'THE LITTLE PRINCE'.....LERNER AND LOEWE SHOW HOW LOW THEY CAN GO.....

 The Little Prince (1974)   While the groundbreaking films and directors of ''New Cinema' shook Hollywood to its very core, the studios still tried  gasping, geriatric attempts at Broadway style musicals ("Paint Your Wagon", "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever", "Lost Horizon").

             Every last one of them crashed and burned, leaving the industry awash in savage reviews, ruined careers and a sea of red ink. 

             As an executive boardroom pitch, I'll admit this must have sounded good. Lerner and Loewe, the fabulously successful composer-lyricist team ("My Fair Lady", "Camelot") writing and scoring a musical version of Antoine de Saint-Expury's classic children's book......and directed by Stanley Donen,  one of the prime maestros of MGM's Golden Age of movie musicals,...("Singin' In The Rain", "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers")

             What could go wrong?  An instant classic, right?   Uh.....well.......

              Let's look on the bright side. Overall, it's modest little effort, clocking in at 90 minutes and with none of the excess baggage and bloat of typical 60's and 70's film musical disasters.

              In fact, it's fundamentally a spare two character piece, interrupted every so often by individual musical comedy turns by solo performers......like vaudeville acts or segments of the Ed Sullivan TV show..... 

              Though none of the Lerner & Loewe songs sprinkled through the movie hold any sticking power, they're sweet and tuneful to hear......and the film's orchestra swells up with emotion, using Frederick Loewe's melodies for the background score. 

              The great, underappreciated Richard Kiley sings his heart out as the 'Aviator' who's crash landed in a vast desert. Once there, he's befriended by the curious (and terminally cute) Little Prince (Steven Warner), a child monarch who dropped in from a neighboring asteroid. 

             The Aviator and Little Prince recall and experience a series of encounters with people and creatures who pop up as metaphors for the follies and pitfalls of the world...a King, a Historian, a General, .a rose, a fox, a snake...etc, etc. .

               If you're thinking this massive attack of twee whimsy would've been much better off as an animated film, you're so right.......and indeed it was, in 2015.. In translating this literally lighter than air tale into live action, Stanley Donen runs out of ideas in a hurry.  When he shoots one of the human caricature sequences with a fish eye lens, you can sense his desperation. 

              The separate vaudeville turns include the gentle-hearted Gene Wilder as a friendly fox and the film's singular, one and only showstopping moment......... 

               It arrives, courtesy of  director-choreographer Bob Fosse as a wily snake armed with Lerner and Loewe's best song, "A Snake In The Grass". Twitching, bumping, grinding with pure unadulterated Fosse-ness, in five breathless minutes, Fosse treats his audience to the very essential essence of his artistry.  And you can easily see how this number reportedly inspired a young Michael Jackson at the time.....

                 The final results of Donen and Lerner & Loewe's efforts came out looking odd and stilted, relying on its Broadway theatricality to cover up its lack of any engaging storyline.  Much like the failed 1967 Rex Harrison musical of "Doctor Dolittle", "The Little Prince"  bored adults and couldn't connect with their kids on any level.

                  For movie musical and Bob Fosse fans only....2 stars (**) For everyone else, a few entertaining spurts that might amuse kids.....but little else.

               

'THE ASPHYX'...WANT TO TRAP A CREEPY SPIRIT AND LIVE FOREVER? WHO YA GONNA CALL?

The Asphyx (1972)   I don't remember too many 1970's horror films with startling,  high concept ideas behind them......they usually stuck to the usual suspects - vampires, werewolves, zombies, aliens, assorted psycho slashers, etc, etc.......

               But let's all tip our hats to this decidedly oddball little gem.....which manages to blend mad science run amuck (and gone awry) with an unforgettable hellish, paranormal entity.

                The film, a slowly paced British affair, drapes itself in pseudo 'Masterpiece Theater' pretentions. Most of it occurs in a gorgeously decorated country mansion, photographed like exquisite portraiture by legendary cinematographer Freddie Young ("Lawrence Of Arabia", "Doctor Zhivago", "You Only Live Twice").

                 For its lead role of an occult-obsessed scientist, the film snagged Robert Stephens(who shined in the title role of Billy Wilder's "The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes".) A far more accomplished actor than this movie deserved, he threw himself into it as if center stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company.  

                 Stephens more than earns his keep playing mid 19th century supernatural science guy, Sir Hugo Cunningham. . He elegantly contributes enough uppercrust gravitas to make you swallow the movie's outrageous, ghostbusting premise..... while photographing people at the moment of death,(including his own son's accidental demise) his images capture 'The Asphyx', a skeletal, shrieking wraith, that represents the victim's soul, making an exit for the Great Beyond or wherever..... 

                  Now fully crazed,  Sir Hugo, aided by his skeptical worried stepson Giles (Robert Powell) poisons a guinea pig but manages to isolate and box up its Asphyx before the animal can die. . With its Asphyx trapped, nothing can ever kill the guinea pig ever again .rendering it immortal.....and a potential threat to pet store profits.  But what a find for mankind! (Heh, heh, heh, heh....)

                 The mad, mad doctor, as you knew he would, can't wait to immortalize humans, starting with himself.  The nervy doc conducts his own electrocution, luckily cutting off the juice just before he turns crispy and allowing Giles to snag his Asphyx. Wow...imagine the hospital bills he'll neve rack up....

                  Now immortal, Robert Stephens gets to rant and rave some more as inevitable calamites pile up and his experiments go.....uh....horribly wrong, to say the least.  I  wish I could tell you this makes for a lot of ridiculous, horrific fun, but the movie, for all the gruesome tragedy on display, never moves out of  low gear, staying stodgy throughout. 

                Even worse, it's bookended by a modern day prologue and epilogue that seems raise all sorts of questions about the movie's own mythology......and finishes up with that obscene curse of 1970 films and TV shows.....the freeze frame.  "The Asphyx" remains odd and weird enough for cult horror fans to seek it out.....but it never really delivers the loony guilty pleasures promised by its high concept. 

                   2 stars (**),  The only good news - the 1970's use of freeze frame endings was not immortal, thank the Movie Godz......

                   

                

                  

'THE STORIED LIFE OF A.J. FIKRY' (BOOK AND FILM)......Surprise, surprise.....the book's better.

 The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry (Book-2014, Film-2022)    Every so often (or if I put it in fluent cliche, "once in a blue moon"), a film adaptation of a book does come along that improves upon its source......a film that we all think of actually better than the book. 

             If I strained my brain hard enough, I could come up with a handful of examples....("Jaws" comes immediately to mind)

             But let's face it, when comparing 99% of book-to-film adaptations.....the book wins. 

             Exhibit A: this book.....this movie.

             What's odd and ironic about this......it's not a case of clumsy, wrong-headed tampering by either the screenwriter or the director. 

               Gabrielle Zevin, the author of the bestselling book, wrote the film's screenplay. And she's unfailingly faithful to all the key elements of her own story throughout. Plot developments, characters, they're all here.

               The director, Hans Canosa,  appears to take no great visual, imaginative or dramatic leaps with Zevin's straightforward adaptation......he serves the screenplay ably enough.

                 And yet even with the elements of the book firmly in place the film never achieves the book's accomplishments......captivating a reader with wit, heart and telling characterizations.

                 While I thought of the book' as a  small, modest treasure, the film just lies there, never quite engaging anyone who watched it.....which maybe explains why it went straight to streaming services. 

                 (The film's music score, however, swells with overly dramatic heartfelt fervor, as if begging you to experience the kind of emotional pull you would have gotten if you read the book first.)

                 Zevin's book borrows the "Silas Marner" trope of a embittered crank humanized by his unlikely adoption of an orphaned toddler.  A.J. Fikry (Kunal Nayyar) the widowed owner of  a bookstore on a scenic New England island, lives a fairly miserable, soured life, made an irascible misanthrope by his wife's passing.  

                  But he rejoins the world with his parenting of a baby girl abandoned in his store and his love of a publisher's sales representative (Lucy Hale) whose favorite book's about a senior who finds love.

                  (Let me stop to point out a casting quibble here. Hale competently takes on the story's secondary role, but she still looks as lacquered and coiffed as a  Disney Channel teen TV star, making her look miscast in the role.....)

                  Quirky characters and even a few plot twists swirl around A.J. and his sweetly precocious adopted daughter, who in adolescence, rapidly matures into a gifted writer herself.  I only wish I could say the film captures your heart with the same precise skill as the book. 

                  The author's screen adaptation does quickly and deftly skim across every turn of the book's plot points.....like a stone pitched across a lake and splashing multiple times. But even while the music's trying to wring tears out of me during the credit crawl, the film left me with impression of having watched nothing more than  a Cliff's Notes description of the book. 

                     "The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry" was not the first bookstore novel steeped in the redemptive power of reading among its bibliophile characters, but as created by Gabrielle Zevin, one of the finest of the bunch. It's a  4 star (****) experience for any lucky reader who picks it up. 

                      The film version duly replicates the story, but stays content to remain in the book's shadow, coming out like an extended 105 minute trailer for the book.  2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)....(I can already envision high school kids viewing the film as quick substitute in submitting a book report)

                       Even if you never get around to seeing the film, by all means, read the book.

                  

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "DEATH & DESTRUCTION!" EDITION

 Trump threatens "death and destruction" if he's charged by the Manhattan D.A. for the Stormy Daniels payoff.....and also calls the D.A. a 'degenerate psychopath', a description which Trump previously used to categorize himself  on his online dating profile  ("You know, he later explained, "girls love it when I grab their pussies and call myself a degenerate psychopath....they appreciate the honesty..."

Trump calls for his MAGA Trumpanzees to flood the streets in protest if he's indicted......with one or two exceptions, the rest of them say, "Uh....nah,,,,,hard pass.....don't think he's ever gonna get the chance to pardon us, will he?....sorry....we've got basketball tickets..."  In a recent Truth Social post, Trump offered 20% off on any Trump trading card to any minion who storms the Manhattan D.A.'s office and attacks police.....("And in addition to the card discount, I'll kick in $50 dollars for your defense attorney fees..."

Melania Trump blanks out the reality of Trump's legal woes as she lives in separate quarters at Mar-A-Lago....."Donald who?" she was heard to mutter, "Never heard of him.....like my jacket says, I don't really care, do U?"

'BABYLON'....AN ELEPHANT IN DESPERATE NEED OF PEPTO-BISMOL,,,,,

 Babylon (2022)   There's two ways the above sub-title of this post serves as an apt description......

               I could use it to refer to the poor elephant in the film's opening scene, who lets loose with a Niagara Falls of diarrhea upon the head of its trainer......a sight you'll never unsee....

                Or I could easily use it as a metaphor for the film itself.......an 3 hour elephantine epic of delusional grandeur, stuffed to the rafters with endless frenzied debauchery......a nearly unwatchable three ring circus laid out like a goulash mixture of Federico Fellini, Ken Russell, Baz Luhrmann and  Quentin Tarantino.

                 Writer-director Damien Chazelle (of "La La Land") wants it every which way with this film.....first, to rub your face in his warped, funhouse-mirror depiction of 1920's Hollywood......blizzards of cocaine, rivers of booze, depraved bachanalles, and gallons of projectile vomiting. Woo-hoo.

                 If you can survive about 2 hours and 45 minutes of that stuff, Chazelle then has the nerve to beg you for an emotional response to his final sequence......a sentimental summing up of the magic of movies and eternal iconography of their images. 

                  Is this guy kidding us or what?  He hopes to wring tears and sighs out of an audience as if they've just been sitting through "Cinema Paradiso"?

                 Trust BQ on this....'Cinema Paradiso' this ain't.....

                   Here's actually what you do sit through before Chazelle lurches into his unearned warm 'n fuzzy 'Aren't Movies Wonderful?!!' finale.......

                   Edited like a music video on meth and accompanied by relentless jazz to a pounding beat, we're thrown into a giant Hollywood party that's more like a trip through Dante's Inferno or maybe hell itself in Milton's "Paradise Lost". 

                    In the middle of this wanton, dissolute bash, we meet the film's leads, silent movie heartthrob Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), drug-addled and ego-crazed wanna-be starlet Nellie LeRoy (Margot Robbie) and ambitious, movie-loving gofer Manny Torres (Diego Calva), eager to work his way up the Hollywood ladder to producer. 

                    As Tinseltown's on the verge of the momentous, earth-shaking switch to "Talkies", the film maintains its feverish, frantic depictions of what was once called "a lunatic asylum run by the inmates" .Damien Chazelle takes that phrase way too literally....

                   There's a lengthy sequence showing the unbridled freewheeling chaos of silent film production in the still undeveloped wilds of California, but like everything else in the movie, it's overlong and overdone......(but then again, that's hold true for almost every scene in the film.)

                    From there it's on the talkies, with Robbie and the crew labor to complete one shot in  one of the first studio 'sound stages'.  Botched take after take, they're all driven to hysterical rage by the initial primitive technology of live sound recording. A bravura sequence alright, but its length almost brings you to the same breaking point as the cast......

                      On and on it goes, with Pitt nobly attempting to bring some depth and subtext to his role. Robbie hurls herself into playing Nellie with perpetual fearless abandon, but it's exhausting to watch her. After awhile, her bug-eyed, top-of-her-lungs portrayal makes her look like she's still doing Harley Quinn in 'Suicide Squad ' outtakes. . 

                       Somewhere around the halfway mark in the running time, "Babylon" finally calms down enough to present at least one well written thought out moment.......in which seen-it-all gossip monger Elinor St. John (Jean Smart) succinctly explains to a crestfallen Jack Conrad that his reign of  movie stardom is as doomed as silent films themselves, but that he'll get to live forever on celluloid.  A beautifully crafted scene and as performed by Smart and Pitt, it's as close to clear, perceptive drama as this film ever gets.

                       As far as the other actors.....I'll save Tobey Maguire any further embarrassment by not going into any detailed description of his ridiculous turn as an ebullient, demented gangster whose a big fan of a hellish hunk who chomps down on live rats.  Please......don't ask. If only Maguire had been content with his credit as one the film's co-producers.....(more than of enough of a stain on his IMDB credits)

                      I suppose all avid movie buffs should subject themselves to 'Babylon' at least once. For those of you who prefer not to stray off the path of mainstream movies.....you'll need courage, patience, and strong stomach if you dare to endure it. Be afraid. Be very afraid.   1 star (*).

                        

'HATCHING'.....A TORMENTED TWEEN INCUBATES A TWIN..... AND 'ID' WON'T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER....

 Hatching (2022)      Just thinking abou the sheer amount of horror movies available to stream these days exhausts me.

              Maybe because this country and the world's going to hell in a hurry accounts for me avoiding most of them. Who needs artificial horrors when you can spend all day on news sites  reading about real ones....

               I'm willing to sit still for exceptional horror films.....the ones that manage, one way or the other to rise above the crowd, either by their high quality or the sheer outrageousness of their conception....(yes, Megan and Cocaine Bear, I'm talkin' to you....)

                Caught wind of this one when I watched director Joe Dante rave about it on 'Trailers From Hell'. And he hit the nail exactly: it's a sick, twisted little dazzler out of Finland.......a freaky fairy tale that toys with multiple psychological metaphors while steeped in old school Cronenberg-ian body horror.

                "Hatching" pulls off quite a balancing act.....while all its gruesome twists, and blunt Freud-ian symbolism seem so obvious, director Hanna Bergholm brings these tropes together with some some stunning skilled manipulative artistry. 

                  And the film's determined, startling use of live-on-the-set, practical physical effects gives it an immediate punch-in-the-gut quality. No CGI animated creatures in sight here......we're taken back to the glorious territory of John Carpetenter's "The Thing"..

                 In dazzling sunlight, we're presented with a perfectly pristine blonde Finnish family. But their dysfunction runs deep. Mom (Sophia Heikkila) is a smiling, self-absorbed  horrorshow all to herself, using her family as  nothing more than fodder for a popular family'vlog'. The star of her show is tween daughter Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) whom she's relentlessly pushing to become a champion gymnast. 

                 This control-freak, helicopter mom, whose permanent fixed grin conceals her iron will, even cheerfully butters up her daughter when the poor kid catches gets winds of Mom's affair with the hunky handyman. 

                 Mom kills a black crow that had the temerity to crash into one of her vlog sessions, but this screeching,  sturdy bird's right out of Poe. It survives long enough to lay an egg, which Tinja finds and keeps dark and warm in her bedroom.

                 The egg, soon grown to the size of a suitcase, hatches into a spindly, grotesque caricature of a bird. (A wonderful animatronic achievement). Tinja bonds with the creature as if it's an oversized pet, but the thing's really nothing less than evocation of herself. -  once out the the bird-chrysalis stage, it transforms into Tinja's  doppelganger Id. And this newly born(or hatched) twin is a fierce, feral creature, sharing Tinja's repressed frustrations and rage....and more than willing to wreak bloody hell on those who anger her sister.

                 Fans of classic films can easily recognize Tinja's plight as no different than Dr. Jeckyll or even  Walter Pidgeon's Dr. Morbius of "Forbidden Planet"....haunted and dominated by an uncontrolled alter-ego who mirrors their every subconscious, murderous impulse.  Or a viewer can simply enjoy the film as a deeply satirical metaphor for teen angst, female empowerment......or obnoxious, social media influencers getting a long overdue rake-over-the-coals. 

                Clever, gory and perfectly calibrated,  "Hatching" hit the horror sweet spot for me. You can debate among yourselves as to whether it deserves inclusion into that new rarified genre of  'elevated' horror. (Maybe that brilliantly designed, squawking, screaming bird monster disqualifies it, but I loved Birdie dearly....she reminded me of 'The Giant Claw', one of the funniest sci-fi creatures of the 1950's)

               Essential, required viewing for avid horror-meisters.....a good egg for sure. 4 stars (****).

'BOSTON STRANGLER'..... MURDER VICTIMS AND A MOVIE, BOTH GASPING FOR AIR....

 Boston Strangler (2023)   If you take this film apart minute by minute, there's nothing especially bad about it......

              Competently acted, professionally put together. Every so often it succeeds in its dedicated efforts to maintain an atmosphere of creepy dread. 

               Put all of its elements together, you still end up with less than the sum of its parts. 

                Before even halfway into it, I could already identify it as a worn out, tired, less than inspired imitation of "Zodiac". 

                  Same depressive green-gray photography. Some low volume music murmuring over the soundtrack, clueing you in that terrible things are happening......or will happen. 

                   Everything's in place, so we must be in for an unsettling, near horrific rendition of a true events. 

                   But when the final credits roll, prepare to sit there unmoved, knowing you've just semi-slept through a machine-tooled, studied replica of some infinitely better feature films......(take you pick - "Zodiac",, "Silence Of The Lambs", "Seven"..... yada, yada, yada......)

                  So why sit through this story again, if you've already viewed Richard Fleischer's 1968 "The Boston Stranger"? That's the one famous for its use of the the then faddish split screen sequences and Tony Curtis's surprising third-act appearance as Albert DeSalvo, the hulking brute accused and convicted of all the strangulations. 

                   The new film reveals the truth of the matter (multiple stranglers) was actually dug up by a pair of dogged women reporters (Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon)........with the two women forced to labor under the withering, condescending and combative eyes of both their editors and the Boston Police department. 

                    As I said before, I can't fault the components here. But the movie never catches fire, or ever develops its own pulse.  No real sense of urgency, no juice......the film's content to steep itself in an ominous, self-satisfied cloud of gloom, thinking that'll be enough to grab a viewer.

                     It isn't.  2 stars (**), never more than barely okay. 

'FATHER OF THE BRIDE'.....NIGHT OF THE LIVING WED.....

 Father Of The Bride (2022)    Anyone who fondly remembers the two 1990's comedies with Steve Martin and Diane Keaton can forget waiting for this one to ever repeat their combination of sentiment and laughs........

            This film, steeped in Latino culture and grimly propelled by Andy Garcia's portrayal of a wealthy self-made asshole is a sour affair from beginning to end. 

             Garcia quickly wears out the "I-came-from-nothing-but-look-at-me-now" shtick playing a Miami Beach architect who repeatedly alienates everyone involved in his oldest daughter's upcoming nuptials. Even before his cringe-filled tirades outrage and wound the wedding party participants, his long suffering wife (Gloria Estefan) has already decided to divorce him. 

              Since his intractable ,obnoxious behavior is the engine powering the plot, it's hard to figure out why anyone would subject themselves to this movie.  Almost entirely devoid of laughs, by the time the film lurches toward its unearned, abrupt happy ending, you feel relieved when it's over.....

              Yes, indeed, it's welcome to see an entirely Latino story and cast.....including an fledgling talent whom I consider this film's one and only MVP, young Isabela Merced as the family's live-wire younger daughter. But why a stale remake?  And why so unnecessarily unpleasant all the way through?  

               I'd rather not waste any more precious time on this.  If you crave a Father-of-The-Bride movie that badly, go back and watch the Martin-Keaton movies......give this one a hard pass. 1 star (*)

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL "ROOTIN' FOR PUTIN' EDITION.....

 The bank failures.......Explained one bank's CEO...."In retrospect, I felt a little uneasy when the tech bros repaid our loans with 80 billion dollars in bitcoin and advance peeks from Iik Tok influencers..."

Governor Ron DeSantis refers to the war in Ukraine as a "territorial dispute".......and also blamed Ukraine's women and children for foolishly getting in the way of Russian bombs ...Said the Governor, "those Ukrainian kids left alive should think Putin, cause at least there's a lot more room for them on the playgrounds with less kids...."

Jim Jordan's Subcommittee can't seem to uncover any major revelations.....However, Jordon declared he'll show evidence that in the film "The FBI Story", James Stewart was NOT a real FBI agent but only an actor pretending to be one......more shockers to come.....

George Santos files paperwork to seek re-election....Santos also promised he would file lawsuits to re-instate his Nobel Peace Prize  and give Best Picture Oscar to the film he claims opened in 3000 theaters nationwide last year, "Every Lie, Everywhere, All At Once"

Georgia Gran Jury hears yet another Trump phone call where he put on pressure to overturn the election of Joe Biden.....according to one anonymous juror, Trump can clearly be heard promising thousands of My Pillow coupons to legislators who'll find him more votes........

'TOP GUN - MAVERICK'.....THE LAST MOVIE STAR ONCE AGAIN DELIVERS.....CAUSE HE'S OUR 'MOVIE-TOM'.....

 Top Gun Maverick (2022)    Couldn't help chuckling over the kerfluffle about Tom Cruise's absence from the Oscars.....

              Why would he even bother showing up?  Isn't it enough that he's the only actor left in the movie star firmament whom people would leave their homes to line up at the multplex to watch him?

               Isn't it enough that he's the last practitioner of crowd-pleasing, "big tent' entertainments that don't give us migraines trying to understand their endless multiverses?

                And yet.....for all of his box-office dominance, we've split Tom Cruise into two separate entities......one we can't get enough of and the other we don't even want to think about.

                We've divided him by Cruise the beloved movie star and Cruise the prominent public face of Scientology, the world's most sinister, creepy, quasi-religious cult, a vast shadowy organization of brainwashed kool-aid drinkers. 

                 As he hurls about the skies in fighter jets or dangles from planes and skyscrapers in his "Mission Impossible" series, we happily shake our heads in awe and disbelief......and forget that this is a guy whose last ex-wife practically had to engineer a prison break to escape him. and his cultists. 

                 For movie audiences, he remains Tom Terrific, flashing a 1000 watt smile while still performing  hair raising stunts even into middle age.   Other movie stars, we can take 'em or leave 'em and easily wait for their movies to hit streaming.               

                 But Movie-Tom, he's another deal altogether.......he's the guy who'll make us put down the remote, turn off the streaming apps and head for the theater.....

                 As if he well knows why people turn out for him, he never, ever disappoints the folks still willing to open their wallets to buy movie tickets. He never fails to serve us up a ten course meal of dazzling spectacle......a simple, easily digested spectacle, minus the convoluted gibberish and self satisfied snark of any typical Marvel movie. 

                  "Top Gun: Maverick", arriving 36 years after the original 'Top Gun' is in every way, a perfect replica of director Tony Scott's massive blockbuster.......loud, slick, heartfelt but with even higher tech and more action on display. The only thing you'd find missing - Scott's signature visual style, all those sunset-sunrise sequences drenched in deep orange......

                   The same supporting roles of the first film are more or less cleverly reconfigured into new characters. James Tolkan, Cruises's fuming, apoplectic commanding officer is now played with a slow burn simmer by Jon Hamm.  In a brilliant twist of plot, Cruise's kind and patient mentor, previously played by Tom Skerritt, is now none other than his one time rival flyer 'Iceman', who's worked his way up to Admiral and again played ,poignantly, by the now aging and unwell Val Kilmer. 

                    And naturally, as we'd all expect, the new of batch young, arrogant, hotshot naval aviators are a diverse bunch in both race and gender.  What hasn't changed.......the vague identity of whatever rogue nation dares to upset the world order, too stupid to realize they're literally Cruise-in for a bruisin' . (Given the unknown enemy here is on the verge of getting their own nukes, you can assume it's Iran, North Korea or maybe Ron DeSantis declaring Florida as  sovereign state. 

                     I don't think any further description is necessary. Like most Tom Cruise movies, it hums and roars along, a well oiled machine engineered to make you gasp, cheer and munch tubs o' butter popcorn until cholesterol floods out of your ears.

                     Maybe it's just as well we don't see Tom Cruise on talk shows or on orgies of ego like the Academy Awards.  Seeing a real life Cruise would remind me of how he's so joined at the hip with a weird, repellent organization, famous for psychologically abusing its members. 

                   But not our Movie Tom.....we want him up on that huge wide screen, larger than life. You know why?   When he helps in the creation of a 4 star (****) Tom-o-palooza like "Top Gun: Marverick", we can temporarily view films just like audiences did in Hollywood's golden age......mesmerized and entranced by the flickering images of movie stars.....who are nothing at all like the flesh and blood actors in reality.

                      He's better off remaining the Tom Cruise who so ably entertains us....existing as a projected image on movie screen.....and tirelessly making 'Top Gun Maverick' a 4 star (****) experience.....

SANDY QUILL'S GOT MORE OF THE HOTTEST NEW BESTSELLING BOOKS REVIEWED.! CHECK OUT BQ'S BROTHER BLOG!

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'WOMEN TALKING'.... BATTLEFIELD SURVIVORS OF A HORRIFIC PATRIARCHY

Women Talking (2022)     How does one create a universal, raw, bleeding snapshot of women suffering at the hands of men?

                 Director Sarah Polley sure as hell knew the answer......find a specific group of women thrown together in one confined space, all of them forced into debating their core beliefs.....and boldly deciding on their own future fates, a privilege unheard of for them. 

                   Next step......assemble a stellar cast of gifted actresses to engage with each other while representing the collective courage of womanhood living with the constant, violent threat from a patriarchal society imprisoning them.. 

                   To put together all these elements she'd need for such a film, Polly used a novel based on a bizarre true event - a group of Mennonite women choosing to rebel against an onslaught of rape from the men of their religious sect. 

                   Gathered together in a barn, they've narrowed down their choices to three options......stay and do nothing, stay and fight against any further assaults.......or flee the sect altogether, taking along their children who've also been brutally victimized.

                     With this set of strange, one-of-a-kind circumstances in place, Polley presents her ensemble of actresses a golden opportunity to run through a full gamut of rage, resignation, and even a few moments of dark humor. 

                   In fact, these woman become so compelling, so fiercely intelligent in their portrayals, they undo the premise of the film. After listening to them for over an hour and a half, it's hard for me to swallow that they've fully bought into the cult's unforgiving commandment - that if they leave the group, they give up their place in heaven. 

                    Not only that, given the obscene abuse they and their children have been subjected to, why would they need to debate fleeing as fast as humanly possible?  If this bonkers cult has so scrambled their brains, turning them into kool-aid drinkers who think rape's part of their daily duties, why would they even bother discussing options at all?..... just sayin'........

                    As much as I deeply admire the work done by the film's cast, I couldn't help asking myself all of those above questions........and certainly the film's measured pace and non-stop conversation gives a viewer plenty of time to contemplate those issues. 

                     Not an easy film to sit through......and problematic on all those multiple levels.  But cinephiles will savor the vast skill of the performances and  shouldn't let this one get past them......3 stars (***). .  

OSCARS WRAP-;UP......AT LEAST WE'RE NOT CALLING IT THE OSCARS SLAP-UP......

The Academy Awards Show 2023  

                Some random thoughts.....and rants.....

Jimmy Kimmel as host....other than a few misguided moments, did just fine. Probably earned himself hosting this as a steady gig, like Billy Crystal, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson....

Best Kimmel gag -  the very last one, adding a total of "1" to the 'Academy Awards Without Incident' warehouse safely sign......

Worst Kimmel moment.....attempting a lame comedy bit with Malala, who perfectly shut him down....when some non-entity comedian tried a similar dumb bit with the "Tar" bunch at the Independent Spirit Awards, they hid under a table.  Without a table to hide under, Malala replied, "I only speak of peace"....good for her. 

Elizabeth Banks presents with Cocaine Bear......if you want an actual real example of what "Cocaine Bear" would've looked like without 21st century CGI, check out John Frankenheimer's 1979 "Prophecy", about a mutant bear created by mercury poisoning in the water.(or see BQ's post of  6/15/17.......

Disney, ABC's owner, throws in a "Little Mermaid" trailer.....thereby turning the Oscars into the MTV Movie Awards.  

The Kevin McCarthy-Tucker Carlson Alternate Reality Award goes to.....the Warner Brothers ad touting their long glorious history in a clips montage......which now includes MGM's "2001", "Singin' In The Rain" and "The Wizard Of Oz".  I guessing when Disney does an ad like this, they'll include Fox's "The Sound Of Music" and "The Grapes Of Wrath" to their parade of Disney produced classics.

The "In Memoriam" Death Parade trainwreck.....this more than fulfills the only 100% safe prediction I make every year about the Oscars......and the Academy never, ever disappoints....you can always, always depend on the show to deliver an obituary sequence that's offensive, poorly presented and staggering in its stupid, glaring omissions. 

Hugh Grant runs out of patience with model Ashley Graham's usual inane red carpet questions.....one of the most priceless, cringe-worthy pre-show moments  ever. ("What are you wearing?" "My own suit")  Grant compares the gathering of celebs to Vanity Fair and Graham thinks he's referring to the after-party thrown by Vanity Fair magazine.....a keeper of a moment, this one.....

The David Byrne musical number from "Everything Everywhere All At Once" .....where do I even begin with this?   A toss-up as to what's more atrocious.....the song itself or its embarrassing presentation.  Funny, though......it looks like an "America's Got Talent" episode where the judges hit their "get-the-hell-out-of--here-you-no-talent-dorks" buzzers......

The "Naatu Naatu" dance number from "RRR"  As sure as I knew the "In Memoriam" would suck beyond all belief, I knew this number would stop the show and rock the Dolby Theater to the upper balconies. And in what freakin' world does "RRR" end up not even competing among the "Best Foreign Film nominees?   It's pacing, spectacular action  and overall frenzied craziness make "Everything Everwhere" look like an oil painting.....

The 'Everything Everywhere All At Once  awards sweep.....With one exception, I stand by my evaluation of this film in last week's post of 3/7/23.  I do admire a lot of stuff in it, but in no way, not in  this world or any other does it qualify as a Best Picture Of The Year. 

               The exception I've changed my mind on.....Ke Huy Quan winning Best Supporting Actor.  Comparing his performance to the other nominees......sorry. Nope, but any of the other nominees do more skilled, nuanced work than Quan. Sadly, none of them had a real shot against EEAAO's  zeitgeist tornado blowing everything and everyone out of its way.

             The passage of time, as I've pointed out, will ultimately judge this film -  especially if, in subsequent years, we're lucky enough to see the Oscars dominated by films that both critics and popcorn munchers can equally embrace. Films like "Chinatown", "The Godfather", "Silence Of The Lambs" and "Titanic". 

                 If such films come to exist, I expect we'll compare them with EEAAO...and do it harshly.......and we may very well ask ourselves why the world lavished it with such praise and prizes. 

                Time will tell, kids.....time will tell. 

Speaking of banning people from ever attending the Oscars ever again.....the idiot white collar woman.....

               Anyone sitting behind her should've demanded a pair of industrial strength scissors......

And the show itself?   Well, nobody slapped anybody, so that's a plus. And the thought of not seeing Will Smith at one of these things for another nine years does cheer me up. Also, including all the technical awards again was a good idea.......but stop trying to play them off with music.....there's no way they'll ever get this show to come in under 3 hours.....so just let it ride as long as it has to.. Let Oscars be Oscars.