Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: The Suicide Squad

If all goes according to plan, I will be absconding from the Fortress of Ineptitude to join my son Dean on an excursion to finally see Deadpool & Wolverine.  

Anticipating my being pressed for time to write my regular weekend movie post, I am reposting another previous outing with just father and child to see a movie.

From August 16, 2021: The Suicide Squad.  

This past Saturday was Free Comic Day which kind of snuck up on me this year in that it was in August this year. In keeping with the theme of the day, Dean and I went to see The Suicide Squad.

Andrea did not go. We suspected the level of bloody violence in this movie would not be her idea of a good time.

And we were right.

The Suicide Squad is replete with full on bloody violence and that's before we get to the opening credits. There are people in the opening credits whose character's face has been shot off before their name shows up in the credits.

Alas, poor Pete Davidson.

Rick Flag leads a fairly sizable contingent of the Suicide Squad as a strike force onto the shores of the island nation of Corto Maltese.

All of them are expendable cannon fodder, a big explosive distraction for the somewhat more compact Squad team of  Bloodsport, Peacemaker, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man, and Ratcatcher 2 to sneak into the country. 

Corto Maltese has experienced a coup with the overthrow of the corrupt pro-American leaders by the corrupt anti-American military.  

The mission: destroy Nazi-era laboratory Jötunheim, which holds a secretive experiment known as "Project Starfish".

The only survivors of the distraction mission, Rick Flag and Harley Quinn links up with Bloodsport's team to capture the Thinker, the metahuman scientist in charge of Project Starfish. They coerce Thinker into getting them into Jötunheim where we find out why Project Starfish is called Project Starfish. 

The Thinker is holding a giant alien starfish who can kill and mentally control people through face hugging starfish.

Everyone give it up for the one who must be feared and obeyed, the one you must bow down before as your god and your damnation, the one and only.... Starro the Conqueror. 

And Starro is fucking PISSED OFF!!

Starro rips Thinker apart, bursts out of Jötunheim and sets about subjugating the population of Corto Maltese with a giant alien eyeball on taking over the whole  damn world! 

Fear Starro the Conqueror! 

All hail Starro the Conqueror!!

Dean, stop laughing at Starro the Conqueror. 

What's left of our rag tag band of super villains set out to stop Starro the Conqueror. Alas, the Suicide Squad is seriously out manned and out gunned in this match up!  

Beware the might of Starro the Conqueror! 

Bow down before the power of Starro the Conqueror!!

Dean, seriously, stop laughing at Starro the Conqueror. 

But Harley Quinn has a really sharp stick and Ratcatcher has a shit ton of rats and somehow, the bad guys of the Suicide Squad become the good guys of Corto Maltese. 

Against all odds, the great and terrible power of Starro the Conqueror has been defeated.

And everything smells like dead fish.

Man, The Suicide Squad is a seriously fucked up movie. But with writer/director James Gunn at the helm, it is seriously fucked up in a good and often hilarious way. 

Gunn is constantly playing with your expectations. The film opens with an extended sequence with a super villain named Savant whiling away his hours in Belle Reve prison.  We wouldn't be spending so much time with Savant if he's not going to be important.

Do not get attached to Savant. His biggest contribution to the film is when his dead body floats in the surf off of Corto Maltese, the blood from his head wound forms "Warner Brothers Pictures presents..." and the opening credits begin. 

Michael Rooker who played Savant is in those opening credits. Nope, he's dead and ain't coming back.

Hey, look, Jai Courtney is back from the first Suicide Squad movie as Captain Boomerang. Surely he will have a big part to play in this -- Nope, dead! 

Margot Robbie is back as Harley Quinn. She only 1 of 2 (well, 3) to survive that massacre.  Harley Quinn is still weird and bat shit crazy but she is a force to be reckoned with. She takes on the a whole damn squad of Corto Maltese soldiers and freakin' wins. Oh hell yeah! 

Idris Elba as Robert DuBois (Bloodsport) may seem too dignified to be a part of this mess but he portrays DuBois with the tired cynicism of a man who has been trained to kill and to be very good at it.  Like most draftees to the Squad, DuBois can get his sentence reduced but he's mostly doing this to keep his daughter out of jail. 

Christopher Smith aka Peacemaker is like Bloodsport in that he has been trained to kill and to be very good at it but unlike Bloodsport, Peacemaker is motivated by a perverse obsession with his ideology of peace at all costs. Peacemaker will fight for the cause of peace no matter how many men, women and children he has to kill to get it. John Cena leans hard into Peacemaker's obsession with an unrelenting earnestness that borders on absurdity but ultimately makes Peacemaker a grave danger to the squad. 

Voiced by Sylvester Stallone, Nanaue, aka King Shark, becomes a surprisingly sympathetic character for someone whose favorite mealtime entree is people and whose favorite between meal snack is people.  Hey, it's nothing personal, he's just hungry. And people are not friends. But Ratcatcher 2 decides to become Nanaue's friend.

Cleo Cazo is Ratcatcher 2 who controls the tech she inherited from her father, the first Ratcatcher, to control rats. Portrayed by Daniela Melchior, Cleo is kind of the movie's heart. Yeah, she robbed a bank with her rat powers but is she really a super villain? Does she really deserve to be stuck on a suicide mission for Task Force X? Well, it is a good thing she is there as Cleo is instrumental in the defeat of Starro. 

Abner Krill is the Polka Dot Man. In the comics, Polka Dot Man is one of the stupidest villain concepts ever. In the movie, the polka dots are manifestations of a strange and powerful extra dimensional energy, the product of an experiment gone wrong forced on him by his mother.  David Dastmalchian's performance turns Polka Dot Man from a joke to a tragic figure. Krill is able to use his powers as an offensive force because he sees his targets as his mother. Shot from Krill's perspective shows members of the Squad (including King Shark), the Corto Mortese army and even Starro as manifestations of his mother, a plump brunette woman with a stern expression and I imagine her name is Karen. 

For all the good character work in The Suicide Squad that is by turns funny and poignant, Amanda Waller is not well served in this narrative. As originally conceived by writer John Ostrander, Amanda Waller was an indomitable force of nature, strong willed and even ruthless. Hell, she made Batman back off! But behind it all, Waller was still a woman of honor and integrity.  In defense of her team, Waller once went prison to protect the Squad.  The Amanda Waller I knew from the comics would never willingly send a Squad force to be target practice as a mere distraction.   

Movie version Waller verges on the sociopathic. She blows up Savant's head because he has the very reasonably fearful reaction to flee from being shot to death on the beaches of Corto Maltese. She is prepared to blow up the explosive charges in the heads of Bloodsport's team because they dare go beyond their mission to actually try to save people from Starro. She is only stopped by support team member Flo Crawley cold cocking her upside the head with Waller's own golf club.  Movie Waller is a maniacal control freak.  

There is some much packed into this movie, I can't cover it all but I would be remiss if I didn't mention Nathan Fillion as T.D.K., The Detachable Kid, a metahuman who can detach his arms from his body and control them from a distance. Yes, he is inspired by Arm Fall Off Boy.  

And we should take a moment to remember poor old Milton who fell in combat. Even if no one other than Polka Dot Man remembered him. 

Kudos to DC and Warner Brothers for hiring James Gunn to make a Suicide Squad movie AND for letting him actually make it a James Gunn movie.  The Suicide Squad does not fit with any kind of DCEU aesthetic. It is incompatible with Wonder Woman, Aquaman or Shazam! It may share that universe but The Suicide Squad is it's own sick, perverse and beautiful thing.

Dean, for fuck's sake, stop laughing at Starro the Conqueror. 

Your Friday Video Link: Scenes from an Italian Restaurant

While randomly surfing around You Tube, I came across a video for "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" by Billy Joel.  

Originally from the 1977 album The Stranger, “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant”  has long been my favorite musical composition by Billy Joel. 

In conjunction with the The Vinyl Collection, Vol. 1 boxset released in November 2021, this video for “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant” was created   

• Produced by Steve Cohen
• Creative Concept by Lightborne
• Ryan McAllister, Director
• Lauren Bentle, Producer
• Neil Smith, Senior Designer and Animator
• Kurt Koch, Senour Designer, Animator, Illustrator
• Kevin Gaultraud, Senior Animator

The visual style for this video reminds me of the art work of Sean Phillips, the frequent collaborator with writer Ed Brubaker on various crime and mystery graphic novels.

Your Friday Video Link today:  “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant”

Grave Miscalculation

On Monday, Donald Trump visited Arlington Cemetery to “honor” some fallen soldiers. 

 It’s Trump so of course this is totally sus.

 Li’l Donnie has recently taken to hammering on the U.S. departure from Afghanistan as a talking point against Joe Biden and now by default Kamala Harris.  During the evacuation from Afghanistan, 13 service people lost their lives. 

Li’l Donnie wasn’t there to “honor” anyone. He was there to score political points. 

Then this idiot poses for a photograph standing over the grave of a dead soldier and he’s smiling and giving a thumbs up! 

Who the hell stands over a grave with a smile and a thumbs up?

Maybe the Joker after he’s killed Batman?!?

Then Trump’s aides got into a tussle with an Arlington Cemetery official.  Arlington has rules about filming and photography on the grounds on the cemetery. Those rules are that only Arlington officials can film or take photos. 

Apparently the aides were rude and abusive towards the official. The Trump team has denied this occurred, saying it was the Arlington rep who had a “mental breakdown” (What?) and they did nothing wrong.

Except having a certain big orange morally deficient, intellectually limited, sexual assaulting, empathy deprived, incoherent convicted felon stand over the grave of a fallen soldier smiling with a thumbs up.  Yes, I’m mentioning this again. 

Whatever the questionable motives of the whole damn visit or the questionable actions of Trump’s staff, I still can’t get over the idea that someone thought that standing over the grave of a fallen soldier with a smile and a thumbs up was a good thing. 

Just when you think Trump can sink no lower, he finds even lower depths.

 

Dave-El's Book Report: 100 Places to See After You Die by Ken Jennings

It’s time for another edition of DAVE-EL’S BOOK REPORT where I REPORT on a BOOK that I (DAVE-EL) have read.

 

Everybody got that?

 

Anyway…

 

After two editions in a row that focused on graphic novels by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, I promised the next report would be on a book-book.

 

That book is 100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife written by Ken Jennings.   

 Yes, the undisputed Greatest of All Time champion and current host of Jeopardy, that Ken Jennings.   

 

What we have in this book is an amusingly told but thoroughly researched guide to various concepts of the afterlife as posited by various religions, mythologies, books, movies and TV shows. 

 

From Star Trek, want to know more about the Klingon version of the afterlife known as Stovokor? Ken’s got you covered. 

 

While I describe the book at “thoroughly researched”, at only 2 or 3 pages per afterlife, this book is by no means a deep dive into the minutia of these concepts.  Still, there is enough detail present in each segment to provide an interesting and engaging insight into how past and present cultures view what happens after we die. Nevertheless, if you are looking for a more scholarly assessment of post life belief systems, this is not your resource. 

 

Tongue firmly planted in cheek, Ken offers travel guide staples such as:

• Don’t Miss sites
• What to Eat
• Best-to-avoid hints
• Where-to Stay clues

 

Ken has fun with these reviews of the afterlife but he is never disrespectful of anyone’s beliefs.  

 

Ken even pokes at the afterlife of his own Mormon faith. 

 

“Most visions of the world to come…promise endless leisure and luxury. But not so the afterlife envisioned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As befits their peach-canning, carpool-driving, casserole-delivering image as the industrious honeybees of the American West, Mormons head to the grave prepared to keep on working.” 

 

Ken writes about the depictions of the afterlife in movies and television. His take on the post death world of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey is most righteous and definitely not heinous, dude!

The book can be a bit of a slog. I mean, we have 100 versions of the afterlife to get through.  But overall, Ken’s writing has a deft touch for humor which moves things along. 

 

100 Places to See After You Die: A Travel Guide to the Afterlife is a fun read.  Just don’t wait until after you die to read it.    

 

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Dead Boy Detectives

 

Andrea and I finished the first season of Dead Boy Detectives.  I'm glad she came along for this journey because the season finale left me traumatized.

Dead Boy Detectives  follows the ghosts of Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne, who decided not to enter the afterlife and instead stayed on Earth to investigate crimes involving the supernatural.

Edwin was killed in 1916 by his classmates in a prank/sacrifice ritual that actually summoned a demon who took Edwin to Hell. 

Edwin eventually escaped from Hell and befriended Charles who died in 1989 while intervening to stop a group of bullies from attacking a Pakistani student.   

Charles and Edwin have a human partner in Crystal Palace, a young woman with psychic powers that the boys saved  from a demon named David*.   Crystal can see ghosts. She is also missing her memories. 

*Yes, I am so proud to have a demon named after me.  

Also joining this trio is Niko Sasaki, a young girl and anime fan who lives across the hall from Crystal. After her own near-death experience, Niko can also see ghosts.  

Not wanting to move on to the Afterlife, Charles and Edwin are intent on avoiding the Night Nurse who runs the Afterlife's Lost and Found Department looking for misplaced dead children.

As a result of magical shenanigans caused by Esther Finch, an immortal witch with a mad on at the Dead Boy Detectives, Edwin gets sucked back into Hell. Charles makes a deal with Night Nurse: if she will open a portal to Hell so Charles can go save Edwin, he agrees the two of them will go back with her to the Afterlife.  

The visit to Hell is gruesome and horrifying but Charles is able to locate and retrieve Edwin.  The promised trip to the Afterlife is postponed when Niko finds a loophole in the bureaucratic regulations Night Nurse most follow. 

I like Niko. Nothing bad better happen to her.

So we get to the season finale and...

FUCK! Hey, writers! What did I just say?!?!

Crystal has learned she is a connected to a magical coven who transcend time and space. She also finds her parents who did not know she was missing. 

Meanwhile Esther is up to shit with a plan to drain ghosts to maintain her immortality and goes after the Dead Boys when Niko...

Poor Niko.

I HATE THIS SHOW!!!!

...

Yes, Dead Boy Detectives is a brilliant TV show with great writing and acting and production values and...

But....

NIKO?!?!  NOOOOOOO!!!!!!

I HATE THIS SHOW!!!!

...

No, I don't know if there will be a 2nd season.

...

There better be! This is a wonderful TV series and there is SO much to be answered for.

...

I HATE THIS SHOW!!!!

_______________________

And that is that for this week's 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.   

Democracy Throws A Party

Andrea and I watched Kamala Harris accept the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States. It was a powerful speech that punched hard at Donald Trump, spoke to her hopes and plans for the future and reiterated a positive message on making America better for everyone. 

I felt pride and enthusiasm for her message.   

I also (damn it!) cannot shake my deeper feelings of trepidation.

For the lead up to that speech, the Democratic National Convention had a PARTY!

 

Everybody was feeling good about the chances of putting away the big orange morally deficient, intellectually limited, sexual assaulting, empathy deprived, incoherent convicted felon once and for fucking all!!!

 

The music blasting through the convention center was raucous, new and popular!

 

The political speeches almost bordered on stand up comedy as the sheer weirdness of Trump, Vance and the current state of the Republican Party was shredded by some sharp lacerating humor. 

 

Are we going to be safe at last from the threat of tyranny and the death of democracy posed by Donald Trump?

 

Coming out of this fun as hell free for all and the dynamic powerful speech by Kamala Harris, I firmly believe the answer to that is…

…

…

…

 

Maybe?

Damn it! There's that trepidation!!!

 

Oh my God! What will it take for me to feel confident?  

 

Well, after the polls close in California on November 5th and the news networks call the election that Kamala Harris is going to be the next President of the United States, only then….

…

…

…

I will lean towards maybe feeling confident.

 

Look, when it comes to Trump and his sniveling sycophants, I do not trust these motherfucker fascist wannabes.  

 

The poll numbers for now look good for Harris but damn it, they looked good at this point for Hillary Clinton back in 2016 and this is why I can’t relax.

 

Although there are several fundamental differences between 2016 and 2024.

 

1. Kamala Harris is NOT Hillary CLINTON.  By the time 2016 rolled around, Fox News and other right wing media had spent almost 3 decades talking crap about the Clintons.  There was a lot of baggage associated with the Clinton brand. And essentially, Donald Trump had little of any substance to offer other than to piss all over the Clinton brand and there was a vast built in audience who was more than OK with that. 
2. Kamala Harris is NOT HILLARY Clinton. God bless her, Hillary Clinton was a smart person with considerable experience as a US Senator and as Secretary of State. But she was not the best campaigner. (Remember “Pokemon Go to the polls!”?) Kamala Harris in comparison has a warmer persona that is comfortable with humor and empathy but knows when to turn on the fierce.   
3. 2016 Donald Trump is not 2024 Donald Trump.  Make no mistake, he was a big orange morally deficient, intellectually limited, sexual assaulting, empathy deprived, incoherent moron in 2016 and he sill is today (but add "convicted felon" in 2024.  But in 2016 there was SOME hope that maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump would not be THAT bad. In 2024, there is NO hope and Donald Trump will be THAT bad.  A lot of people who voted for Trump in 2016 have switched from "why the hell not" to "oh hell no, not again".   
4. The mistakes of 2016 will (hopefully) not be the mistakes of 2024.  The Clinton team's failure to shore up Michigan and Pennsylvania were crucial dominoes in how Trump stumbled into power in 2016. The Harris team knows that and the full court press that Harris and/or Walz is on is working hard to not repeat those mistakes.  The attitude is "assume nothing". Walz has  a favorite admonishment from his days as a football coach: "We're down by a field goal but we've got the ball!"  

The polls are in our favor.

The odds are in our favor.

History is in our favor.

And yet...

The trepidation persists.  

On the subject of guarded optimism, writer Jonathan Last posted this prediction: Donald Trump is going to lose. Probably."   Probably?  Click here for more of Jonathan's assessment of the convention and the campaign.  

Democracy throws a party and it was a fun, uplifting affair. 

The case was made against the forces of darkness.

The case was made for those who will bring the light to fight that darkness.  

The case was made against regressing to the past and for reaching towards the future.  

The party is over.

Time to get to work.

Our fate is in the hands of the future.  

Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: The Broadway Melody

In last week's Sunday movie post, I went back to 1929 for a film that came out near the end of the silent movie era, Why Be Good?   Well, it was a silent movie in that dialogue was not spoken but the nascent movie sound technology asserted itself with a synchronized music soundtrack.  

Today's post takes us back to 1929 once more and a film that could not only sing and dance but also talk.

From 1929, MGM presents the first all talking musical, The Broadway Melody.   

The Broadway Melody is your standard issue performing act from the sticks looking to make good in the bigtime.

 

The performing act is the Mahoney Sisters, Harriet (aka Hank) and Queenie, and the big time is that Great White Way, BROADWAY!!! 

 

Hank is engaged to Eddie, an up and coming songwriter whose got some songs accepted in a new production called “The Broadway Melody”.  Eddie is sure he can get Zanfield, the big time Broadway producer, to put the Mahoney Sisters in the show.

Eddie is not quite as far up on the food chain as he would like to believe but he is able to convince Zanfield to give the sisters a listen.

 

A showgirl sabotages the piano so it plays off key which messes with the Mahoneys’ act and Zanfield is not impressed. 

 

But after a fervent appeal from Eddie, Zanfield  agrees to take on Queenie for the show because she’s pretty and Queenie says she’s part of a set and won’t go without Hank so Zanfield reluctantly agrees to find Hank something to do.

 

So on one hand the Mahoney Sisters are on Broadway. But not the way Hank planned.  

 

Meanwhile Queenie is causing a bunch of drama she doesn’t want by the sheer audacity of existing as a beautiful woman.

 

Despite ostensibly being engaged to Hank, Eddie goes goo-goo eyes over Queenie who has grown from a freckled little girl into a vivacious female woman of the opposite sex. 

 

And there’s the matter of Jock Warriner (clearly a swipe at Warner Bros. head Jack Warner) a Broadway impresario and notorious lothario who has targeted Queenie for his next seduction.

 

Queenie finds Jock contemptible but he provides an excuse to avoid Eddie’s passions.  Queenie actually kind of likes the lug but he’s supposed to be her sister’s fiance and she doesn’t want to hurt Hank.

 

Meanwhile, Hank is worried that their “success” on Broadway is merely because Queenie is pretty and she is being used by those around her and Queenie’s acting weird.    

 

So much drama! Hank’s depressed! Queenie’s depressed!! Eddie’s depressed!!! Hell, I'm depressed!!!!

 

Something’s gotta give, folks! 

Hank realizes that Eddie's got it bad for Queenie and tells him to go fight for her. Meanwhile, Jock has cornered Queenie and is pressuring her for sex. (He's bought a lot of nice stuff for her you know!) Eddie arrives just in time to save Queenie's virtue but Jock socks Eddie hard and sends him flying out of his apartment. 

Queenie rushes to Eddie's side to profess it's Eddie she loves and...

Eddie and Queenie get married. 

BOOM!

Legally sanctioned hetero-normative sexual intercourse is achieved! 

Hank finds another hot blonde to be the other Mahoney "sister" and heads back on the road with a vow to return to Broadway.

And that is...  The End! 

This scene is NOT what you want it to be.  

The Broadway Melody opens and closes with a couple of impressive visuals.  The opening is a high aerial shot of New York City, soaring over the tall buildings. At the end, we get a panoramic shot of a crowded and bustling Times Square.  

The new sound technology gets a good workout in an early scene where various musicians are in a open work space, in various corners working on different pieces of music. There is a lot of cross talk dialogue and a cacophony of songs.  

Much like we saw in Singin' In the Rain, in real life back in 1929, there was a lot of trial and error in figuring out how to make sound work for The Broadway Melody. Sets were constantly being reconfigured and scenes frequently reshoot.  Days were long and the shooting schedule kept getting extended.  

Some old habits of the silent era still lingered with an over reliance on the tropes of overly dramatic acting still in use. Eyes bulging wide in surprise, fear, lust, anger, etc.  Since there were too many theaters still not equipped for sound, a version of the film was assembled as a silent feature so I guess the eye bulging was still useful.    

Innovative for 1929, The Broadway Melody is still a bit cliched with over the top dramatic acting. MGM would build on what was learned in 1929 to create the lavish spectacular movie musicals the studio would become famous for.   

Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post: Summer Stock

It's a one and a two punch posts for movie musicals this weekend.

Today's edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post is a technicolor musical from 1950 starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly called Summer Stock.   

Jane Falbury (Garland) is a farm owner who is struggling to make her family farm a viable concern.  Her long time farm hands have quit because they're not getting paid and Jane is in hock to the local hardware store for a new tractor. 

Orville, the nebbish son of the hardware store owner, seems to think he's in a relationship with Jane. For her part, Jane is extremely uninterested. 

She's got a farm to run. 

She's wearing coveralls, for Christ's sake,  

Running a farm runs into Broadway.

Abigail, her sister and wannabe actress, arrives at the farm with  a theater troupe in tow.  Abigail is engaged to play director Joe Ross (Kelly) and said it would be just perfectly fine to bring the cast and crew of his new musical up to the farm to rehearse. 

No one asked Jane is it was perfectly fine with it.

She's got a farm to run.  

Can you not see the coveralls?  

Jane acquiesces to her sister to let the theater troupe stay but only if they help with the farm chores. 

Which is frankly more trouble than it's worth. 

Eggs are smashed, crops are trampled and the not quite paid for tractor gets wrecked.  

Tensions between Abigail and Joe reach a breaking point and she leaves in a huff.

So what's a guy to do? The musical is almost ready and Joe is missing a leading lady. 

Hey, who do you think he's gonna turn to? 

Hey, it's a movie musical starring Judy Garland! Of course it's gonna be Jane.

But Jane's got a farm to run and...

Or not. Farm work gets put on the back burner as Jane throws herself into rehearsing and nursing her part because damn it...

Let's put on a show!   

And of course, Jane and Joe will fall in love.   

Because they are the stars of this picture show and the star must always fall in love. 

The movie's most famous scene is Judy Garland's performance of "Get Happy".   It's slinky, sexy and peppy as all get out. 

It also doesn't quite feel like it's actually a part of this movie.  It was filmed two months after the rest of the movie wrapped. And Judy Garland lost 20 pounds.  

Sadly, most of the notoriety around Summer Stock concerns Judy Garland's travails and trauma involving her spiraling mental health and her additional to drugs.  

Garland was terribly insecure about her performance and her appearance, particularly her weight.  She was frequently late on set and her behavior was erratic.  

Having had enough of the ups and downs of being in business with Judy Garland, MGM terminated Garland's contract in September 1950.  Later on,  studio head L. B. Mayer confessed he regretted making that move.  

Meanwhile, during production of Summer Stock, Gene Kelly was being a dick.

Kelly reportedly only agreed to do this film as a favor to Judy Garland but otherwise thought he was miscast and the script was "a piece of crap".  

Gene Kelly also got into fights with the film's choreographer because only Gene Kelly knows how to stage a dance scene properly.  

Ultimately Summer Stock was a box office success, the classic type of "hey, let's put on a show" collaboration audiences expected from Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.

Audiences who little suspected the turmoil and troubles that went into bringing this picture to life.  

Tomorrow is a bonus edition of Dave-El's Weekend Movie Post as we look at another movie musical.

As we go back in time to 1929 and the FIRST movie musical. 

Your Friday Video Link: Where Is Melania?

 

Well,this week the Democratic National Convention was quite the party as Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were sent out into wild hunting weirdos,  Donald Trump and JD Vance.

"Be vewy vewy quiet! I'm huntin' weirdos! Heh! Heh! Heh!" 

There was a prominent role for Kamala's husband (and future First Gentleman) Doug Emhoff at this week's events.

Meanwhile on the other side of the political divide, Donald Trump's wife has been missing from the campaign trail.

Which lead Stephen Colbert to ask the question, "Where is Melania Trump?"

Your Friday Video Link this week is the answer to that question.

Always a blast to see Broadway superstar Laura Benanti back as Melania Trump.

Monday the blog will catch up on politics and look back on this past week's events.

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: What the Hell Happened to Amanda Waller

 I suppose this post is supposed to be about DC's new crossover event Absolute Power.  

It has a strong pedigree with writer Mark Waid and artist Dan Mora.  There are forces at work against Earth's super heroes, to strip them of their powers as well as damage their reputations as the protectors of Earth. 

The message: heroes cause more harm than help.

And the antagonists leading the charge against Earth's super heroes? 

Amanda Waller.

Which begs the question: What the hell happened to Amanda Waller?

Amanda Waller was first introduced in 1986 during the Legends crossover event, ironically enough centering around a propaganda war against super heroes.  

Waller was a large black woman who did not take shit from anyone.  She could be cold and ruthless, using guile and intimidation to get things done. 

Those things were conducting black ops missions using super villains as part of a project called Task Force X, AKA the Suicide Squad. Super villains could reduce their prison sentences if they complete and survive these mission. 

To ensure their cooperation, explosive charges were implanted in their heads. 

While leading a group of super villains to conduct missions of frequently questionable ethical or moral standards, Waller held herself to a strict code of doing what was right, even if as she was often tasked to skirt the edges of what was right and what was wrong.  

Perhaps nothing better demonstrated the tenacity of Amanda Waller's resolve than her face off with Batman.

Writer John Ostrander made Amanda Waller strong and fearless and able to make the brutally tough calls but never losing sight that she was at heart on the side of doing what's right. 

So how come Amanda Waller is the villain in the new DC crossover event? 

While I read the entire 66 issue run of the first Suicide Squad, I have not kept up with subsequent revivals of the series. So I am admittedly not up to speed on everything that has gone wrong to bring Waller to where she is today. 

But mostly, it just bothers me that this remarkably unique and complex character has been reduced to role of villain. 

Extended media hasn't helped.  Her portrayal by Viola Davis in the Suicide Squad movies and Peacemaker is a person who is completely heartless, utterly devoid of empathy, creating more problems than she solves. 

I hope that maybe by the time Absolute Power ends, there might be some sort of redemption of the Amanda Waller I first encountered back in 1986.   

She might work with super villains but I cannot accept that Amanda Waller has become one.   

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Blog Bidness:  no post for Thursday

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