WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL 'SUE-NAMI' EDITION!

Baby Orange threatens to sue CNN for libel if they don't retract their reporting his Big Lie about the 2020 election.......in addition to that suit, the ex-President also filed 2,480 separate lawsuits against astronomy professors in American colleges for insisting the world is round.

Baby Orange claims "nobody really got to the bottom of 9-11 as he stars in the Saudi Arabia sponsored gold tournament, infuriating and insulting survivors of 9-11 victims...... After conveniently forgetting the majority of  the 9-11 terrorists were Saudis, Trump suffered an embarrassing moment in the tournament.  His opening swing at the first hole brought up a clump of dirt unearthing journalist Jamal Khashoggi's severed head.  Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman claimed he had no idea how the head got there and assured Trump that the stroke wouldn't count against his overall score.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alioto gloats about ending Roe V. Wade, mocks world leaders who criticized the ruling.....speaking to an audience in Rome, the Justice also said, "A damn shame about that 10 year old girl escaping our ruling so she could abort her rapist's kid. If it was up to me, I'd personally hold down the miserable little brat until she pumped out that baby the way my church and the court intended....

More Trump officials report mysterious disappearance of Jan. 6 texts...... "It's possible the family dog erased them right after eating the homework of my client's son", claimed an attorney representing one of the officials.

Jared Kushner claims Steve Bannon threatened to "break me in half"......and also says Bannon further  intimidated him by breaking off pieces of  300 Kit Kat bars Bannon kept in his pockets......while screaming, "I bet you'll break easier than these!!!"

GOP votes against a medical benefits package for Veterans......in regards to vets suffering from illnesses due to exposure to toxic burn pits, Mitch McConnel claimed every afflicted veteran will receive at least 2 Tylenol and an autographed "thoughts and prayers to you" plaque.......vets will have to make a specific request in writing if they prefer extra strength Tylenol or Advil.

'THE OUTFIT'.....TWISTY AND TAILOR-MADE......LITERALLY

 The Outfit (2022)   Watching this film, we automatically thought it was derived from a play.....one of those single set mysteries that dazzle and confound audiences with a constant barrage of plot twists. (as in big Broadway-to-film successes like "Deathtrap", "Sleuth", "Dial M For Murder" and "Sleuth")

           But no it's not play-originated at all.  "The Outfit" arrives as a fresh, purely cinematic creation and it's anchored by a clever, subtle and perfectly calibrated performance by Mark Rylance.

           Rylance plays Leonard, a superbly skilled tailor ( or 'cutter', as declares himself with pride) He's  a quiet, shy middle aged former Londoner who plies his much in demand trade at his mid 1950's Chicago shop.. While Leonard crafts his customers'  made-to-order suits like works of art,   he's aided only by his receptionist-assistant Mabel (Zoey Deutch) a smart, tough girl from the neighborhood. 

           Also in the neighborhood and using Leonard's shop as a drop-off point for messages, cash and other illegal stuff - the local gangster family and their various gun-toting violent henchman. Leonard, self-effacing and gentle to a fault, can only humbly tolerate their threatening presence and continue his dedication to his work. 

             And here's the point where we tell you that's all you're gonna get from us. 

            To fully enjoy this film, we don't dare reveal anything further about the chain of events that propel  the story to burst into a one-after-the-other array of stunning twists, turns and 'oh-my-Gods' moments. 

              We can only promise you that your jaw will drop throughout the length of "The Outfit", right up to the very final moment.   And you may well lose track of the number of times you end up muttering, "wow, I didn't see that coming...."   

              Rylance is a wonder to behold as the surprises play out and he's given solid support by Deutch and the primary gangster guys played ably by Simon Russell Beale, Dylan O'Brian and Johnny Flynn. (This trio of hoods will amuse you while still scaring the hell out of you.)

              Intrigued yet? We hope so. Put this somewhere on top of your "must see" list before the summer's over. It took us totally by surprise and never let up on making us say "say what now?"  4 and 1/2 stars (****1/2.

          

'DREAM LOVER'......A SLEEP STUDY TURNS CREEP STUDY......

 Dream Lover (1986)   BQ visitors, once again we're happy to strike gold in our neverending mission......unearthing an obscure, long forgotten film that nobody actually remembered even when it was released.

            What an incredibly strange movie to end up in the middle of director Alan J. Pakula's filmography....yes indeed, the very same guy who directed "Klute", "The Parallax View", "All The President's Men" and "Sophie's Choice".

             We'll now take a bold stab at answering the question, "What the hell was he thinking with this thing?"

              We'll guess Pakula unwisely became infatuated with the then new technique of sleep studies.....hooking up a sleeper with 300 wires to monitor every single body and brain function while someone catches some Z's. 

              Having submitted to one of these ourselves (to detect sleep apnea), we found the experience weird and uncomfortable and not particularly dramatic.

              Pakula, however, no doubt thought to weld this procedure with a flimsy sort of psychological thriller, propped up by a few startling combination dream-nightmare sequences.

              Possibly a wild card, purely visual oriented director might've extracted some crazy fun out of this concept (much like Ken Russell did when taking over "Altered States" - see our post of 6/11/19).......but Pakula was too grounded in reality for the task. He made great films, but you'd never categorize any of them as imaginative flights of fancy.

              The lead role here required a a young woman with considerable range.... to play.a jazz flautist tormented by nightmares after she stabbed to death a psycho who invaded her apartment.  And you'd think Pakula, director of such stellar actresses as Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda might gravitate to an A-lister for the part. 

              To our surprise, he cast, of all people Kristy McNichol, then known as a busy child and teen actress of TV shows. She more than proved she possessed the chops to throw herself into the unease and bouts of hysteria the film required of her.  With her large expressive eyes and, slim, slight frame, she came across the screen as both adorable and painfully vulnerable.

              Sadly, Pakula thought he could flesh out a barely-there skeletal script by decorating it with elaborate, clumsily staged dream sequences, for which he displayed no real ability.  Though a master of dread and suspense (as in "Klute" and Parallax View") he was no Fellini-esque dream weaver. Those attempts at nightmarish imagery looked like watered down steals from Argento's "Suspiria".

               The entire film, in fact appears stillborn, stiff and generally lifeless (much like director Robert Benton's 1982 Hitchcock homage "Still Of The Night", see our post of  11/2/18......

                We always loved seeing Kristy McNichol, even when she landed in worthless crap unworthy of her. Sorry to say, "Dream Lover" fall into that category. 2 stars (**) and that's strictly for her presence in the film......otherwise we'd bounce it down to Zero.

'THE NEW NEIGHBOR'........A SPYNEST WITHIN THE SUBURBS......

 The New Neighbor by Karen Cleveland (2022)

            We really truly wanted to love this one to pieces. Nothing moves our reading blood faster than a domestic espionage thriller......just mention 'spies in suburbia!' and we're first in line. Tell us it's about traitorous, deep cover agents running loose amongst the soccer moms and backyard barbecues of the USA and we're salivating. And we're in a state of delirious joy if the whole thing's heavily coated with an atmosphere of dread, paranoia and "Whoa!" twists.

           "The New Neighbor" does duly include all the above elements but as the revelations and twists pile up, the cumulative effect renders the book more than little far fetched and tough to find believable.

              Having said that, we can't deny still thoroughly enjoying "The New Neighbor"......in the same way we enjoy a summertime multiplex movie that shows actors performing stunts that you know would kill you in real life and plot turns that defy all common sense.

            The premise grabs you by the throat right away...... an Iranian spy mastermind has blackmailed and compromised some American among the suburban communities surrounding CIA headquarters. 'The mission of "The Neighbor",' as this turncoat is designated in intercepted messages - to recruit and enlist other local CIA employees in a plot to attack the agency's power grid and swipe all its counterintelligence.

               But Beth Bradford, the agency analyst dedicated to hunting down the 'Neighbor' is stunned to find herself suddenly relieved of her mission and farmed out to a useless training position. And this comes on top of the last of her three grown children leaving the nest for college and her husband leaving her altogether, declaring their marriage over and done.

             Not to be thwarted, Beth single-mindedly continues her hunt even as she's patronized and gaslighted by her colleagues and the CIA neighbors she lived next to for decades. In this regard, she's more like Nancy Drew than Jason Bourne as she fearlessly plunges on with this rogue investigation........under threat of losing her job and ultimately, under threats from her quarry as she moves closer to the Neighbor's reveal.

            Overall, we would have given this book a 2.5 rating, since, as we mentioned earlier, we found Beth's rapid fire revelations(and the slam-bang finale) a little obvious, convenient and increasingly not credible. But we'll admit to racing through the pages, still enthralled, entertained and dying to see what happens next. So regardless of how unbelievable it all seems, for spy fiction fans, it's a fast, fun read.

             And as for that ultimate whammy of a final twist uncorked in the last chapter, you'll either gasp out an impressed "Whoa!" or roll your eyes and mutter, "Oh come on, gimme a break, will ya?" We think we did a little bit of both, so we'll bump 'The New Neighbor' up to 3 stars. (***).

'THE GRAY MAN'......NETFLIX EMPTIES ITS WALLET AND YOUR MIND, ALL AT THE SAME TIME.....

 The Gray Man (2022)    For a few moments, we contemplated the idea of simply recycling our 11/18/21 review of "Red Notice", another one of Netflix's  200 million dollar budgeted, bloated attempts to reproduce a mindless summer multiplex movie. 

           All we'd really have to do change the names of the actors, maybe alter a few sentences to allow for the slight difference in storylines between the two films. 

            "The Gray Man" a CIA-hitman-versus-his-rogue-counterpart mashup, comes to us courtesy of brothers Anthony and Joe Russo, directors of two Captain America movies and two Avengers movies.

            Therefore it's guaranteed that everybody in the cast will be well supplied with a steady stream of sarcastic, snarky gags even while they're shooting, chasing and kicking each other's brains out. 

              Ryan Gosling's the CIA guy, and Chris Evans, clearly having the best time ever, plays the wildly chatty, psychotic and sociopathic rogue agent. 

              The...uh...plot, such as it is, hinges on Gosling gaining possession of a flash drive that would send a ruthless, up-and-coming CIA chief (Rege Jean Page, the "Bridgherton" heartthrob) directly to jail. Hence the hiring of the out-of-control Evans to knock off Gosling and retrieve the McGuffin flash drive.

              Tagging along to help out Gosling in an exhausting series of punch-ups, gun battles and car chases......Ana de Armas (but sadly, not wearing her drop dead gorgeous "No Time To Die" outfit.)  Why this film feature de Armas decked out Dora The Explorer, we'll never know.  Maybe she's on a quest to find the film's script......if it ever existed.

               As a Neflix subscriber, we do worry along with the service about their catastrophic losses of subscribers and their spending 200 million on a movie like "The Gray Man", which turns out as such a machine tooled ,lifeless, soulless, empty headed film. 

                We're not sure what's worse, seeing Netflix spending that amount of money on "The Gray Man" or an equal amount of cash on unwatchable arthouse, culture-vulture sludge like  Jane Campion's "The Power Of The Dog".

               Maybe Netflix should start switching up directors.......maybe they should've let the Russo brothers make "The Power Of The Dog" and let Jane Campion take a crack at "The Gray Man"

              No, scratch that notion. We just remembered, that's the kind of thinking that led to Marvel's horrific trainwreck "The Eternals", which combined the worst of both worlds, comic book junk and arthouse hot air. 

              Okay, we can't go on with this any further.......except to say this movie looks so generic and pre-assembled , it's as if it was constructed with Legos.  

                Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea. Take need, Netflix. Use Legos to snap together any further "Gray Man" and "Red Notice" sequels.  

                Think of the millions you'd save. And maybe a Lego "Gray Man" would attain something higher than the 2 stars (**) we're giving this one. 

                You're more than welcome, to the idea, guys......but don't forget an Executive Producer credit for BQ........we'll bill you at a later date.

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "RUN JOSHY RUN!" EDITION

 Josh Hawley, famous for his 'solidarity fist' toward the Jan. 6th mob, shown later running for his life and mob storms the Capitol........prompting the International Olympic Committee to award  Hawley his own gold medal for a newly conceived event......The 20 yard Spineless Coward Dash.

Baby Orange goes on a typical loony rant following the closing night of the Jan. 6th committee hearings.......Security around Trump quickly delete their phone calls to Costco that ordered a fresh supply of  XXL sized diapers.

Baby Orange whines, "I don't want to say the election is over" the day after his mob attempts a coup at the Capitol.....to which Chief Of Staff Mark Meadows replied, "Okay, we won't make you say it.....but you have to finish all the carrots on your plate or no ice cream and cake

GOP plans to eliminate women's access to all contraception.....said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, "It's high time all these uppity women shut the hell up and get back to their real job.....to pump out lots of babies....".

Steve Bannon found guilty of Contempt Of Congress.......with several jurors asking the judge if Bannon could also be found Guilty for Contempt For Human Hygiene.........

Secret Service can't explain how all their texts from Jan 6th disappeared......"Sorry about that said several agents, "we were all simultaneously watching funny cat videos on YouTube and we must've hit the wrong button.....these things happen."  

'FIRESTARTER' (2022)......EXTINGUISHED

 Firestarter (2022)    We can't possibly start this review without a special salute to the two creative powerhouses behind this remake of the Stephen King novel........

             The 'director'......Keith Thomas.....

             The 'screenwriter'.....Scott Teems

              These two talent-free non-entities, achieved something truly special here.

              A film that is something we rarely encounter. A perfect storm of ineptitude.

              We're talking about a movie that presents itself to the public as deficient in every single one of the filmmaking arts and sciences.  

               In every way that a movie can fail.......writing, direction, acting, editing, music, cinematography, this movie does not disappoint.  There's literally nothing about it that doesn't stink, that isn't an all-time worst in every aspect of putting together a film. 

                 It's film so unfit for unfit for human consumption, so staggeringly incoherent and inert in its miserable attempts to tell its story, we began to wonder if its sheer awfulness was intentional. 

                 Maybe the purpose of making the film was to serve as a front for a money laundering scheme or an elaborate tax dodge by its producer, Jason Blum and his Blumhouse of low grade horror movies. 

                 Those are the only excuses we could come up with that those who worked on the film might use to absolve themselves of guilt.  Or maybe they've decided to deny they ever had anything to do with "Firestarter".......we wouldn't blame them if they did. 

                 And no, as you can tell from our attitude toward this movie,  no one should hold their breath waiting for us to discuss the actual plot points and details of "Firestarter"

                 We consider that refusal as a personal gift to the cast and crew whom we're pretty sure wiped it off their resumes already. 

                Want to know about "Firestarter"?  Read the book. Or watch the infinitely better 1984 film version with Drew Barrymore, George C. Scott and Martin Sheen. (see our review of 9/12//19)

                 As for this "Firestarter", we suggest everyone pretend it never happened. Because from the look of it, pretending it never happened seems like that's what makers wanted to do when they started production. 

                 Memo to Keith Thomas and Scott Teems......please do the filmmaking community, audiences and entire world a favor.  Never direct a movie again. Never write a movie again.  Find something productive to do with your time.  Maybe try out to become Wal-Mart greeters. 

                Oh right. Almost forgot. The rating. 

                 Surprise, surprise, surprise. AFH. An ABOMINATION FROM HELL.

                Proceed accordingly.

'THE NORTHMAN'.......BQ EXCLUSIVE! THE STUDIO'S NOTES TO THE DIRECTOR!!

 The Northman (2022)   If there was ever a movie that looked utterly free of studio meddling, it's this one.

            And yet, according to its director Robert Eggars (that master of stark visualism in "The Witch" and "The Lighthouse"), he got plenty of studio notes from the film's distributors, Universal and its indie subsidiary Focus features. 

              Really?  Seriously?  Coulda fooled us.  

               After a viewing, we got the impression nobody from the studio ever laid eyes on this movie.....137 minutes of brutal, grungy, sword-swingin', gut-slicin', skull-splittin' Viking mayhem. 

                 We can't even imagine what "The Northman" would've looked like without the studio's advice and tampering.

               Ha!  But we found out. 

                With the help of our sleazy Los Angeles private eye JJ Gittes Jr., we seized a stash of studio notes given to Robert Eggers during the shooting.......which we now reveal for your reading pleasure.....

MEMO:  To; R. Eggers  RE:  "Northman" body count.

                  Bobby, sweetheart......we gotta control the carnage level here.....how about reducing the number of corpses down to a reasonable number. We're thinking.....800?  900 tops. Love ya, baby. Let's do lunch.

MEMO:  To  R. Eggers   RE:  More Defoe crazy

                Bobmeister......if we're paying Willem Defoe to show up, you gotta pull some real Defoe-ness out of this guy. More eye-popping, more batshit crazy. We need the full Defoe here. Shmooze the guy a little, right? Then he'll come through.

MEMO: To R. Eggers   RE: Anya  Taylor-Joy

                  Yo there, Bob-inator......Yeh, we do love us some ATJ, and we'd love a nakey ATJ even better. Why not ask her, whaddya got to lose?  All these characters are barely one step up on the evolutionary scale anyway, so why wouldn't she get nakey? Wouldn't hurt to ask....

MEMO:  To R. Eggers      RE:Bjork

                    Bob-0-Rama......tell her to keep her clothes on. Please.  And no, tell her she's not allowed to wear the swan outfit from the Academy Awards.....

MEMO:    To R. Eggers      RE:  Scary-ass Valkyrie 

                   Bobster my mobster.......can't tell you how much we appreciate you you giving a break to my wife's acupunterist.. But jeez, did you have put the metal teeth in her mouth?  The kid's own mother won't even know her.....

MEMO:     To R. Eggers     RE:   Body count...WTF????

                      Bob-o-licious.......don't wanna push the panic button just yet, but the continuity girl said you're up to 940......remember, we talked about this......also, the beheading count needs to come down just a tad.....lunch on me, have your people call my people. 

MEMO:   To R. Eggers    RE:  CW Spin-Off Series.

                     Bobzie-Wobzie.......it's a lock!  CW wants a pilot episode in time for the Fall season. Any interest in directing?   Hey, we got ya an exec-producer credit anyway, it'll come right after my pool boy's.  Sorry, we couldn't get Timothee Chalamet for the lead......but we nailed down this 18 year old surfer from "Gossip Girl" 

MEMO:     To R. Eggers    RE;   Anybody left alive in your cut?

                     Bob-0-Mania!    Sorry, but the guys at U and Focus not on board with the everybody's dead routine.  Do me a flavor and pick at least one person to leave alive......put the actors' names in a hat....or on a dartboard, you decide.  Studio's heavy in favor of ATJ, especially if she's still nakey. But they're willing take some input from you......psst, make sure it's not Kidman, they board's still looking to make a "Mummy" sequel with Cruise.....

MEMO:   To R. Eggers    RE:  10,000 hits in the last 10 minutes!

                    BobboMighty......hope you don't mind. We put those weird ass Viking tribal dances on Tik Tok.....holy shit, look at the numbers.  Did you take a peek at the Burger King tie-in ad yet?  'Valahalla Burgers should jump to the top of the menu. All good things, sweetie.....see you at the premiere.

                (So much for memos......we still liked the movie. 4 stars (****).

'THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT'....CINEMA'S KING OF KRAZY BONDS WITH HIS ULTIMATE FAN....

The Unbearable Weight Of Massive Talent (2021)    It's been a long time since we came across a movie that dared such a high wire act as this one.......

              By now, everyone knows this is an ultra-meta comedy in which Nicolas Cage simultaneously lampoons and celebrates his legendary status as cinema's most tireless, prolific and ridiculed overactor. 

                Cage may be in on the joke, but you can tell throughout this rambunctious action-comedy that his compulsion to perform is deeply ingrained, heartfelt and sincere. We all somehow know that he doesn't just make these all those bizarre straight-to-video junkers to help him crawl out from under his mounting debts.

              We sense he's also doing it for the sheer love of acting, and also for satiating the self-absorbed narcissism that's become so much a part of his public persona. 

               And that's where we find Nicolas Cage at the start of this film, playing a Nicolas Cage whose constant urge to work and over-the-top actor's ego has wrecked his marriage, his relationship with his teen daughter......and his career. 

                 Unable to land his client a fresh film role,  Cage's wheeling-dealing agent (Neil Patrick Harris) send him flying off  to a shady kingpin's sumptuous mansion in sunny Spain.  Cage's gig: to entertain this long time superfan  Javi Gutierrez (Pedtro Pascal) a notorious gun-dealer who may have kidnapped a  prominent politician's daughter. 

                   Cage is quickly recruited by two CIA agents ( Tiffany Haddish, Ike Barinholtz) to search his host's villa to find the missing girl......but he's mostly busy bonding with the hyper Javi, whose adoration of all things Cage includes a shrine museum.  While mutually tripping on LSD, they begin to craft a screenplay together.. Big surprise.....it's all about them.

                   Though the movie begins off the rails, in its third act it settles down to become a satirical  knockoff of the kind of mid-level budgeted action thrillers that Cage use to regularly pump out all through the 1990's......which naturally requires a rousing car chase and assorted gun battles. 

                     As clever as that sounds, the action stuff seems to signal that the film's run out of ideas....until the filmmakers manage to wrap it up with a suitable meta ending that both revels in and slyly skewers the feel-good finishes of typical Hollywood product. 

                     We can think of few actors other than Cage (and maybe Christopher Walken) who could anchor a film quite like this one  ........a mock biography of a performer who functions as an artist seriously committed to his craft and also as a clownish, over-the-top loon, which makes him all the more cherished. 

                     And maybe this movie isn't always successful at keeping all the balls in the air that it tries to juggle all the way through.......but it still makes for a funny, one of a kind 4 star (****) trip through that crazy theme park known as Cage-Land.  Take a tour real soon. 

                 

'AMBULANCE'......DRIVING ONE WAY UP A ONE BAY STREET.......

 Ambulance (2022)   The normal way we watch a Michael Bay film is exactly the same way we'd gaze at a  horrendous traffic accident we pass by while driving........

               Shake our heads in sadness at the terrible, needless damage and injury before looking away and driving on......

               Yes, he's back. The Master Of Cinematic Atrocities  has returned with yet another noisy, mindless and near unwatchable chunk 'o junk.......

                 Here's the funniest, most ironic thing we know about Michael Bay.  That in his heart of hearts, he truly thinks he's the ultimate master of action cinema......

                 When, in truth, he's without a doubt the worst, most incompetent director and editor of action movies who ever made a feature film. 

                  Like all his other flaming movie turds, including the "Transformer" nightmares, all the major action sequences are either photographed with dumb dizzying camera movement or chopped into itty bitty pieces as to make them incomprehensible.......or a combination of both. 

                 There's constant motion, gunfire, explosions and car crashes.........all of it thrown at you at a senseless hodge-podge of senseless imagery.

                  The plot, what little there is, involves a huge bank heist gone wrong, engineered by a professional hyper psychopath (Jake Gyllenhaal) who enlists his reluctant adopted brother (Yaha Abdul-Mateen II)a beleaguered veteran as the getaway driver.

                  Massive firefghts with SWAT teams ensure and our robber jobbers hijack an ambulance, along with its feisty, dauntless paramedic (Eiza Gonzales) and the young, seriously wounded cop (Jackson White) she's trying to save. 

                   From that point on, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad chase through the L.A. streets, liberally peppered with carnage and crashes along the way......reduced to visual gibberish by Bay's constant overcutting and swoopy-doopy camerawork. 

                  As for the two leads, apparently the film encourages an audience to be entertained by Gyllenhaal's constant chatty babbling, as if he's a refugee from a Tarantino film....(never mind that at heart, he's a vicious, murdering sociopath). And we're definitely supposed to root for the hapless Mateen, who's been ill treated by the VA and can't scrape up funds for his wife's desperately needed cancer treatments. 

                   No we can't go on........the more we discuss this film, the more we recall the absolute misery of having to watch it. 

                   We don't know which wag coined the appropriate phrase 'Bayhem', but we don't mind using it.......and in the least complimentary way imaginable. 

                     You can always, always depend on Michael Bay to deliver a genuine AFH....an ABOMINATION FROM HELL. 

                     And unfit for human consumption. Consider yourselves warned.

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "MINIONS GONE WILD" EDITION.......

Steve Bannon's plan to grandstand in front of the Jan. 6 committee goes awry...... even worse, he's begun receiving love letters from prison inmates proclaiming how much they're looking forward to his eventual arrival to their cell......

Trumpanzee who stormed the Capitol testifies that he now now realizes Trump duped him.........medical records showed that once indicted, he began to regrow enough brain cells to qualify for sanity.....

Enraged Ohio GOP plans to indict 10 year old girl for fleeing to Indiana to end a rape-induced pregnancy......."that kid's goin' down" claimed one anonymous legislator, "and if convicted we plan to take her to to the nearest Ohio sperm bank and re-impregnate her.".....it's her body, OUR choice....."

Trump's loony-toon trio, Sydney Powell, Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani planned to seize voting machines at "unhinged" White House Dec. 18th meeting.......and also suggested a nationally televised "President For Life" inauguration ball celebration, hosted by Scott Baio and Herschel Walker.

Georgia prosecutors closing in on Trump's election tampering.......Prison officials making preparations by ordering XXL-sized orange jumpsuits for Trump to wear while performing  chain-gang highway trash pickups....."We've spared no expense, " claims one official, " and the outfit nicely matches Mr. Trump's complexion....."

'TRACY FLICK CAN'T WIN'.....THE "ELECTION" DYNAMO VS. MIDDLE-AGED WOES

 Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta (2022)    Our first and lasting impression:  not at all the kind of book we expected.  A bit funny at times. More than a little sad at times.  And topped off with an abrupt, ripped-from-the-headlines climax that comes off as lazy and facile.......especially in a novel that sets itself up as thoughtful in observing its characters and their dilemmas. 

               If you never read "Election" the author's first go-round with the formidable Tracy Flick, don't feel left out.....neither did we.

               But chances are, like us you well remember director Alexander Payne's 1999 film version, with Reese Witherspoon perfectly embodying Tracy, the ruthlessly ambitious, single minded high school over- achiever who so rankles her civics teacher played by Matthew Broderick.

                'Tracy Flick Can't Win' quickly establishes itself as a bittersweet (bordering on depressive..) tour of dashed hopes, roads not taken and thwarted dreams......not to mention the collateral damage wreaked by marital infidelities.

                 The book finds Tracy at middle-age, having survived a few decades of fateful reversals of fortune. Life's potholes have left her as a single mom toiling far below her abilities and ambitions as an assistant high school principal. 

                 As you might expect, Tracy hungers and lusts for the top job of principal, soon up for grabs due to the current principals long overdue retirement. Over-qualified and the smartest person in the room,  she tirelessly lobbies the school board members for the position.......but Tracy, alas, though admired and respected,, remains as unloved  unlikable and friendless as she was as a teenager. 

                  (And no one's more accurate in this assessment of her personality than Tracy herself, painfully aware of her own limited patience and interest in raising her young daughter).

                  To boost morale, amid her school's losing football team and falling test scores, she goes along with a  board member's plan to create an annual 'Hall Of Fame ceremony' for worthy alumni......and their most coveted first candidate for this high honor is the school's former football star Vito Falcone, who's led a failed life littered with alcoholism and destroyed marriages.

                We thought the book would center around Tracy, but she functions, along with the pathetic Vito, as just one of a host of supporting characters  Every so often, they're treated by the author with some amount of sharp, incisive wit, but mostly their backstories seem designed to make us sigh with resigned sadness. 

                And we'll resist the urge to fully weigh in on the off-the-rails method Tom Perrotta  chooses to finish the book.  Some may think of it as a powerful, savvy way to comment on the the way we live now, or as a social satire hand grenade lobbed in to neatly solve all plot points. 

                 To us, it reeks of an author desperately grasping at what he thinks will net him a guaranteed movie deal. Good luck with that, Tom.....but we doubt you'd get Reese Witherspoon to play Tracy as merely a supporting player amidst a crowd....... 2 stars (**). 

                    

'THE PRINCESS'.....A KUNG-FUELED ROYAL, JUST CROWNING AROUND.......

 The Princess (Hulu Streaming-2022)    We can imagine this movie's screenwriters, Ben Lustig and Jake Thornton, high-fiving each other into a coma.....in love with their own cleverness at coming up with such a singular, outrageous gimmick of an idea.......

            Memo to both of them:  Sorry boys......hate to break it to ya, but a few other movies got there before you did with this brainstorm........and honestly, those movies came out just as monotonous and generic as "The Princess".

            What's this big genius idea we refer to?

             Simple. Use the skimpy plot merely as a 'get ready, get set, go!' for what will take up the bulk of film's running time.......non-stop, wall to wall action and carnage, with no pesky storyline to slow it down. 

             In this movie's generic vaguely Medieval never-neverland (an unholy mash-up of "Game Of Thrones" and Disney cartoons) a plucky Princess (Joey King) wakes up manacled in the top floor of her Rapunzel-like tower. 

             Our nameless royal sweetie awaits a forced swordpoint wedding to the sneering, snarling usurping warrior Julius (Dominic Cooper) who's also taken her royal mom 'n pop hostage. 

              In his nefarious plundering, Julius is aided and abetted by Moira, his whip-wielding, dominatrix outfitted badass babe-of-babes (the always formidable Bond Girl, Olga Kurylenko, channeling Famke Jansen's 'Xenia Onatopp' from "Goldeneye")

              So much for the story......that's all you need to know. Once the cutie-pie Princess gets up and around, she launches into a perpetual, neverending series of punishingly brutal, CGI-enhanced battles. Our adorable little dynamo, fiercely engages with a castle full of  of Julius's minions, all of them fully equipped with broadswords, spears axes and other assorted instruments, both sharpened and blunt.

              We'll freely admit that for the first 15 minutes or so, watching the diminutive King hurl herself into acrobatic punch-ups and slash-o-ramas with an army of hulking brutes is pure guilty pleasure wahooooo fun.......

               But 95 minutes of it?   It probably never occurred to the filmmakers that after you've watched Joey swing a sword into some stuntman's solar plexus for the 500th time.....well, the thrill begins to dim......and the yawns start to come easier.

               Some of the countless fights are indeed well choreographed and propulsive, but with so damn many of them piling up, we can't even remember which individual ones we liked more than others .By the time it all winds up, we felt as exhausted, breathless and worn out as the Princess. 

                Fanboys who salivate over girls' Comic-Con cosplay outfits won't want to miss this, though. And Joey King's a talented enough young actress who deserves way, way better projects than this. A born trouper, she seizes the day here with full fury and we could only wish the producers had given her a real movie worthy of the enthusiasm and volcanic energy she displays all the way through it. 

                 2 stars (**) for her tireless combat......when it comes to mixing it up with the goons, the Princess brings the royal pain.

 

'THE RECORD KEEPER'......THE SCOURGE OF SEX TRAFFICERS CONCLUDES HIS STORY

 The Record Keeper by Chartles Martin (2022)   If this level of excellence in novels keeps up, we may end up declaring 2022 as one of the best reading years we've ever had......here's another one we couldn't wait to tell you about.

What a heart-stopping, heart-wrenching conclusion to this powerhouse trilogy of action-adventure dramas like no other series we've ever read.

          The mixture of genres in these books still stuns us.......a blend of the brutal, non-stop action you'd encounter in a Jack Reacher book combined with the emotion, humanity and beating warm heart of a Nicholas Sparks novel.

          All three of these novels, starting with "The Water Keeper" and "The Letter Keeper" present a timeless, virtually biblical clash between unfathomable evil and the fundamental human spirit of goodness.  And Charles Martin's presentation of both the very best and very worst of humanity is pure, raw, and unflinching in the depiction of horrific depravity and those who survive it......and the champions of those survivors.

           The champion we speak of here is Murphy Shepherd, survivor of his own backstory of heartbreak and brutality. He's a relentless rescuer of the victims of worldwide human trafficking and in his rescues, shows no mercy whatsoever to those who enslave, abuse and exploit innocent women and children.

           Unlike other series, we'd strongly recommend you start these books from the beginning with "The Water Keeper: in order to fully immerse yourself into the eye-popping revelations and final showdowns that unfold in "The Record Keeper". And after you've experienced the previous two books, you'll have come to know and deeply love the supporting characters now surrounding Murphy Shepherd in this conclusion of his epic crusades for the innocent.

             We don't know when We've ever come across a series that takes you on a such a jarring, back-and-forth voyage between adrenalin-pumping, violent action and the pathos of enduring love, faith, kindness and friendship.  Charles Martin set a very high bar here for any other author who'd attempt to duplicate the experience of this one-a-kind trilogy.    Depending on what part of the books you read, you could end up either raising your fist in triumph or crying your eyes out. Or maybe both.   

A five star (*****) 'must read ASAP' all the way a true BQ FIND OF FINDS.....and NOT to be missed.

'TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW'.....FOR ONCE, THE HYPE IS DEAD ON

 

Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)

           Sorry to be away from posting so long......another long weary week of travelling between doctor to doctor and other family matters.

            Instead of the usual litany of depressing current events in a "Weekend Madness Wrap-up", we thought we'd tell you all about one the best, hottest books of the year. And believe it or not, this time all the delirious reviews and blurbs aren't a load of crap. 

            This one's the real deal.

          What an amazing, wonderfully ambitious and deftly written book.. It's an expansive story that follows the lives of three brilliant young people who, in a relatively short period of time (from college to their mid-30's) experience a tumultuous epic life journey.

            And it's a grand full menu of what these characters go through........crushing heartbreak, lifelong friendships kindled, demolished and then rebuilt, all the ups and downs of romantic relationships, the 360 turns between achieving fabulous success and then crushing failure........and lastly, the surviving of what fate sometimes cruelly hands out with a terrible randomness.

           Sam and Sadie, once childhood friends driven apart by misunderstanding, connect again as college students. Their own technical brilliance and gifted creativity lead them to create and design a groundbreaking stunner of a video game that captures the world's imagination. Marx, their somewhat rogue-ish, freewheeling friend, joins them as their lifelong producer and business partner

            Thus a powerhouse trio is born, with Sam and Sadie now forced to deal with the tensions, pressures and rivalries of suddenly becoming gaming world legends at the very start of their careers.

And Sam, who's struggled through a lifelong physical disability since childhood, must also cope and suffer through a repressed, equally lifelong unspoken love of Sadie, who's endured her own strange, turbulent relationship with Dov, her college professor and mentor..

            This is the kind of novel to lose yourself in completely, to laugh, ache, cheer and cry along with the three lead characters. And while we've never been a gamer or had the slightest interest in games, the book's skill at bringing that unique world to life makes for fascinating reading - the meticulous amount computer science, artistry, storytelling and marketing savvy to go into a game's creation, along with the accompanying blood, sweat and tears of its makers.

           Through the entire length of "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow", Gabrielle Zevin's prose never fails to incisively hone in on her people and their all too human flaws with devastating perception.........and even, at times with some marvelous deadpan wit.

         So for anyone looking for THE book of the year,,......the kind of book you'd be thinking and talking about long after finishing it, this one more than earns its rep as a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS.