CORA STRIKES BACK! OUR LEAST FAVORITE VIRUS POPS IN AGAIN......

               For now, there's no getting rid of her. Cora the Coronavirus once again skyped us......

BQ:     Cora, you look ridiculous in that MAGA hat.

CORA:  Suck it up, flesh-boy, he's MY President! Forever and always! 

BQ:   I can well understand that. He seems to be making things easier for you every time he stages one of those rallies.....er....sorry, I meant press conferences.   

CORA:  No, you got it right the first time.  How do I love this guy......let me count the ways! He's supposed to calm the nation, reassure you humans that he feels your pain and anxiety, take a firm hand to defeating me......

BQ:   Actually, he's doing none of those things......

CORA:  I know! I swear I could french kiss him till his lungs clog up just like his arteries......but hell no to that!  I want that dumb-as-a-rock son of a bitch alive and well.......so he can help me make sure that none of YOU are alive and well!

BQ:  That's one thing you and Trump have in common, Cora.......you both scare the living shit out of all rational, sane people.........

CORA:  Mission accomplished!  Did you catch that last so-called conference?  The one where he shows a campaign ad touting how wonderful he is?

BQ:   Sadly, yes.

CORA:  And he gets better every day. Like all that crap about how he thinks he's some kind of
mother******g King with Total Authority.

BQ:  Well....uh....he never read the constitution.......

CORA:  Flesh-head, when are you gonna realize......the only thing Orange Orang ever reads are the ingredients on the McDonald's ketchup packets.

BQ:  Maybe you can confirm a rumor. We've heard that you're the one behind that hashtag 'Fire Fauci' on Trump's tweets.......

CORA:  I'll neither confirm nor deny. But I won't lie to you.......I hate that little weasel Fauci.....he spoils all my fun!

BQ:   You mean because he's the only common sense, scientific truth-teller among that coterie of lapdogs who surround Trump?

CORA:   Hey, that's not bad. Maybe you should start a blog.......

BQ:  So, can you share any upcoming strategy with us?

CORA:  Oh sure thing. I'm waitin' on King Klown to use his Total Authority and re-open the country before everybody's tested.......then I can REALLY go to work on all you sorry suckers......

BQ:   Appreciate your insight, Cora. As always, any contact with you is disturbing and nauseating....

CORA:  Just like listening to Trumpty for 2 miserable hours, right?!  See ya, kiddo.
Make America Sick Again!


v

'TIGER KING'.......KITTY LITTER

Tiger King (Netflix Documentary 2020)    

              Simple question:

              Would this series become a global sensation if we weren't all quarantined in our homes, with hours upon hours of time at our disposal?

               If we were still allowed to live our lives and move freely about with fear of a horrible,
gasping-for-air death, would anyone obsess over this show and its repulsive, clown car cast of characters?

              Just sayin'..........

             We will NOT stand accused of obsessing over "Tiger King", so we'll  just roll out quick thoughts and impressions.........

               #1,:  An ongoing horrorshow like this could only occur in Donald Trump's America, populated with brain-dead, severely under-educated mouth-breathers with virtually no wills of their own.......and borderline psychotic. The only thing these lowest-of-the-lowlifes lack in their costumes of leather vests, tattoos and rotted teeth are MAGA caps.......

                #2.:  It's pointless to assess blame to any one particular participant in this freakish carnival. Only one of them ended up in jail, but if this was a fair and just world, someone should have dropped a net on all of them........

                   Let us now consider the story's three principal gargoyles..........

                   Joe Exotic   He's the radioactive fallout of Reality TV........an empty vessel who hungers for attention like an addict hungers for heroin......and lives his life not as a human being, but enacting an exaggerated cartoon character fashioned in what's left of his mind.........

                    In the series seven hours, you'll only get one fleeting, real glimpse of the real Joe, when he's not performing his loony-tune persona......it comes when you see him viciously kicks and shoots a lion who's clawing at his feet......... the lion's just being a lion, but in that split secondat last you see Joe's mask come off......

                    ......to reveal a snarling, sniveling little man.

                    His fate seems almost too perfect in its brutal irony........he at last achieves the fame he lusted after, but only at the price of being caged like his cats........Just like the Emperor, the Tiger King has no clothes......

                     Bhagavan "Doc" Antle  A far more creepy loathsome specimen than the strutting, preening Joe.......with his recruitment and collection of teen girls to help run his 'zoo'.  We'll say no more, we're getting nauseous at the mere thought of him......

                     Carole Baskin   We'll give her at least  this much......only a true master manipulator of public relations could pull this off........to somehow emerge from this trainwreck as the only person resembling a rational, sane human being.........even though suspected of killing her husband and feeding him to her tigers.......

                       We definitely got the feeling that anyone married to her should sleep with one eye open...….somewhere in another room. Maybe another house altogether.

                      That'll give you an idea of what a low bar is set for behavior here.......

                      As for the rest of the 'cast'........the crawling coterie of con-artists, felons, boy-toys, and overall creepezoids......please, let's not waste our breath........

                       So is it worth watching?  Entertaining?

                      Truth is.......like many others, we found ourselves hooked.........in the same way you slow down to gape at a car accident on the side of the road.

                       You'll have to decide if this is worth slowing down for 7 hours.  You'll shake your head in disbelief a lot, laugh out loud more than a few times..........

                        But make no mistake about what this show puts on display.......the very heart of darkness. And you may find yourself  wanting to mutter...."the horror.....the horror...."....not to mention sigh in sadness for the true victims Joe, Carole, and the whats-his-name Bagavoolie.....the abused, caged animals.

                       For "The Tiger King", 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)......for the people on view in it....
.....minus infinity.

                   

                   

'WHERE'D YOU GO, BERNADETTE'......THE PERILS OF BOOK CLUB CINEMA......

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)  If nothing else, we're consistent.....

              We considered ourselves the very last reader who finally got around to cracking open Maria Semple's best selling book.........and we're thinkin' we're the very last blogger to weigh in on the barely seen film.........

                ........which sank like a stone at near record speed........until its sank-like-a-stone record was broken by the instant, disastrous film version of "The Goldfinch"......(which we promise to get around to...)

                  Which amplifies our dictum that adapting popular best selling novels requires the nerves and skill of that Wallenda guy who performs high wire walks over canyons.......

                   Cause it's about the same thing........and your chances of plunging off the wire are 90% higher than a Wallenda.........

                    So where did this movie go wrong?

                    Simple. With Bernadette, the elusive, tormented, ultra witty genius architect who disappears before her techie-genius husband can have committed during a mental illness intervention.......

                   She remains elusive for a good deal of the book, but you're made to understood her pain and suppressed rage.......coming primarily from the willful, cruel destruction of her most brilliant architectural project.......

                    The film tosses this backstory off in too much of a hurry........because it's not designed for deep character exploration.....it exists only as a showcase for Cate Blanchett's  take-no-prisoners,
gimme-my-Oscar performance as Bernadette.........gobbling up the movie like a tiger just thrown a hunk of fresh meat.

                      Not that she isn't damn fun to watch as she unloads her white-hot temper and wit on a world that can't comprehend that her thwarted creativity is driving her over the edge.....

                      But somewhere in the script's adaptation, the mystery, poignancy and humor of the novel got flattened out, sanded down.........or left out altogether......

                    So what you've got left here is a pale imitation of the book.......with most of its plot points repeated, but minus the artistry and insights that you'd get in Semple's prose..

                      Hence the movie showing up dead 'n buried.....both in theaters and the bottom of the Wal-Mart DVD shelves......

                      We will credit director Richard Linklater and Blanchett for making it watchable and even modestly entertaining in more than a few scenes.........

                       But given the massive staying power of the book, it sadly stands as one hell of
a swing-and-a-miss........1 & 1/2 stars (* 1/2)

                        BQ memo to directors and screenwriters........Book Club Cinema ain't for sissies.......you want to bring a much-loved book to the screen and garner the same accolades the book received?  You'd better read it close enough to understand why it was so loved.......and figure out how in hell to translate that into a movie.......

                        As always, you're welcome, Hollywood.

'MY BLOOD RUNS COLD'.....TROY MEETS GIRL....OR: DEJA VU TO A KILL

My Blood Runs Cold (1965)   William Conrad enjoyed a long, prolific career as a journeyman character actor, TV star and voice-over narrator.........

                  What caught our eye most, though, was his brief but busy mid-1960's reign as a director of black-and-white, cheapie thrillers for Warner Brothers......

                    In quick succession, Conrad pumped out 3 of these Panavision-Monochrome semi-noirs, "Two On a Guillotine", "Brainstorm".......and this one, a kind of lame-brained, junior varsity 'Vertigo'.....

                    "My Blood Runs Cold" could've ascended to the level of Guilty Pleasure if Conrad employed real actors for his lead roles........a spoiled heiress and a mystery man who seduces her into thinking they were lovers in a previous life......

                     Who he got was that dead-eyed, dead-voiced, slab 'o blonde beef Troy Donahue, finishing out his Warner Brothers servitude as designated teen heartthrob........and for the girl....Joey Heatherton, one of the 60's well remembered sex kittens, whose primary tasks were......sex-kittenhood.

                      So you see the problem here.......neither of these kiddies had the chops to make you believe even one minute of this ridiculous, far-fetched melodrama.  Director Conrad, smart enough to know his target demographic were teens steaming up the car windows at the drive-in theatres, put the ever pouting, hip-twitching Heatherton in babydoll nighties and bathing suits as often as possible.

                      There was little he could do with the blank-faced Donahue, who meager acting skills couldn't possibly put across the mixture of soulful romantic and obsessive psychotic that the role required.

                       To make matters worse the script forced Donahue to enact operatic seizures.......and the film's connect-the-dots finale unfolds like a dreary, unsurprising TV crime show episode.......

                      A few pleasures pop up throughout........veteran character actors Barry Sullivan and Jeanette Nolen, as Heatherton's father and aunt, tear through their scenes with top-of-their-lungs abandon.  And Nicolas Coster turns the thankless role of Heatherton's wishy-washy would-be fiance into an ambivalent, sardonic, and near heroic guy.

                        Conrad. a seasoned pro, does keep the whole thing rollin' along at a decent clip to qualify the movie as at least watchable......but barely.  His two leads are hopeless and the story they're telling keeps no twists or sudden surprises up its sleeve......

                       For BQ, the film struggles to achieve 2 stars (**)........halfway through it, we amused ourselves daydreaming how a young Dennis Hopper or Jack Nicholson might have brought enough crazy to turn this turgid time-waster into  a loony chunk 'o fun..........sigh......

                   

3-D DEMI ! LIFE-SUCKING SLUGS! THE 'PARASITE' ONLY FANBOYS LOVE

Parasite (1982)   As you can see from the year of its release, this is not the celebrated South Korean multiple Oscar winner........

              In '82, a movie titled 'Parasite' could only be about exactly what it promised........a slimy razor toothed worm that took up residence in your tummy......feasting on you from the inside out.....

               In the deathless words of the 'The Little Rascals' cannibal-guy......"Yum, Yum! Eat 'um up!'

             And you could also assure yourself that a movie named 'Parasite' would cost only a few dollars more to produce than the ticket you paid to see it.......

               But why quibble? Slap on your flimsy paper 3-D glasses and revel in the sight of the eponymous monster launching itself directly at the camera and into your lap.......

                A plot?  Uh......hold on.....we know there's sort of one floating around here. Yes.....it's the future! 1992!   The world's been nuked to hell and gone......and our sort-of-hero scientist goes on the run from an evil government hitman armed with Frickin' Laser Beams!

               Our Dopey Guy The Science Guy takes along a couple of his pet parasites, one in a can and one in his gut (not a good thing)........Also not a good thing....he ends up in a Middle-Of-Nowhere Southwestern hole-in-the-wall infested by nasty biker-types left over from old Roger Corman movies......

               This place has its pros and cons......The primary pro:  young Demi Moore in her first feature film......the primary cons:  the post apocalypse scummy gang and the well dressed hitboy, who's taken to zapping people left and right with his Frickin' Laser Beams...…

                Bobbling along in this river of carnage, you'll spot Cherie Currie, Joan Jett's bandmate from the Runaways......and bizarrely, the aging musical-comedy star Vivian Blaine (of "Guys And Dolls")…...who doesn't sing a note, but does get enjoy a....uh....well, quite an explosive scene......

                 And who do we have to thank for this pulpy, gooey little mess of a movie...….who else but the tirelessly prolific horror-sci fi shlockmeister Charles Band......who later formed his Full Moon productions company that pumped out countless low-grade ooga-booga classics like the "Puppet Master" movies...….

                You'll never hear us disparage the Band-inator……...'cause as a long ago video movie-buyer, we loved keeping our stores well stocked with all his gruesome little cheapies...…customers (and disturbingly, some their younger kids) loved 'em……

               Since we're feeling pangs of nostalgia on our birthday, we'll ooze out 2 & 1/2 slimy stars for 'Parasite' (**1/2)…..though we may hate ourselves for it in the morning...…..

               Nah......no we won't.

SHE'S BAAAA-AAACK! CORA THE CORONAVIRUS SPEAKS AGAIN......

BQ:   Cora, I hope you don't mind that from now on, we're doing these interviews from remote, separate locations.....

CORA:  Don't worry, Flesh-a-poid, you can't offend me. Was it something I said?

BQ:    No, something you are. We've been warned you're going to do your worst this week......

CORA:   Oh, you betcha!  And God bless his empty little orange heart, I couldn't do it without the help of your dear leader, Prez. Trumpty.

BQ:  Just a sec here.......are you accusing President Trump of helping you?

CORA:  Who else?!  For us viruses, he's a dream come true!  A complete numbskull who cares only about his ratings and his re-election.  I'll probably be able to kill off half a million of you before you ever see the Shithead-In-Chief behave like a real President.......

BQ:  You're making us feel even more anxious......

CORA:  Hey, don't worry......don't you have the President's Larva, Jared Kushner to save you all?

BQ:  Now we're getting really nauseous......and you're being sarcastic, right?

CORA:   Silly human, how can you say that?   Isn't the Slumlord Son-In-Law designated as the
Secretary Of Everything?  Didn't he bring peace to the Middle East?

BQ:    Uh.....no. He's just a wormy little weasel who happens to be married to Ivanka.....

CORA:   I know!   Why do you think I LOVE that he's in charge of things!   I so love you Americans....you made it so frickin' easy for me.......electing a brain-dead psycho for President......and you got his creepy, useless family as part of the deal.

BQ: Sucks for us, we suppose.......

CORA:  As your fearless leader would say......Bigly!

BQ:  So what's next for you, Cora?

CORA:   Never mind me, it's what's next for you that counts!   I'll give ya a hint......it ain't good.

BQ:   We're aware of that. We guess you've heard that Trump fired the Inspector General who'd oversee the 2 trillion dollar relief money......

CORA:   Heh, heh, heh, heh.........between you and me, I already know where that money's goin'....

BQ:   You do?

CORA:     A new heated pool at Mar-A-Lago........and the new Trump-Putin tower in Moscow.....the rest of it gets deposited in one of my offshore accounts.....

BQ:   You?!  Trump's sharing the cash with you?!

CORA:  We cut a deal, Baby Orange and I.....an even split as long as I promise to wipe out as mass quantities of California and New York Democratic voters....

BQ:   But what in the world can you do with trillions of dollars. You're a deadly rampaging virus, a plague on humanity.......

CORA: A pretty accurate description of your President too!  And what I do with that money is the same thing as Trumpty's tax returns.......none of your business.

BQ:  Well, thanks for stopping by. As always, an interview with you ends up depressing and disgusting.......

CORA:  You're welcome.   Tell you what,.....I'll reveal this much. The relief bucks you're so concerned about......I'm gonna buy a shitload of CD's and movies on Amazon.......and then I'm goin' to Vegas and Disneyland as soon as the crowds come back!

BQ:   What a comforting thought in these troubled times. Here's something else that's a sure bet for your future....

CORA:  What's that? My own reality show?  I can't wait to yell out, "You'r fired.....and dead!"

BQ:  No. A vaccine.

CORA:    Arrrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh...............

FAREWELL PUSSY GALORE.......RIP HONOR BLACKMAN

                      Sean Connery:  "Who are you?"
                      Honor Blackman:  "My name is Pussy Galore"
                      Sean Connery:     "I must be dreaming"

........remembering many years ago.....a teenage BQ sitting in a packed showing of "Goldfinger" in December of '64.......and hearing the audience roar with laughter at Connery's line........

                    RIP actress Honor Blackman, who passed at 94 of natural causes....(as opposed to you-know-what)......forever beloved as the first judo-chopping leather-clad heroine of TV's "The Avengers", who then went on to her immortal role as the toughest, sexiest and most outrageously named Bond Girl.......(and the year before, fans fondly remember her as a gorgeous, all-knowing goddess Hera of "Jason And The Argonauts"........

                       A lifetime of great performances........and James Bond found out quickly enough that both he and the audience were dreaming wide awake.....