WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP......SPECIAL 'TOP SECRET, CLASSIFIED, HUSH-HUSH, OUR-LIPS-ARE-SEALED WE'D-TELL-YOU-BUT-THEN-WE'D-HAVE-TO-KILL-YOU' GROUP CHAT EDITION.....

 

'The Atlantic' journalist gets accidentally invited to a classified, top secret war plans group chat.......explained Secretary Of Indefensible Defense Pete Hegseth, "No classified information was shared, other than attack days and times......and besides, I thought that extra guy on the chat was on there was there to take my drink order...."

Trump and National Security Minions refuse to own up to their serious gaffe, preferring Trump's usual plan to deny, deflect and double-down......"They're the very best people" claimed Trump, "in fact Little Marco came up with great idea of keeping the Nuclear Attack Codes written in Sharpie on my palms...."

In addition to these new phones, Trump also issues etch-a-sketch pads for to all security personnel for issuing military strike orders to fighter pilots.......with a stern warning to pilots to remember to shake the pads clear after receiving their targets....

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Trump rages about what he considers an unflattering portrait of himself......"It's such an insult to me and all of America. This terrible disgusting portrait makes me look like a fat, angry, stupid, racist, misogynist, bullying narcissist who doesn't have a clue about what he's doing.....especially when everyone around me has mentioned how much I look like Timothee Chalamet...."

On a daily basis, Trump proves that he will tirelessly show the U.S. and the world that every worst fear they believed about a second Trump Presidency is coming true in real time......while thousands of cemeteries receive instructions from 2024 Trump voters to amend their gravestones to read, "This isn't what I voted for...."

'GODZILLA VS. BIOLLANTE'....BIG G TAKES TIME TO STOP AND SMELL A ROSE.....AND THEN KICK ITS FLOWERING ASS......

 Godzilla Vs. Biollante (1989)    Imagine our reaction when we heard Criterion came out with a deluxe 4K Blu Ray of this film.......

         Say whaaaaaaaaaaaat? A frickin' Godzilla movie?

         We never got around to viewing this one when it first hit DVD....by then we (and just about everybody else in the world) had tired of watching the same guy in a Godzilla suit pounding on other guys also zipped into rubber suits. 

          And then Godzy's home studio Toho tossed it over to the fans, running a script contest....asking them to come up with a new worthy opponent for everyone's favorite radioactive lizard. 

          Holy hot atomic breath....did they ever. 

          After hearing about the Criterion copy, we were delighted to discover that we still owned an unopened original Mirimax DVD of the film.....and finally popped it into the player.  (Oh the irony here....a Mirimax DVD with a monster more damaging than Harvey Weinstein.)

            We fully understand why the film achieved cult status with worldwide Godzilla fans.....

             It's a wild ride from start to finish. Perpetual action, epic amounts of destruction and a Heavyweight, one-of-a-kind sparring partner for Godzilla like no other. 

             Wastes no time at all......while Godzinator lays waste to another city, eco-warriors (or whoever) steal a patch of Big G's skin for scientific experiments. Then a whole bunch of other guys machine gun them, then a super assassin makes off with the skin. Please don't ask us to explain any of this.....

              Later, a huge scientific place goes kaboom from yet another attack, killing a scientist's beloved daughter. Pop consoles himself by concocting  Biollante, a cocktail monster mashup of Big G's DNA, his daughter's DNA.....and a red rose. (I bet you think we're making up that last part, right?)

            Oh no we're not!  Lovely Bio plants herself (literally) just offshore, with tentacles equipped with their own snappy jaw mouths, a transparent beating heart and a jumbo red rose for a  head (If this wouldn't qualify her for a new season of 'The Bachelorette, we don't know what would.)

        You just know that our boy Godz-o-rama  stalks over to Lovely Bio for an Atomic Breath smackdown. Poor Bio tries defending herself by splooging acid on Big G's face, but Big G's all out of tic-tacs so he gives Bio a hot breath heart massage.  So much for their first date, as we watch Bio-Babe reduced to pixie dust that floats up to the heavens.......

            But think again if you think that's the end of her. After G fends off all the usual, futile missile, tank and helicopter attacks, we feeble humans try shooting him up with bacteria. (To quote one guy, "Hey Mr. Godzilla! You always feel better when you take your medication orally."  We didn't make that one up either. Too bad Nurse Ratched wasn't around to give G a rectal bacteria injection 

            Holy lawn seed, Biollante comes sprinkling down from the sky, assembling into an even more badass version of herself and more than ready for Round 2. Big G's finally had enough abuse and gives her an Atomic Breath blow job......or more to the point, a blow up job.

            Once again, Bio ascends in a pixie dust cloud, but not before displaying the face of the young girl from which she was spawned. Godzy, as always, wades off into the deep ocean, while Bio turns into a space-station sized rose orbiting the planet. Feel free to dab some tears....

           All kidding aside, we adored every loony minute of it with one exception. Composer Koichi Sugiyama wisely inserts chunks of the legendary Akira Ifukube theme music (as was done in 'Godzilla Minus One'). But Sugiyama's own score, which plays incessantly, is juvenile and blatantly cornball, sounding like it was written for a Gerry Anderson 'Thunderbirds' puppet movie. 

          Dedicated Godzilla fans will want to snap up the Criterion blu-ray for a seventh heaven monster rally that'll make your back plates light up just like Big G's. 

            4 stars (****). 

'SHOUT AT THE DEVIL'.....ROGER 'N LEE GO TO AFRICA.....AND PLAY HELL WITH PRE-WORLD WAR I GERMANY.....

Shout At The Devil (1976).....probably arrived a decade too late for the kind of film it was and the mass audience it was designed for....

        An expansive, expensive, sprawling action-adventure, it delivered an overstuffed package of spectacular action, low comedy, exotic lush locales, international cast members and robust roles for its two big stars as brawling frenemies. 

         We gleefully gorged on a plentiful supply of movies like this throughout the 1960's, But amid the eclectic, groundbreaking cinema of the 1970's, this film came off like an antiquated, out-of-touch relic, with all its obvious flaws visible. 

         And it certainly didn't help that the pace dragged throughout its 150 minute length and that the film took a wild swerve in its last third......from rollicking hijinks to grim 'men-on-impossible-mission' territory. 

           We're back in 1914 East Africa, suffering under the dictatorial thumb of Germany. This state of affairs doesn't sit well with renegade ivory poacher Flynn O' Flynn (Lee Marvin in full 'Cat Ballou'/'Paint Your Wagon' ham-it-up' mode)  Flynn's constant smuggling and poaching bedevils local German commander Fleischer ( Rene Kolldehoff, blustery, bloated and decked out like a cartoon Bismark, complete with the spike atop his helmet)

            Through crooked means, Flynn recruits Stiff Upper Brit Sebastian Oldsmith (Roger Moore) to join him on his nefarious elephant hunting safari and float the harvested ivory tusks up the river patrolled by German gunboats. 

            (A word here about the rather disturbing Elephant hunt, with Moore and Lee felling dozens of the majestic beasts. A title card proudly proclaimed that no animals were harmed in the making of the film.......if we take the producers at their word, then somebody evidently trained the elephants to collapse on cue......but we still have our doubts.....)

          The stalwart Moore then follows the drunken loquacious Marvin on further random capers, further enraging the sputtering, close to comical Kolldehoff. (Along the way, the storyline introduces mediocre TV actress Barbara Parkins as Marvin's daughter and naturally, a love interest for Moore.)

          (We're way too saddened to discuss poor Ian Holm's role as Marvin's mute Arab sidekick. We're pretty sure he erased it from his memory and in honoring this gifted actor, so will we....)

          What truly disappointed us - given the film's directed by Peter Hunt (the editor of the first five Bond films and director of 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' ) the ragged, uneven pace of the film left us shaking our head. Completely missing here is the propulsive energy and precise cutting that Hunt brought to the Bonds.  The film feels more like it was directed by a connect-the-dots journeyman like Andrew V. McLaglen.)

           The script gives its superstars little too work with, so Moore glides through it with his usual dapper cool and Marvin shamelessly chews up the scenery as he performs entire scenes bulging his eyes and slugging down gallons of gin.  At one point, the film allows them a lengthy John Ford-ish comic fistfight that leaves them both unconscious. These guys really could've used an actress to match them in charisma but Parkins is never more than barely adequate.

         As we mentioned, the film's third act tosses in a startling, brutal tragedy, which sends Moore, Lee and Parkins on a do or die mission to destroy a German battleship and personally send Kolldehoff to the hell he richly deserves.  It's by far the best part of the film, suspenseful, dramatic, loaded with action and might make you forget the random wandering it's been afflicted with through most of its running time. 

          For those viewers still woke-stricken, we give fair warning. The film was made in apartheid South Africa and still holds on to the attitudes of 1950's/1960's films set in Africa. The natives get regularly killed off in droves and the film thinks nothing of covering Moore in blackface so he can sneak on to the battleship as a native minion. 

        "Shout At The Devil" ends up as a mixed bag of pleasures and gaffes. With a tighter script, faster editing and a female lead to more than match the boys, it coulda been a contender. 

          2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

           

'NOBODY'S FOOL'......A GHOST FROM SAMI KIERCE'S PAST TURNS UP ALL TOO REAL....

 Nobody's Fool by Harlan Coben (2025)

     What can I say about a Harlan Coben book that hasn't been said in a thousand other reviews he's received?

     Another winner. Another page turner. More 'I-surely-didn't-see-that-coming' twists. More unforgettable characters you come to care about. And a certain guaranteed read that's only going to take you days to finish.

     All of the above mentioned stuff is here in abundance, along with a familiar trope that's one of the author's favorite ways to kick a plot into motion.......the surprise reappearance of someone who's been dead and gone for years.......supposedly.

     That's what's facing former (and now disgraced) police detective Sami Kierce, (who first appeared in "Fool Me Once')......a ghost from his youthful past has now returned to flesh and blood right in front of his startled eyes. Her name was Anna when college-age Sami became smitten by her while backpacking in Spain. Some glorious days and nights followed until he woke up one morning with her bloodied corpse on his bed. He races out to report this to an equally young policeman, who finds no trace of Anna, alive or dead. Before the Spanish police can get around to suspect him of something other than nursing delusions, Sami rushes back to America, still haunted by what he thought was Anna's murder.

     Years and misfortunes later, Sami's reduced to eking out a living in support of his beautiful wife Molly and his baby boy.. He dabbles with minor league private eye drudgery and teaching criminology to an oddball, eclectic mix of students. It's at this class, he sees an unannounced visitor - a woman who appears to be the mysterious, elusive Anna. And who promptly flees with Sami in pursuit.

     Sami's relentless search for the truth of what's going on plunges him into not one but two tormenting episodes from his past......tracing the convoluted, tortuous backstory of Anna's return and dealing with the sudden, shocking release of the vicious killer who murdered Sami's fiance when he was still a police detective.

     Here's what I truly enjoyed - that even with the Job-like trials and tribulations that Sami's endured, author Coben brings in liberal amounts of sharp wit and humor to both Sami and the cast of characters surrounding him. To help him unravel the ever twisting plotlines, Sami recruits his criminology students to become his own personal Scooby gang of crime solvers and it's a hoot to watch them in action. But I should also mention that when the dust finally clears and all is revealed, the book concludes with a deeply moving meditation on the sins of the past (and all the bad choices we make and live with).

     As flawed as Sami is, he remains one of Haran Coben's most steadfast and righteous heroes and I'd look forward to whenever the author concocts another case for him.

       5 stars (*****)

'SALTWATER'.......A TOXIC FAMILY DYNASTY IN SUNNY CAPRI, SWIMMING IN CASH, LIES AND MURDER....

Saltwater by Katy Hays (2025) 

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     Nothing like a relaxing sundrenched summer on the island of Capri with the filthy rich, ultra-entitled Lingate family. This sybaritic, sociopathic clan are swimming in old money as well the sparkling waters around their yearly vacation playground. Welcome to Lifestyles Of The Rich and Famously Creepy., littered with a walk-in closet size of family skeletons and at least one dead body.

     The body in question - Sarah Lingate, the brilliant, award winning playwright and late wife of Robert Lingate, who oversees the Lingate empire with his older brother Marcus. In 1992, Sarah's career and life ended on one of those rocky beaches beneath the Capri cliffs. The so called 'accidental' death left the surviving Lingates forever tainted with suspicions and unanswered questions. And the tragedy's left Sarah's infant daughter Helen to be raised in the iron grip of her imperious, dictatorial family.

     Thirty years later, Helen's grown into a 33 year old woman who feels desperately trapped, her life forever controlled by her domineering father and uncle. (Much the same way her mother felt prior to her death.) And now the family's rocked by the deliberate reappearance of Sarah's long missing gold necklace, sent to the Lingates by a person or persons unknown.


     At that point, the book's off and running with a staggering amount of plot machinations, twist after twist and tantalizing flashbacks to 1992 that slowly begin to connect the pieces to this vast puzzle. The mysteries surrounding the Lingates and their private lives (both charmed and star-crossed) only deepen further and laid out only when you're rapidly turning those final pages.to reach the last stunning twist.

     I've always had a soft spot for stories of corrupt family dynasties riddled with sins, so I couldn't wait to dive into this one. But I'd feel less than honest if I didn't point out the flaws that keep me from giving it a full 5 stars. First, it's way, way overlong and could've used some judicious pruning, especially in those repetitious flashback teasers that dole out a little more info one nugget at a time. Second, a few of the twists are just too far-fetched to swallow, forcing the author into those 'you-gotta-be-kiddin-me' leaps of logic to explain them. (The is the second book I've reviewed this year that threw in a twist that could only generate a chorus of 'gimme-a-break-with-this, will-ya?' from readers.

     Apart from that, this one's an essential read for everyone who'd love to luxuriate in a gorgeous locale and a watch a wealthy nest of vipers swamped with a tsunami of family skeletons that tumble out like quarters from a jackpot=hitting slot machine. And I think of the money I saved on airline tickets to Italy.......

       4 stars (****)

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "JUDGES? WE DON'T NEED NO JUDGES. WE DON'T HAVE TO USE NO STINKIN' JUDGES' EDITION.....

 

Trump's DEI purge eliminates atomic bomb plane 'Enola Gay' because it contains the world 'gay'......the President also signs an executive order changing the lyrics of 'Deck The Hall's' to now say, "Don we now our orange skin dye"......

Justice Roberts scolds Trump demanding impeachment for a judge he doesn't like......Roberts reportedly revised his original statement which read....".....naughty, naughty little President......this is what I get for spoiling you rotten with a get-out-of-jail-free card......behave or I'll have to spank you with a swimming pool noodle...."

Elon Musk starts casting his predatory eye on Social Security.....proudly declaring, "You know, if we starve out enough of these useless old farts taking too long die, think of the money we'll save!  We could stack the bodies on a barge and just float 'em out to sea to feed the fishes. o ma;ybe even convert them to pet food...."

Trump spreads economic chaos around the country and the world as the GOP congress sits inert and silent......in related news, Lindsay Graham is rushed to a hospital after contracting E Coli from repeated licking of Trump's (REDACTED).

Owner of Maine Inn worries he may go out of business as Canadian tourists, infuriated by Trump, cancel their vacation plans to the U.S.......When advised of this situation, Trump remarked, "That won't be a problem after we send in troops and make Canada great again by annexing it to America. But I still won't let 'em come down to swim in our resort pools without a $300 dollar travel tariff per tourist...."

'SERENADE FOR TWO SPIES'......AGENT DOUBLE-0 IDIOT NARRATES HIS OWN SUMPREMELY SILLY MISSION....

Serenade For Two Spies (1965)   By now, you regular BQ visitors know of our undying passion for cheesy, slapdash 'Eurospy' movies that flooded the world market after every human on Earth became fixated on James Bond. 

          (This worldwide frenzy kicked off with the 1964 release of 'Goldfinger' and Bond-o-Mania maintained a fever pitch right up till the end of the decade.....)

           The overall quality of these films (almost always co-productions between Italy and any number of other European countries), wildly varies. 

           Some are competently done and actually fun to watch. Some are so dumb, cheap and clumsy, they're still fun to take in as guilty pleasures. And more than a few......well, we can make no excuses for them.  (But we sat through 'em anyway, it's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.)

            We truly believed we'd viewed every possible version of this genre until we came across this hidden gem on Tubi. It's not even listed in the exhaustive, comprehensive EuroSpy Encyclopedia we frequently refer to. 

             While the usual EuroSpy movies tried to maintain the same sort of arch tongue-in-cheek of the Bonds, 'Serenade For Two Spies' throws subtlety to the wind and goes all in for pure silliness, a deliberate, satirical, take no prisoners spoof on the genre.

             Our dapper ultra-stud John Krim (a.k.a. 006 1/2) not only takes on international villainy in Las Vegas and San Francisco, he narrates his own adventures as if he's a private eye in a 40's noir or Harrison Ford in that disavowed 'Blade Runner' edit.

              As played by Hellmut Lange, Agent Krim bounces back and forth between the two above mentioned cities so many times, we lost count. The nervy Italian-German filmmakers probably never bothered with official permits from either city, which leads to some startling, hilarious sights. 

              In full view of gaping tourists, we get to see Agent Johnny hanging out of San Fran cable cars and landing, we kid you not, his personal airplane on to Vegas's dazzling 'glitter gulch' Fremont Street.  (And you can bet your Walther PPK we were lovin' it more than a Big Mac and Large Fries......)  What a guy, that Krim. 

             (Speaking of permits, we also doubt this crew obtained Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Berstein's blessing for Hellmut Lange to painfully warble 'America' from 'West Side Story')

              006 1/2's adversary is the dreaded Pepito gang, whose carload of minions, for reasons we never understood, all use hand clickers as they're constantly chasing and pummeling our hero. (Maybe they've all got the same nervous tic, like Humphrey Bogart rolling his steel balls in "The Caine Mutiny").

             And the MacGuffin that everybody's after?  What else but that beloved mainstay of all EuroSpies,  a frickin' laser rifle.

             Popping up as the movie's Designated Bombshell is the mysterious, quirky Tamara, played by the illegally cute 'n sexy Barbary Lass (enormous eyes to swim in and cascading blonde hair styles to match). But in the film's most unintentionally funny moment (or was it?), it appears actors Lange and Lass never had proper training for kissing on camera. During their supposedly heated smooch, we could clearly see them both keeping their lips tightly sealed. (Did someone forget their morning Listerine?). 

            Let's move on the staggering, insane conclusion with our indomitable Krim-inator defeating the bad guys and saving the day while underwater.  And 'underwater' here means placing the camera lens in front of a half-filled aquarium. Let's see James Cameron top that one for special effects ingenuity.

           This one could only be watchable by all BQ kindred spirits who embrace and adore the peculiar but never-less-than-entertaining lunacy of EuroSpy movies. For both them and us, 'Serenade's a newly discovered 4 star (****)find. 

            For all others who don't fall under that demographic, we'd advise not approaching this film unless you're in a real silly mood, or seriously drunk.....or both. 

'HANGRY HEARTS'....A NEW ROMEO & JULIET COOKIN' UP SPARKS...(AND THEIR FOOD'S TO DIE FOR....)

  Hangry Hearts by Jennifer Chen (2025)

     Oh, the food, the food. One of those books where you can hear your stomach rumbling all the through the read. By the time you finish,, you're already waiting for Door Dash or Grubhub to deliver a 10 course Taiwanese-Korean meal.

     The book? Very standardized YA Romeo & Juliet/Friends-to-enemies-to-rivals-to-kissers, all against a backdrop of feuding food truck families. The two kids are duly adorable, destined for boyfriend-girlfriend status and once that's established, proceed to smooch at every opportunity.

     The story construction, however, is another story altogether. Author Jennifer Chen throws in a lot of different elements here, with the intention, I'm supposing, of keeping all these balls in the air at the same time. (Gender transition, generational divides, sibling rivalries, culture assimilation, community outreaches). But somewhere on the way to the expected Happily Ever After for everyone, subplots fade away and disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.

     Julie Wu and Randall Hur grew up in warm friendship right along with their two families. But a traumatic event forever affecting both families split them apart into hated enemies and rivals at their separate Farmer's Market food booths. This makes tough going for Randall and Julie, who still nurse lifelong crushes on each other even as their force-of-nature grandmothers (and super chefs) hurl death glares at each other.

     A community school project throws our rival cutie-pies together and before you can say 'Wherefore art thou'?' romantic sparks fly. But our feudin' foodies need to keep their non-stop kissing hush-hush lest their unforgiving families smell what's cookin'.

     As I mentioned before, the book never keeps a firm grip on all the issues it raised. Randall's gender transition is put out there, but not really dealt with in any depth and seems irrelevant to the main story anyway. The community school project falls to the wayside less than halfway through. And the book resorts to a too perfectly timed easy way out of yet another of its conflicts.

     I could accept all of the above flaws but then the book tries something that takes a lot of nerve for an author. By that I mean assuming we've so fallen in love with all the characters that we won't mind hanging out with them even after the main story's been long resolved. I usually can't stand this, but to author Chen's credit, I didn't mind staying in the company of families We and Hur a little bit longer than necessary.

     Julie and Randall are indeed the sweetest kids imaginable (as well as their extended families. (Not to mention terrific, dedicated kissers). But YA readers will, I'm sure, make up their own minds if they're charmed enough to spend all that superfluous time with them.

     Nothing in this story you haven't read before, but oh that food. Pardon me while I order some to go.......

       3 stars (***).

'WHITE LINE FEVER'.....THIS HIGHWAY TO HELL IS PAVED WITH APPREHENSIONS.....

 White Line Fever by K.C. Jones (2025)

     Horror hits the road on a literal Highway to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.

     This is a familiar primal story for all aficionados of horror books and movies......four girls on a vacation road trip sidetracked on to a notorious 15 mile stretch of highway.. A curving, middle-of-nowhere road littered with stories of wrecked cars and the bodies of drivers and passengers. It's a vehicular version of a roach motel......you drive in, but you don't drive out.

     But these girls will be okay, right? After all, it's only 15 miles, right? Feel free to rub your hands in anticipation of horrific events to befall Livia, Ash, Morgan and Becka as they foolishly navigate their way through this demonic short cut.

     Whatever it is that lurks and stalks County Route 951, it knows what scares you and wastes no time in piercing the girls' secret anxieties and fears;......especially our narrator Livia, a survivor of terrible abuse and cruelty she suffered at the hands of her odious father. Their 15 mile trip evolves into a perilous, almost hallucinatory funhouse ride of 'did-you-hear-that? -Did-you-see-that? sights and sounds.

     My only problem with 'White Line Fever' (as I think it will be for a lot of horror fans) is the overlong, repetitive length of the book. Pretty much the same kind of scares are repeated over and over and over again, which only served to dilute the overall impact. Toward the last third of the book, I felt it was equivalent to watching an 85 minute horror movie that's been stretched out to the running time of 'Lawrence Of Arabia'.

     I did enjoy all of the familiar fearful tropes put into play and the sense of escalating dread built up by each new fresh, nightmarish event thrown into the girls' path. But I also found myself muttering, 'Yeah, I get it, I get it.....their minds are being messed with. C'mon already, move it along'. It's up to each individual reader as to whether they'll roll with this excess or lose patience with it. But I'm sure dedicated, hardcore fans of books to give you bad dreams will want to snap this up in a racing heartbeat minute.

       3 stars (***).

'THE LIBRARY GAME'.....THE NEW LIBRARY'S JUST KNOCKIN' 'EM DEAD......LITERALLY.

  The Library Game by Gigi Pandian (2025)

     First let me say I would dearly love to move to the little town where this book takes place. Because it's the operations center for the Secret Stair(case Construction Company. Tempest Raj and her creative industrious crew go about their work of turning people's home into popular public libraries......not just ordinary libraries but mystery libraries that evoke the very books they stock, built with hidden passageways and yes, secret staircases. The kind of place you might bump into Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple.....or Nancy Drew.

     I had visions of this town resembling the Vegas strip, except with specialty mystery libraries on every corner instead of casinos.

     But Tempest and company run afoul of murder most foul in their newest project at the Grey House. A planned murder mystery play to kick off the grand opening gets derailed when one of the actors kicks off himself. And this murder victim's body has an unnatural habit of disappearing and reappearing.....almost like magic.

     No shortage of clues and potential suspects pile up,(including the ghost of the Grey House's owner and library benefactor) but the question is, can Tempest reach that pivotal 'whodunit reveal so the show (and the library) can go on?

     A whole bunch of page turning fun's in store for mystery fans here, particularly those who can never gobble up enough of those 'impossible locked room' puzzles. Yes, it's fourth in a series but you can still enjoy it even if you've yet to sample the previous books. My guess is those readers will immediately want to play catch up with Tempest'

        4 stars (****). 

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL 'GOP TOWN HALL SMACKDOWN' EDITION....

 Howdy there, Trump voters!  Just checkin' in to see how overjoyed and thrilled you are with this week's lunacy! Isn't this everything you ever dreamed of when voted to let Trump loose for another punishing four years?  What?  What'd ya say?  Didn't quite here that.......

J.D.Vance and his wife are booed when they attend the Kennedy Center.....From his balcony seats, Vance tries to placate the crowd by hurling down autographed DVD copies of 'Hillbilly Elegy' Vance later explained, "Throwing things at the crowd worked so well for President Trump in Puerto Rico and these DVDs are even slightly more valuable than paper towels...."

Yet another GOP town hall goes awry, filled with enraged voters.....GOP headquarters advises all Republicans to either avoid Town Hall altogether or purchase goalie masks, padding and helmets from the National Hockey League.

Trump's tariffs send Wall Street plunging into freefall and threaten to skyrocket costs for consumers.....Explained the President, "I'm gonna make us so much money with the tariff's, everyone will be able to make those monthly down payments on a carton of eggs with no problem at all......."

Trump tries helping out Musk by selling Teslas outside the White House......"We love the Teslas, even the ones that their former owners are donating to junkyards across the country....I don't why they're doing that, do you, Elon? Anyway, buy one now and we throw in a Trump bible in the glove compartment.....which you're gonna need bigly once these tariffs kick in....the bible, that is, not the car...

More Trump voters gasp at the daily chaos wreaked on the government, bleating out, "I didn't imagine all this would happen'.......to which the sane half of the U.S. population that didn't vote for Trump could only comment, ".....so sorry to hear you're having second thoughts. To prepare for the ordeal, we recommend the following....1. Take a deep breath 2. Bend down as far as you can go. 3. Kiss your sorry ass goodbye....."

Happy weekend to one and all, with the exception of people to whom the above posts are dedicated to......lap it up, suckers, roll around in it...and if you're regretting the brain fry you experienced in the 2024 election, remember you get to vote again in 2026....

'THE AVENGERS' (1998)......STEED AND MRS. PEEL DEFEATED BY DEADLY ENEMIES....THE FILMMAKERS AND WARNER BROTHERS.

 

The Avengers (1998)   File this one under Most Wasted Opportunity of all the 1990's big budget special effects action-adventures.

          How sad. How tragic. A golden chance to start a big screen franchise out of one of British TV's most beloved exports.  Who wouldn't salivate to smile and thrill to the exploits of ultra dapper secret agent John Steed and his stunning partner, the Renaissance goddess, Mrs. Emma Peel?

          But who could've predicted the Warner Brothers suits would meddle and tinker with the film, essentially taking a massive steaming dump on it, carving it up into 89 minutes of bizarre gibberish.

          In fairness, the fault wasn't entirely the studio's. Even without Warner's incessant chainsawing, the direction, script and lead performances contained fundamental flaws. 

          The TV show, brilliantly acted by Patrick Macnee and Dame Diana Rigg, mixed the patented tongue-in-cheek of the Bond films with its own Alice In Wonderland craziness. Steed and Mrs. Peel would usually face off against a variety of homegrown British eccentrics....Mad Hatter tea party Blofelds bent on world domination. 

           Don MacPherson's screenplay for the film at least had the right idea in duplicating that element of the series. In a master stroke of casting, the film's whimsical supervillain was played by Sean Connery. And in what's left of the footage, Connery clearly had a fine time enacting prestigious madman Sir August de Wynter, who threatens the world by manipulating the weather. 

            But in the casting and portrayals of Ralph Fiennes and Uman Thurman as Steed and Mrs. Peel, the film fell apart, coming off as too arch, too remote, too studied. To put it mildly, they weren't much fun to watch, which was the whole point of the original TV duo. 

           Macnee and Rigg struck sparks together and managed to humanize their super heroics. You could tell they enjoyed each other's company and found ways to wink at the audience without ever breaking character.

           We don't know whose idea this was (MacPherson's or director Jeremiah S. Chechnik) but turning Steed and Mrs. Peel into stick figure caricatures from a Noel Coward play proved ruinous.  The sight of Fiennes and Thurman spitting out carefully composed pseudo witticisms at each other turns annoying after about 20 seconds. They make for a cold chilly pair impossible to warm up to. And audiences sure as hell couldn't root for them. 

           It's entirely possible that if a more cohesive, fuller version of the film had seen the light of day, it might (and that's a risky might we're using) have worked better for an audience. 

           But when Warner Brothers sliced and diced the footage into what amounts as a highlights reel (or a really long trailer). the film was doomed, dead on arrival. 

           Some bits and pieces of it are fun to watch.  (Fans of the TV show will chuckle at Patrick Macnee's now-you-see-him-now-you-don't cameo, Connery and his minions dressed as Teddy Bears, and Fiennes and Thurman dodging an army of literal drones - remote controlled robot bees.)

           We'll leave to you cherished BQ visitors to decide if it's worth the effort. 

           For us, 1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2). Not a film we're likely to re-watch ever again. 

           

            

          

'THE DEADLY AFFAIR'.....SIDNEY LUMET MEETS LE CARRE'S GLOOMY SPIES.....NOT A BAD MATCH....

 The Deadly Affair (1967)  As the world became enraptured with Bond-Mania, the gritty, gloomy, fatalistic universe of John le Carre's spy novels stood out like remote islands of reality in a sea of secret agent spoofery.

          The same held true for the film adaptations of le Carre's work that made it to theaters, starting with 1965's "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold".

           "The Deadly Affair", a reworking of the author's first novel 'Call For The Dead' fell into the capable hands of director Sidney Lumet, whose films usually never strayed out of New York City. 

            But the material seemed a perfect match for Lumet, a dark, dramatic story brought to life by the cream of the British acting community. And populated by the familiar le Carre cast of characters.......British Intelligence operatives who are as far from Ian Fleming's dashing 007 as Earth is to Jupiter, middle aged, bureaucratic clock punchers who go about their espionage duties while pushing paperwork like dutiful file clerks. 

           One such weary operative, Charles Dobbs (James Mason) smells a rat in the sudden shocking suspicious suicide of a fellow agent anonymously exposed as a Communist. As if that's not enough on his plate, Dobbs finds out his chronically adulterous wife (Harriet Andersson) has taken up with Dieter Frey (Maximillion Schell) his dearest friend and former spy comrade from their World War 2 days.

        We wouldn't even begin to explain the labyrinthine twists and turns of the plot as Dobbs' investigation uncovers double agents, triple agents, surprises, betrayals, murders and a clever trap sprung in the middle of a Royal Shakespeare Company performance. In true mordant le Carre fashion, the spycraft of these workaday Cold Warriors offers more ironic resolutions than thrilling victories. 

         As you'd expect in a Lumet film, nothing less than superb work from the entire cast, including that Brit icon of authority Harry Andrews as a retired detective helping Mason get to the bottom of things. 

          Despite the overall depressing doings, Lumet never lets the film lose any forward momentum, giving it the brisk  pace of an action thriller. Oddly enough, the only element jarringly out of place is the jazzy, urgent music score by the late composer Quincy Jones. 

           While Jones's very contemporary music matched many 1960's films perfectly, it sounds completely at odds with the bleak somber world of John le Carre and his dispiriting, cynical spies. It's as if Jones laid eyes on the film he was scoring. 

           A must film for Lumet completists and even a damn good one for those who prefers their cloak 'n dagger grounded in the real dangerous world of espionage backstabbing. 

             3 stars (***)