'DATE WITH AN ANGEL'.....THE WORLD'S WORST PICKUP LINE MADE REAL......"DID YOU HURT YOURSELF FALLING FROM HEAVEN?"

 Date With An Angel (1987)   

     We can offer no rational reason why we became fond of this little piece of fluff, one of God-knows-how-many VHS movies we purchased for video store inventories throughout the 80's and 90's......

           It bombed badly in its oh so brief theatrical run, but we nursed a gut feeling that video rental customers would adopt it like a stray kitten....(especially if all the copies of the A-list blockbuster movie were all rented out).

          And we were right. The film was so sweetly innocent, corny and old-fashioned, it almost looked like a throwback to the lighter-than-air screwball comedies of the 1930's. 

           Way up in Heaven, the Lord's assigning a retrieval task to an adorable Angel (Emmanuelle Beart). Some poor soul's on his way to the grave and she's to escort him to back up to the Pearly Gates.

           Lacking GPS, the Angel bounces off an orbiting communications satellite, bruising a wing and sending her plummeting to Earth faster than Katy Perry on a jumbo Amazon vibrator.

           She lands, wouldn't ya know it, in an apartment complex's swimming pool.....right near one of the residents, sensitive, struggling singer-songwriter Jim Sanders (Michael E. Knight). 

            Jim carries multiple woes: Chronic headaches (hint, hint), three seriously obnoxious frat-boy bros as best friends, and an engagement to marry the pampered, wealthy Princess-like Patty Winston (Phoebe Cates, cute as a button even as she spends the entire film in a state of hysterical rage.)

           You could write the rest of the movie yourself......After rescuing the Angel and binding her injured wing, Jim falls head over heels for her. But his three dopey bros want to steal her away to exploit her for cash while Patty's consumed with jealous tantrums over this mysterious girl who came out of nowhere. 

           Lots of slapstick comes into play (probably too much of it for the film's own good). But the main comic attraction is by far Beart's Angel, who only speaks in high pitched squeals and discovers an overpowering love for fast food French Fries.

          The whole package, photographed in the most soft focus color we've ever seen in an 80's film is a silly, cuddly confection, with ethereal special effects by Richard Edlund, (the first 'Star Wars' films).

          Perfect for anyone who'd like to revisit the kinder, gentler 1980's (at least compared to this day and age).....and for 10 year old girls slumber parties.....(how could kids not become entranced with Beart, who can stuff French Fries into her mouth and still look....uh....like she fell from Heaven?)

           3 stars (***).

             

           

'COLD BURN'......A NEW GLOBAL THREAT FACES OUR TOP U.S. SPECIAL AGENTS.....

 Cold Burn by A.J. Landau (2025)

     Fasten your seatbelts for the second A.J. Landau thriller that unfolds among America's most treasured National Parks. In these books, you're apt to come across something far worse in the parks than a wandering moose, or a stray grizzly. We're talking catastrophic global threats here.......merciless terrorists, Russian commandos and in 'Cold Burn', a scientific, unthawed prehistoric threat that promises to become an extinction level event.

     Luckily for mankind, we have Park Services special agent Michael Walker and FBI Special Investigator Gina Delgado on the case, each of them looking into bizarre deaths and disappearances. In Alaska, Michael's probing the deaths of an entire U. S. submarine crew and the disappearance of a U.S. Geological survey team. In the steamy Floriday Everglades, Gina's probing the baffling murder of a reporter, whose body was found relatively untouched amid the Park's predatory wildlife. What's going on......and why?

     The answers are frightening to behold. as Agents Walker and Delgado separately go up against some powerful adversaries, one of whom may very well be a mole working within Washington's halls of power. The fate of world's at stake - Gina battles assassins in the Florida swamps, while Michael, with the help of a reclusive, combative Alaskan Native American tribe, takes on no less than a small army of invading Russians.

     Yes, the science involved here is questionable (very similar to the James Rollins' 'Sigma Team' thrillers, but once the mysteries are laid bare, the non-stop action commences. As we expect of them, Walker and Delgado are pushed to edge of their physical limits, displaying fearless heroism and resourcefulness despite overwhelming odds.

        This book's simply pure popcorn-beach read fun, designed to get you fast 'n furiously turning pages. Those who keep up on current events will chuckle over whom some of the villains obviously resemble but I'll say no more to spoil any of the thrill ride 'Cold Burn' takes you on. This one's destined to become a beachside/poolside necessity.....and anywhere else at any other time of the year too.

        5 stars (*****).

'SUCH A GOOD MOM'....A NEW MOM COPES WITH POST PARTUM DEPRESSION AND HUSBAND CHARGED WITH MURDER.....

 Such a Good Mom by Julia Spiro (2025)

     First and foremost, I should point out that while there is a domestic murder mystery to unravel here, this book primarily functions as a deep dive into the agonies of a new mom's Postpartum depression. (Not to mention her severe mid-life crisis, in which current realities don't match up to her hopes and dreams of a valued, rewarding future.

     Brynn Nelson seems blessed in many ways.......a year round resident of beautiful Martha's Vineyard, success as a romance novelist, a new healthy baby boy, and a hard working husband who's part of the island's most prominent family-owned construction business. But the round the clock demands of motherhood have left her overwhelmed and exhausted, with severe, crushing doubts about her ability to become a loving mom to her infant. As if all that isn't enough of a burden, police arrest her husband Ross as the suspected murderer of a popular young girl befriended by his family.

     Despite mounting, conclusive evidence against Ross, Brynn attempts to untangle all of the long hidden secrets, suspects and clues that might lead her to find out what exactly happened.....and why. As enticing as I'm sure that sounds to fans of domestic thrillers, the mystery takes a back-of-the-bus seat to pages and pages of Brynn's constant mental crisis. In that particular area, the book does incisively detail the inner turmoil of Postpartum. But the when the actual mystery's surprises and revelations finally arrive, it's feels perfunctory and laborious, served up with little or no sense of danger and suspense.
   
     For its constant attention and empathy toward Brynn's motherhood ordeal, I'm generously giving 'Such A Good Mom' 3 stars (***).. But I would not recommend this book for those who'd come looking for a full fledged domestic puzzler with lead characters put in dire jeopardy. There's drama aplenty here, but not the kind of melodrama mystery readers would find satisfying.

        

     

'BAD INFLUENCE'.....A TEEN INFLUENCER DEALS WITH ROMANCES, FAMILY DRAMA AND THOSE ALL IMPORTANT 'LIKES'......

  Bad Influence by Claire Ahn (2025)

     Author Claire Ahn has given us something I didn't think possible......a teen influencer we can empathize with and cheer on in her quest for "likes" and followers. (It seems lately such characters only hang out in horror of murder mysteries....)

     Korean-American Charlotte is by no means your standard vapid fashionista living out a click bait life on social media. Her family has fallen on hard times making ends meet, and Charlotte's secretly helping them out with money she's earned from her site's first sponsorship, (Her family has no clue about her media life, so she makes up a series of lies about where the money came from.)

     Charlotte's ups and down as an influencer take her on quite an emotional ride. Decrying the anti-Asian bigotry of some of her fellow influencers gains her a growing fan base, but she suffers derision and scorn by a taking a sponsorship from a company accused of that exact misdeed. To complicate things even more, she catches the attention of a rising, devil-may-care young movie star at the very same time she realizes she's been in love with that always familiar standby, the combo lifelong friend/boy next door.

      But it's none of those usual, typical and predictable YA tropes that attracted to me to this book. The beating heart of "Bad Influence" lies in Charlotte's relationship with her loving, close-knit Korean family. (including, of course, mouth-watering descriptions of Korean cooking at the dinner table.) She and her parents dote upon Jojo, her irrepressible toddler sister, with Charlotte often assuming co-parenting duties of the little girl. But she harbors a long simmering deep resentment of her mother, whom she feels never raised Charlotte with the love and care she now lavishes on Jojo.

     While I realize that a lot of readers will, unlike me, find the social media stuff fascinating and compelling., along with the questionable choices Charlotte makes, it's her family dramas and their resolution that kept me glued to the book. (Sorry, but the rising amounts a character's 'likes' doesn't pump out much adrenalin for me....)

     A pleasant, satisfying read, that manages enough heart to overcome the self-absorbed superficial world of influencing.

       3 stars (***).

INVASION' .......A BRIT HOSPITAL BESEIGED BY ILLEGAL ALIENS.....ASIAN WOMEN FROM OUTER SPACE....

 Invasion (1966)  

       After seeing this film eons ago on late-night TV, we've spent even more eons attempting to track it down. 

        (We always thought of it as a side-by-side companion piece to the 1963 film 'The Unearthly Stranger', which we also spent endless years in search of a re-watch. That quest finally hit paydirt this year when we uncovered it on the Internet Archive and you can check out our review of 1/27/25).

          Both films share this in common - both are very understated, very modestly low budget black-and-white British takes on alien invasions....both crisply written, directed and acted by skilled talent on both sides of the camera. 

           On a tip from a YouTube movie blogger, we finally found 'Invasion' parked on Daily Motion, yet another random streaming site with vast amounts of free content. 

     Was at last catching up with it worth the wait you ask?

            Hmmm......somewhat. But not nearly as much as 'The Unearthly Stranger'. That movie chilled us to the bone, with its moody story of a bedeviled scientist (John Neville) who discovers his wife's an undercover alien invader. 

           'Invasion', considering its limited budget, presents a far more involved, ambitious Close Encounter of the Third Kind. 

           Somewhere in the remote suburbs outside London, an alien ship from Planet Lystria crashes in the woods. A Lystrian convict (Ric Young) escapes the ship, only to be hit by a passing car. Taken to the area's small local hospital, an intense dedicated doctor (Edward Judd) and his staff discover through x-rays and blood tests that their new patient is no local neighborhood guy......

        And even more alarming for them, a formidable pair of girl Lystrians (including the stunning international starlet Yoko Tani) is on the hunt for the escapee. They mean earthlings no harm, but end up accidentally killing a few people anyway......not to mention making Judd and the medical crew sweat bullets by overheating them with an invisible force field thrown around the hospital grounds.....

          Sounds like a thrill ride indeed, but in execution, not really. The overall pacing makes it seem more like a stiff upper lip tea party where everyone starts losing their temper. In that regard, the film duplicates the constant overlapping dialogue of Howard Hawks' iconic 'The Thing' but there's no camaraderie among people uniting to battle a common foe. 

          Everyone here spends a lot of time testily snapping at one another, while Judd tries a grueling crawl through the sewer system to get beyond the alien heat dome. 

          We did very much appreciate the film's various storyline quirks.....Lystrians are not only an all-Asian planet, but female dominated. (The male fugitive marvels at how Judd's allowed to order around the nurses. Suck on that, Earth Patriarchy!)

          Considering the measured pace the film affects for its brief 80 minutes, the finale wrap-up appears abrupt and rushed, as if someone behind the scenes had simply shouted, "Oh come on, get on with it already".

          A minor, fascinating little film that sci-fi film completists should seek out. (And fanboys 'n girls will also spot the beautiful exotic Tsai Chin (of 'You Only Live Twice' and Fu Manchu movies) ...no, not as a Lystrian, but one of the hospital nurses)

           2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "I'LL END THE WAR IN 48 HOURS' EDITION......

 

The country reels, gasps, and collectively shakes its head in misery after another week of Trump chaos........sales of Advil, Tylenol and extra strength aspirin skyrocket from Trump voters repeatedly smashing their heads against whatever wall is nearby.....

As his poll numbers continue to plummet, Trump begins dialing back on tariffs......"Honestly, the tariffs were never my idea in the first place....the guy who delivers the Big Macs to the Oval Office told me about 'em, told me it would make me famous all around the world. Well, ya know.....he's never late with the burgers so I thought he might be on to something.....so he's the one you should talk to. But don't worry, I'm demanding a new delivery guy...."

Elon Musk leaving DOGE after overwhelming U.S. hatred of him led to the decimation of his Tesla company......"But I feel I've done my part and left a lasting legacy....thanks to me loads of Social Security recipients will die in illness and poverty and I've saved the Federal Government 1/1000th of 1 percent of the budget....more or less.  You're welcome, America!"

Defense Secretary Hegseth screams at Pentagon generals, shares top secret info with his wife and has Signal chat installed in his office......"I keep telling you lying fake news reporters, I know what I'm doing at all times.....and you can take that to the bank as sure as I know we're gonna launch more missiles at the Houthis at 6 am tomorrow morning.....oh,,,,,ooopsie....you didn't hear that from me..."

Trump's unfulfilled promise to end the Ukraine war in 48 hours after he was elected continues to go awry. After Putin's bombing attack on Kiev, Trump cries out on social media, "Vladimir, Stop!"......in a secret, recently decoded message, Putin responded: "Now, now, my Trumpy Humpy Wumpie Doodle.....you should know by now to use the safe word when you want me to stop....you know, the one you use when we're alone together......when I'm on top and thrusting a little too hard for you......if you forgot, it's "Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese"........

'HEART EYES'....ON VALENTINE'S DAY......THE GORE, THE MERRIER

 Heart Eyes (2025)

     We'll at least credit these filmmakers with an interesting mash-up.

        Combining a meet-cute romcom with a splatter-gore slasher movie?  Bravo, folks. 

          The question is.....how well does this oil 'n water concoction play.....

           Surprisingly, not bad. Not all that great either, but for a Friday or a Saturday night jump-scare viewing, you could do a whole lot worse. 

           There's an appropriately attractive cast who're game enough and up for the wear and tear the film puts them through.

           And the fond tributes to hoary rom-com tropes get spoofed while still respecting the genre. 

           The film serves up its first (and best) kill right at the start, which was maybe not the best idea in the script. Bad news for Gorehounds demanding creativity in their splatter - the rest of the kills are the usual razz-ma-tazz you've seen in hundreds of other slashers.......

            But on to our rom-com lovey-doveys, (Mason Gooding, Olivia Holt). They're young marketing whizzes (whizzi?) forced to work together on a sales pitch.  Prepare for clumsy head-bumping meet cutes, followed by rivals-to-friends-to-smoochers evolution.

           Before these swell kids have barely moved out of their 'rivals' stage, out of the closet (no gay smirks, please) pops our main attraction, ole Heart Eyes himself. Sporting a mask with heart heaped eyes that light up in the dark (oooooo!!), he tours the country every Valentine's Day, wiping out loving couples.

           And the hunt and chase scenes commence, with Gooding and Holt loudly proclaiming their current shakey relationship status doesn't qualify them for HE's hit parade......to no avail, of course. To misquote the old saying........Heart Eyes wants what Heart Eyes wants....

            We'll not bother detailing the rest of the film, which only tosses in a few more noteworthy kills, amid the usual random slew of stabbings and impalements. The desperate lovebirds try to keep up the romcom banter, but we've all gotten the joke by that time. 

            For horror-hounds, "Heart Eyes" certainly fills the required blood quote and as a plus, their dates will appreciate the constant nods to the kind of movies they force their boyfriends to watch with them. So consider it a win-win for everybody.

             3 stars (***).

             

'THE MYSTERY OF THUG ISLAND'......TIGERS 'N SNAKES 'N THUGS, OH MY............

 The Mystery of Thug Island (1964)

        After catching this on Tubi, we realized that in our neverending pursuit of 1960's Internation Co-Production Euro-Junk, we'd left out another sub-genre.......the costume swashbuckler. 

           Yes, beloved BQers, Italian filmmakers and their frequent European shlock partners (Spain, Germany, France, etc) tried (in addition to Bond knock-offs, spaghetti westerns and giallos) to buckle some swash. Pirates, of course, but they also dipped their toes in that old Hollywood favorite - Colonial India under stiff upper lip British rule. 

            We longed to review our personal favorite of these, "Temple Of The White Elephants (1964) starring, honest, Errol Flynn's chip-off-the-old-block Sean Flynn but we couldn't nail down an English dubbed copy anywhere. 

            But here's a worthy suitable substitute, starring Guy Madison, one of 1950's Hollywood B-minus hunks who gravitated over to Europe in search of acting gigs that had dried up back home...(much like Leo DiCaprio's 'Rick Dalton' character from 'Once Upon A Time In Hollywood')

            In a rare villain role for Madison, normally a pretty boy lead, he's the religiously lunatic leader of Thugee hordes who worship the usual big ugly statue of the Goddess Kali.  (You can think of him of a much better looking version of Mola Ram, the heart-grabbing fiend of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom'.)

         Years ago, Guy's ghoulish gang nabbed the three year old daughter of British Captain McPherson (the perpetual white-haired Peter van Eyck). In a cave on the Thugs' remote jungle island, he's raised little Ada (Ingeborg Schoner) into a beautiful virgin priestess in charge of human sacrifices.

         But don't despair!  Rescue is coming from every direction......Ada's dad and an expeditionary force have set out to find her and wipe out the Thugs.  And on the island itself, Ada's come across true love in hunka-hunka poaching snake hunter Tremal Naik (Giacomo Rossi Stuart).

          Need we go on?  The finale, as you could easily guess, is an all out gun-sword-fist battle between all our good guys and Guy's Thugees.....with the long awaited ultimate slugfest between Guy and Giacomo.

          The English dubbed dialogue sounds lifted out of 1950's most cornball low-budget Hollywood costumers.....almost all of it's priceless, hilarious, almost bordering on spoof Oh yes, there's a tiger, which turns into a large stuffed animal for closeups of wrestling with Giacomo.  And making things even more unintentionally riotous, Composer Carlo Rustichelli, scores the ominous Thug ceremonies with an out of control slide whistle. (We defy anyone to listen to it without collapsing into giggles.....)

          For those connoisseurs/curators of Euro-Junk like BQ, this one's a 3 & 1/2 star find. (***1/2).  But if you've been shaking your head in disbelief while reading this review, then you already know enough to go nowhere near movies like this. 

         We say loosen up, cook up some tubs of buttered popcorn and savor it as guilty pleasure treasure......

'DYING FOR SEX'.....THE ROAD TO ONCOMING DEATH......STREWN WITH HEARTBREAK, KINKY SEX.....AND LAUGHS

Dying For Sex (FX-Hulu mini-series 2025)

      Our first instinct when we heard about this series.......avoid it at all costs. Watching someone die from metastatic breast cancer that spread through their bones?  Hard pass.

        We changed our mind based on several key factors

         Primary #1. - star Michelle Williams, one of BQ's all time faves, one of those talents who justifies that phrase, "we'd sit through 6 hours of her reading from the phone book...."  This luminous gifted actress never, ever disappoints. 

            #2. The show held out the promise of loads of sex and laughs, along with the gut wrenching scenes of terminal illness and death. In that regard, the show didn't disappoint either.

           Based on a woman's real life experiences, we follow the bumptious, painful path of Molly (Williams), who thought she'd survived breast cancer. Now the disease has come roaring back in her hip and spreading throughout her bones,brain and liver. 

          Trapped in a 15 year orgasm-free marriage and haunted by her sexual assault as a child, Molly jettisons her husband as she sets out on a new journey.......to explore and experience as much earth-moving sex as she can before the cancer claims her life. 

           With the everlasting support of her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate, as equally spectacular as Williams), Molly's wild tour through unorthodox sexual techniques and positions is hilariously bizarre and Williams' performance more than lives up the FX channel's slogan of 'Fearless'. 

           In her quest for orgasmic nirvana, Molly recruits 'Neighbor Guy' (Rob Delaney) from her apartment building, a man both intimidated and entranced by her urgent lusts. And we can promise you won't know whether to laugh out loud, cringe and sigh with deep sympathy at their scenes together. 

          Altogether an amazing series and you won't find anything else like it among the tonnage of streaming content now available. Michelle Williams always raises the bar for herself and Jenny Slate matches her every step of the way. 

          Even with the endless Everest of TV choices, BQ recommends you move this one to the top of your 'don't miss' list. 

           5 stars (*****).

                  

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.......SPECIAL "SUPREME COURT? NEVER HEARD OF IT." EDITION........

 

Trump's destruction of the American economy rages on, as the stock markets continue to plunge and prices rise ever upward......in a sign of weather to come, Republican members of the Congress and the Senate, poke their heads out of their burrows, see their shadows and scream in terror....signifying 4 more years of winter.....

The Cult Of Trump (formerly known as the GOP) with few exceptions, stays silent......in a shocking discovery, Capitol police break into a mysterious closet and find a pile of spines and shriveled testicles belonging to still living Republican lawmakers. 

Ignoring both the District Court and the Supreme Court's 9-0 ruling, Trump refuses to return wrongly deported man send to a hellhole El Salvador prison....."What can they do to ME, those black-robed bananas? Spank me? Send me to 'time out' corner? Hit me with strongly worded language? Hey guys, you're the ones who gave me immunity from friggin' EVERYTHING! You're no better than U.S. soldiers who die in battle.....suckers and losers..."

Trump goes to war on Harvard, cutting off the university's government funding on the pretext of fighting Anti-Semitism....."And another thing, we're gonna make 'em cut back on all those books in their libraries.....too many books just gives those smart-ass students and professors a lot of....a lot of.....ideas. And too much thinking's going on there, we gotta put the brakes on that....

RFK Jr. as expected, continues to spout his usual addled pseudo-medical gibberish......when reporters asked about the oozing greyish matter collecting around his feet, Kennedy explained, "Oh, oops, sorry about that......that stuff sometimes leaks out of the holes in my head left by the worm.....but I can still remember my own name....sometimes...."

Jeff Bezos sends an all woman crew, including Katy Perry, into space for about 11 minutes.....Perry later complained about the extra 'same day delivery' charge when she ordered the flight on Amazon.  Later, Bezos proudly announced over 11 million dollars in sales of pre-lubricated vibrators in the shape of the women's space capsule....

Happy Easter Weekend to all BQ visitors!!   But as for you Trump voters, enjoy roasting in the hell on earth you've created for yourselves and everyone else. Happy yet?

'ADOLESCENCE'......THE KIDS ARE FAR FROM ALRIGHT......

 Adolescence (Netflix series-2025)

      After sitting through a couple of stinko movies, we needed to clear the air by streaming some good stuff.  Here's the first of two we'd like to clue you in on.

      Only four episodes to this British mini-series, but each one's a unique gut punch. 

       Produced, co-written and co starring actor Stephen Graham, 'Adolescence' takes a heartbreaking, disturbing look at the brutal murder of British school girl......

       ......a repeated stabbing murder committed by a 12 year old boy, one of her classmates. 

         Rendered in an unnerving semi-documentary style, each of the hour long episodes is shot in one continuous take. In a display of awesome bravura filmmaking, the mobile camera never stops rolling as it follows the characters in and out of cars, houses, schools.....and police interrogation rooms. 

         We don't want to get into any further details here, because this is a story you should let unfold in front of you with as little prior knowledge as possible. 

         But let's do single out the incredible performances you'll see.....especially young Owen Cooper as the boy whose sudden volcanic rage leaves a classmate bleeding out on the pavement. Producer-writer-actor Graham will pin you to your chair with his portrayal of the boy's anguished father....a working class bloke who finds himself stunned that he's fathered a son capable of such a monstrous act. 

           BQ says see it soon and brace yourself for a powerhouse experience. 

             5 stars (*****)

'HAMMERHEAD'......VERSUS HIS NEMESIS, SECRET AGENT BLOCKHEAD.......

 Hammerhead (1968)

         By now, BQ visitors are familiar with our undying passion for all those cheap, cheesy imitation Bond movies that flooded world cinemas throughout the mid to late 1960's......

          As derivative, dumb and mostly crummy as they were, we couldn't help gobbling them up like buckets of butter-slathered popcorn.....the guiltiest of our Guilty Pleasures. 

         Maybe it was inevitable that sooner or later, we'd come across one of these movies that we didn't like at all, one that just made our eyes roll in its overall incompetence and lack of any entertainment value whatsoever.

         Go figure. What irony. That this Eurospy stink bomb came from, of all places, the birthplace of Bond, Great Britain. 

          Supposedly the start of a series, 'Hammerhead ' came from producer Irving Allen, who'd had better luck producing Dean Martin's Matt Helm series and a slew of popcorn crowd pleasers he'd co-produced with Bond impresario Albert R.Broccoli.

          Filmed in sunny Portugal, we follow the ups 'n downs of secret agent Charles Hood, played by darkly handsome Vince Edwards, renowned as the volcanic raging Dr. Ben Casey on American TV.  Hood's on the trail of wealthy criminal mastermind Hammerhead (Peter Vaughn), who's about to pull off his most outrageous, nefarious plot. 

           Hood, as it turns out, isn't much of a sleuth or a deft secret agent.....he gets beaten up in fights and Hammerhead stays ten steps ahead of him through the entirety of the film.  And in rom-com fashion, Hood's constantly interrupted by the unlikely appearances of bubbly, bubble headed Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sue Trenton (Judy Geeson, once again proving she's the cutest of the batch of 60's Brit starlets.)

            The wily Hammerhead traps Hood and Sue in a coffin together and proceeds with his elaborate caper - stealing NATO secrets by substituting the British diplomat with a hammy actor famous for doubling celebrities. 

             Unlike other Eurospy movies (such as Irving Allen's own Matt Helms), this one's incapable of delivering either funny spoofery or breakneck action.  There's hardly any thrills and the attempts at humor fall so flat, you won't notice they're there. 

             Judy turns on the charm full force whenever she turns up, but Vince Edwards displays nothing of his 'Ben Casey' charisma. Also popping up (for nostalgia buffs) -  resident man-mountain David Prowse (the physical Darth Vader) and British Blonde Bombshell Diana Dors as a Hammerhead femme fatale. The voluminous amounts of makeup and eye shadow required to paint her face gave us a twinge of sadness for the ravages of time......

            We can usually manage to extract moments of craziness and fun in the many Eurospy romps we've viewed over the years. But not this one, though. 

            'Hammerhead' only made us regret the time we wasted on it. 

            1/2 of a star and that's only for Judy Geeson. Pass it by unless you're one of her most devoted fans. 

       

           

'FLIGHT RISK'......UP IN AIR, MEL HATH NO FURY LIKE A PSYCHO WAHLBERG......

 Flight Risk (2025)

     We've shown little or no interest in the doings of Mel Gibson ever since he ripped away his genial Movie Star mask to reveal himself as a drunken anti semite and all around obnoxious guy. 

       Having said that, we'll still try to honestly approach this film with even handed fairness.......

      Honestly, it's a dumb little stinker of an action-suspense movie, a stripped down, low budget imitation of those 90's high concept, high octane thrillers that usually starred Stallone, or Willis, or Ford, or Schwarzenegger.

        In this brief, gimmicky contraption, a conflicted, previously disgraced U.S. Marshall (Michele Dockery) has, in the wilds of Alaska, nailed her quarry, a snarky, wisecracking mob accountant (Topher Grace). The squirmy wormy numbers cruncher agrees to testify against his boss, which requires the Marshall to escort him on a small rickety plane to Anchorage so they can hop an airliner to Seattle.  

        As fate (and the script) decrees, the little plane's goofy, grinnin' pilot (Mark Walhberg) is actually a sadistic mob hitman, sent to wipe out Grace, but not on Dockery's watch. 

           Then the bulk of the film's 90 minutes is taken up with Dockery and Grace's brutal, back and forth battles with Wahlberg for control of the plane and to see who makes it out of this movie alive......

           To extract any entertainment out of this film, you'll need to dial down your intelligence level (like the robots in "Companion") to somewhere around a 1 or a 2.  That way, you won't continually roll your eyes at the sight of a bald Wahlberg or the annoying off screen voice of the pilot trying to teach Dockery to land the plane.....(while attempting to flirt with her enough to win a date.....honest.)

            One positive note......Mel Gibson may indeed be a flawed, flailing mess of a human being, but he does know how to edit and stage convincing action sequences. But that skill alone will never return him to his long lost A-List status......especially if it's put to use in a such a stale cheap crackerjack box of a movie like this one.

            1 star (*). Action lovers, wait till it wanders into some streaming site that's either free or one you're paying for already. Otherwise, feel free to skip it. You won't have missed a thing.