufman.......a performance artist who leaves us all scratching our heads, wondering if he's for real or just slyly asking us to get in on the joke.......

                   99 dollars a card?  Seriously?  And with a chance to hang out with Trump himself.....a golf game, a dinner invitation and, an autographed bottle of bleach to chug-a-lug during the upcoming COVID surge.

                     But now the saddest aspect of all this......

                      The MAGA-Zombies who'll empty their wallets, checkbooks and credit cards to buy the Trump cards......not only losing their money, but whatever remained of their last few brain cells that still functioned.......eagerly following their orange Fuhrer down the rabbit hole of madness that he's plunging into ever deeper. 

                      A scarier question now rears its frightening head.......

                      To follow this cascading waterfall of toxic garbage.....the luncheon with the babbling fascist and Kanye, America's Village Idiot.....the call for the termination of the constitution......the superhero digital trading cards at $99.00 a pop.....

                       What fresh hell comes next?

                       Keep that jumbo bag 'o buttered popcorn handy......for the indictments......