Cinema Sunday: Doctor X

After a couple of weeks of classic comedies, this week's Cinema Sunday takes a sinister turn as we delve into a mystery horror film from 1932, Doctor X. 

Produced before the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced, Doctor X includes 

• murder
• rape
• cannibalism
• prostitution
• surprise
• fear 
• ruthless efficiency
• lots of strange green lighting.

Doctor X has an odd eerie emerald hue.   

All of which make a smashing film that's fun for the whole family. 

New York City is in the grip of fear of a murderer most foul!

A murderer who strikes during a full moon, leaving behind a cannibalized body. The killer is described as a horribly disfigured monster.  

Who is... the Moon Killer?!?!?  

Daily World reporter Lee Taylor is on the job, investigating this series of gruesome murders. And the police are on the case as well. Their attention has turned to a strange medical academy run by Doctor Xavier.   

It seems that the killer is using a type of scalpel that is unique to Xavier's medical school. 

Xavier acts a bit squirrelly. Could be he's just worried about his school's reputation. Or is he a killer with something to hide?

Besides Xavier, the other suspects at the academy include: 

• Wells, an amputee who has made a study of cannibalism 
• Haines, who displays a sexual perversion with voyeurism
• Duke, a grouchy paralytic
• Rowitz, who is conducting studies of the psychological effects of the moon.

Xavier wants a chance to expose and apprehend the killer.

Despite being one of the suspects of being the killer, the police are all, "oh what the hell, do our jobs for us."  They give him 48 hours to hide the evidence skip town find the killer.  

Xavier's daughter Joanne is worried about this. She thinks this could put dear ol' daddy in danger. 

She's also put off by that reporter, Lee Taylor poking around. She doesn't like him or trust him and will never ever ever have sex with him. Or whatever. 

Lee of course has the hots for Joanne.

Ain't love grand. 

Dr. Xavier eliminates Wells as a suspect. The killer has two hands and Wells only has one arm.  To determine the killer from the rest of the suspects, Xavier conducts an unorthodox experiment. 

Each suspect is connected to an electrical system that records his heart rate. Dr. Xavier's butler and maid, Otto and Mamie, perform a reenactment of one of the murders while Wells monitors the results of the electrical impulses.  

The experiment exposes Rowitz as the guilty party! Zoinks! 

Then there is a blackout. Double zoinks!!

Where did the green lighting go? 

When power is restored, Rowitz is found....  murdered by use of a scalpel to the brain. And his body has been cannibalized. Triple zoinks!!!

So there's... that.

Xavier decides to do the experiment again. 

What the....  Really?!?!  

Mamie is too frightened to do the reenactment again so Joanne takes her place on stage with Otto.  

The doors are locked to keep Wells with the recording equipment while the other men (including Xavier himself) are handcuffed to their chairs. 

During the experiment, Wells sneaks into his secret lab where he transforms himself with "synthetic flesh" into the Moon Killer.

He strangles Otto (Bye, Otto!) and declares to Xavier and the other men chained to their chairs his intention to collect Joanne as his next victim.

Bwa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!  

Oh, if only there was someone else in this movie, a heretofore mostly comic relief person who possibly could be a hero and save poor helpless Joan from the Moon Killer! 

Ta-da! Enter Daily World reporter Lee Taylor! 

During the fight, Wells catches on fire (Why the hell is the fire green?) and falls out a window, down a cliff into the (green) ocean.

Taylor submits his story to the editor and makes a request for some space in the marriage announcement section for Joanne and himself.

Awwwww!!   

OK. 

What the fuck was that?  

Whatever it was, it was in color, employing an an early two-color Technicolor process.  There's a lot of scenes with green lighting. And other weird color distortions.   

Let's deal with the worst offense. How can someone call a movie Doctor X and make the title character...

• NOT the nefarious villian.
• NOT the admirable hero. 
• But mostly totally useless. 

All Xavier accomplishes is to eliminate the actual murderer as a suspect. I mean, I get it. The Moon Killer has two hands and Wells only has one arm. But that's a fairly obvious call. But Xavier is supposed to be some kind of genius so who needs a genius for the obvious call?  

I would've been more impressed if Doctor X ponders that the Moon Killer is a cannibal and Wells has studied cannibalism so he uses his intellect to dope how a one armed man did the murderous work of a two handed killer. 

This would never have flummoxed Columbo.   

And then there's the dumb ass experiment to expose the real murderer that requires the cooperation of the real murderer to sit there with electrodes attached to his head? Really?   

Doctor X has a seriously moody and sinister look it and the off putting color process actually adds to the macabre nature of the story.

Director Michael Curtiz does the best he can with what he's got, elevating a schlock thriller to look better than it is. Curtiz would go on to bigger and better things such as directing Casablanca.  

And that is Fay Wray of King Kong fame as Joanne.   

Next week's Cinema Sunday takes us into April which begins with "A" and so does Alfred. Over 4 weeks, I will post in Cinema Sunday about 4 features from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock that I have seen. 

Cinema Saturday: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

The first Cinema Saturday post of the month was Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

So let's bookend the month of March with it's sequel, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. 

Andrea and I went to see this movie despite a bevy of reviews that ranged from lukewarm to outright bad.

We actually enjoyed our experience with this film although I do understand where some of the negativity is coming from.  

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire begins with a prologue set in July 1904 where New York City Fire Department firefighters are summoned to a private men's club where they find a room full of people frozen to death. A strange chant is coming from a phonograph and the only survivor is a woman in a suit of armor clutching a bronze orb and clearly traumatized by what she has seen.  

Present Day: Callie Spengler, her boyfriend Gary Grooberson, and her children Trevor and Phoebe have taken up residence in the New York firehouse and also taken up the Ghostbusters business once more. 

After a dangerous chase through the streets to catch the Hell's Kitchen Sewer Dragon, the Spenglers run up against New York Mayer Walter Peck, the same guy who as an EPA official tried to shoot down the Ghostbusters in the first movie in 1984. 

To appease Peck, Callie suspends 15-year-old Phoebe from the field until she is a legal adult.  

Left out of Ghostbuster missions in the field, Phoebe meets and befriends a ghost named Melody, who died in a fire with her own family when she was 16-year-old and is not able to rest in peace.

The Spenglers (and Gary) are not the only ones to have escaped from Oklahoma: 

• Lucky who is working for original Ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore in his high tech paranormal research lab.
• Podcast who is working for original Ghostbuster Ray Stantz in his curio shop of wonders weird and strange.  

It's at Ray's shop that Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani)   arrives to sell Ray an weird ass orb that used to belong to his grandmother. Yep, it's the orb from the prologue and Ray realizes the orb's paranormal energy readings are way off the chart.  

The orb is a prison for a malevolent god known as Garraka with powers to freeze bodies and souls and the entire world. 

It is vitally important Garraka does not get out of that orb.

Spoiler: Garraka gets out of that orb.   

Now as you can no doubt determine, there is a lot going in this movie, perhaps too much going on.  

In addition to the strained family dynamic of Phoebe, Trevor, mom Callie and step... boyfriend? Gary, (plus somehow all the way from Oklahoma, we also get Lucky & Podcast), we've got to bring in the original surviving Ghostbusters Ray, Winston & Peter plus even Janine (Annie Potts) gets to suit up to bust ghosts. 

(Mee Maw from Young Sheldon is a Ghostbuster! Hell yeah!) 

Then we've got new characters Winston's paranormal science dude Lars Pinfeld (James Acaster) and weird librarian Hubert Wartzk (the always reliably on point Patton Oswalt).  

Plus Nadeem and ghost Melody. 

And back from the first movie is Walter Peck (the returning William Atherton) who is now the Mayor and still does not like Ghostbusters. 

It is quite frankly a lot and there's a lot of moving about to make sure everyone gets their moment to shine which has a way of slowing down the pace of the movie.  

The final showdown with Garraka is a big 21st century CGI driven spectacle.

There was some complaints from critics that Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is not funny.

OK, the original Ghostbusters was conceived as a comedy but I do not think the franchise is forced to stay a comedy, that it can branch out to be more of adventure driven or dramatic but retaining some comedic elements.  

There are laughs to be found in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire but I think there is nothing wrong with the franchise looking beyond it's comedy roots.  

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is not as good as it could've been but it's not as bad as that 43% score on Rotten Tomatoes would have you believe. 

While critics may have been less than kind, audiences seemed to like it just fine.   

•  Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
• Moviegoers polled by PostTrak gave it an 80% overall positive score. 

And that is that for this week's Cinema Saturday. Tomorrow's Cinema Sunday posts looks at a pre-code thriller about a serial killer on the loose. 

Next time, our two Weekend Movie posts takes on the dark and deadly world of... SPIES!!   

Your Friday Video Link: Easter Explained!

 

This Sunday is Easter.

And Your Friday Video Link for today is Jim Gaffigan explaining Easter.

Sort of. 

Don't worry, there's a bunny.  

New Doctor Who Is On the Way

 The news broke last week at that the new season of Doctor Who will be debut on Saturday May 11th on the BBC.

Doctor Who on Saturday as it's meant to be.

Except...

The news also broke last week at that the new season of Doctor Who will be debut on Friday, May 10th on Disney+ and at midnight in the United Kingdom on iPlayer.

The excitement of finally getting new episodes of Doctor Who have been tamped down a bit by the revelation that viewers of Doctor Who in the UK on it's traditional platform of the BBC are being treated as second class citizens. 

Well, there is a price to pay for all that Disney+ money.

Here is the "Season 1" trailer.

Trumpnomics

Before we get to the subject of today's post, let's take a moment to acknowledge the tragedy from Tuesday morning in Baltimore, where a massive cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge causing the bridge to collapse.  

On the positive side of this tragic event, it does seem that all the relevant authorities have acted with all due speed, efficiency and compassion.

On the sadly fully expected offensive side, a number of right wing nut cases tried to blame the tragedy on open borders and wokeness. 

Fuck those people.

Stay strong, Baltimore.  

Donald Trump and his organization were found guilty in a court of law for fraudulent business activities.  

Trump of course denied this because he's the best business person in the world and super smart and his numbers are perfect, blah blah blah (you all know the drill) and is seeking to appeal this ruling.

OK, he can do that but he needed to put up a bond of nearly half a billion dollars while he does that.

The deadline to do that was Monday, March 25th. So far, no insurer or financial entity is willing to secure this bond. Wow, who knew a lifetime of NOT paying people what you owe might make someone a bit skittish to secure a half billion dollar debt.

This post is scheduled to go up on Wednesday, March 27th but I'm writing this over the weekend prior. 

As I write this on Saturday, alleged billionaire Donald Trump ain't got the money.

As I write this on Saturday, what do I expect will happen on Monday.

Option #1: Trump's infernal luck will hold and some damn archaic law or regulation will allow him to have more time.

Option #2: Trump comes up with the money somehow and it won't be clear exactly how and there will be speculation that the Russians or the Saudis are involved and oh God, there's going to more legal trouble for Trump over this. 

Or...

Option #3: For the first time ever in his sorry ass lying, cheating, small minded, delusional life, Donald Trump will actually have to deal with the consequences and the New York attorney general starts seizing Li'l Donnie's shit. 

Past Me will leave this next part blank and Future Me will fill this in before this goes live on Wednesday.  Past Me is being very cynical and does NOT expect it will be option #3 and most likely will be option #1. 

_______________________________________

<INSERT OUTCOME HERE>

Addendum 3/25/2024, 7:30 PM EDT 

Let's hear it for cynicism. What came to pass on Monday was both a delay (Li'l Donnie was given 10 for days) AND a reduction (the bond is now $175 million). 

So no "For Sale" sign on Trump Tower just yet.     

_______________________________________

Meanwhile, Lil Donnie still thinks he's gonna be President again and here's his brilliant solution for the United States economy:

Tariffs 

Donald Trump thinks if he adds tariffs to imported goods, especially stuff from China, American companies will make their shit in America and that'll bring jobs back.

I wrote about Trump's approach to tariffs back in 2019 (click here and click here too for that.)  

Li'l Donnie's grasp on economics is no better now than it was then.   

American companies will not automatically make stuff here because of tariffs on stuff made elsewhere.  If stuff made elsewhere PLUS tariffs can be made cheaper than stuff made here, the tariffs just become part of the cost of doing business. And guess who that cost gets passed on to, suckers! 

And guess who else gets to add tariffs to stuff? Other countries. 

The last time Trump tried to tariff his way to economic superiority, he had to go to Congress to ask for government assistance to farmers who were fucked over by his trade war with China.  

Meanwhile, Trump's rhetoric paints a picture of an American economy that is in some kind of post apocalyptic free fall like we're all reduced to scavenging for food along streets alight with trash can fires.  

Overall, the economy is good with a shrinking trade gap between America and China, low unemployment and inflation under control (mostly).  

(Inflation could be better. There is no way a box of Rice-A-Roni should be $2.50!)  

There's nearly an endless line of economists who will tell you that Trump's plans for tariffs is fundamentally harmful to the economy and to consumers.

Trump's response to economists: they are wrong.

And that is the totality of his case against people who study the economy for a living: they are wrong.  

And this from a guy who can't solve his own very real economic crisis.  

Depending on what I added to the middle of this post afterwards. 

Dave-El, 03/23/2023   

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Night Court

Welcome back to the Tuesday TV Touchbase, the blog post that answers the question that the world demands to know, "What the hell is Dave-El watching on television?" 

Two weeks ago, I was watching Night Court and the much anticipated return of  Brent Spiner and Annie O’Donnell as the woebegone bad luck plagued Bob and June Wheeler.

Fans of the original series remember the hilarity of the Wheeler family in Judge Harry Stone's courtroom with their brushes with the law in a futile effort to defy fate and actually make a living at something somehow.  

In previous posts, I have been critical of the new series lack of "hilarity".  I had high hopes that the return of the Wheelers might make an episode of new formula Night Court actually funny.  

Judge Abby Stone greets the sight of the Wheelers in her court like a fan girl. "You may look like the Great Depression but you make me so happy." Her dad would tell her stories of his time as a New York City judge and among her favorite tales were the times the Wheelers showed up.

Here's their tale of woe from their latest court appearance, charged with keeping a herd of sheep in their New York apartment.   

Bob: It all started when our Great-Grandma Wheeler recently died. 

Olivia: I'm sorry. Your great-grandmother recently died? 

June: Yes. Our bad grandma is still with us. 

Dan: As someone who has heard your stories before, could we skip the next, I don't know, three calamities and get to the point?! 

Bob: Granny left us a Manhattan townhouse, a charming two-bed, two-bath, and haunted as the day is long. 

June: Those poor ghosts. 

Bob: Luckily, we knew how to get rid of them suckers. 

June: Sacrifice a sheep. But when we got the sheep, we fell in love with him. 

Bob:It was just friend love. 

June: We couldn't kill him. So we got another sheep. And then we fell in love with that sheep, too. 

Bob: That happened another 74 times. 

June: At least we think it was 74. Every time we try counting them, we fall asleep.

The Wheelers were joined by their now-grown daughter Carol Ann, played by Kate Micucci.  

The Wheelers' ghost problem dove tails into a subplot that leads into a rare moment of heartwarming sincerity for this series, Abby's consultation with a psychic to make contact with her late father. The psychic proves to be a fraud as Abby sort of expected she would but Abby is really intent on having one last moment with her dad. Dan and Abby have a really heartfelt conversation with each other about Harry and  it's really sweet. 

I have complained about the lack of laughs on the new Night Court but there is also been a lack of humanity, a lack of moments that bring depth to the characters.  Humor and heart was something the classic series knew how to balance.   

Last week's episode featured the debut of Gurg's boyfriend the Duke from England, played by Rhys Darby (Stede from Our Flag Means Death) along with his valet played by the ever reliably funny Dave Foley.  There's some genuine laughs found here but it is distressing 2 weeks in a row, new Night Court had to rely on guest performers to bring the funny.

Tonight's episode is the 2nd season finale that will feature the return of original series actor Marsha Warfield as Roz who will be getting married to her wife in Judge Stone's court for... reasons.  

NBC has not announced the fate of a season 3 for Night Court.  It does not bode well that my wife Andrea isn't particularly sure she will miss this show if it doesn't come back. She's very loyal and easily entertained.  

If it does, I think the show might be due for some shake ups in the writing staff and maybe even in the cast.  

OK, I was also going to post about how Andrea and I have made it through season 1 of Resident Alien but I babbled too long about Night Court.

So that will be next week.

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 Princess and the Terrorists

 So Andrea and I were out to dinner Friday and on one of the TV's over the nearby bar, the CBS Evening News was on.

The lead story: Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, has cancer. 

Now Kate has been the subject of much speculation about why one of the most photographed women in the world had not been seen in public for weeks, months even. 

It didn't help matters that the family photo released for the United Kingdom's Mother's Day 2 weeks ago was Photoshopped.  

There was a lot of wild speculation on what happened to Kate Middleton. The whole world became armchair detectives in "The Mystery of the Missing Princess".  

A lot of the theories were silly and boy ain't we got fun. 

Then in video shot at BBC Studios, Kate Middleton explained, “In January, I underwent major abdominal surgery in London and at the time, it was thought that my condition was noncancerous. The surgery was successful. However, tests after the operation found cancer had been present. My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment."  

Well, I guess it's not so funny now.  

Look I know there are those out there who do not give a rat's ass about the Royal Family but much like her husband's mother, the late Princess Diana, Kate wasn't born into this mess and deserves better than a life lived in pain. I hope her treatments go well and she makes a full recovery.

Now back to the CBS Evening News.

The second story of the broadcast: terrorists attack a concert in Moscow leaving a lot of people dead and wounded. 

Gunmen burst into a large concert hall, killing over 60* people and injuring more than 100 more and the set fire to the building. 

*The death count has increase to over 130.  

This story came in 2nd on the news.  

I get that Kate Middleton's disappearance has been big news for weeks and her video released today that explains that she has cancer is a bit of a bombshell announcement and all.  

But it pushed a deadly terrorist attack to the 2nd slot on the evening news? Really? 

But maybe CBS didn't want to repeat the same misstep it took in August 1977. When Elvis Presley died, NBC and ABC lead off  their evening newscasts with the story of his death. CBS did not as it was determined that the passing of a washed up has been hillbilly rock star was not "real" news.   

So to sum up the news from Friday:

• Kate Middleton is sick. Get well soon! 
• Terrorists** kill a lot of people people. I hope they are consigned to their corner of hell soon! 

Your order may vary.

**The Islamic State (what you know as ISIS) took  "credit" for the attack on Moscow. Vladimir Putin is still trying to pin this on Ukraine. 

___________________________________

In other news, today is the deadline for Donald Trump to cough up nearly half a billion in legal penalties and fines for the business fraud case he lost. 

More on that in another post on Wednesday. 

Cinema Sunday: Road to Morocco

For the second week in a row, Cinema Sunday keeps things light with a classic comedy.  This time the movie is from 1942 and it's a one of the "Road" pictures starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. 

This week we're off on the Road to Morocco.  

A sea freighter explodes and two stowaways, Jeff Peters (Crosby) and Orville 'Turkey' Jackson (Hope) find temporary safety on some floating wreckage until they float onto a tropical beach.  

Oh look!  A camel! How convenient! And the two ride into town.  

Where Jeff sells Orville into slavery.

Don't worry, Jeff promises to buy him back.

Well, that's all right then!

But the buyer is a beautiful Arabian princess named Shalmar (the decidedly not Arabian Dorothy Lamour). 

Shalmar wants Orville for a sex toy. (Look, it's Bob Hope, that can't be right.) 

It seems there is a prophecy that Shalmar's first husband will die a horrible death, leaving the princess clear to marry Kasim who she doesn't want to die a horrible death. 

Feeling guilty for selling Orville into slavery (Ha! Slavery's funny, innit?), Jeff infiltrates the palace but Orville doesn't want to be saved (he's gonna get laid and no one has clued him in on the "horrible death" thing).  

Jeff and Shalmar have an encounter where Jeff slow jams a romantic ballad with that honey smooth Bing Crosby baritone that will make a woman super horny or very sleepy (it could go either way).  

Shalmar falls hard for Jeff.  

Meanwhile, Mihirmah, one of the princess' handmaids, has taken a tumble for Orville. Orville's all "I'm with the princess now" until he learns about the prophecy and decides getting laid by the princess is not worth that whole "horrible death" deal.

Orville and Mihirmah make a run for it.

Meanwhile, being in love with Jeff is not healthy for Shalmar to be hanging around with Kasim.

Jeff and Shalmar are on the run.

Kasim is angry! 

Kasim has an army!!

And they'll all got swords!!!

Is this getting needlessly complicated?

Look! Paramount Pictures paid for a 90 minute Bing Crosby/Bob Hope "Road" picture and by God, it will be 90 minutes! 

There's a lot of running around, mugging for the camera ("I mock you, Fourth Wall, and fart in your general direction!"), sneaking around, almost but not quite getting into fights. 

Long story made very short: Jeff, Orville, Shalmar and Mihirmah will all wind up clinging onto a pile of wreckage in New York harbor.

And that counts as a happy ending! 

And that my friends is the Road to Morocco.  

It was a thing that exists.  

It checks all the boxes for a Crosby/Hope road picture. We had a few laughs and maybe we learned a thing or two. 

Like do not sell your best friend into slavery.

It's not as funny as you think it is.  

Next week on Cinema Sunday, we move from goofy comedy to some dark sinister stuff with a pre-code horror film called Doctor X.  

Cinema Saturday: Ocean's Thirteen

And.... we're back! 

Today's Cinema Saturday is part 3 of my series on the Ocean's franchise.

From 2007, it's  Ocean's Thirteen,  directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy García, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, and Elliott Gould. And joining the cast this time around, Ellen Barkin and Al Pacino.  

After the not so successful detour from the basics of a comedy heist film with Ocean's Twelve, the 3rd film is a return to what works. 

It's back to Vegas, baby and to rob a casino and really fuck over a son of a bitch who deserves it. 

The son of a bitch who deserves it is Willy Bank (Pacino), an investor and casino mogul who fucks over Reuben Tishkoff by having his thugs strongarm Reuben into signing over his ownership stake of the newest and hottest casino in Las Vegas. 

Reuben Tishkoff suffers a heart attack and becomes bedridden. 

To avenge Tishkoff, Danny Ocean gathers his crew and plans to ruin Bank on the opening night of the hotel.

Objective #1: Prevent Bank from winning the prestigious Five Diamond Award, which all of his previous hotels have won. They feed Bank intel on who the anonymous Five Diamond reviewer is (it;s not)  while the real reviewer, well...

Everything that can go badly for this poor schmuck goes super badly.   

Objective #2: Steal a shit ton of money from the casino on it's opening night. Rigging the tables and machines is not a big problem for Danny and his crew but Willy Bank is using...

SCIENCE!

Bank has a state-of-the-art computer system that monitors the gamblers' biometric responses and detects cheating.

So the Danny's crew will use...

MORE SCIENCE!!!

• They've got a magnetron to zap Bank's computer thing. 
• And a drilling machine to simulate an earthquake under the casino.

But there's a hitch! The drill breaks! The gang can get another one but it will take money.

You have to spend money to steal money.  

The only person Danny Ocean knows with that kind of money is Terry Benedict.

Yep, the bastard Danny and his gang robbed in the first movie. 

Terry actually agrees to spring for a new drill. Hey, Terry Benedict is bastard but Willy Bank is a BIGGER bastard. 

Although Benedict is not completely on Team Ocean; he contracts with François "The Night Fox" Toulour (from Ocean's Twelve) to steal from Bank as well.  

The night of the grand opening arrives and the various moving parts of the plans and scheme and counter-schemes whirl into motion. 

Things go according to plan.

Except when they don't.

Except that's part of the plan. 

In the end, Danny Ocean makes it known to Willy Bank who did what to him and to why. Bank should've never fucked over Reuben Tishkoff like that. 

Basically, Ocean's Thirteen is a rehash of Ocean's Eleven but it varies the plot enough to make it interesting and restores what makes a comedy heist film work.

• The person being robbed deserves it.
• The robbers may be criminals but they're still good guys. 

And so ends the Ocean's Trilogy but we're not done with the franchise yet.

Sometime in April, the ladies take the lead with Ocean's 8.

Blog Bidness: Down Time

"Blog bidness"? Uh oh! 

It's a blog post about the blog. 

That's never good.  

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You will not be active this week. 

So no Tuesday TV Touchbase this week or Your Friday Video Link.

Or any other random stuff I might want to post about.

I just do not have the spoons for blogging this week. 

I will pick things up again with the next round of Weekend Movie posts for Saturday and Sunday and we'll be back up next week for a regular round of posting.

Cinema Sunday: No Time for Sergeants

For last week's Cinema Sunday, I wrote about A Streetcar Named Desire which was directed by Elian Kazan.  

Back on February 23, 2020, I wrote about another film directed by Elian Kazan called A Face In the Crowd starring Andy Griffith as a mentally unhinged sociopath who parlays his career as a entertainer into a quest for political power.

Last year, I decided to share that movie with my wife Andrea.

She was traumatized by it, not just for Griffith's scenes of raging insanity but for it's echoes of the real life we're living in right now.

Andrea said I owed her an Andy Griffith film that was funny and didn't scare her. 

So this week's Cinema Sunday post is about No Time For Sergeants, a 1958 satire on military life starring a completely affable and relatable Andy Griffith with absolutely nothing to be traumatized by at all.

...

Except perhaps for that nuclear bomb explosion near the end.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  

Will Stockdale (Griffith) is a backwoods yokel from Georgia who is drafted into the United States Air Force. Stockdale is a friendly person with a positive spirit who is willing to make the best of any situation. Lacking a formal education, he may come off as dim witted and he's a bit naive about how the world works. But he has his own peculiar wisdom that serves him well and a devoted loyalty to those he deems to be his friends.

Such as Ben Whitledge, a short, scrawny bespectacled man who has a dream of living up to his family's history of military service by serving in the infantry. 

No cushy support post in the Air Force for this little guy He wants to where the actual shooting happens. And Stockdale is happy to follow him there to keep an eye on his new buddy who can be the target of bullying. When that happens is when Stockdale's friendly smile fades and he gets serious. 

Will Stockdale is willing to be made fun of but when people mess with folks like Ben Whitledge, well he has something to say about that. 

Most of the hi-jinks in this movie spin around Stockdale's relationship with his boot camp commander,  Sergeant King. King is a career hack who forged a long military career by staying quiet and out of trouble.

With Stockdale in his barracks, King will find staying quiet and out of trouble no longer possible.  

Stockdale's constant appeals on behalf of Whitledge to get moved to the infantry irritate the sergeant so he assigns Stockdale to permanent latrine duty. 

Most people regard latrine duty as punishment.

Stockdale thinks it's a promotion and the absolute pristine condition of the barracks' latrine impresses both King and his base commander.  

What does NOT impress the base commander is because Stockdale was put on permanent latrine duty, it kept him from completing the required military exams for all draftees. King only has a few days to get Stockdale through those exams or he will be demoted back to private.  

King doesn't think this undereducated buffoon is going to get through those exams and plots to see to it that Stockdale fails his inspection. 

King does pass his exams even if he drove all the examiners crazy.  For example, there's a manual dexterity test involving separating two interlocked metal rings. Stockdale does separate the two rings but not the way the examining officer (in a hilarious cameo by Don Knotts) wanted him to do it.  

Stockdale passed his eye exam even if he did read the letters on the eye chart as words instead of as individual letters. 

 "Teezo"

"Peetock"

"Zilpped"  

The scheme to get Stockdale to fail his inspection is to get him drunk.  Stockdale is used to strong homemade moonshine so he stays sober while King gets drunk and involved in a barroom brawl.  

The upshot is  Stockdale shows up all clean and ready for inspection whole Sgt King show up, tattered and  filthy.

King is not only reduced to private but he's still stuck with Stockdale and Whitledge as all three are sent to gunnery school. 

After gunnery school, Stockdale and Whitledge are assigned to an obsolete B-25 bomber that's flying to Denver. Or it's supposed to.

The plane flies off course into an atomic bomb test site in Nevada. The plane turns around but still gets caught in the edge of the blast, setting fire to tail of the plane where Stockdale and Whitledge were located. 

They are incinerated into ash and wow, what a bummer of an ending. I wasn't expecting that from a broad comedic satire about the military and...

No! I'm kidding. 

Stockdale grabs Whitledge and jumps out of the plane. 

Stockdale may not be all that bright but yeah,he's wearing a parachute.  

By the time Stockdale and Whitledge have walked their way back to their base, they find a ceremony is underway celebrating the brave sacrifice of Stockdale and Whitledge who were tragically incinerated into ash by the atomic bomb. 

No! I was just making that up! They got out of the tail of the plane just in time and see, here they are. 

Well...  that's a problem.  There are generals and senators and what all out there waiting to award posthumous medals to two soldiers who are not dead?!?! 

Long story made short, there's a cover up and Stockdale and Whitledge get shipped off to the infantry and guess what? King gets to join them. 

All in all, No Time for Sergeants is light on it's feet, a showcase for Andy Griffith's comedic talents. Yeah, he leans are on the good ol' Southern boy with more heart than sense but he avoids being a caricature for the most part. 

And that is that for this week's Cinema Sunday. 

What's coming up next week? I have no idea but I've seen a lot of movies and I'll pick on to write about. 

Cinema Saturday: Poor Things

Last week, Poor Things came to streaming on Hulu and I took the opportunity to catch up the multi-Oscar nominated film that has captivated critics and audiences for months now.

So today's Cinema Saturday is about my encounter with what is perhaps the strangest, offbeat, disturbing cinematic experiences I have ever seen. 

Let's start off with basic: what is Poor Things about?

Well...

That's an excellent question. 

Let me try this: Jane Austen gets high, reads Frankenstein and The Island of Dr. Moreau and decides to write a novel about a heroine who is built by a mad scientist and decides to elevate her intelligence and wisdom while working as a whore in a Parisian brothel. 

OK, we're close but not quite.   

Poor Things, a 2023 film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is a mixture horror, comedy, romance, steampunk sci-fi, sex, violence and intrigue.

In Victorian London, medical student Max McCandles becomes an assistant to eccentric surgeon Godwin Baxter. Max is tasked with the responsibility of tracking the actions and development of Godwin's latest scientific creation, Bella Baxter.  

Bella is hyper, uncontrolled, her movements are erratic and jerky, as if she barely has any motor skills. And her verbal skills are limited to blurted our words and noises. Bella calls her creator "God".  

Godwin explains to Max that Bella was created from a pregnant woman who had committed suicide by jumping off a bridge. Godwin fished her out of the river and replaced the woman's brain with that of her unborn fetus! Voila! Bella Baxter is born. 

That feels kind of wrong, doesn't it? Well, it made perfect sense to Godwin. 

A moment about Godwin Baxter. His appearance suggests that of a sewn together Frankenstein's monster, his face criss-crossed with deep stitches, his chin crudely attached to his face. As a child, Godwin was the subject of his father's frequently cruel and callous experimentation.   

Bella's intelligence begins to develop more rapidly and she becomes more curious about the world outside.

Bella also discovers masturbation and is more than willing to talk about that to anyone who will listen. She suggests cucumbers are rather effective. 

Duncan Wedderburn, a lawyer working for Godwin, enters the picture. Duncan is a lawyer of some questionable skills and an unchecked hedonism who convinces Bella to run away with him to explore the world.

Bella agrees.

This will not end well. 

For Duncan. He winds up a penniless,hysterical, vindictive shell of a man.  

Bella's ravenous curiosity about the world is unrestricted by the normal constraints of society. Bella's decision to enter into a Parisian brothel to seek employment is logically arrived at:

• She gets to have sex which she usually enjoys.
• She can make money at it.
• And since the men seeking their pleasures with prostitutes don't hang around and demand her attention beyond achieving their sexual release, she has more time to read, learn and experience about the world and how it works. 

The sex stuff. Yeah, let's go there. 

Sex scenes in this movie are extraordinarily graphic. And it's also not titillating. For Bella,it's just her job. The men, most of whom are ugly and unappealing, well...  Eww! 

Eventually Bella returns to London to find that "God" is dying. Max and Bella agree to marry.  He is not put off by her "whoring" in Paris although he is a bit concerned she may have under charged for her services.  

"30 francs? That seems.... low..."  

But problems ensue when the life of that woman who jumped off the London Bridge interferes with Bella's plans.   

This movie is... weird. 

But it is riveting.  Both in use of sound and visuals, this film has an atmosphere, a sense of a world that is just a few inches or scant seconds to the side of the one we know.  

Emma Stone won the Academy Award for Best Actress and it is well deserved. Bella Baxter is a most unique character, like nothing else I have ever seen in any movie. Emma employs her voice, the expression on her face, her eyes, the way she carries her body to illuminate Bella's growth and development. She uses virtually every tool available to an actor to create this wonderfully weird and complex character. 

A word about Mark Ruffalo who plays Duncan. If all you know of Mark is his work as the affable Bruce Banner in the Marvel movies, well, watching him twist up his face in hysterical anger while screaming "cunt" is well, just wrong. But Ruffalo makes it work. We know from jump that Duncan cannot be trusted and he will hurt Bella.

Or he can try.

Bella's unique view of the world is no match for Duncan's narrow focus on what he wants.  

I don't want to oversell Poor Things. It is not a movie for everyone. I watched this on my own without Andrea. I know her tastes in movies and this is not it. 

In fact, I owe her a nice safe funny movie and we'll discuss that in tomorrow's Cinema Sunday.

But going back to Poor Things, if you need a movie to challenge you, disturb, perhaps even offend you a bit, well this movie may well be worth your while.  

Your Friday Video Link: Ridin' With Biden

 

Your Friday Video Link this week is a campaign ad.

It's an ad for Joe Biden's re-election as President.

He gets a couple hits at Trump but it's mostly a positive ad where Biden tells you what he's done and what he wants to do next. 

It's the kind of spot that I wish more political ads were like.  

Most candidate's ads lean hard on the negative to paint a picture that the world under their opponent is a zombie apocalypse.   

Stick around for a funny bit at the end.

Frog Alert

 Last week here at the Fortress of Ineptitude, I received a Frog Alert from my bank.

Excuse me, I meant FRAUD alert.

It seems someone who was not me or anyone in my family tried to buy some damn thing or another that didn't seem to my bank to be me or anyone in my family.  

My bank sent me an alert via text: Are you or anyone in your family trying to buy this damn thing? 

I texted back NO and they said they were putting a stop to that. Then they called me and said they needed to shut down that account and would set me up with another.  

Well, that's going to be inconvenient as hell as my son Dean uses that account for his (hopefully soon to end) college stuff. (We love you, son!)  But apparently the bank's intervention had saved them and me a crap ton of money. 

It makes me wonder what exactly alerts my bank that a potential purchase might not be me.

It seems that Dave-El is purchasing something that is fun, interesting and expensive. Well, that doesn't sound like the Dave-El we know! 

Credit is given to where credit is due so kudos to my bank (which is a large soulless behemoth that we're supposed to hate) for protecting me and being on the alert for frog.

FRAUD! I meant fraud!