Halloween Armageddon

Okay, the title of today's post is "Halloween Armageddon" which is the title of a Doctor Who episode but this is not a Doctor Who post.

(A Doctor Who post is coming up on Wednesday.) 

But today is Halloween and I want to talk about what is scary.

Halloween is a time to have fun with things that might scare us, ghouls and goblins and things that do bump in the night, that sort of thing. 

I've never really been big on movies, TV shows and stories designed for the explicit purpose of trying to frighten me. 

Especially when there's so much in real life to be scared about.

Take for instance what happened to Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).  Paul was assaulted in his San Francisco home by a maniac with a hammer.  

Paul Pelosi who is like 82 years old or something suffered several injuries but appears he will make a recovery. 

Charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse and burglary is 42-year-old named David DePape. 

Wanna guess who this guy is? C'mon, guess! 

OK, if you guessed, a right wing conspiracy theory spouting QAnon nutcase, well, you guess correctly. 

Mr. DePape reportedly entered the house calling out, “Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?” Which you many recall was a chanted refrain from the insurrectionists invading the US Capitol on January 6th. 

There has been some considerable concern about the rhetoric of violence from far right fringe groups would result in actual violence. The FBI has been investigating an escalating number of threats of violence against politicians, particularly Democrats. 

With the attack on Paul Pelosi shows how threats of violence can move to actual violence.   

With right wing nut cases spewing hate and vitriol on an around the clock basis, demonizing Democrats and even Republicans who don't hold the party line or subvert themselves to Donald Trump, it is an inevitability that people will be driven to commit violence and coercion under the threat of violence.  

Get a load of this shit going down in Arizona.    

Members of a right-wing activist group calling itself Clean Elections USA are gathering at ballot boxes in Maricopa County. These people are masked, armed and wearing military-style tactical gear. 

A judge ruled these guys were protected by their first amendment rights and nothing going here looks like voter intimidation.

What the hell?  

These assholes are masked, armed and wearing military-style tactical gear. How is this not voter intimidation?  

And the judge making this ruling is Judge Michael Liburdi, who was appointed by Donald Trump. Which fucking tells you all you need to know about that. 

Who needs fictional frights of monsters and creatures of the night when this is the damn world we live in now? 

How can we enjoy Halloween when we're on the precipice  of a very real Armageddon for our American democracy?  

 

Cinema Sunday: Bubba Ho-Tep

Tomorrow is Halloween so let's take a look at a mummy movie.

Today's Cinema Sunday turns to a cult classic that came out in 2002. 

Wow! A Cinema Sunday post about a movie that came out this century? 

The film for this week's post is Bubba Ho-Tep, a mixture of comedy and horror about a mummy attacking a nursing home. 

And all that stands between this shambling undead monstrosity and it's unknowing victims in it's path is...  Elvis Presley. 

The staff at the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas  know their patient as Sebastian Haff.  But this elderly man in their care has his own story of who he is and how he came to be there.

So here's the deal,  

During the 1970s, growing tired of the demands of fame, Elvis Presley switched places with an Elvis impersonator named Sebastian Haff.

Elvis lived a quiet, happy life while making a living pretending to be himself. 

With the death of Sebastian Haff in August 1977 and a propane explosion destroying the only documentation proved this deception, he was unable to return to his old life. 

During a performance, Elvis falls off a stage, sustaining a blow to the head which puts him in a coma.  

20 years later, Elvis is a guest of the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas where the staff generally humor his "delusion" that he's not really Sebastian Haff but is really Elvis Presley.  

Elvis is old and dying of penis cancer.  Elvis is just existing, contemplating the failures and mistakes of his life while waiting for death to put him out of his misery already.

That's when the mystery gets his attention. 

The strange scurrying beetle is a harbinger of a shambling mummy dressed like a cowboy, feeding on the souls of the residents of the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas. 

Elvis and the mummy make eye contact which results in a telepathic flashback on the mummy's life, death and return. 

The creature is a re-animated ancient Egyptian mummy  stolen during a U.S. museum tour, and subsequently lost during a severe storm when the thieves' bus veered into a river near the  Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas. 

Elvis names the mummy  'Bubba Ho-Tep' and he'll be damned if he will let this mummy continue it's soul stealing mission. Everyone in the nursing home is just waiting to die but there's some hope their souls might go to a better place. 

When 'Bubba Ho-Tep' comes calling, the victim is just dead and the soul is consumed.  

Elvis has one friend at the nursing home, an African American man named Jack who insists he is President John F. Kennedy. 

Jack's story is that after the assassination attempt in Dallas TX where JFK was shot in the back of the head, Lyndon Johnson arranged to have his skin dyed black and abandoned him in the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas.  

Well, Jack has got to be crazy, right? But Elvis is trying to convince anyone who will listen that he really is Elvis and not Sebastian Haff. And there is the little matter of the mysterious scar on the back of Jack's head.  

Anyway, it's up to Elvis and Jack to save the souls of everyone at the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas and bring an end to Bubba Ho-Tep's deadly mission.  

Which will be tricky since Elvis has to use a walker and Jack is stuck in a wheel chair.  

Elvis and Jack engage Bubba Ho-Tep with an elaborate plan to destroy the mummy and release the souls he has consumed. The encounter is violent and Jack dies of a heart attack while the mummy fatally cuts Elvis.  

But before he can succumb to his wounds, Elvis is able to set the mummy on fire.  

Lying outside on the grounds of the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas, Elvis is dying from blood loss.  In the night sky above, the stars align to send Elvis a message: "All is well."

Elvis says "Thank you, thank you very much" and dies.

So, yeah, Bubba Ho-Tep has an ancient Egyptian mummy terrorizing and killing people but the heart of the movie centers around  the  theme of aging and growing old in a culture that only values the young.

I can't speak highly enough of Bruce Campbell's turn as the aging Elvis. Yeah, he adopts well known cadences and tone of Elvis' speech but it never seems like a parody. Bruce Campbell as Elvis feels lived in, natural. Elvis is forced to deal with the indignities of being old and ravaged by cancer; for fuck's sake, he's got a tumor on his dick. But he's filled with regrets, that he wasn't a better husband to Priscilla or a better father to Lisa Marie and why he didn't stand up to the fucking con man Colonel Parker.  Bruce Campbell's performance as Elvis doesn't feel like a performance, it feels real.

Also Ossie Davis as Jack also stands out. Jack's tale of really being JFK is crazy paranoid shit but Ossie's Jack refuses to concede his dignity.  

Elvis and Jack are a couple of really old dudes, just doing time at the Shady Rest Retirement Home in East Texas, waiting to die. 

A visit by a specter of death gives them one last chance to live before death claims them. 

Pretty heavy stuff for a mummy movie.  

Songs For Saturday: ABBA but NOT Really ABBA

 

In keeping with the Halloween theme for this weekend, today's Songs For Saturday features the music of ABBA.

But not quite.

Give it up for Brian David Gilbert presenting "AAAH!BBA" featuring Halloween-themed versions of ABBA songs.  

Up first is "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" but you know if were performed by Victor Frankenstein.   

Next up is ABBA's "Lay All Your Love On Me" as performed by vampire.   

Next up is ABBA's "Under Attack"  except as performed by a murder robot.

Thanks to my daughter Randie for introducing me to these wild and weird ABBA parodies.  

And that is that for today's Songs For Saturday

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.   

Your Friday Video Link: David S. Pumpkins

This Monday is Halloween so for today's edition of Your Friday Video Link, we go all in for...

DAVID S. PUMPKINS, MAN!!!!

Doctor Who Is NEW!: "The Power of the Doctor"

Welcome to Doctor Who Is NEW! as we look upon the work that is  "The Power of the Doctor", the Doctor Who special celebrating the centenary of the BBC and bidding farewell to Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor as well as the swan song of head writer and producer Chris Chibnall!

So was there rejoicing in Whoville? Or despair?

Well....

Let's take a look at that after the break.

Aye! There be spoilers ahead, matey!

In five...

Four...

Three...

Two...

...and ONE! 

And we're off!  

THE POWER OF THE DOCTOR

by Chris Chibnall 

So let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. The plot such as it was nigh incomprehensible as we've come to expect from Chris "MORE BALLS!!" Chibnall.  

The Master working in Russia in 1916 as the mad monk Rasputin and as himself in 2022 is up to sketchy shit involving the Cybermen and the Daleks with some plan or scheme or something to blow up the Earth with our own volcanoes for...

Reasons?

Really, your guess is as good as mine. 

Also the Master has some plan or scheme or something to force the Doctor to regenerate into... the Master? 

Why? I don't know, it's just something to do? 

OK, once you make peace with the idea that this plot isn't going to make sense, there's quite a bit to like about this special.

The opening sequence is a high octane action packed event as the Doctor, Yaz and Dan jump onto a moving space train to save it from attacking Cybermen. Dan gets to play space engineer on a space train which is space cool but Dan nearly got space killed and decides to it's time to get back to his life.  

So Dan is out of the story 10 minutes in. Don't worry, Chibnall has a dozen people to replace him with. 

Classic companions Tegan and Ace are paired up with Kate Stewart at UNIT. 

Vinder is back for... reasons? Hey, it can't hurt to have a Game Of Thrones actor in your Doctor Who special. (And Jacob Anderson is rocking it hard in Interview With A Vampire. More on that in a forthcoming Tuesday TV Touchbase.)   

The Master loves his modern dance music. In 1916, the Master as Rasputin as tricked out a chandelier as disco ball while cavorting around to Boney M's "Rasputin".  

While the Master forces the Doctor to regenerate into himself (and really, do not parse this sequence as it will just make your head hurt), the Doctor is a sort of after life for Time Lords where she meets...

The First Doctor. David Bradley is back in a totally surprise cameo still expertly channeling William Hartnell. And Bradley is not alone.

Also popping up as earlier versions of the Doctor are Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann. Yes, I was squeeing like the fanboy I am and we had to re-run this sequence so Andrea and I could actually hear what was being said. 

Graham returns and teams up with Ace to blow up some Daleks. Ace has improved on her Nitro-9 explosives with Nitro-999! It blows shit up real good. 

So stuff happens, things occur and there are doings that are done! The Cybermen are crushed! The Daleks are defeated! And the Master is vanquished! 

But not before he pushes a button on a doo-hickey and an energy thing zaps the Doctor! 

Alas, 'tis a fatal zap and the Doctor is going regenerate. 

But not before the Doctor and Yaz enjoy one last ice cream cone sitting on top of the TARDIS while in orbit over the Earth. 

But there are things a Time Lord has to do alone (and Mandip Gil isn't going to be in the next season of Doctor Who) so Yaz winds up back in Sheffield... but not quite alone. 

She joins Graham for a meeting of his companion support group. In attendance besides Dan, Tegan and Ace (along with Kate Stewart who is there to recruit help for UNIT) is Jo Grant Jones (Katy Manning), Mel Bush (Bonnie Langford who I recognized from her recent turn in 42nd Street) and one of the first companions, Ian Chesterton (William Russell) who is astonished to hear the Doctor referred to as "she". 

Well, not for long. 

Stepping outside the TARDIS on a cliff by a sea side to feel the sun one last time, the Doctor says to her next incarnation, "Tag! You're it!" and lets the regeneration energy fly. 

And out of the golden glow emerges....

David Tennant?

"What?"

"WHAT?!?!"  

And thus ends "The Power of the Doctor".   

One more time...

"WHAT?!?!" 

OK, whatever the Master is up to with the Daleks and the Cybermen is a muddled mess. Which there is a precedent for that. After 4 decades, I'm still not sure what the Master was up to in "Logopolis", Tom Baker's last turn as the Doctor.  And are we really clear on what the Master is up to in "The End of Time", the 10th Doctor's grand finale?   

But there are so many fun and cool moments interspersed in this muddled mess, it's easy to walk away from the wreakage assuming a good time has been had by all. 

Chris is admittedly an old school Doctor Who fan and "The Power of the Doctor" is his love letter to the classic era.  The unexpected appearances of classic Doctor Who actors like William Russell and Peter Davison and more were delightful surprises to me, a fan of the original series. 

And whatever was all the twisted, convoluted path to getting to the regeneration scene, "The Power of the Doctor" does stick the landing with Jodie Whittaker's final scene, a moment that is a perfect blend of sad and hopeful.  

As for what happens next? 

Well, that will be the subject of another post. 

"These teeth seem familiar!"  

______________________________

BLOG BIDNESS

Sorry, no post for Thursday.  We'll be back on Friday.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Lucifer and Bones - Time For Crime II

For this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase, instead of posting about new episodes, I'm following up on a couple of older TV shows I've catching up on.

It's TIME FOR CRIME Part II.

She's a former actress turned homicide detective.

He's the Prince of Darkness, ruler of Hell. 

Together.....they solve crimes.

It's  Lucifer.

So Andrea and I have made a commitment to watch Lucifer in order on Netflix. Somehow, Friday nights have become Lucifer nights as we watch up 3 episodes at a time. 

We're about 1/3 the way through season 3. 

Chloe Decker, the oft described best detective in the LAPD, still doesn't know that when Lucifer Morningstar says he is the Devil, he really means he is the Devil. With my media powers, I  know that Chloe will eventually get there but come on! So much weird shit goes on with Lucifer, his brother Amenadiel and Lucifer's assistant Mazikeen, it just makes Chloe look really dumb. And she's not. It's really frustrating and I can't wait until we get to the part where Chloe is on a more even footing with these guys. 

Never mind Lucifer's true self, it's going to be weird when Chloe finds out Mazikeen, her roommate and sometime baby sitter for Trixie, is a demon. 

Trixie is fricking adorable. She's also down with sketchy shit. There was an episode where Lucifer gets Trixie to do go undercover into a private school and Trixie's down for whatever and just goes with the flow. 

Knowing the truth about Lucifer and the gang has it's own problems. Ask his therapist, Dr. Linda Martin. Lucifer confirms the truth of his words that he really is the Devil which knocks her for a really big loop for a day or ten. Now she's part of Team Lucifer as a partner in their shenanigans. Mazikeen is her best friend and she's falling in love with Amenadiel. But knowing for a fact, instead of belief, faith or speculation, about what lies beyond this life is not always an easy burden for Linda to carry. 

Lucifer can be a pill, especially when he sees every slight or grievance as being some kind of plot by dear old "Dad" to make his life...   It's never quite clear what Lucifer thinks God is up to at any given moment but damn it, Dad's up to something and Lucifer doesn't like it.  

Up next for TIME FOR CRIME Part II...

She's a scientist who is a firm believer in facts and science.

He's an FBI agent with a religious faith and follows his gut.  

Together.....they solve crimes.

It's Bones.

Unlike Lucifer, it's just me following Bones. Which is a shame because I think Andrea would like this show for it's warm and witty take on the familial relationships of Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth and the gang down at the Jeffersonian Institute. 

But the shows propensity for long, close up, lingering shots of decay corpses is more than she wants to put up. Hell, it puts me off my lunch for sure as well.  

But what makes Bones work as a show are the characters, the way they interact, often in sync with each other, occasionally at odds, you know, just like a family.   

Unlike Lucifer, I am not watching Bones in order but catching whatever episodes I can when the show airs on BBC America on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  I have seen the series from beginning to end but not all the episodes. I've seen Brennan & Booth play "will they or won't they" and I've seen them as a couple with two children. I've not seen the episode where they finally hooked up to the impatient expectations of every damn person around them.  

In the early years, you might hear a conversation like this: 

• Angela: Hey, did you hear Booth is dating somebody?
• Jack: Oh, Dr. Brennan's not going to like that. 
• Cam: Hi, Dr. Brennan, we heard Booth's dating somebody. 
• Angela: Are you OK?
• Brennan: Why would I not be OK? Booth is an attractive, intelligent and compassionate man and would make a perfect mate for any woman. 

And everyone around her slaps their foreheads. What is it with these two? 

I have also so far missed the episode where psychologist Lance Sweets gets killed. Sweets looks too young to be mind probing people and being irritatingly good at it. I like Sweets and I dread watching the episode where he dies. 

And that is that for the touchbase this week.

Next week, we look at season 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks and coming up sometime after that, the new AMC series, Interview With the Vampire.    

OK, that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase. 

But we're not done with TV yet. Tomorrow is an installment of Doctor Who Is NEW! as we look at Jodie Whitaker's final episode.   

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.  

The Lord God Donnie's Work

Today it was my intention to not post about Donald Trump and turn towards those seeking to continue the Lord God Donnie's work.  

Like maybe put down in words some thoughts about Herschel Walker, the black former football star who is the Republican nominee for US Senate from Georgia.  

What is his deal anyway? Well, how can I put this politely?

...

...

I can't.  

Herschel Walker is a fucking moron. 

Now I almost feel a little bad for being that harsh. Walker has had some self-admitted issues with mental health and as a football player has probably taken one too many hits to the head. It may not Herschel Walker's fault that he is a fucking moron. 

But there he is, a legitimate Republican nominee for the US Senate so whatever the reason, the fact is Herschel Walker is a fucking moron. 

• His solution for the high cost of insulin to treat diabetes? People ought to eat right.  
• He waves around a toy badge and says it shows he's a member of law enforcement.  He ain't. 
• He says he's run several hospitals. He hasn't.  
• He's parroted a hard right position on abortion, that no one can get one for no reason no how. Yes, there is proof he paid a girlfriend to have an abortion. 
• He's a hard core pro-family values guy even as everyone has lost count of the kids he's fathered out of wedlock and has ignored.  

So far, Herschel Walker is polling behind Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock but not as much as you would think. 

Herschel Walker's staunch evangelical base, you know the ones who think it's a fun day out with the kids to scream at Pride parade that everyone there is going to hell, are prepared to "forgive" Herschel Walker because everyone makes mistakes, right? 

And besides that, the overriding concern is to vote against the damn liberals who hate America and are driving us over a cliff into the flaming pits of hell.   

How did Herschel Walker even get to be the Republican candidate for US Senate in the first place? 

Mostly thanks the imprimatur of Donald Trump as Herschel Walker was more than willing and eager to endorse Trump's big election lie.  

And he's black. 

Occasionally, Republicans like to run a black guy up the ol' flag pole on the myopic idea that black people vote for "their own kind" which is a way to get black people to vote for a Republican instead of a Democrat.  

And actual qualifications don't really matter. He's black, right? Box checked. And if that sounds racist as fuck, well, it is and welcome to how little the Republican Party (and especially under Trump) actually gives a fuck about African Americans.  

It's the same logic that went endorsing Kanye West running for President a few years back, that it would at least peel off black voters from Joe Biden. 

Yes, that meant Kanye was running against Trump as well but hell, Trump doesn't gives a fuck about African Americans and probably just wrote them off anyhow. 

Kanye is still one of Trump's favorite people.   

Kanye West was in trouble last week for sending an antisemitic Tweet with violent connotations.  

And Trump wandered into the antisemitism minefield by threatening Jews to be more supportive of him because of all he did for Israel. Which puts American Jews in the crosshairs of antisemitic white nationalist MAGA heads who think American Jews are more loyal to Israel than America. 

No less than Alan Dershowitz, Trump supporting Jewish attorney, has tried to tell Li'l Donnie to cut that shit out because it's bad but Li'l Donnie don't listen to nobody.  

Damn it, Li'l Donnie helped Israel. Jews should be happy. What more does he need to do? 

Meanwhile, we have more news about Donald Trump's sketchy shit.

Could I be more specific? Which sketchy shit?

• Instigating an insurrection against the government sketchy shit?
• Trying to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 election sketchy shit?
• Defrauding taxpayers with false valuations of his properties sketchy shit? 
• Illegally holding on the government documents at his residence sketchy shit?

Yep, that one!   

According to the Washington Post,  details about Iran’s missile program and American intelligence work aimed at China were among the most “highly sensitive” information Donald Trump had stashed at Mar-a-Lago compound.  

Mar-a-Lago is a resort that draws hundreds of unscreened members and guests to parties, fundraisers and wedding receptions at a facility maintained by unscreened groundskeepers and cleaners. One of the document storage areas was near a pool open to all members.   

Here's what Peter Strzok, former deputy assistant director of counterintelligence at the FBI, had to say about this:  “Any competent foreign intelligence service, whether those belonging to China, those belonging to Iran, to Cuba, certainly including Russia are ... and were interested in gaining access to Mar-a-Lago.” 

By the way, going back to the sketchy shit involving the insurrection and overturning the election, the January 6th committee did subpoena Donald Trump like they said they would. 

Fighting that will keep Li'l Donnie busy.

And he's got people like Herschel Walker looking to help him keep up Lord God Donnie's work. 

Cinema Sunday: The Lady from Shanghai & Eyewitness

Last week's Cinema Sunday covered a couple of film noir pictures starring Humphrey Bogart. This week we return to film noir for a couple of more entries. 

Our first film for today is from 1947,  The Lady from Shanghai and it's, well, weird shit.  

Directed by Orson Welles (who's credit as director is not on the film itself), it's about an Irish sailor named Michael O'Hara (played by Welles) who gets fucked with because rich people are bored and need something to do.

Well, that's my takeaway.  

Michael O'Hara rescues beautiful blonde Elsa whose horse-drawn coach in Central Park is attacked by three hooligans. 

Elsa and her husband, criminal defense attorney Arthur Bannister, have just arrived in New York City from Shanghai on their way to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. 

Michael falls hard for Elsa and against any sane person's better judgement signs on as a sailor aboard Bannister's yacht.

George Grisby, Bannister's partner, is along for the boat trip and has a proposition for Michael, for Michael to "murder" George. 

Why? I'm not sure. George is bored, tired of Bannister's shit, weary of hiding that he's gay. Yeah, George is SO gay but it's Hays Code gay so, you know.  

OK, here's the deal: for $5,000, Michael takes the rap for George's murder (there's a signed confession and everything) but since George isn't really dead, there's no body and Michael won't do a single day in prison. 

I've watched enough Law & Order to know what not having a body is a big obstacle in a murder trial but it ain't a deal breaker. But apparently the law was a bit different back in the 1940's which means this cockamamie scheme could actually work. 

Except George really does get shot, there is a body and the police have a handy-dandy confession that says Irish sailor Michael O'Hara done did do the dastardly deed. 

(Speaking of being Irish, Orson Welles sometimes really, really leans hard into a baroque Irish lilt. Most of the time, he inexplicably sounds like Vincent Price.)  

But Arthur Bannister agrees to represent Michael in court and he's never lost a case before. Well, he might lose this one because he knows Michael and Elsa have been fucking behind his back. 

By the way, who really did kill George? Was it Bannister or Elsa some other third person? Hell if I know and this point in the movie, I've lost the thread and lost the will to care or live. (OK, watching this at 1:30 AM may have been a mistake.)  

Michael makes a break for it, fleeing the court and the police. 

The film comes to a dramatic end with a shootout in a hall of mirrors involving a multitude of images representing the fractured illusion that any of us are ever in control of our fate, that power and life itself are fleeting and... and...

Oh, hell, I don't know. It does look cool. 

In the course of the shootout, Bannister is killed and Elsa is mortally wounded.  

Michael wanders off, figuring that whole murder trial thing will sort itself out. 

Michael muses to himself, "Maybe I would live so long I'd forget her. Maybe I'd die trying". 

And we've reached "The End" and what the hell was all that?  

OK, many critics have praised The Lady from Shanghai for it's set designs and camerawork and damn it, this movie does look good. 

In 2018, The Lady from Shanghai was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

I think some of the narrative quirks of The Lady from Shanghai are attributable to this being yet another Orson Welles film where Orson lost control of a movie in post-production with the studio overriding Welles' intention and putting other people in charge of editing.  It was a fate that befell Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons  in 1942 and would happen again in 1958 with  Touch of Evil. The grand plans of Orson Welles would be undone at the hands of others.  

For all the strangeness of its characters and their dubious motivations, I guess The Lady from Shanghai is nonetheless a captivating film, both visually and as a study of the depths people will sink to in order to get what they want.   

When one thinks of "film noir", thoughts usually turns to pensive black and white films made in 1940's and 1950's.  The second film in today's Cinema Sunday is in color and was made in 1981.

Eyewitness involves the murder of a wealthy Vietnamese man suspected of criminal connections. While working late at night in an office building, janitor Daryll Deever (William Hurt) discovers the body. 

News reporter Toni Sokolow (Sigourney Weaver) thinks Daryll knows more than he's telling. Yeah, turns out Daryll is a bit of a creepy stalkerish fan boy whose been crushing on her for years in her newscasts but hell, she's willing to play out that string to find out what he really knows.

Yeah, Daryll's more than happy to play out that string as well because he is a creepy stalkerish fan boy whose been crushing on her for years in her newscasts. Even though he doesn't know shit. 

He's a janitor who found the body. And that's it. 

But the real killers think Daryll does know shit and Toni is plying him for that intel so the killers also thinks she knows shit so it puts both their lives at risk. 

While Toni is running up this blind alley to get non-existent information out of Daryll, the answers to her murder mystery are closer to home. Her parents are up to sketchy shit with Toni's boyfriend who may now have to kill Daryll which somehow involves a horses or something? (I really need to stop watching movies after midnight. Look, horses are in the movie for some reason.)  

The "It's That Person Who Was In That Thing" Department

Playing a couple of cops are Steven Hill (district attorney Adam Schiff from Law & Order) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox in the Christian Bale Batman movies among many, many other things). as Lt. Black. (There's a running "joke" that no one can remember a black man is named "Black".)  

Christopher Plummer is Joseph, Toni's boyfriend. We know Plummer from The Sound of Music, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country  and Knives Out. 

Eyewitness looks to evoke some of the tropes of classic film noir but it's too slight and suffers from the plot point of Daryll really not knowing anything. It might make for a good idea for a mystery based comedy but as a dramatic film noir type film, it really works against the movie. 

Eyewitness does not make much an impact. I'm willing to bet real money Sigourney Weaver does not remember making it.

Next Sunday is the day before Halloween and Cinema Sunday will turn it's attention to a modern cult classic.

Elvis Vs. Mummies?

Bubba Ho-Tep is coming.  

Songs For Saturday: Oingo Boingo and Thomas Dolby

The theme for today's Songs For Saturday is SCIENCE!   

First up is the theme from one of the most 80's movies ever, Weird Science about two nerds who create a woman in a science experiment. And since that woman looks like Kelly LaBrock, well, WOWZA!

Here is Oingo Boingo with "Weird Science".   

We can't do a Songs For Saturday about SCIENCE!  without our next number. Here's Thomas Dolby with "She Blinded Me With Science".   

And that is that for today's Songs For Saturday about SCIENCE! 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and to always keep the music alive.   

Your Friday Video Link: Doctor Who and the Big Reveal

Coming up on Sunday October 23rd is the grand finale of Jodie Whittaker's turn as the Doctor on Doctor Who.  

For your Friday video link this week, we go back to where it all began.

I remember watching this mere moments after it dropped, the feeling of tension and excitement over who this new Doctor was going to be. 

Who was the mysterious hooded person walking through a forest? 

A hand reaches out. A woman's hand?

A glimpse of an eye. A woman's eye? 

The hood is pushed back and there it is, for the first time ever: the Doctor is a woman!

Whether or not what followed lived up to this promise is best left as the subject of discourse for another time. 

But in that moment, in that precise time, the world of Doctor Who seemed new, exciting and filled with amazing possibilities. 

42nd Street

It's been a minute since I've posted about seeing any kind of live theater. The fam set forth from the Fortress of Ineptitude to see Rent this past February and that's about it. 

So I'm kind of stretching things a bit to say this post is about live theater. 

This is about a production of 42nd Street performed on London's West End at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Andrea and I watched a performance of this run that was recorded in November 2018. 

For the record, Andrea and I have seen 42nd Street  performed live before although we are hard pressed to remember exactly when or where.  We presume it was in the 1990s and most likely at the Carolina Theater in Greensboro. 

42nd Street is a 1980 stage musical based on the 1932 novel by Bradford Ropes and the subsequent 1933 Hollywood film adaptation.  The show presents a backstage look at the rehearsal process of a Broadway musical show being put on during the height of the great depression.

The show is a jukebox musical of sorts; in addition to songs from the 1933 film 42nd Street, it includes songs that Al Dubin and Harry Warren wrote for many other films at around the same time, including Gold Diggers of 1933, Roman Scandals, Dames, Gold Diggers of 1935, Go into Your Dance, Gold Diggers of 1937 and The Singing Marine. It also includes "There's a Sunny Side to Every Situation", written by Warren and Johnny Mercer for Hard to Get. A 2017 revival added the song "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", written by Warren and Dubin for Moulin Rouge.

42nd Street begins with auditions for 1933's newest show.  Pretty Lady, director Julian Marsh's latest big for epic to grace Broadway.

Peggy Sawyer, fresh off the bus from Allentown, Pennsylvania, arrives in New York City looking for her big break.  Peggy scores a spot in the chorus.  

Also on hand is Dorothy Brock, an aging diva well past her prime but she comes attached with an elderly beau with some disposable cash that Marsh really needs to launch his new show.   

Brock is still a passable singer and actor but she can't dance worth a damn so she does a lot of dramatic posing while the rest of the company dances around her.   

Besides the wealthy financier, Brock is also seeing a much younger man on the side, a doctor, which is cause for more headaches for Marsh.  

With all the hassles inherent in trying to launch a big Broadway musical in the middle of a depression and all the backstage drama, "Pretty Lady" starts to come together and the company is off to Philadelphia for out of town try outs. 

Then during a performance, a dancer accidentally bumps into Peggy who collides with Dorothy who falls and breaks her ankle. 

Dorothy Brock is down and out of the show.

Peggy Sawyer is fired.

And Julian Marsh closes down the show. They can't go on without their star.

But the cast makes the case there is someone who can perform the lead and certainly better than Dorothy Brock. 

And that person is....

Oh, you know where this is going, right?   

Julian Marsh and the gang make their case to convince Peggy Sawyer to come back to the show.

"Pretty Lady" lives to see another day! 

Peggy's journey to becoming a Broadway star is not always smooth, mostly tripped up by her self doubts.  But Julian Marsh is determined that Peggy will see this through. Her taking over the lead is crucial to the show's survival and he genuinely believes in Peggy's talent and potential.  

Hell, even Dorothy Brock comes around and confesses to Peggy Sawyer she is very good, perhaps even better than Dorothy, a major admission for a diva like Miss Brock.  

Julian Marsh is in many ways your basic go for broke ball-busting show producer type but his bullish aggressiveness is tempered by a very real concern for the cast. The success of "Pretty Lady" is not just his success but a chance for the members of the cast to have a steady pay check, a rare thing during the Depression.  Tom Lister threads the needle of portraying Julian Marsh with both power and sensitivity.   

Clare Halse as Peggy Sawyer does it all, a remarkable actress, singer and dancer whose range and strength of talent doing a lot of heavy lifting, especially in Act II.

In the role of Dorothy Brock is Bonnie Lanford who was companion Mel to the 6th and 7th Doctors on Doctor Who back in the 1980's. Langford is able to temper Dorothy's diva excesses with heart and she shows off some considerable chops as a singer.  

All in all, 42nd Street is a fun "let's put on a show" type of Broadway musical. Watching the film made from a 2018 live performance isn't quite like being there but some of the energy of live theater does come through.  

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BLOG BIDNESS

Sorry, no post for Thursday.  We'll be back on Friday.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: She-Hulk: Attorney At Law & Kevin Can F**k Himself

 A week or so back on the new Quantum Leap, Dr. Ben Song experienced his first leap into a woman. The woman was in a bar and had to fend off an unwelcome advance from a drunken letch.  

Then Addison, Ben's hologram companion, arrives and assesses the situation: "You've only been a woman for 30 minutes and you've already been insulted, harrassed and assaulted. (sigh!) Yeah, that sounds about right."  

OK, we're not talking about Quantum Leap this week (we'll check back in on that series in a few weeks) but I wanted to quote Addison from that episode to set the tone for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase as we look at the finales of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law and Kevin Can F**k Himself which arrive at the inescapable conclusion: Being a woman is hard!  

On She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, the lurking threat over the course of the seaon was Intelligencia, an online forum of trolls who have it in for Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk.  Jen doesn't take them seriously. They're just a bunch of petty dudes with grievances over a woman having any sort of power or agency and she doesn't see them as a threat.

Until they find a way to hurt her. 

As Jen noted way back in episode one, she's had a lifetime of dealing with anger from just being a woman, to feeling anger at men who feel the need to mansplain her own job to her to controlling that anger because a woman would dare not expose that anger without being judged as hysterical or out of control. Which is why she learns way faster than Bruce Banner did how to control her transformations between Jen and her Hulk form. 

But there is only so many times one can feel anger and only so many times it can be controlled before anger must express itself. 

Which is what Intelligencia is counting on. 

The advice to simply ignore bullies is of dubious value because bullies will not be ignored.

At an event to celebrate "female lawyers of the year" (which is sounds more like an insult than an honor), Intelligencia hacks a big display screen to invade Jennifer Walters' privacy, of her just living her life.  

And having sex.

Yep, Jen is attacked with revenge porn.

And She-Hulk goes into full rage monster mode and smashes stuff.  

The season finale opens with Jennifer Walters in prison. 

Yep, the bullies kept poking at her, poking at her, poking at her and when Jen says enough is enough, it's Jen who is in trouble.

Which is the way it is with bullies. I know this from experience. You can ignore them all you want but they just wear you down and then when you can't take it anymore, guess who fucking winds up in the god damn principal's office? 

(Take a deep breath. This is a post about TV.) 

<deep breath>

OK, where were we? Oh yeah.

The season finale builds up to the big epic showdown. The head of Intelligencia injects himself with gamma irradiated Hulk blood to become a Hulk, Emil Bronsky is on hand as the Abomination and Bruce Banner's Hulk shows up. 

Jen looks at the audience and voices her displeasure with where this episode is going. 

Jen's been breaking the fourth wall all season. What happens next is stuff that Deadpool has sex dreams about.   

Jump cut to the Disney+ Marvel menu screen.  The square for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law opens up and She-Hulk climbs out and down to the square for Marvel Assembled (the section for behinds the scenes documentaries) to have a conversation with Kevin.

No, not Kevin Feige. 

No K.E.V.I.N., as in Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus, an artificial intelligence in charge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's storyline decisions, "creating near perfect entertainment".  

Jen persuades K.E.V.I.N. that not all MCU projects needs to end with a big epic battle and maybe to try something different this time.  

K.E.V.I.N. reluctantly agrees and the big epic battle doesn't happen and bad guys are arrested and sent to jail. Jen does allow for a totally extraneous appearance by Matt Murdock/Daredevil because "a woman has needs". 

The season finale for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law  is as unconventional as the season has been all along, a sit-com that played with the toys in the MCU toy box and dared to have fun while doing it. 

What other show would have Wong get a ditzy party girl for a girlfriend who calls him "Wongers"?  

Not everyone was in on the joke.  

In real life (or IRL as the kids say and I am nothing but down with how the young people talk in the texting), the trolls have been out in force against this show. Frequently, the IRL trolls were saying the same shit the Intelligencia trolls were saying. Which means the writers already knew years in advance these trolls would be saying. 

For all those trolls who thought writer Jessica Gao having She-Hulk climb through the Disney+ Marvel  menu to talk to her creators was a bit too much, you bastards thought Grant Morrison was a fucking genius when he did the same thing in Animal Man nearly 30 years ago.  

By the way, here's a chart of the review ratings for the season finale of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.

The trolls are hitting the dislike button hard and often. 

Not everything is for everyone.  

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law  was never going to be about super powered slug-fests. It was a story of a young single woman trying to make her mark in her chosen profession while navigating other life stuff like dating.

Oh, and also changing into a Hulk.  

Since I've yakking so much about She-Hulk: Attorney At Law , I'll keep the remarks on Kevin Can F**k Himself brief.

There's some spoilerishness if you haven't seen this.   

Allison gives up on the season one plan to kill Kevin and resolves to kill herself... metaphorically.  She plots to fake her own death.  The scheme actually works. Mostly.

We get to see Kevin in not the sit com world and he's a scary bastard. Without the bright lights and the laugh track, the shit Kevin says goes from irritating to threatening.

Everyone abandons Kevin: his dad moves to Florida without a forwarding address, Neil leaves, his girlfriend. 

Yep, 2 months after Allison "died", Kevin got a girlfriend who doesn't continue to put up with his shit.  

And Kevin does indeed fuck himself. 

Allison and Patty each figures they will die alone. They resolve to do it together. 

OK, that is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase. 

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.  

Too Much and Not Enough

Last week I wrote about “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump,” an expose by Politico’s Rachael Bade and The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian about the first impeachment against Donald Trump.  

It confirmed what I suspected back in 2020 that Senate Republicans god damn well knew that the evidence presented against Trump was completely damning and impeachable but still spoke to their constituents that there was nothing impeachable, took deliberate action to aid in Trump's defense and voted to not impeach the motherfucker.

It seemed to me such a revelation should be quite scandalous for those Republicans involved and, I don't know, actionable? There are rules governing the conduct of Senators during an impeachment hearing the Senate Republicans broke them in their subservience to Donald Trump. 

And this story has sunk beneath the waves.

Of course nothing happened with it. Nobody ever seems to pay the price for anything. 

And I guess it's hard to focus attention on the malfeasance of the past when so much shit is happening right now.  

Trump is still fighting back against the document debacle but not always with success. The Supreme Court pushed back on Li'l Donnie's efforts to get the court to tell the Department of Justice to back off. Which must really irk Trump to no end since he bought and paid for 3 of those justices so they owe him, don't they? 

But Trump still paints himself as a victim, that the government documents that were never his were actually his and he can do what he wants? And he wants back what the FBI took?  

And on the matter of Donald Trump stirring up an insurrection to keep him in office, the House of Representatives January 6th committee met last week with some new revelations that Trump and his cronies had plans in place before election day to declare victory no matter what and statements that Trump knew he lost but didn't want to admit because it was embarrassing. And the committee closed out it's work by ordering a subpoena to compel Donald Trump to testify.  

To which Li'l Donnie issued a 14 page letter that is 99.5% regurgitation of his "THE ELECTION WAS STOLEN" lies and the rest is just ostensibly a big ol' "Fuck you!" to the committee and their subpoena.  

Meanwhile, there's the case in New York that Trump's business was up to sketchy shit. Apparently Donald Trump Jr. testified he don't know nothing and he just signs whatever he's told to sign.

Well...   FUCK! 

No wonder we don't have time to deal with the sketchy shit that Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and the gang were up to running interference in Trump's impeachment trial. 

There should be time! What they did was wrong and needs to be investigated and consequences applied before something else comes along to...

Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me? 

What is this?   

A co-founder of Truth Social’s media parent company was forced off the board of the firm after he ignored demands by Donald Trump to gift some of his stock to Melania Trump, a whistleblower has told The Washington Post.

Trump pushed for the giveaway to his wife even though he had already been given 90% of the stock in the Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) in exchange for the use of his name and some other “minor involvement,” former company executive Will Wilkerson told the Post.

This incident is potentially a violation of Securities and Exchange regulations.  And apparently this is just one of a series of problems with technical fuck ups, questionable financial representations, and more violations of Securities and Exchange regulations.  

By the way, "questionable financial representations" is at the very heart of the New York case against Donald Trump and his businesses. So the past sketchy shit Trump is being sued for by New York is the same current sketchy shit Trump is reportedly committing right now with this damn Truth Social thing! 

And the rats are deserting the ship.  

A Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month revealed that investors had already backed out of $139 million in commitments of the $1 billion previously promised to the Truth Social media company.  

Truth Social owes about $1.6 million in contractually obligated payments to a major web-hosting operator.  

What? Someone is having trouble getting paid money owed by Donald Trump? I'm just going to cut 'n' paste my reply to this revelation: 

Wow.

What a shock.

I am surprised.

I am bowled over by that surprise.

I might just keel over dead from that surprise.

OK, is my sarcasm too subtle?   

So what we've got here with Trump's Truth Social debacle is yet one more fucking tale of Donald Trump up to sketchy shit that will suck up more air. 

And do nothing to hurt Li'l Donnie and his despicable MAGA movement.  

Every time there is what you and I might think of as a "bad news" story for Li'l Donnie, his fundraising for his political action committee goes UP? Yep, his knuckle dragging MAGA morons cough up more money to help "make American great again" or some shit and here's the thing. Most of the money going to Trump's so called political action committee does not go towards any political action like supporting candidates running for office but to pay Li'l Donnie's legal bills.  

We know these things but nothing happens. 

We know too much.  

And not enough happens as a consequence of what we know.

Do you know despite all the Republican candidates for Congress who are aligned with Donald Trump and his election lies and his questionable activities, Republicans are currently projected to re-take control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term election this year? 

And if the House falls under Republican control, there goes any accountability for those responsible for January 6th. 

We know too much and not enough will be done about it.