MIDWEEK MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL SUPREME COURT 'LONG LIVE THE KING!' EDITION.........

 

Supreme Court Justices hand Trump a Get-Out-Of-Jail card.......and furthermore declare that Presidential Inauguration ceremonies be henceforth referred to as 'Eternal Coronation' festivities.......

Supreme Court Justices celebrate their immunity decision......Justice Alioto's wife flies the North Korean, Chinese and Russian flags right side up, Clarence Thomas and wife Ginny spray paint "Suckers!" on the offices of the Capitol Police headquarters, and later in the evening, police respond to noise complaints about Bret Kavanaugh's all-nigh Kegger held in the Supreme Court building's basement. 

Trump's Supreme Court Minions end 248 years of the core America value of No One Is Above The Law....and we all prepare for even more dark days ahead....Chief Justice Roberts explains, "Well, we tried democracy for a couple of centuries, but the gang and I decided to spring a real summer surprise. Hit the road, America....welcome to Trumpsylvania!".....

'BRATS'.....ANDREW MCCARTHY MIGHT WANT A LITTLE CHEESE WITH HIS WHINE.....

Brats (2024)     Let's now crank the clock back to June of 1985. New York Magazine publishes "Hollywood's Brat Pack",  an article by freelance Journalist David Blum.

         Blum hung out with a group of young actors who were making a name for themselves in successful movies targeted for teens....and frequently their films featured groups of them together in the same film......(the core group included Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Demi Moore, and Anthony Michael Hall.....non Brat Packers, but sort of an auxiliary, included Tom Cruise, Timothy Hutton, Jon Cryer, Sean Penn and a few others....)

          Young audiences loved both them and their movies, so big surprise, the kids became overnight sensations......and being kids with Hollywood suddenly at their feet, they enjoyed the hell out of their skyrocketing fame and fortune. 

          What they were too naive to realize -  their chronicler Blum was as hungry for attention as they were. Seeking an eye-catching hook for his article, he labeled them the 'Brat Pack', a junior varsity version of Frank Sinatra and friends' notorious 'Rat Pack'.

          In other words....... Entitled, hard-partying sybarites who cared less about their craft and more about havin' a blast and getting seated in all the exclusive clubs up peasants could never get anywhere near. 

         Depicted as spoiled, overpaid jerks, the Brat Packers distanced themselves from each other. And inevitably, since the public has a short attention span for such stuff, the negative publicity dissipated. The BPers went on with their careers, to varying degrees of success and failure....(just like every other actor).  

         But Andrew McCarthy, a more sensitive soul than the others, absorbed the article not only as a pivotal moment in the zeitgeist but a profound earth-changing event in his own world view.

         Apparently, nobody was around to tell this guy to get over himself.......

         So 39 years later, he has directed 'Brats' a documentary on the Brat Pack phenomenon and the article's effects on the actors involved. 

         The upshot?   Andrew.....time to move on, buddy. Let it go. Stop obsessing and whining over the article that people either don't remember at all, or never heard of it, or did hear of it and don't give a **** about it. 

         Some of the BPers made themselves unavailable to McCarthy and we don't blame them. Who in God's name wants to hash over this crap again as if it's important. 

          McCarthy does conduct a few semi-interesting conversations with Estevez, Cryer, Rob Lowe and Lea Thompson and others, but it's clear they don't attach anywhere near the importance to the article that he does. Yawn.....

         And when he does track down and confront David Blum himself, you start to realize the film is nothing but a therapy session for McCarthy over his lifelong umbrage about the article. 

          Blum possibly disappoints McCarthy by refusing to sound ashamed and apologetic about 'Hollywood's Brat Pack'. But McCarthy appears to have made the film as a form of self-therapy for himself and believe it or not, hugs it out with Blum. 

          Fans of the actors and era might take a passable interest in this look backward......but personally, given McCarthy's entire premise for making the film, we'd have awarded this a higher rating if he'd given in to his angst and punched David Blum......

          ......or at least throw a cream pie in his face. 2 stars (**).

          

         

'FORBIDDEN WORLD'.....GOOEY CREATURE, A TALKING ROBOT, AND SCIENCE BABES WHO GET NAKEY......

Forbidden World (1982)   If you took note of the subtitle of today's post, then you know we could only be speaking of another chunk 'o grindhouse gristle from the Roger Corman assembly line. 

           Long before the Asylum outfit started pumping out their 'mockbuster' bottom-of-the-barrel knockoffs of Hollywood sci-fi-horror tentpoles, Corman had already perfected that procedure.....

           And the Corman-ized shlockbusters were way more fun to watch, slapped together by young 'n hungry filmmakers eager to get their foot in the door....(like Ron Howard, James Cameron, Joe Dante, Robert Towne, Francis Ford Coppola and countless other grads of the Corman "make me a movie in 10 days' school of cinema.....)

          "Forbidden World" takes its inspiration (or perspiration) from "Alien" of course, which set new standards in outer space horror. 

           Off we go to a lonely space lab beset by lab experiments gone horribly awry, resulting in lots of gooey, gory deaths and two hot blondes taking their clothes off at any opportunity.

           Not that we're complaining......

            And here's something the 'Alien' crew never thought of.......feeding the monster a nice big juicy cancerous tumor from one the dying lab scientists. 

          Hmmmm......finger lickin' good. What's for dessert? Radioactive waste?

          Corman fans (and dare we say, we're among them) will revel in all the trappings, especially those state-of-the-art space lab sets created with egg cartons.......(think of the money Stanley Kubrick could've saved if he'd thought of that....)

          Great stuff if you love this stuff....a 3 star (***) essential for Corman completists. Everyone else?  Go on, take a chance. Load up on beer and popcorn....knock yourselves out.