'AGENT 8 3/4 (HOT ENOUGH FOR JUNE).......DOUBLE-O DIRK CZECH-MATES THE COMMIES.......

Agent 8 3/4 (a.k.a. Hot Enough For June (1964)    Allow BQ, if you will, to wax nostalgic for a few moments.......

             Back in our younger days of moviegoing (the Jurassic Era), we fondly remembered the little Green Hill theater in our home town of Philadelphia.....

              What a particular niche this theater carved out for itself........exclusively showing British comedies of the 1950's and early 60's.....the very best of Peter Sellers Terry-Thomas, Norman Wisdom and of course, the "Carry On" comedies.......

                 Our first visit there was a viewing of "Carry On Cabby".....and a packed house roared at the mildly naughty double-entendre gags and jokes older than my own grandfather.....("Have an accident?" "No thanks, I just had one...")   We were hooked for life and the Green Hill's movies most likely began our path as a lifelong anglo-phile.

                Apart from the raucous hijinks of the "Carry On" gang, British comedies excelled in sly, wry understated humor, uniquely British and with a deadpan panache we American audiences rarely saw in our own homegrown movies.  And just as "Goldfinger" was about to kick off a world wide James Bond frenzy, who better to lightly spoof espionage thrillers than the Brits themselves.....       

             Even before U.S and European. studios could hop on the Bond-wagon and start pumping out their own secret agent imitations, the Rank Organisation had already beat them to it with this nifty little mixture of martini dry spoofery mixed with genuine spying suspense. 

             Originally titled "Hot Enough For June" (after its secret greeting code phrase) the film arrived in 1965 on U.S. shores as 'Agent  8 3/4".....and for the first two thirds of it, the film does live up to that obviously jokey title. 

             NIcholas Whistler (Dirk Borgarde) is just an everyday, unemployed struggling writer until he takes what he thinks is a mundane but strangely well paid position at a glass manufacturing corporation. Since he speak Czech, he's sent off to Prague for what he thinks is a tour of glass factories......

             Whistler's got no idea his imperious boss Cunliffe (Robert Morley,, always a delight) is actually an MI6 spymaster who's deploying him as a 'useful idiot' courier to collect a secret formula from a Brit deep cover agent...(hence the use of the "hot enough for june" phrase).

             Once arrived in Prague, he also doesn't know that his gorgeous government driver Vlasta Simoneva (the luscious Syva Koscina) is the daughter and empoyee of an implacable Soviet spymaster (Leo McKern).....and the Reds already know who sent him and what he's up to.....

              What no one counts on.......Whistler's smarter than he appears and given to surprisingly clever, impulsive moves when his back's up against the wall. It's as this point that the film abandons the tongue-in-cheek tone to transform, in its last third, into an honestly nail biting hunt-and-chase thriller. 

              We loved all of it, both the laughs, the real HItchcockian suspense and that incredible supporting cast of our favorite Brits....(John Le Mesurier, Jahn Stsanding, Frank Finlay, Eric Pohlmann, Richard Vernon and so many others.....)

               Borgarde, one of the U.K.'s biggest stars possessed the versatility to handle both the subtle satire and dead serious drama the film requires of him. But for hardcore anglophiles, nothing beats the sight of those two Brit treasures, Morley and McKern paired up in scenes together. They're pure joy to watch playing the British and Communist frenemy spy chiefs, each one long familiar with the other's dirty tricks. 

              And let's not forget the dessert topping of including the stunning international starlet Koscina who starts out as a strict Commie Ninotchka, but before long, dazzles us with the sight of her in a bikini.....

             After all these years and all the secret agent knock-offs we've sat through, 'Agent 8 3/4' still remains a gentle little gem....4 stars (****)

               

               

'OCTAMAN'.....8 ARMS TO HOLD YOU.....AND HE'S NOT SQUIDDIN' AROUND.....

 Octaman (1971)     Sorry for this bad news.......but the guilty pleasure, unintentionally hilarious fun this movie promises never happens. 

           You'd think a horror film about an ambulatory octopus-man would deliver gobs of cheesy laughs.

           Uh-uh.  Plenty of cheese, but a dreary painful experience to sit through for all sorts of reasons. 

            Let's start with cheap. Then more on to poorly photographed, haphazardly edited and barely acted by a cast made up of unknown non-entities and a few weary pros at the tail end of their careers.

 

             Not that it didn't have potential. Its writer-director was Harry Essex, the co-writer of the immortal "Creature From The Black Lagoon".

             Octaman himself came from makeup wizard Rick Baker ("American Werewolf In London", "Star Wars", "It's Alive").

             And the cast boasted three familiar faces......Harryhausen monster-slayer Kerwin Matthews ("The 7th Vogage of Sinbad"), 1950's sci-fi hero Jeff Morrow ("This Island Earth", "The Giant Claw") and international starlet of the 50's-60's Pier Angeli ("Merry Andrew", "Somebody Up There Likes Me", "Sodom and Gommorah")

             So what went wrong?  Why's the film such a clumsy amateurish mess?

              Essex cobbled his script as a more or less remake of "Black Lagoon" pitting a bunch of adventurers against a semi-humanoid aquatic monster. But he'd never directed a film and didn't have a clue about how to create an effective horror movie with a poverty level budget. 

              Rick Baker, just starting his career, managed to slap together a Halloween Shop worthy Octaman suit, complete with dangling tentacles. But the film puts the monster on display way too much and in broad daylight, accentuating its silliness. If anything, Octo-wussy looks like one of those man-in-suit rubber monsters who pummeled Ultraman or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

               As for the actors.....Matthews, now gray-haired, appears barely interested. Morrow, in what amounts to an extended cameo, shows the same 'just-sign-the paycheck' so-I-can-get-back-to-the-golf-course' indifference. 

               Saddest of all is Pier Angeli, who at 39, was already too old to play a screaming ingenue in a monster movie.  Since her role's the equivalent to that of Julie Adams in "Black Lagoon", she's forced to wriggle and squirm as Octaman carries her away....(presumably to become his Octo-Bride and then later an Octo-Mom.)  Shortly before the film opened, she committed suicide with barbituates.

              If it's laughs you're hoping for, the movie offers precious few.....such as Matthews and company RVing it through the wilds of Mexico and spotting an African leopard. Then again, there's always the sight of Octaman in full rampage, flailing his rubber tentacles like styrofoam swimming pool noodles.

             Those seeking a beer 'n popcorn giggle-fest would be better off hunting down the MSTK3000 episode devoted to the film.  Otherwise, you'll have to make up your own jokes at Octaman's expense.....hardly worth the effort....Zero stars (0).

              

LEAVE NO TRACE....HOMEGROWN WACKOS TOPPLE LADY LIBERTY....WHO WILL STEP UP TO STOP THEM?

  Leave No Trace; A National Parks Thriller by A.J. Landau, Jeff Ayers and Jon Land (2024)

        Calling all armchair thrill seekers. This one's as good as it gets.

        Talk about monumental villainy......literally. How about toppling the Statue of Liberty by blowing the immortal Lady right off her perch, killing hundreds of innocent tourists.

         And the vile odious perpetrators are just getting started - with similar catastrophes planned for National P:arks all over the country, followed by an apocalyptic attack designed to kick off a civil war. A ;mad, mad General and an equally unhinged loon have managed to unite the various factions of right=wing militia groups into one massive army......and their convention of crazies stands assembled and ready.

         But these so called 'patriots' didn't count on the unstoppable Good Guys on our side....National Parks Special Agent Michael Walker and FBI Special Agent Gina Delgado.

        Resourceful and fearless in the face of the formidable enemies arrayed against them, this powerhouse duo separately brave and endure one spectacular, harrowing assault after the other. I don't want to spoil anybody's fun by over-detailing the lethal dangers put in their path, so let's just put it this way - you won't be able to turn the pages fast enough. And fair warning.....it's the kind of book if you start in the evening, you may find yourself greeting the dawn while racing through the final chapters.

        Believable? I'll admit the feats accomplished by Michael and Gina are dialed up to "Die Hard" cinematic levels, but the ripped-from-the-headlines villains and their warped ideologies sound all too real, current and terrifying.

        As much as I enjoyed 'Leave No Trace' as a breathless, mile-a-minute throwback to those 1980's and 90's action adventure films, I can only hope it's not a prescient preview of coming attractions. But since it's the first in a series I'll assume Agents Walker and Delgado will stay on duty to bring well deserved doom to those homegrown enemies of America. And that their feats remain fictitious only......5 stars (*****)  Try this one for your latest sit down adrenalin rush...

'DREDD'.....IN THIS DYSTOPIAN WORLD, YOU'RE BETTER OFF DREDD....

 Dredd (2012    Here's another one we decided to catch up with upon hearing it was soon going bye-bye-bye on Netflix. 

            Relax, if you think we'd attempt a laborious comparison with Sylvester Stallone's "Judge Dredd" a 1995 attempt to bring this comic book hero to the big screen. Our only dim memory of it -  just another generic sci-fi/action movie coming off the studio sausage factory assembly line...

           Chances are, even Stallone forgot about that one's existence.          

           Let's just deal with "Dredd" a far more fanboy-friendly attempt in its single-minded dedication to dystopian nihilism and splattering carnage. 

           This movie presents a future so incredibly bleak, we could only wonder why everybody hadn't already killed themselves.   What's left of planet Earth is either ruined or part of a perpetual urban sprawl. Now the whole world's a big city slum, with terrified humans living in towering slum housing developments. ruled by trigger-happy psycho gang lords.....

          Law 'n order, as well as courts, trials sentencing and punishment is left in the hands of fearsome Terminator-style 'Judges', supercops authorized to instantly, function as judge, jury and executioner when called upon.  Door Dash justice, delivered right to your front door. 

           Stopping to provide deliverable rule-of-law to one of these mega-slums comes Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) and fresh-out-the-academy rookie Anderson (Olivia Thirlby)  Anderson's not much of a cop, but she's valued for her extraordinary psychic powers.....

           No sooner do Dredd and Anderson arrive when the complex's entire criminal population turn out to welcome them..... not with a gift basket but with enough firepower equal to two or three of George W. Bush's recreational middle east wars.  

            Running the show is the building's  QueenPin, Ma-Ma. (Lena Headley), horribly disfigured and way, way into the psycho danger zone.  You have to admire Ma Ma's obsessive determination to smear the walls with Dredd.......especially when she wields a 50 caliber machine gun to vaporize an entire floor of the apartment building.....along with its men, woman and children residents.

            Yet despite the odds weighing heavily against them, you just know that Dredd and psychic-cutie will plow through throngs of Ma Ma's disposable minions like a threshing machine in a wheat field.  

           And so they do......with many carnage-cam closeups of point-blank, flesh shredding gunfire. The red stuff flows in gallons, coming close to that legendary tsunami that erupted from the elevator's in "The Shining". 

            We've no real ax to grind against this movie.....for what it is and what it sets out accomplish, it's efficient as hell.  It's provides the same kind of unencumbered adrenalin rush as the comic book it's based on and hardly ever stops for those pesky pace-killing aspects......like character development. 

            In a way, we admire its determination to let nothing impede its great worship of splatter, slaughter,  and the sheer thrill of watching dystopian scumbags perish in geysers of their own life's blood. 

            Let's face it, , there's not a dull minute anywhere in the entire film.......which is far more than we can say for some of the so-called Academy Award nominees we suffered through. 3 stars (***)

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL 'GOLDEN SNEAKERS FIRE SALE' EDITION.......

 

Trump relates Navalny's murder to his legal woes, unable to bring himself to say anything bad about Putin....."My good compadre Vladdy wouldn't hurt a fly, I love how he's making Russia great again....one body at a time...."

The GOP, once the scourge and enemy of Russian dictators, continues to stall on aid to Ukraine......prompting Vladimir Putin to send 50 cases of vodka and caviar to Speaker Of The House Mike Johnson, with a card reading, "Drink up, my beloved useful idiots, I love you so much...."

Trump tries selling wildly overpriced Trump sneakers in his latest desparate attempt to fleece his supporters to pay his mounting fines, debts and legal fees.....the ex-President's first big sneaker sale lifts his spirits......a hundred pairs purchased by Ringling Brothers circus for their clowns........

New York Attorney General Leticia James announces she'll seize Trump's buildings if he can't pay the fines levied against him...causing Trump to immediately erect a barricade around Trump Tower.....made up entirely of empty KFC chicken buckets.........

Trump's golden sneakers mocked without mercy on social media....Trump expresses outrage that North Korea's Kim Jung Un revoked his initial order of1000 pairs ("They make me look fat...") as well as the Ku Klux Klan, China's President Xi and Pillow Guy Mike Lindell ("same reason"....)

'BLOCKERS'.....A TURD SALAD WITH RAUNCH DRESSING.......

 Blockers (2018)    A week or so ago, BQ came across one of those breathless internet stories whose headline read ...NETFLIX SUBSCRIBERS1 TIME RUNNING OUT TO SEE THESE MOVIES BEFORE THEY'RE GONE FEBRUARY 29TH1

             In our never ending search for blog post material, we decided to take some time to check on a few of these titles due to depart the streaming service......particularly the ones that for some reason or other flew under our radar......

             We only wish "Blockers" had flown so low under our radar, it would remain non-existent forever .

             Co-produced by Seth Rogan, it's a dire, woeful stab at the kind of raunchy comedy that combines horny teens and idiotic adults......all of them thrown together in one frenzied 24 hour period. 

             We're invited to laugh uproariously at three high school senior girls (Katherine Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon), besties who've made a pact to lose their virginity on Senior Prom Night.  But hot on their trail to thwart them are a couple of overprotective parents (John Cena, Leslie Mann) These supposed adults are driven to lunatic heights of humiliation in their quest to 'cock-block' their daughters dates from whippin' out their tube-steaks. Joining the hunt, but only in the interests of making sure his little girl does get some lovin' on her big night is her dad (Ike Barinholtz) a motor-mouthed divorcee only a tad saner than Cena and Mann...but not much.

             The film forces all the unfortunate actors involved to spew out mile-a-minute, worn out raunch that sounds lifted from the rejected script pages of a hundred other sex comedies. From its very first minutes, it wears you out with its exhaustive, desperate and futile attempts to be funny. 

              Not likely to happen......the woeful crowd who slapped this movie together work hard to insure their total estrangement from anything even remotely humorous. In pursuing that dubious goal, they more than just succeed....they excel. 

               And we'll not detail all the many 'things-you-can't-unsee' moments sprinkled (or tinkled) throughout this atrocity.......we're determined to let them stay unseen....

              As far as the news of "Blockers" leaving Netflix on Feb. 29.....cause for joyful celebration. We can only hope and pray it doesn't surface somewhere else.....Zero Stars (0)  Pass it by....

                          

AN AFFAIR OF SPIES......SPIES VS. NAZIS RACING FOR THE A-BOMB...(YOU HAD ME AT HELLO) (*****)

  An Affair Of Spies by Ronald H. Balson (2022)

What can I say? Thrilled, and blown away by this one.

            This book hit multiple bullseyes for me personally. I've always been obsessed and fascinated by  that particular episode of history that deals with the formulation and creation of the atomic bomb and all the participants involved,......I've pounced on and devoured every book and film on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction.

             And there's nothing I enjoy more than a behind-enemy-lines, suspense filled World War 2 spy thriller.  Any novel that involves courageous, daring spies going into the heart of occupied Europe to thwart the Nazis becomes an automatic 'must read' for me. 

            "An Affair Of Spies" combines both those things together -  American's desperate race to achieve an atomic bomb before Hitler''s Germany and a breathless, impossibly dangerous mission to to find out how far along the Nazis nuclear program has progressed, as well as help a German scientist escape to work on the Manhattan Project. 

            Nathan Silverman, a German refugee, whose parents arranged his own escape to the U.S. as a child is now a trained U.S. army soldier, preparing' for the eventual European invasion. But Silverman, the son of a brilliant physicist still trapped in Berlin with the rest of his family, is selected for a mission by no less than Gen. Leslie Groves, who's overseeing the race for an atomic bomb. 

            Silverman's 'mission impossible -  penetrate occupied Europe, bring the defecting scientist back to the U..S., discover the current status of the Nazis atomic efforts and learn the fate of his father, mother and sister.

             (I think the only thing missing from this mission was asking Nathan to cure cancer along the way....)

             Since Silverman has little or no knowledge of nuclear physics, he's accompanied by Dr. Allison Fisher, a young scientist who's been working within the Manhattan project and will know what vital data to collect and bring back with them.......if they can avoid relentless Gestapo agents who excel at hunting down and torturing spies.

           I wouldn't dare spoil all of the non-stop excruciating suspenseful episodes that follow  Nathan and Allison as they plunge into the lion's den of Berlin. Of course, nothing goes as planned and the surprises and sudden reversals-of-fortune thrown into their path really dial up the anxiety. As if there already wasn't enough nail-biting scenes packed into the book  this dynamic duo's attempts to pull off an outrageous plan to gather the top secrets they've been tasked with stealing had me squirming in fear for them.  

            Unquestionably a stay-up-all-night thriller for me, one of the best 5 star page-turners for all suspense thriller fans.  (*****)

THE TROUBLE WITH YOU......A TALENTED, INDEPENDENT WOMAN IN AN ERA WITH LITTLE REGARD FOR HER......

  The Trouble With You by Ellen Feldman (2024)

      It took no time at all for this book to engross me fully and keep me flying though the pages until its end. While I've read any number of recent books that take a deservedly angry gaze at women diminished, patronized and marginalized by a patriarchal society, this one really hit home with its on-target historical context. 

       And the book accomplishes all this by placing its romantic triangle in the midst of post World War 2 America. It's an era when you can detect the beginnings, those inevitable tremors of societal change that will erupt into earthshaking changes for the decades to come. 

        Dutiful wife and young mother Florence 'Fanny' Fabricant suffers a cruel twist of fate when her doctor husband, who survived his war service, dies suddenly at home, leaving her a single mother to her toddler Chloe. Forced into a provider role she's unprepared for, Fanny takes a job re-typing soap opera scripts for a New York radio network. 

       Her work puts her in constant contact with the network's most prolific and talented writer, the brash, witty, devil-may-care rebel Charlie. But beneath his wisecracking cynicism, he silently rages at the vile 'red-baiting' of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the inquisitions of the House on Un-American Activities Committee, destroying lives and careers of writers and actors.

         It doesn't take long for Fanny to find herself  overwhelmed by the true events of the post war era.  Charlie and her actress friend Ava are blacklisted by so called patriotic investigators, making them unemployable.. In addition to Charlie's 'frenemy flirting (which Fanny matches with her own inherent wit), Chloe's alarming, but temporary health scare amid the rampant, Polio epidemic touches off  Fanny's  budding romance with Ezra, Chloe's pediatrician. 

           The dramatic stakes (and Fanny's own conflicting emotions over the two men in her life) take an even more urgent turn when she agrees to use her name as a 'front' on Charlie's scripts so he can sell them. By that time, she's gradually discovered she's as talented a scriptwriter as Charlie. But Fanny's emerging abilities,  self-worth and newly found independence do not sit well with Ezra, whose traditional view of marriage gender roles will consign her back to the job of full-time housewife. It's lucky Fanny relies on the bluntly direct, common sense mentoring and advice of her beloved Aunt Rose, a seamstress with a rebellious history of her own

           Everything going on around Fanny kept me glued to this book.....the triangle, the surge of history and Fanny's own self revelations, which put her among the vanguard of women determined to pursue lives and careers that at the time, were thought of as only the province of men.   There's real snap, crackle and pop in the dialogue exchanges, that would make this story a natural for any film or TV mini-series adaptation.  The wit and insight stays rooted in Fanny's journey right up the final, more than satisfying finale. 

       An absolute 5 star item,(*****) and among the fastest, most ambitiously entertaining reads I've enjoyed this year. Don't leave this one off your TBR list.

'THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES.....KARAOKE KARNAGE AS THE CASH COW I.P. FINALLY DRIES UP........

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)    An truly dubious accomplishment.....this movie manages to totally encompass everything BQ abhors, despises, loathes in a movie........

        It achieves multiple levels of revulsion that we never dreamed possible......

        How do we hate this movie......let us count the ways.....

        Let's start with Hollywood's most toxic practices that's led to the ruination of modern mainstream cinema.....seizing popular IPs (Intellectual Properties) and ruthlessly squeezing them as cash cows until every last dollar has dribbled out of them......

         And just when everyone thought studios had milked a cash cow IP dry, the squeezing goes on and on, resulting in unnecessary sequels that nobody needed, nobody wanted, nobody asked for......and whose very creations are so fundamentally wrong headed and downright dumb....that you can only gape at them in wonder, muttering, "what they hell were they thinking?"

          George Lucas himself kicked off this series of  blunders with his atrocious 'Star Wars' prequels....which took three films over nine years to lay out how Annakin Skywalker became Darth Vader, a subject nobody really gave a rat's ass about. 

         But once studios see bucks flowing in from an IP, they can't stop squeezing the cow......which is why you see the last Harry Potter book divided into two separate movies........(a tactic slavishly imitated by the producers of the "Twilight" and "Hunger Games" series, even though the last books in each of those series didn't have enough material to warrant two movies...)

         As another evidence exhibit, we give you Sony's addictive attatchment to  Spiderman,, resulting in the ridiculous Andrew Garfield alternate universe 'Amazing Spiderman' trilogy and their current, dead-on-arrival catastrophe, 'Madame Web'......

          And now we come to this revolting Hunger Games prequel which answers the burning question that nobody but Lionsgate studio suits had the slightest interest in.....how did villainous Coriolanus Snow (played originally by Donald Sutherland) become such a dick?

          Again, BQ shouts out the answer to this question with every ounce of our heart and soul.....

          Who gives a flying ****?

          Stretched out to a mind-numbing 160 minutes, this atrocity's divided into three acts......first act presents young Snow (Tom Blyth) as a brooding sensitive soul, possibly capable of heartfelt emotion. He's tasked with coaching Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Ziegler) one of the teen"tributes" selected to kill each other, 'Battle Royale' style. It's all for the latest live televised arena carnage to entertain the populace of Panem, the fascist empire American's evolved into. (the Panem-anians are like the GOP, offering thoughts and prayers as they watch children slaughtered.)

           The second act presents the slaughter itself, where Lucy not only displays an innate ability to outlast and outlive her fellow Panem-Fodder, she's apt to burst into song at any moment......as if this entire mess of a movie was designed solely to show off Rachel Zieglar's pipes....like an endless episode of 'American Idol' half-assed Karaoke produced in the depths of hell......

           The third act, finally delivers the inevitable transformation of young Snow into the double dealing heartless prick who'll eventualy give Jennifer Lawrence such a hard time in the future.  Wow....what a surprise. 

           Here's the one and only thing that amused us enough to keep us awake.....the use of the most hilarious character names since James Bond's girlfriends and the Hillybilly babes of Al Capp's 'Li'l Abner'......Clemensia Doveoate, Volumnia Gaul, Vipsania Sickle, Festus Creed, etc, etc.  We only wish they'd thrown in Pussy Galore, Penelope Smallbone, Molly Warmflash, Moonbeam McSwine and Appasionata Von Climax......

             Enough of this madness. There's nothing wrong with this movie that a flamethrower aimed at all available copies coulnn'r cure.  An absolute AFH, an ABOMINATION FROM HELL.....may the memory of it stay blank for a thousand years.........or more. 

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "I'LL TELL RUSSIA TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT" EDITION

 

Trump threatens to invite Putin to invade NATO countries ......and immediately receives a text message reading....'THANKS A BUNCH! LOVE U SO MUCH. YOU'RE THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME.....YOUR FOEVER BFF....VLADDY..'

Putin's political foe Alexi Navaldy dies in Russian prison at age 47......explained Putin, "Nothing we could do for him , really.....he slipped on a bar of soap....and then an electric fan fell on him while the shower was still running.....and then a Siberian wolf burst into the prison and bit him...."   Commented Trump, "Well, if that's what Vlad says happened, I'm inclined to believe him. He's never lied to me...."

Supreme Court carefully considering Trump's claim of total immunity for all crimes he commits.....Clarence Thomas denies that Trump's invitation to spend his and wife Ginny's summer vacation at Mar-A-Lago will influence his decision....Bret Kavanaugh claims to have no knowledge of who left 50 kegs on Budweiser on the Supreme Court steps.......

Speaker Of The House Mike Johnson and MAGA-moron GOP finally manage to impeach Homeland Security chief Mayorkas, while ignoring the Border crisis and aid to Gaza and the Ukraine.......Johnson proudly comments, "And who says we can't get anything done!  Just wait'll you see what we have in store for windmills, Disney and that green M & M!!:

Shooters open fire at Kansas City Chiefs victory rally and parade.....GOP politicians send out  Xerox copies of their standard 'Thoughts And Prayers" message to victims and their families, with a P.S. warning...."Next time, remember to duck, dummy"   Donald Trump sends Mar-A-Lago embossed lollipops to the child gunshot victims....("That should help those kids get over it quickly, right?"_

'THE VERDICT'......NEWMAN BRINGS ORDER TO THE COURT......

 The Verdict (1982).....once again deprived Paul Newman of the Best Actor Oscar he'd been deservin throughout his career.  And anyone who's seen this film knows he was robbed again.....

             We can't explain why this Sidney Lumet film is among the ones we come back to re-watch year after year. Usually, after we've seen a slowly paced, quietly effective drama, we consider that once was enough, even if  we thought it was good. 

              Not "The Verdict"  though. As slow as it is, as moody and meditative as it is, the film's story, characters and various courtroom theatrics won't let our memory go. Maybe it's the powerful redemptive climax and top-of-the-line performances that continue to grip our imagination. 

               Newman plays Frank Galvin, a down-and-out Boston lawyer reduced to scrounging for clients among grieving mourners at funeral homes.  His reputation and career remain in shreds after the head of his previous law firm (and father-in-law) betrayed him, leaving him falsely accused of jury tempering. 

             Barely escaping the charge, he's now divorced, an alcoholic and close to destitute, a burned out shell of a man. Through his mentor and friend MIckey Morrisey (Jack Warden) he's taken on a case as his last and only hope. 

             A young couple has brought a lawsuit against one of the Boston Archdiocese's hospitals. The woman's sister, mistakenly put under anaesthesia after a full meal, choked on her vomit, now rendering her a permanent brain dead vegetable.

             While his clients only want a quick cash settlement, Galvin, seeking a change to right a wrong and redeem himself, lobbies for a jury trial, ignoring all advice to the contrary. 

              He faces an uphill battle against formidable enemies.....the powerful Church and all its political influence, a judge (Milo O'Shea) who's obviously on their payroll and the craftiest most legendary defense lawyer in town (James Mason)

              No end of obstacles, illegal obstructions and other reversals of fortune are thrown in Galvin's path, including yet another hurtful betrayal of his trust. 

              We'll say not one word more of that happens, other than that the film's gut-punching, satisfying and yet bittersweet ending is a knockout. And what keeps us coming back the film over and over again. 

              For one and all who cherish and honor high excellence in cinema. 5 stars (*****), a true FIND OF FIND. See it. That's all.....just see it. 

'THE VIOLENCE ACTION'.... YET ANOTHER MANGA MANIC PIXIE HIT-GIRL......

The Violence Action  (2022)     BQ freely admits this .......when all these bonkers Japan-a-Madness action movies began to hit U.S. shores, we couldn't get enough of 'em.....

         The propulsive, non-stop carnage in these films reached the kind of delirious heights American filmmakers could only dream of.....but not that they didn't make their best bloody efforts to emulate. 

          It reminded us of when "5 Fingers Of Death" arrived as the first riotous Chinese kung fu movie to land in American theaters.....and action movies were never the same after that......

           Maybe due to the passage of time and sheer glut of Asian pulp bloodbaths accounted for us sitting through "The Violence Action' slightly bored and more than a bit annoyed at the deliberately nutso slaughters. 

           Yep, we'd seen it all before and to be blunt, a lot better edited and staged than this film. 

           Based on a popular Manga, it centers around too-cute-for-words college student Kai Kikuno (Kanna Hashimoto). Our criminally adorable pink-bewigged pixie moonlights as a hit-girl, wiping out mass quantities of Yakuza thugs, She shoots kicks, punches and stabs them in a flurry of gymnastic acrobatics and at a speed that exceeds  D.C.'s own 'The Flash'......

            And did we mention she dodges bullets too?

           Kei fronts a small independent Scooby-Doo gang who sub-contract paid massacres ordered up by two rival Yakuza gangs.  This group includes a comedy relief guy who sports a giant cartoonish Fat Elivs wig that's actually a bulletproof helmet and another cutie who make them the most foul tasting ramen in Japan. . 

            Pixie Hit-Girl and the gang catch a whole lot of trouble when one of the Yakuza accountants swipes a ton 'o money, for himself.  With Kei and company tasked with retrieving the money, the gangsters go about their own vengeance fueled business of slaughtering each other til there's no one left........

            And there's your movie.....watching Kei in action, we couldn't determine if she's supposed to have comic book superpowers or all the speeded up frenzy comes from an editor who was mainlining way too much caffeine. 

           At one point it looks like the Pixie Posse meets their match in a towering Terminator-type guy (also wearing a Halloween shop wig) who proceeds to beat the crap out of everybody involved. This guy's so tough, he slurps up the gang's rotten Ramen as if it's the best meal he ever tasted. Yikes. 

          We'd love to report how much guilty pleasure fun we had with this movie, but.....nah. The action is sliced to incomprehensible ribbons by the ruinous editing, the Yakuza intrigues and rivalries are incoherent and boring and Kei's sooper-dooper skills look anime-silly. 

         Sorry.....but the whole shmeer ends up as simply tiresome. But for Kanna Hashimoto's undeniable cuteness, we'll concede at least 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2)

'MAESTRO'......COOPER CONDUCTS A BIO HAZARD.....(AS IN 'NOT THE BIO YOU EXPECTED')

 Maestro (2023).....Wecome one and all to awards season......which brings out the Oscar bait like this film.

            Oscar bait? Whazzat?

             They arrive like gathering storm clouds toward the end of each year, mainly to keep themselves fresh in the minds of audiences and awards organizations and their voters.....

              What binds these films together is their unabashed lust for awards validation, sitting up and begging for various statuettes like hungry puppies eyeing a bag of bacon treats. 

              And they'll always feature aggressively strident, top-of-their-lungs performances from both their lead and supporting actors. 

              Bradley Cooper's maintained an exhaustive but still futile awards quest for years now.....and 'Maestro' ,which he co-wrote, directed and stars in, represents his most ambitious effort yet to snag some shiny hardware for himself.

              His choice of material seemed surefire......the larger-than-life story of gifted composer conductor Leonard Berstein.  

               Quite a daunting task.....filling the screen with the creatively turbulent life of a 20th century icon, whose music and love of musical performance contributed to the soundtrack of a decade.....(with the music of 'West Side Story, 'On The Waterfront', 'Candide', 'Wonderful Town' and many original classical compositions....)

              A massive, expansive story to tell......and Cooper, to everyone's surprise, chose not to tell it.

              In what many critics (and bored stiff audiences) didn't much understand or care for, was Cooper's decision to focus solely on Bersnstein's rocky, tempestuous marriage to actress Felicia Montelegre (Carey Mulligan). 

               Bernstein, a people loving extrovert and a joyous bi-sexual, freely indulged himself with young boy toys, And that's Cooper's chosen entry into Bernstein's life, and how it chipped away at his wife's psyche in countless hurtful ways. 

               Even though it reduces and shrinks the movie into a soap opera-ish slog, no one can fault Carey Mulligan's contribution here. It's a brilliant, exquistely modulated  performace from an actor a the very peak of her gifts. 

               Cooper's portrayal of Berstein, though.....another story altogether. 

               Actor-ish, in your face and over the top from the first minute on, Cooper's elaborate makeup and meticulous mimicing of Bernstein's speech patterns reeks of awards begging.  He doesnt' want you to take your eyes off him for even a second when he's launching fully into his Bradley-as-Bernstein impersonation show.......

                His work here may strike some as brilliant, dazzling, eye-catching , yada, yada......but for BQ, combined with the film's overall leaden pace, Copper's 'look-at-me, look-at-me' showboating came off as detached from the film itself, and weighs the film down.

                Count 'Maestro' as one of the Oscar contenders we're NOT rooting for. 2 stars (**).

             

SUPER BOWL MUSINGS......MAGA ZOMBIES CRUSHED IN A.....UH....SWIFT DEFEAT.....

The Super Bowl (2024)   BQ knows as much about football as Donald Trump does about every topic that ever pops into his unhinged, deranged head......by that we mean little to nothing. 

             But that shouldn't stop anyone from weighing in on this year game.......since it had little or nothing to do with football.....

              A battle was waged alright, but not on the field.  Trump and his brain-dead army of Maga Morons declared war on, of all people, pop star Taylor Swift.....whose popularity, success and vast wealth and influence far exceeds Trump's. 

          And by this time, it's fairly clear she's no fan of the demented wanna-be dictator. 

             No wonder she terrifies Baby Orange and his minions.....who see her as a deep state commando with a mission to thwart Trump's election to, if he has his way, Emperor For Life.  Even worse, her boyfriend advocates COVID immunization, which would deprive them of their God given right to die gasping for breath in an ICU.

            Swift's ongoing, very public romance with Kansas City Chief star player Travis Kelce turned the Super Bowl into ground zero for American's corrosive cultural and political divisions.  She evidently held little regard for Trump's loony-toon demand for loyalty.....(because he signed a bill giving recording artists more access to the royalties due to them.....

            The game itself, a nail biting overtime squeaker, resulted in a last minute triumph for Kelce and his teammates......which therefore made it a triumph for Swift, smooching her boyfriend for all the world (and enraged Trumpanzees) to see. 

             Such is life in the U.S.A. during 2024, possibly the scariest year in American history.......

           

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "WHERE'S MY IMMUNITY?" EDITION......

 

Ap 

Appeals court trashes Trump's ridiculous cliam he has immunity from all crimes......On New York City's 5th Avenue, pedestrians hold an impromptu "Survivors Carnival", since they no longer live with the fear Trump will shoot them in broad daylight on 5th Avenue and get away with it.......

'Useful Idiot' Tucker Carlson interviews his and Trump's favorite war criminal dictator Putin.....prompting Putin offering Tucker an all-expenses paid 2 weeks in the Moscow penthouse suite normally reserved for Trump when he defects....including unlimited golden showers.....

On direct orders from Trump, speaker of the house Johnson and GOP Maga Trumpanzees kill the border security legislation they've been clamoring about for years.....but in an unprecedented burst of courage, Johnson said he drew the line when Trump demanded he and all Republicans drink poisoned kool-aid as a gesture of support if he's indicted on any of the 91 felony charges. ("I convinced him to switch it with ex-lax so at leasst we'll feel terribly uncomfortable..."