'BACK IN ACTION'.....CAMERON AND JAMIE, STUCK IN THE NETFLIX ALGORITHM 'N BLUES.......

Back In Action (2025)   Nobody's complaining about seeing beloved fan favorites Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx return to entertaining us....

         Who didn't miss Diaz, always a cinematic firecracker, while she took a 10 year hiatus from films......face it, we all did. 

       And it's certainly a relief to see Foxx back with us, after suffering through alarming health scares. 

       That's the good news. That they're back and starring in a spiffy, expensive Netflix action-comedy.

         Here's the bad news -  that spiffy expensive Netflix action-comedy is just another one of those mechanically assembled, A.I. generated Frankenstein-ian concoctions.....pieced together by those notorious Netflix algorithms that are permanently programmed to imitate 1990's popcorn blockbusters. 

          For these two stars, couldn't Netflix come up with something better than reheated tropes from all those Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Gibson-Cruise-Willis wingdings?

           Pardon us while we let out a long dramatic sigh.....

           Here goes...(forgive us if we stop to yawn)....Diaz and Foxx were super-dooper James and Jane Bond spies. We know this from the furiously over-choreographed opening that mimics a pre-title Bond movie sequence. 

             Years later, they've settled into a typical upper middle class suburban lifestyle, complete with two kids, a surly teen daughter (McKenna Roberts) and perky up-for-anything 12 year old boy (Rylan Jackson). 

            But as you knew it would, a past mission fires up again and the whole family's off to London for chases, shootouts and a lame, worn out twist or two....(including Glenn Close showing up as the fam's spymaster granny...)

             Yada, yada yada.....viewers could connect the plot's dots blindfolded. 

             The only thing that stood out for us was the casting of gifted actor Andrew Scott (Netflix's "Ripley") as a possibly turncoat MI6 operative. What a dumb idea for a red herring twist......even the Netflix A,I. machine knew that Scott had already played an MI6 turncoat in "Spectre". Plus, what a waste of time to give such a versatile actor such a nothing, throwaway role. 

            We'll admit though, we took a moderate amount of amusement out of this cobbled together test tube baby of a movie....

             Cameron Diaz is still a live wire and all kinds of fun to watch and Jamie Foxx more than matches her in charismatic star power. 

            And since we all may be dead and buried before Barbara Broccoli and Amazon ever come to terms on making another James Bond movie, the spy fights and chases in "Back In Action" served to feed our addiction to Bond-ian adventure. 

            Our main beef - if Netflix has enough money to throw at these elaborate imitations of previous movies, why not start using real writers to create them?   Just a suggestion......

            Who knows? Maybe then we'd be able give out a rating higher than the one here....2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2).

'YOU ARE FATALLY INVITED'.....6 MYSTERY WRITERS....STUCK ON AN ISLAND WITH A KILLER...

 You Are Fatally Invited by Ande Pliego (2025 - Release Date 2/11/25)

     If nothing else, this book could stake its claim to having one of the most attention getting titles of the year. Who could resist it? With a title like that, you just knew it could only be - #1. Your family's invitation to Thanksgiving dinner where everyone holds different political views. Or #2. A locked room mystery with a host of unusual suspects trapped on a remote storm stricken island.

     Surprise surprise ....it's #2. with the added attraction of the host and guests all being best selling mystery authors. And with another big non=surprise......our host, mysterious, anonymous author J.R. Alastor plans to subject his guests to all sorts of puzzling clues and games, based on the secret sins each one is hiding. You would need something akin to a NCAA March Madness chart to make sense of everybody's scandals and exactly how they interconnect with each other. One thing's certain......these people will wish they'd gone on that 3 hour cruise to Gilligan's Island rather than this lethal shindig.

     Assisting Alastor in all these murderous revelries is failed writer turned event planner Mila del Angel. But unknown to Alastor, Mila's using this opportunity to wreak overdue vengeance on one of the novelist guests, someone who wronged her terribly, leaving her life and future ambitions in ruins.

     The guests themselves arrive with enough emotional baggage and darkest of secrets to fill out a dozen 'trapped-on-a-storm-tossed-island murder mysteries. So it's no great mystery when the 'And-then-there-were-none' body count starts steadily rise to alarming proportions.

     In the first chapters, author Ande Pliego uses just enough measures of acerbic wit to poke
some overdue fun at this well worn genre and all its tropes. I only wish the book had maintained that level of sardonic mockery all the way through. But as the bodies pile up and the expected multiple twists finally arrive, the book (and we its readers) become immersed in the impossibly intricate mysteries. on display.

     I'm in complete awe of how this labyrinth of a plot works itself out in the final pages. I'd recommend "You Are Fatally Invited" to any mystery fanatics who love to end up muttering multiple times "Well I didn't see THAT one coming.".

          4 stars (****). Remember to avoid excursions to remote islands in the midst of stormy weather......not in books, just in real life.....

WEEKEND MADNESS WRAP-UP.....SPECIAL "ALL HEIL TO PRESIDENT MUSK" EDITION......

 Hi there, Trump voters!  Having fun yet?   Getting everything you voted for? And more?

How's the price of eggs these days?  Did you book your trip for 7 days and 6 nights at the new Trump Casino-Resort in Gaza-Lago?

Please don't worry if your next Social Security check is signed by Elon Musk.....it should come out to no more than 60% less than the last one.

How about all those well qualified 'best people' appointed for cabinet positions? Lovin' them?  Don't worry, if your kids contract measles and polio, RFK Jr. promised to lend you his brain worm as a cure.....

What's that, you said?  You didn't vote for Elon Musk?  Oh yes you did, because you didn't like the price of eggs. 

What's that you said?  Supermarket eggs now come with a low interest payment plan on a dozen?

Aren't you excited about Canada joining us as part of the United States!  We know the Canadians are just as excited as you are! In fact, why don't you travel to any Canadian city and start singing "America The Beautiful". What a warm welcome you'll get!

What's that, you said?  You didn't think things were going to be this chaotic so soon? You didn't know what you were letting yourself in for? You never really thought Trump would do all the crazy stuff he promised?

By the way.....how's the price of eggs lately?

Cry us a river........but suck in what you voted for.  Eat a scrambled egg in celebration.....if your credit card can cover the cost.

'THE 1000 EYES OF DR. MABUSE'.....FRITZ LANG BOWS OUT BUT AS FOR DR. MABUSE....YOU CAN'T KEEP A BAD MAN DOWN.....

The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960)   If you've visited this site over the years, you well know how much we love us some Euro-Junk....Giallos, Krimis, 007 knockoffs, International Heist Capers, slashers, swordsman, mafia maniacs, mythical muscleheads and so much more.....

          .....the more obscure, the better. The nuttier the better......and the more filled with assorted, beloved character actors from multiple countries, the better....

          We so looked forward to this one for several reasons. It was another mystery-adventure in the weird universe of Dr. Mabuse, a diabolical master criminal forever in quest of world domination.....sort of a Germanic version of Professor Moriarity or a creepier Ernst Stavro Blofeld. And more than that, it was also the final film of legendary director Fritz Lang (of 'M', 'Metropolis', 'Rancho Notorious' among his classics).  Lang himself had kicked off the Mabuse series with 1933's 'The Testament of Dr. Mabuse'.

         We're depressed to report that '1000 Eyes' isn't particularly good junky fun to sit through and ends up as a confusing, convoluted last effort from a director of so many iconic films. 

        But we did enjoy the cast line up here, one of the prime factors drawing us to these international mish-mashes. As the relentless cop trying to figure out what's going on, there's portly Gert Frobe, only a few years away from his world famous role of Goldfinger. Also on board - those guys every World War 2 movie fan knows on sight, Werner Peters, Wolfgang Preiss, Howard Vernon and the dashing, white haired Peter van Eyck.

          Topping off this fascinating group, was for us, the main attraction - drop dead gorgeous British star Dawn Addams, who maintained an up-and-down, all-over-the-map career, moving from Brit movies and TV to international co-productions.  Any film that gives a chance to gaze upon the lovely Ms. Addams, sign us up.

        The film itself? Blah. It starts off promising enough, with a sinister assassin (Howard Vernon) offing a journalist with a gun that shoots steel needles...ouch.  Commissioner Kras (Frobe), investigating other murders, takes prophetic calls from mysterious blind psychic Cornelius (Preiss). Somehow, all this leads to a plush hotel, where most of the film's action takes place. 

         Here's where stuff becomes dense and unexplained. A whole bunch of characters interact at this hotel, but it's never clear what any of them have to do with each other, or for that matter, Dr. Mabuse whose name randomly pops up in the proceedings. Meanwhile, an American industrialist with an atomic lab (van Eyck) talks a distraught woman (Addams) out of suicide. Hovering around everybody is a busybody life insurance salesman (Werner Peters) hoping the increasing body count will generate more policy sales. 

            Through the bulk of this slow talky slog, none of these plot complications seem to connect......that is, until the last 10 minutes where revelations, shootouts and wild car chases all pile up at once. 

            The nefarious Mabuse and his latest plan to conquer the world are at last revealed.....sort of.....maybe. (We only mention this because Mabuse has been presumed dead for years....or has he? Sort of.....maybe.....)

            Born scene stealer Frobe makes the most of every scene he's in and you can easily see why he caught the eye of the James Bond producers. The movie even throws in some high tech bonuses that became staples of future action thrillers.....the hotel's equipped with surveillance cameras spying on every room (by guess who) and there's even a getaway car with a rotating license plate......(hmmm, now what movie did we see that in next? Also with Frobe in it....)

          Not a great farewell film for Fritz Lang to finish up his career with, but at least in that same year, his colorful exotic 'Indian Tomb' double feature was released (which we promise to cover fully on this blog very soon!)

          As for '1000 Eyes' - of interest only to fervent fans, (like BQ) of Euro-Pulp. We fear everyone else may find it clumsy, odd and for the most part, plain old boring. 

         2 stars (**).

          

         

'LIVING IN OBLIVION'.....AN INDIE DIRECTOR RUNS A GAUNTLET OF CHAOS......(AND HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY)

Living In Oblivion (1995)   It's as obvious as hell that independent writer-director Tom DiCillo based this funny, knowing film on his own experiences toiling in the low budget trenches. 

              And it couldn't have shown up at a better time than the mid 1990's.....the Golden, Glory era of the Sundance Film Festival and all the emerging breakout talents who shook up cinema every other day......(or so it seemed.)

          DeCillo chose to cast a brutal satirical eye on a few working days of harried indie director Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi), struggling to get two major sequences done without losing his mind. 

          With the help of his small, ragtag crew, Nick hopes to nail his script's crucial love scene.....but he's undone by perpetual technical glitches and the growing lack of chemistry between his dysfunctional leads, the anxious, struggling Nicole (a terrific Catherine Keener) and hot young newly minted movie star Chad Palomino (James LeGros, in a hilarious display of preening egotism.)

           We should point out here that Tom DiCello denied the standard rumor that he based Chad Palomino on Brad Pitt, who starred in the director's previous film 'Johnny Suede'. LeGros himself claimed he took his inspiration from some other unnamed actor he's worked with before. 

           As Nick's movie spirals into an escalating comedy of errors, DiCillo and his entire cast have enormous fun lampooning all the human foibles (and passions) of everyone who, for one reason or another, pursue their devotion to the arts of cinema 

           Steve Buscemi's a comic wonder, his eyes bulging ever wider as increasing panic and hysteria overtake him. His all too motley crew include Dermot Mulroney as his cinematographer and Danielle von Zerneck as his working-on-her-last-nerve assistant director. 

         And not surprisingly, the film's supporting MVP is Peter Dinklage, making his feature film debut as a dwarf actor, simmering with anger, recruited for a dream sequence because....well, don't movie dream sequences always include one dwarf? (In his real career, Dinklage refused to take such insulting, cliche roles and he's given a superb moment here to eviscerate any director who'd cast a dwarf as a cheap, cornball ploy to throw in Fellini-esque surrealism to a dream

         This film's a 'don't miss' for anyone who's immersed in the blood, sweat and tears of making a movie. But it's just as much fun for everybody else, since it's loaded up with scenes both laugh out loud and poignant. 

         Come to think of it, 'Oblivion' would make a perfect double feature with 'Saturday Night'..... and 20 years after its release, it remains a comic gem of the indie world. 4 stars (****)

            

          

          

          

      

'THE MEADOWBROOK MURDERS'.....AMONG THE STUDENT BODY.....2 DEAD BODIES.....

  The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman (2025)

     There are worse things than attending an exclusive Prep School for the sons and daughters of the Uppercrust. but given the horrible things that occur there in YA thrillers, I'm not so sure.

     But let me give credit to author Jessica Goodman - even though I wasn't inclined to care one millimeter about any of these student-suspects, the book's brutal murders and search for the killer hooked me from start to finish. And the deeper I got into it, I began to admire the story's perceptive takes on the nature of friendship, the clash of the super-rich with everybody below them and role of journalism in a society feeding on tabloid sound bites.

     The Meadowbrook school's rocked by the stabbing deaths of seniors Sarah and Ryan, both found in bed together by Amy, the girl's traumatized roommate. Budding school newspaper editor Liz is determined to use her investigative instincts to uncover the truth, but she's kept on a tight leash by her advisor and the Meadowbrook Headmaster. They much prefer uplifting stories about how the school's coping with such horrific tragedy.

     Absolutely no more should I spill, plot-wise, other than to say there's no shortage of suspects as the startling reveals and twists begin to unfold. And of course, on top of the mystery, a reader can sample a full menu of YA romantic betrayals, as well as friendships and rivalries that date back to childhood. It's fascinating to watch the back-and-forth clashes of the wealthy entitled Amy and middle class struggler Liz, right up to the expected melodramatic climax.

     While not the most puzzling or clever of murder mysteries, this book surely succeeded in keeping me turning those pages until the perp's at last unmasked in a more than satisfying finale, and a well done aftermath, both poignant and realistic.

     Maybe the next book in this genre could be "How to attend Prep School and still come out alive."

      4 stars (****)

'THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD' & 'THE 3 WORLDS OF GULLIVER'....HARRYHAUSEN SWITCHES TO FULL COLOR FANTASIES.....g

         

The beloved and celebrated special effects maestro Ray Harryhausen steadily built up a 1950's filmography of low budget, black-and-white (but startlingly iconic) sci-fi creature features.

       With producer-partner Charles Schneer, he used his stop motion animation artistry to unleash a menagerie of truly fantastic beasts....the raging dino of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", the bridge crushing giant octopus of "It Came From Beneath The Sea", the destructive alien discs of "Earth Vs.The Flying Saucers", and the rapidly growing Venusian reptile of "20 Million Miles To Earth".

        Then in 1958, Schneer and Harryhausen broke new ground for themselves and stop motion special effects films......

The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (1958) an enchanting Arabian Nights fantasy, arrived in full glorious technicolor and Harryhausen's imagination and skill reached all new heights. Adults and children gasped at the jawdropping array of sights before them.....an island of one-eyed Cyclops monsters, a woman turned into a bizarre snake creature, the Roc, a two headed giant bird, a fire breathing dragon and the premiere showstopper, a sword fighting skeleton for Sinbad to battle. 

         Nobody had seen anything quite like it and for the rest of his career, Harryhausen never looked back, concentrating mostly on mythological fantasies (with a few excursions into fanciful sci-fi like "First Men In The Moon".

         We could spend an eternity singing the praises of 'Sinbad', but for now we'll just concentrate on the film's primary MVPs. Star Kerwin Mathews brought great humanity and vulnerability to his heroes and no actor excelled better at convincing us he was really interacting with Harryhausen's creations. Torin Thatcher made a perfect sinister villain and child actor Richard Eyer captivated kids as the pint-sized genie.

          Best of all, Hollywood's most genius composer, Bernard Herrmann, began his collaboration with Harryhausen that continued on for three more films, "The 3 Worlds Of Gulliver", "Mysterious Island" and "Jason And The Argonauts."  Herrman's music for these films, propulsive, beautiful and richly symphonic, became landmarks in film scoring history. 

         Need we even go on? 67 years later, 'Sinbad' still stands as amazing and engaging as ever, a 5 stars must (*****) for everyone who loves cinema. 

The 3 Worlds of Gulliver (1960) came two years later, a rather bold attempt to condense and simplify Jonathon's Swift's 16th century satire "Gulliver's Travels".   Once again it featured Kerwin Mathews in the title role and one of Bernard Herrmann's most delightful scores (a personal favorite of Herrmann himself). 

           The project was a bit disappointing in that it offered Harryhausen little opportunity for his dazzling creature animation. Here it's limited to a forest squirrel and in the film's one and only bravura sequence - a crocodile who's let loose on Gulliver by the giant King of Brobdingnag.

          Given the material, of course, the effects concentrated first on a giant-sized Gulliver among the tiny Lilliputians then his harrowing days as a miniature man in the land of the giants. (For romance, the script provided him with a fiance (June Thorburn) who shares his Brobdingnag adventures. 

           In all of Harryhausen's work, audiences would gaze in wonder at his ability to combine flesh and blood actors with the unbelievable things around them......(In 'Gulliver' it's the stunning scene of Mathews pinned down and bound on the beach, surrounded by the real Lilliputian army standing guard over him. In 'Sinbad' it's the breathless duel between Sinbad and the skeleton, where you can actually see them cross swords against each other.)

          Getting back to 'Gulliver' it does feature one the finest supporting casts assembled for a Harryhausen film - for Lilliput, a full compliment of British greats (Basil Sydney, Martin Benson, Peter Bull) and a wonderfully hammy Gergoire Aslan as King Brob of the giants.

          (And all these years later, we couldn't help chuckling through the scene where Gulliver, his libido volcanic, urgently demands King Brob marry him and Elizabeth so their wedding night can proceed immediately. ) 

           Though specifically targeted at families and small children (even featuring a few musical numbers), the film manages to squeeze in a fair amount, albeit watered down, of Swiftian political satire.....especially at the expense of the foolish Lilliputians, who wage war on a neighboring country who won't conform to opening their eggs at the small end like they do.

           And then there's that marvelous Herrmann score, which alternates between grand orchestral bombast and delicate fairy tale charm, as if it's the composer's very own Nutcracker Suite.

          65 years later, 'Gulliver' remains the same spectacular classic as 'Sinbad'. If you have any kids (or grown up movie buffs unfamiliar with the films) treat them to a 5 star (*****) double feature.