'PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT'.....A JEWISH NEUROTIC WHO CAN'T TELL SHLONG FROM RIGHT.....

 Portnoy's Complaint (1972)   Was there ever a movie more doomed to infamous failure than this one?

           The whole idea of it was an act of lunacy.......what studio executive could dream up the possibility of  making a palatable, mainstream big studio release out of novelist Philip Roth's most controversial book, .......a no holds barred, freewheeling X-rated monologue drenched in masturbation, masturbatory fantasies and perpetual sex. "

           The monumentally thankless task of  turning 'Portnoy' into a movie  somehow fell to Hollywood's most successful, celebrated and distinguished screenwriter Ernest Lehman... ("North By Northwest", "Sweet Smell Of Success", "The Prize", "The King And I", "The Sound Of Music", "West Side Story", "Family Plot")

             And therein lay the birth of the film's instant death-on-arrival. 

             Lehman, who doubled down on the madness by taking on the direction of the film (his one and only such attempt), was far too restrained, literate and tasteful an artist for such uninhibited, , ribald-to-the-point-of-pornography material......

              His script read like he'd approached Roth's novel with rubber gloves on to avoid staining himself and his clumsy, unimaginative. direction of it only made the film even worse than it had to be. Lehman tried maintaining a respectful distance from the book's unbridled excursions into raw sex, bodily fluids and the joys of jerking off. .....and the results were dire - high gloss Hollywood dressed up in fake naughtiness.

              The casting seemed spot-on at first glance......but the actors selected here proved to be lazy, tiresome choices....

              Richard Benjamin snagged the title role, a leering sex addict who would trace the origins of his neuroses back to his monstrously overbearing Jewish mother. (Lee Grant, braying out a low grade comedy skit  caricature...)  In previous films, Benjamin had already locked in this exact same performance - a smug deadpan expression and delivery, rarely interrupted by any actual acting. 

             Playing the barely literate, but sexually voracious fashion model who becomes the sole recipient of Portnoy's rampant lust was the soon to be ubiquitous Karen Black. And there'd be no escaping her throughout the 70's, since she'd go on to star in virtually every other major movie released that decade. Black faced little competition from Benjamin's laid-back stand-up comedian style of acting, so she easily seized full control of the movie, for what little it's worth. 

              But after Benjamin ditches Black (presumably for being too needy and stupid), he meets humiliating sexual defeat at the hands of his next would-be conquest....enacted  by another rising 70's star. Jill Clayburgh, enjoying her bit of screen time as a fierce Israeli Sabra whom Benjamin foolishly tries to rape.

              Not unexpectedly, the film was greeted with equal amounts of derision and outrage. Censor board prudes sputtered in disgust, but anyone with even a passing knowledge of Roth's novel recognized it as a pathetic, watered-down, ham handed adaptation, destined to please no one. 

               Strictly a curiosity item for avid cinema buffs who want to see it once before they die......once is more than enough. Maybe too much.  1 star (*).....(and that star is only for composer Michel Legrand's ridiculous inappropriate  romantic score, an unintentionally funny addition that led me to wonder if Legrand ever really laid eyes on the movie at all while he wrote the music......).

             

              

'YOU PEOPLE'.....DISTRESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER......

 You People (2023 - Netflix)  Don't care how many people thought this was funny......

             It's a rotting, steaming turd of a movie, served up to wring laughs out of every deep, wounding division in our current culture.

             Supposedly, it takes its inspiration from the long ago 1967 "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"....whose very title became an immediate catchphrase for interracial romance and marriage. 

             In reality, "You People" functions as an unholy, toxic mash-up of  both that film and "Meet The Parents".....presenting an odd couple mis-match of a white Jewish man (Jonah Hill) and a Muslim Black Girl (Lauren London) deeply in love, but faced with their parents very differing reactions.....

            Hill's mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) unleashes an overcompensating torrent of ultra-liberal woke condescension, a dumb, offensive horror show that leaves Hill and London aghast and embarrassed. 

             Dreyfus applies the full force of her comedic chops to this thankless, miserable role, but her character, as written and performed, is so obliviously stupid, she maintains her insulting idiocy almost throughout the entire film. 

              While Hill groans and moans at his mother's antics, he's no less clueless in his desperate attempts to court favor with London's disapproving, unforgiving father (Eddie Murphy).  But Murphy's withering stares at Hill tell you he ain't buyin' it.  The very sight of Hill romancing his daughter triggers not only his anger and distrust of whites, but of Jewish  whites, as preached to him  by one of his idols, the rabidly Anti-Semitic Reverend Louis Farrakan...

             What follows is a succession of increasingly aggravating encounters between the exasperated Hill and London and their two sets of parents (including David Duchovny as Hill's father and Nina Long as London's mother, both of them reduced to mostly to eye-rolling reactive expressions as Dreyfus and Murphy carry on....)

              I can't fault the performances of everyone here.....their timing, especially Murphy's is devastating in making you constantly cringe in agony at every humiliating moment. 

              But I didn't find any of it funny for a single minute. Everything this appalling film throws into the mix to squeeze out laughs, the deep racial division, the long simmering antisemitism, all of it backfires and leaves a sour, foul cloud hanging the whole enterprise.

               And even worse, after all the poison it spills, the film lurches into an unbelievable, unearned happy ending.......with all the parents seeing the light and blessing the union of their children....

                Yeah, right. Sure thing. Whatever. 

                BQ says avoid this movie.....it's a landfill of stench, cruelly extracted from all of the noxious attitudes and behaviors that have filled today's cultural discourse with hatred, distrust and lies.  Zero stars (0). Flush it. 

'SUSAN SLADE'.....A KNOCKED UP CONNIE, A HOUSE TO DIE FOR, A SECRET BABY. BOY-TOY TROY....AND HORSIES!

 Susan Slade (1961)   Let me take a moment to remember the under appreciated director-writer Delmer Daves, whom I hold dear as one of Golden Age Hollywood's best pulp fictioneers. 

           Daves dabbled in multiple genres.....everything from classic noir ("Dark Passage", "The Red House") to muscular westerns ("3:10 To Yuma", "The Badlanders") to high gloss soap operas featuring new young stars along side seasoned veterans ("A Summer Place", "Parrish", "Rome Adventure")

           In all these variety of films, he excelled in putting across overheated melodrama that never let your attention lag for a minute.  Like other similar journeymen directors, such as Gordon Douglas, he had no signature style other than to make sure you had a damn time watching his movies. 

            "Susan Slade" came in the middle of his successful reign as the supreme sultan of Warner Brothers soap operas. Like his "A Summer Place" it starts out drenched in one of composer Max Steiner's lush romantic scores, and later features an impossibly luxurious house nestled by a seaside cliff in Monterey California. 

            In this sprawling, 'Architectural Digest'  Japanese style residence, live a retired mine manager and his loving wife (Lloyd Nolan , Dorothy Maguire) and their sweet, unworldly young daughter (Connie Stevens)......a family soon beset with a terrible dilemma.....

             Prior to their moving in,  Connie's been rendered pregnant from a head-over-heels shipboard fling with a wealthy smoothie (Grant Williams) who promptly dies while mountain climbing. Convinced the suave self centered Williams really loved her, Connie freaks out and tries a suicide swim in the rough Pacific surf. But wait! To the rescue comes the forever monotone hunk Troy Donahue, who's nursing a crush on Connie and whose stable houses Connie's beloved pet horsie.....

          I can't even begin to go into Donahue's backstory here involving his struggles as a novice novelist and his simmering resentment as a Monterey pariah because of his father's embezzlement convictions and subsequent suicide death......Let's back to our primary burning question.....What will poor preggers Connie ever do?

             Given this is 1961, there's no legal abortion and an out-of-wedlock baby would stigmatize Connie and her folks in the eyes of their uppercrust friends and neighbors. Horrors! Forced to wear the scarlet "P" for Pregnant.......

             Bad timing, too....just as a fledgling romance might be in the cards for Connie and Troy.....

             But wait! Mom and Dad to the rescue!  Nolan un-retires to run a Guatemala mine, taking Maguire and Connie with him. When they come back in a few years, there'll be a bouncing baby boy alright....but they'll claim he's Connie's new little brother.  That's right, they plan to convince the Monterey high society crowd that Nolan and Maguire got busy and pumped out a kid before menopause closed in.......

             After a fatal heart attack finishes off Nolan, Connie and Maguire return to Monterey to resume a semblance of  normal life, But the soap opera suds pile up sky high. Connie's tormented and frustrated over her forced, phony role as the baby's big sister, as well as Maguire's leaning a tad too heavily into playing the tot's fake mom....(much to Connie's distress...)

           On top of all that, a romantic triangle erupts, with Troy still pining for Connie while she's wooed by a rich boy friend-of-the-family (Bert Convy, later to find more fame as a game show host). And once again, we're faced with that eternal question...... Whatever in the world will poor, put-upon Connie do?

            Well, that's the fun of watching a movie like this in the first place, so I'll not spill details.....except to say it takes a truly shocking soap operatic event to bring the plot complications to some kind of hopeful closure......

           I can't justify 'Susan Slade' as anything other than a BQ guilty pleasure.....and nobody could serve up guilty pleasures like Delmer Daves.  I could never resist any of this director's shameless, deep dives into the luxurious but screwed up lives of handsome, beautiful people with loads of cash and homes to drool over.

           For those of you who feel the same, "Susan Slade"s a 3 & 1/2 star wallow in  technicolored, tempestuous tribulations (***1/2)  (Feel free to say that 5 times fast...)  But if this genre and all its weepy tropes are a bridge too corny and old fashioned for you.....you'd best pass it by......

          

             

'FELLINI SATYRICON'.....FEDERICO'S FABULIST FEVER-DREAM......

 Fellini Satyricon (1969)     In the pantheon of all-time revered and celebrated film directors, you'd still find only a few of them who'd earn the phrase "esque" attached to their last name.......

            'Fellini-esque' became an all purpose adjective for describing any movie with stunning visuals, bizarre people and a circus-like fantasy atmosphere.......in short, any movie that bore no relation to the real world around us, but appeared to spring directly from deep inside the subconscious of its director.

            Given the enormous expense and logistics of making a feature film for a mass audience, few  directors were rarely given the opportunity to go wild 'n crazy and make their own 'Fellini-esque' movie. Too much money on the line and too much pressure for a box-office return-on-investment.....

             Federico Fellini never labored under any such restrictions.......and 'Satyricon', his frenzied phantasmagoria of ancient Rome, stands among his most 'Felllini-esque' excursions into all the dreamscapes escaping from his own head.....

             And it couldn't have arrived at a better time than 1969, where it found a receptive, ready-and-waiting audience among counter-culture youth, still delirious from sitting in the first row during multiple viewings of "2001: A Space Odyssey".......

            And for sheer cinematic splendor, Fellini did not disappoint.....filled with dazzling and disturbing imagery, his Ancient Rome is a galaxy far, far away from the Hollywood Rome of "Ben Hur", "The Robe" and "Cleopatra".   Fasten your seat belt, cause this is a sometime dreamy, sometime nightmarish ride through the alien worlds of Planet Fellini.'

             I wouldn't even begin to explain what you'll see here. It's pointless to comprehend or understand any character or turn or plot that unfolds over the 129 minute running time......just drink it all in........you can always try figuring it out later......or don't bother at all. 

              All through the film, you can sense Fellini casting an amused sardonic eye on his astonishing pageant of a civilization steeped in unbridled sex, depravity, cruelty and violence......and in true Fellini fashion, populated by a vast mob of unforgettable faces....(and bodies....)

              Only true cinema adventurers should have a go at "Fellini Satyricon".....an audience only comfortable with mainstream movies might think they stumbled through somebody's pepperoni pizza-induced bad dream.

                For BQ, a trip to the wondrously strange outer space of Planet Fellini is a 4 star (****) voyage I'd never dream of missing......

'THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN'.....THE LAUREL AND HARDY FROM HELL....BACK TOGETHER AGAIN.

 

The Banshees Of Inisherin (2022)   If you're not willing to buy into the main concept of this film, you might as well stay the hell away from it.......otherwise you'll only end up scratching your head, confused and more than little disgusted and repulsed.  

               With its beautiful, austere landscapes of a supposed remote island off the Irish coast, a viewer might believe they're in for a realistic story.....populated with relatable characters posed against the stunning, but severe, unforgiving scenery.

               Sorry....not that kind of movie. 'Ryan's Daughter' it ain't.  What we have here is closer to an Irish version of a Grimm's Fairy Tale.....or a 'you-gotta-be-kiddin'-me' fable spun by a drunk on St. Patrick's Day....

               If you're willing to dig deeper than that (which means sitting through the film in its entirety) then you might appreciate its final minutes as a sad reflection on the human condition......the constant breakdowns of civility, decency and kindness, leading to everlasting anger, cruelty and pointless violence. 

              Sounds heavy.....and indeed it is, but while its on its path to that nihilistic climax, the movie's liberally seasoned with laugh out loud humor.....honest.  Yes, sometimes it's damn funny......until it's not.

               On this quiet, sparsely populated island in 1923 those living there can hear the gunfire and explosions of the Irish civil war raging on the mainland.   Padraic, (Colin Farrell)  a simple, friendly soul treasures his lifelong friendship with Colm (Brendan Gleeson) a burly old musician-fiddler.

                But Colm, afflicted with what he refers to as 'the despair', longs to utterly lose himself in his music and give up all the repetitive, mundane camaraderie with Padraic.  Terribly wounding Padraic's feelings, he renounces their friendship, declaring his former friend as too dull....nothing but a roadblock to Colm's desperate embrace of his own creativity. 

                Confused and hurt beyond all measure, Padraic keeps after Colm for a logical reason to this unfriending.....until Colm finally threatens to cut off his own fingers if Padraic doesn't leave him alone.

                Yep, you hear that last part correctly........

                And this is the point in the film where you'll either accept this weird, abrupt left turn into semi-horror or roll your eyes and bail out of it altogether......

               If you stay, (which I'd recommend), you'll continue to enjoy the master class in acting and dramatic gut-punches provided by Farrell and Gleeson......(as they famously did in "In Bruges"), Together these two, once again a fatalistic, star-crossed Laurel and Hardy, provide equal measures of hilarity, heartbreak and abhorrent acts of cruelty they live to regret.

               Also, I don't want to forget mentioning the extraordinary performances of the movie's two primary supporting actors....Kerry Condon as Farrell's sister, a book lover desperate to escape the primitive life of Inisherin and Barry Keoghan as the young village simpleton beaten and abused by his father, the island's brutal constable. (Together, Condon and Keoghan share one of the most touching, heart-rending scenes you'll experience in this or any other movie year....)

               And by the time the film arrives at its final scenes, it's clear that the Irish 'troubles' heard from across the ocean, the hatred and the violence, have been replicated on a small scale by these two former friends......(again, you'll either buy into this metaphor or shake your head in disbelief.....)

                At the moment, I can't think of any other film that supplies both overpowering bleakness and whimsical banter in equal amounts......which counts as something of an achievement all by itself. And I'd list it as required viewing before you watch the Oscars, since Farrell's  performance here makes him the most likely serious contender for Best Actor....(as well as Gleeson for Best Supporting Actor.) 

               More than worth checkout out, BQ says book a trip to 'Inisherin' before the gold statuettes get handed out.....you now know enough not to be shocked if the film gives you the finger....or fingers...3 & 1/2 stars (***1/2).

  

               

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS 2023......BQ'S 2 CENTS......

              

 As a movie blogger, I feel compelled to weigh in.....even if there's a load of these films I haven't seen.....or would ever want to see.....

             Since the show won't air till mid-March, I'll get a chance to catch up.....but here's a few random thoughts thrown out......

RRR.......You're kidding me with this?  India didn't even submit it for a Foreign Film Oscar?   Pop quiz....how many people do you think will sit through the other 5 foreign film nominees? Or even heard of them?  Sure, 'RRR's dumb, insane and over-the-top....but it's so sincere in its lunacy...and FUN!

Diane Warren's 14th nomination for best song.....it's just as well the Academy gave her a lifetime achievement award.......she couldn't seem to win even during the years when Diane Warren songs still had a shot at winning......

Everything Everywhere All At Once....I can't possibly pass judgement on this until I do a re-watch. Halfway through, the damn thing started to literally put me to sleep....cause it contained what I despised with every fiber of my being.....f***in' multiple universes.  Nothing, but nothing makes me roll my eyes into a coma faster than multiverses.......but with...what, 11 nominations?  I get back to ya  on this soon.....

Best Actor......as far as acceptance speeches go, I'm praying it's either Colin Farrell or Brendan Fraser. Farrell's speech could be convulsively funny, while Fraser's might leave us all in tears......Austin Butler's Elvis?  Sorry, he's left the building.......

Best Actress ......Michelle Yeoh's acceptance speech could provide the ceremony's most memorable moment. If it's Cate Blanchett, her speech will furnish a good opportunity for a bathroom or snack break......unless wild card Andrea Riseborough turns the tables on both of 'em. Michele Williams? Ana de Armas? No way in hell......

A sudden thought of good news......not the slightest bit of attention paid to Will 'Vessel Of Love' Smith and his attempt at Oscar-bait, redemption, "Emancipation".  ....which means nobody in the Academy swallowed his pathetic, patently phony non-apologies....

The most safe prediction any movie blogger can ever make......Trust BQ, this one's a guaranteed lock. I predict that the show's "In Memoriam" death parade will leave out more than a few vital names of passed-away cinema notables......leaving all of us to revile and excoriate the Academy for their thoughtless careless ignorance..  Remember, you heard it hear first......

The "Elvis" nominations......if you're gonna believe this qualifies for Academy Awards, than the long gone Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey circus should have won multiple Tony Awards for best Drama......but I do hold a special place in my heart for Tom Hanks as Jabba The Showbiz Manager.

And speaking of awards, a special "Drop Dead, you dickless, pathetic bullies" to The Razzies...

         I suppose, once upon a time we could all enjoyably smirk and snicker at the 'Golden Raspberry' awards for movies  actors who sucked to the point of embarrassment. 

         But in keeping with the dark, dark mean-spirited times in which we now suffer through, the Razzie crew chose to torment and bully a 12 year old girl, Ryan Kiera Armstrong,,,,,,,by including her name in their "Worst Actress" category, they're unfairly, cruelly holding her responsible for the rotten 2022 remake of "Firestarter". 

          What a collection of sorry incel assholes these Razzie guys must be.....Memo to Razzies: You rocket scientists do realize that "Firestarter" had a director, a writer and grown up actors, don't you? Wouldn't you think the blame for that crapfest might better fall on them a little more than a child who as 11 years old at the time of its filming? 

          For this particular nomination, The Razzies should award themselves a very special Razzie for themselves......worst, instant drain of humor out of a satirical institution....\     

           No time for further reflection on the Oscars.......BQ's got to get busy watching any nominee we missed....see you all on the Red Carpet....

'PALM SPRINGS WEEKEND'....WARNER BROS' JUNIOR VARSITY ON SPRING BREAK......

Palm Springs Weekend (1963)   Decided on impulse to re-visit this one for a much needed injection of 1960's nostalgia.......

           Released a few weeks before John F. Kennedy's assassination, I think of it in the same way as the bubbly teen musical "Bye Bye Birdie", which arrived earlier in the spring of that pivotal year of '63...(check out the BQ post of 3/22/18 on 'Birdie')

           Both films, fashioned by Hollywood middle-agers, imagine a never-never land of innocent youth existing in a kinder, gentler America.....but these technicolored, cheerful fantasies were on the on verge of being upended.....by assassinations, Vietnam and the revolutionary upheavals in politics, generational clashes and the arts of movies and music.

           But before all this new stuff hit the fan, you could sit back and watch the Warner Brothers JV roster of hunks and cutie-pies they still kept under contract.....top slabs 'o beef Troy Donahue, Ty Hardin and Robert Conrad, along with Connie Stevens, Warner's fun-sized Miss Congeniality. 

           From Columbia Pictures, they borrowed rising starlet Stephanie Powers, probably the only cast member within the supposed 18 to 21 range of the principle characters.......(in the standard tradition of youth movies, everybody else in the cast resided in their upper 20's or low 30's..

           Though taking place in the desert luxury resort of Palm Springs California, the film mostly unfolds on cheap backlot Warner Brothers sets that look borrowed from their many TV shows. A rowdy busload of college basketball players, led by Donahue arrives to party hearty. Befitting 1963, this gang appears well-scrubbed, crew cutted and all white.....

         And the seriously all-white Donahue wastes no time at all falling for Powers, whose stern father (Andrew Duggan) happens to be the Palms Spring Chief Of Police.....(you'd better believe Daddy hits boiling point rapidly at the very thought of beer soaked spring breakers.)

           Meanwhile, a spoiled playboy (Conrad), tormented by the neglect of his wealthy father, puts aggressive moves on Stevens, playing a high school senior masquerading as a drinking-age college girl.  And Conrad's obnoxious entitlement doesn't sit well with his rival in the wooing of Stevens, a good ole Texas boy (Hardin) who's a vacationing Hollywood stuntman. 

              Nothing else much worth talking about here.....I'll not waste time on the cornball, dismal comedy relief provided by Jerry Van Dyke, but 'Twilight Zone' fans will love the presence of 9 year old Bill Mumy, already an instant icon for playing the terrifying God-like brat of the classic "It's A Good Life" episode. (He causes no end of chaos here, but doesn't get to wish anyone away to the cornfield...)

              Everybody else competently performs, with the exception, as ever, of Donahue, the tall blonde non-entity who somehow surfed his way through 60's movies without any discernible talent whatsoever......(you'll want to turn the sound down during his tortuous attempt at singing during the film's main titles.),,,,, as for the wild party scenes, well, unlike the AIP beach party romps, you won't see the girls in skimpy bikinis, dancing like they just got taser-zapped. Warner Brothers outfits all its young beauties in modest two piece bathing suits and they boogie down like arthritis victims.....

               And oddly enough, this lighter-than-air confection was written by Earl Hamner Jr., who'd go on to create the much beloved "Waltons" family drama of the 1970's.  He does throw in a few odd touches here and there.....some surprising sexual innuendo between the story's grown-ups (Jack Weston and Carole Cook) and stranger still... sedation gags!  No kidding, the police chief's wife sedates him to keep him mellow and Van Dyke tries tranquilizing Mumy so he can canoodle with the kid's babysitter.  We can only feel grateful that Hamner kept 'The Walton's roofy-free........

                Also worth noting and a perfect example of the era the film was made.....the appearance of the kind of folk-singing group that became a brief pop music fad of the early 60's.....(later gently wittily lampooned in Christopher Guest's 2002 'mockumentary' 'A Might Wind')

               I honestly wouldn't recommend "Palm Springs Weekend " to anyone except folks like myself  ....who every so often, enjoy a little bit of a 3 star (***) stroll down 1960's memory lane....the people, the attitudes, the fashions......before the world turned all of it upside down......

           

           

'BEST WORST MOVIE'......AN UNLIKELY CAST OF CHARACTERS SUCKED INTO THEIR '15 MINUTES' OF FAME

 Best Worst Movie (2009)   To fully enjoy this fascinating documentary, you'd certainly need to have viewed the infamous, woebegone horror film "Troll 2".....(which BQ covered in yesterday's post).

            Directed by one of 'Troll 2"s principal stars Michael Paul Stephenson, "Best Worst Movie" casts an incisive, sometimes brutal eye on the lives of the fledgling amateur actors who found themselves cast in an Italian-produced and directed movie......filmed in their home state of Utah. 

            As odd as "Italian produced and directed movie in Utah" sounds as a phrase, the end result was even crazier.....filled with fractured, failed attempts at English dialogue delivered with painful embarrassment by its cast, "Troll 2" was an epic fail in every single element of filmmaking......(again I'd recommend you take the time to see the film or read yesterday's post.......cause I don't think I can stomach writing descriptions of this movie again. )

             And then something remarkable happened......

             "Troll 2" in all its maladroit, unintentionally funny glory, was adopted and embraced by horror fans who reveled in and roared with laughter at the film's clueless incompetence. 

              In short, a new cult hit was reborn from its own ashes and its obscure, anonymous cast members and its Italian creators found themselves swept up into a sort of cheerful infamy.......which some of them enjoyed more than others.....

              Front and center in "Best Worst Movie" is George Hardy, the ebullient dentist and "Troll 2" leading man who so thoroughly enjoys his fresh 15 minutes of fame...

              A joyous extrovert who loves life in the spotlight, George's good humor and good sportsmanship about the ghastly "Troll 2" energizes and delights crowds of fans at midnight screenings. Other cast members appear along side him, also joining in the roasting of the film and their own appearances in it. 

              But not everyone celebrates the terribleness of the film.....director and co-writer Claudio Fragasso staunchly believed in the quality of his creation. Appalled at George and the cast's jokery at the expense of his movie, he heckles them at screenings, calling them 'dog actors'.....(which I can only guess was his idea of a withering insult....)

             There are three wonderful and telling sequences in the documentary I don't want to miss mentioning....

               First, a visit with cast member Margo Prey, reduced to living in a small seedy apartment caring for her aging, ailing mother. Unable to attend any "Troll 2" events, she's a sad vision of life ambitions thwarted....but briefly cheered when she and George recreate one of their laughably idiotic scenes together....much to the agony of Margo's ill mom.

               Second, a bittersweet visit with elderly cast member Robert Ormsby, whose dislike of big cities prevented him from ever pursing his primary love of a professional acting career. A solitary, lonely lifelong bachelor, he sits in his cluttered home musing about a life 'frittered away'....a small, but heartrending self-revelation...

              And third.....the effervescent George Hardy's unfortunate visit to a horror movie convention for hardcore fans, his first encounter with such an event. By this time, George's 15 minutes hit its expiration date - the fans, many of them outlandishly outfitted as their favorite horror creations, never heard of George or his movie......

              Reduced to begging the attendees to take interest in the "Troll 2" merchandise table, George's unbreakable. buoyant good spirits finally wilt.....and his basic middle class Americana morality kicks in. Quickly becoming repulsed and appalled at the horror fanbase ignoring him, dentist George carps about their rampant gingivitis and clear lack of flossing.....one of "Best Worst Movie"s most indelible sequences.

               Final word:  for  anyone who took the "Troll 2" plunge and watched the movie, BQ recommends you immediately follow it up with "Best Worst Movie".....a 4 star (****) deep dive into arguably the 'worst movie ever'...and everyone swept up in its wake.  

    

'TROLL 2' .....THE LONG STRANGE TRIP TO CINEMA INFAMY.......

 Troll 2 (1990_   In all of the bizarre, hilarious backstories surrounding this monumentally terrible movie, nobody, to my knowledge ever explained or answered one basic, burning question.....

             Why oh why did shlock Italian director Claudio Fragasso and his co-writer Rosella Drudi shlep an Italian film crew to the middle of effin' nowhere in Utah to make a ludicrous ultra low budget horror movie?

             Sounds like a recipe for disaster, huh?  Or at the very least, one hell of a strange movie. 

             All of the above came true, resulting in a film so relentlessly nonsensical  and unintentionally side-splitting, it became the stuff of legend......and embraced by fanboys and fangirls as a cult disasterpiece.....a perfect storm of awfulness equal to the worst (or best) of Ed Wood Jr. and Herschel Gordon Lewis,  deficient in virtually every single element that goes into making a film. 

             Fragasso, speaking no English whatsoever at the time, cast the film with Utah locals....with the leading man played by town dentist George Hardy, a genial, stagestruck hunk who looked like a throwback to a 1950's star of B-movies. 

              Once assembled, this cast of rank amateur were confounded by Fragasso and Drudi's script, clumsily translated into a kind of broken English that would never  come out of any English speaking person's mouth.  They begged the director to let them ad-lib the script's gibberish into something approaching real American dialogue but he forbid it.......thereby turning every clownish line spoken into an instant hall-of-fame howler. 

              That fractured Italian-ese imitation English contributed to what made the film so cherished and embraced by cultists.....watching low grade community theater actors delivering stilted, convoluted dialogue guaranteed to make a crowd burst into laughter

               But as I said, the acting and dialogue were only the beginning of what went wrong here.....the storyline itself, about a family who falls prey to a town full of goblins, approached almost deliriously stratospheric heights of utter lunacy......and unplanned for hilarity. 

               I could attempt describing sequences in this film, but you'd really need to see them to believe them......such as the vegetarian goblins reducing their human victims into huge puddles of green goo for easier digestion......or the human family's 10 year old child traumatizing the monsters by eating a double bologna sandwich in front of them......or most remembered, dentist-actor George Hardy's immortal rant to his little boy after the kid's urinated  on the family's Goblin-poisoned meal, ...."You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!" 

              No, I swear I'm not making any of this up.......it's all there on film.....green goo, horny teen boys turned into potted plants, a crazed, eye-bugging witch, dwarf Goblins and costumes designed by, of all people, Laura Gemser, the exotic Indonesian sex goddess of softcore Euro-Trash like "Black Emanuelle". 

               The overall effect of this onslaught of absurdity made the film look like it was made by visiting aliens......but not the kind from Italy.....I meant by visitors from another planet altogether. 

               Initially greeted with the derision it practically begged for, "Troll 2" became graced with cinematic serendipity......as bad as it was (and we're talkin' off the scale levels of badness) the film was strangely a joy to sit through....and nobody even cared that the film had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the first "Troll" movie...the title being nothing but a ploy by a studio's marketing department.

           Bottom line: "Troll 2" was hot sauce, five alarm hoot, an off-the-rails experience like no other. 

              And I can vouch for that and well understand how it took its place along side of "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Pink Flamingoes" as one of cult moviegoers' favorite midnight guilty pleasures. There's not minute of it that 's boring, and there's an innocent purity to its unabashed complete lack of even bare minimum filmmaking skills.  It's a movie that exists supremely within its own daffy universe of crazy.  How can you do anything but applaud appreciatively for this odd collection of people trying so hard to entertain you?

                For mainstream cinema viewers, it goes without saying that you shouldn't come anywhere near this film.....for you folks, it could never be anything but a Zero (0) star.

                But for those of us (BQ included) who seek out and clutch misbegotten films like this near and dear to our hearts, it's forever and always a favored 4 star (****) trainwreck.

               But the long strange journey of "Troll 2" wasn't over after the film's release. 19 years later came "Best Worst Movie" (2009)  detailing the sometimes riotous, sometimes weird and sometimes bittersweet and sad history of the film and all its participants.....more on that one tomorrow!

               

'DOLEMITE' & 'DOLEMITE IS MY NAME'....."AND F***IN' UP MOTHER F***ERS IS MY GAME.....".

            Some time ago, I thought it'd be cool and funny to do a double feature post on Ed Wood Jr.'s immortal  "Plan 9 From Outer Space"  and Tim Burton's loving homage to its director,   "Ed Wood"......

              I still do promise those reviews, as soon as I can track down a copy or streaming availability of "Ed Wood". In the meantime, here's almost the exact same thing...... first .the legendarily laughable, but iconic film from Rudy Ray Moore, as tireless, and ambitious a striving creator  as Ed Wood ever was.  And I'm pairing it with "Dolemite Is My Name".... as loving and funny a biographical tribute  to Moore as Tim Burton's affectionate bio of Wood.

Dolemite (1975) was urban, X-rated comedian Moore's breakthrough into the burgeoning pile of 'blaxsploitation' movies that flourished throughout the 1970's.  Produced on a shoestring budget and slapped together with Moore's collection of friends and assorted oddballs, it's an unintentionally riotous experience to sit through........filled with amateur acting and slapdash production values, it more than rivaled and exceeded Ed Wood's output in its sheer ridiculous audacity. 

             But as foolish and silly as the film is, you may find yourself laughing with it as much as you laugh at it.....

             Moore curated and collected urban tall tales from street people to fashion his signature creation, the  rapper/gangster/comedian Dolemite.  Taking no crap from anyone, be it the law or rival hoods, he struts around in spectacular fur-lined outfits while he karates,  kung fu's and shoots down a host of enemies.....and Dolemite's sexual prowess can literally bring the furniture down around his head. 

             And it mattered not to black audiences that Moore's clumsy, arthritic attempts at kung fu kicks rarely made actual contact with his opponents.....or that he and the rest of cast recited their lines much like elementary school students performing at their first class pageant,,,(with clear views of the crew's boom mike hovering over their heads...)

               Moore glided on his own self contained bubble of brazen self-confidence, and no one could resist the obvious enthusiastic joy he took in making the movie, no matter how shipshod it looked And he surely knew how to stop the show all by himself......by launching into one of his X-rated, side-splitting poem-stories punctuated by bongo drumming.  (Watching these two bravura performances in the film, you can see Moore actually birthing the embryonic beginnings of rap music.....)

               More 'Dolemite' sequels and even greater success came to Moore, who passed at age 81 in 2008.  Certainly not forgotten, though......since 44 years after the release of  of 'Dolemite', came-

Dolemite Is My Name (2019)......even with the overload of Rudy Ray Moore's most favored four letter word,  this film's still reminded me of those appreciative, celebratory biographies that Hollywood used to make about its most beloved public figures.

               In perfectly recreating Moore's life story and the rocky road leading him to "Dolemite", director Craig Brewer and star Eddie Murphy deliver everything this saga needs........heartfelt drama, raunchy laughs and yes, a sweet innocence in the depiction of all the folks who hopped on to Moore's rollercoaster ride to fame and fortune.....

                Eddie Murphy seizes and totally owns the role of Moore like it's the role he'd been waiting all his life to play. And who can blame him?  Rudy Ray Moore's life contained everything that goes into the narrative of any creative artist.......dogged perseverance in the face of constant soul-crushing rejection, brutal reversals of fortune in the struggle to achieve one's dreams.....and the joyous satisfaction of ultimate success......

                In case that last description sounds too heavy and pretentious, let me not forget to mention the movie's funny as hell, with a dream cast of supporting comedic actors to back up Murphy ...(including .Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Titus Burgess and Chris Rock).

               And  the film's most surprisingly deadpan, witty turn, comes from Wesley Snipes as D'Urville Martin, the already established character actor ("Rosemary's Baby") who took on the dauntless, constantly chaotic task of directing 'Dolemite'. (as well having rubber intestines pulled out of his stomach while playing Dolemite's nemesis in the film>>>)

                BQ most heartily recommends these films as one brilliant double-whammy to sit through......you can LOL to your heart's content at the raggedy, rowdy 'Dolemite' and then watch with fascination as Eddie Murphy and company brilliantly bring to life the backstory of Rudy Ray Moore and his distinctive first film.  See 'em both and I promise a guaranteed 4 star (****) experience.

               

'TICKET TO PARADISE'......HOW A ROM-COM DEVOLVES INTO A BOMB-COM.....

Ticket To Paradise (2022)     On the surface, anyway, it plays out like a studied, labored attempt to replicate a 90's rom-com.....

              But with its heavy reliance on ugly, mean-spirited behavior from its principal leads, you know right away this could only come out of our current toxic social climate. 

               One big plus for travel agencies......if nothing else, the movie's a gorgeous travelogue for Queensland, Australia, doubling for what's supposed to be the the island of Bali.  Well, the hell with Bali, book me for Down Under.....

               One big minus for the rest of us......the movie itself. 

               I get it. We're all supposed to drool and salivate at the idea of George Clooney and Julia Roberts reunited to strike some comedic sparks.  Cue the big giggles! Cue the romantic fireworks!

               Funny thing about comedic sparks and romantic fireworks......to set some off,, you need an actual comedic script, which this movie painfully lacks. 

              In place of genuine funny stuff (or to imitate said stuff),  the film makes the powerhouse duo play long divorced parents of a daughter (Kaitlyn Dever) newly graduated from law school.  They may adore their kid, but they've spent half a lifetime engaging in exhaustive, rapid fire bickering......amusing to listen to for about maybe 15 seconds tops, but the film proceeds to pound us on the head with the verbal jousts until we beg for mercy.......

                Off a Bali vacation goes Dever, where she falls head over heels for a native seaweed farmer (Maxime Bouttier)  a sweet, gentle, copper-colored creamsicle of a dreamboat. Screw her future as lawyer, they make plans to marry......outraging George and Julia at the idea of their daughter tossing away a future she's worked so hard for.   

                The impending Balinese nuptials force the perpetually sniping couple into not only a cease fire, but forced proximity and a common goal......to thwart the wedding, bring their kid back to her senses and  spirit her far away from Bali and the seaweed dreamboat. 

                 To accomplish all this, they start out with passive-aggressive reverse psychology, but soon resort to cruel pranks, like stealing ceremonial rings to stop one of  Dever and Dreamboat's pre-wedding rituals.....and do I even need mention that none of this is even the least bit comedic?

                This general air of sourness drags on until it's time for the movie, in a last desperate ploy for laughs, to trot out the standard slapstick gags of romcoms set in exotic locations.  So George faces a 'Jaws'-like encounter with a dolphin and Julia has to suck snake poison out of the bitten leg of her much younger, airline pilot boy-toy...(another useless addition to the character list)

                Unfunny to the max, "Ticket To Paradise" veers from these gasping attempts at humor to tedious, falsely emotional 'heart to hearts' between the cast.......it's all so mechanical and boilerplate rom-com, there isn't a minute of real human feeling or any moment that rings true. 

               But oh that wonderful lush sun drenched Australian scenery......for that alone, 1 star (*). For the rest?  Meh......dig out your old Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan DVDs instead.....